ox THE BRONZE DOORS OF THE CATHEDRAL OF GXKSEX. ;! I 5 written shortly after his death, which arc printed in tlio Acta Sanctorum,'^ and in Pertz's llcr. Germ. Scriptores.'* The first of these is stated by the writer to have been composed in the reign of Otho the Tliird (f)S3-l 002), and the author is supposed to have been one Joliannes Canaparius, a monk in the convent at Rome, in which St. Adalbert had formerly lived. The other is ascribed by the editors of the Acta Sanct., to an unknown monk ; by Pertz, to 8t. Jjruno, who was consecrated " Archiepiscopiis Gentium " in 1001, and martyred in Russia about 1009. The two lives agree in most respects ; the first is simpler in style and more minute in its details, the second more rhetorical and didactic. In the following narrative I have preferred, where any difference existed, to follow the first rather than the second. St. Adalbert was born in Bohemia about the 3Tar 9aG, of noble parents, his father being Count of Lubic, by name, it is said, Slawnik,"* his mother s name was Strziezislaw^a. At this time Bohemia was very imperfectly Christianised,^ but his birthplace was one of those parts of the country where the Christian religion was the most in honour. In baptism he received the name of Woitiech, or Woyciech, (explained to mean the "consolation of the army") by which he has always been, and is to the present da}^, known to the Bohemians and Poles. While an infant he was suddenly seized with a dangerous sickness, and was in imminent peril of death,*" but his parents having carried him to the neighbouring church and placed him on the altar of the Virgin iMar}^ he as suddenly recovered. While a boy he showed some disposition to study, and being placed in the care of the priests, he is said to have committed the whole psalter to memory before the age of sixteen. Having thus, as his biographer (Vita Secunda, p. 188), expresses it, been fed upon the nectar of iJavidand the honey of Gregory, he was sent to Magdeburg, in order that he might "eat his part of the seven loaves of wisdom." ^ Here he was received 2 ."'•rd vol. Of Ai»ril, 23rd day. noniinlli tainon, ct l)enc orcduiit et bona
- 6th vol. ojxra aguiit." — Vifa Prior, p. 17J',
- As, however, this word means no " Curvis iniguibus laeerat ora pallida
more than "a Slavonian," some mistake niitrix," says the autlior of the Vita Prior, seems probable. wiien doscriliing the oonsternation pro-
- "Pars maxima, lignum vcl lapidcm diiced in the family liy his sndikii aftaii;.
pro Deo colunt ; plorirpie vcrf), nomine ' ?'.. Tlio Triviuni : (iraniniar, Lo;;ic, tenus Christiani, ritu gentiliinn vivunt ; and Illietoric;and theQiiadrivinin : Aiiih- niPti'", Geonu'try, Mnsic, and Astrotioinv.
