Saint John of Nepomuk. John of Nepomuk was the saint of Bohemia who was drowned in the Vltava river at the behest of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. Later accounts state that he was the confessor of the queen of Bohemia and refused to divulge the secrets of the confessional. On the basis of this account, John of Nepomuk is considered the first martyr of the Seal of the Confessional, a patron against calumnies and, because of the manner of his death, a protector from floods and drowning. Jan of Pomuku came from the small market town of Pomuk in Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic, which belonged to the nearby Cistercian abbey. Born in the 1340s, his father was a certain Velflín and his mother is unknown. His father's name is probably a derivative of the German name Wolfgang. Jan first studied at the University of Prague, then furthered his studies in canon law at the University of Padua from 1383 to 1387. In 1393 he was made the vicar-general of Saint Giles Cathedral by Jan of Jenstejn, who was the Archbishop of Prague from 1378 to 1396. In the same year, on 20 March, he was tortured and thrown into the river Vltava from Charles Bridge in Prague by order of King Wenceslaus IV. At issue was the appointment of a new abbot for the rich and powerful Benedictine Abbey of Kladruby; its abbot was a territorial magnate whose resources would be crucial to Wenceslaus in his struggles with nobles. Wenceslaus at the same time was backing the Avignon papacy, whereas the Archbishop of Prague followed its rival, the pope at Rome. Contrary to the wishes of Wenceslaus, John confirmed the archbishop's candidate for Abbot of Kladruby, and was drowned on the king's orders on 20 March 1393. This account is based on four contemporary documents. The first is the accusation of the king, presented to Pope Boniface IX on 23 April 1393, by Archbishop Jan of JenÅ¡tejn, who immediately went to Rome together with the new abbot of Kladruby. A few years later Abbott Ladolf of Sagan listed John of Nepomuk in the catalog of Sagan abbots, completed in 1398, as well as in the treatise De longævo schismate, lib. VII, c. xix. A further document is the Chronik des Deutschordens/Chronik des Landes Preussen, a chronicle of the Teutonic Order compiled by John of Posilge, who died in 1405. In the above accusation, Jan of Jenstejn already calls John of Nepomuk a saint martyr. The biography of the bishop describes John of Nepomuk as gloriosum Christi martyrem miraculisque coruscum. Thus, the vicar put to death for defending the laws and the autonomy of the Catholic Church became revered as a saint directly after his death. Much additional biographical information comes from Bohemian annalists who wrote 60 or more years after the events they recount. Although they may have taken advantage of sources not available today, their contribution is considered legendary by many historians, particularly by the Protestant ones. In his chronicle Chronica regum Romanorum, completed in 1459, Thomas Ebendorfer states that King Wenceslaus had drowned the confessor of his wife, indicated as Magister Jan, because he had stated that only the one who rules properly deserves the name of king and had refused to betray the seal of Confession. This is the first source to mention this refusal as a motivation of the condemnation of John of Nepomuk. In his Instructions for the King, completed in 1471, Paul Zidek provides further details. King Wenceslaus was afraid that his wife had a lover. As she was used to confessing to Magister Jan, King Wenceslaus ordered him to reveal the name of the lover, but to no avail. Therefore, the king ordered John to be drowned. Note that in these chronicles neither the date of the events nor the name of the queen is mentioned. In 1483 John of Krumlov, dean of St. Vitus cathedral, states that John died in 1383. As the first wife of Wenceslaus died in 1386, this change of date also causes uncertainty about the name of the queen. The mistake of John of Krumlov crept into the Annales Bohemorum of Wenceslaus Hajek of Liboczan, the Bohemian Livy. He suggested that two Jan di Nepomuks may have existed and have both been killed by King Wenceslaus. The first one is the queen's confessor, who died in 1383; the other the vicar of the archbishop, who disagreed with the king on the election of the abbot of Kladruby and was drowned in 1393. As Hajek's annals enjoyed a wide success, they influenced all subsequent historians for two centuries, up to the Latin edition, critically annotated by the translator, which considerably reduced Hajek's credit as a reliable historian.
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