1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cosmas (of Prague)

COSMAS, of Prague (1045–1125), dean of the cathedral and the earliest Bohemian historian. His Chronicae Bohemorum libri iii., which contains the history and traditions of Bohemia up to nearly the time of his death, has earned him the title of the Herodotus of his country. This work, which his continuators brought down to the year 1283, is of the highest value to historians in spite of the fact that its reputation for disingenuousness and credibility has been greatly affected by the critical attacks of J. Loserth (Studien zu Cosmas von Prag, Vienna, 1880, &c.).

The work was first published at Hanover in 1602, from the imperfect Strassburg codex. A perfected edition was brought out at the same place in 1607; this was reprinted, with notes by C. G. Schwarz in I. B. Menckenius, Scriptores rer. Germ. (3 vols., Lips., 1728–1730). It is included in Pelzel and Dobrowsky, Script. rer. Bohem. i. pp. 1-282, after collation with Dresden MS., edited very fully by R. Köpke in Mon. Germ. Hist. Scrip. ix. 1-132, and repeated in Migne, Patrol. lat. clxvi. pp. 55-388, and in Fontes rer. Bohem. ii. (1874), 1-370 (Latin and Czech), by W. Wl. Tomek. See A. Potthast, Bibliotheca Hist. Med. Aevi.