Anna was probably born in
Prague,
Bohemia, the daughter of King
Ottokar I of Bohemia and his second wife,
Constance of Hungary. Her maternal grandparents were
Béla III of Hungary and his first wife,
Agnes of Antioch. Her paternal grandparents were King
Vladislaus II of Bohemia and
Judith of Thuringia. She was a sister of the Franciscan nun
Agnes of Bohemia (1211–1282). Around the age of twelve (in 1216) she was married to the Piast prince
Henry II the Pious, member of the Silesian branch of the
Piast dynasty, the son and heir of Duke
Henry the Bearded. During internal political struggles, the Silesian Piasts gained large parts of the
Polish territories upon the assassination of High Duke
Leszek the White in 1227. Henry the Bearded inherited the
Duchy of Greater Poland in 1231, and in the following year attained the
Seniorate Province and the Polish throne at
Kraków. After his death on 19 March 1238 he was succeeded by his son Henry II, co-ruler in the Silesian lands since 1226. Anne was widowed only three years later, on 9 April 1241, when her husband was killed fighting against the
Mongols at the
Battle of Legnica. The following years were mainly marked by her occupation as a
regent for her son
Bolesław II and his brothers. Nevertheless, the Silesian Piasts were not able to maintain their supremacy in the Polish lands, when the Kraków throne passed to Duke
Konrad I of Masovia. On 8 May 1242, Anne and her son founded the
Benedictine abbey of
Krzeszów (Grüssau). The Dowager Duchess also was a generous benefactor of the
Franciscan nuns in Wrocław, in consultation with her sister Agnes of Bohemia. In 1256
Pope Alexander IV wrote to the bishops of
Wrocław and
Lebus, explaining that Anne had proposed the construction of a monastery that would house a community of Franciscan nuns, fulfilling her desire, and her dead husband's desire, to build such an institution. In 1257, the construction of the monastery began. Anne donated many goods to the monastery, but made sure that her donations did not violate the vow of
voluntary poverty that the nuns had taken; in 1263, a papal bull issued by
Pope Urban IV to the nuns at Wrocław states that Anne wanted the nuns to use the property that she had given them only in times of need. The
Notæ Monialium Sanctæ Claræ Wratislaviensium names her as the founder of the monastery of St Clare at Wrocław. Her
vita, written in the first half of the fourteenth century, links her closely with her mother-in-law
Hedwig of Andechs, who is portrayed as the main influence on Anne's religious life. According to a text known as the
Notæ Monialium Sanctæ Claræ Wratislaviensium, a chronicle written by the Franciscan nuns at Wrocław, Anne died in 1265 and was buried in the nuns' choir at the Chapel of St Hedwig, a chapel in St Clara of Prague Abbey in Wrocław. According to historian Gábor Klaniczay, she was venerated as a saint in Poland, but would never be canonised. ==Children==