Slavnikids
The Slavnikiden even Slawnikiden (Czech: Slavníkovci ) was a Bohemian noble family.
Older Czech and German historiography saw the Slavnikids as powerful rulers over an independent principality in eastern Bohemia and opponents of the ruling Přemyslid dynasty. Their fall in 995 was considered the last step towards the final unification of the country. However, more recent studies attach less importance to the family.
The most famous representative was Adalbert , the second bishop of Prague .
Beginnings
The first known representatives of the Slavnikids were the princes Vitislav (895) and Vok (968). Little more is known about them than their name and their outstanding social position.
Slavník was the Slavnikid prince, his wife Střezislava. Six children born in wedlock from this connection are known by name: the eldest son Soběslav took over the role of head of the family after the death of his father in 981, his brother Adalbert became bishop of Prague a year later. Four other brothers named Čáslav, Pobraslav, Pořej and Spytimír died in an attack on the Libice Castle on September 28, 995. Legends also mention two illegitimate sons who accompanied the bishop on his travels. Gaudentius was ordained the first Archbishop of Gniezno after Adalbert's death. Radla, Adalbert's friend and tutor, took over a high position at the Hungarian royal court after 995.
The 14th century chronicle of Dalimil also mentions a prince Radislav as Slavnik's brother. He is said to have been the ruler of the mighty Kouřim Castle and was defeated in a duel by the Přemyslid Wenceslaus of Bohemia at the beginning of the 10th century.
Domain
In the Chronica Boemorum, Cosmas of Prague names the Slavicid castles for the year 981
- Libice nad Cidlinou as the main town
- Chýnov (in the south)
- Doudleby (in the south)
- Netolice (in the south)
- Litomyšl (in the east)
- Kladsko (in the north)
- Osseca (to the west)
How far the Slavnikid domain extended is the subject of scientific controversy. On the basis of coin finds and archaeological excavations, the two East Bohemian towns Libice nad Cidlinou and Kutná Hora # StadtgliederungMalín near Kutná Hora have been clearly confirmed as fortified Slavnikid castles.
The location of Osseca is still unknown today. It is said to have been a castle on a mountain called Osseca near the Mže River . In the 19th century it was assumed that the castle was located in Březina , where the remains of a large early medieval fortification have been preserved. Later the place was sought south of Prague, mostly at the old confluence of the Berounka and Moldau . There the hill Havlín near Zbraslav, built with the St. Gallus Church, is considered the most likely location. The Hřebeny ( Brdykamm ) between Klínec and Všenory are also possible as a location. So far none of the theories has been able to provide unequivocal proof.
Fortress sites have not yet been archaeologically proven at all known border locations, the actually existing ones have not yet been fully investigated. An unequivocal assignment to the sex of the Slavnikids was not possible in any case.
A document from 1086 , which describes the boundaries of the diocese of Prague around 973, provides further information: In the text, an area between the Elbe , low mountain ranges and Moravia , which corresponds to the presumed area of the Slavnikids, is not included in the scope of the diocese. The eastern border forms the Elbe u. a. with the castles Děčín , Litoměřice and Mělník as well as the castle Tuhošť . This is only a little southwest of the Slavnikid Netolice .
Coin finds
Three larger treasures and a number of individual finds show that the Slavnikids maintained their own mints in the 980s and 990s. The silver denarii pass on the names of the minters - Soběslav and Adalbert - and the places Libice and Malín as mints. The images do not differ much from the Přemyslid coins of the same period. One of the types of coins depicting a hand with a dagger and a bird motif was interpreted as evidence of the Slavnikid's striving for independence. The family entered into competition with the Přemyslids through their own coin production, and the power of disposal over the silver mines in Kutná Hora was a main source of their wealth. Recent geological investigations, however, doubt that silver mining in Kutná Hora was technically possible before the 13th century. The money could also have been made from imported metal. There is also no news about a coin shelf as early as the 10th century. According to this view, the coins can no longer be used as evidence of a rivalry between the two sexes, but they continue to underline the outstanding position of the family.
Rise and fall
Based on the fragmentary written messages and the coins, a picture emerged from the end of the 19th century in which the Slavnikid family belonged to the most powerful Bohemian noble families of the early Middle Ages, on an equal footing with the Přemyslids and related to German kings. The Slavnikids are said to have been the strongest competitors of the Přemyslids in the struggle for power in Bohemia, they minted their own coins and had their own army, which they also made available to the emperor. But they were also allies of the Přemyslids, with whom they vainly marched against the Franks in the Battle of Fulda in 872 .
The first known prince Slavník, who resided near Libice nad Cidlinou , then used the weakness of the Přemyslid Boleslav I in the second half of the 10th century and gradually conquered all of South Bohemia. His territory is said to have towered over that of the Přemyslids. Relations between the two sexes are said to have been friendly under his reign and at the beginning of the reign of his son Soběslav. One year after Slavník's death, Prince Boleslav II is said to have allowed his son Vojtěch (Adalbert of Prague) to be elected Bishop of Prague.
After Slavník and Střezislava left six legitimate male descendants, the Přemyslids had to fear the overwhelming power of the Slavnikids. As early as the end of the 10th century, the Slavnikids rejected the Přemyslids' claims to power. After Střetislava's death in 987, the first disputes arose when the Slavnikids began to mint their own coins on which Vojtěch was depicted with a kind of royal crown.
After Bolesław I Chrobry , who was a great enemy of Boleslav II, took power in Silesia , he sought contact with the Slavnikids. The Přemyslids began with a targeted extermination of their competitors. When they annexed the fortress Malín near Tschaslau with their silver ore tunnels, the Slavnikids lost a valuable source of funding.
On September 28, 995 , the armies of the Přemyslids and Vršovci attacked the Slavnikid fortress Libice nad Cidlinou on behalf of Boleslav II. The fight is said to have lasted only two days, because at the same time the army of the Slavnikids under Otto III. fought against the Abodrites , so that the fortress Libice was only weakly guarded. In the course of the fight, in addition to the defenders, the entire consanguinity of the Slavnikids died. After that, the Přemyslids occupied other Slavnikid fortresses.
Vojtěch survived because he was at the Bolesław Chrobrys farm at the time. Soběslav managed to escape and, together with Bolesław Chrobry, occupied Prague in 1003 . Bolesław Chrobry dethroned the Přemyslids and determined himself to be the ruler of Bohemia, but he had to leave Prague again in 1004. Soběslav, the last of the Slavnikid tribe, fell during the retreat.
Even if the basic structure of this narrative is still valid, a number of details are now considered outdated and no longer tenable.
swell
There is extensive coverage of the Slavnikids from Bohemia, but also from other countries. Cosmas of Prague reported on this sex in his Chronica Boemorum. Another report comes from Thietmar von Merseburg . Two contemporary Adalbert vitae have survived, one of which was written by Brun von Querfurt and the other probably around Notger von Lüttich . The historians Nový-Sláma-Zachová published a collection in their work Slavníkovci, published in 1987. However, these documents mostly only concern Saint Adalbert of Prague. Further reports mostly come from the Cosmas Chronicle. An extensive research work comes from Jadwize Karwasinska from 1962: S. Adalbert Pragensis.
literature
German
- History of Silesia . Volume 1, Sigmaringen 1988, ISBN 3-7995-6341-5
- Josef Teige: Sheets from the old Bohemian genealogy. Slavnikids / The Vrsovcen / The Lords of Lichtenburg . Damböck 2005, ISBN 3-9005-8945-3
- Johann Loserth: The fall of the House of Slawnik . A contribution to the history of the formation of the Bohemian duchy. C. Gerold's Sohn, Vienna 1883.
Czech
- Jarmila Hásková: Slavníkovci ve výpovědi svých mincí . In: Archeologické rozhledy XLVII, pp. 225-230
- Michal Lutovský: Několik poznámek k problematice slavníkovské domény . Archeologické rozhledy XLVII, 239–245
- Michal Lutovský, Zdeněk Petráň: Slavníkovci. Mýtus českého dejěpisectví . Prague, Libri 2005, ISBN 80-7277-291-0
- Rostislav Nový, Jiří Sláma, Jana Zachová: Slavníkovci ve středověkém písemnictví . Prague, Vyšehrad 1987
- Jiří Sláma: Slavníkovci - významná či okrajová záležitost českých dějin 10. století . Archeologické rozhledy XLVII, 182-224
- Dušan Třeštík : Počátky Přemyslovců . Prague 1997
- Dušan Třeštík, Josef Žemlička : Svatý Vojtěch, Čechové a Evropa . Prague 1998
- Rudolf Turek: Slavníkovci a jejich panství . Kruh, Hradec Králové 1982
Web links
- Slavnikids in the private lexicon of the Middle Ages on manfred-hiebl.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ In older research she was assumed to be the sister of the Přemyslids Wenzel von Böhmen and Boleslav I , cf. Johann Loserth: The fall of the House of Slawnik. A contribution to the history of the formation of the Bohemian duchy . Vienna 1884.
- ^ Area of the diocese of Prague 973 ( border description of the diocese of Prague ), probably not that far in the east
- ↑ For a list of places see Michal Lutovský, Zdeněk Petráň: Slavníkovci , Prague, Libri 2004, ISBN 80-7277-117-5 , p. 82
- ↑ http://www.archeopraha.cz/vrch-havlin-vysinne-opevnene-sidliste
- ↑ http://www.obeclisnice.eu/informace-o-obci/historie/
- ↑ For a description of the Cosmas Chronicle, see: Chronica Boemorum , I, 27, in the edition by Bertold Bretholz, Berlin 1923. Summary of the state of research in: Michal Lutovský, Zdeněk Petráň: Slavníkovci. mýtus českého dejěpisectví. Prague, Libri 2005, ISBN 80-7277-291-0 , pp. 83 f. To search for Osseca see: Z. Boháč: Dějiny osídlení středního Povltaví v době předhusitské. Prague 1978.
- ↑ Michal Lutovský, Zdeněk Petráň: Slavníkovci. mýtus českého dejěpisectví. Prague, Libri 2005, ISBN 80-7277-291-0 , pp. 89-130.
- ↑ According to Bruno von Querfurt , the Slavnikids are said to have been related to the Saxon family of the Liudolfinger .
- ↑ Michal Lutovský, Zdeněk Petráň: Slavníkovci. ISBN 80-7277-291-0