Czechs and Germans: Nationals and Foreigners in the Work of Czech

322 Sobiesiak Chapter 17 Czechs and Germans: Nationals and Foreigners in the Work of Czech Chroniclers: from Cosmas of Prague (12th Century) to the Chronicle of the So-called Dalimil (14th Century) Joanna Sobiesiak This paper aims to show how the Czech chroniclers of the Middle Ages described the Germans and in what type of narrative contexts opinions about representatives of this nation appear. We will discuss storylines in which the Germans grow into a showcase for ‘the other’ – an enemy of the Czech people: a community which identified itself by referring to the patronage of Saint Wenceslas; we will try to show this with the help of literary texts as well as iconographic sources. In contrast to other peoples of the region, the Czechs can boast quite a number of surviving medieval written sources, which present the history of their native land. Importantly, the texts written by the Czechs themselves allow us to see how authors with Czech nationality perceived their own community and how they saw their neighbours, particularly those from the West, who were very important for them, both politically and culturally. Since we are dis- cussing a problem of early medieval Central Europe, we are as you might expect referring to the comments of only a handful of persons: those who wrote down the history of the state and dynasty were very few in number. There are simply no further sources. We assume, of necessity as it were, that those few chroniclers were expressing opinions that plainly represented the views of most Czech subjects of the Přemyslids. The textual basis for this paper is primarily narrative sources. The presence in the narrative of an overall picture of the history of the Czechs was taken as a basis for classifying the texts used in presenting our topic. Our authors start the history of their people with biblical themes: stories of the Flood and the confusion of languages at Babel; they also present, in various forms, the myth concerning the beginnings of the Czech community. We will now briefly present these accounts in chronological order. The first chronicle written by a Czech author which describes the history of the state and community from a Czech point of view is an early-twelfth © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004363793_018 Czechs and Germans 323 century work by Cosmas, a canon at the Cathedral of St. Vitus. Cosmas is referred to as the first Czech historian because his Boemorum Chronica is the oldest fundamental historical exposition of the history of Czechs and the dynasty of the Přemyslids.1 The Chronicle is his only work. It consists of three books and was most probably drafted by the author in the years 1110-1125.2 Cosmas’ Chronicle of the Czechs was to have successors. The first of them, referred to as the Canon of Vyšehrad, took up the thread of Cosmas’s chronicle from 1126 and continued it down to a description of the events of 1142. Further work on the Chronicle was undertaken, post-1150, by the so-called second fol- lower of Cosmas. This anonymous author started to appear in scholarly works with the name of the Monk of Sázava.3 Neither the Canon of Vyšehrad, nor the Monk of Sázava have left us much information about themselves; we do not even know their names. However, analysis of the works written by them allows us to suppose that they were both most probably Czechs.4 The latest source which we intend to use is the Chronicle of the so-called Dalimil. This is a completely unique survival of Czech literature. Dating back to the early fourteenth century this account in verse was written in Czech. And even though its author did not introduce himself to the reader, we have no doubt that he was a Czech. It is assumed that the work was created after 1314.5 This is an extremely important time for the Czech state. In 1310 the son of the German king, John of Luxembourg, sat on the throne in Prague.6 Thus, the first decade of the fourteenth century was a very important time in the history of the Czech national community, as it was at that time that the native dynasty of the Přemyslids, which had ruled for more than four hundred years, was 1 Marie Bláhová, “Dĕjepisectvi v českých zemich přemyslovského obdobi” in Przemyślidzi i Piastowie – twórcy i gospodarze średniowiecznych monarchii. Materiały z konferencji naukowej Gniezno 5-7 maja 2004, ed. Józef Dobosz (Poznań, 2006) 107-139, 110-113. 2 František Graus, “Cosmas v. Prag,” Lexikon des Mittelalters vol. 3 (Stuttgart, 2000) 300-301. 3 Maria Wojciechowska, “Wstęp,” in Kronikarze czescy. Kanonik Wyszehradzki, Mnich Sazawski (Wrocław, 2006) 9 – 14. 4 Marie Bláhová, Zděnek Fiala, Pokračovatelé Kosmovi (Praha, 1974) 201. 5 Ivan Hlavácek, “Dalimil, sog.” Lexikon des Mittelalters vol. 3, 441 – 442. 6 After the death of the last native dynast, Wenceslaus III in 1306, power in Prague was assumed by Rudolph of Habsburg, but when he died a few months later, the throne in Prague was then seized (in 1307) by Henry of Carinthia, husband of Anna Přemyslovna, daughter of Wenceslaus III. However, in 1310 he was in fact deposed from the throne by a member of the house of Luxembourg who was the husband of Elizabeth (Eliška), a daughter of the last but one Přemyslid king, Wenceslaus II. See Karel Máraz, “Vaclav III.”, in Přemyslovci. Budováni českého státu, eds. P. Sommer, D. Třeštík, J. Žemlička (Praha, 2009) 338-340; Josef Žemlička, Čechové, Němci a stát Přemyslovců (Praha, 1991) 58-62..

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