Page:Gregor The story of Bohemia.pdf/12

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
4
Preface

written in popular style, and also those excelling in profound scholarship; but all these modern works have their sources in Tomek and Palacký, which are the grand repositories of historical information of the Bohemian nation.

In this work references are not given, partly because there would be so many that the pages would fairly bristle with them; but mostly because the book is intended for the ordinary student, whose time is too limited to make a thorough study of this little corner of the world’s history. More thorough scholars would go to the larger works, which are published in German, as well as in the Čech tongue.

In regard to names, some deviation has been made from the spelling generally adopted by historians. As the Bohemians are supposed to know best how to spell their own Slavonic names, the original spelling has been, in many cases, retained, in preference to that given by foreigners. Thus, Hus is spelled with one s; Sigismund, Sigmund; Vincenslaus, Václav; Procopius, Prokop; but, in inmost cases, the name has been translated into an equivalent English one. Some readers might object that too much space has been allotted to the Hussite wars. The events