Albrecht II (1438-1439)

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The Holy roman empire on the Threshold to the early modern period

I typed “What does a typical German town look like” into Perplexity.ai and it came up with half-timbered houses, cobbled streets and alleys, medieval architecture, greenery and decorations and regional variations. And that is not half bad, unless you come to Berlin, Hamburg, Munich or Cologne in search of any of the above. But at some point in time even Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne were full of half-timbered houses on cobbled streets and alleys overlooked by medieval churches and town halls. And some of the smaller cities, like Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Nördlingen, Idstein, Miltenberg, Lübeck, Esslingen and literally hundreds more do indeed have all of the above features.

But these are very rarely medieval. In fact most of these half-timbered houses and even the city walls date from the 15th  and 16th century, not from the  High Middle Ages in the 12th and 13th century.

Many German histories skip over this period in order to get to the Reformation, which is a shame. Because the 15th century did not just shape the physical appearance of the country, but much of its geographical and mental make-up.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans – Season 10 – The Empire in the 15th Century.

I typed “What does a typical German town look like” into Perplexity.ai and it came up with half-timbered houses, cobbled streets and alleys, medieval architecture, greenery and decorations and regional variations. And that is not half bad, unless you come to Berlin, Hamburg, Munich or Cologne in search of any of the above. But at some point in time even Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne were full of half-timbered houses on cobbled streets and alleys overlooked by medieval churches and town halls. And some of the smaller cities, like Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Nördlingen, Idstein, Miltenberg, Lübeck, Esslingen and literally hundreds more do indeed have all of the above features.

But these are very rarely medieval. In fact most of these half-timbered houses and even the city walls date from the 15th  and 16th century, not from the  High Middle Ages in the 12th and 13th century.

Many German histories skip over this period in order to get to the Reformation, which is a shame. Because the 15th century did not just shape the physical appearance of the country, but much of its geographical and mental make-up.

This is the time when the empire reaches its most challenging phase. This is not the difficult second album, this is more Tina Turner in 1982 when her cover of shame, shame, shame reached #47 in the Netherlands charts. The emperors Sigismund and Frederick III may have been blessed with extremely long reigns, but did not bless the empire much with their presence. They spent their time mostly abroad, in Hungary and Bohemia, or in their personal territories, though with good reason.

For the first time since Otto the Great, the empire is subjected to a sustained threat from outside forces. The last invasion, the one by the Mongols, had been terrifying but mercifully brief. Now a more patient and more persistent conqueror was slowly advancing up the Balkans, the Ottomans. They were still 800km from Vienna, but 40 years earlier they had been 1,200km away.

Meanwhile the empire’s Christian neighbors, the Poles, the emerging dukes of Burgundy, the kings of France, the Venetians, the Milanese and the Scandinavian kingdoms were nibbling away at the territory of the empire, whilst the Swiss were wondering off into the Alpine Glow. The great 14th century emperor Karl IV had already given away much of the old kingdom of the Arelat, and his son Sigismund was in no position to halt the erosion in what is today’s Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg.

On the positive side, the great western schism that had burdened the catholic church first with two and then three competing popes had ended at the council of Constance thanks in no small part to the efforts of emperor Sigismund. But this great gathering of all of Christendom and its successor council at Basel had failed to deliver on its second task, the reform of the church. This inability to stamp out at least the worst excesses of ecclesiastical greed and debauchery had tipped the Bohemian reformers into a revolution, a revolution that not only lasted 16 years, but one that prove impossible to defeat militarily. It is unclear how much resonance the radical reform ideas of the Hussites had outside Czechia, but they were a sign of things to come.

With the emperors absent and the church still in deep disarray, the ball was firmly in the court of the territorial princes.

This is where we see the beginnings of actual states and state bureaucracies developing in Germany. But in a very different way to similar trends occurring in the more consolidated kingdoms of France and England. These territorial states were a whole lot smaller and a lot more fragile, which posed some unique challenges.

First up. If you are small, the question is how do you get bigger. We will look at some key players, the archbishop of Mainz, the landgraves of Hesse, the margraves of Baden and the dukes of Württemberg to see how that can and had been done. And within this sits the question of what happened to the cities. We will look at how Würzburg tried to achieve its ambition to become a free city. Then there are the imperial knights, their military role changing and their independence threatened, trying to find new ways to remain relevant and in the process develop some seriously cool outfits.

If you were a successful territorial ruler, the next challenge was to produce a male heir or more precisely the right number of male heirs. You needed at least one growing up to manhood and survive the wars and diseases to make sure your principality would continue to exist, but you did not want too many spares so that you had to divide it up into ever smaller entities. We will look at the duchy of Brunswick to understand the inherent problems and the coping mechanisms the princely families developed. And then we will look at the Wittelsbachs who provide a great example of “how not to do it” as well as a lovely story about what happens when the precious heir falls for the wrong woman.

Growing your territory in the empire was one way to glory. But there were alternative options, options that became almost a standing feature. The princely families of the empire turned into a near inexhaustible reservoir from where to pluck a king, should you happen to have mislaid the previous monarch or are in need of a new one. Over the centuries, German princes would ascend the thrones of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Poland, of course my homeland of Blighty, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and probably some more I have forgotten. Basically everywhere except for France and Italy. That process was established then and we will look into it in more detail when we discuss Pomerania and Oldenburg.

We will also touch on the great wars of the period, wars between alliances of princes, cities and knight’s associations. And these were the Bavarian war, the Mainzer Stiftsfehde, the war of the Princes and the Soester Stiftsfehde. Never heard of them? Do not worry, you are not alone. Some were straightforward wars over who owns what territory, but one, the largest of them, was over the system of appeals in the imperial law courts – go figure. We will hear all about of these wars, about a victorious Count Palatinate on the Rhine and a fellow elector they dubbed the German Achilles.

All that sounds somewhat depressing and another festival of blood and gore. But despite all this strife and feuding, this is also a time of great discovery. Gutenberg invented the printing press, a technology that would undermine the authority of the Catholic church, fan the flames which led to the Reformation, create the communications infrastructure needed for the rise of modern science and even – if Neil Postman is to be believed – lead to the invention of childhood as an extended, protected phase in the lives of young people.

Like the internet and social media, the printing press demanded new types of content: maps, encyclopedias, fiction, political pamphlets and engravings, opening the world up to the world. More universities are founded in this period than at any other time before the 1960s, churning out not just priests, but lawyers, writers and intellectuals. All these territorial princes, bishops, abbots, city councils and rich merchants demand art and architecture to celebrate their achievements and pieces made from silver and gold to amaze their guests, whilst alchemists worked deep in the bowels of castles trying to turn base metal into gold and inventing chemistry in the process.

And funding all this, the tournaments, the universities, the art and the wars were the peasants, whose conditions may be subject to debate, but whose anger becomes ever more palpable.

And all that might finally get us to  a point where these people speaking a similar language and participating in a similar culture developed a notion of being German.. you know I am skeptical about these things, but maybe it is now time to discuss it…

I am still working on the details of the schedule, but the idea is to alternate between political history and cultural, social and economic history, whilst the link from episode to episode will be geographical. We will see whether we can pull that off, but given the wealth of material, it should definitely be interesting.

If you are craving a more linear storyline to complement what is going on here, I would like to direct you to what is rapidly becoming one of my favourite history podcasts, the History of Venice. It is well thought through and beautifully presented. Simon and Jess are deeply involved with their subject and will walk you through the fascinating story of the city on the lagoon. And the good news is, they are only on episode 18, so very easy to catch up with and join what is promising to be a great ride.

As for us here, the new season “The Empire in the 15th Century” kicks off next Thursday with an episode about the appearance of the landgraviate of Hesse and why this mad ethe archbishop of Mainz very disappointed, and the archbishop of Mainz did not like to be disappointed.

See you next week.

And in case you are wondering about the delay in today’s episode, I had a serious audio software issue that distorted the first version so badly I had to delete it before it got distributed too widely. Apologies for that.

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Albrecht I von Habsburg

The late 13th century was the sniper’s alley for many a powerful family. The disappearance of great dynasties, the Arpads of Hungary, the Premyslids of Bohemia, the Zaehringer, Babenbergs, the counts of Holland to name just a few wasn’t down to lack of fertility but down to violence. Murder became so common, even those who did not have swords sticking out of their chest were presumed poisoned. To save them, some were suspended from the ceiling to flush out harmful substances. Violence was not limited to temporal princes, even the pope was getting slapped down for declaring that every Christian ruler was subject to the Roman Pontiff.

The fact that Albrecht I von Habsburg the new King of the Romans is murdered is therefore not the most interesting thing about him. What is astonishing is how far this man “with only one eye and a look that made you sick” got in his ambitions. Pressured from all sides, the Prince Electors, his own vassals in Austria, the Pope, the Bohemians, still he ploughed on, picking up principalities like others picking daisies. And a wrath of daisies is what did for him in the end…

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 143 – The Murder of a King – Albrecht I von Habsburg.

The late 13th century was the sniper’s alley for many a powerful family. The disappearance of great dynasties, the Arpads of Hungary, the Premyslids of Bohemia, the Zaehringer, Babenbergs, the counts of Holland to name just a few wasn’t down to lack of fertility but down to violence. Murder became so common, even those who did not have swords sticking out of their chest were presumed poisoned. To save them, some were suspended from the ceiling to flush out harmful substances. Violence was not limited to temporal princes, even the pope was getting slapped down for declaring that every Christian ruler was subject to the Roman Pontiff.

The fact that Albrecht I von Habsburg the new King of the Romans is murdered is therefore not the most interesting thing about him. What is astonishing is how far this man “with only one eye and a look that made you sick” got in his ambitions. Pressured from all sides, the Prince Electors, his own vassals in Austria, the Pope, the Bohemians, still he ploughed on, picking up principalities like others picking daisies. And a wrath of daisies is what did for him in the end…

Before we start the story proper I want to thank not only the patrons who keep this show on the road by signing up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans or by making a one-time donation at historyofthegermans.com/support, but I want to break a lance for all of you who keep supporting the show by telling friends and family about it, by posting on social media, in particular Facebook and Twitter, or by reading and commenting on my website. A podcast like the History of the Germans experiences some serious levels of attrition. Of the 70,000 people who have listened to the first episode, only about half are still on board by episode 4 and by episode 17 that has halved again to 20,000. In the long run, less than 17% stick around.  That is about 11,000 people now. And of those an estimated 20% drop out every 6 months. That means, just to stay level, the show needs to bring in 4,000 new listeners per year, which means we need almost 30,000 people trying the History of the Germans for the first time every year. I do my very best to drum up listeners by posting on Facebook @HotgPOd and on twitter @germanshistory but I am struggling to find new audiences there. I tried the other platforms, but had little success so far. Cross-promotion with other podcasters helps a bit, but is sporadic and limited by the fact that I only recommend podcasts I listen to myself.

In other words, I need your help. If every one of you gets 3 people to try the History of the Germans, that would translate into 4,000 new permanent listeners, enough to cover the ongoing attrition.  As a special inducement, in two episodes time I will call out the five fans who send me the longest list of friends, family, acquaintances and random people of the street they have asked to listen to the show. If you do take part, let me know whether I should call out your full name or just name and initial.

Talking about calling out names, I want to say special thanks to my patrons, Larry A., Paul Caldwell, Miriam A., Matt H., Emily P and Ben S. who have already signed up on patreon.com/historyofthegermans

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Now, finally, back to the show.

Last week we ended with the battle of Göllheim on July 2nd, 1298. The deposed king Adolf von Nassau was dead. Albrecht I, oldest son of king Rudolf von Habsburg was finally elected King of the Romans. 6 weeks later he was crowned in Aachen by the archbishop of Cologne.

Albrecht was supposed to become king seven years earlier, upon the death of his father, king Rudolf. But that did not happen, in part because the prince electors, the archbishops of Cologne, Mainz and Trier and the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg and the Count Palatinate on the Rhine had entered into a new mode of operation, where the son of a king was not to become king, full stop.

But in 1298 they had no option to deny Albrecht the crown any longer. It was either that or leaving Adolf of Nassau in charge. And Adolf had become unacceptable to the electors. Adolf had broken all the promises he had made to them in the runup to his election, promises that tied him down to be nothing but a tool in the hands of the Electors. Not only that, his successful campaigns in Thuringia and Meissen had made it likely that he too would elevate his family to become imperial princes – and where would that end.

So Albrecht became the electors champion in removing Adolf von Nassau.

Their champion he may have been, but whether they really liked, or actually supported him was a different question.

Past historians had often ascribed Albrecht’s difficulty first to be elected and then to gather support for his policies to his appearance and personality. He was described as “a boorish man with only one eye and a look that made you sick…a miser who kept his money and gave nothing to the empire, except for children of which he had many.”

He indeed had only one eye. In 1295 his physicians had taken an illness for poisoning and had suspended him upside down from the ceiling to flush out the concerning substance. As it happened, Albrecht had not been poisoned, and even more miraculously, he survived the treatment. At least most of him. The compression to the skull popped out an eyeball – so key learning from history: do not suspend yourself from the ceiling for extended periods of time unless you are certain you have been poisoned.

Apart from the loss of an eye, the time he was suspended from the ceiling had also been one of the politically most difficult periods for Albrecht. Why that was, we have to go back to his relative youth, when his father still sat on the throne.

Albrecht had become duke of Austria and Styria in 1282, initially jointly with his brother Rudolf and from 1283 on his own. Even though he was the eldest son of the reigning monarch, he pursued the same territorial strategy, many other imperial princes engaged in. His policy was to centralize ducal power. That meant removing all these special rights and privileges, the towns, cities and nobles held independently from the duke, either due to full unencumbered ownership or by grant from the emperor. And like every other prince, he faced some serious opposition to his efforts. Neither the cities, nor the nobles were prepared to hand back their hard earned rights.

The first to stand up to Albrecht were the citizens of Vienna. Hey had demanded that Albrecht confirms their ancient privileges and threatened to declare themselves as an free imperial city if he failed to do so.

Albrecht did not yield. Instead he had his soldiers close the bridges across the Danube, effectively closing the city off from trade and supply of food. The economy of Vienna took a severe hit. The artisans, blacksmiths, bowyers, locksmiths, goldsmiths, harness makers and knifemakers, saddlers, shoemakers, needle makers, butchers, bakers, furriers, tailors, wood turners, weavers, wool and loden cloth makers, parchment makers and tanners, hatters, tailers, shield makers and binders, silk spinners, tinkers and bell founders, carpenters and stonemasons, brick makers, glaziers and mirror makers, carpenters and barrel makers, belt makers and white tanners, glovemakers, producers of horn and bone goods, coin makers, stove makers and basket weavers, they all suffered from rising prices for materials and declining demand from the impoverished citizens.

As the blockade continued the price for wood and coal increased and finally food prices exploded. Hungry and losing faith in the patrician leadership, the lower classes took to the streets, demanding an end to the hardship. The local clergy negotiated a compromise. The patricians were to go and negotiate with the duke and unless they found a compromise within 6 days, the plebs would hand them over to the ducal soldiers.

There was nothing to negotiate here. Albrecht dictated the terms. He took the ancient charters and cut out all the passages he did not like with a knife and confirmed the rest. The city walls were breached at strategic points and the city returned under the now even firmer control of the duke.

Another uprising occurred in 1291/92 following king Rudolf’s death, which Albrecht was again able to put down.

A further challenge to his rule came at the election of the new king, Adolf of Nassau. King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia had been one of the electors of Adolf of Nassau. And his father had held the duchies of Austria and Styria until Albrecht’s father had ousted him from there. Wenceslaus wanted the duchies back. So, in exchange for his vote, Wenceslaus demanded that Adolf would declare the elevation of Albrecht to duke of Austria illegal and return the duchies to Wenceslaus II. Adolf’s key skill in the run-up to his election had been his ability to sign any piece of paper the electors put before him and so he committed to Wenceslaus that he would get rid of Albrecht.

Albrecht managed that latter curveball well. He met with the new king Adolf, handed over the imperial regalia Adolf needed to make his coronation valid and in exchange, Adolf suspended any action against Albrecht. But still his situation remained precarious.

The real crisis happened in 1295 during the illness that would cost him an eye. Many believed that Albrecht was at death’s door. King Adolf von Nassau thought that this was the moment to finally honor his promise to king Wenceslaus of Bohemia and ordered Austria and Styria to be returned to the crown, presumably to then pass it on to Wenceslaus II. Wenceslaus II then funded another uprising of the nobility in preparation of his return to Vienna.

But Albrecht was finally lowered from the ceiling, got into and then rose from his sickbed. He gathered his forces and put down the uprising. In his victory he was however magnanimous. He left the rebellious nobles in possession of most of their wealth and privileges in exchange for a vow of support in the now inevitable military conflict with King Adolf von Nassau.

It was this policy of stick and carrot that allowed Albrecht to remain in control of the newly acquired duchies of Austria and Styria and to finally overcome the opposition from the electors, the king of the Romans and the King of Bohemia.

So, in respect of strategy and political nous, Albrecht was very much his father’s son. I have not found a reference to him playing chess, but even if he didn’t, he was still always a few steps ahead of his adversaries. But what he lacked was Rudolf’s interpersonal skills. Contemporaries praised Rudolf’s friendliness, his affable manner and humility that camouflaged his ruthlessness. In Albrecht, his ambition and severity were very much out in the open. Maybe his lack of attractive features even before the loss of his eye had made it difficult for him to relate to others, or reports of his tight rule in Austria shaped the views of his contemporaries, but it is quite clear that nobody very much liked him. Maybe his wife liked him. She gave him 21 children, though on second thoughts, she may have had even more reason to resent him than the Austrian nobles.

But whether they liked him or not, the Austrians and other Habsburg forces did follow him in his pursuit of King Adolf that ended in his victory at Göllheim. And the Electors too got over their reservations and elected him king just before the battle.

But astute politician that he was, he did not insist on that this election made under duress and in the presence of only some of the electors was the final one. A second election took place on July 27th, 1298 now in the presence of all electors, minus the Bohemian king. Albrecht was unanimously chosen, and like his predecessor, he had signed all sorts of commitments to each of the electors promising support in lawsuits, imperial lands, money and just general compliance. And like his predecessor, he believed that paper was patient.

Who was not very patient was pope Boniface VIII back in, well not Rome, but in Anagni. The pope had to – as was now regularly the case – flee from the eternal city and established his court in the small but gorgeous town of Anagni.

These rather reduced circumstances did not stop Boniface VIII to drive the concept of the imperial papacy to its absolute zenith. In his bull Unam Sanctam he stated that quote “it is necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff”. And that meant he yielded not just the spiritual sword, but also the temporal. Kings are to be subordinates to the Holy Father and  in fact an emperor was no longer needed.

For Boniface to depose Adolf von Nassau and elect Albrecht von Habsburg was an affront. Not that he had a particular fondness for Adolf or an animosity towards Albrecht. It was a question of rank and protocol. The electors should have first asked for papal permission before making the move. When Albrecht’s ambassadors humbly asked for confirmation of his new honor, Boniface responded quote: “I am the king of the Romans, I am Emperor”.

Albrecht, the actual King of the Roman did not have either the resources or the political capital to refute the pope’s claims. He was dependent on the pope, because only the pope could crown him emperor, and only as emperor could he get his son elected and thereby ensure the continuation of his dynasty on the imperial throne.

So, he sent another set of ambassadors asking most humbly what would appease his holiness. And the answer was simple, the whole of Tuscany. The famous inheritance of the great countess Matilda was still in dispute. And the pope thought now was the time to put this one to bed. A high price indeed.

Being bullied by the pope was only one of Albrecht’s preoccupations at this time. Albrecht was very much his father’s son and he was constantly on the lookout for opportunities to expand his and his family’s lands. And this was a time where long standing dynasties had a habit of dying out or falling apart, creating opportunities for an ambitious Habsburg to pick up some more lands.

The first opportunity was up in the far north. In 1296 Count Floris V of Holland, the son of one of the previous Kings of the Romans, William of Holland, was murdered by the nobles of his county. Floris’ support for the peasants and his opposition to the aristocracy made him a folk hero, but also a dead folk hero. His son, John died just 3 years later, aged just 15 allegedly from dysentery. The county of Holland together with Seeland and Friesland were now vacant fiefs. Instead of handing them to the closest relatives of the young count, Albrecht decided to take them all for himself.

Then there was still the whole Thuringia affair. Albrecht’s predecessor Adolf von Nassau had called in the margraviate of Meissen and had bought the Landgraviate of Thuringia from a guy aptly named Albrecht the Degenerate who had been at war with all his relatives. Albrecht had not much of a legal claim in that game, but still went for it, demanding the whole of the Wettiner lands for himself.

None of that made him popular with the electors. And he also now had to deal with a new archbishop of Trier who happened to be the brother of the deposed king Adolf of Nassau, who had died in a battle against Albrecht.

Mounting opposition from the Electors and outlandish demands from the pope meant Albrecht needed an ally. And that ally was the king Philipp the Fair of France. Abrecht had become close to the handsome Philipp at the time king Adolf of Nassau had allied with king Edward of England to attack the French. The initial, my enemy’s enemy is my friend relationship warmed further when Albrecht became king.

The two kings met on the border between their realms and agreed an alliance and Albrecht’s son Rudolf who we will call Rudolf III to distinguish him from his uncle and grandfather, was to marry Blanche, the daughter of king Philipp. Now normally the bride was to bring the dowry, but the relative power between the two monarchs meant, it was the groom’s father who had to put up the goods. The Landgraviate of upper Alsace and the county of Fribourg in modern day Switzerland were to be given to Blanche as an apanage. And the county of Burgundy, the Franche Comte was to become French. That was a major concession. The county of Burgundy had been part of the empire since the days of Konrad II and the county had become imperial land when Barbarossa married Beatrix of Burgundy. Giving this up was not exactly a way to be a Semper Augustus, an always augmentor of the realm as his title proclaimed. Moreover, a new border between France and the Empire was agreed which followed the Maas river, which again handed over some imperial territory to France.

Albrecht had brought the electors along for the negotiations to legitimise this transfer of imperial territory. But he failed to get them on board. They left the conference in protest, claiming Albrecht was throwing away imperial lands for his own purposes.

Albrecht still went ahead and ratified the treaty with or without electors.

At which point another war between king and electors was unavoidable. But this time the electors did not depose the king and elect a new challenger. As it happened, they could not muster much resistance after all. Albrecht quickly mobilised his imperial forces and most importantly the free and imperial cities who became more and more the key to royal power.

Ironically the reason the Electors could not muster much resistance was because their resources had been depleted during the fight against Adolf von Nassau that had brought Albrecht to power.

And the French alliance worked out like a dream as well.

Pope Boniface’ assertion that all power lay with the papacy and every king was to bow to him did go down like a lead balloon with king Philip the Fair of France. And other than Albrecht, he was able to do something about it. He sent 2,000 mercenaries under the command of his close advisor Guillaume de Nogent to Italy. His troops stormed the papal palace at Anagni and arrested the pope. In some accounts the mercenary commander Sciarra Colonna slapped the pope, though this is not confirmed. What is true is that the pope was made a prisoner and only came free when the citizens of Anagni put pressure on the French garrison. The French withdrew.

But Boniface VIII and the imperial church were shaken to the core. Boniface VIII died a few months later from the aftershock. A few years later the papacy moved to Avignon to spend the next century under the watchful eye of a French garrison in the opposite shore of the Rhone river.

And Boniface VIII relented on the question of the imperial succession. He confirmed Albrecht’s election and coronation as valid and promised to have him crowned, should he make it to Rome.

As it happened, that never happened.

Albrecht was instead occupied with another set of opportunities. And these were really big opportunities, far larger than the county of Holland or the margraviate of Meissen.  

The first was the kingdom of Hungary. The dynasty that had started with Arpad who led the Hungarians into the Pannonian basin in the 9th century had finally gone extinct. Royal power in Hungary had been eroded for some time and the last two kings, Ladislaus IV and Anrew III had lived a peripatetic life whilst the great noble clans controlled the kingdom. Still Hungary was a rich and historically, a hugely powerful kingdom.

Albrecht had been involved in Hungarian affairs for decades already as he captured castles and territories along the Austro-Hungarian border from rebellious nobles. In the civil war that followed the death of the last descendant of Arpad, Albrecht was initially a contender alongside the Anjou of Sicily and our old friend, Wenceslaus II, the king of Bohemia. However, he had to realize that he was unlikely to ever capture Hungary against the opposition of both of them. So he sided with the Anjou, almost certainly in the hope of being rewarded should his side ultimately win.

Whilst Hungary became less of an opportunity, another prospect appeared due to a series of freak events.

King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia has been looming large over imperial politics since the death of Rudolf I. But the empire was only one of his areas of interest. Another one was Hungary, as we have just heard. And finally there was Poland. In Poland the Piast dynasty had fragmented into a dozen duchies under a purely formal overlordship of the ruler of Krakow. Wenceslaus like his father Ottokar took a strong interest in Polish affairs. I will not even try to untangle the immensely complex political maneuvers amongst the various Piast dukes here, I did some of it in episode 134 if you are interested.

What matters here is that Wenceslaus had managed to build a dominant position inside Poland, which included the duchy of Krakow. He also married the daughter of the previous Polish king Premysl II, which allowed him to get crowned king of Poland in 1300.

He also achieved the coronation of his son, the future Wenceslaus III as king of Hungary, though he only controlled part of that country..

Still, by 1303 the power of the Bohemian ruler had become deeply uncomfortable not just for Albrecht, but also for some of the imperial princes and the Pope. Boniface declared for the house of Anjou as kings of Hungary. And even though Boniface died shortly afterwards, papal support for the Anjou as kings of Hungary remained firm.

Albrecht then attacked Wenceslaus in Moravia with Hungarian support. This campaign was unsuccessful, allegedly because the miners of Kutna Hora poisoned the water with silver dust. Still Wenceslaus II needed to open negotiations with Albrecht to break him out of the coalition with the pope and the Anjou. Albrecht entered the negotiations with excessive demands, but still ended with the return of the region around Eger, Cheb in Czech and the Pleissenland. Not exactly a crown, but not a bad addition to his bulging property portfolio.

Wenceslaus II did not see the final signing of the peace agreement. He died after a prolonged illness in June 1305.

His crowns went to his son, Wenceslaus III. Wenceslaus III immediately gave up on Hungary and focused on Poland. There he faced opposition of Wladyslaw the Elbow-High, one of the Piast dukes and the man who, together with his son Casimir III would reunite Poland. So a mighty foe.

Wenceslaus was also a sort of party prince who surrounded himself with young men of a similar disposition whilst leaving the management of the kingdom to his brother-in-law, the duke Henry of Carinthia.

And on August 4, 1306 a mystery took place. King Wenceslaus III of Bohemia and Poland was stabbed by an unknown assassin at Olomouc. The assassin was never found. And with this freak event the Premyslid dynasty that had ruled Bohemia for more than 400 years was no more.

Nobody had counted on this to happen. The Premyslid kings of Bohemia had been a huge force in imperial politics for centuries and none more so than in the time of Ottokar II and Wenceslaus II. Bohemia was an immeasurably rich and tightly run political entity. No question, whichever clan was to gain possession of it would dominate imperial politics from this point forward.

The first to seize the opportunity was a man we have not yet heard of at all. How is that possible? 143 episodes with names after names. And you tell me there is a new one? Well there is.

Henry duke of Carinthia. The reason you have not heard of him so far is that up until now, Henry of Carinthia was a sort of appendage to the Habsburgs. He was born the younger son of the counts of Tyrol who controlled the Brenner pass from their castles in Innsbruck and Meran. Henry’s  sister was married to, yes, to Albrecht I of Habsburg. And that came in very handy when in 1286 the decision about the duchy of Carinthia came up.  As you may remember, Carinthia had come under the control of Rudolf von Habsburg after his victory at Dürnkrut. Rudolf would have loved to pass Carinthia to his sons as he had done with Austria and Syria, but found strong opposition amongst the electors. So he gave it to this young guy Henry on the proviso that he would do whatever the Habsburgs wanted him to do. And that Henry did. He fought with Albrecht at Gollheim and just generally made himself useful around the house.

But then he was given the opportunity of a lifetime. He got to marry Anne, the daughter of king Wenceslaus II of Bohemia. And with it came the governorship of Bohemia on behalf of the dissolute Wenceslaus III. And then the most unlikely thing happened, Wenceslaus III was murdered by an unknown assassin.

Henry just happened to be the right man in the right place. There are no male members of the royal line left. He is married to one of the female members of the family, and he is in Prague and already in charge of the place. So the Bohemian nobles elect him to be the new king.

This royal bliss lasted only a few months though.  His brother-in-law and former friend Albrecht of Habsburg invades Bohemia, besieges Henry and he and his wife flee back to Carinthia.

Albrecht now forces the Bohemians to elect his son Rudolf III to be king of Bohemia. To add to the  rather flimsy legitimacy of his ascension, young Rudolf married the widow of old king Wenceslaus III. But things did not go smoothly. Some of the Bohemian nobles were reluctant to accept Rudolph who they called king Porridge for his sensitive digestive system. They denied him access to the silver mines of Kutna Hora and forced him into a siege. And it was at the siege that Rudolf III’s stomach finally burst and with it ended the first attempt of the Habsburgs to capture the Bohemian crown.

Henry of Carinthia was recalled and this time was better prepared to repel the subsequent attack by Albrecht I.

At that point Albrecht’s forces were stretched mightily thin. Whilst his son was trying to gain control of Bohemia, the Wettins back up in Thuringia had regained their fighting spirit and inflicted a severe defeat on Albrecht’s forces.

But Albrecht was only 53, younger than his father when he took the throne. He may not have been pretty or charming, but he has been a very successful ruler in the chaotic context of his times, ruthlessly expanding the Habsburg lands. Give him another 10 years and the Habsburgs are in charge of all territory between Strasburg, Vienna, Dresden and Frankfurt plus Holland, more territory than any of his predecessors held and containing the largest known reserves of precious metal in Europe.

But as we know Albrecht wasn’t given another 10 years. I think I did say a few episodes back that part of the success of the Habsburgs was that they would act as a unit. Everyone, not just the ruler, but all the archdukes and archduchesses were working on the great project of Habsburg power. But I also said that there were exceptions, where rivalry and mistrust blew out into violent conflict. And that is what happened on May 1st, 1308.

You remember that Albrecht had a brother called Rudolf. Rudolf was their father’s preferred son. It was Rudolf who initially was to become King of the Romans, not Albrecht. And his father had tried to make him a duke, ideally the duke of Swabia. But both projects failed, mainly since Rudolf died in 1290.

Rudolf had initially been made joint duke of Austria and Styria but in 1283 the two duchies became Albrecht’s sole possessions. And with Rudolf’s death, so did the original Habsburg Possessions in Swabia.

Now this Rudolf had a son, called Johann. Johann was born shortly before his father’s death and so by 1308 he is 18 years old. And he has neither a title nor land. His mother had been the daughter of king Ottokar II of Bohemia, so if anyone in the Habsburg family had a legitimate claim on the Bohemian crown it was Johann, not Albrecht’s son Rudolf III, he of the frail stomach.

Johann was not happy about how things were taking shape. Albrecht still had five surviving sons. That meant, there was one last cane for Johann, and that was if Albrecht would make him his Bohemian candidate, now that Rudolph III was dead.

On April 30th, 1308 Albrecht came to Winterthur in the Habsburg lands. A great banquet was held and to honor his nephew, Albrecht offered Johann a floral wrath. That tipped Johann over the edge. He was expecting a crown of silver, gold and precious stones and instead all he got was some daisies. He rose up and declared he would not be fobbed off with some flowers and ran out.

The next day, when Albrecht was on his way home he crossed the river Reuss near Windisch. There Johann and his friends attacked. Johann rode up to the king and split his head without saying a word. The murderers escaped and Johann, now known as Johann Parricida was never heard of again. He made appearances in literature, even gets to meet Wilhelm Tell in Schiller’s play, but for history he is lost.

And so is Albrecht I von Habsburg, King of the Romans. He had never become emperor, which meant he had not been able to ensure the continuation of his dynasty. the electors were free to do what they now always did, deny the succession to the son of the latest incumbent. Instead, they chose another impecunious count. Will they ever learn?

I hope you will tune in again next week.

And I also hope you can find me these three friends or family members, acquaintances or just people on the street you can turn into fans of the History of the Germans. Ideally send them to the main podcast, but if they are only interested in some parts of the story, I have sperate playlists about the Ottonians, the Hanseatic League, the Teutonic Knights and for the current series, all released as separate podcasts. The links are in the shownotes.

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A Shadow of a King

After the death of Rudolf von Habsburg the electors chose another, now truly impecunious count, Adolf von Nassau to be king. They chose him over Rudolf’s son Albrecht and over the overwhelmingly most powerful prince in the empire, King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia.

This cultured and competent man became known to German history as a Schattenkönig, a shadow of a king, unable to wiggle out of his ties to the overbearing electors. Acting as mercenary in the pay of king Edward of England and failing to create his own Hausmacht in Thuringia, many history books skip over his six years on the throne.

Nevertheless, the events of his election and deposition form another crossroads in the history of the German lands that set the Holy Roman empire further down the path to become neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 142: Adolf von Nassau – A shadow of a King. This is also Episode 5 of Season 8: the Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356 .

After the death of Rudolf von Habsburg the electors chose another, now truly impecunious count, Adolf von Nassau to be king. They chose him over Rudolf’s son Albrecht and over the overwhelmingly most powerful prince in the empire, King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia.

This cultured and competent man became known to German history as a Schattenkönig, a shadow of a king, unable to wiggle out of his ties to the overbearing electors. Acting as mercenary in the pay of king Edward of England and failing to create his own Hausmacht in Thuringia, many history books skip over his six years on the throne.

Nevertheless, the events of his election and deposition form another crossroads in the history of the German lands that set the Holy Roman empire further down the path to become neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire.

Before we start I have a tip for you. If you are a fan of University Challenge, and quite frankly who would listen to 140 episodes of obscure German history and isn’t, tune in on April 8th at 8:30 GMT on BBC 2 for the final. For those of you not based in the UK, university challenge is a quiz show running since 1962 where university teams compete with each other. Many former contestants became leading intellectuals, actors and politicians. The questions are such that most people feel incredibly smug if they get 2 or three right per show.  One of your fellow listeners, Justin Lee is on the team of Imperial college and my god, he and his team are smashing it. They are now in the final. Last week Justin even got a question on Frederick II which he obviously aced. The final will be epic since their likely opponents are no slouches. Go tune in on BBC iplayer on April 8th at 8:30 GMT. If you are abroad you can watch via a VPN.  

And as always I want to give special thanks to our patrons, Mike R, Carl S., Wayne D., Katherine E. Grant M. and Bobby K. who have kindly signed up at patreon.com/historyofthegermans

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Now, back to the show

On July 15th, 1291 king Rudolf I of Habsburg went on his last journey, to Speyer, the burial place of kings and emperors since the days of the great Salians, Konrad II and Henry III. One would expect that once the magnificent gravestone was placed over the mortal remains of the man who had ruled the realm for 18 years, the immediate next step would be to call the electors to Frankfurt to choose a new king.

But for months nothing happens. Finally, in November 1291, 5 moths after Rudolf’s death does the archbishop of Mainz as archchancellor in charge of elections invites the other electors to an imperial diet in Frankfurt on May 2nd, 1292.

Why did that take so long?

Since the election of Henry the Fowler in 919, the imperial crown was formally an elective monarchy, though in practice, as long as there was a son, and the son was not a minor or obviously incompetent, the son had followed the father on the throne.

And Rudolf von Habsburg had a son, Albrecht, the duke of Austria. Albrecht was born in 1255, so 36 years of age, a competent, though not particularly likeable ruler of an imperial principality. Plus he had 12 children, more than enough to ensure the continuation of the dynasty.

So by tradition, the electors should elect Albrecht von Habsburg. But they did not. We talked last week about Rudolf’s efforts to ensure Albrecht’s election during his lifetime and the unwillingness of the electors to support his candidature. Once his father had died, Albrecht seemingly tried to gain support amongst the electors. One of them, Ludwig, who was duke of Bavaria and count Palatinate on the Rhine was however the only elector he could bring over to his side. Attempts to get close to the archbishop of Cologne seemingly went nowhere

We know practically nothing about the early stages of the negotiations, so it is hard to gage whether Albrecht had made any advances to the other electors and whether they had any chance of success. The earliest documents date from the spring of 1292 when the discussion must have been going on for 6 months already.

We can get a glimpse of what the thinking of these guys was from a letter one of the electors, the duke of Saxony wrote to king Wenceslaus of Bohemia. There he pledged his vote to whoever Wenceslaus chose in exchange for 4,500 mark of silver plus a guarantee for the payment of 800 mark of silver Rudolf owed him and the support in a case he was fighting against the archbishop of Magdeburg.

But money was not everything. This was also about power. Last time the electors had elevated a man of some standing, largely because the pope insisted on having a functioning imperial ruler able to help shore up the sore remains of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

But in 1291 the city of Accre, the last outpost in the Holy Land itself had fallen to the Muslims. That was not the end of the crusades, but the crusades that followed were odd attempts on the flanks of Muslim power or in the Baltics. The great project to take Jerusalem was over. And that meant the papacy had less interest in the empire than before. Hence the electors were allowed to do as they pleased.

And what pleased them was to assert the elective nature of the royal and imperial title by denying the son the father’s crown. And this had become a lot easier thanks to the increasing formalisation of the voting process. In the past an ambitious candidate could get himself elected through tactical bribery and intelligent scheduling that kept hostiles away from the electoral diet. Konrad III did that and to a degree Frederick Barbarossa. We could even count Henry II amongst those that engineered their election.

Now these ruses no longer worked. A valid election required the votes of all seven electors, whether they were present at the diet or not. And thanks to Rudolf’s insistence, these seven were now set. So even if Albrecht would have rustled up 2 or three votes plus a smattering of minor lords and bishops the election would not be as easily accepted as Konrad III’s or Frederick Barbarossa’s. In all likelihood the other electors would have elected their own man, bringing the realm into a civil war.

From this point forward for the next roughly hundred plus years the electors will consistently deny the succession from father to son. The crown will shift between major princely families interspersed with the occasional poor count. Every time this happened, the incoming ruler will have to make far reaching concessions, pay out massive bribes and pass on more of the dwindling imperial possessions to the electors. And even that does not assure the safety of the newly acquired status. 2 of the upcoming 10 rulers will be deposed, one murdered, one killed in battle and one of them considered so poor he was known as Ruprecht “with the empty pocket”.

This strengthening of the electoral nature of the empire stands in stark contrast to the hereditary monarchies in the rest of Europe at the time. West Francia, the kingdom that would ultimately become France had started out as an elective monarchy and had remained at least formally elective until king Philipp Augustus in the 12th century.

But by the end of the 13th century the French monarchy was not just in practice but also formally hereditary, its king was given the epithet of “Most Christian King” and had achieved the status of sacred monarch, able to heal the sick purely by his touch.

Hereditary kingship incentivises the ruler to consolidate powers under the crown, rather than in the hands of his family. If a ruler can be sure that his son will become the next ruler it is sensible to seize vacant fiefs for the crown and invest in a bureaucracy that supports a centralising monarchy.

If the ruler can be sure that his son will not become king, as had been established at the election following the death of Rudolf of Habsburg, the incentive model shifts. Building up royal powers as Rudolf had done with his revindication policy did no longer make sense. All the fruits of these efforts would go to someone else, most likely one of the king’s rivals. And worse, the more powerful the role of king, the more likely the next king would go after his predecessor’s recent gains. So the rational move was to use the temporary position as ruler to expand the family fortunes, so that the clan would be powerful enough to field a candidate in a later election.

Historians in the 19th century have censored the electors for their decision to break the dynastic chain. Their actions had condemned royal power to be hollowed out further and further until the famous Voltaire quip about neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire had become a reality.

But is that justified. Could we have expected the electors to choose Albrecht of Habsburg as king in 1291? Should they have given the Habsburgs the opportunity to build out royal power in the Empire, first in Swabia and Franconia and then reaching out into Saxony and further North and East? Could they be expected to sacrifice their interests so that the regnum Teutonicum could go down the same path as the French and English kingdoms, just with a 100 to 200 year delay.

The French monarchy which was in an equally dire situation in the mid 11th century was allowed to build up its power base over time. The mighty dukes and counts surrounding the Ile de France did not care much about the royal title because it led so little actual power. And even if one of them had developed an interest, they were so deeply disunited, that they would have found it very difficult to agree on one amongst their own. So the kings were left alone, passing the crown from father to son and patiently building themselves up to a point where they could challenge and take down the mighty dukes and lords, one by one.

In the empire the situation was different. Royal power, weak as it was, was not irrelevant, in particular in the areas that were close to the king, in Swabia and Franconia. But even in the north and in Italy, some of the old prestige of the emperors was still there. And as we have seen with Rudolf of Habsburg, that position could be leveraged to propel a family into the rank of imperial prince. So the electors cared about who was king. And, other than the French nobles in the 11th century, they weren’t constantly at each other’s throats. They did co-ordinate their voting behaviour, often forming voting blocks going into an election.

So the electors could choose to make someone a powerful ruler which would be the best solution for the empire. But for each of them individually that wasn’t the ideal outcome. Unless one became the powerful monarch himself, the increased power of the king would come at the expense of their own position. Acting in your own interest in this situation is what economists call a prisoner’s dilemma, not a moral failing.

And so we find that from now on the choice of a powerful ruler required special circumstances, be that war and other threats, lavish bribery and firm commitment to respect the elector’s rights which in turn reduced royal power further.

In 1292 there was no threat of war or otherwise, no coercion by the pope, no overwhelming bribery. The electors could avoid choosing Albrecht.

This also explains why the electors did not choose Wenceslaus II of Bohemia to become king in 1292. When his father Ottokar was already a hugely impressive ruler, his son Wenceslaus II exceeding him. He gained his family the Polish and the Hungarian crowns, at least temproray. It was under his rule that silver was found in Kutna Hora, adding even further to the wealth of Bohemia.  We will no doubt hear more about him as we go along.

I think it is at this point that I need to correct something I said in episode 140 that the king of Bohemia was king in name only and that his title was purely honorific. Some of our Czech listeners contested this notion, some quite vehemently. I guess as always there are two perspectives on this.

If you take the perspective of the emperors and the imperial princes, they did see the Bohemian crown as a vassal of the emperor. The rulers of Bohemia were originally only awarded the title to each king individually and it wasn’t until 1198 that the title became hereditary. It was hence a title awarded to a vassal and as such could be removed in case the vassal broke his commitments, not a theoretically eternal grant by the grace of god like for instance the king of France.

If you look at it from the Czech perspective, the Bohemian ruler was his own master in his kingdom. No emperor could demand to come to Prague without being invited. Emperors did not exert influence in domestic affairs within Bohemia and the king of Bohemia could not be summoned to imperial diets unless they happened near the Bohemian border. Hence the kings of Bohemia may have regarded the vassalage relationship as a formality worth accepting in exchange for the influence on the politics of its closest and largest neighbour. And they had used the term “by the grace of god” before.

So, both of these perspectives are factually correct. When I described the fall-out of the diet in Nurnberg at 1274, I focused on the imperial perspective to highlight the audacity of Ottokar when he claimed to be an independent king, no longer bound by vassalage. I admit I should have been more nuanced on this and I will try to do better next time.

Now going back to Ottokar’s son Wenceslaus II,he not only amassed various crowns,  but also surpassed him in the world of diplomacy. As the election of Rudolf’s successor was approaching,  he had lined up two other electors, the duke of Saxony and the margrave of Brandenburg to vote in a block with him. They did not agree yet who to vote for except that they would not be voting for Albrecht of Habsburg. What makes that particularly salient was that both Wenceslaus and the duke of Saxony were married to Albrecht’s sisters and the Margrave of Brandenburg’s co-ruler was too.

So, that puts Albrecht out of the game.

What about Wenceslaus. He has three votes already, his own plus Saxony and Brandenburg. Historians argue that part of the arrangement between the three princes had been that Wenceslaus could use their votes only to elect a third party, not to elect himself. There was then also the question whether the three archbishops could be convinced to vote for Wenceslaus given his enormous wealth and power. In any event, there is no indication in the documents that Wenceslaus at any point even contemplated putting himself up for election.

If we are taking stock, we have the count Palatinate on the Rhine who is voting for Albrecht and the other three secular electors are going to vote for whoever Wenceslaus decides should be king, but not Albrecht.

At which point it is in the hands of the three archbishops to select a new king. Mainz and Cologne take the lead and they chose someone broadly linked to both their families, count Adolf of Nassau.

Adolf von Nassau was really a poor count, unlike Rudolf of Habsburg who had been a wealthy count. The county of Nassau had been divided and he was only count of Nassau-Weilburg which included the bustling metropolises of Weilburg and Idstein, all in the Taunus mountains north of Frankfurt.

Adolf wasn’t only poor and from a comital family, so definitely second division, if not regionals, which as far as the electors are concerned was great. He had also fought with the Archbishop of Cologne at the battle of Worringen we mentioned last week, so a loyal supporter of the bishops. But what qualified him beyond all other poor counts with loyalty to important churchmen was his willingness to sign practically any piece of paper any of the electors put to him.

Adolf promised the archbishop of Cologne to pay him 25,000 mark of silver, return castles and towns lost during the war of the Limburg succession, coerce the city of Cologne to do penance before the archbishop, never to let Cologne become a free imperial city, never to admit any of the archbishop’s enemies or their representative to his council etc., etc., pp. Similar arrangements were signed with the archbishop of Mainz who was given two cities in Thuringia, the representatives of the king of Bohemia received the imperial lands around Eger and Pleissen as well as the promise of a favourable decision should Wenceslaus claim the return of Austria, Styria and Carinthia from the Habsburgs and so on and so on.

The electors had their perfect king. Tied down by arrangements, all safeguarded by collateral, that meant he could barely go to the outhouse with a written permit from the archbishop of Cologne.

Take a wild guess why Adolf von Nassau took the job and signed all these papers. Well, he had seen how count Rudolf von Habsburg raised his family to become imperial princes and he wanted to do the same thing.

So he began a two pronged approach. On the one hand he started a diplomatic dance aimed at getting himself out of all these agreements he had signed at the start of his reign. And he was a cunning little count. He became very active in the areas a king was expected to deliver on, peace and justice. He travelled relentlessly around the parts of the kingdom accessible to him and wherever he went he heard cases as a judge and renewed the Mainzer Landfrieden. His court attracted minnesaenger and many nobles out for a good time. That gave him enough standing in the land to gradually slip out of the political ties to the archbishop. He entrusted the role of Vogt for the lower Rhine to John of Brabant, the enemy of the archbishop of Cologne. And he managed to marry his daughter to the new Count Palatinate on the Rhine who he then tied to himself through various treaties. He reconciled with Albrecht of Habsburg which meant disregarding the Bohemian king’s demands for Austria.

All that is great but does not make one an imperial prince. That opportunity arose when the House of Wettin collapsed into one of its customary internecine feuds. If you want more detail, check out episode 107 – the House of Wettin. In broad brushes, the Landgrave Albrecht, called the degenerate, had been at war with his entire family for a solid 25 years. He had fought his father, his sons, had rejected his wife, the sole surviving legitimate child of emperor Frederick II and chose to pass all his vast possessions, the margraviate of Meissen, the Landgraviate of Thuringia and the land of Pleissen to his illegitimate son. The wars that this policy engendered were vicious and destroyed the immensely wealthy Wettiner lands.

When Albrecht the Degenerate was defeated by his sons, he fled to the court of king Adolf. Adolf treated him kindly and offered to buy his rights on the Wettiner inheritance. The price, a mere 12,000 mark of silver, a ridiculous sum given that these lands included the mines of Freiberg, one of Europe’s richest sources of silver.

The reason for the discount was that Albrecht the Degenerate did not possess any of the lands he sold to Adolf. They were held by his sons, Frederick the Bitten and Diezmann. Adolf invaded at the head of a royal army in 1294 and pushed Frederick and Diezmann out.

This could have been Adolf’s great moment. The Landgraviate and the margraviate were each imperial principalities and though for the moment devastated, but inherently incredibly rich.

But it was not. There were a couple of problems.

As I mentioned, Adolf wasn’t a rich man. As king he now had the revenue from the royal domain that Rudolf had kindly assembled for him, but that was never enough to fund a military expedition into Thuringia. Nor could he count on the electors to support him in an endeavour that was exactly the kind of thing they had wanted to avoid with all these endless contracts.

The source of funds came from abroad. King Edward I of England had begun hostilities with France in alliance with Flanders and Burgundy. And he was looking for a diversion that would bind French forces whilst he attacked from the North. Adolf was to provide that diversion. The official treaty was all royal alliance and high politics, but underneath was a pretty simple deal, money for swords. Adolf had no particular reason to attack France, certainly not in the middle of his Thuringian operation. But the money came in handy and he actually never attacked the French. It all stayed hush, hush, until some clergyman found out and the pope castigated him for acting not like a king but like a mere sell sword. Things weren’t helped when it later surfaced that he had also taken money from the king of France as well, this time for not attacking.

Meanwhile in Thuringia, Adolf’s policy began to ruffle feathers with the electors. Meissen and the Pleissenland were areas that Wenceslaus of Bohemia regarded as part of his zone of influence. Like his father, he was not too keen having a king of the Romans, now augmented to imperial prince on his doorstep. The Archbishop of Mainz had important interests in Thuringia around his city of Erfurt. He also got a bit miffed when Adolf replaced him as Landvogt of Thuringia with one of his supporters.

Adolf might have got away with it had several of the electors not come together in 1297 for Wenceslaus’ much delayed coronation in Prague. This may have been where they first floated the idea, but by 1298 it went from mere chatter to serious talk about deposing the king.

The archbishop of Mainz had invited Albrecht of Habsburg to voice some grievances he had against Adolf in front of the electors. Though this meeting in Frankfurt did not happen as such, a month later the archbishop plus the duke of saxony and the margraves of Brandenburg got together to open a case against the king. Mainz soon after received authorisation from Cologne and Bohemia to act on their behalf and even the count palatinate, son in law of Adolf joined in.

Once opened and the legitimacy of the court established, the result was a foregone conclusion. Adolf was convicted for breaking the peace, breach of the agreements made at his election, the extraction of funds from the church and for good measure, desecration of the Host.

Upon conviction Adolf was deposed and replaced with – drumroll- Albrecht von Habsburg.

This time a impecunious count was not an option. Adolf von Nassau was not going to lay down his crown without a fight. And he was in charge if an army. The electors needed to select someone who could lead forces against Adolf and win. And that man was Albrecht von Habsburg.

Albrecht had already been fighting Adolf for some weeks by the time the electors had made their decision. He had set off from Austria in early march 1298 and has been playing cat and mouse with Adolf’s army, marching all across Swabia, between Ulm and Breisach. In June Albrecht decided to take his troops further north along the Rhine river, whilst Adolf followed him on the opposite shore.

The whole game of marching here and there continued around Alzey and Worms until news reached both camps  that Adolf was definitely deposed and Albrecht elected the new king. That meant the electors could now officially get involved in the fighting and with Mainz and Cologne not far, Adolf von Nassau needed to strike before support for his enemy arrived.

On July 2nd, 1298 Albrecht lined his army up on top of a hill near the village of Göllheim. Adolf von Nassau who came from the North had to attack uphill and into the sun. For Albrecht the key was to hold out and inflict as much damage on his opponent as possible. He knew help would arrive in the end. Adolf on the other hand needed an immediate and comprehensive victory. So he fought ferociously, leading his troops from the front, as any good medieval monarch should. Albrecht allegedly kept his cool on top of his little hill.  

And he was right to do so. The odds were stacked too far against Adolf. In one of the rolling attacks he was pushed of his horse. Heavily wounded he got onto another steed, but he was unable to put his helmet back on, the sun was blinding him and he was felled by one of Albrecht’s men.

Adolf’s body was taken to a Cistercian monastery. Albrecht did not permit the dead king to be buried in Speyer cathedral, as Adolf had requested. But the next emperor Henry VII allowed the transfer and that is where he still lies. One of his descendant had his funerary monument remade in 1824 and it now shows him life size praying in the vestibule of the cathedral.

The counts of Nassau-Weilburg never became kings again. Their lands, much enlarged later became a duchy with its centre in Wiesbaden. And in 1890 they became the grand dukes of Luxemburg where they still rule to this day

The cousins of our king Adolf of Nassau rose even higher. One of them was William of Nassau-Dillenburg born in 1533. As a child William inherited vast estates in the low countries as well as the principality of Orange from a French cousin. That principality was named not after the fruit, but after a lovely little town in Provence that features one the best preserved Roman theatres in the world and is well worth a visit. William took on the name William of Orange and became also known as William the Silent when he led the Dutch protestant rebellion against the Spanish. The house of Orange still reigns over the Netherlands and as a mark of respect the Dutch national teams play in an orange strip.

But for our narrative, these greatest moments for the house of Nassau lie in the far future. Our preoccupation is now Albrecht of Habsburg, finally king, seven years after his father’s death. We will find out how he gets on next time. I hope you will join us again. And do not forget to tune in on BBC iplayer on April 8th at 8:30 GMT for the final of University Challenge and watch Justin Lee do his thing!