Karl V.

The last emperor of the Middle Ages

Emperor Charles V is one of the great rulers known in world history. He certainly lacked the fire of genius. But greatness lay in the goal towards which he strove with perseverance, indeed with obstinacy, during a long life as a ruler. He has assigned all his steps, his entire policy, to this goal. It said:peace and unity in Christianity, securing Christianity against internal enemies, against heresy, and against external enemies, against the infidels, the Turkish Empire. When he had to realize at the end of his life that his goal was not attainable, he gave up. He renounced the throne and retired to private life, to a small villa which he had attached to the monastery of the Hieronymites in Yuste (Estremadura). The Christian-Catholic people of his time interpreted this step as an act of religious devotion, of asceticism, and held it in high esteem for the emperor, a man who had represented the greatest authority in the West for around 40 years. From this point of view, it seemed natural to interpret the abdication as a retreat"into the monastery". But she wasn't. However, his abdication reminds us of the core of his nature and politics:the sacred conception of empire.