Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles IV (1316–1378), born Wenceslaus at Prague, was King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor. Son of John of Bohemia and Přemyslid Elizabeth, he took the name Charles at the French court, spoke five languages, governed Bohemian lands from 1333 and became Margrave of Moravia in 1334.

In 1346 Pope Clement VI's electors made him King of the Romans; rivals mocked him as the ‘Priests' King’. His father fell at Crécy, where Charles was wounded, leaving him Bohemia and Luxembourg. Louis IV died in 1347; defeating Günther von Schwarzburg, he was re-elected in 1349. He made Prague his capital and in 1348 founded its university and built Karlštejn Castle.

A 1350 jousting accident left him hunchbacked. Crowned emperor at Rome in 1355, he issued the Golden Bull in 1356, the Empire's basic law until 1806. Brandenburg passed to his son Wenceslaus in 1373, succeeding him in Bohemia in 1378.