Hastening Toward Prague. Lisa Wolverton

of conquered Poles requested resettlement in Bohemia, and Duke Břetislav I “gave them not a small part of the forest called Crnína.”³² Dukes similarly made grants of mountains, though they were not alone in this.³³ The charter for the Hospitallers just cited includes a broad tract of forest, with mountains and rivers; in the case of “Cozodre” the woods alone are mentioned and thus seem not simply to be pertinent to a village. As elsewhere in medieval Europe, the customary rights that went with forests—for hunting, foraging, woodcutting, and so forth—made them valuable village assets. Yet such huge tracts of Czech territory lay unsettled during this period that much forested land surely fell outside village boundaries. If all uncleared land not appurtenant to other holdings belonged to the duke, to him also belonged considerable control over later expansion and its profits. Such broad uncultivated tracts may, alternately, have belonged to no one and thus been open to anyone ready to exploit them. Landclearing, however, required no small investment of resources; these the Přemyslid duke possessed in abundance.

      The 1169 donation to the Hospitallers also demonstrates that the duke was bound to the same legal norms of acquisition as everyone else. An earlier charter for the same house, in which similar language appears, reflects this even more explicitly as it lists the means of acquisition for each piece of property granted:

      I give to the same church to be possessed by perpetual right certain land pertaining to the crown of my realm [ad coronam regni mei pertinentem] in Prague next to the bridge by the water between the four roads, and the water itself from the upper part of the lower island up to the bridge, with fishing and all other uses, which are able to be had there. I also add and confirm to the same place, for my salvation and that of my freemen and all my predecessors, the village which is called Letky, which had been Bora’s, who was hung in Prague, with the vineyard and all other appurtenances. I add moreover near the same village one field pertaining to my crown [ad coronam meam pertinentem] named “Ostruzen.” For the growth of the same new plantation, that is, the church to be built, I add and confirm the possessions which were Henry’s, son of Hartmann, and which he gave to me after the death of his wife to be possessed by perpetual right, when he committed himself to me against his father³⁴ before many noble Czechs. I confirm also the possessions which [the Hospitallers] acquired for themselves in other just ways, …³⁵

      The language of this grant also begins to indicate differences between the duke and other Czech landowners. He had, for instance, another means of acquisition at his disposal, namely the administration of justice.³⁶ A charter issued to the chapter of Vyšehrad in 1187 constitutes the first grant to an ecclesiastical institution of the profits from jurisdictional rights: “If one of the men of the church is condemned to execution, his property should go to the church and his head to the noose.”³⁷ This exceptional document provides telling evidence: the right to land forfeit in capital cases must routinely have been very lucrative for the duke.

      With regard to the origins of ducal landholdings, the lines between conquest, usurpation, and legitimate confiscation were extremely thin. Since the eleventh- and twelfth-century chronicles recount innumerable stories of magnates summarily executed, imprisoned, or driven into exile by the duke, one can easily imagine that he had little compunction with regard to taking over their lands. For instance, in 1096 Břetislav II exiled Mutina, one of the Vršovici, and confiscated his property; in 1105, those who backed Bořivoj’s effort to seize the throne were similarly punished.³⁸ When the Vršovici were universally massacred with their women and children, in 1108, their lands were surely seized by Duke Svatopluk;³⁹ in fact, according to Cosmas, he promised the land of two of them, Božej and his son, to whoever killed them.⁴⁰ In this light, the language of the grant to the Hospitallers from midcentury sounds rather defensive; the need to assert that all the lands granted were owned or acquired legitimately and according to “just ways” acknowledges the dukes’ occasional willingness and ability to abuse their power and seize the lands of their political opponents.

      The magnitude of lands at the duke’s disposal far outweighed those available to any other member of society. When one of the Vršovici (for whom we may assume some prominence given the need to eliminate them so thoroughly⁴¹) donated everything he owned to the chapter at Vyšehrad, it consisted of “five villages … the whole familia, and whatever I have.”⁴² In contrast, a grant of five villages is routine from dukes; many monasteries and chapters, for whom mostly ducal grants are recorded, held considerably more. The Vyšehrad chapter, for instance, which was the recipient of Němoj’s five villages, obtained nine from Duke Soběslav in 1130 for the specific use of the brothers, though this grant was considerably augmented by monetary income from a variety of sources.⁴³ By the end of the twelfth century, when a series of forged foundation charters were drawn up, the Vyšehrad chapter named some eighty villages which they claimed to have received from Vratislav II (1061–92).⁴⁴ The duke gave away a great deal of land; we can only assume that he possessed substantially more.

      The Czech Lands on the whole, even in local regions, were a patchwork of variegated holdings and owners. Partible inheritance assured that consolidated holdings fragmented, even as some landowners inherited distant properties. The breadth of the duke’s holdings means that he had land in every corner of Bohemia. The legal or de facto right to unowned land also meant that the landed resources at the duke’s disposal were almost inexhaustible, something ordinary freemen could only wish for. This, more than any legal distinctions—and especially in their absence—must have separated the duke from other landowners. In the legend told by Cosmas, messengers were instructed to find Přemysl ploughing land possessed by no one, surrounded by fields owned by others. The legend thus reflects—as a curious parallel if nothing else—the same basic presumption found in the charters: land is owned individually, in units both large and small, while vast lands, arable and uncultivated, fell to the duke.⁴⁵

      Income

      In addition to land, the duke of Bohemia held the right to a variety of taxes and tolls, as well as exclusive minting rights. Our knowledge of these sources of income comes incidentally, from charters to ecclesiastical institutions granting them all or a fixed amount of the income from tolls or taxes, although never the right to erect a new toll. Evidence from both numismatic analysis and written sources indicates that already from the eleventh century the Czech economy was monetized—that is, people of all stations were accustomed to carry and use coin daily. Although the numismatic literature has traditionally seen the duke’s primary source of income in his control, and supposed manipulation, of the coinage,⁴⁶ it was actually quite stable, rarely debased, and not routinely exchanged. Rather than relying on minting itself, the duke profited from a variety of taxes, some fixed and others from which the income must have fluctuated according to economic conditions. From these, without doubt, the duke of Bohemia derived considerable wealth and a supply of ready cash.

      Frequent references in all the extant sources point to the widespread use of money in medieval Czech society.⁴⁷ It was used for purchasing land and as a valuation of property, collected by the duke through tolls and taxes, and, from all indications, used as a means of everyday exchange. The Přemyslid duke monopolized the right to mint the silver coinage in common use during the eleventh and twelfth centuries,⁴⁸ though in Moravia it was delegated to the vice-dukes and, for a time, the bishop of Olomouc.⁴⁹ Although Bohemia would later become famous for its silver mining, the only information about mining before the thirteenth century appears in a charter from ca. 1188, granting Plasy “twelve marks of silver to be paid every year from the silver mine on the upper Mže [river].”⁵⁰ As in later centuries, this mine was in the duke’s hands. The role of locally mined silver in minting, its effect on the medieval Czech economy, and its exact contribution to the duke’s treasury unfortunately cannot be determined.

      Přemyslid rulers could count on both silver and minting as sources of income, but greater profit lay in taxation. The duke’s income from taxes may be divided into three categories: tolls on travel, commerce-related taxes, and fixed annual levies. Tolls are most frequently mentioned at roads but noted as well for rivers, bridges, and border crossings. In 1078, Vice-duke Otto of Olomouc granted the monastery he established at Hradiště: “from the Olšava [river] the sixth denár, and from the bridge of the castle of Břeclav