Služba Boskovických u Matyáše Korvína
The Lords of Boskovice in the service of Matthias Corvinus

Summary/Abstract: The lords of Boskovice were one of the most significant noble families in Moravia in the fifteenth century and their conversion from Utraquism back to Catholicism in 1451 was decisive for their role in Moravian history. This event opened a possibility for Tas (Protasius) of Boskovice to become a bishop of Olomouc in 1457 and set out on a career similar to the career of Janus Pannonius, his Hungarian fellow student from Italy. Tas became a highly valued diplomat in the service of the Czech king George of Podìbrady; in 1467, however, he left this service due to the papal urging to support the Catholic side in the fight against the ‘heretical’ king. And it was he, who representing the Catholic estates invited the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus to join the struggle and help the Catholics. Since that time, Tas was a foremost partisan and diplomat of the Hungarian and later Czech king, since Matthias was elected a king by the Czech Catholic estates. It was not only Tas, who served king Matthias, but other members of the family too. A peculiar example of this is his nephew Jaroslav, who stood in for Tas as a governor of the Transylvanian bishopric in Alba Iulia. He later on served as a diplomat in Austria, Bohemia, and Poland and as the Czech chancellor of Matthias. Other diplomats in Matthias’ service of Boskovice family were Dobeš and Beneš, the two brothers of Tas, Václav, his cousin and his two sons, the afore-mentioned Jaroslav and Ladislav, who was the youngest of them all. The story of the Boskovice family shows very clearly the attitude Matthias had towards ‘new men’ in his administration; he had brought new people from his new domains. It, however, also illustrates the danger of it: they were not bound to him very closely and after a presumably unfair decapitation of Jaroslav in 1485 both Ladislav and Dobeš left the services of Matthias. The latter for the more changed sides and became a military commander of Frederick III in his fight against Matthias.

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