Maximilian I – The Last Knight (1486-1519)
The “Last Knight”, the most glamorous of the Holy Roman Emperors. A man able to love as well as holding eternal grudges. It was his luck and diplomacy rather than his prowess in the field that propelled the family not just to the top table in the German speaking lands, but to heights of power no one had ever known.
Today we – and the Habsburgs – stride back on to the grand stage of European politics. Not with a titan of history or monarch whose long and fruitful reign resonates across the centuries, but with Friedrich III, better known as the Reichserzschlafmütze – the imperial arch sleepy head, Or perhaps more fittingly the imperial arch dawdler.
He ruled from 1440 to 1493, a total of 53 years – the longest reign of any Holy (or unholy) Roman Emperors (bar Constantine VIII). And yet, is also the most derided of reigns. In 1878 the Historian Georg Voigt sneered: “He was not remotely capable of handling such far-reaching politics, leaving Bohemia to its own devices, the Hungarian throne dispute to the helpless queen dowager, Austria to the arrogant dynasts, and the mercenary and robber bands.” “His light, simple hair, his long face with little movement, and his sedate gait betrayed a sluggish, deliberate nature, to which any enthusiasm, indeed any excitement, was alien. His love of peace has been endlessly mocked, but it was based on a completely dull sense of manhood and honour. No prince was so easily consoled by such insolent and repeated insults.” End quote.
Modern historians are kinder, praising his thorough education and dogged determination to preserve what was left of the majesty of the Holy Roman Emperors. But even they can’t avoid calling him flabby, underhand and happy to sell out his friends and allies.
Not exactly the kind of guy one wants to spend three or four episodes with. But this is history, not Hollywood. The nice guys do not usually win by yanking hard on the levers of destiny. More often than not tenacious men of low cunning, who weasel their way through, are the ones who are bringing the results.
And results he did get. At the end of his reign, the empire had changed profoundly. The open constitution of the Middle Ages had given way to a denser and more structured organization.
Why and how Friedrich III – despite all his many shortcomings – got to move the needle of German history is what we will look at over the next few weeks.
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
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To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
#216: The Youth of Emperor Maximilian I
A Childhood between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Gone are the days when all you needed to know is fighting and hunting to be an accomplished prince. Now its everything from algebra to alchemy
#217: When Mary Met Maxi
The Burgundian Wedding, 1477
“Let others wage war; you, happy Austria, marry”, that is what we are told. The reality was very different – invasion, rebellion, execution…
#218: Of Hedgehogs and Herons
The Burgundian War, 1477-1483
By 1477 the rules of war that had been enshrined in the laws of chivalry are gone. The contest between the French and the Habsburgs over the inheritance of the Grand Dukes of the West gives us a foretaste of the things to come.
#219: The Fall of Ghent
Why there are no more City States
Singapore is only one true city state left. Why did they go? The fall of Ghent in 1485 is a prime example of how they disappeared.
#220: The Burgundian Experience
Maximilian elected King of Romans and imprisoned
More than a decade of fighting for the Low Countries is rewarded by a humiliating rebellion in Bruges. No wonder Maximilian does not like the French nor the Flemish burghers.
#221: Taking Back Control
The Recovery of Tyrol and Austria
Maximilian returned to the Empire in 1489 to find things in a mess. Cousin Sigismund was wasting the family fortune, the enemy still held Vienna and the imperial princes were unhelpful in the extreme
#222: Italian Wars and Spanish Marriages
The End of the Universal Empire
When king Charles VIII of France marched into Italy in 1494, the medieval political world collapsed and is replaced with something new…
The Imperial Reforms of 1495
The unique structure of the Holy Roman Empire emerged over centuries. Most of the time the process was slow to imperceptible, but sometimes it accelerated dramatically, and no more so than at the diet of Worms in 1495.
This was a massive shift that led to a stabilisation of the political structure that prove sufficiently robust to survive the 30 years war and instilled a deep faith in the legal process in the population.
#223: A Diet of Worms (1495 Edition)
The Imperial Reform (Reichsreform) Part I
The long awaited reform of the Holy Roman Empire gets under way – smooth is not the word one would use…blackmail and ruder words are used
#224: The Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire
Imperial Reform of 1495 – Part II
The Reichstag, the assembly of the electors, princes and cities of the Holy Roman Empire was weirder but more effective than usually believed
#225: The Ewige Landfrieden (Public Peace) of 1495
Part Three of the Imperial Reform (Reichsreform)
Maximilian I declared an eternal public peace In 1495 and established two courts, that shaped the unique relationship Germans have with the law
Back to Maximilian I (1493-1519)
#226: A Grand Plan for a Great War
Maximilian’s attempt to encircle the French
Europe’s political landscape is shifting fundamentally. And Maximilian I has a grand plan to get rid of the French, once and for all
#227: Landsknechte versus Swiss Mercenaries
The Swabian (Swiss) War of 1499
Why are the Swiss called the Swiss – and how did the first encounter between the two famous Renaissance forces, the Landsknechte and the Swiss Reisläufer turn out?
#228: The Princes and the Emperor
The Imperial Diet at Augsburg in 1500
In 1500 the imperial estates stripped the Maximilian I of power. Why did they create their own imperial government? And did it work?
#229: How the Habsburgs gained Spain
Joanna the (not?) mad (1504-1555)
Did the Habsburgs gain Spain in the horizontal? Was Joanna of Spain really mad or just mad at/about her husband? Was Philipp just handsome or playing chess with Louis XII to unify Europe? Questions, questions….
#230: The League of Cambrai
Margaret of Austria (1480-1530)
The Italian wars begin for real in 1508 when Margaret of Austria puts together the League of Cambrai to rescue her father, the now “Emperor” Maximilian I
#231: Marrying Bohemia and Hungary
Louis II of Hungary (1506-1526)
The Habsburgs did not acquire the Hungarian and Bohemian crowns in one wedding night, it was an overnights success 250 years in the making
#232: The Ottomans from Mehmet the Conqueror to Selim the Grim
The Ottomans
Between the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the ascent of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottomans doubled their empire, but did not attack Western Europe – why?
#233: Maximilian I Last Days and Legacy
Ottoman Threat, Imperial Election and Debt
Maximilian I died in 1519 – leaving behind the foundations of the Habsburg Empire. What of this was truly his legacy and what just chance….
#234: The Charisma of the Emperor Maximilian
Printing the Image of the House of Habsburg
The first politician to fully exploit the opportunities presented by the printing press was the emperor Maximilian I whose massive program of publications drew in artists like Albrecht Dürer, Hans Burgkmair and Albrecht Altdorfer and laid the foundation for the “Erbcharisma” der Habsburger