it could be as simple as a whisper in the ear. According to Cosmas, soon after Vratislav’s accession to the throne, Mstiš, the castellan of Bílina invited him to a church dedication there, although surely aware that the new duke harbored ill-will against him for the mistreatment of his first wife while imprisoned at Lštění some years before, under Mstiš’s care.112 Vratislav agreed to attend, saying “I will come, I will make my city joyful, and I will do what the affair and justice demand.”113 The duke apparently felt that justice called for the public disgrace and deposition of Mstiš at his own party: “While feasting, a messenger came who said in the ear of the comes: ‘The castellany of the city is withdrawn from you and given to Kojata, son of Všebor,’ who was at that time first in the ducal palace. To this the comes answered: ‘The duke is also the lord; let him do with his castle what he pleases.’”114 This story, whatever its basis in fact, demonstrates well the duke’s undisputed control of both castles and castellans. Still another remark by Cosmas is telling: After the assassination of Duke Svatopluk in 1109, when it was still undetermined whether Bořivoj or Vladislav would succeed, Fabian, castellan of Vyšehrad and undoubtedly among the most prominent magnates, “having left his city of Vyšehrad, tarried in villages in its neighborhood, dependent upon the uncertainty of fate.”115 Nothing in the sources suggests that appointments as castellan were ever more than temporary, or expected to be. The witness lists to charters of the late twelfth century provide an equally vivid, and more reliable, picture of the rotation of magnates in and out of castellanies and court offices; because of the profound effect this arrangement had upon the structure of the medieval Czech nobility, these documents will be treated in detail in the next chapter.
For our purposes here, it suffices to note the success and significance of the duke’s dominion over castles, large and small, and over the men who administered them—an argument that may also be made compellingly from negative evidence. In the many revolts and occasional battles against invaders from outside, none of the decisive confrontations centered on castles. In fact, virtually all of the military engagements described by chroniclers were waged in open terrain. The chief and most notable exception is Prague itself, which, as the emblem of the duke’s authority and site of his throne—the object of every pretender’s ambition—was frequently besieged.116 Likewise only the castles on both sides of the Austro-Moravian border functioned as bases from which to launch or wait out raids.117 Although Soběslav II successfully holed up in a castle, remaining at Skála for the better part of 1179 after Frederick managed to oust him from the throne, on no other occasion was a magnate or any other Přemyslid able to do so, whether seeking to establish an independent lordship or simply to avoid the duke’s wrath.118
The information available from written sources or archeological research remains inadequate for resolving many crucial issues with regard to castles in the Czech Lands: the origins of the duke’s exclusive lordship; their defensive, economic, or other administrative functions; the organizational divisions obtaining within Bohemia and Moravia at specific times; and the privileges, duties, and assets of castellans. We can be certain, however, that they played a significant social and political role, and that the thorough domination of all castles constituted a vital foundation of the Přemyslid duke’s power. Accountability was enforced and ensured as a matter of routine by treating castellanies, like court offices, as temporary if lucrative appointments to which no magnate had a specific or lasting claim. Nevertheless, since castellanies were, by definition, meaningless in the absence of a garrison and its leadership, ducal control of castles rested upon the loyalty of the freemen. Castles thus occupied a central place in the delicate balance and interdependence of the Czech duke and freemen; their fates hung together—as we shall see in Chapter 3.
Military Service
In 1039, when Duke Břetislav I prepared to attack Poland, taking advantage of a succession crisis there to expand his realm, Cosmas reports: “Having taken counsel with his men, he ordered them to attack and immediately pronounced a terrifying sentence, sending throughout the province of all of Bohemia a collar of twisted cork as a sign of his command, so that whoever came out into camp slowly would know without a doubt by the given sign that he would be hanged by such a collar in the gallows.”119 The atmosphere of fear is palpable, so it hardly comes as a surprise that “in the blink of an eye and to a man they gathered into one.”120 The resort to coercion seems designed to induce speed, however, not to press into service men unaccustomed to it. Nothing in the story suggests that the call to campaign was unusual, or considered unjust. This occasion, then, was like so many others throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries: the duke summoned an army of freemen, as was his right, and served as its leader, as was his obligation. The Czechs, for their part, took up their arms, as was customary, expected, and mandatory.
It is impossible to know which men fought in particular military engagements, under what conditions they served, or how they were organized.121 The little extant evidence indicates only—and not insignificantly—that the duke had the right to issue a universal muster and that this applied to freemen at all levels of society. Cosmas, in describing the factions aligned with Vratislav against his son Břetislav in the summer of 1091, mentions “the whole army of ordinary people,” who stood with the king.122 In 1158, Vladislav II announced his intention to participate in the imperial campaign against Milan, for which he had already promised troops. The chronicler, Vincent, who himself traveled to Italy with the army, reports that throughout the realm there was great excitement as everyone readied their weapons and bade farewell to their families. Even the peasants, he says, put down their ploughs for swords: “In their songs and in their words the seige of Milan resounded; everywhere arms were prepared and arms were repaired, and not only the youth of the nobles but also many from the people, throwing off peasant work, fit their hands, more suited to hoes and ploughshares than to shields, lances and the rest, to military arms.”123
Later still, concerning 1174, Gerlach of Milevsko says of Duke Soběslav II: “Whenever an expedition loomed before him, when his magnates were in chariots and on horses, he was not confident unless he saw the poor people also with him, some on horses, others footsoldiers, according to the means of each.”124 Some of these “poor people” had sufficient resources to fight mounted, indicating that this was a practical matter rather than a privilege. By the late twelfth century, military service among the lowest ranks of freemen may have become exceptional, however, since Gerlach describes Soběslav’s reliance on ordinary men as something unusual. Still, these passing references provide clear evidence, even for the later twelfth century, that more than an elite group of freemen were prepared for and accustomed to warfare, and that they expected to serve at the duke’s call.
The duke’s right to impose a universal muster is reflected not only by campaigns in which lesser freemen served, but by the exemptions from service he granted. In the case of the Milan campaign, for instance, the duke did not in fact mandate universal participation. When Vladislav II announced to the men at court his plans to proceed against Milan, they objected strenuously to his promising aid to the emperor without consulting them. He therefore absolved them from mandatory service while offering rich rewards to those willing to join him. Vincent of Prague ascribes these words to the duke: “Whoever intends to help me in this matter, I will adorn him with fitting honor and the money necessary for this, as is proper. But whoever declines, content with women’s games and leisure, may sit at home secure in my peace.”125 Vincent tells a similar story of the objection to Vladislav’s plan to intervene in a Hungarian succession crisis, although on that occasion the magnates joined without delay once release was granted.126 Selected documents also show the duke granting permanent exemption from obligatory military service. In a mid-twelfth-century charter for the bishop of Olomouc, the duke declares that the Moravian vice-dukes may not press the bishop’s people, whether free or servile, into military service: “no one should dare disturb them for the rebuilding of castles located in that land or for going on any kind of campaign.”127 Similar immunity was given to Hradiště in 1160.128 The Germans of Prague were absolved from fighting unless pro patria, but they remained obliged to defend the city if the duke was away.129 It was surely a mark of their exceptional position in the land for these