Hastening Toward Prague. Lisa Wolverton

from the mint the tenth denár.” ⁵¹ In an earlier charter, dated ca. 1057, the chapter at Litoměřice was to receive the toll paid by all ships passing the town on the Elbe, including those whose cargo was too small to merit taking a portion: free or unfree, their owners were to pay 15 denáry, if foreign, as much in denáry as they were carrying, or, for peasants from Litoměřice or neighboring Bílina, 12 denáry.⁵² These constitute major commercial routes, upriver from Meissen toward Prague on the Elbe, across Moravia to Cracow, and south through Břeclav to Hungary and points east. The other important trade route ran from Regensburg to Prague through Plzeň; from the mid-eleventh century a toll was collected at the border crossing at Domažlice.⁵³ A ducal grant to Teplá from 1197 mentions a toll there, on the twelfth-century route from Žatec through Sedlec to Staufer Eger, pertaining both to a market and to a border gate.⁵⁴ Control of transport routes, including the most heavily travelled, must have been a steady and lucrative source of ducal revenue—one which could easily adapt and grow according to economic circumstances.

      Among the commercial taxes, a grant to the chapter at Vyšehrad from 1130 describes what must be considered a sales tax: “At Kamenec they have and should have the tenth coin in sales, as was established in antiquity.”⁵⁵ It hardly seems likely that such sales taxes were limited only to Kamenec. If levied in bustling towns like Prague, Vyšehrad, Litoměřice, or Žatec, they must have generated considerable income. The mid-eleventh-century endowment of the collegiate chapter in Litoměřice mentions income from the “sales of foreigners.”⁵⁶ The duke apparently taxed, if not monopolized, the trade in salt.⁵⁷ He seems also to have controlled, perhaps even licensed, taverns. The so-called Břetislav Decrees explicitly prohibit taverns and drinking generally, while the charter of privilege for the Prague Germans speaks of “secret taverns.”⁵⁸ Possibly alcohol was not sold or consumed publicly in the Czech Lands throughout the later eleventh and twelfth centuries. Given the many references to drunkenness, an alternative scenario might be that, in the course of enforcement of the restrictions announced by Břetislav I, infractions overlooked by the duke soon translated into “exemptions” and thus into de facto oversight of the trade in potables.⁵⁹

      Finally, there exists evidence of general taxation, although its origin or rationale is impossible to determine. Soběslav I’s grant to the Vyšehrad chapter includes the tenth mark of the “annual tribute” collected from sixteen of the most prominent castles, including Prague, as well as from three “provinces.”⁶⁰ This may, or may not, be the same as the “tributum pacis,” mentioned in Soběslav II’s reform and confirmation of the chapter’s income almost fifty years later.⁶¹ Another charter issued to Vyšehrad, this time by Frederick in 1187, allows the church to collect “venditio seu collecta generalis” from the people on its own lands.⁶² Hradiště, given a similar privilege in 1160, was allowed to collect both “tribute” and tithe.⁶³ At the end of the twelfth century, Duke/Bishop Henry absolved the newly established monastery at Teplá from paying “the collection of pennies, which is accustomed to be collected throughout Bohemia.”⁶⁴ Whether these comments all refer to the same general levy, or several, they together indicate that the duke garnered income from a tax collected annually, in castles and in the countryside by province, paid by every Czech regardless of the land on which he lived.

      These passing references in charters undoubtedly describe only a small portion of the duke’s earnings: whenever a monastery was granted a tenth of the tax, the duke reserved the other nine portions; for every toll income donated, he retained several others; and besides the “tribute” he allowed monasteries to collect, everyone else’s payments went into his coffers. Since the charters record legally binding grants to ecclesiastical institutions, they must also reflect the degree to which dukes felt secure about the cash in their treasury. The duke of Bohemia was not only quite wealthy, but rich in cash. Such liquid assets could prove most valuable in a pinch, say, for securing troops from the emperor to aid in a succession conflict.⁶⁵ Viewed from another perspective, people everywhere in Bohemia carried coins with the duke’s name and image, and used those coins not only for routine transactions. High and low, rich and poor, everyone paid taxes when they sold their goods, as they traveled, and once a year directly to the duke himself.

      Jurisdiction

      No legal codes are extant from the eleventh or twelfth centuries, even as redacted in later times. When legal historians have approached this period looking for sources—outside ordinary charters—they have found only three.⁶⁶ None is, in fact, strictly a text of law; two are charters of privilege and another appears in Cosmas’s chronicle. This last, the “Břetislav Decrees,” concerns Christianization and thus will be discussed in Chapter 4. One of the two charters of privileges, usually called the “Statutes of Conrad Otto,” though conventionally dated to 1189, pertains to the early thirteenth century.⁶⁷ Here the focus is upon the third item, a privilege granted to the German community in Prague. It opens a tiny window onto law and rights of jurisdiction, which are of particular relevance to the analysis of ducal power.

      This exceptional legal privilege, a document recording the grant by Soběslav II to the German community in Prague ca. 1174–78, merits citation in its entirety. (To summarize its content would take almost as much space and inevitably be less lucid.)

      I Soběslav, duke of the Bohemians, make it known to all those present and future, that I take into my grace and defense the Germans who dwell in the suburb of Prague. It pleases me that, just as these Germans are a different nation from the Czechs, so also are they divided from the Czechs by their law or custom. I concede to these Germans [the right] to live according to the law and justice of the Germans, which they had from the time of my grandfather, King Vratislav. I grant a parish priest, whom they themselves should elect freely to their church, and similarly a judge, and the bishop should in no way contradict their petition. Seven ought to swear by hands [compurgation] for theft and for that which is called nadvore. They ought to go on no expedition, except in order to fight for the fatherland [pro patria]. If the duke is outside Bohemia on an expedition, then the Germans should guard Prague with 12 shields. To judge concerning homicide pertains to the prince, namely for such homicide 10 talents of Regensburg money should be paid to the prince or the right hand of the killer, or it is to be ordained according to grace. Whoever breaks the peace among them, should pay 10 talents to the prince, whoever is guilty. If a Czech should have a case with a German, which ought to be proved by witnesses, the Czech should have before the German two Germans and one Czech, all Christians. Similarly, if a German should have a case with a Czech, then the German should have before the Czech two Czechs and one German, but Christian. Similarly concerning “Romans” [Romance language speakers] and Jews. If a Czech or Roman or whoever should accuse a German, then the high chamberlain should send a messenger to the Germans’ judge and the Germans’ judge himself will decide that case and nothing more will pertain to the chamberlain. I also concede to the Germans, that they should be free from guests and pilgrims and immigrants. You should know that the Germans are free men. Whatever immigrant or guest coming from whatever land should wish to remain in the city with the Germans, he should hold the law and custom of the Germans. If theft is to a German, [the thief] ought to be seized with the Germans’ judge present. If the thief is German, then the prince will judge him. If the thief is captured at night, he will be hanged. If he is captured during the day, he should be scourged in public and ordered out of the city; if later he is captured, he will be hanged. Whatever the Germans do, they will not be captured nor put in prison if they have fideiussores or their own house. In whatever matter the Germans should be guilty, their children and wives will suffer no harm or shame. If anyone enters through the villages of the Germans at night and does not have a torch, if that person is killed, the Germans are blameless. If false or broken money should be found in the box of a German, he is guilty whosever box it is. But if it should be found in a courtyard or house, he is blameless whosever house or courtyard it is, on account of evil and bad men who are accustomed to throw such money into houses or courtyards. If a stolen horse should be recognized among the Germans, he who recognized the horse will swear to have lost it earlier by theft; afterward the German will swear, standing in a circle made with a sword in the ground, that it was not