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Henry Zdík, bishop of Olomouc and Premonstratensian

Lisa Wolverton

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Czech Lands (today’s Czech Republic) consisted of two territories, Bohemia and Moravia, ruled by a single duke from a dynasty known as the Přemyslids. He governed Bohemia directly while delegating power in Moravia to three subordinate dukes, invariably his relatives, whose territories were centered on Olomouc in the north, Brno in the south, and Znojmo, further south, on the border with the Bavarian Ostmark (i.e., Austria). Bohemia and Moravia each comprised a Catholic diocese, centered at Prague and Olomouc respectively. The bishopric of Prague was founded circa 973, whereas the see of Olomouc was only established (or re-established, perhaps) a century later, circa 1065. Both bishops were subject to the Archbishop of Mainz in Germany, and ultimately answered to the Pope in Rome.

Bishop Zdík of Olomouc, who was also called Henry (in place of or together with Zdík), governed the church of Moravia from 1126 to his death in 1150. Nothing is known of his origins or of his life before becoming bishop, except that he accompanied other Czechs on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1123. He appears to have spent the first half of his reign organizing the canons associated with the cathedral, consolidating the financial assets of his see, and generally attending to the institutional foundations of religious life in Moravia. The preeminent ecclesiastical figure in the Czech Lands during the last decade of his life he also was well known to a succession of popes in Rome and was frequently in attendance at the court of King Conrad III of Germany. Bishop Zdík influenced the introduction of many religious reform ideals current in Western Europe to the Czechs. Although when and under what circumstances remains uncertain, Zdík is known to have joined the Premonstratensians, an order of secular canons that originated among the followers of the charismatic preacher, Norbert of Xanten.

The imagined letter below, from a young canon at Prague cathedral to his uncle, a canon in Olomouc, both unnamed, paints a portrait of the bishop at a turning point in his life and career, in the winter of 1140, a crucial time also of political transition, as the enthronement of Duke Vladislav I after the death of his uncle, Soběslav I, ushered in the reign of a new generation of Přemyslids. It strives to captures the ways Bishop Henry Zdík himself began to move within a wider world, stretching from Rome to the Baltic, from the Rhineland to Jerusalem, and the various reactions his activities might have elicited from a local observer. The imaginary letter-writer, as a canon of Prague, was well positioned to see and hear much about both political and religious life among the Czechs at the highest levels, without himself having influence upon these events or access to privy information.

The text is based upon five different chronicles of Czech provenance, which record the deeds of Bishop Henry Zdík in varying levels of detail and from different perspectives, as well as the few authentic letters and charters that survive.

Notes

1. The practice whereby individuals actively used two names, one Czech, one German, was rare in the early twelfth century. Although two important Czech bishops took German names upon consecration, Henry Zdík is mentioned by both his names even before his election; see, Cosmas of Prague, The Chronicle of the Czechs, trans. Lisa Wolverton (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2015), 237. Modern scholarly convention places the German name first, but the Latin sources describe him equally often as “Henry, who is also Zdík” or “Zdík, who is also Henry.” Note that Zdík is neither a surname nor a patronymic, neither of which were in use among the Czechs in this period.
2. Zdík travelled to Rome “for the sake of prayer” (causa orationis) in 1139 (MS 260). He does not appear among episcopal witnesses in German royal diplomas until 1142: MGH DDK III, ed. F. Hausmann (Vienna/Cologne/Graz: Böhlau, 1969), no. 70, 141; note that in this Latin text produced in Germany, his name is listed only as Zdík (Steico). Thereafter such documents indicate that he made regular trips to King Conrad’s court.
3. All these texts are published in Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum, v. 2, ed. Josef Emler (Prague, 1874): Annals of Hradiště-Opatovice [AHO], Letopisy Hradištko-Opatovické, 385–400; Canon of Vyšehrad [CV], Kanovník Vyšehradský, 203–27; Gerlach of Milevsko [Ger], Letopis Jarlocha, 461–516; Monk of Sázava [MS], Mnich Sázavský, 238–69; and Vincent of Prague [Vin], Letopis Vincenciuv, 407–60.
4. Although the corpus of incidental materials pertaining to or mentioning Henry Zdík is comparatively large for this period in the Czech Lands, the majority of items postdate the imaginary letter presented here. The correspondence known to have been addressed to him by Popes Innocent II, Lucius II, or Eugene III or by the Premonstratensians of Steinfeld, as well as those records of land grants (i.e., charters) in which he appears as a witness or is otherwise named, whether from Germany or Bohemia, can be found in Codex Diplomaticus et Epistolaris Regni Bohemiae [CDB], vol. 1, ed. by Gustav Friedrich (Prague, 1907).