Charles IV

Life

Birth and childhood

Charles was born to John of Bohemia of the Luxembourg dynasty and Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia of the Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty in Prague. His maternal grandfather was the Bohemian King Wenceslaus II. He chose the name Charles at his confirmation in honor of his grand uncle, King Charles IV of France, at whose court he resided for seven years.

Charles received French education and was literate and fluent in five languages: Latin, Czech, German, French, and Italian.

Italy and Moravia

In 1331, Charles gained some experience of warfare with his father in Italy. At the beginning of 1333, he went to Lucca, Tuscany, to consolidate his rule there. To strengthen the city's defences, Charles founded the nearby fortress and the town of Montecarlo ("Mount Charles").

From 1333, he administered the lands of the Bohemian Crown due to his father's frequent absence and deteriorating eyesight. In 1334, Charles was named Margrave of Moravia, the traditional title of heirs to the throne. Two years later, he assumed the government of Tyrol on behalf of his brother, John Henry, and was soon actively involved in a struggle for the possession of that county.

King of the Romans

On 11 July 1346, in consequence of an alliance between his father and Pope Clement VI, a relentless enemy of the emperor Louis IV, Charles was elected Roman king in opposition to Louis by some of the prince-electors at Rhens. 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.

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 the Imperial cities remained loyal to Louis the Bavarian. Worse still, Charles backed the wrong side in the Hundred Years' War and lost his father and many of his best knights at the Battle 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 the House of Wittelsbach attempted to have Günther von Schwarzburg elected king, but he attracted few supporters and was defeated by Charles at the siege 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 the New Town (Nové Město). In 1348, he founded the university of Prague, which was the first university in Central 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 in Frankfurt on 17 June 1349 and re-crowned at Aachen on 25 July 1349. He was soon the undisputed ruler of the Empire. Gifts or promises had won the support of the Rhenish and Swabian towns; a marriage alliance secured the friendship of the Habsburgs; and an alliance with Rudolf II of Bavaria, Count Palatine of the Rhine, was obtained when Charles, who had become a widower in 1348, married Rudolph's daughter Anna.

Holy Roman Emperor

In 1354, Charles crossed the Alps without an army, received the Lombard crown in St. Ambrose Basilica, Milan, on 6 January 1355, and was crowned emperor at Rome by a cardinal on 5 April of the same year. 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. On his return, Charles was occupied with the administration of the Empire, then just recovering from the Black Death, and in 1356, he promulgated the famous Golden Bull to regulate the election of the king.

Having given Moravia to one brother, John Henry, and erected the county 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 the Upper Palatinate in 1353, and in 1367 annexed Lower Lusatia to Bohemia and bought numerous estates in various parts of Germany. On the death of Meinhard, Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count of Tyrol, in 1363, Upper Bavaria was claimed by the sons of the emperor Louis IV, and Tyrol by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria. Both claims were admitted by Charles on the understanding that if these families died out both territories should pass to the House of Luxembourg. At about the same time, he was promised the succession to the Margravate of Brandenburg, which he actually obtained for his son Wenceslaus in 1373.

Besides Germany and Italy, Charles IV also held sovereignty over the old Kingdom of Burgundy (Arles), that was divided in several feudal domains, one of them being the Dauphiné of Viennois, that was acquired in 1349 by the French royal House of Valois, as a domain within the Holy Roman Empire. Thus in 1356, the young French prince Charles, who was the ruling Dauphin of Viennois, made an homage to the emperor at Metz, and received imperial confirmation, also being appointed as the imperial vicar in Dauphiné.

In the spring of 1365, the emperor appointed count Amadeus VI of Savoy as imperial vicar over central regions of the Arlesian realm, from Lausanne and Geneva, to Lyon and Grenoble. On 4 June 1365, Charles IV was solemnly crowned as king at Arles by cardinal Guillaume de La Garde, the Archbishop of Arles, in the presence of high representatives of various regions, including Provence, Dauphiné and Savoy, thus becoming the last emperor who received the royal crown of the old Kingdom of Burgundy (Arles). Already in 1366, Charles IV decided to relieve count Amadeus VI of his duties as imperial vicar in the region, and in 1378, the emperor appointed dauphin Charles of Viennois as the imperial vicar of Burgundy (Arles), but only for his lifetime.

Legacy

Evaluation

The reign of Charles IV was characterized by a transformation in the nature of the Empire and is remembered as the Golden Age of Bohemia. He promulgated the Golden 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-keeping confederations. In these, the Imperial cities figured prominently. The Swabian Landfriede confederation of 1370 was made up almost entirely of Imperial 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 the Habsburgs and the purchase of Brandenburg. He also claimed imperial lordship over the crusader states of State of the Prussia and Livonia.

Unlike several of his predecessors, Charles IV pursued a less interventionist policy in Italy. He avoided military involvement in the local Guelph and Ghibelline conflicts while actively seeking accommodation with the Papacy.

In 2005 Charles IV ranked the first in the TV show Největší Čech, the Czech spin-off of the BBC Greatest Britons show.

Patronage of culture and the arts

Prague became the capital of the Holy Roman Empire during the reign of Charles IV. The name of the royal founder and patron remains on many monuments and institutions, for example Charles University, Charles Bridge, Charles Square. High Gothic Prague Castle and part of the cathedral of Saint Vitus by Peter Parler were also built under his patronage. Finally, the first flowering of manuscript painting in Prague dates from Charles's reign. In the present Czech Republic, he is still regarded as Pater Patriae (father of the country or otec vlasti), a title first applied to him by Adalbertus Ranconis de Ericinio at his funeral.

Charles also had strong ties to Nuremberg, staying within its city walls 52 times and thereby strengthening its reputation amongst German cities. Charles was the patron of the Nuremberg Frauenkirche, built between 1352 and 1362 (the architect was likely Peter 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 of Christendom. In 1353, he granted the Duchy of Luxembourg to his half-brother, Wenceslaus. He concentrated his energies chiefly on the economic and intellectual development of Bohemia, where he founded the university in 1348 and encouraged the early humanists. He corresponded with Petrarch 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 the Roman Empire.

Charles's sister Bona married the eldest son of Philip VI of France, the future John II of France, in 1335. Thus, Charles was the maternal uncle of Charles V of France, who solicited his relative's advice at Metz in 1356 during the Parisian 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 the Grandes Chroniques de France.

Castles

Castles built or established by Charles IV:

Karlštejn, 1348–1355 in Central Bohemian Region for safekeeping the Imperial Regalia, especially the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire (later the Czech Crown Jewels were also kept there)

Kašperk (Karlsberg), 1356 in Kašperské Hory in Plzeň Region

Lauf (Wenzelsburg) – built on the way connecting Prague and Nuremberg in Bohemian Palatinate, inside survived 112 coats of arms of the Bohemian Kingdom

Montecarlo in Italy

Radyně (Karlskrone) – around 1360 in Plzeň Region

Hrádek u Purkarce (Karlshaus) – around 1357

Tepenec (Twingenberg, Karlsburg) in Jívová in Olomouc Region

Karlsfried

Places named after Charles IV

Czech Republic

Karlovy Vary, a spa city

Charles Bridge (Karlův most), Prague

Charles University (Univerzita Karlova), Prague

Squares (Karlovo náměstí, náměstí Karla IV.) – in Prague (Charles Square), Brno, Třebíč, Kolín, Mělník, Náchod, Pelhřimov, Roudnice nad Labem, Nejdek and Polná

Multiple streets (Karlova [ulice])

Karlštejn, a market town beyond the eponymous castle, was named after the castle

Italy

Montecarlo (Charles' Mountain), a municipality

Other

The 100-Czech koruna banknote

16951 Carolus Quartus, an asteroid

Family

Genealogy

Imperial genealogists invented early House of Luxembourg forefathers for Charles IV, extending back to Noah via Jupiter and Saturn.

Marriages and children

Charles was married four times. His first wife was Blanche of Valois (1316–1348), daughter of Charles, Count of Valois, and a half-sister of King Philip VI of France. They had three children:

son (born 1334), died young.

Margaret of Bohemia, Queen of Hungary (1335–1349); married King Louis I of Hungary.

Catherine of Bohemia (1342–1395); married Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, and Otto V, Duke of Bavaria and Elector of Brandenburg.

He secondly married Anna of Bavaria, (1329–1353), daughter of Rudolf II, Count Palatine of the Rhine; they had one son:

Wenceslaus (1350–1351).

His third wife was Anna von Schweidnitz, (1339–1362), daughter of Henry II, Duke of Świdnica, and Katharina of Anjou (daughter of Charles I Robert, King of Hungary), by whom he had three children:

Elisabeth of Bohemia (19 April 1358 – 4 September 1373); married Albert III, Duke of Austria, at the very young age of 8 and died at the age of 15, they had no children.

Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia (1361–1419); 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 to Joanna of Bavaria in 1370 and secondly to Sophia of Bavaria in 1389.

son (born and died 11 July 1362).

His fourth wife was Elizabeth of Pomerania, (1345 or 1347 – 1393), daughter of Bogislaw V, Duke of Pomerania, and Elisabeth of Poland, who was the daughter of King Casimir III of Poland. They had six children: