Judith of Schweinfurt ( cs, Jitka ze Schweinfurtu / in old Czech: Jitka ze Svinibrodu; before 1003 – 2 August 1058) was
Duchess consort of Bohemia
This is a list of the royal consorts of the rulers of Bohemia.
The first Duchess of Bohemia (''česká kněžna'') was St. Ludmila, while the first Queen of Bohemia (''česká královna'') was Świętosława of Poland. Some of them were (like ...
from 1034 until 1055, by her marriage with the
Přemyslid duke
Bretislav I
Bretislav I ( cs, Břetislav I.; 1002/1005 – 10 January 1055), known as the "Bohemian Achilles", of the Přemyslid dynasty, was Duke of Bohemia from 1034 until his death.
Youth
Bretislav was the son of Duke Oldřich and his low-born concubin ...
.
[Herwig Wolfram, ''Conrad II, 990-1039: Emperor of Three Kingdoms'', transl. Denise A. Kaiser, (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 226.]
Family
Her parents were
Henry of Schweinfurt
Henry of Schweinfurt (''de Suinvorde''; – 18 September 1017) was the Margrave of the Nordgau from 994 until 1004. He was called the "glory of eastern Franconia" by his own cousin, the chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg.
Henry was the son of ...
(d. 1017), margrave in the Bavarian ''
Nordgau The Nordgau (from the Germanic for "northern region") can refer to two distinct areas:
* Nordgau (Alsace), the Alsatian Nordgau, the medieval County of Nordgau, the northern part of Alsace
* Margraviate of the Nordgau, the Bavarian Nordgau in the a ...
'',
and his wife
Gerberga of
Henneberg. Margrave Henry and his father
Berthold
Berthold or Berchtold is a Germanic given name and surname. It is derived from two elements, ''berht'' meaning "bright" and ''wald'' meaning "(to) rule". It may refer to:
*Bertholdt Hoover, a fictional List_of_Attack_on_Titan_characters, character ...
may have been descendants of Duke
Arnulf of Bavaria
Arnulf II (birth unknown; died 14 July 937), also known as the Bad (german: der Schlimme), the Evil (''der Böse'') or the Wicked, a member of the Luitpoldings, Luitpolding dynasty, held the title of Duke of Bavaria from about 907 until his dea ...
and related to the
Luitpolding
The Luitpoldings were a medieval dynasty which ruled the German stem duchy of Bavaria from some time in the late ninth century off and on until 985.
Origins
The descent of the East Frankish Luitpoldings has not been conclusively established. The ...
dynasty. Berthold's brother (or nephew) Margrave
Leopold I of Austria became progenitor of the Younger
House of Babenberg
The House of Babenberg was a noble dynasty of Austrian Dukes and Margraves. Originally from Bamberg in the Duchy of Franconia (present-day Bavaria), the Babenbergs ruled the imperial Margraviate of Austria from its creation in 976 AD until its e ...
. She was raised at the nunnery her family had founded in
Schweinfurt
Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban agg ...
.
Bretislav and Jitka
![Bretislav1 Jitka](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Bretislav1_Jitka.jpg)
According to
František Palacký
František Palacký (; June 17, 1798 – May 26, 1876) was a Czech historian and politician, the most influential person of the Czech National Revival, called "Father of the Nation".
Life
František Palacký was born on June 17, 1798 at Hodslavi ...
, the young Bohemian prince Bretislav, son of the Přemyslid duke
Oldřich of Bohemia, on his way to the court of Emperor
Conrad II
Conrad II ( – 4 June 1039), also known as and , was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1027 until his death in 1039. The first of a succession of four Salian emperors, who reigned for one century until 1125, Conrad ruled the kingdoms ...
in 1029 passed through Schweinfurt, where he met Judith and immediately fell in love with her.
Duke Oldřich had forged an alliance with the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
king
Henry II to depose his elder brothers
Boleslaus III and
Jaromír. He also had been able to reconquer large
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The me ...
n territories occupied by the
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
duke
Bolesław I the Brave
Bolesław I the Brave ; cs, Boleslav Chrabrý; la, Boleslaus I rex Poloniae (17 June 1025), less often known as Bolesław the Great, was Duke of Poland from 992 to 1025, and the first King of Poland in 1025. He was also Duke of Bohemia betw ...
by 1019. Therefore, Oldřich was not averse to confirm his good relationship with the German nobility through a marriage to Judith.
Beautiful Judith was a desirable bride, however, Oldřich's only son Bretislav was of illegitimate birth from his misalliance with the farmer's daughter
Božena. Judith's relatives were very proud of their noble origins, thus complicating the prospect of Bretislav's marriage with the high-born Judith. The young man solved the problem in his own way by sneaking into the monastery and abducting Judith on a wild ride out of Schweinfurt, shattering locks and chains with his sword.
Bretislav was never punished for the crime. He and Judith settled at
Olomouc
Olomouc (, , ; german: Olmütz; pl, Ołomuniec ; la, Olomucium or ''Iuliomontium'') is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 99,000 inhabitants, and its larger urban zone has a population of about 384,000 inhabitants (2019).
Located on th ...
in Moravia.
Bretislav married Judith some time later. Their first son
Spytihněv was born after almost ten years (which led to the hypothesis that the kidnapping happened in 1029), although Judith may have given birth to daughters before her first son.
Exile in Hungary
After Bretislav died in 1055, Judith was expelled by her son Spytihněv out of Bohemia, like many other Germans, and moved to the
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...
with her younger son
Vratislaus. In Hungary she may have secondly married the former king
Peter Orseolo
Peter Orseolo, or Peter the Venetian ( hu, Velencei Péter; 1010 or 1011 – 1046, or late 1050s), was the King of Hungary twice. He first succeeded his uncle, King Stephen I of Hungary, Stephen I, in 1038. His favoritism towards his foreign ...
, who had been deposed in 1046. Judith died in 1058 and her mortal remains were transferred to
St. Vitus Cathedral
, native_name_lang = Czech
, image = St Vitus Prague September 2016-21.jpg
, imagesize = 300px
, imagelink =
, imagealt =
, landscape =
, caption ...
in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
.
Legacy
![Schweinfurt, Peterstirn-003](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Schweinfurt%2C_Peterstirn-003.jpg)
The marriage of Bretislav and Judith was perpetuated in the theatre play ''Bretislaus'', also named ''Bretislav and Jitka'', written by the Czech author
Jan Campanus Vodňanský (1572–1622) in 1614. The performance was then forbidden, considered detrimental to the reputation of the Bohemian monarchs. According to legend, Judith during her kidnapping lost a shoe when Bretislav's horse galloped downhill from the Schweinfurt monastery; since the 19th century a masonry cave with a stone shoe marks the site.
References
Literature
* Barbara Krzemienska ''Břetislav I. - Čechy a střední Evropa v prvé polovině XI. století''. Praha : Garamond, 1999.
* Josef Žemlička ''Čechy v době knížecí 1044–1198''. Praha : NLN, 2002. 660 s. .
{{Authority control
1058 deaths
11th-century Bohemian people
11th-century Hungarian people
Duchesses of Bohemia
Babenberg
Czech people of German descent
Hungarian people of German descent
Czech exiles
Czech expatriates in Hungary
People from Schweinfurt
Year of birth uncertain
11th-century Hungarian women
11th-century Bohemian women
Bretislav I