Coat of arms of the House of Luxembourg–BohemiaArms of Charles IV as Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV (German:Karl IV.;Czech:Karel IV.;Latin:Carolus IV; 14 May 1316 – 29 November 1378[1]), also known asCharles of Luxembourg (German:Karl von Luxemburg.;Czech:Karel Lucemburský.;Latin:Carolus Luxemburgensis;Luxembourgish:Karel vu Lëtzebuerg), bornWenceslaus (German:Wenzel,Czech:Václav),[2] wasHoly Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death in 1378. He was electedKing of Germany (King of the Romans) in 1346 and becameKing of Bohemia (as Charles I) that same year. He was a member of theHouse of Luxembourg from his father's side and the BohemianHouse of Přemyslid from his mother's side; he emphasized the latter due to his lifelong affinity for the Bohemian side of his inheritance, and also because his direct ancestors in the Přemyslid line included two saints.[3][4]
TheGolden Bull of 1356 marked a structural change in the politics of the Holy Roman Empire. Several aspects ofhis legacy remain contentious, however. The image of Charles as a wise, pious, peace-loving king (partly constructed by Charles himself) has proved influential until this day, supported by several artistic or scholarly projects produced during Charles's reign or afterwards.
In 1331, Charles gained some experience of warfare with his father in Italy. At the beginning of 1333, he went toLucca,Tuscany, to consolidate his rule there. To strengthen the city's defences, Charles founded the nearby fortress and the town ofMontecarlo ("Mount Charles").[9]
From 1333, he administered thelands of the Bohemian Crown due to his father's frequent absence and deteriorating eyesight. In 1334, Charles was namedMargrave of Moravia, the traditional title of heirs to the throne. Two years later, he assumed the government ofTyrol on behalf of his brother,John Henry, and was soon actively involved in a struggle for the possession of that county.[10]
On 11 July 1346, in consequence of an alliance between his father andPope Clement VI, a relentless enemy of the emperorLouis IV, Charleswas elected Romanking in opposition to Louis by some of theprince-electors atRhens. Having previously promised to be subservient to Clement, he made extensive concessions to the pope in 1347. Confirming the papacy in the possession of vast territories, he promised to annul the acts of Louis against Clement, to take no part in Italian affairs, and to defend and protect the church.[10]
Charles IV was in a very weak position in Germany. Because of the terms of his election, he was derisively referred to as a "Priests' King" (Pfaffenkönig). Many bishops and nearly all of theImperial cities remained loyal to Louis the Bavarian. Worse still, Charles backed the wrong side in theHundred Years' War and lost his father and many of his best knights at theBattle of Crécy in August 1346, where he escaped from the field wounded.
Civil war in Germany was prevented, however, when Louis IV died on 11 October 1347, after suffering a stroke during a bear hunt. In January 1349, partisans from theHouse of Wittelsbach attempted to haveGünther von Schwarzburg elected king, but he attracted few supporters and was defeated by Charles at thesiege of Eltville in May. After this, Charles's claim to the Imperial throne faced no direct threat.
Charles initially worked to secure his power base.Bohemia had remained untouched by the plague.Prague became his capital, and he rebuilt the city on the model of Paris, establishing theNew Town (Nové Město). In 1348, he founded theuniversity of Prague, which was the first university inCentral Europe and later named after him. The university trained administrators and lawyers, and Prague soon emerged as the intellectual and cultural center of Central Europe.
Having exploited the difficulties of his opponents, Charles was again elected inFrankfurt on 17 June 1349 and re-crowned atAachen on 25 July 1349. He was soon the undisputed ruler of the Empire. Gifts or promises had won the support of the Rhenish andSwabian towns; a marriage alliance secured the friendship of the Habsburgs; and an alliance withRudolf II of Bavaria,Count Palatine of the Rhine, was obtained when Charles, who had become a widower in 1348, married Rudolph's daughterAnna.[10]
In 1350, the king was visited at Prague by the Roman tribuneCola di Rienzo, who urged him to go to Italy, where the poetPetrarch and the citizens ofFlorence also implored his presence.[11] Turning a deaf ear to these entreaties, Charles kept Cola in prison for a year, and then handed him as a prisoner to Clement atAvignon.[10]
Outside Prague, Charles attempted to expand the Bohemian crown lands, using his imperial authority to acquire fiefs inSilesia, theUpper Palatinate, andFranconia. The latter regions comprised "New Bohemia", a string of possessions intended to link Bohemia with the Luxemburg territories in the Rhineland. The Bohemian estates, however, were not willing to support Charles in these ventures. When Charles sought to codify Bohemian law in theMaiestas Carolina of 1355, he met with sharp resistance. After that point, Charles found it expedient to scale back his efforts at centralization.
In 1354, Charles crossed theAlps without an army, received theLombard crown inSt. Ambrose Basilica,Milan, on 6 January 1355, and was crowned emperor atRome by acardinal on April 5 of the same year.[12][10] His sole object appears to have been to obtain the Imperial crown in peace, in accordance with a promise previously made to Pope Clement. He only remained in the city for a few hours, in spite of the expressed wishes of the Roman people. Having virtually abandoned all the Imperial rights in Italy, the emperor re-crossed the Alps, pursued by the scornful words of Petrarch, but laden with considerable wealth.[13][10] On his return, Charles was occupied with the administration of the Empire, then just recovering from theBlack Death, and in 1356, he promulgated the famousGolden Bull to regulate the election of the king.[10]
Charles's possessions at the signing of the Golden Bull of 1356
Having givenMoravia to one brother,John Henry, and erected thecounty of Luxembourg into a duchy for another,Wenceslaus, he was unremitting in his efforts to secure other territories as compensation and to strengthen the Bohemian monarchy. To this end he purchased part of theUpper Palatinate in 1353, and in 1367 annexedLower Lusatia to Bohemia and bought numerous estates in various parts of Germany. On the death ofMeinhard, Duke of Upper Bavaria andCount of Tyrol, in 1363,Upper Bavaria was claimed by the sons of the emperor Louis IV, andTyrol byRudolf IV, Duke of Austria. Both claims were admitted by Charles on the understanding that if these families died out both territories should pass to theHouse of Luxembourg. At about the same time, he was promised the succession to theMargravate of Brandenburg, which he actually obtained for his son Wenceslaus in 1373.[10]
Besides Germany and Italy, Charles IV also held sovereignty over the oldKingdom of Burgundy (Arles), that was divided in several feudal domains, one of them being theDauphiné of Viennois, that was acquired in 1349 by the French royalHouse of Valois, as a domain within the Holy Roman Empire. Thus in 1356, the young French princeCharles, who was the rulingDauphin of Viennois, made anhomage to the emperor atMetz, and received imperial confirmation, also being appointed as theimperial vicar in Dauphiné.[14]
In the spring of 1365, the emperor appointed countAmadeus VI of Savoy as imperial vicar over central regions of the Arlesian realm, fromLausanne andGeneva, toLyon andGrenoble,[15] and on 4 June 1365, Charles IV was solemnly crowned as king atArles, by cardinal Guillaume de La Garde, theArchbishop of Arles, in the presence of high representatives of various regions, including Provence, Dauphiné and Savoy,[16] thus becoming the last emperor who received the royal crown of the oldKingdom of Burgundy (Arles).[17] Already in 1366, Charles IV decided to relieve count Amadeus VI of his duties as imperial vicar in the region,[18] and in 1378, the emperor appointed dauphinCharles ofViennois as theimperial vicar of Burgundy (Arles), but only for his lifetime.[19]
Casimir III of Poland andLouis I of Hungary entered a conspiracy against Charles and managed to persuadeOtto V of Bavaria to join. After the repeal of the estate contract by margrave Otto, in early July 1371, Charles IV declared hostilities and invadedMargraviate of Brandenburg; after two years of conflict, in 1373 Brandenburg became part of theCzech lands. This was when he gave the order to measure his new territory, its villages, people, and income. This was recorded in theLandbuch of Charles IV, which was finished in 1375. Many villages were mentioned for the first time in this book, so it can provide information on how old they are. He also gained a considerable portion ofSilesian territory, partly by inheritance through his third wife,Anna von Schweidnitz, daughter ofHenry II, Duke of Świdnica andCatherine of Hungary. In 1365, Charles visitedPope Urban V atAvignon and undertook to escort him to Rome; on the same occasion he was crowned King ofBurgundy atArles.[10]
His second journey to Italy took place in 1368 when he had a meeting with Pope Urban V atViterbo, was besieged in his palace atSiena, and left the country before the end of 1369. During his later years, the emperor took little part in German affairs beyond securing the election of his son Wenceslaus as king of the Romans in 1376, and negotiating a peace between theSwabian League of Cities and some nobles in 1378. After dividing his lands between his three sons and his nephews,[1] he died in November 1378 atPrague, where he was buried, and where a statue was erected to his memory in 1848.[10]
Charles IV suffered fromgout (metabolic arthritis), a painful disease quite common in that time.
The reign of Charles IV was characterized by a transformation in the nature of the Empire and is remembered as theGolden Age of Bohemia. He promulgated theGolden Bull of 1356 whereby the succession to the imperial title was laid down, which held for the next four centuries.
He also organized the states of the empire into peace-keepingconfederations. In these, the Imperial cities figured prominently. The Swabian Landfriede confederation of 1370 was made up almost entirely ofImperial Cities. At the same time, the leagues were organized and led by the crown and its agents. As with the electors, the cities that served in these leagues were given privileges to aid in their efforts to keep the peace.
He assured his dominance over the eastern borders of the Empire through succession treaties with theHabsburgs and the purchase of Brandenburg. He also claimed imperial lordship over thecrusader states ofPrussia andLivonia.
Charles also had strong ties toNuremberg, staying within its city walls 52 times and thereby strengthening its reputation amongst German cities. Charles was the patron of theNuremberg Frauenkirche, built between 1352 and 1362 (the architect was likelyPeter Parler), where the imperial court worshipped during its stays in Nuremberg.
Charles's imperial policy was focused on the dynastic sphere and abandoned the lofty ideal of the Empire as a universal monarchy ofChristendom.[citation needed] In 1353, he granted theDuchy of Luxembourg to his half-brother,Wenceslaus. He concentrated his energies chiefly on the economic and intellectual development of Bohemia[citation needed], where he founded the university in 1348 and encouraged theearly humanists. He corresponded withPetrarch and invited him to visit the royal residence in Prague, whilst the Italian hoped – to no avail – to see Charles move his residence to Rome and reawaken the tradition of theRoman Empire.
Charles's sisterBona married the eldest son ofPhilip VI of France, the futureJohn II of France, in 1335. Thus, Charles was the maternal uncle ofCharles V of France, who solicited his relative's advice atMetz in 1356 during theParisian Revolt. This family connection was celebrated publicly when Charles made a solemn visit to his nephew in 1378, just months before his death. A detailed account of the occasion, enriched by many splendid miniatures, can be found in Charles V's copy of theGrandes Chroniques de France.
Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia (1361–1419);[6] later elected King of Germany (formally King of the Romans) and on his father's death, became King of Bohemia (as Wenceslaus IV) and Emperor-elect of the Holy Roman Empire; married firstly toJoanna of Bavaria in 1370 and secondly toSophia of Bavaria in 1389.
Charles had one illegitimate son, William, born in 1362 to an unknown woman. He was raised in Brabant and seems to have joined his father at the time of the latter's trip to France in 1377. He was acknowledged by his father, who sought apapal dispensation for him to marry within the fourth degree. It is unknown if he ever married. He served his Bohemian relatives as a diplomat, but his ultimate fate is unknown.[26]
Jaschke, Karl-Ulrich (1997). "From Famous Empresses to Unspectacular Queens". In Duggan, Anne J. (ed.).Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe. The Boydell Press.ISBN978-0230276468.
Charles IV (autobiography), edited by Balázs Nagy, Frank Schaer:Autobiography of Emperor Charles IV; And, His Legend of St. Wenceslas: Karoli IV Imperatoris Romanorum Vita Ab Eo Ipso Conscripta; Et, Hystoria Nova de Sancto Wenceslao Martyre, Published by Central European University Press, 2001,ISBN978-9639116320, 259 pages,books.google.com
