Visitations as a source of the history of book culture in the orders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on the example of regular penance canons (white Augustinians)

Abstract

Historical research on book culture in religious orders uses a specific and vast body of sources. One of the most important sources are the so-called visitations commissioned and performed by diocesan authorities or superiors of a given community in individual church institutions. The frequency of their preparation and the precision of the recorded data allow them to be treated as one of the basic sources for historical bibliology. The specificity of the formation of these archives in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and their dispersion due to political changes demonstrate the distinctiveness and importance of these sources.