John of Nepomuk

ON BLESSED JOHN OF NEPOMUK

CANON PRIEST OF THE METROPOLITAN CHURCH OF S. VITUS OF PRAGUE

MARTYR AT PRAGUE AND NEPOMUK IN BOHEMIA.

IN THE YEAR 1383

John of Nepomuk, Canon Priest, Martyr, at Prague and Nepomuk in Bohemia (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

To the glorious martyrdom, by which S. Stanislaus Bishop of Cracow in the year 1079 triumphed over the cruelty of King Boleslaus, three centuries after one not very dissimilar Bohemia saw, under the bloody rule of Wenceslaus IV. The miracles of a Martyr comparable to S. Stanislaus The cause indeed and manner of death for both was unlike; for that one for having rebuked, by his Episcopal obligation, the King's lust, cut down by his hands died; John for the secret of the penitential Confession preserved, by the Emperor's order cast into the river perished; yet similar was the constancy of both, and confirmed by many miracles from God; which if they had been preserved in writings with equal felicity, and continued with equal assiduity, perhaps a similar honor to John which to Stanislaus would by the whole Church be borne. But the calamities soon assailing Bohemia from furious heretics, under the heretics they perished. and the subversion of the Catholic religion, of which John is said to have been not a vain prophet a little before death, took away from him the glory of solemn Canonization, from posterity the knowledge and continuation of the miracles wrought at his sepulcher: whereby it came about that he who attempted to collect his Life and virtues in the year 1670, from old MSS. and edited books Bohuslaus Balbinus, long since praised by us when we treated of S. Adalbert Bishop of Prague and Martyr on the 23rd of April, did not find so copious material, as Longinus found, intent on describing the great deeds of his holy Patron. Yet what he committed to us, wishing to render with some interest; to the composition, although so new, our annotations, or rather paralipomena collected from others, we shall not be burdened to add.

[2] The year of his death all set the same, namely one thousand three hundred eighty-three of the vulgar Era. His death wrongly ascribed to the 2nd and 4th of May, Of the day what certain we may set there does not occur. Wenceslaus Hagecius in the Chronicle of Bohemia, on the day after S. Sigismund, that is, on the 2nd of May, called to the Emperor, says, this holy Presbyter, and solicited in vain to reveal the Queen's confession, was ordered to be cast into the river: and Hagecius our Crugerius followed, in the sacred Memorials of Bohemia, John Nadazi in the little book which he published at Prague about the year 1664, and called it the Year of John, because it contains the memories of all the Saints of this name or remarkable for the fame of sanctity digested through the days of the year, the monuments of Bohemia being cited, ascribing John to the 4th day, asserting that on this day he was called to betray the secret of the Sacrament. Albert Chanowski in the Vestige of pious Bohemia, others are silent about it, and George Ferus in the Posthumous Fame of B. John, both Priests of our Society; and also the Provost of the church of Prague George Bartholdus Pontanus in pious Bohemia, and the Dean Thomas John Pessina in Phosphorus; and finally the aforepraised Balbinus in the Epitome of Bohemian affairs, edited seven years after the life sent to us, were deeply silent about the day, all following the example of Dubravius Bishop of Olomouc. The chief cause of being silent was, that since certain most ancient MSS. of that very age (which John Dlauhowesky or de Longavilla, it happened on the Vigil of the Ascension: Provost of the Church of Prague and Suffragan of the Bishop, wrote that he had seen to Balbinus) teach that B. John was cast from the bridge and drowned on the eve of the Ascension of the Lord, which in the year 1383 agrees with the 29th of April; and when on the other part the MS. Codices of the church of Prague (as the aforesaid Dean of Prague, now also Bishop of Smederevo, asserted to the same Balbinus) admonish that the memory of John of Nepomuk is on the day of S. Ubaldus the 16th of May, it was difficult to explain, how these could be reconciled among themselves, especially since others named above referred that death to the beginning of May. Admonished of this difficulty Balbinus, who not adverting his mind to the Paschal calculations, had joined the eve of the Ascension with the 16th of May in the life sent to us; the Provost and Dean, whom I mentioned, being consulted, and the monuments which each alleged for his opinion being heard; he at once went with me into the opinion that both could not otherwise be reconciled, than by setting that about the beginning of May indeed the martyrdom of John happened, but the honorable burial in the church of S. Vitus, or at least his anniversary memory, must be ascribed only to the month advanced to its middle: for which assertion a sufficient foundation is afforded by the history, by which we learn that the body drawn from the river rested for some time in a corner of the church of the Holy Cross.

[3] Meanwhile the said Martyrdom is commemorated at Nepomuk, in the country of the holy man himself, on the Sunday next after the Ascension, a sermon concerning the virtues of John being held to the people, and with every other worship usual to the Saints, but the feast is kept on the Sunday after: except only the Masses, which are of the most holy Trinity, as Balbinus wrote to us: but why this is done on the Sunday after the feast, and not on the Vigil, he gives this reason in other letters thus: In the archdiocese of Prague and the neighboring churches it is preserved by perpetual custom, that as often as some Saint is venerated in the choir, not in the square (if he is known and dear to the people) the feast is transferred to the next Sunday, and on it by the Parish priests a procession of supplicants is led to his tomb, altar, image or relics. This is done even today with S. Norbert, who since he has no feast of the square with us, on the next following Sunday to his holy body the people of Prague with a supplication run together. The same is done with S. Iwan the Hermit, whose Birthday since it is celebrated nearest to the day of S. John the Baptist, as several others of the choir not the square, on the next Sunday a supplication of all Prague to the hermitage of S. Iwan, distant three miles from Prague, our Fathers accompanying, is arranged. The same was done to S. Joseph, before the most august Emperor Leopold had ordered his feast also to be kept in the square: the same I can establish by innumerable examples. And so at Nepomuk in the country of S. John, whither thousands of men yearly flow together to his honor, the supplication is performed on the Sunday after the Ascension of the Lord: namely for this cause common to all, that the people and the crowds of workmen, otherwise to be hindered by servile works, may have a free and unencumbered time of venerating that Saint. and the anniversary day not being hindered, That therefore this honor is exhibited to John with respect, not to the 16th of May, but to the feast of the Ascension; seems to me a certain sign, that about the very feast, and so about the beginning of May his martyrdom was performed; although the Canons of S. Vitus ascribed his

Anniversary to the 16th day, either because on such a day he was entombed with them, or on account of the frequency of feasts, according to the proper Calendar of the church of Prague occurring from the 29th of April, which falls within the Octave of S. Adalbert, to the middle of May. For also in the most ancient books of the Distributions of the Church of Prague (which with these eyes I have often noted) the memories and anniversaries of very many are noted on a different day, than that on which it is clear from elsewhere they died; on account of the concurrence either of some greater feast, or of another older anniversary to be kept on that day.

[4] Thus far Balbinus, who however is moved by the authority of Hagecius and Crugerius, not to assert without doubt that the Saint was drowned on the 29th of April. But I am little moved by that: for I see that Hagecius, On the occasion of the error concerning the 2nd of May, whom Crugerius simply followed, could be deceived, because he believed that a small interval of time after the Queen's confession was heard John was solicited concerning revealing it, and on account of the tenacity of the secret was incontinently taken from the living; but he presumed that very Confession to have been made to him on the day of the Lord's Ascension, since the citizens of Nepomuk undertook the feast to be kept on the Sunday next after it. But to that hypothesis are repugnant all the things, which concerning the repeated solicitation twice or thrice, not without the interpolation of several days, Balbinus deduces. But I would so order those things, that John first suffered an assault a little before or after the feast of Easter, that year celebrated on the 22nd of March, on the occasion of a Confession made then according to the law of the faithful Christians: then when on another occasion he had been captured and cast into prison, but soon brought to the table and again and again solicited, at length also subjected to torture; but superior to promises, threats, and torments he was permitted to depart. For although toward ordering the slaughters of his own the tyrant was borne headlong, that in John he long delayed the vehemence of importunate curiosity persuades, the times being rightly distinguished being removed, even after repeated repulses repressing the impulse of anger, by hope of eliciting at some time the secret. Meanwhile John, seeing that the unbridled desire of the King would not there stop, and that death was to be awaited by him for that cause, on the 3rd Sunday that is the 12th of April about to speak to the people, took for himself a theme from the Gospel, A little while and you shall see me, and Now I will not speak many things with you: in which sermon his near death, foretelling the evils threatening the kingdom from heresy, he bade farewell to his hearers and his Concanons: and from that day he set his affairs in order at home, then went out from the city to the Holy One of Stará Boleslav, to commend his struggle to God at leisure; finally on the 29th of April he returned to Prague on the very eve of the Ascension. The King therefore beholding him, and not doubting that he was present to hear the Queen's Confession on such a day, ordered him to be brought, about to persuade by whatever means that he should promise to reveal it, but firm in the purpose of keeping the secret ordered him to be drowned that very night.

[5] Hence therefore to the people of Nepomuk flowed the custom of celebrating the feast on the Sunday after the Ascension: but the Canons of S. Vitus transferred to the next unhindered day the memory of the body translated and deposited with them, that is the 16th day of May: if perhaps after the third day from death (which Dubravius writes) this was done. But if for the whole half of May (which is more probable) the body cast off and buried rested in the church of the Holy Cross until by a heavenly odor it betrayed, with what honor God held it worthy, and the Canons had hastened a magnificent tomb in the Cathedral, animated by the King's absence and some kind of penitence, a more certain reason will be had, for which to the 16th day of May that memory was ascribed. To us, whose custom it is not to prefer the birthdays of Saints in heaven, though certainly known from history, to the days of their worship on earth; nor permitted to follow the wandering course of the movable feasts through five weeks; today we have chosen to treat of S. John because that anniversary memory with the Canons of Prague, although decorated with no peculiar worship, whatever cause finally it had; has some appearance of honor in the church, and suggests something fixed which we may hold, especially April being now printed, in which we could have treated of him, for want of a fitter day.

LIFE

By the Author Bohuslaus Balbinus of the Society of Jesus.

Collected from manuscripts and printed copies.

John of Nepomuk, Canon Priest, Martyr, at Prague and Nepomuk in Bohemia (B.)

BY BOHUSLAUS BALBINUS

PROLOGUE.

[1] No age ever so unhappy, so hostile to good men, and condemned with so great sterility of the Christian commonwealth dawned, In the highest corruption of the times in which piety and virtue could not be born and grow: nay the worse the times were, the same were more fruitful of sanctity: for adversities do not oppress virtue, but make it, and the made strengthen it. Which even in our Bohemia the rule of Wenceslaus, the degenerate son of Charles IV, King and Emperor, sufficiently showed: who although he was a most cowardly Prince, and the same sat in mud soaked with blood (which it is written by Paul Zidets in the MS. Chronicle of Bohemia befell him ominously both in baptism, and afterward while as an infant he is crowned), that is reigned lustfully and cruelly; yet in so great corruption of the whole kingdom from its head, the Bohemian Church, and especially the Metropolitan of Prague, abounded at that time with so signal a number of men, of the highest splendor of family, doctrine, things bravely done for the immunity of the Church, innocence of life and sanctity, and the rest of the virtues of great Priests, there were not lacking holy men among the Bohemians. that not iron, or clay; but golden and gem-like times of the Church seemed to have returned. Of these illustrious men of the Church of Prague in the history of the Metropolitan Church of Prague we have treated: now the life and most happy death of B. John of Nepomuk or Nepomuk I shall comprehend in a brief compendium, and that to the honor and glory of the secret Sacrament of Confession (to which he devoted his life). And I would not at all doubt, that the Life of so great a Martyr was long ago written in antiquity: but the heresy, which followed B. John's death a little after, with the same flames, by which all the temples and convents with us sank down, seems to have corrupted it. What therefore concerning the blessed Martyr we shall bring forward, found in very many manuscripts of men living in that age (of which I have a supply) and in codices printed in type, and collected into one with the highest faith and religion, let it be ascribed not so much to any diligence of mine, as to the felicity, that they were found.

CHAPTER I.

The boyhood of B. John, his Priesthood and other offices.

[2] B. John of Nepomuk was born in the Bohemian town of Nepomuk, Born at Nepomuk in Bohemia, or (as the ancients called it) Pomuk, in the region of Pilsen, distant from Prague toward Bavaria ten great miles. The town of Nepomuk once noble for its silver mines, then for the vestiges of ancient religion, and no less celebrated for the Mountain, which overhangs the town, and is called the Green; because namely on that Mountain (as is clear from the Bohemian Annals) S. Adalbert Bishop of Prague, returning from Rome to his Bohemian countrymen, the rain for many years denied to Bohemia, by the sign of the most holy Cross, with good prayers formed over the fields lying wide, at once brought down from heaven; and first this mountain, then all the rest of Bohemia he refreshed with the most pleasing greenness of springing herbs; whence also Pomok or Pomuk, from being moistened, I think the name was given to the place. In what year B. John was brought into light, we cannot know, from the rest of his age we suspect he was born between the year 1320 and 1330. from a long barren marriage after a vow made to the B. V., His parents were townsmen and of middle fortune, more illustrious for piety than for family and wealth. Of piety this is an indication, that being now of an aged age, when they lacked all offspring, by prayers and vows poured forth to the Mother of God (who in her statue under the Green-mount in the Convent of the Cistercians, not so far from Nepomuk, was religiously venerated by the people) they obtained a son; to whom, that he might by his very name be reminded of affection toward Mary the Mother of God, they imposed the name of John. But not content with one benefit the Virgin Mother, who lately from a barren womb had brought forth John, and almost created him, the same recreated him: for when the little boy John had fallen into a most grave disease, a vow being made to the image of the same holy Virgin by his parents, and obsequies promised for his remaining age for their son, at once he rose unharmed.

[3] not without indications of future sanctity: But before that also God had proved by a heavenly indication the holiness and heavenly life of his servant: for at the birth of John at Nepomuk certain most serene flames, seen to descend from heaven, with a lovely and innocent light, a most pleasing spectacle to the city, had poured around the whole house, in which John was being born. This augury of flames granted to certain most holy men at their birth, our B. John in all the rest of his life; by most ardent sermons to the people, and fiery prayers to God approved: and the same heavenly flames also accompanied him dead, and betrayed him drowned in the channel of the river. But in history it is not fitting to anticipate. The boy John, as soon as he was set to schools, exactly learned the form of ministering to the divine Sacrifice; as a boy assiduous at the ministry of the Mass, and it being put into use, no one afterward impelling him, daily with the first dawn from the town to the Cistercian convent to run down, to all in order as many Priests as performed the holy things to minister at the altar, he made it his custom; with so great and so persistent piety, that now as a domestic and stable minister of the Sacrifices he was occupied among the altars. By which, small indeed in appearance, but not altogether futile argument to the end, the prudent believed that they saw something great already then in the boy John.

[4] a little after he is cultivated in the more humane letters at Žatec, He had, with a sweet and rosy and modest piety, a sharp, lively and fiery genius; to which that his parents might give means of growing, they sent him to Žatec to the schools of Latinity celebrated at that time. Here the first elements of Latin grammar, and the rest in the following years the more humane disciplines, he received with excellent progress and rare commendation of genius. Especially to the youth born to good hopes the study of eloquence pleased, to which nature itself had conformed and fashioned him: for the most part by each one's genius impelling we follow that in our studies, which we trust we can attain: to aim at progress without hope, is vain labor. When now at Žatec (it is a celebrated city of Bohemia) nothing remained to be learned; to the higher sciences, and not only the tongue, but the breast itself to be cultivated, John hastened to Prague. A little before the times Charles IV Emperor and King of Bohemia had raised a University of studies at Prague: and Masters being sought from all lettered Cities, Paris, Bologna, Padua, had opened Schools of all divine and human doctrine. To these therefore our John applied himself, and first was created among the first a Master of Philosophy, then he applies himself to the more severe studies at Prague. then a Doctor of Theology and of the sacred Canons and

Decrees. It is clear that he heard Theology at the Collegiate Church of S. Apollinaris in the New City of Prague (where it was most frequently taught: for from the neighboring Church of Vyšehrad all the Clerics came hither), under the best Masters; in which Colleges he received the other sciences, is uncertain.

[5] prepared by a whole month for the Priesthood, Long since from the time he began to give attention to letters John had felt himself called to the Priesthood and the service of souls: more ardently, when now he was near the goal, he was borne toward it. But although he always joined piety and virtue to the studies of letters; yet since he esteemed, that the more anyone equipped from the cultivation of mind came to receive the Orders of the Priests, the more happily afterward he would be engaged in the salvation of souls; he premised to the Priesthood a whole month free from all profane business: which whole month he passed in afflicting the body, cleansing the conscience, obtaining heavenly helps for so great and so divine an office, and in pious meditations and counsels for the future. Going out from this solitude, and initiated in the sacred Orders, when he sent into the subject congregation from on high no trappings to the people and honeyed sayings, as the Comic poet says, but words animated by the divine Spirit and heavenly sentiments, like javelins with thongs, or rather the very scythed chariots, and reigned in minds; from the commendation, emotion, tears of his hearers, and more the amendment of life, he prepared for himself great authority, and shortly obtained the name of an excellent Churchman with the people of Prague. So with the approbation of all to John in the basilica of the most Blessed Virgin before the Glad-court (commonly they call it the Teyn) in the old city of Prague, the chief place of the city, the office of preaching is imposed. It could have been difficult, to hold by speaking hearers long since accustomed to the greatest and most eloquent men. He succeeded Conrad of Stiekna, whom alone the most eloquent of his age the people of Prague had believed to be: he succeeded he begins to preach with great applause and fruit, John Milicius, not so long since dead, at whose preaching, all the matrons of Prague together had cast off the luxury of garments, harlots penitent in great number had shut themselves up in convents, the citizens themselves had thrown down the brothels. Yet our John fulfilled all that expectation of the people, and extinguished the desire for the former preachers, by a most prudent modesty always abstaining from the contentious kind of speaking, and the invidious invectives against the Mendicant Orders, which to those great Churchmen whom I just named, as the times then were, we read brought grave hatred with many, accusations at Rome, and almost destruction.

[6] Now B. John's labor, doctrine, virtue, and the authority gained with all by so many merits deserved a higher grade. and made a Canon So by the commendation of John the Archbishop, by common sentence, he is chosen into the College of Canons of the holy metropolitan Church of Prague; and at the same time to him in the same Church of S. Vitus before the Emperor the office of preaching is committed. That first honor B. John long refused, also before the Emperor, and long it was struggled with the blessed man's modesty, but when he said himself unworthy of that place, he was yet overcome by the voices of all, crying out, So much the better! and that he was the worthier, who not as the rest sought honors, but was sought by honors. For several years therefore in the Church of S. Vitus B. John now a Canon discharged the office of Bohemian Churchman: and him not only the King and the whole Court, but the same, who once had heard him preaching in the Teyn, followed. The chief argument of his sermons was penitence for crimes; then against the licence of the nobles and the Court, against drunkenness which then had prevailed, against luxury and the rest of the morals of that most corrupt age the contention, and the representation of the punishments to be inflicted from heaven. Not yet had Wenceslaus the Emperor come to the lowest of evils. So the man taken by his doctrine, wisdom, and interior letters, and conquered by his eloquence, having heard John did many things.

[7] The old memories hand down, that when by chance about that time the Episcopal See of Litomyšl in Bohemia was vacant, the Bishopric being refused John was destined by the King to that Chair before all: but he many causes probable in appearance being alleged, removed the Emperor from that thought. The dignity of Provost of the exempt Church of Vyšehrad at that time in the kingdom was equal to the first dignities: the Prince of the kingdom Chancellor, the first after the Archbishop the Primate of the kingdom, was the Provost of that Church (which noble is immediately subject to the Roman Pontiff alone) reckoned: add the immense force of wealth, for the annual revenues ascended to eighty thousand Hungarian florins: a sum truly excellent, which, the Indies not yet opened by navigation, today would make as much again. This very dignity of Provost was offered by Wenceslaus King and Emperor to B. John, but this too he repudiated, because he held it most grave to be drawn away from the gains of souls and the holy sermons, he undertakes the office of Royal Almoner: by which he inflamed all. But the office of Almoner (it is a dignity in the Courts of Kings usual and gracious) offered by the King and Queen with great honor and courtesy of words, lest he should seem to spurn all things, and the contempt of honors should turn into pride, he accepted: and in that office so proved himself, that his dexterity and skill and integrity the courtiers, his mercy the poor, his prudence and in distributing his justice all commended.

[8] The authority of the holy man grew daily: so the Empress, by name Joanna, daughter of Albert Duke of Bavaria and Count of Holland, he is taken as Confessor by the Queen and the nuns of S. George: a matron most distinguished for candor of mind, innocence of morals, piety and the rest of the virtues of Queens, who by B. John's holy speech was wonderfully held, and felt herself most strongly incited to every virtue, chose him as the arbiter of her conscience, him as the master of her life, him as father. The example prevailed with several. The Religious Virgins in the holy convent at S. George in the Castle of Prague, themselves also B. John leading and teaching to the highest summit of religious perfection, were borne not so much by steps, as by flights. The old memories add: that B. John was elected Dean of the Metropolitan Church at this time. But since the inscription of the sepulcher lacks this title, and the better codices do not subscribe, it is credible that an error underlies. This more certain: that in B. John the holy church of Prague had a kind of oracle of doctrine, and, so to speak, a master of sentences. For so great was the esteem of the man's virtue and wisdom with all, that whatever B. John consulted determined, the parties approved as full of equity, and without contradiction followed. And of that matter certain old codices make faith, where in the most difficult causes, which by the sentences of judges could not long be ended, John of Nepomuk the elder (for another John Pomuk Doctor of Decrees, Canon of Vyšehrad and Vicar General of the Archdiocese, first began to flourish after B. John's death, after the year 1396) our, I say, B. John is chosen arbiter, and as they say, praiser: and that the Blessed man often undertook this from confidence of doctrine and love of peace, and freely pronounced, from the very sentences, which are recited, we know.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

The obsequies of B. John for the preserved secret of Confession in vain tortured and at last drowned in the river.

[9] Meanwhile Wenceslaus the Emperor (as all slippery wickedness is, By the Queen, wont to confess oftener. both into descent and fall headlong) daily became worse than himself. Queen Joanna, whom present he hated and could not bear, the same absent he miserably pined for. The depraved and by a preposterous education corrupted genius of Wenceslaus (as the opinion of many holds) certain magic philters had made savage, and altogether mad from depraved, the ministers of the royal crimes had made him. This is not the place to describe that licentious, and bloody and foully spotted Life of the king: let the Annals of those times be consulted. The year was passing after Christ's birth 1383: the Queen, offended by Wenceslaus's daily crimes, when she could take no more solace from human things, nor through her husband's suspicious eyes could take it; shuddering at his cruelty (especially because he held even the royal table and feasts, sprinkled with the slaughters of nobles and blood, for delights and dainties), what seemed safest, to cast off all love of the world, and to give herself wholly to God alone (as far as conjugal life would allow) she resolved. Nothing so binds to God a mind once occupied with divine love, as a grave, long-lasting calamity, and one which you see continually impending over your head. So the Queen to approach the holy tribunal more frequently, with tears to disclose the very least little stains, to afflict herself, to undertake the care of the needy, and to minister to them while it was permitted, assiduously to think of God, to pray, that he would give a better mind to her Husband, day and night to pray.

[10] What ought to have pleased Wenceslaus, if he were wise, that he turned into hatred; asked to reveal the sins heard, then a desire assailed the lustful and from lust furious King, if by any means he could learn, what the Queen brought to the Priest to be expiated, what sins especially she had, what she ever thought of her husband, whether she loved any other, and other things of this kind, which a foolish tyranny, kindled with love, and surrounded with suspicions, can and is wont to fashion for itself. But to express these things by interrogating the Queen herself was vain. He calls B. John, whom alone he knew to be intimate with all the Queen's counsels. After many ambages of words, as if he did something else, mention of the Queen being thrown in, little by little he glides to the sacred Confession; that this is the condition and subjection of wives, that all their things ought to be known to their husbands, especially

in the families of Kings and Emperors; generously he refuses the crime: then wealth, honors, and whatever of felicity John could ever expect he promises by the royal word, if he would bring it into his mind, to entrust to him alone even the few things which the Queen had once disclosed to John in the sacred tribunal of Penance; that this indeed would be to him for all solace, amid so many Royal and Imperial cares. The blessed man shuddered at the wicked prayers, and by a grave and free speech showed how great a crime was demanded, accordingly let the King condemn his own curiosity, and cease to desire what could not be done. The holy rebuke moved the sulphured, so to speak, Prince: yet he repressed himself, when he considered, that often those who in the first assault and effort of enemies have proved themselves strong, at the second, and third grow soft and are conquered; that this first engine had been applied, which if it should not succeed, he would apply a stronger, which even from one unwilling would easily extort the victory.

[11] Nor was it long before something ulcerated the sick mind more. By chance the royal cook had sent to the King's table a capon badly roasted. That unforeseen matter drove Wenceslaus into so great a rage, and interceding for the cook ordered to be roasted, that forgetful of human nature and of all humanity, he ordered the cook at once bound to spits, to be applied to the flames. Struck by the barbarous cruelty all the courtiers shuddered, grew pale, looked at one another: they saw, if they should stumble a little, the same punishments appointed for themselves: but there was no one, who would intercede for the Royal cruelty. Alone B. John, who then was at the court, and taught to be silent and to speak in season, an access to the Emperor being asked and obtained, first with soft words to treat the business; and when with the angry and uncontrolled Prince they availed nothing, with graver sentences began to explain the atrocity of the deed. He had brought forth very few words: at once the irritable and most cruel Prince calls out for his satellites, and with no reverence of the Priestly Order, with no respect even to himself and the royal majesty, orders John to be seized, and thrust into the deepest prisons. he is dragged to prison. There some days in the squalor and horror of the place, and the saddest darkness, then by hunger and thirst almost destroyed he spent; resting in God alone, and glad in this, that for his honor and love he was held worthy to suffer both prisons and contumely. B. John was not ignorant, whither the King's anger looked: for even the keeper of the prison had admonished, that there was one way of safety, if he should gratify the Emperor, and accommodate himself to his will. But the Blessed Martyr against had hardened his mind, and had resolved to be torn a thousand times and to die rather than to bring forth a word from the sacred Confession.

[12] A very few days had intervened, when behold an honored man of the courtiers sent by the King appears, announces; that the King repented of those things, which against John he had too illiberally committed: accordingly let him at the Emperor's request pardon the injuries, forget what was done, and go free; but that he might be more firmly received into favor, Again solicited by the King, tomorrow let him not be burdened to come to the King's table. John came, and with the highest signification of honor is brought to the King's table. The tables removed and the witnesses, the Emperor again opens why he had ordered him to be summoned: that he could not rest, let him at length disclose what the Queen in the sacred confession had said in his ear all things in order; he mixes blandishments, promises silence; now offers dignities and rewards, now threatens all torments: let him not wish to experience anger before favor. B. John with lofty mind despised honors as well as threats, explained the office of a Confessor, extolled the sacrosanct law of silence, exaggerated the temporal and eternal punishments prepared for those who do not keep the secret; finally admonished the King, to abstain from catching at what is reserved to God alone to be known; that without sacrilege such things could not be attempted; that in all else he adored the King's commands, this one he deprecated, which if a thousand deaths were to be undergone he would not do. The King burning with anger, without delay orders the executioner (whom he always had at hand, and called as a delight his godfather) with his companions to be present: he is tortured on the rack the torches being applied, by whom dragged to prison most cruelly on the rack by the King's order he is stretched, and the torches being applied is tortured. That the Emperor was present at the punishment (although I have read it handed down by no one) the rest of his life makes a probable conjecture; because we have heard he was wont to be delighted by such spectacles and to feast his eyes, and also because without doubt he hoped in the torments to hear at last, what John had never before wished to bring forth into public. But the Blessed man and Martyr of Christ, his mind withdrawn as far as was permitted from the present punishments, redoubling the holy names of Jesus and Mary, having spoken no other word, commended all his pains, his life and death to the Lord. but in vain: The bloody executioners left themselves no diligence for the utmost cruelty, especially the Emperor's presence urging: yet all that torture was within B. John's patience. At length when they profited nothing, the Emperor himself departing, wearied and conquered they desist, and deposited from the rack desert him. The old codices hand down that John was refreshed by heavenly consolation: but what that consolation was, whether some internal one divinely glided into the mind, or also an external one, from the colloquy of the holy Angels, or some other heavenly sight (as we often read happened to other holy men in their acts) they did not explain.

[13] After this the Emperor, whether fearing lest the matter should leak out, or the Empress acting, dismissed from prison who perhaps had heard the blessed man was detained, whom she herself held in the place of a father; dismisses John. John, as if having suffered no injury, digested all those pains and torments in silence, disclosing them to none of his own: and the wounds which the torments had made being cured, he came forth into public; then his old offices, with a greater ardor of spirit than ever before he began to resume, in such manner preparing himself for death, which either by heavenly admonition, or from the very most importunate nature of King Wenceslaus and his anger most greedy of human blood, and resuming his sermons. he could not doubt would be inflicted on him a little after. Returned therefore to his station, when he was speaking at a sermon in the church of S. Vitus; those words of Christ, A little while and you shall see me, and, Now I will not speak many things with you again and again repeating, with a glad and easy face, foretold distinctly the death to be undergone by him for the laws of Christ and the Church: then the way being once disclosed by heavenly oracles, full of a prophetic spirit, with tears flowing copiously, he began to describe the future state of Bohemia, and the calamities soon to come: the heresy to be roused from hell, he foretells his own death, the evils threatening the kingdom. to which sacred and profane should be alike, and would make no distinction; all churches, and the convents through Bohemia would burn, some also be cast down by hands; the sacred and religious men tormented with all torments would perish; finally the destruction of the whole Religion was at hand. An almost incredible thing it seemed, to those thinking of the happy state then of the Bohemian Church, and the Religion flourishing in wealth and the highest power. In his last speech he said farewell to all, and especially asking pardon of the Prelates and Canons of the Church of Prague with most humble words, and accusing himself and his life and vices much, he ended, with great grief, and in a matter so new and with so many prophecies, with the admiration of all his hearers.

[14] A few days after B. John undertakes a journey to Boleslav, to the most ancient image of the Divine Mother of all Bohemia, by the Holy Apostles of the Slavic Nation Cyril and Methodius handed down and commended to the Christians, after the B. Virgin of Boleslav was visited which in that place is most religiously venerated. Here with how clear a sense of piety and love he prayed the Queen of heaven (to whom from his first age he had consecrated himself, and in whom he had all his hopes laid up), that she would be present to him about to die a little after, that she would render the Son propitious, anyone from John's old love toward the Mother of God, from the magnitude of the impending peril, from the horror of near death, can make a conjecture concerning. As John was returning to Prague in the evening hours from Boleslav, Wenceslaus the Emperor, then by chance as he was an idle Prince, looking out from a window observes; at once recur to the furious Prince all those sad images concerning Queen Joanna his Wife, he grieves at the repulses so often received from B. John, nor could he now rule his mind. Therefore breathing not a man, but an evil demon, he sends at once those who summon John: nor did he use many words, as in headlong anger: Hear, he said, Priest, unwilling to obey the King again soliciting you must die: unless on the spot now here you set forth in order my wife's Confession, and whatever she ever confessing said to you: it is done, you have perished. I swear by God, you shall drink water: drowning in the river the Emperor wished to be understood by that word. B. John, thinking it unworthy to be so often dinned about that matter, turned away from the sacrilege not with words, but with his whole head and severe face. Scarcely had the Emperor given the sign, now most powerful satellites surround the most holy man, the King shouting; and in their hands carry him aloft to another chamber. The old codices signify that silence was sought for the punishment, and that the people were avoided, lest any witness should intervene. By night therefore he is led to the Bridge, which placed over the river Moldau of Prague joins the two cities the Greater and the Lesser; then with hands and feet bound (which is read distinctly expressed) he is cast from the bridge into the river below on the eve of the Ascension of the Lord in the year 1383.

[15] The death which the Emperor had wished to be most hidden, heavenly miracles at once betrayed. Fires and flames, which once had signified B. John being born, encircled him dead; the whole river Moldau at once shone again. There were to be seen innumerable, and of wondrous whiteness, lights innocently float on the whole river, for conveniently at that time the river had swollen, and wider and higher the waves were lifted; but the body of the Blessed Martyr, slowly descending down the river, more numerous and more spread torches accompanied, and the body indicated by nocturnal flames thence others and others followed, as if they led the pomp of a funeral. The city of Prague poured out to the spectacle thought what had been done, or what was being done. Queen Joanna also, looking down from the Royal castle, and hitherto ignorant of the whole matter, so new a spectacle drew. She hastens at a run to the Emperor her husband, shows the miracles of the lights, and with innocent simplicity asks, what that portent meant for her. The conscience of the crime at once struck his mind, and seeing the heavenly miracle as if struck by lightning he rushed himself from sight, and whether from fear or grief, true or feigned, for three days is said to have abstained from public, admitting no one but the necessary. That whole night around the body of the blessed Martyr the flames had shone, but the day showed what had been done: there lay on the sand the lifeless body, in its habit, with placid and shining face, most becomingly composed. At once through the whole city the rumor is spread, nor could the author of the slaughter long lie hidden

since the Emperor had given several examples of his cruelty: besides the accomplices, the executioners, courtiers, satellites knew not to be silent. At length to the Canons of the Metropolitan Church of Prague the fame of the atrocious matter came. it is carried by the Canons into the church of the Holy Cross. They at once a supplication being arranged, lifting the holy body of their Brother from the river with the highest honor, to the nearest church of the Holy Cross, of the Religious whom they call of Penance, for so long deposited it, until a more glorious sepulcher in the Metropolitan church should be prepared. This piety of the Canons, joined with a signal fortitude of mind (for who would not greatly fear the anger of a bloody and so irritable Prince, or could not hold it suspect?) was not without reward. For when they dig a coffer in the church of S. Vitus, a rich treasure, and many talents of gold and silver and the prices of other things buried they find; as if the holy man, for the tomb and the honor of the sepulcher, had appointed this reward for the church and the Canons.

[16] But below in the church of the Holy Cross an innumerable force of men flowed to see the holy body, where frequented by the people, and that was the first worship of the blessed Martyr by the people: to proclaim his constancy and fortitude, to kiss his feet and hands in rivalry, to commend themselves to his prayers, to touch the holy body reverently they made no end, especially because the very day of the Lord's Ascension, free from labors, afforded greater leisure and means. Not so had the Emperor hidden himself in his familiar darkness, that he was ignorant what was done about the body. So (as are the suspicious and violent counsels of all, who have tyrannical minds) to those religious men of the Holy Cross, he sends satellites with mandates: let them abstain from the new thing, not stir up a tumult, ward off the crowd, and cast the body of John of Nepomuk far from sight into some corner. It was done, what the King had commanded, solicitously: but with greater glory of B. John: since the body shut up poured forth from itself so great a fragrance of heavenly odor, that it could not be hidden, and the place was again celebrated by a great concourse of men. Now all things were prepared for conducting the funeral, the Canons, and the whole Clergy, it is carried into the prepared sepulcher at S. Vitus, accompanied by an innumerable multitude of the people, the bells sounding through the whole city, arrange a supplication, and carry the body of the blessed man from the church of the Holy Cross (over so great a distance!) to the castle of S. Wenceslaus into the Metropolitan church. The people asking had to be obeyed, and the funeral chest being again opened he was shown for veneration. The old manuscripts testify that very many sick were cured by the touch of the holy body. At length, that an end should at some time be made, he was buried with tears. The poor especially, of whom he was the father, mourned: a great stone was thrown over; an inscription added later, which we read even today; afterward an epitaph is added, The honorable Lord Master John of Nepomuk, Canon of this church, the Queen's Confessor, because he was the keeper of the sacrosanct seal of Confession even unto death, by Wenceslaus IV, King of Bohemia, son of Charles IV, tried with torments, cast from the Bridge into the Moldau, renowned for miracles, here lies buried, A.D. 1383. Thus far the inscription. But Queen Joanna, after she received the sad news of the death of B. John, whom she held for a Father; and perceived that death to have been inflicted by her cruel husband on her account; when besides she saw no way of escaping from so many and so great evils, fallen into a grave sickness of mind, began to be wasted little by little, and four years from then, no offspring brought forth from her, pined away, dying in the year 1387, on the 1st day of January, as against Hagecius shows Lupacius.

ANNOTATIONS

p In the historical Calendar, as is noted in the margin. Hagecius had set the following year. Crugerius in the sacred memorials of the kingdom of Bohemia on the Kalends of January passed over this death in silence: perhaps because in Crantzius he had read, that the Queen had taken her own death upon herself, because she could no longer bear her husband's impure life: but the ancients writing nothing of the kind, Balbinus deservedly judges, that this ought to be added to the rest of the fabulous narrations of Crantzius.

CHAPTER III.

On the veneration and worship, which to John, as a Blessed and Martyr, is given from all memory.

[17] It will not perhaps be amiss, before we come to review the miracles of B. John, to premise a few things concerning his public worship with us. The tomb of John, esteemed among the Patrons of Bohemia, It is first to be known, that although the memory of B. John is honored neither by Sacrifice nor by divine Office in the temples (which without the authority of the holy See is not wont to be done) yet all the rest, by which the names of the Saints are consecrated, are applied to his holy tomb. So as often as to salute the holy Patrons of Bohemia, Vitus, Wenceslaus, Sigismund, Adalbert, and to honor their tombs in the Metropolitan church, the Magnates, Nobles, Priests, Prelates, Canons, Religious, Matrons, in a word, the least and the greatest assemble, you may see the tomb of B. John never omitted. Here prostrate on their knees they supplicate, pour prayers to him, implore his help. There is hung at the tomb a tablet, in the Latin, Bohemian, and German idiom, in which a Prayer in capital letters to B. John of Nepomuk is written: the people are wont to recite it. Wax lights hang here and there, and various votive offerings; then the radiated image of B. John. The tomb is fortified with iron gratings in a double order: on the painted plates, in which John's name is read, is added the word Martyr and Blessed: a lamp from all memory overhangs the tomb, and burns: other wax torches the almost daily devotion of pious men lights: some of them equal the size of a human body: these torches consumed, others new are liberally added, especially by those, who rejoice that they have received some heavenly benefit at the tomb of B. John. The most Serene Leopold, it is visited even by Emperors Archduke of Austria, set up a most elegant candelabrum (concerning which afterward the discourse will recur) for this Saint, and on it caused B. John's effigy of brass with the other Patrons of Bohemia to be skillfully made. Our Kings and Princes always venerated B. John: Ferdinand I the Emperor, as often as he came to the Church of Prague, before this tomb placed his knees: that the pious Prince Ferdinand II and also III did the same many remember. This last, Cardinal Archbishop of Prague Ernest II being called into counsel,

is related to have often treated of the public worship of B. John, and concerning his canonism (as they call it) to be sought from the Apostolic See: but the pious mind of the best Emperor first wars, then death broke off.

[18] But now images of B. John engraved on brass are had in hands: he is everywhere painted with rays, a palm and the title of Blessed. in these both the title of Blessed is applied to John, and the top of his head is seen burning with heavenly light and surrounded with rays. Nor can these honors be called lately invented, and new: but already from his very death, and from all memory of men living today, and by all bestowed. In the sacristy of the Metropolitan church of Prague there is a certain altar: above it (as is wont to be done) are seen painted on the wall by an ancient hand the images of the holy Patrons of Bohemia, Vitus, Wenceslaus, Adalbert, and the rest: the painting (which the added numbers of the years indicate, and the very manner of painting unknown to our ages) exceeds in antiquity a hundred and eighty years. Among these images of the Saints therefore John of Nepomuk holds a palm in his hands, with radiated head everywhere illustrious. And lest you could doubt, whom the artist thought, and whom the Canons ordered to be painted, the title is read in beam-like letters; S. John of Nepomuk. A few paces from the tomb of B. John in the Metropolitan church of Prague there is a chapel or sacristy, notable for precious images by art, and for the mausoleum of the Berka Barons of ancient Bohemia: in that Sacristy, under porphyry marble highly raised, lies entombed John Wlassimius, the second Archbishop of Prague after Ernest I. In the most beautiful altar of the chapel on certain days the Priests perform the holy things: An altar under his name is consecrated in the year 1621 the title of the altar, written by the proper hand of Caspar Arsenius, Doctor of sacred Theology and Dean of the Metropolitan church, has these things: In the year 1621, on the 16th of July by the most illustrious and most reverend Lord John the third of his name, Archbishop of Prague, an altar was consecrated in the chapel opposite the sepulcher of B. John of Nepomuk, the Confessor, in honor of the Visitation of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the holy Virgins and Martyrs Lucy and Ottilia, and also of S. Clement Pope and Martyr, and of B. John of Nepomuk, in which are enclosed these Relics etc. This tablet of Arsenius described by himself, lately gave into my hand the most reverend D. Thomas John de Czechorod Dean of the same Metropolitan Church, Official of the Archdiocese of Prague etc. a man illustrious for his office, for books edited, and other merits, and he ordered that title to be put into this history.

[19] Now also the authority of all our writers, in asserting the martyrdom and sanctity of B. John, agrees. By the writers he is called Martyr, Let Dubravius Bishop of Olomouc be seen, Hagecius Provost of the Collegiate Church of Boleslav, and several others. Simon Fagellus, Dean of the Collegiate church of All Saints in the castle of Prague, who more than a hundred years ago wrote Hymns concerning the holy Patrons of Bohemia and published them in type, composed one Hymn with a title to B. John of Nepomuk, in verse for that age not altogether ungraceful. George Bartholdus Pontanus, Provost of the Metropolitan Church of Prague, calls John of Nepomuk Blessed Martyr. The same appellation give the rest of the writers of the higher ages, and also of this our age; as the venerable Father Albert Chanowsky, an Apostolic man (such as his Life lately edited by the most friendly man the reverend Father John Tanner sufficiently shows) then George Ferus of the same Society, and several others.

[20] Long ago I had related that B. John was born at Nepomuk in Bohemia. From that house therefore, in which John first beheld the light of life, the piety of the townsmen built a chapel to the honor of B. John immediately after his death: the natal house is turned into a chapel, and the old memories hand down, that no one could take nocturnal rest in that house, and all wearied by sleeplessness were always compelled to depart, until it had been turned into a Sacrarium. In our age the most illustrious Baron Francis de Sternberg, Lord of Nepomuk, the reverend Father George Ferus inciting, ordered this chapel, by age little by little falling, wholly to be pulled down: and a new and beautiful church to the honor of B. John of Nepomuk at great expense built. where now is his new church, That church Ernest Archbishop of Prague and Cardinal wished to be blessed by others, since he himself through ill-health could not be present and consecrate it. At the top of this new temple's altar B. John's radiated image is seen, and is held in veneration. Through this cause of the temple lately built the same reverend Father George Ferus in the year 1641 edited a little book, which he entitled the Posthumous Fame of B. John of Nepomuk: in which with beautiful images, the highest painter Charles Screta a Bohemian lending his labor, he comprehended the life and death of B. John in very brief titles in the triple idiom Latin, Bohemian and German. The church of B. John is approached with many supplications: the parish priests from many miles to a certain day free from works, on the Sundays between Easter and Pentecost, lead the people: and that is done from time immemorial. renowned for the worship of John and for miracles, The holy things concerning B. John indeed are not read, but of the most holy Trinity: yet a sermon to the people concerning B. John's virtues is held. There are seen hung at his altar very many votive offerings, and various persons confess that by his merits they obtained various benefits from heaven. It is found by experience, that if the fields labor with drought, a supplication or two being publicly led to this church, rain is quickly obtained. A certain very old song concerning B. John is carried about through this neighborhood, which the rustic common people sing willingly, wont to commend their flocks and other beasts to B. John, and to feel his help. In the plague, which roving through Bohemia in the year 1649 most gravely afflicted it, all who had commended themselves at Nepomuk to B. John were snatched from peril.

[21] as also the tomb at Prague. At Prague also the tomb of B. John, as I had said before, is held in the highest honor: and although certain unskilled and in religion too cautious and timid men, under the pretext of religion itself, attempted to disturb something in the veneration of B. John; yet the people and all the rest could not be moved from the constancy of just piety, and his glory always returned to B. John, whatever one and another of the timid attempted. Concerning such ancient religion and the old worship of the Blessed, that most learned man, and in describing and illustrating the deeds of the Saints most diligent, and most skilled in those matters, Godfrey Henschenius, best said: To the veneration of the Saints, he says, from a time exceeding the memory of one century, Urban VIII, the Supreme Pontiff, willed nothing to be derogated, but that it should henceforth be perpetual. Now B. John's worship being proved from antiquity, to the miracles, wrought at his holy tomb, let us make a step: at the same time this will be plain, how deservedly so great a worship is paid to him by the people.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER IV.

Certain marvels wrought at the tomb of B. John, and heavenly benefits of every kind.

[22] So many and so great benefits obtained from heaven by the intervention of B. John the manuscript memories hand down, that from them our forefathers made a just book, which was kept in the sacristy of the Church of Prague. That book is cited by Wolfgang Chanowsky de Longavilla, The book once written about the miracles has perished. Canon of the Metropolitan church, an illustrious man, who dying in the year 1583, from love of that Blessed, obtained to be entombed not far from his holy tomb. He writes, that in that book of miracles, B. John of Nepomuk is called the Wonder-worker of Bohemia: that a blind man at his tomb received sight, others felt his most present help, others standing on the border of life and death, some also condemned to the punishments of death by the sentences of Judges, by the help of the blessed man, whom they invoked, marvelously escaped death. He adds, that he does not describe more, because the book is at hand, which however together with me all the Ministers of the church cannot find, and we grieve that it was withdrawn from sight, on account of the heresy lately reigning.

[23] This is most marvelous, nor less certain and most divulged: whoever should tread on the tomb of B. John, especially if they have despised it, In 1588 a Palatine treading contemptuously on the tomb, they on that very day incur infamy, and cannot avoid it; this is clear by the consent of all the Catholics of Prague of our and the higher age, and by very many examples. In the year 1588, when Prince Radziwill, in the name of the King and Commonwealth of Poland, was discharging a Legation with Rudolf II the Emperor, there had come to Prague the Magnificent D. Christopher Sluska Palatine of Wenden (whether Catholic or heretic by Theophilus Cristeccus, Rector of the College of the Society of Jesus at S. Clement at that time, whose handwriting written in the same year

I have, is not handed down) but this man illustrious in dignity, having once entered the Metropolitan church of Prague, the other monuments of the church being curiously surveyed, is led to the sepulcher of B. John. The Canon who was leading the Palatine relates, that this is a marvelous tomb; for if anyone should tread on it, on that day he does not escape punishment. The Palatine laughed, and at once pressed the tomb with his foot; thinking it glorious (as natures are) to tread on what the rest feared. But behold on the spot, as if struck on the forehead and disturbed in mind he feels; and feeling the disturbance he goes out of the temple. His servants had brought the Lord his horse and carriage (for the man very powerful among his own was surrounded by a numerous retinue); he names first the horse: it is presented. But behold, as if driven by distempers, he attempts the ascent from the right side of the horse: at length he mounts and gets up on the horse. The horse by no urging nor by spur suffered itself to be moved from the place. He is therefore compelled to descend from the horse, and mounts the carriage: but again by no force, whatever the drivers did, could they move it even a step forward. At length confused with shame the Palatine, the Emperor's court watching and seeing from the Castle, that whole and encumbered journey accomplished on foot, much wondering, and turning over with himself what had been done, returned to his lodging in the city.

[24] In the Life of the venerable and Apostolic man Albert Chanowsky of the Society of Jesus another example is read, which it will please to hear in the words of our own writer. While at Prague Albert was attending to Grammar, the same attempting a girl is affected with great shame, and was fourteen years old, his father John Chanowsky came to Prague, and with him visited for the sake of veneration the Bodies of the Saints and especially the Patrons of Bohemia. But it happened, that they also came to the monument of B. John of Nepomuk: where his father relating he learned, how great veneration the place was of, how great the honor of that martyr was a care to God, how certain the punishment of those who should petulantly dare to trample that earth: so much so that to a certain virgin who had impudently dared to tread on that holy sepulcher with petulant foot, while amid the greatest frequency of the people she returned home through the Prague bridge, a vehement wind suddenly arising, as if by a kind of whirlwind her garment or gown was wrapped up, and lifted from the bottom on high with incredible shame of the virgin. At this I began to think (it is pleasant to hear Father Albert writing this of himself) that this could easily befall a woman, but to a man or boy by what means could anything similar befall? Wherefore for the sake of trying, since at that time the bars around the Saint's sepulcher were still few and low, I purposely set my foot there, so as to tread on the sepulcher. But it happened, when we returned to the old city through the small bridge, and the boy with a twofold one; walking I followed my parent: and behold I fell into a certain hidden pit up to the knees, such as at Prague are wont to be in the streets in winter from heaped ice and snows; and there I almost left my shoe, and all the people mocking me, I was suffused with signal shame. And coming to the Prague bridge, near the image of the Crucifix, there I fell again, and was wrapped about in mud everywhere on my cloak; and as it were then inwardly I heard this voice: In this place that Saint was cast from the bridge into the water and drowned. But I was affected with the highest shame, men wondering and laughing, what and why and how this had befallen me. Thus the venerable Father Albert Chanowsky with his own hand.

[25] Another and that a far graver punishment followed a Calvinian man, Wenceslaus William de Raupowa a Baron, of the rebellion which in Bohemia by foreign men almost, Count Thurn and Hohenlohe, A Calvinian Baron likewise Fels and other new inhabitants of Bohemia, by a foul beginning, and a fouler outcome was moved, not the last instigator. This man when once in the Metropolitan church of S. Vitus, as in a profane house, with his companions idly walked about in the year 1619, he chanced upon the tomb of B. John. The old tradition concerning that sepulcher recurs to the man; wherefore much wondering at and mocking the folly of the Catholics, as he thought, who were held by things so vain; he treads on the tomb of B. John, and as if he had done nothing, surveys the rest of the monuments of the Catholic idolatry, as they call it, nor much after goes out of the temple. On the very threshold of the temple a servant breathless with sad news runs to his Lord; that the son, whom Raupowa had as his only one, had at this moment unexpectedly expired. he is punished by the death of his only-begotten, Namely at the same point of time God avenged the contempt of his servant B. John by the death of the only son. Learn justice, you who are admonished, and not to despise the Saints. And would that the divine anger had had this end of vengeance! It is agreed among all, that after very many years Raupowa the heretic was driven into rage, while with drawn sword he attacked men, and miserably perishes: and miserably perished at Litoměřice. Of this wicked rashness of Raupowa, not to say more, and of the punishment inflicted, there is in my hands a Testification lawfully made, signed with the ring of a most illustrious family, confirmed with handwriting, which the most illustrious Count Zdenko Wratislaw de Mitrovicz, Lord of Vilemov, Zerotin, and Prefect of the district of Slany, made in the year 1648: who testifies both to have known Raupowa familiarly, and that all these things are clear to him by the conscience of his mind.

[26] I come now to narrate an example, than which nothing sadder happened at the tomb of B. John. And I know not indeed what that ought to be, that with so great hatred always against the memory and sepulcher of B. John the heretics are borne. In that, of which I just spoke, reign of the heretics in Bohemia, after the year 1618, when the Calvinians had occupied half of the Metropolitan church of Prague, namely the hinder part, and had contaminated it with their profane and shadowy Supper; they had without doubt before their eyes the bodies of the holy Patrons Vitus, [others having undertaken to demolish the gratings that they might exhume the body,] Sigismund, and the other Saints, and bore it calmly; only the humble tomb of B. John of Nepomuk they could not bear to see. Nor only to pull up the gratings around the tomb, but the very body of the blessed Martyr (a deed truly unworthy even in any human body!) to exhume and cast into a common place they resolved. But B. John excellently protected the place. There are sent on a certain day most powerful and most confident satellites, to whom that business had been given. Scarcely had they attempted the sacrilege, and had begun to pull up the iron gratings with mattocks; when behold two, as if struck from heaven, suddenly fall to the ground: one altogether lifeless never recovered life; the other, set over the work, an Englishman, the tutor of the pages of Frederick the Palatine (who carried himself as King of Bohemia), half-alive and scarcely breathing carried out of the temple in their hands, a little after himself also breathed forth his wretched soul: the rest admonished by the peril and harm of their own, only one part of the sepulcher's gratings being cast down, they are smitten with a dire death, left the work unfinished. The matter is tragic, but confirmed by the testifications of those who were present; among whom there lives even today an old man, set over the bells in the church of S. Vitus, once a spectator of the thing done: and this whole history before the sepulcher of B. John of Nepomuk, expressed most elegantly in inlaid work in wood, is seen with the admiration of pilgrims. This sad miracle also recounts the German book, whose title is The Truthful, edited in type at Augsburg in the year 1630 page 89 and following, and first the sacrilegious words of that Calvinian Englishman, insulting the sepulcher, then the heavenly vengeance, his body dashed to the ground, finally the same night amid horrific vociferations and wailings, as if he were burned by some fire, the most unhappy death he describes in many words. There is added in the same book; a little before the decisive battle on the White Mountain, and the Saints appear as if consulting about the vengeance; in which the affairs of the heretics fell, when in the year 1620 on a certain night the heretic satellites, in the same church, in throwing down the statues of Christ Crucified and other images of the Saints labored strenuously; by a Catholic and pious man, who then was present and grievingly watched what was done, were seen three men more august than human form come forth from the sepulchers: the first conspicuous in Royal dress, the second in Episcopal habit, the third in a sacred habit indeed, but unknown. These to have met together, and standing, as if about the future state of affairs they conferred heads, afterward to have been lost from sight; nothing being doubted by the Catholics that S. Wenceslaus the King, and S. Adalbert the Bishop were the first two, the third all suspect to be B. John of Nepomuk, whom the heretics so greatly hated, and whom they had also wished to exhume. So that book. In a matter so recent let the faith be with the author: to the tomb of B. John let us return.

[27] For this cause therefore, and the savage examples produced against those treading, when long since iron gratings to the height of nearly one ell had been stretched before it, the Canons girt the sepulcher with other new gratings: which gratings easily equal three ells in height, so that except most difficultly it can scarcely be permitted to any wicked and injurious man. Moreover the Calvinians, so ill received by B. John, the rest terrified by the examples cover the place, as long as they used the Church of Prague, the very tomb wholly, crying out that delusions lurked in it, with boards and certain planks they shut up, lest in any way it could be approached, nay lest it could be beheld. To disturb them, while they sat at supper in the temple, B. John seemed; and like a deathly shade, too odious and not called, to intervene at the banquets. But now this very profanation of the Metropolitan church, and the abomination standing in the holy place B. John signified from his holy tomb. whence before sad groans had broken forth. Since that calamity from the heretics impending, often by night groans and certain tearful voices were heard from the bottom of the temple: but the keepers of the temple, diligently following those groans, perceived more than once, that they came out from the tomb of B. John. Namely it grieved the blessed man (as far as the Blessed can grieve) that the beloved Church of Prague should shortly be profaned with so many sacrileges, which never before, from the time it had been founded by S. Wenceslaus, not even in the times of Huss or afterward of Rokyczana, had been profaned by the impure rites of heretics. But more prerogatives of that holy tomb could be brought forward: for at other times also the watchmen of the church of S. Vitus, to indicate perhaps the sanctity of the blessed man and his glory in heaven, saw that sepulcher girt with a certain lovely light, and coruscate with rays. Nor that wonderful: B. John is for a treasure to the Church of Prague, but where treasures lie hidden, they say fires emerge.

[28] The Blessed patronizes those fearing public infamy B. John of Nepomuk is held the chief Patron and Protector of those, to whom some peril of infamy threatens, and who fear lest a committed crime or deed should leak out into public: for he marvelously meets the perils, and hides the deed. Examples for that matter public I neither can nor dare give: because that I should be silent, and even should not know, the Blessed John himself, who covered, effected: but the matter is

attested among all: and they are wont to send those, who afflicted, know not whither to turn, to the sepulcher of the Blessed, that they may set forth and commend their fears. By the argument of this hastened and so often experienced help, a Prayer was long since edited in type, which under B. John's effigy is read conceived in these words: Grant, we beseech, almighty God, to our prayers, which in veneration of B. John the Confessor we offer, a pious and benign hearing; that, supported by his merits and intercession, freed from infamy and temporal confusion, we may be able before death to expiate our guilts by a sincere Confession, to blot them out by salutary penance, and happily to attain the port of eternal salvation. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son. To those also B. John brings help, who from ruinous shame dread to disclose their crimes in the sacred tribunal: and to the bashful in confession. for those supplicating at his tomb felt a certain boldness added to them for bringing forth all things, and this they openly testified to the Priests. That very many votive offerings once hung at the tomb of B. John the old men remember: the Calvinian heresy in the year 1619 tore all, or corrupted them with flames. he is honored with votive offerings: In our memory some mothers, laboring most gravely in childbirth; others by dropsy, others by long fevers most cruelly vexed, prayers being poured forth to B. John, recovered, as the votive offerings of today testify. To some the very faith and love toward B. John seems to have brought help: for when other things were lacking, dust, modestly scraped from his sepulchral stone, they felt availed against various diseases.

[29] An illustrious Matron (whom to name nothing avails) when once mention was made of the Saints buried in the Metropolitan church, those disapproving his worship are corrected by a miracle. and I know not which of the domestic girls had numbered B. John of Nepomuk among them; she with eyebrow raised, Whom, she said, do you name John? Rome knows nothing of him: he is venerated by the unlearned wrongly, nor perhaps does he deserve this veneration: for if he were a Saint, long ago the Pontiffs would have reckoned him in the number of the Saints. After some days when the same matron, thinking nothing now of B. John, was praying in the temple; she finds in her little prayer-book the most beautiful effigy of the Blessed with radiated head in the habit of the Canons, which she had never before seen. A little after when at home in her little chest she sought something else, another image likewise of the same Blessed as if of its own accord came into her hand. That unforeseen matter so wounded the tender mind of the matron, that at once dissolved into tears, she invoked B. John of Nepomuk. And on the other day going to the Metropolitan church, a Confession of sins being premised, she took the divine Eucharist; and prostrated at the sepulcher of the blessed Martyr, asked pardon for her boldness. Nor is to be omitted the rashness of a certain religious man, divinely as it seems chastised. This man in a dispute begun with a companion of his Order, denied that it was rightly done, that B. John was venerated by the people; and added with vexation, that they did ill, who when they could easily prevent it, tolerated the worship of a man so unknown. The day had not yet passed, lo for you a grave sickness: no cause given he is shaken with an unusual trembling of his limbs; and lest he should be ignorant of the origin of the evil, at the same time of its own accord the thought occurred that B. John was taking vengeance on him. Nor was it otherwise: for neither the trembling nor the pain ceased, until the sick man had honored B. John with a vow, and asked pardon. But the matter, as it had been done with him, the religious man himself consigned to perpetual memory in writing. There burns at the tomb of B. John a hanging lamp, Water poured into the lamp burns: as I said before. From that lamp the Servant-of-the-chapel (so they call the Custodian of the temple) had poured out all the oil, and in place of oil had poured pure water, to vex his fellow (to whom the lamp had been committed and to be nourished). The fellow ignorant of all things approaches, the other namely Sacristan, that former one observing from afar, and rejoicing that kindly material for mocking the fellow was offered. The lamp is lit, the water without any combat of the elements blazes up, the lamp shines most brightly. Terrified by the novelty of the matter that ocular Servant confesses what he had done: both acknowledge the miracle: several Ministers of the church are called: they find the matter to be so, glorifying God in his servant B. John.

[30] There stands above the tomb of B. John a great candelabrum of brass, whose foot distinguished with most skillful statues of boys playing everywhere, some having stolen a little statue from the candelabrum dedicated to him, and other brass images, among the rest of the spoils, the city of Milan being destroyed by Frederick Barbarossa the Emperor, Wladislaus King of Bohemia his ally in that war, easily five hundred years ago; because it was said to have been from the temple of Solomon, had brought to Prague, and given to the church of S. Vitus. That foot, a new mass being added, now for a hundred and eighty years, antiquity elegantly fitted into the form of a candelabrum, and set it upon the tomb of B. John; which in the manuscript codices of the temple is called no otherwise than the Candelabrum of B. John. That candelabrum in our memory the most Serene Archduke Leopold, brother of Ferdinand III the Emperor, took upon himself to adorn, and ordered the statues of all the holy Patrons of Bohemia, each in his own habit (among whom our B. John is seen) likewise of brass to be added, above standing in an orb as in a crown, fashioned in a most graceful spectacle by good artificers, as he was a Prince most fond of such arts and a most skilled valuer. This new work, they are compelled to restore it. when certain men had beheld with sacrilegious eyes, and believed it to be gold; conquered by greed, broke off and snatched the statue of B. John, which seemed fairer than the rest. The sacrilege brought them great care, for day and night their mind was torn with distempers, so that they could take neither sleep nor any rest. Driven therefore by the monitor and assiduous tormentor, whom they had within, they brought back the statue: and prostrate at the tomb of B. John, soon at the sacred tribunal of Penance, disclosed the whole matter to the Priests.

[31] Thus far the Narration composed concerning the Life and Miracles of B. John of Nepomuk. Whose labor did the author use to compile these things? Moreover lest I defraud anyone of his praise, the chief material was supplied to me by the most illustrious and most reverend Lord John Ignatius Dlauhowesky de Longavilla, Apostolic Protonotary, Canon of the holy Metropolitan of Prague, and also of the exempt of Vyšehrad, and the Collegiate churches of Stará Boleslav: with whose words, from his letter to me, I shall conclude this narration: I send, what concerning B. John of Nepomuk I could find; and these collected from various most faithful and undoubted manuscripts, under Priestly faith I communicate: may God grant, that whom we honor on earth, we may fully enjoy his consortship in heaven. Amen.

PRAYER TO B. JOHN OF NEPOMUK

Which written in three tongues, Bohemian, German and Latin, and hung on tablets before his tomb, the people are wont piously to recite, described word for word.

B. John, Martyr and Patron, born at Nepomuk in the kingdom of Bohemia, Canon of the temple of S. Vitus in the castle of Prague; because at the instance of Wenceslaus IV the king, wishing to avenge himself on his wife, often admonishing him concerning amending his life, before and after torture, you refused to reveal the Confession of the Empress, cast from the Bridge into the river Moldau, shown by lights, appearing by night over the river where your body lay, the most certain witnesses of your innocence and sanctity, you were solemnly carried by the whole Clergy and people to the Cathedral temple; where even today, he who dishonors your sepulcher, is not wont to escape the infamy of the common people. For you left after you an admirable, unheard-of, and everlasting memory of guarding the secret of confession. Through these your merits and the gifts divinely granted to you, we pray suppliantly and trustfully, with almighty God obtain for us that grace, that his anger may be quieted, that he may clemently turn away the punishments of sins, as pestilence, war, famine, and other plagues both of body and soul; and that we may be able before death to confess, to make satisfaction for our sins, to escape every peril and the disgrace of the world, and the scandal of men, to please God and to adhere to him, to conclude life laudably, and to attain eternal life. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

from the same Phosphorus consequently here we bring forth.

in royal dress and above human stature more august; a crown on the head everywhere shining with gold and stones, holding a scepter in the left hand; another, a certain old man in a long ankle-length garment, and over it clad in a Priestly (as they call it) surplice and stole, holding a book in his left hand; the third, a youth, most beautiful in face, more like an Angel than a man, adorned with a purple cloak; standing in the middle of the temple in a line from the gate, at the steps by which one ascends to the high altar: and a little after three others; one also dressed in royal manner, and conspicuous with a crown, but a lesser one; another in Pontifical apparel; the third all in armor, holding in his right hand a very tall lance and above shining like a ray of the sun, approaching the first three, and standing together, and, as if they conferred counsels concerning the present state, mutually conversing. Those who watched this vision, were five: three soldiers, SS. Wenceslaus, Adalbert, Sigismund, John and Charles IV. and a certain man by name John de Blumenstein with his servant, by chance passing there about that time of night: who then were so suddenly seized with great horror, that they could in no way await the end of the matter; but, as is wont to befall those terrified by too great fear, by what way each could they fled away. It was believed to have been the shades of the Saints, who in that church piously rest: of S. Wenceslaus, who represented the armored man (for so he is everywhere painted), of S. Adalbert, who the Pontiff; of S. Vitus, who the youth clad in purple; of S. Sigismund, who the King; and of B. John of Nepomuk, who the person of the Priest, clad in surplice and stole. And because two appeared conspicuous in Royal attire, one of them was held for Charles IV, there also gloriously entombed, and by God clarified with not a few miracles and also revelations in life, but after death by the long incorruption of his body, and once the highest lover of the same church and the greatest benefactor of all. But this Charles died in the year 1378 on the 29th day of November, and there is extant his Life in MS. by Benessius de Weismil. Canon of Prague a contemporary (who also left a Chronicle of Prague) often cited in Phosphorus, of which Life we desire to obtain a copy.