account of the riots which immediately followed the execution of Zělivo is that given by one of the contemporary chroniclers.[1] He writes: “In that year [1422], on the Monday following the Reminiscere Sunday during Lent-time, the priest John, a monk of the Premonstratensian monastery, preacher at the Church of St. Mary-of-the-Snow, was beheaded in the town-hall, and with him twelve other men, and the hall was well closed. Then the priest Gaudentius carried his [priest John’s] head through the streets on a dish, inciting the citizens to avenge him. Then also the armed citizens of the new town sounded the bells of all their churches, scaled the walls of the old town[2] demanding that [the body of] priest John should be delivered up to them. Lord Hašek was then captain of the old town, and he had ordered all young nobles from the neighbouring country to be in Prague on this day. (This Lord Hašek with his men placed himself at the corner of the Želežná Ulice (Iron street)[3] nearest to the market-place; but when he understood that he was not safe there he hid himself in Prague,[4] so that many houses were afterwards plundered by those who searched for him. Then the men of the new town, seeing that no resistance was offered them, rushed into the market-place, forced open the gates of the town-hall and found there the bodies of the decapitated. They then began with loud and menacing voices to rail against the murderers. They also searched for the aldermen of the old town, and plundered and destroyed their houses, wherever they found one of them they murdered him. They then attacked the Jews and robbed or destroyed all their possessions. When there was nothing more to steal there, they attacked the [university] colleges, forced open the gates and took away the books of the masters and other scholars,
- ↑ “Scriptores rerum Bohemicarum,” Vol. III. pp. 50–51.
- ↑ The old town was then divided from the new by fortifications. See my Prague (“Mediæval Towns” series), p. 7.
- ↑ The street still bears that name. See my Prague, p. 178.
- ↑ The entire career of Valdštýn proves that this accusation of cowardice levelled against him is a calumny. The whole account shows, indeed, great animosity against him.
