Vladislaus II, Duke of Bohemia

For other monarchs with similar names, please see Ladislaus II (disambiguation)

Vladislaus II
Duke of Bohemia
Reign	1140 – 1158
Predecessor	Sobeslaus I
Successor	Frederick
King of Bohemia
Reign	1158 – 1172
Coronation	1158, Regensburg
Predecessor	Vratislaus II
Successor	Ottokar I
Born	c. 1110 Bohemia
Died	18 January 1174 (aged 63–64) Meerane, Germany
Burial	Prague, Strahov Abbey
Spouse	Gertrude of Babenberg Judith of Thuringia
Issue	Frederick, Duke of Bohemia Ottokar I, King of Bohemia Vladislaus III, Duke of Bohemia
House	Přemyslid dynasty
Father	Vladislaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Mother	Richeza of Berg
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Vladislaus II or Vladislaus I (king) (Czech: Vladislav II./I.,^[1] c.1110 – 18 January 1174) was the second King of Bohemia from 1158. Before that he had been Duke of Bohemia from 1140. When he abdicated in 1172, the royal title was not yet hereditary.

Vladislav was the son of Vladislav I and Richeza of Berg. He was married twice, first to Gertrude of Babenberg and then to Judith of Thuringia.

Early years

He was an adventurous youth and, having no possibility of reaching the throne during the reign of his uncle Soběslav I, he moved to Bavaria. He returned at the death of Soběslav in 1140 and, with the help of his brother-in-law, the king of Germany, Conrad III, he was elected prince of Bohemia.

At first, he had to contend with the claims of his cousin, the son of Sobeslav, also named Vladislav. By Soběslav's request, the Emperor Lothair II had recognised the rights of his son at the Diet of Bamberg in May 1138, then, in June, the nobility affirmed them at Sadská. Another diet at Bamberg confirmed the succession of the son of Vladislav, however, in April 1140. The local dukes, Conrad II of Znojmo, Vratislaus II of Brno, and Otto III of Olomouc, gave him trouble. They were excommunicated by Henry Zdik, bishop of Olomouc, who was then driven out of his diocese. The territorial dukes then defeated Vladislav through treason at Vysoká on 22 April 1142, but their siege of Prague failed. Vladislav kept his throne through the help of Conrad III of Germany, whose half-sister Gertrude of Babenberg he married.

The second king

In 1147, he accompanied the king on the Second Crusade, but halted his march at Constantinople and subsequently returned.^[2] On his way back to Bohemia he passed through Kiev and Kraków. Thanks to his military support against free northern Italian cities (especially Milan) for Conrad's successor, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Vladislav was elected king of Bohemia on 11 January 1158, becoming the second Bohemian king to boast such an imperial title after Vratislaus II.

He was also invested with Upper Lusatia at Regensburg and his coronation was celebrated in a second ceremony at Milan on 8 September. Vladislav was a firm ally of Barbarossa. He duly accompanied him to Milan in 1158. During the Italian expeditions of 1161, 1162, and 1167, Vladislav entrusted the command of the Czech contingent to his brother Duke Děpold I of Jamnitz and his son Frederick.

After the revolt of the Moravian dukes, Vladislav gradually took control of the strongholds of Moravia: Brno with the death of Vratislaus II in 1156, Olomouc with the death of Otto III (in spite of the claims of Sobeslav, the son of Duke Sobeslav, who was imprisoned), and finally Znojmo with the death of Conrad II. Vladislav also intervened in Hungary in 1163 on behalf of the emperor. He married his second son, Sviatopluk, to a Hungarian princess and had diplomatic contact with Manuel I Comnenus. In 1164, he even married his six-year-old daughter Helena to Peter, son of Manuel.

In 1167, Daniel I, bishop of Prague since 1148 and Vladislav's greatest advisor, died. As a result, relations between the kings of Bohemia and Germany were strained. When his son (Vojtech) Adalbert III became archbishop of Salzburg in 1169, the emperor suspected him of supporting Pope Alexander III.

Abdication

Eager to impose his son Frederick on the throne of the still-elective duchy of Bohemia, he abdicated without either the consensus of the Bohemian noblemen or the Emperor's permission. Frederick kept the throne for less than one year, before yielding the place to Soběslav II, the elder son of Soběslav I.

Vladislav lived in Thuringia in the lands of his second wife, where he died in January 1174. He was buried in the Cathedral of Meissen. His reign was marked by the founding of numerous Premonstratensian and Cistercian abbeys in Bohemia, as well as the construction of a stone bridge across Vltava in Prague: the construct was named Judith Bridge in honour of Vladislav's second wife.

Family and children

By his first wife, Gertrude of Babenberg (died 4 August 1150), he had the following issue:

• a daughter (Richeza?), married Yaroslav II of Kiev
• Frederick, successor
• Sviatopluk, married a daughter of Géza II of Hungary
• Vojtěch, Archbishop of Salzburg as Adalbert III of Bohemia
• Agnes (died 7 June 1228), abbess of St George of Prague

By his second wife, Judith of Thuringia (married 1155), daughter of Louis I, Landgrave of Thuringia, he had the following issue:

• Ottokar, later king of Bohemia, first of a hereditary line
• Vladislaus, later duke of Bohemia as Vladislaus III
• Richeza (died 19 April 1182), married Henry I, Duke of Mödling, son of Henry II, Duke of Austria and had one son, Henry the Younger

Ancestry

Ancestors of Vladislaus II, Duke of Bohemia

16. Oldřich of Bohemia               8. Bretislaus I of Bohemia                       17. Božena               4. Vratislaus II of Bohemia                             18. Henry of Schweinfurt               9. Judith of Schweinfurt                       19. Gerberga of Henneberg               2. Vladislaus I of Bohemia                                   20. Mieszko II Lambert of Poland               10. Casimir I of Poland                       21. Richeza of Lotharingia               5. Świętosława of Poland                             22. Vladimir the Great of Kiev               11. Maria Dobroniega of Kiev                       23. (?)               1. Vladislaus II of Bohemia                                         24. (?)               12. Poppo of Berg-Schelklingen                       25. (?)               6. Henry I of Berg-Schelklingen                             26. Solomon, King of Hungary               13. Sophia of Hungary                       27. Judith of Swabia               3. Richeza of Berg                                   28. Diepold I, Margrave of Cham-Vohburg               14. Diepold II, Margrave of Vohburg                       29. (?)               7. Adelheid of Mochental                             30. Berthold I, Duke of Carinthia               15. Luitgard of Carinthia                       31. Richwara

References

1. František Palacký: Dějiny národa českého v Čechách i v Moravě, book XVII
2. Mahoney 2011, p. 44.

Sources

• Mahoney, William (2011). The History of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0313363061.