Charles IV. becomes king. In January 1349 the friends of the late emperor elected Günther, count of Schwarzburg, as their king, but before this occurrence Charles of Moravia, by a liberal use of gifts and promises, had won over many of his enemies, prominent among whom were the cities. In a few months Günther himself abandoned the struggle, dying shortly afterwards, and about the same time his victorious rival was recognized by Louis of Brandenburg, the head of the Wittelsbach family. As king of Bohemia Charles was an enlightened and capable ruler, but he was indifferent towards Germany, although this country never stood in more urgent need of a strong and beneficent sovereign. In the early years of the reign the people, especially in the south and west, attacked and plundered the Jews; and the consequent disorder was greatly increased by the ravages of the Black Death and by the practices and preaching of the Flagellants, both events serving to spur the maddened populace to renewed outrages on the Jews. In dealing with this outburst of fanaticism many of the princes, both spiritual and secular, displayed vigour and humanity, but Charles saw only in the sufferings of this people an excuse for robbing them of their wealth. The Golden Bull. Charles's most famous achievement was the issue of the Golden Bull (q.v.). Although the principle of election had long been admitted and practised with regard to the German crown, yet it was surrounded by many practical difficulties. For instance, if the territory belonging to an electoral family were divided, as was often the case, it had never been settled whether all the ruling princes were to vote, or, if one only were entitled to this privilege, by what principle the choice was to be made. Over these and other similar points many disputes had arisen, and, having been crowned emperor at Rome in April 1355, Charles decided to set these doubts at rest. The Golden Bull, promulgated in January 1356 and again after some tedious negotiations in December of the same year, fixed the number of electors at seven, Saxe-Wittenberg and not Saxe-Lauenburg obtaining the Saxon vote, and the vote of the Wittelsbachs being given to the ruler of the Rhenish Palatinate and not to the duke of Bavaria. The votes of a majority of the electors were held to make an election valid. In order that there might be no possibility of dispute between the princes of a single house, the countries ruled by the four secular electors--Bohemia, the Rhenish Palatinate, Saxony and Brandenburg--were declared to be indivisible and to be heritable only by the accepted rules of primogeniture. The electors were granted full sovereign rights over their lands, and their subjects were allowed to appeal to the royal or the imperial tribunals only in case they could not obtain justice elsewhere. A blow was struck at the cities, which were forbidden to form leagues or to receive _Pfahlbürger_. Fehmic Courts.