freemen are equally difficult to determine. Below the Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia and Moravia, styled either dux or princeps, no system of ranking by title existed. When given any title, individual lay magnates are most frequently described in the narrative sources as comes. It is not at all clear from usage, however, what the specific significance of this title might have been. I have not translated it anywhere in this study because the traditional English translation “count” implies a position in a hierarchy which simply did not obtain in the Czech Lands; rather, the meaning tends more toward the classical Latin usage signifying “companion,” from which comitatus derives. Yet comes was not tossed around arbitrarily by the chroniclers. It is never used when listing young men killed in battle, for instance. But was it a title of honor or stature the chronicler could assign at will? Was it used by contemporaries for men of particular prestige or standing?15 Was it given to men holding particular offices? A man may occasionally be designated comes of a place, though whether because he was appointed to an office or because he was a comes and happened also to hold the castle is not definite.16 In witness lists for late twelfth-century charters, prefectus is used interchangeably with castellanus, and castellanus with comes in reference to the same individuals and locations.17 While prefectus and castellanus mean quite certainly “castellan” and are therefore always given with the name of a castle, we must still be wary of assuming that this was the only, or chief, significance of comes. All that seems certain is that no hierarchic titulature was used to distinguish hereditary strata among the magnates, though prestigious and administrative titles did exist.18
Analysis of continuity or heritability within an “elite” group of magnates is further hampered by lack of knowledge about specific individuals and their families. Occasionally a narrative source provides the name of a man’s father, more rarely his grandfather, sometimes his brother. Individuals who did not figure prominently in notable events are named only among the men killed or wounded in battle or, from the mid-twelfth century, as witnesses to charters. Even when some of these names can be reliably connected with others, this rarely provides continuity over a long period. Cosmas, for example, tells of Olen’s son Borša, who helped Břetislav II (not yet duke) kill Zderad in 1091, and later mentions one Olen, wounded reclaiming Tachov from the Germans in 1121 and identified as the son of Borša.19 Of Olen, Borša, and Olen we can only guess that men of three generations from the same family were of sufficient prominence around the turn of the twelfth century to merit mention by the chronicler. Though in neither case do Borša and Olen occupy important positions—the first is a companion of the duke’s eldest son and the second is simply a “warrior of the duke” on a routine errand—both seem to be young at the time of the event. Prominence at a young age could reflect the eminence of the family, while close association with the duke demonstrates that such was the path to improving and maintaining the family’s fortunes. Although this is a rare instance when naming patterns reveal, with reasonable certainty, more than two generations in a family, beyond these two references and after 1121 they disappear completely from the sources.20
More often, the evidence argues against the construction of magnate lineages on the basis of patterns in personal names. One particular case provides a clear example of how naming patterns can be misleading—and of how dismal the situation is with regard to information about the Czech freemen. In the middle decades of the twelfth century four men called Hroznata are named in the sources. One is identified as the husband of Přibislava and father of Severus, who died before 1132; another, the provost of Mělnik, is a witness to a charter from ca. 1146–48; the third, called comes and identified as the son of Hermann, traveled to Jerusalem in 1152; the fourth, listed as castellan of Kladsko, witnessed two documents in 1169. The third and fourth may be identical, but otherwise four separate men carry the same name, and significant consanguinal connections between them are unlikely or, at least, uncertain. None of these can be surely linked with the various Hroznatas who appear in witness lists from 1175–98, including Hroznata the Curly-Haired (a.k.a. Hroznata of Peruc) and Hroznata the Bald, or with Blessed Hroznata, founder of the monastery at Teplá in 1197 and a leading magnate under Přemysl Otakar I in the early thirteenth century.21
In spite of these difficulties, almost all descriptions and analyses of the magnates at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century in the current historiography refer to them by group designations, such as the “Hroznatovci” or “Drslavici.”22 These entirely modern designations are plural patronymics, formed by the addition of the suffix -ici or -ovci to a man’s name: Hrabiše—Hrabišici, Vítek—Vítkovci, Marquard—Markvartici, and so forth.23 Singular Czech patronymics do appear in the witness lists, e.g., Hermann “Markvartic,”24 but the only plural form known from this period is applied by Gerlach of Milevsko to the cadet branch of the Přemyslid dynasty descended from King Vladislav’s brother Theobald, who died in 1167: “This Theobald, dying, left behind him a boy of great character, named Theobald, who was the father of those who are now the ‘Dipoltici’ … ”25 Writing in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, Gerlach plainly states that “Děpoltici” is what they are called “now.” In this case the “founder” of the lineage was self-evident, being the person through whom the cadet branch deviated from the main dynastic line, whose son and grandson likewise bore the name Theobald, and who briefly governed a portion of eastern Bohemia as vicedukes.26 Naming patterns provide inadequate support for the assumption that the individuals in a lineage, as identified by modern scholars, conceived themselves as a coherent group in relation to a particular man: Hermann, the son of Marquard, indeed named one of his sons Marquard, but another he called Zaviše after his own brother, while his eldest bore the name Beneš (see Appendix A). These people should not be called “Markvartici” merely because the first traceable individual in this family is Marquard, who served as chamberlain to Vladislav II in 1159.27 Furthermore, many of the genealogies that can be constructed on the basis of witness lists begin with brothers whose father is entirely unknown to us. There is no modern designation, no “Ratibořici” say, for the family which included Bohuše and Ratibor, extremely prominent castellans in the last quarter of the twelfth century (see Appendix A).
A look back at the early twelfth century and the Vršovici, a large group of men, women, and children from across Bohemia summarily massacred in 1108, serves as a potent reminder of the inadequacies and dangers of these collective designations.28 The term “Vršovici” was indisputably a medieval one, but we have no means of determining its origin. No man is known in the sources as “Vrš” or “Vršov.” No pattern of names appears among the men mentioned by Cosmas, nor are many blood relationships indicated.29 Božej and Mutina, identified as Vršovici and as “relatives,” were sufficiently influential that, according to Cosmas, Duke Bořivoj felt obliged to allow their return from exile and reinstate them as castellans of Žatec and Litoměřice; this was patently an act of appeasement in an effort to shore up his rule.30 It is impossible, however, to assess the power wielded by them, or its foundation. Božej’s land, or at least his residence, was at Libice in eastern Bohemia while “all” the possessions of Mutina’s uncle, Němoj, granted to the chapter at Vyšehrad, lay scattered in central Bohemia31 (Map 2). For Cosmas, the Vršovici were the quintessential domestic enemies, men of prominence whom he blamed for specific acts of violence against dukes both at the turn of the eleventh century and at the beginning of the twelfth. He describes them with equal frequency as a gens or a natio, and once as a generatio; in the duke’s naming them as “the enemies of our gens,” it is not clear whether gens indicates his lineage or all the Czechs. The Vršovici are the only men who played a significant role in Czech political life—such as Kojata, Zderad, Vacek, Načerat, Marquard, Hrabiše—who are explicitly identified or associated with a group.32 Yet we know little beyond speculation about the basis for their collective identity, or how it translated into influence of the sort that Dukes Bořivoj and then Svatopluk perceived as a powerful threat. The best we can assume is that the Vršovici were a large kin group, often