For the duke and for those subject to the throne, Prague was of primary importance. Yet the outer limits of the Czech Lands were no more a matter of mere geography than Prague’s position at the “center” of Bohemia. The territory’s boundaries were defined in part naturally and in part by the long arm of ducal lordship, which touched everyone in the Czech Lands equally (albeit indirectly in Moravia)—often violently. Dukes of Bohemia possessed both the means and the willingness to commit violence, to act beyond the bounds of their customary rights of lordship as part of the exercise of power. In the Czech Lands, violence—sudden, unjustified, and terrifying54—did not flare up in times of chaos or merely in the absence of good governance and “peace”; it was, in many ways, endemic. This is not to say that it was institutionalized, nor that—as in a society undergirded by notions of honor and rights of self-help—it governed day-to-day relations between individuals of every rank. It nevertheless shaped Czech political life. While dukes of Bohemia likewise found themselves liable to suffer violence, its threat, and the fear it induced acted most forcefully as a constraint upon the freemen and other Přemyslids.
The duke probably had more carrots to offer the freemen than sticks with which to beat them, but the threat of violence played a signicant role in their relations. Again, one particular incident—among many such—provides a compelling illustration of the way it affected, and was mobilized by, all parties involved in political decisions. In 1158, Vladislav II appealed to the ambitions of younger warriors, offering them rich rewards in order to overcome the opposition of more prominent men to participating in Barbarossa’s Milan campaign.55 However, in absolving all freemen from obligatory military service, the newly crowned king declared that those unwilling to join up could remain at home “secure in my peace.” Vincent’s report of Vladislav’s remark intimates that this (and the later expedition to Hungary) lay beyond customary obligations, and the ruler effectively recognized them as such. But the statement attributed to the king does not frame the release in those terms. It was, instead, a clear and simple renunciation of violence: it meant, in the instance it was uttered, that Vladislav would not pursue and punish those who did not muster, that he would not make an effort to enforce his will. Yet if violence threatened in those few crucial moments when Vladislav announced his intentions, it posed a danger to the king no less—more even—than to his warriors.56 The astute ruler must have immediately realized, if not foreseen, that widespread opposition to his plans might quickly incite the magnates to rebellion. Thus, in one sentence, a threefold maneuver: defray the tension first by a swift acknowledgement that justice lay on the freemen’s side and simultaneously declare unwillingness to force adherence to his view, then introduce divisions among the objecting freemen by enticing the hesitant with promises of booty. The latter worked both to assure that the campaign to Milan would proceed as planned and to preempt any move toward revolt by drawing lines between the freemen, playing the young against the established toward the king’s own ends. It was a masterful stroke, but one that must not be misconstrued: “peace” was offered not as an act of royal magnanimity, but to safeguard Vladislav’s position on the throne.
Constraints on the Ruler
To ask whether the duke of Bohemia’s power over his land and his subjects was “absolute” is to joust with a strawman, for no medieval ruler’s could be or was ever conceived as such. Yet, given the nature of the sources, we are at a loss to determine the legal or institutional constraints upon the duke’s exercise of his overwhelming lordship. Never is it made explicit what limitations on military obligations freemen could demand, what taxes could be considered unwarranted, what judicial decisions could be contested. Yet the apparent volatility of Czech political life suggests that, whether in these spheres or others, the duke could count on opposition when he stepped out of bounds. Although some abstract understanding of justice or right governance presumably set a standard against which dukes could be judged, the key to resistance against him seems to lie in the give-and-take, the politicking itself. Strikingly, when Přemyslids fought, it was never over land, or money, rights of minting, jurisdiction, or military leadership, but all those things combined: becoming duke.
Becoming Duke
At stake in debates and struggles like those of 1109 was the ducatus, an abstract noun interchangeable with principatus and analogous to episcopatus.57 Ducatus itself is never explicitly defined or glossed in any written source, any more than regnum, res publica, or gubernacula, but its meaning is plain enough. It could be used in a territorial sense—the meaning that most readily follows from the English “duchy.” More often it signified ducal rule, lordship, and status.58 Ducatus was but one of many ways to convey this. Cosmas’s list of the mythic successors to Přemysl, in which the chronicler flourishes his Latin vocabulary to avoid repetition, demonstrates this quite clearly:
Nezamysl succeeded him in rule [successit in regnum]. When death took him, Mnata secured the princely rods [principales obtinuit fasces]. With him departing this life, Vojn took up the helm [suscepit rerum gubernacula]. After his fate, Vnislav ruled the duchy [rexit ducatum]. When the Fates cut short his life, Krezomysl was placed on the summit of the see [locatur sedis in arce]. Having removed him from our midst, Neklan obtained the throne of the duchy [ducatus potitur solio]. When he left this life, Hostivít succeeded to the throne [throno successi].59
Admittedly somewhat fanciful, Cosmas’s language accords with phrases that echo throughout the charters and writings of other, less verbose chroniclers.60 Vincent says of the revolt of 1142 that the rebels “said they had chosen badly for themselves a lord who could not guide the helm of so great a duchy,” and so they “elected as duke” another Přemyslid.61
Ducatus, without any doubt, derived from the ruler’s title, dux. It seems to have been adopted early as a translation for kníže, meaning “prince,” recorded in Old Church Slavonic vitae of Saint Václav (Wenceslas).62 The nature and origins of the title were so thoroughly taken for granted by eleventh- and twelfth-century Czechs that no chronicler or scribe bothered to comment upon or account for it. Cosmas’s story of the mythic origins of ducal lordship in no way addresses the title, rank, or office the new lord would occupy. The man on the throne in Prague was also routinely called princeps, although this word could be used in a more general sense.63 While princeps was used freely and indistinguishably from dux in chronicles and charters,64 the latter patently constituted a Přemyslid ruler’s “official” title. From the first time a title appeared to modify a duke’s name on a coin, it is dux.65 In most documents and on all extant seals, the ruler is styled Dei gratia dux boemorum, sometimes simply dux Boemie. Rex, a title the Czechs knew from neighbors, was fastidiously—and quite consciously—avoided. Monarcha however appears in rare instances; in fact, Cosmas once remarks: “nisi monarchos hunc regat ducatum ⋯”66 Without being equivalent to duke, it emphasizes, like the story of Přemysl itself, governance of land and people by a single individual, in this case, addressed as “duke.”
At first and perhaps always at heart, dux was the title of a warlord, indicating someone who led (duxit) the army into battle. This may explain both why this particular Latin word was assigned by outsiders to the chieftains, elders, or leaders of the Slavs they encountered,67 and also why it