The Story of Prague
two years. And he also ordered that gardens and vineyards should be planted around the city of Prague.’ It is interesting to note in connection with this statement of the old chronicler that Dr. Tomek also tells us that during the reign of Charles many citizens bought land outside the town and established vineyards there.
CHARLES IV., FROM TRIFORIUM
OF ST. VITUS
The new town received great privileges from Charles, and the foundation of the University, which contributed largely to increasing the population of the town, also had a very favourable effect on the new community. The ‘new town,’ the limits of which were soon extended, enjoyed the rank of a royal town, a name given to those cities only that had been awarded special privileges by the Bohemian Kings.
Charles had, while temporary ruler of Bohemia during the absence of his father, succeeded in persuading the Papal See to raise the bishopric of Prague to an archbishopric. It was through his influence also that his friend Ernest of Pardubic, a member of one of the oldest noble families of Bohemia, was chosen as first Archbishop of Prague.
It was on Ernest also that Charles conferred the dignity of being the first Chancellor of the newlyfounded University of Prague. That foundation is, as regards the annals of the world, the most important event in the history of Prague. That a movement in favour of Church reform should originate here at a time when Geneva and Wittenberg were unknown as centres of theological strife was only rendered possible
