The year is 1346 and we have, yes, another succession crisis. Without checking through my 1500 pages of transcripts, I have counted a total of 14 contested imperial elections in the 427 years we have covered so far. Henry the Fowler, Herny II, Henry IV, Henry V, Lothar III, Konrad III, Philip of Swabia, Otto IV, Frederick II, Konrad IV, Richard of Cornwall, Adolf of Nassau, Albrecht of Habsburg and Ludwig the Bavarians all had to contend with anti-kings or severe opposition to their ascension to the throne.

I guess you are bored with these and so were the citizens of the empire. But here is the good news. From Karl IV’s reign onwards these succession crises will become fewer and fewer. Why? One reason is of course the Golden Bull we will discuss in a few episodes time. But there is another one, which had to do with the way Karl IV overcome the opposition. He claimed it was divine providence, but modern historians point to a much more temporal force that tied the imperial title to the heirs of the house of Luxemburg…

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 156 – What price for a crown, also episode 18 of Season 8 “From the Interregnum to the Golden Bull”

The year is 1346 and we have, yes, another succession crisis. Without checking through my 1500 pages of transcripts, I have counted a total of 14 contested imperial elections in the 427 years we have covered so far. Henry the Fowler, Herny II, Henry IV, Henry V, Lothar III, Konrad III, Philip of Swabia, Otto IV, Frederick II, Konrad IV, Richard of Cornwall, Adolf of Nassau, Albrecht of Habsburg and Ludwig the Bavarians all had to contend with anti-kings or severe opposition to their ascension to the throne.

I guess you are bored with these and so were the citizens of the empire. But here is the good news. From Karl IV’s reign onwards these succession crises will become fewer and fewer. Why? One reason is of course the Golden Bull we will discuss in a few episodes time. But there is another one, which had to do with the way Karl IV overcome the opposition. He claimed it was divine providence, but modern historians point to a much more temporal force that tied the imperial title to the heirs of the house of Luxemburg…

But before we start the usual reminder that the History of the Germans is advertising free. And that is only possible because some of you are willing to make a contribution to the show. As you know, you can do that either by signing up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or by making a one-time contribution on my website historyofthegermans.com under support the show. And let me thank  Birgit L., Brian C., Brian P., Christoph H., Gareth W., Gregory W. and Iskren C. who have given so generously.

Last week we left our most recent imperial hopeful at the Battle of Crecy, his father dead, he himself much impaired, possibly physically wounded, fleeing the field of battle.

Yes, he had been elected king of the Romans by five Prince-electors, but despite the extraordinary expense in bribes and concessions, this had been a low-key affair. At Rhens, where the election had taken place only a smattering of knights and counts had attended. And a rushed coronation had to take place in Bonn as he could not get into Aachen and lacked the imperial regalia, crucial for the legitimacy of the event.

Returning from France with the body of his father and his much diminished forces, he stopped in Luxemburg. He was so broke, he had to borrow money from a local banker to pay for John of Bohemia’s funeral.

Gathering resources became his number one objective and he did not care much where these came from. So, he took over the county of Luxemburg for himself even though his father’s testament had granted it to his stepbrother Wenzel. Wenzel was admittedly only 9 years old at the time and Luxemburg needed to be protected. Still, a bit of a cad move.

His biggest problem was that the emperor Ludwig the Bavarian who had ruled for over 30 years was still around. He was 64 years old and seemingly still in good health plus had been blessed with a total of five sons, so many, he ran out of ideas what to call them. He named two of the Ludwig, Ludwig the Elder, who was – guess what – the older one and Ludwig the Roman, who was called that because he was born in the eternal city.

Moreover, very much to Karl’s chagrin, his election had not galvanised the opposition against the Bavarian as he had hoped. In particular the great cities, by now the financially most important estate in the empire remained firmly with the Wittelsbachs providing the funds for the impending civil war.

The other big problem he had to deal with was that public opinion saw him as a creature of the papacy. It was after all pope Clement VI, his great friend and mentor who had supported him in the run-up to his election. After 20 years under church interdict the mood in Germany had turned against the Avignon popes to a degree unmatched in any other part of medieval Europe. And this sentiment had taken hold across the social classes, not just the peasants who had to pay ever increasing taxes to the church but also the senior clergy who no longer elected their own abbots and bishops but even the territorial princes had complaints about ecclesiastical overreach. Karl did not help his case when he reconfirmed his oath to support the papacy to a degree no emperor before him had done.

Even the king of France, Philip VI, for whom he and his father had fought at Crecy was at best lukewarm in his endorsement of Karl. Maybe Karl should not have shown his disapproval of this spendthrift monarch so openly when he lived in Paris…

Apart from the political problem, he also had a logistical one. Since his father had died, he needed to get to Prague to claim his kingdom. Though Bohemia was an inherited, not an elective kingdom, the Bohemian barons had shown in the past that they were willing and able to replace their monarchs. Plus, he needed to achieve some military success that would convince his potential allies that he was serious.

Emperor Ludwig knew that and therefore calculated that Karl would somehow make his way to Bohemia, raise an army there and then attack one of the two Wittelsbach possessions next door, Bavaria or Brandenburg. The aging emperor and his oldest son Ludwig of Brandenburg fortified castles and amassed troops on the Bohemian border.

Now remember that Karl was a cold and calculating chess player, not a hard charging chivalric knight always attacking where the mass of enemies was thickest. Aiming to be two steps ahead, Karl decided against doing the obvious but instead to attack the Wittelsbach underbelly that had been stripped of troops to defend Bavaria and Brandenburg. That underbelly was the county of Tyrol.

In all secrecy Karl gathered support amongst the lords of the Northern Italian cities who knew him from the campaigns of his youth. He then sweettalked the patriarch of Aquileia and the bishop of Trient into providing troops and attacked Tyrol from the south. His army moved rapidly into what is today called South Tyrol and the Wittelsbachs were caught on the wrong foot. Ludwig the Elder, the count of Tyrol and husband of Margarete Maultasch was up north defending Brandenburg with most of his soldiers.

But Karl, cunning as he was, had not thought about the subsequent moves on the chessboard. Though the count of Tyrol and most of his vassals were away, his countess, the formidable Margarete Maultasch was not, and Margarete Maultasch was not prepared to yield to Karl, not ever, because she could not. You may remember that she had been married to Karl’s brother, Johann Heinrich and had him thrown out of the county. Not only that, shortly after that she had married Ludwig the Elder of Wittelsbach without her previous marriage being annulled. The emperor Ludwig had granted her a civil divorce, but in the eyes of the church and a large chunk of the public opinion, she was still married. And that meant, if she surrendered now, she would have been hauled before an ecclesiastical court as a bigamist. The penalty for bigamy was flogging followed by exposure to the crowd at the scaffold, plus she would have lost Tyrol not only for herself but also for her son.

Hence Margarete Maultasch could not yield, ever. She gathered what small forces she had and fortified the ancestral residence of Schloss Tyrol above Meran. If you ever have a chance to go there, take a look. Schloss Tyrol is, even by the standards of Tyrol with many amazing fortresses atop steep mountains an outstanding position. And it had been strengthened by generations of counts of Tyrol, making it almost impregnatable.

Margarete Maultasch held out against Karl and his allies for several months until her husband finally arrived from Berlin with a relief army, sending Karl packing.

This failure seemed like a nail in the coffin of Karl’s ambition. Disguised as a pilgrim, he travelled through Austria to Bohemia. He did meet with the Habsburg duke Albrecht on the way but could not convince him to join his cause. Albrecht was as much a calculating chess player as Karl and he was not willing to take sides at a point when the outcome was so open. All he promised was neutrality for now.

In August Karl was finally back in Prague. There he celebrated a coronation as king of Bohemia which to his great relief attracted at least some of the imperial princes. What enticed them to come, you will hear in a minute.

First, we need to talk about Bohemia. Though he was popular in Bohemia, the Bohemian barons drove a hard bargain. Karl had to confirm all ancient privileges plus guarantee that no “foreigners” would gain any of the senior positions in the kingdom, that no vassals could be forced to fight beyond the border, that royal claims on completed fiefdoms were to be restricted and that certain taxes were abolished.

In return the barons allowed the coronation to go ahead and even provided the funds to muster sizeable army to attack Bavaria or Brandenburg. And just when he was about to order the departure for Munich news arrived that the emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, at the age of 65 had gone on a bear hunt and had not returned. I am not sure what is more astounding, that a 65 year old man suffers a heart attack when facing up to a bear with bows and arrows or that there were actual bears in Fuerstenfeldbruck, a place known more for its erratic driving style than its megafauna.

This event elicited two reactions. Karl thought, definitely not for the first time, that his extraordinary luck was another sign from God who had made him his champion. The reaction in the Wittelsbach camp was shock and despair. Their position had rested to a large extent on Ludwig’s personality, his competent statesmanship and the fact that he had been on the throne for 33 years and that everybody accepted him as emperor despite the interdict and the dodgy coronation.

Now they needed a new champion. If these had been the Habsburgs, the family would have rallied around the eldest of the sons, Ludwig the Elder, the margrave of Brandenburg and Count of Tyrol. But the Wittelsbach were a more disjointed lot and there were some issues with Ludwig, him being a bit of a ladies’ man, in particular the ladies of his courtiers and allies. And Ludwig was one of only two Prince Electors in the family and there was a debate whether an elector could vote for himself at an election.

So, they needed someone else. I mean there were four more sons of the emperor, but they could not decide for any one of them, for reasons, see above. That led to the natural choice of, drumroll, King Edward III of England, the victor of Crecy and all out 14^th century super lad. How they got this idea is totally beyond me. The Wittelsbachs had just cheated Edward out of his wife’s inheritance, the counties of Holland and Hennegau. Edward was also still busy with the French, that war isn’t called the hundred years war for nothing. Very much to the Bavarians’ surprise, Edward III politely declined the offer.

Next one on the list was Fredrich der Ernsthafte, the serious of Wettin, himself landgrave of Thuringia and Margrave of Meissen. That made a lot more sense. Friedrich’s lands were sandwiched between Bohemia and Brandenburg, making him a target for the ambitions of either houses. He would be dragged into the conflict whether he wanted or not, hence steadfast support of the Wittelsbach plus the promise of bits of Brandenburg was a compelling offer.

Friedrich the Serious was about to draft his letter of acceptance when he heard bewildering news from Magdeburg.

In Spring 1348 an old man in pilgrim’s garb had appeared at the gates of the castle of Wolmirstedt and had demanded to see the archbishop of Magdeburg. He had an important message for the prelate he said. The guards refused him access to the prince of the church, as one would. Then the man asked for just bread and wine, as was owed to him as a pilgrim. The old man was sitting down in the hall chewing on his bread when one of the aides of the archbishop spotted him noticed something unusual and exclaimed: “this is the ring of margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg”, pointing to the signet ring the old man was wearing. The pilgrim was brought before the archbishop and asked where he got this ring from. At which point the old man revealed that he was the margrave Woldemar of Brandenburg. Which was surprising, since Woldemar of Brandenburg had died in 1319, i.e., 29 years earlier. Not only that, his body had been buried with great pomp in the abbey of Chorin in the presence of many princes and lords.

Well, the pilgrim said, that burial had been a fake. He, Woldemar had been riven with guilt for marrying his first cousin and had decided to do penance by going on a long pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And to make it more of a penance he had pretended to be dead. But now he was back, released from his sins and willing to release his lands from the grip of the louche and tyrannical Ludwig the Elder of Wittelsbach.

The archbishop Otto of Magdeburg immediately bought this thoroughly convincing story and declared the old man to be indeed the one and only Woldemar the Great, true margrave of Brandenburg and Prince Elector of the empire. In return the grateful margrave rewarded the archbishop with valuable castles and lands.

Soon after the cousins of the Margrave, the counts of Anhalt and the dukes of Saxen-Wittenberg came to see the man and  confirmed his identity as their long lost relative Woldemar of Brandenburg. In return Woldemar made them the heirs to the margraviate since he was unlikely to father any children given his advanced age.

Quite rapidly lord and knights of Brandenburg heard of the story and they too recognised their old lord and master. What convinced them was not just the physical similarity between him and the old margrave, but also his knowledge of specific events in the past, his speech and mannerisms. Ah, and they recognised him for his legendary generosity when he handed them rights, lands and castles.

As the new old Woldemar gathered supporters, the actual margrave of Brandenburg, Ludwig the Elder, head of the house of Wittelsbach and main opponent of Karl of Bohemia saw his hold on the territory slipping away. He had been unpopular with the locals, in part for his loose morals but probably even more for his tight fiscal policies.

For our Karl, the return of margrave Woldemar was another gift from God. He met up with the man, declared that he was the real thing and confirmed him as the margrave of Brandenburg and in all his other fiefdoms. And in return Woldemar gave him upper Lusatia.

For the next two years Brandenburg suffered in a civil war between Woldemar and Ludwig the Elder. The war sucked in not just Karl, but also the king of Denmark, Waldemar Atterdag, the great foe of the Hanseatic league and the dukes of Pomerania and Mecklenburg.

Now if you have followed the chronology, you may have noticed which year we are in, yes 1348 and in 1348 a massive event that ill upturn medieval society had begun, the Black Death. The conflict was however so intense, even the massive death toll the disease brought barely stopped the fighting.

In the vagaries of war and disease outcomes are unpredictable. Despite support from Bohemia, Ludwig the Elder gradually got the upper hand in the conflict.

But by then it had already been to late for the Wittelsbachs.

Karl had once again outsmarted his enemies. His first coup had been to convince the patricians of Nurnberg that their interest lay in the east, in Bohemia and Hungary and that hence he was a more useful ally than the Wittelsbachs. With Nurnberg came many of the Swabian cities, once a key source of funds and support for the Wittelsbach cause.

And then he turned the tables once more when he used the constant friction within the Wittelsbach family. The count palatinate Rudolf was a Wittelsbach but like his father had an ambivalent relationship with Ludwig the Bavarian and the rest of the family. Karl charmed the old man to let him marry his daughter Anna, sole heiress to the principality. The marriage was agreed and then concluded within days. The old count palatinate got his estates to swear Karl fealty in case of his death and even gave him control of his administration. The Palatinate hugely strengthened the Luxemburg position in the west and brought him the Upper Palatinate that lay between Bohemia and his latest ally, the city of Nurnberg.

Karl was as I said before the exact opposite of his father. John of Bohemia would have sought victory on the battlefield and absent that gained death and glory. Karl did not care about glory and he also wasn’t keen on war. But still he wanted to win and win at all cost. And when I say at all cost I mean it.

Karl bribed the imperial princes lavishly. Prince Electors got land and what was left of the imperial rights to mint coins and collect tolls. The Pomeranians and Mecklenburgers were made dukes and imperial princes. Friedrich the Serious of Meissen was given land and cash.

The Historian Ferdinand Seibt had calculated that Karl spent a total of 1.8 million gold florins. A stunning sum by any measure. If you know your history of the hundred years war, you may remember that king Edward III had funded the campaign in France with loans from the Florentine bankers, the Bardi and Peruzzi to the tune of 1.5 million golf florins and when he was unable to pay it, he declared England bankrupt. His default leading to the collapse of a whole generation of Florentine banking houses, creating the opening for the Medici to rise to power.

Karl spent even more on his fight for the throne than Edward had spent on the campaign in France. Most of the money, about 900,000 florins went to the Prince Electors, 500,000 to the other imperial princes, 300,000 to counts and barons and 100,000 to the cities and individual patricians. The cheapest of them was it seems the anti king the Wittelsbach finally fielded, Count Gunther of Schwarzenberg. This knight and mercenary commander was the only one prepared to accept this suicide mission. Gunther lasted just three months after his election before he accepted 20,000 florins as payment for stepping down. He died a few weeks later. Do I need to tell you that Karl saw this again as a sign that he was God’s anointed.

By June 1349 the process was completed. The heavily bribed princes elected him again in Frankfurt and he was crowned again, this time in Aachen by his uncle Balduin of Trier. A year later he reconciled with the Wittelsbachs who handed over the imperial regalia. He dropped Woldemar who he now realised had been fake all along and enfeoffed Ludwig the elder with Brandenburg. Waldemor was given a caste to live out his last days.

Which leaves only one question. Where did Karl get his 1.8 million Florins from. Well, it wasn’t Bohemia whose barons remained tight fisted. Instead, Karl raided what was left of the lands and properties associated with the royal and imperial title. You remember that way back at the beginning of this series king Rudolf of Habsburgs spent most of his reign rebuilding the imperial domain. His policy of Revindication had been extremely successful and large parts of the properties the Hohenstaufen emperors had once ruled returned into royal control. Under his successors this stock had already shrunk somewhat, but when Karl appeared on the scene there was still quite a lot left. Within the first 2 years of his reign, almost all of it dissipated in bribes and awards. That is where the 1.8 million florins cam from. These weren’t cash payments but contributions in kind. Castles, toll stations, mints, advocacies over important abbeys, taxation rights over free and imperial cities etc., etc., etc. The resources meant to run the empire disappeared down the greedy throats of the imperial elites.

Karl will try to claim some of it back in the remainder of his reign but will ultimately give it away again when he secured the election of his son Wenceslaus as king of the Romans.

What that meant was that becoming king of the Romans became unaffordable to anyone not able to fund the entire administration of the empire out of their own funds. Without the royal lands no “poor count” like Rudolf von Habsburg or Henry of Luxemburg could ever again rise to the top of the tree after being elected. That removed the wildcard we had seen in previous elections and left the crown to whoever was the richest prince in the empire. And in 1349 Karl count of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia, margrave of Moravia, duke of Silesia and lots more was the richest of the imperial princes. Opinions differ about why he did strip the imperial title of all its resources. Was it necessity to gain the throne or was it a cunning long term plan aimed to shut out any of the other families from ever gaining the imperial diadem. This is one of the things we will never know because Karl’s autobiography breaks up with the election in 1346, meaning we are back to conjecture based on chroniclers and charters.

Now what does the empire look like Karl IV ruled over in 1349. Not great is the answer. We have the usual feuding and declining agricultural production but there is now another enemy, an enemy  impervious to arms or bribes that was making his way east and north, the Black Death. And that is what we will be talking about next time. Not just the horrors of the epidemic, but also how the loss of a third of the population changed the economic and mental landscape of the 14^th century. I hope you will join us again.

But before I go just the customary shout out about the fact that the History of the Germans has remained advertising free for all these years and that I intend to keep it that way. And that depends a lot on the generosity of our patrons and you can become a patron too by signing up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on historyofthegermans.com/support.