King of Bohemia (1310-1346) and leader of three crusade expeditions against the pagan Lithuanians (1328-1329, 1337, and 1345).
John was born on 10 August 1296, the son of Henry, count of Luxembourg, later Holy Roman Emperor (as Henry VII), and Margaret of Brabant. In 1310 Henry accepted a proposal from a party in the kingdom of Bohemia that John should marry Elizabeth, sister of King Wenceslas III, who had died in 1306 without a male heir. In the following year John was crowned king of Bohemia; he confirmed the liberties of the native lords and promised not to give lands or offices to foreigners. When John broke these undertakings, he was soon faced with rebellion. However, he was able to maintain his royal authority in Bohemia with the help of his allies, including the military orders.
On his father’s death (1313) John and his uncle Archbishop Baldwin of Trier voted for Ludwig (IV) of Bavaria as the next king of the Romans (1314), and John contributed decisively to the defeat of the rival king-elect, Frederick “the Fair,” duke of Austria, at Muhldorf in 1322. Often absent from Bohemia, John left the government to the nobles, to his wife Elizabeth (until her death in 1330), and then to his eldest son Charles, margrave of Moravia since 1333. Although he lost one eye in 1337 and the other, owing to bad surgery at Montpellier, in 1340, he continued to live the life of a knight errant all over Latin Christendom, from Toulouse to Prussia. In this respect he may be compared with contemporaries such as Humbert II, dauphin of Vien-nois, or Amadeus VI, the “Green Count” of Savoy.
As count of Luxembourg John enjoyed good contacts with Karl von Trier, grand master of the Teutonic Order, whom he defended at the papal Curia against complaints by the archbishop of Riga that the order tried to conquer the Lithuanians rather than convert them. To please the papacy, John promised a crusade in 1325. In fact he went to Prussia to fight alongside the Teutonic Order against the Lithuanians on three occasions between 1328 and 1345. This enhanced John’s reputation, and put pressure on the kings of Poland, Wladyslaw I Lokietek and his son Kazimierz III. The campaigns brought several hundred fighters to Prussia, including many lesser princes, and usually started in January. The winter had to be not too cold for men to relieve themselves in the open air, and not too snowy for riding, but sharp enough to congeal the bogs, to harden the ground, and to freeze the rivers. In 1328-1329 the French poet Guillaume de Machaut was in John’s retinue. John insisted on sparing 6,000 Samogitians who had surrendered at Medewage, and half of them are said to have been baptized. This campaign was abandoned when Wladyslaw Lokietek resumed hostilities; only in 1335 was peace made between John and Wladyslaw’s son Kazimierz when John renounced his claims to the Polish throne and Kazimierz renounced his claims to Silesia.
In 1337 John was accompanied by his son-in-law Duke Henry XIV of Bavaria, and a fortification called Baierburg was built against the Lithuanians on the river Nemunas. In 1341 the dying grand master Dietrich von Altenberg consigned the Teutonic Order to John’s protection. In 1344-1345 John’s son Charles, King Louis of Hungary, Duke Peter of Bourbon, Count William IV of Holland, and Burgrave John of Nuremberg participated in an attack on Lithuanian strongholds at Wilau and Pisten. which failed when false rumors of a Lithuanian counterattack on Konigs-berg (mod. Kaliningrad, Russia) reached the army and incipient thawing stopped the fighting. Returning to Bohemia, John’s son Charles was arrested by Kazimierz III of Poland, but managed to escape. This led to a short war between Bohemia and Poland.
As count of Luxembourg, John always maintained close relations with the French court. Together with the kings of France and Navarre, John pledged a crusade in 1334: this was meant to be a naval expedition against the Muslims in the Levant, but never materialized. Papal support secured the election of John’s son Charles (IV) as king of the Romans on 11 July 1346. Charles accompanied his father to Crecy, where, on 26 August 1346, the blind king of Bohemia died fighting bravely for Philip VI of France against the English in one of the major battles of the Hundred Years’ War.
-Karl Borchardt
See also: Baltic Crusades; Bohemia and Moravia
Bibliography
Cazelles, Raymond, Jean I’Aveugle, comte de Luxembourg, roi de Boeme (Bourges: Tardy, 1947).
Conrad, Klaus, “Der dritte Litauerzug Konig Johanns von Bohmen und der Rucktritt des Hochmeisters Ludolf Konig,” in Festschrift fur Hermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstagam 19 September 1971, 3 vols. (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971-1972), 2:382-401.
Johann der Blinde: Graf von Luxemburg, Konig der Bohmen, ed. Michael Pauly (Luxembourg: Section Historique de l’Institut Grand-Ducal, 1997).
Spevacek, Jiri, Jan Lucembursky a jeho doba 1296-1346 (Praha: Svoboda, 1994).
Susta, Josef, Ceske dejiny, 2/2-3 (Praha: Laichter, 1939-1946).
Un itineraire europeen: Jean I’Aveugle, comte de Luxembourg et roi de Boheme, 1296-1346, ed. Michel Morgue (Echternach: Centre Luxembourgois de Documentation et d’Etudes Medievales, 1996).
World History
