The Life and the Legend

The night is drawing nigh, it is March 20, the year of our Lord 1393. A group of men is carrying out a helpless body from an Old Town public house, plodding on in a close knit huddle onto a stonework bridge and tipping the limp body into the Vltava River. The pale light of the Moon waning away after its full moon phase is cast only to make this sombre scenery barely visible to several chance passers-by who step aside instinctively into the shady corners.

Gracious Summer

The Gracious Summer, declared by the Pope for Bohemia, starts with a historical irony. The very last days and hours of the second highest ranking Prague Diocese member, the General Vicar John of Nepomuk are well known. The start of his life is evidenced only in his own notary records with which he sealed official documents: “Iohannes natus quondam Welflini de Pomuk, clericus Pragensis dyocesis, publicus auctoritate imperiali notarius – John, a son of the late Velflín of Pomuk, the clergyman of the Prague Diocese, a notary public by the virtue of the emperor.” His father, then, was Velflín also known as Volflín who was the Nepomuk judge between 1355 and 1367.
Some historians derive his ancestry from German colonists. John’s mother’s details are not known. Nor John’s date of birth is. He was born before 1350. Neither is John’s primary education information to be found which must have been very comprehensive. The first historical record of John is that of a notary public, to be found on June 20, 1369, in the very Archbishop’s office. Thus, having received thorough education, being versed in Latin, having passed the examination and taken a very strict vow in front of the Archbishop himself, John Očko of Vlašim, the then well known friend of Charles IV. As the Prague Archdiocese notary, he was busy enough; he even had his own house built whose dimensions and builder are well known, contrary to its whereabouts. John was also acquainted with the important events of the country by nature of his office because he transcribed what was said during interrogations. One of them was aimed at the figure of the controversial moralist preacher John Milíč of Kroměříž, who could be categorized simply put, as “John Huss predecessors”.
1380 became an important year in John’s life. A year by which he would already have done his theological education and been considered a member of clergy. In this year, the Archbishop John Očko of Vlašim died, shortly after the emperor’s death (on November 29, 1378). In this year, the Plague hit Prague, which the new ruler Václav IV. fled abroad from, being followed immediately by the new Archbishop and also originally his teacher and a friend John of Jenštejn.
John becomes an altarist in the St. Vitus Cathedral
John of Nepomuk was appointed an important position of the altarist in the St. Vitus Cathedral for the St. Erhard and St. Otylia Chapel where also Jan Očko of Vlašim was buried (and in whose front, the unique silver altar devoted to St. John Nepomuk can be found). It’s also in this year that he was appointed another important position, the friar at the St. Havel Church in the Old Town of Prague. This position required the adept to have passed the theological education and consecrations. This church was one of the most important in Prague which is evidenced also in its inventory made by John of Nepomuk himself. Apart from a rich collection of rare items, chasubles, candle stands, also a large amount of tapestry and, most notably, a wide collection of books. And among the remains of the saints, whose numbers have reached 43 once, even a fragment of St. Havel’s cranium was to be found, granted to the church by Charles IV himself. It was deposited in a silver relic box in the shape of a skull, decorated with an abbot’s mitre.
After acquiring this important post, which also brought along with itself good remuneration, John set off to study law at the Prague University, to be found in the vicinity. He is promoted to the position of Bachelor of Law by 1381. Shortly after that, he passed the supervision over his parish to his subordinate and left for further law studies at the University of Padova in Italy, the third oldest Italian University (founded in 1222). It was renowned all over Europe for its law faculty. John graduated from it in 1378, becoming a law doctor, and it was in this year that he had his diploma recognized at the Prague University. Since 1386, he was elected for an important (and very costly for the elected) position of the rector of the Padova University. He was back in Bohemia by 1390, becoming also a clergyman of the Collegiate Chapter of the St. Giles and shortly after that, as was the custom of the day, and exchanging the St. Havel friar’s position for the benefit of a vice-bishop in Žatec. Also, he became a clergyman of the renowned Vyšehrad Chapter.

An indubitable authority

Since 1389, he is already mentioned in the position of a general vicar, thus being the second highest ranking man in the archdiocese and the archbishop’s best man, especially in procedural matters. To top this, he is also one of the most educated European lawyers enjoying an indubitable authority in legal affairs.
He was able to acquire these important positions in a period that can be considered to be the most tumultuous period for the Church in the second millennium. It is torn apart by a schism of having two and at one stage even three Popes declare condemnations at each other. Alongside this, protestant and reformist tendencies spread in Europe. In Bohemia, the capricious Václav IV rules, who is under the control of his courtiers. His weak control is, doubtlessly, one of the main causes of the Hussite tragedy and the downfall of the Bohemian Kingdom. With his entourage, he found himself in a constant strife with his past friend and teacher, archbishop John of Jenštejn who after he had come in touch with death both due to his own illness and witnessed a sudden death of a monk in the Augustinian Cloister in Roudnice changed from a gallant courtier into an exacting mystic, with a liking for purism, tending to the Cult of the Virgin Mary (he introduced a new holiday to Bohemia, called the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary) and church poetry.
by Ing. Karel Drhovský