For all freemen, whether the most prominent or the most denigrated, the means to augmenting their resources and improving their status were substantially the same. Most especially freemen of every rank, perhaps more so those with fewer resources and from less exalted lineages, all shared hope for improvement of personal and family fortunes through service to the duke (or a prospective duke). The duke disposed of all castellanies, from guard-posts to the administration of flourishing towns, as well as court offices, from which profit and prestige could be acquired and maintained. Office-holding or other appointment to ducal service was not the only means to profit at the duke’s hand, moreover. Dukes were known to alienate land permanently as a reward for faithful service.91 The duke also called and led the military campaigns and raids, especially in foreign lands (and sometimes against Moravia), that provided booty for everyone, if not to all equally. When he promised extraordinary support to the emperor, he paid the army outright. The alacrity with which young men, in particular, responded to Vladislav II’s expedition to Milan bears witness to the lure of such prizes.
Freemen, naturally, had friends among themselves, relatives or comrades whom they especially trusted, or perhaps despised. Their decisions as to which factions to join in succession conflicts were surely as motivated by feelings toward the freemen in their own or opposing parties as by views of the Přemy-slid pretenders. General oaths of fidelity, however, were sworn neither to the ruler nor, so far as we know, among personal friends or bands of comrades.92 There is likewise no indication of feud or “self-help” among Czech freemen at any time during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Since the means to profit, or the risk of harm, lay with the Přemyslid ruler, there was no advantage to feuding among themselves; rather, a great deal was to be gained by solidarity, as we shall see. This is not to say that the magnates were always in harmony, that resentments and lawsuits did not arise among them, nor even that they never killed one another.93 Tension manifest between individuals or factions—at least when reported in the chronicles—was, however, invariably mediated by the duke; that is, enemies are attacked by inciting the duke against them. Where a magnate is seen plotting against another, the reason given is always that the latter has undue influence over the duke or is excessively favored by him.94 Such a picture may simply result from duco-centric sources, which provide virtually no information about how medieval Czech magnates related to each other, especially in the localities in which they and their families lived. By the same token, there is no sign that the duke acted positively to resolve conflict between men or kin-groups, or was asked to do so.
Social mobility and shared interests among the freemen had profound political consequences, both structurally and in specific cases. These are examined more closely in Chapters 3 and 6. Nevertheless, a single dramatic and directly pertinent example suffices to drive the point home, namely the account by the anonymous Canon of Vyšehrad of the discovery and trial of plotters against Duke Soběslav I in 1130.95 The two men captured claimed to have been sent by Miroslav, the son of Comes John, and his younger brother Střežimír. With them seized in turn, Soběslav called some three thousand Bohemians, “noble and ignoble,” to Vyšehrad, as well as the canons of Prague and Vyšehrad, including the chronicler. Upon public questioning from one of his fellow magnates, Miroslav claimed to have been approached by Bolesa, a warrior of Soběslav’s nephew Břetislav, and by Soběslav’s own chaplain Božík. Miroslav then reported Božík’s persuasive words: “Dear son, was anyone more noble or more wise in this province than your father? But you are considered least among the magnates of this land. Moreover, will you allow your own brother, a long time in chains for nothing, to incur such evil? It is, therefore, better that, having thrown over this exceedingly proud duke, we enthrone such a one from whom we will have, without a doubt, everything that we might want.”96
Božík then led Miroslav to Bishop Meinhard of Prague, to whom he pointed as the source of the plot. Miroslav reported that, in order to secure their cooperation: “Bishop Meinhard ⋯ placed two fingers on relics of the saints, and said words of this sort to me: ‘If you take the life of the duke, you willwithout doubt possess with honor whichever you choose among these five, namely Žatec, Litoměřice, the office of chamberlain, dapifer, or agazo, this on my promise and by the grant of Duke Břetislav.’ ”97 More testimony followed, after which Miroslav, Střežimír, and several others were publicly and brutally dismembered. As the Canon of Vyšehrad tells it, Miroslav and Střežimír were frustrated that the status their father had achieved did not reflect upon them and translate into their own prominence in the realm; their hope for improvement lay in the offices the duke could bestow and, not having received any, their recourse was to impose a new duke. Scheming toward his own ends, the bishop tempted them with the most appealing choices: the castellanies of Žatec and Litoměřice, or the three court offices of chamberlain, dapifer, and agazo. He did not suggest they seize them but instead promised that Břetislav would grant them if they made his enthronement possible. Miroslav and Střežimír, notably, did not attempt to raise their ranking vis-à-vis their fellow magnates by usurping others’ lands or positions, or by assailing them with arms or lawsuits, but instead sought to replace the duke with one who would favor them at the expense of others.
One side effect of social mobility, however, reflected in the events of 1130, was avid jockeying for position. This kind of outright competition sheds new light on Vacek’s scheming, and on the resentment harbored by the duke’ own sons against men like Zderad and Vojslav. No wonder men jumped at the chance to eliminate the Vršovici, to profit from the confiscation of others’ lands at the duke’s order. It was a game that could be played quite ruthlessly by both dukes and freemen. The duke of Bohemia, and thus Prague, stood at the center of it all—a point to which we return in the next chapter. How, when, and why the freemens’ manuevering translated into rebellions will be considered at length in Chapter 6. Meanwhile, both for the most ambitious magnates and for other ordinary families, men of middling or less wealth and prestige, and primates too, the combination of good luck and sound management of land and other assets remained the best way to assure their well-being. In the long run, as the twelfth-century closed, the charters show a few men working more assiduously at this level to alter the degree to which their fortunes depended upon the duke. They would thus initiate a broader transformation of lay Czech society, one that culminated only in the first half of the thirteenth century. While those decades lie outside the scope of this study, consideration of the late twelfth-century manifestations of these changes provides vital clues toward understanding the freemen during the preceding one hundred years.
Toward Independence
The thirteenth century in Bohemia and Moravia was a time of enormous, fast-paced change: the duke became a king, wide tracts of forest were cleared for agriculture, huge silver deposits were discovered and exploited, both new and long-established towns were granted charters of privilege, and waves of Germans immigrated to become farmers, miners, and townsmen. By 1250, moreover, the Czech freemen had become a nobility that looked altogether different than one hundred, or even fifty, years earlier. The seeds of this change, with regard to landholding and personal status in particular, were planted in the closing decades of the twelfth century. In sharp contrast to the discussion with which this chapter began, this “transitional” period provides the best evidence for conditions among the top, or even middle, rank of freemen. By means of contrast, the sources thereby shed light on the situation of the freemen before, and for most of them during, this last quarter of the twelfth century. Whereas earlier all the extant charters were analyzed for general principles and broad social conditions, the remainder of this chapter will focus on exceptional items in a few documents, which point to shifts in prevailing norms. Although anomalies will be stressed here, it is crucial to keep in mind that patterns of content and language, about possessiones, say, persist in these as well as earlier charters. Likewise, while this chapter examines in greater detail documents of sale, exchange, and monastic foundation, it does not alter the conclusions reached earlier, for instance about the legal norms of property ownership. It is important,