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Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

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Contents
  1. (Top)
  2. Early life and education
  3. Early campaigns and governorship
  4. Elevation and election as King of the Romans
  5. Domestic policy and Prague's golden age
  6. Black Death and pogroms
  7. Italian expeditions and imperial coronation
  8. The Golden Bull of 1356
  9. Imperial diplomacy and the Kingdom of Burgundy
  10. Second Italian expedition
  11. Territorial expansion and dynastic policy
  12. Later years and succession
  13. Physical traits and medical findings
  14. Literary and cultural patronage
  15. Marriages and issue
  16. Legacy and commemoration
  17. References
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Born14 May 1316, Prague
Died29 November 1378, Prague
Holy Roman Emperor1355–1378
King of the Romans1346–1378
King of Bohemia1346–1378
HouseHouse of Luxembourg
FatherJohn of Bohemia
MotherElizabeth of Bohemia

Charles IV (14 May 1316 – 29 November 1378), born Wenceslaus, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death and King of Bohemia from 1346.[1][2][3] A member of the House of Luxembourg, he was elected King of the Romans in 1346 in opposition to Louis IV and crowned emperor in Rome in 1355.[4][5] He established the Golden Bull of 1356, transformed Prague into an imperial capital, founded Charles University, and expanded the Lands of the Bohemian Crown.[4][6][7]

Early life and education

According to the chronicle of Peter of Zittau, Charles was born in Prague on 14 May 1316 at the fifth hour of the morning to the twenty-four-year-old Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia and King John of Luxembourg.[3][8][9] His birth likely took place in the U Štupartů house near the Church of Saint James, as Prague Castle remained uninhabitable after an earlier fire.[3][8] On 30 May 1316, the feast of Pentecost, he was baptized in the cathedral church of Prague by Archbishop Peter of Aspelt of Mainz in the presence of Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg of Trier, both of whom happened to be visiting the city.[3][8] At his baptism he received the traditional Bohemian name Wenceslaus (Czech: Václav), after his maternal grandfather King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia.[1]

The Kingdom of Bohemia was then plagued by internal aristocratic tensions.[10] King John had recently imprisoned Henry of Lipá, the second most powerful magnate in the realm, who together with Elizabeth Richeza of Poland was suspected of scheming against the crown.[10] Following mediation by Peter of Aspelt, Henry was released in April 1316, but domestic unrest continued.[10] For security, the royal infant spent his first winter hidden at Křivoklát Castle under the protection of Vilém Zajíc of Valdek, who served as Queen Elizabeth's personal protector.[11][12] Accompanied by his mother and Vilém, the prince was later moved to Loket Castle.[13][14] When tensions between King John and Queen Elizabeth escalated, the king feared that the nobility might use the boy to replace him on the throne.[13][14] As soon as the boy had learned to walk, Queen Elizabeth was moved to Mělník, a dowry town of the Bohemian queens, and Wenceslaus was held at Loket Castle..[14] After the death of Vilém Zajíc of Valdek, the child was returned to confinement at Křivoklát Castle, seeing his mother again only briefly in the spring of 1323 before departing Bohemia.[13][14]

In the spring of 1323, at the age of seven, Wenceslaus was sent by his father to the royal court of France for his upbringing.[15][16] He arrived at the French court on 4 April 1323, where his paternal aunt Marie of Luxembourg had become queen through her marriage to King Charles IV of France.[15][17] At his confirmation on 15 May 1323, Wenceslaus took the name Charles in honor of his uncle and godfather, King Charles IV of France.[15] On the same day, by papal dispensation from Pope John XXII, the seven-year-old prince was married to Charles IV's cousin Blanche of Valois, the half-sister of the future King Philip VI of France.[18] The wedding took place concurrently with Marie of Luxembourg's coronation as Queen of France.[17][18] Following the ceremony, the child spouses were separated, and Charles entered the educational routine of the court.[18]

. In 1325, he moved directly to the royal court in Paris.[19] Clerics instructed him in reading, writing, Latin, French, and the elements of scholastic theology.[17] The death of King Charles IV in 1328 ended the generous material patronage Charles had enjoyed.[19][20] The new French monarch, Philip VI of Valois, showed little personal interest in the young prince and curtailed his financial allowances.[20] Under these tighter circumstances, Charles studied at the University of Paris.[16][20] During this period, he became a close pupil and friend of Pierre Roger des Rosières, Abbot of Fécamp, who would later be elected as Pope Clement VI.[16][21] His seven years in Paris instilled in Charles an enduring commitment to centralized monarchical administration on the French model.[22] He emerged fluent in five languages: Latin, Czech, German, French, and Italian.[23][24]

Early campaigns and governorship

In 1330, Charles and Blanche of Valois were summoned from Paris to Luxembourg.[25] King John had established a regional lordship in northern Italy, known as the Luxembourg signoria, incorporating Brescia, Bergamo, Parma, Cremona, Pavia, Reggio, and Modena in Lombardy, as well as Lucca in Tuscany.[26][27][28] In early 1331, John summoned Charles to Italy to serve as his governor.[29][30] Traveling through Metz, Lorraine, Burgundy, and Savoy, Charles reached Pavia on Good Friday, 29 March 1331.[29][30] Three days after his arrival, his entourage was served poisoned food at breakfast; Charles avoided poisoning because he attended mass and took communion, remaining fasting.[29][31] An unknown man observed lurking around the tables was arrested and confessed under torture that he had been dispatched by Azzo Visconti, ruler of Milan, to poison the royal party.[29]

While in Parma, Charles met his younger brother John Henry for the first time, and the close bond between them endured throughout their lives..[32] When King John returned north, he left Charles under the guardianship of Louis of Savoy.[32] In 1332, an anti-Luxembourg league formed among the rulers of Milan, Verona, Ferrara, and Mantua.[32] Louis of Savoy abandoned the post, and league troops besieged Modena, later withdrawing to the castle of San Felice.[32] With support from allied towns, Charles assembled roughly 200 knights and 6,000 foot soldiers.[32] On 25 November 1332, the feast day of Saint Catherine, Charles won a victory at the Battle of San Felice, where he was wounded and subsequently knighted along with several comrades.[32][33]

Despite the military victory at San Felice, Luxembourg influence in northern Italy diminished.[30][34] In early 1333, Charles went to Lucca to consolidate his administration.[30][34] To defend the town against surrounding hostile forces, he founded the nearby fortress and town of Montecarlo, meaning Mount Charles.[30][34][35] King John brought reinforcements to Cremona in February 1333, but the regional signoria remained unsustainable.[34] In August 1333, John sent Charles to Merano to negotiate with Duke Henry of Carinthia regarding the unpaid dowry of 40,000 silver marks promised for Henry's daughter Margaret, Countess of Tyrol, who was married to John Henry.[36][37] At Merano, prominent Bohemian lords, including Jan Volek, Petr of Rosenberg, Těma of Koldice, Vilém of Landštejn, and Henry II of Lipá, met with Charles and urged him to return to Bohemia to take over governance during his father's protracted absences.[37] With his father's agreement from Parma, Charles traveled to Bohemia, crossing the border in October 1333 and visiting the Zbraslav Monastery, where his mother had been buried three years earlier.[37][38][39]

Upon arriving in Bohemia, Charles found royal authority degraded, the royal treasury empty, and Prague Castle heavily damaged, forcing him initially to lodge in patrician houses in the Old Town of Prague.[40][41] He had forgotten the Czech language during his years in France and had to learn it again.[39][41] Hynek Berka of Dubá, the Supreme Burgrave of Prague, provided him lodging at the burgrave's palace.[40] King John conferred upon him the title of Margrave of Moravia in 1334 to anchor his authority as heir to the throne.[4][42][43] In 1334, the Old Town of Prague granted Charles 2,000 threescores of Prague groschen to help pay off royal debts, and the nobility granted him a general tax.[44] With these revenues, Charles redeemed pledged royal castles, including Křivoklát, Týřov, and Veveří, and granted judicial immunities to monasteries in Bohemia and Moravia.[45] He brought important towns like Kouřim, Jihlava, Ústí nad Labem, Hradec Králové, and Písek under royal administration.[45]

Charles renovated the royal palace at Prague Castle after the French style to receive his wife Blanche of Valois.[45] Blanche arrived in Prague on 12 June 1334 with an entourage of French courtiers, whose lavish attire attracted curiosity while their foreign speech provoked friction among the Bohemian nobility.[46] To avert noble resentment, Charles soon sent the French attendants back to France.[46] On 24 May 1335, Blanche gave birth to their first child, Margaret.[47] As Margrave of Moravia, Charles arranged the wedding of his sister Anna of Luxembourg to Otto, Duke of Austria, celebrated at Znojmo in February 1335.[48]

In April 1335, Duke Henry of Carinthia died, and Emperor Louis IV allied with the Habsburgs to partition the Carinthian and Tyrolean inheritance, excluding Charles's brother John Henry and Margaret of Tyrol.[49] King John was incapacitated in Paris following a tournament accident, so Charles and his brother-in-law Henry XIV, Duke of Lower Bavaria, traveled to Linz to protest directly to Emperor Louis IV.[49] Louis dismissed their claims and sought an alliance with King Casimir III of Poland.[49] King John subsequently joined Charles, and under the mediation of King Charles I of Hungary, they met Polish envoys at Trenčín.[50] King John renounced his claims to the Polish royal title, while Casimir III relinquished claims to Silesia and agreed to pay 20,000 threescores of Prague groschen.[50] The definitive treaty was concluded at the Congress of Visegrád in 1335 with Bohemian, Polish, Hungarian, and Teutonic Order delegations, neutralizing the anti-Luxembourg coalition.[50]

Noble fear of renewed royal power fueled suspicion between King John and Charles.[51][52] In February 1336, Charles assumed the administration of Tyrol on behalf of John Henry, traveling with a small administrative escort.[4][43][51][52] Later that winter, Charles joined his father on a crusading expedition to pagan Lithuania.[53][54][55] Tensions revived when John's new wife, Beatrice of Bourbon, was received with indifference in Prague, where townsmen favored Blanche of Valois.[53] John compelled Blanche to relocate to Brno in 1337 and cut off Charles's revenues from Moravia.[53] Charles fled through Hungary and Croatia, took ship on the Adriatic Sea, evaded pirates who captured his vessel, and reached Tyrol in June 1337.[53] From Tyrol he entered the war in Lombardy on the side of Venice against Mastino della Scala of Verona and Padua, returning to Bohemia in autumn 1337 while King John was away.[53] Reconciliation occurred in 1339 due to shared hostility toward Emperor Louis IV.[53] In 1340, while John was undergoing eye treatment at Montpellier, Charles prepared to lead a campaign aiding King Alfonso XI of Castile against the Moors in Granada, but John prohibited the expedition after losing sight in his remaining eye, fearing for his heir's safety.[56][57][58][59]

Elevation and election as King of the Romans

On 11 June 1341, King John convoked the Bohemian general assembly, officially presenting Charles as his successor on the Bohemian throne, an arrangement confirmed by the estates.[54][60][61] Meanwhile, Luxembourg influence in Tyrol collapsed when Margaret of Tyrol expelled John Henry in 1341 and married Emperor Louis IV's son, Louis of Brandenburg, with the emperor granting a secular annulment of her prior marriage.[62] This provoked open conflict between the Luxembourgs and the Wittelsbachs.[43][62] In 1342, Pierre Roger was elected Pope Clement VI, providing the Luxembourgs with an ally in Avignon.[63][64][65] King John renounced his oath of fealty to Emperor Louis IV at the papal palace in June 1342..[63] In 1344, Charles traveled to Avignon to negotiate with Clement VI, securing the elevation of the bishopric of Prague to an independent archdiocese through the papal bull Romanus Pontifex on 30 April 1344, freeing Bohemia from the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Mainz.[63][64][65][66] Arnošt of Pardubice was consecrated as the first archbishop.[63][65] Returning to Prague, John and Charles laid the foundation stone of the Gothic Saint Vitus Cathedral on 21 November 1344, commissioning the French master builder Mathieu of Arras.[66][67][68][69]

Papal support and negotiations led by Charles's grand-uncle, Archbishop Baldwin of Luxembourg of Trier, prepared the ground for an imperial election against Louis IV.[70][71] Clement VI declared the imperial throne vacant and excommunicated Louis on 13 April 1346.[71] On Tuesday, 11 July 1346, five prince-electors met at Rhens on the Rhine and elected Charles King of the Romans.[4][70][71] Voting for Charles were Archbishop Baldwin of Trier, Archbishop Gerlach of Nassau of Mainz, Archbishop Walram of Cologne, King John of Bohemia, and Duke Rudolf of Saxony.[70][71] To win Clement's endorsement, Charles had pledged extensive concessions, promising to annul Louis IV's anti-papal decrees, refrain from intervening in Italian affairs without papal consent, and defend the rights of the Church.[4][70] These concessions earned Charles the derisive moniker Pfaffenkönig (priests' king) from Wittelsbach partisans and imperial cities loyal to Louis.[4][71][72]

Before Charles could press his claim in Germany, King Philip VI of France requested Luxembourg military aid following the invasion of Normandy by King Edward III of England.[73][74] John and Charles marched to France with their retinues, joining the French host at the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346.[73][74] The battle ended in defeat for the French army.[73][74] King John was killed in the fighting.[73][74][75] Chronicler Beneš Krabice of Weitmile recorded that when Bohemian knights saw that King John had fallen, they forced the wounded Charles to leave the field against his will to preserve the surviving monarch.[74][76] Charles's first concern as ruler was his father's burial, held in accordance with John's last will in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Luxembourg..[77]

Because the traditional coronation city of Aachen remained loyal to Louis IV, Charles was crowned King of the Romans at the Münster Basilica in Bonn on 26 November 1346 by Archbishop Walram of Cologne.[78] Charles appointed his grand-uncle Baldwin as imperial vicar and regent of Luxembourg before returning to Bohemia in January 1347, traveling in disguise as a squire to pass through hostile territory.[78] On 2 September 1347, Charles and Blanche of Valois were crowned King and Queen of Bohemia in Prague by Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice.[79][80] For this occasion, Charles commissioned the Saint Wenceslas Crown, dedicating it to the patron saint of Bohemia, and authored a coronation order based on French and tenth-century Roman liturgies.[79]

Charles assembled an army to confront Louis IV, but on 11 October 1347, Louis died of a stroke during a bear hunt near Puch near Fürstenfeldbruck.[81][82] The threat of civil war receded, and Rhenish and Swabian imperial cities, including Regensburg, Nuremberg, Strasbourg, Basel, Speyer, and Ulm, opened their gates and submitted to Charles in return for confirmations of municipal privileges.[81][83] In early 1348, Wittelsbach supporters offered the German crown to King Edward III of England, who declined and concluded an alliance with Charles in June 1348.[83][84][85] The Wittelsbachs then backed Count Günther von Schwarzburg, elected anti-king in Frankfurt on 30 January 1349.[83][86] Several clashes took place near Mainz in early May 1349.[87] Charles defeated Günther at the siege of Eltville..[87][88] In the Treaty of Eltville on 26 May 1349, the terminally ill Günther renounced his claims in exchange for 20,000 marks of silver and died shortly thereafter on 14 June.[85][87][89] Charles attended Günther's funeral in Frankfurt.[89]

Having broken Wittelsbach opposition, Charles consolidated his standing through marriage.[4][90][91] Following the death of Blanche of Valois on 1 August 1348, Charles married Anna of the Palatinate, daughter of Rudolf II, Count Palatine of the Rhine, at Bacharach in March 1349, gaining ties to the Wittelsbach Palatinate branch and acquiring territorial rights in the Upper Palatinate.[4][90][91] On 17 June 1349, a general assembly in Frankfurt re-elected Charles unanimously as King of the Romans.[4][89] On 25 July 1349, Charles was crowned in Aachen Cathedral by Archbishop Baldwin of Trier, and his pregnant queen Anna was crowned the following day.[92][93]

Domestic policy and Prague's golden age

The year 1348 brought extensive institutional developments in Bohemia.[6][68] On 8 March 1348, Charles issued the founding charter for the New Town of Prague (Nové Město), expanding the urban area by roughly 360 hectares and establishing a planned street grid centered on the Cattle Market (Charles Square), Horse Market (Wenceslas Square), and Hay Market (Senovážné Square).[6][94][95] On 7 April 1348, Charles issued fourteen charters at the general diet in Prague.[6][96] These documents introduced the concept of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Corona regni Bohemiae), establishing that the crown, rather than the living monarch personally, held sovereignty over the lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia.[6][96][97] On the same day, Charles issued the founding charter of the University of Prague, the first university north of the Alps and east of the Rhine, modeled on the universities of Paris and Bologna to train jurists and civil administrators.[7][68][98][99]

On 10 June 1348, construction began on Karlštejn Castle, conceived as an imperial repository for the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire and the Bohemian crown jewels and holy relics.[66][68][98][100] In Moravia in 1348, Charles instituted the Moravian Provincial Court and founded the Moravian Land Tables to record land titles.[98] Following the collapse of the Roman bridge of Judith during a flood in 1342, Charles laid the foundation stone for the new Stone Bridge across the Vltava (later named Charles Bridge) on 9 July 1357, designed and built under Peter Parler.[68][101] Charles also expanded Prague Castle, oversaw the continued construction of Saint Vitus Cathedral under Peter Parler following Mathieu of Arras's death in 1352, built the Church of Our Lady of the Snows (1347), and founded Emmaus Monastery (1347) for Croatian Benedictine monks to conduct liturgy in Old Church Slavonic.[66][68]

. Mining operations in Kutná Hora, Jihlava, and Stříbro provided silver revenues that funded crown lands and monumental buildings.[102][103] Charles sought to codify Bohemian customary law in a unified code known later as the Maiestas Carolina.[104][105][106] Drafted gradually from about 1350 and nearly complete by the summer of 1355, the code had 109 articles and aimed to strengthen royal power; it sought to keep royal estates from being sold off to the nobility or alienated, and several chapters dealt with royal offices and the management of royal forests..[104] Confronted by unanimous resistance from the Bohemian estates at the diet in autumn 1355, Charles abandoned the project, asserting to the nobles that the draft had accidentally burned in his fireplace.[104][105] Several copies survived and circulated as unofficial legal handbooks.[104]

Black Death and pogroms

The Black Death pandemic struck Europe in 1348 and 1349.[107] Spreading rapidly from the west in 1348, the plague killed at least a quarter of the Empire's population within three years..[108][109] In the German imperial cities, public anxiety triggered widespread accusations that Jewish communities were poisoning wells and spreading disease.[107][108][109][110] Pogroms erupted across the Rhineland and southern Germany.[107][108][109][110] Charles took an opportunistic stance toward the attacks.[108][109] As Roman king, he held the imperial Judenregal, the legal right of protection over Jewish populations in return for special tax payments.[107][108][109] To pay off his debts, Charles pledged Jewish revenues and properties in advance to imperial cities and princes.[107][109][111]

In charters issued in Frankfurt am Main in June 1349 regarding Nuremberg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and Frankfurt, Charles pardoned city authorities in advance for violence and regulated the disposal of Jewish property in the event that the Jews were killed.[109][111] In Nuremberg, Charles granted Margrave Louis of Brandenburg three houses belonging to wealthy Jews, to take effect as soon as the Jews were slain.[111] On 16 November 1349, Charles granted Nuremberg permission to demolish its Jewish quarter to construct a marketplace and a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Frauenkirche).[112] The subsequent pogrom on 5 December 1349 killed 560 Jewish inhabitants of Nuremberg.[112] In Frankfurt, Jewish residents set fire to their own homes and perished rather than surrender their property to municipal creditors.[111] In contrast to his actions in German imperial cities, Charles actively protected Jewish populations within Bohemia and Moravia, where pogroms were prevented, with few exceptions such as Cheb.[108][109][113]

Italian expeditions and imperial coronation

During the early 1350s, Italian figures repeatedly petitioned Charles to enter Italy.[114][115][116] The poet Petrarch addressed letters urging him to claim his imperial seat in Rome.[115] In 1350, the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo traveled to Prague seeking Charles's military and political backing.[72][114][116] Charles placed Cola in confinement in Prague for a year and, in 1352, surrendered him to the papal curia at Avignon.[4][116] In late 1354, Charles decided to proceed with his Roman coronation.[117][118] On Saint Wenceslas Day (28 September) 1354, he crossed the Alps with an escort of approximately 300 unarmed knights.[117] In Mantua, he met Petrarch and concluded financial agreements with the Visconti of Milan.[116] Entering Milan, Charles was crowned King of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in the Basilica of Saint Ambrose on 6 January 1355 by Archbishop Roberto Visconti.[4][72][119][120]

Charles then stayed in Pisa, where he waited for imperial and Bohemian troops and for the queen and the archbishop, who arrived in February 1355..[119] On 2 April 1355, Charles arrived outside Rome with 4,000 knights.[121] Having promised Pope Innocent VI that he would remain in Rome only for the single day of his coronation, Charles entered the city incognito to view its monuments.[121] On Easter Sunday, 5 April 1355, Charles and Queen Anna were crowned Holy Roman Emperor and Empress in Saint Peter's Basilica by Cardinal Pierre Bertrand de Colombier, Bishop of Ostia.[72][121][122] Following a coronation banquet at the Lateran Palace, Charles departed Rome that same evening.[4][121]

Payments from numerous Italian communes gave Charles at least a financial gain from the expedition.[4][72][123][124] During their return through Pisa, a rebellion broke out, and the palace where Charles and Empress Anna were sleeping was set on fire, forcing them to escape into the street in their nightwear.[125][126][127] Charles suppressed the revolt and executed seven ringleaders.[125][126] Charles left Italy in June 1355, laden with considerable wealth and having virtually abandoned the imperial rights in Italy.[4][72][128] Italian observers, including Matteo Villani and Petrarch, sharply criticized the emperor's expeditious departure, with Petrarch writing that Charles returned with an imperial crown acquired without drawing a sword and a purse filled with coin.[4][72][116][129]

The Golden Bull of 1356

Upon his return from Rome, Charles initiated a comprehensive reform of the constitutional framework of the Holy Roman Empire.[4][130][131][132] Assisted by Chancellor Jan of Středa and Duke Rudolf of Saxony, the emperor formulated a statutory code to govern imperial elections and end disputed successions.[130][132][133] The first twenty-three articles were approved at the Imperial Diet of Nuremberg on 10 January 1356, and further articles were added at the Diet of Metz in December 1356.[130][132] The document was soon named the Golden Bull after its golden seal.[130][132]

The Golden Bull permanently fixed the electoral college at seven prince-electors: the three ecclesiastical electors (the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne) and four secular electors (the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg).[130][131][132] Electorates were declared indivisible, passing by strict male primogeniture. Within thirty days of an imperial death, the Archbishop of Mainz was required to summon the electors to Frankfurt am Main, where election took place by simple majority, eliminating the requirement for papal confirmation or approbation.[130][134] Coronations were designated to occur in Aachen.

The document established unique privileges for the King of Bohemia, giving the Bohemian monarch precedence over all other electors at imperial assemblies, guaranteeing complete judicial sovereignty, forbidding imperial appeals from Bohemian courts, confirming the Bohemian diet's right to elect a king if the dynasty died out, and securing the right to coin gold and silver money.[97][130][133] The Golden Bull omitted any mention of papal confirmation of the imperial election and eliminated the papal claim to imperial vicariates during throne vacancies.[132] The excluded Habsburg and Bavarian Wittelsbach dynasties resented their omission; Duke Rudolf IV of Austria responded by having forged documents fabricated, known as the Privilegium Maius, claiming unprecedented privileges extending back to Julius Caesar.[135][136] The Golden Bull remained the fundamental constitutional law of the Holy Roman Empire until the empire's dissolution in 1806.[130][131]

Imperial diplomacy and the Kingdom of Burgundy

Charles tried to stay neutral in the conflict between France and England later called the Hundred Years' War, and in 1355-1356 he and his diplomats tried to settle it, without result.[137][138][139] In 1356, the French Dauphin Charles (later King Charles V) met Emperor Charles IV at Metz to seek political counsel during the Parisian revolt led by Étienne Marcel.[139][140][141] Charles IV held feudal sovereignty over the Kingdom of Burgundy (Arles), which was divided into several regional domains.[140] In 1356 at Metz, the emperor confirmed the Dauphin as imperial vicar in the Dauphiné of Viennois.[140] In the spring of 1365, Charles appointed Count Amadeus VI of Savoy as imperial vicar over the central territories of Burgundy, stretching from Lausanne and Geneva to Lyon and Grenoble.[142]

In May 1365, Charles visited Pope Urban V in Avignon, accompanied by a retinue of 3,000 persons, holding talks on a proposed crusade against the Ottoman Turks, the suppression of mercenary companies, and the relocation of the papacy to Rome.[136][143] Despite French objections, Charles journeyed to Arles, where on 4 June 1365 he was crowned King of Burgundy in the Cathedral of Saint Trophime by Archbishop Guillaume de La Garde in the presence of Provencal, Dauphinois, and Savoyard dignitaries.[143][144][145][146] Charles was the first emperor crowned King of Arles since Frederick Barbarossa, and the last emperor ever to receive that crown.[145][146][147] In 1366, Charles relieved Amadeus VI of his vicariate duties, and in 1378, he granted the imperial vicariate of Burgundy to Dauphin Charles of France for the dauphin's lifetime.[148][149]

At the Imperial Diet of Mainz in March 1359, Charles addressed the moral decay and corruption of the clergy, admonishing church officials to end scandalous living and threatening to confiscate ecclesiastical property and revenues for secular princes if reforms were not made.[150] This statement caused several imperial lords to begin seizing church estates, prompting Charles to issue a restraining decree in October 1359 after papal protests.[150]

Second Italian expedition

Charles consistently encouraged the papacy to end its Avignon residency and return to Rome.[136][143] Urban departed Avignon on 30 April 1367 and reached Rome in October 1367.[151] In 1368 Charles set out on a campaign in Italy, where he fought the Visconti of Milan before the two sides made peace.[136] Charles met Pope Urban V at Viterbo on 17 October and two days later entered Rome with an army of 40,000 men.[151]

On 21 October the pope entered Rome, and Charles symbolically led him into Saint Peter's Basilica as lord of Rome.[151] Charles's fourth wife, Elizabeth of Pomerania, was crowned Holy Roman Empress by Pope Urban V in Rome on 1 November 1368.[151][152] The papal residence in Rome proved unstable due to continuing civil disorder, and Urban V returned to Avignon in 1370, dying shortly thereafter.[153] Charles appointed Count Amadeus VI of Savoy as imperial vicar in Italy in 1372 and refrained from further personal military intervention in the Italian peninsula.[153]

Territorial expansion and dynastic policy

Charles pursued systematic expansion of the Luxembourg family domains to anchor his imperial standing.[4][5][136][154] In 1353, he granted the County of Luxembourg to his half-brother Wenceslaus I, elevating it to a duchy in 1354.[4][5] He used financial purchase and marriage contracts to accumulate territory.[4][5][154] Between 1353 and 1355, he purchased districts in the Upper Palatinate, forming an administrative region known as New Bohemia (Neuböhmen) centered at Sulzbach, with Erlangen added in 1361, establishing a territorial corridor linking Prague with Nuremberg and the Luxembourg ancestral lands in the Rhineland.[4][5][90][154][155] In 1356, he commissioned the construction of Wenzelsburg Castle in Lauf an der Pegnitz near Nuremberg, which preserves a hall decorated with 112 coats of arms of Bohemian lands.[5][100][156][157]

Through his third marriage to Anna von Schweidnitz in 1353, Charles prepared the definitive incorporation of the Duchy of Świdnica-Jawor.[4][5][154][158] Following the death of Duke Bolko II of Świdnica in 1368, the duchy passed directly to the Bohemian crown, completing the integration of all Silesian principalities.[5][154][159] In 1367, Charles bought Lower Lusatia from the Wittelsbachs and incorporated it into the Bohemian Crown lands.[4][5][160] In 1364 at Brno, Charles concluded a mutual inheritance treaty between the Luxembourg and Habsburg dynasties, stipulating that if either family became extinct in the male line, its possessions would pass to the other, establishing a legal precedent that shaped Central European dynastic politics in the fifteenth century.[5][161]

In Brandenburg, a succession contract signed in 1363 guaranteed that should Margrave Otto V of Bavaria die childless, the Margraviate of Brandenburg would pass to the House of Luxembourg.[159][160][162] Confronted by an alliance between Otto V, King Casimir III of Poland, and King Louis I of Hungary, Charles declared hostilities against Otto in July 1371 after the margrave repudiated the contract.[4][159] Charles invaded Brandenburg, and after two years of warfare, Otto V capitulated.[4][159] Under the Treaty of Fürstenwalde in August 1373, the Wittelsbachs surrendered Brandenburg to Charles in exchange for 200,000 gold florins cash and estates in New Bohemia, bringing the total cost of the acquisition to 500,000 florins.[5][159][163] Brandenburg was formally incorporated into the Bohemian Crown lands, providing the Luxembourgs with a second secular electoral vote.[5][159] Charles ordered a cadastral survey of the territory, recording its villages, population, and taxable revenues in the Landbuch of Charles IV, completed in 1375.[4][5] In 1374, he established an imperial residence at Tangermünde in the Altmark, where he spent extended periods during his final years.[5][164]

Later years and succession

During the 1370s, Charles concentrated on securing the succession of his eldest son, Wenceslaus IV.[4][5][165][166] Wenceslaus had been crowned King of Bohemia as a two-year-old child in 1363.[167] Securing Wenceslaus's election as King of the Romans required negotiations and substantial payments to the prince-electors, straining the imperial treasury.[5][165] On 10 June 1376, Wenceslaus was unanimously elected King of the Romans in Frankfurt by the electors, including Charles IV, Archbishop Ludwig of Mainz, Archbishop Kuno of Trier, Archbishop Friedrich of Cologne, Count Palatine Ruprecht I, Duke Wenceslaus of Saxony, and Margrave Sigismund of Brandenburg.[5][165] On 6 July 1376, Wenceslaus was crowned in Aachen Cathedral.[5][165]

To finance the electoral payments and municipal concessions, Charles levied heavy taxes on imperial cities and attempted to mortgage several Swabian towns.[5][166] In response, fourteen Swabian imperial cities formed the Swabian League of Cities on 4 July 1376, led by Ulm.[5][136][166] When Charles attempted to compel municipal submission by military force, the imperial army was defeated by the league's forces at the Battle of Reutlingen on 14 May 1377.[136][166] Charles was obliged to give way to the cities' demands and tolerate their league.[136][166]

In his political testament of 21 December 1376, Charles partitioned his territorial inheritance among his sons.[4][5] Wenceslaus IV received the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Bohemian Crown lands, and supreme suzerainty over Silesia, Lusatia, and the Upper Palatinate.[5] Sigismund received the Margraviate of Brandenburg, while the youngest son, John of Görlitz, was granted the newly created Duchy of Görlitz comprising parts of Upper and Lower Lusatia.[5] Charles had previously arranged the betrothal of Sigismund to Mary, daughter of King Louis I of Hungary and Poland, in 1372 to secure Luxembourg dynastic rights in the east.[136][159][160]

In the winter of 1377–1378, Charles undertook a state journey to France with his son Wenceslaus.[168][169] Suffering from advanced gout, he was transported in a carriage and litter sent by King Charles V of France.[168] Crossing the frontier at Cambrai on 20 December 1377, the imperial party entered Saint-Denis and reached Paris, where Charles visited the tombs of his relatives and met King Charles V.[168] Charles attended a banquet featuring a theatrical staging of the First Crusade and discussed European diplomacy, the proposed division of Angevin territories in Poland and Hungary, and the resolution of papal instability.[168] Charles returned to Prague in April 1378.[168][169] In September 1378, the Western Schism broke out following the election of Pope Urban VI and the subsequent election of Antipope Clement VII; Charles declared his allegiance to Urban VI in Rome.[5][170]

During his final weeks, Charles issued a currency ordinance on 2 November 1378 to stabilize Bohemian coinage against inflation.[170] Afflicted with severe gout, he suffered a fracture of the femoral neck, likely resulting from a fall from his horse or stairs.[170][171] Confined to bed, he developed pneumonia and died at Prague Castle three hours after sunset on Monday, 29 November 1378, at the age of sixty-two.[1][5][170][171] His body was embalmed and laid in state for eleven days at Prague Castle.[170][172] A funeral procession estimated at 7,000 people accompanied the funeral carriage from the Old Town across Charles Bridge to Vyšehrad.[170][172] After additional displays at the Church of Saint James and the Church of Our Lady beneath the Chain, Charles was buried in the royal crypt of Saint Vitus Cathedral.[172]

Physical traits and medical findings

Medical and anthropological examinations of Charles IV's skeletal remains conducted in the late twentieth century by Emanuel Vlček and Jiří Ramba revealed extensive physical data regarding the emperor's body and trauma history.[170][173][174] Charles was about 173 cm tall, with a build like that of a well-built athlete, and his usual likeness, with a beard, longer hair and a slightly receding forehead, probably matches reality.[170][173] Skeletal evidence revealed multiple healed fractures and combat injuries, including healed breaks of the left ulna and fibula, a major injury to the left knee, and a prominent slash scar at the root of the nose near the right eye.[170][173] At the time of his death at age sixty-two, Charles retained all of his teeth, displaying only a single minor cavity.[170] In his later decades, he suffered chronic pain from gout, which frequently immobilized him.[5][170]

The anthropological investigation identified severe spinal and facial trauma sustained in the autumn of 1350, most likely during a jousting tournament in October 1350.[170][174] Contemporary domestic chronicles maintained complete silence about the incident, while foreign writers, including Florentine chronicler Matteo Villani, attributed the monarch's sudden months-long paralysis to poisoning.[174] Physical examination of the skull revealed a direct high-impact blow to the chin, which broke away an anterior fragment containing six lower front teeth and transmitted force through the mandible, causing symmetrical bilateral fractures of the articular processes. The impact also severely hyperextended the neck, damaging the cervical spine and producing permanent deformity.[170][174]

The trauma received sophisticated surgical treatment rare in fourteenth-century medicine.[174] To correct an open bite, surgeons manually elevated the displaced chin fragment to align the lower front teeth with the upper jaw, secured the bone with a splint fastened by gold or silver wire, and sutured the facial soft tissues using waxed thread, techniques corresponding to the surgical treatises of Rogerius (Ruggero di Frugardo). Although Charles recovered sufficiently by May 1351 to resume state duties, the cervical injury permanently altered his posture: his cervical and lumbar spine became hunched, his stature shortened, and he could turn his head only by rotating his entire upper torso, an appearance captured in later artistic portraits.[170][174]

Literary and cultural patronage

Charles IV was an active author in Latin.[175][176] His autobiography, the Vita Caroli Quarti, represents the first secular autobiography written by a medieval monarch, covering his life from birth to his election as Roman king in 1346.[175][176] The work includes theological reflections, accounts of youthful military engagements such as the Battle of San Felice, and descriptions of dream visions, notably a dream at Terenzo on 15 August 1333 regarding the death of Guigues VIII, Dauphin of Viennois.[175][177][178][179] Charles also composed the Hystoria nova de sancto Wenceslao martyre (New Legend of Saint Wenceslas), written between 1355 and 1361 to promote the veneration of Bohemia's patron saint, and the Moralitates, a collection of theological exegesis and moral treatises instructing rulers on virtuous governance.[180][181]

The busts by Peter Parler and the portraits of the Prague school of painting are regarded as probably the oldest lifelike portraits in European art history since Roman art.[66] The emperor commissioned painters and architects from across Europe, including Mathieu of Arras, Peter Parler, Master Theodoric, and Nicolas Wurmser.[66][68] Charles exchanged several letters with Francesco Petrarch, who urged him not to forget Italy, and met him in person at Mantua at the end of 1354.[115][116] Charles also maintained close ties with Nuremberg, which he visited fifty-two times, patronizing the construction of the Nuremberg Frauenkirche between 1352 and 1362.[5][182]

Marriages and issue

Charles was married four times.[183][184] In May 1323, he married Blanche of Valois (1316 – 1 August 1348), daughter of Charles, Count of Valois.[18][183] They had three children: a son who died in infancy (born 1334); Margaret of Bohemia (24 May 1335 – 7 September 1349), who married King Louis I of Hungary in 1342; and Catherine of Bohemia (19 August 1342 – 26 April 1395), who married firstly Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, in 1356, and secondly Otto V, Duke of Bavaria and Elector of Brandenburg, in 1366.[184][185][186][187]

In March 1349 at Bacharach, Charles married Anna of the Palatinate (26 September 1329 – 2 February 1353), daughter of Rudolf II, Count Palatine of the Rhine.[90][91] They had one son, Wenceslaus (17 January 1350 – 28 December 1351), who died in infancy.[158]

On 27 May 1353 at Buda, Charles married Anna von Schweidnitz (1339 – 11 July 1362), daughter of Henry II, Duke of Świdnica.[158] They had three children: Elisabeth of Bohemia (19 April 1358 – 4 September 1373), who married Albert III, Duke of Austria, in 1366; Wenceslaus IV (26 February 1361 – 16 August 1419), who succeeded his father as King of Bohemia and King of the Romans; and an unnamed son who died alongside Queen Anna during childbirth on 11 July 1362.[183]

On 21 May 1363 at Kraków, Charles married Elizabeth of Pomerania (c. 1347 – 14 February 1393), daughter of Bogislaw V, Duke of Pomerania, and granddaughter of King Casimir III of Poland.[188][189] They had six children: Anne of Bohemia (11 May 1366 – 7 June 1394), who married King Richard II of England in 1382; Sigismund (15 February 1368 – 9 December 1437), who became Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, King of Hungary, and Margrave of Brandenburg; John of Görlitz (22 June 1370 – 1 March 1396), Duke of Görlitz; Charles (13 March 1372 – 24 July 1373); Margaret of Bohemia (29 September 1373 – 4 June 1410), who married John III, Burgrave of Nuremberg, in 1387; and Henry (1377–1378).[188]

Charles had one illegitimate son, William, born in 1362 to an unknown woman.[190][191] Guillaume was raised in Brabant, acknowledged by Charles, and served as a diplomat for the royal family.[190][191]

Legacy and commemoration

In Czech historiography and national memory, Charles IV is commemorated as the architect of Bohemia's medieval peak and holds the traditional designation Pater Patriae.[192][193] In 2005, Charles won first place in the Czech television survey Největší Čech (Greatest Czech), receiving 68,713 votes.[194] His portrait appears on the Czech 100-koruna banknote, first issued on 30 June 1993.[195][196] The main bridge, university, and principal square of Prague bear his name, as do the towns of Karlovy Vary, Karlštejn, and Montecarlo in Tuscany, and the asteroid 16951 Carolus Quartus.[100][197][198] In German historiography, modern scholars evaluate his reign in varied terms, recognizing his diplomatic acumen and cultural foundations while observing his reliance on dynastic house politics (Hausmachtpolitik) and the advancement of territorial sovereignty at the expense of imperial centralization.[193][199][200]

Where editions disagree (4)
Birthplace of Charles IV
  • Czech: Charles was born in Prague, probably in the U Štupartů house near the Church of Saint James.
  • French: Charles was born at Křivoklát Castle.
  • Aragonese: Charles was born at Křivoklát.
Birth date of Charles IV
  • English: Charles was born on 14 May 1316.
  • Arabic: Charles was born on 22 May 1316.
  • Serbian (Latin): Charles was born on 16 May 1316.
Cause of death of anti-king Günther von Schwarzburg
  • German: Günther died of an unknown cause, but definitely not the plague.
  • Russian: Günther fell gravely ill, agreed to abdicate for money, and died.
Date of Charles IV's coronation as King of Burgundy at Arles
  • English: Charles was crowned King of Burgundy at Arles on 4 June 1365.
  • Slovak: Charles was crowned King of Burgundy on 4 or 18 June 1365 in Arles.
Sources (75 Wikipedia editions)

The non-English editions provide extensive historical detail absent from the English text, including the exact medical and anthropological findings by Emanuel Vlček and Jiří Ramba documenting Charles's 1350 tournament trauma, double mandibular fracture, and medieval surgical repair (Czech edition). The German, Czech, and Spanish editions describe the emperor's advance charters granting legal immunity for anti-Jewish pogroms in Frankfurt and Nuremberg to cancel debts and fund urban construction. The Czech, German, and Slovene editions detail his childhood custody at Křivoklát and Loket, his near-fatal breakfast poisoning in Pavia in 1331, and the precise day-by-day diplomatic itinerary of his 1377–1378 visit to Paris.

Assembled from the Wikipedia articles below, each pinned to the revision read on 2026-09-27. Together they hold 658 references; the English article alone has 25.

EditionArticleRevisionSizeRefs
EnglishCharles IV, Holy Roman Emperor136857476839.5 KB25
CzechKarel IV.25924345114.9 KB129
BulgarianКарл IV (Свещена Римска империя)12545306106.1 KB93
GermanKarl IV. (HRR)27037713356.2 KB30
SlovenianKarel IV. Luksemburški658546753.2 KB52
Japaneseカール4世 (神聖ローマ皇帝)10661294448.4 KB87
MacedonianКарло IV (Свето Римско Царство)541589544.0 KB0
SlovakKarol IV. (Svätá rímska ríša)836044036.8 KB7
RussianКарл IV (император Священной Римской империи)15374679535.0 KB5
FrenchCharles IV (empereur du Saint-Empire)23922492834.8 KB10
HungarianIV. Károly német-római császár2867953731.1 KB55
VietnameseKarl IV của Thánh chế La Mã7508151630.2 KB7
UkrainianКарл IV (імператор Священної Римської імперії)4858398330.1 KB6
Hebrewקרל הרביעי, קיסר האימפריה הרומית הקדושה4390904128.5 KB0
ItalianCarlo IV di Lussemburgo14905351627.2 KB9
SpanishCarlos IV del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico16945757626.2 KB19
IndonesianKarl IV, Kaisar Romawi Suci2996908325.8 KB5
SerbianКарло IV, цар Светог римског царства3135417125.1 KB4
EsperantoKarolo la 4-a (Sankta Romia Imperio)880660624.6 KB0
BelarusianКарл IV Люксембургскі464546923.7 KB1
CatalanCarles IV del Sacre Imperi Romanogermànic3864373622.0 KB15
GreekΚάρολος Δ΄ της Αγίας Ρωμαϊκής Αυτοκρατορίας1175507018.6 KB3
BashkirКарл IV (Изге Рим империяһы императоры)89041218.5 KB3
FinnishKaarle IV (keisari)2408473317.2 KB27
PolishKarol IV Luksemburski8022341016.3 KB3
DutchKeizer Karel IV7102402815.9 KB22
Serbian (Latin)Karl IV, car Svetog Rimskog Carstva4246017112.9 KB0
be_x_oldКарл IV Люксэмбурскі251317912.3 KB1
CroatianKarlo IV., car Svetog Rimskog Carstva739578912.0 KB4
Arabicكارل الرابع7278419711.0 KB1
Banglaচতুর্থ চার্লস, পবিত্র রোমান সম্রাট850953910.6 KB3
Korean카를 4세4143038510.1 KB0
EstonianKarl IV72322169.8 KB0
Thaiจักรพรรดิคาร์ลที่ 4 แห่งจักรวรรดิโรมันอันศักดิ์สิทธิ์133016329.6 KB1
RomanianCarol al IV-lea al Sfântului Imperiu Roman172084369.5 KB4
LithuanianImperatorius Karolis IV74872009.1 KB1
TurkishIV. Karl (Kutsal Roma imparatoru)377238179.1 KB0
AlbanianKarl IV. (HRR)10271108.7 KB0
Chinese查理四世 (神圣罗马帝国)940507458.1 KB1
LatvianKārlis IV Luksemburgs43931107.5 KB2
SwedishKarl IV (tysk-romersk kejsare)596336487.4 KB6
Persianکارل چهارم444257997.1 KB0
KazakhКарл IV (Киелі Рим империясы императоры)24643657.0 KB0
AsturianCarlos IV de Luxemburgu41483486.7 KB0
LuxembourgishKarel IV. (HRR)26130716.6 KB0
ArmenianԿառլոս IV կայսր94972346.1 KB1
LatinCarolus IV (imperator)39797266.1 KB4
PortugueseCarlos IV do Sacro Império Romano-Germânico714457735.9 KB1
BosnianKarlo IV, car Svetog Rimskog Carstva37929595.7 KB0
AragoneseCarlos IV d'o Sacro Imperio Romano Chermanico21698675.5 KB0
BasqueKarlos IV.a Germaniako Erromatar Inperio Santukoa108942655.4 KB8
GalicianCarlos IV de Luxemburgo74928245.0 KB0
Pashtoکارل ۴1932934.6 KB0
BretonKarl IV an Impalaeriezh Santel21451704.3 KB0
West FlemishKarel IV (HRR)3003714.2 KB0
Urduکارل چہارم، مقدس رومن شہنشاہ66349323.5 KB0
ScotsCharles IV, Haly Roman Emperor8922923.4 KB2
AlbanianKarli IV28251463.4 KB0
simpleCharles IV, Holy Roman Emperor100381522.8 KB0
Georgianკარლ IV (სრი)38818432.6 KB0
azbدؤردونجو کارل5187302.4 KB0
DanishKarl 4. (Tysk-romerske rige)107862222.0 KB0
Marathiचार्ल्स चौथा (पवित्र रोमन सम्राट)24645131.6 KB0
TajikКарел IV.12744561.5 KB0
NorwegianKarl IV av Det tysk-romerske rike236373621.4 KB1
Central Kurdishئیمپراتۆر چارلسی چوارەم، ئیمپراتۆری ڕۆم14868381.3 KB0
MalagasyCharles IV, Emperora Romana Masina11393251.2 KB0
zh_min_nanKarl 4-sè17727260.8 KB0
WelshSiarl IV, Ymerawdwr Glân Rhufeinig110444510.7 KB0
Wu Chinese查理四世（神圣罗马帝国）3522900.6 KB0
Northern FrisianKaarl IV. (HRR)2284690.6 KB0
Egyptian Arabicكارل الرابع120287280.6 KB0
LombardCarlo IV de Lussemburgh12967300.5 KB0
zh_yue卡爾四世 (神聖羅馬帝國)20592340.3 KB0
WarayCharles IV, Baraan nga Emperador Romano22602500.3 KB0
The text on this page comes from the Wikipedia articles listed above, written by their contributors, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. It was translated and merged from those articles, may contain errors, and has not been reviewed by Wikipedia editors. The image is from Wikimedia Commons; its own licence is on its file page. SuperCharged Wiki is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. How this works.

References

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