Ernst the Iron

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How the Habsburgs got their Chin

“The Habsburgs ruled half of Europe with a chin that entered the room five minutes before they did,” is one of those witticisms that made the 19th century so amusing. But by then the Habsburg jaw had long receded.

It had its heyday in the 16th and 17th century when people in Spain called out to the future emperor Charles V: “Your majesty, shut your mouth! The flies of this country are very insolent.” And when they looked at his later descendant, king Charles II who was probably the worst affected, they said, he was “more Habsburg than human”.

But where is the Habsburg Jaw from? The view repeated again and again in history books is that it came from Cymburga of Masovia, the wife of duke Ernst the Iron, but was she really responsible? Or was it something quite different that caused that deformation, and what has it to do with the prostration of duke Friedrich IV before emperor Sigismund in 1415?

That is what we are looking at in this episode.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 207 – Of Land and Lip – How the Habsburgs got their chin, which is also episode 5 of Season 11: The Fall and Rise of the House of Habsburg.

“The Habsburgs ruled half of Europe with a chin that entered the room five minutes before they did,” is one of those witticisms that made the 19th century so amusing. But by then the Habsburg jaw had long receded.

It had its heyday in the 16th and 17th century when people in Spain called out to the future emperor Charles V: “Your majesty, shut your mouth! The flies of this country are very insolent.” And when they looked at his later descendant, king Charles II who was probably the worst affected, they said, he was “more Habsburg than human”.

But where is the Habsburg Jaw from? The view repeated again and again in history books is that it came from Cymburga of Masovia, the wife of duke Ernst the Iron, but was she really responsible? Or was it something quite different that caused that deformation, and what has it to do with the prostration of duke Friedrich IV before emperor Sigismund in 1415?

That is what we are looking at in this episode.

But before we start just the usual handing round of the begging bowl. I guess you know the drill by now, but if you are still listening, maybe you feel it is time to make a contribution to the continued existence of the show, free of advertising. And if you do, go to historyofthegermans.com/support and choose one of the various options. Just do not get confused when the software asks you for your account details, even if you get here for the first time. Do not worry, all it is trying to do is to get you to open an account by providing an email and password, so that you can access the bonus episodes and the forum.

And special thanks go to Morera, Edward B., Derrick C, Derek Edmundson, Barry J. R., Joachim B., Lonhyn J., Steve and Stephen C. who have already signed up.  

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And with that, back to the show.

Last week we ended with archduke Friedrich IV, count of Tyrol kneeling before emperor Sigismund and begging to be readmitted to his grace.

The kneeling was certainly humiliating, but the other conditions of his pardon were threatening the viability of the whole Habsburg project. Friedrich had to surrender all of his lands to the crown, keeping only those that Sigismund chose to return to him as a fief. And that return of the lands Sigismund had made dependent upon Friedrich standing trial in Constance for his treason and any other claims anyone else might be bringing.

Friedrich IV before emperor Sigismund – Richetal chronik

In other words, the chance that Friedrich would be stripped of all his lands for good was pretty high. It is in this period that Friedrich IV gained his nickname, Friedel mit der leeren Tasche, Friedrich with the empty pockets.

A loss of his lands, in particular of the Tyrol, would have significantly altered the Habsburg trajectory; because of the silver mines of Schwaz. This “mother of all mines” grew to be the largest industrial complex in Europe, where 10,000 miners dug up silver ore, ore that acted as collateral for the immense loans granted by Jakob Fugger and others, which in turn funded the Burgundian wars of Maximilian and the election of Charles V as emperor. In other words, without the Tyrol, no loans, no Spanish Netherlands and hence no Habsburg empire.

The mining district Rerobichl near Kitzbühel in Tyrol (Schwazer Bergbuch, Innsbruck, Tiroler Landesmuseum, Codex Dip. 856, table ” Kitzbühel ” )

The fate of the Habsburg family hung in the balance.

The one who put his considerable weight on to the scales was Ernst, the Iron, duke of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola and brother of Friedrich IV. Upon news of Friedrich’s surrender, he popped up in Meran and began organizing the resistance, and maybe his own takeover of the county.

Friedrich now had to decide. He could stay in Constance and bet on Sigismund’s mercy, or he could flee to Tyrol bringing the wrath of the emperor, an excommunication by the council and an invading army of princes down on him.

William Coxe described Friedrich’s situation in Constance as follows, quote: “Meanwhile Friedrich was detained at Constance, where he was treated like a culprit, and watched like a prisoner. He was brought into the courts of justice, to answer all the complaints which were preferred against him ; he was repeatedly excommunicated by the bishop of Trent, for not restoring the dominions of that see, and threatened with still severer punishments by the council; he was deserted by all, avoided as a heretic and a traitor, reduced to want, and deprived of all necessities of life. Malicious reports were industriously circulated that he was engaged in plots to assassinate Sigismund, and menaces were not withheld that he was destined to become a sacrifice to public justice.” End quote.

OK, so the imperial mercy option looks distinctly unpromising. Friedrich had to go for option 2. On March 1st, 1416, he fled from Constance and returned to Tyrol via Feldkirch and the Arlberg pass.

When he arrived in Tyrol, he was warmly greeted by the estates of the county. Which must have been a great relief for Friedrich. Friend of the Podcast Enea Silvio Piccolomini in his gossipy biography reports that Friedrich was popular with the common people because; quote: “he would often change his dress and visit taverns and farmers unrecognised. There, he enquired, as if a stranger, what they thought about the country’s government and asked much about the dukes, the barons, and the prince. When he heard them praise the prince and criticise the barons, he was glad that he enjoyed the people’s favour”. End quote.

Hence his subjects preferred him to the emperor Sigismund, they preferred him to a Bavarian duke, they preferred him to his brother Ernst, the only thing they did not prefer him to, was death.

So, despite his jubilant reception in Meran, and Ernst subsequent withdrawal back to Styria, Friedrich was by no means out of the woods yet. If Sigismund could muster an army and go down to Tyrol, his vassals may not be as supportive as they appeared right now. His barons may rise up after all. Sigismund tried to encourage them to do exactly that. He even kept dangling the carrot of imperial immediacy before them, if only they would help him toppling the obstinate count of Tyrol and deliver him to Constance.

Throughout 1416, 17 and 18, Sigismund was trying to put together a force that could make an attempt at the topographically challenging Tyrol. He called on the Swiss Confederation, the German cities, the dukes of Bavaria, the Counts Palatine, even his friend and protégé, Friedrich of Hohenzollern, who he had just made margrave of Brandenburg.

But they all turned him down. The Swiss had already got what they wanted when they took the Aargau, the German cities had lost confidence in the constantly cash-strapped emperor, duke Ludwig the Bearded of Bavaria was disappointed when Sigismund first denied him satisfaction against his cousin who had tried to smash his head in, and then passed him over when it came to awarding the margraviate of Brandenburg (all that is in episode 172).

Duke Ludwig the Bearded of Bavaria-Ingolstadt being attacked by henchmen of his cousin Duke Heinrich the Rich of Bavaria-Landshut

The imperial princes finally did not see much benefit in helping Sigismund expanding his empire through the acquisition of Tyrol. And on top of that, Sigismund had dozens of other matters to attend to, the two remaining renegade popes, the fallout from Teutonic Knights’ defeat at Tannenberg, issues in Hungary, a marital crisis, money problems etc., etc. pp. Sigismund was always frazzled, but never more so than during this period.

And so, in 1418, at the behest of the newly elected pope Martin V and under pressure of the mounting tensions in Bohemia following the trial and execution of Jan Hus (Episode 174) Sigismund made peace with Friedrich IV. They met in Merseburg on lake Constance and hashed out a deal.

And as always with Sigismund, when he realised his political options were exhausted, he sold out. So for the trifling sum of 50,000 florins, Friedrich was re-enfeoffed with the Tyrol. And he was given permission to pay out any of the other princes who had taken over his other lands in 1415.

Despite the vast amounts of silver coming out of Schwaz, It took Friedrich a decade plus to get all his former possessions back. Except for one, the Aargau, the ancient homeland of his family was not for sale. The Swiss Confederation could not be bought. The Castle of the Hawk would never return into the family possessions, all they kept was the name.

Schloss Habsburg

Friedrich IV ruled for another 21 years, and whilst he could not shake his nickname as Friedrich of the empty pocket, he became again one of the richest princes in the empire. That wealth came in part from the mines, but also from the fundamental changes he implemented in his lands.

Piccolomini had noted that when Friedrich took charge of Tyrol, the county was ruled by the barons and he had quote “no power by himself. And “he grew tired of it and wanted to change things.”

Schloss Tirol in Meran – ancient seat of the counts of Tirol

Before Friedrich IV moved to Meran in 1410, there had not been a continued presence of the Habsburgs in Tyrol. As so often, the constant shortage of cash compelled the princely rulers to mortgage their rights and lands to the local aristocrats and ultimately left the management of the county entirely to them.

In his first year as count, Friedrich established a register of ducal rights in the Tyrol. He hired administrators who began collecting on these rights, whilst his accountants kept track of money coming in and money going out. Friedrich moved the centre of the princely administration from Meran to Innsbruck where he established the Neuer Hof, which became the residence for the duke and the permanent seat of the government.

Innsbruck Neuer Hof (Goldenes Dachl dates from emperor Maximilian, not Friedrich)

Innsbruck was a strategically better location, in particular because it was at the intersection of the East-West route between Austria and the ancestral lands on the upper Rhine and on the North-South Route across the Brenner Pass. And most importantly, Innsbruck is just 30 km from the silver mines of Schwaz.

Friedrich did not limit his activities to just enforcing or buying back of his existing rights, he also tried to actively expand them. And for that he used the Privililegium Maius, the forged list of ancient rights and titles his uncle Rudolph the Founder had bestowed on the family. And these rights were far reaching and in many ways unprecedented. They included, amongst other, a ban on any man within the geographic boundaries of the county to hold immediacy, aka report directly to the emperor. Further, all temporal courts, authority over the forests and game, waters and woods are subordinate to the duke. And, whatever the Duke shall ordain  or command in his lands and regions may not be changed in any manner, in any way, or at any future time, by the Emperor or any other authority. And best of all, these provisions were supposed to apply not just in Austria, but in any territory the house of Austria had already or would in the future acquire.

Privilegium Maius

Sure, this is all made up, but then Friedrich IV made it reality.

The people must upset about these policies were the Tyrolean barons. They formed noble societies intended to oppose these changes. Friedrich neutralised these societies by asking to become a member himself, a demand the aristocrats could hardly refuse.

But the most powerful of these barons, Heinrich von Rottenburg, whose inherited title of Hofmeister had made his family the de facto rulers of Tyrol, kept the feud going. He called upon duke Stephan of Lower Bavaria and the bishop of Trient/Trento to help him put Friedrich back into his box.

Heinrich von Rottenburg

This lord of Rottenburg was a tough nut and a famous duelist who had killed “many men” and according to Piccolomini “had a coffin with lighted candles carried with him” at all times as a courtesy to his victims.

Still the duke prevailed, mainly because he could rely on the support of the estates, specifically the cities and the gentry who were tired of the abuse by the constantly feuding barons. Rottenburg surrendered in 1410 and six months later he was dead. Whether he was put in his travel coffin, we will never know.

This success did much for the reputation of Friedrich which may explain why he was so enthusiastically received when he returned from his ill-fated adventure in Constance.

In 1419, the most serious of these baronial revolts kicked off. The lords of Starkenberg, of Spaur, the family of Oswald von Wolkenstein, ably supported by the bishop of Trient and the condottiere Pandolfo Malatesta, attacked Friedrich’s castles. Friedrich managed to withstand this first wave of attack. And then through a combination of diplomacy, legal action and occasional warfare, he managed to break the alliance of the barons.

The last of the barons to surrender was Oswald von Wolkenstein, the knight and poet. His life is such a riveting tale. He had started out as knight errand, travelling to Prussia, Russia, Tartary, Turkey, the near east, the Holy Land, Italy, France, the Black Sea and Aragon. He had gone to Konstanz with Friedrich IV but then changed sides and entered service with the emperor Sigismund. He was sent to England on a diplomatic mission, he was in Perpignan helping to bring the antipope Pedro da Luna to resign, he went on crusade in North Africa. Back home he feuded with his peers. One of these feuds went horribly wrong. He was captured by his opponent and extensively tortured, before ending up in one of Friedrich IV’s prisons.

Oswald von Wolkenstein

His poetry ranges from tales of his travels, much self-deprecation, a heavy dose of sex, mixed with a religious poetry and just pure joie de vivre.

And he used his gift to have a go at Friedrich. Here is one of his complaints:

“I complain of the day,
that I first gave my faith
to a lord who keeps empty hands.
Though I served him long and well,
I find no thanks, no reward,
only sorrow, hunger, and grief.
He calls himself Duke,
yet leaves his men in want —
truly he is poor in purse and poorer in heart.”

This is also the oldest reference to Friedrich IV as being penniless.

I thought about creating a whole episode on Oswald von Wolkenstein, but I think we need to press on now. Maybe we can do it as a bonus episode, if you guys want me to.

Back to Friedrich IV. Our friend Silvio Aeneas Piccolomini summarised his other feats and qualities as follows: quote: “He took a wife from the House of Braunschweig. She bore him a son whom she wanted to be named Sigismund. .Friedrich was a man of great sexual appetites and had affairs both with married women and married men but mostly with maidservants. He loved money, and therefore he never wanted to fight the Venetians since they assisted him financially.” End quote.

We will get back to Friedrich IV in a moment. First we need to talk about his elder brother, Ernst, his wife Cymburga and the reason you probably pressed play on this episode, the famous Habsburg Jaw.

The reason we talk about this now is that the eldest son of Ernst was the first of the Habsburg who is confirmed to have presented that famous feature, the Habsburg lip. Just have a look at the episode artwork. And based on a long tradition, last repeated by Andrew Wheatcroft in 1995, this son had quote “inherited his most striking characteristic, a fat and ponderous lower lip” from his mother, .

Friedrich V (III as emperor)

His mother, Cymburga of Masovia could probably take it. She was by most accounts a strong woman, as in strong enough to bend horseshoes and drive nails into walls with her bare hands. A most suitable companion for a duke who went by the name Ernst, the iron, or as others called him, the  “little robber with the giant beard”.

Archduke Ernst the Iron with his wives, cymburga on teh left (1820)

But did she really bring this world renowned trait into the family?  

Before we go there, let’s just define what exactly is the Habsburg Jaw? It is a hereditary deformation whereby the lower jaw outgrows the upper jaw, resulting in an extended chin and a crossbite. This Mandibular Prognathism is the result, not of just one genetic mutation, but multiple genes that add up together to create a particular trait. To get all these genes in the right order requires a seriously intense level of inbreeding, which is why these conditions are very rare. And in the case of the Habsburgs, there are some additional features like the pointy nose, thick lips and droopy eyes, all of similar provenance, aka requiring multiple genes acting in concert.

Forms of Prognathism

These features vary in degree and become ever more pronounced throughout the 16th and 17th century until we hit Charles II of Spain who was so deeply affected, he could neither speak nor chew normally.

So, let’s take a look at the alleged culprit, Cymburga. First up, we have no contemporary portrait of her. Polish and Austrian chroniclers who knew her, did not mention a protruding jaw.

Cymburga of Masovia (picture from the 16th cnetury)

Now let’s look at her genetic inheritance.

She was the daughter of the duke of Masovia, a cadet branch of the Piast family, the kings of Poland. Her mother was the sister of Jogaila, the grand duke of Lithuania and king of Poland who had defeated the Teutonic Knights at Tannenberg. There is little chance that her parents had much blood in common, given her mother’s family had only recently converted to Christianity and had hence not been suitable marriage material for European royalty.

Her father’s family had one ancestor with a jawline deformation, Boleslaw Wrymouth, the king of Poland who was born in 1086, aka 300 years before Cymburga. It is also not clear whether Wrymouth’s impairment had been genetic or had been caused by an injury.

Boleslaw III Wrymouth (as imagined in the 19th cnetury)

The Poles are currently undertaking a broad analysis of the DNA of their Piast kings and dukes, none of which had noticed an anomaly linked to Mandibular Prognathism, though admittedly that is not what they were looking for. These studies are published in Polish, which is why I had to rely on Chat GPT to see whether there was anything in it, a notoriously unreliable source. So, if any of you can read Polish and can have a look, it would be much appreciated.

Dukes of Masovia (~1450)

Let’s add all this together, (i) Cymberga’s parents were not closely related, (ii) there is no record of her having the feature and (iii) there is no record of anyone in her family having a Habsburg jaw, except for an ancestor who lived 300 years earlier. So simply on the basis of probability, Cymberga should not be on the top of the list. There were many more likely candidates amongst the Habsburg spouses of the 13th, 14th and 15th century, all of which came from the closely interrelated community of the imperial princes.

So, why would anyone single out Cymburga?

I spent a solid day trying to trace where the first mention of Cymburga as the origin of the Habsburg jaw came from. And this turned into a truly epic and pointless goose chase. I started with Andrew Wheatcroft who quoted a book by Friedrich Heer, which does not contain the claim that Cymburga was the source. Then I looked at William Coxe who made the same allegation. He just referenced “authorities” with no further detail.

Wikipedia then directed me to Robert Burtons, Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621.

Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621

I have not read the book, but Coleridge, Wordsworth, Herman Melville, Milton, Samuel Johnson, Laurence Sterne, John Keats and Philip Pullman clearly loved what medical researchers described as “that omniumgatherum of anecdotes of insanity whose burden was that mankind — including the author himself — was quite out of its mind”.

Not very reliable, but even stranger, at no point does Robert Burton even mention Cymburga. That did not stop Chat GPT and its ilk to hallucinate a detailed quote from Burton, which again, could not be found at the reference they give, nor anywhere else.

Chat GPT making stuff up….

Then Wikipedia directed me to the history of Vienna by Wolfgang Lazius from the middle of the 16th century. Again nothing at all. A run through the digitalised content of the Bavarian state library then brought up stories about Cymburga, just not ones about the Habsburg lip.

Instead the story goes that duke Ernst had met Cymburga at some event at the court of emperor Sigismund. And he was so struck by her extraordinary beauty, he travelled to Krakov in disguise to woo her. In one retelling he saved her from an attack by a brown bear, which is depicted in a 19th century picture, today in the Belvedere. So unless Ernst had a strange penchant for chinful women, Cymburga was unlikely to be afflicted by a deformation of the jaw.

Franz Dobiaschofsky, 1850 – Duke Ernst the Iron saves Cymburgis of Masovia 

There is however a conceivable reason in this story that may explain why Cymburga was blamed.

Cymburga and Ernst were both members the high aristocracy, unmarried and a link between Habsburg and Poland was politically opportune. So why the cloak and dagger story and the bear thing.

The problem was that Cymberga’s existence reminded the family of another humiliation. Ernst’s older brother Wilhelm had been engaged to Hedwig, the daughter of king Louis of Hungary and Poland. Hedwig is better known to posterity as Jadwiga, the girl that was made king of Poland in 1384. Wilhelm and Jadwiga were apparently quite close and she had lived in Austria as a child. But in the complex negotiations following her father’s death, the Polish estates decided that the engagement to Wilhelm should be set aside and that Jadwiga should marry Jogaila, the grand duke of Lithuania instead. Jogaila, who was Cymburga’s uncle, leveraged this marriage into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that dominated much of central Europe. We covered this tumultuous process in episode 169.

Dymitr of Goraj by Jan Matejko depicts Jadwiga trying to break the castle gate to join William

Whilst the marriage to Jogaila made sense for the Poles, it was a massive snub to the Habsburgs. Breaking engagements was something a king or emperor could do to a burgrave of Nurnberg or a margrave of Baden, but not to an archduke of Austria. Well the Poles had done it and the Habsburgs had to face the fact that they had dropped back into second tier.

Cymburga’s presence in Vienna was a constant reminder that Habsburg power was much diminished, making her extremely unpopular with the family. So, if you look for a reason why she was singled out as the source of the Habsburg Jaw, that may be it. But then again nobody seems to have mentioned it until William Coxe in 1847, and god knows where he got it from.

So, if it definitely was not Cymburga, where did Habsburg Jaw come from then?

Well, there is one figure close to the house of Habsburg that had a confirmed deformation of the jaw, and that was the emperor Sigismund himself. In all his portraits you can see he could not fully close his mouth any more, something people remarked on at the time.

Emperor Sigismund

But there is no link between Sigismund and the surviving branches of the House of Habsburg, neither downstream from him, nor two or three generations before.

Then, maybe it was running in the family already for some time.

We have two depictions of early members of the house of Habsburg that are believed to be genuine portraits. And these are the tomb of King Rudolf I from about 1295, and an oil portrait of Rudolf IV, the founder from the mid-14th century.

Rudolf I

I am not sure I can detect anything on Rudolf I, whilst Rudolf IV does look as if he was a mouth breather. But I am not sure what that is worth.

Rudolf IV

Maybe the explanation is much simpler. The European high aristocracy had settled sometime in the 13th century. Very few new families were able to enter the close circle of intermarried princes. Sure, there were the Italians, the Visconti of Milan, the Medici of Florence and then the Lithuanians and Russians, but most of the rest was basically the same set of cousins twice removed that made up the rather limited gene pool.

What tightened the pool further and may have given rise to their most prominent feature was the constant intermarriage between the Spanish and the Austrian branches during the 16th and 17th century. And why did they constantly intermarry? Did they not know about the impact of inbreeding. Oh sure they knew about this. This is an agricultural society where everyone understands what happens if a herd is left without fresh blood. Leaving aside the strict rules of the church about consanguinity.

But these marriages between often first cousins were a political necessity. Charles V had divided the Habsburg empire into two parts, the Austrian and the Spanish line. To keep the two parts of the empire acting in unison, the Habsburgs needed to renew the familial link at least every second generation, leading to a truly catastrophic level of inbreeding.

Only when Spain was lost to the Bourbons, the need for these intermarriages disappeared and with it the Habsburg Jaw. Maria Theresia had no visible Prognathism, nor had her children, in particular not Marie Antoinette, though French revolutionary propaganda kept adding the feature to her depictions.

Maria Theresia

In other words, the Habsburg jaw was the result of politics, of a fear that the coherence of the family could fall apart. And that fear of a breakup of the family goes back to the times we talk about right now.

Which is what gets us back to Ernst the Iron.

Ernst the Iron was last seen taking over the Tyrol whilst his brother was literally tied up in Konstanz. And when Friedrich re-appeared in 1415, Ernst returned to Styria without making a fuss.

Ernst the Iron

That is quite a remarkable change of pattern. In the years before he had fought his brother Leopold over control of the duchy of Austria proper and had later on conspired with the barons of Tyrol to oust his younger brother. But now, at a time when Friedrich was on more than shaky ground, he did not pounce.

We do not know what had happened to him. He had done a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1414 where he was knighted as a member of the order of Holy Sepulchre. As such he had to commit to  a number of religious observances, maybe even the 10 commandments which have this clause about not coveting your neighbour’s house, fields, man and maidservant, or even ass or anything else..

Though I wonder whether the shock of seeing his brother and hence his family kneeling before Sigismund had triggered his change of heart. Had the family been united, Sigismund would have never gotten away with humiliating a senior member of the Habsburgs. Friedrich and Ernst were both powerful princes, and their cousin Albrecht V was equally rich and a very close ally of Sigismund. The fact that neither protested against Friedrich’s ban and its execution, is what made this possible. And when a year later, at least Friedrich and Ernst stood together, Sigismund stood no longer any chance of invading Tyrol.

This entente between the brothers seemed to have continued once the Tyrol was stabilised. And when Ernst died in 1424, his two sons, Friedrich and Albrecht were placed under the guardianship of Friedrich IV. And in turn, when Friedrich IV died, his former ward took over the guardianship of his son 12-year old Sigismund.

So, after all, the kneeling before Sigismund, painful as it certainly was, had a silver lining in as much as it shocked the Habsburgs out of their internecine warfare into finding a way to act more coherently. We are still a long way from the point where they are sacrificing their health and appearance for the sake of family coherence, and this was not yet the last war between brothers, but the understanding had set in, that they can either rule together or be dragged under divided.

One member of the family has taken very much of a back seat in this episode, and that is Ernst and Friedrich’s second cousin, duke Albrecht V of Austria. Now he is the one who will truly restore the fortunes of the family, bringing them back to the top table, ironically courtesy of the man who had just humiliated them. And that is that we will discuss next week, I hope you will join us again. And if you find all of this worth supporting, go to historyofthegermans.com/support, where you can find various options to kee

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Albrecht III&IV, Wilhelm, Leopold IV, Ernst the Iron and Friedrich IV

Success for a princely family in the Late Middle Ages has a lot to do with reproductive luck. Not having any offspring, in particular no male offspring is a bit of a knockout. But having too many sons that could be a major issue too.

And in 1386 the Habsburgs struggled with exactly that problem. Their territory was already divided between an Albertine and a Leopoldine line. But then Leopold had four sons, bringing the number of archdukes of Austria to six, which is five too many.

In this episode we will discuss how they managed to muck it up quite bad, in fact so bad, one of their number had to fall to his knees before the emperor, not once, not twice, but three times…

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 206 – Division, Destruction and Degradation, also episode 4 of the Fall and Rise of the House of Habsburg.

Success for a princely family in the Late Middle Ages has a lot to do with reproductive luck. Not having any offspring, in particular no male offspring is a bit of a knockout. But having too many sons that could be a major issue too.

And in 1386 the Habsburgs struggled with exactly that problem. Their territory was already divided between an Albertine and a Leopoldine line. But then Leopold had four sons, bringing the number of archdukes of Austria to six, which is five too many.

In this episode we will discuss how they managed to muck it up quite bad, in fact so bad, one of their number had to fall to his knees before the emperor, not once, not twice, but three times…

But before we start let me tell you a little bit about my research process. For almost a year now I do most of my research at the London Library. The London Library was founded in 1841 by Thomas Carlyle and counted great luminaries from Charles Darwin to Helena Bonham Carter amongst its members. What makes this place so special is not just its amazing history and the chance to bump into authors one has been admiring for decades, but the way it is organised. The London Library has a collection of books only rivalled by the British Library. But other than the British Library, the books are stacked by topics. So you can go to a section entitled History/Austria, or printing, or even one of history- Sigismund emperor. And that allows me to find books I would have never spotted in a library catalogue. For instance to prepare this episode I did borrow the books on the Habsburgs by Martyn Rady, Andrew Wheatcroft and Jean Berenger, but whilst picking them up, I came across William Coxe’s History of the House of Austria from 1847, that may not cover the latest research but is written so vividly, I borrowed a few phrases from him. Same goes for Hugo Hantsch’s Geschichte Österreichs and an anthology about Oswald von Wolkenstein.   So, if you are based in London and feel like joining a library that has over a million titles at hand and is organised for the needs of writers and creators, not librarians, check it out.

I am afraid membership is not cheap, but that is where some of your generous contributions go. So as I sink into the comfortable leather sofa in the reading room to indulge in William Coxe’s prose, my thanks go to Sven N, Torsten, Raymond F., Patrick M., Pim W., Gerald A. G. who made this happen by signing up at historyofthegermans.com/support.

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And with that, back to the show.

Last week we watched duke Lepold III of Austria sinking into the mud outside Sempach under the incessant blows of the Swiss halberds. There are dozens of battles that mark the end of the dominance of the armoured knight on horseback. And Sempach was one of them. Not the first, but a seminal one.

Leopold had been a seasoned military commander. He had defeated duke Stephan of Lower Bavaria when he was just 17. And since then he had spent his time in the saddle, riding from one conflict to the next. Holiday for him was a trip to Koenigsberg in Prussia to have a go at the Lithuanians. (check episode 133 if you want to hear what these trips were like). For a city militia and the forces of three rural cantons to defeat someone like that in an open battle where Leopold was able to deploy his army of knights and trained infantry as he wished, that was again proof that military tactics had to change.

Infantry was now more important, whilst cavalry, including heavy cavalry, remained an key military tool. So, coordination between these different forces  became the key to success, superseding the individual bravery that had been the most prized military skill up until then.

This transition should have translated into social and political change as well. If co-ordination was the key to success, then a system of clear hierarchies where orders are being followed was required.

Armies with effective chains of command require training, equipment and would ideally fight together as units for an extended period of time. And that costs money, hitherto unimaginable amounts of money. To raise funds on that scale, territories needed to be larger and have a proper administration, in particular tax collection systems. We have seen some princes working hard at establishing all of these things, like the Valois dukes of Burgundy, and be rewarded for it with an ever expanding power base.

But old habits die hard. And one of the old habits that had been engrained in chivalric society, was the idea that even princes would divide their property equally amongst their sons. Forward thinkers, like Rudolf IV and Karl IV had attempted to introduce primogeniture even for princely, as opposed to royal, territories. But in the end, both of them had failed.

By the end of the 14th century, Karl IV’s sons Wenzeslaus and Sigismund were at each other’s throats, ably assisted by their cousins of Moravia and the Bohemian barons. And Rudolf’s brothers, Albrecht III and Leopold III had de facto divided the Habsburg possessions.

And when Leopold III was laid to rest at Koengsfelden, the process of fragmentation of the family territory went up a gear.

Leopold had left four sons – four. The legendary Habsburg fecundity was back on show.

But as we all know, one can have too much of a good thing, and princely sons in an already divided territory can be very much too much of a good thing.

Have you been counting? Let me do that for you. By 1386, we have six Austrian archdukes. There is Albrecht III, called with the Plait, the founder of the so-called Albertine line and his only son, Albrecht IV. Albrecht III was in his prime at 37 years of age. Then we have his nephews, the sons of Leopold III. The eldest, Wilhelm was 16 when his father died, followed by 15 year-old Leopold IV, and the younger two, Ernst 9 and then Friedrich IV, only 6.

Previous generations of Habsburgs had signed family compacts and agreements to deal with exactly  such a situation. The problem was that there were so many of these compacts, and with such different provisions, that  any member of the family could claim more or less anything under one or other of these agreements. The only broad planks enshrined in all of them was that #1 – as a family – they should stick together, #2 that the two eldest male members of the family should direct overall policy and #3 that in case one line dies out, their lands were to go to the remaining members of the family.

Comparisons are always difficult, but the Habsburg at least on paper started with a bit more coherence than the Wittelsbachs, whose decline we have traced in episodes 196 and 197. But let’s see what that was worth in real life.

The two eldest at this point were Albrecht III, the head of the Albertine line and Wilhelm. Wilhelm was Albrecht’s junior by 20 years, so one would expect Albrecht to enjoy at least a few years of largely uncontested rule. A period he could use to consolidate power by pushing through the provisions of the Privilegium Maius.

But that would be a misunderstanding. Albrecht III was a feeble man. Whenever things got a bit dicey, he took refuge in a monastery to seek advice from his saviour. The other one of his obsessions was with the hair a woman. We do no longer know who this woman was, but she clearly meant a lot to him, since he had her tresses braided into his hair, which is why he was known as Albrecht with the Plait. On the positive side, he had a strong interest in science and theology, which came in handy for the university of Vienna that thrived thanks to Albrecht’s support.

Albrecht “with the Plait” and Wilhelm “the Ambitious”

To concentrate on these pursuits, he handed over the management of the duchies to his most trusted courtier, John I of Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein did a reasonable job at maintaining peace and keeping the robber barons down, which is why the rule of Albrecht III is often described as a benign one, in particular compared to what was to come.

In 1395 Liechtenstein was found with his hand in the till once too often and was toppled as de facto prime minister. Devoid of his counsel, the peace-loving Albrecht III found himself drawn into the conflict between his neighbour, King Wenceslaus and his barons. Wenceslaus was at this point still king of the Romans, though his authority in the Reich was almost non-existant. And his control of Bohemia was also slipping, so that he found himself captured and then incarcerated by his barons. The barons transferred Wenceslaus to Austria, to the castle of Wilsberg. Wenceslaus supporters then invaded Austria to free their king, which they managed. But that forced Albrecht III to get involved. Albrecht took the side of the barons against Wenceslaus and mustered an army. But before he could set off, he succumbed to an unknown illness, leaving behind only one son, Albrecht IV, aged 16.

Wilhelm “the Ambitious”
Albrecht IV

With Albrecht III gone, the seniority system flipped. It was now Wilhelm, the eldest of the Leopoldine dukes who took the lead in family politics.

Under the previous regime, Albrecht III’s conciliatory nature and the age gap to Wilhelm meant that things could trundle along nicely. That was no longer the case.

Albrecht IV and Wilhelm were only 9 years apart in age. They were cousins, not uncle and nephew and they held different perspectives on the big political questions of the day.

The Habsburgs had hitched their cart to the Luxemburg bandwagon with Rudolph the Founder’s marriage to Katherina, the daughter of emperor Karl IV. On that occasion, the two families had made a pact that should either of them die out, the other was to inherit all their lands. When Rudolph the Founder had died without offspring, Albrecht III had then married another of Karl IV’s daughters and they renewed the alliance including the clause on inheritance. So it was Luxemburg all the way for the House of Habsburg.

It only became problematic when there was division within the house of Luxemburg. By 1402 the disagreements between the half-brothers Wenceslaus and Sigismund of Luxemburg had reached boiling point. Sigismund had captured Wenzeslaus and had sent him over to his friends and allies, the Habsburg dukes of Austria.

That was a sign of great trust, but also caused some major headaches for our two dukes.

Sure, the dukes had been close to Sigismund, but at least legally, Wenzeslaus was the head of his house and heir to Bohemia and the Luxemburg lands in the empire, territories of huge strategic importance to the Habsburgs. Therefore having king Wenzelaus in custody was a very, very hot potato, or, since potatoes had not yet made it across the Atlantic, a very hot parsnip. Nobody knew how the conflict between the brothers would end and so drawing Wenzeslaus’s wrath was not a good idea.

What exactly then happened, nobody knows. But one night, Wenzeslaus hopped the fence and legged it back to Prague.  Did Albrecht IV let him go, or was it his cousin Wilhelm who had unlocked the cell?  

Albrecht IV at least felt obliged to placate Sigismund by doing something he rarely did, he went to war. In 1404, the two princes were leading an expedition against a rebellious group of barons in Moravia, when they both fell violently ill. Sigismund recovered, Albrecht IV did not. As always there were rumours of poison everywhere…and again, who knows. But as far as Sigismund was concerned, he had more confidence in Albrecht’s loyalty than in Wilhelms. And he transferred this sympathy to Albrecht’s son, Albrecht V, who was just 7 years old at this point.

The question of who amongst the Luxemburg brothers to support was not the only thing Albrecht and Wilhelm had been at odds. Over the previous decades the two lines of the family had tried to find arrangements that balanced the demands of each member of the family to be a real prince with a territory to run and to keep the Habsburg united and hence in the Premier League of princes. Over time the egoistical urges outpaced the willingness to stick together.

When Albrecht IV died, the Habsburg lands were de facto split into three. The core duchy of Austria was held by the Albrechts, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola were now administered by Wilhelm and the Tyrol and the ancestral lands on the upper Rhine were managed by the second eldest brother, Leopold IV.

Wilhelm “the Ambitious”
Leopold IV “the Fat”

Given little Albrecht V was only 7 years old, Wilhelm assumed the guardianship, which would have put him in control of almost the whole lot. This concentration of power was unacceptable to the other three brothers. Which is why Wilhelm had to accept his brother Ernst as co-ruler of his territory and Leopold had to accept the youngest, Friedrich as his partner.

Ernst “the Iron”
Friedrich IV

And that is when things started to go seriously south. The brothers not only did not get on, they also began to pursue different policies. Whilst Albrecht and Wilhelm had been firm supporters of the House of Luxemburg, Leopold sided with Ruprecht of the Palatinate, the archenemy of the Luxemburgs. Ruprecht had been elected king of the Romans after Wenzeslaus of Luxemburg had been deposed for incompetence (episode 165 if you want to know more). Leopold not only gave Ruprecht free passage through the Tyrol, he joined the king’s attempt to journey to Rome, which stalled in Milan. The political unity of the House of Habsburg was broken.

Things got even worse when Wilhelm died in 1406. It was now Leopold IV’s time as senior Habsburg. But whilst in previous arrangements the two joint rulers accepted the seniority of the elder, this was not the case any more. The two younger brothers demanded not just a share of Wilhelm’s lands, but also the guardianship over their cousin twice removed, little Albrecht V. The compromise they arrived at was that the youngest, Friedrich, would be the sole duke in Tyrol and the ancestral lands, whilst Leopold and Ernst would jointly administer Styria, Carinthia and Carniola and act as joint guardians over little Albrecht V. That arrangement was then further altered so that Leopold would administer Austria for Albrecht and Ernst would get Styria. And even that was not clear enough, because Leopold and Ernst began to quarrel over what land was Styria and what was Austria.

The four brothers were a rough lot, ready to raise a sword at the slightest provocation, seeking war and adventure wherever there was an opportunity. They were after all the sons of Leopold III, the martial hero and martyr of the battle of Sempach. But even within that lot, Ernst stood out. He would become known as Ernst “the Iron”. He was brutal and ruthless.

When the disagreement between him and Leopold over Austria and Styria turned violent, he did not hesitate to call on Hungarians and Bavarians to devastate his brother’s lands as well as the lands of his ward, young Albrecht V. Leopold in turn brought in one of the most feared Bohemian mercenary commander to do the same. The chronicler Thomas Ebendorfer bemoaned this upheaval as the worst in living memory, a timequote ”where the sons were forced to rob their fathers”. Ernst became known as the “tiny robber with the giant beard”. Things came to a temporary halt when their neighbour, the then not yet emperor Sigismund intervened. In 1409 he decreed that the brothers should cease hostilities and share the revenues of their lands and that of little Albrecht equally. And he set out that the guardianship should end on Albrecht’s 14th birthday, aka by 1411.

By that point the Habsburg rule was in a very sorry state. The land has been devastated by the foreign armies the two brothers had called into Austria. But there had also been structural changes.

Some of the lords who had been vassals of the dukes of Austria were wiggling out of their subordination. Amongst them were the counts of Cilli, the family of Sigismund’s wife Barbara, whose life we looked at in episode 184.

Even more significantly, the ducal estates were taking more and more control of the finances and political direction. Each of the main territories, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the Tyrol had a body representing the subjects, the estates. These consisted usually of three and sometimes four orders, the clergy, the nobles and the cities. In some places the nobles were divided into two, the rich barons and the gentry. The latter was a feature quite common in central Europe where the feudal system as we know it in the west, had only been imported quite late and had been overlaid over existing structures.

What would also often happen was that the voting pattern worked along economic lines rather than by estate. So the barons, abbots and bishops would act together whilst gentry, cities and lower clergy would be another unified block.

The estates could not assemble at will, but had to be called by the duke. That tended to happen when the duke was running out of cash and he wanted to raise taxes. Tax raising authority was not formally given to the estates, but from a purely practical point of view it was more effective when the taxed subjects had agreed to pay. As time went by, and demands for cash mounted, the estates were called more and more often until in many places the diet met once every year. And during times when a duchy was ruled by a minor, the estates often assembled to protect the rights of their lord against his guardians.

Alongside the regular assemblies, the estates also established their own administration. This dealt predominantly with taxation matters, apportioning the obligations amongst the different orders. Building from there they took an ever larger role in the administration of the state, for instance managing the courts. They built their own palaces, the Landhaus, often splendid buildings in the centre of town. In Vienna it is placed next to the Hofburg and in Graz the Landhaus is a spectacular affair with one of central Europe’s most impressive Renaissance courtyards and attached to it is the Landeszeughaus, the armoury of the duchy that contains 32,000 pieces of arms and armour.

These representative bodies would become an important restraint on the power of the Habsburg emperors. They existed all through to 1848 not just in Austria but also in Hungary and for a crucial time, in Bohemia.

In 1411, the two quarrelling brothers, Leopold and Ernst, will get more than a glimpse of the power of these ducal assemblies.

Albrecht V, the sole heir to the Albertine line had finally reached his 14th year and as per Sigismund’s  ruling was to be declared an adult and given control of the duchy of Austria. Though Ernst and Leopold were constantly at each other’s throat, they agreed on one thing and one thing only, that Albrecht should remain a minor for as long as humanly possible. Because as long as that was the case, they, Ernst and Leopold would receive the revenues from the duchy, not the no longer little Albrecht V. So they blocked and tackled, and blocked, and tackled.

The estates of Austria got increasingly irate about this selfish behaviour. And even more importantly, they wanted to prevent another war between the brothers that would  decimate their home. So they applied an unusual method. Several members of the diet went to see Albrecht at the castle where he was living. They convinced him to leave and rode to Eggenburg where the diet declared him an adult and swore him allegiance. When Leopold and Ernst heard about the – as they called it , kidnapping, they got into such a rage, that Leopold, known as the Fat, had his long overdue coronary. And when the second oldest brother hit the floor with a massive thud, Albrecht V became the duke of Austria for real.

Albrecht V

We will talk a whole lot more about Albrecht V in next week’s episode.

The time we have left today will be dedicated to the ingenious way in which the youngest of the brothers, Friedrich IV managed to sink the house of Habsburg even further.

Friedrich was in charge of the Tyrol and the ancestral lands on the upper Rhine. Following the battle of Sempach, the Habsburgs had lost significant territory in German speaking Switzerland, but Albrecht IV, Leopold IV and now Friedrich IV had managed to stabilise the situation, and even regaining some of the lost ground. Albrecht IV, or more accurately, his wife Mechthild of the Palatinate, even had time to found the University of Freiburg, my Alma mater.

And the legendary silver mines in Schwaz in Tyrol had begun operations. So for all intents and purposes, Friedrich IV should have been able to live the joyful life of a noble prince, hunting and shooting all day.

But not so our friend Friedrich. Friedrich had developed an appetite for high politics, in particular Italian politics. The Tyrol included what is now South Tyrol, or Alto Adige, meaning their southern neighbours were the duke of Milan and the Republic of Venice. And that is where he started to get into conflict with Sigismund. Their disagreements were mainly political rather than personal. In 1409 Sigismund had again confirmed the Erbverbrüderung, the commitment that either family would inherit the other’s territories should they die out. And that could at least theoretically include Friedrich IV.

That being said, the political differences between Friedrich and Sigismund kept mounting, in particular when  Friedrich linked up with Venice, one of Sigismund’s arch enemies. In 1413 Sigismund explored options for the Swiss Confederation to attack Friedrich, which they did refuse.

In 1414 the  emperor Sigismund called the great church Council of Constance to bring an end to the schism that had resulted in three competing popes. Episodes 171 to 174 if you want to get the full picture.

Of the three competing popes, only one, Pope John XXIII, was travelling across the Alps to be present at the largest gathering of the church in the Middle Ages. He travelled via the Tyrol where Friedrich IV was more than excited to meet the pope, who wouldn’t be. The two men got on extremely well and Pope John made Friedrich the commander of the papal army with a stipend of 6,000 ducats. This papal army was however BYO, bring your own. Friedrich gathered 500 lances and accompanied the pope to Constance, promising him safety and security.

Once Sigismund arrived in Constance and saw the papal bodyguard, he leant on Friedrich to disband his troops. After all, a pope with a small army was a lot harder to depose than one without.

Which is what was about to happen. Pope John XXIII had hoped that the council would make him the one and only pope, and depose his two rivals. But he was finding out quite quickly that the mood went a very different way. The council was planning to depose all the popes, including him.

In his predicament the pontiff decided to flee. If he left Constance, so he thought, the council would no longer be legitimate, and he could remain pope. And to organise his escape he relied on the commander of his armies, Friedrich IV of the Tyrol.

Friedrich organised a tournament – it seems every time something bad happens to the Habsburgs, it has something to do with tournaments –  anyway. Friedrich organised a tournament and everybody came. Well except for pope John XXIII, who pointed to the papal ban on tournaments that had been formally in place for centuries by now and had now been ignored for centuries.

So whilst everybody was watching grown man knocking each other unconscious for sport, John snuck out of the city and sought refuge in one of Friedrich’s castles. Friedrich too skipped town once the tournament was over and before anyone had noticed the missing pope. That happened on March 20th, 1415. On March 22nd, Sigismund accused Friedrich of treason against church and empire. Another week later, without observing the usual 45 day grace period, Friedrich was put in the imperial ban and declared an outlaw. The council excommunicated him as well.

Now anyone could kill Friedrich or occupy his lands without sanction. And to make this a reality, Sigismund declared all of Friedrich’s lands vacant fiefs and promised to grant them to anyone who could seize them.

Friedrich was completely stunned by this reaction. He had gone to Freiburg im Breisgau, waiting for the collapse of the council and the rewards from his papal benefactor/hostage.  

Instead he receives news that Zurich and Berne were sending troops into the Aargau, that the Count Palatine had taken his lands in Alsace, that Vorarlberg had fallen to his enemies and  that Sigismund’s agitators were working on the estates of Tyrol to throw him out. Against such an onslaught his spread out forces stood no chance. The mighty fortress of Baden in Switzerland fell, and then the Habsburg itself was occupied by the city of Berne.

Let me at this point hand over to William Coxe who described the scene in his inimitable 19th century fashion as follows:

Friedrich quote “sunk under his multiplied disasters, and, refusing to listen to the exhortations of the pope and of his adherents, or to the voice of honour, yielded to the pusillanimous advice of Louie duke of Bavaria, and consented to deliver up the pope, and submit himself to the mercy of Sigismond.

No prince of the empire ever submitted to such indignities, or experienced such degradations, as Frederic. To grace and witness his triumph, Sigismond summoned the most considerable princes of the empire, and the ambassadors from the Italian states, with the chief fathers of the council, into the refectory of the Franciscan convent at Constance. The emperor, having seated himself on his throne, Frederic, accompanied by his nephew the burgrave of Nuremberg, and by his brother-in-law Louis of Bavaria, entered the apartment, and thrice prostrated himself. The eyes of the whole assembly were fixed on the unfortunate prince, and a dead silence prevailed, till Sigismond demanded, “What is your desire ?”

The burgrave replied, “ Most mighty king, this is duke Frederic of Austris, my uncle ; at his desire I implore your royal pardon, and that of the council, for his offences against you and the church , he surrenders himself and all his possessions to your mercy and pleasure, and offers to bring back the pope to Constance, on condition that his person and property shall remain inviolate.” The emperor, raising his voice, asked, “ Duke Frederic, do you engage to fulfil these promises ?” and the duke, in faltering accents, answered, “I do, and humbly implore your royal mercy.” At this reply a sensation of pity spread through the whole assembly; even Sigismond himself seemed to be affected, and said, “I am concerned that he has been guilty of such misdemeanours.” Frederic took the oath, by which he surrendered to Sigismond all his territories, from the Tyrol to the Breisgau, submitting to hold as a favour what the emperor should please to restore, and yielded himself as an hostage for the fulfilment of the conditions. Sigismond then took him by the hand, and concluded the ceremony by observing to the Italian prelates, “ You well know, reverend fathers, the power and consequence of the dukes of Austria ; learn, by this example, what a king of the Germans can accomplish.” End quote

As Coxe said, such elaborate humiliations were rare, in particular of a prince whose family had already furnished 2 plus one king of the Romans and not long ago had been on par with the House of Luxemburg. It was meant to demonstrate the power that Sigismund had garnered through his management of the Council of Constance, and may well be the high water mark of his political power.

At the end of this process, Friedrich had become effectively landless. All territory that wasn’t occupied by his enemies was now Sigismund’s direct possession. Alsace was gone, several towns were raised to cities and given immediacy, the Swiss cantons were confirmed in their possession of the lands south of the rhine, including the Habsburg and Baden. His subjects had sworn allegiance to the Luxemburger, except for one – the Tyrolians. The estates of Tyrol did not want to become part of a Luxemburg empire, or worse, be enfeoffed to a Bavarian duke. Instead they called on Friedrich’s brother, duke Ernst the Iron, to come and lead the resistance.

It was at this point that this once richest imperial prince, owner of the largest silver mine in Europe, became known as Friedrich with the Empty Pocket.

Given the family history I am unsure whose ambitions Friedrich feared more, Sigismund and his allies, or his brother’s…but he needed to act to protect his lands. So he fled from Constance, breaking his solemn oath. He was put back into the imperial ban. Sigismund called on his princes to muster an army to execute his ban.

I think this is where we are going to leave it for now. Friedrich IV, Count of Tyrol, prince of the house of Habsburg, kneeling before Sigismund of Luxemburg. The ancestral castle of the Hawk occupied by townsfolk from Berne and lost for ever.

Surprising as this sounds, this is still not the low point for the family. Friedrich will find his boulder to climb back up on to fight another day. Ernst the Iron will do unironic things and Albrecht V, well, he is set for greater things. And all that so they can tumble down again.

Something to look forward to next week. I hope you will join us again.

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