Charlemagne, meaning Charles the Great, was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Cent...

The Codex Gigas is the largest extant medieval manuscript in the world. It was created in the early 13th century in the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice in Bohemia, and is now preserved at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm. It i...

Charles IV, born Wenceslaus, of the House of Luxembourg, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1355 until his death. He was the eldest son and heir of John the Blind, from whom he inherited Luxembourg and Bohemia on 26 August 1346. He was elected Kin...

Sigismund was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Lombardy from 1431, and of German...

Jan Hus, sometimes Anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, was a Czech priest, philosopher, Master, dean and rector at Charles University in Prague, church reformer, founder of Hussitism, a seminal figure in the Bohemian Reformation and a key...

Albert the Magnanimous KG was King of Hungary from 1437 until his death. He was also King of Bohemia, elected (but never crowned) King of Germany as Albert II, duke of Luxembourg and, as Albert V, archduke of Austria from 1404. Albert w...

Maximilian was born in Vienna as the son of the Emperor Frederick III and Eleanore of Portugal. He married (1477-1482) the heiress of Burgundy, Mary, the only daughter of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy. Through this marriage, Maximilian...

Ferdinand I was an Austrian monarch from the House of Habsburg. He was first the Archduke of Austria from 1521-1564. After the death of Louis II, Ferdinand ruled as King of Bohemia and Hungary (1526–1564). After his brother Charles V abdica...

Mary of Austria, also known as Mary of Hungary, was queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia as the wife of King Louis II, and she was later Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. The daughter of Queen Joanna of Castile and King Philip I of C...

Louis II was King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia from 1516 to 1526. Louis owed allegiance to the Imperial Habsburgs as a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece. In 1522 Louis II was married to Mary of Habsburg, a Habsburg princess, gr...

Maximilian II was king of Bohemia from 1562, king of Hungary from 1563, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1564 and king of the Romans until his death. He was a member of the House of Habsburg. Born in Vienna, he was a son of his predece...

Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor as Rudolf II (1576-1612), King of Hungary as Rudolf (1572-1608), King of Bohemia as Rudolf II (1575-1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria as Rudolf V (1576-1608). He was a member of the Habsburg family. Rudolf's l...

Matthias was Holy Roman Emperor from 1612, King of Hungary and Croatia from 1608 (as Matthias II) and King of Bohemia from 1611. He was a member of the House of Habsburg....

Wallenstein was a Bohemian soldier and politician who gave his services (an army of 30,000 to 100,000 men) during the Danish Period of the Thirty Years' War to Ferdinand II for no charge except the right to plunder the territories that he c...

Frederick V was the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire from 1610 to 1623, and served as King of Bohemia from 1619 to 1620. He was forced to abdicate both roles, and the brevity of his reign in Bohemia earned him the deri...