Legend · České Budějovice
The false oath at the pillory
On Přemysl Otakar II Square in České Budějovice a pillory stood for two hundred years, and liars and perjurers were set by it. According to legend one morning a runaway horse dragged there a man who the day before had sworn a lie before the whole town council. It stopped exactly at that stone.
In 1521 plague struck Budějovice. Among those from whom it took a whole family was young Matylda. Her parents and both brothers died. She was left alone, without their protection.
One day she knelt in the chapel behind the parish church of St Nicholas. She was alone there when Jodok sought her out. He had been courting her for some time. Matylda refused him, but he did not stop pressing. He came up and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Now you will not refuse me any more.”
Matylda turned to him. She told him she would not go with him and warned him not to desecrate the sacred place. Jodok pressed on. When she refused again, he seized her.
What followed — a false oath before the council, a runaway horse, and a stop at the pillory stone — is the legend’s judgment scene. The pillory itself was real. The moral of the story is older than any one name: a lie sworn in public finds its way back to the place of shame.
How it really was
The pillory on Přemysl Otakar II Square in České Budějovice is attested from 1391; the false-oath legend is linked to the plague of 1521 and a dispute between parish priest Jan Hayder and Jan Krenauer of Křenov.
The plague of 1521 is real. The epidemic struck the town in 1520 and 1521 and peaked in spring 1521. Chronicle estimates spoke of up to three thousand dead; a modern scholarly estimate is much lower, around five hundred.
The pillory stood on the square and is attested from 1391. It served for public shaming punishments for offences against morals, honour and order.
The story of the runaway horse dragging a perjurer to the stone belongs to legend layered onto that real pillory and that real plague year.
Where to follow the legend
Přemysl Otakar II Square, České Budějovice. The pillory stood there for two hundred years, in the middle. The Cathedral of St Nicholas, at whose chapel the legend begins, is two minutes away.
Where we know it from
- Encyklopedie Českých Budějovic, hesla epidemie, církevní správa, kronikářství, kaple svatého Jakuba, pranýř
- Kronikářský výtah k roku 1523/1524 o nevpuštění Jana Haydera do města, v moderním zpracování Jihočeské univerzity
- Statutární město České Budějovice / Jan Schinko: historie hostince U Černého vola: název schválen roku 1816
Version without embellishment
Hlavní verze je o soudu, o dívce a o dobrém jméně. Tahle je o posledních minutách jednoho muže a o tom, co při nich dělali sousedé.
Křivá přísaha u pranýře – Bez příkras