Jednota habrovanských a její kancionály
The Habrovany Community and its Hymn Books

Summary/Abstract: Hymnography of the Habrovany community is, besides the Utraquist and Brethren (by Unity of the Brethren) production, an essential source of investigating the hymns of the 1st half of the 16th century and Czech poetry of the Humanism and Renaissance periods in general. The quality of the new Habrovany hymns nearly matches that of the hymnography of the time. All editions of the hymn books present the theological teaching of the Habrovany community with a relative conceptuality, the hymns being part of their religious works, the literary-aesthetic aspect is only secondary. It is the dominance of the teaching aspect at the expense of the aesthetic one that was probably the obstacle to accept the hymns into the hymnographic sources. Later the Habrovany hymn books became a prototype of its kind, with functional syncretism being typical for them (singing during a liturgy and the guide for the religious life of an individual). From the point of view of the content and motivation, the hymns correspond to the concept of the Middle Ages rather than the poetics of national Humanism (that can rarely be seen, e.g. in hymns by Beneš Optát), the Habrovany hymnography with its didactic approach and simple vocabulary represents rather a continuation of the Tabor or Brethen poetry. The specific position of the Habrovany community led to only a very small number of hymns being included in the later hymnography canon.

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