Kingdom Come Deliverance is set in the Holy Roman Empire as Sigismund and Wenceslaus IV battle it out for supremacy over the kingdom….but why should you care? Hey everyone, my name is Sam also known as MrStainless and recently I wanted to make a video/ take a dive into the history behind KCD to try and figure out what the heck is going on because I know for me anyway European History can be quite intense and confusing sometimes.
It can be very easy when playing historical titles to kind of just get a bit lost in what’s going on and with the story playing such an integral role in this game I’m going to hope to explain the backstory a little so that you have a little bit of context going into the game so that you don’t get bogged down trying to understand the story and can just get stuck in to cutting down bandits with your sword.
Kingdom Come Deliverance is set in the kingdom of Bohemia, now modern day Czech Republic, and at the time of the game the kingdom is in turmoil. It’s king, King Charles IV, who was also Holy Roman Emperor, has just died and it’s kind of thrown the Empire into a bit of a succession crisis. You see the way leadership worked in the Holy Roman Emperor was through a feudal monarchic system, unlike traditional monarchies where the next ruler is simply dictated by bloodlines the Holy Roman Empire kind of worked the same way choosing a new Pope works. In the same way that Cardinals and Princes of the Church sit down to elect a Pope, the leading Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, called Electors, choose their new Emperor. Seven leading princes were allowed to vote for the new Emperor; three ecclesiastical electors, the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne; and four lay electors, the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg, and the count Palatinate of the Rhine.
Now, its important to explain all that because you see Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and also Wenceslaus’ Dad, did something a little sneaky. When Wenceslaus was only two years old, Charles had his son crowned King of Bohemia in 1363 and later in 1373 also managed to get his son installed as the Electoral Magraviate of Brandenburg. With these two positions in place Charles then put his son forward to be elected as the King of the Romans, which was seen as being a precursor to being elected as Holy Roman Emperor, usually if you were elected King of the Romans, you were more or less next in line. Now whats sneaky about this is that remember only 7 people had the right to vote and because of Charles’ shrewd planning he and his son now owned two of those votes, thereby helping stack the odds in his family’s favour.
In order to secure more votes Charles IV actually revoked the priveleges of some Imperial Cities and mortgaged them off to various nobles. The Cities tried to fight back but on Charles’ death in 1378 Wenceslaus inherited not only the Crown of Bohemia but was appointed the Emperor-elect.
During his reign Wenceslaus held a feeble grip on power, he came into repeated conflicts with Bohemian nobility and on two occasions was imprisoned by these rebellious nobles. His greatest weakness though, was his family. Charles IV, his father, had divided up his holdings among his sons and other relations and although Wenceslaus retained Bohemia his younger half-brother Sigismund inherited Brandenburg. In fact in 1386 Sigismund went on to become the King of Hungary and as such was more and more involved with issues further east of the kingdom but regardless all this means that Wenceslaus was left without the great wealth of resources that his father had had at this disposal.
While Sigismund ruled in Hungary Wenceslaus’ rule was plagued by problems from supporting and harbouring religious reformants to the torturing and murder of church officials. In fact things got so bad that Wenceslaus was arrested, Sigismund himself had to intervene and arrange a truce with the offended parties, for his efforts Sigismund was then recognised as heir to Wenceslaus.
With his reign being marred by controversy and conflict Wenceslaus didn’t seek a coronation ceremony as Holy Roman Emperor and equally hardly set foot on German soil. The German nobles were incredibly angry at this, they accused him of failing to maintain public order and ordered that he appear before them to answer for his shortcomings. Wenceslaus failed to appear and in June 1402 was captured by Sigismund who at first intended to escort him to Rome so that he could be crowned Emperor. They were, however, intercepted and Wenceslaus was forced to renounce all of his powers to Sigismund and the Dukes of Austria in exchange for a more relaxed imprisonment. His rival Rupert, who at this point was trying to claim power for himself, attempted to appease Sigismund in order to persuade him from trying to become Emperor himself. This did not go according to plan.
Sigismund invaded Bohemia with a Hungarian army, looting, pillaging, imposing heavy taxes and persecuting the supporters of his half brother wherever he went.
This is the point where we join the story in Kingdom Come Deliverance and it is this rampage across Bohemia that lights the spark that will drive the story in the game.
Needless to say the situation at this point in history was incredibly complicated with numerous parties vying for more control and greater power. Hopefully it all made sense and hopefully you now have a greater understanding of whats happening in the game. In the meantime feel free to check out the video going over everything, if you like feel free to subscribe and all that usual stuff but until next time have a great week and I’ll speak to you soon.
My own Name is the true and holy one! Rataj
