History of the Czech lands in the High Middle Ages

The history of the Czech lands in the High Middle Ages encompasses the period from the rule of Vladislav II (c.1110–1174 AD) to that of Henry of Bohemia (c.1265–1335). The High Middle Ages includes the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries (c. 1000–1299). It was preceded by the Early Middle Ages (the fifth to the tenth centuries) and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended about 1500. The High Middle Ages produced a number of intellectual, spiritual and artistic works and saw the rise of ethnocentrism, which evolved into nationalism. The rediscovery of the works of Aristotle led Thomas Aquinas and other thinkers of the period to develop the instructional method of scholasticism. In architecture, many notable Gothic cathedrals were built (or completed) during this era.

Hereditary law

After the death of Vladislav II wrangling for the Prague throne began among members of the Premyslid Dynasty, indicating that the order of succession begun by Bretislav I was obsolete. Disputes within the ruling dynasty were exploited by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa, who established the Margraviate of Moravia as an imperial princedom whose prince was subordinate to the Roman sovereign and did the same with the Prague bishopric in 1187. Friedrich I died three years later and the confusion was addressed by the German parts of the Empire, so the Premyslids gained time. The Margraviate of Moravia kept its name for a half-century (with its ruler known as the margrave), but it fell under the sovereignty of the Bohemian monarch (who kept the office or entrusted it to close relatives).

Ottokar I of Bohemia I emerged from the confusion at the end of the 12th century, ruling from 1197. By skilful politics with both Roman Emperors (Philip of Swabia and Otto IV of Brunswick), he renewed the royal peerage for Bohemian kings which was confirmed by Pope Innocent III in 1204. The new Roman Emperor and the King of Sicilia Friedrich II then confirmed the Premyslids all competences and powers in the instrument – the famous Golden Bull of Sicily, issued in Basel on 26 September 1212. The instrument proclaimed the inheritance of the Bohemian royal dignity, renewed the scope of the Bohemian dominion in its original borders and stated conditions for Czech ruler´s participation in Imperial Diets.

The Pope Innocent III, who approved Premysl the royal title, considered the Church as a top Christian institution and believed in the superiority of the spiritual power over the secular power. The same opinion was also enforced by his successors at the St. Peter´s throne. Unlike in Western Europe, the relationship in which the dominant role was played by the secular power, especially by the king, still prevailed in the countries of Bohemia. They did not see anything strange in it because the gifts from rulers and noblemen contributed to the growing prosperity of the Church. The traditional view corresponded neither to the interests of the Church, nor to the needs of society.

The Prague Bishop Andrew therefore started the combat for the independence of the Church. However, he did not obtain the necessary response in Bohemia. In the end, Ottokar I of Bohemia agreed in 1221 and1222 that the Church exercised ownership rights over land as well as tributaries at its townships. Churchmen should further abide by the canonical (ecclesiastical) law and could not be summoned before secular courts. In practice, the principles of concordat (the agreement between the Church and the ruler or state) were not successfully and fully introduced to life.

In the 13th century the Church finished building its organisational structure in the Bohemian territory. The highest Church administrative unit was bishopric with subordinated Senior Deacon´s Offices; the lower grade was formed by deaneries and basic parish units. In Latin, the Czech state was further called Bohemia, however in Czech and other Slovenian languages the territory was called "Čechy". What the word "Czech" originally meant is unclear. The Czechs thus formed a unified tribe slowly changing to a medieval nation. However, the inhabitants of Moravia also spoke Czech.

Czech and Moravian nobility

The end of the 12th and 13th century in the Czech lands was time of revolutionary change and a new era for landscape and society. Owners of land or property formed the nobility, which was historically divided into to the higher nobility (lords) and lower.

Since the demise of the 12th century records, the Czech aristocracy was a part of the chivalric culture flourishing in Western Europe. This had been brought into the Czech lands through neighbouring German regions. In the High Middle Ages, no one could become a knight even if they had royal bloodlines. Knighthood had to be earned through actions, especially courage, chivalry and bravery in battle. Only then would the ruler have his representative knighted. The highest value was placed on chivalry, then faithfulness to God (the Christian faith and the Church).

Colonists of foreign origin brought with them many new products. The Western European development of the three-tiered field (three fields) economy, was gradually applied in the Czech lands. During the winter famers sowed winter wheat in the first field, in the second spring crops, and the third field would be left fallow as pasture for grazing animals. It was a three-year cycle, and alternated which fields were left to rest. However, grain yield was still low and fluctuated at a ratio of 1:3 to 1:8. Barley and wheat, legumes peas and various kinds of vegetables were the most common crops. In terms of live stock beef cattle, pigs, goats and sheep were most common. Despite all the advances, such agriculture did not fully compensate for the risk of crop failure. This continued into the 18th century, with the spread of potato cultivation, and made famine an ongoing issue for the Czechs.

Lords and serf

Foreign colonists in the Czech lands brought not only domestic and technical innovations, but legal reforms as well.

In order to establish a village a founder, called a locator, first chose a convenient place and received consent from landowners consent to do so. He then demarcated plots for future courts and surface grounds. This was followed by the construction of dwellings and the conversion of uncultivated land into fields. Anhui colonists became the subjects of the ruler on whose land the new village was founded. His lordship was to be paid tax in the form of a fixed agreed cash benefits, usually twice a year. In addition, the peasants were serfs bound to the feudal courts by what was termed the robota. But to they were able to keep possession of their lands and pass them on to their children. This arrangement of relations between lords and vassals became commonplace in the Czech lands became.

Until the High Middle Ages there was no craft or merchant centre in Bohemia with a clear legal definition. In the 13th century this changed. The Czech lands began to develop a network of cities, emerging from some of the older craft markets and administrative centres as well as newly planned towns in undeveloped areas. Urban colonization was mainly linked to the activities of German immigrants in Silesia as well as Bohemia and Moravia.

Traders usually enjoyed greater wealth than craftsmen, especially if mediated by the exchange of luxury goods.

Significant Czech and Moravian cities were established by the monarch who gave oral or written agreement to their founding and awarded them the appropriate rights. They are called the royal cities. Over time monarchs allocated rights to several cities whose tax secured a comfortable living for queens and their courts. These were called dowry towns. (Mining) was also under the King's control and was important after the discovery of rich deposits of silver. For the year 1300 there were in the Czech lands about 40 royal cities.

Society

In the middle third of the 13th century, the Czech society reflected the typical two-tier composition.

The upper tier consisted of members of the Church (laity), which was concerned with the salvation of souls, and the nobility. These, together with the king, administered the state and dominion, defended against enemies and spread the Christian faith. This small group controlled the lives of the rest of the country.

The largest component of the population was the working people, in addition to which subjects farmers (in the Czech Republic about 80%) were also urban residents (about 15% of the population); in short, everyone who worked physical labour and trafficking. These sections of the population had at the same time in the form of taxes to provide a higher standard of living for both states. The nobles and priests physically worked, or even trade. The nobility and even shop manual labour work long loathed and found it unworthy of this noble activity of man. Learning about three people expressing and emphasizing contemporary views on the organization and functioning of the society in which nearly all individuals accounted exact location.

Not all people have been found in medieval society applications. Who did not belong to one of three groups for people lacked permanent residence and not stacked above position of authority (i emperors, kings and the highest church leaders are accountable to God), raised suspicion and lived on the margins of society. The Middle Ages have abhorred such people, whether they were wanderers, jugglers, actors, beggars, prostitutes and others. Among them are also often moved criminals.

The German princes prevented the election of the Roman king and in 1273 entrusted the dignity of this little-known Count Rudolf of Habsburg. Roman ruler managed to weaken the power Přemyslova. Czech ruler, forced to resign from the Alpine countries, but continued to think of retaliation. In the Battle of Moravian Field, however, was on the 26 August 1278 defeated and killed.

The Mixed Era

Rudolf of Habsburg tried to use the death of the powerful ruler for weakening the Czech state. Circumstances stayed in his favour because the heir to the throne Wenceslas, a son of Premysl Ottokar II and his second wife Kunigunde of Halych, was minor. Otto of Brandenburg was appointed his guardian, who at the same time took over the administration of Bohemia, while Rudolf took over the control of Moravia.

However, Brandenburg garrisons behaved in the Bohemian territory as in a conquered one and preyed wherever possible, which contributed to quick legal as well as economic decline, multiplied by the failure of crops and consequent famine in 1281 and 1282.

In this difficult situation, Bohemian nobles proved their political insight when in 1281 they decided to calm down the situation at the negotiation in Prague, to declare fight against criminality and introduce a strict order in the country. In fact, this was the first meeting where an important role was also given to the representatives of the Bigger (Old) Town of Prague and the Church. Provincial assemblies then became important forums of noblemen politics and the custom to invite representatives of the Old Town and the Church to key meetings was preserved in future. In the second half of the 13th and for the whole 14th centuries the provincial court was more important for the activity of the noblemen in the Kingdom of Bohemia. The provincial court sat in Prague and decided on the matters of the penal and proprietary law. It also kept its official books called provincial books.Provincial books for Moravia were kept in Brno and Olomouc since 1348.

The king Wenceslas II, staying under the supervision of his guardian in Brandenburg for a longer time, did not reach the age of twelve when he returned to his homeland in 1283. Therefore, in the beginning he submitted to the influence of his mother Kunigunde and her lover Zavis of Falkenstein (husband since 1285), a member of the Krumlov branch of Vitkovci.

However, later he freed from his subjection and ordered exercising the self-confident lord. Wenceslas II manifested the new rise of the Bohemian state among Great Powers and its wealth at his ceremonial coronation in 1297. He then astonished the whole Central Europe. As the governor of Bohemia could not lead his expansion politics southwards, where Habsburgs dominated, he looked to the north and the east. In 1291 he conquered Kraków and in 1300 he gained the Polish royal crown in Gniezno. He strengthened his position after the death of Guta of Habsburg by marrying the young and passionate Elisabeth Richenza of Piastow. In 1301, after the Hungarian Arpad Dynasty died out, he accepted the offer of the Hungarian crown, which he obtained for his son Wenceslas. He was crowned the king Ladislaus V in Hungary. The Premyslids reached the top of the power. The high international position of the Bohemian state in the 13th and at the beginning of the 14th centuries closely related to the economic boom. However, without rich deposits of precious stones, the last Premyslids would hardly achieve significant successes. The Bohemian provinces were not rich in gold, but they were famous for their silver. Real boom of silver mining started before the middle of the 13th century after the discovery of rich deposits near Jihlava. Silver mining had all the signs of striving for property there. Temporary huts and pubs were the evidence of the lives of people who came there with the idea of easy enrichment. As late as in 1270 Jihlava succeeded in gaining a building order from Premysl Ottokar II in order the town could be built according to more demanding needs. In relation to silver mining in the vicinity of Jihlava and German (Havlicek) Brod a set of excellent legal regulations was elaborated.

Even higher fever broke out in the last decade of the 13th century, soon after the discovery of silver deposits at farms of an old Cistercian cloister in Sedlec. A new town, Kutna Hora, the second biggest town after Prague in our country, was quickly built near to it. The development of Kutna Hora mining resulted in a coinage reform in 1300. Italian experts also participated in its introduction to life. Another Italian expert, Gozzo of Orvieta, contributed to the origination of the Mining Code at that time (Ius regale montanorum), belonging among the most important works of its kind in the medieval Europe. As gold had a much higher price, the value of the Prague groschen significantly lagged behind golden coins coined in Florence, Venice and Hungarian Kremnica.

Downfall of Premyslid Dynasty

The growing wealth and power of the Czech governor was an eyesore for the Habsburgs. The Premyslids, their neighbours, raised their heads again. The attempt of the Roman King Albrecht of Habsburg to take hold of the Kutna Hora mines by a military expedition in 1304 failed.

Wenceslas II kept his position which made the Czech governor the most important figure after its Emperor within the Holy Roman Empire. The King of Bohemia (together with the pals grave of Rhine, the Duke of Saxon, the Margrave of Brandenburg and the Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier) belonged to the body of seven prince electors authorized to elect the Roman emperor since the middle of the 13th century. In addition to this office, he held an honourable function of the main waiter at ceremonial occasions. Unfortunately, the Premyslid Dynasty had not only successes. It suffered a painful diplomatic defeat in Hungary which Wenceslas-Ladislaus had to leave in secret in 1304 and soon after he waived the St. Stephen´s crown.

Although Wenceslas II died of tuberculosis in 1305, the power of the Bohemian state remained astounding. Nobody could think at that time how quickly the Premyslid fame would go out.

A single assassination managed to change everything. On 4 August 1306 an unknown culprit killed not even seventeen years old Wenceslas III in Olomouc, by whom the Premyslid Dynasty died out in the male tail.

The Duke Heinrich of Kärnten, who married Anna of Premyslids, a sister of Wenceslas III, showed the interest in the vacated throne. After short confusions, the young Rudolf of Habsburg, who did not hesitate to support his claims by the marriage with the widow queen Elisabeth Richenza, won the fight for the Czech crown. Unfortunately, undoubtedly capable king unexpectedly died in 1307 and the widowed Richenza found consolation in the arms of Jindrich of Lipá, the most powerful Czech lord. This lord became a dominant figure of the political scene in the reign of Heinrich of Kärnten, who finally lived to obtain the royal dignity.

But his weak reign did not bring luck to the provinces of Bohemia. The outcome from the threatening anarchy was found by Abbots Konrad of Zbraslav and Heidenreich of Sedlec, representatives of important Cistercian cloisters. Supported by some Czech noblemen, they addressed the Roman Emperor Heinrich VII of Luxemburg with the offer so that he married his son John with the eighteen-years´ old Elisabeth of Premyslids, still unmarried daughter of Wenceslas II. However, John had to win the rich kingdom, to which colonisation gave formability lasting to the rise of the industrial era, by power.

In the reign of last Premyslids, especially at the era of Wenceslas I, a new artistic style began to come to the provinces of Bohemia, later called Gothic. It originated in France. Gothic managed probably best of all styles to capture the Christian desire for achieving the salvation of soul in the eternal kingdom of God. Swelling lines of Gothic cathedrals intentionally lead to the height to the heaven and express the effort to overcome the material load of terrestrial world. All the Gothic signs, including fashion, were characterized by prolonging the proportions and the emphasis on the vertical line.

At first, the Czech environment did not have sufficient force to build extensive Gothic cathedrals, built at the sites of bishopric and archbishopric seats in the Western Europe. It coped with the basic elements of the Gothic construction, with its most typical sign to be a high-crowned arch, only gradually. The monastery, premises in Prague is considered as the most unified manifestation of the Gothic architecture in the provinces of Bohemia. The Gothic style in church architecture was also a sign of the deepening religiousness as presented e.g. by Agnes of Premyslids, the founder of the order of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, canonized in November 1989. Zdislava of Lemberk, a little bit younger noble lady, working in the northern Bohemia and canonized in 1995, took an exemplary care of the ill and the suffering.

In the secular environment, the rise of Gothic was connected with the court knight culture as proven by royal (Zvikov, Tyrov, Bezdez) as well as noblemen (Lanstein, Michalovice) castles. Constructions of stone houses in towns and town fortifications were also governed by the rules of the Gothic construction technique. The provinces of Bohemia took over the Gothic culture from Germany.

Era John of Luxemburg

On 7 February 1311 the coronation of John of Luxemburg and Elisabeth of Premyslids, ending with a splendid feast, was held in the Roman basilica of St. Vitas, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert. The glamour of festive ceremonies concealed the complications arising just at the beginning of John´s reign at least for a while.

The powerful Bohemian lords were afraid of the influence of foreign advisors given to the hand of John by his father Heinrich VII to help the inexperienced young man in the unknown country. John therefore had to confirm he would only appoint Bohemian noblemen to the provincial offices, promise to call the military readiness only to defend the kingdom and not to campaign with it abroad, to reduce the tax collection and extend the right of inheritance of noblemen. Until Heinrich VII, decorated with the Emperor´s crown until 1312, lived, the Bohemian lords had not ventured to John very much. The change came soon after the death of Heinrich at an Italian expedition in 1313. The pressure of Bohemian lords to dismiss foreign advisors was growing and the passage to these efforts was given in the chronicle written in Czech by an unknown author, called Dalimil. The uprising of Bohemian lords against John broke out soon and at Easter of 1318 the new Roman King Ludwig IV of Bavaria of the Wittelsbach Dynasty had to extinguish the fire. The following year John´s marriage went through a deep crisis which peaked with Elisabeth´s internment.(c.1265–1335).

However, the high-spirited and at European royal court favourite John of Luxemburg significantly increased the prestige of the provinces of Bohemia at the international scene and greatly extended their territory. In 1319-1329 he incorporated in the sovereignty of the Czech king the area of Upper Lusatia again and in 1327-1342 the majority of Silesian princedoms. He thus laid foundations to co-states of the Czech Crown which was constitutionally governed by his son Charles. He gained a strategically important Cheb region in 1322 for the help to Ludwig IV of Bavaria in the battle at Mühldorf, where Friedrich of Habsburg was defeated.

The diplomatically skilful John was able to gain a benefit from a disadvantageous situation. For many years, Ludwig IV of Bavaria lived in antagonistic relationship with the papal court with the seat in Avignon in 1309-1377. The new Pope Clement VI, the former fatherly governor of John´s first-born son Charles, bet on the educated Luxemburg prince as a possible counter-king to Ludwig IV of Bavaria in the Holy Roman Empire. On 11 July 1346 Charles of Luxembourg was elected the Roman king by the votes of five electors in Rhens upon Rhine. Several weeks later, on 26 August 1346, the king John, blind for several years at that time, died at a battle at the French village of Crécy, where he helped the French king Philip VI in a "hundred-year war" against England. The heroic death made a full stop after the life of the man perceived by the late Middle Ages Europe as the embodiment of knightly ideals.

Resources

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