Saint Agnes of Bohemia

Agnes was the daughter of Ottokar I, King of Bohemia, and of Constance of Hungary, the sister of King Andrew II. ¹²³ The 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia says she was born at Prague in 1200; the New Catholic Encyclopedia gives about 1200 to 1205; Franciscan Media gives 1205. ¹²³ Through her mother she was related to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, whom the New Catholic Encyclopedia calls her cousin. ¹²

She was sent young to the Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz for her education. ¹² Her father, the 1911 encyclopedia article on Prague notes, was the king who made Bohemia a hereditary kingdom independent of Germany. ⁵

Marriages were arranged for her from childhood. ²³ The New Catholic Encyclopedia says she was betrothed at three to Boleslaus, a son of Duke Henry of Silesia; Franciscan Media says the Duke of Silesia she was promised to died three years later. ²³ Franciscan Media adds that she declined both King Henry VII of Germany and King Henry III of England. ³

Then the Emperor Frederick II asked for her. ¹³ The 1907 encyclopedia says that when the time came to celebrate the marriage it proved "impossible to persuade her to abandon the resolution she had made of consecrating herself to the service of God." ¹ She appealed to Pope Gregory IX, and both the New Catholic Encyclopedia and Franciscan Media say he intervened for her. ²³ The 1907 encyclopedia says Frederick was incensed at first, and Franciscan Media says that in the end he answered magnanimously. ¹³ The encyclopedia gives his answer, with a "he is said to have remarked": "If she had left me for a mortal man, I would have taken vengeance with the sword, but I cannot take offence because in preference to me she has chosen the King of Heaven." ¹

She began with the poor. ²³ Franciscan Media speaks of a hospital for the poor; the New Catholic Encyclopedia says she founded two, and persuaded the Crusaders of the Red Star, a military order, to staff them; the 1911 article on Prague adds that she helped found that order, the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, in Prague. ²³⁵ She also built a residence for the Franciscan friars. ²³

Then she built the monastery. ¹²³ The New Catholic Encyclopedia says the friary and the Poor Clare convent of Saint Savior were finished in 1232, and the 1911 encyclopedia dates the convent's founding to 1234; it was later renamed for her. ²⁵ Saint Clare sent five sisters from Assisi to help her begin it. ²³

The 1911 article on Prague tells her story in the middle of her father's, after his long quarrel with the Bishop of Prague over the rights of the clergy, which for a time put the kingdom under an interdict. ⁵ In that passage it records that Agnes "corresponded with St. Clare of Assisi" and founded the convent of Saint Clare, and that as its soror major she was the head of the community. ⁵

Agnes received the veil in her own monastery, in 1234 or 1236 according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia; Franciscan Media says 1236, with seven other noblewomen. ²³ She was elected abbess, and the 1907 encyclopedia says she became "a model of Christian virtue and religious observance for all." ¹² Franciscan Media reckons she spent at least forty-five years in the monastery. ³

Rank made no difference to the work she did. ²³ Both the New Catholic Encyclopedia and Franciscan Media say she cooked for the sisters and mended the clothes of lepers. ²³ Franciscan Media says the sisters found her kind but very strict about poverty, and that she refused her royal brother's offer to endow the monastery. ³ The New Catholic Encyclopedia says that before she died she obtained permission to give up all revenues and property held in common. ²

The 1907 encyclopedia says God "favoured her with the gift of miracles," and that she foretold her brother Wenceslaus's victory over the Duke of Austria; the New Catholic Encyclopedia says she "is said to have been gifted with the working of miracles and prescience," and repeats the prediction. ¹²

Four letters from Clare to Agnes survive. ²³⁴ Benedict XVI, in his 2010 audience on Saint Clare, said that in the first of them Clare speaks of Christ "with nuptial words that may be surprising but are nevertheless moving": "When you have loved [him] you shall be chaste; when you have touched [him] you shall become purer; when you have accepted [him] you shall be a virgin." ⁴

He found the summary of Clare's whole spirituality in the fourth letter, built on the image of a mirror. ⁴ Clare invited "her friend in Prague" to look at herself in Christ as in a mirror: "Look into this mirror every day, O Queen, spouse of Jesus Christ, and continually examine your face in it." ⁴ "In this mirror," she wrote, "shine blessed poverty, holy humility, and charity beyond words." ⁴

The year of her death is uncertain. ¹² The 1907 encyclopedia says "1281 is the most probable date"; the New Catholic Encyclopedia gives March 2, 1281 or 1282; Franciscan Media gives March 6, 1282, and says devotion to her began soon after. ¹²³ She was buried near her convent. ² About 1322 her body was moved to a new coffin, the New Catholic Encyclopedia says, and that coffin was lost in the Hussite wars. ²

When Stephen Donovan wrote the encyclopedia article in 1907 she was still Blessed Agnes, and the article's title still says so. ¹ Pope John Paul II canonized her on November 12, 1989, more than seven hundred years after her death. ¹²³

None of the sources consulted names a patronage for Saint Agnes of Bohemia, so this page does not supply one. ¹²³ She is remembered in them as a Poor Clare, an abbess, and the friend to whom Saint Clare wrote. ²⁴

Saint Agnes of Bohemia's feast is March 2. ¹² The New Catholic Encyclopedia gives that date as the Franciscan feast, the note added to the 1907 encyclopedia gives it, and Franciscan Media files her Saint of the Day under it. ¹²³ Franciscan Media's own text, though, says that "her liturgical feast is celebrated on March 6," the day it gives for her death. ³

She had more to give up than most, and the sources dwell on the giving up: an emperor, an endowment, revenues held in common. ¹²³ What she built instead was for others, the hospitals before the monastery. ²³

In the monastery she was abbess and still did the cooking and the mending, for the sisters and for lepers. ²³ Franciscan Media remembers her for "prayer, obedience and mortification." ³

Her friendship with Clare was carried on entirely by letter. ²⁴ Benedict XVI chose those letters, written to Agnes, as the clearest window onto what Clare thought holiness was, and Clare's answer was a mirror: to look at Christ every day and find in him "blessed poverty, holy humility, and charity beyond words." ⁴