Charles IV 

(Czech: Karel IV.; German: Karl IV.; Latin: Carolus IV; 14 May 1316 (22 May Greg.) –

29 November 1378[1]), also known as Charles of Luxembourg,
born Wenceslaus (Czech: Václav),[2] was the first King of Bohemia to become Holy Roman
Emperor. He was a member of the House of Luxembourg from his father's side and the
Czech House of Přemyslid from his mother's side; he emphasized the latter due to his lifelong
affinity for the Czech side of his inheritance, and also because his direct ancestors in the
Přemyslid line included two saints.[3][4]
He was the eldest son and heir of John of Bohemia, King of Bohemia and Count of Luxembourg,
who died at the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346. His mother, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia,
was the sister of Wenceslaus III, King of Bohemia and Poland, the last of the male Přemysl rulers
of Bohemia. Charles inherited the County of Luxembourg from his father and was elected king of
the Kingdom of Bohemia. On 2 September 1347, Charles was crowned King of Bohemia.
On 11 July 1346, the prince-electors chose him as King of the Romans (rex Romanorum) in
opposition to Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor. Charles was crowned on 26 November 1346
in Bonn. After his opponent died, he was re-elected in 1349 and crowned King of the Romans. In
1355, he was crowned King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor. With his coronation as King of
Burgundy in 1365, he became the personal ruler of all the kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire.

Contents

 1Life
o 1.1Birth and childhood
o 1.2Italy and Moravia
o 1.3King of the Romans
o 1.4Holy Roman Emperor
 2Patronage of culture and the arts
 3Family
o 3.1Genealogy
o 3.2Marriages and children
 4Legacy
o 4.1Evaluation
o 4.2Castles
o 4.3Places named after Charles IV
o 4.4Other
 5References
 6Bibliography
 7Further reading
 8External links

Life[edit]
Birth and childhood[edit]
Charles was born to John of Bohemia of the Luxembourg dynasty and Queen Elizabeth of
Bohemia of the Czech Přemyslid dynasty in Prague.[5] He was originally named Wenceslaus
(Václav), the name of his maternal grandfather, King Wenceslaus II. He chose the name Charles
at his confirmation in honor of his uncle, King Charles IV of France, at whose court he was
resident for seven years.[6]
He received French education and was literate and fluent in five
languages: Latin, Czech, German, French, and Italian.[citation needed]

Italy and Moravia[edit]

In 1331, he gained some experience of warfare in Italy with his father. At the beginning of 1333,
Charles went to Lucca (Tuscany) to consolidate his rule there. In an effort to defend the city,
Charles founded the nearby fortress and the town of Montecarlo (Charles' Mountain).[7]
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 for 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 this county.[8]

King of the Romans[edit]

On 11 July 1346, in consequence of an alliance between his father and Pope Clement VI,
relentless enemy of the emperor Louis IV, Charles was elected as Roman king in opposition to
Louis by some of the prince-electors at Rhens. As he had 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.[8]

The Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by Charles IV

Charles IV was in a very weak position in Germany. Owing to 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, losing his father and many of his best knights at the Battle of
Crécy in August 1346, with Charles himself escaping 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, House of Wittelsbach partisans attempted
to secure the election of Günther von Schwarzburg as king, but he attracted few supporters and
was defeated by Charles at the siege of Eltville in May. Thereafter, Charles faced no direct threat
to his claim to the Imperial throne.
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 Charles University in Prague, which was
later named after him and was the first university in Central Europe. This served as a training
ground for bureaucrats and lawyers. Soon Prague emerged as the intellectual and cultural center
of Central Europe.
Bust of Charles IV in St. Vitus Cathedral, 1370s
Having made good use of 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.[8] The empire he ruled from Prague
expanded and his subjects lived in peace and prosperity.
In 1350, the king was visited at Prague by the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo, who urged him to
go to Italy, where the poet Petrarch and the citizens of Florence also implored his presence.
[9]
 Turning a deaf ear to these entreaties, Charles kept Cola in prison for a year, and then handed
him as a prisoner to Clement at Avignon.[8]
Outside Prague, Charles attempted to expand the Bohemian crown lands, using his imperial
authority to acquire fiefs in Silesia, the Upper Palatinate, and Franconia. 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 the Maiestas Carolina of
1355, he met with sharp resistance. After that point, Charles found it expedient to scale back his
efforts at centralization.

Holy Roman Emperor[edit]

The Golden Bull of 1356

In 1354, Charles crossed the Alps without an army, received the Lombard crown in St. Ambrose
Basilica, Milan, on 5 January 1355, and was crowned emperor at Rome by a cardinal in April of
the same year.[10][8] 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.[11][8] 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.[8]

Charles's possessions at the signing of the Golden Bull of 1356.

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 of the Rhine 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.[8]

Meeting with Charles V of France in Paris in 1378, from a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Bibliothèque

de l'Arsenal
Casimir III of Poland and Louis I of Hungary entered a conspiracy against Charles and managed
to persuade Otto V of Bavaria to join. After the repeal of the estate contract by margrave Otto, in
early July 1371, Charles IV declared hostilities and invaded Margraviate of Brandenburg; after
two years of conflict, in 1373 Brandenburg became part of the Czech lands. This was when he
gave the order to measure his new territory, its villages, people, and income. This was recorded
in the Landbuch 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 of Silesian territory, partly by inheritance through his third wife, Anna von
Schweidnitz, daughter of Henry II, Duke of Świdnica and Catherine of Hungary. In 1365, Charles
visited Pope Urban V at Avignon and undertook to escort him to Rome; on the same occasion he
was crowned King of Burgundy at Arles.[8]
His second journey to Italy took place in 1368 when he had a meeting with Pope Urban V
at Viterbo, was besieged in his palace at Siena, 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
the Swabian 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 at Prague, where he was buried, and where a
statue was erected to his memory in 1848.[8]
Charles IV suffered from gout (metabolic arthritis), a painful disease quite common in that time.

Patronage of culture and the arts[edit]

Statue of Charles IV near Charles Bridge (1848), Prague, by Ernst Julius Hähnel
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
coined 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 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.

Family[edit]
Genealogy[edit]
Margaret of Wenceslaus
Judith of
Henry VII Brabant II
Habsburg
12 July 4 October 27
      13 March
1275(6) – 24 1276 – 14 September
1271 – 18
August 1313 December 1271 – 21
June 1297
1311 June 1305
         
     
  John of   Elisabeth of  
Bohemia Bohemia
 20 January
10 August
1292 – 28
1296 – 26
September
August 1346
1330
     
   
1 2
Blanche of Valois Anna of Bavaria Charles IV An
1316 – 1 August 1348 26 September 1329 – 2 February 14 May 1316 – 29 November 1
OO   15 May 1323 1353 1378
OO   March 1349
           
   1    1    1  
son Margaret of Bohemia Catherine of Bohemia
b.1334 1335–49 1342–95

   4    4    4  
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor John of Görlitz Charles M
1368–1437 1370–96 1372–73
Marriages and children[edit]

Charles and his first wife, Blanche

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.[5] They had three
children:

 son (b. 1334), died young

 Margaret of Bohemia, Queen of Hungary (1335–1349); married King Louis I of Hungary.[12]
 Catherine of Bohemia (1342–1395); married Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria[13] 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),[5] 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.[5]
 Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia (1361–1419);[5] 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),[14] 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:

 Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England (1366–1394); married King Richard II of England[14]

 Sigismund of Bohemia (1368–1437);[14] later became Holy Roman Emperor, was King of
Bohemia, Margrave of Brandenburg, and also King of Hungary through his first marriage
to Mary, Queen of Hungary in 1385. His second marriage was to Barbara of Cilli, the
daughter and youngest child of Herman II, Count of Celje, in 1405/1408.
 John of Bohemia (1370–1396); later Margrave of Moravia and Duke of Görlitz;
married Richardis Catherine of Sweden, the daughter of Albert, King of Sweden.[14] His only
daughter and heiress Elisabeth of Görlitz was Duchess of Luxembourg.
 Charles (13 March 1372 – 24 July 1373).
 Margaret of Bohemia, Burgravine of Nuremberg (1373–1410); married John III, Burgrave
of Nuremberg.[14]
 Henry (1377–1378)

Legacy[edit]
Evaluation[edit]
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 Prussia and Livonia.

Castles[edit]
Castles built or established by Charles IV:[15]

 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 Czech 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[edit]
Czech Republic

 Karlovy Vary, a spa city

 Karlštejn, a town beyond the eponymous castle
 Charles Bridge (Karlův most), Prague
 Charles University (Univerzita Karlova), Prague
 Multiple squares – Charles Square (Karlovo náměstí) in Prague and others, for example
in Brno, Kolín, Mělník etc.
 Multiple streets
Italy

 Montecarlo (Charles's Mountain), a municipality

Other[edit]

100-CZK banknote

 The 100-Czech koruna banknote

 16951 Carolus Quartus, an asteroid

References
Charles IV (Czech: Karel IV.; German: Karl IV.; Latin: Carolus IV; 14 May 1316 (22 May Greg.) –
29 November 1378[1]), also known as Charles of Luxembourg,
born Wenceslaus (Czech: Václav),[2] was the first King of Bohemia to become Holy Roman
Emperor. He was a member of the House of Luxembourg from his father's side and the
Czech House of Přemyslid from his mother's side; he emphasized the latter due to his lifelong
affinity for the Czech side of his inheritance, and also because his direct ancestors in the
Přemyslid line included two saints.[3][4]
He was the eldest son and heir of John of Bohemia, King of Bohemia and Count of Luxembourg,
who died at the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346. His mother, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia,
was the sister of Wenceslaus III, King of Bohemia and Poland, the last of the male Přemysl rulers
of Bohemia. Charles inherited the County of Luxembourg from his father and was elected king of
the Kingdom of Bohemia. On 2 September 1347, Charles was crowned King of Bohemia.
On 11 July 1346, the prince-electors chose him as King of the Romans (rex Romanorum) in
opposition to Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor. Charles was crowned on 26 November 1346
in Bonn. After his opponent died, he was re-elected in 1349 and crowned King of the Romans. In
1355, he was crowned King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor. With his coronation as King of
Burgundy in 1365, he became the personal ruler of all the kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire.
 Contents

 1Life
o 1.1Birth and childhood
o 1.2Italy and Moravia
o 1.3King of the Romans
o 1.4Holy Roman Emperor
 2Patronage of culture and the arts
 3Family
o 3.1Genealogy
o 3.2Marriages and children
 4Legacy
o 4.1Evaluation
o 4.2Castles
o 4.3Places named after Charles IV
o 4.4Other
 5References
 6Bibliography
 7Further reading
 8External links

Life[edit]
Birth and childhood[edit]
Charles was born to John of Bohemia of the Luxembourg dynasty and Queen Elizabeth of
Bohemia of the Czech Přemyslid dynasty in Prague.[5] He was originally named Wenceslaus
(Václav), the name of his maternal grandfather, King Wenceslaus II. He chose the name Charles
at his confirmation in honor of his uncle, King Charles IV of France, at whose court he was
resident for seven years.[6]
He received French education and was literate and fluent in five
languages: Latin, Czech, German, French, and Italian.[citation needed]

Italy and Moravia[edit]

In 1331, he gained some experience of warfare in Italy with his father. At the beginning of 1333,
Charles went to Lucca (Tuscany) to consolidate his rule there. In an effort to defend the city,
Charles founded the nearby fortress and the town of Montecarlo (Charles' Mountain).[7]
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 for 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 this county.[8]

King of the Romans[edit]

On 11 July 1346, in consequence of an alliance between his father and Pope Clement VI,
relentless enemy of the emperor Louis IV, Charles was elected as Roman king in opposition to
Louis by some of the prince-electors at Rhens. As he had 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.[8]
The Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by Charles IV
Charles IV was in a very weak position in Germany. Owing to 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, losing his father and many of his best knights at the Battle of
Crécy in August 1346, with Charles himself escaping 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, House of Wittelsbach partisans attempted
to secure the election of Günther von Schwarzburg as king, but he attracted few supporters and
was defeated by Charles at the siege of Eltville in May. Thereafter, Charles faced no direct threat
to his claim to the Imperial throne.
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 Charles University in Prague, which was
later named after him and was the first university in Central Europe. This served as a training
ground for bureaucrats and lawyers. Soon Prague emerged as the intellectual and cultural center
of Central Europe.

Bust of Charles IV in St. Vitus Cathedral, 1370s

Having made good use of 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.[8] The empire he ruled from Prague
expanded and his subjects lived in peace and prosperity.
In 1350, the king was visited at Prague by the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo, who urged him to
go to Italy, where the poet Petrarch and the citizens of Florence also implored his presence.
[9]
 Turning a deaf ear to these entreaties, Charles kept Cola in prison for a year, and then handed
him as a prisoner to Clement at Avignon.[8]
Outside Prague, Charles attempted to expand the Bohemian crown lands, using his imperial
authority to acquire fiefs in Silesia, the Upper Palatinate, and Franconia. 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 the Maiestas Carolina of
1355, he met with sharp resistance. After that point, Charles found it expedient to scale back his
efforts at centralization.

Holy Roman Emperor[edit]

The Golden Bull of 1356

In 1354, Charles crossed the Alps without an army, received the Lombard crown in St. Ambrose
Basilica, Milan, on 5 January 1355, and was crowned emperor at Rome by a cardinal in April of
the same year.[10][8] 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.[11][8] 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.[8]

Charles's possessions at the signing of the Golden Bull of 1356.

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 of the Rhine 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.[8]

Meeting with Charles V of France in Paris in 1378, from a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Bibliothèque

de l'Arsenal
Casimir III of Poland and Louis I of Hungary entered a conspiracy against Charles and managed
to persuade Otto V of Bavaria to join. After the repeal of the estate contract by margrave Otto, in
early July 1371, Charles IV declared hostilities and invaded Margraviate of Brandenburg; after
two years of conflict, in 1373 Brandenburg became part of the Czech lands. This was when he
gave the order to measure his new territory, its villages, people, and income. This was recorded
in the Landbuch 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 of Silesian territory, partly by inheritance through his third wife, Anna von
Schweidnitz, daughter of Henry II, Duke of Świdnica and Catherine of Hungary. In 1365, Charles
visited Pope Urban V at Avignon and undertook to escort him to Rome; on the same occasion he
was crowned King of Burgundy at Arles.[8]
His second journey to Italy took place in 1368 when he had a meeting with Pope Urban V
at Viterbo, was besieged in his palace at Siena, 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
the Swabian 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 at Prague, where he was buried, and where a
statue was erected to his memory in 1848.[8]
Charles IV suffered from gout (metabolic arthritis), a painful disease quite common in that time.

Patronage of culture and the arts[edit]

Statue of Charles IV near Charles Bridge (1848), Prague, by Ernst Julius Hähnel

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
coined 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 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.

Family[edit]
Genealogy[edit]
Margaret of Wenceslaus
Judith of
Henry VII Brabant II
Habsburg
12 July 4 October 27
      13 March
1275(6) – 24 1276 – 14 September
1271 – 18
August 1313 December 1271 – 21
June 1297
1311 June 1305
         
     
Elisabeth of
John of
Bohemia
Bohemia
20 January
  10 August    
1292 – 28
1296 – 26
September
August 1346
1330
     
   
1 2
Blanche of Valois Anna of Bavaria Charles IV An
1316 – 1 August 1348 26 September 1329 – 2 February 14 May 1316 – 29 November 1
OO   15 May 1323 1353 1378
OO   March 1349
           
   1    1    1  
son Margaret of Bohemia Catherine of Bohemia
b.1334 1335–49 1342–95

   4    4    4  
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor John of Görlitz Charles M
1368–1437 1370–96 1372–73
Marriages and children[edit]
Charles and his first wife, Blanche
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.[5] They had three
children:

 son (b. 1334), died young

 Margaret of Bohemia, Queen of Hungary (1335–1349); married King Louis I of Hungary.[12]
 Catherine of Bohemia (1342–1395); married Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria[13] 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),[5] 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.[5]
 Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia (1361–1419);[5] 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),[14] 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:

 Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England (1366–1394); married King Richard II of England[14]

 Sigismund of Bohemia (1368–1437);[14] later became Holy Roman Emperor, was King of
Bohemia, Margrave of Brandenburg, and also King of Hungary through his first marriage
to Mary, Queen of Hungary in 1385. His second marriage was to Barbara of Cilli, the
daughter and youngest child of Herman II, Count of Celje, in 1405/1408.
 John of Bohemia (1370–1396); later Margrave of Moravia and Duke of Görlitz;
married Richardis Catherine of Sweden, the daughter of Albert, King of Sweden.[14] His only
daughter and heiress Elisabeth of Görlitz was Duchess of Luxembourg.
 Charles (13 March 1372 – 24 July 1373).
 Margaret of Bohemia, Burgravine of Nuremberg (1373–1410); married John III, Burgrave
of Nuremberg.[14]
 Henry (1377–1378)

Legacy[edit]
Evaluation[edit]
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 Prussia and Livonia.

Castles[edit]
Castles built or established by Charles IV:[15]

 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 Czech 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[edit]
Czech Republic

 Karlovy Vary, a spa city

 Karlštejn, a town beyond the eponymous castle
 Charles Bridge (Karlův most), Prague
 Charles University (Univerzita Karlova), Prague
 Multiple squares – Charles Square (Karlovo náměstí) in Prague and others, for example
in Brno, Kolín, Mělník etc.
 Multiple streets
Italy

 Montecarlo (Charles's Mountain), a municipality

Other[edit]
100-CZK banknote

 The 100-Czech koruna banknote

 16951 Carolus Quartus, an asteroid

References

Zdroje: wikipedie