Allezeit Mehrer des reiches

Martin Rady in his highly amusing and exceptionally well written book on the Habsburg said quote “The remainder of Rudolf’s reign up to his death in 1291 was a failure. He did not manage to have himself crowned emperor by the pope and had to make do with the title of king…it was a false dawn, both for the Holy Roman empire and for the Habsburgs” end quote.

I most humbly disagree. The 13 years following the battle of Durnkrut are some of the most transformative for the Empire and the fledgling concept of German and Germany. This episode will try to make the case for Rudolf I, founder of the house of Habsburg and one of the most impactful medieval rulers of the empire.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans: Episode 141 – Rudolf I  Semper Augustus Allezeit Mehrer des Reiches.

Martin Rady in his highly amusing and exceptionally well written book on the Habsburg said quote “The remainder of Rudolf’s reign up to his death in 1291 was a failure. He did not manage to have himself crowned emperor by the pope and had to make do with the title of king…it was a false dawn, both for the Holy Roman empire and for the Habsburgs” end quote.

I most humbly disagree. The 13 years following the battle of Durnkrut are some of the most transformative for the Empire and the fledgling concept of German and Germany. This episode will try to make the case for Rudolf I, founder of the house of Habsburg and one of the most impactful medieval rulers of the empire.

Before we go into the story and the respective arguments, just a few words about the way the History of the Germans is run. This show is advertising free which means the only way I can get compensated is by the generosity of patrons. And I must say, your willingness to keep this show on the road is overwhelming – so thank you so much. And it is worth it. I recently listened to a podcast I hugely respect and that is with a network that had approached me to join a few months ago. This podcast was now featuring cryptocurrency advertising, something I personally would not want to be seen endorsing in any form. So a specially heartfelt thanks to William Schmidt, Jantje B., Donka P., Brian A., Moritz L. and Randy F. who have already signed up, saving your host from shame and embarrassment.

Talking about shame and embarrassment, I have to make a correction. In the last episode I described the beginning of the battle of Durnkrut stating that Rudolf’s Flemish slingers hurled their stones at the Bohemians whose Cumans and Sarmatians responded with clouds of arrows. It was the other way around. The Flemish slingers fought for Ottokar whilst the Cumans and Sarmatians had joined Rudolf’s forces from Hungary. Apologies for that.

So now back to the show.

On 26^th of August 1278 the body of Ottokar II, king of Bohemia is lies almost naked on the battlefield of Dürnkrut. Scavengers have stripped off his precious armor. The great golden king is no more.

His seven year old son, Wenceslaus comes to king Rudolf to sue for peace and the return of the body of his father that had been displayed in the Minoritenkirche in Vienna, a church Ottokar himself had founded in his heyday when he was duke of Austria. Wenceslaus was allowed to take his predecessor’s remains home and not only that. He was betrothed to Judith, the youngest of Rudolf’s surviving children. The marriage would take place seven years later when bride and groom had grown up to be at least teenagers.

Rudolf was on top of the world. His enemy and only serious rival for the crown was defeated and dead. He was in control of not just one, but three duchies, Austria, Styria and Carinthia. His policies to rebuild royal power in the empire were gaining traction and lands and rights lost to the crown during the interregnum were gradually returned.

For many in the German parts of the empire it seemed as if the golden days of the Hohenstaufen were about to return. For the cities in the south Rudolf’s reforms were of particular importance.

As we have seen in the series about the Hanseatic League, the 13^th and14th century was a time during which new and extremely profitable trade routes opened up. Merchants handling these wares grew rich, artisans gained access to new customers and the city’s population found employment in the various workshops. Trade fairs, events that would attract merchants and dealers from across europe are flourishing. The Leipziger Messe can claim to be the oldest recorded trade fair still in operation, dating back to 1165. Frankfurt Messe was founded in 1240 and is also still going strong. Cities like Nördlingen, Donauwörth, Eichstätt, Regensburg, Schaffhausen, Worms, Speyer and Naumburg and further north, Cologne, Duisburg Aachen and Utrecht were connecting points in a pan-European trading system.

All of these cities had overlords. Some dated back to Roman times and were seats of bishops, others had been founded by emperors, dukes or counts. These overlords became increasingly a problem. For one, they regularly demanded some form of tax of other financial contribution. Moreover, these high and mighty lord and not so saintly bishops did not understand much about trade and the importance of reliable currencies, open transportation routes and the rule of law.

The rift between the city councils and the overlords deepened over time. The cities seized their opportunity during the interregnum when central authority weakened and several of the important principalities fragmented. Many threw off the yoke of their overlords. Having gained independence was certainly a great source of pride and joy, but also left them with a problem once things settled down again. How could they protect themselves against the new territorial lordships that were forming again all around them.

That is where Rudolf saw a way to further strengthen royal power. If he took some of these cities under his protection, he himself or his vogt could fend off rapacious lords and in return the cities would pay compensation for these efforts in the form of taxes. That is how in the late 13^th century many cities, in particular in the south west of Germany became imperial cities. This alliance between the Imperial cities and the emperors became a building block of the Holy Roman empire.

Not all imperial cities paid though. Some were free cities, in particular large ones like Cologne, Mainz, Lubeck, Basel and Strasburg. A free city would not pay tax thanks to privileges they had obtained over the centuries. But it wasn’t just the paper that mattered here.  A great free city like Cologne simply did not need the protection of the vogt against some rapacious count in the neighborhood. Smaller places like Nördlingen or Memmingen did.

That also explains why there are so many more  imperial cities in the former lands of the Hohenstaufen, in Franconia and Swabia. That is where the royal power was more significant and where the Vogt could indeed command sufficient forces to ride to the rescue of a city under siege. In the north, the king had little influence and hence few cities were counting on a royal officer for protection. Only the largest and most powerful gained that status, Lubeck, Hamburg and Bremen for example. But still important places like Rostock, Wismar or Stralsund, never obtained the status of a free or imperial city. The king or emperor was simply too far away…

The city taxes added a neat 8000 marks of silver to the royal budget, which was more than the Habsburg lands in Switzerland and Alsace provided. So nothing to be sniffed at.

During his remaining 13 years Rudolf expanded his system of Vogts covering large areas and working hard to regain royal possessions. South of the Main river that involved recruiting members of the local aristocracy and putting them in charge. They were deliberately chosen amongst the barons and counts and not amongst the Ministeriales or knightly class as they were increasingly called. Rudolf wanted to avoid the situation where the senior lords felt he was building up a bureaucracy of men tied to him be bonds of servitude as the Hohenstaufen and Salians had done. It was all part of the First amongst Equals approach.

When he looked to the northern part of his empire, this model did not quite work though. First, there were far fewer imperial possessions in what used to be the stem duchy of Saxony. And the territorial lords there were more powerful than in the South West. So instead of barons and counts, he appointed the dukes of Saxony and of Brunswick as the representatives of royal power in the north. These men could not be made to collect taxes, return royal lands or protect imperial cities against themselves, but they could, and would take on the role of judges under the Mainzer Landfrieden. That way Rudolf was able to curb some of the worst excesses in feuding even in the parts of the empire where his actual influence was modest.

One very significant feud he could however not prevent, the war of the Limburg succession. Limburg was a duchy roughly between Liege and Aachen. It was one of the successor principalities of the old duchy of Lothringia that played such an important role under the Ottonians and Salians but had gradually shifted out of the orbit of imperial policy under the Hohenstaufens. Being outside imperial direct control, several local powers dominated the region. These were the archbishops of Cologne, the dukes of Brabant and the House of Ardenne, the counts of Luxemburg. On the eastern side of the Rhine the counts of Berg had interest there as well.

When the last duke of Limburg passed away, these powers got into conflict over who should take over the territory. I spare you the genealogy but it ended up as a conflict between two sides, the count of Guelders who was supported by the archbishop of Cologne and the counts of Luxemburg on one hand. On the other side was count Adolf VII of Berg who could count on the duke of Brabant, the counts of Mark and Julich and importantly, the city of Cologne that had risen up against their archbishop.

This conflict culminated in the battle of Worringen on June 5, 1288. That was a pretty sizeable affair with about 4,000 men lining up on each side. It ended in a complete defeat of the archbishop of Cologne and his allies, the counts of Luxemburg as well as a minor count, Adolf von Nassau. In particular the Luxembourg suffered horrible losses, including several of the count’s brothers. It also re-arranged the whole regional politics. The city of Cologne shook off its archepiscopal overlord. The counts of Berg hugely expanded their territory which would later comprise Julich and Cleves as well, bringing them up into the rank of imperial princes and would even get them to furnish one of Henry VIII’s wives.

And – spoiler alert – the  battle of Worringen also featured some of the key protagonists in upcoming episodes, Adolf von Nassau, the archbishop of Cologne and the counts of Luxemburg.

Most importantly though the count of Berg rewarded some of his supporters, the inhabitants of a village where a brook, the Dussel flows into the Rhine with city rights. And because it was a village, a Dorf as it is in German on the Dussel, he called it Dusseldorf. Who ever claimed that medieval rulers lacked creativity?

It is said that the citizens and in particular the children of Düsseldorf were so excited about the count’s generosity, they spontaneously went on to do cartwheels on the presumably still muddy streets. Doing cartwheels became a symbol of the city of Düsseldorf and since I grew up there, I too learned to do cartwheels as a child, a skill I have now long lost. But my niece and nephew who still live there are impressive cartwheelers. You see, weird German customs are not confined to Bavaria. 

If you listened carefully you may notice that I use the words German and Germany much more regularly in this and the last two episodes. And that is deliberate. Unti the time of the Hohenstaufen, the history had been very much one of the empire and the empire in that era was perceived by its rulers and even by many in Europe as a universal empire. Its language was Latin and its politics were heavily focused on the papacy and Italy. Most of its rulers came from the German lands, but their ambitions went well beyond Germany. The reason this period is part of German history has more to do with the 19^th and 20^th century historians that incorporated it into the national narrative than the actual reality on the ground.

The story we are going through now, though still very much involved with the rest of europe, is more centered on the lands north of the alps, including what is today Germany. Its rulers were seeking their fortunes no longer in the south but within North and Eastern Europe – with exceptions obviously. And they became a lot more German. Frederick II preferred to write and speak Sicilian dialect and his chancery excelled in courtly Latin. Rudolf on the other hand spoke German and  changed the language of the royal administration to German. The culture of the royal court and the courts of the territorial princes culminated in the Minnesang, the German language version of courtly love. We are in a period of transition. I came across a book by Len Scales, professor for medieval history at the university of Durham talking about how the German identity was forged in the late Middle Ages between 1245 and 1414. I have listed it under the book recommendations for this season on the website. I am still working through it but what I have read so far resonates strongly with my own understanding, so expect more of that ilk as we go along.

But before we go there, we need to talk a bit more about cold hard power politics. And that is going through a transition as well. Though Rudolf heavily emphasizes the return of imperial lands and rights to the crown, he is also a ruler in the new mould. No longer is kingship or imperial power a function of the role alone, but it now rests more and more on the resources the ruler controls as his own fiefs or outright property. That concept is known as Hausmacht, probably best translated as the power of the imperial House.

Having started out as a powerful count in Swabia, but not as imperial princes and with an income that was dwarfed not just by Ottokar II but even by the archbishop of Cologne, Rudolf needed to elevate his and his a family’s  wealth if they wanted to hold on to the throne.

The first set of lands and rights he was eying up were the duchies of Austria, Styria and Carinthia he had wrestled from Ottokar II. After the battle of Durnkrut he stayed there for another 3 years, bringing his whole stay in Vienna to five years, a very long time for a medieval king who was supposed to be peripatetic showing himself all over the empire.

The reason for the long stay was that he wasn’t yet duke of Austria, Styria and Carinthia. Yes he controlled them, but only in his role as king of the Romans, not as his own or his family’s fief. And that makes a huge difference. The difference being that if a new king of the Romans was elected upon his death, the duchies would go to him, not to his sons.

So what he needed to do was to enfeoff the duchies either to himself or to one of his sons. That should be easy, after all, Rudolf is the king of the Romans and as such should be able to grant fiefs to whoever he liked. That is how things worked in England or France or Poland or Hungary. But there was a problem, a problem he had created himself, at least to a degree.

When Rudolf set up the revindication policy, that is the program to return former imperial lands back to the royal purse, he stated that all lands have to be returned that had not been enfeoffed by the king and the electors acting together.

That requirement of having the electors signing off to the transfer was needed to overcome all those awards granted by the weak kings of the interregnum. For instance king Richard of Cornwall had confirmed Ottokar as duke of Austria in 1269. If that award had been valid, there would not have been grounds enough to throw Ottokar off the land.

The explicit proviso that the electors needed to sign off wasn’t entirely Rudolf’s invention. In the past most large scale enfeoffments, in particular the award of whole duchies happened at imperial diets which allowed for an involvement of the imperial princes in the decision. So it was an established process that the king could not just enfeoff someone all by himself. But up until Rudolf, the involvement of the imperial princes was not formalized. In particular there wasn’t a list of princes who needed to be consulted. An imperial diet was able to act even if some imperial lords had failed to attend. But now, Rudolf said that was not enough. All seven electors had have signed off.

To make clear what he meant, he also firmed up who these electors were. And these were the seven electors we know today, the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier, the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg and the Count Palatinate on the Rhine. Why those? Well, apart from the archbishops, they had all married daughters of Rudolf.

So what is the problem. Well the problem is that if all awards of lands and titles in the past are invalid without signatures from all seven electors, well then all future awards also require these signatures.

And so for Rudolf to become duke of Austria or at least one of his sons to get the title, Rudolf needed the consent of all seven electors. And that wasn’t so easy any more. As we heard last time, the imperial princes had initially supported Rudolf’s attack on Ottokar II. But once they realized that they had made the “poor count” into a powerful magnates, their enthusiasm waned. And so might have the lure of Rudolf’s daughters.

Negotiations dragged on until 1282 before he could cajole the electors into enfeoffing Austria, Styria and Carinthia to his two sons, Albert and Rudolf who were to hold the duchies in common. That was a somewhat unusual construct and probably came about because king Rudolf did not want to go through the process twice should one of his sons die in the still incessant warfare. But it also hints at a Habsburg specialty. The Habsburgs throughout their history acted as a clan. Yes, there was always an individual in charge, the emperor or the king of Spain etc. but all these archdukes and archduchesses kept working on supporting the success of the dynasty. Sure they had their squabbles and some will be extremely violent. But overall, they operated as a block. That was certainly a contributing factor in their success but also explains the need to bring the meandering branches of the family back together by marrying the cousins, which had some well known implications. This acting as one dynasty goes back to before Rudolf, but manifests itself on the imperial stage for the first time here.

Though Rudolf had been confident that Austria was in the bag after his victory over Ottokar, he did not believe this was enough. The electors had made it clear that he could not take Bohemia from Ottokar’s heir, so he started looking for alternative options.

His first target was the almost forgotten kingdom of the Arelat, the theoretical successor to the kingdom of Burgundy. The last emperor to have been crowned king of Burgundy had been Barbarossa who had received the crown in the city of Arles in Provence, hence the name of the kingdom, the Arelat. Rudolfs plan was to make his son Hartmann the king of Arelat. That would not require the agreement of the electors, which made it easier. What made it harder was that the Arelat was the property of Charles of Anjou, the king of Sicily, one of the most powerful men in Europe. But Rudolf had obtained the support of Pope Gregory X for this adventure as an inducement for him to go on crusade. That effort did end with 18-year old Hartmann being run through by a Savoyard nobleman in his attempt to get south. Rudolf was much aggrieved by the loss of this, his favorite son and intended successor.

Meanwhile He had opened up another frontier in Swabia where he tried to gain his son Rudolf the duchy of Swabia that was vacant since the fall of the Hohenstaufen and its lands had been distributed amongst whoever had been quickest with the sword. So to achieve the elevation of young Rudolf to duke of Swabia, some noble lords needed to be relieved from their properties. Egon, count of Freiburg was one of the targets, amongst others. But this effort ran into stiff resistance from another important Swabian lord, Count Eberhard of Württemberg. The Württemberg’s had been counts palatinate of Swabia since time immemorial and held a strong position controlled from their home in Tübingen. They gathered a coalition of Swabian lords unwilling to be expropriated in the interest of the House of Habsburg and after a half-decade of war, the two Rudolfs gave up on that project.

The other main objective for Rudolf and his sons was to obtain the imperial crown. And initially the chances were pretty good. After all it had been Pope Gregory X who had demanded that the electors choose a strong leader who would mount the much prophesied imperial crusade to the holy land. Pope and king met in Lausanne and agreed All Saints Day of 1275 as the date for the coronation in Rome. It was Rudolf who did not make it as he was tied up with the conflict over Austria. Pope Gregory X died in 1276.

Gregory’s successor, Innocent V was a lot less accommodating. He demanded that Rudolf gave up all imperial rights in the Romagna. That was a largely theoretical demand since the empire had very limited if any influence in Northern Italy at this stage. But Rudolf had just recently added the title Semper Augustus to the title of king of Rome. That refers back to the ancient titles of the Roman emperors and translates literally as “ever exalted”. But Rudolfs Chancery mistranslated it into German as “allezeit Mehrer des Reiches” which would be “forever augmentor of the realm” in English. Therefore giving away imperial rights felt hard to square with the claim to forever increasing the size of the empire.

Pope Innocent V died before negotiations could be concluded. The next two popes also lasted barely a few months, one of them, John XXI, the only Portuguese ever to become pope, was killed when the roof of his medical laboratory collapsed.

The next one, Nicolas III was of a more robust constitution. He lasted 2. ½ years, which seemed a lot compared to his predecessors. It was enough for Pope and king conclude their negotiations and even set another date, but then Nicolas III unexpectedly lost consciousness and died.

Entering stage left pope Martin IV who was another upgrade in the longevity stakes. He lasted 5 years. But that was no use to Rudolf since he was a strong supporter of Charles of Anjou, the king of Sicily who did not want any German ruler coming south and challenge his control of Italy.  Charles of Anjou and Martin IV died in 1285, which re-opened the possibility of an imperial coronation. Another date was set for 1287, but this time the roadblocks were up in Germany. The bishops refused to raise the funds for an Italian campaign, punishing Rudolf for his implicit support for the cities who were wriggling out of episcopal control.

Rudolf had survived 8 popes, who with only one exceptions were willing to crown him, but he still did not manage to get to Rome and become emperor.

The implications of that failure went well beyond having to live with the diminished prestige of being just a King of the Romans.

Under the previous three great dynasties, succession from father to son was usually achieved by having the son elected king of the Romans whilst the father was still alive. That allowed the ruling family to formally recognise the right of princes to elect the emperor whilst at the same time ensuring the succession.

But to be able to have the son elected king, the father has to first be upgraded to emperor. There has not been a precedent in the empire of having two Kings of the Romans in parallel. And even in France where such arrangements had been more typical, dual kingship had not been practiced since the 11^th century.

So without an imperial coronation, the only way Rudolf could hope to ensure the continuation of his dynasty on the throne was by receiving firm commitments from the electors that they would choose one of his sons.

At which point there is the question, which of his three sons should be put forward. Albert was his eldest son and should have been the natural candidate. But two things made his candidature difficult. Albert had taken on the administration of the Austrian lands whilst his father and brothers pursued all these projects in the Arelat and in Swabia. And whilst a competent manager, he was also a harsh taskmaster who instilled little sympathy amongst the electors. And there was the problem that Austria was the immediate neighbour of the most important secular elector, the king of Bohemia which had historically been a source of constant conflict.

So king Rudolf tried to push his younger sons. First Hartmann who however died very young in 1281 and then the other, Rudolf. Rudolfs candidature was going reasonably well and king Wenceslaus II of Bohemia agreed to support young Rudolf in 1290, which would have brought the votes from Brandenburg and Saxony along. That was no mean feat given that king Rudolf had defeated Wenceslaus father in a battle where he had also perished.

But the premature death of young Rudolf in 1290 stopped this plan in its tracks. Albert, the duke of Austria was the only son left and the one nobody liked.

Sons wasn’t the only thing Rudolf was running out of, he was also running out of time. He had already been 55 years of age when he was elected in 1273. If the electors had hoped he would only last a few years, they must have been quite thoroughly disappointed. Rudolf stayed on for a full 18 years. But by 1291 he was seriously old. Medieval rulers who spent most of their life on horseback, interspersed with the occasional battle did not last to be 73. Even Frederick Barbarossa who contemporaries regarded as exceptionally long lived, expired aged 67 in a shallow river in Anatolia.

On July 14^th, 1291 was the end of the road for Rudolf von Habsburg. Seeing his end approaching he had travelled to Speyer, the burial place of the great Salian emperors to die. 2 days later he was entombed next to Philipp of Swabia in Speyer Cathedral. His gravestone features an incredibly lifelike portrait of the King of the Romans holding his sceptre in his right hand and wearing a mantle featuring the imperial eagle and the Habsburg lion. You can see an image of it in this episode’s artwork though you have to be aware that the rather prominent nose had been added in the 19^th century based on a chronicler who had described it as so large, it cast its own shadow.

So, was Rudolf’s reign a disappointment as Martin Rady stated?

I am not in the habit of evaluating or ranking medieval rulers, but what I find surprising is that Rudolf did not get anywhere as much airtime in the German national narrative as he may warrant.

Not only is he the founder of the House of Habsburg, arguably the most significant European dynasty. But he also made major contributions to the political structure of the Holy roman empire that would last for another 500plus years. He settled the list of electors, he established the system of the Landvogte that later transitioned into the imperial circles, he revived the Mainzer Landfriede that became one of the constitutional bases of the empire. He transitioned royal power into the Hausmacht model, where the emperor relied more on his personal possessions than the royal domain and he fostered the network of imperial cities that is the reason Germany today has multiple commercial, cultural and political centres, rather than being all focused on a capital city. 

For someone who had such a significant impact on history, he does get very little recognition in the national narrative and the school curriculum.

I think this may have happened not despite his achievements, but because of them.

When the historians of the 19^th and early 20^th century surveyed German history, Rudolf’s efforts to stabilise the realm were actions that had led to the structure of the Holy Roman empire of hundreds of principalities only loosely connected by weak institutions, a structure they blamed for the delayed formation of a nation state. Plus a Prussian-led Germany regarded the Habsburgs if not necessary as enemies, but still a force that led Germany towards a catholic, multinational historic cul-de-sac.

After the war when the narrative moved away from the nationalistic storyline and historians sought to frame the medieval empire as a European endeavour foreshadowing the European Union, Rudolf’s inward focus and fostering of a German identity did not resonate.

We will see whether Rudolf will gain more recognition in the future as a fundamental re-evaluation of the Holy Roman Empire gets under way.

The other thing we will see is whether Rudolf’s son Albert, the one nobody likes will become king and prolong the time of the Habsburgs on the throne. I hope you will join us again next week.