Greek and Latin, is one of the oldest in Europe. The three centuries from the time of Charles IV. to the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War covers the early brilliant period in literature. Two centuries of intellectual barrenness followed the fatal battle of the White Mountain and the usurpation of the Bohemian Crown by the House of Hapsburg. The ancient constitution of the kingdom was suppressed and it was replaced by a slightly veiled system of Teutonic absolutism. The lands of the Bohemian nobles, who had been patrons of letters, were confiscated and given to generals in the Austrian army and to Austrian noblemen. The inhabitants of the flourishing cities, that had been strongholds of the national language and literature, were driven into exile and their places were taken by immigrants of non-Bohemian birth. The country people were reduced to a state of serfdom and attached to the soil. The pillory, the gallows, and the whipping-post were the sinister arguments that were employed to obliterate all traces of national culture.
Not only was there a complete arrest in the remarkable literary movement that intervened between the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War, but most of the literary treasures of the previous centuries were destroyed by the royal edicts of the reactionary Hapsburg
