course favoured absolutist and Romanist views. Of course, this tendency is not very obvious in the earliest part of the work, where Hajek reproduces the tales and often the very words of Cosmas and Dalimil; but from the time of Hus downward the book is a deliberate and unscrupulous attempt to falsify history. Hajek has not attempted to relate the facts connected with the reign of his patron, for his history ends with the coronation of Ferdinand I at Prague.
Of Hajek’s life little is known. We know, however, that he was born an Utraquist, but joined the Church of Rome at an early age. He appears to have been a man of strong and somewhat unscrupulous ambition. We read that as early as in 1524—the exact year of birth is uncertain, but he must at any rate then have been very young—Hajek preached in the church of St. Thomas at Prague. Some time later he obtained the rich deanery of Karlštýn, of which he was afterwards deprived, being accused of having embezzled money belonging to the deanery. About this time he began to write his history, perhaps with the intention of regaining the favour of King Ferdinand and of the Romanist nobles who had granted him their protection. It is no doubt in consequence of this that Hajek’s book redounds with effusive praise of the nobility, while he writes somewhat contemptuously of the townsmen.
Hajek appears for a time to have been successful in his attempt to regain the favour of his patrons, for we are told that the provostship of Stará Boleslav[1] was granted to him. This dignity, however, he also appears soon to have forfeited by various offences against canonical law. He finally retired to the Dominican
- ↑ In German, Alt-Bunzlau.
