| Abstrakt: |
The letters of Karel of Žerotín Sr. to his friends show that he took his feud with Sigmund of Dietrichstein to be a matter of fate and more than an ordinary dispute. He viewed it as a conspiracy of a group of Catholic noblemen led by Kryštof of Lobkovice, whose attack was in fact directed against the entire Moravian non-Catholic Estates in an effort to uproot their political and legal independence. The lawsuit strategy and some statements of the plaintiff make it clear that it was no routine matter for Dietrichstein and his clique either. It is evident particularly from the ever-expanding indictment, which grew in proportion to the successes of Žerotín's defense. The efforts to ensnare Smil Osovský of Doubravice and even some of the participants of the Znojmo Conference that testified in Žerotín's favor suggest that Žerotín was not wrong in his assessment. An analysis of various available (although only partially preserved) texts demonstrates that the case unfolded on several levels, some of which could not be described as purely legal, and which were personified by a number of prominent actors in a major social conflict of the time: political, religious, legal, and personal. It could have been the first attempt to derail Žerotín as an Estates politician, who had already tried (with limited success) to give the confessional-political conflict an international dimension by a military alliance with Henry of Navarre. Another obvious intent was to eliminate Žerotin as a young, prospective member of a "brain trust" behind the Moravian law and the Moravian Estates, formed jointly with the recently deceased hetman of Moravia Fridrich of Žerotín Sr. and Smil Osovský of Doubravice. Both legal and real powers were supposed to pass into the domain of ambitious court aristocracy, exemplified in the litigation by Kryštof and Ladislav of Lobkovice and Ladislav Berka of Dubá, in addition to Sigmund of Dietrichstein. The case ended with Sigmund's death, that is unsuccessfully for the plaintiff. However, it did play a key role in defining the power of the king (or the king's court) in opposition to the non-Catholic Estates of Moravia. This delineation of power soon emerged more than once in the ensuing social clashes, starting with the Brethren dispute of 1608-1610. In this regard, one cannot lose sight of the conflict that dominated the following period: the thirty-year war. In fact, here too, the "belle époque" comparison comes to mind. Both situations started with a single violent act, a physical attack on government authority in form of an assassination attempt (the Prague defenestration attacked the king through his regents). In both cases, the violent act sparked military confrontations that soon mushroomed into a major tragedy of its time and a defining phenomenon of the entire era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
