Editing Doubravka of Bohemia (section)

==Early life==
[[Image:Dąbrówka Czeska.jpeg|thumb|Doubravka of Bohemia (Dobrawa) according to [[Jan Matejko]] (1886)]]
Doubravka's date of birth is not known. The only indication is communicated by the chronicler [[Cosmas of Prague]], who stated that the Bohemian princess at the time of her marriage with Mieszko I was ''an old woman''.<ref>''Chronicle of Cosmas of Prague'': translated, introduction and commentary developed by Maria Wojciechowska, Warsaw 1968, lib. I cap. 27, p. 149.</ref> The passage is regarded as tendentious and of little reliability, and some researchers believe that the statement was made with malicious intent.<ref>H. Łowmiański, ''Religia Słowian i jej upadek'', Warsaw p. 338, footnote 889.</ref> It is possible that in the statement about Doubravka's age, Cosmas was making a reference to the age difference between her and her sister [[Mlada (abbess)|Mlada]]. That would give him a basis for determining Doubravka as "old." (The word ''Mlada'' means ''Young''). It{{citation needed|date=April 2014}} also found that Cosmas confuses Doubravka with Mieszko I's second wife [[Oda von Haldensleben|Oda]], who at the time of her marriage was around 19–25 years old, a relatively advanced age for a bride according to the customs of the Middle Ages. Some researchers have taken up speculative views, such as [[Jerzy Strzelczyk]], who assumed that ''in the light of contemporary concepts and habits of marriage of that time (when as a rule marriages were contracted with teenage girls) is assumed that Doubravka had passed her early youth, so, it's probable that she was in her late teens or twenties''.<ref>J. Strzelczyk, ''Bolesław Chrobry'', p. 15.</ref>

Nothing is known about Doubravka's childhood and youth. In 1895 [[Oswald Balzer]] refuted reports that previous to her marriage with Mieszko I, Doubravka was married to [[Gunther, Margrave of Merseburg]] and they had a son, [[Gunzelin, Margrave of Meissen|Gunzelin]]. This view is based on the fact that [[Thietmar of Merseburg]] in his chronicles named Gunzelin, Gunther's son, ''brother'' of Bolesław I the Brave, Doubravka's son.<ref>''Thietmari chronicon'', vol. V, cap. 18, p. 274; vol. V, cap. 36, p. 300; vol. VI, cap. 54, p. 390.</ref> Currently, historians believed that Gunzelin and Bolesław I are in fact cousins or brothers-in-law.<ref>View, inter alia, of Herbert Ludat.</ref>