Of the historians of the Hussite wars undoubtedly the greatest was Lawrence of Březov. The learned Professor Goll, in his able introduction to his recent edition of Březov’s history, lays great stress on this superiority. Yet the name of Březov, like that of so many Bohemian historians, was almost unknown up to the middle of the last century. It is true that in Ludewig’s Reliquiae, published at Halle and Frankfurt in 1720, we find[1] the name of one Byzynius, who is mentioned as the author of a Diarium Hussiticum, but it is not without difficulty that we ascertain that the person referred to is Lawrence of Březov. The researches of Palacký, and more recently of Professor Goll, however, throw considerable light on the personality of the foremost historian of the Hussite wars. According to Professor Goll, Březov was born in 1370, as a member of an ancient noble family of Bohemia, and in 1394 obtained the rank of Master of Arts at the university of Prague. Previously (in 1391) he had through the favour of Queen Sophia, wife of Wenceslas IV of Bohemia, obtained permission to hold an ecclesiastical benefice, though he had not yet reached the appointed age. As Professor Goll remarks, the revenue appeared to him most important, for he had no intention of formally entering the ecclesiastical state. Březov evidently enjoyed great favour at the court of King Wenceslas, and according to a very probable conjecture held the office of secretary or chancellor to the king.
Besides his great historical work which is written in Latin, and a rhymed chronicle celebrating the important victory of the Bohemians at Domažlice (Tauss)
- ↑ Tom. vi, p. 435.
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