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

by C. Edmund Maurice

But the real stability of Bohemia, and the substantial unity which under-lay its divisions, were to be proved very soon, by a most searching test. In 1125 the line of the Franconian sovereigns of Germany ended; and Lothar, Duke of Saxony, was chosen Emperor. It will be remembered that the Saxons had now for some time been recognised as the most dangerous rivals of Bohemia; and, at the time of Lothar’s accession, an opportunity seemed to offer itself for using the Imperial power to crush out Bohemian independence. Sobeslav, the next Duke of Bohemia, had just obtained the throne by the influence of his mother Svatava, who had persuaded the Bohemian nobles to ignore the claims of her eldest son, Otto. Otto at once appealed to Lothar, who asserted his right, as Emperor, to decide the succession to the Dukedom of Bohemia.

Such a claim would have been resented at any time; but Otto had specially offended Bohemian feeling, by consenting to hold the province of Moravia as a fief from the Emperor, instead of a dependency of the Duke of Bohemia. All the national feeling of independence at once burst into flame; Sobeslav answered Lothar “that he trusted in the mercy of God, and in the merits of the holy martyrs of Christ, St. Wenceslaus, and St. Adalbert, that our country would not be delivered into the hands of foreigners.” Then he went round to the monasteries imploring Divine help; and when he finally set out on his march, the spear of St. Wenceslaus and the banner of St. Adalbert were carried at the head of the army. At the same time Sobeslav despatched a message to the Emperor, reminding him that the Bohemian nobles were the sole electors of their duke, and that the Emperor had only the right of confirming their choice. But Otto had filled the leaders of the Saxon army with the belief that the nobles of Bohemia were on their side; so the Emperor and his friends declared that Sobeslav’s speech was mere raving.

Following Otto’s guidance, the Saxon army now marched through a thick wood till they came to the pass of Chlum. Here they found themselves wedged in between two mountains, and so blocked by the snow that they had to dismount from their horses. While the invaders were thus cut off from any hope of retreat, Sobeslav’s army broke in upon them from three different sides. Surprised and unable to defend themselves, the Saxons were cut to pieces; while many of the Bohemians were encouraged by visions of St. Wenceslaus and St. Adalbert. So great was the victory that, in the words of one chronicler, “there was rejoicing through all the family of St. Wenceslaus.” Lothar admitted that he had been misled by Otto, recognised the “judgment of God,” and presented Sobeslav with the ducal standard.

Sobeslav, like all the wiser rulers of Bohemia, while determined to maintain the independence of his country, was unwilling to provoke any needless quarrel with Germany. Even with Lothar he soon entered into friendly relations; and, after the death of the Saxon Emperor, he used his vote as Elector of the Empire on behalf of Conrad of Hohenstauffen. Once more the connection between Bohemia and the Empire became one of close friendship; and Sobeslav appealed to Conrad to confirm his nomination of his son Vladislav as successor to the throne. Evidently fearing the divisions which might follow his death, Sobeslav further strengthened Vladislav’s position by securing a special promise from the nobles and knights that they would accept this prince as their duke. The correctness of Sobeslav’s fears was soon proved by the events which followed his death. When in 1140 the duke was known to be dying, the nobles of Bohemia met at the Vys̆ehrad, where they consulted long about the succession to the throne; and, though they finally decided to accept Vladislav as their duke, he soon found that his tenure of authority was a frail and uncertain one.

His difficulties, indeed, were much increased by the reforming zeal of one of the most important of the statesmen on whom he had to rely. Zdík, Bishop of Olmütz, had just returned from a pilgrimage to Palestine, full of eager enthusiasm for establishing a new order of things. By this “new order” he understood a revival of clerical discipline, an increase of monasteries, and a stricter enforcement of general purity of life. Vladislav sympathised with the bishop’s zeal; and he had also enthusiasms of his own, which were equally difficult of realisation. He removed corrupt magistrates, and he insisted that his subjects should have the right to appeal to him against the decisions of those subordinate courts which often represented rather the will of the lords than the intentions of the law.

Such reforms, however welcome to the peasants, the townsfolk, and the stricter clergy, were bitterly opposed by the nobles, whose power they weakened, and whose oppressions they redressed. Therefore, in 1142, the nobles again met, to depose Vratislav from the throne, and to choose a successor in his place. After some discussion, they fixed upon Conrad, the Margrave of Moravia, and placed him at the head of the insurgent forces. Vladislav soon heard of their intrigues; and, while he entrusted the Bishop of Olmütz with the organisation of the ducal troops, he himself sent messengers to the conspirators, reminding them of their oaths of allegiance; and he specially appealed to his cousin Otto, the son of the prince who had headed the Saxon invasion, reproaching him with the fact that he had just restored him to his father’s lands. But all these appeals were in vain; the insurgent army advanced to “Vizoca,” where they were encountered by Vladislav. The fight was a fierce one, and many of the leading nobles were killed; but at last, by pretending a panic, they decoyed the ducal army into a dangerous position, and there turned on them and routed them. Vladislav retreated to Prague; and then, leaving his brother Theobald to defend the city, he went to the Emperor to ask his assistance. The Emperor remembered his debt to Sobeslav, and willingly interceded for his son; and Conrad of Moravia was soon compelled to fly before the forces of his Imperial namesake. Great part of the next four years was wasted in compelling the insurgents to return to their allegiance; but at last the Emperor succeeded in making peace between the contending parties, and Conrad was restored to the government of Moravia.

Vladislav now became eager to resume his interrupted career of reform; and, as a first step, he began to rebuild the monasteries which the rebels had destroyed. Like Vratislav, however, he now felt himself forced by the opposition which he had encountered at home to rely more than ever on the German Emperor; and he was thus dragged into expeditions which had little concern for Bohemia. At first, indeed, the wars in which he engaged were not of a kind to offend the feelings of his countrymen. The crusade, for instance, in which he followed Conrad in 1147, was too much in accordance with the ideas of the time to provoke any open opposition from the nobles; while his invasion of Poland in 1149 was, doubtless, only too popular in Bohemia. But an expedition of a far more important character, and far more closely bound up with the Imperial power, was, a few years later, to occupy the thoughts of Vladislav and his countrymen.

In the year 1154 the Emperor Conrad died, and the Electors of the Empire met to choose his successor. The influence of the Duke of Bohemia in these elections had now been completely recovered; and Vladislav played a considerable part in securing the success of his candidate, the son of Conrad, the celebrated Barbarossa.

But Vladislav’s enemies were on the watch to break a connection so important to his power. Vladislav, for some reason not easy to ascertain, refused to attend Barbarossa’s first Council at Merseburg. This absence was at once seized upon by his rival and kinsman Oldr̆ich to draw the Emperor’s favour away from the new duke. Fortunately, Vladislav, though absent, was well represented by his shrewd adviser, Daniel, Bishop of Prague; and by the bishop’s influence Oldr̆ich was quieted for a time. Vladislav took note of this intrigue; and to prevent its recurrence he drew closer his ties with the Emperor, and consented to support the Emperor in a new invasion of Poland.

This connection gave Barbarossa the opportunity to interest Vladislav in his important projects for recovering and making firmer his position as Holy Roman Emperor. The rising of Arnold of Brescia had drawn the Pope and the Emperor for a time into an alliance; and the appeal of Lodi against the tyrannies of the greater Lombard towns had given the Emperor a new excuse for establishing his rule in Italy. So he became anxious to secure sufficient support from the princes of the Empire; and he was ready to grant favours to those most likely to be of service to him. In 1156 he raised the Margravate of Austria into an independent dukedom; and in the following year he proposed to restore to Vladislav that royal title which had gradually fallen into disuse in Bohemia, on condition that the new King should bring his forces to assist him in the siege of Milan.