Abstrakt
The paper will offer a comparative perspective on several medieval narratives of historical events which are shaped on the Passion story as presented in the Gospels, which are strongly intertextual (using quotations, allusions, paraphrases etc.), and which happen to have survived only in the British Isles and Bohemia. The relevant record of Bohemia consists of three texts, all anonymous and dated to the early 15th century: Passio Magistri Johannis Hus secundum Johannem Barbatum (soon after 1415), Passio raptorum de Slapanicz, secundum Bartoss, tortorem brunensem (after 1401) and Passio Iudeorum Pragensium secundum Iesskonem, rusticum quadratum (written before 1420 but describing the pogrom of 1389).
Not all the texts comprising the British corpus of parodic passions have been preserved (such as Passio monachorum Westmonasteriensium secundum Iohannem, after 1265), but those extant are substantially older than their Bohemian counterparts, dating from the late 13th and early 14th century: along with the Narratio de passione iusticiariorum (1289) and Passio Scotorum periuratorum (1307), there is a mock passion called Passio Francorum secundum Flamengos, a text describing the battle of Courtrai in 1302 but only preserved in the much later chronicle of Adam Usk (d. 1430). The paper will look into ways biblical parody was employed in these texts to create a literary and political effect against the socio-historical background of the time, trying to assess whether the one textual corpus might have actually exerted influence on the other one.