The notion of “truth” (“pravda”) in the Late Medieval Bohemia

Abstract

The paper deals with the semantic transformation of the Old Czech term “pravda” (meaning “truth” or “justice” in different contexts) in the political and legal socioleсt of the Bohemian nobility from the end of the 14th till the end of the 15th century. This term was used in the charter issued by the Bohemian lords on the 5th of May, 1394 in such a way that it received a meaning of “straightness” denoting a legal reference point set in the past once and forever which does not allow any deviations. The lords declared their will “to put straight the Bohemian land and to bring it to the law and to the truth—in such a way as it stood firm in truth in the times of our forefathers.” The Land constitutions (Zemské zřízení) of the year 1395 written by the lords appeal to an unnamed “ancient constitution” and reproduce some laws from the “Statutes of the Kingdom” issued by Charles IV in 1355. However, in some other cases the Land Tables are inconsistent with the written law as they express their authors’ own notion concerning the social justice. An explanation could be found in the treatise “Land’s laws” by Ondřej of Dubá written around the turn of the 15th century: Here the term “pravda” means an opinion of a litigating person who considers himself to be right. The Hussites of the 15th century used the term as a motto, however, they meant the “God’s truth” (Old Czech: “pravda Boží”) and not the human one. In 1421 the diety of Čáslav issued a decree obliging everybody to confess the Four Prague Articles as “the truths of God”. Due to the absolutization of the term the Hussite legists of the second half of the 15th century Ctibor, of Cimburk and Viktorín of Všehrdy considered the “pravda” to be an impersonal, objectively given reality, i. e. the verity.

Received: 28.02.2023

Citation
Naumov N. N. The notion of “truth” (“pravda”) in the Late Medieval Bohemia // Slavic Almanac. 2023. No 1–2. P. 12–33 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2023.1-2.1.01