Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

"Karl V." redirects here. For the opera, see Karl V. (opera).

Charles V
Imperator Romanorum
Portrait of Emperor Charles V seated on a chair
Portrait of Charles V, 1548
Holy Roman Emperor
(more...)
Reign28 June 1519 –
24 February 1558[a]
Coronation
PredecessorMaximilian I
SuccessorFerdinand I
King of Spain
as Charles I
Reign14 March 1516 – 16 January 1556
PredecessorJoanna
SuccessorPhilip II
Co-monarchJoanna (until 1555)
Regents
See
Archduke of Austria
as Charles I
Reign12 January 1519 –
21 April 1521
PredecessorMaximilian I
SuccessorFerdinand I[b]
as Charles II
Reign25 September 1506 –
25 October 1555
PredecessorPhilip the Handsome
SuccessorPhilip II of Spain
Born24 February 1500
Prinsenhof of Ghent, Flanders, Habsburg Netherlands, Holy Roman Empire
Died21 September 1558(1558-09-21) (aged 58)
Monastery of Yuste, Crown of Castile, Spain
Burial
El Escorial, Spain
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1526; died 1539)​
Issue
more...
HouseHabsburg
FatherPhilip the Handsome
MotherJoanna, Queen of Castile and Aragon
ReligionCatholic Church
SignatureCharles V's signature

Charles V[d][e] (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw the continuation of Spanish colonization and a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories he ruled was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets".[23]

Charles was born in Flanders to Habsburg Archduke Philip the Handsome, son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Mary of Burgundy, and Joanna of Castile, younger child of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Heir of his grandparents, Charles inherited his family dominions at a young age. After his father's death in 1506, he inherited the Low Countries.[24] In 1516 he became King of Spain as co-monarch of Castile and Aragon with his mother. Spain's possessions included the Castilian colonies of the West Indies and the Spanish Main, as well as Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. At the death of his grandfather Maximilian in 1519, he inherited the Austrian hereditary lands and was elected as Holy Roman Emperor. He adopted the Imperial name of Charles V as his main title, and styled himself as a new Charlemagne.[25]

Charles revitalized the medieval concept of universal monarchy. With no fixed capital, he made 40 journeys through the different entities he ruled and spent a quarter of his reign travelling within his realms.[26] Although his empire came to him peacefully, he spent most of his life waging war, exhausting his revenues and leaving debts in his attempt to defend the integrity of the Holy Roman Empire from the Reformation, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and in wars with France.[27][28] Charles borrowed money from German and Italian bankers and, to repay them, relied on the wealth of the Low Countries and on flow of silver from New Spain and Peru, brought under his rule following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires, which caused widespread inflation.

Crowned King of Germany in Aachen, Charles sided with Pope Leo X and declared Martin Luther an outlaw at the Diet of Worms in 1521.[29] The same year, Francis I of France, surrounded by the Habsburg possessions, started a war in Italy that led to the Battle of Pavia (1525). In 1527, Rome was sacked by an army of Charles's mutinous soldiers. Charles then defended Vienna from the Turks and obtained a coronation as King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from Pope Clement VII. In 1535, he took possession of Milan and captured Tunis. However, the loss of Buda during the struggle for Hungary and the Algiers expedition in the early 1540s frustrated his anti-Ottoman policies. After years of negotiations, Charles V came to an agreement with Pope Paul III for the organization of the Council of Trent (1545). The refusal of the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League to recognize the council's validity led to a war, won by Charles. However, Henry II of France offered new support to the Lutheran cause and strengthened the Franco-Ottoman alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent.

Ultimately, Charles V conceded the Peace of Augsburg and abandoned his multi-national project with abdications in 1556 that divided his hereditary and imperial domains between the Spanish Habsburgs, headed by his son Philip II of Spain, and Austrian Habsburgs, headed by his brother Ferdinand.[30][31][32] In 1557, Charles retired to the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura and died there a year later.

  1. ^ a b c d Robertson, William (1829). Histoire de Charles-Quint (in French). Haumann. pp. 262-263 (note 1), 452–454.
  2. ^ The Abdication of Emperor Charles V (1555/56). German History in Documents and Images.
  3. ^ The Abdication of Emperor Charles V / Kaiserliche Instruktion für die Abdikationsgesandtschaft zu Ferdinand I. und zu den Kurfürsten. German History in Documents and Images.
  4. ^ Archiv für österreichische Geschichte (in German). Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 1901. pp. 314–316. Instruktion für die Abdikationsgesandtschaft (Instruction for the Abdication Mission)
  5. ^ a b Bernard, Jacques (1700). Recueil Des Traitez De Paix, De Treve, De Neutralite, etc (in French). Henry Et La Veuve De T. Boom. p. 276.
  6. ^ Lünig, Johann Christian (1720). Das deutsche Reichs-Archivs (in German). Vol. 4. pp. 355–356. Rescriptum to the Chamber-Judges and Assessors of the Holy Imperial Chamber Court in Speyer, in which he refers them to the Roman King Ferdinandum I as their future ruler.
  7. ^ Lünig, Johann Christian (1711). Das deutsche Reichs-Archiv (in German). Vol. 6. pp. 288–289. Edictum to all Electors and States of the Holy Roman Empire, that he entrusted his lord brother, the Roman King Ferdinand I, with the rule of the German Reich.
  8. ^ Clémencet, Charles (1784). L'art de verifier les dates des faits historiques (in French). Al. Jombert Jeune. p. 41.
  9. ^ Herbermann, Charles George (1836). Histoire politique du règne de l'empereur Charles Quint (in French). H. Tarlier. p. 738.
  10. ^ Chillany, F. Wilhelm (1865). Europaeische Chronik von 1492 bis Ende April 1865. pp. 16, 78.
  11. ^ Patxot, Fernando (1856). Los héroes y las grandezas de la tierra 6. p. 399
  12. ^ a b Setton 1984, p. 716.
  13. ^ Ruiz, Enrique Martínez (2020). Felipe II: El hombre, el rey, el mito. La Esfera de los Libros. p. vii.
  14. ^ [8][9][10][11][12][13]
  15. ^ William H. Prescott (1856). Historia del reinado de Felipe Segundo, Rey de España. p. 321.
  16. ^ Mignet, François Auguste Alexis (1878). Carlos Quinto: su abdicación, su estancia y muerte en el Monasterio de Yuste (in Spanish). Biblioteca Perojo. p. 307.
  17. ^ Bruno Gebhardt (1890). Gebhardts Handbuch der deutschen geschichte. p. 92.
  18. ^ de Cadenas y Vicent, Vicente (1999). Caminos y derroteros que recorrió el emperador Carlos V. Ediciones Hidalguia. p. 10.
  19. ^ Herbermann, Charles George (1908). The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church. Robert Appleton Company. p. 629.
  20. ^ [15][16][17][18][19]
  21. ^ Wahlkapitulation Ferdinands I., Frankfurt am Main, 14. März 1558. V&R eLibrary
  22. ^ Carlos V: La coronación del Emperador Archived 25 July 2021 at the Wayback Machine. National Geographic
  23. ^ Pagden, Anthony quoting Ariosto, Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest from Greece to the Present. New York: Random House 2007, p. 76 ISBN 978-0307431592
  24. ^ Charles Quint, prince des Pays-Bas (in French). La Renaissance du Livre. 1943.
  25. ^ Leitch, S. (2010). Mapping Ethnography in Early Modern Germany: New Worlds in Print Culture. Springer. ISBN 978-0230112988 – via Google Books.
  26. ^ Ferer, Mary Tiffany (2012). Music and Ceremony at the Court of Charles V: The Capilla Flamenca and the Art of Political Promotion. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1843836995.
  27. ^ MacCulloch, D. (2 September 2004). Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700. p. 216. ISBN 978-0141926605.
  28. ^ Armitage, D. (2000). The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0521789783.
  29. ^ Smedley, Edward (1845). Encyclopædia metropolitana; Volume 17. London.
  30. ^ Kanski, Jack J. (2019). History of the German speaking nations. Troubador Publishing. ISBN 978-1789017182.
  31. ^ Pavlac, Brian A.; Lott, Elizabeth S. (2019). The Holy Roman Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1440848568 – via Google Books.
  32. ^ Wilson, Peter H. (2010). The Thirty Years War, a sourcebook. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137069771. Archived from the original on 7 April 2022.


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