PV1B69 Czech Lands in the Middle Ages

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2017
Extent and Intensity
1/1. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. et Mgr. Michaela Antonín Malaníková, Ph.D. (lecturer)
doc. Mgr. David Kalhous, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Petr Elbel, Ph.D.
Department of Auxiliary Historical Sciences and Archive Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Martina Maradová
Supplier department: Department of Auxiliary Historical Sciences and Archive Studies – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Thu 14:10–15:45 VP
  • Timetable of Seminar Groups:
PV1B69/01: Wed 26. 4. 15:50–17:25 B2.44, M. Antonín Malaníková, D. Kalhous
Prerequisites
Interest in Czech history
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 12 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
In this course we are going through the key moments in the medieval history of Czech lands. The participants should also get the basic understanding of the existing historical sources and the techniques used by their analysis.
Syllabus
  • Czech Lands in the Middle Ages
  • 1. Barbarians are coming! Slavs (and Avars) in Central Europe until 800
  • a. Archaeology on Ethnicity
  • b. Linguistic evidence
  • c. Avars
  • d. Samo and his principality
  • 2. Beyond the borders of the empires: Carolingians, Moravians and Bohemians
  • a. Fall of Avar kaganate
  • b. New material culture
  • c. Great Moravia and Bohemia
  • 3. Building the Duchy or creating an Empire? Churches, castles, cavalrymen and slaves
  • a. Přemyslid retinue
  • b. Elites of the Early Přemyslid Bohemia and their evidence
  • c. Formation of the Church organization in Přemyslid regnum (Prague bishopric)
  • d. Castles
  • e. Latin, or Old Church Slavonic? 4. Constructing a holy man: St Wenceslas and his cult
  • a. St. Wenceslas-legends and their manuscript transition
  • b. Coins and seals
  • 5. Who could have been called Bohemian? “Accelerators” of Bohemian identity in Přemyslid Duchy
  • a. Image of Bohemians in the Holy Roman Empire
  • b. Constructing Bohemians in Bohemian written sources
  • 6. For the crown of the kings: Přemyslids, their politics and representation
  • a. Loyalty towards the Empire: Vratislav II (1061-1092) and Vladislav II (1140-1172)
  • b. Promoting the status: Vyšehrad as the new royal residence
  • c. Through “Realpolitik” to the success? Přemysl Ottokar I. (1198-1230)
  • 7. Transformation of the land
  • a. Power and society in Early Přemyslid Bohemia
  • b. Constructing the institutions: Beginnings of Land Court
  • c. From the hill fort to the city
  • d. Village
  • 8. The advent of the Luxemburg dynasty to the Czech throne (the reign of John of Bohemia and the beginning of the government of Charles IV) – The “bad” father and the “good” son?
  • a. Internal political, economic and social situation at the entrance of the Luxemburg dynasty to the Czech scene
  • b. Foreign policy of the Luxemburg diplomacy
  • c. The “evil” king John: antagonism between the king and the queen Elisabeth, his oldest son and the Czech political representation
  • d. Charles as the Moravian margrave
  • 9. The heyday of the Czech Lands during the reign of the King and Emperor Charles IV and John Henry, Margrave of Moravia
  • a. Charles IV as the Roman King and Emperor and the concept of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown
  • b. Moravia under the rule of John Henry
  • c. Cultivation of the land: new institutions, new horizons, royal and margravial policy towards the towns, development of architecture and fine arts
  • d. Late medieval Czech society
  • 10. The waning of the Middle Ages in the Czech version
  • a. “It´s hard to be a perfect son of the perfect father” – Wenceslas IV in the shade of external as well as internal policy of Charles IV
  • b. Fights over successions in Moravia – Luxemburg family with no common interests
  • c. (Proto)nationalism as one of the roots of the revolution? Towns and the University on the eve of the clash of the Czech reformation
  • 11. The Period of the Hussite wars
  • a. Social, economic and doctrinal background of the revolution
  • b. Anti-Hussite crusades and their stellar cast: Sigismund of Luxemburg, Jan Hus, Jan Želivský, Jan Žižka, Albert the Magnanimous and too many popes
  • c. Divided country: Bohemia versus the rest of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown
  • d. Complicated ending to the wars and their results
  • 12. Turbulences continue…
  • a. Realignment of the players on the domestic political scene, Catholics and non-Catholics under the same roof
  • b. George of Poděbrady as the regent and as the king
  • c. External pressure increases – the King, the Pope and too ambitious Hungarian neighbour
  • 13. Jagiellonian age in the Czech Lands
  • a. Jagellonian power in the Central Europe
  • b. The decline of the royal power in favour of the land institutions
  • c. Religious equilibrium
  • d. Czech society et the edge of the Early Modern Era
Literature
  • TEICH, Mikuláš. Bohemia in history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 389 s. ISBN 0521431557. info
  • Péporté, P.: “John of Bohemia: The Vicissitudes of a National Hero”. In: Idem: The Midde Ages. Historiography, Collective Memory and Nation-Bilding in Luxembourg. Leiden and Boston 2011, pp. 221–269
  • Karoli IV. imperatoris Romanorum Vita ab eo ipso conscripta et Hystoria nova de sancto Wenceslao martyre. Autobiography of Emperor Charles IV and his Legend of St. Wenceslas. Budapest, 2001. ISBN 978-963-9116-32-0. info
  • East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500. Edited by Jean W. Sedlar. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994, xiii, 556. ISBN 9780295800646. info
  • THOMAS, Alfred. Anne's Bohemia : Czech literature and society, 1310-1420. Edited by David Wallace. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998, xix, 194. ISBN 0816630542. info
  • Klassen, J.: Household composition in medieval Bohemia, Journal of Medieval History 16, 1990, s. 55–75.
  • ROSARIO, Iva. Art and propaganda : Charles IV of Bohemia, 1346-1378. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2000, xvii, 155. ISBN 0851157874. info
  • Michaud, C.: The Kingdoms of Central Europe in the Fourteenth Century. In: Jones, M.: New Cambridge Medieval History vol. VI. c. 1300–c. 1415. Cambridge 2000, pp. 735–63.
  • Perett, Marcela K.: Vernacular Songs as “Oral Pamphlets”: The Hussites and Their Propaganda Campaign. Viator 1, 2011, pp. 1–21.
  • WOLVERTON, Lisa. Hastening toward Prague : power and society in the medieval Czech lands. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001, 406 s. ISBN 0812236130. info
  • Wolverton, L.: Cosmas of Prague. Narrative, Classicism, Politics. Washington D. C. 2015.
  • Cosmas of Prague, The Chronicle of the Czechs. Transl. L. Wolverton. Washington D. C. 2009.
  • Curta, F.: The Making of the Slavs. History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c.500–700. Cambridge 2007.
  • Curta, F.: The 'Prague type'. A critical approach to pottery classification. In: Hoi skoteinoi aiones tou Byzantiou (7os-9os ai.). The Dark Centuries of Byzantium (7th-9th c.). Red. E. Kountoura-Galake (Diethne Symposia 9). Athens 2001, pp. 171-188.
  • Curta, F.: The early Slavs in Bohemia and Moravia: a response to my critics. Archeologické rozhledy 61, 2009, pp. 725-754.
  • Curta, F.: Slavs in Fredegar and Paul the Deacon: medieval gens or ‘scourge of God?’ Early Medieval Europe 6, 1997, pp. 141-167.
  • Goląb, Z.: The Origins of Slavs. A Linguist´s View. Columbus 1992.
  • The Czech lands in medieval transformation. Edited by Jan Klápště - Philadelphia Ricketts. Boston: Brill, 2012, xxxviii, 5. ISBN 9789004226463. info
  • WIHODA, Martin. Vladislaus Henry. The Formation of Moravian Identity. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2015, 351 pp. East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages 450-1450. ISBN 978-90-04-25049-9. info
  • GRANT, Jeanne E. For the common good : the Bohemian land law and the beginning of the hussite revolution. Leiden: Brill, 2015, ix, 155. ISBN 9789004282896. info
  • Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes. Transl. M. Kantor. Ann Arbor 1983.
  • Kantor, M.: The second Old Slavonic legend of St. Wenceslas: problems of translation and dating. In: American Contributions to the Ninth International Congress of Slavists. Kiev, September 1983, 2: Literature, Poetics, History. Red. M. S. Flier – P. Debr
  • The Origins of Christianity in Bohemia. Sources and Commentary. Ed. et transl. M. Cantor. Evanston 1990.
  • WOOD, I. N. The missionary life : saints and the evangelisation of Europe, 400-1050. 1st pub. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2001, xiii, 309. ISBN 0582312124. info
  • KALHOUS, David. Anatomy of a Duchy. The Political and Ecclesiastical Structures of Early Přemyslid Bohemia. 1st ed. Leiden - Boston: Brill, 2012, 350 pp. East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. ISBN 978-90-04-22980-8. info
  • Curta, F.: The history and archaeology of Great Moravia: an introduction. Early Medieval Europe 17, 2009, pp. 238-247. (Conf. other texts in EME written by Jiří Macháček, Naďa Profantová and David Kalhous.)
  • BETTI, Maddalena. The making of Christian Moravia (858-882) : papal power and political reality. Leiden: Brill, 2014, xiii, 251. ISBN 9789004211872. info
Teaching methods
Lecture - analysis of the written sources
Assessment methods
Active participation (75 % attendance), presentation
Language of instruction
English
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2015, Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2024, Spring 2025.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2017, recent)
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