Abstract
The study provides an overview of the first manifestations of realization of personality in Bohemia, which appear in the historical literature since the 12th century and lead to the essay on medieval autobiographies. Even though the autobiographies were rare in Bohemia in the Middle Ages, as well as in other countries within the Latin cultural circle, we can capture three significant autobiographies from different social environment, of different literary type and with different functions within two centuries of the late medieval period: First, autobiography of Charles IV, which was a monarch autobiography in the form of a mirror of the Prince destined for the author's successors, and providing an image of education and behavior of a good monarch.
The second text of this type was the autobiographical document of former Archbishop of Prague, Jan of Jenštejn, in which the author used his own destiny in life to explain his political failure. At the very end of the medieval period, Christoph of Týn, a small nobleman who gained social rise in the Emperor's army and in diplomatic services, wrote an autobiography, where he wanted to show his descendants and future successors how to legally enlarge the family estates using honestly earned resources, so they wouldn't have to be ashamed of their future heritage and doubt its respectable origin.
All of the authors mentioned had their particular reasons to write their own biography. Naturally, all of these autobiographies are subjective, the narration is subjected to its purpose - political goals, justification of one's failure, "substantiation" for and expression of pride in legally gained property.