Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 / With a short summary of later events

by C. Edmund Maurice

After these sins had been denounced as offensive unto God, and as the cause why St. Adalbert left his native country, all present were called upon to assent to the changes of conduct proposed. When they had done so the archbishop broke open the tomb, and disclosed the body of the saint. So delicious, says Cosmas, was the smell which came out that many seemed as if they had tasted rich food, and for three days they needed no more; many sick were healed; yet only the Duke, the archbishop, and the nobles were suffered to see the body. They then prayed St. Adalbert to allow them to carry him to Prague; and the Duke and bishop, taking the body from the tomb, wrapped it in silk, and set out with it in a solemn procession. After the body were carried the spoils taken from the Poles; and the Polish nobles (among whom was the great-grandfather of Cosmas) followed the procession as prisoners, their hands and necks being loaded with irons.

It was not to be expected that Brac̆islav’s proceedings would pass unchallenged; and both Pope and Emperor were appealed to, to redress the wrongs done to the Church and to Poland. Both of them answered the appeal; but the complaints of the Pope were soon silenced by the building of a monastery, and by the judicious distribution of money among the cardinals. Henry III. was not so easily satisfied. He had doubtless adopted the Imperial policy of playing off the rival kingdoms against each other; and the Bohemian victories, won so easily, and without his intervention, were most unwelcome. His avarice, moreover, was roused by the news of the booty which Brac̆islav had brought back from Poland. He therefore peremptorily demanded the surrender of the spoil, under pain of war. Brac̆islav boldly replied that, “while the Bohemians were willing to pay to the Emperor that tribute which they had always paid him, they would resist to the death any attempt to lay on them unlawful burdens.” Henry retorted that the law had a wax nose, which a king could always bend with his iron hand.

Such an exchange of courtesies was naturally followed by war; and, while a Saxon army marched into Bohemia on one side, the Emperor himself speedily followed by another entrance. But the Bohemians were ready for the invasion; and, while the imperial army were resting in a wood, they were surprised by Brac̆islav’s soldiers and cut to pieces, Henry only saving himself by the swiftness of his horse. The Duke of Saxony in vain tried to make terms with the Bohemians, and was speedily forced to retreat to his own country.

This success, indeed, was not quite so complete as it seemed at first; for, in the following year, Henry once more invaded Bohemia, and gained such successes that Brac̆islav was compelled to pay a higher tribute, and to restore many towns to Poland. Nevertheless, he was able to retain some hold even over those towns, by exacting a perpetual tribute from them; nor was Bohemia ever again so completely at the mercy of Poland as it had been in the previous reigns.

The divisions in the Bohemian Ducal family seemed, however, to Brac̆islav to be as great a danger as could arise from any foreign enemy; and he persuaded the nobles to guard against such dangers in the future by making the crown hereditary in his family, and abandoning the unlimited right of election. Such a law could not finally prevent family quarrels, or defeat the designs of ambitious adventurers. But it is worth noting, as indicating the feeling of an able ruler about the dangers to which his country was exposed.

It will be easily understood that the conduct of Henry III. and the Duke of Saxony had quickened once more in Bohemia that anti-German feeling, which the struggles with the Magyars and the Poles had for a time forced into the background. Brac̆islav had, no doubt, been statesman enough to restrain such a feeling within due bounds; but, when his son Spitihnĕv came to the throne, he gave far fiercer expression to his hatred of the old enemies of Bohemia. No sooner was he established in his power, than he issued a decree ordering all the Germans to leave the country; nor was even his mother allowed an exemption from this sentence. His brother Vratislav set himself against this policy, and tried to make the province of Moravia a centre of opposition to the king. But Spitihnĕv invaded Moravia, forced Vratislav to fly to Hungary, and treated his wife with such cruelty that she died from the effects. In order to make his power yet more secure, the Duke persuaded his other brothers, Otto and Conrad, to abandon their claims to the special districts of Moravia, which their father had granted to them, and to come to the ducal court at Prague.

Spitihnĕv, however, like Svatopluk of Moravia and Boleslav the Cruel, was one of those violent men who are subject to reactions as inexplicable as their first outbursts. Under the influence of the Bishop of Prague, he consented to be reconciled to Vratislav, and to allow him to return to Moravia; and this concession was a prelude to a complete change of policy. So mild, indeed, did he become, that he gained the reputation of being a friend to the poor, a just judge, and an encourager of religion.

It is difficult to say to which part of his reign we are to assign an act, which seems at first sight a strange contrast with his furious national prejudices. This was his suppression of the Slavonic ritual in the monastery of Sázava. But the apparent inconsistency is easily explained. The Emperors and Popes were no longer the props of each other’s power; for Henry III. had struck out that new policy, which aimed at the humiliation of the Papacy, and the exaltation of the Empire at its expense. Under these circumstances, a king of Bohemia who wished to hurl defiance at the Germans and their ruler, was necessarily forced to rely on the support of the Pope. Now the very bitterness of the struggle against the German Empire had crushed out those ideas of tolerance towards national feeling which had prevailed in the days of John VIII. The Slavonic ritual represented at once a concession to the Greek heresy, and a substitution of a national language for the Latin, which symbolised the power of the Papacy. Spitihnĕv, therefore, was obliged to suppress this incitement to heresy before he could obtain the help of the Papacy against the Emperor.

But, whatever changes might have marked the closing years of Spitihnĕv’s reign, he could not hope at once to suppress that fierce spirit of national hatred which he had called into prominence; especially since it had entwined itself, in many cases, with personal ambitions and jealousies. When, then, Vratislav succeeded to his brother’s dukedom, he found himself in an exceptionally difficult position. The persecution which he had suffered from his brother naturally inclined him to a reversal of Spitihnĕv’s policy; but he found that the rest of his family by no means shared his desire for such a change. The most turbulent and ambitious of his brothers was named Jaromír. He had been early persuaded to enter deacon’s orders, in the hope of ultimately succeeding to the bishopric of Prague. Soon, however, he wearied of a life for which he had no natural inclination; he therefore fled to Poland, and entered the Polish army. When, then, the Bishop of Prague died, Vratislav naturally felt that any claim which Jaromír might have founded on former promises, was cancelled by his desertion of his profession; and this seemed a good opportunity for introducing the new policy of conciliation of the Germans. Vratislav, therefore, offered the bishopric to a Saxon chaplain named Lanczo. Though Saxon birth might have special recommendations to those who remembered St. Adalbert’s training at Magdeburg, yet, on the other hand, the share which the Saxons had taken in the invasions of Henry III. had produced a deep feeling of resentment in many Bohemians. Conrad and Otto resolved to give expression to these discontents, by persuading Jaromír to renew his tonsure; and they resolved to support his claim to the bishopric.

Vratislav hoped to solve the difficulty by an appeal to a General Assembly. The Assembly met, and Vratislav in their presence presented Lanczo with the episcopal ring and staff. For a few moments dead silence followed this act; then, after some mutterings amongst themselves, several nobles sprang up, and announced their intention to support the claims of Jaromír by force of arms. The opposition was so fierce that Vratislav yielded, and Jaromír was made Bishop of Prague.