Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/48

 which is in the same language, Březov also wrote works in his native tongue. Thus he wrote in Bohemian an Interpretation of Dreams, no doubt intended to please the not very cultivated taste of his patron King Wenceslas, and a Chronicle of the World, parts of which have been preserved in MS. He also translated into Bohemian the Travels of Sir John Mandeville, from a German version by Otto of Daymark.

But the most important work of Březov is his chronicle of the Hussite wars; unfortunately it deals only with a portion of that stirring epoch in the annals of Bohemia; he begins his work with the introduction into Bohemia of communion in the two kinds in 1414, a few months before the death of Hus. This is an event of great importance, as it signified the secession of Bohemia from the Western Church. The book breaks off quite abruptly at the year 1421. It appears probable that Březov, of whom the last contemporary mention dates from the year 1436, wrote the book late in life, and that death overtook him while working at his history. It is certain—as Dr. Goll has skilfully proved—that the book was not written immediately after the occurrence of the events which it describes. On the other hand, the hatred and contempt with which Lawrence invariably speaks of Sigismund—‘the Hungarian king,’ as he always calls him—render it improbable that his book was written in or immediately before the year 1436, at which time Sigismund was, though somewhat reluctantly, almost universally accepted as king by the Bohemian people.

Lawrence of Březov writes as a thorough Calixtine, that is to say, as a member of the more moderate section of the Bohemian Church. He is equally opposed