Jammer und Not. Karl IV. und die natürlichen Rahmenbedingungen des 14. Jahrhunderts

• Authors: Martin Bauch

Title variants

CS

Nářek a nouze. Karel IV. a rámcové přírodní podmínky 14. století

EN

Lamentations and woes. Chalres IV and the outline of natural conditions in the 14th century

• Languages of publication: DE

Abstracts

EN

Charles IV was born at a time when the worst ever famine of the last millenium peaked. His life and reign were dominated by an unprecedented burden imposed upon European society by a worsened climate, crop failures, frequent floods, desolation of the countryside and the Black Death. At the same time, the Czech Lands experienced a remarkable cultural blossoming, primarily under the baton of the sovereign and his court, alongside a phase of territorial acquisitions and a stabilisation of his political power. The author searches for an answer to this seemingly contradictory nature of those times and outlines what the contemporaries had to say about it. Indeed, Charles IV might seemingly have led his life isolated from the crisis-ridden day-to-day normality of his times. Yet, he was repeatedly a direct witness to extreme natural events, which shook the society of his time to the core and posed unusual and extraordinary challenges to it. This study merges the findings from the fields of political history, cultural history and the history of piety with the results of naturalscientific and climatic research. It, thus, aims to give us an insight into the somewhat contradictory personality of Charles IV.

Keywords

EN

Charles IV; the Czech Lands; Europe; climatic crisis in the 14th century; natural conditions versus cultural development; medieval interpretation of catastrophies

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Český časopis historický (The Czech Historical Review)
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 115
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 983-1016
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Martin Bauch

• Český časopis historický, redakce, Historický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Prosecká 76, 190 00 Praha 9, Czech Republic