Book Minute

The popular Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas" was written and published in 1853 by John Mason Neale, an Anglican priest and hymn writer who translated many traditional hymns, including "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

But did you know that September 28 is the Feast Day of King Wenceslas? He was raised in Christianity. His grandfather had converted when Cyril and Methodius brought Christianity to Bohemia. When Wenceslas became king in the tenth century, his support of Christianity and his efforts to unify Bohemia with Germany created an atmosphere for his assassination. He was assassinated, and declared the patron saint of the Czech Republic.

His namesake, King Wenceslas IV, commissioned a beautifully illuminated Bible in the fourteenth century, one of the earliest German translations of the Bible!