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Moravia 135 23 MORAVIA 84. HEADING northward through Austria, one arrives among the Moravians, a fierce race, avid for plunder, who dwell on the other side of the Danube between the Hungarians and Bohemians . In our day, Emperor Sigismund made a gift of this country to his son-in-law Albert, who succeeded him as emperor.295 When it rebelled and refused to obey his orders, Albert caused it to suffer great destruction. For he burned over five hundred farms in a single expedition, put many people to death, drove off almost all the livestock , and forced that perfidious people to bear his yoke.296 In this country, the cities and towns observe the ritual of the Roman Church and subscribe to the Catholic faith, whereas almost all the barons are tainted with the Hussite stain. When Giovanni da Capistrano was here, preaching the word of God, and vehemently attacked the errors of the Hussites, he achieved the conversion of an important baron called Czernahora. Renouncing his former faithlessness, he embraced the truth of the Roman See along with two thousand of his subjects. His son, a man of outstanding culture and character, obtained the see of Olomouc not long afterward.297 This is the only city of the Moravians which has a bishop. The Moravians once possessed an extensive and powerful kingdom , which lasted until the son of Svatopluk (whose fortunes I have described in my History of Bohemia). When the son of Svatopluk rejected the church of God, the kingdom was confiscated from this people and later transferred to Bohemia by the Roman emperors .298 In this country, there are many populous and prosperous 295. King of Bohemia (as Albert I, r. 1438–39), Emperor Albert II (r. 1438–39). 296. Sigismund gave Moravia to Albert in 1423, but he faced opposition from Hussite nobles in the region. See para. 5. 297. Protasius of Czernahora, bishop of Olomouc (r. 1457–82). 298. See Aeneas’s Historia Bohemica, vol. 1: 92–98. Svatopluk was king of Greater Moravia (r. 871–94). One of his sons, Mojmir II (r. 894–906), was on favorable terms with 136 Silesia towns, chief among them Brno and Znojmo, which is famous for the death of Sigismund. No one enjoys free passage through this land except for the armed and powerful, for all its roads of access are beset by robbers. The people speak a mixture of German and Bohemian, but the Bohemians, who control the region, are predominant. It is difficult to say which tribes once inhabited Moravia. But so far as I can gather from reading Ptolemy, the Marcomannians, Sudinians , and Candians seem to have settled in Moravia and the part of Austria which lies across the Danube.299 24 SILESIA 85. AFTER Moravia, next comes Silesia—a country of no small renown, through which flows the Oder, one of Germany’s most famous rivers. Its source is in Hungary, which lies on the eastern border of Silesia, and its course ends at the Baltic Sea. This land is about two hundred miles in length and eighty miles in breadth. The people’s capital is Breslau, a spacious city situated on the banks of the Oder, which is beautifully adorned with private and public buildings. Our forefathers described its bishopric as “golden,” but the Hussite Wars have reduced it to mud.300 When Wenceslas was reigning over Bohemia, a conspiracy arose in this city, and the consuls , who hold the highest power, were pitched from the windows of the town hall into the marketplace, where they were met by the the pope, but his younger son, whose name is unknown, led a strong opposition to his brother and may be the son Aeneas refers to in this passage. See Jaroslav Pánek, Tůma Oldřich, et al., A History of the Czech Lands (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2009), 69–72. 299. Ptolemy, Geography, 2.11.11; Ptolemy has it as Quadians, not Candians. 300. The Hussite Wars, c. 1420–36, were led by Bohemian nobles to protest the execution of Czech reformer, Jan Hus, for heresy in 1414, and to force Emperor Sigismund to accept their demands, namely communion in both forms. For more on this conflict , see Thomas A. Fudge, ed. and trans., The Crusade against the Heretics in Bohemia, 1418–1437 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). ...

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