Dan Snow's History Hit - Good King Wenceslaus

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Who was the real good King Wenceslas? The Duke of Bohemia who was made famous by the Christmas carol was also a pivotal figure of European history. He was the first modern Christian Czech ruler who brought the region into being and established it within a developing Europe. He is revered as an Arthurian figure in the Czech Republic today and his importance and reputation extend far beyond the Christmas carol.Dan is joined by Dr Eleanor Janega, a University lecturer and History Hit favourite. She is a lover of Czech and Bohemian history. We are very excited to be welcoming Eleanor to the History Hit family! She is joining Matt Lewis over on the Gone Medieval podcast as his new co-host from August 1stProduced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.PLEASE VOTE NOW! for Dan Snow's History Hit in the British Podcast Awards Listener's Choice category here. Every vote counts, thank you!Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at [e-mail], we'd love to hear from you!You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Good King Wenceslas. One of the most famous Christmas songs out there. But few of us know the true story behind the man that was Wenceslas. Not in fact a king, but a duke. A duke of Bohemia. He may have been made famous by the Christmas carol, but in fact he's a pivotal figure in medieval European history who deserves to be remembered beyond that popular song. I learned in this podcast that he's almost an Arthurian figure in the Czech Republic today. The first modern Christian Czech ruler. He really forged what would become the Kingdom of Bohemia and locked it into the European network of states that was developing at the time. On this podcast, I'm very pleased to

say we've got one of my favourite contributors, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger. She is responsible for some of the biggest shows on History Hit TV. She's an academic. She's a historian who teaches in London. And she is obsessed with Bohemia. Rightly so, because it's fascinating. She's always on hand to remind us that the medieval world stretched far beyond the white cliffs of Dover with its marvellous castle atop them. Now the really exciting news is that Eleanor is joining us at History Hit as Matt Lewis's new co-host on Gone Medieval, our smash hit medieval history podcast. Go and subscribe if you're not already. But in the meantime, let's hear about the man who made Czechia. Wenceslas. Enjoy.

T-minus 10. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff. And the shuttle has cleared the tower. And thanks so much for coming on the pod. A delight to be here as always.

Thanks, Dan. You know what? You've often, in the past, I've managed to restrain you. I've managed to restrain you in the past. But you've often tried to talk about Bohemia as much as possible and how England was this little medieval backwater

and all the action, all the action was in central Bohemia. So on this episode, I'm going to just give in. It's inevitable. But before we get on to Wenceslas, the man himself, talk to me about this place, the Duchy of Bohemia. Where does it start? What is it? And is it quite as amazing as you say it is? Okay. So first of all, obviously it's as amazing as I say it is. And it's probably even more amazing than that. And I'm not doing it justice. So let's just get that out of the way, right. But Bohemia is in terms of the modern day state, it's one of two states that are in the Czech Republic. So you got Bohemia, and you got Moravia. And so Bohemia is kind of the western bit that is touching up alongside of what is now Germany. And Moravia is the eastern bit that is a little bit more on Austria and like Slovakia side, right?

And when Bohemia kind of comes into existence as a kingdom and a polity, there's just been this very exciting time in Central Europe where there's been the Empire of Greater Moravia, which was huge and contiguously like as a whole, it's like from Croatia and everything all the way up to around about Bohemia. And they're doing like really interesting things and they're Christianizing everybody, right? So it's the Moravians are really, really involved in being like, here, it's the middle ages. We're about to Christian the join up, right? Like no more pagans around here. We're all Christians now. And they bring up a St. Cyril and Methodius, who are responsible for bringing Christianity in the Slavonic rite. They invent the Slavonic alphabet, all of these things, right?

And so Bohemians are like, this is all cool. I would like to be fancy and also be a Christian because that's very much the fashionable thing, right? But what the Bohemians have that the Moravians don't have is silver mines. And so the greater Moravian empire, it collapses and the Bohemians are like, hmm, well, we're Christian now, just about. And also we are incredibly rich. And so this becomes their kind of reason for being is that they are big silver suppliers to the rest of Europe. So the German speakers are constantly sort of eyeing this and they're like, hmm, wouldn't mind some of that, right?

Like wouldn't mind a silver mine or two. And now that they're kind of Christian eyes, it's sort of like, oh, well, maybe we're going to get over there. And then there becomes this big project, like right around the time when St. Venceslaus is doing his thing of getting them into the Holy Roman Empire, which is kind of like new and it's the new and done thing. And so they eventually get amalgamated into it and they become kind of the treasure chest of the Holy Roman Empire. So when people say Holy Roman Empire, they usually go, oh, that means Germans, doesn't it? No, no. Sure. There's a lot of German speakers, but there's Italians, there's French people, and there's very crucially

Bohemians. And they're so important that they're one of the seven electors who gets to say who's going to be the new Holy Roman Emperor, things like this. So they have a lot of money and they're one of the seven electors who gets to say who's going to be the new Holy Roman Emperor, things like this. So they have a lot of money and they're controlling a lot of the shots. And Prague is this incredibly important place for trade and culture all throughout the Middle Ages, because I mean, listen, it comes down to money, baby, and they had it. So what are you going to do about that, right? And the expression bohemian, which just means just people chilling, living their best lives, deep, deep crushed velvet, thinking, you know, chaise lounge, thinking, talking about ideas, smoking things, having a good time. Is that a 19th century thing or is that a medieval thing? Yeah, interestingly, it's a 19th century thing. And specifically, it comes from the Roma diaspora out of what was then Czechoslovakia. So there's a lot of Roma people

who were living in the Czech lands and they go over to France for whatever they felt like it, you know, who's going to stop them, right? And everyone was like, oh, these people are Bohemian, right? Because they're all speaking Czech. Many of the things that when we say, oh, it's a Bohemian lifestyle, it's actually about like Romany culture and like Roma culture and not really particularly quote unquote Czech. Although obviously there's a thriving Roma population within the Czech Republic as well. All right. Well, let's talk about the very Bohemian man, Wenceslas himself. He's born into an interesting dynasty. I love the, how do I pronounce this dynasty? Przemyslid. So it's a

sound that we have in Czech that other people don't have, R with the H Czech. It's, think about it like the Z in Azure, but you roll your tongue. So it's Przemyslid. I'm going to let you continue to say that while I admire it. Just let's assume going forward, I can say, I'm just choosing not to. If you say Przemyslid, I'm happy. That's all right. I love the start. I love this like legendary founder of this dynasty. Tell me about him. Okay, yeah. So this is allegedly started as a dynasty by a plowman called Psemi-Sled. And he's a normal guy. He's a regular farmer guy, which shows you that the Psemi-Sleds, they're salt of the art. They're good Czech people. But he runs into a mythical fairy named Lebuge, who instantly falls in love with him.

And they establish the Przemysl dynasty. And this is a really common thing, especially in the earlier medieval period. When dynasties want to establish why it is that they're allowed to be king, you know, sort of like justifying their rule. It's very, very common for them to say that they have some kind of mythical character somewhere in their background. So, for example, the Merovingians over in France say that they're descended from a sea monster. People all the time will be like, oh, we're descended from Aeneas or, you know, like people in the kind of Trojan War stories. But the Przemyślids, they've got the fairy Le Bouger and a plowman. That's what starts their dynasty out. And it's why they are allowed to rule Bohemia.

Well, and let's not forget our own glorious late queen and her son, I guess, claimed descent from Woden. Yes. So that's not super unusual. Now tell me then about this dynasty. They're pretty successful, right? I mean, they rule for centuries. Oh yeah, absolutely. So, you know, when you think about medieval Bohemia, it is oftentimes the story of the Pemislids in particular. So, you know, they kind of are ruling from the early medieval period, like even before they Christianized really, all the way up to the 14th century. So the first of the Przemyslid dukes that we really have a handle on is from 867, and that's Beaujolais I. And it lasts all the way up into the 14th century when you switch over to the Luxembourg's and King Charles IV, who's like my guy. He's the one that everything in Prague is named after. If it says Charles, it's about him, right? Okay. So before Charles comes on the scene, your guy, let's talk about Wenceslaus.

There are a few of them. Why do we remember one of them in particular? When we say Wenceslaus, like a lot of the time, if you're thinking about the Christmas carol, this is the guy that you're thinking of. And you oftentimes say just St. Ventuslaus so that it differentiates him from all of the others, because it's a very popular name as a result of him. And he is a Duke of Bohemia. He was born around about 907. And he is a martyr and a saint. And he's kind of responsible for creating this idea in the heads of Bohemians about what it means to be a Bohemian, right? So he is born Christian, but it was during the process of Christianization in Bohemia more generally. So he's got a Christian

grandmother, Ludmilla, which is also my grandmother's name. So shout out. Very good name for a grandmother. But she's Christianized and his mom kind of like nominally converts when she marries his father. His father is called Vratislas, another great name. And his mom is called Drahomira. So they get married and his dad kind of dies quite young while Vratislas is kind of like getting ready to be king and everything. So his mother is kind of considered too pagan to be the regent. So instead it's Ludmilla, his grandmother, who is regent while Charles is still in his minority. And this is where things start to go wrong because the legend is that Draho Mira, his mom, really resents the amount of power and control that Ludmilla has over Vengeance Loss. So she sends a bunch of knights to murder her and Ludmilla is strangled on the orders of

his mom, right? And so that's a mother-in-law situation. Yeah, you know, in many ways, Dra Homira lives the dream. You know, this is a joke, please do not murder your mother-in-law. But it is this kind of thing where she says, okay, well, in which case I'm going to like get the power and I'll be the power behind the throne. And she gets rid of Ludmilla. And is this personal? Is it about power or is it also about this confusion about Christianity, the Christianizing? Does the mother want to retain the pagan ways? I think that the answer to this is yes. So it's definitely about power.

You know, she wants her own power. But part of why she sees herself ostracized and sees herself as not having as much power as she wants is because of this Christianization thing. And it's very much a kind of like play for what does it mean to be Czech? Because Drona Mira's family is an old Czech family as well. She's oftentimes seen as being more linked to like the tribal-ness of the area. So she's from the Haveli tribe in the area. And so people are kind of like, oh, well, this is a story about really kind of being held back to old ways and tribal-ness and, you know, quote unquote, pagan-ness. As opposed to becoming a real kingdom or dukedom and having a lot of

high level kind of interactions with the rest of Europe. And what is it that we're going to be? So Drahomira kind of is representative of this older school of being. And Ludmilla was kind of like, no, no, no, we're fancying up around the joint. We're like all the kind of like post-Roman Christian states. And I wish there was some sort of modern relevance and resonance to the idea of, you know, bitter fights within a polity around identity, around engagement with the world around them versus kind of closing yourself off. Oh, yeah. Celebrating quote-unquote traditional values. Like, I mean, it's fascinating, right? And so there's an idea here, is there, that Christianity, it's foreign, it's Czech enough. Is that right?

Yeah, that's right. So, you know, and this idea that we should be holding to kind of like a superstructure of a state and having like a real, they're dukes at the time, but, you know, they kind of think of themselves as kings. But, you know, having one dynasty that sort of controls this as opposed to kind of like ongoing tribal renegotiations of who controls what land. That's a huge thing. It's a big deal to change religions. It is fundamentally, you know, we think about this as a kind of done deal now, but for the people who are doing it at the time, if you come in and say, no, I'm sorry, you've got to believe in a whole new religion in order to rule this country, obviously that's going to be hard for some people.

Yeah. And also we come to it with a bit of a post-religious cynicism, or many of us, and actually they believe this stuff, right? This is really important. This is about everlasting life or not, or hell or damnation. Like this is pretty, pretty serious. I always find it fascinating, like what's in it? Why is Christianity so popular? Is it just the power of the example of the saints, of martyrs, of missionaries, and the engagement with the stories of the Bible? Or is it like, there are actually practical advantages to being Christian, right? You can import knowledge, like you get people coming and tell you how to extract more tax from your subjects. What are the practical reasons for

embracing Christianity? Yes, that's absolutely the case, setting aside the fact that there is obviously a great deal of genuine religious feeling about this, which is certainly true. But it's also very representative, especially in the medieval period, to people about Roman-ness. And so you still have, we've got to keep in mind that the Eastern Roman Empire, which we sometimes call Byzantium now, is still going great guns. You know, they're over there having a great time wearing togas and watching chariot races right now. Nothing has really changed for them. And indeed for the Czechs, you know, this is their first kind of experience of Christianity. It's emissaries that have been sent out from Byzantium to say, hey, do you want to run a really well-regulated state?

Check out how much taxation revenue we're bringing in. We have so much money that we give all of our subjects grain just to live in cities because we can afford to do that. And that's looking really good from the standpoint of people over in Western Europe, right? And also in terms of the kind of like more Western spheres of influence, because Bohemia is right on the kind of middle of this. It can kind of go either way, if it's going to go a little bit more Orthodox Eastern Roman Empire, or if it's going to be a little bit more towards the Western things. And over in the West of Europe, there's this kind of real scrapping for like, oh, who's going to be the new Rome? Who's the new Rome, right? And that's really what's kind of going on around the time of Venceslas is the Ottonians

are establishing their empire and they're setting up the Holy Roman Empire. So this is a story about Roman-ness. And do you want to be involved in that or not? And everybody tells stories about how glorious Rome was. And it's a real practical advantage to setting up your own steady state and showing that you really understand these kind of conceptions of power. And you can start keeping records and archives and taxing people more and raising troops more effectively and plugging yourself into military writers who would have written in the classical world, for example. There are practical advantages to plugging yourself into this big conduit of modernity, I guess, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, think about it from the standpoint of Wenceslaus, right? Are you going to go with the Christian model and say, oh, and I'm going to be able to have a more standing army? I'm going to be taxing really well. I'll have all of

these high level contacts that other rulers have. Or am I going to like keep fighting with the local chieftains, you know, like my mom's family in order to kind of like go back and forth over whose territory is what, you know, it's kind of a no-brainer if what you're trying to do is consolidate royal power. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. We're talking about good King Wenceslas. More coming up. On Gone Medieval from History Hit, we set out to solve the biggest mysteries of the medieval age.

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His mum's in charge, though. His mum's got hold of him as regent now, having killed her mother-in-law. Is that right? This is one of the wildest things about the kind of Wenceslaus story is there's a rather a lot of murder by members of people's family, and it goes unpunished, which is interesting. So basically, you know, Trahumira manages to get Lyudmila killed and it's like, well,

there you go. I mean, I guess she's the regent now or something, but as a kind of result of this, Wenceslaus really resents her. Okay. So he stays true to his grandma's teaching in a way. Yeah, absolutely. Like in many ways, what happens is that this just kind of like solidifies his Christian-ness. And he considers that his grandmother has been martyred, which everybody else does as well. Well done. And so it's just kind of turned her into a saint, right? And so he, as a result of this, grows up very quickly. Let's put it that way. So his mother is kind of like pulling some of the power behind the reins, but obviously all of the Christians are kind of rooting for Vyacheslav to kind of

come to majority earlier because he is representative of all the things that they want. And what kind of age would he have to be before he can throw off his mother? Like Edward III in England, like how he can throw off his mother's influence. Yeah. I mean, it kind of ebbs and it flows around this time, but it's sort of like in the teens is what you're looking at. So he kind of gets hold of the government eventually in, we're not exactly sure exactly, right? Like I think that by the time he's 18, we know that the other Christians, they actually rebel outright against Drahomira. So Drahomira was like really, really trying to say, oh, like, I'm taking us back, everybody. We must return to our pagan ways. And he's getting more and more influence as a teen. But by the time he's 18, that's it. There's an all out rebellion.

And she is essentially driven into exile. So, eventually, it's him. It's his time. He's a man. He's got the support of these kind of Christian, I guess you could say, progressive nobles. So, that's it. The future's set. Yeah. And so, now that we are saying, okay, here we go.

It's Bohemia and it's Christian. What he does, he settles a couple of the other kind of ongoing questions. And he says, you know, actually, we're not going with the old Slavonic, right? We're not going with the kind of Byzantine style of Christianity. We are going to align ourselves with the church in Rome. We're using Latin. That's how it's going to be. And so he's kind of aligning himself here saying, all right, I'm doing things a little bit more like the Western Roman way. And that's, as you point out, because he's a kind of swing vote, right? He's occupying this great important space in Central Europe. If he'd adopted the Byzantine church, which we now call the Greek Orthodox church, that could have been very powerful for

the spread of different kinds of Christianity within, well, across the world, but certainly within Europe. Absolutely. You know, in terms of having an outpost that far into Western Europe and one that was this wealthy. That would have done real things, I think, for Byzantium. And also, you know, it would have been a question of taxation, certainly for them, because if you decide on that polarity, you know, they could have been taxed in that when they're, you know, losing armies in the Holy Land, right? And kind of tapping into that. But it's something that they lose here, unfortunately for them, I suppose. If what we're saying is that, you know, we want the Eastern

Roman Empire to continue forever, losing Bohemia is a real chink in the armor there. Okay. So yeah, it could have been a very valuable ally. Let's get to the Christmas Carol. It's hugely popular. Is it based on a story at the time? Yeah. So we get a lot of it out of, there's a particular hagiography or saint's life that is written by Cosmas of Prague. He's a chronicler and he's writing in the 12th century. And according to him, Wenceslas is getting up in the middle of the night and he's wearing just like, you know, a hair shirt. And he's getting up and he's going around to every church in Prague in his bare feet with, you know, his one chamberlain.

And he's going around and giving alms to everybody that he sees. So he's giving the churches lots and lots of money, but secretly and at night. He doesn't want it to be about his own glory. He just wants to help these people. And that kind of enters the record as a definitive truth. And it gets picked up by everyone else kind of around the empire. Because even by this time, you know, he's quite popular. You know, obviously in Bohemia, everyone was like, oh, this guy's definitely a saint. But even down in Italy and things, people are going, oh, yeah, this is really cool. We like this guy because he's kind of a symbol of what newly Christianized peoples could be. So everyone starts saying, yep.

One of the big things that he does is he distributes alms at night. And that's when you get this cool story about him trying to help a woodsman who's struggling and then walking out in his bare feet. And his bare footsteps fill up with his blood and keep his chamberlain who's following him around on these errands from freezing to death. So it's all very dramatic. It's very goth. We love it. when his successors had these hagiographies commissioned, whilst he was busy giving arms around privately. Like all the best private arms givers, you make sure eventually someone's going to find out about it, right? I mean, that's the... Oh, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, jeepers, creepers. So... Why bring the Chamberlain? You know, why is the Chamberlain there, if not to observe this and tell everybody? Yeah. Whatever you do, don't tell anyone that I'm doing all this amazing philanthropy. Exactly. whatever you do, don't tell anyone that I'm doing all this amazing philanthropy. Exactly. And so he shaped not just Bohemia as a modern state, but he also, in terms of the dignity of kingship or of leadership, he did all that stuff that we expect the most successful medieval rulers to do, didn't he? Yeah. And it's really quite interesting because he's very busy modernizing

everybody, right? So he has some rebellions to deal with as a result of this. And these all get added to the hagiography as well. So you will say that he's kind of fighting with some of the other varying Slavs who are around the joint who don't want to do this. One very good legends of this is that there's a Duke named Radoslavs who rebels against him. And he says, you know, rather than us have an all-out battle and risk the lives of all of our subjects, why don't you and I have just a one-on-one duel? And Radislas at first says, well, you're a big coward for doing this in the first place because you should kill all your men. So obviously he's not good like Wenceslas. But then he agrees to the duel. And then as he's going up to the duel, he sees Wenceslas is flanked by two

angels who tell him to stand down. And he immediately realizes that he's done the wrong thing and prostrates himself at Wenceslas' feet. And then he's kind of like tucked safely into the fold. He accepts Christianity and then look, it's another win for Wenceslas. But what's going on at the same time is we have over in what will become the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottonians are setting up their real claim to fame. And they're looking over at Bohemia and they're saying, seems like they've got rather a lot of money and I would like to kind of have them into the fold. These guys need to be the Holy Romans as well. And this is something that ends up kind of bringing Bohemia even more into the

sphere of Western influence because some battles are fought about this, but the Franks are kind of teaming up with the Bavarians. There isn't a whole lot that Wenceslas can do and they then get subsumed into imperial authority as a result of it. That's interesting. So the Holy Roman Empire, does it like physically conquer Bohemia or do they just kind of get Wenceslas to agree to join that sort of loose and kind of slightly unfamiliar to the modern eye, but that loose confederation? It's a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. So basically there are wars that are fought over it. And there certainly are several battles that the Bohemians don't win particularly convincingly. Ventress does attempt to kind of team up sometimes with the Magyars

and other people to kind of push them back, but it just becomes really clear that they aren't going to go away, right? And basically he loses key allies. He had been teamed up with the Bavarians, but then the Bavarians team up with the Franks. You know, there's a lot of switching sides. There's a lot of turning heels. So he just kind of sees which way the wind is blowing. And he says, okay, well, I guess we're going to have to go along with this, which people aren't particularly happy about because it's a really heavy taxation, but they are really happy about not having to deal with a bunch of Germans stomping through their backyard all the time. Right. And this is also one of the big things that cements his legend as a saintly guy. Because then Wenceslaus is called over to, you know, a big meeting with Otto and all of the other Germans to talk about the empire or what have you.

And there's a big feast. And Wenceslaus is late. And he's late because he has been in church praying, obviously. So he gets into the great hall late, and this is a big insult to the emperor. It's a big insult to Otto because he should have been there waiting and attending on him. And the emperor gets up to kind of rebuke him and actually manhandle him a little bit. But again, those angels are there. Can you believe it? These angels that just follow Wenceslaus around show him that, oh, he shouldn't be yelling at Ventuslaus.

And actually, he's very, very holy. And instead, the emperor has a change of faith and says that he will give Ventuslaus any treasures that he wants. And Ventuslaus says that, I heard you have an arm bone of St. Vitus, and I'd like that. And he uses it to establish the cathedral in Prague. Which is why people are very often confused by Prague Cathedral because it's technically like the St. Vitus and St. Venceslas Cathedral. You know, we've got more than one saint in there is the point. But you know, he's holy because he's got angels. When the emperor asks what he wants, he's like, give me relics. I like relics. I just want to do Christian things.

And this is helpful to Otto, right? This idea that there's someone under his thumb who's this holy. Yeah, and expanding that eastern frontier out, I guess, right? So we need to think about Wenceslas' protecting the independence of his people and the kind of integrity of state, but also joining this kind of transnational organization. And he does that successfully, is Bohemia able to still be Bohemia whilst also part of this loose union. Yeah, so this is an interesting one, because the deal with the Holy Roman Empire is that it is quite loose. You know, people criticize this from a modern standpoint, but I often say that that's its success, you know, where people go, I'm not particularly happy about this Otto

guy being the emperor right now, but seems pretty check around here. It's not really changing my life or the worst in any way, shape or form. So I can kind of accept it, provided that things are going to kind of rub along more or less as it is. And again, you know, what it does is it kind of establishes a hierarchy, a tax structure. You sort of know how things are going to play out if you're a part of this. And also from the bohemian standpoint, they're still surrounded by a lot of the Slavic states that haven't Christianized yet. And it makes them look kind of fancy. Well, they're like, well, we're not like those Pomeranians up there and what is now Poland. They haven't even converted yet. You know, we're on the

modern team as it were. But there are people who don't really like it. And notably, one of those guys is the brother of Saint Vecislav, who is a Boislav I or Boislav the Cruel. You know, warning bells the minute someone's got the Cruel as a nickname. I mean, that's right. And you know, everyone knows that the minute you get crowned king, sadly, you've got to get rid of your brothers, every single one of them. It's just, that's not going to work. Tell me what happens to Boaz Laff the Cruel, I can guess.

Yes, I'm sure that it's a big surprise to you, but he basically is upset that his brother has accumulated all of this power specifically underneath him. And again, it's sort of like your brother ruling everything, kind of new, kind of Christian. From a kind of tribal standpoint,

you would still have a lot of power and he feels he has less. So basically, he gets his brother killed. So over in Staroboloslav, they are there to celebrate the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian, who are quite big in the sort of like Eastern calendar. And he gets three of his good mates to basically attack Ventuslaus as he's coming out of a church, obviously. And they all begin to stab him to death. And he comes up to his brother and does the killing blow and runs him through with a lance. And this is a very interesting kind of medieval story.

Because in the first place, you get basically the instant reification of Ventuslaus. They're like, bang, he's a saint. Like, that's it. It's a done deal. It's a done deal. But also everyone's like, well, I guess Boislav's the king now. All right. And like, there's no consideration of like, maybe murdering your brother isn't the way

to come to the throne. You know, no one's like, well, we're going to have to imprison Boislav or we're going to have to kill him or anything like that. They're like, nope, he's a Shemyslid. His brother's dead. Now this is the king. And Boeslav was a bit of a mummy's boy. Like, did he try and undo some of Wenceslas' reforms and innovations? Yeah. He's very much seen as like a mummy's boy and kind of like linked more specifically with his mother because he didn't get sent off to live with his grandma because everyone was kind of like, oh, there's the spare. We don't care about that guy. And he does kind of try to make things a little bit more quote unquote traditional. He isn't

Christian, but it's too far gone, right? It's too far gone at this point in time to walk it back. You can't really say Czechs are going to stop being Christian at this point because the genies left the bottle. And also, I guess you get into the office on day one and there are the priests with all the records of like, you know, the money coming in and the sophisticated accounting processes. And you're like, maybe don't burn all that stuff just at the moment. Maybe some of that could be useful. He does some things that are kind of popular where, you know, he does things like say is not going to pay off King Otto over in the Holy Roman Empire. He's like, no, I don't think so. And he tries to kind of like roll the clock back in various ways. But he's kind of also allowed to rule in certain ways

because he spends a lot of time attacking the Magyars. And even though Otto is not a big fan of him not paying his taxes, he's a huge fan of a big buffer zone between like the raiding bag yards and everybody else. So he kind of gets away with it. But basically, his wife and kids, they Christian up real good and nice. And everyone just kind of understands this to be kind of, in many ways, a last gasp of the kind of old timey old-fashioned, pagan, tribal way of doing things. It's just too far gone because the benefits of being this hooked in with the rest of the German states are too undeniable, really. And why is Burslav known as the Cruel?

Is it just the assassination of his brother, or did he have a little proclivity throughout his reign? It's mostly killing his brother, is the answer. Because actually, like, weirdly, he was kind of an okay duke slash king, you know, whatever you want to call them there. throughout his reign? It's mostly killing his brother. It's the answer because actually like weirdly, he was kind of an okay Duke slash King, you know, whatever you want to call them there. And he says that like, you know, he feels bad about it. You know, he ends up feeling so bad about killing his brother that like he gives some of his kids to the church, you know, and has them become clergymen and things like that in, in attempt to not go to hell. But you know, that's

all it really takes is you killing everyone's favorite guy. You know, you run a successful empire, you're great at drawing back the Magyars, but you kill one brother. And that's, you know, the thing you're known for. Henry II as well, you know, kills one guy. Okay. So, and I'm really struck by the fact that Vensalos in Czech lands is seen as this kind of Arthurian figure, right? You guys, I'm counting you in on this. He's there. Is he sleeping? You're going to blow the by the fact that Ventsilas in Czech lands is seen as this kind of Arthurian figure, right? You guys, I'm counting you in on this. He's there. Is he sleeping? You're going to blow the horn? He's going to come and rescue everybody. Like what's, that endures. Yeah, we absolutely have this. The same sort of Arthurian things, they specifically center on St. Ventus' last. So there's a couple versions of this legend, but one of them is that underneath

one of the mountains, Blanik, there's this rumor that there's kind of like a bunch of sleeping knights. And that if Czechs are really threatened in a time of ultimate danger, then Venceslas and them will rise up and they will take things over. There's a more specific Prague legend that what will happen is that the giant statue of St. Venceslas will come to life. So we have on Václavský Gnomisty or Václavský Square, named after him, we've got a huge equestrian statue of him and the other Czech saints, and it will ride and rise the army, sleeping army from underneath the mountain. People from Prague are more into that one because, you know, we want our, we want our statue involved or whatever, you know, Moravians are a little less keen on that one, what can I say? But, you know, there is this idea that what it means to be Czech is officially

linked to Vecaslaz more specifically, like to the point when Czechoslovakia, as it was then, was becoming an independent state from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was almost this 12th century hymn, which is like the St. Vecasas choral that was going to be our national anthem. That's how important this guy is. There isn't really kind of a sense of Czechness without these links to this particular story, because what it means to be Bohemian, what it means to be Czech, as opposed to, you know, some loose conglomerate of pagan Slavs, is about how this guy established the Bohemian state. I mean, I love the army thing and awakening, but I've got really bad news. I mean, if that army didn't appear in 1938, 39, 45, 68, like the Czech lands have been through some pretty difficult, let alone the 30 years war. But like, I've got a feeling it's not, they're not coming. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry, but if he wasn't going to wake up when the Nazis came in, he's not coming. That's like basically my thing. It's like,

I feel like there were rather a lot of Nazis around the joint for quite some time. So I have a hard time believing it. Right. And with that, Eleanor is unable ever to return to her ancestral homeland. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about Wenceslas. What an extraordinary story. Thank you very much indeed. An absolute pleasure. Thanks for letting me rant.