1356 A.D.

1356 A.D. has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the People, Dates, Places and Events category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the entire history of european integration and the future of Europe.

1356 A.D. is one of the most important date in whole history of european integration and will probably have influence on the future of United europe because it marked the last transformation of the Christian Empire and in general of the european political scenario up to nowadays, while the most important medieval war passed through a crucial battle that changed the conception of military and war games.

In 1356 A.D. Charles IV of Luxembourg dinasty reformed the Reich Empire in a form remained unaltered until the First world war and pushed the Ecclesiae Christiana towards the great changings of following times. With the "Golden Bull", the emperor established the elective crowning of his successors by 7 Princes and Archibishops, something completely different from the council od duchies that founded the german kingdom in 911 A.D.: since that moment, the selected "voters" for the Imperator Christianorum (to be crowned in Aachen with the Reichkrone) will have been the King of Bohemia, the Count of Palatine of Rhin, the Margrave of Brandeburg, the Duke of Thuringia together with the Archibishops of Trier, Mainz and Cologne. Those feifs received the title of "electors" and became hereditary then subjected to the private right norms of succession, while the clerical seats were under designation privilege of the same emperor.

The prammatica sanctio emitted by Charles IV transformed the Sacer Roman Imperium founded by Charlemagne in 800 A.D. in a closed federation of german states, reordered on the basis of the juridical setting designed in the Constitutio issued by the emperor Frederick II around one hundred years before: the new reform assigned few supreme powers to the Rex Germanorum, as the presidency of the imperial Chancellery and of the Princes Diet, the control of the imperial Tribunal and of the Treasury, while the imperium territory was split in a moltitude of local autonomies (Principades, Duches, Margraviades, Legues, Free towns, Bishoprics, etc.). The reform of 1356 A.D., in reality, conserved the originary federal form of the Reich established when the Regna Germanorum emerged as hegemony among the european genealogies in X century A.D., but changed the "inner circle" of power from the ancient feudal tribal duchies founded by Carolingians to the eastern marks developed since then in Eastern Europe, in a crucial moment for the Roman Church under "captivity" of France, that was involved in a long war against England, while the spanish christian regnas were fighting the Reconquista and one against other for supremacy in the Iberian peninsula.

Charles IV had been respectful for the ancient tradition of the Christian Empire, that he reformed by keeping up with the times: indeed, Trier was an acient roman civitas and had been capital of the Western Roman Empire in III century a.D., then transformed in Archibishopric with political functions by Charlemagne as well as Mainz and Cologne, while the Rhin-Palatinate included the ancient capital of Aachen, the Duchy of Thuringia existed already in V century A.D. and his capital Erfurt was a fundamental missionary catholic bishopric as well as Magdeburg, founded by Otto I, and Praha, capital of Bohemia elevated as kingdom by Frederick II. But the shifting of the Reich empire toward East, with the new capital established in the bohemian city in the middle of the greatest christian political entities of Crown of Poland-Lithuania, Kingdom of Hungary-Coatia-Slovenia and the Zarade of Russia, meanwhile the ancient Byzantine empire was going towards the fall of Constantinople defeated by Turkish, Bulgars and Serbians empires and the trading and naval competition on the Republic of Venice, changed the european political scenatio also in Western Europe where the new french royal dinasty of Valois was throwing down the challenge for the supreme power in Christianity.

A situation evolved after the battle of Poitiers on 19th september with the devastating defeat of the french troops and the capture of the King John II, forefather of the Valois dinasty that had been the "casus belli" of the Hundred's War. Besides the galamorous debacle on the field, that costed the life to many primary nobles and direct assistants of the french king (who fell in the hand of the enemy, then imprisoned in the Tower of London, in the end cashed in with an enormous amount) while his principal commander fled with his sons, damaged the prestige of french army and of the ancient heavy chevalry completely killed in the battle: the political consequence was the losing of the Duchies of Aquitaine and of Gascony to the "Black Prince" Henry of England, who ten years before had killed in another crucial battle of Crecy the father of the new emperor and of the wife of the new french king captured... This dramatic situation combined with the followgin died (on 11th october) of Margaret II Countess of Hainaut, the last of the Avesnes family that had inherited all her fiefs by the originary ancient european genealogies of Hainaut, Flandre and Holland, passed to the sons had with the husband, Louis IV "the bavarian" emperor until 1347 A.D.: already Dukes of Bavaria of the Wittelsbach-Straubing dinasty, they could add those old french duchies to the german imperial area now enlarged from the Schelde river at West to the Vistola and Moldova rivers at East and from the Jutland region at North to the Drava and Tiber rivers at South.

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