Wenceslaus | |
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King Wenceslaus sitting on the throne, detail from the Wenceslas Bible, 1390s
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King of Bohemia | |
Reign | 29 November 1378 – 16 August 1419 |
Coronation | 15 June 1363 St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague |
Predecessor | Charles IV |
Successor | Sigismund |
King of Germany (formally King of the Romans) |
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Reign | 10 June 1376 – 20 August 1400 |
Coronation | 6 July 1376 Aachen Cathedral |
Predecessor | Charles IV |
Successor | Rupert |
Elector of Brandenburg | |
Reign | 2 October 1373 – 29 November 1378 |
Predecessor | Otto VII |
Successor | Sigismund |
Duke of Luxembourg | |
Reign | 7 December 1383 – 1388 |
Predecessor | Wenceslaus I |
Successor | Jobst of Moravia |
Born | 26 February 1361 Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire |
Died | 16 August 1419 (aged 58) Nový hrad, Kunratice |
Spouse |
Joanna of Bavaria Sophia of Bavaria |
House | House of Luxembourg |
Father | Charles IV |
Mother | Anna von Schweidnitz |
Wenceslaus (also Wenceslas; Czech: Václav; German: Wenzel, nicknamed der Faule ("the Idle"); 26 February 1361 – 16 August 1419) was, by inheritance, King of Bohemia (as Wenceslaus IV) from 1363 and by election, German King (formally King of the Romans) from 1376. He was the third Bohemian and fourth German monarch of the Luxembourg dynasty. Wenceslaus was deposed in 1400 as King of the Romans, but continued to rule as Bohemian king until his death.
Wenceslaus was born in the Imperial city of Nuremberg, the son of Emperor Charles IV by his third wife Anna von Schweidnitz, a scion of the Silesian Piasts, and baptized at St. Sebaldus Church. He was raised by the Prague Archbishops Arnošt of Pardubice and Jan Očko z Vlašimi. His father had the two-year-old crowned King of Bohemia in 1363 and in 1373 also obtained for him the Electoral Margraviate of Brandenburg. When in 1376 Charles IV asserted Wenceslaus' election as King of the Romans by the prince-electors, two of seven votes, those of Brandenburg and Bohemia, were held by the emperor and his son themselves.
In order to secure the election of his son, Charles IV revoked the privileges of many Imperial Cities that he had earlier granted, and mortgaged them to various nobles. The cities, however, were not powerless, and as executors of the public peace, they had developed into a potent military force. Moreover, as Charles IV had organised the cities into leagues, he had made it possible for them to cooperate in large-scale endeavors. Indeed, on 4 July 1376, two days after Wenceslaus' election, fourteen Swabian cities bound together into the independent Swabian League of Cities to defend their rights against the newly elected King, attacking the lands of Eberhard II, Count of Württemberg. The city league soon attracted other members and until 1389 acted as an autonomous state within the Empire.