Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/513

Rh harles Jlden 111.
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richte. .i-rs. LUXEMBOURG DvN.xsrY.] his claim, and soon afterwards di.ed. Charles was an accom- plished diplomatist, of a keen and penetratingintellect, but capable of almost any trickery in order to gain his ends. Apparently tl1e most pliant of men, he had in reality great persistence of character, a11d if foiled in one set of plans readily turned round and reached his goal by a wholly dif- ferent path. The result of his endless intrigues was that, when he died, he wore the crowns of Bohemia, of Ger1nany_. of Burgundy, of Lombardy, and of tlie empire; and he succeeded in adding to his native kingdom Lusatia, Silesia, and Brandenburg. As a Bohemian king he ranked high among the rulers of his day. He so carefully organized the administration, and practised such strict economy in govern- ment, that no German country was so lightly taxed as Bohemia; and it became, under his rule,-a home of learning and of tl1e arts. Towards Germany he was cynically indif- ferent, caring for it only in so far as it could add to his personal welfare. It never stood in n1ore urgent need of a strong and beneﬁcent ruler than in the early years of his reign, for the Black Death swept over the land, and the half-mad population rose in fury against the Jews, who were supposed to l1ave i11 some way caused the evil. In dealing with this monstrous outburst of fanaticism, many of the princes, both spiritual and secular, displayed vigour and humanity; but Charles saw in the suffering of the down- trodden race, which was peculiarly under his protection, only an excuse for robbing it of its wealth. His most famous achievement is the Golden Bull. Although the principle of election to the crown had long been settled, it was surrounded by many practical difficul- ties. It had never, for instance, been decided whether all the princes of each electoral house were entitled to vote ; nor was it certain, when a choice was made among several branches of a family, by what law the choice ought to be regulated. The Golden Bull, which was granted as the result of many tedious negotiations in 1356, was primarily intended to set at rest such doubts as these; but it did very much more. It decided that the number of elec- tors should be strictly limited to seven, that the spiritual electorates should belong as before to the archbishops of )1-ainz, of Cologne, and of Treves, and the secular elect- orates to the king of Bohemia, the Ilhenish palsgrave, the duke of Saxony (Sachsen-Vittenberg), and the margrave of Brandenburg. That there might be no possibility of dis- pute between the princes of a single house, these countries were declared to be indivisible, and to be heritable only on the principle of primogeniture. The electors were invested with full sovereign rights witl1i11 their territories, and their subjects were allowed to appeal to the royal or imperial tribunals only if the administration of justice should be refused. The king of Bohemia received precedence among the secular electors, but it is difﬁcult to believe that this alone was his aim in making these vast concessions. 1Vhat- ever may have been his motives, the effect of the Golden Bull was to perpetuate the disunion of the state. "With such powers the electors collectively were of more import- ance than the sovereign 3 and their greatness stimulated the other princes to seize every chance of acquiring like privileges. If we except the Golden Bull, the true interest of Charles’s reign is not in his unimportant labours for Germany, but in the movements beyond the range of his inﬂuence. It is signiﬁcant that at this time the Fehmge- richte, for whose origin we must go back to the 12th centuiy, vastly extended the sphere of their activitv, and that in the utter absence of central authority they were respected as a rough check upon the lawlessness even of hirrh princes. The cities, notwithstanding every kind of disco1'iragement, formed new associations for mutual defence, or strengthened those which already existed. The Ilanseatic League carried GERMANY 495 on war with the Danish king and forced him to come to terms, and its commerce was extended to nearly every part of the known world. A powerful league was formed by the Swabian towns, but it was defeated in the battle of Altheim by a confederation of princes who regarded its growth with fear and jealousy. Wenceslaus (137 8-1400), son of Charles IV., and also 1347- 1437. Wences- king of Bohemia, had some good natural qualities; but 111115- he had been badly trained, and when he became his own master was indolent and capricious. His bloodhounds had stronger attractions for him than the duties of govern- ment, and even more than his father he left Germany to look after itself. The tendency to association became the deepest of the time ; princes allied themselves against cities, cities against princes, and nobles against both. For a brief period the prospects of the cities seemed to be splendid, for the Swabian League recovered from the effects of its reverse, extended its relations far and wide, and formed an alliance with the Swiss confederates. The latter won the brilliant victories of Sempach and Nafels, and had the Swabian League taken advantage of the opportunity, it might have deﬁnitely gained predominance. But it gave the princes time to reorganize their scattered forces, and in 1388, in the battle of D’o'fiingen, it suffered complete defeat. So crushing was this blow that the Swabian cities were never again so strong, and all over Germany it encouraged the princes to fresh aggression. The confusion caused by the king's neglect of his most elementary duties gave rise to a conspiracy against him, in which Rupert, the elector of the palatinate, took a leading part. Venceslaus was deposed, and after much intrigue the crown was granted to Rupert (1400-10). He was an ex- cellent elector, and under favourable circumstances would have been a good king ; but such were the jealousies and divisions of the state that he found no scope for his energ l)eyond his native dominions. He made an attempt to reach Rome, but the result covered him with ridicule. After his death J obst, margrave-of Moravia, and Sigismund, king of Hungary, brother of Venceslaus, were elected by opposing parties. J obst soon died, and then Sigismund was generally recognized. Sigismund (1410-37) was an intelligent and cultivated prince, but vain, restless, and shifty. He could form great plans, but had not determination to execute them, and was easily moved by ﬂattering counsellors. The commanding questions of his reign were ecclesiastical. It was the age of the great schism, and through all ranks of the church there was an urgent cry for thorough reform. Un- fortunately, the council of Constance, summoned mainly through the efforts of Sigismund, marred its labours by the judicial murder of Huss and Jerome of Prague. This atro- cious act, for which the king was to a large extent respon- sible, stirred vehement rage among the Bohemians ; and when, after the death of Wenceslaus, Sigismund, as his heir, claimed the crown, they broke into revolt. Led for a time by the blind general Zisca, and afterwards by commanders who, although his inferiors in genius, we1'e of equally resolute temper, they defeated army after army, and spread havoc through the neighbouring German lands. . So divided was Germany, and so poor was Sigismund himself, that for ﬁfteen years he could not collect a force suﬂicient to put- down the rebellion; and he at last succeeded only because the Hussites gradually split into two factions, the Call):- tines and Taborites, and he was able to conciliate the less extreme party. Sigismund, who was of lavish habits, never had enough Bl‘:1n(le;1- Ilupert. Sigis- mum]. Hussite war. money for his wants, sometimes he had even to force bulg- himself upon princes and cities as an unwelcome guest. This undigniﬁed poverty had one good result. _In return for 400,000 gulden he granted to his friend Frederick, count of Hohenzollern, ﬁrst as a pledge, afterwards as a permanent