The Abbot Who Carried a Cross to Rome

About the year 1095 Božetěch was abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Sázava, an excellent builder, a famous painter and a distinguished sculptor besides. He was, it is said, a man of great eloquence and quick memory, but greedy of human fame. He stood in high favour with King Vratislav, and when on one occasion Bishop Cosmas was late, he set the crown on the king's head himself — which was the bishop's right. The bishop was angered and as a punishment ordered him to carve an image of the crucified Christ the size of his own body and to carry it himself all the way to Rome, to the church of Saint Peter. Božetěch obeyed. He was the last Slavonic abbot of that monastery; in 1097 Břetislav II expelled the Slavonic monks and gave the monastery to Latin monks from Břevnov.