13 spotlight Forum 01
The most thorough analysis of Charles IV so far was carried out during the 600th anniversary of his death. The skeletal remains were removed from the royal tomb on December 6, 1976, and examined for almost two years by the Anthropologic Department of the National Museum, then presided over by Professor Vlček. However, as the National Museum lacked the necessary laboratory equipment, major research was carried out in the Institute of Anatomy at the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, near Charles Square. “We were in touch with Professor Vlček from the beginning and he told us about several of Charles IV major injuries and their healing, so we knew practically everything about him. He also gave a special lecture on April 26, 1978 to present all his findings,” Professor Radomír Čihák said. If the remains were transported today, they would be probably escorted by security services. But safety wasn’t a big issue in the 1970s, so the researchers had no problem carrying the skull in an ordinary plastic shopping bag. The anthropologists also had to refrain from any kind of awe during the research. “When you need to see something on a skull, it’s rather impossible to have a huge amount of reverence. You have to grab the bone and hold it so you can see what you need. Research had already been going on for some time, and Professor Vlček had been gradually examining all the royal tombs in Bohemia, so we were used to royalty and didn’t feel any difference after all those skulls,” Čihák recalled.
When Charles’s remains were moved in past centuries, several small bones from the arms and legs got lost, together with three teeth, and other parts of the body.
The secret scar The skeletal remains are really quite telling, and historians are currently facing a new situation: Their information doesn’t come from a written source (including the writer’s views), but unbiased scientific fact. Charles IV’s skull proves that the sovereign was brachycephalic, something he most likely inherited from both of his parents. He had a long, narrow face. Three teeth are missing in the upper right jaw, but they fell out postmortem. “When Charles’s remains were moved in past centuries, several small bones from the arms and legs got lost, together with three teeth, and other parts of the body,” Professor Čihák said. The king’s teeth were entirely healthy. There’s just a bit of decay and a huge amount of teeth abrasion; very common up until the 19th century. “When flour was ground by grindstones, it was mixed with gravel that wore down the teeth. This prevented cavities as the enamel wore away to fresh tissue,” Čihák added.
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The skull also bears the effects of several injuries. One of them, well healed, is a slash from the left superciliary arch across the bridge of his nose under his right eye socket. The nasal bones are deflected to the left due to this injury. Charles IV’s nose was therefore a bit askew, but it wasn’t very noticeable. “The interesting fact is that he must have had a scar on his skin, something quite striking, but you can’t see it on any portrait,” Professor Čihák remarked. In other words, his portrait makers improved the king’s looks. Consequences of a tournament A serious injury, with lifelong consequen ces, is visible on the lower jaw. The chin was broken and rammed inside, which resulted in thickened bone strips and a reinforced bone surface on the bottom edge of the chin. A big blow to the chin caused a rupture of the joints connecting the jaw with the bone. When they were attached, a deformation occurred and the joint projections moved, so it seemed from the side that the emperor had a slight malocclusion. This injury was most probably caused at one of the tournaments the ruler was so keen on. He might have been hit by an opponent’s lance right on the chin. The injury must have occurred in autumn of 1350, when the king was ill for four months and the cause wasn’t revealed to the public. Even Pope Clemens VI (formerly Cardinal Pierre Roger de Rosières, Charles’s French teacher) was told it was just general indisposition. There are also deformations on Charles’s spine. Instead of typical convex front arches in the cervical and lumbar area, there is a back-curved arch, and the left-side joint projections on the cervical spine contain many bone extrusions that deform it. The big blow to the chin threw Charles’s head back, and that’s the moment where → experts’ viewpoint’s begin to differ.