Ludmila

ON ST. LUDMILA, WIDOW AND MARTYR,

DUCHESS AND PATRONESS OF BOHEMIA, AT TETIN IN BOHEMIA.

In the tenth century, some years after its beginning.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Ludmila, widow and martyr, duchess and patroness of Bohemia, at Tetin in Bohemia (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR C. S.

§ I. The days on which she is inscribed in the Martyrologies: the place of her martyrdom: her ecclesiastical Offices, and her twofold festivity: the Life by Christann to be given: other manuscript Lives.

[ ] Of the holy apostles of the Slavs, Cyril and Methodius or Methudius, who brought the light of the faith into Moravia, and thence into neighboring Bohemia in the ninth century, She is commemorated in several Martyrologies on the 16th we treated in our Work on the ninth day of March. Today there comes to be commemorated a disciple of these same men, or at any rate of Methodius, or of a priest sent by him, and, together with her husband Borzivoy, a vigorous propagator throughout Bohemia of the religion she had received: St. Ludmila, duchess of Bohemia and martyr, and the grandmother of St. Wenceslaus, duke and likewise martyr, and his teacher in the Christian faith. Nothing is read of her in the Roman Martyrology; but the other Fasti which make mention of her do not mark her on the same day. The manuscript Florarium Sanctorum in our Museum has of her on this sixteenth day of September, the name being corrupted into Ludivilla, thus: In Bohemia the passion of St. Ludivilla, widow and martyr. On the same day Ferrarius celebrates her in his General Catalogue, where he at the same time indicates the place of her murder, saying: At Tetin in Bohemia, of St. Ludmila, duchess and martyr. With these two Castellanus agrees in his Universal Martyrology, in which he adorns her with some brief eulogy.

[2] and on the 15th of September, and on the 10th of November. But Grevenus in the Usuardine Auctaria as given by our Sollerius preferred to transfer her to the fifteenth day of this month, saying: Of Ludmila, widow and martyr, grandmother of St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia and martyr. The same was done in the German Martyrology by Canisius, or by whoever is its author. And the former without doubt rely upon the Proper of the archdiocese of Prague, or upon similar records, in which the ecclesiastical Office of the holy Duchess and Martyr is prescribed to be recited on the sixteenth day; the others marked the day of her death, concerning which one may read this in the Life to be reprinted below: Now the happy handmaid of Christ, devoted to God, Ludmila, received martyrdom on the seventh day of the Sabbath and on the XVII Kalends of October, at the first watch of the night. Each opinion therefore has its own just reason; we, having followed the former after our custom, have judged that the deeds of this holy Duchess should be illustrated on this day, on which she is honored. Further, another festivity of hers is noted on the tenth day of November in the Usuardine Auctaria of Sollerius; among which the Hagenau codex has thus: In Bohemia, of holy Leodemila, grandmother of St. Wenceslaus. But what this festivity is, Grevenus in the same place indicates thus: The translation of Ludmila, duchess of Bohemia and martyr: of which translation we shall treat in its own place.

[3] Concerning the place of the murder, namely Tetin, Bohuslav Balbin discourses at greater length in the History of the Holy Mountain, An account of Tetin, where she suffered. Auctarium 1, chapter 8, from which I report a few things here. He says that Tetka, daughter of Crocus the second prince of Bohemia, and sister of Libussa who reigned after her father Crocus, built in the year 712 a citadel above the river Misa upon a high and precipitous rock, and called it Tetin from her own name, and, after her nuptials were celebrated with Slawossius, added a town of the same name. Having prefaced these things concerning the beginnings of the place, and others especially bearing upon the Christian religion, the aforesaid Balbin at length adds: This monument of antiquity and of the Christian religion, the citadel and town of Tetin, because it followed the party of the Catholics, the Hussites — a race born for the destruction of sacred things — after being shamefully repulsed from Karlstein with the Poles in the year MCDXXII, in order to avenge their own grief, laid level with the ground by fire and sword. Today Tetin scarcely rescues itself from oblivion by its own ruins. Moreover the same Balbin, in the Historical Miscellanies of the kingdom of Bohemia, book 3, chapter 8, §2, testifies that Tetin, which he calls a castle famous for sanctity rather than for any other endowment, lies in the district of Podbrd, five miles distant from the city of Prague.

[4] As to what pertains to the Saint's cult, we shall see below that it was ancient, Her ecclesiastical Offices. and begun not long after her murder, her sacred body being first divinely made illustrious, and afterward carried to Prague by her holy grandson, duke Wenceslaus, where it rests to this day in the famous abbey of St. George of virgins of the Benedictine Order. Meanwhile receive what we have concerning her ecclesiastical cult. Among the Breviaries of various nations there are in our Museum the propers of the archdiocese of Prague, published in the year 1653, and of the diocese of Olomouc, published in the year 1630. In the former of these the feast of St. Ludmila, on which her blessed birthday in heaven is recalled, is assigned to the sixteenth day of September with a double rite of the second class, but on the tenth day of November the memory of the translation of her body from Tetin to Prague, with the rite of a greater double. Each festivity is placed on the same days in the Olomouc Propers, which by the consent and authority of our most holy lord Urban VIII are prescribed to be recited by priests of all orders; with this difference, however, that the feast of her birthday is celebrated only with a double rite, but the Translation with no more than a semidouble. Those same Propers, reprinted at Prague in the years 1679 and 1732, agree with the earlier ones, except that in the Prague one the Saint is on the sixteenth day of September set forth to be honored as Patroness of the kingdom and with a double rite of the first class; but on the tenth day of November her Translation with a double rite only. Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology notes

that the former feast is celebrated also by the people, that is, with cessation from servile work, which the title of Patroness of the kingdom makes altogether likely.

[5] Concerning the writers of her Life the aforesaid Balbin gives the following notice in the Historical Miscellanies of Bohemia, book 4, Of the Saint's biographers whom we possess, part 1, §7: Very many have written the Life of St. Ludmila; the first, and likewise the most ancient, Christann, the Saint's great-grandson. The old Legends, as they are called, are full of her virtues and miracles. Nicolaus Salius, a Praguer by household, of the Society of Jesus, published a Life in Latin, which Juan Bonifacio, a Spaniard of the Society of Jesus, reported in the Historia Virginalis, and Surius transcribed. Let Hagek, Chanowsky, Pontanus, etc., be consulted. Most accurately of all, within our own memory, Georgius Ferus of the Society of Jesus described the life of St. Ludmila. What we have here brought forward has for the most part been excerpted from the ancient lessons of the Breviary of Prague. Thus far Balbin, who published the Life composed by the aforesaid Christann in book 1 of the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, chapter 10, and illustrated it with observations, which will be of great use to us. Whence, further, Balbin obtained that Life, he indicates in the same place in his Historical Notes thus: This Life I transcribed from a very ancient parchment codex of the famous monastery of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine at Trebon in Bohemia, in the year MDCXLV.

[6] the most ancient is Christann, The little work itself is inscribed in this manner: Here happily begins the Life of St. Ludmila. To the lord and thrice-blessed Adalbert, second Pontiff of the holy church of God at Prague, the most humble of all monks and the lowest, not to be named, brother Sanctus by name Christianus, wishes to abound in prosperous successes to his desires in Christ Jesus. But in the Preface the biographer, addressing the aforesaid Adalbert, says: You who draw the line of your descent from the same course (that of SS. Ludmila and Wenceslaus). And again, after some things, he accosts him thus: Illustrious Pontiff, and dearest nephew. On these things several remarks must be made. First of all Balbin advises that for Christianus it seems one should read Christannus; for this is clear both from the original letters of the foundation of the monastery of Břevnov near Prague, given in the year 993, in which one reads written Christannus, brother of the most illustrious duke Boleslaus; and from Weleslavin, by whom Christann of Skala, born in the third place a son of Boleslaus the Cruel, is said to have subscribed a certain privilege of the same monastery. The first instrument Magnoald Ziegelbauer, a Benedictine, inserted into his Historical Epitome of the monastery of Břevnov, which is in fact noted as given by the hand of the lord Christann, brother of the illustrious duke Boleslaus, in the year of Grace DCCCCXCIII, on the very day of the dedication of the above-written monastery. And so we too, with Balbin, shall call him Christann.

[7] the Saint's own great-grandson The same writer proves that this Christann was the great-grandson of St. Ludmila, and shows by an appended table that he was born of his father Boleslaus I, his grandfather Wratislaus I, and his great-grandparents Borzivoy and holy Ludmila; which agrees excellently with the instruments just brought forward. Then also he teaches why Adalbert — namely the holy bishop of Prague and martyr — is called by Christann dearest nephew, and is said to have drawn the line of his descent from the same course (that of SS. Ludmila and Wenceslaus). For he proves that this came about through Strzezyslava, Christann's sister by Boleslaus I, wife of Slavnik count of Libice, and through him the mother of St. Adalbert. These things are plainly favored by what the monk contemporary with St. Adalbert handed down concerning the parents of that same Adalbert in his Life, published by us in the second place on the twenty-third day of April, page 187, num. 1. His father, he says, by name Slawnitz, was great and very powerful… His mother, by name Strziezislawa, of the race of the Bohemians, a most noble flesh, a worthy spouse joined to a worthy husband; to a husband, that is, who touches the line of blood of kings; whom, as he gives laws far and wide, men tremble at today, and who came as a near kinsman to king Henry (namely the holy emperor of that name).

[8] and a monk of Břevnov, Further, Christann was a Benedictine monk in the famous monastery of Břevnov near Prague, which in the fifteenth century was plundered and burned by the impious Hussites, the abbot with some of his own having escaped in time to Braunau, where the abbey of Břevnov was afterward restored and endures to this day, as Ziegelbauer testifies in the Epitome praised above. This Christann, therefore, out of his piety dedicated the Passion of St. Wenceslaus and of holy Ludmila his great-grandmother, composed by himself, to St. Adalbert, the son of his sister and second bishop of Prague. Yet he was not the very first of all to take up that task; but he corrected the lucubrations of others where it seemed good, and enlarged them from the testimonies of those who could report more certain things either by sight or by hearing. So he himself testified in the Preface, saying: Finding the Passion of blessed Wenceslaus together with that of his avera (that is, grandmother) of blessed memory Ludmila — who like new stars irradiate with the light of their virtues their own country of Bohemia together with the whole nation — set out in divers compositions and not fully expressed, I judged it fitting to approach your sanctity, who draw the line of your descent from the same course; so that by your command and likewise your permission I might in some manner correct it; or, if anything were lacking, might question those old men who were still surviving, or such religious as had drunk in their deeds with the keenness of their eyes, or had learned them by hearing and by the narration of others, and might add it here.

[9] Nor was it very difficult for the biographer to find some old men who had lived with his holy Great-grandmother, who wrote in that same tenth century, since he published that Life about the sixtieth year after her death, or even a little earlier. For St. Adalbert, to whom it is inscribed, having been consecrated bishop of Prague in the year of Christ 983, left Prague and set out for Rome in the year 989; nor did he afterward stay at Prague save for a brief time, as may be seen in our Henschen's preliminary Commentary on him on the twenty-third day of April, §1. Between the years 983 and 989, therefore, that Life seems to have been written, since it is addressed to Adalbert as present in his own diocese. But that the murder of Ludmila is to be fixed in that same tenth century, some years after its beginning (some set the year 920, others 927), we shall see in its own place. From what has been said, observe also that Balbin's opinion, by which he asserts above in num. 5 that Christann is the first and most ancient of all who wrote the deeds of the holy Duchess and martyr, strays from the truth, unless he meant only this, that Christann's lucubration is the most ancient of all that have come down to us.

[10] As to what pertains to the writing, it often consists of obscure and ill-fitted periods, whose little Work will be given. Other manuscript Lives and it goes back into Moravian and Bohemian affairs further than was necessary; and in order to arrive at the beginnings of the Christian faith received there, it prefaces matters at excessive length. But what he narrates concerning St. Ludmila is of such a kind as to savor of a writer no less pious than contemporary, and not inept. We shall therefore give this Life from the aforesaid Epitome of Balbin, and, after our custom, divided into chapters, we shall illustrate it with Annotations. A fragment of the same Life I found and transcribed in the library of Holy Cross, of the Cistercian Order in Austria, while in this year 1753 we were surveying that library with the singular benevolence and hospitality of the most reverend abbot of that place and of his most religious monks. This fragment, written out in a notable parchment Passional in folio, begins from the martyrdom of St. Ludmila and ends with the miracles wrought at Tetin at the Saint's tomb, differing from Christann only here and there in words. More prolix is another copy once transmitted to us by Joannes Gamans, a priest of our Society, from the parchment Passional for the month of September of the monastery of Böddeken of the Order of Regulars of St. Augustine. The compiler of this premises some things concerning SS. Cyril and Methodius, and then subjoins Christann's little Work, with some phrases nevertheless altered. Hence it will at some points be of use to us for emending faulty periods. Further, our Bolland printed a part of this Life on the ninth day of March, in the last place among the Lives of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Besides Christann's little Work we have other transcripts of Lives. One of these was copied from a Prague manuscript and transmitted to my Elders in the year 1642. Its beginning is: There was in the province of the Bohemians a certain prince by name Borzivoy, etc.; and it is plainly like — if you except a few words — the Saint's proper Office, which, divided into six historical Lessons and printed in rather old type, from some Breviary or other, I know not which, but probably that of Prague, I found laid aside for this day as well. Yet it contains nothing which Christann does not have, from whom we suppose it was abridged.

[11] manuscripts are reviewed. Another, received in the same year, is noted as taken from L. of the life of St. Procopius, and has such a beginning as this: While the Sun of justice was pouring forth the rays of the holy Christian faith through all the climes of the world, etc. Its author, likewise borrowing much from Christann, celebrated the virtues of St. Ludmila in an oratorical style, and adorned them with sacred texts and histories. But that he was younger than Christann is manifest even from this, that he reckons among the holy martyrs St. Adalbert, to whom, while he was yet living among men, Christann dedicated his little Work. A third manuscript, likewise of Prague, is only a part of the former, and begins from the Saint's widowhood with these words: It came to pass that after the death of her venerable husband, blessed Ludmila, the follower of Christ, persevering unto the end of her life in the chastity of both the inner and the outer man, chastised her body with vigils, fastings, and divers afflictions, etc. Toward the end the author passed over the translation of the body, procured by St. Wenceslaus: yet he betrays himself as younger than Christann in the manner we have said above. I have besides at hand a certain sermon torn from a codex unknown to me: but neither has this anything that the reader would justly desire, since its author celebrates the praises of the holy Martyr after the manner of a sacred orator, and does not write a life. Finally there is extant in Johann Burchard Mencken, volume 3 of the Writers of German Affairs, column [ ] and following, a certain Life of St. Ludmila, and likewise another in the same place at column 1808, but these are almost in agreement with, or very like, those enumerated above. The rest who have written of the deeds of this same Saint we shall commend in their own places, where it shall seem good.

§ II. The Saint's native place, parents, heathen upbringing, and her husband Borzivoy; his conversion to the faith and baptism.

[ ] Ludmila is born of heathen parents at Melnik. That Ludmila his great-grandmother was born in Bohemia of an illustrious stock from pagan parents, and that in the earlier years of her life she was above all given over to the superstition of idols, Christann testifies in the Life, num. 10, in these words. He (Borzivoy) had also a wife by name Ludmila, daughter of Slavibor a count from the province of the Slavs which in antiquity was called Bssow, but now by moderns, from a city newly built, is called Mielnik; who, as had been fitting for her, in the error of heathenism by sacrificing to images, so also in the Christian religion, by imitating, nay by surpassing, the virtues of her husband, was made truly a handmaid of Christ. Of the same, Cosmas dean of Prague, a writer of the twelfth century, writes thus in the Chronicles of Bohemia at the year of Christ 894: There was a daughter of Zlaubor, count of the Castle of Psov, by name Ludmila. Nicolaus Salius in the Life of the same

Saint, published by Surius on this day, on what authority I know not, relates that, because on account of the excellent endowments of her mind and body she was firmly believed to be destined to be beloved of the people, she was called by her parents Lidmila, which name the Latin writer changed into Ludmila. Her mother the aforesaid Salius, as also Balbin in the Historical Miscellanies of Bohemia, book 4, part 1, §7, and others, call Lidoslava. Now Melnicium or Mielnik is a royal city with an ancient citadel, where the Elbe and the Moldau flow together, says the same Balbin in book 3, chapter 7, in the Index of the cities of Bohemia, where he teaches that it lies in the circle of Boleslav, four miles distant from Prague the metropolis. He adds that it once belonged properly to the queens of Bohemia, and that after it passed into the dominion of the kings it nevertheless remained a dowry of the queens. Further, Borzivoy, the husband of St. Ludmila, was the first among the dukes of Bohemia to embrace the Christian rites, and together with his Wife propagated them vigorously — at the outset indeed not without danger of losing the duchy, which for that reason was conferred by his heathen subjects upon another, and then again upon yet another, but which after an exile of uncertain length he happily recovered and held.

[13] But while the writers of Bohemian affairs agree about these matters, there is variation about the year of Borzivoy's baptism. they vary greatly about the year in which he received the faith. Cosmas dean of Prague in the Chronicles of Bohemia attached that happy event to the year of Christ 894. With him agrees Hagecius likewise in the Bohemian Chronicles, and Pontanus a Braitenberg, book 1 of Bohemia Pia, who moreover assign as the day of the Baptism received by Borzivoy the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, that is the twenty-third of June. Pagi in the Critica likewise agrees as to the year, relying on the authority of Cosmas. Very near to these comes Æneas Sylvius in chapter 12 of the History of Bohemia, where the year 995 is assigned, by a palpable error of the typesetters, or a slip of memory, for the year 895; since it is expressly added in the same place that this happened while Arnulf was emperor. I know not whether it is to be ascribed to a like error that in Volaterranus, book 7 of the Geography, the same event is referred to the year 998. Pessina de Czechorod, book 2 of Mars Moravicus, chapter 5, likewise keeps the twenty-third day of June, but prefers the year 864: Balbin in book 1 of the Epitome, likewise retaining the day of the baptism, judged that it should be placed before the year 856.

[14] Our Bolland, in volume 2 of March, on the ninth day, in the preliminary Commentary on SS. Cyril and Methodius, From what Christann handed down concerning his baptism §4, num. 35, embraced as far more probable the opinion of Cosmas of Prague and of those who followed him, in so far as these hold that Borzivoy was baptized not by Cyril but by Methodius; nor yet did he wish to agree with them as to the year 894, nor to declare his own mind. Now so great a diversity of writers about this epoch sufficiently indicates that the matter is obscure, and that no monument has been produced from which a certain mark of the year itself might be had. But although the year cannot be determined, let us nevertheless inquire what may probably be established about it within some latitude: and that this may be better done, Borzivoy's coming to the faith must first be set out from Christann. He speaks thus in the Life, num. 5 and following: He (Borzivoy), when he was resplendent with a most excellent form and the flower of a noble youth, on a certain occasion, for the sake of his own business and that of the people committed to him, went to his duke or king Swatopluk of Moravia, by whom he is kindly received and is admitted to the banquet along with the rest. But a place of sitting among the worshippers of Christ is by no means granted him; rather he is bidden, after the manner of the pagans, to take his place on the pavement before the table. Grieving at this injury to him, bishop Methodius is reported to have said to him: Alas, said he, that you, being such and so great a man, do not blush to be driven back from the chief seats, though you yourself hold a duchy with its insignia; but rather desire to grovel on the ground with swineherds in the abominable worship of idols!

[15] in the Life, But he said: What danger do I suffer for a matter of this kind, or what good does the rite of Christianity confer on me? If, said bishop Methodius, you renounce idols and the demons dwelling in them, you will be made lord of your own lords, and all your enemies will be subjected to your dominion, and your offspring will be increased like a very great river into which the streams of divers brooks flow together. And if, said Borzivoy, the matter stands thus, what delay is there to being baptized? None, said the pontiff; only be prepared to believe with a whole heart in God the Father almighty and in his Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Paraclete Spirit, the enlightener of all the faithful — not only for the sake of worldly substance, but also for the laying hold of your salvation, and for the acquiring by your soul of the everlastingness of a glorious palm, and for the receiving of the fellowship of the Saints, with unspeakable joy. Kindled by these and suchlike honey-flowing exhortations, the young man's mind burned to receive the grace of baptism; and that no delay might be made, he with all his own who accompanied him fell to the ground at the pontiff's feet and most earnestly demanded it. What more? When morning came, catechizing the duke himself with his thirty men who had come with him, and the solemnities of the fasts having been performed after the custom, he renewed him in the most sacred font of baptism, etc.

[16] and from the acts of SS. Methodius and Cyril, From this account we have three things to observe for investigating the time of the baptism. First, that Borzivoy was baptized by St. Methudius or Methodius, who was then already a bishop. Second, that Swatopluk was then reigning in Moravia. Third and last, that the same Swatopluk was at that time acknowledged by Borzivoy as his duke or king. It will also have been well to have observed this besides: that no mention is made here of St. Cyril; but that the conversion of Borzivoy is ascribed to Methodius alone, as though Cyril had not been present at all. Further, concerning SS. Cyril and Methodius, receive the following from the Commentary of Bolland praised above, which bear upon our matter. These two apostles of the Slavs, summoned to Rome by Pope Nicholas I from Moravia, where they had joined the king and the nation to Christ, arrived there when Nicholas had died on the Ides of November in the year 867 and Hadrian II had succeeded him, and were then ordained bishops of the Moravians by this Pontiff. Bolland doubted, however, whether Cyril ever returned to the Moravians, for reasons which may be read in the same place, §4, num. 32. But that Methodius returned is beyond doubt. He was also engaged in Moravia in the year of Christ 879, when, having been falsely accused of his doctrine before Pope John VIII, he was again summoned to Rome, as is clear from the same Pontiff's epistle 194, given to Tuventar and published by Labbe in volume 9 of the Councils, column 126 and the following.

[17] In it John writes thus: But because we have heard that Methodius your archbishop, and from other instruments ordained by our predecessor, namely Pope Hadrian, and directed to you, teaches otherwise than he professed in words and letters before the Apostolic See that he believed, we greatly marvel; yet on this account we have directed him to take care to come to us without any pretext, that from his own mouth we may hear whether he so holds and believes as he promised, or not. This letter is noted as given on the XVIII Kalends of July, in the twelfth Indiction, that is in the year of Christ 879, but in the seventh year of John. Obeying the pontifical command, St. Methodius went to Rome, and when he had cleared himself of the charges, he was sent back with commendation to the Moravians by the same Pontiff. This is again clear from the aforesaid Pontiff's epistle 247, given in the month of June, in the thirteenth Indiction, that is in the year 880, to Sfentopulcher the count, or Swatopluk king of Moravia, which is extant in the cited collection, column 175 and following. But that he was still alive among the Moravians in the year 881 is taught by epistle 268 of the same Pope John, published in the same place at column 193 and the following, and written to Methodius the archbishop himself on the tenth of the Kalends of April, in the fourteenth Indiction, that is in the year assigned. But how long that same holy bishop survived is unknown, since we plainly have nothing from any other quarter about his death.

[18] Concerning Swatopluk, Christann in the Life to be published relates and from various Annals, that he obtained the kingdom after his uncle had been expelled and deprived of his eyes. This deed the Annals of Fulda in Duchesne, volume 2 of the Writers of the History of France, the Annals of Saint-Bertin and of Saint-Gall in the same place, volume 3, those of Weingarten in Mabillon's Analecta, and Hermannus Contractus in Henricus Canisius, volume 1 of the Ancient Lections, have with equal consent referred to the year 870, as may be seen in the places cited. This one thing I observe from the aforesaid Annals: that that king of Moravia, whom they called Rastizes and Restitius, and others Ratislaus, was not blinded by Swatopluk himself, who is there called Zuentibald, but was defeated and captured by him when, after fruitless snares laid for him, he attacked him with an armed band; and was handed over to Carloman, and by him sent into Bavaria, where, being condemned, Ludwig king of Germany ordered him to be deprived of his eyes and shut up in a monastery. From this year 870, therefore, the Moravian reign of Swatopluk must be begun.

[19] But concerning the death of that same Swatopluk, the Annals of Metz in volume 3 of the aforesaid Duchesne it must be fixed later than the year 856 and 864: have this at the year 894: About these times also Zuentibolch (that is Swatopluk), king of the Moravian Slavs, a man most prudent among his own and most crafty in wit, closed his last day. Cosmas dean of Prague in the Chronicles of Bohemia expressly attached to that determinate year either the death or the end of the reign of Swatopluk, saying in the same place: In the same year Zuatoplick king of Moravia (as is commonly said) hid himself in the midst of the army of his own men, and never appeared again. Then he adds that, led by repentance for having rebelled against Arnulf king of Germany, he escaped by flight from his own men at midnight, lived for some time among the hermits, and when near death took care that these things be made known to his sons through those same hermits. But whether this be true history or a popular fable, in this at any rate Cosmas agrees with the Annalist of Metz, that Swatopluk made an end of reigning in this year 894.

[20] it must be fixed: From what has been said thus far it follows, first, that the opinions of Pessina and Balbin cannot be admitted, of whom the first judged that Borzivoy's baptism should be placed in the year of Christ 864, the other even before the year 856; at which time, namely, Swatopluk had not yet gained the kingdom of Moravia, nor had St. Methodius been initiated into the episcopate; whereas Christann expressly affirms that the one was bishop and the other duke … or king … of Moravia when Borzivoy was baptized. I know indeed that there have not been wanting those who judged that Rastizes or Ratislaus was also called Swatopluk. But even granting this gratuitously, the difficulty remains concerning the episcopate of Methodius, which, as we saw above, he received not before the year 868, or at any rate not long before the end of the preceding year. Gather, secondly, that the said baptism was conferred upon Borzivoy between the year 870, in which Swatopluk obtained his uncle's kingdom, and the year 894, in which he himself either died or disappeared. But that this should rather be assigned to the later years of Swatopluk

I should suspect it was done, is urged by the lordship of the latter over the former, asserted above in num. 14 by Christann.

[21] and more probably about the year 890 For the Annalist of Metz cited above has the following bearing on our purpose: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCXC, king Arnulf (of Germany) granted to Zuentibolh, king of the Moravian Slavs, the duchy of the Bohemians, who until then had had over themselves a prince of their own kindred and nation, and had preserved by an inviolate treaty the fidelity promised to the kings of the Franks. Regino of Prüm has the same in his Chronicle. To this year, therefore, or to one of the following, may rightly be referred what Christann recorded above concerning the occasion of the baptism received by Borzivoy, saying: On a certain occasion (Borzivoy), for the sake of his own business and that of the people committed to him, went to his duke or king Swatopluk of Moravia, etc. Borzivoy, that is, went on governing Bohemia as duke; yet in such wise that he acknowledged Swatopluk as his duke or king and depended upon him; for I should not believe that the duchy was torn from Borzivoy, but rather that it was made tributary to Swatopluk, who treated Borzivoy also as a subject, bidding him dine on the pavement before the table. But whether, before the duchy of Bohemia was granted to Swatopluk, the Bohemians acknowledged any such lordship in the kings of Moravia, is unexplored by me; and therefore I think that Borzivoy's baptism should only with the greater probability be placed about the cited year 890, though I should not wish to maintain that it could not have happened some years earlier.

[22] he seems to have been baptized. Yet that I should not judge it to be deferred, with Cosmas of Prague, as late as the year 894, Christann again stands in the way, especially if, as is commonly held, Borzivoy was baptized on the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, that is on the twenty-third day of June. For Christann in the Life, num. 13 and following, writes that Borzivoy, now washed in the sacred font, returned into Bohemia with a priest by name Caïch, built a church, and brought the people — that is, at least a great part of the people — to Christ; and that, the hatred of the pagans having been stirred up against him on that account, he was compelled to give way and fled to Swatopluk and Methodius; where, being again kindly received, he was more fully taught the Christian mysteries and precepts. But meanwhile, while he was tarrying in Moravia, the rebellious Bohemians, by the same witness, sent envoys and brought back a certain prince by name Stroymir, a Bohemian indeed by race, but one who had long been an exile and fugitive among the Germans, and offered him their duchy. Then he adds that this man too displeased many because of his ignorance of the native tongue, and that at last, after various counsels and not without a battle, he was cast out, and Borzivoy was recalled into Bohemia and restored to his former place. But who would believe that all these things happened in the space of six months, that is in the last part of the year 894, especially since in that same year Swatopluk, fighting unhappily against Arnulf, made an end of reigning? Far more probably, therefore, we begin that happy epoch from one of the three preceding years, though we can determine none for certain.

[23] Against these things may be set the very authority of Christann, who in that same Life of St. Ludmila speaks of Swatopluk thus, The reply as though from the very outset of his reign, having seized upon tyranny, he despised St. Methodius and the religion which he preached, and came with his men to such a pitch of impiety that the holy bishop bound his kingdom under an anathema, no reconciliation being thereafter made with that king; which certainly does not cohere with what has been said above. But (besides that the same difficulty must be solved for Cosmas), since on this reckoning Christann would manifestly contradict himself, he must be said to have written less accurately about that quarrel, and not to have observed the reckoning of time here, or at any rate to have passed over Swatopluk's repentance and reconciliation with Methodius. Certainly that narrative of Christann's, if taken rigorously and to the letter, can be reconciled neither with Christann himself nor with the letters of Pope John VIII cited above, especially with epistle 247, given in the year 880 to Swatopluk, in which the sincerity of the devotion of this king and of his people and their observance toward the Apostolic See are much praised. Light will be brought to these matters by the author of the Life of SS. Cyril and Methodius, published by us in the second place from the Blaubeuren manuscript, who binds that impiety of Swatopluk, and the anathema pronounced by Methodius, and the rest that pertains to this, to the beginning of that reign; but presently also sets forth that king's repentance, and the embassy sent to St. Methodius, and the saint's return into Moravia and festive reception. It will be well to have reported the very words here.

[24] After relating Swatopluk's tyranny at the beginning of his reign, to the arguments that biographer continues thus in num. 13: After this Swadopluk, led by repentance for those things which he had unjustly inflicted upon the holy man (Methodius), sent messengers to the holy man, by whom he asked that he would return to his church, promising to amend his errors. Then the man of God hastens to revisit his flock, which he had left in body, not in affection. At whose coming the nobles ran to meet him with the citizens of the country, and turned to a wondrous joy of exultation, gave thanks to God: Thou hast visited, O Lord, thy land, thou hast gladdened it, restoring to us our shepherd of souls. Then indeed, concerning the baptism of Borzivoy, he presently subjoins in the following number: But it happened that king Swadopluk at a certain banquet placed the duke of Bohemia, by name Worsiwoi, beneath his table, in detestation of his faithlessness, asserting that it was unfitting that a heathen man should eat with worshippers of Christ, etc. So he.

[25] This very thing is expressly asserted in the fragment of the Life from the Böddeken manuscript, published by us in the fourth place among the Lives of SS. Cyril and Methodius, opposed to this opinion. num. 1, in these words: This prince Boriwoi, therefore, while he was resplendent with the flower of a most excellent and noble youth, on a certain occasion, for the sake of his own business and that of the people committed to him, went to his duke or king Zuentepulck — who, softened from the obstinacy he had begun with, had steadfastly laid hold of the way of truth — who was then at that time staying in Moravia together with Methodius the pontiff. Now it is manifest that on this reckoning every difficulty vanishes, and nothing stands in the way of Borzivoy's having been able, in the last years of Swatopluk, to be instructed and baptized by St. Methodius in the manner Christann asserts. Moreover an argument from the youthful age at which he was baptized cannot be brought against us, since the year in which he began to reign is altogether uncertain, and different years are commonly assigned by different men according to their various opinions about the time of the baptism. Then, even if he had at that time numbered forty years, he could not ineptly be said to have been resplendent in a youthful age, since that manner of speaking readily allows some such latitude. But I judged that these matters should be handled somewhat more broadly, because on the time of Borzivoy's baptism depends the time of the baptism of his wife Ludmila.

§ III. The instruction and baptism of Ludmila, who was much given to idols: Borzivoy's exile for religion's sake: his return into Bohemia, and the pious munificence of both.

[ ] Ludmila, long given The time at which Borzivoy duke of Bohemia received the faith having been assigned as far as may be, let us return to his holy wife Ludmila. That she was born of pagan parents, Slavibor and Lidoslava, we said at the beginning of the preceding paragraph; but that she was also greatly devoted to idols when she married is equally clear from the words there reported. Balbin in the Epitome of the History of Bohemia, book 1, chapter 4, records a certain monument of her idolatry, namely a vineyard afterward assigned to a better use; which I know not whether it rests upon any more certain testimony than that of popular tradition. There is shown even today, he says, a vineyard which they call St. Wenceslaus's, one mile from our Boleslav, part of the dower of holy Ludmila, once lady of Melnik, in which Wenceslaus, when already prince, did not blush to exercise his own strength, to dig, to tend, to prune, and in short to do whatever work was needed, that wine might suffice for the Sacred rites — the use of wine not being yet everywhere common, which Swatopluk king of Moravia first taught the Bohemians, having formerly sent a cask brimful of wine to Borzivoy; by which gift Ludmila, not yet a Christian, being stirred, ordered vines to be brought from Moravia for the honoring of her goddess Crosina, and a vineyard to be dug in her native Melnik. Thus far Balbin.

[27] to idols, married to duke Borzivoy, Nicolaus Salius in the Life in Surius likewise narrates the following concerning Ludmila's mind, inclined to the veneration of idols, and concerning the statue of Crosina: When he (Borzivoy her husband) had observed that she was driven by an inflamed zeal for honoring the shrines, for her solace he had wrought a golden idol of a woman's countenance, which exceeded the height of any man; and this he set up in the inner chambers of his house. This Ludmila, entangled in a vain error, loaded now with prayer, now with gifts, now with sacrifices, and consecrated perpetual fires to it. He says also that she poured a libation to Crosina from the wine sent by Swatopluk; and adds that it then chanced that, when the fields had for the space of three months withered from want of rain, they were presently refreshed by fertilizing showers; which the people indeed wished to be set down to Ludmila's piety toward the gods, but she herself to her own Crosina. So he — but whence he learned these things he does not teach; nor are they perhaps supported by any other authority than the traditions of the common people, often all too uncertain. This one thing is certain from Christann, that Ludmila, before she was enlightened by the light of the Christian faith, was not a little given over to heathen superstition.

[28] Who initiated Ludmila into the Christian precepts and into baptism, Christann does not declare; by the priest Caïch, sent by St. Methodius, but Balbin in the Historical Miscellanies, book 4, part 1, §7, and elsewhere, and others commonly, ascribe this likewise to St. Methodius, who had baptized her husband Borzivoy. And Balbin indeed says this: Ludmila, daughter of Slavibor count of Melnik, then still a pagan, and of Lidoslava, was born at Melnik, and being married to Borzivoy prince of the Bohemians, received St. Methodius as her master in the Christian faith, who washed her at Melnik with her father and brothers in the sacred waters. So he; but from Christann's account it appears to me far more probable that this very thing should be attributed to a certain priest, by name Caïch, whom St. Methodius had given as companion to Borzivoy when he was now baptized and returning into Bohemia, and whom some suspect to be the same as Paul, who served Ludmila in sacred things until her death. For Christann speaks thus in the Life, num. 7: When morning came, catechizing the duke himself (St. Methodius catechizing Borzivoy) with his thirty men who had come with him, and the solemnities of the fasts having been performed after the custom, he renewed him in the most sacred font of baptism, and instructing him fully concerning the faith of Christ, allowed him, enriched with many gifts, to return to his own, granting them a priest of venerable life, by name Caïch: who, having returned to their own land, station the aforesaid priest in a castle whose name was Hradec, founding a church in honor of blessed Clement, Pope and martyr, inflicting many losses on Satan and winning the people for Christ the Lord.

[29] According to these things, first, Ludmila does not seem to have been in her husband's company being taught concerning Christ, and by him when he, having gone to Swatopluk, was washed in the sacred font by St. Methodius; for otherwise Christann would have made mention of her, whose Life he was writing, no less than of the thirty companions of Borzivoy who were baptized. Second, we learn that St. Methodius did not set out into Bohemia with the duke and the other neophytes; but that in his own place

he gave the priest Caïch, who should both confirm and nourish them in the religion they had received, and bring others to the same; and Christann affirms that this was vigorously performed by him. This very thing is read still more clearly in the Life of SS. Cyril and Methodius from the Blaubeuren manuscript published by us, whose author says this in num. 14: When he (Borzivoy) had been baptized (by St. Methodius), taking priests with him, he returns to Bohemia, and took care that his wife Ludmila be baptized, together with a multitude of the Bohemian nation. There is therefore scarcely any doubt that Ludmila too is to be numbered among the disciples of Caïch and among those cleansed by him in the saving laver. If nevertheless she was really baptized by St. Methodius, it seems rather to have happened when Borzivoy, prudently avoiding after a little time the snares of his own men, whom hatred of the religion he had received and propagated had stirred up against him, fled into Moravia to Swatopluk and Methodius: yet the former opinion appears to me the truer.

[30] Balbin in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 3, thought that St. Ludmila's baptism should be deferred until Borzivoy's second return into Bohemia, from which he holds that he was in exile for three years, asserting that Methodius came to the Bohemians on that occasion, it seems more probable that she was baptized. and conferred baptism both on Ludmila herself and on her children Spitignev, Wratislaus and Boleslaus, and also on her parents and her brother. But whatever be the case concerning this coming of Methodius and the baptism of the rest, of whom nothing is read in Christann, so long a postponement of baptism in Ludmila's case does not please me, since she already had the priest Caïch, by whom she could have been instructed and baptized; nor is there anything to hinder her being numbered with the rest whom Borzivoy and Caïch are said above in num. 28 to have joined to Christ. That so long a stay of Borzivoy in Moravia is also little likely, we shall say presently. Wherefore what we brought forward in the preceding paragraph concerning the time of Borzivoy's conversion to the Christian faith and his cleansing in the sacred waters is to be applied to the time of Ludmila's baptism, yet with some latitude, since according to what has been said her husband was baptized at least some time before her.

[31] Borzivoy is exiled for religion's sake The rebellion of his heathen subjects disturbed a work so happily begun, and exercised the faith of the neophyte princes. For a nation given over to idols, and accustomed to the vices which follow upon their worship, could not bear with a peaceful mind the daily increase of so holy a religion. Hence, stirred up with hatred against the religious duke, it resolved not only to thrust him from his duchy, but even to remove him out of the way. On learning this (the words are Christann's) the prince withdrew himself from them, and again sought king Swatopluk and the pontiff Methudius in Moravia, by whom he is most affectionately, and as was fitting, received; and staying a little while with them, he attains more perfectly the doctrine of Christ. He then goes on to relate the machinations of the rebels and the efforts of Borzivoy's friends. Namely, the rebels, sending envoys of their own nation, brought back a prince named Stroymir, who had long been in exile among the Germans, and hailed him as duke in the place of the prince they had expelled. But when he had quickly displeased them through his ignorance of the native speech, those attached to Borzivoy's party diligently worked to have the tyrant cast out and the best of princes restored; which, the snares of their adversaries being detected and battle joined unexpectedly and happily, and the enemy routed, they obtained.

[32] among the Moravians, probably with Ludmila as companion; Whether St. Ludmila accompanied her husband as he fled into Moravia, the biographer did not relate; but although others think otherwise, it appears to me more likely that she did accompany him. For it would not have been safe enough for her to stay among the Bohemians, who wished her husband deprived of his duchy and his life for the sake of the religion which she herself now also professed, and had substituted a tyrant in his place. It is also uncertain for how long a time Borzivoy, and with him Ludmila, was in exile among the Moravians: for what Balbin says, that he was in exile for three years, neither the sequence of events requires, nor do the words of Christann suggest it; since he affirms that he stayed there only a little while. Hence not improbable to me is the opinion of Dubravius bishop of Olomouc, in book 4 of the History of Bohemia, where he thought that all these things were done in the space of ten months. However it be, one may marvel at Borzivoy's constancy in the faith, who, though he had first turned his mind to the Christian rites in the hope of an ampler kingdom promised by St. Methodius, and saw himself on that very account already stripped of his duchy and an exile, not only did not relapse to the idols, but even bound himself by a vow that he would build a church to the most holy Mother of God, Mary, if he were ever restored to his duchy. Borzivoy stood by his promises as soon as, his constancy being now proved, he was by God's nod recalled by his own men.

[33] Concerning this vow and Borzivoy's singular zeal, when he had now returned to his own, in propagating religion, [returning to his own he founds a temple to the Mother of God in fulfilment of his vow.] Christann writes thus in the Life, num. 9: But whereas the same prince, while dwelling in Moravia, had vowed a vow to almighty God, namely that, if the Lord should bring him back with honor to his own, he would build a basilica in honor of the blessed Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary — having returned, he strove without delay to fulfil his vow in the city of Prague itself. He stands forth as the first founder of holy places, and gatherer of clerics, and instituter of the small religion which then existed. So he; on which Balbin noted the following: That basilica, founded by Borzivoy, is the Tein basilica, standing in the middle of the market-place of the old city of Prague, in which the university of Prague was accustomed to perform its oaths and the other honors owed to God by academics. With Balbin agrees Pessina in the Phosphorus, Ray 3, where he says: A temple vowed by Borzivoy to the honor and name of the holy Virgin Mother of God, in the greater city of Prague near the old palace of duke Krzezomysl, afterward called the Glad Court, commonly in Teyn, and another of SS. Peter and Paul on the neighboring hill of Zderaz, and others, are raised. Concerning the place Georgius Crugerius likewise agrees in the Sacred Dusts of Bohemia, on the twenty-third day of March; where nevertheless he advises that there indeed survives the chapel in which Spitignev, Borzivoy's son, was buried, but that the Tein church, such as it stood in his own time, was built about the year 1400 by the merchants.

[34] Further, it is not to be doubted that some part of all these things, The Saint's pious munificence, perhaps no small part, is owed to St. Ludmila; and her biographer sufficiently intimates this when he subjoins to the words just reported: He had also a wife, by name Ludmila, … who … in the Christian religion, by imitating, nay by surpassing, the virtues of her husband, was made truly a handmaid of Christ. Certainly what the biographer narrates concerning her pious munificence after her husband's death altogether persuades us that in this part too she yielded nothing to him, so far as her resources permitted. For while he reviews the virtues of the holy Widow, he says among other things: Even though all these were silent, the houses of Christ bear witness, which she enriched with divers riches of gold and silver; not, as is the custom with some, from plunder or from the substance of the needy, but from the substance bestowed on her by God. Pontanus in book 4 of Bohemia Pia asserts that seven churches in all were built by her. Nicolaus Salius in the Life in Surius likewise reviews some erected at Ludmila's own expense, or at expense shared with her husband. That the church of St. Catherine at Tetin is her work alone, the writers of Bohemia commonly affirm, but on what foundation I know not.

[35] Nor have I more fully explored whence Balbin learned concerning which some uncertain things also are handed down. what he wrote in the Historical Miscellanies, book 4, part 1, §7, in this manner: When the images of the demons had been broken up (which consisted of various metals), and something like Corinthian bronze had run together from them, she sent thence various votive gifts to the temples (chiefly to those of Melnik and Boleslav); of which men most skilled in antiquity not vainly suspect the image of the holy Virgin of Boleslav to be one. The same opinion concerning the aforesaid image of the most holy Mother of God, most celebrated for miracles, he maintains at greater length in book 7, chapter 2 of the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, where he says that it is the opinion of men of the greatest weight, of whom he praises Berthold Pontanus, provost of the cathedral church of Prague, and Caspar Arsenius, dean and Official of the metropolitan church, and very many others, as he says, old men, who write both that they had heard from their forefathers, and that it had been in the church of Boleslav from all memory as a certain and attested thing, that the image of the Mother of God of which we speak was cast and hammered out from the golden idol Krosyna, which holy Ludmila, when she had given her name to Christ and had been washed by St. Methodius with the Christian rite at Melnik in her own citadel, had broken up, etc. And so indeed Balbin, who at the same time observes that that sacred image consists of an unknown metal, and therefore seems to have been melted down from idols of various metal. He had, however, also set out the opinion of others, who judge that the same was brought from the Greek church by SS. Cyril and Methodius. The matter is plainly uncertain: yet I shall readily believe that idols and other things melted from metals for profane superstitions of this kind were afterward turned by the holy Duchess to sacred uses.

§ IV. St. Ludmila's children: Borzivoy more probably never abdicated the duchy: the year of his death and his age uncertain: the deeds of both with St. Ivan: the ancient cult of Borzivoy, if ever there was one, has ceased.

[ ] Ludmila the mother of six children. Christann in the Life, num. 10, testifies that St. Ludmila bore six children to Borzivoy: Now the oft-mentioned prince, he says, received from her three sons and as many daughters. The names and deeds of the daughters I have not found: yet Balbin indicates that some mention of them stood in a certain Breviary of Prague, when in his Notes on the Life he says: Concerning whom the old Breviary of the church of Prague. Of the sons Christann names two, namely Spitignev the first-born, and Wratislaus, who reigned after their father each in his own order. The third Dubravius, in book 2 of the History of Bohemia, and Balbin in the place just praised, and likewise in the same work, book 1, chapter 3, call Boleslaus, whom the latter also affirms to have died in infancy a little after his baptism was received. Hence it came about, I suppose, that both Cosmas of Prague and Æneas Sylvius and others make mention only of Spitignev and Wratislaus. Further, Spitignev died childless; but Wratislaus, his successor in the duchy, took to wife Dragomira, a heathen woman, of whom he received the most pious prince St. Wenceslaus, heir of his father's duchy and martyr, and likewise the impious Boleslaus, surnamed the Cruel, who gained the duchy by fratricide.

[37] What is handed down concerning the abdication of the duchy and the withdrawal The same Balbin in the Miscellanies, book 4, §3, and in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 4, writes that Borzivoy, kindled with divine love, about the year of Christ 905 yielded the duchy to his son Spitignev, and together with his wife St. Ludmila withdrew to Tetin, whence, after a life passed most holily for many years, he flew away to heaven. Concerning the withdrawal, and the duchy transferred to his son Spitignev, there agree Dubravius

book 4, Pontanus in Bohemia Pia book 2, Salius in the Life, and others; but the first of these alleges an altogether different cause for the abdication of the duchy and the withdrawal, namely the fear of a new rebellion, which a part of his subjects, still given over to idols, openly threatened out of hatred of the Christian religion, boasting that they would no longer bear a prince who, hiding himself away among chapels and altars and priests, made no account of anything else. He adds that Spitignev, at the beginning of his accession to the principate, and while he diligently obeyed the monitors whom his father had joined to him, reigned piously and laudably; but that afterward, despising the counsels both of them and of his parents, he fell away from his former integrity, and not long after, being seized by disease, was taken from among the living without children. Then indeed, if we believe him, the duchy was again offered to Borzivoy, which he again refusing, obtained it from the Bohemians for his son Wratislaus on this condition, that he himself should form the young man by his precepts and rule him by his counsels, until with his age confirmed he should prove equal to bearing so great a burden.

[38] He adds besides that, Boleslaus, the son of Borzivoy and Ludmila, having meanwhile died, as we said above, of Barzivoy and Ludmila are narrated, a fear was thrown into the parents lest their posterity should fail; and that therefore they diligently canvassed the giving of a wife to Wratislaus, who alone of the male sex survived to them. And that although the parents most greatly desired a Christian maiden for their son, nevertheless Dragomira, a pagan, was joined to him, who by no means stood by her promises about receiving baptism, and afterward dared impious and nefarious things against her holy Mother-in-law, and her son Wenceslaus, and religion, as we shall see in its own place. But indeed I know not whence the aforesaid writers learned all these things (excepting, however, what is said of Dragomira), which were not only unknown to Christann and to Cosmas of Prague, but even contrary to them. Let us hear Christann. Now the oft-mentioned prince (Borzivoy), he says in num. 10 of the Life, received from her three sons and as many daughters; and as blessed Methudius had foretold him with prophetic mouth, he was increased with daily increases together with all his nation and his kingdom; and when the course of his time was accomplished, full of days and of goodness, he closed his last day, completing thirty-five (here without doubt an error lies hidden) years of his life.

[39] And in his stead his first-born son Spitigneu took up his kingdom, these things are more probably fabrications. shining exceedingly with all the virtues of goodness and with the fame of sanctity. For being made an imitator of his father, he stood forth as a founder of churches of God, a gatherer of priests and clerics; perfect in the faith of Christ, when the forty years of his life were accomplished he departed from this light, seeking the stars. After whose passing his brother Wratislaus is known to have taken up the helm of the kingdom, taking to wife a woman by name Dragomir, etc. Who does not see that, according to these things, all flowed as he wished for Borzivoy from his return from the Moravian exile until his death; and that Spitignev succeeded only when his father was dead, and Wratislaus finally succeeded him, when he too had likewise died after a pious and just rule? Therefore that abdication of the duchy by Borzivoy on account of an impending rebellion, and his withdrawal, and the rest asserted by the aforesaid writers, were unknown to Christann, who asserts the contrary. Nor less did these same things escape Cosmas of Prague, when he says in the Chronicle: But Borivoy begot two sons, Zpitignev and Wratizlav, of her who was the daughter of Zlaubor, count of the castle of Psov, by name Ludmila. When he had happily entered upon the way of all flesh, Zpitigneu succeeded to his father's principate; after whose death Wratislav obtained the duchy, who received a wife by name Dragomir.

[40] We believe, therefore, that Borzivoy with his holy wife Ludmila held the duchy of Bohemia until his death. But upon what year this fell is like a riddle; for nothing is read about the time of his death in the writers nearest to his age; The time of Borzivoy's death uncertain, while the more recent vary without solid argument, agreeing however in this, that they would have him reach into the tenth century, some years after its beginning. Among these too is our Papebroch on the twenty-fourth day of June, in the preliminary Commentary on St. Ivan, hermit of Bohemia, whose Acts, by Balbin as author, he there recites. In these, moreover, many things occur bearing upon Borzivoy and Ludmila, who are said to have lived with him, which, the rest being cut away, I shall presently recite. Meanwhile I observe that the year of Borzivoy's death cannot be extracted from those Acts, not even approximately. For they are of recent date; for, as Papebroch there says in num. 3, no ancient monuments concerning the saint (Ivan) are extant, apart from a certain very brief and perhaps not very ancient Legend, from which and from constant tradition must have been taken whatever the authors of this or of the preceding century wrote about him.

[41] as also his final age. Christann in the Life, num. 10, assigns to Borzivoy at his death only thirty-five years; to whom Hagecius comes near, assigning him thirty-six years. On the contrary Balbin and others, who place the beginning of Borzivoy's reign and his baptism much earlier, judge that a corruption lurks here; and Balbin indeed thinks 75 years should be given him, Weleslavin, by the same witness, either as many or 77. But however it be, some error about the numerals could easily have crept into the copy of Christann seen by Balbin, since in the same place Borzivoy is said to have died full of days: for so it is read there: And when the course of his time was accomplished, full of days and of goodness, he closed his last day, completing thirty-five years of his life. This manner of speaking, full of days, assuredly intimates an age greater than thirty-five years. Add that Spitignev, who succeeded his father Borzivoy and reigned a short time, is in the same place said to have lived forty years. It is not necessary, however, to ascribe to him as many years as Balbin and Weleslavin and whoever agrees with them have wished.

[42] St. Ivan the hermit, found by Borzivoy Receive now what is read of Borzivoy and his holy wife Ludmila in the Acts of St. Ivan praised above. In the year DCCCCIX from the birth of Christ, Borzivoy, who first of the dukes of Bohemia had given his name to Christ, had gone out from his neighboring citadel of Tetin to seek hunting. He had advanced rather far into the woods; suddenly a hind of the first magnitude is started, which is wounded by the javelin of Borzivoy himself (so fortunate are the hands of princes). The baying and panting of the dogs follow her as she flees, and the swifter greyhounds overtake her, wounded and washing her wounds, at a brook which gushes living from a certain rock. She dared even in the waters to defend her life from the dogs, while the prince, borne on horseback, leapt down on foot into the stream in the ardor of the chase, and dispatched her with his sword; from which wound a great abundance of milk flowed out, as though she had then for the first time brought forth fawns. While the prince, and the courtiers who had gradually come up, marvel at the beast: behold, from a cave there comes forth an old man with a woodland and grim countenance, which the hairs descending over his face had, so to speak, made horrific; in a long gown, barefoot, leaning on a staff. He, beginning to rebuke the prince in speech suited to his countenance, asks why he had come into those places to disturb his quiet, and had killed the hind, the only support of his hunger.

[43] The courtiers eagerly, each for himself, warn the prince to beware of the monster, that it was a demon of the woods; others, more timid, were even looking to flight. But Borzivoy, full of spirit, while hunting, cries out: Whatever thou art, in the name of God who founded all things, and of his Son Christ Jesus, I bid thee stand there now and answer. The old man, straightway adoring the name of God, said: I am a servant of Christ, a client of the undefiled Virgin Mary and of John the Baptist; (he gave his name also) I am called Iwan. Borzivoy breathed again, and detained the old man with the curiosity familiar to princes and with the courtesy of his questions. Then, after Balbin has brought in Ivan setting forth the manner of his life, he goes on again: Borzivoy marvelled at each particular; and when he saw nothing of provisions, he set about asking concerning food. The mercy of God, replied Iwan, has nourished its servant with the milk of this hind which has been slain. Here the prince was preparing to cast himself upon the ground and to beg pardon for his fault; Iwan forbade him, and bade him be of good cheer; the hind had been killed not by the hunter's onset but by the will of God, since she would not be necessary to him who was now expecting death very shortly. Then Borzivoy said: Grant this, Iwan, to me, grant it to my wife Ludmila, grant it to my household; mount this horse of mine, and set out to us.

[44] The holy man, pleading many excuses, said: If it be God's will, being summoned, he visits Ludmila; who, warned of his I shall see you shortly… Then he began to bid the prince farewell and to pray blessings on him with such limpid affections that his last words drew tears from Borzivoy. But Ludmila, when she had received from her husband the whole course of the affair in order, passed that night sleepless for joy; and not waiting for day, at the first twilight she sends off her dearest priest Paul with six servants in all; they were to go quickly, and bring the holy man to her at Tetin… When Paul came, Iwan, delaying nothing, is set upon a little ass. The princes went out far along the road to meet him as he came, and receiving him with much honor, as was fitting, take him into the citadel. Not to be long: a banquet is set out; Iwan touches nothing, since he was ever and again looking back to his own woods and his own groves and thinking of them; save that with most holy discourses he wonderfully inflamed both princes to the love of heaven. Sent back that same day, he returns alone, with no companion, as he desired. Then he adds that his head was wounded on the way by a stone thrown by a certain rustic man, and that thus he returned with difficulty to his cave. After these things he has again the following concerning St. Ludmila.

[45] Few days had passed when a heavenly spirit appears in sleep to the duchess Ludmila, approaching death, sends the priest to him: and warns her to send the priest Paul, who (as the holy man had prayed on departing) should offer the sacrifice of the Mass to God in his presence; the old man would shortly depart from life. Ludmila obeyed the heavenly warnings, and Paul is at once sent, who by the most divine Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist prepared Iwan for death, and at the same time performed the Divine rites in his presence. Now among the other things which St. Ivan told the priest Paul on that occasion, this was one, that it had been foretold to him by St. John that a certain Borzivoy, prince of Bohemia, would set up a temple in that place (in which he was leading his solitary life) to the honor of the most holy Cross and of the Virgin Mary. Then, after narrating St. Ivan's death, Balbin proceeds thus in §2: Iwan, whose virtue while he lived the princes honored, they followed after his death, and his memory, with even greater cult; and the man's fame reached so illustrious a place (the Divinity approving his heavenly glory by miracles) that, being commonly held for a Saint, he is even today numbered among the native and lesser patrons of Bohemia.

[46] and when he was dead erects a chapel to him. A first chapel, exceedingly narrow — as narrow, that is, as the very hard rock and the other cave which he had inhabited allowed — Borzivoy and Ludmila set up over the holy man's tomb. This long bore the title of the most blessed Mother of God and of St. John the Baptist, or even, as other authors have it, together with these that of the holy Cross; later generations St. Ivan

named it. But that the solitude might not be mute to the divine praises, priests were called in and the guardianship of the place committed to them: with the addition of the necessary supports for maintaining life, etc. Thus far Balbin, whose narrative, together with the observations added by Papebroch, may be read more fully in the place cited. I thought these things should be inserted into the present Commentary, because they commend the religion and piety of Borzivoy and of his holy wife Ludmila. Further, since in what follows no more mention is to be made of Borzivoy, before I treat of St. Ludmila's widowhood I have judged that I should set out what Balbin records concerning the ancient cult of that same Borzivoy in the Historical Miscellanies, book 4, §4.

[47] The cult of Borzivoy, asserted by Balbin, The virtues of so great a prince, he says, and a life passed most holily according to Christian institutions, merited that antiquity should honor him with the title of Blessed: he was buried in the church of St. George in the citadel of St. Wenceslaus at Prague; and — what is memorable and does more firmly to establish belief in his sanctity — our religious Forefathers buried the body of Borzivoy in the shrine itself, within the altar which is in the middle of the church; which was the rite of the ancients for adding someone to the number of the blessed and of the Saints (today they call it canonization), as I showed long since from Cardinal Baronius: namely in book 2 of the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, chapter 13. Dubravius in the History of Bohemia signifies that Borzivoy was buried in his own Tein basilica; but he has no one to subscribe to him: for the rest of the writers of Bohemian affairs affirm that Borzivoy died and was buried at Tetin itself, in the new church built by him at Tetin below the citadel in honor of the holy archangel Michael; whence in the course of time his sacred bones were raised, and — what was most fitting — were carried into that same church where St. Ludmila his wife had found her sepulchre. So Paprocius, Crugerius, Pessina and the rest.

[48] today there seems to be none. Thus Balbin; who nevertheless assigned no further indication of cult, nor any day (which I too find nowhere else). In this century certainly he seems to have no cult in that famous convent of St. George at Prague, and there is no record of the place where the body is kept there, nor any but an uncertain memory of its having once been translated thither. For I have at hand a History of that same monastery, published at the Old Town of Prague in the year 1715, composed by Johann Florian Hammerschmidt, and dedicated to the most exalted princess and abbess of that place, Francisca Helena Pyeroniana de Galliano, in which, in §29, concerning Borzivoy, with no title of Blessed added, I find only this: He is entombed in the New temple of St. Michael the archangel, built by him between the citadel and the town of Tetin. Whose bones, raised thence in the course of time, they report to have been laid up in the church of St. George in the castle of Prague, within the altar which is in the middle, after the fashion of sacred relics. So Fr. Crugerius in his manuscript list of the Saints and Blessed of Bohemia. These things assuredly make manifest that Borzivoy has no cult among those sacred virgins, and that there is nothing but an uncertain memory of his body having once been translated to them.

§ V. The Saint's martyrdom: her tomb at Tetin soon famous for miracles: the cemetery impatient of any other corpse: the body translated to Prague.

[ ] Ludmila, having laid down the education of her grandsons, Of the deeds of St. Ludmila, when she had been widowed of her excellent husband and afterward bereft of both her sons, who had succeeded one another in their father's duchy — first Spitignev and after him Wratislaus also — we have no more than what the reader will find in the Life. It remains, however, that we say something of the cause of her martyrdom, and of its manner and time. And that the cause of her murder was indeed the Christian religion, which she professed and propagated, and which her impious daughter-in-law Dragomira, a heathen woman and a second Jezebel, pursued with monstrous hatred, is sufficiently manifest from the biographer, and is called in doubt by no one. Wratislaus, the pious son of Borzivoy and holy Ludmila, and after his brother Spitignev, who had died childless, duke of Bohemia, left at his death two male children, namely holy Wenceslaus and impious Boleslaus, whom he had received of Dragomira. Of these the former succeeded his father in the duchy by right of birth; but since he had not yet passed the years of boyhood or adolescence, by the common counsel of the nobles he was committed, together with his younger brother Boleslaus, to his holy Grandmother to be brought up. But how long the holy prince was able to enjoy so pious a training the biographer does not explain; that he profited greatly, however, his sanctity crowned with martyrdom declared.

[50] At these things the imperious woman Dragomira blazed up, who, no less given over to her idols than greedy of rule, withdraws to Tetin, chafed that the hope was cut off from her, together with her sons, both of ruling at her own will and of restoring in Bohemia the nefarious worship of idols. Nor did she keep within her breast the hatred and envy thence conceived; but, being as she was ready for every crime, having entered into counsel with her followers, she resolved to remove her holy Mother-in-law out of the way, and began to lay snares for her life. Yet she did not carry on her machinations so secretly but that they came to the ears of Ludmila, who, knowing how to overcome evil with good and desiring nothing less than the duchy, judged that she must give way, and ordered these things to be quietly announced to her daughter-in-law: No portion of thy kingdom has invaded my mind with an ill-flattering desire, nor do I wish to have any dominion over thee. Take back thy sons, and, as it pleases thy mind, reign with them: but grant me the liberty of serving almighty Christ in whatever place I please. When the impious daughter-in-law had refused so much as to hear these entreaties of her most excellent Mother-in-law, Ludmila, of her own accord leaving Prague, withdrew with her priest Paul to Tetin, of which we gave an account above, and prepared herself by daily exercises of virtue and by prayers for the martyrdom which she by no means doubted was at hand; which also she happily consummated in that same place, after how long a time is uncertain, when Dragomira had sent the ministers of her impiety.

[51] As to what concerns the manner of the murder, Christann in the Life, num. 17 and following, testifies that Cumia or Tumia and Gomo came with a strong band in the evening, or when night had already begun, where she is strangled by Dragomira's ministers. to the Saint's house, and, leaving guards before the doors, burst through the broken folding-doors into the house and bedchamber of the Princess, and, having thrown her from her bed — she asking that, if her death were altogether determined upon, her head should rather be cut off, that she might shed her blood for Christ — strangled her by putting a rope about her throat. So he at greater length in the place cited. On the contrary Hagecius at the year 920, Balbin in book 4 of the Miscellanies, §7, and others narrate the matter otherwise, relying on I know not what document. For they say that the two aforesaid parricides, whom they call Tuma and Kuma, sent by Dragomira, hiding the crime they had conceived under a feigned friendship, came to Tetin; and that when they had been kindly received by St. Ludmila — who was not ignorant of what was afoot — with hospitality and a banquet, they entered the Saint's chamber at dead of night and strangled her, as she was intent on prayer, with her own veil. They add that the head of the holy Martyr, while she was being dragged about by the parricides with the veil thrown over her throat, was dashed with such violence against a stone in the way, on which she was accustomed to adore God on bended knees, that it still appeared in their own time sprinkled with the sacred blood.

[52] Some circumstances of the martyrdom, Concerning the parricides received at a banquet, and the veil employed for the strangling, the Proper Office of Prague also agrees. But as to the stone, whoever shall be unwilling to believe it, says Hagecius, may be permitted to behold it with his own eyes at Tetin. Similarly Balbin in Auctarium 1 of the History of the Holy Mountain, chapter 8, writes: There is shown today in the church of St. Catherine at Tetin a certain very hard stone, which Ludmila had ordered to be placed for her before her bed, upon which, kneeling, she was accustomed to pray and to meditate on eternal things. Against that stone the parricides whom I have named, Tuman and Cuman, dashed the head of the most holy Matron repeatedly, and sprinkled it with blood: but the stone by God's providence drew in the innocent blood, and after so many centuries retains it most vividly, nor can it be washed away or effaced by any art — a stone which long since even the kisses of pilgrims alone might have worn away. That the same stone was afterward translated to the church of the Benedictine nuns of St. George in the citadel of Prague we learn from the aforesaid Proper of Prague, where on the tenth day of November, on which the translation of the sacred body is recalled, the ninth Lesson has thus: So great a treasure (the body of St. Ludmila) was laid up in the church of the nuns of St. George in the citadel of Prague, where also the stone empurpled with the blood of that same holy Martyr, and other sacred monuments, are kept with veneration.

[53] asserted by others, are examined. I myself saw it in this year 1753 in the aforesaid church, on the altar of that same Saint, enclosed behind glass, and I observed red stains upon it, which, however, whether they were made from blood poured upon it or were natural to the stone, I could not sufficiently discern. For the rest, if that tradition of the Praguers be true, I marvel that Christann makes no mention of these circumstances of the martyrdom, when yet the matter itself demanded it. For since Ludmila is expressly said by him, eager to bear witness to Christ by shedding her blood after the example of the martyrs, to have begged the parricides rather to cut off her head, what reason is there why he should not assert that she was made partaker of her wish at least by that shedding of blood, but has recourse to something else, subjoining presently: Which (palm of martyrdom) we do not doubt that she deserved, holy Scripture bearing witness: "The just man, by whatsoever death he shall be overtaken, shall be in refreshment." Certainly no other more probable reason for this silence occurs than that the biographer was ignorant of those circumstances, which nevertheless, if they be true, could hardly have escaped him.

[54] The time of the martyrdom Christann designated in the Life, num. 19, in this manner: The time of the martyrdom uncertain, Now the happy handmaid of Christ, devoted to God, Ludmila, received martyrdom on the seventh day of the Sabbath and on the XVII Kalends of October, at the first watch of the night. In exactly the same manner it is read in the copy of the abbey of Holy Cross near Vienna in Austria. So he as to the month, day, and hour of the night, silently passing over the year, and leaving the time of the martyrdom uncertain and open to conjecture. Balbin in the Miscellanies, book 4, §7, assigns the year of Christ 927, and a Saturday indeed, but the XVI Kalends of October, at the same time advising that the year 920 is more probably established by Weleslavin and others, among whom is Hugecius also. But the reason why he assigned the day XVI Kalends and not XVII Kalends of October, as the biographer has, he gave none; nor do I judge there to be any other than that the Saint's martyrdom is celebrated in the archdiocese of Prague and commonly in the Martyrologies on the sixteenth day, not the fifteenth of September, on which day Nicolaus Salius in the Life in Surius also writes that she suffered. Further, if Balbin published Christann's little Work correctly, and in this place XVII Kal. Octobr. is really to be read, then the opinion reported in the first place will be preferable, according to which, namely, the murder of Ludmila fell in the year 927. For in this year a Saturday coincided with the day XVII Kalends of October, that is with the fifteenth day of September, which day in the year 920 was a Friday, not a Saturday.

[55] But on the contrary the sixteenth day of September in the year 920 was a Saturday, but it must more probably be set between the years 920 and 929. and accordingly, if it is to be read so, the opinion of Hagecius and Weleslavin will be preferable, who suppose that this year was her last. But in which of the two places Balbin more correctly noted the day of her death from his own codex, I have not ascertained, since it was not permitted me to inspect that manuscript copy; nor, had it been permitted, could I answer for no error having been admitted by the copyist, especially since below also, where the translation of the body is treated, some error of this kind seems to have crept in. The manuscript of Holy Cross, however, likewise exhibits the fifteenth day, as we said. Add that, even if the day of her death were established, not even so could the year of her murder be determined for certain, since between the years 920 and 927 the fifteenth day of September in the year 921, and the sixteenth day of the same month in the year 926, fell upon a Saturday. This one thing, therefore, we can believe the Bohemian writers in this particular, that their holy duchess Ludmila could have survived to the above-mentioned time, although we can assign no year determinately; and therefore we have noted her death in the margin within a broader limit; which nevertheless we think happened between the years 920 and 929.

[56] After the murder of the most holy Widow had been accomplished, the impious parricides gladdened Dragomira with so dire a message, The Saint's sepulchre is made illustrious by miracles at Tetin, who, having seized her Mother-in-law's furniture and taken possession of the duchy, began to reign more unrestrainedly; nor did she omit anything to tear the pious precepts and training of Ludmila utterly from the minds of her sons. And although she labored in vain upon St. Wenceslaus, yet she had Boleslaus, the other of her sons, most like herself; since he afterward claimed Bohemia for himself by the murder of his brother and duke Wenceslaus. But to return to Ludmila: her clergy and household, whom so monstrous a crime against their Lady and the fear of death had driven into hiding, taking heart again after the departure of the impious men and coming together, buried the sacred body of the Martyr with great mourning in the cemetery of the church of St. Catherine, which she herself is said to have built. Nor yet did it lie long without glory: for as a wondrous fragrance of odor burst forth from the tomb, and a heavenly light shone red from above in the night hours, the Martyr's glory was publicly recognized and celebrated by the people.

[57] Dragomira resisting in vain. But as these divine prodigies much refreshed the minds of the devout, so they added new goads of hatred and envy to the impious daughter-in-law. But whether she feared a tumult of the people, or whether she was even ashamed to rage against the body of a dead woman, she did not dare to profane the tomb; but, using a new device, she had a house built over it in the manner of a church, or rather of a chapel, as I suppose, to St. Michael the archangel, and relics of Saints laid up in it, so that if any miracles should thereafter be worked there, the Christians might set them down not to Ludmila, but either to St. Michael or to the Saints whose remains were kept there. But there is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against the Lord: thenceforth Ludmila's tomb began to be celebrated by yet more prodigies, until she was translated thence to Prague with solemn pomp by her holy grandson Wenceslaus, as we shall relate from Christann, from whom also we have drawn the other things reported just now.

[58] The cemetery in which her body lay, Before we treat of the said translation, we must first set out what some Bohemian writers have handed down concerning that same cemetery in which the sacred body of Ludmila lay. Among these Hagecius writes thus of it at the year 922: But at Tetin, where her body was buried in the cemetery, no one to this present day has been able to be buried. For while anyone is entombed there, whether he be young, an old man, or a boy, he is found in the morning outside the sepulchre. And this is most truly so: for I, W. Hagek, know that same church of Tetin well, since I lived in it as priest for five years and a half; and there I obtained sure testimonies from persons worthy of belief, and moreover this has happened several times recently as well. With Hagecius agrees Balbin in the place praised above, where he adds: And all antiquity back to the beginning thought this with Hagecius. The same is confirmed from the very ancient Breviary of the church of Prague, Lesson VI in the Translation of St. Ludmila: "The cemetery of blessed Ludmila, now converted into a church, thenceforth admits the burial of no man without the corpse being found the next day cast out of the earth."

[59] is reported to suffer no corpse. These same things are read word for word in the more recent Breviary of the year 1679, and likewise in the other of the year 1732 of the same archdiocese, both of which I have at hand. I add besides one testimony of Johann Florian Hammerschmidt, who in the History of the monasteries of St. George in the Castle of Prague and of the Holy Spirit in the old city of Prague, which he printed at Prague in the year 1715, when in §29 he had reported concerning that cemetery the same things as above, subjoined: Nay, I have heard from men most worthy of belief that a few years ago the infant of a certain lord, buried in the cemetery of St. Catherine in which the body of St. Ludmila the martyr was once buried, was on the next day found with its body outside the sepulchre, and was thereafter buried at the church of St. Michael. These things, of which the biographer makes no mention, having been noted, I proceed to the translation; and since he himself describes it at length in the Life, it will suffice to have treated here only those points which need elucidation.

[60] St. Wenceslaus, having begun to reign, Under the rule of his impious mother Dragomira the holy youth Wenceslaus had long groaned, chiefly on this head, that she not only showed herself iniquitous toward Christians, but even kept away from him with all her might the clerics and religious men in whose conversation he greatly delighted, threatening them with the gravest menaces if they should attempt to approach him; and by secret machinations she plotted against their lives, so that the pious prince, above all things eager for the divine word, could now be instructed by any of them only in secret and at night. Loathing this tyranny, therefore, and impatient to bear it further, he summoned his mother to him, and as many of the nobles as she had for associates of her impiety, and rebuked them in a sharp discourse; and, declaring that he would not thereafter obey his mother's commands, he himself began to reign, with the favor and help of the foremost magnates of the duchy, who had been accustomed to cleave to his side. And not long after he relegated his mother, the contriver of every evil, for a time, until he himself should have settled the duchy of Bohemia which she had thrown into confusion, and should have repaired the damages of religion.

[61] Among his other cares also there came into his mind his most holy grandmother Ludmila, he orders the sacred body to be translated to Prague. whom he had both had as his mistress in the Christian mysteries, and whom he well knew to have been impiously and cruelly strangled by Dragomira for the holiness of her life, and now to have grown famous by heavenly prodigies in her humble tomb at Tetin. He therefore sends to Tetin the priest Paul, who had once served Ludmila in sacred things, and with him other priests and religious men, who should bring to him, with a worthy translation, either the bones of his dearest Grandmother or the dust of her consumed flesh. They went therefore to Tetin, and there, the earth being dug out, the coffin being already partly consumed by rot, the body of the holy Martyr, conspicuous for a wondrous entireness and clothed in undamaged garments, was found by Paul and carried to Prague. Concerning the time at which these things happened the biographer speaks very obscurely, saying thus: Now the body of the happy handmaid of God, Ludmila, was found on the fourteenth of the Kalends of November, at the twelfth hour, on the fourth feria. But they brought her into Prague on the third day, on the sixth feria, at the twelfth hour of the same month. He had, however, said before that on the same night on which she had been found she was carried to the metropolis, namely to the city of Prague.

[62] Hence it is clear that some corruption lurks in these chronological notes, Concerning the year of the translation, which is not easy to divine. For if for the third day, on which the sacred pledge is said to have been brought into Prague, we interpret the thirteenth of the Kalends of November, the days marked by the Kalends of the finding of the body at Tetin and of its reception at Prague will indeed agree; but then either in the former place the fifth feria must be read for the fourth feria, or in the latter the fifth feria must be substituted for the sixth feria. But since from what has been said above the year of the Saint's death is not established, and we have nothing more certain concerning the space of time during which her body lay at Tetin, one would labor in vain to extract the year of the translation from the biographer's words as brought forward. Nevertheless, from the time during which Tuto, who, summoned to Prague by St. Wenceslaus, entombed the sacred body, is read to have presided over the see of Ratisbon, certain limits can be established within which the said translation must have taken place. The Short Chronicle of the bishops of Ratisbon, published by Johann Georg Eccard in volume 2 of the Historical Corpus of the Middle Ages, from column [ ], relates that Tuto succeeded Asperto in the year DCCCLXXXV, sat for XXXV years, and that Isengrin succeeded him in the year 921. In another Chronicle printed in the same place from column [ ], the same Tuto is said to have entered upon the episcopate in the year 890, and to have held it 36, or otherwise 35, years; which reckoning brings him down to the year of Christ 925 or 926.

[63] With this nearly agrees another series of the Bishops of Ratisbon, a manuscript preserved in our Museum, and nothing certain, where the beginning of Tuto's episcopate is attached to the year 891, and after a prelacy of 36 years a successor is assigned him in the year 926. But Arnolf of Vochburg in his Chronicle likewise says of the same man: From the seventh year of the reign (of king Conrad) until the twelfth of the reign of Henry the Saxon he remained in life; and accordingly extends his episcopate as far as the year 931; unless perchance Tuto abdicated it before his death, which is undiscovered by me from any other quarter. This one thing, therefore, we have from these: that the translation of St. Ludmila cannot be deferred beyond the years cited. There are nevertheless those who assign some determinate year, and a length of time during which the body lay at Tetin. Hagecius in the Chronicle of Bohemia, according to whom the murder of the holy Duchess had happened in the year 920, bound the translation to the month of November of the year 922, and so judged that her body lay at Tetin about two years and two months. Dubravius in book 5 of the History of Bohemia assigns more than two years, Pontanus a Braitenberg in book 2 of Bohemia Pia a full three years, to the burial at Tetin.

[64] can be established, unless within broad limits. Two years likewise, and the year 922, Balbin establishes in Auctarium 1 of the History of the Holy Mountain, chapter 8, where he has this: There is at Tetin a very ancient temple of St. Catherine the virgin, founded by St. Ludmila in the year DCCCCX, in whose precinct (we call it a cemetery) the murdered body of Ludmila lay for two years, in nothing at all changed from her death; by a great miracle it suffered no injury from heaven or earth, and appeared always fresh and full of life; which in the year DCCCCXXII, on the tenth of November, Wenceslaus her most holy grandson translated to Prague to St. George's, where it is preserved to this day. On the contrary Thomas Pessina in the Phosphorus, Ray 3, because St. Ludmila

had judged her to have been crowned with martyrdom in the year 927, consequently believed her to have been translated in the year 929. With him agree the proper Offices of the archdiocese of Prague and of the diocese of Olomouc, in which, on the tenth day of November, on which the Translation is recalled, the time of it is assigned as the tenth of November of the year of salvation DCCCCXXIX. The matter, as is plain, is doubtful, and variously determined according to the judgment of various men. But I have nothing certain about it, save that it happened in the later years of bishop Tuto, concerning which consult above, num. 62 and 63.

[65] the body, after burial had been vainly attempted, It was not on the same day and month on which the body was brought to Prague that it was entombed in the church of St. George, as the biographer testifies. For at first indeed, after it had been publicly set forth to be beheld by the eyes of all, when it was now on the point of being consigned to the earth, water suddenly bursting forth from the sepulchre which they had prepared deterred duke Wenceslaus and the bystanders from what they had begun. Hence, the pit having been filled in again, the sacred pledge was for the time laid in its coffin above it, until God should deign to reveal otherwise. Then, after a moderate space of time had passed, St. Wenceslaus consulted through envoys Tuto bishop of Ratisbon, to whom the Bohemians were then subject in sacred things; who answered that it must nevertheless be entombed. Wenceslaus acquiesced in the bishop's decisions; but since that church, founded by his father Wratislaus, had not yet been consecrated by the bishop, he asked him to come to Prague, both to dedicate it and to bury the sacred body himself.

[66] is entombed by bishop Tuto, To these requests of the pious prince Tuto in turn assented, and coming, as Christann says, first of all consecrated the temple to the Lord. Thereafter, six circuits of days having passed, he entombed the aforesaid little body in the same place where the water had flooded up. From this observation the statements of Christann, in so far as he writes that the translation was made about the middle of October, can be reconciled with the historians of Bohemia praised above and the compilers of the Offices, according to whom it was accomplished on the tenth day of November. These men, namely, seem to have confused the translation of the body from Tetin to Prague with its solemn burial in the church of St. George, and consequently the different times of the two; which if we distinguish with Christann, we shall easily understand that that sacred pledge of the Duchess and martyr could have been translated from Tetin to Prague about the middle of October, and there entombed again in the said church on the tenth day of November: for Ratisbon is not so far distant from Prague but that time enough and more flowed between the two for accomplishing what Christann records.

[67] From the Trebon copy, which we reprint from Balbin, or by another sent by him. the Böddeken transcript here differs, in which the said consecration of the church of St. George and the burial of holy Ludmila are said to have been done by Tuto's order indeed, but not by himself, but by [ ] his fellow-bishop, who is not named. It will be well to have reported the very words here. After these things a moderate space of time having passed, the aforesaid prince blessed Wenceslaus, having sent envoys to Ratisbon (because the Bohemians at that time were subject to the bishopric of that parish), consulted the pontiff of that city, by name Tuto, as to what he ought to do concerning the aforesaid body of the Martyr of Christ. But he, according to the knowledge given him by God, as a man of great discretion and industry, weighing the matter itself with deep consideration, after he heard that that basilica still lacked the pontifical blessing (for he took care to inquire this very thing most diligently of those who had been sent), deputed his fellow-bishop with some choirs of clerics, that he might dedicate that church and afterward entomb the body of the blessed Martyr in the very place where the water had begun to flood. And when this was completed in the order which the bishop had said, no trace at all of water appeared in the place where the most sacred bones of the Martyr were to be entombed. The consecration of the basilica, therefore, having been duly performed, and the blessed Martyr entombed, that bishop, being remunerated by the prince as was worthy, sought his own country. So there; to which Christann in Balbin's edition openly runs counter, who nevertheless equally favors it so far, in that he twice names that prelate a fellow-bishop. But it matters little which of the two performed these things, since both copies agree that they were done under Tuto, prelate of Ratisbon. I prefer, however, to believe Balbin's copy rather than the Böddeken one, which is here and there somewhat altered.

§ VI. The Saint's body found after the burning of the temple: her plaster tomb and the silver casket of her head are exhibited: a tradition concerning a certain image of the Crucified: a part of her veil famous for a miracle: other relics at Prague and at Lisbon.

[ ] The Saint's body in the church of the abbey of St. George The church of St. George in the castle of Prague, founded by Wratislaus I, son of St. Ludmila, to which the body of this Saint was translated from Tetin by her holy grandson Wenceslaus, as we said in the preceding §, was in that same tenth century enlarged with a noble convent of the Order of St. Benedict. The foundress of the place was Mlada or Milada, daughter of Boleslaus the Cruel, and the Saint's own great-granddaughter, who, having set out for Rome for religion's sake, obtained from Pope John XIII an episcopal see for the Bohemians and the erection of a monastery at St. George's; and having herself received the veil and been set over it as its first abbess, she passed her life most holily, and after her death was also adorned with the title of Blessed, as may be seen in our Work on the twenty-eighth day of March among the Omitted, and more fully in Balbin in the Miscellanies, book 4, §13. Her body, raised from the earth and enclosed in a precious reliquary, is preserved for veneration among the aforesaid nuns in a certain chapel, outside the altar however, where I myself beheld it through the crystals in this year 1753. The letters of both foundations, given by the aforesaid Pontiff to Boleslaus II duke of Bohemia, Johann Hammerschmidt exhibits in the History of that same monastery already cited elsewhere. I also have a copy of them transcribed from a certain ancient manuscript Bohemian Chronicle, but in neither place is the year added: the Bohemian writers assign the year of Christ 971. That illustrious monastery flourishes even now, whose abbess enjoys the title of princess and on solemn occasions uses a ducal cap.

[69] found unharmed by the fire, Hagecius at the year of Christ 1142, and others after him, narrate that the aforesaid monastery or temple not only was burned by hostile fire but even collapsed utterly; and that in the night hours, after the fire had been extinguished, flames were seen by some from the rubble of the temple, and among these heavenly spirits ascending as far as heaven. And that the nuns, who had withdrawn to the church of St. John on the bank of the Vltava, when they learned this, ordered the body of St. Ludmila to be sought among the ruins, and that it was found unharmed by a certain mason, by name Werwerius. As to what pertains to that vision, it seems to rest on nothing but tradition, arisen perhaps from men too credulous. That the Saint's body was brought out from the ruins, however, I shall readily believe; but this ought to seem the less wonderful because it lay hidden under the earth, whither the flame could not penetrate. That same temple was afterward restored, and the Saint's body again placed in it.

[70] it lies there in a tomb behind her altar. It lies there to this day behind her own altar, enclosed in a tomb of plaster or of white stone, which I saw present in this same year 1753, and which, according to a drawing given me and engraved by our engraver, I set before the curious reader. At what time that tomb was made I do not know; but that it is ancient, the work itself and the chasing make manifest. Before the tomb, as I said, there is seen an altar dedicated to that same holy Martyr, in the middle of which she herself is exhibited crowned with a ducal cap and bound at the neck with a veil, because, namely, she is believed to have been strangled with a veil, and bearing the palm of martyrdom in her hand: but on the Epistle side are seen the statues of St. Wenceslaus, on the Gospel side of St. Vitus, patrons of the kingdom. In the same altar the stone is religiously preserved, concerning which consult above, num. 51 and the two following. For the rest, this altar is of too recent workmanship to deserve to be engraved on copper and exhibited here.

[71] There is preserved there besides, and set forth for the veneration of the faithful, another silver reliquary, A part of the head enclosed in a reliquary. or bust, representing St. Ludmila, in whose head some portion of that same Saint's head is contained, which I too venerated there in the year noted above. It has seemed good to insert it, likewise engraved on copper, into this Commentary. Now to the drawing of it transmitted to us from Prague one of the nuns, as it appears, had subscribed the following in French words: This is the silver statue of St. Ludmila, grandmother of St. Wenceslaus, adorned with votive offerings of every kind. In the middle of the head some relics of that same Saint's head are enclosed, over which a glass has been placed, that they may be exhibited to the kisses of the faithful. There is reported besides at Prague a certain tradition concerning a wooden image of the Lord crucified, which they say once stood over St. Ludmila's tomb, and which some ascribe to the oft-mentioned nuns of St. George, others to the metropolitan church.

[72] The most exalted Francisca Helena Pieronin de Galliano, A tradition concerning a certain image of the Crucified. abbess and princess of the aforesaid convent, in a German Life of St. Ludmila, which she dedicated to the most august empress Eleonora Magdalena Theresia, and of which I have a copy printed in the year 1694, wrote of that sacred image that, when in the year 1142 the church of St. George had been utterly consumed by the hostile fire of which we made mention above, it was found above the Saint's tomb altogether unharmed by the fire, and that the same in the year 1283, likewise above her tomb, dripped blood from its left foot, a foretoken of barrenness, famine, and the calamities which are wont to follow these. Toward the end she adds: But this prodigious Crucifix is to this day honored with due devotion in the choir of the virgins, in the monastery of St. George, and is held as a great sacred treasure. I have in my hands a likeness of the same Crucifix with a brief history of it appended, published in German, in which the same things are said, and the Life of St. Ludmila and Tradition are cited. Concerning the place where that sacred Cross is now preserved, Johannes Pessina in the Sacred Dusts of Bohemia, on the fifteenth day of January, and from him Johann Hammerschmidt, praised already before, say thus: Further, the Crucifix, the announcer of so many evils by that prodigious sweat, is even today either set forth in the nuns' gallery for their veneration, or stands in the metropolitan church in the chapel through which the choristers mount to their choir: for report speaks in favor of each place.

[73] Better attested is what Cosmas dean of Prague, A part of the Saint's veil an eyewitness of the prodigy, handed down concerning the veil of that same St. Ludmila in book 3 of the Chronicle of Bohemia, saying: In the same year (1100, as he had premised) we disclose to your charity, as we ourselves saw it, a miracle admirable and to be commemorated through the ages, which divine grace deigned to reveal through the most holy merits of mother Luidmila. For the lady abbess Windelmuth, a handmaid devoted to God, rebuilt the church of St. Peter the Apostle, situated in the territory of that same monastery over which she presided, which through age had been ruined from its foundation, carrying it through to completion. And that she might consecrate it

as prelate, when the abbess had obtained it, while after the custom he places the relics in a pyx, the lady among other things offered the prelate a cloth a palm's breadth wide, which she had received from the veil of St. Luidmila, asking that he would likewise place it among the holy relics in the pyx. Then the prelate, as though indignant, said: Be silent, lady, about her sanctity; let grandfather and Grandmother rest in peace.

[74] endures the fire unharmed: To this the abbess said: Do not, lord, do not say such things; for God works many mighty deeds daily through her merits. Presently at the prelate's order a great pan is brought, full of burning coals, where, the name of the holy Trinity being invoked, the prelate cast the cloth upon the flame-spewing coals. A wondrous thing! A little smoke and a little flame flashed about the cloth, but harmed it not at all. And this too was greatly in proof of the miracle, that because of the excessive heat the cloth could not for a long time be snatched from the flames, and at last, when snatched out, it was seen so whole and firm as if it had been woven that same day. Struck by so evident a miracle, the prelate and all of us poured out [\] tears for joy, and returned thanks to Christ. And the church was dedicated in honor of St. Peter the Apostle on the VI Nones of October.* Thus far Cosmas, a beholder of the miracle. But where Windelmuth was situated (which Hagecius and all the rest say was the name not of the abbess but of the monastery) I could not ascertain, save that in the German Life of which we made mention above it is said to have been in the Roman empire.

[75] her arm in the metropolitan church of Prague, Concerning the other relics of our holy Duchess I have found besides that some part of them is preserved in the metropolitan church of St. Vitus at Prague. So asserts Johannes Pessina, in Ray 4 of the Phosphorus, in the Diary or index of the holy relics which that same church religiously embraces; where on the sixteenth day of September he has thus: Of St. Ludmila M., grandmother of St. Wenceslaus, an arm and two lesser portions. Only the arm is mentioned in a manuscript transcript of the Calendar of the holy church of Prague, transmitted to our Museum in the year 1647, in which on the tenth day of November I read this: The Translation of St. Ludmila, widow and M., grandmother of St. Wenceslaus, from the castle of Thetin to the church of St. George in the castle of Prague, at the bidding and by the procurement of St. Wenceslaus: whose arm, adorned with gold and silver, the church of Prague has. Nor does it seem doubtful that in other places also some sacred relics of this most holy Matron are honored, although I have received no certain information about them.

[76] other relics at Lisbon At Lisbon in Portugal, however, I have discovered that some portion of them is held in veneration in the professed house of the Society of Jesus, which, together with many relics of other Saints, Juan Borgia, son of St. Francis Borgia, and his wife Francisca of Aragon obtained from Rudolph II emperor of the Romans and from his most august mother Maria; and which, being brought to Lisbon in the month of October in the year 1587, they gave to the aforesaid house of our Society. All these, after they had been lawfully approved by archbishop Michael de Castro, were in the following year, which was the year of Christ 1588, on the twenty-fifth day of January solemnly translated with great pomp and laid up in the church of the aforesaid house. Albert of Austria, at that time viceroy of Portugal, who had piously venerated the said relics, wished the solemnity of the procession to be committed to writing; and there is extant concerning it a little book composed in Portuguese by Emmanuel de Campos, which Alvaro de Veancos afterward rendered into Spanish. My Elders made mention of this translation among the Omitted on the twenty-fifth day of January, where the reader will also find a Catalogue of all those relics.

[77] We have both little books in our Museum; but because that celebration is indeed common to very many, honored in the Professed house of the Society of Jesus. and relics of other Saints more notable than those of St. Ludmila seem to have been translated in it, it has not seemed good to print it here. I observe only that that great treasure of relics, enclosed in various precious cases and placed upon twelve biers, was carried about in festive procession. And in the sixth bier there was also a silver case two palms long and one and a half wide, gilded on one side, and transparent with various glasses or crystals arranged in elegant workmanship, which among the other relics contained also some portion of St. Ludmila, as the aforesaid writers testify. They all add too that these enclosed in that case had been approved beforehand by Orazio Malaspina, Apostolic nuncio at the court of Rudolph II, and that this is established from letters patent given on the twenty-fourth day of March in the year 1579, and confirmed with his own hand and seal. More concerning this holy Duchess and Martyr I have not found: I therefore subjoin the Life.

\ fudimus*

THE LIFE

By the Author Christann of Skala, monk, the Saint's great-grandson

From the edition of Bohuslav Balbin, book 1, chapter 10 of the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs.

Ludmila, widow and martyr, duchess and patroness of Bohemia, at Tetin in Bohemia (St.)

BHL Number: 5028

By Christann of Skala.

PREFACE.

He sets forth to St. Adalbert the reason for writing To the lord ^a and thrice-blessed Adalbert, second pontiff of the holy church of God at Prague ^b, the most humble and lowest of all monks, not to be named, brother Sanctus by name Christianus ^c, wishes to abound in prosperous successes to his desires in Christ Jesus. Finding the Passion of blessed Wenceslaus ^d, together with that of his avera ^e of blessed memory, Ludmila — who like new stars irradiate with the light of their virtues their own country of Bohemia together with the whole nation — set out in divers compositions and not fully expressed, I judged it fitting to approach your sanctity, who draw the line of your descent from the same course ^f, so that by your command and likewise your permission I might in some manner correct it; or, if anything were lacking, might question those old men who were still surviving, or such religious as had drunk in their deeds with the keenness of their eyes, or had learned them by hearing and by the narration of others, and might add it here. Which I have also been anxious to do, not for the sake of any boasting — since indeed I am in every way unskilled in speech and a stranger to every charm of words (although, if all these were at hand, yet the mass of my sins would shrink from publishing the merits of such great ones); but because our ineptitudes and likewise our sloth are very great, and our studies, compared with the studies of the schoolmen, cease to be studies — not despairing of pardon on account of the enormity of my crimes, trusting so far as my powers might suffice by the help of the Saints themselves, I shall set about writing down with my pen the matter as it stands.

[2] and commends himself and his Work to him. But first of all this must be said: how, if the clay of such men, as of chief Saints and fit witnesses of Christ, were held in the parts of the Lotharingians or Carlings ^g, or of the other Christian nations, blooming with the powers of miracles as a sign, they would long since have painted these deeds in golden letters, so to speak, would have adorned them with responsories and songs with antiphons added, and with the exhortations of sermons, along with the walls of very many monasteries — although they rejoice to possess the venerable pledges of martyrs like these, of holy confessors, of virgins, and of the rest of the Saints; but we, lacking all these, having these alone, so to confess it, after the Lord, treat them as it were unworthily, and seeing their virtues from day to day, remain as it were unbelieving, and dissemble to serve them. Let it suffice to have said thus much of our sloth; now I beseech you, illustrious pontiff and dearest nephew ^h, that you who made me, unworthy as I am, undertake this work, would help me with your prayers before our common Uncle ⁱ, that he who by his merits determined that you should ascend to the pontifical honor may — when he shall have obtained for you in time to come, before Christ the Lord, a crown of glory, the gain being brought back from the sheep entrusted to you — deign at least to obtain for us pardon of our crimes. We earnestly ask too that by your illustrious wisdom what our folly has unwisely bubbled forth may be blotted out and adorned by your teaching. Deign also to confirm these same things by your authority, that at least throughout your parish ^k they may be written and read. These things, therefore, having been briefly touched upon beforehand, let us gird ourselves to publish those deeds, supported as much by the merits of the blessed martyr as by your prayers, with the help of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The conversion of the Bulgarians and Moravians to the faith of Christ: the baptism of Borzivoy duke of Bohemia, his exile, his return to the duchy, and his religion.

St. Cyril preaches to the Bulgarians and Moravians: Moravia, a region of the Slavs in ancient times, is believed and known, as report records, to have received the faith of Christ in the times, as they say, of Augustine the magnificent doctor ^a; the Bulgri, however, or Bulgarians, are reported to have obtained that same grace long before. For a certain Quirillus, a Greek by nation, instructed as well in the Latin as in the very letters of the Greeks, after the Bulgri had believed, undertook in the name of the holy Trinity and undivided Unity also of the aforesaid

nation dwelling in Moravia to preach the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ ^b, and, divine grace cooperating, after he had won them for Christ, he also devised new letters and characters, and translated the Old and New Testament, and many other things, from the Greek or Latin tongue into the Slavonic language ^c; he moreover appointed that the Masses and the other Canonical Hours should resound in the church with a public voice; which even to this day is done by many in the parts of the Slavs, chiefly in the Bulgarian lands, and many souls are thereby won for Christ the Lord. And when at a certain time the said Quirillus had gone to Rome for the sake of prayer, he is reproved by the supreme Pontiff, or by the rest of the wise men and rulers of the Church, for having dared, against the statutes of the canons, to institute the solemnities of the Masses and to sing them in the Slavonic tongue.

[2] When he had humbly given them satisfaction, and yet was not at all able to soften them, he clears himself at Rome, and dies. taking up the Psalter he recited in their midst the verse of the Psalmist in which it is said, Let every spirit praise the Lord, and himself playing upon the verse: If, he said, every spirit praise the Lord, why, chosen fathers, do you forbid me to chant the solemnity of the Masses in Slavonic, or to turn any other things from the Latin or Greek word into their speech? For if I could in any way have helped that people, as I have helped other nations, in the Latin or Greek tongue, I should by no means have presumed to do this; but seeing that the people were of a stiff neck and altogether unlettered and ignorant of the ways of God, I found, by the Almighty inspiring my heart, this device alone, by which I have also won many for him. Wherefore forgive me, fathers and lords, since the blessed apostle Paul also, the teacher of the nations, commanded in the Epistle to the Corinthians: Forbid not to speak with tongues. But they, hearing these things and marvelling at the faith of so great a man, by their own authority decree and confirm that in those parts the solemnities of the Masses and the other hours of the canons should be hymned in the aforesaid tongue. But blessed Quirillus himself, remaining there and receiving the monastic habit, closed his last day ^d, leaving in the aforementioned parts his brother by name Methudius, a vigorous man and adorned with all sanctity.

[3] The king of Moravia, converted, is expelled, Who also, after he had gathered many sheaves of Christ the Lord into the granary, is appointed supreme pontiff by the prince himself, who at that time ruled in those parts and commanded the whole land like a magnificent emperor ^e, having under him seven pontiffs of the same sanctity ^f. But since from the very beginning of the world, after the Protoplast took the bitterness of the forbidden apple, the enemy of the human race has not ceased even to the present to sow the seed-plot of discord between humility and pride, between love and hatred, and the rest of the perfumes of the virtues and stenches of the vices; and grieving that a people enslaved to his services was being withdrawn from him and won for the true king Christ the Lord, he, clothed in all the arms of wickedness, approaches new satellites, unskilled in warring for so great a treachery, and flings the poisoned seeds of discords among the very chief men and rulers, and prepares the fiery darts of pride and avarice, to such a degree that Swatopluk, who was the nephew of the religious prince or king, and who had rather kindly stood forth as the establisher and ruler of all Christendom or religion, attacked his own uncle by snares, drove him from his kingdom, deprived him of sight, and tried to take away his life by poison. But he, having drunk the pestilent draught, suffers nothing adverse, divine grace protecting him ^g.

[4] whom the wayward Swatopluk succeeds. Thereafter Swatopluk, having taken up tyranny, inflamed with the arrogance of pride, together with the comrades who served under him, as it were spurned the honey-flowing preaching of the pontiff Methudius, and did not fully receive his most sacred admonitions; but showed his own members, that is, the common folk and the people, serving partly Christ, partly the devil. Wherefore his pugnus ^h, being smitten with an anathema by the aforesaid pontiff of blessed memory, together with the inhabitants dwelling in it, and worn down with its furrows and its fruits by divers disasters, is bewailed even to this present day; for it has been given over to plundering and captivity and prey and derision and desolation, and to a hissing to all flesh that walks through it ⁱ, inasmuch as there is no fellowship of light with darkness, nor union of Christ with Belial. Whose examples seem to regard us also, who strive to walk with the same steps; for he who beholds his neighbor's house burning down ought to be anxious about his own.

[5] But the Slavs of Bohemia ^k, set beneath the Bear itself, given over to the cults of idolatry, like an unbridled horse without law, without any prince or ruler or city, wandering scattered like brute animals, inhabited the bare land. At length, worn down by the disasters of pestilence, they go, as report tells, to a certain pythoness ^l, asking under the appearance of counsel a response of divination. Having received it, they establish a city and impose on it the name Prague. Thereafter, a certain most sagacious and prudent man being found, whose only office was that of husbandry, by the response of the pythoness they set him up for themselves as prince or governor, called by the surname Przemysl, the aforesaid virgin pythoness being joined to him in matrimony; and thus, being at length delivered from disaster and manifold plague, thereafter from the aforesaid prince they set over themselves rulers or dukes from his stock, serving the images of demons and raving in the profane rites of sacrifices, until at last the lordship of that same kingdom ^m came to one, sprung of those same princes, called Borziwoy. He, when he was resplendent with a most excellent form and the flower of a noble youth, on a certain occasion, for the sake of his own business and that of the people committed to him, went to his duke or king Swatopluk ⁿ of Moravia, by whom he is kindly received and is admitted to the banquet along with the rest. But a place of sitting among the worshippers of Christ is by no means granted him; rather he is bidden, after the manner of the pagans, to sit on the pavement before the table.

[6] Grieving at this injury to him, bishop Methudius is reported to have said to him: instructed in Moravia by St. Methodius, Alas, said he, that you, being such and so great a man, do not blush to be driven back from the chief seats, though you yourself hold a duchy with its insignia; but rather desire to grovel on the ground with swineherds in the abominable worship of idols! But he said: What danger do I suffer for a matter of this kind, or what good does the rite of Christianity confer on me? — If, said bishop Methudius, you renounce idols and the demons dwelling in them, you will be made lord of your own lords, and all your enemies will be subjected to your dominion, and your offspring will be increased like a very great river into which the streams of divers brooks flow together. — And if, said Borzivoy, the matter stands thus, what delay is there to being baptized? — None, said the pontiff; only be prepared to believe with a whole heart in God the Father almighty, and in his Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Paraclete Spirit, the enlightener of all the faithful; not only for the sake of worldly substance, but also for the laying hold of your salvation and of your soul, and for the acquiring of the everlastingness of a glorious palm, and for the receiving of the fellowship ^o of the Saints with unspeakable joy.

[7] Kindled by these and suchlike honey-flowing exhortations, the young man's mind and being baptized, when his own men rebelled on that account, burned to receive the grace of baptism; and that no delay might be made, he with all his own who accompanied him fell to the ground at the pontiff's feet and most earnestly demanded it. What more? When morning came, catechizing the duke himself with his thirty men who had come with him, and the solemnities of the fasts having been performed after the custom, he renewed him in the most sacred font of baptism, and instructing him fully concerning the faith of Christ, allowed him, enriched with many gifts, to return to his own, granting him a priest of venerable life by name Caïch; who, having returned to their own land, station the aforesaid priest in a castle whose name was Hradec [p], founding a church in honor of blessed Clement, Pope and martyr [q], inflicting many losses on Satan and winning the people for Christ the Lord. Seeing which, the treacherous water-snake, taking up his own arms [r], renews his ancient wars, and inflames the whole people of the Bohemians to fury against the prince, because he was abandoning his fathers' customs and seizing upon the new and unheard-of law of the sanctity of Christians. They rise against him with one mind and one resolve, and strive to drive him from his own borders, or even contrive to take away his life.

[8] he flees into Moravia: On learning this, the prince withdrew himself from them, and again sought king Swatopluk or the pontiff Methudius of Moravia, by whom he is most affectionately, and as was fitting, received; and staying a little while with them, he attains more perfectly the doctrine of Christ. But the common folk, persisting [\] in their wickedness, by envoys sent from their own nation bring back to their own land a certain duke, Stroymir by name, which is turned into the Latin tongue as RULE PEACE [s]; who was living as a fugitive exile among the Germans, and set him up as their prince. But because Truth by no means deceives, which says in the Gospel, "Every planting which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up"*, by her cooperation the counsel of the depraved was happily scattered. For that same duke of their choosing, although he had been born of the same people, had nevertheless been deprived by a long exile of the speech of his own lips. Wherefore he is rejected by his own electors, who first accused themselves, namely because they had chosen for themselves such a man whose voice and speech they could not take in, and whose cries could not penetrate ears ignorant of his tongue [t]. And since, by the disposing of God's providence, the aforesaid prince Borzivoy, on withdrawing, had left there very many of his friends, it is contrived by their counsel that the mind of the raging populace should be softened toward their kindly ruler, and stirred up with all effort to the slaying of the treacherous usurper. But since the greatest part of the treacherous men favored the tyrant, both parties enter upon a plan whereby, going out from the metropolitan city, namely Prague, into a field, they should inquire what ought to be done [u].

[9] recalled thence, he builds a church, etc. But the treacherous part of the treacherous men, acting speedily and secretly carrying arms and corselets with them into that same field, agreed among themselves upon a hidden signal for slaughter against the party of the devout, namely that if those who were of the party of prince Borzivoy should be unwilling to consent to them, any one of them should proclaim aloud in their midst the hidden signal, saying: Let us vary, let us vary ourselves! and thus, being now clad in the corselets and helmets which they had brought hidden, they should slay with their swords all who contradicted them. But this most wicked counsel of theirs by no means escaped Borzivoy's party; and so they too, clad in corselets under their tunics, go forth into the field to settle the appointed matter [x] of the prince. And when the counsel of Borzivoy's party had not pleased the party of Stroymir, one of them, raising his voice on high, proclaims: Come, our men, let us vary ourselves! When this cry was taken in and recognized, Borzivoy's party, which had also come corseleted under their tunics, said: Well, well hast thou spoken! Behold, now thou shalt appear varied with divers colors. Thus, when he had been cut down by the sword [y], they compelled all his companions to take to flight, and drove their false prince from the fatherland. Then hastening to Moravia [z], bringing back their former duke, they restore him to his own place. But whereas [\*] the same prince, while dwelling in Moravia, had vowed a vow to almighty God, namely that, if the Lord should bring him back with honor to his own, he would build a basilica in honor of the blessed Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary — having returned, he strove without delay to fulfil his vow in the city of Prague itself. He

stands forth as the first founder of holy places, and gatherer of clerics, and instituter of the small religion which then existed.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Concerning this castle Balbin, in book 3 of the Miscellanies, chapter 8, §3, says thus: Hradecz Kralowe (Græcium, Reginohradecium, Königingrätz), a free city, part of the queen's dower, with a very ancient and ruinous citadel. He notes also in the same place that it lies 13 miles from the metropolis Prague. In the Böddeken copy it is called Gradicz.

q. On this the aforesaid Balbin noted the following in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 10: The first temple in Bohemia was founded at Reginohradecium, both by the common tradition of all Bohemia and by the testimony of Hagecius and of all the writers of Bohemia. At that sacred building, after many centuries, the Reverend Fathers of the Order of St. Dominic had a monastery, which by what means it was abolished and turned into a court-house I nowhere find. But everything is consistent even today: the castle of Hradecz, now a city, the temple of St. Clement, ancient and delivered by hand through the memory of our forefathers. Then he turns to refuting the opinion of a certain man who had then lately begun to claim the first church of all Bohemia for Leitomischl. But that Borzivoy raised the temple of Reginohradecium to St. Clement, Pontiff and martyr, I suspect was done at the suggestion of St. Methodius, who together with Cyril had long before found the body of that same martyr and carried it to Rome, as may be read in the oft-praised Acts of those Saints. For the rest, concerning the time at which Borzivoy was baptized, consult our preliminary Commentary, §2.

r. In Balbin is read propis actibus sumptus, but he himself confesses in the margin that those three little words could not be read by him in his copy. I have restored the reading from the Böddeken manuscript. Perhaps protinus is to be read: yet we shall come nearer to Balbin's copy if we read propriis armis sumptis.

s. In the Böddeken copy is read: A certain duke Zremir, whose name is turned into the Latin tongue as Judge peace.

t. The Böddeken more correctly has thus: Wherefore he is rejected by his own electors, who first accused themselves, namely because they had chosen for themselves such a man whose voice and speech they could not take in, and whose cries could not penetrate ears ignorant of his tongue.

u. In the aforesaid copy you have thus: They enter upon a plan whereby they should go to the metropolitan city of Prague, and there, going out together into a field, should diligently inquire what ought to be done, according to the good pleasure of both parties.

x. In the same place it is better read, statu.

y. In the same place there is added, illo.

z. That is, into Moravia. The Böddeken has: Then hastening to Morawe, they bring back their former prince Boriwoi from there, and restore him to his own place. Concerning the time at which these things were done, and other matters bearing on this, our Commentary §3 may be consulted.

\ otherwise præfata*

\ otherwise Quoniam*

CHAPTER II.

Borzivoy's wife St. Ludmila converted to the faith: the offspring of both: the virtues of the holy Widow, her withdrawal to the citadel of Tetin, her martyrdom and burial.

[ ] Borzivoy's offspring by St. Ludmila; Spitignev succeeds him, He had also a wife, by name Ludmila, daughter of Slavibor a count from the province of the Slavs which in antiquity was called Bssow, but now by moderns, from a city newly built, is called Mielnik ^a; who, as had been fitting for her, in the error of heathenism by sacrificing to images, so also in the Christian religion, by imitating, nay by surpassing, the virtues of her husband, was made truly a handmaid of Christ. Now the oft-mentioned prince received from her three sons and as many daughters ^b, and as blessed Methudius had foretold him with prophetic mouth, he was increased with daily increases together with all his nation and his kingdom ^c; and when the course of his time was accomplished, full of days and of goodness, he closed his last day, completing thirty-five years of his life ^d. And in his stead his first-born son Spitigneu took up his kingdom, shining exceedingly with all the virtues of goodness and with the fame of sanctity. For being made an imitator of his father, he stood forth as a founder of churches of God, a gatherer of priests and clerics; perfect in the faith of Christ, when the forty years of his life were accomplished he departed from this light, seeking the stars ^e.

[11] Wratislaus succeeds him. The virtues of the holy Widow, After whose passing his brother Wratislaus is known to have taken up the helm of the kingdom, taking to wife a woman by name Dragomir, from the province of the pagan Slavs which is called Ztodor ^f, to be likened to that Jezebel who by her malice butchered the prophets, or to Eve the wife of the Protoplast, who brought forth Cain and Abel. For Dragomir bore to that prince two sons, one called Wenceslaus, the other Boleslaus. But these await their own place. Therefore the religious matron Ludmila, widowed of her husband, now bereaved of one son, the elder, abiding in her own house, remembering her former ignorance and error, daily bewailed with tears her past sins; and as she had before yielded her members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so at last she yielded those same to serve justice unto sanctification, saying that word of the Apostle: "What fruit had I then in those things whereof I am now ashamed?" This the wants of the poor bear witness to, frequently relieved by her, whose needs she attended to like a mother, feeding the hungry, refreshing the thirsty, covering pilgrims and the needy with garments. The clerics also bear witness, whom in her devotion she cared for like her own sons.

[12] her religion and mercy. Even though all these were silent, the houses of Christ bear witness, which she endowed with divers riches of gold and silver, not, as is the custom with some, from plunder or from the substance of the needy; but from what was bestowed

on her by God — pious and gentle in all things, and filled with all the fruits of benevolence; lavish in alms, spending whole nights in vigils, devout in prayer, perfect in charity, unstinting in humility, girded for the service of the servants of God, so much so that those to whom she was unable to fulfil ^g the solace of the daylight, she toiled to send solace by the hands of her household under cover of night, fulfilling that Gospel word by which we are bidden to perform charity while our left hand knows not what the right hand does. But if we should attempt to depict with our pen all the marks of her virtues, the light of day will fail us before the page. And indeed the door of her house lay open night and day to the passer-by; so that with blessed Job she might be able to cry out: "My door was open to the traveller, I was an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame": a mother of orphans, a consoler of widows, an unwearied visitor of the bound and imprisoned, and perfect in all good works.

[13] She lays down the care of her grandsons which she had undertaken, Therefore, as we have said before, when the aforesaid duke Wratislaus succeeded to the kingdom of his dead brother, the kingdom being confirmed he set up a basilica in honor of blessed George the martyr ^h, but being forestalled by death, he by no means beheld its long-desired consecration; and his son Wenceslaus, of tender age ⁱ, and of a mind burning for the divine law, he had handed over to be imbued with letters in the city which was called Budec ^k, where a church had been consecrated by his predecessor and brother Spitihnev in honor of blessed Peter the prince of the Apostles, and stands there still. And when, sagacious in wit, he committed deeply to memory, the Spirit inspiring him, all that had been handed on to him by his tutor, his father meanwhile departing from this life at about thirty-three years of age ^l, he is recalled to the metropolitan city of Prague, and is exalted by all the people to his father's throne. But since he had not yet perfectly passed the flower of boyhood or adolescence, all the magnates entering upon a prudent counsel committed the untried duke himself, with his brother Boleslaus, to Ludmila of blessed memory, the handmaid of Christ, to be brought up, until the strength of age should grow upon them, by God's favor.

[14] Seeing which, the mother of the aforesaid boys, her daughter-in-law raging on that account, who, being widowed of her husband, occupied his throne, at the instigation of the devil kindled the whole spirit of her venomous breast against Ludmila the handmaid of God, and is straitened with evil suspicions, reckoning that because of the education of the youths, whom all the people had committed to her Mother-in-law to be brought up, she was being deprived of the kingdom and of her possessions, and that the other would obtain universal lordship over her: and entering upon a most perverse counsel with the men of Belial, she contrives with all effort to destroy her. But the venerable and devout handmaid of Christ, Ludmila, on learning this, taking up the arms of humility and patience against the goad of arrogance, took care to send word to her daughter-in-law through intermediaries, saying: No portion of thy kingdom has invaded my mind with the ardor ^m of an ill-flattering desire, nor do I wish to have any dominion over thee: take back thy sons, and, as it pleases thy mind, reign with them; but grant me the liberty of serving almighty Christ in whatever place I please. But as it is always wont to happen, that in proportion as humility bows itself down for God, in that proportion the haughtiness of arrogance, the devil driving it on, raises itself up, the duchess, namely her daughter-in-law, scorned not only to accept, but even to hear, the most gentle and most kindly entreaty of St. Ludmila.

[15] Seeing which, the Handmaid of Christ, remembering that word of the Apostle: and withdraws to Tetin: her martyrdom "Resist not evil, but give place unto wrath;" and that of the Gospel: "If they persecute you in this city, flee into another," taking herself with her household from the metropolitan city, went to a certain castle not far off, whose name is Tetin ⁿ, adorning herself the more with the gems of virtues in proportion as she was the more certain of shortly deserving the palm of martyrdom, with her persecutor ^o following after; devoting herself most devoutly to prayer, toiling in vigils and fasts, holding out to all a hand generous in alms. But blessed Wenceslaus, although he was still of tender age, dwelling with his mother, shone in those days also with the spirit of prophecy, and knew by open vision all the things that were to come, Christ the Lord revealing them to him. In the hush of night, in the sight of holy Wenceslaus, full of God and most dear, the courtyard of a certain priest Paul [p] — who, devoutly cleaving to the side of the oft-mentioned blessed Ludmila, most devotedly attended her — which was fortified with pleasant and vast circuits of buildings, appeared utterly destitute [\] of all the adornment of its walls and altogether alien to the habitation of human possession; and he, having shaken off the heaviness of carnal sleep, roused by the ever-wakeful contemplation of his heart, making known in prudent speech to certain persons what had been seen, and thereupon expounding with prophesying mouth what the vision set forth had beforehand announced would more truly come to pass, calls them together and addresses them in words of this sort: As I lay late abed, sweet friends, and you, O my familiar young clerics [q], a heavy and deep vision took hold of me in the silence of the night: how I saw the portico of the priest Paul utterly desolate of all the loftiness of its buildings and of the dwelling of men.*

[16] Seeing which, I am cast down in sadness, and am dismayed with an inward burden of solicitude for the faithful; St. Wenceslaus foretells it by divine gift: but nevertheless, as I am carried over by the immense mercy of the Knower of all into that hope by which it is granted to the believer that all things are possible, I set about explaining the truth of this dream — now to be understood, since the event is at hand — by the interpretations of a clear solution, to a sure extension of the matter. For the destruction of the houses that was seen portends the happy death of my grandmother Ludmila, that holy and venerable matron, who indeed, a frenzied conspiracy being made by my mother — a heathen as much by race as by the defilement of her works — with some ministers equally ready for the crime, at a time not far hence to come [r], the arms of the perverse rushing in, shall undergo a cruel passion of the body for the profession of the Christian name and faith. But the deserted portico of Paul, as the vision bears witness, prefigures the pitiable expulsion from the kingdom of the great body of the clergy enclosed within our protection, and the undeserved loss of all their steadfastness. For indeed my mother of execrable memory, bitterly envying the life-giving sect which I strive with all my power to confess, to honor from my heart, to follow and to love, and shall hereafter strive irrevocably and in no other direction, will contrive to cast out more harshly from the kingdom those same clerics of divers orders, deprived of earthly means, because they do not deny that they think with me.

[17] At length by this conjecture of sagacious foreknowledge his mind, conscious of the truth, was by no means deceived; but as the fitting indications of the interpretation had sounded, so, with regard to the slaying of the already-written Matron, and the fierce expulsion of the clergy — with a long circuit of neighboring religious houses promptly yielding itself into her subjection, nay into her most bountiful largess — it is established that not long after all things were fulfilled in an unbroken order [s]. For indeed, as we said before, while the handmaid of Christ Ludmila was withdrawing herself from the sight of the treacherous, she is pursued by her enemies in that same castle whither she had fled. For the aforesaid duchess directed certain of her magnates, sons of iniquity, Cumia and Gomo [t], with a strong band to Tetin to destroy her Mother-in-law. But the said Handmaid of Christ, foreknowing what was to come, summoning beforehand her priest Paul, admonished him to chant the sacred solemnities of the Masses; and pouring out her confession most kindly before the sight of the Searcher of hearts, and now conscious of the benefits she was to receive from the Most High, arming herself wholly with the arms of faith, prostrating herself in prayer, she poured out prayers to God, that he would deign to receive in peace her spirit, which he himself had created. Then, the celebration of the Masses having been performed, fortifying herself with the partaking of the Lord's Body and Blood, she strove with unwearied mind to sing psalmody.

[18] and by Dragomira's ministers But when evening came, the aforesaid tyrants, attacking her house and breaking down the folding-doors, station the rest of their companions outside armed with swords and shields; but the captains of the murderers themselves, Tumia and Gomo, taking a few with them, breaking down the door, enter raving into the chamber where the Handmaid of God lay. To whom blessed Ludmila said in a humble voice: What sudden madness drives you? And do you not blush, nor turn over in your minds how I myself brought you up as my own sons, endowed you with gold and silver and with notable garments? But if there is in you any wrong of mine, declare it, I beseech you. But they, raging, stopping their ears to this more stubbornly than stones, did not fear to lay their own hands upon her, and dragging her from her bed cast her to the ground. To whom she said: Suffer me to devote myself for a little while to prayer. And when they granted this, she prayed with hands outstretched. After this she said: If you have come for the cause of my destruction, I beseech you to take off my head with the sword — eager to bear witness to Christ by shedding her blood after the example of the Martyrs, and desiring to receive with them the palm of martyrdom without end; which also we do not doubt that she deserved, holy Scripture bearing witness: The just man, by whatsoever death he shall be overtaken, his soul shall be in refreshment.

[19] The deadly executioners, therefore, spurning her prayers and words, is strangled, and is buried by her own household. by putting a rope about her throat took from her by strangling her present life, but a life to live [\*] forever with him whom she had always loved, Jesus Christ the Lord. Now the happy handmaid of Christ, devoted to God, Ludmila, received martyrdom on the seventh day of the Sabbath and on the XVII Kalends of October, at the first watch of the night [u]. But all her clergy, and all her household servants of both sexes, their Shepherd [x] being slain, scattered in different directions and lurking in divers hiding-places, strove to preserve their present life for themselves. After this, when the most cruel executioners had withdrawn, coming together with great fear and wailing for the office of her funeral, and performing most honorably all that was seen to be needful for the burial, they committed her most holy clay to the earth. But the most bloody executioners, having plundered the spoils, returning to their own lady, brought her the very greatest joy over the slaying of the Innocent one, reckoning that they were enriched forever and would live forever — for whom the atrocious and inextinguishable torments of the fire of Gehenna were presently at hand and prepared.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Some think him the same as the priest Caïch, whom the biographer above in num. 7 says was given by St. Methodius to Borzivoy when, cleansed by baptism, he returned from Moravia into Bohemia.

q. Clericuli is a diminutive of clerici. In the Böddeken is read Clientuli, as also above Accubantem for accubante. But some other words also vary in this discourse of the Saint, which it is not worth while to have noted.

r. The Böddeken has better: Clanculum irruentibus, omitting dandum. But the rest of Wenceslaus's words after passionem down to the end of the number are lacking in the same place.

s. This obscure and faulty period, which is lacking in the Böddeken, signifies that both the murder of St. Ludmila and the expulsion of the clerics and Religious took place not long after, as the holy prince had foretold.

t. Others call these men Tuma and Cuma.

u. The Böddeken transcript has the same notes of time, from which, however, we showed in the preliminary Commentary, §5, num. 54 and following, that nothing can be established for the year of the Saint's death. Consult also the same §, num. 51 and following, concerning some circumstances of the martyrdom which are handed down by others.

x. By Shepherd St. Ludmila herself is here designated.

\ otherwise desertum*

\ otherwise victuræ*

CHAPTER III.

The punishment of the Saint's murderers: Dragomira relegated for a time by St. Wenceslaus: the Saint's body found incorrupt, and translated to Prague: a crippled boy set upright there.

[ ] The parricides, now hateful to Dragomira and to all, But the aforesaid treacherous lady of the treacherous, seizing all her Mother-in-law's furniture, began to reign with the aforesaid tyrants, enriching them and their kinsmen and their household with choice riches of gold and silver and with precious garments beyond estimation. And they reigned in the whole province of the Bohemians like magnificent dukes, but not of God. But while they lived sumptuously and rejoiced and made merry beyond estimation, the just retribution of divine vengeance unexpectedly overtakes the impious men, who had not shrunk from perpetrating so great and so cruel a sin, whereby they had moved their most dishonorable hands without cause against the most illustrious Handmaid of Christ. For, their father the devil, the prince of discords, driving them on, they began to hold all their coevals and contemporaries in contempt; from which cause dissension grew, and very great hatred between those very chief men noted above, namely Cumia and Gomo, and their lady, so that all the lady's thought and speech turned day and night upon their destruction.

[21] Seeing which, the said tyrant Cumia, a horrible dread rushing upon him, perish miserably along with their stock. slipping away in flight from that same province with all who were joined to him by kinship, hateful to all, wandering and a fugitive, was tossed hither and thither, and no one born of his stock had thereafter any return to his own land. But Gomo, when he was seeking hiding-places of flight with his own brother, was seized and condemned to a capital sentence, and with his brother lost his present life and his future alike. But their lady, seeing them fleeing, pouring out all the fury of her venomous breast upon their descendants, destroyed them all, from the greatest to the least, on one day and by one sentence. This too was the first sign that shone forth of Ludmila, that by God's providence disposing it, of her slayers not one survived: some, withdrawing from their own dwellings and fleeing in divers directions, made hateful to all and touched by divine vengeance, breathed out the breath of life; their little ones died a most impious death, and very many were beheaded with the sword. Thus was fulfilled the Lord's word, which he speaks in the Gospel: "Everyone that shall take the sword shall perish by the sword."

[22] But in those same days at the tomb of the most blessed and oft-mentioned venerable matron and martyr of God, Ludmila, Ludmila's tomb is made illustrious by miracles. with the divine mercy cooperating, illustrious miracles of powers were made manifest. For from her monument there flowed so great a fragrance of a wondrous and most sweet odor as would surpass the perfumes of all spices and flowers. Very many too, in the silence of the dead of night, drank in with the keenness of their eyes, three and four times, wax tapers and lamps burning with a divine light. All which by no means escaped the lady, namely her murderess: on learning which, prostrated with excessive fear, she knew not what she should do. At length, renewing again her venomous counsel, she sent her officers to Tetin, where the venerable body lay entombed, commanding them in her orders to set up a house over the tomb of blessed Ludmila in the manner of a basilica; fitting to it also a name in honor of blessed Michael the archangel, so that if thereafter any sign should shine forth there, it might be assigned not to the merits of the blessed Martyr, but of the Saints whose pledges were kept there. When this was done, so great an awe seized upon all who entered the basilica that they dared not enter there otherwise than with the greatest veneration, and thenceforth illustrious and notable miracles of powers were made manifest in that same place.

[23] These things being thus done, by Christ's assent, blessed Wenceslaus, once chosen duke, St. Wenceslaus shakes off his mother's impious rule passing beyond the years of boyhood, was resplendent with the most pleasing flower of youth, turning over in his deep memory all that had been handed on to him by his tutor in letters, and with burning mind desired to fulfil in deed what he had received by ear. Wherefore his treacherous mother, with certain sons of Belial who agreed with her, envying his acts and his most holy pursuits, having entered into counsel with one another, said: Alas, what are we doing, whither shall we turn ourselves? For our prince, who was raised by us to the summit of the kingdom, has been perverted by the clerics and made as it were a monk, and does not suffer us to walk in the steep and accustomed path of our vices. And if he does this now in boyhood or adolescence, what do you think he will do in his youth or old age? From that day, therefore, they began to be exceedingly troublesome to him, exceedingly upbraiding him, and heaping upon him in their importunity very many other crimes. All which the man dear to God repelled with the arms of faith, and, fortifying himself with the shield of patience, bore with unwounded mind. For indeed the impious, assailing his clerics and certain Religious, by whose teaching he was fed, with continual snares, contrived to butcher them, and terrified them with the greatest threats, so that none of them could have access to him.

[24] with a sharp rebuke, But he, knowing all these things, using back-doors secretly ^a with the men faithful to him, when the sun was rushing to its setting, summoning some cleric by stealth, and learning by night all that was profitable to him, then at the shining of twilight let his teacher, or the cleric dear to him, go away in hiding; and concealing his little codex ^b and bearing it under his covering, wherever he found a place of quiet he read it diligently, and with inward groaning grieved exceedingly over the hardness of his people's heart and their blindness or unbelief. At length, strengthened by God and girding himself with courage, having summoned his mother and all the chief men, he rebuked them, as was fitting, in the manner the book of Wisdom bears witness to: "The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails deeply fastened in." But blessed Wenceslaus said: Why, sons of the wicked and a lying seed, and men of iniquity, have you forbidden me to learn the law of our Lord Jesus Christ and to obey his commandments? But if it wearies you to serve Christ, why do you at least hinder the rest? As for me, if hitherto I have lived under your providence or power, from now on I refuse it, and desire with a sincere mind to serve almighty God. There arose afterward, on account of this same matter and of various other matters, a very great dissension between the chief men themselves who clave to the side of the religious duke, and the rest who supported the most wicked party of the impious lady; and the counsellors and magnates of the land were divided against one another, and the thorns of discords sprouted among them even to the shedding of blood. But the party of the just, although it was the smallest, nevertheless prevailed against the manifold party of the iniquitous, as always.

[25] For the ever-mentioned duke Wenceslaus, anxious about the obtaining of peace, and relegates her, and afterward recalls her: the Holy Spirit inspiring him, took counsel in his heart that he should drive from his fatherland his mother, who was the cause of all the wickedness, so that, she being driven out along with all the impious men who agreed with her, the fury of discords among them might be lulled to sleep, and the peace of Christ's Church increase, and all, possessing one and the same Lord, might most perfectly learn the true doctrine of Christ; and that when all had been ordered which was seen to pertain to the peace of the kingdom, and the sons of discord had been driven out and expelled, quiet being restored, he might recall his mother again with honor to her own. All which, God the maker helping him, he accomplished in deed: for he drove his mother from the kingdom with the greatest dishonor, almighty God rendering her a worthy retribution for the shedding of the innocent blood of blessed Ludmila, which she had shed without cause. But since he was full of that chaste fear which endures forever and ever, mindful of the divine precepts by which we ought to honor father and mother, he brought her back again when time had passed; but she lacked the honor of her former dominion

until the day of her death. But passing over how all these things were done, because of their enormity ^c, let us pursue what we have begun. After many adversities and troubles she endured also the slaying of her son by her younger-born ^d.

[26] Then blessed Wenceslaus, remembering his Grandmother, of how great sanctity she had been in the present life, men sent by him to Tetin and how great a merit of brightness she obtained with the Almighty, wholly bathed in a shower of tears, having entered into most sacred counsel with priests and certain Religious, sent them to the aforesaid castle of Tetin, charging them that they should bring to him, with a worthy translation, either the bones or the dust of her consumed flesh. But he himself, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, making it known to a few joined to him in familiarity, was certain that, the divine mercy cooperating, the said envoys would drink in some signs there. Now the envoys, fulfilling their lord's commands, having entered the basilica and uncovering the monument by rolling back the earth, finding the plank of the sepulchre by which the venerable clay was covered partly consumed by rot, were afraid to lift it. If the wood, they said [\], is rotten, how much more the things that lie hidden within? And they wished to close the sarcophagus again with the greatest care. But one of them, the priest Paul — of whom we make mention above also, who while she lived on earth was joined to her in friendship and always attended her in every service — opposing their counsels, said: By no means shall it be as you say; but according to the prince's orders, even if I find the dust of her consumed flesh, I shall take it up.*

[27] The rest yielding him their assent, with one accord they raised the plank, translate it uncorrupted to Prague, which, as they lift it up, is broken, so that the said Paul fell with the earth upon the body of her who lay there. He, rising quickly and removing the earth more swiftly, together with the comrades joined to him found the sacred body free from all corruption, save for what I mentioned above, namely that her face was dusty, which had settled upon it from the breaking of the lid as it was being removed. Then, kindled with vast joy, rendering immense thanks to the All-powerful, raising her most holy clay from the earth, wrapping it as was fitting in precious linen cloths, they presented it at the altar, returning praises and immense thanks to the divine mercy; and all being duly and solemnly performed, placing her on a bier, they load the backs of two horses, and thus on that same night press on steadily as far as the metropolis, namely the city of Prague. Now the body of the happy handmaid of God, Ludmila, was found on the fourteenth of the Kalends of November, at the twelfth hour, on the fourth feria ^e. But they brought her into Prague on the third day, on the sixth feria, at the twelfth hour of the same month ^f, with vast gladness, all giving thanks and praising Christ. For her bearers, before they brought her into the city, sent ahead to the prince the carriers of the good message. Who, coming, learned that he had laid his limbs to sleep, and roused him joyful, and brought him such gladness: that by almighty God's favor they had found the body of so great and such a Matron, namely his Grandmother, uncorrupted.

[28] where, being received by St. Wenceslaus, He, rising at once and hastening to the church with the greatest alacrity, paid immense thanks to Christ the Lord. When the sun was irradiating the earth and its radiance driving off the shadows, having summoned the clergy and a throng of the faithful, he hastens to go to meet them with a great procession. And the faithful bearers meet him, carrying the oft-mentioned clay of St. Ludmila, which the priests and levites at once eagerly placing upon their shoulders, blessing God, they brought into the city with psalms and praises, and entering the Church, set it before the pavement, and made resound a great din of sound. Which the curiosity of the populace, both of the faithful and of the unbelieving, searching out what had happened, they gathered together into one and make for the doors of the church. Then the prince, having entered into counsel with the priests, they uncovered her body before all the people, that all might give credence that she had been preserved uncorrupted by Christ the Lord; and all, beholding the mighty works of Christ, resounded with unwearied voices, and no one could withstand the truth, since the entireness of the body and the firmness of the hair lay open to all, and her face shone as though she were set in this life. Moreover such beauty and entireness of her garments shone forth as if they had been woven that same day: which all, beholding, leaping for joy with voices of proclamation, judged her most worthy of every honor and praise.

[29] after burial had been vainly attempted Then they attempted to entomb her, dug out from the earth, and the pit being made ready, in that same basilica ^g. But from that same pit water suddenly flooded up: which very many beholding, they took it into their minds that that place of sepulchre by no means pleased the Handmaid of Christ. Filling in the pit again, they set the sarcophagus with the sacred pledge itself above it, awaiting divine help, and thus they happily hastened to their own homes. Then, after a moderate space of time had passed, the aforesaid prince, having sent envoys to Ratisbon, consulted the pontiff of that city — because the men of Bohemia in his time were his parishioners — Tuto by name ^h, as to what he ought to do concerning the aforesaid body. He, going through the writings of the divine Law, according to the wisdom given him by God, sent these words in his answer: namely, that they should deliver to burial the body, which takes its beginning from the very origin of the Protoplast, to whom it was said, Earth thou art, and into earth thou shalt go; dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return, until it should behold the glory of Christ.

[30] she is entombed by the bishop of Ratisbon. Wherefore the prince, kindled with a vast divine zeal, entreated the aforesaid prelate with humble prayer that he would deign to come to him and himself deliver the body to burial, and dedicate the basilica which as yet lacked the pontifical blessing. And coming, first of all he consecrated the temple to the Lord. Thereafter, six circuits of days having passed, he entombed the aforesaid little body in the same place where the water had flooded up. A wondrous thing, and sufficient for declaring the merit of Christ's Handmaid: namely that, when the priests desired to entomb her in a consecrated place, water arose; but when the fellow-bishop came and the sacred basilica was consecrated from its foundations, not fittingly enough — inasmuch as she who happily enjoyed the happy life of her converse should be buried with a greater blessing, she who was to be placed with the Saints at Christ's right hand ⁱ. These things therefore being duly performed, the fellow-bishop, remunerated by the prince as was worthy, sought his own country.

[31] But when her anniversary day came round after the translation of that sacred clay, A crippled boy set upright there. to the glory of his own name and to declare the merit of his Handmaid, Christ the Lord deigned to work a notable prodigy. For as it is the custom of the Christian religion, the clergy being gathered, to keep the memory of such persons, when after the prayers they were sitting down together for the refreshment of their bodies, a certain little boy, weighed down by an infirmity of the body, was bent double, wholly unable to look upward; but when at the door of the basilica, where the body of so great a Matron rests, he implored the power of Christ and the merit of that same Saint, he was set upright and restored to his own strength. Beholding which, very many sang praises to almighty Christ, because he deigned to declare his mighty works through his Handmaid; to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

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