consequence of the attitude of the university the Carolinuim should be demolished. The Jesuits, however, opposed this scheme.
Ferdinand I had in 1556 introduced this Order into Bohemia, and the college of St. Clement was founded by it shortly afterwards. Between this new college and the ancient university of Charles IV, which had adopted the utraquist and afterwards the Lutheran teaching, a spirit of rivalry soon sprung up. A struggle between the two learned institutions began,[1] which ended only with the battle of the
Bila Hora. After that victory Ferdinand no doubt immediately decided to suppress the ancient university and to transfer its funds and privileges to the Jesuit college. In this case also the great change was only carried out gradually. At the end of the year 1620 the estates belonging to the university were confiscated, and German soldiers, who grievously ill-treated the tenantry, were quartered there. The university vainly endeavoured to avert the blow that threatened it. The prorector Campanus, when Ferdinand arrived in Prague, addressed the victor in flattering Latin verses in a somewhat undignified manner.[2] Neither these verses nor the petitions of other members of the university made any impression on Ferdinand, who had already—on the advice of Father Lamormain—decided to establish the Jesuits in the university. Lamormain disapproved of all delay; he said that the university had for two hundred years been in the hands of the Hussites; teachers and magisters educated there in the atheist doctrine of Hussitism had appeared in all towns and hamlets; many had married rich widows, and the number of heretics had thus
- ↑ I can only allude briefly here to this interesting struggle. It is well described in Dr. Winter's Děje vys Kých škol (History of the High Schools of Prague).
- ↑ In conformity to their rather mean tendency, the verses of Campanus are very indifferent. He wrote—
"Par virtute nepos et nomine, Caesar, habenas
Qui nunc imperii temperat aequus, adest
Arma deses rapuit funesta Boemia frustra
Caesaris ad tanti mox ruitura pedes
Victa tamen surges sub tali principe, surges
Patria, parcus erit sanguinis ille tui.
Tu quoque pone metus, Academi vera secutum,
Assuetumque libris, innocuumque genus
Aurea sub docto sunt principe secula doctis
Talis et ire viri sole cadente, cadit."
