Jump to content

John of Nepomuk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saint

John of Nepomuk
Martyr
Bornc.1345
Nepomuk
Died20 March 1393(1393-03-20) (aged 47–48)
Prague
Venerated inCatholic Church

Czechoslovak Hussite Church Eastern Orthodox Church

Lutheranism

Anglican Communion
Beatified31 May 1721, Rome by Pope Innocent XIII
Canonized19 March 1729, Rome by Pope Benedict XIII
Feast16 May
Attributeshalo with five stars, cross, bridge, angel indicating silence by a finger over the lips, priest's biretta
Patronageconfessors, mariners, raftsmen, millers, sievers, bridges, against hazards by water, for discretion; Bohemia, San Juan, Batangas, Malibay, Pasay; Alfonso, Cavite; Moalboal, Cebu; San Remigio, Cebu; Cabiao, Spanish Navy Marines, Prague, Slavonski Brod, Omiš

John of Nepomuk (or John Nepomucene) (Czech: Jan Nepomucký; German: Johannes Nepomuk; Latin: Ioannes Nepomucenus[1]) (c. 1345 – 20 March 1393) was a saint of Bohemia (a western part of what is now the Czech Republic) who was drowned in the Vltava river at the behest of King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. Later accounts state that he was the confessor of the queen of Bohemia and refused to divulge the secrets of the confessional. On the basis of this account, John of Nepomuk is considered the first martyr of the Seal of the Confessional, a patron against calumnies and, because of the manner of his death, a protector from floods and drowning.[2]

Biography

[edit]
Martyrdom of St. John Nepomuk by Szymon Czechowicz, National Museum in Warsaw.
The Dead Body of John of Nepomuk on the banks of the Vltava c. 1760 by Franz Xaver Palko.

John of Nepomuk was born between 1340–50 in Bohemia. His birthplace was the village Pomuk. It was renamed Nepomuk and is now in the Czech Republic. John's father was Velflín, a diminutive form of Wolfgang.[3]

John attended the University of Prague. He studied canon law at the University of Padua from 1383 to 1387. In 1393, he was made vicar-general of Saint Giles Cathedral by Jan of Jenštejn, Archbishop of Prague.[4]: 7 

Jenštejn was under the supervision of Pope Boniface IX in Rome. King Wenceslaus IV supported the Avignon papacy and Antipope Clement VII. In 1393, Wenceslaus wanted to absorb the revenue of the Benedictine abbey in Kladruby. Jenštejn opposed the plan. The outraged King summoned Jenštejn and his subordinates, where they were arrested. Jenštejn escaped, but John and three others were captured and tortured. John was the only one who remained loyal to Archbishop Jenštejn. On March 20, Wenceslaus had John thrown from the Charles Bridge into the Vltava.[5]

On April 23, Archbishop Jenštejn presented Pope Boniface IX with evidence of Wenceslaus' crimes. Jenštejn described John of Nepomuk as a "a glorious martyr of Christ and sparkling with miracles".[6]

Legend

[edit]
The prototypical statue of John of Nepomuk at Charles Bridge in Prague, at the site where the saint was thrown into Vltava. Made by Jan Brokoff upon a model by Matthias Rauchmiller in 1683, on the supposed 300th anniversary of the saint's death, which was until the mid-18th century presumed to have happened in 1383. It was the basis for a number of statues of the saint all across Europe.

There was no confusion about why John of Nepomuk was executed. His life was relatively well documented by chroniclers like Abbott Ladolf of Sagan.[7][8] John of Posilge's chronicle of the Teutonic Order also includes John's story.[9]

By the middle of the 15th century, John of Nepomuk's killing was reinvented as a story about the importance of the seal of confession. Through a series of inaccurate histories, the legend grew that King Wenceslaus IV executed John because he had heard the Queen's confession and would not reveal her secrets. The story first appeared in Thomas Ebendorfer's Chronica regum Romanorum (Chronicle of the Roman Kings, 1459).[10] Pavel Žídek's Jiří(ho) správovna (Advice for the King, 1471) embroidered the tale: The jealous King feared his wife was unfaithful and ordered "Magister Johannes" to reveal the name of her lover. When John refused, the King ordered him drowned. The river dried up after the execution.[11]

In 1483 John of Krumlov, dean of St. Vitus cathedral, placed John's death in 1383. The mistake was possibly due to a transcription error. Krumlov's date created confusion as to which of King Wenceslaus' two wives confessed to Nepomuk.[12] Krumlov's error was parroted in Wenceslaus Hajek's Annales Bohemorum (1541). Hajek proposes that there were two Johns of Nepomuk. The first was killed in 1383 after keeping the queen's confession sealed. The second was killed in 1393 over the dispute about the abbot of Kladruby. Hajek influenced historians for two centuries.

John's legend grew more florid in the 17th and 18th centuries. Boleslaus Balbinus's Vita Beati Joannis Nepomuceni Martyris was a particularly influential version of the tale.[13] The weight of all this bad history on John's canonization has been described as "one of the most tremendous blunders ever perpetrated by an infallible authority".[14] In 1961, the Catholic church officially recognized the falsity of the story that Nepomuk was killed for keeping the queen's confession a secret.[15]

A controversial figure

[edit]
1732 monument on Cathedral Island in Wrocław, by Jan Jiři Urbansky[16]

Catholics see John of Nepomuk as a martyr to the cause of defending the Seal of the Confessional. Romantic nationalists regard him as a Czech martyr to imperial interference. Most historians present him as a victim of a late version of the inveterate investiture controversy between secular rulers and the Catholic hierarchy.

The connection of John of Nepomuk with the inviolability of the confessional is part of the transformation of a historical figure into a legend, which can be traced through successive stages. The archbishop, who hastened to Rome soon after the crime, in his charge against Wenceslaus, called the victim a martyr; in the vita written a few years later miracles are already recorded, by which the drowned man was discovered. About the middle of the 15th century the statement appears for the first time that the refusal to violate the seal of confession was the cause of John's death. Two decades later (1471), the dean of Prague, Pavel Žídek, makes John the queen's confessor. The chronicler Wenceslaus Hajek speaks in 1541 (perhaps due to an incorrect reading of his sources) of two Johns of Nepomuk being drowned; the first as confessor, the second for his confirmation of the abbot.

In 1683 the Charles Bridge was adorned with a statue of the saint, which has had numerous successors; in 1708 the first church was dedicated to him at Hradec Králové; a more famous Pilgrimage Church of Saint John of Nepomuk was founded in 1719.

Meanwhile, in spite of the objection of the Jesuits, the process was inaugurated which ended with his canonisation. On 31 May 1721, he was beatified, and on 19 March 1729, he was canonised under Pope Benedict XIII. The acts of the process, comprising 500 pages, distinguish two Johns of Nepomuk and sanction the cult of the one who was drowned in 1383 as a martyr of the sacrament of penance.

According to some Protestant sources, the figure of John Nepomuk is a legend due to Jesuits and that its historical kernel is really Jan Hus, who was metamorphosed from a Bohemian Reformer into a Catholic saint: the Nepomuk story would be based on Wenceslaus Hajek's blending of the Jan who was drowned in 1393 and the Jan who was burned in 1415.[citation needed] The resemblances are certainly striking, extending to the manner of celebrating their commemorations. But when the Jesuits came to Prague, the Nepomuk veneration had long been widespread; and the idea of canonization originated in opposition not to the Hussites, but to Protestantism, as a weapon of the Counter-Reformation. In the image of the saint which gradually arose is reflected the religious history of Bohemia.

A coincidental drought in the region a year later helped the legend along; the church convinced the peasants that the drought represented God's punishment for the killing of Jan Nepomucký. Building on that success, the church attempted to portray the king in a more negative light. Certain clerical circles spread reports of John's courage, saying that as confessor to the Queen he had refused to reveal her secrets, and that was why he had been murdered.

Veneration

[edit]
St. John of Nepomuk's Tomb in St Vitus Cathedral, Prague

Belief in John's supernatural powers heightened in 1719 when his tomb was opened and his tongue was found shriveled but intact.[8]

The cult of St. John of Nepomuk grew in the 17th century and spread during 17th and 18th centuries from Bohemia into many Catholic countries, especially to those ruled by or having ties to the Habsburg family. Statues of St. John of Nepomuk, churches consecrated to him and settlements bearing his name can be found not only in Central Europe (where they are most common), but also in many other European countries and further beyond in the Americas and in India.

Worldwide, statues of John of Nepomuk number in tens of thousands, making John of Nepomuk the most represented Czech person in visual art. In Czechia alone, there are around 6000 statues. Similar numbers are in Austria and Germany, and smaller numbers in other parts of the former Habsburg Empire. Individual statues or other monuments can be found in almost every country with a significant Catholic tradition.

Most of those statues are located on bridges (due to John of Nepomuk being a patron saint of bridges and against drowning) and are modelled according to the famous John of Nepomuk statue on the Charles Bridge in Prague. He is usually portrayed with a halo with five stars, alluding to the legend about stars that hovered over his dead body when it was found on the bank of the Vltava river. His tomb, a Baroque monument cast in silver and silver-gilt that was designed by Josef Emanuel Fischer of Erlach, stands in St Vitus Cathedral, Prague.

His name is a common baptismal name in Czech lands. His name is shared with another saint John Nepomucene Neumann.

See also

[edit]
Wikisource has original works on the topic: John of Nepomuk

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Sprigl, Ignaz. Sanctus Johannes Nepomucenus Christi Heiliger Blut-Zeug. Gedruckt bey Maria Magdalena Riedlin, Wittib., 1723.
  2. ^ "Svatý Jan Nepomucký", Nepomuk.cz. Accessed July 13, 2025.
  3. ^ Fontana, Bernard L. A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier Del Bac. University of Arizona Press, 2010. 298.
  4. ^ Wratislaw, Albert Henry. Life, Legend, and Canonization of St. John Nepomucen. Bell and Daldy, 1873.
  5. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. "Nepomuk, John of" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press, 1911.
  6. ^ Pubitschka, Franz. Francisci Pubitschka ... Chronologische Geschichte Böhmens: Unter König Wenzeln dem 4, Volume 5. Czechia, gedruckt bey Johann Karl Hraba, hochlöbl. Hh. Stände Buchdrucker, 1793. 143–63.
  7. ^ Verein für Geschichte Schlesiens, and Schlesische Gesellschaft für Vaterländische Kultur. Scriptores Rerum Silesiacarum, Erster Band. Breslau, 1835–1902. 213ff.
  8. ^ a b Kirsch, Johann Peter. "St. John Nepomucene", The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 467f.
  9. ^ Scriptores rerum Prussicarum, Dritter Band. Edited by Theodor Hirsch. Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1866. 188.
  10. ^ Louthan, Howard. Converting Bohemia: Force and Persuasion in the Catholic Reformation. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 280f.
  11. ^ Schmude, Theodor. "Studien über den hl. Johannes Neopomuk" in Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, 1883. 90ff.
  12. ^ Nigito, Alexandra. "Vorwort" in San Giovanni Nepomuceno: Oratorio Melodrammatico Sacro. Austria, Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2024. VIIf.
  13. ^ Loesche, Georg. "John of Nepomuk", The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1910. 213f.
  14. ^ "The Bloody Parliament of Wilemow", Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country. September, 1876. 294.
  15. ^ Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints: Third Edition. Penguin Publishing Group, 1995. 191.
  16. ^ Więcek, Adam. "Jan Jiří Urbanský Český Sochař ve Slezsku", in Umění: Časopis Ústavu Dějin Umění Akademie věd České Republiky. March, 1964. Praha: ČSAV. ISSN 0049-5123. 144.
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Saint John Nepomucene.

Texts:

Annotated as "DE B. JOANNE NEPOMUCENO" in Acta Sanctorum, Maii Tomus Tertius. Paris & Rome: Apud Victorem Palme, 1866. 663–676.

Websites:

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_of_Nepomuk&oldid=1305117349"