From a Terrace in Prague Part 4

From this remark you will understand that the Bohemians thoroughly appreciated their neighbours.

Ulrich reverted to type, and once again the stout peasant stock of Czech came to the rescue of a fading dynasty; the son of Ulrich and Boena, Bretislav I, was destined to restore the house of Premysl to a position more in keeping with its great traditions. Before succeeding his father, Bretislav was given an opportunity of proving what good stock he came from. Boleslav of Poland had died, his sons quarrelled over their heritage, and their dissensions gave the neighbours an excuse for interfering. One of these neighbours was King Stephen of Hungary, afterwards called "the Saint." He had only recently been converted from paganism, but he took part in this Polish dispute just as if he had been a ripe old Christian monarch of some standing. Stephen had the happy thought of taking Moravia for himself, no doubt in pious memory of his ancestor who first stole it. The same idea occurred to Ulrich of Bohemia, who sent young Bretislav into Moravia, where the latter defeated the Magyars rather badly; Moravia thereupon was added to Bohemia, whereas Slovakia remained with Hungary.

Bretislav failed to realize his ideal of forming a strong national Slavonic State, independent of German rule--he had too strong an Emperor against him, Henry III; but he certainly restored Bohemia and the Premysl dynasty to a position of some importance in Europe. He was, however, unable to shake off the German grasp of his country; German armies had arrived before Prague and threatened that city with destruction, so Bretislav submitted to the inevitable, paid tribute to the Emperor and spent the last and peaceful years of his reign in restoring order and prosperity to his country. The city of Prague benefited by the bravery of Bretislav, for as a result of that Prince's successful campaign against the Poles the body of St. Adalbert, whom you have met before as Bishop of Prague, was captured by the Bohemians and restored to their capital. There was, I believe, some trouble about this operation of Bretislav. The ruler and people of Poland had appointed Adalbert as their patron saint; he had been killed in their country, had been buried there some time, and had even a cathedral to himself at Gnesen. The Pope launched a bull or two at Bretislav over this business. I do not know whether any of them took effect. The Bohemians were ordered to return Adalbert to the Poles, but I do not know that they did so, neither have I seen him lying about in Prague, probably because I have not looked for him. Adalbert is the patron saint of Emaus in Prague among many other churches in Bohemia, but no doubt he can find time to patronize Poland as well. Anyway, I do not antic.i.p.ate any strained relations between the Republics of Czecho-Slovakia and Poland on this account; both countries are more interested in a yet older fossilized form of creation--coal to wit.

With the best will in the world it is difficult to rise to any enthusiasm over the majority of Bohemia's rulers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. There seems to have been nothing of beauty or interest in individual Premysls to break the monotony of endless quarrels between brother claimants to the throne and appeals of unsuccessful rivals to their German neighbour, whose decision would be entirely guided by the desire for a further weakening of Bohemia. Prague has little to show in the way of architectural interest dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but what there is is good. I doubt whether any other city in Europe has much to show of that period of transition from Romanesque to Gothic: whatever there was has generally been pulled down or built over when the great flood of Gothic poured over Europe some century or so later. But if there is little to see in Prague which can be clearly traced to the two centuries under discussion, it is of interest in showing the expansion of the town since Libua's prophecy concerning it. The Hradany came in for some attention. Another church, dedicated to All Saints and built up very near the Basilica of St. George, dates back to the eleventh century.

There are, or were till recently, distinct traces of work dating from that century to be found in the Karmelitska Ulice, that thoroughfare which leads from the Malo Stranske Namesti towards Smichov. We have already noted that the Jews had settled in this part of Prague towards the end of the tenth century and that some of them had been ordered across the river to another settlement of their kind, so there must have been good steady business to be done in Prague. I have often wondered how and where people crossed the Vltava previous to 1167 when Judith, Queen of Vladislav II, built a bridge very near the site of the present Charles Bridge. Judith's bridge was eventually carried away by floods, but the Mala Strana bridgehead tower remains; you see it with its squat tower and broad chisel-shaped steeple, rising up beside the more graceful and ornate tower of the present bridge, which was new in the early years of the fourteenth century. The stout tower built by Judith is a very interesting study of architecture; it has had a long life of usefulness, having been used for many years as a lock-up for the froward youth of the neighbourhood, and it is still inhabited. This st.u.r.dy remnant of Judith's bridge, which you can see from my terrace, is the only trace I have found of means of communication between the two banks of the river. There must have been considerable traffic, as we know, for instance, how St. Wenceslaus was in the habit of going to and fro between Hradany and Vyehrad. The river was probably fordable in several places, but it is rather a treacherous stream with a swift current and an uncertain bottom; some Hungarian troops attempted to cross it by a ford on a certain memorable occasion, and were swept away to perdition. Yet even before Judith's time there must have been need of a bridge. The town and various settlements around it were growing up, as is proved by the number of churches which were considered necessary or appropriate. The Hradany was very well off in that respect. Then there was the Church of St. Cosmas and Damian, where you now see the towers of Emaus, and in the twelfth century, if not at the end of the eleventh, the foundations of the Tyn Church were laid. This period also has left three quaint little Romanesque chapels in various parts of Prague. They are very well preserved, these little round chapels, and the fact that they are pretty far apart suggests the extent to which Prague had expanded by the end of the twelfth century. There is one of these chapels dedicated to St. Martin, on Vyehrad, another to St.

Longinus, rather difficult to find, some half-mile north-east of Emaus; and a third, the oldest of all, the Chapel of the Holy Cross, stands near the old Town Tower of the Charles Bridge. There is also a seventeenth-century _baroque_ imitation of these Romanesque chapels under the riverside slope of the Letna Hill, which is not worth troubling about.

While Christianity was striking its roots yet deeper into the soil of Bohemia, the rulers of that country were being drawn into the quarrel between the spiritual and the would-be temporal head of the Church; the "Invest.i.ture Strife" gave Vratislav, son of Bretislav I, an opportunity of strengthening his independence and increasing the importance of his country. He took sides with Emperor Henry IV against one of the strongest of the Popes, Gregory VII. The Emperor's Bohemian allies took part in many of that monarch's battles, chiefly against the Saxons, who appear to have been hereditary enemies of the sons of Czech, and the victory at Hohenburg on the Unstrutt in 1075 is attributed to the bravery of the Bohemian troops. Six years later Bohemian troops helped Henry IV in his attack on Rome, and their leader, Wiprecht of Groitch, was one of the first to scale the walls of the Eternal City.

The Czechs have always been good hearty fighters, and of the three hundred who set out to help the Emperor against Rome only nine returned home to Bohemia. The Germans, even in those early days, were thorough utilitarians.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MARTIN'S, VYEHRAD. B.G.B. 1912.]

As reward for his many and great services Henry IV promoted Vratislav to the rank of King. It appears to have been, as it were, brevet-rank only; it was not hereditary. Nevertheless it was a great day for Prague when the ruler of Bohemia was crowned with the golden diadem, presented by the Emperor himself. There was no doubt that King Vratislav had earned the distinction--he had done well by himself, by his country and by his ally the Emperor--so no doubt the Basilica Church of St. George on the Hradany and its congregation did all honour to the crowning of Bohemia's first King. It is also interesting to note that Vratislav had "contributed to the party funds"; he had lent money to the Emperor. This should strike a homely, familiar note among us.

The frescoes in St. George's Church probably date from the time of King Vratislav; there was a distinct revival of love for things beautiful in those days when the peoples were beginning to see the light that was rising, gently but persistently, over the subsiding chaos that had claimed Europe for the past three centuries and more. True, the world was still a confused and worrying sort of place to live in; apart from the soul-sickening public quarrels between Rome and the Empire, there was a good deal of private enterprise in that line between all manner of petty potentates. Nevertheless there was some improvement to be noted, first in the tendency of fostering national feeling in place of a confused cosmopolitanism, secondly by the effects of the Cluny movement in its endeavour to reform the Church. The tendency of the time expressed itself in beautiful illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, and Prague is lucky in the possession of many such. It is probable that Duke Bretislav II, grandson of the first prince of that name, encouraged the expression of his people's religious and national sentiments, in those illuminated ma.n.u.scripts of the Bible, of Missals, and the "Cantionales," those works so beautiful in design, so loyal and sincere of execution, their colours as fresh as when the artist's hand withdrew reluctantly from the finishing touch.

Bretislav II had had a misfortune in his youth; he had caused a courtier of the name of Zderad to be murdered. Zderad had insulted the young Prince; what with that and the courtier's unp.r.o.nounceable name it is no wonder that Bretislav was roused to act indiscreetly. He found it advisable to spend some years abroad after this little affair, and only returned home when his father's neck was broken out hunting.

Bretislav took up the anti-pagan line very strongly. It seems strange, but there was still a certain amount of paganism lurking in secret places in Bohemia. It was not safe to indulge in heathen rites at home, but there were places abroad where it was still possible. One of these places is still a fashionable holiday resort, the Island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea. Here there was a temple at Arkona, to Svantovit, the G.o.d of air and light, besides a local and household deity president over all Rugen, called Rugevit. I can quite imagine a couple of Czech householders, law-abiding and good church-goers, conspiring to get away from the family for a bit and take a trip to Rugen, just for a flutter with the old G.o.ds. What with the secrecy required, as both Ruler and Church forbade the practice of worshipping Slavonic deities, the practice must have been quite as exciting as _pet.i.ts chevaux_.

Whether it was this interference with the Rugen pilgrims or his action in stamping out the custom of holding religious services in the language of the country, Bretislav II was not popular; he was eventually murdered by some of his n.o.bles. The successors of Bretislav seem to have been cantankerous and inefficient; it is wearisome to read of those hopeless people throwing away the fruits of good work done by such stout fellows as Bretislav I or even the hearty heathen Boleslav. In all this distressing muddle of brothers, cousins, etc., fighting, getting beaten and running off to the German Emperor to howl to him about it, there are occasional bright spots. So for instance, one Sobeslav, who came to the throne in 1125, and found things in the usual mess, with half the country against him; nevertheless he managed to beat Emperor Lothair most heartily. Lothair had crossed the Giant Mountains in order to support the claims of some other Premysl, had met Sobeslav's hastily gathered army at Kulm, near Teplitz, and had been handsomely beaten. Not only that, but Lothair and the remnants of his army were surrounded, and it was up to the Bohemian Prince to impose terms this time. Sobeslav was thus able to improve the status of Bohemia considerably, and he added to his country's dignity by receiving the high office of hereditary cup-bearer of the Empire, from Conrad III, Lothair's successor. Cupbearer in perpetuam to an Empire sounds very important and suggests great possibilities of influencing people. As a matter of fact the office gave Bohemia certain rights within the Empire which went some way to balance the obligations; nevertheless German ties were fastened yet more securely on the sons of Czech.

Sobeslav was succeeded by his nephew Vladislav, another Premysl to rise to royal rank. This Prince pa.s.sed through the usual troubles before securing the throne to himself, and was perforce driven to invoke the German Emperor Conrad in order to establish his sovereign rights over the whole of Bohemia and Moravia. The reign of Vladislav I (as King) is relieved by a certain picturesqueness, by a touch of romance, from the usual sordid course of events in the life of the Premysl dynasty with its rivalries, treachery, conspiracies and other social amenities of the time. There is even something picturesque in the fact that the Pope had felt obliged to send Cardinal Guido with a special mission to establish order among the Bohemian clergy. These amiable gentlemen would persist in entering the bonds of matrimony; if Bohemian ladies were as attractive then as they are to-day, I feel the sincerest sympathy with those gallant priests. It is easy to imagine what trouble arose when Cardinal Guido insisted that all married priests should either separate from their wives or renounce their dignities, and there were some clerics of the highest rank, among them a couple of deans, who were called upon to this act of renunciation. The immediate result of the Pope's interference was that the Bohemians chased his legate from Prague to Eger, where the latter succ.u.mbed to his injuries. This was certainly a picturesque incident, but it was not appreciated by the Papacy, which was hotly in favour of Cluniac principles. There were other picturesque events pending which forced a compromise even on Rome; the second crusade, much encouraged by Cluny, was in course of preparation, and as all Christian countries of Europe were expected to take part, the time was not propitious for bringing pressure to bear on Bohemia's ruler. He had not arrived at royal dignity when the Guido episode took place; it was within the first year of his reign. The royal crown was bestowed on Vladislav a few years later by another romantic personage, Frederick Barbarossa, in consideration of Bohemian a.s.sistance against the Emperor's enemies in Northern Italy. Vladislav marched an army of ten thousand men from Bohemia, took part in the siege of Milan, and himself killed Dacio, one of the leaders of the Milanese.

I doubt whether Vladislav is ent.i.tled to an effigy with feet crossed, as his part in the second crusade was not remarkable. He took his troops to Asia, left them there under the charge of King Louis VII of France, and returned to his own country via Constantinople, where he indulged in a little intriguing with the Greek Emperor Emanuel. This seems to have given the flamboyant Greeks the impression that Bohemia's King had become a va.s.sal of their Emperor; they were disillusioned some years later when Vladislav a.s.sisted Stephen III on to the throne of Hungary against the Emperor Emanuel's choice.

It is all very fine and thrilling to read about picturesque princes, romantic rulers, and we shall hear of several in the history of Prague, but they are not necessarily an a.s.set to a country that wishes to develop in peace and consolidate within its own boundaries. It is difficult to see what good Vladislav did by his trip to Asia with the crusaders; he left his troops in charge of a foreigner and created a distinctly wrong impression on another people while on his way home.

Again, he was romantically brave in Italy at the head of a Bohemian army which was much in excess of the numbers required of him by his agreement with Barbarossa. Of this large army very few returned to their native country. There is, however, one deed by which Vladislav becomes ent.i.tled to undying merit: he founded the Monastery of Strahov.

Where the strip of land which connects the Hradany Hill with that of Petrin, mentioned in Libua's forecast, dips a bit before rising again, there Vladislav laid the foundations of Strahov. This happened in 1140, what time Vladislav was beset by enemies of his own house, who disputed his right to the throne; he was even a.s.sailed in his capital, Prague, by another Premysl, Conrad of Znoymo. Nevertheless the walls of Strahov Monastery rose over the terraced valley that dips down into Prague between Petrin and Castle Hill. The good monks of Strahov, illumined by the light that spread from Cluny, soon made of their house a home of learning and piety, a haunt of peace where weary souls found rest from strife and turmoil; Mount Zion, the people called this sacred spot, and the name still clings to it despite the many vicissitudes through which it has pa.s.sed. It must have been a-building when the enemies of Vladislav attacked the city, it was destroyed when the Hussite wars broke out over Bohemia, and it suffered at the hands of the Swedes during the War of Thirty Years. But the good work that Vladislav the King had started on Mount Zion of Strahov was not allowed to perish; the monastery re-arose from its ashes after each visitation, with renewed strength, arose to look out over Prague from its terraced height. While looking out over the city with the eye of a friend full of loving understanding, the congregation on Mount Zion pursued the even tenor of its way, collecting treasures for the benefit of future generations. The library, a wonderful sight and soothing after the turmoil in the streets of Prague, contains many of those collected treasures, instruments used by the astronomer Tycho de Brahe, the works of Racusani the philosopher, a gift of Sir Thomas Saville to Hajek the sixteenth-century biologist, astronomer, professor of Prague University, who had studied in Milan and Bologna and had visited England in 1589.

Then there are the poetical works of Elizabeth Weston of a n.o.ble English family, who had made her home in Prague and died here in 1612. A very learned lady this, but, it would seem, unhappy. You may see her tomb in St. Thomas's Church in Mala Strana, just beyond that imposing Jesuit Church of St. Nicholas, on it the following inscription:--

D. O. M. S. B. M.

Elisabethae Joannae Westonae

n.o.bilitate patriae Britanniae, Seculi nostri Sulpitiae, Cui nomen dant litterae illibati

Minervae floris Suadae decoris Musarum delicii Foeminarum exempli.

Strahov Monastery has, I hope, pa.s.sed through its vicissitudes and has entered at last into an existence of undisturbed usefulness. Of its earliest appearance there are neither record nor any traces left; the storms that pa.s.sed over Bohemia have obliterated any outward sign of the Mount Zion which Vladislav founded and whither generations of the pious sons of Czech went up to find peace. One of the first of these was Vladislav himself; weary of war and worn out by internal dissensions, he abdicated and retired to Strahov to end his days.

Strahov was entirely rebuilt in the seventeenth century, and has withstood the enemies of Bohemia from without and within, taking no irreparable harm from the open attack of Frederick of Prussia in the eighteenth century or the covert attack of those hostile to the faith it has stood for down the ages. The quaintly shaped spires of St. Mary's Church with its three aisles, its glorious organ the largest in all Bohemia, stand out in bold relief amidst the terraced garden and orchards tended with fond care. The belfry is silent, its bells were sacrificed to the cause of the Habsburgs in the Great War; you may see plaster casts of them in the library. Here you may feast your eye on gloriously illuminated ma.n.u.scripts and wonder at the ingenious inventions of one or other good brother who sojourned here a while on his way to the "Abiding City." There is, for instance, a model of the first lightning-conductor. Country folk, when they first saw it, crossed themselves, thinking this the work of the devil. The visitors' book in the library shows signatures of men famous in history, among them our Nelson, who, in company of Sir William and Lady Hamilton, visited Strahov on September 29, 1800. The strict rules of the congregation of Premonstratensians allow ladies to visit only the library, which is approached from the outer courtyard; the picture gallery is unfortunately closed to them, a small collection but of value, its gem is Durer's "Rosary Feast."

[Ill.u.s.tration: STRAHOV MONASTERY.]

So stands Strahov, Mount Zion, between the Castle Hill and Petrin looking out over Prague from its terraced gardens and its bower of fruit-trees. It is always beautiful, this haunt of old-world peace, whether the garden and the orchard be all a ma.s.s of blossom creamy white in the sunshine, pale purples in the shadows, in the shade of midsummer foliage when Golden Prague below glitters in the midday heat, or in autumn when the valley is all a blaze of gold and russet, and the distant hills stand out in strong blue ma.s.ses. Winter also brings fascination. Strahov, its many windows severely closed and reflecting a sullen sky, seems to stand out more austerely from among the gaunt tree-trunks, their grey and sombre outlines broken by a fantasia of gnarled and twisted branches glittering under snow. But within those walls, in the high altar's mysterious depth, in the long bare corridors and tiny cells where useful work continues as it has done for centuries, there is the "peace that pa.s.seth understanding."

CHAPTER VI

Deals in succession with five Kings of the House of Premysl, Ottokar I, Wenceslaus I, Ottokar II, Wenceslaus II and III, with whom the male line of this famous dynasty became extinct. This chapter also touches on the story of the Jews of Prague and tells about one Dalibor who provided a hero for Smetana's opera of that name. Mentions buildings and improvements undertaken by the Kings above named; tells of their troubles and trials, and how for a time they overcame them. Introduces the first Habsburg to Bohemia and makes mention of other visitors to Prague.

On the death of Vladislav II, in fact on his retirement to the cloistered peace of Strahov, it became evident that there were too many Premysls about in Bohemia to make for that country's peace and contentment. These worthies were constantly falling over each other in the scramble for the throne, and their disunited efforts resulted in ten changes in the person of the sovereign over a period of twenty-four years. This filled Bohemia's German neighbours with unholy joy and brought the distracted country more and more under Teuton domination, so much so that Frederick Barbarossa thought fit to summon one or other pretender and a bunch of obstreperous Bohemian n.o.bles to appear before him at the Imperial Court at Ratisbon, in order that he might exercise the right he had a.s.sumed of settling the affairs of the Premysl dynasty. By way of a picturesque touch to the proceedings, Barbarossa is said to have arranged for a suitable display of executioners' axes at the meeting. Nevertheless this pretty imperial conceit settled no affairs one way or another, and it was not until Premysl Ottokar became undisputed ruler of Bohemia, and eventually of Moravia as well, that order of a sort was restored. Death had also been busy among members of the Premysl family and had brought considerable relief to the distracted country.

By the time Ottokar I had settled himself firmly on the throne he found that the confused, almost anarchic, state which Germany had drifted into could mean many advantages to Bohemia, if the situation were properly handled. The House of Hohenstaufen began to go downhill after the death of Henry VI, and we find a l.u.s.ty Welf, Otto, clamouring for the imperial diadem, a.s.sisted by a number of German Electors. This gave the ruler of Bohemia his opportunity, and Ottokar took it. His son Wenceslaus I and grandson Ottokar II followed the same line of policy, a purely dynastic one. They took sides with one or other of the rivals for the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, changing as considerations of domestic interests required, and making skilful use of the perennial quarrel between Empire and Papacy over the Invest.i.tures. While the Hohenstaufens were trickling out until the luckless Conradin lost his head at Naples, while fierce Welfs like Otto of Brunswick wrecked themselves on the rock of papal insistence, Bohemia's rulers were profiting. Ottokar I seems to have been particularly astute in this line of business. He supported two rival Emperors in turn and got something useful out of both, he upheld the cause of Pope Innocent III against one or other imperial rival and induced that pontiff to recognize the Premysl's t.i.tle to royalty.

Ottokar even found himself sufficiently strong to try a throw with the Pope himself on the vexed subject of Invest.i.ture, simply by way of a little private sport on his own account and not as part of the general European brawl. It happened that Andrew, Bishop of Prague, was one of those didactic prelates who insisted on all the little things the Papacy was out for--immunity for his clerics from the temporal law-courts, from taxes, and so on. Above all, Andrew was strong on the right of conferring ecclesiatical office, albeit he had himself accepted invest.i.ture at the hands of Ottokar. This led to quite a hearty quarrel in which Andrew got the worst of it; he had to seek refuge in Rome, whence he let off all the customary fulminations, declaring Bohemia to be under interdict and so on. n.o.body in Bohemia took the least notice of Andrew's little efforts; Church and people went solidly with their King on this occasion, and carried on their devotional exercises as before.

We have to thank Ottokar for several picturesque flashes which brighten up the gloomy picture of this period. So for instance, he took a trip to Maintz, where he was solemnly crowned as King. No doubt Prague would have been a more suitable setting for this function, but Ottokar had so timed his arrangements as to come in for a double event, for Philip of Suabia with a.s.sistance from Bohemia's ruler, secured the German crown at the same time. Then again this thoughtful Premysl Ottokar provided Bohemia with yet another patron saint of the blood royal, and not by the old-fashioned family method of killing a relative. Ottokar had married Constance of Hungary, and it was their daughter Agnes who next joined the distinguished and hallowed company of Ludmilla and Wenceslaus.

Agnes, educated by St. Hedwig, early distinguished herself by refusing to marry Emperor Frederick II. She decided to become a bride of heaven instead, founded the Order of Clarissa, entered it herself and eventually died as abbess in the odour of sanct.i.ty. Frederick consoled himself with one wife after another (a wife seems to have lasted no time in those days), his third and last being Isabella, daughter of King John of England, whose son, Richard of Cornwall, also comes into the story a little farther on in this chapter. St. Agnes was held in great reverence by the citizens of Brux, is still so held, I hope, for she did them a good turn in 1424. The Pragers had been indulging in a feud with the Bruxers, and had taken a bad beating on one occasion. The former prepared a surprise attack and marched on Brux hoping to take it by a midnight a.s.sault. St. Agnes happened to be watching while the fat burghers slept; she roused them from slumber, drove them to the walls and aided them in beating off the attacking Pragers, Then the Bruxers went to sleep again. It is also pleasant to reflect that Agnes's refusal to marry Frederick did not mar the excellent relations that sprang up between that monarch and Ottokar whenever the latter happened to want something out of the former. It is true that Ottokar had changed about a good deal between one rival emperor and another, but he remained loyal to Frederick in the end, and the latter outlived him by some thirty years. The relations between the two must have been quite pleasant and comfortable, as you may judge from the concessions made by the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire to Bohemia's King. A pretty and tactful compliment it was on the part of Frederick to allow Ottokar's heralds, when preceding their royal master to the Imperial Diet, to carry lighted torches on poles before him, and this to signify that the Bohemian excursionists were at liberty to burn down anything they had a mind to.

It is these little considerations that have ever played such an important though unrecognized part in the diplomatic relations between nations. The Bohemians are still quite nice about accepting little acts of kindness and consideration from anybody.

Premysl Ottokar I had reigned for twenty-eight years when his son Wenceslaus, first King of that name, succeeded him, and, strange to say, practically without opposition. By this time Bohemia had risen to a position of importance in the councils of Europe not only by the skilful, not to say artful, policy of its rulers, but also owing to the growing prosperity of the country which was reflected in the life of Prague its capital.

Prague consisted of three distinct settlements each apparently under separate administration. There was the old original settlement on Vyehrad which seems to have been under the sway of the abbot presiding over the monastic inst.i.tutions on that hill. Then there was Libua's foundation on the Hradany and extending down to the river, probably under the rule of the King's lieutenant or burgrave, and finally the Old Town on the right bank with its own munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions. These three parts of Prague were separately walled in, but little remains of any architectural work earlier in date than the Kings of Bohemia of whom this Wenceslaus is generally counted as the first though his father's royal rank had been recognized by the Pope and at least two emperors.

By the time Wenceslaus I came to the throne, the changes were in full swing which were to lead up to the golden age of Prague a century or so later. We have already noticed a tendency of German immigrants towards Prague and other cities of Bohemia. The Germans, mostly tradesmen and artisans, came with the civic instinct well developed, whereas the sons of Czech were, and still are, more of the fields and forests and the free life without walls. The Germans, bringing with them the appreciation of walled security, were responsible in great measure for the fortified cities of Bohemia and Moravia. It cannot be said of the later Premysl rulers preceding the Kings of Bohemia that they were inspired by the founder's ardour. Then again the Bohemian n.o.bility had risen to a strong sense of its own importance encouraged by the lamentable dissensions in the reigning house, and not uninfluenced by an infusion of German blood; they also had taken to walling themselves in on convenient hill-tops. As these n.o.bles were become increasingly troublesome, it is not surprising that Premysl rulers induced more and more Germans to settle in the cities of Bohemia and Moravia, thus starting a steady-going middle cla.s.s which might be expected to pay for peace and protection and which when walled in was conveniently in hand for the tax-collector's operations. That this scheme was beginning to succeed even in the early days of the twelfth century is proved by the fact that Jews were flocking to Prague in ever increasing numbers, so there must have been business doing in the capital and other cities of the land, under conditions of reasonable security. It may be taken for granted that improvements and additions to the defences of Prague, the decoration of the town by stately churches and other monuments, however much directed by the sovereign, were paid for by the burghers.

The story of the Jews in Prague makes very interesting reading; it is, however, beyond the scope of this work to give more than an indication of the part that the Children of Israel took in the development of the city. You will remember that a travelling commercial gentleman of Semitic origin, one Ibrahim Ibn Jacub, had visited Prague in the tenth century and had noted the place with approval. As far as I can make out he makes no reference to a colony of his co-religionists already in existence here, so the story that Jews settled here before the destruction of Jerusalem seems little likely. It was, indeed, averred by the Jews of Prague that they had their settlement here long before Libua launched her prophecies, before the birth of Christ in fact, so that they at least might be considered guiltless of the Divine Tragedy on Golgotha. Their legend calls the place Buiarnum, which suggests some acquaintance with the Celtic tribe that rested for a while in Bohemia, gave its name to the country and then wandered to Bavaria, where it repeated the performance. I find this legend of the Jews difficult to believe despite my earnest endeavour to find something of truth in Saga's ebullitions. How, for instance, is it possible that the gifted lady Libua did not discover the advantages of a Jewish colony and that she omitted to prophesy a contribution out of the sons of Israel towards her new foundation? No, if there had been any Jews within signing distance of this city when it arose, Praha would have started with a mortgage on her, and the entertainment tax would probably be double what it is this day.

You may take it as a general principle that every country has the Jews it deserves. If you oppress them, trample them in the mud as was customary in pre-war Russia, they will turn and rend you when their turn comes round; this is happening in Russia at present. If you despoil a Jew by violence, he will do the same to you by guile, and you may or may not be left with your full complement of cuticle. If you treat the Jew as one ent.i.tled to equal rights with equal responsibilities, you will find him an excellent citizen.

As elsewhere in the Europe of the Middle Ages, the Children of Israel in Prague were confined to certain quarters of the town. We have heard how a number of them were ordered to leave the Hradsany side of the river and settle in the Old Town. The quarter allotted to the Jews was in that part of the Old Town known as Josefov, and the Old Ghetto stood approximately in that complex of narrow streets between the river at the Rudolfinum Bridge and the broad thoroughfare Mikulaska Trida. I could point out the place from my terrace if I were minded to give its locality away and to depart from my principle of making every man choose his own point of view.

The life of the Ghetto centred round the old Jewish Town Hall, with its quaint, indeed rather unsightly, tower on which is a clock that you are expected to treat as one of the sights of the place. On the face of this clock the numbers are marked by Hebrew letters and the hands of this clock move from right to left. The fact that the Jews had a Town Hall to themselves in ancient Prague is significant; it stood for the semi-autonomous const.i.tution of the Jewish community which was subject to the sovereign as a corporate body with its own munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions and responsibilities. This peculiar segregation of the Jewish community as an _imperium in imperio_, apart in matters of local administration as in matters of religion, from their fellow-citizens, must have done a great deal towards forming the character of its members, and the result has been of advantage to the city of Prague in times of stress.

Close by the Jewish Town Hall stands another yet more ancient landmark of cultural history, the "Staronova kola", or Old New School. Close by the side of that broad thoroughfare the Mikulaska Trida, with the electric trams clanging along it, stands this strange temple. Dr.

Jerabek, in his excellent booklet on _Beautiful Old Prague_ likens this ancient building to a gigantic hand of Aaron held up in blessing over the Ghetto; I think you will agree with me that this is a very happy simile. Built in the severe style of transition from Romanesque to Gothic, of ma.s.sive stone walls heavily b.u.t.tressed, with steep red-tiled sloping roof, blackened with age and the grime of the walled-in Ghetto, this temple served not only as a place of worship for the sons of Israel, but also as a casket for the remains of a yet older one said to date back to the sixth century and probably the oldest temple on the Continent of Europe. The present fane itself is of venerable age and aspect; its building fell into the reign of King Wenceslaus I and Ottokar II, and took ten years, from 1250 to 1260. Men only are allowed to worship in the inner temple, dingy and dark; whatever light penetrates through the narrow windows calls forth reluctant glints from the many bra.s.s candelabra, work of long centuries ago. Women may look on from an outer court through glazed openings that look like gun-embrasures.

The Jews required strong defences in the dark days of the Middle Ages; their Ghetto was shut off from the rest of the city by heavy iron gates, but even these proved of no avail when once the mob got loose and undertook a raid. On several occasions organized ma.s.sacres took toll of the "Children of the Ghetto," who on other occasions were banished, bag and baggage, from Prague and driven out into the country. Though now and again they suffered intolerably, yet were they on the whole better treated than in many other parts of Europe, were allowed to develop along their own lines, and produced many men of mark and learning, and women of distinction, among the latter one who was raised to the n.o.bility by a Habsburg Emperor and King of Bohemia, Bas-Schevi called "of Treunberg." Among the prominent men whose light shone out beyond the Ghetto of Prague, I may mention the poet-Rabbi Abigdor Caro, the bibliophile Rabbi Oppenheim whose library is now in Oxford, then the chronicler and mathematician David Gans, a friend of Keppler and Tycho de Brahe, and Solomon de Medigo de Candia the pupil of Galileo Galilei.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A RELIC OF THE GHETTO."]

Tall modern houses look down upon the smoke-blackened temple; the Ghetto gates have fallen long ago, and nothing remains of its former crowded dwelling-places but a quaint ramshackle old house of Oriental aspect, and the old cemetery, Beth-Chaim, "the House of Life," as the Jews call it. This is no doubt the oldest existing and still preserved Jewish cemetery in Europe. Here tombstones stand closely crowded together, or lean one against the other under the thickets of ancient elder-bushes; glints of sunlight flicker through the dense foliage over graven sign of stag, of vine or flower, or the hand upraised in benediction of some son of Aaron, light up Hebrew script in its severely decorative characters, inscriptions half effaced but not forgotten, for careful record has been kept. This old burial ground seems far removed from Central Europe, yet it is intimately connected with the story of Prague. Though old landmarks are vanishing, yet a mist of legend hangs close over this strange, alien part of the city, legends of cabalists, reputed sorcerers like Aaron Spira or the more famous Rabbi Jehuda ben Bezalel Loew. The latter is supposed to have been in league with the Powers of Darkness which bestowed on him superhuman gifts. This Rabbi is said to have created an Homunculus which became so troublesome that it had to be incarcerated. The spot chosen as prison for this evil being was high up in the wall of the temple. A row of iron clamps leads up to a small door on the outside wall facing the Mikulaska Trida, leads up to where Homunculus is still believed to be in durance.

Prague got better Jews than it deserved, for they showed great loyalty to the city of their adoption, and, despite persecution, even took an active part in the defence of the town. This happened towards the end of the Thirty Years' War, when the Swedes were making this part of Europe unsafe. The Swedes broke into Prague by the Strahov Gate and attempted to seize the Old Town. They had almost succeeded, for the usual precautions against surprise had been neglected, but luckily the students, butchers and Jews of Prague managed to rally to the defence.

After fierce fighting on the Charles Bridge, the Swedes had to abandon their attempt on the Old Town and retired altogether. On this occasion the Jews showed not only public spirit but commendable bravery, and were rewarded by the Emperor with a banner, a mighty imposing affair with ten poles, as it takes ten men to carry it; you may see this interesting trophy in the old temple still.

The Jews of Prague have continued to do good work not only for and in the city of their adoption, but well beyond its confines, both in public utility work and in science. It is especially in the science of healing that the Jews of Prague have risen to eminence, not only by reason of their depth of learning and their unremitting labour, but also by the generosity and impartiality which actuates them in their dealings with sufferers. I myself have personal knowledge of such instances, and I speak of people as I find them.

No doubt some of the Jews joined in the picturesque cry which did so much to cheer up our Christian enemies of the Central Powers, "Gott strafe England!" but I cannot quite imagine any responsible son of Israel doing so with Christian fervour; the "jealous G.o.d" of the Hebrews, having reserved to Himself the right of vengeance, would be sure to resent any instructions from "the sheep of His pasture" as to how a case of the kind should be dealt with. Moreover, the punishment of England may safely be left in the hands of her politicians, who are also in one sense or another "Chosen People."

When rewarding those who distinguished themselves in the defence of Prague against the Swedes, the Emperor also remembered the butchers of the town. These stout fellows brought to their guild, as tokens of imperial grat.i.tude and goodwill, the permission to bear as cognizance the White Lion of Bohemia clutching an axe; a very rampant lion reinforced by a double tail--in fact "some lion," more power to him!