Adalbert of Prague

Life events

1. Born — 956

   Born as Vojtěch in 952 or c. 956 in the gord Libice, he belonged to the Slavník clan, one of the two most powerful families in Bohemia; his father was Slavník (d. 978–981), a duke ruling a province centred at Libice.

2. Educated

   Vojtěch studied for approximately ten years in Magdeburg under Adalbert of Magdeburg, taking his tutor's name 'Adalbert' at his Confirmation.

3. Consecrated — 982

   When Bishop Dietmar of Prague died in 982, Adalbert was chosen as his successor as Bishop of Prague despite being under canonical age.

4. Exiled — 988

   After six years of largely unsuccessful evangelization and growing opposition from secular powers and clergy, Adalbert went to Rome in 988 and resided at the Benedictine monastery of Saints Boniface and Alexis on Aventine Hill for two years.

5. Other — 993

   On 14 January 993, Adalbert founded a monastery in Břevnov — then situated west of Prague — together with a group of Italian Benedictine monks he had brought from the Aventine; it became the second oldest monastery on Czech territory.

6. Pilgrimage — 996

   In June 996, Adalbert set out on a pilgrimage through France and Germany; between September and November he stayed at the court of Emperor Otto III, who released him from his duties as Bishop of Prague to serve as an itinerant missionary bishop.

7. Martyred — 997

   On 23 April 997, Adalbert was killed near a Prussian settlement called 'Cholinun' after re-entering territory from which a tribal assembly had expelled him; his companions Gaudentius and Benedict were unharmed, but his head was severed and impaled on a stake.

8. Translated — 999

   Adalbert was most likely declared a saint on 29 June 999 in Rome; his body, ransomed by Bolesław I of Poland for its weight in gold, was enshrined in Gniezno, whose church was elevated to an archbishopric in 1000 by Emperor Otto III.

Relationships

Documented claims

• After Adalbert's martyrdom in 997, Bolesław I of Poland ransomed his body for its weight in gold and transferred it to Gniezno, where it became the foundation of a new Polish archbishopric established in 1000. (likely)
• The bronze doors of Gniezno Cathedral, dated to c. 1175 and decorated with eighteen reliefs of scenes from Adalbert's life, are the only Romanesque ecclesiastical doors in Europe depicting a complete hagiographic cycle. (likely)
• Both Prague Cathedral and the Royal Cathedral of Gniezno claim to possess Adalbert's relics; pursuant to these competing claims, two skulls are attributed to him, and the Gniezno skull was stolen in 1923. (likely)
• In 1038, Czech Duke Bretislav I seized Adalbert's relics from Gniezno Cathedral — breaking apart the altar behind which they had been walled in — and transferred them to Prague on 24 August 1038, provoking threats of excommunication from Pope Benedict IX. (likely)
• None of the three oldest hagiographies of Adalbert record a stated motive for his killing; historians have proposed he violated a tribal expulsion order, transgressed a sacred grove, or that his use of a written book was perceived as hostile in an oral society. (disputed)

Sources

• Adalbert of Prague — Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalbert_of_Prague)