ST. HEDWIG 363 with tho greatest solicitude, especially for their spiritual welfare. Her be- haviour in church, her tears daring mass, her many prostrations, edified all beholders. She prayed for hoars with neither carpet nor kirtle between her knees and the stones ; she made light of chilblains and swellings earned in her austerities. She had pictares of the saints taken with her wherever she went, and carried reverently before her on her way to charch. In charch, a heap of pence was laid beside her, which she distribated to the poor. She taaght many prayers and portions of holy writ to her maids and to her hasband. In 1203, two years after their 'ac- cession to the dakedom, Henry and Hedwig foanded the great Cistercian nunnery of Trebnicz, which was finished and its charch consecrated in 1219. The origin of this picas work is thos related by contemporary historians — Some years before it was began, Henry, who, like all the doughty war- riors of his time, was also a mighty hunter, was one day out with several of his friends and servants hunting in the neighbourhood of Breslau, his capital. He suddenly found himself in a morass, his horse sinking into the ground. In his desperation ho vowed that if God would save his life, he would build on that spot a house for nuns. He com- mended himself to God, and threw him- self from his horse. He sank up to his knees in the marsh; but, oh joy! he felt hard ground under his feet; and soon, with slow and careful steps, he reached the solid groimd. Back to life, with its struggles, its pleasures, its rivalries, his vow is well- nigh forgotten; but Hedwig, to whom he told it at the time of his narrow escape, remembers and reminds. Money is wanted. Hedwig gives her own dowry for the expenses and tho endow- ment, and the workmen are provided in a strange fashion. All the male- factors condemned to different punish- ments have their penalties commuted to working for certain periods as labourers at the building of the new monastery. Hedwig, who had always felt a special pity for prisoners, found a double happi- ness in mitigating their sentences and accomplishing her husband's vow. Some nuns of approved capability and experience were brought from Magde- burg to establish the Cistercian rule in the new monastery. It was intended to be a home and a place of education for the daughters of the nobles; some of the girls brought up there were to re- ceive dowries from the foundation, and be married according to their rank, while others were to become nuns. The town of Trebnicz was given to the house for revenue. The buildings were cal- culated for the accommodation of a thousand persons, with ample provision for hoi^pitality. Of the thousand, only a hundred were nuns. Before long this monastery received many daughters of the family that had created it. Here, in 1208, while the house was building, St. Hedwig received into her care a little girl, who was to become a great saint — Princess Agnes (21) of Bohemia. She came as the destined bride of Boleslaus, eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of Silesia. Hedwig is credited with instilling the religious principles and aspirations afterwards so conspicuous in this saint. Boleslaus died, and the bride was sent back to her parents; and some years later, about 1216, his brother Henry married the Blessed Anna (19) of Bohemia, sister of St. Agnes (21). The duke and duchess had lived until now in perfect amity, and had happily arrived at middle age; but their tran- quillity was sadly broken and some degree of estrangement occasioned by the jealousy and ill feeling between their two only surviving sons, which, in 1213, broke into open war. Hedwig preferred her eldest son, Henry, and took his part, while the duke favoured his second son, Conrad. In vain they tried to make peace, until, finding themselves unable to prevent a battle, they retired, the duke to Glogau, the duchess to Neptz, leaving their sons to fight for the mastery. The brothers fought at Studnica, near Liegnitz, and there Henry gained a complete victory. Conrad fled to his father at Glogau, where he was soon afterwards killed in hunting. He was
