Die Landfriedensbewegung im Königreich Böhmen

Abstract

The study focuses on the history of the Landfriede movement in the Kingdom of Bohemia. It strives to intercept specific development and forms of local Landfrieden and related instruments to provide pacis et justitiae with partial comparative overlaps to other countries of the Bohemian state and the territory of the Holy Roman Empire. The institute of Landfriede contributed significantly to the character of the Late Middle Ages at the level of constitutional development, changes in the administrative system and political orientation of all parts of the territorial unit Lands of the Bohemian Crown. The present study focuses on the development of the central country within the whole, the Kingdom of Bohemia, and follows ist example of how this legal remedy was used to reduce the various forms of medieval feud and private war. The Bohemian Landfriede movement is characterized by its link to the emerging regional system, and as it shows, the beginning of its development can be followed to the early phase associated with the emergence of regional leagues of towns. This paper describes the transformation of the relationship between the ruler, nobility and royal cities and this institution, leading from the initial symbiosis of royal and urban interests establishing the first Landfriede league to later domination by the nobility. The role of Landfrieden is highly specific during the Hussite Revolution (1419-1434). However, more significantly than in the actual war years, Landfrieden influenced Bohemian history in the period of subsequent interregnum (1439-1453), when they practically became the only functional organizational unit in the kingdom. The Landfrieden helped especially in times of political instability and administrative looseness to ensure elementary order and peace in the kingdom, despite the fact that they never acceded to total prohibition of feuds and private wars. They became one of the constitutive elements of the emerging regional administration and in ist structure, they in fact disappeared after their subordination to police orders (Policey-, Policeiordnungen) and Land Constitutions (Landesordnungen). In the times of the largest decline of the central power – in the times of the post-hussite interregnum – they took over and further developed some legal norms received previously at the land diet and at the land court, which were later confirmed in the form of new diet resolutions and police orders. As a part of these police orders, some particular norms of Bohemian Landfrieden were included in the texts of Land Constitutions of Early Modern Era. The Bohemian Landfriede movement may be looked at from the perspective of the development of provincial law and history of administration, and it may also be viewed as an important political force and a platform for ongoing social change, considering the important role of Landfrieden in times of weakening of the central power. The Bohemian Landfriede movement represents a specific example of this phenomenon emerging in the main country of an important Central European state entity during the formation of the estates monarchy, roughly corresponding to the period of late Middle Ages.