The Beginnings of the Habsburg Dynasty

In the small town of Muri, about halfway between Zurich and Lucerne stands a grand baroque abbey. And when I say grand, I mean seriously grand, St. Blasien kind of grand. Its central dome is to this day the largest such structure in Switzerland and its interior, created between 1743 and 1750 is a perfect example of the Rococo style. If, like me, you always associated Switzerland with Calvinism and its abhorrence of decoration, such a structure may come as a surprise.  An interior thronging with naked putto’s holding up coats of arms whilst playing wind instruments is something you are more likely to associate with Bavaria or Austria.

And with Austria, you may not be so far off the mark.

To the right of the main altar, facing the chancel you see two kneeling figures, a man and a woman. Above it reads – obviously in Latin quote: “In this basilica lies Radebot, the first count of Habsburg and his wife Ita, the duchess of Lorraine and founder of this monastery, as well es their son Adalbert, their daughter Richeza” and several others.

As always with the Habsburgs, there is a debate whether these people were indeed buried here, whether it was Ita or Radebot’s brother Werner who had founded the monastery, whether Ita was indeed a daughter of  the duke of Lorraine and so forth. What is fact is that Radobot built a castle, known as the castle of the Hawk above the nearby city of Brugg in around 1030. Hawk, in German is Habicht and the Habichtsburg became abbreviated to Habsburg and that became the family name. Who Radobot’s father was and how he acquired his lands and castles is ultimately unknown, making him the oldest known ancestor of Europe’s most enduring dynasty.

If you leave the main church at Muri and turn left you find a small chapel dedicated to our Mother of Loreto. The cult of Loreto is based on the belief that the house where Maria was visited by the archangel Gabriel and where Jesus grew, up was transported to Loreto in Italy by angels in 1291 when the crusader state in the Holy Land had collapsed. Quickly a basilica sprung up where the modest brick building had miraculously appeared on day. Soon thousands of pilgrims came hoping for healing or forgiveness available on such a holy site. Loreto inspired dozens of replicas across Europe. I saw one in Prague this summer which I very much enjoyed. And the grand abbey of Muri did not want to miss out. In 1698 the monks built their own Holy House. Like most Loreto chapels it is divided into two rooms, the virgin’s living room with an altar at its end and then behind the altar, the holy kitchen with the holy chimney.

And if you were allowed to go behind the altar and look through the metal grille into the chimney you find two vessels. One says: CAROLI AVSTRIAE IMPERATORIS AC HVNGARIAE REGIS COR IN DEO QVJESCAT and the other ZITAE AVSTRIAE IMPERATRICIS HVNGARIAE REGINAE COR INSEPERABILITER CONIVGIS CORDI IVNGATVR. Brief translation: the first says: “The heart of Charles, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, may it rest in God”. And the second “The heart of Zita, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, be inseparably joined to the heart of her spouse.” One heart belongs to Charles I, the last of the reigning Habsburg monarchs, who abdicated in 1918 and whose body was never allowed to return to Austria, and the other to Zita, his wife, who was put to rest in the Imperial crypt in Vienna with 145 other members of the family. Only their hearts are still together.

Two couples, marking the beginning and the end of the remarkable political career of a family that ruled half of europe and a lot more for centuries. And at the same time, two couples who were deeply rooted in their religious convictions. Two very typical Habsburg couples, connected across 900 years.

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Transcript

In the small town of Muri, about halfway between Zurich and Lucerne stands a grand baroque abbey. And when I say grand, I mean seriously grand, St. Blasien kind of grand. Its central dome is to this day the largest such structure in Switzerland and its interior, created between 1743 and 1750 is a perfect example of the Rococo style. If, like me, you always associated Switzerland with Calvinism and its abhorrence of decoration, such a structure may come as a surprise.  An interior thronging with naked putto’s holding up coats of arms whilst playing wind instruments is something you are more likely to associate with Bavaria or Austria.

And with Austria, you may not be so far off the mark.

To the right of the main altar, facing the chancel you see two kneeling figures, a man and a woman. Above it reads – obviously in Latin quote: “In this basilica lies Radebot, the first count of Habsburg and his wife Ita, the duchess of Lorraine and founder of this monastery, as well es their son Adalbert, their daughter Richeza” and several others.

As always with the Habsburgs, there is a debate whether these people were indeed buried here, whether it was Ita or Radebot’s brother Werner who had founded the monastery, whether Ita was indeed a daughter of  the duke of Lorraine and so forth. What is fact is that Radobot built a castle, known as the castle of the Hawk above the nearby city of Brugg in around 1030. Hawk, in German is Habicht and the Habichtsburg became abbreviated to Habsburg and that became the family name. Who Radobot’s father was and how he acquired his lands and castles is ultimately unknown, making him the oldest known ancestor of Europe’s most enduring dynasty.

If you leave the main church at Muri and turn left you find a small chapel dedicated to our Mother of Loreto. The cult of Loreto is based on the belief that the house where Maria was visited by the archangel Gabriel and where Jesus grew, up was transported to Loreto in Italy by angels in 1291 when the crusader state in the Holy Land had collapsed. Quickly a basilica sprung up where the modest brick building had miraculously appeared on day. Soon thousands of pilgrims came hoping for healing or forgiveness available on such a holy site. Loreto inspired dozens of replicas across Europe. I saw one in Prague this summer which I very much enjoyed. And the grand abbey of Muri did not want to miss out. In 1698 the monks built their own Holy House. Like most Loreto chapels it is divided into two rooms, the virgin’s living room with an altar at its end and then behind the altar, the holy kitchen with the holy chimney.

And if you were allowed to go behind the altar and look through the metal grille into the chimney you find two vessels. One says: CAROLI AVSTRIAE IMPERATORIS AC HVNGARIAE REGIS COR IN DEO QVJESCAT and the other ZITAE AVSTRIAE IMPERATRICIS HVNGARIAE REGINAE COR INSEPERABILITER CONIVGIS CORDI IVNGATVR. Brief translation: the first says: “The heart of Charles, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, may it rest in God”. And the second “The heart of Zita, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, be inseparably joined to the heart of her spouse.” One heart belongs to Charles I, the last of the reigning Habsburg monarchs, who abdicated in 1918 and whose body was never allowed to return to Austria, and the other to Zita, his wife, who was put to rest in the Imperial crypt in Vienna with 145 other members of the family. Only their hearts are still together.

Two couples, marking the beginning and the end of the remarkable political career of a family that ruled half of europe and a lot more for centuries. And at the same time, two couples who were deeply rooted in their religious convictions. Two very typical Habsburg couples, connected across 900 years.

The Habsburgs make their first appearance at the top table of the European political scene more than 200 years after Radebot and Ita had founded or had not founded the great abbey at Muri. One of their descendants, Rudolf von Habsburg was elected King of the Romans in 1273. Later on Habsburg mythology will describe him as a poor count who rose to kingship on the back of merit and Christian humility. It is said that he once handed over his horse to a priest so that he could reach the dying in time for the last sacrament, an act of enormous generosity since a fully trained warhorse cost a fortune and not every priest could be trusted to bring such a valuable item back. And Rudolf, we are told, could not afford such generosity. He was a man of modest means whose simple coat drew the derision of the imperial princes draped in robes made from cloth of gold.

But these are just tales, tales told to emphasize the family’s piety and sobriety, manufactured in the great PR machine they kept humming along from their earliest days. In reality the Habsburgs were very rich, rich enough to be amongst the most significant backers of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II when he cut is way to the imperial throne in 1212. Radebot’s descendants had gained significant territories in Alsace, the Breisgau and what is today German speaking Switzerland through the usual combination of ruthlessness, smart political maneuvering and fecundity. But what had turbocharged their wealth was a bridge. This bridge across the Schöllenen Gorge was built around 1230 and opened up the Gotthard pass, then and now one of the most important and shortest Alpine crossings. The Habsburgs controlled several of the cities at the foot of the mountain, including Lucerne, and acted as vicars over the Swiss cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden which covered the northern side of the pass. Tolls from this road allowed the family to fund further conquests across the former duchy of Swabia and the kingdom of Burgundy.

Rudolf came into his inheritance when he was 22. Though the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II is still around, the whole structure is coming apart. Popes and emperors were at daggers drawn. In 1246 an antiking was elected and imperial power was fading away. This was the Interregnum and it was dog eat dog time.

Inheritances that in the past would have gone to the crown to be enfeoffed to a loyal vassal of the emperor, were now divided up amongst the most aggressive of their relatives. And Rudolf was very good and very lucky at that particular game. He did benefit from the unusual fecundity of his family which had placed sons and daughters into the bloodlines of practically anyone who was anyone in the south west of the empire. Which meant that when other families, less blessed with powerful loins, expired, there was always a Habsburg claim in the mix. During his career as a serial heir, several important families were dying out or weakened. One was a lateral branch of the Habsburgs whose possessions he managed to consolidate. The Lenzburgs, then the Kiburgs and finally the mighty dukes of Zaehringen disappeared from natural causes. Whenever that happened, Rudolf of Habsburg was there, holding the marriage contract in on hand and the sword in the other, demanding his share of the spoils, until he had become the most powerful lord in Swabia.

This kind of life is one of perennial warfare. The annals of Basel record that in 1268 he conquered Utzenberg and some other castles, in 1269 he takes Reichenstein, in 1270 he besieges the city of Basel for 3 days, in 1271 he burns down the monastery at Granfelden and several villages and that same year he also destroys the castle at Tiefenstein, in 1272 he goes after Freiburg and destroys the surroundings of the city, and so forth and so forth.

Bishops were sort of a speciality of his. He made his name in a feud against the bishop of Strasburg who had refused to hand over another one of these inheritances. His retaliation was relentless. He did not stop until he had the bishop stripped of all his strongholds and cities, including Strasburg itself.

Once the bishop had been replaced and his successor had recognised Rudolf’s victory, all Rudolf asked for was his original demand. The cities and strongholds he handed back, allegedly without even asking for a ransom payment. According to the chronicler he did this to turn a foe into a friend and ally.

That kind of behaviour was extremely unusual in the Middle Ages. And it hints at a more general observation – that Rudolf was a strategic thinker well ahead of his time.  Outwardly he was warm and affable. But his engaging friendliness and outward humility covered a steely determination to win, and to win at all cost. Conventions of chivalry that ruled the behaviour of Europe’s elites to him were just that, conventions, guidelines to be observed in normal times but that could be broken if the occasion demanded it.

Rudolf von Habsburg was a very competent war entrepreneur and politician and quite wealthy. But that does not make you a candidate for the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. There were dozens of such counts around and more importantly, there were the imperial princes who sported lineages that included kings and emperors going all the way back to Charlemagne or even Clovis. Compared to that Rudolf’ descent from count Radebot made him distinctly nouveau riche.

Making Rudolf King of the Romans was an unusual choice, and such an unusual choice required an unusual set of circumstances.

For 23 years there had been no effective King of the Romans, let alone emperor. Instead there were two competing claimants, neither of whom spent much or any time in the Reich. This -amongst other things – prevented the largest and most populous state in Europe from providing meaningful assistance to the rapidly disappearing kingdom of Jerusalem. Hence the papacy – which had created this chaos in the first place – now demanded that a proactive new emperor was elected, who could then make his way to Jerusalem forthwith.

There was no shortage of proactive men with vast fortunes in gold and men willing to take up the burden of kingship. But the wealth in men and material was also their problem. The most eminent imperial princes, like the duke of Bavaria, the count palatine on the Rhine, the landgrave of Thuringia and the duke of Saxony were all keen. But they realized that for one reason or another they might not get the vote. So they could live with someone else becoming king, but only as long as that someone wasn’t one of their peers. And there was one they definitely would not allow to sit the throne of Charlemagne, and that was the richest of the princes, king Ottokar II the Golden King of Bohemia. Electing him would lead to a strengthening of imperial power, which in turn meant a loss of their freedoms.

And the other thing they did not want to lose were the lands they had pilfered from the now defunct Hohenstaufen family. Some of these had been personal property of the emperors, which could be taken on the basis of descent from some second cousin twice removed. But the crown lands were a different kettle of fish. These were technically unalienable and would have to be handed back should the new emperor have enough power to force their return.

These were the unusual circumstances that turned a gruff old warrior from Swabia into a perfect gracious lord.

Rudolf was a rich count but still a fraction as powerful as any of the great imperial prices. He at least pretended to be a godson of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II, bringing him the votes of those yearning for a return of the good old days.  And at the same time he had been one of the most rapacious plunderers of the Hohenstaufen inheritance, making him acceptable to the other princes who were reluctant to disgorge the properties they had stolen from the royal purse. And he was a pious man with a track record as a crusader. Best of all, he was 55 years old, so should not be around for much longer.

In a truly astounding twist of fate, the man who brokered the deal that led to Rudolfs elevation, was Friedrichof Hohenzollern, ancestor of the kings of Prussia who worked so hard to erode Habsburg power in the 18^th and 19^th century.

Surprise, surprise, Rudolf turned out to be the exact opposite of what the electors wanted. Not only did he have the temerity to live for almost another 20 years, he used this time to rebuild the financial and political infrastructure of the imperial crown. He appointed powerful local aristocrats as vogts or imperial vicars in the regions and tasked them with recapturing the crown lands. Peter Wilson estimates that Rudolf managed to bring 2/3rds of the Hohenstaufen lands back under royal control.

Rebuilding the royal demesne was however not Rudolf’s most momentous achievement.  That was a bit more self-serving. Rudolf managed to secure the duchies of Austria and Styria for his family, to which his successors would later add Carinthia and Carniola, the nucleus of the Habsburg empire.

When Rudolf ascended the throne, these duchies had been held by king Ottokar of Bohemia for over 20 years and he had the pieces of paper to prove it. If Ottokar had done the right thing and just smiled and waved, the Habsburg would never had a chance. But smile and wave was not his way.

The Bohemian king literally owned a gold mine and had acquired a huge territory that stretched from Bohemia to the Mediterranean. He was so rich and powerful, he thought, he should have become king. But that was exactly the reason the imperial princes did not want him to be king. He did not understand. How could they prefer this poor count over him, the Golden King  whose great deeds of chivalry outshone his rival’s petty squabbles on the Upper Rhine. Ottokar was sulking. When he was invited to come to Rudolf’s first imperial diet, he refused to come and certainly would not swear allegiance to the new king.

Rudolf – the smart politician he was – twisted that not as disrespecting him, but as an insult to the empire and to all the grand princes who had elected him. He raised an imperial army amongst the princes and without encountering much resistance threw Ottokar out of Austria.

Being king, he could now enfeoff his sons with the duchies of Austria and Styria, whilst Carinthia and Carniola were given to his son in law. And with that began the 650-year long rule of the Habsburgs in Austria.

Once Rudolf had added and then defended Austria against Ottokar’s attempt at revenge, the Habsburgs had become imperial princes and one of the most powerful families. But that was only step one.

Rudolf’s political plan from then on out was to create a new imperial dynasty, replicating the Hohenstaufen, or even the Salians or Ottonians. But that is where he hit a snag. The response from the Pope and from the imperial princes was clear: dream on mate. The very last thing anyone, well apart from Rudolf obviously, wanted, was a powerful emperor who could balance out the papacy and force the imperial princes back into submission. So the pope denied him the coronation as emperor and the princes an election of his son as king and successor.

Instead, when Rudolf died, they elected another “minor count”, Adolf von Nassau. Nassau tried the same trick and made a play for the Landgraviate of Thuringia which ended in a disastrous war that sucked in one prince after another. This made things so uncomfortable that the electors turned to the only imperial prince rich and powerful enough to rid them of the pesky Adolf von Nassau, and that prince was Albrecht von Habsburg, Rudolf’s son and heir. So they reluctantly deposed Adolf and elevated Albrecht, who promptly did the honors and killed Adolf – most honorably in a battle obviously.

Now that the Habsburgs were back in play, the apotheosis of the new dynasty was written high up in the skies. And initially everything was going swimmingly.

We are hitting one of those points in European history where feeble loins destroy kingdoms and let new empires emerge. Over the course of a few years, Austria’s neighbors, the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary lost their original royal families. Hungary in 1301 and Bohemia in 1306. From that point onwards these lands oscillated between short periods of glorious victories and long periods as pawns in European politics.

Given the strategic position of Austria, bordering both Hungary and Bohemia, and being geographically, demographically and financially weaker than either of them, the Habsburgs were from the getgo hugely interested in these lands. Which is why Albrecht I made a bid for both Bohemia and Hungary when their thrones became vacant.

But these efforts experienced a major setback. In April 1308 Albrecht was mustering an army in Swabia to have another go at Prague. But he never got there. At a dinner his nephew John had asked for the n-th time whether he would at some point receive the inheritance his uncle so kindly managed on his behalf. Apparently John was not happy with the response, since when Albrecht ended the dinner by handing out floral wreaths to his guests, John threw the table decorations in the face of the king and said, he was tired of being fobbed off with worthless baubles.

The next day, the first of May 1308, the king was riding back to his ancestral home on the Castle of the Hawk accompanied by only one attendant. That was when his nephew John and four co-conspirators appeared. John raised his sword and brought it down on the royal skull, making him John Parricida, John the Murderer and bringing him a life on the run. What it also brought down were the Habsburg’s chances to create a new dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors for another 200 years.

The imperial princes were in no mood to elect another Habsburg. They quite rightly feared that the next one would use his elevated position as leverage into Bohemia and/or Hungary, at which point the dynasty would become permanent. They would be even more powerful that Ottokar II had been. Hence they sought out another poor count, Henry of Luxemburg as king, later emperor Henry VII. Henry did them two favors, one was to disappear down to Italy in a madcap attempt at reliving the heyday of the Hohenstaufen, and, much closer to home, by furnishing the Bohemians with a new king who wasn’t a Habsburg.

When Henry VII died in 1313, the Habsburgs had another go at the imperial crown. This ended up in a split election between Friedrich the Handsome, the son of Albrecht I, and a Wittelsbach, Ludwig the Bavarian. The Habsburgs lost the war of succession. Still Ludwig elevated his cousin Friedrich the Handsome to co-king as a way to pacify the empire. Friedrich, despite his formal title, did not gain much influence and shuffled off his mortal coil in 1330. Friedrich the Handsome, was so insignificant, he is not even counted in the list of Kings of the Romans. And he turned out to be the last Habsburg on the throne for a 100 years.

Friedrich’s successor as head of the House of Habsburg was his brother Albrecht, called “the Wise”. That sounds promising!

And it was. Albrecht was somewhat unusual for a Habsburg in as much as he had originally been destined for the church. The Habsburgs were almost all extremely, if not fanatically pious. That however did not compel them to give up potential spares to the church. Right from the start a big part of the Habsburg success lay in placing their sons and daughters into promising positions to inherit even more territory.

Maybe there was an opening here since Albrecht was the fifth son of King Albrecht I and he had a younger brother, Otto, bringing the total to six. But against all the odds, his elder brothers all passed away, the last, King Friedrich the Handsome in 1330 as we just heard. All these guys had been fit and healthy, one of them seemingly even handsome. Albrecht was none of the above. He suffered from terrible arthritis that left him in almost constant pain, unable to walk, let alone ride. Nevertheless he was regarded as one of the most successful early Habsburgs.

Albrecht gave up on the ambitions of his elder brothers and submitted to emperor Ludwig the Bavarian properly. And he was amply rewarded for this. In 1335 emperor Ludwig the Bavarian enfeoffed Albrecht with Carinthia and Carniola, setting aside the claims of the previous duke’s daughter, the famous Margarete Maultasch. I did a whole episode about her remarkable life, so I will not go on about the shenanigans that went on there again.

The rest of his near 25 year old rule was taken up with consolidating his power within the duchies and scheming to deprive Margarete Maultasch of her other, much richer possession, the county of Tyrol. It is during this period that the family is shifting its focus away from their ancestral homeland in the duchy of Swabia to their new territories in Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola. The Habsburgs moved into the Hofburg in Vienna and became Austrian.

But still this otherwise so sedate and sensible reign was built on feet of clay. By 1338, Albrecht and his wife Joan had five sons in 15 years of marriage, but none of them survived childhood. His younger brother Otto  had now died as well, followed by Otto’s two teenage sons. And none of his elder brothers had ever produced a son that lived.

The House of Habsburg, famed for its fecundity, was about to expire. And if it had, fierce wars of succession between the Wittelsbachs and Luxemburgs would have destroyed the land. It goes to show how fragile these dynasties were, when the six sons of Albrecht I, each one married and attempting to procreate could find themselves out of heirs within a generation. And if Albert II had not undertaken a pilgrimage to Aachen, and the lord’s swaddling clothes had not done their thing, the Habsburgs would have ended up as just a footnote in history.

But the miracle happened and Joan gave birth to a son, Rudolf in November 1339, and then three more, Friedrich in 1347, Albrecht in 1349 and Leopold in 1351.  And talking about miracles, at the birth of Leopold, she was 51 years old.

These three boys, minus Friedrich who succumbed to a riding accident, continued the line of the family. And not just that. Rudolf, the eldest, would go on to forge the ideological and political foundations of the casa di Austria that would go on to rule the world. But that is something we will look into next week.

And before I go, just a big thank you to all of you who are supporting the show. Your encouragement in all its forms, not just financial, is what keeps this podcast going. So from next week I will again name individual patrons. If you are a patron or want to become a patron, go to my website, historyofthegermans.com/support and sign up there. And let me know If you wish to have your full name read out to be there for eternity, or if you prefer just first name and initial.

Last thing, if you want to go into more detail on the things I mentioned in this episode or hear them in a different context, go to the episode website – the link is in the show notes. I have included hyperlinks to previous episodes where we discussed these topics, namely episodes 138 to 143 about Rudolf I and Albrecht I, 150 about Friedrich the Handsome and 152 about Margarete Maultasch.

And with that, saddle up and lets get going with the Fall and Rise of the House of Habsburg.