fered serious neglect under King John. Charles began
reconstruction of the Hradschin castle during his fi rst
long stay in Bohemia in the 1330s. In 1344 he arranged
for the bishop of Prague to be elevated to the rank of
archbishop. After his coronation as King of Bohemia
in 1347, Charles initiated a number of projects that
substantially reshaped the city. A new cathedral dedi-
cated to St. Veit was begun on the Hradschin. Within
the cathedral, Chatles had built a special chapel to hold
the relics of St. Wenceslas. He also founded a university
in 1348, the fi rst in the empire. With the foundation of
the New Town (Nové Mesto) in Prague, Charles nearly
tripled the size of the city.
Charles’s political views and his religious ideas were
closely connected. From his early years in Paris and
Italy, he had developed a sense of his own divine mis-
sion. This ideal was represented in the new coronation
ordo, or rites, devised for Bohemia in 1347. The corona-
tion ordo, like his mania for collecting religious relics,
refl ected the conservative side of Charles’s religiosity.
But, although his personal religious views connected
him most strongly with the Devotio Antiqua, he was
not without sympathy for the Devotio Moderna. He was
acquainted with Johannes Tauler and Christina Ebner
among the German mystics. In 1363 Charles brought
the fi ery preacher Conrad Waldhauser to Prague and
later supported and defended Waldhauser’s student Jan
Milic, albeit after Milic stopped identifying the emperor
as the Antichrist.
Charles’s Italian policies refl ected a realization that it
would be nearly impossible to restore imperial author-
ity in that region. He made two trips to Rome after his
election as emperor. In the winter of 1354–1355 Charles
traveled to Rome for his imperial coronation (January 6,
1355) and to settle affairs in the Holy City following the
revolt and death of the tribunal offi cial Cola de Rienzo
the previous fall. During his trip, Charles met the poet
Petrarch in Mantua on December 15, 1354. Two years
later Petrarch traveled to Prague as part of a diplomatic
mission from the Visconti, a Lombard noble family.
During that visit, Charles failed ro convince the poet
to remain at his court. He likewise refused Petrarch’s
invitation to intervene more forcibly in Italian affairs.
In Bohemia, Charles sought to establish a more cen-
tralized administration. Much of his effort was aimed at
increasing the size and scope of the area that compro-
mised the Bohemian crown lands. He transferred the
Silesian duchies from their status as fi efs of the empire
to the Bohemian crown. Charles also undertook to create
“New Bohemia,” a string of possessions in the Upper
Palatinate and Franconia that would link Bohemia with
the Rhineland. The Bohemian nobles were not wholly
supportive of these ventures, however, and sharply
resisted Charles’s attempts to codify Bohemian law in
the Majestas Carolina of 1355.
Charles was much more successful in dealing with
the states of the empire. Three general trends typify his
German policy. First, he devoted his dynastic policy
(Hausmachtpolitik), to maintaining and increasing the
power of the Luxembourg dynasty within and without
the empire. Second, Charles sought to fi ll vacant bishop-
rics with his supporters, revivifying the imperial church
as a political tool for the emperors. Finally, he made
alliances with leading states and cities in the empire
and sponsored leagues, in particular, city leagues, to
help maintain the public peace. The cities of Nuremberg
and Lübeck, as well as the Hohenzollern burggraves
(districts) of Nurembert and the margraves of Mies-
sen, benefi ted from Charles’s patronage. In general,
Charles’s German policy focused on maintaining a
balance of power within the empire.
One of the main achievements of Charles’s reign was
the promulgation of the Golden Bull on January 10,- The Golden Bull regulated the conduct of impe-
rial elections, fi xing the number of electors at seven: the
archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, the king of
Bohemia, the margraves of Miessen and Brandenburg,
and the counts Palatine of the Rhine. Succession in the
secular electoral principalities was to follow primo-
geniture. The Golden Bull gave the electoral princes
extensive rights, including the jus de non appellando
et de non evo-cando, or priviledge of nomination and
selection, and elevated the position of the king of Bo-
hemia over that of the other electors. Charles sought to
create unity among the electoral princes, and ultimately,
to ensure hereditary succession through the regulated
process of election.
Charles leaned heavily on the imperial cities, particu-
larly those in Swabia, as executors of the public peace
(Landfriede). Although the Golden Bull forbade leagues
in principle, city leagues and princely leagues created
by the emperor in order to secure the peace became a
fi xed part of Charles’s Landfrieden policy. The Swabian
Landfriede of 1370, comprised almost entirely of impe-
rial cities, was clearly directed against a growing alli-
ance of the Habsburgs and the counts of Württemberg.
In 1377 Charles returned to France, accompanied
by his son Wenceslas, to gain French support for his
plans to put his younger son, Sigismund, on the Pol-
ish throne. During the negotiations, Charles agreed to
recognize the French dauphin as imperial vicar in the
kingdom of Arles, effectively ceding the Arelat to France
in perpetuity.
In the last years of his reign, Charles occupied himself
largely with the succession and with returning the pa-
pacy to Rome. The emperor needed to acquire the mark
(territory) of Brandenburg in order to secure the election
to emperor of his eldest son Wenceslas (June 10, 1376).
To raise money, Charles opted to mortgage a number
of imperial cities. On July 4, 1376, in opposition to this
CHARLES IV