Kłodzko Land (; ; ) is a historical region in southwestern Poland.
The subject of Czech–Polish rivalry in the High Middle Ages, it became a Bohemian domain since the 12th century, although with periods of rule of the Polish Piast dynasty in the Late Middle Ages. It was raised to the County of Kladsko in 1459 and was conquered by Prussia in the First Silesian War of 1740–42 and incorporated into the Province of Silesia by 1818. After World War II it passed to the Republic of Poland according to the 1945 Potsdam Agreement. The region was not destroyed during World War II, thanks to which its rich historical architecture from various periods, from the Middle Ages to modern times, has been preserved. It is also known for its several spa towns.
Geography
Kłodzko Land, with an approximate area of , consists of the Kłodzko Valley, a basin surrounded by several Mittelgebirge ranges of the Central and Eastern Sudetes: the Owl Mountains and Golden Mountains in the east, the Śnieżnik Mountains in the south, the Bystrzyckie Mountains and Orlické Mountains in the west, and the Stołowe Mountains in the northwest. With its natural boundaries, the valley forms a significant jut into the neighbouring Czech area in the southeast. It is crossed by the Eastern Neisse (Nysa Kłodzka) river, a left tributary of the Oder.
Despite its enclosed geographical situation, Kłodzko Land since ancient times has been traversed by the Amber Road and other important trade routes connecting Bohemia with Silesia and Moravia, running over easily accessible mountain passes in the south and west, and along the Nysa water gap at Bardo. The land is named after its historic administrative capital Kłodzko (Kladsko, Glatz), formerly the administrative seat of the Bohemian governor (Zemský hejtman) and gathering place of the local estates (Landstände). The area roughly corresponds to the current Kłodzko County (Powiat kłodzki) of Lower Silesian Voivodeship.
History
Historically, the area may have been part of the Great Moravia under King Svatopluk I by the late 9th century, though the extent of his realm is disputed. According to the Chronica Boëmorum (1125) by the Prague dean Cosmas, the provincia glacensis belonged to the dominions of the Bohemian nobleman Slavník, residing at the castle of Kłodzko on the road from Prague to Wrocław in Silesia until his death in 981 AD. The Slavník dynasty, among them Prince Slavník's heir Soběslav and his brother Saint Adalbert of Prague, ruled in the eastern territories of Bohemia until they were overthrown by the rivalling Přemyslid family in 995.
While the Přemyslid Dukes of Bohemia obtained the status of immediate Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, their rule was disrupted by internal dynastical struggles: during the rivalry between Duke Boleslaus III and his brother Jaromir in 1003, the Polish duke Bolesław I the Brave invaded Bohemia, but had to pull back the next year, facing the forces of King Henry II of Germany. In turn the Bohemian duke Bretislaus I campaigned the adjacent northern territory of Silesia in 1039. An armistice mediated by Emperor Henry III in 1054 demarcated the spheres of influence, leaving Kłodzko with Bohemia.
When about 1080 the Polish Piast duke Władysław I Herman married Judith Přemyslovna, daughter of Duke Vratislaus II of Bohemia, he received Kłodzko as a Bohemian fief, which upon his death in 1102 was claimed by his son Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth of Poland. However, as Bolesław became entangled in a fierce inheritance conflict with Duke Svatopluk of Bohemia and his cousin Borivoj II and campaigned the Bohemian lands several times, he finally had to renounce Kłodzko in favour of Duke Soběslav I of Bohemia in a peace treaty signed at Pentecost in 1137 under pressure from Emperor Lothair III.
Bohemian fief
Under Přemyslid rule, Kladsko became part of the Kingdom of Bohemia by 1198; it was administrated within the lands of Hradec Králové and governed by Bohemian burgraves like Witiko of Prčice (c.1120–1194), progenitor of the Vítkovci clan. From the 13th century onwards, under the rule of King Wenceslaus I and his son Ottokar II, the area was largely settled by German colonists in the course of the Ostsiedlung migration. The Kladsko estates were temporarily held by Silesian Piast dukes such as Henry IV Probus, who received it from the hands of King Rudolph I of Germany in 1280, or Henry VI the Good (in 1327) and Bolko II of Ziębice (in 1336); each time, the lands fell back to the Bohemian monarch as a reverted fief upon their death.