« Comme les orties dans le jardin, comme les aigremoines dans la crinière des chevaux...» Les conflits entre Tchèques et Allemands en Bohême au 14e et au début du 15e siècle

Medieval sources speak, particularly from the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th centuries onwards, of conflicts between Czechs and Germans. Facing competition from German colonization and newly founded towns, usually controlled by the German patriciate, the Czech aristocracy resorted to what could be labelled national or nationalist argumentation. The aristocracy would commission literary works in Czech that used the concept of language as a synonym for nation. In such works, Germans were considered mere “guests” in a land that “naturally” belonged to the Czechs. At the beginning of the 15th century, these national tensions intensified both in towns and at the university in Prague, among others in connection with the emerging reform movement, and there arose the need of a narrower definition of the Czech nation, going beyond the criterion of language.