Preview of the new book: The Elusive Charles V

Oracle ioracode

emperor

Biography of Charles V

by Geoffrey Parker

Translated by Lu Dapeng and Liu Xiaohui

Published in December 2021 / 208.00 yuan

ISBN 978-7-5201-8278-2

Social Science Literature Press, Oracle

preface

Charles V ruled Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, half Of Italy, and much of Central and South America. Books on his subject are already plentiful, do you really need another one? The Emperor himself wrote Memoirs; there are hundreds of biographies in various languages; according to searches in the WorldCat database, more than 500 books with the title "Charles V" have been published in the 21st century so far. However, there can never be a perfect work. The emperor wrote his smug autobiography in 1550, when he was at the height of his power; several of the "biographies" in which he was the subject were biased and not objective enough (even in the 19th and 20th centuries, there were still some biographers who explained the exploits of Charles V for ideological purposes).

Modern authors who write a biography of Charles V can be divided into two categories: the first category of authors complaining that the master left too little literature to accurately restore his life; and the second category of authors protesting that he left too much literature. In 2003, Scott Dixon, who belonged to the first category of authors, declared: "Charles V has left very little archival documentation, and we cannot understand what kind of person he really was... The hundreds of thousands of letters sent from his desk rarely mention details about himself. The following year, Harald Kleinschmidt made a similar comment: "The literature bearing the name of Charles V is rich, but most of them he has never read, and among the very few letters he wrote in his own handwriting, there are some that do not reflect at all what he thinks, but only the ideas of his advisers." ”

Charles V holds a book and gloves, created by Christopher Amber, 1532

Carl Brandi wrote a two-volume biography of Charles V. He belongs to the second category of authors. He wrote in 1937: "Charles V left behind a vast amount of informative literature, in which no monarch could compare with him for many centuries." A few years later, Federico Chabo went even further by declaring: "Charles V left behind more imperial writings than any other emperor in history." In 1966, Fernand Braudel argued that previous historians had failed to restore Charles V's "ideas, his disposition, and his personality", mainly because there were too many surviving documents. Braudel concluded: "Finding the character of this emperor from the pile of old papers is like finding a needle in a haystack." In 2002, Wim Brockman agreed that the "historical documentary material" about Charles V was "so full of sweat and cattle that it was impossible to read it all."

Is it really impossible? Indeed, the surviving historical data can be said to be "sweaty cattle". Charles V signed his first letter at the age of four, and by the time of his death had signed more than 100,000 documents (in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish) and annotated in some of them. His imperial letters (i.e., letters written entirely by himself, in French and Spanish, and occasionally in German) consumed thousands of folios. The surviving letters of Charles V are preserved in archives and libraries throughout Europe, in part because he spent a large part of his travels during his reign. Nearly half of his life (more than 10,000 days) was spent in the Netherlands and about a third of his life (more than 6,500 days) in Spain; he spent more than 3,000 days in Germany and about 1,000 days in Italy. He visited France four times (195 days) and North Africa twice each (99 and 44 days, respectively). Wherever he was, he left behind a large number of documents. There is no documentary evidence for only 260 days of his life, when he was sailing and traveling between his various territories.

The first signature of Charles V, 1504

Although Charles V never crossed the Atlantic, he left literature for his American territory. In 1542 and 1543 alone, the Vice-King of Mexico issued nearly 1,500 orders in the name of the Emperor, many of which were in response to imperial decrees. Some of Charles V's writs (cédulas reales) later acquired historic status because they referred to some of the Mexican new city-states (altepetl) Altepetl was an Aztec language, originally meaning "watershed", a city-state of the Aztecs during the pre-Columbian era and the Spanish conquest of the Americas. The city-states had a certain degree of autonomy, were under the rule of the Aztec Empire, and were often brutally suppressed for rebelling against the central authorities of the empire. When the Spaniards invaded in 1519, the Aztec Empire had about 450 city-states under its jurisdiction. The Spaniards took advantage of the contradictions between the city-states and the contradictions between the city-states and the imperial central power to legitimize them, and thus became the coveted foundational document. Until the 1990s, such warrants were forged. In addition, because "in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards, the city-states were established under the command and protection of the gods", Charles V gained god-like status and was worshipped in several of the communities he established.

The emperor also struggled to pursue immortality in a more secular way. He asked painters to paint portraits of himself, sponsored the compilation of history books, asked artists to create works, built palaces, and appeared in grand ceremonies with propaganda significance (especially the "entering style", see color 7). Mass-produced portraits of Charles V appear on coins, medals, ceramics, and even chess pieces of checkers, as well as in books and large prints. Musicians composed music to praise his successes (Battle of Pavia, the coronation of the Emperor) and sometimes recorded setbacks (e.g., the death of his wife Xiang Yuyu). A large group of poets, painters, sculptors, glass craftsmen, printers, weavers, jewelers, historians, ordnancers and scribes from different countries competed to shape the majesty of the emperor for him. The Emperor followed the advice of Baldassare Castiglione's book on etiquette, The Book of the Courtiers (one of Charles V's favorite books, which the author was an ambassador at the Emperor's court at the time of its publication; Charles V decreed that the book be translated into Spanish), and paid attention to the audience's perception when walking, riding, fighting, dancing, or speaking. The Spanish government in the 19th century opened the tomb of Charles V and used his naked, corpse-dried body to attract tourists, and His Majesty the Emperor would have been shocked if he had known about it. Some tourists painted portraits of him, while others took pictures, and one tourist even bribed the guards to break a finger of Charles V as a souvenir. But this act of vandalism brought a benefit: a medical examination of the finger (now kept in a special container) yielded two important evidences: that the emperor had chronic gout during his lifetime (he did complain about his own gout), and that his immediate cause of death was severe malaria.

Portrait of Charles V by JacobSeisen Aigle and Titian, 1532-1533

In an important article on the subject of "The Dangers of Establishing a Biography of Charles V", Heinrich Lutz Heinrich Lutz (1922-1986) was a German and Austrian historian who taught at the University of Vienna and wrote Between Habsburg and Prussia: Germany from 1815 to 1866. Borrowing from the opening line of Virgil's Aeneid (a book with which Charles V was well acquainted), Arma virumque cano (I'm singing about war and the story of a man), it is emphasized that biographers should focus on matters that had caused Charles V to devote so much time, energy, and resources, especially war and preparation. This is both because armed conflict occupied most of Charles V's reign, and because his contemporaries noticed that he was "happiest when in combat, with the army". Lutz argues that other events, even the Renaissance and the Reformation, should appear in his biography only when it comes directly to Charles V, and that biographies should always look at these historical events through Charles V's perspective.

Keeping Lutz's advice in mind, the author uses surviving sources (from written documents to the emperor's fingers) in this book to illustrate the following three key issues.

First, how did Charles V make those key decisions that created, preserved, and expanded the world's first and longest-lasting transatlantic empire?

Second, did Charles V's policy fail because of structural flaws or because of his personal shortcomings? If a monarch with more political talent than he is in his position, is it possible to do better? Or, were the regimes created under specific historical conditions too large to be sustained? In modern words, his inability to pass on his empire in its entirety is his own problem, or a structural problem?

Third, what was it like to be in the position of Charles V? Plutarch (one of Charles V's favorite writers) wrote of Alexander the Great, one of Charles V's role models, when he said: "The most glorious deeds do not always allow us to see man's virtues or sins; sometimes a moment that is not so important, an expression, or a joke, but it gives us a better understanding of man's personality and temper." This book uses many of these unordered but revealing scenes.

Before his expedition to Tunis, Charles V inspected the army in Barcelona, 1535

It is inevitable that there will be imbalances in the content of the surviving historical materials. Like everyone else, Charles V slept, ate, and drank Lazar every day, but these aspects only left documentary evidence when something went wrong (such as his insomnia, or vomiting, "tingling in the urine"; the pain caused by hemorrhoids "made him cry like a baby"). Every day he spent time praying, going to church regularly, every Holy Week the week before Easter. He went into seclusion to the monastery for retreat, not asking about official duties. What did the emperor do in these quiet moments other than pray? Historians know nothing unless something unusual happened (one time he fainted and was unconscious for more than an hour during a prayer; or he prayed or confessed at unusual times, such as before or after making a major decision).

Moreover, as Charles V lamented in his secret instructions to his sons and heirs in 1543, some political decisions were "extremely obscure and uncertain, and I do not know how to describe them to you" because "they are full of contradictions and confusions." But he at least tried to shed light on all that. In November 1552, his personal maid, Guillaume van Mahler, revealed to a colleague that the Emperor had just ordered him: ... Close his door and let me promise to keep what he's about to tell me strictly confidential... He was open and honest with me without reservation. I was stunned to hear what he told me. Even now, I shudder at the thought of those words, preferring to die than tell anyone but you. Now I can write freely, because the emperor is sleeping, it is late at night, and everyone else is gone. Van Mahler went on to write in a teasing tone that "it takes a long time to share all the details with you" because the Emperor "has just told me everything about his life" and "even gave me a handwritten piece of paper listing all his past misdeeds," including "many things he mishandled, either because he forgot something or because he later changed his decision." Unfortunately for historians, Van Mahler was sleepy when he wrote this and put his pen to rest. Even if he did put "all the details" into writing later, the documents he wrote (like the emperor's handwritten list of misdemeanors) disappeared into the long river of history.

Obtained all necessary permission for Prince Philip's first marriage, 1543

However, there are enough historical records that survive to help us understand many of the "contradictions and confusions" of Charles V's life. In addition to the mountains of letters preserved to this day, the emperor also attracted the attention of many people: whether they were friends or foes, they recorded many things about the emperor. No one but him had been treated that way, not even Martin Luther. From his birth to his abdication, countless foreign diplomats watched and reported closely on his every move, word and deed; more than a dozen witnesses described large public events (such as his coronation in Bologna in 1530 and his abdication in Brussels in 1555). Every time the emperor traveled overland, the relevant documentary records increased a lot, so for some periods, we can accurately restore his whereabouts at each hour. During his reign he made stops in more than a thousand places, from Wittenberg to Seville, from London to Algiers (map 1). Charles V was never alone. Even in his loneliest journeys, he was accompanied by courtiers and diplomats, such as his first few weeks in Spain in 1517, when he wade through Mount Europa, a mountain range in northern Spain, with a peak of 2650 meters above sea level. To fight for his well-deserved inheritance, he slept in a farmhouse surrounded by livestock along the way, and was attacked by wild bears; in 1552, when he crossed the Alps on his flight to escape from his German subjects, his staff had to urgently requisition bed sheets from remote mountain villages for him to use. Even after retiring to the small palace attached to the Monastery of Eust in the Gredo Mountains of Spain, he was closely observed: at least two monks wrote diaries in which their distinguished guest played a leading role; courtiers recorded the words and deeds of the lord almost daily; and twenty witnesses were willing to give affidavits saying that they had witnessed the emperor's dying moments. Strangely enough, the last days of Charles V were the most familiar periods of his entire life.

Abdication of Charles V, 1556

"Oh my God, how should a biography be written?" Tell me," Virginia Woolf asked a friend (also a biographer) in 1938, "what should be done with so much, so much, so many facts?" Four centuries ago, the Spanish humanist scholar Juan Pais de Castro (whom Charles V asked to write a biography of His Majesty the Emperor) wrestled with the same difficulties. Pais de Castro drew up an outline before writing it in order to explain to Charles V how he intended to deal with "so many facts". First, Pais de Castro had to prove himself competent for the job: he claimed to be fluent in six languages (including Chaldean), which in this case should refer to Aramaic. Aramaic is a Semitic language spoken in ancient Syria and was once very popular in the Near and Middle East, enjoying the status of lingua franca. Jesus' language was Aramaic, and a large part of the Old Testament of the Bible was first written in Aramaic. The Aramaic language spoken by the Chaldean kingdom of Babylon (also known as the Neo-Babylonian kingdom, 626–539 BC) was called "Chaldean" or "Chaldean Aramaic". , and is familiar with law, naturalism and mathematics. Secondly, "since writing is not only the result of ingenuity or invention, but also requires the diligent integration of information, it is necessary to search for information first", so Pais de Castro intends to search "every place where His Majesty has been blessed, thus giving this work the brilliance I want". In each place he would "consult with respectable and diligent people; read inscriptions on public monuments and tombstones; excavate old archives kept by notaries, for there many constitutive materials of history can be found; and transcribe all the history books that exist, whether new or old, of the level of the authors." Finally, "there are many things to ask Your Majesty to find the reasons behind the controversial decision". The outline was excellent, but before Pais de Castro could interview Charles V, the emperor died, and Pais de Castro himself died before he could succeed.

Charles V convenes a conference of battles, 1545

The book is divided into four sections, arranged chronologically, separated by a "portrait" of Charles V (i.e., in the eyes of his contemporaries at several critical moments). The key moments were: in 1517, when he left the Netherlands for the first time; in 1532, when he was in full swing; and in 1548, when he reached the peak of power. "Taming america" is the only chapter organized by theme without chronological order. Charles V, the first European to rule the vast expanse of North and South America, was interested in the Americas: although the Emperor's main purpose was to pay for his cause in the Old World with as much of the resources of the New World as possible, he developed a long-term interest in the flora, fauna and peoples of the Americas, including natives and newcomers. In particular, he worked to provide spiritual guidance and material security to his indigenous subjects. He believed that the incident affected his "conscience of the Emperor" because "when he discovered that the island of Hispaniola means 'island of Spain' in Spanish." At present, all the indigenous inhabitants of the island, the Republic of Haiti in the west and the Dominican Republic in the east, Cuba and other [Caribbean]islands, who have been sent to the mines to do hard work and die, are convinced that if he allows such things to continue, he will go to hell." The Dutch at the time paid little attention to america, and even Erasmus wrote "little mention of the New World." Charles V was the only ruler of the 16th century to defend native American rights in a principled manner. His legislation "has long been a strong deterrent to native American oppression." Therefore, charles V's work in the New World deserves careful study.

Pais de Castro planned to incorporate Charles V's achievements in the New World into his writings, but he also intended to omit other events. Although he believed that historians should "condemn and pinpoint evil deeds so that they would not be repeated in the future" and should also "praise and praise good deeds and encourage people to follow suit", he also believed that "some things are worthy of being recorded in the history books, but there are also some things that should not be left in the pen, of course, provided that the truth is not distorted". I have not concealed any details about Charles V in this book, whether or not it is correct to do so. On a personal level, I celebrate and praise his gift for language (in addition to his native French, he eventually became proficient in Italian and Spanish and spoke some Dutch and German), his superb marksmanship and horsemanship, and his bravery in commanding armies and in the line of fire. He also knows how to inspire loyalty and love.

Charles V on checkers

According to a diplomat in 1531, Charles V's address to the crowd was "extremely moving, amiable, almost tearful to the listener"; when he finished his speech, the audience "united as if they had all become his servants"; when he died, his retinue was filled with grief and "cried loudly, beat his chest and slammed his head against the wall"; a few years later, Charles V's brother Ferdinand told a crony: "I love and revere the emperor as if he were my father." As for "condemnation and pinning down evil deeds," I record how Charles V hypocritically denied that he had pre-approved the attack on the city of Rome in 1527 and the capture of Pope Clement VII; how he lied about the murder of two French diplomats, Fégosso and Limón, in 1541; and how he reneged on his solemn vow in 1553 to arrange for his son Philip to marry a Portuguese princess. In some cases, Charles V swore a curse, publicly, and repeatedly denying that he had lied (such as the cases of 1527 and 1541); in others he simply refused to discuss his evil deeds (in 1554, a Portuguese envoy came to protest his renegation of his word, and the emperor said: "What I told him [the Portuguese envoy], is only what I need to tell him." I don't want to defend myself or continue to talk about it, because the past is over, and it's better to hide my true feelings now. ”）。 Charles V also had many evil deeds on the level of his private life. In 1517 he discovered that his sister Eleanor was in love with a courtier, and forced her to formally swear an oath before a notary to abandon her lover and promise to obey her brother in all matters. The following year, he forced his sister to marry her uncle, who was more than twice her age. King "lucky" Manuel I of Portugal married two daughters of the Catholic twin kings, Isabella and Maria, and his third wife was Eleanor of Austria (sister of Charles V). Eleanor was the daughter of Juana, another daughter of the Catholic Twin Kings, so Manuel I was Eleanor's uncle. In 1530, he ordered one of his three illegitimate daughters, Tadaya, to "leave a permanent imprint under the knee of his right leg" (possibly a tattoo or a brand). Three years later, he negotiated for his eleven-year-old niece, Princess Christina of Denmark, to marry a man four times her age, and that the groom had the right to immediately round the house with the bride. Most shamefully, Charles V abused his mother, Queen Juana. He put her under house arrest until her death in 1555. For about four years, he let his mother live in lies (e.g. charles V still insisted on telling Juana that he was still alive years after the death of her father, King Ferdinand). Moreover, when Charles V went to visit Juana, he snatched her tapestries, jewelry, books, silverware, and even ritual utensils for worship, and then gave them to his sister and wife as wedding gifts. He filled Juana's already empty chest with bricks of the same weight as the belongings, hoping that his mother would not notice that he had looted her before he left.

Abdication of Charles V in 1555

These contradictions are puzzling. I tried to understand these contradictions by studying how Charles V made these moves (and then the "why"). My methodological decisions will yield some important results. As Christopher Clark put it in the preface to his brilliant book On the Roots of the First World War, Sleepwalker: "The questions of why" and "how" are logically inseparable, but they lead us in different directions. The question of "how" allows us to closely observe the chronological sequence of the many events that have caused some kind of consequence. And the question of "why" leads us to look for distant, absolute causes... the "why" approach can bring about an analytical clarity, but it can also distort the facts, because it creates the illusion that causal pressures are steadily increasing; factors pile up one by one, eventually leading to events; politicians are merely the executors of forces that have long been established and are beyond their control. So, like Clark, I try to "let the 'why' answer grow out of the 'how' answer, not the other way around," although asking "how" necessarily emphasizes agency and contingency, while asking "why" highlights structure and continuity.

Charles V defeated the Goddess of Vengeance

In order to understand and explain the actions of Charles V, I, like Pais de Castro, studied several languages (but not Chaldean) and studied other subjects (but not law, naturalism, or mathematics); I searched some places where His Majesty had been blessed (especially those that received his archives); I read "all the historiographies that existed, whether new or old, of all the level of the authors"; and I dug up a great deal of written literature. Although I cannot "ask His Majesty a great deal of things to find the reasons behind the controversial decisions," I have enough historical data to allow the reader to decide for himself whether to believe the claims of those who honor the Emperor or those who insult him.

For example, should we believe Louis Kihada's claims? He knew the emperor for more than twenty years, and after his death declared himself "the first great man in history". Should we trust Francisco de Borgia? He said that when he spoke to Charles V, he was talking to God. Or do we have to believe Pope Paul III? He said that "His Majesty is an ungrateful man who remembers his friends only when he is in need". The French ambassador echoed: "If you study this question carefully, you will find that the emperor never cared about anyone unless someone else was useful to him." "Should we trust Gustav Bergenroth? He spent a decade traveling through the major archives of Western Europe, transcribed 18,000 pages of documents published by or relating to Charles V. Bergenroth watched the emperor "politically, morally, physically... Step by step, it disintegrated until the rest of his miserable life was spent in the bleak hermitage of Eust", and called the life of Charles V "one of the greatest tragedies in history". Or should we support Carl Brandi's ruling? There are only a few scholars who read more charles V's literature than Bergenroth, and Brandi is one of them. Brandi believed that Charles V was "a mortal man, with the weaknesses and capriciousness that ordinary people necessarily have, but the eternal motives behind his desires, his beliefs and courage, all made him surpass ordinary people and become great men in the history of the world." Is there anything more to praise or attack about Charles V? Does the world really need a new biography of Charles V? Readers, please judge for yourself.

Note: This article is excerpted from the preface to The Emperor: A Biography of Charles V

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The Biography of Charles V (2 volumes)

Synopsis

Charles V was originally only the young heir to parts of the Netherlands, but because of a series of unexpected deaths, marriages and inheritances, he became the great king who ruled most of Europe. He used money to win the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor and brought the King and pope to his knees through war and power. He worked to bring about religious reconciliation, launched the Crusades, and proclaimed himself the most devout and powerful defender of Christendom.

Although Charles V left a wealth of literature, he remained an elusive figure. Jeffrey Parker uses surviving historical materials in six languages to vividly and three-dimensionally show the life of Charles V. Charles V greatly changed the international landscape of Europe and the Mediterranean in the 16th century, and his life largely reflected the complex and ever-changing political environment of the time: balance of power became an important issue in international relations in Europe in the early modern period, the Americas came to the historical stage and became increasingly influential, and the war between Christians and Muslims will continue...

This is not only a personal biography, but also a world history of the early modern period.

About the Author

Jeffrey Parker, historian, currently Professor of European History at Ohio State University, Andreas Doparen, member of the Mochamps Centre for International Security Studies, fellow of the British Academy of Sciences, winner of the 2012 Heineken Prize for History and the British Academy Medal in 2014 for Global Crisis. He is also the author of "The Grand Strategy of Philip II", "Military Revolution", "Biography of Philip II" and so on.

Translator Profile

Lu Dapeng is an English-German translator. Translations include "Mediterranean Epic Trilogy", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Plantagenet Dynasty", "The Last Sigh of the Moors", "Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Nazi Germany", etc. He has won the 2015 Translator of Beijing Youth Daily, the 2015 Translator of Economic Observation Book Review, the 2016 Literary Translation Award of the One Way Street Bookstore Literature Award, and the 2018 China Annual Knower of New Weekly.

Honors for this book

Montefiori strongly recommends that translations in nine languages be available soon

Aspects of History Magazine's 2020 Best Book of the Year

Ohio Historical Society 2020 "Previous Year's Outstanding Achievement Award"

Master style.

—The Wall Street Journal

This is an extremely detailed biography of the great Habsburg rulers, which also contains important insights into the birth of the modern European state system.

- The New York Book

"An unusual man who has achieved extraordinary things," he needs an unusual biographer. Parker is one such author. Such a deep academic background, such an elegant and charming style, is really rare. Parker cleverly cites a staggering amount of documentary evidence to create a masterpiece. Parker depicts such an extremely complex man and his vast empire in detail and vividly in epic strokes.

—Financial Times

Preview of the new book: The Elusive Charles V

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