Hello, what's up?
Oh, not much.
You know, it's another beautiful day here on Turf Island and.
And yeah, yeah, that's what's up.
How are you you know about the same another beautiful day here? And uh, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what you call it anymore.
Hey, yeah, we got we've got a snappy name, at least for our our particular bigotries.
But you know, hey, ho, what can you say?
It's beautiful? It's beautiful over here. Yeah, like yeah, I mean, like I was texting you about this all last week.
But it's like.
The highs are high and the lows are low. We had a good Seann Freud a high the other week, which was very funny. So our Chancellor Rachel Reeves, So she is responsible for saying I'm afraid we're going to have to like starve every poor person in the UK because the line is sad, right, Like that's that's her job. And she is notable because so she's the first woman to ever run the Exchequer or whatever. And when she was like gearing up, her big move was to like write a history of women in economics.
And then it like immediately came out that.
She plagiarized a lot of it from Wikipedia, and everyone was like I'm sure it'll be fine, right, And like her big deal is like I'm tougher than the Tories, like what I do, Like I just do evil things even more than the Tories, which for some reason we're supposed to like, so it's like she's doing she's doing kind of like turbo austerity again, like in the hopes that it will make the line happy, which it won't
because it doesn't. But so anyway, like all sorts of bad stuff has been happening, like and one of the big things they were going to do was like cut a bunch of benefits to people with disabilities, and finally like five of the labor MP's were.
Like, wait a minute, this sounds evil, and like.
Rebelled and then there was like a so so as a resultable as there was like you know, the Parliament got together and Kara Star wars like saying a bunch of stupid shit, and people were asking questions and they were like, well, Rachel Rrie's gonna have to go, and he was like, well, I don't know, and she sat behind.
Him and starts crying.
And then like the way the Center responded, this is if she was upset over an unrelated, different matter, and then they all got like really mad at you online. If you were like, oh, yo, I think it's funny that this woman who's the architect of misery for so many millions of us, is sad, they were like, oh, because you're sexist and you hate women. Like, she's just doing a very hard job. So anyway, that was really funny.
Yeah. Oh, I can't hear you anymore. I've lost you.
I was muted there go.
Yeah, it's very funny.
It's very funny.
Though.
On the other hand, I like it's very hard working down at the children's starving factory, Okay.
I you know, yeah, you guys, I mean, and then you guys got a new party. Who knows, you know, the efficacy of such things. Yeah, I mean, see if mister Corbyn can keep from apologizing his way out of the yeah.
I mean, I think that's the way that this is going to have to work, is that as Zara Sultana is going to have.
To really be.
Like the face of it, because she's a bit more good at attacking I would say, And you know, my good friend JC, it's a lovely guy.
But that's the trouble.
Like, that's the trouble, right, It's like he's just like such a nice boy, and we actually need someone who can break legs, which which he isn't you know.
Yeah, he's yeah, the classic put upon imperial core socialist.
You know, he's like.
He you know, he's a great heart and everything, but you know, his first inclination seems to be to apologize for a lot of things. And you can't do that in front of these people, No, no, at all. You can't give them even like the slightest inch. Yeah, And I mean, you know, I hope, you know, I hope it works out whatever, you know, whatever's working over there. It's it's nice that you guys can just have like a new party pop up, you know.
But yeah, like that's a good thing.
There is also some hope in terms of like entryism at the Green Party at the moment, because there's a guy, Zach Polanski who is for the leadership of the Green Party, which could in theory turn it into a leftist vehicle.
Because like the trouble is at the moment, it's a real broad church and you've kind of got like Tories who like the Newts in their stream on one hand, and you know, people who wish to bring about the fall of capitalism, because ultimately, if we're going to save the planet, that's what has to be done, right, And so perhaps.
That's like one way of going in. So I've got some.
Friends who are doing that, who are like joining the party in order to vote for him, and then we'll see what happens.
But I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do yet.
I'm kind of like having a look at all sides, and I don't know, just like trying very hard not to despair.
Stuff's bad here, but it is.
It feels good to like maybe have options, even in a limited sense, I guess, get it again.
God, Yet, you know, I don't want to burpen in the mic and you know.
That, but I mean that's what the workers being professional. He's being professional over here.
You know.
It's uh. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, it's uh. Just a lot of stuff right now is really uh and it's really fucked up. But that's a technical term. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's uh. You know, it's the term of art.
It's real fucked up. Dog.
I've noticed I noted on related but not the same news that Linda Why the hot Dog diva herself has just stepped down as head of Twitter CEO of Twitter.
Where have where have you gone? Linda yeck are renewing? Like a nation turns its only eyes to you.
Diva down?
You know, Like I gotta say, it's very I I find very funny to to like leave now. I think it's really funny where it's like it's basically like the AI going full of Hitler is what did it?
Apparently? I mean, like do you think that's what it is? Or do you think it's.
Just like I mean, like she was always just a fig leaf there and like yeah do like no, like you can like you can tell because like nobody even the media didn't really treat her as like the CEO of the thing until like like they did for like a few months and then they were like, okay, anyway back to actually talking to Eline about this stuff because this is just a fig leaf. I mean, so like on the one hand, it's like I expected her to leave.
On the other hand, like that was an embarrassment, even though they apparently have uh turned all that off due.
To yeah, we turned the back of Hitler off guys, so don't worry to uh.
Yeah, don't worry about it due to I don't know, the threats of lawsuits and stuff like it was saying like prescribed stuff in Turkey. Uh hell yeah, anti anti Urdawan ship over there.
It's just so like.
That's it's harding to kill the king of Thailand.
Just like it's like it's just one of those things where you look at it and you're like, man, you guys are fucking idiots, like like like, on the one hand, it's horrifying to be led by such idiots. On the other hand, it's kind of like, I mean, if you guy, if this is how you guys run everything.
Good, God like.
You got you guys. Like, I don't know, I think it's probably a bad idea overall to implode the economy while kicking a bunch of people off Medicaid and using like a carrot and the stick approach to try and like get them to like work awful jobs. They don't want to work that nobody in Uh you know that a lot of people in medicaid can't even work because they don't because it's like grueling farm work and stuff like that, and it's just like you just you get,
you get all this stuff. But I mean, at the same time, like this structure is looking more rickety by the day, and like it like I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen, but like this cannot continue for long. I mean it, frankly, just it can't. Like things are grinding to a halt here and you know, the inertia of world capitalism can't sustain, can't pull it along for there's too many there's too many contradictions now and it's being pulled apart at the top and from below.
And I don't know what it's going to look like after that, but yeah, it's gonna be something. I don't have any fucking clue. They don't. They don't tell me anything at the at the big Illuminati world meetings, nobody.
You gotta work your way up. Yeah.
Hurtful stuff, hurtful stuff. Yeah.
Well, let's uh, you want to talk about people doing you want to talk about Slavs being Slovs.
Do you know what?
Like there are very few things that I like to talk about more than that, So I'd say.
Yes, yeah, yeah, it's so weird, little guys, weird little guys.
Weird little guys.
They're little because they're squatting.
That's right, that's right.
Uh, folks, welcome back to We're Not So Different, a podcast about how we are all wearing our ceremonial adidious track suits today and squatting. I don't know if that stereotype still holds weight. If it doesn't, most of you are old enough to get it.
Just go along.
Look, I'm delighted to announce that it is still true.
Yes, good for them, good, good for the Slavs. Folks. Uh, we're back in We are heading back to ye old Bohemia. You know, Eleanor is pumped. Bohemia mentioned vaguely, Central European, Eastern Europe and border lands mentioned. No questions, because we'll get them. We'll get to them in the course of the show. But folks, at the beginning of the year, we promised to visit various places and times during the medieval era that we haven't really focused on in the show before.
This previously brought.
Us on a visit to Constantinople in the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as the seven hundred year long period of Muslim rule on Alan deLuce and now it takes us to Bohemian the Czech Lands. Now now, now, now, now, Before you remind me that we've been literally dozens of episodes in Bohemia talking about Prague, the Habsburgs, the Holy Roman Empire, the Thirty Years War, et cetera, let me finish today. Our trip takes us to Bohemia and the
Czech Lands of the early medieval era. As much as we love them and as they serve as a homeland for one of the hosts of the show, we barely even hinted at the history of the region before Prague became a world renowned religious, cultural, scientific, and economic hub in the High Middle Ages, back before the famous Yawns miliic Kus and Jushka among you know, certainly millions of others turned the Kingdom of Bohemia into a rebellious haven
of religious heterodoxy that would eventually birth the downfall of the Catholic churches hegemonic grip on Europe, both from the Hussite Wars and then from the Third Disfinistration. Yep, folks, they loved to demonstrate, they love to definishtrate what were Bohemia and the surrounding Czech lands, even like before, they had buildings barely tall enough for a proper definistration. Well
we're gonna find out now, tries On. I couldn't find a sufficiently spectacular natural disaster, geography, geologic event with which to lead off this episode, so instead you're stuck with the other thing that leads me all struck, the enduring human spirit of discovery and the random happened stances that
conspire to bring us together. And Bohemia, a central European region that in medieval times was composed of the western half of the modern day Czech Republic, along with parts of Greater Moravia and Czech Silesia, is a perfect example of that, as it serves as something as a crossroads of humanity and even our forebears, and really, who could
blame them. If the inviting hills and expansive valleys of resource rich land nestled against picturesque mountains of Bohemia don't appeal to you, then the vast plains of Western Europe Ripe for farming, herding, and even more resource exploitation most certainly will. And it's not just humans that have so interest in the area, as tools dating back to eight
hundred thousand years ago have been discovered. Cave and Bruno human camps cropped up around two hundred thousand years ago, and since then we haven't stopped inhabiting or at least passing through the region. Excavations in Bohemia have shown that basically every major European archaeological culture, meaning groups who left discernible archaeological remnants but no other records, so they are grouped together by broad commonalities and pottery or art styles,
has inhabited the area for at least some time. Everyone from the Gravedians some twenty five thousand years ago with their beautiful venus figurines, to the Linear pottery culture and the funnel beakers in the Stone Age. Thereafter the courted where people arrived, then the Boden, the bell beakers that urn fills, the Tumulus culture, and lastly, among many others, the hallstat showed up circa eight hundred BCE to round
out the Bronze Age. In total, the grounds of Bohemia are littered with the remnants of more than a dozen separate pre Iron Age cultures, which is far were the most places still the start of recorded history and antiquity in the region didn't stop people from coming, as Celtic
tribes from Western Europe soon invaded. One such tribe, the Boye boy I. Boy boy Ye, settled and eventually gave their name to the lands of Bohemia, though they were soon chased away by the Germanic Marcomanni and Lombard peoples. By the outset of the verse century BCE, the Romans expanded north, but never conquered Bohemia or the Marcomanni despite years of clashes, and the area stayed much the same until at long last, the Slavs began their great migration
from the Eurasian step into Central and Western Europe. Though the migration began earlier, the Slavs didn't target Bohemia for permanent settlement until the late sixth century CE, when a group known as the Czechs invaded it, took over and assimilated themselves with the remaining Celtic and Germanic peoples in Bohemia,
later the Western Slavic Peoples. Another Slavic group settled Great Moravia to their west, and a beautiful friendship with form, mostly over their mutual hatred of Germanic peoples and being constantly confused for one another. But you know, you know how that goes, Folks. Even this area, which was still a provincial backwater, was a melting pot of diversity even
before the Middle Ages began. And that's where we pick up our story as we look at Bohemia from the six hundreds through the end of the Premislids Premaclea dynasty in thirteen oh six. This episode was requested by our patrons Arc Arcturus and Alas Sahir Alsa Heir. We'll have a couple of questions from Arc later, while Alsa here was basically asking for a more deep dive into the earlier era. So here you go, eleanor me think of Bohemia. We typically think of the later medieval Bohemia with all
its pomp and luxury and political power. But what are we missing when we fail to take these earlier years into account.
Yeah, it's a really interesting place, is the thing. And one of the big reasons that we tend to go kind of like straight to the High Medieval period is because it is so important and rich and interesting, and there's so much stuff going.
On with that.
And also fundamentally, look, we we just didn't get literate, okay until until the ninth century, we had other stuff to do, okay, probably farming.
Perfect perfect encapsulation of why like all the oh these people are destined for great and blah blah blah, like White Europe. It's like they didn't even learn how to they didn't even learn how to write in Prague until
like the eight fifties. Like, y, it's okay, and then we'll tell you within five hundred years or like one of the most important political centers on the planet, you know, like right, you know, look what you can do if you just happen to settled in a really resource rich area and find yeah, silver and also well anyway, yeah.
Yeah, I mean that that is the thing.
Right. One of the things that is most important about it is it's incredibly resourced rich, Like the living is easy in Bohemia, that's the thing. Tons of fresh water, really great woodlands, so that's important for stuff like heating homes and things at the time, like right, for coppicing,
incredibly rich soil. And it is also in the middle of very very many trade routes, so you get a lot of back and forth going in terms of people need to come in and out of the area, and when they do they spend money, right, So it is a major east west trade route, it's a major north south trade route, and so it's just incredibly rich in resources, which is why we have so many varying civilizations who
lived there over time, you know. And like the first thing I ever did when I moved to the Czech Republic was lived in Moravia and did a Bronze Age burial mound dig, which was cool.
Yeah, it was. It was fucking hype, I'll tell you that much.
So it's like you can and you can go, and there's just like, oh yeah, here's the like remnants of the hilltowns from the Bronze Age, and here's all of these burial mounds, and here's this and here's that, and it is just this place where people always wanted to live because it's just not hard to do so, right, And so as a result, I think it's really easy to kind of discount it now because people don't want to learn check fair enough, and also because like we
come into literacy a little bit later, but you know, we were just too busy eating pigs presumably to to learn how to write things down.
But you know, yeah, yeah.
There are worse ways to live so yeah, what what from this pre kingdom era still sticks around into the modern and postmodern world today.
Okay, so the basic outlines of what will become the Czech Republic are kind of in action and what you can see from what we call Great Moravia, Great Moravia Balin. We simply love to see Great Moravia. And you know, I'm a huge I'm a huge fan of my Moraverian brethren, Missen. But basically we know that at some point in time in the eight thirties or so, we have this empire kingdom.
It's difficult to know what to call it.
Great Moravia that is founded, and we don't know how big it was, weirdly, because you know, there's a lot of people who like write a lot of different things. But we've got this guy a Moynier, the first of Moravia right now. He does a bunch of conquering and either like he's within the kind of traditional boundaries of Moravia, which is kind of like from the Morava River over towards like outside of the Elba basin zone, but it might have gone down as far as Serbia. It certainly
took in a lot of the Hungarian plains. It definitely covered Bohemia and up into parts of Poland. Like it was, it was huge, right, and they're doing incredibly well for themselves, right. They managed to link up a lot of desperate peoples and they've got they got themselves with a nice little kingdom going. And so basically then you hit in the eight forty six, the Prince of Russi'slav comes to the throne. Russislav also one of my favorite names of all time.
Name your pets, Russislav. Why wouldn't you do that?
And basically he is like, you know, I see what.
The krolin Jeans are doing over there, We're doing a similar thing over here. And one of the things that he thinks that he wants to do, because he keeps getting in all of these like battles with the Frankians, like because that's rather the thing as he's like, look, I think that we're gonna have to like Christianize, We're going to have to get booked to the fuck up because we can't be we can't be dealing with these Frankish people.
Right.
So the first.
Thing that he kind of does is he writes down to Rome and says, hey, could can he spare any any like priests to come to teach us how to read, and Rome is like, now, which is very funny, right, and also like this is a this is a real story like about how you know, when everyone is like, oh, you know, the medieval church so powerful and rich and stuff, and it's like it's the middle of the ninth century and they can't even like see the utility of like
christianizing this huge block of land or then they're like no, we absolutely, we absolutely cannot do that. And so they say, okay, well fuck you then and they write down to Constantinople and say, hi, interested in christianizing, Got any priests, got any anyone who can like teach us how to write? And Constantinople says, yeah, apps of fucking lutely uh, And that's when your boys Cyril and Methodius show up. So Cyril and Methodius show up. They teach everybody how to
read old Church Slavonic. They're using the Galgolitic alphabet at this point in time, and it will eventually turn into some lock. They christianize everyone up, and as a part of this, Bohemia gets christianized up. So this is all very well and cool, but we you know, then Moravia basically just kind of falls apart, and it's because it's huge.
We don't actually really know why we don't.
We don't know as much about Great Moravia as we would like to do, basically because they get.
Great Marivia is one of those funny historical oddities that you know existed, people write about it. It had a name, like it was talked about, you know, the all all this sort of stuff, but like where, how long.
What they were doing existed, what they.
Were doing, how they controlled like because if you look at it like just a map, it's like it's a huge territory, but like there's no way they directly controlled all of that. So like you know, what kind of successor state thing did they what did they have going on?
Like what what is that?
And yeah, info and it's like it's one of these things where you can really understand why people used to call the Early Middle Ages the Dark Ages, because literally, what the fuck is going on?
Guys, like we don't have the sources, we don't know.
It's just kind of it is a in honest to god lakut, right, and we can't we can't see it there.
So and if you if you talk to a regular person and you tell them this, like it's somebody like somebody like just just like a normal person, like maybe they have a slight interest in history or something, maybe they don't whatever, Like you tell them this, You're like, this is great. Moravia. It was a thing. It literally is. U is a direct line predecessor to Bohemia and Prague and the Hossites and the Thirty Years. It's a direct predecessor to all of that stuff. However, we don't know
how long it existed. We don't know if everyone within this boundary considered themselves to be part of it. We don't know how they interacted. We don't know the exact contours of it, and we don't even like have names for all the rulers that are supposedly took Like it's it's nope, you're just you're just like you get why people are just like, Okay, dark ages, I got it, Like yeah, that's fucking stupid.
Yeah, yeah, and it's stuff.
It's definitely just kind of shows that you're dealing with the civilization that just doesn't have the same priorities that we have.
Yeah, yeah, and.
Yeah, and it's confusing and weird, right, it's so like, I totally get it, and it's it's a shame because I would really like to know more about Great Moravia. I think I'm hardly alone in that, but yeah, there there are these massive limitations based on sources, and indeed they the same thing is true of Bohemia before the ninth century. Like we just you know, we know that
they're lumped in with Great Moravia. We know they christianize as a result of it, we know when people come through and you know, the generalized population changes, but we don't know a whole lot more than that. To be honest, it's all archaeological. It's not it's not historical.
It's the point.
Yeah, it's very it's a very interesting place because in five hundred years they do go from a place where we're like, okay, we have like we're piecing archaeological pieces of pottery together and going, okay, so yeah, people were definitely here in eight hundred CE, but what were they doing? Eh?
How do they live?
Eh? And and then like in five hundred years it's fucking prague, Like it's you know, birthing.
Fucking the fucking Reformation.
Any Yeah, yeah, yeah, before we before we go any deeper into it. I have an unironic question that's going to sound mean when I say it eleanor.
What is the slav exactly?
Like what It's a word that gets thrown around nowadays, euphemistically and otherwise. But like when we talk.
About it here, who are the chicks?
Who are the Western Slavic peoples?
Well, look, we're alcohol fueled fuck machines, thank you.
I really I was like, I was like, I think she's making a joke. I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna give it a respect laughs.
But yeah, so this is an annoying thing, right, so that we what we definitely know about the Slavic people is we can't we we don't come off the.
Step all right, like we were we were.
We were on the step, we were hanging out, speaking varying Slavic languages and eventually duriling the migration period we were came off the step and we moved in uh
west into Europe. So checks more particularly as you mentioned, we are West Slavs uh so uh the we also the Slovax of which I am also one the polls people like the Salesians who it's like God bless them, like they're just always getting lumped in with someone you know, like that that that's us, right, and we more particularly speak a version of Slavic languages that you know, we don't use alphabet for example, we use the Latin alphabet.
And we were under Roman Catholicism, so you know, we we don't really like you know, the East Slavs they went Orthodox.
We didn't, a bit of a shame, but you know, there it is.
And so a good way of kind of thinking about the West Slavs is we're the beer Slavs, right, and yeah, yeah, yeah, we're like the beer and wine Slavs. And then like the South Slavs are like they're they're like wine and yogurt Slavs.
Uh So like okay, okay, So like if I'm looking at a chart, like you're all initially wine Slavs, Yeah, you're all initially wine Slavs, and then when you move further into Central Europe it breaks out you both retained the wine aspect.
Of it, yes, but yeah they but.
The Southern ones take the Greek yogurt aspect of yes, and you guys took the Germanic beer aspect of it. And look at that the melting the melting pot of humanity. You think I probably sound like I'm joking, but I'm really not like it, Like it's yeah, it's gorgeous, Like you can you can track you can track that in the movement of humans. And like, I mean, Greeks still do a lot of yogurt past ship today they're so famous for beer, Like, yeah, it's.
Crazy what Bulgarians are doing things with yogurt that'll blow your mind, which is incredible. But you know, and then you've also got your like and then you've got like your vodka Slavs, you know, who are more who are more Eastern? We do, Look, we all do be distilling fruits.
If you can't, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna sit here and besmirch the rich culture of people who look at fruit and go. But what if what if when I drink it my eyes crossed?
It's so important, right, it's so important, right, So yeah, like basically we are we're just kind of like a group that made it further west. There are like some varying things that we know from architecture. Like for example, before we Christianized, our temples used to be.
A little bit more like.
Long and like Eastern saws oftentimes were more round. But you know, like no one knows shit, Like we don't know anything, right, So but anyway, like we showed up and we threw down in the area, and like that's what it is. So it's basically step people's who europeanized.
That's that's that's it, you know, which.
But I guess we end up being kind of like contingently white, you know, depending Oh.
Yeah, you guys, you guys took contingent white status after after nineteen ninety one, when you were no longer a part of the Great State, the Great Satan e that's right, yeah, yeah, and you took contingent white status and you were like, okay, cool, So like that means we get to participate in all this stuff. And it's like, well, kind, but we're still gonna call you evil mongol hordes when we need someone. You're like, god damn it.
Yeah, it's like, do not we reserve the right to sexualize all the women, Okay.
Cool, cool, cool cool?
Great?
Yeah. Speaking of incredibly non consensual processes, christianization of yeah, Eleanor mentioned it a little so by the eight fifties eight sixties, the Church was like, hey, uh, what if we all those people in like northern central eastern Europe, what if we went and talked to them and uh tactfully And by tactfully I mean by force asked them to convert and lo and behold that happened so eleanor
just before this. Uh, since the Czech lands fall outside of the Roman Empire, uh and we're later invaded by the Slavic peoples of the step it was decidedly pagan before this. Huh.
Yeah, it's like what we don't exactly fucking know what that means though, right, So, like they were definitely doing so they were up to something, right, Uh.
We figure that it might have.
Might look something a little like what they ended up having going on like up for example, in the Baltic States later, which is kind of like the most we know about any of the pre Christian relators. So I don't know, maybe we were worshiping snakes or some shit. I'm not sure, Like like I don't know. So, like we definitely know that they have that they are building
like sanctuaries, you know. They we are building these kind of like long buildings where we're like, oh, yeah, that's that's like a sanctuary.
Where we do religious stuff in there. What are we doing in there? I don't know, right, like.
Yeah, yeah, you don't have writing. It's really hard to say like exactly what people are doing because like for a long time with archaeology, it was like anything you didn't understand or anything that was like vaguely centralized that had like a temple type feature, you're like, oh, this is a religious display, and it's like, well, I mean, I'm sure it is for some things, but there were a lot of people in the world whose religions were like out in the trees and you know, yeah, yeah,
So it's like, you know, is that is that a religious institution or a temple or is that just some building may have where they chated you know what.
Yeah, And it's very difficult to tell because like when anything gets written about it, it's usually written from antagonistic sources like the church, and then they're like, oh, they're killing babies in there, and they are pagans, and it's like, what the fuck's a pagan?
You know, like who knows? And it's like a likely if you look at.
For example, what's going on up in the Baltic region, once again. You know, they're all like, this forest is sacred, we like all the animals in it. You can't go hunting here. We got a big fire. You like that fire, big fire.
You know.
It's like that's that's what their religion is.
So it's difficult to say because nobody wrote it down, and people start writing down things when they're like, we're all Christian, right, yeah, yeah, that's right, you know. And you know, obviously with any Christianization story, it starts with the elites, and the elites are the ones writing things down,
so we only really know from their perspective. And then also, you know, you get for example, we'll talk about people who are still pagan in air quotes and it'll be like, uh, wenches Sla, Saint Wencheslaus's mom draw home Era is still.
An evil Pagan and then like, you know, does evil things.
Right, so you have to be like these bad people or his brother boy Slaus the cruel is a Pagan and that's why he's so bad, blah blah blah.
You know, yeah, yeah. The it's funny because all of this centers on Moravia, which is to the west and south of what we typically think of as Bohemia. But yeah, when they christianized the area, they specifically were trying to Christianize Moravia, and getting Bohemia was just like a nice little treat on the side. Eleanor mentioned the brother saints Cyril and Methodius who showed up in eight sixty three, and you know, they're considered you know, the I don't know, I guess the founding saints.
Of the area or whatever.
There were churches there, yeah before that, a few you know, thirty or forty years before that, So it wasn't a Christianization even though it officially started in like the eight sixties, was happening beforehand in fits and starts, but you know it's yeah, absolutely, yeah. And that brings us to our first question of the show from Arcturists about Great Moravia, which we've been discussing here as much as we can and a very important historical invention known as the Old
Church Slavonic language. So, yeah, Eleanor, what is Old Church Slavonic and why is it so important?
Yeah?
So it is really great and useful because it's sort of like Latin for Orthodox people, right, like, yeah, in you know, if you consider the way that Latin functions in the medieval period, like not not in the Roman period, in the medieval period, and it functions as this form of like legalese and way of writing back and forth.
That's what Old Church Slavonic is doing.
So basically Cyril and Methodius invent it because they're like, okay, well, all of these guys are they're speaking various Slavic languages, and what you can kind of do is like squint your ears and like if you just were like, how about that?
Does it sound like words? What do you think you know?
Because we have a lot of overlap in a lot of our languages, so that things are really similar, right. And then this also means that they're kind of using these kind of like Galgolitic and then siru like letters for it. And this sticks around for really quite some time.
So my good friend doctor Claire Griffin, who is a Russianist, she's got excellent Old Church Slavonic because she works on like early modern and late medieval Muscovie and you still need it, right, So it really really sticks around in the East. But because of the way things work out in the Czech Lands and us kind of like coming under the sphere of influence of the Holy Roman Empire and things like that. Then we end up going with the Western ways of doing things, and so we kind
of abandoned it eventually. But the earliest records of Great Moravia are are all in Church Slavonic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yes, the modern cyrillic alphabet that you know, Russia and other countries still use is based on Glagolithic.
And yeah, it's just like.
You know, they just showed up created this cool church language in the eight sixties, and yeah, it's spread out from there. It's I mean, yeah, it's it's the church language for for the Orthodox, you know, in non uh you know, in non.
Greek Orthodox places.
It's.
Yeah, it's it's just a big deal.
And you know, maybe we should have stuck with it, because my thing about calling it cyrillic, it's like cyrial and Methodius, they're like the delusion guitari of the early Church. Like everyone always says delude a short term. No one's ever talking about guitari, you know, everyone's always saying cyrillic. No one's calling it cyril and Methodick. Yeah, where's my method justice for methodius?
You know, yeah, oh, just because the other guy's name comes first.
To get it.
It's so not fair, not fair, not fair. Yeah, anyway, that's how modern. The modern cyrillic alphabet was invented by Greek guys going into the Slavic lands to forcibly christianize people.
I love Eastern Europe. It's so so good, it's so good.
Yeah.
But here about here is when we have to say goodbye to Great Moravia because a group called the Magyars we know them now as the Hungarians, they came in and invaded, and uh, they wipe Greater Moravia, Great Moravia out, whatever it was, ripped to this political entity of some kind that existed. Probably thanks for all the memories. But yeah, and this is when the Bohemian lands they start to instead of looking east to the Slavs and the Slavic peoples or the Magyars, they are instead looking a bit
to the west. And yeah, our arcturists ask us to cover the Premislids, the Premislid dynasty in some people, in some details. So here we go, eleanor who are the premise Slids And how did they turn this from like a real super backwater in like the eight eighties into like an actual into a real duchy Soon.
Enough Okay, so this dynasty features the sound that only checks have. Okay, so are with a hat hot check over it. The way to think about making the sound is it's like the z in azure, but you're rolling your tongue.
So they are the chemi slids.
Premis shimmy slid.
Yeah, that's good. Shimmy yeah, chemmy slid is like, that's good to say.
Do not worry about it.
I do not expect anyone to do it. Literally, this is our sound, thank you very much. It comes up all the time, Like you know.
There weren't even my brain can't even form the like there in my head. I can literally see the two wires and they're sitting there and no electrons will fire across them. They're like, no, it's we're.
Not Yeah, it's our our our brains are not wired as English speakers to hit the role on that one.
Uh does it?
Does? It almost come out as like a ship like him?
It's like sh yeah.
Like so if you if you just don't, like, if you don't want to do the rolling, no one's gonna be mad at you. But so I just hit with the ship, like just just think of it like a dizy and azure yes, so so yeah, the chemmy Slids, Uh, the fir chevy Slid was a plowman called Chemisil obviously.
Yeah, that's where the paper. Yeah, like Emma, lady man.
Medieval early medieval, like like early medieval state formation was so cool because you could just be like the like the wealthiest plowman of some tribe or whatever. Right, yep, I'm moving into Prague a castle like what now, like a center of culture and refinement. And in eight in eight eighty it was like a rock and a couple of steaks hill, it's some hill jack Central European farmer was like, I'm I'm the king of this hill and.
Like, okay, look, I'm gonna be real with you.
This story comes to us from our good friend Cosmus of Prague. And Cosmos of Prague he wrote the chronicle Boe Morum in the twelfth century, which is an excellent source which I used a lot of. Shout out to Cosmis of Prague and his stories. So you got chevy Sel the plowmen, right, and Chevysil is out one day he's you know, looking yoked a ship. He's shirtless, he's glistening in the sun. And who should come along but
a fairy named Lebusha. Okay obviously, and Lebusa is like, gotta get me some of that can't wait to get plowed, et cetera.
And so.
They get together and they form like basically a dynasty. And then we have a number of after these people, like the seven mythical Bohemian Princess. Okay, so you got chevy sil first, then you have his son Nezamisil them not the Voyan, Nislav Scheesmo, Misil, Neklon and Holstevite. Okay, like so Cosmis lets us know that all these guys, it's just.
Sure they're all definitely really great.
Yeah yeah right.
So basically what we do know is that these are people who get really rich farming in the area around Prague.
And the area around.
Prague is good because it is pretty easily defensible because of the Watava River and everything. The Franks do come over here and fuck with you a little bit, but it's it's easier because of the hills and the river situation to kind of make a defensible play for it. So there are some people who were farming and living in this area. The first actual previously that we know about is bouchevoy the first, okay, and Bouchevoi.
Bouchevoi is also like a fun thing, a fun.
Name because like the way you say kind of like my god and check is Bourgemoi. So Bouchevois he gets baptized in eight seventy four by specifically Methodius not cereal, so in your face cereal like Methodius gang. And like in this period, great Brabia.
Kind of starts to fall apart.
You know, there's the issues with the Huns is probably one of the biggest things, and it's a large group to try to keep together. So what ends up happening is that the texts get their independence, like the Bohemians get their independence right sometime in kind of like the late ninth century. Okay, So there is a not very cool interregnum around one thousand and three two thousand and four where Bulletslaus of Poland takes over, but this is thankfully short lived.
But you know, the point is you got your Bougevoi, right, So you've got Bouchevoi, who is like nominantly pretty Christian. Then you get.
The first, Then you have Rothi, Slaus the first. Now ro Slas is important because his wife is Milla, and Milla shout out, that's my grandma's name. We love it, shout out Milla Landmila christianizes and now, which is also a funny thing to be talking about because Bouchevoy was Christianized. But the point is it takes a while to take
it too, takes a couple of generations. Not everyone from all of the noble families who are going to be marrying in are necessarily going to be Christianizing, but Limilla, Ludmilla does right.
And it was like you were talking about on that Chapo episode you and Derek were on when you were like, oh, we're we're going to do this ironically. Oh yeah, I'm going to be Christian And then it's like, oh wait, yeah yeah this literally yeah exactly.
Yeah.
So actually, sorry I missed books. So Landnila mary s who's boys son. Sorry, And then she has her son, Roislaus, now Rosislaus the first who is not Ludmilla's fucking son, not not husband you sorry everybody, But so Rodislaus marries this woman, Drajo Mira and is like drawn from one of the other noble families, and dra uh is an evil pagan boo boo boo uh and dies kind of young, and Ventroslaus uh is is their son, So save VLAs you know Voxlav in Czech, you know him of the Christmas Carol.
That's a.
Yes, the Steve, Yeah, exactly, that's it.
So anyway, he was showing signs of being real Christian, and so Ludmilla is like, yeah, you come live with me and stay away from your like evil pagan mother. You know, we're gonna we're gonna christian you up, real good. Uh.
We are going to make like a ruling European a leade of you.
Uh. The legend is that Dravamira then like orders the death of Ludmilla and that like three nights go and kill her, and like the idea being that like then she'll have control of ventus Laus and as he's the heir apparent, then she'll like control him or whatever. But because uness Slaus is so holy, doesn't pan out like that, Ludmilla becomes a saint because obviously she does, and then you've got your ventus less So wenteess Laus is very holy,
very pious, that's what his deal is. But he's also ruling at a point in time when the Franks are really like Holy Roman Empire, tonight, Hoily Roman Empire, Queen Hili Roman Empire, and he's like.
Not really, hey, you know, And a thing I.
Kind of consider at this point in time is where we are considering the the Chevyslds at this point in time like this is technically a dukedom because they've kind of like been dealing with the Franks by being like yeah, yeah, I'm your vassal like whatever, you know.
And basically the hr.
Wants to take over as is their wont Check's not so into this, and so Ve just slus like it goes out and is supposed to be like fighting a battle against Henry the Fowler, Now get ready for some legends, okay.
So basically it's.
Like, uh, they're like, no, get the fuck out of here, and then like wnce Slaus rides out in battle and says, hey, you know, let's not like kill everyone in our armies over the stupid thing.
Why don't you and.
Me just fight a duel and then whoever wins will just be the winner. And then uh, the Emperor sees angels behind Wenceslaus, it is.
Like, oh, shit, I shouldn't.
Oh shoot it.
Oh real though, And so basically he's like, Okay, you know, we're gonna keep things as they are, and like, uh, you know you you're just gonna be amalgamated more particular, but we're not going to like try to take you over.
So yay, that's fantastic.
And then there's like a whole thing about him like coming to a banquet late because he was up praying all night, and the same thing happens again, and that's how he gets the arm of Saint Vitas and starts the cathedral. It's it's whatever.
Anyway, long story short.
Was the arm like just an arm gifted to him? Corpore, Is that what we're talking about.
So basically Henry the Fowler had this arm. Right, he's got the arm you do, He's got the arm of Saint Vitas. And so basically, like there was a big meeting of everyone in the lower Room and empire.
They were supposed to be having a banquet.
Wenches saus came late because he doesn't eat food and he was up all night praying. And then uh, once again, Henry the Fowler was like, you're a little bitch. And then it was like, oh shit, there's angels behind you. And then he was like never mind, and actually you can have any treasure for my treasury you want, and Saint wentres Sauce is like, I'll have that arm, thank you.
And that's why want.
To I want to believe this story, I really do. And the angels appearing behind him is not the proper part I have trouble with. The part I have trouble with is that this guy just like had an arm sitting in like a.
Glass uncommon loot you know.
Yeah, yeah, like you like you're pulling that out and you're like, how did this survive? How have you kept this this song? Like regardless of who the hand actually arm actually belonged to, like and that's just sitting my god.
Maybe maybe dazzled it.
You know.
You get those ones that they've like golded up and stuff.
You don't know what an amazing people.
I'm not.
I'm not what an amazing people. It's like, yes, here is my collection of oddities. Everybody has like a Ripley's believe it or not, you know, like yeah basic one of those roadside attractions. It's like obviously fake stuff. But you're like, oh, Wow, a bigfoot and it's like fake doll hair glued onto a human foot or whatever.
Yeah exactly exactly. You know it's like a shrunken head or something like that.
Yes, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, but you know.
That's what the prog Cathedral is called Saint Vidas, Saint Ventis Lass and Saint Adilbert is because it got founded with like Saint Vitas's arm.
He's like not a particularly interesting.
Saint, but so and it's like that's why I always just tend to call it the pro Cathedral, because it's like we don't need to be getting into like every single saint that it's consecrated to, right because like it really it should just be Saint Frentis last, but that would be a great insult to him, right because he loves Saint Vidas and Adelbert got in there because basically he comes from like the other big dynasty other than the Shemy Slids, and they were mad.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. Unfortunately, a good king Wincess Loss met his end prematurely as he was good King.
Wen Wells got killed by his bier bro. Both lost the crewel, which is how you get that's how you got the name of the cruel.
You're not gonna be stabbed me, bro, the guy who just got stabbed. You're not gonna commit re commit richicide, are you?
Bro? Yeah, it's like one hundred percent he committed regicide and like uh and and the thing that's funny about it is everyone's like, did you just kill your fucking brother? And he's like I sure did, and everyone's like hmm, how about that.
It's just like and then like something the king Now, I guess it would just be fine with stuff like this, like you killed this like beloved like local figure.
Your brother, and they're all just like, yeah, that's fine. And then like like ten fifteen years later, like they're like, we're not gonna become part of the Holy ro Roman empar burn this ship to the fucking crap, and you're just like, I mean, fine, that's fine too, but like where was this when they killed your beloved Vincess Laus? Like yeah.
And it's really funny because it's like he gets called bois Loss the Cruel because they're like this is so fucked up, man, Like this fucking sucks, and I's like you're gonna do anything about it? N no, Oh, And it's like that. But then his son, who is also a Bolislaus, he gets really into the religious aspects of it, so he's voice lost the pious and uh so he kind of like really gets things rolling again.
Then his son boys Loss the red Haired.
Is the one who like loses the kingdom to the Poles, which isn't great, but we got it back pretty fast. So like Yaromir comes in and like takes care of it. And then you just kind of like have you know, a litany of of them basically up until the twelve cents Tree, and like this is this is what's going on, right, It's just like Duke after Duke Chevy slid after shemy slid. Most of them are called ventous loss or odcar or
like you know, spot the book Bourchevois. You know, it's like it's all you have the occasional Conrad in there, which is always funny.
Yeah, but yeah, before we get before we get to the Kingdom of Bohemia and all that. In ten o two, the uh the Duchy of Bohemia, which was formed in like the late ninth century. It formerly became a part of the Holy Roman Empire and UH and people a lot of the people weren't weren't happy about.
That noworth, Yeah, people don't fucking like that.
People don't like to be amalgamated into empires.
No, it turns out and so and also this is just like one other case of like the Germans pushing us around, which were not big on.
No, we don't love it.
So it's quite funny because like all the stories about Saint Eve just less.
They kind of like show this.
Up where they're like, fucking these German guys came over and it's like, you know, part of his mirror. Girls are just kind of like keeping the Germans sufficiently in Czech like just being like I am not gonna kill everyone in the country over this, but also like could you get out of my face sort of a deal. And so like it's funny because it's it's political playmaking back and forth that keeps them. I mean, it doesn't keep them independent, but it keeps them. It gives them
a little bit more power right there. There are certain things that will last for a really long time. Like technically the Prague is under the auspices of minds, like the cathedral my minds is like the where all the big decisions get made, which is fucking bonkers.
Uh, they don't get to be a real boy for a few more years.
Yeah, Yeah, and it's it's it's one of these things where the checks are happy that there is not that
much Holy Roman imperial control. And you know, it really kind of shows up when if you just look at the maps, so you know, like if you go and you look at those fifteenth century maps and it's like everything is carved out within twenty miles or so, Bohemia is Bohemia, and it's like because we just do different things over here, because that's that's not how it goes down, right, Like not everybody gets to have like their little their tiny little postage stamp of power, right, so it just, yeah,
people really don't like it, and being the Duke of Bohemia as they are at this point in time comes with a lot of attempting to balance that and just trying to always play your cards right to keep as much of your own power as you can.
Yeah, it's they got they got assimilated, and they weren't even like they weren't even special yet. Because like it's one thing if you get brought in and you have special powers and special rules and special everything, but you don't and you just you're just you know, uh, you're just there. You're under the same dukes that you've the.
God damn it.
Uh, I don't understand.
I don't understand how I can read Japanese more easily than I. It doesn't matter anyway.
Uh, it's.
They just you got the same people. But you know, you're fighting these kind of battles against the Holy Roman Emperors and you know, you don't you're not special yet. But like we have come a long way from like we don't really know exactly what's happening before eight eighty to now, like we're a duchy and we've you know, we've fought back against the hr We didn't win, but you know we maybe got a little uh you know, maybe got a little respect, a little something like that,
like how how are we doing that? And you know, listeners, keep in mind the silver minds that the Bohemia was famed for. We're not discovered until around the year thirteen hundred, So this is happening before they had like Kopious, the biggest silver strike in Europe.
Yeah, that's that's absolutely true. So you know, one of the big things that is true though, is they're still pretty rich. We definitely know, you know, because because there's such a huge crossroads. So for example, they have a really large Jewish population, which means that like that opens things up for banking. And we certainly know, at least in the late tenth century that we see from travel chronicles that talk about like, oh yeah, Prague is really rich.
Like this is one of the most important. There's a.
Travel chronicle from a Spanish Jewish person who comes across and he claims that Bohemia is the richest country and Prague is the richest city north of the Alps, is what he claims. So so there's like something going on in there, just like in terms of like what trade is. The other thing that the Jimmy Slidz managed to do really well is they do some pretty okay fighting for the Holy Roman Empire. And in particular, this comes down to the Battle of Lechfield, which happens in nine to fifty five.
Don't worry, everybody, I had to look it up. I did not remember. I was like, when the fuck did the Battle of fuck Field takebak?
But basically, so this is this like here, you know, the Magyars are once again like out of pocket and Boyslat the cruel goes out for Emperor out of the great, and he does rather a lot of killing, and so basically Auto as a sign of you know, yeah, you're doing great, sweetie gives him Moravia. So then Moravia becomes like guts underneath the tremy slids, and then that gives them more power again as well, and then so that means that it's like a richer and more powerful place.
So basically they've got a lot of money and they're good at fighting, which is kind of like the two best things that you can be. And it's like and they're doing enough for.
The Holy Roman Empire that they're like, do we really want to get into it with these guys?
Like so, to a certain extent, the Franks are looking at them as a useful buffer, right where it's nice to have some non Germans in between you and the Magyars fundamentally, like it's nice to have some guys that you just don't have to give as much of a fuck about and you can still take some taxes. But if you're just thinking about them as a buffer, then
that that is kind of like what happens. And then when you know things like the Mongol invasions continue to happen, that they're more and more happy that these guys are out there.
Right, Yeah, that's the thing, you know. So you're you're the duchy, You're under the you're chafing under the those haughty dipshits and minds who think they're better than you. But in twelve twelve, one auto car the first gets the hereditary title of the King of Bohemia from Holy Roman Emperor Frederick the Second. And now you get a kingdom. Now you're the extra special boys. This is the only kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire. This is a big deal.
There are a lot of Dutch she's margraviates, principalities, free cities, you name it. But there's only one kingdom and that is Bohemia. So eleanor.
We're special?
What is what? What is it like?
What?
What is what?
What? What?
Why is? Why is Bohemia special enough to be accorded this honor? And what what kind of treatment did they did they get from it?
If if if anything?
So basically, this had been kicking around as a bit of an honorific for a little while.
So Roislaus the.
Second in theory got called king by Henry the fourth first, and basically that was again like duties in the line of like being a.
Shield for Germans.
Right now, Frederick the second, you know, our second favorite, the Holy Roman Emperor, he is embroiled in rather a lot of intrigue, right, Like, he is constantly beefing with the papacy here, always trying to make him go on a crusade, which he doesn't want to do. He is trying to avoid being forced to go out and like fight Batu Khan. You know, he just wants to take his fucking baths with his bitches and be left in peace.
Right And basically this was a way of kind of like trying to he was able to sort of play Frederick's desire to kind of get one up on Innocent the third, right, Like, basically this is kind of like a way of getting around the weelfs and the ho ins dolphins, right, like, who are beefing it out and there's all this political intrigue going on. So Frederick the second is like, all right, look, i am going to go ahead and I'm going to call these guys like
these are definitely these are definitely kings. Here's the Golden Bull that puts this down. But Hem and Moravia are like autonomous within the Holy Roman Empire, and what this does is it gains him an incredibly powerful friend. Yeah right, so this is this is a one of the prince
imperial electors. And any time that you end up calling a reichshag, then you, like the Boho means are gonna be like yep, wave it through whatever it fucking takes, because they they want to maintain their soverenity and their caeserenity over this area.
So basically it's just a really good.
Bit of statescraft, both on Otocar's part and and on Frederick's part, because they both realize what's going on like the European scene, and they're like, okay, well this is this is the best way to do these things. And fundamentally Frederick doesn't give a fuck he wants to be in Sicily.
He doesn't. Yeah that doesn't okay, Yeah, now you have your own you have your vote for Holy erman Ember. There's still only seven of you that I have to deal with. I'm going back.
To Italy alone.
Yeah, Like, leave me alone. I do not want to come up there. I don't want to hear about it.
Not like European winters or European falls or European summers. I want to be right here on yes, yeah, I'm going to Bedean Coast.
I am in Palermo eating lemons, you know. And so it's it basically, it is just a way of making friends and that works very successfully through him, basically because after that auto cars like that's right, boss, you know, because why wouldn't you right, So basically he and also it.
Isn't that much of a change.
It's mostly just like codifying what had customarily been in place for a couple of generations too, so he can't Frederick also can't be accused of Korean favor.
Right because he's like what you're already called it? What this is? Where here? What it's It's it's quite funny, you know.
Fun fact the title King of Bohemia lasted as first a reel and then adjure title until the end of World War One. That is hash sh it went on like it is just.
That's why we had to have World War One. Unfortunately, it is it.
Is same, you know. Yeah, it's folks, Yeah, they they they're they're coming up the late premishld's they they've they've they've come up there. They're real, they're real big boys now,
real regional players on the stage. As I said earlier, around the year thirteen hundred, there were massive silver deposits discovered in Kunta Horra, and uh yeah, that allowed the proge Grossian, their denomination currency at the time, to be a really big part of not early monetization, but I guess proto monetization of Europe that happened on very in small scattered instances before fourteen ninety two.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it eventually ended up giving us the word for dollar, because there's also another denomination called the taller. So that's a great that's a great check invention. So yeah, it's like, uh, you know, these are mentally wealthy and important people who play the system incredibly well.
Uh successfully defended against the Mongols, like the like the literal like.
Like natural Mongols. Yeah, the Mongol Mongols.
Yeah, so it's like whatever, everyone's like, damn, they're so unstoppable, like checks are like what, like it's hard.
Yeah, they're like, well I mean sure, like you know, well sure, maybe they got to raise all of Moravia and like Hungary is or wasteland and everything, but we're just built different the Moai.
Yeah, like it's just yeah, k being like pissed off that Frederic the Second will come up there, Frederic the Second being like if I make you king?
Yeah, it was like I don't want to know, like you can have it. I don't care, just take it. I do not want to leave the Mediterranean coast for any goddamn reason. Yeah. Uh sorry. The Battle of Mohai Uh it was a Mongol victory. Uh really shaped so much of the world and would have probably would have been a much, much, much bigger deal had uh who was it that died this time?
Was it Oka Day?
Uh? Yeah, died and they had to ski daddle back for a you know, a big, a big con meeting.
I forget what they're called.
Yeah, they had to go sit down and talk about who was the bestest boy after that?
Yeah, I mean they Yeah, but you know, would the Mongols have kept riding right on through had that not happened. Probably, But that's not what happened. Uh, And the Czechs got to uh live to tell the tale and say, yeah, I thought the I fought the Mongols and there and their relatives like oh yeah, well, who won, Like, that's not important.
I don't see any Mongols here, do.
Yeah, so I must have won, Like, well, what about the Battle of Mohai. Didn't you lose, like all of your shut up, shut up.
Well you know what else, I lost track of any Mongols in the area because they're gone.
So yeah, it's yeah anyway, Eleanor you were saying they were they were getting money. They had survived this, uh.
The money bitches.
Yeah, the horrors of the thirteenth the fourteenth century were not upon them just yet.
No. And and one of the things that they managed to do with this is, yeah, you get your boys.
They're like beginning to eat up.
More territory in the area, especially Odakar the second, who is like Odakar the First, the one who gets the Golden Bull's grandson. He is like, I've got Bohemia, I've got Moravia, I've got Austria. He's like and like, basically, at this point in time, the Bohemian lands make it down to the Adriatic.
Yeah, which is yeah, they have they have seaports in the North Sea and the Adriatic. It is not a small thing to be sneezed at.
Yeah, so you know, and so this is kind of like a late thirteenth century and they are just like incredibly wealthy and they've got all of this land. They do end up losing Austria unfortunately to the hated Hobsburgs. But you know, it's it's very difficult to overstate how important this is and how incredibly fucking wealthy this makes.
You Like this is the bread basket of Europe. You know, you can just float down the Danube like and end up in all of these places, you know, if you've got your own seaports, so then you can just kind of move things up and down like with impunity. So they're just unimaginably wealthy.
It is the basic thing.
Yeah, we didn't talk about it as much earlier, but like you are in uh, the you're in a river basin for you know, the the Valdoslava, the Odor, the the Elba, all that sort of stuff. You like, you have all you have all of these rich riverine trade networks. You are the gate basically the gateway to like the central part.
Of the Alps.
Even like we've talked about it for how the happen. The real way the Habsburgs made their money at first was.
By being the.
Gatekeepers along the Alps. You want to go farther into our beautiful majestic lands, you want to get down to Italy, Fine, you got to come through here. And the the people of Bohemia, the Czechs and the Slovaks, they were like, yeah, we can do that too, and so they were able to charge for it. And it's you know, like you you have, as I said, even if people aren't stopping, even if they're like, oh, the beautiful land, the beautiful
foothills of the Alps, I could never stay here. Oh it's so hideous, my god, why would you ever say that? But like, even if they did that, you can still tax them to like go on to uh, you know, northern Germany or the Dutch Lowlands or wherever the fuck they're going. And yeah, you know, there's a whole fuckload of money to be made in that, especially with all the fleeing from.
The Yeah, exactly, especially with all these motherfuckers being scared of mongoles. Right, so you've got this huge chunk of land that you can you know, charge people to get through. You've got you are minting your own silver. You know, you can bring things up through the Asriatics, so you can have anything you want, you know, essentially, and you know, so the living's pretty good, is the answer.
And yeah, you're right.
It's like it's essentially a riverine culture, like the contours of Bohemia are like it's essentially Bohemia is like the Elber River basin. Like if you look at it on a map and you're like, it's that's sort of a weird shape, it's like, yeah, it's because of rivers. It's like everything is like a river boundary or like you know that sort of thing, and it's very much like defined by that fact. So that makes for excellent trade networks and you can kind of move around really easily.
And it's just a huge chunk of land. For quite some time, you know. Now when we say Bohemia, everyone you know, just imagines the state in the Czech Republic, obviously because everybody knows what I'm talking about.
But you know, for quite some time, like that also.
Meant like parts of what is now Italy and Croatia, right, yeah.
Yeah, it was big land. But unfortunately all things, all things do come to an end, and by the end of the thirteenth century, the Premislids were they were not doing so well.
There was betrayals, child rulers.
Regents who you know, weren't acting in good faith. It was you know, it was a shit show. So like how did they how did they end up falling? You know, how did that? How did that go?
So the last tremi slid is a bunch of Saus the third because we basically so we start over again with our bunch of Sauses when they become kings. Yeah, so it was, you know, there there were many other bunch slus just don't worry about it. But it's vent Slus the third. And he what was Charles the Force's granddad, uh, you know, raised to like be a king, was gonna Mary Elizabeth of Hungary. Really smart decision making there, He's so that is like gives him the kingdom of Hungary as well as Croatia.
Like hello, that not not bad, not.
Bad and so but unfortunately, like he ends up beefing with the polls about this, right, like basically, uh, the Pope gets mad about it, like he says that actually venture Slaus isn't gonna be the king of Henry and Charles of Anjou is the the rightful king which like a bitch, please, I cannot I cannot start with you on this. So anyway, they have a war it right, So what just last the second is like, Okay, we're gonna we're riding out at dawn.
We're gonna go do these things.
And so basically like Morabia gets invaded by the Hungarians. They're like beven with the Poles and the Hungarians. Everyone is fighting everyone. And then this at at this point in time when just lost the second dice, like he dies trying to defend his son's claims and he basically gets killed.
This leads what.
Just lost the third as king at sixteen, and he was a sixteen year old rich kid and he just spent all of his time getting drunk with his homies. He would be all like hey bro, bro, bro, I bet you, I bet you like this amount of land, I can't like throw this pot over a roof, like and then he would lose, and then like the nobleman would like get the.
Land or whatever.
Like he's like not doing shit in terms of like the claims within Poland. And so he's like, okay, well look I'm gonna give like goodanks to like this one guy. You know, like he's just like giving away like all these incredible lands. Like he's like, I'm giving goodanks to my mate Valdemar, and then that's gonna like help how.
How's it gonna help that? Just us?
Anyway, Eventually he's like, look, everyone's like, bro, Bro, they're disrespecting you in Poland, Bro, bro brouh. And so he's like, Okay, look, I'm gonna go invade Poland and I'm going to like leave my brother in law, Henry of Corinthia, who's definitely not scheming as government, like the governor, and he like goes off and he's like, I'm I'm gonna go to Poland. Everybody, I'm doing it, and then he's like, ghost, I'm sorry.
It's really funny because he sucks so much. So he's like going to Poland by way of all emotes were in Moravia for some reason, and he just gets stabbed and ties.
Whoops.
So it's like basically he just sucked, like he just like but this is exactly what you expect from a sixteen year old, right, like we like probably also famous last words, what are you gonna do?
Stab me? Like they never found out who killed.
Him and like everything was in just complete disarraye because he was sixteen, so we didn't even have any time to knock anybody up.
And this is what happens, guys.
When you let a sixteen year old be in charge of one of the most important kingdoms. And so then basically what ends up happening is there is like a big showdown between Henry of Corinthy and John of Luxembourg, who are the sons in law of bunch of Slippers. So basically it's like the two surviving chemy slid princesses like their husbands battle it out and eventually John of Luxembourg wins, right, So and that's how you get Charles the Fourth on.
The throne eventually.
But see, this is the thing is that it's like, oh, it's such a shame that John of Luxembourg became king, and like, don't get me wrong, it is, but it's not like like Vegel sauce On the third was like a good guy, like he's a fucking idiot.
It's like he was just like a.
Drunk, gambling sixteen year old who was like constantly giving away his lands and like you know, in theory, you would think that this story would lend would lead to you know, his death on the battlefield doing something stupid, but that's not what happens.
It's like just stabbed for being an idiot.
Presumably I got yeah, I got, I got stabbed. This sucks. I yeah, that's it's such a funny. It's such a funny way for it to go down because like it clearly like it was clearly just an issue where like that family, that family Lime was like really struggling, like the mail end of that family, Lime is just having severe issues. And you came down to it because the Luxembourg's John of Luxembourg is never there, never dives at the Battle of Kresty, at the Battle of Kressy in
the Hundred Years War, being a moron. And but then Charles comes in and it's just like yep, this is cool. Like here I am, I'm the House of Luxembourg, I'm the big dog. I made Prague the most important city in Europe at the time. Yeah, like you know, he just you know, it's amazing what you could do when you're not being when you're not skimming the dregs of
in bred European fuck boys. Yeah, yeah, that's that is old Bohemia, they got Kingdom, the Premishlids came to an end, and uh yeah, within within what fifty years of this, you get Yon Millic and then you know, within within one hundred and thirty years, you get the Whosites. So it's like, you know, anything as possible if you're ornery enough and you and you kick back against the whole Rouman Empire and the church hard enough, any any anything, you.
Could do anything that's right, that's right.
It's a beautiful it's a beautiful thing. Uh yeah, folks, thanks thanks for coming along with us on this voyage of back to old Bohemia. That is going to do it for us today. Next week, I am not sure what we'll do, but we will be back. We'll definitely be back next week with the third episode in our series on season two of and or we'll be back with that next Friday. Yeah hell yeah, yeah. That that's about going to do it for us to day, eleanor what's going on with you?
I wrote a blog everyone, please please pack so if you want to check out going Hyphenmidieval dot com right about.
How crusaders are losers?
A time to think about that. They are there, right, They are, so go check that one out. Otherwise, Oh yeah, I was on Culture Power Politics with a friend of the podcast, Jeremy Gilbert, talking about how techno feudalism is a stupid term. If you want to go check out
Culture Power Politics. I think I've got to know God's no marries coming up soon, but I'm not sure if that's oppened anyway, I'll let you you know, but you know, otherwise, you know, your girls all the socials given it her all at Going Medieval.
Yeah, that's that's what's up.
Yeah. Yeah, you can find me lucas amazing on the socials. You can find the limited series that we did with the American Prestige Boys at Welcome to the Crusades dot com. Right, it's ten dollars for the whole thing, eleven episodes.
Check it out. You'll really love it.
But yeah, that uh, that is going to do it for us today. Thank you' all very much for listening, and we'll see you next time.
Bye.
That was working.
I liked it. It was fun, it was good.