FOOTNOTES

PLACE IN FRONT OF TOWN COUNCIL HOUSE OF PRAGUE WHERE THE BOHEMIAN NOBLES WERE EXECUTED AFTER THE INSURRECTION.

STATUE OF ST. JOHN NEPOMUC.

But it must not be supposed that no resistance was offered to this scheme of persecution. Loc̆ika, the preacher at the Teyn Church, persisted, even in 1622, in administering the Cup to the laity. He was rebuked for this proceeding; but he appealed to his congregation to stand by him, and he repeated theoffence on the following Sunday. Then soldiers came into the church to seize him; he escaped by a back door, and a thousand men gathered to defend his house. In spite of this defence, however, the soldiers broke into the house and carried Loc̆ika to prison, where he soon after died.

More notable still, in its consequences to Bohemia, was the resistance of Kutna Hora. Even Ferdinand’s champions and followers had warned him that the mining industry was of vital importance to the welfare of Bohemia, and that it could only be maintained by respecting those powers of self-government which had been granted for so many centuries to the miners. But Ferdinand cared little for the material prosperity of Bohemia. Ever since Z̆iz̆ka had rescued it from Sigismund, Kutna Hora had remained enthusiastically Protestant; and it now offered special resistance to the attempt to Catholicise Bohemia. Ferdinand resolved at all hazards to crush this opposition. In defiance of the special liberties of the town he quartered soldiers upon it; and, when even this did not crush its spirit, he sent the Jesuits to celebrate Mass at the church of St. Barbara. Forcible expulsion seemed at last the only hope for conversion, and, by the end of 1626, no Protestant was left in Kutna Hora. Two hundred and eight out of five hundred and ninety houses were deserted, and the mining industry was ruined in its chief centre.

CHURCH OF ST. BARBARA AT KUTNA HORA.

But there was one Protestant whose claims to consideration even Ferdinand could not deny. Charles of Z̆erotin had stood faithfully by the king at the height of the insurrection, and he had sacrificed position, and suffered imprisonment, in his cause. Ferdinand had promised to respect his convictions, and not to interfere with the Protestants who resided on his estate. Z̆erotin, therefore, was naturally indignantwhen he found the Commissioners of Cardinal Dietrichstein carrying out, on his lands, their schemes for the suppression of Protestant worship. He hastened to Vienna and warmly remonstrated with the Emperor on his breach of faith. Ferdinand admitted the promises which he had given, and the services which he had received from Z̆erotin; but he said that the Pope was his master in matters of conscience, and the Pope had forbidden him to keep his promises. Z̆erotin was not satisfied with this answer. He hastened back to his own estate, and found that the Commissioners had just closed a Protestant church and sealed up the doors. Z̆erotin indignantly tore off the seal, re-opened the church, and took under his special protection several of the preachers who had fled from other districts. A Bohemian nobleman named George Sabovsky followed Z̆erotin’s example; and thus, both in Bohemia and Moravia, Protestantism was still kept alive in certain small districts.

Ferdinand now saw that it was not only the preachers whom he had to fear; and that to attack the clergy and destroy the privileges of towns, while he spared the nobles, was an extremely inadequate policy. He therefore now issued decrees, which were partly aimed against the landed proprietors, partly against Protestants of every class. In 1624 Protestants were forbidden to register their lands in that Land Court which alone secured them a good title to their estates; their children might not inherit the lands of their fathers unless they deserted their fathers’ faith; and marriages between Protestants and Catholics were to be no longer recognised. Eventhese remedies failed. Z̆erotin still openly defied the royal Commissioners; and at last, in 1627, all Protestants were ordered to sell their estates and to leave the country, under pain of severe punishments.

But, before this climax had been reached, Ferdinand had discovered how hopelessly entangled with each other were the principles of civil and of religious liberty. He had wished merely to Catholicise Bohemia; in order to effect this, he now found that he must crush out its national feeling and its constitutional liberties. The towns had resisted him, therefore the towns must be deprived of their charters. The Land Court might evade the decisions against Protestant registration; the decisions of the Land Court must in future be overruled by the king. The Estates might make Protestant laws, and refuse to vote necessary taxes for his wars; their power must therefore be practically suppressed; the king must be allowed to re-model the Constitution, to appoint officials, to raise forces, and to levy taxes, without interference from any other authority. Nay, might not Prague rise, again, against his authority? Therefore the king must carry off the Bohemian crown to Vienna, and govern Bohemia by the advice of Austrian councillors. Even in that most tender point, his language, the Bohemian was to receive severe wounds. Ferdinand, indeed, had talked only of equalising the German and Bohemian languages in the practice of the law courts; but, as German officials and judges gradually took the place of Bohemians, and as a German aristocracy rapidly rose on the ruins of the exiled Bohemian nobles, this equalisation steadily developed into the exaltation ofGerman at the expense of Bohemian, while, in the University and the schools, both these living languages gave way before the Latin of the Jesuits. The study of history and physical science almost died out. Trade steadily decayed, and the population of the country diminished.

It is obvious that, in such a period as this, the real history of Bohemia should be rather studied in the lives of its exiles, than in the dreary records of its home life. Fortunately, one can find among these exiles a man who is trebly interesting to the historian; first, as embodying the highest ideal then possible to a Bohemian; secondly, as linking together, in a remarkable manner, the earlier and later stages of the Bohemian Brotherhood; thirdly, as one of the founders of the modern methods of education. John Amos Komensky (better known by his Latin name of Comenius) was born at Nivnice in Moravia in 1592. His father and mother died early, and the guardians, to whose care he was left, are said to have neglected their charge. However, he was sent to the school of the Brotherhood at Prerov, where he soon developed a great love of learning; and, at the age of thirty-two, he was appointed by Charles of Z̆erotin to the headship of the school in which he had formerly studied. He soon became impressed with the unsatisfactory character of the accepted methods of teaching Latin; and he suggested an easier and simpler plan. From Prerov he was removed to Fulnec, the oldest Moravian settlement of the Brotherhood; but, before he could carry his reforms any further, he was interrupted in his work by theBohemian insurrection. In 1621 a Spanish army burnt Fulnec; and all Comenius’s books and manuscripts were destroyed. In the time of persecution he, like other preachers of the Brotherhood, took refuge with Charles of Z̆erotin. The sufferings and uncertainties of his life naturally turned his attention to theological and moral problems, and his first important book took the form of an allegory. In this he describes a journey through scenes of vanity and confusion, ending in the return to the inner life, and the realisation of a stronger sympathy with the poor and suffering.

JOHN AMOS KOMENSKY.

But the final expulsion of the Protestants from Bohemia brought Comenius back to the real work of his life. He and other members of the Brotherhood now formed a kind of colony at Lissa in Poland. In that town he resumed his profession of schoolmaster, and he once more became vividly conscious of the defects in existing methods of education. In 1631 he published the book which embodies his strongest convictions on these matters—“Janua aurea reserrata quatuor linguarum.” In this book he points out that “boys are being stuffed with the names of things without the things.” The boy learns to recite by heart a thousand words; if he does not know how to apply them to things, of what use will all this provision of words be? Moreover, the books chosen are too restricted in their character; and, however excellent in quality, they do not deal with nearly all the subjects which a boy should learn. Comenius therefore proposes to arrange sentences in four languages (Latin, German, French, and Italian). These sentences deal with a large variety of subjects, ranging from the creation of the world to the mechanical arts and the practice of the law-courts; and they are followed by a vocabulary of the most necessary words. Comenius, indeed, very generously admitted that the Jesuits had made a useful beginning in this matter of the vocabulary; but he did not consider that their vocabulary was complete enough for his purpose.

In a later book called the “Didactica,” he further explained his principles. The intellect, he urged, should be developed before mere language is taught. Language should be learnt from authors, rather than from grammatical rules. Things should be taught before organisms; examples before rules. Pictures should be largely used to bring out the meaning of the teacher; and children should not be forced to commit to memory what they do not understand. The first teaching should be given in the vernacular; the Latin equivalents should be learnt later. “Nature,” said Comenius, “cannot be forced, but must be led willingly. All the senses must be called into play by the lesson; and the later lessons should be the natural development of the earlier ones. Whatever is to be known should be taught. Whatever is taught should be taught as a present thing of definite use.”

Comenius had now gained a high reputation in the Brotherhood; and he was chosen to write the history of its trials and sufferings. At the same time his educational works had attracted attention outside his own circle, and Gustavus Adolphus invited him to Sweden, to reform the schools in that country. This invitation Comenius at first refused; but, ten years later, when his books were in a more advanced condition, he accepted a proposal, of a somewhat similar kind, from another country.

Samuel Hartlib, a merchant of London, had been much interested in the works of Comenius; and, in his desire to reform English education, he invited the Bohemian to come over to London. Hartlib hadshown great liberality to the Bohemian exiles; and Comenius had already been interested in several English books. Moreover, one of his own books had been written at Hartlib’s suggestion, and published, at Hartlib’s own expense, in London. Comenius, therefore, decided to accept this invitation, and he arrived in London in the critical year 1641. The Long Parliament readily responded to Hartlib’s proposals; and they voted money for the founding of three colleges, in which the principles of Comenius might at once be applied. One of these was to be at the Savoy, one at Chelsea, and one at Winchester. Unfortunately, the Irish insurrection turned the attention of Parliament away from these matters; and the rapid succession of events, which culminated in the civil war, convinced the Bohemian that there was no further possibility, at that time, for the development of his purposes in England.

But, though Comenius left our country in some disappointment, it must be remembered that he left one very eminent disciple behind him. Four years later, when the hopes of the Puritans had gained further strength, Hartlib appealed to Milton to second him in the promotion of his schemes. Milton turned, somewhat unwillingly, from the composition of the Areopagitica to the discussion of Hartlib’s plans; but he was impressed by his friend’s enthusiasm; and it is evidently of Comenius that he speaks so warmly in his letter. He there describes him as “a person sent hither by some good Providence from a far country, to be the occasion and incitement of great good to this Island.” Though,therefore, the poet had not time “to search out what many modern Januas and Didactics, more than ever I shall read, have projected,” he yet consented in this letter to express his sympathy with the plans of Comenius and Hartlib. The following words, perhaps, best sum up his teaching. “If, after some preparatory grounds of speech, by their certain forms got into memory, children were led to the praxis thereof, in some chosen short book lessened thoroughly to them, they might then learn the substance of good things and arts in due order, which would bring the whole language quickly into their power.”

In the meantime, Comenius, eager for those spheres of work, had accepted a second invitation to Sweden, this time from a Swedish nobleman named De Geer. The famous Chancellor, Oxenstierna, readily welcomed the Bohemian to Sweden; though, at the same time, he complained that previous educational reformers had pointed out faults without suggesting remedies. When Comenius produced his schemes, the Chancellor subjected them to a searching criticism; and, finding that Comenius was ready to meet his objections, he consented to place the reform of Swedish education under his guidance. Comenius, however, ultimately chose the Prussian town of Elbing as the centre of his experiments; probably because he was there nearer to the settlements of the Brotherhood, and could intervene at times to mitigate their quarrels or intercede for their rights.

The relation of literary patron to protected man of genius has never been an easy or a happy one; and Comenius often found that De Geer complainedof the slowness of his work, and, still more, perhaps, of that wide range of sympathies which often distracted him from the interests to which his patron desired him to confine himself. Once De Geer even withdrew his support, for a time, from the needy Bohemian; and Comenius must have felt this desertion the more keenly, because his applications for money had been far oftener made on behalf of others than for his own needs. But a bitterer blow awaited him in 1648. He had hoped that the enthusiasm of Gustavus Adolphus for the Protestant Cause had been shared by his Councillors, and by his countrymen generally; and that they would insist on the restoration of the Protestant Bohemians to their country, before the final conclusion of the peace. It was, therefore, a terrible shock to find that Oxenstierna cared more for the possession of Pomerania than for the liberties of German or Bohemian Protestants; and Comenius bitterly reproached the Swedish Chancellor with his desertion of the cause of the exiles.

But this year of disappointment brought one consolation. Comenius was elected Chief Bishop of the Bohemian Brotherhood; and his exhortations and encouragements seemed for a time to put new life into the Society. More noteworthy still is the effect which these addresses produced in the following century; for it was they that decided Count Zinzendorf to welcome the Brethren to Herrnhut, and to inaugurate that later period of their career during which they have been known by the name of “Moravians.” It is interesting, too, to find thatComenius was actuated by that Slavonic feeling which was always so powerful in Bohemia; and that he conceived the idea of translating the Bible into Turkish, so that, by turning the Sultan to the true faith, he might secure an easier life for those Slavs who were suffering under the Mahommedan tyranny. His educational labours were also carried on with some effect in Poland and Hungary; and it should be specially remembered that the German Real-Schule is as much due to the inspiration of Comenius as the Universities of Leipzic and Wittenberg are to the model provided for them, and the scholars trained in the University of Prague.

But, though the career of Comenius shows that there were still Bohemians who tried to keep alive the intellectual and moral life of their nation, such instances are but rare interruptions to the dreary record of stifling tyranny which stretched over the last years during which the male line of the Hapsburgs governed Bohemia. Doubtless, occasionally, energetic students, like the Jesuits, Balbin and Pes̆ina, give hopes of an ultimate revival of interest in the national history; sometimes an insurrection of the peasantry, like that of 1680, seems to hint that tyranny may become intolerable at last. Joseph I., indeed, is credited with a desire for reform; but at any rate there is no sign of a realisation of his ideas; and it is only when the male Hapsburgs make way for the one female ruler of their race that a day of better things seems just about to dawn. Even that dawn was very slow in breaking. Some encouragement was given to culture by Maria Theresa, and a literarysociety was founded; but it soon became apparent that even literary discussions involved an awkward revival of the past; and the censors again interfered to check intellectual progress. The Empress-Queen relaxed the feudal oppression of the peasantry; but only enough was granted to excite, without satisfying, the desire for liberty. One step, however, was gained during this reign, which cleared the ground for future progress. Popes and kings at last realised that that great Order, before which they had bowed, might become as dangerous to them as to the people whom they governed; and, in 1773, Clement XIV. dissolved the Society of Jesus. This dissolution struck a blow at that monopoly of education which had stunted the intellectual life of Bohemia, and it prepared the way for the changes of the following reign.

In 1780, Joseph II. of Germany, the first king of the House of Lorraine, succeeded his mother as ruler of all the dominions of the House of Austria. He at once signalised his accession to power by an Edict of Toleration, which allowed all Protestants to return to Bohemia, and to settle there freely. But, with all his zeal for enlightenment, Joseph was hampered by those old traditions of uniformity which he had received from his mother’s family. He soon found that Protestants could not be all rolled together in compact bundles and kept quiet there. Not only the Bohemian Brothers, but a number of very strange sects, would come in under the new Edict. Some of these did not even profess Christianity; and Joseph was yet more irritated to find that men who had special convictions sometimes wished to express themin ways of which their neighbours disapproved. The Protestants were therefore called upon to accept either the Augsburg Confession or the Calvinistic Formulæ; and, when he at last realised that there was a growing body in the country who refused to accept any definite Christian creed, Joseph’s feelings of toleration gave way. Children were torn from their parents to be educated in sounder principles, and the parents were banished to Transylvania.

A blot, that created even more general indignation in Bohemia, stained Joseph’s schemes of educational reform. Here, too, he wished to remove restrictions and to extend knowledge; but here again the Hapsburg instinct was too strong for eighteenth-century enlightenment. The Latin of the Jesuits was, indeed, to be deposed from its supremacy. Printing-presses were to be established. Studies previously rejected were to be encouraged. But the tyranny of Latin only made way for the tyranny of German.Thatwas to be the one recognised language of education; and Bohemian was to yield to it even more completely than it had yielded to the language of an older civilisation.

Nor had Parliaments or municipalities any chance of life. No laws were to be passed by the Bohemian Estates without the sanction of an Austrian Board; the censorship of Bohemian books was to be conducted from Vienna; a brand-new municipal code was to check the free play of the old Town Rights. Only in one matter was freedom to be unhampered in its progress, and untainted by any of those inconsistent arrangements which took back with one handwhat the other hand had given. The power of the lord over the serf was to be completely broken; and the freed peasants might move as they pleased from place to place, and might choose whatever trade or study they desired, unhampered by the authority of their former masters.

But the opposition to the denationalising plans of Joseph, which assumed so violent a form in Hungary and the Netherlands, encouraged the Bohemians also to protest in a milder fashion; and, when Leopold succeeded Joseph as King of Bohemia, he was forced to reconsider his brother’s policy, to convoke the Bohemian Assembly once more, and to make concessions to the national feeling in the matter of language. For, in spite of all repressions and discouragements, that feeling had never ceased to have its influence in Bohemia; and it was well illustrated by three men of very different type, who had begun their efforts in the discouraging times of repression, and who lived on into more hopeful days.

Of these the eldest was Frantis̆ek Pelc̆el, who was born at Rychnov (Reichenau) in 1735. He was a man of obscure birth, and he was intended by his parents for the medical profession. But he did not like this occupation; so he went to Prague to study in the High School, where he partly supported himself by teaching the children of rich citizens. Finding, however, that logic was better taught at Králové Dvůr (Königinhof), he went there to study; but, while he was there, the school was placed more completely under Jesuit control. The strange mixture of repulsion and attraction which that wonderful Society seemsgenerally to excite in its pupils, had its influence over Pelc̆el; and the attraction proving, for the time, the stronger feeling, he was inclined to give himself to theology; but the Seven Years War cut short his studies, and he left Bohemia for Vienna.

It was on his return to Prague that he fell in with the second of the men who were to be the great promoters of the new movement. This was Count Caspar of Sternberg, the son of an officer who had served under Maria Theresa. He, like Pelc̆el, had been attracted to the study of theology; but his audacious speculations had startled the professors at the German College in Rome, and the Jesuits had produced on him a purely repellent effect. After the dissolution of the German College, Sternberg had returned to Prague, and had given himself to the study of art. He soon took notice of Pelc̆el, and entrusted to him the education of his children. This turned Pelc̆el from his theological speculations; but it was not till his transfer to the family of another nobleman that he devoted himself wholly to the study and writing of history. His life of Charles IV. and his short history of Bohemia may be wanting in the wide views and deeper insight of later historians; but the evidence of enormous industry and hearty interest in the subject make a distinct mark in the progress of national feeling.

The most remarkable of the leaders of the movement, and the one who seems to be the most looked back to by the historians of the present day, was Josef Dobrovsky. He, too, was intended by his Jesuit teachers for a theological career; and it wasonly the suppression of that Order which turned him for a time to the study of the language. He did not, however, abandon theology. In 1778 he brought out a commentary on Bohemian literature; and in 1779 he began to edit a journal in which contemporary Bohemian literature was noticed and criticised. Curiously enough, his conclusions about Bohemian history were rather opposed to those of modern national historians. He threw doubts on the existence of the common Slavonic language; and he rather discredited the extent of the influence of Cyril and Methodius, as compared with that of the Roman Church. But for the Bohemian language he was keenly zealous, and when, in 1790, Leopold appeared at a meeting of the Bohemian Society of Sciences, Dobrovsky appealed to him to protect his countrymen in the use of their mother-tongue. The Emperor was so much impressed by this appeal, that he sent six thousand gulden to the society, for the promotion of journeys for inquiry into the Bohemian history and language. Dobrovsky was chosen to travel in Sweden and Russia, both for the recovery of lost manuscripts and for the collection of further information about Slavonic literature.

In the meantime, Count Caspar von Sternberg had been forced to abandon official life, and had begun to devote himself more exclusively to the promotion of art, literature, and science. The Emperor Francis showed himself almost as friendly as Leopold had been to the revival of Bohemian literature and art; and, in 1818, he assented to the foundation of the National Museum at Prague for the collection of allkinds of literary, artistic, and scientific antiquities of Bohemia. The foundation of this museum was almost contemporaneous with events which excited, to the highest pitch, the champions of Bohemian language and literature.

A man named Hanka, in hunting for some ecclesiastical documents in the vault of the church of Králové Dvůr, found an old chest in the wall, in which church ornaments were kept. Hidden behind this were some curious old manuscripts, which, on examination, proved to be Bohemian songs of a comparatively early date. They were at once despatched to Prague, and were handed over by Count Sternberg to two men who were now gaining much reputation. These were Josef S̆afarik, a Slovak from that district of Hungary where a dialect of the Bohemian language is usually spoken, and Frantis̆ek Palacký, the son of a Calvinist minister, who had been marked out for an important post in the new museum. They examined the manuscript, and, after long consideration, pronounced it genuine. This discovery seemed to open a new world of life and thought to the champions of national literature. Most of the songs, it was true, dealt mainly with battles; but the power of expression seemed to indicate a condition of culture in the ninth or tenth century which led the Bohemians to believe in an early development of national life, uninfluenced by Teutonic intruders.

SLOVAK WOMAN FOUND IN PARTS OF MORAVIA AND ALSO IN HUNGARY.

Count Sternberg now issued an appeal to the possessors of all antiquities, whether literary, artistic, or scientific, to send them to the National Museum. One of the first answers to this appeal was ananonymous letter, in which the writer announced that he had discovered another Bohemian manuscript in a certain castle; but that he feared to give his name or call public attention to the place, as the owner of the castle was a German “Michel”[6]who would destroy any Bohemian manuscript if he found it. The writer, therefore, forwarded the manuscript secretly, without waiting for the lord’s permission. The manuscript was found to be the poem of the Libus̆in Saud described in the first chapter of this history; and the writer, on inquiry, was discovered to be Kovar, the bailiff of Count Colloredo-Mansfeld. The manuscript, it appeared, had been discovered in a vault of the Castle of Zelená hora (Grünberg),in Nepomuc, where the bailiff had been examining a number of business papers. This manuscript was also examined, and was pronounced by Palacký and S̆afarik to be of earlier date than the Königinhof manuscript.

These discoveries, however, were not suffered to pass unchallenged. At first, indeed, the controversy seemed likely to be conducted on scientific principles. The chief opponent of their authenticity was the zealous patriot Dobrovsky; and he disputed their claim to historic worth on philological grounds. But soon the controversy passed out of the serene air of scientific discussion. The eager enthusiasm with which most Bohemian patriots had hailed the discovery of the manuscripts, aroused an equally eager desire on the part of the enemies of their language to dispute the authenticity of these discoveries; and savage German critics accused Hanka and Kovar of forgery, and denounced as absurd the suggestion of any possible Bohemian civilisation which had not come from Germany. The writings of S̆afarik on the various Slavonic languages kept the discussion alive; and the appearance, in 1836, of the early volumes of Palacký’s history roused still angrier attacks.

BOHEMIAN WOMAN WITH “DOVE” HEAD-DRESS AND NATIVE WORK.

Even before this literary revival had taken place, discoveries had been made which seemed to point to an early culture even amongst the Bohemian peasantry. Bronzes and earthenware ornaments had been dug up, the antiquity of which was proved by the heathen symbols marked upon them; and it was noticed that these devices corresponded to the designs which were produced in later ages by the peasantryin Bohemia and Moravia. This curious fact gave a new impulse to investigation, and numerous specimens of the peasant art were collected. The beauty of colouring and design in this work is the more striking because it was not learnt in any school, but is the fruit of native genius. About the same time a similar interest was roused in the music produced by the peasantry, and the songs and dances of the peasants have been embodied in the operas of S̆metana.

The revolution of 1848 naturally brought to a head the struggle between the Germans and Bohemians: and the demand then made for the further protection of the Bohemian language was strengthened at a later stage by the meeting of the Slavonic Congress, which was to protect the Slavs against the threatened encroachment of the Frankfort Parliament.[7]The unfortunate rising of June, 1848, led to the downfall of the newly-born liberty of Bohemia; but, when German and Magyar revolutions were alike crushed, questions of race-division naturally ceased for a time to be interesting to those who had suffered a common loss of liberty. The idea of a federative union of the Austrian dominions was, however, kept steadily before the public by Palacký; and the old fear of sinking to an equality with other races gradually roused the Germans to renewed action. In 1858 the controversy about the manuscripts of Králové Dvůr and Zelená hora was renewed in all its fierceness; and when, after the Austrian collapse in 1859, the talk about Constitutional government once more began,it was soon found that the new liberties were not to produce equality of race. The wars of 1866 and 1870 gave a new impulse to the German claim for supremacy in Austria; and so the struggle has gone on with varying fortune, but ever circling round the central point of language and literature.

THE END.

[1]The following account of the legend of Libus̆a is taken partly from the translation of the Libus̆in Saud by Mr. A. H. Wratislaw, partly from the version of the story given by Cosmas. I have not the least desire to enter here into the burning question of the authenticity of the original poem. I have heard every degree and variety of opinion on that subject, even from patriotic Bohemians. But the only two points that concern me here are, first, that Cosmas must have had before him some old legend containing a version of the story, not unlike that edited and translated by Mr. Wratislaw; secondly, that Cosmas accepted this story as embodying his conception of the beginnings of Bohemian history. No one, as far as I know, disputes the genuineness of Cosmas’s history; into the sources of his information it is not necessary to go.[2]A new word in the Bohemian language fitly marks this period. This word isKostel, which is obviously formed from the GermanCastell, and ultimately fromCastellum; but which was used to signify church, since the military Christianity introduced by the Franks was marked by the use of castles as churches.[3]In the English carol the story has evidently been adapted to modern feeling; for the saint’s barefoot walk to the church has been changed into a mission of practical benevolence.[4]Since writing the above I have found a curious confirmation of my opinion of the danger of this utterance in one of the decrees of Ferdinand II., issued at the time when he was practically destroying the foundation of Charles IV. He appeals to the memory of Charles as a justification of his proceedings, on the ground that he was only restoring that unity of the Catholic religion, of which Charles was so ardent a champion.[5]These words are curiously like those of a later popular ruler of Rome—“Mankind has worshipped in the name of the Father and the Son. Give place to the religion of the Spirit.”—From the Pope to the Council.—Giuseppe Mazzini.[6]“Michel” is an embodiment of certain ideas about the typical German, much as the name “John Bull” embodies certain conceptions about the average Englishman.[7]I have treated this part of the subject in full in my account of the Bohemian Revolution in the “Revolutions of 1848 and 1849.”

[2]A new word in the Bohemian language fitly marks this period. This word isKostel, which is obviously formed from the GermanCastell, and ultimately fromCastellum; but which was used to signify church, since the military Christianity introduced by the Franks was marked by the use of castles as churches.

[3]In the English carol the story has evidently been adapted to modern feeling; for the saint’s barefoot walk to the church has been changed into a mission of practical benevolence.

[4]Since writing the above I have found a curious confirmation of my opinion of the danger of this utterance in one of the decrees of Ferdinand II., issued at the time when he was practically destroying the foundation of Charles IV. He appeals to the memory of Charles as a justification of his proceedings, on the ground that he was only restoring that unity of the Catholic religion, of which Charles was so ardent a champion.

[5]These words are curiously like those of a later popular ruler of Rome—“Mankind has worshipped in the name of the Father and the Son. Give place to the religion of the Spirit.”—From the Pope to the Council.—Giuseppe Mazzini.

[6]“Michel” is an embodiment of certain ideas about the typical German, much as the name “John Bull” embodies certain conceptions about the average Englishman.

[7]I have treated this part of the subject in full in my account of the Bohemian Revolution in the “Revolutions of 1848 and 1849.”

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