Immediately afterwards Carlomann entered Moravia, conquered the whole country, and appointed two brothers, Margraves of Austria, its governors. The German governors seized the Archbishop Methodius, and delivered him as prisoner to his enemies the German bishops. Shortly afterwards they caused Svatopluk also, whose fidelity they mistrusted, to be imprisoned and sent to Germany. He appears to have ingratiated himself with the German conquerors; for when an insurrection broke out in Moravia, shortly afterwards, he was appointed leader of the German army sent to suppress it.
Svatopluk now requited by treachery the treachery that had been used against him. Deserting the Germans, he put himself at the head of his countrymen, and defeated the Germans in a decisive battle in which both the Austrian Margraves fell (871). Svatopluk, now uncontested lord of Moravia, tried to strengthen his power against the Germans (who were certain again to attack him) by an alliance with the Bohemian Prince Bořivoj—a relation of whom, probably a sister, he subsequently married. The relative positions of Bohemia and Moravia at this period are very uncertain; but it is probable that when Svatopluk's power increased Bořivoj became to a certain extent subject to him.
The following year (872) the Germans again attacked both Bohemia and Moravia; and though they succeeded in penetrating into Bohemia, they were on the whole unsuccessful. After Svatopluk had in the following year carried the war into the enemies' country by attacking Carlomann in Germany, his father, King Louis, who had come to his aid, considered it wiser to enter into negotiations for peace. These negotiations resulted in the treaty of Forcheim (874), which was favourable to Svatopluk, and secured to him the possession of his conquests in Northern Hungary, though under German supremacy.
After this treaty Methodius was released from custody, and returned to Moravia. One of his first deeds after his return was probably the baptism of the Bohemian Prince Bořivoj; both the locality and the exact date of this important event are uncertain.[1] At the same time Bořivoj's
- ↑ The legend that Bořivoj became a Christian because, dining with Svatopluk, he was requested to sit apart on a low stool, since he, being a heathen, was unfit to sit at table with Christians, is of recent origin, and is treated with contempt by modern Bohemian historians.
