King Ladislaus on the Bier

The King's Court was the usual residence of King Ladislaus; only at Easter 1454 did he withdraw to the castle for a week, to be somewhat out of sight, because he received communion in one kind, at which the people grumbled. Here too he died, on Wednesday 23 November 1457. A chronicler of the time relates that the next day the king lay here on the bier all day long, and all that day people came to look upon the dead king, and there was a great press among them and much weeping. Then on Friday, straight after the sermon, they went in procession: first the craftsmen with candles, then the pupils and the monks, then the rector of the university with his masters and students, and after them ten horses were led, draped in black cloth, with their men-at-arms; then came the priests of Prague in surplices and behind them Master Jan Rokycana, the elected archbishop, in a black chasuble, and after him the king's knights.