CONCERNING BLESSED HROSNATA, MARTYR OF THE PREMONSTRATENSIAN ORDER,
IN THE MONASTERY OF TEPL IN BOHEMIA.
IN THE YEAR 1217.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Hrosnata, martyr, of the Premonstratensian Order, in the monastery of Tepl in Bohemia (Bl.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
§ I. A view of the monastery of Tepl; the Blessed one's name; kindred; cult; testament.
Prague, the metropolis of Bohemia, at a distance of twelve and a half common German miles toward the West, has the river Tepl, commonly Dopel, which, springing up one mile outside the Premonstratensian monastery of the same name, The situation of the place, its name, etc.; enters straight beneath it before the town of Tepl (in the vernacular Toplitz, Dobel, or Toppel), about a quarter of an hour distant thence; going thence between forests and high mountains into Petschau; but hence, winding with various turnings, it creeps to the Carlsbad Baths; until at last it discharges itself into the river Eger. The name Tepl therefore is common to the river, the town, and, what we give to be considered, the monastery; which, as le Paige of the Premonstratensian Library relates on page 393, is a daughter of Mount Sion (the monastery of Strahov of the same Order at Prague), and also of the Prague diocese. Moreover concerning the silver mines found in its ground, worked with a vast frequency of diggers in the time of Abbot Sigismund, our Balbín treats in the Historical Miscellanies of the kingdom of Bohemia, book 1, chapter 18, page 50; from which silver were made the statues of several Saints, Crosses, and other silver treasures of this kind, which are still seen in the church of Tepl … until at last heresy, and the wars born of heresy, closed the land itself; as he there narrates. But so far as Tepl denotes a town, beware lest you confound it with Teplice, distant from Prague by almost an equal space to the North, in the territory of Litoměřice; concerning which Teplice frequent mention recurs in the praised Balbín, Decade 1, book 5. Whence the confusion of the two places arose, I do not divine: this I know, that by some they were sometimes little distinguished from one another, as Merian witnesses in the Topography of Bohemia, page 28. The etymon of Tepl Balbín derives, book 1, chapter 24, page 62, from the heat of the waters; for Tepla, says he, and teply signifies "warm" to the Bohemians. And in the Historical Syntagma, chapter 9, page 29: The monastery … drew its appellation from Tepl, the neighboring castle, or from the Tepl river, as if you should say "WARM," because it grows tepid with many springs of thermal or warm waters. More determinately the author of the Life says this, number 8, asserting that the name Tepl was given to the monastery (by the Blessed one) from the neighboring city, which is commonly called Tepl by the inhabitants. Balbín had premised: Teplice, by a Slavic word, as if you should say "hot bath." So much for the monastery of Tepl: now for the name of the Blessed one.
[2] Balbín in the year 1663 published at Prague a Historical Syntagma, in which are contained the origins and memorials of the most Illustrious and very ancient stock of the Counts of Guttenstein, the use and origin of the name Hrosnata: together with the Life of Bl. Hrosnata, of the same family of the Count, collected and written from manuscript codices and other ancient monuments. In which, on page 81, concerning the name of the Blessed one he has this: This name was the proper name not so much of the man as of the whole family: for in those ages of our forefathers, still rude, both were indicated by almost one name; as the diplomas of our Princes show to the curious. By this example, in Bohemian antiquity, the Vítkonids or Vítigonids (the same who are "of Neuhaus"), the Bořitas (Martinici), the Howoras (Bercas), the Bočeks (afterward Kunstats), the Theobaldici (Švihovs), the Wilhelms (Kaunitzes), the Plichtas (Žerotíns), the Sezimas (of Ústí), the Leos (of Rožmitál), and many others are named. In centuries nearer to us very many families used surnames in place of names. I find the Slavatas called Slavata by proper name; the Benedas, Beneda; the Malovec, Malovec; the Howoras, Howora, called doubled. But in the same century there was a certain other Hrosnata, and perhaps the grandfather of this Bl. Hrosnata (concerning whom below), most illustrious among the nobles, of the family of the Counts of Mělník, whom to have died in the year 1152 Cosmas in the history of Bohemia, and from him Veleslavín, witnesses. Concerning the origin of the name he hands down this: Hrosnětín was in the domain of the ancient Hrosnatas, which Bl. Hrosnata assigned to the monastery of Tepl. Ridiculous perhaps it will seem to someone, what I now adduce, and to myself the matter seemed a jest; but to a certain one it seemed a conjecture not to be spurned, why the name of the Hrosnatas clung to the Counts of Mělník. They say that the first vine in Bohemia was planted at Mělník: for wine was first brought from Moravia into Bohemia in the year 892; which forthwith Countess Ludmila of Mělník, still given to the superstitions of the heathen, consecrated to her idol Krosyna; as Hájek relates: nay, a certain vine at Mělník is even shown, which they hand down that St. Wenceslaus cultivated for the use of the sacrosanct sacrifice of the Mass; what therefore forbids the Lords of Mělník, called Hrosnatas, who first had and cultivated vines at Mělník? For hrozen to the Bohemians signifies a cluster of grapes, and Hrosnata, whence that name can be derived, one rich in clusters or vines. But to me, says he, the conjecture seems too slight for me to think it should be defended; esteeming the matter according to its worth. But the name of Hrosnata received that veneration, that it is wont to be imposed in our Belgium, and, as I think, also elsewhere, upon the Premonstratensian Canons as sacred, that being abolished which they had had in the world.
[3] In chapter 2 he treats of the antiquity of the Guttenstein race, and inquires whence those Counts were so called. Are the Blessed one and the Counts of Guttenstein of the same stem? That Bl. Hrosnata derives his descent from the same family, he proves there from page 3: But that the Counts of Guttenstein draw their origin from the Counts of Mělník, R. P. Chanovský S.J., and the manuscripts, and all the histories, and their foundations, which I shall adduce afterward, and the perpetual tradition in the nobility, bear witness. R. P. Chanovský in the Vestige of Bohemia: Blessed Hrosnata, says he, of the stem of the Lords of Guttenstein, who have their origin from the stock (in the text, page 64, I read, who refer their origin to the stock) of St. Ludmila, grandmother of St. Wenceslaus. The same has R. P. Cruger S.J. in manuscript. Paprocki speaks of them thus: The ancestors of these were those excellent Counts of Mělník. Then he adduces the words of Hrosnata, founder of the monastery of Tepl, in the instrument of his foundation: I Hrosnata, by the grace of God, descending from the more illustrious stem of the Primates of Bohemia. But that which is here treated you will not infer from those last words any more than among the philosophers the species from the genus. Just as much you will elicit from the following: I Henry, by the grace of God Duke and Bishop of the Bohemians. Be it known to all the sons of the Church, that the illustrious Count, and our friend Hrosnata, following the nearer examples of the soldiers of the holy Cross, etc. Each of these instruments will be given below. Let us follow Balbín: These things the most Reverend lord Premonstratensians seem to have regarded, who caused these very words to be subscribed to the image of Bl. Hrosnata: blessed Hrosnata, Count of Guttenstein of the lineage of the Princes of Bohemia … a martyr, died in the year 1217, on the fourteenth of July. These things in passing; concerning which let the genealogists see; as also concerning those things which he says of the arms of St. Ludmila and of the Counts of Guttenstein, agreeing altogether on both sides in color, position, and figure. Now let us speak of the public cult.
[4] His cult is established both from testimonies, Balbín, chapter 10, page 34, thus discourses of him: Hrosnata … all antiquity of old ascribed to the number of the blessed confessors and martyrs.
We have seen his effigy with a radiate head (Chanovský adds, with the title of blessed Martyr), published by the reverend Fathers of his institute, and scattered among the common people. The same things he relates in the Bohemian Miscellanies, book 4, part 1, §37, where he also cites the Nativities of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order, published by John Chrysostom vander Sterre; who on the twelfth of June (not indeed the fourteenth of July, as Balbín ill noted there, and on page 34 cited above) announce him thus: In Bohemia, the nativity of Bl. Hrosnata, of the most noble primate of the kingdom, founder of the monasteries of Tepl and Chotieschau, a Canon of the Premonstratensian Order: who, agonizing even to death for the defense of the rights of his church against the attempts of the impious, exhausted by hunger, thirst, and the other injuries of a most foul prison, amid long imprisonment breathed forth his soul, worthy of God and illustrious with the laurel of martyrdom, ennobled with various miracles in life and after death. Again Balbín in the same place in the Bohemian Miscellanies adds this: Old men still remember that in the year of Christ 1642 in the church of Tepl, on a certain altar, the effigy of Hrosnata stood with the title of Blessed and Martyr: whence it is given to understand that his cult flourished from time immemorial: which, the image being removed, someone too anxiously scrupulous abolished: perhaps from fear lest the effigy of the Blessed one, publicly exposed, concerning the immemoriality of whose cult, conformably to the decree of Urban VIII, it perhaps was not sufficiently established to him who removed it, should throw delays upon the sacred honors solicited at Rome, but not obtained; concerning which matter Raymund, the present Abbot of Tepl, in letters given not long ago to our Father Peter Fratin, who was staying at Prague for theological studies in the year last past, 1722, thus writes: The business of the canonization of our blessed founder, long ago set in motion, has won no effect.
[5] and from a published miracle; To those things which we have related concerning the effigy of the Blessed one, can be joined those which Balbín narrates concerning his image in the Syntagma, page 80: It is wonderful, what is related in the … Vestige of Pious Bohemia (page 64); and this happened within our memory. When the most Illustrious Lady Anna of Šternberk, sister of the most Illustrious Lord Francis of Šternberk, had heard of Bl. Hrosnata, as one received among the heavenly ones, from I know not whom; returning to her chamber, she began to deride to herself, as a Saint hitherto unknown to her, to marvel, and at last scarcely to believe, and to doubt of the truth of the matter. This was the first and innocent, as it happens, and rashly born thought. It was perhaps the time of prayer; her prayer-book being opened, which she held in her hand, she sees on the first leaf the image of Bl. Hrosnata elegantly painted with rays, a brief eulogy also being added: whereas she had never had such an image in her little book, nor had ever seen it: (and she noticed that that icon could have been inserted into that book so quickly by no man, as is added in the Vestige of Pious Bohemia). And so, prostrate on her knees, having entreated Bl. Hrosnata, she promised that she would thenceforth worship him as a Saint, and herself related the matter, as it had happened, to many. The matter, somewhat more briefly set forth in the place cited by him, Balbín somewhat adorns.
[6] With the title of blessed he is marked in a broadsheet Concerning Men Illustrious for the Opinion of Sanctity from the Premonstratensian Order, which is proved from elsewhere; as also from the writer of the Life. printed at Antwerp, and dedicated by Miraeus to the Abbot there of the monastery of the same institute of St. Michael, in the year 1613, on the fourteenth day of April: whom nevertheless the same author, in the Chronicle of the said Order and in the title of the Life published by him, calls only venerable, following without doubt the exemplar from which he published it; such as is also indicated in ours, which we submit to the press. But in a special little book concerning Bohemian affairs he names him blessed; as also Cruger in the Sacred Ashes of the kingdom of Bohemia, with a notable eulogy of him. But Pontanus, book 4 of Pious Bohemia, had long since numbered him among the patrons of Bohemia. But what need of words? since from the Life, written by a contemporary, the public, ancient, and immemorial cult seems to be established not lightly. The Prologue treats of the merits of his life, and also of the palm of martyrdom, with which he happily passed to the Lord. The conclusion of the same Life, either not had by le Paige, or passed over, thus speaks: Of this venerable Father, therefore, brethren, let us so recall the annual memory, that it may be to us by his imitation continual. So let us rejoice in his merits; that in the present age we may not be destitute of necessary helps, and in the future may enjoy everlasting joys. And now the apparition and miracle set forth in the same place from number 25 is closed with this epiphonema: Such things indeed, very many, faith not gainsaying, could be narrated and commemorated; that he may be believed to live in heaven, who shines with so many tokens of miracles on earth. What shall I say of the place of burial? where he is narrated to rest in perpetual veneration of his blessed body, number 24. So much concerning the cult; to which pertain more things which here follow.
[7] It now helps to relate why our Blessed one is given by us on this day rather than another. His Acts had already begun to be fitted to the press for the twelfth of June; The reason is given why he is placed by us on this day. on which he is noted by the praised Sterre and le Paige; as you may see in the Passed-Over items for that day. But afterward, on account of better information, it seemed good to draw him back hither with Cruger and Balbín, who affirm that he died on this day; although Peter de Waghenare, in his metrical St. Norbert, page 405, and in the prose one, page 179 (in the last of which little works he has a eulogy of the Blessed one from page 178), says that he passed from life on the twelfth of June. For to their judgment, and especially Balbín's, I think one must stand, both in the determination of the Blessed one's death-day, and in many other things occurring throughout the course; being excellently versed in digging out and sifting Bohemian monuments, as is clear from the very large work published on that matter. Superfluous it will deservedly seem to some, to transcribe hither the eulogy which, in honor of Bl. Hrosnata, the same author, at the request, as he says in the same paragraph 37, page 56, of Joseph Schmid, of the Premonstratensian Order at Tepl, and … (once his own) disciple in rhetoric, long ago composed; and which Cruger published at the beginning of his first volume, as though put together by the canon Fathers of Tepl for their founder; superfluous, I say, it will deservedly seem; since it is nothing else than a context of the chief deeds of the Life, immoderately adorned with a sought and affected elegance of little flowers and phrases: which can be read there by those to whom witticisms of that rather subtle kind are of value.
[8] His tomb; Of Bl. Hrosnata's tomb the Echo of St. Norbert, published by Sterre, treats: where on page 138 he narrates that two Premonstratensians, sent from the abbey of St. Michael of Antwerp to Prague in the year 1627 on the occasion of the translation of St. Norbert, were permitted to kneel before the tomb (of our Blessed one), which he has raised up in the choir of the sacred building, becomingly covered with a coverlet white beneath and violet above; and he adds that memorable are the things which are related of the same Saint's pious solicitude for his church of Tepl, by various apparitions of his also lately; when, the spurious-Mansfeldic one raging there with his troops, he seemed to strike terror into the very watchmen, and to act as guardian of the monastery. Balbín, chapter 3, page 7, says that a most ancient banner hangs in the church of Tepl above the sepulcher of Bl. Hrosnata.
[9] Before the Jerusalem journey, undertaken by Hrosnata, To the Jerusalem pilgrimage, related in the Life at number 6, the Blessed one sent before the following testament, which Cruger has in these words: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity: I Hrosnata, by the grace of God descending from the illustrious stem of the Primates of Bohemia, to all the faithful of Christ, both of the future and of the present time. Since those things which are established by the prudent, God prompting, if they be committed to writing, are more tenaciously commended to memory, and, falsehood being excluded, attest the series of deeds, therefore I, by the nod of God following the footsteps of those signed with the holy Cross, and desiring to visit the sepulcher of the Lord and Savior, wish it to be made known to all, both future and present, that to the uses of the brethren who are to serve God and Blessed Mary at Tepl, I have handed over that same place with all its appurtenances which are there, whether I return or not, in perpetuity. But if on this way, which I enter, I shall have fulfilled the office of fate, I have appointed all my estates and possessions with all the animals to the same church for ever. But if I return, those estates, by due right, except Tepl and its appurtenances, shall be reduced into my domain. To my kinsmen, that they may faithfully assist the aforesaid place, I have given these: to Bleh, Bleh; to Zdeslav and his two brothers the circuit of Svolenec, Hyrdibor, Smilkovice: so I say, if I return not. To Holofernes, to my chaplain Maleš, to Martin of Skalice, to Nezech son of Peter. To these three I have given, whether I return or not. Let my soldiers, who hold my estates from me, contrive nothing of opposition to God and to the abbey which I founded. He who has a plow, let the Abbot of Tepl pay him two marks, that he may receive the plow: but he who holds a whole village, let him receive five marks from the Abbot, that he may serve whom he will. But of the villages which they held in the forests, let the church pay nothing. My menservants and maidservants I confer on the same church. To the lord Abbot of Tepl for the present I commit all my goods to be governed. But to Beneš I commend the Abbot himself and my faithful ones under his guardianship. But let the Abbot pay the debts to my creditors out of my goods.
[10] My sister, who is in Poland, if, surviving her husband, she shall wish to revisit her native soil, the testament sent before, as long as she shall remain in widowhood, let her possess Chotieschau with all its appurtenances: but if she marry another, or die in widowhood, let the church receive the same goods. To Judith, another sister, even to the end of her life, let the Abbot of Tepl becomingly provide the necessaries out of those goods which I have conferred on the church. But if anyone shall spread a false rumor of my death, let none be believed, unless a sure sign, which I have given to him alone, be manifest from the lord Abbot. But if my kinsmen shall wish to molest the abbey concerning the goods which I have conferred on God; besides the offense which they would deserve from the Almighty, behold before the Bohemians I say, that those goods which I had conferred on them shall revert perpetually to the uses of the church. And that these may persevere with a firm root among posterity, it has pleased that the deed be committed to writing, and confirmed by the seal of the church of Prague, and of the Duke himself, and by ours: and that the names also of those who were present be subscribed. These are the names of the witnesses. Henry, Duke and Bishop of Bohemia. Vladislav, his brother. Engelbert, Bishop of Moravia. Spytihněv, Ladimir. Florian, Provost and Chancellor. Hrabiša, chamberlain, and Slavko, his brother. George of Milevsko. John the judge, and Juda, his brother. Jaroslav. Budivoj, and Ben, his brother. Beneš, son of Herman. Berthold and Zerema, his son. Vítek, son of Vítek. Předbor, Ctibor, Natepult. Matthew. For the rest, if anyone shall presume to usurp
or seize these aforewritten goods for himself, let him know himself bound with the bond of anathema. These things were enacted in the year of the Incarnate Word 1197, in the fifteenth Indiction, with no Epact concurring, Y.
[11] The year and Indiction agree. But what does the letter Y mean? It is to be known that it, whether Greek or Latin (for either almost agrees), was wont to be appended to ancient diplomas; it is here produced. which had the force of a personal token or a seal; or was equivalent to the particles, "it is so," "let these things be ratified," or the like. Meanwhile there may be seen Mabillon, On Diplomatic Matters, book 2, chapter 10, number 13; where he brings forward various conjectures concerning the use of the Greek letter Y in diplomas. Consult him besides, book 2, chapter 21, number 5, and chapter 22, number 7: certainly, what moved the ancients to employ the said letter, it pleases me not to divine at length. For us, for the present argument, let it suffice that it was anciently appended to public instruments, and in them, as also in the testament above, not employed in vain: lest otherwise it were a bare letter without meaning; which cannot be said.
§ II. The testament confirmed; the privilege obtained; the office in the Order; the Foundations; parents and sisters; Hrosnata here to be distinguished from another; was he the brother of Ottokar?
Henry, Bishop of Prague, confirms and enlarges the aforesaid testament; The testament just produced Henry, Bishop of the Bohemians, confirmed and enriched with new additions. The compendium of the deed is thus read in Cruger, in the cited first volume near the beginning: He approves in the first place, confirms, and explains the testament of the illustrious count and his friend Hrosnata, and those things which he had given to the church of Tepl by the same testament. Then the Duke and Bishop himself also confers on the same place the land which is between Sandau and the forest of Bohemia. He also grants perpetually to the aforesaid brethren the collection of pence, which is wont to be collected throughout Bohemia, from all their men. And that these may persevere with a firm root, he takes care that these things be committed to writing, and strengthened by the authority of the venerable Cardinal Peter, who was present, and by his seal and his own, and that the names of the witnesses be subscribed; who are these: Henry, Duke and Bishop of the Bohemians. Engelbert, Bishop of Moravia. Peter, Cardinal, and legate of the Apostolic See. Florian, Provost and Chancellor. Zdislav, Dean. Falco, Archdeacon. Alexander, Master. Christopher, Provost in Boleslav. Hrabiša, Chamberlain of the Duke, Slavko his brother. And Hrabiša, his son. Herman, son of Marquard, and his son Beneš, and Marquard. George of Milevsko. Jaroslav, Odolen, Mutinzmil. Záviša Boruta. Budivoj, and his brother Ben. Berthold, and his sons Zezema and Herman. Bleh, and his brother Zdislav. Bun. Milota. Havel. Albert. Uta. After these he strikes with anathema those presuming to alienate those goods. These things were enacted in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1197, in the fifteenth Indiction, with no Epact concurring, Y. Concerning Henry, Bishop of the Bohemians, Pontanus treats in a special little book concerning those Bishops, placing his death in the year already said, 1197, but the beginning of his episcopate in 1183.
[13] to whom are added new favors, obtained at Rome from Celestine III. The Life relates, number 12, that our Blessed one, the cloisters (of Tepl and Chotieschau) being built and endowed, returned to Rome a second time, and, a colloquy being had with the supreme Pontiff, set forth reverently concerning the building and provision of the aforesaid cloisters, humbly and devoutly asking that the same, with their appurtenances, be received into the special protection of the Apostolic See; and asking also that, of the accustomed grace of the Apostolic See, the use of the Pontifical mitre be granted to the abbots of the place succeeding for the time being. Under which Pontiff this happened, the privilege notes, published by the praised Cruger with this title: Of Celestine III, Roman Pontiff, granted into the hand of Bl. Hrosnata while staying at Rome, whose sum is this: He receives the persons (of the monastery of Tepl) and the church, with all its goods both present and future, under the protection of Blessed Peter and his own; but specially the village which is called Tepl, with the tolls and all its appurtenances. He also confirms by Apostolic authority the liberty of the men over the collections and the land which is between Sandau and the boundary of Bohemia, and fortifies it with the patronage of the present writing, establishing that if they shall perceive themselves to be burdened, it shall be lawful for those free men to appeal to the Apostolic See … Given at the Lateran on the seventh of the Ides of August; in the seventh year of the pontificate (of Christ, 1197). The same Pontiff, under the same date, is said to have granted to the Abbot of Tepl the use of the Pontificals, and indulgences for the future dedication; as is there added. Consult what we note on chapter 2 of the Life, letter e. To the aforesaid building of the monastery of Tepl can be added, from Pontanus, Pious Bohemia, book 4 toward the end, that, while it was being built, a small dish was set out, that the laborers and hirelings might themselves take from it their daily wage, three small obols, no one presiding. Whence he gathers the inexplicable affection and readiness to build the houses of God, whether in giving money, or in helping the labor, or in acting voluntarily and faithfully. This deed does not exceed belief; although the praised author cites no one. The riches of this monastery Balbín commends, page 29, from manuscripts: That it was always reckoned among the richer ones, may be gathered from the annual tribute which the several monasteries paid to the King's chamber … Now it paid two hundred threescore of Bohemian groschen, which was no small sum at that time, the Indies not yet being opened; so that among thirty and more monasteries of non-mendicant Religious in Bohemia, that of Tepl was numbered the twelfth in riches. Of the guardianship of the Counts of Guttenstein toward this place the praised author treats in the same place.
[14] Pontanus, in the same book 4, page 51, hands down that Bl. Hrosnata was Abbot of the cloister of Tepl; Pontanus wrongly asserts that Hrosnata was abbot. but wrongly: for the writer of the Life has, number 15: That, being made, by John the Abbot of Tepl, in virtue of holy obedience, though unwilling and resisting, provost and administrator of the aforesaid cloisters of Tepl and Chotieschau, he strenuously kept watch in his office. Then therefore he was not yet Abbot; nay, that he never afterward was Abbot, is proved from the end of the Life: where it is narrated that, the benediction being received from the Abbot of Tepl and the convent, he set out for Hrosnětín to visit the goods of the church. At last he was led away into captivity, and the Abbot, as you have at number 22, and the brethren of the cloister of Tepl, bereaved of the consolation of their father and patron, amid sighs, tears, and griefs, were prepared to ransom him; but he adjures the Abbot and brethren in the virtue of God, and forbids that even one penny be given for ransoming his life. Ill therefore is the Blessed one named Abbot by the said author, and by Miraeus in a special little book concerning Bohemian Affairs; who in the Premonstratensian Chronicle had only called him the founder of the several times praised monasteries in Bohemia.
[15] That he was indeed such, the Life affirms, number 11, and the monastery of Chotieschau founded by his sister Woyslava: saying that the blessed Man founded the cloister of Chotieschau to the praise of God, and the honor of St. Wenceslaus, Duke and Martyr, and patron of Bohemia, and endowed it abundantly, and adorned it with useful things, and instituted a convent of nuns serving the Lord under the same rule: in which also Woyslava, his own sister … persevering under the observance of the chastity of widowhood … survived for many years, and at the last rested in the peace of Christ: whose body is there honorably entombed in the middle of the monastery. To what end therefore does Pontanus assert that this monastery was built by the said Woyslava? To whom again gives suffrage Miraeus in the mentioned little book, and Chanovský, page 65. Le Paige may seem to have wavered, page 526; by whom in the title of the little compendium of the Life she is called simply foundress; but in the very text, foundress with her brother: but both not rightly enough; as the author of the Life decides; to whose words you may add what Balbín has in the Life of Woyslava, Bohemian Miscellanies, book 4, part 1, paragraph 38, against an anonymous writer, who lays down that the monastery of Chotieschau was founded by her after the example of her brother; which opinion, as he adds, not only the ancient monuments of the monastery, but also all the historians, and the stone of the sepulcher refute; where he hands down that it is openly read: In the year of the Lord 1227 here was buried the Lady, the Lady Woyslava, sister of the illustrious Count, the Lord Hrosnata, founder of this temple and monastery. This epitaph he testifies that he read and copied in the sacred convent already mentioned, carved on a stone raised high from the ground, as he relates in the Syntagma, page 25: where, however, the pronoun "this" is omitted. But on page 30 he says thus concerning her wealth: Of old it was reckoned first of all in riches among the monasteries by the Royal Chamber: for it paid 330 threescore to the Chamber, only under the name of subsidy (which sum no other in Bohemia paid); one only excepted, that of the Blessed Virgin at the Prague Bridge, or the Strakonice one of the Maltese. Which the same author pursues concerning the well-nigh extempore garrison of several thousand armed men set against the enemy by Sulek, provost of Chotieschau, and the triumph afterward gained; as also concerning the burning of the monastery in the year 1421, under Žižka; I do not commemorate.
[16] she enriched it, did not found it. But on page 31 he refutes the opinion of some historians, and of the praised anonymous, attributing this foundation to Woyslava, not only from the cited epitaph, but much more from the Life of Bl. Hrosnata, written by one contemporary with those times. He testifies moreover that Paul Stránský agrees with him, in the Republic of Bohemia, chapter 2, §11, a most accurate historian of his country. Yet I do not doubt, says Balbín in the Life of Woyslava, that Woyslava increased her brother's foundation with gold, treasures, and womanly riches from her princely marriage; for the perpetual custom of those entering sacred convents persuades this, and the sanctity of Woyslava and the memorials of Doksany signify it; when they call her foundress of the church of Chotieschau. From the things said it follows that Woyslava neither was, nor can be called, foundress of the monastery properly so called, as though she erected it from its beginnings; but only improperly, inasmuch as she amplified her brother's foundation with a new addition of munificence. Who nevertheless of himself could supply all things abundantly; since, as the Life says, number 7, he excelled all the Bohemians in affluence of riches. Moreover this monastery is situated in the diocese of Prague, and is a daughter of the monastery of Tepl. Nor is it doubtful to me that it is the same which Merian, Topography, page 19, under the names Chetischou, Chotissau, Chotischau, places near Pilsen. Miraeus in the Index to the Premonstratensian Chronicle, besides this monastery founded by Bl. Hrosnata, soon subjoins the provostship of Virgins of Gotteschau, founded also by the same; concerning which foundation, as distinct from the former, I have hitherto found out nothing. I judge that he made two out of one, an error perhaps having arisen from the somewhat diverse manner of writing one and the same place. Whether Bucelinus, in the second part of Germania Sacra, page 161, wished to indicate the same place as the monastery of Chotieschau, or a different one? when, about to designate very briefly the monastery of Chotischau, as he calls it, he says that it is commonly called Chotischaw, Chotieschauw
and Chotiescheze? For the names agree well enough, as is clear; as also the place; since he places it in Bohemia; although the institute of life does not cohere, and he says it is a monastery of the Benedictine Order (of men or of women?), and an illustrious one indeed.
[17] Of the place Hrosnětín we have just treated; but there remain some things to be treated, [Concerning the place Hrosnětín and other things pertaining to the monastery of Tepl.] by which the Life may be illustrated at number 21; where mention is made of it. Balbín, in the Volumes of erections or foundations, page 192, suggests this: The erection of an altar or perpetual chaplaincy, and of an early Mass in the parish church of the Blessed Virgin in Hrosnětín, otherwise in Lichtenstadt, of the diocese of Prague, of 9 groschen of six pence rent, with books, chalices, and ornaments, with the consent of the most Reverend Lord Bohuš, abbot of the monastery of Tepl, our gracious temporal Lord. The burdens of the altarist. The founders, the citizens and jurats of the town of Hrosnětín, petition that Archbishop Conrad confirm it in 1413, on the eighth of September. Which Gurein does in 1414, on the nineteenth of April. So there; and it is noted besides that up to that time the people of Tepl retained the domain of Hrosnětín, left to them by the founder Hrosnata; which, as is added, afterward came to profane hands. The other foundations of the same abbey of Tepl Miraeus summarily embraced in the Index to the Premonstratensian Chronicle, saying that on it depend seventeen villages in all, and some towns, in which the Abbot today has the supreme right. One of these no doubt is that in Balbín, in the place just cited, page 306: Six Prague groschen rent for the erection of a new altar of St. Nicholas in the church of St. John the Baptist in the New Market, by the citizens there, with the license of John called Czeniek, the Abbot, Wenceslaus the Prior, etc., of the whole Convent of the monastery of Tepl, of the Premonstratensian Order, Lords of the whole town.
[18] The names of Bl. Hrosnata's parents the Life nowhere expresses. The parents of Bl. Hrosnata, and his sisters, Waghenare, page 378, says he was the son of Count Zezeman and of Debroslava of Guttenstein. Balbín in the Syntagma, page 80, relates that his father was called Zezyman, but his mother Debroslava; whence he thinks it came to pass that very many families in Bohemia enjoy the name of Sezima; and that it is diminished from Zezeman, and contracted by abridgment, one may not vainly suspect. He says Dobroslava is the same as "good glory"; and because to glory our forefathers, says he, referred all things; to that he reduces the etymology of many names ending in -slava, or "glory": such as are Wenceslaus, Jaroslaus, Bohuslaus, Zdeslaus, Břetislav, etc. But in book 4, which is hagiographic, of the Historical Miscellanies of the kingdom of Bohemia, page 56, he speaks thus at more length to the present purpose: But Sezyma the father …, as I read in an old codex of the convent of Chotieschau, died on the twenty-second of January: the year is not added. Debroslava the mother … was of the Czernin stock; for so in the manuscript of Chotieschau, but the year not being added: on the eleventh of the Kalends of September, that is, the twenty-second of August, died the Lord Henry Czernin of Chudenice, the founder's maternal uncle. The founder's grandmother was called Bohuslava, and died on the third of October: but careless antiquity omitted to record both the year and her lineage. Of the Blessed one's sisters he treats on page 25, namely of Bl. Woyslava, a most holy widow, and Božena or Beatrice, Bohuslava and Judith, virgins, who in the monastery of Chotieschau dedicated their life to Christ their spouse. And on page 31 he thinks it probable enough that some of those sisters governed this monastery; and he narrates that these sisters had long before entered the monastery of Doksany of the same Order under Agnes III the Prioress; but when Chotieschau was founded, they led a colony with other sacred virgins from Doksany into it, and gladly came to their brother Hrosnata and their sister Bl. Woyslava. The said author also notes that Woyslava is found named by some Swoyslava, the cause having arisen from this (which Chanovský also assigns), that in ancient monuments was read S., that is "holy," or S. Woyslava; where posterity, not observing the title of sanctity, joined the letters, and for S. Woyslava called her Swoyslava; whom he says is handed down to have been of such modesty of mind that, though she had once been a Duke's consort, and the founder's sister and almost foundress, she spent her life not among the nuns, but among the lay-sisters, as they call them. Which the Life of Hrosnata does not expressly affirm. Yet it says, number 11, that she, in a habit suitable to her, which widows of this kind were accustomed to wear, discharged in the congregation of sisters the office of advocate or patroness: and number 20, that, continually serving the Lord in widow's habit, she remained a rather long time: whom Waghenare, page 179, has with the title of Blessed. To that which, in the same number 11, her husband is called prefect of the city of Cracow, Balbín observes that "prefect of the city" is improperly said in this place; that all the other monuments call him Duke of Cracow, Otto by name (as Chanovský also calls him); and he confesses that he is at this time and place destitute of the histories of the Poles; nor can he say who that Otto was, of what family, or by what right he held Cracow. To assert with Balbín that it is probable he was the son of Mieszko, Prince of Poland, whom Kromer in the History of the Poles (book 6, page 151, under those things which he relates at the year 1158) named, is to grope in the dark. Add to what has been said, from the same Balbín, page 34, that the aforesaid widow was called by antiquity not only blessed, but even holy; but that his three other sisters, Beatrice, Bohuslava, and Judith, virgins, do not indeed have that appellation, yet lived and died most holily, I have read.
[19] as also another Hrosnata, confused by some with ours: Wenceslaus Hájek in the Bohemian Chronicles, page 245, at the year 1152, writes that a certain Hrosnata, of notable name among the Bohemian nobles, instituted a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and carried with him a choral cope woven with gold, gems, and precious stones, of a price, as the report was, mounting to two thousand gold pieces, ordered to be made by Henry, Bishop of Prague, and delivered into the hands of the said Hrosnata, that he should lay it, carried to Jerusalem, upon the sepulcher of Christ the Lord; that, the pilgrimage being performed, he returned into Bohemia in the same year 1152, in the month of March, and in the same year died on the sixteenth of October; from the Historical Calendar, on the same sixteenth of October. That this Hrosnata is ill confounded by some with ours, Balbín is the author, page 24; since certainly the age conflicts, and the death of that Hrosnata, marked by Veleslavín in the year 1159, conflicts. Therefore that former Hrosnata could not by living reach Přemysl Ottokar. Finally the pilgrimage itself also conflicts: for the former Hrosnata accomplished the overseas pilgrimage, and died; but Bl. Hrosnata, terrified by the perils of the sea, went to Rome in place of Jerusalem. The year 1159 is here ill marked for 1152, as is clear from what has been said.
[20] Whether, and how many brothers Hrosnata had, I do not remember to have read. who is wrongly maintained by Miraeus to have been the brother of Ottokar. In the testament above, mention is twice made of kinsmen; likewise of two sisters by name; but of brothers, none. Whence I gather that he either never had brothers; or, if he had them, that they were then no longer surviving, since he would have made memory of them no less than of his kinsmen and sisters, if they had lived. From which correct Miraeus, who in the Index to the Premonstratensian Chronicle names Bl. Hrosnata the brother of Ottokar, King of Bohemia: to which fabrication the Life tacitly cries out against, number 2, when it narrates that he sprang from the illustrious lineage of Princes, but does not call him brother of King Ottokar, but only says that he held the first place in the King's court after the royal magnificence. But at number 14 such are the circumstances of things that it seems King Přemysl Ottokar could not have omitted mention of fraternal blood, if he had had Hrosnata for a brother. Perhaps Miraeus was led into error by this, that Přemysl, from the meekness of innate generosity, rises from his throne; and receives his brother Hrosnata to a kiss. And several times in the course he is called brother; because from a secular man he was made a religious, from a soldier a brother, as below in the Life it is had, number 13. More cautious was Peter Waghenare, when in his aforecited metrical St. Norbert he asserts that he was, of the first Prince after the King of Bohemia, the founder and canon of the monastery of Tepl.
§ III. The writers of the Life; observations on ours, which we give; the author of the same; the slayers of Bl. Hrosnata.
The Life which we here give Sigismund Kohel published from the press of Louka near Znaim on the river Thaya in the year 1608. The Life of the Blessed one published by various persons. The same Miraeus published at the end of the Premonstratensian Chronicle in the year 1613; which le Paige in the year 1633 arranged in better order from the same source; since he indicates that he took it from that which is in the most ancient manuscripts of the church of Tepl, and in the documents of the Order, brought forward by Miraeus in the Chronicle of the Premonstratensian Order, and by abbot vander Sterre. Balbín inserted it into his Syntagma from page 66, thus speaking: The Life which I now adduce, I received sent to me from the most celebrated monastery of Tepl … by the most Reverend and most Ample abbot of that monastery, Raymund. It was copied from a most ancient manuscript codex of the monastery, and, as tradition has it, put together by the very one who served Bl. Hrosnata living, and was present with him dying in prison; but afterward, being co-opted into the sacred Order, became abbot: it was copied and diligently compared with the autograph by R. P. Aloysius Hackenschmidt, a religious of the same institute at Tepl. This agrees with ours both as to substance and as to words, if you except a very few things; of which some account will be had in the margin of the text of the Life, and in the Annotations to the same. Besides these, Barthold, Provost at St. Vitus's (which is the metropolitan of Prague), sang the Life and miracles of the same in heroic verse, in venerable old age, but with a vein not senile, as Cruger testifies. The praised Waghenare also published the deeds of the Blessed one in elegiac verse, Leonine, as they call it, from page 405, cited above. But he who knows one Life, knows all, drawn, as is elicited from what has been said, from the same source.
[22] The new information from Tepl failing, the Life which we publish, That more documents might be at hand for the present argument, it pleased me to furnish with letters, on the thirtieth of July of the year last past, 1722, our above-praised Peter Fratin; who wrote on this matter to the Abbot of Tepl, with no profit; as is clear from the same man's answer to him: So much the more willingly would I communicate whatever were at hand, the more zealously I hear the Fathers Hagiographers of Antwerp of the Society of Jesus to be occupied in illustrating the Acts of the blessed founder of my house. But besides those things which, through the authors cited in the letter written to me, have been skillfully compiled for the glory and honor of our Bl. Hrosnata, I find nothing singular to be communicated. In the other things which your reverend paternity is bidden to investigate, Tepl took no beginning … Nor do I wish to accuse our Elders and predecessors, and especially the enemies of miraculous antiquity or of histories. But because through the injuries of the times and the flames of Vulcan
very many things have been consumed, which Tepl even now has to deplore; what remains? but that she commend them to the Powers above, who know how to raise up the glory and likewise the splendor of their Saints even from the ashes. We must therefore acquiesce in our documents, and forbear the new ones, hoped for from Tepl, but not received: among which the Kohelian and the Balbínian Lives, compared on both sides by us, have some things which deserve to be observed. For the Balbínian one prefixes a Prologue plainly diverse from that which we subjoin from Kohel in print; that Balbínian one reads thus: That we may bring forward the brightness of a precious gem to human sight, and set a lamp upon a candlestick not only for the illumination, but also for the example of those warring for God, who walk in the house of God with consent; the good odor of the virtue of Hrosnata, the most Reverend father, whose memory is in benediction, the excellent founder of the monasteries of Tepl and Chotieschau, breathing wondrously even to foreign nations, animated my insufficiency, that, relying on divine aid, I might transfer, though in a humble style, the tokens of his conversation and the merits of his life, and also the palm of martyrdom, with which he happily passed to the Lord, for the instruction of the present and the memory of posterity, asking pardon of the reader for the imperfection.
[23] compared with that which Balbín published. After this Prologue follow ten paragraphs, in place of thirteen chapters in Kohel. Moreover the titles on both sides agree up to paragraph 9 inclusive; except that the title of the seventh in Balbín is "concerning the regular confirmation," which in Kohel is inscribed "concerning the royal confirmation." But Balbín, under the title of the ninth paragraph, "concerning the foundation of Chotieschau and the presage," has all the things which Kohel has both under this same, and under another title of the tenth chapter, wanting in Balbín, "concerning the journey to the supreme Pontiff, and the habit received from him." Besides, Balbín under the sole tenth title, "concerning the return to his own," relates all that follows, the titles being omitted; which in Kohel are prefixed to chapters XI, XII, and XIII, which Balbín indeed did not omit, but found omitted in his exemplar; as he himself declares in the Syntagma, page 86: It comes here to be noted, that the title of the (ninth) paragraph does not fulfill what it promised: since throughout this whole paragraph the writer says nothing concerning the presage. I suspect also that in the following the titles are lacking; since that one "concerning the return to his own" does not comprehend the miracles, and the other things which are narrated of him. And of the Life thus far; now concerning the author of the Life receive this.
[24] At number 17 he betrays a characteristic mark, from which you may determine his age; when its author lived; Woyslava, says he, … still living and relating, and others worthy of belief asserting, such things were heard as we shall bring forward with a truthful assertion. Now since the death of Hrosnata is fixed at the year 1217, but of Woyslava at 1227; he sufficiently indicates that he lived with her, and wrote about her time, or certainly not much after, being certainly nearest in age to both, or even equal, and that he flourished when the thirteenth century was somewhat advanced. Add, that at number 9 he calls the religious community of Tepl a "new plantation." There favor besides those things which he recounts at number 10: A sign wonderful to us, and by posterity to be chiefly recalled (of a prodigious star at the time of the dedication of the church of Tepl) was divinely shown; which happened in the year 1232, as is said below, number 25 and number 35; and thus he could set this miracle before those who then lived, designated by the pronoun "us," as wonderful, and as it were to be gazed upon; but to posterity, to whom namely not the thing itself, but the report of the thing, was to come, as to be recalled: he seems to have wished to indicate himself as contemporary, and distinct from posterity. But at what time he was composing his work, that he was disjoined from the Blessed one, of whom he wrote, either in age or in place, we gather from number 25: It has pleased not incongruously to touch upon, in a succinct narration, the miracles of the virtues of this venerable Father, which have been brought forth by the truthful relation of our Elders.
[25] The said author seems to have been a religious of the Premonstratensian institute, his institute, name, etc. as we think is elicited from chapter 10, where he has this: Come, brethren, you who direct your ears to the book, and have your hearts upward to God; whom the Mother of mercy adopted as ministers, nay rather as sons to herself; hear, you who hear me, and praise together, with one mind, your advocate. And, the prodigious star being related, he again addresses them as brethren. And soon he subjoins the following: You, I say, her special servants, who in the cloister of Tepl, where that star appeared, exercise a spiritual warfare under regular discipline. Persevere therefore, fighting manfully, and you shall find the eternal kingdom. What discourse is this? but of a brother to brethren, professing the same rule of life. To Balbín, above asserting that he was the Blessed one's servant and afterward Abbot of Tepl, I do not assent; since he establishes the tradition which he mentions by no ancient testimony; and the author of the Life clearly contradicts, at the number just adduced, saying that he writes those things which have been brought forth by the truthful relation of the Elders; and tacitly insinuating that he did not serve the Blessed one living, and was not present with him dying in prison; which nevertheless Balbín would have. For if he had been such, he would have written those things as an eyewitness, not indeed merely as an ear-witness. Moreover concerning his name it is not established; whatever Cruger names a certain contemporary John, but Balbín in the Life of Bl. Woyslava names him John the abbot. But on whose testimony? Balbín certainly, in the Syntagma, page 79, does not express his name, candidly professing that he is ignorant by what name he was called. And on page 86, treating of John I, abbot of Tepl, he asserts that he, as it appears, did not write this Life. And rightly, in my opinion. For grant that some John wrote it, not this one, but some other must be found, more agreeing with the order of time and with the text of the Life. For Cruger indeed concerning the said John I, from the series of abbots of that place, and from the manuscript of the monastery of Tepl, thus records at the twenty-first of August: He was called from Strahov in 1197 … While Hrosnata lived, he administered only the discipline of the Order and of the monastery: whom, when he had holily died, he took up also the care of temporal things … Under this John, in the year of Christ 1232, the church of Tepl was consecrated: at which solemnity were present King Wenceslaus, John, Bishop of Prague, Peregrinus, once bishop there, Arnold, Provost of Vyšehrad and chancellor of the kingdom, nephew of the aforesaid King in the female line, a most near kinsman, several Princes and legates of Germany. And so this John presided first over the monastery of Tepl after its foundation, and long survived in it after the death of the Blessed founder himself, by no means about to write, if he had been the author of his Life, that he touched upon in a succinct relation those things which have been brought forth by the truthful relation of his Elders; but about to relate those things which had happened while he lived, was present, and saw, and also presided over that monastic community.
[26] whom it is strange not to have written the apparition which Balbín has. These words also of the Life, number 16, prove, as I think, sufficiently that the author is diverse from the aforesaid John: At length, the enemy of the human race … sowing discord, he is afflicted with injuries by the aforesaid abbot (John I), and provoked with contumelies … until, by the abundance of his friends and the power of his kinsmen, the swollen presumption of the aforesaid abbot was checked. Let it therefore remain that concerning the name of the author of the Life it is not sufficiently established, no otherwise than concerning the office which he discharged among his own. However these things may be; I marvel that he made no mention, not even by a word, of the following apparition, made to Bl. Hrosnata, and set forth by Balbín, book 4 of the Miscellanies of Holy Bohemia, part 1, page 55, in these words: I read in the very ancient Annals of this sacred Order (a manuscript "On the Origin of the Premonstratensian Order" being cited in the margin), when Bl. Hrosnata had completed the building of the monastery, that Christ the Lord appeared to him in sleep, and said: Hrosnata, I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for me for a house of sacrifice. Which oracle being perceived, the blessed man, glad, falling prone to the earth, adored the Lord, repeating again and again those words: Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures for ever.
[27] Whether the Blessed one was slain by his kinsmen, The things which are obscurely narrated in the Life concerning the slayers of the Blessed one, Balbín judged should be illustrated in the Syntagma from page 86, thus discoursing: It is certain from our writer, first, that the slayers were from the province of Eger. Secondly, that they were rivals, whom a little before he had called enemies and foes. Thirdly, that the cause was that he manfully defended the estates of his cloisters against their assaults. Fourthly, that Bl. Hrosnata was captured and dragged into Germany. Fifthly, that he was tortured for the extorting of money. And from these he deduces: first, that Bl. Hrosnata was not captured by friends and kinsmen; which some have suspected: for the writer of the Life expressly calls rivals, enemies, foes from the province of Eger, by whom he was dragged into Germany; where his friends were not, but in Bohemia. And why, pray, if he had been slain by his kinsmen, would the writer have concealed it? Then Eger at that time did not pertain to the kings of Bohemia, and thus deeds done by the people of Eger can in no way be imputed to any of the Bohemians. Then from Brusch's history of Eger, likewise from the first Century "On the Monasteries of Germany" in Waldsassen, and from Münster's Cosmography, he affirms: That Eger, and all that neighborhood, pertained by hereditary right to the marquises of Vohburg; by whom also the city of Eger was founded. At last in the year 1179 Theobald, marquis of Vohburg, when he had betrothed his daughter Mechtild (Brusch calls her Adelheid) to the Emperor Frederick I, and had celebrated the nuptials at Eger, ceded this very city, together with the adjacent region, to the Emperor for his daughter's dowry. So this city, says Münster, became imperial, and remained in that state until the year 1315, in which year at Eger, as in an imperial city, Louis the Bavarian was named Emperor by the Electors; but in the same year it was sold by Louis to John, King of Bohemia, for forty thousand marks of silver. Nevertheless before that Eger for some time looked to Bohemia: for in the year 1285 Rudolph I, Emperor of Austria, assigned Eger, for the dowry of his daughter Guta, to Wenceslaus II, King of Bohemia, as the Chronicle of the Royal Court and Dubravius have; but it seems shortly, by some transaction, to have returned to the Emperors.
[28] This alternating vicissitude of the city of Eger under various lords, or whether he was slain by others? so explicitly recounted by Balbín, tends to this, that he may remove the slaying of the Blessed one from friends and kinsmen; which thence you will by no means hammer out; unless you say that it concludes: The Blessed one had friends and kinsmen in the Bohemian domain: therefore outside it he had no friends and kinsmen. For what hinders him from having had them on both sides, especially in so near a distance of places? Nor indeed does it press more strongly, that the Blessed one was dragged into Germany;
for, besides that "into Germany" is absent from the Kohelian exemplar; what forbids that the friends and kinsmen, although we grant to Balbín for the moment that they dwelt in Bohemia, dragged the Blessed one into Germany, so much the more securely as they were about to slay him the more remote from his own country? The silence of the author proves something against the slayers in this case. But those words inserted in the testament, "But if my kinsmen shall wish to molest the abbey concerning the goods which I have conferred on God," neither affirm nor deny the present deed; although they tacitly insinuate that it could have happened, and Cruger imputes the slaying to them, when in the eulogy of the Blessed one he relates that he doubtless incurred hatred among those who gaped after domains of that kind as easily to be devolved upon themselves. But, as Balbín rightly observes, so far is it that the kinsmen of Bl. Hrosnata inflicted any violence, that even when the Blessed man was afflicted by his abbot, he was helped by his KINSMEN, and by them the abbot was checked, as is to be seen in the Life, §10; but with us, number 16, at the end. Meanwhile, with the same one, we may gather that Bl. Hrosnata was not captured by public counsel of the people of Eger; both because it cannot be believed that there was so great barbarity in an Imperial and Catholic city: and because they ought to have feared the vengeance and arms of King Přemysl (to whom Bl. Hrosnata, most well known, sat next after the royal magnificence). Finally he concludes this controversy, gathering from those things which he had discoursed, that the blessed man was captured by robbers from the province of Eger, and dragged to some fortress (of which many at that time were most full of brigands); who tortured him for the extorting of money. Those who shall say otherwise, will involve themselves in many difficulties. Let there be seen a certain writing of mine concerning the slaying of Bl. Hrosnata, which I lately, being asked, composed; whether published or not? Certainly in the Library of the writers of the Society, among other things published by him, I do not find it: perhaps because, on account of the brevity of the matter, it did not deserve to be reckoned among his writings.
§ IV. The Life brought to chronological reckonings; the dedication of the church of Tepl: King Přemysl.
We fix the birth of Bl. Hrosnata about the year 1170, The author of the Life confounds very many things, the order of time being neglected; seeming to have arranged not so much the historical series as a synopsis of the chief matters, having it topsy-turvy, which things he should set before which in order of time, here to be restored by the due reckonings. After the prologue he soon gives a specimen: for where he ought to have treated of the Blessed one's birth or boyhood, he at once exhibits his maturer age: While King Přemysl, who was also surnamed Ottokar, was happily governing the kingdom of Bohemia, among the other Magnates of the kingdom Hrosnata held the first place in the King's court after the royal magnificence. In Dubravius, History of Bohemia, book 15, near the beginning, Přemysl is placed as crowned King of Bohemia by Philip of Swabia, whose party he then followed against Otto, Duke of Saxony, contending for the empire, in the city of Mainz; and thence the interregnum in Bohemia was ended, other Kings of Bohemia successively succeeding from that Přemysl thenceforth from the year 1199. The same year of the reign entered upon by Přemysl is marked by Balbín, Bohemian Affairs, book 3, chapter 12, page 248, the very day of St. Nicholas being added: but the imperial diet of Mainz, in which he received the crown from Philip, he fixes at the year 1199, others at 1200. These things being premised, I fix the Blessed one's birth about the year 1170, together with the miracle, preposterously deferred in the Life and related at number 17; by which he is said to have been brought forth into the light by his mother stillborn and lifeless, but by prayers to Christ and his most holy Mother restored to life. Another miracle, again narrated out of its place at number 18, by which the infant, carried in his mother's bosom, but given to his sister Woyslava to be carried, and falling from her hand to the ground out of the carriage, escaped the inevitable crushing of the wheels, happened two years after, in the second year of his age, in that of Christ 1172.
[30] when the journey to Cracow, and to Rome, etc. happened To those words, number 3, "from his earliest age serving God in fear and likewise in love, he at length reached the years of youth, and took a wife," prefix those which he relates at number 19: "being now become a youth of good disposition, he went to Cracow with the said Woyslava; where, playing with his coevals over the river Vistula, being swallowed up by the wave, from the third hour of the day until evening, being hidden as if already dead, but wonderfully preserved," in the year, as we think, of his age about the fifteenth, of Christ 1185. Now resume number 3; and he took a wife about four years after, in the nineteenth year of his age, in that of Christ 1189; with whom, in hope of procreating offspring, he remained some years, that is, up to the year 1195, a son being received from his wife; which son, in a short time, as also the mother herself not long after—namely bewailing and lamenting the death of her child—being extinguished, Hrosnata, meditating a holier life, conceived in mind a journey to the Holy Land in the year 1196, concerning which at number 4 and 5. But in the year 1197 he made the testament exhibited above: which being confirmed by Henry, Duke and Bishop, administering Bohemia in the time of the interregnum, being led from his country to the seashore, terrified by the breadth of the sea, and the commotion of the waves, and the difficulty of the passage, his counsel being changed, as is said at number 6, "setting out thence with mature speed … he came to the city (Rome), where, honorably received by Pope Celestine III, who at that time governed the ship of the holy Church, he obtained a dispensation in the vow of the aforesaid pilgrimage; yet on this condition, that to the honor of the glorious Virgin Mother of Christ he should found a cloister," etc., which are narrated at number 6.
[31] Mere confusion do the diverse deeds related by the Author from number 8 savor of: Diverse deeds are restored to their own times, such as are the return of the Blessed one into Bohemia, the building of the monastery of Tepl, the dedication of the church, the foundation of the convent of Chotieschau; the second journey to Rome, the privileges there obtained, the Premonstratensian habit assumed by him, etc., each to be inwoven in its own times, as far as they can. The Blessed one therefore, the privilege being obtained at Rome (given at the Lateran on the eighth of the Ides of August, in the seventh year of the Pontificate of Celestine III; by which he receives the people of Tepl into his protection), soon returning into Bohemia in the said year 1197, "seeks a pleasant and fit place, in which … the foundations, the first beginnings of the cloister, may be laid … and … a mattock being seized, he furrows the earth more deeply, and carries some baskets laden with earth, from the foundation, on his shoulders," number 8. Balbín, page 84, rightly observes that Bl. Hrosnata, before his departure into the Holy Land, instituted the monastery of Tepl; as from the (produced) testament, which before the journey in the year (as we saw) 1197 he wrote, can clearly be proved; nor is it doubtful that already in that year the Premonstratensians lived at Tepl under an Abbot; (that is, under John I, then summoned thither, as we have already said from Cruger). And so it seems it must necessarily be said that the Roman Pontiff accepted, in place of the Jerusalem journey, the foundation of the monastery, first made by Bl. Hrosnata; and therefore that the most blessed Hrosnata, not content to have given certain goods to the monastery, (after his return) enlarged the foundation magnificently, and at last gave himself to the monastery, and to his dearest brethren. For since, as is clear from the testament, "to the uses of the Brethren … at Tepl … he handed over that same place with all its appurtenances which are there, whether," as the testator adds, "I return or not, in perpetuity," (no condition being appended), but "all the estates and possessions with all the animals he appointed to the same church for ever" (under the condition) "if on this way, which he enters, he shall fulfill the office of fate: but if he shall return, those estates, by due right, except Tepl and its appurtenances, shall be reduced into (his) domain"; now it can rightly be understood that to the former foundation he afterward at Rome added those estates which in the testament he had reserved to be restored to himself, if and when he should return into Bohemia; but had renounced, if it should befall him to die on the journey.
[32] Moreover, to return to the aforesaid church; thirty and more years the author strays outside the order of time, confused by the author of the Life, when, accustomed to mingle present and future things, he joins the building of the same with the dedication, accomplished fifteen years after the Blessed one's death, as will soon be proved. In the same point of time therefore, so far as it regards the building of that church, but not so far as it regards its dedication, "he founded the cloister of Chotieschau … and endowed it abundantly, and adorned it with useful things," as you have at number 11. We do not admit as true what Cruger has at the fifteenth of the Kalends of February, that this convent ascribes its beginnings to the year 1193; for at that time nothing had yet been thought of concerning the foundation of Tepl, much less of Chotieschau, by the blessed founder, we think, and deduce from what has been said. "The aforesaid cloisters being built and endowed, he returned to Rome a second time," it is handed down at number 12: "who then, seeking a colloquy with the supreme Pontiff, sets forth reverently to him concerning the building and provision of the aforesaid cloisters, asking humbly and devoutly that the same, with their appurtenances, be received into the special protection of the Apostolic See." The imploring of protection, of which here, we above alleged at the year 1197, in the compendium of the privilege marked by the seventh year of Celestine III, there expressly appended: nor do I see at what time better than under the same date the same Pontiff granted to the Abbot of Tepl the use of the pontificals and indulgences for the future dedication, as it is reported to be said in that instrument. And indeed, since the author of the Life so often and so ineptly inverts the order of things, who would turn it to a fault in us, if what he here records as done on the Blessed one's second Roman journey, we draw back to the first? But on the second I think he asked that the habit of the Premonstratensian Order be given him from the Pontiff's hand, which also there he assumed. Which things I judge were transacted under Innocent III, successor of Celestine III, about the year 1199, so that between the double Roman journey and, moreover, matters so many and so grave, some space of time may be interposed, not too narrow for them to have been conveniently gone through.
[33] up to the Blessed one's death, But he betook himself again into Bohemia in the year 1200; "having inquired in what part of the land the renowned King Přemysl was staying … he presented himself to his sight in a new habit … he offers prayers to the royal clemency, that those things which … by the authority of the Apostolic See … have been consummated, the Royal authority would deign to ratify, and to confirm the same by its privileges … The Royal munificence assented … and strengthened them with the privileges of his sublimity." Which things, inwoven with the said year 1200, rightly cohere with the beginning of Přemysl's reign, in the year 1199 or 1200: then with the interregnum before that year; in which the testament of Hrosnata not any King of Bohemia, but the governor of the kingdom, Henry, Duke and Bishop of Prague, had approved, confirmed, and explained; the King being afterward asked to strengthen all things by his own authority. In the same year 1200, "received … in his cloister of Tepl … he was obedient to God and to his Prelate under regular obedience"; as is set forth at number 15. Then, "John being in command, the Abbot of Tepl …
though unwilling and resisting, being made provost and administrator of the aforesaid cloisters, strenuously kept watch in his office," ibid. Until, as time went on, Woyslava's husband being dead, she remained in widowhood, and "… betook herself to her brother's goods at Chotieschau … desiring that he be joined to her in bodily presence at all times of life and death"; (about the year 1204) for Balbín too indeterminately, not to say prematurely, asserts that after the year of Christ 1190 she … shut herself up as a widow at Chotieschau.
[34] The author of the Life continues: "When she had there, in widow's habit, continually serving the Lord, remained a rather long time," and of his sister Woyslava. (that is, about twelve years) "it happened that her brother Hrosnata was there lying in a grievous infirmity" (about the year 1216), "having prophesied that captivity was imminent for him," as is indicated at number 20; for "not long after, some time having elapsed, being restored to health … he sets out for Hrosnětín … is captured … is committed to prison … is tortured … enters into death with the palm of martyrdom, to reign perpetually in the hall of heaven with Christ," as is had at number 22; the day and year of death being suppressed, marked by Balbín and Cruger at the fourteenth of July, in the year 1217; agreeing well enough with the year in which we above determined, from the epitaph, the death of the same Woyslava, 1227. For thus is understood how she survived there many years, as is in the Life here at number 11, namely, according to our reckoning, about twenty-three years in all; but after her brother's death, ten. And these things, distributed to their own times by a probable ordering, will be able to remedy the author's confusion of matters, which he not once recounts in places not their own. It is clear from what has been said that Waghenare was greatly mistaken, deceived perhaps by the disordered narration of the often-mentioned dedication, when he deferred the Blessed one's death to about the year 1244; which he afterward, in his prose Norbert, page 179, drew back to 1213; there premature, here preposterous.
[35] Hither also pertains the dedication of the church of Tepl; which, because it is soon subjoined to the narration of the monastery of Tepl built from the foundations by Bl. Hrosnata then living and cooperating, The year and month of the dedication of the church of Tepl, may easily lead anyone into error, as though those two deeds, which are so closely joined in order, are little distant in time. At number 10 therefore it is said that the church of Tepl was dedicated by the venerable father, the Lord John, of happy memory, bishop of the holy church of Prague, in the month of August. To me, seeking who was at that time bishop of Prague named John, no other occurred than John, second of this name, taken up in the year 1228, snatched from the living in 1236, as Pontanus witnesses in his work On the Bishops of Prague; whom nevertheless Balbín, part 2, book 2 of the Miscellanies, title 36, treating of three bishops of this name synonymous, judges to have been raised to the chair at the end of the year 1227. Thus the church could not be dedicated before the aforesaid year 1227, or the one next following; since before that time we find no John, bishop of Prague, who could have dedicated it earlier. This too Balbín had skillfully observed, page 85; noting that the things which in this place (in his paragraph 8 of the Life) are narrated, happened long after the times of Bl. Hrosnata; namely that between the year 1228 and 1236 the church of Tepl was consecrated. But in the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, book 3, chapter 14, page 263, he distinctly determines the year; expressing also a month diverse from that which the author of the Life marks, in these words:
[36] In the year 1232 was celebrated the dedication of the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary (in which Bl. Hrosnata is placed) in the monastery of Tepl of the most white Order of Premonstratensians. from Balbín. It was consecrated by John, bishop of Prague, in the month of June. At the celebration were present Peregrinus, former bishop of Prague, Arnold, Provost of Vyšehrad and supreme Chancellor of the kingdom, Hippolytus, archdeacon of the greater church of Prague, and several others. Faith is procured for the things said both here and elsewhere throughout the course, by what he adds: relating that the abbot of the monastery, Raymund, praised above by him, ordered to be communicated to him the origins, all memorable things, the names of the Abbots and the eulogies of each, and also the very privileges of the Dukes, Kings, and Pontiffs, and whatever was left from antiquity. But which of the two has more truly expressed the month in which the said dedication was performed, whether the author of the Life or Balbín, since from elsewhere no ancient monument is at hand from which I might define it, I judge one must stand by the author of the Life, until in this he be convicted of error; or someone from somewhere suggest better.
[37] Those things which pertain to Přemysl are illustrated. Let us subjoin a little more information concerning the said Přemyslav, Přemysl, or Přemysl, surnamed Ottokar. The Annals of Stero, published by Canisius in the first volume of the Ancient Lections, at the year 1194 have this: Ottacher, Duke of Bohemia, is deprived of his duchy by the Emperor Henry: which, together with the grace of Caesar, he is said to have obtained again there in the year 1196. The royal coronation, above fitted to the year 1199 or 1200, the same author relates to have happened later, at the years 1205 and 1206 speaking thus: Otacker, Duke of Bohemia, by the counsel of Duke Ludwig forsook Otto, and adhered to Philip; who … imposed on him the diadem, making him and his successors Kings: and gave his daughter to Wenceslaus his son. Hence the Kings of the Bohemians. Most grievously mistaken is Krantz in the Wandalia, book 7, chapter 31; when he wrote that he fell in battle against Rudolph of Habsburg, putting, as I think, the grandfather for the grandson, most distinct in age and time: who, says he, if he was the same who contended with King Philip, was already above ninety years old. But that condition falls to the ground from what has been said. That surname he received, as Balbín hands down in the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, book 3, chapter 13, page 250, because he gave himself with so great zeal to Otto that he was called wholly Otto's man (Ottischar), or Otto-dear (Ottogarus). Dubravius, book 15, a little after the beginning, thus writes: When the Saxons, praising Přemysl, again and again repeated with their voice "Ottischar," that is, "wholly devoted to Otto": which the Bohemians, not understanding, thought a new word was being imposed on Přemysl by the Germans; and that he was called Ottogarus: nor did they thenceforth surname him otherwise than Otthogarus. Which Martin Boregk of Breslau transcribes in the same manner in German in his Bohemian Chronicles, part 1, page 196. The deeds done by him Balbín describes in the cited place, chapter 13, from page 248; setting his death at page 262, in the year 1230, on the fifteenth of December: which year he also marks in the first genealogical table appended at the end of the often-mentioned Syntagma: and who in the Epitome, chapter 14, page 262, affirms that he was besides called victorious, likewise golden. Behold now for you the Life, with the ancient division of chapters, the marks of the same division being set in the text by Roman numerals at the margins.
THE LIFE
Written by a contemporary author, a Religious, as it seems, of Tepl; published by Sigismund Kohel, then by Aubert Miraeus at the Premonstratensian Chronicle from page 271, compared with that which Balbín published in the Historical Syntagma from page 66.
Hrosnata, martyr, of the Premonstratensian Order, in the monastery of Tepl in Bohemia (Bl.)
BHL Number: 3991
FROM THE PRINTED EDITION.
PROLOGUE.
That the greatest force lies in the examples of illustrious men, for instituting a life piously and holily, daily experience has taught; The Life proposed for imitation. by whose accurate consideration minds are carried away to piety, religion, and every kind of virtue, and, as if at a given signal, declare perpetual war on vices. Wherefore, since no last example of virtue and sanctity of life shines forth in the venerable Hrosnata (whose memory is in benediction), founder of the monasteries of Tepl and Chotieschau, we shall hand down certain things concerning the tokens of his conversation, and the merits of his life, and also the palm of martyrdom, with which he happily passed to the Lord, that, as the brightness of a precious gem, we may bring it forward to the sight of the human mind, and, not only for the illumination, but also for the example of those warring for God, who walk in the house of God, we may with flaming ardor set a lamp upon the candlestick.
THE ANCIENT DIVISION OF CHAPTERS.
Concerning the nobility and industry of the same founder, chapter I.
Concerning his marriage, chapter II.
Concerning his purpose of chastity, chapter III.
Concerning his vow of the Cross, and journey toward Rome, chapter IV.
Concerning the visitation of the thresholds of the Apostles, chapter V.
Concerning the gifts given to the Pope and Cardinals, and the return into Bohemia, chapter VI.
Concerning the royal confirmation, chapter VII.
Concerning the dedication of the same, chapter VIII.
Concerning the foundation of Chotieschau, and the presage, chapter IX.
Concerning the journey to the supreme Pontiff, and the habit received from him, chapter X.
Concerning the return to his own, chapter XI.
What miracles happened in the life and death of Hrosnata, chapter XII.
Concerning the presage and death of Hrosnata, chapter XIII.
CHAPTER I.
His lineage; his purpose of a more perfect life; his vow of going to Jerusalem; the Roman journey; the foundation of the monastery of Tepl; the dedication of the temple.
While King Přemysl, who was also surnamed Ottokar a, was happily governing the kingdom of Bohemia, [Hrosnata, sprung of the lineage of Princes, illustrated his lineage with virtues.] among the other magnates of the kingdom, Hrosnata b, sprung of the illustrious lineage of Princes c, held the first place in the King's court after the royal magnificence. Who, adorning the prerogative of his lineage with the honesty of his virtues and morals, more excellent in counsel and in the generosity of his nature, was venerated by all with great affection. But, endowed also with affluence of goods and with knowledge of letters, he relieved by his own means, with provident largess, the want of his neighbors and of the needy. For he was a pious consoler of the mourning, a father of orphans, a sustainer of the laboring, and, under the military cloak hiding his purpose of religion; to God, the things that are God's, by the zeal of devotion; to the King, the things that are the King's, by faith and homage; and to each, the things that are his own, by an ordered charity, he rendered.
[3] This man, from his earliest age serving God in fear and likewise in love, His son and wife being dead, at length reached the years of youth, and took a wife d sprung of noble birth, with whom, in hope of procreating offspring, he remained some years, and afterward, God being propitious, received from his wife a son of elegant form. And thus, having obtained his wished-for desire, he hoped that he had gained an heir of his possessions. But not thus had Christ foreordained, who alone wished to be Hrosnata's heir; which also came to pass, as in the following it will fully appear; for that boy in a short time died; but the mother, to whom that same son was joined, bereaved of the solace of her only-begotten, bewailing and lamenting the death of her child, herself also rested in the peace of Christ.
III
[4] Nor after a long interval of time Hrosnata, a man of strong and constant mind, considering the vanities of the world, meditates chastity and religion. on account of the death of his wife and the mourning for his son, laid aside grief and sorrow: and, casting his thought upon the Lord, sagaciously inquired how of so great things conferred on him by God he might so reasonably dispose, that he might please the divine sight. Thinking these things solicitously within himself, he revolved in mind the saying of the Apostle: You are loosed from a wife, seek not a wife. And thus, confirmed in the purpose of chastity, he brought back to the eyes of his heart the state of the falling world and the brevity of human life, and soon is changed [*]
into a perfect man; from the inmost recesses of his heart [*] he forsook all the hope which he had in the world: now seeking not a wife, not honors, not the riches of the world; he strove to please God alone; desiring to become of that flock which the Lord addresses in the Gospel, thus saying: Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom; and because the grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow endeavors, what he conceived in heart, the Lord inspiring, that, the same cooperating, he intrepidly fulfilled by the very deed.
[5] Happy Hrosnata therefore, as in managing temporal things he had been incomparably strenuous; He girds himself for the pilgrimage, toward Jerusalem; so, after the change of the right hand of the Most High, was made, beyond human estimation, devoted to God. For, recalling the truth of the Gospel reading which says: Unless a man renounce all that he possesses, he cannot be my disciple: and elsewhere: He who takes not up his cross, and follows me, is not worthy of me, marked with the sign of the Lord's Cross e, and burning inwardly with the love of the Lord's Passion, he pants to set out for the holy land of Jerusalem f, that he might fulfill the words of the Psalmist who says: But it is good for me to adhere to God, to put my hope in the Lord God. Constantly persevering in this purpose, his expenses being gathered, and accompanied by his followers, forsaking the sweet soil of his country, he takes up the appointed journey [*]. But, brought to the seashore, he anxiously mistrusts the breadth of the sea, and the commotion of the waves, and the difficulty of the passage, and fearfully meditates whatever remains to be done.
[6] At length, held back by deliberation of mind, and smitten by fear, which could fall upon a constant man g, [but terrified by the peril, he draws back his foot, and is loosed of his vow at Rome.] the divine providence so disposing, he forsook the sea, yet conscious of the vow of pilgrimage, and by the judgment of discretion thoroughly cautious and instructed that no one putting his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God, he disposed to set out for Rome, desiring with thirsting breast to visit the thresholds of the Apostles, and, devout, panting to hear the counsel of the supreme Pontiff concerning the quality of his state and purpose. Setting out thence with mature speed, the Angel of peace going before him, ready and eager he came to the City, where by Pope Celestine h, who at that time was governing the ship of the holy Church in the tempestuous waves of the world, he was honorably received. To whom, the cause of his coming being set forth, he is instructed in order by the counsels of the supreme Pontiff, and strengthened by the consolations from the mouth of his Beatitude, who said: He is not to be called a transgressor of his vow, who, what he has vowed, by the authority of the Apostolic See has deferred to fulfill. Nor is he in any wise held guilty of a broken vow, who is known to commute a temporal service into a perpetual divine worship. Whence, although all have free will in vowing, yet the fulfillment after a vow is so necessary that, without loss of one's own salvation, it is not lawful otherwise to draw back, save by the provident dispensation of a superior. For from a probable cause we have decreed that the recompense of a vow is better than the pilgrimage in this case, and more acceptable to God. Of the plenitude of power therefore, for the Jerusalem vow, we dispense with you under this form, dearest son, that to the honor of the glorious Virgin Mother of Christ you found a cloister h under the regular observance of the Premonstratensian Order, and endow it abundantly, which, adorned with very many fit heralds of the divine praise, and ministers suitable to it, may become, for the merit of the Cross of Christ, a singular remedy of the mourning and lamenting.
[7] Hrosnata, the renowned man, with eager and constant mind, drinking in with thirsting breast the words of the supreme Pontiff uttered with great gravity, is prostrated on the ground at the feet of the President, Having offered gifts, he returned home, and, weeping, with sincere and humble devotion gives thanks, that the mind of the wavering man, refreshed by the mildness of the fatherly answer, rejoices in the security of conscience. And so much the more fervently does he assent to the salutary counsel proposed to him, congratulating, as the more copiously he could and hoped he could bring that same to effect, especially since in those times, in nobility of lineage, in affluence of riches, he excelled all the Bohemians. Wealth therefore being given to the supreme Pontiff, and the Lord Cardinals being remunerated with liberal hand, the benediction being received, he left the city, and, refreshed by the salutary commutation of his vow i, sets out for Bohemia glad and joyful.
VII
[8] Prospered on the journey, he came into Bohemia, the wished-for country k of his birth; [Hrosnata sets to work the foundations of the monastery of Tepl with his own hands,] where, some little quiet being granted to his body, wearied with the labors on the journey, he seeks a pleasant and fit place, in which, to the praise of God and the honor of the glorious Virgin, the foundations, the first beginnings of the cloister, might be laid: and, the place being found in which now the height of the monastery rises up, falling to the earth, thus he says: You who deigned to be born of the Virgin, prepare in this place a habitation fit for your services. And rising from prayer, a mattock being seized, he furrows the earth more deeply, and carries some baskets laden with earth, from the foundation, first, on his own shoulders l, and gave the monastery the name Tepl m, from the neighboring city n, which is commonly called Tepl by the inhabitants. Now the cloister is founded on the best soil of the land; for the situation of the place is somewhat lofty, girt on one side with forests, and purpled on every side by meadows with a variety of flowers, with irrigating and fish-bearing waters flowing in the midst, and by the driving [] circular circuits convenient for the commodity of mills [], healthy besides, and very suitable for religion.
VIII
[9] which, dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God; The place, I say, poured over with divine grace, in which those warring for the Lord become of good, better, and of better, best, advancing by degrees from virtue to virtue, as by the effect it is clearer than light. For, religion increasing, although it be a new plantation, yet among the other professions of the same religion, in the structures of buildings, in estates and revenues, God granting increase, it is prospered and grows: to say nothing of the monastery of St. Mary the Virgin, Mother of Christ, its Patroness; which, erected on high, with how impregnable o a work of structure it is supported, with walls also strong and lofty, with lofty columns, with the firmness and beauty of its vaulting, ruddy within with adornment, excelling in the sound [] of its bells, so that nothing beyond, throughout all that region, is said by common report either to have been or to be about to be. And because hitherto it has by no means pleased the supreme Author of all things that it should shine yet more amply and more worthily, yet, adorned with very many [p] heralds singing to God, and ministers suitable to it, laudably conversing under the rule of St. Augustine, of the Premonstratensian Order, it perpetually shines [].
[10] Come, brethren, you who have your ears intent upon the book, and your hearts upward to God, whom the Mother of mercy adopted as ministers, nay rather as sons to herself: hear, you who hear me, a star appearing at its dedication. and praise together, with one mind, your Advocate. For when the church of Tepl was being dedicated by the venerable Father, the Lord John [q], of happy memory, bishop of the holy church of Prague, in the month of August [r], a sign wonderful to us, and by posterity chiefly [] to be recalled, was divinely shown in heaven. For above the very monastery of the Mother of Christ, a most lucid star [s] stood fixed, all who were present seeing and marveling; especially at that time in which the sun is wont to be more fervent, and the air more serene, which for so long ministered the rays of its light, not only to the completion of the dedication of the church, but even, the dedication being completed, showed itself visible to human gazes through the whole day, until, the following night, it radiated among the other heavenly lights []. What, I say, brethren? What do we believe to be signified by the star, but the divine grace, which by the prayers of its Mother prevents and follows us? We can also understand by the star the Mother of the Lord, who directs her servants, laboring in the bitterness of this sea, into the way of peace, and leads them to the port; you, I say, her special servants, who in the cloister of Tepl, where that star appeared, exercise a spiritual warfare under regular discipline; persevere therefore, fighting manfully, and you shall receive the eternal kingdom [t].
ANNOTATIONS.
p. In the monastery of the royal court, or of Zbraslav, 300 religious were once numbered, in that of Sedlec also 500, as Balbín here relates from the histories.
q. Concerning that John enough already.
r. We have produced from Balbín a different month. The deed here does not cohere in order from what has been said, since it happened long after the Blessed one's death.
s. A similar example concerning the monastery of virgins of Strehla in Silesia Balbín mentions, page 85, to have happened about these very times, citing the History of the Blessed Virgin on the Holy Mount; which without doubt will be the "Diva Montis Sancti," or "Origins and Miracles of the great Mother of God and men, Mary, who is worshipped on the Holy Mount of the kingdom of Bohemia," published by him at Prague in 1665, as is noted in the Library of our Society.
t. Hence and from elsewhere we have proved that the Biographer was of the Premonstratensian Order, and indeed a religious of the monastery of Tepl.
* Otherwise: "was changed."
* Otherwise: "from the inmost marrow."
* Otherwise: "he takes up the purposed journey."
* Otherwise: "driving."
* Otherwise: "convenient for human habitations."
* Otherwise: "sonority."
* Otherwise: "it is adorned."
* Otherwise: "from memory."
* Otherwise: "among the other stars it ministered the rays of its light."
CHAPTER II.
He founds the monastery of Chotieschau: he returns to Rome, where he obtains privileges; the Premonstratensian institute; the favors of the King of Bohemia; he is miraculously preserved by God.
In the same course of time a, he founded the cloister of Chotieschau b to the praise of God, and the honor of St. Wenceslaus, Duke and Martyr, and Patron of Bohemia, To the honor of St. Wenceslaus he founds Chotieschau; where his sister lived. and endowed it abundantly, and adorned it with useful things, and instituted a convent of nuns c serving the Lord under the same rule, in which also the lady Woyslava, his own sister, bereaved [*] of her husband, the Prefect of the city of Cracow, persevering under the observance of the chastity of widowhood in the zeal of a holy conversation, in a habit suitable to her, which widows of this kind were wont to wear, discharging in the congregation of sisters the office of advocate or patroness, survived many years, and at the last rested in the peace of Christ; whose body is there honorably entombed in the middle of the monastery d.
[12] The aforesaid cloisters being built and endowed, he returns to Rome a second time. Then, seeking a colloquy with the supreme Pontiff, Setting out for Rome, he procures privileges for the monastery of Tepl: he sets forth reverently to him concerning the building and provision of the aforesaid cloisters, asking humbly and devoutly that the same, with their appurtenances, be received into the special protection of the Apostolic See; he asks also that, of the accustomed grace of the Apostolic See, the use of the pontifical mitre e be granted to the Abbots of the same place succeeding for the time being. But the supreme Pontiff, regarding the trust of the petitioner, and his constancy, considering also his devotion [], declared in the munificence of the immense liberality of the two cloisters, admits the prayers of the one interceding, and grants his petitions, all the aforesaid being received into the special protection of the Apostolic See, and [], that in Bohemia the church of Tepl might seem loftier than all the churches of the same Order, he fortified the same with Apostolic privileges, extolling with praises the morals and industry of the soldier.
[13] And without delay, the strenuous man Hrosnata, perceiving himself prevented with so great grace of favor by the Apostolic See, he puts on the Premonstratensian habit, and consoles his own. that he might show himself well deserving of God, and might offer himself a victim to the divine sight not in part, but in whole, asked that the habit of the Premonstratensian Order be given him from the Pontiff's hand, which also there he assumed. Therefore, clothed with the garments of profession, and gladdened by the benedictions of the Apostolic summit, kissing and embracing the feet of the Lord Pope, he gives thanks for all the benefits, and, licensed there, goes forth to his nobles, from a soldier made a brother, whom the nobles were awaiting before the doors [*]. The soldiers, beholding with grieved mind the changed habit of their Lord, and astonished at so sudden a change of him, multiply tears and griefs. The one voice of the lamenting: Why do you forsake us, Father? Why do you take our life from us? Shall we henceforth be able to live, destitute of our one solace after God? Certainly it had been better to be slain by the sword in our native country, than to be bereaved of our patron in a foreign land. To what end have you left us orphans, led out from the houses of our parents? But he, among the lamenting, presenting an angelic garb and countenance, turning to his own, thus says: Cease to pour forth a torrent of tears, as though this change proceeded not from the divine will: since it is written, Without me you can do nothing; but rather magnify the Lord in his works, who calls the things that are not, as the things that are. Amid words of this kind they came together to the lodging in which they were staying, where, all wishing to experience the charity of brother Hrosnata, an abundance of food and drink was cheerfully administered: so that thereby the fame of his hospitality was daily increased.
[14] From the King of Bohemia he obtains the confirmation of all. Prosperously therefore, according to his vows, all things succeeding [], the new recruit of the militant Church, returning from the City, went back to his own. And so, when he had betaken himself into Bohemia, having inquired in what part of the land the renowned King Přemysl was staying, he turned his journey to him, and presented himself to his sight in the new habit. But King Přemysl, from the meekness of his innate generosity, rises from his throne, and receives brother Hrosnata to a kiss, and, having placed him at his right hand, diligently inquires concerning the news and the manner of his conversion. Moreover brother Hrosnata, after divers negotiations held on this side and that, on bended knees before the King, offers prayers to the royal clemency, that those things which, the Lord inspiring, by the authority of the Apostolic See, by the care of the one vowing, have been consummated, the royal authority would deign to ratify, and to confirm the same by his privileges. There rise up at this all the Magnates of the kingdom who were present, and, together with brother Hrosnata, falling at the feet of the royal magnificence, supplicate for him, acclaiming with him, that this pious King would do what piety persuades and honesty dictates. The royal munificence assents to the petitioners and their petitions, and, all the goods of the aforesaid pious places being received into spiritual protection, strengthened them with the privileges of his sublimity. All render vast thanksgivings to the King [], and venerate brother Hrosnata with great affection; unanimously glorifying God, the author of all goods, who both magnifies his servants on earth, and gloriously crowns them in heaven.
[15] The man devoted to God, brother Hrosnata, having obtained his vow, prevented by the royal grace, Returned to his own, and hospitably received, he is made Provost: departs thence, leave being asked [], the Magnates of the kingdom conducting him to the place where the throng of his horsemen awaited him, and wishing him prosperous success in all things; to whom, returning thanks [], he mounted his horse, and proceeded on his journey. Then, advancing a little, he stretched his hands to heaven, praising the clemency of the Savior, that in all his acts he had deigned mercifully to be present with him: therefore he prayed a long time with tears, that God, who had begun the good work, would deign to bring it to an end. And thus he betook himself to his patrimony, his kinsmen and friends receiving him, and marveling at his habit, and all weeping for joy that they had received him safe. And so, received with joyfulness in his cloister of Tepl, in it he was obedient to God and to his Prelate under regular obedience. Besides these and other works pleasing to God, because the grace of the Holy Spirit knows no slow endeavors, John the Abbot of Tepl commanding, in virtue of holy obedience, though unwilling and resisting, being made Provost and administrator of the aforesaid cloisters, he strenuously kept watch in his office, showing himself admirable and imitable to the beholders by the example of humility, the readiness of obedience, the zeal of patience.
[16] At length, the enemy of the human race, who envies good acts, sowing discord, afflicted with contumelies, he avoids the cloister. he is afflicted with injuries by the aforesaid Abbot, and provoked with contumelies; so that, opposing the shield of patience to the persecution, before he should attempt anything against the good of obedience, he chose for a time to yield to wrath, and to leave the walls of the cloister (nevertheless retaining his habit, and not straying from regular discipline), until, by the abundance of his friends and the power of his kinsmen, the swollen presumption of the aforesaid Abbot was checked. Afterward he was honorably recalled to the cloister, and received by the Brethren with jubilation [*].
XII
[17] Now let us turn our style to the victory of this strong athlete, the course of his life, and its end, and likewise the miracles which God magnificently wrought in his life [Among other prodigies it is narrated that he was brought forth lifeless into the light,] and in his death through him, that nothing may be lacking to our narration, through which both the great works of God may be proclaimed, and the merits of his elect Hrosnata be extolled with fitting praises. The lady Woyslava, of whom we have treated above, still living and relating f, and others worthy of belief asserting, such things were heard as we shall bring forward with a truthful assertion. And first indeed, concerning his coming forth from his mother's womb, which was stillborn and lifeless brought forth into the light g. Whence, his mother abhorring the dead birth, and, as far as she could for weakness, nodding that it be carried from her face as soon as possible to be buried, the midwife, who was serving the lady in her travail, holding the dead infant in her arms, raises her voice to her lady, acclaiming again and again: Take, lady, the infant into your hands, and offer him to Blessed Mary, the Mother of Christ; by whose childbearing the world was enlightened and made alive. And when the woman, full of faith, had repeated these and like things to her lady several times, at length she, as if compelled by the zeal of the one interceding, trembling and astonished, takes the lifeless body of the boy into her hands, and, on bended knees and dissolved in tears, with eyes and hands raised to heaven, prayed with devout affection of heart, saying: Lord Jesus Christ, who for the salvation of the human race deigned to assume flesh of a Virgin and to die, that you might make alive the world condemned to eternal death, make alive, I beseech, this lifeless infant, to the honor of the glorious Virgin your Mother, to whom I offer him, and to the praise of your majesty, who are blessed for ever.
[17] A wonderful and stupendous thing [*], at this voice the little body, offered to the Mother of God, is said to have received life. a little before cold and stiff, is gradually made warm and soft, and consequently, a soul being there divinely infused, the boy opens his eyes, and after the manner of crying infants emits a voice. At the voice of the boy the mother is astonished, and rejoices, and marvels at the change of the right hand of the Most High, and, holding out the boy to the midwife, prostrate on the ground with tears and inmost sighs, humbly gives thanks to God, and blesses the Mother of mercy with worthy heralds of praise, who does not forsake those hoping in her, and whose Son is the life and resurrection of the dead.
[18] Rolled under the wheel, he remains unharmed; It pleases me to insert another great miracle into this work, to which both piety consents and truth persuades one firmly to believe. For at a certain time the mother of Hrosnata was carried with her daughter Woyslava in a carriage, cherishing her son in her bosom; whom, when she held out to her daughter Woyslava to hold [h], the incautious hand of the girl let the boy fall to the ground, where, the wheels rolling over his tender flesh, from so great a peril he nevertheless escaped safe and unharmed, his mother and sister together with the bystanders acclaiming praise to the liberator Christ the Lord i.
[19] Long sunk in the waters, he is drawn out alive. Among the other tokens of his virtues and miracles, this great sign also happened. For at Cracow, where St. Stanislaus, Martyr and Bishop k, shines notable with signs and miracles in our times, the sister of Hrosnata was once joined in the matrimonial bond to the prefect of that same city, where Hrosnata, following his sister, being now become a youth of good disposition, playing with his coevals over the river Vistula, is swallowed up by the wave, in which from the third hour of the day, until evening drew on, he was hidden as if already dead. At length, when a report of this kind was brought to his sister, she, as if snatched out of herself, and in a sudden course content with a single tunic, anxious for her Brother's life, ran to the river, and, the place where the youth had been sunk being shown to her, orders it to be attempted with divers fishermen's instruments, that at least the dead body be drawn out. While these labored in vain, there were young men present, having skill in swimming: these, their garments cast off from them, descend swimming to the depths of the whirlpool, and behold one of them, drawing Hrosnata with him by the hair of his head out of the water, laid him before the Lady, who was watching the outcome of the matter, upon the bank. How great a rejoicing the sister had over her only brother restored to life on that occasion, let him consider to whom a like case had happened. But the Lady inquiring, after the laying aside of grief, concerning the mishap, and how he had lived so long under the water, he answered: That it seemed to him that a certain Lady of wonderful beauty, endowed with a virginal form, had continually held her hands over his head, all the while that he was in the water, who did not suffer him to be wrapped in the waves; whom, as it seemed to him, he believed to be the Mother of grace, and the Queen of mercy, the mediatrix of God and men. Hence, to the honor of the Virgin, songs of joy and gladness were sounded, and thereupon Hrosnata conceived in mind to render homage to the Blessed Virgin, his liberatrix, which afterward, giving himself and all his own to her, he devoutly fulfilled l.
ANNOTATIONS.
* Otherwise: "taken from the midst."
* Otherwise: "fervor."
* Otherwise: there is added "and through the tokens."
* Otherwise it precedes: "The nobles awaiting him before the doors."
* Otherwise: "Prosperous therefore, according to his vows, the successes."
* Otherwise: "All extol the royal liberality with worthy thanksgivings."
* Otherwise: "having been licensed."
* Otherwise: "returning thanks immeasurably."
* Otherwise there is added: "You have come, O desirable one."
* Otherwise: "the divine praise wondrously to be extolled."
CHAPTER III.
The presage of death; the hardships of captivity; the death, burial, apparition, miracle, annual memory.
XIII
As time went on, Woyslava's husband being dead, she remained in widowhood, and, as was said in the preceding [*], betook herself to her brother's goods at Chotieschau, Dwelling at Chotieschau, being sick, set in an ecstasy, revolving in mind how many and how great marvels the divine grace had wrought in her brother Hrosnata, desiring that he be joined to her in bodily presence at all times of life and death. When she, at Chotieschau, in widow's habit, continually serving the Lord, had remained a rather long time, it happened that her brother Hrosnata was there lying in a grievous infirmity, where, when he was consoled by the presence and address of Woyslava and of her sisters remaining there, a thing worthy of a miracle happened, which was a presage of things to come. For he, as if set in an ecstasy, cried out with a loud voice: Behold, I am taken, and led away by enemies; the sisters being astonished at these words, and answering that he was subject to no captivity, but lying prostrate with infirmity in his own house by the divine will, there happened what he had said in the spirit of prophecy.
[21] he presages his death: in prison he is grievously treated, For not long after, some time having elapsed, being restored to health, on the very day of the Lord's Ascension, purely confessed and truly contrite, he urges the Brethren to sing manfully, and to pray for him, and thus, with zeal of devotion and humility, he reverently takes from the sacred altar the Body and Blood of the Lord with poured-out tears, so far prevented by the grace of compunction, as if he ought already to breathe out his spirit, and, the benediction being received from the Abbot and the Convent, he sets out for Hrosnětín a, to visit the goods of the church. Here by certain of his rivals, from the province of Eger, (whom, because he manfully defended the estates of his cloisters against their assaults, he had as enemies) exploring that he was there, he is captured, and, being dragged, is committed to prison b, and is tortured with hunger, thirst, cold, and divers severities of punishments, for the sake of extorting money from him. But he, patiently bearing all things for the name of the Lord, secure amid torments, without intermission prayed that he would deign to call him to himself with the palm of martyrdom.
[22] refusing to be ransomed rather than not to die in prison: Moreover the Abbot and the Brethren of the cloister of Tepl, bereaved of the consolation of their Father and Patron, amid sighs, tears, and griefs, money being gathered according to their means [*], were prepared to pour it out for his ransom. But he, thirsting to pour out his sweet life for the most sweet Jesus, chose rather to be consumed by death than to be ransomed to the detriment of the new plantations. Whence he adjures the Abbot and brethren, in the virtue of God, and forbids that even one penny be given for the ransoming of his life; nay rather, desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ, he asks that his martyrdom be not hindered; and thus the well-deserving soldier, agonizing for his king c, enters into death, with the palm of martyrdom, to reign perpetually in the hall of heaven with Christ.
[23] The most valiant soldier and Confessor of Christ, Hrosnata [], being therefore slain, to the great grief of his own. O how great the grief of men, how great especially the lamentations of the people of Tepl! the sons bewailing their father, the brethren their brother, the monasteries their founder, all with sobs and sighs saying: O pious Father Hrosnata, who more humble? Who more religious than you? Who more obedient? Did you not once bear patiently from the abbot John, whom you had set over us d, contradiction and persecution? Were you not afflicted with injuries and contumelies by him, and yet never lost your patience? Who ever heard these things []? Who saw such things? Founder and endower of cloisters, heir, lord and patron, have you left us so great an example of patience? Blessed soul, who brought the contest of the glorious struggle even to the height of victory! For since life is of all things the dearest and most precious [*], you could have no greater charity than to lay down your soul for Christ, the Brethren, and your friends. In your patience you possessed your soul. And certainly, without shedding of blood, by bravely enduring adversities, you could have become a Martyr, but, lest anything should be lacking to you for the attaining of the glorious crown, as a good Shepherd you laid down your soul for the sheep.
[24] Showing outwardly by these and other ways, in their gestures, the inward goads of heart and grief, with unanimous voice they say: His body ransomed with a price, and buried at Tepl before the high altar. Let us hasten to bear the body of our dearest and most blessed Father to the bosom of his mother, and thus, a certain price being given for his body [*], he who living would not be ransomed, dead was ransomed. The lifeless body, drawn out from the squalor of the prison to the light, is diligently examined, and is found in all its limbs incorrupt, clothed in the habit of his assumed profession, as if he lived, and girded with a girdle at the loins, which, placed in a bier, was carried with reverence to the cloister of Tepl: where, being honorably received, the obsequies of the funeral being celebrated according to custom, buried before the high altar, it rests in perpetual veneration of the blessed body.
[25] It has pleased not incongruously, concerning the venerable
miracles of the virtues of this Father, He appears to his servant shut up in prison, whom he frees. which have been brought forth to memory by the truthful relation of our elders, to touch upon them in a succinct narration. For on the same night on which, the Lord calling him to himself, he departed, he appeared to his servant, who was held in prison bound with iron chains, in a garment so white that the prison shone resplendent from that immense light, the bound man being astonished, and marveling at the brightness of his countenance. To whom the man of God: Rise quickly, and go to my Brethren of Tepl, and announce to them that henceforth they be not solicitous concerning my ransom, because I have already passed from this life in the confession of Christ, and that they command my body, carried hence to the cloister, to be committed there to ecclesiastical burial. While the man of God was saying these and like things, all the chains of the servant, as if by the hand of a craftsman, were forthwith loosed. Who, rising and standing upon his feet, said to his Lord: Behold, I will do as you have commanded me. But how shall I go forth from the closed prison, guards being set on every side, and watchmen keeping the watches of the night upon the walls of the fortress? But he: He who made Blessed Peter, loosed from his chains, go away unharmed, he will lead you into the way of peace to the cloister. And these things being said, the man of God disappeared. Moreover the servant, thinking that he saw a vision, revolved in mind what he should do. And at length, returned to himself, the sign of the holy Cross being impressed on him, he let himself down from the highest tower through a window to the depths, who in the very fall, as if carried by the hands of bearers, escaped unharmed, giving thanks to God, who snatched him from tribulations and kept him unharmed. Thus snatched from the dire custody of the prison, the servant rises swiftly, and, the journey being seized, hastily comes to the cloister, where, the Abbot and brethren coming together into one, he narrated in order all the things which had happened, and how by the apparition of Brother Hrosnata he had been loosed from his chains in the prison.
[26] Glass lamps are preserved unharmed in their fall. The man of God, now resting in the tomb, wrought also another notable sign. For glass lamps, hanging full of oil between the high altar and his sepulcher, fell to the ground, and, dashed upon the pavement laid with stone, remained whole without the harm of breaking e. Such things indeed, very many, faith not gainsaying, could be narrated and commemorated, did not the zeal of the promised compendium restrain, that he may be believed to live in heaven, who shines with so many tokens of miracles on earth.
[27] His annual memory. Of this venerable Father, therefore, Brethren, let us so recall the annual memory f, that it may be to us by his imitation continual. So let us rejoice in his merits, that in the present age we may not be destitute of necessary helps, and in the future may enjoy everlasting joys, through the help and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God, world without end. Amen.
ANNOTATIONS.
* Otherwise: "it has been recapitulated."
* Otherwise: "an immense sum of money being gathered."
* Otherwise: "and by the profession of the Order … confessor."
* Otherwise: "did he hear?"
* Otherwise: "for since death is the boundary-line of all things."
* Otherwise: "with an immense quantity of money."