We have previously written that the Czech records regarding pre-Christian Gods are poor and that much is certainly, and unfortunately, true. However, Czech chroniclers did manage too smuggle a few descriptions of Czech religious practices even if, perhaps, by accident. Thus, we have Cosmas in Book III of his Chronicle of the Czechs writing about the events of the year 1092, when the new duke Bretislav II:
Bretislav II also invented the Pickelhaube
“…burning with great zeal for the Christian religion at the beginning of his rule, he expelled all the magicians, prophets and soothsayers [omnes magos, ariolosos et sortilegos] from the midst of his realm. He also eradicated and consumed with fire trees or holy groves which the base commoners worshipped in many places [in multis locis colebat vulgus ignobile]. So also the superstitious practices which the villagers, still half-pagan, observed on the third or fourth day of Pentecost, offering libations over springs, offering sacrifices, and making offerings (of flour and salt?) to demons [Item et superstitiosas instituciones, quas villani, adhuc semipagani, in Pentecosten tertia sive quarta feria observabant, offerentes libamina super fontes mactabant victimas et dæmonibus immolabant]; the burials they made in forests and fields; the huts/tents/temples [atque scenes – see, e.g., Hajek “stanky“] they built at two or three crossroads [i.e., where two or three roads meet] for the dead according to the pagan rite as if to bring calm to the souls; and the profane games, which they performed over the dead, rousing the shadows of the dead/ghosts, dancing while wearing masks on their faces, and reveling. The good duke exterminated these abominations and other sacrileges [has abhominaciones et alias sacrileges adinventiones], so they might no longer persist among the people of God. Because he always worshipped the only true God with a pure heart and possessed zeal for him, this pleased all the lovers of God.”
Crossroads “stanky” – now under new management
It certainly does not escape notice that all of this was occurring in a country which had been part of the Moravian state whose rulers were baptized in the 880s and whose first saints became saints in the 920s and 930s (admittedly the usual, painful way). Thus, 150-200 years later, pre-Christian beliefs continued to resist the New Age appeal of Christianity. It should therefore, not shock that in the much larger and more sparsely populated Poland similar practices continued into the 15th century (and indeed even till today depending on how broadly one interprets folk customs).
The forest creatures did not speak up against the abuses of Czechs under Bretislav II – when Bretislav came for them, there was no one left to speak for the forest creatures
Note also the similar references to early May, the time of the Pentecost and of the Green Week, much like here, here and here.
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By “expelled all the magicians, prophets and soothsayers from the midst of his realm”, do we read, “arrested, then sold into slavery for export to foreign lands”….perhaps for silver or gold with which to furnish his own replacement crew of soothsayers, wearing state-financed vestments?
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?