HAJEK

writes

307

" Some have, for the purpose of disparaging the

estate of the nobles and that of the knights, dared to maintain that the estate of the townsmen is the first, and dates from the foundation of Prague. The. estate

is

is

is

it

is

I.,

of the nobles, they say, sprung up afterwards, when they (the nobles) acted as officials, and other men were intrusted to their rule ; then, they say, many years later the estate of the knights was created, when the king allowed them (the knights) to bear a device on their shield because of certain deeds and brave exploits. But both these statements are untrue." Hajek here writes in contradiction to a Utraquist historian, Martin Kuthen, who had stated that the origin of the Bohemian estates was that mentioned above. Kuthen's work, which has little value and requires no further notice, was then very much read, and it has even been said that Hajek was instructed to write his work as a refutation of that of Kuthen. f Of Hajek's chronicle, which (as was customary in those days) begins with the deluge, and which ends with the the earliest part coronation of his patron Ferdinand Dealing with an almost by far the most attractive. was nearly entirely mythical period, and one in which impossible to introduce political and ecclesiastical controversies (though even here Hajek occasionally does He borrows largely from at his best. so), the author Cosmas and from Dalimil, whose influence even on Hajek's manner of writing can be traced in the early part of his book. Hajek's style, indeed, always varies using. greatly according to the authorities which he very curious. His account of the foundation of Prague But even in Hajek's accounts of semi-mythical occurrences the insincerity and dishonesty that characterise