A History of the Habsburg Empire 1273-1700

Jean Berenger, C.A. Simpson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317895695
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia alemana

The first part of a two-volume history of the Habsburg Empire from its medieval origins to its dismemberment in the First World War.This important volume (which is self-contained) meets a long-felt need for a systematic survey in English of the Habsburgs and their lands in the late medieval and early modern periods. It is primarily concerned with the Habsburg territories in central and northern Europe, but the history of the Spanish Habsburgs in Spain and the Netherlands is also covered. The book, like the Habsburgs themselves, deals with an immense range of lands and peoples: clear, balanced, and authoritative, it is a remarkable feat of synthethis and exposition.

Chapter One
The Origins

Rudolf of Habsburg, at the time of his election as king of Germany in 1273, was head of a House which traced its origins back to the eleventh century and which had considerable possessions in Alemannic Switzerland and Upper Alsace. The heart of these domains was the present-day canton of Aargau, the fortress of Habichtsburg mentioned as early as 1020 and which yields by contraction the name Habsburg. The cradle of the House of Austria is situated in what was once the kingdom of Lotharingia, at the very heart of Europe and the crossroads of commerce and culture.

Shortly after the royal election of 1273, the Habsburgs ordered the deliberate embellishment of their origins since they were pained by their relative humble extraction and parvenu status. For the past century, however, medieval scholars have managed by their patient labours to separate truth from fiction.

Mythical Origins¹

Since the Habsburgs could not link themselves to the leading German imperial dynasties, the Saliens or the Staufens, the legend gained ground at the beginning of the fourteenth century that they were descended from the Colonna, a Roman patrician family claiming links via the counts of Tuscany with the gens Iulia and so with Julius Caesar. As late as 1450, the Habsburgs still believed this legend, which strengthened their claim to the German throne at the time of their exclusion by the House of Luxemburg: it was a theory entirely compatible with the late medieval way of thinking.

In the fifteenth century, another theory appeared which made the Habsburgs the descendants of the Pierleoni, the counts of Aventine, and through them of the gens Aniciana. This new legend had the advantage of demonstrating the 'sanctity' of the Habsburgs since the Pierleoni counted among their members pope Gregory the Great (590-604) and St Benedict (480-543), the founder of the Benedictine order. This theory was first propounded in 1476 by Heinrich von Gundelfingen and was connected to the revival of the political power of the papacy.

During the same period the legend of the House's Frankish origins also appeared. This connected the Habsburgs directly with the Merovingians, going back in a general way through their successors, the Carolingians.* These Frankish ancestors also enabled the Habsburgs to claim that they were descended from the Trojans. This theory was bound up with antiRoman and anti-Italian prejudices and was not without ulterior political motives. It was championed by the emperor Maximilian I who used it to present himself as the legitimate heir to the Merovingian and Carolingian kingdoms of Gaul and Germany and also to justify his expansion into Western Europe and his claims to the Burgundian patrimony. Maximilian I encouraged numerous works on the subject — illuminated manuscripts, treatises on heraldry and illustrated genealogical tables. During the Renaissance, the theory found a huge response among the first German nationalists, but later went out of fashion as the conflict in Germany between France and the House of Habsburg gave way to Austro-Prussian rivalry.

A theory was then used which first had been developed in 1649 by the French scholar Jerome Vignier; the Habsburgs were descended from the dukes of Alsace, from Etichofa +nd his successors, who in the early Middle Ages ruled over Alsace and Swabia. This 'House of Alsace', which dated back to the seventh century and a certain Archinoald, the Mayor of the Palace under Clovis II, was the cradle of the Habsburgs and the dukes of Lorraine. This theory conferred an obvious advantage in 1736 when the Habsburg archduchess Maria Theresa married the duke of Lorraine, Francis Stephen (Francis III): the new Habsburg — Lorraine dynasty was nothing other than a restoration of the 'House of Alsace' founded by Eticho. Marquard Herrgott (1694-1762), the scholarly monk of Sankt Blasien, compiled a great genealogical history of the House at the request of the emperor Charles VI (16851740), the last male descendant of the House of Habsburg, in order to justify the marriage of his daughter and heir to Francis Stephen of Lorraine. This work, which drew on new methods of textual criticism, was based chiefly on the Acta Murensia, the annals of the abbey of Muri in Aargau which date from the twelfth century.²

While the theory of the House's Alemmanic origins would later find favour under the climate of social and intellectual conservatism prevailing in the first half of the nineteenth century, the other theories were felled during the age of the Enlightenment, demolished by the critical philosophy which took hold during the reign of Joseph II (1780-90). The pious legend of the Habsburgs' ancestral saint, Morand, and of the saints of the Pierleoni family celebrated during the baroque period collapsed before the advance of rational criticism; duke Eticho alone withstood scrutiny and was evoked in the imperial Schloss Luxemburg outside Vienna which was rebuilt by the emperor Francis I in the style of a medieval German castle: Eticho with the emperor Rudolf head the procession of great ancestors.

During the same period, prince Lichnowsky, the court historiographer, put an end to all these fables with the publication of his great work on the Habsburg family, Die Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg (1836). He dismissed the medieval historians' mania for hunting out, regardless of reality, ancestors among the gens Iulia, gens Aniciana and the Scipios, while some scholars without a qualm even went back as far as Hector. A scrupulous historian, he overlooked the fact that this had been the fashion among humanist scholars; in the sixteenth century, the House of France had itself sought out Trojan ancestors. He concluded that

For the conscientious historian, one fact should suffice: if since the tenth or eleventh century a family has been classed among the most powerful and most esteemed lines, then it should be counted among the higher nobles and there should be no question but that its ancestors belonged to the earliest Carolingians and that it should be held equal to the descendants of the Mayors of the Palace and their family. All the rest is superfluous, a man belongs to the higher nobility and that is enough.³

The Habsburgs' official circle once more went beyond historical evidence to trace the dynasty's origins back to the Carolingian age and the roots of German history.

It took the catastrophe at Sadowa and the unification of Germany to the benefit of Prussia and the Hohenzollerns to make Habsburg historiography keep to a reasonable version of the facts. In 1889 Franz von Krones in his Grundriss der österreichischen Geschichtsforschung presented a definitive condemnation of all the fine fables, even if no one managed entirely to disprove the Carolingian origins of the House.⁴

In the twentieth century, the Austrian historian Alphons Lhotsky, the director of the Viennese equivalent of the French Ecole des chartes,* had rejected the whole mishmash of legends, but like his colleague Anna Coreth admitted nonetheless that they had served the Habsburgs' political ends well and had nourished their skilful propaganda in the age of retreat.⁵

The Historical Origins⁶

Historical scholarship has not succeeded in making the Habsburgs' origins completely clear. They may have been descended from Gontran the Rich, the duke of Lower Alsace, who for being a traitor was deprived of his estates in 952 by Otto the Great. An amnesty might explain why part of the confiscated domains was returned to the Habsburg patrimony. The Habichtsburg domain was an allodial land* within the kingdom of Burgundy which was outside the direct authority of the emperor Otto. The advantage of this hypothesis is that it bolsters the Habsburgs' claims to membership of the family descended from Eticho but it also has the unfortunate result of making their ancestor a traitor and so rather detracts from the illustrious House's distinguished image.

It was, however, in Aargau that Gontran the Rich's son Lancelin (the diminutive of Landolt) was based; possibly he had acquired the Habichtsburg domain through marriage. What is certain is that one of Lancelin's sons, Radbot, married Ita, the daughter of the duke of Lorraine, while another son, Rudolf, married a certain Kunigunde from the family of (Hohen) Zollern and the eldest contracted a marriage with one of the daughters of count Berchtold of Villingen.

The most notable figure of this generation was Werner, bishop of Strassburg, thought by some to have been yet another of Lancelin's sons, and so a Habsburg, but by others to have been the son of the duke of Lorraine and Ita's brother. Certainly, if the latter theory is correct, Werner would have been in a position to obtain an amnesty for the grandsons of the errant Gontran the Rich. Bishop Werner was a childhood friend of the emperor Henry II and took an active part in his election. He supported the policy of expanding the empire towards Burgundy as his interests coincided with those of the Habsburgs and the emperor Henry II.

The Habichtsburg fortress was built at precisely this time (1020), its construction giving rise to the first legend concerning the House of Habsburg. The somewhat bellicose bishop Werner advised his relative Radbot, the feudal lord, to fortify his residence because it was not surrounded by any kind of rampart and Radbot promised to achieve this in one night. The following morning, the fortress was surrounded by his people, knights in armour positioned at regular intervals taking the place of towers. Bishop Werner deigned to show his approval and advised his relative to make the most of this living wall since no other was more trustworthy.

The same legend, scholars have pointed out, was told in connection with the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (1152-90) and also the landgrave of Thuringia. It was used by the Habsburgs at a time when they were subject to severe criticism in Swabia and throughout the whole Empire. In its original form handed down by Matthias von Neuenburg, the legend concerned neither bishop Werner nor count Radbot but told of two brothers from Rome who had crossed the Alps. The point of the legend remains the same: a prince's best protection lies in the affection and loyalty of his subjects. The Habsburgs, right to the very end, put this maxim into practice and enjoyed a genuine popularity, at least among their German subjects.

The family's power is evident from the advantageous marriage alliances made by the grandsons of Gontran the Rich and is confirmed by the number of religious foundations which its members established in the region during the first half of the eleventh century. While Habichtsburg was being built, Radbot, encouraged by his wife Ita and perhaps also by Werner, the bishop of Strassburg, founded the Benedictine abbey at Muri in Aargau which became the family monastery and guarded the House's memoria from its earliest days. Werner, thought to be the founders' son, became abbot of Muri and put it in the van of Cluny reformism.

Rudolf, Radbot's brother, founded the abbey of Ottmarshein in Upper Alsace, between the Rhine and the eastern fringe of the Hardt forest. The church at Ottmarsheim is reminiscent of Charlemagne's palatine chapel at Aix-la-Chapelle. Was this not a manifestation of the already immense ambitions of a rich and powerful family?

For two centuries the Habsburgs did not cease bolstering their position in the region: Alsace, Breisgau, Alemannic Switzerland. Around 1180 they founded the convent at Hermetswyl not far from the abbey at Muri, two foundations which both survived into the nineteenth century.

In 1090 Otto, a grandson of Radbot, was the first to take the title count of Habsburg. As a vassal of the emperor Henry V, he took part in the campaign against the king of Hungary, Kálman (St Coloman), and is mentioned as 'count Otto of Havichsburg' in an imperial document, which bears a date, from Pressburg (Poszony, now Bratislava). This seems to be the first appearance of the family in that part of Europe.

Alsace continued to be the base of the Habsburgs power. They secured for themselves the avouerie* of the abbey of Murbach, which possessed extensive domains in Upper Alsace as well as the landgraviate of Upper Alsace which confirmed their political power over the region.

In the course of the twelfth century their destiny became linked to that of the Hohenstaufens and they appeared increasingly often at the imperial court and took part in military expeditions. The Habsburgs were able to amass untold inheritances with the support of the imperial authorities, because the active policy pursued by the Hohenstaufens entailed the rapid extinction of many lines, including some to which the Habsburgs were heir. They thus found themselves on the way to establishing with the Hohenstaufens' permission what amounted to a principality. The wealth of the 'poor counts' was apparent in 1212 when Rudolf the Old paid the duke of Lorraine 1000 marks for the account of the young Frederick von Hohenstaufen (Frederick II, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire 12201250) whereas of the sum total of 3 200, the archbishop of Mainz, the bishop of Worms and four other lords gave only 700 marks.

Rudolf the Old, the grandfather of the future king of the Romans, Rudolf the Founder, in 1198 took the side of the Ghibellines, abandoning for good the Guelph cause.⁷ This change of allegiance finally settled the Habsburgs' destiny. When Frederick left Sicily, Rudolf the Old was among the feudal lords from Germany who supported him without hesitation and Frederick II became godfather to the young Rudolf, who was born on 1 May 1218.

The death of Rudolf the Old inevitably retarded the rise of the House as he followed the custom of the German princes and divided his patrimony between his two sons, Albert IV and Rudolf III. It was the latter who founded the cadet branch of Laufenburg which later rejoined the Guelph party, while Albert IV remained loyal to the Hohenstaufens but died in 1249 after leaving for the crusades and left his son Rudolf the Founder, to become reconciled with the House's cadet branch, or 'branch of counts'. Not until the seventeenth century did the House abandon its opposition to the principle of primogeniture, which was contrary to the old Germanic law, and in the meanwhile proceeded repeatedly to divide its patrimony among its male heirs.

King Rudolf I, the Founder (1218-91)⁸

Rudolf IV, count of Habsburg, who acceded to that title in 1249 upon the death of his father Albert IV, is better known in general history as Rudolf I of Germany and king of the Romans. He is in fact the first of his House about whom very much is known, as much from chronic...