this may have decided him to found a monastery on the rocky eminence
whereon Emaus has withstood many vicissitudes during the stormy course
of several centuries of Bohemia's history. Charles must have conceived
the plan of founding this monastery some time before the middle of the
fourteenth century, for we find the following entry in its chronicles
which speaks of John and Charles, and in a Latin quaintly picturesque
and careless: "Nos Johannes dei gracia Boemie rex ac Lucemburgensis
comes et Karolus eius primogenitus marchio Morawie." It would not be
easy to get any more mistakes of grammar and spelling into this
sentence. So John had made a donation to the new foundation--out of
some one else's pocket; the butchers of Prague were privileged to pay
for the King's generosity.
Charles was of a careful, saving disposition; he also raised funds out
of other people's purses for his good works. So we find again among the
records of Emaus that he called upon the butchers to find the necessary
money; the meatstalls of the Mala Strana were privileged to find a
revenue of sixteen Bohemian silver groschen, a coin dating from the days
of Wenceslaus II, towards the new foundation. The different taxes and
excise duties were also made to contribute, a tithe of the wine tax,
some appropriate sums from bridge and water tolls; besides these sources
of revenue Charles endowed Emaus with landed property, farms and fields
and vineyards. Begun in the reign of John, the building and institution
of this new monastery was not completed until 1372, when Charles had for
many years been in a position to describe himself as "Carolus Dei
gratiae Rom. rex, semper augustus et Boemiae rex." Monday after Easter
1372 was the great day on which the Church and monastery were solemnly
consecrated and dedicated to Saints Hieronymus, Adalbert, Procop, Cyril
and Methodius, but as the consecration gospel told the moving story of
the Risen Saviour walking with two disciples, who knew Him not, towards
Emaus, the name of that place clung to church and monastery ever after.
Though Emaus started out under such very august patronage, it had to put
up with many vicissitudes, among the minor ones being acts of
trangression on its grounds by neighbours; so, for instance, we hear of
one good man Odelenus, who would dig under the monastery wall to the
endangering of the same, and as the stout burgher would not desist nor
fill up the excavations he had made, he was excommunicated with all due
solemnity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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