Soběslav I, Duke of Bohemia
Soběslav I. ( * after 1068; † February 14, 1140 in Hradec Hostin ) was a Duke of Bohemia from the Přemyslovci. The youngest son of the first Bohemian king Vratislav II and Swatawa of Poland ruled as Duke of Bohemia in the years 1125-1140.
Life
The first reports date back to 1107, when he with the deposed duke Bořivoj II into exile to the Polish Duke Bolesław III. Was driven Wrymouth. 1111 but received Soběslav the management of sites of Saaz ( Žatecko ). 1113 there was a dispute with his brother, the Duke of Bohemia Vladislav I in 1115, the brothers agreed, and was given dominion over Soběslav Hradec Králové ( Hradec Králové ) is also still in 1115 also on the areas around Brno ( Brněnsko ) and Znojmo ( Znojmo ). 1123 blazed the disputes between the brothers again. Soběslav were taken all the goods and he had to leave the country, first in the German Empire, and later in the Kingdom of Poland.
A year later his brother became ill, and his mother Svatava called him back. The brothers agreed, and Vladislav certain Soběslav his successor. Vladislav died 1125th Soběslav had, however, immediately to the throne against Otto II the Black of Moravia fight the claim to the Bohemian throne rose and the German king Lothar III. of Supplinburg called for help. 1126 marched Lothar one with an army in Bohemia. On February 18, 1126 it came to the second battle of Chlumec, was victorious in the Soběslav. Otto the Black fell, and King Lothar III. was included with the rest of his army and forced to negotiate. Soběslav settled by Lothar III. borrow with Bohemia, and it was followed by years of peace.
The era Soběslavs I was otherwise characterized by a gradual stabilization of Bohemia, which had suffered in the more than a hundred years previously under repeated disputes within the ruling family. Soběslav had built castles and fortresses. Already under his predecessor Vladislav I had with Bishop Henry Zdik of Olomouc used a wave of new monasteries of the Premonstratensian and Cistercian. Soběslav ruled with a heavy hand, especially against their own family of Přemyslids which branches now far, claims to power in the lands claimed. So he left for example Břetislavova 1126, son of Duke Břetislav II and in 1128 Konrad Lutold, imprison Duke of Znojmo in the castle Dohna. This procedure, but also the natural extinction of the Moravian line of Přemyslids, led to the fact that Bohemia stabilized as a closed composite rule in the mid 12th century. Although Moravia remained an independent margravate, but the Margrave was occupied from this time, as a rule of a Prague Přemyslids. In addition, during the troubled decades of the influence of the nobility and of the empire was previously grown, so Bohemia under Soběslav I and his successors was a stable and powerful part of the empire with a strong aristocracy. His expression of this development in the ceremony of kingship to Soběslavs successor Vladislav II just under Emperor Lothar's reign newly promoted German eastern settlement that was to last until the 14th century, promoted the peaceful cultural penetration and the Bohemian countryside, German in particular by city foundations law.
In the last years of his life Soběslav tried by the new King Conrad III. to obtain the promise that after his death his son Vladislav was invested with Bohemia. This promise he received in 1138. It remained but worthless. The strengthened Bohemian nobility elected by Soběslavs death his nephew Vladislav II to the Duke.
Soběslav I was married, with whom he had five children with Adleyta, daughter of Almusch of Hungary ( Almus Uherský ). Vladislav, Soběslav II, Oldrich, Mary the. First marriage with the Austrian Margrave Leopold IV, son of Leopold III and in a second marriage with the Margrave Hermann III. was married from Baden and Wenceslas II.
He retired in 1139 on his farm in eastern Bohemia Chvojna a deadly disease and spent Christmas 1139 at the castle Hostin Hradec, where he died on February 14, 1140 on his sickbed.