CHARLES IV, Holy Roman Emperor, of the house of Luxemburg: b. Prague, 14 May 1316; d. there, 29 Nov. 1378. He inherited the kingdom of Bohemia, and had been chosen emperor in 1346 by five electors, hoping to occupy the Imperial throne without opposition. But the princes of the empire regarded him as a servant of the Pope. He however used every effort to appease his enemies, married the daughter of the Elector of the Palatinate, gave Tyrol as a fief to the Elector of Brandenburg and was unanimously elected emperor and con secrated at Aix-la-Chapelle. But no sooner was he crowned than he took possession of the Imperial insignia and conveyed them to Bo hemia. In 1354 the Emperor went to Italy to be crowned by the Pope; but this favor he pur chased on terms which made him an object of ridicule and contempt. He engaged to appear without any armed force. Having been con secrated king of Italy at Milan, he confirmed the Visconti in the possession of all the usurpa tions of which he had pledged himself to de prive them. He also annulled all the acts of his grandfather, Henry VII, against Florence, and by a treaty concluded at Padua resigned the latter city, with Verona and Vicenza, to Venice. He refused the request of some Romans to claim the city, as belonging to him in the name of the empire, and in a treaty renounced all sovereignty over Rome, the states of the Church, Ferrara, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and even took an oath not to return to Italy without the consent of the Pope.
Despised by the Guelphs, detested by the Ghibellines, Charles returned to Germany, where he issued the celebrated Golden Bull (1356), the rules of which applied in the elec tions of the German confederation until 1806. General indignation was excited by the proposal made by the papal nuncio, with his consent, to introduce a tax, equal to the tithe of all ec clesiastical revenues, for the benefit of the Holy See. All the members of the Diet opposed it; and Charles, in his anxiety to conciliate the princes of the empire, announced that he would propose to the assembly a reform of the Ger man clergy. The Pope, opposing this proposal
of the Emperor, exhorted the electors to de pose him. Charles immediately relapsed into his accustomed submissiveness, and not only abandoned all his reforms, but even confirmed, in 1359, all the privileges of the clergy and made them independent of the secular power. Such vacillating conduct subjected him to the contempt of both parties. Under such an em peror Germany could not enjoy internal tran quillity. The state of Italy was no less melan choly. Tuscany was suffering the evils of anarchy; Lombardy was distracted by civil wars and the Visconti had made themselves masters of the Milanese. During his residence in Italy he sold states and cities to the highest bidder, or, if they themselves offered most, made them independent republics. He was crowned king of Burgundy at Arles, 4 June 1365. Gregory XI having given his consent that his son Wenceslaus should be elected king of the Ro mans (1373), he employed his ill-gotten wealth to purchase the votes of the electors, who were irritated at the conduct of the Pope, and, more over, distributed among them the domains of the empire on the Rhine and several free Im perial cities. Thus he attained his object. To maintain their rights against the arbitrary meas ures of the Emperor, the Imperial cities in Suabia formed the Suabian League, which Charles opposed in vain. His reign is notable for the improvement and prosperity of Bo hemia; for the founding of the University of Prague (1348); for a terrible persecution of the Jews; and as the period when the sale of letters of nobility commenced in Germany. Consult Wernusky,