What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 21 September 2022.

Křišťanova was built in 1904.

Křišťan z Prachatic was born in the late 1360s, started studying at Charles University in 1386, and then became a maths lecturer there while also being a parish priest in the Old Town.

*And* also becoming the University’s dean and chancellor.

He was a supporter of Jan Hus, whom he visited when Hus was imprisoned in Constance.

His views became somewhat less radical upon his return, which made him popular with the nobility but not with the Želivský crowd, who raided his parish & forced him to flee Prague in 1427.

Returning to Prague two years later, he reconverted to Catholicism in 1434, but died of in the plague epidemic in 1439.

So yes, social media would’ve had a field day trying to draw connections between those two events.

He was also a prolific writer, mainly known for two volumes about the astrolabe. Here’s an excerpt in his own hand as shown on http://astronomia.zcu.cz/astronomove/kristan/2497-kristan-z-prachatic.

He also wrote about treatment of the plague (for all the good that did him), bloodletting, arithmetic, astrology, botany and more.

I get the impression that he would’ve tweeted every 15 seconds and been on 93% of all panel shows if these things had existed back then.