Editing Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (section)

===Reign===
[[File:PO1 revers svVaclav92-93.jpg|thumb|Seal of Wenceslaus I]]
With the support of the nobles, Wenceslaus took control of the government.<ref name=Butler>[http://www.bartleby.com/210/9/281.html Butler, Alban. "St. Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia, Martyr", ''The Lives of the Saints'', Vol. IX 1866]</ref> He reined in the dependent dukes who had become restive under the regency and used Christianity to strengthen his state."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=Db76shTEM60C&q=Wenceslaus+I,+Duke+of+Bohemia Agnew, Hugh LeCaine. ''The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown''] Palo Alto, California: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 2004. n.p., {{ISBN|9780817944926}}</ref>

After the fall of [[Great Moravia]], the rulers of the Bohemian Duchy had to deal both with continuous raids by the [[Hungarian people|Magyars]] and the forces of the [[Duchy of Saxony|Saxon]] and [[East Francia|East Frankish]] king [[Henry the Fowler]], who had started several eastern campaigns into the adjacent lands of the [[Polabian Slavs]], homeland of Wenceslaus's mother.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Timothy Reuter |last=Reuter |first=Timothy |title=Germany in the Early Middle Ages 800–1056 |location=New York |publisher=Longman |year=1991|page=142 et seq}}</ref> To withstand Saxon overlordship, Wenceslaus's father Vratislaus had forged an alliance with the [[History of Bavaria|Bavarian]] duke [[Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria|Arnulf]], a fierce opponent of King Henry at that time. The alliance became worthless, however, when Arnulf and Henry reconciled at [[Regensburg]] in 921.

Early in 929, the joint forces of Duke Arnulf of Bavaria and King Henry I the Fowler reached [[Prague]] in a sudden attack that forced Wenceslaus to resume the payment of a tribute first imposed by the [[East Francia|East Frankish]] king [[Arnulf of Carinthia]] in 895.<ref name=Krofta>''Bohemia to the Extinction of the Premyslids'', Kamil Krofta, ''The Cambridge Medieval History: Victory of the Papacy'', Vol. VI, ed. J.R. Tanner, C.W. Previt-Orton and Z.N. Brook, (Cambridge University Press, 1957), 426.</ref> Henry had been forced to pay a huge tribute to the Magyars in 926 and needed the Bohemian tribute, which Wenceslaus probably refused to pay after the reconciliation between Arnulf and Henry.<ref name=Krofta/> Another possible reason for the attack was the formation of the anti-Saxon alliance between Bohemia, the Polabian Slavs, and the Magyars.

Wenceslaus introduced German priests into his realm and favoured the Latin rite instead of the old Slavic, which had gone into disuse in many places for want of priests.<ref name=mershman/> He also founded a rotunda consecrated to [[St. Vitus]] at [[Prague Castle]] in [[Prague]] that was the basis of present-day [[St. Vitus Cathedral]].