Jan Milíč z Kroměříže

Jan Milíč was a son of a master weaver from Kroměříž, so he came from the burgher class.

Initially, he worked as a notary of the Bohemian chancery of King Charles IV in Prague. He later became the King’s vice-chancellor and a canon at St. Vitus Cathedral. 

Both of these posts were very profitable. However, Milíč soon learned that many high officials, both secular and clerical, lived immoral lives and their example was followed by burghers and the lower classes.

In 1372 he achieved remarkable success. Many prostitutes of Prague, moved by his words, began to do penance.

Milíč asked the King to give him the place in Prague’s Old Town where a brothel called Venice used to be and he purchased and was given several surrounding building sites where he founded a chapel and a monastic asylum for women, called New Jerusalem.

The left part shows the Gothic buildings in Prague’s Konviktská street. 

 In the foreground, under the scaffolding at the building of the new asylum, Jan Milíč is speaking to women who, under the influence of his words, are taking off their jewellery and become penitent.