Transcriber’s Note: The Czech language uses the caron character above letters (e.g. č). This book, however, was printed with the breve character (c̆) which has been retained.
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The Story of the Nations.
BOHEMIA.
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS.
1. ROME. By Arthur Gilman, M.A.
2. THE JEWS. By Prof. J. K. Hosmer.
3. GERMANY. By Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A.
4. CARTHAGE. By Prof. Alfred J. Church.
5. ALEXANDER’S EMPIRE. By Prof. J. P. Mahaffy.
6. THE MOORS IN SPAIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole.
7. ANCIENT EGYPT. By Prof. George Rawlinson.
8. HUNGARY. By Prof. Arminius Vambéry.
9. THE SARACENS. By Arthur Gilman, M.A.
10. IRELAND. By the Hon. Emily Lawless.
11. CHALDEA. By Zénaïde A. Ragozin.
12. THE GOTHS. By Henry Bradley.
13. ASSYRIA. By Zénaïde A. Ragozin.
14. TURKEY. By Stanley Lane-Poole.
15. HOLLAND. By Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers.
16. MEDIÆVAL FRANCE. By Gustave Masson.
17. PERSIA. By S. G. W. Benjamin.
18. PHŒNICIA. By Prof. Geo. Rawlinson.
19. MEDIA. By Zénaïde A. Ragozin.
20. THE HANSA TOWNS. By Helen Zimmern.
21. EARLY BRITAIN. By Prof. Alfred J. Church.
22. THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. By Stanley Lane-Poole.
23. RUSSIA. By W. R. Morfill, M.A.
24. THE JEWS UNDER THE ROMANS. By W. D. Morrison.
25. SCOTLAND. By John Mackintosh, LL.D.
26. SWITZERLAND. By Mrs. Lina Hug and R. Stead.
27. MEXICO. By Susan Hale.
28. PORTUGAL. By H. Morse Stephens.
29. THE NORMANS. By Sarah Orne Jewett.
30. THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. By C. W. C. Oman.
31. SICILY: Phœnician, Greek and Roman. By the late Prof. E. A. Freeman.
32. THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. By Bella Duffy.
33. POLAND. By W. R. Morfill, M.A.
34. PARTHIA. By Prof. George Rawlinson.
35. AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH. By Greville Tregarthen.
36. SPAIN. By H. E. Watts.
37. JAPAN. By David Murray, Ph.D.
38. SOUTH AFRICA. By George M. Theal.
39. VENICE. By Alethea Wiel.
40. THE CRUSADES. By T. A. Archer and C. L. Kingsford.
41. VEDIC INDIA. By Z. A. Ragozin.
42. WEST INDIES and the SPANISH MAIN. By James Rodway.
43. BOHEMIA. By C. Edmund Maurice, M.A.
44. THE BALKANS. By W. Miller.
45. CANADA. By Sir J. G. Bourinot, LL.D.
46. BRITISH INDIA. By R. W. Frazer, LL.B.
47. MODERN FRANCE. By André-Le Bon.
48. THE FRANKS. By Lewis Sergeant.
49. AUSTRIA. By Sidney Whitman.
50. MODERN ENGLAND. Before the Reform Bill. By Justin McCarthy.
51. CHINA. By Prof. R. K. Douglas.
52. MODERN ENGLAND. From the Reform Bill to the Present Time. By Justin McCarthy.
53. MODERN SPAIN. By Martin A. S. Hume.
54. MODERN ITALY. By Pietro Orsi.
55. NORWAY. By H. H. Boyesen.
56. WALES. By O. M. Edwards.
London: T. FISHER UNWIN, Paternoster Square, E.C.
SMALL RING OF PRAGUE.
BOHEMIA
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE FALL OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE IN 1620; WITH A SHORT SUMMARY OF LATER EVENTS
BY
C. EDMUND MAURICE
AUTHOR OF THE “REVOLUTIONS OF 1848-9 IN ITALY, AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, AND GERMANY,” “RICHARD DE LACY: A TALE OF THE LATER LOLLARDS,” &C.
Corresponding Member of the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences
SECOND IMPRESSION
London
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
Copyright by T. Fisher Unwin, 1896
(For Great Britain).
PREFACE.
Few countries have been more strangely misunderstood by the average Englishman than Bohemia has been. The mischievous blunder of some fifteenth century Frenchman, who confused the gipsies who had just arrived in France with the nation which was just then startling Europe by its resistance to the forces of the Empire, has left a deeper mark on the imagination of most of our countrymen than the martyrdom of Hus or even the sufferings of our own Princess Elizabeth. The word “Bohemian” has passed into newspaper slang; and it has been so often quoted in its slang sense by people who ought to be more careful in their language, that it has really hindered the study of the real country which it misrepresents. The few who care to hear anything more of a people so strangely slandered, have often been yet further blinded by their readiness to accept as absolute truth the prejudices of the German and Magyar opponents of the Bohemian national feeling. From these sources they have derived an impression of a set of narrow Ultramontanes, who, oddly enough, combine their religious bigotries in favour of Roman Catholicism with a reliance on Russia in political affairs. These prejudices ought certainly to yield to an acquaintance with the people in their own country. A Roman Catholicism, tempered by an enthusiasm for Hus and Z̆iz̆ka and King George, can scarcely be a very obscurantist form of creed; and an intense feeling of national distinctness can hardly be compatible with an anxiety to be absorbed by the great North-eastern Empire, though undoubtedly it produces a stronger repulsion against the equally denationalising force of Pan-Germanism. Perhaps a careful study of the history of a country so much misunderstood will be the best preparation for a fairer appreciation of its present difficulties.
I have now to thank the many kind friends who have helped me in my work. Of these the chief helper has been Professor Mourek. During the whole of my stay at Prague I received every assistance from him which a foreigner studying in that town could possibly require; and since I have returned to England he has helped me most energetically in procuring various illustrations necessary for my book. I have also to thank Count Leo Thun (the cousin of the late Governor of Bohemia) for many useful hints and introductions. I should also thank Mr. Custos Borovsky, of the Rudolfinum, for the kindness with which he supplied me with introductions during my visits to other towns in Bohemia and Moravia. I should also thank Professor Rez̆ek for many useful hints, especially about the difficult reign of Ferdinand I. Professor Kalausek I have to thank for hints about the earlier period. Professor Tomek I must thank for allowing me to use the map of Prague which appears in my book. I must also thank Dr. Toman for the use of the curious pictures of Z̆iz̆ka. For help in my work in other towns I must thank Father Wurm, of Olmütz (Olomouci); Mr. Palliardi, of Znaym (Znojem); Professor Brettholz, of Brünn (Brno); the Sub-librarian of C̆aslau; Professor Lemminger, of Kuttenberg (Kutna Hora); Mr. Gross, of Krumov; Father Fuc̆ik, of Prachatice; Professor Strnad, of Pilsen (Plz̆en); Monsignore Rodler, of Budweis (Budejóvice); the Keeper of the Archives at Wittingau (Tr̆ebon̆), and Professor Sedlac̆ek, of Tabor. I also wish to thank Mr. C̆elakovsky, of the Town Archives of Prague, for the suggestion about the relation of the early Utraquist rising to the differences between Bohemian workmen and German employers (see [Chap. ix. pp. 231, 232]).
The question of when and how far to use the Bohemian names of places is one of some difficulty. My own instinct would be to use them wherever possible. But it cannot be denied that there are cases in which the German forms are so well known to English readers, and some in which the Bohemian names seem so unpronounceable, that it would be affectation to follow the strict rules of national expression. Praha, of course, has been hopelessly Anglicized into Prague; and Olomouci, Cheb, Brno, and Plz̆en have been as certainly Germanised into Olmütz, Eger, Brünn, and Pilsen. Even in these cases I have on some occasions added the Bohemian names in brackets. But it was so difficult to know what names of Bohemian towns are generally known in England, that I may sometimes seem to have been inconsistent in my practice. Only let me assure my readers that my wish has been to impress on them the distinctive character of the Bohemian language, and at the same time to secure the recognition of any places with whose names they are already familiar.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| [I.] | |
| [From the Earliest Period of Bohemian History to the Hungarian Invasion] | [1-17] |
| [(-885.)] | |
| Characteristics of Bohemian history—Story of Queen Libus̆a—Early Slavonic kingdom—The struggle with the Franks—Resistance to Frankish “conversions”—Boris of Bulgaria and Methodius—The Cyrillic language—Cyril and Methodius in Moravia—Career of Svatopluk—Renewed struggle with the Franks—Conversion of Bor̆ivoj—The Slavonic ritual—Opposition of Svatopluk and his courtiers to Methodius—The appeal to the Pope—The “Pilatici”—Approval of the ritual by John VIII.—Wiching’s fraud—Svatopluk and Arnulf—Expulsion of the Methodian Christians from Moravia—Death of Svatopluk—Mojmir and the Slavonic ritual—The Hungarian invasion. | |
| [II.] | |
| [Bohemian Saints and Warriors in the Tenth Century] | [18-32] |
| [(885-997.)] | |
| Bohemian feeling about the saintly and the military character—Svatopluk’s struggle and fall—Separation of Bohemia from Moravia—Reigns of Bor̆ivoj and Vratislav—The heathen reaction under Drahomíra—Life, death, and character of St. Wenceslaus—Reign of Boleslav the Cruel—Rise of the Vrs̆ovici—Boleslav the Pious—Life and death of St. Adalbert. | |
| [III.] | |
| [Relations of Bohemia to Poland and to the Empire in the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Centuries] | [33-66] |
| [(997-1253.)] | |
| Effect of the Hungarian invasions on the position of Bohemia—The struggles between Bohemia and Poland—Romantic stories of Oldr̆ich and Brac̆islav—Revival of the Slavonic ritual—Brac̆islav’s victories in Poland—The scene in the Church at Gnesen—Invasion of Bohemia by Henry III.—The Pr̆emyslovci made hereditary Dukes—Spitihnĕv’s anti-German policy—Election and policy of Vratislav—The family opposition and its results—Relations with Henry IV.—The first Bohemian king—Relations with the Hohenstauffen—Vladislav’s policy and the opposition of the nobles—Frederick Barbarossa—The second King of Bohemia—Bohemians in Italy—Summary of Vladislav’s reign—New disorders—Election of Pr̆emysl—Divisions in the Empire and their effect on the Bohemian position—Contests of King and Priest—Breach between Bohemia and the Empire—Conquest of Austria by Bohemia—Accession of Ottakar II. | |
| [IV.] | |
| [The Growth of Bohemian Life from Accession of Pr̆emysl Ottakar I. to Death of Pr̆emysl Ottakar II.] | [67-106] |
| [(1198-1278.)] | |
| Relative importance of Constitutional questions in different histories and at different periods—Causes of decline of early Bohemian liberties—Policy of Pr̆emysl Ottakar I.—The German settlement in Poric̆—Extension of its privileges to other towns—Special position of Moravia—The town-rights of Brünn—The Mongol invasion—Collapse of Europe—Pope and Emperor—King Wenceslaus I.—First check of the Mongols—Impulse given by these events to the movement for municipal liberty—Towns as a check on the nobles—Power of the jury—Effect of this movement on trade—On political capacity—Pr̆emysl Ottakar II.—His relations to nobles and clergy—Difficulties between towns and monasteries—Ottakar’s policy in that respect—His foreign policy—Circumstances of the annexation of Austria to Bohemia—The marriage with Margaret—Relations of Ottakar to Vienna—The struggle in and conquest of Styria—Story of conquest of Carinthia and Carniola—Ottakar’s tyranny in Styria—Ottakar’s relations with Hungary—Anarchy in the Empire—Refusal of Imperial Crown by Ottakar—Long discussions and divisions among the Electors—Circumstances of the election of Rudolf of Hapsburg—Ottakar’s protest—Pope Gregory X. and Bruno of Olmütz—The Council of Lyons—Rudolf’s claims on Ottakar’s conquests—The first war between Ottakar and Rudolf—Surrender of the conquered lands to Rudolf—Differences about the terms of peace—Rudolf’s difficulties between towns and archbishops—Falling off of Rudolf’s supporters—The conspiracy in Vienna and its suppression—The final war—Battle of the Marchfeld and death of Ottakar—Estimate of the work of Pr̆emyslovci—Causes of Ottakar’s fall. | |
| [V.] | |
| [Time of Anarchy in Bohemia from Death of Ottakar II. to Accession of Charles IV.] | [107-129] |
| [(1278-1346.)] | |
| Rudolf’s moderation as a conqueror—Impossibility of his policy—Kunigunda and Otto of Brandenburg—Treachery and tyranny of Otto and his followers—The famine—Return of King Wenceslaus II.—Zavis̆ of Falkenstein—Marriage of Wenceslaus—Intrigues and death of Zavis̆—Policy of Wenceslaus—Death of Rudolf and new divisions in the Empire—Albert’s concessions and election—Relations of Wenceslaus to Hungary—Death of Wenceslaus II., and accession and murder of Wenceslaus III.—Struggles between Rudolf of Hapsburg and Henry of Carinthia for Bohemia—Election of Henry of Luxemburg as Emperor—Election of John as King of Bohemia—His prospects and promises—The Archbishop of Mainz—Henry of Lipa—The towns and the nobles—Audacity of Henry of Lipa—Return of John—Civil war in Bohemia—Practical victory of Henry—His intrigues against Elizabeth—John and the citizens of Prague—Difficulties of Elizabeth—Prosecution of Bishop John—Cruelty of John—Charles as Governor of Bohemia—Intrigues of nobles against him—Resistance of Charles to John—Friendliness of Pope Clement to John and Charles—The Slavonic ritual—Election of Charles as Emperor—Battle of Crecy and death of John. | |
| [VI.] | |
| [Reign of Charles IV.] | [130-153] |
| [(1346-1378.)] | |
| Difficulties of explaining Charles’s career by his antecedents—Influences of his Paris experiences on him—Earlier attempts at “higher education” in Bohemia—Charles’s aims in founding his University—His plans—The “Four Nations”—Immediate effects of the foundation—The New Town of Prague—Foundation of Carlstein—The Majestas Carolina—Reasons for its withdrawal—Its merits and defects—Abolition of the fire and water tests—Appeal granted to the Serfs—Connection of “Charles I.” of Bohemia with “Charles IV.” of Germany—The Golden Bull—Resistance to the Emperor, and his way of meeting it—Concession to the House of Hapsburg—Relations of Charles with young Louis of Bavaria, in the Tyrol, in Brandenburg—His relations with Italy, Rienzi, Petrarch—Attempt to make the German Empire hereditary. | |
| [VII.] | |
| [The Reform Movement from the Diet of 1359 to the Retirement of the Germans from the Prague University] | [154-187] |
| [(1359-1409.)] | |
| Movements of thought in the thirteenth century—Uncertainty in their direction—The “Beghards” or “Picards.”—Position of Charles in relation to religious reform—The Diet of 1359—Charles’s ideas of reform—Conrad Waldhauser—The Bohemian language question—Milic of Kromĕr̆íz̆—Thomas of S̆títný—Growth of Bohemian literature, and opposition of the “Masters” to it—Death of Charles—Accession and character of Wenceslaus IV.—His relations with the Pope—His quarrels with the clergy—Archbishop Jenstein’s opposition—Death of John of Nepomuc and its consequences—Wenceslaus’s relations with the nobles—Power and policy of the Rosenbergs—Imprisonment of Wenceslaus by the nobles—John and Sigismund—Violence of Wenceslaus—Opposition of the Electors to him—His deposition in 1400 from the Empire—Sigismund’s policy in Prague—The second imprisonment of Wenceslaus and his escape—Matthias of Janov—Founding of the Bethlehem Chapel—Early career of Jan Hus—Relations of the English and Bohemian Reformations to each other—The Prague University proposals of 1403 against Wyclif—Attitude of Hus towards Wyclif—Unique theological position of Hus—Zbynĕk and Hus—Wenceslaus and the Council of Pisa—Attitude of rival parties—The votes of the “Nations”—Hesitations and final decision of Wenceslaus—The German resistance to the decree—The two sides of the question—Retirement of the Germans from Prague. | |
| [VIII.] | |
| [From the Retirement of the Germans from the University of Prague to the Death of Hus] | [188-220] |
| [(1409-1415.)] | |
| Injustices of Hus’s opponents in reference to the voting question—Election of Alexander V.—New attacks on heresy—Hus’s answers—Queen Sophia—The burning of Wyclif’s books—Wenceslaus and John XXIII.—Intervention of Sigismund—Pope John’s crusade—The sale of indulgences—Opposition of Hus—Revolt of his followers from him—First appearance of Jerom in Bohemian controversy—Effect of his interference—The treacherous execution of the opponents of Indulgences—Michael de Causis—Hus’s retirement from Prague—The “De Ecclesia”—Jakaubek of Kladrau—Banishment of Pálec̆ and Stanislaus—Intervention of Sigismund—The safe-conduct—The arrival at Constance—Promises of Pope John—Michael and Pálec̆—Imprisonment of Hus—“The Cup for the laity”—Hus’s letter and its perversion—Sigismund at Constance—Deposing Popes—Jerom at Constance—The Bishop of Litomys̆l and the Bohemian nobles—The trial of June 5th—Of June 7th—Sigismund’s anger with Hus—June 8th—Deposition of Popes and of Kings—“Abjure”—Chlum’s handshake—Sigismund’s condemnation of Hus—Last letters and interviews—Condemnation of “the Cup”—The final scene at the Council—The martyrdom. | |
| [IX.] | |
| [From the Death of Hus to the First Coronation of Sigismund] | [221-260] |
| [(July 6, 1415-July 28, 1420.)] | |
| Differences between Hus and his followers—Effect of his death—The Interdict on Prague and its results—Attitude of Wenceslaus—Of Sigismund—Jerom’s trial and death—Quarrel with the Council about the bishopric of Olmütz—Growing differences among the Utraquists—Nicholaus of Hus—Z̆iz̆ka—Effect of their action on Wenceslaus—Election of Martin V.—End of Council of Constance—Scene between Z̆iz̆ka and Wenceslaus—The “New Town” of Prague—John of Z̆elív—The Defenestratio—Anger and death of Wenceslaus—Attitude of Sigismund—C̆enek of Wartenberg—Conditions offered to Sigismund by the Assembly—Queen Sophia—The three parties in Bohemia—Mode of life of the Taborites—Z̆iz̆ka’s character—The appeal for peace—Differences between the Calixtine nobles and the Calixtine citizens—Ulric of Rosenberg—First struggle between the nobles and the Taborites—The compromise—The Kuttenberg persecution—Sigismund’s demands—Z̆iz̆ka’s surrender of Pilsen—“No faith with heretics”—Sigismund’s lies—C̆enek’s double treachery—Z̆iz̆ka’s cruelties—The march of the Taborites to Prague—Forcible Reformers—Sigismund’s retreat—The First anti-Hussite “Crusade”—Frederick of Hohenzollern and the Margravate of Brandenburg—Differences in Sigismund’s camp—New burnings of Utraquists—The battle of Z̆iz̆kov Hora—More differences in the camp—The “Four Articles of Prague”—The discussion—The compromise—Coronation of Sigismund. | |
| [X.] | |
| [From the First Coronation of Sigismund to the Opening of the Council of Basel] | [261-289] |
| [(1420-1431.)] | |
| Demands of the Taborites—Peter Payne—John of Z̆elív—Withdrawal of Taborites—Differences of the Calixtines with Sigismund—His retirement from Prague—Nicholaus of Hus—Hynek of Crus̆ina—The battle of the Vys̆ehrad—Differences of the Bohemians from their enemies in the war—New divisions among the Utraquists—The siege of R̆íc̆an—The “vestment” controversy—Death of Nicholaus of Hus—Martinek Hauska and Transubstantiation—The Adamites—Z̆iz̆ka’s treatment of them—Capture of Kuttenberg and Jaromír and return of the nobles to the Utraquists—Resolution of the Assembly about Sigismund—New quarrels between nobles and citizens—The “Second Crusade”—The siege of Z̆atec—The “miracle”—Cruelties of Sigismund in Moravia—The capture of Kuttenberg—Z̆iz̆ka at bay—The recapture—Z̆iz̆ka’s final victory over Sigismund—Tyranny of John of Z̆elív in Prague—“Prince Korybut”—Betrayal and death of John of Z̆elív—Collapse of the “Third Crusade”—Z̆iz̆ka’s struggles with the nobles—His final victories and death—Procop the Great—The new war policy of the Bohemians—Pr̆zibram and Peter Payne—Korybut’s blunder—John Rokycana—The “Fourth Crusade”—Cardinal Beaufort—The siege of Mies—The rout of Tachov—New discussions—Demands for a Council—Death of Martin V.—Cesarini and the “Fifth Crusade”—The flight from Taus—End of the “Crusades.” | |
| [XI.] | |
| [From the Opening of the Council of Basel to the Fall of Tabor] | [290-322] |
| [(1437-1452.)] | |
| Reasons for the meeting of the Council of Basel—More lies of Sigismund—The peasant risings in France and Germany—Bohemian towns in German hands—Meeting of the Council—Arrival of Bohemians in Basel—Rokycana and Peter Payne—Policy of Cardinal Cesarini—The first meeting—Procop and Cesarini—Rokycana on “the Cup”—Difference of Rokycana from his colleagues—Peter Payne—The English opposition—Cesarini sows division among the Utraquists—End of the first stage of the discussion—Growing differences—Rokycana and Pr̆zibram—The delegates from Basel—Final struggle between the nobles and Procop—Battle of Lipaný and death of Procop—C̆apek and the Orphans—Meinhard of Neuhaus—Negotiations with Sigismund—The “Compacts of Basel”—Election of Rokycana to the Archbishopric—Restoration of Sigismund—His new treacheries—Flight of Rokycana—Peter Payne as judge—Effect of his decision—Revolt of Rohac—Sigismund’s retirement and death—Struggle between Albert of Austria and Ladislaus of Poland—Acceptance of Albert’s son Ladislaus as King of Bohemia—Meinhard and Ptac̆ek—New discussions between Calixtines and Taborites—Last appearance of Peter Payne—Story of his imprisonment and ransom—Rise of George of Podĕbrad—Treachery of the Basel delegate—Capture of Prague and death of Meinhard—George’s policy—Opposition and fall of Tabor. | |
| [XII.] | |
| [From the Fall of Tabor to the Death of George of Podĕbrad] | [323-340] |
| [(1452-1470.)] | |
| George’s attitude towards the young king—Entry of Ladislaus into Prague—His Catholic sympathies—His death—Candidates for the throne of Bohemia—Election of George—Significance of this election in European history—George’s moderation—His relations with Matthias of Hungary—Pius II. and the Turks—Resistance to George in Moravia and Silesia—The revolt of Breslau—The compromise—Increase of George’s power and influence—Pius II.’s change of feeling—His condemnation of the Compacts of Basel—Fantinus de Valle and King George—George’s defiance of the Pope—Frederick III. and King George—Pius and the revolt of Breslau—Growing opposition in Bohemia to the king—Death of Pius II. and election of Paul II.—The deferred greeting—The Bull of deposition—Zdenek of Sternberg—The rebellion of the nobles—Losses of George—Election of Matthias—The insulting terms of peace—George’s defiance of Pope and princes—His victories and death—Death of Rokycana. | |
| [XIII.] | |
| [From the Beginning of the Bohemian Brotherhood to the Accession of Ferdinand I. to the Throne of Bohemia] | [341-373] |
| [(1419-1526.)] | |
| Parallels between English and Bohemian history—Likeness and difference between the Bohemian Brothers and the English “Friends”—Contrast between English and Bohemian traditions—Peter of Chelc̆ic—His early career—Relations with Rokycana—Change of Rokycana’s policy towards the Brothers—Gregory persecuted by Rokycana—Organisation of the Brotherhood—Further persecutions—Death of George and accession of Ladislaus II.—Denunciations by the “Masters” of Prague—Death of Gregory—His warnings to the Brothers—Growth of the Brotherhood—Lukas of Prague—Struggle between Lukas and Amos of S̆tekna—The compromise with the world—New persecutions—Bohuslav of Hassenstein—Amos’s denunciations—Ladislaus offends the Constitutionalists—The protectors of the Brotherhood—The examination at Prague—The Printing Press—Ladislaus’s appeal to Moravia, and its repulse—Persecution in Bohemia—Erasmus and the Brothers—Death of Ladislaus—Decline of freedom in Bohemia—The struggle between the towns and the nobles—King Louis—Lev of Roz̆mital and Pas̆ek of Wrat—Louis’s reforms—Luther’s appearance—Luther and Hus—Luther’s warnings to the Utraquists—Gallus Cahera—Pas̆ek’s new intrigues—The tyranny in Prague—Louis’s vain resistance—Lev of Roz̆mital and Henry of Rosenberg—The Turkish invasion—Louis’s vain appeal—His flight and death—Battle of Mohács—Election of Ferdinand I. | |
| [XIV.] | |
| [Reign of Ferdinand I.] | [374-405] |
| [(1526-1564.)] | |
| Questions at issue in Bohemia at the time of Ferdinand’s accession—Ferdinand’s mistakes—The Turkish war—Ferdinand’s reforms in Prague—Soliman’s siege of Vienna and its repulse—Final fall of Pas̆ek and Cahera—Ferdinand’s aims—The Brothers and the Anabaptists—Conrad of Krajek—The Confession of the Brotherhood—John Augusta—Luther’s relations with the Brotherhood—His defence of their Confession—Ferdinand’s attacks on the Brotherhood—Utraquist opposition to the “Compacts”—Augusta with Calvin and Luther—Luther refuses to Germanise Bohemia—Growth of Lutheran principles in Bohemia—The Bohemians and the Schmalkaldic war—The League for Bohemian Liberty—The insurrection of 1547—Consequences of its failure—Renewed persecution of the Brotherhood—The Litomys̆l Brothers—Arrest and torture of Augusta—Ferdinand’s ingenious cruelty—Expulsion of the Brothers from Bohemia—Their settlement in Poland—Removal to Prussia—Their treatment in Prussia—Ferdinand’s difficulties with the “local” claims—The “Estates of the Circles”—The Komora Dvorska and its uses—Catholics and Utraquists—New torture of Augusta—Ferdinand’s appeal to Moravia and its repulse—Augusta’s difficulties with the “Elders”—Protestant hopes from Maximilian—Power of the Jesuits—New persecution of the Brothers—Augusta’s position—The final attempt at his conversion—His verbal concession to Utraquism and its misrepresentation—His last imprisonment and final release—Death of Ferdinand. | |
| [XV.] | |
| [From the Death of Ferdinand I. to the Beginning of the Reaction under Rudolf II.] | [406-424] |
| [(1564-1600.)] | |
| Progress of despotism in Bohemia—Ferdinand’s great excuse—The fall of Utraquism—Character and policy of Maximilian—His special difficulties—National feeling of the Brotherhood—Blahoslav and Augusta—Lutheran desire for uniformity—Augusta’s defeat and death—The “Bohemian Confession”—The Conference of 1575—Consequences of its failure—Change of policy and death of Maximilian—Character and tendencies of Rudolf II.—Revival of Art and Science—Use of it by the Jesuits—Struggle of Jesuits with the Brothers—Difficulties of the Brotherhood—The expulsion of the Krajeks and its consequences—Jesuit successes—Resistance of Moravia—Peter Vok von Rosenberg—General character of the struggles. | |
| [XVI.] | |
| [From the Beginning of the Reaction to the Death of Rudolf II.] | [425-453] |
| [(1600-1612.)] | |
| Causes of Rudolf’s change of policy—The Turkish question—Growth of power of the Komora Dvorska—Rudolf’s insanity—Opposition of his family to him—The Edict of 1602—of 1604—Bocksay’s insurrection—Growing opposition to Rudolf—Karl von Z̆erotin—His training, character, and policy—Rudolf removes him from office—His relations with Illyezhazy—His championship of Matthias—Differences between Rudolf and Matthias—Lichtenstein and Berka—The Moravian rising—Christian of Anhalt—Z̆erotin’s feelings about war—Alliance between Hungary, Moravia, and Austria against Rudolf—Wenceslaus Budovĕc—His struggles for religious liberty in Bohemia—His opposition to Matthias—The Assembly of 1608—Importance and originality of Budovĕc’s demands—Rudolf’s resistance—Failure of Matthias in Bohemia and success elsewhere—Lobkovic, Martinic, and Slavata—Adam of Sternberg—Resolution of Bohemian Protestants to resort to armed resistance—Bohemia and Silesia—Rudolf’s final resistance to the Protestants—Budovĕc’s leadership—The Defenders—Peter Vok of Rosenberg—Rudolf’s final concession—The Letter of Majesty—The Archduke Leopold—The peacemakers—Concession by Rudolf to Matthias—The Passau plot; its rise, horrors, and end—Flight of Leopold—Matthias crowned at Prague—Last hopes and death of Rudolf. | |
| [XVII.] | |
| [From the Death of Rudolf II. to the Battle of the White Hill] | [454-482] |
| [(1612-1620.)] | |
| Matthias’s difficulties—Policy of Z̆erotin—Erasmus von Tschernembl—His differences with Z̆erotin—Z̆erotin and Khlesl—Relations of Bohemia to Moravia and Silesia—Policy of Khlesl—The Transylvanian question—Khlesl worsted by Z̆erotin—Election of Matthias as Emperor and its results—The nobles and the towns—Results of their quarrels—The provincial question again—“Hapsburgs or no Hapsburgs?”—New persecution—Ferdinand of Styria—Khlesl’s change of policy—The Troppau question—Fall of Z̆erotin—Election of Ferdinand as King of Bohemia—The renewed persecution—The Assemblies of 1618—The Defenestratio—The Provisional Government—Fall of Khlesl—Alliances on both sides—Deaths of Maximilian and Matthias—Silesia, Lausitz, and Moravia join the Bohemians—Thurn’s invasion of Austria and its end—Bethlen Gabor, and the rising in Hungary—Election of Frederick as king—Discontent of the peasantry with the movement—Difficulties of the Assembly—Bethlen’s successes and failures—Maximilian of Bavaria—The final invasion—Battle of the White Hill. | |
| [XVIII.] | |
| [From the Battle of the White Hill to the Present Time] | [483-509] |
| Completeness of the overthrow of Bohemian independence in 1620—Execution of leaders of insurrection—Persecution of Protestant preachers—Triumph of the Jesuits—Their absolute power—Destruction of memorials of Protestant leaders—Loc̆ika’s protest and death—Resistance and overthrow of Kuttenberg—Z̆erotin and Ferdinand—Resistance of Z̆erotin and Sabovsky—Penal laws against Protestants—Their expulsion in 1627—Overthrow of constitutional and municipal liberty and national independence—Crushing out of the language—Career of Comenius—His life before leaving Bohemia—His allegory—He settles at Lissa—“Janua aurea”—The “Didactica”—Invitation to Sweden—Comenius and Hartlib—Success and failure in England—Milton’s letter to Hartlib—Comenius in Sweden—At Elbing—Comenius and De Geer—Disappointment at peace of Westphalia—Election as Bishop of Brotherhood—Effect of his addresses—His later labours—Results of his work—General stagnation in Bohemia—Accession of Maria Theresa and its results—Suppression of the Jesuits—Joseph’s Edict of Toleration—Shortcomings of his religious policy—Of his educational policy—His opposition to Constitutional liberty—His abolition of serfdom—Leopold II.—Revival of Bohemian Literature—Frantis̆ek Pelc̆el—Caspar von Sternberg—Josef Dobrovsky—Leopold II. and Dobrovsky—The National Museum—The Königinhof MS.—S̆afarik and Palacký—The Grünberg MS.—The controversy about these MSS.—Palacký’s History—The discovery of ancient peasant art—Later controversies. | |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| PAGE | |
| SMALL RING OF PRAGUE | [Frontispiece] |
| LIBUS̆A’S BATH JUST BELOW THE VYS̆EHRAD | [9] |
| CYRIL AND METHODIUS, FROM THE WINDOW OF A CHURCH IN CAROLINEN-THAL | [13] |
| TOMB OF ST. LUDMILA | [23] |
| CHURCH BUILT BY ST. ADALBERT AT PRACHATICE | [31] |
| RADNICE BRNE: OLD DOOR OF TOWN COUNCIL HOUSE OF BRÜNN | [73] |
| JÍHLAVA (IGLAU), THE GREAT MINING CENTRE IN MORAVIA | [77] |
| CATHEDRAL OF OLMÜTZ ON SITE OF CASTLE WHERE WENCESLAUS III. WAS MURDERED | [117] |
| LIKENESS TAKEN FROM CHAPEL IN CARLSTEIN | [131] |
| CARLSTEIN (KARLUV TYN) | [135] |
| MAPS SHOWING GROWTH OF PRAGUE UNDER CHARLES IV. | [138, 139] |
| STATUE OF CHARLES IV. NEAR HIS BRIDGE IN PRAGUE | [152] |
| KRUMOV, ONE OF THE CHIEF SEATS OF THE ROSENBERGS | [169] |
| VILLAGE OF HUSINEC | [175] |
| HUSINEC, SHOWING COTTAGE WHERE HUS WAS BORN | [176] |
| JAN HUS | [179] |
| THE GREAT RING OF PRAGUE. SCENE OF MURDER OF THE OPPONENTS OF THE INDULGENCE | [201] |
| MARKET-PLACE OF PRACHATICE, THE TOWN WHERE HUS AND Z̆IZ̆KA WENT TO SCHOOL | [228] |
| ENTRANCE INTO FORTIFIED PART OF TABOR | [237] |
| HOUSE IN TABOR WITH OLD TABORITE COMMUNION TABLE IN FRONT OF IT | [240] |
| FIGURE OF MINER WITH MINING LAMP AND STAFF IN CHURCH OF ST. BARBARA AT KUTTENBERG (KUTNA HORA) | [244] |
| KUTNA HORA, OFFICE WHERE THE COINS WERE STRUCK BY THE ITALIANS BROUGHT TO KUTNA HORA BY WENCESLAUS II. | [245] |
| TOWN COUNCIL HOUSE OF PILSEN (PLZ̆EN) | [246] |
| THE CASTLE OF PRAGUE | [251] |
| VIEW OF PRAGUE SHOWING Z̆IZ̆KA’S HILL TO THE NORTH-EAST | [256] |
| ROAD NEAR TABOR, SHOWING TOWN WALL | [263] |
| Z̆IZ̆KA ON HORSEBACK AT THE HEAD OF THE FLAIL-BEARING TABORITES (FROM AN OLD PICTURE COPIED IN DR. TOMAN’S PAMPHLET) | [275] |
| OLD PICTURE OF Z̆IZ̆KA IN HEAVEN (FROM DR. TOMAN’S PAMPHLET) | [281] |
| (CHODI) BOHEMIAN PEASANTS OF THE BAVARIAN BORDER | [287] |
| JOHN ROKYCANA | [295] |
| ZNAYM (ZNOJEM), SCENE OF SIGISMUND’S DEATH | [313] |
| GEORGE OF PODĔBRAD, FIRST HERETIC KING OF BOHEMIA | [327] |
| JOHN AUGUSTA | [381] |
| MORAVIAN WOMAN | [429] |
| HALL IN THE CASTLE OF PRAGUE FROM WHENCE MARTINIC AND SLAVATA WERE THROWN | [468] |
| PLACE IN FRONT OF TOWN COUNCIL HOUSE OF PRAGUE WHERE THE BOHEMIAN NOBLES WERE EXECUTED AFTER THE INSURRECTION | [485] |
| STATUE OF ST. JOHN NEPOMUC | [486] |
| CHURCH OF ST. BARBARA AT KUTNA HORA | [488] |
| JOHN AMOS KOMENSKY | [492] |
| SLOVAK WOMAN FOUND IN PARTS OF MORAVIA AND ALSO IN HUNGARY | [505] |
| BOHEMIAN WOMAN WITH “DOVE” HEAD DRESS AND NATIVE WORK | [507] |
BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA.
T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Square, London, E.C.
THE STORY OF BOHEMIA.
I.
FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD OF BOHEMIAN HISTORY TO THE HUNGARIAN INVASION.
(-885.)
The history of a lost nationality is necessarily tragic and can rarely be commonplace. In the case of Bohemia the interest is increased by the variety of the parts which she was forced to play, each of which, while of great value to the world, assisted in some degree to hasten her ruin. Thus, for instance, the intense desire to maintain her own independent life brought her into collision with neighbouring States which were determined to crush or to absorb her; while, on the other hand, her position as the champion of a race, of which she was but one member, dragged her into further quarrels that were not necessarily the result of her geographical position. And, lastly, the very desire to maintain her national existence, and to defend the freedom of her Slavonic kinsmen, constantly compelled her to mix in the quarrels of that larger world with which she and they had so little sympathy; and even to accept a share in the responsibilities of that Empire, which, calling itself Roman, was always becoming more and more Teutonic, and therefore more anti-Slavonic.
And in that struggle between Teuton and Slav the one thing which, from the earliest to the latest times, has been the most prized treasure, and the subject of the fiercest championship of the Bohemian, is his language. Every effort for constitutional government and national liberty has always directly connected itself with this aspiration for the preservation, development, and general recognition of this great right. Sigismund, in the time of his most cruel attempts to crush out the freedom of his subjects, was denounced as “the enemy of our language,” rather than of our nation. Hus is honoured, even by Roman Catholic Bohemians, as the assertor and developer of their language. It was the great crime of Joseph II. that he desired to destroy it. If we could have talked with a Bohemian Christian of the ninth or tenth century, we should have found his deepest feelings stirred by a reference to the language which was then assuming its first shape; and the same subject has the deepest interest for the Bohemian patriot of the nineteenth century, now that his language has become one of the most varied and expressive of modern Europe.
Nor must we forget the connection of the ecclesiastical independence of Bohemia with her most vivid political life. From the time when the mission of Cyril and Methodius brought to the front the question of a Slavonic ritual, and of an ecclesiastical organisation, which was to be separated as far as possible from Teutonic influences, to the time when Bohemia sank before Ferdinand in the struggle between national Protestantism and Imperial Romanism, the questions of Bohemian language and Bohemian self-government were mixed up continually with the claim to be guided in spiritual things by a clergy who preached and prayed in the Slavonic language.
Even the earliest traditions show that long before the introduction of Christianity the Bohemian ideal of national life had been totally different from that of the surrounding nations. The poem of “The Judgment of Libus̆a,” which seems to embody the earliest picture of Bohemian life, is no Iliad or Niebelungen Lied, no story of robber dens or rapes of the Sabines, but the representation of a peace-loving nation trying to uphold traditions of communal ownership of land, and the gentle guidance of the wisest in judicial affairs, modified by an organised expression of popular opinion.[1]
So great an impression did the poems, in which this ideal is set forth, produce on the Bohemian mind, that extracts from them are translated at full length by the chronicler Cosmas, who took an active part in the bustling politics of the eleventh century, when these ideals must have seemed to belong to a very distant past.
According to this writer, certain people who had been scattered by the failure of the Tower of Babel, wandered into Germany where they found various wild beasts. One party in the course of their wanderings found a plain lying near the mountain Rip, and between the rivers Ogra (Eger), and Wlitawa (Moldau). This plain they called Bohemia after the eldest of the party named Boemus. Here they founded a peaceable and communistic settlement where they desired to make war on none but the beasts. But, some ambitious men having introduced the evil of private property, it became necessary to choose a judge to decide the disputes which now unavoidably arose. So they chose as their judge their best man named Crocco, who founded a camp. He had three daughters, of whom the eldest was skilled in medicine, the second was a kind of religious teacher, who instructed the people in the worship of Oreads and Dryads; while the third, Libus̆a, was distinguished for her political wisdom and foresight, and was supposed to be an inspired prophetess.
Libus̆a was accordingly chosen to the judicial office on her father’s death. But Crocco’s formation of a camp seems to have stirred the military spirit in the Bohemians; and the story which follows clearly indicates the transition from the earlier and more peaceable stage to the later developments of national organisation. Two powerful chiefs are disputing for the land, which has come to them from their father. The question is submitted to Libus̆a, as the chief judge. On the day of the trial she appears in great state, summons before her the heads of the different families or tribes, and submits to them her proposals for settling this question. She declares that, according to the old custom of their people, the land ought either to be equally divided between the brothers, or else they ought to share it in common. The leaders of the tribes, after collecting in some way the votes of the assembly, decide that the land is to be held in common, basing their judgment also on the old traditions of the nation. Thereupon the elder of the disputants rises in anger, and declares that he ought to have retained the land in right of primogeniture, and further that the Bohemians ought not to submit any longer to women, who were fitter for receiving the advances of wooers than of dictating laws to soldiers.
Then follows a scene which seems at once to fix the point of change arrived at, and to make the circumstances more familiar for ordinary readers by the parallel which it suggests with a familiar transition to military kingship recorded in the Second Book of Samuel.
Libus̆a, anxious to warn her people of the full effect of the course they are taking, sets forth to them the dangers of a military monarchy. Beginning with a reference to the story of the petition of the frogs to Jupiter, she reminds them that it will be more easy to choose a chief than to remove him. “Before him your knees will tremble, and your tongue cleave to your mouth. You will with difficulty answer, ‘Yes, sir! yes, sir!’ He will condemn men by his nod without your judgment being taken; he will cut off the head of one, and throw others into prison; some of you he will make slaves, and others exactors and torturers; others, again, he will make cooks or bakers or millers. He will appoint you as tribunes or centurions or cultivators of his vines and wheat, as armourers and preparers of skins. He will reduce your sons and daughters to subjection, and will carry off the best of your horses and mares and cattle to his palace. He will take what is best from your fields and plains and meadows and vineyards, and turn them to his own use.” But though the criminal folly of the change proposed is indicated as clearly by Libus̆a as by Samuel, yet in both stories we find by a strange contradiction the same half-mystical enthusiasm for the person of the first king.
Libus̆a, unable to resist the popular demand that she should take a husband and give the Bohemians a king, tells the people to go to a certain village where they will find a man ploughing with oxen. Him they are to greet as their king, and his posterity will rule in this land for ever. The messengers plead that they do not know the way to the village. Libus̆a answers that if they will follow her horse it will guide them. They obey; and they at last arrive at the village of Stadic, where they find Pr̆emysl ploughing. They call on him to change his dress and mount the horse, as Queen Libus̆a and all the people demand him as their ruler. Pr̆emysl therefore sets free his oxen, telling them to go whence they came, and strikes his goad into the ground. The oxen vanish from sight, and the goad puts forth leaves and fruits. Then Pr̆emysl comes with the messengers; but he insists on taking with him his ploughman’s boots, that his successors may be made humble and merciful by the memory of the state from whence they sprung; “and these boots,” says Cosmas (writing in the eleventh century), “are preserved at Vys̆ehrad to this day in the Duke’s chamber.”
There is another legend which still more quaintly marks this transition from mild and readily accepted rule to the era of physical force. According to this story the maidens of Bohemia founded a city which they called Dĕvín from Devina, “a maiden.” The young men to maintain their independence set up an opposition town called Hrasten. The intercourse between these rival towns seems to have been sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile; but always apparently on equal terms as long as Libus̆a lived. After her death, however, the men won the day, and ever afterwards held the women under their control.
But the golden age of Queen Libus̆a is long past, when we catch sight of the Bohemians in even the earliest period of authentic history. First we have a dim vision of a great Slavonic Empire stretching northwards to the Spree, and eastwards to the Carpathians; of struggles with Avars and Huns, and, above all, with the Franks. Then suddenly, as the dim mist clears a little, we find that the Franks have become Christian, and the great struggle between German and Slav, hinted at already in the poem of “Libus̆a’s Judgment,” has begun in earnest. The centre of resistance to the German, however, is not in Bohemia, but in the neighbouring Slavonic dukedom of Moravia; and it gathers round a prince named Rostislav, who is encouraging both Moravians and Bohemians to stand firm against those peculiar ideas of Christianity, which Charles the Great and his descendants tried to thrust upon reluctant nations by fire and sword. Some Bohemians had indeed been compelled by Louis, the grandson of Charles the Great, to accept baptism; and Christian Bohemia owned the authority of the German Archbishop of Regensburg.[2]
But the Duke of Bohemia, encouraged by Rostislav, still held out against the Carlovingian form of Christianity; the Moravians defeated Louis in 849, and Rostislav strengthened his own position as the champion of Slavonic independence by an alliance with the Bulgarians. This alliance was to produce results very unexpected at the time by Rostislav, and powerfully affecting the future of Moravia and Bohemia. Boris, the powerful king of Bulgaria, had received at his Court a Christian monk named Methodius, the son of a patrician of Thessalonica. Apparently Methodius had originally been brought to the Bulgarian Court on account of his artistic talent; but he was also a very zealous Christian; and when Boris ordered him to paint such a picture, in the hall of his palace, as would strike terror into all who saw it, Methodius improved the occasion by painting a picture of the Last Judgment. The inquiries and explanations that followed prepared the way for the acceptance of the new faith by the king of Bulgaria and his subjects.
LIBUS̆A’S BATH JUST BELOW THE VYS̆EHRAD.
But the Greek missionaries found that the want of a written language prevented them from giving their Slavonic converts full instruction in the details of the Christian creed. Methodius, therefore, called in the help of his brother Cyril, who had been occupied in the conversion of the Chazars, a people whose country lay a little to the north of the Bulgarian kingdom.
Cyril was a learned monk, who had been trained at the Court of Constantinople, and was well skilled in various languages. Taking the Greek alphabet as his basis, but altering its form, he invented a written language for the Slavonic race, into which he translated a liturgy, several books of the Bible, and some of the early Fathers.
The news of the conversion of the Bulgarians quickly came to the ears of Rostislav, for the great Bulgarian kingdom touched the eastern side of Moravia; and the recent alliance had brought the two peoples into closer intercourse. Unwelcome as Christianity had seemed to the Moravians, when presented to them as a demand of Frankish invaders, and taught in an unknown tongue, its lessons came with a very different force when urged by pious and peaceable monks, recommended by friendly kinsmen, and expounded in a language intelligible to the converts. Rostislav no doubt quickly perceived that the new teaching might form a valuable link in the alliance of the Slavs against their enemies. He appealed to the Emperor of the East to send Cyril and Methodius to Moravia; and, when they arrived at the town of Devina, Rostislav and his followers went out to welcome them; and after Cyril had retired from the mission, Methodius was recognised by the Pope as Archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia.
But troubles very soon began for the new-comers. The German party in Moravia were resentful at the introduction into the churches of what they considered a barbarous language; and they saw danger to their power, both in the adoption of a ritual which was understood by the people, and in the assertion of an episcopal authority which claimed to be independent of the German bishops. Nor was it only by foreigners that the influence of Cyril and Methodius was endangered; an opposition was roused even among the Moravians themselves. Svatopluk, the nephew and rival of Rostislav, seems to have accepted some kind of nominal Christianity, but unaccompanied by any change of life, or even by any great reverence for the externals of worship; and he opposed the new apostles of the Slavs with the greatest fierceness. The opposition of this ambitious prince no doubt arose at first from his desire to pose as the champion of the German party, who were undermining his uncle’s authority. According to one story he had already attempted to poison Rostislav, and having failed in that purpose he conspired with the Emperor Louis against him, made him prisoner, and sent him off to the Imperial Court to be tried. Louis threw Rostislav into prison, and put out his eyes. But Svatopluk, though he succeeded in seizing the Dukedom, did not long retain the confidence of the Emperor or the German party. He, in his turn, was deposed and thrown into prison.
Then the Moravians rose against the Franks, under a man named Slavomir, who, according to one story, was a pupil of Methodius. The Emperor thereupon set Svatopluk free, and sent him at the head of an army to suppress the new rising. Svatopluk betrayed his soldiers to his countrymen, destroyed the German army, and once more became Duke of Moravia. He now felt it impossible any longer to pose as the champion of the German party; and he had married the sister of Duke Bor̆ivoj, of Bohemia, in order to strengthen the alliance of the Slavs against the Franks. As a part of his new policy, he was forced, for a time, to encourage the movement of Methodius; and it was during this period that the archbishop or one of his followers converted and baptised Bor̆ivoj, and induced him to found two churches in memory of St. Clement of Rome, whose remains Cyril had discovered in his expedition to the Chazars.
There seems some difficulty in ascertaining how far the Slavonic ritual came into general use in Bohemia at this time. It is tolerably certain, on the one hand, that Methodius did not desire to oppose the authority of the Bishop of Regensburg, who claimed to be primate over the Bohemian Christians; and that bishop, like all the German prelates, was opposed to the spread of the Slavonic ritual. On the other hand, it is clear that, as Christianity grew in Bohemia, it connected itself with Slavonic traditions; and we find that in less than a century from this time the Bohemian congregations had adopted a Slavonic hymn as a necessary part of their ritual.
But, however slow the progress of Slavonic Christianity may have been in Bohemia, Methodius does not seem to have excited there that savage hostility which he continued to provoke in Moravia. Svatopluk and his courtiers were, no doubt, indignant at the higher morality preached by Methodius; and one of the claimants of the German Empire, with whom Svatopluk was alternately in alliance and enmity, resented extremely the authority claimed by Methodius over Pannonia as well as Moravia. But, in order to strengthen their position, the opponents of Methodius took advantage of his having come from Constantinople, to attack him as a rebel against the Pope, and a supporter of the Greek heresy of the Single Procession.
CYRIL AND METHODIUS, FROM THE WINDOW OF A CHURCH IN CAROLINEN-THAL.
The first of these charges was singularly inconsistent with the traditions of both the brothers, who led the mission to the Slavs. Cyril had been partially induced to go on his mission to the Chazars by the unfriendly relations which had arisen between him and the Patriarch of Constantinople. While in the Chersonesus he had discovered the bones of the Roman saint, Clement, who had died there; and he had ever since recognised this saint as the special patron of his mission to the Slavs. After Cyril and Methodius had established themselves in Moravia, they had applied to Rome for sanction to their work; and when they had been summoned to the Court of the Pope, in consequence of this application, Cyril had been so much attracted to the place that he had entered a Roman monastery, and had abandoned the mission, for the future, to Methodius. Methodius, on his part, seems to have been little inclined to resist authority, where no moral or religious principle was concerned. So in 879 he readily accepted the summons to appear before the Roman Synod, and easily convinced Pope John VIII. of his willingness to obey him. Methodius was equally happy in vindicating his orthodoxy in the matter of the Double Procession.
But when these points had been settled, there still remained the real subjects of dispute. These were the lawfulness of the Slavonic ritual, and the position of Methodius as Archbishop of Moravia. Svatopluk had thrown himself with eagerness into the cause of Methodius’s opponents, and joined in the denunciation of the Slavonic ritual, declaring that it degraded worship by connecting it with a barbarous dialect. The champions of the Latin ritual attempted to strengthen their cause by referring to the inscription written by Pilate on the Cross in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. This argument brought them the nickname of Pilatici, or followers of Pilate, while Methodius and his disciples appealed, in answer, to the authority of the Apostles, who, on the Day of Pentecost, had uttered in all languages the wonderful works of God. Pope John seems clearly to have understood that the opposition to Methodius arose rather from prejudice of race than from ecclesiastical principle; and he recognised this fact in the Bull which sanctioned the Slavonic ritual. For in this document he expressly required that all the clergy in the diocese of Moravia and Pannonia, whether Slav or of whatever race they might be, should be submissive to the archbishop. A very noteworthy modification was subjoined to this decision which seemed to stamp a popular and democratic character on the Slavonic movement. “If Svatopluk,” said the Pope, “and the members of his Court desire to use the Latin ritual, they may do so still.”
An even more crushing blow to the hopes of the enemies of Methodius was given in a second decision of the Pope. The German party had persuaded Svatopluk to appoint a preacher named Wiching as Bishop of Nitra in Pannonia, thereby hoping at any rate to counterbalance the authority of Methodius. Pope John, however, decided that he would only recognise this appointment on condition that Wiching acknowledged the archbishop as his superior; and he expressly recommended Svatopluk to choose his next bishop with the advice and consent of Methodius. So alarmed were Wiching and his friends at this letter from the Pope that they succeeded in suppressing it, before it could reach Svatopluk; and they forged another in which the Pope was made to say that Methodius had indeed recanted his heresy about the Double Procession; but that he was forbidden to use the Slavonic ritual, and that Bishop Wiching was appointed to carry out the papal decrees.
Methodius denied the genuineness of the document, and wrote to Rome for another letter. John confirmed his former decree, and summoned Wiching to Rome to answer for his proceedings. Wiching, however, refused to go; and he was backed in his opposition both by Svatopluk and by Arnulf, the claimant of the Empire, whose hold over Pannonia had been one of the chief causes of the opposition to the episcopal authority of Methodius.
The relations between Methodius and Svatopluk, always hostile, would now have probably culminated in the death or exile of the archbishop, but that a quarrel broke out between Svatopluk and Arnulf; and the desire of Svatopluk to overthrow Arnulf’s influence in Pannonia naturally hindered his action against Methodius. For the few remaining years of the archbishop’s life, he was able to carry on his work, both moral and religious, with much less opposition; but when, after his death, his friends attempted to get his pupil Gorazd appointed as successor in the archbishopric, Wiching succeeded in stirring up Svatopluk against him, in renewing the alliance with Arnulf, and finally in securing the expulsion from Moravia of the leading followers of Methodius. But in spite of the opposition of dukes and Germans, the Slavonic ritual held its own in Moravia, and Svatopluk’s son Mojmir became its champion against the bishops of Salzburg.
Important, however, as the defence of the Slavonic language and ritual was in the history of Bohemia and Moravia, the enemy against whom it had specially served as a watchword had ceased to become the object of uncompromising hostility. A new power had made its way into Europe, more dangerous, for the moment, to Slavonic unity and Bohemian independence than Frank, Saxon, or Bavarian; and the Bohemians and Moravians were for a time compelled to forget their fears and hatred of the Germans, in order to combine with them against a new enemy.
II.
BOHEMIAN SAINTS AND WARRIORS IN THE TENTH CENTURY.
(885-997.)
The ideal of life and character hinted at in the Libus̆in Saud affects, in an often contradictory way, the popular judgments of the prominent characters of Bohemian history. So strangely does this tendency manifest itself at more than one stage of the story, that it would almost seem as if the ordinary conceptions of national greatness, and sometimes even of independence, were entirely obscured by the Christian aspiration after a peaceable national life. Kings and warriors, who had done much to extend the prestige and power of Bohemia, are remembered mainly for their cruelty and oppression; while saints, who may in some degree have weakened the sense of Bohemian independence, are not merely honoured, but are even put forward as the symbols of distinctive national life. Thus, for instance, Svatopluk, the cruel and unscrupulous persecutor of Methodius and his followers, might, from the ordinary nationalist point of view, have been looked upon as the establisher of Slavonic greatness, the champion of Moravian independence, and even the protector of Bohemia and Moravia against a cruel and barbarous invader.
Under his rule Moravia had become the centre of a great Slavonic alliance extending eastwards to Bulgaria and northwards to Magdeburg. The exact relations between the dukedom of Moravia and the other States referred to may be difficult to define; but the whole story of his relations with Bohemia shows that Svatopluk exercised an authority there which was, at least, equal to that maintained by the German Emperor over many of the states subject to him; and we may fairly assume that he held a somewhat similar position towards the other Slavonic States which surrounded him.
Such a position, in the then condition of Europe, could not but excite rivalry and jealousy among the neighbouring princes; and Arnulf, the Duke of Pannonia, who had aspired to the throne of the Frankish Empire, was particularly jealous of a man whose power, as he considered, had been largely due to the patronage which Arnulf had granted to him. The exact merits of the numerous quarrels between these princes it is impossible to estimate accurately; but it is clear that, as Svatopluk gained power, he became more and more resolved to throw off the authority which Arnulf found difficult to assert. At last Arnulf, having lost hope of maintaining his authority by his own force, and perhaps suspecting that Pannonia would itself fall a prey to his rival, resolved to call in a new ally to his assistance.
The emperors of Constantinople had followed the tradition of the Western Empire, by playing off their barbarian invaders against one another. And, as the Romans had used their alliance with the Goths to drive back the hordes of Attila, so the Emperor of Constantinople had called on the descendants of Attila’s followers to protect the decaying empire from the inroads of the Bulgarians.
It was apparently in the latter part of the sixth century that the Hungarians, or, as some called them, the Turks, had been driven into Europe by the pressure of other Asiatic races. They had been hospitably received at Constantinople, and, after various fortunes, had settled, in the eighth century, among the Chazars. But they were never allowed to remain long in one place; and it was in consequence of their alliance with the Emperors of the East that they overran Transylvania, and secured their first settlement in their future kingdom. Even here, however, they were not allowed to remain quietly, and another tribe succeeded in driving them out of Transylvania for a time.
It was while this contest was at its height that the new invaders attracted the attention of Arnulf; and, in the year 892, finding himself in a desperate plight, he persuaded the Hungarians to join him in an invasion of Moravia. Svatopluk fought gallantly against his enemies, and more than once repelled them from his dukedom; but, in 894, he was finally defeated by the combined forces of his opponents. Then comes in a story which illustrates in a startling manner the Bohemian feeling that no military successes could atone for acts of cruelty and treachery. Although Svatopluk was undoubtedly fighting for the independence of his country, he was seized, according to this legend, with so extreme a fit of penitence for his crimes, that he fled from the battle to a secret place in the mountains, where he killed his horse, buried his sword in the ground, and lived and died a hermit. What gives a still stranger flavour to the legend is the cause which Cosmas assigns for the Duke’s penitence; for this cause was not his persecution of Methodius, but his ingratitude to Arnulf.
The ruin of the Moravian dukedom speedily followed. According to one tradition, Wiching, Svatopluk’s German bishop, was used by Arnulf to stir up division between the sons of Svatopluk. If so, he must undoubtedly have used his influence in favour of the younger Svatopluk, and against Mojmir, the champion of the Slavonic ritual. But, whatever the cause of division, the fact of the civil war is undoubted; and all the enemies of the country took advantage of it. In 896 the Hungarians again invaded Moravia, and this time with much greater success. The struggle was, however, continued for a few years longer, during which the Emperor endeavoured to assist Mojmir; but at last, in 907, Mojmir was killed in battle, and the old dukedom of Moravia was completely destroyed.
TOMB OF ST. LUDMILA.
Although the overthrow of this powerful State broke down, for a time, a barrier between the savage invaders and the settled governments of Europe, it seems, strangely enough, to have produced less immediate evil to Bohemia than to the German principalities. It is, however, easy to understand that the protection and championship of a neighbouring State by such a ruler as Svatopluk may have had its disadvantages, both in checking the independence of the country protected, and in involving it in wars in which it had little interest. Indeed, it appears as if Bor̆ivoj and his immediate successors were too much concerned with the internal struggles of their country, to take much immediate interest in the apparently larger issues which were being settled in the neighbouring States. The Bohemian struggles were mainly concerned with the rivalry between heathens and Christians. The zeal of Bor̆ivoj for the new faith soon irritated a large number of his subjects against him; and, being unwilling to maintain his authority by force of arms, he abdicated in favour of his son Spitihnĕv. In the latter we seem to catch a glimpse of a premature champion of toleration, who, while desiring to encourage the progress of Christianity, resented the excessive influence of the Christian priests, and declared that he was equally the king of his heathen and Christian subjects alike. This, however, was a position that it was obviously impossible to maintain at such a transitional period; and, after Spitihnĕv’s death, Bor̆ivoj, being recalled to the throne, resolved that the propagation of his creed should not again suffer by the laxity of his family. He therefore put his second son, Vratislav, under the special care of Methodius; and, after Bor̆ivoj and Methodius were both dead, Vratislav’s mother, Ludmila, continued to influence him in favour of the new faith. But the power of Ludmila was counteracted, especially among the nobles, by her daughter-in-law Drahomíra, who became the centre of the heathen opposition to Ludmila and the clergy; and she trained her son Boleslav to follow in her footsteps. Vratislav’s other son, Václav (or, as we call him, Wenceslaus), was protected from Drahomíra’s influence by his grandmother Ludmila; and thus the two brothers became the champions, the one of the Christian, and the other of the heathen party, in the State. The Duke was so little conscious of the mischief that was brewing that, after building the town of Bolislava in honour of his younger son, he celebrated the occasion by building a church in that town in honour of Cyril and Methodius; and he apparently sanctioned that division of his territory between his sons which was carried out after his death. No sooner, however, was Vratislav dead, than Drahomíra commanded the Christians to close their churches; and this order was speedily followed by a massacre; nor was Wenceslaus able to save even his grandmother Ludmila from the vengeance of his mother. Indeed, this favourite saint of the Bohemians seems to have had so little vigour, as a ruler, that he could not protect even the clergy, whom he most desired to favour, from the intimidation of Boleslav and Drahomíra. Thus, for instance, when he invited the Bishop of Regensburg to consecrate a new church at Prague, the bishop was so terrified by the threats of his enemies that he dared not come. It would, indeed, be unjust to deny that the position of a Christian Duke in the midst of this sudden revival of heathenism was a most difficult and dangerous one; nor is there the smallest ground to suspect Wenceslaus of personal cowardice. On the contrary, he is represented on two occasions as offering personal combat to an invading prince, in order to save his country from the evils of war; and no doubt, according to his lights, he was very willing to sacrifice himself for the good of Bohemia. Yet one cannot but detect certain weaknesses in his career, which may well have alarmed some of the stronger, if coarser, statesmen, who stood near the throne; and though he distinguished himself by many acts of benevolence and devotion, and succeeded on several occasions in preserving peace and preventing bloodshed, yet it was not wholly by his virtues that he excited the indignation of the party led by his brother. The tendency to encourage those who were engaged in other work to become priests, and his excessive reliance on the authority of the Emperor, might well have given occasion to a more reasonable opposition than that which expressed itself in the mere persecution of the Christians.
Nor is it a wholly satisfactory sign that his piety, like that of Edward the Confessor, took the form of a contempt for marriage, or, to use the ecclesiastical phrase, of the zeal for preserving his virginity. He was therefore probably in the right when he meditated retiring into a Benedictine monastery; but the Pope, glad enough, no doubt, to secure a Christian Duke on the throne of a half-converted nation, threw great difficulties in the way of his abdication. His mother and brother, indignant at the frustration of their hopes, resolved on murder; and as a first step, to their purpose, they invited Wenceslaus to be present at the baptism of the son of Boleslav. So unexpected a concession to Christianity aroused the suspicions of Wenceslaus; but his religion throughout seems to have had a touch of fatalism, and he went to the feast in the full expectation of death. While the revelry was at its height, he withdrew from the table to worship in the church; and it was there that Boleslav found him and murdered him, while he clung to the door of the church for safety. The murder was followed by a general massacre of the Christian priests, among whom is especially mentioned Podiven, the follower known to English readers as having warmed his feet by treading in the footsteps of his master.[3]
The German Emperor was naturally indignant at the murder of his faithful protégé; and he exacted from Boleslav, as the price of peace, the recall of the banished Christians, the renewal of the tribute which he had just remitted to Wenceslaus, and an oath of allegiance, such as had hitherto been paid to the Emperor only by German princes. Boleslav was apparently induced to submit to these severe terms, partly by his fear of the power of the Emperor, partly by a sense of the danger which was still threatening the civilised States of Europe, a danger which could only be faced by an alliance with the new ruler who had arisen in Germany. For while Bor̆ivoj and his successors had been struggling to assert their power over their heathen subjects, the old Saxon kingdom had succeeded in producing a champion of European freedom and civilisation.
Henry the Fowler had thrown off the effete yoke of the Franks, and rallied the Germans under his banner; he had then routed the Hungarians at the celebrated battle of Merseburg, and had founded towns, by which a new order of civilisation was being introduced into Germany. His son Otto was vigorously carrying on the struggle against the Hungarians; and Boleslav, however much he might dislike foreign rule, saw that an alliance with Otto was the only hope for his country. The Hungarians were now advancing into Bohemia, and Boleslav encountered them on the frontier and completely defeated them. He then proceeded to suppress a robber tribe who had given much trouble to Wenceslaus, and who had established a castle on the borders of Bohemia, from whence they had harassed the country.
The chroniclers declare that Drahomíra was swallowed up in an earthquake, and perhaps her death removed the chief anti-Christian influence in the life of Boleslav; for, to whatever motives of conviction or policy the change may have been due, it is evident that, from this time forward, he not merely abandoned his persecution of the Christians, but used all his power to encourage their influence. The son whose baptism had been the occasion of the murder of Wenceslaus, became a monk; while the second son was trained with such effect in the principles of Christianity that he afterwards gained the name of Boleslav the Pious. But to the father of these princes the Bohemian chroniclers are as inexorable as they had been to Svatopluk; and, while Wenceslaus is remembered as one of the chief national saints of Bohemia, his brother lives in history as Boleslav the Cruel.
If the weaknesses of Wenceslaus tend to diminish our sympathies with the movement of which he is the champion and martyr, we may perhaps feel a more undivided interest in the next phase of the development of Bohemian Christianity, and a more unmixed admiration for the saint who represents that period. There were two demands made by the Christian leaders in Bohemia which specially connected patriotism with religion. These were the claim for a Slavonic ritual, and the attempt to establish an independent bishopric at Prague. But, though both of these claims sprang from the feeling of national independence, it was only the question of the bishopric, which appealed to such champions of Bohemia as Boleslav the Cruel. That strong and deep longing for the protection and development of the national language, which expressed itself, at this time, in the cry for the Methodian ritual, was not a feeling which the mere military champions of Bohemia could understand or recognise. The Pope seems to have been conscious of this division, and to have availed himself of it to make more grudging concessions to the national feeling than the merits of Boleslav the Pious, and the memory of St. Wenceslaus might seem to have demanded. He granted, indeed, the free election of a bishop of Prague, and sanctioned, at the same time, the foundation of a nunnery of which Boleslav’s sister was to be abbess; but he clogged the latter concession by the condition that the Slavonic ritual should not be used in the new nunnery. Perhaps it was a similar desire for compromise which led Boleslav to recommend to his clergy and people, for the first bishop, a Saxon named Dettmar, who, however, was noted for his knowledge of the Bohemian language. Friendship with Saxony was doubtless attractive to the wiser men of Bohemia, for more than one reason. It was the centre of that resistance to the Hungarian power which they felt to be so vital to European civilisation. It contained a large proportion of men of Slavonic race; and Magdeburg, where Dettmar had been trained, was the great home of such learning and culture as were then to be found in Germany.
But the fierce heathen spirit, which had been strengthened by Boleslav the Cruel, could not be suppressed at once either by his conversion, or by the probably sincerer piety of his son. It is now that the strong and cruel aristocracy of Bohemia begin to show their power both against king and people. Even in heathen times we hear of at least one family who claimed a sort of equality with the royal line, and who continued during the tenth and eleventh centuries to play much the same part as that of the Douglases in Scotland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. There was, however, one important difference between the cases. With all their selfishness and unscrupulousness, the Douglases always stood by Scotland against its external enemies, while the Vrs̆ovici were continually betraying Bohemia to Pole or German in order to gain their own ends. Nor were the Vrs̆ovici the only specimens of a lawless and cruel class; and Boleslav the Pious and Bishop Dettmar soon incurred the hatred of that class. The bishop, however, did not long survive his appointment; and he was soon to be succeeded by a man far more notable in Bohemian history. This man was Vojtĕch, the son of a powerful Bohemian noble, who was as distinguished for his virtues as for his wealth and rank. Vojtĕch, by the advice of Dettmar, had been sent by his parents to study at Magdeburg; and on his entrance into the clerical profession, he had received from the Archbishop of Magdeburg his name of Adalbert. When he returned to Bohemia, he was called to succeed Dettmar in the bishopric of Prague. He soon began to denounce the state of morals around him. Divorce was frequent; impurity of all kinds terribly rife; and the nobles, not content with oppression at home, were constantly selling their unfortunate dependants into slavery. The stern denunciations of Adalbert soon roused against him the hatred of his own class, which was increased in bitterness by the rivalry between his family and that of the Vrs̆ovici.
On one occasion a woman, whom he had saved from her angry husband and sent into a nunnery, was dragged out and murdered by her husband. Boleslav desired to repress such violence by the sword; Adalbert at first persuaded him to abstain from bloodshed; but, when the insurgent nobles built a fortress on the banks of the Elbe, from which they harassed all the Christians who came that way, the king felt bound to act; so he marched against the insurgents and signally defeated them. Adalbert, horrified at being in any way the cause of bloodshed, fled to Pannonia, which had now been conquered by the Hungarians.
CHURCH BUILT BY ST. ADALBERT AT PRAHATICE.
Geysa, the leading chief of the Hungarians in that district, was a hospitable and large-minded man, who welcomed strangers heartily. Adalbert used the opportunity to teach Christianity, and many of the Hungarians were converted. Amongst other converts was Geysa himself, who consented to have his son Stephen christened by Adalbert. Over this child Adalbert’s influence was evidently great; and when Stephen grew up, he became the first Christian king of Hungary, recognised as such both by Pope and Emperor. From the reign of St. Stephen the Hungarians themselves reckon their beginning as a settled monarchy; and thus they owe their change from the condition of a marauding horde to an orderly and progressive nation, to the teaching of the Bohemian saint.
Twice Adalbert was recalled to Bohemia, and twice he again left it in disgust. On the last occasion he took refuge with the King of Poland, and from thence went to convert the heathen Prussians, by whom he was killed. His body was brought back by the Poles and buried at Gnesen. Next to the actual memory of his life, his most notable legacy to his country is the hymn which he wrote in the native language, and which soon became, and long remained, a kind of war-cry of Bohemian independence.
III.
RELATIONS OF BOHEMIA TO POLAND AND TO THE EMPIRE IN THE ELEVENTH, TWELFTH, AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES.
(997-1253.)
The invasion of the Hungarians had changed the attitude of Bohemia, as of other countries, towards the German Empire. The necessity of saving themselves from the ruin which overwhelmed the dukedom of Moravia, naturally compelled the Bohemians to recognise their former enemies as their only sure protectors; and, as the vigorous line of Saxon princes put new force into the German kingdom, this relation became necessarily closer. But it was long before the German rulers were able to realise that they could gain any help, in turn, from the rising dukedom of Bohemia. Torn by the divisions between heathen and Christian, distracted to an unusual degree by family quarrels, harassed by powerful neighbours, Bohemia seemed, in the tenth and early part of the eleventh century, more fitted to be the tool or the prey of the Emperors than their ally. Nor was it only a weakening of internal security which had been produced by the Magyar invasion. The break-up of Slavonic unity, by the overthrow of Svatopluk, had caused a confusion of races in certain districts, which made them the subject of dispute between rival powers.
Of these mixed lands, the two in which Bohemia was most interested, were the district of Lusatia (afterwards called the Lausitz), over which she disputed with Saxony, and the even more variously peopled province of Silesia, which was the great cause of controversy between Bohemia and Poland. Of these two subjects of difference the Silesian question was the far more pressing and important. The common feeling of danger, produced by Hungarian invasion, had, indeed, affected Poland as much as other European countries; but, as the raids of the invaders grew less frequent, the sense of union, developed by that danger, grew weaker; and when the Hungarians began to settle down as a peaceable and Christian nation, the Poles began to abandon their defensive attitude, and gradually to become aggressive in their turn.
Nor was the Silesian question the only cause of jealousy between Poland and Bohemia. The town of Cracow, the former capital of Croatia, was as much desired by both the rival nations as Silesia could be; since it was important both for military and political purposes. Moreover those ecclesiastical considerations, which were always influencing the foreign politics of Bohemia, played a somewhat important part in the struggle with Poland. The desire of the Polish Duke to secure the burial of Adalbert at Gnesen had not been wholly due to religious feelings. The kings and bishops of Poland wished to make Gnesen the centre of a large diocese, in which Prague should hold a subordinate position; and an offer of money which the Duke of Poland made to a Bohemian monastery founded by Adalbert, was no doubt intended as a bribe to the monks, to induce them to further these schemes of ecclesiastical and political ambition. These enterprises were unfortunately aided by that treacherous family, the Vrs̆ovici, who had already played so fatal a part in their country’s history. They seem to have again tried to carry out their treasons by stirring up family jealousy. Young Boleslav, a nephew of Boleslav the Pious, showed himself eager to assert his claims to the Dukedom of Bohemia. Mĕs̆ek of Poland encouraged his kinsman’s intrigues, and, by a sudden surprise, Cracow was seized, and Silesia was overrun by the Polish troops.
Boleslav the Pious demanded reparation for this outrage, and circumstances soon gave him the opportunity for revenge. A Russian chief unexpectedly invaded Poland and laid waste a great part of it. Boleslav the Pious seized this opportunity to recover Cracow, and he placed there a governor of sufficient vigour to hold the fortress against all attempts of the Poles to recover it, even after they had succeeded in making peace with Russia. Indeed the new governor would willingly have extended the Bohemian territory by making reprisals on Poland; but this was strictly forbidden by the Duke of Bohemia.
The death of Boleslav the Pious, and the accession to the dukedom of his weak and profligate son, Boleslav the Third, gave a new opportunity both to native and foreign intrigues. Indeed the Vrs̆ovici are represented by some historians as acting in this reign rather the part of patriotic opponents of a tyrant than of selfish intriguers for power. It is, however, unfortunately clear that they did not abandon their intrigues with the Polish pretender; and he was able to take advantage of the non-payment of the soldiers in the garrison of Cracow to stir up division in the fortress. By this means he was once more able to surprise the garrison, and to put all the Bohemians to the sword. Great confusion now followed; the German Emperor, Henry II., seized the opportunity of fishing in troubled waters, and something like a conquest of Bohemia by Poland was for a time the result of this struggle. The accounts, however, of the details of the struggle seem uncertain and contradictory; and it is not until the Bohemians had in some measure re-established their independence that we once more find ourselves on firm ground.
Strangely enough, it is just when we have reached a point at which modern research and early tradition seem to be in practical harmony that we light upon a series of stories of the most romantic kind. Oldr̆ich, the brother of Boleslav III., had been established on the throne after the expulsion of the Poles. He seems to have been an eccentric prince, given to somewhat unconventional explorations of his kingdom. In one of these wanderings he came upon a handsome peasant-girl washing clothes in a stream. He at once fell in love with her, and soon after woo’d, won, and married her. The great ladies of the court at first resented the arrival of the peasant-queen; but in time the grace and courtesy of Beatrix broke down the opposition of her jealous critics, and the birth of her son Brac̆islav was celebrated with splendid feasts. Brac̆islav was to be the future hero and restorer of the greatness of his country; and, as usual, the political and military revival of Bohemia is preluded by a reawakening of the interest in the national language.
In another of his wanderings Oldr̆ich found, in the depth of the forest, an old hermit, to whom he confessed his sins; and he was so much impressed by the power and saintliness of the man, that he persuaded him to leave his solitary life, to return to the town, and to assist the duke and other pious men in founding the monastery of Sázava. He soon found that this hermit had in his keeping copies of the old Slavonic services introduced into Bohemia by Methodius, which had doubtless disappeared from the country in the recent troubles. Encouraged by Oldr̆ich, and at a later time by his son Brac̆islav, the national ritual was rapidly extended from Sázava to other churches.
Oldr̆ich bequeathed to his son both his zeal for the national language and the national independence, and also the love of romantic adventure. Even before his accession to the throne, Brac̆islav had attracted attention as a hero of romance. He had made a sudden expedition to the nunnery of Schweinfurt, to carry off from thence the beautiful daughter of a German Count. The gate of the nunnery was secured by a bar; but Brac̆islav cut through the bar with his sword, and carried off his bride in triumph, though some of his followers were cut off and killed. But the great purpose of his life was to recover the ground which Bohemia had lost in her struggle with Poland. Even before his accession to the throne, he had reconquered the greater part of the province of Moravia, which the Poles had torn away from Bohemia; and, as soon as he became duke, he resolved to carry his plans yet further, and to invade Poland itself. The death of Duke Casimir of Poland, and the infancy of his successor, facilitated this expedition. Brac̆islav retook Cracow by storm, overran much of Silesia, and transplanted many of the Poles to Bohemia, where he suffered them to maintain their old laws and customs. He then marched to Gnesen, the centre of the intended scheme for establishing the ecclesiastical supremacy of Poland over Bohemia. The city was ill-defended, and Brac̆islav entered it in triumph.
Then followed one of those scenes which show how strangely the fiercer elements in the Bohemian character were checked and crossed by influences like those of St. Wenceslaus and St. Adalbert. It will be remembered that the body of the latter saint had been buried by the king of Poland at Gnesen, and Brac̆islav had many motives for desiring to recover so valuable a possession. But the scene which preceded the restoration of the national saint to the country, which had so ill-treated him during his life, is curiously unlike the ordinary performances of a military conqueror; and, if there are any who think that such a mediæval legend is beneath the dignity of history, they should remember that the historian Cosmas, who has preserved it for us, was a man actively engaged in the ordinary political affairs of his time.
At first the Bohemians were disposed to carry things with a high hand; and, in spite of the warnings of the chief pastor of the town, they tore down the altar which covered the body, in order to seize it the more easily. For this offence they were struck dumb and blind for the space of three hours; and on recovering their senses they consented to submit to a three days’ fast before taking further action. On the third day the same priest, who had warned them of the consequences of their sacrilege, told them that he had had a vision of St. Adalbert; and that the saint had bidden him to tell the Duke and his companions that the Father in Heaven would give them what they asked, if they did not repeat those evil deeds which they abjured in their baptism. On the morning following this announcement, the Duke and his followers entered the church and prostrated themselves before the tomb of St. Adalbert. Then the Duke arose and addressed them as follows: “Do you wish to amend your errors and to turn from evil works to wisdom?” To this they answered, “We are prepared to amend whatever our fathers or we have done wrong against this saint of God, and to cease from every evil work.” Then the Duke, extending his hand over the sacred tomb, addressed the crowd as follows: “Stretch out, my brothers, your hands to God, and listen to my discourses, which I wish you to confirm your faith in by an oath. Therefore, let this be my first and most urgent decree; that your marriages, which you have hitherto treated as if they were mere fornications, and like the union of brute animals, should in future be made lawful, according to canonical rules, private and indissoluble, so that each husband shall be content with one wife, and each wife with one husband. But, if a wife shall despise a husband, or a husband his wife, and if a quarrel between them shall boil over into a separation, then I do not will that the one of them that refuses to return to lawful union shall be made a slave according to the custom of our land; but rather that, by the slavery of our unchangeable decree, such persons, whoever they may be, shall be carried into Hungary; and it shall not be permitted to them to buy their liberty, or to return to this land, lest the contagion of one little sheep should creep into the whole sheep-fold of Christ.” Then the pastor of the church answered: “Let him who does otherwise be anathema.”
After further provisions for enforcing purity of life, the Duke added, “But, if a woman shall have declared publicly that she was not loved as an equal, but was afflicted and persecuted by her husband, let the judgment of God be given between them; and let the one who is found guilty pay the penalty.” Further provisions were then introduced for punishing homicides; but with regard to murderers of fathers, brothers, or priests, they were to be bound by hand and belly with iron, and sent out of the kingdom, to wander, like Cain, over the whole earth. Those, again, who set up taverns, which are the source of all crimes and impurities, were to be anathema; and he who was caught in the act of keeping a tavern was to be hung, and his drinks to be poured out upon the earth, lest any one should be polluted by this execrable draught. Further provisions then followed against holding markets or doing servile works on Sunday, and against burial of the dead in unconsecrated places.
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.
But the ambition of the new bishop was not yet satisfied. It had been found necessary, in a previous reign, to divide the diocese into two parts, one Bohemian and one Moravian; and the Bishop of Olomouci (Olmütz) was then made practically independent of the Bishop of Prague. Jaromír now demanded that the Bishop of Olmütz should be deposed, and his diocese absorbed in the diocese of Prague. This proposal was, of course, opposed by Vratislav; whereupon Jaromír went secretly to Olmütz and assaulted his rival bishop, injuring him severely. Vratislav now felt that the time had come to appeal to the Pope against his unruly brother. Alexander II. sent a legate to Bohemia to try the case; but, though the Duke and the nobles received him with great honour, Jaromír denied the authority of the Papal emissary, and refused to resign the see at his bidding.
This, however, was not a time when the Pope could be bearded with impunity. In 1073 Alexander died, and Hildebrand was chosen Pope, with the title of Gregory VII. He summoned Jaromír to Rome; and, after a short attempt at resistance, the turbulent prince submitted to that powerful will. But even Gregory had allies with whom he could not dispense; and Matilda of Tuscany, who was connected with the Bohemian ducal family, chose to interest herself on Jaromír’s behalf, made up a temporary reconciliation between the brothers, and persuaded the Pope to restore Jaromír to the bishopric of Prague, after he had performed some kind of penance, and had given a promise to abstain from interference with the Bishop of Olmütz. Jaromír, therefore, returned to Bohemia, and continued to be a thorn in the side of his brother, and of all his order-loving countrymen.
It is obvious that neither the conduct of Jaromír nor of Gregory can have tended to sweeten Vratislav’s feelings towards the anti-German party; and his personal resentment and the desire for greater security for his throne, doubtless mingled with larger considerations, to recommend to him an important change in Bohemian policy, which was vitally to affect the future of the country.
Ever since the death of Henry II., the Bohemian Dukes had had a new chance for playing a part in the affairs of the German Empire. The six German princes, to whom the Saxon Emperors had wished to limit the right of election to the Empire, had found it impossible, or at least, extremely difficult, to come to a satisfactory decision on occasions when the champions of rival candidates were equally divided. So they were forced to add the Duke of Bohemia as a seventh Elector, to secure a better chance of a satisfactory decision, and in 1024 Duke Oldr̆ich had actually taken part in an Imperial Election. At that time, no doubt, the Emperors were still strong enough to dispense with allies who were not directly and naturally connected with the Empire; but when the struggle with the Popes began, the need for fresh support became more evident, and the friendship of the new Elector of the Empire became more valuable.
When, then, in 1075, Vratislav offered his help to the Emperor in the struggle which was then becoming desperate, his alliance was gladly welcomed. Henry IV. had just then been excommunicated by Gregory for his opposition to the Papal claims over the German bishoprics; and he was threatened with rebellion by some of his most powerful subjects. Vratislav’s opportunity was therefore well chosen; and throughout the many changes of fortune in his stormy career, Henry found his new ally both faithful and helpful. Many victories were gained by the help of the Bohemian soldiers; and perhaps the most noteworthy battle, as affecting the future Bohemian history, was that at Mailberg in 1082, when Vratislav, with the help of the Bavarians, defeated Leopold, Margrave of Austria, who had just revolted against Henry. The Emperor would gladly have presented the Mark of Austria to the victorious Duke; but Vratislav wisely shrank from this extension of his dominions. Other offers of territory by Henry were either declined by the Duke or found incapable of execution; and at last, in 1086, the Emperor, finding no other reward acceptable to his ally, publicly recognised Vratislav as King of Bohemia, and released him from tribute to the Empire.
Thus Bohemia passed for the moment from a position of dependence to one of equal alliance with the German Emperor. It might seem, indeed, when one considers the later developments of Bohemian history, as if the country would have been happier had it held aloof from the quarrels of Emperors and Popes, and developed itself on narrower and more peaceful lines. But, by the statesmen of that time, the matter must have been seen in a very different light. The perpetual interference by Emperors, Popes, and Kings of Poland in the internal affairs of Bohemia seemed to have become an unavoidable evil; and the only apparent remedy was to seize the moment when the Emperor was in difficulty, and to show him that his despised dependant might become a necessary ally.
But the general character of Vratislav’s policy justifies us in attributing to him higher motives than those above mentioned. He seems to have really desired to encourage a wider development of thought and culture in Bohemia. Both Germans and Jews were granted special privileges to induce them to settle in Prague; and it may well be believed that he hoped to extend this connection between Bohemia and the European world, by concerning himself with the politics of the Empire.
Nor did he fail to do honour to native excellence. One man in particular stands out amongst his favourites, as a proof of Vratislav’s sympathy with artistic power. This was Boz̆etĕch, who was distinguished both as painter, sculptor, and architect. Such a variety of excellence so attracted the Duke that he appointed Boz̆etĕch as Abbot of Sázava; and by his help he once more brought back into use the often-disputed Slavonic ritual. Pope Gregory, indeed, indignantly demanded its suppression; but Vratislav, strong in the support of the Emperor and of the general feeling of Bohemia, stood firm on behalf of this symbol of national life. Unfortunately, rulers who choose their favourites for merit rather than for birth, naturally rouse the hostility of those courtiers, who have only the latter claim to distinction; and while Boz̆etĕch was sternly rebuked for presumption by the Bishop of Prague, another favourite of Vratislav’s gave offence to the heir to the throne, and was murdered by the young prince and his followers.
This act of violence is one proof among many that Vratislav’s policy was too vigorous for the leaders of Bohemian opinion. His successors could not maintain Bohemia in the position in which he would have placed her; and even the royal title fell into disuse, in consequence, partly, of the disputes about the succession. Indeed, the chief evidence of the progress, which Bohemia had made under Vratislav, is to be found in the fact that the internal quarrels which followed his reign were not able to drag the country down to the condition into which she had previously fallen. Poland was not able to recover her hold over Bohemia; and Henry IV. was so conscious of his debt to Vratislav that he refused to interfere in a contest between members of the ducal family, on the ground that such questions should be left to the free choice of the Bohemians themselves.
In spite, then, of Vratislav’s partial success, the divisions which followed his death could not fail to weaken Bohemia; and at last one of the Dukes resolved upon a terrible method for suppressing internal disorder. This duke bore the name of Svatopluk; and his career was not wholly unlike that of his namesake in the old Moravian times. By the help of Mutina and Boz̆ej, two of the leaders of the Vrs̆ovici, he had deposed Duke Bor̆ivoj, and placed himself upon the throne of Bohemia. Bor̆ivoj appealed to Polish support for the recovery of his kingdom; and, during Svatopluk’s absence, he invaded Bohemia at the head of a Polish army. Mutina, who had been left as one of Svatopluk’s chief representatives, offered little resistance to the invaders, and he was, in consequence, denounced to the Duke as having intrigued with Bor̆ivoj. Thereupon Svatopluk resolved to destroy the whole race of the Vrs̆ovici. He summoned all the nobles to a banquet in Breslau; and among them came Mutina, not suspecting what was to follow. At the close of the banquet Svatopluk suddenly turned upon Mutina, and accused him and his family of being the authors of all the treasons in Bohemia for many years past. Then he made a sign to an officer, who rushed upon Mutina and cut off his head as he was trying to rise from his seat. His sons were then seized and their eyes put out. Then messengers were despatched all over the country, who hunted out every member of the family of the Vrs̆ovici, and killed all whom they could seize—men, women, and children. Some of them fled, to Poland, and others to Hungary; and for a long time the family was unknown in Bohemia. But this savage act of vengeance did not produce the general results at which its author had aimed. Svatopluk himself was murdered during an invasion of Poland by one of the exiled Vrs̆ovici; and the succeeding reign was as much disturbed by family quarrels as any which had preceded it.
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.
This was the third occasion on which a royal crown had been offered to the Dukes of Bohemia; and it was in some ways the most significant of the three. The first offer had been made to St. Wenceslaus, and had been based entirely on the ground of his personal qualities. The saint had refused it as inconsistent with his character. The offer made to Vratislav had been of a wholly different kind from the first proposal; but the way in which the title speedily fell into disuse has led some to doubt if Henry IV. had intended the crown to be hereditary. In the case of Vladislav, however, there was no doubt as to the intentions of Barbarossa. Indeed, he clearly showed that he considered the grant of this dignity as the revival of the old Moravian kingship; and, in order to emphasise the importance and independence of the new dignity, he accompanied it by the grant of territory which the Bohemians had previously claimed, but over which their rights had hitherto been disputed. Although, therefore, the continual contests for the throne of Bohemia, which followed the death of Vladislav, made it impossible for the rival pretenders to make good their claim to the royal title, there was, nevertheless, no doubt that, from this time forth, any lawfully elected ruler of Bohemia had the right to call himself king. Yet, splendid as this proposal was, Vladislav felt it necessary to consult his chief adviser, Bishop Daniel of Prague, before he would give the promise which could alone secure him the new dignity. Daniel had no doubts in his own mind; indeed, he seems throughout to have been more zealous for the Imperial alliance than Vladislav himself, and even to have taken a warm interest in the details of the Italian campaign. He, therefore, readily used his influence in favour of the proposal; and the bargain between the Emperor and the King was accordingly struck.
Few wise and well-meaning rulers have ever done greater mischief to their country than Vladislav accomplished by that hastily made bargain; but nothing could be honester than his way of carrying out the compact; and he clearly showed that he believed himself to be acting for the good of his country. He hastened back to Bohemia, and called a General Council of the nobles, to whom he announced the whole transaction. Immediately fierce protests broke forth. The Duke, without any consultation with his lawful advisers, had raised himself to a new dignity, and had dragged the country into a foreign war. The adviser of such unlawful acts deserved to be crucified. This threat was obviously aimed at Bishop Daniel, but Vladislav hastened to take the whole responsibility upon himself. “I have made this promise,” he said, “to the Emperor, by no man’s advice, but of my own free will. I give this answer to the honours which he has granted to me. Whosoever intends to help me in this business, him I will provide with fitting honour and with the money necessary for this work; but he who cares not for it let him sit at home content with the games and the ease of women, and secure of the peace which I will guarantee to him.”
It should be noted that, under the scornful rhetoric of this speech, there is concealed the admission of the important constitutional principle, that the king had no right to demand the service of his subjects in a foreign war. In saner moods and at later periods, Bohemians were eager to assert this great liberty. But, for the moment, the king’s appeal acted like magic in silencing opposition and rousing enthusiasm for the war. Songs were composed and speeches delivered in honour of the siege of Milan; and, while the young nobility disregarded the warnings of their elders and hastened to take up arms in the Imperial cause, the peasants gladly left their wearisome occupations and oppressed condition to flock to the banner of their beloved king. The splendid services accomplished by Vladislav in that ill-fated war strengthened his influence in the Councils of the Empire; and it is at least pleasant to mention that, at the siege of Brescia, the King of Bohemia used his influence with Barbarossa to soften the terms offered to the unfortunate Brescians. His personal share in the war was indeed cut short, partly by ill-health, partly by the necessity of returning to Bohemia, which was disturbed by the insurrection of a new pretender. But his son Frederick and his brother Theobald brought new reinforcements to the camp of Barbarossa; and a large part of all the glory that could be won in such a cause was due to the Bohemian soldiers.
Nor was Vladislav less successful in rousing the enthusiasm of his subjects in favour of another war, which had as little connection as the Italian expedition had had with the welfare of Bohemia. Queen Geysa, of Hungary, appealed to Vladislav in 1164 to help her young son in his struggle against a pretender to the Hungarian throne. Again Vladislav promised his help, and again the constitutional protest against his promise produced an explanation which served to show the deference of the king to the laws, while its complete success proved his personal popularity in the country. This campaign gave additional proof of the king’s military reputation; for the Emperor of Constantinople, who had invaded Hungary on behalf of the rebels, was eager to make a special peace with his Bohemian opponent; and when he failed to effect this purpose, he speedily returned to his own country and accepted the proposals of Vladislav about the terms of his peace with Queen Geysa.
The reign of Vladislav stands out strangely in the middle of the disorderly twelfth century. We see there a king suppressing disorder without suppressing freedom; armed insurrection by selfish intriguers, changing as if by magic into constitutional opposition on behalf of most important liberties; and all these gains apparently connected with an increase in military glory and national prestige, such as might well dazzle even men of some sagacity and foresight.
But the glory, and, what was of far more importance, the peace of Bohemia, were of short duration. The death of Bishop Daniel broke the chief link between Vladislav and Barbarossa. The bishop had remained with the Emperor during his Italian campaign; his counsels had always been welcome, and his influence had, no doubt, been a strong force in securing Bohemia to the Imperial cause. Nor did his death produce a merely negative effect on the relations between Bohemia and the Empire. It brought into play another influence which was exerted on the opposite side.
Vladislav’s queen, Judith, favoured the party of Pope Alexander III.; and by her advice a Saxon bishop, who had taken the Papal side, was elected as Daniel’s successor. As the new bishop was totally ignorant of the Bohemian language, his election weakened Vladislav’s popularity with his people as much as his favour with the Emperor. Three years later, the enemies of the king once more found their opportunity to make use of these discontents against him. Vladislav, without any consultation with the nobles, and without any notice to the Emperor, resigned his power to his son Frederick; and the intriguers, whom he had with such difficulty suppressed, were now easily able to rouse an insurrection against his successor. Then followed twenty-five years of miserable dynastic squabbles, during which Conrad of Moravia was able to play the part of king-maker, and, by the help of the puppets whom he placed on the throne of Bohemia, to secure a temporary independence for the province which he governed.
At last the contest was brought to an end by the accession of King Pr̆emysl to the throne in 1198; and he settled the question of Moravian government by conceding the rule of that province to his brother Vladislav. Pr̆emysl came at the right moment to recover for Bohemia the power and influence of which the civil wars of a quarter of a century had deprived her. Once more, as in the time of Henry IV., Germany’s difficulty was Bohemia’s opportunity. The death of Henry VI., the son of Barbarossa, had thrown the Empire into all the disorder which arises from a disputed succession; and Pr̆emysl found his interest in playing off one rival emperor against another, just as the Emperors had previously played with the rival candidates to the Bohemian throne. Philip and Otto soon found that their respective causes were practically at the mercy of the Bohemian king; and, if Dubravsky has any authority for saying that Pr̆emysl’s surname of Ottakar was a tribute to his devotion to Otto, never, certainly, did a nickname convey keener irony.
Nor did the election of Frederick II. diminish the power of Pr̆emysl. His influence had considerably contributed to that election; and Frederick’s lifelong war against popes and priests compelled him to rely on any friend who would stand by him against those dangerous antagonists. In his eagerness to secure Pr̆emysl’s help, the Emperor confirmed to the Bohemian crown those German territories in Silesia and the Lausitz, which had so long been the subject of dispute. He also granted to Pr̆emysl the power of appointing bishops in Bohemia without any outside interference. Pr̆emysl’s sympathies with Frederick were further quickened by the struggles with the clergy of Bohemia in which he found himself involved. The same difficulties which our Henry II. had so recently experienced, in his attempts to bring the clergy under the authority of lay tribunals, were harassing Pr̆emysl during a large part of his reign; and his attitude in these matters provoked against him Papal censures as stern as those which were aimed at his Imperial ally. The contest between king and priest in Bohemia ended in a compromise; but the substantial victory probably remained with the king.
Pr̆emysl’s vigour tended, no doubt, to reconcile the discontented nobles to his rule; but, in the reign of his son Wenceslaus, the opposition again began to make head. Young Pr̆emysl Ottakar, the son of Wenceslaus, had been appointed Margrave of Moravia; and the power connected with this office induced the nobles to make the young prince the centre of their intrigues. The terrible events of 1241 suppressed faction for a time in Bohemia; for in that year the invasion of Genghis Khan shook all the States of Europe to their centre, and gradually forced into the background any minor cause of division. The details of this invasion are more properly connected with the events to be dealt with in the following chapter. Here it is enough to say that the panic produced by this invasion enabled Wenceslaus to rally round him the whole forces of the kingdom, and to establish the reputation of Bohemia as the champion of European civilisation.
But there was one ruler, in whom neither fear of danger nor gratitude for deliverance could quench his hostility to the Slavonic kingdom. This was Frederick of Babenberg, Duke of Austria, who was otherwise known as Frederick the Quarrelsome. Ever since the time when Vratislav had defeated the Margrave Leopold in his rising against Henry IV., the rulers of Austria had been doubtful friends to Bohemia; and, though accident might sometimes have forced them into an alliance, their ordinary attitude was that of suspicion, if not of open hostility. Frederick the Quarrelsome was one of the bitterest in his opposition. He invaded Moravia in the very year after the repulse of the Mongols; and he continued the struggle till his death.
That death, however, instead of bringing peace to Wenceslaus, only raised against him a far more formidable opponent. The Emperor Frederick had opposed the efforts of his turbulent namesake; but, when the Duke died without an heir, it seemed an excellent opportunity for seizing Austria as a fief of the Empire. Wenceslaus, on the other hand, desired to secure the dukedom for his son Vladislav; and, in spite of Imperial opposition, he seems to have won for his son the sympathies, of a part, at least, of the Austrian nobles.
Thus then ended abruptly that alliance between Bohemia and the Empire which had been so useful to both parties. Neither Wenceslaus nor Frederick lost time in their declarations of hostility to each other. In 1247 Wenceslaus openly joined in the schemes of Innocent IV., for deposing the Emperor, and setting up William of Holland in his place; and Frederick revenged himself by stirring up the discontented Bohemian nobles against their king. The struggle was a sharp one; the rebels succeeded for a time in deposing Wenceslaus and setting up young Ottakar in his stead; but the threats of Innocent IV. brought them back to their allegiance; and a compromise by which young Ottakar was confirmed in his former government of Moravia removed him from the ranks of his father’s enemies. The death of Frederick II. once more plunged the Empire into disorder. Wenceslaus saw his opportunity in this confusion; and, as Vladislav was now dead, the King persuaded young Ottakar to seize the dukedom of Austria for himself. The Austrians accepted their new duke without any apparent reluctance; and thus, when Wenceslaus died in 1253, Ottakar II. became king of a Bohemia, which included not only Silesia and the Lausitz, but also the dukedom of Austria.
IV.
THE GROWTH OF BOHEMIAN LIFE FROM ACCESSION OF PR̆EMYSL OTTAKAR I. TO DEATH OF PR̆EMYSL OTTAKAR II.
(1198-1278.)
In the present century the development of national constitutions has had a special interest for historians. This interest has arisen partly from the spectacle of the unusual number of new experiments in government which have been made in our own time; partly from the growing sense that the history of wars and Courts has become less important, and that the growth of law and of popular life ought to take the place of those exploded subjects of interest. But the exact legal position of the different component parts of a nation is not generally easy to ascertain at an early period of its history; nor, when it is ascertained, has the knowledge always brought us nearer to the discovery of the really living and progressive force in the nation at that period.
Thus, in the case of Bohemia, though we get continual hints of national feeling and popular aspiration, these do not always centre in legally constituted bodies, nor do they keep pace with any orderly line of constitutional development. Assemblies seem constantly to have met, but these were, in the main, assemblies of nobles; and the general national feeling more often took the form of an enthusiasm for the Bohemian language, or the reverence for a native saint, than of a demand for the extension of the rights of any class, or for a limitation of the royal power.
Perhaps it was a natural consequence of this popular indifference to political progress, as compared with the zeal for the preservation of the national language, and the religious ritual, that, by the close of the twelfth century, we find few traces remaining of those free institutions which seemed to connect themselves with the story of Libus̆a. Even those securities for popular freedom, which undoubtedly prevailed in historical times, had been, in the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, corrupted into new sources of tyranny. Of these the most important had been the Z̆upa, or local assembly. This had been formed partly for purposes of self-defence, partly for ecclesiastical organisation; and, though it had centred at one time in a castle, at another in a church, yet it had originally been governed by a judge, elected by the district.
But from the time of Boleslav the Cruel, the Dukes began to make it their practice to grant these local judgeships to nobles who had done them special service; and those nobles were generally allowed either to sell their offices or to bequeath them to their heirs. The temptation to use this position as an instrument of oppression was yet further increased by the profit which the judges were allowed to make out of the fines that they had inflicted. The money thus accumulated was often used for the purchase of neighbouring lands; and thus lands formerly held by freemen, or on the communal system, passed into the power of the official nobles. In the meantime those nobles, who did not become Z̆upani, were able to profit by the growing unpopularity of the local tribunals to strengthen the power of their own feudal courts over their dependants; while the continual wars, and the practice of selling captives into slavery, encouraged the growth of an even more helpless and degraded class. The coolness with which many of the grants of land transfer workmen of various kinds as mere appendages of fields and fishponds, is in itself a proof of the degraded position to which the peasant class in Bohemia had been reduced; and the fact that military service seemed one of the few means of escaping from serfdom led the peasants to favour those wars which in the end increased their misery.
When the peculiarly disturbed state of Bohemia, which followed King Vladislav’s retirement from power, had been for a time brought to an end, or at least modified by the accession of Pr̆emysl Ottakar to the throne of the kingdom, it became necessary to provide some remedy for the miserable state of things which was destroying the country; and above all to find a new opportunity for the development of peaceful trade, and some power which could counteract the lawless intrigues of the nobles. The calling into life of communities which should be out of reach of the power both of feudalism and officialism was the natural method of meeting these difficulties; and, in the ruin of the rest of the country, there seemed to be two places where there still lingered traditions that could be made available for this purpose.
Curiously enough, amid the decay of national freedom, the privileges granted to foreigners still remained undiminished; and, stranger still, it was from these communities that a new material for national life was to be drawn. In the district of Poric̆, which Vratislav had raised into a suburb of Prague, a settlement of German workmen had been planted by that king; and to encourage them in the continuance of their occupations, he had granted them rights of self-government, which had survived the freedom of the Z̆upani, and the other elements of independence which had been enjoyed by the poorer classes of Bohemia. They had been allowed to choose their own judge without interference from any one; and, except in the cases of the most extreme crimes, which were dealt with by the Duke himself, they were allowed to carry on their own affairs according to their own laws. They were never to be compelled to go on military service, except when the actual defence of the country required it. A Bohemian wishing to bring an action against a German was obliged to prove his case through two German witnesses and one Bohemian before a German judge. They were to be safe from that compulsory intrusion into their houses by nobles who came from a distance, which was one of the great burdens of the Bohemian citizens; and in many other matters they were allowed to follow the customs of their own country. The respect felt for these privileges is sufficiently shown by the fact that, even in the time of turbulence and disorder between the abdication of Vladislav, and the accession of Pr̆emysl, we find a formal confirmation by Duke Sobeslav of Vratislav’s grant to the settlers in Poric̆.
Here then Pr̆emysl could find a tradition which might justify him in developing, without violent change, liberties of the greatest importance to his country; and accordingly in 1213 he grants to the citizens of Freudenthal the settlement of their town “in accordance with that Teutonic law which has hitherto been unwonted and unused in the lands of Bohemia and Moravia; but which, having been granted to you first by our illustrious brother Vladislav, Margrave of Moravia, we confirm with our royal authority.” And then, as an important hint of coming developments, and an indication of the thoroughly national purpose of this movement, he grants them, during the life of himself and his brother, the tithes on the metals found within four miles from the city, to be used for the improvement of the aforesaid city.
But, if the new development of town life took root at this time in the western parts of Bohemia, it seems to have had a still earlier growth in the more eastern province of Moravia. That province had always had peculiar traditions of its own. It was a fragment of the old kingdom of Moravia, and had been incorporated in the Bohemian dukedom, at the time of the Hungarian invasion. It always retained a sense of its important position; and Barbarossa himself had increased that feeling when, in granting the royal crown to Vladislav, he spoke of the new dignity as a revival of the old Moravian kingdom. Moreover, by some means or other, a German element seems to have penetrated into this province; and it is now generally believed that in Moravia, as in Bohemia, the first traditions of municipal self-government were drawn from German sources. Nevertheless, when in 1229 King Pr̆emysl recognised the municipal liberties of Brünn (Brno), he evidently refers to them as connected with local rights which had been traditional for a considerable time in that town; and in the book of decisions of the Moravian municipal tribunals, the Law of Brno is sometimes pitted against that Law of Magdeburg which was generally accepted as the model of town rights. Brünn, too, became in a peculiar manner the centre of the towns of Moravia, and its laws became a new source of life to a great portion of the Bohemian kingdom; and its Book of Rights, with its splendid binding and beautiful illuminations, may still be seen in the town council house at Brünn. So, when in 1229 Pr̆emysl Ottakar confirmed the ancient laws of the province of Brünn, he gave a new, and probably more attractive, impulse to the movement for civic self-government.
RADNICE BRNE: OLD DOOR OF TOWN COUNCIL HOUSE OF BRÜNN.
These rights, however, were of gradual growth, and at the time of Pr̆emysl’s decree they were not developed to that point which the subsequent records of their interpretation would lead one to expect. Thus, although we find securities against arbitrary arrest, we do not find that definite arrangement for the production of legal witnesses which was afterwards established; and, though the judge is no longer allowed to decide questions alone, the check upon him seems to be rather that of officials and nobles than of his fellow-citizens. But, whatever defects and limitations we may find in these early provisions for municipal liberty, the movement in its favour was soon to be hastened by one of the most tremendous shocks which had convulsed Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. This was nothing less than the invasion of Genghis Khan and his Tartar hordes, which has already been slightly alluded to in the previous chapter.
It appears that the Cumani, a still barbarous tribe, had come into collision with the Tartars in Asia; and, either flying from Tartar vengeance, or following a new career of conquest, the Cumani entered Hungary. There they joined with some of their kinsmen who had formerly settled there, and began to harass the Hungarians. The Tartars quickly followed on their heels; and, having overrun Russia, they made their way into Hungary, defeated King Bela, and laid waste his territory, killing men, women, and children. From thence they swept over Poland, and advanced into Moravia, while others attacked Bulgaria and Greece. The terror-struck descriptions of the writers of the period seem to combine the memories of Gothic and Hunnish invasions with the imagery of the Apocalypse. Like so many conquerors, Genghis Khan seems to have had a conception of a special mission to destroy imposed on him by some invisible Power; and he and his followers were looked on, for a time, as irresistible. He had twelve thousand men wearing breastplates of skin, and always on horseback, and twenty or thirty horses without any one to guide them following every rider; for the Mongol Tartars could do nothing on foot because of their short legs and long bodies. They were killing all except those children whom Genghis Khan was branding on the face with his mark. Their women were said to fight on horseback; and those who slaughtered the most were the most admired.
While Europe was panic-struck, and every man was calling on his neighbour for help, Pope Gregory IX. and the Emperor Frederick II. were fighting with each other for the possession of Sicily; and, while Frederick pleaded that he could not put himself at the head of the Imperial forces till Gregory would let him alone, the friends and admirers of Gregory were accusing Frederick of having himself invited in the Tartars; and some even declared that they had seen his messengers in the Tartar army. Alone almost among the princes of Europe, Wenceslaus of Bohemia, who had now succeeded to the throne, seems to have preserved some nerve and sense. He called upon the Duke of Austria, the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Duke of Carinthia, and the Margrave of Baden to help him to gather together his forces near Olmütz (Olomouci); and he made so determined a stand that the invasion was rolled back upon Hungary.
Even after this defeat of the Tartars the terror of them hung for years over Europe; but, though Bohemia itself was not yet free from danger, Wenceslaus, as King of Bohemia, and his son Pr̆emysl Ottakar, as Margrave of Moravia, now set themselves to redress the injuries done by the Tartar invasion. In 1243 they began to enlarge and restore the towns which had been destroyed by the Tartars; and in order to induce the frightened citizens to devote themselves to this work, they found it necessary to encourage them by the grant of further liberties.
The conception of municipal government evidently makes great strides at this time. Accused persons are now more carefully guarded from arbitrary sentences; and we also find the jury rising to an equality with the judge in the decision of certain matters. More clearly, too, do we detect the determination to put a check on the tyranny of the nobles by the development of civic liberties. “We will,” says Wenceslaus, in his extension of the privileges of Brünn, “and we irrefragably decree that no baron or noble of the land shall have power in the city of Brünn, or shall do any violence in it, or shall detain any one, without the license and proclamation of the judge of the city; and we will that, whoever of the citizens has servants or possessions outside the city, shall not be summoned by the provincial judge, or the officials of the province, but shall be judged by the judge of the city.”
JÍHLAVA (IGLAU), THE GREAT MINING CENTRE IN MORAVIA.
The power of demising property without interference from others, freedom of marriage or non-marriage to widows and maidens, various forms of protection against violence, facilities for holding markets, and the removal of customs duties—such are the chief subjects dealt with in these civic constitutions. The discovery and working of minerals, which largely date from this time, led to new opportunities of self-government. In the town of Iglau (Jíhlava), where miners had been prominent in the defence of their country against the Tartars, the powers granted to them and the neighbouring citizens were particularly large. “We wish and command,” say Wenceslaus and Pr̆emysl Ottakar his son, “that, whatever the jury of our city and the jury of the miners have ordained, for the commercial good, should be inviolably observed by all.” Even tax-collectors of the king are to consult the miners in certain matters; while special securities are given against possible defalcations by debtors of noble birth.
Great as was the advance which is implied in these decrees, the use made of them by the citizens shows that they understood how to extend their liberties still further. The benefit derived from the powers granted to civic judges might have been neutralised by the way in which the judgeships were still conferred by the kings on their personal favourites; but the jurymen of Brünn claimed for themselves the power of checking, and even overruling the judge, which must have been a far better guarantee for the self-government of the city than any that was directly contained in the royal decree.
“The judge,” say these administrators, “must reverence the jury as legislators, never dictate sentences on his own authority, never arrest any one without their knowledge, never appropriate to himself the fines of the city, never bring back those that are driven from the city, without the consent of the jurors; always listen to them, and arrange all the business of his office according to their advice.”
How much the sense of equality before the law grew under this administration may be illustrated by the following instance. A servant has brought an action against a fellow-servant for wounding him; while at the same time a master brings an action against the same defendant for debt. The question arises which of these shall be heard first. The jury decide that “since the body of a man is more precious than money,” the defendant should answer for his violence to the man whom he has wounded, before he answers to the master for his debt. More bold still was the assertion of the rights of the citizens to hold the nobles responsible to the city tribunals for lands held within the city. And while they held their own against the nobles outside, the popular magistrates increased their authority within the city. The power of regulating trade, which in England was seized by the Guilds, was, in the Moravian towns, at once taken into the hands of the civic authorities; and thus those conflicts, which Mrs. Green has described as prevailing in so many English towns, between the magistrates and the leaders of the trades, never assume such prominence in the history of Brünn and Olmütz.
Nor was it only in their immediate security for liberty and good government that these civic rights were of advantage to Bohemia and Moravia. Questions were forced upon the practical consideration of the jurors, the very discussion of which formed an important element in political education. Thus the treatment by the jurors of the questions of the value of torture, and ordeal by battle, as methods of discovering truth, show how experience was already preparing the way for the overthrow of abuses, which were yet too strongly supported by popular prejudice to be removed at once. The steady growth of these liberties, which had received so powerful an impulse from the needs produced by the Tartar invasion, was still further promoted by Pr̆emysl Ottakar II., and became in his hands part of a complete scheme for humbling the power of the nobility.
Wenceslaus, in spite of some fine qualities, had been a self-indulgent and pleasure-seeking man; and he had, like some of his predecessors, mortgaged many of the royal lands and castles to the nobles. This had naturally increased their power, and had enabled them to organise those insurrections against the king in which they had at first succeeded in involving his son. But even while he was still Margrave of Moravia, young Pr̆emysl Ottakar had broken loose from these influences; and by various economies and convenient pecuniary transactions he had succeeded in raising money enough to purchase back the lands from the nobles, compelling them, sometimes against their will, to surrender their mortgages. He also forced them to break down those castles which had been great causes of disorder and weakness in the country. Nor did he fail to strengthen his cause by alliance with the clergy.
Ever since the quarrel between Frederick II. and Wenceslaus, that King had been a devoted champion of the Pope; and in the growing weakness of the Empire, the Pope became more and more the one great Power to which a rising and ambitious king could appeal. Ottakar II. became distinguished as a friend of the Church, not only by his strong support of the Papal power, but by his endowment and development of the monasteries. In this, indeed, he was carrying on that revival of Bohemian life which Wenceslaus had begun after the repulse of the Tartars. But it was evident that these ecclesiastical exemptions must sometimes come into collision with those civic liberties of which we have spoken.
This contradiction was evidently felt by Ottakar; and it showed itself in three different ways. The freedom of trade, which, under certain limitations, was so welcome to the towns, was by no means in accordance with the claims of the abbots. They wished that certain occupations should be carried on under their control; and not that there should be any exchange of the articles connected with those occupations. Thus we find in some of the grants to the monasteries that, while the monks and their dependants are relieved from certain forms of taxation, the exemption is specially limited to those who are not engaged in trade. Secondly, there was an obvious risk of a conflict of authority between the monastic tribunals and those of the city. Thirdly, the records of Brünn, and of its imitators, show that the growing ideas of equality before the law did not always seem to the citizens quite consistent with the privileges claimed by the clergy. Nor must it be supposed that charters to monasteries and charters to towns represented, in the same degree, the ordinary idea of human liberty. The dependants of the abbot were as much at his mercy as those of any feudal lord; and though it might be an advantage for them to escape from the oppressions of the Z̆upani, it was not always certain that the abbot would be a gentler master.
That Ottakar felt the difficulty of this conflict, and desired to compromise between the interests of these rivals for his favour, is strikingly illustrated by the two cases of Hradiste and Litomys̆l. In the former case, Ottakar was particularly anxious to secure the good will of the citizens, because he looked upon their town as a possible bulwark against Hungarian invasion; but the neighbouring convent of Vilegrad feared that the grant of liberties to Hradiste would interfere with the privileges of their convent. The compromise to which Ottakar was forced seems a considerable surrender to ecclesiastical pretensions. The townsmen were to settle in one particular island, for which they were to pay rent to the monastery. The monastery was to retain all its former rights over waters, fisheries, mills, meadows, woods, and corn-fields; and, though the town was to hold a market two days a week, the profit of that market was to go on one day to the king, and on another to the monastery; and, above all, the judge of the town was to be appointed by the monastery. But in this decree there is a provision which seems to suggest how even such a compromise might work for freedom. The common rights in pasture held previously by the townsmen are to be shared with the dependants of the monastery; but the dependants of the monastery in their turn are to share their common rights with the citizens of the town. Thus there would naturally grow up a combination among the dependants of the monasteries, like those unions which, in England, gave such trouble to the abbots of St. Albans and Dunstable.
In the case of Litomys̆l the grants to the monastery and those given to the town are so entangled that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the benefits received by the respective recipients of the royal favour; and, in this case, Ottakar seems to have cut the knot by raising Litomys̆l to the ordinary position of a royal town, and thereby emancipating it from the control of the monastery. Ottakar indeed had one sure protection against any possible offence which the Church might fear from the growth of civic liberty. Bruno, Bishop of Olmütz, was his right-hand man in this as in other parts of his work. Himself a German by birth, he warmly encouraged the introduction of German town rights into the cities of Moravia; while, on the other hand, he always succeeded, until the final catastrophe of Ottakar’s life, in strengthening the good understanding between the Pope and the King of Bohemia.
Thus there were now growing up in Bohemia the elements of internal liberty, under the patronage of a king strong and wise enough to hold his own against the nobles. Had Ottakar been content to remain King of Bohemia alone, the effect of his reign on his country might have been permanently beneficial. But it is now necessary to speak of that career of conquest and aggression which raised up against him so many enemies, and which at last put into the hands of his most dangerous rival the weapon by which king and country were alike overthrown.
However evil were the final results of his aggressions, it must be owned that there was a certain plausibility in the justification offered by Ottakar for each of his conquests. To begin with the first and most important of them, the conquest of Austria. The Babenbergers had been undoubtedly troublesome neighbours to the Dukes of Bohemia; and Frederick the Quarrelsome, the last of the line, had been also so oppressive to his subjects that they had appealed to the Emperor to choose them a new duke. On this occasion the King of Bohemia had been one of those to whom the enforcement of the ban of the Empire had been entrusted. When, then, on the death of Frederick the Quarrelsome, the land seemed likely to fall into the hands of the Emperor, or to be torn in pieces by rival claimants, Wenceslaus and Ottakar may have naturally considered it a matter of self-defence to establish their rule, and with it some kind of order, in the lands of so near a neighbour; and they were further encouraged in their attempt by the approval of Pope Innocent IV.
But the latter phases of the conquest are perhaps less excusable, and even somewhat discreditable to Wenceslaus and his son. The Austrian nobles, on the death of the Emperor Frederick had resolved to choose the Margrave of Meissen as their duke, and to send representatives to invite him to accept the ducal crown. On their way through Bohemia, Wenceslaus invited them to a banquet, and tried to cajole them into choosing his son as their duke. The messengers, alarmed and taken by surprise, declared that they had no authority to accept this proposal. Wenceslaus, thereupon, uttered such threats, that the Austrians considered it dangerous to continue their journey; and they returned to their country to reconsider the question.
Apart from the claim given to the Margrave of Meissen by the choice of the nobles, there were two rival claimants to the dukedom of Austria; Margaret the widow of the Emperor Henry VI., and daughter of Leopold the Glorious, the most popular of all the Babenberg House; and Gertrude a niece of Frederick the Quarrelsome, and wife of the Margrave of Baden. Margaret was, of course, tolerably advanced in life, and had taken a vow of virginity after the death of her husband; but Wenceslaus and Bruno of Olmütz persuaded young Ottakar to make good his claim to the duchy by wooing the widow. In an evil hour for herself, Margaret consented to Ottakar’s proposal; the approval of the Pope, and possibly some slight display of military force, completed Ottakar’s claim; and he was accepted by some at least of the Austrian nobles as their Duke.
In Austria, as in Bohemia, Ottakar looked chiefly for his support to the great cities. Vienna flourished under his rule; and he granted special privileges to the neighbouring town of Neustadt. But the hostility of the nobles still continued; and they were resolved that, at all events, the German province of Styria should not fall into Bohemian hands. The difficulty of Ottakar’s position on this question lay in the fact that the most important rival claimant was Bela, King of Hungary, who, like Ottakar, was a special favourite of the Pope; and in the beginning of the struggle the King of Hungary succeeded in establishing his authority in Styria. But, by the admission even of Ottakar’s enemies, the tyranny of the Hungarians in Styria was so great that, when Ottakar again made an attempt on the province, he was welcomed as a deliverer; and for the time he made good his footing.
It was now necessary to get a formal sanction for these conquests; and Ottakar chose Richard of Cornwall, from the rival claimants to the German Empire, as the puppet most useful for this purpose. Richard was willing enough to secure so influential a supporter; but the King of Hungary was not so easily satisfied. In 1260, he once more poured his forces into Styria and Austria; and he was now followed, not only by the Hungarian troops, but by the savage Cumanians, and even, according to one account, by the Tartars. The struggle was a fierce one; but it ended in the complete victory of the Bohemians.
Ottakar, however, thought it necessary to secure himself against future invasions, by a singularly questionable step. The unfortunate Margaret, to whom, it was evident, he must very soon have become unfaithful, was to be repudiated on the ground of her former vow of virginity, in order that Ottakar might marry Kunigunda, the daughter of Bela, King of Hungary. Urban IV., like many of his predecessors, was extremely desirous to procure a good understanding between Hungary and Bohemia, as in the union of these kingdoms he saw the best hope of security against a future Tartar invasion; so Kunigunda was crowned Queen of Bohemia by the Archbishop of Mainz.
But Ottakar’s conquests were not yet at an end. Ulrich, the Duke of Carinthia and Carniola, had a very troublesome brother called Philip, who was generally at feud with some prince or other. Amongst his other enemies was the Patriarch of Aquileia, to whose office he desired to succeed. Ulrich, knowing Ottakar’s influence with the Pope and the ecclesiastics generally, tried to secure that influence in favour of the election of Philip to the patriarchate. Ottakar agreed, on condition that Ulrich would make him his heir in Carinthia and Carniola. Ulrich consented to this proposal; and, by Ottakar’s influence, the Chapter of Aquileia elected Philip Patriarch. Philip was apparently unaware of the bargain; and he was therefore extremely indignant, when, on Ulrich’s death, the King of Bohemia entered Carinthia and Carniola as the lawful heir of Ulrich. This bitterness was further increased when the Pope refused to confirm the election of the Chapter, and Philip found himself without either patriarchate or dukedom.
Ottakar was now the lord of all the territories which form the western part of the present Austrian Empire, with the exception of the Tyrol. But his hold on these conquered territories was by no means so certain as it at first appeared. Though none of his rivals were able, at the moment, to make good their claims against him, yet any one of them might reckon on a formidable amount of discontent in all the conquered provinces. For the same policy which he had pursued in Bohemia of breaking down the power of the nobles, by destroying their castles, was carried on in his new dominions; and, while in all of them it caused considerable opposition, in Styria the discontent soon ripened into rebellion.
The attitude of the Styrian nobles had, from the first, been one of more determined hostility than Ottakar had encountered in his other dominions; and it soon provoked him into measures which increased the evil. One can scarcely accept as undoubted history all the charges of cruelty made against him by the Styrian noble Ottakar von Horneck, who was evidently in full sympathy from the first with those who resisted the Bohemian claims. Still less can we accept as authentic the reckless attacks of the chronicler Victor, who was a chaplain of the House of Hapsburg. But those facts, which seem to be indisputable, are sufficient of themselves to account for Ottakar’s failure to reduce the province to submission. As usual in such cases, intriguers were found to intensify the king’s suspicions by false accusations; some nobles were thrown into prison on insufficient evidence; and when the case broke down against them, their accuser was in turn imprisoned. Finally, Milota, the governor appointed by Ottakar, tried to bring in Bohemian soldiers and Bohemian settlers to maintain the authority of the king.
But, though all these elements of discontent were gradually ripening to violent conclusions, to outward appearance Ottakar was still at the height of his power. Old King Bela of Hungary, in dying, placed his wife, daughter, and barons under the special protection of Ottakar; and, when Bela’s son and successor Stephen tried to shake off the power which his father had given to Bohemia, he found himself opposed by the bishops and archbishops of Hungary, and by some even of the barons. Ottakar was able to dictate peace in Hungary itself, and Stephen was forced to renounce all claims to Styria and Carinthia.
A change, however, was shortly to occur in Europe which was to diminish one of the chief causes of Ottakar’s success. In his, as in former reigns, Germany’s difficulty had been Bohemia’s opportunity; and it was Ottakar’s too ready recognition of this fact which now brought him into collision with the wisest and most patriotic rulers in Europe, as well as with some of the most daring intriguers. Ever since the death of Henry VI., the son of Barbarossa, the claim to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire had been perpetually disputed. The striking and romantic figure of Frederick II. had indeed arrested the attention of Europe in a marked manner; but the intense hatred felt for him by all the Popes, his own preference of Sicily to Germany, and the complete disorganisation produced by the Tartar invasion, had combined to prevent him from establishing any firm rule in the Empire. Since his death the phantom figures of William of Holland, Conrad the Fourth, Alfonso of Castille, and Richard of Cornwall had flitted across the stage of German politics, each contributing a certain amount of increase to the general anarchy. In the absence of any settled central government, the great towns of Germany had endeavoured to form leagues for their own protection, and in the general interest of order; but even these had a difficulty in maintaining their existence against the pretensions of the archbishops and the robberies of the knights and nobles.
In such a state of things the first instinct of those who desired to restore order was to choose the strongest ruler who could be found; and therefore it was not altogether surprising that the Imperial crown was offered, by some at least of the German princes, to Ottakar himself. The grounds of Ottakar’s refusal have been variously given; and it is highly probable that both of the explanations offered were parts of the truth. On the one hand his nobles, already jealous of his power, were extremely unwilling that he should have a new and independent force at his back, which would enable him still further to overawe them; while, on the other hand, Ottakar himself saw clearly that the position of King of Bohemia and King-maker of the Empire was a far safer and more powerful one than the position of a Holy Roman Emperor, checked, and often controlled, by the Electors of the Empire.
The Elector who took the most prominent part in this offer to Ottakar had been the Archbishop of Köln; but Werner of Mainz now succeeded in inducing the Archbishops of Köln and Trier to join him in an alliance which was to secure the election of an Emperor who would be amenable to their advice. Werner had been specially alarmed at the growth of Ottakar’s power; for any development of Bohemian independence would weaken the power of the Empire over the diocese of Prague, and would thereby weaken also the ecclesiastical authority of Mainz. He was, therefore, specially anxious to secure a counterbalancing power to Ottakar’s, but a power which would at the same time be dependent on the Electors of the Empire. The Archbishops first considered, and then rejected, the proposal to raise to the Imperial throne the Count Palatine of the Rhine; for they soon saw that he might be useful as an ally, but extremely dangerous as a master. As the great hindrance to the unity of the Empire seemed, at that time, to come from the South, it was particularly necessary for the Archbishops to win to their side Duke Louis of Bavaria, who was the principal rival and enemy of Ottakar. Bavaria had recently been divided into two parts, between the two brothers Louis and Henry; and the warm friendship of Henry for Ottakar had strengthened the opposition of Louis. Louis, indeed, may have himself dreamt of the Imperial crown; but neither the Archbishops, nor the more northern Electors, were disposed to concede this dignity to him. They had, however, a bait which was sufficiently attractive to the Duke.
It appeared that in the year 1257, the Duke of Bavaria had taken part in one of those confused elections to the Empire which had given an opportunity for every kind of irregular interference. The Archbishops now proposed to recognise this precedent as conferring on the Duke of Bavaria the position of Elector of the Empire, and thus completing the mystic number of seven, without the help of the King of Bohemia. A candidate for the throne had, however, still to be found; and, as the idea of choosing one of the more powerful princes was now definitely abandoned, the Margrave of Brandenburg and the Duke of Saxony put forward a kinsman of their own, named Siegfried of Anhalt.
The majority, however, of the Electors, and the most active spirits among them, desired to strengthen their position in the South rather than the North of Germany; and it was now that Frederick of Hohenzollern, the Burggraf of Nürnberg, brought forward the candidate for whom he had been secretly preparing the way. This was Count Rudolf of Hapsburg, the owner of a castle near the Lake of Constance, who had become known in his own neighbourhood as the protector and champion of Bern and other growing towns. He had gained considerable reputation for military ability; and he had evidently some of that personal power of fascination so important to a great ruler. Fortunately for his chances of success he had already attracted the attention of Werner of Mainz, at the time when the Archbishop was on his journey to Rome to be confirmed in his diocese. But, besides this important support, Rudolf had another source of influence, the peculiar use of which was to be a marked characteristic of his descendants. He had a large number of marriageable daughters. One of these was promised to the Count Palatine of the Rhine; and by marriage with another the Duke of Saxony was persuaded to abandon the cause of Siegfried of Anhalt. By what means the Elector of Brandenburg was won over is not quite clear; and, in all probability, he was the least willing of the Imperial Electors to grant his support to Rudolf. His opposition, however, cannot at this time have been very decided; for, when the Electors held their formal meeting, the resolution to support Rudolf was unanimous.
Thus far the intrigues appear by some mysterious means to have been kept from the knowledge of Ottakar. But such an arrangement could not long be hid. Henry of Bavaria must necessarily have been admitted to the knowledge of some of these proceedings; and, although the Electors were anxious to conciliate him, he was not yet prepared to abandon his friendship for Ottakar. Probably, therefore, it was through his means that Ottakar had received notice of the meeting of the final Assembly for deciding the election; and he was able, therefore, to send a representative to it. Apparently, however, the King of Bohemia had not even yet realised the full extent of his enemies’ intrigues; and it was with the greatest surprise and indignation that his representative discovered that the meeting to which he had been summoned was merely called to confirm an election already previously agreed upon. That Ottakar should be indignant at this ignoring of his electoral rights was natural enough; but the amazement and horror which the election of Rudolf excited in his mind can only be described in his own words.
In November, 1273, he addressed to Pope Gregory X., who had then been recently elected, his protest against the decision of the Electoral College. Beginning with a most glowing and somewhat fulsome description of the Papacy, he then proceeds as follows:—
“Wherefore, if the commonwealth is ever oppressed, neither reason nor our wishes allow us to have recourse to any but you. Whence, since the Princes of Germany who have the power of choosing the Cæsars have agreed (we would not speak with spiteful poison, nor has detraction a place in a royal speech) to direct their votes to a less suitable Count, in spite of the protest of our customary messengers whom we sent to Wrauenwrt, where the election ought to have been held; and since, to the injury of the Empire and to our prejudice, after our appeal to the Apostolic Chair, they have decorated him with the majesty of the sacred diadem, we return to you as the inexhaustible fountain of justice and piety, entreating your Holiness not to permit us to be trampled on in our rights, which the aforesaid princes try to crush down with manifest injuries; and that you will deign to turn your sacred mind to the weeping state of the Empire; and that the blessed benignity of Mother Church will take compassion on it; since that Empire, before which the whole world has trembled, which was entrusted with all the most excellent dignities of monarchy, has now fallen to those persons whom obscurity hides from fame, who are deprived of power and strength, and weighed down by the burden of poverty. Pity us! holiest Father! lest that which is so pressed down may be seen to be most unworthy; since, if the Apostolic Chair permits it, if the world tolerates it, that so high an exaltation should be granted to those that are low, it would be reduced to nothing; and that which the Arab has served, the Indian has obeyed, the Italian has submitted to, the Spaniard has looked up to, which the whole world has reverenced, should become despicable in the eyes of all. Him whom the Senate and Roman people, whom law and virtue, whom God Himself has established on the throne, every one will despise as scorning the bridle of a poor man. And thus justice will be stifled, concord will be banished, peace will perish in a reign of crimes, injuries will flourish unpunished, neighbour will rise against neighbour, and such calamity and misery will hang over us that all who live will hate their life.”
Surely a more pathetic appeal was rarely addressed by a great ruler to the head of the Christian Church. But Gregory X., though willing like his predecessors to be on good terms with the King of Bohemia, was probably not so ill-informed of the affairs of Europe as not to know that many of the evils which Ottakar depicted as likely to follow on Rudolf’s election, had already disturbed the Empire for many years past; and he was soon to be convinced that the election of Rudolf might be the best way of removing them. Rudolf, on his part, lost no time and spared no pains in destroying in the Pope’s mind the only objection which might possibly have interfered with his acceptance. While eager to secure his recognition and coronation as Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope, Rudolf, more than any Emperor since Henry the Fowler, desired to be, in all essentials, merely a German King. He eagerly assured the Pope that he had not the slightest wish to assert those claims in Italy and Sicily which had brought Frederick II. and other emperors into collision with the Papacy; nay, he would even defend the nominees of the Pope in their claims on Sicily, and would in all things be the faithful servant of the Church. But, though Gregory very soon showed an inclination to accept the choice of the German Electors, he still paused on the brink of so important a decision; and this pause was ingeniously used by the ablest of Ottakar’s advisers, Bruno, Bishop of Olmütz. Gregory, who seems to have been one of the most high-minded Popes of the period, was sincerely desirous of restoring a better state of things in Europe, partly as a preparation for a new expedition to Palestine. In order to ascertain the real feeling and purposes of the Christians of Europe, he requested various bishops to report to him on the condition of the countries with which they were acquainted. Whatever other results this appeal may have produced, Bruno saw in it an admirable opportunity for furthering his master’s interests. The growth of heresy, the maintenance of the Cumani by the King of Hungary, the extreme poverty and misery of the clergy, the indifference of the bulk of the people to religious services, the intrusion of the mendicant friars into the offices of the parochial clergy and bishops, the unwillingness of the laity to hear their sins denounced, and the continual encroachment of lay judges on the privileges of the clergy—all these evils are aggravated by the elevation to high places of those who ought rather to be subjects. The only trustworthy champion of the Christian faith is the King of Bohemia; even in the very diocese of Prague he is the only patron who grants the presentation of the clergy to the bishops; and on him mainly will fall the burden of resisting a new Tartar invasion. Bruno undoubtedly stood high in the opinion of Gregory; and, even apart from his advice, there were obvious grounds for inquiry in the circumstances of Rudolf’s election. A Council was therefore held at Lyons for the full investigation of this question; an unusually large number of bishops attended it; and it doubtless received dignity in the eyes of many by the presence of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura. Bruno’s protest was heard at full; while, on the other hand, Rudolf’s readiness to meet the demands of the Pope, and to acknowledge the rights of the clergy was pressed upon Gregory’s attention. Anxious to treat Ottakar mildly, but conscious that the Church and the Empire would both gain by the election of Rudolf, Gregory decided that, though Ottakar’s claim to share in the election was undoubtedly just, yet, as the six other Electors took the opposite side to that which he advocated, he was in the minority, and ought therefore to yield; and the Pope persuaded Bruno to use his influence with his master in favour of Rudolf.
But the question, in the meantime, was assuming a new aspect. Rudolf’s alarm at the opposition of Ottakar, and his desire to secure all the Imperial rights, were combining with other circumstances to induce him to put forward a claim for the restoration to the Empire of the Duchies of Austria, Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia. Ottakar had been unwilling to resist the pressure of the Pope and the advice of Bruno; but he now demanded that, before doing homage to Rudolf, he should have a clear guarantee for the possession of the lands that he had conquered.
In his determination to resist the demands of Rudolf, Ottakar seems to have been strangely unaware of the dangers that were surrounding him. Rudolf was, in the meantime, making allies with great sagacity. Count Meinhard of the Tyrol had been the Count of Hapsburg’s most intimate friend; and he was one of the many who looked with jealous eyes on Ottakar’s possession of Carinthia. The Archbishop of Salzburg had claimed some rights in Styria, and was besides continually harassed by encroachments on the part of Ottakar; Henry of Bavaria had been one of those to whom the nobles of Styria had offered their dukedom; and though his friendship for Ottakar shows that he must have abandoned this claim for a time, the offer of one of Rudolf’s useful daughters finally detached him from his alliance with Bohemia.
In the meantime, the indefatigable Burggraf of Nürnberg had discovered and fomented the discontents of the nobles of Austria and Styria; and he announced to Ottakar that the Ban of the Empire had been proclaimed against him. But even now Ottakar was unaware of Rudolf’s plans; he probably despised his military ability; and he thought it sufficient to send a small force to the defence of the Bohemian frontier, while he gave himself up to hunting and other amusements. He was, therefore, terribly startled when, in September, 1276, Rudolf suddenly entered Austria. Almost at the same time Count Meinhard invaded Carinthia, and the Styrian nobles, rising in insurrection, drove out Milota from their country. Still Ottakar hoped to save himself by the devotion of the towns; for six months, Vienna justified his expectations by holding out against Rudolf’s army; and Paltram, the Burgomaster, roused the citizens to a vigorous defence on behalf of the King, who had showed them such favour. Ottakar, now stirred to action, marched into Austria and occupied one side of the Danube; from whence he hoped to make an attack on the rear of Rudolf’s army. But the Count Palatine of the Rhine hastened to seize the fortresses which lay between him and the German army; and it was now that Ottakar became thoroughly aware of the defection of his nobles. Fortress after fortress surrendered to Rudolf without a struggle; and at last the poorer men in Vienna, seeing the continual destruction of their vineyards outside the city, called upon Paltram to surrender. He, finding that Ottakar did not arrive, despaired of holding out longer; though, before surrendering, he exacted from Rudolf a promise that he would maintain the liberties of Vienna.
As soon as Bruno of Olmütz heard of this loss, he advised Ottakar to yield. Ottakar was most reluctant that the struggle should end without a pitched battle; but another enemy now threatened to appear on the scene. Ladislaus, the new king of Hungary, was smarting under the recollection of the defeats which his predecessor had sustained; and he prepared to invade Bohemia. This new danger seems to have decided Ottakar to yield. He therefore publicly surrendered to Rudolf all his claims on Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and did homage to him as Emperor for his kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia. Such a settlement could not possibly be lasting. Ottakar had not yet been defeated in any pitched battle; his wife Kunigunda is said to have reproached him for his weakness in yielding so soon; and, in the carrying out of the treaty which followed, numerous questions, of doubtful interpretation, quickly came to the front. In this case, one of Rudolf’s otherwise successful daughters proved a source of contention rather than of unity. Guta, the daughter whom Rudolf had offered as a bride to Ottakar’s son, had been promised large lands as her dowry; and Ottakar maintained that, as these lands must necessarily lie in Austria, he was not bound to evacuate those territories, but should rather claim them as his due. Rudolf, on the other hand, insisted that the terms of the treaty involved the evacuation of the whole of Austria.
A question which must have touched Ottakar far more nearly was the interpretation of the clause about the extension to the supporters of each King of all the securities gained by the peace. The discontent of the nobles with Ottakar’s rule had extended even to Bohemia and Moravia; and many of the king’s native subjects had entered into intrigues with Rudolf. Rudolf maintained that, as these men must be considered his supporters, they were entitled to the same concessions as the other champions of his cause. It was obvious that such grounds of division as these, by whatever compromise they might be settled at the moment, must leave a lasting sting behind them; and there is no sign in the letters of either King of even such a pretence of friendship, as the ordinary exigencies of diplomacy might seem to require. Both Rudolf and Ottakar were, in fact, preparing for a new struggle, and looking about for allies.
At this stage the chances seemed to be in favour of Ottakar. In the first struggle he could rely on nothing but the military forces of his own kingdom, and the sympathies of those citizens whom he had favoured; while Rudolf was backed by the approval and encouragement of the great princes of the Empire, by the sanction of the Pope, by the assistance of the King of Hungary, and by the eager sympathy and co-operation of the discontented subjects of Ottakar.
Now, these supporters seemed to be gradually dropping off from the Emperor. Rudolf had by no means abandoned that championship of the towns for which he had been so distinguished before his election to the Imperial throne; and of all the enemies of the town life of Germany the prince-bishops were looked upon as the most determined and dangerous. Rudolf had therefore to choose between adherence to his old policy and the favour of his archiepiscopal supporters. With a courage which was doubtless united to far-sighted wisdom, he boldly defended the municipal rights of Köln against the encroachments of its Archbishop. That powerful Elector was thus completely alienated from Rudolf’s cause; and he speedily succeeded in persuading his brother Archbishops of Trier and Mainz to desert their nominee. The defection of Werner of Mainz so alarmed Rudolf that he seemed disposed to make some sacrifice of principle in order to conciliate him. But the concessions which the Emperor offered were not sufficient to appease the jealousies and suspicions of the Archbishop; and Werner now began to listen only too readily to the advances of Ottakar.
The Margrave of Brandenburg can never have been a warm supporter of Rudolf. He had married Ottakar’s sister; and he was united to him also by the still closer link of military comradeship; for Ottakar and he had fought side by side in one of those invasions of Prussia, which were supposed to be so advantageous to the souls of the heathen population, and which undoubtedly tended to increase the power and territory of the Margrave of Brandenburg. Nor does the Duke of Saxony seem to have been finally secured to the interest of Rudolf by the marriage with his daughter. Even the Dukes of Bavaria did not feel that they had profited as much as they had hoped to do by their support of the Emperor; and they were not a little alarmed at his evident intention to turn the provinces, which he had won for the Empire, into a private possession of the House of Hapsburg. Nor was Rudolf more fortunate when he tried to find allies abroad whose support might compensate him for the loss of his friends at home. In vain he made advances to our Edward I.; and an attempt to strengthen his hands by alliances with the princes of Italy, had the sole result of exciting the suspicions and enmity of Pope Nicholas III.
Ottakar was, of course, greatly encouraged by these secessions from his rival; and he hoped still further to strengthen his own position by detaching the King of Hungary from his alliance with Rudolf, and by stirring up an insurrection in Austria. In both these efforts, however, he was unsuccessful. The conspiracy formed by some of the Austrian nobles, in concert with the still discontented Burgomaster of Vienna, was detected by Rudolf before it had come to a head; and while Paltram was forced to save himself by flight, one of the leading nobles was seized and condemned to death.
The discovery of this conspiracy seems to have been the signal for the new outbreak of war; and it was now apparent that Rudolf had not been wholly weakened by the desertion of his powerful supporters. The forces on which he could still rely were more ready to act under his command than the great princes of the Empire would have been; and his one independent ally probably gave him more efficient help than he could have derived from any distant general. This was Ladislaus of Hungary, who had been firmly secured to Rudolf’s side, partly by the gift of one of his inexhaustible tribe of daughters, and partly by a vague promise of extension of territory. Ottakar was apparently unaware of the firmness of this alliance; and he entered Austria with a somewhat small force, expecting an easy victory. One or two fortresses fell quickly into his hands; but the sudden appearance of the King of Hungary at the head of a large army took him completely by surprise; and, after suffering a slight defeat, he found it convenient to retreat to some distance.
Rudolf in the meantime had rallied round him his most determined supporters. Chief among these was Frederick of Hohenzollern; and the Emperor also received ready help from Count Meinhard of the Tyrol, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and the Bishop of Basel. Besides these supporters, he had under his command a strong force of South Germans; while fiercest and keenest of all the soldiers in his ranks were those who fought under the banners of the discontented Styrian nobles.
The rival armies met on the banks of the river Morava on the plain called the Marchfeld. The battle was a fierce one. The Bishop of Basel and Frederick of Hohenzollern broke the left wing of the Bohemian army; while, on the other side, Ottakar, at the head of a chosen band of knights, drove back the right wing of the Imperialists, and even struck down the Emperor himself. But the Styrian nobles so fiercely resisted the advance of the Bohemians, that they gave time to Rudolf to reform his troops; while Frederick of Hohenzollern followed up his success by attacking the reserve guard, which ought to have advanced to Ottakar’s rescue. These reserves were headed by Milota, Ottakar’s Governor of Styria. It is said that Milota himself had a bitter grievance against the king, on account of an injury inflicted on his brother. Whether this is true or not, it seems certain that, just when these troops ought to have hastened to the support of the main army, they were suddenly seized with a panic, and fled in confusion. The panic quickly spread to the troops posted next to them; and the battle was hopelessly lost. Ottakar fought with desperate courage to the last; and, whether he died sword in hand, or whether, as others say, he was killed by the Styrian nobles after he had surrendered, it is certain that his body was found on the battlefield.
With him, for a time, fell the liberty and independence of Bohemia; and, though his son bore the name of king, and even recovered for a short period an appearance of independence, yet, politically considered, the male line of those Bohemian native rulers, who traced their descent to Libus̆a and Pr̆emysl, came to an end on the plain of Marchfeld in August, 1278. Bohemian independence was, indeed, to revive under a different form; and, nearly two centuries later, a native Bohemian king was once more to rule at Prague; but never again was a purely Bohemian dynasty to be established on the throne.