Visiting Prague

Summary: life of the kind who transformed Prague into the Capital of the Holy Roman Empire.

He was the fourteenth king of Bohemia, from the House of Luxemburg and the Holy Roman Empire. The Luxemburg family generated in 1316 one of the greatest kings that Bohemia would ever have. Son of John and Elisabeth I of Bohemia he was born in Prague with the name of Wenceslaus. He lived in France for serval years and where he received his education and learned how to speak Czech, French, Latin, German and Italian, also gain some experience in warfare in Italy with his Father. By 1333 he was already helping his father with the Bohemian affairs an year later with the Moravian Kingdom as well.
The period of governing of this king was from 1346 to 1378 and it is considered to be the golden epoch of the city of Prague. The king of the Holy Roman Empire chose Bohemia to live and turned the city into the greatest capital of Europe. Charles IV created beautiful churches, monasteries in the gothic stile that today are so characteristics of Prague hotels, the city of hundreds spires.
Charles IV raised to the power when his father John of Luxemburg died at the Hundred Years War. Charles inherited in the year 1346 the Country of Luxemburg and the kingdom of Bohemia and to mark his coronation, Charles IV had a new set of Czech Crown Jewels made for himself and his wife, Blanche of Valois. Although by the Easter of 1355 he was also made the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
In Prague he putted all his efforts together to make Prague hotels as beautiful as Paris. He established the Nové Mesto (New Town). In 1348, he founded the University of Prague, named after him, the first university in Central Europe. Like this Prague become the intellectual and cultural centre of Europe.
With the support of the Rhenish and Swabian towns, a married with an Habsburg family member, the protected by the Pope Clement VI. Later he married a daughter of Rudolf II of Bavaria. The territory kept growing with the marriage system. His third wife gave him part of Silesian territory, after the death of Meinhard, duke of Upper Bavaria and count of Tirol its territories were claimed successfully by Charles IV.
By the year of 1348 he ordered to build the Castle of Karlstein, named after him, located above the river Berounka. This castle was a built in a rural calm place as a resting refuge.
The great kingdom that Charles IV built was ruled with an incredible organization of its emperor into keeping the peace between the states and confederation. He built the Charles Bridge, to substituted Judit’s Bridge; Charles University, encouraging early Humanist; Charles Square, creation of a new city and improved the Castle of Prague as well as the S. Vito Cathedral. The policy of Charles imperial was focused on the dynastic sphere and abandoned the lofty ideal of the Empire as a universal monarchy of Christendom. Charles’s sister Bona married the eldest son of Philip VI of France, the future John II of France. Thus, Charles was the maternal uncle of Charles V of France to whom hi promised the kingdom of Bohemia. He was a religious catholic man who’s values relayed on his family.
Charles IV died in 1378, suffering of a terrible disease metabolic arthritis. At his funeral he was named Pater patriae meaning Father of the Country.

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