The Office of Prague University Quaestor in 1612-1622: Its Representatives, and Their Relations with the Municipal Environment
Abstract
The chapter covers the period after the non-Catholic estates took over the Prague university in 1609 and it underwent partial reforms during the following decade. Besides cancelling celibacy for professors, one of the most important steps was an attempt to simplify the clumsy administration of the university's property.
The text is primarily focused on the newly established post of quaestor and its four representatives that held this office successively in 1612-1622. These were young graduates of the Prague University with the title of master that had experienced working at the university or the municipal administration.
They probably did not associate the office with long-term vision of their future, but as a temporary improvement to their social and economic stations. None of them left a deeper imprint in the administration of the university's property.
Furthermore, the university was handed over to the Jesuits just two years after the Battle of White Mountain, and the former quaestors became religious exiles.