Of the contemporary chroniclers of the Hussite war many still wrote in Latin. Yet the Hussite movement undoubtedly favoured the development of the Bohemian language, if it was only by the isolation from the rest of the Western world which the religious separation produced. A great impetus was also given to the cultivation of the national language by the circumstance that a few years before the beginning of the sixteenth century (in 1495) the Bohemian law courts decided to carry on their proceedings in the national language. The law courts of Silesia and Moravia had already previously substituted Bohemian for the Latin language, which they had previously used. Of yet greater importance was the fact that Bohemian at this period became the language exclusively used at the "diets" or meetings of the three "Estates" of Bohemia. In the minds of many Bohemians the preservation of the national language was closely connected with the conservation of their political and ecclesiastical independence. As late as in 1615, only five years before the final collapse of Bohemia, the Diet decided that all those who became naturalised Bohemians should be bound to instruct and educate their children in the language of the country. It may be noticed that this fervent devotion to the national language, which has often astonished foreigners, is a marked feature also in the revival of Bohemian literature and in the present nationalist movement. Among the most recent writers on Bohemian history it has become the fashion to depreciate the social and intellectual condition of Bohemia in the years that preceded the battle of the White Mountain; they perhaps endeavour thus to attenuate the sentimental feeling of regret for the great defeat which a few Bohemians still cherish. That the political results of the battle of the White Mountain, which consisted in the establishment of an absolute but orderly government; were advantageous to Bohemia, and, indeed, saved the country from anarchy, is certain. Yet it is no less certain that nobles and citizens, such as Peter of Rosenberg, Charles of Žerotin, Budovec of Budova (mentioned in the last chapter), Harant of Polžic, Bartoš Pisář, Sixt of Ottersdorf, Skála ze Zhoře (who all belong to the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century), were intellectually vastly superior to the men of similar rank and position who lived a century later, after many years of absolutist government.