LIBRARY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE

 
 Lectures on 
 The Historians of Bohemia
 
 (t? 
 
 Lectures on 
 The Historians of Bohemia 
 
 BEING THE ILCHESTER LECTURES 
 FOR THE YEAR 1904 
 
 _ y 
 
 (THE COUNT LUTZOW) 
 
 HON. PH.D. OF THE BOHEMIAN UNIVERSITY OF PRAGUE 
 
 MEMBEH OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF SCIENCES IN BOHEMIA AND OF 
 
 THE BOHEMIAN ACADEMY 
 
 LONDON : HENRY FROWDE, AMEN CORNER 
 
 NEW YORK : 91 & 93 FIFTH AVENUE 
 TORONTO : 25-27 RICHMOND STREET WEST 
 
 1905 
 [All rig Me reserved]
 
 Printed by HORACE HART, at 
 the University Press, Oxford
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IF one thing is less known than the history 
 of Bohemia it is the life and the works of 
 the historians who have recorded the annals 
 of that country. The undoubted fact that 
 many works of ancient Bohemian writers 
 have been lost has led to the supposition 
 that no native records of my country except 
 those belonging to the last century are 
 existent. Bohemian history, as far as it has 
 been written at all, has been mostly written 
 on German lines ; the hostility between the 
 Slav and the Teuton, which has continued 
 without interruption since the mythical 
 Cechus and his Slav companions arrived in 
 Bohemia, is a sufficient proof that records 
 founded on the evidence of the adverse 
 party could have little value. Palacky was 
 the first to point out, early in the nineteenth 
 century, that many writings of priceless 
 value for the history of his country w r ere 
 still preserved in manuscript in the archives 
 of certain Bohemian castles. It is thus that 
 the writings of Bfezan Slavata and Skala ze
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 Zhofe the last-named of whom would be 
 accounted a great historian in any country 
 became known, though only to a very 
 limited extent. The history of Bohemia is 
 perhaps one of the saddest in the world's 
 story. A country that for a time had been 
 in the van of civilization became almost 
 a desert, and suffered for centuries from 
 political, national and ecclesiastical oppres- 
 sion. 
 
 It is perhaps natural that those who 
 belong to a small and little-known nation 
 should consider it to a greater extent their 
 duty to make their country known, than 
 those who are citizens of a country that has 
 world-wide fame. The words of the great 
 historian Palack^, spoken on the occasion 
 of his last appearance in public which I have 
 quoted at the end of my last lecture, have 
 long impelled me to do what little is in 
 my power to make my country known and 
 refute those who have endeavoured to 
 tarnish its fame. 
 
 1 therefore owe a great debt of gratitude 
 to my friend Prof. Morfill, who kindly 
 suggested that I should lecture at Oxford 
 on a subject concerning Bohemia. Nothing 
 could be more in accord with my wishes 
 and the interest of my country than that
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 I should speak of the historians of my 
 country in the world-famed University City 
 that is connected with Bohemia by many 
 ancient links. I wish also to thank the 
 Curators of the Taylor Institution for their 
 kindness and the facilities they have given 
 for the publication of these lectures. 
 
 LttTZOW. 
 
 December 10, 1904.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 LECTURE I 
 
 Earliest Chroniclers Cosmas Chronicle of 
 Dalimil Benes of Weitmil Pulkava Charles IV 1 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 The Hussite Wars Mladenovic Lawrence of 
 Bfezov Bartosek of Drahonic Zizka Aeneas 
 Sylvius Bartos 27 
 
 LECTURE III 
 
 Sixt of Ottersdorf The Bloody Diet Wen- 
 ceslas Hajek Jan Blahoslav Jacob Bilek Jan 
 Augusta Wenceslas Bfezan William of Rosen- 
 berg Peter of Rosenberg The * Letter of 
 Majesty 1 The Defenestration William Slavata 
 Paul Skala James I of England Executions 
 of the Patriots Death of Dvofecky Habernfeld 
 Paul Stransky ........ 54 
 
 LECTURE IV 
 
 The Thirty Years' War Balbinus Pesina 
 Joseph II Francis Palacky Dobrovsky The 
 Museum Francis Palacky The Austrian Censors 
 Tomek The German Parliament Palacky's 
 Views Death of Palacky Palack^ and Creighton 
 Helfert and Hofler Palacky's Reply Anton 
 Gindely Wenceslas Tomek Josef Kalousek 
 The Bohemian Constitution Jaroslav Goll 
 Rezek Speech of Palacky Conclusion . . 83 
 
 INDEX , .113
 
 AMONG the many greater and smaller misfortunes 
 that have befallen the Bohemian nation the misuse 
 of the national name is by no means the one that is of 
 least account. A Bohemian requires a thorough know- 
 ledge of the English language to grasp what the word 
 'Bohemian' generally conveys to Englishmen. The 
 ancient mistake which identified the Bohemians with 
 the gipsies undoubtedly originated in France. As the 
 great Bohemian historian Palacky has suggested, many 
 gipsies arrived in France bearing passports signed by 
 the Bohemian kings, and this was the original cause of 
 the mistake. The peculiar, modern signification of the 
 word is, however, I think, a creation of Henry Murger, 
 and owes its origin to his Vie de Boheme. Thackeray 
 first used the word in its modern sense in the English 
 language. 
 
 It is at the present day, I hope, scarcely necessary to 
 state that the Bohemians have no connexion whatever 
 with the gipsies, and that their language, a Slavic one, 
 forms part of the great Aryan family of speech. Next 
 to Russia, which in literature as in politics is the most 
 prominent of Slav countries, and Poland, Bohemia is 
 the country in which Slavic literature has flourished 
 most; and in Bohemian literature historians certainly 
 hold a very high rank. The reason is not difficult to 
 seek. There was a period when the Bohemians were 
 makers as well as writers of history, and it has been the 
 
 B
 
 2 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [i 
 
 fate of Bohemia to play at least once a part in history 
 as did the Netherlands and Sweden in later days 
 that was quite disproportionate to the extent and 
 population of the country. After the battle of the 
 Zizkov, when the Bohemians defeated almost the whole 
 world in arms against their capital, and yet more after 
 their wonderful victories during Prokop's campaigns in 
 Germany, the Bohemians were at least within measur- 
 able distance of obtaining the supremacy in Europe 
 at least for a time. As writes one of the chroniclers 
 of the Hussite wars : ' The Bohemians had never before 
 fought so glorious a campaign in Germany. Had they 
 craved for glory as did their ancestors, they would have 
 marched onward as far as the Rhine and subdued many 
 countries ; but they contented themselves with their rich 
 spoils and returned to Bohemia.' 
 
 Only a few years ago I should have mentioned as 
 earliest Bohemian historian, Cosmas of Prague, 'the 
 father of Bohemian history, 1 as he used to be called. 
 Historical research, very active since the revival of the 
 Bohemian language at the beginning of the last century, 
 has rendered it at least doubtful whether Cosmas was 
 the first of Bohemian historians. 
 
 The learned Professor Pekar of the National Uni- 
 versity of Prague, published recently a work en- 
 titled Nejstarsi Kronika ceska (the oldest Bohemian 
 chronicle), which has caused great sensation in the 
 learned world of Bohemia. Professor Pekaf endeavours 
 to prove that Kristian, also called Strachkvas, brother 
 of the Bohemian duke, Boleslav II, was the author of 
 a chronicle entitled Life of St. Ludmilla and Martyrdom 
 of St. Wenceslas. Kristian died in 995, and if it can 
 be proved that he is the author of this chronicle, it
 
 i] EARLIEST CHRONICLERS 3 
 
 belongs to the tenth century, and is the oldest historical 
 work written in Bohemia and by a Bohemian. 
 
 It is unnecessary to refer here in detail to the 
 controversy that has arisen, and it will be sufficient to 
 state that Dr. Pekar has, I think, proved his case. 
 The legend, which has been four times published, firstly 
 in 1677 by the learned Jesuit Balbinus, and lastly by 
 Dr. Pekar two years ago, has great historical value. It 
 contains one of the earliest accounts of the conversion 
 of Moravia to the Christian faith. This is a matter 
 of great importance, as the fact that Bohemia and 
 Moravia first received Christianity from the East, and 
 long maintained a connexion with the East, is strongly 
 urged by Slavic writers and strongly opposed by German 
 historians. 
 
 I will quote a portion of Kristian's account. * It is 
 believed,' he writes, * and indeed known that Moravia, 
 a Slavic country, early obtained the faith of Christ, but 
 the Bulgarians had long before received that grace ; for 
 one Cyrillus, Greek by birth, learned in Latin as well 
 as in Greek writings, after the conversion of the 
 Bulgarians came in the name of the Holy Trinity and 
 the indivisible God to the people of Moravia for the 
 purpose of preaching there also the faith of Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. And when he had won them for Christ 
 he, by the grace of God, invented new characters and 
 translated into the Slavonic tongue the Old and New 
 Testaments, as well as other Greek and Latin works. 
 He also decreed that mass and the canonical horary 
 prayers should be read in the vulgar tongue ; and this 
 has been continued in Slavic countries up to the present 
 time, whereby many souls have been won for Our Lord 
 Christ. 1
 
 4 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [r 
 
 I may here incidentally remark that the custom of 
 using the national language in churches continued in 
 Bohemia for a long time, and was revived during the 
 period of the Hussite wars. During the existence of 
 the national church of Bohemia from about 1420 to 
 1620 the religious services were always held in the 
 national language. 
 
 The chronicle deals principally with the martyrdom 
 of St. Ludmilla, and with the murder of St. Wenceslas 
 still the patron-saint of Bohemia by his treacherous 
 younger brother Boleslav. Boleslav had invited his 
 brother to his castle that was situated near the town 
 that still bears the name of Mladd-Boleslav. I will 
 give a short extract from Kristian's account of the 
 murder, as it is the oldest version of the celebrated 
 legend of Wenceslas. After apologizing for the length 
 of his narrative, he writes : 
 
 * Very great sorrow hath many words, but I will en- 
 deavour not to delay long those who desire to know 
 somewhat of the sufferings of the holy martyr. 
 
 'Holy Wenceslas, who was soon to be a victim for 
 the sake of Christ, rose early, wishing, according to his 
 saintly habit, to hurry to the church that he might 
 remain there for some time in solitary prayer before 
 the congregation arrived ; and wishing as a good shep- 
 herd to hear the matins together with his flock and 
 join in their song, he soon fell into the snares that had 
 been laid ; for the priest of this church one of those 
 from whom this iniquity of Babylon proceeded ac- 
 cording to the commands of the evil ones, closed the 
 gates of the church as soon as he heard the goodly man 
 enter. Then the plotters that is, his brother and his 
 armed companions who were prepared, rose up. Then
 
 i] EARLIEST CHRONICLERS 5 
 
 seeing his brother, this chosen soldier of God thanked 
 him and embracing and kissing him, greeted him, 
 saying, " I salute you, my brother, may you be rich in 
 the goods of this world and of the next, and may 
 Christ admit you to His eternal banquet, you who have 
 yesterday feasted so lavishly me and my followers." 
 Then said Boleslav with proud spirit and fierce eyes, 
 drawing his sword, which he had concealed under his 
 cloak : " That was yesterday according to the circum- 
 stances, but this is the cheer which to-day one brother 
 will give to the other." Then brandishing his sword 
 he struck at his brother's head, but through the favour 
 of the Lord he scarcely drew blood ; for the horror 
 which he felt at the greatness of his crime was so 
 strong that even when he attacked his brother a 
 second time, he could not carry out his evil intent. 
 Then, the Holy Wenceslas endeavoured to seize his 
 bare sword, saying, "How evilly dost thou act by 
 wounding me." But when he saw that he by no means 
 abandoned his evil purpose, he as some say seized 
 him and threw him down at his feet, saying, " Behold, 
 thou seest, O man who knowest thyself lost, that I can 
 destroy thee like the meanest of beasts ; but never 
 shall the hand of a servant of God be stained with the 
 blood of his brother." Then he returned to his brother 
 the sword that he had taken from him, and with 
 bleeding hands hurriedly proceeded from the church. 
 But the wretched Boleslav followed him, and cried out 
 with a loud voice ; " My friends, my friends, where are 
 you? evilly indeed do you aid your lord, and little 
 help do you give him in his trouble." Then the whole 
 band of conspirators rushed from their hiding-place 
 with many swords and spears, and wounding him with
 
 6 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [r 
 
 many grievous wounds, killed him at the door of the 
 church. Then this saintly soul departed, victoriously 
 and with the laurels of martyrdom from the prison- 
 house of this world on the fourth day before the 
 calends of October in the year of the incarnation 928, 
 while the world mourned and the heavens rejoiced.' 
 
 As I have already mentioned, the exact date of 
 Kristian's chronicle is uncertain. We are on safer 
 ground when dealing with Cosmas of Prague, the 
 Bohemian Herodotus as he was formerly called. 
 Writing in 1125, he tells us that he was then an 
 octogenarian ; we may therefore assume that he was 
 born about the year 1045. He began writing late in 
 life, after the death of his wife Bozete'cha, and perhaps 
 to solace the sorrow which her loss to which he alludes 
 in a very feeling manner in his book caused him. 
 I should here mention that the celibacy of the 
 clergy was only introduced into Bohemia at a late 
 period. 
 
 Cosmas, who appears to have been of noble birth, 
 studied for some time at Luttich or Liege in Belgium, 
 and then took holy orders. He became canon and 
 afterwards dean of the chapter of Prague. In this 
 capacity he accompanied the bishops of Prague on 
 many political missions, and took a considerable part 
 in the politics of his country. Thus he was present 
 at the meeting of the German Diet at Mainz, at which 
 Prince Vratislav of Bohemia received the royal crown. 
 He was also employed on missions in Italy and 
 Hungary. Cosmas writes as a warm Bohemian patriot, 
 and it is curious to meet in the works of a writer of 
 the twelfth century with allusions to the 'arrogance 
 innate in the Teutons, who with incensed haughtiness
 
 i] COSMAS 7 
 
 despise the Slavs and their language.' Cosmas also 
 tells us that Libussa, the semi-mythical female ruler 
 of Bohemia, stated that it was more likely that a fish 
 should become warm under the ice, than that a 
 Bohemian should agree with a German. 
 
 Cosmas's Chronicon Bohemorum written in Latin, 
 as was the book of Kristian though obviously the 
 work of a man of advanced age, is certainly superior 
 to many similar chronicles which belong to this period. 
 His Latinity, of course judged from the low stand- 
 point of the twelfth century, is fairly good, and it is 
 obvious that Cosmas was a good classical scholar. He 
 frequently quotes Sallustius, Ovid, Virgil, Terence, 
 Lucan, and particularly Horace, who seems to have 
 been a particular favourite. Cosmas was not indeed 
 devoid of the ambition of himself writing Latin verses ; 
 thus he ends the second book of his chronicle with 
 these rather rugged lines : 
 
 'Siste gradum, musa, 
 
 Chronicis es iam satis usa 
 
 Carmine completo 
 
 Die, lector amice, valeto.' 
 
 Modern critics have indeed accused Cosmas of 
 attaching more importance to his Latin quotations and 
 to his classical reminiscences than to historical research. 
 This reproach is, I think, unfounded, and the great 
 Bohemian historian Palacky pointed out many years 
 ago that a large mass of original matter gathered 
 from the libraries of various Bohemian monasteries is 
 embodied in the chronicle of Cosmas. 
 
 The chronicle is divided into three books, which 
 were certainly written at different times and only 
 afterwards joined together to form one complete work.
 
 fc EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [i 
 
 This is proved also by the fact that the older MSS. 
 contain a separate dedication of each of the books. 
 
 The first book, as was usual with the historians, or 
 rather chroniclers of that period, begins with the 
 deluge. Cosmas, however, somewhat mercifully devotes 
 but little space to this early period and soon devotes 
 his attention to matters that have a more immediate 
 connexion with Bohemia. His account of the arrival 
 of the Cechs in Bohemia is very interesting. It is 
 hardly necessary to mention that they were not the 
 original inhabitants of the country, but that a Celtic 
 and then a Teutonic tribe previously resided in Bohe- 
 mia. At the time of the migration of the nations, the 
 Volkerwanderung, as the Germans call it, the Teutonic 
 tribe of the Marcomanni were replaced by the Slavic 
 tribe of the Cechs, whose previous residence was pro- 
 bably that part of Poland now known as the Austrian 
 province of Galicia. After giving a quaint description 
 of the solitudes of Bohemia for curiously no record of 
 the pre-Slavic inhabitants of Bohemia seems then to 
 have existed Cosmas describes the arrival in Bohemia 
 of the Slavs under their eponymous leader Cechus. 
 He states that the Rip (in German Georgsberg), that 
 is mountain of St. George, a high hill near Roudnic 
 overlooking the Elbe, was the site of the first Cech 
 settlement in Bohemia. This statement has since been 
 repeated by numerous Bohemian historians, and it is 
 probably historically correct. I will quote the account 
 of Cosmas ; he writes : ' When the leader of the Cechs 
 entered these solitudes it is uncertain by how many 
 men, seeking spots fit for human dwelling-places, he 
 was accompanied. He surveyed the mountains, the 
 valleys, the wild and the fertile regions, with a sagacious
 
 i] COSMAS 9 
 
 glance, and, as I think, established the first dwelling- 
 places around the mountain Rip between two rivers, 
 the Eger and the Ultava or Moldau, built the first 
 houses, and gladly placed on the ground the penates 
 which he had carried with him on his shoulders. Then 
 the oldest man, whom the others accompanied as their 
 lord, spake these words to his followers. " O com- 
 panions, who more than once have remained with me in 
 the depths of the forest, arrest your steps, offer a 
 thank-offering to your penates through whose miracu- 
 lous protection you have reached this your country 
 that has long been predestined for you. This, then, 
 is the land that I remember often to have promised 
 you, a land subject to no man, full of game and birds, 
 abounding with sweet honey and milk and as you 
 will perceive yourselves, a dwelling-place which its 
 climate renders pleasurable to inhabit. Here you will 
 be wanting in nothing, for no one will hinder you. But 
 now that this land, so beautiful and so great, is in your 
 hands, reflect as to what will be an appropriate name 
 for the country."" Then, as if moved by a divine 
 oracle : " Where could we find a better and more 
 appropriate than if we should call the land also Cechia, 
 as thou our father art called Cechus ? " Then their elder 
 moved by this augury began joyfully to embrace the 
 soil, rejoicing that it had received his name ; then 
 arising and lifting upward to the stars the palms of 
 his hands he began to speak thus : " Hail, land granted 
 to us by fate and for which we have prayed a thousand 
 times ; land that at the time of the deluge wert bereaved 
 of man, preserve us safely as a record for man- 
 kind, and multiply our offspring from generation to 
 generation."" '
 
 10 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [i 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to point out what clear traces 
 of the study and imitation of the classics this passage 
 shows. The words ' tendens ad sidera palmas ' are 
 taken almost verbally from the Aeneid. 
 
 In his account of these semi-mythical events Cosmas 
 wisely and conscientiously avoids attempting to define 
 their dates chronologically ; his method varies after the 
 year 894, which he gives as the date of the conversion 
 to Christianity of the Bohemian prince Borivog. Still 
 up to the year 1037, the year with which the first book 
 of Cosmas's chronicle ends, dates are only given occa- 
 sionally and little reliance can be placed on them. 
 Cosmas indeed admits this at the end of the first book. 
 He states that in the earliest part of his narrative he 
 had relied on but uncertain evidence, but he also declares 
 that should he continue his chronicle he will henceforth 
 only state certain and reliable facts. He writes : ' Up 
 to now I have dealt only with the events of the most 
 ancient times, but as St. Jerome says : " Differently do 
 we narrate the things we have seen, differently those 
 we have heard, and differently again those that we have 
 but imagined"; thus will we now better express what 
 we know better, and henceforth with the aid of God 
 and St. Adalbert we intend to narrate those events 
 which we have either seen, or truthfully gathered from 
 those who have seen them. 1 
 
 This statement cannot, however, be considered as 
 absolutely correct, at least with regard to the second 
 book in which Palack^, whose Wiirdigung der alien 
 bohmischen Geschichtschreiber that is to say, apprecia- 
 tion of the ancient historians of Bohemia is still the 
 standard authority on the subject, has discovered 
 numerous chronological and other errors.
 
 i] COSMAS 11 
 
 I have already mentioned that the second book 
 begins with the year 1037. It ends with the death, in 
 1092, of Vratislav II, the first of Bohemia's rulers who 
 bore the title of king. 
 
 The third and last book of the chronicle of Cosmas 
 is the most valuable one, as it deals with events many 
 of which occurred during his lifetime and in some of 
 which he himself took part. I choose for quotation 
 Cosmas 1 account of the murder of the nobles of the 
 Versovic family. This murder is one of the obscure 
 events in early Bohemian history. The Versovic 
 family, or rather clan, who appear to have held 
 a semi-independent position, had given offence to the 
 Pfemyslide princes who ruled over Bohemia. Prince 
 Svatopluk suspected two of the Versovic nobles, Vacek 
 and Mutina, of treachery during one of his campaigns. 
 The massacre that was the consequence of this suspicion 
 took place in 1108, during the lifetime of Cosmas, and 
 his very vivid account was no doubt derived from an 
 eye-witness unless Cosmas, as is quite possible, was 
 himself present at this tragic event. 
 
 After stating the causes of the resentment of the 
 princes against the Versovic lords, and mentioning the 
 warning that Mutina received, Cosmas writes : * After 
 they (the Versovic lords) had entered the castle of 
 Vratislar, the prince summoned for the following day 
 a meeting of all the great of the land. After they had 
 met then as a lion that has been let out of his cage 
 and steps on to the arena, and roaring and with erect 
 mane awaits his prey thus did Svatopluk enter the 
 council-chamber; he sat down in the middle of the 
 hall on the stone bench near the fireplace himself 
 more incensed than the fireplace in which burnt a
 
 12 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [i 
 
 sevenfold fire. Then, looking around him, he gazed at 
 Mutina with fierce eyes, and then furiously addressed 
 him thus : " Oh, hated race and brood that is detested 
 by the gods, evil sons of Versovic, household-enemies of 
 our race; will it ever escape my memory how you 
 behaved to my ancestor Jaromir, a prince whom you 
 indeed turned into ridicule, but whose fate is our eternal 
 shame; or shall I forget that your brother Bosy by 
 evil fraud murdered my brother Bfetislav, that eminent 
 star in the orbit of princes? What fate also had 
 deserved my brother Bofivoj, who ruled under your 
 control, and obeyed you as if he had been your pur- 
 chased slave; yet with your innate pride you would 
 not endure even the modesty of that prince, and you 
 vexed me with your cunning councils till I accepted 
 your advice, and sinning against my brother sinned 
 greatly by depriving him of the throne. This indeed 
 grieves me, and will grieve me for ever.' " 
 
 The speech that Cosmas has put into the mouth of 
 Svatopluk is too long to be quoted in its entirety ; but 
 I will quote the vivid description of the murder that 
 immediately followed the reproachful speech. Cosmas 
 writes : ' There was a confused murmur among the 
 audience, and by their approval they yet further 
 incensed the mind of the prince that was already burn- 
 ing with ire. Then the prince left the hall, after making 
 a secret sign to the executioner Cosmas calls him 
 " lictor " who was standing near him, and who was con- 
 scious of his intentions. The executioner immediately 
 attacked Mutina, who was unaware of the danger. 
 Oh, wondrous patience of Count Mutina ! Two blows 
 did he receive without moving, but when at the third 
 blow he attempted to rise from his seat, his head was
 
 i] COSMAS 13 
 
 struck off. At the same hour, and in the same hall, 
 Unislav, Domassa, and the two sons of Mutina were 
 captured. Another man, Nevsa, who did not indeed 
 belong to the clan, but who was an intimate friend of 
 Mutina, fled seeing what had happened, and would have 
 escaped from the castle through the shrubs if his red 
 tunic had not caused him to be recognized. He was 
 immediately captured and deprived of sight. And 
 as it often happens that a bloodthirsty wolf rages 
 and murders in the sheep-fold, and does not calm his 
 fury nor desist from slaughter till he has killed all the 
 sheep, thus Svatopluk, already stained with the blood 
 of one man, was now yet more exasperated, and he 
 decreed that the whole clan should, without distinction 
 of age, and without delay, be decapitated. He said to 
 the counts who were standing around him, "He who 
 fulfils my wishes will receive a large weight of gold, but 
 he who kills Bosy (one of the leaders) and his son will 
 receive hundredfold more than the others, and will 
 inherit their estates. 1 " 
 
 I cannot for want of time translate the account of 
 the great massacre that now ensued; it was one of 
 those sudden outbreaks of fury with which the usually 
 placid and peaceful Slavic race is sometimes seized, 
 and of which the massacre of the Streltsi by Peter the 
 Great and the recent tragedy at Belgrade are later 
 examples. 
 
 Before leaving Cosmas I will again draw attention to 
 the great influence which the study of the classics had 
 on him. Thus he speaks of the 'gods,' though the 
 Bohemians had accepted Christianity long before the 
 time of the massacre of the Versovic ; he writes of 
 * lictors,' and describes the fury of a hungry lion in
 
 14 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [i 
 
 a manner which shows that the Roman amphitheatre 
 was in his mind. 
 
 The chronicle of Cosmas for a long time enjoyed 
 great popularity in Bohemia, and was indeed for many 
 years the standard authority on the history of the 
 country. It is, therefore, natural that it found many 
 continuators, mostly ecclesiastics who wrote in Latin in 
 a manner similar to that of Cosmas. Such historians 
 were the writers known as the canon of the Vysehrad, 
 the monk of Sazava, Peter abbot of Zittau, Francis 
 provost of Prague, and many others. Their works have 
 great interest for the student of Bohemian history, but 
 speaking to a wider audience I do not wish to devote to 
 them time that I should rather devote to historians of 
 more general interest. 
 
 I should, however, give no faithful account of the 
 historians of Bohemia if I omitted to allude to the so- 
 called chronicle of Dalimil, the first historical work 
 written in the national language. I should here mention 
 that the late Mr. Wratislaw has given an account of 
 Dalimil's chronicle in one of his lectures on the native 
 literature of Bohemia in the fourteenth century, which 
 were delivered as the Ilchester Lectures for the year 
 1877 ; I have purposely avoided repeating statements 
 contained in these lectures that will be known to most 
 of those interested in Slavic matters. 
 
 It is doubtful who was the author of the chronicle 
 of Dalimil, which has been preserved in several MSS., of 
 which the most important is in the library of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge. It was formerly stated, on the 
 authority of a passage in Hajek's chronicle that was 
 wrongly interpreted, that the book was the work of one 
 'Dalimil, canon of the church of Boleslav. 1 Recent
 
 i] CHRONICLE OF DALIMIL 15 
 
 research has only proved that the writer was a layman, 
 and a Bohemian noble belonging probably to the 
 northern districts of the country. From the contents 
 of the chronicle it appears that the author began his 
 work in 1308, and finished it in 1316 ; of the events 
 from the year 1279 downwards he writes as an eye- 
 witness. 
 
 The chronicle of Dalimil has been printed several 
 times. The first edition appeared at Prague in 1620, 
 but was suppressed in the same year, after the battle of 
 the White Mountain, and the subsequent occupation 
 of Prague by Austrian-Spanish troops. The keynote of 
 the chronicle is intense hatred of the Germans, whose 
 warfare with the Slavs has continued almost uninter- 
 ruptedly from the arrival of the Cechs in Bohemia up 
 to the present day. Dobrovsky, one of the forerunners 
 of the Bohemian revival in the nineteenth century, very 
 truly writes : ' At no time was the Bohemian hatred of 
 the Germans so intense as during the period described by 
 Dalimil. His heroes, the Bohemian nobles and knights, 
 are great and brave when they drive the Germans out 
 of their country; weak and powerless are the kings 
 who heed the word of German councillors.' 
 
 In the beginning of his chronicle, the writer states 
 that it was his love for his nation that induced him to 
 write, though he was a knight rather than a scholar. 
 ' Of one thing, 1 he writes, ' I am full sure, that I have 
 my nation much at heart ; that has encouraged me in 
 this work ; that has impelled me ta work.' 
 
 I will only quote one passage from the chronicle ; it 
 is the one which tells of the marriage of Prince Ulrich 
 to the peasant-maiden Bozena. This passage also bears 
 witness to the intense hatred of the Germans which is
 
 16 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [i 
 
 so characteristic of the so-called Dalimil ; he writes : 
 'Prince Ulrich was hunting at Postoloprty; it befell 
 that when he rode through a village a peasant-maiden 
 was standing near a stream, barefoot and with bare 
 shoulders. Now the maiden was very beautiful, and 
 had a very bashful manner. Then the prince began to 
 admire her, and immediately he took her as his wife. 
 She bore the name of Bozena, and became a noble 
 princess, but the nobles were incensed against the 
 prince because of this marriage. Then the prince said 
 the nobles listened unwillingly "Peasants sometimes 
 become nobles, and sometimes sons of nobles become 
 peasants ; for inherited silver obtains nobility, and often 
 a poor noble is reduced to peasantry. We all descend 
 from one father, and he ranks as a noble whose father 
 had much silver. And as nobility and peasantry are 
 thus intermingled, Bozena shall be my wife. Rather 
 would I entrust myself to a Bohemian peasant-girl than 
 that I should take a German woman as my wife. Every 
 heart clings to its nation, therefore would a German 
 woman favour less my language. A German woman 
 will have German servants. She will teach my children 
 German, hence there would be strife in the nation and 
 the land itself would perish. Lords, you heed not your 
 own advantage when you gird against my marriage." ' 
 
 I have thought it well to translate this passage, not 
 only because it is characteristic of the innate hatred of 
 the Germans that has always existed in Bohemia, but 
 also because it bears witness to the somewhat demo- 
 cratic views of the ancient Slavs who in contrast to 
 the Latin and Teutonic races attached little importance 
 to ancestry. 
 
 The chronicle of Dalimil ends with the coronation
 
 i] BENES OF WEITMIL 17 
 
 of King John in 1310, and it is therefore appropriate 
 now to mention the writings of a chronicler who deals 
 principally with the reign of King John the Don 
 Quixote of Bohemia, as he has been aptly called. 
 I allude to the Latin chronicle of Benes of Weitmil, 
 a canon of St. Vitus's cathedral at Prague. The 
 chronicle is divided into four books, the first three of 
 which contain the history of Bohemia from 1283 to 1345. 
 The fourth book, which is much more detailed and 
 has little connexion with the first ones, contains accounts 
 of the last campaign and death of King John, and of 
 the events of the reign of King Charles up to 1374. 
 Benes, indeed, undertook his work by command of the 
 last-named patriotic sovereign, and is stated to have 
 been on terms of friendship with his king. The chronicle 
 of Weitmil formerly enjoyed great fame, and the learned 
 Jesuit Balbinus wrote in the seventeenth century that 
 * nothing could be more famous, nothing more truthful, 
 than this chronicle.' Palacky, whose Wurdigung der 
 alien bokmischen Geschichtschreiber is still the standard 
 work on the subject, has somewhat qualified this rather 
 exaggerated praise. He writes that the art of Weitmil 
 as a historian is not superior to that of Cosmas and his 
 continuators, though he certainly wrote of more stirring 
 events than his predecessors. 
 
 As being of interest to an English audience, I shall 
 quote part of Weitmil's account of the last campaign 
 and the death of King John. I should, however, 
 mention that Weitmil's account of this famous event 
 differs in some particulars from those of French and 
 English chroniclers, as well as from that of Palacky on 
 which the description of the death of King John which 
 I gave in my Bohemia, a Historical Sketch is founded. 
 
 c
 
 18 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [i 
 
 Weitmil tells us that the Bohemian king declared 
 for immediate battle and was opposed by the French, 
 while most accounts state that through the influence of 
 the Duke of Ale^on the French resolved to give battle 
 immediately, while King John, who had sent one of his 
 knights to reconnoitre the English position, advised 
 delay. All who know how very contradictory the 
 accounts even of recent battles are, will appreciate the 
 difficulty of forming an opinion with regard to a battle 
 fought in 1346. In any case the account of a con- 
 temporary writer is interesting. 
 
 Weitmil writes : * At this time the King of England, 
 having collected a very large army, began to devastate 
 the lands of the King of France, and hostilely measured 
 out his camp before the city of Paris. Then the King 
 of France, unable to resist him, sent messengers to 
 John King of Bohemia and his son Charles king-elect 
 of the Germans, who were then at Luxemburg. He 
 earnestly begged them immediately to come to his aid 
 with all the men they could collect, for there was no 
 time to lose and peril in all delay. Then the King of 
 Bohemia, collecting a large number of warriors, set out 
 with his son, the king-elect of the Germans, to aid the 
 King of France. 
 
 'The King of England, hearing of their arrival, 
 retreated with his men and took up a very strong 
 position between rivers and woods, so that no one 
 could in any way harm him. But King John and his 
 son, the king-elect of the Germans, were not content 
 that the enemies had fled before their faces. Though 
 the King of France objected and spoke against it, 
 they pursued the enemies to their strong position and 
 formed in battle-array, prepared to war against the
 
 il BENES OF WEITMIL 19 
 
 J \ 
 
 English. But the French marshal and his men, seeing 
 that the English were prepared to resist, turned their 
 backs and began basely to fly. When it was told to 
 King John that the French were flying, and he was 
 entreated himself also to seek in flight the safety of 
 his life and that of his men, he said : " God forbid that 
 a King of Bohemia should fly ; rather lead me there 
 where the battle is raging most fiercely. The Lord 
 be with us ; we fear nothing, but watch carefully over 
 my son." When he had been led to the battlefield 
 King John, struck by many arrows, was killed, and many 
 Bohemian nobles who were with him on August 26. 
 
 ' When some of the other nobles saw that King John 
 had fallen in battle and was dead, then fearing to lose 
 both their princes they led his son Lord Charles, the 
 king-elect (who was fighting fiercely in the front rank 
 and had already been struck by several arrows) out 
 of the battle, though he was reluctant and resisted 
 them ; they then conducted him to a safe spot. 
 
 ' When the battle was ended and the King of England 
 heard that King John had fallen, he caused his body 
 to be searched for ; and when it had been found he 
 solemnly, and with many tears, took part in the funeral. 
 He then delivered the body to his countrymen, saying : 
 " The crown of chivalry has fallen to-day. Never was 
 any one equal to this King of Bohemia." The knights 
 then took up the royal corpse and carried it to Luxem- 
 burg, where it was buried in St. Mary's church of 
 the Benedictine Order.' 
 
 Though, as we have just seen, Charles I of Bohemia 
 better known as the German emperor Charles IV was 
 a valiant warrior, yet it is as a patron of art and litera- 
 ture that he is best known to his Bohemian countrymen.
 
 20 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [r 
 
 Charles particularly encouraged the study of history, not 
 only by the patronage which he granted to historians. 
 Of the historians of the time Benes of Weitmil, of whom 
 I have already spoken, was most in touch with the 
 king, but we find that he afforded his protection also 
 to many of the writers known as the continuators of 
 Cosmas. Thus we are told that Charles in 1333 visited, 
 on his return from Italy, abbot Peter of Zittau, perhaps 
 the best of the continuators of Cosmas ; and that 
 Francis of Prague, a younger contemporary of Peter, 
 endeavoured to ingratiate himself with the king by 
 dedicating to him a new version of his chronicle. 
 Charles, very much to his credit, declined these overtures, 
 for Francis had in his chronicle written very severely 
 of John the father of King Charles. The financial 
 difficulties of King John had induced him to levy large 
 contributions from the churches and monasteries of 
 Bohemia. Such high-handed proceedings were naturally 
 distasteful to a dignitary of the Church such as was 
 Francis. 
 
 Other historians with whom Charles was in com- 
 munication were Neplach, abbot of Opatovic, who 
 accompanied the sovereign on some of his travels, and 
 Pfibik of Radenin, commonly known as Pulkava. The 
 last-named deserves a short mention. His personality 
 was long in dispute, and it was even suggested that the 
 chronicle that goes by his name was written by King 
 Charles, and that Pulkava merely translated it into 
 Bohemian from the original Latin. 
 
 The careful researches of Palackf, and more recently 
 of Dr. Tomek, have proved that the writer of the 
 chronicle was Pribik Pulkava, originally a layman and 
 rector of the collegiate school of St. Giles at Prague,
 
 i] PULKAVA 21 
 
 who took orders late in life, became rector of the 
 parish of Chudenic, and died in 1380. Though Pulkava's 
 chronicle is certainly not a work of Charles, it is equally 
 certain that that sovereign to use a modern expression 
 ' inspired ' the book. As a proof of the intimacy 
 between Pulkava and his sovereign, it should also be 
 mentioned that he translated the king's autobiography 
 to which I shall presently refer immediately after 
 it was written. 
 
 Pulkava's chronicle, like those of most of his con- 
 temporaries, begins with the deluge ; and he gives a very 
 curious account, obviously founded on very ancient 
 traditions, of the travels of the Slavs from the land 
 of Senaar through Greece and Turkey to their European 
 dweDing-places. The arrival of the Cechs at the Rip 
 mountain is described in a manner similar to the ac- 
 count of Cosmas which I have already quoted. 
 
 I have already mentioned that Pulkava translated 
 into Bohemian the Vita Caroli, the autobiography 
 of Charles, Emperor of the Germans and King of 
 Bohemia. I will now refer to this work, that is perhaps 
 more interesting because of the personality of its author 
 than because of its historical value. The book has 
 been little noticed by historians. The strong Bohemian 
 patriotism of Charles has always rendered him invidious 
 to German writers, and the name of ' Pfaffenkaiser ' 
 (' emperor of the priests ') which they have given him 
 has been adopted by other historians also. The im- 
 putation insinuated by this name is but partly founded. 
 It is true that the nature of Charles was superstitious, 
 or rather mystical. He thoroughly believed in visions 
 and apparitions, and constantly refers to them in his 
 book. His devotion to relics was as great as that of
 
 22 EARLIEST CHRONICLERS [r 
 
 Louis XI, though there is fortunately no other similarity 
 between the Bohemian sovereign and the King of 
 France. The complete list of the relics which Charles 
 presented to the various churches of Bohemia fills six 
 folio pages in the work of the learned Jesuit Balbinus. 
 
 On the other hand, it is but just to state that 
 Charles was by no means lenient to the evil ways of 
 the Bohemian clergy nor always so subservient to papal 
 authority, as his nickname would appear to indicate. 
 At the Imperial Diet held at Mainz in 1357, Charles 
 strongly opposed the claims of the papal legate who 
 demanded that a tithe for the papal court should be 
 collected from the German clergy. On the same occa- 
 sion Charles also requested the bishops to be more 
 attentive to the morals and conduct of their clergy, 
 and even threatened to seize the ecclesiastical revenues, 
 should they not be more worthily employed. It is also 
 a proof of the independent mind of Charles that he 
 granted his protection to the mystical Bohemian Church 
 reformer Milic, who not only severely blamed the terrible 
 immorality of the Bohemian clergy, but even in dogmatic 
 matters differed from the Church of Rome. 
 
 If we consider the great personality of its author, 
 the Vita Caroli is a somewhat disappointing book. 
 As Dr. Friedjung, who has written an able though 
 somewhat one-sided life of Charles, states, it is mainly 
 a description of the Lehrjahre (learning-years) of the 
 prince ; for Charles's autobiography ends with the year 
 1346. The book can be divided into two parts. The 
 first, in which Charles writes of himself in the first 
 person, contains reminiscences of his early youth up to 
 the year 1340. The second, which is very short, and in 
 which Charles writes of himself in the third person,
 
 i] CHARLES IV 23 
 
 carries on the narrative up to 1346, and ends with the 
 election of Charles as King of the Romans. The fact 
 that these two parts differ in many ways has led some 
 to conjecture that the first part only is the work of 
 Charles, and that some other writer the name of Benes 
 of Weitmil has been suggested had continued the 
 narrative. The best and most recent Bohemian authori- 
 ties oppose this view. The earlier part of Charleses 
 book is obviously founded on a diary, and it is possible 
 that when writing the latter part Charles may have 
 sought the advice of some of the chroniclers, whom his 
 passionate interest in history had induced him to invite 
 to his court. Yet the whole book is substantially the 
 prince's own work, and it is hardly necessary to men- 
 tion that from Julius Caesar downward many autobio- 
 graphers have written in the third person. Towards 
 the end of his book Charles mentions that he had 
 intended to continue his memoirs for thus the book 
 is perhaps most fitly described to a further period. 
 The pressure of work when Charles became King of the 
 Romans, then German Emperor, and after his father's 
 death King of Bohemia, no doubt prevented him from 
 carrying out this plan. Charles dedicated his book to 
 his sons, who were to succeed him 'on the twofold 
 thrones,' as he himself words it. I will quote a few 
 lines from the introduction. Addressing his successors, 
 Charles writes : * When after me you will reign adorned 
 with the diadem of kings, remember that I also reigned 
 before you, and that I was then reduced to dust and 
 the mire of worms. Thus will you also flit like a shadow 
 and fall as the vanishing flowers of the field. What 
 value has nobility and abundance of possessions, unless 
 you have also a pure conscience with the true faith and 
 
 t
 
 24 CHARLES IV [i 
 
 the hope of a holy resurrection ? Do not value your 
 lives, as do the impious who think evilly ; how little is 
 that which you are, for you were created and formed by 
 God out of nothing, and later you will return to nothing 
 as if you had never been. 1 
 
 Somewhat later in the introduction Charles writes : 
 ' For you, my successors, I have carefully written these 
 words, founded on wisdom and the fear of God, as far 
 as by divine help my feeble power has rendered me 
 capable of doing so. I wish now to write to you of my 
 vain and foolish life (de vana et stulta vita mea\ and 
 of the beginning of my passage through this world, 
 that these writings may furnish you an example ; nor 
 will I pass in silence the grace granted me by God and 
 that love of study which I have tenaciously preserved 
 in my heart. You may all the more hope for divine 
 aid in your labours, because your fathers and prede- 
 cessors have well instructed you. 1 
 
 Of the autobiography of Charles, the earliest parts 
 which deal with the Italian campaign, in which he 
 figured as a leader at the age of seventeen, are the 
 most picturesque. King John, whose warlike ardour 
 induced him to court adventures in all parts of Europe, 
 had, during a visit to the Tyrol, interfered in a quarrel 
 between the citizens of Brescia and Mastino della Scala, 
 lord of Verona, who endeavoured to subject Brescia 
 also to his rule. In 1330, John, who was accompanied 
 by his son Charles, entered Brescia and was en- 
 thusiastically received by the citizens. No doubt 
 largely in consequence of the chivalrous personality 
 of King John, numerous Italian cities, such as Bergamo, 
 Cremona, Parma, Modena, and others, accepted him as 
 their ruler; and even the powerful Azzo de Visconti,
 
 i] CHARLES IV 25 
 
 lord of Milan, recognized the supremacy of the King of 
 Bohemia. This very short rule of Bohemia or rather 
 the House of Luxemburg, for it was based on dynastic, 
 not racial motives in Italy has been very much 
 neglected by historians. John himself indeed recrossed 
 the Alps in the Spring of 1331, but he left in Italy, as 
 his representative, his son Charles, then only seventeen 
 years of age. There is no doubt that Charles then 
 began to keep the diary which is the foundation of the 
 Vita Caroli. Charles had established his rule in the 
 city of Parma, one of those that remained longest 
 faithful to the Bohemian dynasty. Though Charles 
 defeated in the great battle of Sanfelice the forces 
 of the Italian cities, yet the Bohemian rule in Italy 
 collapsed as suddenly as it had arisen, and Charles left 
 Italy before the end of the year 1333. This part of the 
 autobiography is most striking. With the enthusiasm 
 of youth Charles describes the details of his Italian 
 Avarfare, and his frequent accounts of his visions and of 
 apparitions render his narrative often very picturesque. 
 
 Of Bohemian affairs Charles's memoirs deal but 
 scantily, and without that thorough understanding of 
 the country which he afterwards acquired. He indeed 
 tells us that it was only on his return from Italy that 
 he thoroughly mastered the national language, and, as 
 he writes, ' spoke as the other Bohemians. 1 
 
 One of the most interesting parts of Charles's auto- 
 biography is his account of his visit to Avignon. He 
 and his father visited Pope Benedict, and Charles also 
 had an interview with his former tutor Pierre Roget, 
 who afterwards became Pope under the name of 
 Clement VI. Charles writes : ' Now when our father's 
 health did not improve, we went with him to Avignon
 
 26 CHARLES IV [r 
 
 to Pope Benedict XII, to negotiate with him concern- 
 ing the Peter's Pence that were to be paid in the 
 diocese of Vratislav 1 , but the negotiations were not 
 then successful and the strife might have continued. 
 Afterwards, however, the dispute between the Roman 
 Church and the bishopric was settled. 1 
 
 Somewhat later, Charles writes : ' Now at the time 
 when we were with the Pope, one Peter, Abbot of 
 Fecamp, born in the diocese of Limoges, who had been 
 first Bishop of Arras, then Archbishop, first of Sens 
 and then of Rouen, was cardinal-bishop. He was also 
 a member of the Council of King Philip, before whom 
 he celebrated Mass on the day of ashes. He received 
 me, who during my stay at the Court of Pope Benedict 
 bore the title of Marquis of Moravia, in his house, and 
 one day when we were in his house he said to me, 
 " Thou wilt yet be King of the Romans." To this 
 I answered, "Thou wilt before that be Pope."" Both 
 these facts afterwards occurred.' 
 
 Dr. Friedjung, the biographer of Charles, justly 
 regrets that he should have given so short an account 
 of this memorable interview, while he gives a detailed 
 account of the questions concerning his visions which 
 he addressed to the future Pope Clement VI. 
 
 Charles died in 1378, and his death forms a very 
 important landmark in the history of Bohemia. Almost 
 simultaneously with his death the great schism in the 
 Western Church broke. In the movement in favour 
 of Church reform, which was an indirect consequence 
 of the schism, Bohemia played a very prominent part. 
 I shall in my next lecture deal with the historians 
 of the Hussite period. 
 
 1 In German, Breslau.
 
 II 
 
 IT is deeply to be regretted that we possess com- 
 paratively scanty records of the history of Bohemia 
 during the period of the Hussite wars, the period on 
 which Bohemia's claim to historical fame principally 
 depends. It is against the works dealing with this 
 period that the terrible destruction of books instituted 
 by the Jesuits was principally directed. It is only 
 recently that it has been attempted to collect and 
 edit the contemporary records of the Hussite wars. 
 
 The great historian Palacky has ably pointed out 
 the difficulties that beset those who attempted this 
 task, thus refuting the foolish fables derived from 
 German or Roman sources that had hitherto done duty 
 as a history of the Hussite wars. For political reasons 
 into which I do not wish to enter here the Austrian 
 Government considered it desirable that these tradi- 
 tions which described the Hussites as brutal and cruel 
 fanatics, enemies of all order in Church and State, 
 should remain in vigour. This utterly false view has 
 adherents up to the present day, and it is only a few 
 years ago that a member of one of the greatest 
 Bohemian families though not of one of those which 
 dwelt in the country during the period of independence 
 declared in the parliament of Prague that he and 
 his adherents saw in the Hussites not noble heroes, 
 but a gang of robbers and incendiaries, the communists 
 of the fifteenth century. Hus, the speaker continued,
 
 28 THE HUSSITE WARS [n 
 
 must be considered the cause of a complete revolution. 
 The Reformation was a misfortune for Europe. Among 
 the Hussites there were few men of moral and honour- 
 able character. 
 
 It is perhaps hardly necessary to state before the 
 present audience that the Hussite movement was at 
 first an entirely religious one. The Hussites did not, 
 indeed, at first lay much stress on dogmatic distinctions, 
 but they principally strove to reform the discipline 
 and morality of the Bohemian clergy, which had sunk 
 to a level that it is almost impossible to imagine at 
 the present day. 
 
 The repeated invasions of Bohemia by savage hordes 
 collected from all parts of Europe, necessarily obliged 
 the Bohemians to defend their country, which indeed 
 they successfully did. Mediaeval warfare of course 
 was accompanied by horrible cruelties, but it has been 
 successfully proved by Palacky that the atrocities com- 
 mitted by the Romanist invaders of Bohemia who 
 wished to exterminate the whole population, as had 
 once been done with the Albigenses were in every 
 way greater and more terrible than the reprisals of the 
 Bohemians. 
 
 The period of the Hussite wars so greatly exceeds 
 in interest every other epoch of the Bohemian history, 
 that I shall devote to a notice of the writings dealing 
 with this stirring time more notice than is justified 
 by the number of those writings which have been pre- 
 served. I shall then briefly refer to the later historians 
 up to the year 1526 an important date, for it marks 
 the accession of the House of Habsburg and the be- 
 ginning of the Romanist reaction. 
 
 The first historian whom I shall mention is Peter of
 
 n] MLADENOVIC 29 
 
 Mladenovic, the biographer of Hus, whom he accom- 
 panied on his fatal journey to Constance. Mladenovic 
 took part in this voyage as writer or, as we should 
 say, secretary of Lord John of Chlum, one of the 
 Bohemian nobles to whom the Emperor Sigismund 
 had entrusted the task of conducting Hus safely to 
 Constance and watching over his safety there. Mlade- 
 novic was present during the whole trial and the 
 condemnation of Hus, and after the death of the 
 martyr returned to Bohemia, where he became a 
 prominent member of the moderate, or, as it was 
 called, the Calixtine fraction of the Hussite Church. 
 Mladenovic has left a detailed Latin account 1 of 
 Hus n s journey to Constance and his imprisonment. 
 This book is the foundation of all records of the last 
 days of Hus that can lay claim to any authenticity. 
 It was edited and published by Palacky in the nine- 
 teenth century, and was very little known previously. 
 This accounts for the fact that many totally ground- 
 less anecdotes referring to the death of the great 
 Bohemian were circulated and frequently repeated by 
 English as well as by Continental writers ; thus it was 
 said that an old woman had collected faggots for the 
 stake of Hus, that Hus had before dying predicted the 
 advent of Luther, and so forth. These unauthenticated 
 tales are not found in the contemporary narrative of 
 Mladenovic. Mladenovic, who has also left a short 
 Bohemian account of the martyrdom of Hus, writes 
 very plainly and with scarcely more grace of style than 
 the early chroniclers of his country. He himself admits 
 this in somewhat touching words, which I shall quote 
 presently. 
 
 1 Entitled Relatio de Magistri J. Hus causa.
 
 30 MLADENOVIC [n 
 
 I will give a short extract from Mladenovic's account 
 of the stay of Hus and his companions at Nuremberg, 
 the city to which they first proceeded after crossing 
 the frontier of their country. Mladenovic writes : 
 * When he (Hus) arrived at Nuremberg, on the sixth 
 day after St. Gallus l with the lords whom I have 
 mentioned, and they were dining, one Albertus, who 
 was, I think, parish priest of St. Sebaldus, came saying 
 that he wished to discourse amicably with them. 
 When Hus consented, several masters came, one of 
 whom was a doctor of divinity, as well as many town 
 councillors of the city of Nuremberg. They discussed 
 for four hours with the master (i.e. Hus) on all 
 current affairs with regard to which the name of the 
 master had been mentioned. When they had conferred 
 on all these matters, they said: "Truly, master, that 
 which we have heard is Catholic doctrine ; we have for 
 many years held and taught these same things, and we 
 still hold them and believe in them ; if there is nothing 
 else against you, you will come away from the council 
 and return with all honour." And then with a favour- 
 able opinion they all left together.' 
 
 This passage is very important, as proving that Hus 
 was at that time by no means considered by the 
 Germans as an enemy of their nation ; no one indeed 
 was less a hater than Hus, who, when imprisoned in 
 a cruel dungeon, repeatedly stated that he forgave all 
 his enemies. The true instigators of the murder of 
 Hus were enemies who were his own countrymen 
 an occurrence that unhappily has been frequent in 
 Bohemian history. Hus's doctrine of the poverty of 
 the clergy was naturally most obnoxious to the wealthy 
 1 The nineteenth of October.
 
 n] MLADENOVIC 81 
 
 and worldly Bohemian Church dignitaries, of whom he 
 has in his Postilla given us so biting and impressive an 
 account. It was these men, headed by John (sur- 
 named the ' Iron ') Bishop of Litomysl, who persuaded 
 Sigismund to break his word ; they were aided by some 
 of the inferior clergy of Bohemia, men who had 
 formerly been friends of Hus, and who now exhausted 
 all means of ingenuity and spite for the purpose of 
 misrepresenting the words of their former friend. 
 
 Want of time obliges me to quote from the record 
 of Mladenovic less extensively than I should have 
 wished. My regret is, however, tempered by the con- 
 sideration that two recent English writers, the late Mr. 
 Wratislaw and the late Bishop Creighton, have quoted 
 extensively from the book of Peter of Mladenovic. 
 I will, however, quote a portion of his last chapter, 
 which is entitled 'The last days of that holy and 
 reverend man, master John Hus, and his passion which 
 he meekly endured.' I must, of course, abridge the very 
 detailed narrative. After describing the judgement 
 passed on Hus in the cathedral of Constance on July 6, 
 1415, Mladenovic writes: .'When the judgement, as 
 stated above, had been delivered, then Hus with bended 
 knees prayed in a loud voice for all his enemies, saying: 
 "Lord Jesus Christ, I beg of Thee to forgive all my 
 enemies because of Thy great mercy. Thou knowest 
 that they have falsely accused me, brought forward 
 false witnesses against me, drawn up false indictments 
 against me. Forgive them because of Thy immense 
 mercy ! " When he had said this, many particularly of 
 the most prominent ecclesiastics looked indignantly at 
 him and began to scoff at him. 1 " 
 
 Mladenovic then describes how the ignominous cere-
 
 32 MLADENOVIC [n 
 
 monies of ecclesiastical degradation and deconsecration 
 were performed on Hus, and how he was led to the 
 ' place of torment, 1 which was in a field among gardens 
 beyond the walls and fortifications of the city. 'When 
 he was led forth, 1 Mladenovic writes, ' some laymen who 
 were standing near said : " We know not what this 
 man has done or said previously, but now we see and 
 hear that he prays and says holy words " ; and others 
 said : " Verily it were well that he should have a con- 
 fessor and be heard. 11 But a priest who was riding 
 near, clad in a green doublet lined with red silk, said : 
 " He may not be heard, nor may a confessor be granted 
 to him, for he is a heretic. 11 1 
 
 When Hus arrived at the spot of his martyrdom, 
 Mladenovic tells us : ' He prayed with a loud voice, 
 " Lord Jesus Christ, I will bear patiently and humbly 
 this horrible, shameful, and cruel death, for the sake of 
 Thy gospel and the preaching of Thy truth. 11 When 
 he was led past the spectators he addressed them, 
 begging them not to believe that he had ever held, 
 preached, or taught, the tenets that had been attri- 
 buted to him by false witnesses. He was then stripped 
 of his clothes and tied with cords to a stake, and his 
 arms were turned backward to the stake. When his 
 face was at first turned to the East, some of the spectators 
 said : " Let him not be turned to the East, for he is 
 a heretic, but to the West, 11 and it was done thus. 
 When a rusty chain was placed round his neck he said, 
 smiling to the lictors [Mladenovig thus designates the 
 soldiers or town-officials], " Our Lord Jesus Christ, my 
 Redeemer, was bound with a harder and heavier chain, 
 and I, a poor wretch, do not fear to be bound with this 
 chain for His sake." Now the stake consisted of
 
 n] MLADENOVIC 33 
 
 a thick pole which they had sharpened at one end and 
 driven into the ground in this field ; under the feet of 
 the master they placed two faggots and some loads of 
 wood. When attached to the stake he retained his 
 boots, as his feet were fettered with a chain. They 
 then heaped up round his body these wooden faggots 
 mixed with straw, so that they reached up to his chin.' 
 
 Mladenovic then mentions the last attempt of the 
 Imperial marshal, Happe of Pappenheim, to induce 
 Hus to retract his teaching, and then thus describes 
 the execution : * When the lictors lighted the pile the 
 master first sang with a loud voice, " Christ, son of the 
 living God, have mercy on us," and then again, 
 "Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me. 11 
 When a third time he began singing, " Who art 
 born of the Virgin Mary," the wind soon blew the 
 flames into his face ; then still silently praying and 
 moving his lips and head, he expired in the Lord. 
 The space of time during which, after becoming silent, 
 he still moved before dying, was that required to recite 
 two, or at the utmost three, Paternosters. 1 
 
 Mladenovic then tells us that the earthly remains of 
 Hus were thrown into the Rhine, that his garments, 
 to which the executioners had a traditional claim, 
 were also destroyed, 'lest the Bohemians should con- 
 sider them as relics, 1 and that the executioners were 
 compensated. 
 
 Mladenovic finishes his account of the death of Hus, 
 and at the same time his book, with the following 
 words: 'I have written in a very plain manner this 
 account of the famed master John Hus, his death and 
 his agony, which in the course of time have ever more 
 vividly been recalled to my memory ; for I considered that
 
 34 MLADENOVIC [n 
 
 I ought not by the ornamented composition of painted 
 words to deprive my narrative of its kernel, while the 
 sound of my words caressed the ears of my audience ; 
 rather did I think that I should truthfully record the 
 pith of the matter, the order of the events of which 
 I had knowledge, both by eyesight and by the testi- 
 mony of one who knew of these events telling no 
 untruths and admitting even the simplicity of plain 
 words.' 
 
 As both the friends and the enemies of Hus foresaw, 
 the death of the great Bohemian was the signal of 
 a general uprising in Bohemia. Though I should be 
 straying from my subject if I entered more closely into 
 this matter, I should yet point out that even in 
 accordance with the rough and cruel laws of those 
 days, the execution of Hus was a judicial murder. In 
 Bohemia it was felt as an insult to the whole nation, 
 and the Hussite wars were inevitable. 
 
 Though the record of Hus is, I think, pretty well 
 known in England, great ignorance I believe prevails 
 with regard to the Hussite wars. It is one of the 
 many merits of the great historian Palacky, who here, 
 as elsewhere, has been the pioneer of modern historical 
 research in Bohemia, that he has drawn attention to 
 the great importance of the Hussite wars. Had not 
 the genius of generals, such as Zizka and Prokop the 
 Great, enabled the Bohemians to beat back the forces 
 of all Europe in arms against the country, the esta- 
 blishment in Bohemia of a national Church which amid 
 various vicissitudes lasted for nearly two centuries, 
 would have been impossible. Hus himself, indeed, 
 would have figured in history only as an isolated 
 enthusiast like Savonarola.
 
 n] LAWRENCE OF BREZOV 35 
 
 Of the historians of the Hussite wars undoubtedly 
 the greatest was Lawrence of Brezov. The learned 
 Professor Goll, in his able introduction to his recent 
 edition of Brezov's history, lays great stress on this 
 superiority. Yet the name of Brezov, like that of so 
 many Bohemian historians, was almost unknown up to 
 the middle of the last century. It is true that in 
 Ludewig's Reliquiae, published at Halle and Frankfurt 
 in 1720, we find l the name of one Byzynius, who is 
 mentioned as the author of a Diarium Hussiticum^ but 
 it is not without difficulty that we ascertain that the 
 person referred to is Lawrence of Brezov. The re- 
 searches of Palacky, and more recently of Professor 
 Goll, however, throw considerable light on the person- 
 ality of the foremost historian of the Hussite wars. 
 According to Professor Goll, Brezov was born in 1370, 
 as a member of an ancient noble family of Bohemia, 
 and in 1394 obtained the rank of Master of Arts at the 
 university of Prague. Previously (in 1391) he had 
 through the favour of Queen Sophia, wife of Wen- 
 ceslas IV of Bohemia, obtained permission to hold an 
 ecclesiastical benefice, though he had not yet reached 
 the appointed age. As Professor Goll remarks, the 
 revenue appeared to him most important, for he had 
 no intention of formally entering the ecclesiastical state. 
 Brezov evidently enjoyed great favour at the court of 
 King Wenceslas, and according to a very probable con- 
 jecture held the office of secretary or chancellor to the 
 king. 
 
 Besides his great historical work which is written in 
 Latin, and a rhymed chronicle celebrating the im- 
 portant victory of the Bohemians at Domazlice (Tauss) 
 1 Tom. vi, p. 435.
 
 36 LAWRENCE OF BREZOV [n 
 
 which is in the same language, Brezov also wrote works 
 in his native tongue. Thus he wrote in Bohemian an 
 Interpretation of Dreams, no doubt intended to please 
 the not very cultivated taste of his patron King 
 Wenceslas, and a Chronicle of the World, parts of 
 which have been preserved in MS. He also translated 
 into Bohemian the Travels of Sir John Mandeville, 
 from a German version by Otto of Daymark. 
 
 But the most important work of Brezov is his 
 chronicle of the Hussite wars ; unfortunately it deals 
 only with a portion of that stirring epoch in the annals 
 of Bohemia ; he begins his work with the introduction 
 into Bohemia of communion in the two kinds in 1414, 
 a few months before the death of Hus. This is an 
 event of great importance, as it signified the secession 
 of Bohemia from the Western Church. The book breaks 
 off quite abruptly at the year 1421. It appears prob- 
 able that Brezov, of whom the last contemporary 
 mention dates from the year 1436, wrote the book late 
 in life, and that death overtook him while working at 
 his history. It is certain as Dr. Goll has skilfully proved 
 that the book was not written immediately after the 
 occurrence of the events which it describes. On the 
 other hand, the hatred and contempt with which Law- 
 rence invariably speaks of Sigismund * the Hungarian 
 king,' as he always calls him render it improbable that 
 his book was written in or immediately before the year 
 1436, at which time Sigismund was, though somewhat 
 reluctantly, almost universally accepted as king by the 
 Bohemian people. 
 
 Lawrence of Brezov writes as a thorough Calixtine, 
 that is to say, as a member of the more moderate 
 section of the Bohemian Church. He is equally opposed
 
 n] LAWRENCE OF BREZOV 37 
 
 to the Romanists and to the extreme or Taborite sec- 
 tion of the Hussite party. As Palacky has pointed out 
 in his note on Bfezov, that historian is often unfair to 
 the Taborites, and this is the more to be regretted as 
 all their own records have perished. He has to an 
 undue extent impressed on the Taborite leaders the 
 stigma of cruelty, though cruelties were committed by 
 all parties during the Bohemian religious wars of the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 The introduction to the chronicle gives insight into 
 the opinions and views of the prominent Bohemians 
 during the period of the Hussite wars. Bfezov writes : 
 'When I contemplate the present vast ruin and the 
 calamities of the once happy and famed Bohemian 
 kingdom, which is devastated and destroyed by the 
 discord of internal strife, then my understanding becomes 
 dull, and my mind bewildered by sorrow lacks the 
 vigour of intellect ; yet that the posterity of the 
 Bohemian race may not lack a record of this terrible 
 and indeed prodigious catastrophe, and may not through 
 perverse idleness again encounter such or similar mis- 
 fortunes moved also by the desire of preserving the 
 memory of what I perceived with truthful eyes and 
 ears, I have in the present pages recorded these facts 
 in writing. 1 
 
 Dr. Goll, whose introduction to his edition of Bfezov 
 is a masterpiece of historical criticism, justly remarks 
 that these words could not have been written during 
 the glow of triumph that immediately followed the 
 great Bohemian victories, but rather at a time when 
 the evils of even successful civil war became apparent. 
 Dr. Goll is, however, no doubt right in conjecturing that 
 Bfezov took notes at the time of the events he described ;
 
 38 LAWRENCE OF BB.EZOV [n 
 
 the intense vivacity of some of his battle-pieces, which, 
 if I may be permitted a vile anachronism, appear as 
 photographic snapshots before our eyes, bears witness 
 to this. 
 
 Bfezov deals in a rather cursory manner with the 
 events of the years 1414 to 1419, and it is only of the 
 events of the period which begins in 1419 and ends in 
 1421 that he gives us a detailed and moving account. It 
 should be noted that these two years, as regards their 
 importance, may well count for two centuries in the 
 history of Bohemia. The victory on Zizka's Hill was 
 the first successful fight for liberty in the Middle Ages. 
 The success of these armed bands of citizens and 
 peasants against half the nobility of Europe and their 
 countless followers, found an echo in all countries and 
 produced a democratic movement which has been little 
 noticed, and to which it is of course not my purpose to 
 refer here. 
 
 I will now quote part of Brezov's account of the 
 siege of Prague by Sigismund in 1420, and of the sub- 
 sequent Hussite victories in the two battles near 
 Prague that of the Zizkov and that of the Vysehrad. 
 Brezov writes : 'On the thirtieth of June, which was the 
 Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Peter the Martyr, the 
 Hungarian King Sigismund approached the [Hrad- 
 cany] castle l of Prague with a large army, consisting 
 both of Bohemians and of men of foreign nations. 
 After mass had been said, the king himself with some 
 of his principal followers was solemnly received at the 
 gates of the castle by the clergy, who then followed 
 him in procession amidst the ringing of bells and the 
 
 1 By the name of the castle of Prague Brezov always designates 
 the Hradcany castle, not the older acropolis on the Vysehrad.
 
 n] LAWRENCE OF BREZOV 39 
 
 singing of canticles and hymns. Meanwhile his army 
 was encamped on the plain between Bruska and 
 Ovenec ; it was intent on capturing Prague, which they 
 considered a heretical city because of its holy com- 
 munion by means of the chalice and its faith in the 
 gospel. To this camping-ground many and manifold 
 men flocked daily from all parts of the world, duchies, 
 provinces, and districts, because of the crusade which 
 the Pope had proclaimed against the Bohemians, 
 principally because they received communion in the two 
 kinds. They all came for the purpose of capturing the 
 glorious and magnificent city of Prague, hoping that 
 by thus destroying and frustrating communion in the 
 two kinds, they would obtain remission of their sins 
 and penalties ; for the priests had falsely promised 
 them this, thus in various ways inciting them to 
 murder all faithful Bohemians of both sexes. 
 
 * Now in this army, which consisted of a multitude of 
 more than 150,000 men, there were archbishops, bishops, 
 the patriarch of Aquileja, doctors of divinity and other 
 spiritual dignitaries, secular dukes and princes, about 
 forty in number, many marquises, counts, barons, and 
 nobles, and so many soldiers and camp-followers that 
 they covered the whole vast plain, and their magnificent 
 tents and encampments appeared as three vast cities. 
 There were here men of various nations, tribes, and 
 tongues, Bohemians and Moravians, Hungarians and 
 Croatians, Dalmatians, Bulgarians, Wallachians, Ru- 
 thenians [Racians], Slavonians, Servians, Prussians, 
 Thuringians, Styrians, men of Meissen, Bavarians, 
 Saxons, Austrians, men of Franconia, Frenchmen, 
 Englishmen, men of Brabant and Westphalia, Dutch- 
 men, Switzers, Lusatians, Suabians, Carinthians, Ara-
 
 40 LAWRENCE OF B&EZOV [n 
 
 gonians, Spaniards, Poles, Germans from the Rhineland, 
 and many others. These men stood on the tops of the 
 hills on the side of the river which is opposite the 
 monastery of the Holy Cross . [and the church of 
 St. Valentine], and, howling like dogs, threatened the 
 city daily, saying: "Ha, Ha, Hus, Hus, Heretics, 
 Heretics ! " and if any Bohemian fell into their hands 
 unless he was promptly rescued by the Bohemians who 
 were on their side they immediately burnt him merci- 
 lessly, even if he had never received communion in the 
 two kinds. 1 
 
 Bfezov then tells us how Zizka and his Taborites, 
 who, sinking all minor differences, had hastened to the 
 aid of Prague, fortified the hill then known as the 
 Vitkov, but which henceforth was always known as 
 the Zizkov or Zizka's Hill. They thus secured for 
 the party of Church reform communication with the 
 open country, where the peasants were everywhere 
 rising in arms against the German and other invaders, 
 while many Bohemian knights who sympathized with 
 the Hussite doctrine were also hastening to take part 
 in the defence of the venerated capital of Bohemia. 
 
 The Germans, Hungarians, and other allies of Sigis- 
 mund finally decided that a general attack on the city 
 should be made on July 14. Bfezov writes : * On the 
 Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Marguerite the whole 
 royal army was ready. It was decided that one part 
 of it, a few thousand men, should first seize the wooden 
 fortifications that Zizka had erected on the hill. When 
 this had been done three attacks were, according to 
 the instructions of the captains, to be made on the 
 city. From the castle 1 the Bohemian troops of 
 1 The Hradcany.
 
 n] LAWRENCE OF BREZOV 41 
 
 Sigismund were to attack the Saxon house l ; other 
 columns were to attack the new town from the Vyse- 
 hrad, and the old town from the Spital field V 
 
 Of the attack on the Zizkov, Bfezov writes: 'The 
 men of Meissen with their seven or eight thousand 
 horsemen ascended the hill with much clatter and the 
 sound of trumpets, and they occupied the wooden forts 
 and the small tower in the vineyards. When they 
 attempted to scale the wall that had been constructed 
 out of earth and stones, two women and one girl, and 
 with them about twenty-six men who had remained 
 in the earthwork, manfully defended themselves with 
 stones and spears, for they had neither arrows nor 
 firearms. One of these women, though unarmed, 
 surpassed the men in courage, and would not retire 
 from her post. " It is not beseeming," she said, " that 
 a faithful Christian should give way to Antichrist." 
 Thus fighting bravely, she was killed and gave up the 
 ghost. Zizka, who hurried to the spot, would himself 
 have been slain had not his men with their fighting- 
 clubs delivered him from the hands of the enemies. 
 Now while the whole city feared its ruin, and all were 
 with their children praying tearfully and placing their 
 hopes in heaven alone, a priest came to the hill carrying 
 the body of Christ in the sacrament, and behind him 
 followed about forty bowmen and some peasants who 
 were not in armour, but carried their fighting-flails. 
 
 ' The enemies seeing the sacrament, hearing the toll- 
 ing of the bells and the loud cries of the people, were 
 
 1 A building on the left bank of the Vltava, near the bridge of 
 Prague. 
 
 a At that time an open space on the site of the present Karlin 
 or Karolinenthal suburb of Prague.
 
 42 LAWRENCE OF BREZOV [n 
 
 seized by sudden fear, turned their backs and fled 
 hastily, each man striving to outpace the other. In this 
 sudden rush many were not able to control their horses, 
 and falling from the high rocks broke their necks, while 
 many were killed by the pursuers ; thus in less than 
 an hour's time more than four hundred men were either 
 killed, or mortally wounded, or led forth as prisoners. 
 After this the king with his army silently returned 
 to his encampments overwhelmed with fury, disgust, 
 lament and sorrow. But the men of Prague, kneeling 
 down in the Spital field, rendered thanks to God, in- 
 toning the Te Deum laudamus with loud voices ; . 
 for they knew that not through their own valour but 
 miraculously God had granted their small number 
 victory over their enemies. Then with hymns and songs 
 they joyfully returned to the city, and then the music 
 turned to delight, the sorrow of the women, virgins, 
 and children to rejoicing and gladness, all of whom 
 the enemies of the truth had intended mercilessly and 
 cruelly to murder as heretics and children of heretics ; 
 and all praised the mercy of God, who had powerfully 
 delivered them from the hands of their cruel enemies.' 
 
 The pages of Bfezov's book that deal with the 
 events at Prague and the battles that were fought 
 around the city are so stirring, that it is with real 
 reluctance that I refrain from quoting from them more 
 copiously than time will now permit me. The victory 
 of the Zizkov induced Sigismund the Hungarian king 
 to abandon the siege of Prague. After some futile 
 negotiations he for a time left the neighbourhood of 
 the capital, while the vast forces of the crusaders 
 dispersed to their various countries. The troops of 
 Sigismund continued, however, to hold the royal castles
 
 n] LAWRENCE OF BREZOV 43 
 
 of the Hradcany and of the Vysehrad. In the autumn 
 of the year 1420, the Hussites began to besiege the 
 Vysehrad, and Sigismund, wishing to relieve the gar- 
 rison, again approached the city of Prague. The 
 result of these movements was the battle of St. Pankrace 
 or of the Vysehrad, fought on November 2, which the 
 men of Prague justly considered as their crowning mercy; 
 for the defeat that they here inflicted on Sigismund 
 freed the Bohemians from his rule for a considerable 
 period, while the leading part that the citizens of 
 Prague had taken in this campaign obtained for their 
 town a temporary hegemony over almost all Bohemia. 
 I can quote only a small portion of Brezov's account of 
 this great victory. After enumerating the forces of 
 Prague, of the Utraquist nobles, and of the men of 
 some of the Hussite towns who together formed the 
 besieging army, Bfezov writes : * Thus the Vysehrad 
 was encircled in every direction, so that provisions 
 could not be brought into the castle either by any 
 footpath or by means of carts. Not a little terrified, 
 the men on the Vysehrad wrote to King Sigismund 
 begging for provisions, of which, they said, they had 
 great lack. The king in his haughtiness promised to 
 give them abundance of provisions and to drive back 
 the citizens of Prague ; in truth he did nothing for 
 five weeks, and for three weeks they were obliged to 
 feed on the flesh of horses. 1 
 
 After some fruitless attempts to revictual the 
 Vysehrad by means of boats on the Vltava, Sigismund 
 at last decided to give battle to relieve the garrison, 
 which had already agreed to capitulate if they did not 
 receive provisions within a certain time. Sigismund 
 had not this time a cosmopolitan army at his disposal.
 
 44 LAWRENCE OF BREZOV [n 
 
 His army consisted principally of the knights and nobles 
 of Moravia ; of these many were themselves partisans 
 of Church reform, but their dynastic or rather feudal 
 feelings overcame all other considerations, and they 
 bravely though reluctantly rallied round the standard 
 of the king. Of the battle of the Vysehrad, Brezov 
 writes : ' On the vigil of the day of All Saints the king 
 arrived at midday at the new castle of Kunratic, but 
 he was afraid of attacking on that day, as he expected 
 further levies from the Moravian lords. These men 
 arrived towards evening, and slept in armour in the 
 woods, that all should be ready on the following day 
 to drive from the field the Praguers and their allies. 
 During the night the king sent a messenger to his 
 mercenaries in the castle of Prague J , ordering them to 
 be under arms early in the morning, and descending 
 from the castle to attack the Saxon house and the 
 bridge-tower and if possible to burn them ; the king 
 himself would at the same hour drive the Praguers 
 from the field, as he had received large reinforcements. 
 * But God, who resists the haughty and is gracious to 
 the humble, decreed that the messenger with his letter 
 fell into the hands of the men of Prague, who were 
 warned by the tenor of the king's letter and learnt all 
 his plans. Therefore the commanders of the Praguers 
 vigilantly gave instructions to the people, decreeing 
 what post each leader with his men was to hold and 
 bravely defend on the morrow. Then it befell that, 
 when the fifteenth hour had passed, the king with from 
 fifteen to twenty well-armed men left the new castle 
 and approached the spot where the men of Prague 
 lay ; then, standing on the top of a height opposite 
 1 That is to say, the Hradcany.
 
 n] LAWRENCE OF BREZOV 45 
 
 the church of St. Pankrace, he drew his sword and 
 waved it in the air, thus calling on the garrison of the 
 Vysehrad to make a sortie against the Praguers, because 
 he with a large force, which they could not see, was 
 also preparing to attack the men of Prague. 
 
 'But as the king had by the grace of God missed 
 the time fixed by the agreement l , the captains of the 
 Vysehrad secured the gates of the citadel, allowing no 
 one to attack the city of Prague, though some of the 
 men who were Germans wished to do so. The nobles 
 in the royal army, seeing that the men of the Vysehrad 
 did not intend to help the king, and that the Praguers 
 were strongly entrenched, advised him to desist from 
 the attack on Prague; he would thus avert great 
 damage from his army. But the king said : " Avaunt 
 from me. I must assuredly fight with these peasants 
 to-day." Then Lord Henry of Plumlov 2 speaking 
 affably said : " Know, lord king, that you will incur 
 great loss to-day ; for my part, I fear the fighting-flails 
 of these peasants." The king answered, " I know that 
 you Moravians are cowardly and unfaithful to me." 
 Then the said Lord Henry with the other barons of 
 Moravia immediately leapt from their horses, and he 
 said : " We are prepared to go where thou sendest us, 
 and we shall be there where thou, O king, wilt not be." 
 Then the king assigned to them the most perilous spot, 
 ordering them to attack the Praguers in the low 
 grounds near the river, where there are many morasses 
 and fishponds. The Hungarians he ordered to march 
 
 1 The agreement between the citizens of Prague and the garrison, 
 stipulating that the latter should capitulate if not relieved before 
 a certain time. 
 
 1 The leader of the Moravians.
 
 46 LAWRENCE OF BHEZOV [n 
 
 through the upper grounds along the high road, and 
 thence to attack the army of Prague. They then 
 attacked in both directions the Praguers who, though 
 they were behind entrenchments, at first took to flight 
 and crowded round the church of St. Pankrace. Then 
 Lord Krusina *, seeing this, addressed them in a loud 
 voice, saying, " Dear brethren, turn back and be to-day 
 brave soldiers in Christ's war, for it is God's not your 
 own battle that you are fighting to-day ; you will see 
 that the Lord God will deliver into your hands all 
 His enemies and your own. 11 Hardly had he finished 
 speaking when some one cried out : " The enemies fly ! 
 they fly ! " Hearing this they all rushed manfully for- 
 ward, drove the enemies from the entrenchments and 
 turned them to flight. The Praguers and the nobles, 
 who were on their side, struck down cruelly those who 
 were flying, some near the marshes and fishponds, many 
 in the fields and vineyards. 1 
 
 A few, however, were spared, for Brezov writes some- 
 what later : * Lord Henry of Plumlov was mortally 
 wounded and made a prisoner; he was conveyed to 
 the cemetery of St. Pankrace, and expired there after 
 receiving communion in the two kinds. 1 
 
 Brezov then gives a long list of the Moravian nobles 
 who fell in this memorable battle. I will, however, only 
 quote the last words of his account, obviously written 
 just after he had visited the battlefield ; he writes : 
 * What man who was not more cruel than a pagan 
 could pass through these fields and vineyards, and view 
 the brave bodies of the dead without compassion ? 
 What Bohemian, unless he were a madman, could see 
 these dainty and robust warriors, these men so curly- 
 1 The leader of the national army.
 
 n] BARTOgEK OF DRAHONIC 47 
 
 haired and so comely, without deeply bewailing their 
 fate ? ' 
 
 It should be mentioned that Sigismund's distrust of 
 the Moravians, which caused him to assign to them the 
 most perilous post, contributed to arouse in their favour 
 the sympathy of their Bohemian countrymen. 
 
 Professor Ernest Denis, who in his brilliant work 
 Hus et la Guerre des Hitssites has translated into 
 French a considerable portion of Brezov's account of 
 the battle of the Vysehrad, truthfully writes : ' There 
 is nothing in history more touching than this grief of 
 the victors who deplore their victory, and forgetful of 
 temporary divisions and full of pity for their brethren 
 who have separated from them reserve all their hatred 
 for the foreigner who has encouraged internal strife, 
 profits by it, and strives to rule the country by the 
 destruction of all Bohemian parties.' 
 
 I feel that I have already devoted too much time 
 to the chronicle of Lawrence of Bfezov, though it is 
 the greatest some have said the only truly great 
 historical work that deals with the Hussite wars. 
 
 Together with his edition of Bfezov's chronicle, that 
 brilliant historian Professor Goll has also edited two 
 minor documents dealing with the Hussite wars. They 
 are the so-called chronicle of the university of Prague, 
 and that of Bartosek of Drahonic. The former work 
 is a mere compilation of writings derived from various 
 sources ; and even its tendency differs, as we find Hussite 
 sympathies in some and Romanist sympathies in other 
 parts of the book. The writer has copied extensively 
 from the chronicle of Brezov. The chronicle of Bartosek 
 of Drahonic is the work of a soldier, and warlike 
 deeds obviously alone had interest for the writer. He
 
 48 ZIZKA [n 
 
 served in the armies of Sigismund it may be noted 
 that he was one of the king's men who garrisoned the 
 Vysehrad, and he writes as a royalist and a Romanist. 
 Yet that strange antipathy to everything German which 
 is innate in the Bohemian appears in his book also. 
 Thus, when referring to the death of Albrecht of 
 Habsburg, who for a short time succeeded Sigismund 
 as King of Bohemia, he writes : ' He died, after an 
 illness of some weeks, about the octave of St. Gallus ; 
 may his soul rest in peace, for he was a good man 
 though a German, brave and merciful. 1 
 
 Before referring to some other chroniclers belonging 
 to this period whose writings have been edited and 
 collected in one volume by Palacky, I must mention 
 the name of the great Bohemian general John Zizka 
 of Trocnov. Though Zizka is undoubtedly known as 
 a maker rather than a writer of history, yet I feel 
 justified by the example of Bohemian writers on the 
 literature of the country in including Zizka among the 
 historians of Bohemia. Very scant but very precious 
 relics of Zizka's writings have been preserved ; they 
 consist of a war-song that has aptly been named the 
 Bohemian Marseillaise of the fifteenth century, a docu- 
 ment containing the regulations of war used by the 
 Hussites which give a strange insight into the thoroughly 
 democratic organization of the Bohemian armies, and of 
 several letters on political and military subjects. Of 
 these the most valuable is the celebrated letter ' to the 
 allies of Domazlice. 1 I do not hesitate to affirm that 
 this letter, plain and matter of fact as it is, is perhaps 
 the most valuable record of the Hussite wars. The 
 citizens of Domazlice J , a Bohemian town not far from 
 1 In German, Tauss.
 
 n] ZIZKA 49 
 
 the Bavarian frontier, were in consequence of their 
 geographical situation very much exposed to German 
 attacks. Obviously rather despondent, they applied to 
 Zizka for aid. The following is Zizka's reply : ' May 
 God grant that you may return to your former reliance 
 and be the first to do worthy deeds, O dear brethren in 
 God. I beg you, for the sake of the Lord God, to 
 remain in the fear of God, as His most beloved sons, 
 and not to complain if He chastises you. Remembering 
 the founder of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, you will 
 defend yourselves bravely against the wrongs which these 
 Germans endeavour to inflict on you. You will thus 
 follow the example of the ancient Bohemians, who 
 valiantly using their lances, defended both God's cause 
 and their own. And we, dear brethren, seeking the 
 law of God and the good of the commonwealth, will do 
 all that is in our power that every one of our men who 
 is able to wield a club, or even to hurl a stone, should 
 march to your aid. And therefore, dear brethren, be it 
 known to you that we are collecting our men from all 
 parts of the country against these enemies of God and 
 devastators of the Bohemian land. Therefore instruct 
 your clergy, that they may when preaching rouse the 
 people against the armies of Antichrist. Let it also be 
 proclaimed in the market-place that all able men, young 
 or old, must be ready at any moment. And we, God 
 willing, will be shortly with you. Have bread, beer, 
 fodder for the horses ready, as well as all weapons of 
 war. For indeed it is time to march not only against 
 the internal enemies, but also against the foreigners. 
 Remember your first campaign, when you fought 
 bravely, humble men against the great, few against 
 many, unclothed against men in armour. For the arm
 
 50 THE HUSSITE WARS [n 
 
 of God has not been shortened. Therefore trust in 
 God and be ready. May the Lord God grant you 
 strength ! ' 
 
 It is hardly necessary to draw attention to the strongly 
 Cromwellian ring of this stirring letter. I may here note 
 that when I, writing some years ago, compared Zizka 
 to Cromwell, I was quite unaware of the fact that this 
 comparison had been made some years before by the 
 late Bishop Creighton. 
 
 I have already alluded to the collection of ancient 
 chronicles, belonging to the period of the Hussite wars, 
 which was edited by Palack^. They are all written in 
 the national language, and are a true but little-explored 
 storehouse for Bohemian historical research. Time 
 obliges me to refrain almost entirely from quotation. 
 Among the most interesting parts of the chronicle is 
 the account of Zizka's invasion of Hungary in 1423, by 
 means of which he hoped to force Sigismund to re- 
 nounce his claims to the Bohemian crown. Though 
 Zizka obtained brilliant successes, the constant attacks 
 of the Hungarian horsemen finally obliged him to re- 
 treat, and it was in this retreat that Zizka's military 
 genius appeared more clearly than on any other occasion. 
 Professor Leger, who has translated into French a con- 
 siderable portion of the account of Zizka's Hungarian 
 campaign, writes : ' This account written by Xenophon 
 in good Greek of Athens would no doubt have become 
 a classic ; but it was unfortunately written in Bohemian 
 by a contemporary, probably an eye-witness.' Another 
 intensely interesting part of this chronicle is the account 
 of the death of Zizka. The chronicler writes : * Here 
 at Pribyslav brother Zizka was seized with a deadly 
 attack of the plague, and gave his last instructions to
 
 n] AENEAS SYLVIUS 51 
 
 his faithful brother-Bohemians, saying that fearing 
 their beloved God they should firmly and faithfully 
 defend God's law in view of His reward in eternity. 
 And then, after brother Zizka had commended his soul 
 to God, he died on the Wednesday before St. Gallus.' 
 So many repulsive tales which I shall presently have 
 to notice briefly were afterwards circulated with regard 
 to Zizka's last moments, that this authentic account, 
 probably that of an eye-witness, has great interest. To 
 a Bohemian the peaceful end of Zizka appears most 
 fitting. He who had so often fought what he firmly 
 believed to be God's battle assuredly did not dread 
 entering into God's peace. 
 
 It is more because tradition has decreed that Pope 
 Pius II should be counted among the historians of the 
 Hussite war than because the book has any value, that 
 I must briefly allude to the De Bohemorum Origine 
 et Gestis Historia of Aeneas Sylvius. The writer, 
 a thorough scholar of the period of the Renaissance, 
 has written his book in the then fashionable Latinity 
 teeming with classical reminiscences. Thus the account 
 of the death of the two Prokops at the battle of Lipan, 
 which closed the Hussite wars, is obviously modelled 
 on Sallust's account of the deaths of Catiline and 
 the man of Faesulae. This manner of writing often 
 very effective when dealing with the Italians of the 
 Renaissance who were not really so very different 
 from their forefathers is totally out of place when 
 writing of the rugged, northern Puritan Bohemians. 
 
 Many untruthful tales concerning Bohemia that 
 have since been incessantly repeated, are due to 
 Aeneas Sylvius ; among these is his report of the 
 death of Zizka, whom he describes as dying blas-
 
 52 BARTOS [n 
 
 pheming and ordering his skin to be used as a drum. 
 It is difficult to read anything more repulsive than this 
 account of the death of a man who, though not un- 
 touched by the cruelty of his time, was according to 
 his own lights a fervent Christian and a true Bohemian 
 patriot. 
 
 The two last historians of this period whom I shall 
 mention are Bishop Dubravius of Olmiitz, and Bartos, 
 surnamed ' the writer. 1 Dubravius has left us a Latin 
 history of Bohemia from the earliest period to the 
 accession of Ferdinand I in 1526. The book has little 
 historical value ; of the Hussite wars Dubravius writes 
 as a strong and not very scrupulous partisan of 
 Rome. 
 
 More interesting is the book of Bartos, or Bar- 
 tholomew, surnamed * the writer. 1 The book of Bartos, 
 who was a town official at Prague, is written in 
 Bohemian, and is entitled Chronicle of the Seditions 
 and Tumults at Prague. It deals with a period of 
 only fifteen years, and treats of the troubles caused 
 by two rival demagogues, Hlavsa and Pasek that 
 broke out at Prague during the reign of the weak King 
 Louis. The portraits of the two rival demagogues are 
 very striking, but I have not time to quote them here. 
 Those interested in the matter will find a translation 
 of this part of Bartons book in my History of 
 Bohemian Literature. Interesting also are Bartos's 
 account of the election of Ferdinand I in 1526, and 
 of the introduction of Lutheranism into Bohemia, 
 which for a time diminished the usual antipathy 
 between Bohemians and Germans. 
 
 The Chronicle of Bartos carries the history of 
 Bohemia on to the year 1526. That year is a great
 
 n] BARTOS 53 
 
 landmark in the history of the country. It is the year 
 of the accession of the House of Habsburg. The first 
 attempts to transform the Bohemian monarchy from 
 an elective to a hereditary one date from this time, 
 and the reaction in favour of Rome begins at the same 
 date. I shall in my next lecture treat of the historians 
 of Bohemia from this period up to the year 1620, 
 which for a time almost marks the extinction of the 
 Bohemian nation.
 
 III 
 
 year 1526 is a very important landmark in the 
 J- history of Bohemia. It was in this year that Fer- 
 dinand of Habsburg, brother of Anne, widow of the 
 late King Louis, was elected King of Bohemia. The 
 election was secured with great difficulty, and by means 
 that were far from being scrupulous. Simultaneously 
 with the foundation of a new dynasty the almost 
 extinct Romanist creed again began to gather strength. 
 There is, of course, a close connexion between these two 
 events, for even at that time the unwritten but almost 
 unbroken alliance between the House of Habsburg and 
 the Roman See had already long been in existence. 
 
 Though Ferdinand was, particularly at the beginning 
 of his reign, somewhat tolerant and conciliatory toward 
 his Bohemian subjects, it is certain that he always 
 wished to be considered hereditary ruler and not 
 elected King of Bohemia. These endeavours of the 
 king to enlarge his power estranged the Bohemians, 
 who have always valued their ancient constitution, and 
 Ferdinand's leaning to the Church of Rome caused 
 great discontent. 
 
 This feeling of discontent culminated in the out- 
 break of 1546. Of this struggle we possess a careful 
 and valuable account, written in Bohemian by Sixt 
 of Ottersdorf. Sixt, born in 1500, took no incon- 
 siderable part in the events which he has recorded. 
 As early as in 1537 we find him mentioned as town
 
 m] SIXT OF OTTERSDORF 55 
 
 clerk of the city of Prague, and he was chancellor of the 
 city in the momentous year 1546. Sixt's book, entitled 
 Acts and record-book of those troubled years 1546 and 
 1547, deals with the conflict between Ferdinand I and 
 the Bohemian Estates caused by the troubles that broke 
 out in Germany in 1546. The German Lutherans had 
 risen in arms against the Emperor Charles, and his 
 brother Ferdinand requested the Bohemians to aid the 
 imperial cause. The Bohemians mostly members of 
 the Reformed Church refused this request, and even 
 entered into negotiations with the German Protestants, 
 whose leader Frederick, Elector of Saxony, was a neigh- 
 bour of Bohemia. While the Bohemians were still 
 undecided, the battle of Miihlberg was fought on 
 April 27, 1547, and the power of the German Pro- 
 testants was for a time completely broken. The 
 Bohemians, who had done nothing to aid the Elector 
 of Saxony, but much to irritate Ferdinand, now decided 
 to send a deputation of which Sixt was a member 
 to their king to convey to him their congratulations 
 on the victory of the imperial arms. The envoys met 
 the King of Bohemia in the camp before Wittenberg, 
 which the imperial forces were then besieging. Sixt's 
 account of the voyage of the envoys through the 
 devastated lands of Saxony is very interesting ; very 
 curious also is his account of the meeting of the 
 Bohemians with King Ferdinand, whom they first saw 
 at a distance * walking among the tents while saying 
 his hours or paternosters.' 
 
 The king returned an evasive answer, and shortly 
 afterwards marched into Bohemia. After a short stay 
 at Litomerice 1 , he advanced on Prague and occupied 
 1 In German, Leitmeritz.
 
 56 THE BLOODY DIET [in 
 
 the capital almost without resistance. If we consider 
 the rough justice of those days, it may be said that 
 the Bohemians were treated somewhat mercifully. 
 Only four men two knights and two townsmen were 
 decapitated. The executions took place at the gates 
 of the Hradcany Palace on the day on which the Diet 
 henceforth known as the * bloody Diet' met there. 
 The nobles and knights indeed preserved most of their 
 privileges, but the citizens suffered considerably. The 
 autonomy of the towns was greatly limited, and royal 
 officials to a great extent replaced those that the citizens 
 had hitherto freely elected. Sixt himself was deprived 
 of his office of chancellor of the city of Prague. 
 
 Sixt's book, written very shortly after the events 
 with which it deals, mirrors the despondency that 
 overcame the Bohemian townsmen after the curtail- 
 ment of their autonomy. A man gifted with great 
 political insight, such as was Sixt, probably saw 
 through the crafty policy of Ferdinand. The peasantry 
 had lost its power since the establishment of serfdom. 
 The citizens, who hitherto had mainly upheld the 
 independence of the country, were now to lose a large 
 part of their political weight. There remained the 
 nobles and knights, among whom the influence of the 
 Jesuits was already beginning to spread. Absolutism 
 and Romanism seemed already to loom in the distance. 
 
 This despondency shows very clearly in Sixt's Intro- 
 duction, from which I shall quote a few words; he 
 writes : * We have in these days lived to see in reality 
 those things which by divine visions terrified and 
 frightened our ancestors, who said "even should the 
 Almighty God deign to prolong our lives, we do 
 not desire it; neither do we wish to remain longer
 
 m] SIXT OF OTTERSDORF 57 
 
 in this world"; and during the plague [which preceded 
 the troubles of 1546] we heard little innocent children 
 say to their parents, who wept over them : " You weep 
 over us, but after a few years you will, in consequence 
 of the troubles that will come over you, wish yourselves 
 dead rather than alive !"' 
 
 Before dealing with the national movement, Sixt 
 gives a detailed account of the meetings of the 
 Bohemian Diets, at which he was himself present as one 
 of the representatives of the city of Prague. He writes : 
 ' The public Diets, that were formerly a general meeting 
 of the Estates, have already been reduced to this, that 
 two or three men only meet and, what is worse, the 
 king, with his German and Italian councillors, ex- 
 amines all decisions and overrules them when he sees 
 fit to do so, and he suppresses all that is displeasing 
 to him ; the Estates have thus no longer the power and 
 liberty of deciding on anything that may be good and 
 useful for the kingdom, and the disorder has become so 
 great that for some years, indeed, almost since the 
 beginning of his l reign, we find no decree inscribed 
 in the statute-book that was useful to the common- 
 wealth, but only such as dealt with taxes, contributions, 
 and other matters tending to strengthen the royal 
 prerogative/ 
 
 The weakness and irresolution of the Bohemians, who 
 could not decide upon either supporting their king or 
 aiding the German Protestants, their indignation that 
 the king should engage in foreign warfare without the 
 consent of the Diet, and that he should introduce 
 foreign mercenaries into the land all this is very ably 
 set forth by Sixt. He writes: 'The conviction that 
 1 Ferdinand I.
 
 58 WENCESLAS HAJEK [m 
 
 the king had taken the field not only for the purpose 
 of suppressing religious liberty, but that he was also 
 preparing to destroy the constitution of the land, 
 became general. It was, indeed, a thing unheard of 
 that the king should undertake any war whatever in 
 the name of the kingdom without the consent of the 
 Estates, and that he should order them to grant him 
 financial aid according to his own valuation, threaten- 
 ing them with the severest punishments. Besides this, 
 the Italians and other foreigners used threatening 
 language to the citizens of Prague, openly saying that 
 in a short time they would acquire for nothing the 
 houses, the wives and the daughters of the Bohemians, 
 and that they would wade in their blood ; they also 
 called the Bohemians traitors and heretics.' 
 
 I cannot, of course, follow Sixt in his account of the 
 mismanaged and ineffectual national rising, and I have 
 already briefly referred to the penalties which were its 
 consequence, and which appear a slight foreshadowing 
 of the terrible events of 1621. 
 
 Sixt's book is still little known, and even now no 
 complete printed edition exists, though a considerable 
 portion was reprinted by Professor Tieftrunk 1 , while 
 Professor Denis and I have translated some parts of 
 the book into French and English. 
 
 A contemporary of Sixt, but an historian of a very 
 different character, was Wenceslas Hajek of Libocan. 
 His book, which was * inspired,' never shared the com- 
 plete oblivion that was for a long time the fate of most 
 books written in the Bohemian language. Hajek's 
 book therefore became famous, and the author, who 
 
 1 In his Odpor atavu ceskfoh proti Ferdinandovi I, i.e. Resistance 
 of the Bohemian Estates to Ferdinand 7.
 
 in] WENCESLAS HAJEK 59 
 
 was known as the ' Bohemian Livy,' ranked as a great 
 historian. It is since Palacky's valuable work, Wiirdi- 
 gung der bohmischen Geschichtschreiber (An Appreciation 
 of the Historians of Bohemia) appeared, that public 
 opinion has completely changed with regard to Hajek. 
 Palacky has clearly proved not only that Hajek was 
 entirely devoid of historical criticism no uncommon 
 failing at his time but that he purposely distorted 
 historical facts. This applies particularly to the period 
 of the Hussite wars, the most important one in the 
 annals of Bohemia. His constant purpose is to describe 
 the deeds of the Bohemians of this period and the 
 motives of their leaders in the most unfavourable light. 
 His book shares with that of Aeneas Sylvius the 
 somewhat doubtful merit of having been, up to the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century, the very impure 
 source from which all those drew who wrote on the 
 history of Bohemia. Hajek's work was translated into 
 Latin and German at an early date, and it obtained 
 many readers. The book was published under the 
 patronage of Ferdinand I, to whom it was dedicated. 
 Hajek, as he himself states, had been working for 
 six years at his book before he finished it in 1553, and 
 he addressed a petition to the king begging him to 
 grant him a 'privilege' assure his copyright as we 
 should say for ten years. To this Ferdinand con- 
 sented, but he at the same time appointed several 
 officials who were 'diligently to sit in judgement on 
 this chronicle, carefully to look it through, and to 
 strike out and efface whatever in it they might find 
 disorderly.' 
 
 Hajek's book may therefore be considered as having 
 been written by order of the Government, who of
 
 60 WENCESLAS HAJEK [in 
 
 course favoured absolutist and Romanist views. Of 
 course, this tendency is not very obvious in the earliest 
 part of the work, where Hajek reproduces the tales 
 and often the very words of Cosmas and Dalimil ; but 
 from the time of Hus downward the book is a deliberate 
 and unscrupulous attempt to falsify history. Hajek 
 has not attempted to relate the facts connected with 
 the reign of his patron, for his history ends with the 
 coronation of Ferdinand I at Prague. 
 
 Of Hajek's life little is known. We know, however, 
 that he was born an Utraquist, but joined the Church 
 of Rome at an early age. He appears to have been a . 
 man of strong and somewhat unscrupulous ambition. 
 We read that as early as in 1524 the exact year of 
 birth is uncertain, but he must at any rate then have 
 been very young Hajek preached in the church of 
 St. Thomas at Prague. Some time later he obtained 
 the rich deanery of Karlstyn, of which he was after- 
 wards deprived, being accused of having embezzled 
 money belonging to the deanery. About this time he 
 began to write his history, perhaps with the intention 
 of regaining the favour of King Ferdinand and of the 
 Romanist nobles who had granted him their protection. 
 It is no doubt in consequence of this that Hajek's book 
 redounds with effusive praise of the nobility, while he 
 writes somewhat contemptuously of the townsmen. 
 
 Hajek appears for a time to have been successful in 
 his attempt to regain the favour of his patrons, for we 
 are told that the provostship of Stara Boleslav l was 
 granted to him. This dignity, however, he also appears 
 soon to have forfeited by various offences against 
 canonical law. He finally retired to the Dominican 
 1 In German, Alt-Bunzlau.
 
 m] JAN BLAHOSLAV 61 
 
 monastery of St. Anne at Prague, where he died in 
 1553. 
 
 Among the historians of the period beginning with 
 1526 and ending with 1620, with whichl am now dealing, 
 the writers belonging to the community of the Bohemian 
 Brethren undoubtedly held a very high rank. It is true 
 that this is to a certain extent but a conjecture, for 
 during the period of reaction that followed the battle of 
 the White Mountain, the works of the Brethren were 
 specially marked out for destruction by the Jesuits. I 
 shall have occasion in my next lecture, when referring 
 to Dr. Gindely's history of the Bohemian Brethren, 
 again to refer to this interesting community. It is 
 sufficient here to note that the Brethren very carefully 
 preserved all historical records, and, of course, principally 
 all documents that referred to the past of their own 
 community. The archives which they established first 
 at Zamberk 1 and afterwards at Litomysl must have 
 contained many documents of priceless value for the 
 history of Bohemia. Of these writers who belonged to 
 the community of the Brethren, Brother Jan Blahoslav 
 certainly enjoyed the greatest fame. His Historic 
 Bratrslcd (History of the Brotherhood), of which but 
 scanty fragments have been preserved, was greatly 
 praised by his contemporaries, not only for its erudition 
 and profoundness it was based on the archives of the 
 community but also for the pureness of its Bohemian 
 style. It is one of the great merits of the Brethren 
 that they bestowed great pains on the development of 
 the national language. A memorial of these en- 
 deavours is the Bohemian version of the Bible known 
 as the Bible of Kralice. It was published about the 
 1 In German, Senftenberg.
 
 62 JAN BLAHOSLAV [in 
 
 end of the sixteenth century, and was the joint work of 
 several divines of the Brotherhood. 
 
 Brother Blahoslav was a very prominent member of 
 the community. According to Dr. Jirecek, who has 
 published an interesting study of him, Blahoslav was 
 born at Pferov, in Moravia, in 1523, of a family that 
 was probably of noble descent. Early in life he visited 
 Wittenberg and attended Luther's sermons. Their 
 influence on him seems to have been very great, as he 
 became a member of that section of the Brotherhood 
 which was in close touch with the German Reformers. 
 During a later journey Blahoslav also met Melanchthon, 
 who, we are told, 'made many inquiries concerning 
 Bohemian matters.' He afterwards settled as one of 
 the divines of his community at Mladd Boleslav 1 in 
 Bohemia, and here began to work at his history of 
 the Brotherhood. Towards the end of his life he 
 became a superior, or, as they were sometimes called, 
 bishop, of his community, and continued his inde- 
 fatigable labours up to 1571, when he died at Krumlov, 
 while on a journey of inspection. Though only frag- 
 ments of Blahoslav's great historical work remain, some 
 of his writings have been preserved, but as they are not 
 of a historical character they require no notice here. 
 
 I shall on the other hand now mention a work that 
 was long attributed to Blahoslav. The authorship of 
 the book entitled The Life of Jan Augusta has given 
 rise to one of those controversies which are almost 
 inevitable when as was the case in Bohemia an 
 almost forgotten literature is rediscovered after a lapse 
 of two centuries. It was formerly believed that The 
 Life of Jan Augusta was a work of Blahoslav, and 
 1 In German, Jung-Bunzlau.
 
 in] JACOB BILEK 63 
 
 afterwards that he had only written part of the book, 
 but the most recent critics state that the author of the 
 book was Jacob Bilek, a member of the Brotherhood 
 and Bishop Augusta's companion in prison, but that 
 the book was written under the supervision of 
 Blahoslav. 
 
 After the national rising of 1546 and 1547, the 
 always clear-headed policy of King Ferdinand I had 
 endeavoured to divide the Bohemians. The nobles 
 and knights had to a large extent been restored to the 
 royal favour, while the townsmen had lost a large part 
 of their former rights. Similarly the king was lenient 
 to the Utraquists, but relentless in his attitude towards 
 the members of the Brotherhood. That community 
 was then entirely under the direction of John l Augusta, 
 whom it afterwards chose as its bishop. When after 
 the speedy collapse of the Bohemian movement severe 
 measures were taken against the Brethren, Augusta and 
 his secretary were treacherously seized and conveyed to 
 the Hradcany castle at Prague, where they were 
 examined judicially and suffered torture. They were 
 then conveyed to the castle of Tiirglitz or Kf ivoklat, 
 where Augusta remained up to 1564, while Bilek 
 obtained his liberty in 1561. 
 
 Bilek's book which, though entitled The Life of 
 Augusta, is really only an account of his imprison- 
 ment, is very touching and pathetic. The little 
 incidents of prison-life that appear so great to the 
 captive are recorded in a manner which as I wrote 
 some time ago occasionally reminds the reader of 
 Silvio Pellico's Prigioni. 
 
 It is not very clear what the exact accusation 
 1 In Bohemian, ' Jan.'
 
 64 JACOB BfLEK [in 
 
 levelled against Augusta and Bilek was. Dr. Jirecek, 
 however, states that the Brethren were said to have 
 prayed for the success of the German Protestants, and 
 also to have granted them financial aid. Bilek, to 
 whom Augusta had entrusted the financial affairs of 
 the community, was accused of having sent a large sum 
 of money to the Elector of Saxony and Wittenberg. 
 The efforts of the Austrian officials to induce the 
 Brethren to confess these and other offences were, 
 however, ineffectual, though very severe torture was 
 employed. Bilek has left us in his book a very graphic 
 account of their interrogatory, and of the manner in 
 which torture was applied to them during the intervals 
 of the questioning. Finally, Bilek writes, 'the 
 officials ordered that he (Augusta) should again be 
 placed on the rack because of the questions mentioned 
 before ; but it did not last long, as he had become 
 quite silent and swooned away. I think, had they but 
 continued a little longer, he would have died during 
 the torture.' 
 
 As already mentioned, it was at last decided that 
 Augusta and Bilek should be imprisoned at the castle 
 of Kf ivoklat, and they were conveyed there from Prague 
 in the night of May 25, 1548. I will translate only 
 a brief passage from Bilek's description of their prison- 
 life. He writes: 'In the year 1550, the Lord God 
 wrought a great miracle, opening out for them in their 
 secrecy and seclusion a path that was also secret and 
 secluded, thus enabling their friends to visit them 
 and to receive news from them ; and this happened 
 thus : among the guards who watched them, and had 
 strict injunctions how to watch over them, there was 
 a servant who knew them slightly and knew what men
 
 m] JAN AUGUSTA 65 
 
 they were, for he had formerly been in service at 
 Litomysl. He well knew that they suffered all this 
 not because of any evil deed that they had committed, 
 but because of the religion ; he therefore felt a certain 
 pity for them. Risking everything, he then consented 
 to give them all they required, and that was sent them 
 by their brethren and friends, as well as to forward all 
 their communications to their friends. He began doing 
 this in 1550, before the day of the Conversion of St. Paul, 
 and continued it up to the year 1553. He obtained 
 for both of them letters from their brethren and dear 
 friends, ink, paper, and all that is required for writing. 
 He also brought them some books and other things 
 that they required, such as money and tapers, and they 
 accepted them not without much concern for the man's 
 sake ; for they feared that he would forfeit his life, if it 
 were discovered that he had given them these things. 
 As regards themselves, they had in everything com- 
 mended themselves to God and to His grace, whatever 
 might befall, and they knew that they had acted well. 
 They were therefore not much concerned about them- 
 selves, and rejoiced that God had granted them these 
 things, accepting them with much gratitude and thanks- 
 giving, and praising the Lord therefore. 1 I regret 
 to be unable to quote more extensively from this in- 
 teresting little book. The last years of Augusta's 
 captivity were somewhat lightened by the kindness 
 of Philippina Welser, the morganatic wife of the 
 archduke Ferdinand, who then resided at Kfivoklat. 
 Before leaving Bilek I should mention that his 
 book which was written in Bohemian has recently 
 been translated into German by Dr. Joseph Miiller 1 , 
 1 Leipzig, Josef Jansa, 1895. 
 F
 
 66 WENCESLAS BREZAN [m 
 
 a distinguished member of the community of Her- 
 renhut. 
 
 Among the historians who belonged to the com- 
 munity of the Brethren, Wenceslas Bfezan deserves 
 a prominent place, though his works also have unfor- 
 tunately been only partially preserved. Of Brezan's life 
 little is known ; and the Jesuit Balbinus, usually a some- 
 what generous adversary, has not disdained to attempt to 
 sully his memory by repeating unworthy and untruthful 
 tales concerning Brezan. Though the dates cannot be 
 settled with absolute certainty, it maybe roughly affirmed 
 that Bfezan was born about the year 1560, and died 
 about the year 1619. He was probably from his early 
 youth in the service of the great Bohemian House of 
 Rosenberg ; and Peter Vok of Rosenberg, the last of that 
 great line, conferred on him the title of ' archivist and 
 historiographer of the House of Rosenberg.' We have 
 reports of numerous historical works by Brezan, but 
 many of them have been lost. His great work was 
 entitled The Annals of the House of Rosenberg. The 
 book consisted of five parts, two of which have been 
 preserved and recently printed. Writing in 1830, 
 Palack^ says : ' Wenceslas Brezan, the last archivist of 
 the Rosenberg family at Tfebon or Wittingau, was 
 a genealogist and biographer to whom none other is 
 equal. He collected all his facts principally from the 
 inexhaustible treasures of his archives, which he had 
 studied with indefatigable diligence. His historical 
 narrative is superior to that of all his contemporaries 
 as regards clearness, thoroughness, truthfulness and 
 reliability, and nothing is more to be regretted than 
 that his works have remained unprinted and generally 
 unnoticed.'
 
 m] WILLIAM OF ROSENBERG 67 
 
 As I have already mentioned, since this was written 
 the last two parts of the Rosenberg chronicle the 
 lives of William and of Peter of Rosenberg have been 
 published, the former in 1847 by the society of the 
 Bohemian museum under the auspices of Palacky him- 
 self, the latter in 1880 by Mr. Mares, now archivist at 
 Wittingau. Of the two biographies that of William 
 of Rosenberg, the less interesting of the two brothers, is 
 the more valuable. 
 
 William of Rosenberg held high office in the service 
 of the empire, and Brezan's biography has great historical 
 value. Particularly interesting is Brezan's account of 
 the negotiations in connexion with the candidature of 
 William for the Polish throne. It is a proof of the 
 strength and power of the great Bohemian nobles of 
 this time that William did not fear to appear as rival 
 even of the Emperor Maximilian, who himself coveted 
 the Polish throne. Brezan writes under the year 1574: 
 ' After the flight of Henry of Valois the Poles sought 
 a new king; some inclined to the House of Austria, 
 others desired Lord William of Rosenberg, particularly 
 as he was a descendant of the ancient family of the 
 Orsinis, and as by his ancestors several centuries back 
 he was a Bohemian, thus belonging to a cognate 
 country, and because he was a sensible, learned, temperate, 
 Catholic nobleman.' 
 
 This candidature evidently caused some displeasure 
 at the court of Vienna. Under 1576 Brezan writes : 
 ' Our sovereign Lord (that is William of Rosenberg) 
 incurred greatly the suspicion of His Majesty (the 
 Emperor) because he was favoured by the Polish lords, 
 and it was suggested that he had acted rather in his 
 own interest than in that of the House of Austria. But
 
 68 PETER OF ROSENBERG [in 
 
 this prudent lord who wished to avoid all slights, harm 
 and danger in connexion with this matter, bore himself 
 with great wisdom. . . . He also let the Poles know 
 that he had no intention of obtaining their kingdom 
 by begging or purchase, but that if he was legally, 
 publicly and unanimously chosen, he would, without 
 offence to His Majesty the Emperor, not disdain such 
 an election. Thus he succeeded in remaining on good 
 terms with both parties. 1 
 
 As I wrote some time ago, Brezan's biography of 
 Lord Peter of Rosenberg is somewhat disappointing. 
 Though the thought should be rejected as frivolous, 
 one cannot help imagining what a biography of Peter 
 of Rosenberg from the pen of an impressionist historian 
 might have been. 
 
 Though a man of such exceptional talent and ability 
 such as Lord Peter, can never be considered as typical, 
 yet he is a good example of the peculiar character 
 which the exceptional surrounding of a great Bohemian 
 nobleman of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century 
 produced. These noblemen lived in vast castles, the 
 centres of enormous estates, some of which were of the 
 size of German duchies. They were equally removed 
 from the influence of popular opinion and from that of 
 the royal and imperial courts which afterwards turned 
 great nobles into courtiers. There was every induce- 
 ment to give way to originality and even eccentricity, 
 and both are obvious in Lord Peter. He was devoted to 
 alchemy and a great collector of paintings and sculpture. 
 The library and archives of Tfebon were to him of con- 
 stant interest. The head of the only great Bohemian 
 family that had always upheld the cause of Rome, he 
 joined the community of the Bohemian Brethren.
 
 m] PETER OF ROSENBERG 69 
 
 This change of faith was, of course, an event of the 
 highest political importance in Bohemia. Rosenberg, 
 after joining the national party, for a time took a great 
 though somewhat amateurish interest in politics. He 
 formed a close political alliance with Christian of 
 Anhalt, perhaps the greatest statesman of the seven- 
 teenth century. I must hurry to the close of this 
 short notice of Bfezan's work. I have been able to 
 deal with it somewhat more fully in my History of 
 Bohemian Literature. I will, however, quote a portion 
 of the rather striking description of the personality of 
 Rosenberg which Bfezan gives ; he writes : ' He (Lord 
 Peter) was a nobleman of well-shaped figure, and more 
 refined than his brother William. His features were 
 charming, his manners dignified and truly princely ; his 
 speech was sensible ; he was compassionate and affable ; 
 and though he was sometimes angry, whenever he had 
 scolded or cursed some one, he always afterwards excused 
 himself with mild words. He was a gay and jocose 
 nobleman, though in his old age he gave himself up 
 entirely to piety, and read religious books with pleasure, 
 and listened eagerly to the word of God. He was keen 
 for all novelties, a lover of all sciences and arts, and he 
 spent large sums on them. He had a special fancy and 
 predilection for building, and in this resembled his 
 brother William. He was in the habit of standing 
 oftener than sitting, and of walking constantly and 
 so quickly that it was difficult for even young men to 
 keep up with him. . . . He was a very valorous noble- 
 man, courageous, and even somewhat venturesome ; for 
 he boldly approached wild beasts, bears, wolves, horses, 
 and dogs without feeling any fear. And, on the whole, 
 I do not know that there was anything wanting in this
 
 70 THE 'LETTER OF MAJESTY' [m 
 
 heroic personage, except that which he himself deplored 
 on his death-bed, that he had not sufficiently cultivated 
 the study of literature.' 
 
 Peter of Rosenberg died in 1611, only seven years 
 before the general conflagration broke out which 
 Christian of Anhalt and he had foreseen, and in view 
 of which they had formed deep-laid plans. It is only 
 since the works of Gindely (to whom I shall refer in 
 my next lecture) have appeared that it has become 
 obvious how inevitable the Bohemian rising of 1618 
 was. Through the indefatigable and not always scru- 
 pulous energy of the Jesuits, a part of the Bohemian 
 nobility not as yet a considerable one, but it included 
 some of the greatest nobles had been converted to the 
 Church of Rome. The outspoken hostility of these men 
 to the national Church irritated the large majority of 
 the Bohemian people who belonged to it. On the 
 other hand, many Protestants no doubt thought it 
 better to precipitate the inevitable conflict, before the 
 energy of the Jesuits had further thinned the nationalist 
 ranks. A temporary lull was indeed the result of the 
 document signed in 1609 by King Rudolph, which is 
 known in history as the 'Letter of Majesty,' and which 
 guaranteed the rights and liberties of the Protestants, 
 as all those who did not conform with the Church of 
 Rome were now called. On the same day another 
 agreement was signed by the Romanist and Protestant 
 members of the Diet, in which they guaranteed full 
 religious liberty to each other. Unfortunately, in 
 December, 161 7, the Romanists violated this agreement 1 . 
 
 1 It is, of course, impossible to enter into this matter here. I must 
 refer those interested in these events to Dr. Gindely's Qeschichte 
 Rudolphs II., Geschichte der Ertheilung des Majestdtsbriefes, and 
 Qeschichte des dreissigjdhrigen Krleges. Founding my statements
 
 m] THE DEFENESTRATION 71 
 
 The Protestants immediately rose in arms. On 
 May 23, 1618, the Austrian officials were thrown from 
 the windows of the Hradcany palace, and a provisional 
 government was formed. On August 26, 1619, the 
 Count Palatine Frederick was elected King of Bohemia. 
 His want of military talent and even of courage rendered 
 him quite unable to resist the Romanist coalition that 
 was speedily formed, and which included Austria, 
 Bavaria, Spain, and Poland. The defeat of the 
 Bohemian forces at the battle of the White Mountain 
 ended the existence of Bohemia as an independent 
 country, and for a time it appeared probable that even 
 the national language would disappear. A melancholy 
 epilogue to these tragic events were the executions at 
 Prague on June 21, 1621. 
 
 Of these stirring events we have two contemporary 
 accounts, both written in the national language by men 
 who themselves played a part in these events. Of these 
 writers one, William Count Slavata, was one of the 
 most trusted councillors of the Emperor Ferdinand II ; 
 the other, Skala ze Zhore, a Protestant and a government 
 official of King Frederick. 
 
 William Count Slavata, Lord of Chlum and Kosum- 
 berk, is well known to all students of the Thirty Years 1 
 War. He enjoyed high favour at the court of Vienna 
 during the reigns of both Ferdinand II and Ferdi- 
 nand III. Born in 1572 as a member of the Bohemian 
 Brotherhood, he joined the Church of Rome in 1597, to 
 the great indignation of the members of his family, who 
 all belonged to the Brotherhood. Probably in con- 
 mainly on Dr. Gindely's works, I have in my Bohemia, an Historical 
 Sketch briefly referred to the question as to which party first 
 violated the agreement of 1609, thus causing the Thirty Years' War.
 
 72 WILLIAM SLAV ATA [m 
 
 sequence of these family dissensions Slavata who in 
 early youth had already travelled extensively in Italy 
 now undertook another long journey through England, 
 Scotland, Denmark, and other countries. On his return 
 to Bohemia he soon found favour at court, and obtained 
 high offices of state. He was one of the very few 
 Bohemian nobles who opposed the granting of the 
 * Letter of Majesty ' in 1609, and in 1619 he was one of 
 the Austrian officials who were thrown from the windows 
 of the Hradcany palace. I shall presently quote part 
 of Skala's account of this memorable event. 
 
 It is not my purpose to refer to Slavata^s political 
 career. He was one of the principal agents in the 
 re-establishment of the Church of Rome in Bohemia, and 
 contributed largely to the downfall of Wallenstein, 
 whose personal enemy he was, and whom he probably 
 rightly suspected of wishing to re-establish liberty of 
 religion in Bohemia. 
 
 The literary activity of Slavata is a slight but curious 
 incident in the career of Slavata. Dr. Jirecek, who 
 some years ago edited the most valuable part of 
 Slavata 1 s works, tells us that he in 1636 accompanied 
 the Emperor Ferdinand to the Diet held at Regensburg. 
 A pamphlet written by his old adversary, Count Thurn, 
 here fell into his hands. The pamphlet dealt mainly 
 with the then recent assassination of Wallenstein, but 
 Slavata also found in it an allusion to the defenestration, 
 all mention of which as Dr. Jirecek writes greatly 
 irritated Slavata. Thurn stated that the throwing of 
 the officials from the Hradcany windows was a just deed, 
 and that they had deserved such punishment. 
 
 After consulting some of his friends, Slavata resolved 
 to write his memoirs of the period of 1608 to 1619,
 
 nij PAUL SKALA 73 
 
 and incidentally to refute Thurn. These memoirs or 
 pamlty, as they are called in Bohemian, have great 
 value, as Slavata constantly quotes state papers to which 
 he had free access. They long remained in manuscript, 
 but were edited and published by the late Dr. Jirecek 
 some years ago. They lend themselves very little to brief 
 quotations. In my History of Bohemian Literature 
 I have quoted a considerable portion of Slavata's 
 account of the banquet which King Frederick's officials 
 gave to the envoys whom the Sultan had sent to Prague. 
 It is a masterpiece of finesse and skilful animosity. 
 
 In the last years of his life Slavata appears to have 
 acquired a taste for writing history. He wrote a very 
 extensive book, entitled Historical Works, consisting 
 of fourteen manuscript volumes. The memoirs already 
 mentioned were included in this book. The rest of 
 the huge work, in which Slavata treats of the history 
 of Bohemia from the earliest times, has little value. 
 Slavata's principal authorities are Aenaeas Sylvius 
 and Hajek, and a lengthy treatise (included in the 
 book), which attempts to prove that the Bohemian 
 crown was hereditary, is inconclusive and was unneces- 
 sary, as the matter had been settled 'by blood and 
 iron ' at the battle of the White Mountain. 
 
 I shall now refer to Paul Skala ze Zhofe, one of the 
 greatest historians of Bohemia, perhaps her greatest, 
 before the days of Palacky. Skala was born at Zatec l 
 in 1583. He received his earliest education at Prague, 
 and afterwards visited the then far-famed University 
 of Wittenberg, then the centre of Protestant learning. 
 In 1603 Skala returned to his country and settled at 
 Zatec, where he took considerable part in local politics, 
 1 In German, Saaz.
 
 74 PAUL SKALA [in 
 
 always proving himself a firm adherent of the cause of 
 Church reform. In the memorable year 1618, Skala 
 proceeded to Prague, where he held office ; first under 
 the provisional government, and then under that of 
 King Frederick. After the battle of the White Moun- 
 tain he fled from Bohemia, and followed King Frederick 
 into exile. He remained at his court up to the year 
 1622, and was employed by him on several diplomatic 
 missions. In 1622 Frederick, on the advice of his 
 father-in-law King James, endeavoured to come to 
 terms with the House of Austria, and was prepared 
 to renounce his claims to the Bohemian throne for that 
 purpose. An exiled Bohemian was, therefore, no longer 
 a welcome guest at Frederick's court. Skala now retired 
 to Freiberg in Saxony, where he lived in seclusion for a 
 considerable time, dying probably not long after the yea^ 
 1640, in which his name is mentioned for the last time. 
 
 It was at Freiberg that Skala devoted himself to 
 historical study. Besides minor works, to which I have 
 not time to refer, Skala wrote at Freiberg his Historic 
 Cirkevm (History of the Church), the most extensive, as 
 well as one of the most valuable historical works in the 
 Bohemian language. The book, which consists of ten 
 large folio volumes the largest has 1,700 pages, the 
 others not much fewer has been preserved in manuscript 
 in Count Waldstein's library. In spite of its name, 
 it deals as much with political as with ecclesiastical 
 matters. It begins with 'The conversion of the 
 heathens to the Christian faith, and the terrible sub- 
 jection of that faith to the yoke of Antichrist, 1 and 
 ends with the year 1623. 
 
 Some years ago, the learned Professor Tieftrunk 
 published, in two large volumes, a considerable portion
 
 m] PAUL SKALA 75 
 
 of Skala's book, namely, those chapters that deal with 
 the affairs of Bohemia from 1602 to 1623. Professor 
 Tieftrunk writes in his introduction : ' These years can 
 be considered as a closely-connected period, and as the 
 melancholy conclusion of the more glorious days of 
 Bohemian history.' 
 
 I can only quote a few passages from Skala's work 
 that refer to these memorable years, and will first trans- 
 late some portion of his account of the defenestration ; 
 he writes : ' On the twenty-third of May, the day that 
 is the beginning and opening of all the misery and mis- 
 fortunes that followed, the representatives of the cities 
 met at 8 in the morning at the Hradcany palace. 
 Then Joachim Andrew Count Slik meeting the repre- 
 sentatives of the town of Slary, seized them both by 
 the hand, and after carefully looking around the room 
 (for at that time many Romanists were spying in all 
 parts of the palace) he said : " I know that the estate 
 of the townsmen is honourable and noble-minded, and 
 that its members are honourable and noble-minded 
 men, useful to their cities. . . . Therefore do I place 
 my trust in you that you will keep to yourselves what 
 I shall tell you. You well know that the Romanists l 
 wish to deprive us of the Letter of Majesty, which 
 through the grace of God we obtained, with difficulty 
 enough, and this with God's help we will not permit. 
 You will see and hear to-day terrible and unheard-of 
 things, such as neither your ancestors nor mine ever 
 saw or heard; things that will not please those who 
 communicate in one kind. For the lords intend sin- 
 
 1 In the Bohemian original ' jedineskove,' men who receive 
 communion in one kind ; the word was a nickname in the political 
 warfare of Bohemia. To avoid giving a lengthy explanation, 
 I have substituted the far less picturesque word ' Romanist.'
 
 76 PAUL SKALA [m 
 
 cerely to uphold the Letter of Majesty in its substance 
 and its integrity, and will treat those who violate it 
 as they deserve. Also, I do not doubt that you in the 
 towns are in the habit of reading Historias et Annales 
 Bohemiae [these words are in Latin in the original], 
 and that you well know how great were the liberties of 
 the estate of the citizens under King Sigismund and 
 King Wenceslas, and how much you forfeited and lost 
 under King Ferdinand. 11 ' 
 
 This passage proves, what indeed is admitted by all 
 modern Bohemian historians, that the defenestration 
 was a premeditated act. The Bohemians honestly 
 believed that they were inflicting punishment according 
 to law the law of Judge Lynch, it must be admitted 
 on the Austrian officials. 
 
 I can only quote briefly from Skala's detailed account 
 of the actual defenestration. The nobles entered the 
 council-chamber where the imperial officials were sitting. 
 The latter refused to give an immediate answer to the 
 Bohemians, who demanded guarantees for the liberty of 
 their religion. A long discussion began, in which 
 Counts Thurn and Slik, Lobkovic, Kaplif, and other 
 Bohemian nobles took part, while Martinic and 
 Slavata the other imperial councillors had fled 
 were too terrified to say much in their own defence. 
 
 * Immediately afterwards, 1 Skala writes, ' voices were 
 heard among the nobles suggesting that these scoun- 
 drels should be arrested and hurried off 1 to the Black 
 Tower 2 ; but others cried out that the traitors should 
 be thrown out of the windows. 1 
 
 1 In the original ' vandrovali,' to wander. It is unfortunately 
 impossible to reproduce the humour of the Bohemian wording. 
 
 2 One of the state-prisons on the Hradcany.
 
 m] PAUL SKALA 77 
 
 'Then, 1 Skala writes, 'Count Thurn rapidly ap- 
 proached Slavata and seized him by the hand, while 
 Ulrick Kinsley seized Martinic. . . . Then Thurn and 
 Kinsky led them through the crowd of nobles, and 
 then only did every one know that they were to be 
 thrown from the windows. . . . Martinic mournfully 
 entreated that he might be granted a confessor ; he 
 received the short answer that he should commend his 
 soul to God. Slavata did not ask for a confessor, but 
 prayed to the Lord to be with him. 
 
 'No mercy was granted them, and first Martinic was 
 dragged to the window, near which the secretaries 
 generally worked, for Kinsky was quicker and had 
 more aid than Count Thurn, who had first seized 
 Slavata. They were then both thrown, dressed in 
 their cloaks and with their swords and decorations, just 
 as they had been found in the chancellor's office, one 
 after the other, head foremost, out of the westward 
 window into the moat beneath the palace, which by 
 a wall is divided from the other deeper moat. They 
 loudly screamed " Alas ! alas ! " and attempted to hold 
 on to the window-frame, but were at last obliged to 
 let go, as they were struck on the hands.' 
 
 Skala gives us an interesting account obviously 
 founded on documentary evidence of the attempts of 
 the Bohemian government to obtain aid in its struggle 
 against the House of Habsburg. The Austrian party 
 displayed an equally great and more successful energy, 
 and Bohemia became for a time the centre of European 
 diplomacy. As I am addressing an English audience, it 
 will, I think, be appropriate if I mention Skala's remarks 
 on the English policy with regard to the Bohemian 
 question. After mentioning that Frederick founded
 
 78 JAMES I OF ENGLAND [in 
 
 great hopes on the aid of Louis of France, as the 
 Electors Palatine had been allies of Henry IV, Skala 
 writes : * But all these hopes proved vain, principally 
 through the fault of his (Frederick's) father-in-law, 
 James, King of Great Britain ; for the latter doing in 
 this matter nothing or next to nothing, the neigh- 
 bouring kings and potentates felt induced to follow his 
 example, and, as it were, watching the events through 
 their fingers, took up the cause of the son of the King 
 of England, but carelessly and sleepily. Therefore it 
 was no wonder that at last this young prince (Frederick) 
 was necessarily defeated, and lost not only the Bohe- 
 mian crown but also all his lands, and even the 
 hereditary dignity of elector. 
 
 ' Now this King James was in this matter exceedingly 
 indifferent, and evidently knew not how to take a final 
 decision ; for the matter on one side certainly touched 
 his son-in-law and his own flesh and blood, and on the 
 other the emperor and the King of Spain. He there- 
 fore neither wished to forsake his son-in-law, nor to 
 incense those sovereigns with whom he lived on terms 
 of peace. He greatly hoped that through his sagacity 
 he could, by means of embassies and friendly letters, 
 allay these misunderstandings. He was greatly streng- 
 thened and confirmed in these views by the Spanish 
 agents and envoys who were constantly around him, 
 and who wished to keep him to the resolution not to 
 take up arms to help his son-in-law, the Elector 
 Palatine.' 
 
 Skala naturally gives a detailed account of the battle 
 of the White Mountain, which was the death-bed of 
 Bohemian independence. Conscientious and rather 
 lengthy historian as he always is, he has incorporated
 
 111] EXECUTIONS OF THE PATRIOTS 79 
 
 several contemporary accounts in his narrative, but it 
 is obvious that it required some effort to him to refer 
 to the latest and least glorious battle fought by the 
 Bohemians as an independent people. 
 
 Where we again find Skala at his best is when we 
 reach the executions of Prague, which were one of the 
 results of the catastrophe of the White Mountain. 
 
 The Austrian government, which seems at first to 
 have intended to assume a lenient attitude, soon decided 
 to act with the utmost severity. After referring to 
 the trial of the Bohemian leaders, and the evidence 
 which by means of torture was obtained against them, 
 Skala writes : ' Thus was enacted this most doleful 
 tragedy, hitherto unknown and unheard of in the 
 Bohemian kingdom. But as it is of much interest to 
 know in what frame of mind a man leaves this world 
 (be his death natural or violent) and whether he leaves 
 it with contentment or with sorrow, and how he pre- 
 pares for it therefore will I give here, word by word, 
 the last sayings of these men according to the accounts 
 of three clergymen who were present during the last 
 moments of the Bohemian prisoners, and prepared 
 them for the violent and, in the eyes of the world, 
 dishonourable death that awaited them.' I can, of 
 course, only quote a few lines from Skala. Of the 
 death of one of the Bohemian leaders, Dvorecky of 
 Olbramovic, he writes: 'When the judges called out 
 his name, he referred to the House of Austria, saying 
 that it had wrought much evil to the Bohemian king- 
 dom, and that it was obvious that it would continue to 
 do so. Then he sent word to his lady wife and his 
 son, begging them to remain true to the religion. 
 
 * When they again called his name, he declared that
 
 80 DEATH OF DVORECKY [in 
 
 he was ready, and then said : " God be praised ; may 
 His holy will be done ! I have lived for Him, and 
 I now also die for Him. But as my Redeemer died 
 and then arose from the dead to rule over the quick 
 and the dead, so do I also believe that my soul will live 
 and that my body will arise again on the day of 
 resurrection, and then will be similar to His bright and 
 splendid body. 11 Then he prayed for some time. 
 
 'When they reached the scaffold, he turned to the 
 balcony where the imperialist judges sat, and said, " Tell 
 that emperor that I now stand before his unjust court 
 of justice, but that he will once appear before a terrible 
 and a just one." The drums were beaten so loudly that 
 it was only with difficulty that his words were heard. 
 Then advised by the priest John, he turned to the 
 scaffold, knelt down and prepared himself. Then, 
 seeing his purse on the scaffold, he seized it and gave to 
 one who was standing near a golden coin that had been 
 struck in commemoration of the coronation of King 
 Frederick, saying : " I bind you by your oath, when my 
 dear King Frederick returns to the royal throne, to give 
 this coin to him, and to tell him that I have carried it 
 with me up to the scaffold because of the love that 
 I bear him, and that for his cause I gladly shed my 
 blood and die." Then he knelt down, and while crying 
 with a loud voice "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me 
 and receive my soul ! " he blessedly ended his life and 
 repaired to heaven.' 
 
 I have only time to quote one other passage from 
 Skala's narrative. It refers to the leave-taking of the 
 Bohemian patriots, when they were separately led 
 forth to execution. He writes : ' This is worthy of 
 notice, that when one of these holy men and martyrs
 
 m] HABERNFELD 81 
 
 for God's cause was called forth, then to our great sur- 
 prise a leave-taking ensued in a pleasant manner which 
 rejoiced our hearts, just as if they were preparing to go 
 to a banquet or some festival : " Now, my dear friends, 
 may our Lord God bless you, may He grant you the 
 consolations of the Holy Ghost, patience and courage, 
 so that you may be able to prove now also in the 
 moment of your death that you have heartily and 
 bravely defended the honour of God. I go before you 
 that I may first behold the glory of God, the glory of 
 our beloved Redeemer, but I await you directly after 
 me. Already in this hour earthly grief vanishes, and 
 a new heart-felt and eternal gladness begins." The 
 other prisoners who remained behind answered : " May 
 our Lord God bless you on your way for the sake of the 
 guiltless death of Christ ; may He send His holy angels 
 to meet your soul. You go before us to the glory of 
 heaven. We also shall follow you, and we are certain, 
 because of Him in whom we have believed, Jesus Christ, 
 that we shall meet again to-day, and rejoice for ever 
 with our beloved Redeemer, the angels and the chosen 
 of God. 111 
 
 Of the minor writers who belong to this period, 
 I shall mention only two, who both wrote in Latin, 
 and both wrote in exile. 
 
 The Bellum Bohemicum of Andrew of Habernfeld, 
 a very scarce little volume, has considerable historical 
 value. He fought on the national side at the battle 
 of the White Mountain, of which he gives a spirited 
 account that incidentally is very damaging to King 
 Frederick. * After the battle was already almost lost,' 
 Habernfeld writes, 'a rumour reached the king that 
 the enemies were attacking the Bohemian camp. In- 
 
 G
 
 82 PAUL STRANSKY [m 
 
 terrupting his banquet he mounted his horse, wishing 
 to view his endangered camp. A troop of fifty horse- 
 men had arrived at the castle. I was myself one of 
 those who interrupted the banquet. When the king 
 reached the Strahov gate, it was closed. He beheld 
 the terrible spectacle of his army in full flight. Terri- 
 fied also by the fearful screams of the women, the king 
 returned to the castle.' 
 
 Paul Stranskys work, Respublica Bojema, was written 
 while the author was living as an exile in Holland, and 
 on the suggestion of those celebrated publishers the 
 Elzevirs. It appeared in 1643, and was dedicated to 
 the sons of King Frederick, Rupert and Maurice, 
 princes of the Palatinate. It contains in one small 
 volume a short outline of the ancient constitution of 
 Bohemia, which is still valuable, and a brief sketch 
 of the history of the country. Considering that 
 Stransky had, as he himself tells us, been deprived of 
 his entire fortune by the Imperialists, it must be 
 admitted that the book is written with great modera- 
 tion. 
 
 Both Skala and the two last-named authors wrote 
 while in exile. In Bohemia historical and indeed all 
 literature ceased for a time after the battle of the White 
 Mountain. There is, with a few trifling exceptions, an 
 interval of two centuries, speaking roughly, between the 
 historians to whom I have now referred, and those who 
 will be the subject of my last lecture.
 
 IY 
 
 IT is not my purpose to refer here in any detail to 
 the enormous changes in Bohemia that were the con- 
 sequence of the battle of the White Mountain. The 
 ancient constitution of the country was suppressed, 
 and a system of slightly veiled absolutism replaced it. 
 Confiscations of land took place on an enormous scale, 
 and foreign nobles, mainly generals of the imperial 
 army, obtained the estates of the ancient Protestant 
 nobility of Bohemia. The inhabitants of the towns, 
 many of which had been strongholds of the national 
 Church, were driven into exile ; and immigrants, 
 generally of German birth, took their place. As 
 regards the peasantry whom the system of serfdom 
 attached to the soil, for the cultivation of which they 
 were required, sinister arguments such as the pillory, 
 the whipping-post, and the gallows, gradually induced 
 them to conform to the Church of Rome. It is, 
 however, to the credit of my countrymen to mention 
 that many long remained true to their ancient faith 
 and secretly held their religious services at night-time 
 in the dense pine-forests of Bohemia, and preserved, as 
 hidden treasures, copies of the Bible of Kralice, the 
 Bohemian version of the Scriptures which was the joint 
 work of several divines of the Brotherhood. 
 
 The modern historian Dr. Gindely has given a 
 graphic account of the sufferings of the Bohemians at
 
 84 THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR [iv 
 
 this period, which are almost unequalled in history. 
 ' The Bohemians,' he writes, * had not even the resource 
 of appealing to their sovereign ; for no petty Austrian 
 official or Jesuit missionary was more determined than 
 Ferdinand to kill or exile all Bohemians who did not 
 conform to the Church of Rome.' Thus when remon- 
 strances were made to Ferdinand on behalf of the 
 Protestants of Kutna Hora \ he angrily declared that 
 the citizens of Kutna Hora were ' not men but brutes ' 2 , 
 because they would not accept the one saving creed. 
 Even during the vicissitudes of the Thirty Years' War, 
 Ferdinand always considered the conversion of Bohemia 
 to the Roman Church as a matter of the greatest 
 importance. The papal see gave him no more than 
 his due when it declared him to be ' a second 
 Constantine.' 
 
 Little or no Bohemian literature 3 of this period 
 exists. The national language, considered a language 
 of heretics, was persecuted in every way. Jesuits, who 
 were accompanied by soldiers, scoured the country in 
 every direction, and as the Jesuit was generally 
 ignorant of the national language, he destroyed all 
 Bohemian books. It was the intention of the govern- 
 ment to induce the Bohemians to forget as far as 
 possible all traditions of their past glory. It is 
 a striking proof of this tendency that even Pope 
 Pius IFs book on the history of Bohemia was prohibited. 
 
 The few writers on Bohemian history wrote mainly 
 in German and Latin, though their sympathy was 
 generally with their own people. 
 
 1 In German, Kuttenberg. 
 
 1 Gindely, Geschichte der Gegenreformation in Bohmen, p. 235. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 203.
 
 iv] BALBINUS 85 
 
 Of these writers, far the most important was the 
 learned Jesuit Balbinus. He was born in 1621 at 
 Kralove Hradec 1 , of a family that belonged to the 
 ancient nobility of that district. He was consecrated 
 as a priest in 1650, and was sent as a missionary to his 
 native district, that of Kralove Hradec. The brutality 
 and cruelty which these missionaries displayed in the 
 execution of their task of conversion was naturally 
 displeasing to a truly pious man such as was Balbinus. 
 He also appears not to have won the approval of his 
 superiors, for he was recalled, and henceforth employed 
 as a teacher. He made great researches in the 
 archives of various towns and castles, which he visited 
 in his new capacity. The result of these studies was 
 his Epitome Historica Rerum Bohemicarum, in which 
 he has given an extensive account of events connected 
 with Bohemia, laying great stress on the foundation of 
 churches and monasteries, and ecclesiastical matters 
 generally. Of course the writer, a Jesuit, writes of the 
 Hussite wars in the only then permissible manner, and 
 gives the then usual distorted accounts of the careers 
 of Hus, Zizka, and the other great Bohemians. None 
 the less, the book raised the suspicions of Count 
 Martinic, then Governor of Bohemia. It indeed 
 required the mind of an inquisitor to detect here and 
 there a vestige of Bohemian national feeling. Yet the 
 book was for a time suppressed, Balbinus fell into 
 disgrace, and was sent to Klatov almost as an exile. 
 
 While at Klatov Balbinus wrote (also in Latin) 
 
 an Apology for the Slavic and specially the Bohemian 
 
 Tongue, which he dedicated to his friend Canon Pesina. 
 
 Knowing the hostility that the Bohemian language 
 
 1 In German, Koniggratz.
 
 86 PESlNA [iv 
 
 incurred as being the language of heretics, Balbinus 
 skilfully drew the attention of his readers to the period 
 anterior to Hus, * when Bohemia, now so mournful, 
 was in a happy condition. 1 
 
 In the last years of his life, Balbinus (who died in 
 1688) began the publication of one of those colossal 
 works in which the Bohemians of that period delighted. 
 The book, entitled A Miscellany of Bohemian History, 
 does full justice to its title. Beside a large amount of 
 historical narrative, the book contains a treatise on 
 the natural history of Bohemia, numerous pedigrees of 
 Bohemian nobles (they fill a whole volume), numerous 
 biographies of Bohemians, and much other matter. 
 
 In connexion with Balbinus I should next mention 
 his friend, Canon Tomas Pesina, who has left several 
 historical works, written in Latin, which refer to the 
 history of Bohemia and the sister-land Moravia. 
 
 The greater number of the historians of this period 
 wrote in German. It is in this language that Bienenberg's 
 historical works, and Pubicka's and Pelzl's histories of 
 Bohemia, were written. Though written in a foreign 
 tongue, these works, that belong to the latter part of 
 the eighteenth century, show traces of a revival of the 
 ancient national feeling among the Bohemians, and, as 
 it were, form a prelude to the revival of the Bohemian 
 nation in the following century. 
 
 It is not my purpose to refer here to their national 
 movement, except as far as it concerns the study of 
 history. But as the greatest of the leaders of this 
 movement, Francis Palack^, was a historian, it deserves 
 mention here. This revival, largely based on historical 
 reminiscences, in fact on what the enemies of the 
 country would call sentimental motives, is one of the
 
 iv] JOSEPH II 87 
 
 really important events so different from those that 
 temporarily appear important which will render the 
 nineteenth century memorable. The reconstruction 
 of a Slavic state in central Europe, a Slavic out- 
 post in the midst of Teutonic lands, will probably 
 have a considerable influence on the future of 
 Europe. 
 
 The movement had a very modest origin, and was at 
 first indirectly and unintentionally furthered by one 
 who was a determined enemy of the Bohemian people. 
 I refer to the Emperor Joseph II, who was also king, 
 though uncrowned king, of Bohemia. That monarch 
 was thoroughly imbued with the views held by the 
 enlightened sovereigns of the eighteenth century of 
 whom Frederick the Great is the type. These men 
 were in many ways in advance of their times. Their 
 desire to further public education, to diminish the 
 privileges of the omnipotent nobility and a luxurious 
 and wealthy clergy, to assure at least a limited amount 
 of equality before the law, and to grant some liberty to 
 the press, cannot fail to be admired by all enlightened 
 men. That these men absolutely failed to grasp the 
 value which a people attaches to its nationality and 
 language is also certain. Joseph's contempt for the 
 Bohemian language founded indeed on ignorance 
 was not greater than that which Frederick the Great, 
 whose brilliant works are all written in French, felt for 
 the German language. 
 
 It is certain that, by allowing the publication of 
 a newspaper written in the Bohemian language, by 
 permitting the printing of the works of ancient 
 Bohemian authors and the translation of foreign works 
 into the national language, Joseph considerably con-
 
 88 FRANCIS PALACKY [iv 
 
 tributed to the result that Bohemian again became 
 a written language. 
 
 Francis Palack^, the most important of the Bohemian 
 national leaders and the founder of the modern 
 Bohemian historical school to whom all who now 
 attempt such studies must look up with reverence 
 was born on June 14, 1798, at Hodslavice in Moravia. 
 His ancestors had belonged to the community of the 
 Bohemian Brethren, and had indeed only nominally con- 
 formed to the Church of Rome, when after the battle 
 of the White Mountain all religious freedom was sup- 
 pressed in Moravia, as well as in Bohemia. The 
 Emperor Joseph II indeed granted religious freedom 
 to the members of the * Helvetic' and 'Augsburg' 
 confessions, as the adherents of Calvin and Luther were 
 described by the ultramontane Austrian officials, but no 
 mention was made of the ancient Bohemian Brother- 
 hood. Palacky's parents therefore declared themselves 
 members of the Augsburg Church, which they believed 
 to be nearest to their old traditional faith. 
 
 It is often noticeable in Palacky's great historical 
 work that the writer was brought up in the traditions 
 of the Brotherhood, though he but seldom allows his 
 personal sympathies to appear, and though he was also 
 constantly embarrassed by the action of the Austrian 
 government, which hardly permitted the publication 
 of any statement adverse to the Church of Rome. 
 Palacky's father, a man of learning, gave him his first 
 instruction, and he then continued his education at the 
 Protestant school of Presburg in Hungary. In that 
 town, situated in a Slavic part of Hungary, Palacky's 
 sympathies with the Slavic cause naturally became 
 more intense. He here also first made the acquain-
 
 iv] FRANCIS PALACKY 89 
 
 tance of Safarik, the celebrated philologist, who was 
 one of the principal promoters of the Bohemian revival. 
 This acquaintance developed into a lifelong friendship. 
 Palacky, however, by no means restricted his studies 
 to Slavic languages. With that facility for acquiring 
 foreign tongues which is said to be innate in the Slav, 
 he also acquired several languages of Western Europe. 
 As Professor Kalousek tells us in his contribution to 
 the Palacky memorial, a volume published in 1898 on 
 the occasion of the centenary of the birth of the great 
 historian, Palacky studied English writers with great 
 attention. Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study and Use 
 of History, and particularly Blair's lectures on rhetoric 
 and belles-lettres, greatly influenced the youthful 
 Palacky. Recently looking over the pages of the last- 
 named now forgotten book, I was struck by the fact 
 that Palacky's great historical work so largely conforms 
 to the rules laid down in Blair's lecture on ' Historical 
 Writing.' 
 
 I must add that the interest which Palacky always 
 manifested in England and English literature has not 
 obtained much recognition for him on the part of 
 English writers. When the Palacky memorial, which 
 I have already mentioned, appeared in 1898, I was 
 requested to contribute a small note on the references 
 to Palacky in the works of English writers. I was 
 surprised to find how scanty they were, and that only 
 the late Bishop Creighton had obviously thoroughly 
 studied Palacky's historical writings. 
 
 The Hungarian government was even at that time 
 hostile to the pursuit of Slavic studies, and Palacky 
 resolved to establish himself at Prague, where he 
 enjoyed the protection of the Abbe Dobrovsky, one
 
 90 DOBROVSKY [iv 
 
 of the older Slavic scholars, and a man who was on 
 good terras with the authorities an all-important 
 matter in Austria during the Metternich regime. It 
 was here that Palack^ formed the plan of his vast 
 historical work. Palacky was introduced by Dobrovsky 
 to the not very numerous Bohemian nobles who were 
 interested in the history of their country. Among 
 these were Count Sternberg and his younger brother, 
 Count Francis Sternberg. The latter had a few years 
 previously, in conjunction with Count Klebelsberg and 
 my great-uncle, Count Kolowrat, founded an association 
 that was known as the Society of the Bohemian Museum. 
 This at first modest society endeavoured to collect all 
 objects and documents connected with the history of 
 Bohemia, hoping to revive the national feeling by re- 
 calling to the Bohemians their glorious past and their 
 national language that is so closely connected with it. 
 This society and the small collections which it at first 
 possessed were then housed in a small house belonging 
 to Count Sternberg. After having been for some time 
 removed to more extensive premises, the Bohemian 
 Museum and its now vast and valuable collections 
 found a home in the place of St. Venceslas, that is 
 known to all visitors to Prague. 
 
 The Patriotic Association at first met with a great 
 deal of opposition. The Austrian government assumed 
 an attitude of veiled hostility, and considerable in- 
 difference was shown even by those of Bohemian birth. 
 At a meeting at Count Sternberg's house, which took 
 place in 1825, both the Count himself and Dobrovsky 
 bitterly complained of the want of interest shown as 
 regards the new national institute. Young Palacky 1 , 
 however (I quote from a contemporary account),
 
 iv] THE MUSEUM 91 
 
 declared that this indifference was the fault of the 
 authorities of the Museum, and that it was their duty 
 to further the Bohemian literature and language. 
 When the elder Count Sternberg replied that it was 
 too late to raise the Bohemian nation from the dead, 
 the young patriot became angry, and abandoning the 
 defensive attitude began to attack his opponents. He 
 warmly reproached Dobrovsky for writing in German 
 only, and ended with the fiery words : ' If we all act 
 thus, then indeed our nation must perish through 
 intellectual famine. As for me, even if I was a gipsy 
 by birth and the last descendant of that race, I should 
 consider it as my duty to strive with all my might 
 that honoured records of my race should be preserved 
 to the history of humanity.' It is very much to the 
 credit of the older patriots that they agreed with the 
 remarks of Palacky, whose hopes, as need hardly now 
 be mentioned, have since been justified by time. It 
 was resolved that a literary and scientific journal, 
 entitled the Journal of the Bohemian Museum J , should 
 be published both in Bohemian and in German. The 
 Bohemian edition has been continued up to the present 
 day, and may still be considered the foremost literary 
 periodical of Bohemia. The German edition, on the 
 other hand, was abandoned after a few years. Palacky 
 became the first editor, and some of his first historical 
 studies appeared in the journal. About the same time 
 he received the appointment of archivist to Count 
 Sternberg, an appointment that not only slightly added 
 to his modest income, but also gave him a recognized 
 social position at Prague no unimportant matter at 
 a time when Metternich's omnipresent police viewed all 
 1 Gasopis Cesktho Musea.
 
 92 FRANCIS PALACKY [iv 
 
 literary men, and particularly those who wrote on 
 Slavic subjects, with intense suspicion. Palacky also, 
 through his personal acquaintance with some of the 
 great nobles of Bohemia, obtained permission to study 
 the valuable historical documents contained in their 
 libraries and archives. The study of the treasures 
 contained in some of these archives, particularly in 
 those at Trebor or Wittengau, convinced Palacky that 
 the history of Bohemia had still to be written. Though 
 he may have had some such intention previously, it was 
 only then that he resolved to write an extensive history 
 of Bohemia. The difficulties that beset his path were 
 very great. I cannot define them better than by 
 quoting Palacky's own words 1 . He writes : ' While 
 the system of imperial censure existed, it was quite 
 impossible plainly to state that the action of the 
 government rendered impossible the progress and 
 development of historical study and research. The 
 government authorities, no doubt, well knew that the 
 former attitude of the Austrian government with regard 
 to Bohemia would find no mercy before the judgement- 
 seat of history, even though the sufferers could no 
 longer make their grievances known. What happened 
 in the interior of Bohemia during the Thirty Years 1 War 
 is even now one of those secrets of history that make 
 the few who have attempted even slightly to lift the 
 veil, tremble. I was some time ago asked by men 
 of some importance whether it would not be better 
 if the unhappy and melancholy events of the past were 
 consigned to complete oblivion, rather than that an 
 attempt should be made to incite men's minds by 
 recalling these events, thus disturbing the happy peace 
 1 Zur bohmischen Geschichtschreibung, p. 2.
 
 iv] THE AUSTRIAN CENSORS 93 
 
 of the present time. These men knew nothing of the 
 events of the past, but they felt instinctively that an 
 account of the past would excite men's minds. No 
 wonder therefore that the government did not further 
 historical studies, and indeed endeavoured to hinder 
 them in every way.' 
 
 I should here mention that when Palacky afterwards 
 undertook his great historical work, he, contrary to his 
 original plan, only dealt with the history of Bohemia 
 up to the year 1526, which marks the accession of the 
 Habsburg dynasty to the Bohemian throne. Even 
 this did not, as I shall mention presently, prevent the 
 government authorities from molesting him on various 
 occasions. 
 
 The opposition of the Austrian government was not 
 the only obstacle that Palacky found in his path. To 
 a man of scant private means as he was, the probably 
 small number of readers, and the uncertainty caused 
 by the caprices of the 'censors' as to when the different 
 volumes could appear, rendered the publication of his 
 great work a very difficult thing. Fortunately the 
 Estates of Bohemia came to his aid. Animated by that 
 tacit antagonism between Vienna and Prague that is 
 one of the great features of Austrian history, they 
 resolved in 1829 to confer on Palacky the title of 
 historiographer of Bohemia, and to attach to it a modest 
 salary. This resolution was, however, vetoed by the 
 authorities of Vienna, but they finally consented, though 
 reluctantly, to allow the Estates of Bohemia to bear 
 the costs of the publication of Palacky's book. It 
 should be mentioned that ten years later (in 1839) the 
 Austrian government permitted the Estates to confer 
 on Palacky the title of historiographer of Bohemia.
 
 94 FRANCIS PALACKY [iv 
 
 The first volume of Palacky's history of Bohemia 
 appeared in 1836. It deals with the first settlement 
 of the Slavic race in Bohemia. Recent critics even 
 among the author's countrymen accuse Palack^ of 
 having idealized the primitive Cechs. It is indeed 
 true that the optimist views of Rousseau and Herder 
 are somewhat obvious in the book. The dark con- 
 ception of a universal and eternal struggle for existence 
 had not then replaced, the conception of an Arcadian 
 and innocent primitive mankind. The preface of this 
 volume deserves quotation, for it indicates the spirit 
 in which Palacky undertook his vast historical work, 
 He writes : * As regards the principles and intentions 
 which have guided me while working at this history, 
 I have hardly a word to say. I know of no others, 
 except those that proceed naturally from the supreme 
 principle of regard for historical truth and faith. That 
 I write from the standpoint of a Bohemian is a fact 
 for which I could only be blamed, if it rendered me 
 unjust either to the Bohemians or to their opponents. 
 I hope, however, that my sincere craving for truth, 
 my respect for all laws, divine and human, my zeal for 
 order and legality, my sympathy with the weal and 
 woe of all mankind, will preserve me from the sin of 
 partiality. With God's help, these principles will con- 
 tinue to guide me in my task. 1 
 
 I should here remark that the first volume of 
 Palack^'s great work first appeared in German, and 
 was subsequently translated into Bohemian. It was 
 only after the revolutionary year 184i8, when the dis- 
 sensions between the Bohemians and the Germans 
 who had previously treated the Bohemians with some- 
 what contemptuous indulgence became more intense,
 
 iv] THE AUSTRIAN CENSORS 95 
 
 that Palacky began to publish his history first in the 
 national language. 
 
 From the year 1836 the history of Bohemia became 
 the life-work of Palacky. It was indeed only in 1876, 
 the year of his death, that the last sheets of the revised 
 edition of the work were ready for the press. The 
 book was a political event in Bohemia, and largely 
 contributed to further the political career of its author. 
 The book proceeded slowly, and in the face of constant 
 opposition of the government officials who were known 
 as the * censors.' Palacky has, in one of his German 
 works, written most entertaining pages on his struggles 
 with the censors. These conflicts turned principally 
 on Palacky's account of the career of Hus. It is hardly 
 necessary to say that the police-officials, who did duty 
 as literary critics, were absolutely incapable of judging 
 the career of Hus. This did not prevent them from 
 interfering with Palacky's work. When the latter 
 wrote that the courage displayed by Hus during his 
 trial forced even his adversaries to admire him, the 
 censor declared that ' the Catholic Church does not see 
 in Hus's attitude undaunted courage, but insolence 
 and obstinacy founded on utter blindness.' Palacky had 
 also ventured to quote Poggio Bracciolini's well-known 
 account of the death of Jerome of Prague, which from 
 the time of Aeneas Sylvius downward has been fre- 
 quently reproduced. The censor, none the less, had his 
 doubts concerning the authenticity of the letter, and 
 also stated that, in any case, it described Jerome as 
 a philosopher, a man worthy of admiration, and one 
 whose death should be regretted. This judgement 
 (the censor continued) is out of place, and likely to lead 
 astray those who are little versed in history.
 
 96 THE AUSTRIAN CENSORS [iv 
 
 The incessant molestations of the censors finally in- 
 duced Palacky to address to the government authorities 
 a manly letter which he has preserved in one of his 
 later works. After excusing himself with regard to 
 the fact that his narrative threw favourable, rather 
 than unfavourable, light on the career of Hus, and 
 referring to the existent historical authorities, he wrote : 
 ' Another reason for my judging Hus favourably, consists 
 in the undeniable importance and value of the man. 
 According to my innermost conviction and, I may add, 
 according to the opinion of all unprejudiced judges, 
 Hus strove only for the good, though the means by 
 which he furthered his endeavours were not all devoid 
 of sin, and therefore not blameless. It is in this sense 
 that I have written my account, and I do not think 
 that it contains anything that is at all opposed or 
 contrary to a truly Catholic mind. If I have been 
 mistaken as regards certain details, I gladly accept 
 corrections and will include them in my book. I cannot, 
 however, believe that it is an indispensable demand of 
 Catholicism that every deed and thought of Hus should 
 be unconditionally condemned, that his portrait should 
 be painted entirely in black, and that all circumstances 
 that appear favourable to him even if historically 
 uncontested should be suppressed. Such a one-sided 
 and unjust account would, unfortunately, constitute not 
 an historical work but a party-pamphlet. The censor 
 seems to expect something similar from me. Should 
 this apprehension prove justified, I regret being obliged 
 to declare that I shall never accede to such a demand. 
 I should prefer to give up my whole work and abandon 
 the study of history. A historian has high and ex- 
 tensive obligations, which must to him be as sacred as
 
 iv] TOMEK 97 
 
 are, for instance, those of a professor of dogmatics or 
 of an inquisitor. . . ."* 
 
 The matter was eventually settled amicably, though 
 Palacky was obliged to eliminate considerable passages 
 from his book, as well as to insert considerable inter- 
 polations from the pen of the censor, which had to pass 
 as Palackys own work. After the year 1848, when the 
 police-censorship of the press was abolished, Palacky was 
 able to publish a new edition of his work, in which he 
 restored most of the passages that had been eliminated 
 and suppressed the additions dictated by the censor. 
 
 I should here state that when dealing with the life 
 and works of Palacky I have principally laid stress on 
 the events of his life which I have as far as possible 
 related in his own words and on his historical criti- 
 cisms. It would be superfluous to give extracts from 
 his large historical work. It is, of course, founded on 
 the ancient records, many of which were then still 
 preserved in manuscript, though they have now been 
 printed. I should therefore run the risk of repeating 
 accounts of events to which I have already referred in 
 my previous lectures. 
 
 One of the results of the revolutionary events of 
 1848 was that the Bohemian national movement, that 
 had previously been almost exclusively literary, now 
 assumed a political character. It was natural that 
 when the Bohemians were called on to elect repre- 
 sentatives to the constituent assembly that met at 
 Vienna, their choice largely fell on men of letters. Of 
 historians, Palacky was elected by seven constituencies ; 
 and the younger historian Tomek to whom I shall 
 refer later was also one of the representatives of 
 Bohemia. Palacky took little part in the proceedings 
 
 H
 
 98 THE GERMAN PARLIAMENT [iv 
 
 of the short-lived parliamentary assembly that met at 
 Vienna in the spring of 1848 and was transferred to 
 KromSrice l in the autumn of that year. Palacky was 
 also a member of the ill-omened Slavic congress of 
 Prague, and was asked to take part in the German 
 assembly at Frankfurt. Previously to the meeting of 
 the German parliament, the most prominent German 
 statesmen met in conference. As the treaty of Vienna 
 had though without the consent of the estates 
 included Bohemia in the Germanic confederation, 
 Palacky was invited to take part in this conference. 
 His answer caused great sensation, and became a watch- 
 word to the Bohemians. Palack^ wrote : ' I am not 
 a German, but a Bohemian. Whatever talent I possess 
 is at the service of my own country. My nation is 
 certainly a small one, but it has always maintained its 
 historic individuality. The rulers of Bohemia have 
 often been on terms of intimacy with the German 
 princes, but the Bohemian people has never considered 
 itself as German.' 
 
 Almost all the ephemeral attempts at establishing 
 constitutional government in continental countries in 
 the year 1848 failed. Austria, at the end of the year 
 1852, was again an absolutist country. Daring this 
 period of absolutism, which lasted up to the year 1860, 
 Palack^ retired into private life, devoting himself 
 entirely to the continuation of his great historical 
 work. Censure was indeed not re-established, but 
 Palack^ now encountered a much more serious danger. 
 The whole Austrian empire was then under martial 
 law, and the authorities seriously considered whether 
 the great historian should be tried by a court martial. 
 1 Kremsier.
 
 iv] PALACKY'S VIEWS 99 
 
 The disasters of the year 1859 proved the impossibility 
 of continuing a system of absolutist government that 
 was in direct contradiction to the ancient historical 
 constitutions of Bohemia and Hungary. The sovereign 
 again granted constitutional institutions, and it was 
 resolved to establish in Vienna a central parliament 
 consisting of two houses. The upper house was to 
 contain a large number of hereditary members, and 
 a certain number of life-members appointed by the 
 sovereign. Among the latter was Palacky. He was 
 now generally recognized as the leader of Bohemia, 
 as Otec Vlasti, 'father of the country,' as it became 
 customary to call him. Palacky only spoke twice in 
 the Vienna parliament on both occasions in the year 
 1861. His words have since become prophetic. Palacky 
 opposed the claims of the Hungarians, who demanded 
 that almost entire independence which they have since 
 obtained. He disapproved of the creation of new small 
 states at a moment when all Europe was in favour of 
 large agglomerations ; for Italy was then beginning to 
 become a united country, and to a shrewd statesman 
 as was Palacky the subsequent unity of Germany also 
 already appeared probable. Palacky therefore recom- 
 mended a federal constitution for the whole empire, 
 which, while largely recognizing the ancient constitu- 
 tions of Bohemia and Hungary, yet permitted the vast 
 empire of the Habsburgs to maintain a certain amount 
 of coherence. Palacky's views were distasteful to most 
 of the members of the parliament; and he left the 
 Vienna assembly, never again to take his seat there. 
 
 The subsequent evolutions of Austrian politics 
 through which Hungary in 1867 obtained almost 
 complete independence, while Bohemia became a mere
 
 100 DEATH OF PALACKY [iv 
 
 Austrian province, were treated by Palack^ with con- 
 tempt that was generally silent. His age, and his 
 position as member of the upper house of the Vienna 
 parliament, secured him against all personal molestation. 
 
 There was again a change in the political situation, 
 when the Emperor Francis Joseph issued his memorable 
 decree of September 14, 1871. He there declared 
 that 'in consideration of the former constitutional 
 position of Bohemia, and remembering the power and 
 glory which its crown had conferred upon his ancestors, 
 and the constant fidelity of its population, he gladly 
 recognized the rights of the kingdom of Bohemia, and 
 was willing to confirm his assurance by taking the 
 coronation oath. 1 This important declaration for 
 a short time caused the return of Palacky to political 
 life, but his hopes were destined again to be 
 disappointed. 
 
 In his last years the old historian, thoroughly 
 disgusted with Austrian politics, frequently declared 
 that ' Bohemia existed before Austria, and would exist 
 after Austria' an expression that became almost 
 proverbial. In 1876 the Bohemian edition of Palacky's 
 great historical work was completed, and this event 
 was the subject of great rejoicing among the Bohemian 
 people. Their joy, however, was turned into grief, for 
 Francis Palacky died on May 26 of the same year. 
 His funeral was the occasion of general national 
 mourning in Bohemia. 
 
 I have as yet only referred to Palacky's history of 
 Bohemia, which is of course his masterpiece, but some 
 of his shorter works have great value. One of the 
 earliest of these is a book written in German, which is 
 entitled Wurdigung der alien bohmischen Geschichtschrei-
 
 iv] PALACKY AND CREIGHTON 101 
 
 ber (An Appreciation of the Ancient Historians of Bohe- 
 mia). The book appeared in 1830, and it is difficult at 
 the present day to realize how great its value then was, as 
 it covered then almost unknown ground. The work of 
 Bfezov, Bartos, and many other early historians then 
 existed in often inaccessible manuscripts, and were almost 
 unknown. I need not say that I have, in my earlier 
 lectures, largely used the contents of Palacky's book. 
 
 In 1842 Palacky wrote for the journal of the 
 Bohemian Museum an essay entitled The Forerunners 
 of Hussitism in Bohemia. He afterwards forwarded it 
 to the censor's office, but as the permission to print it in 
 book form was long delayed, he abandoned the idea. A 
 copy of the Bohemian manuscript came into the hands of 
 Dr. Jordan, a scholar of Leipzig ; he translated it into 
 German, and with Palacky's consent published it under 
 his (Dr. Jordan's) own name. In consequence of the 
 strange vicissitudes of this book, which were the result 
 of the narrow-mindedness of the Austrian authorities, it 
 was long believed to be a German work by Dr. Jordan, 
 and was even quoted as such. It was only in 1869 
 that a new edition of the work, giving the true name of 
 the author, appeared. The book is very valuable, for, 
 as stated in the preface, it deals mainly with prominent 
 men whose names were little known, even to the learned. 
 Even now, when the great work of Bishop Creighton 
 has somewhat enlightened the English public, the 
 names of Conrad of Waldhausen, Milic of Kremsier, 
 and Matthew of Janod are known but to few. 
 
 It was inevitable that a work such as Palacky's great 
 history, animated by strong enthusiasm for the Bohemian 
 :nation and dealing fairly with Hus and the Hussites, 
 should find many opponents. During the period of
 
 102 HELFERT AND HOFLER [iv 
 
 extreme reaction and ultramontanism, which in Austria 
 succeeded to the revolutions of 1848, several writers 
 came forward, who attacked the views of Palacky and 
 his account of the Hussite movement in particular. 
 Baron Helfert, a high official of the Austrian govern- 
 ment, wrote a life of Hus in which he attempted to 
 refute Palacky's narrative. The book, though of course 
 entirely written in accordance with the views of Rome, 
 yet treats its subject with fairness and moderation. 
 
 As much cannot be said of the most famous of 
 Palacky^s opponents, Professor Hofler. Under the 
 protection of the Austrian government the book was 
 printed at the imperial printing-press Hofler began 
 to publish a series of volumes containing the works of 
 the historians of the Hussite movement. It is not my 
 purpose to enter here into the controversy which this 
 publication caused, but it can be truthfully stated that 
 in the choice of his materials Hofler was constantly and 
 persistently guided by the endeavour to place the 
 Hussites in the most unfavourable light. The book is 
 to a large extent polemical, and in the third volume 
 a larger space is occupied by Hofler's own reflections 
 than by the writings of ancient historians. Hofler's 
 inaccuracy is proverbial in Bohemia. Palacky's book, 
 which I shall mention presently, gives hundreds of 
 examples ; I shall here limit myself to one. Hofler 
 tells us 1 that in 1426 Zizka established Prilgelherr- 
 schqft (the rule of the stick) in Prague. It would 
 have been difficult for Zizka to establish that or 
 any rule in the year mentioned, as he died in 1424 
 a fact known to every Bohemian schoolboy. 
 
 1 Hofler, Oeschichte der Hussitischen Bewegung in Bohmen, vol. iii, 
 p. 171.
 
 iv] PALACKY'S REPLY 103 
 
 This attack on the Hussite movement, and on him- 
 self as its historian, justly incensed Palack^. In 
 reply to it Palacky wrote the small but brilliant book, 
 entitled Die Geschichte des Hussitenthumes und Professor 
 Hofler. The controversy is antiquated, but incidentally 
 Palacky here expressed his views of the Hussite period 
 more clearly than anywhere else. After defining the 
 historical method of Hofler and his school, Palacky 
 writes : ' Other historians, to whom I have the honour 
 to belong, have stated that the Hussite war is the first 
 war in the world's history that was fought not for 
 material interests but for intellectual ones, that is to 
 say, for ideas. This ideal standpoint was so seriously 
 and sincerely taken up by the Bohemians, that even 
 when they were victors they never thought of substi- 
 tuting for it a more interested one. It is true that 
 during the war they forced foreign communities to pay 
 taxes and an annual tribute to them ; but they never 
 thought of subduing them or of extending their 
 dominion over foreign lands a thing that under the 
 circumstances of the time would not have been difficult. 
 I know that among the modern school of German 
 historians there are persons (Palacky uses the rather 
 contemptuous German word Subjecte) who attri- 
 bute this attitude mainly to the political incapacity 
 of the ancient Bohemians, and who with brutal deri- 
 sion attempt to deduce from it their racial inferiority. 
 I leave it to a more enlightened posterity to decide 
 which conduct is nearer to barbarism that of the 
 disinterested victor, or that of the imperious and 
 rapacious conqueror. Two centuries later, the enemies 
 after one victory that of the White Mountain cer- 
 tainly acted differently, and endeavoured in every way
 
 104 PALACKY'S REPLY [iv 
 
 to use their victory for the purpose of material gain. 
 Was their conduct nobler and more Christian ? 
 
 'As to the Hussites they never, during their pro- 
 longed and heroic struggle, ceased to consider it and 
 to term it a fight for the liberty of God's word. 
 Was this the consequence of illusion or arrogance ? 
 I have already mentioned that the so-called world- 
 ruling authority of the mediaeval Church had at 
 that time almost arrived at that stage, that it con- 
 sidered the teaching both of holy writ and of reason 
 as unnecessary and superfluous, in view of the Holy 
 Ghost which controlled the Church. I have also 
 noticed that in spite of the undeniable merit of most 
 of the ecclesiastical regulations, an equally undeniable 
 corruption prevailed among all ranks of the hierarchy. 
 On its path to ecclesiastical omnipotence the hier- 
 archic system of the Middle Ages first encountered 
 resistance on the part of the Hussites, who cried " Stop." 
 They forced the hierarchy to recognize the existence 
 of something higher without it and above it, and also 
 to learn to respect the right of men to form their own 
 opinions and to give utterance to them. This some- 
 thing higher, which was now generally recognized, was 
 that which the Hussites termed "the word of God," 
 namely the holy scripture and the apostolic spirit by 
 which it is inspired. I do not wish to infer that the 
 Church was by this recognition diverted from its original 
 path ; but the events of the Hussite war certainly some- 
 what restored it to its consciousness, and it henceforth 
 avoided diverting yet further from holy writ, and con- 
 tinuing further on its downward path. The absolute 
 authority of the Church in spiritual matters indeed 
 ceased, but not the Christian character of its mission. 1
 
 iv] ANTON GINDELY 105 
 
 Though much has been written on the Hussite 
 movement, no one not even Palacky himself in any 
 other passage had defined that movement so clearly 
 and so truly as Palacky has here. 
 
 Before leaving Palacky's works, I should mention 
 that he edited several very valuable collections of 
 documents relating to ancient Bohemian history. 
 
 The brilliant example of Palacky naturally and 
 fortunately obtained for him numerous and able suc- 
 cessors. Though as one who has himself attempted 
 to write on the history of Bohemia, I make this state- 
 ment with some diffidence, I think that it is in the 
 field of historiography that the Bohemian writers of the 
 period of revival had achieved the greatest success. 
 I shall be able to give but a slight sketch of these 
 writers, and shall mention first those that have already 
 departed, thus diverging slightly from the chrono- 
 logical order; for the Nestor of Bohemian historio- 
 graphy, and one of the greatest of Bohemian historians, 
 Professor Tomek, is fortunately still alive and still 
 actively occupied with his favourite studies. 
 
 Dr. Anton Gindely, born in 1829, has left numerous 
 valuable historical works, some of which are written in 
 German, others in Bohemian. He has principally 
 occupied himself with the last years of Bohemian inde- 
 pendence. His works on the history of the Letter of 
 Majesty, on Rudolph II and his times, his history of 
 the counter-reformation in Bohemia which unfortu- 
 nately remained unfinished have thrown an immense 
 amount of light on the history of Bohemia during the 
 last years of independence. The immense influence of 
 Christian of Anhalt on the affairs of Bohemia, his 
 endeavours to enlist against the House of Habsburg the
 
 106 WENCESLAS TOMEK [iv 
 
 court of Turin, which would thus have anticipated by 
 two centuries the policy of Cavour these and many 
 other facts were by Gindely dug out of the archives 
 where they had been so long concealed. Gindely's 
 masterpiece would no doubt have been his history of 
 the Thirty Years 1 War, had he lived to complete the 
 work. 
 
 Professor Tieftrunk (born 1829, and who died in 
 1897) left a considerable number of writings. His 
 only considerable historical work is his Odpor Stavu 
 Ceskych proti Fernandovi, that is to say, The Opposition 
 of the Bohemian Estate to Ferdinand I. The book is 
 founded on the contemporary account of Sixt of 
 Ottersdorf, which I mentioned in my last lecture, and 
 on research in archives. Tieftrunk also edited and pub- 
 lished part of Skala ze ZhorVs vast historical work. 
 
 Among living Bohemian historians, Professor Wen- 
 ceslas Vladivoj Tomek undoubtedly holds the foremost 
 place. Born in 1818, he has, during his long life, 
 devoted himself entirely to the study of history. In 
 his younger days he was an assistant of Palacky, who 
 was one of the first to appreciate his talent. I will not 
 attempt to enumerate the works of Tomek. His life 
 of Zizka is, perhaps, one of the most interesting of 
 his minor works ; and he has also written several 
 smaller books on the history of Bohemia and modern 
 Austria. 
 
 His great work, however, is his History of the Town 
 of Prague. Twelve volumes, which bring the history 
 of the city down to the year 1608, have already 
 appeared. Tomek always writes as a strong conserva- 
 tive I had almost said an apologist of absolute rule. 
 Yet in his account of Hus (who was so closely con-
 
 iv] JOSEF KALOUSEK 107 
 
 nected with Prague) he has spoken very freely, and 
 his views are perhaps more hostile to the views of 
 Rome than those of Palacky. As I mentioned, Tomek's 
 history of Prague is still unfinished, but all those who 
 are friends of Bohemia will hope that time will be 
 granted the veteran to finish his gigantic task, which 
 will rank with Gregorovius's Rome in the Middle 
 Ages as one of the greatest town-histories of modern 
 times. 
 
 It would be difficult to give in a limited space of time 
 more than a very brief account of the modern historians 
 of Bohemia. I should not, however, do justice to my 
 subject, if I omitted to mention the work of Professor 
 Josef Kalousek. He has devoted much time to the study 
 of the early Christian records of Bohemia, and par- 
 ticularly to the legend of St. Wenceslas. Of his many 
 historical works the most interesting appears to me 
 to be his Ceske Statni Pravo in a rough translation, 
 The Bohemian Constitution. I think a brief quotation 
 from this valuable book will throw some light on the 
 subject of the ancient constitution of Bohemia a 
 subject that is almost unknown. Kalousek writes: 
 'The ancient constitution of Bohemia and Moravia, 
 like others grounded on feudal principles, had a con- 
 siderable likeness to modern constitutions ; but there 
 was also in many respects a considerable difference. 
 The power of the sovereign in Bohemia and Moravia 
 was limited ; in this respect we find a considerable like- 
 ness to the so-called modern constitutional system. There 
 is in this also a likeness, that while both the ancient 
 institutions of Bohemia and modern constitutionalism 
 limit the power of the ruler with regard to certain 
 matters, they yet reserve certain rights to the sovereign
 
 108 THE BOHEMIAN CONSTITUTION [iv 
 
 and grant him unlimited power in certain cases. The 
 first difference, however, appears in this, that the matters 
 in which the power of the sovereign was unlimited were 
 not always the same as they are in modern constitutions 
 but sometimes quite different. Thus, for instance, the 
 Bohemian king had a considerable income that was not 
 voted or controlled by the Estates, while the modern 
 constitutional system renders all matters of finance 
 dependent on the consent of the people. On the other 
 hand, the modern constitutional system usually imposes 
 no restrictions as regards the armed forces of the 
 country. The sovereign is lord of war and peace, and 
 can engage the country in war even against its will. 
 The king, according to the Bohemian constitution, 
 had not this full power. But the principal difference be- 
 tween the constitution based on the Estates and modern 
 constitutions is comprised in the answer to the question, 
 Who shared with the sovereign the sovereign rights, 
 or rather, who controlled the royal power? This 
 factor which, beside the sovereign, directly participates 
 in the exercise of sovereign rights, consists in modern 
 times of the representatives of the people generally, 
 chosen either by the whole adult male population or by 
 a comparatively large proportion of the more wealthy 
 and more educated citizens, partly also of those who 
 are selected among the large landowners and higher 
 officials of the country. In the old Bohemian con- 
 stitution this factor consisted exclusively of privileged 
 classes of people who were known as the "Estates." 
 Among these representatives that element prevailed 
 which is still dominant in the English House of 
 Lords, the higher nobility which owned vast estates in 
 the land. 1
 
 iv] JAROSLAV GOLL 109 
 
 The existence of the ancient Bohemian constitution, 
 similar in many ways to that of mediaeval England, 
 is a fact so little known that I have thought it 
 interesting to give this quotation from Professor 
 Kalousek's valuable book. 
 
 The next historian whom I shall mention is Pro- 
 fessor Jaroslav Goll, born in 1846 one of the most dis- 
 tinguished Bohemian historians and professors of the 
 Bohemian University of Prague. Many of his earlier 
 works deal with the interesting community of the 
 Bohemian Brethren. These writings are mostly Bohe- 
 mian, but some have appeared in German also under 
 the title of Quelkn und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte 
 der bohmischen Briider, and they open a new world to 
 the reader; It is only by reading these books that 
 the student can conceive this strange community. 
 Dr. Gindely had, indeed, written of the Bohemian 
 Brethren, but in Professor Goll's books they live. 
 When preparing, some years ago, my works on the 
 history and literature of Bohemia, I carefully studied 
 Professor GolPs books, and their fascination has for 
 me always remained. His portraits of Chelcicky, the 
 originator of the Brotherhood, and of Brother Gregory 
 its founder ' the patriarch of the Brotherhood, 1 as he 
 was called in his later days are masterpieces. I will 
 extract from my History of Bohemian Literature 
 Professor Goll's account of Brother Gregory, which 
 I have there translated ; he writes : * Gregory had 
 created for himself the ideal conception of a true 
 Christian, an abstemious, kindly, patient, gracious, 
 merciful, pure, humble-minded, peaceful, worthy , zealous, 
 yielding, compliant man, qualified and ready to do all 
 good works. But this ideal was for Gregory not an
 
 110 REZEK [iv 
 
 ideal only. He believed that Christians can come near 
 to it, nay, even attain it.' 
 
 Of Professor GolFs other works, I should mention 
 his recent book, Cechy a Prusy ve stfedoveku (Bohemia 
 and Prussia in the Middle Ages). Of this book, which 
 is a model of Bohemian prose, Dr. Flajshans writes in 
 his History of Bohemian Literature: 'We read it as if 
 it were a romance, and yet we know that it is scientifi- 
 cally as correct as an astronomic table.' 
 
 A very distinguished Bohemian historian of the 
 present day is Dr. Rezek, born in 1853. He has 
 carefully studied the years immediately before and 
 after the election of Ferdinand of Habsburg to the 
 Bohemian throne in 1526. Palacky's monumental 
 work ends with that year, and Dr. Rezek here writes 
 as a continuator of his book. Dr. Rezek was for some 
 time a member of the Austrian cabinet, but he re- 
 signed when the political situation rendered the 
 presence of a Bohemian patriot in the Austrian cabinet 
 impossible. Dr. Rezek intends to devote himself again 
 to historical work, as he has indeed himself told me. A 
 continuous work on the history of Bohemia from 1526 to 
 1620 is indeed much to be desired, and no one would 
 be more qualified to undertake this task than a 
 learned, conscientious, and talented historian such as is 
 Dr. Rezek. 
 
 Limiting myself strictly to writers of history, I can- 
 not here refer to those who have written on the history 
 of Bohemian literature. Prominent among these is 
 Dr. Flajshans, whose history of the literature of his 
 country is very valuable. Dr. Flajshans's studies on 
 Hus entitle him to be considered a historian also. The 
 work, entitled Master John Hus, which he has recently
 
 iv] SPEECH OF PALACKY 111 
 
 begun, promises well, and will probably prove a valu- 
 able contribution to the knowledge of the great 
 Bohemian, who has been so little understood and so 
 often misrepresented. 
 
 It is, I think, fitting that I should terminate these 
 lectures by again referring to the great name of 
 Palacky, whom I have so often mentioned. 
 
 In 1876 (the year of Palacky's death) a banquet was 
 given to celebrate the termination of his great his- 
 torical work, to which he had only in that year given 
 the final touch. The veteran then addressed the 
 audience, consisting mainly of men of a younger 
 generation : ' Being now able,' he said, ' to address the 
 flower of the nation, I wish to attract the attention of 
 my friends and all are my friends who work for the 
 welfare of the nation to the one thing that is most 
 necessary, and it is this. We have many patriots, who 
 are proud of their patriotism ; but they do nothing for 
 the benefit of the country and of their native land. 
 Our nation is in great danger, surrounded as it is by 
 enemies in every direction ; but I do not despair. 
 I hope that it will be able to vanquish them if it has 
 but the will to do so. It is not enough to say "I will. 11 
 Every one must co-operate, must work, must make 
 what sacrifices he can for the common welfare, for the 
 preservation of our nationality. 
 
 'Bohemia has a glorious past. The time of Hus 
 was glorious. The Bohemian nation was then intel- 
 lectually in advance of all other European nations. 
 For this it was indebted not only to Charles IV (who 
 founded the University of Prague), but also to its own 
 will to extend the culture of the country. It is neces- 
 sary that we also should do so. This is the testament
 
 CONCLUSION [iv 
 
 that, speaking almost as a dying man, I wish to leave 
 to my nation.' 
 
 It is to conform, as far as it is in my limited power, 
 with the injunctions of the great leader of the 
 Bohemian people, that I have ventured to give these 
 lectures at Oxford.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Acts and record-book of 1546-7, 
 by Sixt, 55 ; no complete 
 edition exists, 58 ; portion 
 reprinted by Prof. Tieftrunk, 
 ib. ; parts translated into 
 French and English, ib. 
 
 Agreement guaranteeing mutual 
 religious liberty ; signed, 70 ; 
 violated by Romanists, ib. 
 
 Alen9on, duke of, 18. 
 
 Apology for the Slavic and 
 specially the Bohemian Tongue, 
 85. 
 
 Augusta, Jan, bishop of the 
 Bohemian Brethren, 63 ; im- 
 prisonment and torture of, ib., 
 64 ; accusations against, ib. ; 
 imprisonment at Kfivoklat, 
 ib. ; his prison life, Bilek's 
 account of, ib. ; last years of 
 captivity lightened by Philip- 
 pina Welser, 65. 
 
 Augusta, Jan, Life of, long 
 attributed to Blahoslav, 62; 
 Jacob Bflek stated as author, 
 63 ; a record of Augusta's 
 imprisonment, ib. ; written in 
 Bohemian, 65 ; translated 
 into German by Dr. J. Miiller, 
 ib. 
 
 Austrian censors, an obstacle 
 to Palacky, 93, 95, 96. 
 
 Azzo de Visconti, lord of Milan, 
 24. 
 
 Balbinus, 66 ; publisher of Life 
 of St. Ludmilla and Martyrdom 
 of St. Wenceslas, 3 ; brief de- 
 scription of life and character, 
 85 ; his Epitome Historica 
 Rerum Bohemicarum, ib. ; 
 writes of Hussite Wars in a 
 distorted manner, ib. ; his 
 Apology for the Slavic and 
 specially the Bohemian Tongue, 
 
 ib. ; begins publication of A 
 Miscellany of Bohemian His- 
 tory, 86. 
 
 Bartos, surnamed ' the writer,' 
 52 ; historian of Hussite wars, 
 ib. ; his Chronicle of Seditions 
 and Tumults at Prague, ib. ; 
 chronicle carries the history of 
 Bohemia to 1526, ib. ; trans- 
 lation of chronicle found in 
 History of Bohemian Litera- 
 ture, ib. 
 
 Bartosek of Drahonic, his 
 chronicle the work of a 
 soldier, 47 ; traits of his life, 
 48. 
 
 Bellum Bohemicum, 81. 
 
 Benes of Weitmil, his chronicle, 
 17 ; his account of the last 
 campaign and death of King 
 John, ib., 18. 
 
 Bflek, Jacob, member of the 
 Bohemian Brethren, 63 ; pri- 
 son companion to John Au- 
 gusta, ib. ; his Life of Augusta 
 records his prison life, ib. ; his 
 tortures and imprisonment, 
 ib. ; imprisoned at Kfivoklat, 
 ib., 64 ; accusations against, 
 64 ; describes prison life, ib. ; 
 financier of the Bohemian 
 Brethren, ib. ; his book trans- 
 lated into German by Dr. J. 
 Miiller, 65. 
 
 Blahoslav, Jan, writer belonging 
 to the Bohemian Brethren, 
 61 ; his Historie Bratrskd, ib. ; 
 his pureness of Bohemian 
 style, ib. ; traits of his life, 
 62 ; supervisor of Bilek's Life 
 of Jan Augusta, 63. 
 
 Bloody Diet,' the, 56. 
 
 Bohemia, ranks high in Slavic 
 literature, 1 ; revival of its 
 language, 2; its Christianity
 
 114 
 
 INDEX 
 
 first received from the East, 
 3 ; national church of, 4 ; 
 arrival of Cechs in, 8 ; first 
 Cech settlement in, ib. ; Cos- 
 mas's account of settlement, 
 8-14; chronicle of Cosmas 
 popular in, 14 ; hatred of 
 Germansin, 15, 16; King John 
 the Don Quixote of, 17; his- 
 tory of, from 1283-1345, ib. ; 
 King John aids King of 
 France, 18, 19; King John 
 makes levies on churches and 
 monasteries of, 20; relics in 
 churches of, 22; attitude of 
 King Charles towards reli- 
 gious authorities, ib. ; its pro- 
 minent part in church reform, 
 26 ; its history during Hussite 
 wars, 27 ; Hussites strive to 
 reform clergy of, 28 ; repeated 
 invasions of, ib. ; secession of, 
 from Western Church, 36 ; 
 Sigismund accepted as king, 
 ib. ; attack on, and defence of 
 its capital, 40 ; its siege 
 abandoned by Sigismund, 42 ; 
 the battle of Vysehrad, 43-7; 
 untruthful tales concerning, 
 51 ; Latin History of, 52 ; in- 
 troduction of Lutherism into, 
 ib. ; 1526 an important land- 
 mark in history of, 54 ; Fer- 
 dinand of Habsburg elected 
 king of, ib. ; attempts to en- 
 large his powers, ib. ; discon- 
 tent arises, ib. ; refuses to aid 
 Emperor Charles in Lutheran 
 rising, 55 ; envoys meet the 
 king before Wittenberg, ib. ; 
 his crafty policy, ib. ; im- 
 portance of changes of faith 
 in, 69 ; Count Palatine Frede- 
 rick elected king, 71 ; ex- 
 istence of, as independent 
 country ceases, ib. ; for a time 
 a centre of European diplo- 
 macy, 77 ; catastrophe of the 
 White Mountain, 78-82 ; the 
 executions at Prague, 79-81 ; 
 changes in, caused by defeat 
 at White Mountain, 83 ; its 
 
 ancient constitution sup- 
 pressed, ib. ; Austrian reli- 
 gious oppression in, 84; na- 
 tional revival movement, 86, 
 87 ; difficulties in writing his- 
 tory of, 92; Estates of, aid 
 Palacky, 93 ; national move- 
 ment becomes political, 97 ; 
 Palacky recognized as leader 
 of, 99 ; Francis Joseph recog- 
 nizes the rights of, 100 ; His- 
 tory of, Palacky's master- 
 piece, ib. ; modern historians 
 of, 107 ; powers of the sove- 
 reign of, 108; its ancient 
 constitution, ib., 109 ; a con- 
 tinuous history of, desired, 
 110; writers on its literature, 
 ib. ; its glorious past. 111. 
 Bohemia, a Historical Sketch, 17. 
 Bohemian, word first used in 
 England in peculiar sense by 
 Thackeray, 1 ; has no con- 
 nexion with gipsies, ib. ; old- 
 est chronicle, 2 ; ' Hero- 
 dotus,' 6 ; nobles incensed 
 against Prince Ulrich, 16 ; 
 patriotism of Charles (' Pfaff- 
 enkaiser'), 21; church dig- 
 nitaries oppose doctrine of 
 poverty, 31 ; religious wars of 
 fifteenth century, 37 ; Sixt's 
 history written in, 54; Estates, 
 conflict with Ferdinand 1, 55 ; 
 Brethren, 61-4, 66, 71, 88, 
 109; version of the Bible, 61, 
 83 ; House of Rosenberg, 66 ; 
 rising of 1618, 70; leaders, 
 trial and execution of, 79-81 ; 
 national language persecuted, 
 84 ; history mainly in German 
 and Latin, ib. ; Museum, 90 ; 
 Palacky's first volume trans- 
 lated into, 94 ; edition of 
 Palacky's work completed, 
 100 ; modern historians, 106, 
 107; constitution and king, 
 108; literature, writers on, 
 110 ; nation, high intellectual 
 position, 111. 
 
 Bohemian Brethren, 61 ; works 
 of, specially marked for de-
 
 INDEX 
 
 115 
 
 struction by Jesuits, ib. ; his- 
 torical records carefully pre- 
 served, ib.; Bible of Kralice, 
 joint work of, 62, 83. 
 
 Bohemian Literature, History of, 
 by Count Liitzow, 52, 69, 73, 
 109 ; by Dr. Flajshans, 110. 
 
 Boleslav II, 2. 
 
 Bozena, 15, 16. 
 
 Bozetecha, wife of Cosmas of 
 Prague, 6. 
 
 Brescia, 24. 
 
 Bfezan, Wenceslas, historian, 
 traits of his life, 66 ; his work, 
 Annals of the House of Rosen- 
 berg, ib. ; many of his his- 
 torical works lost, ib. ; un- 
 equalled as genealogist and 
 biographer, ib. ; archivist and 
 historiographer of House of 
 Rosenberg, ib. ; Rosenberg 
 biography disappointing, 68. 
 
 Bfezov, Lawrence of, historian 
 of Hussite wars, 35 ; his 
 history edited by Professor 
 Goll, ib. ; traits of his life, ib. ; 
 his other works, ib., 36 ; his 
 chronicle of Hussite wars, 36 ; 
 unfair to Taborites, 37 ; in- 
 troduction to his chronicle, 
 ib. ; deals hastily with years 
 1414-19, 38 ; describes the 
 siege of Prague, ib. ; describes 
 the battle of 2izkov, 41 ; de- 
 scribes the battle of Vyse- 
 hrad, 43-7. 
 
 Cechy a Prusy ve stredoveku 
 (Bohemia and Prussia in the 
 Middle Ages), 110. 
 
 CeiU Stdtni Pravo, 107. 
 
 Charles IV of Germany, also I 
 of Bohemia, devoted to relics, 
 21 ; at the Imperial Diet at 
 Mainz, 22 ; author of Vita 
 Caroli, ib. ; his Vita Caroli 
 disappointing, ib. ; founds 
 his book on a diary, 23; un- 
 able to continue his book, ib.; 
 address to his successors, ib.; 
 his autobiography, 24 ; his 
 visit to Avignon, 25 ; death 
 
 an important landmark in 
 Bohemian history, 26. 
 
 Chlum, Lord John of, 29, 
 
 Chronicle of the Seditions and 
 Tumults at Prague, 52. 
 
 Chronicle of the World, 36. 
 
 Chronicon Bohemorum, 7. 
 
 Cosmas of Prague, father of 
 Bohemian history, 2 ; traits 
 of his life, 6 ; Bohemian 
 ' Herodotus,' ib. ; his nobility 
 of birth, ib. ; present at meet- 
 ing of German Diet at Mainz, 
 ib.; his Chronicon Bohemorum, 
 7 ; his account of arrival of 
 Cechs in Bohemia, 8 ; de- 
 scribes arrival of Slavs in 
 Bohemia, ib. ; his chronicle 
 not reliable in first book, 10 ; 
 his account of the murder of 
 Vefsovic nobles, 11 ; his 
 chronicle popular, 14. 
 
 Count Palatine Frederick, 73, 
 74, 80, 81 ; elected king of 
 Bohemia, 71 ; lack of military 
 talent, &c., ib. 
 
 Creighton, Bishop, 31, 50, 89, 
 101. 
 
 Dalimil, chronicle of, preserved 
 in Trinity College Library, 
 Cambridge, 14 ; many edi- 
 tions, 15 ; first edition 1620 at 
 Prague, ib. ; describes the 
 Bohemian hatred of the Ger- 
 mans, ib. ; ends with corona- 
 tion of King John, 1310, 16. 
 
 De Bohemorum Origine et Gestis 
 Historia, 51. 
 
 Denis, Professor Ernest, 58; 
 his Hus et la Guerre des Hus- 
 sites, 47. 
 
 Diarium Hussiticum, 35. 
 
 Die Geschichte des Hussiten- 
 thumes und Professor Hofler, 
 103. 
 
 Dobrovsky, Slavic scholar, 15 ; 
 protects Palacky, 89 ; intro- 
 duces Palacky to Bohemian 
 nobles, 90 ; complains of want 
 of interest in Bohemian Mu- 
 seum, ib. ; reproached by 
 
 I 2
 
 116 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Count Francis Sternberg for 
 writing in German, 91. 
 
 Domassa, 13. 
 
 Domazlice, Bohemian victory 
 at, 35 ; citizens of, apply to 
 Zizka for aid, 49. 
 
 Dubravius, Bishop of Olmiitz, 
 historian of Hussite Wars, 52. 
 
 Dvofecky of OlbramoviS, ac- 
 count of his death, 79. 
 
 Emperor Francis Joseph, his 
 decree of September 14, 1871, 
 100. 
 
 Epitome Hwtorica Rerum Bohe- 
 micarum, 85. 
 
 Fecamp, Peter, abbot of, 26. 
 
 Ferdinand of Habsburg, acces- 
 sion, 54; occupies Prague, 5, 6. 
 
 FlajShans, Dr., historian, his 
 History of Bohemian Litera- 
 ture, 110; his Master John 
 Hus, ib. 
 
 Francis of Prague, historian, 
 14 ; his chronicle declined by 
 Charles, 20. 
 
 Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 
 leader of German Protestants, 
 55. 
 
 Friedjung, Dr., 22, 26. 
 
 German Lutheran rising, 55. 
 Gindely, Anton, Dr., his gra- 
 
 Shic account of sufferings of 
 ohemians during Thirty 
 Years' War, 83; left valuable 
 historical works, 105 ; his un- 
 finished works, ib. ; his pro- 
 bable masterpiece, 106. 
 
 Gipsies, wrongly identified with 
 Bohemians, 1. 
 
 Goll, Professor, edits Bfezov's 
 Hussite Wars, 35 ; comments 
 on life and works of Brezov, 
 35-7 ; his introduction to Bre- 
 zov a masterpiece of historical 
 criticism, 37 ; edits two minor 
 chronicles dealing with Hus- 
 site Wars, 47 ; his works 
 mostly in Bohemian, 109 ; 
 deals with Bohemian Breth- 
 
 ren, ib. ; his account of Brother 
 Gregory, ib. ; his dechy a 
 Prusy ve stredoveku, 110. 
 
 Habernfeld, Andrew of, his 
 Bellum Bohemicum, 81 ; his 
 account of Battle of White 
 Mountain, ib. 
 
 Hajek of Libocan, Wenceslas, 
 historian, 58; his book dis- 
 torts historical facts, 59; 
 is dedicated to Ferdinand I, 
 ib. ; is revised by Ferdinand's 
 officials, ib. ; account of his 
 life, &c., 60. 
 
 Happe of Pappenheim, 33. 
 
 Helfert, Baron, attempts to re- 
 fute Palacky by writing a life 
 of Hus, 102. 
 
 Historical Works, fourteen MS. 
 volumes, by Slavata, 73. 
 
 Historie Bratrskd (Ilistwy of the 
 Brotherhood}, 61. 
 
 Historie Cirkevnl (History of the 
 Church), 74. 
 
 History of the Toivn of Prague, 
 106. 
 
 Hofler opposes Palacky by pub- 
 lishing volumes on the Hus- 
 site movement, 102. 
 
 Hradcany castle, 38, 43 ; exe- 
 cutions at, 56 ; Augusta's and 
 Bflek's judgement and torture 
 at, 63 ; defenestration at, 71, 
 72, 77. 
 
 Hus et la Guerre des Hussites, 
 47. 
 
 Hus, John, Bohemian reformer, 
 journey to Constance, 29 ; 
 groundless anecdotes re- 
 ferring to death of, ib. ; trial 
 of 31, ; at Nuremberg, 30 ; 
 his doctrine of poverty of 
 clergy, ib. ; martyrdom of, 
 32, 33 ; his remains thrown 
 into the Rhine, 33; his 
 death a signal for a general 
 uprising in Bohemia, 34 ; 
 Palacky 's views of, 96. 
 
 Hussite Wars, historians of, 
 27-53; Palacky 's views of, 
 103, 104.
 
 INDEX 
 
 117 
 
 Hussites described as brutal 
 fanatics and incendiaries, 27 ; 
 reformers of Bohemian clergy, 
 28. 
 
 Hussitism in Bohemia, The Fore- 
 runners of, written by Pa- 
 lacky, 101 ; permission to 
 print delayed, ib. ; translated 
 and published by Dr. Jordan, 
 ib. ; new edition, 1869, ib. 
 
 Interpretation of Dreams, 36. 
 
 James I of England, 78. 
 
 Jirecek, Dr., publishes a study 
 of Blahoslav, 62 ; states accu- 
 sations against Augusta and 
 Bflek, 64 ; editor of Slavata's 
 work, 72. 
 
 Jordan, Dr., translates and pub- 
 lishes in his own name Pa- 
 lacky's Forerunners of Hus- 
 sitism in Bohemia, 101. 
 
 Joseph II, uncrowned king of 
 Bohemia, 87 ; aids in the ad- 
 vancement of public progress, 
 87. 
 
 Journal of the Bohemian Mu- 
 seum, published both in Bohe- 
 mian and German, 91 ; Ger- 
 man edition suspended, ib. 
 
 Kalousek, Professor, 89; his 
 deskd Stdtni Pravo or Bohe- 
 mian Constitution, 107. 
 
 King John of Bohemia, 17 ; aids 
 France in hostilities against 
 England, 18, 19; killed in 
 battle, 19 ; his body searched 
 for and delivered to his 
 countrymen, ib. ; carried to 
 Luxemburg and buried, ib. ; 
 entered Brescia in 1330, 24; 
 accepted by Italian cities as 
 ruler, ib. ; recrossed the Alps 
 in 1331, 25. 
 
 King Rudolph, 70. 
 
 Kinsky, Ulrick, 77. 
 
 Klebelsberg, Count, 90. 
 
 Kolowrat, Count, 90. 
 
 Kralice, Bible of, joint work of 
 Bohemian Brethren, 61 ; pre- 
 
 served by Bohemian Brethren, 
 83. 
 
 Kristian, also called Strachkvas, 
 2 ; supposed author of Life of 
 St. Ludmilla and Martyrdom 
 of St. Wenceslas, ib. ; date of 
 his chronicle uncertain, ib., 6; 
 his account of the conversion 
 of Moravia, 3 ; his account 
 of the murder of St. Wen- 
 ceslas, 4-6. 
 
 Kfivoklat, castle of, imprison- 
 ment of Bilek and Augusta 
 at, 64. 
 
 KromSrice, 98. 
 
 Krusina, Lord, 46. 
 
 Kutna Hora, 84. 
 
 Leger, Professor, 50. 
 
 ' Letter of Majesty,' 72, 75, 76 ; 
 signed, 70. 
 
 Life of St. Ludmilla and Martyr- 
 dom of St. Wenceslas, 2. 
 
 Lipan, battle of, 51. 
 
 Litomygl, John, bishop of, 31. 
 
 Mare, Mr., archivist at Wit- 
 tingau, publisher of Life of 
 Peter of Rosenberg, by Brezan, 
 67. 
 
 Martinic, defenestrated at Hrad- 
 cany castle, 77. 
 
 Master John Hus, 110. 
 
 Mastino della Scala, 24. 
 
 Miscellany of Bohemian History, 
 A, 86. 
 
 Mlada-Boleslav, town of, 4, 62. 
 
 Mladenovic, biographer of Hus, 
 29 ; secretary to Lord John 
 of Chlum, ib. ; present at trial 
 of Hus, ib. ; becomes mem- 
 ber of the moderate Hussite 
 church, ib. ; his account of 
 Hus's journey to Constance 
 and imprisonment, ib. ; of the 
 martyrdom of Hus, 29-32 ; of 
 Hus's arrival at Nuremberg, 
 30. 
 
 Miihlberg, battle of, 55. 
 
 Miiller, Dr. Joseph, 65. 
 
 Murger, Henry, his Vie de 
 Boheme, 1.
 
 118 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mutina, a Verovic noble, sus- 
 pected by Svatopluk of treach- 
 ery, 11 ; severely addressed 
 by Svatopluk, 12 ; murdered, 
 ib. 
 
 NejstarU Kronika Zeskd, 2. 
 Neplach, abbot, companion to 
 Charles on his travels, 20. 
 
 Odpor Stavu Geskych proti Fer- 
 
 nandovi, 106. 
 Opatovic, abbot of, 20. 
 Otto of Daymark, 36. 
 
 Palacky, Francis, Bohemian 
 historian, 1, 7; his Wurdigung 
 der alien bb'hmischen Geschicht- 
 schreiber standard authority, 
 10 ; shows the difficulty of 
 obtaining history during 
 Hussite wars, 27 ; publisher of 
 Mladenovic's biography of 
 Hus, 29 ; editor of chronicles 
 of the Hussite wars, 50 ; leader 
 of Bohemian national revival 
 movement, 88 ; his education, 
 ib. ; studied English writers, 
 89 ; referred to in English 
 literature very little, ib. ; at 
 Prague, ib., 90 ; at Patriotic 
 Association meeting, ib. ; first 
 editor of Journal of the Bo- 
 hemian Museum, ib. ; archivist 
 to Count Sternberg, ib. ; finds 
 history of Bohemia incom- 
 plete, 92; deals only with 
 history of Bohemia up to 
 1526, 93; aided in his work 
 by Estates of Bohemia, ib. ; 
 historiographer of Bohemia, 
 ib. ; first volume of his history 
 of Bohemia published, 94 ; it 
 first appeared in German, ib. ; 
 his history a life-work, 95 ; 
 struggles with the censors, 
 ib. ; restores passages elimin- 
 ated or replaced by the cen- 
 sors, 97 ; elected representa- 
 tive of Bohemia to the con- 
 stituent assembly at Vienna, 
 ib. ; member of Slavic congress 
 
 at Prague, 98 ; replies to 
 invitation to congress at 
 Frankfurt, ib. ; retires to 
 private life, ib. ; appointed 
 life member of Vienna Parlia- 
 ment, 99 ; retirement from 
 Parliament, ib. ; returns to 
 political life, 100 ; completion 
 of Bohemian edition of his 
 historical work, ib. ; death, 
 ib. ; his shorter works, ib ; 
 his essay, The Forerunners of 
 Hussitism in Bohemia, 101 ; 
 his work attacked on the 
 Hussite movement, 102 ; criti- 
 cizes Hofler's rival work, ib. ; 
 his Die Geschichte desHussiten- 
 thumes und Professor Hofler, 
 103 ; his views of the Hussite 
 period, ib. ; editor of valuable 
 documents of Bohemian his- 
 tory, 105 ; his speech at a 
 banquet given to celebrate 
 the termination of his his- 
 torical work, 111. 
 
 Pekaf, Professor, his Nejstarsi 
 Kronika ceskd, 2 ; publishes 
 Life of St. Ludmilla and 
 Martyrdom of St. Wenceslas, 
 3. 
 
 Pelzl, 86. 
 
 Pesina, Canon Tomas, historical 
 works of, 86. 
 
 Pierre, Roget, 25. 
 
 Plumlov, Lord Henry of, 45, 46. 
 
 Poland, prominent in Slavic 
 literature, 1. 
 
 Pope Benedict, 25. 
 
 Pope Pius II, 51, 84. 
 
 Prague, 73, 74, account of 
 siege of, by Bfezov, 38-46 ; 
 occupied by Ferdinand, 56 ; 
 executions at, ib., 71, 79; 
 citizens of, threatened by 
 foreigners, 58; history of, 
 106, 7. 
 
 Prague, Francis provost of, 14. 
 
 Pfemyslide princes, 11. 
 
 Prokop the Great, 34. 
 
 Protestant rising, 71 ; Austrian 
 officials defenestrated at 
 Hradcany castle, ib.
 
 INDEX 
 
 119 
 
 Pubicka, 86. 
 
 Pulkava, or Pfibik of Radenin, 
 travels with King Charles, 20 ; 
 personality in long dispute, 
 ib. ; proved to be author of 
 Pulkava's chronicle, ib. ; traits 
 of his life, ib. ; translator of 
 Vita Caroli, 21. 
 
 Queen Sophia, wife of Wen- 
 
 ceslas IV, 35. 
 Quellen und Untersuchungen zur 
 
 Geschichte der bohmischen Bru- 
 
 der, 109. 
 
 Reliquiae, Ludewig's, 35. 
 
 Respublica Sojema, 82. 
 
 Rezek, Dr., Bohemian historian, 
 writes as a continuator of 
 Palacky's work, 110 ; member 
 of the Austrian Cabinet, ib. 
 
 Rosenberg, Bohemian House of, 
 66. 
 
 Rosenberg, House of, Annals of 
 the, 66. 
 
 Rosenberg, Peter of, 67 ; bio- 
 graphy disappointing, 68 ; an 
 example of character of Bohe- 
 mian nobles, ib. ; devotion to 
 art, ib. ; description of per- 
 sonality, 69 ; died in 1611, 70. 
 
 Rosenberg, William of, account 
 of candidature to the Polish 
 throne, 67. 
 
 Russia, most prominent of Slav 
 countries, 1. 
 
 Safafik, 89. 
 
 Sanfelice, battle of, 25. 
 
 Sazava, monk of, 14. 
 
 Sigismund, the Hungarian king, 
 36, 38, 42, 43. 
 
 Sixt of Ottersdorf, a Bohemian 
 historian, 54 ; official at 
 Prague, 55 ; his Acts and re- 
 cord-book of 1546-7, ib. ; one 
 of a deputation sent to King 
 Ferdinand, ib. ; deprived of 
 office, 56 ; his Introduction 
 quoted, ib. ; his account of 
 meetings of Bohemian Diets, 
 
 57; his book little known, 
 58. 
 
 Skala ze Zhofe, Paul, Protestant 
 and government official of 
 King Frederick, 71; great Bo- 
 hemian historian, 73 ; brief 
 sketch of his life, ib. ; his 
 works, 74; his Historie Ctr- 
 kevnl, ib. ; works edited by 
 Prof. Tieftrunk, ib. ; his ac- 
 count of the defenestration, 
 75; remarks on English po- 
 licy on Bohemian question, 
 77 ; account of executions at 
 Prague, 79. 
 
 Slavata, Count William, coun- 
 cillor of Ferdinand II, 71 ; 
 traits of his life, ib. ; his 
 literary activity, 72 ; works 
 edited by Dr. Jirecek, 72, 73 ; 
 quoted in History of Bohemian 
 Literature, 73 ; nis Historical 
 Works, 73 ; account of de- 
 fenestration of, at Hradcany 
 castle, 76, 77. 
 
 Slik, Joachim Andrew Count, 
 75. 
 
 Society of the Bohemian Mu- 
 seum, founded by . Count 
 Francis Sternberg, 90 ; its 
 purpose to collect objects and 
 documents connected with 
 History of Bohemia, ib. ; its 
 present vast collection, ib. 
 
 Sternberg, Count, 90, 91. 
 
 Sternberg, Count Francis, 90. 
 
 Stransky, Paul, his Respublica 
 Bojema, 82. 
 
 Svatopluk, Prince, 11 ; his 
 furious address to Mutina, 12. 
 
 Sylvius, Aeneas, 59, 95 ; his 
 De Bohemorum Origins et Gestis 
 Historia, 51 ; his style modelled 
 on classics, ib. ; untruthful 
 tales due to him, ib. 
 
 Taborites, the, 37, 40. 
 
 Thackeray first in England to 
 use ' Bohemian ' in its peculiar 
 sense, 1. 
 
 Thurn, Count, 76, 77. 
 
 Tieftrunk, Professor, 58 ; pub- 
 lisher of Skala's work, 74 ;
 
 120 
 
 INDEX 
 
 his Odpor Stavii deskbch 
 proti Femandovi, 106 ; edits 
 part of Skala's historical 
 work, ib. 
 
 Tomek, Professor Wenceslas 
 Vladivoj, researches of, 20 ; 
 assistant of Palacky, 97, 106 ; 
 elected a representative of 
 Bohemia to the constituent 
 assembly at Vienna, 97 ; his 
 life of Zi2ka, 106 ; his History 
 of the Town of Prague, 106. 
 
 Travels of Sir John Mandeville, 
 36. 
 
 Ulrich, Prince, 15, 16. 
 Unislav, 13. 
 
 Vacek, a Versovic noble, sus- 
 pected of treachery by Svato- 
 pluk, 11. 
 
 Versovic nobles, massacre of, 
 account of, by Cosmas, 11. 
 
 Vie de Boheme, 1. 
 
 Vita Caroli, autobiography of 
 Charles, Emperor of Ger- 
 many and King of Bohemia, 
 21 ; translated into Bohemian 
 by Pulkava, ib. ; said to be 
 descriptive of the Lehrjahre 
 (learning-years) of Charles, 
 22 ; written in first and third 
 person, ib. ; ends at 1346, 23 ; 
 account of Italian campaign 
 most picturesque, 24. 
 
 Vratislav, Prince, of Bohemia, 
 11. 
 
 VySehrad, battle of, account of, 
 
 43-7. 
 VySehrad, canon of, 14. 
 
 Waldsteins, Count, library of, 
 74. 
 
 Welser, Philippina, wife of 
 Archduke Ferdinand, 65. 
 
 Wenceslas, King of Bohemia, 35. 
 
 Wenceslas, St., murder of, 4-6. 
 
 White Mountain, Battle of, 15, 
 73, 81, 103; defeat of Bohe- 
 mian forces, 71 ; the end of 
 Bohemia as an independent 
 country, 71,78; great changes 
 in Bohemia in consequence 
 of, 83. 
 
 Wratislaw, Mr., 14, 31. 
 
 Wiirdigung der alien bohmischen 
 Gescnichtschreiber, 10, 17, 59, 
 100. 
 
 2amberk, 61. 
 
 Zittau, Peter, abbot of, his- 
 torian, 14 ; visited by Charles 
 
 , IV, 20. 
 
 Zizka, John, 40, 51, 102 ; Bo- 
 hemian general and historian, 
 34, 48 ; writings preserved, 
 few, 48 ; letter to citizens of 
 Domazlice, 49 ; invades Hun- 
 gary, 50 ; account of his 
 death, ib. ; Tomek's life of, 
 106. 
 
 Zizkov, Battle of, 2; account 
 of, 41, 42.
 
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