Page:Bohemia An Historical Sketch.djvu/100

 defeated and punished the aggressors, Charles left Italy, and arrived at Prague on August 15 (1355).

During the king's absence from Bohemia order had been much disturbed by bands of robbers, who rendered the high-roads unsafe. Charles took immediate steps to restore security to his country, and—shortly after his return from Italy—he besieged Žampach, a castle situated on the summit of a steep hill belonging to John of Smoyno, the leader of the most numerous of these bands of robbers. John of Smoyno, who from his habit of always appearing in full armour was known as "Pancíř" (the man in armour), had formerly served in the king's army, and had been knighted by him for his bravery, and presented with a golden chain. Žampach was taken after a siege of some duration, the castle destroyed, and the "Pancíř" hanged by order of the king. Charles is said to have himself thrown the rope round his neck, telling him "that it was not only golden chains that he had in his gift." Several other strongholds of robbers in the same district (that of Králové Hradec), which had been the most disturbed part of the country, were subsequently destroyed when the king returned to Prague to assemble the Estates at a Diet. We are specially told that the Estates, not only of Bohemia, but also those of Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, were convoked.

Charles proposed to the Estates the adoption of a code of laws founded on those of Rome, but this proposal, as being in many ways contrary to the old legal traditions of Bohemia, was very unfavourably received. Charles, with his usual prudence, very soon gave up these intended changes. He succeeded, however, in obtaining the consent of the Estates to several other legal dispositions, particularly to those which guaranteed to the peasants the right of appealing to the royal law-courts against their territorial lords. The necessity of this enactment proves that attempts had already been made to introduce into Bohemia the system of servitude which had long prevailed in Germany, though serfs were entirely unknown to the original—Slavonic—constitution of Bohemia.

In the same year (1355) Charles, after the termination of the Diet of Prague, proceeded to Nuremberg, where an assembly of the Electors and princes of Germany took place. The deliberations which took place here, and which were continued the following year at the Diet of Metz