Exhibition in Prague (2012) tells the story of St. Agnes of Bohemia, who followed in the footsteps of her cousin, St. Elisabeth of Thuringia and founded a Franciscan convent in Prague.
Agnes of Bohemia (1211 – 1282) was a remarkable person. She grew up as a wilful princess refusing a marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. Instead she became fascinated by the legacy of St. Francis and used her inheritance to establish and build a hospital for the poor as well as a convent for the poor ladies – the Clarissans or Damians as they were called at that time. This religious complex was one of the first Gothic buildings in Prague.
As sister to the Bohemian king, she continued using his clout to politick the Pope in order to get a proper rule reflecting the original Franciscan way of life. In this she was supported and abetted by the wilful machinations of her soul mate, St. Clare (1194-1253). Four remarkable letters from their correspondence are preserved, witnessing the unique relationship, which existed between the Umbrian saint and her Bohemian pupil. During her life, she laboured ceaselessly to keep faith with her original vow of poverty.
Unfortunately, not much of this is told in an exhibition currently staged in the buildings of her convent, which today are used as an art gallery. Instead we are treated to a number of (more or less baroque) artistic renderings of her life and times. This might have been less maddening, if you understoo Czech and would be able to understand the long and probably very interesting video, shown in the former chapterhouse of her convent; or if you read Czech and decide to buy the catalogue weighing half a rain-forest with little text and large margins.
And yet, the exhibition is still worthwhile. The reason is, that somehow – if you use a copious amount of time – may get a rather precise sense of the living conditions of St. Agnes – Svatá Anežka Česká – and her companions in the convent.
Agnes built her convent and friary complex attached to her hospital. It housed the Franciscan friars and the Poor Clare nuns who worked at the hospital. In 1235, Agnes gave the property of the Teutonic Knights in Bohemia to the hospital. She herself became a member of the Franciscan Poor Clares in 1236. As a nun, she cooked for and mended the clothes of lepers and paupers, even after becoming abbess of the Prague Clares the following year. As can be seen in their correspondence, Clare wrote with deep maternal feelings toward Agnes, though they never met. During her lifetime, Agnes’ convent came to serve as the royal shrine of her brother and his wife, Wenceslaus I of Bohemia and Queen Kunigunde. Preserved are the church, the refectory, the charter house and the cloister.
To be “Franciscan” was without doubt de rigueur at that time and in that family. Another celebrity was the cousin of Agnes, St. Elisabeth of Thuringia (1207 -1231). Nevertheless it must have taken guts to defy the demands of a father using his daughters as diplomatic pawns in the European power-play during the reign of Frederic Barbarossa. It all ended badly and she probably died of hunger during lent 1282, when the whole country was in terrible turmoil and crisis, suffering from war, hunger and epidemics. Very soon she was beatified. Canonization, however, had to wait until the eve of the velvet revolution in 1989.
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