Wenceslaus

ON ST. WENCESLAUS, MARTYR, DUKE AND PATRON OF BOHEMIA,

AT OLD BOLESLAV IN BOHEMIA

More probably 936.

COMMENTARIUS PRÆVIUS.

Wenceslaus, M., duke and patron of Bohemia, at Old Boleslav in Bohemia. (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. Christannus, the chief biographer of the holy Duke: various other Lives, by authors partly known and partly anonymous, are reviewed: out of them all only two are to be published.

[ ] Among the Saints of Bohemia we gave, in this very month of September at the XVI day, St. Ludmila, Of the various biographers of the holy Duke the chief is the worthy wife of duke Borzivoi — who was the first among the princes of that nation to embrace and propagate the Christian rites — and after his death a most holy widow, whom her own impious daughter-in-law Dragomira, a heathen woman, inflamed with hatred of the sacred faith and with lust of ruling, caused to be foully strangled. Today there succeeds her in our Work St. Wenceslaus, most worthy grandson of that same Ludmila and of the praised Borzivoi, by their pious son Wratislaus, first of that name among the dukes of Bohemia, and of the wicked Dragomira, and successor in his father's duchy; illustrious for a celibate life and for holiness, and, for a like cause as that for which his holy grandmother had fallen, a martyr by his brother's crime, and the patron of his nation. On account of the celebrity of his name he obtained at various times various writers of his Life, of whose lucubrations some are still unpublished, others published in print. It would be useless to review them all, since many of these have been partly only abridged from older ones, partly augmented from others; and therefore we shall discuss, after our custom, only the chief of them.

[2] Before all the rest there comes to be mentioned Christannus, surnamed de Skala, Christannus, his grand-nephew by the fratricide, a monk of the monastery of Břevnov of the Order of St. Benedict near Prague, that very man, namely, who wrote the Life of St. Ludmila which we gave on the day already cited. Of him we have already said much in the Commentarius prævius to that Life, §1, some of which is here to be briefly repeated, and some also to be added to it. Christannus — who is also sometimes found written Christianus — was the great-grandson of Borzivoi and of St. Ludmila, and the nephew of St. Wenceslaus himself, by the latter's brother and slayer Boleslaus I, surnamed the Cruel, duke of Bohemia after the Saint's murder. The same Christannus calls St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague and afterwards martyr in Prussia, his nephew; born, namely, of the former's sister Strzezyslava and of Slavnik, count of Libice. He therefore wrote the Life and Passion of St. Ludmila, his great-grandmother, and of St. Wenceslaus, his father's brother, and dedicated it to the aforesaid St. Adalbert, then already bishop of Prague. But since the latter, by Henschen's reckoning in his deeds, illustrated at the XXIII day of April, was consecrated bishop in the year 983 and crowned with martyrdom in the year 997, it must be that the Life of which we are treating was written within these years, that is, about fifty or sixty years after the murder of that same St. Wenceslaus.

[3] What, moreover, Christannus accomplished in it, he himself declared in his Preface to St. Adalbert in these words: who used older writings Finding the Passion of B. Wenceslaus, together with that of his avera (that is, grandmother) of blessed memory Ludmila — who like new stars illuminate with the light of their virtues their own country Bohemia together with the whole nation — set forth in divers compositions and not fully, I judged it worthy to approach your Sanctity, who draw the line of your descent from the same stock, so that by your command and licence together I might in some measure correct it, or, if anything were lacking, might question those old men who were still surviving, or any religious persons who had drunk in their deeds with the keenness of their own eyes, or had learned them by hearing and by the narration of others, and might add it here. Which I was also careful to do, etc. From these words two things chiefly come to be observed by us. The first is, that Christannus was not the very first biographer of SS. Ludmila and Wenceslaus, nor did he so much write their Acts as renew, correct, and augment in his own style what he had found written by others, with certain deeds or circumstances which he had learned elsewhere.

[4] he composed the Life of SS. Ludmila and Wenceslaus, The other is, that the same man undertook to write the Life of each Saint not separately, but, on account of the connexion of events, in one and the same Opuscule. For that reason a single common preface is prefixed to both; and he treated of the parents, the youth, and the first beginnings of the ducal rule of St. Wenceslaus in the first part of the Opuscule, which pertains more nearly to St. Ludmila; but then, being about to treat of St. Wenceslaus alone, after the

close of the first part he began thus: Therefore, when his realm had been set in order and made firm, with Christ the maker aiding him, what manner of man the blessed duke Wenceslaus showed himself to Christ, and what a vessel of election he presented himself to be, mind, tongue, and page fail to tell. For which reason I long doubted whether, for the earlier deeds of St. Wenceslaus, I should refer the reader to the Life of St. Ludmila praised above. But since in that way the Acts of the holy Duke would be too much dislocated, I judged it expedient to set out in a whole first chapter those things which pertain to him, excerpted from thence, omitting the rest, which are proper to Ludmila alone, and the Preface, and warning the reader by lacunæ and in the Annotations as often as an omission of that kind shall have occurred.

[5] published by Balbinus from the Trebon Ms., not however mutilated, We have therefore a biographer joined to St. Wenceslaus by blood, nearest to his times, born in Bohemia and there brought up and writing, and one to whom sure knowledge of the affairs of his holy uncle could not be lacking, nor would it have been safe to invent, hard by the very metropolis of Bohemia, in which without doubt many still survived among the living who had seen and known St. Wenceslaus. Deservedly, therefore, did Bohuslav Balbinus, presbyter of the Society of Jesus, exceedingly well deserving of the History of Bohemia by the books he published, make much of this Life, and greatly commend it to Bohemian lovers of their country's affairs. He himself first published it in his Epitome Historiæ Bohemiæ, book 1, chapter 10, where he indicated the place from which it was taken by this notice: Transcribed word for word from a very ancient Ms. parchment codex of the monastery of Canons Regular of St. Augustine at Trebon (in Bohemia). I cannot, however, agree with him in what he judged in the same place, at the end of that Life, concerning its mutilation, saying thus: Thus far the narrative of Christannus, a most religious and most noble man, which it is certain is mutilated, and in which very many things are wanting: for he had promised that he would narrate certain things in what followed (such as the sanctity, death, and miracles of Podevin) which nowhere appear.

[6] The passage hinted at by Balbinus is, in the Life to be published according to our division, at num. 16, as he himself supposed, where Christannus, designating Podevin by the name of a most faithful retainer, says this: At harvest time, in the silence of the dead of night, seeking his field, he (Wenceslaus) would go to his own with a retainer most faithful to him, concerning whom hereafter a chief prodigy, and one notable for making clear the merit of both, shall be recorded. Here you have Christannus's promises concerning Podevin: go now to the Life, to be published from Balbinus himself, at num. 32 and the two following, and there you will acknowledge that the same man discharged those promises fully. Perhaps Balbinus missed in his Trebon copy certain other things about St. Wenceslaus handed down by far later biographers; but there appears in it no indication of omissions of that kind, and for that reason some of those things are to me at the least suspect, as I shall observe through the course of the Commentarius. Thomas Joannes Pessina de Czechorod, dean of the metropolitan church of Prague, in the Phosphorus of that same church, pages 3, 15 and often elsewhere, also praises some Ms. copy of the Passion of St. Wenceslaus, by that same Christannus as author, inscribed to St. Adalbert, and preserved in the archive of the metropolitan chapter.

[7] I do not know whether this is other than Balbinus's copy, or only a transcript of it. which I shall reprint. Certainly Balbinus, who wrote at the same time as Pessina, and diligently searched the archive of the aforesaid chapter for his Bohemian History, mentions no other, so far as I know, than the Trebon copy; and therefore, if he saw in the said archive another different from the Trebon one, he must be reckoned to have preferred the Trebon one to it, and not to have found in this the things which he missed in the Trebon copy. For the rest, since I have no Ms. copy of that Life, I shall reprint it from Balbinus in the manner I stated above at num. 4. To the reader there will occur some solecisms and twisted periods, which I do not doubt are for the greater part to be ascribed not to the author himself but to the copyists, the typesetters, or even to a fault of the ancient codex itself; and these, where the blunders of those men shall be manifest, I shall emend, warning the reader in the Annotations as often as it shall seem worth the trouble. Thus far concerning the Opuscule of Christannus, which, on account of the antiquity of a writer nearest to the times of the holy Duke and martyr, together with his kinship of blood, and the other things alleged above, I judge to be far preferable to all the rest.

[8] We have another Life of St. Wenceslaus in Ms., written partly by the hand of our own Papebroch, another Life by an anonymous author, partly by another's, the opening of whose Proemium is this: The manifold kinds of studies are wont to thrust upon each of mortals various cares of the understanding, etc. But the beginning of the Acts is such: When, therefore, the thorny sprouting of pestilential heresy had been torn away by the ancient and fitting resistance of Catholics on behalf of the mystery of the indivisible Trinity, etc. Concerning the codex from which it was transcribed, Papebroch prefixed this in our transcript: Taken from a very ancient Ms. parchment of about 700 years, of the collegiate church of St. Adelbert at Aachen, in the year 1668, by permission of the very Rev. D. Hermann Rimbergh, dean and pastor. According to these words that Aachen codex would have to be referred to the tenth century, before the middle of which St. Wenceslaus underwent martyrdom. Nevertheless (if that codex be in truth so ancient), that we should believe it written rather about the end of the tenth century than earlier is altogether persuaded by another annotation of Papebroch added in the same place; namely, that there is contained in the same codex a Life of St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague, with this opening: There is a place in the parts of Germany. But that St. Adalbert was crowned with martyrdom in the year 997, and that the said Life was written under the emperor Otto III, who died at the beginning of the eleventh century, Henschen has shown in the deeds of that same holy bishop and martyr at the XXIII day of April.

[9] who professes that he wrote by command of the emperor Otto II, Besides this, Papebroch himself seems to have doubted concerning the antiquity of the said codex; for whereas he had before noted it to be of about DC years, he afterwards substituted DCC for DC. But whatever be the case concerning the age of that codex, the anonymous author of the Life asserts in the Proemium that he wrote it by command of the most victorious emperor Augustus Otto II. And if that be true, it must be that he wrote before Christannus; for Otto II met his day in the year 983. And from this one might suspect that this Life was one of those of which Christannus made mention above at num. 3; especially since in both biographers the same phrases sometimes occur, so that the one seems to have given light to the other. But other reasons make so great an antiquity of that Life more than suspect. Papebroch had noticed that the said Life in the Aachen codex lacked any closing formula, such as lucubrations of this kind are wont to be ended with, and therefore, suspecting it to be not entire, he consulted Balbinus. And he replied that his suspicion had been just: for that in the Ms. codex of the metropolitan chapter of Prague marked R. XII the same Life is read fuller at the end, at whose close the customary formula concerning God is added: To whom be honour and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.

[10] it is certainly ancient, Further, the things which were lacking in the Aachen codex Balbinus sent to Papebroch from the Prague one, and they chiefly contain a notable miracle which the biographer says was done in his own age and recently, namely, as he subjoins, in the year of Christ one thousand and ninety-two. He was therefore far removed from the age of Otto II or even of the third, of whom the former ceased to live in the year 983, the latter in 1002. It might indeed here be rejoined that these things were afterwards added by someone to a Life written under Otto II; nor would this objection be to be despised, if it were not that, besides the omission of the customary closing formula in the Aachen codex, the biographer's own gross error would rather persuade that he wrote long after the times of Otto II. For, to pass over his manifest error by which he writes that Spitigneus was the first of the princes of Bohemia to be baptized, whereas it is established that this holds of Borzivoi, the father of that same Spitigneus, he did not hesitate to place the beginning of St. Wenceslaus's dukedom in the reign of Otto. His father, he says, having meanwhile … entered upon the way of all flesh, the youth himself (St. Wenceslaus), declaring the examples of old men by his acts, under the shining power of the most serene king Otto, with the favourable assent of the peoples, was chosen … into the succession of his father's duchy, and was raised to the seat of princely dignity.

[11] but on other grounds it yields much to the former, But with what likelihood could the biographer assert this, if he wrote under Otto II, whose father Otto I had scarcely, or not even scarcely, begun to reign when St. Wenceslaus was dying, whose murder he undertook to avenge with arms soon after his own coronation, as I shall prove more fully in §3? Thomas Joannes Pessina, in the Phosphorus of the church of Prague, page 617 and the following, reviewing the same words which I said were transmitted from the Prague codex by Balbinus to Papebroch, cites for them Cosmas in the Life and Passion of St. Wenceslaus, part 2, and thus makes Cosmas — namely the dean of Prague — the author of the Life of which we are treating, by whom also he observes that that notable miracle is repeated in the Chronicle at the year 1092. And truly it is so read, and indeed in great part in the same words, in the Chronicle of Bohemia of Cosmas, yet not at the year 1092 but 1091, in the twin Hanover edition of the year 1607 and 1621, which I use, and one of which I gather Pessina also used, from the page assigned by him. But I doubt whether the Prague Ms. of the Life, cited by Pessina, bears Cosmas as author, or whether rather Pessina conjectured it to be Cosmas's from the miracle related in this and in the Chronicle of Cosmas in almost the same manner.

[12] The reason for doubting is that Balbinus, being consulted by Papebroch concerning the same Life, nor is it to be published by me, as was said at num. 9, wrote back that in the Ms. codex of the metropolitan chapter of Prague, after another Life of St. Ludmila and St. Wenceslaus, there is only prefixed to the Life which I am now examining: Likewise concerning the same, with no mention made of an author. Secondly, that Cosmas himself in the Chronicle, passing over the deeds of Borzivoi, Spitigneus, Wratislaus, and St. Wenceslaus between the years 895 and 927, alleges this cause of his silence: Because we now read them written by others, some in the privilege of the Moravian church, some in the Epilogue of that same land and of Bohemia, some in the Life or Passion of our most holy patron and martyr Wenceslaus: for even foods are loathed which are taken too often. Therefore at that time at least he had not yet written the Passion of St. Wenceslaus, for otherwise he would have referred the reader to this rather than to one written by another. It is also less likely that the Life mentioned was composed by him afterwards; because, since he himself in the Chronicle, binding the murder of St. Wenceslaus to the year of Christ 929, but the death of Henry the Fowler and the succession of Otto I to the year 936, has laid down that Wenceslaus died about seven years before the beginning of Otto's reign, the author of the said Life — in which the said Otto is said to have been already reigning when St. Wenceslaus, still a youth, was substituted into his father's duchy — must be pronounced another than he.

[13] I cannot, therefore, ascribe the said Life

to Cosmas of Prague, but it is to be employed only for the Annotations, who seems to have no part in it, except perhaps the few things added about the miracles, although these too could have been added by another out of Cosmas. For the rest, gather from what has been said that that Life is not later than the twelfth century, and perhaps even earlier, since to me at least it appears more probable that those few things about the miracles were added by somebody to an older Life. But even if that anonymous writer had preceded Christannus by some space of time, this would be slight, and he must certainly yield much to Christannus, who is to be reckoned to have had a better view of the affairs of his country and of his holy uncle's household, and who professes that neither diligence in inquiring nor persons whom he might consult were wanting to him. Wherefore I have determined that that Opuscule of the anonymous writer is by no means to be published, but only to be noticed in the Annotations where it disagrees with Christannus. But the miracle which is read in it I shall give in an Appendix after the Lives, from the aforesaid Cosmas, dean of Prague, who is known to have lived at Prague at the very time when it happened. I proceed to review the other Ms. Lives.

[14] Peter the Deacon, monk and librarian of the monastery of Monte Cassino, in his Opuscule on the Illustrious Men of Cassino, chapter 6, says this: His Acts written by Laurence, monk of Monte Cassino, Laurence, a monk of the same monastery, inferior to none of his predecessors in learning after the most holy Benedict, having been made a bishop, adorned in verse the Life of B. Maurus and the Passion of the bishop of Castrum: he also composed a History of St. Wenceslaus, and an elegant Sermon on the vigil of B. Benedict. To these sayings of Peter, Joannes Baptista Marus, the first editor of the same Opuscule, annotated some things making for our purpose. He observes in the same place, out of Arnold Wion in his Lignum vitæ, that the aforesaid Laurence was a bishop of uncertain see, and that the aforesaid History of St. Wenceslaus exists in Ms. in the library of Monte Cassino. He subjoins that he himself likewise has the same in Ms., with this opening: Our Lord and Redeemer, to human sight, etc.; and he promises that he will publish it in print for the public good together with other Lives of Saints hitherto unpublished: and finally he lays down that Laurence flourished about the year of Christ 950. So it is read in the Thesaurus of the Antiquities and History of Italy by Graevius and Burmann, vol. 9; for in Muratori's edition, vol. 6 of the Rerum Italicarum, in place of the said year 950 there stands, by a fault, the year DCCL.

[15] we have it from the Vallicellian codex; We too have a transcript of the same Life, copied by the hand of Papebroch from the collectanea of P. Gallonius, book P, which was preserved in the Vallicellian library at Rome, and attributed at its head to Laurence, monk of Monte Cassino. Laurence himself indicates the end and manner of his writing in his Preface in these words: We have therefore studied to give our labour to the writing of this Passion, unskilful though we are, being compelled thereto by certain persons, to the end that the brightness of so great a light, shining exceedingly among its own people, might not be wanting to Latium, which is desirous of the truth. Again, after some words in the same place: Meanwhile, he says, we beseech with bowed entreaty all who shall read these things, that, envy's malice being set aside, they may deign to correct what they shall have found to deserve blame… Let them also know that we have written down, not for all generally, but for certain devout persons especially who requested it, in the manner of a memorandum, the things which we have learned by truthful report. Laurence therefore set before himself in this Opuscule the fostering of piety rather than the writing of history; which is also abundantly clear from the whole context. As regards his date, he too in the same preface signifies that he lived at least very near to the times of St. Wenceslaus. Take his words.

[16] but they are not accurate, Yet the martyr's laurel of B. Wenceslaus in a manner more strongly asserts it (the divine providence in created things), who lately, amid the wintry snows of the northern pole, standing out like a new Titan, is known to have driven back all the cold of that harmful season. Whence his most blessed passion is to be embraced and recalled the more venerably, in that our own ages have conferred it upon us illustrated with divine virtues. But to so great an antiquity of the biographer his narrative in our transcript does not answer, which betrays a man, if not much later than the age of St. Wenceslaus, at least ill-informed concerning that Saint and the affairs of Bohemia in his time. Occasion will perhaps be given here and there of noting his errors in the Commentarius or in the Annotations; one thing meanwhile it will be useful to have observed here. He writes that the translation of St. Wenceslaus made from Old Boleslav to Prague took place in the time of the lord Albert, the kindly confessor and pontiff, whom also he affirms to have contributed his labour to this translation as bishop of the place.

[17] nor is this to be published in print. That took place, as we shall prove in its own place, in the year 939 or 940, at which time Prague with Bohemia lay under the bishopric of Regensburg, from which it was first severed in the time of St. Wolfgang, who did not obtain the see of Regensburg before the year 972. Further, at the time of the aforesaid translation, and thereafter down to St. Wolfgang, no Albert sat as bishop at Regensburg. But the first bishop of Prague was Dithmar, the second St. Adalbert; and if Laurence designates the latter by the name Albert, as he certainly does, he has strayed too far from the true time, and at the same time betrays that he was not well instructed in matters pertaining to St. Wenceslaus and Bohemia, and that he was further removed from the age of St. Wenceslaus than he had hinted in his Preface. These things I have thought fit to observe somewhat more at large, that the reader may know why I have determined that the Life whose author Peter the Deacon so greatly praised, and whom Joannes Marus writes to have been contemporary or nearly contemporary with St. Wenceslaus — why, I say, I have determined that that Life is by no means to be published. For the rest, I speak of the Life as it exists in our Gallonian transcript; for another copy of it I have not seen.

[18] Pessina in the Phosphorus of the church of Prague, page 613 and elsewhere, praises yet another ancient biographer of St. Wenceslaus, Another Life by Hyzo, bishop of Prague, namely Hyzo, fifth bishop of Prague, notice of whom he had given beforehand in the same work at page 599, where he reviewed him in the series of the bishops of Prague in this manner: Iso or Hyzo, a Bohemian baron, surnamed Weprek, from provost of Prague (made bishop). He died in the year MXXX, on the XXX day of January. The beginning of the Life written by him he gave at page 613 as follows: The Christian faith increasing in those days. I too have in hand a copy of a Passion with the same opening, but without the author's name, transcribed from a Ms. codex of the most serene queen of Sweden, in which also are read the same words which Pessina exhibited from his own at the page just cited. But whether this has Hyzo or another for its author matters little, since it is almost nothing but an abridgement of the Opuscule of Christannus, which we shall print. Nevertheless, if it were certainly established that it is Hyzo's, it would avail for confirming the sayings of Christannus, and for weakening certain other things which must be said to have been utterly unknown both to Christannus and to this writer, though they are of such a kind as could not easily have been unknown to them or passed over.

[19] Longer than all the rest is another Legend, embracing the Passion, another by John, first of Litomyšl, the Translation, and the Miracles of St. Wenceslaus, which my Predecessors obtained from Prague in the year 1642, transcribed from the Homiliary of Prague by the care of Joannes Baptista Van Hollant. The opening of this is: That the Name of the Lord may be announced in the parts of Bohemia, and the greatness of his praise be heard in all its borders, etc. In our transcript no author is set down; but Bohuslav Balbinus, in a letter given to Papebroch in the year 1669, advised that in his own copy there is read at the end: Here end the sayings of the Rev. father in Christ and lord D. John, bishop of Olomouc, and chancellor of the lord emperor Charles of divine memory, concerning the Life and miracles of the most blessed Wenceslaus, the glorious martyr. This John I believe to have been other than the bishop of Olomouc of the same name, surnamed Dubravius, who flourished under the emperors Charles V and Ferdinand I, and wrote a History of Bohemia, published in print, out of whose books 4 and 5 Laurentius Surius reviewed the deeds of St. Wenceslaus. I believe, I say, that this John was the one surnamed de Novoforo, bishop first of Litomyšl and afterwards of Olomouc.

[20] Pessina, in Balbinus, book 3 of the Epitome, in the Notes to chapter 10, mentions him in the second place among the bishops of Litomyšl thus: afterwards bishop of Olomouc, John de Novoforo, bishop of Litomyšl and chancellor of the imperial court under Charles IV. The same man is recorded in the Catalogue of the bishops of Olomouc, published among the writers of Bohemia, in these words: John de Novo foro, bishop of Litomyšl and chancellor of the august Charles, being postulated to the church of Olomouc, undertook the care of it not unwillingly… He dies in the year of Christ three hundred and eighty above a thousand. But the reason why I think so, besides the title of chancellor of the emperor Charles added to him both in the Prague transcript of the Life and in the two passages adduced, is this: that this Life does not always agree with the History of Dubravius, and that Balbinus in the Epitome and Pessina in the Phosphorus praise John, bishop of Litomyšl, and Pessina sometimes even recites his words, which are in fact read in the Ms. of which we are treating. And so, if this Life has the aforesaid John de Novoforo for its author, it cannot be much older than the middle of the fourteenth century; nor is it of great authority so far as concerns the deeds of St. Wenceslaus. Wherefore this too I shall leave unpublished, and shall excerpt from it only certain more recent miracles, and, where it shall seem worth the trouble, shall record some things in the Commentarius.

[21] others put together by anonymous writers We have again another Life, sufficiently long, from a Ms. of St. Maximin of Trier, whose opening is this: It behoves us, dearest brethren, faithfully to consider the life and passion of St. Wenceslaus, the martyr of Christ, and, having considered it, studiously to commend it to our memories. This, as the words given indicate, is properly a sermon on the deeds and martyrdom of the holy Duke, and perhaps spoken before a congregation, especially since after a few words there follows in the same place: For fittingly do we solemnly celebrate the birthday of our blessed father Wenceslaus, etc. Longer even than the preceding is another, likewise by an anonymous author, of which we have obtained a threefold copy, one fuller than another. The chief of these, transcribed by the care of Baptista Van Hollant, presbyter of our Society, from the Passional of Prague, embraces the Life, martyrdom, translation, and miracles, but few things, however, beyond those which Christannus gave. The second transcript P. Joannes Gamans, very often praised in our Work, transmitted to our Predecessors from a very ancient Ms. of the abbey of Steinfeld, as is read noted at its head. The opening of both is the same: The sun of the Christian religion now rising in Bohemia, a land of horror and of vast solitude, etc.; but the Prague copy is fuller at the end, a narrative, namely, being added concerning the death and prodigies of Podevin, borrowed from Christannus.

[22] are enumerated. Lastly, the third transcript, received from the same Gamans out of a Ms. of the Charterhouse of Chämnitz, lacks the Prologue, and besides is mutilated at the beginning and the end through a fault of the codex. The anonymous author indicates his own age, and the labour which he bestowed on writing this Life, in the Steinfeld and Prague codices, saying: But these things, found in divers volumes, we have briefly compacted in this Opuscule… And certain things by sure revelation *

of the brothers of the Order of Preachers, concerning the appearing of Christ to the king of Dacia, and concerning the raising of a dead girl, we have learned, and have inserted them summarily into this Opuscule. From this let the learned reader determine of what authority this Life ought to be reckoned, which an anonymous writer, certainly not older than the thirteenth century and perhaps even later, scraped together out of various sources. Thus far concerning the longer Ms. Lives. Among the shorter ones there is noted one taken from a Ms. of the canons regular at Corsendonk near Turnhout (in Brabant), which is entitled The second part of divers Legends. It begins: Blessed Wenceslaus, begotten of a most Christian father, duke of the Bohemians,* etc.; and the same exists in print among the Legends of the Saints of Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, etc., published at Cracow in the year 1511.

[23] Another, likewise among the shorter ones, is by no means to be passed over, on account of the author whom it displays. It is noted as excerpted from a parchment Breviary, in large folio, of the church of St. Vitus at Prague, whose title is: The travelling-book of the lord John, bishop of Litomyšl, Another, finally, displays as author Charles IV, imperial chancellor. In the margin of our transcript our Conrad Janning added by way of observation that that book is written in a large and most elegant form of letters, in a great folio, of more than moderate thickness, bound about with red cloth. But the rubric, on the testimony of the same Janning, runs thus: Here begins the new History of St. Wenceslaus, martyr, duke of the Bohemians, compiled by the lord Charles, emperor of the Romans, king of Bohemia. That John, surnamed de Novoforo, bishop of Litomyšl and afterwards of Olomouc, was chancellor of Charles IV, emperor and king of Bohemia, we have shown above at num. 20 from other sources also; and therefore it cannot be denied that that Life was composed by the aforesaid emperor, which stands under his name in the viaticum of the aforesaid bishop John, that is, his book of the divine Offices, which he was accustomed to carry with him on his journeys.

[24] Nor ought the genius of Charles to seem foreign to a writing of this kind, emperor and king of Bohemia, who, on the testimony of John, archbishop of Prague, in the Oration which he delivered at the funeral of that same emperor, said his canonical Hours as one of the priests, and who, as had been premised in the same place, most beautifully expounded the Psalter in some places, and likewise also composed the Gospels and Prayers and other masterly works in like manner, and that often. His style, too, is not so faulty that it could not be Charles's, so far at least as appears to me from the Life of that same emperor which stands published with himself as its author. But the History of which we are treating is divided into two parts, and each of these is divided into six Lessons for a twofold ecclesiastical Office. The former part contains the life and martyrdom of St. Wenceslaus; the second the translation of his body from Boleslav to Prague, and some miracles, under this new title: There follows the legend of the translation of the most holy and excellent martyr Wenceslaus, duke of the Bohemians.* Hence one might in some measure doubt whether the second part also has Charles for its author, especially since in this the phrasing too is more inelegant than in the former.

[25] Nevertheless it is far more likely that both are by the same author; which we shall print in the second place. both because otherwise the History of St. Wenceslaus would be imperfect (inasmuch as in it there would be no mention of the translation of the holy Martyr and of the chief place of his cult and of his body), and because the former part lacks the customary closing formula, which the other does not lack; and because this latter so begins that it easily appears that that whole Opuscule was divided in two ways, so that the former part might serve for the six Lessons of the Office on the Saint's birthday feast, and the other for as many on the festival of his translation. But it has seemed good to me to publish that Life, because it contains summarily almost all those things which others in a more diffuse style added to the Acts written by Christannus. All the other Lives hitherto enumerated, as well as several others abridged from these, which there is no need to review, I shall leave unpublished; intending, however, to examine in the Commentarius the chief assertions of the same which were unknown to Christannus or omitted by him. I pass over also one or two Ms. Translations, because they contain scarcely anything beyond what Christannus wrote: but the few things added I shall review in the Commentarius. Thus far concerning the Mss.

[26] The various writers who have treated of St. Wenceslaus in printed books Some writers who have made mention of him in books. we shall very often cite in the course of the Commentarius; yet it will be useful to have set down here a few things concerning some of them. Peter de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio, in his Catalogue of the Saints, book 8, chapter 127, reviewed his eulogy — from what Ms. I do not know, but certainly a very bad one; since he said that the Saint, whom he called Vinceslaus, was the brother of the emperor Henry, and was slain by him for the sake of the Christian religion. Laurentius Surius, as I mentioned above, compiled the Martyrdom of the same holy Duke from the Bohemian History of John Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc. Eulogies of the same were published by Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Roman Pontiff, called Pius II, in chapter 15; by Georgius Bartholdus a Braitenberg in his Bohemia Pia; by Bohuslav Balbinus of the Society of Jesus in his Epitome and Miscellanea of Bohemian Affairs; and by others. A special Work on the same Saint was composed by Joannes Tanner, which, entitled The Trophies of St. Wenceslaus, patron of the kingdom of Bohemia, is recorded in the Library of the writers of the Society of Jesus to have been printed at Prague in the year 1661 in folio; but that book of Tanner's has not come into our hands. Finally, not to be longer, Adrien Baillet composed a French Life out of various sources, and published it among the Acts of the Saints at this day of September.

* elsewhere: by report

* or: of the brother

* elsewhere: he used to comment on

§ II. The Saint's illustrious family and birth; his holy upbringing and study of letters.

[ ] The Saint's grandfather Borzivoi, his grandmother St. Ludmila, Bohuslav Balbinus, in his Notes to the Life of SS. Ludmila and Wenceslaus written by Christannus, wove together a long genealogy of the holy Duke, which it does not please me to examine here. He had for grandfather, as was said above at num. 1, Borzivoi, called by others also Borivoi, whose great praise is this, that he was the first of the dukes of Bohemia to embrace the Christian faith, and that he also constantly held and propagated it at the most immediate peril of losing his duchy. Borzivoi (to use the words of Christannus in the Life of St. Ludmila given at the XVI day of this month) had also a wife by name Ludmila, daughter of Slavibor, count of the province of the Slavs which in antiquity was called Bssovo, and now by the moderns is named Mělník from a city newly built; who, as she had been his equal in the error of heathenism, in sacrificing to idols, so also in the Christian religion, by imitating, nay by excelling, the virtues of her husband, was made truly a handmaid of Christ.

[28] the first Christian dukes of Bohemia; That I may not do what is already done, I am compelled to refer the reader for these matters to the Life of St. Ludmila and the Commentarius prefixed to it, where he will find related and illustrated the coming over of both from idols to the rites of Christ, the expulsion from their Bohemian duchy which they endured on that account, their happy return, and the rest of what pertains to them both. Hence in the first place the anonymous writer is to be corrected who, in the Life which he professes to have written by command of the emperor Otto II, so speaks as though Spitigneus had been the first of the dukes of Bohemia to give his name to Christ. To it (Bohemia, he says), the most illustrious king Henry (the Fowler) of happy memory already reigning, a certain man, more distinguished by the lineage of that nation and more eminent in power among the citizens, Zpirigneus by name, holding the rule of the principality under the king's dominion, being touched from heaven with a sweet longing, and panting not a little to be regenerated by the mystery of the sacred font, is cleansed by Baptism. Let us return to Christannus, who continues thus: And the oft-mentioned prince (Borzivoi) had by her (by St. Ludmila) three sons and as many daughters … And when the course of his time was accomplished, full of days and of goodness, he closed his last day.

[29] Two of the sons' names are known from Christannus, namely Spitigneus and Wratislaus; both worthy of parents so pious, his uncle Spitigneus, his father Wratislaus, and successors in turn in the duchy. The third John Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc, in book 2 of his History of Bohemia, and Bohuslav Balbinus call Boleslaus, whom they say died an infant after receiving Baptism. The names of the three daughters lie hidden, nor have I found anything concerning them, save that Balbinus writes that mention is made of them in a certain ancient Breviary of the church of Prague. Spitigneus, the elder-born, succeeded first in his father's duchy, and, dying celibate, or at any rate without male offspring, left it after a Christian and pious rule to his brother Wratislaus. Wratislaus, first duke of Bohemia of that name, treading in the footsteps of his parents, erected in the castle of Prague, as a monument of his religion, the church of St. George the martyr. Buried in this himself, he merited for the holiness of his life the title of Blessed, inscribed already in antiquity upon his tomb, on the testimony of Balbinus in his Miscellanea of Bohemia, decade 1, book 4, §4, where he exhibited a eulogy of him as of a Blessed.

[30] Joannes Ludovicus Schönleben, in his Annus sanctus Habspurgo-Austriacus, also celebrates the same Wratislaus with the title of Blessed at the XIII day of February; pious dukes of Bohemia; his mother Dragomira, but neither does he declare why he does it on that day, nor does he himself, nor the aforesaid Balbinus, allege any other indication of cult beyond the said title of Blessed inscribed on the tomb. Although Wratislaus was such a man and born of such parents, he nevertheless took to wife a heathen woman named Dragomira, or Drahomira, most noble indeed by birth among the Bohemians, but, as afterwards appeared, so infamous for the vices of her mind, and above all for a savage hatred of Christians and a lust of ruling, that she was deservedly called a second Jezebel by Bohemian writers. But as to why a Christian and pious prince, his holy mother Ludmila being then still alive, could be thought to have joined a heathen girl to himself in marriage, two reasons chiefly occur to me. The first may have been that the rites of Christ, brought into Bohemia at that time not so very long before, were not yet so commonly received among the chief men that a Christian maiden of the nation's first nobility could easily be taken into a prince's bed; and that it would seem perilous to fetch another from a foreign nation for religion's sake, since there was recently before their eyes the example in Borzivoi, the father of Wratislaus, whom rebellious subjects had once driven out of his duchy on account of that same religion which he had received. Consult the Life of St. Ludmila, chapter 1.

[31] The other reason, which more recent writers commonly bring forward, a woman noble of the race of the Slavs, appears likewise probable. They say, namely, that the crafty Dragomira, who dared anything in order to rule, promised with feigned mind before the marriage that she would see to it that she was instructed and initiated in the Christian mysteries; but that afterwards, once joined to the prince, she first eluded her promises in various ways by putting them off, and finally made no account of them at all. Balbinus, in the eulogy of Wratislaus just praised, asserts that these very things are read in Christannus, in whom I have sought the same in vain. This at least is established: that Dragomira was not only a heathen and given to idols, but also a sworn enemy of the Christian religion, which she showed both by the dreadful strangling of St. Ludmila, her mother-in-law, and by the violent upbringing of her holy son Wenceslaus, and by the seizing of

tyranny and the persecution of the clergy, and perhaps also by the murder of that same Saint she attempted to drive it out of Bohemia. Finally the writers of Bohemia commonly hand down (Christannus, however, perhaps out of reverence toward his grandmother, keeping silent) that she at length came to such a pitch of impiety that, God taking vengeance, she perished swallowed up by the earth which gaped open; concerning which matter consult, if you please, our remarks in the Annotations to chapter 3 of the Life of St. Ludmila, letter c. Let us now return to the marriage we mentioned.

[32] but a heathen and most hostile to Christians. The pious duke of Bohemia Wratislaus took a wife (the words are Christannus's) by name Dragomir, from the province of the pagan Slavs which is called Ztodor, one to be likened to that Jezebel who by her malice butchered the prophets; or to Eve, the wife of the first-formed man, who brought forth Cain and Abel. Balbinus in his Notes observed the following concerning the stock of this same Dragomira: Other writers call her Drahomira, sprung of a most noble family among the men of Luka, or of Žatec. Paprocki makes Drahomira the daughter of Wlatislaus, prince of Luka; Wenceslaus Ripa the granddaughter of Wlatislaus by Brzoslaus; but Hájek and Veleslavín oppose them both; for they wrote that the stock of Wlatislaus of Luka perished in his son Zbislaus, whom his tutor, a Thuringian by nation, slew by an utter crime. From which it is permissible to gather that everything concerning Dragomira's birth is doubtful except what Christannus, her grandson by her son, left in writing. The province of Ztodor, which Balbinus interpreted as that of Luka or of Žatec, once had, on his own testimony in book 3 of the Miscellanea of Bohemia, chapter 4, §2, its own dukes, and is now one of the provinces of the kingdom of Bohemia.

[33] The same Saint's impious brother Boleslaus, but his sister And so Dragomira (Christannus subjoins) bore by that same prince (Wratislaus) two sons, the one called Wenceslaus, the other Boleslaus; of whom the latter, liker to his mother than to his father, impiously claimed for himself the duchy of Bohemia by the murder of his holy Brother. From the same so ill-matched wedlock there came forth also the pious Pribislava, or Przibislava, of whom Christannus makes honourable mention in the Life to be published, at num. 31, in these words: The venerable matron, that is to say the sister of the blessed Martyr, Przibislava by name, had from her very cradle been taught to serve God for Christ the Lord according to the Gospel precepts without reproach. For after the Lord had loosed her from the marriage bond, she had wholly given herself over to serve God, thirsting with ardent soul to be covered with the sacred veil, persisting day and night urgently in prayers, fastings, and vigils. The same woman is said in the same place, at num. 40, to be his sister Przibyslawa, living, so far as a human eye can judge beforehand, most holily under a sacred habit; but whether by "sacred habit" her monastic life is here designated, or, what is more likely, a widowhood dedicated to God, cannot be said with certainty.

[34] Przibislava most pious, whose body as that of a Blessed Balbinus, in his Miscellanea of Bohemia, decade 1, book 4, §5, weaving a eulogy of the same matron, writes that she was in his own time honoured with the title of Blessed, and indeed even of Saint, received from all preceding antiquity; and that her body, first buried in the village of Jablonná, when it had grown famous by miracles, was religiously venerated in a church built above it and named from her, St. Przibislava. Thence, he says, it was translated to Prague in the year 1367 by command of Charles IV, emperor and king of Bohemia, and laid in the church of St. Vitus in one tomb together with the body of Podevin, who, as we shall say below, is also there held for a Blessed. To give greater credit to these things, he adds the testimony of the most illustrious and most reverend lord Joannes Ignatius Dlauhoveský, suffragan of Prague, concerning the finding of the same bodies, which I subjoin here in his very words. Both bodies, both of B. Przibislava and of B. Podewin, were found and raised while the foundations of the new church added at St. Vitus's were being laid, in the year MDCLXXIII; which it was permitted to me, a sinner, to see and to handle both, while a great crowd of people and clergy kissed them, not without tears and great tenderness. So do I testify, Joannes Ignatius, bishop of Milevum, provost of Prague, then senior canon, and even then for the sixth year Bohemian preacher in the holy metropolitan church of Prague.

[35] Joannes Ludovicus Schönleben, in his Annus sanctus Habspurgo-Austriacus, has placed the same woman with the title of Saint at the XVI day of August. and name are venerable. But as regards the month and the day, this was doubtless at his own discretion, since I have found her name in no Martyrology, nor have I read it asserted by anyone that her cult (if indeed it persists to this day) is or was attached with certainty to any particular day. Further, that from so impious a mother as Dragomira was, so holy a Son and so pious a daughter should have grown up, must probably, after God, be set down to the credit of their Christian father Wratislaus and their grandmother St. Ludmila, to whom he, because he had well perceived the impiety of his wife, must be believed to have committed the upbringing of his children. Certainly Christannus, in the Life to be published, at num. 2, testifies that St. Wenceslaus and Boleslaus were, after the death of Wratislaus, handed over by the common counsel of the nobles to be brought up not by Dragomira but by St. Ludmila; until the imperious woman Dragomira, by wicked machinations, obtained that they should be given over into her own guardianship; as we shall see in its own place.

[36] In what year St. Wenceslaus was brought forth into the light St. Wenceslaus is believed to have been born in the year 908, neither Christannus nor the other ancient biographers have told. Nothing on this subject was found either by Cosmas, dean of the church of Prague, who flourished in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. For he, in book 1 of his Chronicle of Bohemia, after some matters pertaining to Borzivoi and St. Ludmila, among which he had touched upon the births of their sons and grandsons, presently subjoined: But among these years which we have noted below were done these things which we have set forth in writing: yet we could not know in what years or times they were done. Then he subjoined the years of Christ 895 and 927, between which there is no doubt that St. Wenceslaus was born. Notwithstanding this silence of the ancients, Wenceslaus Hájek, in his Chronicle of Bohemia — which, published in the Bohemian tongue in the year 1541, Johann Sandel turned into German and had printed in the year 1596 — fastened the birth of that same holy Duke without hesitation to the year 908. Balbinus followed Hájek, both in the Epitome and in the Miscellanea of Bohemian Affairs, and, on his own testimony, so did the rest of the writers of Bohemia; although the same Balbinus has often elsewhere complained, and solidly proved, that the chronology of Hájek is faulty.

[37] I for my part make little account, even here, of Hájek's chronology in matters so far removed from him, which cannot be far from the truth; piously brought up by St. Ludmila; on account of his manifest errors, some of which I shall note in their places, nor can I believe him when he asserts, without an older witness or argument, that the birth of St. Wenceslaus fell in the year of Christ 908. Yet, so far as I have been able to gather from various assertions of Christannus, the year of the Saint's birth assigned by Hájek may not stray far from the truth; yet so that I suspect him to have been born a little earlier rather than later. However that be, it is the common opinion of the writers of Bohemia that the holy Boy was from his earliest age brought up in the household of his holy grandmother Ludmila, and well instructed in the precepts of the sacred faith; and although the older biographers are silent about it, his father's religion and the notorious impiety of Dragomira make it most likely, as I observed above. For it would have been the height of imprudence in a Christian and pious prince to commit Christian offspring to be taught by a mother most devoted to idols.

[38] For the same reason I do not sufficiently approve another assertion of the same writers, by which they report that the upbringing of Boleslaus, the second-born son, was left to Dragomira, and that hence he was so unlike his father and his Brother, he is sent to Budeč for the study of letters, and so like his mother in his manners. And if that is so, it must be that Wratislaus, broken by the prayers and blandishments of his wife, a most crafty woman, granted what the piety of a Christian prince and the present peril of his offspring forbade. Perhaps this very diversity of the two brothers in manners led the aforesaid writers to believe that Boleslaus was instructed in the precepts of manners by none other than his own mother. Let us return to St. Wenceslaus. He, as soon as his age allowed, passed from the training of his holy grandmother to Budeč, for the sake of cultivating his mind with letters, which were there publicly taught by Christians. Christannus, at num. 1, has this on the subject: The aforesaid duke Wratislaus … had handed over his … son of the preceding age (that is, the eldest born) Wenceslaus, of an ardent mind, to be steeped in letters in the divine law, in the city which was called Budecz, where there was and is a church consecrated by his predecessor and brother Spitihněv in honour of the Prince of the Apostles B. Peter.

[39] a city once famous for an academy: Balbinus, in the Miscellanea of Bohemia, book 3, chapter 17, writes that this city was founded by Crocus II, prince of the Bohemians, and was once famous for an ancient academy of the heathen arts, which was afterwards turned by SS. Cyril and Methodius into Christian schools. Its site he assigns in the same place as not far from Velvary, and elsewhere also as not far from Prague. Of the same city, which has now long lain in ruins, Hájek too makes mention in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 905, where, having treated of the Christian schools and the church founded in it by Spitigneus, he subjoined that the ditches of the same city were still visible in his own time on a certain mountain or hill between Prague and Velvary, and that besides there had been two churches there, one of SS. Peter and Paul, the other of the most holy Mother of God Mary. John Dubravius, in book 4 of the Bohemian History, further hands down that the teacher whom the holy Boy used there was Nycenus, a presbyter, master of the school there; which word Nycenum Baillet interpreted of his native place in Silesia, saying thus in French: un prêtre de la ville de Neisse en Silésie. But that city of Silesia is usually called in Latin Nissa, not Nicea; and it may be doubted whether by that word Dubravius meant to indicate the presbyter's native place or his proper name. For the rest, I have read nothing of him in other and older writers.

[40] where, while he dwelt there, he is related to have shone with singular piety. Still less do I know on what ancient testimony rest the things which Balbinus, in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 4, has recounted out of others concerning St. Wenceslaus's stay at Budeč. Nothing, he says, was more pleasing to Wenceslaus than to be present at the sacred mysteries and to minister to those who were offering sacrifice. They hand down that Wenceslaus, while still a boy, claimed this to himself as it were his own privilege, that he should daily provide the priests with bread, wine, and light for sacred uses out of his boyish savings; which custom he always kept as long as he lived, and, as virtue increases and sharpens itself, he advanced afterwards so far that he pressed out the wine with his own hand and prepared the bread for the Sacrifice, with meal and mill and trodden grapes, not unbecomingly soiled for God. For the bread and wine prepared by him for the use of the Sacrifice when he was already grown, we have as authority Christannus in the Life to be published, at num. 16; but the rest, by Balbinus

asserted, perhaps began to be handed down from no other source than pious conjectures.

§ III. The Saint's succession to his father's duchy and the time of that succession: the upbringing of himself and of his brother Boleslaus committed, on account of their tender age, to their holy grandmother: the assertions of others on these matters discussed.

[ ] His father being dead, St. Wenceslaus succeeds to the duchy of Bohemia. While St. Wenceslaus was, as we have said, happily applying himself at Budeč to the study of letters, his father Wratislaus met his last day, and he himself was, by the common consent of the people, put in his father's place in the duchy of Bohemia. Christannus, in the Life to be published, at num. 16, asserts that Wratislaus was then almost thirty-three years old; but he neglected to note the year of Christ in which he died, and so left it to posterity to divine. The other biographer, who professed — perhaps not truthfully — that he wrote at the command of Otto II, makes Spitigneus lord in Bohemia, and washed in the sacred font of Baptism, the most illustrious king Henry of happy memory already reigning; that is, the first king of Germany of that name, who was called by the surname of the Fowler. Then he lays down that Wratislaus, whom he calls Miratislaus, succeeded Spitigneus, and that finally, when the latter had died, Wenceslaus, a youth, was under the shining power of the most serene king Otto, with the favourable assent of the peoples, put into the succession of his father's duchy. Thus he, betraying not obscurely that the Bohemian affairs of that time had been little explored by him, and at the same time raising a suspicion about the good faith with which he affirmed that he wrote under Otto II.

[42] The aforesaid Henry succeeded to the kingdom of Germany after Conrad, who was taken from the living at the end of the year 918, there reigning in Germany not Otto I but Conrad, and Otto I succeeded him in the year 936, as the more common opinion has it in Pagi's Critica of Baronius, or at any rate in the year 937, as Sigebert of Gembloux judged in his Chronicle. And so, if we believe this anonymous writer, Spitigneus was still ruling over the Bohemians at least in the year 918, and St. Wenceslaus succeeded him after his own father Wratislaus not before the year 936, that is, when Otto I was already reigning in Germany. I do not here inquire whether Spitigneus reached down to the reign of Henry the Fowler; and if the anonymous writer had said this of Wratislaus, Spitigneus's successor, I should admit it without difficulty; but neither him nor the other do I believe to have been the first baptized in the reign of that same Henry. But it is indeed established that St. Wenceslaus held the duchy of Bohemia under the aforesaid Henry, king of Germany. So Christannus expressly teaches at num. 20 of the Life to be published, where, treating of the pious counsels of the holy Duke and the impious ones of Boleslaus his brother, These things, he says, were done in the times of Henry, king of the Saxons, who first among them, Christ being propitious to him, set the diadem upon himself, to whom that same happy man (St. Wenceslaus) was constantly joined as a friend.

[43] With Christannus agrees Widukind, monk of Corvey and a most ancient writer of Saxony, or Henry the Fowler, who in more than one place referred St. Wenceslaus to the reign of Henry the Fowler. His words we shall recite below at num. 82, 159 and 160. It is obscure what Sigebert of Gembloux thought on this point, since he set down these things concerning Spitigneus, Wratislaus, and Wenceslaus together, and not without error, in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 921, in which Henry was reigning: Ziptineus, duke of Bohemia, being converted to the faith of Christ, ruled justly and religiously in Bohemia, and after him Vuatizlaus, his son (rather, his brother). After Vuatizlaus, Vuenceslaus, his son, illustrious for justice and holiness. So the edition of Aubert Le Mire, than which even more faulty are the Paris editions published in the year 1513 by Henri Estienne and in the year 1583 by Michel Sonnius, printer. However that be, from what is to be said in §5 it will be manifest that St. Wenceslaus so ruled his Bohemians as duke under Henry the Fowler, king of Germany, that he scarcely, or not even scarcely, reached the reign of Otto I in his lifetime. Thus far concerning the anonymous writer, who by a palpable error placed the beginnings of St. Wenceslaus's dukedom under Otto I.

[44] about the year 916, or 918; Far removed from him is Hájek in his Chronicle of Bohemia, in which he affirmatively bound the death of Wratislaus to the year of Christ 916; which, though it be by no means abhorrent from the truth, we nevertheless cannot safely believe on Hájek's word without another witness, since he asserts many things lightly, and in his chronological arrangement manifestly wavers, both often elsewhere and in the case of Spitigneus, Wratislaus, and St. Wenceslaus. More rightly did Cosmas, dean of the church of Prague, much older than Hájek, candidly confess that the year of Wratislaus's death was, among other matters concerning the aforesaid dukes of Bohemia, unknown to him. Let us nevertheless suppose for a little while that St. Wenceslaus succeeded his dead father in that year 916; there will have flowed from thence to the year 936, in which we shall prove in its own place that he was more probably slain, about 20 years, which certainly seem sufficient to fill out the space of time by which he survived his own father, as I have been able to gather from the narrative of Christannus. Nay rather, I should prefer to fix the beginning of his dukedom even a year or two later, and to refer it to the beginnings of Henry the Fowler's reign in Germany.

[45] but on account of their tender age Further, if the holy Duke was in truth born in the year 908 of the Christian era (as Balbinus says is maintained by the testimony of all writers after Hájek, I suppose), he may have been in about the eighth, or rather the tenth or eleventh year of his age when Henry entered upon his reign. Nor does anything compel us to believe him younger when he was put into his father's duchy; nay rather, a somewhat greater age for him becomes more likely from the whole context of Christannus, which I shall illustrate. But certainly he was not at that time yet ripe for the bearing of the dukedom of the nation; of which fact it is an argument that the nobles of Bohemia thought it necessary to commit the guardianship and upbringing of him and of his brother Boleslaus to another, until he should have proved equal to handling the public affairs, at home and in war, which a lordship of this kind brings with it. And it pleased them, by a salutary counsel, to entrust this charge to that holy grandmother, Ludmila, then a widow, passing over their mother Dragomira, whom her own impiety and imperious nature had made as hateful to good men as St. Ludmila's pious manners and her once sweet rule together with her husband Borzivoi commended her. It is also credible that this was the last will of the religious prince Wratislaus, which the aforesaid magnates carried into execution.

[46] both he and his brother Boleslaus But because the more recent writers of Bohemia vary somewhat on these matters, it will be useful to have heard Christannus before I discuss the assertions of others. In the Life to be published, at num. 2, he has this. And when, being sagacious in mind (St. Wenceslaus, busying himself with the study of letters at Budeč), he committed deeply to memory all that had been imparted to him by his tutor, the Holy Spirit inspiring him — his father meanwhile departing from this life — … he is called back to the metropolitan city of Prague, and is raised by the whole people to his father's seat. But since he had not yet perfectly cleansed the flower of boyhood or youth, all the satraps, taking counsel, committed the untrained Duke himself, with his brother Boleslaus, to Ludmila of blessed memory, the handmaid of Christ, to be brought up, until, by God's favour, the strength of age should grow upon them. Seeing which, the mother of the aforesaid boys, who, being widowed of her husband, was using his throne, at the devil's instigation kindled all the wrath of her venomous breast against the handmaid of God Ludmila.

[47] And she is straitened by evil suspicions, reckoning that, on account of the bringing up of the youths, whom the whole people had committed to her mother-in-law to be brought up, are committed to St. Ludmila to be brought up, Dragomira gnashing her teeth. she was being deprived of the realm and of its affairs, and that the other woman would obtain the whole lordship for herself; and having entered upon a most perverse counsel with men of Belial, she strove with all her effort to destroy her. But the venerable and devoted handmaid of Christ Ludmila, learning this, … was careful to send word to her daughter-in-law by intermediaries, saying: No portion of thy realm has invaded my mind with an ill-flattering covetousness, nor do I desire to have any lordship over thee. Receive thy sons, and, as it pleases thy mind, reign with them; but grant me the liberty of serving Christ Almighty in whatever place shall please. Thus Christannus, son of the aforesaid Boleslaus, grandson of Dragomira, and great-grandson of St. Ludmila; in which words he not only expressly asserts that both sons of Wratislaus, Wenceslaus and Boleslaus, were after their father's death entrusted by the common resolve of the nation to the instruction of Ludmila, but also seems altogether to judge that Wenceslaus alone succeeded his father in the whole duchy of Bohemia.

[48] But the more recent writers of Bohemia commonly have things far otherwise, Some writers concerning the upbringing of both whose views I shall now set forth. Hájek in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 917 writes that Dragomira, her husband Wratislaus being dead, summoned an assembly of the Bohemian nation and demanded and obtained the administration of the duchy as due to her by right as mother of the princes, until her sons should be grown up. He subjoins that in the same assembly the duchy of Bohemia was, by the last will of their deceased father, divided between the two sons, in such a way that Wenceslaus, the elder-born, should hold Vyšehrad and Prague and all the region on this side of the Elbe, but Boleslaus that beyond the Elbe, and that the boundary of both their dominions should be the intervening river Elbe. Besides, he says it was decreed that Ludmila, grandmother of the two princes, should spend the remainder of her life in her dower castle of Tetín, and that after her death it should pass to Wenceslaus's portion. Finally, concerning the two princes he says it was enacted that Boleslaus should be brought up with his mother at Vyšehrad, and that Wenceslaus should go back to Budeč to the study of letters. So Hájek, in substance.

[49] John Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc, in book 4 of the Bohemian History, agrees thus concerning the principality seized by Dragomira soon after her husband's death: and the succession to their father's duchy Her husband being buried, and her sons still too weak in age, Drahomira seizes the government, and at once uncovers her hatred against the Christians, long ill-dissembled, etc. Then he began book 5 with the division of the duchy in these words: To remove the brotherly discord which for the most part undivided goods are wont to stir up between brothers, it is at once decreed, at the very entry upon the principality, that some part of the inheritance be assigned to Boleslaus, the younger brother, and that the boundaries of each dominion be settled. Boleslav was assigned to him with its territory beyond the Elbe; so that the river Elbe bounded the lands on this side and beyond. The mother followed her younger son, who agreed with her own manners; Wenceslaus alone obtained the prince's throne at Prague. In this, however, Dubravius differs from Hájek, that the latter will have that division first made after St. Wenceslaus had already shaken off the lordship of his impious mother, who was overturning things sacred and profane alike; whereas Hájek places the same at the beginning of that same Dragomira's tyranny.

[50] speak far otherwise, which is examined on both sides, With Hájek also Balbinus almost agrees, in the Epitome, book 1, chapter 5, although he varies in some particulars and even passes over certain things. But he adds that Wratislaus, while he was designing the aforesaid division in his mind, began for that reason to found a new city, and named it from his son Boleslaus not merely Boleslavia but, in the native tongue and rather unusually, Boleslaum, that his son might understand that a royal seat had been prepared for him at Boleslav. Finally others also agree, who no more set forth on what ancient monuments these things rest than the aforesaid writers do. I for my part prefer to believe Christannus, the son of that very Boleslaus, and therefore far to be preferred to all the rest in a matter of the household, that the instruction of both youthful princes was, by the people's

decree, first committed to Ludmila alone, and afterwards handed over by her, for the sake of peace, to Dragomira, who was raging on that account. But as regards the division of the duchy of Bohemia between the two brothers, this is read in none of our so various Ms. Lives, and it seems to be at variance with the sayings of Christannus alleged above. Consistently with those sayings he also speaks elsewhere in the same Life, and likewise where the place required that he should make mention of the principality of Boleslaus his father, if he had known of it.

[51] and it is shown by various arguments, In the aforesaid Life, at num. 20, about to narrate the martyrdom of the holy Duke, he thus began: Boleslaus, having a house of his own or a roof in the city called by his own name (that is, Boleslav), already wounded on every side by the darts of the devil, and inflamed with the lust of ruling, when the solemnity of BB. Cosmas and Damian the martyrs, which is kept two days before that of B. Michael the archangel, was drawing near there — where a church is held consecrated in honour of the same Saints — deceitfully summoned his aforesaid happy Brother (St. Wenceslaus) as though to a banquet; but, as in fact appeared, to be sacrificed. Why, I ask, did Christannus, in order to teach on what occasion Boleslaus invited his holy Brother to Boleslav to the feast of SS. Cosmas and Damian — why, I say, did he here so studiously observe that Boleslaus had a house of his own or a roof in that city, if that same city of Boleslav, together with all Bohemia beyond the Elbe, belonged to Boleslaus, and he had himself already for many years held his seat and court at Boleslav? Indeed, to me at least that whole narrative seems to present Boleslaus rather as a private person, who had at Boleslav a house of his own or a roof, that is, his own dwelling, than as a prince ruling widely in that city and the adjacent region.

[52] that at least it is doubtful Boleslaus is likewise exhibited as a private man rather than a reigning prince when he is said, inflamed with the lust of ruling, to have fraudulently invited and slain his Brother (of whose dukedom alone Christannus had hitherto made mention); for if Boleslaus had reigned in his own dominion equally with Wenceslaus, it would have been more correctly said that he perpetrated that crime out of a lust of ruling more widely. There comes also another argument from the same Life, at num. 25, which, since I shall treat it more at large below in §4 against Dubravius, I shall here only touch on briefly. St. Wenceslaus, having long detested the dreadful tyranny of his mother, as soon as, aided by the counsel and help of his own magnates, he seized the reins of his duchy, judged it to be for the good of religion and of the commonwealth to banish her for a little while with her followers from the fatherland, until, the state of the commonwealth being settled in things sacred and profane, she could be recalled without danger; both of which he accomplished. For he drove his mother from the realm with the greatest disgrace … and again, when time had elapsed, brought her back; yet she lacked the honour of her former lordship until the day of her death.

[53] Now indeed, if Boleslaus was at that time ruling in the region beyond the Elbe, the division of Bohemia, how did Wenceslaus expel his mother from Bohemia, and why, when she had afterwards been recalled by him, did she return to him and lead a private life, removed from all administration of the commonwealth until the day of her death? Why did she not then withdraw to her son Boleslaus, more like her in manners, into his court at Boleslav? Or if she could not do this in the first years, while Boleslaus was still rather young, what reason is there why she did not do it afterwards; since Boleslav ought on many grounds to have been dearer to her than Prague, where, having before ruled without restraint, she was then debarred from all governance of the duchy, and remained hateful to all good men until the end of her life, as Christannus, her own grandson by her son, testifies? These arguments tell indeed against all the writers alleged above, but chiefly, however, as I said, against Dubravius, who writes that Dragomira betook herself with her son Boleslaus to Boleslav as soon as, the division of Bohemia between the two brothers being made, St. Wenceslaus himself began to rule.

[54] Let us add here also another passage from Widukind, monk of Corvey, which they will have made after Wratislaus's death a Saxon writer of the same century, which Balbinus, in the Annotations to chapter 6 of book 1 of the Epitome, brought against himself and endeavoured to set aside. The aforesaid Widukind, in book 1 of the Annals, treating of the Bohemian war of Henry the Fowler, king of Germany, He (Henry) went off, he says, with his whole army to Prague, the city of the Bohemians, and received its king (St. Wenceslaus) into surrender, etc., which we shall recite below at num. 82. But Balbinus takes up these words in the Annotations thus: But whether Boleslaus too subjected himself to Henry, king of Germany, is doubtful and controverted. Widukind wrote nothing on that matter; nay rather, in so far as he commends Wenceslaus for his fidelity, he hints that Boleslaus either resisted spiritedly, or gave ground so as not to be subjected; which is the more likely. For why should Henry, who had summoned Wenceslaus to the assembly at Regensburg, pass over Boleslaus, if he had been a friendly prince? To repel the arms of Henry the very disposition of the young man led Boleslaus: and indeed Otto I was superior in arms to his father Henry; to whom, nevertheless, we shall see below that Boleslaus resisted for fourteen whole years, waged bloody wars with him, and often brought back a victorious army to Boleslav.

[55] Of King Henry's war against St. Wenceslaus, and of the words in which Widukind praised him, I shall treat in §5; between those two brothers but of the alleged invitation of St. Wenceslaus to the assembly at Regensburg in §6, and finally of the long war waged between Otto I and Boleslaus after the murder of the holy Duke in §9. But as to what pertains here: was it not rather to be doubted, on account of that silence of Widukind, compared with the sayings of Christannus, whether Boleslaus had a principality, than to be sought out by conjectures in order to assert it? The doubt is increased by the very warlike disposition of Boleslaus, which I acknowledge along with Balbinus: for if Boleslaus divided the paternal inheritance with his Brother, it ought certainly to seem strange that nothing is read of his deeds in the Bohemian war of Henry in Widukind, who reports him afterwards, as soon as he had obtained his brother's duchy by fratricide, flying to arms and warring strenuously even to the fourteenth year of the reign of Otto I. But that he resisted Henry spiritedly (as Balbinus's suspicion has it) is little likely from the aforesaid Widukind, who, after he had said that St. Wenceslaus surrendered himself with the city of Prague to him, subjoined, as though the war were now finished: Therefore the king, making the Bohemias tributary, returned into Saxony.

[56] And so, to put an end to these matters, the aforesaid division of the duchy of Bohemia into two parts — so great a division, that is, as some hand down — appears to me at least doubtful. Yet I shall readily grant, and it is altogether likely, that there was given to Boleslaus out of the paternal inheritance some castle and estates, from which he might maintain himself and his household according to his dignity. Let him therefore have had Boleslav, which afterwards by his own labour grew into a notable city, but whose beginnings, when his father Wratislaus was dying, Balbinus in the same work, chapter 1, acknowledged to have been slight. Let there have been added to him a certain measure of the surrounding land, and let Boleslaus have so ruled there as to acknowledge St. Wenceslaus as his lord and duke. In this way the sayings of the more recent writers can without much difficulty be reconciled with the assertions and the silence of the ancients.

§ IV. Dragomira claims for herself the guardianship of her sons and of the duchy of Bohemia: her impiety toward St. Ludmila, her tyrannical rule, and her deposition by St. Wenceslaus.

[ ] [Ludmila yields to Dragomira, raging on account of the guardianship of her sons committed to St. Ludmila,] Christannus, in the Life to be published, at num. 2, raises a doubt whether (what is otherwise most likely) together with the upbringing of her grandsons the guardianship of the duchy of Bohemia also, until St. Wenceslaus should be grown up, was committed by the people to the holy grandmother Ludmila. Let us weigh his words. Seeing which (namely, that the upbringing of the youthful princes had been entrusted to Ludmila), the mother of the aforesaid boys, who, being widowed of her husband, was using his throne … kindled all the wrath of her venomous breast against the handmaid of God, and is straitened by evil suspicions, reckoning that, on account of the bringing up of the Youths, whom the whole people had committed to her mother-in-law to be brought up, she was being deprived of the realm and of its affairs, and that the other woman would obtain the whole lordship for herself. According to these words the public administration of Bohemia seems to have remained in Dragomira's hands; for otherwise she would rather have complained that this had been snatched from her along with her sons, than have been immoderately anxious lest she be deprived of it. But on the other hand, with what likelihood are the Bohemians to be said to have withdrawn the upbringing of the younger princes from their mother Dragomira, if they had committed to her the guardianship of Bohemia?

[58] and, withdrawing to Tetín, prepares herself for death. For this reason I prefer to interpret the biographer's words more gently: namely, that Dragomira, who after her husband's death had hitherto reigned, being evilly suspicious of her mother-in-law, believed that the latter, having now obtained both guardianships, would so bind Wenceslaus's mind to herself that thereafter she would always reign with him; and that she herself indeed would be stripped by her of the honour and power which she was able to exert with her Son, nay even of her own goods, and would thereafter lead an inglorious life. Besides this, the ambitious and impious woman doubtless gnashed her teeth that by that resolve of the people all power had been taken from her of drawing her sons over to her own heathen rites, and of exercising the tyranny which she had long designed in her mind against the Christians. This frenzy for ruling, moreover, together with an implacable hatred of the Christian name, drove her to decree, with the ministers of her perfidy, the murder of her innocent mother-in-law, who had deserved nothing of the kind, with this intention, that she might both reign safely with her Son according to her own pleasure, and gradually banish the Christian rites out of all Bohemia. Far otherwise thought Ludmila, who, desiring nothing less than lordship, and taught in the school of Christ to yield to evil, taking up the arms of humility and patience (as Christannus says), handed over to her daughter-in-law her sons and whatever administration of Bohemia she may have had, demanding this one thing, that she should permit her to worship Christ wherever she wished.

[59] But Dragomira did not so hate as to be capable of being softened by humble words and a voluntary surrender; and, withdrawing to Tetín, prepares herself for death. but (on the testimony of Christannus in the often-praised Life of that same Saint) as it is always wont to happen that, in proportion as humility bows itself down for God, so far does the pride of arrogance, at the devil's thrusting, raise itself up, the duchess — that is to say, her daughter-in-law — disdained not only to accept but even to hear the most gentle and most kindly petition of St. Ludmila. Seeing which, the handmaid of Christ, recalling that word of the Apostle, "Do not resist evil, but give place unto wrath," and that word of the Gospel, "If they persecute you in this city, flee into another," took herself away with her people from the metropolitan city and went to a certain castle not far off, whose name is Tetín, that she might adorn herself with the gems of virtues in the measure in which she was the more certain that, her persecutor presently persecuting her, she would earn the palm of the victory of martyrdom; persisting most devoutly in prayer, sweating at vigils and fastings, and holding out a bountiful hand to all in alms.

[60] Meanwhile Dragomira, having received back her sons and being confirmed in the lordship of Bohemia, Dragomira attempts in vain to pervert St. Wenceslaus; set about carrying out her plan for destroying the Christian religion;

and because she knew that duke Wenceslaus, her son, was most devoted to it, she strove above all to pervert him; being well aware how much a prince's example and authority avail with his subjects. She began therefore, both herself and through others whom she had compliant with her impiety, to assail the youthful Duke with her engines, to call him back from the pursuit of piety, to tempt him with the delights of the court, to drive him toward pleasures. To blandishments and enticements they added threats; and, that they might the more easily overcome the Youth's mind, the impious men, attacking with constant snares his clerics and certain religious men on whose teaching he was fed, plotted to butcher them, and terrified them with the greatest threats, so that none of them could have access to him; says Christannus in the Life to be published, at num. 7. But all these things were in vain; since the young Prince stood unmoved in his purpose, and had found a way by which pious men of that kind might come to him secretly in the evening by a back door, and be dismissed unobserved in the morning at daybreak; as may be read more fully in the Life to be published, at num. 8.

[61] The other pillar of religion in Bohemia, and, while it was permitted her, He procures the strangling of St. Ludmila, and persecutes the clergy. its strenuous propagator, was the often-praised St. Ludmila, who at that time, removed from worldly cares, was serving God most holily in the citadel of Tetín, which they report to have been her dower; and probably by her example and secret admonitions she was confirming other Christians, and perhaps even her own holy grandson Wenceslaus himself, in the divine faith through trusty men. Her therefore her impious daughter-in-law, not suffering her to remain even there, caused to be strangled in her own house by wicked ministers; on which matter consult the aforecited Life of the Saint, chapter 2. After the murder of Ludmila she raged against the clergy, and at last, having stripped them of all their goods, expelled them from Bohemia. Of all these things it is established from Christannus, who at num. 4 of the Life to be published further teaches that these same things were divinely foreseen by St. Wenceslaus while he was being brought up in his mother's palace, and foretold to his intimates. But how cruel the lordship of this heathen woman was, one may in some measure conjecture from the same biographer at num. 25, in which place, speaking of her tyranny, he says: But passing over all these things, and how they were done, on account of their enormity, let us pursue what we have begun.

[62] Some writers extend this persecution On the same subject other and more recent Bohemian historians treat much more diffusely, and perhaps not without exaggeration, among whom Dubravius in book 4 wrote the following. Her husband (Wratislaus) being buried, and her sons still too weak in age, Drahomira seizes the government, and at once uncovers her hatred against the Christians, long ill-dissembled; an edict being set forth that Christians should shut up their churches, and abstain from worship and ceremonies; that priests should not teach the people, nor schoolmasters their pupils. To those doing otherwise, prison, exile, and death were proclaimed. At Prague the magistrates were changed, and in place of Christians most cruel idolaters were substituted, at whose instigation, secretly and openly, and always with impunity, the worshippers of the faith were shamefully handled and slain. But if any of the Christians, even in self-defence, had killed any one of them, punishment was exacted of ten heads for one. But not even by this penalty could the insatiable ferocity of Drahomira be repaired, since she burned with too great a desire of driving out and destroying all the Christians as soon as possible.

[63] even to Christians of every sort, Summoning therefore a citizen most savage against the Christians, whom she set over the people of Prague in the place of a prætor, she discloses to him the execrable desire of her mind, and imperiously demands that it be fulfilled by him, by guile or by force, promising a large reward for the work well done. Then he narrates at more length the deeds that followed, which I shall here review in brief. The prætor, having secretly procured arms and confederates, attempts to attack the Christians unawares; but they, learning of the matter, repel force by force, eight hundred being slain on either side. This hope being frustrated, Dragomira, laying other snares, commands by edict that all deposit their arms to be kept in a public place; and when this was done, the same prætor, breaking by night into the houses of the Christians, cuts down more than three hundred. Not yet sated with these slaughters, the Jezebel finally orders all the Christians of Prague to be killed. But the Christians, flying to the arms which they had hidden, boldly receive and scatter the heathens, and among the rest kill the prætor. On hearing which, Dragomira bore his death so uncontrollably that (Dubravius continues) when she had been unable to destroy the Christians who were at Prague, she set her hands to burning and destroying their churches, fire being put to the church of the Týn, and presently to that of St. George, in which we have said her husband was buried.

[64] and, more probably, exaggerate it. Very similar things have Hájek in his Chronicle of Bohemia, and Balbinus, both in book 4 of the Miscellanea, part 1, §6, to which he gave the title The Christians of Prague slain as martyrs by Drahomira, chiefly priests; and in the Epitome, book 1, chapter 5, where he praises his authorities thus: These things Sylvius, Dubravius, and above all Hájek have described excellently. Nevertheless, as regards Æneas Sylvius, he certainly did not set forth Dragomira's tyranny so minutely. Hear him in chapter 15. The father (Wratislaus), ordering his last affairs, had left the government of the province to Ludmila, whose integrity and prudence he knew excellently well, until the children should be grown up. This was grievous to Drahomicia (so he calls Dragomira), who, sending secretly the wicked men Tyma and Simon, ordered her mother-in-law to be strangled in the castle of Thetim; she herself then took the rule, cruel toward all, most savage and intolerable toward the Christians, and on that account hostile even to her son Wenceslaus, before whom she did not hesitate to prefer his brother. So Sylvius. I too cannot doubt that the rule of such a woman as Dragomira was, was unrestrained and bloody against the Christians, whom she knew and hated as adversaries to her superstition and to her other crimes; yet that I should admit without scruple, as true and not exaggerated, those particular deeds of hers which Hájek and Dubravius narrate, I should wish that they were proved by more ancient monuments.

[65] Under the rule of so impious a mother the holy duke Wenceslaus had meanwhile grown in age and in piety, St. Wenceslaus, seizing the reins of his duchy, and he, long groaning over the ills of the Christian religion and of his country, at last (on Christannus's testimony) being strengthened by God, and girding himself with courage, summoning his mother and all the chief men, rebuked them as was fitting, even as the book of Wisdom testifies: "The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails driven deep." But B. Wenceslaus said: Why, ye sons of the wicked and lying seed, and ye iniquitous men, have you forbidden me to learn the law of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to obey his commandments? And if it wearies you to serve Christ, why at least do you hinder the rest? But I, if hitherto I have lived under your providence or power, from henceforth reject it; I desire to serve Almighty God with a sincere heart. This unexpected speech of the Youth was variously received by the magnates, of whom some stood on his side, others on Dragomira's. And that they contended among themselves not only with words but even with blood, in such a way that the victory remained with the good, though fewer in number, the biographer subjoins in the same place.

[66] After these things the pious Prince's first care was to repair the losses of religion and of the commonwealth, that he might be able to restore the state of things sacred and profane, and to settle the discords; and since he knew exceedingly well that the cause and head of them all was his own mother, he banished her, lest she disturb anything further, together with her chief followers, from his duchy, with this mind and counsel, that when both estates had been fully restored he might recall her to himself, though she should thereafter lack all power of ruling. For all these things I should refer the reader to the Life to be published, at num. 25, did not other views of more recent writers on the same matters compel me, for the sake of greater clearness, to transcribe them here. Duke Wenceslaus (the words are Christannus's) being anxious about the obtaining of peace, the Holy Spirit inspiring him, took counsel in his heart how he might drive out of the fatherland his mother, who was the cause of all the wickedness; to the end that, she being driven off, and all who consented with her, impious men, the fury of discords among them might be lulled, and the peace of the Church of Christ might grow, and all, possessing one and the same Lord, might most perfectly learn the true doctrine of Christ; and that, when all things which were seen to pertain to the peace of the realm had been disposed, and the sons of discord driven out and expelled, quiet being settled, he might recall his mother again with honour to her own.

[67] All which things, God the maker aiding him, he accomplished in deed. he banishes his mother with some others, to be afterwards recalled. For he drove his mother from the realm with the greatest disgrace; Almighty God rendering to her a worthy vengeance for the shedding of the innocent blood of B. Ludmila, which she had shed without cause. But since he was full of that chaste fear which endures unto the age of ages, mindful of the divine precepts by which we ought to honour father and mother, he brought her back again when time had elapsed; yet she lacked the honour of her former lordship until the day of her death. So he, showing that St. Wenceslaus had piety toward his mother so at heart that he at the same time fulfilled the part of a most religious and most excellent prince. This same passage of Christannus (which I would have briefly observed) little favours that division of Bohemia which certain writers, praised in the preceding §, will have been made between the two princely brothers. For if Boleslaus had had in Bohemia beyond the Elbe a principality obedient to himself alone, it is strange that Dragomira, expelled by Wenceslaus, did not flee thither then, or at least afterwards; especially since Boleslaus, for the likeness of his manners, ought to have been dearer to her, and his court on that account more agreeable to her, than the court of St. Wenceslaus, in which, along with the Christian religion, holy piety and the other virtues held the first place.

[68] Certain assertions of John Dubravius concerning the aforesaid matters I said above that some writers, later than Christannus, disagree with him on these matters. John Dubravius, after the words concerning Dragomira's tyranny given at num. 62 and the following, continues in this manner: But then, after such impious and such monstrous crimes of his mother, Wenceslaus, who hitherto had used the excuse of his age and his studies for not succeeding to the principality, chiefly at the exhortation of his grandmother, who promised that she too would be a partner in her Grandson's cares, undertook the government over the Bohemians with the great assent of all. Then, in book 5, treating of the division of the duchy of Bohemia, Boleslav, he says, was assigned to him (to Boleslaus) with its territory beyond the Elbe, so that the river Elbe bounded the lands on this side and beyond. The mother followed her younger son, who agreed with her own manners: Wenceslaus alone obtained the prince's throne at Prague. Again, after a few words, he narrates that Dragomira, when she perceived that Ludmila prevailed with Wenceslaus in greater favour than herself, and that the Christian rites were being happily propagated by her, then at last ordered her to be strangled, and carried it off unpunished, since Wenceslaus, a prince of a clement mind, forbade that his mother or the ministers of the murder should bear any penalty for the crime.

[69] are reported This whole narrative of Dubravius is mistaken. For it is established from Christannus in the Life of St. Ludmila that she was slain by Dragomira while the latter was reigning in the place of her son Wenceslaus. In that Life, at chapter 3 according to our division, the aforesaid biographer, after narrating the martyrdom of the holy duchess, thus proceeds: But the aforesaid perfidious lady of the perfidious (Dragomira), seizing all the household goods of her mother-in-law, began to reign with the aforesaid tyrants (Cumia and Gomo, the slayers of St. Ludmila),

enriching them and their kinsfolk and household with exceeding wealth of gold and silver, and with precious raiment beyond estimation. And they reigned in the whole province of the Bohemians like magnificent dukes, but not of God. After these rewards of the crime the biographer goes on to narrate its penalties, asserting that Cumia and Gomo incurred so much hatred with Dragomira that, when they knew themselves marked out for death by her, the first of them fled with his household into voluntary exile; the other, likewise planning flight with his brother, was taken and paid the penalty of his head. He adds finally that Dragomira raged against all their posterity, namely their children and grandchildren.

[70] and are corrected: These things, and others pertaining to the growing fame of St. Ludmila's tomb by miracles, being premised, he returns to St. Wenceslaus groaning under the guardianship of his impious mother, saying, These things being thus done, Christ granting it, B. Wenceslaus, long since chosen duke, passing beyond the years of boyhood, shone with the most pleasing flower of youth, etc., which you have in the Life to be published, at num. 6. Dragomira, therefore, was reigning in her Son's name when she ordered St. Ludmila to be killed, and went on thereafter to reign for a notable time, so that she was able to do the things which we have said were done by her; nor did she ever have power of that kind after St. Wenceslaus himself began to rule. Concerning the division of Bohemia I have already set forth my doubt above; nor will Dubravius persuade me that Dragomira withdrew with her son Boleslaus into his principality beyond the Elbe when St. Wenceslaus took the government of his duchy: he will not, I say, persuade me of it, since Christannus teaches something wholly different, the son of that same Boleslaus and grandson of Dragomira, whose words I have reviewed at num. 66 and following.

[71] Hájek makes St. Wenceslaus, after the murder of Ludmila — which he rightly referred to the tyranny of Dragomira as regent — [Hájek's and Balbinus's narrative concerning the same matters is likewise not certain enough.] come to Prague from Budeč, where he was studying letters, and there, in an assembly of the nation, at which he had ordered his mother also to be present, at last claim for himself his duchy, left to him by his father and confirmed by the people. Of Dragomira he says that she was then sent by him to her dower place, believed by some to be Stochov, but that Boleslaus was conducted by the magnates into the principality of Boleslav and inaugurated. Similar things has Balbinus in the Epitome, book 1, chapter 6, praising, besides Hájek, Veleslavín and Pulkava, who, he affirms elsewhere, flourished under Charles IV, king of Bohemia and emperor, that is, in the fourteenth century. These assertions of Hájek and the others, although they come nearer to Christannus than the sayings of Dubravius, are nevertheless not conformable to him in every respect: nor can their authority in any way be compared with the authority of Christannus, and on that account I think we must stand by his narrative, not theirs.

[72] The definite years in which the things hitherto related happened I cannot assign, It is not sufficiently established in what years Christannus being silent, who did not even take care to note the duration of Dragomira's tyranny: and what more recent writers have handed down on the same subject, since they cite no sufficiently ancient writer or monument, cannot be held for indubitable. Hájek circumscribed Dragomira's lordship within about four years, namely from the year 917 to 921, in which he asserts that St. Wenceslaus at last put an end to it; but the martyrdom of St. Ludmila he bound to the preceding year, that is, 920 of Christ. According to these reckonings the holy Duke, who on Hájek's own testimony had been born in the year 908, counted only thirteen years when, his mother being violently removed, he himself undertook to steer the helm of his duchy. Balbinus, in the place cited above, agrees with Hájek, and asserts that this is so judged by Veleslavín and others also, and that the very reckoning of the times requires it. But to me the age of thirteen years seems premature for the taking and executing of such bold counsels as we have described; for shaking off, I say, the rule of an imperious mother, and for governing the Bohemians, a nation at that time fierce and for the greater part heathen also, and therefore likely to obey a Christian Prince, almost a boy, only with difficulty.

[73] I know indeed that there might have been found among the Christian magnates men who, to avert the ruin of religion, would drive the Youth's mind to that undertaking by their counsels, admonitions and promises, or would confirm him when of his own accord he inclined that way; but why should we assert such things, when no reason compels it, such as the authority of Hájek and of those praised above certainly is not? Wherefore I judge that St. Wenceslaus was either born some few years before 908 of Christ, or entered upon the government of Bohemia later than the year 921: of which two the more likely may appear, let us inquire a little. From what has been said it cannot be doubted that the martyrdom of St. Ludmila happened while Dragomira was in power; and that it is to be referred rather to the beginning than to the end of the tyranny, the whole narrative of Christannus persuades. Of the year of that martyrdom I treated in the Commentarius prævius to her Life, §5, where I showed that a certain year cannot indeed be assigned, but that, so far as it was possible to gather from the sayings of Christannus and the view of other writers of Bohemia, it was the year of Christ 920, 921 or 927, in place of which last the year 929 crept in there once and again by an error, whereas all the rest indicate the year 927.

[74] the things said above are to be bound; but concerning the same Now too, the chronological arrangement of St. Wenceslaus's affairs being more thoroughly examined, I judge that the said martyrdom more probably fell in the year 920 or 921, doubting between the two on account of the fifteenth and sixteenth days of September, on the one of which the holy duchess is said in Balbinus's transcript of Christannus to have suffered, and on the other of which she is venerated; on which matter consult the aforecited Commentarius, num. 54 and 55. But that we should refer that martyrdom as late as the year 927, as it has seemed to some, no reason persuades, nor does the rest of the chronological arrangement easily allow it. To the aforecited years 920 or 921 there seems to be added about three years, in which time the things could conveniently have happened which the same biographer narrates as done after the murder of St. Ludmila; namely, that her slayers and their kinsfolk, enriched by Dragomira with much wealth, ruled throughout all Bohemia like magnificent dukes; that the persecution against the Christians was begun or vehemently pressed on; that by Dragomira's command a sacred chapel was built above St. Ludmila's tomb, that the frequent miracles of the same Saint might be obscured; and finally that those very aforesaid slayers of the holy Martyr and their kinsfolk became, for their intolerable arrogance, so hateful both to the rest and even to Dragomira herself, that some of them were, by her command, seized and killed, while others fled lest they be visited with a like penalty: all which things the aforesaid biographer placed between the martyrdom of Ludmila and the deposition of Dragomira.

[75] it is determined as best it may be, and the opinions of others are rejected, These reckonings will bring us to the year of Christ 923 or 924, about which St. Wenceslaus, according to that opinion which holds him born in the year 908, and which Balbinus called the common opinion of all, will have counted about sixteen years of his life; at which age it is less strange if a Prince of an ardent mind in the divine law, as Christannus says, shook off his mother's yoke with the counsel and help of the good magnates, that he might ward off the ruin threatening the sacred religion and his people. If, however, anyone shall prefer to make him then somewhat more advanced in years, I shall not oppose it; since he may easily have been born a little earlier than the year 908, or have begun to reign later than the year 924, his impious parent being deposed. We ought not, however, to be delayed by Pessina, who in the Phosphorus of the church of Prague, page 5, writes that Wratislaus, the Saint's father, survived until the year 926; which, repeating it also at page 130, he supplements by adding that the same man in the year 924 brought aid with four hundred horsemen to Henry the Fowler against the Hungarians, citing in the margin Brunner in the Annals of the Boii, part 2, book 7, §8, and Balbinus in the Epitome, book 1, chapter 5.

[76] who set these matters down later or earlier than is fair. Andreas Brunner, in part 2 of the Annals of the Boii (of the Frankfurt edition of the year 1710, which I use), has only five books, in the second of which, §8, the Hungarian war of Henry the Fowler is treated at the aforecited year 924, and therefore I think this is the place praised by Pessina: but no mention is made here of Wratislaus. I have Balbinus's Epitome published by the Prague press in the year 1677, that is, three years after Pessina's Phosphorus, and that another had been published by him before that without his name being given, the Library of the writers of our Society teaches. In the aforesaid edition of the year 1677, book 1, chapter 4, page 16, Balbinus does indeed record a Hungarian war of Wratislaus; but he refers this not to Henry the Fowler, but to his father Otto, duke of Saxony. He had indeed premised in the same chapter that Wratislaus waged wars with Otto the Great, the emperor; but this error too he afterwards corrected in book 7 of the Miscellanea, chapter 13, on Wratislaus, where in the Notes he advised that Otto the Great is by some confounded with Otto, the father of Henry the Fowler, and that he himself had been among these in the Epitome, misled by Crugerius and Pessina.

[77] Concerning the duration of Dragomira's tyranny the aforesaid author of the Phosphorus likewise disagrees, assigning to it scarcely two years; and since he had said it began in the year 926, that of Wratislaus's death as he supposed, he consequently laid down that it ended in the year 928, citing in the margin a Ms., I know not of what sort. These things rest on the opinion that Wratislaus's life was prolonged to the year 926, which is neither proved by Pessina nor otherwise likely. Hájek, on the contrary, because he too hastily fixed the death of St. Wenceslaus at the year 929, made the rest of his deeds premature as well. Nor would I venture to ascribe with certainty to Dragomira's lordship a mere four years, since I do not find this among the ancients, and since it must be said to have been longer or shorter in proportion as the death of Wratislaus (about whose year, as I said in §3, nothing is established) is placed later or earlier: for that Ludmila held the guardianship of Bohemia only for a short time appears from Christannus.

* read: might the more adorn

* read: to earn

§ V. The Saint's deeds at the beginning of his dukedom: the body of St. Ludmila translated by him: the war with Henry the Fowler, to whom he becomes tributary: the single combat with the prince of Kouřim, whom, being divinely terrified, he receives into favour.

[ ] The Saint, among his other pious cares Of the holy Duke's deeds after he entered upon the government of his duchy I shall report in this Commentarius only those which either pertain to the chronological arrangement, or need some greater illustration than Annotations customarily allow, or which finally I have read handed down by others than Christannus. It is not to be doubted that the pious Prince at once turned all his cares to repairing the losses of the Christian religion; namely, to recalling the clerics and other religious men whom Dragomira had expelled, to restoring Christians to civil and military offices, to furnishing for divine worship the churches that had been stripped of their sacred furniture, and to restoring the same, if indeed any had been burnt. Among cares of this kind was one concerning the translation from Tetín to Prague of the body of his holy grandmother Ludmila, slain at Dragomira's command, where, buried with little honour, it had grown famous by miracles; which

translation Christannus, in the Life to be published at num. 10, reviewed among the first deeds of his reign in these words.

[79] Then B. Wenceslaus, calling to mind his grandmother, how great sanctity she had had in this present life, being solicitous for the honour of his holy grandmother, and how great a merit of glory she obtained with the Almighty, being wholly bedewed with a shower of tears, having entered upon a most holy counsel with the priests and with certain Religious, sent them to the aforesaid castle of Tetín, charging them that they should bring even to him, with a worthy translation, at least her bones or the dust of her consumed flesh. The order of the event and its circumstances may be read both in the place cited and also more fully in the Life of St. Ludmila, chapter 3, published by us at the XVI day of this month, and in the Commentarius prefixed to it, in the §5 of which we showed that a certain year for this translation cannot be assigned, on account of the corrupted chronological notes in Christannus's transcript or in Balbinus's edition. For the present chronological arrangement it will be useful to have repeated a few things here. And the body of the happy handmaid Ludmila, devoted to God, he says, was found on the fourteenth of the Kalends of November, at the twelfth hour, on the fourth weekday. And they brought her into Prague on the third day, on the sixth weekday, at the twelfth hour, of the same month.

[80] he orders her body to be translated from Tetín to Prague, These notes designate the year 925 or 931, of each of which it is gathered from the Dominical letter B that the XIV day of the Kalends of November was the fourth weekday. The rest too will stand rightly, provided that within the three days in which the sacred body is said to have been found and brought to Prague the day of the finding itself be counted. But there stands in the way what the biographer had premised in the same place, that that venerable pledge was on the same night on which it had been found carried as far as the metropolis, namely the city of Prague, and on the next day brought into it: for so its arrival in the city of Prague ought to have happened not on the third but on the following day, and not on the sixth but on the fifth weekday. Further, the same words, And they brought her in on the third day, etc., can also, with respect to what precedes, be expounded as the thirteenth day of the Kalends of November in this way. And the body was found … on the fourteenth of the Kalends of November … And they brought her in … to Prague on the third day, that is, on the thirteenth of the Kalends of November. In this way the sayings of Christannus will indeed agree as regards the days on which the body was found and brought into the city of Prague, but not as regards the weekdays, of which one or the other will have to be changed, and either in the first place the fifth substituted for the fourth, or in the latter the fifth for the sixth. But whichever change you shall choose, it will do no harm to my chronological arrangement.

[81] more probably in the year 925 or the following one. For if in the latter place the fifth weekday be written for the sixth, the translation will remain fixed at the year 925; but if in the first place the fifth be substituted for the fourth, the same translation will have to be bound to the year 926, whose XIX day of October was the fifth weekday, which, before and after, does not fall on that same day except in the years 920 and 937, of which the latter is certainly too late, the former premature. Nor have I read in anyone that the said translation was deferred as late as the year 931; which I add because, from num. 80, in that year the fourth weekday, on which the sacred body is said to have been found, likewise concurs with the fourteenth of the Kalends of November. These things I have thought fit to observe, in order to show that the time of the translation of St. Ludmila, which Christannus narrated among the beginnings of St. Wenceslaus's government, can rightly be composed with the time about which I had laid down above that he more probably began to reign, at least so far as I have been able to gather from chronological notes so doubtful.

[82] Besieged at Prague by Henry the Fowler, While the holy Duke was making the beginnings of his government illustrious by these and other religious works, the public tranquillity of Bohemia, which he himself had brought back by the restoration of the Christian religion and the concord of the citizens, was a few years afterwards disturbed by the war in which Henry, king of Germany, surnamed the Fowler, assailed him, and made him with all his nation tributary to himself. This deed, Christannus being silent about it (perhaps as less honourable to St. Wenceslaus), was handed down to memory by Widukind, monk of Corvey, in book 1 of the Annals of Saxony, which he inscribed to Matilda, daughter of the emperor Otto I and granddaughter of that same king Henry. He therefore, in the edition of Heinrich Meibom, vol. 3 of the Rerum Germanicarum, page 639, treating of that king's expedition against the Slavs, After these things, he says, he went with his whole army to Prague, the city of the Bohemians, and received its King into surrender; of whom certain wonderful things are related, which, because we do not approve them, we judge should be covered with silence: (yet he was the brother of Boleslaus) who, as long as he lived, remained faithful and useful to the emperor. Therefore the king, making the Bohemias tributary, returned into Saxony. Sigebert of Gembloux in his Chronicle marks the year 930 for the event, at which he has this: Wenzeslaus, prince of Bohemia, being besieged by king Henry in the city of Prague, surrendered himself and the city to the king, and paid the sum of tribute money imposed upon Bohemia.

[83] To this also pertains what Hermann Contractus briefly noted at the same year: he surrendered to him in the year 930; King Henry made for Bohemia. Others disagree about the year: the continuator of Regino placed that expedition at the year 928, Albert of Stade at 931; but of the more recent writers some have made mention of it at the years 920, 921 or 922, certainly prematurely. Pagi in his Critica of Baronius followed Hermann Contractus, with whom we have said Sigebert agrees, and to these I too adhere. The cause of the war handed down by the ancients I have not read; the more recent writers guess at it. Pessina in the Phosphorus, ray 1, pages 6 and 7, writes that Henry had no other cause than to succour the Christian religion labouring among the Bohemians, and to avenge the injuries brought upon it, above all the murder of St. Ludmila, and finally to demand again the tribute imposed on the Bohemians by Charlemagne and then for some years discontinued. The first reason, which alone pleased Balbinus in the Miscellanea, book 7, chapter 14, can have no place in our opinion, according to which St. Wenceslaus had already for five or six years happily restored religion in Bohemia.

[84] Nay, not even in Pessina's own chronological arrangement is it likely; into the cause of which war, not sufficiently certain, since at least king Henry could not easily have been ignorant that Wenceslaus, whom he was coming to attack, was not only not guilty of the murder of St. Ludmila and of the violation of religion, but had even for that cause withdrawn the government of the duchy from his mother, and, having chastised her with severe words, had banished her, and that he was finally applying himself with his whole mind to repairing the damages of religion. What is to be judged concerning the exaction of the tribute customarily paid by the Bohemians from the time of Charlemagne down to then, I leave to others to inquire; but I for my part believe that the chief cause of that war was the eagerness to enlarge the bounds of the German empire and to subjugate the barbarians, among whom the Bohemians were then reckoned. Besides this, however, there may have been added some particular ground of vengeance, which Widukind seems to me to have indicated in book 2 of the Annals, that is, in the Deeds of Otto I, who succeeded his father Henry in the kingdom of Germany. The aforesaid writer, beginning to treat of the war which was long waged between Otto I and Boleslaus after the murder of St. Wenceslaus, affirms that Otto, not at all disturbed by Boleslaus's first victories, entered confidently with his army into the lands of the Bohemians, and on that occasion recorded Henry's Bohemian war and its cause. Take his words.

[85] But the king (Otto I) is in no way disturbed by a message of this kind (concerning the disaster of his first army), an inquiry is made: then the holy Duke but, strengthened by divine power, enters with his whole army the borders of the barbarians to curb their savagery. For war had been made upon them before by his father (Henry) also, because they had violated the envoys of his son Thancmar. No other war of Henry the Fowler with the Bohemians have I read handed down by Widukind and the other ancient writers, besides this one against St. Wenceslaus, which I therefore judge to be indicated by the words just reviewed; and this the more, because that war fell out so happily for Henry that his son Otto might deservedly be confident that he too would tame those whom his father had received into surrender, as Widukind seems to hint. That Thancmar was, on Widukind's own testimony, the son of Henry the Fowler, begotten of a noble and wealthy girl whom Henry had joined to himself before his marriage with St. Matilda, and who afterwards, rebelling against his brother Otto I, was slain.

[86] to the same king of Germany, Sigebert calls him Tagmar, Conrad of Ursberg Dancmar, Thietmar Tammo; of whom the last writes in book 1 of the Chronicle that his mother, by name Hatheburch, was a veiled widow when she was joined to Henry, and that on that account Henry, being rebuked by Sigismund, bishop of Halberstadt, dismissed her and did penance. What, however, the aforesaid violation of Thancmar's envoys was, or on what occasion it was done, I have not read. Perhaps it had happened while Dragomira was ruling, and Henry, then occupied with other wars, had until then put off his vengeance; or if it is to be referred to St. Wenceslaus's government, it is most likely either that it was done by his subjects rather than by him or at his command, or at any rate that whatever had been done by him in this matter was otherwise received and interpreted by Henry. The reason is that so holy a Prince, whose singular gentleness studied to spare even guilty subjects, ought not to be thought to have been unjust toward another prince's envoys. Further, it may be doubted whether those words of Widukind, given at num. 82, yet he was the brother of Boleslaus, who, as long as he lived, remained faithful and useful to the emperor — whether, I say, these are to be understood of the fidelity and obedience rendered to Henry by St. Wenceslaus or by Boleslaus.

[87] other nations rebelling, The doubt is increased by the aforesaid Saxon annalist, when he subjoined: And when the neighbouring peoples had been made tributary by king Henry — the Abodrites, Wilzi, Hevelli, Daleminci, Bohemians, Redarii — and there was peace; the Redarii fell away from their fidelity, and, a multitude being gathered, made an assault upon the city which is called Wallislevi, and took it, its inhabitants being captured and slain, namely an innumerable multitude. Which being done, all the barbarian nations, being aroused, dared to rebel again; but shortly afterwards they were once more tamed, as may be read in the same place. If all the barbarian nations rebelled, encouraged by the fortunate success of the Redarii, the Bohemians too may seem to have been partners in that rebellion, and therefore the words of Widukind of which we are treating are to be referred not to St. Wenceslaus but to Boleslaus. Of Boleslaus they were interpreted by Georg Fabricius in book 2 of his Saxonia illustrata, in which, reviewing at the year 929 the aforesaid surrender of St. Wenceslaus, he then adds: He (Henry) has Bouslaus, the Duke's brother, for the whole time of his life as an ally and a most faithful friend.

[88] always remained faithful, But I do not doubt that Widukind asserted that fidelity and obedience of St. Wenceslaus. So persuades, first, the holy Duke's uprightness and justice. Secondly, Christannus, who in the Life to be published, at num. 20, expressly makes mention of his particular friendship with king Henry in these words: But these things were done

in the times of Henry, king of the Saxons, who first among them, Christ being propitious to him, set the diadem upon himself, to whom that same happy man (Wenceslaus) was constantly joined as a friend. Thirdly and finally, Widukind himself also persuades it, on whose testimony, as we shall say more fully below, Boleslaus, having killed his brother Wenceslaus, presently feared the Saxons as avengers and experienced them, being harassed by a long war with Otto I, Henry's son and successor, and at last subdued. Why then, one may say, does Widukind, while he narrates St. Wenceslaus's surrender, make mention of Boleslaus? I answer: Wenceslaus, at the time when Widukind was writing, was famous for the report of his sanctity, but Boleslaus was known for his fratricide and for the long war waged against Otto I; and since Widukind did not approve the miracles which were being circulated concerning Wenceslaus — that is, I suppose, did not hold them sufficiently ascertained — he preferred that they be covered with silence; yet, that he might not thus withdraw credit from the said miracles, and that he might at the same time make clear of which king or duke of the Bohemians he was speaking (for he had not given Wenceslaus's name), he both commended him by his fidelity toward Henry, which was commonly known, and, by mentioning his brother Boleslaus, tacitly hinted at his guiltless murder.

[89] From these things flows the answer to the argument framed at num. 87 out of the same Widukind; and probably was of help in war. where, namely, all the barbarian nations, having learned of the fortunate success of the Redarii's rebellion, are said to have dared to rebel again. For among them the Bohemians are certainly not to be numbered, if, as we believe was really the case, Widukind had a little before premised that their duke Wenceslaus, after he had surrendered himself with his nation to king Henry, remained faithful and useful as long as he lived. And indeed it was not necessary for Widukind here to except the Bohemians by name, whose Duke's perpetual fidelity he had just commended. We believe, therefore, that St. Wenceslaus, a most religious prince and a lover of peace, always stood scrupulously by the compacts entered into with Henry, and that this was asserted by the aforesaid Christannus in the words alleged. It is likely that among the services rendered by the holy Duke to Henry the Fowler, as the times then bore, were auxiliary soldiers brought to him when wars required it; which perhaps Widukind wished to indicate when he says that he remained faithful and useful to the emperor as long as he lived. Perhaps also there pertains partly hither the Saint's military praise in Christannus, in the Life to be published, at num. 17: On whom also the Lord deigned to confer very great grace of piety, so that in very many battles too he came off victor; as also that: To whom (Henry) that same happy man (Wenceslaus) was constantly joined as a friend.

[90] Nevertheless of the wars waged by him the aforesaid biographer wrote nothing further, Being provoked to war, and leading an army against Radislaus, nor did the others whom I have consulted, except concerning the war of Kouřim or Gurim, which the holy Duke was compelled to undertake to repel injury and to protect his subjects, and which at last he himself settled with no less glory than piety. Christannus briefly commemorated it, out of its own place, at the end of the whole Opuscule; and because it is read in words somewhat obscure and perhaps dislocated in the edition of Balbinus, which alone we have, I shall add what I have further met with on the same subject in other writers of Bohemia. I begin from the biographer, in the Life to be published, at num. 42 and the following. In war also, when men contend, God often sustains by the supplications, miracles, and praiseworthy deeds of this Saint, and helps all who call upon Wenceslaus; even as he had helped him himself, not once nor twice, while he was yet alive, with living and manifest signs. For a certain city called Kurzim, while it was populous, exalts itself, and by the prince who was in it strove to resist this deed.

[91] But when enough slaughter had been made on either side, he enters into single combat with him, it presently pleased all as a wise counsel that, if either of the dukes, only the two of them fighting, should come off victor, he ought to be the ruler. As the dukes advance, wishing to engage, the heavenly God unbars heavenly visions to the man of Kouřim, namely that holy Wenceslaus carried the image of the holy Cross shining upon his forehead. When he saw this, casting his arms far away, he fell at his feet, and protested that no one could then conquer, since God willed to bring help by such a sign. Him, as he was relating such things, the holy Duke lifts up into the kisses of peace, and peacefully establishes him and his city under his own dominion, granting him to govern the city as long as he himself should live. Truly he had seen the Cross, because he was imitating Christ, and more happily came to that kingdom where Christ reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages. Thus far Christannus, obscurely enough, and with a phrasing probably dislocated here and there. More clearly, but perhaps less truly, speak other writers of Bohemia, among whom John Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc, in book 5 sets forth the event in this manner.

[92] and receives him, terrified by heavenly prodigies, He (St. Wenceslaus) had others also besides his own mother troublesome and hostile to him, as though he were little fit for discharging a prince's offices, which ought to be discharged not by sacred rites and ceremonies, but rather by arms and battle-lines. But before the rest Radislaus, prince of Gurim, son of Mistiboj, was puffed up with this vain hope, as though Wenceslaus could be overcome by the mere terror of arms; he begins to raid his fields and to display armed men against him, nor will he hear any envoys treating of peace. Nay, the more Wenceslaus was zealous for peace, the greater suspicion of fear he created in his adversary: so that at last he answered Wenceslaus most arrogantly that he would not depart from arms unless the principality of all Bohemia were handed over to him. Compelled therefore by his own men, Wenceslaus draws up soldiery and a battle-line against Radislaus; and seeing that he must now altogether fight, he forbids the trumpet to sound before he himself should address Radislaus.

[93] Leave to address him being given, If in no other way, he says, than by battle can the matter be pacified, why do we not rather, without great disaster to others and without much blood of the innocent, decide it between ourselves by single combat, ready to leave it to victory which of us more justly ought to command the other? As though Radislaus already held the victory in his hands, he rejoices at the condition proposed, and presses on and hastens to enter the fight. and, a suppliant fallen upon his knees, Wenceslaus had put on a little cuirass over a hair-shirt, and was girt with a small sword, when he came out into the lists; but Radislaus advanced against him mailed and armed with a spear, and with a long sabre besides, the line drawn up on either side as though for the spectacle of a novel thing. For it seemed novel that Wenceslaus himself, held for unwarlike, should dare to match himself with a warrior. When they had come within stroke, the one paints his forehead with the sign of the Cross, the other hastens to brandish his spear, and the same man suddenly sees angels, and hears behind him this voice, as though uttered by a man: Strike not; and, no one being seen who had uttered it, fearing the might of the Godhead attending Wenceslaus with propitious favour, he falls to the ground, begs pardon for his boldness, and commits himself to the power of the Victor.

[94] into favour: the varying narrative of some writers Wenceslaus raises the prostrate man, and, pardon being given and his dignity restored to him, admonishes him to turn his contumacy into due obedience, lest afterwards he be more grievously smitten by the angered Godhead. I scarcely doubt that in this narrative there are read certain circumstances of the affair which ought rather to be attributed to the author's conjectures than believed to be taken from monuments sufficiently ancient. I shall here only observe what in them seems contrary and what conformable to Christannus. I shall readily believe Dubravius that St. Wenceslaus took up arms against the rebels only unwillingly and after concord had been vainly attempted. But I do not know on what witness he writes as though the single combat of the holy Duke with Radislaus had been entered upon before the military squadrons of the two had joined hands; whereas Christannus says it was entered upon when enough slaughter had been made on either side; unless perchance we believe those slaughters to have happened before Wenceslaus had himself led out his army to repress the arrogance of the man of Gurim, and had reached the opposing line.

[95] Dubravius is more discordant concerning the sign of the Cross, which he says was painted on his forehead by the holy Prince, that is, on this matter formed, as I suppose, with his thumb; whereas the aforesaid biographer asserts that it appeared upon it by divine power, and that the man of Gurim, terrified by it, submitted himself to him. With him agree also several other Ms. Lives which have made mention of the same combat. Of the angels then seen by Radislaus nothing indeed is read in Christannus in the edition of Balbinus; but that vision may easily have been omitted in it by the fault either of the copyists, or of the typesetters, or even of the Trebon transcript itself which Balbinus used. The ground for such a suspicion is drawn from the alleged words of the biographer: As the dukes advance, wishing to engage, the heavenly God unbars heavenly visions to the man of Kouřim, namely holy Wenceslaus, and the image of the holy Cross shining upon his forehead. This period is manifestly dislocated; and if to it, after namely holy Wenceslaus, you add attended by angels or something similar, the phrasing will be complete and will agree with the preceding words, in which God is said to have unbarred to the man of Gurim not merely one vision, namely of the Cross, but heavenly visions.

[96] The same vision of angels is read also both in some other Lives, Ms. and printed, and the assertions concerning the time are weighed. and in the Chronicles and Histories of Bohemia, and finally in the ecclesiastical Office of the same Saint in the Roman Breviary, although not everywhere in the same manner: for some affirm that the angels went before St. Wenceslaus, others that they were seen even to serve him with arms. There are also those, among whom is Balbinus, who say that Radislaus on that occasion was instructed by the holy Duke in the Christian mysteries and received sacred Baptism. The time of the said combat, which Christannus passed over in silence, the aforesaid Dubravius referred to the beginnings of the same Saint's government, between the martyrdom and the translation of St. Ludmila; but Hájek composed it with the year 925, that is, four years before the murder of Wenceslaus, which he bound to the year 929. But since the former of these wrongly believed that Ludmila was slain when Wenceslaus was already reigning, and the latter certainly made the murder of the holy Duke premature by several years, their chronology is mistaken and ought not to detain us. To me nothing has anywhere occurred from which I might attain the true year of the aforesaid combat, or even approximately. For the rest, the city called by Christannus Kurzim, over which Radislaus was set, today called Curzima and in German Kaurzim, is one of the most ancient of Bohemia; from which the circle of Kaurzim, in antiquity called of Gurim or of Curim, took its name.

* succours

* had helped

§ VI. It is inquired what is to be determined concerning St. Wenceslaus seen on another occasion between two angels, and on that account presented with the royal dignity and with other gifts.

[ ] The narrative of Dubravius concerning St. Wenceslaus There is to be discussed another narrative, much celebrated by the writers of Bohemia — Christannus, however, together with the older biographers, being silent — concerning prodigies most like the former ones, and concerning the royal dignity conferred on St. Wenceslaus on their occasion, and the relics of the holy martyr Vitus bestowed on him. As is wont to happen in traditions of this kind, those same writers vary not only in circumstances of less moment, but even in the place and the assembly at which these things happened, and in the emperor or king of Germany who granted those gifts. John Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc,

who ascribed these things to Otto the Great, in book 5 of the Bohemian History, after the words recited at num. 92 and the two following, thus continues: These things (concerning St. Wenceslaus's combat with Radislaus), swiftly reported into Germany, affected the emperor's court with admiration in some, with derision in certain others. Otto was then reigning, who first of the Germans brought into Germany the imperial crown lawfully handed over to him, a man not unworthy of that honour on account of his famed piety and his rare good fortune in wars, nor estranged from Wenceslaus on account of his singular virtues, and one who together with the other princes of Germany dutifully and courteously preserved the imperial majesty.

[98] seen between two angels by the emperor Otto, This Otto had appointed a day for the princes to assemble at Worms for the sake of deliberation; and when Wenceslaus too, being summoned, had come thither without any delay, it is said that on the following day, while the priest was performing the solemn Sacrifice rather slowly, he likewise entered the court rather slowly, and that the princes took that delay so ill, as though it had sprung from ambition, that they conspired that none of them should be willing to rise for him as he came, nor to give him a place of sitting above himself. Finally the emperor was persuaded to let the Bohemian pass without any honour, as an arrogant man. But the emperor, astounded at the sight of two angels who were conducting Wenceslaus into the court and had suddenly vanished there, leaps up from his throne, goes to meet him, and all but adores Wenceslaus himself, and presently, having led him by his own hand to the benches, bids him sit next to himself. While the rest greatly wondered at the deed, the emperor discloses the cause of the deed, and wonders in his turn that no one except himself had beheld with his own eyes the angels, exhibiting so clear and manifest a spectacle of themselves.

[99] and on that account honoured by him with the royal title Here the pontiff of Mainz says that he indeed had plainly seen nothing; but he confesses that he had been suffused with a certain awe, and that only then did he give credit also to the report lately spread abroad, namely how Wenceslaus had been saved from the enemy's onset by the intervention of a divine power (that is, of an angel); since in the present case like powers had vindicated him from calumny. Wherefore thereupon all together beg pardon for their error. and with other gifts. Moreover the emperor showed his Guest so liberal an honour as to grant him power to ask whatever he should think fit to ask of the emperor. But the emperor supposed that he would ask glorious and ambitious things. Yet he demanded to be given the arm of St. Vitus, translated from Gaul under Louis the Pious to Corvey in Saxony, and venerated with great devotion in Bohemia; and then also the relics of Sigismund, king of Burgundy, because he had been of the Vandal nation. At which demands the emperor, smiling, Thou shalt carry off, he says, at the very first time after our return into Saxony, the relics thou desirest to have. Meanwhile receive from us gifts worthy of an emperor: first the royal honour, with which we deservedly adorn thee according to thy dignity; then we release thee from the tribute which Charles once appointed to be paid to the emperors. Lastly he ordered Wenceslaus to bear also his own insignia, a dusky eagle on a white shield.

[100] Others have things like these, This, and that other concerning the tribute, Wenceslaus readily embraced; but that his own head should be girt with a diadem, or that he should be anointed king, or be called king by his people, he in no wise endured; although by the emperor and by other kings and princes he was greeted as King in their letters. When the relics of the Saints had been brought to Prague from Saxony, Wenceslaus, letting all other buildings go, commands the architect to set his hands to designing and constructing a church for St. Vitus. Thus the aforesaid bishop of Olomouc; which things Georgius Bartholdus Pontanus a Braitenberg inserted a little more concisely, and better, the mention of the relics of St. Sigismund being omitted, in almost the same words in book 2 of his Bohemia Pia. Wenceslaus Hájek in his Chronicle at the year 923, referring these things to Henry the Fowler, king of Germany, writes that he, on account of the suspicion of arrogance alleged above, threatened, the princes being assembled, his anger and indignation against whoever should rise for the Duke of Bohemia as he arrived; but that the same man, when he beheld Wenceslaus with a golden cross shining wondrously on his forehead, and set in the midst between two angels who threatened him with the finger, at once went forth to meet him and placed him on his own royal throne.

[101] After these things he says that the holy Duke was invited by Henry to dinner, although in the circumstances, in the person of the emperor, and then led into the royal treasury, and that, the choice being given him of asking what he would out of it, he asked nothing but the hand of St. Vitus enclosed in a silver casket, and, having obtained it, carried it off to Prague. Very similar things had been written before Hájek by the author of a Ms. Life, whom at num. 19 and 20 I suspected to be John, bishop of Litomyšl. He, setting forth the matter in a lengthy discourse, further adds that St. Wenceslaus was seen by the emperor, whose name he does not give, to be carried by two angels who did not suffer his feet to touch the earth. He adds also another prodigy concerning the sacred relics. If we believe him, St. Wenceslaus, power being given him, as we have said, of carrying off from the royal treasure whatever he wished, obtained time for deliberation until the morrow. Then, after prayers poured out to God, St. Vitus, appearing to him as he rested, admonished him to ask for his relics. He obeyed: but the emperor, assenting with grief, led him into his treasure-chamber, hoping that he would not find the arm of St. Vitus. But his hope deceived him; for when Wenceslaus had entered the chamber (the words are the biographer's) and was bending his knees in prayer and praising God in his Saints, the emperor looking on, the arm of B. Vitus presently began to bend itself toward the excellent Duke, and evidently to show that this was what he desired. Seeing which, the emperor, although much disturbed thereat, not being able to resist the divine will, permitted him to take away the arm of the holy martyr.

[102] On the same subject Æneas Sylvius makes mention more briefly and otherwise, in the History of Bohemia, chapter 15, saying thus: and in the year and place They say the emperor saw a like attendance of angels (such as the prince of Gurim had seen) when Wenceslaus as a young man was frequenting his court, and that for that cause he gave him as a gift the arm of St. Vitus. Finally the same prodigy is read briefly inserted in this manner in today's Roman Breviary at the XXVIII day of September, in the VI Lesson of the Office of St. Wenceslaus: When he had set out into Germany, the emperor, beholding two angels adorning him with a golden cross as he approached, leapt down from his throne and received him in his arms, decorated him with the royal insignia, and gave him the arm of St. Vitus. It would be long to recount all in whom like things may be read, and of whom some — which is to be observed also of those mentioned above — affirm that only the relics of St. Vitus were given to Wenceslaus, others that the royal dignity besides was conferred on him. Of these and those the discourse will return below; meanwhile let us see in what place and under what emperor or king of Germany these things are reported to have been done; for concerning these too there is no agreement among them.

[103] Hájek fixed the year of the event as 923, the place as Regensburg, the emperor or king as Henry, who, he says, when he perceived that the end of his life was at hand, summoned the princes of Germany thither to treat both of the affairs of the realm and chiefly of substituting his son Otto for himself after his death. where these things happened, they are discordant; On this occasion he asserts that the aforesaid apparition of the angels and of the cross and the gift of the relics of St. Vitus took place: but concerning the royal title and the immunity of Bohemia then granted there is deep silence in him. I have said elsewhere that Hájek's chronology strays from the truth, which happens here again. For it is established that Henry I, king of Germany, certainly did not meet his day before the year 936; and Widukind, a writer of those times, at the end of book 1 of the Annals narrates Otto's designation to the succession of the kingdom as immediately before his father's death. Thomas Joannes Pessina, dean of the metropolitan church of Prague, in the Phosphorus of that church, ray 1, retaining king Henry, named the year 935, and believed that the aforesaid king, moved by the often-mentioned heavenly vision, conferred upon St. Wenceslaus at the assembly of Erfurt the royal title with his own eagle insignia, but that he gave the arm of St. Vitus at Merseburg.

[104] the various assertions of which writers He endeavours to make his opinion likely from the author of the Chronicle of Halberstadt and the Chronography of Lambert of Hersfeld, of whom he observes that the latter was near to those times and the former contemporary, and in whom he says it is read at the year 935 that Henry at harvest time celebrated a great synod at Erfurt with bishops and princes and many counts from Francia, Bavaria, Alemannia, Saxony, Thuringia, Bohemia, Slavia and Sorabia. He adds that among the princes of Germany who were present at the synod there is named in the Chronicle of Halberstadt Wincesilaus, duke of Bohemia and of Delmantia, illustrious for holiness of life and for every splendour of the virtues, and always faithful to the king. He subjoins finally that it is said in the same Chronicle that Wenceslaus and some other princes were, after the assembly was ended, conducted by Henry to Merseburg to his court, and, enriched with many gifts, at last dismissed. From these things Pessina then argues thus: But although he does not explain what gift was given to each, yet since it is established from elsewhere that the arm of St. Vitus was given to St. Wenceslaus by the emperor Henry about that time, a prudent conjecture arises, and the thing almost betrays itself, that it happened at Merseburg.

[105] are here reviewed, In the margin also, to which he referred the reader by an asterisk, he annotated this: An old Ms. Martyrology of the church of Prague reports thus at the IX of the Kalends of September. "On the same day the arm of St. Vitus, M., was brought by the most holy Wenceslaus, M., duke of Bohemia, from Alemannia to Prague: where presently B. Wenceslaus himself founded the church of Prague in honour of the same St. Vitus, M., in the year of salvation DCCCCXXXV." I cannot divine what copies, and of what good quality, of the aforesaid Chronicles Pessina used. We have in our Museum a twin edition of the Annals of Lambert of Hersfeld, one of Frankfurt of the year 1583, the other of Strasbourg of the year 1609: in both at the year 935 there is read only: There was a great synod at Erfurt. In the same year Henry died. His son Otto succeeded him. This is there, but nothing further of all the rest alleged by Pessina. The Chronicle of Halberstadt stands published in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, vol. 2 of the Brunswick Writers, in which I find still less of Pessina's assertions. Besides this, whoever was the author of the Chronicle of Halberstadt, he is later than St. Wenceslaus by almost three centuries, since he makes mention of things done in the year 1209. Nor is Lambert of Hersfeld to be said to have been sufficiently near to that Saint's times, who, carrying his Chronicle or History down to the year 1077, wrote almost a century and a half after his martyrdom.

[106] As regards the Martyrology praised by Pessina, as also the opinion of Balbinus, we too have a Calendar transcribed from a copy of our college at St. Clement's in Prague, which is noted as transcribed from the Calendar of the holy church of Prague, and in which altogether the same things,

which Pessina brought forward from his own, are read concerning the arm of St. Vitus that was brought, except the year, which in ours, perhaps more rightly, is wanting. If the Martyrology of the church of Prague cited by Pessina be the same, as I suspect, with the Calendar of that church from which I said the copy of our Clementine college was transcribed, it is not older than the middle of the fourteenth century, as is clear from its own title: Of the bringing of the relics of the Saints which the most Christian prince Charles IV, Roman emperor, always august, and king of Bohemia, obtained from divers parts of the world by great entreaties. This too, therefore, cannot be of great authority in the matter of which we are treating. I proceed to the others. Dubravius and Pontanus a Braitenberg, reported above, judged that the same things were done under Otto I, son and successor of Henry the Fowler, at the assembly of Worms.

[107] Balbinus, acknowledging difficulties in all these opinions, who conjectures differently from the others. preferred, in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 7, to take another way, and to ascribe to king Henry the vision of the angels together with the gift of the relics of St. Vitus; but to refer to Otto the granting of the royal honour and of the immunity of Bohemia, at the assembly of Aachen of the year 937, in which he lays down that the same Otto was there anointed and crowned king. Further, he alleged a far different cause for this grant than the rest. Namely, he would have it believed that two princes of Bohemia, Wenceslaus of Prague and Boleslaus of Boleslav, were summoned by Otto to the aforesaid assembly at Aachen; that Wenceslaus obeyed, but that Boleslaus, pleading that his nation was free and that he had no business with the emperor, refused his commands. Hence Balbinus derives the origin of the war that afterwards broke out, and says that Otto was so far provoked by that answer that, in order to vex Boleslaus, he offered Moravia to Wenceslaus, remitted the tribute imposed upon the Bohemians by Charlemagne, gave him his own insignia to bear, and finally called him king. He subjoins, however, that it is not established whether St. Wenceslaus accepted the guardianship of Moravia offered him; but that it is asserted by all writers that he refused out of modesty to bear the crown and the royal name, although, he says, he was greeted as King by princes and kings in letters and in all address.

[108] You see, reader, with how various circumstances the aforesaid writers embellish these things, But since all these things are by the most ancient writers, and how they labour to assign them to their own place, time, and emperor or king of Germany. But I wonder that Balbinus and the others named above were so anxious about these matters, and did not rather take care to prove that angelic vision, and the gifts made to St. Wenceslaus, from some monument at least sufficiently ancient. And yet this was above all necessary, that they might give credit to their statements in so great a matter, about which others are silent whom we certainly know to be older than they. Nothing of that vision of the cross and the angels and of the rest that pertains to it, nothing of the gift of the arm or hand of St. Vitus, nothing of the royal title and the immunity of Bohemia, nothing finally of the eagle insignia granted to St. Wenceslaus — nothing, I say, of all these things do Christannus commemorate, or the anonymous author who professes that he wrote under Otto II, or Laurence the monk of Monte Cassino, or several other Ms. Lives which, as being of uncertain age, I pass over. But because among those assertions some are more notable than others, and not all were handed down by all who reviewed any of them, it is necessary to treat of them a little separately.

[109] and some even by older writers than those named above, The royal dignity conferred on St. Wenceslaus, the eagle insignia, and the immunity of Bohemia, besides the older writers named above, were passed over in silence also by the emperor Charles IV in the Life to be published, by Hájek in his Chronicle, and by Æneas Sylvius in the History of Bohemia, although these same writers expressly made mention of the apparition of the angels and of the relics of St. Vitus that were given; so that these too seem either not to have known or to have disapproved those things. To these there is added also the author of the Ms. Life, whom from Pessina and Balbinus at num. 19 and 20 I suspected to be John, bishop of Litomyšl, who, although besides the said apparition and gift of relics he reports also the immunity of Bohemia from tribute then granted, nevertheless says not a word of the royal title and insignia granted to him. The same royal dignity must have been equally unknown to Cosmas, dean of Prague, who flourished in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; not only because in the Chronicle of Bohemia he is silent about it, but also because he always calls St. Wenceslaus duke, never king. I know indeed that the aforesaid Cosmas of set purpose passed over the Saint's deeds, because they were circulated as written by others; and therefore that his silence concerning them is commonly of no moment; but not even so ought he to have passed over in silence his royal dignity, granted until then to none of the princes of Bohemia; or at least he ought to have called him king, not duke. Nevertheless of the same Saint's martyrdom he says: St. Wenceslaus, duke of the Bohemians, martyred by his brother's guile, enters the everlasting city, namely the court of heaven.

[110] not at all recorded, they become very suspect, The silence of all these, and especially of Christannus, is of so much weight with me in this matter, that unless testimonies more certain than those which I have hitherto seen produced are brought forward, I cannot admit all these things as true. Christannus was, as has been said, the nephew of St. Wenceslaus himself by the latter's brother and successor Boleslaus, born and brought up in the ducal court of Bohemia, and afterwards a Benedictine monk in the monastery of Břevnov near Prague; in writing he used the Acts of the same holy Duke, already variously written by others, which he undertook to complete; he consulted those old men who were still surviving, or any religious persons who had drunk in (St. Wenceslaus's) deeds with the keenness of their own eyes, or had learned them by hearing and by the narration of others; as he himself professes in the Preface to St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague and afterwards martyr. Nothing therefore can with reason be found wanting in the writer's person, time, place, and diligence, to prevent his being believed to have come to a knowledge of the great matters which pertained to his holy Uncle.

[111] especially Christannus By what possibility, then, could he have been ignorant of these things which, done in a public assembly before the king of Germany himself and many princes, could not but be in everyone's mouth, and the memory of which would have been perpetually refreshed by the relics of St. Vitus, given to Wenceslaus on that occasion, as is commonly maintained, and laid up by him in the church founded for that purpose? Did he find nothing of all this in the Acts of that Saint which he used? Did he learn nothing from those old men or religious persons who had drunk in his deeds with the keenness of their eyes, or had learned them by hearing and by the narration of others? That he plainly learned nothing of the kind, his silence indicates. But on the contrary, if all these things were known to Christannus, with what likelihood will he be said to have omitted them, than which he could bring forward nothing more illustrious, whether for confirming the sanctity of St. Wenceslaus by divine and human testimony, or for commending his singular modesty and humility, or finally for the ornament and glory of his own Bohemia, which for his sake had been made illustrious with the title of a kingdom and freed from the ancient tribute? I do not indeed doubt that Christannus was partly ignorant of, and partly omitted, not a few deeds of the holy Duke; but for me to reckon among these such illustrious deeds, I require weightier testimonies than those I have hitherto read.

[112] No less strong an argument is drawn from the passage of Widukind of Corvey and Widukind of Corvey being silent. which we gave at num. 82, and which runs thus: Of whom (St. Wenceslaus) certain wonderful things are related, which, because we do not approve them, we judge should be covered with silence. Would he have spoken thus, had he known of the vision we have mentioned, and of the things said to have been given to Wenceslaus on that account by Henry the Fowler or by his son Otto? Or could he have been ignorant of these things, if they truly happened? Indeed, since he dedicated this Work of his to Matilda, he would have taken care in it not to disapprove what her grandfather or father had declared, in that same illustrious session, to have been seen by himself in a public assembly of the princes of the German realm, and had followed up with such great honours and gifts. The same authority of Henry or Otto, the presence of the princes of Germany, and the greatness of the gifts would not have allowed these things to be unknown to Widukind, who had undertaken to write the deeds of Henry and Otto for Matilda, the latter's daughter. These things too, therefore, Widukind must be said not to have known, because in fact they had not happened, and to have spoken above of other wonders which, because he did not approve them, he judged should be covered with silence.

[113] There will perhaps be someone who, in order to vindicate the royal title to him, may reply to this: An answer is given to some that Bohemia, while St. Wenceslaus was ruling, is sometimes called by Christannus by the name of a kingdom; that it is read in Cosmas, dean of Prague, in his Chronicle, that Boleslaus brought death upon him for the sake of retaining the helm of the kingdom; that the same Saint is called king by Widukind of Corvey in the words given at num. 82; and that in the Life written by Laurence, monk of Monte Cassino, he commonly goes under the name of king and Bohemia under that of a kingdom. I confess that it is so, but that it proves nothing. Christannus uses the same word kingdom under the Saint's grandfather Borzivoi, his uncle Spitigneus, and his father Wratislaus, and Cosmas indeed under their predecessors also; whom not even the maintainers of the opinion I am examining admit to have been kings of Bohemia. Christannus and Cosmas, that is, used kingdom for the principality of the nation, and never honoured St. Wenceslaus or his predecessors with any other title than that of duke or prince. In the same way are to be expounded Widukind, and those who, following him, named St. Wenceslaus and his successor Boleslaus kings.

[114] So it is clear from Widukind himself in book 1 of the Annals, where he called Wenceslaus king when the latter, besieged at Prague by Henry the Fowler, surrendered himself to him; passages which might seem to make for the royal dignity of St. Wenceslaus. which certainly happened before the aforesaid maintainers of the royal title will have him ennobled with that dignity by the same Henry or by his son and successor Otto I. The authority of Laurence of Monte Cassino is to be reckoned as nothing, since he, wholly ignorant of Bohemian affairs, likewise adorned St. Wenceslaus's father with royal titles, and fell into other and graver errors. I return to Christannus. In vain also would anyone here raise a suspicion concerning his silence from the mutilation of the Life which we have, as though the aforesaid things had indeed been committed to writing by Christannus, but had fallen out of Balbinus's copy either through the carelessness of copyists or by some other chance. For, besides that I have already refuted above at num. 5 and 6 the argument which Balbinus used to assert the Life's mutilation, what sufficiently likely reason will, on this opinion, be assigned why the same biographer should have called St. Wenceslaus never king, but always duke or prince? Was it because the Saint himself always abstained from that title out of humility? Nay, so much the more ought he to have been called by it, especially by a biographer who was his nephew, who had undertaken to praise him, and who, writing after his death, could not be under any obligation to his modesty.

[115] To state my mind candidly at last,

on account of that silence of the older writers, and of Christannus in the first place, I am altogether driven to believe that the things which are so variously circulated in writing by the more recent authors concerning the royal dignity, the eagle insignia, and the immunity of Bohemia granted to St. Wenceslaus on account of the heavenly vision of angels and of the Cross, were first handed down long after the holy Duke's times by an uncertain author, and, being eagerly caught up, as frequently happens in like cases, found credit among the Bohemians, though not among all of them. Concerning the eagle insignia there is no leisure to dispute here at length: let the studious reader who wishes consult Balbinus in the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, book 1, chapter 7, and he will learn from that writer's own view on what no foundation these things rest. Finally, if Henry or Otto remitted any tribute to the Bohemians for St. Wenceslaus's sake, I judge that this was none other than what Henry himself had imposed when he received the holy Duke with his nation into surrender; although I have not found even this remission sufficiently proved. There remains the question of the relics of St. Vitus, which some of those who were silent about the royal title, the insignia, and the immunity have nevertheless written to have been given to him.

[116] [Wenceslaus must be said to have received the relics of St. Vitus from elsewhere, and on another occasion,] Those who affirm it are favoured by the church which it is established was founded by Wenceslaus in the castle of Prague to the holy martyr Vitus; for from this it becomes most likely that he had some relics of that Saint, which he might lay up therein to be honoured. But on the other hand, whether he received them on that occasion which the writers alleged above hand down, I am bidden greatly to doubt, not only by Christannus's silence but also by his manner of writing, which hints at nothing of the sort. In the Life to be published, at num. 18, concerning Wenceslaus as he set about building the aforesaid church, he says this: Then, the divine grace inspiring his heart, purposing to found a temple to the Lord in honour of B. Vitus the martyr, he sends envoys to the pontiff of Regensburg, in whose diocese, as we have said, Bohemia at that time stood, according to the statutes of the canons, that the pontiff might grant him licence to build a basilica; saying, My father once established a temple in honour of B. George; but I myself long, with your licence, to found one in the same manner in honour of the blessed martyr of Christ Vitus. Then there follows in the same place that the holy Duke, having obtained the licence he had sought, at once carried his purpose into execution.

[117] than the aforesaid writers will have it. It cannot be denied that this passage was most apt for speaking of the relics of St. Vitus, nay, that the very subject being treated demanded that it be done, if so celebrated a gift of them had given occasion for the building of that church. Why then shall we believe that the biographer, no mention being made of them, derived the cause of that building from the inspiration of God alone and from the example of Wratislaus, who had erected the church of St. George, unless because that other cause, assigned by others, was unknown to him? — which, had it been true, how could he have been ignorant of? I do not on that account wish to deny that some relics of St. Vitus, whether they were the arm or the hand, or some portion of one or the other, were given to St. Wenceslaus on another occasion, either by king Henry or by the monks of Corvey in Saxony, to whom the sacred relics of that same holy Martyr had been translated under Louis the Pious in the century then next elapsed, as may be seen in our Work, vol. 2 of June, page 1033 and following. Perhaps also the relics of St. Vitus at Prague were among those which Christannus, in the Life to be published at num. 17, writes were brought to St. Wenceslaus from various provinces, in these words: Like bees to their hives, even so priests, levites, and very many servants of God flock together from the places of the Bavarians, the Swabians, and other provinces, with relics of the Saints, … all of whom, receiving them with great honour and embracing them with a grateful mind, he obliged, as was fitting, bestowing abundantly a plenty of gold or silver, etc.

§ VII. The time of the church of St. Vitus the martyr built by the holy Duke, and certain circumstances: the assertions of some concerning other churches and hospices erected by him, and concerning a certain singular deed of his charity.

[ ] St. Wenceslaus built at Prague the church of St. Vitus the martyr Of the churches which some will have been built by St. Wenceslaus, there comes to be mentioned in the first place that of the holy martyr Vitus at Prague, of which I made mention in the preceding §; both because it is certainly established that he was its first founder, and because in it he has rested from a few years after his death down to our own times; and finally because the same, afterwards raised to be a cathedral and later even the metropolitan church of all Bohemia, and built more augustly by others, stands to this day, conspicuous for its mass and majesty. Further, since I have said above that I do not approve the wonders which are related concerning the gift of the hand or arm of St. Vitus made to Wenceslaus by Henry the Fowler or by Otto, and the founding of that church on that account, I judge it will not be beside the purpose to have here observed by what counsel or on what ground the holy Prince may be thought to have been induced to dedicate it to St. Vitus rather than to another of the Saints. Besides reasons unknown to us, he may have been impelled by the famous name and cult of St. Vitus in Saxony and the rest of Germany, especially at Corvey, on account of his relics translated thither from France under the emperor Louis the Pious.

[119] How great the esteem for these was there in Wenceslaus's times in the last years of his life, may be gathered from Widukind, book 1 of the Annals, where he addresses Matilda, daughter of Otto I, thus: Thence (from Paris) they (the relics of St. Vitus) were translated into Saxony; and, as the envoy of Charles (surnamed the Simple, king of the Franks) confessed (to Henry the Fowler), from this the affairs of the Franks began to diminish, but those of the Saxons to grow; until, being enlarged, they now labour under their own greatness, as we see in the love of the world and the head of the whole globe, thy father, the majesty of whose power not only Germany, Italy and Gaul, but almost all Europe cannot sustain. Worship therefore so great a patron, at whose coming Saxony from a serving land was made free, and from a tributary one the mistress of many nations. This so notable esteem for the patronage of St. Vitus could therefore easily move Wenceslaus, a most religious prince, to commit his duchy to his powerful protection by founding a church to his name, and to seek some relics of his to be laid up in it. Pessina in the Phosphorus, ray I, alleges another cause, to me hardly likely. He suspects, namely, that Wenceslaus took care that the relics of St. Vitus should be honoured at Prague, so that the superstitious veneration of a certain idol Svato-Vit might the more easily be abolished by the religious cult of a holy martyr of a similar name.

[120] but in what year is uncertain. Concerning the time when the said church began to be founded we can conjecture from Christannus in the Life to be published, at num. 18 and the following, where he so placed it among the last deeds of the holy Prince that it may be doubted whether he completed it in every part before his martyrdom. For according to what is asserted there, St. Wenceslaus, having received from the prelate of Regensburg the power of building, presently laid the foundations of the church, and disposed its parts excellently. Nor was he content with these; but he wished to visit at Rome the thresholds of the apostles Peter and Paul, that he might seek the Pope of that time, to the end that he, clothing him in monastic garments, might shear him into a cleric, and that, leaving his principality for the love of God, he might hand it over to his brother (alas, too much intent upon secular acts!); and that he himself, living peaceably, might gather some few little sheep for Christ the Lord. Which he would also have fulfilled in deed, had not the aforenoted work of the basilica hindered him. After these things there follows in the same place the Saint's martyrdom; so that it seems it must be said that he was killed by his brother while he was for a little while deferring the Roman pilgrimage and his desire of the monastic life, until he should have finished the church he had begun.

[121] Nevertheless, if anything was wanting to that church when Wenceslaus died, it must be said to have been of less moment; since the same biographer at num. 28 says that his body was three years after the martyrdom translated from Boleslav into the basilica … of St. Vitus the martyr, which he had, God being its author, built from the foundation in the metropolis of Prague, and had adorned exceedingly with ecclesiastical ornaments. Cosmas of Prague, to be reported below, says only that it had not yet been consecrated when its holy Founder died. From all these things it becomes most likely that St. Wenceslaus saw the fabric of his basilica completed, and that, while he was giving his labour with pious munificence to adorning it, he was taken from the living. Then, since we shall show in its own place that his murder far more probably belongs to the year 936, the beginnings of the aforesaid basilica seem to have to be placed about the year 934. This opinion suffers a difficulty only from the bishop of Regensburg, from whom the licence to build was sought and granted. It is beyond doubt that the Bohemians were at that time of the diocese of Regensburg, down to the year 971, in which the Roman Pontiff John XIII, granting them a bishop of their own, erected the church of St. Vitus at Prague into a cathedral. Hence Christannus rightly handed down that St. Wenceslaus had recourse by messengers to the prelate of Regensburg for the building of the church; but of what name he was, he did not note.

[122] Others place the building of this church Others have said he was Tuto, to whom the author of the Life who asserts that he wrote by command of Otto II attributes not only the said licence but also the consecration of the same church. For Tuto Christannus so far makes, in that, having premised in the same Life at num. 12 that Tuto, bishop of Regensburg, was consulted by St. Wenceslaus at the translation of the body of St. Ludmila, and was invited to consecrate the church of St. George, he may seem to have designated the same man when he named the prelate of Regensburg again without expressing his name. But now Arnolf or Arnold of Vohburg, a monk at St. Emmeram's in Regensburg, who wrote before the middle of the eleventh century, and who prolonged Tuto's episcopate further than the rest, speaks thus in book 1 of the Life of St. Emmeram concerning the time of his see: Under the aforesaid prince (Conrad I, king of Germany) therefore Tuto, a monk of St. Emmeram, presided over the church of Regensburg, who remained in this life from the seventh year of his rule until the twelfth of the reign of Henry the Saxon. Tuto therefore did not live beyond the year of Christ 930 or 931, according to the varying view of writers who refer the beginnings of that Henry's reign to the year 918 or 919.

[123] This being laid down, the holy Duke must be said to have begun the fabric of the church of St. Vitus a few years earlier, too early, and consequently to have been occupied with it a little longer, if we are not to depart from Christannus, who linked his murder almost to that building. If, however, a choice be given in obscure matters, I should prefer to adhere to my opinion stated above, and to refer the beginnings of the church to the times of Isengrin, who succeeded Tuto; because the authority that stands for Tuto is not strong enough, nor was that church of so great a mass that a Prince hastening to the monastic life should seem to have needed so many years to found it. As for what others hand down, that the aforesaid church was also consecrated by the same Tuto, the dates of St. Wenceslaus's death and

of Tuto's times, compared with the reasons alleged by me, in no way permit it. Nay rather, Cosmas affirms the opposite in the Chronicle, book 1, from which I have excerpted the following. But of the acts of duke Boleslaus I could learn nothing else worthy of report, save one thing, which I have thought it worth while to disclose to you. For the servant of God Wenceslaus left the church built in the metropolis of Prague under the honour of St. Vitus the martyr, yet not consecrated, being forestalled by death.

[124] That he might deign to consecrate it, duke Boleslaus, a suppliant, having sent envoys with great gifts and greater promises and pledges, scarcely obtained from the prelate who then presided over the church of Regensburg, by name Michael, that he should fulfil his petition. they have laid down that it was made. Which indeed the prelate would not have granted, had he not resolved that it should be done for the remembrance of the soul and the salvation of his friend Wenceslaus, now slain: because the Man of God Wenceslaus, while he flourished in the flesh, had honoured him with exceeding affection, as a spiritual father and a most kindly prelate. For the prelate Michael likewise had adopted him to himself as a most beloved son, often instructing him in the fear and love of God; often too sending him his gifts, of which at that time the new church of Christ was greatly in need. As soon as the duke was made master of his wish, all the people and the magnates and the clerics run devoutly to meet the bishop as he came, and with great honour and gladness receive him into the buildings of the metropolis of Prague. Why say more? On the tenth of the Kalends of October, the church of St. Vitus being dedicated, the prelate returned glad to his own. Thus far Cosmas, whom Pessina in the Phosphorus and others have followed. Yet the friendship which Cosmas here asserts to have subsisted between St. Wenceslaus and Michael must either be placed before Michael's episcopate, or is fabulous; since it is certainly established from elsewhere that Michael came to the see of Regensburg only after St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom.

[125] Still further from the true chronological arrangement strayed Dubravius in book 4 of the History of Bohemia, others have erred otherwise in the same matter. Æneas Sylvius in the same History, chapter 16, and Pontanus a Braitenberg in the Bohemia pia, book 2, asserting that St. Wolfgang (namely Michael's successor) dedicated the said church while St. Wenceslaus was living and inviting him. The error is manifest from the beginning of St. Wolfgang's episcopate, which cannot be placed before the year 972. Nor does Hájek deserve to be refuted, who at the year of Christ 923 writes that the licence to build the church was granted to Wenceslaus by the aforesaid St. Wolfgang, but that at the year 931 the same church was consecrated by Michael at Boleslaus's request. And this error is the grosser in that Hájek fixed St. Wenceslaus's death at the year 929, and in that it is certain that Michael was St. Wolfgang's predecessor in the bishopric of Regensburg. Thus far concerning the time of the church of St. Vitus built by St. Wenceslaus at Prague. As for what the writers of Bohemia commonly hand down concerning its consecration by Christ the Lord himself, it would indeed be worthy of eternal memory, if it rested on a sufficiently firm testimony or monument.

[126] The things which are related by various writers concerning the aforesaid church Christannus, in the Life to be published at num. 18, brings in the bishop of Regensburg answering thus to the envoys whom the holy Duke had sent to ask the often-mentioned licence: Returning, carry back these commands to my most happy son Wenceslaus: Thy church stands already most beautifully built before the Lord. Balbinus, with whom the rest of the more recent Bohemians almost agree, took up these words thus in his Notes. There lies hidden in these words that notable and truly heavenly prerogative of the church of Prague, which ancient writers signify was blessed by Christ the Lord and consecrated in favour of St. Wenceslaus, and which a tradition of our Elders continued down to us confirms. See what Pontanus, provost of the metropolitan church, wrote, and what we once brought forward in our Arnest. More clearly than Christannus did Pius II, the Pontiff, express this (that is, Æneas Sylvius, as he was called before his Pontificate), inasmuch as he relates that the bishop of Regensburg wrote to St. Wenceslaus that the church which he was building was already dedicated before God. I myself have seen an ancient picture in which Christ is beheld blessing from heaven the church of Prague, St. Wenceslaus praying, and pre-consecrating it. But lest this assertion of his should seem paradoxical to some, he commemorates from other writers other consecrations of churches of this kind, and at last concludes in these words.

[127] as consecrated by Christ the Lord himself What then forbids us to say that the church of St. Vitus at Prague was consecrated by Christ the Lord? Especially since Sylvius adds that, although the prelate of Regensburg received that vision from heaven, and learned by Christ's revelation that this church would one day be metropolitan, he nevertheless sent to Prague men who in his stead should satisfy Wenceslaus's request, and should none the less consecrate the church also after the manner of men and of prelates. I do not wish to deny that the church of St. Vitus at Prague could by a singular privilege have been consecrated by Christ; nor do I inquire whether all the examples produced by Balbinus are sufficiently certain and attested; but in order to believe that this was done for the church of Prague, I require surer sureties than those whom Balbinus alleged. Besides those already mentioned, he cites in the margin the Ms. of Kłodzko of Michael the Provost, Hájek, and Ferus of the Society of Jesus in the Life of St. Wenceslaus. The Ms. of Kłodzko, whose age he does not indicate, he himself seems not to have made much of, since he chiefly used the authority of Sylvius, who was created Pontiff before the middle of the fifteenth century; inasmuch as in this very place of the History he says these things happened under St. Wolfgang, which neither Balbinus admits nor can be admitted. Besides, Sylvius in reporting them uses the word they say, which is wont to be employed when things not sufficiently ascertained are narrated.

[128] were unknown to the older writers. Much younger than the same Pontiff are Hájek, Pontanus and Ferus, and the first of these, by a shameful error, as I observed above, ascribed the licence to build to St. Wolfgang and the rest to Michael: Pontanus in book 2 of the Bohemia pia likewise wrote wrongly that St. Wolfgang was invited by St. Wenceslaus to the dedication of the church, but nothing further. Finally, in the Life of the venerable Arnest, first archbishop of Prague, to which Balbinus also referred the reader, I find nothing better. As regards Christannus, to confess the truth, I do not see how in these words of the bishop of Regensburg — Thy church stands already most beautifully built before the Lord — there can lie hidden, as Balbinus believed, that notable and truly heavenly prerogative of the church of Prague, or a consecration performed by Christ himself. To me at least the aforesaid bishop seems by that answer to have signified nothing else than that the building of the church which St. Wenceslaus was undertaking was ratified and acceptable to God; and that therefore he should complete the work desired. Nor does the same biographer elsewhere in the Life make any more mention of so singular a prerogative, of which, if it were true, he could the less have been ignorant, or knowingly have passed it over, the more excellent and the rarer it was.

[129] There is a like silence about so great a matter in that Life of the same St. Wenceslaus and on the hospice erected by him at Rome which is noted as written under Otto II, and a like silence in two others, of which one is ascribed to Hizo, bishop of Prague, and the other seems to have John, prelate of Litomyšl, for its author; in which two the very same answer of the bishop of Regensburg is read as in Christannus. That it was likewise unknown to, or disapproved by, Cosmas, dean of Prague, I gather from his words given at num. 123 and the following, because in these there stands no trace of it, although the place would otherwise have demanded it. From this silence of the older writers it may at length be argued that the tradition to which Balbinus further has recourse is not ancient enough to persuade me of so singular and unusual a privilege of the church of Prague. Nor ought the painting seen by Balbinus to do so any more, since he does not declare of what antiquity it was; and if Christ is really exhibited in it consecrating the church of Prague, it still remains uncertain whether this is later than the aforesaid tradition, or whether rather, containing a pious meditation of the painter, it gave occasion to that tradition. For the rest, whoever wishes for more concerning the same church, erected in the year 971 by Pope John XIII into a cathedral and in the year 1344 by Clement VI into the metropolitan church of all Bohemia, and concerning its various condition, let him go to Pessina in the seven-horned Phosphorus.

[130] Hájek and Balbinus further write that other churches too were founded at Prague by the same holy Duke; The things related concerning other churches are not sufficiently certain, namely one of St. Antoninus (in Balbinus it is read St. Antony), a second of SS. Peter and Paul (Balbinus names only St. Peter), a third of St. Laurence, a fourth of SS. Cosmas and Damian, and finally a fifth of St. Michael the archangel. The church of St. Antoninus, if we believe Hájek, had adjoined to it an orphanage built by him, in which, besides others, the orphan children of the heathen too, bought with a price, were brought up and initiated into the Christian mysteries. On what monuments all these things rest, both were silent; and the building of so many churches by a Prince who did not reign very long is little likely, and the less so because Hájek will have them all built within the space of about three years. If we interpret the churches as smaller chapels, the difficulty will cease, and what it pleased Hájek to say will become more credible, namely that the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian was completed by forty days' labour. But I have little faith in him, who asserts many things lightly.

[131] That some orphanage was erected at Prague by St. Wenceslaus, and concerning the orphanage founded by him, or, if one already existed before, was enlarged and endowed, is made altogether credible by his singular mercy toward all the needy, for which he is greatly praised in Christannus at num. 14 of the Life to be published, and is said to have been an unwearied consoler of orphans, widows, the poor, the groaning and the wounded, filling the hungry, refreshing the thirsty, covering the naked, visiting the sick, burying the dead, receiving guests and pilgrims, and those near him, as his own. Of infants also bought by him for the sake of baptism it is read in the same place at num. 22: On the most sacred days (I mean the Sabbaths of Easter and of Pentecost), when general baptism is wont to be celebrated in God's holy Church, that nothing of the things which are God's might be wanting to him, if little children were not found at the time of the scrutinies, he would send to the market, and would buy for himself, for the love of God alone, as many boys as the hand of a seller had brought for sale. For the bringing up, therefore, of these and of many others, St. Wenceslaus, truly the father of the poor, may have erected a house of this kind.

[132] Much more uncertain is Balbinus's conjecture concerning the hospice or guest-house for Bohemian pilgrims, first built at Rome by duke Spitigneus and afterwards completed and endowed by St. Wenceslaus, his nephew by his brother. Occasion for the conjecture was given by Theophilus Raynaud, of our Society, a man famous for many Works given to the light, when in the Opuscule On the tempering of the love of nation and of kindred, vol. 17 of the Lyons edition, page 448, he wrote the following. A hospice for Bohemian pilgrims was built (at Rome) in the region of the bridge of Hadrian, next to the sacred church of B. Lucy, first by Spironeus (so he called Spitigneus) their first king, when he had made a pilgrimage to Rome in the year DCCCCXXXI. It was restored

and enriched by Charles IV, king of the Bohemians, in the year MCCCLV. On these words the aforesaid Balbinus observes, in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 4, that Spitigneus by the common consent of the writers of Bohemia did not survive the year of Christ 907, and therefore that the aforesaid hospice at Rome could not have been built by him in the year 931. Wherefore, to reconcile the Bohemians with Raynaud, he conjectures that that work owes its beginnings to Spitigneus, who perhaps set out for Rome before the year 907; but its completion and endowment to St. Wenceslaus, who, as he says, the writers of his country have affirmed often went to Rome by his envoys.

[133] some report that it was completed or endowed by him. It is beyond doubt that that house, if it was founded or completed by a duke of Bohemia in the year 931, was made by none other than St. Wenceslaus; but Theophilus Raynaud is not of such authority here, where in an ascetical Opuscule he did not examine the pious foundations of hospices in the city of Rome of set purpose, but merely reviewed them in order to commend hospitality. Indeed, that he was in that place little careful about history and chronology is clear both from the name Spironeus for Spitigneus, and from the year 931, in which Spitigneus and his successor Wratislaus had long been dead, and finally from the fact that he called Spironeus, or Spitigneus, the first king of Bohemia, which is certainly false, whether you take the royal name properly, or interpret it of the dukedom. If for Spironeus Wenceslaus be substituted, and if he was called by Raynaud the first king of the Bohemians in accordance with the view of those who will have the royal dignity conferred on him by Henry the Fowler or Otto I, these difficulties will indeed cease; but for confirming Balbinus's conjecture I have found nothing in other writers, nor do the older ones speak of envoys sent to Rome by St. Wenceslaus.

[134] It is also doubtful, and certainly much exaggerated. Since mention has just been made of duke St. Wenceslaus's mercy toward the needy, and Christannus spoke of it almost only in general terms, I have thought it will not be beside the purpose if I here report certain particular deeds of his which are briefly recorded in the Roman Breviary in these words: He, governing his realm by piety rather than by command, succoured orphans, widows, and the needy with such charity that he sometimes carried wood on his own shoulders by night to those in want, was often present at the burial of the poor, freed captives, visited those held in prisons at dead of night, and very often consoled them with money and counsel. Further, the author of the Ms. Life, who is reported to have been John, bishop first of Litomyšl and then of Olomouc, wove this history concerning that carrying of wood to the poor. So unheard-of a charity toward the poor, the widows and the orphans had kindled his heart and soul, that it seemed to him a small thing to scatter among them abundance of goods, that they might relieve their own want: but he gave his own body also to their use, longing to preserve their life in such a manner.

[135] For when in winter-time the harshness of the cold grew so strong that the force of the frost was extinguishing very many, The narrative of Dubravius concerning the holy Duke he himself, keeping silence in works of modesty, rising in the hiding-place of night from his royal bed, urged by exceeding piety, did not refuse to make himself like a thief, plundering wood — yet not other men's but that prepared for his own court — in great weights, and carrying it on his sacred shoulders, would lay it down secretly before the doors of the poor, the widows and the orphans. The forester, therefore, who was the provider of wood for his court, perceiving that he suffered no small losses in it, and not knowing by whom these things were done, began diligently to set snares, thirsting with all his strength to catch him. And when, God not willing it, he could by no means do so, and recalling also in his mind that the most merciful Duke would in no wise consent to the destruction of anyone, being compelled to go to him, he spoke thus. O most excellent Duke, being no longer able to keep silence, I am compelled to complain to your clemency, that through a certain man I suffer incredible losses in the wood which I prepare for the needs of your court. For in the snow and the hoarfrost I diligently track his footprints; but in no way can I catch him.*

[136] To this the most gentle Prince, knowing that he alone was guilty in the matter, replying, carrying wood on his own shoulders by night in secret to the poor, Watch for him with diligent care applied; and at whatever hour of the night he shall come, beat him with cudgels at your pleasure; nevertheless do not harm him in his life, nor mar his face with any blemish of blows; and whatever weight of wood he shall have made up, let him carry it off. Such leave being given him, the forester departed rejoicing from the Duke's presence, while all who had heard it wondered that a Prince of admirable piety, who suffered no one to be hurt, should have given so cruel a sentence against anyone; not knowing that he had pronounced it not against another but rather against himself. On a certain night, therefore, he went to the wood after his custom, made up a great bundle of wood as he was accustomed, and, binding it with a rope, laid it on his sacred back. And when he now wished to go away, the forester, coming upon him, seized him, and, knowing not how to pity, impiously threw him to the ground by the hair and beat him with blows so exceedingly violent that all his limbs were rendered livid, his sacred bones being grievously encrusted with clotted blood.

[137] There lay upon the ground before the feet of the servant of his own servants the flower of all nobility, prostrate, [and on that account being often severely beaten by his own servant, who did not recognize him.] worthy to be called thrice holy and four times blessed, and like a meek lamb before him who beat his back with cudgels and shore with savage hand the hairs of his sacred head, he opened not his mouth. And when, half alive, he was let go by him and could scarcely walk, he rejoicing would take up the burden of wood, and, laying it once more on his sacred shoulders, would humbly cast it down before the doors of the poor. This event befell him many times for Christ, whose members he thus cherished in the poor through the seasons of winter. O unheard-of piety! O unspeakable charity! Who has heard such things as this glorious Prince did? O how often are the poor by many — alas for the grief of it! — not merely not received, but even contumeliously driven away when they ask for alms! Which this most blessed Duke did not teach his people by his examples, who, that he might preserve their life, gave over his own body so often to such most monstrous torments of cruel stripes.

[138] Thus far that biographer, from what source he drew these things I cannot divine. But although works of mercy and Christian humility of this kind may seem in no way foreign to the disposition of Wenceslaus, a most religious prince, and therefore it is not abhorrent from likelihood that he sometimes carried bundles of wood laid on his own shoulders secretly at night to the doors of the poor, and perhaps also, not being recognized by his own men and therefore taken for a thief, was sometimes beaten — although, I say, these things may in fact have so happened, I can nevertheless scarcely doubt that that whole narrative of the aforesaid biographer is adorned beyond measure and augmented more than is fair by the writer's conjectures. However that be, I have wished to review it here, because it is read neither in the two Lives to be published, nor in that which Surius compiled and printed from the Bohemian History of John Dubravius, and because it may easily contain something of truth along with circumstances too much exaggerated.

* that is, other men's

§ VIII. The cause, occasion, authors, and place of the holy Martyr's murder.

[ ] A certain man denied that St. Wenceslaus was truly a martyr; The singular virtues of the holy duke Wenceslaus Christannus has sufficiently reviewed throughout the whole course of the Life, so that it is not necessary to treat of them at length in this Commentarius. He had fulfilled all the parts of a most excellent Christian prince, and, so far as the affairs of his duchy permitted, had led a religious life even in his own court, showing himself a prince in public and almost a monk in private, and covered beneath his precious garments with a hair-shirt. Not content, however, with these things, and burning with the desire of a greater perfection, he had determined of his own accord to yield the duchy to his brother Boleslaus, and to set out for Rome to the thresholds of the princes of the Apostles, that, tonsured by Christ's vicar and clothed in the monastic habit, he might pass the remainder of his life more religiously with such monks as he might be able to gather. While he was meditating these things, he was translated to heaven by the palm of martyrdom, at the command and by the hand of that same brother to whom he had resolved to hand over his dominions, and to whom, in the very murder, he granted out of his singular gentleness the life which he might have taken. The dreadful tragedy Christannus sets forth at length in chapter 2: I, after our custom, shall in this § examine its causes, place, and time; and the causes indeed the more at length, because Balbinus writes in his Notes to the same Life that there was in his own time a certain man who impudently denied to St. Wenceslaus the glory of martyrdom, on the ground that he was slain not for the cause of the sacred faith or of virtue, but out of his brother's lust of ruling.

[140] but it is proved that the cause of that murder He adds that the detractor, whose name he suppressed, was refuted by Georgius Bilek, dean of the collegiate church of Boleslav, afterwards mitred archdeacon of Krumlov; but neither man's Opuscule has come into my hands. I therefore take the matter in hand. The remarkable religion and piety of St. Wenceslaus, which he had drunk in from his earliest infancy from the training of his holy grandmother Ludmila, had from the very beginning of his principality been so grievous to his impious mother and guardian Dragomira and to her wicked ministers, that they left no stone unturned to call the youthful Prince back from it. Hear Christannus in the Life to be published, at num. 7. His perfidious mother, with certain sons of Belial consenting with her, envying his acts and his most holy pursuits, having taken counsel together, said: Alas! what are we doing, or whither shall we turn ourselves? For our Prince, who was raised by us to the summit of the realm, being perverted by the clerics and made as it were a monk, 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, think you, will he do in his young manhood or old age?

[141] From that day, therefore, they began to be exceedingly troublesome to him, was the Christian religion rebuking him with threats, and, being troublesome, heaping upon him very many other crimes, etc., which may be read in the same place. These things the holy Prince bore patiently, nor did he relax anything of his former offices of piety while he was able. At length, being grown older, he claimed for himself his own lordship which his mother had seized, and, she being driven into exile with the partners of her crimes, set about restoring and completing the disturbed state of religion and of the commonwealth, as I have set forth more fully above. His mother, afterwards recalled, and with her perhaps some others also, stripped of all power of ruling lest they disturb anything, led a private life. Meanwhile the holy Duke laboured, partly by gentle admonitions, partly by threats, to bring his subjects to the Christian faith and life, and partly also by inflicted penalties to restrain them from crimes. Always having gentle converse with the meek (says Christannus again at num. 17 and 18), but with the harsh, and with vagabonds, and with those given to gluttony or drink, or desiring to stray from doctrine or from the right path, being kindled with divine zeal, if he could not otherwise

lay hold of them, would at least, summoning them on the pretext of his table, beat them with mighty scourges; always taking up against the ancient enemy the shield of faith, and with the javelin of the Holy Spirit, which is the word of God, unceasingly storming the airy powers of this world.

[142] For he was without reproach a true worshipper of Christ, and the virtues of the holy Duke, reproving many according to the Apostolic precepts, beseeching, rebuking unwearied, inviting all to the supper of the true Householder, and, snatching them from the jaws of the devil and setting them in the bosom of holy mother Church, refreshing them continually with divine nourishments. This apostolic severity of the holy Duke in spreading the faith of Christ and rooting out vices — a severity just for that time — could certainly not but be hateful to very many, of whom some clung obstinately to the ancestral superstition of idols, others had by long use grown accustomed to the vices which blind heathenism had approved and which under Christian princes the necessity of conniving had hitherto tolerated. These men knew that Dragomira, an impious woman given over to idols, would stand on their side, since under her they had once lived with impunity after their own manner, and since she held her Son's religion in a hatred no less than they themselves. They likewise knew that Boleslaus, the Duke's brother, though a Christian, was far unlike him in manners and desirous of ruling, and from him they could with reason hope for things far gentler toward their own licence. This man therefore that strong engine of the chief men assails, with a sure hope of ruling, and drives to seize the duchy of Bohemia by the murder of his holy Brother.

[143] That this is so appears again from the testimony of Christannus, who, after he had said the things which I have related above concerning the church of St. Vitus built by him and his desire of the monastic life, continued thus at num. 19: But the enemy of the human race, assailing from the very beginnings the ranks of the faithful, when he could not wholly overcome the invincible Servant of Christ, turns to his ancient arms, striving to overthrow the Christian faith. For his younger brother, … to whom, all secular pomps being left behind, he was purposing to hand over all things, being forestalled by the counsels of very many malignant men, who grieved that they must leave their accustomed ways and that it was by no means permitted them to do unlawful things, he turned the arms of hatred and of slaughter against his most holy Brother. Thus Christannus, after which he sets forth the wicked murder of St. Wenceslaus, done by the hands of Boleslaus and of those same impious men whom he had mentioned. Nor does the author of the Life disagree with him — that Life, perhaps, as its Prologue displays, written under Otto II — in which, after St. Wenceslaus's sharp address, in which he severely rebuked the crimes of certain of his people and endeavoured by just threats to restrain them for the future, there is finally read: And so, the address of his excellent command being finished, the partners of the accursed conspiracy return home in fear, and, having felt the powerful vigour of the sacred Duke, are compelled to lay down the proud summits of their minds, and cease, though for a little time, to plot their accustomed snares against a Man of wondrous holiness.

[144] by whose counsel and labour Boleslaus made use You see, studious reader, that even in this anonymous writer's view it was out of hatred of religion and of the other virtues which they most grievously resented in their holy Prince, that the wicked subjects were incited to lay snares for him. To these there are to be referred the words which are read in the same Life after other matters: By a fraudulent contrivance of the most impure enemy — his ancient contrivance for destroying by craft, if ever he might be able, the affections for works of this kind (the good works of the holy Duke) — being very little retarded, his brother Boleslaus, younger in age, execrable for the perversity of his mind and the quality of his acts, touched by a diabolical instigation, savagely armed with the wickedness of fury against the Man of God, desirous of snatching the realm by a brother's hand, together with the wicked daring of his ministers strove exceedingly to lay snares of a deadly end for him. But it is established that the thing, afterwards to come to pass, was then deferred by divine predestination. To the same point tend these words also: The profane conspiracy of the nation is furtively thickened in the hiding-places of dwellings, and the envy of his own brother is kindled more and more, the devil supplying the tinder. Using the counsels and labour of these wicked men, Boleslaus, after some vain attempts, at last foully butchered his own Brother and Duke.

[145] to seize the duchy of Bohemia by his death. Finally, those same wicked parricides, not content with so dreadful an outrage, when the Duke had been slain, hastening presently to Prague, cruelly destroyed also the friends of the holy Martyr, and threw their infants into the river, on the testimony of Christannus at num. 27: from which slaughter of innocent children you will easily gather that those impious men were driven by some other frenzy than the mere desire of procuring the duchy for Boleslaus. I forbear to review the other biographers who agree, since these two are the chief, from whom the rest could learn what they say. It is manifest, therefore, that death was truly brought upon St. Wenceslaus by his impious subjects out of hatred of the Christian faith or of the virtues that pertain to that faith, although Boleslaus used their perfidy to seize his brother's duchy; which indeed can certainly not stand in the way of the martyrdom. Wherefore Georgius Bilek, praised in Balbinus, deservedly beat back that impudent detractor who impugned the holy Duke's martyrdom on that head; and deservedly has the church of Prague always venerated Wenceslaus as truly a martyr, and the Roman Church venerates him to this day, as we shall say more fully in its own place.

[146] Dragomira may easily have been a partner in that murder; The cause of the holy Martyr's murder being set forth, it may be asked whether his mother Dragomira had any part in it. This all the writers of Bohemia commonly affirm in their published books, and for that opinion Balbinus in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 8, cited ancient Ms. codices and old Breviaries of the church of Prague, and from these a portion of a Hymn.

His barbarous mother bade him die, A stepdame crueller than she; His impious brother did the deed, More monstrous than a tyrant's greed.

With this agrees the Office of today at Prague and at Rome, in whose 6th Lesson it is thus expressed: His impious brother, his mother urging him on, having received him at a banquet, and afterwards, as he was praying in the church, foreknowing the death prepared for him, slew him with the companions of his crime called in. With this agree the Life composed by Charles IV and several others among our Mss. And indeed that Dragomira was a partner in that crime is made likely by her own impiety and lust of ruling, incited by which she had not long before not hesitated to make away with her mother-in-law Ludmila, even when she yielded her own right for the sake of peace. Doubtless the ambitious woman was tormented and gnashed her teeth that, cast down from her lordship by her son Wenceslaus, driven first into exile and afterwards recalled, she led only a private life, and that she saw him strenuously and happily propagating the Christian rites which she had striven to banish out of all Bohemia.

[147] Nevertheless, however much from these things Dragomira's disposition ought to seem not to have shrunk from so great a crime — which nevertheless Christannus makes doubtful: especially because she could hope for better things for herself with Boleslaus ruling — I am made doubtful by the passage of Christannus in the Life, at num. 10, where he says this: Being mindful (St. Wenceslaus) of the divine precepts by which we ought to honour father and mother, he brought her back again (from exile) when time had elapsed; yet she lacked the honour of her former lordship until the day of her death. But passing over all these things, and how they were done, on account of their enormity, let us pursue what we have begun. After many adversities and troubles she endured also the murder of her Son by her own younger offspring. In these words the biographer, briefly comprising Dragomira's whole private life, not only makes no mention of her conspiring in St. Wenceslaus's murder, but even reckoned that murder among the adversities and troubles which he affirms she suffered from her return out of exile down to her own death. Thereafter mention of Dragomira recurs in him only once, at num. 26, where the holy Martyr's body is said to have been buried at her command. However that be, the things which Hájek recounted at the year 924 concerning the snares laid by her for Wenceslaus appear partly fabulous and are certainly in part false.

[148] According to him Dragomira, bearing most grievously the lordship snatched from her by her Son but the things which Hájek further has on this subject and the increase of the Christian religion, at last determined to take him from among the living. To this end she visits him in his palace at Vyšehrad, greatly praises the Christian religion, and falsely pretends that she too wishes to be baptized shortly. Having in this way caught her Son's goodwill, she blandly invites him to a draught of drink which she had tainted with poison. But he, being divinely taught of the wickedness, refusing to drink, said, I well know that I was born into this world of thee; but now thou desirest to drive me out of this world again. The time has not yet come in which thy desires may be fulfilled: go hence in peace. Her fraud being detected, and blazing with anger at that answer, the woman presently sends word by a messenger to Boleslaus to see that his Brother be killed by whatever means he can. She added also an oath and curses, that she would go to her father's tomb, and, the gods being invoked by sacrifice, would kill all the Christians. Having said these things, she mounts her chariot to carry out what she had conceived in her mind; but while on the way, before the church of St. Matthew, she was heaping curses upon Christ, she was swallowed alive, with her chariot and horses, by the earth gaping open, only the charioteer being saved, who at the elevation of the most holy Host had meanwhile entered the church for a little while for the sake of adoring.

[149] are to be rejected on more than one head. Presently a rumour is carried to Boleslav that Dragomira had been secretly killed by Wenceslaus at Prague, and cast with her chariot and horses into a ready-made pit, and covered over with earth. On hearing which, Boleslaus swears the death of his innocent Brother, and, opportunity being given, accomplishes it. So Hájek, in substance, but somewhat more at length. Now in this narrative it is false, first, that these things, if they truly happened, happened in the year 924, in which Dragomira was still ruling, or, banished, was living in exile. It is false, secondly, that Dragomira, while plotting these things, was swallowed up by the earth; since it is established that she survived Wenceslaus, whose lifeless body she ordered to be buried, on the testimony of Christannus in the Life, at num. 26. It is therefore also false that Boleslaus, too credulous of a rumour that his mother had been secretly killed by Wenceslaus and buried in the ground, resolved on his Brother's death. How much likelihood the rest may display, I leave to the prudent reader to consider. Balbinus in the Epitome, book 1, chapter 8, acknowledges that these very things are too hastily referred by Hájek to the year 924, and that Dragomira's dreadful end is wrongly set before the martyrdom of St. Wenceslaus; yet he seems to admit that the murder of her holy Son was attempted by her by means of wine tainted with poison.

[150] He suffered at Old Boleslav, whither, being invited by his brother, That the place of the martyrdom was Boleslav is certain with all. There are two places of this name in Bohemia, one Old Boleslav, in German Alt Buntzel, the other New Boleslav, called by the same people Jung Buntzel. Of Old Boleslav, once a notable city, which was so called from Boleslaus, St. Wenceslaus's brother, it is situated on the right bank of the river Elbe, where it receives the Jizera, opposite the town of Brundisium, commonly Brandýs, founded on the other side of the Elbe, and distant about three miles from the royal city of Prague. Its history Bohuslav Balbinus wrote at length in the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, from the opening of which it may be gathered what it once was, and what

it remains to this day. He thus began: I set about describing Boleslav, once a most famous city in Bohemia, the rival of Prague at its birth and its competitor in the love of princes, but today standing not even in ruins or heaps, but wholly unburied in its ashes, and, did not the sacred blood of St. Wenceslaus and the temple of the most blessed Mother of God, illustrious for miracles, defend it, destined perhaps, its very name being lost, to be bereft of all glory.

[151] he had come to the feast of SS. Cosmas and Damian, But to what it owes this ruin of its own, he teaches in book 3, chapter XI, in the words which I subjoin. Boleslav was first overthrown from the bottom by the Hussites and consumed by flames, and lastly was laid waste by the Swedes with such destruction, together with Brandýs (once, in the reign of the emperor Rudolf II, a sufficiently populous and wealthy little town), that Boleslav does not deserve to have the name of a proper town, nay scarcely even of a village, etc. The discourse concerning it will recur several times, when we treat of St. Wenceslaus's posthumous glory. It had not yet grown into a city at the time when St. Wenceslaus was slain; but Boleslaus had there a house of his own, as Christannus says (I understand a castle, in which he had fixed his dwelling), to which he treacherously invited his Brother and Duke, that he might kill him amid the feasting when he suspected nothing of the kind. It would be enough for me here to refer the reader for that dreadful scene to Christannus, did not the variety of some other writers in reporting the circumstances advise otherwise. The aforesaid biographer hands down that Boleslaus used for the setting of that wicked banquet the occasion of the annual festival of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian, under whose title there stood there a church dedicated to God, and to celebrate which solemnity he knew that the pious Prince would come not unwillingly.

[152] At this banquet, he says, the murder of St. Wenceslaus was thrice attempted in vain (God restraining it) by the conspirators reclining with him, their arms secretly prepared, and there, not in his brother's house, and the Saint, though well aware of what was being done, refused to flee. Then he asserts that the same man, on the following day at earliest dawn, when he was making for the aforesaid church of SS. Cosmas and Damian to pay the morning praises to God, was despatched with many a wound by his brother Boleslaus and the conspirators bursting from ambush, before the door of the church, which the fratricide had ordered to be shut against him as he came. With Christannus several Ms. Lives agree, which, because they are of less moment, I pass over. On the contrary Hájek, John Dubravius, and Pontanus a Braitenberg allege as the cause of the banquet's being prepared the birth of a son whom Boleslaus's wife had borne him, and whom they will have to have been called in the native tongue Strachyquas from that terrible banquet. In their view nothing was attempted against St. Wenceslaus amid the feasting; but the first of them writes that he was killed by his brother Boleslaus beside the church, the second in the church itself, the third as he was praying in the vestibule of the church.

[153] In the Roman Breviary and in the Prague Proper the church is likewise assigned as the wrestling-place, in this manner: but was wounded near the church His impious brother, his mother urging him on, having received him at a banquet, and afterwards, as he was praying in the church, foreknowing the death prepared for him, slew him with the companions of his crime called in. From these the Roman Martyrology dissents, which has thus: In Bohemia, of St. Wenceslaus, duke of the Bohemians and martyr, glorious for sanctity and miracles, who, being slain in his brother's house, came as victor to the palm. Of the same opinion was Æneas Sylvius in the History of Bohemia, in which it is read: He enters his brother's house (being invited to the banquet, as had been premised), and there, being at once struck by the hand of Boleslaus, perished. With me the authority of Christannus, while nothing from elsewhere stands in the way, greatly prevails, since he could and ought to have been instructed concerning the murder of his holy Uncle before all the rest. Hence I believe that the holy Duke, being invited by Boleslaus to celebrate the festival of SS. Cosmas and Damian, came to Boleslav, and that there, not in his brother's house, nor within the church itself, but near it, he was set upon by his brother, and was cruelly destroyed by the conspirators before the door of that same church.

[154] With Christannus, whose authority alone ought here to suffice, and was butchered in the vestibule of that same church. the tradition of the men of Prague is consonant, concerning which Pessina among others, speaking in the Phosphorus at page 147, says that St. Wenceslaus was killed by the impious companions of Boleslaus while he was bending at the door of the closed temple and grasping with his hand the bronze ring fixed to the door (which even today is seen hung up at the chapel of the same holy Martyr in the church of St. Vitus at Prague). Consonant also are the things which we shall recite at num. 257 concerning the traces of the sacred Martyr's blood sprinkled on the steps and the wall of the same church. Not to be longer, I for my part believe that the matter stood thus. Boleslaus, lurking in ambush, attacks his holy Brother and Duke as he hastens at earliest dawn to the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian, and wounds him with a double wound, but with an unwarlike hand. Wenceslaus on the other hand, unarmed, defends himself, and, the fratricide being laid on the ground and rebuked with words, grants him his life and restores his sword, and goes on where he had begun to go, to the church: and when he finds it shut by his brother's command, he falls in the vestibule of that same church, despatched with many wounds by the conspirators running up, illustrious for his remarkable religion toward God, for very many virtues, and then most recently for his Christian and truly heroic gentleness toward his brother.

§ IX. The Saint's year of death, about which writers vary, is more probably established: Boleslaus's savagery against his friends: the death, burial, and fame of sanctity of Podevin.

[ ] Some have fixed the Saint's death at the year 929, others at 937, There remains the greater controversy concerning the year of the martyrdom, about which writers likewise vary. Cosmas of Prague, in book 1 of the Chronicle, has this on the subject: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCCXXIX, on the fourth of the Kalends of October, St. Wenceslaus, duke of the Bohemians, martyred by his brother's guile, enters the everlasting city, namely the court of heaven. Cosmas was followed by Hájek in the Chronicle of Bohemia at the same year, and among the more recent writers by Baillet in the Lives of the Saints at this day. Their opinion is refuted from what was said in §5, where it was shown that St. Wenceslaus was besieged at Prague in the year 930 by Henry I, king of Germany, and made tributary to him with his people. Others, fixing his martyrdom some years later, come very near to the truth. Conrad, abbot of Ursberg, after the coronation of Otto I, which he lays down as done at Aachen in the year 937, presently subjoins the murder of St. Wenceslaus and the war undertaken by the aforesaid Otto against the fratricide, saying: First therefore, the barbarians raging to attempt new things, Bolizlaus struck down his own brother, a Christian man, faithful to the realm, and, as they report, a religious worshipper of God. And when the king, to avenge him, was sending an army against Bolizlaus, at first our men came off victors; then, acting more carelessly on account of their recent victory, they were all slain by a sudden inroad. And this war persevered until the XV year of the king's rule: from then on he remained a faithful and useful servant to the king.

[156] others at 938 or 939, following the transcripts of Christannus, Very close to this is Sigebert of Gembloux in his Chronicle, in which, having fixed the death of Henry the Fowler, whom Otto I succeeded, at the year 937, he presently subjoined at the year 938: Wenceslaus, prince of Bohemia, a holy man, is killed by his brother Boizlaus, who was seduced by the ambition of obtaining the principality; to avenge whom king Otto declared war on Boizlaus, and a long contention between them was protracted through XIV years. With the same year Balbinus agrees in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 9, and he adds that Veleslavín also so judges, and other historiographers of better quality; to whom is to be added Cardinal Baronius in vol. 10 of the Ecclesiastical Annals at the aforecited year 938. The last-named have on their side Christannus, saying in the Life to be published at num. 25: Then the whole choir of the malignant, fugitives from his flanks, bursting forth with swords and many lances, mangling him with grievous wounds, slew him before the door of the church. Then also the holy Soul, freed on the field of this life's contest from its prison-house, laurelled with blood, victorious, passed over to the Lord on the IV of the Kalends of October, heaven rejoicing and earth weeping, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCCXXXVIII. So the Trebon Ms. published by Balbinus and to be reprinted by us: for Pessina, to be cited below, reads in his Prague copy the year DCCCCXXXVIIII.

[157] but these seem corrupted, since Christannus I too should not hesitate to subscribe to Christannus, did he not himself raise in me a suspicion of an error or of a corrupted Balbinian transcript, especially with the authority of Widukind being added, on account of which it also seemed to Pagi in the Critica of Baronius, at the year 938, num. 6, against Sigebert of Gembloux, that St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom happened earlier. And so Christannus writes at num. 18 and 19 of the Life that St. Wenceslaus began to found the church of St. Vitus the martyr. Secondly, that he deferred for a little while his plan of giving the duchy of Bohemia to his brother Boleslaus, and of undertaking the Roman pilgrimage and embracing the monastic life, until the fabric of the church he had begun should be completed. Thirdly he teaches that that very plan lacked its outcome on account of the death brought upon St. Wenceslaus by that same brother. Then, about to narrate the death itself, at num. 20 he says, But these things were done in the times of Henry, king of the Saxons, who first among them, Christ being propitious to him, set the diadem upon himself, to whom that same happy man (Wenceslaus) was constantly joined as a friend. Finally he subjoins the treacherous banquet, and the holy Duke's murder perpetrated on the following day; so that, if anyone shall wish to cling strictly to the biographer's words, he must lay down that St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom happened while Henry the Fowler was reigning.

[158] But the aforesaid Henry I, king of Germany, according to the common assertion of the ancients died in the month of June of the year 936; refer his death to the reign of Henry the Fowler, and Widukind and since all writers set down St. Wenceslaus's day of death, with Christannus, at the IV of the Kalends of October, his martyrdom cannot be placed after the year 935; or at any rate not after the following year, if anyone shall prefer with Sigebert of Gembloux to defer the aforesaid king Henry's death to the year 937. Therefore either in this or in the other passage of Christannus some error lies hidden; since by the common opinion Henry must be said to have departed this life a full two years, and by Sigebert's at least one year, before the month of September of the year 938. The difficulty is even greater on Pessina's opinion, who, following the Prague transcript of Christannus, bound the Saint's martyrdom to the year 939. Let us now hear Widukind, monk of Corvey, who wrote the deeds of Henry I and Otto I in three books and dedicated them to Matilda, that same Otto's daughter, abbess of Quedlinburg. He, having comprised Henry's acts and death in book 1, began the second book from the election and coronation of Otto as king of Germany, which he set forth at length as done at Aachen.

[159] But after he had said that all the princes who had been present at the same assembly at Aachen returned to their own homes enriched with royal gifts, refers it to the reign of Otto I in Germany, he presently subjoined for our purpose the following: Meanwhile the barbarians (the Bohemians) rage to attempt new things; and Bolizlaf struck down his own Brother (Wenceslaus), a Christian man, and, as they report, most religious in the worship of God; and fearing a neighbouring petty king, because he had obeyed the commands of the Saxons, he declared

war upon him; and he sent into Saxony to ask aid for himself. And Æsic is sent with the legion of Merseburg and a strong band of the men of Hassegau, and the army of the Thuringians is added to him. Then he goes on to narrate that war at length, of which this is the sum: Boleslaus set a double force against the double army. The Thuringians, seized with fear, were turned to flight. Æsic, having gained the victory, while, ignorant of the Thuringians' flight, he acted too securely, was cut down by Boleslaus coming upon him, and perished with his whole army; Boleslaus took and destroyed the petty king's city.

[160] But the king (Otto I), having heard a message of this kind (the words are Widukind's), is in no way disturbed; as is proved from the sayings of both, but, strengthened by divine power, enters with his whole army the borders of the barbarians to curb their savagery. There was sharp fighting on both sides; but the king, the multitude of the enemy being cut down and the rest made tributary, returned into Saxony. And these things were done on the VII of the Kalends of October. These were the beginnings of that war which, on the same historian's testimony, lasted between Otto and Boleslaus until the fourteenth year of the king's (Otto I's) rule. According to these assertions of an author contemporary or nearly so, and in no way suspect, St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom must be placed at the very beginnings of Otto's reign, and cannot be deferred as far as the year 938, much less 939. This same thing must also be laid down from what he subjoined immediately after the victory just mentioned, saying: After these things the ancient enemies the Hungarians came to test the valour of the new king. And entering Francia, they resolved, if they could, to invade Saxony from the western quarter. But the king, hearing of it, delaying nothing, met them with a strong army, and put them to flight and drove them from his borders.

[161] it is proved: and, that these may be reconciled, it is more probable The year in which these things were done he noted at the end of book 3 in these words: In his (Otto I's) first year, which is from the Lord's Incarnation DCCCCXXXVII, the Hungarians, laying waste Francia and Alemannia and Gaul as far as the Ocean and Burgundy, returned through Italy. The monasteries of St. Gall and of Boniface are burnt. Rudolph, king of Burgundy, and Arnold, duke of the Norici, died. With these the old chronologers plainly agree, whom Pagi in the Critica of Baronius reviewed at the aforesaid year 937 from num. 1. But lest you doubt whether the same Hungarian inroad is designated in both places, Widukind himself first placed the death of Arnold or Arnulf, duke of the Norici, which he fixed here at the year 937, and the Bavarian expedition which followed shortly after it, also in the earlier place, after the murder of St. Wenceslaus and the disasters mentioned of Boleslaus and of the Hungarians, saying thus: But when the foreign wars ceased, civil ones began to arise… At that time Arnulf, duke of the Bavarians, died, and his sons, lifted up into pride, despised to go to the king's assembly… But the king passed over into Bavaria, and, matters being duly settled there, returned into Saxony. From the texts of Widukind adduced there flows this argument.

[162] that the Saint was killed in the year 936, Otto I at the beginning of his reign fought against St. Wenceslaus's fratricide, and conquered him on the VII of the Kalends of October, that is, on the XXV day of September; and thereafter he drove from his borders the Hungarians, who in the first year of his reign, and the year of Christ 937, entering Francia, were attempting to invade Saxony; therefore the aforesaid Wenceslaus was slain earlier than the XXVIII day of September of the year 938, before which the aforesaid contests with Boleslaus and the driving of the Hungarians from the borders of Saxony had already happened. It remains, therefore, that we inquire to which of the preceding years the Saint's martyrdom should rather seem to be referred. I have already said above that it must be fixed not later than the year 935, if we interpret those words of Christannus, But these things were done in the times of Henry, king of the Saxons, of the time of the martyrdom itself. For since Henry met his day on the 2nd of July of the year 936, but Wenceslaus's day of death is said by all to have been the XXVIII of September, this could not have fallen later than in the year 935.

[163] in which, Henry having died, Otto succeeded, But thus we shall depart too far from Widukind, from whose narrative the holy Duke must rather be said to have been killed at the beginning of Otto's reign. Wherefore, that the authority of both may be reconciled, I for my part believe that the sayings of Christannus just alleged are not to be extended as far as the Saint's murder itself, but are to be referred to the last months of his life; and finally that the order of events is to be arranged from Christannus and Widukind in about this way. In the year 936 St. Wenceslaus, occupied in completing the church of St. Vitus, was seriously thinking of giving the duchy of Bohemia as soon as possible to his brother Boleslaus, and of subjecting himself to monastic discipline; deferring both for a little while until he should have put the last hand to the church he had begun. At the same time Boleslaus, incited by wicked men to whom the holy Duke's piety and his salutary admonitions and laws were grievous, and inflamed with the lust of ruling, was watching for an opportunity of carrying out the fratricide.

[164] Meanwhile Henry, king of Germany, died on the 2nd day of July of the same year 936; Boleslaus seizing the occasion and that death added new spirit to Boleslaus for completing the crime he had conceived; namely, when he saw taken from among the living a king most friendly to Wenceslaus, and one who, if he lived, would certainly be the avenger of his murder. There favoured also the hope of the crime's impunity a certain dissension of the princes, of whom some wished to appoint to the kingdom of Germany Otto, Henry's elder-born son, but begotten while his father was not yet king, while others preferred Henry, his brother, begotten of the same father when already king, conspicuous for a wonderful beauty of body, and worthy of the kingdom by his manners and warlike valour, for whom also his mother B. Matilda, the widowed queen, longed for that dignity before her other sons. Consult, if you please, the Life of the same B. Matilda, written by an anonymous author at the command of the emperor St. Henry, and given in our Work at the XIV day of March, in which it is also said that from this head arose the dissension which afterwards boiled up between those two brothers, Otto and Henry.

[165] Making use, therefore, of this occasion, Boleslaus killed his Brother in the third month after the death of Henry the Fowler, which that same Henry's death favoured for him. namely on the XXVIII day of September of the same year, in the manner said above, and obtained the duchy of Bohemia. But because he had reason to fear evil for himself from the Saxons, to whom he knew Wenceslaus had been a friend and a faithful tributary, he determined, among the first beginnings of his lordship, to forestall war, and, an army being gathered, attacked a neighbouring petty king or prince who obeyed the Saxons, that this man's forces, being shattered by a sudden inroad, might no longer be able to harm him. While these things are being carried on in Bohemia, the princes of Germany had agreed upon Otto, long since designated king by his father while he lived, and, an assembly being proclaimed, meeting at Aachen, crowned him there king with the great consent of the people. These things being accomplished, Otto, having long since heard of St. Wenceslaus's murder, and understanding the petty king's peril, sent the aid that had been asked; and when this had turned out otherwise than he had hoped, he himself led his whole army against the Bohemians, and, the standards being joined on the XXV day of September of the year 937, made them once more tributary to himself.

[166] That war being finished, or rather lulled for a little while, a new one pressed on from the Hungarians, Certain other things are observed, who came to test the valour of the new king, as Widukind says, and whom that new king put to flight. It may however be asked here how these last events can be bound to the year of the Lord 937, and Otto's first, if they happened in the same year after the XXV day of September, and if Otto succeeded his father who died on the 2nd of July in the year 936. I answer that this can be explained in two ways. For either Widukind composed with the aforesaid years not the end but the beginning and progress of the Hungarians' invasion, at num. 151; or else he began to number that same Otto's years from the year of Christ 937, in which perhaps he was first crowned. The first explanation his very words display; the other is favoured by the Life of the venerable Bruno, brother of Otto I and archbishop of Cologne, which Rotger wrote and dedicated to Folcmar, Bruno's successor in the same see. The words are given by Pagi in the Critica at the year 937, num. 4, where this may be read. After his (Bruno's) father, the empire being founded and pacified to a nicety, departed from human affairs, Otto his elder-born son, increased with the blessing of the Lord and anointed with the oil of gladness, began to reign with the great goodwill and consent of the princes, in the year from the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and thirty-seven. From this passage Cardinal Baronius laid down that Otto began to number the years of his reign from his coronation made in the year 937, Pagi resisting, who preferred to interpret the same of the peaceful possession of the kingdom — how truly, I do not know.

[167] pertaining to this opinion and to history, However that be (nor is it now to my purpose to examine it at greater length), the chronological arrangement which I have thus far established remains unharmed. It is pleasing, however, to confirm the same further from the end of the war which we have seen blazed up between Otto and Boleslaus. Widukind, who had said, as cited at num. 150, And that war lasted until the fourteenth year of the king's rule: from then on he remained the king's faithful and useful servant, records the end of that war in book 3 thus: At that time the king (Otto) sets out on campaign against Bolizlav, king of the Bohemians; and when the city which was called Nova was about to be taken, in which Bolizlav's son was shut up and besieged, the king by a prudent counsel broke off the battle, lest his soldiery should fall into some peril in seizing the enemy's spoils. And so, the king's valour and the innumerable multitude of his army being considered, Bolizlaf, coming out of the city, preferred to submit himself to so great a majesty rather than to suffer utter destruction; and standing beneath the standards and hearing the king and rendering his answers, he at last earned pardon. So he; which things Sigebert of Gembloux, Cosmas of Prague, and the continuator of Regino set down at the year of Christ 950.

[168] and an answer is given Sigebert in Le Mire's edition has thus: King Otto sets out into Bohemia against Bolizlaus. But Bolizlaus is reconciled to the king, and at last faithfully submits himself to him. But Cosmas thus: Boleslaus, duke of the Bohemians, rebelled against the king, whom the king came upon with a strong force and subjugated in all things to his dominion. Almost the same the continuator of Regino recites. Before them all had gone Frodoard, presbyter of Reims and contemporary with the event, in his Chronicle, in which, in Du Chesne, vol. 2 of the Writers, at the same year, it is read, though very corruptly: King Otto, who had besieged a certain great city of the Wends, by name Praida, receives their king into subjection. Now add fourteen incomplete years to the year 936 after its middle, or as many to the year 937 as it began, and you will easily come to the year 950, which will have been the fourteenth year at once of Otto's reign and of the war begun after St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom. In this way all the sayings of Christannus and Widukind, being reconciled, cohere rightly with my chronological arrangement, which cannot be composed with the year 938 or the following one as the holy Martyr's year of death. Balbinus, who attempts to do this with the year 938, in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 7, for computing the fourteen years of the war

entering upon another way, admits with us that Henry the Fowler died in the year 936; but he would have it believed that Otto, when he had first succeeded his father, summoned to an assembly in the year 937, among the other princes of Germany, two of Bohemia as well, Wenceslaus of Prague and Boleslaus of Boleslav.

[169] to the conjectures He asserts that the same Otto conferred on Wenceslaus, who obeyed his commands, the royal dignity and the other gifts which we have discussed above, but that upon Boleslaus, who refused to appear, he declared war from that time on, which afterwards blazed up more fiercely on account of St. Wenceslaus's murder and the arms taken up by Boleslaus against the petty king who was a friend of the Saxons, and was protracted as far as the year 950. On what a weak, or rather on what no foundation these things are said, you will gather from what has been said above; certainly it is far better to admit an error in the Trebon copy of Christannus concerning the year of the martyrdom, than to set Christannus at odds with himself and with Widukind, a writer contemporary with him and exceedingly well informed about the affairs of the kings Henry and Otto, and speaking clearly. Daily experience teaches that errors of this kind frequently creep into numerals, either by the mere drowsiness of copyists or by the ignorance of some smatterer, or finally from some other cause; of which thing you have an example in this very Life and in other Mss. in Pessina in the Phosphorus of the church of Prague, ray 3, page 148, whence I transcribe his words here.

[170] A Ms. parchment codex in the archive of the metropolitan chapter of Prague, and assertions containing a treatise on the Passion of St. Wenceslaus written by Christannus, who was the third-born son of Boleslaus I, a religious of the Order of St. Benedict, has expressly the year DCCCCXXXVIIII. So too certain Ms. copies of Cosmas; as also the Life of the same holy Martyr written by Hyzo, bishop of Prague. Pulkava, Hájek, and others who followed these, who put the year DCCCCXXIX, seem to have been led into error from some badly written codex in which the number of X years had been omitted. Since those two Ms. copies of the Life by Christannus, the Trebon and the Prague, are discordant, it is necessary to admit an error in one or the other, and it cannot be denied that it may lie hidden in both; and that it does in fact lie hidden there, the reasons adduced above ought to persuade. As regards certain copies of Cosmas marking the year 939, if his Chronicle is in question, that they were certainly corrupted is clear from the printed text, in which, after the year 929, to which he appended St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom, there follow the year 930 and all the rest in their order.

[171] Of the Life written by Hyzo I can declare nothing, of those who think otherwise. except that in our copy, which has the same opening as the one praised by Pessina, no year is read. Finally, whatever codices Pulkava and Hájek used, in those same the year 936 rather than 939 ought to have been placed. For the rest, the same Hájek does not deserve credit, who, although he had wrongly said that St. Wenceslaus died in the year 929, nevertheless says that his death first became known to Otto in the year 963, and that then, on account of this and at the same time on account of the arrogance of Boleslaus in refusing to come to the assembly, war was declared by the former against the latter, and tells other fables which may be read in him both at the aforecited year 963 and at the one next following. Here let it suffice to have said that from what has hitherto been disputed it is established that Hájek, as he made the holy Duke's martyrdom premature by several years, so placed the beginning of Otto's war with Boleslaus many years later than is fair, and no less badly confined its duration within scarcely a single year.

[172] Before we proceed to St. Wenceslaus's posthumous glory, After the Saint's murder others were savagely dealt with. the place demands that we note some things concerning others who for his sake, at the command or with the connivance of the fratricide Boleslaus, were cruelly destroyed. Christannus, in the Life at num. 27, has this concerning them: Those same slayers of the holy Martyr, desiring to spare not even in death him whom they had persecuted unto death, go with swift course to the city of Prague, and destroy by divers and cruel deaths all his friends, whom, being good men, we believe to have clung to the Good; and they plunged their infants alive into the depth of the river Vltava (commonly the Muldaw, which flows through Prague); whom, because they were partakers of the passion, we believe to have been made partakers of the glory also; and their number and their names, although we unworthy men, for their multitude, know them not, yet we truly believe that God knows and has chosen. Now the blessed Man had, while he yet lived, gathered together no small multitude of clerics and of servants of God, whom the persecutors of the holy Martyr so persecuted that scarcely any of them remained in the fatherland: so that in this we might see truly fulfilled what we know was foretold more particularly of the Lord: "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered."

[173] Christannus's narrative concerning the cause of Podevin's death These same things the anonymous writer set forth a little differently in the Life written, if we believe him, under Otto II. Boleslaus, a duke of exceeding perversity, succeeding thereafter to the realm (that is, to the duchy of Bohemia), he says, and his savagery raging against the companies of the faithful, not long after the blessed Man's murder, while he was enjoying human life, he condemned by a sudden sentence of death the clerics and the friends, and those bound to his service in familiar attendance.* Of all these there is named one Podevin, the most faithful servant of St. Wenceslaus, his inseparable companion and the partaker of his virtues, of whom therefore we must treat a little more at length, chiefly because Christannus assigned for his death a cause unworthy of the sanctity which they proclaim of him. He says that Podevin, or Podiven, as it is there written, lay hidden after his Duke's murder among the Germans, to whom he had fled, and that, after some time had elapsed, when he believed he had less to fear for himself, he returned to his country and kept himself at home, and at length took away with the sword the life of the chief author of his Lord's murder as he was reclining in the bath.

[174] is rejected, and to it is preferred On the same testimony, Podevin, taking counsel for himself by flight, was surrounded and captured in a wood by Boleslaus's officers and perished hanged on a noose, being after his death famous for miracles. Far more credible are the things which the anonymous writer just praised has on the same subject, whose words I subjoin. A certain young chamberlain, more faithful than the other servants and better fitted for his secrets, the holy Man, while still living in the world, greatly loved, of whom also what is written above has made mention; who, being deprived of his most dear Lord, kept up sad lamentations for days, and no less spread abroad among many, by praising them, the many examples of his deeds of which he himself was privy. Which the mad duke (Boleslaus) having learned, kindled with most furious anger, presently orders him to perish by hanging. For, being hanged, as the true words of good men testify, for more than two years he was seen to grow and whiten through the hairs with a flourishing hoariness, no otherwise than living and sound heads of men are wont to do. This cause of death is surely a glorious one, and as worthy of the most faithful friend of St. Wenceslaus and partner of his pious works as that which is handed down by Christannus is unworthy: for Peter, the prince of the Apostles, admonishes in Epistle 1, chapter 4: But let none of you suffer as a murderer.

[175] the narrative of the anonymous writer, For indeed, however unjust and impious the murder of the holy duke Wenceslaus was, it was not for Podevin afterwards to avenge it on his own authority by another murder, however guilty the man; nor, if he had done so, could he be absolved from homicide. Wherefore I greatly wonder that these things could be believed and written by Christannus, and yet Podevin by the same be called, as he does, a Saint of God, and be reported to have been made illustrious by divine miracles after his death. I prefer to believe that Christannus was deceived, as to the cause of Podevin's death, by a false report or a calumny feigned by his enemies so that he might seem deservedly to have been hanged; and to adhere to the anonymous writer, or to the other Bohemian writers who in Balbinus, book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 9, said that Podevin was ordered by Boleslaus to be hanged because he had refused to depart from his Lord's corpse, with Dragomira's hatred against him being added, because she knew that he had been her Son's chief helper in propagating the Christian religion. These things being laid down, the accounts may be admitted which the aforesaid anonymous writer and Christannus recounted concerning the incorruption of his body, and which the latter further recounted concerning the other prodigies wrought at his burial-place and the people's veneration toward him.

[176] The latter of these, in the Life at num. 34, writes thus concerning his translation from the first place of burial to Prague: as far more conformable After much time the body of that man (Podevin) was taken up from that place and translated with the devotion of the clerics and of devout men and women, and placed in the cemetery of the church of St. Vitus, in such wise that St. Wenceslaus, laid within the church, and that soldier, laid without, are divided only by a wall. With these words rightly agree the things which Cosmas of Prague noted in his Chronicle at the year 1124, in which he himself flourished. In Lent of the same year, on the IX of the Kalends of April, Meinhard (bishop of Prague), finding by chance in the sacristy the bones of Pediven, buries them in the ground in the chapel which is beneath the tower, between the altar of St. Nicholas, bishop and confessor, and the tomb of bishop Gebhard. He (Pediven or Podevin) was the retainer and inseparable companion in labour and hardship of St. Wenceslaus the martyr, of whose acts enough is declared in his Life for those who wish to know. In his own time, however, Severus, the sixth bishop of this see, enlarging the chapel more widely about the sacred tomb of the aforesaid Patron, digging up the bones of the aforesaid retainer (because otherwise the wall could not be founded) and placing them in a sarcophagus, had put them in the chamber where the church's gifts were kept.

[177] That Severus, on Cosmas's own testimony, was ordained bishop of Prague in the year 1030 to the report of his sanctity and died in the year 1067. While he was sitting, in the year 1060, Spignen, duke of Bohemia, caused the old church of St. Vitus to be destroyed and another and larger one to be built; and on that occasion Podevin's bones may have been found and laid up by Severus in the sacred treasury of the church, after they had lain there beside the wall of that same church from the times of Christannus, that is, from the tenth century. Meinhard, who found them thus laid up by Severus, and buried them between the altar of St. Nicholas and the tomb of bishop Gebhard, otherwise called also Jaromir, is said in the same Chronicle of Cosmas to have succeeded Hermann, who departed this life in the year of Christ 1122. I do not know whether they were again translated to another place in the year 1367, at which year Beneš, canon of Prague, praised in Balbinus, book 4 of the Miscellanea of Bohemia, part 1, §9, says: The bodies of blessed Przibislava (who was St. Wenceslaus's sister) and of blessed Podevin were buried in the church of Prague, but outside the chapel of the blessed martyr Wenceslaus. That both bodies were again found and raised out of the earth in the year 1673, I have recorded from an eyewitness at num. 34, where I reviewed his words.

[178] To the rest I add also Thomas Joannes Pessina in the Phosphorus of the church of Prague, and to the veneration shown him by the men of Prague. which he published in print in the aforecited year 1673, ray 3, page 156 and following, writing this concerning Podevin: Nor long after (the translation of St. Wenceslaus's body from Boleslav to Prague) the body of B. Podevin was also translated and entombed near the sepulchre of St. Wenceslaus, where to this day, together with the relics

of B. Przibislava, he rests at the door of the chapel of that same Saint, once his duke and lord — truly faithful to his Lord even to the altars, who, as while living he had been of his Master's bedchamber, so now too, having departed this life, is nearer to his sacred chamber and keeps watch at his Lord's doors. All that has hitherto been brought forward proves that Podevin was always held in great veneration among the men of Prague, and was commonly honoured even with the title of Blessed; nevertheless I have found his memory set down in no Martyrologies, nor have I read anything of an ecclesiastical cult of him.

* perhaps: and also

§ X. The prodigious traces of the sacred blood shed: the burial of the body at Boleslav, and the translation thence made to Prague: its wonderful integrity at that time.

[ ] His shed blood cannot be washed away. I begin the posthumous glory of the holy Duke and Martyr from his sacred remains. Concerning his blood, which in the very murder had drenched the ground and the neighbouring wall of the church, and could not be washed away, consult Christannus in the Life to be published, at num. 26. To him I add Balbinus, writing of his own time, in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter 9. That very blood which, springing from the Saint's body, had bespattered the walls of the church, though Boleslaus attempted everything, could never be effaced, and this ornament of the church of Boleslav (which Wenceslaus, martyr of Christ, had consecrated with his rosy blood) remained to our times: when I was a boy, the dean of the church, by an ill-advised zeal for cleanliness, laid lime over it and put out the greater part of that most holy painting: as though lime shone better than the blood of St. Wenceslaus. Nor yet could he himself, however much he wished it, so abolish it but that even today the most beautiful blood of the holy Martyr glimmers through the lime, and elsewhere too, where the lime falls away, blooms forth. I believe Balbinus, a learned and pious man, when he asserts these things; but at the same time I judge that the word blooms forth was said by him after the manner of orators for appears again; for I have read in no one any other prodigy of that blood than that it could not be washed from the church's wall. See more in §14.

[180] The things related as having happened to Borzena His lifeless body (as Christannus has it in the Life, at num. 26) by the command of his mother, whom he had lately, her sins requiring it, driven out, and had again recalled in peace for the love of Christ, certain faithful men snatching it up (from the ground, where it lay despatched with many wounds), casting it at last into a tomb, covered it with earth; not as befitted a Martyr, but as is customary for any of mortals of rank or of blessedness. It is credible that at this tomb, while the sacred body rested in it, some prodigies were done which Christannus passed over. Hájek at the year 930 (though this is too hasty), and from him Balbinus in book 1 of the Epitome, chapter XI, narrate that Borzena, the wife of the fratricide Boleslaus himself, when she was suffering from a grave and incurable fever, came thither secretly from her husband, and, while she was invoking St. Wenceslaus with fervent prayers, he appeared to her in the very habit in which she had known him alive, who, raising his hand and blessing her after the Christian manner, suddenly restored her to entire health.

[181] [and to Boleslaus at the Saint's tomb are destitute of sufficiently ancient testimonies:] They subjoin that the same woman, returning home, met Boleslaus on the very threshold of the church, and, when he asked what she was doing, freely confessed the benefit received from St. Wenceslaus; but that Boleslaus, incredulous, calling down a fever upon himself if that were true, was presently seized with a fever and suffered from it a whole year. Racek Dobrohorský, canon of Boleslav (Balbinus continues), is the author, and several others, that Boleslaus himself (though secretly, lest he should procure any authority for his Brother's innocence) approached the tomb, and obtained his health by prayers poured out before the sepulchre. Both benefits Pontanus a Braitenberg comprised briefly thus in book 4 of the Bohemia pia: Finally after his death he displayed great miracles and benefits to Christians and pagans. He freed from fever Bizena, the wife of Boleslaus the Cruel, and that incredulous man himself. That the aforesaid writers might give sure credit to their assertions, they ought to have adduced sufficiently ancient sureties, without which the things cannot be held for indubitable which they commemorate — perhaps from popular tradition alone — concerning matters done so long before their own times, of which there stands no mention in the biographers nearest to the Saint's times.

[182] For the same reason I by no means approve the things which the aforesaid Balbinus subjoined after them, as also the apparition of that same Saint and which I shall here report in brief. Since, on account of the very many miracles and benefits bestowed upon the wretched, there was a most frequent resort to the Saint's tomb both of Christians and of heathens, and many of these on that occasion gave their name to Christ, the inhabitants of the province of Luka in Bohemia, addicted before the rest to the superstition of idols, sending envoys to Boleslaus, asked that he should forbid under pain of death, in a public assembly of the nation, that anyone should say Wenceslaus was unjustly slain, nor should suffer his tomb thereafter to be commonly visited, but should utterly abolish his cult. The demand of the men of Luka pleased Boleslaus, and in an assembly at Tursko beyond Prague, at the oak called of the Sturdy Knight, to use Balbinus's words, he utterly forbade to heathens and Christians alike the memory of St. Wenceslaus, cloaking the crime under the name of peace and concord. The heathens applauding the prince's decree, the Christians with the men of Prague, opposing the unjust law, obtained time for deliberation.

[183] Meanwhile, while these were taking counsel together, they all see a Knight, notable for golden mail and golden arms, riding on a most white horse and descending from heaven. for the vindicating of his own cult. A dreadful cloud, full of storms and of lightnings which stood off and flashed again and again, followed him from the western quarter of the air. The Knight, rushing upon the multitude of the heathen, began to scatter lightnings and fires. There is a crash; rains, storms, flashes enwrap the sky; lightnings range about, the Christians recognizing and invoking their own Wenceslaus, the heathens dismayed and scattered in flight, each as he was able. Racek, whom I cited just now, hands down that forty of the heathen magnates perished struck by lightning. So Balbinus, out of others not very ancient; which things, the more illustrious they are, the more certain testimonies they require, and the less, if they be true, could they have been omitted by Christannus and the other older writers, from whose silence it must be said that they were unknown to them. More certain are the things which we have from the aforesaid Christannus concerning the body of the holy Duke and martyr translated from Boleslav to Prague, with whom all the rest agree, although some vary in the circumstances, of which therefore I must here treat.

[184] Concerning the time which flowed from the Saint's death to the translation, His body after three years Christannus agrees with the anonymous author of the Life written under Otto II, if he speaks the truth. The former at num. 28 says thus: The body of the blessed Martyr rested buried in the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian for three years: but the other thus: The venerable body resting there through the spaces of three years, etc. Both also noted that the annual memory of that translation is celebrated on the IV of the Nones of March, which is also observed at this time, probably because the translation was made on that day. Hence, since I have proved above that St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom far more probably happened in the year 936, on the XXVIII day of September, consequently the same translation is to be referred to the year 939 or 940, according to the varying interpretation of the three years as complete or incomplete. The same two biographers agree that the cause of the translation was heavenly revelations by which it was commanded to be done; but the anonymous writer hands down that the translation was made without Boleslaus's knowledge, whereas Christannus says it was made at his command, yet grudgingly and warily, lest it should redound to his holy Brother's glory.

[185] is translated from Old Boleslav to Prague: Take the anonymous writer's words. The venerable body resting there (at Boleslav in the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian) through the spaces of three years, it was seen by night by certain of the faithful that, God intimating the matter, it ought thence to be translated to the church of St. Vitus the martyr, which he himself had already built, to be laid up in a more religious burial. And they, emerging from sleep and believing the vision, and although fearing the tyranny of the prince (Boleslaus), nevertheless in the mid stillness of night open the tomb as men in fear, and, the sarcophagus not being opened, set the precious pledge of the Martyr, most warily bound, upon a vehicle, etc. So he; but Christannus in the Life to be published, at num. 29, These things (the revelations divinely made concerning the Saint's body to be translated to Prague), he says, are announced to that fratricide; and because he was covered with the cloak of the Christian warfare, not being able to resist God's mighty works, though late, he began to marvel. Then he sent and ordered the holy body to be translated by night, on this condition, that if before dawn the sacred members had not been delivered into the seat of burial, those to whom it had been enjoined should not doubt that they would all be punished by the sword.

[186] the causes of which translation, Differently from both thought Cosmas of Prague, who, because he had marked St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom at the year 929, placed the translation three years afterwards at the year 932, and ascribed it to the envy of Boleslaus alone, in this manner. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCCXXXII, within the Nones of March, the body of St. Wenceslaus the martyr was translated from the town of Boleslav into the city of Prague, by the hatred of his envious brother. For indeed his brother Boleslaus, doing worse and worse from day to day, pricked by no penitence for his crime, took it with a swollen mind that through the merits of his martyr Wenceslaus God was declaring innumerable miracles at his tomb, and secretly charges his trusty retainers to translate him by night into the city of Prague and to bury him in the ground in the church of St. Vitus, so that if God should show any wonders to his own for the glory of his saints, they should be ascribed not to the merits of his Brother but to those of St. Vitus the martyr. The same sole cause of the translation is handed down also by Hájek in the Chronicle at the aforecited year, and by others whom Balbinus praises and follows in the Epitome, book 1, chapter 12: but to me it appears most likely that those various grounds concurred in bringing about the translation.

[187] concerning which writers do not agree, For to both biographers, and especially to Christannus, asserting that divine revelations gave occasion to the translation, I cannot refuse credit. It is likewise probable that Boleslaus consented to it the more willingly, the more grievously he bore that his Brother's sacred body should, as if in reproach of the fratricide, be honoured at Boleslav, where he himself had fixed his seat, with a great throng of those flocking to it, and be made illustrious even by heavenly prodigies. Nor is the third reason without its own probability, alleged by Cosmas and others; namely, that if any miracles were done at the Saint's body at Prague, these should be ascribed not to Wenceslaus but to the other Saints whose relics rested in the church of St. Vitus. His mother Dragomira had gone before him by her own example, using a like counsel to obscure the glory of St. Ludmila, whom she had impiously caused to be strangled. The deed was reported by Christannus in the Life of that same holy duchess and martyr published in our Work at the XVI day of this month of September, in which, after he had said at num. 22 that St. Ludmila's tomb had begun to grow famous by miracles, he thus continued.

[188] All which things by no means lay hidden from the murderess lady (Dragomira): are more probably assigned. and when she knew them, prostrated by exceeding fear, she knew not what she should do. At last, renewing again her venomous counsel, she sent her officers to Tetín, that

where the venerable body lay entombed, charging them in her commands that they should set up a house over the tomb of B. Ludmila in the fashion of a basilica, fitting to it also a name in honour of B. Michael the archangel, so that if thereafter any sign should grow famous there, it might be assigned not to the merits of the blessed martyr, but to those of the Saints whose pledges were kept there. By like reasons, therefore, could the fratricide Boleslaus be induced to consent the more willingly to the translation which was sought, yet with this precaution applied, that it be done secretly and by night, lest the solemnity of it, through the concourse of the people, should redound as much to his own reproach as to the glory of the Brother he had slain. Hence too he added that severe command, worthy of Boleslaus the Cruel, that the bearers of the sacred body should pay the penalty of their heads unless they had brought it into the church of Prague before the following dawn.

[189] Christannus in the Life to be published, at num. 29 and 30, hands down Certain circumstances of the translation are reviewed, that the bearers of the said pledge reached the church of St. Vitus before dawn, as had been commanded by Boleslaus, two rivers being prodigiously overcome by divine help so that they might be able to do it. That the whole matter was accomplished by night, and that one river was on that account miraculously crossed, the often-praised anonymous writer also agrees, being commonly less well informed than Christannus. But John Dubravius and others, whom Balbinus followed, and several Ms. Lives too, although they narrate like things concerning the crossing of one or two or three rivers, nevertheless deny that the sacred body could be brought into the church except in broad day. To this end they add new miracles plainly unknown to those two older biographers. It will not be worth while to report them at length: take them contracted in a few words from Balbinus. When the aforesaid bearers had already, with their sacred burden, come marvellously to the other bank of the Vltava, the oxen which were drawing it stood motionless before the public prisons of Prague, and could by no goads be driven up the hill on which the church of St. Vitus is built: nor was any more effected by other oxen and horses yoked to the wagon.

[190] Meanwhile, the sun having risen, the inhabitants ran together, and to them, partly contrary to Christannus, partly unknown to him, as they inquired what was being carried, it was answered that it was a great matter, to be conveyed secretly by the prince's command into the citadel of St. Vitus. But one of them, impelled either by human curiosity or by divine instinct, opened the chest, and recognized his own holy Duke (for the body was uncorrupted) and showed him to the rest. While all exulted, the clergy of St. Vitus ran up with a suppliant procession, and again labour was spent in vain to carry the sacred treasure forward up the hill, until at last the chief priest of the clergy addressed the people thus: With how great indulgence the lord Wenceslaus ruled the peoples subject to him, most of you remember, who know that he had bowels of mercy. This perhaps he desires to be signified by this halt before your prisons, that in his honour you should let the guilty and the guiltless alike go free out of the prisons. No more was needed for the people, having broken open the prison doors, to permit all the captives to go free: and when this was done, that same pair of oxen which had brought the wagon from Boleslav presently made its way up the hill with the sacred burden, and two heathens, astounded at the miracle, embraced the Christian faith.

[191] The sacred body, when brought into the church — if we believe the same writers — and not easily to be admitted. Much less can be admitted remained for three whole days exposed to the eyes and veneration of all, many sick persons being meanwhile granted entire health at its healing touch. But all these things, being partly unknown to the two most ancient biographers and partly contrary to their sayings, have no credit with me. There follows in the same place in Balbinus another miracle also, or rather a fable, which I report here in his own words. Upon this (namely, while St. Wenceslaus's body remained publicly exposed during those three days) one of the priests, most acceptable to Wenceslaus while life remained to him, Hostivod by name, approaches the body, and with liquid and sweet piety, many tears being first shed, Since, he says, O illustrious Prince, heaven has received thy soul most full of all virtues, but earth demands for herself these mortal remains of thy sacred body; come, and bestow upon one who was once of thy household some pledge of thy love from thy body, for a memorial.

[192] the fable of the finger falling from the Saint's hand. The whole multitude of the people was watching and hearing him as he prayed, when behold, a finger on the right hand of the holy Martyr begins of its own accord to move, and is long agitated, until at last it dislodged one joint and let it down onto the ground beneath. Hostivod reverently lifts the marvellous gift, and, glad of it, thanks being given and the people acclaiming, departs. I have not yet found out who first invented this fable, but I scarcely doubt that it was at some time born out of another event which Christannus, and after him John, bishop of Litomyšl, reviewed. In the Life to be published, at num. 31, the following may be read: But at that same hour (at which the Saint's body was brought into the church of Prague) they report that among the rest of those charged with his burial there was present, they say, a certain one of venerable life, who had been bound to this Saint as a most faithful friend while he enjoyed this life of light; who, while he was feeling the most holy body through its several limbs, his eyes bedewed with a shower of tears, laid the Saint's hand upon his own hand and lightly handled the nails of the hand, and, finding one of them loose, spoke with a tearful voice to his companions.*

[193] The body found with only one wound Woe to us sinners! he said; for the most holy body is seen to be near to corruption; for behold, the nails too are plainly loosening. And the rest, rebuking him, Why, they said, brother, dost thou utter such things, and dost thou not perceive with a capacious understanding, or dost thou desire, for the sake of the devotion with which thou wast fervent, that relics of the holy body be imparted to thee? But he, beating his breast with his fist, Woe, he said, woe, and I think it will be so; and, taking hold again of the most holy hand, he touches the nail once more, and finds it clinging so firmly to the rest of the flesh as if no signs of loosening had been plain in it. Thus Christannus, and after him, as I have noted, John, bishop of Litomyšl, in almost the same words in a Ms. Life; out of which I judge the aforesaid fable, so unlike the ancients' narrative, to have arisen. Concerning the incorruption and integrity of the body some things also come here to be noted. In Christannus, in the Life to be published, at num. 31, it is thus read: Then too (when they had brought the sacred body by night, as has been premised, into the church of St. Vitus), a light being kindled, they beheld and saw his body entire and all his wounds healed, save that one wound which his most cruel brother had inflicted upon his head; and indeed, although it was whole, it yet differed from the rest, as if covered with a certain white slime, which also they took pains to wash away, and it appeared like the rest.*

[194] Concerning the little ear also there follows in the same place, at num. 32: His little ear, which had been cut off to the root by the stroke of the sword, unharmed, the little ear also clinging to the head, and had been found by his sister, he himself revealing it, is found most whole and joined to its own place. Then that finding is set forth. Przibislava, the Saint's sister, having once been bidden by him in a vision to seek the severed ear, shaking off sleep, went to the place indicated, and, taking it up with reverence and great joy … approaching the tomb of her Brother, her lord and martyr, opened it with certain most faithful persons and with the greatest reverence, and put the little ear in place, and again closed it with all diligence; which, after the translation of the earthly frame (that is, the body) of that venerable man, was found so uncorrupted and joined to the rest of the flesh, as we have said before, as if it had never suffered even a trace of iron. Thus far he; with whom John, bishop of Litomyšl, agreeing, rightly reviewed the same finding in its own place before the Translation.

[195] The often-praised anonymous writer in the Ms. Life makes no mention of the little ear, which had once been cut off: the narrative of others on these matters but speaks a little differently concerning the body's integrity, in this manner: Following the vehicle laden with the sacred (body of the Martyr), they bring it quickly to the predestined place, and enter the church with the sarcophagus, praising God; and, the doors being carefully bolted and prayers sincerely poured out, they open the sarcophagus. And behold the body entire, still in its fleshly bulk, and sound throughout all its wounds, the marks of the blows appearing only as much in the single wound made by his brother's sword, which, gaping, seemed to run with blood. Finally Balbinus, citing Pulkava in the margin, wrote that the aforesaid finding of the little ear and the miracle happened at the time of those three days during which he had above wrongly said that St. Wenceslaus's body had been publicly exposed in the church of Prague, in these words: For three days the body lay open in the temple of St. Vitus and exposed to the eyes and veneration of all, an infinite multitude of men flowing in daily to behold it; of whom very many sick persons were cured by the touch of the sacred body.*

[196] The more prudent grieved at this, that, the other wounds being closed by divine power, is not approved. the wound made below the ear still gaped, and that one of the little ears was missing. On that very night Przibislava, the lady Wenceslaus's sister, a most excellent matron, is admonished in a vision by an angel where the ear was to be sought at Boleslav, which, cut off by her brother's stroke, had by chance fallen upon a certain turf behind the wall of the church of Boleslav and lay hidden. The most holy widow was believed by all; the priests at once send men to bring it. Here follows the fable of the finger-joint, concerning which consult what was said above at num. 191 and following, and at last there is added: Not long after, the ear was found at Boleslav, as the holy widow had foretold, and is brought: the priests applied it to the wound; at once, by a new miracle, it so clung to the head that it could no longer be torn away. Everyone sees how much these things differ from Christannus, from whose authority I judge that we must by no means depart without an urgent reason.

* read: a man

* read: that

* read: he desires,

* read: whole

* read: covered

* read: and like

* perhaps: only

§ XI. The Saint's body famous for miracles in the church of St. Vitus at Prague: the munificence of princes toward him: his head adorned with gold, and a magnificent chapel and golden tomb made for him.

[ ] The holy Martyr's body at Prague It is the common assertion of all writers that very many miracles were done at St. Wenceslaus's tomb in the church of Prague, and at the invocation of his name. Christannus, in the Life to be published at num. 32, testifies that they were frequent in his own time, that is, toward the end of the tenth century, before the middle of which the holy Duke had been crowned with martyrdom. For thus, speaking of the translation just mentioned, he says: Coming therefore, as many of the clergy and people as could be present, with hymns and canticles (so far, that is, as the fear of Boleslaus permitted), laid the holy body in a sarcophagus and buried it in the basilica of St. Vitus the martyr, where, by the Lord's help, many and innumerable miracles are wrought by the merits of St. Wenceslaus the martyr, to the praise and glory of the name of Christ our Lord. Consonant too is the anonymous writer who, if he speaks the truth, wrote his Life under Otto II; But there, he says, the divine Omnipotence flashing forth very often, by innumerable signs of miracles a happy exultation for the faithful and a terror for the unbelieving grows most frequently famous through the merits of so great a Man.

[198] grew famous for many miracles in the church of St. Vitus. To these two I add another anonymous monk, the writer of the Life of St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague and martyr, which he composed under the emperor Otto III, and which our Henschen published and illustrated at the XXIII day of April, on which he is venerated. It has seemed good to bring in his words here also, because from them we learn at the same time in how great veneration that holy bishop, and afterwards likewise martyr, held St. Wenceslaus, of whose fratricide's daughter Strzezyslava he had been born. And so in chapter 2, num. 8, concerning St. Adalbert coming to Prague after his episcopal consecration, it is thus read: They came to the holy city of Prague, where the well-beloved duke Wenceslaus once held the realm, and excellently carried through his living in the service of God; but afterwards, consummating a noble martyrdom under his impious brother's steel, he proves his merits by manifest tokens and by mighty miracles even to this day. There that new pontiff, loosing the bindings of his feet, enters the city with bare foot; then, paying the dues of prayer with humble spirit and contrite heart, he took his seat on the episcopal throne to the great joy of the citizens. Thus far the anonymous writer contemporary with St. Adalbert, who is that very man to whom Christannus inscribed the Life of SS. Ludmila and Wenceslaus. But although these biographers agree concerning the most frequent miracles obtained through St. Wenceslaus's merits, they nevertheless handed down few of them to posterity, which may be read at the end of the Life by Christannus; but the rest, added by others, I shall review in the Appendix to be given after both Lives.

[199] The same church is erected into a cathedral by John XIII; With great veneration and favour likewise did the dukes and kings of Bohemia follow both the Martyr's sacred body and the place in which it rested; all whose donations and benefactions, related here and there in the Historians and Chronicles of the Bohemians, it would be exceedingly difficult for me to collect, and irksome for the reader to peruse. Wherefore it will suffice me to have reported here certain of the chief ones. Boleslaus II, surnamed the Pious, son of Boleslaus I the fratricide, sought and obtained from Pope John XIII that that church, with the consent of St. Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg, under whom it lay, should be erected into a cathedral. The Apostolic letters given on this matter to Boleslaus are exhibited by Cosmas of Prague in the Chronicle at the year 967, in which this comes to be noted, that Wenceslaus is already then honoured by the Pontiff with the title of Saint and Martyr, and that the same church is distinguished by his name equally with that of Vitus. For thus, on Cosmas's testimony, it was read in them: By Apostolic authority and by the power of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, … we grant and approve and canonize, that at the church of the holy martyrs Vitus and Wenceslaus there be made an episcopal see, etc.

[200] That same church, when it no longer held the people flocking together to St. Wenceslaus's festival, it is enlarged by the dukes Spytihněv and Wratislaus. Spytihněv II, duke of Bohemia, destroyed in the century next following, and began to found a new and larger one. Hear Cosmas again in the Chronicle. In the year of the Lord's Incarnation MLX, when duke Spingnens had come to Prague for the feast of St. Wenceslaus, seeing that the church of St. Vitus was not large enough, nor able to hold the people running together to the holy festival — which church St. Wenceslaus himself had built round, after the likeness of the Roman church, and in which the body of that same St. Wenceslaus also rested; and likewise seeing another church which was adjacent and situated as it were in the porch of the same church, in the middle of which, in too narrow a place, was the mausoleum of B. Adalbert — thinking it would be best to destroy both and to build one great church for both patrons, he at once marks out the site of the church in a long circuit, lays the foundations, and the work goes forward apace: but his happy beginnings an untimely death cut short in the very next year. The work he had begun his successor Wratislaus completed.

[201] Beyond all the rest munificent toward that same holy Duke and martyr was Charles IV, The emperor Charles IV builds him a magnificent chapel: who together with his father John, king of Bohemia, restored the fallen church more magnificently, and had it raised by the Roman Pontiff into the metropolitan church of all Bohemia, and afterwards, being made emperor and king of the Bohemians, enriched it both with many other gifts and with a vast treasure of sacred relics. But all these things I knowingly pass over, since it is not my task to pursue the history of that church, and to narrate its adversities and prosperities, which may be read more at large in Pessina in the Phosphorus and in others. More nearly to my purpose belongs the chapel erected and splendidly adorned by the same emperor in the aforesaid church of Prague, of which Balbinus in the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, book 3, chapter 21, makes mention at the year 1366 in these words: The jewelled shrine of St. Wenceslaus in the church of Prague had been begun long before; being completed in the present year, it provoked not only men to admiration but even the holy Martyr himself to beneficence. The miracles wrought at the sepulchre at that time Beneš and others review. What he meant to indicate by jewelled he set forth in book 3 of the Miscellanea of Bohemia, decade 1, page 121, where, describing that same church of Prague, he says this.

[202] The shrine of St. Wenceslaus is held to be wholly jewelled, most worthy to be seen: Soběslav gives him a golden crown, JEWELLED I said, because the very walls consist of and shine with divers gems, chiefly jasper; such a work as you will not easily find in provinces near or far. The same Balbinus in the Miscellanea, in the place just cited, page 121, subjoins: Further, many of our princes and kings undertook to adorn the tomb of the most holy Martyr Wenceslaus. In the year MCXXVI Soběslav I, after the victory over Lothair obtained from heaven (in which the emperor himself was captured), placed a golden crown upon the sacred head of St. Wenceslaus in the sepulchre. Concerning this notable gift, on account of the memorable victory over the emperor Lothair II related as won by Soběslav, there agree Pessina in the Phosphorus, ray 2, page 37 and following, and, going before them, John Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc, in book XI of the History of Bohemia, both of whom assert that that crown weighed twelve pounds of gold and eighty of silver. The circumstances of the victory, which some reckon among miracles, may be read in Balbinus in the Epitome, book 3, chapter 10. Of the same victory Otto of Freising also makes mention in book 10, chapter 22, in the deeds of the emperor Frederick I, where consult him if you please. But since discourse has now been made of the crown, let us despatch what pertains to it.

[203] likewise another by king John, and another by John, king of Bohemia, who had spent the treasure of the church of Prague on the uses of war, afterwards repenting of the deed, gave to that same church both a new golden crown and the tithes from the silver mines, on the testimony of Pessina in the Phosphorus, ray 2, page 57 and the two following, where from the archive of the chapter of Prague he recites part of that king's instrument concerning the donation of the said tithes, in which he says that he gives them for the fabric of the church of Prague and for his own new buildings, and first for the adornment and exaltation or construction of the sepulchres of the blessed Wenceslaus and Adalbert, whose bodies happily stand laid up there, with silver plates and gilded images, with gems and precious stones, etc. John was succeeded in the kingdom of Bohemia by his son Charles IV, the emperor, most loving toward St. Wenceslaus and munificent toward him beyond all others. He, when for his own inauguration he had ordered a new golden crown adorned with gems and precious stones to be made, and, in his absence and without his knowledge, queen Blanche his wife had ordered the gold of St. Wenceslaus's crown to be employed for it, grieved vehemently; and, to amend this error of his consort, by the counsel of Arnest, first archbishop of Prague, he gave that new crown to St. Wenceslaus, on this condition, that it should never be carried away from his chapel or treasury, except when a new king was to be inaugurated, or the royal insignia were to be employed by the king for some other cause.

[204] the emperor Charles IV, Nay more, that none should do otherwise, he obtained from Pope Clement VI that it be guarded under pain of excommunication; and he further added that, as often as the same crown should be employed for the inauguration of kings, they should pay a certain sum of money to the church of Prague. There may be consulted Balbinus in the Life of the aforesaid Arnest, book 2, chapter 8, and other writers of Bohemia, among whom Pessina in the Phosphorus, ray 2, page 67 and following, cited the original letters of Charles preserved in the archive of the chapter, and from the Ms. Prague Chronicle, book 4, of Beneš Krabice of Weitmile, canon of Prague and archdeacon of Žatec, an eyewitness, recited the following at the year 1347: But the crown with which the king himself (Charles IV) was crowned he gave to St. Wenceslaus, to be placed on his head in the church of Prague on certain days, decreeing that all the kings of Bohemia his successors ought to be crowned with the same crown, and to use it only on the day of their coronation, and on that same day at nightfall to restore it effectually into the hands of the dean and sacristan of Prague, who ought to be of the Bohemian nation, under pain of excommunication pronounced by the lord Pope for this cause.

[205] with which the kings of Bohemia are crowned. Likewise the same king established and confirmed by his letters that each of his successors who in times to come is to be crowned with the same crown shall be bound to pay to the chapter of Prague, by reason of the loan of the said crown, three hundred Prague sexagenæ, to be converted to the use of the church and the chapter. Pessina had premised in the same place that the aforesaid Charles religiously observed these laws which he had made, first of all in the year 1347 for his own inauguration, and again in the year 1363 at the coronation of his son Wenceslaus. In the same author, ray 4, page 474, from an inventory of the church of Prague made in the year 1368, a description of the same crown is exhibited, and there is added at the end: Which crown the aforesaid lord emperor (Charles) gave to the church for the adornment of the head of St. Wenceslaus; and committed it in perpetuity to the keeping of the dean of the church of Prague, the guardian and the sacristan, who must all be Bohemians by nation and tongue; and with this the kings of Bohemia are crowned, and ought thereafter to be crowned. Let us proceed to the other works of the same Charles's piety and royal munificence.

[206] Beneš of Weitmile, canon, just praised, contemporary with Charles, [The same emperor enclosed the Saint's head in gold, and made a magnificent chapel] has this in the Chronicle at the year 1358, in Pessina in the Phosphorus, page 465: In the same year the lord emperor, having a special devotion to St. Wenceslaus, his protector and his chief helper, surrounded the head of that same Saint with pure gold. In the Inventory of the sacred furniture of the church of Prague, drawn up ten years later, that is, in the year 1368, which stands in the same Phosphorus at page 466, in the Rubric on the heads of the Saints, there is read Wenceslaus's (head) of pure gold. I return to Beneš, continuing thus: And he made for him a tomb of pure gold, and adorned and decorated it with most precious gems and choice stones, so that such a tomb was not to be found in the regions of the world. So there an eyewitness. In the Inventory just

just cited, the Rubric on the tombs also lists in the first place the tomb of St. Wenceslaus, of pure gold; but of this more fully below. Balbinus, in the Life of Arnestus, the first archbishop of Prague, book 2, chapter 8, heaping up various matters, relates a certain miracle worked by the touch of St. Wenceslaus's head in the presence and under the eyes of Charles IV — which we shall set out in the Appendix on the Miracles at number 13 and the following — and then goes on thus: But wonder, entering upon the mind of Charles at the sight of the miracle, roused his generosity: he at once gave order (knowing that this above all would please Arnestus) that the fabric of the church of Prague should be built with more diligently increased expenditure, and that this very chapel of the divine Wenceslaus the martyr should be magnificently adorned; and so great were the riches of that temple that all its walls were covered with precious stones set into them and took the place of masonry, as we see.

[207] I judge that what the said Balbinus presently subjoined to the foregoing was occasioned by that new golden tomb, and he had a tomb made of gold, namely: The piety of Charles, advancing yet further, reached even to St. Wenceslaus …, and Charles was seen to have driven, so to speak, mines of piety to win the favour of the holy Martyr. And so, with the good leave of the Roman Pontiff, he willed that the sacred tomb of the blessed Martyr should be opened by the hands of Arnestus, that the sacred ashes should be thoroughly cleansed, that the bones — as that age was accustomed to do — should be washed with wine and becomingly composed, and that a new feast-day should be instituted in the church of Prague, whereby some memory of that composing might remain. Concerning this matter the old Martyrology of the holy church of Prague speaks in this manner: "On the V Kalends of July, the Recollection of the bones, or relics, of St. Wenceslaus, our glorious patron, performed by the Reverend father in Christ, the lord Arnestus, first archbishop of Prague, by mandate of the most serene lord Charles, ever august emperor of the Romans and king of Bohemia, he himself being present." Thus the manuscript codex. We too have in our Museum a transcript of the same Martyrology, in which the same is to be read.

[208] and the nobles of Bohemia adorned it. After these things Balbinus, in the place cited, writes as follows concerning the notable piety and munificence of the nobles of Bohemia also in adorning the same mausoleum: Imitating the king's piety, as is wont to happen, the nobles affixed to the Martyr's tomb, for its adornment, certain emblems, or shields of gold and silver, struck with great labour and ingenuity of the goldsmiths, on which shields the military insignia of each of the nobles were to be seen; and thus by these shields the unburied holy prince Wenceslaus, and the whole mausoleum, was covered. This work is said to have earned great commendation for its invention and beauty in the eyes of the emperor Charles, who had a learned eye for the labours of craftsmen. The same writer, in the Miscellanea of Bohemia, decade 1, book 3, page 122, says on the same subject: In the reign of Charles the nobles of Bohemia adorned the tomb of the holy Martyr with necklaces, gems and golden ornaments of the greatest price, on which the family arms of each house were to be seen; but these things have been, and are not: that they truly were, however, will be established from the document presently to be recited. Finally, in book 3 of the Epitome, chapter 21, he tied this adornment of the sacred tomb, after Hagecius in the Chronicle, to the year 1358 — that is, to the same year in which Charles is said above by Beneš to have made the golden tomb.

§ XII. Description of that magnificent tomb, made under the emperor Charles IV, which no longer survives: its more recent adornment.

[ ] The precious images are enumerated That the reader may understand how precious that mausoleum was, and how worthy of the piety and munificence of the emperor Charles IV and of all the nobles of Bohemia and the rest of the natives, I have judged it to the purpose to set out here a description of the same, commonly called an Inventory, which Bohuslaus, dean of the church of Prague, drew up in the year 1387, and which Pessina published in the Phosphorus from page 715 onward. Words which need some interpretation I shall explain at the end, lest frequent interpolation obscure that document. It runs thus, then: The tomb of St. Wenceslaus. At the head of the tomb, in the lower part, are two images of gamau, namely of the emperor and the empress. On the head of the emperor is a crown, having at its beginning a golden cross with three small pearls, and a small image of the Crucified. At the beginning of the same crown, above the head, is one cross having a sapphire in the middle and four small rubies at the edges. After this cross there follows in the same crown another small cross in the fashion of a lily, having three pearls and a small shining pallasium. After this there follows in the middle a cross having in the middle one sapphire and four small rubies at the sides, and three pearls. Above there follows at last a small cross in the fashion of a lily, having three pearls and one pallasium in the middle. Finally, at the back of the crown there is again one cross, having a sapphire in the middle and four rubies on either side, and three small pearls.

[210] of the emperor and the empress, In the upper circle of the crown are six gems and nine large pearls; in the lower one, and in the ear-piece hanging down to the ears, are eight gems and eighteen pearls, joined two and two in a continuous series. Likewise, in the crown on the head of the empress there is one small golden cross, or Crucifix, having three pearls; and another at the beginning of the crown, having a sapphire in the middle and four rubies in the fashion of a diamond; and another small cross in the fashion of a lily, having in the middle one pallasium and three pearls. Likewise in the middle one cross, having one sapphire and four rubies and three pearls; another in the fashion of a lily, having a pallasium and three pearls; and another cross at the back of the head, having one sapphire in the middle and four rubies at the side, and three pearls. In the upper circle of the crown are six gems and nine pearls; but in the lower circle are five gems and twelve large pearls, joined two and two together; and above, the image of St. Wenceslaus, having in his right hand a lance with a banner bearing an eagle, and in his left a shield with a lion made of pearls.

[211] In the lower part it has a crown containing three large lilies of St. Wenceslaus and two small ones. In the first lily, beneath the right hand, is contained a large red pallasium, and three sapphires at the sides, and at the top a large pearl, and a second at the side. In the small lily which follows after this, there is in the middle a small ruby, and four sapphires at the sides, and one pearl at the top; in the large lily, in the middle of the crown, a large ruby, almost a garnet, and four sapphires at the sides and three small pearls. Likewise in the small lily beneath the left hand, in the middle one ruby, and four sapphires at the sides, and in the upper part one pearl. In the large lily beneath the left hand one pallasium, broken in its upper part, and three sapphires, and two large pearls. In the lower circle of the same crown are nine large precious gems, and twenty large pearls, and four small gems set between them. Likewise, complete breastplates containing thirty-one gems, and one jewel on the breast, having in the middle one sapphire, and in its circle six small gems and six pearls; and in the clasp on the right side one pallasium, in the middle three large pearls and two emeralds; in the clasp on the left side one pallasium, three large pearls and two emeralds.

[212] But in the diadem of the image, before the face, three large sapphires, of the angels, and three small lilies; one has three pearls, the second three, and the third three, but larger. On the other part of the diadem two large sapphires, and two small lilies, each having three pearls. In the crown of St. Wenceslaus, in the lily on the right side, three sapphires, and in the middle one pallasium; in the small lily one small pallasium, and one pearl. In the middle large lily one pallasium, four sapphires and three small pearls; in the other small lily one pallasium and one small pearl; in the large lily above the head, one pallasium, three sapphires and two large pearls. In the lower part of the crown six gems and eighteen pearls. On the right side one angel above the banner, having in the circumference of the cloud six gems and seven pearls, the diadem and the wings without defects. On the left side another angel, having in the circumference of the cloud six stones and five pearls, the diadem and the wings without defects.

[213] Likewise, beneath the hand of Christ is a large topaz; in the hand of Christ two borders of the sleeves; of Christ in the upper border are twenty gems; in the lower border it has small gems without defect; on the middle finger is a ring, having in it a diamond of good size. Likewise the jewel beneath the hand has eight emeralds and other gems with pearls, without defect; above the hand, at the top, is one ring, having in it a large sapphire; in the ring is one large emerald at the top of the sepulchre, and beyond the emerald is one precious jewel, having a human head in the middle, and in its circumferences eight precious stones. Along the lower row on the right side, going down beneath the jewel, are thirty-three gems, and in the second line above that are seven jewels with eight gems. In the third jewel, going up in the same row, one pearl is missing; in the third row above that are thirty-five gems, and the sixth is missing, its lectulus remaining. Likewise, beneath the upper jewel on the left side, in the lower row are thirty-two gems, and one is missing, its lectulus remaining. In the other line above this one are seven jewels and seven gems.

[214] of our Lord, In the upper jewel of that row one lectulus with its pearls is missing; and in the fourth jewel, going down, one pearl is missing. In the upper row are thirty-four gems; one is missing, its lectulus remaining, and a second together with its lectulus. Likewise, on the right side of the other hand of Christ are twelve jewels, and three gamau with images, and four gems. Beneath the ring on the right side there are forty-eight small jewels. In the jewel about the hand of the angel a small stone with its lectulus is missing; in the jewel beneath the cloud of the angel four small pearls are missing; in the upper jewel beneath the wing of the angel one pearl is missing, and beneath it, in the third jewel, one small stone is missing; in the same place, in the jewel above the gamau with the images, one pearl is missing; in the same place, in the gamau, one pearl is missing. There are, moreover, precious gems beneath the angel on the right side, excepting the jewels, thirty-one, and a large jewel containing in itself a large gamau with a man's face, having round about it eight gems and twenty-three pearls, and one pearl is missing.

[215] of SS. Paul, Likewise, beneath the gems on the same side, at the foot of the tomb, are eight crosses; in the first the upper gem is missing, its lectulus remaining, and it has in the upper part three pearls and four gems, and at the foot three small pearls, the fourth being missing. All the other crosses have five gems apiece, and in the upper part three large pearls apiece, and about the foot four pearls apiece. Likewise, on the left side beneath the hand of Christ are fifty-three small jewels, and one large one with a gamau, and the remaining large one of gems about the head of the angel; in the jewel beneath the hand of Christ two small stones are missing; and at the side of the shield, in the second and third jewel, two small stones are missing; the others are complete. The gems on the same side, beyond the jewels, are nineteen, and at the foot of the sepulchre on that same side are five small crosses, each having five gems and three pearls in the upper part, except the cross next to the image of the emperor, which lacks three pearls. Likewise, on the side, in the panel with the image of St. Paul, in the diadem are five gems, and one is missing; and there are four large pearls. On the right side of the image are seven gems, and on the left likewise seven gems; on the right side are three pearls, and on the left likewise three pearls; and beneath the image of St. Paul are twelve gems and twenty-one pearls.

[216] Vitus, Peter, Adalbert, Beneath the image of St. Paul, on another panel, is the image of St. Vitus, having in the diadem five gems and four large pearls; and on the right side of the image nine gems, and on the left likewise nine. Likewise beneath this image, on the lower panel, is the passion of St. Vitus, having on the right side five gems, and on the left five. Likewise, on the upper panel is the image of St. Peter, having in the diadem eleven gems and four large pearls; on the right side it has eleven gems, on the left eleven; and on the right side three pearls, on the left three pearls likewise. Beneath the diadem are twelve gems and eighteen pearls. Likewise, beneath this image is the image of St. Adalbert, having a gem in the diadem, and two on the shoulder-piece; on the breast one is missing, its lectulus remaining. On the right side are seven gems, and on the left likewise seven; on the right are three small jewels, and on the left likewise three. Likewise, on the lower panel beneath this image is the passion of St. Adalbert, and it has six small jewels.

[217] Likewise the third panel has in its upper part the image of the Majesty and the four Evangelists. and of other Saints; Round about the image are eighteen gems and seventeen pearls; on the margins of the panel are fifty-three gems. Beneath this is the image of St. Wenceslaus, having in the diadem three gems and four very large pearls; on the breast it has three gems, on the right side four gems, and on the left likewise four. Beneath this panel, on the lower panel, is the passion of St. Wenceslaus, having eight gems. Likewise the fourth upper panel has the image of the Blessed Virgin; in the diadem are seven gems and fourteen pearls; in the diadem of Christ are seven gems and six pearls; on the breast of the Blessed Virgin one gem. Likewise, beneath the image of the Blessed Virgin, on the right side, is a crystal containing some of the hairs of the Blessed Virgin, but on the left side the crystal is missing. Beneath this image is a panel containing a golden cross, and one angel on the right side, and another on the left; in the upper part the cross contains thirteen gems and fourteen pearls. Beneath this image the lower panel has no image; it contains four gems (on which panel the Lord's manger formerly hung) and one lectulus among the four gems of the upper Cross.

[218] Likewise the fifth panel, having in its upper part the plenary of St. Mark; likewise gems, pearls, in the upper part is the image of St. Mark, without defects, having four gamau, two in the upper part and two below. Beneath is a precious jewel, which has on one side the image of the emperor and on the second that of a bishop, one gem in the middle and six in its circumferences, seventeen pearls; the eighteenth is missing. Beneath this is a panel on which is the image of St. Ludmila; in the diadem it contains nine gems and eight pearls. On the right side it has five gems, and on the left six, and on the breast a small jewel. Beneath this is a small panel containing the passion of St. Ludmila, and four gems. Likewise, another panel is that of the three Evangelists, having eight jewels, the diadems and the wings without defect. Beneath this is the panel with the formal image of the five Brothers; in the diadem it has seven gems and twelve small pearls; on the right side four gems, on the left three. The second image has in the diadem seven gems and eleven small pearls; in the middle, between it and the third image, three gems. The third image has five large gems in the diadem and on the right side two small gems, and in the middle a pearl; on the left likewise two gems, and in the middle a pearl. Between the third and the fourth image are three gems.

[219] The fourth image has in the diadem seven gems and eighteen small pearls; and precious stones, between the fourth and the fifth image are three gems. The fifth image has in the diadem seven gems and nine pearls, nine being missing; and on the left side it has three gems. On the lower panel is the passion of the said five brothers, and it has ten small jewels. Likewise, above the image of St. Paul hangs a golden heart, and at the end of the panel about the heart are three gems. After these there follows one large jewel, enclosing within itself another small one, in the middle of which is a large sapphire. In the greater circle of the jewel are six small jewels, each containing a gem, and six others, each containing a large pearl with small gems; after these there follows a stone in the fashion of a crystal. Likewise, above the image of St. Peter is a second jewel, having in it a shining sapphire, having in the greater circle six gems and six pearls; in the smaller likewise six gems and six pearls; after these there follows a small jewel, having in the middle a small sapphire, and in its circumference nine gems.

[220] and other things, with which the golden tomb Likewise, above the image of the Majesty is a large jewel, having a sapphire in the middle, a gamau, and six larger gems in its circumferences. Then there follows one small jewel, having a gem. Likewise, above the image of the Blessed Virgin is a jewel, having a sapphire and in its circumferences eight gems mingled with pearls. After this there follows a small jewel in the fashion of a star, having a red gem. Then, between the panel of the Blessed Virgin and the panel of St. Mark, is another jewel, having also a sapphire in the middle, and in its circumferences small red gems; then a small jewel, having an emerald. After these, above the panel of St. Mark, is one jewel, having a sapphire in the middle, and in its circumferences six gems mingled with small pearls; then one gamau, which has a man's head. Likewise, above the image of St. Luke is another jewel, having a sapphire in the middle, and in its circumferences four gems and four pearls; there is also a certain gem by itself. Likewise, above the image of St. Matthew is another jewel, having in the middle a Smelcz, and in its circumferences small gems; and a certain gem in the fashion of a crystal between the image of St. Matthew and that of St. John. Above the image of St. John is a small jewel and a golden heart hanging, and two gems about the heart.

[221] was adorned: on which a few things are noted: Likewise, at the foot of the lower covering are fifty-five diverse gems, for the greater part gamau, and one small golden cross. On the covering, on the lower part, are the images of the lords with their arms — of the lord Arnestus the archbishop, of the lord Albert of Sternberg bishop of Litomyšl, and of the lord John count of Luxemburg bishop of Strasbourg — and six images of secular lords with their arms. The upper covering has golden plates, and on them are figured the arms of the barons, knights and so forth of the kingdom of Bohemia. Thus far that document as it stands in Pessina, who rightly observed that from it an argument may be drawn concerning the riches of the church of Prague at that period. Further, among the barbarous words which occur in it, gamau is often named, the meaning of which I have sought in vain; yet from number 221 it is sufficiently clear that gamau was a kind of precious stone, since it is there said: fifty-five diverse gems, for the greater part gamau. Nor do I sufficiently grasp what the two borders of the sleeves in the hand of Christ at number 213 signify. The word riga, which occurs at number 213, is in Latin a rank or series. The plenary of St. Mark at number 218 is a book containing the whole Gospel of St. Mark. The five brothers, of whom at numbers 218 and 219, are honoured as martyrs in the archdiocese on the XII of November, where they are to be treated of in our Work. Finally, what he meant to indicate at number 220 by the word Smelcz, I plainly do not know, unless it be encaustic work, in the Middle Ages called Smaltum, and by the Germans also Schmeltsglas-farbe.

[222] But these so remarkable monuments of the Bohemians' piety toward their holy Duke and Patron have been, and are not, the more recent adornment of the same tomb. as Balbinus complains. Pessina too, in the Phosphorus, ray 2, page 78, writes that that golden tomb, first carried off to Karlstein for fear of the Hussites, was struck into coin by the emperor Sigismund and spent on the pay of his soldiers; and there are cited in the same place, besides Cochlæus in the History of the Hussites, a manuscript book of memorable things, and likewise a manuscript Schedule of the things taken away by Sigismund from the church of Prague. Concerning the same Saint's tomb, magnificently adorned in his own day, Balbinus adds this in the Miscellanea, book 3, chapter 9, page 122: In our age Matthew I, archbishop of Prague, covered the tomb of St. Wenceslaus with most precious work, with silver statues, and with a marble ascent; which work there is no room to describe in this brief compass: I invite strangers to view it. This Matthew is said, in the said Pessina, page 604, to have come to Prague on the IV day of May in the year 1669 to take possession of the archbishopric; but Balbinus published the aforecited book 2 of the Miscellanea in the year 1681, and therefore that adornment of the tomb must have taken place between the years 1669 and 1681.

§ XIII. Certain relics separated from the rest of the Saint's body at Prague: various translations of the relics: his chapel

and tomb unharmed by the iconoclasts: his relics at Prague and elsewhere.

[ ] Certain relics of the Saint separated from the rest of the body Besides the sacred body of St. Wenceslaus, honourably kept in its own tomb, there were already of old certain relics of the same holy Martyr enclosed separately in particular caskets and honoured in the same church of Prague. In the Inventory which, as I noted above, was drawn up in the year 1368 and published by Pessina in the Phosphorus, the following are enumerated. In the Rubric on the heads of the Saints: Wenceslaus's (head) of pure gold. In the Rubric on the hands of the Saints: Wenceslaus M.'s (of silver gilt) having a pommel with gem. (that is, with a gem, or with gems). In the Rubric on the images: Wenceslaus with lance and banner, having rel. (that is, relics or a relic) on the breast. In the Rubric on the Monstrances: One in the fashion of a moon, containing relics of St. Wenceslaus and of St. Anne… Another of silver gilt with a double crystal, containing relics of the head of St. John the Baptist, and of the blood of St. Wenceslaus. In the Rubric of the relics of the Saints … A pax with a fivefold crystal with relics of St. Thomas the apostle, of St. Wenceslaus, etc. In the Rubric of the arms: The iron helmet of St. Wenceslaus. His sword with its scabbard, which is broken in the lower part, adorned with gems and pearls… The cuirass of St. Wenceslaus. Thus far that place in that old list of the sacred relics.

[224] There is also at my hand a Catalogue published in print of the relics and kept in the church of Prague. which the emperor and king of Bohemia Charles IV, having sought them out from every quarter, once deposited in the royal castle of Karlstein, and which Ferdinand III in the year 1645 ordered to be transferred to Prague and placed in an elegant chest at the high altar in the chapel of St. Wenceslaus. In this too certain relics of St. Wenceslaus are recorded. Namely, in Order 1, of the blood of St. Wenceslaus and a portion of his mantle and other relics of him. In order 5, number 33, a notable portion of Wenceslaus in a pyx of silver gilt. In order 6, number 47, the collar of St. Wenceslaus. In order 8, number 59, the cuirass of St. Wenceslaus. In the same place, number 69, the cup of St. Wenceslaus. I forbear to inquire into others which are perchance preserved, or have been preserved, in the same church, lest I weary the reader; some others too will presently be recorded on another occasion. Further, the sacred body of the Duke and martyr, enclosed in its golden tomb, was still lying in the church of Prague in the early fifteenth century, when, for fear of the Hussite seditions, it seemed good to Wenceslaus, son of Charles IV, king of Bohemia, to transfer it together with the tomb to the safer place of Karlstein and to deposit it there, lest it should become the prey of the impious.

[225] Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, for fear of the Hussites A full description of this royal castle Balbinus gives in book 3 of the Miscellanea, chapter 8, §3, from which, for knowledge of the place, I transcribe a few things here. The castle of Karlstein, once most celebrated in the kingdom of Bohemia, and to this day memorable for the illustrious evidences of antiquity, was built between the years of the Lord 1348 and 1358 by the emperor Charles IV for the keeping of the crown of the kingdom and of the relics of the Saints; and in the year 1422 it was most bravely assailed against twenty-four thousand Hussites of Prague from the XXVIII of May until the XI of November . It is situated in a most pleasant place, three German leagues from Prague. It has to the south the river Miza, distant about 313 geometrical paces from the mountain on which the castle sits. It is shut in by five very lofty mountains, etc. To this castle, then, the aforesaid king Wenceslaus took care to have the sacred relics of Wenceslaus and of others transferred in time, by a truly prudent counsel. Let us hear Balbinus on this matter in the Epitome*, book 4, chapter 6, page 421. But this, he says, king Wenceslaus seemed to have done at this time (in the year 1411) most prudently, that he brought out — dissembling his purpose, and fearing the danger — the sacred relics of the empire and of the kingdom of Bohemia, which were kept either in the church of Prague or in the church of Corpus Christi in the New Town of Prague, in underground chambers prepared for that end, and hid them in the most strongly fortified castle of Karlstein; which relics, had they remained at Prague, could not have escaped the hooked and sacrilegious hands of the heretics.

[226] orders the Saint's tomb and relics His assertions, after a few things interposed, he proves thus: It pleases me, in honour of antiquity, to copy out from a very ancient codex what the prefect who was present noted down concerning the sacred relics in the metropolitan church. "In the year 1411, on the fourth feria, on the day of St. John the apostle and Evangelist before the Latin Gate, our lord the king" (Wenceslaus) "came to the Hradčany, to the house of master Kralowicz, and there, having summoned certain canons, namely the scholastic, the provost of Meissen Welislaus etc., he rode with them to the church of Prague, and they opened all the treasuries of the church, and, inspecting them, found all unharmed; but the king, seeing this, rode from the castle to Prague, and committed the matter to Kunsso, burgrave of Karlstein, and to the citizens of the Old and New and Lesser Town of Prague" (the Catholics) "there, that evening, that in the night they should dig, searching out and examining the secret places of the church; and digging they found in the holy place four vaults, etc. Then they took up all the treasures of the holy church of Prague, namely the relics together with the tomb of the most glorious martyr B. Wenceslaus, patron of the Bohemians, and on the morrow, the fifth feria, on the vigil of St. Stanislaus, at the sixteenth hour, they conveyed them to Karlstein . Blessed be the name of the Lord." Thus far the manuscript codex of the church of Prague.

[227] The same things Pessina has in the Phosphorus, page 77 and the following, to the castle of Karlstein differing here and there in words, some of which I have just noted in the margin; the rest, because they are somewhat more numerous, I subjoin here. Where in Albinus is read: But the king, seeing this, rode etc., Pessina has published: But the king, seeing all whole and unharmed, rides from the castle to Prague, and committed the rest to Kunsso, burgrave of Karlstein, and to the citizens of the Old, New and Lesser Town of Prague, who in the evening and in the night dug, searching out and examining the secret places of the church; and digging they found in a secret place four vaults, in which there was absolutely nothing. These discrepancies, however, are of small moment, and arose perhaps from the mere difficulty of the characters; for Pessina professes that he copied these things out of a certain book of the capitular archive, written in an old hand and scarcely legible. All the rest also stands correctly. For in the year of the Christian era 1411 the day of St. John before the Latin Gate, that is the VI day of May, was the fourth feria, as is gathered from the Dominical letter of that year, D.

[228] It is rightly said too that the following day, that is the fifth feria, was the vigil of St. Stanislaus, and to other safer places namely of the bishop of Cracow and martyr; for his martyrdom took place on the VIII day of May, on which day he was formerly honoured both in Bohemia and elsewhere, until Pope Clement VIII ordered his Office to be celebrated throughout the universal Church on the VII day of May, because the VIII day was sacred to the Apparition of St. Michael the archangel, and the ninth to St. Gregory Nazianzen. The Poles, however, retained the VIII day, as may be seen in our Work at the VII day of May, in the previous Commentary to the Acts of the same holy bishop and martyr, number 5. Therefore in the year 1411 the day after the day of St. John before the Latin Gate, that is the VII day of May, was the vigil of St. Stanislaus, as is asserted in the said manuscript. Finally, the sixteenth hour is set down after the manner of those who divided the day, the night being comprehended together with it, into twenty-four hours, as is even now commonly done in Italy, where the days are numbered from sunset to the next sunset. These things being observed, let us pursue the rest that pertains to the translations of St. Wenceslaus's relics with the said Pessina, from page 478 onward. And so, he says, as the heresy grew strong and raged more and more from day to day against sacred things, the other relics of the Saints too were lifted from the metropolitan church and carried away to safer places — partly to Karlstein, partly to Zittau, to the neighbouring monastery of Ovín, partly to Plzeň, to Týn of Horešov, and thence to Regensburg, and some also to Krumlov.

[229] Of those which had been carried to Karlstein I find this catalogue: to be transferred secretly; "In the year of the Lord 1420, on the fourth feria after the feast of St. James the apostle, the things written below were led and carried from the castle of Prague to the castle of Karlstein by the honourable lord Leonard, vicar of the church of Prague, and Andrew the sub-tomb-keeper, and Wenceslaus called Electus." There follows here an enumeration of the sacred relics and of other things, from which I shall excerpt only those which are St. Wenceslaus's. Five pecies from the tomb of B. Wenceslaus, one larger and four smaller. Now pecies are pieces or parts, which I believe belonged to the adornment of the sacred tomb in such a way that they could easily be separated from it, and were left at Prague when in the year 1411 the Saint's body was translated with its tomb to Karlstein. I subjoin the rest. The sword of B. Wenceslaus with its futrum. Although in the enlarged Glossary of Du Cange futrum seems there to be taken for a cloth of wool, neither woven nor sewn but felted, and to be the same as feltrum, filtrum, etc., yet in the document with which we are dealing futrum is used for a scabbard, perhaps from the German word futter, in Latin a sheath. The reason is, both that the thing itself requires this interpretation, and that in another recension of the relics, above at number 211, His (the holy Duke's) sword with its scabbard is expressly named. Let us return to the document.

[230] which were afterwards brought back to Prague. After other things there follows in the same: One crystal monstrance, in which are the relics of B. Wenceslaus … An image … of B. Wenceslaus with lance and relics… A monstrance… with a moon and relics of B. Wenceslaus… The cuirass of B. Wenceslaus. Further, how safe a place all those relics had been prudently laid up in, appeared in the year 1422, in which, as we said at number 213, Karlstein was in vain attempted by the heretics of Prague in a long siege. But although these thus escaped the impious hands of the Hussites, nevertheless the sacred furniture, and among the rest the golden tomb of St. Wenceslaus, was in the year 1422, while it was kept there, struck into coin by the emperor and king of Bohemia Sigismund and dispersed for military pay, as we related at number 222 out of Pessina in the Phosphorus, who repeats the same at page 478. In what year those relics were brought back from Karlstein to Prague, I have not ascertained; yet it is likely that it was done after the Taborites had been cast out of the New Town of Prague, and they together with the Orphans had been routed with immense slaughter by the Catholic army of the Bohemians in the year 1434, and king Sigismund the emperor had been acknowledged and received into the city of Prague in the year 1436, and holy religion, peace and public security began to be restored there. Certainly Balbinus, in book 5 of the Epitome, chapter 1, concerning certain sacred relics in the year 1437 in the church of the most holy Body of Christ before

the same king, shown to the people according to the old custom, makes express mention.

[231] They are carried back to Karlstein, Yet this concord of the Bohemians was not lasting. For when king Sigismund died in the same year, the Bohemians were divided into two parties: some, especially the Catholics, chose as king Albert of Austria, who had to wife Elizabeth, the only offspring of Sigismund; others chose Casimir, brother of Wladislaus king of Poland. Albert, having set out in haste into Bohemia with an army, held Prague in the year 1438 and was crowned there, as may be read at greater length in the said Balbinus, chapter 2. And that among the other cares of the pious king one was that the sacred relics should be transferred to the old asylum of Karlstein, we learn from a document cited by Pessina in the Phosphorus, page 482, which runs thus: In the year 1438, on the day of St. Pantaleon, at the command of the lord king Albert and of the barons, these things written below, belonging to the church of Prague, were brought back to Karlstein. In the year 1439 the said Albert, king of Bohemia and emperor, carried off by an untimely death, left his wife Elizabeth with child, of whom in the following year was born Ladislaus, whom the Bohemians crowned king at Prague in the year 1453. And throughout the whole of that time of the interregnum the sacred relics seem to have remained in the aforesaid castle of Karlstein.

[232] and hence again to Prague under king Ladislaus. At any rate they were there in the year 1454, in which they are said to have been inspected and at length brought back to Prague, in a manuscript from which the said Pessina has recited the following. 1454, on the (the number is here omitted) day of the month of January, the chests of the goods of the church of Prague at Karlstein were seen and opened by Wenceslaus, doctor and dean of the said church, and these things written below were found… In the same year, on the third feria after Trinity, at the command of the most serene king and lord Ladislaus, and also of the magnificent lord George, governor of the kingdom of Bohemia, these things written below were brought back from the castle of Karlstein to the church of Prague. There follows an enumeration of them all in five different chests, in almost the same order as above at the year 1438, on the testimony of the same Pessina. Out of these I shall record those which pertain to St. Wenceslaus. In the first chest: A wooden ladula (I understand here a chest, from the German lade) in which is … the arm of St. Wenceslaus. In the second chest: The head of St. Wenceslaus in a scatula (that is, a casket, perhaps from the German schachtel), his cuirass and helmet, the cussini (cushions) and the covering of the tomb of St. Wenceslaus. In the fourth chest: The sword of St. Wenceslaus. Thus far the author of the said manuscript, who himself inspected and recorded these things.

[233] Yet another translation of the relics and of the treasure Pessina records at page 484, A second translation of the relics to Plzeň, saying: Of these, again, in later years not a few (relics), such as the heads of the holy patrons Wenceslaus, Vitus, Adalbert, … in the reign of George, were translated to Plzeň. The cause of the transfer was without doubt the new disturbance of affairs, and especially of religion, in Bohemia, which followed the all-too-untimely death of king Ladislaus. He had come to his end in the month of November of the year 1457, and in the following year George Poděbrad was substituted in the kingdom by the Hussites, against the will of the Catholics, who yet did not dare to oppose. He, having obtained the kingdom, shortly afterwards violated the oath which, concerning the defence of the Catholic faith and the obedience to be rendered to the Roman Pontiff, he had publicly given on the day before his coronation; and therefore the Catholic nobles and several cities fell away from him. Among these Plzeň, or Pilsen, commonly Pilsen, a fortified city of Bohemia in the district of the same name, afforded a safe asylum to the sacred treasure which the Catholics were able to carry away from Prague. It was there also in the year 1476, in which it was again surveyed, as the following document in Pessina, page 484 and the following, shows, from which I have transcribed a few things here.

[234] In the year of the Lord (these are the words of the document) 1476, in the reign of Poděbrad: on the day of St. Francis, which is the IV day of the month of October, an Inventory of the goods of the church of Prague was drawn up anew in the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Friars Minor at Plzeň, where they were then laid up, by the venerable father in Christ and lord Hanuš of Kolovrat and Zbiroh, provost of the church and administrator in spirituals of the archbishopric of Prague, and also Lector of the church of Eger, etc., there being present in the same place the venerable lords Procopius and Paul of Plzeň, archdeacons of Prague and of Žatec, prebendary canons in the church of Prague, etc. And the relics of St. Wenceslaus recorded there are these. In a certain chest, the heads of SS. Vitus, Wenceslaus, Adalbert. The head of St. Vitus is wrapped in a red case of axamit (that is, of silk cloth); that of St. Wenceslaus, in red purple, likewise in another fresh purple over it, and over these a taffeta of green colour… The hand of St. Wenceslaus, wholly of silver and gilded, which the lord doctor Wenceslaus, of good memory, formerly dean and administrator of the church of Prague, caused to be made, in which is laid up the arm of St. Wenceslaus. On the morrow, that is on the V day of October of the same year 1476, the same provost and canons recorded the rest of what was kept at Pilsen, among which these things besides are named concerning St. Wenceslaus: A crystal containing some of the blood of St. Wenceslaus… Of the cuirass of St. Wenceslaus.

[235] After that recension Pessina, at page 489, goes on thus: and their bringing back to Prague. In later years, when the internal discords and commotions about religion were somehow lulled, both these and other relics of the Saints were restored by right of postliminy from Ovín and Krumlov to their own church of Prague; albeit fewer in number than they once were (for some passed over to the men of Karlstein, as we noted above, and some elsewhere) — which anyone will easily be able to observe when he shall afterwards attentively compare the schedule of them, which we shall presently report, with the past one of the year 1368 and the following, especially as regards the holy heads and hands, indeed even the entire bodies of saints. Thus far he himself, plainly enough intimating that the year was unknown to him in which that sacred treasure was carried back to Prague. For my part I cannot sufficiently wonder that in all those documents no word is made of the body of St. Wenceslaus, as though in those turbulent times it had never been translated anywhere else (except in the year 1411 to the castle of Karlstein). I pass over the other recensions just cited by Pessina, in one of which, of the year 1540, there is besides to be read: An oblong (casket) in the likeness of a little tower, of silver gilt, in which within a crystal are relics of St. Wenceslaus, a notable portion. Likewise, a little chest in which are diverse relics of the Saints; among others a portion of the skin from the back of the head of St. Wenceslaus, a notable portion.

[236] When Frederick, count Palatine, Into a new danger of violation — and indeed, had God not warded it off, a most immediate one — the relics of St. Wenceslaus were brought in the seventeenth century, when the rebels, with atrocious injury to their king Ferdinand II, crowned as king of Bohemia in the year 1619 Frederick V, count Palatine, summoned to Prague with his Calvinists. It is not my design, nor is there room, to recount all the losses which were inflicted upon the church of Prague by those sacrilegious followers of the Calvinian sect during that brief time in which the kingdom was held by Frederick, in accordance with their rage against all sacred things. These may be read in Pessina in the Phosphorus, ray 3, recorded from contemporary documents; yet it has seemed good to report here a few of those things which serve my purpose. At page 356 the capitulars of the metropolitan church, in a letter given on the XIV day of January in the year 1620 to John their archbishop, set forth the deplorable state of their church in these words. We gave not long since a letter to your most illustrious highness, from which you could learn clearly enough the pitiable state of the affairs of the metropolitan church: namely, how we, deprived of all our goods, were at length even cast out from the castle of Prague and from our houses; and the metropolitan church itself, for seven hundred years a virgin without a wrinkle, has contracted a new stain, being profaned with new rites, and even with the burials of heretics.

[237] was occupying Bohemia, But by these present letters we signify, grieving anew, that our adversaries, not content with these things, but heaping evils upon evils, have grievously — alas the sorrow! — raged in the same metropolitan church against the images of Christ the Lord himself and of his Saints and against the sacred relics. They have also cut images of the Crucified into pieces, they have destroyed other most beautiful paintings as well, they have broken the statues and reduced them to ashes; they have stripped bare the sepulchres of the holy patrons, they have made away with all the ornaments of the altars, and have pulled down the altars themselves, they have broken the stones to pieces, they have cast the relics into the flames, etc. Meanwhile the said canons had not omitted, by petitions, to press with entreaties upon the nobles and magistrates of the kingdom, that by their authority they should ward off so great a havoc of sacred things, and give them power to preserve the rest. Being anxious above all for the relics of the Patrons of the kingdom, in a petition presented on the XXIII day of December in the year 1619 to the supreme burgrave and to the other nobles of the kingdom, they say this, in the same place, page 362.

[238] the Calvinists rage in the metropolitan church Since, moreover, there exist in the same church the sepulchres of the holy Patrons of the kingdom, Vitus, Wenceslaus, Adalbert and Sigismund, martyrs, and since it is to be feared lest violence be offered to them also by savage men, whose licence for daring the like, and perhaps greater things, grows by impunity, we most humbly ask, and by God and by his holy things we beseech your illustrious lordships — as true sons of the fatherland and chief men of the kingdom, whom it altogether becomes to preserve whole and inviolate those things which make for the honour, ornament and glory of the kingdom — that you be willing, interposing your authority, to be an aid to us, that we may be able to lift these sacred pledges from the sepulchres and to lay them up in another and safer place. For than this sacred treasure the kingdom has nothing, nor can have anything, more precious; and therefore both you and we must act and take care with the utmost diligence, that we may preserve it inviolate even for those who come after. A little later, namely on the VIII day of January in the year 1620, the same reverend lords canons presented another petition on the same subject to the lord Joachim, count Schlick, supreme judge of the kingdom, in which among other things they set forth their solicitude for the sepulchres of the Patrons of Bohemia in these words.

[239] As regards the sepulchres of the holy Patrons of the kingdom, laid up in the same church, against the sacred things and the relics of the Saints we are confident that the most illustrious lords, the nobles of the kingdom, will suffer no injury to be offered to them, nor permit that they be moved from their place; but that under their protecting hand they will deign to preserve these monuments of the holy Guardians of the fatherland — surely most glorious to the kingdom, which antiquity always held in the deepest reverence, most piously cherished and most devoutly venerated. Wherefore we most humbly ask all and each of them, by God and by his mercy, etc. Finally there exists in the same place, page 363 and the following, another petition of theirs, given in the same year 1620 on the XIV day of January to Wenceslaus Wilhelm of Roupov, supreme chancellor of the kingdom of Bohemia, from which we learn that not all their prayers were so ineffectual but that they obtained at least something. We have presented, they say, in these last days to the most illustrious lords, the nobles of the kingdom and the royal lieutenants, a petition on account of the images and sacred relics taken away from the altars of the church of Prague, asking the most illustrious lords that they would grant us the faculty of the remaining

thence, where they are hitherto kept, of lifting them and transferring them elsewhere; and by their favour we obtained what we had asked.

[240] But because in fact many things still … remain deposited in the same church, they raged impiously; … we ask and beseech your most illustrious lordship, by the bowels of the mercy of God, that you be willing to intercede for us, both with the royal majesty and with the most illustrious lords, the nobles of the kingdom, … and also to concur by your authority, that all sacred things of this kind, deposited both above the sacristy and beside the chapel of St. Wenceslaus, may be handed over to us the sooner, rather than be carried off elsewhere or be corrupted by moths. We ask also your most illustrious lordship that you be willing to give command that the said chapel of St. Wenceslaus, whose name your most illustrious lordship bears as received in Baptism, may remain unharmed, closed and sealed in that integrity which it in fact enjoys; and that the keys of the same, otherwise committed to the care of the locksmith — who enters it at his own pleasure and admits thither anyone he meets — may be ordered to be deposited at the rolls of the kingdom or at the chancery, or else be restored to us for the performance of the divine offices. Thus the said canons; from which it may be doubted whether they mean that the chapel of St. Wenceslaus had been up to that day free from the Calvinist sacrileges, or whether they only demand that that same chapel, in whatever state it then was, should be more carefully guarded from further violation — which was not sufficiently provided for by bolted doors, so long as the keys were to be in the power of the locksmith.

[241] In the former sense Pessina interpreted their words at page 359 and the following, nevertheless the chapel and tomb of St. Wenceslaus, where he writes: After many petitions and many prayers, the canons of the metropolitan church obtained this only (and that not without difficulty, since the men of the Calvinian sect strove against it with Frederick and with the others who were set in his familiar service): that the chapel of the divine Wenceslaus, still inviolate by the singular protection of the divine Godhead, and the upper sacristy of the church, which the sacrilegious in that first fury of theirs were unable to unlock by any art or any engines, should likewise remain untouched; and that, all things being listed, they should not only be bolted but also secured and fortified by the seals of the commissioners, as they call them, deputed for this, and that the keys should be ordered to be carried by them to the chancery of the kingdom. Yet the often-cited canons rather intimate the contrary in the letter to John their archbishop, in which, above at number 237, they say without any exception: They have stripped bare the sepulchres of the holy Patrons, they have made away with all the ornaments of the altars, etc. The said archbishop also speaks generally in the letter he wrote in reply to another of the same canons, given at Vienna in Austria on the XXX day of May in the year 1620, writing thus: What you have written to us concerning the venerable relics of the … Patrons and of the other Saints resting there, that they were destroyed, cast out and burnt, was brought to us earlier, and is confirmed by your letters.

[242] by the care and prayers of the canons With no exception made likewise, Simeon Kapihorský, a monk of the Cistercian Order, an almost eye-witness, wrote in Pessina, page 351, concerning the violated sepulchres of the holy Patrons, in these words: In the same year, namely 1619, on the XXI day of December, in the afternoon, at the command of Frederick the Calvinist dregs, setting upon the church of the divine Vitus in the castle of Prague with wicked hand, made war upon the images, the altars and the sepulchres of the Saints. Then, after relating the execrable outrages of these impious men against the sacred effigies of Christ the Lord and of his Saints, he further adds: Then, assailing the iron grilles at the sepulchre of St. John Nepomucene, they threw them out of doors. They despoiled of their ornaments the tombs of the divine titular patrons of the kingdom, casting meanwhile many reproaches and revilings against God and his Saints with most impious mouth… And thus this sacrilegious rabble, most impious despiser of divine things, raged most cruelly in the church until the setting of the sun. From all these things a suspicion may arise not only of the violation of St. Wenceslaus's chapel, but even of the scattering of his sacred body.

[243] from their hands But there is no doubt that some things among the passages alleged can conveniently be explained, and some indeed must be. For first, neither does Kapihorský affirm that the tombs of all the tutelary Saints of the kingdom were despoiled of their ornaments, nor does the archbishop affirm that the relics of all of them were destroyed, cast out or burnt. Secondly, Kapihorský, in setting forth that foul plundering of the church of Prague, nowhere mentions St. Wenceslaus. We have already said what was done on the XXI day of December, on which a beginning was made of the crime. But on the following day (he himself goes on) they pulled down two altars in the chapel of the Pernstein family, and cast out from them the heads and bones of many Saints, and broke some in pieces and trampled on them. These, wrapped in cases of silk and other precious stuffs, some even woven with gold, were for the most part those of the holy Virgin martyrs of the company of St. Ursula, and likewise of the holy Maurice M. and his companions; which afterwards two serving-women, at the bidding of Scultetus, the Calvinist preacher, took up and burned. And although some of the Catholics anxiously endeavoured that they might be able to recover and preserve some of them, yet they laboured in vain. Moreover, while they were casting out these sacred relics from this and from the other chapels of the metropolitan church, they added besides these insults, etc. Thus far concerning the second day of the plundering.

[244] Then, after some things interposed, On the feast, he says, and impiety of St. Stephen (that is, on the XXVI day of December) in the same church of St. Vitus they blocked up the ambulatory on either side of the choir with boards, so that access to the tomb of St. Vitus and to the sepulchre of B. John Nepomucene was shut off. What the reason of this was, different men said different things. The common report was that one of the iconoclasts, having in contempt leapt upon the sepulchre of the blessed John Nepomucene the martyr, was punished by heaven and fell down, and expired by a sudden death. Others said that this also had happened at the tomb of St. Vitus. Others again affirmed that the sepulchre of St. Vitus had been violated by them, and that from it his arm, which had been placed in a little silver chest, had been carried off; and that therefore, lest so great a misdeed should lie publicly open to the sight of all, they had fenced those places about. He adds finally that on the XXVII day of December the altar of the most blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel of St. Sigismund was thrown down and cast out by the same sacrilegious men; nor has he anything more in Pessina about the plundering of that church, so that that day would seem to have been the last of this crime, or at least that after it nothing of the kind in particular was perpetrated. But now, who would believe that that writer would have kept silence about St. Wenceslaus, if he had known that his sacred bones had been cast out of their tomb, or even that the tomb itself had been grievously violated?

[245] Besides, according to the canons' petitions related above, remained unharmed. the bodies of the holy Patrons were still in their tombs on the XXIII day of December of the same year 1619 and on the VIII of January 1620, and the chapel of St. Wenceslaus on the XIV day of the same month enjoyed its integrity and was kept closed, that it might remain unharmed. I prefer therefore to believe Pessina, who asserts the integrity of the chapel of St. Wenceslaus; who, since he published his Phosphorus only fifty-three years afterwards, could be sufficiently informed on the matter. Yet among the sacred relics cast out at that time by the impious followers of Calvin, and trampled and burnt, there may easily have been some small relics of the Patrons, of which perhaps the archbishop speaks at number 241. For the rest, Prague was freed from that dire Calvinist rabble in the same year, when Frederick with his men, routed by the imperial army — God avenging it, and under the leadership of Maximilian duke of Bavaria and count Bucquoy — in a memorable overthrow near Prague on the VIII day of November, fled and left Bohemia to its lawful king, the emperor Ferdinand II.

[246] Before I close this §, the place requires that I here record the relics of that same St. Wenceslaus, His relics at Prague in the seventeenth century are recorded. such as remained in the metropolitan church of Prague after the middle of the seventeenth century, from Pessina's Phosphorus, page 518. It runs, then, thus: The body of St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia and martyr, translated from Boleslav into the church of Prague in the year 942. There is also his sword, laid up in a scabbard of red silk, with which the kings of Bohemia, at the solemnities of their coronation, are wont to create knights of the golden militia certain chosen illustrious men, by striking them lightly three times on the left arm. Likewise a chasuble or planeta, made formerly from his military cloak; a helmet; two pieces of the cuirass (one is among the men of Karlstein); a wooden cup; a portion of his mantle; a girdle; a collar; and certain other things. He had also set down before, at page 499, that besides the said relics of the holy Duke deposited in his chapel, there were kept also in the sacristy of St. Michael in the same church — for easier and readier access, and that they might be exposed at their proper seasons to public veneration — his head, his hand, and something of his blood. And let these things concerning the relics of St. Wenceslaus in the often-mentioned church of Prague be said abundantly enough.

[247] The Saint's arm perhaps in the abbey of Steinfeld, For the rest, I cannot doubt that in other cities also, or even in other regions, some relics of the holy Duke and martyr are religiously kept. Certainly our Papebroch, in the little book which he left in manuscript concerning his excursion to the Moselle and the Meuse in the year 1668, briefly mentions relics of the same Saint in the church of the abbey of Steinfeld, which he then visited, thus: In the same place, behind the altar, there was also the arm of St. Wenceslaus; but on what occasion it came thither, by whom it was given, or by what document it was authenticated, he did not note. Steinfeld, moreover, is an ancient and celebrated abbey of the sacred Premonstratensian Order, set within the region of the Eifel, in the diocese and dominion of the archbishop of Cologne. Of it the most reverend lord Hugo, bishop of Ptolemais and abbot of Étival, treats at length in the Premonstratensian Annals, part 2, from column 851, and in the same place, column 872, he records the sacred treasure of that place, but makes no mention of the aforesaid relics of St. Wenceslaus. Concerning a notable portion of the arm at least formerly kept in the church of the same Saint on Mount Javorník in Lusatia, see what is to be said below at number 272.

[248] other relics of his at Lisbon. In the precious treasure of sacred relics also, which John Borgia, having sought them out from various places and especially having obtained them from the emperor Rudolph II, brought to Lisbon in the year 1587 and gave to the professed house of the Society of Jesus — to whose church it was translated in the following year with great pomp — there are numbered, on the eighth bier, some relics of St. Wenceslaus, duke and martyr. Consult, if you please, volume 2 of January, page 611 and following, where that celebrated translation was treated among the Prætermissi. Of his other relics, without doubt honoured elsewhere too, I have read nothing more, except of those of Stará Boleslav, of which in the following §.

. read propugnata* (defended).

. otherwise in domum* (into the house).

. otherwise & Welislao* (and Welislaus).

. otherwise aperuit* (he opened).

. otherwise Carlstain*.

§ XIV. The church of Boleslav enlarged with a building and a college of canons: frequented with pilgrimages: a description of the same: the Saint's first sepulchre, his blood and other relics in the same place.

[ ] The church of SS. Cosmas and Damian at Boleslav, The body of the holy Duke and martyr having been to the Prague church of St.

Vitus, which he himself had founded, translated, as I have set forth at length above, its own honour and veneration nevertheless remained to the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian at Boleslav, which he had also stained with his sacred blood as he died, and which he had made illustrious for the space of three years by the burial of his body, renowned for miracles. Much concerning this church may be read in Balbinus, in the Epitome, both here and there and especially in book 6, which he entitled Of the Glory of the most ancient collegiate church of Stará Boleslav. For my part I shall record only the chief heads of the matters which pertain hereto, and those but briefly and in passing. In Balbinus's opinion the author and founder of this church was the holy Wenceslaus himself; which indeed might not with difficulty be admitted, were it not that the same historian, with many others, hands down that Boleslav, together with Bohemia beyond the Elbe, had passed to Boleslaus from the paternal inheritance as his own dominion. For to what end would Wenceslaus have founded it in another's principality, when in his own a broad field lay open to him for erecting sacred buildings of the kind?

[250] However that may be, Brzetislaus, duke of Bohemia, enlarged the same about the middle of the eleventh century with a new building, where the Saint suffered, is enlarged with a new building and greatly amplified it by founding a college of canons, in order to fulfil the penance imposed upon him by Benedict IX, Roman Pontiff, on account of the crimes committed in the Polish war. Consult on these matters, if you please, Cosmas, dean of Prague, in the Chronicle of Bohemia at the beginning of book 2, Balbinus book 3, chapters 2 and 3, Baronius in the Annals, and others. In Cosmas, at the year 1039, Benedict is said to have addressed the envoys of Brzetislaus thus: We command that for this so rash presumption your duke and bishop build in a fitting place a monastery sufficiently endowed with all ecclesiastical uses and honours, and that they appoint approved persons and the offices of the serving clerics according to custom, where diligent service may be rendered to God for ever, both for the faithful living and for the departed, that thus at least the transgression of your guilt may be blotted out in the sight of God. Presently the envoys (Cosmas goes on), greatly cheered by the merciful sentence of the Pontiff, set out and report to the duke the commands of the Apostolic See.

[251] With which the duke, obeying them as divine commands, built a most beautiful monastery under the honour of St. Wenceslaus the martyr in the city of Boleslaus beside the river Elbe, and with a college of canons, where the same Saint of old happily consummated his martyrdom; in which (as is seen even today) a numerous throng of brethren serves God, and there is held a provostship and a most religious basilica. Yet this work does not seem to have been finished before the year 1046, at which year there is again read in the same place: The monastery in the city of Boleslaus was dedicated on the IV Kalends of January by Severus, sixth bishop of the church of Prague. That writers agree about the year, but not about the day and month, Balbinus observes in book 3, chapter 6; and he rightly warns that no one ought to suspect from the words monastery and cœnobium that monks, and not canons, are here in question, since in those times the canons lived a common life together, and their colleges seemed most like monasteries. Certainly it is beyond doubt that monasterium is used for the common dwelling of canons, and sometimes even for their church; and by the name of cœnobium too a cathedral church is sometimes said, in Du Cange's Glossary, to be meant.

[252] Further, this notable chapter of canons of Stará Boleslav, which bears his martyrdom on its seal. although it is wont to be called after SS. Cosmas and Damian, nevertheless bears on its seal the martyrdom of St. Wenceslaus, on the testimony of Balbinus, book 6, chapter 5, where he thus explains that seal as appended to a certain document drawn up in the year 1403 by the dean and canons of the same chapter. The seal is: Boleslaus running St. Wenceslaus through with the sword as he bends down, at the same time seizing the holy Martyr's head with his left hand; St. Wenceslaus holds fast the ring hanging on the door of the church of Boleslav. The church has three little towers: at the middle tower a hand is seen stretched out from heaven, which, the thumb being drawn in, points at St. Wenceslaus with the two foremost fingers; letters run round the image of the ring: The Seal of the Chapter of the Church of Boleslav. Like this is the one which, engraved on copper, he set before the same book; yet it differs in that in this one St. Wenceslaus falls upon his knees before Boleslaus with both hands joined, while Boleslaus indeed seizes his holy Brother's head with his left hand, but holds in his right the sword raised as if about to strike. But this discrepancy makes nothing to my purpose now, and it intimates that the seals were made at different times. Let us pass on to other matters.

[253] The same church was once famous for the pilgrimages of princes In chapter 2 of the same book the said historian records several princes, kings and emperors who attended the same church with singular piety and munificence. Chapter 7 treats of the sacred pilgrimages with which that place has been frequented now for many centuries. It is worth reporting a few things here. Our Boleslav (he says) has felt the beneficence of many kings and queens, has won the love of very many nobles, and has turned upon itself the piety and zeal of all other men besides. Whatever in old Bohemia was pious, sacred and holy in religion hastened to Boleslav: not yet had the other churches risen which today are wearied with pilgrimages in Bohemia. Prague and Boleslav — in the one of which they venerated the sacred gore of the divine Wenceslaus, poured out on the ground for Christ and still red, in the other his tomb — were what pleased the pilgrims. That pilgrims were wont to come from Gaul itself (to say nothing of Germany and the neighbouring regions far and wide) ancient writers record: in the very first years after the death of the holy Prince the sick sought out Boleslav… The names of the kings and emperors, whoever enlarged Boleslav, I have given already (namely in chapter 2); they all pertain hither, because all their beneficence toward this place took its beginning from pilgrimage. Kings and princes, captivated by the pious majesty of the place, took pains also to enrich (as is wont to happen) what they judged worthy of their love.

[254] and of others. Again, after some things interposed which I pass over, it is added: Boleslaus the Pious, the prince, was a pilgrim at Boleslav in the year 970 (elsewhere he had marked the year 971 or 972), on which journey St. Wenceslaus showed himself visibly to the prince (of which see what is to be said below at number 267.) Brzetislaus, prince of Bohemia, and his mother Božena cannot be reckoned among the pilgrims, because by their frequent coming they have deserved rather to be called inhabitants. There follow in great number our princes, whom I have recorded before, the Charleses, the Sigismunds, the Alberts; and in times nearer to us all the Austrian princes from Ferdinand I — Maximilian, Rudolph, Matthias, all the Ferdinands, and Leopold (whose rule may long flourish with all good things and with the love of the people subject to him!) — came to Boleslav, and that not once. I forbear to recite the rest, both because not all of it is sufficiently attested, and especially because many, and perhaps even most, of the pilgrimages later than the year 1160 seem to have been instituted not so much to St. Wenceslaus as to the image of the most holy Mother of God, which is honoured in the same place in its own church, renowned for many miracles — which Balbinus also sufficiently indicates, who writes that that sacred effigy was found in the aforecited year.

[255] A description of this church is given; Passing over these things, then, in silence, and the others which may be read in him throughout the whole of book 6, I return to the church of St. Wenceslaus itself, or rather to that of SS. Cosmas and Damian. A description of it — namely such as it stood restored in his own time after the Swedish fire — the said writer gives in the same book, chapter 13, from which receive the following. The church itself is manifold, one church built upon another. The subterranean church is dedicated to SS. Cosmas and Damian; on the right side of the church is seen the sacristy of St. John the Baptist, on the left side the sacristy of the holy Five brothers, martyrs: all these one church covers, which may be called the upper. It has a choir raised high (standing above the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian), in which choir there is an altar under the name of SS. Cyril and Methodius, in which a statue of the Mother of God, of very ancient workmanship, is held in honour; that Altar was in antiquity called above the crypt. The sacristy of St. John the Baptist (the manuscript codices call it the Sacristy of the princes) has as its first altar one of the same name. On one side, at a small interval, St. Catherine, virgin and martyr, is honoured with an altar; then, already at the going out of the sacristy, there is the altar of all the Saints, and in the same order that of the holy Cross at the pillar of the church, and last, in the same northern part of the church, the altar of SS. Simon and Jude.

[256] The left or southern side of the church has the narrow sacristy of the holy Five Brothers, and especially of the lower church, as I said, and a single altar consecrated to the same Saints; in the same part of the church, before the sacristy, is seen the altar of St. Wenceslaus, and after it (at the pillar) that of St. Sigismund the martyr. These things concerning the upper church I have judged should be set first, so that from them it may be permitted to gather what duke Brzetislaus added to the older church of SS. Cosmas and Damian when, as we said above, in fulfilment of the penalty imposed upon him, he built and founded the church of St. Wenceslaus with the college of canons — if, that is, the same form and order were observed in its restoration after the Swedish fire, which Balbinus attaches to the year 1640. More closely pertaining to St. Wenceslaus are the things which then follow in this manner: The lower church, as it far excels in antiquity, so also in the glory of holiness and of miracles: for it is in a certain manner consecrated by the blood of St. Wenceslaus, and by the traces of SS. Cyril and Methodius, of St. Ludmila, of St. Adalbert, and of other divine ones. The place is such as antiquity loved, somewhat dark and deep; yet now, light having been admitted, it is illumined in many parts: there is a descent into it from the upper church by several steps.

[257] This low church (if it deserves to be called a church, in whose vestibule St. Wenceslaus was slain, since it is very like a most narrow cell) is supported by thirty-six columns or columnettes, cut out of solid and unbroken stone. The door which once gave entrance is seen even today with its arch, such as is wont to be over doors. On the threshold of that door, as we learn from the History, St. Wenceslaus the martyr was cut down, whose sacred blood could never be effaced by any art of his brother, nor by any length of time: here and there in the wall it shows through the lime in places, and on the very steps of the door it is easily noticed by pious and curious eyes… On the arch of the door an ingenious painter's hand has expressed in colours certain deeds of the holy martyr Wenceslaus, and from the first step of the door an altar has been raised, in which, in place of an image, there is seen a statue of the divine Wenceslaus falling and another of Boleslaus dealing death to his Brother. This altar the emperor Charles IV adorned and enriched with a perpetual sacrifice and chant, which foundation was afterwards diverted by the wickedness of the heretics. The chief altar of this church (which we have said is sacred to SS. Cosmas and Damian) has an image of those holy martyrs, and also another of SS. Cyril and Methodius, the apostles of our nation, who deliver into the hand of St. Ludmila the effigy of the Mother of God which is honoured at Boleslav …

[258] In the middle of this church, between the middle columns

a sepulchre of most gleaming porphyry marble rises, raised more than three ells from the ground; and in which his first sepulchre is seen, in it the Godhead honoured St. Wenceslaus, laid there for three years, with very many miracles. Nor without cause did the ancients set Wenceslaus's sepulchre in the middle of the church, seeing that, as is the common opinion, the divine Wenceslaus founded this sacred building of SS. Cosmas and Damian. The sepulchre has been renewed within our memory, and cut into the marble: The first sepulchre of the most glorious Martyr and Duke of Bohemia, restored in the year 1657. A noble image of Christ crucified, of brass, wrought with great art, is placed upon the tomb, which not long since the provost ordered to be transferred from the public and royal road (because it might provoke thievish hands) into this sacred place, lest it should at some time be carried off… This place of the holy Prince's slaying is commended by many miracles from antiquity down to us, some of which we have related both in the History and also in this book. Thus far he himself, who surveyed the said church in person, and who then adds three miracles wrought there in his own age, which we shall report along with some others in the Appendix.

[259] [and his shed blood is said to be seen in the wall even after the lime was laid on.] Although, moreover, we have already mentioned above, in §10, the indelible traces of the sacred blood, both out of Christann and out of Balbinus, yet the place here requires that we add something further on the same subject. Balbinus, in the book cited, chapter 4, says: How great a thing is it, that the holy Martyr's gore, poured out on the steps of the church and sprinkled over the walls, could never — whatever Boleslaus attempted, though he sent craftsmen — be washed out, never be effaced by any art, nor can it be to this age? This certainly Pulkava, writing the history of Bohemia in the time of Charles IV, does not hesitate to call A GREAT MIRACLE. This gore we ourselves have seen, and have adored with a kiss. After, within our memory, a certain dean of this church — a man for the rest wholly devoted to the divine Wenceslaus — had, out of a superfluous zeal for cleanliness, attempted to extinguish it by laying on lime, he came himself to view the matter, praised the craftsmen because they had laid on the plaster excellently, as he had wished, no mark of blood any longer appearing; and already he was condemning antiquity as superstitious and old-wifishly credulous, as though he had won the victory and made all things white. Not much time had passed when, behold, as though the lime had been devoured, roses of most fresh and most vivid blood began to appear again through the lime, the dean himself blushing at the spectacle of the blood; which marks even now glow red here and there, and, the old miracle being renewed, condemn the useless labour of the craftsmen.

[260] These things Balbinus says of a matter done in his own time; yet whether he has not somewhat embellished it rhetorically, another Bohemian writer contemporary with him, George Crugerius, likewise a priest of the Society of Jesus, makes me doubt, who in the Sacred Dust of Bohemia at the XXVIII day of September, mentioning both the dean's name and the time and occasion of the deed, speaks more sparingly in this manner. In that place (in which St. Wenceslaus was slain) — the door having long since been removed and broken open elsewhere — an altar stands, at which the priest, performing the divine Sacrifice at the altar, honours from close at hand the memory of the holy Martyr, precious indeed in the eyes of God. David Drachovius, dean of the place, about the year of the Lord 1621, when he was setting up that altar, took not sufficiently prudent thought for men's devotion and for the veneration of the holy Martyr, when he renewed the neighbouring wall with lime; because by that whitewashing he did away with (a lamentable mishap) the blood with which the Martyr had sprinkled it as he was being slain, and which, visible for some six hundred years, had testified to the tyranny of Boleslaus. Report, however, spreads it abroad that even today that whitewashing is breaking up and falling away here and there, and that thus those most ancient signs of blood again meet the eyes and afford the old testimony by a miracle. You see how greatly this narration differs from Balbinus's, although both wrote at the same time, namely after the middle of the seventeenth century, in which the thing is said to have happened; and therefore it must altogether be said either that that deed was exaggerated by Balbinus, or that it was not sufficiently known to Crugerius.

[261] Little likelihood has that which Balbinus, just cited, added in the description of the same church of Boleslav concerning another little cell adjoining it, writing thus: I do not approve what Balbinus relates of the Saint's bakehouse Behind the door of this lower church, divided off by one wall only, a little kitchen is shown; a very narrow place, once consecrated by the labours of the divine Wenceslaus (some call it the Bakehouse), where he with his most holy hands kneaded and prepared the oblates or hosts, that is, the bread for the Sacrifice, as is handed down in his Life. The same things he had set down before in the same place, chapter 3, and had besides said that the holy Prince was accustomed in the same place also to press out grapes for the use of the Masses. Of both these acts of the Saint it is established from Christann in the Life to be published, number 16, which therefore I do not wish to call in doubt; but that he did these things in this place Balbinus neither proves, citing no one, nor is it in conformity with Christann's words. For this biographer records this pious reverence of the most religious Duke toward the divine Sacrifice — out of which he was wont, with his single chamberlain Podevin as his confidant and companion, to carry home secretly by night from field and vineyard ears of grain and clusters of grapes of his own, and himself with his own hands to make the bread and the wine for uses so sacred — these pious labours of his, I say, he records among his deeds, after he, his kingdom being settled and confirmed, had begun to rule the duchy of Bohemia peaceably and quietly.

[262] But then he must be said to have dwelt in the palace of Vyšehrad, in Bohemia near Prague, as built onto the same church. and not at Boleslav, where his brother Boleslaus had his own dwelling, and which, with the whole region beyond the Elbe (as Balbinus and other Bohemian writers commonly assert), he had received as his own from the paternal inheritance. For which reason, to speak my mind candidly, I am of opinion that that little cell, built in antiquity for the uses of the aforesaid church — and perhaps even for kneading the bread for the sacrifice of the Mass — came at length, in the lapse of time, to be believed the kitchen or bakehouse of St. Wenceslaus, for no other reason perhaps than that it seemed suited to this pious work, in which it was established from his Life that he had taken delight while he lived. Perhaps too that place was formerly called the kitchen or bakehouse of St. Wenceslaus not from the holy Duke's work but from his church; that is, not because he was believed to have kneaded bread in it, but because it had been built onto the church of St. Wenceslaus for such a use — thus, namely, that the kitchen of St. Wenceslaus should be so called for the kitchen of the church of St. Wenceslaus; which manner of speaking is exceedingly common, as could be proved by a thousand examples. Further, from this ambiguous appellation there could easily arise, in the lapse of time, the above-mentioned opinion among later men, while they eagerly interpreted of the person of St. Wenceslaus what was to be explained of his church.

[263] Concerning the relics of the same Saint kept in the same church, there is again this to be read in Balbinus, chapter 9: A phial full of the holy Duke's blood, Nothing so much moves the tenderness of the pilgrims as a phial made of crystal, a most pure and conspicuous gem, full of the blood which the attendants had gathered up from the pavement and threshold of the church as it flowed from the wounds of the dying divine Wenceslaus. Most vividly does that holy gore glow red even today, and Rudolph Roder the provost affirmed that on the holy Martyr's feast-day he had more than once observed this blood grow warm during the Sacrifice, liquefy, and be tinged with a certain most fresh purple. The emperor Ferdinand III, as I have before related (namely in chapter 2), sought and obtained, with great urgency of entreaty, a particle of that clotted blood… There are present also other remains of the holy Martyr: there is a lock of the holy Duke's hair, of a bright and most pleasing colour out of black, which together with a particle of the skull had fallen to the ground at the first wound inflicted by the fratricide… There is also shown a shoe of St. Wenceslaus, most like an ancient buskin, and itself cut through by Boleslaus's stroke when the wicked hand went astray… A certain little chest, wrought for the sake of its singular art, was given to the church of Boleslav by the most illustrious and most excellent count of Martinic, supreme burgrave of the kingdom of Bohemia. The middle place of that little chest is held by a bone of St. Wenceslaus, which the small bones of holy virgins and martyrs surround — on this side St. Christina's, on that St. Cordula's.

[264] and other relics of his kept in the same church. Thus that place, concerning which it has seemed good to me to observe a few things. No other writer, so far at least as I remember, have I hitherto read who has seen the sacred blood of Wenceslaus, enclosed in the said crystal or some other little vessel, grow warm, liquefy, or change colour, or who has written that it was seen by another; yet I cannot for that reason deny that it appeared so to the said Rudolph Roder, provost of Boleslav; for why could not a prodigy of this kind have happened as well in the blood of St. Wenceslaus as in the blood of St. Januarius, bishop and martyr, whose frequent ebullitions and truly prodigious changes you have affirmed by so many and so great testimonies in our Work at the XIX day of this month of September, that they cannot be denied by anyone of sound mind? Nevertheless, because in such matters the imagination sometimes deceives, the testimony of Roder alone cannot make the said change of St. Wenceslaus's blood certain. That besides the aforesaid, other relics of his too were formerly kept in the church of Boleslav, and perhaps are kept there even today, I gather from the same Balbinus, who in book 3 of the Epitome, chapter 19, says: I have read in certain manuscripts that the emperor (Charles IV) came with his Ernest (that is, archbishop Arnestus of Prague) to Boleslav to see the bones of St. Wenceslaus the martyr (of which there is no small number in the church of Boleslav, and many things pertaining to the holy Prince, such as a little cup, small shoes, etc.; and then notable and choicest portions of bones and hair, with the phial of blood); these, then, as that manuscript says, he gathered together again and venerated with much honour and worship.

§ XV. Certain churches built to God under the invocation of St. Wenceslaus: it is examined what is to be judged of the apparition made to the king of Denmark concerning a church to be built to the same Saint.

[ ] Among the various churches in various provinces It is not in my mind to record here all the churches and chapels which stand dedicated to God under the invocation of St. Wenceslaus in very many places, nor to inquire into the matter more laboriously, since I am confident I could not accomplish it with however tireless a labour. I shall therefore name only some of the chief ones, and those worthy of mention beyond the rest, to the glory of the holy Duke and martyr. George Crugerius, in the Sacred Dust of Bohemia, volume 3, at the XXVIII day of this month of September, has the following on this subject: Churches, besides innumerable smaller ones, he has in the kingdom (of Bohemia) and its dependencies most solemn: namely the metropolitan church at Prague, repaired after the calamity of the fire by Ferdinand I of Austria, king of the Bohemians, which Rudolph and Ferdinand II further adorned under this name… At Olomouc the cathedral canons frequent a church under this title, august with its old and new building. This Frederick

Dietrichstein adorned with a choir, and, money having been bequeathed to that use, his successor … Charles Liechtenstein adorns it even now.

[266] In Silesia, at Świdnica, the fathers of the Society of Jesus use what is truly a basilica, erected to St. Wenceslaus, which was magnificently built by the most ancient dukes of Świdnica… But in Poland too, and above all that of Cracow, in which the kings are crowned, is devoted to this Saint. Wenceslaus acknowledges the church of Warmia also as his own. Let us illustrate these words of Crugerius a little. Among the lesser churches of St. Wenceslaus in Bohemia he perhaps numbered the church on Mount Prosík, which, if Balbinus tells the truth, was the first of all consecrated to his name. Let us hear him, in book 2 of the Epitome, chapter 10, speaking of its author and of the cause of its foundation. The sacred body of St. Wenceslaus, as I had related before, having been brought to Prague, was honoured at Prague with a very great concourse of peoples, even from the farthest Gaul; but those of the household and born in Bohemia, not content to look upon the tomb of the holy Prince, sought after the fountain itself, and came in throngs to Boleslav, where the sacred gore of the dying man had first flowed forth. That this piety pleased heaven, heavenly visions and certain miracles gave a token.

[267] The year was 971, or even 972, one is said to have been founded on Prosík when the prince Boleslaus (surnamed the Pious, and nephew of St. Wenceslaus himself through Boleslaus the fratricide) came to Boleslav in summer, on the eighth day of the month of June, with very few in his train. Who could set forth in this place what a flood of tears the pious prince poured out at the sight of his innocent Uncle's blood? He made no end of asking pardon for himself and for the crime committed by his father, and prayed above all that he might understand that God was not angry. His act of piety performed, his conscience purged by confession, and refreshed with the sacred Eucharist, he was returning on horseback to Prague when suddenly he began to be so overcome with sleep that he could by no means shake it off. Therefore, turning aside a little from the road to give way to sleep, he lies down on the ground; he sees in his rest the heaven opened wide, in which St. Wenceslaus showed the prince the Godhead appeased, and affirmed that Boleslaus's deeds were approved by the divine Majesty; than which spectacle nothing more welcome could have been brought to the prince. Many other proofs of divine favour shown from heaven he buried in a wise silence: this one thing the courtiers Krotislaus and Jaroboius heard from the prince when he awoke, full of joy: that God, at the prayers of St. Wenceslaus, was and would be propitious to the prince and to the whole nation of the Bohemians.

[268] At the prince's command the servants rolled a great stone to the place, by Boleslaus, his nephew by the fratricide and on the fourth day after, Boleslaus laid the first stone in the foundations of a new church; and on the XVII of September, the work being finished, Ditmar consecrated it and imposed on it the name of St. Wenceslaus. That church stands to this day on a high hill (the men of Prague call it Prosík) and reminds those about to make the pilgrimage to Boleslav of the ancient piety. The same things Hagecius relates in the Chronicle of Bohemia, but with several other circumstances. First, he refers that event to the year 970, as Balbinus also did afterwards in book 6, chapter 7, of the same Work; I know not whether from forgetfulness or for the sake of correction. Secondly, omitting the day of the pilgrimage, he affirms that that church was not finished or consecrated on the XVII day of September, as Balbinus has it, but completed on the XIII of June and dedicated on the X of October of the same year. Thirdly and lastly, Hagecius attributes the said consecration to St. Adalbert, Balbinus to his predecessor, the first bishop of Prague. The reason of the last difference between the two is clear, namely from this, that Balbinus had laid down that St. Adalbert was consecrated bishop only in the year 980, whereas Hagecius had attached the death of Ditmar and the succession of St. Adalbert to the year 969, certainly some years too early.

[269] and dedicated by Ditmar, bishop of Prague. And so there is no doubt that the said dedication of the church on Prosík, whether it was truly made in the year 970 or in one of the two following years by one or the other prelate, must have been made by Ditmar, who at that time certainly still held the episcopal see of Prague, which he had ascended first of all men. But as regards the other circumstances, I do not wish to divine which of the two has noted them more correctly, for neither do they themselves cite any author or monument from which they drew these things, nor do I find anything among the ancients about that heavenly vision and about the church founded on that account by Boleslaus on Prosík, so that I truly do not know on what authority that whole narration of theirs rests. Indeed, in the manuscript Life by an anonymous author, whom at number 22 I noted to be no older than the thirteenth century, and which is of small weight, the church on Prosech is said to have been erected as a monument of the miracle by which the body of St. Wenceslaus, while it was being translated from Boleslav to Prague, was set across, together with the wagon and its drivers, to the other bank of the river. Receive the author's words: Because of this miracle a church built at Prosech holds the feast of the day of his translation. However these things may stand, the often-mentioned church must have been of no great bulk or artistry, if it was completed within so short a space of time as Balbinus and Hagecius will have it. I return to Crugerius.

[270] Another was built to him at Olomouc The metropolitan church of Prague is properly dedicated to St. Vitus, as its chief patron, and takes its name from him. Yet it can also be called St. Wenceslaus's, both because he too is its patron and because his sacred body is religiously kept in a magnificent chapel, as has been said above. Nay, even in the Bull by which it was raised by the Roman Pontiff to cathedral dignity, reported in Cosmas, dean of Prague, in his Chronicle, it is in fact called the church of SS. Vitus and Wenceslaus, martyrs. That the cathedral church of Olomouc in Moravia is sacred to St. Wenceslaus, John Dubravius, bishop of that see, taught long before Crugerius, in the History of Bohemia, book XI, whose words are these: Yet the strongest of all in the favour of the prince (Soběslav, duke of Bohemia) was held to be Wenceslaus, son of Otto (margrave of Moravia), lord of Olomouc, for this reason: that he was quiet in disposition, faithful in obedience, and marked by so great a piety that he took it into his mind to consecrate the greater and better part of his citadel to the divine Wenceslaus.

[271] Wenceslaus, son of the margrave of Moravia. When on a certain feast-day he had observed that the building of the divine Peter, erected in the suburbs for the prelate and the college of priests, had not been capable of holding so great a multitude as had flowed together thither — and moreover a low place seemed not to have so much dignity as a lofty one — for that reason, having hired men to demolish the profane buildings in the citadel, he dedicated a new site to the future church, and, the space having been measured out for the foundation, he laid in it the corner-stone together with Henry, the prelate and his uncle. And although through an untimely death he was unable to finish so great a work, yet he left to Henry money amply answering to the completion of the building. At the dedication of the new church Soběslav and his wife were present, and offered precious gifts at the altar. With Dubravius agrees Augustinus, provost of the churches of Olomouc and Brno, in the Catalogue of the bishops of Olomouc, published among the Writers of Bohemia, writing thus under Henry: In his pontificate, namely in the year one thousand one hundred and thirty, Wenceslaus, son of Otto margrave of Moravia, being zealous to enlarge the divine worship and to exalt with glorious structures the episcopal see (which was confined within narrow bounds), erected in his citadel of Olomouc a church under the honour and title of the divine martyr and household patron (he would have said more correctly, the native Saint) Wenceslaus, and took care that the episcopal see should be transferred thither from the church of St. Peter, by permission of the supreme Pontiff Innocent II, twelve canons being instituted there.

[272] Of the church of Świdnica I have nothing more; of that of Cracow in Lesser Poland Hartmann Schedel, in his little Commentary on Sarmatia, Others dedicated to him at Świdnica, Cracow, in Warmia, and in Lusatia. while describing Kleparz, a part of Cracow, speaks thus: On a hill … first there is a huge church, founded to the honour of the divine Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia, where there stand the monuments and burials of all the most illustrious men, built with much wealth and by various arts, carved in marble and alabaster stone. As regards the church of Warmia, I have nothing to observe about this one either, except that Warmia — called by the inhabitants Ermeland, and by others also Warmerland — is a tract of Poland in Royal Prussia, and a bishopric whose cathedral church is at Frombork; but whether this is sacred to St. Wenceslaus is not established for me from any other source. That there was also some church of St. Wenceslaus in Lusatia I learned from a paper of the most reverend lord Christian Augustine Pfaltz, archdeacon of the metropolitan church of Prague, given at an uncertain time to my Elders and laid aside until this day, which runs thus: There is in Lusatia a church of St. Wenceslaus, built by Boleslaus I, duke of Bohemia, situated on Mount Javorník, in which a notable portion of this Saint's arm is kept. When Lutheranism grew strong, all the churches round about came into the hands of the heretical preachers; this one alone at Javorník remained in the hands of Catholic priests, although all the men incorporated in it, to a single one, fell away from the Catholic faith: only the parish priest with the schoolmaster now stands in the orthodox faith. Thus he himself, which I cannot confirm from elsewhere.

[273] In Denmark also they report that churches were dedicated to the same Saint, An apparition made to a certain king of Denmark and indeed the first of all that were sacred to his name, if what is recorded on this matter in several manuscript Lives and published Historians be true. Further, because different writers report different circumstances of the affair, some more likely than others, it is necessary to set forth their narrations briefly before we discuss the truth of the fact. The anonymous author of the manuscript Life whose beginning is The sun of the Christian religion now rising has a good deal about these things, which I present here reduced into a summary. Eric, king of Dacia, that is, of Denmark, entangled in the bonds of many sins, while he was staying in his forests for the sake of hunting, saw on a certain night a man fastened to a cross, who, being asked his name and the cause of so cruel a punishment, answered: I am Christ Jesus; but thou hast crucified me. Vehemently troubled by this answer, and acknowledging his crimes, the king suppliantly begged pardon, and again heard from the Crucified: That thou mayest receive remission of thy sins, make a church in honour of my holy soldier Wenceslaus. Eric promises that he will obey, and presently, awaking, hastens to fulfil his promises. But who St. Wenceslaus was, neither did he himself know, nor could anyone in Denmark tell. Hence the king, saddened, and all the court with him, was vehemently distressed, until at length, a few days having passed, certain soldiers, dwellers in Bohemia, arrived there, who, being brought to the king, instructed him in what he desired concerning St. Wenceslaus.

[274] for the building of a church to St. Wenceslaus Which being heard (the words are the anonymous author's), the king rejoiced exceedingly, and without delay began to build a monastery, as he had received in commandment. Which, God helping, bringing through to the end, and placing in it monks of the Rule of St. Benedict, he sufficiently adorned with ornaments, books and necessary possessions. This king's departure from the body was at last almost like St. Wenceslaus's; for, taken captive by his brother, he is slain, pricked in conscience for his sins and contrite. And

this final grace, namely of compunction and contrition, by which without doubt the kingdom of heaven is won, is believed to have been conferred upon him by the Lord on account of the service which he had rendered to that joining [] to the holy martyr Wenceslaus. So the anonymous author, with whom the author of another manuscript Life — who is reported to have been John, bishop of Litomyšl — agrees so exactly that it cannot be doubted that the one lighted the way for the other, as we shall presently say. Yet in place of Ericus he is here called Eritius, and for Dacia the more correct Dania* is written.

[275] variously narrated by various writers The other Life, which is noted as composed by the emperor Charles IV, agreeing with the foregoing but omitting the king's name, touched briefly upon the same apparition and building of the church thus: But at the time of his (St. Wenceslaus's) glorious passion, Christ, appearing on the cross to the king of Dacia, exhorted him to build a church under the title of his martyr Wenceslaus, if he would seek to obtain pardon from him; which also he did. Briefly too John Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc, recorded the same in book 5 of the Bohemian History, where he says: For on the same night (on which the holy Duke was butchered) the king of Denmark (see at how great a distance he was removed from Bohemia) testified that he had been admonished in his sleep by an oracle that he should undertake the cultivation of the memory of the martyr Wenceslaus, beheaded by his brother in Bohemia. How this was done by him, the ceremonies, the priests, and the church in Denmark dedicated to the divine Wenceslaus declare. Thus far the writers adduced hand down that the building of the aforesaid church was enjoined upon the king of Dacia or Denmark for obtaining pardon of his sins — except Dubravius, who kept silence about the cause. But others assign a far different one, whose opinion Balbinus set forth in the Epitome, book 1, chapter 9, and which I subjoin from his own words.

[276] is recorded, to be examined. On the same night on which the holy Martyr had fallen, a venerable image of the Lord fastened to the cross was presented in sleep to Eric, king of Denmark, out of which Christ, speaking, bade the king vow a church to the honour of St. Wenceslaus (who on that day was entering heaven), if he wished to obtain the victory over his British enemies. Which miracle all who have treated of St. Wenceslaus record (we shall treat of it in the Notes, because it seems to be against the reckoning of the times); and the later kings of Denmark are reported to have founded, at that first church of St. Wenceslaus, a monastery of the sacred Cistercian family. Thus that place; but in the Notes, citing in the margin Pulkava, Hagecius, Dubravius, Pontanus, Cuthenus and the Lives of St. Wenceslaus, and treating of the same subject, he says: A narration most known to all, which old and new writers recite as beyond doubt; but it suffers no small difficulty from chronology and the reckoning of the times. But before we set out that difficulty along with him, certain things must be premised concerning the authority of the writers who have handed down that story in whatever manner. Balbinus, as we have seen, cited the Lives of St. Wenceslaus generally; but among these can by no means be reckoned the most ancient of all, namely those which Christann, the anonymous author bearing the age of the emperor Otto II, and Laurence the monk of Cassino composed; for in these there is absolutely nothing to be read of that vision, nothing of a king of Dacia or Denmark, nor of a church founded by him under the title of St. Wenceslaus.

[277] But of those who say that the building of the same church was enjoined by Christ as a penalty for his sins, Its assertors are not very ancient, the first of all seems to have been the anonymous author produced at number 273 and the following. Yet he is far from being able to confirm his assertions in this part by his age or by sure monuments. Hear him himself setting forth, at the end of the miracles, what documents or authors he used in compiling his lucubration. But these things, found in various volumes, we have briefly compacted in this little Work… And certain things we learned by a definite revelation of a Brother (it should be read through a Brother, or of Brothers) of the Order of Preachers, concerning the apparition of Christ to the king of Dacia and concerning the raising of the dead girl, and we have inserted them summarily in this little Work. Therefore that anonymous author is not older than the thirteenth century — in the early part of which (that is, almost the whole third century after St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom) the sacred Order of Preachers was instituted by St. Dominic — and perhaps he is even much younger; and the narration of that history with which we are now dealing rests, if not wholly, certainly in part, on the authority of a Brother unknown to us, or perhaps of two or more Brothers of the said Order. Younger even than he may have been John, bishop of Litomyšl, reported at number 274, who died at the very close of the fourteenth century, and who seems to have followed the aforesaid anonymous author's little Work, since he copied out not only its sense and the order of the events, but sometimes even its very phrases.

[278] Nor does the other opinion have more ancient assertors, and some of them labour under an anachronism, of whom the most ancient among those cited in Balbinus is Pulkava, who, on the same testimony, flourished under the emperor Charles IV, that is, about or after the middle of the fourteenth century. From the authority of the writers, which is truly slight, I go on to examine the thing itself. It ought not to detain us that of those alleged some write that that heavenly vision befell the king of Dacia, others the king of Denmark; for they all designate the king of Denmark, which it is certain is sometimes called Dacia by several other writers of the Middle Ages as well. But — and this is the chief point — from all the Catalogues of the kings of Denmark and from the writers who have treated Danish affairs it is established that no Eric or Ericius reigned in Denmark at the time when St. Wenceslaus was slain, nor in the whole century after; and thus that the aforesaid apparition cannot have befallen Eric, king of Denmark, on the same night on which the Saint was slain, as some of the cited authors have expressly affirmed. Recognizing so gross an anachronism, Balbinus, praising the said Dubravius because he cautiously passed over the name of the king of Denmark, has attempted in various ways to recall the fact itself to historical truth and to persuade his readers of it. Let us therefore hear him.

[279] In Eric's place he substitutes Harald VI, or his son Sweyn, which Balbinus attempted to remove, whose reign he judged to have fallen in the last years of St. Wenceslaus's life. But concerning the cause or occasion of the aforesaid error, he says: What if, as of old the kings of Egypt were called Pharaohs in the sacred Scriptures, so through the negligence of some writer Ericus be taken for any king of Denmark whatsoever, since Denmark may easily have had ten kings of that name? And perhaps another vision, presented afterwards to Eric VII about the year of the Lord 1250, gave occasion to the error… A man careless of chronology, then, might have confounded these two heavenly visions and made one out of two; and when he afterwards heard or read the name of king Eric, might suppose that that face of the crucified Saviour was presented to Eric on the night on which the divine Wenceslaus was received into heaven; but, as I have said, this divine dream in the year 938 belonged either to Harald VI or to his son Sweyn I. He adds finally: I know that at this time also, while St. Wenceslaus was being killed, an Eric reigned in Sweden; but he was not a Dane, but rather a mortal enemy of the Danes: nothing therefore makes for our purpose here, unless perhaps that Sweyn, king of Denmark, routed by him and deserted by the English or Britons, was helped by the aid of St. Wenceslaus. Let us weigh for a little how much these conjectures of Balbinus are worth.

[280] Harald being substituted in Eric's place. Perhaps this apparition As it is certain that no Eric reigned in Denmark at the time when St. Wenceslaus fell, so from the writers of that same kingdom of Denmark it appears that that celebrated vision fell in the time of some Harald, if it truly befell any king of Denmark then. In this way the anachronism is indeed removed, but the truth of the fact wavers not a little, since recourse is had to an unskilled author; and it wavers the more, the more Erics, kings of Denmark, are said to have given him occasion of erring, since he must be said to have lived so much the further removed from the times of St. Wenceslaus. Nor do I doubt that the anonymous author cited at number 273 and following, whom John, bishop of Litomyšl, followed, confounded, or rather disfigured, a later apparition with an earlier one. That this may be clear, receive what Albert Krantz has on this subject in book 7 of Denmark, chapter 21, and which Balbinus also partly copied out from him. This king (Eric, according to Krantz the seventh of that name), being devoted to God, honoured with particular reverence the holy martyr Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia, whom his brother had slain. But when the king was asleep, he saw in his rest the same holy Martyr saying to him: Be confident, brother; I am here, whom thou dost honour. I come to thee as a messenger, that thou art to be taken away by the same kind of martyrdom as I was.

[281] has been confounded with another, Yet first I wish thee to build a monastery in honour of God and of my name. Waking, the king, certain that the dreams had not been empty, began to raise in the land of Reval the monastery which the vision had commanded him. But before he could complete it, he was carried off by death in this manner. He supposed that his vision was to be fulfilled in far-off times, being especially confident because he had not yet fulfilled the injunction of building the monastery. Relying at the same time on brotherly strength (since in the preceding year they had been reconciled after a long-standing quarrel), he undertook to visit his brother Abel (duke of Schleswig) in his own dominion. He came, and met his brother most amicably. The latter received the king on his arrival hospitably, as it appeared; but there lived in his heart an unconquerable hatred… The king, fearing nothing, while he was playing at chess (they call the pieces latrunculi) with a certain soldier, and showed every confidence in his brother's house, was seized by his brother's soldiers and led away to a ship. A certain Lago, a soldier from Denmark, was set over him, a mortal enemy of the king, and when the king saw him he augured ill for himself. He said: Know, O king, that thou must die without any delay.

[282] which certain writers of Denmark I knew, said the king, when I came into thy hands, that it was all over with me; nevertheless bid a priest be present with me, that I may take thought for my eternal soul. When he came, he made a sincere confession of his sins from the heart… And the king indeed was cut down with an axe in the ship, on the lake Schlei itself, near the town of Schleswig… His corpse, tied to a stone, is sunk into the deep: yet not long after it was found floating on the surface, the neck still adhering to the body by the skin. Thence, being translated, it is buried in the town of Schleswig among the Friars Preachers… And it was the year after the birth of Christ 1251. Others fix the slaying of the same king Eric to the year 1250, which it does not pertain to our purpose to examine. Further, whoever shall wish to compare these things with what we have reported from the anonymous biographer of St. Wenceslaus at number 273 and the following, will see most clearly that in both places the discourse is of the same Eric, although a different apparition is reported — the one, namely, of the Lord fastened to the cross, the other of St. Wenceslaus — and a different reason for the apparition, though both for the building of a church of St. Wenceslaus. For according to the anonymous author, this king's (Eric's) departure from the body was almost like St. Wenceslaus's; for, taken captive by his brother,

he is slain, pricked in conscience for his sins and contrite; both of which Krantz also expressly affirmed of his own Eric.

[283] Add that the same anonymous author, and he who followed him, others hand down that it was made to king Eric; John, bishop of Litomyšl, refer that event not, as the rest do, to the same night on which the holy Duke underwent martyrdom, but to no fixed time, and therefore cannot be judged to have spoken of any earlier apparition even by reason of the anachronism under which the others labour. Add moreover that from the same Krantz there is suggested some argument why the said anonymous author cited here a Brother or Brothers of the sacred Order of Preachers; namely because, since that Eric — if Krantz relates the truth — was first buried in their church, the matter more nearly concerned them. But, you will say, why then do that anonymous author and the bishop of Litomyšl record an apparition of Christ the Lord crucified, while Krantz records one of St. Wenceslaus? This I candidly confess I do not so far discern, nor do I know whether I should charge with error rather Krantz — who is much younger than the anonymous author and the said bishop, and cited no author — or those men, or him or those from whom the anonymous author received his matter. Nevertheless the narration of Krantz, who treated Danish affairs of set purpose, and with whom John Isaac Pontanus also agrees in book 7 of Danish Affairs, as it is much simpler, so also appears the more likely.

[284] Thus far concerning those who have recorded the often-mentioned apparition without noting any time; but the whole matter is uncertain. it remains, then, that we say something also of the others, who place it on the night of St. Wenceslaus's death, and will have it that it was made to king Eric by Christ not for the pardon of sins but with reference to a victory over the Britons. Hagecius in the Chronicle of Bohemia, and George Barthold Pontanus of Breitenberg in Pious Bohemia, book 4, call that king of Britain or England, against whom Eric was then waging war, Edward. But I have already noted above that at that time no Eric reigned in Denmark. Equally unhappily the writers just cited said that Edward was king in England at the same time. For Edward I, surnamed the Elder, died before St. Wenceslaus, having deceased namely in the year of Christ 924; nor did any other of that name reign there before St. Edward the martyr, who had not yet been born when Wenceslaus died. Fictitious, then, is this narration of theirs, and it can be admitted even less than the preceding ones. Wherefore I forbear from saying more, readily believing them all in this one point: that there was in Denmark some church dedicated to God under the invocation of St. Wenceslaus; which, although I cannot say for certain when it was founded, yet seems the more likely to have had as its author that Eric who reigned about the middle of the thirteenth century. Perhaps too Denmark once had several churches of this kind (as some affirm); but concerning these I have found out nothing further.

. jussionem* (command).

§ XVI. The old and the new altar erected to him in the new and in the old Vatican basilica at Rome: likewise another at Aachen by the emperor Charles IV.

[ ] Already from the fourteenth century In this place also two altars come to be mentioned: the one at Rome, both in the old and in the new Vatican basilica; the other at Aachen, in the church of St. Mary anciently dedicated to the same holy Duke and martyr. Of the old Roman one John Ciampini, in the Historical Synopsis of the sacred buildings of Constantine the Great, chapter 4, section 5, has this: In the corner of the aforesaid nave (the middle nave in the ancient Vatican basilica), in the same walls behind the Roman door… an altar was dedicated and endowed to St. Wenceslaus, king of the Bohemians and martyr, by Hyrico, bishop of Olomouc; which was thereafter called that of St. Erasmus, bishop and martyr, on account of his wooden image set up there, and afterwards was raised anew in honour of them and of St. Bartholomew the apostle… Behind the wooden image of St. Erasmus was painted an ancient image of the aforesaid St. Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia,… where in the middle St. Wenceslaus is seen clothed in imperial habit, holding in his right hand a banner in the middle of which a black eagle was figured on a field of white colour, and in his left a sword and a shield; on his right the emperor Charles IV, king of Bohemia, on his left the same bishop Hyrico, clothed in a red cope over a rochet with an archiepiscopal cross, both kneeling.

[286] St. Wenceslaus had an altar Behind these stand two men, of whom one, in a regular habit, places his right hand upon the shoulder of the aforesaid emperor Charles, and with his left supports a pastoral staff; the other, conspicuous in episcopal vesture, holds his left hand over the head of bishop Hyrico, and in his right hand likewise an episcopal staff appears. Who those two bishops may be, I know not; yet I think they are patrons of the same kingdom of Bohemia. Thus far Ciampini, who in the same place exhibits that old altar engraved on copper in plate 21, letter b, from which I have given it to our engraver to copy and have set it here. But before we examine Ciampini's assertions, it will be well to have reported another delineation of the same altar, made by John Mary Turrigio. Turrigio, in the Sacred Vatican Crypts, part 2, chapter 2, describing the chapel of St. Mary of the Pregnant, says thus to our purpose, in Italian: There is seen painted an ancient altar, formerly consecrated on the XI day of May to St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia. On it he himself is seen in ducal habit, holding in his right hand a banner which has a black eagle on a white field — as he was formerly seen painted in the basilica now destroyed (and is seen to this day in the porch of St. Mary across the Tiber, with the diadem customarily painted for Saints, and a ducal cap, and is believed by the simple common folk to have been some Roman prefect) — and in his right a sword, with the point turned to the ground, from which a shield hangs.

[287] On this side and on that are two Saints, namely St. Adalbert, in the old Vatican basilica clothed in a monastic garment and bearing a pastoral crook; and Saint John III, bishop of Olomouc, in whose time the said St. Wenceslaus suffered martyrdom… At his feet is Inco, or (to speak more correctly, John Ozco) clothed in a red cope over a rochet with a mitre, since he was a bishop and a Cardinal, created by Urban VI in the year 1376 (nay, later). Moreover the emperor Charles IV is seen in a white robe with the imperial crown, falling on his knees, on whose shoulders St. Adalbert lays his hand… In the time that followed, the same altar was dedicated to St. Erasmus, and there was placed on it a panel with an image of that Saint, which a certain secretary of Cardinal Enckenvoirt painted, whom Adrian VI, in the year 1525, on the X day of September, lying sick in his bed thirteen days before his death, in a congregation held in his chamber, raised to that purple. So Turrigio, who wrote before Ciampini, and, equally with him, looked upon the aforesaid altar. And he certainly said more correctly than Ciampini that St. Wenceslaus is exhibited on it as duke of Bohemia, not as king, and in ducal, not imperial, habit — as the very drawing of the same altar, engraved from Ciampini himself, makes most manifest.

[288] But on the contrary, although it seemed otherwise to our Janning in the History of the Vatican basilica, volume VI of June, part 2, page 97, number 75, I cannot agree with him concerning those two Saints standing on either side, whom Ciampini, confessing them unknown to himself, rightly suspected to be patrons of Bohemia. For I do not at all doubt that one of them, who to Turrigio is St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague and martyr, is St. Procopius, abbot of Sázava of the Order of St. Benedict, and one of the patrons of Bohemia, whose Acts have been illustrated in our Work at the IV day of July, on which he is honoured. This certainly his whole effigy indicates, which shows nothing episcopal about it except the pastoral crook, common to bishops and abbots, and which at the same time, by its black monastic habit and by the tonsure, represents a monk-abbot, not a bishop. And the other, standing on St. Wenceslaus's left, who, clothed in episcopal habit and marked out with mitre and pastoral staff, was called by Turrigio St. John III, bishop of Olomouc, I hold for certain to be the above-mentioned Adalbert. The reason is that this holy bishop and martyr too is one of the chief patrons of Bohemia, and therefore he beyond the rest is to be judged the man who, on the aforesaid altar of St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia, erected by an archbishop of Prague, is exhibited as the holy bishop.

[289] is here exhibited, Besides, I do not know whence Turrigio learned the sanctity of that John III, bishop of Olomouc. In the Catalogue of the bishops of Olomouc, drawn up by Augustinus, provost of the same and of the church of Brno, there does indeed occur a certain John, third not in name but in order — the first, that is, after SS. Cyril and Methodius, bishop of the Moravians — and he is said to have sat at the time when St. Wenceslaus was slain by his brother's crime; but of his sanctity and cult I have found nothing anywhere, not even among the proper Offices, of which I have one printed for the cathedral church of Olomouc and the whole diocese in the year 1630, and another for the college of our Society at Olomouc in the years 1679 and 1732; in all of which, however, as also in those of Prague, SS. Adalbert and Procopius have each his own sacred day. The middle image also is certainly that of St. Wenceslaus, painted in the manner in which he is wont to be painted elsewhere. The sword is the instrument of his martyrdom; why he bears a banner with an eagle, gather from what was discussed in §6. But I wonder that no mark of sanctity — a diadem, for instance, such as the two other Saints are marked with — has been added to him in the picture before us.

[290] and the painted panel is explained, Of the two others who venerate St. Wenceslaus on bended knees, that the one on the left is a bishop and a Cardinal is proved by his habit, such as Ciampini and Turrigio describe, and especially the latter, who expressly mentions also his mitre, omitted in the picture. Further, the eulogy of John Očko, born of the illustrious noble family of Vlašim, was woven by the above-cited Augustinus in the Catalogue of the bishops of Olomouc, by Balbinus in the Miscellanea, book 4, part 2, page 82, and by Pontanus in book 3 of Pious Bohemia; and Pessina in the Phosphorus of the church of Prague in various places, and others, have recorded him with great praise. From whom we have it that he was promoted from being the first provost of the royal chapel of All Saints at Prague to the bishopric of Olomouc, and thence, after Arnestus, who died in the year 1364, to the metropolitan see of Prague; and that he was made by the Roman Pontiff legate born of the Apostolic See, and created Cardinal priest with the title of the Twelve Apostles — both of which Augustine Oldoini, in the enlarged Ciacconius, volume 2 of the Lives of the Roman Pontiffs and Cardinals, column 650, attributes to Urban VI in the year 1379. But Turrigio, above at number 287, attributes the last to the same Pontiff indeed, but in the year 1376, in which the said Urban had not yet

ascended to the Pontificate. The same Bohemian writers mentioned above hand down that this John was most devoted to St. Wenceslaus, and that already before he obtained the bishopric he had promoted his cult in the church of Wrocław and in the college of Bautzen at his own expense.

[291] which was formerly seen on it It is likewise established that he was greatly dear to the emperor and king of Bohemia Charles IV, whose secretary and privy counsellor he was, and by whose help and favour he obtained the aforesaid dignities; so that everything favours the opinion which makes those two kneeling figures Charles IV and John Očko. Nevertheless, if that effigy of a bishop and Cardinal represents John Očko, archbishop of Prague, why is it said by the same cited writers to be that of Inco or Hyrico, bishop of Olomouc? In the name and the bishopric Tiberius Alpharanus had already gone before them, from whom Raphael Sindone, beneficed clerk of the Vatican basilica and keeper of its capitular archive, in the Historical Description of the altars of the said basilica, published at Rome in the year 1744, chapter 4, excerpted the following.

[292] Between the Roman door and the corner of this middle nave (in the old basilica), in the walls toward the East, is a most ancient altar, was formerly to be seen. dedicated to St. Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, martyr, endowed for the soul of Hyrico, bishop of Olomouc, now also under the name of St. Erasmus, bishop and martyr, because his image was set up there, and it was consecrated anew to the honour of both and of St. Bartholomew the apostle. Nay, on the altar too, which was afterwards restored by Pope Urban VIII in the new basilica, there was set — on the eye-witness testimony of Turrigio — this inscription: The altar of St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia, by Ainco, bishop of Olomouc. In truth, either John Očko — called also Ocellus by Pessina in the Phosphorus, page 542 — must have had another name besides, or I do not see how out of these Inco, Hinco, or Hyrico could have been formed. Concerning the title of bishop of Olomouc the difficulty is less; for John Očko, while he was bishop of Olomouc, might, out of his piety toward St. Wenceslaus, whose cult he had promoted elsewhere too, have caused that altar to be built at Rome; and then, when he was already archbishop of Prague and created Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, have ordered that painting to be set upon it, the altar retaining the earlier title of its founder, the bishop of Olomouc.

[293] Further, that in place of the same altar, destroyed along with the old basilica, In place of this old altar destroyed another was restored in the new one, the often-cited Turrigio, contemporary with the event and an eye-witness, teaches in these words: It pleased our lord Urban VIII to restore (in the new basilica) this altar of St. Wenceslaus, in which relics of his were placed, when on the XVII day of September in the year 1628 it was consecrated by the lord vicegerent, Antony Ricciullo, bishop of Belcastro and afterwards of Umbriatico, at which consecration I was present; and on the XXVI day of September in the year 1630, on the eve of the same Saint, his image, painted by Angelo Caroselli, was set up in it. In the same place is read: The altar of St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia, by Hinco, bishop of Olomouc. Similar things has also Raphael Sindone in the said little Work On the Altars and relics of the Vatican basilica, whom it will likewise be well to have heard. In the left arm (he says) of the cross of the basilica, toward the North, three altars are found. In the middle apse is seen the altar of SS. Processus and Martinian; on the right that of St. Erasmus, bishop and martyr; on the left that of St. Wenceslaus, martyr and duke of Bohemia.

[294] The panel of the first of these Valentin Le Fèvre rendered in colours; a new and more elegant one has been substituted that of the second Nicolas Poussin in 1629; that of the third Angelo Caroselli in 1630; all which panels Peter Paul Christopher, a Roman, presented to the life in mosaic work in the years 1737, 1739, 1743. Painted copies of which three panels are seen fixed in the second hall of the princes in the Apostolic palace of the Quirinal… These three altars were consecrated on the same day, that is, on the XV Kalends of October 1628, by Antony Ricciullo, bishop of Belcastro, vicegerent of the Cardinal vicar of the City, and relics were laid up in them. Namely, in the altar of St. Erasmus, relics of St. Valentine the martyr … in the other, that of St. Wenceslaus, of the holy Forty Martyrs, of St. Alexius the confessor, and of St. Mary of Egypt; and Indulgences were granted according to custom: namely, as he had set down before at the consecrations of the other altars, plenary Indulgences on the same day of consecration, and on the anniversary fifty years and as many quarantines to those praying at that altar. Here indeed Sindone mentions nothing of the relics of St. Wenceslaus himself, which nevertheless I believe were placed in the same altar, since Turrigio, who had stood by at the consecration, expressly asserts it.

[295] in the same new basilica. Another altar Both altars, namely the old and the new, Balbinus confounded in book 4 of the Miscellanea, part 1, page 15, when he says: At Rome in the Vatican, at St. Peter's, stands an elegant marble altar of St. Wenceslaus (since hardly any other of the holy kings has an altar in that basilica), built and endowed by John, bishop of Olomouc. On the feast-day of St. Wenceslaus it was honoured in the presence of all the Cardinals, to each of whom two scudi, as they call them, and to the poor bread and wine, were distributed. Two lamps — the one of silver, the other of meaner stuff, but with a foundation for a perpetual flame — Jaroslav, the first count of Martinic of his line, caused to be hung there in our age. Thus far concerning the Roman altar of St. Wenceslaus, and the cult customarily shown to him already from the fourteenth century in the old and the new Vatican basilica of St. Peter. In the same century, at Aachen also, in the royal basilica of St. Mary the Virgin, an altar was dedicated to his name and endowed by the emperor Charles IV for the convenience of Bohemian pilgrims. This is proved by the letter which Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, gave to the chapter of Prague for a priest to be substituted in the place of one deceased to serve that altar; which Pessina published in the Phosphorus, ray 2, page 85 and the following, from the original preserved in the archive of the chapter of Prague, and which I, because it is short, here reprint.

[296] with a priesthood in the basilica of Aachen To the honourable dean and chapter of the holy church of Prague, our beloved and devout. Honourable, devout, beloved. There is at present vacant the altar of B. Wenceslaus in the royal church of St. Mary of Aachen, of the diocese of Liège, whose right of patronage belongs to us as king of Bohemia; to which, as we ought, we should wish to present some fit priest knowing the Bohemian tongue, who might be able to hear the confessions of the Bohemians making pilgrimage thither: for it was for this reason that the most serene emperor Charles (the fourth of that name), our most dear great-grandfather, founded the aforesaid altar. We enjoin upon your devotions that, as speedily as you can, you take care to send to our majesty one priest who is willing and able fitly to serve the aforesaid altar, that we may be able at a suitable time to make the presentation, whose delay could not be without prejudice to the altar and to our right. We send you also the letters of the chapter of the aforesaid church of St. Mary, by which you will learn how urgently we are entreated for this presentation; be diligent in this, for you will show a very welcome pleasure to our serenity. Given at Vienna, on the fourth feria after the feast of St. John the Baptist, in the sixteenth year of our reigns of Hungary etc., and the second of Bohemia. These epochs designate the year of Christ 1455.

[297] was founded for him by the emperor Charles IV. There exist also other letters concerning the same altar, of Wladislaus, likewise king of Bohemia, in Balbinus in the Epitome, book 5, chapter XI, page 570, where it is said: In this year also (1502) king Wladislaus gave to the venerable dean and chapter of the royal church of B. Mary of Aachen royal letters, a copy of which we have read in manuscript codices: "The altar of the blessed martyr Wenceslaus in your church of Aachen, of the diocese of Liège, being vacant (he says) by the free resignation of the honourable Sigismund, dean of Boleslav, its last and immediate rector (the presentation to which altar, or right of patronage, is known to belong most fully to us, as king of Bohemia, both by right and by ancient custom), we have therefore thought fit to present to the same altar the honourable Matthias, canon of the collegiate church of Boleslav, our beloved and devout, commended to us in manifold ways for his loyalty and for the other gifts of virtue, etc. Given at Mělník on the VII of August in the year 1502, the ninth year of our reign." So Balbinus, in whom either the year of the Christian era or that of Wladislaus's reign is certainly faulty, whether you reckon these years from the reign of Bohemia, whose beginning is referred to the year 1471, or from that of Hungary, whose beginnings are referred to the year 1490.

§ XVII. His memory in the Martyrologies: ecclesiastical Offices in various places, and the favours of the Roman Pontiffs for his cult before the equipollent canonization: the extension of his Office to the universal Church, first ad libitum, then by precept.

[ ] On this day, which was that of his death, As the cult of St. Wenceslaus, duke and martyr, is celebrated in various places, so also frequent is his memory in the Martyrologies, some of which I shall here record according to our custom. I begin with the manuscript Martyrology or Calendar of the metropolitan church of Prague — not because it is more ancient than all the rest (for it is not older than the emperor Charles IV, and perhaps is later), but because it is chiefly in that church, where his sacred body rests, that he is honoured. In it, then, at the XXVIII day of September, we have this: The passion of St. Wenceslaus, martyr and duke of Bohemia; who, rising by night from his royal couch, frequents [] with bare feet the thresholds of the churches, the soles of his feet being wetted with blood by reason of the cold and the excess []; who by night carried firewood on his own body to widows and orphans; who, baking hosts with innocent and clean hands, distributed also the new wine for the Sacrifice throughout the churches; who, buying the boys of the heathen, born to slavery, and endowing them with the faith of Christ, gave them liberty. Envying the blessed deeds of this holy Man, his brother Boleslaus invited the holy Man to a banquet in the castle of Boleslav, and, while he was going in his accustomed manner to recite the morning Office, sent him with the glory of martyrdom to the Lord.

[299] Whose holy Man's bones his most pious prince Charles IV, R. J. S. A. and B. R., gathering together again, he is announced in various Martyrologies, adorned his tomb with pure gold and with most precious gems, and his head, placing on it a royal crown of gold and of most precious gems; and he sanctioned and decreed that his successors, the kings of Bohemia, should for perpetual time be crowned with the same. He adorned also the chapel in which the body of the aforesaid blessed Martyr rests; and in the church of Boleslav, in the place where the same holy Martyr was crowned with martyrdom, he endowed — perhaps here an altar, or a Mass, has been left out. Among the Calendars which Dominicus Georgius presented at the end of the reprinted Martyrology of Ado edited by Rosweyde, two also mention the same Saint: namely the Vatican one, which is of the beginning of the eleventh century, and the Palatine-Vatican one, which about

the twelfth century he judged to have been written. But whatever may be the case about that age, they are certainly much more ancient than the Prague one cited above; and the first of them announces him briefly on the same day thus: Of Wencizlawo, martyr; in the other, at the same day, there is read of him only: Of Venczhlaus, martyr. To the twelfth century belongs likewise Rosweyde's Usuardine codex, written namely in the year 1138, as our Sollerius shows out of Henschen in the Preface to the Usuardine Martyrology, chapter 3, article 4, §3. This likewise has: In Bohemia, of St. Wenizlaus, martyr.

[300] ancient and more recent, There come in also other supplements of Usuard. The Danish codex, which the said Sollerius judged to be no later than the fourteenth century, and with it the Greater Antwerp, the Louvain and the Alberg codices, say on this same day: At the city of Prague in Bohemia, of St. Wenzelaus (or) Wenceszlaus, duke and martyr. Who was greatly devout in the religion of Christ, so much so that, forgetting the dignity of his primacy, at the time of harvest and vintage he himself reaped and gathered the vintage, that it might be offered in sacrificial hosts by the hands of the priests. I pass over many announcements, some longer than others, which Sollerius recorded in his Usuard from various Usuardine supplements, both manuscript and published, and which may be read there. To these I add our manuscript Florarium of the Saints, hitherto unpublished, which, agreeing in part with the Danish codex and the rest, celebrates the holy Martyr with the following eulogy: At the city of Prague in Bohemia, of St. Wenceslaus, duke and martyr. Who was greatly devout in the religion of Christ, so much so that, forgetting his primacy, at the time of harvest and vintage he himself reaped and gathered the vintage, and cleansed and clarified that which was to be offered in sacrificial hosts by the hands of the priests, so that he himself in this part might have a share in the celebration of the sacred mysteries.

[301] as also in the Roman one, Envying whose holy devotion, and greedy of his princely honour, his brother Boizlaus, while the other was off his guard, laid him low unawares with a stroke of the smiting sword and made him a martyr of Christ in the year of Salvation 938. Who makes the city of Prague, where he rests, illustrious with many miracles. Thus far the author of the Florarium, who composed it in the year 1486. Finally — to omit other and more recent ones — he has his eulogy also in the Roman Martyrology of Peter Galesinius, framed in these words: In Bohemia, of St. Wenceslaus, martyr, who, duke of that province, famous for the report of all the virtues and above all of piety, was hated the more bitterly by his brother Boleslaus, a worshipper of idols, the more welcome he was to pious and good men; by whom, on account of his zeal for the Christian religion, he was slain, and was numbered among the blessed martyrs. To whose sanctity, on the day on which he was killed, Christ gave testimony, who, appearing in a vision to the king of Dacia, commanded a church to be built to his martyr. Baronius too placed the same Saint in his Roman Martyrology at the aforecited day of September.

[302] in which he was placed in the first position by Clement X: In it he is read to this day, with this difference, however: that whereas in the earlier editions, which were published by the authority and command of the supreme Pontiffs Gregory XIII and Urban VIII, he had been placed only in the sixth position in the series of Saints of this day, thereafter in another edition, revised by the authority of Clement X — a copy of which, printed at the Plantin press in the year 1678, we have — he was put in the first position; in which the newest edition also, again enlarged and corrected by our most holy Lord Benedict XIV, of happy memory, announces him in this manner: In Bohemia, of St. Wenceslaus, duke of the Bohemians and martyr, glorious for sanctity and miracles, who, slain in his brother's house, came victorious to the palm.

[303] Without doubt that change of place was introduced into the Roman Martyrology by the said Pontiff Clement X why he is commemorated among the Benedictines. because he granted that the Office of the same holy Duke and martyr should be read under a semidouble rite ad libitum by the whole Church of Christ, as we shall say in its own place. For the rest, I wish my readers to be warned here that not everything is approved by me which is related in the eulogies alleged above; for the contrary is manifestly clear from what has been discussed throughout the whole course of this Commentary, to which I refer them, lest I be troublesome by often repeating the same things. It will be well also to have observed here in a few words that the same Saint has been inserted by Arnold Wion in book 3 of the Tree of Life, and by Gabriel Bucelin in the Benedictine Menology — not because they believed him to have been of their Order, but because he had already resolved to live as a monk under the Rule of St. Benedict when he was butchered by his impious brother, and thus, though not in fact, yet by vow or desire, he seemed to them able to be reckoned among the Benedictines.

[304] The Martyrologies which we have hitherto produced rightly assign the memory of St. Wenceslaus's birthday into heaven to the XXVIII day of September. His other festivals. Another feast of his, namely of the Translation, the manuscript Calendar of Prague cited above records at the IV day of March, saying: The Translation of St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia and martyr, from the town of Boleslav to the church of Prague. For when the holy Duke himself, resting incorrupt for three years in that town, was renowned for many miracles, and his envious brother Boleslaus, wishing that they should be ascribed not to that holy Man but rather to St. Vitus, ordered his body to be translated secretly one night to the church of St. Vitus; on which day and afterwards he was renowned for many and very great miracles. With this agree the manuscript codex of Hagenau and the Lübeck-Cologne edition, among the Usuardine supplements in our Sollerius, in the former of which is read: On the same day, the translation of St. Wentzeselaus, duke of the Bohemians, martyr; in the latter: At the city of Prague in Bohemia, the translation of St. Wenzeslaus, duke and martyr. Finally the memory of the same Saint recurs in the said manuscript Calendar of Prague at the XXVII day of June in these words: The Recollection of the bones or relics of St. Wenceslaus, our glorious patron, performed by the reverend father in Christ, the lord Arnestus, first archbishop of Prague, by mandate of the most serene lord Charles IV etc., he himself being present. Consult what was said above at number 207. I pass on to other matters.

[305] Already from that time various bishoprics, especially in Germany, attended the sacred memory of St. Wenceslaus with an annual ecclesiastical Office, [Already before the canonization he was honoured with an Office of worship in very many places,] before it was extended to the universal Church by Pontifical authority. In the archdiocese of Prague he was honoured with a twofold Office: namely of the Translation on the IV day of March with a greater double rite, and of his Birthday or martyrdom on the XXVIII day of September with a double rite of the first class with an Octave. Both feasts were even then kept with a double rite in the bishopric of Olomouc, and the Birthday indeed even with an Octave, but in the cathedral church only. The diocese of Wrocław in Silesia also kept the Translation with an Office of semidouble rite, the Birthday with a double. Both, moreover, had already been prescribed in the Proper of the Patrons of Poland, published in print in the year 1637 by the authority of the most illustrious Cardinal George Radziwiłł, bishop of Cracow; but in this the Translation had been put off to the V day of March, because on the day before that St. Casimir is honoured; and the feast of the Birthday was celebrated on this day of September likewise with an Octave in the cathedral church of Cracow, but in the other churches and dioceses of Poland with a double rite indeed, but without an Octave.

[306] and by the supreme Pontiffs There exist in our Museum an old Breviary of the diocese of Warmia in Royal Prussia, and a still more ancient Votive Missal of the kingdom of Sweden, in which the memory of St. Wenceslaus was likewise kept on this same day. Finally, that I be not longer to no purpose, very many bishoprics of Germany already at that time venerated the same holy Martyr with an annual Office or commemoration — to which I add also the archbishopric of Utrecht in Belgium — as their own Breviaries, which we have in our Museum in printed form, give assurance, before the cult of St. Wenceslaus had been propagated through the whole Church of Christ by the authority of the Apostolic See: of which matter we must now treat. Wenceslaus's sanctity the Roman Pontiffs had long since recognized by more than one token; among whom John XIII, in the Bull by which he raised the church of Prague to cathedral dignity, called that same church the church of SS. Vitus and Wenceslaus, martyrs, in the very century in which he had suffered, as has already been observed above. Boniface IX enriched his chapel at Prague with singular Indulgences in letters which Pessina presents in the Phosphorus, page 199, and in which the Pontiff speaks thus.

[307] [he was honoured with the title of Saint, and with Indulgences to be obtained in his chapel] Desiring, therefore, that the chapel of St. Wenceslaus, in which the body of the same Saint venerably rests, situated in the church of Prague, may be frequented with fitting honours, and that Christ's faithful may the more willingly flow together to it for the sake of devotion … to all who are truly penitent and confessed, and who shall devoutly visit the said chapel on the fifth feria next after the Octaves of Easter, with the two days immediately following, we grant yearly that Indulgence and remission of sins which those visiting the church of St. Mary in Portiuncula, otherwise called of the Angels, outside the walls of Assisi, on the first and second days of the month of August, obtain yearly in whatsoever manner; these presents to endure for perpetual time. Given at Rome at St. Peter's, on the VIII Kalends of April, in the tenth year of our Pontificate, that is, of Christ 1400. There follow in the same place other Apostolic letters also, given by him in the same year and on the same day to the archbishop of Prague, by which it is granted to him and to his successors that they may appoint twelve priests to absolve, with the amplest power, the penitents who are to visit the Saint's chapel on the aforesaid days.

[308] and with feasts. But Pessina adds: This so great favour, granted out of the plenitude of Apostolic power, remains in its force to this day, having been confirmed thereafter by several Pontiffs, and most lately, within the memory of our fathers, by Clement VIII. Hence every year, through that triduum which for that reason long since deserved to be called the Triduum of graces, and otherwise also the GOLDEN one (as I find in the most ancient manuscripts), the aforementioned chapel of the divine Wenceslaus is frequented with the greatest devotion of the people and with a concourse of the whole triple city. So he himself, when the seventeenth century was already far advanced. There exist in the same place, page 202 and following, yet other letters of the same Pontiff, written in the following year, in which he bestowed indulgences both on various other days and on the festivals of St. Wenceslaus, of his Translation, and of the dedication of the chapel. Innocent VIII too granted Indulgences in the manner of a Jubilee in the same church on the feast of St. Wenceslaus, from first Vespers to Compline of the following day inclusive. The letters, given in the year 1487, Pessina recites at page 304 and following, where they may be read. Finally, an altar dedicated to his name in the old Vatican basilica at Rome already from the fourteenth century, and restored by Urban VIII in the same new basilica: these things, I say, and others, sufficiently show what was the esteem of the supreme Pontiffs concerning the sanctity of Wenceslaus.

[309] But since in all these there was contained no canonization, either formal or equipollent, The archbishop of Prague petitions Clement IX the merits of the holy Duke and martyr truly required that

the Apostolic See should decree him this glory also on earth; which was at length performed by Benedict XIII, as we shall presently see. This was above all at heart with Matthew Ferdinand of Bílenberk, archbishop of Prague, who in the same year 1669, in which he had entered upon possession of his see, petitioned the supreme Pontiff Clement IX for so praiseworthy a cause, both by letters written in his own hand and by a petition published at the Prague press, which I have in my hands, and to which he gave this title: The glory of the most holy duke and martyr Wenceslaus, patron of the illustrious kingdom of Bohemia, most briefly sketched under twelve heads, and presented and dedicated to the most blessed father Clement IX, Supreme Pontiff. These twelve titles of heads or arguments, by which he attempted to move the said supreme Pontiff to grant that favour, it has seemed good to subjoin here.

[310] Title I. The glory of St. Wenceslaus from the very ancient nobility of his forebears that the Saint's Office might be extended to the universal Church and the august nobility of his descendants. Title II. The glory of his upbringing and happy studies. Title III. The glory from his princely and royal dignity. Title IV. The glory of the Christian religion propagated. Title V. The glory of his piety. Title VI. The glory of his other virtues, especially of mercy. Title VII. The glory from his veneration of the holy city of Rome and of the supreme Pontiffs. Title VIII. The glory of his martyrdom. Title IX. The glory of his miracles. Title X. The glory of his enrolment, or public reckoning among the holy martyrs. Title XI. The glory from the piety of kings and emperors toward this holy Martyr. Title XII. The glory from the love of the peoples and their zeal toward St. Wenceslaus. And after he had briefly set these out, he thus concluded in an Epilogue: Thus far the titles of glory of the most holy martyr Wenceslaus, which we could have enlarged with countless examples, had not brevity pleased us. This one glory can be added to the most holy Martyr on earth: that he who is famed for nobility, for the propagation of the Christian religion, for piety, for love of the poor, for veneration of the supreme Pontiffs, for virginity, for martyrdom, for miracles, for his kinships with and affection toward kings and princes, for the love of the peoples and for so many miracles, should be honoured in the universal Church.

[311] Hungary has her Stephen in the priestly Breviary, but Clement IX dying in the meantime, Poland her Casimir, Spain her Hermenegild, France her Louis, Germany her Henry: our Wenceslaus yields to them in no kind of virtue, and in antiquity surpasses them all. Finally, after much else, he closed his petition thus: From this most clement and most holy Pontiff, then (whom may God preserve very long to his Church), all the members of the church of Bohemia, full of the best hope — clergy and people, least and greatest, in a word the whole — with most ardent desire, with outstretched affections and hearts, upon their knees await that he may crown his own benefits and the merits of St. Wenceslaus (whose name sounds Greater glory), and may command his memory to be celebrated throughout the Christian world to the greater glory of God in his Martyr. Thus far the said archbishop; but his pious endeavours were for a little while disturbed by the death of Clement IX, which fell on the IX day of December of the same year 1669. In Clement IX's place there was substituted, on the XIX day of the month of April of the following year 1670, in the Roman Chair of St. Peter, Emilio Bonaventura Altieri, called in the Pontificate Clement X.

[312] Clement X, at the prayers of the emperor Leopold With him the cause begun under his predecessor was pursued by Leopold of Austria, emperor of the Romans, through Frederick, Cardinal of Hesse, son of Louis surnamed the Faithful, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, who, having abjured his paternal heresy, had embraced the Catholic faith, and at that time, as Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, acted at the Apostolic See as protector of the Roman empire and of the German nation, and also of Aragon and Sardinia, and as the emperor Leopold's spokesman. What was then effected, our most Holy Lord Benedict XIV teaches us in his most excellent Work On the beatification of the Servants of God and the canonization of the Blessed, book 1, chapter 41, where, treating of a certain equipollent canonization — by which, namely (these are the most holy Lord's words), the supreme Pontiff commands some Servant of God, being in ancient possession of a cult, and concerning whose heroic virtues or martyrdom and miracles there is a constant assertion of trustworthy historians, and whose continued fame of prodigies does not fail, to be honoured in the universal Church by the recitation of an Office and the celebration of a Mass on some determined day, no formal definitive sentence intervening, no judicial processes premised, and none of the accustomed ceremonies employed — where, I say, treating of an equipollent canonization of this kind, the aforesaid Pontiff subjoins some examples of it, and among others has the following concerning our St. Wenceslaus, at §9.

[313] granted this with a semidouble rite ad libitum only; But the equipollent canonization of the same Wenceslaus takes its beginning from the year 1670, in the time of Clement X, who, at the earnest prayers of Leopold, king of the Romans, elected emperor, presented to him through the Cardinal of Hesse, granted on the XXVI day of July 1670 that his Office should thereafter be recited in the universal Church under a semidouble rite ad libitum, and should be added to the Roman Breviary, to be recited under the same rite on the XXVIII day of September by all who are bound to the canonical Hours, secular and regular, of either sex; and then on the XXIX day of November of the same year, at the prayers of Matthew Ferdinand, bishop of Prague, he ratified for the universal Church itself the proper Collect and Lessons, revised and approved in the Congregation of Sacred Rites, the semidouble rite ad libitum being nevertheless always retained. The said decree runs thus: The Sacred Congregation of Rites, at the prayers of Matthew Ferdinand, archbishop of Prague, presented in the place and name of his imperial Majesty, has approved for the universal Church the above-mentioned Lessons and Collect only of St. Wenceslaus the martyr, to be recited ad libitum under a semidouble rite on the XXVIII day of September, his feast, diligently revised and reported by the most Eminent Lord Cardinal Bona; and has permitted that all Christ's faithful of either sex, both secular and regular, who are bound to the canonical Hours, may recite them; and has granted that they may be printed. On this XXIX day of November, 1670.

M., bishop of Porto, Cardinal Ginetti.

Place of the † seal.

Bernardino Casali, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.

[314] but Benedict XIII also under precept. Nowhere have I read whether, and what, was further attempted for the promotion of St. Wenceslaus's cult after this permission of reciting the Office in the universal Church, until the Pontificate of Benedict XIII and the reign of the emperor Charles VI, when his equipollent canonization was at last happily brought to its end. So again the most holy Lord Benedict XIV teaches, going on thus in the place just cited: But since a rite, whether semidouble or double ad libitum, cannot import an equipollent canonization, because it does not carry a precept, according to what has been said above; therefore the perfect equipollent canonization of St. Wenceslaus is to be established in the decree issued in the time of the Pontificate of Benedict XIII, on the XIV day of March 1729, by which it was namely enacted that the aforesaid Saint should be honoured in the universal Church with an Office, semidouble indeed, but of precept.

. read frequentabat* (he used to frequent).

. perhaps nivium* (of the snows).

VITA

By Christann of Scala, monk, nephew of the Saint himself by his brother.

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

Wenceslaus M., duke and patron of Bohemia, at Stará Boleslav in Bohemia. (S.)

BHL Number: 8825

By Christann.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's birth and succession to the duchy: his upbringing: the slaying of St. Ludmila foretold by him: his deeds for religion: the translation of the same St. Ludmila.

[ ] Born of a pious father and an impious mother, succeeding to the duchy, After the passing of Spytihněv [a] his brother Wratislaus is known to have taken up the helm of the realm ^b, taking to wife a woman by name Dragomir, from the province of the pagan Slavs which is called Ztodor, to be likened ^c to that Jezebel who by her malice butchered the prophets, or to the wife of the first-formed Eve, who brought forth Cain and Abel. For indeed Dragomir bore of that prince two sons, the one called Wenceslaus, the other Boleslaus ^d… Therefore, as we have said before, when the aforesaid duke Wratislaus succeeded to the realm of his deceased brother, the realm being made firm, he set up a basilica in honour of B. George the martyr; but, forestalled by death, he by no means beheld its long-desired consecration ^e. But his son Wenceslaus, of forward age ^f, of a spirit burning in the divine law, he had handed over to be instructed in letters in the city which was called Budeč, where a church consecrated by his elder brother Spytihněv in honour of the Prince of the Apostles B. Peter stood, and still stands ^g.

[2] And when, shrewd in wit, he committed deeply to memory all things which were delivered to him by his tutor, he is first brought up by St. Ludmila his grandmother, the Spirit inspiring him — his father meanwhile departing from this life at about the age of thirty-three — he is called back to the metropolitan city of Prague, and is raised by all the people to his father's seat ^h. But because he had not yet perfectly cleared the flower of his boyhood or adolescence, at the outset all the satraps, by a prudent counsel, entrusted the untrained Duke himself, with his brother Boleslaus, to Ludmila of blessed memory, the handmaid of Christ, to be brought up, until strength of age should grow upon them by God's favour. Seeing which, the mother of the aforesaid boys, who, widowed of her husband, made use of 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 upbringing of the Youths whom the whole people had committed to her mother-in-law to be reared, she herself would be deprived of the realm and of her goods, and that the other would obtain the whole dominion for herself; and, a most perverse counsel being entered upon with the men of Belial, she strives with all effort to destroy her.

[3] then by her heathen mother Dragomir, But the venerable and devout handmaid of Christ Ludmila, learning this, seizing the arms of humility and patience against the goad of arrogance, took pains to send word by intermediaries to her daughter-in-law, saying: No portion of thy realm has invaded my mind with the spirit of ill-flattering greed, nor do I desire to have any dominion over thee. Receive thy Sons, and, as it pleases thy mind, reign with them; but grant me the liberty of serving almighty Christ in whatsoever place it may please. But … the duchess, namely her daughter-in-law, disdained not only to receive but moreover even to hear the most gentle and most kindly entreaty of St. Ludmila. Seeing which, the handmaid of Christ, … taking herself with her people away from the metropolitan city, went to a certain castle not far off, whose name is Tetín ⁱ…

[4] from whom, as the holy Youth had learned by divine revelation, But the blessed Wenceslaus, although he was still of tender age, living with his mother, shone in those days also with the spirit of prophecy, and knew by open vision all things that were to come, Christ the Lord revealing them to him. In the hush of night, the court of a certain priest Paul — who, devoutly clinging to the side of the oft-mentioned B. Ludmila, most devotedly waited upon her — a court which was fortified with pleasant and spacious circuits of buildings, appeared before the most dear [*] gaze of the holy and God-filled Wenceslaus stripped of all the adornment of its walls, and altogether devoid of any dwelling of human habitation. Which, indeed, he himself, the heaviness of fleshly sleep being driven off,

roused by the ever-wakeful watching of his heart, making known in prudent speech to certain persons the things which had been seen, and thereupon setting forth with a prophesying mouth what the vision presented had foretold as more truly to come, addresses those he had called together with words of this kind. As I lay down late, dear friends, and you, O my familiar young clerics, a grave and lofty vision lifted me up 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 habitation of men.

[5] and had foretold, St. Ludmila is slain, At which sight I am cast down in sorrow, and am dismayed with an inward trouble of anxiety for the faithful; but nevertheless, as I am carried over by the immense loving-kindness of the Knower of all things into that hope by which it is granted to the believer that all things are possible, I set myself to explain the truth of this dream — to be fully known now that the event is at hand — by the interpretations of a clear solution, unto a sure unfolding of the matter. For the destruction of the houses which was seen portends the blessed death of my grandmother Ludmila, that holy and venerable matron; who, namely, by a raging conspiracy formed by my mother — a heathen as much by race as by the defilement of her works — with certain servants equally prepared for the crime, will, at a time not far hence to come, undergo the cruel passion of the body at the hands of the rushing weapons of the perverse, for the profession of the Christian name and faith. But the deserted breadth of Paul's portico, as the vision testifies, prefigures the pitiable expulsion from the realm of the clergy enclosed within our protection, and the undeserved loss of all their steadfastness.

[6] For indeed my mother of execrable memory, biting with envy against the life-giving sect which I press on to confess with all my power, to cherish from the heart, to follow and to love, and shall press on hereafter, unrecallable to any other course, and the clerics are driven out. will strive to cast out of the realm more harshly, deprived of earthly means, those same clerics of the various orders, because they do not refuse to be of one mind with me. Nor at last is the mind conscious of the truth disappointed by this conjecture of shrewd foreknowing; but, as the fitting tokens of the interpretation had sounded, it is established that not long afterwards all these things were fulfilled in unbroken order: namely, as regards the slaying of the matron already written of, and the fierce expulsion of the clergy of the religious houses lying round about in a long circuit, which house was promptly yielding itself to her subjection, nay, to her most bountiful largess ^k… These things being so done, Christ consenting, the blessed Wenceslaus, elected duke of old, passing beyond the years of boyhood, shone with the most pleasing flower of youth, turning over in deep memory all things which had been delivered to him by his teacher of letters, and desired with burning spirit to fulfil in deed what he had received by the ear.

[7] Wherefore his treacherous mother, with certain sons of Belial who agreed with her, He himself, long forbidden in vain by her from the offices of piety, envying his acts and his most holy pursuits, entering upon counsel together, said: Alas! what are we doing, and whither shall we turn ourselves? For our prince, who was raised by us to the summit of the realm, has been perverted by the clerics, and, made as it were a monk, does not suffer us to walk along the steep and accustomed path of our vices. And if he does this in boyhood or adolescence, what think you will he do in his young manhood or in old age? From that day, therefore, they began to be exceedingly importunate with him, rebuking him exceedingly, and heaping upon him, importunate, very many other wicked things. All which the Man dear to God, repelling them with the arms of faith and fortifying himself with the shield of patience, endured with unhurt spirit. For indeed the impious ones, assailing with assiduous snares both his clerics and certain Religious by whose teaching he was fed, strove to butcher them, and terrified them with the greatest threats, so that none of them was able to have access to him.

[8] But he himself, aware of all these things, secretly making postern-ways ^l with men faithful to him, having shaken off her dominion, when the sun was falling to its setting, having secretly summoned some cleric or other, and learning by night all things that were profitable to him, at the dawning of the twilight let his teacher, or the cleric dear to him, depart in hiding; and hiding his little codex ^m and carrying 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, even as the book of Wisdom testifies: The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails driven deep. But the blessed Wenceslaus said: Why, ye sons of wicked men and lying seed, and ye unjust men, 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 at least do you hinder the rest? For my part, if hitherto I have lived under your providence or power, from this time forward I reject it; I desire to serve almighty God with a sincere spirit ⁿ.

[9] Thereafter there arose, on account of this same matter and of various other things to be settled by dispute, a division among the chief men themselves, banishes her with her seditious followers, between those religious men who clung to the Duke's side and the rest who supported the most wicked party of the impious lady; and the counsellors and chief men 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, though it was the smallest, nevertheless prevailed against the manifold party, as always, of the unjust. For the ever-remembered duke Wenceslaus, anxious for the obtaining of peace, the Holy Spirit inspiring him, took counsel in his heart how he might drive out of the country his mother, who was the cause of all the wickedness — so that, she being driven off, and with her all the impious men who agreed with her, the fury of the discords might be lulled on either side, and the peace of Christ's Church might increase, and all, possessing one and the same Lord, might most perfectly learn the true doctrine of Christ; and that, all things being arranged which were seen to pertain to the peace of the realm, and the sons of discord driven out and expelled, quiet being restored, he might call his mother back again with honour to her own.

[10] and afterwards calls her back: the body of St. Ludmila All which, God the maker helping him, he also fulfilled in deed. For he drove his mother from the realm with the greatest disgrace, almighty God rendering to her a worthy vengeance for the shedding of the innocent blood of B. Ludmila, which she had shed without cause. But because he was full of that chaste fear which endures for ever and ever, mindful of the divine precepts by which we ought to honour father and mother, he brought her back again after a time had passed; yet she lacked the honour of her former dominion until the day of her death. But passing over all these things — how they were done — because of their enormity, let us pursue what we have begun. After many adversities and hardships that she endured, she suffered even the slaying of her own Son by her younger offspring ^o. Thereafter B. Wenceslaus, recalling his grandmother, of how great sanctity she had been in this present life, and how great a merit of glory she obtained with the Almighty, wholly bathed in a shower of tears, having entered upon a most sacred counsel with priests and certain Religious, sent them to the aforesaid castle of Tetín, commanding them that they should bring even to him, by a worthy translation, her bones or the dust of her consumed flesh; and he himself, the Holy Spirit revealing it to him, making it known to a few joined to him in familiarity, was certain that, the divine clemency co-operating, the said envoys would draw some measure of wonders there [p].

[11] he takes care to have translated from Tetín to Prague, Now the body of the blessed and God-devoted handmaid Ludmila was found on the fourteenth of the Kalends of November, at the twelfth hour, on the fourth feria. They brought her into Prague on the third day, the sixth feria, at the twelfth hour of the same month, with immense gladness, all rejoicing and praising Christ. For her conveyers, before they brought her into the city, sent ahead to the Prince bearers of the good news; who, coming, found that he had laid his limbs to sleep, and awoke him full of joy, and brought him such gladness: that, by the favour of almighty God, they had found the body of so great and such a matron, namely his grandmother, uncorrupt. Who, rising at once and hastening with the utmost eagerness to the church, paid immense thanks to Christ the Lord. When the sun was lighting the earth and its radiance driving off the darkness, having summoned the clergy and the throng of the faithful, he prepares to go to meet her with a great procession.

[12] and, when he had tried in vain to bury it in a church not yet consecrated, And there meet him also the faithful bearers, conveying the oft-mentioned remains of St. Ludmila, which the priests and levites, at once eagerly laying upon their shoulders, blessing God with psalms and praises, brought into the city; and entering the church, they set them before the pavement [q]… Thereafter the Prince, entering upon counsel with the priests, uncovered her body before all the people, that all might give credence that she had been kept uncorrupt by Christ the Lord… Then, a grave [] having been dug out of the earth and made ready [], they attempted to entomb her in the same basilica. But out of that same grave water suddenly flooded up; which very many, beholding, took in mind that that place of sepulture by no means pleased the handmaid of Christ [r]… Then, a short space of time having elapsed, the aforesaid Prince, sending envoys to Regensburg, consulted the bishop of that city by name Tuto [s] — because the men of Bohemia at that time were his parishioners — as to what he should do concerning the above-noted body.

[13] Who [t] … in his answers sent these words, namely that they should commit the body … that being dedicated by the bishop, he happily accomplishes it. to burial, until it should behold the glory of Christ. Wherefore the Prince, kindled with immense divine zeal, entreated the aforesaid prelate with humble prayer that he would deign to come even to him, and himself commit the body to burial, and dedicate the basilica, which still lacked the pontifical blessing. And arriving, he first consecrated the church to the Lord; and after this, six circuits of days having elapsed, he entombed the aforesaid little body in the very place where the water had flooded up. A wondrous thing, and sufficient to declare the merit of Christ's handmaid! namely that, when the priests wished to entomb her in a place already consecrated, water arose; but when the fellow-bishop had come and the sacred basilica had been consecrated from the ground up, it was not fittingly enough done — that she who happily enjoyed the blessed life of her converse should be buried with a greater blessing, who was to be placed with the Saints at Christ's right hand [u]. These things, then, being duly performed, the fellow-bishop, rewarded as was worthy by the Prince, sought his own home again.

ANNOTATA.

Ludmila, §6, and what is to be said here below at number 12 and the two following.

p. What is here passed over you have in the Life of St. Ludmila, number 26 and the following; but what pertains to this translation, in the previous Commentary there, §5, and in today's Commentary likewise, §5.

q. For what is omitted here and just below, go to the Life of St. Ludmila, number 28.

r. Go to the said Life, number 29.

s. Concerning the time in which Tuto sat in the church of Regensburg, I have treated in the previous Commentary, number 122, and in the previous Commentary to the Life of St. Ludmila, numbers 62 and 63. For the rest, he rightly says that the Bohemians at that time belonged to the diocese of Regensburg, since they had no bishop of their own before the year 971, in which Pope John XIII first granted them one, the church of SS. Vitus and Wenceslaus at Prague being erected into a cathedral.

t. What I have here and a little after cut away, see in the Life of St. Ludmila, number 29.

u. This faulty passage I attempted to restore thus in the Annotations to the Life of St. Ludmila, chapter 3, letter f: A wondrous thing, and sufficient to declare the merit of Christ's handmaid; namely that, when the priests wished to entomb her in a place already consecrated (not fittingly enough, since she had happily enjoyed the blessed life of her converse), water arose; but when the fellow-bishop had come and the sacred basilica had been consecrated from the ground up, so that she might be buried with a greater blessing who was to be placed with the Saints at Christ's right hand, no water was found in that same place.

. or clarissimo* (most clear)?

. or effossa*?

. or compositaque*?

CHAPTER II.

The notable virtues of the holy Duke, and his exceptional piety toward the most holy Eucharist: his contempt of the duchy and his desire of the monastic life: his slaying by his brother's crime, and his burial.

[ ] Endowed from his youth with many virtues, Therefore, from the time when his realm was settled and confirmed ^b, Christ the maker helping him, what the blessed duke Wenceslaus showed himself to be toward Christ, and what a vessel of election he offered himself, mind, tongue and page fail to tell; and at the same time, weighed down by the mass of my sins, I cannot set forth how great losses the Soldier of Christ, warring for the Lord, inflicted upon the devil, or how many sheaves of Christ that faithful servant gathered into his barn. But that I may say a few things out of many: from his boyhood by no means departing from the discipline of the Lord, he was truthful in speech, just in judgment, faithful in what was entrusted to him, exceeding the measure of human loving-kindness. For when any of the accused, at the assize of the judges and at his coming into the province ^c, had been condemned by the judges to a capital sentence, he, seizing on any occasion whatsoever, withdrew and hid himself where he could, recalling the threats of Christ in the Gospel, who threatens: Judge not, that ye be not judged; condemn not, that ye be not condemned ^d. Destroying the prisons and gibbets built in ancient times, which had endured to these days ^e; being the untiring consoler of orphans, widows, the poor, the mourning and the wounded; filling the hungry, refreshing the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, burying the dead, receiving guests and strangers and neighbours as his own; honouring priests, clerics and other monks as the Lord; opening the way of truth to the erring; observing humility, patience, gentleness, and charity, which is above all things; taking nothing from anyone by force or fraud — he adorned his army not only with the best arms but also his own body with clothing.

[15] With these and virtues of this kind he flourished, distinguished from his very first training; he severely chastises his body amid the delicacies of the court; and applying the cross of Christ to his limbs, he was mindful of the divine precepts by which it is said: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For indeed in Lent or in the winter season, he walked barefoot along the icy and steep path from city to city ^f, visiting the churches of Christ on foot, so that his footprints were seen wet with the gore of blood; and using hair-shirts exceedingly rough, and this for the keeping of cleanness by ablution, which up to these times are preserved as though new, out of reverence for him; and constantly clad, like a monk, in woollen tunics next the flesh, but outwardly wrapped in the best and royal garments, he shone before God and men; refreshing his limbs with scanty food, ever watchful, he ceased not to render immense thanks to God alone. But if ever it had befallen him, as a Prince lying among so many wild beasts ^h, to have drunk over-abundantly late on the day before (a custom beyond his usual), shaking himself from sleep at daybreak and hastening most swiftly to the church [*], he would strip himself of whatever was best among his garments and give it to whatever priest or cleric he found there, and cast himself at his feet, earnestly asking that he would the more attentively entreat Christ the Lord for him, that he would mercifully pardon him the fault committed by him on the night before.

[16] he makes the bread and wine for the Masses; he overthrows idolatry. In the divine offices he was so assiduous that daily he presented to the Lord his own oblation, made with his own hands. For in the time of harvest, in the silence of the dead of night, he went to seek his own field with the client most faithful to him (concerning whom afterwards a chief and notable prodigy will be set down, to declare the merit of both ⁱ); and reaping the wheat, carrying it on his own shoulders, he brought it home, and grinding it with a hand-mill, himself baker and duke, he sifted the flour; and going for water, likewise drawing it by night, he professed it in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore also, bringing the aforesaid home, mixing it with the fine flour, he made the oblate; and hastening to the vineyard, plucking the clusters and crushing them with his own hands and pouring them into a jar, he kept them for the use of the holy Sacrifice ^k. But because the superstitious rites of the pagans had not yet been plucked up by the roots, while very many hastened to offer wicked sacrifices to demons, and were defiled at once by the meats and drinks from them, he never consented to these things nor was defiled by them; but he withdrew himself in all things on every occasion, destroyed the prisons, and by his piety utterly rooted out the gibbets and torments which had until then existed for the racking of men ^l, and levelled the shrines of the profane with the ground.

[17] He kindly cherishes clerics from abroad; he corrects the wicked, This report of him being drunk in by the worshippers of Christ, priests, levites and very many servants of God flow together to him from one another, like bees to their hives, from the places of the Bavarians, the Swabians and other provinces, with relics of the Saints and very many libraries; all of whom, receiving them with immense honour and embracing them with a grateful spirit, he attended upon as was fitting, bestowing abundantly a store of gold or silver, cheerfully lavishing trusina ^m and mantiperia ⁿ or garments, and serving all as need required — all these teachers wondering at his learning ^o — so that he might be seen to cry out with the Psalmist: I have understood above all that teach me, because thy commandments are my meditation; in whose mind alone the brightness of the precious pearl shone. On whom also the Lord deigned to confer very great grace of loving-kindness, so that he came off victor in very many battles also. Tall of countenance, embracing chastity, although this is a rare force [*] among those married in wedlock [p]; longing to end this present life. Always having a gentle discourse with the meek, but with the harsh, and with vagabonds, and with those given to surfeiting or to drink, or wishing to stray from the teaching or from the straight path, kindled with divine zeal, if he could not otherwise lay hold of them, he at least summoned them on the occasion of his own table and beat them with mighty scourges [q].

[18] he wins many for God; he builds the church of St. Vitus: Always taking up the shield of faith against the ancient enemy, and with the javelin of the Holy Spirit, which is the word of God, incessantly assailing the airy powers of this world. For he was without reproach a true worshipper of Christ, according to the Apostolic precepts reproving, beseeching, rebuking many untiringly; inviting all to the supper of the true Father of the household, and, having plucked them from the jaws of the devil and placed them in the bosom of holy mother Church, he assiduously refreshed them with divine nourishment. Then, the divine grace inspiring his heart, purposing to found a church to the Lord in honour of B. Vitus the martyr, he sends envoys to the bishop of Regensburg [r], in whose Diocese, as we have said, Bohemia at that time stood, according to the statutes of the Canons, that the bishop might grant him leave to build a basilica; My father, he said, once set up a church in honour of B. George; but I myself, with your leave, long to found one in the same manner in honour of the blessed martyr of Christ, Vitus. Which the venerable bishop having heard, with giving of thanks and stretching out his hands to Christ the Lord, he declares: Bear back these commands to my most blessed son Wenceslaus on your return: Thy church stands already most beautifully built before the Lord [s]. Which words the Prince catching with his ears, is gladdened in heart; presently he laid the foundations of the church, and disposed its parts most excellently.

[19] Nor content with these things, he wished moreover to go to the thresholds of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul at Rome, [he resolves to hand over the duchy to his brother and to take the monastic habit at Rome;] that he might seek out the Pope of that time, to the end that, clothing him in monastic garments, he might shear him into a cleric; and that, leaving his principality for the love of God, he might hand it over to his brother (alas, too much intent on secular deeds); and that he himself, living in peace, might gather some few little sheep for Christ the Lord. Which also he would have fulfilled in deed, had not the aforesaid work of the basilica hindered him. But the enemy of the human race, assailing the ranks of the faithful from their very beginnings, when he is wholly unable to overcome the unconquerable Servant of Christ, turns to his ancient weapons, striving to overthrow the Christian faith. For his younger brother, whom in the earlier parts we made equal with him [t], and of whom we made mention a little after — to whom, all worldly pomps being left behind,

he was disposing to hand over all things — being forestalled by the very many counsels of malignant men, who grieved that they must leave their accustomed ways and that it was by no means permitted to do unlawful things [u], sharpened the weapons of hatred and of slaying against his most holy Brother. Of all which he himself, foreknowing by the inspiration of the kindly Spirit, no otherwise than as a hart thirsting for the streams of waters, longed to attain the palm of the glory of martyrdom; yet by no means from his brother's hand (fearing his everlasting destruction [x]) — he ever had his confidence in Christ.

[20] Now these things were done in the times of Henry, king of the Saxons, [he is present undaunted at his brother's banquet, where he had known of the snares laid for his life;] who first among them, Christ being propitious to him, set the diadem upon himself [y], to whom that blessed man was constantly joined as a friend. Therefore, to pursue what we have begun: Boleslaus, having his own house or roof in a town called after his own name [z], being now on every side wounded by the darts of the devil and kindled with the greed of ruling, when the solemnity of the blessed martyrs Cosmas and Damian — which is honoured two days before that of the blessed archangel Michael — was at hand there, where a church stands consecrated in honour of those same Saints, judging it a fit cause for seizing his opportunity, guilefully summons his aforesaid blessed Brother as though to a banquet [aa], but, as truly appeared, rather to be slain; which things, although they were most fully known to him, yet remaining with undaunted spirit, having kissed all who were joined to him in familiarity and friendship, and bidding them a last farewell, he set out, fortified with the arms of faith. And when he had come thither, he found all things prepared for him in double fashion: namely a banquet with immense display, and a strong hand of unconquered armed men in hiding. Then seeking the church, the solemnities of the Masses being duly performed, commending himself to God and to the holy Cosmas and Damian, whose anniversary festal day was being celebrated [bb], he enters the banquet-house full of gladness; and when now the hearts of the malevolent men sitting there, long since infected with the gall of murder, grew hot with meats and drinks, they began to open a little the wound they had hidden.

[21] as he departs thence homeward, he persists in prayers, For indeed, bearing swords beneath their cloaks and hiding them behind their backs, ever meditating upon the strokes, thrice they rose up, and thrice as often sat down again, God the Father the governor forbidding it to them, wishing perhaps to sanctify the morrow, a day free from solemnities [cc]. The Saint, therefore, seeing them raving, remaining undaunted, hastened as quickly as might be to have the table taken away. And as he withdrew a little from the place of the banquet, one of his friends approaches him, saying: See, I am preparing a horse for thee secretly; mount it and try to depart from these men as quickly as thou canst, my Lord; for death hangs over thee. To whom not yielding for a moment, he returns again to the place of the banquet, and taking the cup and bearing the goblets before all, he declares with a loud voice: In the name of the blessed archangel Michael let us drink this cup, praying and beseeching that he may now deign to lead our souls into the peace of everlasting exultation. And when all the faithful had answered him Amen, the draught being drunk, kissing them all, he seeks his lodging again; and, giving his most delicate limbs to rest, and, God being witness, persisting long in prayers and psalmody, at last, wearied, he took his rest. And the time came for celebrating the vigils, at which the blessed Man, as always, was devoutly present.

[22] a Man accustomed to the offices of piety. Indeed his holy soul so far favoured the vigour of the Christian religion and of the ecclesiastical purpose that — what we say is the mark of the most perfect monks — he compelled his people to read before him at those very vigils, in its season, the whole history of the Old Testament. Moreover, on the most sacred days (I mean the Saturdays of Easter and of Pentecost), when the general baptism is wont to be celebrated in the holy Church of God, that nothing of the things which are God's might be lacking to him, if little children were not found at the time of the scrutinies [dd], he would send to the market and buy for himself, for the love of God alone, as many boys as the hand of a seller had brought for sale; and thus, his blessed spirit giving its labour to the working of the Godhead, he never suffered anything to be lacking to the divine usage. Thou readest these things, kindly bishop [ee], and thou marvellest that a Man of the lay order, and he a Duke and ruler of a single nation — which is held even among the nations to be by its own nature fierce — fulfilled and held to what thou hadst known that even men of the highest grace of God in the Church could scarcely fulfil. I pray thee, by the fountain of wisdom born in thee, most blessed of fathers, that thou wouldst extol along with me both what is written and what is to be written with worthy praise; because, as thou hadst bidden, apart from those things which I had heard from thy mouth, or hadst learned as true from one full of faith and holiness along with me, I altogether shrink from touching anything with my pen.

[23] On the next day, going to the church at earliest dawn, But to pursue what we have begun: the blessed Martyr, soon to be crowned with the glory of honour and with perseverance in his work, as we have said, in order to render the morning praise to God, seeks the mother church. Now the Man of eternal memory flourished in this grace, that it was doubtful to none that before the light he would go to the doors to pay his vows of holiness; and this hour a second Cain sought out and judged suitable for accomplishing the slaying. Behold, I see that whatever the page of the holy Scriptures had ever announced as to be fulfilled shall be accomplished to a single jot; which also touches evil-doers when it says: Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light. For before nightfall the holy Martyr's brother — no longer a brother but a perverse parricide — had instructed the priests of the church of Cosmas and Damian [ff] that they should altogether refuse entrance to the church to him when he came; lest perchance he should be delivered by his faithful soldiers, or by his chamberlains [gg] who were still kept to their beds, or by the peoples coming up; and lest by the shedding of blood he should seem to defile and violate the church with the work of his crime. While I write these things, behold, there comes to my mind the wicked assault of the Jews, who indeed feared to be defiled by entering Pilate's judgment hall, but did not fear the Lord's death; so this unhappy butcher of his own Brother fears to pollute the walls of the church with blood, who does not withhold his hands from a brother's slaughter. By thine own word, most cruel of all enemies, thou art condemned and pierced through, who shudderest that the holy places should be stained with that gore which thou dost shed; but it was done as thou hadst commanded.

[24] For as the precious Martyr was hastening before the praise [] of Matins to the church, meeting his brother from ambush, he embraces him in friendship, and desiring, before the noise of the people, most secretly to entreat God the Father in the chamber of his most holy heart, meanwhile his brother's snares are made ready, and the sword is sharpened for the preparing of a victim for Christ. But why do I double the grief of my heart, why the tears in my eyes, while I am compelled to narrate in many words the death of the Just One, the passing of the Innocent? Great grief certainly has very many words; but that I may not long defer those who eagerly desire to know the passion of the holy Martyr: presently B. Wenceslaus, about to be a victim of Christ, rises, thirsting to hasten to the church in that holy manner of his, [] that it might be permitted him [*] most secretly to fall down to a longer prayer before the assembly of the people had arrived; and, like a good shepherd desiring with his flock either to hear or to chant the common praises of Matins, he is presently caught in the noose of the snare. For a priest of that church, one of those from whom iniquity went forth from Babylon, as soon as he perceived the Man of God approaching, shut the door of the church according to the command of the malignant men. There rise up also the prepared ambushers, namely his brother and all his armed force. But the chosen Soldier of God, seeing his brother, with giving of thanks embracing his neck with his arms and kissing him, greets him saying: Ever mayest thou fare well, my brother, and be enriched with the goods of this life and of the life to come; and may Christ receive thee at his eternal banquet, thou who yesterday didst refresh me and mine with such fullness!

[25] To which he, with proud spirit and grim eyes, raising in his hand the sword but by him and the conspirators he is dispatched with many wounds; which he was carrying secretly under his cloak, answered: Yesterday indeed, as the occasion allowed; but now thus shall brother serve Brother; and brandishing it, he strikes him with the sword upon the head, and, by the favour of the Lord's power, could scarcely draw blood. For the wretch had been so struck with horror at the greatness of the deed that, striking even a second time, he wondered that he could do nothing of a strong man's work; whose naked sword B. Wenceslaus catching with his own hand said: How very ill thou dost, in wounding me! But when he saw that he by no means desisted from the work he had begun, at length seizing him — as some say — and laying him beneath his own feet, he said: See, thou who art ruined by thine own judgment, [*] how with my own hand I could crush thee like the least of beasts; but far be it from the right hand of a Servant of God that it should ever be stained with a brother's gore. And he restored to his brother the sword which he had taken from him, and bearing his hand now bloodied from it, hastened swiftly to the church. But that unhappy man, crying out with a loud voice and pursuing him, said: My men, my men, where are you? How very ill do you help your Lord, and how wretchedly do you come to his aid when he is set in straits! Then all the choir of malignant men, bursting out from the sides of the fugitive with swords and many lances, mangling him with grievous wounds, slew him before the door of the church [hh]. Then also the holy soul, freed on the field of this life's contest from the prison-house, laurelled with blood, passed over victorious to the Lord on the IV Kalends of October, heaven rejoicing and earth weeping, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 938 [ii].

[26] and he is entombed; the blood is washed from the walls in vain. His lifeless body, by the command of his mother — whom he had lately, as her sins required, driven out and again in peace called back for the love of Christ — certain of the faithful snatching up, and at length casting into a tomb, they covered it with earth, not as befitted a Martyr, but as is customary for any of the honourable or blessed among mortals; but that blessed Soldier shall rise from punishment and contumely to a more bounteous [*] glory, and the more meanly the precious Martyr is handled by the sons of the devil and his members, the dearer is he presented to his Lord and to the fellow-citizens of the heavens; he is made the companion of angels, the partner of Apostles, the co-heir of martyrs, he is joined to the rest of confessors, to the integrity of virgins [kk], and possesses the crown of eternal freshness and the beauty of perennial delight. And thus, despising the dukedom of earthly nobility in which he once vigorously flourished, a true Duke and Martyr, he entered the heavenly kingdom. But we, of so great dryness and rusticity, leaving these things to the wiser, let us turn our pen to writing the simple history of his miracles. The blood of the blessed Martyr, impiously shed by the impious, and sprinkled both upon the ground and over the walls, was washed with water and wiped away; but on the next day those who had washed the wall, entering, find the aforesaid walls and the ground stained with blood as though they had never applied water to them, which they hasten to wipe away again. And when this had been done a third time, seeing that they profited nothing [ll], they departed.

ANNOTATA.

he was at the time present. The anonymous author, in the Life which he says was written by him under the emperor Otto II, set out the same things in longer but faulty language, of which this is the summary. If ever, in the public assemblies of the nation over which the Duke presided, certain men were accused whom he knew to be condemned to death for the atrocity of their crimes, and who could not be withdrawn from the just severity of the laws and the judges, he himself, alleging some cause of departure, would leave the session, that he might not be present at the condemnation nor have any part in it.

p. Do not suspect here that St. Wenceslaus was married, since it is established that he lived in celibacy until his death. Wherefore I do not doubt that the biographer wished by these words to praise the Saint because he himself, a young duke, most studiously preserved his virginity in celibacy, whereas even among the married, who have in marriage the remedy of concupiscence, many defile themselves with the unlawful enticements of the flesh.

q. We shall wonder the less at these things in so gentle a Prince if we consider his immense zeal for the divine laws, and those old rude times, in which Bohemia had not yet wholly emerged from the barbarism of heathenism.

r. In the previous Commentary, numbers 122 and 123, I said that it is not sufficiently established of what name that bishop was. In the same place also, from number 120, the time of the founding of that church has been treated at length.

s. Balbinus believed that in these words there lay hidden a notable prerogative of the church of St. Vitus at Prague, namely its consecration performed by Christ the Lord himself; which I for my part cannot draw out of them. Consult the previous Commentary, number 126 and following.

t. Without doubt it should be read: Whom in the earlier parts we made equal with him. But what the biographer means by this I do not grasp. He treated of him, namely Boleslaus, above at numbers 1 and 2, and just now at this very number 19.

u. Hence it is plain that the true cause of St. Wenceslaus's slaying was the hatred with which his impious subjects persecuted his religion and piety. Go to the previous Commentary, §8.

x. These words are read in Balbinus punctuated thus: Of all which he himself, foreknowing by the inspiration of the kindly Spirit, no otherwise than as a hart thirsting for the streams of waters, longed to attain the palm of the glory of martyrdom. Yet by no means fearing everlasting destruction from his brother's hand, he ever had his confidence in Christ. I judged that it should be punctuated as I have published it, so that the sense may be that St. Wenceslaus, relying on Christ, panted with his whole heart for the martyrdom which he had learned by divine revelation to be at hand for him; yet preferred that it should not be done by his brother, lest the latter should incur the eternal destruction of his soul.

y. There is designated here Henry, duke of the Saxons, surnamed the Fowler, who first of the dukes of Saxony was made king of Germany. That the holy Duke Wenceslaus, being beset with a siege in the city of Prague, surrendered himself with his nation to this king of Germany as a tributary, we have proved from Widukind, monk of Corvey, and from others, in the previous Commentary, number 82 and following. It is likely that these adverse events were passed over by Christann, because they might be held unbecoming to the holy Prince among those who prefer worldly things. There are also those who say that St. Wenceslaus was honoured by the same Henry, or by his son and successor Otto I, with the royal dignity and with other exceptional gifts; which I would that I had read proved by more certain witnesses! Go to the previous Commentary, §6.

z. That is, Boleslav, of which we have said more in the previous Commentary, number 150 and the following.

aa. Others cited in the previous Commentary, number 152, say that St. Wenceslaus came invited to that banquet, prepared by Boleslaus on account of a son Strachkvas born to him. I prefer to hold to Christann.

bb. These holy martyrs are honoured yesterday, that is on the 27th day of September, at which day their deeds have been illustrated in this volume.

cc. That is, God perhaps willing to consecrate the following day, which was sacred to none of the Saints in the Latin church, by the martyrdom and cult of St. Wenceslaus.

dd. The scrutinies here in question are scrutinies, that is, examinations of catechumens, who are diligently instructed and examined before they are admitted to Baptism. The times of the scrutinies, therefore, are those appointed for this instruction and examination. Many examples Du Cange gives in the Glossary at the word Scrutinia catechumenorum.

ee. He is addressing St. Adalbert, his nephew by his sister, bishop of Prague and afterwards martyr in Prussia, to whom he inscribed this little Work, as may be seen in the previous Commentary, numbers 2 and 3.

ff. The word invexerat, unless it be a compositor's error, is used here for induxerat (had instructed).

gg. That is, chamberlains.

hh. Not, therefore, in the house of Boleslaus, nor within the church itself, but before its door, or in its vestibule, was the holy Duke slain. Go to the previous Commentary, number 152 and the two following.

ii. About the day all agree. Pessina in the Phosphorus of the church of Prague asserts that in a manuscript copy of the same metropolitan church the year 929 is read. Others too have assigned another year of death. To me it seems far more probable that it fell in the year of Christ 936. See what is discussed on this subject in §9 of the previous Commentary.

kk. Observe that virginal integrity is here also ascribed to St. Wenceslaus by the biographer.

ll. Of the traces of this sacred blood, still visible after some centuries, the previous Commentary may be read, numbers 179, 257, 259 and the following; and of the phial full of the same blood gathered from the ground, number 263.

. add ad*.

. perhaps viris*.

. add ad*.

. add ut*.

. that is, incumbere*.

. add quod*.

. or numerosiorem*?

CHAPTER III.

The slaying of the holy Martyr's friends: the punishments of the parricides: the translation of the body to Prague and its wondrous integrity: the death and eulogy of Podevin: the miracles of St. Wenceslaus: his contest with Radislaus while he was still alive.

[ ] The Saint's slayers, having persecuted his friends, But those same slayers of the holy Martyr, desiring not to spare even in death him whom they had persecuted to the death, go with swift course to the city of Prague, and destroy with divers and cruel deaths all his friends, whom, being good, we believe to have clung to a good man; and they drowned their infants alive in the depth of the river Vltava ^a; whom, because they were partakers of the passion, we believe to have been made partakers also of the glory ^b; and although we, unworthy as we are, know not their number and names because of their multitude, yet we truly believe that God knows and has chosen them. Now the blessed Man had gathered together, while he yet lived, no small multitude of clerics and servants of God, whom the persecutors of the holy Martyr so persecuted that scarcely any of them remained in the fatherland; so that we truly saw fulfilled in this what we know was foretold more particularly of the Lord: "Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered." But behold, while my pen goes forward to narrate with how great wrath and vengeance of the Lord it blazed against his enemies, I am compelled to proclaim the power and the marvels of the Godhead, who is ever present as a most just avenger, that as a faithful surety he may fulfil what he once promised: "Vengeance is mine," he says, "and I will repay."

[28] For a part of those who with cruel spirit rose up against the Saint of the Lord, perished wretchedly. While the Saint's body is being translated to Prague, or who by mere consent were partakers in so great a crime, driven about by demons and fleeing through the wastes, punished with a pitiable and deserved death, appeared no more; a part remained parched and dry until their destruction; and others of them died barking with open jaws like dogs and gnashing their teeth, and all their stock, so to speak, was rooted up from the ground. And if any survive, they seek their living by wages with their own hands. The body of the blessed Martyr rested buried in the church of the holy Cosmas and Damian for three years. But afterwards it was revealed to certain servants of God that they should translate that Servant of God from the place of his burial into the basilica of St. Vitus the martyr, which, God being its author, he had built from the foundations in the metropolis of Prague and had adorned excellently with ecclesiastical ornaments; in which once, while it was being built, he is reported to have said, as he walked about, the verse of the Psalmist: "This is my rest for ever and ever." And this the merciful Lord deigned to be done to the praise and glory of his own name, and to declare the merit of the blessed Man, that it might be plainer than the sun to all nations that almighty God had by his loving-kindness provided a great Patron for the nation of the Bohemians, long since converted to him; the Scripture confirming it: "That in every nation he that feareth him and worketh justice is acceptable to him," and that "Where sin abounded, grace did more abound."

[29] it is wondrously halted at the crossing to the other bank of a stream, These things are announced to that fratricide; and because he was covered with the cloak of the Christian warfare, being unable to resist the mighty works of God, though late he began

to wonder ^c. Then he sent and gave order that the holy body should be translated by night, on this condition: that if the holy limbs had not been delivered to the seat of burial before the dawn, those upon whom the charge had been laid should not doubt that they would all be punished with the sword. They came, therefore, by night, and take away the most sacred body, which, laid upon a wagon, they bring as far as a certain brook whose name is Rokytnice. And behold, the water had so risen that, overtopping even its banks, it covered all the meadows, and gave those who were conveying the holy body no hope but of death. But when they were set in such a strait, it came into their mind that they should beg for mercy upon themselves by the prayers of B. Wenceslaus, who had deigned by very frequent revelations that ^d the Martyr himself should be translated; and they say: O blessed Martyr, since we have with devout mind striven to obey thy command, now we are all delivered up to be punished by an enemy's sword! At the same time they labour that a bridge of some sort might be built. While these things are being done, looking about them they suddenly see themselves and the wagon with the body of the precious Martyr set on that side of the river to which they had purposed to go ^e.

[30] and is carried over the broken bridge of the river Vltava; Seeing which, the ministers of the holy Martyr with a loud voice and with their whole heart praise together God and their Saint, who had delivered his servants, set in such a peril, by so mighty a power. Herein the loving-kindness of the Lord, herein the merit of the Saint was made plain by such a miracle; herein the glory of God, and herein the power of the Martyr is declared, while both the body is venerated with a worthy translation and the bearers at his obsequies were freed by such a power. Hastening also to the river Vltava ^f, and finding the bridge broken, they groan besides, and began to be weighed down; and being altogether unable to lift it up, they persist again in prayers that he would succour them with his wonted loving-kindness, lest they should lose their present life, since according to the Prince's edict the morning cock-crow was passing. Presently, seeing themselves heard, they lift it upon their shoulders as though it had never had any weight, and rejoice that they crossed the broken bridge without hindrance. They came therefore, without any hindrance or impediment, to the place which the Saint had once prepared for himself.

[31] and, found whole of its wounds save the one from his brother, Then also, a light being kindled, looking upon it ^g, they saw his body entire, and all his wounds healed, except that one wound which his most cruel brother had inflicted upon his head; and indeed, although it was healed [], yet it differed from the rest, as though covered with a certain white slime, which too they took pains to wash away, and it appeared like the rest ^h. And at that same hour they report that there was present, among the others charged with his burial [], a certain man of venerable life ⁱ, who had been bound as a most faithful friend to this Saint while he enjoyed this life of light; who, as he handled the most holy body limb by limb, his eyes bathed in a shower of tears, laid the Saint's hand upon his own ^k and lightly touched the nails of the hand; and finding one of them loose, he speaks with tearful voice to his companions: Woe to us sinners, he says, since this most holy body is seen to be near to corruption; for behold, the nails too are plainly loosening. Whom the others rebuking say: Why, brother, dost thou utter such things? And dost thou either perceive it with a comprehending understanding, or, by reason of that obedience with which thou wast burning, dost thou desire that relics of the holy body be imparted to thee ^l? But he, beating his breast with his fist, says: Woe, woe, and I judge that it will be so; and taking again the most holy hand, he touches the nail once more, and finds it clinging so firmly to the rest of the flesh as though no signs of loosening had ever appeared in it ^m.

[32] His ear, which had been wholly cut off by the stroke of the sword, the little ear also cleaving to him which had been cut off, and which had been found by his sister at his own revealing, is found perfectly sound and joined to its own place. For indeed the said venerable matron, namely the blessed Martyr's sister, Přibyslava by name, had been taught from her very cradle to serve Christ the Lord, to serve God without reproach according to the teachings of the Gospel. For after the Lord had loosed her from the marriage bond, she had wholly given herself over to be God's handmaid, thirsting with burning spirit to be covered with the sacred veil, persisting day and night urgently in prayers, fastings and vigils ⁿ. To her B. Wenceslaus stood by in a vision and said: My persecutors cut off also my ear, which lies to this hour between the tree that adjoins the church and the walls of that church, from the time when it was cut off. This revelation being learned, the venerable matron, shaking herself from sleep and seeking the place of the church, found the treasure of the most holy ear where it had been laid, and taking it with reverence and great joy, giving thanks to almighty God, and going to the monument of her Brother, her lord and martyr, she opened it with certain most faithful persons with the utmost reverence, and laid the ear within, and closed it again with all diligence. Which, after the translation of that venerable body, was found so uncorrupt and joined to the rest of the flesh, as we have said before, as though it had never suffered even a trace of the iron ^o.

[33] Coming, therefore, as many as could be present, clerics and people, he is buried in the church of St. Vitus. Podevin, the Saint's familiar, with hymns and canticles they laid the holy body in a sarcophagus and buried it in the basilica of St. Vitus the martyr, where, by the Lord's help, through the merits of St. Wenceslaus the martyr many and innumerable miracles are wrought, to the praise and glory of the name of Christ our Lord. And his Translation is celebrated on the IV Nones of March [p], our Lord Jesus Christ granting it. Who, etc.

Now, God being my author, I shall set forth new miracles for those who sincerely wish to know of the new Martyr. After the passion and triumph of God's Athlete — glorious, because of the departure of the star that by his merit shines over the whole land — those who had once devoutly clung to him, as I had said, or whom he had gathered together to serve Christ, being partly slain with the sword by the impious, partly given over by the hands of the wicked to burial in the river [q], and the rest scattered in flight over all the world, one of the soldiers, Podevin by name — whom we have said to have been the sharer and companion of all the works which were of old performed by the Martyr, and of whom we had promised that we should speak [r], which [] we have in hand — his Lord passing from this life to Christ, slipping away in flight to the Germans, was long in exile []. But afterwards, judging that peace had been restored to the fatherland, and returning to his own, he lived for some space of time on his own lands, hiding himself at home. With what fervour of love, with what integrity of faith he loved his Lord while he lived, I would tell, if the very deed which I desire to write were not sufficiently indication of it. This man, on a certain day, turning over within himself more bitterly than usual the grief which he had had before him ever since he had lost his Elder [s], took up a sword and hastens in haste to the house of a certain man whom he knew to have conspired as the head of the persuaded slaying against St. Wenceslaus, and by whose hands especially he knew that the same Blessed one had been killed.

[34] And coming, he found him reclining in a hot bath, which in the common tongue is called Stuba [t]. But he, seeing him come, took care to greet him after the manner of the nation, having slain his slayer, is hanged, saying: Hail, friend, hail; but the other, whose heart grief had burned away, answered on the contrary: God, the provider of my welfare, will be present; but thou from this hour, deprived of all welfare, and dying in thy sin, shalt perish for ever. And rushing upon him he killed him [u], and, hoping that he might save himself by the protection of flight, went out in haste. And having entered a wood, while he was already going on securely, the soldier's death and the slayer's deed is announced to that fratricide. And presently he caused the wood to be surrounded by his own officers, and, being seized on the spot, he was hanged on a noose. I confess that, being about to say something great, I had deliberated, because of its magnitude, to keep silence; but since the mouths of the very many who know these things proclaim them incessantly, clearer than light, I have judged it unworthy of me to be silent. He hung there three years; neither bird, nor beast, nor the very taking-on and rotting of human flesh prevailed upon his body; but, after the manner of a living man, his nails and beard grew, and his hairs became white to the utmost hoariness. At length that fratricide, overcome with weariness — because God was declaring the miracle everywhere among the nations — caused him to be covered with earth in that same place. But not even so could the works of God be hidden, but that, for the manifesting to the peoples of the merits of his Saint, a heavenly light was very frequently seen by passers-by kindled at night above his sepulchre.

[35] is said to have been renowned for prodigies. This went on so long, until men coming from everywhere began to offer gifts and to give the offerings of their devotion over the tomb of the buried man, and to commit the advantages of their life to God and to that slain man. After much time the body of that man was lifted from that place and translated with the devotion of clerics, of men and of devout women, and placed in the cemetery of the church of St. Vitus, so that St. Wenceslaus, set within the church, and that soldier, set without, are divided by a wall alone [x]. And this glory his right faith won for him, in which, while he lived on, he faithfully served his Lord. For when he was steward of all who lived beneath St. Wenceslaus's roofs, he had so instructed nearly all the household servants, down to the cooks, that there was scarcely any of the courtiers [y] who did not know how to sing the hymns of the psalmists, or to write them with a pen, or who did not learn something pertaining to the ecclesiastical rite. Embracing all as his own children, he was honoured by all as a father. And if ever an almsgiving had been enjoined on him in the dispensing of ten coins, he himself, out of fidelity to his Lord, added five. Whenever it seemed [z] that food should be distributed to thirty poor men or more, he added fifteen to the number. Wherefore also [*] he deserved to hear from God, according to his promises, the Gospel word: "Well done, good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a few things, I will set thee over many things"; and with his earthly Lord he deserved to enter into the joys of almighty Christ, that abide without end. And burning lamps were seen at night in the basilica of the Saints where each of them rests, and the voices of angels singing psalms were frequently heard there by many [aa].

[36] Men bound in prison, having invoked St. Wenceslaus, Therefore our holy and ever-to-be-remembered venerable patron Wenceslaus, although he bestows the help of his loving-kindness and goodness on all who entreat him, nevertheless especially does not cease to succour those who are in chains or thrust into prison. For indeed from this quarter first appeared the prodigy of his mercy among his signs, after the venerable translation of his body. For when very many accused men, bound with the bonds of iron chains, were held in the public keeping [bb] of the prison according to the custom of the country, and, condemned to manifold punishment, none of them had any hope save of death alone: on a certain night, being set amid those straits, God, as we believe, bringing it about, it came into their mind to beg St. Wenceslaus to have mercy upon them. Lord God, they say, by the merits and prayers of our elder [cc] Wenceslaus, thy most holy witness, deign to help us, set in so great a strait, with that ancient power of thine. On the following night, while all in the world were reposing in placid rest, and these wretches alone knew not what rest was, the divine power, which is wont mercifully to be present to the afflicted, was present. And

first indeed there sounded in their ears as it were the sound of a certain small bell, then a light wonderful to all shone in the prison; and suddenly the wood in which the wretched men's feet were held enclosed bent itself like a bow, and presently they all drew their feet out of the stocks.

[37] And seeing that the Lord's power was present through the merits of St. Wenceslaus, are freed by divine power, as also a heathen who was thereafter baptized; they were strengthened, having now received the hope of deliverance, and cried out with continuous voice: O God of the Lord Jesus Christ, our God, be present to us thy servants who trust in thee, by the merits and prayers of St. Wenceslaus, who for the love of thy name was slain by the impious. Presently the power of Christ was present, and the collar of each one, being broken, fell from his neck to the ground. And, dismissed from the prison, walking about in a circuit, they told the great works of God which they had seen with their own eyes. This miracle, then, being spread abroad everywhere because of its greatness and glory, it came about that a certain heathen held in custody learned that St. Wenceslaus had the greatest care for the freeing of those who were wont to be bound in prison. Hearing which, because he was constrained by great necessity, he vowed a vow, saying: If the God of St. Wenceslaus and the God of the Christians shall by his goodness rescue me from this misery and restore me to my former dignity, I will believe in Christ the Son of God, and receive the baptism of salvation, and I give myself over with all my mind to the Christian religion and piety, and will make over my son to the same Martyr in eternal service. Scarcely had he finished the words, and behold, all the iron bonds fell off; and having seized him twice and thrice, they cast upon him repeated … [dd] chains, but from him, as before, the chains and fetters fell away. Whose masters, out of reverence for the repeated miracle, and likewise rendering thanks to God, permit him to go away free. Who, being dismissed, was straightway instructed in the holy faith and baptized; and giving over to the Martyr the son whom he had vowed, he afterwards survived many years.

[38] But another accused man too had in like manner been ordered to be thrust into prison, likewise other captives are loosed from their chains by his help. who, invoking St. Wenceslaus with his voice and with frequent sighs to have mercy upon him, from him, as from the former, all the fastenings of manacles and fetters fell away. Whom the unbelieving, seizing and taking a foreigner's price for him, sold to far-off nations, not knowing that God is the Ruler of the whole earth, and that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and thinking also that the blessed Martyr could not hear the prayers of those set far from him. Who, while he was being led away, by the merits of B. Wenceslaus suddenly both the chains fell from his hands and the iron collar from his neck. But those who had bought him, although they were heathen, seeing such marvels of God, permit him to go away free. Not long after, the prince ordered a certain other man to be thrust into prison; who, while he was entreating the Lord with frequent sighs, saying: Lord God, help me by the merits of B. Wenceslaus, it happened on a certain night that he fell asleep amid those very straits. Who, as is the manner of the afflicted, waking at once, sees himself standing outside the city in the middle of the street, and neither were the fetters on his feet, nor the collar on his neck, nor were the chains found on his hands. And going out to the vicar [ee], he related how he had been wondrously freed by the power of God. And the vicar, recognizing the power of God and the might of the blessed Martyr in the miracles, granted the accused man his liberty.

[39] A blind and palsied woman is healed; a captive is loosed; Again I shall set myself to relate to you who stand by, for the love of so great a Man, ancient miracles of the new Martyr. In the city of Prague there was a certain woman, blind and feeble in her whole body, who, coming to the church of St. Vitus, prostrated herself before the tomb of St. Wenceslaus, and prayed in full faith so long, until she deserved to receive sight and the health of her whole body. Meanwhile it happened that a certain man was seized by his creditors and bound tight with iron bonds, because he had not wherewith to repay the money-lenders; and by chance those who had bound him made him sit beneath the church in which the body of B. Wenceslaus is kept. Who, being set in such a strait, lifting to heaven his hands laden with iron, and directing his eyes toward the church, prayed thus: O God, he said, help me by the merits and intercessions of St. Wenceslaus! While he was saying these things, at once his hands were loosed, and they let him go.

[40] A Swabian, after two apparitions, is granted the power to walk at his tomb. There was in the province of the Swabians a certain man feeble in his feet, to whom in sleep a man in white garments appeared, exhorting him and saying: Rise and go to the city of Prague, to the church of St. Vitus, and there thou shalt receive health. And when he made light of it, at length the same one who had appeared before, standing by in the same garments, said to him: Why hast thou not done my bidding, and hast not come where thou art to receive the power to walk? And he, waking as if from an ecstasy of mind, said gratefully: I go, Lord. And rising, leaning on a staff, he came to some merchants who were making ready to go thither; and, a fare being paid, he brought it about that by their help he came to the aforesaid place. And entering into the church of the Saints, prostrate on the pavement before all the people, with a long prayer he tearfully entreated the Lord that by the merits of St. Wenceslaus he would have mercy upon him; and rising from prayer, by the mercy of God his knees were made firm, and he gave thanks to God and to B. Wenceslaus, for whose merits the Lord deigned to make him whole.

[41] Thieves of his relics punished by sudden death. The fame and glory of these and of such powers of the Blessed Martyr [ff] being spread abroad everywhere, certain men began to be prompted in mind to take relics of the blessed body and to keep them for themselves, and to distribute them to their own people. Some indeed, out of a good will and a good mind, that the Martyr's name might be spread abroad far and wide, strove to do this; but if any attempted the same with an evil mind or out of covetousness, vengeance following them punished them. Now his sister Přibyslava — living, so far as the human eye can judge beforehand, most holily under the sacred habit — mixed herself in such a deed, having as helper in her work Stephen, a priest of the same church; but a certain recluse [gg] dwelt beside the church, and, clinging to him as to a most holy man, they set about it chiefly by his counsel. What more? On the appointed night they come, and, drawing him out, make him a sharer in their deed, and, digging up the venerable body, they take the beginning of their wickedness. For the son [hh] of that priest, handling the holy Man's jaw irreverently enough, drew it out [ii] and wrapped it in a cloak; and they cover the rest of the body again with earth. And of the relics themselves they keep part for themselves at their pleasure, and part they distribute to their own people. But divine vengeance forthwith unexpectedly overtakes them all. Which, because it is established to have been done in our times and is plain to very many, I have believed it superfluous to insert into this little Work; this only I set down, that, forestalled by an unforeseen and unhoped-for death, they departed from this present light.

[42] I report a certain sign to the untaught, which in our times Christ the almighty God deigned to make clear through his Soldier. Captives freed by his help, proved by the ordeal of fire. When a manifold company of men was being held in prison — some by their own guilt, some indeed by the calumny of accusers — and was kept there in very long custody, prayers being poured out to the Lord, it deserved to be freed by the merits of St. Wenceslaus, and to set itself upon free steps; certain unbelievers urging, namely, that they had not been freed by the power of God or of the Saints, but that the keeper of the prison, bribed with money, had often loosed them and many others from their chains — he ordered the matter to be examined by divine judgment [kk]. Therefore, a manifold crowd of common people standing by, the iron laid in the fire glows white; the keeper of the prison is adjudged to bear the iron with bare hand, a bound being set in the open ground [ll]. He, doubting nothing, but trusting in the Saint's merits, took the glowing iron from the fire and carried it far beyond the bound, and, had he not been stopped by the others, would perhaps have carried it three courses. And this being done, every scruple of doubt was taken away from the hearts of all, who praised and glorified God, because it was by nothing but his mercy and by the intercession of his holy martyr Wenceslaus that he loosed those bound [*] in the prison [mm].

[43] Therefore, if I should attempt to comprehend with my pen all the signs of the blessed Martyr which the Lord deigned to show forth through him, Other miracles: the Saint himself, while he lived, the light will fail me before the page. For indeed the almighty Lord, to the praise and glory of his name, through the intercession of his soldier and martyr St. Wenceslaus, takes some out of prison, strips many of their chains, others of disasters or of divers infirmities, and frees them from tribulations and various necessities, and from enemies visible and invisible. In war also God often sustains those who contend by the supplications, miracles and praiseworthy deeds of this Saint, and helps all who call upon Wenceslaus, just as, not once nor twice, while he was passing away, he had helped him [*] with living and clear signs. For a certain town called Kouřim, while it was populous, lifts itself up, and with the prince who was in it strove to resist this deed. But when enough slaughter had been made on either side, presently a counsel pleased them all: that if either of the Dukes, only two fighting, should come off victor, he ought to have the rule.

[44] While the dukes go forward, wishing to engage, the God of heaven unlocks heavenly visions to the man of Kouřim: was divinely protected in the fight. namely, that St. Wenceslaus bore the image of the holy Cross shining on his brow. When he saw this, casting his arms far from him, he fell at his feet and protested that none could then conquer, since God willed to bring aid under such a sign. Him as he told such things the holy Duke lifts up into the kisses of peace, and peacefully confirms both him and his city under his own dominion, granting him to rule the city as long as he himself should live [nn]. Truly he had seen the cross, because he imitated Christ, and more happily came to the kingdom where Christ reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever.

ANNOTATA.

p. That the memory of this Translation is kept on the same day in several Martyrologies and Breviaries, I have already observed in the previous Commentary, §17. In the Proper of the Saints throughout Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, published for the use of the Society of Jesus at Old Prague in the year 1732, the same is prescribed to be celebrated in the archdiocese of Prague and in our college of Świdnica in Silesia with an annual Office of double rite of the second class, but at Olomouc in Moravia with a lesser double rite on the aforesaid day, while in the diocese of Wrocław on the 5th day of the same month with a semidouble rite only. Further, that the year of the translation is to be referred to 939 or 940 of the Christian era, I judged in the previous Commentary, number 184.

q. That is, drowned in the river Vltava, which flows through Prague, by the impious ministers of Boleslaus.

r. Here he discharges what he had promised above at number 16; to which Balbinus, not adverting, believed that this Life was mutilated in some part. See what was said in the previous Commentary, numbers 5 and 6.

s. That is, Lord, a word sufficiently in use in the Middle Ages.

t. The assa in the bath-houses was a place appointed for the body to sweat in, not to wash in. From this gather what the biographer meant by a hot bath. Stuba may likewise be taken for other warm baths; on which matter more examples may be seen in Du Cange's Glossary, who cited this passage also. We in Flemish say stoove.

u. These things do not agree with the fame of Podevin's sanctity and miracles which flourishes in Bohemia, and which the biographer himself celebrates; therefore I have noted that the anonymous author's narration pleases me much better, whom consult, if you please, in the previous Commentary, number 173 and following.

x. Read the previous Commentary, number 176 and the two following.

y. Curtis or cortis is used by writers of the Middle Ages for a court or a space enclosed by buildings; the curtenses, therefore, are here the household servants who, being assigned to the servile offices of St. Wenceslaus, dwelt in such a part of the palace.

z. Read jubebantur, and the sense will be more fitting. For the rest, Podevin must be said to have increased those alms out of his own private store, or at any rate to have done it with the knowledge and not against the will of his lord St. Wenceslaus; for it is not lawful to bestow alms out of the goods of a lord who is ignorant of it and deservedly unwilling.

aa. Namely at Prague in the church of St. Vitus. Concerning Podevin's body honourably buried there, consult the previous Commentary, number 176 and the two following.

bb. This word, enclosed in brackets, which is certainly wanting in the printed text, I have added.

cc. That is, of our lord.

dd. Where this lacuna is, Balbinus noted in the margin that uurus is found, which word he confesses he could not read. If you interpret it as by turns, the sense will be sound. In other manuscript Lives, in which the same things are related in other words, the word more heavily and more tightly is found.

ee. Namely the judge who presided at Prague in the Duke's place and by his authority.

ff. So I have corrected it, since in the printed text there is certainly the faulty reading beato Martyre.

gg. Properly those monks are called inclusi who, having been long exercised and approved in monasteries, were for the sake of a stricter solitude shut up alone in cells, not to go out thence unless a grave cause should advise otherwise.

hh. Do not infer from this the marriage of priests, since that priest may have begotten a son before he was initiated in that Order.

ii. Had, then, the holy Martyr's body — which he said above at number 31 was found entire and uncorrupt at the translation — already failed, its flesh being by then dissolved into dust? Or did he tear the jaw, furnished with its own flesh, from the rest of the body, entire and uncorrupt?

kk. Balbinus rightly noted that this passage is corrupt; but it can be restored in this manner: To set (some obstacle) to the free steps of that same (company of captives thus loosed): certain unbelievers urging, namely, that they had not been freed by the power of God or of the Saints, but that the keeper of the prison, bribed with money, had often loosed them and many others from their chains; (the judge) ordered (the matter) to be examined by divine judgment.

ll. That is, a bound being set beforehand, to which the keeper of the prison was ordered to carry the glowing iron with bare hand for his own clearing. That purgations of this kind were once in use, and were long since rightly abolished, no one skilled in history is ignorant.

mm. I do not know with sufficient certainty whether it was this deliverance of captives, or the one related above, that Laurence the monk of Cassino recorded at the end of the manuscript Life of St. Wenceslaus. That I should believe it to be this one, the great number of captives, asserted by Laurence too, persuades me; against it is that he makes no mention here of the purgation by fire. However that may be, since Laurence cites a witness who was at Prague when the prodigy happened, it will be well to have recounted his words here, though they are somewhat long. At a certain time, he says, when the circuit of the year was bringing back the solemnities of so great a Martyr, a multitude of almost all the fellow-citizens took pains to hasten to that same church; where, when with festive and tuneful voice they were singing praises to God in honour of that same Martyr, a great sorrow began to affect the hearts of certain neighbours who were set in chains. For they grieved that they had been so consigned by the king (rather, the duke) of that province to deadly dungeons that they could in no wise celebrate after the accustomed manner the memory of that chief Martyr. There was present, therefore, an all-powerful faith, and, touching their hearts from heaven, it constrained them in some fashion to cry out in confidence; and at last, with flowing tears, stretching their palms together to the stars, they began to address the almighty Lord with this prayer: Thou who, guiltless, dost snatch the bound from the jaws of hell, look upon us for the merit of so great a Martyr. And this prayer being ended, when the fervour of faith was sweetly burning their inmost breasts, they began with lifted voice to ask the suffrages of the oft-named Martyr, saying: Holy Wenceslaus, deign to succour the wretched; excellent Martyr of the Thunderer, succour thy hungry ones. And when they had said such things three and four times, the divine protection deigned after its wonted manner to be present; and by the merits especially of the invoked Martyr the chains and fetters of all who were living in the prison — of eighty men, namely, and more — were loosed with such swiftness, and broken with a great ringing sound divinely made, that even those to whom this gift was granted could in no wise comprehend so sudden and unlooked-for a miracle. Going forth indeed out of doors, with great dancing they went to the church in which the body of the same glorious Martyr lies, crying out and saying: Glory to thee, O Christ, who by the rich prayers of the Martyr dost loose us from bonds exceeding heavy. That this was so done, the lord Benedict, born of the nation of the Saxons, was wont, as they say, to testify by living voice; who, leading a most religious life in the monastery of Cassino, had been accustomed devoutly to carry with him at all times, as long as he lived, a piece of a fragment of those same chains, relating that in his presence so great a miracle was wrought. Thus that place. It is credible that the said Benedict was of help to Laurence in other places too in the writing of the Life of St. Wenceslaus; but often not happily.

nn. Consult the previous Commentary, number 90 and following.

. supply locus*.

. that is, curatores*.

. add in*.

. exulavit*.

. read a*.

. read vinctos*.

. adjuverat*.

ANOTHER LIFE

By the emperor and king of Bohemia Charles IV.

From the manuscript Breviary on parchment of the church of St. Vitus at Prague, formerly belonging to John, bishop of Litomyšl.

Wenceslaus M., duke and patron of Bohemia, at Stará Boleslav in Bohemia. (S.)

BHL Number: 8842, 8843

By Charles IV.

[ ] The Saint, born of a Christian father and a heathen mother, The Christian religion increasing, the divine clemency favouring it, when Svatopluk, king of the Moravians, had been baptized by B. Cyril, archbishop there, and when his brother B. Methodius ^a succeeded him in the archiepiscopal see, the illustrious duke Bořivoj was baptized

as duke of Bohemia, together with B. Ludmila the martyr, his wife ^b, by B. Methodius the prelate himself, in the metropolitan city of Moravia, Velehrad ^c, in the church of B. Vitus. Then the aforesaid prince Bořivoj begot Spytihněv and Wratislaus; and the pious Spytihněv, departing from this world, left the duchy to Wratislaus. And Wratislaus begot of Drahomíra two sons, B. Wenceslaus and Boleslaus the impious. Wratislaus with a pure heart cherished the Christian faith; but Drahomíra entangled herself in the sects of idols.

[2] When therefore the most illustrious prince Wratislaus had died, he left to his mother B. Ludmila the glorious boy Wenceslaus and the governance of the country ^d; succeeding to the duchy, he is renowned but Drahomíra, his wife, nursed her second son, the impious Boleslaus ^e, and ever invited him to the rites of the heathen. Therefore the most glorious matron and patroness of the Bohemians, the first pearl and also the first flower plucked in Bohemia, namely blessed Ludmila, imbued her grandson B. Wenceslaus with the Christian faith and with the sacred letters and the words of the Gospel. At length the merciful comforter, the Holy Spirit, melted the Boy's heart and so inflamed his inward parts that from without the sparks of his learning shone like lamps among the pious and the just, and the fruits of eternity blossomed from his honey-flowing mouth: for by his preaching the country of the Bohemians was enlightened. Virginity or chastity he bore in mind and in body; thirsting for martyrdom for Christ, he did not cloak the truth of the Christian faith, but preached it openly; ever intent upon prayers, vigils, alms and other pious works, and humble above all his contemporaries.

[3] for his virtues, and, attended by angels Now it came to pass that the envious Drahomíra, seeking to be exalted above her mother-in-law in the rule of the duchy, sent the most wicked tyrants Tunna and Gommon ^f into the castle of Tetín ^g, who strangled B. Ludmila and put her to death by martyrdom; whom Christ, collared with a golden collar, took up into heaven. Then the most wicked tyranness, raging, raged against the faithful of Christ; but her first-begotten son, B. Wenceslaus, firmly held the Christian teaching and law, namely that of his grandmother B. Ludmila; calling back the scattered Christians and bestowing on them all pious works. The bread and the wine for the sacrifices of the Masses he cultivated with his own labour and hands; wood and other necessaries he carried on his own shoulders by night to orphans, widows and the fatherless. Meanwhile the duke of Kouřim ^h, despising the Saint's humility, began to oppress and lay waste his land and duchy; and so B. Wenceslaus, being compelled, gathered an army and went out to meet him in the field for the defence of his nation.

[4] he conquers his enemy without slaughter, and pardons him. Whom the duke of Kouřim despised with his army, and, meeting him, declared war upon him. To whom B. Wenceslaus sent envoys, saying: If thou desirest my duchy, why should those be slain in war over whom thou seekest to rule? For I do not desire that the blood of thy men be shed; but if thou seekest war, conquer me alone, and rule over all my people in peace. But if I conquer thee, let thy men likewise be subject to my dominion. Hearing this, the duke of Kouřim gladly proclaimed a duel with him under such a compact, a pledge being confirmed concerning the aforesaid on both sides of the armies. But when the aforesaid dukes had come forward to the duel, the armies on either side standing to watch, heavenly angels attended B. Wenceslaus, and a flashing cross went before his face. And when the duke of Kouřim had seen this, prostrate before him, he begged pardon. To whom B. Wenceslaus said: Return to thine own, and be content with what is thine; but I do not desire what is thine: go in peace.

[5] Seen in like manner by the emperor, he obtains the relics of St. Vitus, Then B. Wenceslaus, called to the imperial court, was honourably received by the emperor and the princes; and being invited to the emperor's conferences and councils, he was slow to come on a certain morning because of the labour and weariness [i] of the night which he underwent in vigils and prayers, so that the emperor with the princes thought that he was arrogantly loitering. And the emperor with the princes decreed that for this cause, when he came late, he should not be honoured in the council. But after B. Wenceslaus came to the council of the emperor and the princes, the emperor saw angels leading him, and a golden cross on his brow, shining with the greatest splendour. Then the emperor, falling at his feet with the princes, begged pardon, and afterwards asked him to command or to ask whatever he wished. Then he asked for the arm of B. Vitus the martyr, which the emperor gave him ^k.

[6] he founds a church; wholly intent on holy works Which being brought to Prague, he built a church under the title of the glorious Martyr, asking of the venerable bishop of Regensburg, then the diocesan of the Bohemians, that he would not be slow to come to the consecration of the aforesaid basilica. To whom the venerable prelate said: Dost thou at all, my Son, have need of me? For thy church, which thou desirest to be consecrated, I have seen raised and exalted into a metropolitan church before God; but at thy nod I will gladly send someone to consecrate it. When on a certain occasion B. Wenceslaus was going by night barefoot to the church in winter-time, while snow and ice covered the fields and the road, his soldier and confidant, by name Podevin ^l, was following him, in whose feet the cold grew so strong, although he was shod, that he could not endure it. To whom B. Wenceslaus, speaking, said: Set thy feet in the print of my feet; which also he did, and the soldier's feet were warmed, so that he felt no cold thereafter ^m. And the footprints of the glorious Martyr's feet appeared strongly stained with blood.

[7] The glorious prince Wenceslaus had, then, given himself to a charitable bounty, he translates the body of St. Ludmila; while he purposes the monastic life, so as to buy servile infants for freedom and to make them lordly for Christ; destroying chains and gibbets, fearing lest a neighbour's blood should be unjustly condemned. Many true things to come he foretold or intimated; whence among other things there was revealed to him the translation of his glorious grandmother B. Ludmila the martyr, whose body, as had been revealed to him, he found uncorrupt, and which he himself with great devotion honourably translated into the church of B. George in the castle of Prague. Then B. Wenceslaus, seeking the things of heaven and despising the things of earth, sent an embassy to the Apostolic See that it might give him leave to receive the monastic habit according to the Order of B. Benedict; desiring to resign his princedom to his brother Boleslaus. But his brother Boleslaus himself, envying his good deeds, coveting earthly things and despising heavenly, and desiring his princedom, swiftly mingled himself in wickedness, and invited the glorious Prince himself to a banquet in the castle of Boleslav, which he had built.

[8] But he, foreknowing his own death, like a sheep, suffered himself to be led to the slaughter; invited guilefully by his brother, he is slain; led astray by his worldly brother, he was being led to the heavenly palm of martyrdom, rejoicing and giving thanks to God. For when he had reclined at supper with his fellow-soldiers, speaking he said: Tomorrow, on the vigil of the chief of paradise ⁿ, I shall drink for the love of the Lord the cup of the passion, which shall present my soul to my God; but now drink and feast with me, for from the fruit of this vine I shall drink no more with you henceforth. Then rising from supper, he gave himself to prayers, giving thanks to God, making a pure confession with a contrite and stricken heart, and with a desire of making satisfaction he asked pardon of the priest, and with bitter weeping for sins, both his own and his neighbours', he prayed until cock-crow; and persevering most devoutly in the morning hours, and at dawn receiving the true Sun that glows red for the soul, namely the body of the Lord ^o, and thus enlightened and purified, like the morning brightness, meeting the snares of the night, greeting with sweet address his brother coming forth from the power of darkness, savage and impious, he is wounded, like a second Abel by Cain.

[9] And when he struck him, he went backward and fell, having no power over the Man of God. the prodigious traces of his blood: the apparition made to the king of Dacia: But St. Wenceslaus, wishing willingly to offer sacrifice to God and to lay down his life for Christ, restored to him the sword, saying: Let thy will be in thy own hands. Who, heaping the worst upon the worse, like a bear lying in wait from his den, rushed upon him again with his accomplices, and, like a viper desiring to tear his own flesh and blood, stretched out the sword with his accomplices against his own Brother, so that they afflicted him with death, leaving his soul to God and his body to the earth. Whose blood, proclaiming the fratricide before God, could never be wiped away by any human art. And at the time of his glorious passion Christ, appearing on the cross to the king of Dacia, exhorted him to build a church under the title of his martyr Wenceslaus, if he would seek to obtain pardon from him; which also he did [p].

[10] The punishments of Drahomíra and her accomplices. The Saint's body At that time also his most wicked and shameful mother Drahomíra, like a second Jezebel, following the cruelty of the most impious Athaliah, who raged against her own royal blood, and who was the procurer of the shedding of the innocent blood of the martyr, her first-born B. Wenceslaus, was swallowed by the earth like Dathan and Abiram, in the public street before the castle of Prague, toward the western quarter, as [*] the traces of the ground are seen to this present day [q]. And the accomplices in the fratricidal killing of B. Wenceslaus were struck with plagues as raging as they were dreadful. But the Translation [r] of the glorious Martyr from the church of Boleslav to that of Prague — by command of the impious prince Boleslaus the fratricide, for the hiding of the fame of the miracles proceeding from God through his merits [s] — laid low the fratricide's hardened mind, when the Light of Light in its own bringing enlightened the darkness of the night, and made bright the dark prisons of Prague, and freed the captives, and the water permitted itself to be trodden upon [t].

[11] translated to Prague, not without miracles, For the vehicle with those who followed it passed through the torrents of the rivers Rokytnice and Vltava; the earth also trembled, applauding the Soldier of Christ, and the air sent forth a most sweet odour from his body, buried for three years; and thus God willed to honour him in his bringing by the four elements. And so his body, brought into the church of his happy burial which he had desired, and which he had built, was healed of all its wounds, save the wound of the ear which his brother had cut off with his own hand; which also his sister Přibyslava, having found it in the church of Boleslav between the door and the threshold, applied after three years to his head, with entire soundness, so that no scar of the wound appeared upon it.

[12] into the church of St. Vitus, which was raised into a cathedral. And at his most glorious body, both in its bringing and also after its burial in the church of Prague, the Lord has wrought many miracles through his merits in all infirmities, and works them still among the faithful of Christ, as it is written: Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable; their principality is exceedingly strengthened. For by his prayers and merits God has exalted and honoured his own princedom, namely that of the Bohemians. But his fratricide, the impious Boleslaus, left

after him his first-born, namely the pious Boleslaus, who raised the church of St. Vitus at Prague, which St. Wenceslaus had built, into a cathedral church; and a daughter by name Mlada, who established the abbey of the nuns of the monastery of St. George in the castle of Prague [u], in the church which Wratislaus, father of St. Wenceslaus, had before founded, and she was made the first abbess in that same monastery.

[13] But his second son, by name Strachkvas, at whose birth-feast the glorious martyr St. Wenceslaus, invited by his brother [x], underwent martyrdom, took the monastic habit of the Order of St. Benedict in the monastery of St. Emmeram in the city of Regensburg [y]; and at last, taking to himself the prelacy of Prague, not called by God as Aaron was, but seizing it by his own rashness to the prejudice of the most holy Adalbert, bishop of the aforesaid church of Prague [z], he was on the day of his unworthy consecration seized by a demon and vexed by it unto death [aa]. The punishment of Strachkvas; the death and great esteem of Podevin. For we judge it worthy of memory that the truth of the aforesaid most holy Martyr's miracles should be written down, since they go forth [*] so mercifully among his faithful and devout. For from ancient writings and truthful reports we find that his client and confidant, Podevin by name, who was his companion in many good works, namely in vigils, pilgrimages and labours, was by command of the aforesaid impious fratricide Boleslaus hanged upon a gibbet, because he had been a zealous champion and reporter of the good and most holy life of that St. Wenceslaus even after his death; and he was found uncorrupt on the gibbet for two years, his beard and nails growing, and was taken down from thence and honourably buried in the church of Prague [bb].

[14] We find it also written among his miracles that many captives, Some miracles done at the Saint's invocation invoking him, were freed by his merits from the said prisons; among whom a certain heathen, being freed and having experienced the grace of God and the Martyr's miracles, obtained the Sacrament of baptism with his only son, whom he offered to the clerical state to the praise of the Martyr, and who thereafter was advanced to the priestly dignity, serving God and his Martyr to the ending of his life. A certain woman also, deprived of sight and contracted from her very birth by a bent inflexion of the hands, having entered the church of St. Vitus and being brought before the sepulchre of B. Wenceslaus, praying inwardly with tears, received the light of her eyes and the soundness of her hands.

[15] A certain man from Franconia, from his adolescence contracted in his feet by a defect from birth, and at his tomb. so that he moved only by crawling on the ground, saw in his sleep by night a venerable man clothed in white, saying to him: Have thyself led to the city of Prague, to the church of St. Vitus, where the body of St. Wenceslaus the martyr rests, by whose merits thou shalt receive perfect health. Who, thinking that he had dreamed, neglected to fulfil the commands. But on the second night, being warned again by the same old man, who appeared to him with the greatest brightness, that he should by no means let it go but should fulfil the aforesaid warnings, he, obeying the commands of the venerable old man who appeared, was at length carried to Prague; and prostrate on the ground before the sepulchre of the glorious Martyr in the said basilica of St. Vitus, his sinews being stretched out and his ankles and soles made firm, he received perfect health, and returned to his own home, praising and glorifying God and the glorious martyr Wenceslaus.

[16] In the year of the Lord 1092, on the Nativity of St. Mary the Virgin, the glorious Mother of God, His notable apparition together with St. Adalbert. after Matins, the day now growing light, the most blessed martyrs Wenceslaus and Adalbert, visibly appearing, broke the bars and iron doors of the prison of Prague, and, entering the prison, set in a corner of the prison the very great stocks fastened to the wall with iron wedges, the fettered men being loosed, commanding those freed by them: Run as quickly as you can to the church, announcing to all that you, sent by God, have brought peace to the realm from the war [cc] which was between king Wratislaus and his son Boleslaus, which God had until now permitted for the punishing of the sins of the people. And those who were freed, running at once to the church, announced it with joy to all the people; and presently on the morrow what the holy Men had foretold was happily fulfilled. For Conrad, the king's brother, made a concord between the king and his son, and lulled the intestine war which was the utmost desolation of the Bohemians. Nor is there any doubt that by the prayers and merits of our holy Patrons Wenceslaus and Adalbert that peace and concord were sent from God, who is blessed for ever and ever [dd]. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

i. That is, weariness.

p. How variously this apparition is narrated by various writers, and what is to be judged of it, see what was said in the previous Commentary, number 273 and following.

q. Consult, if you please, the Annotations to chapter 3 of the Life of St. Ludmila, already often cited, letter c.

r. In our Prague transcript there is set before this: Here follows the Legend of the translation of the most holy and excellent martyr Wenceslaus, duke of the Bohemians.

s. Concerning the cause of the translation I have treated in the previous Commentary, number 185 and following.

t. For all these and the following, consult what was said in the same Commentary, number 189 and following.

u. Pessina, in the Phosphorus of the church of Prague, pages 19 and 20, says that both were granted in the year 971 by Pope John XIII, whose Bull he recites in the same place, in which the said Pontiff among other things says thus: We assent and approve and ratify, that at the church of SS. Vitus and Wenceslaus, martyrs, there be made an episcopal see; and that at the church of St. George the martyr, under the Rule of St. Benedict and the obedience of our daughter the abbess Mary (otherwise called Mlada), a congregation of nuns be established. Whoever shall wish for more about Mlada, let him go to the previous Commentary to the Life of St. Ludmila, number 68.

x. A far different cause of the invitation Christann alleges in the Life, number 20. See also what was said in the previous Commentary, number 152.

y. The deeds of St. Emmeram, bishop and martyr, you have illustrated at the 22nd day of September, where the most celebrated abbey dedicated to his name at Regensburg was treated in §5 of the previous Commentary.

z. Concerning St. Adalbert, bishop of Prague and martyr, go to our Work at the 23rd day of April, on which he is honoured.

aa. Read, if you please, on this matter Balbinus in the Epitome, book 2, chapter 6, where he calls these things in doubt.

bb. Consult the previous Commentary, number 173 and following.

cc. That is, war.

dd. This apparition of SS. Wenceslaus and Adalbert, and the other things here related, I shall recount below in the Appendix on the Miracles, from number 1, out of Cosmas, dean of Prague, an eye-witness; but there Wratislaus's son is named Brecislaus, not Boleslaus.

. add per*.

. prodeuntium*.

APPENDIX ON SOME MIRACLES.

[ ] From various sources.

Wenceslaus M., duke and patron of Bohemia, at Stará Boleslav in Bohemia. (S.)

BY C. S.

[ ] War having arisen between king Wratislaus and his son, Since some miracles and benefits of St. Wenceslaus are read elsewhere than in the two Lives which I judged should be printed before the rest, I have thought fit to treat of them at least briefly in this Appendix, as I have already noted elsewhere. In the first place it is memorable what Cosmas, dean of Prague, noted in book 2 of the Chronicle of Bohemia as having happened in his own time, namely in the year of Christ 1091, for the making of peace between Wratislaus, king of Bohemia, and his son Brecislaus, who were already on the point of engaging in arms on the morrow. But let us hear Cosmas. Now the king, seeing that he could not, as he wished, avenge his anger upon his son nor upon his followers, summons his brother Conrad, and gathers the elders of the land, and confirms it by the oath of all the counts, that after his death his brother Conrad should obtain the throne and the duchy of Bohemia. Then the king, strengthened by his brother's counsel and help alike, began openly to devise how he might take vengeance on his son. Nor did this lie hidden from his son Brecislaus; and without delay there were gathered to him more than three thousand strong men, and, hastening, they pitched camp beside the brook Rokytnice, prepared on the morrow to join battle against the king

in battle. For he had sent a messenger ahead to his father, saying: See, here am I, here I am present, whom thou wast about to seek far off; what thou art to do hereafter, do today.

[2] SS. Wenceslaus and Adalbert free captives from prison, Nor must it be passed over in silence what a divine revelation deigned to work in the still of that same night. For if we set forth the deeds of men according to the measure of our knowledge, it is unworthy that we should keep silence about the mighty works of God which we ourselves have seen. Therefore on the aforesaid night, while those things which we have said before are being done among the princes, our patrons, namely St. Wenceslaus and St. Adalbert, visit those set in the prison, and, worn out as they were with excessive affliction, free them by their most holy condescension in this manner. First of all, the front doorposts being torn out together with the door, presently they break the iron postern, as it were, of that prison with its bars; and also the stocks in which the feet of the condemned are cruelly bound tight they break and cast outside; and at once a kindly voice sounded in the ears of the condemned, saying: Until now our suffrages have been lacking to you and to this country, because you have been unworthy of the grace of God, from the time when these princes had this more-than-civil war between Bohemia and Moravia. But since the grace and mercy and regard of God is upon his Saints and his Elect, and since we are directed thither where it has looked, assuredly our presence can nowhere be at hand to give suffrage where it has not first been present in mercy.

[3] and bid them announce peace, the event soon following. Wherefore, being now certain of God's mercy, rise up, hasten to the church, and announce to all that we, by name St. Wenceslaus and St. Adalbert, have loosed you and have brought peace. Who presently, as if roused from a heavy sleep, and loosed also from their chains, while their keepers still slept, go out free and fulfil the commands. On this very day too another miracle likewise shone forth: for, as the holy Martyrs' revelation above reported, Conrad, the king's brother, made peace between the king himself and his son. For before they were at such variance that each was suspected by the other — the one lest he should be deprived of the throne, the other [] lest he should be taken by his father — and they greatly feared one another. But the former was attended by young men of like age and by the greater part of the nobles, readier indeed of hand and stronger in war; while the latter was supported by bishop Cosmas and the provosts of the churches, and by all the magnates of the land, more advanced in age and more useful in counsel, and they favoured him with the whole soldiery of the people and venerated him with exceeding affection. And assuredly in that season the worst crime since the founding of the city of Prague would have been perpetrated, had not the holy condescension of the most blessed Wenceslaus and the great compassion of almighty God composed, according to the king's wish, all the commotion of the princes and of the people. So the said Cosmas, who, on the testimony of Pessina in the Phosphorus*, succeeded to the deanery of that church when Cosmas I was promoted to the bishopric of Prague in the year 1090.

[4] Thieves hindered by divine power; The author of the manuscript Life, who is believed to have been John of Neumarkt, first bishop of Litomyšl and then of Olomouc, after the middle of the fourteenth century, after the miracles drawn from Christann goes on thus: In the village which is called Bykoš, robbers coming one night stole away an untamed beast of burden from the courtyard of the holy Martyr's chaplain, and at once they were struck with so great a darkness of the eyes that, wheeling all night round about the village, they could by no means find the road. But when the dawn was now putting an end to the night, the aforesaid thieves, acknowledging their guilt, brought the beast back to the place from which they had taken it, and, their sight being at once perfectly restored, they returned to their own homes without trouble by a road well recognized, fearing to commit such a deed again. Thus by the power of the glorious Patron the chaplain remained unharmed, and the thieves were in this manner restrained by the theft from their vices.

[5] There was also a certain matron, drawing her origin from a noble stock, a deaf woman suddenly granted hearing; devoted to the Lord God in faith and works, who, being long without hearing, endured so great a trouble with shame. She at a certain time, when the glorious festival of St. Wenceslaus was at hand, betook herself to the city of Prague, for the sake of so great a cause, to render devoutly with the other faithful her service to so illustrious a Martyr. And when she had stayed there some while, relieving her weariness by the repose of resting, the sacred solemnity arrived; and when now the bells were sounding for first Vespers, and the throng of the people in companies was climbing the hill, hastening to the basilica where so great an Athlete of the Lord happily reposes, she too, with no small sorrow, ordered her carriage to be made ready, fearing that if anyone should greet her or wish to speak with her, she would, by reason of her defect, not know how to render him an answer. And when she was in the middle of the bridge, her eyes directed toward the church of the holy Martyr's rest, she poured out to the Lord a prayer silent indeed in the sight of men, but loud with tears and sighs in the chamber of her heart, that by the merits of her kindly Victor he would deign to free her from the shame of so great a trouble. And when, thus praying to God and imploring the help of the glorious Duke, she was drawing near to the outlet of the city, suddenly she felt an itching of the ears; and wishing to relieve it, she put her finger into them, and, drawing it back, presently received her hearing.

[6] There follows here at once a narrative of the vision of Eritius or Eric, a girl who had died without baptism, king of Dacia or Denmark, which I have examined at sufficient length in § XV. After this the same author adds: It happened also in the province of Ústí (in another manuscript Life is read: in the parish of Ústí), in the diocese of Prague, that a certain little infant girl, not yet reborn in the water of holy Baptism but only made a catechumen, departed from this life. She had been named at her catechism Wenceslava. When her parents, exceedingly troubled, had carried her weeping to the church, wishing to ask the priest of that place that he would deign to bury this little body in the cemetery of the faithful, a long delay was made. And behold, while many were standing about the corpse, a certain woman who had vowed her chastity to Christ, and, in sign of her religious state, having cut off her tresses (that is, her hair), was covered with the sacred veil, came up at that same hour; who, perceiving the cause of the vehement grief, especially in the parents, whose daughter, whom they had brought dead, had departed without the laver of regeneration — and having learned also the infant's name — breathing out [*] before the bystanders, said: O holy Wenceslaus, kindly consoler of the afflicted, whose way it ever was to have mercy on the wretched, suffer not this soul, marked with thy name, to be swallowed in the gulf of hell, but obtain that it return [to] the body, and that she be worthy to be born again from the womb of the sacred font unto eternal life.

[7] Scarcely had the virgin finished these words of prayer, and behold, the girl, yawning, opened her eyes called back to life. and, giving a cry, showed to all who stood about the tokens of her being made alive. What more? While all were amazed and praising the Lord in his glorious Martyr, the little infant was baptized without delay, and lived after this fourteen days, and passed happily to the Lord, by the merits of the most merciful Duke restored from the present time and afterwards to eternal life. There follows in the same place another narrative also, of St. Wenceslaus appearing in sleep to a certain matron of Prague, and, as it were, asking of her for himself a girdle of which the cleric of his chapel was in need; which for brevity's sake it will be enough to have indicated here. More certain seem the things which are added there presently in these words: In the time of Přemysl, prince of the Bohemians, son of king Wenceslaus, the venerable bishop John the third holding the bishopric of the church of Prague, miracles of the Lord were wrought by B. Wenceslaus in the oft-mentioned city. This Přemysl, otherwise called Ottokar II, is said in Balbinus's Epitome to have held the kingdom of Bohemia from the year 1253 until 1278, in which, fighting against the emperor Rudolph of Habsburg, he was slain; and John III, baron of Dražice, Pessina says in the Phosphorus, page 600, succeeded to the bishopric of Prague on the death of Nicholas — others say of Henry — in the year 1258, and died in the year 1278; which it will be well to have noted for the marking of the time, and it agrees excellently with what is to be said below.

[8] A contracted and dying boy restored to health; Further, of those miracles this is to be read there: A certain man, by name Peter, was dwelling in this city (of Prague), having a son contracted in feet and hands from his birth. To him, then, there came a graver sickness: for a great swelling took hold of his whole body. And when such trouble grew worse day by day, and his parents now utterly despaired of the boy's life, on a certain day, setting aside all human counsel and aid, they betook themselves with their whole heart to the divine protection. And because that boy had received in Baptism the name Wenceslaus, they commended him to the glorious Martyr with all the devotion they could, saying: O blessed Wenceslaus, our father and illustrious patron, and most merciful consoler of all, deign to be present also to our very great tribulation, and mercifully to restore this boy to health and to life. These words being said, they withdrew, leaving the boy in the chamber not without great grief, and providing with all care the things necessary for the funeral of the dead. But when morning came, revisiting their son and expecting to find him even dead, they found him, all the swelling being driven away, with hands and feet straight, restored to perfect health. For they had wept in the evening for sadness, and on the morrow they wept for the exceeding abundance of gladness, exultingly telling all men the mighty works of the triumphant Saint.

[9] a palsied girl granted the use of her foot. In that same city, namely that which is called Prague, there was a certain lady called Elizabeth, having a daughter of nine years who, by God's permission, was so grievously struck with palsy in her right foot that she could neither lift it up nor bend it down; wherefore, her foot being wholly held up, she had always to be carried in the hands of the household. Whose trouble the mother, anxious and, after a mother's manner, ever suffering with her, sought frequently the counsels of friends and the remedies of physicians; all which profited the aforesaid girl not at all. At length, using sounder counsel, she began with all diligence to commend her to the glorious patron St. Wenceslaus. And when she had done this a second and a third time, the foot, strongly contracted, was presently made straight and restored to entire health. This was done on the IV Kalends of July, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1260. After these things the said author, putting an end to his little Work, says: With these, then, and with countless other prodigies of miracles which, as we have said before, we cannot comprehend one by one, the Almighty has deigned to adorn his most excellent Champion, and does not cease even now to glorify him, bringing swift help to those who devoutly invoke him; who may not refuse to place us also, worshippers of that same illustrious Martyr, however small, mercifully purged of the dregs of our crimes by the prayers and merits of that glorious one, in the citadel of the stars after the exile of the flesh, where God himself, the God of gods, is praised and blessed by the host of all the Saints for ever and ever. Amen.

[10] Worthy of mention also are the things which Balbinus recounted on the same subject in the Life of Arnestus, A blasphemer against the Saint, his tongue growing stiff, the first archbishop. In book 1, chapter 13, he says this: In the year 1338, on the third of the Kalends of October, the Godhead wrought an altogether illustrious miracle at the sacred tomb of the divine Wenceslaus, martyr and native patron of Bohemia; which, because in some part

it concerns Arnestus, I shall report here. Three crossbow-makers had come to Prague; of these one, while they were talking together, remarks that the birthday of St. Wenceslaus, prince of Bohemia, was to be celebrated on the morrow; that there would therefore be a holiday from work, and that for that reason a place must be taken up the earlier at first light, before the concourse of the people, so that, the holy Prince's remains being honoured, grace might be obtained from heaven. The second of the companions assents; the third, born elsewhere, with the utmost petulance of tongue and scurrilous buffoonery denies that he has any business with that dolt and blockhead (so he called the holy Martyr); that he knows not whether he were white or black, and that accordingly he thinks him worthy of no honour.

[11] It is known by countless examples that God pursues the injuries done to his friends promptly and almost with more anger, is struck dumb; but, brought to his tomb, while he very often defers his own. On the spot the wicked tongue sticks fast and is made immovable: the dumb man indicates his punishment to his companions by his hands; there is an outcry and a very great running together of the people; they see what had happened, and by questioning learn also the cause and the reviling from his companions. All urge that he must be led to the holy Martyr's tomb to pray for pardon of his fault; he is led thither, and shown to Arnestus, dean of the church (afterwards archbishop), and to the other priests and prelates. There was present a countless multitude of pilgrims (as the piety of those times brought about), gathered to honour the memory of the divine Wenceslaus; the clergy of the church of Prague, in no way inferior in religion and hope in God — nay, even firmer — with the dean and the prelates, surround the wretched man prostrate on the ground at the Saint's tomb; prayer is made ardently. Arnestus, with the other prelates of the church, did not hesitate to lay the head of St. Wenceslaus, enclosed in gold and gems, upon the head of the dumb man.

[12] Scarcely had they brought it near, when he testifies with cries and tears that the faculty of speech had been restored to him in a moment, he is healed by the touch of his head. the people rejoicing amid these things and applauding most loudly the glory of St. Wenceslaus. For these things Balbinus cites in the margin the Trophies of St. Wenceslaus, which I have not at hand, and Hagecius in the Chronicle of Bohemia, who agrees as to the fact at the aforecited year, but makes no mention of Arnestus by name, and expressly says that that reviler was a German by nation, and that he was struck with that punishment on the day before the feast of St. Wenceslaus, but was healed on the feast itself by the laying on of the same holy Martyr's head. He also says not a word about that adornment of the said sacred head with gold and set with gems, which Balbinus may well have recorded here prematurely, as I shall presently prove, after I have recited from the aforesaid Life of Arnestus, in Balbinus's own words, another notable miracle conferred in like manner on another dumb man by the touch of that same head. He relates it in book 2, chapter 8, marking in the margin Hagecius's Chronicle at the year 1347, and thus begins.

[13] At this very time, at which Arnestus began to flourish in the favour of the prince (the emperor Charles IV), a certain divine miracle wrought at the tomb of St. Wenceslaus, Likewise another dumb man, by the touch of the sacred head, duke and martyr, increased not a little the esteem of Arnestus with the prince. Erhard, son of Erhard, a citizen of Kutná (Kutná or Kuttenberg is a city of the kingdom of Bohemia in the circle of Čáslav), a young man of full age, had fallen into a grave sickness. In that sickness, some terror, I know not what, being suddenly admitted, he was so dismayed that he could not utter even a word thereafter, and remained dumb, to the utmost grief of his parents, now for the fifth month. His most sorrowful parents come with their son to Prague, to the sacred body of St. Wenceslaus, famous for miracles, and make supplication to Arnestus. He, delaying nothing, and already before, as I have related, trusting in St. Wenceslaus, having summoned as many as possible of the church's clerics and ministers, went to the tomb. Charles, king of the Romans, was looking on, and at the same time bids the people adore the mercy of God and ardently ask help for the wretched man; then, the head of St. Wenceslaus being reverently taken into his hands, he lays it upon the dumb man's head.

[14] receives his speech, and other Scarcely had he brought it near, when the dumb man began to speak most clearly and to proclaim the benefit of the holy Martyr; the people to applaud for wonder, to cry out, to weep, and to do all things at once, as is their manner. But wonder, entering upon the mind of Charles, roused his generosity, etc. — namely by his advancing the fabric of the church at his own charges and magnificently adorning the holy Martyr's chapel and tomb, as is added in the same place, and as I have already related in the Commentary. Of this prodigious healing of the dumb man Hagecius, cited by Balbinus, has the same things, and adds that he was twenty-six years of age. Further, Balbinus reports particularly only these two miracles obtained by the touch of that head, namely because there only those were to be reported which in some way concerned Arnestus. But in the Epitome of Bohemian Affairs, book 3, chapter 21, he signifies that more of the kind happened, when he says: In this year 1358 (Charles IV) took upon himself the adorning of the head of St. Wenceslaus (to whom he was most devoted, and which, laid upon the heads of the sick, had by its touch brought health to very many), and covered it wholly with purest gold and most brilliant gems by the ingenious labour of goldsmiths. As to the year of the head's adornment, Beneš agrees in the Chronicle, which I cited from Pessina's Phosphorus in the previous Commentary, number 206; and therefore I noted above that Balbinus seems to have slipped in memory when just now, at number XI, he mentioned that same adornment at the year 1338.

[15] miracles or benefits are obtained. The same historian, in the cited book and chapter of the Epitome, writes again at the year 1349: In these years very many miracles were wrought at the glorious sepulchre of the holy martyr Wenceslaus at Prague, which are read in Beneš of Weitmil and in the Life of St. Wenceslaus which John, bishop of Olomouc, wrote. At the year 1366 also he writes anew: The jewelled sanctuary of the divine Wenceslaus in the church of Prague had been begun some time before; being completed in the present year, it provoked not only men to wonder but even the holy Martyr himself to beneficence. The miracles wrought at that time Beneš and others recount. That Beneš, on Pessina's testimony, was a canon of Prague, and lived in the time of the emperor and king of Bohemia Charles IV, and wrote a Chronicle which in Pessina's day was unpublished, and perhaps still is, and which has not come to my hands. In the Life of St. Wenceslaus which is said to have John, bishop of Olomouc, for its author, I have found no other miracles than those which I have already reported above.

[16] Of the miracles obtained in the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian at Stará Boleslav, where we have said that St. Wenceslaus suffered and lay buried for three years, Balbinus wrote in the Epitome, book 6, A priest of the Society of Jesus has a withered arm chapter 13, what I subjoin. This place, he says, of the holy Prince's slaying is commended by many miracles from antiquity down to us, some of which we have related both in the History and also in this book (namely in chapter 4, out of which I have recounted certain things pertaining to St. Wenceslaus in the Commentary). It has been observed, and noted by our Elders, that the divine Wenceslaus at Boleslav helps chiefly and more readily men's withered limbs. I shall adduce three recent ones, wrought in our own age. Wenceslaus Raushar, a priest of the Society of Jesus — who with a felicity to be envied by apostolic men had drawn many thousands of souls from the Hussite heresy to the faith, by the untiring labour of going about and preaching through the various districts of Bohemia, and much more by sacred conversations and by a most courteous affability (in which kind he was very strong) — lay sick of a disease contracted from so many hardships. This disease being somehow driven off, his arm hung sapless, withered, and now good for nothing, and drooped without life and without feeling.

[17] The Father, his confidence being roused toward the memory of St. Wenceslaus, whose name he bore, restored in the church of Boleslav to its former vigour; betakes himself with companions, by the leave and good favour of his Superiors, from Prague to Boleslav on the Sunday within the Assumption of the Mother of God. In the dead of night he makes his way secretly, unknown to all, into the church of St. Wenceslaus, hastens straight to the place of the slaying, and there lays his withered hand upon that threshold which is red with the most holy Martyr's blood, praying and beseeching God with many words that by the merits of the holy King the arm might come to life which he could not govern, as though it were a useless weight, nor apply to any priestly or other functions. Nothing is easier than a word among men and a deed with God: in a moment he carries back to his rejoicing companions an arm mobile in its own sinews. Nor yet could it be known whence that soundness had returned to his hand (the Father suppressing the matter in humble silence), until, when Father Wenceslaus died in the year 1627, the Superiors, to whom he had disclosed the whole matter, published it to the glory of God; and that instance, received from them and lawfully attested, Caspar Arsenius, dean of the metropolitan church of Prague, published in print — namely, as he noted in the margin, in the Book on the Praises of the most blessed Virgin, chapter 15.

[18] Another instance (Balbinus goes on in the same place) equally illustrious and attested we shall adduce. likewise another man's withered hand Tobias Regalius, a man conspicuous in age, learning and uprightness of life, honoured, and a dean in dignity, left these things at Boleslav, written down by his own hand for perpetual memory of the matter. "I, Tobias Regalius, in the year of the Lord 1631, when I was dean of Nový Kolín, having first made confession and holy Communion, had my right hand, which had been altogether withered, healed, while I was praying in the very place of his martyrdom, by the intercession of St. Wenceslaus, martyr and patron of Bohemia." This excellent man afterwards received at Boleslav more benefits from heaven, which I shall shortly recite from his own handwriting among the Miracles of the Mother of God. But these, because they do not pertain to St. Wenceslaus, I shall not recount here. There follow then in Balbinus two others, which receive transcribed in his own words.

[19] There is a twofold benefit which the most illustrious and most reverend lord John Dlouhoveský, and a third man's foot, disabled by a long-standing malady. apostolic protonotary, canon of the metropolitan church of Prague and of Boleslav, records as having happened to himself. I copy out the handwritten paper which he sent to me. "John Ignatius Dlouhoveský of Dlouhá Ves, canon of Stará Boleslav, publicly confesses that he received this benefit in the sacred place of St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom. Who, having suffered many and grievous things in his left foot, out of pure and sheer youthful folly neglected the opportunity of a human remedy, until, being already made a priest, he went to physicians that they might help him (for he could no longer govern his left foot). They, declaring the matter inveterate and the malady hardened by time, said that a withered foot, whose very marrow was already dried up, could not be restored. What was he to do? Human helps being now despaired of, he turned himself to divine ones, and vowed a pilgrimage to St. Wenceslaus at Boleslav; he promised that he would offer Mass in the place of the slaying, and would perform certain other things. This vow being uttered, the foot began in a manner to grow young again, until, having paid what he had vowed, he recognized his foot now excellently restored to soundness, and in token of this thing he hung up a votive offering in the place in the year 1662."

[20] A theft hindered there by divine power. The other, sent by the said canon to Balbinus, is added in the same place in these words: It belongs also to the glory of this sacred church (of Boleslav) what I find in the Diaries written by the hand of the most reverend lord Rudolph Roder, dean, at the XII of November in the year 1660. "The church (he says) of St. Wenceslaus

was robbed this day by a thief; the thief, which you may wonder at, was a woman, who having entered by night stripped and despoiled all the altars of their cloths; but when she had come to the place of St. Wenceslaus's martyrdom, and wished to despoil it, she was drawn back as though by someone; which she herself confessed, having been caught by the sound of a little bell, which, with no one striking or moving it, is said to have given out a sound.” Thus far the Ephemerides (says Balbinus here) and the narrative sent to me by the most reverend and most illustrious lord Dlauhowesky, canon. For my part I find nothing to add to matters so well attested and fortified by so great an authority.

[21] A spring in Bavaria is said to be famous for benefits Thus far concerning the miracles in Bohemia, the Saint's own homeland, made illustrious by his life, his martyrdom, and his glorious remains. Another place famous for miracles, and indeed for many, was assigned by Matthew Ferdinand, archbishop of Prague, in his little book of supplication, which he published in print in the year 1669 and offered to Clement IX, supreme Pontiff, in order to obtain the extension of the Office of St. Wenceslaus to the universal Church, as has been said at greater length in the Commentarius prævius, §17. Further, in this little book, under title 12, he speaks thus to our purpose: In Bavaria, in the diocese of Augsburg, the spring of St. Wenceslaus has been frequented from all antiquity; concerning its miracles the Bavarians have published in print a book of considerable size. Within two years (in the year 1658 and the following) easily two hundred and seventy heavenly benefits drawn from that spring are recorded. In addition to these, among the documents set aside for the present day I find it noted that Caspar Manz, jurisconsult at Ingolstadt, dedicated a certain Treatise on jurisprudence, published in print in the year 1659, to St. Wenceslaus with the following inscription.

The Glorious Martyr

St. Wenceslaus,

Slain by his impious brother's right hand,

Famous in Denmark for miracles,

In Bohemia for victories,

In Bavaria for benefits,

The great Patron of Lauterbach,

The refuge of the sick,

The consolation of those who hasten to the spring of health,

The joy of those recovering,

He sets up this monument of piety and gratitude.

That spring, therefore, is at Lauterbach, as is also set down at the head of the same manuscript notice in these words: The miraculous Spring of St. Wenceslaus at Lauterbach in Bavaria. Hence I cannot doubt that some spring of this kind, celebrated under the name and benefits of St. Wenceslaus, is to be found at Lauterbach in Bavaria and in the diocese of Augsburg; but I am sorry that the book of considerable size which the archbishop of Prague, just praised, affirms was written concerning the miracles obtained there, has not come into our hands, and that I have spent great labor in vain in trying to find in other writers at least something about the same spring or its origin: for I neither know, nor can I divine, on what occasion that spring began to be called St. Wenceslaus's, or why the benefits or cures received from drinking of that same spring are ascribed to our holy Martyr.

[23] Other miracles are related by others, here passed over. Finally, that I may set an end to this Appendix, various apparitions of St. Wenceslaus, prodigies, miracles and certain benefits wrought in Bohemia are related here and there in the often-praised John Dubravius in his History of Bohemia, in Balbinus in the Epitome, in Crugerius in the Sacred Ashes of Bohemia, in Pontanus a Braitenberg in Bohemia Pia, and in other Bohemian writers; and these I pass over the more readily because they exist in print, and because I cannot confirm the same from any other source.

add ne*

* sighing