What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 2 July 2024.

The original church – a Romanesque basilica – appeared around 1150, and served as the parish church for the village of Poříčí (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/11/10/prague-1-day-272-na-porici/).

Around 1200, Vladislav Jindřich, Margrave of Moravia, allowed the Order of Teutonic Knights to move into the church, where they established a hospital.

However, around 1230, Constance of Hungary, widow of Přemysl Otakar I, paid them the Knights to move (to https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/11/03/prague-1-day-236-benediktska/), so that Cistercian nuns could move in.

However, this never happened, which we’ll bring up again in about ten threads’ time (i.e. more or less at the end of this series).

Constance gave St Peter’s to the new convent founded by her daughter, Anežka (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/11/05/prague-1-day-243-anezska/).

Once Poříčí had been incorporated into the New Town, the church was reconstructed in Gothic style, starting in 1382, and not being completed until 1411 due to various complications.

Surviving the Hussite Wars, further reconstruction took place in the 1500s, and a Gothic bell tower was added in 1598.

However, St Peter’s was ravaged when the Swedes besieged Prague in 1648, and would be damaged by fire in 1653, 1666 *and* 1680 (the 1666 fire came with a free serving of lightning).

This meant a long period of repair, beginning in 1686, and disturbed by yet another damn fire in 1689, as well as Prussian troops doing their best to ruin everyone’s good work in 1757.

In 1874, an exhaustive – and expensive – full reconstruction was carried out by the architect Josef Mocker; it wouldn’t be complete until 1885.

There’s a statue of St Peter under the left tower of the church.

The bell tower includes three bells, named after Peter, Paul and John the Baptist.

The church also had a school and an ossuary, but both were destroyed in 1894.

On a non-church note, I have to give a shoutout to The Two Brothers, at number 12, an Indian restaurant whose food is so good that ordering it made parts of the early-2021 lockdown really not so bad after all.