The libraries and literary activities of the order of Saint Augustine in Domažlice and Pivoň

The article draws on the list of separate manuscripts and manuscripts forming part of binders’ volumes coming from the library of the Domažlice Augustinians, a component of the first volume of the Soupis rukopisů Studijní a vědecké knihovny Plzeňského kraje v Plzni [A Compendium of the Manuscripts from the Education and Research Library of the Pilsener Region in Pilsen (Plzeň 2006)]. Since the first and at the same time last description of the library comes from as early as 1950, when the book collection was taken over by the State Education Library in Pilsen, we attempted to study the development of the Augustinian book collection on the basis of indirect sources, such as mainly books of accounts and ownership notes in extant printed books and manuscripts. From the original ca 4,000 volumes, only 272 volumes have been preserved in the Education and Research Library of the Pilsener Region (ERLPR) to this day; two separate manuscripts and 16 manuscripts forming part of binders’ volumes from the 17th-19th centuries have been described in the above-mentioned compendium; two manuscripts that were bound to other manuscripts come from a nearby convent in Pivoň. A noteworthy piece among the literary texts preserved in Prague archives is a manuscript fragment of a Czech play containing a dialogue between two merchants taking place at the Pilsen market, which comes from the second half of the 18th century, or the attempt of the Pivoň Augustinian Bruno Knez to write and even publish the history of his convent from 1753, which may be considered as the first printed monastic monograph from West Bohemia.