Zawis and Kunigunde/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
MARRIAGE OF ZAWIS AND KUNIGUNDE.
On the return of Lord Zawis and his party to the castle, Teresa welcomed them with much obeisance. Not one of the household knew of her absence and its purpose better than Eudocia. At the earliest moment arrangements were perfected to relieve the garrison of all unnecessary persons. Prokop remained in the character of pedagogue tothe retainers’ children, a person then very generally employed by wealthy laymen who desired instruction for their households in other branches than those adapted to train priests, which now almost universally constituted the sole knowledge imparted in conventual or cathedral schools. The principle enounced by Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon, that science is only the handmaid of theology, had become the controlling doctrine, as it is tothis day in similar establishments. It subordinates the entire faculties of every student to the service of the church in every sphere of life. The total destruction of a multitude of Bohemian homes created impromptu camps on mountains, and in forests throughout many parts of Bohemia. The animosity created by Rudolph and his emissaries spread also hostility to the church. Disorder, destitution, and disease, already began their ravages. Among these camps Pietro and Eudocia now went forth, cheering, consoling, laboring. Coöperation among strangers hastily thrown together, united action among mothers for the attendance on children and the sick, and an example of cheerfulness and courage, enabled Eudocia to bring harmony and even a semblance of social order out of the dreadful chaos around. Pietro undertook a similar office among the depressed and angry men. In every camp a steward, as in old Bohemian villages, directed the ‘common labors. Huts arose, stray cattle were collected, rough enclosures erected and new cultivation promised subsistence. Many died of actual want, and were laid away as tenderly as might be. The exhausted country gave sign of extreme dearth of food; and in many places even the seed corn was consumed. As the season of 1279–80 advanced, a dreadful drought multiplied the afflictions of the peasantry. Food ceased. Famished creatures wandered aimlessly along the desolate roads until they fell never to arise, and skeletons strewed the deserted and grass-grown tracks. The starving crowded to the doors of those who still possessed a morsel, and fiercely snatched food from the inmates. Bands of Tartars still infested the borders, until the threat of utter ruin compelled Rudolph to interpose. Amid these scenes Pietro and Eudocia went; and by their means supplies saved many wretched camps from utter annihilation. Many regions became totally desolate, and not until 1281 was the dreadful famine alleviated by generous showers, and the production of a small harvest. Gradually from year to year the area of culture spread; many exiles returned to re-occupy now weedy and shrub-grown fields. Forest and camp restored a few more for the tillage of the soil, and Bohemia arose as if from the dead. Not until then did Pietro and Eudocia depart for their destined duties in Gran. Here Pietro assumed the office vacated by Prokop two years previously, and with Eudocia renewed avowed Waldensian ministrations among the rapidly increasing Christian community of that place.
During this interval Queen Kunigunde resided at Kœnigin-gratz, whither imperial jealousy had banished her from Prague; and the fidelity of some Bohemian nobles had provided a modest maintenance according to the known purpose of the deceased king. At this place, in the early spring of 1280, a small company of strangers quietly assembled. These persons consisted of some Bohemian lords of the queen’s party who perceived the necessity of sustaining thefortunes of the royal house now represented only by young Wenzel, detained out of the kingdom by Otto of Brandenburg, and according to general report treated with harshness and neglect.
Here arrived a cortege that had been expected and prepared for, Lord Zawis and his sister Lady Ludmila, Lord Drda, several retainers, i ncluding Prokop, and two servants, Teresa and Milada from Fürstenberg. Both companies assembled in the queen’s residence. Documents had been prepared and were now spread before the company. All being seated, Lord Drda said, “A ceremony of deep import to Bohemia is now to be performed. As interests of the most weighty character depend not only on the accredited regularity, legal formalities, and recorded testimony of these solemnities, all present will expect precision and due form in the preliminary contract. I will therefore request our legal functionary and notarius, Nikolas Jaroslav, to read the formal document that has been prepared, and is to attest the presence of the witnesses now assembled.” Hereupon Jaroslav read from an engrossed parchment the following:—
“Before the Nobles’ Court of Kœnigin-gratz.
“In the Schloss of Kœnigin-gratz.
“During the minority of our Lord, King Wenzel, and in the month of March, 1280, on the 18th day thereof.
“In the presence of the exalted Kunigunde, Queen of Bohemia, the Lord Zawis of Falkenstein, the Lady Ludmila of Falkenstein, the Lord Drda, the Lord Ogev of Lomnic, the Lord Sezima of Straz, Witek of Krumau, and the Lady Agaphia Brzava, and notary Nikolas Jaroslav:—
“Contract of marriage between the Lady Kunigunde, and the Lord Zawis, witnesseth:
“That by this contract each of the said contracting parties retains all the private property appertaining to them severally in right of rank, dignity, dower, inheritance and purchase. Especially the Lady Kunigunde retains the ownership in full of the sum of fifty thousand marks bestowed upon her by the late King Otakar, for her maintenance, and to be employed solely to that end, in case of the death of the said King Otakar before other provision should be made. Said sum of money having been reserved for said use out of the revenues of Kœnigin-gratz and the lands adjoining, to the extent of one mile in each direction, and already set apart for said purpose. The said Lord Zawis reserves to his descendants, if any, the full ownership and property of the castle of Fürstenberg and the estates attached thereto. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names and affixed our seals.
“Nikolas Jaroslav.Zawis of Falkenstein.
“Agaphia Brzava.Ludmila of Falkenstein
“Drda of Wittau.
“Oger of Lomnic.
“Sezima of Straz.
“Witek of Krumau.”
The marriage ceremony being performed without ostentation by the pastor in ordinary of the schloss, the party observed the generous Bohemian custom of a wedding festivity, wherein wine and beer were not wanting. Hilarity, however, yielded to restraint; and quiet cheerfulness pervaded the company. “Permit me now,” said Sezima of Straz, at the close of the festival, “to propose the good health and happiness of our honored bride and bridegroom. May their hearts be as warm to each other as the sun is to the vine around the hillsides of Bohemia; may their love be as true as the vintage of Prague; and may their esteem in the hearts of their countrymen be as lasting as that of Bohemians for the beverage of their own sunny hills.”
“May their concord be greater,” added Ogev of Lomnic, “than the said beverage has ever been able to confer on those who love it most.”
“May their love be as that of the true vine,” said Prokop; “and may the clear vintage of their lives be to them as the essence of that pureness which the Sun of Righteousness never fails to instill and to perfect.”
“Lords and gentlemen,” said Zawis, rising, “your good wishes are as sweet and refreshing as the mellowest juice of the grapes of Melnik, or the choicest of Fürstenberg itself. The unhappiness of the country, and the menacing aspect of affairs now compel gravity, and calm counsel among the wisest. In evidence of our appreciation of your generous; congratulations permit me to present to you, ere we separate, some views that seem to me imperatively to command attention at this moment when we hope for the reconstruction of our country and its institutions. We will, if you please, abandon strict formality and discuss these themes as friends and allies. We have fallen,” he continued, resuming his seat, “by our abandonment of practical knowledge, and useful science as studied and applied by our fathers, according to their light. We have largely become sentimentalists in religion first, and lastly in politics also. Our schools, that formerly inculcated the knowledge required in daily life, have been ecclesiasticised, and so far as they are permitted to remain open, are devoted solely to the training of priests. Even herein the instruction conferred is entirely defective.
“Our doctrines are directed not to correct and purify morals and elevate character, but to sustain, exact and give pre-eminence to an alien authority; and the hearts of our youth are stolen both from their country, and the useful sciences, by a sentimental devotion to the assumed divine viceregency of an Italian intruder. We need neither his secular learning, and of that he has not much, nor his ethical instruction. Bohemia was ever as near to her Creator before this Italian intervened in our affairs,as at any moment since his agents have sown dissension.
“We loved, we prized, we cultivated good literature, in our native speech, before this Italian imposed his degraded and antiquated dregs of Latin upon our youth.
“We have been taught that if we instruct the young in verbose sentimentalism, and set before them a correct example, we shall have prepared their character by instilling very doubtful tastes and myths of assumed saints. But in practical life we shall have held up to them, as the manner now is, exhibitions of lordly pomps, of excessive covetousness, of remorseless exactions, of disregard of marriage, and universal promotion of concubinage among prelates and priests; and we shall have taught them to veil all this vice under a semblance of religious sentimentalism, and a most sensuous ritual.
“Even when we do instill what is good, and we are compelled to imbibe this from fountains opened to us by others outside the domains of the church, and when we instruct young persons in the arts necessary to secure sustenance, we think we have completed their education. We first make their hearts tender and susceptible, then we bestow an art or an occupation; but the third element of the essential trinity of permanent life, the art of preserving what they can procure or acquire, we omit altogether. Suppose, for instance, we train a youth in all morality, until he abhors evil, we then instruct him in the art and skill necessary to produce a gem like this,” drawing forth the identical casket containing the identical cross secured by Pietro and Solomon, “and we allow him to confront the world knowing not how to preserve and protect himself from the abounding fraud, violence, treachery, and seductions of society, we render him only a helpless victim. His virtue incites him to good; his skill enriches him with wealth; and his simplicity renders him only a prey to the seducer and the thief. We do not teach business in our schools; we banish business from our politics, we eschew business from our morals; and we think to build up, to defend, and exalt Bohemia by sentimentalism. This is the new deception that has broken our strength, and prostrated us before Cumanian barbarism. Under the seductive and insinuating false charm of the new theology, all practical science has been banished; all study of medicine has been proscribed under the direst penalties; all secular knowledge denounced as the agency of the devil; all pursuits of nature’s treasures in metals, light, water, air, and the vegetable and animal worlds is now anathematized as magic; and before our eyes the learning, skill, and wonderful attainments of the Moors of Spain have been trodden down in blood, until Spain can neither feed herself, clothe herself, build her houses, nor cultivate her, fields. Such is the dire result of the truculent sentimentalism that I denounce. Such a spirit is not Bohemian; it never was Bohemian; and Bohemians will repudiate such sentimentalism to their latest breath.
“Permit me now,” resumed Lord Zawis, “to present to my wife a most fitting emblem of the practical, artistic genius that especially distinguishes Bohemia. It is, my dear love, the same casket intended by the lamented King Otakar as the expression of his parting affection for his queen. I am happy indeed to be able to present it now, as being a true symbol of the scientific, industrial, and simply religious tendencies of our countrymen; and let it be also a token from me that I cherish the memory of my lamented prince, and honor him by my love for you. It is also asymbol of the reunion of loving hearts for long dissevered.” Zawis recounted the story of the casket; its recovery, preservation, services on different occasions, and its happy restoration on the auspicious day of their marriage.
Kunigunde received the gift with much emotion, and profound gratitude. “It shall be,” she said, “forever a most cherished evidence of the generous devotion of my husband, and a reminder of the honor and reverence that he merits.”
Then Lord Zawis said, “I have received advices from Hungary that afford reassurance to myself, but which forebode distress to our brethren in that region. King Ladislaus is good enough to say in a communicaton to myself: ‘I cannot forget the generous devotion of your family to my grandfather, King Bela, during his severe experience when compelled to flee to Lissa from the Tartars. The high behests of state policy, and the altered relations of Hungary to the empire compel us adopt a procedure conformable to that inaugurated in Bohemia by the emperor and his dynasty. The unity of my government requires, likewise, the repression of growing divisions in the church; and efforts must be directed to abate this evil. During our proceedings, however, although the severity of existing laws is again put in force, you may rest assured that your own territories, castles, and retainers shall be respected.’”
“This is a distressing reassurance,” observed Lord Drda. “The King intimates severities towards dissidents in his own estates; and also threatens to revive the old hostility of Hungary against Moravia, and his resolve to secure again Hungarian dominion over Southern Moravia and the Adriatic coast, from which our late prince expelled his predecessor.”
“We may rest without apprehension, on that point,” answered Zawis. “The bargain made by Rudolph with Rome excludes Hungary absolutely from the Adriatic provinces. That condition is well known in Venice and was in fact intimated by the answer of the emperor to the Venetian deputation of three years ago. Zara can never become Hungarian again. For the present we are secure at home; and my Hebrew ambassador has discharged his negotiations right nobly.”
At this point the company agreed to meet again at Fürstenberg a month hence, in order to organize their party in Bohemia, an arrangement now admitted to be in fact begun by the queen’s marriage with Lord Zawis.