The Founding of Prague Castle

JAN 01 870 · 12:00

Hradčany ridge above the Vltava, the long limestone spine on which Bořivoj raised his timber palisade. Place: Hradčany hill, above the Vltava ford Figures: Bořivoj I, first Christian duke of the Přemyslids · Saint Methodius (baptizes him) Before the castle there is a hill, and beneath the hill a ford where the merchant roads from Regensburg, Kiev, and Kraków cross the Vltava. The Přemyslid dukes have ruled the basin for perhaps two generations, from a wooden fort at Levý Hradec, four river-miles upstream. Around the year 870, Duke Bořivoj I moves the seat south, to the long limestone ridge that the Slavs call Hradčany: the place of the fortress. He builds in timber: a palisade, a stone-walled enclosure for the prince's hall, a small church to the Virgin. He is the first Christian duke of his line. Methodius, archbishop of Moravia, has baptized him not long before.