Wenceslas
Wencaslas 1 Duke of Bohemia [907-929]
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The legend of Good King Wenceslas is based upon the true historical person of the Duke of Bohemia, Václav to give him his Czeck name, it was Holy Roman Emperor Otto 1 who posthumously raised him to the rank of king.
The legend is a very important one for European history for out of it grew among the people of Europe the philosophy and expectation that those who rule and have authority over them should do so not only by the might of law, divine and human, but also with regard to christian virtues and a charitable disposition for the poor among their subjects. This concept is still very much with us today more than 1100 years later.
In less than a century after Václav’s death there were four accounts of his life story fueling a powerful pietist cult both in his homeland and in Britain. Cosmas of Prague writing a century after his death says ”but his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you, for as we read in his “passion,” no-one doubts that rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain he went around to God’s churches and gave alms generously to widows and orphans, to those in prison and afflicted with every difficulty, so much so that he was considered not a prince but the father of all the wretched.”
Wenceslaus’s attempts to spread christianity incensed the nobles of Bohemia and upon the pretext of his unpopular submission to German King Henry the Fowler they incited his brother Boleslav to assassinate him in 929. Wenceslas is the patron saint of Czeckoslavakia Svaty Václav.
http://www.royalty.nu/Europe/Wenceslas.html
Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen
when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even
brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel
then a poor man came in sight gathering winter fuel
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Hither page and stand by me, if thou knowst it’s telling
yonder peasant, who is he, where and what his dwelling?
Sire he lives a good league hence, underneath the mountain
hard against the forest fence, by St. Agnes fountain
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Bring me flesh and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither
thou and I will see him dine when we bear them thither
page and monarch forth they went, forth they went together
through the rude wind wild lament and the bitter weather
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Sire the night is darker now and the wind blows stronger
fails my heart, I know not how, I can go no longer
mark my footsteps my good page, tread thou in them boldly
thou shalt find the winters rage freeze thy blood less coldly
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In his master’s steps he trod where the snow lay dinted
heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed
therefore christian men be sure, wealth and rank possessing
ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing.
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