The Luxemburgs become Kings of Bohemia

Henry, the new king of the Romans, just 30 years of age, tall and blond, every inch his forebearer the great Charlemagne had a one track mind. There was one thing he wanted and that was the imperial crown.

It is now 60 years since there last had been a crowned emperor. We had such an interregnum before, in the 10^th century between the death of emperor Berengar of Friuli, yes, me neither, and the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. This, even shorter gap, had resulted in the transfers of the imperial honour from the Carolingians to the rulers of the German Lands.

It was high time to go to Rome and be crowned emperor. Otherwise more people will ask as John of Salisbury had:  Who appointed the Germans to be judges over the peoples of the earth? Who gave these brutish, unruly people the arbitrary authority to elect a ruler over the heads of the people?

But to get to Rome for a medieval imperial coronation requires more than just picking up a plane ticket. First our new Barbarossa needs to assert his position in the empire, gather followers for the journey and establish peace and justice. He needs to convince the pope to send an invitation and the king of France not to send an army to stop him. Most of all he needs to calm down the Empire sufficiently so that it does not fall into anarchy whilst he is away.

And whilst he is busy making peace between the warring factions, convincing them that all he cares about is being semper Augustus, always augmenting the empire and reassuring everyone that he is not just enriching his family as his predecessors had done, that is when he walks away with the most valuable prize of them all, the kingdom of Bohemia.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans, Season 8, Episode 145 – How to make Friends and Influence People – The Luxemburgs become Kings of Bohemia

Henry, the new king of the Romans, just 30 years of age, tall and blond, every inch his forebearer the great Charlemagne had a one track mind. There was one thing he wanted and that was the imperial crown.

It is now 60 years since there last had been a crowned emperor. We had such an interregnum before, in the 10^th century between the death of emperor Berengar of Friuli, yes, me neither, and the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. This, even shorter gap, had resulted in the transfers of the imperial honour from the Carolingians to the rulers of the German Lands.

It was high time to go to Rome and be crowned emperor. Otherwise more people will ask as John of Salisbury had:  Who appointed the Germans to be judges over the peoples of the earth? Who gave these brutish, unruly people the arbitrary authority to elect a ruler over the heads of the people?

But to get to Rome for a medieval imperial coronation requires more than just picking up a plane ticket. First our new Barbarossa needs to assert his position in the empire, gather followers for the journey and establish peace and justice. He needs to convince the pope to send an invitation and the king of France not to send an army to stop him. Most of all he needs to calm down the Empire sufficiently so that it does not fall into anarchy whilst he is away.

And whilst he is busy making peace between the warring factions, convincing them that all he cares about is being semper Augustus, always augmenting the empire and reassuring everyone that he is not just enriching his family as his predecessors had done, that is when he walks away with the most valuable prize of them all, the kingdom of Bohemia.

But before we start let me remind you that the history of the Germans podcast is advertising free thanks to the generosity of our patrons. And you can become a patron too by signing up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or by making a one-time donation at historyofthegermans.com/support. Today I want to thank Marco M., Pat S., Raphael A., Tim W., Zac D. and Maxime de Hennin who have already signed up.

Now back to the show

On November 27^th 1308, the archbishops of Trier, Cologne and Mainz, the Count Palatinate on the Rhine, the Margrave of Brandenburg and the duke of Saxony as well as a great many princes of the German Lands gathered in the monastery of the Dominicans in Frankfurt. There they elected count Henry VII of Luxembourg unanimously. They praised him as “a man of peace and justice”, a warrior whose fame resonated throughout the whole of the land.  Another chronicler noted more soberly, quote “the cities were for him because he created good laws for merchants and travellers in his domain, the nobility because he was a capable warrior and had proven this in many places, especially in the fight against the Flemish”.

Upon the acclamation as King of the Romans, Semper Augustus and future emperor, the princes presented Henry VII to the people who again broke out in jubilation. The whole throng then entered the Dominican church where he was seated on the high altar. There is an illuminated manuscript produced at the court of Henry’s brother Balduin, the archbishop of Trier that depicts the scene. In that image it looks as if the new king was slotted into place by two archbishops, as if he was their puppet rather than their mighty temporal lord.

There is no mention of great festivities following the solemn inauguration, but it would be almost inconceivable that the emperor would not throw a massive banquet for the people to mark his elevation from count to successor of the great Hohenstaufen emperors. In later centuries these festivities would involve the roasting of many oxen, filled with the legendary Frankfurter sausage, though the Frankfurter made with mix of beef and pork you can get everywhere in the world is a fake invented in Vienna in 1805, which is why the Germans call that one a Wiener Würstel. This and more about the history of Frankfurt is going to be subject to a separate episode in a few weeks’ time.

Once the Oxen and the real Frankfurters had been consumed, the minstrels had downed their instruments and the last of the revellers had stumbled home, it was payday. The next few days the now King Henry VII signed one charter after another granting the various electors this or that privilege, handing over imperial lands to people he owed for his election and making solemn promises about his future behaviour.

The electors presumably took these beautifully written and properly witnessed charters and put them in the box with the same promises they had received from King Adolf von Nassau, who had disregarded them and with those from King Albrecht I von Habsburg who had disregarded them too.  And then hoped for the best.  

40 days later on January 6^th 1309 saw the solemn coronation of the new king in Aachen. We do not know who, apart for the three archbishops had come to the event. There is one source that talks about 20 archbishops, 112 bishops, 20 dukes, 60 counts and 100 barons as well as countless knights who would then be invited to celebrations lasting a full 25 days.  That would have stripped Western europe of practically all its senior princes for almost a month, so sadly untrue. But still most likely another great festivity and opportunity for Henry to shake hands and reassure people of his sincere friendship and support.

The next stop on Henry’s journey was the royal city of Cologne, where he held a great diet, attended, again, by many princes of the realm, counts, knights and burghers who came to swear allegiance to the new ruler and have their rights and privileges generously confirmed.

From Cologne the journey goes to the next place of imperial significance, the cathedral city of Speyer, burial place of the kings and emperors. Again he holds court, issues judgements and grants rights and privileges.

Next his route takes him south through Alsace, to Basel, Berne, Zurich and Constance. Then north again to Nurnberg. Everywhere he goes he gladhands the local nobility, reassures the burghers  of the imperial cities of his protection and shows the generosity, the Milte of a High medieval ruler.

I guess you may have noticed already that there is something quite profoundly different in the way Henry VII is approaching his role compared to his two predecessors. Adolf and Albrecht had almost instantly sought to leverage their position into an increase in land and military resources, fully prepared for the inevitable confrontation with the princes and the electors. Henry VII takes a very different route. He looks to become a universally accepted ruler, a first amongst equals who brings peace through good judgements and reconciliation. The last time this had been attempted was by Frederick Barbarossa in the early years of his reign.

And for that strategy to work, like Barbarossa, Heny must show his vassals that he acts solely in the interest of the realm and that he most certainly will not go and seize every vacant fief for himself or his family.

Which leaves the question what Henry VII wanted to get out of his new title and powers, if not the expansion of his family’s lands inside the empire north of the Alps.

Older historians have argued that Henry VII was a romantic, naïve man who intended to emulate Barbarossa not just in his policies in the German lands, but also in his overall strategy. He was, they believed, hankering after the riches of Lombardy and so again entangling the empire in the intractable Italian affairs.

They were right at least as far as the geographical direction was concerned, he indeed wanted to go to Italy. And that he stated right from the beginning, in his first speech on the day of his coronation. All he did in the subsequent 2 years was preparing for a Romzug, a journey to Rome.

But the reasons for this move were subtly different. In Barbarossa’s days the empire’s hold on the kingdoms of Burgundy and Italy may have been tenuous, but was not really disputed by other powers. By 1309 that had changed. The French king was expanding his territory all along the western border of the empire. In particular the old kingdom of Burgundy was under constant strain. The Franche Comte, once part of the dowry of empress Beatrix was now de facto under control of Philipp the Fair’s son Charles. The king of France even sent troops into Lyon, nominally an imperial city. The kingdom of the Arelat had been on the negotiation table several times these last few decades. In Italy the Angevins, cousins of the French king held the kingdom of Naples and exerted their power north into Rome, the papal states and the Romagna.

Persistent rumours had been circulating in the empire that Henry’s predecessors had offered abandoning the right to the imperial crown in exchange for papal endorsement for the creation of a hereditary regnum Teutonicum, a kingdom of the Germans. Not much truth may have been in these stories, but they were reflected enthusiastically by writers and thinkers outside the empire. Many argued like John of Salisbury who had said: “Who appointed the Germans to be judges over the peoples of the earth? Who gave these brutish, unruly people the arbitrary authority to elect a ruler over the heads of the people? End quote.

As the empire’s power waned following the death of Frederick II such voices gained more and more strength. In particular the popes could not see the need for an emperor, now that the leadership of Christendom had so comprehensively been concentrated in the hands of the Holy Father. Pope Boniface VIII declared in 1300 that “We are emperor” and some years later pope John XXII stated that Italy had no connection to the Kingdom of the Germans.

Equally from a French perspective it became increasingly hard to understand why the most powerful monarchy in europe, a monarchy that traces its roots to Charlemagne was denied the imperial title, leaving it to the disunited people on the eastern side of the Rhine and their feeble shadow of a king.

Historic research has found no evidence that there had been any papal-French conspiracy to actually deprive the prince electors of the right to choose the future emperor, but that does not mean the Holy Roman Empire as I was, wasn’t under sever threat.

And these concerns must have weighed even more on someone like Henry VII whose homeland was on the western side of the empire and who had grown up at the French court. He had seen first hand how capable the Capetian system was in translating flimsy legal documents into tangible positions of power. And how the French monarchs were able to play the long game. This may be the second time they have failed to gain the election of one of their own as king of the Romans but how many more times can they be rebuffed. And what stops Philipp IV from picking up pope Clement V, put him on a ship and go down to Rome with him and get crowned emperor, sixty years after the last emperor had been excommunicated and deposed?

And what could the French lawyers do with the Codex Iuris of the emperor Justinian that declared the emperor to be omnipotent, his word to be law across the whole of Christendom? At a minimum, the old duchy of Lothringia and with it Henry’s homeland of Luxemburg would brought under vassalage to the French crown, no longer an imperial principality with all the freedoms and rights that entailed.

So from Henry’s perspective it was vital to get down to Rome now, not just to secure the succession of his son, as his predecessors had focused on, but for the sake of the empire, his inherited principality and his family.

So, from the first day of his reign, Henry VII planned his journey to Rome. Everything was driven by this objective.

And Henry had a couple of reasons to believe he could achieve what his predecessors had failed to do.

The first obstacle the others had encountered had been papal resistance or if not outright resistance than exaggerated demands to give up the imperial right over the Romagna or Tuscany. But in 1309 the situation was somewhat favourable.

Henry VII had met pope Clement V personally when he served at the French court. They weren’t firm friends, but on several occasions the pope had indicated to Henry’s friends and associates that he rated the young man. And we should not forget that Clement V’s lacklustre support for Charles of Valois candidacy had been one of the reasons the electors could elect Henry in the first place.

The relationship seemingly warmed and a delegation, led by count Amadeus of Savoy, the dauphin of Vienne, the count of Saarbrucken and the bishops of Chur and Basel was sent to obtain a formal invitation to come to Rome. It is telling that the people Henry sent bear names we have not heard much of in the last 100 episodes. All of them were from the kingdom of Burgundy or the western border of the empire. Their territories had gradually fallen off the radar of the emperors and been increasingly pulled into the sphere of French influence. But they were Henry VII’s neighbours and relatives, people he knew best and who could speak, not only on his behalf but also on behalf of the parts of the empire under threat of French encroachment.

Their mission prove a success. On July 26, 1309 Clement V announced that upon review of the election documents he, in consultation with his brother cardinals, recognises his most beloved son, the elected Henry to be king and that he deemed it fit and proper for him to be elevated to emperor. He would be crowning Henry in St. Peters Basilica in Rome on the day of the Purification of the Holy Virgin, February 2, 1312. He even apologised for not being able to come earlier, due to an important church council.

That was a great achievement for Henry’s embassy and a bold move by Clement V. At this point in time the French king Philip the Fair who had Clement more or less in his power had not yet made any noises as to whether he supported his former vassal’s plans to become emperor. In the days before the move of the church from Italy to France, the French-leaning popes had pretty much outright refused to crown a king of the Romans.

Clement V’s declaration is an act of defiance, an attempt of the papacy to wiggle out of the clutches of the French rulers.

As anyone who has ever been invited to a fancy party in Rome knows, getting the invite is a big thing, but then you still have to find a way to get there.

And for a future emperor getting the Ryanair flight for 29.99 excluding luggage, seating and food was not an option. A future emperor has to arrive looking like he is already an emperor. He needs an entourage, preferably a whole army, expensive gifts, crowns and a lot of bling. Henry VII had the kind of entourage, expensive gifts and bling commensurate with his position of an imperial prince, but that is not even remotely in the same league. So, from the day he received the invitation from Clement V he began collecting friends and allies willing to take the arduous journey with him. And the friends and allies would only be able to join him if they could be sure that their lands would not be attacked by Henry’s enemies whilst they were away.

So, Henry picked up his non-existent copy of “How to make Friends and Influence People” and got to work. First up, he makes friends with the Wittelsbachs, the count Palatinate and the duke of Bavaria. The Wittelsbachs were the most powerful family after the kings of Bohemia and pretty much on par with the Habsburgs. And they had tried to get one of their own in as king of the romans and had been rejected three times already. So they needed to be appeased. To that effect Henry VII offered them an alliance underpinned by a marriage proposal and a busload of cash.

Then we have the Habsburgs. The descendants of Rudolf and Albrecht had now been in possession of Austria and Styria for plus minus 30 years, but still their position was not as robust as they may have hoped. Not too long ago Adolf von Nassau had tried to dislodge them using some viable legal arguments. So Henry promised them to reconfirm their enfeoffment with the two duchies, declared the murderer Johann Parricida an outlaw, staged a splendid funeral for Albrecht I in Speyer Cathedral and threw in a couple of thousand silver coins to seal the bargain. Still things did not go quite as smoothly as hoped because some rugged peasants in the alpine valleys at the bottom of the Gotthard pass had risen up against Habsburg rule in anger – something about little boys and apples apparently. Henry VII felt compelled to grant these guys immediacy, in other words released them from the Habsburg overlordship. Surely we will never hear of these guys ever again – or probably in a few weeks in a special episode. In any event this nearly led to a breakdown in negotiations. With a bit more smoothing and finesse however, Henry managed to achieve a standstill agreement with Frederick the Handsome and his brothers. All was good there.

Then he allowed king Adolf of Nassau whose body had been dumped on a monastery near Speyer by Albrecht I to be buried with full honours in Speyer cathedral which gave him some kudos with Adolf’s admittedly small group of friends and followers.

That leaves the two largest remaining issues, Thuringia and Bohemia.

Thuringia plus the margraviate of Meissen  had been claimed first by Adolf von Nassau and then by Albrecht von Habsburg. What irritated the noble houses of the empire about that was for one the potential increase in wealth and power of whoever got hold of these at least technically very wealthy lands. But even more concerning was that these lands had been seized despite legitimate heirs to the previous prince, Albrecht the Degenerate were alive and kicking. If that precedent was to stand, the whole system of inheritable principalities was at risk. So Henry formally renounced all royal claims to the territory and signed a peace agreement with the heirs to the house of Wettin.

Now finally we get to Bohemia. You may remember that the old Slavic dynasty of the Premyslids had  died out when king Wenceslaus III had been murdered. The nobles of Bohemia had then chosen Henry of Carinthia, the brother in law of the last king to wear the crown of Saint Wenceslaus. That had brought the Habsburgs into the game. King Albrecht I as king of the Romans declared Bohemia a vacant fief and expelled Henry of Carinthia. Albrecht’s son Rudolf, he of the sensitive stomach then became king. That same Rudolf succumbed to his digestive ailment shortly after that and the ousted Henry of Carinthia returned to Bohemia. That setback did not discourage Albrecht I who was in the process of gathering an army to oust henry of Carinthia a second time when he was murdered by his nephew.

Therefore in 1308 Henry of Carinthia was sitting in Prague as king of Bohemia. Henry of Carinthia had been the only Prince elector who had not voted for Henry VII, neither in person nor by sending an ambassador. That made it awkward, but since nobody really questioned the election outcome not a serious impediment to a journey to Rome. As far as the king of the Romans was concerned, Bohemia did not pose a problem.  

But it became his problem when a delegation from the nobles of Bohemia approached him at a diet in Heilbronn in June 1309. Things in Bohemia they reported had taken a bad turn. Henry of Carinthia had locked horns with the high aristocracy and the clergy of the kingdom. As far as I understand, Bohemia was a difficult realm to run. The golden King, Ottokar II was only known by his gilded moniker outside his homeland, back in Bohemia he was known as the iron king for the harshness of his regime. And when he came under pressure from Rudolf I, the people rose up against him. Rebellion was and remained in the Bohemian blood and – as most of you probably know – will manifest at crucial moments in the history of the Holy Roman Empire, usually involving people falling out of windows. This time there were no windows involved as far as I know, but still Henry of Carinthia faced an ever mounting opposition.

The delegation from Prague had come to ask for help in preventing a civil war. Should the Carinthian be toppled by the nobles, the Habsburgs would almost certainly get involved in a Bohemian conflict, which in turn would force other princes to support Henry of Carinthia just to keep the acquisitive Habsburgs in check. And then there would not be anyone spare to come to Rome, leaving aside the issue that Henry’s prestige as the guarantor of peace and justice would vanish down the drain.

Henry was lucky enough that one of his closest advisors and supporters, the archbishop of Mainz, Peter von Aspelt had been a close advisor of the Premyslid kings of Bohemia, knew the political landscape well and commanded the respect of the parties involved.

Peter von Aspelt, Henry VII and the Bohemian representatives negotiated a deal. Henry VII would declare Bohemia a vacant fief on the grounds that Henry of Carinthia had no right to inheritance and had lost the support of the nobles and people of Bohemia. Then one of the remaining available Premyslid princesses, Elisabeth, would marry a member of the House of Luxembourg. The nobles and people of Bohemia would then elect this person as king of Bohemia, Henry would sanction the election and enfeoff him, Henry of Carinthia would be thrown out and with that the problem was solved.

In July 1310 at a diet in Frankfurt, Henry obtained the consent of the imperial princes and in particular of the Prince electors to depose Henry of Carinthia and allow Henry VII to enfeoff the kingdom to one of his relatives. At that point the person everybody had in mind for the future king of Bohemia was Walram, Henry VII’s brother, a choice the prince electors in particular could live with.

Only after the electors had consented did the Bohemians turn around and insisted that it should not be Walram, but Henry VII’s oldest son, John they wanted to marry Elisabeth and become king. The most likely reason for the switch was that John was only 14 at the time and hence more susceptible to the influence of the Bohemian magnates.

Elizabeth was brought across from Prague to marry little John in Speyer Cathedral on September 1, 1310. Henry VII set off for Rome just 20 days later, sparing but a tiny contingent of soldiers for his son’s campaign to acquire Bohemia. It fell to Peter von Aspelt and others to organise the campaign in Bohemia that would bring the House of Luxembourg one of the richest territories not just in the empire but in the whole of europe, the material basis on which their 130 year long reign over the empire was based.

Again, many historians looked at this move by Henry VII with astonishment. How could he leave this lucrative campaign in the balance for a wild adventure in the south and some imperial bling. But to me it makes perfect sense. Gaining the imperial crown was the #1 objective at this point and for good reason. Moreover, if Henry VII had gotten himself involved in the Bohemian campaign, redirecting the resources gathered for the coronation journey towards the enhancement of his family fortunes, where would that left his political position. The princes would have turned around and concluded he was no different from Adolf and Albrecht and hence would have contested the Bohemian crown. By walking away and leaving one of the Prince electors, the archbishop of Mainz no less in charge makes this look like a campaign run by the empire for the empire, not a campaign run by the emperor for his own personal benefit.

On September 20, 1310 at Colmar father and son together with their wives have a last meal. The codex Balduini shows the scene the next morning when Henry and John share a last embrace before each sets off with their respective armies to meet their respective destinies.

The army Henry VII led to Italy counted some 5,000 men. The days when all the imperial princes owed the newly elected king service on his way to Rome are long past. For this undertaking Henry has to rely heavily on friends and family. First and most prominently there are his brothers,  Balduin, the archbishop of Trier and Walram von Luxemburg and his brother in law, count Amadeus of Savoy. There were old allies from the western side of the empire, including three counts of Flanders and counts and knights from the imperial territories in Swabia and Franconia. The bishops of Augsburg, Basel, Constance, Genf, Eichstaett, Liege, Trient and Chur as well as a few abbots came along too, not only for spiritual support. Of the great imperial princes, only Leopold of Austria joins for the whole endeavour.

This army has often been described as small, and it is true that this force was smaller than the forces Barbarossa or Henry VI had taken into their wars with Milan and Sicily. But this was not meant to be a campaign of conquest. Henry VII had come upon the invitation of pope Clement V.. He had been negotiating with the Italian cities for months ahead of the trip and could expect safe passage down to Rome. The army was there to display the power of the new emperor and to break the occasional resistance one had to expect in these uncertain times.

The army travels via Berne, Murten and Lausanne to the pass of Mont Cenis. From there they descend into Piedmont and arrive in Count Amadeus of Savoy’s capital, the city of Turin in the first week of November 1310. News of the arrival of an emperor spreads like wildfire.

Dante Aligheri writes a letter calling him “the comfort of the nations, and the glory of thy people”. He was not alone in hoping that finally after 60 years a prince of peace returns to Italian soil, a land riven with divisions, caught in a near perennial civil war between Guelphs and Ghibellines, a land abandoned by the papacy.

From all we heard so far, our hero, Henry VII is the man for the job. He will sort out Italy once and for all, or will he? Find out next week when we follow Henry there and back again…   

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