CHAPTER XXI.

THE LUXEMBURG EMPERORS, KARL IV. AND WENZEL.

(1347--1410.)

The Imperial Crown in the Market --Guenther of Schwarzburg. --Karl IV. Emperor. --His Character and Policy. --The University of Prague. --Rienzi Tribune of Rome. --Karl's Course in Italy. --The "Golden Bull." --Its Provisions and Effect. --Coronation in Rome. --The Last Ten Years of his Reign. --His Death. --Eberhard the Greiner. --The "Hansa" and its Victories. --Achievements of the German Order. --Wenzel becomes Emperor. --The Suabian League. --The Battle of Sempach. --Independence of Switzerland. --Defeat of the Suabian Cities. --Wenzel's Rule in Prague. --Conspiracy against him. --Schism in the Roman Church. --Count Rupert Rival Emperor. --Convention of Marbach. --Anarchy in Germany. --Death-Blow to the German Order. --Rupert's Death.

[Sidenote: 1347.]

Although the German princes were nearly unanimous in the determination that no member of the house of Wittelsbach (Bavaria) should again be Emperor, they were by no means willing to accept Karl of Bohemia.[B] Ludwig's son, Ludwig of Brandenburg, made no claim to his father's crown, but he united with Saxony, Mayence and the Palatinate of the Rhine, in offering it to Edward III. of England. When the latter declined, they chose Count Ernest of Meissen, who, however, sold his claim to Karl for 10,000 silver marks. Then they took up Guenther of Schwarzburg, a gallant and popular prince, who seemed to have a good prospect of success. In this emergency Karl supported the pretensions of an adventurer, known as "the False Waldemar," to Brandenburg, against Ludwig, and thus compelled the latter to treat with him. Soon afterwards Guenther of Schwarzburg died, poisoned, it was generally believed, by a physician whom Karl had bribed, and by the end of 1348 the latter was Emperor of Germany, as Karl IV.

[B] Of the House of Luxemburg.

[Sidenote: 1348. KARL IV.]

At this time he was thirty-three years old. He had been educated in France and Italy, and was an accomplished scholar: he both spoke and wrote the Bohemian, German, French, Italian and Latin languages. He was a thorough diplomatist, resembling in this respect Rudolf of Hapsburg, from whom he differed in his love of pomp and state, and in the care he took to keep himself always well supplied with money, which he well knew how and when to use. He had first purchased the influence of the Pope by promising to disregard the declarations of the Diet of 1338 at Rense, and by relinquishing all claims to Italy. Then he won the free cities to his side by offers of more extended privileges; and the German princes, for form's sake, elected him a second time, thus acknowledging the Papal authority which they had so boldly defied, ten years before.

One of Karl's first acts was to found, in Prague--the city he selected as his capital--the _first_ German University, which he endowed so liberally and organized so thoroughly that in a few years it was attended by six or seven thousand students. For several years afterwards he occupied himself in establishing order throughout Germany, and meanwhile negotiated with the Pope in regard to his coronation as Roman Emperor. In spite of his complete submission to the latter, there were many difficulties to be overcome, arising out of the influence of France over the Papacy, which was still established at Avignon. Karl arrested Rienzi, "the last Tribune of Rome," and kept him for a time imprisoned in Prague; but when the latter was sent back to Rome as Senator by Pope Innocent VI., in 1354, Karl was allowed to commence his Italian journey. He was crowned Roman Emperor on the 5th of April, 1355, by a Cardinal sent from Avignon for that purpose. In compliance with his promise to Pope Innocent, he remained in Rome only a single day.

Instead of attempting to settle the disorders which convulsed Italy, Karl turned his journey to good account by selling all the remaining Imperial rights and privileges to the republics and petty rulers, for hard cash. The poet Petrarch had looked forward to his coming as Dante had to that of his grandfather, Henry VII., but satirized him bitterly when he returned to Bohemia with his money. He left Italy ridiculed and despised, but reached Germany with greatly increased power. His next measure was to call a Diet, for the purpose of permanently settling the relation of the German princes to the Empire, and the forms to be observed in electing an Emperor. All had learned, several centuries too late to be of much service, the necessity of some established order in these matters, and they came to a final agreement at Metz, on Christmas Day, 1356.

[Sidenote: 1356.]

Then was promulgated the decree known as the "Golden Bull," which remained a law in Germany until the Empire came to an end, just 450 years afterwards. It commences with these words: "Every kingdom which is not united within itself will go to ruin: for its princes are the kindred of robbers, wherefore God removes the light of their minds from their office, they become blind leaders of the blind, and their darkened thoughts are the source of many misdeeds." The Golden Bull confirms the former custom of having seven Chief Electors--the Archbishops of Mayence, Treves and Cologne, the first of whom is Arch-Chancellor; the King of Bohemia, Arch-Cupbearer; the Count Palatine of the Rhine, Arch-Steward; the Duke of Saxony, Arch-Marshal, and the Margrave of Brandenburg, Arch-Chamberlain. The last four princes receive full authority over their territories, and there is no appeal, even to the Emperor, from their decisions. Their rule is transmitted to the eldest son; they have the right to coin money, to work mines, and to impose all taxes which formerly belonged to the Empire.

These are its principal features. The claims of the Pope to authority over the Emperor are not mentioned; the position of the other independent princes is left very much as it was, and the cities are prohibited from forming unions without the Imperial consent. The only effect of this so-called "Constitution" was to strengthen immensely the power of the four favored princes, and to encourage all the other rulers to imitate them. It introduced a certain order, and therefore was better than the previous absence of all law upon the subject; but it held the German people in a state of practical serfdom, it perpetuated their division and consequent weakness, and it gave the spirit of the Middle Ages a longer life in Germany than in any other civilized country in the world.

The remaining events of Karl IV.'s life are of no great historical importance. In 1363 his son, Wenzel, only two years old, was crowned at Prague as king of Bohemia, and soon afterwards he was called upon by the Pope, Urban V., who found that his residence in Avignon was becoming more and more a state of captivity, to assist him in returning to Rome. In 1365, therefore, Karl set out with a considerable force, entered Southern France, crowned himself king of Burgundy at Arles--which was a hollow and ridiculous farce--and in 1368 reached Rome, whither Pope Urban had gone in advance. Here his wife was formally crowned as Roman Empress, and he humiliated himself by walking from the Castle of St. Angelo to St. Peter's, leading the Pope's mule by the bridle,--an act which drew upon him the contempt of the Roman people. He had few or no more privileges to sell, so he met every evidence of hostility with a proclamation of amnesty, and returned to Germany with the intention of violating his own Golden Bull, by having his son Wenzel proclaimed his successor. His departure marks the end of German interference in Italy.

[Sidenote: 1376. WENZEL ELECTED SUCCESSOR.]

For ten years longer Karl IV. continued to strengthen his family by marriage, by granting to the cities the right of union in return for their support, and by purchasing the influence of such princes as were accessible to bribes. He was so cool and calculating, and pursued his policy with so much patience and skill, that the most of his plans succeeded. His son Wenzel was elected his successor by a Diet held at Frankfort in January, 1376, each of the chief Electors receiving 100,000 florins for his vote, and this choice was confirmed by the Pope. To his second son, Sigismund, he gave Brandenburg, which he had obtained partly by intrigue and partly by purchase, and to his third son, John, the province of Lusatia, adjoining Silesia. His health had been gradually failing, and in November, 1378, he died in Prague, sixty-three years old, leaving the German Empire in a more disorderly state than he had found it. His tastes were always Bohemian rather than German: he preferred Prague to any other residence, and whatever good he intentionally did was conferred on his own immediate subjects. More than a century afterwards, the Emperor Maximilian of Hapsburg very justly said of him: "Karl IV. was a genuine father to Bohemia, but only a step-father to the rest of Germany."

During the latter years of his reign, two very different movements, independent of the Imperial will, or in spite of it, had been started in Southern and Northern Germany. In Wuertemberg the cities united, and carried on a fierce war with Count Eberhard, surnamed the _Greiner_ (Whiner). The struggle lasted for more than ten years, and out of it grew various leagues of the knights for the protection of their rights against the more powerful princes. In the North of Germany, the commercial cities, headed by Luebeck, Hamburg and Bremen, formed a league, which soon became celebrated under the name of "The Hansa," which gradually drew the cities of the Rhine to unite with it, and, before the end of the century, developed into a great commercial, naval and military power.

[Sidenote: 1375.]

The Hanseatic League had its agencies in every commercial city, from Novgorod in Russia to Lisbon; its vessels filled the Baltic and the North Sea, and almost the entire commerce of Northern Europe was in its hands