Spis Tomáše ze Štítného "O hospodářovi" a jeho latinská předloha
The Treatise of Thomas Štítný “On the Householder” and Its Latin Model

Summary/Abstract: The treatise O hospodářovi (On the Householder) of the Bohemian lay theologian Thomas Štítný (d. c. 1409) exemplifies the process of the vernacularisation of didactic and pastoral texts in medieval Bohemia and Europe in the later Middle Ages. The article aims to situate the treatise in its medieval literary context and to assess its relationship to its newly discovered literary model: the Latin sermons on the Christian household by the 13th-century Franciscan preacher Berthold of Regensburg. In fact, most previous scholarship has considered On the Householder to be either an independent literary creation of its author, or at least an “original compilation” from multiple sources. This assumption relied mainly on Štítný’s own assertion that (unlike his translations) he composed this and other treatises of his Knížky šestery o obecných věcech křesťanských (Six Books on General Christian Matters), as he says, “out of his own head”. The article argues that the discovery of the text’s Latin model does not invalidate his claim, rather it qualifies it, providing new insights into how Štítný himself conceived of his “originality” as author. Writing “out of his own head” appears to have included for him also composing a vernacular text freely modelled on a particular Latin model. Although his translations of other texts, such as his Visions of St. Bridget, also partly adapt and abridge the Latin texts they translate, in the case of On the Householder he rewrote his model completely, producing a text which is very much his own. He did so by employing various, partly overlapping, literary methods and procedures. These consisted in expanding on various images and ideas of his model; adding new texts, his own or from other sources; adapting and changing the structure of his model, and, above all, almost completely reformulating its content using (apart from a few exceptions) his own words, style and emphases. The article argues that Štítný’s On the Householder may be situated at the crossroad of two, partly overlapping, medieval literary and textual traditions: that of philosophical and didactic texts on the household (yconomice), and (more relevant in this case) that of sermons and various religious-didactic conduct books for the members of a family. Both types of texts, each in its own way, may be seen as an expression of the increased pastoral and religious-educative attention towards the laity characteristic of later medieval Western Christianity. The same may be said to apply also to the very process of the vernacularisation of this type of literature in the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, of which On the Householder is an expression. The tendency of medieval household treatises and conduct books for family members to increasingly “go vernacular” as one approaches the end of the Middle Ages may be seen as an attempt to reach the lay audience, for whom they were intended, in languages they would be able to understand.

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