As already mentioned, there has been a bridge on or near the spot where the present edifice stands from very early times. Ancient chroniclers write that when, in 932, the body of St. Wenceslas was conveyed from Stará Boleslav, where he was murdered, to St. Vitus's Church at Prague, those who carried the body, 'hurrying to the river Vltava, found the bridge partly destroyed by the floods. They gave themselves up to prayer, and having raised the body on their arms they passed, as if they were carrying no burden, gladly and without hindrance over the half-ruined bridge.' The fact that the body of St. Wenceslas was conveyed across the Vltava on March 4, at a time when the spring flood often damaged the Bridge of Prague, confirms, as Mr. Svátek writes, the correctness of this narrative, which contains the earliest mention of the Bridge of Prague. The account of the state in which the bridge was found also renders Mr. Svátek's conjecture that it was then already very ancient very plausible. As the suburbium Praguese--as I have already mentioned--extended on both banks of the river, wooden bridges, such as the earliest ones undoubtedly were, soon became insufficient. When, in 1157, the floods had entirely destroyed the wooden Bridge of Prague, Queen Judith, consort of King Vladislav I., caused a new stone bridge to be erected at her own expense. It was said that she undertook this work because, being a German by birth, and having twice used her influence to place her German relations on the episcopal throne of Prague, she had incurred the hostility of the Bohemians. She hoped to regain the love of the Praguers by thus becoming a [Illustration: FROM THE BRIDGE LOOKING TOWARDS THE OLD TOWN] benefactress of their city. Judith's Bridge was begun in 1169 and finished in three years, an almost inconceivably short space of time. The completion of the bridge was greeted with great rejoicement by the Bohemians, who said that, excepting the bridge over the Danube at Regensburg, no such bridge had been built since the days of the Romans. In the winter of 1342 the Bridge of Judith was destroyed by the floods, and for a time a temporary wooden bridge, partly founded on the remaining pillars of the stone bridge, alone connected the two parts of Prague. This bridge naturally proved insufficient, particularly after Charles IV. had founded the new town of Prague. In 1357 that King undertook the building of the present bridge. The building was erected under the direction of Matthew of Arras, and afterwards of Peter Parler and his son John. The work was often interrupted by storms and inundations, to which the Vltava, the outlet of all the rivers of Central and Southern Bohemia, is particularly liable. It was, therefore, only completed in 1503.