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Material security of students in Přemyslid Bohemia

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2021

Abstract

The study is devoted to the issue of financing schools and nutrition of teachers and pupils in the medieval Czech lands. Although the sources providing information on the provision of education for pastors and senior church officials in the Czech lands are very fragmental, they show analogous conditions as in other European countries.

Wealthy parents financed their studies for their descendants, whether from the ranks of the chapter clergy, noble and later aristocratic families or the ruling family, and from the 13th century also from the ranks of wealthy burghers. Many students at foreign universities were also holders of church prebends, from the proceeds of which they financed their education.

Some members of the lower classes were able to use the resources provided by wealthy clergy and lay patrons, such as the Dean of the Prague Chapter Vít (+ 1271), or the Czech King Wenceslas II, or scholarships provided by university towns. One of the options for financing the study was loans that the borrowers later repaid from the proceeds of their office.