READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

VICTORY OF THE PAPACY

CHAPTER XIII.

(A.)

BOHEMIA TO THE EXTINCTION OF THE PREMYSLIDS.

At the time when the medieval Empire was gradually crumbling into small territorial states, a new state, situated as one might say in the heart of Europe, comes into the foreground of central European history. Distinguished from its more easterly neighbours, Poland and Hungary, by its close legal relations with the German Empire, it yet differs from all the principalities of that Empire in its characteristic nationality and its almost complete independence in internal affairs. This is the kingdom of Bohemia, which from the beginning of the eleventh century is indissolubly united with its neighbour Moravia, and in the fourteenth century extends its boundaries to include even Silesia and both the Lusatias.

At the period in which Bohemia begins to play a considerable part in central European history, and indeed long before this, we find in Bohemia and Moravia, if we disregard the not unimportant German minority, a Slav population very closely related to the Poles. The Slavs were, however, by no means the first inhabitants of these countries; for we learn, partly from the discoveries of archaeologists, partly from the writings of old chroniclers, that both lands were inhabited centuries before the immigration of the Slavs. Of the various peoples who had succeeded each other in Bohemia and Moravia before the advent of the Slavs, none of whom are of any importance for the later development of the country, we need only mention the Celtic Boii and the Germanic Marcomanui and Quadi. Of these, the Celts inhabited both the countries which later became Slavonic, or at any rate a large part of them, for about five hundred years before, the Germans for about five hundred years after the birth of Christ. Although recent archaeological discoveries seem to show with ever increasing certainty that there were Slavs dwelling in Bohemia and Moravia at least as early as the time of Christ, if not before, still it is only after the beginning of the sixth century that we have historical proof of their presence in Bohemia. Towards the end of that century they fell under the dominion of the Avars, whose rule, however, cruel though it was, did not last for long. They shook off the Avar rule about the year 623, under the leadership of a Frankish merchant named Samo, who became king of the liberated Slavs. Samo’s kingdom was not limited to Bohemia; but its extent cannot be accurately determined, and we know little of its internal affairs. On Samo’s death (about 658) his great kingdom also collapsed.

In the following centuries, it is only by much later popular tradition, and, after the end of the eighth century, by occasional references in the writings of Frankish chroniclers, that any light is thrown upon Bohemia and Moravia. From these, we see no sign that the country was in any way a unitary state. The Slavs who had settled in Bohemia are certainly mentioned in Frankish sources, from the end of the eighth century, under the general name of “Beehaimi”, “Boemani,” and the like, denoting clearly the inhabitants of “Behaim” or “Boihaemum,” that is, the land formerly settled by the Boii. But it is none the less certain that neither at that time nor for long after did the Slavs create a united kingdom in Bohemia, but they were split up into a considerable number of small tribes each ruled by its own prince. In the centre of Bohemia, round about the later capital, Prague, dwelt the race of true Bohemians (in Slavonic Cechs), who were destined later to combine all the tribes which had settled in the land into one state and one nation, and were to give it their name. This name the old legend derived from a certain Cech, first progenitor of the race, who is said to have led his people out of the east to their new home. Later, according to the legend, there appears at the head of the race the wise Libusa, whose chosen husband, the farmer Premysl, was founder of the princely house of the Premyslids, the house which, as time went on, gathered into its hands the oterlordship of all Bohemia and Moravia, and ruled both countries until its extinction in 1306.

The union of the small Slavonic tribes in Bohemia and Moravia was indeed only gradually achieved, and required the co-operation of many different factors. In Moravia, the progress towards unification was more rapid than in Bohemia proper. As early as the first half of the ninth century, we find a united kingdom of Moravia, with prince Mojmir at its head. It included, besides Moravia, probably the northern portion of the later Austria, and certainly the western portion of the modern Slovakia. Mojmir’s successor, Rastiz or Rostislav (about 846 onward), under whose rule the power of the Great Moravian kingdom was still further increased, won an important place in history through his services in the conversion of his people to Christianity. The Christian faith had indeed been known before this to the Slavs who inhabited Bohemia and Moravia, chiefly through German, and more particularly Bavarian, priests. From a contemporary source we learn, for instance, that in 845 certain Bohemian princes, with their followers, were baptised at Ratisbon. Rostislav himself also was a Christian. But among the people generally the new faith, preached as it was in a foreign tongue by German priests, was little comprehended. Accordingly Prince Rostislav, who was clearly actuated by the desire not only to establish the Christian faith in his dominions, but also to shake himself free from dependence upon the episcopate of Bavaria, turned, about 860, to Pope Nicholas I, and requested him to send teachers of the Christian faith competent to explain its leading principles in a way which the people might understand. When Rome, probably for the reason that no such teachers could be found, failed to comply with this request, Prince Rostislav caused the same petition to be laid before the Greek Emperor Michael at Constantinople. So it came about that the Slavs of Bohemia and Moravia were brought into relations with the Greek East; relations which, though only transitory, were of the highest importance.

At Constantinople the desired teachers were in fact discovered in the persons of the two brothers, Constantine, later called Cyril, and Methodius. Though Greek by birth, both were masters of the Slavonic tongue, for it was at that time spoken in Thessalonica, their native town, and in the districts round. To equip himself adequately for his labours in Moravia, Constantine, whose wide erudition had gained him the name of the “Philosopher”, constructed, before he left Constantinople, a purely Slavonic alphabet—the so-called Glagolitic script—and translated the chief liturgical texts into Slavonic. After these preparations the brothers Constantine and Methodius journeyed to Moravia, about the year 863, there to begin the successful labours which won for them the honourable title of the apostles of the Slavs. By their means Moravia was completely Christianised, and its neighbour Bohemia, following its example, was also won over permanently to the Christian faith. But the exceptional importance of the brothers' efforts lies in the fact that, while they introduced Christianity, they, at the same time, brought the Gospels in the Slavonic tongue. Constantine and Methodius were thus the founders of the Slavonic church literature which, if in Bohemia and Moravia it soon died out, bore more abundant fruit among other Slavonic peoples.

At the papal court the activity of the two brothers met, in the first instance, with full approval. When Constantine, who had retired to a monastery in Rome and had adopted the name of Cyril, died during his residence there (869), Methodius was appointed first bishop, later archbishop, and was made head of a province which was considered as a revival of the old metropolitan see of Sirmium, and included, besides, the whole of Moravia. The clergy of Bavaria, who felt that their rights were thus curtailed and their material interests threatened, violently opposed the new archbishop. He was in fact for two and a half years held prisoner in Germany; but he succeeded none the less in maintaining his position.

The lordship of Moravia passed meanwhile from Rostislav to his nephew, the energetic Svatopluk (Zwentibold), in 870, who soon subdued to himself both the Bohemians in the west and the Slavonic Sorbs in the north, and enjoyed such great prestige among his contemporaries that he is often referred to as king. With Archbishop Methodius, Svatopluk maintained at first complete accord, and for political reasons, with a view to making his dominions independent of Germany in ecclesiastical affairs, supported him in all his struggles. But, as time went on, relations between them became strained, for Svatopluk inclined more and nyore to the archbishop’s opponents, the Frankish priests, who made use of the Latin liturgy. The enmity between the supporters of the Latin and the Slavonic liturgies, which was inflamed also by disputes on matters of dogma arising out of the antagonism then beginning between Rome and Constantinople, did not cease even after the death of Methodius (885). When, however, in the same year, Pope Stephen V issued an edict by which the use of the Slavonic liturgy, expressly approved by his predecessors, was absolutely forbidden, and, as a result, a bitter persecution of the followers of Methodius was begun, with the full support of Svatopluk, and they were banished from the country, the last hope of establishing the Slavonic liturgy was gone. But the Great Moravian kingdom itself had no long life. Immediately after Svatopluk’s death (894), it began to fall to pieces, and after a few years was destroyed by the Magyars (about 906).

The downfall of the Great Moravian kingdom was an event of the highest importance for the whole future history of Bohemia and Moravia. Above all, as a result, the connexion of the Slavonic peoples of those countries with Constantinople, established by the summons of the brothers Constantine and Methodius to Moravia, was entirely severed, and they were definitely and permanently brought within the sphere of West European civilisation. This is shewn most clearly in the further development of the Church in Bohemia and Moravia. The whole administration of the Church fell now under Western, and German, influence, and the Latin liturgy consequently won a complete victory. The Slavonic liturgy did not, it is true, disappear all at once; yet it held its ground only in a few monasteries, and even from them it was entirely expelled before the end of the eleventh century. It is true that in the fourteenth century the great King of Bohemia, the Emperor Charles IV, did establish in Prague a special monastery for the Slavonic liturgy, but the activities of this monastery, artificial in their inception, had no deep-seated connexion with earlier ages, nor had they any considerable influence upon the contemporary development of Bohemian civilisation.

Through the fall of the Great Moravian kingdom, the orientation of the political history of Bohemia and Moravia was changed. Its earlier development seemed to be leading up to a federation of the Slavs in Bohemia and Moravia, and also of the Slovaks, into a Slavonic kingdom of which the modern Moravia would have formed the centre; but such a development was henceforth permanently out of the question. The Slovaks were severed for centuries from political union with Bohemia and Moravia, and if the federation of these last two countries was certainly soon re-established, the centre of gravity of this new Bohemian-Moravian kingdom lay no longer in Moravia but in Bohemia. Here, in the course of the tenth century, is built up, by the subjection of all the old races under ihe rule of the Premyslids, a homogeneous state, into which, in the first half of the following century (about 1029), Moravia also is permanently incorporated.

But another result of the collapse of the Great Moravian kingdom was that Bohemia and Moravia were brought into more intimate relations with the Romano-German Empire. As early as the reign of Charles the Great, probably about 805, Bohemia, or a part of it, fell under the over­lordship of the Frankish kingdom, and was forced, apparently, to pay a yearly tribute (120 oxen and 500 silver marks). Soon after, Moravia also fell into complete dependence upon the East Frankish kingdom. The mighty Svatopluk himself was forced after long struggles, not only to swear life-long allegiance, but also to submit to the payment of an annual tribute (874). Still neither Bohemia nor Moravia was incorporated in the administrative organisation of the East Frankish realm; they kept their own princes who had full control of internal affairs. In the last years of Svatopluk, when Bohemia was a part of his kingdom, German overlordship in both lands lost practically all its significance. After Svatopluk’s death, the Bohemian dukes broke away from his kingdom and gave in their allegiance to King Arnulf (895), yet, on the speedy collapse of the East Frankish kingdom, Bohemia was freed from its position of dependence.

However, as soon as the efforts of King Henry I had established a new German kingdom, Bohemia fell once more into its former dependence upon it. King Henry, by marching on Prague, forced the Bohemian Duke, St Wenceslas, to acknowledge his suzerainty (929). Wenceslas’ brother and successor, Boleslav I (929-967), who had attained the throne by his murder, tried in vain to shake off the German over-lordship. After several years of resistance, he was compelled, when the Emperor Otto I invaded Bohemia, to agree to pay the old tribute and to recognise the suzerainty of the German Empire (950). From that time Bohemia became a fief of the German Empire and the Bohemian dukes became its vassals, bound to take part in the Emperor’s campaigns and to attend the royal court.

About a hundred years after the subjection of Boleslav I, the brave Duke Bratislav I (1034-1055), who during the reign of his father Oldrich (Udalrich) had succeeded in permanently uniting Moravia and Bohemia, and had later rendered himself for a time even master of part of Poland, made a fresh attempt to free himself from Germany; but he too was compelled by King Henry III once more to swear allegiance (1041). From that time the Dukes of Bohemia never again tried to shake off German overlordship; they fulfilled without resistance their obligations towards the Empire, and their relations with the German kings and emperors were for the most part friendly. Bratislava son, Duke Vratislav II (1061-1092), was a loyal supporter of King Henry IV in his frequent campaigns in Germany and Italy; in 1081 three hundred Bohemian men-at-arms distinguished themselves by their courage at the siege of Rome. As a reward for his loyal services the Emperor Henry, at a Diet of the Empire at Mayence in 1085, granted him the title of King of Bohemia, although only as a personal privilege. In connexion with this, but probably a few years earlier (about 1081), the German Emperor seems to have remitted the old tribute due from the King of Bohemia, in consideration of his sending three hundred fully-equipped men-at-arms to join in the Emperor’s expedition to Rome.

On the death of the first King of Bohemia, Vratislav, the dignity of kingship was indeed lost to the country, but even then the Bohemian rulers were considered as among the most important of the princes of the Empire. From the beginning of the twelfth century (for the first time in the year 1114), we find the Dukes of Bohemia in hereditary possession of the office of cupbearer to the Emperor, an office which procured for them an ever-increasing influence on the affairs of the Empire. Duke Vladislav II (1140-1173), in particular, acquired great authority. Following the example of King Vratislav, he zealously supported the German Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in his warlike undertakings. In 1158 he descended in person with a large army into Italy, to give assistance to the Emperor against the North Italian towns, and took a prominent part in the capture of Milan. Even before this campaign, in which the reckless valour’ of Vladislav’s Bohemian army performed wonders, the Duke of Bohemia had been crowned king by the Emperor at a Diet at Ratisbon (January 1158). He obtained thereby an honourable privilege by which not only he, but also his successors, were granted the right to wear the royal crown. Bohemia should thus have become an hereditary monarchy, but struggles for the succession broke out even in Vladislav’s lifetime, and the Bohemian monarchy once more lapsed. Not until a quarter of a century had passed was it to be restored (1198) to a new and this time lasting existence.

If Bohemia was, from the tenth century, a fief of the German Empire, yet its position differed in many and important particulars from that of other vassals. While with other vassals the right of heredity was only a gradual development, the Bohemian ducal office was considered from the very beginning to be the hereditary possession of a single princely family, the Premyslids. There was, however, no clearly-settled law of succession. In the earliest times of the united Bohemian state, in the tenth century, the dukedom passed in succession from the father to his eldest son, who at that time happened to be the oldest male member of the family Later the principle obtained that the oldest male member of the family should always ascend the throne. But this principle, which was hardly ever considered to have the authority of a formal law—the old view that Bratislav I had, in 1055, promulgated such a law, the so-called Law of Seniority, is entirely without foundation—was not adhered to in practice. There was bound to be, therefore, in every separate case, a difference of opinion as to which of the Premyslids should succeed to the throne. The first word on this matter lay with the Bohemian nobles, particularly those who, as governors of the ducal, castles, ruled the land with armed force to back them. The Kings of Germany were accustomed only to confirm the election and to invest the new duke with the fief of Bohemia. But the struggles for the throne, which usually arose owing to the lack of a definite ordinance regulating the succession, gave the German kings very frequently the opportunity of exercising a directly decisive influence upon the election. This influence reached its highest point during the struggles for the succession after the death of King Vladislav I. At that time, the Emperor Frederick I granted Bohemia as a fief now to one, now to another of the Pfemyslids, according as they succeeded in winning his favour by gifts of money or by other means, and acted as if he alone had the right to decide who should occupy the throne of Bohemia. Matters came to such a point that in 1182 the Emperor ordered the Dukes Frederick and Conrad Otto, two claimants of the throne who were at the time in the field against one another, to appear before his tribunal at Ratisbon; and there he declared the former to be Duke of Bohemia, but granted to the latter Moravia as a margravate independent of Bohemia, and owing allegiance directly to the Empire. Until that time Bohemia and Moravia formed a single state, even though by old custom separate domains, especially in Moravia, had been allotted to the younger princes of the ruling family; but now they were to be transformed into two principalities of the Empire independent of each other. The Emperor’s policy, however, did not attain its end. Moravia, after 1182, certainly always remained a margravate, and even its direct dependence on the Empire, established by the Emperor Frederick, did not very quickly fall into oblivion; yet in practice, even before the end of the twelfth century, it became once more an integral part of the unified kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia. It still, indeed, retained its own margraves—often the King of Bohemia himself held the title of margrave—but at the same time it always recognised the overlordship of the Bohemian king. Nor did the German kings retain the influence over the appointment to the Bohemian throne which had been won in the time of Frederick Barbarossa. The ruinous struggles for the throne in Bohemia ceased at the end of the twelfth century; and from this very fact the imperial influence in the election henceforward lost its importance. Soon after, the German kings themselves were compelled formally to renounce it.

The independence of the Empire which Bohemia displayed in the matter of the appointment of its rulers, an independence greater than that enjoyed by any other imperial princedom, is reflected clearly in the whole character of the Bohemian principality and in the internal organisation of the Bohemian State. Although a fief of the Empire, Bohemia was never directly part of the imperial organisation. The Frankish, and later the German, system never extended to Bohemia, which was never a mere administrative district governed by imperial officials. The Bohemian dukes were vassals of the German Emperor, but not his officials. Their power was not derived from the higher authority of the Emperor, but originated in themselves. It was neither limited by the interference of his higher imperial authority in the internal organisation of the land, nor was it weakened by the exemption from their rule of certain classes of people, or certain domains, directly subordinated to the Empire. They held sway over the whole land and over all their subjects, without distinction. In internal affairs, the Bohemian dukes were entirely independent rulers; they exercised freely, from the first, all those prerogatives of sovereignty which other princes of the Empire won for themselves only after many a year.

But further, in the period which immediately followed the foundation of a united Bohemian State, there was no man, even in the land itself, whose rights might limit the power of the duke. His authority was there legally unlimited. His was the sole decision over war and peace; he called out the troops equally for home defence and for a campaign abroad, and exacted obedience by force of arms. To the duke belonged also the supreme judicial power in the land; and to it all the inhabitants of the country without exception—including even the clergy—were subject. In this the duke found naturally a rich source of income, through fines, confiscation of goods, and the like. From his subjects he exacted at his will and pleasure various services and forced labours (for the construction and repair of castles, bridges, and roads, for the lodging and victualling of the royal household, etc.) as well as divers taxes in money and in kind. In addition to an annual “peace tax” (tributum pacis, Bohemian mir), levied in money, which from the time of the foundation of the united Bohemian State was probably paid by all free landowners, the duke exacted also exceptional taxes of his own authority. So too the establishment of tolls, customs, and markets, as well as the coining of money, was the privilege of the duke alone. He also possessed very extensive domains, which were cultivated by his numerous slaves, and he was considered to be lord of all uncultivated ground; of this he had free disposal.

For the exercise of these wide powers the duke was bound to appoint various officials. The most important of these were the governors of the royal castles, the castellans (castellani, comites, praefecti urbis), who in the duke’s name governed the castles assigned to them, and the surrounding country with the population settled on it. In this way the whole land was divided into smaller administrative districts which resembled the Frankish counties, and probably were to some extent modelled on them, although they differed from them in the complete concentration of the public authority in the castles: an arrangement which we find also among other Slavonic peoples. For this reason, we may rightly speak of a castle organisation in this first period of the Bohemian State. Within the limits of their jurisdiction the castellans had considerable power, for they possessed almost full authority as representatives of the duke; but they were, on the other hand, completely dependent on the duke, who appointed and dismissed them at his pleasure. Since the duke, with his household, travelled about the country, and stopped now at one castle, now at another, he ensured the obedience of the castellans, and through them of the whole land. If the throne was vacant, or held by a prince who was not universally recognised, these castellans became the most important factor in the country. In the election of a ruler, and when there were rival candidates in the field, the decision lay usually in the castellans’ hands. But once the duke had established himself on the throne and had occupied the castles with his followers, his rule was again unrestricted, for he was supported by his own followers and by the castellans. It depended on his own personal energy whether he ruled over these followers and over the castellans, or whether he was perhaps himself ruled by them. But we can find no evidence of any legal limitation of the power of the Bohemian dukes in these times; since the very people who, besides the duke, had a regular influence on the government of the country, the duke’s followers and the officials of the court and of the castles, had no authority of their own independent of the duke.

This primitive patriarchal absolutism of the royal authority in Bohemia was made possible by the fact that, in the first centuries after the founding of a united State, there were no firmly established higher classes whose own clearly settled rights might have placed them in a position to impose definite limits upon the power of the duke. Among the Bohemians, as with other Slavs, in the days in which they were split up into little clans, there existed indeed a class of what might be called nobles by birth; but after the federation of the clans under the leadership of the Premyslids, the old nobility, among whom, are to be reckoned more especially the families of the different princes of the clans, either entirely disappeared—some of them were violently extirpated—or lost their former importance. Only little by little did a new nobility develop, and then, as it seems, on an entirely new basis. This new nobility falls very distinctly into two classes. The more numerous class was composed of warriors or knights (milites), that is, of those who were compelled to give personal service in war, as a rule, in all probability, on horseback. We soon find these warriors forming a distinct class, separate from the rest of the free population, and often intervening with considerable effect in the administration of the government. In the twelfth century they were usually designated nobles (nobiles). Above these warriors, however, stood a class of higher nobility, the true nobles (nobiles). These were composed at first chiefly of the higher ducal officials (castellans and others), and afterwards of those families to whose members the ducal offices were usually entrusted. But the Bohemian dukes were at this time in no way bound to choose their officers from particular families. There was, therefore, in Bohemia no real hereditary nobility whose closed ranks were sharply divided from the rest of the population. A nobility of this kind was not formed until certain families acquired large estates through the favour of the duke, and succeeded also in keeping them entirely in their own hands, so that their power was independent of the will of the sovereign and of the possession of a princely office. This did not take place to any considerable extent until the thirteenth century, and it was then that this great landed nobility first acquired a distinct and firmly established position, with authority of their own, that is, independent of the sovereign. Their members later were called simply barons (Bohemian pani, Latin domini, barones), while the lesser nobles were known as knights (Bohemian rytiri, vladykové).

Among the rest of the people, not of noble rank, there also grew up later many distinctions of social and legal position. In essentials, however, they fell into two great classes: the slaves and the free. We find slaves among the Bohemian and Moravian Slavs certainly before the foundation of a unified Bohemian State. Originally for the most part an article of export, they were later employed in great measure as farm-labourers or artisans on the large estates of the sovereign or of monasteries. Not until about the turning-point of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries do slaves disappear in Bohemia, when they are merged in the lowest classes of the agricultural and town population. Besides the slaves, the non-noble population of Bohemia was originally composed of small free landowners, peasants (rustici, pauperes, heredes). Their freedom consisted in their being dependent upon no one except the sovereign and his officers. They were certainly bound to give various compulsory services on the land, and to pay various duties, of which the chief was the “peace-tax.” These public duties, which were in themselves by no means light, were made still more oppressive by the arbitrary actions of the ducal officers, and especially of the castellans. In order to escape from such arbitrary oppression, many of the original free-born peasants divested themselves of their freedom of their own accord, by placing themselves and their goods under the protection of ecclesiastical or lay authority, and thus became dependent on them. The dependency of the subject peasants referred to in the sources as “heirs” (heredes, Bohemian dedicové) seems to have come about in this way. Another part of the peasant population fell into dependence in the following manner: many personally free men settled on estates which were not their own, accepted the burden of various taxes and duties in return for the use of the land, and thus came into a position of dependence under the overlordship of the landlords. Such peasants, personally free but settled on land which did not belong to them, are called in the sources of the eleventh and twelfth centuries “strangers” (hospites). Thus, before the end of the twelfth century, the greater part of the once free peasant population had become dependent upon ecclesiastical and lay authorities, while the former slaves raised themselves indeed to a position of greater freedom than they had enjoyed before, but were still extremely dependent.

There was from the first another class of the community, composed of the clergy, although it was not so sharply divided from the rest of the people as it became in the later Middle Ages. The Christian faith was brought into Bohemia in the first half of the ninth century; and from the end of that century, after the Bohemian prince Borivoj had received baptism at the hands of the Moravian Archbishop Methodius (about 880), it has at least the exterior semblance of a Christian country. Most of the members of the royal family were distinguished above all others for their zeal for Christianity: Borivoj’s wife, Saint Ludmila (ob. 921), and their grandson, Prince Wenceslas the Saint (ob. 929), are especially notable for this. So in the beginning of the tenth century the first Christian churches sprang up in Bohemia, and foreign priests sent from the neighbouring German dioceses came to spread the Christian faith among the people. Bohemia was first raised to the position of an independent diocese by the foundation of the bishopric of Prague (973-974), which was the joint work of the Bohemian Duke Boleslav II (967-999) and of the German Emperors Otto I and Otto II. Besides Bohemia, a considerable part of Poland, which was at that time united to Bohemia, and probably Moravia and western Slovakia also, formed a part of this new bishopric, which was placed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Mayence. When, however, all Polish territory was severed, not only from Bohemia but also from the diocese of Prague, while a separate bishopric was set up at Olomouc (Olmutz) (about 1063) for Moravia, soon after that country had been finally united with Bohemia by Duke, afterwards King Vratislav, the ecclesiastical authority of the Bishop of Prague was in future confined to Bohemia alone. About the time of the foundation of the bishopric of Prague, there appear in Bohemia the two first monasteries of the Benedictine Order, one for women (St George at Prague about 967), the other for men (in Brevnov near Prague about 992); and these were followed by a number of other monasteries in Bohemia and Moravia. Endowed with rich estates, these old monasteries were among the most important economic factors in the country. Bohemia has to thank them above all for the knowledge of large-scale agriculture as it was carried on in Western Europe.

The position of these ecclesiastical establishments and of the clergy generally was originally by no means so independent and so self-sufficient as it became in the later Middle Ages. The Church was, on the contrary, entirely dependent on the lay authority. The will of the sovereign decided appointments to both the sees, even though the bishops received consecration from the Archbishop of Mayence and investiture from the Emperor. Similarly, too, the abbots of the monasteries founded by the sovereign were often appointed solely by him. The smaller churches, even when they had the character of the later parish churches, were considered to be, with all their appurtenances, the property of the founders and their heirs, who, as a result, were accustomed to appoint and dismiss the ecclesiastical incumbents of these churches entirely on their responsibility without any consultation of the bishop, and to treat them as their own nominees. The influence of the bishop on the administration of the Church was thus only very slight, and the action of the papal Curia upon ecclesiastical affairs in Bohemia was even slighter.

If the relationship of the Bohemian Church of that time with Rome was of only theoretical importance, its connexion with the secular world around it was all the more intimate. The priests were, as a rule, married, and neither in public administration nor in judicial matters was there any distinction between clerical and lay persons. From the point of view of nationality indeed, a considerable part of the clergy, especially of the monks, was distinguished from its surroundings; in particular there were among them certainly very many Germans. But there was also a large and influential Bohemian section. Not only were the two outstanding champions of ecclesiastical freedom, St Adalbert, Bishop of Prague (who met with a martyr’s death as a missionary to the heathen Prussians in 997), and Henry Zdik, Bishop of Olomouc (ob. 1151), of Bohemian nationality, but the writers of the most important Bohemian legends and chronicles of that time (though it is true that they were written in Latin) were also Bohemian. We need only mention here, as the most outstanding of them, Cosmas, dean of Prague (ob. 1125), whose Chronica Bohemorum is among the best works of medieval historiography.

Although the missionary St Adalbert, the Bishop of Prague, had striven to win greater independence for the Church in Bohemia, and although the papal Curia, during the great investiture struggle, made an attempt to reform the administration of the Church in Bohemia in the spirit of the Gregorian ideal, it was not until about the middle of the twelfth century that, by a papal legate sent to Bohemia in 1143, the Church’s rule as to celibacy of the clergy was, at least in certain cases, enforced. From that time the scheme of a reformation of the Bohemian Church was never dropped. King Vladislav I (II) himself was in favour of it, as well as the distinguished Bishop of Olomouc, Henry Zdik; yet reform made little headway. Celibacy of the clergy did not become the rule until the thirteenth century, and up to the end of the twelfth century the relations of the parish churches and their owners were hardly at all modified. Thus it came about that, in the second half of the twelfth century, the chief ecclesiastical establishments of Bohemia, especially the bishoprics of Prague and Olomouc, sought to obtain an exceptional position for their estates by means of a privilege of immunity from the Bohemian rulers. The peasantry settled on these estates were in this way freed from public services and taxes, and from the jurisdiction of the ducal castellans, and were placed directly under that of the officials of the royal household.

The growing power and importance of the Church in Bohemia led speedily to conflicts between its leaders and the rulers of the country. One such conflict between the Bohemian Duke Frederick and Henry Bretislav, Bishop of Prague, a member of the Premyslid family, gave the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa the welcome opportunity of declaring the Bishop of Prague and immediate prince of the Empire (1187). Since Moravia, too, had been made into an ‘immediate’ margravate a short time before, the authority of the Bohemian duke, heretofore complete, was at the end of the twelfth century, so to speak, torn into shreds. This collapse of the power of the Bohemian dukes, due partly to the crafty policy of Barbarossa, partly to the pernicious struggles for the throne among the Premyslids, was, however, not of long duration. Even before the end of the twelfth century, the cessation of the internecine feuds and the simultaneous collapse of the power of the German Emperor brought about a change for the better in this respect.

After the death, which occurred in 1197, of Henry Bretislav, Bishop of Prague, who four years before had become Duke of Bohemia and had also conquered Moravia, two sons of King Vladislav I, Premysl Ottokar I and Vladislav Henry, came forward as candidates for the throne. The younger, Vladislav, was first raised to the throne by the Bohemians, but in the same year he came to an agreement with his elder brother, by which Premysl Ottokar became duke in Bohemia and Vladislav Henry margrave of Moravia. Premysl Ottokar I ruled thereafter in Bohemia until his death (1230) in complete harmony with his brother Vladislav (0b. 1222), and all his successors up till the end of the Premyslid dynasty ascended the throne unopposed. This was a fact of the greatest importance for the further development of Bohemia, both in foreign and in home affairs.

Above all, an end was put once and for all to the dismemberment of the Bohemian State caused by the recognition of the margravate of Moravia and of the bishopric of Prague as direct principalities of the Empire. The agreement of 1197 had already restored the real unity of Moravia and Bohemia, and in the years that followed this union became ever more firmly cemented. The ‘immediacy’ of the bishopric of Prague was still more rapidly and decisively abolished. During his short reign Premysl’s brother Vladislav on his own authority appointed a new bishop in place of Henry Bretislav, and himself bestowed investiture upon him. By this action he made it clear, not only that he did not recognise the ‘immediate’ position of the bishopric of Prague, but that he was determined also to put an end to the bishop’s former dependence on the German Emperor, formal though it was, which was expressed by the conferring of investiture by the Emperor. In the path indicated in this momentous action of Vladislav, the object of which was to make Bohemia more independent of the Empire, Premysl Ottokar also persevered. As a result of the struggles for the throne which arose after the death of the Emperor Henry VI, Premysl Ottokar achieved important successes in this direction. As early as 1198 he was raised to the dignity of king, and the dukedom of Bohemia was made a kingdom, by King Philip of Swabia, with whom he at first joined forces. When afterwards the new king, at the instance of Pope Innocent III, was persuaded to desert Philip and declare himself for the anti-king, Otto of Brunswick, Premysl’s royal title was confirmed to himself and his successors, not only by Otto but also by the Pope (1207). But Premysl’s friendship with Otto did not last long. The King of Bohemia soon entered again into friendly relations with Philip, and only the latter’s murder (1207) prevented his defection from Otto. When, however, soon afterwards the Pope himself deserted Otto and began to support Frederick II, the young son of the Emperor Henry VI, the King of Bohemia allowed himself easily to be won over to Frederick. As a reward for this, he obtained from King Frederick in 1212, by a Golden Bull, an important privilege which for many years regulated the legal relationship of Bohemia to the German Empire. By the main provisions of this bull the royal dignity of Premysl and his heirs is confirmed, but at the same time the old right of the Bohemians to choose their ruler for themselves is clearly recognised, although the Emperor’s right to confer the regalia upon the elected king is reserved. In addition, the King of Bohemia is granted the right to confer investiture upon the bishops of his kingdom, not only in the case of Prague, but evidently in that of Olomouc also. Finally, it is decreed that the Kings of Bohemia are to be bound to attend the Court only when it is held at Bamberg, Nuremberg, or Merseburg, and, on the occasions of the Emperor’s journeys to Rome, they are to have the choice of either sending three hundred armed men or paying three hundred silver marks.

Even after the Golden Bull of 1212, Bohemia remained a fief of the German Empire, but the bull considerably strengthened her peculiar position in regard to the Empire. In this respect the definite recognition of the Bohemian right of election is especially important. The value of this right had, it is true, been much diminished by the hereditary right of the Premyslids to the crown, and it lost almost all its significance so soon as there was only one candidate for the throne. A no less important event, therefore, was the preparation by Premysl Ottokar of a precise law of succession. It is true that he issued no decree on the subject, yet he succeeded in securing the election by the Bohemians of his eldest son Wenceslas as king, during his own lifetime, and in obtaining confirmation of this from the Emperor Frederick (1216). In this imperial confirmation, and even more clearly in another published (in 1281) after the death of Premysl, emphasis is strongly laid upon the fact that Wenceslas was elected as the king’s eldest son. From this time until the fall of the Premyslids the rule of primogeniture in the succession was definitely maintained. This was certainly made possible by the fact that, on the death of the remaining Premyslid kings, their sons were always the sole male members of the royal house. But in this way the election of the king became only a more solemn recognition and acceptance of the only legitimate heir.

If the duties of the Bohemian king towards the Empire were diminished by the Golden Bull of 1212, as time went on they became ever less. Though the King of Bohemia in 1212 was only released from personal participation in the actual ‘journeys to Rome’ in after years, as the power of the German Empire was broken, the compulsion under which he lay to participate in the Emperor’s campaigns generally ceased as it were of its own accord. Rudolf I certainly extorted from the Bohemian King Premysl Ottokar II, after the latter’s defeat in 1276, an acknowledgement that the king was bound to assist the Emperor in time of war in the same manner as other princes of the Empire, but after some years, in 1298, Rudolf’s son, Albert I, promised King Wenceslas II, son of Premysl Ottokar II, that provided he was elected King of the Romans he would exact no armed assistance from Wenceslas. Later, in 1314, the Bohemian King John of Luxemburg obtained a similar promise from the German King Louis of Bavaria, and so little by little Bohemian participation in the Emperor’s campaigns came to an end.

While the obligations of the Bohemian kings towards the Empire grew steadily less and less after the beginning of the thirteenth century, on the other hand their rights in the Empire and their influence upon imperial affairs increased in importance. Even in the eleventh century the Bohemian dukes appear at the election of the German king, and after the end of the twelfth century especially they were accustomed to play a more important part on these occasions. When, in the thirteenth century, the theory began to be established that the right to elect the German king belonged only to the three Rhenish archbishops and to the holders of the so-called arch-offices of the Empire, the King of Bohemia, as hereditary holder of the office of cupbearer, was also counted as an Elector, and thus attained very high authority in the Empire. It is true that the first advocate of this theory, Eike von Repgow, the author of the famous Sachsenspiegel, wished from the first to deprive the King of Bohemia of his right of election, on the ground that he was not a German, ‘urame dat he nicht dudesch n’is,’ but his opinion was not heeded. Only at the election of Rudolf I of Habsburg (1273) was the Bohemian king’s right of election denied, and the seventh electoral chair was adjudged to the dukedom of Bavaria; but King Rudolf himself later (1289 and 1290) restored to the King of Bohemia the office of cupbearer and the dignity of Elector.

The great increase in the power of the Kings of Bohemia, to which the accession of Premysl Ottokar I opened the way, was also not without influence upon the foreign policy of Bohemia. This had formerly been regulated almost exclusively by the personal inclinations of the individual rulers, and thus almost entirely lacked consistency; but henceforth it begins to follow a clearly-conceived and consistent aim, so that as time goes on we can speak of definite traditions of Bohemian policy. In this connexion the relations of Bohemia with Austria must first be considered. Even in the last years of Premysl Ottokar I, hostilities arose between Bohemia and Austria. Their origin lay in the fact that Henry, the eldest son of the Emperor Frederick II, married a daughter of the Austrian Duke Leopold VI, of the house of Babenberg, instead of the daughter of the King of Bohemia, to whom he had been betrothed since childhood. But it was only under Premysl’s successor, King Wenceslas I (1230-1253), that open war broke out on this account. In his attack upon the Duke of Austria, Frederick II the Valiant, the last Babenberger, the King of Bohemia was joined by his two neighbours, Bela IV, King of Hungary, and Otto, Duke of Bavaria, and after some time the Emperor Frederick II himself joined this coalition. As executor of the ban pronounced by the Emperor against the Duke of Austria, King Wenceslas together with other princes of the Empire invaded his territory and brought it almost under the Emperor’s power (1237). But soon after, King Wenceslas, at the instigation of the papal Curia, broke away from the Emperor and reconciled himself with the Duke of Austria, whose niece Gertrude, to mark the occasion, was betrothed to Wenceslas’ eldest son Vladislav (1239). Hostilities broke out again between Bohemia and Austria immediately after this, but were stopped by the common danger which threatened both lands in the approach of the Mongols. Wenceslas’ kingdom was entered by these terrible foes. After the northern Tartar horde had crushingly defeated the Duke of Silesia (1241) at Liegnitz, it invaded Moravia also. While Bohemia was saved from the Mongols, owing largely to the exertions of King Wenceslas, who took up a position on the borders wi th a strong army to face the foe, Moravia was utterly laid waste, and not until their retreat from Europe was it freed from this torment.

Hardly was the danger from the Mongols over before hostilities broke out once more between Bohemia and Austria; and these, in so far as they were involved in the great contemporary struggle between the Papacy and the Empire, were also of importance for the general history of that time. An important change in the relations between Bohemia and Austria came about on the death of Duke Frederick of Austria (1246). Only then did the long-arranged marriage between his niece Gertrude and Vladislav, son of the King of Bohemia, actually take place. Through this marriage the royal house of Bohemia saw open before it the brilliant prospect of a widening of its realms through the Babenberg succession. For when Duke Frederick had died childless, Vladislav, as husband of his niece Gertrude, became the most important candidate for the lands left vacant by his death. But only a few months after his marriage, Vladislav, whom the contemporary Austrian sources actually call “Duke of Austria,” died, and so for the present the Bohemian royal house lost all hope of the Babenberg succession.

However, after the death of the Emperor Frederick II and that of Herman of Baden, Gertrude of Babenberg’s second husband, in 1250, as soon as the position of affairs in Austria had become more favourable to the claims of Bohemia, hostilities again broke out. Premysl Ottokar II, who, after the death of his elder brother Vladislav, was King Wenceslas’ only surviving son, and had already been appointed Margrave of Moravia by his father, led an array into Austria, on the invitation of a section of the Austrian nobility with the support of the papal Curia and of the clergy, and subdued a considerable part of the country without meeting any opposition (1251). To strengthen his position, the young Premysl married the sister of the last Babenberger, Margaret, who was more than fifty years of age. But immediately afterwards the powerful King of Hungary, Bela IV, came up against him, and in a short time by force of arms made himself master of Styria, a part of the Babenberg possessions.

The struggle between the two claimants to the former Babenberg lands was not yet at an end when Premysl Ottokar II, on the death of his father, ascended the Bohemian throne, which he held for a full quarter of a century (1253-1278). In the next year, through the intervention of the papal Curia, which rightly regarded the young King of Bohemia as its true supporter, a peace was negotiated between Premysl Ottokar and Hungary, by which Premysl kept Austria while Bela retained Styria (1251). But when, some four years later, the Styrian nobles supported by Bohemia raised a rebellion against Hungarian rule, a new war broke out, which, after the King of Bohemia had won a brilliant victory at the battle of Kroissenbrunn, ended with the cession of Styria to him (1260). Afterwards he obtained from the German King Richard of Cornwall the investiture of both the newly-acquired lands, Austria and Styria.

The King of Bohemia had already, two years after his accession to the throne (1255), shewn his gratitude for the support extended to him by the papal Curia in these successful struggles for the Babenberg inheritance, by undertaking a crusade to assist the Teutonic Order against the heathen Prussians. At that time a part of Saraland was conquered by the German Knights, and, to establish their rule in those regions, they founded the town named Konigsberg (Mons Hegins) in honour of the King of Bohemia. Soon after, Premysl Ottokar pledged himself to the papal Curia to undertake another crusade, which, however, did not take place for several years (1268). This crusade, too, was to assist the Teutonic Order, but its special objective was the heathen Lithuania. This country, with some of the neighbouring lands, was to be converted to Christianity, but was at the same time to be placed under the rule of the King of Bohemia, and a newly-created archbishopric was to be founded, at the head of which was to be. set the Bishop of Olomouc as archbishop. Without waiting for the papal decision on this plan, Premysl Ottokar II started on his second crusade (in the winter of 1267-68); but when the Curia would not consent to his audacious design, he turned back without effecting anything.

While thus Premysl Ottokar’s plan to annex to his kingdom new provinces in the north miscarried, he soon after acquired an extension of it in the south. Ilis kinsman Ulrich, the childless Duke of Carinthia, had appointed him his heir, and after Ulrich's death he obtained possession of Carinthia with the county of Carniola which was united to it (1269). Thus the kingdom of Premysl Ottokar reached its greatest extent. Besides Bohemia and Moravia, it included Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, in addition to some smaller possessions on the Adriatic. It thus stretched from the mountain ranges in the north of Bohemia to the Adriatic Sea, and was a forerunner of the later Habsburg monarchy, excluding Hungary.

The establishment of so powerful a kingdom, which threatened to be a dangerous competitor to the power of the Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe, was made possible by contemporary events in Germany, where there was, during the whole of this time, no generally recognised ruler—it is the period of the Interregnum. The continuance of the kingdom might possibly have been secured, had the King of Bohemia himself attained the German crown. Premysl Ottokar, after the death of Richard of Cornwall (1272) if not before, did become a candidate for the Empire. The election of Rudolf of Habsburg as the German King (1273) inflicted a serious check on his policy, all the more so in that Rudolf was elected by evading the electoral rights of Bohemia, and in spite of the protest of Premysl Ottokar. Since the new German King, whose royal power had been greatly diminished by the course of events in preceding years, aimed at establishing a strong position for himself by extending the power of his own house, he naturally took as his objective those territories of the Empire which during the Interregnum had fallen into the possession of Premysl Ottokar, and which from the point of view of imperial law might be considered to have been illegally acquired. So it came about that at the diet of Nuremberg, a year after Rudolf’s election, the King of Bohemia was deprived of all rights to these lands and was himself summoned to shew cause for his actions (1274). When Premysl Ottokar heeded neither this nor yet a second summons, he was outlawed and was declared to be deprived of his own hereditary possessions (1276). At the same time a campaign in which the whole Empire joined was begun against the King of Bohemia. While Rudolf’s allies, the brothers Meinhard of the Tyrol and Albert of Gorz, attacked Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria, he himself invaded Austria. Weakened by the revolt of a powerful body of nobles in Bohemia, Premysl Ottokar was soon compelled to sue for a truce. By a peace concluded with Rudolf at Vienna, he ceded Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and in return was invested by the German King with Bohemia and Moravia (November 1276). However, a new war against Rudolf, who was this time assisted by Hungary also, soon broke out; and Premysl Ottokar was again unsuccessful. His army was annihilated at Durnkrut in Austria, and there the king, once so glorious, met with a miserable death (26 August 1278).

Immediately after the battle, King Rudolf led his army into Moravia, and, since Premysl Ottokar’s only son, who became king as Wenceslas II (1278-1305), was only seven years old, for five years he kept the administration of the margravate in his own hands, while he had to entrust the administration of Bohemia for the same period to Premysl Ottokar’s nephew, Otto of Brandenburg, as Wenceslas’ guardian. These five years were for Bohemia a real reign of terror, owing to the cruelty and avarice of Otto of Brandenburg and to the disorders caused by internecine feuds among the nobles; but then young Wenceslas, whom Otto only released from his guardianship on payment of a large sum, entered upon his father’s possessions.

Soon after this, a prominent Bohemian noble, Zavis of Falkenstein, who had formerly been among the opponents of Premysl Ottokar, but after his death married his widow, Wenceslas’ mother, became the true director of Bohemian policy. When, however, the young king, under Zavis’s influence, began to lay claim to the lands of which his father had been deprived, a paid of which had already been bestowed upon Rudolf’s sons, King Rudolf contrived that Zavis should be removed from the court; he was later imprisoned, and finally beheaded (1290). After some time, King Wenceslas indeed renewed his efforts to recover his father’s kingdom—with this object his policy was specially directed against Albert of Habsburg. But later he gave up this attempt and turned his attention ever more towards the east. He had already entered into friendly relations with certain Silesian princes, and, during a dispute over the succession, had taken possession of the Polish county of Cracow; in 1300 he brought Greater Poland also under his sway, and had himself crowned King of Poland at Gnesen.

Immediately after this, an opportunity for a farther extension of his kingdom was offered to King Wenceslas. After the death of Andrew III, the last Hungarian king of the line of Arpad, the Hungarian nobles who were dissatisfied with Charles Robert, the candidate of the papal Curia, offered the crown of Hungary to the King of Bohemia. The latter did not, indeed, accept it himself, but he induced his Hungarian supporters to elect his twelve-year-old son, Wenceslas III, King of Hungary. The young prince, after adopting the Hungarian national name of Ladislas (Laszlo), was crowned and installed as king in the capital, Buda (1301). However, Pope Boniface VIII and the German King Albert, who naturally felt that their interests were threatened, bitterly opposed the Bohemian rule in Hungary. King Wenceslas, on his side, formed an alliance with King Philip IV of France (1303), and also entered into relations with England. But on the death of Pope Boniface (1304), the hostility between France and the Papacy came to an end, and with it the main reason for the French alliance with Bohemia. In Hungary, too, the position of affairs changed to the detriment of Bohemia, when the nobles began to fall away from her. Then King Wenceslas of Bohemia invaded Hungary with a large army, but soon beat a retreat without engaging battle, and brought back his son to Bohemia, together with the Hungarian royal insignia. On the other hand, King Albert, who with his allies invaded Bohemia and besieged the town of Kutna Hora (Kuttenberg), famous for its silver mines which were then at the height of their prosperity, had also to retire without gaining any success. A new campaign against Bohemia, which had been planned for the next year, was averted by the sudden death of King Wenceslas, who was only thirty-four years old (June 1305).

The new King of Bohemia, Wenceslas III (1305-1306), the only son of the late king, was hardly seventeen years old. He concluded a peace with King Albert soon after his father’s death; in return for the cession of certain disputed provinces (Eger, Meissen), he received a solemn confirmation of the old liberties and rights of Bohemia. In Hungary, too, Wenceslas III gave up the hopeless struggle, for he handed over his claims upon Hungary, and the Hungarian royal insignia, to his cousin Otto of Bavaria. On the other hand he began to make preparations with great ardour for a campaign in Poland, in order to obtain possession of his father’s seriously imperilled lands. But when, in the summer of 1306, he was staying at Olomouc, where his army was to concentrate, he was murdered in the dean’s house by an unknown assailant (4 August 1306). At his death the male line of the Premyslids was extinguished; and this was in itself an important turning-point in the history of Bohemia.

The time of the rule of the last Premyslid kings is of significance, not only for the great external expansion of the power of the Bohemian throne, but also for important changes in the internal conditions of the lands beneath its sway. The disruption of the old constitution of the State and of society, a disruption which had been approaching even in earlier times, was fulfilled in this period. For in this period various special rights were acquired by single social classes, which thus withdrew themselves from the old organisation of the State and cut themselves off from the rest of the population and also from each other. In the forefront stand the clergy. The development, for which the way was prepared even in the twelfth century by the introduction of the celibacy of the clergy and the privilege of immunity granted to certain ecclesiastical establishments, was continued in the thirteenth century by the gradual emancipation of the Church in Bohemia from lay authority. In the very first years of the thirteenth century the chapters of both the cathedrals of Bohemia, at Prague and Olomouc, obtained the right of free election to their bishoprics. And soon after, Andrew, Bishop of Prague, entered upon a great struggle for ecclesiastical freedom against Premysl Ottokar I, whom he, with the support of Rome, compelled to grant noteworthy concessions. By the agreements of 1219 and 1221, the bishop obtained the definite recognition of his right to appoint and dismiss the incumbents of all churches in his diocese, although the right of presentation of the patrons (patroni) was reserved; beyond this, he obtained the right to exercise jurisdiction over clerical persons in ecclesiastical matters, that is, particularly, in matters of discipline. The independence of the clergy in spiritual matters (in spiritualibus) as regards the secular authority, thus recognised in principle, was not realised at once in all its implications, but little by little it obtained real value. In secular matters, however, the clergy remained even after this subject to secular authority. Quarrels between clerical persons or corporations, in which landed property was concerned, were even at a later date decided by the ruler or by the competent secular court. Also the Bohemian kings never ceased to regard the possessions of the old monasteries, and other ecclesiastical establishments founded by their predecessors, as their own property, and to demand from them special contributions in addition to the regular taxes. On the other hand, these establishments had the right to obtain for all those who dwelt upon their estates complete exemption from the authority of the state officials, and to take upon themselves the full exercise of this authority. After the end of the great struggle with Bishop Andrew, King Premysl Ottokar I by an important grant in 1222 confirmed to all the clergy of his country the right which had actually been possessed before by a large number of ecclesiastical establishments. The inhabitants of their property were exempted from the jurisdiction of the castle or provincial officials, and were placed directly under that of the king and of his chief court officials. But even in the thirteenth century it came about that, in the majority of the ecclesiastical establishments of Bohemia, the jurisdiction over their dependents, which by the privilege of 1222 was vested in the king, was abandoned to the clergy and to their officers.

Like the clergy, the nobles, especially those of highest rank, obtained at this time various rights for themselves and for the vassals settled on their estates. Even in the second half of the twelfth century, disputes between nobles, especially those which concerned landed property, were decided at great general judicial assemblies and in the second half of the thirteenth century a special court, composed only of the members of the highest nobility, the Lords, assumed this jurisdiction. But, following the example of the clergy, the nobles too obtained for their vassals, by placing them under their own authority, a similar exemption from the authority of the State. In this manner the peasants settled on the property of ecclesiastical and lay landlords first became their true vassals, bound not only to pay definite private services, but also to serve them in all such matters as were formerly regulated by the authority of the State, that is, of the ruler and his officials.

The legal position of the vassal peasant population also underwent at this time a fundamental change, due to German colonisation and the introduction of German law. The immigration of German colonists into Bohemia begins even in the twelfth century. They received from their new overlords, as a rule in return for a clearly determined yearly payment, only portions of untilled land, chiefly in the wooded and formerly uninhabited regions of the country, but on the other hand they enjoyed a more favourable legal position in regard to their landlords than that in which the native peasant population found itself. The main privilege of this new law in Bohemia, which was there known as the German Law (ius teutonicum), lay in this: it secured to the peasant the hereditary possession of his land and thus made him an hereditary or emphiteutic tenant, and, more than this, settled his duties towards the overlord by a firm and precise agreement. For the overlords themselves it was profitable, because it secured to them a fixed yearly income from their lands. Thus is explained the rapid spread of this “German Law” in Bohemia and Moravia, not only among the new colonists but also among the older peasant population, which for the most part was gradually brought into a relationship with its overlords similar to that of the colonists.

In this manner, in the coarse of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the various classes of the dependent peasant population were fused into one tolerably united class of peasant vassals, who occupied their land as hereditary tenants in return for a definite yearly rent and for other precisely settled duties, and were exempt from the authority of the state officials; but, on the other hand, were subject to the authority of their overlords and were represented at the king’s court only by them.

During this time a new class grew up in Bohemia and Moravia through the rise of a number of towns, of which there had been none before the thirteenth century. They developed partly out of older colonies of foreign, chiefly German, traders, which had early been formed here and there, and enjoyed special rights and immunities; in Prague we find as early as the eleventh century such a community of traders, with a considerable measure of autonomy; it was not till the first half of the thirteenth century that this community was transformed into the Old Town of Prague. In part, they were entirely new foundations of the kings and also of other overlords. At the end of the Premyslid era there were in Bohemia alone not less than thirty-two royal towns, of which the greater part owed their foundation to Kings Premysl Ottokar II and Wenceslas II.

Through the exemption of the clergy and the higher nobility, together with their vassals, from the authority of the old castellans, as well as through the establishment of the towns, whose inhabitants from the first stood outside the range of this authority, the old castle administration was completely undermined. Since the loss of most of their old authority had rendered the great number of old castle districts superfluous, the ancient smaller districts gradually, in the course of the thirteenth century, were replaced by larger spheres of administration; but these had, however, for the present, by no means so great an importance from the constitutional point of view as those old districts, since they possessed no permanent fully-equipped organ of administration, nor had they wide powers extending over the whole population, such as the erstwhile castle­administration had possessed.

As the old castle-administration decayed, so the importance of the central administration increased, and in the second half of the thirteenth century this becomes a truly national administration. The most important of the central institutions, the court of which we have spoken above, had, at the same time, the character of a permanent representative assembly of the higher nobility, of the great landed proprietors. This was particularly important for the reason that the court constituted at the same time the royal council, which assisted the king in deciding important national affairs. In this way the Bohemian landed proprietors gained a permanent and regular influence, not only upon the administration of justice, but also upon the political conduct of the country. The lower nobility, too, the higher clergy, and even the burghers, often exercised in those times an important influence upon national affairs, but this influence was neither so wide, nor so regular as that of the great proprietors. It made itself felt mainly at great assemblies, which we may call diets, though we must remember that they were substantially different from the later diets. Even in earlier times, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, such general assemblies of the nobles and the higher clergy were held in certain exceptional cases; however, these did not pass resolutions, but limited themselves to taking cognisance of the decisions of the king which were presented to them. Also, at the general judicial assemblies mentioned above, which used to be held regularly from about the middle of the twelfth century, there must occasionally have arisen questions affecting national affairs. In the second half of the thirteenth century, these regular and general judicial assemblies cease, since they were supplanted by the newly organised court. Only exceptionally are general assemblies held after this, and then they are no longer judicial, but assume the functions of real diets, which not only deliberate upon important public affairs, but also decide upon them. In the first years after the tragic death of King Ottokar II, particularly, there were held several such diets, at which the nobility, the clergy, and the representatives of the burghers decided upon important affairs which concerned the whole country : for instance, on the question of a general tax for the payment of the sums expended by Margrave Otto of Brandenburg as guardian of the young king. These decisions, however, took the form rather of agreements, similar to the German Landfrieden,which the participants bound themselves to observe, than of real decrees of a diet, universally binding in and for themselves. When, after the accession of Wenceslas II, normal conditions were re-established in the land, the necessity for such extraordinary diets ceased, and their further development only begins after the fall of the Premyslid dynasty.

The great changes in the interior structure of the Bohemian State, which took place under the last Pfemyslids, also affected the ethnographic aspect of the country. Even in earlier times there were in Bohemia and Moravia certainly many Germans, above all among the clergy, and especially in the monasteries; and they were also to be found at the court of the Bohemian rulers, whose wives, belonging for the most part to German princely families, brought their German retinue with them to Bohemia. Also most of the colonies of merchants, and those the most important, were composed of Germans, and, finally, there was probably a sprinkling of German immigrants among the peasant population too. But it was not until the second half of the twelfth century that a considerable immigration of German colonists to Bohemia took place. Whole districts, especially on the borderland, were then settled by Germans, and preserved their German character, in part, up to the present day. The first burghers of the Bohemian towns were almost exclusively German, and their German character in most respects outlasted the Pfemyslid epoch by more than a century, and in some cases, especially in Moravia, preserved it until the present time. Besides this, both in early and in later times, the whole public and social life of Bohemia was exposed to the strong influence of her neighbour Germany. The Bohemian court was, in the thirteenth century, from time to time a place of resort for German minstrels, and had assumed an apparently strong German complexion. The Bohemian nobles, too, after the end of the twelfth century, adopted not only German customs but even German surnames. Not until the end of the Pfemyslid epoch do we find a strong national consciousness among the Bohemian nobles, and then it was due partly to the conduct of Otto of Brandenburg in Bohemia, partly to their detestation of the German burgherdom which had sprung into existence and was attaining a steadily increasing importance in the country.

Besides the considerable influence of Germany upon the whole development of Bohemia, other influences of the highest importance were asserting themselves during this time. The great and successful struggle, previously mentioned, for the freedom of the Church, which begins in the time of Henry Zdik, Bishop of Olomouc, and reached its highest point under Bishop Andrew of Prague, was called into existence through the direct influence of Rome, and was brought to a victorious conclusion with the support of Rome, without any assistance from the neighbouring German prelates, indeed at times in spite of their opposition. The important reforming activities of the greatest of the Premyslids, Premysl Ottokar II and his son Wenceslas II, on the other hand, were influenced very powerfully by Italy. At the court of Premysl Ottokar II the important position of royal protonotary was held by an Italian named Henry (Henricus Italicus), who seems to have exercised great influence upon the Bohemian Chancery and official documents. Another Italian (Henricus de Isernia) kept, at the same period, a school of rhetoric in Prague for the eding laws of several neighbouring countries, for instance Hungary.