The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356

Interview with the author Vaclav Zurek The book is available to pre-order here: Charles IV: Portrait of a Medieval Ruler: Amazon.co.uk: Žurek, Václav, Stone, Ian Finlay: 9788024655239: Books

This is the last episode of this season and it is time to say goodbye to Karl IV, Ludwig the Bavarian, Henry VII, Albrecht of Habsburg, Adolf von Nassau and Rudolf of Habsburg. These have been some eventful 138 years. When Karl IV died in 1378 he left behind an impressive list of achievements but also a number of failures. And he left behind a son, Wenceslaus he had invested with so much hope and...

For more than a hundred years the Holy Roman Empire was a mess of constant infighting between and within the great princely families. But by the 1360s the consistent policies and elaborate diplomacy of emperor Karl IV had produced a degree of stability not seen by anyone alive. With the home front calm, the emperor can again assume a role on the European stage, setting in train seminal events that...

All is well in the empire. The Golden Bull had been debated, agreed, sealed and then celebrated at the great diet in Metz in 1357. The first time in decades that all the Prince Electors had come together and performed the ancient duties of their offices. Even the Dauphin of France had come to do homage to Karl IV for the lands he held inside the empire. But did all the princes join in the joy? No,...

Every realm that is divided internally will go to ruin, for its princes have become the comrades of thieves. The Lord has poured out the spirit of deceit among them, so that they grope about at midday as though in darkness, and He has withdrawn the light from their dwellings, so that they are blind and leaders of the blind. And those who wander in the dark run into things, and those who are blind...

This season has now gone on for 22 episodes. We started with the interregnum of largely absent rulers and after a brief renaissance under Rudolf von Habsburg the empire became a sort of oligarchy where 3 families, the Luxemburgs, the Wittelsbachs and the Habsburgs took turns on the throne. Succession usually involved some form of armed conflict between the contenders and a struggle with the pope o...

“ Karl, by the grace of God, King of the Romans, ever august, and King of Bohemia [  ] We have turned over in careful contemplation, and have been diligently pondering how our hereditary kingdom of Bohemia may flourish in all its beauty, thrive in peace, and not fear the loss of its riches to its enemies, and how the general good and benefit of the said kingdom may prosper, how its’ governanc...

In around 1320 near the lake Issy-Kul in Kyrgysistan the rats started dying. Shortly after the inhabitants became affected with terrible diseases. Some started coughing up blood and all who did, died within 3 days. Others developed swellings of the lymph nodes, particularly in the groins and armpits. Roughly half of them died within five days. A small number saw their feet and fingertips turn blac...

The year is 1346 and we have, yes, another succession crisis. Without checking through my 1500 pages of transcripts, I have counted a total of 14 contested imperial elections in the 427 years we have covered so far. Henry the Fowler, Herny II, Henry IV, Henry V, Lothar III, Konrad III, Philip of Swabia, Otto IV, Frederick II, Konrad IV, Richard of Cornwall, Adolf of Nassau, Albrecht of Habsburg an...

You have heard me complaining regularly over the last 154 episodes that what we report as political ambitions or strategic plans of the kings and emperors was pure conjecture derived from their actions and public statement. But we could never know what they were really thinking because none of them kept a diary, or if they did they did not survive to today.  The subject of today’s episode how...

The noble and gallant King of Bohemia, also known as John of Luxemburg because he was the son of the Emperor Henry of Luxemburg, was told by his people that the battle had begun. Although he was in full armour and equipped for combat, he could see nothing because he was blind. He asked his knights what the situation was and they described the rout of the Genoese and the confusion which follow...

“In the same way that Jerusalem is the navel of the world, is Nurnberg the navel of Germany” is how Matthäus Dresser described the city in 1581. The astronomer Johannes Regiomontanus moved to Nurnberg in 1471 because there " ...one can easily associate with learned men wherever they live. Because of the cosmopolitanism of its merchants, this place is regarded as the center of Europe”. How did this...

“The twelve-year-old Margarete, Princess of Carinthia and Tyrol, was travelling from her seat near Meran to Innsbruck for her wedding with the ten-year old Prince Johann of Bohemia. [..] Still and serious she sat, in ceremonial pomp. Her bodice was so tight that she had had to be laced into it; her sleeves of heavy green satin, in the very extreme of fashion, fell to her feet ; she wore one of the...

This week we look at the central intellectual debate of the 14th century, did Jesus own property? If yes, then it was right and proper that the church owned land, privileges, entire counties and duchies, yes that the pope was not just the spiritual but also the secular ruler of all of Christianity. And if not, then the pope as a successor to the apostles should rescind all worldly possessions and...

The 14th century is a time of fundamental change in practically all areas of social, political and economic life. It is a time when the certainties of the Middle Ages are replaced by a process of trial and error, sometimes successful, but almost always violent. We see new frameworks of how society and in particular the religious authorities should operate, how political power should be distributed...

A few months after emperor Henry VII had died in the Tuscan village of Buonconvento and before a successor had been elected, a young man, Ludwig, second son of the duke of Upper Bavaria made his name defeating a much larger Habsburg force. This success could not have come at a more opportune time as it propelled him into contention for the title of King of the Romas and ultimately, emperor. His ru...

The year is 1312 and Henry VII is finally embarking on his journey to Rome that will bring about the first imperial coronation in almost a century and hence the formal end to the Interregnum, the time without emperors. Becoming emperor is hard enough, but being emperor is even harder, as the first Luxemburger to ascend the throne of Charlemagne will find out.  Hope for  an end to the nev...

Henry VII had gained control of most of Northern Italy in less than three months. It will take him 9 months to lose it all again. How did he go from bringer of peace and justice and all out savior of Italy to brutal conqueror and godless tyrant? Let’s find out. The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian...

In the winter of 1310 the emperor elect Henry VII not yet 40 years of age and every inch a king appears in Italy. An Italy torn apart by incessant violence, between and within the cities. Allegedly it is a struggle between the pro-imperial Ghibellines and the pro-papal Guelphs, but 60 years after the last emperor had set foot on Italian soil and seven years after the pope has left for Avignon, the...

Hello and welcome to, well an absence of an episode of the History of the Germans. This is just a short message to let you know that unfortunately there will not be an episode of the History of the Germans this week. It is all the fault of a guy called Rafael Miranda who runs the worlds best wine tasting at the Quinta de San Tiago over in Rede in the Douro valley in Portugal. No worries, normal se...

Henry, the new king of the Romans, just 30 years of age, tall and blond, every inch his forebearer the great Charlemagne had a one track mind. There was one thing he wanted and that was the imperial crown. It is now 60 years since there last had been a crowned emperor. We had such an interregnum before, in the 10th century between the death of emperor Berengar of Friuli, yes, me neither, and the c...

On November 27th, 1308 the prince electors chose Henry VII, count of Luxemburg to be their new king of the Romans and future emperor. Little did they know that this decision will give rise to a dynasty that will rule the empire for as many decades as the Ottonian, the Salian and the Hohenstaufen had. A dynasty that featured such emblems of chivalric pride as the blind king John of Bohemia, builder...

The late 13th century was the sniper’s alley for many a powerful family. The disappearance of great dynasties, the Arpads of Hungary, the Premyslids of Bohemia, the Zaehringer, Babenbergs, the counts of Holland to name just a few wasn’t down to lack of fertility but down to violence. Murder became so common, even those who did not have swords sticking out of their chest were presumed poisoned. To...

After the death of Rudolf von Habsburg the electors chose another, now truly impecunious count, Adolf von Nassau to be king. They chose him over Rudolf’s son Albrecht and over the overwhelmingly most powerful prince in the empire, King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia. This cultured and competent man became known to German history as a Schattenkönig, a shadow of a king, unable to wiggle out of his ties to...

Martin Rady in his highly amusing and exceptionally well written book on the Habsburg said “ The remainder of Rudolf’s reign up to his death in 1291 was a failure. He did not manage to have himself crowned emperor by the pope and had to make do with the title of king…it was a false dawn, both for the Holy Roman empire and for the Habsburgs ” I most humbly disagree. The 13 years following the battl...