Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
HE work to which I have come forward to ask the attention of the British public was written as long ago as 1599, and was then intended, apparently, only for private circulation. It was written in the Bohemian or Czesko-Slavonic language, by one who was perfect master of it, and the book itself is described by Jungmann, in his Historie Literatury Czeské, in the following words:—“The author relates his journey, and much about the manners and customs of the Turks in a natural, vigorous, pure, and manly style.” It remained in manuscript till 1777, when it was published by Pelzel at Prague, and a second edition was published by Kramerius in 1807. I have made my translation from the latter edition, and it will be found to differ very widely from the German translation of 1786, in which the translator, for instance, introduces a violent tirade against the celibacy of the clergy, not one word of which is in the printed Bohemian edition, which I possess; omits the pathetic and deeply pious peroration of the whole; and actually makes Mount Olivet, instead of Mount Olympus, visible from Constantinople. The work is divided into four books, the first of which treats of the journey to, the second the residence at, Constantinople, the third gives an account of the captivity of the author and his companions, and the fourth of their deliverance and return. It is rarely that a mere boy has gone through so much for the sake of his religion, and still more rarely does it occur that so great a sufferer is able to give so clear and graphic an account of his own misfortunes, and those of others. The first book appears to have been taken from a journal actually sent home to the writer’s family, and afterwards interspersed with anecdotes and digressions on Turkish life and manners; the rest were manifestly written from a very vivid, and often very painful, recollection of the scenes which they describe. It will, perhaps, be some additional recommendation to Baron Wratislaw’s work to mention, at the outset, that the ambassadors of Queen Elizabeth of England, and Henry IV. of France, whose names I find, from Von Hammer, to have been respectively Edward Burton, and M. de Brèves, took a prominent part in the liberation of the captives; and that it was to the Christian friendship of the former that they were in debted for their eventual escape through Hungary. An account of the embassy was also written in German by the apothecary, Frederic Seidel, but I have been unable to obtain a copy of it.
The Czesko-Slavonic or Bohemian language is spoken by the race inhabiting Bohemia watered by the Elbe, or Labe, and the Moldau, or Veltava; Moravia, watered by the March, or Morava,—and Slovakia, or the district of the Slovaks, in the north of Hungary. It is altogether spoken by about eight millions of people. It differs from the Polish in not having retained the nasal sounds of a and e, which connect the objective case feminine, in Polish, with the am and em of the Latin accusative. In Polish, also, the accent falls almost invariably on the penultimate; in Bohemian on the first syllable of every word. Bohemian is connected with Greek by possessing prosodiacal quantity, i. e. long and short vowels, independently of accent—a peculiarity which has been lost by every Slavonic dialect except the Servian, and in that it is said to be far less distinct than in the Bohemian. All the Slavonic dialects agree in retaining the locative case, which appears occasionally in Greek, and in Latin is found only in the names of places, and in some few other words, as humi, domi, ruri. They also agree in a use of the instrumental case almost exactly corresponding to that which is commonly called the dativus propositi, but which would be far more properly designated the idiomatic dative of the predicate in Latin, being simply an occasional artifice to distinguish the predicate from the subject, when both are substantives, in the absence of an article, of which the uncorrupted Slavonic dialects are equally destitute with the Latin and early Greek.
The early history of Bohemia is very mythological, and has been well treated, for the first time, in a philosophical spirit, by the historian Francis Palacky. During great part of the ninth century Moravia was the seat of government of a powerful kingdom, whose prince, Moymir, became a Christian. In 844 fourteen Bohemian Lechs, or lords, determined to embrace Christianity, betook themselves to King Louis the German at Ratisbon, and were solemnly baptized on the 1st of January, 845. But the principal glory of the conversion of the Slavonians belongs to Cyrillus and Methodius, the sons of the patrician Leo of Thessalonica, a town then inhabited by a half Greek, half Slavonic population. Rastislaw of Moravia heard of the conversion of the Bulgarian monarch. Boris, by the younger of the two brothers, Methodius, and sent, in 862, an embassy to the Emperor Michael of Constantinople to request the presence of Slavonic Christian teachers, as the German priests were unable to instruct his people in their own language. Cyrillus and Methodius came themselves in answer to this petition. After four years and a-half of activity in Moravia, the brothers visited, and were well received by Pope Adrian II, at Rome. Cyrillus, the inventor of the so-called Cyrillic alphabet, on which the modern Russian is founded, died at Rome in 868, but his brother Methodius was appointed by the Pope to the dignity of archbishop in Moravia and Pannonia.
In 871 the Duke of Bohemia, Borzivoy, and his wife Ludmilla, the latter of whom has a statue and chapel, as a saint, in the cathedral at Prague, were baptized. The Slavonic and Latin liturgies appear to have both been in use in Bohemia from the earliest times. Borzivoy was succeeded by Spitihnew I, and he by his brother Wratislaw I, whose wife, Drahomira, could never be converted to Christianity. After the death of Wratislaw, Drahomira had her mother-in-law, Ludmilla, murdered, and excited her younger son, Boleslaw, to murder his Christian brother Wenceslaw in 936. Boleslaw the Cruel was a successful ruler and warrior, and left the crown to his son, Boleslaw II, surnamed the Pious, in whose reign the first monasteries were founded in Bohemia (967-999). Under the sons of Boleslaw II, Bohemia was conquered by Boleslaw the Brave, of Poland, who was afterwards expelled, and the old native dynasty of the Przemyslides replaced on the throne. The power of Bohemia was restored by Bretislaw I, who was followed by Spitihnew II, whose brother and successor, Wratislaw II, obtained a royal crown from the Emperor Henry IV, and the Pope in 1086. Under Wratislaw’s successor, Bretislaw II, the Slavonic ritual, which had long been upheld by popular favour against the efforts of Rome, appears to have become confined to a single monastery, and to have been at length absolutely forbidden by Pope Gregory VII. in 1094; but the Slavonic monks were not ejected from their monastery on the Sazava till 1096. The history from that time to 1197 is comparatively uninteresting, and the only thing to remark in it is the increase of power obtained by the bishops and clergy, and their constant interference in state affairs.
With Przemysl Ottakar I. matters took a decisive turn, and Bohemia became, and continued for several centuries, a powerful and independent kingdom. Under this king and his successor, Wenzel I, new orders of monks and nuns were introduced into the country. But Bohemia’s greatest splendour was reached under the next king, Przemysl Ottakar II, who ruled from the Riesengebirge in the north to the Adriatic in the south, and whose protection was sought not merely by many dukes in Poland and Silesia, but even by Verona, Friuli, and many other important Italian towns. But it was the fate of Ottakar to be encompassed by treacherous friends, and he was finally defeated and killed by the Emperor Rudolf of Hapsburg in 1278. Wenzel II, succeeded to a kingdom greatly reduced in power, and with Wenzel III, the ancient dynasty of the Przemyslides ended in 1306.
During the preceding century the people had been gradually forming themselves into regular hereditary classes, which were now legally recognized. Great intestine troubles were finally healed by the marriage of the Bohemian Princess Elizabeth with John, the only son of the King of the Romans, Henry VII. of Luxemburg, in 1310. Till 1333, King John ruled alone, when he associated with him his son Charles, under the title of Margrave of Moravia. In 1340, King John became blind, and, in 1346, he fell at Creçy, repulsing the entreaties of his barons that he would leave the hopeless field with the memorable words:—“Tot bohdá nebude, by kral Czesky z boje utiekal;” “Please God it will never come to pass that a king of Bohemia flees out of battle.” He was succeeded by his son Charles, who founded the University of Prague in 1348, and was crowned Emperor at Rome, in 1355, by the title of Charles IV. Both the Emperor and the Pope, Gregory XI, died in the same year, 1378.
Wenzel IV, succeeded both as King of Bohemia and King of the Romans, but was deposed from the latter dignity in 1400. It was during his reign that the great schism in the Roman Church occurred, and that the intellectual movement began in Bohemia, which resulted in the great Hussite wars. Conrad Waldhauser, Milicz of Kremsier, and Mathias of Janow, caused a great deal of religious enthusiasm by preaching and writing. And the University of Prague had become so famous that there is reason to believe it contained, in 1408, no less than 200 doctors and masters, 500 bachelors, and above 30,000 students, all divided into four nations,—the Bohemian, Bavarian, Saxon, and Polish. Doctors and masters might lecture as they pleased, but bachelors were obliged to make use of the works of some known master of the universities of Prague, Paris, or Oxford. Thus some of Wycliffe’s works became known at Prague even in his lifetime, and after the marriage of the Bohemian Princess Anne with Richard II. of England, in 1381, the intercourse between the two countries became very close and active, and several influential Bohemian doctors more or less adopted and defended the views of the great Englishman.
But the leading spirits of those to whom the principles of Wycliffe became more than mere matters of speculative discussion were John Hus and Jerome of Prague. John Hus was born, in 1369, in the village of Husinetz, of plebeian parents in comparatively easy circumstances. He took the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Prague in September, 1393, that of Bachelor of Divinity in 1394, and, finally, that of Master of Arts in January, 1396. In 1398 he appeared as a public teacher in the university, and, in 1399, came to an open rupture with his colleagues in a disputation held at the parsonage of St. Michael, in the old town of Prague, through defending some of the principles of Wycliffe. He was, nevertheless, elected Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy on Oct. 16, 1401, and presented to the Preachership at the Bethlehem Chapel at Prague. In October, 1402, he obtained the highest academic dignity, the Rectorship of the University, which he held to the end of April, 1403.
Jerome of Prague was a member of a family belonging to the inferior order of nobility, and was several years younger than Hus, with whom he early contracted an intimate friendship. More vivacious and less steadfast than his grave and stable friend, he wandered through Europe as a student, and brought from Oxford several of Wycliffe’s works, which had been previously unknown in Bohemia. He took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Sept. 1498, obtained a dispensation from the duty of teaching in schools for two years, visited the universities of Cologne and Heidelberg, and took the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Paris. He appears to have taken an ad eundem degree at Prague in 1407. He visited Palestine and Jerusalem, and was, according to his own statement, at the latter place when the first condemnation of Wycliffe’s principles took place at Prague in 1403, in which twenty-one articles alleged to be taken out of Wycliffe’s works were condemned, in addition to the twenty-four condemned in the Council of London, in 1382.
Of the four nations of which the University of Prague was composed, followers of Wycliffe were found only among the Bohemians. Indeed, as each separate nation possessed a vote, the Bohemians were regularly outvoted by the Germans in the university, the Polish nation having since the foundation of the University of Cracow consisted almost entirely of German Silesians, Pomeranians, and Prussians. An appeal upon university affairs was made to King Wenzel, who spoke with the greatest severity to Hus, who soon afterwards was seized with so serious an illness that his life was despaired of. But soon, through the influence of Nicholas of Lobkovitz, supported by the representatives of the King of France, and the University of Paris, King Wenzel, finding that the three votes of the foreigners rested on no statute, but only on custom, issued an edict, (Jan. 18, 1409,) that from thenceforth the Bohemian nation should have three votes, and the foreigners only one. The final result was that the German professors and students almost entirely left Prague, and the numbers of those who quitted the university must have been very large, from the fact that no less than two thousand were counted departing in a single day.
In 1409 the singular spectacle of three rival Popes was exhibited to the Christian world, and in 1410, that of three rival Kings of the Romans. On July 16, 1410, the prelates and clergy solemnly burned the books of Wycliffe at Prague, and on the 18th the archbishop formally excommunicated Hus and his friends. Hus was protected by the court and by a large party in the country, and refused to give up preaching, saying that it was his duty to obey God rather than man. His appeal was rejected, and the proceedings of the archbishop confirmed by Pope John XXIII, and he himself was cited to appear at the Court of Rome to defend himself within a given time. In 1411 the archbishop laid the whole town of Prague under an interdict. King Wenzel felt himself personally aggrieved by these proceedings of the spiritual power, and took violent measures against the archbishop and clergy. Seeing the uselessness of the course he had taken, the archbishop, on July 6, became formally reconciled to both the king and the adherents of Hus, but soon afterwards died.
In 1412, John XXIII, issued bulls proclaiming a crusade against Ladislaw, King of Naples, and promising to all who should take the cross in person, or provide armed substitutes, or contribute money towards the expenses of the war, the same indulgences and remission of sins that had been granted to those who assumed the cross for the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre. The publication of these bulls in Prague caused fresh excitement; Hus and his adherents publicly preached against them, and commented severely on the anti-Christian conduct of the Pope. One of the king’s favourites, Woksa of Waldstein, and Jerome of Prague, contrived a satirical procession, in imitation of that which had preceded the burning of Wycliffe’s works, and finished by publicly burning the bulls. Three young persons were put to death for contradicting the clergy in different churches, and maintaining that the promised remission was a mere deception. When accused of not giving in his views in writing to the Dean of Theology, Hus replied that he was ready to do so, as soon as his opponents, who accused him of heresy, engaged to prove him a heretic, under pain, in case of failure, of suffering the same penalty, viz. that of being burned as heretics, which they were endeavouring to impose upon him,—an invitation which they declined. In July, 1412, Hus was excommunicated in the most severe and horrible manner; no one, under penalty of the same, was allowed to give him food, drink, or shelter, and the faithful were called upon to arrest and deliver him up; neither did King Wenzel offer any impediment to the publication of this excommunication.
The king appointed a commission for the purpose of healing the breaches in the national church, and was so offended by the conduct of the papal party that he deposed and banished the four theological professors of the university. Hus, during these proceedings, spent most of his time in a castle built on the spot where afterwards rose the town of Tabor. Here he wrote his Tractatus de Ecclesiâ, his Bohemian Postilla,[1] and many other works, besides carrying on a considerable correspondence with his friends. He also invented the system of Bohemian orthography, which is now almost entirely dominant; but his Latin treatise on the subject has not yet been printed. While in the country, Hus took every opportunity of preaching to the people on marketdays and similar occasions, and thus made his exile contribute to the promulgation of his doctrines.
In the beginning of 1413, Pope John XXIII, held a small council at Rome, at which the forty-five articles selected from Wycliffe’s works were again condemned by a bull, dated Feb. 2, which was subjected in Bohemia to brief but very biting criticism. This criticism is found in manuscripts under the name of Hus, who, however, always disowned its authorship, and ascribed it to his friend Magister Jesenetz. On Dec. 9, 1413, the bull was issued which appointed a General Council to meet at Constance, on the 1st of Nov. 1414. Sigismund, the brother of King Wenzel, had succeeded the deposed Bohemian monarch as King of the Romans, had been formally reconciled to him, and was now exerting himself in every possible way to forward the great work of the Council. Sigismund entered into direct correspondence with Hus, and invited him to appear personally at Constance, promising not only a safe-conduct, but also every assistance towards bringing matters to a satisfactory conclusion, and Hus engaged to appear.
On Nov. 28, Hus was arrested at Constance, in spite of the protest of the Bohemian nobles, to whom his safety had been entrusted. King Sigismund at first protested against the arrest as a violation of his safe-conduct, and was only with great difficulty induced to acquiesce in it. In March, 1415, Pope John fled from Constance, and on Palm-Sunday, March 24, the keys of Hus’s prison were given up to King Sigismund, who, instead of setting him at liberty, placed him in the hands of the Bishop of Constance, by whom he was imprisoned in chains at his castle of Gottlieben. On the 4th of April, Jerome of Prague, in spite of the warnings of Hus, came to Constance, challenged a trial, and demanded a safe-conduct. Finding that proceedings would be immediately taken against him, he fled, but was arrested at Hirschau, not far from the frontiers of Bohemia, and brought back to Constance. Hus was heard thrice, with a manifest determination to put him to death, and, in fact, a Bohemian who had, on the first hearing, got behind the clerk, who read the documents aloud, saw the sentence of condemnation all ready prepared among the other papers, and it was only prevented from being read by the urgent remonstrances of the king. But after the third hearing, on July 8, Sigismund, in a confidential conversation with a number of cardinals and prelates, warned them against placing any confidence either in Hus or in Jerome, even if they recanted, and urged them to make an end of the matter as quickly as possible, as he should himself soon be obliged to leave the council.
Endeavours were made to induce Hus to recant; but he uniformly refused to do so, unless proofs of his errors were produced to him out of the Scriptures, the decision of which alone he professed himself ready to recognize. But he was never allowed to defend himself, or prove the innocence of any of his doctrines, being simply required to answer yes or no to the questions put to him. On the 6th of July, 260 passages from Wycliffe’s works were read aloud and condemned, and then thirty articles taken out of the writings of Hus along with the other evidence and the whole proceedings against him. Not only accusations, which he believed himself to have refuted, were brought against him, but even such absurdities as that he had represented himself to be the fourth person in the Holy Trinity. Sigismund blushed when Hus reminded him that he had come thither voluntarily under the protection of his safe-conduct. Hus was then condemned to be degraded from the priesthood, and delivered over to the secular arm. The sentence was immediately carried into execution, and the ashes of the martyr were gathered together and flung into the Rhine.
Jerome of Prague recanted on Sept. 10, 1415, relapsed again on the opening of a fresh process against him, and was finally condemned and martyred in 1416.
Meanwhile the favourers of Hus were splitting into two parties, that of the inhabitants of Prague—afterwards called the Calixtines, from Pope Calixtus III, negotiations with whom appeared at one time likely to take a favourable turn—whose views originated with learned professors and masters, and in the university, and that which arose from a spontaneous fermentation in the popular mind, which afterwards became known as the sect of the Taborites. The University of Prague took a middle course between the Fathers of Constance and the extreme Hussites; but on March 10, 1417, it spoke decidedly to the effect that, while those who received the communion in only one kind ought to be borne with, yet the right and original manner of receiving it was under both kinds. Hence the Utraquist doctrine of the reception of the communion sub utrâque specie took fast root in Bohemia.
In 1419, King Wenzel began at length to take measures against the Hussites, although his courtiers and enlightened favourites had always been among the most zealous and resolute adherents of the new doctrines. Several of these, in consequence, left his service; among whom the most remarkable were Nicolas of Pistna, Hus or Husinetz, and the famous one-eyed John Ziska of Trotznow. Orthodox priests were placed in all the benefices; communion in both kinds was refused to the laity; and many undertook long pilgrimages in order to meet with clergymen who would not refuse them the cup. And the Hussite clergy, who were even driven from their old head-quarters at Austi, encamped in tents on a broad hill near the river Luznitz, which was surrounded on three sides by deep ravines full of water, and only connected with the mainland by an isthmus, thus forming a natural fortress. Here, in the summer of 1419, they held service in the open air, with the peasantry, who crowded to them, and named the place, in their almost exclusively Biblical language, Mount Tabor, a word which also signifies a camp in Slavonic. On July 22 no less than 42,000 persons assembled there for devotional purposes, and separated again with perfect quiet. But on Aug. 16, King Wenzel himself died, and his legitimate successor was his brother King Sigismund, under whose auspices the Council of Constance had been held, and Hus and Jerome condemned to the flames.
Sigismund was in Hungary at the time, and determined to postpone his Bohemian affairs to the prosecution of the war against the Turks, in which he was engaged. The Bohemian Estates met and required their future king to promise complete religious freedom, free use of the cup in the communion in all churches, prohibition of the publication of papal bulls before their approval by the royal council, and of all insults to the memory of Huss and Jerome, and the use of the Bohemian language in courts of justice. To these things the town of Prague added a request, that, at the celebration of the mass, at least the gospel and epistle might be read in the vulgar tongue. Sigismund simply replied that he intended to carry on the government as his father, Charles IV, had done before him; and at Kuttenberg, on May 12, 1420, drove the deputies of the people of Prague from him with reproaches, demanding that all their weapons should be delivered up to him, and they should then see what favour he would show them. “War to the death!” became then the universal cry in Prague, and messengers were sent for help to Tabor, which had just been founded by the advice of Ziska, as a fortress of refuge for the Hussites, and to the other allied towns.
The first crusade against the Hussites now began in earnest. The Taborites entered Prague, and the host of Sigismund was entirely routed by the united forces of the Hussites before the walls of Prague, on July 14, 1420. The celebrated Four Articles of Prague were then drawn up as the public confession of the nation, to the following effect:—
1. “That the Word of God be published and preached in the kingdom of Bohemia by Christian priests without let or hindrance.
2. “That the holy sacrament of the body and blood of Christ be freely offered under both forms of bread and wine to all faithful Christians, not incapacitated by deadly sin.
3. “That worldly possessions be taken from priests and monks, and that they live henceforth conformably to the Scripture, and to the life of Christ and the Apostles.
4. “That all deadly sins, and especially those of an open nature, be brought to judgment and punished, and that an end be put to the evil and false report of this land.”
On Oct. 31 the Crusaders suffered a second defeat while attempting to relieve the garrison of the Vyssegrad, or citadel of Prague, and Ziska led the Taborites to success after success in the south of Bohemia. On Feb. 6, 1421, a junction was effected between the forces of Ziska and those of Prague, the result of which was that Sigismund disbanded his army, and hastened out of Bohemia, which was soon overrun by the Hussites, who then entered Moravia. And on April 21, to the great astonishment of all men, Archbishop Conrad, of Prague, declared his adhesion to the Four Articles. Ziska lost his remaining eye at the siege of the castle of Rabi by an arrowshot, but still continued to act as general with similar success. In fact, this loss caused him to be more dependent on others, and thus spread a greater amount of military skill and science in his army.
Of the second great crusade, in the latter part of 1421, but little is known, except that it exercised great cruelties, besieged Saaz unsuccessfully, and was so disgracefully defeated that the common remark was that the Crusaders entertained so pious a horror of the infidel Hussites that they would not so much as look them in the face. Sigismund afterwards suffered a tremendous defeat at Deutsch-brod on Jan. 8, 1422.
Ziska himself, it must be remarked, was not a genuine Taborite, but headed a party which stood midway between the party of Prague, afterwards called the Calixtines, and the Taborites. This is proved by the fact of the separation of those more particularly attached to the person of “Father Ziska” from the Taborites, under the name of the “Orphans,” after his death. Indeed, in 1422 a quarrel took place between Ziska and the Taborites, who were never more than partially reconciled, though Ziska resumed the chief command of the army as before. In the same year Prince Sigismund Korybut of Poland was elected Regent of Bohemia, and recognized as such by Ziska.
The third crusade was determined upon at the Diet of Nuremberg, in September and October, 1422, but was ended by an armistice for a year, and the total disbandment of the crusading army in November. In 1423, Ziska carried his victorious arms not only into Moravia, but into Hungary. But 1424 was Ziska’s “bloody year,” during which, in his hatred of hypocrisy, and of what he supposed to be coquetting with Rome, he injured his own nation as much as the common enemy. He died of the plague, commending himself to God, not far from the Moravian frontier, on the 11th of Oct. 1424. His great victories were won through the extraordinary drill and discipline of his infantry and moving fortress of waggons, the celerity of his marches and manœuvres, and his skill in the employment of artillery.
Ziska was succeeded by Prokop the Bald, otherwise called Prokop the Great. Under him the Bohemians assumed the offensive, and victoriously invaded Austria and Silesia. On March 18, 1427, Pope Martin V, appointed Henry, Bishop of Winchester, his cardinal-legate, with most extensive powers, in Bohemia, Hungary, and Germany. A diet was held at Frankfort, and a fourth crusade against the Hussites begun. But on August 2 the whole army which had invaded Bohemia was seized with a panic, and the cardinal, when on his way to join it, met it in full retreat. The diet met again at Frankfort, and on Dec. 3 the Hussite-tax was imposed throughout the German Empire, for the purpose of carrying on the war. Meanwhile the Bohemians were actively and victoriously invading the neighbouring districts of Germany.
Cardinal Julian Cesarini became the new legate in Germany and Bohemia. Martin V. died, and Eugene IV. succeeded to the tiara. Cardinal Julian determined once more to try the fortune of war before entering on negotiations, for the purpose of which the Council of Basel had been summoned, and ought to have been opened on March 3, 1431. Although his presence was required at Basel as President of the Council, he nevertheless entered Bohemia at the head of an army of 40,000 cavalry and 90,000 infantry, which fled in confusion at the mere sound of the waggons and warhymns of the Bohemians, near Tauss, on Aug. 14, 1431. Thus ended the fifth and last crusade against the Hussites.
The better path of negotiation was at length entered upon by the Council of Basel, and its President, Cardinal Julian, the latter of whom was now fully convinced of the impossibility of success in dealing with the Bohemians by violent measures. Owing to a quarrel in Hungary the Orphans separated from the Taborites, and entered into closer relations with the moderate Utraquists of Prague. It is remarked by Palacky that the Taborites represented the future Calvinists, and the Orphans the Lutherans; while the Calixtines of Prague approximated rather to the Church of England.
Fifteen deputies to the council were chosen by the Bohemians, among whom were their great general, Prokop, and the Taborite-Englishman, Peter Payne, the former of whom formed a singular friendship with the cardinal-president, and the latter took a prominent part in the disputations and discussions at Basel. Prokop, at the conclusion of the arguments, made a remarkable apology for himself and appeal to the council, which is worth extracting. He said that he had noticed that people seemed to imagine that he had killed many human beings with his own hand. He would not, he said, maintain an untruth for the whole world; but this was utterly false, for he had never shed a drop of blood with his own hand, much less slain anybody himself. He had certainly held the chief command in many battles, in which many men had perished; but this was not his fault, but that of the Pope and cardinals, whom he had often called upon to give up wars and temporal matters, and busy themselves with the Church reform that was so much wanted,—the purpose for which the present council was convened. They should neither oppose the free preaching of the Word of God, nor the communion in both kinds, which was held by the Greek Church also; neither should they damn and persecute those who differed from them in opinion, for instance, the Waldenses, who, poor as they were, were yet honourable and respectable people. They should take care that in the multitude of ecclesiastical regulations God’s law was not forgotten, and that the reproach made by our Lord to the Jews (Mark vii. 8.) should not hold good with regard to the present church.
The deputies departed with words of kindness and friendship from the cardinal; and as they left the hall in which the meetings had been held, an Italian bishop forced his way to them through the crowd, shook hands with them, and began to weep bitterly.
After two embassies from the council to the Bohemians, the first “Compactata” were settled, which allowed the Bohemians and Moravians the use of the cup in the communion, but reserved the rights of bishops to appoint preachers, and those of the Church to possess property, and appoint clergymen to administer it. Soon afterwards a civil war broke out between the great nobles and the people of Prague on the one side, and the Taborites and the inhabitants of the smaller towns on the other, which was finally decided, unfavourably for the latter party, in the battle of Lipan, on May 30, 1434, which broke for ever the power of the Taborites and Orphans. No quarter was given, and both Prokop the Great and Prokop the Little were killed. The declaration of Prokop the Great at the Council of Basel renders it hard to believe the rhetorical account of Æneas Sylvius, that, when he saw the battle was lost, he gathered round him his body-guard, composed rather of the strongest men than of those whom he loved best, rushed into the midst of the enemy and perished, non tam victus quam vincendo fessus.
The great advantage of the battle of Lipan fell to the Calixtine party, headed by Magister John Rokycana, who was eventually chosen Utraquist Archbishop of Prague, but who was never regularly consecrated, as the confirmation of the election could never be obtained from the Pope. Further negotiations were carried on, the “Compactata” were solemnly published, and Sigismund was acknowledged king in July, 1436, but died on Dec. 9, 1437. He was succeeded by Albert of Austria, who died in 1439. His widowed queen, Elizabeth, became the mother of a son, Ladislaw Postumus, who, while still a minor, was elected King of Bohemia, under the “gubernatorship” of George of Podiebrad, before whose complete recognition as regent unsuccessful attempts were made by the Utraquists to effect an union with the Greek Church. Ladislaw died of the plague in 1457, and George of Podiebrad was elected king, whose reign was spent in vain attempts to obtain the confirmation of the “Compactata,” and of the election of Rokycana as archbishop, from the Pope. George of Podiebrad exercised the most extraordinary influence in Europe during his reign, and was generally regarded as the greatest soldier and statesman of his day. He died on March 22, 1476, almost immediately after the death of the Utraquist Archbishop Elect, Rokycana.
Two of the most remarkable events of his regency and reign were the complete suppression of the singular republican community of the Taborites, and the rise of the Bohemian Brethren. A curious account of the former, shortly before their suppression in 1452, is given by an eyewitness, which I abridge from Palacky:—
“Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II, and his companions, when on their way with a mission from the Emperor Frederic III. to the Bohemian Parliament at Beneschau, were overtaken by the approach of night in the neighbourhood of Tabor. For fear of robbers and other roving bands of armed men, they did not think it advisable to spend the night in a village, but sent on to the town of Tabor to announce their arrival, and to ask for shelter for the night. ‘We preferred,’ says Æneas, ‘to entrust ourselves to the wolves rather than to the hares. At this the Taborites were delighted, and streamed out in crowds to meet and salute us. Extraordinary spectacle! A rude and boorish people wishing to appear courteous! The weather was rainy and cold. They came to meet us partly on foot, partly on horseback; some in light coats, others in skins; one with one eye, another with one hand; this man without a saddle, that without boots and spurs; all without order, and with plenty of noise, bringing, however, presents of welcome—fish, wine, and beer. The town itself stands on a level projection over declivities and waters, and is surrounded with a double wall, provided with a good many towers. On the side on which it joins the main land it is additionally protected by a deep ditch and a thick wall. Whoever wishes to enter here must do so through a threefold gate. The first gate has a wall, twenty feet broad and forty feet high, and a strong tower over it. At the entrance there are two shields to be seen; on the one is painted an angel with the cup, as though inviting people to taste it; on the other is a portrait of the blind old Ziska, formerly the most distinguished leader of the Taborites; for, though they detest the images of saints, yet his image is everywhere held in the greatest honour. There are no regular streets in the town, but where each man first casually pitched his tent, there he afterwards built a house of wood or mud. In the public market-place a number of military engines are placed, to terrify their neighbours. There are about 4,000 men capable of bearing arms in the town; but since they can no longer issue forth as formerly to obtain booty, they have become effeminate, and some maintain themselves by weaving in wool and flax, and others by trade. There are, however, a good many rich people among them, and household furniture is everywhere handsome and even magnificent. Formerly there was no separate property among the Taborites; the booty taken from the enemy was collected and applied by the brethren in common, and one supplied what another wanted. Now, however, each lives for himself; love towards the neighbour has waxed cold; one is in luxury, while another dies of hunger. There stands in the town a wooden house, built something like a village barn, which they call their Temple; there the word is preached, the gospel daily expounded, and the sacrament distributed at a single unconsecrated and unhallowed altar. Their priests wear no tonsure, neither do they shave their beards. The congregation brings to their houses meat and drink, as requisite, and contributes threescore groschen per head, that they may have money for their minor wants. No tithes or money-offerings are brought to the altar. The greatest care is taken that everybody attends the sermon diligently; whoever neglects this is punished. Nevertheless, they are not all of one creed; in Tabor everybody may believe what he likes. There are there Nicolaitans, Arians, Manichæans, Armenians, Nestorians, Berengarians, and Poor Men of Lyons; but the Waldenses, the mortal foes of the see of Rome, are in especial estimation.’
“Æneas Sylvius stayed in Tabor with a very rich and respected citizen, from whose mouth he obtained the greater part of the above information. This man also showed his guest a valuable statue of the Virgin Mary and the crucified Redeemer, which he preserved reverentially among his treasures, but refused to be persuaded to proclaim in a more open manner his attachment to the Church of Rome. Nevertheless, Æneas Sylvius, on his return from Beneschau, whilst his colleagues remained at table in Tabor, again visited his former host, to whose house the most considerable citizens, priests, and deacons came immediately to salute him. All these spoke Latin, for, as he says, ‘this faithless people had this one good quality, that it loved the sciences.’ The conversation soon became a dispute, in which an especial share was taken by Nicholas, whom they called their bishop, ‘a man full of evil days;’ Wenzel Coranda, ‘an old slave of the devil;’ and John Galet, who had not long before fled thither for refuge from Poland, where he was to have been burnt. Æneas, though unwillingly, stood his ground, for fear of giving the Taborites, by his silence, occasion to boast that he, a bishop of the Romish faith, had either not ventured or not been able to withstand their arguments. Of course they parted on the same terms as they had met. But Æneas thanked God when he was again out of that ‘nest of heretics,’ that ‘synagogue of Satan,’ and found himself again in the open air; ‘I felt,’ said he, ‘as though I had escaped from hell.”
I cannot here omit Æneas Sylvius’s extraordinary testimony to the knowledge of Scripture possessed by the Taborites:—“Pudeat Italiæ sacerdotes, quos ne semel quidem novam legem constat legisse; apud Taboritas vix mulierculam invenias, quæ de novo Testamento et veteri respondere nesciat.”—“Let the priests of Italy be ashamed, who, it is well known, have not even once read the New Law; among the Taborites you can scarcely find a woman who cannot answer questions on the New and Old Testaments.”
Nor will it be altogether uninteresting to add a slight sketch of the origin of these Bohemian Brethren, from whom, after the destruction of Bohemian liberty, the present “Moravians,” or “Herrnhuters,” took their rise. After the forcible suppression of Tabor by George Podiebrad, religious thought was some time before it found itself a home. A great teacher arose in Peter Chelczicky, whose school at Unwald was dispersed, and all congregational assemblies forbidden, while individuals were exposed to the severest persecution. “Yet,” says Palacky,” their number increased, especially among the lower orders, among peasants and tradespeople, though a few noblemen and clergymen joined them; their very danger increased their resolution as well as their prudence. Led by Brother Gregory, they from the first adopted the doctrines of Peter Chelczicky, and made great exertions to free themselves from the suspicion of wishing to follow the example of the Taborites—a violent sect, as it appeared to them, which had missed the path of truth—since, though it understood the law in theory, it dared to transgress it openly in practice. One of the first manifestoes, the ‘Consent on the Mountains of Reichenau,’ (Swoleni na Igrach Rychnowskych,) in 1464, indicated as the object of the union, ‘The abiding in the righteousness which is from God; the leading a virtuous, humble, quiet, self-restrained, patient, and pure life; the holding fast the Christian faith, and social intercourse in the spirit of love, and in mutual readiness to aid;’ in order that thereby might be manifest that with them ‘faith and love stood without deception, and also certain hope of heaven.’ The following resolution is also particularly remarkable:—‘We must hold fast to all that is righteous, good, and honourable, wherever and under whatever Government we are, to which we must pay taxes, and render services in humble obedience, and for which we must pray to God. Thus we should also be one with our neighbours in the congregation, and in obedience and union assist everything that is beneficial to the common weal. Thus the brethren and sisters who practise a trade or agriculture, or serve for hire, may seek for gain, in order to supply their wants. The freeholders and landed proprietors may farm their property, and if they understand that a Christian of the same faith is in need, they ought to impart to him of their substance according to his wants; and thus bearing each other’s burthens, all seek to fulfil the law of Christ.’ There was nothing in their manifesto which Rokycana, the Utraquist Archbishop Designate of Prague, or the Pope himself, could not have subscribed, just as well as its authors; for it had no other object than the practice of Christianity, somewhat affected by the socialist spirit of the primitive Church. What, however, drew most odium upon the new ‘Brethren’ was, the dogma they held, that the sacraments, when administered by priests who led a vicious life, lost their salutary efficacy, and the circumstance that they, on that account, attended only to such clergymen as, in their judgment, lived piously and enjoyed the grace of God. From a public document which they issued, July 29, 1468, we learn, ‘That it had been for several years strictly forbidden in Bohemia to hold religious meetings, not only in towns, but also in villages, and even where there were no priests, and that whether the number attending such meetings were large or small; and that transgressors of this law were arrested, punished, and imprisoned; but meetings for evil purposes, whether large or small, were fully permitted.’
“After considerable search and inquiry abroad to find an ecclesiastical constitution to their mind, and after spending considerable time in fasting and prayer to ascertain whether it was God’s will that they should proceed, the brethren at length resolved utterly to renounce the power and authority of the Pope and his hierarchy, and to introduce amongst themselves an order after the constitution of the primitive Church.’ In the midst of the wars of the year 1467, on a day which is still unknown, the principal members of the brotherhood in Bohemia and Moravia met, to the number of seventy persons, in the village of Lhatka, not far from Reichenau, at the house of a householder named Duchek, who had not the least knowledge of what was about to happen. After many prayers, under the direction of Michael, the parish priest of Lenkenberg, nine men in the company, who were considered the most worthy, were chosen, and twelve lots prepared, nine of which were blank, and three signed with the word ‘gest,’ ‘it is.’ A boy named Procop, who knew nothing whatever about what was going on, distributed the lots among the nine men, to the share of three of whom, Mathias of Kunwald, Toma of Przelaucz, and Elias Müller of Chrzenkow, fell those marked with “gest.’ These men were then presented to a priest in Romish orders, and one of the Waldenses, who occupied the position of chief elder among his co-religionists, in order to be confirmed by imposition of hands after the order of the primitive Church, and conformably to Apostolic directions. Next came the confirmation itself in the case of all three, and, in that of one of the three, assumption of the first rank in the authority of the priestly office. After this, both Rokycana and King George proceeded to severe measures against the brethren, and the matter was being deliberated at the Parliament at Beneschau, when an invasion by Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, drew the attention of both king and council to war and arms, rather than to religion and internal affairs.”
Here Palacky’s history leaves us, and, if the variations in later times between the authentic and current history of Bohemia are as great as those which he has pointed out, it will be but little use attempting more than the briefest summary of events.
Two rivals now contended for the Bohemian crown, Mathias Corvinus, the King of Hungary, and the Polish Prince Wladislaw, the former of whom was favoured by the Pope and the Catholic party, the latter by the Utraquists. Wladislaw was elected by the Parliament, in accordance with the wishes of the deceased monarch, and, after considerable struggles with both sword and pen, an arrangement was made between the rivals, under which the survivor was to succeed to the possessions of the other, if he died without legitimate heirs. Wladislaw succeeded to the crown of Hungary, and died in 1516, leaving both kingdoms to his son Lewis, a boy of ten years of age. Jordan mentions, as one reason for the election of Wladislaw as King of Bohemia, that he was perfect master of the Bohemian language, it being at that time the court language in Poland. Lewis perished in the battle of Mohacz, gained by the Turks in 1524.
In the reign of Lewis, during which the government was carried on rather by the Parliament and native statesmen than by the king. Luther’s doctrines began to enter into Bohemia. This caused a rising against the Catholic clergy, and threatened a schism among the Bohemians themselves, which was quickly put an end to by the choice of Hawel Czahera, the Lutheran leader, to the administratorship of the Utraquists, and the prohibition of all sects in the country except the Utraquist and Catholic confessions. Nevertheless, the Bohemian Brethren maintained their ground, in spite of difficulties, and even persecutions, in the districts of Jungbunzlau and Königgrätz, and in Moravia; and their literary activity was most remarkable. The first book printed in Bohemia was in Latin, and appeared at Pilsen in 1476; the Psalter was printed in Bohemian in 1487; and the whole Bible in 1488, and a second edition followed in 1489. Of all the printing establishments that of the brethren was the most active and important, and the result of their efforts was that the Bohemians were the best read nation in Europe at that day.
Ferdinand of Austria, brother of the Emperor Charles V, and husband of Anna the daughter of the late Bohemian king Wladislaw, was elected King of Bohemia on Oct. 24, 1526. The Utraquist Consistory at Prague was renewed, the Anabaptists expelled from the country, and the remarkable law introduced that no landowner might prevent a sert or retainer from devoting himself in a regular manner to scientific study. But Ferdinand conceived and carried out but too successfully a bloody conspiracy against the liberties of his kingdom, which nearly reduced it to the level of the German despotisms, whether large or small, which then infested and have not yet ceased to infest the continent of Europe. He also introduced the Jesuits into Bohemia, in 1556, in order to oppose the Utraquist professors of the University of Prague, and they soon became the richest and most powerful order in the country, and devoted their entire energy to bringing about a reactionary revolution in the political and literary circumstances of the Bohemian nation. The only good action of Ferdinand’s, as regards Bohemia, was his application to Pope Pius IV, to sanction the use of the cup in the communion by the laity, and to reconsider the question of the celibacy of the clergy, the latter of which requests was put off with an evasive answer, while the former was granted in 1564, in hopes of the eventual return of the Utraquists into the bosom of the Holy Roman Church.
Ferdinand died in the same year, and was succeeded by his son Maximilian, who, in return for the liberal aid voted by the Bohemian Parliament for the Turkish war, suspended the “Compactata,” and proclaimed an universal toleration for each and every religious Confession in 1567.
Maximilian died on Oct. 12, 1575, and was succeeded by his son the Emperor Rudolf II. Peace had hitherto been maintained between the different religious parties by the Catholic Archbishop of Prague, Antonius of Müglitz, after whose death, in 1580, a different spirit became dominant. His successor almost immediately induced Rudolf illegally to proclaim the banishment of the Bohemian Brethren from the country, and they were, in fact, compelled to keep themselves completely in the background. In 1584, Rudolf, with the consent of the Parliament, introduced the new Gregorian Calendar into Bohemia, and at the same time, of his own authority, commanded the names of the national martyrs, Hus and Jerome, to be erased from the calendar. In 1602 the “Compactata” were again revived by Rudolf in the narrowest sense, and none but Catholics and Utraquists were allowed to hold any public worship. In 1603 the school of the Bohemian Brethren at Bunzlau was destroyed, so that the Jesuits had, henceforth, no antagonist of moment but the Utraquist University of Prague. Nevertheless, on July 5, 1609, the Parliament extorted a solemn charter re-establishing complete religious freedom. Rudolf’s brother, Mathias, rebelled against him in Hungary and Austria, compelled him to abdicate, and was crowned King of Bohemia, amidst universal joy, on May 23, 1611.
The thirty-six years of the reign of Rudolf are called the golden age of Bohemian literature, as the king was both a learned student, especially of chemistry and natural philosophy, himself, and encouraged learning in every branch. Tycho Brahe and Kepler were invited to his court, and the faculty of medicine at Prague boasted some of the most distinguished chemists and engineers of the age. A specimen of the prose writers of this date, literally, and I fear too literally, tranelated, is now offered to the English public, in hopes that it will draw attention not only to the past, but also to the important present and promising future of the Bohemians, especially of that remnant of the Hussites which is now rapidly increasing in both number and cultivation. But the most remarkable feature in Bohemia at that time was the excellence of the local schools, one of which existed, according to Pelzel, in every little market-town in both Bohemia and Moravia. In Prague there were sixteen such schools, while Kuttenberg and Jungbunzlau possessed two each. None of these possessed fewer than two teachers, and many had four, five, or even six. No one was allowed to become a schoolmaster till he had taken the B.A. degree in the Carolinum at Prague. Thus many citizens were to be found in the towns who were well acquainted with Virgil, Ovid, and Horace, and even with Homer and Anacreon, and who wrote Latin and Greek poetry themselves. If a professor was wanted in the University, he was sought amongst the best of the schoolmasters in the country.
With Mathias the literary and scientific glory of Bohemia declined. His great endeavour was to obtain men and money for his wars in Hungary, and he therefore allowed the Parliament to take its own measures for securing the nationality and national language. But he supported every aggression on the part of the Romish priesthood and Jesuits against the Utraquists and others, and finally obtained the coronation of Ferdinand of Styria, in 1607, as his successor in Bohemia. Soon afterwards the Bohemian liberties were so plainly infringed by the Romish clergy, and justice so flatly refused by the king, that on May 23, 1618, his two principal councillors, Martinitz and Slawata, were thrown out of the window by the infuriated Utraquist Parliament, which, three days afterwards, nominated thirty directors with full powers, and soon afterwards issued an edict banishing, within fourteen days, the “poisonous order,” the “hypocritical, dangerous, and turbulent sect of the Jesuits,” from the kingdom. After several victories had been gained by the Bohemians over the imperial forces, and negotiations been begun, which promised to lead to a favourable issue, Mathias died, on March 20, 1619.
Ferdinand had already extirpated Lutheranism out of Styria, where it had been professed by the majority of the people; the Bohemians, therefore, refused to recognize him as their king, on the plea that he had already broken his coronation oath. Ferdinand, however, was elected emperor by the German electors, in spite of the efforts of some of the Protestant princes. Frederic, the Elector of the Palatinate, was chosen king, and crowned at Prague with his wife Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. of England, by the administrator of the Utraquist Consistory, and in the course of the winter received the homage of the Estates of Moravia. Frederic and his religious advisers, being strong Calvinists, soon came into collision with the prejudices of the Utraquists, who were still more nearly allied to the Catholics than the Lutherans, and in the excess of their zeal went so far as to commit the most glaring violations of the Charter, which secured perfect religious freedom to all parties. Another foolish act was the deposition of the two generals Thurn and Mansfelt, who had signalised themselves by a series of victories, and the elevation of a couple of particularly incompetent strangers into their places. The result was the complete defeat of the Bohemian army, on Nov. 8, 1620, at the White Mountain, a few miles from Prague, a defeat which was not retarded by the obstinate refusal of Frederic to favour his army with his presence until he had had his dinner. He fled immediately on receiving the news of the defeat, and Prague was soon in the hands of the imperialists.
Then came the day of blood,—the 21st of June, 1621,—when twenty-seven of Bohemia’s best and noblest perished on the scaffold. The Bohemian Brethren and Calvinists were immediately banished from the country, and in Feb. 1622, the Utraquist and Lutheran clergy at Prague were offered the alternatives of giving up their wives and receiving a fresh ordination, or leaving Bohemia. On June 18, 1623, the stone-chalice, overlaid with gold, was taken down from the Teyn church at Prague, and the bones of the Utraquist Archbishop Elect, Rokycana, publicly burnt. Crowds of monks were introduced from Spain, Italy, and other Catholic countries. In the spring of 1626 a decree was published to the following effect:—No one who refused to profess the Catholic religion might carry on any trade, business, or profession. No preaching, baptisms, or marriages were allowed in any house, and it was punishable with death to harbour any evangelical clergyman; the non-Catholic dead were not to be buried by Catholic priests, but the burial fees were to be paid for them all the same; any one convicted of holding any heretical service in his house must leave the country; all children were to be withdrawn from non-Catholic schools, and all domestic instruction was strictly forbidden; no nonCatholic could make a valid will; and none but Catholic boys might be taken as apprentices. The Jesuits traversed the country with soldiers to protect them, in order to carry out these measures with the utmost severity. The poorer classes thus driven from their homes rose in rebellion, but were either cut to pieces on the spot, or taken prisoners, and then broken on the wheel, hung, beheaded, branded with redhot irons on the forehead, or deprived of their noses and ears. Nevertheless, many thousands fled into the forests, where they retained the faith of their fathers for a century and ahalf, till better times enabled them to profess it openly. In the autumn of 1627, Ferdinand came to Prague with his empress and son, and formally deprived the Bohemian Estates of all important rights and privileges, except that of granting supplies in the way of taxes, a right which they have never been permitted to exercise. More than 36,000 noble families left or were driven from Bohemia, and its conversion to Holy Mother Church was effected by the reduction of the number of its inhabitants from about 4,000,000 to about 800,000.
From this time forth Bohemia slept a deep and terrible sleep, and history is not concerned with the doings but the sufferings of the Bohemian people. Soon came the devastations of the thirty-years’ war to add themselves to the destruction of the national literature and suppression of the national intellect, which had been so eagerly pushed forwards by those “enemies of the human race,” the Jesuits.
The feelings of Bohemians towards this death-sleep of their country are very striking. Last summer I met a Bohemian gentleman who addressed me thus:—“Sir, you are come to visit a dead and buried and forgotten nation.” But a translation of the beautiful dedication of Erben’s “Kytice,” or “Nosegay,” of national tales, in which he takes advantage of the fact that, in Bohemian and several other Slavonic dialects, a pretty little wild flower is called the “Mother’s soul,” will probably be the most attractive means of exhibiting these patriotic feelings to the English eye.
A mother had died and was laid in the grave,
Her orphans still stayed here,
And every morning together they went
And sought for their mother dear.
The mother was woe for her children dear,
Back came the soul that was fled,
And embodied itself in a tiny flower,
Which soon the grave o’erspread.
The children their mother knew again
By the scent so sweet around,
And their mother’s soul they call’d the flower,
Wherein they comfort found.
O mother’s soul of my country dear—
Tales simple enough, I trow—
I gather’d thee on an ancient grave,
To whom shall I give thee now?
In a tiny nosegay thy flowers I’ll twine,
With a band I’ll fairly bind,
I’ll point thee the way to the lands so wide,
Where kindred thou wilt find.
Some daughter of her mother perhaps will be there,
To whom thy scent will be sweet,
Perhaps, too, some son of thy mother thou’lt find,
Whose heart thy flowers will greet.
In 1773 the dissolution of the order of the Jesuits took place, and in 1781, the first year of his reign, the Emperor Joseph II. issued the celebrated Patent of Toleration, allowing free liberty of conscience and worship to all non-Catholics. Relics of the old sects sprang up immediately, so that they numbered more than 100,000 souls in Bohemia and Moravia. Some of these sectaries entertained very singular, and, indeed, outrageous doctrines, so that measures were taken to limit the toleration to the Lutheran, or Evangelical, and Reformed, or Zwinglian Confessions. In 1782 followed the dissolution of all monasteries and convents, which were not engaged either in giving school instruction, or in the care of the sick.
The great majority of the Bohemian and Moravian Protestants belong to the Helvetian Confession, but do not derive their traditions from Zwingle or Calvin, but from the Hussite and other writers of their own country. According to the latest authorities, the number of Lutherans in Bohemia—exclusive of the purely German Inspectorate of Asch, which was established by a peculiar patent in 1775, and now contains 17,000 souls—is 15,685, who are pretty equally divided between the German and Bohemian languages, while the Reformed number no less than 59,343, all recognizing and using in public worship the Bohemian language only. In Moravia, the statistics of which I do not possess to a later date than 1851, there were then 19,433 Lutherans, and 34,932 Reformed; in Galicia, 27,481 Lutherans, and 1,882 Reformed; and in Austrian Silesia, no less than 62,463 Lutherans, most of them speaking the Silesian dialect of the Polish language.
The Gustavus-Adolphus Society—that brightest of bright spots in Protestant Germany—a society which extends its fostering care over all struggling Protestant congregations in non-Protestant countries, arose to a great extent out of circumstances connected with Bohemia. The Protestant inhabitants of the Bohemian village of Fleissen had, since the Patent of Toleration, been ecclesiastically united as one parish with those of the Saxon village of Brambach, enjoying the benefit of the same clergyman, and the same schools. Suddenly orders came from Vienna that this intercourse must cease, and the poor Protestants of Fleissen must find a clergyman, and build a church and schoolhouse for themselves. The representations of the Saxon government were of no avail. Just at this time the German Protestants were celebrating the 200th anniversary of the death of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden at Lützen, in 1632, and Dr. Grossmann, of Leipsic, bethought himself of the idea of a society for the assistance of struggling Protestant congregations, which is now being so magnificently carried out, and appears on the stage of the world as a worthy rival of the great English Bible and Missionary Societies.
This excellent society has assisted several congregations in Bohemia, both Lutherans and Reformed; and last year one of its agents travelled through Bohemia and Moravia with a view to the furtherance of its objects in those countries. The result of his journey has appeared in the October number of the Protestantische Monatsblätter of 1861. The writer of this article draws particular attention to the entire freedom from Rationalism enjoyed by these Slavonic churches, and to the fact that nothing but the most strictly Scriptural doctrine is heard from their pulpits, or would be endured by the congregations. He laments the poor and dependent position of the Protestant clergy, and also the great difficulty which they have in procuring a regular academical or theological education. Owing to the expense of and difficulty in obtaining such an education, and also owing to the dependent position of the clergy, as paid entirely by their congregations, it has come to pass that there are now four Reformed benefices vacant in Bohemia, and only two young men studying as candidates of theology. If they become salaried by the Government, their offensive power against the mass of Popery would be gone, and they would be looked upon as mere Government officials, and would, besides, lose the presents and contributions in kind which they at present receive in addition to their little salaries of 301, or 404, ayear. What course, therefore, remains but to endeavour to raise a fund which shall provide small endowments in aid both of young men seeking to prepare themselves for Holy Orders, and for the duties of schoolmasters, and of the miserably underpaid clergy and schoolmasters themselves. The death of Szafarzik, the Protestant archæologist and philologer last year evoked a burst of enthusiasm, and both Catholics and Protestants vied in subscribing towards the foundation of a seminary for the Protestant clergy, to be erected as a memorial of him. Next year (1863) is the 1,000th anniversary of the introduction of Christianity into these Slavonic countries, and a grand effort will be made by both Catholics and Protestants to turn this heart-stirring jubilee to their own account. It rests, under God, with foreign Protestants to leave their poor Bohemian and Moravian brethren to be overwhelmed by the wealth and numbers of their opponents, or to lend them a helping hand, and render them victorious in the contest.
And victorious they will be, if they obtain but a moderate amount of aid. They have the glorious past of their country, and all the best feelings of nationality on their side. They can say,—Our country always flourished among the first in Europe, so long as it kept the Pope and his crew at arm’s length; when once Popery and its hordes came in, the sun of Bohemia set in blood, and a death-trance succeeded the life and energy which had defied and successfully resisted the whole might of Roman Catholic Europe.
Last year I, too, visited Bohemia on a similar errand on my own account, and I can most fully testify to the accuracy of every statement made by the excellent author of the article to which I have just referred. I found the Protestants in considerable excitement, and just conducting the elections of Presbyteries, &c, required by the New Patent of April 8, 1861, which freed them from the old consistory at Vienna, presided over by a Roman Catholic, and granted them a free ecclesiastical constitution, and perfect freedom of action in religious matters. I found that one Reformed clergyman had received no less than 449 Romanists into his flock, and that the young Reformed congregation at Prague had increased in thirteen years from 800 to 1,600. And to the Biblical doctrine and preaching of the Bohemian clergy I can bear the fullest witness from the testimony of my own ears.
Two editions of Archbishop Whately’s Easy Lessons on Christian Evidences have been published in Bohemian by the Rev. Josef Prochazka, and I saw myself the proofsheets of the Second Epistle of St. Peter in an edition of the Scriptures with the Apocrypha which was being carried through the press by the Rev. Josef Ruzicka, a Lutheran clergyman at Prague. Everything betokens life and hope. There is a society well deserving of aid at Leschitz, for the assistance of the widows and orphans of clergymen and schoolmasters, without distinction of confession. And the same place is honourably distinguished by its lending library, which has transformed the congregation, mentally and morally, into quite a different class of people. This possesses above 600 volumes, and the peasants of the neighbourhood club together to purchase candles, take books out for a nominal sum-Catholics as well as Protestants—and read together by turns in each other’s cottages during the long winter evenings.
Will England remain uninterested and indifferent at this approaching jubilee? England, from whose Wycliffe came the enlightenment that, by God’s grace, enabled Hus and Jerome to give their bodies to be burned at Constance? The little fame which arose, in 1781, out of the long and cruelly smothered embers of the torch thus transmitted from England to Bohemia, is now becoming larger and larger, and brighter and brighter, and promises to burst into a sunbright splendour of religious enlightenment, if not neglected by those who ought to interest themselves in it. And the rapidity with which constitutions have been solemnly promulgated and as solemnly revoked, with which concessions have been made on paper and annulled with a stroke of the pen in Austria, must surely show the absolute necessity of immediately realizing and consolidating everything that has been granted. It would seem as if it were now or never. Will England resume her ancient work of aid and enlightenment in favour of these long oppressed, but now liberated, zealous and deserving fellow-Protestants?
- ↑ Reflections on the Sunday Epistles and Gospels.