Anatomy of a Duchy - (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450) by David Kalhous (Paperback)

About the Book

In Anatomy of a Duchy David Kalhous analyses military, social and "ideological" factors which may have led to the stabilisation of the Přemyslid regnum in 10th and 11 th century.

Book Synopsis

An analysis of the early Přemyslid realm provides an opportunity for recognizing the importance of different factors involved in the formation of stable social structures in the early medieval regnum. The contemporary narrative emphasizes the importance of violence, where the Přemyslid princes and their powerful retinues imposed princely will on elites and freemen in Bohemia and Moravia. However, our attention also turns to the problematic evidence of assumed powerful cavalry armies and the importance of communication between prince, elites and church, somewhat problematizing the role of violence as the primary tool of governance.
Furthermore, an analysis of "otherness" in Saxon chronicles and a comparison of different traditions of St. Wenceslas and Great Moravia confirm the importance of the "Identitätsbildung"-process and "ideology" as stabilising factors in the new Přemyslid regnum.

About the Author

David Kalhous, Ph.D. (1978), Masaryk University, Brno, is a researcher of Early Medieval History at that university. He has published several articles on the early medieval history of Central Europe.