You have heard me complaining regularly over the last 154 episodes that what we report as political ambitions or strategic plans of the kings and emperors was pure conjecture derived from their actions and public statement. But we could never know what they were really thinking because none of them kept a diary, or if they did they did not survive to today. The subject of today’s episode however did write an autobiography, which is believed to have been written by the emperor himself, at least in large parts. So, for the first time we hear an emperor telling his own story. Do you want to hear it? Well, here he describes what he called his most seminal moment of his youth:
That night, as sleep overcame us, a vision appeared to us: an angel of the Lord stood beside us on our left side, where we lay, and struck us on the side, saying, “Rise and come with me.”
We responded in spirit, “Lord, I do not know where or how to go with you.” And taking us by the hair of the front part of our head, he lifted us into the air over a great line of armed knights who were standing before a castle, ready for battle. Holding us in the air above the line, he said to us, “Look and see.” And behold, another angel descending from the sky, holding a fiery sword in his hand, struck one in the middle of the line and cut off his genital member with the same sword, and he, as if mortally wounded, agonized while sitting on his horse.
Then the angel holding us by the hair said, “Do you recognize him who was struck by the angel and mortally wounded?” We said, “Lord, I do not know him, nor do I recognize the place.” He said, “You should know that this is the Dauphin of Vienne, who, because of the sin of lust, has been struck by God in this way; therefore, beware and tell your father to beware of similar sins, or worse things will happen to you.” [..]
[..] Suddenly, we were restored to our place, the dawn already breaking. [..] To our father and Thomas, we had not told everything as we had seen; only that the Dauphin was dead. After some days, a messenger came bearing letters that the Dauphin, having gathered his army, had come before a certain castle of the Count of Savoy and that he had been shot by a large arrow from a crossbow in the middle of all his soldiers and had died after a few days, having had confession. Then our father, hearing the letters, said, “We are greatly astonished at this, because our son had foretold his death to us.” And he and Thomas were very amazed, but no one spoke of this matter with them afterward.”
There you go, the emperor Karl IV has divine visions. Not quite what you were expecting, but as it happened a good window into his way of thinking. But do not worry, Karl wasn’t just an excessively devout collector of relics, he was at the same time an astute and often ruthless politician who gave the Holy Roman empire its constitution and placed his heirs on the throne for the next centuries.
So let’s talk about Karl’s journey from his youth to becoming the King of the Romans.
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 155: The Youth of the Emperor Karl IV, also episode 18 of Season 8 “From the Interregnum to the Golden Bull.
You have heard me complaining regularly over the last 154 episodes that what we report as political ambitions or strategic plans of the kings and emperors was pure conjecture derived from their actions and public statement. But we could never know what they were really thinking because none of them kept a diary, or if they did they did not survive to today. The subject of today’s episode however did write an autobiography, which is believed to have been written by the emperor himself, at least in large parts. So, for the first time we hear an emperor telling his own story. Do you want to hear it? Well, here he describes what he called his most seminal moment of his youth:
That night, as sleep overcame us, a vision appeared to us: an angel of the Lord stood beside us on our left side, where we lay, and struck us on the side, saying, “Rise and come with me.”
We responded in spirit, “Lord, I do not know where or how to go with you.” And taking us by the hair of the front part of our head, he lifted us into the air over a great line of armed knights who were standing before a castle, ready for battle. Holding us in the air above the line, he said to us, “Look and see.” And behold, another angel descending from the sky, holding a fiery sword in his hand, struck one in the middle of the line and cut off his genital member with the same sword, and he, as if mortally wounded, agonized while sitting on his horse.
Then the angel holding us by the hair said, “Do you recognize him who was struck by the angel and mortally wounded?” We said, “Lord, I do not know him, nor do I recognize the place.” He said, “You should know that this is the Dauphin of Vienne, who, because of the sin of lust, has been struck by God in this way; therefore, beware and tell your father to beware of similar sins, or worse things will happen to you.” [..]
[..] Suddenly, we were restored to our place, the dawn already breaking. [..] To our father and Thomas, we had not told everything as we had seen; only that the Dauphin was dead. After some days, a messenger came bearing letters that the Dauphin, having gathered his army, had come before a certain castle of the Count of Savoy and that he had been shot by a large arrow from a crossbow in the middle of all his soldiers and had died after a few days, having had confession. Then our father, hearing the letters, said, “We are greatly astonished at this, because our son had foretold his death to us.” And he and Thomas were very amazed, but no one spoke of this matter with them afterward.”
There you go, the emperor Karl IV has divine visions. Not quite what you were expecting, but as it happened a good window into his way of thinking. But do not worry, Karl wasn’t just an excessively devout collector of relics, he was at the same time an astute and often ruthless politician who gave the Holy Roman empire its constitution and placed his heirs on the throne for the next centuries.
So let’s talk about Karl’s journey from his youth to becoming the King of the Romans.
But before we start it is time again to say thanks to all of you who are supporting the show, be it by posting on social media, writing articles on medium and elsewhere, recommending the show to friends and family and by making a contribution on either patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on historyofthegermans.com/support. And special thanks to Dale Winke, Theresia C., Andrew Gaertner, Constantin-Catalin R, Benny, and Colby D who so generously keep the show advertising free.
And now back to the story.
On May 14, 1316 in Prague the royal couple of Bohemia, John, the not yet blind and his wife Elisabeth celebrated the birth of their first son. This was their third child, the two older ones Margaret and Jutta had been girls and the arrival of a male heir was a source of great joy.
The boy was named Wenceslaus after his maternal grandfather, the great Premyslid king of Bohemia and Poland, Wenceslaus II. As was customary he spent his first years with his mother. But by the time he had turned 4, the relationship between his parents had soured. Advisors convinced his father, king John of Bohemia that his wife was about to hand over their firstborn son and heir to the throne to one of the Bohemian political factions. That would have seriously jeopardised John’s rule since he was only king thanks to his marriage to Elisabeth. So John attacked the castle where Elisabeth lived with her children, banished her and the girls to Melnik and took hold of young Wenceslaus. It seemed that Wenceslaus did not take the separation from his mother well. To break his resistance, quote: “Wenceslas, [ ], the firstborn, at four years of age, was placed in harsh custody in Cubitum for two months in a cellar, so that he saw light only through a hole.” End quote.
This was unbelievably cruel, even by the standards of the Late Middle Ages. Harsh custody means being locked up in a cold and dark dungeon presumably on poor food and water. I find it hard to imagine that anyone could come out of 2 months of that at that age without some serious mental health issue.
Maybe his excessive piety and belief in visions and divine mission were a way to overcome this trauma. When he built his magical castle of Karlsteijn in a remote valley, he spent most of his time there in a jewel encrusted room full of saint’s relics and only a small window for light and a trap to bring him food. Apart from this bit of armchair psychology, what is clear from his autobiography is that his relationship with his father remained cold and distant throughout his life. He would never see his mother again.
Aged seven he is sent to the court of the king of France, as was the tradition in the House of Luxemburg. He seemed to have enjoyed his time there. The queen of France was his aunt Maria and as he wrote, quote: “the king Charles IV loved me very much”. So much indeed that he became his godfather and gifted him a new name, Charles or Karl. Apparently Wenzel or Wenceslaus was not suitable for the French court. King Charles of France took his godfatherly duties very seriously and found his ward a wife, a daughter of Charles of Valois.
When Karl described his godfather, he called him a good king because he wasn’t greedy, listened to his advisors and his court was a splendid gathering of the wisest secular and ecclesiastical princes. These three attributes, listening to advisors, avoiding greed and having a splendid court full of highly respected nobles were Karl’s ambitions for a great king. Three attributes his father quite thoroughly lacked.
Karl also observes that his brother-in-law the new king Philip VI who succeeded king Charles IV lacked at least two attributes, he ignored his predecessor’s experienced counsellors and he succumbed to greed and avarice. How much of these sentiments he shared with the king is unclear. But he might have talked about these with his best friend who would remain close until he died, Jean, the son of Philip VI and better known as Jean le Bon, the king of France who was captured at the battle of Poitiers.
Whilst in Paris he makes another very important connection. Pierre Roger, the abbot of Fecamp was one of king Charles’ closest advisors had preached mass on Ash Wednesday 1328 and his rhetoric and deep religious insights left the now 13-year old crown prince of Bohemia hugely impressed. Karl sought his acquaintance and even convinced him to become his tutor in religious studies. Pierre Roger will have an impressive ecclesiastical career that ended with him becoming pope Clement VI in 1342.
But that is still in the future. Karl’s days in Paris end in 1330 when his father calls him and his wife to come to Luxemburg. What he did there is not entirely clear. In his autobiography he mentions four times that he was called to Luxemburg by his father but not what he did there.
The political reason for Karl’s departure from Paris is however clear. John of Bohemia had begun his bold attempt to take over Northern Italy. This project had not only intensified the conflict with the emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, but it also irritated king Philip VI of France. The French crown was developing an interest in Northern Italy that would only grow and grow in the 14th and 15th century. And now John of Bohemia had stepped on their toes which meant Karl had to leave Paris.
Karl’s stay in Luxemburg lasted just one year. Finally his father asked him to come down to Italy and help him running his newfound powerbase in Lombardy. Initially father and son fought side by side, expanding their influence into Tuscany by taking over Lucca. All was looking great and so John returned home to deal with the political fallout back in the empire and in France.
Karl was 16 years old and nominally in charge of a political project that had defeated his grandfather Henry VII, the great emperors Frederick II and Frederick Barbarossa and pretty much anyone in between. His father had left him one of his advisors, the count Louis of Savoy who was very familiar with the local politics.
Karl describes the various ups and downs of this campaign in some detail, but highlights three events that would again shape his idea of himself.
The first happened just 3 days after he had arrived in Pavia where his father had gathered his forces. Karl had been to morning mass as was his habit and since he intended to take communion had foregone breakfast. Returning to the hall of his palace he found several of his companions in a terrible state, vomiting and pale. Three of them would die that same day. Clearly they had been poisoned. Karl noticed an attractive young man walking across the room he did not know. When approached the young man pretended to be mute. Karl was suspicious and had him questioned. After three days of torture the man confessed that he had put poison in the breakfast upon orders from the Visconti of Milan.
Karl’s conclusion from this event wasn’t that after three days of torture anyone admits to any old tale. No, he concluded that god had protected him from certain death by means of an early mass and that hence he was destined to do great deeds in the service of the lord.
The next special moment happened at the one significant battle he fought during this campaign, near the castle of San Felice in October 1332. This was towards the end of the Italian adventure and the Visconti, della Scala and Este had turned against the Bohemians. Karl was pretty much alone since the count of Savoy, his protector and main advisor had also vanished. Still he gathered an army from his last remaining allies and confronted the Italian lords. The battle began in the afternoon and by nightfall almost all of his knights were unhorsed and even Karl’s mount was killed. When he got up and looked around he believed defeat was imminent. But suddenly the enemy turned to flight. Another miracle, this one attributed to Saint Catherine whose feast day it was.
The third was the vision he had about the angel and the angelic castration of the dauphin of Vienne we heard of at the top of the episode.
So you get his drift. All and everything is controlled by God and the saints. Regular prayer, veneration of the saints and adherence to the moral teachings of the bible are the key not just to heaven and to survival but also to worldly success.
Not total success though. Despite Karl’s victory at the battle of San Felice and his father’s return at the head of reinforcements from France, the adventure ended in failure when the money ran out. King John had to sign a peace deal abandoning his allies to the mercy of the Visconti, della Scala and Este. But when he offered the loyal city of Lucca to the Florentines for money, Karl could not bear such treachery and convinced his father to find a more honourable solution.
Karl is 18 at the end of this campaign, he had been knighted after the battle of San Felice and despite the projects ultimate failure, his standing amongst his peers and in the eyes of his father had improved. He had also shown clear signs of becoming independent, not just on the issue of Lucca, but even earlier when he attacked Florence without first consulting with his father.
From Italy, father and son travelled through Tyrol where Karl’s brother Johann Heinrich had married Margarete Maultasch, then to Lower Bavaria, lands of his sister Margaret and from there to Bohemia. When they arrived in Prague there was nobody from the family to greet them. Karl’s mother had died, his sister Bonne had gone to France together with his youngest sister Anne. The kingdom was left to its own devices.
His father, as was his habit stayed in Bohemia no longer than strictly necessary to extract some cash from the local barons and cities. And then he left his oldest son in charge of the kingdom. This is how Karl described the state of Bohemia: “We found this kingdom so neglected that we could not find a single castle that had not already been mortgaged together with all the royal goods. So we had no other place to stay except in one of the town houses, like a common burgher. Prague Castle, however, was so ruinous, dilapidated and run-down because it had been completely abandoned since the time of King Ottokar. In its place, we had a large and beautiful palace built from scratch at great expense, as it still appears to the observer today.”
For the next two years – as he proudly reports – did he regain possession of numerous castles, released others that had been pawned and pushed back the power of the barons. And remember he is still in his late teens and early 20s. And again his resentment for his father shines through when he points out that the Bohemians loved him ”because he was from the ancient line of Bohemian kings”, whilst his father was a foreigner, an interloper who did not even speak the language. As for languages by the way, Karl claims to be fluent in German, French, Latin, Italian and Czech. All this instruction by the future pope Clement VI had clearly borne fruit.
It seemed that Karl was so successful in rebuilding royal power in Bohemia that the barons leaned on his father to remove him from his post as governor. Even the margraviate of Moravia that he had received a few years earlier was removed from his direct control.
These next few years he is given missions by his father in Tyrol to help his brother Johann Heinrich and his wife Margarete Maultasch as well as campaigns in Hungary, Silesia, Prussia and Italy. But all of these had very clear limitations and did not give Karl immediate control over significant assets of the family. Though he does not mention anything about his personal feelings in this regard in his autobiography, it seems clear that relations between father and son had cooled down even further.
The real break between the two came when John of Bohemia reconciled with emperor Ludwig the Bavarian in 1340. John recognised Ludwig as the legitimate emperor, swore loyalty and received his fiefs as a vassal from the Bavarian. That decision flew into the face of everything Karl believed in. Karl was not just deeply pious but also very strongly supportive of the papacy. For him Ludwig was an excommunicate, his coronation as emperor had been a farce and by all means the electors should have deposed him long ago.
When Karl heard that John had gone over to the emperor’s side he raced to meet him in Miltenberg. In his autobiography he blames his father’s yielding to the emperor on deceit and breach of solemn promises by the Bavarian. But the reality is more likely a serious shouting match between father and son. In any case, Karl refused to sign up to the agreement and the Bohemian barons refused to ratify it.
It was Karl who from this point forward ruled Bohemia without much regard for his father’s wishes. Father and son made a deal whereby Karl became the ruler of Bohemia and John would receive 5,000 florin upon promising not to come back to Prague for 2 years. John disappeared to France where he fought for King Philip VI as his governor of Guyenne.
It is around this time that John loses his eyesight completely. And it is also the time when Margarete Maultasch throws her husband, Karl’s brother out of Tyrol. When emperor Ludwig followed this up with granting Margarete Maultasch a civil divorce and marry her to his eldest son also called Ludwig, the reconciliation between the Luxemburgs and the Wittelsbachs became null and void and Karl felt vindicated.
But John still wanted to reconcile with Ludwig. He recognised Ludwig’s right to Tyrol in exchange for Lusatia, a mortgage over Brandenburg and 20,000 florins in cash. But Karl and his brother Johann Heinrich again refused to sign on the dotted line, saying that if their father got hold of the cash he would only waste it with his mates in the Rhineland and they, the two brothers, would still look like schmucks.
Meanwhile another event had taken place that would have an even bigger impact on Karl’s life than break with his father. His friend from his youth, Pierre Roger, the abbot of Fecamp had succeeded in his march through the institutions and had been elected pope Clement VI with the votes of the now 14 French, 3 Italian and one Spanish cardinals, the only cardinal who did not vote for him was a further Frenchman who was too ill to join the conclave. This composition of the college of cardinals shows just how overwhelming French influence over the Avignon papacy was. No Englishman, no German let alone Pole, Bohemian or Hungarian carried the purple hat of a cardinal.
Karl, with his father in tow, spent a lot of time in Avignon between 1342 and 1346. Initially at least pretending they were seeking a reconciliation between the pope and the emperor, the discussions quickly shifted to ways to remove Ludwig from his position.
It is quite surprising that all throughout the 24 years after the battle of Mühldorf the papacy never put up an anti-king to challenge Ludwig. The most likely explanation was that Ludwig’s position in Germany had remained strong. He could count on the imperial and free cities that he supported through rights and privileges. The Habsburgs had been rewarded for their support with the duchy of Carinthia and aid in their fights against the Luxemburgs.
King John of Bohemia, a friend of the king of France and loyal to the pope would have been the natural choice as papal champion, but never dared to step up. One of the considerations there were almost certainly the broadly anti-French and anti-papal mood in the country. As we mentioned some episodes earlier, we are – very gradually – moving into a period where people identify more and more along linguistic and cultural lines. And the encroachment of French power into the kingdom of Burgundy and the ancient duchy of Lothringia sat uneasily with many observers. Even more significant was the disapproval of the Avignon papacy with its ostentatious display of wealth, interference in the local church appointments and increasingly efficient tax collecting infrastructure. The latter was the main reason most of the German clergy, including even Balduin, the archbishop of Trier who was John’s uncle sided with Ludwig.
But by the mid-1340s Ludwig had overstretched the patience of the imperial princes. By then he had seized Brandenburg, Lower Bavaria, the Palatinate and now Tyrol and a bit later Holland and Hennegau for his almost innumerable sons. This concentration of power made even their closest allies amongst the territorial lords uncomfortable and the means by which he had taken the Tyrol from the Luxemburgs had alienated the clergy.
All these discussions in Avignon and elsewhere culminated in an event early in the year 1346 when the pope first declared that Ludwig had not shown enough contrition to be allowed back into the bosom of mother church and hence the Prince Electors should choose a new king of the Romans, preferably Karl, the margrave of Moravia and crown prince of Bohemia. In exchange Karl made a number of concessions to the pope that went far beyond anything an emperor or future emperor had yet committed to the papacy. This commitment was the price for papal endorsement and a price Karl was willing to pay. We will see how much this will cost him going forward.
With full papal endorsement he could now gather electors. The pope procured the archbishop of Mainz he had managed to place into his position against a candidate supported by emperor Ludwig. As for the remainder, all depended upon the support of Balduin of Trier, not the most powerful but the most capable and most respected of the Electors. Balduin had become archbishop aged 22, had placed his brother Henry VII on the throne 36 years earlier and had dominated imperial politics for decades. He may be Karl’s great uncle but their relationship seemed to have been distant. Karl never mentions Balduin in his autobiography, not even when he talked about that year he stayed in Luxemburg when he was 15 or 16 and almost certainly met him multiple times.
Balduin had settled into Ludwig’s camp during the Kurverein zu Rhens. Getting him to switch sides turned out to be very expensive. Imperial lands and cities were to be given to Trier, even castles and lands belonging to Luxemburg itself were handed over on top of astronomical sums of money and the promise to always submit to his great uncle’s advice. These excessive demands may be the reason for Karl’s animosity for the member of his family who was probably most similar to him, cerebral, pious, clever and driven.
But however expensive Balduin was, he was worth every penny. On May 20th 1346 five electors, the three archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, the duke of Saxony and King John of Bohemia got together at Rhens and elected Karl of Moravia, grandson of the emperor Henry VII as king of the Romans. Pope Clement VI sent his approbation even though Karl had not asked for it explicitly.
Things moved along quite rapidly from there. Karl and his father instead of doing a tour of the empire gathering support for the newly elected king went to France and the fateful battle of Crecy, where John died his heroic or foolish death and Karl was smart enough to leave before things went totally pear shaped.
Returning from Crecy, Karl made a half-hearted attempt to dislodge Ludwig from Tyrol that failed thanks to the determined resistance of the countess Margarete Maultasch. From there he returned to Bohemia and waited.
He did not have to wait long. The emperor Ludwig of Bavaria, the man who had dominated imperial politics for 33 years, the victor of Muehldorf, the excommunicated ruler who brought about the end of papal dominance over imperial politics in the Kurverein zu Rhens and who expanded Wittelsbach territory to its largest extent died from a heart attack on October 11, 1347.
Karl should now be the undisputed King of the Romans, but I am afraid the fight for the crown had only just begun. Next week we will hear about the lengths Karl, now Karl IV will have to go through to dispense with anti-kings and even use the services of one of the Middle Ages most mysterious figures, the false Waldemar. I hope you will join us again next week.
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