appointed as judge, and that all German parents should be called on to have their children taught the Bohemian language.
It seems that Charles not only favoured the national language, but that he, with the political insight which was his characteristic, also realized the connection of the language and people of Bohemia with the other Slav races, an idea which is generally known under the foolish and incorrect denomination of Panslavism, and is usually supposed to be of modern origin. Charles showed his knowledge of the connection of the Slav races by the foundation of a Benedictine monastery in Prague, which was to revive the traditions of the former monastery of St. Prokop on the Sazava.[1] For the monks of this convent Charles obtained the Pope's permission to use the Slavonic tongue for all ecclesiastical functions, and to make use of the Cyrillic alphabet.[2] This scheme seems, next to the foundation of the University of Prague, to have been one of King Charles's favourite plans, and in spite of the many difficulties at the beginning of his reign he was able, in the year 1347, to assemble numerous monks from Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia in the new monastery.
The great interest which Charles—who was less inclined than any man to pursue merely imaginative aims—showed for this foundation has attracted the attention of Bohemian historians. Palacký believes that the plan of uniting the Eastern with the Western Church, which then, as at so many other periods of history, was being discussed, may have been one of King Charles's motives, apart from his
- ↑ See Chapter III.
- ↑ The foundation of this convent is of some importance with regard to the controversy as to the origin of the Hussite movement. The almost general opinion of Russian authorities is in favour of considering that movement as one caused by the desire of the Bohemians to return to the Eastern Church, from which their country had first received the Christian faith. In his letter to Pope Clement VI, in which he requests the Pope's consent to the establishment of the Slavonic ritual in the new monastery, Charles says that "there are many dissidents and unbelieving people who, when the gospel is explained and preached to them in Latin, will not understand, and that they might (thus) perhaps be directed to the Christian faith" (Professor Kalousek, in the Casopis Musea Ceskeho (Journal of the Bohemian Museum) for 1882). Professor Kalousek thinks that these words—though their meaning seems very clear—contain a "pia fraus" on the part of King Charles.
