John of Nepomuk 16 May

John of Nepomuk 16 May

John of Nepomuk born in the 1340, his father was a certain Velflin (Welflin, Wolflin), his mother is unknown. The father's name is probably diminutive of the German name Wolfgang. 

Jan first studied at the University of Prague, then furthered his studies in canon law at the University of Padua from 1383 to 1387. In 1393 he was made the vicar-general of Saint Giles Cathedral by Jan of Jenstejn (1348–1400), who was the Archbishop of Prague from 1378 to 1396. In the same year, on March 20, he was tortured and thrown into the river Vltava from Charles Bridge in Prague at the behest of King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia.

According to some Protestant sources, the figure of St. John Nepomuk is a legend due to Jesuits and that its historical kernel is really Jan Hus, who was metamorphosed from a Bohemian Reformer into a Roman Catholic saint: the Nepomuk story would be based on Wenceslaus Hajek's blending of the Jan who was drowned in 1393 and the Jan who was burned in 1415. The resemblances are certainly striking, extending to the manner of celebrating their commemorations. But when the Jesuits came to Prague, the Nepomuk veneration had long been widespread; and the idea of canonization originated in opposition not to the Hussites, but to Protestantism, as a weapon of the Counter-Reformation. In the image of the saint which gradually arose is reflected the religious history of Bohemia.

A coincidental drought in the region a year later helped the legend along  the church convinced the peasants that the drought represented God's punishment for the killing of Jan Nepomucky. Building on that success, they attempted to paint the king as even blacker, with certain clerical circles spreading reports of John's courage, saying that as confessor to the Queen he had refused to reveal her secrets, and that was why he had been murdered. Belief in John's supernatural powers culminated with the discovery of the saint's supposed tongue when three centuries later his tomb was opened and a piece of reddened tissue fell out of his skull.

A statue of Saint John of Nepomuk has often been erected on bridges in many countries, such as on the Ponte Milvio in Rome. There is also a commemorative plaque on a bridge leading out of Obergurgl, Austria depicting Nepomuk holding a finger to his lips, as if protecting a secret. Nepomuk's was extremely popular as late as the 19th Century people when people traveled from Tyrol, Hungary, and particularly Bohemia to Prague to celebrate his feast day, May 16. Amongst English Bellringers there is a tradition that at the midpoint of Spring, on the feast day of St. John Nepomuk, an apprentice bellringer will "shear" the hair from the head of his ringing master. It has been suggested that this tradition may stem from an influx in the seventeenth century of refugees from Malta, who settled at the Western end of Cheapside, and who brought with them the cult of Saint John of Nepomuk.