Lyceum & Book Club - Week 16 - Lecture Notes on the Habsburg Dynasty

The Hapsburgs were at the center of European power for 500 years. They envisioned a universal monarchy that was parallel with the universal faith institution, the Catholic Church (which was agreeable to both sides as long as the other acknowledged the co-supremacy of the other. Because of this, the Habsburg were staunch defenders of the Papacy, except where it collided with their own power, and even then, they were staunch defenders of the faith and church, which they were sure backed their holy right to rule, even when an individual pope might not.

The Habsburgs (sometimes written Hapsburg in English/ aka House of Austria) are a German dynastic line who take their name from the Habsburg Castle, built in the 1020s near Zurich, Switzerland, near the modern border of Germany. Before this region broke up into separate states, it was all a German region.

Otto II (died 1111) was the first in the line to take the name of the castle as his own, adding “Count of Habsburg” to his title, though the family line had been Counts for several generations, ever since Otto the Great (no relation) 912 - 973AD of Germany, an East Frankian king who became Holy Roman Emperor, first gave royal lands and the title of count to Guntram the Rich as reward for loyalty. From this point on, they were officially known as the House of Habsburg. This would not be the last time the Habsburg family increased their holdings through being rewarded by royals for standing with them, including lands granted to Rudolf (whom we shall next meet) by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and his son, Conrad IV of Germany.

The family came into prominence in the 13th century with Rudolph the First (he was known as Rudolph IV of Habsburg before his ascension to the title of King of Germany/ Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire when he took on the royal name Rudolph I.

Rudolph married Gertrude of Zollern-Hohenberg-Haigerloch in 1245 and thus gained lands and castles in Alsace, France; again, near the modern borders of France, Germany and Switzerland.

He also added to his lands in 1264 when the Kyburg family (one of the four powerful noble families on the Swiss plateau - Habsburgs were another) ran out of male heirs. Rudolf’s mother was the sister of the last male Kyburg. Rudolf became the guardian of his daughter when he died in 1264 and thus had control over the Kyburg lands. The daughter married into the Habsburg line, thereby securing the lands for the Habsburgs from any challenge.

Rudolph now was the most powerful noble in southwest Germany. Up to this point he remained a regional power and had not moved up the political ladder beyond being a Count.

Rudolph’s elevation came as a result of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, dying in 1250.

When Frederick II died, there ensued a period of confusion and political disorder in Germany. Only a faction of the German princes would confirm Frederick’s son, Conrad, as king, another faction elected William of Holland as their choice.

Because neither candidate could gain recognition from a plurality of German princes, the title of King of Germany and Emperor of the Holy Empire virtually went vacant.

With no central power to hold all of the princes in restraint, the princes sought to increase their independence from any overpower. It was in their own vested interest to make sure anyone who was elected king was someone in a weak position who could not exercise power over them.

When Conrad and William of Holland died, the two factions again elected competing kings, who lived in distant lands - a prince in England and the king of Castile and neither had any interest in direct rule.

When the English prince died, both Philip III of France and Ottakar II of Bohemia wanted the position (and lands), but neither faction of German princes wanted either whom they felt were too strong and likely to take back the royal properties the German princes now enjoyed and so they chose Rudolf instead.

During the period of Imperial Interregnum from 1250 to 1273, Ottokar II had used the time to increase his holdings and power and gained the Austrian duchies, Styrian duchies and the Corinthian duchies in addition to the Egerland in Northwest Bohemia giving him ownership over all land from the Sudete Mountains at the juncture of modern day Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic down to the Adriatic Sea in the south. By 1271, Ottokar II was the most powerful king within the Empire. His neighbors were not pleased.

Rudolf was considered strong enough to maintain the position but not strong enough to do anything against the German Princes and he was already in his 50s, so his reign was not expected to last long at any rate. It happens that at this time, the Pope needed someone who would finance another crusade to win back the Holy Lands “for Christendom” and thought the elevation of Rudolf would serve his purposes, too. So the Pope stepped into the fray on behalf of Rudolf and persuaded the King of Castile to step down from the position, leaving Rudolf as uncontested King of Germany in 1275. That does not mean that all of the German princes voted for Rudolf, it means there was no one to contest the choice that the Pope would agree with, that was weak enough for either of the factions to go along with or that a plurality of princes would back - so Rudolf got the nod.

Ottokar II refused to acknowledge Rudolf as King of Germany and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

At the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg in 1274,Rudolf decreed that all Imperial lands that had changed hands since the death of Frederick II must be returned back to the crown. This would have deprived Ottokar II of most of his properties and greatly reduced his real power. He not only refused to give back any lands, he refused to even show up at the Imperial Conference to acknowledge Rudolf’s position or authority.

The next year, Rudolf placed Ottokar II under the Imperial ban and gathered an army of Ottokar’s neighbors to attack Ottokar. Ottokar was unprepared for such an immediate and forceful move from Rudolf. Ottokar needed time to build up an army to attack Rudolf. He had no choice but to sign a treaty giving up all claims to Austria and neighboring duchies, retaining only his title to Bohemia and Moravia. As part of the requirements of the treaty was the betrothal between Rudolf’s daughter and Ottokar’s son (who were 5 and 4 years of age at the time), effectively bringing the lands under Habsburg control upon Ottokar’s death.

Two years later in 1278, Ottokar attempted to retake his lands by force in the Battle on the Marchfeld. Ottokar was defeated & killed.

That year, Rudolf moved his family and power base to Austria where the Habsburgs ruled till 1918.

Rudolf was not happy with the less than enthusiastic aid he received from the German princes in his battle to establish his authority. As such he did not feel he owed them any sacrifice on his family’s part and therefore, sought to bring the former Babenburg lands of Austria and Styria under his own family’s ownership.

In 1282, Rudolf had the lands of Austria and Styria declared vacant and received permission from the German princes to bestow these lands upon his two sons.

From this point forward, the Habsburgs would be identified with Austria. During the course of the 14th and 15th century, the Habsburg house came to be known as the House of Austria.

Note, the nobles of Austria were not pleased with this “foreign” family coming in and taking over, the Habsburgs faced constant revolts of the noble class at the beginning of their tenure.

While Rudolf became King of Germany and was titled King of the Romans, he was never crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope. He is considered the first of the count-kings (as Emperor.)

Rudolf tried to secure the election of his eldest son, Albert, as his successor as King of Germany. But was opposed not only by Ottakar’s son of Bohemia, but by other German nobles and Electors, who viewed the accumulated power of the Habsburgs with displeasure.

The Electors voted for Adolf of Nassau in 1292 once he made extensive concessions to the Electors and promised to follow their political demands. One of the demands by Ottakar’s son of Bohemia was that Adolf give Ottakar’s family back the duchies of Austria and Styria from Rudolf’s son, Albert of Habsburg.

Of course, once elected King of Germany, Adolf did what empowered his own position. As a result, not only were the nobles upset, but even Albert of Habsburg and Ottokar of Bohemia’s son put aside their feud to join forces against Adolf.

Adolf was deposed after 6 years and Albert of Habsburg, Rudolf’s eldest son, was elected King of Germany in 1298, as Rudolf had originally wished.

Neither Adolf nor Albert were crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope, just as Rudolf was not. So they do not earn that title. There is no one else in the position of Emperor and they are listed in the line of Holy Roman Emperors, but they do not carry the title of “Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire”.

Albert of Habsburg was assassinated after 10 years in 1308.

There is another King of Germany, Albert II, who hailed from the Habsburg House. When his father-in-law, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg died in 1437, Albert was elected as King of the Romans in 1438 to follow him as Holy Roman Emperor, but he died in battle in 1439 before he could be crowned Emperor by the Pope.

Which brings us to the next Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick III of the House of Habsburg (known as Frederick V of the Habsburg Austrian line). He was the fourth Habsburg King of Germany - elected in 1440, and the first Habsburg to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in 1452 (a 12 year span between being elected and being crowned by the pope. It often was years before elected emperors could make the trip to Rome to be crowned). He was the last emperor to be crowned in Rome and the second to the last to be crowned by a pope. He reigned for 53 years, the longest in the history of the Holy Roman Empire or the German Monarchy.

From Brittanica:

The imperial title at that time was, for practical purposes, hardly more than a glorification of the title of German king, and the German kingship was, like the Bohemian and the Hungarian, elective. If Habsburg was to succeed Habsburg as emperor continuously from Frederick’s death in 1493 to Charles VI’s accession in 1711, the principal reason was that the hereditary lands of the Habsburgs formed an aggregate large enough and rich enough to enable the dynasty to impose its candidate on the other German electors (the Habsburgs themselves had an electoral vote only in so far as they were kings of Bohemia).

From this point on, except for brief periods, the position of Holy Roman Emperor was in the hands of the House of Habsburg until 1806 when the position was dissolved by the last Habsburg Emperor.

Now is when the real power came to the House of Habsburg and they went from a German regional power to a continental - international power. All because of a well placed marriage. (several well placed marriages)

And we will see why Matthias Corvinus - King of Hungary (d. 1490) was reputed to have said:

“Bella great alibi, tu, felix Austria, nube”

“Others make war, you, happy Austria, marry”.

Meaning - the Habsburgs rarely evidenced military genius, instead they held their prominent positions to statecraft (which was more often than not at the time, done through arranged marriages or finding legal avenues to assume control over disputed estates) more than warcraft.

Frederick II arranged the marriage of his son, Maximilian I, to Mary of Burgundy in 1477. Mary brought into the marriage a collection of territories that the Burgundy dukes had acquired in the 15th century. She was the last Valois ruler of Burgundy and the Netherlands. (The Valois line were kings of France before the male line died out and the House of Bourbon ascended to the throne of France).

From wiki:

Charles's main objective was to be crowned king by turning the growing Burgundian State into a territorially continuous kingdom. He declared himself and his lands independent, bought Upper Alsace and conquered Zutphen, Guelders and Lorraine, uniting at last Burgundian northern and southern possessions. This caused the enmity of several European powers and triggered the Burgundian Wars.

Charles's early death at the Battle of Nancy at the hands of Swiss mercenaries fighting for René II, Duke of Lorraine, was of great consequence in European history.

The Burgundian domains, long wedged between France and the Habsburg Empire, were divided, but the precise disposition of the vast and disparate territorial possessions involved was disputed among the European powers for centuries.

When her father, Charles the Bold died, that ensured that her son, Philip the Fair, would inherit the vast majority of Charles the Bold’s lands, Artois, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the County of Burgundy or France Comte’ - all but the duchy of Burgundy, which the French seized for themselves.

The side affect of this union was that now the lands of the Habsburgs butted up against French territory and there is always friction along borders. But it also meant that the House of Habsburg was in direct rivalry with the kings of France, a rivalry that lasted for two centuries.

After Mary’s death in 1482, Maximilian tried to acquire the lands of Brittany in 1488 via marriage to the Breton heiress Anne, whose father was the last male of his line. She was 11 at the time of her father’s death, so Maximilian and she were married by proxy the year after her father’s death, until she would came of age for a union. She was a highly sought after chess piece because of Brittany’s strategic location, on the one side of France while Austria was on the other. If the Habsburg’s had obtained these lands, they would have surrounded France in a pincher move. You can see why Charles VIII, King of France, would feel threatened by such a prospect. He took on a military campaign to force her to renounce her proxy marriage by proxy to Maximilian. Charles ended up marrying her himself in 1491.

So instead, in 1496, Maximilian arranged for his and Mary’s son, Philip the Fair, to marry Joanna (known as Joanna the Mad), the only surviving child of Ferdinand and Isabella, the monarchs of Aragon and Castile.

Now here is where luck comes in. Joanna was not suppose to inherit the throne of either Castile or Aragon. At age 16, she was married to 18 year old Philip of Flanders aka Philip the Fair. The purpose of the marriage was to strengthen both Houses against growing French power. As a matter of fact, the marriages of all their daughters was to achieve the same (or in the case of Isabella, it was to unite all of the ruling thrones of the Iberian peninsula under a single house - their’s)

Joanna’s older brother, John, who was to inherit the throne, married Philip’s sister, Margaret of Austria, in 1497. He was married less than a year when he suddenly took ill and died (possibly of tuberculosis). His wife was pregnant at the time, but the birth was stillborn, so the succession went to the next in line, his sister, Isabella of Aragon who was married to King Manuel I of Portugal.

Isabella died in 1498, hours after the birth of her son.

The succession of the throne then went to her infant son.

But he died in 1500 at the age of 2. That same year, his father married Maria of Aragon, who was Isabella’s younger sister.

Her youngest sister, Catherine of Aragon, was married, at age 15, first to the Prince of Wales (who was 15 or 16 at the time of his marriage) in 1501, but he died within five months of their marriage of an illness sweeping through the country. Catherine later became the wife of King Henry VIII (who was 5 years younger) in 1509.

Which meant that the thrones of Castile and Aragon would be passed to Joanne and her children.

Philip the Fair was thrilled and immediately styled himself and Joanna as “princes of Castile” which irked his in-laws.

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I want to stop here and talk about Joanne. Joanne (as well as her sisters) was highly intelligent and independent. And she was raised by a fanatical mother and a father who placed his own political desire for power above her well being. And then was married off at age 16 to someone who did the same. And had a son, in Charles V, who did the same.

Here is a description from wiki of her adolescence:

By 1495 (age 16), Joanna showed signs of religious scepticism and little devotion to worship and Catholic rites. This alarmed her mother Queen Isabella, who had established the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, and Joanna was especially afraid of her. Indeed, letters of Mosen Luis Ferrer, gentleman of the bed chamber of Ferdinand, refer to the coercive punishment known as "La cuerda" ("the rope") which Joanna was subjected to. This involved being suspended by a rope with weights attached to the feet, endangering life and limb.

The Queen declared she would rather let the country be depopulated than have it polluted by heresy. Deviance by a child of the Catholic Monarchs would not be tolerated, much less heresy.

Sub-Prior Friar Tomas de Matienzo and Friar Andreas complained of her refusal to confess – or to write to him or her mother – and accused her of corruption by Parisian 'drunkard' priests.

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When Queen Isabella died in 1504, her throne in Castile (which was larger than King Ferdinand’s kingdom of Aragon) went to Joanne to rule - unless, Joanne was absent from Castile, in which he could rule in her absence - or, she was unwilling or unable to rule herself; in that case Ferdinand would rule in Castile as her guardian until Joanne’s heir reached the age of 20. Ferdinand liked ruling Castile and did not want to give it up. He had the courts rule that Joanne was “mentally ill” and he was appointed her guardian and the kingdom’s administrator and governor.

From wiki:

As a young woman, Joanna was known to be highly intelligent. Claims regarding her as "mad" are widely disputed. It was only after her marriage that the first suspicions of mental illness arose. She may also have been unjustly painted as "mad" as her husband Philip the Handsome and her father, Ferdinand, had a lot to gain from Joanna being declared sick or incompetent to rule.

Ferdinand and Philip fought over being the one who got to rule Castile. But both of them relegated Joanne to a life of “confinement”, except when they needed use of her presence.

This is typical of their concern for Joanne in the midst of their rivalry:

From wiki:

Philip apparently considered landing in Andalusia and summoning the nobles to take up arms against Ferdinand in Aragon. Instead, he and Joanna landed at A Coruña on 26 April, whereupon the Castilian nobility abandoned Ferdinand en masse. Ferdinand met Philip at Villafáfila on 27 of June 1506 for a private interview in the village church. To the general surprise Ferdinand had unexpectedly handed over the government of Castile to his "most beloved children", promising to retire to Aragon. Philip and Ferdinand then signed a second treaty secretly, agreeing that Joanna's "infirmities and sufferings" made her incapable of ruling and promising to exclude her from government and deprive the Queen of crown and freedom.

Between 1498 (two years after marriage - age 18) and 1507 (age 27), Joanne had six children - two boys, Charles and Ferdinand, and four girls.

By 1505, we hear she is confined by her husband as unbalanced.

In 1506, Philip died, suspected of being poisoned by order of King Ferdinand, who did not want to give up Castile, especially not to this foreigner son-in-law. Joanne is pregnant with Philip’s child.

Joanne tried to exercise her rights to rule alone in her own name, but the country was in turmoil and even the most experienced of rulers were facing difficulties in this time period of change. In addition, plague and famine was devastating Castile. Her father purposefully sat back and watched the crisis grow.

Six months later, he came to Castile to save the country and against her wishes, took over control as “king”. Joanne was once again confined. All of her faithful servants were replaced with a small retinue that was accountable to King Ferdinand alone. Rumours spread of her insanity.

Her son Charles was brought up in Flanders by an aunt on his father’s side. When King Ferdinand died in 1516, Charles was 17 years old. Even though his mother provided him with the documents to allow him to rule as co-king of Castile and Aragon, he also did not release Joanne from confinement.

In 1519, Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor.

Joanne died in 1555 at age 75, still confined.

Charles V became ruler over a united Kingdom of Spain, the Burgundian territories in the Low Countries along with the Habsburg family land in Austria.

Now, let’s look at his brother, and see what is up with him. Ferdinand I ruled the Austrian lands of the Habsburgs as representative of his older brother, Charles. He also served as Charles’ representative in the Holy Roman Empire more times than not.

The Habsburg kingdom had now reached a size that it was impossible for one person to effectively rule over the entirety.

Ferdinand had good relations with the German princes and had developed a valuable relationship with the German banking house. He was a good administrator. He was flexible, moderate and tolerant. His motto was “Let justice be done, though the world perish.”

Instead of trying to bring about an outdated vision of a universal monarchy, he focused on building a centralized government for Austria, Hungary and Czech - uniform in the model of administration, but each a distinct political entity.

Under his administration, government reforms were initiated. He turned the political class in Bohemia and Hungary into Habsburg partners and subdued the most radical of his rebellious Austrian subjects during the Reformation movement. He also held off the threat of the Ottoman Empire that had started pushing into Habsburg territory in the 1520s.

In 1515, Ferdinand married Anna, the daughter of the king of Hungary and Bohemia who also had a son, Louis, to whom the title of king of Hungary and Bohemia went to. But when Louis died on the battlefield during the Battle of Mohacs in 1526, against the Ottoman Turks, he left no heirs. That meant the lands of Hungary and Bohemia went to the next in line, which was his sister, Anna (and therefore, Ferdinand) and the House of Habsburg.

So Hungary and Bohemia were now added to the House of Habsburg, in addition to Spain, the Burgundy territories/ Low Country, Austria and the Kingdom of Naples in Italy. In addition, all of the land the Spanish conquistadors conquered in the Americas was under the House of Habsburg.

Charles V married Isabella of Portugal in 1526. She was Charles’ cousin. Remember back when the King of Portugal was married to Charles’ mother’s older sister, Isabella and then after she died and their 2 year old son died, he immediately married the younger sister, Maria of Aragon? Yeah, well, Charles marries their daughter.

The benefits of a union between the two states of the Iberian peninsula was a strong alliance between the two kingdoms and the guarantee that Portugal, as the only country that could challenge Spain’s supremacy in the Atlantic, would not harass Spanish ships and place Portugal in Spain’s basket rather than the basket of Spain’s rival, France.

Isabella of Portugal and Charles V had three children that survived infancy. The oldest was Philip II of Spain, born in 1527. The next was a daughter who married her first cousin, Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. And the third,Joanna, married to her first cousin, Joao Manuel, Prince of Portugal.

Charles V spent much of his reign outside Spain and away from his family just trying to hold his empire together against the populist uprising brought about by the Protestant Reformation, incursions by the Ottoman Empire, an active ongoing rivalry/feud with France and even hostilities with Pope Clement VII, who aligned with the French against the Emperor.

Charles also was trying to conquer north African territories, taking them out of the Ottoman orbit. The huge sums from the Americas had not yet started flowing into Spanish coffers. Charles increasingly found the expenditures to finance his ventures outside of Spain and keep Spain functioning outstripped his resources.

The goals that Charles set before himself and would not sway from - increasing the Habsburg Empire against all challengers, both from outside Christendom and within, ensuring his subjects remained within the Catholic Church whether they wanted to or not, expanding Spain’s power beyond her shores could not keep up with the changing world he found himself in. It was a losing battle on all grounds.

His wife,Isabella, died in 1539 and it is said Charles carried a portrait of her with him at all times till his death.

In 1556, Charles abdicated the throne and retired to a monastery. He had suffered with gout for over a decade and his health was certainly a factor in his decision.

He split the Habsburg Empire in half; doing the very thing he had worked so hard to prevent. But it was impossible for one person to rule such a large territory satisfactorily. He gave his son, Philip II, his kingdoms in Spain and the Netherlands/ Burgundian lands and his brother, Ferdinand, the traditional Austria lands along with Bohemia and Hungary, in addition to the title of emperor (which by this time was mostly ceremonial).

In 1578, the king of Portugal died on the battlefield with no issue. Then in 1580, his successor, his great-uncle, died with no issue leading to a succession crisis. Everyone, including a number of imposters, fought for control. Eventually, Philip II won the Portuguese noble class to his side, so now Portugal also came under Habsburg rule.

When the last Habsburg King of Spain, Charles II, died in 1700, the best claim was a descendant of Francis Louis 14th, who had married a Spanish princess as part of the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659. As a result, the Spanish lands came under the control of France, the Habsburg’s arch enemy.

We are going to stop here with the history of the Habsburgs.

Even as they reached the height of their power in the late 16th century, ruling six major European kingdoms, numerous lesser territories and virtually all the land that Europeans conquered overseas, the empire was already fragmenting.

From Brittanica:

The division of the dynasty between imperial and Spanish lines was definitive: Ferdinand’s male descendants were Holy Roman emperors until 1740, Philip’s were kings of Spain until 1700. The imperial line was inevitably concerned to maintain its position in Bohemia and to assert itself against the Turks in diided Hungary, because the loss of the two kingdoms would have meant the reduction of its possessions to what the Habsburgs had had hereditarily before Frederick III’s time (the Austrian duchies and scattered holdings in Swabia and in Alsace)—a reduction that in turn would have compromised its chances of continuing to be elected to the German kingship. Philip II of Spain remained territorially the greatest sovereign in the Western world until his death in 1598; but the Revolt of the Netherlands, which he proved unable to subdue, was an irritation that his English and French enemies did their worst to inflame.

The Habsburgs reached the zenith of their power before the end of the 16th century: the duchy of Milan, annexed by Charles V in 1535, was assigned by him to his son, the future Philip II of Spain, in 1540; Philip II conquered Portugal in 1580; and the Spanish dominions in America were ever expanding. There were, however, three faults in the power structure—two of them historical accidents, the third an effect of the Habsburg dynasty’s own measures for self-preservation.

In the first place, the ascendancy of Charles V coincided with the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, which was to spread turmoil for decades over Europe from the Netherlands to Hungary. As Charles, from his Spanish upbringing, was imbued with ideas of Catholic uniformity and as his successors, with the exception of the enigmatic Maximilian II, sought also to realize those ideas, religious resistance to the Habsburgs’ authority came to aggravate or to camouflage political resistance. At the same time, the papacy, overawed though it was by the Spanish military presence in Italy, did not always subscribe to the Habsburg’s special policy for Catholicism.

Secondly, Ferdinand’s accession to Hungary meant that the Habsburgs had to bear the brunt of the Ottoman Turkish drive from the Balkans into central Europe, just as Habsburg Spain had to confront Turkish incursions into the western Mediterranean. The great victory of Lepanto (1571), won by Charles V’s natural son, Juan de Austria, did not end those troubles, which were exploited, against the dynasty, by Hungarian dissidents and, more covertly, by France.

The third flaw in the Habsburg edifice was latent in the 16th century. Mindful of what they had won by marriages, the Habsburgs sought to preclude rival dynasties from turning the tables on them by the same means: to keep their heritage in their own hands, they began to intermarry more and more frequently among themselves. The result, in a few generations, was a fatal inbreeding that brought the male line of Charles V to extinction.