princes, fierce at the restriction on their rights of quarrelling,
broke into fresh disorders; the dukes of Bavaria took up arms to
reassert their suppressed electoral rights; the dukes of Austria
were indignant that their claims to the Bohemian succession, founded
on the decree passed in King Rudolf’s Assembly, were now definitely
repudiated. Charles dealt in different ways with these sets of
opponents. The turbulent rioters he forcibly suppressed, but readily
admitted to favour when repentant. From Bavaria, however, he thought it
necessary to take stronger securities. After he had defeated the Dukes
in battle, he succeeded in persuading them to sell to him lands and
cities, which he added to the kingdom of Bohemia, and thereby extended
that kingdom as far as Nürnberg. It might be plausibly urged that
Bohemia needed securities for peace against so turbulent a neighbour as
Bavaria; but it was evident, from the additions to his kingdom which
Charles carried out at a later time, that this was but part of his
scheme for securing to Bohemia that predominance in the Empire which
was hinted at in the Golden Bull. Bavaria and the smaller princes being
brought to reason, there remained still the struggle with Austria. Here
one might have expected that the long-standing feud between Bohemian
and Austrian, and between the House of Luxemburg and the House of
Hapsburg, would have made the contest deadly in its course and crushing
in its results. Strange to say, it ended in a settlement which must,
even at the time, have startled some Bohemians, though no doubt they
could never have expected that the following century would see the
claim then legalised grow into practical results. In consideration of
the peaceable abandonment by the House of Hapsburg of its immediate
claims, it was promised the succession to the throne of Bohemia as soon
as the direct lines of Charles and of his brother John should have come
to an end. In all these matters Charles had shown a genuine desire for
peace and order, which must surely deserve all recognition.
The same credit cannot be given to another phase of his policy, which
arose from his relations with Louis, the son of his former rival, the
Emperor Louis of Bavaria. The causes of this quarrel must be shortly
told. John, the brother of Charles, had married Margaretha Maultasche,
Countess of Tyrol; and he had thereby acquired her lands. Margaretha,
who seems to have been as foul in mind as she was ugly in face, made a
false charge of impotency against her husband; and, under this excuse,
she hastened to welcome the advances of young Louis, the son of the
Emperor, who helped her to drive her husband from the Tyrol.
The Emperor recognised a so-called marriage between his son and
Margaretha; and this act contributed not a little to the storm of
indignation which drove the Bavarian from the throne of the Empire and
raised Charles to his place. Charles was scarcely seated on the throne,
before he resolved to revenge his brother by a raid on the Tyrol.
The raid produced no results but bloodshed and misery; and John was
forced to console himself for the loss of his lands by the Margravate
of Moravia, and for the loss of Margaretha by marriage with a more
faithful wife.
But the quarrel between Charles and Louis was not yet at an end. On
the extinction of the line of the former Margraves of Brandenburg, the
territory had been granted to Louis by his father, and he had remained
in undisturbed possession of it for several years. Suddenly, in 1348,
a claimant came forward to the Margravate. This man declared that his
name was Waldemar; that he was son of the late Margrave of Brandenburg;
that, since 1319, he had been supposed to be dead; that his death had
been really pretended, in order to escape from a marriage, which, after
its celebration, he had found to be illegal; and lastly that, his wife
being now dead, he had come forward to claim his inheritance. The
story was sufficiently absurd; and it might have been thought that,
even if it were true, a prince who had pretended to be dead for nearly
thirty years, might, in the interest of peace, consent to pretend a
little longer. Charles’s excuse for crediting the imposture was that,
as he was too young to remember the real Waldemar, he trusted in the
evidence of the Duke of Saxony and other princes of the Empire, who,
after investigating the case, declared their belief in the genuineness
of the claim. Encouraged by this evidence, Charles only too gladly
seized the opportunity for avenging his brother. He declared war on
Louis, removed him from his Margravate, and established Waldemar in
his place. Eventually it was proved that the so-called Waldemar was
the subject and tool of the Duke of Saxony; and Charles, convinced of
the imposture, was forced to reinstate Louis in Brandenburg. But, his
attention once fixed on this province, he saw in it a new opportunity
for aggrandising his House and Kingdom; and, in restoring it to Louis,
he secured to his own son Wenceslaus the succession to the Margravate.
But, if this unfortunate episode illustrates afresh the dangers which
Charles had to encounter in combining his positions of German Emperor
and Bohemian King, there was at least one side of his policy for which
Germans, even more than Bohemians, have cause to thank him. It has
already been mentioned that in the Golden Bull Charles had asserted
the right of the Electors of the Empire to choose an Emperor without
waiting for the confirmation of the Pope. This bold proposal was
connected with that desire for a German rather than a Roman Empire,
which Rudolf of Hapsburg and other wise rulers had cherished. Charles,
as we shall see, had no desire to weaken the Papacy in spiritual
matters, and he had been willing enough to go to Rome to be formally
crowned in the sacred city; but he wished to free the German princes
from that intolerable burden of the rule over Italy which was always
involving the Emperors in useless expeditions, and at the same time to
prevent the Popes from interfering in German affairs.
In his desire to escape from the burden of Italian politics, Charles
had to resist the pressure of two advisers, each remarkable in his
special way, and each disposed to revive the memory of that expedition
to Italy, which Charles’s grandfather, Henry of Luxemburg, had so
rashly attempted. The interview between the first of these advisers
and the King must have been most impressive. It was during a temporary
coolness between Charles and Pope Clement VI., that Charles, while
staying in his palace at Prague, was informed that a merchant, who
had recently come to the city, desired to see him on urgent business.
The supposed merchant was admitted; but when called on to state his
business, replied with the startling words, that he had been sent to
Charles by a hermit, to inform him that God the Father and God the Son
had hitherto ruled the world; but that in future it would be ruled
by the Holy Spirit alone.[5] This formula was apparently familiar
to Charles, for he at once recognised the speaker as the ex-tribune
Rienzi. Rienzi, when challenged, at once admitted his identity; then
he went on to give a sketch of the rise and fall of his government in
Rome, and urged Charles to send him back to Rome as his representative.
The strain of mysticism in Rienzi’s language, coupled with the Pope’s
former warnings, alarmed the orthodox Charles, and he sent at once
for Archbishop Arnestus. A few questions from Arnestus soon involved
Rienzi in statements which savoured of heresy. The archbishop at once
arrested him, and soon after sent him to Avignon, where he was kept as
a prisoner for some time. Even from prison Rienzi appealed to Charles
for sympathy, on the ground that he was the illegitimate son of the
Emperor Henry, and therefore Charles’s uncle. Charles replied that
such a consideration would not affect his action, as we all came from
Adam; and he urged Rienzi to think of his soul, and not to listen
to the friar, whose prophecies would drag him to ruin. The end of
Rienzi’s career is well known; how, returning as Senator and Papal
representative to the city which he had formerly governed in the name
of the People, he was soon after murdered by the Romans, whom he had
tried to restore to the “Good State.”
The other adviser, who tried to involve Charles in the responsibilities
of the government of Rome, was a man of very different type. This was
the poet Petrarch, who had first been interested in Charles by the
admiration which the latter had expressed, during a visit to Avignon,
for the beautiful Laura. So good a judge of beauty must, of course,
be the poet’s ideal ruler; and Petrarch was only too eager to play
the part of Dante to the grandson of Henry of Luxemburg. His first
appeal to Charles was left unanswered; but, after the fall of Rienzi,
the poet returned to the attack, and urged upon the Emperor the duty
of coming to Rome, and administering the Holy Roman Empire from its
capital. Charles had heard much of Petrarch between the writing of
these two letters; and, admiring his graceful style, readily entered
into correspondence with him, and pointed out to him the difficulties
and dangers of the course which he advised. Petrarch did not cease to
urge his proposal, and twice he fancied that his dream was about to be
realised; once, when Charles went to Rome to be crowned by the Papal
representative, and again, at a later time, when he consented to escort
the Pope from Avignon to Rome, and even to compel the Visconti to
abandon their opposition to the Papal claims over some of the northern
towns of Italy. But the first expedition was merely intended to
strengthen his throne by the kind of prestige which the Papal approval
was still supposed to give to it; and the second visit was undertaken
in the interests of Italian order and Papal dignity. In short, though
Charles was anxious for Petrarch’s company, and would have liked him
to lecture on literature to the University of Prague, and to the young
Wenceslaus, he had no intention of following the poet’s advice in the
weighty concerns of government.
[Illustration: STATUE OF CHARLES IV. NEAR HIS BRIDGE IN PRAGUE.]
Before concluding this general sketch of Charles’s career, it is
necessary to refer to a project, the character of which may be easily
misunderstood. Even when freed from Italian influence, and united,
at least in intellectual interests, with Bohemia, the German Empire
might still be exposed to the disorders arising from the contests of
its princes, especially at the time of the election of the Emperors.
This evil Charles proposed to remove by making the Imperial crown
hereditary in the House of Luxemburg. One must not judge this scheme as
a mere piece of personal ambition. Doubtless there is always something
repugnant to our ideas of strict honesty in those frequent attempts,
during the Middle Ages, to turn an elective position to the permanent
advantage of the family of its accidental occupant. But we must
remember that there is an important difference between the purpose of
Charles IV. and other attempts which appear to have the same character.
When, for instance, Rudolf of Hapsburg used his Imperial position to
turn the Counts of Hapsburg into Dukes of Austria; when the Margrave
of Brandenburg made use of his Mastership of the Teutonic knights as a
means of uniting East Prussia with Brandenburg; or when the Savoyard
Pope Felix used his Papal power to extend the dominions of the House
of Savoy; none of these attempts could have profited any one except
the ambitious promoters of them. But, if Charles could have made the
German Empire hereditary in a House which was already powerful by its
position in Bohemia, and could at the same time have delivered it from
the terrible encumbrance of the connection with Italy, many a bitter
civil war might surely have been spared. His attempt failed; and, from
some points of view, one may say that it was well that it failed. But a
great design cannot be completely judged by its results alone.
VII.
THE REFORM MOVEMENT FROM THE DIET OF 1359 TO THE RETIREMENT OF THE
GERMANS FROM THE PRAGUE UNIVERSITY.
(1359-1409.)
Many causes had paved the way for that revolution, both of thought and
action, which marks the fourteenth century. The complete failure of the
crusades had shaken the faith of the people generally in the leadership
of those princes and nobles who had organised these expeditions.
The insurrection of “the Shepherds” in France had been one of the
first results of this feeling; while the extraordinary performances
of the Flagellants or Scourging Friars showed yet more clearly the
extravagances which the popular discontent might produce.
Nor, in the general whirl of thought and feeling, was it easy to
foresee on which side any new development of this feeling should
be classed; whether it should be condemned as a source of heresy
and a disturbance of order, or applauded as a revival of stronger
faith and stricter discipline. The Dominicans and Franciscans,
called into existence to combat heresy and to strengthen the Papal
power, were looked upon by the secular clergy as intruders on their
lawful privileges and disturbers of the peace; while the Franciscan
renunciation of property gradually led them on to the advocacy of
doctrines, which were at least as inconvenient to Popes and Cardinals
as to the secular nobles.
It is characteristic of the way in which anxiety for their temporal
possessions was colouring all the feelings of the defenders of the
Church, that, throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
name with which its champions were most eager to brand their opponents,
as indicating the darkest shade of heresy, was the name of “Picard.”
This word was a corruption of “Beghard,” the title of a Flemish sect,
which had been distinguished for its devotion and zeal for prayer, but
which had alarmed the rulers of the world by its advocacy of community
of goods.
The confusion produced in men’s minds by the failure of the Church’s
armies to recover Palestine, was still further increased by the
retirement of the Popes to Avignon, and at a later time by that schism
in the Papacy which followed the restoration of the Papal rule in Rome;
and, along with the desire for the re-establishment of the unity of the
Church, there grew the wish for a revival of peace and purity in the
general life of Europe.
Of all the rulers of the fourteenth century Charles IV. seemed the most
likely to guide these conflicting movements into channels, which should
be at once favourable to the champions of the Papacy, and welcome to
the promoters of peace and purity.
As King of Bohemia he had inherited, through his mother’s family,
traditions of special devotion to the Church; and most of the
circumstances of his career were of a kind to encourage the hopes of
the Pope and the clergy. He had been elected to the Imperial throne,
in opposition to the most bitterly anti-papal of Emperors, Louis of
Bavaria; he had steadily opposed all the proposals which had been made
to him, to induce him to assert his Imperial authority over the Italian
cities; and he had prefaced the Majestas Carolina with an assertion of
his adherence to the Catholic faith, and a denunciation of heresy. No
doubt that clause in the Golden Bull which repudiated the necessity of
a Papal sanction to the election of an Emperor, had drawn a protest
from the Pope; but this error had surely been more than compensated
for, by the zeal which Charles had shown for the restoration of the
Pope to Rome, and for the maintenance of the Papal authority in Italy.
It must, then, have been with a shock of painful surprise that, in
1359, Pope Innocent VI. found himself suddenly opposed by this orthodox
champion of the Church. The first cause of division had been a demand
of Charles, that the Pope would repeal some decrees which hindered the
Emperor from reforming the discipline of the clergy. Innocent had been
so indignant at this demand, that he had tried to rouse the Electors
against the Emperor; but he had wholly failed in that attempt, and had
been forced to make some concessions to Charles.
The next point of difference was connected with a yet more burning
question. Innocent had demanded new tithes from the princes of the
Empire. Many of them had refused; and now, at an Assembly at Mainz,
the Papal Legate again raised the question, possibly hoping to obtain
Charles’s support. But the Emperor answered his demand by an expression
of surprise, that the Pope was so much more zealous for collecting
money than for reforming the morals of the clergy. Then, turning
suddenly to the Dean of Mainz, who was wearing a splendid silken robe
ornamented with gold, he made him exchange the magnificent dress for
the simple cloth robe which Charles himself wore; and, as he put on the
grand dress of the ecclesiastic, he appealed to the spectators to say
if he did not now look more like a knight than a dean. This practical
exhibition of clerical luxury the Emperor followed by a stern rebuke to
the bishops for not enforcing a more strict decorum of life among the
clergy; and he even threatened to tax their income for the support of
the royal exchequer.
In Germany, unfortunately, there were many nobles who were ready to
take advantage of the reforming movement to promote their own ends.
That the clergy should live more simply seemed to these nobles a
most desirable thing; and to help them to attain so satisfactory a
condition, they proceeded to plunder their houses, and lay waste their
lands. Such acts were utterly opposed to Charles’s intentions; and he
checked these outrages so sternly that the Pope was once more forced
to recognise him as his safest and strongest supporter. Perhaps this
last circumstance made it easier for Charles to carry out his plans
for reformation in Bohemia. In that kingdom, however, he worked by
different methods, and with somewhat different objects from those at
which he had aimed in his German schemes of reformation; for in Bohemia
he trusted rather to the moral effect which could be produced by great
preachers than to legislation or forcible repression.
The first of these preachers, whom the King summoned to Prague, was an
Austrian named Conrad Waldhauser, who began to come prominently forward
in 1360, the year after Charles’s attempt to reform the German clergy.
Conrad’s preachings were largely directed against the luxury of women;
but he also denounced the tyranny of the nobles and their usurious
exactions from the peasantry. His fiercest attacks, however, were aimed
against the Mendicant Orders, and specially against their simoniacal
attempts to obtain ecclesiastical offices. It was these attacks that
brought the greatest danger to the preacher; for the Franciscans were
still strong in Papal support; and Conrad was summoned before the
Legate to answer a charge of heresy. As both King and Archbishop stood
by the accused, the attempts of his enemies were defeated; and he
continued till his death in 1369 to exercise great influence in Bohemia.
But Conrad was a German, and preached, of course, in his native
language; and Charles felt that, if the reformation were really to take
hold of the people, they must be addressed in their own language. He
therefore brought forward a preacher of a rather different type from
Conrad. This was Milic of Kromĕr̆íz̆, a Moravian of rather plebeian
origin. He had early attracted Charles’s attention, and had been
already appointed to some office about the court in 1350. He had risen
steadily in the king’s favour, and had been raised in 1363 to one of
the chief posts in the Chancellery. An ascetic dislike to worldly
honours now induced him to resign all these offices, in order to become
a preacher. He at first retired to a living in a distant town; but,
finding that the beautiful garden which was attached to the pastor’s
house gave him too much pleasure, he returned to Prague, and began
to preach at the Church of St. Nicholas in the Small District, and
afterwards at St. Giles’s in the Old Town.
At first his Moravian accent excited some ridicule; but the eloquence
and moral fervour of his preaching soon brought him large audiences;
and he was at last called on to preach three times a day in different
places. His horror at the evils of the time was so great that he soon
began to prophesy the coming of Antichrist; and, at one time, when
Charles was, as he considered, falling short of his duty, Milic even
denounced the King as Antichrist. The Archbishop of Prague became
alarmed at this attack, and put Milic in prison; but Charles himself
never resented the opposition of those whom he respected; and Milic was
set free again. Like so many of the reformers of the time, he had been
greatly distressed at the retirement of the popes to Avignon; and, when
Charles was trying to persuade Pope Urban V. to return to Rome, Milic
went to Rome, and there also delivered his sermons on the coming of
Antichrist. The Roman authorities were alarmed, and Milic was again
thrown into prison; but, when the Pope actually returned to Rome, he
was again set free and sent back to Prague.
He now abandoned his preaching on Antichrist, and restricted it to the
advocacy of moral reforms. The death of Conrad Waldhauser made Milic
the undisputed leader among the preachers of Prague; and, while the
Teyn Church became the chief scene of his labours, he also prepared
discourses for a preacher in another church. His most successful work
was in reclaiming fallen women. Of these he had sometimes more than
three hundred under his charge, whom he had rescued from an evil life;
and he not only built a penitentiary for their residence, but he
persuaded the ladies of Prague to give them places in their service.
Charles nobly seconded his efforts by pulling down a notorious house of
ill-fame, and building a church on the site of it.
But Milic’s fierce denunciations of the sins of the clergy continued to
stir up enemies against him; and in 1374 Gregory XI., who had returned
to Avignon, sent a warning to the King and Archbishop, as well as
to the Bishops of Breslau, Cracow, and Olmütz against the danger of
Milic’s teaching. He went to Avignon to defend himself; but, though he
succeeded in satisfying the Pope and cardinals of his innocence, he
never returned to Bohemia; for he was seized with an illness while at
Avignon, and died there on St. Peter’s Day, 1374.
Milic had been assisted by his humble origin in gaining the sympathies
of the poor; but even more alarming to the Germans who had gathered in
Prague was Milic’s follower Thomas of S̆títný. He was descended from a
noble family, and had been one of the earliest pupils of the University
of Prague. He was thus able to give a more permanent literary reform to
the teachings of the reformers. Nor did he confine himself, as Conrad
and Milic had done, to efforts after moral improvement; for he grappled
also with those more subtle questions of theology which were coming at
that time into prominence. Master Eckhard, the founder of the Mystics,
had been appointed at one time as Vicar-General of Bohemia. He had no
doubt gained considerable influence in that country; and S̆títný’s
utterances, especially about Faith and Love, were coloured by the
teaching of the mystical school.