HISTORICAL LANDSCAPES IN BOHEMIA Regions of Třeboň, Broumov and Praha Eva Chodějovská – Eva Semotanová – Robert Šimůnek Institute of History Prague 2015 The work of the Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences OPERA INSTITUTI HISTORICI PRAGAE Series A – Monographia Volumen 61 Scientific Editor: doc. PhDr. Martin Holý, Ph.D. Readers: prof. RNDr. Peter Chrastina, PhD. doc. Ing. arch. ThLic. Jiří Kupka, Ph.D. This book was supported by the project Kartografické zdroje jako kulturní dědictví. Výzkum nových metodik a technologií digitalizace, zpřístupnění a využití starých map, plánů, atlasů a glóbů (DF11P01OVV021) [Cartographic sources as a cultural heritage. Research into new methodologies and digitalization technologies, publicising and utilisation of old maps, plans, atlases and globes] of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. ISBN: 978-80-7286-258-0 © Mgr. Eva Chodějovská, Ph.D., 2015 © prof. PhDr. Eva Semotanová, DrSc., 2015 © PhDr. Robert Šimůnek, Ph.D., DSc., 2015 © Institute of History, CAS 2 CONTENTS PREFACE 5 CULTURAL LANDSCAPES OF THE PAST AS THE SUBJECT OF INTEREST OF HISTORICAL-GEOGRAPHIC RESEARCH 5 SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON THE LANDSCAPE 24 OF THE PAST MODEL TERRITORIES 27 - Landscape of the Třeboň Estates in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times (c. 1400–1700) 29 - The Broumov Region 43 - Prague and Its Surroundings. Landscape as Poetry, Landscape as Prose 52 CONCLUSION 62 SHRNUTÍ 66 SUMMARY 69 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES 72 REGISTER 106 3 On the authorship The introductory chapter and the conclusion are the common work of all the authors; Eva Chodějovská wrote the chapter Sources of Information on the Landscape of the Past; within the chapter Model Territories, the paper Landscape of the Třeboň Estates in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times (c. 1400–1700) is by Robert Šimůnek, The Broumov Region is by Eva Chodějovská whereas Prague and Its Surroundings. Landscape as Poetry, Landscape as Prose was written by Eva Semotanová. The authors would like to thank to all the colleagues that helped them when writing this book! 4 PREFACE Historical landscape ranks among the subjects which have been receiving increased attention from both professionals and lay public during the past two decades. It has often been mythicized, poeticized, veiled by spirituality and idealized in popular publications hand in hand with the media. It is gradually turning into a cult; it has been attributed magic qualities which are breathing from forests, meadows, waters and hillsides and which would, in the past, allegedly decide battles, elicit expressions of ardent patriotism and determine the route of history and, today, perhaps help find us the sense of our earthly existence.1 An array of recent professional works, as well as works aimed at wider audiences, has pursued the history of landscape from rather uncommon angles of viewing and tried to fuse humans and nature into a single landscape-shaping feature.2 A fashionable subject surfacing in connection with historical landscape is the “landscape soul”.3 Yet another commonly used term is the “landscape memory”, developed and forged by experts in conformity with Pierre Noraʼs concept of realms of memory.4 Certain places have been transformed into symbols; into places interlinked with the collective memory. The landscape memory encompasses a landscape charisma radiated by places permeated with history and emblazoned with stories, tales and legends, by worshipped peaks or romantic recesses bearing imprints of human activity, by memorable trees, springs and wells − places enveloped in an exceptional “genius loci”.5 The discussion revolving around the definition of this concept is still animated. Genius loci as a philosophical category can be perceived non-indicatively: not necessarily just in the aesthetic context; there can also be the explanation that every place does not only have its physical, but also non-material features; that genius loci represents a quality integral to a certain location.6 New, unconventional approaches and often almost deliberately shocking comparisons and literarily interpreted subjects have been enriching previous research on historical landscape. They contribute to a more inward and more sensitive grasping of the entire issue – unless they, of course, slip off the surface of an idea due to shallow catchiness. At the same time, it is more than necessary to respect and accept the research outcomes of the participating disciplines.7 Historical landscape as the subject of research and protection. The present publication mainly discusses historical landscape as an expert issue pursued by many scientists of varied focus in the framework of both their elementary and applied research encompassing a wide scale of disciplines (archaeologists, landscape ecologists, botanists, geologists, art historians, urbanists, garden and landscape architects, historians, geographers, historical geographers, experts in the care of historical monuments…; the list could be almost endless), by numerous institutions, associations and – in the good sense of the word – informed laymen.8 1 This not only concerns the wide scale of works which ride the wave of the fashionable categories of “the sacred”, “the mysterious”, “the return to nature” and so on (and can be sufficiently exemplified by HÄNNI 2010), but also in part those presented as the results of professional research (e.g., KVĚT 2003; KVĚT 2011). 2 Comp., e.g., SÁDLO – POKORNÝ – HÁJEK – DRESLEROVÁ – CÍLEK 2005. 3 CÍLEK 2002 (and the next editions); CÍLEK 2002a, as well as other works by the same author on the issue of landscape. 4 NORA 1984−1992; on the “national mountains” as symbols, see MAUR 2006. 5 SEMOTANOVÁ 2007. 6 On urban space, see VACEK 2014, where also find the list of basic literature, including the today already classical work by Christian Norberg-Schulz (NORBERG-SCHULZ 2010). 7 More complex recapitulation of the variety of views, opinions, theories and methods would certainly require a separate treatise – and perhaps also a separate discourse. 8 The wide spectrum of subjects and methodological approaches, topical in current historical and geographic research, is reflected by the pattern of contributions presented in the publication CHODĚJOVSKÁ – 5 In the Czech lands, the subject of landscape was not totally unknown before 1989, while the line oriented towards nature (landscape) protection ran in parallel with a professional line from as early as the first half of the 20th century.9 We can, to this day, successfully build on the tradition of national history and geography – a field first promoted by Josef V. Šimák (1870–1941) and later, especially between the 1940s and 1960s, cultivated by František Roubík (1890–1974) and his Moravian contemporary, Ladislav Hosák (1898–1972). From among their followers, the one perhaps most worth mentioning is Zdeněk Boháč (1933–2001) who significantly connected the field of national history and geography with the history of settlement and enriched the given issue with many overlaps towards historical landscape and was, beside other things, the founder of the specialized magazine Historická geografie ([Historical Geography]; 1968).10 Historical landscape as a complexly conceived interdisciplinary subject came into more considerable play only as late as at the turn of the millennium, which was apparently, to a certain degree, linked with increased social demand.11 In the developing society, the demand began taking on various forms covered by civic initiatives, while the continuity with the earlier period was mainly demonstrated by re-cultivation works, many of which are still under way mainly in the region of North-West Bohemia,12 and the possibility of uncensored (and thus often critical) views on the development of landscape during the past forty years merely represented one of many aspects at work. Yet another and clearly far more significant aspect was the topicality of the subject – in the early post-1989 period, “the return to old values” was among the presumed ways leading to both a physical and a spiritual renascence of society, and the very “landscape of our predecessors” began playing a fundamental role within the register of the values of the past which were to serve as exemplary. The clash of ideals and the post-November reality, eventually resulting in disillusion and apathy in a significant part of the population over the years, is merely mentioned in this text ŠIMŮNEK 2012; the range in the contents of the research of historical landscapes is discussed in KUPKA 2010 and, especially from the point of historical ecology, in TRPÁKOVÁ 2013. 9 Nature and landscape preservation in Czechoslovakia was, in many respects, on a rather high level. Landscape played a significant role in the work of many architects and urban planners − for example Ivan Vorel (garden and landscape architecture) and Miroslav Baše (comp. BAŠE 2009) − as well as an array of art and architecture historians (Mojmír Horyna, Dobroslav Líbal), rural architecture historians and ethnographers (Jiří Škabrada) and active fine artists and theoreticians (Miloš Šejn), to name just a few. 10 The most widespread publications were handbooks by F. Roubík, aimed at the wider public but conceived at a high professional level – see esp. ROUBÍK 1940; ROUBÍK 1941 (the first edition from the beginning of the war was followed by the second one, symptomatically issued shortly after the liberation of the country, in 1947); see also the continuously published, retrospective treatises in Časopis Společnosti přátel starožitností