Shakespeare’s sea-coast of Bohemia; and in Stilfrid the author actually finds a difficulty in distinguishing between England and Mesopotamia. K. J. Erben, the Editor of the Bohemian works of John Huss, has reprinted both these romances, from a manuscript of the fifteenth century, in his ‘Vybor z literatury Czeské’ (‘Selection from Bohemian literature’), and it is from this edition that the present translation has been made.
It will be remarked at once, that the names of the heroes are German rather than Bohemian. This is to be accounted for by the fact, that during the latter part of the long reign of the Emperor Charles IV. in Bohemia (1346–1378) and also during part of that of his son, King Wenceslas IV., Prague was the capital of the whole German empire. It being the aim of Charles IV. to constitute it such permanently, every exertion was made to render the German language fashionable and general, and many purely Bohemian places and families received German names, which they bear at the present day.
