Morgarten and Mühldorf
The 14th century is a time of epic change in practically all areas of social, political and economic life. It is a time when the certainties of the Middle Ages are replaced by a process of trial and error, sometimes successful, but almost always violent. New frameworks of how society and in particular the religious authorities should operate, how political power should be distributed and how economic growth could be preserved at a time when the climatic benefits of the medieval warming period has come to an end. Ah, and then there was the Black Death.
In this episode we will talk about the political dimension of this change. First how the conflict between the three dominating houses, the Habsburgs, the Wittelsbachs and the Luxemburg pans out, though whilst the mighty lords believe it is all about marriage alliances and knights dominating the battlefield, the ground on which their mighty warhorses are galloping is shifting….
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 150 – The Last Chivalric Battles – Morgarten and Mühldorf, also episode 13 of Season 8: From the Interregnum to the Golden Bull.
The 14th century is a time of epic change in practically all areas of social, political and economic life. It is a time when the certainties of the Middle Ages are replaced by a process of trial and error, sometimes successful, but almost always violent. New frameworks of how society and in particular the religious authorities should operate, how political power should be distributed and how economic growth could be preserved at a time when the climatic benefits of the medieval warming period has come to an end. Ah, and then there was the Black Death.
In this episode we will talk about the political dimension of this change. First how the conflict between the three dominating houses, the Habsburgs, the Wittelsbachs and the Luxemburg pans out, though whilst the mighty lords believe it is all about marriage alliances and knights dominating the battlefield, the ground on which their mighty warhorses are galloping is shifting….
But before we start a couple of housekeeping things. We have now reached episode 150, which means if you have listened to every episode you would have listened for 311,361 seconds, 5,189 minutes, 86.5 hours or 3 days,14 hours and 29 minutes. I salute you.
I also know that for anyone coming to the podcast these figures are intimidating. Therefore I have gone down further in my attempt to break the show up into seasons. That does not lead to any changes on Spotify, Pocket Casts and many other platforms. If you however listen on Apple Podcasts you may have noticed that you get displayed just one of the seasons, so to listen to previous seasons you will have to go to the seasons tap and select another one. And you may have noticed that I have changed the episode art. The images that accompany the individual episodes now prominently display the name of the season to make it easier to find out where you are on the timeline. The episode art now also feature the HotGPod colours, namely the rather distinctive gold I have taken from the image of the German flag in the main podcast icon. I hope you like these changes, however, if you feel these are a distraction or make life more difficult for you, or any other reason you do not like them, let me know.
And with that, all that is left to do is to say thanks to our patrons who keep the History of the Germans advertising free. This week I would like to recognize KeithF67, Matt L., ANDREAS OLIVER B., Brian Earl, Ronald H. and Gabe C. who have kindly signed up to the show. Last and final reminder, if you want your full name read out in the episodes, please let me know through the email function at patreon.com/historyofthegermans.
But now, back to the show.
Last week we ended with a brief exploitation of the triangle of power at the death of emperor Henry VII. Three families have emerged from the Interregnum that had begun with the death of Frederick II in 1250. These were the House of Habsburg, dukes of Austria as well as major territorial lords in what is today South West Germany. Switzerland and Alsace. The House of Luxemburg whose youngest scion, John had risen to King of Bohemia whilst his uncle, Balduin was archbishop of Trier aka an elector as well. And finally the House of Wittelsbach that controlled Bavaria and the Palatinate.
This is a new constellation. Up until now we had the situation that there had been one all-powerful candidate, that the electors could unanimously reject by electing a comparatively minor territorial prince instead. Having three more or less equally powerful blocks provides the first test of the system of the seven electors, and I am afraid, it failed miserably.
And that despite a reasonably promising start. The arguably most powerful block were the House of Luxemburg that controlled two votes directly, Trier and Bohemia and worked hand in glove with a third elector, Peter von Aspelt, the archbishop of Mainz.
But Balduin of Trier one of the most astute politicians of the age realized fairly soon that finding that fourth vote necessary for a majority was hard to come by. Either electors feared an even more powerful Luxemburg clan, or they objected to the Luxemburg candidate, the 17-year old king John of Bohemia who was already a bit of a loose cannon. Actually there were no cannon yet in 1314, that will take another 12 years before we see the first one of those, but loose he definitely was.
If they could not put their own man on the throne, they were still insisting that the throne would not go the Habsburgs. A Habsburg king, they feared, would put their only recently acquired kingdom of Bohemia at risk. Remember that the Habsburgs had held Bohemia for a very brief moment until the murder of King Albrecht I and have never completely given up their claim
The solution to Balduin’s problem was obvious. An alliance with the Wittelsbachs would give them a 2:1 advantage over the Habsburgs. And by some amazing coincidence, there was a Wittelsbach around who not only opposed the Habsburgs, but had beaten Frederick the Handsome in the battle of Gammelsdorf, and that Wittelsbach was Ludwig, he of monkey tower’s fame.
It sure took some effort to convince the young ruler of Bohemia that he would not become king or even emperor, but Balduin and Peter von Aspelt got him to grudgingly accept.
So an election was called for the end of October 1314 in Frankfurt. And as ordered, the electors and many other nobles, bishops and princes gathered on a field called Frankenerde outside Frankfurt where according to all the wise men, all emperors had been elected since time immemorial. In fact, some but not all emperors have been elected in Frankfurt, but by no means all and god knows in which meadow that took place. But perception is reality and by 1314 the one and only place one could be elected was this muddy ground outside the gates of the free and imperial city on the Main River.
Ludwig and his allies were fairly certain of victory. Not only did they have the votes of Trier, Mainz and Bohemia, but the margrave of Brandenburg and the duke of Saxony had agreed to support the Bavarian, making if five votes. As for the remaining two, one was Rudolf of the Palatinate, after all Ludwig’s own brother and the other was the archbishop of Cologne. Tradition would dictate that in case of an overwhelming majority for one candidate, the other electors would fall in line.
That was the tradition, but it wasn’t written down in law. The wholes system of the seven electors was purported to have been thus since time immemorial. The lawbooks of the time, the Sachsenspiegel and the Schwabenspiegel both name the electors and the process referencing ancient lore going back to Charlemagne. But they are not identical and the premise on which they are built is not correct.
In other words, there was a grey area here and into that grey area rode Frederick the Handsome, duke of Austria, son of King Albrecht I and grandson of King Rudolf I. And with him were the archbishop of Cologne, the count Palatinate of the Rhine and surprise, the duke of Saxony and the king of Bohemia. Hang, did I not say the duke of Saxony and the king of Bohemia were in the Luxemburg camp? Well, yes, they were. And since they could not be in two places at once and collect election bribes in both, there must be another explanation.
And that had to do for one with the incredible title inflation in the empire I had already mentioned and for the other with the constantly shifting Bohemian politics. The duke of Saxony in Frederick’s camp was the duke of Sachsen-Wittenberg whilst the dukes in Ludwig’s camp there were three dukes of Sachsen-Lauenburg. All of these dukes were descendants of Albert I of Saxony who had split his lands between his sons, one getting Wittenberg and the other Lauenburg. Then the Lauenburger had three sons, each the having their own duchylet. The two main branches of the family were obviously perennially feuding with each other, and were also in dispute about who had the voting rights in the imperial elections. Hence two ducal votes for Saxony.
Whilst this was an inconvenient but predictable complexity given the feud over the election rights had been going on for a decade and was well publicized, the fourth elector in Frederick’s train was a genuine surprise, Henry, duke of Carinthia, who as you may remember had held the throne of Bohemia for short periods, twice. First he was expelled by the Habsburgs and the second time by the Luxemburgs. And in both cases he was easy to throw out because he had rubbed the Bohemian nobles up the wrong way. But, and that is important here, he had never given up his claim on Bohemia. So Frederick recognized his claim and hey presto he had a fourth elector.
And, without hesitation, these four electors voted for Frederick the Handsome as king of the Romans.
Meanwhile at the other end of town, Ludwig, Balduin and Peter were flabbergasted. The whole idea of the 7 electors had been to avoid having a split vote and two kings. And now we do. What should be done? Give up their claim in the interest of the unity of the empire, or electing Ludwig as planned and starting a civil war.
They clearly did not need much time to come to a conclusion on that one. Ludwig, counted as Ludwig IV was elected the next day.
Excellent, now we have two elected kings. It was clear who had the stronger claim to be properly elected, but election is only the first step to kingship. We may be in the late Middle Ages and much of the theocratic nature of kingship had eroded, in particular in the empire, but rituals still mattered a lot. And the first ritual would be for the city of Frankfurt to open its gates and letting the new elected king in to celebrate mass in St. Bartholomew. At that mass the king would then be placed on the altar of the church by the electors. I am not sure how exactly the physical process took place. In one image we have it looked as if indeed the king was lifted up like a child and then sat down on the altar.
Whichever way this elevation was effected, by the afternoon it was Ludwig the Bavarian who sat on the altar of St. Bartholomew
Next and most importantly was the coronation. Frederick the Handsome had a distinct advantage here. He had the correct archbishop the one of Cologne, and, he had the imperial regalia, the Holy Lance, Imperial Crown, Imperial Cross, Sceptre, the purse of St. Stephen, stockings, shoes, gloves, etc., etc. So all he needed was to get to Aachen and he would have the full set. And if he did, that would have probably offset the rather dodgy nature of his election.
But the citizens of Aachen refused to let him in. Not having brought an army with siege engine to his coronation, Frederick had to turn back. Cologne where the mighty cathedral was going up at that same time turned him down too. He was eventually crowned in Bonn, a small town in Germany as John le Carre called it. Wrong place but right archbishop and right sort of kit.
Meanwhile Ludwig found a much friendlier reception in Aachen. So Ludwig managed to get crowned in the right place, but by the wrong archbishop and with a fake crown.
If you want to keep score, Ludwig is ahead in legal terms 3 to 2. Ludwig has been elected by more and more credible electors, has been admitted and raised to the alter in Frankfurt and had been crowned in Aachen. Frederick has the correct archbishop and the imperial regalia. By the way, nobody seems to know why Frederick had the imperial regalia. Either they were never handed over from Albrecht I to Henry VII or they had somehow been kept by the archbishop of Cologne.
In any event, legal-shmegal, none of this mattered any more. Given the degree to which the empire has come under papal oversight, it would have been the pope or a church council that could have resolved that question, based on the law. But pope Clement V had died in April 1314 and his successor, John XXII wasn’t elected until August 1316. Without a judge there was no trial.
A civil war ensued and whoever wins the fight would be king. Sounds pretty straightforward, so the next thing to talk about should be a great battle, lines of armoured men crashing into each other, foot soldiers sitting on the grass watching the spectacle, lots of dead people, ransom payments and done.
Well, there will be all that, but it took 8 years before that great battle took place. For eight years Frederick the Handsome and Ludwig of Bavaria would raise armies, march about, burn down each other’s villages and occasionally badly defended towns, but no decisive battle. Five times the two forces faced each other across a potential battlefield and five times nothing much happened.
For most of these last 150 episodes, we watched the players marching around in search of the enemy and once they had found him, they attacked. Evading battles did happen, but usually only in cases where the odds were truly overwhelming. This war by walkabout only came into vogue in the late 13th and early 14th century. Why was that?
It had much to do with the way armies were recruited in the late Middle Ages.
In the Early and High Middle Ages the military consisted mainly of vassals, i.e., men who were bound by oath to serve a lord or king for a specified period with a specified number of soldiers and arms. In the time of the Ottonians and early Salians, these vassals were predominantly the bishops and abbots who provided 2/3rds of the forces. Under the late Salians and certainly under the Hohenstaufen, armies began to gradually transition. The obligations of the bishops and abbots had been scaled down after the Investiture Controversy, though they still played an important role. Temporal vassals had scaled down their obligations ever further to only one foreign campaign, the Romzug, the coronation journey to Rome, but otherwise served only north of the alps.
That was nowhere near enough for Barbarossa, Henry VI or Frederick II who each led multiple expeditions into Italy. To fill the gap, the emperors increasingly relied on Ministeriales who were technically unfree and hence there was no limit to how often they could be called up and where they could be sent. Another way to motivate fighters from Germany was the promise of loot in the rich Italian lands, but that had some obvious downsides when the idea was to establish a functioning Italian administration. It also did not work when the campaign was going badly – exhibit A: the battle of Legnano.
As we go into the late 13th and early 14th century the Ministeriales are shedding their status as unfree men and become the imperial knights, the Reichsritter. These men are very keen on warfare and extremely competent, but they are no longer fighting for free. They had to be paid. War became a business. Successful commanders would build up companies of fighters for hire. This happened all over Europe, in France they were called the Grand Compagnies or Routiers, in Italy the leaders of these companies were called Condottiere and some commanded veritable armies that cities would hire for a season or more to fight against another city, only to find them on the opposing side the next year. The war entrepreneurs in the empire north of the Alps were smaller scale and not as sophisticated, but essentially the same thing.
As businessmen they tried to extract as much cash as possible for as little fighting as necessary. In order not to waste their valuable resources of trained men, armour, weapons, horses, siege engines and the like, they preferred to just wander about in enemy territory, burn and plunder but evade battle. Going into battle for real was something that was done rarely and then mainly for marketing purposes – who would hire a mercenary who runs away every single time.
So, for eight years the Habsburgs and Ludwig and his allies pumped what would be billions into these mercenaries in the hope of forcing a decisive engagement and for eight years that money was effectively wasted. Mostly what it was spent on was the ever more elaborate armour and dress of the knights that makes the 14th century such a visually arresting period.
This is the time when chivalric fashion goes properly off the reservation. Bunches of peacock feathers on elaborate helmets, whole swans or bears carried like Marie Antoinette’s whigs, horse covers made from the most expensive cloth and that is before we talk about the shiny armour. And once off the horse, the men were sporting these newfangled leg-covers called trousers. Instead of the old tunic and long socks their grandfathers were wearing, the heroes of the 14th century were dressed in tight leggings, usually the left side in a different colour to the right plus a short, sometimes even a mini skirt. On their feet they wore pointed shoes, the poulaines that grew ever more elaborate until they had to be rolled up and attached to the knee by a piece of string to allow the men to be still able to walk.
The rise of the mercenary armies means a war, in particular a war lasting 8 years is fought by tax collectors, not by generals. And if we look at the ability to raise money, Frederick the Handsome and his Habsburg relatives were in a much stronger position than Ludwig. Ludwig had his own lands in Upper Bavaria but for the rest of the Wittelsbach resources he had to rely on his relatives, his brother Rudolf and his cousins in Lower Bavaria, in particular Henry, called “the Older” of Lower Bavaria.
As a consequence he was heavily dependent upon his allies the Luxemburgs, which was pretty much the kind of set-up Balduin of Trier had aimed for. The problem with the House of Luxemburg and king John of Bohemia in particular was that they were not quite as solidly established, as resourceful and as reliable as Ludwig may have hoped.
John of Bohemia never really settled in Bohemia. He derived his legitimacy from his marriage to Elisabeth, daughter of king Wenceslaus II. That marriage was not going well at all. Elisabeth had grown up during the succession crises following the murder of her brother and on several instances had been the rallying point for one or other faction in Prague. She was not excited about getting married to a man we would today diagnose with extreme ADHD. John could not bear the idea that someone, somewhere was fighting and he was not taking part. No battle, no tournament, no Prussian crusade was complete without the king of Bohemia. There were years where he would squeeze in a melee at the royal court in Paris, a crusade in Prussia and a campaign in Hungary, interspersed with imperial diets in Nurnberg and sieges of Italian communes. And in between the fighting it was courtly love, just without the abstinence bit.
That was all very chivalric and gave him the arguably greatest of all medieval deaths, but it wasn’t a way to run a kingdom. And Elizabeth was very much keen on running a kingdom, specifically hers. The spouse became increasingly estranged and the split encouraged the powerful Bohemian nobles to rebel. So for quite a while John had to interrupt his great vertical and horizontal adventures to fight wars against his barons. And that meant John had often neither men nor money to spare to support Ludwig. In fact at some stage Ludwig had to divert his own forces to bail out John.
Which leaves the question, how did Ludwig survive for 8 long years? One trick was to lure the Habsburgs into over hiring a huge army and then hide behind the walls of the big cities that even these armies could not break.
The other strategy was based on a more fundamental shift. Ludwig might not have been good with his own money, but he did notice that other people were, and these were the people in the cities. The 14th century was a period of rapid growth for cities in Germany, roughly 2 centuries after the Italian cities had started their meteoric rise. We might do a separate episode on the growth of trade in the 14th century, but the broad outline is as follows.
In the early and high middle ages, trade operated mainly on the North – South Axis, luxury goods from the mediterranean was shipped north in exchange for textiles from Flanders and silver and gold mined in the Harz mountains, Bohemia and Saxony. In the 13th century and then even more in the 14th and 15th century, East-West trade routes were established that opened up Hungary, Poland, Bohemia and then Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states. Their main exports were agricultural products like wheat and rye as well as fish, furs, metals and beeswax. We had a close look at the Hanseatic League already, but around the same time places like Nurnberg, Ulm, Ravensburg became international centres of trade whilst other, long established cities like Regensburg and Augsburg received boost. The southern cities also established pre-industrial production of goods, which would later make them famous for their armour, silverware, clocks etc.
These trends meant that despite the falling agricultural production across Europe thanks to the beginnings of the little ice age, the cities, specifically the big cities engaged in long distance trade flourished and became very rich. If you visit some of the classic German medieval cities, Nurnberg, Rothenburg, Regensburg, Erfurt, Dinkelsbühl, Nördlingen etc., you find that the majority of the buildings date back to the Late Middle Ages, not the High Middle Ages.
And Ludwig would build his career on being supportive of the cities, specifically his own cities in the lands he controlled and the imperial and free cities. In exchange the cities provided Ludwig with funds and men, seemingly enough for him to sustain the Habsburg attacks. It is another sign that the Middle Ages are waning when the cities tilt the balance in a struggle between the contenders for the imperial crown.
But the – in my eyes – most significant military event took place outside Bavaria and in another conflict. A conflict that involved one of the parties in the imperial civil war, the Habsburgs.
As you may remember, the Habsburgs rise to prominence and wealth was fuelled by the opening of the Gotthard pass when a bridge was constructed over the Schoellenen Gorge in the in the early 13th century. If you take a look at the map, what you notice is that the Swiss Cantons on the north side of the pass are called Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden. Yes, what we are now going to talk about is the early history of Switzerland. Now, as always with national histories of countries other than Germany, I run the risk of offending people. Let me assure you, this is not my intention. That being said, there are a lot of myths surrounding this story and whilst everyone now agrees that Wilhelm Tell never existed, there are other, more persistent stories that are also largely debunked. And then there is a whole lot of stuff we do not know. So here is what I believe happened based on what I found in the sources:
The people of these three cantons had been living a pretty harsh and difficult life before the Gotthard pass opened up. Society was no different to the rest of europe, meaning that a few noble families lorded it over the local peasant population. The opening of the trade route did change this situation fundamentally. There was now work in helping to transport goods across the mountain, providing food and shelter for travellers and offering “security” in inverted commas. Some peasant families became quite wealthy and the general population saw their living standards improve. That being said, there were no real cities in these three cantons, the first one a traveller reached coming across the Gotthard was and is Lucerne. Nor were the local nobles able to become mighty barons.
That being said, the strategic importance of the region was recognised. The emperor Frederick II granted them immediacy, meaning they were subject of the emperor directly, not of any territorial lord. I cannot find who ruled these lands before and it seems sort of nobody or nominally the dukes of Swabia, aka emperor Frederick II.
The arrangement was broadly accepted, including by the now most powerful local family, the Habsburgs, as the Habsburgs held the role of imperial vicar over these cantons. This remained the case when Rudolf I became king.
Things became more difficult in 1291 when Rudolf of Habsburg died. The commonly held view is that at that point the three cantons signed an agreement of mutual support. The point of this agreement was not necessarily defence against Habsburgs overreach, but more as a way to protect themselves and the Gotthard trade from the upheavals following the death of the king. Such agreements had been fairly common in times when there was no central authority protecting the population.
Whether this agreement was indeed made in 1291, or in 1307 in the form of the Rutli Oath, or even later on 1315, just before the events I will talk about in a moment cannot be confirmed. Nor can it be confirmed when and how the Habsburg reeves were expelled from the three cantons. We do know that Wernher of Homberg, who had become imperial vicar in Italy for Henry VII, had also been an imperial vicar there, possibly even in 1315.
The first conflict between the Swiss and the Habsburgs began when farmers from Schwyz occupied land belonging to the abbey of Einsiedeln. The disagreement intensified and the abbot convinced the bishop of Konstance to excommunicate the canton of Schwyz. The Swiss retaliated by attacking the monastery, taking the monks captive and ransacked the abbey church.
This was a provocation for the Habsburgs as protectors of Einsiedeln. So duke Leopold, the brother of Frederick the Handsome took some of his mercenaries that had again failed to lure Ludwig into battle and led them to Schwyz. Leopold, like every other commander of his day believed that armoured men on warhorses could only be overcome by other armoured men on warhorses. Ever since Otto the Great had routed the Hungarians on the Lechfeld in 955, the knight in its various incarnations had ruled the roost.
Leopold was so confident, he barely scouted the territory he was entering. After all, these are just a bunch of peasants led by a small band of local nobles. They aren’t real fighters. What would they be able to do.
Well quite a lot as it happened. The Swiss had built barricades across all the major roads leading into the canton of Schwyz. Leopold feigned attacks on some of them, but took his main force on a road along a lake called the Ägerisee. The path between the lake on the right and the mountains on their left was narrow and so his army column became stretched. At that point the Swiss attacked, rolling tree trunks down the hill and pelting the horses with rocks. The knights had no room to manoeuvre, many were flung into the lake by their terrified horses and drowned. Others died when the peasants tackled them with a new weapon, the halberd. The Halberd consists of a 1.5 to 1.8 metre long stick with an axe blade and topped by a spike, plus a hook on the other side of the axe blade.
The Halberd was specifically designed for foot soldiers fighting armoured riders. The spike and axe, if expertly administered could cut through the visors and other gaps in a knights armour. The hook was used to pull the rider off his horse, making him much more vulnerable.
It is here at this battle, called the battle on the Morgarten that the Halberd was first recorded and it had a devastating effect. The forces of Leopold of Austria, one of the most highly regarded commanders of his day were almost entirely wiped out. Numbers are as always unreliable, but chronicles talk of 2000 men, 1,500 of whom died, which would make it not an army, but still a sizeable force. Leopold escaped by a hairs breadth.
The battle on the Morgarten did not yet prove that a largely peasant army equipped with halberd could defeat a force of knights. Much of the success was down to the topography and the foolishness of the commander. It was 70 years later, at the battle of Sempach when the Swiss and Habsburgs square up on an open battlefield that the superiority of a Swiss infantry will be proven. The halberd, together with the crossbow and longbow broke the superiority of the knight on the battlefield, even before firearms became ubiquitous. So one can argue that it was here on November 15th, 1315 in the mountainous lands below the Gotthard pass that another key building block of medieval society had started to crumble.
But before that happened, there will be another battle, the battle we, or at least Ludwig and Frederick had been waiting for, the battle that was to decide who would wear the crown of the empire. And that was a battle very much along the lines of a medieval, chivalric encounters with all the pomp and circumstances that came with it.
The set-up was very similar to Gammelsdorf, only much larger in scale. As last time Frederick the Handsome was bringing a force up from Austria, whilst his brother Leopold came in from the Habsburg ancestral lands in the South West. And the bishops of Salzburg and Lavant were bringing up forces from the south. As before, Ludwig could not afford for all three columns to jopin up.
Frederick’s army consisted of Austrian knights and their supporters as well as Kumans and Hungarians, who were apparently the cheapest option amongst the various mercenary companies. By now even the rich Habsburgs were running out of cash and Frederick was unable to maintain discipline in his ranks. His army, Hungarians and Austrians alike were living off the land, robbing and plundering, not only enemy territory, but the Habsburg lands as well. He joined with the Salzburg forces in Passau.
Ludwig meanwhile had gathered his forces in Bavaria. Apart from his own Bavarians he had hired mercenary knights from the Rhine valley and Franconia, had gathered his main allies, king John of Bohemia with his significant force and duke Henry the Older of Lower Bavaria. And importantly the forces of the Imperial and Bavarian cities.
On September 27th the two armies met at Mühldorf, roughly halfway between Munich and Passau. Even though his brother Leopold had not yet arrived, probably delayed by Ludwig’s forces, Frederick decided to seek battle and Ludwig accepted. Neither side could face going home again and doing the same thing again next year.
The next morning both sides heard mass, had breakfast, put on their armour and lined up for battle. This, everyone knew, was going to be the real battle. The mercenaries, usually conscious not to waste their resources knew that this was one of the few occasions where it was worth fighting hard to build their reputation. No more playing at war this time.
The commanders made fiery speeches to their men, offered rewards for exceptional bravery or key successes like the capturing of the enemy flag, etc., etc….
And then the heralds blow the trumpets and the lines started moving. No surprise that John of Bohemia was the first out of the box, leading his forces straight at the archbishop of Salzburg. After the first almighty clash it becomes a fight man against man. But this time it is not over after an hour or so. The battle of Mühldorf goes on for eight hours. Eight hours in armour hacking at the enemy sounds almost impossible to me. Most likely there had been breaks in between when both sides retreated so that the dead and wounded could be removed from the battlefield. Once they were cleared away, the two sides got back to the hacking and killing.
For much of the time it looked as if the Habsburgs were winning. King John of Bohemia was unhorsed but, as Austrian sources claim, had been saved by a treacherous Austrian knight. Ludwig himself who was not wearing his royal garb but a modest blue coat with silver crosses also fell but was rescued by the bakers of Munich who were allowed to carry the imperial eagle as their coat of arms in recognition for their bravery.
What decided the encounter were the reserve forces under the Burgrave of Nurnberg, a Hohenzollern, that had spent almost all of these 8 hours patiently waiting for their moment. And once that moment came, these fresh forces easily overwhelmed the now exhausted Austrians. That was it, battle over.
Mühldorf is broadly considered the last European battle fought almost entirely by knights in shining armour. The next major engagement was the battle of Crecy in 1346 that was decided by the English and Welch Longbowmen. The participation of John of Bohemia in both events is the only thing they have in common.
Ludwig and his allies had won and made a huge number of prisoners, including Frederick the Handsome himself and his brother Henry. These prisoners were distributed amongst the various commanders, their ransom acting as the victory bonus promised before the battle.
When Ludwig came to see Frederick in the Bavarian castle he was confined in, he greeted him by saying, cousin, rarely have I been so happy to see you in this place. Frederick allegedly either did not respond or said, rarely have I been so unhappy to see you.
The fight for the imperial crown is over. Ludwig had won, and he had won comprehensively. Leopold of Austria might still be keen to continue the fight, but it is basically over. There is a problem though. What was Ludwig supposed to do with the defeated anti-king? In previous wars over the succession, the defeated opponent had the decency to die either in battle or shortly afterwards. But Frederick the Handsome was still very much alive, in reasonable heath and not particularly old. Keeping him in prison for the next 30 years would be considered inhumane by medieval standards, in particular when both jailor and jailed were both grandsons of king Rudolf.
Moreover, How could Ludwig go down to Rome to be crowned, when his adversary was still alive and could become the focal point of the resistance. Resistance that might be encouraged by the new pope, John XXII, who as we will see becomes Ludwig’s most implacable enemy.
Ludwig will find an unprecedented solution to that problem which was another step away from the medieval world towards the early modern period. And that is before he makes an even bigger move that redefined not just the relationship between pope and emperor but that between church and state in general.
But for that we have to wait until next week. I hope you will join us again.
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