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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: WAT-WIL |
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WENCESLAUS (1361-1419) , German king, and, as Wenceslaus IV., king of Bohemia, was the son of the emperor Charles IV. and Anna, daughter of Henry II., duke of Schweidnitz. Born at Nuremberg on the 26th of February 1361, he was crowned king of Bohemia in June 1363, and invested with the margraviate of Brandenburg in 1373. In September 1370 he married Joanna
establishment
For some time Wenceslaus ruled Bohemia successfully, but he fell under the influence of favourites and aroused the irritation of the nobles. A quarrel with John II., archbishop of Prague, which led to the murder of John's vicar-general, John of Pomuk, at the instigation of the king, provoked a rising led by Jobst, margrave of Moravia, a cousin 'of Wenceslaus; and in 1394 the king was taken prisoner and only released under pressure of threats from the German princes. Having consented to limitations on his power in Bohemia, he made a further but spasmodic effort to restore peace in Germany. He then met Charles VI., king of France at Reims, where the monarchs decided to persuade the rival popes Benedict XIII. and Boniface IX. to resign, and to end the papal schisms by the election of a new pontiff. Many of the princes were angry at this abandonment of Boniface by Wenceslaus, who had also aroused much indignation by his long absence from Germany and by selling the title of duke of Milan to Gian Galleazzo Visconti. The consequence was that in August 1400 the four Rhenish electors met at Oberlahnstein and declared Wenceslaus deposed. He was charged with attempting to dismember the empire to his own advantage, with neglecting to end the schism in the church, with allowing favourites to enrich themselves, and was further accused of murder. Though he remained in Bohemia he took no steps against Rupert III. count palatine of the Rhine, who had been elected as his successor. He soon quarrelled with Sigismund, who took him prisoner in 1402 and sent him to Vienna, where he remained in captivity for nineteen months after abdicating in Bohemia. In 1404, when Sigismund was recalled to Hungary, Wenceslaus regained hisfreedom and with it his authority in Bohemia; and after the death of the German king Rupert in 1410 appears to have entertained hopes of recovering his former throne. Abandoning this idea, however, he voted for the election of Sigismund in 1411, but stipulated that he should retain the title of king of the Romans. His concluding years were disturbed by the troubles which arose in Bohemia over the death of John Huss, and which the vacillating king did nothing to check until compelled by Sigismund. In the midst of these disturbances he died at Prague on the 16th of August 1419. His second wife was Sophia
See Th. Lindner, Geschichte des deutschen Reiches vom Ende des 141en Jahrhunderts bis zur Reformation, part i. (Brunswick, 1875188o), and " Die Wahl Wenzels," in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, Band xiv. (Gottingen, 18621886) ; F. M. Pelzel, Lebensgeschichte des romischen and bohmischen Konigs Wenceslaus (Prague, 1788179o) ; F. Palacky, Geschichte von Bohmen, Bande iii. and iv. (Prague, 18641874) ; H. Mau, Konig Wenzel and die rheinischen Kurfiirsten ( Rostock
WEN-CHOW-FU, a prefectural city in the province of Chehkiang, China, and one of the five ports opened by the Chifu convention to foreign trade, situated (28 1' N., 120 31' E.) on the south bank of the river Gow, about 20 M. from the sea. The population is estimated at 8o,000. The site is said to have been chosen by Kwo P'oh (A.D. 276324), a celebrated antiquary who recognized in the adjacent mountain peaks a correspondence with the stars in the constellation of the Great Bear , from which circumstance the town was first known as the Tow or Great Bear city. Subsequently the appearance in its vicinity of a white deer carrying a flower in its mouth was deemed so favourable an omen as to more than justify the change of its name to Luh or Deer city. Its present name, which signifies the " mild district," and is correctly descriptive of the climate, though not of the inhabitants, was given to it during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The walls, which were built in the loth century, are about 4 M. in circumference, 35 ft. in height, and 12 ft. broad at the top. The streets are paved with brick and are wide, straight and clean. The gates, seven in number, were erected in 1598. Wen-chow is about 156o m. S.S.E. by road from Peking and 600 m. E.S.E. of Hankow. The British consul
There is no foreign settlement at Wen-chow, and the foreign residents are mainly officials and missionaries. The tea trade of Wen-chow-Fu, formerly important, has declined owing to care-less cultivation. A considerable native export trade in wood, charcoal, bamboo, medicines, paper umbrellas, oranges, otter skins and tobacco leaf is carried on. The imports are chiefly cotton
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