The Martyrdom of Saint Adalbert

JAN 01 997 · 12:00

Mihály Kovács, Saint Adalbert (1855), oil on canvas; the bishop who walked unarmed into the Prussian marshes. Place: The Sambian coast, eastern Baltic (pagan Prussia) Figures: Vojtěch (Adalbert), second bishop of Prague · Bolesław I Chrobry of Poland, his patron and sponsor · Radim Gaudentius, his half-brother and companion · the Sambian Prussians, his killers Vojtěch is from the Slavník clan, the Přemyslids' last domestic rival, lords of Libice on the Elbe. He is educated at Magdeburg under the same Adalbert who confirms him, and takes the master's name. He is consecrated second bishop of Prague in 982 at the age of twenty-six. The diocese disappoints him. The priests are married, the laity is half-pagan, the duke (Boleslav II) tolerates Jewish slave-traders in the lower town. He leaves twice. Both times the pope sends him back. In 995 the Přemyslids slaughter most of the Slavník family at Libice while Vojtěch is in Rome. He does not return to Prague. He goes north instead, to Bolesław Chrobry of Poland, who has cause to support any enemy of the duke at Prague Castle and the piety to mean it. Bolesław outfits him for a mission to the heathen Prussians of the Baltic.