The Habsburgs- The History of a Dynasty

by Benjamin Curtis

  The dynasty’s institutionalization of its rule during this period led to comparatively strong regnal authority, though government was still quite limited. Besides upholding peace and justice, the ruler was supposed to maintain roads and bridges, levy agreed-upon taxes, administer the realm’s finances sensibly, and employ able counselors. Habsburg rulers consistently sought to augment the fiscal resources of their government. This was part of the motivation behind Rudolf I’s long campaign to regain lost royal lands in the Empire. Expanding tax authority was another frequent strategy. Rudolf IV for instance introduced new consumption taxes, reduced tax exemptions for the clergy, and asserted his own authority over that of local nobles to collect taxes in cities. Albrecht V’s tax reforms raised revenues that helped meet the rapidly expanding costs of his government. Once Tyrol came into the house, regalian rights over its rich mines provided a solid stream of income for the Habsburg line who ruled there.

  Despite these improvements, an inherent flaw in much medieval governance was insufficient oversight. As an example, Albrecht V’s financial officers typically paid for expenses in advance, and later collected the corresponding taxes. This enabled them to collect more money than they actually paid out. Other ways that dynastic government increased its reach were through the codification of rights and privileges. For instance, Rudolf IV granted privileges to the Tyrolean cities, issued a number of ordinances to encourage rebuilding of structures left neglected because of the Plague’s mortality, and loosened restrictions on guilds to free up markets. Rulers such as Rudolf IV also sought to consolidate their regnal power by insisting that their own legal jurisdiction and courts had supreme authority over competing aristocratic or ecclesiastical jurisdictions. The above developments apply primarily to the family’s patrimonial lands, since they made little impact on the governance structures of the Empire during this time.

  Part of government’s increasing penetration into society was an ongoing elaboration of legal practices that delimited in what ways the prince could act and over what territories he had authority. That touchstone of medieval Austrian political development, the Privilegium maius, is relevant once more, since it helped define the legal relationships between the regions and their ruler. Thus while the Habsburgs made progress in various aspects of institutionalizing rule, in reality governance was a negotiated coordination among various communities and rights-holders (such as towns, clergy, and nobility) in the areas under Habsburg overlordship. In other words, members of the dynasty could not merely assert their will, and they certainly did not manage to create a single government but rather several; the different Austrian provinces retained distinct identities and institutions. Though certainly the most ambitious Habsburg rulers such as Rudolf I, Albrecht II, or Rudolf IV chafed at having to share power with other elites, they also typically respected the need to work with a consultative body that represented their subjects’ interests. Doing so was a common norm across Europe.

  The principal locus of the sovereign’s negotiation and coordination with these other power elites was the estates bodies, the representative groupings of the various “orders” in society such as the nobility, the clergy, and the commoners. The estates bodies in the Austrian lands coalesced over the fourteenth century and became quite forceful in the fifteenth. The largest landowners (often referred to as the magnates) and the high clergy (abbots, bishops, but not parish priests) typically carried the most weight, but the interests in these estates were not monolithic. The petty nobility would often resent the magnates, and in some estates bodies, such as in Tyrol, towns were included. The estates in general exercised authority over some tax levies, and defended landowners’ feudal jurisdictional competencies (over the administration of justice, for example) from the prince’s authority. Habsburg rulers also typically had to acknowledge a role for the nobility in military matters, some foreign policy issues, and even marital arrangements. Albrecht I had repeated problems with Austrian nobles because he did not always respect their rights in these areas. After several uprisings, he won them over via a combination of suppression and concession, and learned better to coordinate his rule with them. The high nobles mediated disputes for Albrecht II’s sons and then in the family’s fratricidal war in the early 1400s. In the latter case the estates acted as guarantors of treaties the Habsburgs signed.

  Coordination with other interest communities could also provide mutual benefits. One example is Rudolf IV’s negotiations with the Tyrolean cities, to whom he granted privileges in return for their recognition of him as ruler. Another is Albrecht V’s convoking of the estates, who granted him the money he needed for his military ventures while also successfully insisting on oversight powers on his government’s finances. Coordination with the Church likewise proved advantageous if occasionally tense. Rudolf I worked hard to build a close relationship with the pope, to gain support within the Empire and for his son Albrecht’s succession. This relationship boosted the Habsburgs’ religious credibility, since the Church helped legitimize the dynasty’s rule. Albrecht I’s kowtowing to the megalomaniacal Boniface VIII is further evidence of the utility of papal endorsement to the status-seeking dynasty’s imperial claims. Habsburg pride would never permit a complete subordination to the papacy, however. Hence it was more typical that the dynasty insisted on the secular ruler’s particular prerogatives vis-à-vis the Church. Both Ernst and Albrecht V independently promoted ecclesiastical reforms in their lands. Albrecht V in particular regarded religion as a matter of state, and his belief that the Church should serve his dynastic interests marked some of the first steps on the long road toward making a state church in Austria.

  It is only in retrospect from the family’s subsequent history that these medieval Habsburgs seem important. Though the achievements of Rudolf I and Rudolf IV, among others, in anchoring the dynasty’s rule in Austria are not inconsiderable, they are also not especially remarkable. The dynasty expanded its patrimony, grounded its legitimacy in piety and an imagined ancestry, moved toward territorial lordship, slowly increased its administrative control of its territories, and struck adequate bargains with the other power elites in its dominions. In none of these common practices of dynastic rule did the Habsburgs make extraordinary advances. Similarly, supplying three emperors over this century and a half did elevate the Habsburgs to the upper echelon of German families. But there is nothing in the period that sets them dramatically apart from the other leading families such as the Luxemburgs or the Wittelsbachs. The string of Habsburgs from Rudolf I to Albrecht V in short exemplify most of the typical contemporary trends of dynasties. It was only in the next two generations that the family was to make the leap into a truly higher status. The Habsburgs at this time were but one of several contenders for leadership; they had not yet figured out how to make themselves a necessity in European politics.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Austria’s destiny (1440–1519)

  In the autumn of 1473 the city of Trier witnessed an astounding display of princely riches—but it did not come from the Habsburgs. Emperor Friedrich III and his son Maximilian could only look on in envy as Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, made his entrance into the city accompanied by a retinue of some 13,000 people and, according to some accounts, 400 wagons full of treasures. Clad in raiments woven with gold and jewels, bearing a sword that had the entire Lord’s Prayer written on its hilt in diamonds, Charles’s exaggerated pomp was calculated to show off the wealth and power of Burgundy.1 And yet he needed the cash-strapped Habsburg emperor, who could raise Burgundy into a kingdom and perhaps promise Charles the succession to the imperial crown. In return, Friedrich III demanded to marry his only son Maximilian to Charles’s daughter Marie, Europe’s richest heiress. After extended talks, Friedrich departed suddenly at night with no explanation, leaving Charles to pay the bills. This was typical of Friedrich’s tactics: he had a habit of stalling until he was the last man standing. In this case, as in so many others, it worked. In 1477, finally, Charles and Friedrich did sign
a marriage treaty by which the Habsburgs gained much of the priceless Burgundian inheritance. Twenty years later, Maximilian arranged another pivotal marriage treaty to give his own son Philippe the conjoined crowns of Castile and Aragon. The Habsburgs had maneuvered themselves into becoming the most important family in Europe.

  This eventual outcome is all the more surprising given that Friedrich and Maximilian failed in so many of their other objectives. Friedrich was usually a man to whom things happened rather than who made things happen. Maximilian was nearly the opposite in character, always trying to do too much, hatching grandiose plans that frequently unraveled. They pose one of the most striking father-son contrasts in Habsburg history. Friedrich for much of his long life fiddled while Austria burned around him, and all but ignored his duties in the Empire. Beset on all sides—including by his brother—some of Friedrich’s problems were of his own making, but he also had to contend with pugnacious estates bodies and adversaries in Bohemia and Hungary. Maximilian benefited from relative quiet in the Hereditary Lands and so turned his unflagging energy to reform projects in the Empire and military adventures in Italy. His institutional innovations in their Austrian power base helped the family become major players in pan-European politics for the first time. The resultant, sharpening rivalry with France then brought the Habsburgs the vital alliances that were Friedrich’s and Maximilian’s chief long-run contribution to the dynasty.

  Friedrich III (1415–93)

  Friedrich was the son of Ernst the Iron of the Styrian line of Habsburgs. His rule has long been criticized for its periodic anarchy, the atrophy of monarchical power in Germany, and drift for most of the Habsburg domains. While some of this is true, Friedrich had an extremely difficult role to fulfill with the limited resources of Styria at his disposal. For all his many disappointments, he also racked up some successes that proved beneficial to the dynasty, particularly reuniting the Austrian territories and bringing the Burgundian inheritance into the house. Friedrich’s very long rule as emperor-king can be divided into two broad periods. The first went from his election in 1440 to 1471, during which Friedrich (see Figure 2.1) was tormented by unrest in Austria and intra-family conflicts that led him to neglect events in the Holy Roman Empire. The second phase extended from 1471 to Friedrich’s death in 1493. During this time his attention returned to the Empire, where he attempted to restore some central authority, to Burgundy, and to Hungary, whose audacious king managed to conquer Vienna.

  Friedrich was a beefy, rather ponderous man with an introverted personality. This meant that he fell conspicuously short of contemporary ideals of the majestic sovereign. He was criticized during his own lifetime as stingy, unforgiving, and oafish. He was given the nickname “Arch-sleepyhead” (Erzschlafmütze) for appearing to prefer tending his garden to actually governing. This was never a fair accusation, however. Friedrich was rarely that withdrawn from ruling. Many official documents surviving from his reign testify to his personal involvement with decisions. On the positive side, he was undeniably well educated and highly cultured. He was also patient and stubborn—in fact, tenacity may have been his greatest strength. Friedrich’s ruling style has long been viewed through the prism of a phrase that he wrote in his notebook: “Happy is he who forgets what cannot be changed.”2 His fatalistic lack of initiative was informed by the deep-seated conviction that his dynasty had a divine mission that would guarantee triumph in the end. Friedrich’s famous ruling motto conveys this sense of mission: the AEIOU, that Austria was destined to rule the entire world. This belief in ultimate, God-granted victory may have partly been a post-hoc rationalization for his own impotence, of course. But given the upheavals of his century, and the weakness of ruling institutions such as the Empire, by some measures Friedrich’s hands-off approach to events he could not control was sensible.

  FIGURE 2.1 Friedrich III, nineteenth-century illustration after a portrait attributed to Hans Burgkmair. Image courtesy of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.

  Until the 1470s, Friedrich’s rule in the Austrian lands was nothing less than a disaster. These decades were ridden with the chaos of intra-family feuds, traitorous advisors, rebellious mercenaries, utter fecklessness on Friedrich’s part, and assertive estates bodies that complicated what little central authority he could claim. The nearly never-ending drama seriously weakened the dynasty’s control of its realms, and for significant stretches his actual ruling powers were barely notional. Yet Friedrich was consistently guided by one paramount goal: to reunite all the Austrian territories of the family in his own hands. The fact that by the end of his life this actually came to pass is testament less to Friedrich’s skill than to his stubbornness, and to regular invaluable assists from the fortuitous deaths of his opponents. Friedrich became Duke of Inner Austria in 1435, gaining the majority of the Styrian line’s lands while his brother Albrecht VI got the leftovers—which proved a source of dispute. For all the responsibilities he was to exercise over his lifespan, Styria as a power base was woefully inadequate, and this helps explain why his leadership was often so feeble.

  Early on in his reign it fell to Friedrich, as the oldest male Habsburg, to act as warden for two underage heirs in the dynasty after their fathers died. Both of these occasions resulted in absurd, protracted turmoil. The slightly tidier one involved Friedrich’s wardenship over his young cousin Sigmund, from the Tyrolean line of the Habsburgs. In 1443, when Sigmund turned 15, the Tyrolean estates demanded that Friedrich end his wardenship, but he refused. Friedrich’s evident and ignoble strategy was to hold Sigmund as a kind of prisoner until he handed over some of his domains to the Styrian line. This blackmail actually worked. Sigmund gave various properties to Friedrich’s land-hungry brother Albrecht, retaining Tyrol and parts of the Vorarlberg for himself. Problems with Sigmund would return to haunt Friedrich in subsequent decades, but at the time this seemed an optimal outcome, since Friedrich got a monetary payment out of Sigmund and also managed to tamp down Albrecht’s incessant pressures to carve more for himself out of Friedrich’s lands and authority.

  This pattern of Friedrich cynically using a young Habsburg heir as a pawn in his own schemes repeated itself with the posthumously born son of Friedrich’s uncle, the German king Albrecht V. In this case, though, there were many more, equally cynical and even more avaricious players in the game. When Albrecht died in 1439, his widow Elisabeth chose to make Friedrich the warden over her son, who has become known as Ladislaus Postumus. As heir to the Albertine line of the Habsburgs, as well as to the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary, Ladislaus became a very high-value bargaining chip in the effort to take over that inheritance. This resulted in an (at least) five-way competition over Ladislaus between the boy’s mother, Friedrich, and nobles in Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. Friedrich essentially held the boy captive to rule Upper and Lower Austria in his name. In 1444 the Hungarian estates elected Ladislaus their king, but Friedrich still would not hand him over. Meanwhile, the Bohemian warlord Jiří [George] z Poděbrad demanded to become Ladislaus’ governor. In 1452 nobles from the Austrian estates rallied into a league with the support of Bohemian and Hungarian nobles to wrest control of Ladislaus from Friedrich. When Friedrich refused to negotiate with them, they sent an army to attack. Friedrich was besieged in Wiener Neustadt, and seeing himself trapped, he agreed in September 1452 to hand over the boy. Ladislaus was taken to Prague, where he was crowned king.

  As contentious as his short life was, Ladislaus’ death ignited further feuds. This unfortunate pawn of others’ lust for power died in 1457, probably of the plague. Since Ladislaus was the last of the Albertine Habsburg line, the remaining family heads—Friedrich, Albrecht, and their cousin Sigmund—began a lamentable fight over his Austrian inheritance. Sigmund and Albrecht soon reached an agreement whereby the former renounced his claim in return for territorial compensation from Albrecht. Friedrich and Albrecht then made a deal to divide the inheritance between them, but this did not settle the conflict. Moreover, the estates in Upper and Lower
Austria refused to acknowledge either of the two brothers as the new ruler. Law and order in the territories evaporated, with no legitimate authority to enforce it. Unemployed soldiers terrorized and plundered the countryside. Albrecht used the chaos to construct an alliance with Austrian nobles and Jiří z Poděbrad (who was now king of Bohemia) to depose Friedrich in 1461. Vienna also rebelled against him, and he was trapped by enemy forces in the Hofburg in 1462. As Friedrich was running out of food, one of his loyalists convinced Poděbrad to switch sides. The Bohemian king sent a force that rescued Friedrich from Albrecht’s siege. Friedrich was still faced with having to accede to some of Albrecht’s demands—until another seemingly miraculous rescue in the form of Albrecht’s sudden death in 1463. Predictably, Sigmund then declared his intention to fight Friedrich for his own share of Albrecht’s inheritance. Sigmund was in no position to make that happen, though, since he also had Pope Pius II (who had formerly been his and Friedrich’s tutor) threatening war against him for having taken the Bishop of Bressanone prisoner. Hence he was forced to settle with Friedrich in 1464, by which the latter, at long last, assumed sole rule of the formerly Albertine lands of Upper and Lower Austria plus Vienna.

  The decades of disorder in Austria lasted a few more years, however, as from 1469 to 1471 Friedrich had to contend with an uprising involving his own traitorous former military captain, Andreas Baumkircher. The grievances of the uprising were the collapse of law and order associated with Friedrich’s misrule, but also some things for which he was not strictly responsible, such as harvest failures and epidemics. The whole conflict was encouraged by Mátyás [Matthias] Corvinus, the Hungarian king. By 1471 the quarreling parties had fought themselves to the negotiating table. At that point, with uncharacteristic alacrity, Friedrich ordered Baumkircher taken prisoner, and without even a trial had him beheaded. Though this settled the latest bout of unrest, the years of contested rule and breakdown in central authority had taken a terrible toll on the Austrian lands. One lasting outcome was that in the absence of strong princely rule, the estates’ power increased significantly, something with which future generations of Habsburg rulers would have to contend.