Inscribed Cuman tombstones in a Moravian church? The editor doubts it
Editorial contextKuun quotes the Czech Jesuit Bohuslav Balbin, who said that near Ivancice and the Oslavany convent there was a church whose floor was paved almost entirely with Cuman tombs and stones inscribed in their letters, 'as I saw myself'. Kuun says plainly that he hardly believes it. It is a good example of a striking claim reported and then doubted by the editor himself.
'There survives even today some memory of the barbarians not far from Ivancice and the Oslavany convent: a notable Christian church in which very many tombs of the Cumans and stones carved with their letters are to be seen, with which stones almost the whole floor of the church is paved, as I saw myself.' For my part I would hardly think this story of Bohuslav's true.
Working translation
Original wording
«Superest hodieque aliqua barbarorum memoria non procul Evanczicio et Oslovanensi Coenobio, insigne templum Christianorum, in quo plurima Cumanorum sepulchra et saxa litteris illorum incisa spectantur, quibus saxis totum fere Templi solum stratum est, ut ipse vidi.» Ceterum hanc Bohuslavi narrationem ego quidem vix veram esse putaverim.
About Cumans
Keep in mind
Balbin claims to have seen the stones; Kuun doubts it, and no such Cuman inscriptions are known.
Checked against the page image.