Přemyslid

The Přemyslids were the native dynasty of Bohemia, named after the legendary ploughman Přemysl, husband of the prophetess Libuše. Their first documented duke, Bořivoj I, ruled around Prague from the 860s and accepted Christianity. Ottokar I made the royal title hereditary in 1198.

At their peak under Ottokar II, the Iron and Golden King, the Přemyslids reached the Adriatic, until he fell against Rudolf of Habsburg at Marchfeld in 1278. The murder of Wenceslaus III in 1306 ended the royal line, and the Bohemian crown passed to the House of Luxembourg.

A cadet line survived: Nicholas I, a natural son of Ottokar II, had received Opava in 1269, and his descendants ruled Opava and, from 1337, Racibórz. This branch ended with Duke Valentin's death in 1521, when its lands reverted to the Bohemian Crown, held by the Habsburgs from 1526.