He [Boleslav] immediately called the leaders of the people into one and to a man. Leading them to a place on the Elbe and pointing to this place he opened up to them the secret of his heart: “Here,” he said, “I want and command, that you build for me the walls of a city in the Roman manner very high and in a circle.” To this they said: “We who are the mouth of the people and hold the staffs of honor, we refuse you, because we do not recognize and do not want to do what you command, and nor did our fathers do such a thing before. Behold, we stand in your presence and we submit our necks to your sword rather than to such unbearable servitude. Do what you wish, but we will not obey your commands.”130
Boleslav called this bluff and, brandishing his sword in a terrifying manner, killed a man who was “first among the seniores” in order to help the people decide “whether it was lighter to submit their necks to the sword or to the bond of servitude.” They instantly capitulated, agreed to do whatever the duke ordered, and built a city—named Boleslav—according to his desires.131 Although in this case the story recounts the construction of an entirely new castle, most references specify or imply the refortification of existing sites. That men could be pressed to this task, as well as active military service, is reported in a simple fashion by the Canon of Vyšehrad: “At that time, the Czechs rebuilt certain fortifications, which are called Přimda, Zhořelec, and Tachov in Slavic.”132 The obligation to erect castles was linked to mandatory military service, and like it, seems to have applied universally to all freemen. The Czechs were also obliged to fell trees as a defense against invaders along certain forest roads, a barrier called přeseka. Soběslav II absolved the men of the monastery of Kladruby from this “cutting of the forest,” except in one location.133 Road and bridge building obligations are also mentioned in the Hradiště immunity, although whether they also arose out of military obligations, for instance, in accordance with the need to move men through the territory for its defense, remains uncertain.
The duke’s right to muster the Czech freemen was undoubtedly associated with his role as their chief military leader. His obligation to lead expeditions personally must have been taken for granted. The chroniclers, for instance, apparently felt no need to state something so obvious: the Přemyslids whose blindings they report were thereby automatically removed from the line of succession because this disability prevented them from leading men into battle. The only military engagement mentioned in which the duke is not present was a raiding party apparently undertaken with his permission.134 For imperial campaigns in Italy, which occurred regularly during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa and were apparently considered outside customary military service, the duke sometimes designated another Přemyslid to lead the army in his place.135 The only duke ever shown to be unwilling to fight is the mythical Neklan, whose very name translates as “not esteemed.” In Cosmas’s story, Neklan contrives to place his closest counsellor in command, dressed in his own clothes and on his horse. This man, called Tyro, likewise assumed the duke’s task of exhorting his men to fight valiantly in the imminent battle, noting at the outset of his speech: “It is fitting for a duke to add strength to his warriors with words.”136
Přemyslid rulers no doubt derived substantial authority from their military role and prowess. As Cosmas says, “What would limbs do without a head, or warriors in battle without a duke?”137 Besides the benefits to the duke’s personal prestige, say, from the successful expansion of his territory, much political clout—especially in the eleventh century—must have depended upon his leadership of bounty raids, profitable to ruler and warriors alike. The alternative was also true: Duchess Elizabeth apparently had more military sense than her husband, Frederick, and, according to Gerlach’s account, prevented his overthrow by Soběslav in 1179 by her forethought.138 Not surprisingly, the chronicler speaks in another context of “Lady Elizabeth, who governed Bohemia more than her husband did.”139 Ultimately, the duke of Bohemia was charged with defending the realm and its inhabitants, and his subjects with assisting him in that endeavor. As with jurisdiction, this was not a task the duke could fulfill alone, as Cosmas notes as a corollary to his earlier question: “just as a warrior without arms lacks his function, so a duke without warriors has not even the title of duke.” 140
The Přemyslid duke of Bohemia must have enjoyed extraordinary wealth and indisputed predominance in the Czech Lands. He maintained complete control of all fortifications and their castellans, and held supreme jurisdiction. Minting in Bohemia was centralized at Prague and coins were issued in the duke’s name alone. The Czechs could be compelled to perform military service at the ruler’s command, as well as being required to build castles, bridges, roads, and přeseky. The duke amassed a substantial treasure from a wide array of taxes, from sales, tolls, and annual collections. And he had at his disposal far more land, arable and especially unsettled forest, than even the wealthiest magnate. The power of the duke of Bohemia was vast and—outside Moravia—hardly delegated. The worries of the mythic prophetess Libuše seem, then, to have been justified. But the Czech freemen were not so disenfranchised before their duke as her speech made out. The ruler did not himself stand above the ius terrae but was charged with upholding it and, in many instances, bound by it. He had no claim to land owned by others, whatever their status; they were free to utilize their property as they wished. His right to demand labor services was limited by custom, and his warriors stood ready to remind their leader of that fact. The realities of politics, most importantly, were a potent and omnipresent constraint upon the duke’s exercise of his extensive rights and privileges.
2. THE FREEMEN
In Cosmas’s account of the mythic origins of ducal lordship, Libuše prophesied “what the rights of a duke might be” and predicted the duke’s indisputed domination of medieval Czech society. He would, she said, do with the Czechs and their property as he pleased. Indeed, in the preceeding chapter the duke of Bohemia’s rights and assets proved extensive; he exercised comprehensive oversight in his territory and enjoyed a near monopoly of the institutional bases for power. Libuše warned the Czechs that the decision to subject themselves to a duke would result in their own near-total disempowerment. Yet throughout the Chronica Boemorum and the chronicles which succeeded it appears ample evidence that Czech laymen were by no means powerless, their lives and goods disposed according to the duke’s whim. Nor, as Chapter 6 demonstrates at length, were they too terrified of their lord to oppose him.
All power, it goes without saying, entails relationships. Even at the highest political levels, there always existed some connection—real or idealized—between ruler and ruled. We need, therefore, to bring the Czech freemen out from behind the duke’s shadow, to treat them in their own right. Only then will it be possible to understand their motivations, constraints, and internal dynamics, as well as their stance toward the dukes they were so often ready to depose. Nevertheless, understanding the “ordinary folk” in medieval Czech society is exceedingly difficult, often quite frustrating, because most of what can be known about laymen per se must be deduced from their relations to the duke, around whom the narrative and documentary materials are oriented. The duke’s subjects, the lay inhabitants of the Czech Lands, comprised a wide array of individuals, nearly all of whom lived and died beyond the purview of the extant sources.1 It is impossible to put faces and names to more than a few men, rare to know any background for those, and altogether futile to look for any comment about their mothers, wives, or daughters. Distinguishing between laymen of different stations, even knowing what the defining social strata were, likewise relies largely on guesswork, as do assumptions about the apparently “elite” men who appear in the sources.
In the last one hundred years of scholarship