Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bohemia" to "Borgia, Francis"
by Various · English · Gutenberg #33614 · 1,101,668 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bohemia" to "Borgia, Francis"
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bohemia" to "Borgia, Francis"
Author: Various
Release date: September 3, 2010 [eBook #33614]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33614
Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "BOHEMIA" TO "BORGIA, FRANCIS" ***
Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE BOMB: "It is probable that here the acid magma was expelled
in a very viscous condition, and the crust which formed on cooling
was burst by the steam from the occluded water." 'magma' amended
from 'magna'.
ARTICLE BONE: "If the surgeon is prompt in operating he may find
the disease limited to that spot." 'If' amended from 'It'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME IV, SLICE II
Bohemia to Borgia, Francis
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
BOHEMIA BONER, ULRICH
BOHEMUND BO'NESS
BOHMER, JOHANN FRIEDRICH BONFIGLI, BENEDETTO
BOHN, HENRY GEORGE BONFIRE
BOHTLINGK, OTTO VON BONGARS, JACQUES
BOHUN BONGHI, RUGGERO
BOIARDO, MATTEO MARIA BONGO (tribe of Sudan)
BOIE, HEINRICH CHRISTIAN BONGO (West African bushbuck)
BOIELDIEU, FRANCOIS ADRIEN BONHAM
BOIGNE, BENOIT DE BONHEUR, ROSA
BOII BONHEUR DU JOUR
BOIL BONI
BOILEAU-DESPREAUX, NICOLAS BONIFACE, SAINT
BOILER BONIFACE
BOILING TO DEATH BONIFACE OF SAVOY
BOIS BRULES BONIFACIO
BOISE BONIFACIUS
BOISGOBEY, FORTUNE DU BONIN ISLANDS
BOISGUILBERT, PIERRE LE PESANT BONITZ, HERMANN
BOISROBERT, FRANCOIS DE BONIVARD, FRANCOIS
BOISSARD, JEAN JACQUES BONN
BOISSIER, MARIE LOUIS GASTON BONNAT, LEON JOSEPH FLORENTIN
BOISSONADE DE FONTARABIE BONNE-CARRERE, GUILLAUME DE
BOISSY D'ANGLAS, FRANCOIS DE BONNER, EDMUND
BOITO, ARRIGO BONNET, CHARLES
BOIVIN, FRANCOIS DE BONNET
BOKENAM, OSBERN BONNEVAL, CLAUDE ALEXANDRE
BOKHARA (state) BONNEVILLE, BENJAMIN L. E.
BOKHARA (capital of Bokhara) BONNEY, THOMAS GEORGE
BOKSBURG BONNIER, ANGE ELISABETH LOUIS ANTOINE
BOLAN PASS BONNIVET, GUILLAUME GOUFFIER
BOLAS BONOMI, GIUSEPPI
BOLBEC BONONCINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA
BOLE BONONIA
BOLESLAUS I. BONPLAND, AIME JACQUES ALEXANDRE
BOLESLAUS II. BONSTETTEN, CHARLES VICTOR DE
BOLESLAUS III. BONUS
BOLETUS BONZE
BOLEYN, ANNE BOOK
BOLGARI BOOKBINDING
BOLI BOOKCASE
BOLINGBROKE, HENRY ST JOHN BOOK-COLLECTING
BOLIVAR, SIMON BOOK-KEEPING
BOLIVAR (Colombia) BOOK-PLATES
BOLIVAR (state of Venezuela) BOOK-SCORPION
BOLIVIA BOOKSELLING
BOLKHOV BOOLE, GEORGE
BOLL BOOM
BOLLANDISTS BOOMERANG
BOLOGNA, GIOVANNI DA BOONE, DANIEL
BOLOGNA BOONE
BOLSENA BOONVILLE
BOLSOVER BOORDE, ANDREW
BOLSWARD BOOS, MARTIN
BOLT BOOT
BOLTON, DUKES OF BOOTES
BOLTON, EDMUND BOOTH, BARTON
BOLTON (county of England) BOOTH, CHARLES
BOLTON ABBEY BOOTH, EDWIN [THOMAS]
BOLZANO, BERNHARD BOOTH, WILLIAM
BOMA BOOTH
BOMB BOOTHIA
BOMBARD BOOTLE
BOMBARDIER BOOTY
BOMBARDMENT BOPP, FRANZ
BOMBARDON BOPPARD
BOMBAY CITY BORA
BOMBAY FURNITURE BORACITE
BOMBAY PRESIDENCY BORAGE
BOMBAZINE BORAGINACEAE
BOMBELLES, MARC MARIE BORAS
BOMBERG, DANIEL BORAX
BONA, JOHN BORDA, JEAN CHARLES
BONA BORDAGE
BONA DEA BORDEAUX
BONA FIDE BORDEN, SIR FREDERICK WILLIAM
BONALD, LOUIS GABRIEL AMBROISE BORDEN, ROBERT LAIRD
BONAPARTE BORDENTOWN
BONAR, HORATIUS BORDERS, THE
BONAVENTURA, SAINT BORDIGHERA
BONCHAMPS, CHARLES ARTUS BORDONE, PARIS
BOND, SIR EDWARD AUGUSTUS BORE
BOND BOREAS
BONDAGER BOREL, PETRUS
BONDE, GUSTAF BORELLI, GIOVANNI ALFONSO
BONDED WAREHOUSE BORGA
BONDU BORGHESE
BONE, HENRY BORGHESI, BARTOLOMMEO
BONE BORGIA, CESARE
BONE BED BORGIA, FRANCIS
BONE-LACE
BOHEMIA[1] (Ger. _Bohmen_, Czech _Cechy_, Lat. _Bohemia_), a kingdom and
crownland of Austria, bounded N.E. by Prussian Silesia, S.E. by Moravia
and Lower Austria, S. by Upper Austria, S.W. by Bavaria and N.W. by
Saxony. It has an area of 20,060 sq. m., or about two-thirds the size of
Scotland, and forms the principal province of the Austrian empire.
Situated in the geographical centre of the European continent, at about
equal distance from all the European seas, enclosed by high mountains,
and nevertheless easily accessible through Moravia from the Danubian
plain and opened by the valley of the Elbe to the German plain, Bohemia
was bound to play a leading part in the cultural development of Europe.
It became early the scene of important historical events, the avenue and
junction of the migration of peoples; and it forms the borderland
between the German and Slavonic worlds.
_Geography._--Bohemia has the form of an irregular rhomb, of which the
northernmost place, Buchberg, just above Hainspach, is at the same time
the farthest north in the whole Austro-Hungarian monarchy. From an
orographic point of view, Bohemia constitutes amongst the Austrian
provinces a separate massif, bordered on three sides by mountain ranges:
on the S.W. by the Bohmerwald or Bohemian Forest; on the N.W. by the
Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains; and on the N.E. by the Riesengebirge or
Giant Mountains and other ranges of the Sudetes. The Bohmerwald, which,
like its parallel range, the Sudetes, has a general direction from S.E.
to N.W., is divided by the pass of Neumark into two parts. The northern
part (Czech _Cesky Les_) attains in the massif of Czerkov an altitude of
3300 ft., but the southern part (Czech _Sumava_) is at the same time the
highest and the most picturesque part of the range, including on the
Bohemian side the Osser (4053 ft.) and the Plockenstein (4513 ft.),
although the highest peak, the Arber (4872), is in Bavaria. The beauty
of this range of mountains consists in its pure crystalline torrents, in
the numerous blue lakes of its valleys, and above all in the magnificent
forests of oak and pine with which its sides are covered. The pass of
Neumark, called also the pass of Neugedein, has always been the
principal approach to Bohemia from Germany. It stretches towards the
east, above the small town of Taus (Czech _Domazlice_, once called
_Tuhost_, i.e. the Fortress), and is the place where some of the
bloodiest battles in the history of Bohemia were fought. Here in the
first half of the 7th century Samo repulsed the invading hordes of the
Avars, which threatened the independence of the newly-settled Slavonic
inhabitants; here also Wratislas II. defeated the German emperor Henry
III. in a two-days' battle (August 22 and 23, 1040). It was in the same
place that the Hussites gained in 1431 one of their greatest victories
against a German army of crusaders, and another similar German army was
vanquished here by George of Podebrad.
The Erzgebirge (Czech _Rudo Hori_), which form the north-west frontier,
have an average altitude of 2600 ft., and as their highest point, the
Keilberg (4080 ft.). The numerous mining villages, the great number of
cultivated areas and the easy passes, traversed by good roads, give
those mountains in many places the aspect of a hilly undulating plain.
Several of the villages are built very near the summit of the mountains,
and one of them, Gottesgab (pop. about 1500), lies at an altitude of
3345 ft., the highest place in Bohemia and central Germany. To the west
the Erzgebirge combine through the Elstergebirge with the
Fichtelgebirge, which in their turn are united with the Bohmerwald
through the plateau of Waldsassen. To the east the Erzgebirge are
separated from the Elbsandsteingebirge by the Nollendorf pass, traversed
by the ancient military route to Saxony; it was the route followed by
Napoleon I. after the battle of Dresden (1813). To the south stretches
the "Thermopylae of Bohemia," the scene of the battle of Kulm and
Arbesau. A little farther to the east the Elbe escapes into Saxony at
the lowest point in Bohemia (alt. 367 ft.). The north-east frontier is
formed by the Sudetes, which comprise the Lausitzergebirge (2500 ft.),
the Isergebirge (with the highest peak, the Tafelfichte, 3683 ft.), the
Jeschkengebirge (3322 ft.), and the Riesengebirge. The Riesengebirge
(Czech _Kroknose_) are, after the Alps, among the highest mountains of
central Europe, and attain in the Schneekoppe an altitude of 5264 ft.
The last groups of the Sudetes in Bohemia are the Heuscheuergebirge
(2532 ft.) and the Adlergebirge (3664 ft.). The fourth side of the rhomb
is formed by the so-called Bohemian-Moravian Hills, a plateau or broad
series of low hills, composed of primitive rocks, and attaining in some
places an altitude of 2500 ft.
The interior of Bohemia has sometimes been compared to a deep basin; but
for the most part it is an undulating plateau, over 1000 ft. high,
formed by a succession of terraces, which gradually slope down from
south to north. Its lowest-lying points are not in the middle but in the
north, in the valley of the Elbe, and the country can be divided into
two parts by a line passing through Hohenmauth-Prague-Komotau. The part
lying to the south of this line can be designated as highland, and only
the part north of it as lowland. The mountain-ranges of the interior of
Bohemia are the Brdywald (2798 ft.) in the middle; the Tepler Gebirge
(2657 ft.), the Karsbader Gebirge (3057 ft.) and the Kaiserwald (3238
ft.), in the north-west part; while the northern corner is occupied by
the Mittelgebirge (2739 ft.), a volcanic massif, stretching on both
sides of the Elbe.
Bohemia belongs to the watershed of the Elbe, which rises within the
territory and receives on the right the Iser and the Polzen, and on the
left the Adler; the Eger with its affluent the Tepl; the Biela and the
Moldau. But the principal river of ~~ Bohemia, from every point of
view, is the Moldau (Czech _Vltava_), not the Elbe. A glance at the
hydrographic structure of Bohemia, which is of such a striking
regularity, shows us that the Moldau is the main stem, while the Elbe
and the other rivers are only lateral branches; moreover, the Elbe below
Melnik, the point of its confluence with the Moldau, follows the general
direction of the Moldau. Besides, the Moldau is the principal commercial
artery of the country, being navigable below Budweis, while the
Upper-Elbe is not navigable; its basin (11,890 sq. m.) is twice as great
as that of the Elbe, and its width and depth are also greater. It has a
length of 270 m., 47 m. longer than the Upper-Elbe, but it runs through
a deep and narrow valley, in which there is neither road nor railway,
extending from above Budweis to about 15 m. south of Prague. The Moldau
receives on the right the Luzniza and the Sazawa and on the left the
Wottawa and the Beraun. The Beraun is formed by the union of the Mies
with the Radbusa, Angel and Uslawa, and is the third most important
river of the country. There are only a few lakes, which are mostly found
at high altitudes.
_Climate._--Bohemia has a continental, generally healthy climate, which
varies much in different parts of the country. It is mildest in the
centre, where, e.g. at Prague, the mean annual temperature is 48.5 deg.
F. The rainfall varies also according to the districts, the rainy season
being the summer. Thus the mean annual rainfall in the interior of
Bohemia is 18 in., in the Riesengebirge 40 in., while in the Bohmerwald
it reaches 60 to 70 in.
_Agriculture._--Favoured with a suitable climate and inhabited by a
thriving rural population, Bohemia is very highly developed in the
matter of agriculture. Over 50% of the whole area is under cultivation
and the soil is in many parts very fertile, the best-known regions being
the "Golden Road" round Koniggratz, the "Paradise" round Teplitz, and
the "Garden of Bohemia" round Leitmeritz. The principal products are
oats, rye, barley and wheat, but since the competition of Hungarian
wheat large tracts of land have been converted to the cultivation of
beetroot. The potato crop, which forms the staple food of the people, is
great; the Saaz district is celebrated for hops, and the flax is also of
a good quality. Fruit, especially plums, is very abundant and
constitutes a great article of export. The forests cover 29.01% of the
total area; meadows, 10.05, pastures 5.05, and gardens 1.35%.
Cattle-rearing is not so well developed as agriculture, but great flocks
of geese are reared, especially in the south, and bee-cultivation
constitutes another important industry. Pisciculture has been for
centuries successfully pursued by the Bohemian peasants, and the
attempts recently made for the rearing of silkworms have met with fair
success.
_Minerals_.--Except salt, which is entirely absent, almost every useful
metal and mineral is to be found. First in importance, both in quantity
and in value, come lignite and coal. Some of the richest lignite fields
in Europe are found in the north-east corner of Bohemia round Brux, Dux,
Falkenau, Ossegg and Teplitz. Coal is mined round Kladno, Buschtehrad,
Pilsen, Schlan, Rakonitz, Nurschan and Radnitz, the last-named place
containing the oldest coal mines of Bohemia (17th century). Iron ores
are found at Krusnahora and Nucic, and the principal foundries are round
Kladno and Konigshof. Owing to the improvements in refining, Bohemia has
become an important centre of the iron industry. Silver is extracted at
Pribram and Joachimsthal, but the silver mines near Kuttenberg, famous
in the middle ages, are now abandoned. Lead is extracted at Pribram, tin
at Graupen in the Erzgebirge, the only place in Austria where this metal
is found. Antimony is extracted at Milleschau near Tabor; uranium and
radium near Joachimsthal; graphite near Krumau and Budweis;
porcelain-earth near Carlsbad. Other minerals found in various places of
Bohemia are copper, sulphur, cobalt, alum, nickel, arsenic and various
sorts of precious stone, like the Bohemian garnet (pyrope), and building
stone. A large amount of peat is collected, especially in the south-west
of Bohemia, as well as a great quantity of asphalt.
Bohemia possesses over two hundred mineral springs, but only a few are
used for medicinal purposes. Among them are some of the most celebrated
mineral springs in the world, such as Carlsbad, Marienbad, Franzensbad,
Teplitz-Schonau and Bilin. Other springs of importance are Pullna,
Sedlitz and Seidschitz near Brux; Giesshubl near Carlsbad; Liebwerda,
Konigswart, Sangerberg, Neudorf, Tetschen, Johannisbad, situated at the
foot of the Schneekoppe, &c.
_Manufactures and Commerce._--From an industrial point of view, Bohemia
takes the first rank amongst the Austrian provinces, and at the same
time is one of the greatest manufacturing centres of Europe. Rich as the
country is in coal and iron, and in water supplies which can be
transformed into motive power, the inhabitants were not slow to utilize
these advantages, so that the industry of Bohemia made enormous strides
during the last half of the 19th century. The glass industry was
introduced from Venice in the 13th century and soon attained a vast
importance; the factories are in the neighbourhood of the mountains,
where minerals, and especially silica and fuel, are plentiful. The
finest product, the crystal-glass, is made round Haida and Steinschonau.
The very extensive porcelain industry is concentrated in and around
Carlsbad. The textile industry stands in the front rank and is mostly
concentrated in the north-east corner of Bohemia, round Reichenberg, and
in the valley of the Lower Elbe. The cloth manufacture is located at
Reichenberg; Rumburg and Trautenau are the centre of the linen industry;
woollen yarns are made at Aussig and Asch. Lace, which is pursued as a
home-industry in the Erzgebirge region, has its principal centre at
Weipert, while Strakonitz has the speciality of the manufacture of red
fezes (Turkish caps). The metallurgic industries, favoured by the
abundance of coal and iron, are concentrated round the mines. Industrial
and agricultural machinery are manufactured at Reichenberg, Pilsen and
Prague, and at the last-named place is also to be found a great
establishment for the production of railway rolling-stock. Sugar
refining is another industry, which, although of recent date, has had a
very great development, and the breweries produce a beer which is
appreciated all over the world. Other important branches of industry
are:--the manufacture of chemicals at Prague and Aussig; pencils at
Budweis; musical instruments at Graslitz and Schonbach; paper, leather,
dyeing and calico-printing. Hand-in-hand with the industrial activity of
the country goes its commercial development, which is stimulated by an
extensive railway system, good roads and navigable rivers. The centre of
the railway system, which had in 1898 a length of some 3500 m., or 30%
of the total length of the Austrian railways, is Prague; and through the
Elbe Bohemia has easy access to the sea for its export trade.
_Population and Administration._--Bohemia had in 1900 a population of
6,318,280, which corresponds to 315 inhabitants per square mile. As
regards numbers, it occupies the second place amongst the Austrian
provinces, coming after Galicia, and as regards density of population it
stands third, Silesia and Lower Austria, which contains Vienna, standing
higher. In 1800 the population was a little over 3,000,000. According to
nationality, about 35% are Germans and 65% Czechs. The Czechs occupy the
middle of the country, as well as its south and south-east region, while
the Germans are concentrated near its borders, especially in the north
and west, and are also found all over the country in the large towns.
Besides, there are numerous German-speaking enclaves situated in purely
Czech districts; on the other hand, the Czechs have shown a tendency to
invade the purely German mining and manufacturing districts.
Notwithstanding its rich natural resources and its great industrial
development, Bohemia sends out a steady flow of emigrants, who either
settle in the other provinces of the monarchy, in Germany and in Russia,
or cross the Atlantic to America. To the Roman Catholic Church belong
96% of the total population; Bohemia is divided into the archbishopric
of Prague, and the three bishoprics of Budweis, Koniggratz and
Leitmeritz.
Education is well advanced, and Bohemia has the lowest proportion of
illiterates amongst the Austrian provinces. At the head of the
educational establishments stand the two universities at Prague, one
German and the other Czech.
Bohemia sends 130 deputies to the Reichsrat at Vienna; the local diet,
to which belong _ex officio_ the archbishop, the three bishops, and the
two rectors of the universities, consists of 242 members. For
administrative purposes Bohemia is divided into ninety-four districts
and two autonomous municipalities, Prague (pop. 204,478), the capital,
and Reichenberg (34,204). Other important towns are Pilsen (68,292),
Budweis (39,360), Aussig (37,255), Schonau (24,110), Eger (23,665),
Warnsdorf (21,150), Brux (21,525), Gablonz (21,086), Asch (18,675),
Kladno (18,600), Pardubitz (17,029), Saaz (16,168), Komotau (15,925),
Kolin (15,025), Kuttenberg (14,799), Trautenau (14,777), Carlsbad
(14,640), Pribram (13,576), Jungbunzlau (13,479), Leitmeritz (13,075),
Chrudim (13,017), Dux (11,921), Bodenbach (10,782), Tabor (10,692),
Bohmisch-Leipa (10,674), Rumburg (10,382), Weipert (10,037).
See F. Umlauft, _Die Lander Osterreich-Ungarns in Wort und Bild_, (15
vols., Vienna, 1881-1889), vol. vii.; Mikowec, _Altertumer und
Denkwurdigkeiten Bohmen's_ (2 vols., Prague, 1859-1865); F. Rivnac,
_Reisehandbuch fur das Konigreich Bohmen_ (Prague, 1882), very useful
for its numerous and detailed historical notes. (O. Br.)
HISTORY
Slav Conquest.
The country derives its name from the Boii, a Celtic tribe which in the
earliest historical period inhabited part of the land. According to very
ancient traditions accepted by the modern historians of Bohemia, the
Boii, whose capital was called Boiohemum, were weakened by continual
warfare with neighbouring tribes, and finally subdued by the Teutonic
tribe of the Marcomanni (about 12 B.C.). The Marcomanni were afterwards
expelled by other Teutonic tribes, and eventually Bohemia was conquered
by Slavic tribes, of whom the Cechs (see CZECH) were the most important.
The date of the arrival of the Cechs in Bohemia is very uncertain, and
the scanty references to the country in classical and Byzantine writers
are rather misleading than otherwise. Recent archaeological research has
proved the existence of Slavic inhabitants in Bohemia as far back as the
beginning of the Christian era. The Cechs appear to have become the
masters of the country in the 5th century. The first of their rulers
mentioned in history is Samo, who is stated to have defeated the Avars,
a Turanian tribe which had for a time obtained the overlordship over
Bohemia. Samo also defeated the Franks in a great battle that took place
at Wogatisburg (630), probably near the site of the present town of
Eger. After the death of Samo the history of Bohemia again becomes
absolutely obscure for about 130 years. The next events that are
recorded by the oldest chroniclers, such as Cosmas, refer to the
foundation of a Bohemian principality by Krok (or Crocus) and his
daughter Libussa. The latter is said to have married Premysl, a peasant
who was found ploughing his field--a legend that is common in most
Slavic countries. Beginning with this semi-mythic ruler, the ancient
chroniclers have constructed a continuous list of Premyslide princes.
Neither the deeds attributed to these princes nor the dates of their
reigns can be considered as historical.
Christianity.
Wenceslas
Boleslav.
Vladivoj.
Bretislav I.
From the time of the introduction of Christianity into Bohemia the
history of the country becomes less obscure. The first attempts to
introduce Christianity undoubtedly came from Germany. They met with
little success, as innate distrust of the Germans naturally rendered the
Bohemians unfavourable to a creed which reached them from the realm of
their western neighbours. Matters were different when Christianity
approached them from Moravia, where its doctrine had been taught by
Cyrillus and Methodius--Greek monks from Thessalonica. About the year
873 the Bohemian prince Borivoj was baptized by Methodius, and the
Bohemians now rapidly adopted the Christian faith. Of the rulers of
Bohemia the most famous at this period was Wenceslas, surnamed the Holy,
who in 935 was murdered by his brother Boleslav, and who was afterwards
canonized by the Church of Rome. As Wenceslas had been an ally of
Germany, his murder resulted in a war with that country, in which, as
far as we can judge by the scanty records of the time. Boleslav, the
brother and successor of Wenceslas, was on the whole successful. During
the reigns of Boleslav and his son, Boleslav II., Bohemia extended its
frontiers in several directions. Boleslav II. indeed established his
rule not only over Bohemia and Moravia, but also over a large part of
Silesia, and over that part of Poland which is now the Austrian province
of Galicia. Like most Slavic states at this and even a later period, the
great Bohemian empire of Boleslav II. did not endure long. Boleslav
III., son of Boleslav II., lost all his foreign possessions to Boleslav
the Great, king of Poland. During his reign Bohemia was involved in
constant civil war, caused by the dissensions between Boleslav III. and
his brothers Jaromir and Ulrick. Though the prince succeeded in
expelling his brothers from the country, his cruelty induced the
Bohemians to dethrone him and to choose as their ruler the Polish prince
Vladivoj. Vladivoj, brother of Boleslav the Great, and son of the
Bohemian princess Dubravka (Dobrawa). Vladivoj attempted to strengthen
his hold over Bohemia by securing the aid of Germany. He consented not
only to continue to pay the tribute which the Germans had already
obtained from several previous rulers of Bohemia, but also to become a
vassal of the German empire and to receive the German title of duke.
This state continued when after the death of Vladivoj the Premyslide
dynasty was restored. The Premyslide prince Bretislav I (1037-1055)
restored the former power of Bohemia, and again added Moravia, Silesia
and a considerable part of Poland to the Bohemian dominions. To obviate
the incessant struggles which had endangered the land at every vacancy
of the throne, Bretislav, with the consent of the nobles, decreed that
the oldest member of the house of Premysl should be the ruler of
Bohemia. Bretislav was therefore succeeded first by his eldest son
Spitihnev, and then by his second son Vratislav.
Vratislav becomes "king".
In 1088 Vratislav obtained the title of king from the emperor Henry IV.,
whom he had assisted in the struggle with the papal see which is known
as the contest about investitures. Though the title of king was only
conferred on Vratislav personally, the German king, Conrad III.,
conferred on the Bohemian prince Sobeslav (1125-1140) the title of
hereditary cupbearer of the Empire, thus granting a certain influence on
the election of the emperors to Bohemia, which hitherto had only
obligations towards the Empire but no part in its government. In 1156
the emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa ceded Upper Lusatia to the Bohemian
prince Vladislav II., and conferred on him the title of king on
condition of his taking part in Frederick's Italian campaigns. It was
intended that that title should henceforth be hereditary, but it again
fell into abeyance during the struggles between the Premyslide princes
which followed the abdication of Vladislav in 1173.
Ottakar II.
The consequences of these constant internal struggles were twofold; the
German influence became stronger, and the power of the sovereign
declined, as the nobility on whose support the competitors for the crown
were obliged to rely constantly obtained new privileges. In 1197 Premysl
Ottakar became undisputed ruler of Bohemia, and he was crowned as king
in the following year. The royal title of the Bohemian sovereigns was
continued uninterruptedly from that date. Wenceslas I. (1230-1253)
succeeded his father as king of Bohemia without opposition. The last
years of his reign were troubled by internal discord. Wenceslas's son,
Premysl Ottakar II., who under the sovereignty of his father ruled
Moravia, became for a time the chief leader of the malcontents. A
reconciliation between son and father, however, took place before the
latter's death. Premysl Ottakar II. was one of the greatest of Bohemia's
kings. He had during the lifetime of his father obtained possession of
the archduchies of Austria, and, about the time of his accession to the
Bohemian throne, the nobility of Styria also recognized him as their
ruler. These extensions of his dominions involved Premysl Ottakar II. in
repeated wars with Hungary. In 1260 he decisively defeated Bela, king of
Hungary, in the great battle of Kressenbrunn. After this victory
Ottakar's power rose to its greatest height. He now obtained possession
of Carinthia, Istria and parts of northern Italy. His possessions
extended from the Giant Mountains in Bohemia to the Adriatic, and
included almost all the parts of the present Habsburg empire west of the
Leitha. His contemporaries called Ottakar "the man of gold" because of
his great wealth, or "the man of iron" because of his military power.
From political rather than racial causes Ottakar favoured the
immigration of Germans into his dominions. He hoped to find in the
German townsmen a counterpoise to the overwhelming power of the Bohemian
nobility. In 1273 Rudolph, count of Habsburg, was elected king of the
Romans. It is very probable that the German crown had previously been
offered to Ottakar, but that he had refused it. Several causes, among
others his Slavic nationality, which was likely to render him obnoxious
to the Germans, contributed to his decision. As Rudolph immediately
claimed as vacant fiefs of the Empire most of the lands held by Ottakar,
war was inevitable. Ottakar was deserted by many of his new subjects,
and even by part of the Bohemian nobility. He was therefore unable to
resist the German king, and was obliged to surrender to him all his
lands except Bohemia and Moravia, and to recognize Rudolph as his
overlord. New dissensions between the two sovereigns broke out almost
immediately. In 1278 Ottakar invaded the Austrian duchies, now under the
rule of Rudolph, but was defeated and killed at the battle of Durnkrut
on the Marchfeld.
Wenceslas II.
Ottakar's son, Wenceslas II., was only seven years of age at the death
of his father, and Otto of Brandenburg, a nephew of Ottakar, for a time
governed Bohemia as guardian of the young sovereign. Otto's rule was
very unpopular, an insurrection broke out against him, and Bohemia was
for a time in a state of complete anarchy. The country was at last
pacified through the intervention of Rudolph of Habsburg, and at the age
of twelve Wenceslas became nominal ruler of the country. All power was,
however, in the hands of Zavis of Falkenstein, one of the great Bohemian
nobles, who had married the king's mother, Kunegunda. The power of Zavis
at last became invidious to the king, by whose order he was beheaded in
1290. Wenceslas, though only nineteen years of age, henceforth governed
Bohemia himself, and his short reign was a period of great happiness for
the country. Poland also accepted the rule of Wenceslas and the
Hungarian crown was offered to him. Towards the end of his reign
Wenceslas became involved in war with Albert, archduke of Austria,
afterwards king of the Romans. While preparing to invade Austria
Wenceslas died suddenly (1305). His son and successor, Wenceslas III.,
was then only sixteen years of age, and he only ruled over Bohemia for
one year. While planning a warlike expedition against Poland, on which
country the Bohemian sovereigns now again maintained their claim, he was
murdered by unknown assassins (1306). With him ended the rule of the
Premyslide dynasty over Bohemia.
John of Luxemburg.
Albert, king of the Romans, declared that Bohemia was a vacant fief of
the Empire, and, mainly by intimidation, induced the Bohemians to elect
his son Rudolph as their sovereign; but Rudolph died after a reign of
only one year. Though the Habsburg princes at this period already
claimed a hereditary right to the Bohemian throne, the Bohemians
determined to maintain their right of electing their sovereign, and they
chose Henry, duke of Carinthia, who had married a daughter of King
Wenceslas II. Henry soon became unpopular, as he was accused of unduly
favouring the German settlers in Bohemia. It was decided to depose him,
and the choice of the Bohemians now fell on John of Luxemburg, son of
Henry, king of the Romans. The Luxemburg dynasty henceforth ruled over
Bohemia up to the time of its extinction at the death of Sigismund
(1437). Though King John, by his marriage to the princess Elizabeth, a
daughter of Wenceslas II., became more closely connected with Bohemia,
he does not appear to have felt much interest in that country. Most of
his life was spent in other lands, his campaigns ranging from Italy in
the south to Lithuania in the north. It became proverbial "that nothing
could be done in the world without the help of God and of the king of
Bohemia." The policy of John was founded on a close alliance with
France, the country for which he felt most sympathy. Fighting as an ally
of France he fell at the battle of Crecy (1346).
King Charles.
He was succeeded as king of Bohemia by his son Charles, whom the German
electors had previously elected as their sovereign at Rense (1346).
Charles proved one of the greatest rulers of Bohemia, where his memory
is still revered. Prague was his favourite residence, and by the
foundation of the nove mesto (new town) he greatly enlarged the city,
which now had three times its former extent, and soon also trebled its
population. He also added greatly to the importance of the city by
founding the famous university of Prague. Charles succeeded in
re-establishing order in Bohemia. The country had been in a very
disturbed state in consequence of feuds that were incessant during the
reign of John, who had almost always been absent from Bohemia. Charles
also attempted to codify the obscure and contradictory laws of Bohemia;
but this attempt failed through the resistance of the powerful nobility
of the country. During the reign of Charles, the first symptoms of that
movement in favour of church reform that afterwards acquired a
world-wide importance, appeared in Bohemia. As Charles has often been
accused of undue subserviency to the Church of Rome, it should be
mentioned that he granted his protection to several priests who favoured
the cause of church reform. In his foreign policy Charles differed from
his father. The relations with France gradually became colder, and at
the end of his reign Charles favoured an alliance with England; he died
in 1378 at the age of sixty-two, prematurely exhausted by arduous work.
Wenceslas IV.
Charles was succeeded by his son Wenceslas, who was then seventeen years
of age. His reign marks the decline of the rule of the house of
Luxemburg over Bohemia. He was a weak and incapable sovereign, but the
very exaggerated accusations against him, which are found principally in
the works of older historians, are mainly due to the fact that the king
and to a larger extent his queen, Sophia, for a time furthered the cause
of church reform, thus incurring the displeasure of Romanist writers.
During the earlier part of the reign of Wenceslas a continual struggle
took place between the king and the powerful Bohemian nobles, who indeed
twice imprisoned their sovereign. Wenceslas also became involved in a
dispute with the archbishop, which resulted in the death of the famous
John of Nepomuk.
Huss and the Hussites
The later part of the reign of Wenceslas is a record of incipient
religious conflict. The hold of the Church of Rome on Bohemia had
already been weakened during the reign of King Charles by attacks on the
immorality of the clergy, which proceeded from pious priests such as
Milic and Waldhauser. The church schism, during which the rival pontiffs
assailed each other with all the wild threats and objurgations of
medieval theological strife, necessarily alienated the Bohemians to a
yet greater extent. Almost the whole Bohemian nation therefore espoused
the cause of Huss (q.v.). Wenceslas on the occasion of these disputes
displayed the weakness and irresolution that always characterized him,
but Queen Sophia openly favoured the cause of Huss, who for some time
was her confessor. Huss was tried before the council of Constance
(q.v.), to which he had proceeded with a letter of safe conduct given
by Wenceslas's brother Sigismund, king of the Romans. He was declared a
heretic and burnt on the 6th of July 1415. The inevitable and immediate
result of this event was the outbreak of civil war in Bohemia, where
Huss was greatly revered by the large majority of the population. The
nobles of Bohemia and Moravia met at Prague on the 2nd of September
1415, and sent to the council the famed _Protestatio Bohemorum_, in
which they strongly protested against the execution of Huss, "a good,
just and catholic man who had for many years been favourably known in
the Kingdom by his life, conduct and fame, and who had been convicted of
no offence." They further declared that all who affirmed that heresy
existed in Bohemia were "liars, vile traitors and calumniators of
Bohemia and Moravia, the worst of all heretics, full of all evil, sons
of the devil." They finally stated "that they would defend the law of
our Lord Jesus Christ and its pious, humble and steadfast preachers at
the cost of their blood, scorning all fear and all human decrees that
might be contrary to them."[2] This protest was a declaration of war
against the Roman church, and marks the beginning of the Hussite wars.
The council, indeed, summoned the nobles before its tribunal, but they
refused to appear. A large number of the nobles and knights who had met
at Prague formed a confederacy and declared that they consented to
freedom of preaching the word of God on their estates, that they
declined to recognize the authority of the council of Constance, but
would obey the Bohemian bishops and a future pope lawfully elected.
Meanwhile they declared the university of Prague the supreme authority
in all matters of religion. The members of the confederacy attempted,
though unsuccessfully, to induce King Wenceslas to become their leader.
The Romanist nobles, who were not numerous, but some of whom owned vast
estates, now also formed a confederacy, pledging themselves to support
the pope and the council. After the closing of the council in 1418,
Sigismund, who--Wenceslas being childless--was heir to the Bohemian
throne, sent a letter to his brother, which was practically a manifesto
addressed to the Bohemian people. He threatened with the severest
penalties all who should continue to resist the authority of Rome.
Wenceslas maintained the vacillating attitude that was characteristic of
his whole reign, though Queen Sophia still extended her protection to
the reformers. By doing this, indeed, she incurred the wrath of the
Church to so great an extent that an act of accusation against her was
drawn up at the council of Constance. Intimidated by his brother,
Wenceslas now attempted to stem the current of religious enthusiasm.
Immediately after the death of Huss many priests who refused to
administer communion in the two kinds--now the principal tenet of the
adherents of Huss--had been expelled from their parishes. Wenceslas
decreed that they should be reinstated, and it was only after some
hesitation that he even permitted that religious services according to
the Utraquist doctrine should be held in three of the churches of
Prague. Some of the more advanced reformers left Prague and formed the
party known as the Taborites, from the town of Tabor which became their
centre. Troubles soon broke out at Prague. When on the 30th of July
1419, the Hussite priest, John of Zelivo, was leading a procession
through the streets of Prague, stones were thrown at him and his
followers from the town hall of the "new town." The Hussites, led by
John Zizka (q.v.), stormed the town-hall and threw the magistrates from
its windows. On receiving the news of these riots King Wenceslas was
immediately seized by an attack of apoplexy; a second fit on the 16th of
August ended his life.
Sigismund.
The news of the death of the king caused renewed rioting in Prague and
many other Bohemian cities, from which many Germans, mostly adherents of
the Church of Rome, were expelled. Finally a temporary truce was
concluded, and, early in the following year, Sigismund, who now claimed
the Bohemian crown as successor of his brother, arrived at Kutna Hora
(Kuttenberg). Pope Martin V. on the 1st of March 1420 proclaimed a
crusade against Bohemia, and crusaders from all parts of Europe joined
Sigismund's army. "On the 30th day of June the Hungarian king,
Sigismund, with a large army consisting of men of various countries, as
well as of Bohemians, occupied the castle of Prague, determined to
conquer the city, which they considered a heretical community because
they used the sacred chalice and accepted other evangelical truths."[3]
But the attempt of the crusaders to conquer Prague failed, and after an
attack by them on the Vitkov (now Zizkov) hill had been repulsed by the
desperate bravery of the Taborites, led by Zizka, Sigismund determined
to abandon the siege of Prague. An attempt of Sigismund to relieve the
besieged garrison of the Vysehrad fortress on the outskirts of Prague
also failed, as he was again entirely defeated at the battle of the
Vysehrad (November 1, 1420).
Religious War.
Royal authority now ceased in Bohemia. At a meeting of the diet at
Caslav (June 1, 1421) Sigismund was deposed. It was decided that a
Polish prince should be chosen as sovereign, and that meanwhile a
provisional government, composed of twenty men belonging to the various
parties, should be established. In 1422 Sigismund again invaded Bohemia,
but was decisively defeated by Zizka at Nemecky Brod (Deutschbrod). The
Polish prince, Sigismund Korybutovic, now arrived in Bohemia, and was
recognized as regent by the large majority of the inhabitants; but
through the influence of the papal see he was recalled by the rulers of
Poland after a stay of only a few months. After his departure, civil war
between the moderate Hussites (Calixtines or Utraquists) and the
advanced Taborite party broke out for the first time, though there had
previously been isolated disturbances between them. The return of Prince
Korybutovic and the menace of a German invasion soon reunited the
Bohemians, who gained a decisive victory over the Germans at Aussig in
1426. Shortly afterwards Korybutovic, who had taken part in this great
victory, incurred the dislike of the extreme Hussites, and was obliged
to leave Bohemia. All hope of establishing an independent Slav dynasty
in Bohemia thus came to an end. In 1427 several German princes undertook
a new crusade against the Hussites. With the German and other invaders
were 1000 English archers, bodyguard to Henry Beaufort, bishop of
Winchester, who took part in the crusade as papal legate. The crusaders
were seized by a sudden panic, both at Mies (Stribro) and at Tachau, as
soon as they approached the Hussites, and they fled hurriedly across the
mountains into Bavaria. Though internal disturbances again broke out,
the Bohemians after this success assumed the offensive, and repeatedly
invaded Hungary and the German states.
The "Compacts."
The impossibility of conquering Bohemia had now become obvious, and it
was resolved that a council should meet at Basel (q.v.) to examine the
demands of the Hussites. The Germans, however, influenced by Sigismund,
determined to make a last attempt to subdue Bohemia by armed force. The
Bohemians, as usual united in the moment of peril, defeated the Germans
at Domazlice (Taus) on the 1st of August 1431, after a very short fight.
In the course of the same year negotiations began at Basel, the Hussites
being represented by a numerous embassy under the leadership of Prokop
the Great. The negotiations proceeded very slowly, and in 1433 the
Bohemians returned to their own country, accompanied, however, by envoys
of the council. Dissensions had meanwhile again broken out in Bohemia,
and they were now of a political rather than a religious nature. The
more aristocratic Hussites raised an armed force which was known as "the
army of the nobles." The Taborites also collected their men, who formed
"the army of the towns." The two armies met at Lipan, near Kolin, on the
30th of May 1434. The Taborites were defeated, and the two Prokops and
most of their other leaders perished on the battlefield. The victory of
the moderate party paved the way to a reconciliation with Sigismund and
the Church of Rome. The Bohemians recognized Sigismund as their
sovereign, but obtained considerable concessions with regard to
religious matters. These concessions, which were formulated in the
so-called Compacts, granted to the Bohemians the right of communion in
both kinds, and of preaching the gospel freely, and also to a certain
extent limited the power of the clergy to acquire worldly goods.
After the Compacts had been formally recognized at Iglau in Moravia,
Sigismund proceeded to Prague and was accepted as king. He died in the
following year (1437) and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Albert of
Austria, whom the estates chose as their king. Albert died after he had
reigned over Bohemia less than two years. Though it was known that
Albert's widow Elizabeth would shortly give birth to a child, the
question as to the succession to the throne again arose; for it was
only in 1627 that the question whether the Bohemian crown was elective
or hereditary was decided for ever. The nobles formed two parties, one
of which, the national one, had George of Podebrad (q.v.) as its leader.
Ulrich of Rosenberg was the leader of the Roman or Austrian division of
the nobility. The two parties finally came to an agreement known as the
"Letter of Peace" (_list mirny_). Those who signed it pledged themselves
to recognise the Compacts, and to support as archbishop of Prague, John
of Rokycan, who had been chosen by the estates in accordance with an
agreement made simultaneously with the Compacts, but whom the Church of
Rome refused to recognize. On the other hand, the national party
abandoned the candidature to the throne of Prince Casimir of Poland,
thus paving the way to the eventual succession of Albert's heir. On the
22nd of February 1440 Queen Elizabeth gave birth to a son, who received
the name of Ladislas. The Bohemians formally acknowledged him as their
king, though only after their crown had been declined by Albert, duke of
Bavaria. Ladislas remained in Austria under the guardianship of his
uncle Frederick, duke of Styria, afterwards the emperor Frederick III.,
and Bohemia, still without regular government, continued to be the scene
of constant conflicts between the rival parties of the nobility. In 1446
a general meeting of the estates of Bohemia together with those of
Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia--and so-called "lands of the Bohemian
crown"--took place. This meeting has exceptional importance for the
constitutional history of Bohemia. It was decreed that at the meeting of
the estates their members should be divided into three bodies--known as
_curiae_--representing the nobles, the knights and the towns. These
_curiae_ were to deliberate separately and only to meet for a final
decision. An attempt made at this meeting to appoint a regent was
unsuccessful. The negotiations with the papal see continued meanwhile,
but led to no result, as the members of the Roman party used their
influence at the papal court for the purpose of dissuading it from
granting any concessions to their countrymen. Shortly after the
termination of the diet of 1446 George of Podebrad therefore determined
to appeal to the fortune of war. He assembled a considerable army at
Kutna Hora and marched on Prague (1448). He occupied the town almost
without resistance and assumed the regency over the kingdom. The diet in
1451 recognized his title, which was also sanctioned by the emperor
Frederick III., guardian of the young king. Podebrad was none the less
opposed, almost from the first, by the Romanists, who even concluded an
alliance against him with their extreme opponents, Kolda of Zampach and
the other remaining Taborites. In October 1453 Ladislas arrived in
Bohemia and was crowned king at Prague; but he died somewhat suddenly on
the 23rd of November 1457. George of Podebrad has from the first
frequently been accused of having poisoned him, but historical research
has proved that this accusation is entirely unfounded. The Bohemian
throne was now again vacant, for, when electing Ladislas the estates had
reaffirmed the elective character of the monarchy. Though there were
several foreign candidates, the estates unanimously elected George of
Podebrad, who had now for some time administered the country. Though the
Romanist lords, whom Podebrad had for a time won over, also voted for
him, the election was considered a great victory of the national party
and was welcomed with enthusiasm by the citizens of Prague.
During the earlier and more prosperous part of his reign the policy of
King George was founded on a firm alliance with Matthias Corvinus, king
of Hungary, through whose influence he was crowned by the Romanist
bishop of Waitzen. The reign of King George, whose principal supporters
were the men of the smaller nobility and of the towns, was at first very
prosperous. After a certain time, however, some of the Romanist nobles
became hostile to the king, and, partly through their influence, he
became involved in a protracted struggle with the papal see. It was in
consequence of this struggle that some of George's far-reaching
plans--he endeavoured for a time to obtain the supremacy over
Germany--failed. After the negotiations with Rome had proved
unsuccessful George assembled the estates at Prague in 1452 and declared
that he would to his death remain true to the communion in both kinds,
and that he was ready to risk his life and his crown in the defence of
his faith. The Romanist party in Bohemia became yet more embittered
against the king, and at a meeting at Zelena Hora (Grunberg) in 1465
many nobles of the Roman religion joined in a confederacy against him.
In the following year Pope Paul II. granted his moral support to the
confederates by pronouncing sentence of excommunication against George
of Podebrad and by releasing all Bohemians from their oath of allegiance
to him. It was also through papal influence that King Matthias of
Hungary, deserting his former ally, supported the lords of the league of
Zelena Hora. Desultory warfare broke out between the two parties, in
which George was at first successful; but fortune changed when the king
of Hungary invaded Moravia and obtained possession of Brunn, the capital
of the country. At a meeting of the Catholic nobles of Bohemia and
Moravia at Olmutz in Moravia, Matthias was proclaimed king of Bohemia
(May 3, 1469). In the following year George obtained some successes over
his rival, but his death in 1471 for a time put a stop to the war.
George of Podebrad, the only Hussite king of Bohemia, has always, with
Charles IV., been the ruler of Bohemia whose memory has most endeared
itself to his countrymen.
Vladislav of Poland.
George of Podebrad had undoubtedly during the more prosperous part of
his reign intended to found a national dynasty. In later years, however,
hope of obtaining aid from Poland in his struggle against King Matthias
induced him to offer the succession to the Bohemian throne to Vladislav
(Wladislaus, Ladislaus), son of Casimir, king of Poland. No formal
agreement was made, and at the death of George many Bohemian nobles
supported the claim of Matthias of Hungary, who had already been
proclaimed king of Bohemia. Protracted negotiations ensued, but they
ended by the election of Prince Vladislav of Poland at Kutna Hora, the
27th of May 1471. This election was a victory of the national party, and
may be considered as evidence of the strong anti-clerical feeling which
then prevailed in Bohemia; for Matthias was an unconditional adherent of
Rome, while the Polish envoys who represented Vladislav promised that he
would maintain the Compacts. At the beginning of his reign the new king
was involved in a struggle with Matthias of Hungary, who maintained his
claim to the Bohemian throne. Prolonged desultory warfare continued up
to 1478, when a treaty concluded at Olmutz secured Bohemia to Vladislav;
Matthias was to retain the so-called "lands of the Bohemian
crown"--Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia--during his lifetime, and they were
to be restored to Bohemia after his death. Though Vladislav was faithful
to his promise of maintaining the Compacts, and did not attempt to
prevent the Bohemians from receiving the communion in both kinds, yet
his policy was on the whole a reactionary one, both as regards matters
of state and the religious controversies. The king appointed as
government officials at Prague men of that section of the Utraquist
party that was nearest to Rome, while a severe persecution of the
extreme Hussites known as the Bohemian Brethren took place (see
HUSSITES). Serious riots took place at Prague, and the more advanced
Hussites stormed the three town halls of the city. The nobles of the
same faith also formed a league to guard themselves against the menaced
reaction. A meeting of all the estates at Kutna Hora in 1485, however,
for a time restored peace. Both parties agreed to respect the religious
views of their opponents and to abstain from all violence, and the
Compacts were again confirmed.
As regards matters of state the reign of Vladislav is marked by a
decrease of the royal prerogative, while the power of the nobility
attained an unprecedented height, at the expense, not only of the royal
power, but also of the rights of the townsmen and peasants. A decree of
1487 practically established serfdom in Bohemia, where it had hitherto
been almost unknown. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of
this measure for the future of Bohemia. The rulers of the country were
henceforth unable to rely on that numerous sturdy and independent
peasantry of which the armies of Zizka and the Prokops had mainly
consisted. Various enactments belonging to this reign also curtailed the
rights of the Bohemian townsmen. A decree known as the "regulations of
King Vladislav" codified these changes. It enumerated all the rights of
the nobles and knights, but entirely ignored those of the towns. It was
tacitly assumed that the townsmen had no inherent rights, but only such
privileges as might be granted them by their sovereign with the consent
of the nobles and knights. Civil discord was the inevitable consequence
of these enactments. Several meeting? of the diet took place at which
the towns were not represented. The latter in 1513 formed a confederacy
to defend their rights, and chose Prince Bartholomew of Munsterberg--a
grandson of King George--as their leader.
Louis.
Vladislav was elected king of Hungary in 1490 and many of the events of
his later life belong to the history of Hungary. He married in 1502 Anna
de Candale, who was connected with the royal family of France. He had
two children by her, Anna, who afterwards married the archduke Ferdinand
of Austria, and Louis. Vladislav died in Hungary in 1516. His successor
was his son Louis, who had already been crowned as king of Bohemia at
the age of three. According to the instructions of Vladislav, Sigismund,
king of Poland, and the emperor Maximilian I. were to act as guardians
of the young king. The Bohemian estates recognized this decision, but
they refused to allow the guardians any right of interference in the
affairs of Bohemia. The great Bohemian nobles, and in particular the
supreme burgrave, Zdenek Leo, lord of Rozmital, ruled the country almost
without control. The beginning of the nominal reign of King Louis is
marked by an event which had great importance for the constitutional
development of Bohemia. At a meeting of the estates in 1517 known as the
diet of St Wenceslas--as the members first assembled on the 28th of
September, the anniversary of that saint--they came to terms and settled
the questions which had been the causes of discord. The citizens
renounced certain privileges which they had hitherto claimed, while the
two other estates recognized their municipal autonomy and tacitly
sanctioned their presence at the meetings of the diet, to which they had
already been informally readmitted since 1508. At the first sitting of
this diet, on the 24th of October, it was declared that the three
estates had agreed henceforth "to live together in friendly intercourse,
as became men belonging to the same country and race." In 1522 Louis
arrived in Bohemia from Hungary, of which country he had also been
elected king. On his arrival at Prague he dismissed all the Bohemian
state officials, including the powerful Leo of Rozmital. He appointed
Charles of Munsterberg, a cousin of Prince Bartholomew and also a
grandson of King George, as regent of Bohemia during his absences, and
John of Wartenberg as burgrave. The new officials appear to have
supported the more advanced Hussite party, while Rozmital and the
members of the town council of Prague who had acted in concert with him
had been the allies of the Romanists and those Utraquists who were
nearest to the Church of Rome. The new officials thus incurred the
displeasure of King Louis, who was at that moment seeking the aid of the
pope in his warfare with Turkey. The king therefore reinstated Leo of
Rozmital in his offices in 1525. Shortly afterwards Rozmital became
involved in a feud with the lords of Rosenberg; the feud became a civil
war, in which most of the nobles and cities of Bohemia took sides.
Meanwhile Louis, who had returned to Hungary, opened his campaign
against the Turks. He requested aid from his Bohemian subjects, and this
was granted, by the Rosenberg faction, while Rozmital and his party
purposely delayed sending any forces to Hungary. There were, therefore,
but few Bohemian troops at the battle of Mohacs (August 29, 1526) at
which Louis was decisively defeated and perished.
Origin of the Habsburg dynasty.
Ferdinand.
The death of Louis found Bohemia in a state of great disorder, almost of
anarchy. The two last kings had mainly resided in Hungary, and in spite
of the temporary agreement obtained at the diet of St Wenceslas, the
Bohemians had not succeeded in establishing a strong indigenous
government which might have taken the place of the absentee monarchs.
Archduke Ferdinand of Austria--afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I.--laid
claim to the Bohemian throne as husband of Anna, daughter of King
Vladislav. King Sigismund of Poland, the dukes Louis and William of
Bavaria, several other German princes, as well as several Bohemian
noblemen, of whom Leo of Rozmital was the most important, were also
candidates. The diet resolved to entrust the election to twenty-four of
their members, chosen in equal number from the three estates. These
electors, on the 23rd of October (1526), chose Ferdinand of Habsburg as
their king. This date is memorable, as it marks the permanent accession
of the Habsburg dynasty to the Bohemian throne, though the Austrian
archdukes Rudolph and Albert had previously been rulers of Bohemia for
short periods. Though Ferdinand fully shared that devotion to Rome which
is traditional in the Habsburg dynasty, he showed great moderation in
religious matters, particularly at the beginning of his reign. His
principal object was to establish the hereditary right of his dynasty to
the Bohemian throne, and this object he pursued with characteristic
obstinacy. When a great fire broke out at Prague in 1541, which
destroyed all the state documents, Ferdinand obtained the consent of the
estates to the substitution of a charter stating that he had been
recognized as king in consequence of the hereditary rights of his wife
Anna, in the place of the former one, which had stated that he had
become king by election. This caused great dissatisfaction and was one
of the principal causes of the troubles that broke out shortly
afterwards. Ferdinand had in 1531, mainly through the influence of his
brother the emperor Charles V., been elected king of the Romans and heir
to the Empire. He henceforth took a large part in the politics of
Germany, particularly after he had in 1547 concluded a treaty of peace
with Turkey, which assured the safety of the eastern frontiers of his
dominions. Charles V. about the same time concluded his war with France,
and the brothers determined to adopt a firmer policy towards the
Protestants of Germany, whose power had recently greatly increased. The
latter had, about the time of the recognition of Ferdinand as king of
the Romans, and partly in consequence of that event, formed at
Schmalkalden a league, of which John Frederick, elector of Saxony, and
Philip, landgrave of Hesse, were the leaders. War broke out in Germany
in the summer of 1546, and Charles relied on the aid of his brother,
while the German Protestants on the other hand appealed to their
Bohemian co-religionists for aid.
Struggles in the war against German Protestantism.
Since the beginning of the Reformation in Germany the views of the
Bohemian reformers had undergone a considerable change. Some of the more
advanced Utraquists differed but little from the German Lutherans, while
the Bohemian Brethren, who at this moment greatly increased in influence
through the accession of several powerful nobles, strongly sympathized
with the Protestants of Germany. Ferdinand's task of raising a Bohemian
army in support of his brother was therefore a difficult one. He again
employed his usual tortuous policy. He persuaded the estates to vote a
general levy of the forces of the country under the somewhat
disingenuous pretext that Bohemia was menaced by the Turks; for at that
period no armed force could be raised in Bohemia without the consent of
the estates of the realm. Ferdinand fixed the town of Kaaden on the
Saxon frontier as the spot where the troops were to meet, but on his
arrival there he found that many cities and nobles--particularly those
who belonged to the community of the Bohemian Brethren--had sent no men.
Of the soldiers who arrived many were Protestants who sympathized with
their German co-religionists. The Bohemian army refused to cross the
Saxon frontier, and towards the end of the year 1546 Ferdinand was
obliged to disband his Bohemian forces. Early in the following year he
again called on his Bohemian subjects to furnish an army in aid of his
brother. Only a few of the Romanists and more retrograde Utraquists
obeyed his order. The large majority of Bohemians, on the other hand,
considered the moment opportune for recovering the ancient liberties of
Bohemia, on which Ferdinand had encroached in various ways by claiming
hereditary right to the crown and by curtailing the old privileges of
the land. The estates met at Prague in March 1547, without awaiting a
royal summons,--undoubtedly an unconstitutional proceeding. The
assembly, in which the influence of the representatives of the town of
Prague and of the knights and nobles who belonged to the Bohemian
Brotherhood was predominant, had a very revolutionary character. This
became yet more marked when the news of the elector of Saxony's victory
at Rochlitz reached Prague. The estates demanded the re-establishment of
the elective character of the Bohemian kingdom, the recognition of
religious liberty for all, and various enactments limiting the royal
prerogative. It was decided to entrust the management of state affairs
to a committee of twelve members chosen in equal number from the three
estates. Of the members of the committee chosen by the knights and
nobles four belonged to the Bohemian Brotherhood. The committee decided
to equip an armed force, the command of which was conferred on Kaspar
Pflug of Rabenstein (d. 1576). According to his instructions he was
merely to march to the Saxon frontier, and there await further orders
from the estates; there seems, however, little doubt that he was
secretly instructed to afford aid to the German Protestants. Pflug
marched to Joachimsthal on the frontier, but refused to enter Saxon
territory without a special command of the estates.
Meanwhile the great victory of the imperialists at Muhlberg had for a
time crushed German Protestantism. The Bohemians were in a very
difficult position. They had seriously offended their sovereign and yet
afforded no aid to the German Protestants. The army of Pflug hastily
dispersed, and the estates still assembled at Prague endeavoured to
propitiate Ferdinand. They sent envoys to the camp of the king who, with
his brother Charles, was then besieging Wittenberg. Ferdinand received
the envoys better than they had perhaps expected. He indeed always
maintained his plan of making Bohemia a hereditary kingdom under
Habsburg rule, and of curtailing as far as possible its ancient
constitution, but he did not wish to drive to despair a still warlike
people. Ferdinand demanded that the Bohemians should renounce all
alliances with the German Protestants, and declared that he would make
his will known after his arrival in Prague. He arrived there on the 20th
of July, with a large force of Spanish and Walloon mercenaries, and
occupied the city almost without resistance. Ferdinand treated the
nobles and knights with great forbearance, and contented himself with
the confiscation of the estates of some of those who had been most
compromised. On the other hand he dealt very severely with the
towns--Prague in particular. He declared that their ancient privileges
should be revised--a measure that practically signified a broad
confiscation of lands that belonged to the municipalities. Ferdinand
also forced the townsmen to accept the control of state officials who
were to be called town-judges and in Prague town-captains. These royal
representatives were given almost unlimited control over municipal
affairs. The Bohemian Brethren were also severely persecuted, and their
bishop Augusta was imprisoned for many years.
Ferdinand's policy here was as able as it always was. The peasantry had
ceased to be dangerous since the establishment of serfdom; the power of
the cities was now thoroughly undermined. Ferdinand had only to deal
with the nobles and knights, and he hoped that the influence of his
court, and yet more that of the Jesuits, whom he established in Bohemia
about this time, would gradually render them amenable to the royal will.
If we consider the customs of his time Ferdinand cannot be considered as
having acted with cruelty in the moment of his success. Only four of the
principal leaders of the revolt--two knights, and two citizens of
Prague--were sentenced to death. They were decapitated on the square
outside the Hradcany palace where the estates met on that day (August
22). This diet therefore became known as the "Krvavy'sneem" (bloody
diet). In one of the last years of his life (1562) Ferdinand succeeded
in obtaining the coronation of his eldest son Maximilian as king of
Bohemia, thus ensuring to him the succession to the Bohemian throne. As
Ferdinand I. acceded to the Hungarian throne at the same time as to
that of Bohemia, and as he also became king of the Romans and after the
death of Charles V. emperor, many events of his life do not belong to
the history of Bohemia. He died in 1564.
Maximilian.
Abolition of the "Compacts."
Maximilian succeeded his father as king of Bohemia without any
opposition. Circumstances were greatly in his favour; he had in his
youth mainly been educated by Protestant tutors, and for a time openly
avowed strong sympathy for the party of church reform. This fact, which
became known in Bohemia, secured for him the support of the Bohemian
church reformers, while the Romanists and retrograde Utraquists were
traditionally on the side of the house of Habsburg. The reign of
Maximilian did not fulfil the hopes that met it. Though he published new
decrees against the Bohemian Brethren, he generally refused to sanction
any measures against the Protestants, in spite of the advice of the
Jesuits, who were gradually obtaining great influence in Bohemia. He did
nothing, however, to satisfy the expectations of the partisans of church
reform, and indeed after a time began again to assist at the functions
of the Roman church, from which he had long absented himself.
Indifference, perhaps founded on religious scepticism, characterized the
king during the many ecclesiastical disputes that played so large a part
in his reign. In 1567 Maximilian, who had also succeeded his father as
king of Hungary and emperor, visited the Bohemians for the first time
since his accession to the throne. Like most princes of the Habsburg
dynasty, he was constantly confronted at this period by the difficulty
of raising funds for warfare against the Turks. When he asked the
Bohemians to grant him supplies for this purpose, they immediately
retorted by bringing forward their demands with regard to matters of
religion. Their principal demand appears somewhat strange in the light
of the events of the past. The estates expressed the wish that the
celebrated Compacts should cease to form part of the laws of the
country. These enactments had indeed granted freedom of worship to the
most moderate Utraquists--men who, except that they claimed the right to
receive the communion in both kinds, hardly differed in their faith from
the Roman church. On the other hand Ferdinand I. had used the Compacts
as an instrument which justified him in oppressing the Bohemian
Brethren, and the advanced Utraquists, whose teaching now differed but
little from that of Luther. He had argued that all those who professed
doctrines differing from the Church of Rome more widely than did the
retrograde Utraquists, were outside the pale of religious toleration.
Maximilian, indifferent as usual to matters of religious controversy,
consented to the abolition of the Compacts, and these enactments, which
had once been sacred to the Bohemian people, perished unregretted by all
parties. The Romanists had always hated them, believing them not to be
in accord with the general custom of the papal church, while the
Lutherans and Bohemian Brethren considered their suppression a guarantee
of their own liberty of worship.
Confessio Bohemica.
In 1575 Maximilian, who had long been absent from Bohemia, returned
there, as the estates refused to grant subsidies to an absentee monarch.
The sittings of the diet that met in 1575 were very prolonged. The king
maintained a vacillating attitude, influenced now by the threats of the
Bohemians, now by the advice of the papal nuncio, who had followed him
to Prague. The latter strongly represented to him how great would be the
difficulties that he would encounter in his other dominions, should he
make concessions to the Protestants of Bohemia. The principal demand of
the Bohemians was that the "Confession of Augsburg"--a summary of
Luther's teaching--should be recognized in Bohemia. They further renewed
the demand, which they had already expressed at the diet of 1567, that
the estates should have the right of appointing the members of the
consistory--the ecclesiastical body which ruled the Utraquist church;
for since the death of John of Rokycan that church had had no
archbishop. After long deliberations and the king's final refusal to
recognize the confession of Augsburg, the majority of the diet,
consisting of members of the Bohemian brotherhood and advanced
Utraquists, drew up a profession of faith that became known as the
_Confessio Bohemica_. It was in most points identical with the Augsburg
confession, but differed from it with regard to the doctrine of the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Here the Bohemian profession agreed with
the views of Calvin rather than with those of Luther. This is
undoubtedly due to the influence of the Bohemian Brethren. The
_Confessio Bohemica_ was presented to Maximilian, who verbally expressed
his approval, but would not consent to this being made public, and also
refused his consent to the inclusion of the _Confessio_ among the
charters of the kingdom. Maximilian rejected the demand of the Bohemian
estates, that they and not the king should in future appoint the members
of the consistory. He finally, however, consented to exempt the
Lutherans and advanced Utraquists from the jurisdiction of the
consistory, and allowed them to choose fifteen defenders--five of whom
were to belong to each of the estates--who were to have supreme control
over the Lutheran church. These defenders were to appoint for each
district a superintendent (moderator), who was to maintain order and
discipline among the clergy. As the Bohemian Brotherhood had never
recognized the consistory, that body now lost whatever influence it had
still possessed. It became, indeed, subservient to the Romanist
archbishopric of Prague, which had been re-established by Ferdinand I.
Its members henceforth were men who on almost all points agreed with
Rome, and sometimes even men who had joined the Roman church, but
continued by order of their superiors to remain members of the
consistory, where it was thought that their influence might be useful to
their new creed.
Rudolph.
The results of the diet of 1575 were on the whole favourable to the
estates, and they seem to have taken this view, for almost immediately
afterwards they recognized Maximilian's eldest son Rudolph as his
successor and consented to his being crowned king of Bohemia. Maximilian
died in the following year, and Rudolph succeeded him without any
opposition. The events of the last years of the reign of Rudolph have
the greatest importance for Bohemian history, but the earlier part of
his reign requires little notice. As Rudolph had been educated in Spain
it was at first thought that he would treat the Bohemian church
reformers with great severity. The new sovereign, however, showed with
regard to the unceasing religious controversy the same apathy and
indifference with which he also met matters of state. He had been from
his early youth subject to fits of melancholia, and during several short
periods was actually insane. Rudolph was a great patron of the arts, and
he greatly contributed to the embellishment of Prague, which, as it was
his favourite residence, became the centre of the vast Habsburg
dominions. In 1600 the mental condition of Rudolph became so seriously
impaired that the princes of the house of Habsburg thought it necessary
to consider the future of the state, particularly as Rudolph had no
legitimate descendants. Matthias, the eldest of his brothers, came to
Prague and pointed out to Rudolph the necessity of appointing a
coadjutor, should he be incapacitated from fulfilling his royal duties,
and also of making arrangements concerning the succession to the throne.
These suggestions were indignantly repelled by Rudolph, whose anger was
greatly increased by a letter of Pope Clement VIII. The pope in a
forcible though formally courteous manner pointed out to him the evil
results which his neglect of his royal duties would entail on his
subjects, and called on him to appoint one of the Habsburg princes his
successor both to the imperial crown and to the thrones of Bohemia and
Hungary. It is probable that the fear that the pope might make good the
threats contained in this letter induced Rudolph, who had hitherto been
indifferent to matters of religion, to become more subservient to the
Roman church. The papal nuncio at Prague, in particular, appears for a
time to have obtained great influence over the king. Under this
influence, Rudolph in 1602 issued a decree which renewed obsolete
enactments against the Bohemian Brethren that had been published by King
Vladislav in 1508. The royal decree was purposely worded in an obscure
manner. It referred to the Compacts that had been abolished, and was
liable to an interpretation excluding from tolerance all but the
Romanists and the retrograde Utraquists. It appeared therefore as a
menace to the Lutherans--and all the more advanced Utraquists had now
embraced that creed--as well as to the Bohemian Brethren. The estates of
Bohemia met at Prague in January 1603. The discussions were very stormy.
Budovec of Budova, a nobleman belonging to the community of the Bohemian
Brethren, became the leader of all those who were opposed to the Church
of Rome. He vigorously attacked the royal decree, which he declared to
be contrary to the promises made by King Maximilian. He, however,
advised the estates to vote the supplies that King Rudolph had demanded.
Immediately after this vote had been passed, the diet was closed by
order of the king. Though the royal power was at that period very weak
in Bohemia, the open partisanship of the king encouraged the Romanist
nobles, who were not numerous, but among whom were some owners of large
estates, to attempt to re-establish the Roman creed on their
territories. Some of these nobles committed great cruelties while
attempting to obtain these forcible conversions.
Strife again broke out between Rudolph and his treacherous younger
brother Matthias, who used the religious and political controversies of
the time for the purpose of supplanting his brother. The formal cause of
the rupture between the two princes was Rudolph's refusal to sanction a
treaty of peace with Turkey, which Matthias had concluded as his
brother's representative in Hungary. The Hungarians accepted Matthias as
their ruler, and when his forces entered Moravia the estates of that
country had, by Charles, lord of Zerotin, also renounced the allegiance
of Rudolph. Matthias then invaded Bohemia, and invited the estates of
the kingdom to meet him at Caslav (Ceslau). In consequence of a sudden
revolution of feeling for which it is difficult to account, the
Bohemians declined the overtures of Matthias. The estates met at Prague
in March 1608, and, though again submitting their demands concerning
ecclesiastical matters to Rudolph, authorized him to levy troops for the
defence of Bohemia. The forces of Matthias had meanwhile entered Bohemia
and had arrived at Liben, a small town near Prague now incorporated with
that city. Here Matthias, probably disappointed by the refusal of the
Bohemians to join his standard, came to an understanding with his
brother (June 25, 1608). Rudolph formally ceded to Matthias the
government of Hungary, Moravia, and Upper and Lower Austria, but
retained his rights as king of Bohemia.
Diet of 1609. Demand for religious liberty.
Soon after the conclusion of this temporary settlement, the estates of
Bohemia again brought their demands before their king. Rudolph had
declined to discuss all religious matters during the time that the
troops of his brother occupied part of Bohemia. The diet that met on the
20th of January 1609 is one of the most important in the history of
Bohemia. Here, as so frequently in the 17th century, the religious
controversies were largely influenced by personal enmities. Rudolph
never forgave the treachery of his brother, and was secretly negotiating
(at the time when he again appeared as champion of Catholicism) with
Christian of Anhalt, the leader of the German Protestants. This was
known to the court of Spain, and the Bohemians also knew that the king
could therefore rely on no aid from that quarter. They were therefore
not intimidated when Rudolph, vacillating as ever, suddenly assumed a
most truculent attitude. The estates had at their meeting in March of
the previous year drawn up a document consisting of twenty-five
so-called Articles, which formulated their demands with regard to
matters of religion. The king now demanded that this document, which he
considered illegal, should be delivered up to him for destruction. The
"articles" expressed the wish that the _Confessio Bohemica_ should be
recognized as one of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and that
complete religious liberty should be granted to all classes. They
further demanded that the Protestants--as it now became customary to
call jointly the Utraquists, Lutherans and Bohemian Brethren--and the
Roman Catholics should have an equal right to hold all the offices of
state, and that the power of the Jesuits to acquire land should be
limited. They finally asked for redress of several grievances caused by
the misrule of Rudolph. This document had remained in the hands of
Budova, who refused to deliver it to the king. The estates then chose
twelve of their number--among whom was Count Henry Matthias Thurn--who
were to negotiate with the king and his councillors. Protracted
discussions ensued, and the king finally stated, on the 31st of March,
that he could grant no concessions in matters of religion. On the
following day the estates met under the leadership of Budova. They
decided to arm for the defence of their rights, and when the king
immediately afterwards dissolved the diet, it was resolved to meet again
after a month, even without a royal summons. When they returned to
Prague, Adam of Sternberg, the burgrave, again informed Budova that the
king would grant no concessions in ecclesiastical matters. Bohemia
appeared to be on the verge of a revolution. It is unnecessary to record
the frequent and contradictory resolutions of the king, influenced now
by the extreme Romanists, now by those of his councillors who favoured a
peaceful solution. Finally--on the 9th of July 1609--Rudolph signed the
famed "Letter of Majesty" which gave satisfaction to all the legitimate
demands of the Bohemian Protestants. In the "Letter of Majesty" Rudolph
recognized the _Confessio Bohemica_. He further granted to the
Protestant estates the control over the university of Prague, and
authorized them to elect the members of the Utraquist consistory. They
were further empowered to elect "defenders" chosen in equal number from
the estates of the nobles, knights and citizens, who were to superintend
the execution of the enactments of the Letter of Majesty and generally
to uphold the rights of the Protestants. On the same day the Romanist
and the Protestant members of the diet also signed an agreement by which
they guaranteed to each other full liberty of religious worship and
declared that this liberty should be extended to all classes of the
population.
Matthias.
In 1611 the peace of Bohemia was again disturbed by the invasion of the
archduke Leopold of Austria, bishop of Passau, who probably acted in
connivance with his cousin King Rudolph. Leopold succeeded in obtaining
possession of part of the town of Prague, but his army was defeated by
the troops which the Bohemian estates had hurriedly raised, and he was
obliged to leave Bohemia. Matthias considered his hereditary rights
menaced by the raid of Leopold and again occupied Bohemia. Mainly at his
instigation the estates now formally deposed Rudolph, who survived his
dethronement only a few months, and died on the 20th of January 1612.
Though Matthias had allied himself with the Bohemian Protestants during
his prolonged struggle against his brother, he now adopted that policy
favourable to the Church of Rome which is traditional of the Habsburg
dynasty. His relations with the Bohemian Protestants, therefore, soon
became strained. In 1615 Matthias convoked a general diet, i.e. one that
besides the Bohemian representatives included also the representatives
of the "lands of the Bohemian crown." At the meeting of this diet the
question of nationality, which through the constant religious
controversies had receded to the background, again became predominant.
Former enactments enforcing the use of the national language were
reaffirmed, and it was decreed that Bohemian should be the "authorized"
(i.e. official) language of the country.
As Matthias was childless, the question as to the succession to the
Bohemian throne again arose. The king wished to secure the succession to
his cousin Ferdinand, duke of Styria. Ferdinand was known as a fanatical
adherent of the Church of Rome and as a cruel persecutor of the
Protestants of Styria. None the less the state officials of Bohemia, by
not very scrupulous means, succeeded in persuading the estates to accept
Ferdinand as heir to the throne and to consent to his coronation, which
took place at Prague on the 17th of June 1617. No doubt through the
influence of Ferdinand, the policy of Matthias henceforth assumed a yet
more pronouncedly ultramontane character. The king's councillors, all
adherents of the Church of Rome, openly expressed their hope that the
Catholic Church would soon recover its ancient hold over Bohemia. On the
other hand the Bohemian Protestants, led by Count Thurn, one of the few
nobles who had refused to vote for the recognition of Ferdinand as heir
to the throne, did not wish to defer what they considered an inevitable
conflict. It appeared to them more advantageous to encounter the weak
Matthias than his younger and more fanatical successor. A comparatively
unimportant incident precipitated matters. In December 1617, the
archbishop of Prague and the abbot of Brevnov (Braunau) ordered the
suppression of the Protestant religious services in churches that had
been built on their domains. This was a direct infringement of the
agreement concluded by the Romanist and Utraquist estates on the day on
which King Rudolph had signed the Letter of Majesty. The defenders took
immediate action, by inviting all Protestant members of the diet to meet
at Prague. They assembled there on 21st of May 1618, and decided to
proceed in full armour to the Hradcany palace to bring their complaints
to the knowledge of the councillors of Matthias. On the following day,
Thurn, Wenceslas of Ruppa, Ulrich of Kinsky, and other members of the
more advanced party held a secret meeting, at which it was decided to
put to death the most influential of Matthias's councillors. On the 23rd
the representatives of the Protestants of Bohemia proceeded to the
Hradcany. Violent accusations were brought forward, particularly against
Martinic and Slavata, the king's most trusted councillors, who were
accused of having advised him to oppose the wishes of the Bohemians.
Finally these two councillors, together with Fabricius, secretary of the
royal council, were thrown from the windows of the Hradcany into the
moat below--an event known in history as the Defenestration of Prague.
Both Martinic and Slavata were but little injured, and succeeded in
escaping from Prague. The Bohemians immediately established a
provisional government consisting of thirty "directors," ten of whom
were chosen by each of the estates. They also proceeded to raise an
armed force, the command of which was given to Count Thurn. Hostilities
with Austria began in July, when an imperial force entered Bohemia. The
troops of Matthias were, however, soon repulsed by the Bohemians, and in
November Thurn's army entered Austria, but was soon obliged to retire to
Bohemia because of the lateness of the season.
War with the emperor Ferdinand.
In the following March the Bohemian crown became vacant by the death of
Matthias. On the 31st of July the Bohemian estates pronounced the formal
deposition of Ferdinand, and on the 26th of August they elected as their
king Frederick, elector palatine. The new king and his queen, Elizabeth
of England, arrived in Bohemia in October, and were crowned somewhat
later at St Vitus's cathedral in Prague. Warfare with Austria continued
during this year--1619. Thurn occupied Moravia, which now threw in its
lot with Bohemia, and he even advanced on Vienna, but was soon obliged
to retreat. In the following year events took a fatal turn for Bohemia.
The powerful duke Maximilian of Bavaria joined his forces to those of
Ferdinand, who had become Matthias's successor as emperor, and who was
determined to reconquer Bohemia. Ferdinand also received aid from Spain,
Poland and several Italian states. Even the Lutheran elector of Saxony
espoused his cause. A large imperialist army, under the command of the
duke of Bavaria, Tilly and Bouquoi, entered Bohemia in September 1620.
After several skirmishes, in all of which the Bohemians were defeated,
the imperial forces arrived at the outskirts of Prague on the evening of
the 7th of November. On the following morning they attacked the Bohemian
army, which occupied a slightly fortified position on the plateau known
as the "Bila Hora" (White Hill). The Bohemians were defeated after a
struggle of only a few hours, and on the evening of battle the
imperialists already occupied the port of Prague, situated on the left
bank of the Vltava (Moldau). King Frederick, who had lost all courage,
hurriedly left Prague on the following morning.
Submission of Bohemia.
Bohemia itself, as well as the lands of the Bohemian crown, now
submitted to Ferdinand almost without resistance. The battle of the
White Hill marks an epoch in the history of Bohemia. The execution of
the principal leaders of the national movement (June 21, 1621) was
followed by a system of wholesale confiscation of the lands of all who
had in any way participated in the national movement. Almost the entire
ancient nobility of Bohemia was driven into exile, and adventurers from
all countries, mostly men who had served in the imperial army, shared
the spoils. Gradually all those who refused to recognize the creed of
the Roman church were expelled from Bohemia, and by the use of terrible
cruelty Catholicism was entirely re-established in the country. In 1627
Ferdinand published a decree, which formally suppressed the ancient free
constitution of Bohemia, though a semblance of representative government
was left to the country. The new constitution proclaimed the heredity of
the Bohemian crown in the house of Habsburg. It added a new "estate,"
that of the clergy, to the three already existing. This estate, which
was to take precedence of all the others, consisted of the Roman
archbishop of Prague and of all the ecclesiastics who were endowed with
landed estates. The diet was deprived of all legislative power, which
was exclusively vested in the sovereign. At its meetings the diet was to
discuss such matters only as were laid before it by the representatives
of the king. The estates continued to have the right of voting taxes,
but they were specially forbidden to attach any conditions to the grants
of money which they made to their sovereign. It was finally decreed that
the German language should have equal right with the Bohemian one in all
the government offices and law-courts of the kingdom. This had indeed
become a necessity, since, in consequence of the vast confiscations, the
greatest part of the land was in the hands of foreigners to whom the
national language was unknown. Though these enactments still left some
autonomy to Bohemia, the country gradually lost all individuality. Its
history from this moment to the beginning of the 19th century is but a
part of the history of Austria (q.v.).
Bohemia under Austrian domination.
Bohemia was the theatre of hostilities during a large part of the Thirty
Years' War, which had begun in its capital. In 1631 the Saxons for a
time occupied a large part of Bohemia, and even attempted to
re-establish Protestantism, During the later period of the Thirty Years'
War Bohemia was frequently pillaged by Swedish troops, and the taking of
part of Prague by the Swedish general Konigsmark in 1648 was the last
event of the great war. The attempts of the Swedish envoys to obtain a
certain amount of toleration for the Bohemian Protestants proved
fruitless, as the imperial representatives were inflexible on this
point. At the beginning of the 18th century the possibility of the
extinction of the male line of the house of Habsburg arose. The estates
of Bohemia, at a meeting that took place at Prague on the 16th of
October 1720, sanctioned the female succession to the Bohemian throne
and recognized the so-called Pragmatic Sanction which proclaimed the
indivisibility of the Habsburg realm. The archduchess Maria Theresa, in
whose favour these enactments were made, none the less met with great
opposition on the death of her father the emperor Charles VI. Charles,
elector of Bavaria, raised claims to the Bohemian throne and invaded the
country with a large army of Bavarian, French and Saxon troops. He
occupied Prague, and a large part of the nobles and knights of Bohemia
took the oath of allegiance to him (December 19, 1741). The fortune of
war, however, changed shortly afterwards. Maria Theresa recovered
Bohemia and the other lands that had been under the rule of the house of
Habsburg. During the reign of Maria Theresa, and to a greater extent
during that of her son Joseph II., many changes in the internal
administration of the Habsburg realm took place which all tended to
limit yet further the autonomy of Bohemia. A decree of 1749 abolished
the separate law-courts that still existed in Bohemia, and a few years
later an Austro-Bohemian chancellor was appointed who was to have the
control of the administration of Bohemia, as well as of the German
domains of the house of Habsburg. The power of the royal officials who
constituted the executive government of Bohemia was greatly curtailed,
and though the chief representative of the sovereign in Prague continued
to bear the ancient title of supreme burgrave, he was instructed to
conform in all matters to the orders of the central government of
Vienna. Yet more extreme measures tending to centralization were
introduced by the emperor Joseph, who refused to be crowned at Prague as
king of Bohemia. The powers of the Bohemian diet and of the royal
officials at Prague were yet further limited, and the German language
was introduced into all the upper schools of Bohemia. Some of the
reforms introduced by Joseph were, incidentally and contrary to the
wishes of their originator, favourable to the Bohemian nationality. Thus
the greater liberty which he granted to the press enabled the Bohemians
to publish a newspaper in the national language. After the death of
Joseph in 1790 the Bohemian estates, whose meetings had been suspended
during his reign, again assembled, but they at first made but scanty
attempts to reassert their former rights. During the long Napoleonic
wars, in which the house of Habsburg was almost continuously engaged,
Bohemia continued in its previous lethargic state. In 1804 a merely
formal change in the constitutional position of Bohemia took place when
Francis I. assumed the hereditary title of emperor of Austria. It was
stated in an imperial decree that the new title of the sovereign should
in no way prejudice the ancient rights of Bohemia and that the
sovereigns would continue to be crowned as kings of Bohemia.
Revival of national aspirations.
Collapse in 1848.
After the re-establishment of European peace in 1815 the long-suppressed
national aspirations of Bohemia began to revive. The national movement,
however, at first only found expression in the revival of Bohemian
literature. The arbitrary and absolutist government of Prince Metternich
rendered all political action impossible in the lands ruled by the house
of Habsburg. In spite of this pressure the estates of Bohemia began in
1845 to assume an attitude of opposition to the government of Vienna.
They affirmed their right of voting the taxes of the country--a right
that was due to them according to the constitution of 1627. To obtain
the support of the wider classes of the population, they determined in
1847 to propose at their session of the following year that the towns
should have a more extensive representation at the diet, that the
control of the estates over the finances of the country should be made
more stringent, and that the Bohemian language should be introduced into
all the higher schools of the country. The revolutionary outbreak of
1848 prevented this meeting of the estates. When the news of the
February revolution in Paris reached Prague the excitement there was
very great. On the 11th of March a vast public meeting voted a petition
to the government of Vienna which demanded that the Bohemian language
should enjoy equal rights with the German in all the government offices
of the country, that a general diet comprising all the Bohemian lands,
but elected on an extensive suffrage, should be convoked, and that
numerous liberal reforms should be introduced. The deputation which
presented these demands in Vienna received a somewhat equivocal answer.
In reply, however, to a second deputation, the emperor Ferdinand
declared on the 8th of April that equality of rights would be secured to
both nationalities in Bohemia, that the question of the reunion of
Moravia and Silesia to Bohemia should be left to a general meeting of
representatives of all parts of Austria, and that a new meeting of the
estates of Bohemia, which would include representatives of the principal
towns, would shortly be convoked. This assembly, which was to have had
full powers to create a new constitution, and which would have
established complete autonomy, never met, though the election of its
members took place on the 17th of May. In consequence of the general
national movement which is so characteristic of the year 1848, it was
decided to hold at Prague a "Slavic congress" to which Slavs of all
parts of the Austrian empire, as well as those belonging to other
countries, were invited. The deliberations were interrupted by the
serious riots that broke out in the streets of Prague on the 12th of
June. They were suppressed after prolonged fighting and considerable
bloodshed. The Austrian commander, Prince Windischgratz, bombarded the
city, which finally capitulated unconditionally. The nationalist and
liberal movement in Bohemia was thus suddenly checked, though the
Bohemians took part in the Austrian constituent assembly that met at
Vienna, and afterwards at Kromeriz (Kremsier).
By the end of the year 1849 all constitutional government had ceased in
Bohemia, as in all parts of the Habsburg empire. The reaction that now
ensued was felt more severely than in any other part of the monarchy;
for not only were all attempts to obtain self-government and liberty
ruthlessly suppressed, but a determined attempt was made to exterminate
the national language. The German language was again exclusively used in
all schools and government offices, all Bohemian newspapers were
suppressed, and even the society of the Bohemian museum--a society
composed of Bohemian noblemen and scholars--was for a time only allowed
to hold its meetings under the supervision of the police.
Austrian constitutional changes.
The events of the Italian campaign of 1859 rendered the continuation of
absolutism in the Austrian empire impossible. It was attempted to
establish a constitutional system which, while maintaining to a certain
extent the unity of the empire, should yet recognize the ancient
constitutional rights of some of the countries united under the rule of
the house of Habsburg. A decree published on the 20th of October 1860
established diets with limited powers. The composition of these
parliamentary assemblies was to a certain extent modelled on that of the
ancient diets of Bohemia and other parts of the empire. This decree was
favourably received in Bohemia, but the hopes which it raised in the
country fell when a new imperial decree appeared on the 26th of February
1861. This established a central parliament at Vienna with very
extensive powers, and introduced an electoral system which was grossly
partial to the Germans. The Bohemians indeed consented to send their
representatives to Vienna, but they left the parliament in 1863, stating
that the assembly had encroached on the power which constitutionally
belonged to the diet of Prague. Two years later the central parliament
of Vienna was suspended, and in the following year--1866--the
Austro-Prussian war caused a complete change in the constitutional
position of Bohemia. The congress of Vienna in 1815 had declared that
that country should form part of the newly formed Germanic
Confederation; this was done without consulting the estates of the
country, as had been customary even after the battle of the White Hill
on the occasion of serious constitutional changes. The treaty with
Prussia, signed at Prague on the 23rd of August 1866, excluded from
Germany all lands ruled by the house of Habsburg. As a natural
consequence German influence declined in the Austrian empire, and in
Bohemia in particular. While Hungary now obtained complete independence,
the new constitution of 1867, which applied only to the German and
Slavic parts of the Habsburg empire, maintained the system of
centralization and attempted to maintain the waning German influence.
The Bohemians energetically opposed this new constitution and refused to
send representatives to Vienna.
Renewed struggles of Bohemian nationalism.
In 1871 it appeared probable for a moment that the wishes of the
Bohemians, who desired that their ancient constitution should be
re-established in a modernized form, would be realized. The new Austrian
prime minister, Count Karl Hohenwart, took office with the firm
intention of accomplishing an agreement between Bohemia and the other
parts of the Habsburg empire. Prolonged negotiations ensued, and an
attempt was made to establish a constitutional system which, while
satisfying the claims of the Bohemians, would yet have firmly connected
them with the other lands ruled by the house of Habsburg. An imperial
message addressed to the diet of Prague (September 14, 1871) stated that
the sovereign "in consideration of the former constitutional position of
Bohemia and remembering the power and glory which its crown had given to
his ancestors, and the constant fidelity of its population, gladly
recognized the rights of the kingdom of Bohemia, and was willing to
confirm this assurance by taking the coronation oath." Various
influences caused the failure of this attempt to reconcile Bohemia with
Austria. In 1872 a government with a pronounced German tendency took
office in Vienna, and the Bohemians for a time again refused to attend
the parliamentary assemblies of Vienna and Prague. In 1879 Count Eduard
Taaffe became Austrian prime minister, and he succeeded in persuading
the representatives of Bohemia to take part in the deliberations of the
parliament of Vienna. They did so, after stating that they took this
step without prejudice to their view that Bohemia with Moravia and
Silesia constituted a separate state under the rule of the same
sovereign as Austria and Hungary. The government of Count Taaffe, in
recognition of this concession by the Bohemians, consented to remove
some of the grossest anomalies connected with the electoral system of
Bohemia, which had hitherto been grossly partial to the German minority
of the population. The government of Count Taaffe also consented to the
foundation of a Bohemian university at Prague, which greatly contributed
to the intellectual development of the country. On the fall of the
government of Count Taaffe, Prince Alfred Windischgratz became prime
minister. The policy of his short-lived government was hostile to
Bohemia and he was soon replaced by Count Badeni.
The language question.
Badeni again attempted to conciliate Bohemia. He did not indeed consider
it feasible to reopen the question of its autonomy, but he endeavoured
to remedy some of the most serious grievances of the country. In the
beginning of 1897 Count Badeni issued a decree which stated that after a
certain date all government officials who wished to be employed in
Bohemia would have to prove a certain knowledge of the Bohemian as well
as of the German language. This decree met with violent opposition on
the part of the German inhabitants of Austria, and caused the fall of
Count Badeni's cabinet at the end of the year 1897. After a brief
interval he was succeeded by Count Thun and then by Count Clary, whose
government repealed the decrees that had to a certain extent granted
equal rights to the Bohemian language. In consequence troubles broke out
in Prague, and were severely repressed by the Austrian authorities.
During the subsequent ministries of Korber and Gautsch the Bohemians
continued to oppose the central government of Vienna, and to assert
their national rights.
See generally Count Lutzow, _Bohemia, a Historical Sketch_ (London,
1896). The valuable collection of historical documents entitled
_Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum_, published at Prague in the latter part of
the 19th century, has superseded earlier ones such as Freherus
(Marquard Freher), _Rerum Bohemicarum Antiqui Scriptores_. Similarly,
the earlier historical works of Pubitschka, Pelzl and De Florgy are
superseded by Frantisek Palacky's _Geschichte von Bohmen_ (Prague,
1844-1867), which, however, ends with the year 1526. Rezek, Gindely
and others have dealt with the history of Bohemia posterior to the
year 1526. Professor Adolf Bachmann published (vol. i. in 1899, vol.
ii. 1905) a _Geschichte Bohmens_ up to 1526, which has a strongly
marked German tendency. Of French works Professor Ernest Denis's _Jean
Hus, et la guerre des Hussites_ (Paris, 1878), _Fin de l'independance
boheme_ (2 vols., 1890), and _La Boheme depuis la Montagne Blanche_ (2
vols., 1903), give a continuous account of Bohemian history from the
beginning of the 15th century. (L.)
LITERATURE
The earliest records of the Bohemian or Czech language are very ancient,
though the so-called MSS. of Zelena Hora (Gruneberg) and Kralodvur
(Koniginhof) are almost certainly forgeries of the early part of the
19th century. The earliest genuine documents of the Bohemian language
comprise several hymns and legends; of the latter the legend of St
Catherine and that of St Dorothy have the greatest value. Several
ancient epic fragments have also been preserved, such as the
_Alexandreis_ and _Tandarias a Floribella_. These and other early
Bohemian writings have been printed since the revival of Bohemian
literature in the 19th century. Of considerable historical value is the
rhymed chronicle generally though wrongly known as the chronicle of
Dalimil. The author, who probably lived during the reign of King John
(1310-1346), records the events of Bohemian history from the earliest
period to the reign of King Henry of Carinthia, the immediate
predecessor of John. A strong feeling of racial antipathy to the
Germans pervades the chronicle.
Old Czech literature.
It is undoubtedly to be attributed to the high intellectual level which
Bohemia attained in the 14th century that at that period we already find
writers on religious and philosophical subjects who used the national
language. Of these the most important is Thomas of Stitny (c.
1331-1401). Of his works, which contain many ideas similar to those of
his contemporary Wycliffe, those entitled _O obecnych vecech
Krestanskych_ (on general Christian matters) and _Besedni reci_ (in a
rough translation "learned entertainments") have most value. Stitny and
some of his contemporaries whose Bohemian writings have perished are
known as the forerunners of Huss. Huss, like many of his contemporaries
in Bohemia, wrote both in Bohemian and in Latin. Of the Bohemian
writings of Huss, who contributed greatly to the development of his
native language, the most important is his _Vyklad viry, desatera Boziho
prikazani, a patere_ (exposition of the creed, the ten commandments and
the Lord's Prayer) written in 1412. Of his numerous other Bohemian works
we may mention the _Postilla_ (collection of sermons), the treatises _O
poznani cesty prave k spaseni_ (the true road to salvation) and _O
svatokupectvi_ (on simony), and a large collection of letters; those
written in prison are very touching.
The years that followed the death of Huss formed in Bohemia a period of
incessant theological strife. The anti-Roman or Hussite movement was
largely a democratic one, and it is therefore natural that the national
language rather than Latin should have been used in the writings that
belong to this period. Unfortunately in consequence of the systematic
destruction of all Bohemian writings which took place through the agency
of the Jesuits, after the battle of the White Hill (1620), a large part
of this controversial literature has perished. Thus the writings of the
members of the extreme Hussite party, the so-called Taborites, have been
entirely destroyed. Of the writings of the more moderate Hussites, known
as the Calixtines or Utraquists, some have been preserved. Such are the
books entitled _Of the Great Torment of the Holy Church_ and the _Lives
of the Priests of Tabor_, written in a sense violently hostile to that
community. A Bohemian work by Archbishop John of Rokycan has also been
preserved; it is entitled _Postilla_ and is similar though inferior to
the work of Huss that bears the same name.
A quite independent religious writer who belongs to the period of the
Hussite wars is Peter Chelcicky (born in the last years of the 14th
century, died 1460), who may be called the Tolstoy of the 15th. His
dominant ideas were horror of bloodshed and the determination to accept
unresistingly all, even unjust, decrees of the worldly authorities.
Though a strenuous enemy of the Church of Rome, Chelcicky joined none of
the Hussite parties. His masterpiece is the _Sit viry_ (the net of
faith). Among his other works his _Postilla_ and polemical writings in
the form of letters to Archbishop John of Rokycan and Bishop Nicolas of
Pelhrimov deserve mention.
The Hussite period is rather poor in historical works written in the
language of the country. We should, however, mention some chroniclers
who were contemporaries and sometimes eye-witnesses of the events of the
Hussite wars. Their writings have been collected and published by
Frantisek Palacky under the title of _Stare ceske letopisy_.
In the 16th century when Bohemia was in a state of comparative
tranquillity, the native literature was largely developed. Besides the
writers of the community of the Bohemian Brethren, we meet at this
period with three historians of merit. Of these far the best-known is
Wenceslas Hajek of Libocan. The year of his birth is uncertain, but we
read of him as a priest in 1524; he died in 1553. His great work
_Kronika ceska_ was dedicated to the emperor Ferdinand I., king of
Bohemia, and appeared under the auspices of government officials. It has
therefore a strong dynastic and Romanist tendency, and its circulation
was permitted even at the time when most Bohemian books were prohibited
and many totally destroyed. Hajek's book was translated into several
languages and frequently quoted. We find such second-hand quotations
even in the works of many writers who had probably never heard of Hajek.
His book is, however, inaccurate and grossly partial. Very little known
on the other hand are the works of Bartos, surnamed "pisar" (the
writer), as he was for many years employed as secretary by the city of
Prague, and those of Sixt of Ottersdorf. The work of Bartos (or
Bartholomew) entitled the _Chronicle of Prague_ has great historical
value. He describes the troubles that befell Prague and Bohemia
generally during the reign of the weak and absentee sovereign King
Louis. The year of the birth of Bartos is uncertain, but it is known
that he died in 1539. The somewhat later work of Sixt of Ottersdorf
(1500-1583) deals with a short but very important episode in the history
of Bohemia. It is entitled _Memorials of the Troubled Years 1546 and
1547_. The book describes the unsuccessful rising of the Bohemians
against Ferdinand I. of Austria. Sixt took a considerable part in this
movement, a fact that greatly enhances the value of his book.
Though the life of Chelcicky, who has already been mentioned, was an
isolated one, he is undoubtedly the indirect founder of the community of
the "Bohemian Brethren," who greatly influenced Bohemian literature.
Almost all their historical and theological works were written in the
national language, which through their influence became far more refined
and polished. Before referring to some of the writings of members of the
community we should mention the famed translation of the Scriptures
known as the _Bible of Kralice_. It was the joint work of several
divines of the brotherhood, and was first printed at Kralice in Moravia
in 1593. Brother Gregory, surnamed the patriarch of the brotherhood, has
left a large number of writings dealing mainly with theological matters.
Most important are the _Letters to Archbishop Rokycan_ and the book _On
good and evil priests_. After the death of Brother Gregory in 1480
discord broke out in the community, and it resulted in very great
literary activity. Brothers Lucas, Blahoslav and Jaffet, as well as
Augusta, a bishop of the community, have left us numerous controversial
works. Very interesting is the account of the captivity of Bishop
Augusta, written by his companion the young priest Jan Bilek. We have
evidence that numerous historical works written by members of the
brotherhood existed, but most of them perished in the 17th century when
nearly all anti-Roman books written in Bohemia were destroyed. Thus only
fragments of Blahoslav's _History of the Unity_ (i.e. the brotherhood)
have been preserved. One of the historians of the brotherhood, Wenceslas
Brezan, wrote a _History of the House of Rosenberg_, of which only the
biographies of William and Peter of Rosenberg have been preserved. The
greatest writer of the brotherhood is John Amos Komensky or Comenius
(1592-1670). Of his many works written in his native language the most
important is his _Labyrinth of the World_, an allegorical tale which is
perhaps the most famous work written in Bohemian.[4] Many of the
numerous devotional and educational writings of Comenius,--his works
number 142,--are also written in his native tongue.
The year 1620, which witnessed the downfall of Bohemian independence,
also marks the beginning of a period of decline of the national tongue,
which indeed later, in the 18th century, was almost extinct as a written
language. Yet we must notice besides Comenius two other writers, both
historians, whose works belong to a date later than 1620. Of these one
was an adherent of the nationalist, the other of the imperialist party.
Paul Skala ze Zhore (1582-c. 1640) was an official in the service of the
"winter king" Frederick of the Palatinate. He for a time followed his
sovereign into exile, and spent the last years of his life at Freiberg
in Saxony. It was at this period of his life, after his political
activity had ceased, that he wrote his historical works. His first work
was a short book which is a mere series of chronological tables.
Somewhat later he undertook a vast work entitled _Histoire cirkevni_
(history of the church). In spite of its title the book, which consists
of ten enormous MS. volumes, deals as much with political as with
ecclesiastical matters. The most valuable part, that dealing with events
of 1602 to 1623, of which Skala writes as a contemporary and often as an
eye-witness, has been edited and published by Prof. Tieftrunk. A
contemporary and a political opponent of Skala was William Count Slavata
(1572-1652). He was a faithful servant of the house of Habsburg, and one
of the government officials who were thrown from the windows of the
Hradcany palace in 1618, at the beginning of the Bohemian uprising. In
1637 Slavata published his _Pamety_ (memoirs) which deal exclusively
with the events of the years 1618 and 1619, in which he had played so
great a part. During the leisure of the last years of his long life
Slavata composed a vast work entitled _Historicke Spisovani_ (historical
works). It consists of fourteen large MS. volumes, two of which contain
the previously-written memoirs. These two volumes have recently been
edited and published by Dr Jos. Jirecek.
19th-century revival.
After the deaths of Skala, Slavata and Comenius, no works of any
importance were written in the Bohemian language for a considerable
period, and the new Austrian government endeavoured in every way to
discourage the use of that language. A change took place when the
romantic movement started at the beginning of the 19th century. The
early revival of the Bohemian language was very modest, and at first
almost exclusively translations from foreign languages were published.
The first writer who again drew attention to the then almost forgotten
Bohemian language was Joseph Dobrovsky (1753-1829). His works, which
include a grammar of the Bohemian language and a history of Bohemian
literature, were mostly written in German or Latin, and his only
Bohemian works are some essays which he contributed to the early numbers
of the _Casopis Musea Kralovstvi Ceskeho_ (Journal of the Bohemian
Museum) and a collection of letters.
It is, however, to four men belonging to a time somewhat subsequent to
that of Dobrovsky that the revival of the language and literature of
Bohemia is mainly due. They are Jungmann, Kolar, Safarik and Palacky.
Joseph Jungmann (1773-1847) published early in life numerous Bohemian
translations of German and English writers. His most important works are
his _Dejepes literatury ceska_ (history of Bohemian literature), and his
monumental German and Bohemian dictionary, which largely contributed to
the development of the Bohemian language. John Kolar (1793-1852) was the
greatest poet of the Bohemian revival, and it is only in quite recent
days that Bohemian poetry has risen to a higher level. Kolar's principal
poem is the _Slavy dcera_ (daughter of Slavia), a personification of the
Slavic race. Its principal importance at the present time consists
rather in the part it played in the revival of Bohemian literature than
in its artistic value. Kolar's other works are mostly philological
studies. Paul Joseph Safarik (1795-1861) was a very fruitful writer. His
_Starozitnosti Slovanske_ (Slavic antiquities), an attempt to record the
then almost unknown history and literature of the early Slavs, has still
considerable value. Francis Palacky (1798-1876) is undoubtedly the
greatest of Bohemian historians. Among his many works his history of
Bohemia from the earliest period to the year 1526 is the most important.
Other Bohemian writers whose work belongs mainly to the earlier part of
the 19th century are the poets Francis Ladislav Celakovsky, author of
the _Ruze stolistova_ (the hundred-leaved rose), Erben, Macha, Tyl, to
mention but a few of the most famous writers. The talented writer Karel
Havlicek, the founder of Bohemian journalism, deserves special notice.
During the latter part of the 19th century, and particularly after the
foundation of the national university in 1882, Bohemian literature has
developed to an extent that few perhaps foresaw. Of older writers Bozena
Nemceva, whose _Babicka_ has been translated into many languages, and
Benes Trebizky, author of many historical novels, should be named. John
Neruda (1834-1891) was a very fruitful and talented writer both of
poetry and of prose. Perhaps the most valuable of his many works is his
philosophical epic entitled _Kosmicke basne_ (cosmic poems). Julius
Zeyer (1841-1901) also wrote much both in prose and in verse. His epic
poem entitled _Vysehrad_, which celebrates the ancient glory of the
acropolis of Prague, has great value, and of his many novels _Jan Maria
Plojhar_ has had the greatest success. Of later Bohemian poets the best
are Adolf Heyduk, Svatopluk Cech and Jaroslav Vrchlicky (b. 1853). Of
Svatopluk Cech's many poems, which are all inspired by national
enthusiasm, _Vaclav z Michalovic, Lesetinsky Kovar_ (the smith of
Lesetin) and _Basne otroka_ (the songs of a slave) are the most notable.
While Vrchlicky (pseudonym of Emil Frida) has no less strong patriotic
feelings, he has been more catholic in the choice of the subjects of his
many works, both in poetry and in prose. Of his many collections of
lyric poems _Rok na jihu_ (a year in the south), _Poute k Eldoradu_
(pilgrimages to Eldorado) and _Sonety Samotare_ (sonnets of a recluse)
have particular value. Vrchlicky is also a very brilliant dramatist.
Bohemian novelists have become very numerous. Mention should be made of
Alois Jirasek, also a distinguished dramatic author; Jacob Arbes, whose
_Romanetta_ have great merit; and Vaclav Hladik, whose _Evzen Voldan_ is
a very striking representation of the life of modern Prague. Like so
many Bohemian authors, Hladik also is a copious dramatic author.
Bohemia has been very fruitful in historic writers. Wenceslas Tomek
(1818-1905) left many historical works, of which his _Dejepis miesta
Prahy_ (history of the town of Prague) is the most important. Jaroslav
Goll (b. 1846) is the author of many historical works, especially on the
community of the Bohemian Brethren. Professor Joseph Kalousek has
written much on the early history of Bohemia, and is also the author of
a very valuable study of the ancient constitution (_Statni pravo_) of
Bohemia. Dr Anton Rezek is the author of important historical studies,
many of which appeared in the Journal of the Bohemian Museum and in the
_Cesky Casopis Historicky_ (Bohemian Historical Review), which he
founded in 1895 jointly with Professor Jaroslav Goll. More recently Dr
Vaclav Flajshans has published some excellent studies on the life and
writings of John Huss, and Professors Pic and Niederle have published
learned archaeological studies on the earliest period of Bohemian
history.
See Count Lutzow, _A History of Bohemian Literature_ (London, 1899);
W.R. Morfill, _Slavonic Literature_ (1883); A.N. Pypin and V.D.
Spasovic, _History of Slavonic Literature_ (written in Russian,
translated into German by Trangott Pech, _Gesch. der slav.
Literaturen_, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1880-1884). There are modern histories
of Bohemian literature written in the national language by Dr Karel
Tieftrunk, Dr Vaclav Flajshans and Mr Jaroslav Vlaek. (L.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As a guide to the English-speaking reader, the following notes on
the pronunciation of Bohemian names are appended. The Czech (Cech)
alphabet is the same as the English, with the omission of the letters
q, w and x. Certain letters, however, vary in pronunciation, and are
distinguished by diacritical marks, a device orginated by John Huss.
The vowels a, e, i, (y), o, u, are pronounced as in Italian; but e =
Eng. ye in "yet," and [ou] = Eng. oo.
The consonants, b, d, f, k, l, m, n, p, r, v, z, are as in English; g
= Eng. g in "gone"; s = Eng. initial s. But n = Span. n (in _canon_);
r = rsh; s = sh; z = zh (i.e. the French j); k before d = g; v before
k, p, s, t = f. Of the other consonants c = Eng. ts; c = ch; ch =
Germ. ch; j = Eng. y, but is not pronounced before d, m, s. Accents
on vowels lengthen them; on d and t they are softening marks. H is
always pronounced in Czech. At the end of words and before k and t it
= Germ, ch; in other places, as in _bahno_ (morass) its pronunciation
is somewhat softer.
[2] _Protestatio Bohemorum_, frequently printed in English and
German, as well as in the Latin original.
[3] Laurence of Brezova's (contemporary) _Kronika Husitska_.
[4] This work has been translated into English by Count Lutzow for
the "Temple Classics."
BOHEMUND, the name of a series of princes of Antioch, afterwards counts
of Tripoli. Their connexion is shown in the following table:--
Robert Guiscard = (1)Alberida: (2)Sicelgaeta.
|
Bohemund I. = Constance, daughter of Philip I. of France.
|
Bohemund II. = Alice, daughter of Baldwin II. of
| Jerusalem.
(1)Raymund = Constance = (2)Raynald of Chatillon.
|
Bohemund III. = (2)Orguilleuse.
|
Bohemund IV. = (1)Plaisance.
| (2)Melisinda, daughter of Amalric II.
|
Bohemund V. = (1)Alice, widow of Hugh of Cyprus.
= (2)Luciana, daughter of count of
|_________ Segni.
| |
Henry I. = Plaisance Bohemund VI. = Sibylla,
of Cyprus | | sister of Leo
| |of Armenia. III.
Hugh II. Bohemund VII.--_o.s.p._
BOHEMUND I. (c. A.D. 1058-1111), prince of Otranto and afterwards of
Antioch, whose first name was Marc, was the eldest son of Robert
Guiscard, _dux Apuliae et Calabriae_, by an early marriage contracted
before 1059. He served under his father in the great attack on the East
Roman empire (1080-1085), and commanded the Normans during Guiscard's
absence (1082-1084), penetrating into Thessaly as far as Larissa, but
being repulsed by Alexius Comnenus. This early hostility to Alexius had
a great influence in determining the course of his future career, and
thereby helped to determine the history of the First Crusade, of which
Bohemund may be regarded as the leader. On the death of Guiscard in
1085, his younger son Roger, born "in the purple" of a Lombard princess
Sicelgaeta, succeeded to the duchy of Apulia and Calabria, and a war
arose between Bohemund (whom his father had destined for the throne of
Constantinople) and Duke Roger. The war was finally composed by the
mediation of Urban II. and the award of Otranto and other possessions to
Bohemund. In 1096 Bohemund, along with his uncle the great count of
Sicily, was attacking Amalfi, which had revolted against Duke Roger,
when bands of crusaders began to pass, on their way through Italy to
Constantinople. The zeal of the crusader came upon Bohemund: it is
possible, too, that he saw in the First Crusade a chance of realizing
his father's policy (which was also an old Norse instinct) of the _Drang
nach Osten_, and hoped from the first to carve for himself an eastern
principality. He gathered a fine Norman army (perhaps the finest
division in the crusading host), at the head of which he crossed the
Adriatic, and penetrated to Constantinople along the route he had tried
to follow in 1082-1084. He was careful to observe a "correct" attitude
towards Alexius, and when he arrived at Constantinople in April 1097 he
did homage to the emperor. He may have negotiated with Alexius about a
principality at Antioch; if he did so, he had little encouragement. From
Constantinople to Antioch Bohemund was the real leader of the First
Crusade; and it says much for his leading that the First Crusade
succeeded in crossing Asia Minor, which the Crusades of 1101, 1147 and
1189 failed to accomplish. A _politique_, Bohemund was resolved to
engineer the enthusiasm of the crusaders to his own ends; and when his
nephew Tancred left the main army at Heraclea, and attempted to
establish a footing in Cilicia, the movement may have been already
intended as a preparation for Bohemund's eastern principality. Bohemund
was the first to get into position before Antioch (October 1097), and he
took a great part in the siege, beating off the Mahommedan attempts at
relief from the east, and connecting the besiegers on the west with the
port of St Simeon and the Italian ships which lay there. The capture of
Antioch was due to his connexion with Firuz, one of the commanders in
the city; but he would not bring matters to an issue until the
possession of the city was assured him (May 1098), under the terror of
the approach of Kerbogha with a great army of relief, and with a
reservation in favour of Alexius, if Alexius should fulfil his promise
to aid the crusaders. But Bohemund was not secure in the possession of
Antioch, even after its surrender and the defeat of Kerbogha; he had to
make good his claims against Raymund of Toulouse, who championed the
rights of Alexius. He obtained full possession in January 1099, and
stayed in the neighbourhood of Antioch to secure his position, while the
other crusaders moved southward to the capture of Jerusalem. He came to
Jerusalem at Christmas 1099, and had Dagobert of Pisa elected as
patriarch, perhaps in order to check the growth of a strong Lotharingian
power in the city. It might seem in 1100 that Bohemund was destined to
found a great principality in Antioch, which would dwarf Jerusalem; he
had a fine territory, a good strategical position and a strong army. But
he had to face two great forces--the East Roman empire, which claimed
the whole of his territories and was supported in its claim by Raymund
of Toulouse, and the strong Mahommedan principalities in the north-east
of Syria. Against these two forces he failed. In 1100 he was captured by
Danishmend of Sivas, and he languished in prison till 1103. Tancred took
his place; but meanwhile Raymund established himself with the aid of
Alexius in Tripoli, and was able to check the expansion of Antioch to
the south. Ransomed in 1103 by the generosity of an Armenian prince,
Bohemund made it his first object to attack the neighbouring Mahommedan
powers in order to gain supplies. But in heading an attack on Harran, in
1104, he was severely defeated at Balich, near Rakka on the Euphrates.
The defeat was decisive; it made impossible the great eastern
principality which Bohemund had contemplated. It was followed by a Greek
attack on Cilicia; and despairing of his own resources, Bohemund
returned to Europe for reinforcements in order to defend his position.
His attractive personality won him the hand of Constance, the daughter
of the French king, Philip I., and he collected a large army. Dazzled by
his success, he resolved to use his army not to defend Antioch against
the Greeks, but to attack Alexius. He did so; but Alexius, aided by the
Venetians, proved too strong, and Bohemund had to submit to a
humiliating peace (1108), by which he became the vassal of Alexius,
consented to receive his pay, with the title of _Sebastos_, and promised
to cede disputed territories and to admit a Greek patriarch into
Antioch. Henceforth Bohemund was a broken man. He died without returning
to the East, and was buried at Canossa in Apulia, in 1111.
LITERATURE.--The anonymous _Gesta Francorum_ (edited by H. Hagenmeyer)
is written by one of Bohemund's followers; and the _Alexiad_ of Anna
Comnena is a primary authority for the whole of his life. His career
is discussed by B. von Kugler, _Bohemund und Tancred_ (Tubingen,
1862); while L. von Heinemann, _Geschichte der Normannen in Sicilien
und Unteritalien_ (Leipzig, 1894), and R. Rohricht, _Geschichte des
ersten Kreuzzuges_ (Innsbruck, 1901), and _Geschichte des Konigreichs
Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898), may also be consulted for his history.
BOHEMUND II. (1108-1131), son of the great Bohemund by his marriage with
Constance of France, was born in 1108, the year of his father's defeat
at Durazzo. In 1126 he came from Apulia to Antioch (which, since the
fall of Roger, the successor of Tancred, in 1119, had been under the
regency of Baldwin II.); and in 1127 he married Alice, the younger
daughter of Baldwin. After some trouble with Joscelin of Edessa, and
after joining with Baldwin II. in an attack on Damascus (1127), he was
defeated and slain on his northern frontier by a Mahommedan army from
Aleppo (1131). He had shown that he had his father's courage: if time
had sufficed, he might have shown that he had the other qualities of the
first Bohemund.
BOHEMUND III. was the son of Constance, daughter of Bohemund II., by her
first husband, Raymund of Antioch. He succeeded his mother in the
principality of Antioch in 1163, and first appears prominently in 1164,
as regent of the kingdom of Jerusalem during the expedition of Amalric
I. to Egypt. During the absence of Amalric, he was defeated and captured
by Nureddin (August 1164) at Harenc, to the east of Antioch. He was at
once ransomed by his brother-in-law, the emperor Manuel, and went to
Constantinople, whence he returned with a Greek patriarch. In 1180 he
deserted his second wife, the princess Orguilleuse, for a certain
Sibylla, and he was in consequence excommunicated. By Orguilleuse he had
had two sons, Raymund and Bohemund (the future Bohemund IV.), whose
relations and actions determined the rest of his life. Raymund married
Alice, a daughter of the Armenian prince Rhupen (Rupin), brother of Leo
of Armenia, and died in 1197, leaving behind him a son, Raymund Rhupen.
Bohemund, the younger brother of Raymund, had succeeded the last count
of Tripoli in the possession of that county, 1187; and the problem which
occupied the last years of Bohemund III. was to determine whether his
grandson, Raymund Rhupen, or his younger son, Bohemund, should succeed
him in Antioch. Leo of Armenia was naturally the champion of his
great-nephew, Raymund Rhupen; indeed he had already claimed Antioch in
his own right, before the marriage of his niece to Raymund, in 1194,
when he had captured Bohemund III. at Gastin, and attempted without
success to force him to cede Antioch.[1] Bohemund the younger, however,
prosecuted his claim with vigour, and even evicted his father from
Antioch about 1199: but he was ousted by Leo (now king of Armenia by
the grace of the emperor, Henry VI.), and Bohemund III. died in
possession of his principality (1201).
BOHEMUND IV., younger son of Bohemund III. by his second wife
Orguilleuse, became count of Tripoli in 1187, and succeeded his father
in the principality of Antioch, to the exclusion of Raymund Rhupen, in
1201. But the dispute lasted for many years (Leo of Armenia continuing
to champion the cause of his great-nephew), and long occupied the
attention of Innocent III. Bohemund IV. enjoyed the support of the
Templars (who, like the Knights of St John, had estates in Tripoli) and
of the Greek inhabitants of Antioch, to whom he granted their own
patriarch in 1207, while Leo appealed (1210-1211) both to Innocent III.
and the emperor Otto IV., and was supported by the Hospitallers. In 1216
Leo captured Antioch, and established Raymund Rhupen as its prince; but
he lost it again in less than four years, and it was once more in the
possession of Bohemund IV. when Leo died in 1220. Raymund Rhupen died in
1221; and after the event Bohemund reigned in Antioch and Tripoli till
his death, proving himself a determined enemy of the Hospitallers, and
thereby incurring excommunication in 1230. He first joined, and then
deserted, the emperor Frederick II., during the crusade of 1228-29; and
he was excluded from the operation of the treaty of 1229. When he died
in 1233, he had just concluded peace with the Hospitallers, and Gregory
IX. had released him from the excommunication of 1230.
BOHEMUND V., son of Bohemund IV. by his wife Plaisance (daughter of Hugh
of Gibelet), succeeded his father in 1233. He was prince of Antioch and
count of Tripoli, like his father; and like him he enjoyed the alliance
of the Templars and experienced the hostility of Armenia, which was not
appeased till 1251, when the mediation of St Louis, and the marriage of
the future Bohemund VI. to the sister of the Armenian king, finally
brought peace. By his first marriage in 1225 with Alice, the widow of
Hugh I. of Cyprus, Bohemund V. connected the history of Antioch for a
time with that of Cyprus. He died in 1251. He had resided chiefly at
Tripoli, and under him Antioch was left to be governed by its bailiff
and commune.
BOHEMUND VI. was the son of Bohemund V. by Luciana, a daughter of the
count of Segni, nephew of Innocent III. Born in 1237, Bohemund VI.
succeeded his father in 1251, and was knighted by St Louis in 1252. His
sister Plaisance had married in 1250 Henry I. of Cyprus, the son of Hugh
I.; and the Cypriot connexion of Antioch, originally formed by the
marriage of Bohemund V. and Alice, the widow of Hugh I., was thus
maintained. In 1252 Bohemund VI. established himself in Antioch, leaving
Tripoli to itself, and in 1257 he procured the recognition of his
nephew, Hugh II., the son of Henry I. by Plaisance, as king of
Jerusalem. He allied himself to the Mongols against the advance of the
Egyptian sultan; but in 1268 he lost Antioch to Bibars, and when he died
in 1275 he was only count of Tripoli.
BOHEMUND VII., son of Bohemund VI. by Sibylla, sister of Leo III. of
Armenia, succeeded to the county of Tripoli in 1275, with his mother as
regent. In his short and troubled reign he had trouble with the Templars
who were established in Tripoli; and in the very year of his death
(1287) he lost Laodicea to the sultan of Egypt. He died without issue;
and as, within two years of his death, Tripoli was captured, the county
of Tripoli may be said to have become extinct with him.
LITERATURE.--The history of the Bohemunds is the history of the
principality of Antioch, and, after Bohemund IV., of the county of
Tripoli also. For Antioch, we possess its _Assises_ (Venice, 1876);
and two articles on its history have appeared in the _Revue de
l'Orient Latin_ (Paris, 1893, fol.), both by E. Rey ("Resume
chronologique de l'histpire des princes d'Antioche," vol. iv., and
"Les dignitaires de la principaute d'Antioche," vol. viii.). R.
Rohricht, _Geschichte des Konigreichs Jerusalem_ (Innsbruck, 1898),
gives practically all that is known about the history of Antioch and
Tripoli. (E. Br.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] During the captivity of Bohemund III. the patriarch of Antioch
helped to found a commune, which persisted, with its mayor and
_jurats_, during the 13th century.
BOHMER, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1795-1863), German historian, son of Karl
Ludwig Bohmer (d. 1817), was born at Frankfort-on-Main on the 22nd of
April 1795. Educated at the universities of Heidelberg and Gottingen, he
showed an interest in art and visited Italy; but returning to Frankfort
he turned his attention to the study of history, and became secretary
of the _Gesellschaft fur altere deutsche Geschichtskunde_. He was also
archivist and then librarian of the city of Frankfort. Bohmer had a
great dislike of Prussia and the Protestant faith, and a corresponding
affection for Austria and the Roman Catholic Church, to which, however,
he did not belong. His critical sense was, perhaps, somewhat warped; but
his researches are of great value to students. He died unmarried, at
Frankfort, on the 22nd of October 1863. Bohmer's historical work was
chiefly concerned with collecting and tabulating charters and other
imperial documents of the middle ages. First appeared an abstract, the
_Regesta chronologico-diplomatica regum atque imperatorum Romanorum
911-1313_ (Frankfort, 1831), which was followed by the _Regesta
chronologico-diplomatica Karolorum. Die Urkunden samtlicher Karolinger
in kurzen Auszugen_ (Frankfort, 1833), and a series of _Regesta
imperii_. For the period 1314-1347 (Frankfort, 1839) the _Regesta_ was
followed by three, and for the period 1246-1313 (Frankfort, 1844) by two
supplementary volumes. The remaining period of the _Regesta_, as edited
by Bohmer, is 1198-1254 (Stuttgart, 1849). These collections contain
introductions and explanatory passages by the author. Very valuable also
is the _Fontes rerum Germanicarum_ (Stuttgart, 1843-1868), a collection
of original authorities for German history during the 13th and 14th
centuries. The fourth and last volume of this work was edited by A.
Huber after the author's death. Other collections edited by Bohmer are:
_Die Reichsgesetze 900-1400_ (Frankfort, 1832); _Wittelsbachische
Regesten von der Erwerbung des Herzogtums Bayern bis zu 1340_
(Stuttgart, 1854); and _Codex diplomaticus Moeno-Francofurtanus.
Urkundenbuch der Reichsstadt Frankfurt_ (Frankfort, 1836; new edition by
F. Law, 1901). Other volumes and editions of the _Regesta imperii_,
edited by J. Ficker, E. Muhlbacher, E. Winkelmann and others, are
largely based on Bohmer's work. Bohmer left a great amount of
unpublished material, and after his death two other works were published
from his papers: _Acta imperii selecta_, edited by J. Ficker (Innsbruck,
1870); and _Regesta archiepiscoporum Maguntinensium_, edited by C. Will
(Innsbruck, 1877-1886).
See J. Janssen, _J.F. Bohmers Leben, Briefe und kleinere Schriften_
(Freiburg, 1868).
BOHN, HENRY GEORGE (1796-1884), British publisher, son of a German
bookbinder settled in England, was born in London on the 4th of January
1796. In 1831 he started as a dealer in rare books and "remainders." In
1841 he issued his "Guinea" Catalogue of books, a monumental work
containing 23,208 items. Bohn was noted for his book auction sales: one
held in 1848 lasted four days, the catalogue comprising twenty folio
pages. Printed on this catalogue was the information: "Dinner at 2
o'clock, dessert at 4, tea at 5, and supper at 10." The name of Bohn is
principally remembered by the important _Libraries_ which he
inaugurated: these were begun in 1846 and comprised editions of standard
works and translations, dealing with history, science, classics,
theology and archaeology, consisting in all of 766 volumes. One of
Bohn's most useful and laborious undertakings was his revision (6 vols.
1864) of _The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature_ (1834) of
W.T. Lowndes. The plan includes bibliographical and critical notices,
particulars of prices, &c., and a considerable addition to the original
work. It had been one of Bohn's ambitions to found a great publishing
house, but, finding that his sons had no taste for the trade, he sold
the _Libraries_ in 1864 to Messrs. Bell and Daldy, afterwards G. Bell &
Sons. Bohn was a man of wide culture and many interests. He himself made
considerable contributions to his _Libraries_: he collected pictures,
china and ivories, and was a famous rose-grower. He died at Twickenham
on the 22nd of August 1884.
BOHTLINGK, OTTO VON (1815-1004) German Sanskrit scholar, was born on the
30th of May (11th of June O.S.) 1815 at St Petersburg. Having studied
(1833-1835) Oriental languages, particularly Arabic, Persian and
Sanskrit, at the university of St Petersburg, he continued his studies
in Germany, first in Berlin and then (1839-1842) in Bonn. Returning to
St Petersburg in 1842, he was attached to the Royal Academy of Sciences,
and was elected an ordinary member of that society in 1855. In 1860 he
was made "Russian state councillor," and later "privy councillor" with a
title of nobility. In 1868 he settled at Jena, and in 1885 removed to
Leipzig, where he resided until his death there on the 1st of April
1904. Bohtlingk was one of the most distinguished scholars of the 19th
century, and his works are of pre-eminent value in the field of Indian
and comparative philology. His first great work was an edition of
Panini's _Acht Bucher grammatischer Regeln_ (Bonn, 1839-1840), which was
in reality a criticism of Franz Bopp's philological methods. This book
Bohtlingk again took up forty-seven years later, when he republished it
with a complete translation under the title _Paninis Grammatik mit
Ubersetzung_ (Leipzig, 1887). The earlier edition was followed by
_Vopadevas Grammatik_ (St Petersburg, 1847); _Uber die Sprache der
Jakuten_ (St Petersburg, 1851); _Indische Spruche_ (2nd ed. in 3 parts,
St Petersburg, 1870-1873, to which an index was published by Blau,
Leipzig, 1893); a critical examination and translation of
_Chhandogya-upanishad (St Petersburg, 1889) and a translation of
Brihadaranyaka-upanishad_ (St Petersburg, 1889). In addition to these he
published several smaller treatises, notably one on the Sanskrit
accents, _Uber den Accent im Sanskrit_ (1843). But his _magnum opus_ is
his great Sanskrit dictionary, _Sanskrit-Worterbuch_ (7 vols., St
Petersburg, 1853-1875; new ed. 7 vols., St Petersburg, 1879-1889), which
with the assistance of his two friends, Rudolf Roth (1821-1895) and
Albrecht Weber (b. 1825), was completed in twenty-three years.
BOHUN, the name of a family which plays an important part in English
history during the 13th and 14th centuries; it was taken from a village
situated in the Cotentin between Coutances and the estuary of the Vire.
The Bohuns came into England at, or shortly after, the Norman Conquest;
but their early history there is obscure. The founder of their greatness
was Humphrey III., who in the latter years of Henry I., makes his
appearance as a _dapifer_, or steward, in the royal household. He
married the daughter of Milo of Gloucester, and played an ambiguous part
in Stephen's reign, siding at first with the king and afterwards with
the empress. Humphrey III. lived until 1187, but his history is
uneventful. He remained loyal to Henry II. through all changes, and
fought in 1173 at Farnham against the rebels of East Anglia. Outliving
his eldest son, Humphrey IV., he was succeeded in the family estates by
his grandson Henry. Henry was connected with the royal house of Scotland
through his mother Margaret, a sister of William the Lion; an alliance
which no doubt assisted him to obtain the earldom of Hereford from John
(1199). The lands of the family lay chiefly on the Welsh Marches, and
from this date the Bohuns take a foremost place among the Marcher
barons. Henry de Bohun figures with the earls of Clare and Gloucester
among the twenty-five barons who were elected by their fellows to
enforce the terms of the Great Charter. In the subsequent civil war he
fought on the side of Louis, and was captured at the battle of Lincoln
(1217). He took the cross in the same year and died on his pilgrimage
(June 1, 1220). Humphrey V., his son and heir, returned to the path of
loyalty, and was permitted, some time before 1239, to inherit the
earldom of Essex from his maternal uncle, William de Mandeville. But in
1258 this Humphrey fell away, like his father, from the royal to the
baronial cause. He served as a nominee of the opposition on the
committee of twenty-four which was appointed, in the Oxford parliament
of that year, to reform the administration. It was only the alliance of
Montfort with Llewelyn of North Wales that brought the earl of Hereford
back to his allegiance. Humphrey V. headed the first secession of the
Welsh Marchers from the party of the opposition (1263), and was amongst
the captives whom the Montfortians took at Lewes. The earl's son and
namesake was on the victorious side, and shared in the defeat of
Evesham, which he did not long survive. Humphrey V. was, therefore,
naturally selected as one of the twelve arbitrators to draw up the ban
of Kenilworth (1266), by which the disinherited rebels were allowed to
make their peace. Dying in 1275, he was succeeded by his grandson
Humphrey VII. This Bohun lives in history as one of the recalcitrant
barons of the year 1297, who extorted from Edward I. the _Confirmatio
Cartarum_. The motives of the earl's defiance were not altogether
disinterested. He had suffered twice from the chicanery of Edward's
lawyers; in 1284 when a dispute between himself and the royal favourite,
John Giffard, was decided in the latter's favour; and again in 1292 when
he was punished with temporary imprisonment and sequestration for a
technical, and apparently unwitting, contempt of the king's court. In
company, therefore, with the earl of Norfolk he refused to render
foreign service in Gascony, on the plea that they were only bound to
serve with the king, who was himself bound for Flanders. Their attitude
brought to a head the general discontent which Edward had excited by his
arbitrary taxation; and Edward was obliged to make a surrender on all
the subjects of complaint. At Falkirk (1298) Humphrey VII. redeemed his
character for loyalty. His son, Humphrey VIII., who succeeded him in the
same year, was allowed to marry one of the king's daughters, Eleanor,
the widowed countess of Holland (1302). This close connexion with the
royal house did not prevent him, as it did not prevent Earl Thomas of
Lancaster, from joining the opposition to the feeble Edward II. In 1310
Humphrey VIII. figured among the Lords Ordainers; though, with more
patriotism than some of his fellow-commissioners, he afterwards followed
the king to Bannockburn. He was taken captive in the battle, but
exchanged for the wife of Robert Bruce. Subsequently he returned to the
cause of his order, and fell on the side of Earl Thomas at the field of
Boroughbridge (1322). With him, as with his father, the politics of the
Marches had been the main consideration; his final change of side was
due to jealousy of the younger Despenser, whose lordship of Glamorgan
was too great for the comfort of the Bohuns in Brecon. With the death of
Humphrey VIII. the fortunes of the family enter on a more peaceful
stage. Earl John (d. 1335) was inconspicuous; Humphrey IX. (d. 1361)
merely distinguished himself as a captain in the Breton campaigns of the
Hundred Years' War, winning the victories of Morlaix (1342) and La Roche
Derrien (1347). His nephew and heir, Humphrey X., who inherited the
earldom of Northampton from his father, was territorially the most
important representative of the Bohuns. But the male line was
extinguished by his death (1373). The three earldoms and the broad lands
of the Bohuns were divided between two co-heiresses. Both married
members of the royal house. The elder, Eleanor, was given in 1374 to
Thomas of Woodstock, seventh son of Edward III.; the younger, Mary, to
Henry, earl of Derby, son of John of Gaunt and afterwards Henry IV., in
1380 or 1381. From these two marriages sprang the houses of Lancaster
and Stafford.
See J.E. Doyle's _Official Baronage of England_ (1886), the _Complete
Peerage_ of G. E. C(okayne), (1867-1898); T.F. Tout's "Wales and the
March during the Barons' War," in Owens College Historical Essays, pp.
87-136 (1902); J.E. Morris' _Welsh Wars of King Edward I._, chs. vi.,
viii. (1901). (H. W. C. D.)
BOIARDO, MATTEO MARIA, COUNT (1434-1404), Italian poet, who came of a
noble and illustrious house established at Ferrara, but originally from
Reggio, was born at Scandiano, one of the seignorial estates of his
family, near Reggio di Modena, about the year 1434, according to
Tiraboschi, or 1420 according to Mazzuchelli. At an early age he entered
the university of Ferrara, where he acquired a good knowledge of Greek
and Latin, and even of the Oriental languages, and was in due time
admitted doctor in philosophy and in law. At the court of Ferrara, where
he enjoyed the favour of Duke Borso d'Este and his successor Hercules,
he was entrusted with several honourable employments, and in particular
was named governor of Reggio, an appointment which he held in the year
1478. Three years afterwards he was elected captain of Modena, and
reappointed governor of the town and citadel of Reggio, where he died in
the year 1494, though in what month is uncertain.
Almost all Boiardo's works, and especially his great poem of the
_Orlando Inamorato_, were composed for the amusement of Duke Hercules
and his court, though not written within its precincts. His practice, it
is said, was to retire to Scandiano or some other of his estates, and
there to devote himself to composition; and Castelvetro, Vallisnieri,
Mazzuchelli and Tiraboschi all unite in stating that he took care to
insert in the descriptions of his poem those of the agreeable environs
of his chateau, and that the greater part of the names of his heroes, as
Mandricardo, Gradasse, Sacripant, Agramant and others, were merely the
names of some of his peasants, which, from their uncouthness, appeared
to him proper to be given to Saracen warriors. Be this as it may, the
_Orlando Inamorato_ deserves to be considered as one of the most
important poems in Italian literature, since it forms the first example
of the romantic epic worthy to serve as a model, and, as such,
undoubtedly produced Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_. Gravina and Mazzuchell
have said, and succeeding writers have repeated on their authority, that
Boiardo proposed to himself as his model the _Iliad_ of Homer; that
Paris is besieged like the city of Troy; that Angelica holds the place
of Helen; and that, in short, the one poem is a sort of reflex image of
the other. In point of fact, however, the subject-matter of the poem is
derived from the _Fabulous Chronicle_ of the pseudo-Turpin; though, with
the exception of the names of Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver, and some
other principal warriors, who necessarily figure as important characters
in the various scenes, there is little resemblance between the detailed
plot of the one and that of the other. The poem, which Boiardo did not
live to finish, was printed at Scandiano the year after his death, under
the superintendence of his son Count Camillo. The title of the book is
without date; but a Latin letter from Antonia Caraffa di Reggio,
prefixed to the poem, is dated the kalends of June 1495. A second
edition, also without date, but which must have been printed before the
year 1500, appeared at Venice; and the poem was twice reprinted there
during the first twenty years of the 16th century. These editions are
the more curious and valuable since they contain nothing but the text of
the author, which is comprised in three books, divided into cantos, the
third book being incomplete. But Niccolo degli Agostini, an indifferent
poet, had the courage to continue the work commenced by Boiardo, adding
to it three books, which were printed at Venice in 1526-1531, in 4to;
and since that time no edition of the _Orlando_ has been printed without
the continuation of Agostini, wretched as it unquestionably is.
Boiardo's poem suffers from the incurable defect of a laboured and heavy
style. His story is skilfully constructed, the characters are well drawn
and sustained throughout; many of the incidents show a power and
fertility of imagination not inferior to that of Ariosto, but the
perfect workmanship indispensable for a great work of art is wanting.
The poem in its original shape was not popular, and has been completely
superseded by the _Rifacimento_ of Francesco Berni (q.v.).
The other works of Boiardo are--(1) _Il Timone_, a comedy, Scandiano,
1500, 4to; (2) _Sonnetti e Canzoni_, Reggio, 1499, 4to; (3) _Carmen
Bucolicon_, Reggio, 1500, 4to; (4) _Cinque Capitoli in terza rima_,
Venice, 1523 or 1533; (5) _Apulejo dell' Asino d'Oro_, Venice, 1516,
1518; (6) _Asino d'Oro de Luciano tradolto in volgare_, Venice, 1523,
8vo; (7) _Erodoto Alicarnasseo istorico, tradotto di Greco in Lingua
Italiana_, Venice, 1533 and 1538, 8vo; (8) _Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores_.
See Panizzi's _Boiardo_ (9 vols., 1830-1831).
BOIE, HEINRICH CHRISTIAN (1744-1806), German author, was born at Meldorf
in the then Danish province of Schleswig-Holstein on the 19th of July
1744. After studying law at Jena, he went in 1769 to Gottingen, where he
became one of the leading spirits in the Gottingen "Dichterbund" or
"Hain." Boie's poetical talent was not great, but his thorough knowledge
of literature, his excellent taste and sound judgment, made him an ideal
person to awake the poetical genius of others. Together with F.W. Gotter
(q.v.) he founded in 1770 the Gottingen _Musenalmanach_, which he
directed and edited until 1775, when, in conjunction with C.W. von Dohm
(1751-1820), he brought out _Das deutsche Museum_, which became one of
the best literary periodicals of the day. In 1776 Boie became secretary
to the commander-in-chief at Hanover, and in 1781 was appointed
administrator of the province of Suderditmarschen in Holstein. He died
at Meldorf on the 3rd of March 1806.
See K. Weinhold, _Heinrich Christian Boie_ (Halle, 1868).
BOIELDIEU, FRANCOIS ADRIEN (1775-1834), French composer of comic opera,
was born at Rouen on the 15th of December 1775. He received his first
musical education from M. Broche, the cathedral organist, who appears to
have treated him very harshly. He began composing songs and chamber
music at a very early age-his first opera, _La Fille coupable_ (the
libretto by his father), and his second opera, _Rosalie et Myrza_, being
produced on the stage of Rouen in 1795. Not satisfied with his local
success he went to Paris in 1795. His scores were submitted to
Cherubini, Mehul and others, but met with little approbation. Grand
opera was the order of the day. Boieldieu had to fall back on his talent
as a pianoforte-player for a livelihood. Success came at last from an
unexpected source. P.J. Garat, a fashionable singer of the period,
admired Boieldleu's touch on the piano, and made him his accompanist. In
the drawing-rooms of the Directoire Garat sang the charming songs and
ballads with which the young composer supplied him. Thus Boieldieu's
reputation gradually extended to wider circles. In 1796 _Les Deux
lettres_ was produced, and in 1797 _La Famille suisse_ appeared for the
first time on a Paris stage, and was well received. Several other operas
followed in rapid succession, of which only _Le Calife de Bagdad_ (1800)
has escaped oblivion. After the enormous success of this work, Boieldieu
felt the want of a thorough musical training and took lessons from
Cherubini, the influence of that great master being clearly discernible
in the higher artistic finish of his pupil's later compositions. In 1802
Boieldieu, to escape the domestic troubles caused by his marriage with
Clotilde Aug. Mafleuroy, a celebrated ballet-dancer of the Paris opera,
took flight and went to Russia, where he was received with open arms by
the emperor Alexander. During his prolonged stay at St Petersburg he
composed a number of operas. He also set to music the choruses of
Racine's _Athalie_, one of his few attempts at the tragic style of
dramatic writing. In 1811 he returned to his own country, where the
following year witnessed the production of one of his finest works,
_Jean de Paris_, in which he depicted with much felicity the charming
coquetry of the queen of Navarre, the chivalrous _verve_ of the king,
the officious pedantry of the seneschal, and the amorous tenderness of
the page. He succeeded Mehul as professor of composition at the
Conservatoire in 1817. _Le Chapeau rouge_ was produced with great
success in 1818. Boieldieu's second and greatest masterpiece was his
_Dame blanche_ (1825). The libretto, written by Scribe, was partly
suggested by Walter Scott's _Monastery_, and several original Scottish
tunes cleverly introduced by the composer add to the melodious charm and
local colour of the work. On the death of his wife in 1825, Boieldieu
married a singer. His own death was due to a violent attack of pulmonary
disease. He vainly tried to escape the rapid progress of the illness by
travel in Italy and the south of France, but returned to Paris only to
die on the 8th of October 1834.
Lives of Boieldieu have been written by Pougin (Paris, 1875), J.A.
Refeuvaille (Rouen, 1836), Hequet (Paris, 1864), Emile Duval (Geneva,
1883). See also Adolphe Charles Adam, _Derniers souvenirs d'un
musicien_.
BOIGNE, BENOIT DE, COUNT (1751-1830), the first of the French military
adventurers in India, was born at Chambery in Savoy on the 8th of March
1751, being the son of a fur merchant. He joined the Irish Brigade in
France in 1768, and subsequently he entered the Russian service and was
captured by the Turks. Hearing of the wealth of India, he made his way
to that country, and after serving for a short time in the East India
Company, he resigned and joined Mahadji Sindhia in 1784 for the purpose
of training his troops in the European methods of war. In the battles of
Lalsot and Chaksana Boigne and his two battalions proved their worth by
holding the field when the rest of the Mahratta army was defeated by the
Rajputs. In the battle of Agra (1788) he restored the Mahratta fortunes,
and made Mahadji Sindhia undisputed master of Hindostan. This success
led to his being given the command of a brigade of ten battalions of
infantry, with which he won the victories of Patan and Merta in 1790. In
consequence Boigne was allowed to raise two further brigades of
disciplined infantry, and made commander-in-chief of Sindhia's army. In
the battle of Lakhairi (1793) he defeated Holkar's army. On the death of
Mahadji Sindhia in 1794, Boigne could have made himself master of
Hindostan had he wished it, but he remained loyal to Daulat Rao Sindhia.
In 1795 his health began to fail, and he resigned his command, and in
the following year returned to Europe with a fortune of L400,000. He
lived in retirement during the lifetime of Napoleon, but was greatly
honoured by Louis XVIII. He died on the 21st of June 1830.
See H. Compton, _European Military Adventurers of Hindustan_ (1892).
BOII (perhaps = "the terrible"), a Celtic people, whose original home
was Gallia Transalpina. They were known to the Romans, at least by name,
in the time of Plautus, as is shown by the contemptuous reference in the
_Captivi_ (888). At an early date they split up into two main groups,
one of which made its way into Italy, the other into Germany. Some,
however, appear to have stayed behind, since, during the Second Punic
War, Magalus, a Boian prince, offered to show Hannibal the way into
Italy after he had crossed the Pyrenees (Livy xxi. 29). The first group
of immigrants is said to have crossed the Pennine Alps (Great St
Bernard) into the valley of the Po. Finding the district already
occupied, they proceeded over the river, drove out the Etruscans and
Umbrians, and established themselves as far as the Apennines in the
modern Romagna. According to Cato (in Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ iii. 116) they
comprised as many as 112 different tribes, and from the remains
discovered in the tombs at Hallstatt, La Tene and other places, they
appear to have been fairly civilized. Several wars took place between
them and the Romans. In 283 they were defeated, together with the
Etruscans, at the Vadimonian lake; in 224, after the battle of Telamon
in Etruria, they were forced to submit. But they still cherished a
hatred of the Romans, and during the Second Punic War (218), irritated
by the foundation of the Roman colonies of Cremona and Placentia, they
rendered valuable assistance to Hannibal. They continued the struggle
against Rome from 201 to 191, when they were finally subdued by P.
Cornelius Scipio Nasica, and deprived of nearly half their territory.
According to Strabo (v. p. 213) the Boii were driven back across the
Alps and settled on the land of their kinsmen, the Taurisci, on the
Danube, adjoining Vindelicia and Raetia. Most authorities, however,
assume that there had been a settlement of the Boii on the Danube from
very early times, in part of the modern Bohemia (anc. _Boiohemum_, "land
of the Boii"). About 60 B.C. some of the Boii migrated to Noricum and
Pannonia, when 32,000 of them joined the expedition of the Helvetians
into Gaul, and shared their defeat near Bibracte (58). They were
subsequently allowed by Caesar to settle in the territory of the Aedui
between the Loire and the Allier. Their chief town was Gorgobina (site
uncertain). Those who remained on the Danube were exterminated by the
Dacian king, Boerebista, and the district they had occupied was
afterwards called the "desert of the Boii" (Strabo vii. p. 292). In A.D.
69 a Boian named Mariccus stirred up a fanatical revolt, but was soon
defeated and put to death. Some remnants of the Boii are mentioned as
dwelling near Bordeaux; but Mommsen inclines to the opinion that the
three groups (in Bordeaux, Bohemia and the Po districts) were not really
scattered branches of one and the same stock, but that they are
instances of a mere similarity of name.
The Boii, as we know them, belonged almost certainly to the Early Iron
age. They probably used long iron swords for dealing cutting blows, and
from the size of the handles they must have been a race of large men
(cf. Polybius ii. 30). For their ethnological affinities and especially
their possible connexion with the Homeric Achaeans see W. Ridgeway's
_Early Age of Greece_ (vol. i., 1901).
See L. Contzen, _Die Wanderungen der Kelten_ (Leipzig, 1861); A.
Desjardins, _Geographie historique de la Gaule romaine_, ii.
(1876-1893); T.R. Holmes, _Caesar's Conquest of Gaul_ (1899), pp.
426-428; T. Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, ii. (Eng. trans. 5 vols., 1894),
p. 373 note; M. Ihm in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_, iii. pt. 1
(1897); A. Holder, _Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz_.
BOIL, in medicine, a progressive local inflammation of the skin, taking
the form of a hard suppurating tumour, with a core of dead tissue,
resulting from infection by a microbe, _Staphylococcus pyogenes_, and
commonly occurring in young persons whose blood is disordered, or as a
complication in certain diseases. Treatment proceeds on the lines of
bringing the mischief out, assisting the evacuation of the boil by the
lancet, and clearing the system. In the English Bible, and also in
popular medical terminology, "boil" is used of various forms of ulcerous
affection. The boils which were one of the plagues in Egypt were
apparently the bubonic plague. The terms Aleppo boil (or button), Delhi
boil, Oriental boil, Biskra button, &c., have been given to a tropical
epidemic, characterized by ulcers on the face, due to a diplococcus
parasite.
BOILEAU-DESPREAUX, NICOLAS (1636-1711), French poet and critic, was born
on the 1st of November 1636 in the rue de Jerusalem, Paris. The same
Despreaux was derived from a small property at Crosne near Villeneuve
Saint-Georges. He was the fifteenth child of Gilles Boileau, a clerk in
the parlement. Two of his brothers attained some distinction: Gilles
Boileau (1631-1669), the author of a translation of Epictetus; and
Jacques Boileau, who became a canon of the Sainte-Chapelle, and made
valuable contributions to church history. His mother died when he was
two years old; and Nicolas Boileau, who had a delicate constitution,
seems to have suffered something from want of care. Sainte-Beuve puts
down his somewhat hard and unsympathetic outlook quite as much to the
uninspiring circumstances of these days as to the general character of
his time. He cannot be said to have been early disenchanted, for he
never seems to have had any illusions; he grew up with a single passion,
"the hatred of stupid books." He was educated at the College de
Beauvais, and was then sent to study theology at the Sorbonne. He
exchanged theology for law, however, and was called to the bar on the
4th of December 1656. From the profession of law, after a short trial,
he recoiled in disgust, complaining bitterly of the amount of chicanery
which passed under the name of law and justice. His father died in 1657,
leaving him a small fortune, and thenceforward he devoted himself to
letters.
Such of his early poems as have been preserved hardly contain the
promise of what he ultimately became. The first piece in which his
peculiar powers were displayed was the first satire (1660), in imitation
of the third satire of Juvenal; it embodied the farewell of a poet to
the city of Paris. This was quickly followed by eight others, and the
number was at a later period increased to twelve. A twofold interest
attaches to the satires. In the first place the author skilfully
parodies and attacks writers who at the time were placed in the very
first rank, such as Jean Chapelain, the abbe Charles Cotin, Philippe
Quinault and Georges de Scudery; he openly raised the standard of revolt
against the older poets. But in the second place he showed both by
precept and practice what were the poetical capabilities of the French
language. Prose in the hands of such writers as Descartes and Pascal had
proved itself a flexible and powerful instrument of expression, with a
distinct mechanism and form. But except with Malherbe, there had been no
attempt to fashion French versification according to rule or method. In
Boileau for the first time appeared terseness and vigour of expression,
with perfect regularity of verse structure. His admiration for Moliere
found expression in the stanzas addressed to him (1663), and in the
second satire (1664). In 1664 he composed his prose _Dialogue des heros
de roman_, a satire on the elaborate romances of the time, which may be
said to have once for all abolished the lucubrations of La Calprenede,
Mlle de Scudery and their fellows. Though fairly widely read in
manuscript, the book was not published till 1713, out of regard, it is
said, for Mlle de Scudery. To these early days belong the reunions at
the _Moulon Blanc_ and the _Pomme du Pin_, where Boileau, Moliere,
Racine, Chapelle and Antoine Furetiere met to discuss literary
questions. To Moliere and Racine he proved a constant friend, and
supported their interests on many occasions.
In 1666, prompted by the publication of two unauthorized editions, he
published _Satires du Sieur D...._, containing seven satires and the
_Discours au roi_. From 1669 onwards appeared his epistles, graver in
tone than the satires, maturer in thought, more exquisite and polished
in style. The _Epitres_ gained for him the favour of Louis XIV., who
desired his presence at court. The king asked him which he thought his
best verses. Whereupon Boileau diplomatically selected as his "least
bad" some still unprinted lines in honour of the grand monarch and
proceeded to recite them. He received forthwith a pension of 2000
livres. In 1674 his two masterpieces, _L'Art poetique_ and _Le Lutrin_,
were published with some earlier works as the _Oeuvres diverses du sieur
D_.... The first, in imitation of the _Ars Poetica_ of Horace, lays down
the code for all future French verse, and may be said to fill in French
literature a parallel place to that held by its prototype in Latin. On
English literature the maxims of Boileau, through the translation
revised by Dryden, and through the magnificent imitation of them in
Pope's _Essay on Criticism_, have exercised no slight influence. Boileau
does not merely lay down rules for the language of poetry, but analyses
carefully the various kinds of verse composition, and enunciates the
principles peculiar to each. Of the four books of _L'Art poetique_, the
first and last consist of general precepts, inculcating mainly the great
rule of _bon sens_; the second treats of the pastoral, the elegy, the
ode, the epigram and satire; and the third of tragic and epic poetry.
Though the rules laid down are of value, their tendency is rather to
hamper and render too mechanical the efforts of poetry. Boileau himself,
a great, though by no means infallible critic in verse, cannot be
considered a great poet. He rendered the utmost service in destroying
the exaggerated reputations of the mediocrities of his time, but his
judgment was sometimes at fault. The _Lutrin_, a mock heroic poem, of
which four cantos appeared in 1674, furnished Alexander Pope with a
model for the _Rape of the Lock_, but the English poem is superior in
richness of imagination and subtlety of invention. The fifth and sixth
cantos, afterwards added by Boileau, rather detract from the beauty of
the poem; the last canto in particular is quite unworthy of his genius.
In 1674 appeared also his translation of Longinus _On the Sublime_, to
which were added in 1693 certain critical reflections, chiefly directed
against the theory of the superiority of the moderns over the ancients
as advanced by Charles Perrault.
Boileau was made historiographer to the king in 1677. From this time the
amount of his production diminished. To this period of his life belong
the satire, _Sur les femmes_, the ode, _Sur la prise de Namur_, the
epistles, _A mes vers_ and _Sur l'amour de Dieu_, and the satire _Sur
l'homme_. The satires had raised up a crowd of enemies against Boileau.
The 10th satire, on women, provoked an _Apologie des femmes_ from
Charles Perrault. Antoine Arnauld in the year of his death wrote a
letter in defence of Boileau, but when at the desire of his friends he
submitted his reply to Bossuet, the bishop pronounced all satire to be
incompatible with the spirit of Christianity, and the 10th satire to be
subversive of morality. The friends of Arnauld had declared that it was
inconsistent with the dignity of a churchman to write on any subject so
trivial as poetry. The epistle, _Sur l'amour de Dieu_, was a triumphant
vindication on the part of Boileau of the dignity of his art. It was not
until the 15th of April 1684 that he was admitted to the Academy, and
then only by the king's wish. In 1687 he retired to a country-house he
had bought at Auteuil, which Racine, because of the numerous guests,
calls his _hotellerie d'Auteuil_. In 1705 he sold his house and returned
to Paris, where he lived with his confessor in the cloisters of Notre
Dame. In the 12th satire, _Sur l'equivoque_, he attacked the Jesuits in
verses which Sainte-Beuve called a recapitulation of the _Lettres
provinciales_ of Pascal. This was written about 1705. He then gave his
attention to the arrangement of a complete and definitive edition of his
works. But the Jesuit fathers obtained from Louis XIV. the withdrawal of
the privilege already granted for the publication, and demanded the
suppression of the 12th satire. These annoyances are said to have
hastened his death, which took place on the 13th of March 1711.
Boileau was a man of warm and kindly feelings, honest, outspoken and
benevolent. Many anecdotes are told of his frankness of speech at court,
and of his generous actions. He holds a well-defined place in French
literature, as the first who reduced its versification to rule, and
taught the value of workmanship for its own sake. His influence on
English literature, through Pope and his contemporaries, was not less
strong, though less durable. After much undue depreciation Boileau's
critical work has been rehabilitated by recent writers, perhaps to the
extent of some exaggeration in the other direction. It has been shown
that in spite of undue harshness in individual cases most of his
criticisms have been substantially adopted by his successors.
Numerous editions of Boileau's works were published during his
lifetime. The last of these, _Oeuvres diverses_ (1701), known as the
"favourite" edition of the poet, was reprinted with variants and notes
by Alphonse Pauly (2 vols., 1894). The critical text of his works was
established by Berriat Saint-Prix, _Oeuvres de Boileau_ (4 vols.,
1830-1837), who made use of some 350 editions. This text, edited with
notes by Paul Cheron, with the _Boloeana_ of 1740, and an essay by
Sainte-Beuve, was reprinted by Garnier _freres_ (1860).
See also Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. vi.; F. Brunetiere,
"L'Esthetique de Boileau" (_Revue des Deux Mondes_, June 1889), and an
exhaustive article by the same critic in _La Grande encyclopedie_; G.
Lanson, _Boileau_ (1892), in the series of _Grands ecrivains
francais_.
BOILER, a vessel in which water or other liquid is heated to the boiling
point; specifically, the apparatus by which steam is produced from
water, as one step in the process whereby the potential energy of coal
or other fuel is converted into mechanical work by means of the
steam-engine. Boilers of the latter kind must all possess certain
essential features, whilst of other qualities that are desirable some
may not be altogether compatible with the special conditions under which
the boilers are to be worked. Amongst the essentials are a receptacle
capable of containing the water and the steam produced by its
evaporation, and strong enough continuously to withstand with safety the
highest pressure of steam for which the boiler is intended. Another
essential is a furnace for burning the fuel, and a further one is the
provision of a sufficiency of heating surface for the transmission of
the heat produced by the combustion of the fuel to the water which is
required to be evaporated. Desirable qualities are that the arrangements
of the furnaces should be such that a reasonably perfect combustion of
the fuel should be possible, and that the heating surfaces should be
capable of transmitting a large proportion of the heat produced to the
water so as to obtain a high evaporative efficiency. Further, the design
generally should be compact, not too heavy or costly, and such that the
cleaning necessary to maintain the evaporative efficiency can be easily
effected. It should also be such that the cost of upkeep will be small,
and that only an average amount of skill and attention will be required
under working conditions. It is for providing these qualities in
different degrees according to the special requirements of various
circumstances that the very different designs of the various types of
boilers have been evolved.
_Classes of Boilers._--Boilers generally may be divided into two
distinct classes, one comprising those which are generally called "tank"
boilers, containing relatively large quantities of water, and the other
those which are generally called "water-tube" boilers, in which the
water is mainly contained in numerous comparatively small tubes. There
are, however, some types of boiler which combine to some extent the
properties of both these classes. Each class has its representatives
amongst both land and marine boilers. In "tank" boilers the outer shell
is wholly or partially cylindrical, this form being one in which the
necessary strength can be obtained without the use of a large number of
stays. The boilers are generally internally fired, the furnace plates
being surrounded with water and forming the most efficient portion of
the heating surfaces. On leaving the furnace the products of combustion
are led into a chamber and thence through flues or through numerous
small tubes which serve to transmit some of the heat of combustion to
the water contained in the boiler. In "water-tube" boilers the fire is
usually placed under a collection of tubes containing water and forming
the major portion of the heating surface of the boiler. Both the fire
and the tubes are enclosed in an outer casing of brickwork or other
fire-resisting substance. In some forms of water-tube boiler the fire
is entirely surrounded by water-tubes and the casing is in no part
exposed to the direct action of the fire. In "tank" boilers generally no
difficulty is experienced in keeping all the heating surfaces in close
contact with water, but in "water-tube" boilers special provision has to
be made in the design for maintaining the circulation of water through
the tubes. (For "flash" boilers see MOTOR VEHICLES, and for domestic
hot-water boilers HEATING.)
Lancashire.
_Tank Boilers._--Of large stationary boilers the forms most commonly
used are those known as the "Lancashire" boiler, and its modification
the "Galloway" boiler. These boilers are made from 26 to 30 ft. long,
with diameters from 6-1/2 to 8 ft., and have two cylindrical furnace
flues which in the "Lancashire" boiler extend for its whole length
(see fig. 3). The working pressure is about 60 lb. per sq. in. in the
older boilers, from 100 lb. to 120 lb. per sq. in. in those supplying
steam to compound engines, and from 150 to 170 lb. where triple
expansion engines are used. In some cases they have been constructed
for a pressure of 200 lb. per sq. in. The furnace flues are usually
made in sections from 3 to 3-1/2 ft. long. Each section consists of
one plate bent into a cylindrical form, the longitudinal joint being
welded, and is flanged at both ends, the various pieces being joined
together by an "Adamson" joint (fig. 1.). It will be seen that these
joints do not expose either rivets or double thickness of plate to the
action of the fire; they further serve as stiffening rings to prevent
collapse of the flue. In most of these boilers the heating surface is
increased by fitting in the furnace flues a number of "Galloway"
tubes. These are conical tubes, made with a flange at each end, by
means of which they are connected to the furnace plate. They are so
proportioned that the diameter of the large end of the tube is
slightly greater than that of the flange of the small end; this
enables them to be readily removed and replaced if necessary. These
tubes not only add to the heating surface, but they stiffen the flue,
promote circulation of the water in the boiler, and by mixing up the
flue gases improve the evaporative efficiency.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Adamson Joint.]
In the "Galloway" boiler the two furnaces extend only for about 9 or
10 ft. into the boiler, and lead into a large chamber or flue in which
a number of "Galloway" tubes are fitted, and which extends from the
furnace end to the end of the boiler. A cross section of this flue
showing the distribution of the Galloway tubes is shown in fig. 2.
When boilers less than about 6-1/2 ft. in diameter are needed, a
somewhat similar type to the Lancashire boiler is used containing only
one furnace. This is called a "Cornish" boiler.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Galloway Boiler: Section beyond the Bridge.]
In all three types of boiler the brickwork is constructed to form one
central flue passing along the bottom of the boiler and two side flues
extending up the side nearly to the water-level. A cross section of
the brickwork is shown in fig. 2. The usual arrangement is for the
flue gases to be divided as they leave the internal flue; one-half
returns along each side flue to the front of the boiler, and the whole
then passes downwards into the central flue, travelling under the
bottom of the boiler until the gases again reach the back end, where
they pass into the chimney. In a few cases the arrangement is
reversed, the gases first passing along the bottom flue and returning
along the side flues. This latter arrangement, whilst promoting a more
rapid circulation of water, has the disadvantage of requiring two
dampers, and it is not suitable for those cases in which heavy
deposits form on the bottoms of the boilers.
Vertical.
Where floor space is limited and also for small installations, other
forms of cylindrical boilers are used, most of them being of the
vertical type. That most commonly used is the simple vertical boiler,
with a plain vertical fire-box, and an internal smoke stack traversing
the steam space. The fire-box is made slightly tapering in diameter,
the space between it and the shell being filled with water. In all but
the small sizes cross tubes are generally fitted. These are made about
9 in. in diameter of 3/8-in. plate flanged at each end to enable them
to be riveted to the fire-box plates. They are usually fitted with a
slight inclination to facilitate water circulation. and a hand-hole
closed by a suitable door is provided in the outer shell opposite to
each tube for cleaning purposes. A boiler of this kind is illustrated
in fig. 4. This form is often used on board ship for auxiliary
purposes. Where more heating surface is required than can be obtained
in the cross-tube boiler other types of vertical boiler are employed.
For instance, in the "Tyne" boiler (fig. 5) the furnace is
hemispherical, and the products of combustion are led into an upper
combustion chamber traversed by four or more inclined water-tubes of
about 9 in. diameter and by several vertical water-tubes of less
diameter. In the "Victoria" boiler made by Messrs Clarke, Chapman &
Co., and illustrated in fig. 6, the furnace is hemispherical; the
furnace gases are led to an internal combustion chamber, and thence
through numerous horizontal smoke-tubes to a smoke-box placed on the
side of the boiler. In the somewhat similar boiler known as the
"Cochran," the combustion chamber is made with a "dry" back. Instead
of a water space at the back of the chamber, doors lined with
firebrick are fitted. These give easy access to the tube ends.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Lancashire Boiler.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Simple Vertical Boiler (Messrs Tinker, Ltd.).]
Marine.
The cylindrical multitubular return tube boiler is in almost universal
use in merchant steamers. It is made in various sizes ranging up to 17
ft. in diameter, the usual working pressure being from 160 to 200 lb
per sq. in., although in some few cases pressures of 265 lb. per sq.
in. are in use. These boilers are of two types, double- and
single-ended. In single-ended boilers, which are those most generally
used, the furnaces are fitted at one end only and vary in number from
one in the smallest boiler to four in the largest. Three furnaces are
the most usual practice. Each furnace generally has its own separate
combustion chamber. In four furnace boilers, however, one chamber is
sometimes made common to the two middle furnaces, and sometimes one
chamber is fitted to each pair of side furnaces. In double-ended
boilers furnaces are fitted at each end. In some cases each furnace
has a separate combustion chamber, but more usually one chamber is
made to serve for two furnaces, one at each end of the boiler. The two
types of boilers are shown in figs. 7 and 8, which illustrate boilers
made by Messrs D. Rowan & Co. of Glasgow, and which may be taken as
representing good modern practice. The furnaces used in the smaller
sizes are often of the plain cylindrical type, the thickness of plate
varying from 3/8 in. up to 3/4 in. according to the diameter of the
furnace and the working pressure. Occasionally furnaces with "Adamson"
joints similar to those used in Lancashire boilers are employed, but
for large furnaces and for high pressures corrugated or ribbed
furnaces are usually adopted. Sketches of the sections of these are
shown in fig. 9. The sections of the Morison, Fox and Deighton types
are made from plates originally rolled of a uniform thickness, made
into a cylindrical form with a welded longitudinal joint and then
corrugated, the only difference between them being in the shapes of
the corrugations. In the other three types the plates from which the
furnaces are made are rolled with ribs or thickened portions at
distances of 9 in. These furnaces are stronger to resist collapse than
plain furnaces of the same thickness, and accommodate themselves more
readily to changes of temperature.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Vertical Boiler with Water-tubes (the "Tyne,"
by Messrs Clarke, Chapman & Co.).]
There are two distinct types of connexion between the furnaces and the
combustion chambers. In one, shown in fig. 8, the furnace is flanged
at the crown portion for riveting to the tube plate, and the lower
part of the furnace is riveted to the "wrapper" or side plate of the
combustion chamber. In the other type, shown in fig. 7, and known
generally as the "Gourlay back end," the end of the furnace is
contracted into an oval conical form, and is then flanged outwards
round the whole of its circumference. The tube plate is made to extend
to the bottom of the combustion chamber, and the furnace is riveted to
the tube plate. The advantage of the Gourlay back end is that in case
of accident to the furnace it can be removed from the boiler and be
replaced by one of the same design without disturbing the end plates,
which is not possible with the other design. The Gourlay back end,
however, is not so stiff as the other, and more longitudinal stays are
required in the boiler.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Vertical Boiler with internal combustion
chamber (the "Victoria," by Messrs Clarke, Chapman & Co.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Single-ended Marine Boiler.]
The flat sides and backs of the combustion chambers are stayed either
to one another or to the shell of the boiler by numerous screw stays
which are screwed through the two plates they connect, and which are
nearly always fitted with nuts inside the combustion chambers. The
tops of the chambers are usually stayed by strong girders resting upon
the tube plates and chamber back plates. In a few cases, however, they
are stayed by vertical stays attached to T bars riveted to the boiler
shell. A few boilers are made in which the chamber tops are
strengthened by heavy transverse girder plates. The end plates of the
boiler in the steam space and below the combustion chambers are stayed
by longitudinal stays passing through the whole length of the boiler
and secured by double nuts at each end. The tube plates are
strengthened by stay tubes screwed into them.
Where natural or chimney draught is used the tubes are generally made
3 or 3-1/4 in. outside diameter and are rarely more than 7 ft. long,
but where "forced" draught is employed they are usually made 2-1/2 in.
diameter and 8 to 8-1/2 ft. long. A clear space of 1-1/4 in. between
the tubes is almost always arranged for, irrespective of size of
tubes.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Double-ended Marine Boiler.]
Stay tubes are screwed at both ends, the threads of the two ends being
continuous so that they can be screwed into both tube plates;
occasionally nuts are fitted to the front ends. The stay tubes are
expanded into the plates and then beaded over.
Locomotive.
The locomotive boiler consists of a cylindrical barrel attached to a
portion containing the fire-box, which is nearly rectangular both in
horizontal and vertical section. The fire-box sides are stayed to the
fire-box shell by numerous stays about 1 in. in diameter, usually
pitched 4 in. apart both vertically and horizontally. The top of the
fire-box in small boilers is stayed by means of girder stays running
longitudinally and supported at the ends upon the tube plate and the
opposite fire-box plate. In some boilers the girders are partly
supported by slings from the crown of the boiler. In larger boilers
the crown of the boiler above the fire-box is made flat and the
fire-box crown is supported by vertical stays connecting it with the
shell crown. Provision is generally made for the expansion of the tube
plate, which is of copper, by allowing the two or three cross rows of
stays nearest the tube plate to have freedom of motion upwards but not
downwards. The ordinary tubes are usually 1-3/4 in. diameter. The
fire-bars are generally, though not always, made to slope downwards
away from the fire door, and just below the lowest tubes a fire-bridge
or baffle is fitted, extending about half-way from the tube plate to
the fire-door side of the fire-box. In some cases water-tubes are
fitted, extending right across the fire-box. In a boiler for the
London & South-Western Railway Co., having a grate area of 31.5 sq.
ft. and a total heating surface of 2727 sq. ft., there are 112
water-tubes each 2-3/4 in. diameter. These are arranged in two
clusters, each containing 56, one set being placed above the
fire-bridge, and the other set nearer the fire-door end of the boiler.
The water-tubes are of seamless steel, and are expanded into the
fire-box side plates. In way of these tubes the outer shell side
plates are supported by stay bars passing right through the
water-tubes. The usual pressure of locomotive boilers is about 175
lb. to 200 lb. per sq. in.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
A good example of an express locomotive boiler is shown in fig. 10. In
this case the grate area is 30.9 sq. ft. and the heating surface 2500
sq. ft. The barrel is 5 ft. 6 in. diameter, 16 ft. long between tube
plates. The fire-box crown is stayed by vertical stays extending to
the shell crown, except for the three rows of stays nearest the tube
plates. These are supported by cross girders resting upon brackets
secured to the outer shell.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Express Locomotive Boiler, with widened
fire-box (Great Northern Railway, England).]
Babcock and Wilcox stationary.
_Water-Tube Boilers._--The "Babcock & Wilcox" boiler, as fitted for
land purposes, and illustrated in fig. 11, consists of a horizontal
cylinder forming a steam chest, having dished ends and two specially
constructed cross-boxes riveted to the bottom. Under the cylinder is
placed a sloping nest of tubes, under the upper end of which is the
fire. The sides and back of the boiler are enclosed in brickwork up to
the height of the centre of the horizontal cylinder and the front is
fitted with an iron casing lined with brick at the lower part.
Suitable brickwork baffles are arranged between the tubes themselves,
and between the nests of tubes and the cylinder, to ensure a proper
circulation of the products of combustion, which are made to pass
between the tubes three times. The nest of tubes consists of several
separate elements, each formed by a front and back header made of
wrought steel of sinuous form connected by a number of tubes. The
upper ends of the front headers are connected by short tubes to the
front cross-box of the horizontal cylinder, the lower ends being
closed. The upper ends of the back headers are connected by longer
pipes to the back cross-box, and their lower ends by short pipes to a
horizontal mud drum to which a blow-off cock and pipe are attached.
The headers are furnished with holes on two opposite sides; those on
one side form the means of connexion between the headers and tubes,
and the others allow access for fixing the tubes in position and
cleaning. The outer holes are oval, and closed by special fittings
shown in fig. 18, the watertightness of the joints being secured by
the outer cover plates. The holes being oval, the inside fitting can
be placed in position from outside, and it is so made as to cover the
opening and prevent any great outrush of steam or water should the
bolt break. Any desired working pressure can be provided for in these
boilers; in some special cases it rises as high as 500 lb. per sq.
in., but a more usual pressure is 180 lb. Like all water-tube
boilers, they require to be frequently cleaned if impure feed-water is
used, but the straightness of their tubes enables their condition to
be ascertained at any time when the boiler is out of use, and any
accumulation of scale to be removed. The superheaters, which are
frequently fitted, consist of two cross-boxes or headers placed
transversely under the cylindrical drum and connected by numerous
C-shaped tubes. They are situated between the tubes and the
steam-chest, and are exposed to the heat of the furnace gases after
their first passage across the tubes. The steam is taken by an
internal pipe passing through the bottom of the drum into the upper
cross-box, then through the C tubes into the lower box, and thence to
the steam pipe. When steam is being raised, the superheater is flooded
with water, which is drained out through a blow-off pipe before
communication is opened with the steam-pipe. In large boilers of this
type, two steam-chests are placed side by side connected together by
two cross steam pipes and by the mud drum. Each, however, has its own
separate feed supply. The largest boiler made has two steam chests
4-1/2 ft. diameter by 25-1/2 ft. long, a grate surface of 85 sq. ft.,
and a total heating surface of 6182 sq. ft.
Stirling.
Another type of water-tube boiler in use for stationary purposes is
the "Stirling" (fig. 12). This boiler consists of four or five
horizontal drums, of which the three upper form the steam-space, and
the one or two lower contain water. The lower drums, where two are
fitted, are connected to each other at about the middle of their
height by horizontal tubes, and to the upper drums by numerous nearly
vertical tubes which form the major portion of the heating surfaces.
The central upper drum is at a slightly higher level than the others,
and communicates with that nearest the back of the boiler by a set of
curved tubes entirely above the water-level, and with the front drum
by two sets--the upper one being above and the lower below the
water-level. The whole boiler is enclosed in brickwork, into which the
supporting columns and girders are built. Brickwork baffles compel the
furnace gases to take specified courses among the tubes. It will be
seen that the space between the boiler front and the tubes form a
large combustion chamber into which all the furnace gases must pass
before they enter the spaces between the tubes; in this chamber a
baffle-bridge is sometimes built. Another chamber is formed between
the first and second sets of tubes. The feed-water enters the back
upper drum, and must pass down the third set of tubes into the lower
drum before it reaches the other parts of the boiler. Thus the coldest
water is always where the temperature of the furnace gases is lowest;
and as the current through the lower drum is slight, the solid matters
separated from the feed-water while its temperature is being raised
have an opportunity of settling to the bottom of this drum, where the
heating is not great and where therefore their presence will not be
injurious. When superheaters are required, they are made of two drums
connected by numerous small tubes, and are somewhat similar in
construction to the boiler proper. The superheater is placed between
the first and second sets of tubes, where it is exposed to the furnace
gases before too much heat has been taken from them. Arrangements are
provided for flooding the superheater while steam is being raised, and
for draining it before the steam is passed through it.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Babcock & Wilcox Water-tube Boiler fitted
with Superheaters.]
Woodeson.
A somewhat similar boiler is made by Messrs. Clarke, Chapman & Co.,
and is known as the "Woodeson" boiler (fig. 13). It consists of three
upper drums placed side by side connected together by numerous short
tubes, some above and some below the water-level, and of three smaller
lower drums also connected by short cross tubes. The upper and lower
drums are connected by numerous nearly vertical straight tubes. The
whole is enclosed in firebrick casing. The design permits of the
insides of all the tubes being readily inspected, and also of any tube
being taken out and renewed without displacing any other part of the
boiler.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Stirling Water-tube Boiler.]
Belleville.
The earliest form of water-tube
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/33614