Převorové bez konventu. Duchovní správci johanitského kostela Matky Boží Konec Mostu na Menším Městě pražském v letech 1442-1732
Priors without a Convent. Spiritual Administrators of the Church of Our Lady beneath the Chain of the End of the Bridge in Lesser Town of Prague of the Johanniter Order during 1442-1732

Summary/Abstract: At the beginning of the Hussite Wars, the Johanniter Order left Prague for Strakonice.The local commandery was burned down. When the situation in Praguecalmed down, only one priest of the order returned in the first half of the 1440s.He held the prior title and came from the Strakonice convent. The priest oversawthe administration of the parish and the order’s jurisdiction in the Lesser Town ofPrague. Moreover, the first priors had three key tasks: to repair, at least partially,the damaged order’s buildings (Church of Our Lady, Church of St Procopius, andthe convent), restore the desolate houses subjected to extraterritorial law, and regainthe pledged and confiscated property of the Prague convent. Jan (John) of Duband Řehoř (Gregory) of Frýdek were the most prominent priors in the second half ofthe 15th century. But the consolidation efforts were strongly affected by the LesserTown fire in 1503. Furthermore, the stature of the Prague priors decreased at thebeginning of the 16th century. They changed rather frequently and in 1512 lost theright to use pontificals in favour of the Strakonice priors. In the 16th century, thePrague priors focused on increasing the density of the housing development basedon extraterritorial law. They had to defend the order’s rights and privileges as wellwhich was reflected in disputes with the towns of Prague. The present Kampa Islandwas one of the main sticking points. The priors Mikuláš (Nicholas) of Kłodzko, Petr(Peter) of Strakonice, Petr (Peter) of Březnice, and Václav (Wenceslas) Podloubskýof Týnec aka Podvinský of Doubravičany stood out among the 16th and early 17thcentury priors.The period 1618–1648 caused many difficulties for the Prague priory because ofthe war. In addition, the dying out of the Bohemian priory related to the dissolutionof the Strakonice convent brought about changes in the occupation of the Prague prior’soffice. Therefore, the foreigner Pavel Grill of Altdorf, as a commander standingabove his predecessors in the order’s hierarchy, assumed the prior’s position in 1621. Heinitiated the restoration efforts of the Prague priors of the Lesser Town of Prague’s convent.Yet, the year 1631 marked a definitive turnabout when a secular priest was appointedan administrator of the Prague priory. Secular (or diocesan) priests were of nobleorigin and first worked as chaplains at the Church of Our Lady beneath the Chain.After some time, the second administrator Bernard Witte took oaths and became theprior. Accordingly, the order’s Grand Master in Malta granted him the privilege ofwearing a gold cross. This procedure was repeated for his two successors. Witte madehis mark not only by the Baroque reconstruction of the priory church but also by hisincessant disputes with the extraterritorial law inhabitants and later also with grandpriors. It was his fault that the grand prior deprived the Prague priors of the BřeziněvesHomestead. The fourth administrator or the last prior without a convent FrantišekPřevorové bez konventu. Duchovní správci johanitského kostela Matky Boží…56(Franz) Adam Tauffer of Roviny, who unlike his predecessors after 1621 came fromBohemia, eventually succeeded in renovating the convent in the first half of the 1730sby building an edifice (1728–1731) and accepting the first members in 1732.

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