Premyslid dynasti
( 870 - 1306 )

 

?- 889/890 Borivoj I	Bohemia first began to develop as an independent state in 880s. Prince Borivoj established the first wing of the Prague Castle around 873, and Prague became the seat of the dynasty. The prince who stood at the beginnings of the birth of the Czech state was the aforementioned Borivoj, the first historically documented member of the Premyslid dynasty, deriving its origin from the mythical prince Premysl, supposedly a plowman, who married the sibyl Libuše, Borivoj originally resided in Levý Hradec (north of Prague). He also founded St. Clement's Church there, the oldest in Bohemia, after being baptized by Methodius' hands. Presumably around the year 885 he moved his place of residence to fortified settlement named Prague (at the complex of the present-day Prague Castle.). The motives were most likely of a practical nature, for the Prague settlement watched over an important ford across the Vltava and thus became an important centre of trade. From that time on, Prague has been the main political and cultural centre of the Czech state. Despite his key position in the Czech basin. Borivoj was up until his death (after 890) a loyal ally of the Great Moravian Empire, from the influence of which his son	870s the founding of the Prague Castle by Prince Borivoj
? - 915 Spytihnev, Borivoj I. son.	Spytihnev I managed to extricate himself. Spytihnev orientation towards Bavaria was essentially decisive in the inclination of the Czech territory towards the culture of the "Latin" West. The impact of this step was not manifested instantly, however, and practically for the entire 10th and 11th centuries two cultures coexisted in Bohemia, the Latin and the slowly-receding Old Church Slavonic.
915 - 921 Vratislav, Spytihnevs brother	After Spytihnev´s brother Vratislav I succeeded him after his demise, the founder of St. George's Church at the Prague Castle. When he too passed away, disputes emerged in the ruling family. Their climax was the murder of Princess Ludmila, widow of Prince Borivoj. The horrible deed was committee on 15/9/921 at the castle Tetin (above the river Berounka. not far from the later castle Karlštejn) by Viking warriors in the service of
921 - 924 Drahomíra,	Princess Drahomíra, widow of Vratislav I. The murdered Ludmila was later proclaimed a saint and her cult was raised mainly in St. George's Church, where the bodily remains of the princess found their final resting place.
924 - 935 Václav, Vratislavs son	The grudges with the Premyslid dynasty however, did not rest with this. The rule of Prince Václav (Wenceslas), son of Vratislav I and Drahomíra, successfully developed at first. In his time, the unusually educated sovereign continued in the expansionist policy of his family and carried out a change in the foreign policy line, as he began to orient himself in the place of Bavaria towards Saxony, to which fell the leading role over German regions. Another expression of this linkage was the founding of St. Vitus' Cathedral at the Prague Castle, in whose place later arose a Gothic cathedral.	28/9/929 or 935 murder of Prince Václav (Wenceslas), later he became St. Wenceslas the patron saint of Bohemia.
935 - 972 Boleslav I., Václavs brother	Afterwards for precisely-unknown reasons, however, Václav found himself in a feud with his younger brother Boleslav. On 28/9/935 {some sources state the year 929), Boleslav had his elder brother executed at Boleslav Castle (today Stará Boleslav), and alone he assumed the rule. Václav was proclaimed a saint, similarly to his grandmother Ludmila, and later became the symbol of Czech statehood and of its continuity, the ideal and eternal ruler of the Czech lands as well as their heavenly patron. The cult of Saint Václav filled this state creating function, even in recent history, and has filled it up to the present time.	950 the German King Otto conquered Bohemia and incorporated it into his Holy Roman Empire
972 - 999 Boleslav II., Boleslav I,. son	In the first phase of its existence, the Czech state reached its greatest span under the reign of Boleslav II during the last third of the 10th century. Its territorial reach at that time included Bohemia proper and Moravia as wall as more remote regions of present-day Slovakia and Galicia, Boleslav's sister Mlada founded the first convent following the year 960, designated for Benedictine nuns. She placed it up near St. George's Church. Soon after in 973, bishopric was instituted, this in an ecclesiastic administrative sense disentangled the Bohemian territory from its dependence on the Diocese of Regensburg. A new bishopric, whose head became the Saxon Thietmar, was subordinate to the archdiocese in Mainz. In the relations of that day, it was normal for the worldly sovereign to feel superior to the ecclesiastic representative, who he regarded as his chap Attempts at the emancipation of the church were only embryonic. Vojtech (Adalbert), Prague's second bishop, made efforts in Bohemia at the strengthening of the prestige of the church and at a deeper understanding of the principles of Christian life (barbaric habits still persisted in the Prince's Court, which took up Christianity only superficially). The European-educated and travelled man gained recognition for the founding of the first monastery (in 993 at Brevnov near Prague, now part of Prague sixth district), where he took members of the Benedictine order. Vojtech's activities, however, ran into a lack of sympathy on the part of Boleslav II, whose distaste was multiplied by the fact that the Prague bishop came from the princely Slavník family, in control of Eastern and South eastern Bohemia and a competing power with the Premyslids. In 955, Boleslav's suite of warriors attacked the Slavník castle in Libice nad Cidlinou and massacred all of the members of the family who were present. Through this, the Premyslids now controlled all of Bohemia. Vojtech dwelled abroad at that time, where he also found a martyr´s death on 23/4/997 while on a mission for Eastern Prussia. Above Vojtech´s tomb raised an archbishopric at the initiative of Emperor Otto III and Polish sovereign Boleslav the Brave. Vojtech, who did not find sympathy in Bohemia during his lifetime, at least gained recognition after his death. He was sanctified and was laid at the side of Saint Ludmila and Saint Václav, whose cult alone survived. The abbot Procopius joined this trio still later, the founder of Sázava Monastery (following the year 1030), the only Czech convent with a Slavonic liturgy, surviving within its walls until 1097. Procopius was canonized in 1204 and together with Václav, Ludmila and Vojtech forms today the venerated great quartet of Czech patrons.	973 Establishment of the Bishopric of Prague 23/4/997 martyr´s death of Bishop Vojtech (Adalbertus)
999 - 1002 Boleslav III. Boleslav II. son	Around the turn of the 11th century, the Czech state found itself in a profound crisis. There were two reasons for this. Foremost, the rise and expansion of new neigh boring states, Hungary and Poland, and furthermore feuds between the sons of Boleslav II. During these distractions, the Premyslids lost much of their territorial gains and their state was left limited to Bohemia proper. Boleslav Chrabrý took advantage of the weakening o the Premyslid dynasty, which in the year 1002 pushed his exponent Vladivoj onto the Prague throne.	1002 Bohemia first bestowed as Imperial Fiefdom
1002 - 1003 Vladivoj,	This prince was the first Czech ruler ever to have his status endorsed by the monarch of the Roman Empire, at this time Henry II; he bestowed Bohemia to Vladivoj as an Imperial Fiefdom. Thus arose a new tradition which endured for long centuries.
1003 Jaromir, Boleslav III., brother	The fact that the Roman monarchs, normally coming from German families, bestowed the Czech state to Czech rulers as a fiefdom did not signify in any case that the Czech lands and their inhabitants were subordinate to the Germans.
1003 Boleslav, Boleslav II., son	The Roman Empire, restored in 967 by Emperor Otto II, rose out of the ideas of middle-age universalism and aimed to encompass all of Christianity, ruled in the spiritual realm by the Pope and in the worldly realm by the Emperor.
1003 - 1004 Boleslav	In practice, however, the Roman Empire (from the l2th century it used the indication Holy Roman Empire) reached only the regions of present-day Austria. Switzerland, Benelux, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, Germany and Northern Italy.
1004 - 1012 Jaromir, Boleslav III., brother	However, the political authority of the empire's monarch in this area, who following coronation in Rome gained the title of Emperor, was of a rather formal nature.
1012 - 1033 Oldrich brother to Boleslav III. and Jaromir,	Individual princes remained sovereign over their territories, which also applied to the rulers of the Czech state. The relations between the Czech rulers and the kings, or as the case may be the emperors of the Roman Empire, were of course not without problems.
1033 - 1034 Jaromir brother to Boleslav III. and Oldrich,	In reality, what measure of independence each Czech prince managed to maintain hinged on his personality and capabilities. Normally the rule applied that the energetic Roman monarch endeavoured to encroach into Czech politics, while the weak ruler left latitude and space to the Premyslids.
1034 Oldrich brother to Boleslav III. and Jaromir,	Points of friction, however, were more than frequent and many a time resulted in direct military conflicts.
1035 - 1055 Principle of seniority of Prince Bretislav I Oldrichs son,	Thus it was under the rule of Prince Bretislav I (1034- 1055), named the Czech Achilles. Besides the fact that he abducted his wife-to-be Jitka from the convent, along with his father Oldrich he joined Moravia back to the principality of Bohemia, undertook predatory campaigns into Poland and partook in the promulgation of the first known code of Czech laws. In 1054, he also established that the ruler in Bohemia was always to be the eldest member of the Premyslid dynasty (the "seniority principle").
1055 - 1061 Spytinev II., Boleslav I., son,	This principle later led to frequent feuds within the Premyslids family. His younger Sons acquired princes domains in Moravia (Brno, Olomouc, and Znojmo), which contributed to the rise of these important localities of today.
1061 - 1092 Vratislav II., brother to Spytinev II., 1085 King of Bohemia	The most renowned of the Sons of Bretislav I was without question Vratislav II (1061-1092). He demonstrated sovereign prudence from the early years of his rule, when in 1063, in an endeavour to weaken the power of the Prague bishop, be founded a bishopric in Moravian Olomouc. For the support that he provided to Emperor Henry IV in his contention with Pope Gregory VII, he obtained in 1085 the title of King, be it only for his own gratification. A superbly illuminated manuscript came from the occasion of Vratislav's coronation, known as the Codex of Vyšehrad, a magnificent example of Romanesque book painting. The bestowal of the title of King to the Czech sovereign confirmed the importance of the Czech state in the framework of the Roman Empire as well as the prominent status of its sovereign among the feudal lords of this supranational formation. Vratislav II enjoyed passing time at Vyšehrad, the second castle of Prague, founded at around the turn of the 10th and 11th century on the right bank of the Vltava.
1092 Konrad I., brother to Vratislav II.,
1092 - 1100 Bretislav II., son to Vratislav II.,
1101 - 1107 Borivoj II brother to Bretislav II.,
1107 - 1109 Svatopluk of Olomouc
1109 - 1117 Vladislav I., Borivoj II:s, brother
1117 - 1120 Borivoj II., brother to Bretislav II.,
1120 - 1125 Vladislav I., brother to Borivoj II.,		1125 death of Kosmas.
1125 - 1140 Sobeslav I., brother to Vladislav I.,	Prince Sobeslav I (1125-1140) ranked among the most significant successors to Vratislav II to whose name is linked the reconstruction of the Prague Castle into a Romanesque stone fortress.
1140 - 1172 Vladislav II., son to Vladislav I., 1158 King of Bohemia	Under the rule of his successor, Vladislav II (1140-1172), this task continued onwards. In the area around the Prague Castle, the face of mercantile and artisan settlements was also significantly transformed as stone houses sprang up and both banks of the Vltava were connected by a stone bridge named Judith, the second oldest in Central Europe. It served its mission until the year 1342, when it collapsed. Romanesque architecture was also put to use in the construction of convents and monasteries of various church orders (during the course of the l2th century the Cistercians and the Knights of St. John came to Bohemia as well as the Premonstratensians, for whom the well-known Strahov Monastery was founded in the vicinity of the Prague Castle). Numerous churches in the Romanesque style also arose in other places of importance (e.g., St. Catherine Rotunda in Znojmo with murals of the members of the Premyslid dynasty), as well as in the countryside of Bohemia and Moravia. Vladislav II wrote himself into the European subconscious more than other Czech sovereigns. As an ally of Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa I, he had a hand in a military campaign into Italy and earned the King's crown in 1158, again of course only for his own gratification. In the times of his reign, he significantly carried on the process of the cultural rapprochement of the Czech lands with Western Europe.	1147 second krusade. 1158 Bohemian trupps by Milano 1169 Vladislavs wife Judith bild the first stonebridge in Prag.
1172 - 1173 Friedrich I. son to Vladislav II.,	Vladislav's successors did not manage to carry out adroit policies towards Frederick Barbarossa, which the emperor took advantage of for direct intervention into Czech affairs. He looked upon the Czech lands from a position of the universalistic idea of the imperial office, and he deported himself towards them accordingly. During the course of the 1180s, he attempted to divide them into three independent wholes directly subordinate to the Roman monarch. He fashioned imperial principalities from the Prague Bishopric (1187) and from Moravia (1182) independent of the Czech ruler. This measure, however, did not have a graver impact on the integrity of the Czech lands, since Frederick Barbarossa died soon afterwards and his successors lacked authority. Only Moravia kept the indication Margraviate which Frederick I had bestowed upon it. From a perspective of constitutional law, it thereby gained the status of an independent formation and retained this up into the new age, even though it consistently formed, with the later exception of one short episode, a single confederation with Bohemia. The solid connection between both lands was attested to by the staffing of the office of the Moravian margrave. From around the turn of the 13th century, the office was held by a member of the dynasty ruling in Bohemia, then after the year 1411 nearly continuously by the Bohemian sovereign himself.
1173 - 1178 Sobeslav II., Sobeslav I., son
1178 - 1189 Friedrich I. son of Vladislav II.,		1182 Establishment of the Margaviate of Moravia
1189 - 1191 Konrad II. Otto,	The close of the 12th century was a period of the overall stabilization of the general situation. A number of circum stances contribute to this. Firstly, the confirmation of the rights of the nobility (in the Statutes of Prince Conrad Otto of 1189), which was constituted as a stratum of free and inheriting proprietors of land, furthermore a general economic rise and the weakening of the position of the Roman monarchs, who now for a change needed the assistance at the Bohemian rulers.	1189 the therde krusade started.
1191 - 1192
1192 - 1193
1193 - 1197
1197 Vladislav Heinrich Vladislav the II:s son
1197 - 1230 Otakar I., Vladislav the II:s son, King over Bohemia.	Bohemian sovereign Premysl Otakar I took advantage of this situation obtaining the title of King in 1198, and ultimately in the year 1212 Roman and Sicilian King Frederick II yielded to him in a document named the Golden Bulla of Sicily. Its text revised the relation of the Czech state to the Holy Roman Empire, The Bohemian ruler gained the title of King by inheritance, by which the principality of Bohemia became a kingdom and equally an important formation in the framework of the Roman Empire. Still in the first half of the l3th century, the honorary title of Imperial Arch-Cupbearer was bestowed to the Bohemian sovereign. More important of course was the capacity of the elector, which made the Bohemian king one of seven electors of the Roman monarch. The Czech state had embarked on the path leading to great-power status in Central Europe. That Stature would not have been possible without quality economic base. Already in the 12th century, the systematic colonization of hitherto unsettled regions and the conversion of extensive forests and moor lands into arable land were launched under the pressure of necessity and at the initiative of the sovereign, the monasteries and convents, and the nobility. This process received a powerful impulse in the 13th century, when streams of colonists flowed into Bohemia and Moravia (but also into Silesia and the Hungarian Kingdom) from overpopulated Germanic regions. The German colonists significantly partook in the settlement of thick, difficult-to-access forests along the border. They likewise brought along with them more refined agricultural techniques. The residences of inhabitants, at one time concentrated n the fertile low now covered all of Bohemia and Moravia, with the exception of the high mountain ranges along the border, which were not colonized until the 16th - 19th centuries. Colonists from the German regions also relied on a more advanced legal system which precisely defined the relations between the serf farmers and feudal lords. The serfs paid a fixed monetary tribute to their lords regularly twice per year. Through colonization also came the rise of a relatively close network of royal (i.e., falling under the sovereign's domain) and tributary (subject to noble or ecclesiastic authority) towns. The German colonists also brought along with hem the legal institution of the town. Towns as centres of artisanry and trade rose up either in the settlements at prominent castles (e.g. Litomerice, Hradec Králové in Bohemia; Brno, Olomouc and Znojmo in Moravia) or were completely newly founded (Ceské Budejovice, Nymburk, etc.). The royal towns were larger and more important (32 sprung up in Bohemia by the year 1300, in Moravia 18), which received important privileges from the sovereign (the right to build fortifications, the right to a market, the right to brew beer), but at the same time their taxes were the source of the income of the royal treasury.	1198 Bohemia became the Bohemian Kingdom, the first king being Premysl Otakar I. 1212 Roman King Frederick II affirms independence of the Bohemian Kingdom and heredity of the title of "king"
1230 - 1253 Václav I king of Bohemia son to Ottokar I. (ty. Wenzel I.)	The agglomeration of Prague was also transformed into town in the l3tb century (the present-day Old Town of Prague after 1230, Malá Strana - the Lesser Town - in 1257). The "mining towns, involved in the extraction and working of valuable metals, fore mostly silver in the Czech lands, had a special standing. In Moravia there was Jihlava, and of course the mast important deposits at the disposal of Kutná Hora in Central Bohemia. The abundance of silver ore enabled the Bohemian sovereign to carry out a coin reform under the assistance of Italian experts and initiate in the year 1300 the minting of valuable coins called Bohemian or Prague groše (groschen). This coin replaced older money coined in Bohemia since the second half of the 10th century.	The agglomeration of Prague was also transformed into town in the l3th century, the present-day Old Town of Prague after 1230, Malá Strana - the Lesser Town - in 1257
	The colonization also pervasively changed the national composition of the Czech lands. The originally integrated, Czech-speaking ethnicity ceased to be the exclusive population of the Bohemian-Moravian area. The German element's share significantly increased, and the Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravian Margraviate became a confederation of states inhabited by two nations. This condition lasted until 1946; Cohabitation of the Czech and German nations vacillated for an entire seven centuries over a broad range, from peaceful coexistence up to mutual rivalry and malice, contributing on both sides to the crystallizing of national consciousness, nay even at times to manifestations of nationalism, chauvinism and xenophobia. During the course of the 13th century, the Czech lands also adopted the characteristic Gothic style of the more developed cultures in Western Europe. The sovereign and nobility assumed the courtly-chivalrous manner of life and began building stone castles (e.g., Bezdez, Zvíkov, Ceský Krumlov, etc,). Remarkable religious buildings sprang up in a parallel fashion (the monasteries Zlatá Koruna in Vyšší Brod, Sedlec, Zbraslav, Osek and elsewhere), The activities of new orders of Franciscans and Clarenuns (the monasteries complex Na Františku in Prague) were the expression of a deepened religiousness. The daughter of Premysl Otakar I, the devout Anežka Ceská (Agnes of Bohemia. dead 1282), also worked in this direction, who was the founder of the Order of the Knights of the Cross with a Red Star. She was beatified in the Middle age, but had to wait for sanctification until after the eventful fall of 1989. The blessed Zdislava (dead 1252) was a patron and healer of the poor as well as the founder of the Dominican convents in Turnov and Jablonné	1241 the Mongols invaded Moravia and Hungery Beginning of Gothic culture
1253 - 1278 the reign of King Premysl Otakar II, who became famous as the "iron and golden" king and who expanded the Czech kingdom beyond Bohemia and Moravia into what is now Austria and Slovenia, Premysl was killed in the Battle of Moravske Pole	The strong ascent of the Czech state also had consequences for international relations, Bohemian kings gained under their rule the Austrian lands through a combination of marriage politics and military pressure, but were not content with this. Premysl Otakar II (1253-1278), called the Iron and Golden King" for his military might and weal likewise gained control over Carinthia, Styria and Carniola and reached out for the crown of the Roman king. His strengthening position, however, was not to the liking of the other electors, and so Count Rudolf von Habsburg gained the prestigious title in 1273, whose family thereby first significantly wrote itself into European history. When Premysl had to cede the Austrian and Alpine lands, war between him and the new Roman monarch became ineluctable. A battle took place at Marchfeld on 26/8/1278 in which Premysl Otakar II perished.	26/8/1278 Battle of Marchfeld and death of Pøemysl Otakar II
13:de seklet	The defeat curbed the potent expansion of the Czech state, but far from halted it. King Václav II, son of Premysl, turned his attention towards the east and the north. He gained the Polish crown in 1300, and after the fall of the Arpadian dynasty in Hungary he succeeded in obtaining the coronation of his san Václav as King of Hungary. The intelligent, albeit illiterate, Vaclav II died in 1305, however, without suspecting that his statesmanlike work would soon lie in ruins.
1306	His only son, Vaclav III, had to renounce the Hungarian crown and concentrate on the maintenance of his rule in Poland, where there was strong opposition rising against him. During a military campaign, however, he was murdered in Olomouc on August 4, 1306 under vague circumstances. The male lineage of the Premyslid dynasty, which had governed the Czech state for over 400 years, was cut short by his death.	1306 murder of Wenceslas III, his death marked the end of the Premyslid dynasty (he had four sisters, but female succession was not recognized in Bohemia)