Slovaks was used in public documents and similar writings; and that such historical monuments must be buried in the libraries and archives of the catholic archbishops, noblemen, and cities.[57] But this subject has never been sufficiently examined.  The historical popular songs, which nearly a hundred years ago were familiar to the Slovakian peasants, and some of which appear to have been derived even from the pagan period, have perished, with the exception of a few initial verses.[58]

There is no trace known to be left of the mental existence of this nation of nearly two millions of souls, until the middle of the fifteenth century.  At that time a great body of Hussites, who were exiled from Bohemia, broke into Upper Hungary, and, under the conduct of Giskra von Brandeis, were hired by the queen Elizabeth against the rival Polish-Hungarian monarch Vladislaus, afterwards king of Bohemia.  The Bohemian soldiers were accompanied by their wives and children, and settled finally in different parts of Hungary, Other Taboritic colonists followed them, and amalgamated gradually with the Slovaks, among whom they principally established themselves.  It is probable, that at this time the Slovaks became familiar with the Bohemian as a literary language; which from its kindred genius and its similarity of forms was perfectly intelligible, and must have been highly acceptable to them.  When the doctrines of the German Reformers penetrated into Hungary, they found the Slovaks already so well prepared, that those doctrines were at once spread among the people by numerous books written by Slovakian clergymen in the Bohemian language.  The Bible and the liturgical books were written and printed in Bohemian; and many Bohemians and Moravians came into Hungary as preachers and teachers.  Thus the dominion of the Bohemian language over the pulpit, and, since all the Slovakian writers of this period were clergymen, in the republic of letters also, was established among the Slovaks without struggle.  There is nothing known of any catholic Slovakish writers at this period; if there were any, they probably followed the beaten track, and wrote also in Bohemian or in Latin.  But the produce of the literary cultivation of the Slovaks during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is at most but small:  for the times appear to have been too heavy, and men’s minds too much oppressed, for a free development of their powers.  The civil wars, the devastations of the Turks, the religious controversies, and after the battle at the White Mountain, religious oppression and persecution, chased the peaceful muses from Pannonia, and put the genius of the people in chains.  All the productions of these two centuries, with a few exceptions, are confined to theology, and are mostly sermons, catechisms, devotional exercises, or religious hymns.  Schaffarik observes, that from these latter there speaks a melancholy gloomy spirit, crying for divine aid and deliverance.[59]