Music in Fifteenth-Century Bohemia : Between Reform and Identity Building

A long-needed reassessment of the musical culture of fifteenth-century Bohemia, liberating it from nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationalist agendas and reassessing its position in European music history.

What was musical culture like in a country in fifteenth-century Central Europe where theologians tried to restore the values of the early church--including through musical practices--only to be branded "heretical"?

Bohemian theologians tried to return to Christianity's "roots" by promoting frequent bread-and-wine communion for all (including children) and by encouraging lay participation in worship through translations into the vernacular. Unlike in many other European lands, monophonic chant and sacred songs were primarily used (though some advanced contemporary polyphonic settings circulated as well). These religious and musical developments formed part of the seedbed that would develop more fully during the European Reformation through the work of Martin Luther and others.

Music in Fifteenth-Century Bohemia: Between Reform and Identity Building contains essays on liturgy, song, and the influence of the Hussite movement. The book resists both nationalistically tinged narratives and the marginalization that has long resulted from an emphasis on the disparities between Czech and Western European musical traditions. One chapter demonstrates how a fifteenth-century song was employed in the revival of Czech culture in the nineteenth century.

Taken as a whole, the essays in this important collection illustrate the distinctive and often effective ways in which fifteenth-century Czech culture dealt with the dichotomy between religious reform and cultural identity.

HANA VLHOVÁ-WÖRNER is researcher at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic.

JAN CIGLBAUER is assistant professor at the Institute of Musicology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.