The Regulation of Religion in Provincial Law of Moravia with Regard to the Position of the Unitas Fratrum Until 1612

The question of the regulation of religion in the Czech lands, and thus also in the Margraviate of Moravia in the period after the Hussite Wars, has received considerable scholarly attention. An independent area of understanding the religious life in Moravia in the long sixteenth century involves the sources of provincial law and the practices of the Provincial Diet and court. These materials have not been sufficiently considered in the research of the issue, mainly due to the complexity of provincial law as a legal system. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the possibilities of using sources of provincial law in studying issues related to religious matters and to show the legal instruments by which the Moravian Estates tried to maintain religious peace in the country. The aim of this article is also to show how one of the few provisions of Moravian provincial law, which contains a denominationally problematic text, was misused in the political struggle between radical Roman Catholics and non-Catholics, or between the defenders of the provincial Estate liberties and the monarch.