The Irish Franciscans in Prague 1629-1786 by Jan Parez Hedvika Kucharová

Author:Jan Parez, Hedvika Kucharová [Jan Parez, Hedvika Kucharová]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788024626765
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Karolinum Press, Charles University
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Before the end of the seventeenth century, they were helped by the last will of their former benefactress, Maria Mechtilde de Dieten. Besides the mentioned bequest to the Irish Franciscans, she left half of her fortune to her grandson, Franz Anton of Billau; however, if he should die before he came of age, the money would go to the Irish Franciscans. The child died of the plague in 1680, but the Franciscans only asked for the bequest in 1692, evidently after the death of his mother, Anna Franziska. In May of that year, Ondřej Frischmann, a sworn provincial barrister, whom Anna Franziska of Billau had named as her heir, declared that he knew of the conditions attached to the will and that he was not demanding any of the property originally intended for Franz Anton. The Revenue Office then calculated the amount for the Irish Franciscans at 6,001 florins 52 kreutzer; the annual allowance was supposed to be 600 florins, but it was often not even as much as this. By the end of 1699, a total of 4,410 florins had been paid. The final request for a withdrawal from the bequest was in May 1702 (Fig. 24).33

Decidedly more bizarre was the request made in 1699. Václav Vojtěch, Count of Šternberk, was probably behind this affair. That is, the Irish Franciscans were requesting an unpaid debt which the builder Jean Baptiste Mathey owed the Bohemian Chamber for the construction of the Imperial Riding School and which had been estimated at 400 florins. Because Mathey left for France without the sovereign’s permission, after his death his estate went by default to the Treasury and was later given by the sovereign to Václav Vojtěch, Count of Šternberk, who agreed with his heir, Prudentius Renaut de Bisón, that the outstanding debt would be transferred to the Irish Franciscans. In the end, the result of the pile of handwritten papers was evidently the recommendation that the Irish Franciscans appeal to the heir. In the absence of any confirmation that they drew on the money, it is unlikely that they succeeded in obtaining any of it.34

It is no surprise that the Irish Franciscans resorted to such measures. Admittedly, we cannot forget the income the college had from alms gathering, from Mass offerings, payments for funerals and so on, but the time of generous single gifts, which had for a number of years represented the assurance of the college’s existence or the opportunity to undertake extensive construction, clearly came to an end for the Irish Franciscans towards the end of the seventeenth century and it might have been difficult to find a benefactor who did not want his money used for a specific purpose, as the Count of Šternberk had in the building of the library. The unfinished Chapel of All the Faithful Departed, as Hammerschmid informs us, was also evidence of a definite waning of interest. The astounding sums of the foundation period and the one immediately afterwards, it must be admitted, sometimes existed only

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