Bohemia

BOHEMIA, an ancient kingdom in Central Europe. Its early history is very obscure. The country derives its name from a tribe of uncertain origin, the Boii, conquered by the Teutonic Marcomanni about 12 B.C. It is probable that Slavic peoples, of whom the Cechs were most important, had entered the country by the first century A.D., but nothing is really known of the stages by which they became its masters, and it is hard to ascertain the historical basis which may underlie the traditions of their early kings, the founders of the Premyslide dynasty.

The Piemyslide Dynasty.

The first attempts to introduce Christianity into Bohemia undoubtedly came from Germany.

They met with little success, as innate distrust of the Germans naturally rendered the Bohemians unfavourable to a creed which reached them from their western neighbours. Matters were dif ferent when Christianity approached them from Moravia, where its doctrine had been taught by Cyril and Methodius—Greek monks from Thessalonica. About the year 873 the Bohemian prince Borivoj was baptized by Methodius, and the Bohemians now rapidly adopted the Christian faith. Of the rulers of Bo hemia the most famous at this period was Wenzel, surnamed the Holy, who in 935 was murdered by his brother Boleslav, and was afterwards canonized by the Church of Rome. During the reigns of Boleslav and his son, Boleslav II., Bohemia extended its frontiers in several directions. Boleslav II. indeed established his rule not only over Bohemia and Moravia, but also over a large part of Silesia, and over that part of Poland which was in cluded in the former Austrian province of Galicia. Like most Slavic States at this and even a later period, the great Bohemian empire of Boleslav II. did not endure long. Boleslav III., son of Boleslav II., lost all his foreign possessions to Boleslav the Great, king of Poland, and was ultimately dethroned in favour of the Polish prince Vladivoj, brother of Boleslav the Great. Vladivoj attempted to strengthen his hold over Bohemia by securing the aid of Germany. He consented not only to continue to pay the tribute which the Germans had already obtained from several previous rulers of Bohemia, but also to become a vassal of the German empire and to receive the German title of duke. This state continued when after the death of Vladivoj the Pfemyslide dynasty was restored. The Piemyslide prince Bfetislav I. (103 55) again added Moravia, Silesia and a considerable part of Poland to the Bohemian dominions.

During the constant internal struggles of the next hundred years the German influence became stronger, and the power of the sovereign declined, as the nobility on whose support the competitors for the crown were obliged to rely constantly ob tained new privileges. In 1197 Pfemysl Ottakar became undis puted ruler of Bohemia, and was crowned as king in the following year. The royal title of the Bohemian sovereigns was continued uninterruptedly from that date. Wenzel I. (123o–S3) succeeded his father without opposition. His son Pfemysl Ottakar II. was one of the greatest of Bohemia's kings. He had during the life time of his father obtained possession of the archduchies of Aus tria, and, about the time of his accession to the Bohemian throne, the nobility of Styria also recognized him as their ruler. These extensions of his dominions involved him in repeated wars with Hungary. In 126o he decisively defeated Bela, king of Hungary, in the great battle of Kressenbrunn and obtained possession of Carinthia, Istria and parts of northern Italy. His possessions ex tended from the Giant Mountains in Bohemia to the Adriatic, and included almost all the parts of the late Habsburg empire west of the Leitha. From political rather than racial causes Ot takar favoured the immigration of Germans into his dominions. He hoped to find in the German townsmen a counterpoise to the overwhelming power of the Bohemian nobility. In 1273 Rudolph, count of Habsburg, was elected king of the Romans. It is very probable that the German crown had previously been offered to Ottakar, but that he had refused it. His Slavic nationality was likely to render him obnoxious to the Germans. As Rudolph im mediately claimed as vacant fiefs of the Empire most of the lands held by Ottakar, war was inevitable. Ottakar was deserted by many of his new subjects, and even by part of the Bohemian nobility. He was therefore obliged to surrender to Rudolph all his lands except Bohemia and Moravia, and to recognize him as his overlord. In 1278 Ottakar invaded the Austrian duchies, now under the rule of Rudolph, but was defeated and killed at Durnkrut on the Marchfield. With the death of his grandson Wenzel III. the ancient Pfemyslide dynasty came to an end (1306).

The Luxemburg Dynasty.

Albert, king of the Romans, de clared that Bohemia was a vacant fief of the Empire, and, mainly by intimidation, induced the Bohemians to elect his son Rudolph as their sovereign ; but Rudolph died after a reign of only one year. The Bohemians thereupon chose as king Henry, duke of Carinthia, who had married a daughter of King Wenzel II. Henry soon became unpopular, and he was accused of unduly favouring the German settlers in Bohemia. He was deposed, and the choice of the Bohemians fell on John of Luxemburg, son of Henry, king of the Romans. The Luxemburg dynasty henceforth ruled over Bohemia until its extinction at the death of Sigismund 7) Though king John married a daughter of Wenzel II., most of his life was spent in other lands than Bohemia, his campaigns ranging from Italy to Lithuania. He fell at Crecy (1346) .

He was succeeded as king of Bohemia by his son Charles, whom the German electors had previously elected as their sovereign at Rense (1346). Charles proved one of the greatest rulers of Bo hemia, where his memory is still revered. Prague was his favour ite residence, and by the foundation of the nove mesto (new town) he greatly enlarged the city. He also added greatly to the importance of the city by founding the famous University of Prague. Charles succeeded in re-establishing order after the dis orders of the reign of John. He also attempted to codify the ob scure and contradictory laws of Bohemia; but this attempt failed through the resistance of the powerful nobility of the country. He died in 1378 at the age of 62.

Charles was succeeded by his son Wenzel, then aged 17. His reign marks the decline of the rule of the house of Luxemburg over Bohemia. By this time the reforming party was strong in Bohemia and almost the whole nation espoused the cause of Huss (q.v.). Huss was tried before the council of Constance (q.v.), to which he had proceeded with a letter of safe conduct given by Wenzel's brother Sigismund, king of the Romans. He was declared a heretic and burnt on July 6, 1415. The inevitable and immediate result of this event was the outbreak of civil war in Bohemia. From this time until 1436, when peace was made, Bohemian history is essentially the record of the Hussite Wars (see HussITEs) .

George of Podbrad.

In the latter year Sigismund, who had inherited a claim to the Bohemian throne on Wenzel's death in 1419, proceeded to Prague and was accepted as king. He died in the following year (1437) and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Albert of Austria, whom the estates chose as their king. Albert died after he had reigned over Bohemia less than two years. Though it was known that Albert's widow Elizabeth would shortly give birth to a child, the question as to the succession to the throne again arose; for it was only in 1627 that the question whether the Bohemian crown was elective or hereditary was de cided for ever. The nobles formed two parties; one of which, the national one, had George of Podebrad (q.v.) as its leader. Ulrich of Rosenberg was the leader of the Roman or Austrian division of the nobility. The two parties finally came to an agreement known as the "Letter of Peace." Those who signed it pledged themselves to recognize the Compacts (see HussITEs), and to sup port as archbishop of Prague, John of Rokycan, whom the Church of Rome refused to recognize. On Feb. 22, 1440, Queen Eliza beth gave birth to a son, who received the name of Ladislas. The Bohemians formally acknowledged him as their king, though only after their crown had been declined by Albert, duke of Bavaria. Ladislas remained in Austria under the guardianship of his uncle Frederick, duke of Styria, afterwards the e.nperor Frederick III., and Bohemia, still without regular government, continued to be the scene of constant conflicts between the rival parties of the nobility. In 1446 a general meeting of the estates of Bohemia together with those of Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia—the so called "lands of the Bohemian crown"—took place. This meeting has exceptional importance for the constitutional history of Bo hemia. It was decreed that at the meeting of the estates their members should be divided into three bodies—known as curiae— representing the nobles, the knights and the towns. These curiae were to deliberate separately and only to meet for a final decision. An attempt made at this meeting to appoint a regent was unsuc cessful. Negotiations with the papal see led to no result, as the members of the Roman party used their influence at the papal court for the purpose of dissuading it from granting any conces sions to their countrymen. Shortly after the termination of the diet of 1446 George of Podebrad therefore determined to appeal to the fortune of war. He assembled a considerable army at Kutna Hora and marched on Prague (1448). He occupied the town almost without resistance and assumed the regency over the kingdom. The diet in 1451 recognized his title, which was also sanctioned by the Emperor Frederick III., guardian of the young king. Podebrad was none the less opposed, almost from the first, by the Romanists, who even concluded an alliance against him with their extreme opponents, Kolda of 2ampach and the other remaining Taborites. In Oct. 1453 Ladislas arrived in Bohemia and was crowned king at Prague ; but he died somewhat suddenly on Nov. 23, 1457. George of Podebrad has from the first frequently been accused of having poisoned him, but his torical research has proved that this accusation is entirely un founded. The Bohemian throne was now again vacant, for, vi,Then electing Ladislas the estates had reaffirmed the elective char acter of the monarchy. Though there were several foreign candi dates, the estates unanimously elected George of Podebrad, who had now for some time administered the country. Though the Romanist lords, whom Podebrad had for a time won over, also voted for him, the election was considered a great victory of the national party and was welcomed with enthusiasm by the citizens of Prague.

During the earlier and more prosperous part of his reign the policy of King George was founded on a firm alliance with Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, through whose influence he was crowned by the Romanist bishop of Waitzen. His princi pal supporters were the men of the smaller nobility and the towns. After a certain time, however, some of the Romanist nobles be came hostile to the king, and, partly through their influence, he became involved in a protracted struggle with the papal see. It was in consequence of this struggle that some of George's far reaching plans—he endeavoured for a time to obtain the suprem acy over Germany—failed. After the negotiations with Rome had proved unsuccessful George assembled the estates at Prague in 1452 and declared that he would to his death remain true to the communion in both kinds, and that he was ready to risk his life and his crown in the defence of his faith. The Romanist party in Bohemia became yet more embittered against the king, and at a meeting at Zelena Hora (Griinberg) in 1465 many nobles of the Roman religion joined in a confederacy against him. In the following year Pope Paul II. granted his moral support to the confederates by pronouncing sentence of excommunication against George of Podebrad and by releasing all Bohemians from their oath of allegiance to him. It was also through papal influence that King Matthias of Hungary, deserting his former ally, sup ported the lords of the league of Zelena Hora. Desultory war fare broke out between the two parties, in which George was at first successful; but fortune changed when the king of Hungary invaded Moravia and obtained possession of the Briinn, the capital of the country. At a meeting of the Catholic nobles of Bohemia and Moravia at Olmiitz in Moravia, Matthias was proclaimed king of Bohemia (May 3, 1469). In the following year George obtained some successes over his rival, but died in 1471. George of Podebrad, the only Hussite king of Bohemia, has always, with Charles IV., been the ruler of Bohemia whose memory has most endeared itself to his countrymen.

Vladislav of Poland.

After protracted negotiations Prince Vladislav of Poland was elected King at Kutna Hora, on May 27, 1471. This election was a victory of the national party, and may be considered as evidence of the strong anti-clerical feeling which then prevailed in Bohemia; for Matthias was an uncondi tional adherent of Rome, while the Polish envoys who represented Vladislav promised that he would maintain the Compacts. The new king was involved in a struggle with Matthias of Hungary until 1478, when a treaty concluded at Olmiitz secured Bohemia to Vladislav, Matthias retaining Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia during his lifetime, which were to be restored to Bohemia after his death.

As regards matters of State the reign of Vladislav is marked by a decrease of the royal prerogative, while the power of the nobility attained an unprecedented height, at the expense, not only of the royal power, but also of the rights of the townsmen and peasants. A decree of 1487 practically established serfdom in Bohemia, where it had hitherto been almost unknown. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this measure for the future of Bohemia. The rulers of the country were henceforth unable to rely on that numerous sturdy and independent peasantry of which earlier Bohemian armies had mainly consisted. Various enactments belonging to this reign also curtailed the rights of the Bohemian townsmen. A decree known as the "regulations of King Vladislav" codified these changes. It enumerated all the rights of the nobles and knights, but entirely ignored those of the towns. It was tacitly assumed that the townsmen had no inher ent rights, but only such privileges as might be granted them by their sovereign with the consent of the nobles and knights. Civil discord was the inevitable consequence of these enactments. Sev eral meetings of the diet took place at which the towns were not represented. The latter in 1513 formed a confederacy to defend their rights, and chose Prince Bartholomew of Miinsterberg—a grandson of King George—as their leader.

The Diet of St. Wenceslas.

Vladislav was elected king of Hungary in 1490 and many of the events of his later life belong to the history of Hungary where he died in 1516. His successor was his son Louis, who had already been crowned as king of Bo hemia at the age of three. According to the instructions of Vlad islav, Sigismund, king of Poland, and the emperor Maximilian I. were to act as guardians of the young king. The Bohemian estates recognized this decision, but they refused to allow the guardians any right of interference in the affairs of Bohemia. The great Bohemian nobles, and in particular the supreme burgrave, Zdenek Leo, lord of Rdmital, ruled the country almost without control. The beginning of the nominal reign of King Louis is marked by an event which had great importance for the constitutional de velopment of Bohemia. At a meeting of the estates in 1517 known as the diet of St. Wenceslas they settled the questions which had been the causes of discord. The citizens renounced cer tain privileges which they had hitherto claimed, while the two other estates recognized their municipal autonomy and tacitly sanctioned their presence at the meetings of the diet, to which they had already been informally readmitted since 1508. At the first sitting of this diet, on Oct. 24, it was declared that the three estates had agreed henceforth "to live together in friendly intercourse, as became men belonging to the same country and race." In 1522 Louis arrived in Bohemia from Hungary, of which country he had also been elected king. On his arrival at Prague he dismissed all the Bohemian State officials, including the powerful Leo of Roimital. He appointed Charles of Miinsterberg a cousin of Prince Bartholomew and also a grandson of King George, as regent of Bohemia during his absences, and John of Wartenberg as burgrave. The new officials appear to have supported the more advanced Hussite party, while Roimital and the members of the town council of Prague who had acted in concert with him had been the allies of the Romanists and those Utraquists who were nearest to the Church of Rome. The new officials thus incurred the displeasure of King Louis, who was at that moment seeking the aid of the pope in his warfare with Turkey. The king there fore reinstated Leo of Roimital in his offices in 1525. Shortly afterwards Roimital became involved in a feud with the lords of Rosenberg; the feud became a civil war, in which most of the nobles and cities of Bohemia took sides. Meanwhile Louis, who had returned to Hungary, opened his campaign against the Turks. He requested aid from his Bohemian subjects, and this was granted by the Rosenberg faction, while Rdmital and his party purposely delayed sending any forces to Hungary. There were, therefore, but few Bohemian troops at the battle of Mohacs (Aug. 29, 1526) at which Louis was decisively defeated and perished.

The Accession of the Habsburgs.—The Crown left vacant by the death of Louis II. was claimed by the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, by virtue of the hereditary rights invested in his wife Anna, Louis's sister, by the succession pacts concluded by Fer dinand's grandfather Maximilian. The Bohemian estates, how ever, denied these rights and claimed the exercise of their prerogative to fill the vacant throne by election. Ferdinand acquiesced, outmanoeuvred and defeated his most dangerous rivals, the dukes of Bavaria, and was unanimously elected on Oct. 23, 1526. The adjunct lands of the Bohemian Crown, how ever (Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia), whom the Bohemian mag nates had neglected to convoke for the electoral diet, revenged themselves by recognizing Anne and Ferdinand as their sovereigns by hereditary right. This national division enabled Ferdinand to refuse to sign the severest clauses of the electoral capitulation presented to him by the diet. In 1541, a fire having destroyed the State archives, he substituted, with the forced consent of the diet, an act recognizing his wife's hereditary right for the act registering his election, and in 1547 he exacted from the diet a fresh confirmation of this recognition.

Ferdinand I.—In consolidating and strengthening the unity of this monarchy, to make it a lasting and secure possession of the Habsburg dynasty, Ferdinand first set about restoring the much-diminished power of the monarch. The country had suffered so severely from anarchical conditions that it was in general grate ful to a prince who could restore public order and security. Even the establishment of central authorities to direct the affairs corn mon to all the sovereign's dominions (foreign relations, military organization, finance) encountered little opposition, as the measures decided by these authorities were executed in Bohemia only by the constitutional national authorities. Where the king and the nation clashed was on the religious question, and the defeat of the latter was due to its divisions. To check the advance of Lutheranism in Bohemia, Ferdinand, for purely political mo tives, supported the official "Utraquist" Church, which was slowly falling into decay and disunion, while the Unity of the Bohemian Brethren inclined increasingly towards Luther. Bohemia was drawn into the great duel in which the house of Austria was now engaged with German Protestantism. The Bohemian estates long wavered between resistance and obedience to the king, who summoned them to assist the cause of his house; finally (1547) the diet met unconvoked by the king, even despite his express prohibition, which made its action revolutionary, drew up a list of demands which would have given it all power and reduced the king to a figurehead, and nominated a provisional directory. The defeat of the German Protestants at Miihlberg suddenly reversed the situation; it was now Ferdinand who dictated. His rigour was directed chiefly against the towns, which he had long con sidered the chief hotbeds of rebellion and heresy, particularly Prague ; their administrative autonomy was replaced by the authority of royal judges, and in Prague, of royal captains also; their judiciary autonomy by a new royal court of appeal, and under pretext of revising old privileges, they were deprived of most of their domains, which passed to the king (who, however, later restored much of them). These measures impoverished the burgesses and rendered them politically impotent; henceforward, administratively and in the diet, the towns were puppets of the king. The nobles and knights most compromised also had their estates confiscated, or reduced to fiefs. There were few death sentences; only four persons (two nobles and two burgesses) were executed on the eve of the opening of the "Bloody Diet" (Aug. 22, which recorded Ferdinand's measures and again recognized the heredity of the Crown. The nobles and knights had viewed without displeasure the humiliation of their old rivals, the towns; but this naturally increased their own depen dence on the king. The latter was able partially and temporarily to repair his disorganized finances, out of the yield of the confis cated estates. Believing that he would easily master heresy in the Czech countries, Ferdinand proceeded with much rigour against the Bohemian Brethren, whom he regarded as the ring leaders, with the towns, in the revolt. Persecution, however, only enhanced the Brethren's courage and determination, and the diet of Moravia, where tolerance was general, opposed the king's demands. Ferdinand, suspecting his brother of wishing to rob him of the imperial Crown, became more conciliatory towards the German Protestants, and was forced to modify his attitude in Bohemia correspondingly. While Lutheranism increasingly pene trated the Utraquist Church, Ferdinand thought to recover here tics by persuading the pope to concede communion in both kinds to lay persons (1564). About the same time he introduced the Jesuits into Bohemia (156i) and their work, at first slow and difficult, prepared the generation which after the White mountain realized Ferdinand's plans much more fully and boldly than he himself had conceived.

The Turkish advance had reduced the Habsburg territories in Hungary to the semi-circle bordering the western and northern frontier of the kingdom. The great majority of the population of these regions was Slavonic, Croat in the south, Slovak in the north ; while Pressburg, the capital of royal Hungary, stood in Slovak territory. Conditions were favourable for a rapproche ment between the Czechs and the Slovaks, who had been separated since the early loth century by the Magyar domination in Hun gary; but such a rapprochement could be neither far-reaching nor effective, given contemporary political and social conditions, and the mistrust and fear which it would have inspired in the Habs burgs, whose centralizing, and consequently Germanizing, policy was opposed to it.

Maximilian II.

To ensure respect for the hereditary prin ciple Ferdinand had made the estates recognize his eldest son, Maximilian, in 1549. This custom of recognition of the heir presumptive during the king's lifetime was again followed in the cases of Maximilian's own three successors, his sons Rudolph and Matthias and his nephew Ferdinand. As a young man, Maxi milian had appeared favourably inclined towards the Protestants; but after his election as emperor (1561) he had adopted his father's policy in a milder form. He readily accorded the diet the abrogation of the compacts which, originally a guarantee of religious liberty, had become under Ferdinand an obstacle to the free development of Protestantism in its various forms, including the Unity; but refused to authorize the Neo-Utraquists to adopt the Augsburg confession. In 1576 the Lutheran and Calvinist tendencies agreed on the text of a new confession, the "Bohemian confession." Maximilian managed to dissuade the estates from giving this legal sanction and to content themselves with his word of honour to respect religious liberty and with the right of electing Is "defenders" to watch over the liberty of the Protes tant faith; promises which Rudolph repeated on his recognition as king. Maximilian died shortly after, disappointed in his f ar reaching international ambitions, and leaving the royal authority weaker and less respected than he found it.

Rudolph II.

In the middle of the 16th century about two thirds of the population of Bohemia were Protestants (Neo Utraquists or Lutherans) ; one-tenth United Brethren; rather more had remained Catholics, especially in southern Bohemia and Moravia; among the nobles, however, the proportion of Catholics was much higher (about one-fourth). As soon as the counter-reformation began, this Catholic minority gained in numbers and vigour; various nobles, including some great families reverted to the old faith; the Catholic magnates began to impose their religion throughout their domains, and intolerance grew widespread. While the old official Utraquist Church fell into final collapse, the United Brethren organized more strongly in a remarkable religious and intellectual movement; but they were too unpractical to help the nation greatly in the impending life struggle.

The religious struggles were partly the manifestation of social and national conflict. The economic evolution of the 16th century tended to enrich the magnates, who extended their great proper ties at the expense of the knights; while the cities lost their commerce and decayed in consequence of the shifting of the great trade routes. The economic condition of the peasants improved slightly, but their legal status grew worse, the growing need of labour inducing the magnates to restrict increasingly their liberty of movement. The spread of Protestantism in Bohemia had attracted thither German immigrants, who had advanced the linguistic frontier, and forced the estates, first of Moravia, then of Bohemia, to issue laws in the early r8th century protecting the use of the Czech language in public life.

Rudolph II., with his unstable, suspicious and melancholy character and narrow Spanish upbringing, was not the man to pilot the kingdom through a formidable crisis. His arbitrary attempt to exterminate Protestantism in Hungary evoked Bocs kay's formidable rebellion, which forced Matthias, the king's lieutenant in Hungary, to sign the peace of Vienna with the rebels and that of Zsitvatorok with the Turks (16o6). On Rudolph's refusing ratification, Matthias, supported by the Hun garian and Bohemian magnates, rose against him ; Moravia fol lowed him, whereupon Bohemia remained faithful to Rudolph. The Peace of Liben (16o8) left Matthias in possession of Moravia and Austria, and recognized him as future king of Bohemia. The fratricidal struggle had naturally profited the nobles of their estates ; Matthias was curbed by a confederation of his new sub jects, and Rudolph had to sign a series of articles, designed to exclude all foreign influence from Bohemia and vest all real power in the diet. He demurred only to the religious demands ; but Mat thias having yielded on this point, the diet of 1609 finally forced Rudolph to grant confessional liberty for the nobles and royal towns, liberty of conscience for all, a constitutional guarantee for the Bohemian confession, appointment of the consistory by the estates, and the control of the university by defenders chosen by them. This famous Charter-Majestat (July 9) was accom panied by an agreement between Catholics and Protestants, in dubitably sincerely meant but so obscurely drafted that it after wards formed the occasion of the disputes which developed into the rebellion of 1618. While the last remnants of the traditionalist Utraquist Church reverted to Catholicism, the new consistory was composed of Neo-Utraquists and Brethren, the latter closely allied with the Lutherans, and thanks to the wisdom of Budovec, the moral leader of the Union, the new regime opened smoothly. When Rudolph, whose sole thought was now revenge against Matthias, encouraged his cousin Leopold, bishop of Passau, whom he hoped to make his successor, to conspire with the Catholic magnates to cancel the Majestat and release his mercenaries upon Bohemia, which they invaded as far as Prague, the country rose against the invaders; Matthias came to the estates' assistance, and Rudolph, who had betrayed all parties, had to abdicate (April 1611) , dying soon after (Jan. 1612) .

The Revolt.

Under Rudolph, Prague had been the capital of the Austrian monarchy. Matthias removed the capital to Vienna, thereby confirming the estates in their suspicions and opposition. Nevertheless the diet of 1617 dared not refuse to recognize as their future king the Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, Matthias's nephew, a pupil and docile instrument of the Jesuits. For some years, however, the leaders of the Protestant party had been in communication abroad to prepare a revolt ; Bohemia was also affected by the situation in Germany, where the conflict be tween the Catholic league and the Protestant union was growing acute. The violation of the promises contained in the Majestat regarding the royal and church domains and Matthias's action in entrusting the government to a council composed of fanatical Catholics brought the outbreak nearer. The rejection of the claims presented in March 1618 by the Protestant assembly legally con voked by the defenders in virtue of the Majestat, led in May to the famous defenestration of Prague, when the two most ardent Catholics of the council, Martinic and Slavata, were hurled into the moat of the castle (being, incidentally, only slightly injured). The diet appointed a council of 3o directors, decided to levy an army, decreed the expulsion of the Jesuits and confiscation of their property, and negotiated for an agreement with the other lands of the Bohemian Crown. They reached agreement with Silesia, at the price of relaxing the ties between that province and the Crown ; the scruples of Zerotin delayed the adherence of Moravia until most of its importance was gone. The Protestant party itself was divided by the reappearance of old misunder standings between Lutherans and Brethren, and the former were estranged when, on the death of Matthias, the diet again pro claimed the throne elective and invited a Calvinist, the Elector Palatine, Frederick V., to fill it (Aug. 1619). A young, inexperi enced and weak sovereign ; an undisciplined and selfish oligarchy ; an inferior army and lack of foreign allies; exhaustion after the great effort of the 15th century; absence of self-confidence, espe cially the absence of what had been the nation's strength in the Hussite wars—the enthusiasm of the peasant masses, now reduced to serfdom and consequently deaf to any sentiment beyond that of their misery and social hatred : these causes explain the defeat of the insurgents at the White mountain, at the gates of Prague (Nov. 8, 1620). Frederick, the "winter's king," fled, followed by many of the magnates, abandoning the country to Ferdinand, who had become emperor in Aug. 1619, and to the Jesuits.

The Reaction, l620-27.

Lichtenstein, the new governor, pre sided over the political, the papal nuncio Carafa over the ecclesi astical, reaction. The execution of 27 real or alleged leaders of the revolt (three nobles, seven knights, 17 burgesses) preluded the general confiscation of the rebels' properties, whereby three quarters of the estates (excluding those of king and church) changed hands; this gigantic expropriation, which was attended by scandalous corruption, substituted for the old aristocracy new families : Spaniards, Walloons, Germans, who had furnished the emperor's mercenary officers; one of the most greedy and best favoured of them was Waldstein. The concession of communion in both kinds was revoked, all pastors expelled, the ancient schools closed, and the ancient and glorious university, the entire conduct of public instruction, and the censorship (162 2) delivered to the Jesuits. In 1625 the re-catholicization of the towns by fines, prison and bailiffs began; by 1626 it was complete, at least out wardly. In 1627 all nobles refusing to adopt Catholicism, which the new constitution proclaimed the sole recognized religion, were expelled. Revolts of the peasants against conversion were fairly easily repressed. The serfs had not the last resort of nobles and burgesses who refused conversion—emigration. Thirty thousand families emigrated, comprising nearly a quarter of the nobility and urban population of Bohemia, the moral and intellectual flower of the nation. In 1627 Ferdinand enacted a new Consti tution. Absolute heredity was established, the practice of securing recognition for the future king disappearing; the estates were forbidden any legislative initiative on any important point; Catholicism was proclaimed the sole religion ; the clergy were con stituted as the leading estate in country and diet ; and German was admitted beside Czech as the official language. Legally, the Bo hemian lands preserved their independent identity; actually, they were absorbed in the Austrian monarchy, keeping their own ad ministrative forms so long as it remained patrimonial, losing them increasingly as it was transformed into a modern state.

National Decline.

The Treaty of Westphalia ended the hopes of revenge which, thanks to Waldstein, had seemed for a moment practicable. The last light of Czech intellectual life went out when Comenius died in Holland in 1670. The exhausted coun try fell into misery and torpor. The peasant class, now sole rep resentatives of the nation, were crushed under the yoke of the greedy and brutal foreigners, their new masters. The large landed properties, which formerly covered one-third of the country, now occupied two-thirds, while the estates of the knights and the towns had become insignificant. The population was reduced by so% or more. The peasant, with three days of corvee a week under the law of 168o, rising to six at busy periods under that of 1738, his dues multiplied five-fold between 166o and 173o, could hardly live, fell into debt, degenerated physically; frequent risings were brutally repressed. Czech fell to be a peasant tongue, Ger man monopolizing polite society and public life. The old ties with Moravia, which gravitated increasingly towards Vienna, were relaxed. In Slovakia Czech gained a little ground, thanks to the Bohemian immigrants; and the Slovak peasants, with the Ruthene, formed the bulk of the forces raised by the Hungarian rebel chiefs against the Habsburgs ; but they were led in the name of Hun garian liberty, for the benefit of Magyar nobles. The reconquest of Hungary from the Turks, the peace of Szatmar, and the adop tion of the Pragmatic Sanction (172o in Bohemia) further strengthened the position of the dynasty and consolidated the unity of the monarchy.

Period of Enlightened Despotism (1740-90).

In the first years of Maria Theresa's reign, the Bohemian Crown lost Silesia to Frederick II., by the treaties of Breslau (1742) and Dresden ; while its independence and dignity were diminished by the various reforms (see AUSTRIA) ; measures which marked the beginning of centralization in Austria, and, Hungary not being included in them, held the germ of dualism. Local administration, hitherto divided between the sovereign and the estates, passed entirely to the sovereign (1751) ; while the decree fixing the contribution towards the upkeep of the army for ten years (1748) deprived the diet of the chance to exercise one of its few remain ing powers. The undignified and cowardly attitude of the Bo hemian nobles when Bohemia and Prague were occupied by Charles Albert's forces in 1741 (half the nobles did him homage) contrasted painfully with the Hungarian attitude at the diet of Pressburg and influenced, if not the principle of these reforms, at least the manner of their execution.

Against the potential injury to the Czech cause from this abo lition of the last remnants of national independence and the retreat of the national language before German, which conquered successively the upper schools (17 70-81), the university (1784) and the municipal administration of Prague, must be placed the beneficial effects of the economic and educative measures taken by Maria Theresa's Government, particularly the legislation for relief of the peasants; a maximum was fixed for their share of dues (one-third, later-1756—two-fifths of the total yield of the land) and their corvee obligations (Patent of 1756). They were still heavy, but the authority of the State now intervened against arbitrary extension of them. General prosperity increased rapidly. The first census (1754) showed 3,000,00o inhabitants in the lands of the Bohemian Crown; in 1781, this had risen to 4,500,000.

The more systematic and radical reforms of Joseph II. did even more to raise the Czech nation; while the evolution of de mocracy broadened the basis of national life. Two supremely im portant measures were issued almost simultaneously : the edict of toleration (Oct. 13, 1781) which abolished the draconic dis positions which had throttled the nation's religious life since Fer dinand II.'s day, and allowed Protestants Iiberty to confess their faith and practise their religion; and the edict of Nov. 1, 1781, which restored to the peasants their personal liberty, leaving only their economic obligations towards their masters, and reducing even these by the edict of Feb. 1o, 1789, which fixed the maximum dues on the peasants at 3o% of the total yield of their land (12% for taxation, 18% for the landlord and the priest) . Although the last-named measure was abrogated under Leopold II., the two chief edicts survived ; and the Czech renaissance benefited from them more than it suffered from the new restrictions imposed on the activity of the diets or their committees, or the general introduction (for purely practical, not nationalist, reasons) of German as the language of administration.

The Reaction (1790-1848) .

The opposition to Joseph's re forms was mainly feudal ; but an instinctive adaptation to the spirit of the age led it to adopt liberal and constitutional formulas, while against Germanization it naturally took its stand on the national tongue. Although less vigorous than in Hungary, it was sufficiently stout in Bohemia, while Moravia remained, as usual, more timid, more conservative and more truly reactionary. Joseph's successor, Leopold II., re-established in the main the constitutional situation of the middle of Maria Theresa's reign and made peace with the nobles by sacrificing to them the edict of 1789 on corvee. He made, however, a first concession to the growing Czech national feeling among the upper and middle classes by founding a chair of Czech language at Prague university. From this moment the idea of Czech solidarity with the Serbs., of Pan-Slav solidarity, begins to appear; for example, in the great scholar and patriot, Dobrovsky.

The French wars of 1792-1815 suspended the normal political life of the shaken monarchy and reduced it to financial extremity. In the Bohemian countries the events in France awoke some faint echo in the peasant masses, while the passage of Russian troops stimulated somewhat Slav sentiment. The creation of the title of emperor of Austria (1804) strengthened centralizing tend encies, de facto, if not de jure. The first generation of "awaken ers," on the other hand, with Dobrovsky and Jungmann, revived the scientific study of the national language and antiquities, while the large industry which was to advance the country so enormously made its modest beginnings. After the restoration of 1815, the national movement, hitherto inspired mainly by i8th-century rationalism, came under the influence of German romanticism. The study of history now supplanted that of philology; Palacky began his great task of organizing the national effort, both in pure scholarship (foundation of the Review of the Bohemian Museum, 18 2 7) and in the practical field (formation of the "Matice" pub lishing concern, 183o). He was helped by a little group of aristo crats, notably Count Sternberg, founder of the Bohemian museum (1818), provincial patriots, desirous to defend the individuality of Bohemia against Viennese centralism rather than the Czech nation for itself. The same provincial feeling animated the diet in its manifestations of growing opposition to the Government and, in 1847, inspired its programme of political demands, remi niscent of that which it had presented to Leopold II. 5o years earlier. Provincial patriotism again, although of a very different trend, wholly democratic, inspired the young German literature of Bohemia at that time. After the revolution of 183o showed the weakness of the restoration, and the Polish insurrection of 1831 stimulated the sentiment of Slavonic solidarity towards the Poles (the Russophils were only a small group), the national renaissance became more markedly political and liberal; Charles Havlicek, a liberal democrat, disciple of the French thinkers and writers, joined Palacky, the liberal conservative, as a moulder of Czech opinion.

All this movement was concentrated in Bohemia. Moravia was in general sluggish and indifferent, while Slovakia chose this moment for a linguistic secession. The Czech renaissance origi nated largely in Slovakia, doubtless because in Hungary Protes tantism, protected by the Constitution, had preserved its liberty. Intellectual life there centred round the Pressburg Lyceum, which produced the great figures of Palacky, Safarik and Kollar, the first apostle of Slav intellectual and moral solidarity. The more Slovakia formed the "Czech national reserve," as Havlicek said, the greater was the potential danger to the national forces of the linguistic separation which, after the first attempt made by Ber nolak, 179o-181 o, seemed definitely accomplished when Louis Still-, a young teacher at Pressburg, raised the dialect of central Slovakia to the rank of a literary language in 1843. This apparent separatism was in each case rooted in a deep national sentiment. Bernolak had hoped to fight at once Protestantism, which was still attached to the Czech of the reformers, and the advance of German ; Stur to create a linguistic instrument common to the Slovaks of every district and every creed to resist the increasingly violent assaults of Magyarization.

The Revolution of 1848.

In 1848 the national leadership passed from the aristocracy to the new middle classes. Their pro gramme comprised a Bohemia restored in its political individ uality; i.e., with full internal autonomy, national equality, true constitutionalism and a strong, united monarchy (as Palack said : "if Austria did not exist, she must be invented"). Proclaimed at the first revolutionary meeting (March 11), accepted in prin ciple by an imperial cabinet order (April 8), thwarted by the counter-offensive of centralism (Austrian Constitution of April 25) and the increasingly separatist ambitions of Hungary, this programme was forced to reduce its claims when the Whitsun rising (June 12, 1848), which coincided with the meeting at Prague of a Slavonic Congress, brought the Austrian army under Windischgratz its first victory over the revolution. The Czechs had to abandon their ambition of a constituent diet in Prague for the lands of the Bohemian Crown and concentrated their efforts on the Austrian parliament which met at Vienna in July. Their policy of loyalty to a federalist or autonomist Austria grew more marked. The course of events in Germany itself showed increas ingly how right Palacky had been in April to answer the invitation to Frankfurt by declaring that Bohemia was not German, Austria not Germanic but super-national, and increasingly justified the Czechs' action in May in refusing to elect deputies for the lands of the Bohemian Crown to the German parliament. The growth of ex treme nationalism and separatism in Hungary, the violent refusal returned by the Pest Government to the moderate demands of the Slovaks, which thus drove them to armed resistance and civil war, the assumption by Jella'6ie, the Ban of Croatia, of the rOle of defender of the Slays, naturally inclined Czech policy in this Austrophil direction. The parliament was about to commence discussion on a draft Constitution, based on mutual concession between the Germans and the Slays, which it would certainly have passed, probably thereby changing the whole evolution of the Austrian question, when the Viennese Government abruptly dissolved parliament (March 7, 1849) and reintroduced an abso lutism which was legally consecrated in Dec. 1851.

Results of the Revolution.

The only gain of the revolution which was not questioned was the liberation of the peasants. No Austrian nationality profited more than the Czech from the law of Sept. 7, 1848, which abolished all old feudal burdens (see AUSTRIA). After the White mountain the Czechs had sunk to be a peasant nation, with only the faint beginnings, in the 19th cen tury, of a middle class; the establishment of peasant ownership enabled them to develop a real national wealth, while the restora tion of personal liberty and dignity allowed them to develop their system of national education and thus create the elements of modern political life; in both fields they would now meet the competition of their rivals and compatriots, the Germans, and also profit by the industrial development which followed the abolition of tariff walls within the monarchy, the establishment of railways, the extension of industry and the expansion of modern capitalism. This new middle class, peasant-born, con quered successively the liberal professions and public offices, both at home and in the central departments in Vienna, thus gradually preparing the way for the future Czechoslovak State.

The effects of these developments could not, however, be felt at once, and the 20 years after the revolution formed for the Czechs and Slovaks a period of painful struggle, relieved only by rare rays of hope. One of these was the enactment—after ten years of centralist, absolutist and Germanizing rule—of the Oct. (186o) Diploma, a compromise between the necessary unity of the monarchy and the historical autonomy of its parts. The February (1861) Patent, however, on the pretext of applying the principles of the Diploma, actually substituted for it a centralist and Germanic pseudo-institutionalism, the franchise being in geniously calculated to favour the Germans enormously against the Czechs in the Bohemian lands, and still more, the higher aris tocracy against the people of either nationality. The aristocracy was divided into two camps, differing rather by family rivalry than by political conviction, and united by their common will to maintain their privileges; a court party, soi-disant liberal, and a provincial and feudal, known as "historic." The Czech leaders, believing that they needed a link with the all-powerful Crown, allied themselves in 186o with the "historic" party. Their policy thus became tinged with historicism and soon brought them into conflict with the national Hussite tradition and the economic evo lution of the country. The February Constitution, discredited by the abstention of the Czechs, who ceased to attend parliament in 1863, and the hostility of the Magyars, was suspended in 1865. Again the outlook improved for Bohemia, the new leader of the Government, Belcredi, belonging to the party of "historic" no bility. But in 1867 Francis Joseph signed the compromise with Hungary embodying the Hungarian dualist programme. The rec ognition of Hungary as a sovereign State cut the Slovaks off from the Czechs and delivered them to Magyar domination, whereas the Constitution of the non-Hungarian territories in a single State, corresponding to the Hungarian State, was the crown and sanction of the long evolution commenced by the Constitution of 1627.

Struggle for Historic Rights.

Czech policy after 186o had undoubtedly committed a great mistake in imitating too faith fully that of the Magyars. From the identity of the legal status of the two kingdoms with respect to the monarch during the century 1526-1627 they drew political deductions which ignored the actual differences between the situations and relative strengths of the two countries and nations. The same idea dictated their attitude of passive opposition from 1867 to 1879, which gave a free hand to the centralist German "liberals" who formed the governments in Austria. The national language made, however, some progress during this period in public life, particularly in the schools; and the nation grew in wealth and culture, and thus, auto matically, in national consciousness. After the creation of the German empire the Viennese court, fearing its attraction on the Germans of Austria, attempted to counter this danger by con cessions to the Slays; but Hungary's resistance to any modifica tion, even nominal, of the Compromise, forced Francis Joseph to revoke the rescript of Sept. 12 by which he had invited the diet to present to him a new Bohemian Constitution, and to drop the "fundamental articles" which it had elaborated. The revised franchise of 1873 (see AUSTRIA) was another blow to the his toric individuality of the lands of the Bohemian Crown, and weakened Czech resistance. In Moravia passive resistance ceased in 1874; the Czech deputies for Bohemia reappeared in the diet in 1878. When the opposition of the Germans to the annexation of Bosnia led the emperor to replace the German Liberal system by a Conservative regime, neutral towards the nationalities (Taaffe's Ministry, 1879), the policy of passivity ceased automat ically.

The Czechs gained appreciable advantages from the new regime: the linguistic decrees of 188o which, if not establishing an equality between Czech and German in public life, diminished the difference between them, the Czech university in Prague (1882), a more friendly, or less hostile, administration, ministers of their own nationality. But their own leaders were embarrassed by the need, as one of them said, of thus "picking up crumbs," of depending wholly on the Government and the "historic" nobility, which grew increasingly intransigeant in their conser vatism and Catholicism; while the power of the Young Czechs, the more advanced fraction, increased. The compromise concluded by the more conservative Old Czechs with the Germans in 189o, although bringing real and permanent advantages to the Czech cause, was denounced as treason because it left German the language of internal administration; at the 1891 elections they were swept away by the Young Czechs. This virtually ended Taaffe's regime (he resigned 1893).

Respect for the maxims of "historic" rights, and the Magyar example, naturally hindered the Czechs largely from defending the Slovaks against Magyarization, which was exerted with ex treme brutality. Slovakia was represented in the Hungarian par liament only by Magyars or Germans; Slovak upper schools were closed on the pretext of Pan-Slav conspiracies (1874); the Slovak national cultural society, the Matice, was dissolved and its funds confiscated (1875).

New National Spirit (1890-1914).

From 1893-1905, po litical life seemed dominated by the language question. The tumultuous party and national conflict was only aggravated by the introduction of universal suffrage in 1907. In Bohemia both the diet (1908) and its executive committee, which was replaced provisionally in 1913 by a commission of officials, were paralysed; but in Moravia a compromise was achieved (19o5) which assured the Czechs their rights as a majority, while safeguarding the Ger man minority. The development of the Eastern crisis from 19o8 on steadily increased the hostility of the Slays to Austrian official policy, subordinated to Germany, and therefore anti-Slav, and increasingly dominated by the Magyars, whose power in the monarchy increased as Austria grew weaker. In Hungary the per secution of the Slovaks grew. First the schools were attacked (Apponyi's law of 1907, which made even the confessional schools, entirely supported by Slovak voluntary contributions, instruments of Magyarization), then the clergy, to enlist the influence of ecclesiastical authority in the service of Magyarization.

Below the surface of this political turbulence, a new spirit, modern, critical and scientific, had been growing up since the foundation of Prague university. It found political expression in the foundation of a "realist" group, later party, under Professor Masaryk (q.v.). Masaryk gathered round him a group of young intellectuals who introduced new inspiration into the moral and political life of the Czechs, and substituted among the Slovaks the idea of self-help for the old fatalist and Russophil mysticism. His courage and energy in the Agram and Friedjung trials gained him a unique authority among the Slays of Europe, even in those parties whose old romantic errors he combated; and the Masaryk Aerenthal duel became the symbol of the struggle in which the spirit of John Huss was to face the spirit of Ferdinand II. in the World War. (See CZECHOSLOVAKIA.) Geschichte von Bohmen (5844-67) ; Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum (Prague, 1871 et seq.) ; E. Denis, Jean Hus et la guerre des Hussites (1878) ; id., La fin de l'independance boheme (189o) ; Bachmann, Geschichte Bohmens (1899-1905) (from German point of view) ; E. Denis, La Boheme depuis la Montagne Blanche (5903) ; L. Eisenmann, Le Compromis austro-hongrois de 1867 (19o4) ; R. W. Seton-Watson, Racial Problems in Hungary (1908) ; id., Corruption and Reform in Hungary (191I) ; Bretholz, Geschichte Bohmens and Mahrens (1912 and 1921-24) (from German point of view) ; R. W. Seton-Watson, German, Slav and Magyar (1916) ; E. Denis, La Question d'Autriche—les Slovaques (1917) ; J. Redlich, Das oest. Staats and Reichsproblem (192o-26) . (L. E.)