VI.

REIGN OF CHARLES IV.

(1346-1378.)

In writing the life of men who have played a great part in the affairs of the world, it is generally possible to find some hint in the earlier periods of their life of a preparation for the important work which has distinguished their later years. In the case of Charles IV. this link seems at first sight exceptionally difficult to find. He had been torn away from his mother’s influence in his earliest childhood; treated with exceptional harshness, at that tender age, by his father; kept away so long from the country which he was afterwards to govern, that when he first returned to it he had completely forgotten the Bohemian language; suddenly thrust into a partial government of the country, at the age of seventeen; regarded by his father and those who surrounded him with the utmost suspicion, and snatched away from the government when he was just beginning to get a firm hold of it. Then he was dragged into Italian wars with which he had little sympathy, and where men seemed to fight as much with poison as with swords; a witness of his father’s dissolute life, and surrounded by evil companions; and, to crown all his difficulties, when he had attained to full manhood, but had not yet become king of Bohemia, he had been suddenly raised to the highest dignity in Europe. Such was the preparation which Charles had received for the government of a kingdom which required special knowledge, special sympathies, and somewhat exclusive care.

[Illustration: Karl IV. mit der Kaiserin Anna.

LIKENESS TAKEN FROM CHAPEL IN CARLSTEIN.]

But in the fragment of autobiography which Charles has left us, he has himself supplied the clue to at least some part of this difficulty. That residence in Paris, and intimacy with the King of France, which was to John merely a new opportunity for self-indulgence and luxury, gave to Charles both that interest in the higher education of a people which was of so much service to Bohemia, and a personal zeal for study which doubtless saved him from many of the evils which surrounded him. The King of France took a great fancy to his young namesake; and, though he and most of his family were ignorant of literature, he saw the value of it for others, and urged his chaplain to encourage Charles in his studies. Paris was at that time the centre of learning. It contained the most completely organised University, except that of Bologna; and it attracted students from many parts of Europe. The influence of the king’s chaplain doubtless developed in Charles that reverence for the clergy and the pope which was, perhaps, more of a real moral conviction in him than in any prince of his time. He was also fortunate in the ease with which he acquired new languages; and this gift enabled him to recover his power of speaking Bohemian without losing his knowledge of German. Whence he could have derived that intense Bohemian feeling, which showed itself in all the more important acts of his life, sometimes even to the prejudice of his work as German Emperor, it is very difficult to say; but, doubtless, the fervent and practical piety, which always distinguished him, led him to cling to such traditions as he could gather about the mother of whom he had seen so little; and the zeal for her country, when he saw the wrongs inflicted on it by his father, would have been quickened in him by that hatred of injustice and oppression which was so strong an element in his character. But, be the causes what they may, certain it is that the first important use which he made of his double power of Bohemian king and German emperor was to lay the foundations of a scheme for making Prague the intellectual centre, not only of Bohemia, but of the whole Empire.

In Bohemia, as elsewhere, book-learning had primarily been considered as part of the training of the clergy. Under Ottakar II., indeed, an attempt had been made to enlarge the range of studies, and perhaps to interest in them people of other professions and races. But, after the fall of Ottakar, Rudolf had feared anything which would attract his Austrian subjects to Bohemia; and the Austrian students had been ordered to leave Prague. Wenceslaus II. had tried to revive and develop his father’s ideas; but, as it was not even then understood that a University could be intended for all men, the nobles successfully opposed the scheme, as an attempt to increase the power of the clergy.

Charles soon showed that, while anxious to work with the clergy in this, as in other matters, he yet aimed at something much higher and wider than a mere clerical school. Doctors of law, medicine, and natural science were summoned to join in his new institution; and the Faculties were organised, partly on the model of Paris and partly of Bologna. The Rector, who was elected by masters and students, was the chief judge of the University; but, in the matters which purely related to their own art or science, the elected heads of the Faculties were left to manage their own affairs. Important as the lectures at the University were considered, a great deal of the instruction was conveyed through the medium of public discussions, in some of which all the Masters of Arts were compelled to take part. Questions of the alterations of the Statutes were decided by a general assembly, in which masters and students had equal votes.

But one of the most distinctive points of Charles’s scheme, and one which produced most important effects both for good and evil, was the division of the University into four Nations. These were called respectively the Bohemian, Bavarian, Polish, and Saxon. The Bohemian Nation included Hungary; the Bavarian, most of South Germany; the Polish, Prussia and Silesia; and the Saxon, all the rest of North Germany, with Denmark and Sweden. Each of these Nations chose one Elector; the four Electors chose seven others; the seven chose five; and then these five chose the Rector of the University. For special cases, not dealt with by the general assembly, a council of eight was appointed, containing two representatives from each Nation. How much Charles desired to make his University a centre for the whole Empire may be gathered from the fact that among the first eight professors one was a Saxon, one a Westphalian, and one a Frenchman. The tendency to welcome men of learning was characteristic of Charles’s reign; nor was his welcome confined to teachers and writers; artists also shared his patronage; and his reign was marked by efforts after external splendour and stern morality which are seldom found in combination. The most remarkable outward symbol of these divergent tendencies is the celebrated fortress of Carlstein (Karluv Tyn, Charles’s town), which, in its form, its decoration, and special objects, seems to combine the memories of Charles’s work as king, as moral reformer, and as patron of Art. Devised for the better protection of the crown jewels, and, at a somewhat later period, of the charters of Bohemia, it also afforded a place of retirement for periods of strict and almost ascetic devotion; while the pictures on its walls, and the precious stones which cover its roof, recall the memory of the encouragement which the King gave to the Arts of his time.

[Illustration: CARLSTEIN (KARLUV TYN).]

But the attempt to combine his work as Emperor with his work as King of Bohemia was to be the great difficulty of his career; and scarcely had he succeeded in bringing the University into working order before the great rush of students began to alarm the inhabitants of Prague. Complaints were made of disorders, of the high price of provisions, and of difficulties arising from the want of accommodation in the city. This last objection Charles proceeded to meet by founding a new suburb of Prague, to be united by ditch, wall, and bridge with the old city, and to enjoy the same privileges as the rest of Prague. This helped forward Charles’s plans for raising Prague into Imperial importance; and the work of uniting all the different parts of the city was undertaken on so splendid a scale that, in a time of famine, Charles was able to solve “the problem of the unemployed,” by setting more than a thousand men to work on the new walls. But there still remained the disorders which had been brought about by the arrival of German students, who distrusted the justice of Bohemian tribunals. In order to restore peace, Charles placed the University directly under his own authority, and allowed no appeal from the decisions of the Rector, except to the highest court. This creation of an independent corporation of learning was a necessary stage in the growth of the University, and contained seeds both of good and evil, to be developed at a later time.

In the founding of this University, Charles had aimed at the accomplishment of two different objects; the establishment of an intellectual centre for the Empire, and the development of a new life in Bohemia. The second of these objects was probably the one nearest to his heart; and it was not only by the encouragement of learning that he hoped to promote it, but by attention to every phase of national well-being. He, like his grandfather Wenceslaus, desired to substitute a written code of laws for the floating mass of customs and traditions by which Bohemia was, in great part, governed. How far Wenceslaus had gone towards the execution of this plan cannot be ascertained; but Charles actually drew up his code, and gave it the name of the Majestas Carolina. If we may judge from his preface, and from the subject which stands first in the code, the cause of oppression and disorder which most impressed him in Bohemia was the alienation of royal lands by the Kings. The power which special nobles had gained, through these grants, had been often used in a most disorderly manner. The efficiency of the central Executive had been unduly weakened; and an excuse had been given for those continual demands for exceptional taxation, which had so painfully marked the reign of King John. Charles therefore drew up a careful list of the cities and lands, which, under no circumstances, should be alienated by the King, nor should any grant of them be asked for by others. Special arrangements were made for the registration, in a public court, of lands sold by the nobles; lands were not to be granted to the “dead hand”; special means of remedy were to be provided against oppression by the King; special restrictions were to be placed on the power of nobles over their dependants. Other provisions of various importance were contained in this document; but the great, and essential, point about it was, that these “Constitutions” were to be read four times a year in Bohemia, before a full assembly of the people, that all might know the laws by which they were governed.

[Illustration: PRAGUE (PRAHA) in 1200.]

[Illustration: PRAGUE (PRAHA) in 1388.

MAPS SHOWING GROWTH OF PRAGUE UNDER CHARLES IV.]

This provision pointed to Charles’s chief object in composing the Code; and it was doubtless this very demand which roused to its height the opposition of the nobles. It was not merely this or that privilege which the King was threatening; it was the whole fabric of feudal power, which depended much more on the separate and individual influence of each noble on his estate, than on any decrees of a collective Assembly; and this influence must necessarily give way before a code of written law, set forth by the King, and accepted and supported by the main body of the people.

Charles was no “benevolent despot,” determined to thrust upon his people, by force, principles of government for which they were not prepared. He yielded to the resistance of the nobles, and withdrew the main part of the Majestas Carolina. The concession was undoubtedly a wise one; and, however excellent were many of the changes which he had proposed, there were parts of this remarkable document which make one glad that they were not stereotyped in a code, nor sanctified in the memories of Bohemians by so close a connection with their popular king. Thus, for instance, Charles opens his code with a strong declaration of devotion to the Catholic faith, with a prohibition to Pagans and Saracens against settling in Bohemia, and with a promise to put down heresy with the sword.[4] Again, the declaration of the power of lords over their dependants is only limited by taking from the lords the right of putting out their eyes or cutting off their hands and feet; and though Charles, no doubt, was thinking more of these limitations than of the power which he still left to the nobles; yet it was obvious that such a statement in a code might be used in the very opposite sense to that in which it was written. That is to say, the code might have been appealed to in later times as securing to the nobles all the powers of which it did not expressly deprive them.

But Charles had the statesmanlike instinct which tells a man when to yield and when to stand firm. There was one reform on which he was determined, and which he insisted on carrying out in spite of the opposition of the nobles. This was the abolition of those supposed tests of justice, by which accused persons were compelled to hold, or to walk upon, burning iron, or to prove their innocence by risking drowning. We are so apt to consider these superstitions as bound up with old religious feelings, that we almost instinctively expect to find this kind of abuse supported by the pious and orthodox in those generations, and opposed chiefly by some coldly superior persons who are untouched by the popular feeling of the time. But nothing is clearer than that Charles was stirred to this great reform by an intense sense of piety and reverence. Witness the words by which he had preluded this reform in the Majestas Carolina. “For he who should presume to tempt the omnipotence of God, and to make ridiculous His secret judgment, by forcing his neighbour to perish by means contrary to nature, does not deserve to enjoy the comfort of his own natural life.” In this reform he was steadily supported by Archbishop Arnestus; and, in spite of the opposition of the nobles, he succeeded in getting these terrible abuses suppressed. With regard to the ordeal by battle he was less successful. Indeed he was apparently disposed to accept a rather curious compromise on the subject. Duelling of all kinds he loathed as disorderly; but, in the case of charges of treason, he permitted a prosecutor who could bring nine respectable witnesses to support his charge, to make good his accusation by the final test of the duel. It does not appear, however, that he succeeded in reducing this foolish practice even within these limits.

Lastly, and perhaps best of all, he secured to the peasantry the right of appealing to the King from the feudal courts of their lords. Doubtless the readiness of the nobles to accept this important reform was much increased by Charles’s willingness to do justice as against himself. Thus, in a dispute with some nobles about the possession of a certain castle, he consented to submit the question to two Bohemian nobles chosen for the purpose; and he abode by the compromise which they suggested.

In short, in his position as King of Bohemia, Charles generally appears as one of those exceptional rulers who combine a genuine zeal for reform with a real sense of justice, and that statesmanlike self-restraint which teaches a man the difference between the desirable and the possible, between the ultimate ideal and the immediately practicable. But it is impossible to separate Charles the Emperor from Charles the King of Bohemia. Many of his greatest reforms, such as the establishment of the University and the assertion of the independence of the Prague archbishopric, could not have been carried out so easily, perhaps not at all, unless he had been able to use his authority as Emperor to back his power as King of Bohemia, and to secure also the sympathy and approval of the Pope. So thoroughly was the connection of his Imperial office with his Bohemian kingship recognised by his subjects, that it is the rarest thing to find this popular King mentioned in the chronicles by his proper Bohemian title of Charles I., still less by his early name of Wenceslaus. The _Emperor_ Charles IV. has overshadowed and absorbed Wenceslaus alias Charles I. of Bohemia; and yet so far was he from losing thereby the sympathies of the Bohemians, that it is they and not the Germans who cherish his memory as that of a great and popular ruler.

The German view, indeed, is more nearly represented by the saying of Maximilian I., “Charles was the father of Bohemia, but the stepfather of the Holy Roman Empire.” This saying, like most epigrams that have lived, has a mixture of truth and falsehood. Certainly one of the morals of Charles’s career might seem to be the impossibility of combining these two important offices in a manner which should satisfy the just demands both of Germans and Bohemians. But though, as will presently appear, the weaker and worse part of his policy was connected with his position as Emperor, yet there is evident, even in his plans for Germany, a real enthusiasm for order, good government, and, above all, independence of that Papal power which had paralysed German progress.

The Golden Bull, with which his name is specially connected, shows in many respects these noble aims. The disorderly state into which the Empire had fallen had been largely due to the uncertainty of the Electorate. The titles which carried with them a right of voting for the Emperor, had been so often shared by different claimants, and the lands which originally marked these titles had been so often divided, that few could tell who had really the right of choosing the ruler of Europe; while the irregularity of many elections had given opportunity for the assertion of spurious claims, like those of the Dukes of Bavaria. Charles fixed the Electorate on a clear basis, and settled the lands which gave the right of voting. He also sternly prohibited those private feuds which had done such evil in Germany. Lastly, he boldly asserted the right of the Electors to choose the Emperor, without waiting for confirmation of their choice by the Pope. But, at the same time, he secured for the King of Bohemia the leading position among the Electors of the Empire; he declared his independence of the Imperial courts; and he asserted the right of the Bohemians to choose their own king, as soon as the House of Luxemburg was extinct.

Obviously there was here much to provoke opposition. The smaller princes, fierce at the restriction on their rights of quarrelling, broke into fresh disorders; the dukes of Bavaria took up arms to reassert their suppressed electoral rights; the dukes of Austria were indignant that their claims to the Bohemian succession, founded on the decree passed in King Rudolf’s Assembly, were now definitely repudiated. Charles dealt in different ways with these sets of opponents. The turbulent rioters he forcibly suppressed, but readily admitted to favour when repentant. From Bavaria, however, he thought it necessary to take stronger securities. After he had defeated the Dukes in battle, he succeeded in persuading them to sell to him lands and cities, which he added to the kingdom of Bohemia, and thereby extended that kingdom as far as Nürnberg. It might be plausibly urged that Bohemia needed securities for peace against so turbulent a neighbour as Bavaria; but it was evident, from the additions to his kingdom which Charles carried out at a later time, that this was but part of his scheme for securing to Bohemia that predominance in the Empire which was hinted at in the Golden Bull. Bavaria and the smaller princes being brought to reason, there remained still the struggle with Austria. Here one might have expected that the long-standing feud between Bohemian and Austrian, and between the House of Luxemburg and the House of Hapsburg, would have made the contest deadly in its course and crushing in its results. Strange to say, it ended in a settlement which must, even at the time, have startled some Bohemians, though no doubt they could never have expected that the following century would see the claim then legalised grow into practical results. In consideration of the peaceable abandonment by the House of Hapsburg of its immediate claims, it was promised the succession to the throne of Bohemia as soon as the direct lines of Charles and of his brother John should have come to an end. In all these matters Charles had shown a genuine desire for peace and order, which must surely deserve all recognition.

The same credit cannot be given to another phase of his policy, which arose from his relations with Louis, the son of his former rival, the Emperor Louis of Bavaria. The causes of this quarrel must be shortly told. John, the brother of Charles, had married Margaretha Maultasche, Countess of Tyrol; and he had thereby acquired her lands. Margaretha, who seems to have been as foul in mind as she was ugly in face, made a false charge of impotency against her husband; and, under this excuse, she hastened to welcome the advances of young Louis, the son of the Emperor, who helped her to drive her husband from the Tyrol.

The Emperor recognised a so-called marriage between his son and Margaretha; and this act contributed not a little to the storm of indignation which drove the Bavarian from the throne of the Empire and raised Charles to his place. Charles was scarcely seated on the throne, before he resolved to revenge his brother by a raid on the Tyrol. The raid produced no results but bloodshed and misery; and John was forced to console himself for the loss of his lands by the Margravate of Moravia, and for the loss of Margaretha by marriage with a more faithful wife.

But the quarrel between Charles and Louis was not yet at an end. On the extinction of the line of the former Margraves of Brandenburg, the territory had been granted to Louis by his father, and he had remained in undisturbed possession of it for several years. Suddenly, in 1348, a claimant came forward to the Margravate. This man declared that his name was Waldemar; that he was son of the late Margrave of Brandenburg; that, since 1319, he had been supposed to be dead; that his death had been really pretended, in order to escape from a marriage, which, after its celebration, he had found to be illegal; and lastly that, his wife being now dead, he had come forward to claim his inheritance. The story was sufficiently absurd; and it might have been thought that, even if it were true, a prince who had pretended to be dead for nearly thirty years, might, in the interest of peace, consent to pretend a little longer. Charles’s excuse for crediting the imposture was that, as he was too young to remember the real Waldemar, he trusted in the evidence of the Duke of Saxony and other princes of the Empire, who, after investigating the case, declared their belief in the genuineness of the claim. Encouraged by this evidence, Charles only too gladly seized the opportunity for avenging his brother. He declared war on Louis, removed him from his Margravate, and established Waldemar in his place. Eventually it was proved that the so-called Waldemar was the subject and tool of the Duke of Saxony; and Charles, convinced of the imposture, was forced to reinstate Louis in Brandenburg. But, his attention once fixed on this province, he saw in it a new opportunity for aggrandising his House and Kingdom; and, in restoring it to Louis, he secured to his own son Wenceslaus the succession to the Margravate.

But, if this unfortunate episode illustrates afresh the dangers which Charles had to encounter in combining his positions of German Emperor and Bohemian King, there was at least one side of his policy for which Germans, even more than Bohemians, have cause to thank him. It has already been mentioned that in the Golden Bull Charles had asserted the right of the Electors of the Empire to choose an Emperor without waiting for the confirmation of the Pope. This bold proposal was connected with that desire for a German rather than a Roman Empire, which Rudolf of Hapsburg and other wise rulers had cherished. Charles, as we shall see, had no desire to weaken the Papacy in spiritual matters, and he had been willing enough to go to Rome to be formally crowned in the sacred city; but he wished to free the German princes from that intolerable burden of the rule over Italy which was always involving the Emperors in useless expeditions, and at the same time to prevent the Popes from interfering in German affairs.

In his desire to escape from the burden of Italian politics, Charles had to resist the pressure of two advisers, each remarkable in his special way, and each disposed to revive the memory of that expedition to Italy, which Charles’s grandfather, Henry of Luxemburg, had so rashly attempted. The interview between the first of these advisers and the King must have been most impressive. It was during a temporary coolness between Charles and Pope Clement VI., that Charles, while staying in his palace at Prague, was informed that a merchant, who had recently come to the city, desired to see him on urgent business. The supposed merchant was admitted; but when called on to state his business, replied with the startling words, that he had been sent to Charles by a hermit, to inform him that God the Father and God the Son had hitherto ruled the world; but that in future it would be ruled by the Holy Spirit alone.[5] This formula was apparently familiar to Charles, for he at once recognised the speaker as the ex-tribune Rienzi. Rienzi, when challenged, at once admitted his identity; then he went on to give a sketch of the rise and fall of his government in Rome, and urged Charles to send him back to Rome as his representative. The strain of mysticism in Rienzi’s language, coupled with the Pope’s former warnings, alarmed the orthodox Charles, and he sent at once for Archbishop Arnestus. A few questions from Arnestus soon involved Rienzi in statements which savoured of heresy. The archbishop at once arrested him, and soon after sent him to Avignon, where he was kept as a prisoner for some time. Even from prison Rienzi appealed to Charles for sympathy, on the ground that he was the illegitimate son of the Emperor Henry, and therefore Charles’s uncle. Charles replied that such a consideration would not affect his action, as we all came from Adam; and he urged Rienzi to think of his soul, and not to listen to the friar, whose prophecies would drag him to ruin. The end of Rienzi’s career is well known; how, returning as Senator and Papal representative to the city which he had formerly governed in the name of the People, he was soon after murdered by the Romans, whom he had tried to restore to the “Good State.”

The other adviser, who tried to involve Charles in the responsibilities of the government of Rome, was a man of very different type. This was the poet Petrarch, who had first been interested in Charles by the admiration which the latter had expressed, during a visit to Avignon, for the beautiful Laura. So good a judge of beauty must, of course, be the poet’s ideal ruler; and Petrarch was only too eager to play the part of Dante to the grandson of Henry of Luxemburg. His first appeal to Charles was left unanswered; but, after the fall of Rienzi, the poet returned to the attack, and urged upon the Emperor the duty of coming to Rome, and administering the Holy Roman Empire from its capital. Charles had heard much of Petrarch between the writing of these two letters; and, admiring his graceful style, readily entered into correspondence with him, and pointed out to him the difficulties and dangers of the course which he advised. Petrarch did not cease to urge his proposal, and twice he fancied that his dream was about to be realised; once, when Charles went to Rome to be crowned by the Papal representative, and again, at a later time, when he consented to escort the Pope from Avignon to Rome, and even to compel the Visconti to abandon their opposition to the Papal claims over some of the northern towns of Italy. But the first expedition was merely intended to strengthen his throne by the kind of prestige which the Papal approval was still supposed to give to it; and the second visit was undertaken in the interests of Italian order and Papal dignity. In short, though Charles was anxious for Petrarch’s company, and would have liked him to lecture on literature to the University of Prague, and to the young Wenceslaus, he had no intention of following the poet’s advice in the weighty concerns of government.

[Illustration: STATUE OF CHARLES IV. NEAR HIS BRIDGE IN PRAGUE.]

Before concluding this general sketch of Charles’s career, it is necessary to refer to a project, the character of which may be easily misunderstood. Even when freed from Italian influence, and united, at least in intellectual interests, with Bohemia, the German Empire might still be exposed to the disorders arising from the contests of its princes, especially at the time of the election of the Emperors. This evil Charles proposed to remove by making the Imperial crown hereditary in the House of Luxemburg. One must not judge this scheme as a mere piece of personal ambition. Doubtless there is always something repugnant to our ideas of strict honesty in those frequent attempts, during the Middle Ages, to turn an elective position to the permanent advantage of the family of its accidental occupant. But we must remember that there is an important difference between the purpose of Charles IV. and other attempts which appear to have the same character. When, for instance, Rudolf of Hapsburg used his Imperial position to turn the Counts of Hapsburg into Dukes of Austria; when the Margrave of Brandenburg made use of his Mastership of the Teutonic knights as a means of uniting East Prussia with Brandenburg; or when the Savoyard Pope Felix used his Papal power to extend the dominions of the House of Savoy; none of these attempts could have profited any one except the ambitious promoters of them. But, if Charles could have made the German Empire hereditary in a House which was already powerful by its position in Bohemia, and could at the same time have delivered it from the terrible encumbrance of the connection with Italy, many a bitter civil war might surely have been spared. His attempt failed; and, from some points of view, one may say that it was well that it failed. But a great design cannot be completely judged by its results alone.