Duchy of Bohemia | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| c. 870–1198 | |||||||||||||||
 Duchy of Bohemia within theHoly Roman Empire, 11th century | |||||||||||||||
.svg) Duchy of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire after 1029 | |||||||||||||||
| Status | Imperial State of theHoly Roman Empire (from 1002) | ||||||||||||||
| Capital | Prague | ||||||||||||||
| Common languages | Old Czech,Latin | ||||||||||||||
| Religion | |||||||||||||||
| Government | Feudal monarchy (duchy) | ||||||||||||||
| Duke | |||||||||||||||
| Bořivoj I (first duke) | |||||||||||||||
• 1192–93, 1197–98 | Ottokar I (last duke,king to 1230) | ||||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||||
• Duchy established | c. 870 | ||||||||||||||
• Bořivoj I moved seat toPrague Castle | 875 | ||||||||||||||
• State of theHoly Roman Empire | 1002 | ||||||||||||||
• Raised toKingdom | 1198 | ||||||||||||||
• Confirmed byGolden Bull of Sicily | 1212 | ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
TheDuchy of Bohemia, also later referred to in English as theCzech Duchy,[1][2] (Old Czech:Češské kniežěstvie) was amonarchy and aprincipality of the Holy Roman Empire inCentral Europe during theEarly andHigh Middle Ages. It was formed around 870 byCzechs as part of theGreat Moravian realm.Bohemia separated from disintegrating Great Moravia after DukeSpytihněv swore fealty to theEast Frankish kingArnulf in 895.
While the Bohemian dukes of thePřemyslid dynasty, at first ruling atPrague Castle andLevý Hradec, brought further estates under their control, theChristianization initiated bySaints Cyril and Methodius was continued by the Frankish bishops ofRegensburg andPassau. In 973, theDiocese of Prague was founded through the joint efforts of DukeBoleslaus II and EmperorOtto I.[3] Later DukeWenceslaus I of Bohemia, killed by his younger brotherBoleslaus in September 935, became the land's patron saint.
While the lands were occupied by thePolish kingBolesław I and internal struggles shook the Přemyslid dynasty, DukeVladivoj received Bohemia as afief from the hands of the East Frankish kingHenry II in 1002 and the duchy became anImperial State of theHoly Roman Empire. The Duchy of Bohemia was raised to a hereditaryKingdom of Bohemia, when DukeOttokar I ensured his elevation by the German kingPhilip of Swabia in 1198. The Přemyslids remained in power throughout the High Middle Ages, until the extinction of the male line with the death of KingWenceslaus III in 1306.
The lands encompassed by theBohemian Forest, theOre Mountains, theSudetes and theBohemian-Moravian Highlands were settled by SlavicBohemian peoples about 550. In the 7th century, the localCzech people were part of the union led by theFrankish merchantSamo (d. 658).Bohemia as a geographical term, probably derived from the Celtic (Gallic)Boii tribes, first appeared in 9th-century Frankish sources. In 805, EmperorCharlemagne prepared to conquer the lands, invading Bohemia in 805 and laying siege to the fortress ofCanburg. However, the Czech forces shirked from open battle and retired into the deep forests to launchguerilla attacks. After forty days the emperor had to withdraw his forces for the lack of supplies. When the Frankish forces returned the next year burning and plundering the Bohemian lands, the local tribes finally had to submit and became dependent on theCarolingian Empire.
While the Frankish realm disintegrated in the mid-9th century, Bohemia fell under the influence of theGreat Moravian state which was established around 830. In 874, theMojmir dukeSvatopluk I reached an agreement with theEast Frankish kingLouis the German and confirmed his Bohemian dominion.[4] With the fragmentation of Great Moravia under the pressure of theMagyar incursions around 900, Bohemia began to form as an independent principality. Already in 880, the Přemyslid princeBořivoj fromLevý Hradec, initially a deputy of Duke Svatopluk I who had been baptised by the Great Moravian archbishopMethodius of Salonica in 874, moved his residence toPrague Castle and started to subjugate theVltava Basin.
Great Moravia briefly regained control over the emerging Bohemian principality upon Bořivoj's death in 888/890 until, in 895, his sonSpytihněv together with theSlavník princeWitizla swore allegiance to the East Frankish kingArnulf of Carinthia inRegensburg. He and his younger brotherVratislaus then ruled overCentral Bohemia aroundPrague. They were able to protect their realm from the Magyar forces which crushed an East Frankish army in the 907Battle of Pressburg during theHungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. Cut off fromByzantium by the Hungarian presence, the Bohemian principality existed as independent state though still in the shadow of East Francia; the dukes paid tribute to theBavarian dukes in exchange for the confirmation of the peace treaty. Vratislaus' sonWenceslaus, who ruled from 921, was already accepted as head of the Bohemian tribal union; however, he had to cope with the enmity of his neighbour DukeArnulf of Bavaria and his mighty ally, theSaxon kingHenry I of Germany. Wenceslaus maintained his ducal authority by submitting to King Henry in 929, whereafter he was murdered by his brotherBoleslaus.
Assuming the Bohemian throne in 935, Duke Boleslaus conquered the adjacent lands ofMoravia andSilesia, and expanded farther toKraków in the east. He offered opposition to Henry's successor KingOtto I, stopped paying the tribute, attacked an ally of the Saxons in northwest Bohemia and in 936 moved intoThuringia. After a prolonged armed conflict, King Otto I besieged a castle owned by Boleslaus' son in 950 and Boleslaus finally signed a peace treaty whereby he recognized Otto's suzerainty and promised to resume the payment of the tribute. As the king's ally, his Bohemian troops, together with those of theKingdom of Germany, fought in the 955Battle of Lechfeld[5] and after the defeat of the Magyars received the lands ofMoravia in recognition of his services.
Overwhelming the marauding Hungarians had the same benefits for Germans and Czechs. Less obvious is whatBoleslav I the Cruel wanted to gain by participating in the war against theObotrite tribes in far north, when he crushed an uprising of two Slavic dukes (Stojgněv and Nakon) in the SaxonBillung March. Probably Boleslav wanted to ensure that his German neighbors did not interfere with his expansion of Bohemia to the east.[6]
Significantly, theBishopric of Prague, founded in 973 during the reign of DukeBoleslaus II, was subordinated to theArchbishopric of Mainz. Thus, at the same time that Přemyslid rulers used the German alliance to consolidate their rule against a perpetually rebellious regional nobility, they struggled to retain their autonomy in relation to the empire. The Bohemian principality was definitively consolidated in 995, when the Přemyslids defeated their Slavník rivals, unified the Czech tribes, and established a form of centralized rule, albeit shaken by internal dynastic struggles.[citation needed]
In 1002,Duke Vladivoj wasenfeoffed with the Duchy of Bohemia from the hands ofKing Henry II of Germany. With this act, what had been a fully sovereign duchy became part of theHoly Roman Empire. After Vladivoj died the next year, the Polish dukeBolesław I the Brave invaded Bohemia and Moravia and ruled as Boleslaus IV. In 1004, after the Poles were expelled from Bohemia with help from Henry II,Duke Jaromír received the duchy in fief from the king.[7]
Duke Bretislaus I of Bohemia re-acquired the Moravian lands in 1019 or 1029, which thenceforth were usually ruled by a younger son of the Bohemian duke/king. About 1031, Bretislaus invaded Hungary to prevent its future expansion and, in 1035, he helped the Emperor against the Lusatians. In 1039, he invadedPoland, capturedPoznań and ravagedGniezno; after that he conquered part of Silesia includingBreslau. The destruction of Gniezno pushed the Polish rulers to move their capital toKraków. In 1040, Bretislaus defeated the German KingHenry's invasion into Bohemia in theBattle at Brůdek. However, the next year Henry besieged Bretislaus in Prague and forced him to renounce all of his conquests except Moravia. In 1047, Henry negotiated a peace treaty between Bretislaus and the Poles.
The son of Bretislaus,Vratislaus II, supported Henry against thePope, anti-kings, and rebellions in Saxony in his long reign. The Bohemian troops showed conspicuous bravery and, in 1083, he entered Rome with Henry and their armed forces. Henry gave Vratislaus a lifetime appointment as the firstKing of Bohemia in 1085 out of gratitude. For his successorBretislaus II foreign policy was largely concerned with the Silesian conflict, when the Poles did not pay a fee for areas once resigned by Bretislaus I.
In 1147, the Bohemian duke,Vladislaus II, accompanied the German king,Conrad III, on theSecond Crusade, but halted his march atConstantinople. Thanks to his military support against northern Italian cities (especiallyMilan) for the emperorFrederick Barbarossa, Vladislaus was elected king of Bohemia on 11 January 1158, becoming the second Bohemian king.
The Duchy earned a significant income from thePrague slave trade, trafficking Pagan Slavs, termed assaqaliba, toslavery in al-Andalus in the 10th and 11th centuries.[8]
Mining of tin and silver began in theOre mountains in the early 12th century.
During the German civil war between theHohenstaufen kingPhilip of Swabia and hisWelf rivalOtto IV, DukeOttokar I of Bohemia decided to support Philip, for which he was awarded with a royal coronation in 1198, this time as a hereditary title. In 1200, however, Ottokar abandoned his pact with Philip and declared for the Welf faction. Both Otto andPope Innocent III subsequently accepted Ottokar as hereditary King of Bohemia. The Bohemian principality was then reborn into theBohemian kingdom.
In 1212, Ottokar I, bearing the title "king" since 1198,[9] extracted theGolden Bull of Sicily—a formal edict by the Hohenstaufen emperorFrederick II confirming the royal title for Ottokar and his descendants, whereby his duchy was formally raised to a kingdom. The Bohemian king would be exempt from all future obligations to the Holy Roman Empire except for participation in the imperial councils. The imperial prerogative to ratify each Bohemian ruler and to appoint the Bishop of Prague was revoked. The country then reached its greatest territorial extent and is considered its Golden Age.
After the extinction of the Přemyslid dynasty, theLands of the Bohemian Crown were ruled by theHouse of Luxembourg from 1310, until the death of EmperorSigismund in 1437. After the Middle Ages, theKingdom of Bohemia remained under the rule of the AustrianHouse of Habsburg from 1526 until the collapse ofAustria-Hungary after theFirst World War.
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This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain. Country Studies.Federal Research Division.
