Judith OF BOHEMIA
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Judith OF BOHEMIA (aft1056-1085)

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      Judith of Bohemia    
 
Name: Judith OF BOHEMIA 1
Sex: Female
Father: Vratislav II OF BOHEMIA (1035?-1092)
Mother: Adelaide OF HUNGARY (1045?-1062)

Individual Events and Attributes

Birth btw 1056 and 1058 Prague, Bohemia
Occupation (1) Princes of Bohemia
Occupation (2) frm 1080 to 1085 (age 21-29) Duchess of Poland
Group/Caste Membership Premyslids Dynasty
Death 25 Dec 1085 (age 26-29)

Marriage

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      Boleslaw III Wrymouth, King of Poland by Jan Matjko    
 
Spouse Wladislas I OF POLAND (1043?-1102)
Children Boleslas III Wrymouth OF POLAND (1085-1138)

Individual Note

Judith of Bohemia (ca. 1056/58 – 25 December 1086), also known as Judith Premyslid, was a Bohemian princess of the Premyslid dynasty, and by marriage Duchess of Poland.

 

She was a daughter of Duke Vratislaus II of Bohemia by his second wife Adelaide, daughter of King Andrew I of Hungary.[1][2] She was named after her paternal grandmother Judith of Schweinfurt, who died shortly after her birth.

 

Family

Judith was the second of four children born from Vratislaus II's marriage with the Hungarian princess Adelaide. The others were Bretislaus II, Ludmilla (later a nun) and Vratislaus, who died young killed in battle. Judith's uncle Duke Spytihnev II died in 1061 and was succeeded by his brother Vratislaus II. One year later, in 1062, Duchess Adelaide died.

 

Duke Vratislaus II was remarried in 1063 to Swietoslawa, daughter of Duke Casimir I of Poland. From this marriage, Judith gained five half-siblings: Boleslav (Duke of Olomouc; he died shortly before his father), Borivoj II, Vladislav I, Sobeslav I Oldrich and Judith, later wife of Wiprecht II of Groitzsch, Burgrave of Magdeburg.

 

Marriage

Around 1080, Judith married Wladyslaw I Herman, Duke of Poland (nephew of her stepmother), to solidify the recently established Bohemian-Polish alliance.

 

According to contemporary chroniclers, Duchess Judith performed remarkable charity work, helping the needy and ensuring the comfort of subjects and prisoners. After almost five years of childless marriage, the necessity of an heir had increased:

 

Because she was barren pray to God every day with tears and orations, made sacrifices and paying debts, helping widows and orphans, and given very generous amounts of gold and silver for the monasteries, commanded the priests to pray to the saints and the grace of God for a child.

 

On 10 June 1085, Judith and her husband were present at the coronation of her father Duke Vratislaus II as the first King of Bohemia. One year later, in 1086, Judith's prayers were finally answered, and on 20 August of that year she gave birth the long-awaited son and heir, the future Boleslaw III Wrymouth; sadly, the Duchess never recovered from the effects of childbirth and died four months later, on 25 December.

 

Three years later, in 1089, her husband remarried to the widow of Judith's uncle King Solomon of Hungary, Judith of Swabia, who was renamed Sophia in Poland in order to distinguish herself from Wladyslaw I's first wife.

 

NOTES:

1 http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BOHEMIA.htm#Judithdied1086

2 Complete Genealogy of the Premyslid dynasty2

Sources

1Weis, Frederick Lewis & Sheppard, Walter Lee, Jr, "Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700: Lineages from Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert the Strong, and other Historical Individuals". p 142, 147-24; 221, 244-8.
2"Wikipedia". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_of_Bohemia.