The oldest monuments of the Christian age are the names of the days, which are of pure Slavic origin.  Of the Lord’s Prayer in Bohemian, on comparing the oldest copy he could find among the ancient manuscripts, Dobrovsky presumes that the form must have been about the same in the ninth or tenth century; although the manuscript itself is somewhat later.  A translation of the Kyrie eleison, ascribed to Adalbert second bishop of Prague, dates from the same time.  During the eleventh and twelfth centuries many convents were founded and schools attached to them; German artists and mechanics and even agriculturists settled in Bohemia.  The influence of German customs and habits showed itself more and more, and the nobility began to use in preference the German language.  In the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this influence increased considerably, and exhibited itself most favourably in the lyric poetry of the time, an echo of the German Minnesingers; many of the poets belonging like them to the highest nobility.  Of all the Slavic nations, the Bohemian is the only one in which the flower of chivalry has ever unfolded itself; and the cause of its development here is doubtless to be sought in their occidental feudal system, and in their constant intercourse with the Germans.  The natural tendency of the Polish nobility to heroic deeds and chivalrous adventures was counterbalanced, partly by the oriental character of their relation to the peasantry, which impressed on them at least as much of the character of the Asiatic satrap, as of the occidental knight; and partly by the want of a free middle class in Poland, as also in Russia.  True chivalry indeed does not require simply the contrast of a low, helpless, and submissive class; its lustre never appears brighter than when placed side by side with an independent yeomanry.

In calling the Bohemian lyric poetry of this age the echo of the German, we do not mean to say it was wanting in originality; but wish rather to convey the idea, that the same spirit inspired at the time the Bohemians and the Germans, proceeding however from the latter, who themselves received it from the more romantic Provence.  Of these heroic love-songs very few are left.  There are, however, several productions of this period, in which the German influence is not to be recognized at all, but which exhibit purely Slavic national features.  We will here enumerate the monuments of the Bohemian language from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which have been preserved, before we pass to the fourteenth, which was more productive and exhibited in some measure a new character.