The Lady Abbess Will Eat No Warm Cakes Today

The convent, richly endowed by its founder Vratislav I, by Princess Mlada and by her brother Boleslav II, reached as far as the castle walls; and when Břetislav was rebuilding the fortifications in 1050, the convent oven had to be pulled down. Because the workmen were afraid to do it, the young prince Spytihněv toppled the oven into the moat himself with the words: 'The lady abbess will eat no warm cakes today.' Dalimil gives it thus: 'The German woman will bake no cakes in this oven today.' The abbess rebuked him harshly for it and mocked his heroism; and Spytihněv, when he became prince in 1055, did not forget it and banished her from the country, because she was, he said, a German. He therefore ordered that within three days all the Germans of any standing in court service should leave Bohemia.