Margraviate of Moravia
The Margraviate of Moravia was one of the lands of the Bohemian Crown existing from 1182 to 1918. It was administrated by a margrave in cooperation with a provincial diet, it was variously a de facto independent state, subject to the Duchy the Kingdom of Bohemia. It comprised; the Margraviate lay east with an area about half that region's size. In the north, the Sudeten Mountains, which extend to the Moravian Gate, formed the border with the Polish Duchy of Silesia, incorporated as a Bohemian crown land upon the 1335 Treaty of Trentschin. In the east and southeast, the western Carpathian Mountains separated it from present-day Slovakia. In the south, the winding Thaya River marked the border with the Duchy of Austria. Moravians considered a Czech people that speak Moravian dialects, made up the main part of the population. According to a 1910 Cisleithanian census, 27.6% identified themselves as German Moravians. These ethnic Germans would be expelled after the Second World War. Other ethnic minority groups included Poles and Slovaks.
After the early medieval Great Moravian realm had been defeated by the Árpád princes of Hungary in 907, what is now Slovakia was incorporated as "Upper Hungary", while adjacent Moravia passed under the authority of the Duchy of Bohemia. King Otto I of Germany granted it to Duke Boleslaus I in turn for his support against the Hungarian forces in the 955 Battle of Lechfeld. Temporarily ruled by King Bolesław I Chrobry of Poland from 999 until 1019, Moravia was re-conquered by Duke Oldřich of Bohemia and became a land of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas held by the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1182, the Margraviate was created at the behest of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa by merger of the three Přemyslid appanage principalities of Brno and Znojmo, given to Conrad II, the son of Prince Conrad of Znojmo; as heir apparent, the future King Ottokar II of Bohemia was appointed Moravian margave by his father Wenceslaus I in 1247. Along with Bohemia, Moravia was ruled by the House of Luxembourg from the extinction of the Přemyslid dynasty until 1437.
Jobst, nephew of Emperor Charles IV inherited the Margraviate in 1375, ruled autonomously and was elected King of the Romans in 1410. Shaken by the Hussite Wars, the Moravian nobles remained loyal supporters of the Luxembourg emperor Sigismund. In 1469, Moravia was occupied by the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus, who had allied with the Catholic nobility against the rule of George of Poděbrady and had himself elected rival king of Bohemia at Olomouc; the rivalry with King Vladislaus II was settled in the 1479 Peace of Olomouc, whereby Matthias renounced the royal title but retained the rule over the Moravian lands. With the other lands of the Bohemian Crown, the Margraviate was incorporated into the Habsburg Monarchy upon the death of King Louis II in the 1526 Battle of Mohács. Moravia was ruled as a crown land within the Austrian Empire from 1804 and within Cisleithanian Austria from 1867. During the foundation of Czechoslovakia after World War I, the Margraviate was transformed into “Moravia Land” “Moravia-Silesia Land” in 1918.
This autonomy was eliminated in 1949 by the communist government and has not been re-established since. The margrave held ultimate authority throughout the history of the margraviate; this meant. Moravia possessed a legislature, known as the Moravian Diet; the assembly has its origins with the Colloquium generale, or curia generalis. This was a meeting of the upper nobility, the Bishop of Olomouc and ambassadors from royal cities; these meetings evolved into the diet. The power of this diet waned throughout history. By the end of the margraviate, the diet was powerless; the diet consisted of three estates of the realm: the estate of upper nobility, the estate of the lower nobility, the estate of prelates and burghers. With the February Patent of 1861, the diet was reformed into a more egalitarian body, it still retained the same structure. It consisted of assembly seats for landowners, city-dwellers, rural farmers; this was retained. The coat of arms of Moravia is charged with a crowned silver-red chequered eagle with golden claws and tongue.
It first appeared in the seal of a younger son of King Ottokar I of Bohemia. After 1462 is Moravian eagle gold-red chequered, but never accepted by moravian assembly. In the mid 14th century Emperor Charles IV King of Bohemia and Margrave of Moravia, established administrative divisions called kraje; these subdivisions were named for their capitals, some of which were: Brno Jihlava Olomouc Přerov Uherské Hradiště Znojmo After the 1848 revolutions, the kraje were replaced by political districts, which were retained by the Czechoslovak administration after 1918: Part of Great Moravia Conrad II Otto 1182-1191united with Bohemia 1189-1197 Vladislaus I Henry 1197-1222, second son of King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Judith of Thuringia Vladislaus II 1223-1227, son of King Ottokar I of Bohemia and Constance of Hungary Přemysl 1227-1239, son of King Ottokar I of Bohemia and Constance of Hungary Vladislaus III 1239-1247, son of King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia and Kunigunde of Hohenstaufen Ottokar II 1247-1278, son of King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia and Kunigunde of Hohenstaufendirectly held by King Rudolph I of Germany 1278-1283 Wenceslaus II 1283-1305, son of King Ottokar II of Bohemia and Kunigunda of Halych W
Bohemia
Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech lands in the present-day Czech Republic. In a broader meaning, Bohemia sometimes refers to the entire Czech territory, including Moravia and Czech Silesia in a historical context, such as the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by Bohemian kings. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, subsequently a part of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Austrian Empire. After World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia. Between 1938 and 1945, border regions with sizeable German-speaking minorities of all three Czech lands were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland; the remainder of Czech territory became the Second Czechoslovak Republic and was subsequently occupied as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, In 1969, the Czech lands were given autonomy within Czechoslovakia as the Czech Socialist Republic. In 1990, the name was changed to the Czech Republic, which became a separate state in 1993 with the split of Czechoslovakia.
Until 1948, Bohemia was an administrative unit of Czechoslovakia as one of its "lands". Since administrative reforms have replaced self-governing lands with a modified system of "regions" which do not follow the borders of the historical Czech lands. However, the three lands are mentioned in the preamble of the Constitution of the Czech Republic: "We, citizens of the Czech Republic in Bohemia and Silesia…"Bohemia had an area of 52,065 km2 and today is home to 6.5 million of the Czech Republic's 10.5 million inhabitants. Bohemia was bordered in the south by Upper and Lower Austria, in the west by Bavaria and in the north by Saxony and Lusatia, in the northeast by Silesia, in the east by Moravia. Bohemia's borders were marked by mountain ranges such as the Bohemian Forest, the Ore Mountains, the Krkonoše, a part of the Sudetes range. In the 2nd century BC, the Romans were competing for dominance in northern Italy with various peoples including the Gauls-Celtic tribe Boii; the Romans defeated the Boii at the Battle of Mutina.
After this, many of the Boii retreated north across the Alps. Much Roman authors refer to the area they had once occupied as Boiohaemum; the earliest mention was by Tacitus' Germania 28, mentions of the same name are in Strabo and Velleius Paterculus. The name appears to include the tribal name Boi- plus the Germanic element *haimaz "home"; this Boiohaemum was isolated to the area where King Marobod's kingdom was centred, within the Hercynian forest. Emperor Constantine VII in 10th century De Administrando Imperio mentioned the region as Boïki; the Czech name "Čechy" is derived from the name of the Slavic ethnic group, the Czechs, who settled in the area during the 6th or 7th century AD. Bohemia, like neighbouring Bavaria, is named after the Boii, who were a large Celtic nation known to the Romans for their migrations and settlement in northern Italy and other places. Another part of the nation moved west with the Helvetii into southern France, one of the events leading to the interventions of Julius Caesar's Gaulish campaign of 58 BC.
The emigration of the Helvetii and Boii left southern Germany and Bohemia a inhabited "desert" into which Suebic peoples arrived, speaking Germanic languages, became dominant over remaining Celtic groups. To the south, over the Danube, the Romans extended their empire, to the southeast in present-day Hungary, were Dacian peoples. In the area of modern Bohemia the Marcomanni and other Suebic groups were led by their king Marobodus, after suffering defeat to Roman forces in Germany, he took advantage of the natural defenses provided by its forests. They were able to maintain a strong alliance with neighbouring tribes including the Lugii, Hermunduri and Buri, sometimes controlled by the Roman Empire, sometimes in conflict with it, for example in the second century when they fought Marcus Aurelius. In late classical times and the early Middle Ages, two new Suebic groupings appeared to the west of Bohemia in southern Germany, the Alemanni, the Bavarians. Many Suebic tribes from the Bohemian region took part in such movements westwards settling as far away as Spain and Portugal.
With them were tribes who had pushed from the east, such as the Vandals, Alans. Other groups pushed southwards towards Pannonia; the last known mention of the kingdom of the Marcomanni, concerning a queen named Fritigil is in the 4th century, she was thought to have lived in or near Pannonia. The Suebian Langobardi, who moved over many generations from the Baltic Sea, via the Elbe and Pannonia to Italy, recorded in a tribal history a time spent in "Bainaib". After this migration period, Bohemia was repopulated around the 6th century, Slavic tribes arrived from the east, their language began to replace the older Germanic and Sarmatian ones; these are precursors of today's Czechs, though the exact amount of Slavic immigration is a subject of debate. The Slavic influx was divided into three waves; the first wave came from the
Golden Bull of Sicily
The Golden Bull of Sicily was a decree issued by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor in Basel on 26 September 1212 that confirmed the royal title obtained by Ottokar I of Bohemia in 1198, declaring him and his heirs Kings of Bohemia. The kingship signified the exceptional status of Bohemia within the Holy Roman Empire. Ottokar's Přemyslid ancestor Vratislaus II had been elevated to a Bohemian king by Emperor Henry IV in 1085, in return for his support during the Saxon revolt and the Investiture Controversy, he was crowned at Prague by Archbishop Egilbert of Trier the next year, the title however was not hereditary and upon his death in 1092, his brother Conrad I succeeded him again as Bohemian duke. In 1158 Vratislaus' grandson Vladislaus II achieved kingship again, bestowed by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, whom he had accompanied on his Italian campaign against Milan, but failed to secure the succession of his eldest son Frederick. In September 1198 Frederick's younger half-brother Ottokar I made use of the rivalry among Otto IV from the House of Welf and the Hohenstaufen duke Philip of Swabia, youngest son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who both had been elected King of the Romans.
He received the hereditary royal title by Philip for his support and, maneuvering between both sides, achieved the acknowledgement by Otto IV as well as by Pope Innocent III. After the assassination of Philip and the papal ban imposed on Otto IV in 1210, Ottokar again switched sides, when he and several princes in 1211 convened at Nuremberg and elected the young Hohenstaufen scion Frederick II alium imperatorem. Frederick King of Sicily, left for his coronation in Germany, reaching Basel in September 1212. Here he issued the Golden Bull that confirmed the kingship of his heirs in Bohemia. According to the Golden Bull of Sicily, the estates of Bohemia and Moravia were an autonomous and undivisible constituent of the Holy Roman Empire; the King of Bohemia was no longer subject to appointment by the Emperor, was only required to attend Reichstag diets close to the Bohemian border. Although a subject of the Holy Roman Empire, the Bohemian king was to be the premier Prince-elector of the Empire and to furnish all subsequent Emperors with a bodyguard of 300 knights when they went to Rome for their coronation.
By this act Frederick II declared that he and the Empire will give the investiture for Bohemia only to a ruler approved by the people of the country. When in 1346 King Charles IV united the rule over Bohemia and Germany in his hands, he established the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, which remained beyond the Empire's suzerainty and were not considered Imperial States; as part of the 800th anniversary of the document's signature, the document was put on public display at the National Archive for four days in September 2012. Golden Bull of 1356 History of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown Merinsky, Zdenek. "The making of the Czech state: Bohemia and Moravia from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries". In Teich, Mikulas. Bohemia in History. Cambridge University Press
Roman Catholic Diocese of Regensburg
The Diocese of Regensburg is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory seated in Regensburg, Germany. Its district covers parts of northeastern Bavaria; the diocese has 1.22 million Catholics. The current bishop is Rudolf Voderholzer; the main diocesan church is Saint Peter in Regensburg. The diocese is divided into 33 deaneries with 769 parishes, it covers an area of 14,665 km². The diocese was founded in 739 by Saint Boniface. By the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the Bishopric was incorporated into the new Archbishopric of Regensburg. Friedrich von Parsberg † Friedrich von Plankenfels † Ruprecht Pfalzgraf von Rhein † Heinrich von Absberg † Ruprecht Pfalzgraf bei Rhein † Johann Pfalzgraf bei Rhein † Pankraz von Sinzenhofen † Georg Marschalk von Pappenheim † Veit von Fraunberg † David Kölderer von Burgstall † Philipp Wilhelm Herzog von Bayern † Sigmund Friedrich Graf Fugger von Kirchberg † Wolfgang von Hausen † Albert Reichsfreiherr von Törring † Franz Wilhelm Reichsgraf von Wartenberg † Johann Georg Graf von Herberstein † Adam Lorenz Reichsgraf von Törring-Stein † Guidobald Reichsgraf von Thun † Albrecht Sigmund Herzog von Bayern † Joseph Clemens Kajetan Herzog von Bayern † Clemens August Maria Herzog von Bayern † Johann Theodor Herzog von Bayern † Klemens Wenzeslaus Herzog von Sachsen † Anton Ignaz Reichsgraf von Fugger-Glött † Max Polykarp Reichsgraf von Törring-Jettenbach † Joseph Konrad Freiherr von Schroffenberg, C.
R. S. A. † Karl Theodor Freiherr von Dalberg † Johann Nepomuk Freiherr von Wolf † Johann Michael von Sailer † Georg Michael Wittmann † Franz Xaver von Schwäbl † Valentin von Riedel † Ignatius von Senestréy † Antonius von Henle † Michael Buchberger † Rudolf Graber † Manfred Müller † Gerhard Ludwig Müller Rudolf Voderholzer In July 2017, allegations surfaced that there was "a high degree of plausibility" that at least 547 members of the diocese's prestigious Domspatzen choir were either physically abused, sexually abused, or both between the years 1945 and 1992. Current Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer had announced plans to offer victims compensation of between 5,000 and 20,000 euros each by the end of 2017; the report faulted Georg Ratzinger, the brother of Pope Benedict XVI and director of the choir between the years 1964 and 1994, for "in particular for'looking away' or for failing to intervene." The report stated that former Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller bears "clear responsibility for the strategic and communicative weaknesses" in the Diocese' Dominican Convent, Regensburg Official website
Bohemian Forest
The Bohemian Forest, known in Czech as Šumava and in German as Böhmerwald, is a low mountain range in Central Europe. Geographically, the mountains extend from Plzeň Region and South Bohemia in the Czech Republic to Austria and Bavaria in Germany, form the highest truncated uplands of the Bohemian Massif, up to 50 km wide, they create a natural border between the Czech Republic on one side and Germany and Austria on the other. For political reasons, the Bohemian and German sides have different names in their languages: in Czech, the Bohemian side is called Šumava and the Bavarian side Zadní Bavorský les, while in German, the Bohemian side is called Böhmerwald, the Bavarian side Bayerischer Wald. In Czech, Šumava is used as a name for the entire adjacent region in Bohemia; the Bohemian Forest comprises forested mountains with average heights of 800–1,400 metres. The highest peak is Großer Arber on the Bavarian side; the most eastern peak is the Sternstein. The range is one of the oldest in Europe, its mountains are eroded into round forms with few rocky parts.
Typical for the Bohemian Forest are plateaux at about 1,000–1,200 m with harsh climates and many peat bogs. The Bohemian Forest is the dividing range between the watersheds of the Black Sea and the North Sea, where water collected by the Vltava, Otava and Úhlava rivers flows; these rivers all spring from the Bohemian Forest. Owing to heavy precipitation, the peat bogs and the Lipno Dam, the Šumava region is an important water reservoir for Central Europe. More important for their aesthetic value than for holding water are several lakes of glacial origin; as a border region, the Bohemian Forest has had a complicated history. In the 20th century it was part of the Iron Curtain, large areas were stripped of human settlement. Before that, settlement was sparse and for centuries forests dominated over human dwellings and pathways; these unique circumstances led to the preservation of unspoilt nature and forest ecosystems unaffected by human activity. On the other hand, many habitats dependent on farming activity are turning into forest.
In the Czech Republic, the most valuable area is protected in the Šumava National Park and Protected Landscape and the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Part of the German section is protected as the Bavarian Forest National Park; the Bohemian Forest is a popular holiday destination. Most interesting natural and cultural sights are connected with more than 500 km of summer marked trails and many bike trails. However, park administration is not always successful in its task, many believe the rapid growth of tourist accommodation and services is destroying the former calm of the Šumava region. Šumava National Park is suffering problems connected with bark beetles, there is heated debate about how to deal with it. The origin of the current name Bohemian Forest goes back to 400 BC; the Boii people spread across Europe between 400 BC and 8 BC. Boii is the Roman name of three ancient Celtic tribes, living in Transalpine Gaul, Cisalpine Gaul, Bohemia and western Slovakia; the European region of Bohemia owes its name to the Boii, who lived there until they were replaced by the Germanic Marcomanni.
The Romans called it Boiohaemum, a Latinization of the Germanic name of the region, meaning "the home of the Boii". The mountain range has been traditionally identified with Γαβρήτα Ὕλη, mentioned in Strabo's Geographica and Ptolemy's Geographia. In the 1st century AD, the forest was inhabited by Gallo-Romans as well as by Germanic tribes in its northern part. In the 6th century AD, the forefathers of the Czech people emigrated to the area. From the 13th century AD until 1945–1946, most of the region was inhabited by Bohemian Germans, many of them woodcutters; the mountains are regionally known just as the Forest. The usage of its current Czech name Šumava has been attested in Antonio Bonfini's late 15th-century work Rerum unganicarum decades; the origin of the name is not clear. Folk etymology connects it with Czech words šum, šumění, šumět denoting a noise of trees in the wind; the most accepted opinion among linguists derives Šumava from a theorized Proto-Slavic word *šuma = "dense forest", cf. Serbo-Croatian šuma.
Karel Klostermann, author Adalbert Stifter, author Towns in the Bohemian Forest Grafenau Kašperské Hory Prachatice Regen Vimperk Volary Vyšší Brod Železná Ruda Zwiesel Regions Bavarian Forest South Bohemia Mühlviertel Plzeň Region Waldviertel National Park administration Šumava Info Šumava webcam Šumava
Boleslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Boleslaus I the Cruel called Boleslav I, a member of the Přemyslid dynasty, was ruler of the Duchy of Bohemia from 935 to his death. He is notorious for the murder of his elder brother Wenceslaus. Despite his complicity in this fratricide, Boleslaus is respected by Czech historians as an energetic ruler who strengthened the Bohemian state and expanded its territory, his accomplishments include significant economic development due to an expansion in trade, the introduction of silver mining and the minting of the first local coinage, the Prague denarius. Boleslaus was the son of Duke Vratislaus I of Bohemia by his marriage with Drahomíra a Hevellian princess, his father took over the rule in Prague during the time of his birth, he had to deal with both the exertion of influence by both the East Frankish dukes of Bavaria and Saxony and the Magyar incursions. Boleslaus and his elder brother Wenceslaus were taught the Christian faith and reading the Psalms by their grandmother Ludmila. There is evidence that Boleslaus's pagan mother might influenced him against his brother and Christianity, though he repented.
In no way did he impede the growth of Christianity during his reign in Bohemia, in fact, he sent his daughter Mlada, a nun, to Pope John XIII in Rome to ask permission to make Prague a bishopric. Upon his death, Vratislaus was succeeded by his eldest son Wenceslaus. While the external situation worsened with the alliance between Duke Arnulf of Bavaria and the Saxon duke Henry the Fowler, King of East Francia from 919, he could only maintain his independence by entering an agreement on an annual tribute payable to the East Frankish ruler. Shortly afterwards, in 935, Wenceslaus was murdered at Stará Boleslav to where he was invited by Boleslaus. According to tradition, he was killed during the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian, at the time when a son of Boleslaus was born; the child was given a strange name: Strachkvas, which means "a dreadful feast". Remorseful for what he had done, Boleslaus promised to have his son educated as a clergyman and devoted his life to religion. Once having taking over the Prague throne, one of Boleslaus's major concerns was the tribute paid yearly to the East Frankish kings as stipulated in the peace treaty that Henry the Fowler had established with Boleslaus's brother Wenceslaus.
He stopped the payment shortly after he ascended the throne, which led to a prolonged war with Henry's successor King Otto. In 935 Boleslaus attacked the Thurinian allies of the Saxons in the northwest and defeated two of Otto's armies; the war deteriorated to border raids and reached its conclusion in 950, when King Otto besieged a castle owned by Boleslaus's son. This prompted Boleslaus to sign a peace treaty with Otto. Although he remained undefeated, he promised to resume the payment of tribute. Five years the armies of Czechs and Germans allied against the Magyars in the victorious Battle of Lechfeld on 10 August 955. After the battle, the remainder of the huge Magyar army turned to Bohemia, where it was crushed by Boleslaus. Shortly afterwards, in October, he helped Otto to crush an uprising of Slavic tribes led by the Obotrite princes Nakon and Stojgněv on the Lower Elbe river in the Battle on the Raxa; the defeat of invading Hungarians brought the same benefits to both Czechs. Less obvious is what Boleslaus expected to gain from his participation in Otto's war against the Obotrite princes in far north.
He wanted to ensure that his powerful German neighbors did not interfere with him in expanding the Bohemian territories to the east. As a result of the victory, Boleslaus freed the Moravian lands from Magyar raids and expanded his territory into the Polish territories of Upper Silesia and Lesser Poland. By occupying the city of Kraków, he controlled important trade routes from Prague to Lviv. To defuse the Bohemian-Polish conflict, Duke Boleslav married his daughter Dobrawa to the pagan Piast prince Mieszko I in 963/964, helped bring Christianity to Poland, he allied with Mieszko in the campaign against the Saxon count Wichmann the Younger. According to the medieval chronicler Cosmas of Prague, Duke Boleslaus died on 15 July 967, a date questioned by recent research, he was succeeded by his eldest son Boleslaus the Pious. Boleslav's wife may have been Biagota, it is unknown if she was the mother of all his four adult children: Doubravka of Bohemia, Boleslaus II, Duke of Bohemia, Strachkvas of Bohemia, Mlada of Bohemia.
Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis.
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Wenceslaus I, Wenceslas I or Václav the Good was the duke of Bohemia from 921 until his assassination in 935. His younger brother, Boleslaus the Cruel, was complicit in the murder, his martyrdom and the popularity of several biographies gave rise to a reputation for heroic virtue that resulted in his elevation to sainthood. He was posthumously declared to be a king and came to be seen as the patron saint of the Czech state, he is the subject of a carol for Saint Stephen's Day. Wenceslaus was the son of Duke of Bohemia from the Přemyslid dynasty, his grandfather, Bořivoj I of Bohemia, was converted to Christianity by Saints Methodius. His mother, Drahomíra, was the daughter of a pagan tribal chief of the Havelli, but was baptized at the time of her marriage, his paternal grandmother, Ludmila of Bohemia, saw to it that he was educated in the Old-Slavonic language and, at an early age, Wenceslas was sent to the college at Budeč. In 921, when Wenceslas was about thirteen, his father died and his grandmother became regent.
Jealous of the influence that Ludmila wielded over Wenceslas, Drahomíra arranged to have her killed. Ludmila was at Tetín Castle near Beroun when assassins murdered her on September 15, 921, she is said to have been strangled by them with her veil. She was at first buried in the church of St. Michael at Tetín, but her remains were removed by Wenceslas, to the church of St. George in Prague, built by his father. Drahomíra assumed the role of regent and initiated measures against the Christians; when Wenceslas was 18, those Christian nobles who remained rebelled against Drahomira. The uprising was successful, Drahomira was sent into exile to Budeč. With the support of the nobles, Wenceslas took control of the government. To prevent disputes between him and his younger brother Boleslav, they divided the country between them, assigning to the latter a considerable territory. After the fall of Great Moravia, the rulers of the Bohemian duchy had to deal both with continuous raids by the Magyars and the forces of the Saxon duke and East Frankish king Henry the Fowler, who had started several eastern campaigns into the adjacent lands of the Polabian Slavs, homeland of Wenceslas's mother.
To withstand Saxon overlordship, Wenceslas's father Vratislaus had forged an alliance with the Bavarian duke Arnulf, a fierce opponent of King Henry at that time. The alliance became worthless, when Arnulf and Henry reconciled at Regensburg in 921. Early in 929, the joint forces of Duke Arnulf of Bavaria and King Henry I the Fowler reached Prague in a sudden attack that forced Wenceslas to resume the payment of a tribute first imposed by the East Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia in 895, he introduced German priests, favoured the Latin rite instead of the old Slavic, which had gone into disuse in many places for want of priests. He founded a rotunda consecrated to St. Vitus at Prague Castle in Prague, which exists as present-day St. Vitus Cathedral. Henry had been forced to pay a huge tribute to the Magyars in 926 and needed the Bohemian tribute, which Wenceslas refused to pay after the reconciliation between Arnulf and Henry. Another possible reason for the attack was the formation of the anti-Saxon alliance between Bohemia, the Polabian Slavs, the Magyars.
In September 935, a group of nobles allied with Wenceslas's younger brother Boleslav plotted to kill him. After Boleslav invited Wenceslas to the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Stará Boleslav, three of Boleslav's companions, Tira, Česta, Hněvsa, fell on the duke and stabbed him to death; as the duke fell, Boleslav ran him through with a lance. According to Cosmas of Prague, in his Chronica Boëmorum of the early 12th century, one of Boleslav's sons was born on the day of Wenceslas's death; because of the ominous circumstance of his birth, the infant was named Strachkvas, which means "a dreadful feast". There is a tradition that Saint Wenceslas's loyal servant Podevin avenged his death by killing one of the chief conspirators, but was executed by Boleslav. Wenceslas was considered a martyr and saint after his death, when a cult of Wenceslas grew up in Bohemia and in England. Within a few decades, four biographies of him were in circulation; these hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages concept of the rex justus, a monarch whose power stems from his great piety as well as his princely vigor.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, the chronicler Cosmas of Prague, writing in about the year 1119, states: But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you. Several centuries this legend was asserted as fact by Pope Pius II. Although Wenceslas was only a duke during his lifetime, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I posthumously "conferred on the regal dignity and title", why he is referred to as "king" in legend and song; the hymn "Svatý Václave" or "Saint Wenceslas Chorale" is one of the oldest known Czech songs. Tracing back to the 12th century, it is still among the most popular religious songs. In 1918, at the founding of the modern Czechoslovak state, the song was discussed as a possible choice for the national anthem. During the Nazi occupation, it was played along with the Czech anthem. Wenceslaus' feast day is celebrated on September 28, on this day celebrati
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This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/.
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