Episode 228 – The Princes and the Emperor
In 1500 the imperial estates stripped the Maximilian I of power. Why did they create their own imperial government? And did it work?
Episode 227 – Landsknechte vs. Swiss Mercenaries
Why are the Swiss called the Swiss – and how did the first encounter between the two famous Renaissance forces, the Landsknechte and the Swiss Reisläufer turn out?
Episode 226 – A Grand Plan for a Great War
Europe’s political landscape is shifting fundamentally. And Maximilian I has a grand plan to get rid of the French, once and for all
Episode 225 – The Ewige Landfrieden (Public Peace) of 1495
Maximilian I declared an eternal public peace In 1495 and established two courts, that shaped the unique relationship Germans have with the law
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 220 – The Burgundian Experience(s)
Maximilian, newly crowned King of Romans, gets imprisoned by rebellious Flemish citizens during a turbulent power struggle.
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.