When the emperor learned of the approach of king Edward, he set out from his place to meet him, and after travelling four days he met him near Coblenz, receiving him there with great honor. Two richly decorated thrones were set up in the market-place, and on these the emperor and the king sat. There were present in attendance four dukes, three archbishops, six bishops, and thirty-seven counts, besides a great number, estimated by the heralds at 17,000, of barons, baronets, knights, and others. The emperor held in his right hand the imperial sceptre, and in his left the golden globe as a symbol of world-wide authority. A certain knight held a drawn sword above his head. And the emperor in the presence of the people gathered there proclaimed to all the crimes, disobedience, and wickedness of the king of France. And after he had declared that the king of France had broken his faith to the emperor, he published a decree of forfeiture against him and his followers. Then the emperor made king Edward his vicar and gave him authority over the land from Cologne to the sea, presenting him with a charter of this in the sight of all the people.
On the next day the emperor and the king of England and their nobles assembled in the cathedral, and the archbishop of Cologne said mass. And after mass the emperor and all his nobles swore to aid the king of England and to maintain his quarrel against the king of France with their lives for seven years, if the war between the said kings should last so long. They also swore that all the nobles in the territory from Cologne to the sea would come at the summons of the king of England to join him in an attack upon the king of France at any place and at any time set by him. If any one of them should fail to obey the king of England in these matters, all the other nobles of northern Germany would attack and destroy him. These affairs having been arranged and settled, the king of England received the grant of authority and returned to Brabant.
160. The Golden Bull of Charles IV, 1356.
Altmann und Bernheim, no. 29.
Various things had led the emperors to follow the policy of conferring crown rights upon their princes. In order to carry out their Italian policy the Hohenstaufen had sacrificed the power of the crown in Germany (see nos. [110–112], [136], [138], [139]), and after the interregnum the electors pillaged the crown at every opportunity (see nos. 149, 153). The result was that the crown was stripped of authority, while the princes had developed almost complete sovereignty in their lands. Charles IV, in the Golden Bull, attempted to fix as in a constitution the actual rights and status of the princes. He saw that Germany was no longer a monarchy, but a federation of princes.
Although from 1273 the number of electors was fixed at seven, it was not always clear who these seven were. Thus in 1313 two men claimed to possess the electoral vote of Saxony, and two others, that of Bohemia. Charles IV made provisions to prevent the recurrence of such a situation by attaching the electoral vote to the possession of certain lands (see chaps. VII, XX, and XXV). Charles IV was himself king of Bohemia, and, knowing that it was hopeless to attempt to restore the German kingship, he exerted himself in the Golden Bull to secure for Bohemia all the advantages possible.
PART I.
(Published at Nürnberg, January 10, 1356.)
CHAPTER I.
ESCORT AND SAFE-CONDUCT FOR THE ELECTORS.