place from age to age. At the present day the plains of Bohemia, with the central part of the country and the east boundary towards Moravia, are occupied by the Slavonic population, while the Germans surround them in a fairly continuous ring on the north, west, and south. Colonies of German-speaking nationalities of greater or smaller size are also to be found sporadically in the interior. Finally, the German race has largely modified the population of all the larger towns; in fact the central point and the earliest settlement of the Germans in Bohemia is the German colony in Prague, the existence of which is evidenced as early as the eleventh century. In Moravia national distinctions are less strongly marked; but here also the largest continuous Germanic area exists in the mountainous north and on the lower Austrian frontier. In Moravia the essentially German character of all the large towns is more strongly marked than in Bohemia; these again are in connection with the greater or smaller isolated German settlements, such as Iglau, Brünn, Wischau, Neutitschein, and others. In Silesia the conditions are entirely similar.

As regards the numbers of the populations in the medieval towns of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, direct evidence is hardly obtainable in any case, and calculations have been made concerning very few places. Thus it is said that in the year 1390 Eger had 7,155 inhabitants, in the year 1446, 7,340, and in the year 1500, 5,525. Information from a wholly unreliable source concerning the town of Olmütz (in the year 1060, 10,000 inhabitants, in the year 1415, 29,000) contradicts all other experience. On the other hand, the estimate of 1466 taken from the papal document of that year, to the effect that there were about 12,000 communicants in Brünn, appears not incredible.

The natural position of the Sudetic countries as a link between the east and west and the north and south of Europe, together with the great wealth and fertility of their soil, explains the important position which they once occupied. Attempts have been made at different times to make them the centre of a great empire; as, for instance, in the time of Samo, under the Moravian dynasty of Moimir, or again in the case of Bohemia during the domination of the Přemyslids, and finally by the Luxemburg kings. These efforts have sooner or later resulted in total failure, probably in large measure from the fact that the interconnection of these three countries is by no means so strong as that of Silesia with the north and of Moravia with the southern neighbouring States, a relation further indicated by the configuration of the country.

2. THE PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD

THE conclusions of those who have investigated the pre-historic period in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia are marked by wide divergency. While the majority of them support the view that here, as in other districts of Central Europe, Celts, Germans, and Slavs followed one another, yet other inquirers assert that the Slavs are indigenous to these districts. Between these two views stand suppositions apparently more moderate, to the effect that the Hercynian Boii were not in any way related to the Celtic Boii, that the Marcomannian kingdom had its centre on Bavarian soil, or that both the Celtic and the Germanic people occupied but very limited portions of Bohemia and Moravia. In view of all this uncertainty

it would appear difficult to suppose that in the heart of Europe a wide district remained untouched for centuries, like a lonely island in the midst of the heaving ocean, or that the mighty waves of Celtic and Germanic migration, which are attested by sure evidence, were beaten back by the mountain ranges of Bohemia and the neighbouring countries on the east. It is far more probable that one of the earliest waves of that Germanic migration which drove the Cimbri and Teutons southwards about the year 115 B. C. washed over the soil of Bohemia and Moravia. Poseidonios informs us that the Cimbri upon their march attacked the Boii in the Hercynian forest, were driven back, and turned aside to the Ister. We may interpret this information to mean that the Cimbri invaded Bohemia over the Erz Gebirge from the north, that after an unsuccessful struggle with the Boii they turned aside to the plains of the March, and thence reached the Danube, Pannonia, and eventually the Skordiski on the Save.

About two generations after these events, about the year 60 B. C., the Boii evacuated the country to which they have permanently given their name,Boiohæmum, Boiahaim, Boehmen, or Bohemia, most of them removing to Pannonia or Noricum. In the time of C. Julius Cæsar the inhabitants of the Hercynian mountain forest are said to have been a Celtic tribe of the Volca Tectosages. They, however, were expelled or subjugated by the advancing Marcomanni, who had settled earlier on the Main; this movement was carried out under the leadership of Mar(o)bod about the year 12 B. C. About the same time the Quadi, who were related to the Marcomanni, found a settlement in Moravia. The name of this country in its oldest form, Mar-aha, Mar-awa, appears as a compound of two old German words, the one meaning "a spring" and the other "water;" as a matter of fact, the name of the district corresponds with the name of the main river, the March. Our evidence for the early Germanic occupation of Silesia rests upon a basis no more certain than the evidence for Bohemia and Moravia; the name of Silesia is derived from that of the German tribe of the Vandilian Silingi, of whom Ptolemaios also speaks as dwelling in this district. The history of the Marcomanni and the Quadi in Bohemia and Moravia, so far as it is known to us, is confined to military conflicts with the Romans, which grew more frequent under the emperor Marcus Aurelius (165-180 A. D.). The triumphal column which he erected in Rome in memory of his victory over these nations displays, even at the present day, a magnificent representation of these struggles, with many valuable details of the life of the Quadi in ancient Moravia.

Though the result of this war seemed to have portended the destruction of these nations, yet their name continues for another three centuries, until the westward expedition of Attila drove the main body of the Marcomanni and the Quadi, like so many other German tribes, out of their settlements. During the fifth and sixth centuries the deserted districts are said to have been occupied by many other German tribes, the Heruli, Rugii, Langobardi; of these events we have no accurate knowledge. The historical centre of gravity lay at that time exclusively in the European west and south, where a number of Germanic races were attempting to found new empires upon the ruins of Rome.

During these centuries, when the history of Central Europe is veiled in deep obscurity, proceeded the steady emigration of the Slavs into the wide districts between the Elbe and the Vistula, and southwards to the Danube districts, which had been deserted by the general migration of the Germans

to Roman territory. It is indeed not entirely clear whether the stream came exclusively from the upper reaches of the Vistula, or whether strong bodies of emigrants may not have come to Moravia and Northern Hungary from the Slav kingdoms on the south.

However, before the Slav races could attain any political organisation in their new homes, they succumbed about the middle of the sixth century to the Avars, who advanced from the south of the Danube in a westerly and northerly direction as far as Thuringia. The period of their subjugation seems to have lasted for about half a century, until the Slav population on the central Danube succeeded in shaking off the yoke of the Avars under the leadership of one Samo, whose Frankish origin cannot be disputed. The result of this success was the founding of an extensive Slav empire, the central point of which may have been situated in the Moravia and Bohemia of to-day. It had, however, no permanent existence, and after the death of Samo (685) the empire fell to pieces.

3. THE MORAVIAN EMPIRE OF THE HOUSE OF MOIMIR

THE further development of the Slav settlement, its extension, and its political organisation are hidden from us by a gap in tradition, extending over more than a century and a half. We may, however, conclude that the international development of the country progressed considerably, from the Bohemian legend as related by Kosmas in the beginning of the twelfth century, which tells of Krok, Libusha, and of Přemysl, the farmer of Staditz, who was called from the ploughshare to the throne, and became the ancestor of the first royal house of Bohemia.

It is probable that political and social life in Moravia developed much more quickly and strongly during the same period; for before Bohemia emerges from the obscurity of legend into the clear light of history, there rises on Moravian soil, quietly and without any legendary history, a self-contained principality known as the Moravian kingdom of the Moimirids, after the founder of the dynasty, Moimir (Mojmir). During the military period of Charles the Great it is unknown, and only appears in its full power during the peaceful reign of Louis the Pious. While Moimir did homage to the German emperor and offered presents, he extended his power eastwards, driving out of his country the neighbouring Slav prince who had settled in Neitra. The Frankish counts in the East Mark and in Pannonia had every opportunity of watching the growth of the neighbouring Moravian kingdom, and the fact that the Slav prince took refuge with them upon his expulsion, and received their support, tends to show that Moimir's aspirations met with no approval upon this side. However, serious opposition to the powers rising on the frontier of the empire formed no part of the policy of Louis the Pious.

After the treaty of Verdun (843) Louis the German took over, with his districts in the East, the task of securing the supremacy of the empire formerly founded by the emperor Charles over the neighbouring Slavs; it was inevitable that a struggle between the two States should break out, as indeed the Franks had already expected on their side. Even the fragmentary descriptions which have come down to us give an idea of the fury and extent of this struggle, in which the weaker side, the Moimirid principality, always reappears upon the scene, heroically maintaining its position in spite of repeated defeat. Moimir himself escaped into his fortified

castles from the first attack which the German king delivered in the year 846. His rule, however, was brought to an end by a domestic conspiracy led by his own nephew Rastiz (Rastislav). The second Moimirid then received the inheritance of his uncle from the hands of the Franks, to govern the land likewise under their supremacy. The struggle, however, soon broke out anew, because Rastislav followed in his predecessor's footsteps, and strove to secure complete independence of the Frankish kingdom. German armies repeatedly marched upon Moravia in the years 855, 864, 866, and 869. However, no decisive battle took place. At one time by pretended submission, and at another by flight into his impregnable castles, Rastislav forced the Franks either to make peace or to retire from the inhospitable country. Once again domestic treachery placed the Moravian prince in the power of Louis (870). The defeater of Rastislav, his nephew Svatopluk (Zwentibold), secured the supremacy over the whole of Moravia under the protectorate of France, while his uncle was punished by blinding and confinement in a French monastery.

The political struggle for the foundation of a powerful Slav empire was accompanied, from the outset, by a serious attempt to break the ecclesiastical ties which united these countries with Germany. German, Italian, and Greek priests were working simultaneously in the country, and the obviously disastrous consequences to the land afforded the prince Rastislav a plausible excuse for appearing before the Roman Pope Nicholas I with a request that he should decide what priests should henceforward be permitted to preach and teach in Moravia. The Pope, however, is said to have declined to consider the question, or perhaps to have decided it against the wishes of the Moravian prince, who in 863 asked for fresh teachers from the Greek emperor Michael III, to preach the true faith to the Moravian nation in their own language. The mission was entrusted to the brothers Constantine (Kyrillos, Cyrillus) and Methodius of Thessalonica (p. 77). Their spiritual work in Moravia began in the year 864; as, however, they possessed no high ecclesiastical rank, they confined themselves at first to the education of the children. As they desired to fulfil the object of their mission, the introduction of divine service in the Slavonic language, both into the Moravian and also into the neighbouring Slav kingdom of the Pannonian prince Kozel, the brothers, accompanied by the most capable of their scholars, betook themselves to Rome in 867, in order to secure the Pope's permission for the use of the Slavonic liturgy. Pope Hadrian II is said to have fulfilled the wish of the Moravians in 868. Feeling, however, a presentiment of approaching death, Constantine resolved not to return to Moravia; he entered the monastery at Rome, took the name Cyril as a monk, and died shortly afterwards, on February 14, 869. The continuation of his apostolic work was left to his brother Methodius, who had been consecrated bishop in Rome. Hardly, however, had he returned to Moravia with the intention of resuming the struggle against the German clergy, so successfully begun, when the revolution took place, which cost Rastislav his throne and freedom, and transferred Moravia practically into a Frankish mark. Methodius then succumbed to his opponents; for two years and a half, during the first years of the reign of Svatopluk in Moravia, he remained a prisoner in a German monastery.

Friendly as were the relations existing between the new Moravian prince and the neighbouring German Empire, and in particular with Karlmann the count of the East Mark, they continued but a short time. So soon as Karlmann had

reason to suspect the fidelity of Svatopluk, he seized his person and his property, and retained him at his court in honourable confinement, with the idea that his removal would make it easier to establish Frankish supremacy in Moravia. However, the oppressed Moravian population began a desperate attempt to secure their freedom. Karlmann thought that he could intrust the task of crushing this movement to no more suitable person than Svatopluk, so entirely had the Slav won the confidence of the German. Hardly, however, did Svatopluk find himself among his own people than he gave rein to his long-repressed fury, and with one blow destroyed not only the army which had been sent to his support, but also all semblance of Frankish dominion in Moravia. In the two following years (872 and 873) Karlmann was unable to break down the resistance of Svatopluk. Not until the year 874 have we direct evidence of the conclusion of a peace at Forchheim, under which Svatopluk promised fidelity, obedience, and the usual annual tribute. Peace for eight years followed this act of submission.

During the period of this national rising the Moravians also remembered Methodius in his imprisonment abroad; their representations at Rome eventually induced Pope John VIII to order the Bavarian bishops to liberate the Moravian apostle. Methodius immediately proceeded (about the outset of the year 873) to Kozel, in the Pannonian principality, and shortly afterwards to Moravia, where he was received with marks of high respect on the part of the prince and people. Svatopluk, however, failed to appreciate the help which might have been given to his political plans by a firm establishment of the Slavonic church in the country. During the dogmatic quarrels between Methodius and the Bavarian clergy he maintained a position of neutrality; he went so far as to express the wish that Methodius should prove his orthodoxy in Rome before the Pope. The latter was thus for the second time obliged to journey thither, and in the year 880 returned to his diocese under full papal protection, and with further recognition of the dignity of his position. Even now, however, it was impossible for him to gain a complete victory over his opponents in Moravia; the Bavarian clergy maintained their position in the country, and threw obstacles in his way. It was not until the last years of his life (he died on April 6, 885) that his position in Moravia became more peaceful.

Within this period (882-884) occurred many violent political struggles between Svatopluk and the neighbouring Frankish districts. The Moravian prince then appeared as the protector of one portion of two families who were struggling to secure the position of count in the Traungau and in the East Mark, while Arnulf (Arnolf), the son of Karlmann, who governed the marks of Karantania and Pannonia, supported the opposition party. The war began in 882. In 883 Svatopluk was raging in Pannonia "like a wolf," and in the following year hostilities were renewed. The feud was only repressed upon the interference of the emperor Charles III in the East Mark in August, 884. In 885 peace was concluded between Svatopluk and Arnulf, which resulted in a mutual understanding so complete that, when Arnulf became candidate for the crown of Germany in Frankfort in the year 887, Svatopluk zealously supported him.

Under such circumstances the work of Cyril and Methodius could not flourish in Moravia, the more so as the death of the latter had thrown the entire responsibility upon the feeble shoulders of a disciple. In the very year of the death of Methodius, the year of Svatopluk's reconciliation with the Franks, a general perse