General Notes

Charles IV, b.  May 14, 1316, d.  Nov.  29, 1378, king of the Germans
(1346-78) and Holy Roman emperor (1355-78), was also the king of Bohemia from
1346.  Charles contributed immensely to the evolution of Czech culture.  Born
in Prague on May 14, 1316, and educated in Paris, he rejected the ebullient
chivalry of his father, John of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia (1310-46), and
ruled with practical realism and sound political sense.  He became German king
through the deposition of Louis IV.  In 1355 he visited Rome for his
coronation as emperor, but he had no desire to recover already lost Italian
jurisdictions.  Charles always preferred diplomacy to war.  He checked the
efforts of Louis's family, the Wittelsbachs, to regain power and placated the
powerful Habsburgs by the Treaty of Brunn (1364).  After a century of
fragmentation, Germany needed a new legal framework to achieve stabilization;
this Charles provided by the Golden Bull of 1356.  He also strove to maintain
good relations with the popes and to curtail their encroachments on German
rights. To his Luxemburg patrimony he added Brandenburg and Lusatia, and he
procured the election of his own son Wenceslas to succeed him--the first
imperial father-son succession since the Hohenstaufen period.  In his Bohemian
realm Charles stimulated cultural growth.  He founded (1348) in Prague the
first university east of the Rhine;  built a magnificent castle, cathedral,
and bridge;  encouraged artists of all kinds;  and promoted the writing of
historical chronicles.  Without ethnic biases, he encouraged Czech national
sentiment.  He died in Prague on Nov.  29, 1378.