introduced. There was then great antagonism between the partisans of the Greek ritual, which Cyrillus and Methodius had introduced, and the followers of the Latin Church, who from Germany had introduced their ritual into Bohemia. The monastery on the Sazava,[1] of which Prokop became abbot, was the centre of those who sympathised with the Eastern Church. Up to the time when the Slavonic monks were replaced by priests of the Latin Church (in 1096), the religious services were held there according to the Eastern ritual, and when Charles IV. again established a community of Slavonic monks at Prague, he obtained for it the Pope's permission to use the Slavonic tongue in all ecclesiastical functions and to employ the Glagolitic alphabet.[2] The legend, written in an awkward and unattractive style, has little artistic value. The author was, no doubt, a monk, since the monastery of Sazava and its records were probably his source of information. As is the case with most early Bohemian legends, it is very difficult to fix the date of that referring to St. Prokop. The existent manuscript probably belongs to the early part of the fourteenth century, though the circumstance that some rhymes have been corrupted and lines omitted has led Bohemian critics to the supposition that the legend was written a considerable time before, perhaps not long after the death of St. Prokop, who lived in the eleventh century. The legend,[3] as already
- ↑ See my Bohemia, an Historical Sketch, p. 39 and p. 93.
- ↑ The Glagolitic alphabet is similar, though not identical with that of St. Cyrillus. It was used by those Slavs who were in communion with the Church of Rome, but enjoyed certain privileges with regard to the use of the national language in ecclesiastical functions.
- ↑ It has recently been stated that this legend, as now preserved, contains modern interpolations. It is impossible at present to give a certain opinion on this subject.
