The 168th episode of the History of the Germans delves into the transformative period of the Ottomans from Osman to the Battle of Nicopolis. It highlights how Osman, the son of an Anatolian warlord, laid the foundations for what would become one of the world’s greatest empires, despite starting as just one of many Turkic beys in a tumultuous landscape. The narrative explores the cultural and military strategies that enabled the Ottomans to expand, emphasizing their approach of gradual assimilation and religious tolerance as they conquered predominantly Christian lands. The episode also recounts the dramatic Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, where a coalition of European knights faced the formidable Ottoman forces, leading to a catastrophic defeat for the crusaders. As the episode unfolds, it illustrates the lasting impact of these events on the geopolitical landscape of Europe and the Ottoman Empire’s rise as a dominant power in the centuries to follow..

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TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 168 – The Ottomans, from Osman to Nicopolis, which is also episode 5 of Season 9 – The Reformation before the Reformation.

For over 400 years, ever since the battle on the Lechfeld in 955, Western Europeans did not have to fear an enemy on their eastern flank. It was in fact the other way around. Christian warriors had expanded relentlessly – southward in the crusades, trying to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim rule; northward, where crusaders and knightly orders converted pagan Slavs by fire and sword; and eastward, as German speaking settlers spread across Central Europe and the Balkans.

But then, on a clear September morning in 1396, that era of unchecked expansion came to a dramatic halt. Outside the city of Nikopol in Bulgaria, the mightiest knights and princes of Europe gathered, their breastplates and polished helmets blazing in the rising sun. Their battle-hardened horses, bred to crush enemies underfoot, shifted restlessly, sensing the tension of the moment. This was not a battle against pagan tribal warriors or the defence of a crusading castle far away from home and hearth. This was something altogether new.

Before them stood an army unlike any they had ever faced. To men like the Count of Nevers—soon to be known as John the Fearless of Burgundy—this strange, audacious enemy had it all wrong. Their horse regiments were made up of lightly armoured archers, no match for the tank-like knights, and – what height of foolishness, their centre where their leader was clearly visible wasn’t held by elite cavalry, but by the weakest of medieval military forces, their infantry. And, these soldiers weren’t even free men fighting for their honour, they were slaves.

That the great prince and warrior thought will be a walk in the park. Nevers demanded the honor of leading the charge himself, envisioning the glory of victory and with it the greatest prize of all, the union of the Orthodox and Roman church that the emperor of Constantinople had promised should they defeat this new foe, they called the Ottomans…..

But before we can ride with John the Fearless into the lines of Janissaries, I have to tell you again, and I am sorry about that, but again, the History of the Germans is advertising free, except for these brief little skids. And that is thanks to the immeasurable generosity of our patrons who have signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on historyofthegermans.com/support. And remember not to sign on using the Patreon app on your iPhone since Apple will now charge you an additional 30% for the privilege. If you want to avoid that, sign up using your trusty old home computer or go to Patreon.com using your internet browser. In the latter case just be careful you are not getting auto-redirected to the Patreon App.

And thanks so much to Mary Lee & Dan, Paul J., Robert B., Rokas V.,  Stefan S., Stuart S. and Tigram Z who have already taken the plunge and dodged the Apple bullet.

One last bit of housekeeping. The last two episodes I have been going on about a war of seven saints, a war many of you pointed out never happened. What did happen was a war of eight saints. I do apologise for dropping a Saint and accept the additional 10,000 years in purgatory this warrants..

With that, back to the show

Almost exactly a century before the knights of Christian Europe gazed upon the unfamiliar sight of turbaned riders and thousands of slave soldiers, a young man, the son of an Anatolian warlord visited his neighbour, the venerable Sheikh Edabali. The name of this young man was Osman. Having been fed and watered as an honoured guest, the young suitor had fallen asleep in Edabali’s garden and dreamt: quote  

“From the bosom of Edebali rose the full moon and inclining towards the bosom of Osman it sank upon it, and was lost to sight.
After that a goodly tree sprang forth, which grew in beauty and in strength, ever greater and greater.
Still did the embracing verdure of its boughs and branches cast an ampler and an ampler shade, until they canopied the extreme horizon of the three parts of the world. Under the tree stood four mountains, which he knew to be Caucasus, Atlas, Taurus, and Haemus.
These mountains were the four columns that seemed to support the dome of the foliage of the sacred tree with which the earth was now centred.
From the roots of the tree gushed forth four rivers, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Nile.
Tall ships and barks innumerable were on the waters.
The fields were heavy with harvest.
The mountain sides were clothed with forests.
Thence in exulting and fertilizing abundance sprang fountains and rivulets that gurgled through thickets of the cypress and the rose.
In the valleys glittered stately cities, with domes and cupolas, with pyramids and obelisks, with minarets and towers.
The Crescent shone on their summits: from their galleries sounded the Muezzin’s call to prayer.
That sound was mingled with the sweet voices of a thousand nightingales, and with the prattling of countless parrots of every hue.
Every kind of singing bird was there.
The winged multitude warbled and flitted around beneath the fresh living roof of the interlacing branches of the all-overarching tree; and every leaf of that tree was in shape like unto a scimitar.
Suddenly there arose a mighty wind, and turned the points of the sword-leaves towards the various cities of the world, but especially towards Constantinople.
That city, placed at the junction of two seas and two continents, seemed like a diamond set between two sapphires and two emeralds, to form the most precious stone in a ring of universal empire.
Osman thought that he was in the act of placing that visional ring on his finger, when he awoke” end quote

His host, the venerable Sheikh Edabali told Osman that this dream was a sign that he and his descendants would once rule one of the world’s greatest empires. And since he wanted to be along for the ride, Edabali joined the young man’s emerging confederation and gave him his daughter as his wife.

The rest is history. Under Osman’s successors all of this dream came true, maybe excluding the huge tree, the birdsong and the bountiful harvest.  

But how did they manage?

When Osman took command of his father’s little warband, world domination was nowhere on the horizon, not even as a fictitious dream. Osman was just one of dozens of Turkic Beys in western Anatolia squeezed in between the Mongols who had taken over from the Seljuk Rum Sultanate and the Byzantine Empire in the west. The sea routes were dominated by Genoese and Venetian fleets and remnants of the crusader states and their chivalric orders still clung on to bits of the Middle East.

To understand Osman’s journey, we must go back to the origin story of the Turks in Anatolia.

The Turkic peoples first emerged in the vast expanses of Central Asia in the sixth century—a people of the steppe, kin to the fearsome Huns, Magyars, and Mongols. They were born to a life on horseback, their existence defined by the rhythm of the open plains and the wild gallop of their hardy steeds. Their composite bows—masterfully crafted from horn, wood, and sinew—were powerful weapons of astonishing range, allowing the Turks to shoot with lethal accuracy even in the chaos of a high-speed charge. Like phantoms, they would advance, release a deadly volley, and retreat before their enemies could react, only to return in relentless waves, wearing their opponents down before swooping in for the kill.

Over the centuries horse archers have bested the armies of the settled empires of Asia and Europe again and again.  But once they had conquered these rich civilisations they faced a stark choice. Their military advantage was bound to the grasslands, their lean, swift horses dependent on the rich pastures of the steppe. And while their composite bows were marvels of engineering, they were also fragile. The glue that held the layers together could soften and lose its power in damp climates, leaving the Turks’ bows as vulnerable as they were fearsome.

One option was to return to their homelands, weighted down with spoils, and leave behind these fertile lands that promised permanence and power. Or, they could adapt to a settled life, integrating with the lands and cultures they had conquered.

The most successful of these horse archer empires did exactly that. They co-opted the existing elites into their empire, tasked them with the management of these complex societies, they recruited the engineers to develop their siege engines and used the artisans to design their palaces. Over time they mixed with existing population and created a new culture that combined elements of both.

This process repeated throughout history again and again, the Magyars in Hungary, the Bulgars, the Mongols in China, the Mamluks in Egypt and the Delhi Sultanate to name just a few.

One of these groups, a Turkic tribe called the Seljuks had gained a foothold in Mesopotamia which they expanded until in 1055 they were able to take over Baghdad, the capital of the Abassid Khalif, the leader of the Islamic world. They became the sultans, the protectors of the Khalif. And like other Turkic tribes before they integrated into their host culture, adopted Islam, learned Persian and built impressive mosques.

One subgroup of these Seljuk Turks then moved on further west into Byzantine Asia Minor. And they very much liked what they found there. An arid plateau with wonderful grassland for their horses and a climate that suited their composite bows. As they settled in, they ran up against the Byzantine empire who had ruled these lands for centuries. The conflict culminated in a great battle at Manzikert in 1071 where a huge Byzantine army was destroyed.  This defeat triggered emperor Alexis Comnenus request for help to pope Urban II that kicked off the Crusades.

But neither Byzantine armies nor crusaders could now shift the Seljuks out of central Anatolia. They settled down and established their capital at Konya where they reigned as the Seljuk Sultans of Rum, Rum being the Turkish and Arabic word for Rome.  In 1176 a last ditch attempt to remove the Seljuks and regain central Anatolia ended with the defeat at Myriokephalon.

If you remember, Barbarossa did defeat the Seljuks a few years later and took Konya in the third crusade, but that did not change anything as the emperor died a few weeks later and Konya returned to the Sultan.

When the Seljuks arrived in Anatolia, they numbered at absolute maximum about 500,000 whilst the population of Anatolia, once the richest part of the eastern empire was likely several million. Moreover, the Seljuks were Muslims whilst the population of Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christion, mostly orthodox but also Armenian and various smaller sects as well as a sizeable Jewish community.

And again, the classic steppe nomad pattern repeated itself. The Seljuks employed the local bureaucrats to run their new principality and allowed them to retain their religion and culture.

The Koran, like in fact the Bible, prohibits the forced conversion of unbelievers. And whilst the Christians did not aways adhere to that premise, Muslim conquerors in the pre-modern period by and large did. I very much doubt that was a function of some sort of moral superiority, but much rather down to the fact that the Muslim conquerors tended to be a comparatively small group in a sea of peoples adhering to a different religion. Tolerance was a necessity, not a choice. The same happened with the Normans of Sicily, coexistence of catholic, orthodox, Muslims and jews was the only viable option to build a sustainable political entity.

The Seljuk sultanate lasted 200 years and in this period transformed Christian Byzantine Asia Minor into Muslim Turkish Anatolia. Not by force but by a slow drip, drip of cultural infusion. As Muslim rulers they embarked on a huge building program, establishing Mosques and Madrassas in all the major cities. Sufi lodges called tekke appeared all over the countryside as did the Türbe. A Türbe is the tomb of a venerated person, a saint or sometimes just a very devout person of prominence.

Cut off from Constantinople Christian churches lacked educated priests and bishops and over time even the structures themselves deteriorated, partly from shortage of funds, general neglect and the frequent earthquakes. As churches collapsed, these Muslim structures took their place, impressing the population with their splendour and inviting them in.

And at the heart of this transformation was the magnetic figure of Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad —better known simply as Rumi. Born in the rich cultural crucible of Khorasan in Persia, Rumi was and is one of the world’s most celebrated poets, a Muslim jurist, and above all, a mystic whose influence would extend far beyond the lands of his birth.

Rumi believed that through music, dance, and poetry, one could come closer to the divine. His vision was that of unity—of the soul with God, of cultures with one another. This belief culminated in what would become known as the Mevlevi Order of the Whirling Dervishes. These dervishes, with their rhythmic, entrancing rotations and soulful melodies, were not merely performing rituals but embodying a path to transcendence, a surrender to the mysteries of the universe. And the people of Anatolia, weary of the divides that had marked their past, embraced this mystical vision of life.

The impact was profound. The Mevlevi Order Rumi founded spread across Anatolia, and with it, a new cultural synthesis emerged. Turkish language began to take root, blending with the linguistic traditions of those who had lived on this plateau for centuries. The kitchen transformed too, with Turkmen flavors—thick yogurts and the famous ayran drinks—joining Mediterranean tastes, creating a cuisine that balanced the settled with the nomadic. Within a few generations, the identity of Asia Minor shifted: it was no longer solely Byzantine Christian or entirely Turkmen. Instead, it had become its own thing, Turkish Anatolia.

This model of tolerance and gradual assimilation is what the Ottomans inherited from the Seljuk and that they will deploy across all the lands they will conquer.

If we compare the conquest and transformation of Anatolia with the conquest of Prussia by the Teutonic Knights we have discussed in episodes 130 following, we can see how the Turkish approach was much more sustainable. The forced conversions and aggressive immigration policies of the Teutonic Knights left the Prussian state susceptable to repeated uprisings and ultimately a defeat against a coalition of the locals and neighbours, something the Ottomans rarely experienced.

Despite all its achievements, the Seljuk Sultanate of Konya collapsed when the Mongols invaded in 1242, the same year they had appeared simultaneously in Poland and Hungary. The Sultanate broke down into dozens of small vassal principalities called the Beyliks.

To get away from the powerful Mongols, the beyliks moved westwards, infiltrating the ailing Byzantine empire. The power of the emperor in Constantinople had taken a devastating blow in 1204 when a western crusading army sacked the great city. In the wake of this crime, a Latin emperor reigned in Constantinople who spent most of his time fighting several Byzantine break-away principalities. Though the latin empire fell in 1262 and an orthodox emperor returned to the Blachernai Palace, the ancient realm was only a shadow of itself.

And it wasn’t set up to deal with these Turkish beys.

The Byzantines were used to fighting large, organised states much like themselves. It was all geared up for that one decisive battle. The emperors would muster an army, march to the area threatened by the Turks, offer battle, but nobody showed up. After a few weeks of marching back and forth the money ran out and the Byzantines returned to Constantinople. At which point the Turks returned and occupied the countryside and harassed the rich cities of western Anatolia. You do this a couple of times, and the urban population concludes that it made more sense submitting to the Beys who could provide safety and security rather than hoping for another Christian relief army.

And submission was made easy because the beys maintained the Seljuk policy of religious tolerance. Christian communities were allowed to retain their religion, their churches and bishops. Yes, they were second class citizens and had to pay a special tax levied on non-believers, but most cities along the shore of the Aegean were happy to take that if the alternative was constant low-level war, oppressive imperial taxes and in its wake – economic contraction.

Our man Osman was one of these Beys. His headquarters were in Söğüt, a small town, if not at the time just a village about 80 miles from Bursa and the sea of Marmara. His was neither the largest nor the richest of the Beyliks. So how did he end up founding an empire and all the other Beys disappeared down the Orcus of history?

The anonymous early ottoman writer whose chronicle is today preserved in the Bodlean library wrote about Osman’s success: quote “one must consider the following: that the sultanates of most other sultans came about through injustice towards their predecessors and by conquering, overpowering and subjugating the Muslims…But Osman Bey and his forefathers […] attacked the infidels in the borderlands with their swords, occupying themselves with Gaza and sustaining their communities with plunder” end quote.

This was long interpreted as Gaza, i.e., holy war being at the heart of Ottoman success. But one can also read it in another way. Osman was popular amongst the Turks of Anatolia, because he refrained from fighting other beyliks. So the other beys did not stop him  recruiting their fighters to come along on his campaigns. And he was a successful general who provided great opportunities for plunder.

The empire builders of the steppe, the Genghis Khans and Tamarlanes of this world were exceptional power brokers. How do you think Genghis Khan conquered the largest empire that ever existed? Surely not with just the few hundred members of his own tribe. He found a way to attract diverse groups to his great conquests, some were Mongols, other were Turks and even settled peoples who preferred to ride with the conqueror than being conquered.

And Osman was no different, just on a smaller scale. Many of those willing to ride with him were fellow Anatolian Turks, veterans of internecine warfare between the various beys, but also Mongols unhappy with their leadership and Byzantine soldiers dismissed by or otherwise disaffected with the emperor in Constantinople.

In just a few years after Osman had taken over, his coalition had become so powerful, the emperor sent his one and only field army to crush the upstart. This time the Turks did not disappear into the woods. At the battle of Bapheus Osman’s forces routed the Byzantines. This victory cemented Osman’s reputation as a great warlord and attracted even more fighters from all across Asia Minor to join his banner. Over the next 30 years Osman and his equally gifted son Orhan used  these forces to conquer the ancient province of Bithynia, once a heartland of the Byzantine empire. One by one its great cities fell to the Ottomans, Bursa in 1323, Nicea in 1331 and Nicomedia in 1337. Bursa became the first capital of the Ottoman state.

But this battle had a further impact as it set in motion a sequence of events that would accelerate the empire’s demise.

The emperor, Andronikus II had lost his last field army and like many of his predecessors had to reach out for western help. This time these helpers weren’t crusaders but an army of battle-hardened Catalan mercenaries, veterans of the wars between the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples.

Their leader was a man called Roger de Flor or Roger Blum, whose father had been a German, a falconer at the court of our old friend the emperor Frederick II. Andronikus II promised Roger gold and titles in abundance if he just got rid of that Turkish menace in western Anatolia.

Roger’s forces crossed over to Bithynia in 1304 in search of the Ottoman army. Osman saw the strength of this force and reverted back to type. He ran for the hills. The Catalans went here and there, always thinking that their foe would be around the next corner, but Osman never showed. Time went by and money ran out. The mercenaries did what mercenaries do and plundered the land, stealing indiscriminately from Muslims and Christians. The emperor protested. The mercenaries said, where is our money. The emperor said, do not worry, the cheque is in the post. The mercenaries believe the emperor needs a nudge and cross the Dardanelles and fortify Gallipoli. The emperor responds by having Roger de Flor murdered. The Catalans are now genuinely angry and besiege Constantinople. The Theodocian walls held, but that was the only good news. The Catalans devastated Thrace and finally cut out their own little place in the sun, the duchy of Athens.

The impact on the empire was devastating. The treasury was empty, Western Anatolia was lost for good, the European lands were in ruins. A sudden rush for Byzantine real estate ensued. The beys, the Bulgars, the Serbs, the Knights Hospitallers, the venetians, the Genoese they all got  a piece of that once great state. For a while it looked as if the Serbs under their leader Stefan Dušan had picked up the biggest chunk, would take over the capital and make themselves the successors of Constantine.

It is testament to the incredible resilience of this mortally wounded empire that it did not collapse right away. But things went into another tailspin when in 1341 John V, a child of eight became emperor. As was tradition, a drawn-out civil war ensued. In this war both sides used the best mercenary fighters the levant had on offer, which happened to be the Ottoman cavalry. And as before, money ran out before the mercenaries could be packed off home. These Turkmen reacted to the unpaid bills and broken promises in exactly the same way as the Catalans. They moved into the defences left behind in Gallipoli. The emperor said, give it back. They said, where is the money. The emperor said, cheque is in the post.

This time the mercenaries did not march on Constantinople, instead they did something that would ultimately break the 1000 year old empire, in 1354 they offered Gallipoli to their true lord, Orhan, the son of Osman.

And with that the Ottomans gained a bridgehead on the European continent. And as luck would have it, the then undisputed strongman on the Balkans, Stefan Dusan died in 1355 leaving the door wide open for Ottoman conquest. Again, city after city fell to Orhan and his son Murad I.

And again, the Ottomans deployed their well-honed tactics to bring the population on side.

The first point of order was indeed that, order. Orhan and Murad insisted on the strictest of discipline in the ranks of their army. No burning, plundering or raping was allowed. Then the orthodox population was again permitted to retain their religion, customs, bishops etc. And finally, the Ottomans brought the kind of stability the inhabitants of the collapsing empire craved. For a century now various rulers within it had fought each other, raised oppressive taxes to defend the borders and had given the Venetians and Genoese trade concessions that made them immeasurably rich.

Under Orhan and his successors, taxes were manageable, the roads safe, borders secure and trade flourished.

The Ottomans now had a veritable state which meant military tactics had to change. Retreating into the steppe and wearing out an enemy was no longer an option. The ottomans had to get set up for decisive pitched battles.

Their new military structure was based on two pillars, Sipahis and Janissaries.

The Sipahi were a cavalry force paid through timars. A timar was a share in the income from an estate the soldier received in exchange for his military service. That sounds a bit like a medieval fief, but was nothing of that sort. Ownership of the timar remained with the state and could be re-assigned should the timar-holder fail to show or was otherwise unfit for the job. Timar holders were rotated between Anatolia and the new lands conquered on the European side to prevent the establishment of close nit aristocratic family groups as had happened in Europe. And in order to undermine the social status of timar holders, the sultans and their generals would regularly assign timars to slaves or peasants who had shown bravery in the field.

Each timar holder had to show up with specifically prescribed equipment, which included a horse, weapons, light armour and a squire. They were organised into districts of hundred riders under a commander who then reported upwards to the provincial governor. Both the commander and the governor were chosen on merit and were awarded Timars to maintain their office and as compensation for their service. And like the other timar holders, they could be and were regularly rotated around the empire to stop them getting entrenched.

The second pillar of the Ottoman army were the famous Janissaries. These were slave soldiers recruited from subjugated lands. In their first iteration they were put together using prisoners of war made during the conquests mainly in the Balkans. But as early as the late 14^th century the main recruitment model was the devsirme or collection. That meant every five to 12 years each province on a rotating basis had to hand over one boy for every forty households.

These boys, most of them Christians, received military training, a thorough education and converted to Islam. They were the elite force and personal bodyguard of the Sultan. Janissaries fought on foot, initially armed with bows and swords, later with various forms of firearms. Though they were technically slaves, they received a salary of 2 akce per day, which means roughly 700 a year, which was fairly generous. To put that in context, the timar’s for a cavalry soldier yielded from 500 to 3,000 akce but that had to cover  the cost of the equipment.

Slave soldiers were no Ottoman invention. Long before the Janissaries would make their indelible mark on Ottoman warfare, the practice of forging elite armies from men who had been taken as slaves was a well-established tradition across Asia. The Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad had their ghilman, while Egypt’s ruling dynasties had raised the famed Mamluks. This distinctive brand of soldier was bound not by tribal loyalties or regional ties but by the singular identity impressed upon them from a young age. Strangers to the local nobility and cut off from traditional kinship networks, they offered their loyalty not to their homeland or family, but to the commanders who had crafted them. If they felt attachment, it was for their fellow Janissaries who they had grown up with, trained with, lived with and fought with. Standing firm when other troops might falter, they fought with a resolve that came from knowing their brothers-in-arms would do the same.

On June 15, 1389 this new force was put to the test for the first time in an epic battle against the Serbs, a battle known as the battle on the Kosovo field.

The great Serbian leader Stefan Dusan had conquered large parts of Southestern Europe and had declared himself emperor of a multilingual and multiethnic realm that included not just Serbs but also Bulgars, Greeks and Albanians. But after his death in 1355 this empire declined and by 1389 had broken up into multiple territories, the largest of which was ruled by Lazar Hrebeljanović.

By 1380 Ottoman forces had defeated all the buffer states that stood between them and Lazar’s principality. A final showdown with the sultans was inevitable. Lazar had several years to prepare and by June 1389 the time for the decisive battle had come.

Lazar gathered all his forces and all his allies near Pristina on the field of Kosovo and squared up to sultan Murad I and his son Bayazid, the Thunderbolt.

How exactly this battle unfolded is overlaid with so much nationalist narrative that I will not even try to break it down. Bottom line is that the Turks won. Both commanders, the sultan Murat I and prince Lazar perished. Serbian lore has it that the sultan was killed by a nobleman called Milos Obilic, but Turkish sources have him losing his life in pursuit of Bosnian troops.

And again, the Turks were magnanimous in victory. Contrary to the commonly told story they did not dissolve the Serbian state. They left Lazar’s descendants in charge of what became known as the Despotate of Serbia, a client state of the Ottomans, but one where orthodox Christians could retain their patriarchs and way of life. Some sources even claim that Serbia enjoyed a cultural and economic renaissance under Ottoman rule.

At the next great battle, on September 25, 1396 Lazar’s son, Stefan Lazarevic was standing alongside his father’s foe, sultan Bayazid I when they surveyed the grand European army that had gathered outside Nikopol on the Hungarian border.

This was the first time a western European army went toe to toe with a Turkish force.

But before we talk about the actual battle, let’s talk about why we suddenly find French princes, Burgundian dukes and German nobles in a muddy Balkan field.

After the battle of the Kosovo, the situation for Constantinople had become completely untenable. They were surrounded on all sides by the Ottoman Turks. And likewise, the Ottoman Turks could not feel completely in control of their recently acquired empire when there was still a Byzantine emperor behind the mighty Theodosian walls who could attack their rear at any time. The situation needed to be resolved one way or another. In 1395 Ottoman forces began the siege of Constantinople.

The Byzantine empire had exhausted all its military and economic resources, but it still held one last trump card. Ever since the Eastern and Western churches had parted way in 1054  it had been a papal ambition to rejoin the two parts of Christ’s body. And that desire was even stronger now when there were two popes competing for supremacy of the western church.

The emperor Manuel II Paleologos knew this and made an offer to the Roman pope Boniface IX he could not refuse. If the bishop of Rome was to preach a crusade to free Constantinople, then he, emperor Manuel II would bring the orthodox church under Roman obedience. Even though all the diamonds on Manuel’s crown had been replaced by Swarovski diamonds, this was a prize that would confer immeasurable prestige on both the pope who achieved it and the military commanders who defeated the Turks.

And the timing was almost ideal. Because right around that time the French had subtracted their obedience from the obstinate pope Benedict XIII in Avignon, paving the way for a crusade to be preached even in the lands not following the Roman pope.

The call for a crusade was picked up enthusiastically. After 50 years of conflict between France and England and endless feuds in the Italy and the empire, Europe’s elite, the knights, dukes and princes knew only one way of life, and that was sticking swords into other people in the best possible chivalric taste. Echoing in their minds were the stirring words of the blind King of Bohemia:  “take me to the place where the noise of the battle is the loudest that I may strike one last stroke with my sword”

And in 1396 there weren’t as many options to go to war as their used to be. The Hundred Years’ war had gone into a temporary hiatus as the two kings were negotiating peace and marriage. The Prussian Reizen were less popular now that the Lithuanians had stopped being pagan. So, a crusade down to the Balkans sounded exactly what the doctor ordered.

The crusading army gathered in Buda. It comprised the host, king Sigismund of Hungary, the second son of emperor Karl IV, his Hungarian magnates and German nobles, the constable and the marshal of France, Lord Enguerrand de Coucy who fans of Barbara Tuchman’s distant mirror might remember, Ivan Stratismir, the tsar of Bulgaria, Mircea the elder the Voivode of Walachia and father of Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula, the head of the knights hospitaller and most noble amongst them, John the count of Nevers and future duke of Burgundy. The army was also supported by Genoese and Venetian fleets. Estimates range from 17 to 20,000 troops.

This formidable force, the flower of European chivalry saw itself facing an Ottoman army of similar, maybe even smaller size. When the Turks moved into view, John of Nevers, insisted to charge them immediately. The seasoned Balkan rulers who had encountered the Turks before tried to dissuade him. King Sigismund demanded he postpones the attack for two hours so that his scouts could report back the exact size and position of the enemy.

But nothing can sway the mind of a 25 year old who has been born with a golden spoon in his mouth – the size of a spade. Nevers insisted and his knights, all shiny and full of vigour charged at the enemy. As they thundered down the field, the Ottoman cavalry on their swift horses shot one arrow after another into the mass of riders who could not retaliate in any way. Meanwhile the Janissaries also discharged their bows and arrows rained on the Burgundians and French.

If you have ever seen a phalanx of riders come at you, you will know that the only sensible reaction for anyone on foot is to run. That is why we have mounted police at demonstrations. But that is not what happened at Nikopol.

The Janissaries were positioned on top of a hill and organised in five to seven rows. As the knights crashed into the front row of Ottoman infantry, the line held and the janissaries killed the horses with sharpened sticks. The unhorsed knights should they have survived fought on on foot. Meanwhile the Ottoman cavalry had regrouped and attacked the flanks.

At that point the Hungarians, Germans and Balkan allies joined the fray, but got dispersed between attacking Turks and retreating Frenchmen.

The initial attack force had finally managed to push the Janissaries back when 1,500 Serbs under Stefan Lazarevic appeared. That is when the Burgundians and French surrendered. Sigismund realised that there was nothing left to do and he fled in a fishing boat up the Danube.

The battle was a catastrophic defeat for the crusaders. Thousands had perished, the richest had been taken hostage to be released against huge ransom payments. The remaining Balkan statelets fell under Ottoman rule. Sigismund could barely hold the Hungarian frontier. But the hero of the battle, the great tactician John of Nevers was given the honorific epithet “the fearless” for his chivalric madness.

Sultan Bayazed returned to his siege of Constantinople.

This should be by all accounts be the end of the empire of Constantinople that had lasted a 1000 years already. But the Byzantines were given another 50 year lease of life by someone who nobody expected – Timur or Tamarlane. This new ruler of the Steppe Nomads had come down through Persia and Iraq, had sacked Baghdad in 1401 where he left one of his much admired pyramid of human skulls and in 1402 he appeared in Anatolia. Bayazid rode out to meet him and was comprehensively beaten at the battle of Ankara. The victor of Nikopol ended his life in a metal cage Timur had devised for him. His sultanate was dismantled and split between two of his sons. It would take 30 years before the next great Ottoman sultan Mehmed I was able to stitch the Ottoman empire back together again.

From then on the combination of superior military infrastructure and tactics combined with a well-honed system to integrate newly subjugated populations into the empire made the Ottomans an irresistible force will that dominate imperial and central European politics all the way into the 18^th century.  The fear of Turkish tents rising up outside Vienna will occupy the mind of emperors for the next centuries and is one of the reasons the reformation of 1525 could proceed largely unchecked.

But for now Timur has given europe a 30 year breather, enough to sort out the great schism and deal with the Hussite revolt. How that happened we will get to soon.

But before we get there we still have to do one more of these background episodes. Next week we will spend some more time with the man who we have just seen running away from the field of Nikopol, Sigismund, king of Hungary, soon to be king of the Romans and convener of the council of Constance. I hope you will join us again.

And just before I go, remember today, October 31^st is the last day you can sign up on the Patreon app without incurring a 30% Apple surcharge. If you want to avoid that, use the Patreon website at patreon.com/historyofthegermans or go to my website, historyofthegermans.com/support.

The Political Fight for the Papacy

If you are a longstanding listener to the History of the Germans, you will already know that sometime in the late 14^th century the catholic church broke apart into 2 and then 3 different obediences, three popes residing in different places and being recognised by different nations.

But what you may not know is how exactly this had happened. Why did the exact self-same cardinals elect one pope in April 1378 and another one 4 months later? Who was taking the lead in attempts to resolve the crisis and why did all these attempts fail for 40 years? How far did they go in forcing the various papal contenders to come to the negotiation table. How ridiculous were the popes’ attempts to wiggle out of that…

All that we will look into this week in part 1 of the story of the Great Western Schism at today.

TRANSCRIPT Part 1

Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans: Episode 166 – The Great Western Schism – Part 1, also episode 3 of season 9 – The Reformation before the Reformation

If you are a longstanding listener to the History of the Germans, you will already know that sometime in the late 14^th century the catholic church broke apart into 2 and then 3 different obediences, three popes residing in different places and being recognised by different nations.

But what you may not know is how exactly this had happened. Why did the exact self-same cardinals elect one pope in April 1378 and another one 4 months later? Who was taking the lead in attempts to resolve the crisis and why did all these attempts fail for 40 years? How far did they go in forcing the various papal contenders to come to the negotiation table. How ridiculous were the popes’ attempts to wiggle out of that…

All that we will look into this week in part 1 of the story of the Great Western Schism

But before we start it is the usual big thank you to all our supporters who have either signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or who have made a one-time donation on histryofthegemans.com/support. It is you who keeps this show free and clear of ever more irritating advertising. This show does not expose you to online psychologists, room sharing or crypto exchanges. Has anybody ever found out why there is an inverse correlation between the quality of a brand and the ubiquity of its podcasting advertising? Anyway, today we thank Alex G., Bruno P. Djark A., Charles Y., Daniel N., Kurt O. and Kai B. who have already signed up.

And with that, back to the show

I occasionally choose to split my stories into two parts, one where I talk about what happened and one where I talk about what it meant for the political, economic or cultural fabric of society. When it comes to the Western schism, this is not an option, it is the only way to do it. Since resistance is futile, let’s start with part 1, what the hack happened.

Let’s go back to 1303. As you may remember – mainly because I mention it in practically every episode for the last 6 months, the popes had moved to Avignon after the Slap of Anagni – if you do not know what that was, go back to episode 92 – Papal epilogue.

For 70 years the popes resided in this gorgeous Provencal city, very much enjoying the safety and security that came with the French monarch being just across the river and the murderous Roman aristocrats hundreds of miles away. Though the popes did not intend to stay for long, they gradually built themselves suitable accommodation. The Palais des Papes, the papal palace in Avignon was begun by the rather austere pope Benedict XII and then hugely expanded by the much more worldly Clement VI and his successors. By the late 14^th century the Papal palace covered 15,000 square metres making it the largest and most splendid residence in the whole of Europe. It was built both as a fortress and as a palace, so its walls were 3metres thick and it sports a total of 12 towers, one of which was originally 60 metres tall. At the same time it held a grand audience hall where the pope received ambassadors as well as an enormous papal chapel used for religious ceremonies and the conclave for the election of a new pope.  All very comfortable, safe and secure, basically the exact opposite of what Rome looked like at the same time.

But as there is no free lunch, not even for a pope, this safety and security came at a price. And that price was submission to the wishes of the French crown.

The first pope to reside in the South of France, Clement V was made to put his predecessor on trial for heresy on the French King’s demand. If that wasn’t enough, that same pope signed off on the dissolution of the Templars that resulted in a raid on this rich chivalric order by the French king and the burning of its Grand Master and several others.

So, not that comfortable after all. Clement V’s successors were working hard at extracting themselves from the French dominance. One of these efforts led to the election of emperor Henry VII, the forefather of Karl IV, Wenceslaus and Sigismund who lifted the house of Luxemburg from mere counts to the royal and imperial title. Episode 146 if you want to check it out.

But ultimately the pope could not really be independent as long as he remained within arrow shot of a French garrison. So all throughout this period the popes talked about going back to Rome. The problem was however, that Rome and the Papal states had slipped out of the control of the papal administration. Many of the larger cities, like Bologna, Ferrara and Perugia had first turned into city communes and then became Signorie ruled by autocratic dictators. Rome itself had also asserted its independence, being ruled by the a senate that was dominated by the great Roman families, the Colonna, the Orsini and several others. There had even been a popular uprising led by Cola di Rienzi or Rienzo that did however last only for a brief period. (see episode 159)

It took a Spanish Cardinal, Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz, who fought tirelessly over a period of 13 years, from 1353 to 1367 to restore papal control over the Patrimoni Petri. He made liberal use of sell swords who had been released from duty when the hundred-years war went into its hiatus. These men were in equal measure effective as they were cruel. And they were also entirely coin operated. As long as Albornoz had money, he was able to subdue one town or region after another. Whenever money was short, activity slowed down and the process went into reverse.

These companies of mercenaries were a serious menace, because if they had not secured a new contract for their services, they went freelance. They would appear before the gates of a city with their siege equipment and even guns and make an offer the citizens could not refuse, pay us some fine gold and we will go elsewhere or endure a siege followed by a sacking. The Companies did even threaten Avignon itself and forced the pope to pay them off, twice! And each time they received not only gold but also forgiveness for their sins.

But bottom line was that by 1365 the papacy had regained sufficient control of Rome that they could go back. The pope at the time, Urban V, left Avignon on April 30, 1367 and arrived in the Holy City on October 16^th. Though the French king had told him that he would be crucified upon arrival, as St. Peter had been, Urban survived his journey.

He spent 2 years in Rome, but without Albornoz who had died in 1367, he was unable to control the rebellious cities. Even Rome rose up against him and by the end of 1370 he was back in Avignon, where he then promptly died – a punishment for his cowardice as various saints and mystics claimed.

The next pope, Gregory XI, vowed to get back to Rome for good. But it took him seven years to rebuild his authority in the papal states. It also did not help that relations between the church and Florence had deteriorated. That was in part due to the success of Gregory’s troops that left Florence feeling threatened. And in 1374 the pope prohibited the export of grain to Florence where famine had broken out. Anti-papal, or more specifically anti-French pope sentiment reached fever pitch culminating in a war between Florence and its oldest ally, the papacy. The Florentines called it the war of the seven saints, referring to their own leadership against a godless pope.

This war was going well for Florence. One papal city after another joined the Florentine League calling for a return of their ancient liberties. Ultimately only Rome itself stood with Gregory. To relieve his lands from occupation, Gregory hired two of the greatest mercenary companies of the time, the Bretons and John Hawkwood’s White Company. Just in case this sounds familiar, the “Golden Company” in Game of Thrones is modelled on Hawkwood’s soldiers. The two companies did meet with some success, mainly by burning down the countryside around Bologna and starving the city into submission.

The real turning point came when the Breton company was staying in their winter quarters in the small town of Cesena. As so often happened, one of the mercenary soldier ended up in a brawl with some local butchers. The brawl expanded as both sides called upon their friends for help. Within hours the citizens of Cesena  were running round shouting “death to the Bretons and the pastors of the church”. The papal legate who was in charge of these military operations, a certain Robert of Geneva withdrew his remaining forces to the citadel and called Hawkwood to come to his aid. And Hawkwood arrived a few days later with all of his 4,000 well trained mercenary men, their highly polished armour sparkling in the winter sun. By the time the day was out, the shine had come off their armour and their white surcoats were drenched in blood. How many citizens of Cesena perished in the massacre is unknown. People across Italy told each other about the countless women who had been raped, about babies whose heads were smashed against walls and unimaginable bestialities committed by these monsters. And they kept repeating the name of the man who had overall command at Cesena, the cardinal legate Robert of Geneva who they said had run around with his mercenaries shouting “I want blood, Blood! Blood! Kill them all!”. Remember this name, it may come back again.

The timing of the massacre at Cesena could not have been worse. Because just weeks earlier Pope Gregory XI had finally made landfall in Italy. There are multiple depictions of Gregory XI’s entry into Rome on January 17^th, 1378, all showing him arriving at his splendid palace on a white horse or mule, handing out gold coins whilst bystanders, bishops, cardinals, monks and nuns watch adoringly. Not quite how it happened. Gregory XI arrived surrounded by 2,000 armed men. Upon brief inspection the Lateran palace, home of the popes for centuries was so dilapidated, there was no way the Holy Father could live there. So, the whole cavalcade turned and set off across the Tiber to the Vatican City. There suitable accommodation could be found. And that is where the popes have lived ever since.

The massacre of Cesena may have been another nail in the already rickety coffin of the papacy, in particular its French speaking popes, but it did break the spirit of the Florentine League. The war of the seven saints was over and the pope had regained the Patrimonium Petri.

And that is when he died.

What happened next has been disputed, less by contemporaries then by French and Italian historians for centuries.

Gregory XI, when he saw his end approaching issued a papal bull changing the terms of the papal election to make sure a new pope could be elected almost instantly after his death. Many authors interpret this as Gregory being afraid of a Schism and hence wanted a swift, if unconventional election. I find that quite honestly nonsense. If he had indeed been afraid of a schism, legitimacy of the newly elected pontiff should have been at the forefront of his mind. Hence he would have left instructions to make sure that every aspect of this conclave would be in accordance with the letter of canon law. By suggesting an expedient election, even one without a formal conclave if necessary, he made it even more likely the election would end up contested.

In any event, the cardinals decided to hold a formal conclave. They met in Saint Peters, all 16 of them. Four of them were Italians, one Spanish and the rest are often called French. However, within that group there were 5 from the Limousin region. The reason for that was that 3 of the last 4 popes had been from the Limousin area and these guys were all their nephews and other relatives. Hence the other French, led by Cardinal Robert of Geneva, the butcher of Cesena, there he is again! wanted anything but another Limousin pope. This faction also included the Spanish Cardinal, Peter de Luna, another name worth remembering.

As the conclave opened and the popes marched across St. Peter’s square they saw a large crowd of Romans who made their wishes clear – “Romano lo Volemo” we want a Roman. Some would later write that they shouted much harsher words than that, something along the lines of “If you do not give us a Roman, we will kill you all”.

Once the doors had closed the conclave begun in earnest. Robert of Geneva had already canvassed his colleagues and – realising his hands were still a bit too blood drenched to put on the papal mitre, is alleged to have declared that quote “We shall have no one else as pope than the archbishop of Bari”.  The Limoges faction too realised that they had no chance to push their own candidate. So the cardinal of Limoges rose and declared quote “I propose the election of a man to whom the people cannot seriously object and who would show himself favourably to us….I elect the archbishop of Bari to be pontiff of the holy and catholic church and this I do freely and willingly” end quote. Cardinal Orsini, another one who had hoped to move up in the church stakes, resigned himself to the inevitable, and declared he would vote with the majority.

Who is this archbishop of Bari everyone was so keen on? His name was Bartomolmeo Prignani. He was, as the name indicates, an Italian. Not a Roman, but a man from the kingdom of Naples. The reason everyone in the college of cardinals could so readily agree on him was that they all knew him. Prignano had spent the last 14 years in Avignon as a diplomat for the curia and was recently elevated to vice-chancellor for Italy, aka he was the guy with the key to the moneybox. He was an insider. Someone who had been useful and deferential to these great princes of the church in the past and who they expected he would continue to be exactly that.

There was only a bit of a technical problem. Prignano wasn’t in the Vatican and without his consent his election could not be formally concluded and announced. The cardinals immediately called for him to come to the palace along with a number of other prelates, so as not to give away their decision. It took a while for Prignano to get across the city that was teaming with people. The crowd outside was now getting restless. They saw prelates arriving, some of them French. Rumours went around the cardinals had chosen another Frenchmen. The shouts “we want a Roman, we want a Roman” grew louder and the crowd moved towards St. Peter.

Meanwhile the cardinals returned to a chapel inside the complex and moved to formally elect Prignano.

Now this is important, it was after the cardinals had elected Prignano that the crowd burst into the palace, demanding to see who they had chosen. They said “Bari”, but that was misunderstood for another name, a Frenchman. And Prignano was not there yet and could therefore not be shown to the crowd. In the absence of the elected pope, and most likely fearing for their lives, they dressed the 90-year old cardinal Tebaldeschi, a Roman well known to the crowd, in papal robes and shoved him onto the throne. The old man protested, shouting, I am not pope, and I do not want to be an anti-pope, the archbishop of Bari is pope.

Whether anyone heard him is unclear, because all the other cardinals had run away and left Tebaldeschi on his own with the mob. Some made it to Castel Sant Angelo, others went back to their fortified houses and the future pope, Bartolomeo Prignano, or as we should call him now, pope Urban VI, hid in a small chamber inside the bowels of the Vatican palace. The crowd sacked the palace and then moved to the home of poor Tebaldeschi. It was a longstanding Roman tradition that the people were allowed to clean out the home of a new pope on the night of his election, and they still believed that was Tebaldeschi.

The next day the cardinals, including Robert of Geneva, announced the election of Urban VI and though he wasn’t a Roman, the crowd was satisfied. Over the next few weeks various cardinals announced to all and sundry in Europe that they had freely and legally elected a new pope. On April 18^th, 9 days after his election pope Urban VI is crowned and got to work.

And, oh golly, he turned out to be nothing at all what the cardinals had expected. Instead of being that meek and malleable man he had pretended to be for all these years in Avignon, he flipped over into full-on autocratic ruler. And not only that, he developed an unhealthy obsession with his former colleague’s finances.

In his easter Sunday sermon he condemned churchmen who were perennially absent from their posts whilst still collecting their benefices – a bit rich from a man who had been away from his archbishopric for 14 years. But Urban got the bit between his teeth. He tells the cardinal of Amiens that he should live a more modest life and please stop taking bribes from foreign ambassadors. And if not, he would strip him of his cardinal’s rank. He called cardinal Orsini a sot and had to be physically constrained from hitting the cardinal of Limoges in the face.

In the following weeks his outbursts became ever more extreme. He would have shouting matches, again with the cardinal of Amiens who he had singled out as the worst of the lot. One time when he was again screaming and cursing with his head turning from red to purple, Robert of Geneva demanded the pope treated his cardinals with a bit more respect – or else. Urban’s response was to threaten his cardinals with excommunication, even excommunication without the traditional three warnings.

One after another the cardinals slipped out of town under the pretext of the unhealthy climate. They gathered at Anagni. By August 13 of the 16 cardinals who had elected Urban VI were in this pleasant little town about 65 km from Rome. Of the other three who had elected Urban VI, one had died and two had returned to Avignon. They invited Urban VI to join them, but he refused.

It was apparent that Urban VI had not only changed, but in the minds of many cardinals had become mentally incapacitated. Modern historians are split down the middle, some believe he had a psychotic episode brought on by the sudden realisation of the enormity of his office, others see him as a pious pontiff trying to reform the church and weed out its corruption.

The cardinals faced a dilemma. Under canon law, the only reason for a deposition of a pope was heresy. And that charge could not be made to stick, in part because Urban VI had been a papal diplomat who had never voiced any theological opinions one way or another. Calling him incompetent or not compos mentis was simply not a viable argument under canon law.

But they did very much regret their choice and wanted to get rid of him. So they resorted to another canon law concept, which was that acts made under duress were invalid. On August 9, 1378 the cardinals declared the election of Urban VI null and void as it was made out of fear of the Roma mob outside. As a consequence the papal throne was vacant. The 13 cardinals present in Anagni then elected one of their own, the cardinal Robert of Geneva, the butcher of Cesena to be pope. Robert took the name Clement VII.

We could now go into a lengthy discussion about the legitimacy of this act and many historians have. Some argue that the fact the crowds broke into the Vatican and the cardinals only escaped by putting papal robes on cardinal Tebaldeschi proves that the threat to their lives was real. Others point to the cardinals treating Urban VI as pope in the months after the election and even admitting that quote “if he had behaved differently, he could have remained pope”.

For what it is worth, the catholic church believes that Urban’s election was valid and that all popes that followed the Avignon obedience were anti-popes. I personally could not care either way, nor did the contemporaries in the 14^th century.

The only thing that mattered was that we now have two competing popes. This is not the first time this had happened, but on most previous occasions the schisms had occurred as a consequence of the conflict between the papacy and the emperor. This one is unusual, because it resulted from an internal conflict within the church. Being the total pedant I am, I would like to point out though that there was at least one precedent, the conflict between Innocent II and Anaclet II. That too was a conflict within the church or at least amongst rival factions in the city of Rome – episode 46 if you want to check back.

But I digress.

Robert of Geneva, now pope Clement VII left Italy after a few weeks and settled back into Avignon. And so did all the other cardinals. Urban VI compensated for the loss by appointing 24new cardinals. Clement VII took control of the papal administrative apparatus, which had largely stayed back in Avignon, whilst Urban VI built an entirely new papal infrastructure. The Western Christian world was now divided into the Roman obedience, i.e., lands that recognised Urban VI as the legitimate pope and the Avignon obedience, that are the parts who believed Clement VII was the rightful pope.

So, who was recognising which pope?

The loyalties of at least two geographies were fairly predictable. Almost all of Italy sided with Urban VI. After the massacre at Cesena, no Italian wanted Robert of Geneva as their spiritual guide. And these considerations were overriding even the political calculus that had compelled Florence and others to wage the war of the seven saints against the papacy. Queen Joanna of Naples was initially leaning towards Clement, but her people made it abundantly clear to her that they would not support such a stance and Naples -minus Joanna – went into the Roman  camp.

The key question was then whether France would side with Clement VII. Robert of Geneva was a cousin of King Charles V of France, and the rulers of France have never hid the fact that they preferred the papacy to remain in Avignon. The duke Louis of Anjou had warned Gregory XI against going to Rome, where he would “indeed cause great harm to the church were he to die there”. But Charles did take his sweet time to decide, calling an assembly of learned men and clergy to advise him. The French bishops abbots and university doctors knew what was best for them, and advised their king to support the pope in Avignon.

The rest was then tit for tat. If France supported Clement, then England sided with Urban. If England sided with Urban, Scotland sided with Clement. The empire was a more complex place with the house of Habsburg showing Clementine sympathies, and the Luxemburgs following Roman obedience, as did Poland and Hungary. The Spanish kingdoms went for Avignon, which meant Portugal went for Rome, and so forth and so forth.

Basically the papal schism became part of the political fabric of Europe, just another thing competing monarchs and princes could disagree on.

And almost as soon as the schism started, discussions began over how to end it.

These discussions did not emanate from the papal courts apart from demands that the respective other “false” pope stepped down, a proposal that obviously led nowhere.

The leadership in the discussion fell to the intellectuals of the day, which meant the doctors of the universities, and most senior amongst these, the university of Paris.

Since the popes and their courts did not differ in their interpretation of scripture, the debate wasn’t theological, but purely a question of canon law. And canon law, as we just heard did not contain provisions for the deposition of a pope except for heresy. And neither pope, for all their other failures, could be accused of heresy.

Therefore the simplest, if slowest option was to wait for one of the two pontiffs to die and then unify the church around the survivor. Urban VI was the first to die in 1389 after more of a decade of raging and ranting, tormenting and torturing. He fell off a mule and never recovered. He was not the most popular pope and his sarcophagus almost ended up as trough for the papal horses when St. Peter was remodelled.

But the opportunity to end the schism was lost, in part because king Wenceslaus failed to prevent the cardinals from electing a successor to Urban VI, who took the name Boniface IX.

In 1394 it was Clement VII’s turn to bite the dust. This time the powers to be reacted quickly. The royal council sent a letter to Avignon demanding the cardinals were to refrain from electing a new pope. The letter arrived, but the cardinals ignored it. Instead, they elected Pedro de Luna, the one Spaniard at the conclave of 1378 as pope Benedict XIII. The only nod to the royal demand came in the form of a solemn oath by the new pope that he would strive to resolve the schism, even if that involved his own resignation.

The policy of waiting for one pope to die clearly did not work.

The French government with the support of its clergy and university then pursued what they called the “via cessionis”, the idea being that both popes were made to resign at the same time. For that to work, the various monarchies supporting the two obediences needed to agree. And by 1397 it looked as if that could be achieved. A truce with England was concluded that brought king Richard II on board. The other prominent supporter of the roman pontiff was king Wencesalus IV. He too joined the coalition after that fatal meeting at Rheims, where he spent most of his time in state of drunken stupor. But hey, he seemed to have agreed.

So delegations went out to Avignon and to Rome demanding both popes resign. Guess what, neither did.

Now the French get really angry. If Benedict XIII wasn’t willing to go voluntarily, then he needed to be forced. In 1398 France declared what they called a subtraction, i.e., they decided they would no longer recognise Benedict XIII as the legitimate pope. 13 of his cardinals crossed the Rhone taking with them the papal seal.

But Benedict XIII was one of the most stubborn if not the most mulish man ever. Even though he had lost his most important supporter, he did not budge. The increasingly exasperated French rulers resorted to military might and besieged the papal palace in Avignon. It had been a long time since a temporal ruler had besieged a pope, the last was probably Barbarossa’s fateful siege of Rome in 1169. (episode 57)

But Benedict XIII still did not budge. The palais de Papes, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode was as much fortress as it was palace. And even with guns, the French failed to take it. In the end the two sides came to a compromise. Benedict XIII was allowed to remain in his palace in Avignon, but under house arrest. French soldiers patrolled the city and blocked the gates. That less then dignified situation lasted until 1402 when Boniface escaped to Provence where he found protection. Several of the Spanish kingdoms that had deserted him returned to his obedience, even the cardinals trickled back into his camp and in 1403 the kingdom of France recognised him as pope again.

Meanwhile his adversary in Rome did not have a great time either. Boniface IX had inherited Urban’s quarrel with the kingdom of Naples that included a variety of exceedingly cruel murders, sieges and battles, all most unbecoming to a Pontiff.

Now that Benedict XIII was restored to power he felt magnanimous and sent a proposal to Boniface IX. The two contenders should first refrain from making new cardinals and then meet in person to end the schism. That did not happen becasue in 1404 pope Boniface IX died.

Everybody, including the leading churchmen had enough of the schism. The Roman cardinals offered not to elect a new pope if Benedict XIII resigned. Fat chance that would happen. Did I mention that Bendict XIII was a bit stubborn?

So the Roman cardinals elected Innocent VII who died a year later. Another opportunity. Again the cardinals on the two sides tried to get Benedict XIII to step down. Again, this intractable, pig headed, obstinate Spaniard said no.

But he at least offered to meet and discuss the abdication. As a stopgap the Roman cardinals elected Gregory XII whose sole purpose was to resign as soon as a deal was struck. Benedict XIII travelled to Italy to meet said Gregory XII at Savona. But on the appointed date, Gregory was 200 miles away in Siena. A new meeting was scheduled for Portovenere, but on that day Gregory was in Lucca and so it went another two or three times.

Finally Gregory XII dropped his guise and declared he would never resign and that his cardinals should stop scheduling these pointless meetings. Why did he do that? Not because he was convinced of his own superiority as pontiff, but because his greedy family wanted more time to suck the papacy’s treasury dry.

That was too much for Gregory’s cardinals who left him and met up with Benedict XIIi’s cardinals, who too were realising how intransigent their boss had become.

Having exhausted every other avenue, the church finally arrived at a solution that had already been proposed by two German theologians, Heinrich von Langenstein and Konrad von Gelnhausen. These had been the leading lights of the university of Paris and would later found the universities of Vienna and Heidelberg respectively. But way back in 1381 they had proposed to convene a church council to resolve the schism. At the time this was rejected as under canon law only the pope could convene a council. Heinrich and Konrad’s argued that it must be possible to convene a council in periods of the absence of a pope, for instance during the election period. And hence that there are circumstances a council can be convened without papal invitation.

It took until 1409 after all the endless back and forth, the failed meetings, the broken promises, that the university of Paris came round to their view. Papal invitation or not, the cardinals called a church council for March 1409 in Pisa.

And this was an impressive gathering, the largest church council since the great Lateran Council of 1215. 24 cardinals from both obediences, 84 archbishops and bishops plus the proxies of a further 102, 128 abbots and the proxies of 200 more, the general superiors of the four monastic orders as well as representatives of 13 universities across Christendom. And of course the ambassadors of all the great princes of europe, except for the Scandinavian, Scots, Neapolitans and the Spaniards.

To the surprise of pretty much no one, the council declared on June 5^th 1409:

Quote “This sacred synod, acting for the universal church, and as court in the present case against Peter de Luna and Angelo Corrario, once known as Benedict XIII and Gregory XII….decrees they were and are schismatics, nourishers of schism and notorious heretics and that they have deviated from the faith and have committed notorious crimes of perjury by violating their oaths…For these reasons and others they have proved themselves unworthy of all dignity and honour, including those due to the papal office. …This synod deprives, deposes and excommunicates Peter and Angelo and forbids them to act as supreme pontiff. This synod declares the Roman see vacant”. End quote.

Hurrah, fantastic. The schism is over. Both popes are deposed. All we need to do now is elect a new one and mother church is at long last reunited.

And that they did. The cardinals of both obediences, holding hands in new found unity and, as representatives of the church council, elected Peter Philargi, the archbishop of Milan who took the name Alexander V.   

Their deed done the council declared to meet again in three years’ time to debate much needed church reform. Pope Alexander proceeded to Bologna to receive the allegiance of the city, the largest in the papal dominion.

Alexander V was 70 years of age, hence much younger than the recently deposed popes which made it such a shock when he died shortly after entering Bologna.

All could still have worked out fine had the cardinals accompanying Alexander V had chosen a more suitable successor. The one they chose was however Baldassare Cossa, a man of let’s say chequered past. He had been a naval commander in his youth and rumour had it that he did do a spot of piracy on the side. Other stories went around about his fondness of the ladies, whether he indeed had seduced 200 in Bologna as was claimed by his detractors is however doubtful, purely on the grounds of time constraints. Then there were the questions around Alexander V’s mysterious early death, the vast bribes paid to the electing cardinals and so forth.

John XXIII as the new pope styled himself entered Rome in 1411. The deposed Gregory XII cowered in the town of Gaeta but held on to control over bits and bobs in Italy, the empire, Poland and Lithuania. Meanwhile Benedict XIII could still rely on the Spanish kingdoms and Scotland. Despite all the effort, the schism still was not over.

In 1413  John XXII lost his hold on Rome when the Neapolitans marched in. The Pisan pope fled to Florence and began a peripatetic life that led him to Constance in 1414 where the next church council was to be held. But that is a story for another time. For now we freeze at the point where Europe has three popes.

Next week we will talk about what the implication of all these shenanigan were for the relationship between church and state, the relationship between monarchs and their diets and parliaments, the defence of europe against the Ottomans and the way people thought about god and all that.

If you want to pass the time until then by listening to old episodes, why not go back to the schism between Innocent II and Anaclet II in episode 46 or Barbarossa’s fateful siege of Rome in episode 57.

Before I go let me just remind you that you can support the podcast by going to histyoryofthegermans.com/support where you can either sign up as a patron or make a one-time donation. And just remember, from November Apple will add a 30% surcharge to your donation if you sign up using your iPhone. So go to your trusted old computer and do it there.

Transcript Part 2

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 167 – The Great Western Schism (Part II), which is also episode 4 of season 9 “the Reformation before the Reformation”

When the Great Western Schism was finally resolved at Pisa and Constance, Christendom rejoiced.

Or so we have been told. But was it really such a devastating, catastrophic event that left the papacy mortally wounded, so impaired that it crumbled when next the power of the pope “to bind and to loosen” was questioned?  Or was it just an affair, a temporary misunderstanding created by some drafting error in canon law that prevented the removal of an incapacitated pope?

Me thinks that is worth investigating even if it means diving deep into theology and canon law. But do not worry we will also do a spot of fiscal policy just to lighten things up a bit.

But before we start le me remind you that the History of the Germans is advertising free thanks to the generosity of our patrons. And you can become a patron too, either by signing up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or on historyofthegermans.com/support. And thanks so much to David W., Steven M., Kira V., Hanyu H., Marco C., Stephen and Anne Elise who have already taken the plunge

And with that, back to the show

Last week we looked at the sequence of events that made up the western schism up until and including the council of Pisa in 1409. But this is the same as looking at a bunch of revelers dancing on a suspension bridge. Yes, checking out their crazy moves and wild antics is entertaining, but the true story takes place underneath, in the vibrations that put the bridge into an uncomfortable motion, a motion that might or might not loosens the anchorages and weaken its structural integrity. Not much may be happening for weeks, months, even decades afterwards, but wait for the next time and the whole construction may collapse into the ravine…

That is what we are looking at today, the impact of the schism on the solidity and durability of the most powerful of medieval institutions, the church of Rome.

If you open up say the Encyclopedia Britannica or similar publication, you will find sentences like this quote:  “The spectacle of rival popes denouncing each other produced great confusion and resulted in a tremendous loss of prestige for the papacy.” Wikipedia goes one step further and says: quote “this dissension and loss of unity ultimately culminated in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century”.

That is quite frankly what I always believed and have been taught in school. But reading modern scholars you will find a more restrained perspective. Donald Logan concludes in his Church in the Middle Ages Quote: “what happened then [i.e., in the 15^th century] was not decay and decline, as often had been said, it was rather a period of unusual richness. A richness in which the church shared and to which it contributed”. Joelle Rollo-Koster a scholar who has spent a large chunk of her career on the Western Schism makes the point that for most peasants and burghers the schism was not a major source of anxiety. If they were living in the empire, they would have been told by their priest, their bishop and their king that the true pope was Urban VI and that the excommunicated usurper in Avignon was antichrist. And if you lived in France, you believed the same, just the other way around.

For most lay people there was no confusion. They weren’t asked to make a choice about either the obedience to follow or the content of the faith itself.

Even further on the “the schism did not matter” side is the Catholic Encoclypedia who calls it a “temporary misunderstanding…fed by politics and passions”. Well, they would, wouldn’t they. Or one of my favorites, the medievalist Walter Ullmann who reduces it to a “serious defect in the law of the church which provided no constitutional means of dealing with an obviously unsuitable pope”.

So, who is right, the ones who say the schism was a fatal blow to the papacy that became a major stepping stone to the Reformation or those who said it was an aberration that was repaired within a few decades, or are both sides right in their own way?

This is the History of the Germans Podcast, not the history of the papacy and certainly no seminar on canon law. So we have our limitations. But though we cannot get to the bottom of things, we can at least ask four fundamental questions which – at least in my view -determine whether something has fundamentally changed or not, namely:

• Did the constitutional role of the pope change due to the schism?
• Did the schism change role of the clergy?
• Did the perception of the church by lay people change due to the schism?
• Did the schism change the European political landscape?

Sounds fair? In which case, let’s dive right in.

Did the constitutional role of the papacy change because of the schism?

To answer that we need to first look at what the role of the pope had been before the schism. And that gets us straight back to pope Gregory VII, you know the one who had left emperor Henry IV to freeze outside the gates of Canossa for three days. If you are a very faithful and observant listener to the History of the Germans, you may remember that this Gregory VII had not only humiliated an emperor, but before doing so had put together 27 “statements of facts” about what a pope is and what he can do. Episode 32 if you want to go back.

And being a pope, Gregory VII conclusion was a little one-seded. A pope can do anything and anything he does is always right. He did elaborate a bit more and declared things like  “That of the pope alone all princes shall kiss the feet”, that he could depose bishops, kings and emperors  and that “the Roman church has never erred; nor will it err to all eternity”.

Gregory VII and after that his successors came  to this conclusion based on Matthew 16:18 and 19. That is the passage in the bible where Jesus said: “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

From that canon law concluded that Peter was the immediate successor of Christ, his vicar on earth, the holder of the keys to heaven. He had practically the right to bind anyone on earth which must mean he had unlimited power over both spiritual and temporal matters. This power, said Gregory VII was then handed down undiminished along the line of Peter’s successors.

Having absolute power over all Christendom, Gregory concluded in his statement  #19: “That he himself (i.e., the pope) may be judged by no one” and as #16 “That no synod shall be called a general one without his order”.

I am no theologian, but it might have helped Gregory to read on a further three verses in the same chapter where Jesus said to Peter:  “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”  But hey, who wants to read that bit…

Bottom line is that Gregory VII had declared the pope all powerful and the church infallible. And that view was repeated over and over again until it was in actual meaning of the word, gospel. Everybody had forgotten that 30 years before Gregory the emperor Henry III had deposed 3 popes, not for heresy but for simony. or that previous emperors had called and presided over church councils or that church councils had judged popes, like they had done at the famous cadaver synod of 897.

The great imperial popes of the 12^th and 13^th century filled Gregory VII’s premise of absolute power over Christendom with political reality when they smashed the Hohenstaufen emperors. Even though this external political power may have been significantly weakened by the move to Avignon, the notion that the pope was the absolute ruler of the church, cannot be judged by anyone and was the sole convener of a general council remained canon law.

Arguably during the time in Avignon administrative control of the papacy over the local churches tightened considerably, in particular under the leadership of John XXII and Benedict XII.

So by 1378, everybody agreed, the pope was the absolute lord over the church. He could not be judged for anything, well apart from heresy which would place him outside the community of the faithful. And nobody could convene a church council, but the pope. This approach had served the popes well for 300 years since Gregory first wrote down his 27 statements of fact, but would turn into a never ending nightmare when the schism of 1378 hit.

Le’s just recap how all this came about. In April 1378 the cardinals had elected the archbishop of Bari, Bartolomeo Prignani as pope Urban VI. 4 months later the cardinals changed their minds and the exact self-same voters who had elected Urban VI declared Urban’s election to have happened under duress and was therefore null and void. That done they elected cardinal Robert of Geneva as pope Clement VII.

In the subsequent legal debate scholars argued furiously about whether or not the Roman mob was indeed baying for the cardinals’ blood and whether that had influenced their decision. But that is the wrong question. Because that was not the reason the cardinals started the schism.

The reason was that they were regretting their choice. They did not like how Urban VI treated them, that he shouted at them, demanded they change their lifestyle and threatened them with dismissal or excommunication. And some, if not the majority had genuine concern about the mental state of the new pontiff and the impact this will have on the church as a whole.

If the church had been a parliamentary democracy, the problem would have been easy to resolve. Urban had lost the majority support in the decision making body and that would be the end of him.

Even in a presidential democracy this problem can be resolved through an impeachment or a declaration of mental incapacity under the 25^th amendment. Well, at least in principle.

But the church was neither a parliamentary nor a presidential democracy. It was the exact opposite. The pope was an autocratic ruler whose legitimacy came from nobody else than from god. Jesus had said so himself.

Therefore the only way to remove a pope was to claim he was a heretic. But that was not a viable way the cardinals could go, since Urban VI was all sorts of things, but he wasn’t a heretic. Hence they resorted to the last remaining legal construct, the general principle that legal acts performed under duress are null and void, which is what got us this rather pointless debate over the bloodthirstiness of the Romans.

So the real question is, why did the cardinals not create a new legal framework that included a process for dismissal of a pope for mental weakness? Well, that is where the rubber hits the road.

If there could be some sort of court that could rule that Urban VI had lost his marbles, well that would be a judgement that was explicitly ruled out by Gregory VII’s statement #19 that the pope quote “may be judged by no one”.

Ok, so why did they not do away with just statement #19 and declared that uncanonical? That does not work either. Because Gregory VII had formulated these not as theses of opinions or doctrines, but as “statements of fact”. Hence dropping one of the statements means all the other statements could be changed too. And once you change these, the whole concept of the absolute power of the papacy crumbles into dust.

And nobody wanted that, not the cardinals, not the bishops and abbots, not the doctors of the university of Paris. Why, because if the most sacred of monarchs in the Christian world could be made to stand trial like any mere mortal, the medieval world would be turned upside down. The moment the pope was elected and crowned he ceased to be a normal human, but an embodiment of the church. The same was true for kings. Ernst Kantorowitz who you may remember from episode 93 had highlighted that there were two bodies of the king, the earthly, temporal man of flesh and blood and the spiritual embodiment of the kingdom itself.

What is at stake here is not just the question of whether Bartolomeo Prignani or Robert of Geneva,  was the legitimate pope, but what it means to be a pope and what it means to be a king.

Figuring out how to end the schism had never been an intellectually difficult question. This was not an intractable conflict as we have them today between nation states or different kinds of religious or ethnic groups. Everybody agreed that there should only be one pope. And it was also clear that if the popes would not resign simultaneously that the way to move forward was a general church council. The two doctors Langenstein and Gelnhausen had proposed that as early as 1379. That was not the difficult part.

The difficult part was to decide to do it. Because by calling a general church council without a papal endorsement, and then empower the council with the right to judge and depose a pope, you tear apart Gregory VII’s statements of facts, the constitution of the Roman church they had adhered to for 3 centuries. It was a huge leap into the unknown which took 40 years and the exhaustion of all other possible avenues to a resolution before the cardinals were desperate enough to call the community of the faithful to Pisa for 1409.  

What were they afraid of? One was simply that if a church council representing the community of the faithful could decide the fate of a pope, could a parliament or imperial diet representing the community of his subjects depose a king? Would all this result in a complete reassessment of medieval society?  

Did it? Well what we do know is that in 1409 a general council of the roman church was called, not by either of the popes, and we know that this council was very well attended and that it decided to depose Benedict XIII and Gregory XII.

By doing so, the church had removed first statement #16 about the convocation of a council and statement #19 about judging the pope. And by doing so it had put into question not just these provisions, but the entirety of Gregory VII’s statements, the constitution of the papacy as it had existed until then.

So yes, the schism did change the constitutional role of the papacy. Later popes will work hard to roll back the conciliary movement, but the genie is out of the bottle. The successor of St. Peter is no longer the undisputed sole authority that can bind on earth what will remain bound in heaven. That is a big thing and another one of these doors we go through from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period.

Now let’s go to question #2, did the role of the clergy change in the wake of the schism?

Now I have been going on about lay piety as a huge driver of not just church politics but medieval politics in general. We should never forget that at this time the afterlife was something of crucial, daily significance to everyone. Crucial and daily. These people did not build cathedrals capable to hold double the city’s population just to keep up with the Joneses, but out of a deeply felt desire to get closer to god.

And because the afterlife was of such immediate urgency, laymen placed so much importance on the intermediaries they were told they needed to interact with the powers above. They wanted their monks and nuns to observe the brutally harsh rules of St. Benedict and the other monastic founders. They wanted their priests to be pious, well read, celibate and morally upstanding. Why, because these were their advocates before god who were to make their case that they should have a shortened time in purgatory and be ultimately admitted to Elysium. And who wants to have a mumbling, stumbling advocate who only got the job because his dad had bought it for him?

By 1378 the laity had been demanding all these things for 300 years and instead of things getting better, things had gotten even worse. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales which date from between 1387 and 1400, right throughout the time of the schism are full of tales of drunk monks, dissolute priests and greedy papal officials. So are the stories in Bocaccio’s Decameron, written a bit earlier and the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles of Antoine de la Sale that were a little later. 

What to do? Sure one could demand another wave of church reform as had happened in the 10^th, the 11^th and the 13^th century bringing us the Cluniacs, the Cistercians and the Dominican and Franciscan friars. But all of these had become fat and lazy, maybe not all, but many. What guarantees that another attempt would finally yield the desired outcome? So radical alternative notions did gain traction.

The first of these alternative thinkers was abbot Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202). He was one of those preachers of the Apocalypse who predict the end of the world for a specific date. His date was the year 1260 which obviously passed without much incident. But what sets him apart from your run-of-the-mill doom-monger and left a lasting impact was his idea of how the apocalypse would unfold.

Joachim of Fiore predicted that antichrist would first return as an evil pope. And that after his fall an eternal gospel would be revealed that would completely replace the organized church. Humankind would be granted direct knowledge of god and his words and deepest meanings. There would hence no longer be the need to speak to god through a priest.

Despite these rather explosive predictions, the church did not condemn his views wholesale and his writings kept circulating long after his death. His idea that the organized church could be done away with completely was picked up by the next generation of non-conformist thinkers. William of Ockham (1287-1347) and Marsilius of Padua (1275-1342) openly questioned the all-encompassing power of the pope as we have already heard in episode 151.

Marsilius believed that all temporal power came from the “human legislator” who conferred its exercise to the prince through a process of election. In this construct there was no place for temporal power of the pope and his clergy. Their role was confined to the spiritual world. His concept of the powerless church goes so far that no bishop or priest should have any coercive jurisdiction over any clergyman or layperson, even if that person was a heretic.

For Marsilius the schism would have been a piece of cake. He even stated explicitly in his main works the “Defensor Pacis” or Defender of the Peace, that any bishop or prelate could excommunicate a pope who was in breach of divine law and could call a general council that represented the community of the faithful. Gregory VII would be spinning in his grave.

Marsilius’ comrade in arms, William of Ockham summarized the criticism of temporal papal power most succinctly when he said quote: “If Christ had so ordained and disposed matters that the pope possessed a fullness of power of such an order that as to extend under all circumstances, over everything…, the law of Christ would be a law of terrible slavery..” end quote

Though Marsilius and Ockham had both been excommunicated, their writing circulated widely and were incorporated into the academic discussion.

One of those who picked up where they had left off was John Wycliff (1328-1384), a true radical. He believed not only that the church had no temporal power, but that it did not even exercised control over the spiritual activity. According to his teachings, everybody was allowed to preach and everybody was allowed to administer the sacraments, without the need of a church license. The only source of inspired teaching was to be the bible. And, to top it off, he demanded that old chestnut, that the church should live in apostolic poverty. Wycliff was popular with the leading men of England at the time because he gave them license to raid the churchmen’s houses, the abbeys and cathedrals. Wycliff’s thesis were quickly banned by the church, but he did enjoy enough royal patronage that he could end his days in relative comfort.

We will talk a lot more about Wycliff and how his thoughts travelled to Bohemia in a separate episode.

The one strain I wanted to follow here though led to a man whose writings are today almost forgotten but had been the absolute bestseller of the early days of printing. I am talking of course of Thomas à Kempis, a preacher born in Kempen in the Rhineland who was most active in what is today the Netherlands.

Though Thomas and his adherents remained within the official church, his teachings about the importance of the clergy were not far off Wycliff’s. He had been a Brethren of the Common Life, a congregation of men and women who did not take monastic vows, but who committed themselves to living  modest, even perfect lives. They were not necessarily anti-intellectual but they took the view that acts were more important than thoughts.

As Thomas a Kempis wrote: “It is not learned discourse but a life of virtue that brings you close to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it”. His main works, the Imitation of Christ contains dozens and dozens of such straightforward suggestions about how to live a life that pleases god. It goes all out on “love thy neighbor” and “do not think of yourself as better than others, however obviously wicked they may seem”.

His works struck a chord with many lay people who were disappointed with the organized church and sought advice about what really mattered to their spiritual wellbeing.

As you know I am not a very spiritual, let alone an organized church person, but the more I read of Thomas a Kempis, the more I warm to him.  His preferred place was apparently in “hoexkens ende boexkens” meaning in a nook with a book. A man after my heart!

So how does that tie back to the schism? Well it does in as much as the schism was resolved by a church council, a congregation of the faithful. This congregation of the faithful had deposed the highest representative of the clergy in Christendom, the pope. If that was not only possible but also canonical, then the collective of the believers acting as one must rank above the clergy. Which means the individual sinner can gain access to God without the intercession of a priest.

That does not mean that the schism did away with clergy for good, except for heretics like the followers of John Wycliff, but it has definitely opened up routes of interaction with the deity that were previously inconceivable.

Ok, we are nearly done. The next topic to discuss is #3/4: Did the perception of the church change due to the schism?

I must say that I found Joelle Rollo-Koster’s argument that most people did not care that much about the schism itself quite compelling. The fact that there are two popes is only a problem if one is expected to make a choice between the two. But hardly anyone had to make this choice. The choice was made for you by your king who had sided with one or other obedience.

Sure, the antics of these popes were most undignified and damaged the honor of the office. But there is no denying that papal behavior before the schism did not have much to commend itself. The move to Avignon, the submission under the French crown,  the relentless persecution of the chosen emperor Ludwig the Bavarian, the loss of focus on church reform etc., etc., had already undermined the standing of the papacy before the schism had even begun.

But that does not mean the Schism had no impact. This impact did however not come through the propopagande machines, but rather prosaically through fiscal pressures. Yes, it is the money – again.

After the move to Avignon the church finances went through three main iterations.

When the popes first arrived, they had to urgently find a replacement for the revenues they used to draw from the papal states in Italy. These had not been very extensive to start with since the hold of the papal administartion over these places was at best pretty loose. But now, when they were hundreds of miles from Rome, they became non-existent.

The way they, specifically popes John XXII and Benedict XII made up for it was by creating a highly sophisticated administration that collected tithes, annates and all sorts of other church taxes across the christian world.  There is a reason the palais de papes in Avignon grew to 15,000 square metres. That was not to accommodate the cardinals who lived in their splendid mansions in Avignon or across the river in Villeneuve. The space was needed to house the hundreds of scribes, notaries and archivists who kept the great ecclesiastical money extraction machine running.

In particular the papal archives were of huge monetary importance. Having a database of how much each archbishop in the German lands paid in tithes to Avignon helped to figure out who was trying to cheat the system. A set of accounts going back decades helped to determine the expected annate, that first year income a new bishop had to send back to the papal coffres. A well-oiled system of courts that could provide quick and reasonable judgements provided a source of generous court fees. And so on and so on.

In these first decades in Avignon papal finance not only rebounded but became a fountain of coin comparable to any of the great monarchs  of the time.

Things got more challenging when Clement V came to the papal throne. He was a great noble, used to the finer things in life. So expenditure of the papal court went through the just recently rebuilt roof. If you go to Avignon and look at the beautifully frescoed rooms, that is all Clement V. At the same time the famines and ecological disasters of the 14^th century deflated church incomes. Things got infinitely worse with the Black Death that wiped out a third of Europe’s population and created an agricultural depression.

Whilst the top line contracted, military expenditure spiraled upwards. On the one hand was the defense of Avignon itself that had become a preferred target of the mercenary companies. As a reward for their thievery the popes hired these same mercenary companies to help reconquering the papal states. War, as our old friend Karl IV kept saying, was by a country mile the most expensive activity one could undertake.

Therefore by the time Gregory XI made his less than triumphal entry into Rome in 1378, papal finances were already on their knees.

The schism, to say it mildly, did not help. The majority of the papal administrators and their archive had stayed behind in Avignon. Hence Clement VII could settle into an existing operational infrastructure. However, since his obedience was less than half of that of his predecessors had overseen and his expenses were roughly the same as before, his deficit snowballed.

But not quite as badly as that of his opponent in Rome. Urban VI and the Boniface IX had to recreate a whole papal administration from scratch without access to the expertise and crucial information left behind in Avignon. If that wasn’t enough, the political situation in Rome was infinitely more fragile than in Avignon. The Roman popes of the schism were involved in a constant military conflict with the kingdom of Naples meaning the papal court and all its administrators had to pack up their papers and desks and leave Rome on several occasions. That was the revenue side. On the cost side, the Roman popes had inherited the cost of controlling the papal states, meaning they had to foot the astronomical bill of the mercenaries.

Bottom line is that both the papacies were constantly broke, as was the third line of popes after the council of Pisa.

All these papal administrations had to squeeze their remaining sources of income ever harder. One was one was to declare a holy year for 1390 that brought almost 200,000 pilgrims to Rome, all spending freely and donating generously. That required a change of tack since Holy years were only supposed to take place every fifty years but by some ingenious calculation that was now 33 years which in an even weirder sort of mathematics gets us to 1390.

Calling a Holy Year outside the calendar is comparatively harmless. Where it got more problematic was when the papal administration demanded ever higher annnates. An Annate is the obligation to pay the first year’s income from a new benefice to the pope. That did not only go down badly with the new officeholder himself, but also with all his dependents who had to wait a year before the full benefit of the church income came to them. If a senior clergy on a collision course with the papacy wasn’t problematic in itself, it also encouraged the prelates to flog their flock hard to cover the shortfall.

And finally, there was the really big problem that really undermined the church, the indulgences. Indulgences were nothing new. They had first been used on a major scale to finance the first crusade in the 1090s. Many of the chivalric orders used indulgences as a means to fund their operations in the Holy Land.

The perceived benefit of indulgences relates to the concept of purgatory. Purgatory is a sort of holding pattern where the soul is being purified before it is admitted to heaven. This waiting period can be very long, thousands, if not millions of years. But help is at hand. You could drastically reduce the time in purgatory if you receive an indulgence, effectively a share of the treasury of merit the church had gathered through the great works of the saints.  These indulgences were initially granted to the faithful who had undertaken good works, for instance had gone on crusade. But very quickly these efforts could be replaced by a simple monetary transaction. The church developed detailed tables where you could see how many years of purgatory relief one would buy for how much money, not in the 16^th century but much earlier.

As we go through the 14^th century the financial pressures on the church under the schism led to a huge expansion in the sale of indulgences. The church created a dedicated job, the pardoner, a sort of travelling salesman in indulgences.

Though clearly a lot of people bought indulgences and believed they worked, still the whole system became subject to ridicule. In Chaucer’s Canterbury tales the Pardoner, the indulgence salesman, gives an honest account of his business, quote:

 “By this trick have I won, year after year,

An hundred marks since I was pardoner.

I stand like a clerk in my pulpit,

And when the ignorant people are set down,  

I preach as you have heard before

And tell a hundred more false tales.

My hands and my tongue go so quickly

That it is joy to see my business.

Of avarice and of such cursedness

Is all my preaching, to make them generous

To give their pennies, and namely unto me.

For my intention is only to make a profit,

And not at all for correction of sin.” End quote.

There you have it, the fiscal pressures of the schism drove up a massive expansion in the use of indulgences, and we all know where that ended.

There we are, only one last and final topic left: Did the schism change the European political landscape?

One of the most astounding moments in the story of the schism is when the kingdom of France “subtracted” its obedience from Benedict XIII in 1398. This term subtracting basically means that the kingdom of France no longer recognized pope Benedict XIII nor did they recognize any other pope. The official reason they did that was to force the pig-headed Benedict XIII to resign and thereby open the possibility for a reunification of the church.

This was a seminal moment in as much as it left the kingdom of Frace without a pope. Effectively a break with Rome, even if it had always been intended to be only temporary. This break with Rome had many features that we will find in the actual Reformation. For instance during the subtraction the king of France claimed what used to be the papal income for himself. Some churches and monasteries were expropriated to cover the cost of the ongoing 100 Years’ war or to pay for the lavish court.

The subtraction did not stick though. The crown squeezed the peasants and burghers even harder for church taxes and tithes than the papal administration had done. And they did not provide much in exchange. The prelates were still incompetent and corrupt, if not more so, the market squares were awash with indulgences, and, worse of all, the country was in a state of sin having definitely broken with Christ’s Vicar.

The population rebelled against the subtraction, supported by a fraction inside the dysfunctional French court and France returned to obedience under Benedict XIII. They did it again to support the council of Pisa, but that was a much shorter interlude.

But the precedent was set.

And there was something else. The decades of the schism where France had a different pope to its neighbors in England and the Empire created an even deeper sense of unity amongst the French, mainly the Northern French people.  I am still loath to talk about nationalism in the modern sense, but “nations” in a distinctly late medieval sense were becoming a source of identity during and because of the schism. And we see that not just in France but across Europe. Going back to the beginnings of the schism, it is the demand of the Roman people for a roman or at least an Italian pope and the opposition of Florence against a French pope that could be identified as signs of a beginning sense of national belonging.

At the council of Pisa the delegates sorted themselves into Nations similar to the nation concept you find at medieval universities. When we will talk about the council of Constance, the question what role these nations should play in the voting process will become crucial. There is clearly something afoot – which again is another step out of the Middle Ages into the early modern period.

That is it. Four out of four. The great Western Schism had changed the face of the church and the face of europe profoundly. It wasn’t just an affair, a temporary misunderstanding. It was a wild ride that loosened the anchorages of the medieval world. Not that the structure collapsed right away, but it was fatally weakened.

The schism was however not the only major event at this transition point. Once the imperial popes of the 12^th and 13^th century had crushed the emperors, they had inherited not just their rights, but also their obligations. And one of these obligations was to defend Christendom against foreign, specifically non-Christian invaders. That is what Otto I had done on the Lechfeld when he defeated the Magyars and what had won him the imperial crown.

Now it was the pope’s job to organize the resistance against the new threat from the east, the Ottoman empire. The Ottomans had crossed the Bosphorus in 1352 and had expanded rapidly across the Balkans, and by the time of the schism had surrounded Constantinople. The last Byzantines sent increasingly desperate messages to the west. In 1400 the emperor Manuel II Palaeologus came in person to Europe to ask for military assistance and even offered to bring Constantinople under the obedience of the bishop of Rome.

This Ottoman threat and how the king of Hungary, Sigismund of Luxemburg the son of Karl IV, half-brother of Wenceslaus the Lazy and future convener of the council of Constance deals with it will be the subject of next week’s episode. I hope you will join us again.

Before I go, just a last reminder that the History of the Germans is advertising free thanks to the generosity of all our lovely supporters. If you want to join this band of brothers waving the flag of history, you can do so by going to historyofthegermans.com/support and choose the option that best suits you.

The Decline of the House of Luxemburg

“And since these especially ruinous harms to all of Christendom are not to be tolerated or suffered any longer, so we have completely agreed – with a well-considered disposition, by means of much and various discussion and counsel, which we have earnestly undertaken concerning this among ourselves and with many other princes and lords of the Holy Empire, for the assistance of the Holy Church, the comfort of Christendom and the honour and profit of the Holy Empire – that we want fully and specifically to remove and depose the above-written Lord Wenceslas as a neglectful procrastinator, dismemberer and one unworthy of the Holy Empire from the same Holy Roman Empire and all the dignities pertaining to it with immediate effect.”  End quote

So concluded the Prince Electors of Cologne, Mainz, Trier and the Palatinate on August 20^th 1400. King Wenceslaus IV, son of the great emperor Karl IV, king of Bohemia and duke of Luxemburg was to be deposed for his “evil deeds and afflictions [that are] are so clearly manifest and well known throughout the land that they can neither be justified nor concealed” end quote

How could that happen. Last time we looked at the house of Luxemburg, they directly held almost a quarter of the German lands, controlled two of the seven electoral votes, had manoeuvred themselves into pole position to gain the Hungarian and the Polish crown, with even a long-term option on Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Tyrol . But now, a mere 22 years later, the great second Carolingian empire lies in tatters. How is that possible? That is what we will look at today.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 165 – Wenceslaus the Lazy and Ruprecht of the Empty Pocket, which is at the same time episode 2 of season 9 “The Reformation before the Reformation”

“And since these especially ruinous harms to all of Christendom are not to be tolerated or suffered any longer, so we have completely agreed – with a well-considered disposition, by means of much and various discussion and counsel, which we have earnestly undertaken concerning this among ourselves and with many other princes and lords of the Holy Empire, for the assistance of the Holy Church, the comfort of Christendom and the honour and profit of the Holy Empire – that we want fully and specifically to remove and depose the above-written Lord Wenceslas as a neglectful procrastinator, dismemberer and one unworthy of the Holy Empire from the same Holy Roman Empire and all the dignities pertaining to it with immediate effect.”  End quote

So concluded the Prince Electors of Cologne, Mainz, Trier and the Palatinate on August 20^th 1400. King Wenceslaus IV, son of the great emperor Karl IV, king of Bohemia and duke of Luxemburg was to be deposed for his “evil deeds and afflictions [that are] are so clearly manifest and well known throughout the land that they can neither be justified nor concealed” end quote

How could that happen. Last time we looked at the house of Luxemburg, they directly held almost a quarter of the German lands, controlled two of the seven electoral votes, had manoeuvred themselves into pole position to gain the Hungarian and the Polish crown, with even a long-term option on Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Tyrol . But now, a mere 22 years later, the great second Carolingian empire lies in tatters. How is that possible? That is what we will look at today.

But before we start, I want to thank all of you for your unwavering support throughout these almost 4 years. Without your encouragement and support, this show would have ended up on the pile of discarded podcasts long ago. I am particularly excited about the recognition this humble effort is receiving from the academic community. Specifically I want to thank professor Duncan Hardy who has given me an advanced look at his forthcoming book on Law, Society and Political Culture in Late Medieval and Reformation Germany, which is the source of the quotations at the top of this episodes and which will appear regularly throughout the upcoming episodes. Thank you so much! And at the same time I want to thank my patrons who have been so kind to sign up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or have made a one-time donation at historyofthegermans.com/support. If you want to join them, you can do so at the price of jus a latté per month. But make sure you sign up from anything but your iPhone, as the evil kneecappers at Apple will charge you an additional 30% if you do so.

Special thanks today go to Chris E. J, Gilles L., John Thompson, Peter McCloskey, Martin Engelmann and Jim-V who have already signed up.

And with that – back to the show

An when I say back, we go all the way back to November 29, 1378. Emperor Karl IV lay on his deathbed, surrounded by his family and in particular his eldest son, Wenceslaus. Though Karl was an old man by the standards of his time, he was 62 years old when he passed, he only had his sons quite late in life. Wenceslaus, the eldest was 17, his half-brothers Sigismund and Johann were 10 and 8 years old. Apart from the three boys there were three sisters, Catherine, much older than the boys and married to Rudolf IV of Austria, plus Anne and Margaret, both still children. There were also some elder members of the House of Luxemburg, Karl’s brother Wenzel, the duke of Luxemburg and Brabant, and Karl’s nephews Jobst and Prokop of Moravia.

If we disregard Wenceslaus age, this was a pretty good setup from a dynastic point of view. Enough spare males to continue the family line should something untoward happen and two unmarried sisters to deploy for diplomatic gain.

Those of you who have listened to the last season will not be surprised to hear that Karl IV thought long and hard about this constellation and set everything up for success.

For one thing, he had given the younger sons enough assets and tasks to keep them from clashing with their older half-brother. Sigismund was engaged to Maria, the daughter and heiress to the kingdoms of Hungary and Poland, two of the largest and most difficult to manage monarchies in the whole of Europe. On top he was given the margraviate of Brandenburg, a land ravaged by decades of civil war that may need a lot of TLC, but came with a most valuable electoral vote. The youngest, Johann was given a modest duchy centred on the city of Görlitz, enough to live comfortably, but not enough to be a challenger to his brothers. His job was to support one of the other two – and being the spare should some unexpected harm befall any of them.

But most importantly, Karl IV had removed all obstacles previous sons of emperors had to deal with. Wenceslaus had been crowned king of Bohemia when he was barely 3 years old. At the age of 15 he was elected and crowned king of the Romans, an exercise that had cost his father literally millions, money he raised by handing over almost all that was left of the already much diminished resources attached to the royal title.

Hence when his father died, Wenceslaus immediately stepped up into the role of ruler of the empire. No tense election, no further bribes and no civil unrest. Just a smooth transition from father to son. The last time that had happened was almost 200 years ago, in 1190 when Henry VI took over from Frederick Barbarossa.

And when Wenceslaus came into the office on the Monday after the funeral, all was ready for him. His father’s advisors, some of whom had been with the house of Luxemburg for decades were happy to serve the young king. The chancellery, the office that kept the records and managed the correspondence was one of the most experienced and efficient in medieval Europe. The territories he ruled directly and that he could rely on for money and military resources were the richest and largest princely territories in the empire.

What could possibly go wrong? Well – everything!

What Karl IV could not protect his son from were the circumstances – and as Herodotus said, “Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.” You may counter with the great eastern philosopher Bruce Lee who famously said “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities”. But that was the difference. Karl IV had been a Bruce Lee, Wenceslaus was not.

Much has been said and written about Wenceslaus, most of it less than flattering. But when he was 17, he was one of Europe’s best educated monarchs. He spoke multiple languages, had been tutored by some of the finest minds in the kingdom, including Johann von Jenstein, the bishop of Meissen and later archbishop of Prague, and his father had involved him in imperial politics a very young age.

And now this well trained and well set up young man was confronted with some of the most intractable problems of the already quite challenging 14^th century. Two of these Problems were unfinished business left to him by his father and a further two had hit the in-tray more recently.

Let’s take them one by one:

First up is the thorny issue of the General Peace, the Landfrieden. As so often in history and current affairs, everybody wants peace but not everybody wants the same peace.

Karl IV and now Wenceslaus wanted a peace led by imperial institutions, meaning a structure where the imperial court and an imperial enforcement mechanism ensured that the roads and rivers are safe to travel on, feuding stopped and virgins, widows and orphans remain unmolested.

The cities liked the idea of safe roads and all that but were worried that the imperial courts and their police forces would be staffed with knights and princes, rather than their own people. Plus, so far no General peace had materialised despite decades of trying. Instead, the robber barons still stole all that was left of a traders wares after the extortionate princely tolls had been paid. So, the cities preferred to organise their protection themselves by forming leagues, first the Swabian League, then the Rhenish league and finally the Saxon League.

The princes too liked safe roads and rivers and all that, but would very much like to have their judges and their forces providing that peace. That would give them both the court fees and a hold over the cities to better shake them down for cash.

And finally, the knights, squeezed financially by the fallout of the Black Death, diminished socially by changes in military tactics and pushed around by both princes and cities resorted to robbery and feuding to make a living. So, I stand corrected, not everyone wanted peace, particularly not the knights. And to defend their ancient rights to plunder and robbery, or freedoms as they called it, they formed knightly associations like the Joergenschild in Swabia.

The second leftover issue was how to organise the kingdom of Bohemia. As I have been repeating to total exhaustion, being king of the Romans came with almost no resources. Hence to be an effective king of the Romans and later emperor, one needed their own territories in good order. Good order mainly means structured in a way that it produced enough coin to hire mercenaries, bribe electors and pay off competing claims. For Wenceslaus that meant he needed to turn the bundle of feudal rights he inherited into that we would recognise as a state, so not a medieval kingdom that worked through a cascade of personal obligations, but one where everybody below the king was a subject. This is what every monarch in Europe and every prince in the empire was trying to get to.

Karl IV had made a move into this direction in 1355 with his ambitious law code, the Majestas Carolina. But that project had to be almost immediately abandoned in the face of baronial opposition.

Bohemia was a particularly difficult place to introduce such a modern structure – in inverted commas. In Bohemia the great magnates, the barons, held their land free and unencumbered. They weren’t vassals of the king and as such they administered justice in their lands and if taxes were imposed, they kept as much as 60% if the funds raised for themselves. Bohemia was administered by a committee comprising the four great offices of state and the king that met four times a year. And the four great offices were usually staffed by members of the baronial class. Within the committee the king was just a first amongst equals.

The only parts where the king had sovereign authority was over his vassals who controlled a relatively small proportion of the kingdoms territory, his own estates and the Bohemian church.

Karl’s father, the blind king John of Bohemia had clashed hard with the Barons and ended up being forced to submit to their power. Karl too was unable to shift the formal structure, but by using his charm and cunning, and his elaborate concept of the crown of Bohemia as separate entity from the king as a person, he had been able to extract money, soldiers and even occasionally concessions from the barons. Wenceslaus wanted to keep pace with the rival dynasties in the empire, hence he believed he needed to break the power of the barons and streamline Bohemia along French or English lines.

Now we come to issue #3, the papal schism. For once, this was neither Karl’s nor Wenceslaus’ fault. But it was still Wenceslaus problem. As the schism became ever more intractable with Europe being split down the middle between supporters of the Roman and the Avignon Pontiff, the people were looking for an authority that could resolve the issue. And in search of an arbiter, public opinion harked back to the olden days when the emperor had been the shield and protector of the church. That concept may have dropped into the executioner’s basket when young Konradin’s head was forcibly disconnected from his body, but now that the world was in such dire straits, it was time to call the emperors back to their holy duty.

As if that was not enough, there was also #4 the dying of the great kings. It began with the death of Kazimir the Great of Poland in 1370, Waldemar Atterdag of Denmark in 1375, Edward III of England in 1377, obviously emperor Karl IV in 1378, Charles V, the Wise of France in 1380 and Louis the great of Hungary in 1382. Their successors were either young, like Richard II and Wenceslaus, female, like Jadwiga or Poland and Maria of Hungary or, most devastatingly, suffering from serious mental health issues in the case of Charles VI of France.

The succession crises this caused all across Europe created distractions that prevented the main actors from focusing on the great calamity that was the schism. And closer to home neighbours were dragged into protracted wars of succession. In Wenceslaus case that was the succession to the Hungarian and to a lesser degree the Polish throne.

Lots to do for the young hero of this episode.

And things are off to a reasonable start.

Wenceslaus proposed a concept for his general peace at his first diet in 1379. There was not as much resonance as he may have hoped, but it might be the beginning of something. The problem was that the different parties, the cities, the princes and the knights disagreed with each other on everything except for one thing, which was that they did not want what Wenceslaus wanted. In 1384 a peace was concluded between the princes and cities, the Heidelberger Stallung, which Wenceslaus rejected. But 3 years later Wenceslaus chancellor did endorse this solution, though we do not know where the king really stood on this..

Wenceslaus was politically close to the cities, in large part because that is where his parsnip was buttered. Of all the sources of income for a king of the Romans, the city taxes was the only thing left. But the cities did not want him. So, when he was trying to make himself the head of one of the city leagues, the Swabian league specifically, they turned him down.

That upset young Wenceslaus, but he did what he usually did in this situation, nothing.

Despite the Heidelberger Stallung, conflict between princes and cities worsened, leaving only a military solution. That happened on August 23, 1388 at Döffingen where a princely force led by count Eberhard of Würrtemberg routed the forces of the Swabian League. 3 months later the princes defeated the Rhenish League as well. Though they had won, the princes failed to impose their solution on to the country. The war had exhausted their resources.

At which point Wenceslaus could step in and declare his General Peace at Eger/Cheb which sets out that quote : “It has also been agreed, and we desire this before all other things, that when people travel through the Holy Empire or the areas encompassed by this land-peace, all roads, churches, monasteries, parsonages, churchyards, mills and especially all ploughs with horses and that which belongs to them and vineyards and fields and all things agricultural should be safe and be left in peace, and that nobody should attack, injure or damage them. And should anyone contravene this, it should be treated as robbery, and the land-peace should proceed against them as is written above.”

The empire was divided into seven circles each led by a superior officer appointed by the king. This officer would convene courts drawn from the cities and the princes to adjudicate.

That is a great result, one that had eluded his great father. Ok, he got there because the other parties were exhausted, so not exactly all his doing, but then, a success is a success. So congrats Wenceslaus.

Unfortunately that was the only bit of his reign that warrants congratulations.

Let’s move to agenda item #2, the Great Western Schism. What was Wenceslaus contribution there? Well, nothing I am afraid. The problem was that for him to have the authority to resolve the schism, Wenceslaus needed to be either a magnetic personality that everyone was willing to defer to or hold the imperial crown. Wenceslaus had neither. The personality issue is not exactly his fault, the lack of an imperial crown however sort of was. He had made multiple attempts to gather the funds for an imperial Romzug to get crowned by Urban VI and then later Urban’s successor. But all of these efforts came to nought. And the reason lay in part in his lack of drive and the other in his ability to make a right old mess of the other two problems, the general peace and the reorganisation of Bohemia. And whilst these problems remained at the forefront of royal policy, Rome had to wait. And whilst Christendom was waiting for the king of the Romans to get down to the Tiber, the schism became worse and worse. Again and again did the princes demand that Wenceslaus take the lead in resolving this fundamental crisis of Christianity. But he was dithering. He was officially a supporter of the Roman pope, by now Benedict the XIII, but when Benedict called upon him to protect him against Neapolitan incursions sponsored by the French and the Avignon popes, he failed to come help. Why, maybe because he did not want to annoy the French or maybe because he simply did not know what the right course of action was. This lack of decisiveness, the constantly shifting of allegiances without rhyme or reason was first confusing and then deeply irritating his negotiation partners.

So, what did he do all this time, from 1378 to 1400. Well mostly he tried to bring Bohemia to heel. His father had coalesced the Bohemian magnates around the idea of the Bohemian crown as a sacred object representing the kingdom itself. The barons were much more amenable to the idea of serving the kingdom and its patron, Saint Wenceslaus than the person of the emperor.

What Wenceslaus lacked was the ability to maintain ad exploit that elaborate intellectual structure. Instead he took the barons head on.

He watered down the role of the committee of the four great offices of state that ran the country. He created new offices that took over some of the Committee’s responsibilities. Then he staffed the new offices with loyal servants recruited amongst the lower nobility and even foreigners. Another move was that he claimed the right to seize lands of barons who had died without legitimate offspring. That was customary in the case of a vassals, but a terrible infringement of the ancient rights of the free Bohemian barons.

Things got even more heated when Wenceslaus got into a quarrel with the archbishop of Prague, his old tutor and advisor Johann von Jenstadt. This quarrel was as so often over land and privileges. It reached boiling point when Wenceslaus attempted to create a new bishopric separate from Prague staffed by one of his creatures. The archbishop countered this plan by electing someone else for the intended role. Wenceslaus had one of his famous tantrums and had one of the archbishop’s deacons, Johann Nepomuck arrested. Wenceslaus then had Nepomuck tortured, a process he seemingly participated in personally. And finally he had the severely injured prelate tied up and thrown off the Charles Bridge in Prague.

Nepomuck was canonised in 1721 and became the patron of Bohemia and the protector against floods and draughts, which is why you find his statue on so many bridges in catholic Germany.

The murder of Johann Nepomuck was a horrific crime that shocked most of europe, was later cited as one of the key reasons for his deposition, and pushed the Bohemian barons over the line. The question is, why Wenceslaus, who wasn’t a stupid man, did it.

By 1393 the king had badly deteriorated physically and mentally. He had suffered a severe illness in 1388. What made things worse was that his physicians recommended regular intake of alcohol to improve his humours, a prescription that send this already fragile individual down a path to severe alcoholism. In 1393 he narrowly survived a poison attack that further weakened him.

The barons used this weakness to present their grievances and when he refused formed a league of noble lords with the aim to gain control of the main offices of the kingdom, if need be militarily.

Wenceslaus turned to his half-brother Sigismund, the king of Hungary for help and the two signed an agreement to make each other the heirs to their respective kingdoms should one of them die without offspring.

That pushed Wenceslaus cousin, the margrave Jobst of Moravia over the edge, because Jobst had spent some fine gold to become the recognised heir to Wenceslaus. In his anger Jobst joined the league of Bohemian noble Lords and they took Wenceslaus prisoner and sent him to Austria for safekeeping. That was not such a great idea because the duke of Austria was persuaded by imperial princes, led by Ruprecht of the Palatinate, to let Wenceslaus go.

Once Wenceslaus returned to Bohemia, he acted like the proverbial elephant in the China shop, arrested his cousin Jobst of Moravaia, had a number of his enemies executed and even alienated his brother Johann of Goerlitz, pretty much the only member of his family he could trust.  

The whole thing could have resulted in massive civil war, had not been for some fortuitous deaths, including that of his brother Johann from unexplained poisoning. His other brother Sigismund came in as a white knight and negotiated a fragile peace between Wenceslaus, the noble lords and cousin Jobst of Moravia.

And that peace was indeed fragile. In 1397 Jobst had several of Wenceslaus advisors murdered and the lords kept Wenceslaus cut off from the revenues of the kingdom.

And with this we are gradually heading into the fateful year 1400.

But before we get there just a few words about problem #4, the succession to the great kings. We will go through the ins and outs of that in later episodes, but the important point for Wenceslaus was that it incapacitated all the major monarchies in his neighbourhood, France, Poland, Hungary and England. And he needed them to deal with the key challenges, in particular the schism. Moreover, his brother Sigismund was deeply involved with the Hungarian succession which drained Wenceslaus coffers and took up  a lot of headspace. As a consequence his foreign policy became increasingly erratic, swinging back and forth between France and England where the 100 Year’s War had resumed. In one of his worst miscalculations, he made Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the ruler of Milan, a duke. That might have been intended to smooth his way down to Rome, but had the opposite effect. The other Italian states, Venice, Florence in particular were extremely concerned about this improvement to their rival’s status and hence blocked any attempt of Wenceslaus to move south. Equally the imperial princes were appalled that such a parvenue and ruthless dictator was admitted into their exclusive club.

And that is where we are in the year 1397. The last time Wenceslaus had shown his face in the Empire had been in 1387. Since then, 13 years of nothing. Diets had taken place in his absence and had even sometimes been called without his permission. Even if asked to appoint an imperial vicar to deal with the most pressing affairs in his absence, he had either not responded or appointed members of his family who too were extremely busy with other things. The Landfrieden, his great achievement of the 1380s had not been extended and was effectively void. He was embroiled in Bohemian and Hungarian affairs. But the worst accusation was that he had not resolved the schism, not even made an effort to resolve it. The empire, represented by the Prince Electors, concluded that  they had no king.

Wenceslaus made one last ditch attempt. He called a diet in Frankfurt over Christmas of 1397. But that backfired badly. Wenceslaus wanted to join a French plan to depose both popes and elect a new one. The imperial princes told him in no uncertain terms that if he did that, they would depose him. He nevertheless travelled to Reims to negotiate with the French. Another catastrophe. He was stinking drunk most of the time and agreed to all that the French regent demanded. You want to marry your son to the sole heiress of the entirety of the Luxemburg possessions – sure, let’s do that. We should jointly solve the schism by firing both popes, let’s go ahead. And so on and so on.

That is where the prince Electors ran out of patience. This guy was not only useless, but dangerous. So they looked round for a suitable anti king. Their choice was King Richard II of England. But Richard turned them down. Richard had some issues of his own that left him with only 2 more years of on the throne.

After Richard’s refusal the prince electors decided to depose Wenceslaus and elect one of their won. Deposing an elected and anointed king was however no easy task. Negotiations over whether and how to do it had been going on for almost a decade, before the archbishops of Cologne, Trier and Mainz gathered together with the Count Palatinate on the Rhine and took the plunge. In an elaborate and properly legalistic document they list all of Wenceslaus crimes and shortcomings, all “unbecoming his title as Roman king” justifying his removal.

What is interesting about this document is not so much the fact that a king was deposed. That had happened before, most recently with Adolf of Nassau. But it is remarkable in as much as it tried to square this decision with the Golden Bull. Though the Prince Electors are clearly deviating from the Golden Bull, by referencing it, they reaffirming its status as the basic law of the empire. So, if anyone had won in this, it was the Golden Bull.

The one who did not win in all that was the man they elected to be Wenceslaus’ successor, Ruprecht of the Platinate. Ruprecht was an extremely competent, sober man with a solid political instinct. He had been the dominant figure in the empire during Wenceslaus long absence. He had been the one engineering the Heidelberger Stallung and also the one who had freed Wenceslaus from his Austrian jail. Putting together the coalition of Prince Electors that deposed Wenceslaus was very much his work. He, and his father had been behind the few bits of imperial policy in this period that did actually work.

And he had the right idea. He decided to go down to Rome, get crowned emperor and then wanted to organise a new church council to end the schism.

But what he had not counted on was Karl IV’s great legacy, the stripping down of the imperial assets. Ruprecht simply did not have the money to do anything. His attempt to go to Rome was funded by German and Italian bankers, but ran aground when the Visconti held him off at Brescia long enough for his funds to run dry. He had to return north. After that, he was completely broke. In tavern all across the land he was made fun of as Ruprecht mit der leeren Tasche, Rupert of the empty pocket. He spent his remaining years on the throne in petty feuds with the archbishop of Mainz and efforts to solidify his territories in the Palatinate. At least on the latter he was successful and when he died in 1410, he left behind a consolidated territory along the Rhine and the Upper palatinate around Amberg, a land large enough to fund the construction of the castle of Heidelberg. I spent much of my youth in Heidelberg and so may be biased, but even as a ruin it very much deserves its position a some of Germany’s greatest tourist hotspots. If you get there, seek out Ruprecht’s palace the Ruprechtsbau and impress people by knowing who he was and why he failed.

When Ruprecht died in 1410, nobody seriously suggested that Wenceslaus was still king. Another 10 years of fighting with Bohemian barons, murders, drunken debauchery and ever deeper hatred of his brothers and cousins had left the king with barely more than an empty title that nobody recognised any more.

A new king had to be elected. After the debacle of Ruprecht’s kingship, the imperial princes knew better than to waste their wealth and reputation on this hopeless task. The only candidates were two other members of the Luxemburg family, Sigismund, the king of Hungary and Jobst, the Margrave of Moravia, Wenceslaus closest relatives who had contributed as much to his downfall as his enemies. But that is a story for another time. Next time we will dig deeper into the papal schism, that great calamity of the 14^th century that contemporaries thought was as terrifying as the plague.

And whilst you wait you may want to brush up on some of the earlier episodes where we discuss the backstory of how the church ended up in Avignon, that is episode 92 “papal epilogue” or you may want to take a look at the state of papal affairs in episodes 144 to 148 when we talk about Henry VII, his rise to power as a papal champion in defiance of the king of France and is then dropped by the papacy when things got to dicey.  

You can listen to all of these on historyofthegermans.com where you can also support the podcast by signing up as a patron or by making a one-time donation.

Season Opener

On 31^st of October 1517 a hitherto unknown professor at the smallish university of Wittenberg published 95 theses. And by doing so, he unleashed a sequence of events that would fundamentally change the face of Europe and still defines communities and nations.

The interesting question about the 95 theses is not why Luther rote them, but why they had any impact at all. Martin Luther stands at the end of a mile long queue of learned and sometimes less learned men who railed against the decadence of the church, called for a return to the actual text of the bible and demanded that the clergy lives like the apostles. But somehow the message on that fateful day in 1517 gained traction across the Christian world in a way no previous attempt had.

Why? That is a question I believe will be the guiding line through the coming seasons. Something about the social, political, cultural, religious and economic landscape of early modern Germany must have provided the cinder on which protestant ideas could catch fire.

You will now ask, why is Dirk talking about the Reformation. The last season ended on the 14^th century, a good 150 years before “the day that changed western Christianity”. Aren’t we supposed to go through this chronologically.

Oh yes we are. But as we are moving forward at our accustomed pace we will hit the Hussite revolt that started in 1415. This religious uprising has so many common threads with Luther’s reformation, it may be seen as a dress rehearsal for the actual Reformation. Luther himself declared in 1519 “Ich bin ein Hussite” I am a Hussite.

Spoiler alert, the Hussite revolt did not lead to the fraction of the catholic church, but that makes it even more interesting. What were the circumstances that led the people of Bohemia and many other parts of the empire to take up arms to defend their convictions, how come they were successful and by what means could a reconciliation be achieved? Knowing that will help us understand why a 150 years later such a settlement failed to materialize, dividing Europe into Protestants and Catholics and spurning some of the bloodiest civil wars in history.

To explore the causes and impact of this reformation before the reformation we will take a look at the decline of the house of Luxemburg, the emergence of the Ottoman empire, the creation of Burgundy as a political entity separate from France, the defeat of the Teutonic Knights and the great western schism with its resolution at the Council of Constance where amongst other things Jan Hus was convicted and burned at the stake. We will dive into Jan Hus’ and his predecessor’s thoughts and convictions as well as the military innovations of Jan Zizka and probably a lot more things I have not yet thought about.

That is quite a list of very diverse topics, which is why we will have to change the structure of our narrative. So far our storylines had mainly followed along with the lives of kings and emperors. Not necessarily because they were great men driving events, but because events centered around them, making their lives a good crutch to hang the story on. The period we are now entering was different. In the late 14^th and early 15^th century the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire were on many occasions tangential to the overall picture or even completely absent from the stage.

To give a proper account we will therefore have to look at things from multiple viewpoints. Events or people who have taken top billing in one episode may make cameo appearances in others, all in the hope of painting a broad picture of this fascinating period in history. It will be challenging, but also hopefully fun and interesting.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to Season 9 – Reformation before the Reformation – The Great Western Schism, the Hussite Wars and the rise of the Ottomans.

On 31^st of October 1517 a hitherto unknown professor at the smallish university of Wittenberg published 95 theses. And by doing so, he unleashed a sequence of events that would fundamentally change the face of Europe and still defines communities and nations.

The interesting question about the 95 theses is not why Luther rote them, but why they had any impact at all. Martin Luther stands at the end of a mile long queue of learned and sometimes less learned men who railed against the decadence of the church, called for a return to the actual text of the bible and demanded that the clergy lives like the apostles. But somehow the message on that fateful day in 1517 gained traction across the Christian world in a way no previous attempt had.

Why? That is a question I believe will be the guiding line through the coming seasons. Something about the social, political, cultural, religious and economic landscape of early modern Germany must have provided the cinder on which protestant ideas could catch fire.

You will now ask, why is Dirk talking about the Reformation. The last season ended on the 14^th century, a good 150 years before “the day that changed western Christianity”. Aren’t we supposed to go through this chronologically.

Oh yes we are. But as we are moving forward at our accustomed pace we will hit the Hussite revolt that started in 1415. This religious uprising has so many common threads with Luther’s reformation, it may be seen as a dress rehearsal for the actual Reformation. Luther himself declared in 1519 “Ich bin ein Hussite” I am a Hussite.

Spoiler alert, the Hussite revolt did not lead to the fraction of the catholic church, but that makes it even more interesting. What were the circumstances that led the people of Bohemia and many other parts of the empire to take up arms to defend their convictions, how come they were successful and by what means could a reconciliation be achieved? Knowing that will help us understand why a 150 years later such a settlement failed to materialize, dividing Europe into Protestants and Catholics and spurning some of the bloodiest civil wars in history.

To explore the causes and impact of this reformation before the reformation we will take a look at the decline of the house of Luxemburg, the emergence of the Ottoman empire, the creation of Burgundy as a political entity separate from France, the defeat of the Teutonic Knights and the great western schism with its resolution at the Council of Constance where amongst other things Jan Hus was convicted and burned at the stake. We will dive into Jan Hus’ and his predecessor’s thoughts and convictions as well as the military innovations of Jan Zizka and probably a lot more things I have not yet thought about.

That is quite a list of very diverse topics, which is why we will have to change the structure of our narrative. So far our storylines had mainly followed along with the lives of kings and emperors. Not necessarily because they were great men driving events, but because events centered around them, making their lives a good crutch to hang the story on. The period we are now entering was different. In the late 14^th and early 15^th century the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire were on many occasions tangential to the overall picture or even completely absent from the stage.

To give a proper account we will therefore have to look at things from multiple viewpoints. Events or people who have taken top billing in one episode may make cameo appearances in others, all in the hope of painting a broad picture of this fascinating period in history. It will be challenging, but also hopefully fun and interesting.

But before we start, I have to come to you cap in hand. The History of the Germans podcast is entirely free to anyone to enjoy, even to enjoy without advertising. Which means the funding has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere is the generosity of our patrons who make either ongoing monthly contributions from £2 a month on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or through a one-time donation on historyofthegermans.com/support. And let’s all thank Jean Louis S., Jocelyn H-S, Marina H., Mark S. Michael E. and Miroslav D. who have made such generous one-time donations.

And with that – back to the show

Last season we kicked off with a 10,000 feet overview of where we were, what had happened before and where the tides of history were ebbing and flooding. I think that worked quite well and gives listeners who are coming new to the History of the Germans a chance to catch up. If you are one of them, welcome!

Our starting point for this season is November 1378, most precisely the 29^th of November, the day the emperor, king of the Romans, king of Italy and king of Burgundy, Karl/Charles/Karel IV breathed his last.

Why that date? Because we are at a point of transition from the Middle Ages to the early Modern period and Karl IV and his Golden Bull were in many aspects the end point of some key historical trends that had dominated the Middle Ages. But what does transition from Middle Ages to Early Modern actually mean? In what way is this new epoch different from what went on before? The answer is, in almost every possible aspect, economic, social, political and cultural.

Let’s start with the economy. The Middle Ages from the 10^th century onwards were a period of sustained economic growth driven by a combination of improving climate conditions, the so-called medieval warm period, and a series of improvements to agricultural techniques, for instance the use of heavier ploughs drawn by horses something made possible by the invention of the horse collar and the horseshoe. Another key innovation was crop rotation that hugely increased yields. And social change, namely the replacement of slavery with serfdom and then with tenancy agreement that pushed productivity.

These improvements drove a rapid rise in population, which in turn brought more and more land under cultivation. For Britain where we have reasonable data, the population rose from 1 million to 5-6 million between the post Roman period and the year 1300. By then about 10.5 million acres had been put under the plough, again a roughly 3-fold increase. At these levels most regions in western Europe had reached saturation levels which led to a huge migration eastwards where almost 10% of the population of the empire left their overcrowded homes in the Rhineland, Flanders, Holland and elsewhere to search for pastures new in what is today east Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechia, the Baltic states, Prussia and even further afield.

The medieval warming period ended in the middle or end of the 13^th century and by the 14^th century Europe was gradually getting colder, a process called the little ice age that peaked in the 16^th and 17^th century and lasted until the mid-19^th century. Severe famines as one has not seen for centuries began in the 1310s. Natural catastrophes became more common. The Grote Mandrenke, the great drowning of men in 1362 killed 25,000, sank the town of Rungholt in Frisia and turned 5000 square kilometers of land into a shallow sea on the Dutch coast, an area far larger than the Ijsselmer and Markermer that remain of it.

The biggest humanitarian disaster was however the Black Death, the plague that killed roughly a third of Europe’s population and kept returning in regular intervals for centuries.

The combination of these two effects, the climate and the plague meant that growth stalled and populations shrunk. Much of the land that had been cultivated in the 13^th century was no longer viable in the 14^th century. And it was also no longer needed as there were less mouths to feed.

This change in population and economics drove social change too.

The dramatic cull of people during the plague often hit the cities harder than the countryside as people lived close together. For some cities, the Black Death brought about rapid decline, some vanished completely. But those that survived quickly filled up again. They had not lost their economic advantages, which meant there were suddenly a large number of job openings. For many a peasant, tired of paying ever increasing rents to their landlord, life in the city became an attractive proposition. So, these surviving country dwellers left for the bright lights and freedom of the towns and cities. And that not just happen during the great Plague of 1348 to 1352 but again during the subsequent outbreaks that occurred every 10 to 15 years..

That in turn caused some serious problems for the landowners, in particular for the knightly class. They had so far benefitted from the population explosion that had created an almost inexhaustible supply of cheap labor to toil on their estates, either as tenants or as farmhands. But now that well had dried up, first through the disease and then the rural exodus that followed. If they wanted to keep their workforce they had to pay them a fair wage. The Bank of England did an analysis of wages going back to the 13^th century and the period of the Black death was the only time before the industrial revolution when real incomes increased. Great for peasant’s pockets but a severe cut to the baronial profit margins, profit margins already depleted by a decline in prices. Prices had dropped because there were simply less people around demanding foodstuff.

As the knights, these embodiment of the medieval world saw their financial resources shrink, they experienced another, even harsher hit to their social standing. For centuries the knight in his metal cocoon riding his mighty warhorse was the Leopard Tank of his day, a weapon so powerful, only another knight could stand up to it. But that time was coming to an end. The battles of Morgarten,  Mühldorf and in Flanders had shown that infantry armed with halberds and cunning could inflict serious damage on armored riders. The success of the English longbowmen at Crecy and Poitiers should have penetrated the minds of the French nobility as much as it did their armor, though they still needed another reminder at Agincourt. Canons appear from the late 14^th century, at which point the hegemony of the Knights on the battlefield is well and truly over.

Moreover, tactics changed. The amateurish armies of volunteers that were the mainstay of the Middle Ages were replaced by bands of professional soldiers. The practice began in Italy where the city councils got used to hiring Condottiere to fight their wars rather than sending their precious sons out to the battlefield. The Hundred Years’ war saw the rise of the Compagnie of mercenaries offering their services to either party in the conflict and the civil wars of the Interregnum in the empire were decided by who could hire and pay the best mercenaries.

As the knights declined, their role at the top of the tree, in the councils of the princes and emperors, was taken by the merchants, bankers and lawyers. When in the 12^th century Frederick Barbarossa’s main advisers had been the duke Otto von Wittelsbach and Rainald von Dassel, the archbishop of Cologne, 200 years later emperor Karl IV’s chancery was staffed with lawyers from the lower nobility or the city patricians. He listened more to the advice of his Nurnberg bankers who could provide him cash to pay for mercenary armies or his acquisitions, and in whose mansions he rather stayed, than in some drafty castle.

The rise of the merchants and bankers was no coincidence. Trade networks expanded in the 13^th and 14^th century, ships had become larger, transport costs were falling meaning profits for merchants in the major centers were going up and up. Shipping bulk goods, wheat, herring, wood, ash, base metals even ore became viable businesses alongside the long established trade in spices, furs and beeswax. This was the height of the power of the Hanseatic League that gained a near monopoly on the East-West trade all the way from Novgorod and Bergen to Bruges and London.

A specific area of growth for the German cities, and Nurnberg in particular, were advances in metallurgy. Mining and smelting had always been a key industry in the German lands ever since the silver mines of Goslar opened in the 10^th century. But in the 14^th century new technologies were developed. One particular breakthrough exploited the fact that most copper ore in Europe contained traces of silver. The secret “Saiger” process developed by a Nurnberg merchant enabled them to separate the two metals. It made the copper purer and hence more valuable and left behind an amount of silver as a windfall. This process was extremely lucrative. Traders could make six times from the sale of the copper and silver than they had paid for the ore.

As economic activity in the cities thrived, they were able to translate this into influence and political independence. Under the feudal system that prevailed across Europe, cities were subject to the ownership rights of the prince on whose territory they were located and whose forefathers had often founded them in the first place. But over time some cities have been able to shake off their overlord. Places like Cologne, Regensburg, Mainz and Strasburg had paid off and chased off their bishops who had once ruled over them and had become free cities. The cities that were located on royal land benefitted from the weakness of the central power. They would proudly declare allegiance to the emperor and, under duress, pay him taxes, but in all other respects these imperial cities were as free as the free cities. And then you have places like Hamburg where the council simply forged a charter that had declared them a free and imperial city and pushed this claim through by force and fortune. But even where formal overlordship remained, as was the case with most members of the Hanseatic League, the cities enjoyed a large degree of freedom at least in the 14^th and 15^th century.

Which gets us to the political picture.

The great medieval dynasties of the Ottonians, the Salians and the Hohenstaufen had expired by 1268. A centuries long conflict with the papacy over leadership of Christianity and repeated attempts to bring Northern Italy to heel had ended with a comprehensive defeat of imperial power. The last of these emperors, Frederick II had died in 1250, excommunicated, militarily and physically exhausted and increasingly paranoid. His son, Konrad was never crowned King of the Romans and perished in the attempt to defend his kingdom of Sicily against Charles of Anjou, the papal champion. The last of the dynasty, Konradin, died aged just 17 on the executioners block in Naples, having failed to oust the usurper of the Sicilian crown.

After that the empire had no effective leadership for two decades. Two foreigners, Alfonso X of Castile and Richard of Cornwall were simultaneously elected as kings of the Romans, but neither could assert much authority.

In 1273 the prince electors, at that point a still somewhat fluid group, elected Rudolf of Habsburg, a count from the Aargau in modern day Switzerland. Rudolf was a truly impressive figure, a ruthless warrior but commensurate strategist and politician. He had profited enormously from the collapse of Hohenstaufen power, taking over lands and cities previously held by the imperial family. He was however still only a count and his family had been relative parvenues. That may have been the reason the electors chose him, believing he would be a weak ruler who would grant them whatever rights and privileges they desired.

As it turned out, Rudolf was nothing of that sort. He initiated a restitution policy forcing princes and bishops to hand back the formerly royal lands to the king. Peter Wilson estimated that roughly 2/3 of the former imperial resources were recovered.

Rudolf also embarked on a confrontation with the richest and most powerful of the imperial princes, king Ottokar II of Bohemia, the “Golden King”. Relying on the large silver mines in Kutna Hora, Ottokar II had expanded his realm by acquiring Austria, Styria, Carinthia and what is now Frioul and Slovenia. Rudolf outmaneuvered Ottokar and forced him to hand him the Austrian duchies. In a subsequent battle Rudolf defeated Ottokar II who died in the field. The Habsburgs took over Austria which over time became the center of their power.

Upon Rudolf’s death the electors refused to elect Rudolf’s son which would have created a new royal or even imperial dynasty. Instead they chose another little count, Adolf von Nassau. Adolf tried the same trick, this time going after the Landgraviate of Thuringia. But that failed, he irritated the Prince electors who deposed him and called back Albrecht von Habsburg, the son of Rudolf they had previously rejected. Albrecht defeated and killed Adolf and took control of the empire.

Albrecht’s main interest was now to further expand his and his family’s possessions. The golden opportunity was the kingdom of Bohemia where king Ottokar’s family, the Premyslids had died out. There was lot of back and forth, and just when Albrecht was preparing for another invasion of Bohemia he was murdered by his nephew.

Adolf and Albrecht represent a new approach to the role of the King of the Romans. These men looked at the title only as a way to expand their personal wealth, in particular using the royal prerogative to claim fiefs that had become vacant upon the extinction of the vassal’s family. The empire and its interests were clearly secondary.

Their successor was another “little count” in inverted commas, Henry of Luxemburg. And the calculation of the prince electors was again the same as before, let’s get someone with limited resources on the throne and push him around. And again, their gamble did not work out.

Henry VII was cut from a different cloth. He had grown up at the French court and had a much broader perspective. He saw that unless he gained the imperial crown through a coronation in Rome, the imperial title and with it political power over the empire would inevitably fall to the French king.

Henry VII therefore set off for Italy, the first emperor to be crowned in Rome for almost a century. But apart from the coronation, his stay in Italy was a terrible failure. Like his predecessors he was dragged into protracted Italian domestic conflicts that he could not resolve. His army perished before the walls of Brescia, his beloved wife succumbed to disease, and so did he a year later.

But the house of Luxemburg did receive a windfall profit they did not even aspire to. And it was the most valuable of them all, the kingdom of Bohemia. The Bohemian nobles who retained the right to choose their ruler offered the crown to John, the son of Henry VII. Though Henry saw it as a distraction from his main objective, the Roman coronation, he was persuaded to let the Bohemians take his son home as their new king. John of Luxemburg would later become famous as the Blind King of Bohemia whose pointless chivalric deeds at the battle of Crecy gained him the respect of Edward, the Black Prince of Wales.

After Henry VII death, we have another simultaneous election of a king of the Romans, Ludwig of Wittelsbach, duke of Upper Bavaria and Frederick of Habsburg, duke of Austria. In 1322 Ludwig did emerge victorious at the battle of Mühldorf. But by then imperial power was already so diminished, the title, its resources and prerogatives added only marginal advantage to its holder.

The political landscape had become a system of three roughly equal sized power structures. The house of Habsburg centered round Austria and their holdings in South-west Germany, Alsace and Switzerland,  the Luxemburgs as kings of Bohemia and counts of Luxemburg and the Wittelsbachs as dukes of Bavaria and Counts Palatinate on the Rhine.

During the 30 year long reign of Ludwig the Bavarian, the three parties carved up all vacating fiefs between each them. The Habsburgs received Carinthia, the Wittelsbachs Brandenburg and Holand Hennegau and the Luxemburgs Silesia.

Where they clashed was over the county of Tyrol which controlled the important transalpine routes, including the Brenner pass. John of Luxemburg got there first, gaining the hand of the heiress of these lands, Margarete Maultasch for his son Johann Heinrich. However that relationship broke down and Margarete threw the Luxemburger out and married the son of Ludwig the Bavarian, without prior divorce. In the end, after the Margarete’s only child had died, she handed the county to the Habsburgs.

Ludwig managed to keep a lid on all these conflicts until in 1347 the kettle boiled over. The Luxemburg party elevated Karl, the son of the blind king of Bohemia to king of the Romans. Karl managed to overcome his opposition, partially because both Ludwig the Bavarian and the next champion of the Wittelsbach cause died, but mainly through bribery. These bribes were astronomical, adding up to 1.6 million gold florins.

To raise theses funds Karl sold, pawned and granted away almost all that was left of the royal lands and rights. Though he bought some of it back later, the net result was that from now on any holder of the royal or imperial title had to fund almost the entirety of their administration from their personal fortune.

Karl IV reigned for 30 years, a period during which he stabilized the situation in the German lands and issued the most significant constitutional document in the 14^th century empire, the Golden Bull.

The Golden Bull did not say anything fundamentally new. It set out that the king of the Romans was elected by a majority of the seven electors, these being the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, the king of Bohemia, the duke of Sachsen-Wittenberg, the Count Palatinate on the Rhine and  margrave of Brandenburg. These electors had been set more or less since the election of Rudolf of Habsburg in 1273. All the Golden Bull did was to clarify exactly which branch of the respective houses was allowed to vote, the voting process, location and the like.  It also granted the Prince Electors king-like status in their own lands. They enjoyed all formerly royal rights and privileges in their lands, like the establishment of tolls, the raising of taxes, minting of coins, building of castles and establishment of cities. Their subjects had only limited recourse to imperial justice. Basically they were completely autonomous though still part of the empire. Again, not really a change from the status quo, but a written confirmation of it.

The significance of the Golden Bull lay less in what it said than in what it did not say. The Golden Bull makes no mention of the pope at all. And by this omission it asserts that the pope has no role in the choice of the future emperor. Hitherto the popes had declared an explicit right of approbation, i.e., they reserved the right to reject an election they did not agree with. This was one of the manifestations of the superiority of the popes over the emperors that had been the key intellectual and political battleground of the Middle Ages. 

Pope John XXII and Ludwig the Bavarian had clashed over exactly this question, the approbation. This conflict resulted in the excommunication of Ludwig, his family and in the end the entire empire. Ludwig managed to hold on to his throne and gained the support of the imperial bishops, abbots and clergy in his defiance of the papacy. He even got crowned in Rome, not by the pope or a cardinal, but by the people and senate of Rome, much like the pagan emperors of old. At the Kurverein zu Rhens the electors asserted their right to elect the future emperor without any interference from the papacy. This statement was obviously not recognized by the papacy. But when Karl IV issued the Golden Bull, which in a more elegant way said the same, the pope did not object too loudly.

And that brought the long lasting papal-imperial conflict, that central axis of medieval politics, to an end and laid the foundations for a new constitution of the empire, as yet unknown.

If we sum up the political situation over these 125 odd years from 1250 to the death of Karll IV in 1378, one question should come up, which is, how could the empire afford a hollowed out central authority, squabbling princes, excessive bribery and a papal interdict on top. Why did it not get invaded? Any other state with that level of dysfunction would not have been able to maintain its territorial integrity.

And that gets us to something that nobody ever seems to mention. For almost 300 years, ever since the battle on the Lechfeld in 955, there had not been any external threat to the empire’s borders. This is truly astounding. If you look at France and its constant wars with England, Spain’s Reconquista, the never ending wars between the Scandinavian kingdoms, Poland’s conflict with the Lithuanians and the Teutonic Knights, it becomes clear that in this respect the Holy Roman empire in the 13^th and 14^th century was an exception.

Basically the empire was exceedingly lucky. On its eastern border Poland had disintegrated into dozens and dozens of smallish duchies ruled by descendants of king Boleslaw III, the Wrymouth. The powers to the east of Poland had been wiped out by the Mongols who themselves made only one brief effort to move west before their urge for conquest died down. So instead of being a threat to the empire, Poland and the east became an area of conquest and emigration for the empire. First the buffer states of the Slavic Wends between the Elbe and the Polish border was taken over by Saxon nobles who founded Brandenburg and the various Saxon duchies. Some of the Slavic elite like the dukes of Mecklenburg and Pomerania were coopted into the empire. The Teutonic knights were called in by a Polish duke to deal with the pagan Pruzzi and established the order’s state in Prussia.

Equally the Hungarians had integrated into the West and Bohemia was part of the empire. The Scandinavians in the North were preoccupied with their constant wars of succession, often finding themselves dependent upon the counts of Holstein or the Dukes of Mecklenburg or dealing with the Hanseatic League.

Finally in the west, the kings of France had focused on their internal consolidation rather than outward expansion. Their two 100 years wars with their largest vassal, the king of England left little resources for forays eastwards. As for the south, Italy was a key battleground for medieval imperial politics, but that was always a civil war between the papal and imperial faction, not a war of conquest.

As we head into the end of the 14^th and the 15^th century this picture changed considerably. The kingdom of Poland recovered from centuries of total fragmentation. Under Wladyslaw the elbow-High and  Kasimir the Great the Piast duchies united back into a kingdom and took an ever more aggressive stance against the Teutonic Knights and the encroaching Margraves of Brandenburg.

At the same time king Louis the great of Hungary led a renaissance of Hungarian power and played a key role in imperial politics. And all that happened on the doorstep of Bohemia, the main powerbase of the imperial family.

Equally the French monarchy had started nibbling away at the French-speaking imperial bishoprics of Cambrai, Toul, Verdun, Metz and Liege. Further south Provence, still part of the kingdom of the Arelat and hence imperial territory was ruled by a cadet branch of the French royal family. The Franche-Comte, once home to Barbarossa’s wife Beatrice was gradually transferred to France in the 14^th century.

The issue of French encroachment became an increasingly important topic, in particular under the Luxemburg emperors Henry VII and Karl IV who hailed from the area. Karl IV used the weakness of the French monarch after their defeat at the battles of Crecy and Poitiers to reassert imperial authority by holding a massive diet in Metz in 1356 where the Golden Bull was finally proclaimed. However, once France had regained the territories ceded to the English in the treaty of Bretigny, they turned their gaze again eastwards to the empire.

In the last year of his life emperor Karl IV travelled to France to find a compromise with Charles V of France over the former kingdom of Burgundy which included Provence, the Rhone valley and Piedmont as well as the succession to the Hungarian and Polish thrones. In this deal, the details are unknown, it seems as if Karl IV handed over de facto control of Provence and the Rhone valley to the French crown in exchange for his son’s succession in Hungary.

What we can conclude from that is the main political axis had shifted from north-south to east-west. In the Middle Ages, emperors were focused on Italy and on the papacy, but by the end of the 14^th century most of time and effort is spent on France, Poland and Hungary.

And just generally, the center of power in the empire has shifted east. The medieval emperors had their main landholdings and support base in the south and along the Rhine river. Now, under Karl IV, imperial power relies on Bohemia with its satellites, Silesia and Moravia and the recently acquired margraviate of Brandenburg.

With external pressures mounting fundamental reform of the empire becomes ever more pressing. To put that into perspective, king Edward III of England had borrowed 1.1 million gold Florin to fight the 100 Years’ war against the French. The total income of the emperor from his imperial resources was 20,000 Gold Florin. If he wanted to raise exceptional taxes, the only place he could do that was in the imperial cities that would occasionally head his demands, but not always. The other source of funds were the merchant bankers in these cities who lent considerable amounts against huge interest and only upon handover of valuable collateral.

Despite their importance in the functioning of the empire, by 1378 the cities were most unhappy with the state of affairs in the kingdom. Being dependent upon trade, their main concern was the safety of the roads and rivers, the tolls charged and the stability of the currency. When Karl IV designed the Golden Bull he initially wanted to address all three subjects. He aimed for a communal policy on coinage, guaranteeing the levels of precious metal content, restrictions on tolls and a general peace, a Landfrieden. The Landfrieden would have been a permanent ban on private violence, requiring the princes to eradicate the robber barons and recognize a system of law courts that based their decision on the written laws. In exchange the cities would have to refrain from forming leagues and associations for mutual support, i.e, doing all these things by themselves.

But these provisions were never passed. In the negotiations the princes managed to water the rules on mints, tolls and the peace down to practically zero. All that was left in the Golden Bull was the ban on the formation of city leagues.

No points to Griffindor for figuring out what happened next. With the central government unable to guarantee safety from illegal and legal robbery, the cities defied the Golden Bull. The Swabian cities, most of them imperial ones, formed a league led by the city of Ulm. They refused to swear allegiance to Karl’s son Wenceslaus which resulted in a war. The imperial army failed to scale the walls of Ulm and the emperor had to reach for a compromise that sanctioned the Swabian league. And the war boosted the confidence of the citizens of Ulm to the point they gave their parish church, the Ulmer Muenster, the tallest church tower in the world, or at least they tried. The tower was only completed in the 19^th century.

Another, even more unusual league formed in the South West. The imperial cities of Zurich, Bern and Lucerne joined the forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden in an agreement of mutual support against their not really very oppressive overlords, the house of Habsburg.

But it is not only the economic, social and political picture has fundamentally changed by the middle of the 14^th century. There is also a huge cultural shift.

When we talk about culture in the Middle Ages, what we are talking about is religion, and even more specifically, the church and at its head, the papacy.

Ever since the 10^th century religious history was driven by the constant demand to reform the church. Given the importance the afterlife played in the mind of people of the Middle Ages, the quality of the church personnel who performed the holy sacraments was of crucial importance. A sinner wanted to be sure that his absolution was valid so that his time in purgatory was shortened. And for the sacrament, be it eucharist, baptism, confession, confirmation and last rites, to be valid, it had to be performed accurately, something only a competent and properly anointed priest could ensure. Even though the papacy had confirmed many times that even sacraments administered by unworthy clergymen in an inaccurate  manner were valid, the people still demanded better.

These reform efforts had come in waves. Once disappointment with the established church reached boiling point, reformers gained traction proposing changes. The Cluniac abbots, St. Peter Damian, Anselm of Canterbury preached reform in the 11^th century, Bernhard of Clairvaux in the 12^th century and St. Francis in the 13^th century. For most of this period the papacy was able to retain control over the reform process. They usually achieved that by co-opting the movements into their system, be it as Cluniacs, Cistercians or Franciscans. This, combined with relentless persecution of those reformers they branded heretics kept the pope in charge.

In the 14^th century the papacy lost control of the reform agenda. They had moved to Avignon where they spent their days under the watchful eye of the French monarch and doing their bidding, even when it was to sanction a raid on the templar order. In this period the church became much more efficient as an organization, gaining more and more control over the local bishoprics and even individual clergymen. At the same time it also improved its fiscal capabilities, collecting tithes more consistently, drawing the first year income of newly elected bishops and issuing indulgences as a way to monetize their store of holiness. This process made the Avignon papacy appear greedy and worldly to the common man. Moreover it made it unpopular with local clergy whose autonomy and income they had seized.

Pope John XXII, a lawyer more than a theologian, put oil in the fire when he pressured the Franciscan order to give up its vow of poverty. He reasoned that the image of a poor Franciscan habit next to a bejeweled cardinal made the latter look bad. This debate t- hat quickly became a debate over whether the church as a whole should be as poor as Jesus had been – had a devastating impact on the perception of the papacy. The pope was seen as endorsing the worldliness of the church rather than fighting it. And worldly the church had become. Teenage archbishops, drunk parsons, dissolute monks and lustful nuns returned not just as tropes in folk tales and bawdy songs.

Having lost the moral high ground the popes saw their hold on political power wane. When pope John XXII excommunicated the elected king of the Romans, Ludwig IV, the move backfired badly. Ludwig marshalled a coalition between the Franciscan dissenters and the imperial church against the pope. For almost 30 years did the church in the German lands live outside the reach and in defiance of the papacy. Even when the papal candidate Karl IV replaced Ludwig, he quickly shed the mantle of papal protegee. Nobody wanted to be a Pfaffenkönig, a pet of the church.

Karl IV did formally reconcile the empire with the Holy See and the interdict was lifted but the hold of the pope over the empire was broken as the Golden Bull made clear.

The calamities of the papacy did not end with the Golden Bull. In 1377 pope Gregory XI returned to Rome from Avignon. But there he died just months later. The cardinals elected a new pope, Urban VI. How free and fair this election was depends on what impact one ascribes to the Roman mob that had gathered outside, threatening to kill everyone inside unless they chose a Roman pope. Once back in Avignon the cardinals declared the election of Urban VI invalid and elected a new one, Clement VII. We now have two popes. Urban VI was recognized by several powers, including the emperor and the king of England, whilst Clement VII relied mainly on French support. The Great Western Schism was born. As the two popes were preoccupied with their internal squabbles, hope for church reform receded further and further.

The inability of the papacy to lead a successful reform program left a void. Whenever that had happened In the Middle Ages the emperors had occupied this empty space, claiming universal responsibility for Christendom. But that claim has moved so far from the political realities of the day, even pious rulers like Karl IV could not really take up the mantle any more.

Which meant the reform debate was left to the laity and the intellectuals. Men like Dante, William of Ockham, Marsilius of Padua and Petrarch developed entirely new concepts of how the church should be organized. Marsilius who is one of the most unfairly overlooked political thinkers in European history was the most radical. In his Defensor Pacis, the Defender of the Peace he declared that all laws that bind men in the here and now derive their legitimacy from the acclamation of the people. A ruler rules only on the support of the ruled, not by divine right. Hence in the empire, it is the emperor who makes the laws in agreement with the ruled, represented by the Prince-Electors. The pope on the other hand has no power in the temporal world, his realm is the spiritual world.

Marsilius’ writings gained a lot of traction. They were translated into French, Italian and German which indicates they were read not just by the Latin-speaking intellectual elite, but much more broadly. Other thinkers, namely John Wycliff who we have not yet talked about, developed these ideas further.

What helped the spread of new concepts were the new universities that had sprung up across central Europe. Prague University opened in 1348, Krakow in 1364, Vienna in 1365, Pecs in Hungary in 1367, Heidelberg in 1386, Leipzig 1409 and Rostock in 1419.

Charismatic preachers spread their message of the sinfulness of the official church and the urgent need for reform.

In particular in the empire, which had been detached from the papacy for decades under Ludwig the Bavarians, the population was already very skeptical of the ability that reform could be achieved inside the church.

And that is where the story begins.

Next week we will kick off by looking at Karl IV’s successor, king Wenceslaus IV who inherited what looked like a stable and well sorted reign even though several key reform projects are still unfinished. Will he be able to continue in his father’s footsteps, deliver the Landfrieden, protect the empire against its external foes and resolve the Great Western Schism? Well, let’s see.

And whilst you wait you may want to brush up on some of the earlier episodes that go into a lot more depth on some of the topics we just discussed. In particular the episodes 149 to 151 where we discuss the reign of Ludwig the Bavarian, which was a crucial period when the empire and the church drifted apart. Or if you need a refresher on how imperial power fell apart, the episodes 73 to 77 trace the story of the civil war between Philip of Swabia and Otto IV that brought a free for all for the imperial princes and then the early years of Frederick II who had to accept the status quo. Or if you like to hear more about the Hanseatic League or the Teutonic Knights, you can find these as a separate podcast unimaginatively titled the Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Knights wherever you find the History of the Germans.

You can listen to all of these on historyofthegermans.com where you can also support the podcast by signing up as a patron or by making a one-time donation.

Emperor Karl IV gets his son Wenceslaus IV crowned king of the Romans

This is the last episode of this season and it is time to say goodbye to Karl IV, Ludwig the Bavarian, Henry VII, Albrecht of Habsburg, Adolf von Nassau and Rudolf of Habsburg. These have been some eventful 138 years.

When Karl IV died in 1378 he left behind an impressive list of achievements but also a number of failures. And he left behind a son, Wenceslaus he had invested with so much hope and so many crowns, it not only broke the bank but even chunks of the political edifice he had so patiently built.

How and why is what we will discuss in this episode.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 163 – Succession and Legacy, also episode 26 of Season 8 “From the Interregnum to the Golden Bull”.

This is the last episode of this season and it is time to say goodbye to Karl IV, Ludwig the Bavarian, Henry VII, Albrecht of Habsburg, Adolf von Nassau and Rudolf of Habsburg. These have been some eventful 138 years.

When Karl IV died in 1378 he left behind an impressive list of achievements but also a number of failures. And he left behind a son, Wenceslaus he had invested with so much hope and so many crowns, it not only broke the bank but even chunks of the political edifice he had so patiently built.

How and why is what we will discuss in this episode.

But before we start the usual reminder that all this advertising-free German history fun is funded by the generosity of our patrons who have gone to historyofthegermans.com/support and signed up as Patrons or have made a one time donation. And today I want to thank Jim V., Chris E. J, Gilles, John Thompson, Peter McCloskey and Martin E. who have so lavishly endowed us.

And with that, back to the show

These last three episodes we have looked at Bohemia, the Empire, the expansion of the Luxemburg  possessions and the international successes of Charles IV. Now it is time to talk about his Achilles heel, his obsession with his son and heir, Wenceslaus.

The last time a son had followed his father on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire had been in 1191 when Henry VI took over from Frederick Barbarossa. One could claim that Konrad IV took over from Frederick II in 1250, but Konrad IV was never crowned and his reign in the empire was confined to his duchy of Swabia.

Spoiler alert, Karl IV will be the first emperor who gets his son elected and crowned during his lifetime. But that came at a price.

Before we can get into this we need to take a quick recap of Karl IV’s family history. He had been married a total of four times. His first marriage was to Blanche of Valois, the sister of king Philip VI of France, a marriage arranged whilst he lived in Paris. The couple were married for 18 years, but had only two children, both girls, but no son and heir.

Her death in 1348 came at an extremely opportune moment for Karl, because he was now free to marry Anne of Bavaria, the daughter of the Count Palatinate on the Rhine who brought him a crucial electoral vote as well as strategic positions in the Upper Palatinate. This relationship produced a much desired son, but the child died in infancy. Anne too died soon after.

Wife #3 was Anna of Schweidnitz, daughter and heiress of one of the Silesian dukedoms that Karl wanted to integrate into the Lands of the Crown of Bohemia. Anna was just 14 at the time they got betrothed and lived to age 23. In that time she got crowned Queen of Bohemia, Queen of the Romans and finally in 1355, she was crowned empress in Rome. But most importantly after first giving birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1358, in 1361 she delivered the long awaited heir, a boy called Wenceslaus.

Like so much of Karl’s activities, the birth of Wenceslaus was an elaborately designed spectacle. Karl had his heavily pregnant wife brought to Nürnberg, by now one of the three symbolic cities of the empire, alongside Frankfurt and Aachen. And he had invited the electors, imperial princes and representatives of the great cities  for a diet at the same time.

On previous visits the emperor had stayed in the comfortable mansions of one of the great Nürnberg bankers where he could enjoy all creature comforts. But that would not do for the birth of an imperial child. So the family moved up the hill into the drafty castle once built by the Hohenstaufen emperors.

By ensuring his son was born in the imperial castle above the great imperial city, in the presence of the whole of the empire, Karl projects a clear message. This child, his son, was not just the future king of Bohemia, but he was also destined to be the future emperor.  

My god is he a happy father. This is what he wrote to the Bohemians: quote: “Rejoice in the hearts of all our faithful! rejoice, our dear subjects, let the whole nation hold a great festival of joy. All Bohemia, and all its provinces, rejoice at the great happiness that has befallen you. You rich and poor, you young and old, rejoice, for behold the royal lineage has brought forth a scion! Heaven has finally granted our ardent wishes, and the Empress, our consort, has given birth to our heir to the throne, as promised by God! His appearance was like the rising sun dispelling the fog, for this newborn also dispelled the fickleness, indecision, fear and hope from the hearts of our subjects, and brought back their previous happiness, serene confidence and love.” End quote.

He may be laying it on thick, but then he was already 45 years old and until then without a male heir. This lack of a successor left the entire political structure he had built fragile. And that fragility impacted not just him, but the whole of his empire that could still remember the endless sequence of civil wars that had followed an imperial vacancy. Therefore it is likely that there were indeed celebrations of joy across the empire, welcoming the long awaited heir.

Karl’s excitement culminated in the weeks that followed. He had the baby weighed in gold, which he sent to Aachen in recognition for the miracle he attribute to the intercession of the saints and relics in this other great imperial city. He then called for the imperial regalia to be brought over from Prague to Nürnberg to be exhibited to the public.

For the christening 2 weeks later 5 electors, 18 bishops and numerous princes came to the church of St. Sebaldus in Nürnberg. Having just been to the christening of my niece and nephew, I know that children can sometimes be less than co-operative in religious ceremonies. Reports about young Wenceslaus christening tell of the little boy being more than obstinate. Stories circulate that in his revulsion he had soiled the holy water and even the fouled the altar, a bad omen for what may be coming.

Bad omen or not, these celebrations did not go down well with the Habsburgs and the Wittelsbachs who saw their chances of returning to the imperial throne vanishing. The events may therefore have triggered their attempt to overthrow Karl in alliance with the kings of Poland and Hungary. This conspiracy as we have heard, failed, in part because Anna of Schweidnitz was kind enough to expire in childbirth a year later, making way for Karl’s fourth marriage to Elizabeth of Pomerania. Elizabeth was the granddaughter of king Kasimir the Great of Poland and this union underpinned a new arrangement between Poland and the emperor, which in turn let the Habsburg conspiracy crumble into dust.

The marriage to Elisabeth of Pomerania lasted until Karl’s death and produced 6 children, 4 of which survived. The eldest of the two surviving sons, Sigismund will feature heavily in our next season, so keep him in mind.

But back to Wenceslaus. Karl is unperturbed in his urge to promote his precious little boy. First he creates a new altar for the coronation church in Aachen, dedicated to St. Wenceslaus where a Czech speaking priest is to pray for the now deceased members of the House of Luxemburg, including for Wenceslaus mother.

As soon as little Wenzeslaus could walk, he was crowned king of Bohemia. Karl’s advisers had tried to dissuade him from this, in large part because they feared it would be almost impossible to guide the child once crowned. After all, sending an anointed king on to the naughty step was fraught with complex issues of “lese majeste”. And as you probably know, the naughty step was not introduced until the early 2000s, so we are talking about much more hands-on punishments here.

Then, to paraphrase Jane Austin, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a young man in possession of a crown, must be in want of a wife. The young man in question being unable to even form the words “I do” was no obstacle for him to be promised in marriage to a daughter of the Burggrave of Nürnberg. That engagement ended when a better opportunity arose to get him a Wittelsbach bride, and a little later a Hungarian princess. Finally it is 14-year old Johanna von Wittelsbach who snatches the nine-year old heir.

3 years later Wenceslaus becomes the elector of Brandenburg, making him an imperial prince alongside his royal Bohemian title.

When Wenceslaus turns 15, the emperor gets going on his most ambitious project for his precious son, getting him elected and crowned king of the Romans. And ambitious it was.

Let’s start with the legal obstacles.

All the provisions of the Golden Bull are based on the implicit assumption that the previous emperor had died. There are no rules about electing a king of the Romans whilst the predecessor is still alive.

Plus, the Golden Bull had explicitly set out that an elector was only able to cast his vote when he had become 18 years of age, which suggests an emperor should also at least be 18 years old.

But regulation, schmogulation, if only enough bribes are paid, the Electors ewre all too happy to set aside these judicial niceties.

Ah, enough bribes. That was a bit of a problem. For one the bribes required came to a stunning quarter of a million florin. A princely sum that already but coming just in the wake of the 500,000 florin Karl had promised the Wittelsbachs for the margraviate of Brandenburg. Where to find such a princely sum? The imperial lands, cities, castles, tolls and so forth had already been pawned, sold and otherwise alienated in the run-up to Karl’s own election and coronation. Karl had bought back some of it during the course of the last 20 years, focusing mainly on freeing the imperial cities from the control of the territorial lords.

But these imperial cities were difficult to pawn again. Because in the intervening period Karl had ever so often asked the cities to fund his projects such as the journeys to Rome, his various coronations and acquisitions. And in exchange for payment of these taxes the cities had made Karl promise that he would never again pawn them away or diminish their privileges.

But needs must. So, Karl goes about pawning and selling imperial cities to territorial lords as if there had never been any such agreements. The crassest treatment was suffered by the city of Cologne, still Germany’s largest. To obtain the vote of the archbishop of Cologne, Karl had to revoke a number of privileges for the city. the problem was that he had just recently issued a charter granting Cologne a wide range of privileges and almost complete independence from the archbishop’s control. The only way to solve this conundrum was for the imperial chancellery to blatantly declared that they had never issued such a charter and that whatever paper the good citizens of Cologne held in their hand was not worth the parchment it was written on. When the baffled citizens protested pointing out their long track record of loyalty to the empire, Karl placed the whole city under the imperial ban.

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The cities had already been quite upset about the Golden Bull that prevented them from forming city alliances for mutual protection, whilst at the same time not producing a general peace, a Landfrieden, for the whole empire. How were the roads going to be made safe if they could neither do it themselves nor rely on the government. In their eyes the emperor had not only failed them but was now charging excessive taxes, and worse, placing them under the control of territorial lords who wanted to dismantle their freedoms.

18 Swabian cities, led by the city of Ulm formed the Schwäbische Bund, a league of defense against imperial overreach. When Wenceslaus was finally elected and crowned in 1376, the cities refused to acknowledge him as king unless he vouched not to pawn them to anyone, ever.

Wenceslaus responded by declaring an imperial war against the cities and brought an army before the walls of Ulm. But that was as far as he got. His forces were – as so often in this period – unable to overcome the city’s defenses.

The success boosted the citizens of Ulm’s self-confidence and they began work on the Ulmer Muenster, a parish church that was to outshine all other churches in the land, even its cathedrals. Its tower was to rise higher than any other in the land, even in the whole of Christendom. Their architect was none other than the Father of Peter Parler the master builder responsible for St. Vitus cathedral and the Charles bridge in Prague. The great tower was only finished in the 19^th century, but at 161 meters became the highest church tower in the world.

The other outcome of the defeat was that Karl and Wenceslaus had to agree a ceasefire that wa supposed to turn into a lasting agreement. Negotiations were protracted. In a rather blatant twisting of the facts, Karl declared that he had never thought of pawning any of his most loyal imperial cities. The cities did not believe a word of that and by 1377 the Schwäbische Bund had grown to 28 members. Even the staunchly loyal city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber joined the alliance. They had even entered into negotiations with Karl’s enemies, the Habsburgs and count Eberhard of Württemberg.

At that point the emperor and his son realized that they were in a bit of a pickle. The cities had been not just an important source of taxes and soldiers funding the imperial tasks, but they had also been a counterweight to the power of the princes and in particular the prince electors. By alienating them, there was a genuine risk that the cities, even the still loyal ones like Nürnberg and Frankfurt could switch sides and leave the Luxemburgs isolated.

This point was likely made most forcefully by the members of Karl’s chancellery, many of whom were members of the educated elites of the cities. The same argument was made by his closest advisers and financiers, the great bankers of Nurnberg, Augsburg and Regensburg.

In 1377, father and son cave and solemnly promise that the imperial cities of the Schwäbische Bund cannot ever be pawned. Having rewarded the rebels, this privilege was then extended to the imperial cities that had remained loyal.

Making the imperial cities unalienable was certainly politically opportune, but it also removed the very last asset an emperor could use to fund any imperial infrastructure. From this time onwards, anyone carrying the crown of the Holy Roman Empire will have to depend predominantly on his own financial and military resources for whatever projects he -and very rarely she – wants to pursue.

Rebuilding his dynasties’ relationship with the cities preoccupied in his last years. In the summer of 1378, after return from his trip to France we discussed last week, he was in Nürnberg to hold a diet and was shocked to find still so many of the Swabian cities not attending. The problem had clearly not gone away despite all the assurances.

One final act was to write his testament. And as much as he wanted to pass all his possessions plus the lands of his half-brother, the duke of Luxemburg to his beloved Wenceslaus, he concluded that this would cause too much friction in the family. Therefore, he split this enormous territory that made up almost a quarter of the empire north of the Alps between his sons. Wenceslaus did get the lion’s share, i.e., the kingdom of Bohemia with Moravia and Silesia. But Brandenburg went to Wenceslaus half-brother Sigismund. A third brother, John was made duke of Görlitz, but as a vassal to his older brother. Apart from his sons, Karl had to also consider his nephews, the children of his brother Johann Heinrich of Moravia. The eldest of them, Jobst, went on to inherit Moravia, technically as a vassal to Wenceslaus, but we will see how that pans out.

On November 29, 1378 Charles IV passed away in his splendid capital, the city of Prague, aged 62, probably from general exhaustion and the severe gout he had suffered from for decades. He had ruled the empire for 30 years, not counting the first 2 years of civil war against the Wittelsbachs.

In this time, he had profoundly changed the empire. The Golden Bull became the bedrock of a newly defined empire, the Holy Roman Empire forever ridiculed by Voltaire. But as we discussed in the Golden Bull episode, there wasn’t much room for Karl to do anything other than recognizing the power of the princes. And, quite frankly, living in a country where a centralized monarchy has sucked all economic, cultural and political activity into a 607 square mile plot of overpriced land, I do see great advantages in the more fragmented structure of Germany where multiple cities host world leading industries, where one can have dozens of internationally recognized museums spread across the country, where towns have literary and theatrical traditions going back centuries and still thriving and where the states elect their own parliaments and governments – for good and for bad.

His other achievement was to bring the relationship between pope and emperor onto a new plane. This was not all his own work, his predecessor Ludwig the Bavarian had already cut a path here, and the weakness of the Avignon papacy was a major factor as well, but the fact remains that after 300 years of conflict literally to the death, from here forward pope and emperor acted in unison. Whether that was a good idea is something we will discuss by my estimate for the next at least 12 months.

And the most recognizable legacy of his reign is no doubt the city of Prague, its famous bridge, its cathedral, the extension that more than doubled its size, the astoundingly large squares, its university and the various monasteries and churches he founded. We have not talked much about his other great project, like his intended capital for Brandenburg in Tangermuende and  the castle of Karl Steijn near Prague. If you ever get to Czech Republic, make sure you go there. Few medieval buildings exist that still breathe the spirit of its creator, as much as this does.

But despite his great achievements, he also failed to deliver in some crucial dimensions. The Golden Bull has always been a stripped-down version of a much larger legislative concept. What he had initially hoped to achieve is usually summarized under the title of general peace or Landfrieden. The Landfrieden is quite a bit more than just the idea of an agreement between princes and cities to keep the piece.

The way Karl thought about it was set it out in the Majestas Carolina, his abandoned project to create a new legal framework for Bohemia kingdom. This concept incorporated a lot of the provisions from the Constitutions of Melfi (episode 80) that Frederick II had implemented in his kingdom of Sicily.

Under a general Landfrieden, there would be an obligation for all parties to refrain from violence and instead bring their disputes before a judge. The judges would base their decision on the provisions in the law code and their decision was final. Anyone who would take up arms against that decision would become and enemy of the state and be persecuted by the state authority.

This would have given the emperor a monopoly of violence, as it was gradually been implemented in France and England. Trial by combat and feuding was to be replaced by written law implemented by institutions, resulting in a dramatic increase security and in consequence of communications and trade. It is a concept we find pretty basic and normal today but for medieval aristocrats it was an unacceptable infringement of their political rights. They had become used to being able to mold the law according to their personal preferences, and to use force in the pursuit of their perceived rights. In particular as it related to people of lower social standing, i.e., peasants and burghers, aristocrats did not believe to be bound by any rules. Only the interaction between aristocrats was to be governed by the chivalric code but again, not by a law made by the monarch.

These reforms failed on the resistance of the barons in Bohemia and Karl was smart enough not to try it in the empire where his position was weaker.

With the general peace being a no-go, the other reforms, such as common standard for coinage also fell by the wayside. It will be Karl’s successors who will spend the next 100 years dragging the elites of the empire kicking and screaming into a system of law and institutions that provides a general peace.

This story and the other big issue, the schism in the church and the recurring demands for church reform will be the subject of our next season. I have not yet decided on the title, so stay tuned. Next week I have lined up an interview with Vaclav Zurek, researcher at the Prague Academy of Sciences who has just written a biography of Karl IV, which is coming out in English translation this autumn. I am sure you will enjoy hearing this story from a Czech perspective.

See you on the other side.