PRAŽSKÝ KONVENT JOHANITŮ A DATACE UDĚLENÍ PRÁVA PONTIFIKÁLIÍ JEHO PŘEVORŮM V ŘÁDOVÉ HISTORIOGRAFII
PRAGUE CONVENT OF SAINT JOHN ORDER AND THE DATE OF BESTOWING PONTIFICALS TO ITS PRIORS IN THE ORDER HISTORIOGRAPHY

Summary/Abstract: The Prague Commandry of Knights Hospitaller was founded in 1169. In 1395, the priors of the priests’ convent were granted the right of pontificals by the pope Boniface IX. At the beginning of the Hussite wars, the Prague Knights Hospitaller moved to the Castle in Strakonice where they gradually merged into the local community. From 1440s to the beginning of 1730s, only titular priors or later mere administrators worked in Prague. The right to use pontifical insignia was, therefore, provisionally passed on priors in Strakonice in 1512. The Prague Convent was renewed in the first half of the 1730s and starting the year 1740, its priors were granted the right to wear ponitificals. In this context, the first mistaken dating of the original privilege to wear ponitificals (indicating the year 1301) appears. Simultaneously, in the 18th and 19th centuries, a mistaken year 1394 appeared in the official texts from inside the convent, less frequently the alternative year 1294. In the time of significant development of the convent from 1880s till 1914, the oldest dating prevailed and was accepted also in the scholarly literature. The community of order priests started to fall down since 1919, moreover, despite the constant decrease of convent members, the papal visitor of the Maltese Order ordered the cancellation of novitiate in 1934. At this time, the privilege to wear pontificals was first correctly dated to the year 1395, yet, this determination did not get beyond the order priests. The crisis of the Maltese community was further aggravated by a Nazi collaborator as its head during the German occupation and the confiscation of property in 1942. The convent was finally dissolved in 1950. In the recent works of lay order members on the history of the Bohemian Grand Priory, there is usually the year 1301.

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