Svatopluk I - Last Years

Last Years

Methodius, who seems to have been in Svatopluk's train at Kaumberg, died in 885. In his last days he had indicated Gorazd, one of his Moravian disciples, as most worthy to succeed him. Gorazd, however, did not or could not immediately submit his candidature for ratification of the Holy See, because Bishop Wiching of Nitra soon hurried to Rome. He persuaded Pope Stephen V that Methodius had ignored Pope John VIII's orders in the matter of Slavonic liturgy, thus upon his initiative the pope prohibited the Slavonic liturgy in Moravia. The pope also sent a letter (Quia te zelo) to Svatopluk, urging him to accept the addition of filioque to the Creed and to give up such peculiar Byzantine practices as fasting on Saturday.

Having Wiching arrived back from Rome, Svatopluk summoned Gorazd, Clement and Methodius's other disciples to submit to the papal directions. When they refused to do so, Svatopluk gave Wiching a free hand to take action against them. Some of them were first thrown into prison, and soon expelled from Moravia, while others, among them Naum, were sold as slaves. The expel of Methodius's disciples from Moravia signaled the end of the Slavonic liturgy in Central Europe. The exiles, however, subsequently found refuge in the First Bulgarian Empire where they were able to carry on their work.

In his letter Quia te zelo, the pope addressed Svatopluk as rex Sclavorum ("king of the Slavs"). Although Svatopluk's royal title was not recognized by the contemporary Annals of Fulda, the chronicler Regino of Prüm also referred to Svatopluk as rex Marahensium Sclavorum ("king of the Moravian Slavs") in the early 10th century, hence there is independent evidence confirming that Svatopluk held the title of king. According to the late 12th-century Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, Svatopluk had been crowned "king in the Roman fashion on the field of Dalma" in the presence of a papal legate, cardinals, and bishops.

In 887 Arnulf, Svatopluk's opponent in the "Wilhelminer War", became the king of East Francia. They met at Omuntesperch, a locality that has yet not been identified, during the winter of 890. At the meeting Svatopluk transmitted to Arnulf a message from Pope Stephen V, urging the king to invade Italy to protect the Holy See. According to Regino of Prüm, the two monarchs also concluded an agreement, in which Arnulf ceded the ducatus of the Bohemians to Svatopluk.

In the year of the Lord's incarnation 890, King Arnulf gave the command of the Bohemians to King Zwentibald of the Moravian Slavs. Hitherto, the Bohemians had rulers from among their own kind and people, and had kept the fidelity they promised to the kings of the Franks by inviolable agreement. Arnulf did this because, before he had been raised to the throne of the kingdom, he had been joined to Zwentibald in close friendship. —Regino of Prüm: Chronicon, Book II

Sometime during 891, according to the Annals of Fulda, Arnulf sent an embassy led by margrave Arbo to Moravia in order to renew the peace. A letter written by the margrave soon announced that the legates were returning from Svatopluk and the Moravians who had agreed "to give themselves in friendship". Svatopluk, however, broke his pledges, thus Arnulf decided to invade Moravia in 891. First the king met with Braslav, the Slavic dux on the river Sava, next raised an army of Franconians, Bavarians and Alamanni, and also recruited Hungarians to join his campaign. In the late 10th century, Arnulf was accused by Ottonian authors of unleashing the Hungarians on Europe because of his desire to bring down Moravia.

Meanwhile, Arnulf, the strongest king of the nations living below the star Arcturus, could not overcome Sviatopolk, duke of the Moravians, who we mentioned above, with the latter fighting back in a manly way; and – alas! – having dismantled those very well fortified barriers which we said earlier are called "closures" by the populace, Arnulf summoned to his aid the nation of the Hungarians, greedy, rash, ignorant of almighty God but well versed in every crime, avid only for murder and plunder; if indeed it can be called "aid", since a little later, with him dying, it proved to be grave peril, and even the occasion of ruin, for his people alongside the other nations living in the south and west. —Liudprand of Cremona: Retribution, Book One

Arnulf's invasion started in July 892, but he failed to defeat Svatopluk. The war against Moravia seems to have continued until 894. This was the year of Svatopluk's "most unlucky death" according to the Annals of Fulda which implies that he met his end in some kind of mishap, the sort that occurs in war. The exact circumstances of Svatopluk's death, however, are unknown.

Zwentibald, the dux of the Moravians and the source of all treachery, who had disturbed all the lands around him with tricks and cunning and circled around thirsting for human blood, made an unhappy end, exhorting his men at the last that they should not be lovers of peace but rather continue in enmity with their neighbors. —Annals of Fulda (year 894)