Town of Pelhřimov in 17th Century: Cautious Burghers and Their World

Abstract

Students from the town of Pelhřimov experienced change and continuity through exploring stories and life style of 17th century inhabitants of their town. The project was based on co-operation with the regional museum and archive.

Key words: baroque culture, life style of 17th century, registry, rent-roll, municipal government, town topography, cross-curricular approach.

Summary

An enormous part of Czech culture heritage is of baroque origin. A short account comprises of landscape design and noble gardens, sacral and secular architecture, various pieces of art and artefacts of daily use. Although “stones, images and artefacts” of baroque heritage are widely appreciated, it might be argued that there is a lack of understanding in terms of both baroque life style and everyday life. Despite elaborated results of contemporary academic research, history teaching of baroque times may still suffer from “kings – battles – politics” narrow concept, if not from the popular misconception that baroque period was a dark age of our national history.

In order to explore new ways of representation of both baroque tangible and intangible heritage on a local level, an upper-secondary school from the town of Pelhřimov created an educational project dealing with the personal stories and life style of the 17th century Pelhřimov burghers. A tailored programme for 31 (aged 13 – 14 years) students was developed in partnership with the regional museum and archive. An in-depth local history study programme concerned both individual biographies and significant themes. First of all, students working in pairs explored the life story of a burgher. Using knowledge from museum lectures, archive materials and academic literature they presented their findings at a special micro-conference. Later on, they studied a particular theme such as social structure, patterns of settlement, municipal government, religion practice, trade or cooking. Once again they explored museum collections, archive resources and academic publications. Finally, they set up an interactive exhibition at the regional museum. At the preview, audiences could listen to contemporary zither music as well as taste meals prepared according to 17th century recipes.

Project Partners: Gymnázium v Pelhřimově, Muzeum Vysočiny Pelhřimov, Moravský zemský archiv – Státní okresní archiv Pelhřimov

Authors: Mgr. Karel Kratochvíl, PhDr. Miroslava Kvášová, Mgr. Petra Bartáková