Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (25 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
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Mili
preached against pride and luxury, against the dubious fiscal interests of the mendicant friars, and he felt increasingly attracted by the prophecies of the Book of Daniel, which he studied, it is reported, with the help of Jewish scholars. He was obsessed with the idea of the coming of the satanic Antichrist, predicted for the mid-1360s; and during a sermon in 1366 when the emperor himself was present, he pointed his finger at him, telling the people that Charles was the true incarnation of the Antichrist, as prophesied by the Bible. Charles nobly ignored the pious provocation, though the archbishop thought he had to incarcerate Mili
at least briefly. Mili
was lucky to have friends in Prague, Rome, and Avignon; when he was later called to respond to another catalogue of heresies, he was saved by the shared efforts of the Prague archbishop and one Cardinal Grimaldi, the pope’s brother.
preached against pride and luxury, against the dubious fiscal interests of the mendicant friars, and he felt increasingly attracted by the prophecies of the Book of Daniel, which he studied, it is reported, with the help of Jewish scholars. He was obsessed with the idea of the coming of the satanic Antichrist, predicted for the mid-1360s; and during a sermon in 1366 when the emperor himself was present, he pointed his finger at him, telling the people that Charles was the true incarnation of the Antichrist, as prophesied by the Bible. Charles nobly ignored the pious provocation, though the archbishop thought he had to incarcerate Miliat least briefly. Miliwas lucky to have friends in Prague, Rome, and Avignon; when he was later called to respond to another catalogue of heresies, he was saved by the shared efforts of the Prague archbishop and one Cardinal Grimaldi, the pope’s brother.Mili
’s ambitious public project to gather penitent Prague prostitutes in a new Christian community of prayer, communion, and useful work met with an ambivalent response. In 1372 he acquired a vacant house, formerly a well-known place of ill repute run by Madame Keruš Hoffarth (in German, “pride”), who in turn had sold an adjacent building to Prague’s executioner (the house was particularly functional because it had a convenient back door opening into the darkness of the small Old Town streets). Mili
changed its name from sinful “Venice” to “New Jerusalem,” adhering to the emperor’s favorite passage in Revelation 21, and offered a home and a Christian haven to Madame Hoffarth’s girls and their colleagues. It is said that about eight hundred women went through his New Jerusalem before they either married, were taken home by their parents, or ran away to other brothels (Mili
followed them and tried to bring them back). His well-administered project did not long survive him; right after he died, the emperor, uneasy in these matters, dissolved the institution and offered the building to the Cistercians, who made it a college for its novices attending the university (1374). The chroniclers unfortunately do not say anything about what happened to the poor women affected by the emperor’s action.
’s ambitious public project to gather penitent Prague prostitutes in a new Christian community of prayer, communion, and useful work met with an ambivalent response. In 1372 he acquired a vacant house, formerly a well-known place of ill repute run by Madame Keruš Hoffarth (in German, “pride”), who in turn had sold an adjacent building to Prague’s executioner (the house was particularly functional because it had a convenient back door opening into the darkness of the small Old Town streets). Milichanged its name from sinful “Venice” to “New Jerusalem,” adhering to the emperor’s favorite passage in Revelation 21, and offered a home and a Christian haven to Madame Hoffarth’s girls and their colleagues. It is said that about eight hundred women went through his New Jerusalem before they either married, were taken home by their parents, or ran away to other brothels (Milifollowed them and tried to bring them back). His well-administered project did not long survive him; right after he died, the emperor, uneasy in these matters, dissolved the institution and offered the building to the Cistercians, who made it a college for its novices attending the university (1374). The chroniclers unfortunately do not say anything about what happened to the poor women affected by the emperor’s action.During these uneasy times of religious conflict and increasing social tension, two works of art, one in German and the other in Czech, were created; each in its own distinctive way constituted the highest literary achievement of Prague’s Caroline century. They suggest, perhaps with a
little delay, the best of an age in which certainties of belief gave way to rising doubt and, looking back to ecclesiastic circumstances and the courtly heritage, show that art can emerge from the study of the educated scribe and the erudite scholar. The Bohemian German Johannes of Tepl, who died as scribe of the New Town of Prague, wrote his
Plowman from Bohemia
(
Der Ackermann aus Böhmen,
1400) at about the same time as the still unidentified Czech author wrote his
Tkadle
ek
(
The Weaver,1407);
past disputes about the chronology of the texts, trying to derive nationalist profit from discovering which came first, long obfuscated the far more important discussion of their literary value. It is possible to assume that both these texts, the most admirable results of a late medieval German-Czech symbiosis, compete to rewrite an older model, perhaps Latin or Old French. This is the working hypothesis by which the American scholar Antonín Hrubý (originally from Prague) accounts for long stretches of textual resemblances, shared images, and analogous references to the authorities, Aristotle among them. Both the Plowman (his plow is the pen, he says) and the Weaver (weaving texts) have suffered grievous losses. The German writer has lost his beloved wife, Margarete, and his Czech colleague his fair Adli
ka, who turned away from him to favor somebody else. It is as if the protagonists of Machaut’s Old French poem “The Judgment of the King of Bohemia” reemerged in a German and a Czech transformation, the plowman arguing against Death himself, and the weaver against Misfortune (
Nešt
stí
)
,
both of whom have destroyed their bliss.
little delay, the best of an age in which certainties of belief gave way to rising doubt and, looking back to ecclesiastic circumstances and the courtly heritage, show that art can emerge from the study of the educated scribe and the erudite scholar. The Bohemian German Johannes of Tepl, who died as scribe of the New Town of Prague, wrote his
Plowman from Bohemia
(
Der Ackermann aus Böhmen,
1400) at about the same time as the still unidentified Czech author wrote his
Tkadle
ek(
The Weaver,1407);
past disputes about the chronology of the texts, trying to derive nationalist profit from discovering which came first, long obfuscated the far more important discussion of their literary value. It is possible to assume that both these texts, the most admirable results of a late medieval German-Czech symbiosis, compete to rewrite an older model, perhaps Latin or Old French. This is the working hypothesis by which the American scholar Antonín Hrubý (originally from Prague) accounts for long stretches of textual resemblances, shared images, and analogous references to the authorities, Aristotle among them. Both the Plowman (his plow is the pen, he says) and the Weaver (weaving texts) have suffered grievous losses. The German writer has lost his beloved wife, Margarete, and his Czech colleague his fair Adli
ka, who turned away from him to favor somebody else. It is as if the protagonists of Machaut’s Old French poem “The Judgment of the King of Bohemia” reemerged in a German and a Czech transformation, the plowman arguing against Death himself, and the weaver against Misfortune (Nešt
stí)
,
both of whom have destroyed their bliss.
In Johannes of Tepl’s disputation, man against death, the most provocative sequences are those in which the plowman defends the radiant dignity of his wife, and of all other people, against current ideas of Death, who sees on earth but filth and inevitable putrefaction. Death sings stern songs of condemnation; man is “but a barrel of muck, full of worms, a privy [
ein stankhaus
]
,
a disgusting slop pail”; he has “nine holes in his body, and out of them all comes loathsome and unclean filth.“The plowman extols human beings as God’s finest handiwork and enthusiastically praises the earthy virtues of the senses:”in the eyeballs there is sight, the most trustworthy tool, … in the ear there is hearing that reaches out into the distance, … in the nose there is the sense of smell that goes in and out through the openings, skillfully adapted for the easy acceptance of all pleasurable and delightful perfumes.“Yet, ultimately, these intimations of Renaissance transports are silenced by medieval anxiety: between man and death, God is the highest judge, and he accords praise to the plowman for arguing so valiantly, but victory to death, as it cannot be otherwise.
ein stankhaus
]
,
a disgusting slop pail”; he has “nine holes in his body, and out of them all comes loathsome and unclean filth.“The plowman extols human beings as God’s finest handiwork and enthusiastically praises the earthy virtues of the senses:”in the eyeballs there is sight, the most trustworthy tool, … in the ear there is hearing that reaches out into the distance, … in the nose there is the sense of smell that goes in and out through the openings, skillfully adapted for the easy acceptance of all pleasurable and delightful perfumes.“Yet, ultimately, these intimations of Renaissance transports are silenced by medieval anxiety: between man and death, God is the highest judge, and he accords praise to the plowman for arguing so valiantly, but victory to death, as it cannot be otherwise.
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