Svatováclavská smlouva Tiskaře Pražské bible

The Treaty of St. Wenceslas, established in 1517, settled a long-running dispute over the definition of rights between the Bohemian nobility and the royal towns. The treaty was published twice after its adoption, but one of these editions has been missing since at least the 1860s. Consequently, research on the Treaty has long relied solely on the edition printed by Mikuláš Konáč of Hodíškov. The present study provides a detailed account of the discovery of the missing edition, which facilitated the verification of its presumed attribution. A comparison with Konáč’s presumably later edition enabled the identification of a more original inscription. Typographical analysis confirmed the attribution of the discovered printed document to the Printer of the Prague Bible, while analysis of the watermarks suggested a publication date shortly after the Treaty’s acceptance. However, the analysis proved inconclusive for Konáč’s print. A textual comparison of the two editions revealed a surprising finding: the recently discovered document contains an additional article dealing with the payment of costs associated with the judgements annulled by the Treaty of St. Wenceslas. This article is also present in the earliest surviving manuscript text of the Treaty in a Latin translation. It is therefore evident that Konáč’s edition is slightly abbreviated and was likely published later, albeit not significantly. This study expands the bibliography of the Printer of the Prague Bible and demonstrates that his edition presents the oldest surviving text of the St. Wenceslas Treaty. Consequently, it must be considered in further research, even if it does not substantially alter the overall historiographical assessment of the treaty.