Birthday Greetings #81

As we huddle in our homes leaping in terror at every passing germ let us pause for a moment and think back to a simpler time, a happier time when a person could live to the ripe old age of thirty and a pandemic that didn't empty four out of every five houses of living occupants wasn't worth worrying about.

Yes, Happy birthday to Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor.  Charles (or Karel as he was known by his Bohemian subjects) was a scion of the House of Luxembourg who by this time were happily ensconced in Prague.  Charles was the son of King John and took over rulership duties due to his father's increasing blindness and then death at the Battle of Crecy.  In 1346 he was proclaimed as King of the Romans (ie the Germans) by the electors of the empire.  This was a little premature as the empire had a functioning emperor (Louis IV) but said emperor had really pissed off the pope.  The pope and Charles' father cooked up this plan between them.  It is possible that Charles' father was being a little shortsighted but then he was (see above).  Later in the same year he suffered death by Shakespeare leaving Charles in charge.

Louis IV didn't take Charles' sudden promotion lying down but unfortunately he chose that moment to die on a bear hunt.  Hunting was a very popular sport in medieval times, it was the ideal opportunity to dispose of an inconvenient monarch.  With Louis filling a grave (and possibly a bear) Charles was reelected King of the Romans with a little more legitimacy and the pope (with a definitely unChristian glee at Louis' untimely demise) followed up by dropping the imperial crown onto his head. 

Now at least notionally the most powerful man in Christendom Charles spent the next few years administering the empire.  Possibly to avoid awkwardnesses like his own premature elevation from happening again he got a golden bull and wrote down what amounted to a constitution including a detailed prescription for how elections were to be managed in the empire on it.  This would guide the imperial succession for the next four centuries.  What the bull thought about it is unrecorded. 

But it wasn't all rulership and constitutional reform.  Charles transformed Prague into a glittering centre of art and culture.  He founded the first university in Bohemia and built a bridge (probably not personally) that I've actually walked across.  Whether from gratitude on the part of the population or egotism on his own part half of the structures in Prague are named after him.  Towards the end in fact Charles pretty much let the empire run itself and focussed on improving his Bohemian lands and handing out territories to an inconveniently large number of relatives.  Fortunately the empire was the sort of place that could largely run itself (in fact it rather preferred to) and, in the Czech republic at least Charles' rule is seen as a golden age.  Personally I don't think any age that doesn't include toilet paper can be considered golden but possibly I'm unromantic.