CZECH REPUBLIC

A small Central European country with a rich and dramatic history. The country originally possessed by the home Přemyslid dynasty, since the 14th century lands of the Bohemian Crown with the capital in Prague as a seat of kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, 1526–1918 part of the Habsburg monarchy, 1918–1992 Czechoslovakia, since 1993 Czech Republic with historical lands of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Bohemia was a place of origin of Prague Groschen as one of the most important silver nominals in late medieval Europe.

The numismatic research has a long tradition in Prague. In 1848 the first numismatic society in the Austrian lands Verein für Numismatik came into being here. The Czech numismatists Gustav Skalský, Emanuela Nohejlová-Prátová, Karel Castelin, Viktor Katz or Jiří Sejbal are ranked among prominent European experts. The National Museum in Prague is home of one of the largest coin collections in Central Europe, numismatics is taught at several Czech universities.

Summary :

› Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague.

Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague.

Charles University in Prague logo Originally founded as the Institute for Liberal Education of Charles University in 1994, the Faculty of Humanities Charles University gained full academic autonomy in 2000. It was established to provide study programs at the Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D. levels previously not available at the university. Its main research and academic focus is the Humanities and Social and Cultural Anthropology. Located in a new, award-winning campus-like facility of Charles University in the Prague district of Jinonice, the school has 200 faculty members and approximately 2000 students.

A pioneer since its inception, the faculty was among the first at Charles University to adopt the Bologna Accords. In addition, it utilizes advances in e-learning and academic tracking technologies to allow distance learning for both traditional and non-traditional students, increased student/teacher communication, and web courses. Furthermore, the school is higly supportive of student mobility and encourages participation in various types of exchanges (the LLP ERASMUS exchange program, summer school programs, bilateral agreements at the university as well as school level, etc.) thus increasing the diversity of students in Undergraduate Program in Central European Studies (program in English) and its other classes.

The foundation of its work is the Bachelor’s Programme in Liberal Arts and Humanities, offering students unprecedented individual choice in course selection in both theoretical and applied arts of philosophy, history, the social sciences, and languages.
The Faculty of Humanities offers advanced degrees and Ph.D. program in Anthropology, Ethics and Environmental Studies. Finally, there are two research and educational institutions operating within the Facutly of Humanities : the Research Center for Personality Development and Ethnicity, the Rehabilitation Institute for the Visually Impaired, and the Cabinet for Civic Democratic Education. › Website › See letter of support (.pdf)

PhDr. Roman ZaoralSenior lecturer.
Research field : medieval numismatics and medieval economic history. I have taught history of money, medieval economic history and everyday life history at the Charles University of Prague, Faculty of Humanities since 1998.

I attend to currency conditions of Bohemia and Moravia and to a long-distance trade with precious metals on a long-term basis. The analyses of 13th century hoards of Tetin (Central Bohemia) and Fuchsenhof (Upper Austria) are a basis of my reflections on Central European coinage.
I also focus on the historical context of the 13th century currency union between Kingdom of Bohemia and Margraviate of Meissen and on economic and cultural exchange between Bohemia and Venice. Results of my research will be published in an upcoming monograph Central Europe in the 13th century currency conditions.
The circulation of Prague Groschen and Bohemian florins in Italy represents another field of my research.

Watch this short presentation by Roman Zaoral ›