Page:Bohemia An Historical Sketch.djvu/97

 wish to obtain an alliance with the then powerful Servian princes against the ever-menacing Turkish Empire.

In 1348 Charles assembled the Estates of Bohemia at Prague, and in his capacity as King of the Germans confirmed all the privileges which former kings had conferred on the country, but which, specially since the end of the reign of Přemysl Ottokar II, had been in abeyance. The right of the Estates to choose their king was again affirmed, but with the qualification that it should only come into force in the case of the extinction of the royal family, which meanwhile was to succeed to the throne according to the rule of primogeniture. By further enactment Charles defined the position of Moravia—then governed by the king's brother, John Henry—with reference to Bohemia, and also decreed that Silesia and Upper Lusatia should henceforth form parts of the lands of the Bohemian crown.

At this Diet King Charles also announced his intention of founding a university at Prague. It is characteristic of his interest in this, his favourite creation, that he had, shortly after the battle of Crécy—even before his return to Bohemia—written to the Pope asking his consent to the foundation of the new university, a consent that was readily granted. A not very well authenticated report tells us that Charles had as a youth studied at the University of Paris, but it is more probable that during his first stay in Italy he had acquired a love of learning, at that time very unusual among the princes and nobles of Northern Europe. The king himself superintended the organization of the university, which was destined soon to acquire a worldwide reputation as the centre of the Hussite movement. In his invitation to the scholars of all countries to frequent the new university, Charles assured to them all the privileges and the immunities which the students of Paris and Bologna enjoyed. Charles appointed the Archbishop of Prague, Ernest of Pardubic, as first chancellor of his new university, and divided it (according to the system still prevalent in Germany) into four "faculties," the theological,