He [the bishop] so gave his heart to defending the poor that he did not shrink from incurring the offense of the leading men of the land for their defense, terrifying them away from such activities. ⋯ Duke Theobald, nephew both of the bishop and of duke Frederick, by whose grace he ruled a quarter [of the land], so loosed the leash for his bailiffs that they did whatever they pleased. ⋯ Similarly even Duke Frederick and Duchess Elizabeth dared to do similar things, nay worse, against the church of God through their officials.147
In this second passage, Gerlach clearly equates the “poor” with the church; Bishop Henry would have to appeal to the emperor to secure immunity for the Bohemian church from the duke’s interventions.148 Still, expectations about the just treatment of peasants according to “the laws of his land” prevailed at the end of the twelfth century, even as they were apparently being violated. For Gerlach, Soběslav II was notable for attempting to uphold customary law and keep such abuses contained, while Frederick was equally infamous. Nonetheless, both descriptions, of the efforts of Soběslav II and of Bishop Henry, reflect a general atmosphere of tension between the wealthy and powerful, and the lesser people of the realm.
In the thirteenth century colonizing efforts would far outpace the growth of the native population, creating opportunities for German immigrants willing to move east.149 If, in the second half of the twelfth century, people became as valuable a resource as land, it is little wonder that lords undertook to be certain of the assets under their control and perhaps to draw in others. Small landowners in long-settled areas too would have been vulnerable to the desire of magnates and monasteries for consolidated holdings. We should not overemphasize the increasing subjection of free peasantry, however. Marcant’s agreement with the bell ringers of Vyšehrad in 1184 was witnessed not only by the chapter’s canons, by the duke and officers of the court, but also by small landowners from neighboring villages.150 Marcant himself must have been a minor, if ambitious, freeman rather than a more prominent magnate, or perhaps a merchant, as his name suggests.151 Many others like him may have sought to profit from their limited assets by making deals with others of greater or lesser means, or by exploiting resources yet untapped. It would be some time before categories of status became fixed, and the process would begin at the lower, not the elite, levels of society: in other words, among those of restricted means and, if military service was indeed becoming limited, increasingly cut off from participation in the dynamic of Czech politics.
If we can assume that there was always an operative distinction between wealthier, more powerful freemen and ordinary free farmers and craftsmen, that gap began to widen at the end of the twelfth century. Those in possession of the requisite resources of land, people, and money to exploit uncultivated forest, to plant vineyards, and to trade whole villages for others better situated, surely profited greatly by such activities. As a result, they would have had more land, people, and money available for more colonization and consolidation. They could even establish on their lands a few fellow warriors, men who would be obligated chiefly, if not yet exclusively, to them. If they were more concerned for their souls, they could devote the bulk of their newly acquired lands to the establishment of monasteries. The holdings of these magnates could still not compare with those of the duke, but no longer could lesser freemen become their equals, however proficient in arms or trusted in ducal service. In earlier times, it was possible for a lesser man to be raised to an important court office or castellany by the duke and to be given extra lands by him to augment his small holdings, thereby effectively becoming the equal of wealthier men from more prominent families. In the early thirteenth century, it would be far more difficult for such a man to wield influence comparable to his wealthier, better established colleagues by means of a gift of land from the king. In other words, beginning at the end of the twelfth century, the Czech magnates, led by enterprising individuals, slowly began transforming themselves into a more traditional landed nobility.
There is no doubt that these are instances of a dramatic change, one that deeply affected both social mobility and shared interests, as described above. We cannot know whether these changes also resulted from, or precipitated, other socioeconomic developments rendered invisible by the extant source materials. But, consciously or unconsciously, the magnates were indeed taking pages out of the duke’s own book. If his superiority was based on large amounts of land, they could increase their own holdings through smart management, consolidation, and colonization. If the duke drew his supporters from those subject to him, they could bring more people—peasants and warriors—under their own control. If the duke could count on the spiritual support of ecclesiastical institutions that he founded and endowed, they could establish new monasteries. But such changes did not yet fundamentally alter the nature and exercise of political power in the Czech Lands. Those privileges and prerogatives that formed the basis of ducal power remained in his hands: huge tracts of land, cultivated and uncultivated; rights of tax, toll, and coinage; jurisdiction; military command; and castles. The political structure of the Czech Lands, the “balance and interdependence” to which we turn in the next chapter, had not yet been transfigured.
3. INTERDEPENDENCE
The previous chapters took institutional and social-structural approaches to political life in the eleventh- and twelfth-century Czech Lands, focusing on the duke and the freemen respectively. Neither, however, suffices alone to describe the exercise of, or resistance to, power. Having thus laid the groundwork, we turn here to consider relations between the duke and the freemen, that is, between the extensive lordship ascribed to the Přemyslid ruler and the composition of lay society as deduced from the sources. The duke had significant and far-reaching rights over his subjects, although common sense suggests that he required the aid and services of many individuals to govern his realm. Freemen of all levels, for their part, saw in the duke’s service the path to social advancement and greater wealth. All this should be clear enough already. This chapter, however, offers further elaboration of, and somewhat qualifies, the conclusions reached in Chapters 1 and 2. For the freemen, for instance, the social mobility that characterized their lives, in which the duke played a crucial role, was profoundly constrained by violence at his hands. Analysis of lordship in the Czech Lands, meanwhile, requires consideration of succession to the ducal throne at Prague and of the dynasty that dominated it.
The fundamental bases of power for the duke of Bohemia hardly changed from the mid-eleventh to the end of the twelfth century, while the structure of society for freemen at the highest and lowest levels began to be transformed only slowly in the last years of this period. Yet the chronicles, and the coins and charters too in their way, portray a world far from static; each quarter century differed in many respects from the previous or the next. Understanding the consequences of Czech social structure for the duke’s power, and Přemyslid lordship for the fortunes of the freemen, is the foundation for the give-and-take reported in the chronicles and analyzed in Part II. The key, this chapter argues, lies in the interdependence and tense balance between the duke and the freemen. And the ramifications for political affairs were far-reaching. The goal, here and in succeeding chapters, is not merely to make the case for such a model, but to understand and demonstrate how it functioned, how it evolved over the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and, within it, how the Czechs adapted to—and often instigated—new challenges and opportunities.
Critical Transitions: The Case of 1109
In 1107, Svatopluk successfully unseated his cousin, Duke Bořivoj, and was enthroned duke of Bohemia. A similar attempted overthrow launched the previous summer had narrowly failed, but Bořivoj’s hold on power was already so tenuous that he was unable decisively to defeat Svatopluk, then vice-duke of Olomouc; simply, he did not trust the loyalty of his army to pursue