Page:Bohemia's claim for freedom.djvu/18

 Count Lutzoff has remarked that the struggle of the Czechs to resist the attempts of German princes to Germanise them forms a leading feature in the history of Bohemia. The modern Bohemian historians, Palacký and Tomek, consider that the Czechs settled in Bohemia about the second half of the fifth century (451), and that the collision between them and the neighbouring Germanic tribes began almost at once.

The early political institutions of the Czechs were of a representative cliaracter, even their princes were elected and all their national affairs were discussed in a Diet.

Later on there were signs of German efforts at centralisation, and the princes, by the aid of the Germans, gained some amount of autocratic power. Even the national Diet lost its influence for a time, but by the twelfth century this became less marked, and it was settled that the ruling princes could not make new laws without the consent of the Diet, and that they must also obtain its consent to a declaration of war, unless it were one exclusively for the purposes of defence. But even during the period when the influence of the sovereign was most felt, the princes had to submit to considerable restraint from the nobles who formed the Supreme Council.

Professor Liubavsky of Moscow University has given a most vivid description of the growth of representative power amongst the Czech landed aristocracy. He also shows us the gradual formation of a municipal autonomy, established to combine local interests with those of the larger districts corresponding to the English counties. 14