[14] The author is addressing his readers.
[15] This appears to have been a proverbial expression. In Dalimil's Chronicle (see later) King Ottokar is made to say that soon no Bohemian will any longer be seen on the bridge of Prague.
[16] Živútek, the diminutive of život = life.
[17] See Chapter II.
[18] A hill near Prague (known in German as the Laurenz Berg), where the executions then took place.
[19] The head of the family (or rather clan) of Vitkovic, whom Ottokar had exiled.
[CHAPTER II]
EARLY PROSE WRITERS—THE PRECURSORS OF HUS
In Bohemia, as in most countries, we find the national language employed in poetry long before an attempt is made to use it in prose. Latin was the language exclusively used by the writers on history, legal matters, and theology. The writers indeed were generally ecclesiastics, to whom the Latin language was necessarily familiar. Even as late as the second half of the fourteenth century Thomas of Štitný was blamed for using the Bohemian language in his theological and philosophical works.
A few very early Latin prayers and lives of saints originated in Bohemia, but the earliest prose work which possesses general interest is the Latin Chronicon Boemorum of Cosmas, commonly called Cosmas Pragensis. Cosmas, "the father of Bohemian history," has always enjoyed a great and well-deserved reputation, and has often been called "the Bohemian Herodotus" by his countrymen.