Archives

Episode 224 – The Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire

The Reichstag, the assembly of the electors, princes and cities of the Holy Roman Empire was weirder but more effective than usually believed

Episode 223 – A Diet of Worms (1495 Edition)

The long awaited refom of the Holy Roman Empire gets under way – smooth is not the word one would use…blackmail and ruder words are used

Episode 222 –Italian Wars and Spanish Marriages

When king Charles VIII of France marched into Italy in 1494, the medieval political world collapsed and is repalced with something new…

Episode 221 –Taking Back Control

Maximilian returned to the Empire in 1489 to find thingsin a mess. Cousin Sigismund was wasting the family fortune, the enemy still held Vienna and teh imperial princes were unhelpful in the extreme

Episode 102 – The Great Divide

The Investment Controversy came about through a confluence of three major strains, the rise in piety in the wake of improving economic conditions, the establishment of the papacy as a power separate and superior to temporal rulers and thirdly, the opposition of the German magnates against centralising tendency of the emperors, led by the Saxons. And it is the latter part this episode focuses on.

Episode 101 – Gottschalk & Adalbert

This week we will follow the history of two men who could not be more different. On one side is Gottschalk, leader of the pagan Abodrites, who first comes to prominence as a brutal raider killing Saxons all across Holstein in revenge for his father’s killing. The other is Adalbert, son of a count, brother of the count palatinate of Saxony, friend and confidant of Henry III, a man who refused the offer of becoming pope for his ambition to convert all of Scandinavia and the Baltic.

Episode 100 – The Saxon War (Take II)

The conflict between Saxons and the empire is now hitting the hot stage, resulting in a rebellion that precedes Henry IV in Canossa.