Medieval folktales rarely survive, but when they do, they often appear in surprising places—especially in the lives of local saints. The story of St. Prokop of Sázava reveals how ordinary Czech beliefs shaped a miracle-working saint who battled demons, defended the Slavonic rite, and even returned as a ghost to protect his community.
By Eleanor Janega
Because of the way that source survival works, it is often difficult for us to find medieval folktales. The word-of-mouth nature of the medieval world means that often we don’t get to hear what ordinary people thought. The folktales that do reach us are therefore often the kind that align with the desires of the people who could write them down for posterity. As a result of this phenomenon, one of the best places to find folk beliefs is in saints’ hagiographies. This is because – especially in the earlier medieval period before there was a formal process for the canonization of saints, which was overseen directly by the papacy – local belief was often the means by which saints were created. As a result, oftentimes the saints and their deeds that we find detailed in local accounts are strikingly odd to people from outside of those communities.
One excellent example of this is the life of St. Procopius, or St. Prokop of Sázava. St. Prokop was one of the most popular Czech saints in the medieval period, along with the better known St. Wenceslas or St. Vaclav. A brief biography of the saint wouldn’t raise many eyebrows. He founded the Sázava monastery (for which he is now named) in central Bohemia sometime in the eleventh century. Like many who took up the monastic occupation, he was a dedicated ascetic. His life was one of modesty, piety, and simplicity, and the monastery that he founded went on to be a significant center of cultural production in the Czech lands. It is unsurprising that a dedicated man who worked toward expanding the Church would be honored with a sainthood.
However, if one begins to look more closely at his life, the folk beliefs about the saint become apparent. Chief among these is how Prokop founded the monastery. Prokop chose to enter the wilderness in order to establish its foundations, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. After all, the point of monastic institutions was that those who lived in them were consciously turning their backs on the riches of the world in order to pursue a life of solitude devoted to God.
However, Prokop decided that he was going to found his monastery inside a cave. This is where things get interesting. There was a long tradition of monastic fathers, often called the desert fathers, becoming monks in the late antique and early medieval period by simply going to live in caves in the desert. We refer to these individuals as the desert fathers, and they include individuals such as St. Anthony the Egyptian and St. Paul of Thebes. However, these individuals were all cave dwelling in the third century, some 800 years before St. Prokop decided that he would try the same thing. In the intervening years, the Church had taken a dim view of such things, preferring monastic types to establish a house in a more direct way that they could control, and to take up an established monastic rule such as that of St. Benedict when they did so.
Clearly for the Bohemians who observed Prokop, the desires of the Church made no difference. For the people who told his story, his willingness to live in a cave was proof of his holiness and rejection of the world, whether or not anyone in Rome felt the same way.
Yet, it wasn’t just any cave that Prokop chose. He had apparently found a cave that was inhabited by demons. According to a 1379 life of Prokop, the Pasionál, when Prokop entered the cave, “the voices of devils were heard crying, ‘Woe! Woe! That this false cruel man lives in this cave we can no longer endure; let us rise up with all our brothers and dwell in the wasteland called Lobek. No one there could harm us more than this Prokop, who does not let us live here.’”
Here we can clearly see the sort of folk belief that creates a local saint on display. Ordinary Czechs don’t care what the Church might think about a fantastic story that centers on chasing demons from a cave. They want a local saint who behaves like a saint, and that means living in a cave, and having mastery over the demonic. If they are to pray to a saint for intercession, they want someone who can overpower evil forces and be called upon in instances of, for example, possession.
A medieval depiction of Prokop fighting devils. Wikimedia Commons
After his triumph over the devils, the monastery that Prokop founded quickly attracted adherents. Yet it was not a standard institution. Unlike most monasteries in Christendom, Prokop’s chose to take on the Slavonic instead of the Latin rite. This was a form of worship that used the Old Church Slavonic language, was based on the Slavonic liturgy, and used the Slavonic alphabet, which had been introduced to the Czech lands by saints Cyril and Methodius in 863.
This was an interesting choice given that in Bohemia the Latin right was generally more widespread. Using Slavonic was indicative of a specific desire to stay connected with a particularly Czech tradition, and while accepted by the Church it was by no means common. The monastery thrived, and Prokop lived out the rest of his life there healing the sick, occasionally performing exorcisms, and feeding the poor. Prokop’s interest in the Slavonic rite seems to have been intense, given that it plays a central role in one of his final miracles, for like any good saint, Prokop’s wonders did not end with his life.
Unfortunately for the saint, his influence did seem to have waned somewhat after his death, and due to some political motivations Prokop’s nephew Vít, who had been chosen to replace him as abbot and continue the monastery’s legacy, was stood down by the prince Spytihněv II (1031–1061). In his place, a German- speaking abbot was promoted, and he swiftly set about replacing the Slavonic rite with the Latin and filling the ranks of the monks with his fellow Germanics.
This Prokop could not abide, and his ghost returned to see this wrong righted. According to the legend, his spirit appeared and said, “From whom, German, do you have a right to rule here? … Compose yourself and take yourself off, lest shame fall upon you. If you do not go, then know that God’s vengeance will come upon you.”
The new abbot ignored the ghost, to his eventual peril. Prokop returned on his fourth night and, after yet another lofty speech, beat the German with his staff, running him out of the monastery along with his fellow foreigners.
Stained glass in the Church of Saint Nicholas in Krucemburk, depicting Saint Prokop. Photo by Taťána Binková / Wikimedia Commons
A violent ghost with nationalistic opinions on language use would not ordinarily be the choice of the Church, but local Czechs loved this story. Czech speakers often seem to have viewed their German-speaking counterparts with suspicion and regarded them as a power hungry and grasping cohort. For Czechs, German speakers were often a sign of Holy Roman Imperial overreach, which disadvantaged the Slavic speakers in both monetary and cultural concerns. Here, Prokop gives his fellow Czechs a miracle that they can crow about. Not only were the German speakers vanquished, but they were also violently beaten in the process.
Thus we can see that Prokop was very much a local saint based on folk ideas of what a heroic saint ought to be. The local Czechs wanted someone who represented them over the interests of German speakers, and they wanted someone who could drive out either a demon or a bullying German, both of whom seem to have held a similar position in the popular imagination.
While these were folk ideas about saintliness, they nevertheless aligned with the views of the literate Czechs who could record the story. The Pasionál manuscript’s hagiography, quoted here, for example, was just a year after the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who pushed for greater Czech influence across the Empire, and he had been succeeded by his son Wenceslas as King of the Romans. Whoever recorded the story clearly thought that the ideas of the common Czech person were worth recording during a time of Czech ascendancy.
This is exactly how folk beliefs survive. If they align with a political project that the more powerful believe in, they may eventually be recorded for posterity. The locals who initially venerated a local Czech had no way of knowing that 300 years later it would be politically expedient to record their stories. Luckily for us, it was, and so we are able to learn why sometimes a violent ghost can be a saint.
Eleanor Janega is a medieval historian, specializing in medieval society, gender, apocalypticism, and the urban experience. She writes the blog Going Medieval and teaches at the London School of Economics, and cohosts the Gone Medieval podcast.
Further Readings:
William E. Harkins, editor and translator, Czech Prose: An Anthology. Michigan Slavic Publications, 1983.
Medieval folktales rarely survive, but when they do, they often appear in surprising places—especially in the lives of local saints. The story of St. Prokop of Sázava reveals how ordinary Czech beliefs shaped a miracle-working saint who battled demons, defended the Slavonic rite, and even returned as a ghost to protect his community.
By Eleanor Janega
Because of the way that source survival works, it is often difficult for us to find medieval folktales. The word-of-mouth nature of the medieval world means that often we don’t get to hear what ordinary people thought. The folktales that do reach us are therefore often the kind that align with the desires of the people who could write them down for posterity. As a result of this phenomenon, one of the best places to find folk beliefs is in saints’ hagiographies. This is because – especially in the earlier medieval period before there was a formal process for the canonization of saints, which was overseen directly by the papacy – local belief was often the means by which saints were created. As a result, oftentimes the saints and their deeds that we find detailed in local accounts are strikingly odd to people from outside of those communities.
One excellent example of this is the life of St. Procopius, or St. Prokop of Sázava. St. Prokop was one of the most popular Czech saints in the medieval period, along with the better known St. Wenceslas or St. Vaclav. A brief biography of the saint wouldn’t raise many eyebrows. He founded the Sázava monastery (for which he is now named) in central Bohemia sometime in the eleventh century. Like many who took up the monastic occupation, he was a dedicated ascetic. His life was one of modesty, piety, and simplicity, and the monastery that he founded went on to be a significant center of cultural production in the Czech lands. It is unsurprising that a dedicated man who worked toward expanding the Church would be honored with a sainthood.
However, if one begins to look more closely at his life, the folk beliefs about the saint become apparent. Chief among these is how Prokop founded the monastery. Prokop chose to enter the wilderness in order to establish its foundations, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. After all, the point of monastic institutions was that those who lived in them were consciously turning their backs on the riches of the world in order to pursue a life of solitude devoted to God.
However, Prokop decided that he was going to found his monastery inside a cave. This is where things get interesting. There was a long tradition of monastic fathers, often called the desert fathers, becoming monks in the late antique and early medieval period by simply going to live in caves in the desert. We refer to these individuals as the desert fathers, and they include individuals such as St. Anthony the Egyptian and St. Paul of Thebes. However, these individuals were all cave dwelling in the third century, some 800 years before St. Prokop decided that he would try the same thing. In the intervening years, the Church had taken a dim view of such things, preferring monastic types to establish a house in a more direct way that they could control, and to take up an established monastic rule such as that of St. Benedict when they did so.
Clearly for the Bohemians who observed Prokop, the desires of the Church made no difference. For the people who told his story, his willingness to live in a cave was proof of his holiness and rejection of the world, whether or not anyone in Rome felt the same way.
Yet, it wasn’t just any cave that Prokop chose. He had apparently found a cave that was inhabited by demons. According to a 1379 life of Prokop, the Pasionál, when Prokop entered the cave, “the voices of devils were heard crying, ‘Woe! Woe! That this false cruel man lives in this cave we can no longer endure; let us rise up with all our brothers and dwell in the wasteland called Lobek. No one there could harm us more than this Prokop, who does not let us live here.’”
Here we can clearly see the sort of folk belief that creates a local saint on display. Ordinary Czechs don’t care what the Church might think about a fantastic story that centers on chasing demons from a cave. They want a local saint who behaves like a saint, and that means living in a cave, and having mastery over the demonic. If they are to pray to a saint for intercession, they want someone who can overpower evil forces and be called upon in instances of, for example, possession.
After his triumph over the devils, the monastery that Prokop founded quickly attracted adherents. Yet it was not a standard institution. Unlike most monasteries in Christendom, Prokop’s chose to take on the Slavonic instead of the Latin rite. This was a form of worship that used the Old Church Slavonic language, was based on the Slavonic liturgy, and used the Slavonic alphabet, which had been introduced to the Czech lands by saints Cyril and Methodius in 863.
This was an interesting choice given that in Bohemia the Latin right was generally more widespread. Using Slavonic was indicative of a specific desire to stay connected with a particularly Czech tradition, and while accepted by the Church it was by no means common. The monastery thrived, and Prokop lived out the rest of his life there healing the sick, occasionally performing exorcisms, and feeding the poor. Prokop’s interest in the Slavonic rite seems to have been intense, given that it plays a central role in one of his final miracles, for like any good saint, Prokop’s wonders did not end with his life.
Unfortunately for the saint, his influence did seem to have waned somewhat after his death, and due to some political motivations Prokop’s nephew Vít, who had been chosen to replace him as abbot and continue the monastery’s legacy, was stood down by the prince Spytihněv II (1031–1061). In his place, a German- speaking abbot was promoted, and he swiftly set about replacing the Slavonic rite with the Latin and filling the ranks of the monks with his fellow Germanics.
This Prokop could not abide, and his ghost returned to see this wrong righted. According to the legend, his spirit appeared and said, “From whom, German, do you have a right to rule here? … Compose yourself and take yourself off, lest shame fall upon you. If you do not go, then know that God’s vengeance will come upon you.”
The new abbot ignored the ghost, to his eventual peril. Prokop returned on his fourth night and, after yet another lofty speech, beat the German with his staff, running him out of the monastery along with his fellow foreigners.
A violent ghost with nationalistic opinions on language use would not ordinarily be the choice of the Church, but local Czechs loved this story. Czech speakers often seem to have viewed their German-speaking counterparts with suspicion and regarded them as a power hungry and grasping cohort. For Czechs, German speakers were often a sign of Holy Roman Imperial overreach, which disadvantaged the Slavic speakers in both monetary and cultural concerns. Here, Prokop gives his fellow Czechs a miracle that they can crow about. Not only were the German speakers vanquished, but they were also violently beaten in the process.
Thus we can see that Prokop was very much a local saint based on folk ideas of what a heroic saint ought to be. The local Czechs wanted someone who represented them over the interests of German speakers, and they wanted someone who could drive out either a demon or a bullying German, both of whom seem to have held a similar position in the popular imagination.
While these were folk ideas about saintliness, they nevertheless aligned with the views of the literate Czechs who could record the story. The Pasionál manuscript’s hagiography, quoted here, for example, was just a year after the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who pushed for greater Czech influence across the Empire, and he had been succeeded by his son Wenceslas as King of the Romans. Whoever recorded the story clearly thought that the ideas of the common Czech person were worth recording during a time of Czech ascendancy.
This is exactly how folk beliefs survive. If they align with a political project that the more powerful believe in, they may eventually be recorded for posterity. The locals who initially venerated a local Czech had no way of knowing that 300 years later it would be politically expedient to record their stories. Luckily for us, it was, and so we are able to learn why sometimes a violent ghost can be a saint.
Eleanor Janega is a medieval historian, specializing in medieval society, gender, apocalypticism, and the urban experience. She writes the blog Going Medieval and teaches at the London School of Economics, and cohosts the Gone Medieval podcast.
Further Readings:
William E. Harkins, editor and translator, Czech Prose: An Anthology. Michigan Slavic Publications, 1983.
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