Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/377

civilization, a shining torch which carried western thought into the East. It cannot be doubted that from the second half of the 14th century Bohemia has been the intellectual and moral capital of central and eastern Europe.

During the reign of Charles which is still the splendor and glory of the Czech nation—and we have the right to recall it with legitimate pride—Latin and Czech, French and Slav civilizations were bound together so closely that it is impossible to say what belongs to Bohemia and what to France.

It is at this time that the royal castle of Prague rises on the Hradčany, modeled after the Louvre; at this time one of our architects builds the magnificent cathedral of St. Vitus, and the whole land adorns itself with churches and castles which were inspired by our art and reflected our thought.

Charles I. could be satisfied with his work. He found at his accession a kingdom torn by internal quarrels, scourged by revolutionary spirit, empoverished; he left to his son a prosperous, mighty, united state. German historians are severe toward Emperor Charles IV. Their reproaches are unjust; at the bottom of their criticism one always finds the same complaint: they cannot forgive him because he loved the Czech people and placed it at the head of the world.

Christian civilization in the Middle Ages did not affect the various countries with the same degree of penetration; the center of that civilization was found in Latin and Germanic countries. Bohemia was on the periphery of this zone. From the more advanced and richer lands there passed to the eastern countries, less densely populated, groups of resolute individuals, men of enterprise and with important capital, who brought with them new methods and novel ideas, social forms more highly developed: it was capitalistic colonization, with manners more polite and habits more refined. These newcomers, Latins, Germans, Jews, did not identify themselves with the mass of the population, but constituted distinct groups, independent islands, united with each other by community of customs, by international ties that paid no attention to political organizations of the country, which were rather unstable and which by this penetration were made even less solid. Without denying the good effects which these foreign elements probably had upon the economic, social and moral evolution of the people, it is certain that they constituted a great menace to its independence. In the 14th century Bohemia ceased to be an ethnic unity, and it was running a great risk of losing its nationality.

The principal merit of Charles IV. was to have perceived this danger. For the rest he only continued with more determination and firmness national resistance which the Slav element of the kingdom had offered. Germans in Bohemia make up a considerable group, and have done so for a long time. But they have always been regarded as intruders; they have never attempted to create a state; the kingdom of Bohemia has been the exclusive work of the Slav element.

Charles sought his support naturally in the national group, in the party which held to the unity and independence of the kingdom. It gathered itself around the sovereign. It earned his confidence by assuring him a sort of preponderance in central Europe; it aroused in him the sentiment of national dignity and patriotism.

His piety was profound and sincere; as head of the Holy Roman Germanic Empire he was in any case obliged to lean on the Holy See, and he was always an ardent champion of the faith. He saw in the Catholic doctrine the means of strengthening the tie that united him with his subjects. But his policy brought results contrary to those he had in view. On the one hand by extending his favor to the clergy he favored abuses and increased corruption; the evils with which the Church suffered appeared the more scandalous, the more ardent were the convictions. It was natural that the revolt against papacy should break out in the very country in which the Christian idea had penetrated most deeply into the souls of the people.

On the other hand, Charles by restoring national unity strengthened the moral personality of the people which manifested itself in the desire for independence. Created by the Chucrh, it defended against it its own right to individual existence.

The 15th century is the period in which the unity of Christendom is definitely broken, when national civilizations detach themselves from the Catholic universality. In Bohemia this movement of emancipation was accompanied by unusual violence,