From a Terrace in Prague

by B. Granville Baker

CHAPTER IV

Begins with the accession of Wenceslaus I, tells you how to pronounce his name correctly in Czech, and informs you of his piety and general saintliness. There is also mention of other saints as suitable company for Wenceslaus, and a short account of how that prince qualified for a halo himself. We note also the contrition of Brother Boleslav, who made a martyr of Wenceslaus, how Boleslav did a good deal of fighting, most successfully, and extended his dominions thereby. Also how Boleslav learnt to be neighbourly and wise in his choice of a wife for his neighbour who was promptly converted to Christianity. Of the son of Boleslav I and Dubravka, wife of Duke Mieceslav I of Poland. How Boleslav II, called "the Pious," earned that epithet and started Prague with a bishop all to herself. Of churches and convents, and Milada, the pious sister of Boleslav II. Of the growing importance of Prague and how it was recognized and appreciated by Ibrahim Ibn Jacub and many of his race.

ITH the accession of Wenceslaus, first Přemysl prince of that name, Bohemia passes out of legend into ordered history; its rulers are henceforth properly labelled and dated. This is chiefly due to the spread of Christianity; priests and monks take up the tale of kindly Saga, and keep careful record of events. These chroniclers were not as a rule unbiassed; I cannot see how they could have been otherwise, for not only did they undertake the task of compiling history, they were constantly making propaganda for their own ideals against the paganism which still had a considerable hold on the sons of Czech. I doubt whether any historian can be absolutely unbiassed; a warm-blooded man—and you must be that if you would record the doings of your fellow-men—is bound to feel sympathy with or dislike for one or other actors in the far-off pageant of history. I frankly admit myself biassed in favour of Brother Boleslav the hearty heathen, and somewhat bored by that saintly lady Ludmilla. A night out with Boleslav would have been more amusing, if less edifying, than a country walk with pious Wenceslaus, who would be sure to waste a good deal of time at wayside shrines; a picnic arranged by Dragomira and in that lady's company, would have been at least a material improvement on any little outing with Ludmilla, who would surely have discovered some reason for fasting on that particular day. But then I can afford a bias; am only making observations from "a Terrace in Prague."

Monkish chroniclers sang the praises of Prince Wenceslaus. My spelling of this name is incorrect, but it is more familiar to English eyes than any other, as our Christmas carol "puts it with a 'we.'" I do not suggest that this St. Wenceslaus is identical with the "Good King Wenceslaus" we sing about—in fact, I have discovered another ruler of that name who fits the part much better; but of this more anon. The correct version of this saintly prince's name is Vaclav, pronounced Vatslav. It is as well to get a proper grip of this word, as the show street in the town is named Václavské Náměstí, which being interpreted meaneth Wenceslaus Place; the Germans call it Wenzel's Platz, but this designation is not popular at the moment. It is advisable to acquire the Czech version of the name, as the Václavské Náměstí is in the business and amusement quarter of the town. As to the pronunciation of Václavské Náměstí, it presents no particular difficulties, despite the profusion of accents (the Czechs are very liberal in this respect), they seem to make no noticeable difference with exception of the inverted circumflex, which makes "ye" out of plain "e." This is nothing to what the Czech language can do in the way of tongue-twisters.

The Václavské Náměstí rises gently towards another hill of Prague, Vinohrady. At the top of the rise, looking right down the broad avenue over the old town and beyond it to the Hradšany, is an equestrian statue of St. Wenceslaus. There are other likenesses of the Saint; a number of them adorn his chapel in the Cathedral of St. Vitus, and another statue stands near the castle entrance on the Hradšany, in the latter Wenceslaus is shown looking out over the city, his hand upraised in blessing, which is right and proper and quite what the city expects of him. The equestrian statue is the most recent portrait of the pious prince, and is really quite convincing. We know, or at least I am about to tell you, that Wenceslaus was a man of peace, he is therefore represented carrying a lance; the modern sense of propriety requires of a non-combatant that he should sit for his portrait armed. He need not introduce a bunch of bombs or a pot of poison gas into the composition, a sword will do. Wenceslaus brought his lance much as the up-to-date war-winner girds on a sword when he goes to be photographed. Swords may also be worn at weddings, at funerals, also at christenings I believe; anyway, on all filmable occasions.

As far as I can discover, St. Wenceslaus only had one fight in his life, and then he got killed.

Now that we have arrived at the first of authentically dated rulers over Bohemia, Wenceslaus I, 928-935, we may as well take a look round the Europe of that time. We find first of all that the peoples were capable of getting into just as bad a mess as they are in to-day, and that without the aid of any new diplomacy, League of Nations and International Conferences. England was, so to speak, nowhere in those days; Englishmen did not wander about the Continent making observations from terraces, did not even launch missions and commissions on harmless and unsuspecting countries, in order to impress the inhabitants thereof with our wealth and our good taste in getting rid of it. England was very busy with the Scots, Welsh and Danes, who were also causing a deal of trouble to the broken-up remnants of Charlemagne's Empire. The ideal of the Holy Roman Empire still lived and inspired a host of adventurous Counts of the Marches and other bearers of German culture to inroads into territory inhabited by Slavonic races. The idea seemed to be that as each Slavonic tribe, principality or kingdom adopted Christianity it should come under German domination and be held in trust for Mother Church by German princes as long as the Papacy conformed to their conception of right and wrong. The Papacy itself seems to have had no definite ideas of right and wrong at the time, or at least did not put them into practice; had, in fact, become thoroughly corrupt and ineffective for good. Christendom was in a parlous state, disunited and assailed by hosts of barbarians, Danes, Saracens, Hungarians. The latter had become especially dangerous to the Slavonic peoples. Before Arpad arrived at Pressburg (now called Bratislava, please) in 829, the territory inhabited by Slavonic tribes, mostly in principalities of varying size and importance, had extended with fluctuating frontiers, from Holstein south-eastward through Central Europe to the Adriatic and the Balkan range. Arpad drove a wedge into this Slavonic mass and broke it into two parts; Arpad's descendants still separate northern and southern Slavs. We have seen how the Empire of Moravia went down before the Magyars, and that the Bohemians, no longer able to count on support from that side, were forced to turn to Germany. The intrusion of the Magyars into Central Europe, by dividing the mass of Slavonic races, also weakened the influence of the Eastern Church among the Bohemians and forced those that were inclined towards Christianity into closer communion with Rome via Germanism. German priests were beginning to gain the ascendancy over those of the Eastern persuasion, they objected to services in the Vulgate, and as they knew no language but their own and only sufficient Latin for their clerical duties, their influence began to threaten the Slavonic genius of the Bohemians with extinction. This was undoubtedly their purpose, and it accounts for much of Bohemia's sufferings during the thousand years following the imposition of a German bishop on this country by the German King Arnulf to whom the immediate predecessors of St. Wenceslaus, Spytihnev and Vratislav had appealed for assistance.

Another social institution which was beginning to make its influence felt at the time under discussion was the feudal system. Hitherto, civilized Europe had depended for offensive and defensive operations on large slow-moving armies of foot-folk; these were ineffective against marauding barbarians, Vikings in their sharp-prowed ships, or the light cavalry of Hungarian or Saracen. Moreover, the governmental system organized by Charlemagne had fallen to pieces, and there was no central power to order the movements of a large army. Luckily for the cause of Christendom and western civilization such as it was, the subordinates of Charles's successors hit upon the right tactics to employ against the invaders. The nominal subordinates, Counts of the Marches, burgraves, barons, took a very free hand in those days of decentralized authority and bad lines of communication. Based on impregnable strongholds, they met the swiftly moving hosts of marauders with equally mobile troops of mailed horsemen, raised, trained and paid by themselves, and bound to their feudal lords by the ties of discipline out of which grew the tradition of military servitude. It was these feudal lords and their mailed horsemen who saved Western Europe; they took their own reward out of the lands they saved and out of the neighbours whom they insisted on saving, till they eventually became an unmitigated nuisance from which Bohemia suffered as much as any other country. But for the moment we are concerned with the times of St. Wenceslaus and the first half of the tenth century.