Saint Agnes of Bohemia

1211, Prague – 2 March 1282, Prague

Saint Agnes of Bohemia, also known as Agnes of Prague, was probably born in 1211, to King of Bohemia Přemysl Ottokar I and his second wife Constance. She was educated first in the Cistercian monastery in Trzebnica, Poland, and then in the Premonstratensian monastery in Doksany. In the following years, she was engaged to be married to the English king Henry III Plantagenet and later to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry. However, negotiations on marriage ended prematurely. Agnes refused the offer of Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich II and decided to take the vows. In the early 1230s, supported by her brother King Wenceslas I she founded a monastery in Prague, on a location later called Na Františku, for the male and female branch of the newly-founded Franciscan order. She herself became its abbess. Several years later, however, she renounced the title and decided to be only an “elder sister”. At the same time, she founded a hospital for the poor and the sick in the Old Town of Prague. In 1252, the hospital brotherhood was elevated to the rank of the Military Order of the Crusaders of the Red Star. Agnes of Bohemia thus became the only women to found a male religious order. Owing to her care for the ill and the poor, she became a pioneer of organised social care in the Czech lands. She also participated in the political life of her family – allegedly she helped to make peace between King Wenceslas I and his son Přemysl Ottokar II. She took her grandniece Kunhuta, i.e. Přemysl Ottokar II’s widow, into the monastery. Owing to her good education, she spoke several languages. Her letters to Saint Claire and to popes Gregory IX and Innocent IV are well-known. She died in 1282, at the age of 71. Her remains were lost during the Hussite Wars and have not been found, with the exception of two reliquaries containing parts of her jaw. Attempts at her canonisation followed soon after her death and were later repeated several times. Agnes of Prague was beatified in 1874 by Pope Pius IX. She was canonised on 12 November 1989. The celebration of her canonisation, led by the Cardinal František Tomášek, became a manifestation of resistance against the disintegrating communist regime. She is the patron saint of the Czech lands. Her attributes are her order’s habit, lilies and monastery.