Saint Agnes of Bohemia – princess, nun but also politician

At the tender age of three, Agnes was sent for schooling to several convents in turn. She was accompanied by her sister Anna and both received an extensive education. At that time, she was engaged for the first time, this being to the son of Henry the Bearded. Unfortunately, her child fiancé died and she returned to Prague.

When Agnes’s certain future was no more, her father began to mastermind and combine other possible alliances. He first promised her to the nine-year-old son of Emperor Frederick II. In doing so, he wanted to ensure an alliance with the House of Hohenstaufen. The future Henry VII thus became her fiancé. This is why they sent the lovely Agnes to be brought up in the Austrian court. Well, not exactly to the court. She spent six years in an ancestral convent not far from Vienna. This marriage also came to nothing. In the end, Henry married Margaret of Babenberg. Agnes was fourteen at that time and could again look forward to returning home to Prague.

One year later, an ambassador of the English King Henry III Plantagenet visited Prague with an offer of marriage. The engagement lasted four years, and then Henry cancelled it again. But there was no need for Agnes to despair. Her former fiancé Henry (now already Henry VII) expressed renewed interest in her even though still married to Margaret of Babenberg. Agnes rejected him, but another suitor was waiting in the wings, Henry’s father Frederick II. Luckily Agnes’s father was not longer alive at this time and her brother allowed her to make her own choice. The discouraged Agnes rejected him too.

 

Agnes was shown her future path by three relatives – Aunt Agnes, Abbess of St. George’s and her two cousins, Elisabeth of Hungary and Hedwig of Silesia, both of whom were canonised. Thanks to their influence, new horizons opened up for Agnes and she set out on the path of a nun.

Together with her brother, Wenceslas I, she founded a hospital in the Old Town of Prague in 1232. After some time, this was extended to include the order and the Hospital of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star was thus created. This was promoted as an individual order by the Pope himself in 1252. This is nowadays the only order of nuns to have originated in Bohemia. Only those who are Czech by birth on their mother’s and father’s side may be members. The order became popular very quickly and expanded throughout Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. It has also been active in Vienna from the 18^th century to the present day.

Two years later, in 1234, she again busied herself, together with her brother, with construction of a dual convent/monastery for the Clare Nuns and Franciscan Monks. It was here that she became the first Mother Superior of the Clare Nuns and in 1237 she tried to constitute her own order. This order was based on strict adherence to the Franciscan rules. Unfortunately, she was unsuccessful. For this reason, a year later she gave up her position and title of Abbess and this office in the convent was not filled until her death. The other nuns called her “older sister” for the rest of her life.
 

 

Agnes received a very high quality education for that time. She was able to read and write in Czech, Latin, German and Italian. She corresponded with both Saint Clare and with Pope Gregory IX. She wrote him more than twenty letters. They contained queries, pleas and also suggestions for management of the order. She strove for selfless holiness in the service of her fellow man. She cared with humility and love not only for her sister nuns, but also for the sick and the poor.

Everything Agnes did, she did to the full. She was a pioneer for charity work in the Czech lands. Despite the fact that she lived a life full of asceticism and abnegation – she ate almost nothing and constantly flogged herself to keep her soul pure – she lived to the remarkable age of 71. The competences and duties which she performed in the convent at Na Františku were later taken on by her grandniece Kunhuta.

 

Agnes’s activities were not limited to merely managing the convent and providing services to the needy. She was also active in cultural and political life. She was an important leadership figure with the abilities of an energetic organiser and ability to turn her hand to diplomacy. For example, in 1249 she managed to reconcile her brother Wenceslas I with his son Přemysl. And she represented the interests of her dynasty in the dispute between her nephew Přemysl Otakar II and King Rudolf I (who was a ward of the papal curia). And in 1277 she accepted her grandniece Kunhuta, daughter of her nephew Přemysl into the convent. Despite the fact that Přemysl was interdicted, she said prayers for him before the Battle of Moravian Field.

 

The legend of Agnes of Prague, her famed learnedness, mercy, but also interest in the state matters of her family, spread around the world immediately after her death. Elisabeth of Bohemia, the great-granddaughter of Agnes’s brother Wenceslas I already strove to have Agnes canonised. Emperor Charles IV also tried to do so. Unfortunately both were unsuccessful. From the end of the Thirty Years’ War, Agnes was celebrated by Jesuits and members of the Order of the Cross. In 1874 she was at least declared beatified by Pope Pious IX on the instigation of Archbishop Frederick Joseph Schwarzenberg.

It was not until 12 November 1989 that Agnes was canonised by Pope John Paul II. But this did encounter some difficulties. If somebody is canonised, there must be physical evidence that this person actually lived. But Agnes’s remains were lost at the time of the Thirty Years’ War and an investigative search is still underway today to find her grave. Luckily a fragment of Agnes’s lower jaw has been preserved in the “relic store” in the safe of the chapel at El Escorial near Madrid in Spain. And so at last the efforts bore fruit – Agnes of Bohemia was canonised after more than seven centuries.
 

In 2011, we celebrated the 800^th anniversary of the birth of our saint. An Exhibition of Saint Agnes of Bohemia – Princess and Nun was held on this occasion in the Saint Agnes of Bohemia Convent in the Old Town. This is the first collective exhibition of works on the theme of Saint Agnes of Bohemia.