Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (4 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
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Rome showed unexpected sympathy for the Slavic missionaries, but the conflicts between East Franconia and Great Moravia went on, with many invasions, revolts, cruel betrayals, and sudden reversals of fortune. A kind of temporary balance was restored after the Czech defeat of 872 by the agreements of Forchheim (874), which gave the Great Moravians a chance to extend their power both north and south and (while the Franks were busy with their own internal problems) to make the Czechs accept Great Moravian hegemony. Yet Arnulf, king of East Franconia and last Carolingian emperor, was not willing to accept an erosion of his power; he allied himself with Magyar horsemen who attacked Great Moravia, and it was ultimately destroyed by these invasions and by internal disunity. In the year 895 two Bohemian princes, at least one of them of the P
emyslid clan, again renewed their allegiance to Arnulf and the Franconian empire; Regensburg and Salzburg regained their preeminence in Bohemian church affairs, at least for a while. The collapse of Great Moravia did not, however, end the history of the Slavic rites. The traditions of Cyril and Methodius were preserved among the southern Slavs, and in the first Bohemian churches, in the region of Prague and elsewhere, celebrants of the Slavic rites may have found refuge. An early Church Slavonic legend about the life and death of Bohemia’s patron saint—Duke Václav, or St. Wenceslas—was written after he died in 929, and
“Hospodine
,
pomiluj ny”
(“God, take mercy on us”), a venerable Czech song possibly dating from the tenth century, preserves resounding traces of its Church Slavonic origins. The Slavic rite survived in the monastery at Sázava until the mid-eleventh century.
emyslid clan, again renewed their allegiance to Arnulf and the Franconian empire; Regensburg and Salzburg regained their preeminence in Bohemian church affairs, at least for a while. The collapse of Great Moravia did not, however, end the history of the Slavic rites. The traditions of Cyril and Methodius were preserved among the southern Slavs, and in the first Bohemian churches, in the region of Prague and elsewhere, celebrants of the Slavic rites may have found refuge. An early Church Slavonic legend about the life and death of Bohemia’s patron saint—Duke Václav, or St. Wenceslas—was written after he died in 929, and“Hospodine
,
pomiluj ny”
(“God, take mercy on us”), a venerable Czech song possibly dating from the tenth century, preserves resounding traces of its Church Slavonic origins. The Slavic rite survived in the monastery at Sázava until the mid-eleventh century.
During these restless years, the life of Duke Bo
ivoj (c. 852/53-888/ 89), the first Christian ruler emerging from the P
emyslid clan and, probably, the founder of the stronghold of Praha, may have been more dramatic than the faint traces in legends and chronicles reveal. The writer of the first Bohemian chronicle, composed more than two hundred years after his death, believes that real history commences with Bo
ivoj’s Christian rule; the dukes before him, the learned chronicler says, were “given to gluttony and sleeping” and “lived like animals, brutal and without knowledge.” Bo
ivoj had to cope with Frankish pressures and bloody Czech defeats, and an early legend has it that he accepted Christianity in
a rather pragmatic way. Visiting a Moravian prince, he was relegated to sitting in front of and under the table, together with other pagan guests, because non-Christians were not allowed to dine with Christians, and when Methodius, the missionary, explained to him the virtues and, possibly, advantages of the new creed (sitting at the table with others, new might in the field, and so forth), he was duly christened and returned to Bohemia with priests of the Slavic rite; his wife, Ludmila, grandmother of St. Wenceslas who was killed by his enemies when she was sixty-one years old, accepted baptism, too. Bo
ivoj built a church dedicated to St. Clemens at Levy Hradec (the first Christian church on Bohemian soil), but his more traditionalist rivals, dissatisfied by his new allegiance, rose against him and he had to seek refuge with the Moravians and again returned with their help. He may have decided, right then and there, to build an ex-voto chapel about six miles south of Levy Hradec, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and designed as a mausoleum for his family, and it is perhaps more than a poetic thought that he had it constructed on a place called Gigi (Žiži), on the Hrad
any plateau, sacred to the old gods—as if he wanted symbolically to express his triumph over his defeated rivals. Toward the end of his life, possibly in the late 880s, he made a decision of far-reaching strategic, political, and economic implications, and resolved to shift his residence and that of his retinue from Levy Hradec to an eminent place on the Hrad
any plateau, close to his new church, and the new castle was called Praha.
ivoj (c. 852/53-888/ 89), the first Christian ruler emerging from the Pemyslid clan and, probably, the founder of the stronghold of Praha, may have been more dramatic than the faint traces in legends and chronicles reveal. The writer of the first Bohemian chronicle, composed more than two hundred years after his death, believes that real history commences with Boivoj’s Christian rule; the dukes before him, the learned chronicler says, were “given to gluttony and sleeping” and “lived like animals, brutal and without knowledge.” Boivoj had to cope with Frankish pressures and bloody Czech defeats, and an early legend has it that he accepted Christianity ina rather pragmatic way. Visiting a Moravian prince, he was relegated to sitting in front of and under the table, together with other pagan guests, because non-Christians were not allowed to dine with Christians, and when Methodius, the missionary, explained to him the virtues and, possibly, advantages of the new creed (sitting at the table with others, new might in the field, and so forth), he was duly christened and returned to Bohemia with priests of the Slavic rite; his wife, Ludmila, grandmother of St. Wenceslas who was killed by his enemies when she was sixty-one years old, accepted baptism, too. Bo
ivoj built a church dedicated to St. Clemens at Levy Hradec (the first Christian church on Bohemian soil), but his more traditionalist rivals, dissatisfied by his new allegiance, rose against him and he had to seek refuge with the Moravians and again returned with their help. He may have decided, right then and there, to build an ex-voto chapel about six miles south of Levy Hradec, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and designed as a mausoleum for his family, and it is perhaps more than a poetic thought that he had it constructed on a place called Gigi (Žiži), on the Hradany plateau, sacred to the old gods—as if he wanted symbolically to express his triumph over his defeated rivals. Toward the end of his life, possibly in the late 880s, he made a decision of far-reaching strategic, political, and economic implications, and resolved to shift his residence and that of his retinue from Levy Hradec to an eminent place on the Hradany plateau, close to his new church, and the new castle was called Praha.The etymology of
Praha
has long been discussed by historians and linguists, and the final results are not in yet. There are, of course, the Cosmas/Libuše people patriotically adhering to the mythological “threshold” (
prah
) idea; a few others believe, as did V. V. Tomek in the nineteenth century, that the word referred to the cleaning of the forest by fire (
pražiti
) or are inclined to derive it from
prahy
, eddies in the river. More recently, interpreters have come to assert that the term originally denoted a barren place on which the sun beat down mercilessly (
na praz
) while still others defend the hypothesis that the ancient speakers meant a knob, a little hill, or a terrace near the river—immediately provoking the question what
Praha
stood for first, the burg or the little market below it, or vice versa.
Praha
has long been discussed by historians and linguists, and the final results are not in yet. There are, of course, the Cosmas/Libuše people patriotically adhering to the mythological “threshold” (
prah
) idea; a few others believe, as did V. V. Tomek in the nineteenth century, that the word referred to the cleaning of the forest by fire (
pražiti
) or are inclined to derive it from
prahy
, eddies in the river. More recently, interpreters have come to assert that the term originally denoted a barren place on which the sun beat down mercilessly (
na praz
) while still others defend the hypothesis that the ancient speakers meant a knob, a little hill, or a terrace near the river—immediately provoking the question whatPraha
stood for first, the burg or the little market below it, or vice versa.
The important point is that Duke Bo
ivoj (appearing under the name of Goriwei in the Latin annals of the Fulda monastery in 872) decided to erect the burg of Prague not in the solitude of wild forests but in the elevated middle of a Czech settlement close to the river. Archaeological evidence of Slavic settlements on the left (western) riverbank, including the one at Malostranský Square built in the place of older Germanic hamlets,
as well as old Slavic cemeteries on Hrad
any Hill and its vicinity, distinctly indicate that Bo
ivoj and his sons, who continued building, followed the people rather than initiated radical change. The new fortification sat nearly astride an old route from Germany to Russia, which long-distance commercial travelers increasingly used after the Magyars blocked the route along the Danube; merchants went from Mainz to Regensburg and from there north to Prague, where the route reached the fords of the river, and from the other shore on to Cracow and Kiev. The new ducal residence and its
suburbium
attracted barons, artisans, goliards, scribes, ecclesiastics, and merchants of local and international interests; native people still avoided the right side of the river, often inundated, but iron was made there in small furnaces, the smithies plied their trade, and an ancient cemetery at Bartolom
jská Street seems to indicate that a settlement of foreign merchants may also have sprung up there quite early on.
ivoj (appearing under the name of Goriwei in the Latin annals of the Fulda monastery in 872) decided to erect the burg of Prague not in the solitude of wild forests but in the elevated middle of a Czech settlement close to the river. Archaeological evidence of Slavic settlements on the left (western) riverbank, including the one at Malostranský Square built in the place of older Germanic hamlets,as well as old Slavic cemeteries on Hrad
any Hill and its vicinity, distinctly indicate that Boivoj and his sons, who continued building, followed the people rather than initiated radical change. The new fortification sat nearly astride an old route from Germany to Russia, which long-distance commercial travelers increasingly used after the Magyars blocked the route along the Danube; merchants went from Mainz to Regensburg and from there north to Prague, where the route reached the fords of the river, and from the other shore on to Cracow and Kiev. The new ducal residence and itssuburbium
attracted barons, artisans, goliards, scribes, ecclesiastics, and merchants of local and international interests; native people still avoided the right side of the river, often inundated, but iron was made there in small furnaces, the smithies plied their trade, and an ancient cemetery at Bartolom
jská Street seems to indicate that a settlement of foreign merchants may also have sprung up there quite early on.Other books
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