Charles IV of Luxembourg
Charles IV wrote the constitution the Holy Roman Empire used until it was abolished, and turned Prague into a capital. Born in 1316 as Wenceslaus, the son of John of Bohemia and a Přemyslid princess, he was sent to the French court at seven, educated there under the future Pope Clement VI, and took the name Charles at his confirmation. He spoke five languages and wrote his own autobiography, which almost no medieval ruler did. He was elected King of the Romans in 1346 against the incumbent Louis IV, who died conveniently the following year, and inherited Bohemia when his blind father was killed at Crécy riding into the battle with his reins tied to his knights'. The Golden Bull of 1356 is his monument. It fixed the imperial election in seven named electors — three archbishops and four secular princes — set the procedure, made their territories indivisible, and removed the papacy from the process entirely. It settled a question that had produced civil wars for three centuries, and stood for 450 years. He also concentrated on Bohemia rather than on Italy, which his predecessors had bankrupted themselves in. Prague became the imperial capital: he founded its university in 1348, the first north of the Alps and east of Paris; laid out the New Town on a scale that took centuries to fill; and began the cathedral and the bridge that carries his name. He acquired Brandenburg, Silesia and Lusatia by purchase and marriage. He died in 1378. His son Wenceslaus was deposed as useless, and Bohemia was in revolution within forty years of his death.
- Lived: 1316 CE – 1378 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state, military_leader
