he paper quantitatively analyses a sample of 300 Czech prayer books and other popular religious handwritten material (not including songbooks) from the 18th and 19th centuries. The author maintains that most of the material consisted of (partial) transcriptions of popular printed books and their widespread popularity was influenced by the growth of literacy and the individualization of piety. Their use was by no means limited to the milieu of the secret non-Catholics which were proscribed until 1781; indeed the majority of Catholic writings were not fully orthodox. The character and decoration of the writings in question were not directly related to the confessional nature of their originators and/or users; in fact the general rules of early modern popular culture played a much more important role and in many cases it is difficult to determine whether the source is catholic, protestant or sectarian. Prayer books fully reflected official forms of religion relatively late i.e. from the tum of the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of church domination over popular piety. However, even at this time the process did not result in absolutes: religious writings substituted the non-existence of baroque literature the printing of which was prohibited by the enlightened censorship prevalent at the time. Only a change in religious forms and new opportunities for the printing of pre-enlightenment books in the mid-19th century led to a decline in handwritten prayer books.
Fictional King of Morocco is mythical figure of Biblical proportions, herald of Apocalypse, usually associated with prophetical songs of Tolerance Sectarians from eastern Bohemia. Presented article deals with the motif of King of Morocco in these songs and tries to analyze its origin. Various sources of this oral tradition are discussed, like great influence of Protestant political prophecies, heterodox prophecies and folklore narratives of the period. The character of King of Morocco represents an affiliated motif to a specific corpus of oral traditions, consisting of apocalyptical narrative pattern about the Judgment Day. Origin of the motif of King of Morocco remains obscure; however, the popular reception of diplomatic visit of envoy of Sultan of Morocco to Vienna in 1783, combined with misinterpreted news about Tolerance Decree, seems to be the most probable source. Although associated with oral culture of Tolerance Sectarians, the whole narrative pattern was disseminated more widely and lived on in Czech oral tradition at least until 1848.