Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620: With a short summary of later eventsMaurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
History
Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620: With a short summary of later events
Maurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
Bohemia (Czech Republic) -- History -- 1526-1618; Bohemia (Czech Republic) -- History -- To 1526
That Ottakar felt the difficulty of this conflict, and desired to
compromise between the interests of these rivals for his favour, is
strikingly illustrated by the two cases of Hradiste and Litomys̆l. In
the former case, Ottakar was particularly anxious to secure the good
will of the citizens, because he looked upon their town as a possible
bulwark against Hungarian invasion; but the neighbouring convent
of Vilegrad feared that the grant of liberties to Hradiste would
interfere with the privileges of their convent. The compromise to which
Ottakar was forced seems a considerable surrender to ecclesiastical
pretensions. The townsmen were to settle in one particular island, for
which they were to pay rent to the monastery. The monastery was to
retain all its former rights over waters, fisheries, mills, meadows,
woods, and corn-fields; and, though the town was to hold a market two
days a week, the profit of that market was to go on one day to the
king, and on another to the monastery; and, above all, the judge of the
town was to be appointed by the monastery. But in this decree there is
a provision which seems to suggest how even such a compromise might
work for freedom. The common rights in pasture held previously by the
townsmen are to be shared with the dependants of the monastery; but
the dependants of the monastery in their turn are to share their common
rights with the citizens of the town. Thus there would naturally grow
up a combination among the dependants of the monasteries, like those
unions which, in England, gave such trouble to the abbots of St. Albans
and Dunstable.
In the case of Litomys̆l the grants to the monastery and those given to
the town are so entangled that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish
between the benefits received by the respective recipients of the
royal favour; and, in this case, Ottakar seems to have cut the knot by
raising Litomys̆l to the ordinary position of a royal town, and thereby
emancipating it from the control of the monastery. Ottakar indeed had
one sure protection against any possible offence which the Church
might fear from the growth of civic liberty. Bruno, Bishop of Olmütz,
was his right-hand man in this as in other parts of his work. Himself
a German by birth, he warmly encouraged the introduction of German
town rights into the cities of Moravia; while, on the other hand, he
always succeeded, until the final catastrophe of Ottakar’s life, in
strengthening the good understanding between the Pope and the King of
Bohemia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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