Battle of Biwanka

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Battle of Biwanka
date 22nd to 23rd August 1040
place near Pivoň in the Upper Palatinate Forest
output Victory of the Bohemians
Parties to the conflict

Bohemia

Holy Roman Empire

Commander

Duke Břetislav I.

King Henry III

Troop strength
unknown unknown
losses

unknown

unknown

The Battle of Biwanka (also the Battle of Stokau ), in what is now the Czech Republic , was a military conflict between the troops of the Roman-German King Heinrich III. and of the Bohemian Duke Břetislav I on August 22nd and 23rd, 1040 in western Bohemia in the Pivoňka valley near the Stockau or Biwanka monastery . in which Břetislav's forces were victorious.

prehistory

Břetislav had undertaken a campaign to Poland in the summer of 1039 , plundered Kraków and other cities and captured Gniezno . There, in the presence of high Bohemian church princes, he opened the grave of Adalbert of Prague (Czech. Vojtěch , Polish. Wojciech ) and removed his bones in order to transfer them to Prague with those of his stepbrother Radim-Gaudentius , the first bishop of Gniezno . Although the campaign weakened Poland considerably through the occupation of Silesia , Gnesen and Moravia , the taking possession of these relics was probably the real reason for the campaign. With the help of the relics, Prague was to be upgraded to an independent Bohemian archbishopric and thus independent of Gniezno. Corresponding plans were pursued with an embassy to the Pope, but encountered bitter resistance from the Archbishop of Mainz , who held suzerainty over the diocese of Prague.

King Henry III shared the view of the Archbishop of Mainz. He also called for Břetislav to withdraw from Poland, which, like Bohemia, was a vassal principality of the Holy Roman Empire , as well as a high penalty , which Břetislav was not prepared to pay. Instead, sent it to prevent a campaign against the kingdom of Bohemia, his son Spytihněv as a hostage to the king. When Břetislav continued to refuse to pay tribute, Henry III broke. in August 1040 with two army columns to Bohemia.

course

By being held hostage, Břetislav bought himself almost a year in which to win the King of Hungary Peter Orseolo as an ally. This sent 3,000 men to help. He had jumps cleverly built in order to be able to grasp those who were advancing over the pass near Furth im Wald , which he succeeded in doing, although Heinrich was extremely cautious and approached in several sections. Heinrich himself marched with Bavarian troops from Cham , where he had arrived on August 14, along the Chamb . Heinrich sent an advance guard of 1,000 men into a side valley. His plan was to attack the enemy from two sides, but it was precisely this vanguard under the leadership of the Reichsbannerträger, Count Werner I. von Maden , that got to the entrenchments on both sides of the valley. Here the decision was made on August 22nd, the Battle of Biwanka. Most of the warriors of the vanguard were killed, the Fulda Totenannalen name numerous individual fates. Meanwhile, Otto von Schweinfurt was supposed to attack from the opposite side, but got into trouble there too and had to retreat on 23 August with many losses.

At Chlumec (Kulm) there was the First Battle of Chlumec on September 22nd, 1040 , as a result of which Heinrich's army had to withdraw. However, Heinrich answered an offer to negotiate with a demand for unconditional submission. In the late summer of the following year Heinrich dared a new attack. With the presumed help of the local hermit Günther , the founder of the Rinchnach monastery , the German entourage passed through the Bohemian Forest without major difficulties and was able to unite with the Saxon army outside Prague on September 8th. Břetislav surrendered to this superiority on September 29th and submitted to the emperor in Regensburg a few days later .

See also

literature

  • Max Perlbach , The Wars of Henry III. against Bohemia. 1039-1041. Dieterich'sche Buchhandlung, Göttingen 1870, PDF (1.63 MB) .

for the Stockau Monastery ( Biwanka Monastery , also: Pivonka , Pivoň ) see:

  • Josef Bernklau, Franz Schröpfer, Heinrich Cenefels, Franz Spaderns: Stockau. In: Franz Liebl, Heimatkreis Bischofteinitz (Hrsg.): Our Heimatkreis Bischofteinitz. Brönner & Daentler KG, Eichstätt 1967, (pp. 272–276)
  • Karlmann Pöhnl: The Stockau Monastery. In: Franz Liebl, Heimatkreis Bischofteinitz (Hrsg.): Our Heimatkreis Bischofteinitz. Brönner & Daentler KG, Eichstätt 1967, (pp. 449–454)

Edits

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl von Leoprechting, Chronicle of the von Elsenberg On the Sittengeschichte des Mittelalters In: Franz Pocci, Rudolf von Reding-Biberegg (Ed.), Old and new , 1855, Volume 2, p. 110 on Google books online
  2. ↑ M. Perlbach: The Wars of Heinrich III. against Bohemia. 1039-1041. P. 446 ff.
  3. ↑ Jörg K. Hoensch, History of Bohemia: From the Slavic Landquisition to the Present , 1997, p. 54
  4. ↑ Ignaz Cornova, letters to a little lover of patriotic history etc. - Prague 1797, p. 67 Google book search online