He was of the house of the counts of Odrovans, and brother to St.
Hyacinth, and lived near Cracow in Poland. Having devoted himself
to God in an ecclesiastical state, he became eminent for piety,
learning, and the innocence of his manners. He was first instituted
to a canonry at Cracow, but afterward promoted to be conservator
of Sendomir. His riches he employed on the poor, leading himself a
most abstemious penitential life. Happening to accompany his uncle
Yvo Konski, chancellor of Poland, into Italy, he received at Rome,
together with St. Hyacinth, the habit of St. Dominic from the hands
of that holy founder in 1218. Returning into Germany and Poland, he
preached penance with wonderful fruit. In 1222 he founded at Prague
a convent of one hundred and twenty-six friars, in which Andrew, the
bishop of Prague, took the religious habit, having first, with the
consent of pope Honorius III. resigned his see. St. Ceslas built in
the same city a nunnery of the same order, in which, soon after his
death, queen Margaret, daughter of Leopold, archduke of Austria,
and widow of Henry, king of the Romans, professed herself, out of
humility, a lay-sister. The saint sent Adrian with twenty-six other
friars of his order to preach the faith in Bosnia, where they all
received the crown of martyrdom. St. Ceslas himself preached in
Silesia, and resided long at Breslaw. He directed St. Hedwiges in the
paths of Christian perfection, was endowed with the gifts of prophecy
and miracles, and filled the northern kingdoms with many eminent
servants of God.
In 1240 the Tartars, marching from Asia with an army of five hundred
thousand men, fell like a torrent on the West, and spread universal
desolation over Russia, Bulgaria, Sclavonia, Poland, and Hungary,
to the borders of Germany. They slew Henry II., surnamed the Pious,
duke of Silesia, in a great battle at Wolstadt in 1241, and marched
against Breslaw, his capital. The inhabitants burned or hid their
most precious effects, and, abandoning the city to the enemy, shut
themselves up in the citadel. St. Ceslas bore them company to assist
and comfort them, and never ceased with tears to implore the divine
protection. God was pleased to hear his prayers. When the barbarians
had made a breach, and were preparing to scale the walls, the saint
coming from offering the divine mysteries appeared upon the walls,
and at the same time a globe of fire fell from the heavens upon the
camp of the infidels, which it filled with confusion and terror. In
the meantime the Christians made a sally, and the numberless troops
of the barbarians perceiving that heaven visibly fought against
them, whilst many were perishing by the flame, betook themselves to
flight, and abandoned their enterprise. Thus they who had overturned
so many thrones, and trampled to the ground so many powerful armies,
saw themselves tumbled down from their victories and pride by the
prayer of one humble servant of God, who renewed on this occasion the
miracles of Elias and Eliseus. The circumstances of this wonderful
deliverance are authentically attested by ancient records, still
preserved among the public archives of the city of Breslaw, and are
related by Martin Cromer, bishop of Heilsberg or Warmia, in his
history of Poland, Longinus, and other historians of the northern
kingdoms. St. Ceslas died in July, the following year, 1242. His
relics are preserved in a stately chapel at Breslaw. The immemorial
veneration of his name was approved by Clement XI. in 1713. See
Touron, Vie de St. Dominique, p. 622; Bzovius, t. 13; Longinus
in Hist. Poloniæ; Matthias de Miacovia, in Chronicis Poloniæ, et
Benedict XIV. de Canoniz. l. 2, c. 34, p. 264.