Abstract
The exhibition presents, on 19 posters, the written culture of the late Middle Ages and the profession of the scribes of that time, often unknown. Crux of Telč, arguably the most diligent among them, stood out remarkably from this period of anonymity. With his pen, he touched more than 25,000 pages of manuscripts and left unique evidence of medieval culture and thought in his texts, transcriptions, and notes. Throughout his life, he worked successively in Vysočina, Prague, central and western Bohemia, dedicating the last quarter-century of his earthly life to work in the Augustinian canonry in Třeboň.
Exceptionally, the exhibition will also display originals of three of Crux's manuscripts, preserved in the Třeboň archive. Perhaps the most famous of them is opened to the conclusion of a Latin treatise on Czech orthography from the first half of the 15th century. The uniquely preserved text, whose author is considered by some researchers to be Jan Hus, proposes the use of diacritical marks for the notation of Czech. Of interest also is the oldest collection of proverbs in a Slavic language attributed to Smil Flaška of Pardubice, and Czech love lyrics from the 15th century. From the Hussite period is the personal apology of theologian Jan of Příbram, in which he distanced himself from the teachings of John Wycliffe. The contemporary view of the world is also documented by a poem mocking women who were close to the church reform movement.