In addition to land, the duke of Bohemia held the right to a variety of taxes and tolls, as well as exclusive minting rights. Our knowledge of these sources of income comes incidentally, from charters to ecclesiastical institutions granting them all or a fixed amount of the income from tolls or taxes, although never the right to erect a new toll. Evidence from both numismatic analysis and written sources indicates that already from the eleventh century the Czech economy was monetized—that is, people of all stations were accustomed to carry and use coin daily. Although the numismatic literature has traditionally seen the duke’s primary source of income in his control, and supposed manipulation, of the coinage,46 it was actually quite stable, rarely debased, and not routinely exchanged. Rather than relying on minting itself, the duke profited from a variety of taxes, some fixed and others from which the income must have fluctuated according to economic conditions. From these, without doubt, the duke of Bohemia derived considerable wealth and a supply of ready cash.
Frequent references in all the extant sources point to the widespread use of money in medieval Czech society.47 It was used for purchasing land and as a valuation of property, collected by the duke through tolls and taxes, and, from all indications, used as a means of everyday exchange. The Přemyslid duke monopolized the right to mint the silver coinage in common use during the eleventh and twelfth centuries,48 though in Moravia it was delegated to the vice-dukes and, for a time, the bishop of Olomouc.49 Although Bohemia would later become famous for its silver mining, the only information about mining before the thirteenth century appears in a charter from ca. 1188, granting Plasy “twelve marks of silver to be paid every year from the silver mine on the upper Mže [river].”50 As in later centuries, this mine was in the duke’s hands. The role of locally mined silver in minting, its effect on the medieval Czech economy, and its exact contribution to the duke’s treasury unfortunately cannot be determined.
Přemyslid rulers could count on both silver and minting as sources of income, but greater profit lay in taxation. The duke’s income from taxes may be divided into three categories: tolls on travel, commerce-related taxes, and fixed annual levies. Tolls are most frequently mentioned at roads but noted as well for rivers, bridges, and border crossings. In 1078, Vice-duke Otto of Olomouc granted the monastery he established at Hradiště: “from the Olšava [river] the sixth denár, and from the bridge of the castle of Břeclav the sixth denár, and from the road which leads to Poland past the castle of Hradec the sixth denár, and from the mint the tenth denár.” 51 In an earlier charter, dated ca. 1057, the chapter at Litoměřice was to receive the toll paid by all ships passing the town on the Elbe, including those whose cargo was too small to merit taking a portion: free or unfree, their owners were to pay 15 denáry, if foreign, as much in denáry as they were carrying, or, for peasants from Litoměřice or neighboring Bílina, 12 denáry.52 These constitute major commercial routes, upriver from Meissen toward Prague on the Elbe, across Moravia to Cracow, and south through Břeclav to Hungary and points east. The other important trade route ran from Regensburg to Prague through Plzeň; from the mid-eleventh century a toll was collected at the border crossing at Domažlice.53 A ducal grant to Teplá from 1197 mentions a toll there, on the twelfth-century route from Žatec through Sedlec to Staufer Eger, pertaining both to a market and to a border gate.54 Control of transport routes, including the most heavily travelled, must have been a steady and lucrative source of ducal revenue—one which could easily adapt and grow according to economic circumstances.
Among the commercial taxes, a grant to the chapter at Vyšehrad from 1130 describes what must be considered a sales tax: “At Kamenec they have and should have the tenth coin in sales, as was established in antiquity.”55 It hardly seems likely that such sales taxes were limited only to Kamenec. If levied in bustling towns like Prague, Vyšehrad, Litoměřice, or Žatec, they must have generated considerable income. The mid-eleventh-century endowment of the collegiate chapter in Litoměřice mentions income from the “sales of foreigners.”56 The duke apparently taxed, if not monopolized, the trade in salt.57 He seems also to have controlled, perhaps even licensed, taverns. The so-called Břetislav Decrees explicitly prohibit taverns and drinking generally, while the charter of privilege for the Prague Germans speaks of “secret taverns.”58 Possibly alcohol was not sold or consumed publicly in the Czech Lands throughout the later eleventh and twelfth centuries. Given the many references to drunkenness, an alternative scenario might be that, in the course of enforcement of the restrictions announced by Břetislav I, infractions overlooked by the duke soon translated into “exemptions” and thus into de facto oversight of the trade in potables.59
Finally, there exists evidence of general taxation, although its origin or rationale is impossible to determine. Soběslav I’s grant to the Vyšehrad chapter includes the tenth mark of the “annual tribute” collected from sixteen of the most prominent castles, including Prague, as well as from three “provinces.”60 This may, or may not, be the same as the “tributum pacis,” mentioned in Soběslav II’s reform and confirmation of the chapter’s income almost fifty years later.61 Another charter issued to Vyšehrad, this time by Frederick in 1187, allows the church to collect “venditio seu collecta generalis” from the people on its own lands.62 Hradiště, given a similar privilege in 1160, was allowed to collect both “tribute” and tithe.63 At the end of the twelfth century, Duke/Bishop Henry absolved the newly established monastery at Teplá from paying “the collection of pennies, which is accustomed to be collected throughout Bohemia.”64 Whether these comments all refer to the same general levy, or several, they together indicate that the duke garnered income from a tax collected annually, in castles and in the countryside by province, paid by every Czech regardless of the land on which he lived.
These passing references in charters undoubtedly describe only a small portion of the duke’s earnings: whenever a monastery was granted a tenth of the tax, the duke reserved the other nine portions; for every toll income donated, he retained several others; and besides the “tribute” he allowed monasteries to collect, everyone else’s payments went into his coffers. Since the charters record legally binding grants to ecclesiastical institutions, they must also reflect the degree to which dukes felt secure about the cash in their treasury. The duke of Bohemia was not only quite wealthy, but rich in cash. Such liquid assets could prove most valuable in a pinch, say, for securing troops from the emperor to aid in a succession conflict.65 Viewed from another perspective, people everywhere in Bohemia carried coins with the duke’s name and image, and used those coins not only for routine transactions. High and low, rich and poor, everyone paid taxes when they sold their goods, as they traveled, and once a year directly to the duke himself.
Jurisdiction
No legal codes are extant from the eleventh or twelfth centuries, even as redacted in later times. When legal historians have approached this period looking for sources—outside ordinary charters—they have found only three.66 None is, in fact, strictly a text of law; two are charters of privilege and another appears in Cosmas’s chronicle. This last, the “Břetislav Decrees,” concerns Christianization and thus will be discussed in Chapter 4. One of the two charters of privileges, usually called the “Statutes of Conrad Otto,” though conventionally dated to 1189, pertains to the early thirteenth century.67 Here the focus is upon the third item, a privilege granted to the German community in Prague. It opens a tiny window onto law and rights of jurisdiction, which are of particular relevance to the analysis of ducal power.
This exceptional legal privilege, a document recording the grant by Soběslav II to the German community in Prague ca. 1174–78, merits citation in its entirety. (To summarize its content would take almost as much space and inevitably be less lucid.)
I Soběslav, duke of the Bohemians, make it known to all those present and future, that I take into my grace and defense the Germans who dwell
