Václav Březan

Václav Březan (* 1568 in Březno bei Laun ; † 1618 ) was an archivist , librarian and historiographer of the Bohemian noble families Rosenberg and Schwanberg .

Life

Březan's biography of Wilhelm von Rosenberg - title page

Václav Březan was the son of a miller. He probably received his education in the school of the Bohemian Brothers in Jungbunzlau . In 1584 he studied at the Reformed University of Heidelberg and a year later probably in Strasbourg . In May 1594 he joined the office of the Bohemian estates politician Peter Wok von Rosenberg as a clerk . Since the death of his brother Wilhelm von Rosenberg in 1592, he had been regent of the Rosenberg family and resided at Krumau Castle . From November 1596 Václav Březan was entrusted with the management and organization of the Rosenberg archive and the extensive Rosenberg library. After Peter Wok made Wittingau his residence after the sale of the Krumlov domain in 1602 , the archive and library were also moved to the castle there. After the death of Peter Wok in 1611, with whom the Rosenbergs became extinct in the male line, Václav Březan entered the service of the Schwanberg family, to whom the rule of Wittingau had passed.

Václav Březan wrote numerous treatises on various noble families as well as religious and other institutions. The State Archive in Třeboň has, among other things, several handwritten records made by him with registers of the Rosenberg possessions, privileges, freedoms and foundations. The four-volume catalog of the Rosenberg Library he wrote was abducted by the Swedes to Stockholm during the Thirty Years War , where it is in the Royal Library.

Rosenberg Chronicle

Václav Březan's most extensive work was the no longer preserved manuscript of the "Rosenberg Chronicle" ( Rožmberská historie ). It contained the biographies of all members of this important noble family. The first chapter dealt with the mythical beginnings of the Witigonen , from which the Rosenbergs descended, the last chapter covered the period up to 1545. The manuscript was translated into German in the second half of the 17th century by the Wittingau provost Norbert Heermann . This translation was published by Matthäus Klimesch in 1897 under the title "Norbert Heermann's Rosenberg'sche Chronik".

However, the short version of the chronicle, written by Březan in Czech, has been preserved, which he himself wrote in Latin as “Compendium historiae rosenbergiacae extractum Anno Domini 1609 mense Novemb [ris] Třebonae” and in Czech as “Rosenberské kroniky krátký a summowuj wýtah” ( short and summary excerpt from the Rosenberg Chronicle ). It also contains short life pictures of the last two Rosenbergs Wilhelm von Rosenberg and Peter Wok von Rosenberg. Since there were numerous documents in the Rosenberg archive that were only recognized much later as forgeries of the 15th century, the summary extract contains numerous errors. This summary extract was edited by František Palacký in 1828 and published in the “Časopis musea království českého” ( Journal of the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia ). An annotated version of the summary excerpt, in which the historical context is explained and numerous errors made by the author are corrected, was published in Czech in 2005.

literature

• Anna Kubíková: Rožmberské kroniky. Krátky a summovní výtah od Václava Březana . České Budějovice 2005. ISBN 80-86829-10-3 .

Web links

• Literature and other media by and about Václav Březan in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Biogram