was known as the ‘Bohemian Livy,’ ranked as a great historian. It is since Palacký’s valuable work, Würdigung der böhmischen Geschichtschreiber (An Appreciation of the Historians of Bohemia) appeared, that public opinion has completely changed with regard to Hajek. Palacký has clearly proved not only that Hajek was entirely devoid of historical criticism—no uncommon failing at his time—but that he purposely distorted historical facts. This applies particularly to the period of the Hussite wars, the most important one in the annals of Bohemia. His constant purpose is to describe the deeds of the Bohemians of this period and the motives of their leaders in the most unfavourable light. His book shares with that of Aeneas Sylvius the somewhat doubtful merit of having been, up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the very impure source from which all those drew who wrote on the history of Bohemia. Hajek’s work was translated into Latin and German at an early date, and it obtained many readers. The book was published under the patronage of Ferdinand I, to whom it was dedicated. Hajek, as he himself states, had been working for six years at his book before he finished it in 1553, and he addressed a petition to the king begging him to grant him a ‘privilege’—assure his copyright as we should say—for ten years. To this Ferdinand consented, but he at the same time appointed several officials who were ‘diligently to sit in judgement on this chronicle, carefully to look it through, and to strike out and efface whatever in it they might find disorderly.’
Hajek’s book may therefore be considered as having been written by order of the Government, who of
