Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

The Work in the lives of saints in the Czech Middle Ages

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2018

Abstract

The study is devoted to the reflection of the relation to the work in the Czech medieval hagiographical legends, the legends of Prince Vaclav from the Přemyslid dynasty, of the bishop Vojtěch Slavnik and the founder of the Sázava monastery and his first abbot Prokop. From the analysis of these sources, it is obvious that the work was a manifestation of piety.

The religious, namely Vojtech, who joined the monastery of Bonifacius and Alexius in Rome, and Prokop the work was also a manifestation of humility and asceticism. Václav worked probably to equip priests for the masses (he baked altar bread and made wine), Vojtěch performed the servile work for the monks in the monastery and helped to build the monastery in Břevnov according to the late tradition.

As a bishop, he refused any work on Sunday. As for Prokop, he most probably devoted himself to organizational work in the administration of the monastery and, perhaps, artistic work in its construction.