Page:The music of Bohemia.djvu/28

14 After the glorious time of the Bohemian reformation, and during the Catholic reaction in the seventeenth century, the promising growth of Czech culture was suddenly stopped. In the year 1620 Bohemia lost her independence. About thirty thousand Czech families left their fatherland rather than live under laws inimical to the high ideals for which their forefathers had so bravely died. Among the emigrants was Amos Comenius.

The new tyrannical government under Ferdinand II tried to destroy all records of the art and life of the glorious days of the reformation by burning all the choral and hymn-books, especially those related to that period. The people in Bohemia had to be supplied with new songs. This aim the Jesuits accomplished by manufacturing new tunes and texts and by taking over for church use many of the secular Czech folk-songs. We find in the Catholic songbooks in Bohemia, songs in which a folk-tune