ABSTRACT
Pribik Pulkava extends Cosmas's original narrative to show that predestination is enacted and revealed through language in the first word spoken to the envoy thus asserting the authority of etymological recovery. Despite lamenting the dearth of sources, Cosmas, an early twelfth-century dean of the cathedral church in Prague, confronts the historiographic questions of the origin of the Bohemian state and its social order with admirable conviction. As Cosmas further narrates, after the death of their leader Krok, the people of Bohemia made his daughter Libue their judge on account of her prophetic gift and fairness. Like the story of the name of the Bohemians, Cosmas's story of the foundation of Prague the political centre of Bohemia is firmly rooted in etymologies. The allegory of the two golden olive trees inserts Bohemian history in the biblical historiographic frame, using etymological data as evidence.
