[18] A hill near Prague (known in German as the Laurenz Berg), where the executions then took place. [19] The head of the family (or rather clan) of Vitkovic, whom Ottokar had exiled. CHAPTER II EARLY PROSE WRITERS--THE PRECURSORS OF HUS In Bohemia, as in most countries, we find the national language employed in poetry long before an attempt is made to use it in prose. Latin was the language exclusively used by the writers on history, legal matters, and theology. The writers indeed were generally ecclesiastics, to whom the Latin language was necessarily familiar. Even as late as the second half of the fourteenth century Thomas of Štitný was blamed for using the Bohemian language in his theological and philosophical works. A few very early Latin prayers and lives of saints originated in Bohemia, but the earliest prose work which possesses general interest is the Latin _Chronicon Boemorum_ of Cosmas, commonly called Cosmas Pragensis. Cosmas, "the father of Bohemian history," has always enjoyed a great and well-deserved reputation, and has often been called "the Bohemian Herodotus" by his countrymen. We are better informed as to the life of Cosmas than is the case with regard to most early Bohemian writers. Writing in 1125, he calls himself an octogenarian, and it may therefore be considered as certain that he was born about the year 1045. He was probably of noble descent, and early in life adopted the ecclesiastical career. He became canon and afterwards dean of the chapter of Prague, and accompanied the bishops of Prague--whose position then gave them considerable political importance in Bohemia--on several missions. The last chapter of Cosmas' book, dealing with matters of which he had some personal knowledge, has therefore far greater value than the rest of the work. The regulations concerning the celibacy of the clergy were not at that period, nor indeed far later, observed by the Bohemian priests, and his ecclesiastical dignities did not prevent Cosmas from marrying, at the age of forty-one, Božetečha, to whom he was sincerely attached, and to whom he refers in his chronicle as "rerum cunctarum comes indimota mearum."