1495

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Maximilian’s attempt to encircle the French

Ep. 226: Maximilian I (1493-1519) – A Grand Plan for a Great War – History of the Germans

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Transcript

Hello and Welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 226 – Maximilian I (1493-1513) – A Grand Plan for a Great War.

The European Political Landscape around 1500

Let’s rise on the wings of an eagle and look at Europe in and around the year 1500, or more precisely in 1496, the year Maximilian I puts his Grand Plan into action, a Grand Plan so grand you can turn it into a woodcut and call it an Triumphal Arch.

Looking down from 10,000 feet we can see that the endless conflicts between the kings and their vassals are rapidly abating. Even the Holy Roman Empire has developed a constitution that bans the endless feuding and created institutions that more or less kept everyone pulling in the same direction.

In this world of centralised authorities, civil servants, lawyers, cannons and massed pikemen, medieval notions of faith and loyalty do not count for much anymore. 17 years later Machiavelli will write quote: “In the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no court to appeal to, one looks to the end. So let a prince win and maintain his state — the means will always be judged honourable and praised by everyone.” He by the way never said that the ends justified the means, but clearly he meant it. Winning for a prince was keeping his state afloat through all the vagaries of fortune. Everything else — cruelty, generosity, honesty, deception — are just tools in the fight for survival.

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It was no coincidence that Machiavelli’s focus on the ruthlessness of princes was born in Northern Italy. It was in Northern Italy that the fundamental imbalances in this new political framework of Europe had been put into stark relief.

Then and now the wealthiest parts of Western Europe were Northern Italy, the Rhone valley, Southern Germany, the Rhineland, the Low Countries and southern England. This is where most of the trading, innovation and manufacturing happened. Cloth, metalwork, arms, armour, art, luxury goods travelled up and down that route to be distributed further along. Silks and spices arrived in Constantinople and Alexandria from the east and were shipped via Venice and Genoa up this banana-shaped route. And what did the Indians and Chinese want in return? Certainly not Flemish cloth or Rhenish whine. The only thing the European had to offer to the east were commodities, gold, silver, copper, amber, precious stones. And much of that came from the mines in Tyrol, Bohemia, Hungary, Saxony and Sweden.

Now what have all these places, safe for Venice, Sweden and Southern England in common? They were all -at least formally- inside the Holy Roman Empire.

And that is reflected in the demographics as well. The Maddison project at the university of Groningen produces a reasonably reliable long term demographic dataset. Based on these numbers, the Holy Roman Empire, including northern Italy, the Low Countires, the Arelat and Bohemia had a population well in excess of 23 million, compared to France at less than 13 million when excluding the parts that were still in the empire. Poland was closer to 7 million and even adding in Hungary and Bohemia was unlikely to hit much above 12 million. Spain too comes in at just around 7 million.

In other words, the Holy Roman Empire was the economically and demographically by far largest  political structure in Western Europe.

But who were the most powerful monarchs in continental Europe at the time? King Charles VIII of France, king Kasimir of Poland-Lithuania who also controlled Bohemia and Hungry through his son, Wladislaw, and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. These three ruled lands that had smaller populations and were economically peripheral to Western Europe. Their rich and fertile soil produced an abundance of food that could be exported to the centres of economic activity, but their fledgling industries could not compete with Milan, Ghent or Nurnberg. Their success was down to smart dynastic marriages, suppression of powerful vassals and patient acquisition of rights and territories by any means possible.

Is it surprising that Machiavelli thought brutal statecraft was the key to success, much more than the bands of loyalty, law and honour that had traditionally bound the Holy Roman Empire together?

When in 1495 king Charles VIII of France rode through Italy, smashing up its carefully calibrated political equilibrium, the whole of Europe felt like Michael Spinks after 93 seconds in the ring with Mike Tyson. Nothing would be the same any more.

As we heard in episode 222 the warring Italian states, including the pope were shocked into joining the Holy League together with Maximilian and the Spanish. And the Holy League managed to chase Charles VIII first out of Naples and then out of Italy altogether.

Maximilian’s Grand Plan

But that was not the end of the story. How could it be. The richest and most populous parts of western europe were politically fragmented and militarily dependent upon mercenaries. They were easy prey for the French kings whose country and army had been honed in not just hundred, but hundreds of years of war with the English and the Burgundian dukes. And even though Charles promised to hold his peace and never actually came back, everybody knew that it was only a question of time before the French would be back.

As 1495 gave way to 1496, Maximilian came up with a grand plan to get rid of the French menace once and for all. Did he think in terms of economics, demographics and balance of power? Not likely. He was still more medieval then modern and his convictions were rooted in honour and the ancient imperial rights and obligations. In his eyes, the French invasion was an attack on the honour of the empire and disrespected him personally as King of the Romans and future emperor. Against all indications to the contrary, he believed Italy was still an integral part of the empire and therefore subject to his rule. He is known to have said that he would rather part with Burgundy, than with “his” Italy.

And then there is his Burgundian experience. He may still only be 36 years old, but he had spent almost half his life fighting ferocious wars against the king of France, wars where neither side took prisoners and relegated the laws of chivalry to the appendix of history. According to his biographer Wiesecker, Maximilian had come out of these wars with a profound hatred for the French. Maybe he did, but there was a rational basis for this antagonism. The King of France needed to wipe out Burgundy in order to sleep soundly in his bed, and hence the ruler of Burgundy needed to crush the French king so that he could sleep soundly in his bed. Only one of them could win and live.

Hence Maximilians Grand Plan was simple – wipe the king of France from the European political chessboard, send him back to Bourges to spend his days in futile prayer for a second Joan of Arc to show up….simples..

The way this was to work out was as follows.

The Holy League should flush the remaining French out of their hidey holes in Gaeta and Tuscany and Florence should be cleansed of the mad monk Savanarola. That done, the league army would then board ships to Provence and attack France from the South East.

Meanwhile the Spanish would cross the Pyrenees in force and merge with the Italians to go up the Rhone river together.

In the North, Maximilian’s son Philipp was to muster the Low Countries for a hard push into Artois and Picardie, whilst at the same time the English would land in Brittanny.

Last but not least, the army of the Holy Roman empire would push into the Franche Comte and the duchy of Burgundy and then on to Paris.

Under such an onslaught from all sides, the French monarchy could do nothing but crumble into dust. That was a Grand Plan if there ever was one.  

What are the chances that he could pull it off?

Maximilian’s advisors shook their heads arguing that this was all a bit too grandiose, but their lord was very much of the view that he had all the necessary bits and pieces in place.

The Holy League had already been established. Sure it was a purely defensive alliance covering only the scenario of a direct attack on any of its members, but wasn’t the next French attack imminent? Surely, all they were doing was preventing the almost certain next invasion.

As for the Spanish, Maximilian had just put all his eggs into their basket when he agreed to marry his only two children to the Infante and the Infanta of Spain. This marriage alliance had been so lopsided in favour of the Spanish, the least they could do was helping him get rid of that quarrelsome king of France.

And this self-same son Philipp who would marry Juana of Spain had been declared an adult and had taken control of the Low Countries. He of course owed loyalty to his father, if only for all the gold and iron Maximilian had spent on preserving his son’s inheritance.

The king of England, well, how could he not want Aquitaine and Normandy back, the lands that his predecessors had so valiantly defended at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. And as for that issue with the pretender Perkin Warbeck who Maximilian was still parading around as a Prince of England and true heir to Edward IV, that issue could sure be sorted through some land swap once France was on its knees.

Henry VII of England

And finally the empire, what a great opportunity to test drive its brand spanking new constitution. After all the estates had granted him the Common Penny of 250,000 florins and owed him suit on his coronation journey to Rome, which Maximilian has also somehow finagled into his tight timeline too.

Huzzah! The war is on and in six months little Charles VIII will we wailing in his palace, cursing the day he poked the mighty empire. All we need to do now is have a quick meeting to go over the logistics in some detail and then we are off. That meeting was scheduled for July 1496 in Glurns and Mals in the Vinschgau. Yes, these are real places in South Tirol, just on the Italian side of the Reschen pass. These are today and were then small and unnaturally beautiful towns, profoundly unsuited for a pan-European conference that was to decide the fate of the continent. But I am jumping ahead. Let’s talk about the buildup to this great conference.

The Build-up to Mals and Glurns

This timeline left Maximilian with almost 9 months from Charles VIII return to France to nail down his grand plan and make sure that everybody who showed up in Tyrol was fully committed to the success of the grand adventure. He tackled all of these in parallel, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s take them one by one, starting with the empire.

Back at the Imperial diet of Worms (episode 223), Maximilian had tried to get the Reichstag to ratify the Empire’s participation in the Holy League. That  proposal did not pass but the Reichstag had committed 250,000 florins in immediate support for the war in Italy.

However collection of these funds was slow, so slow it was almost imperceptible. Bankers who had offered to loan Maximilian the money in advance of collection withdrew their offer when they saw how little was coming in. And anyone who had not paid realised that only the shmucks were paying and so they stopped too. Only about 50,000 florins were ever collected, most of it in the Habsburg lands. Maximilian called another diet for Candlemas 1496 in Frankfurt to discuss any impediment to the tax collection, but nobody showed up, not even the archbishop of Mainz and archchancellor who was only a few miles away.

That was a setback, but Maximilian should be able to rely on the oldest rights of a King of the Romans, the obligation of his vassals to accompany him on his coronation journey to Italy. This was one of the last functional elements of the medieval constitution of the empire. Even his father – thoroughly despised as he was -could gather at least a handful of princes when he went in 1452. Maximilan called the estates of the empire to appear fully armed and with their retainers in Feldkirch on July 1st, 1496 and muster for a jolly down to Rome. But for Maximilian, the Last Knight and upholder of chivalric culture, not a single imperial prince honoured the ancient oaths.

Maximilian I

But Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure that once his campaign had shown some initial success, the imperial princes would flock to his banner. Moreover, he still had England, Burgundy, Spain, the Italians, Venice, Naples, the Pope and Milan and of course, Spain.

The discussions with king Henry VII of England were not going to smoothly. The Tudor was still upset about Maximilian’s support for Perkin Warbeck. So Maximilian’s in-laws, Ferdinand and Isabella took the lead there. And they could convince Henry VII to join the Holy League, brilliant. But there was a snag. Henry VII was no Henry V. He did not hanker after grand conquests in French lands. His country had not yet recovered from the War of the Roses, and quite frankly, Yorkist pretenders weren’t exactly helping. So he would watch events with profound sympathy and if attacked would respond, but landing in France – maybe later.

But Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure that once his campaign had shown some initial success, the imperial princes would flock to his banner and England would land troops in Brittany. Moreover, he still had Burgundy, the Italians, Venice, Naples, the Pope and Milan and of course, Spain.

Burgundy was now ruled by his son Philipp. A strapping young man of 17, tall, slim, athletic, fair, and elegant in a manner that got his contemporaries exclaiming, what a handsome prince. Philipp had grown up in the Netherlands, educated by Burgundian officials at Mechelen, including Olivier de la Marche and Frans van Busleyden. Philipp had lost his mother aged four and had barely seen his father during his youth. Philipp was much more Netherlander than Austrian. His loyalty lay with his subjects and his tutors, not with his father, the house of Habsburg or the empire. And after 15 years of war, the Low Countries were still utterly devastated. So Philipp declined to help. Even when his father summoned him to Tyrol and berated him for a whole day, he stayed firm. His lands would pay the imperial tax, but no more.

Philipp the Handsome (c. 1500)

But Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure that once his campaign had shown some initial success, the imperial princes would flock to his banner, England would land troops in Brittany and his son would muster the spirit of Charles the Bold. Moreover, he still had the Italians, Venice, Naples, the Pope and Milan and of course, Spain.

So when the parties came together at Mals and Glurns on July 17th, 1496 Maximilian tried to impress his guests with a display of the family fortune he had just recently brought back from Nürnberg, where his father had hidden it behind a false wall in the Marienkirche. Whether that worked out is less clear since the Venetian envoy remarked in his letters home about the somewhat threadbare appearance of tapestries and dimness of the silver tableware.

His tent and table may be a bit shabby, but the plan that Maximilian presented to the assembled representatives of Venice, Naples, the Pope and Spain, as well the duke of Milan, was the opposite. Here are the details:

The Spanish should cross the Pyrenees with 20,000 men, Naples, Milan, Venice and the Pope should raise a combined force of 35,000 to which he would add the 20,000 men he would cross the Alps with. Together they would clean out Tuscany and then attack France from the south. As for the northern frontier, the war would trigger the obligations of the Holy League for England plus there was always the other fundamental driver of human behaviour – greed.

Once the French were defeated, king Charles should be offered peace on condition that he gave up his claim on Naples, handed over half of Provence to Spain, which would become an imperial fief again, Burgundy and Artois would go to the Habsburgs, Brittany to England, Florence to Venice and the French Church would be brought back under the direct control of the pope. Something for everyone.

But when Maximilian handed round the pens for the signing, no ink was forthcoming. Of course everyone agreed that king Charles VIII needed to be given a lesson and Italy needed to be defended, the honour of the empire restored etc., etc…but all this was a bit off the scale…

Maybe, if he came down to Italy and they would start somewhere, like mopping up the remains of the French occupation, or maybe pushing for regime change in Florence, removing the mad monk Savanarola who was France’s main ally in Italy, maybe that was a good start.

And Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure that once his campaign had shown some initial success, the imperial princes would flock to his banner, England would land troops in Brittany, his son would muster the spirit of Charles the Bold, the Italians would raise the troops needed and the Spaniards would come across the Pyrenees. Moreover, he still had – well his title and his mesmerising personality.

And to show his guests what he was made of, he staged a hunt, a hunt for Gemsen, the Chamois who live in the sheer alpine cliffs. You may have seen them in nature documentaries. They are sure footed European antelopes, who leap across impossible gaps along sheer cliffs, as if gravity did not exist. Hunting them means following their near impossible paths. Maximilian, for all his faults, was an outstanding hunter, a serious athlete. And so the delegations watched at the bottom of the Wormser Joch as Maximilian and his fellow huntsmen drove the Gemsen across the bluffs and escarpments, making several of them nearly faint. The guests, not the Gemsen. The huntsmen drove the animals down into the valley and right before the assembled dignitary where they were mercilessly slaughtered, just like Maximilian hoped he could do with the French.

Hunt for Chamois in the Weisskunig
Maximilian <Römisch-Deutsches Reich, Kaiser, I.>; Schultz, Alwin [Editor]; Kunsthistorische Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses <Wien> [Editor]; Treitzsaurwein, Marx [Oth.]: Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses (ab 1919 Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien): Der Weisskunig (Wien, 6.1888)

But how?

It was decision time. None of his allies had made any binding commitments to his grand plan. But they had also not said no either. The duke of Milan in particular begged him to come to Italy and protect him from future attacks by Charles VIII. If he stayed back in Innsbruck after telling everyone and their dog that he was going to crush the French and be crowned emperor in Rome, he would look very much like a fool. And a man who jumps from one tiny ledge to another in pursuit of a largely inedible antelope, looking like a fool was not a real option.

The other option was to bet on his luck, something that Machiavelli described as (quote) “one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it”. And such kind of fortune had been his trademark ever since he had clapped eyes on the gorgeous Marie of Burgundy and her even more gorgeous cities, palaces and castles.

And so in August 1496, once more a king of the Romans crossed the alps to tame the Italian peninsula. He came, not with 20,000 as promised, not with 5,000 like Henry VII, the last one to have shared his ambition, but with just 300 armed riders.

Once again, Maximilian was skint. He had squeezed every last penny he could out of the population of Austria that had suffered from Hungarian and Turkish incursions. He had pawned what was left of the revenues from the great silver mines of Schwaz. The family heirlooms that so failed to impress the Venetian envoys was given as security for a loan from the Gossembrot bankers of Nürnberg. Some financial help came from the duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moro, who over the whole of their relationship, had given Maximilian a cool 1 million gulden but who was now also on his last leg. Venice reluctantly chipped in with the promise of subsidies, though Maximilian was annoyed when Venetians claimed they had hired the King of the Romans as their condottiere, their mercenary captain. But he bit his tongue, after all, he had a grand plan to implement.

Over the course of the campaign, these funds will bring him a few thousand men that arrived in drips and drops. Which meant he was making a big bet on his Italian allies, his friend and in-law, Ludovico il Moro, the murderous duke of Milan, the shrewd Republic of Venice and the depraved pope Alexander VI Borgia. What could possibly go wrong?

As he came down the Wormser Joch again, he pushed on, not to Milan where he was offered a coronation with the iron crown and all that, but to the small but truly stunningly beautiful town of Vigevano. If you have not been, it’s Piazza Ducale built in record time by Ludovico is amongst Italy’s finest, which means a lot.

Maximilian detour to Vigevano was less for sightseeing than to avoid embarrassment. His measly 300 men were not the kind of imperial entourage that the people of Milan expected from their future king and emperor.

Vigevano – Piazza Ducale

In Vigevano he held a war council with his allies, in fact just Milan and Venice, since the pope had sent legates but no levies.

Maximilian had played a double hand with his Italian friends. He had told the Venetians that he would gather a fleet to attack the French at sea and prepare for a landing in Provence. The Venetians did like that, since that would detain the French and keep the emperor out of Italy. The Milanese did not like that plan one bit. They wanted Maximilian to push into Asti and other French positions in the Italian Northwest, thereby strengthening and protecting Milan. The Venetians did not like a stronger and safer Milan one bit, given they were still squabbling over Brescia and Bergamo.

The obvious solution to this impasse was to go to Livorno. Livorno, just for those of you without a detailed map of Italy in your head is south of Vigevano, whilst France is east of Vigevano.

Livorno (after 1547)

Still it sort of made sense, as Livorno was the gate into Tuscany where France’s ally, Savanarola still keeping Florence in a state of heightened agitation.

Livorno is a port city and the plan was to muster a fleet in Genoa and attack the city from both land and sea simultaneously. Maximilian’s generals promised this would all be a walk in the park. The city’s defences were weak and yes, it was already October, but Italian autumns are famously mild.

So on October 6, Maximilian’s fleet of 8 Venetian and 2 Genoese galleys plus 11 support vessels raised anchor. On board were 2,000 soldiers plus some artillery, whilst a similarly sized force was marching on land. Progress was shockingly slow. The fleet spent days being blown in, the roads were muddy, so the army moved extremely slowly. It took until October 22nd before Maximilian and most of his forces arrived in Pisa, 25km north of Livorno. Squabbling amongst allies over the status of Pisa as a free imperial city or a potential prize for Milan or Venice did not add to the sense of imminent victory.

Finally on October 23rd did Maximilian take his fleet to investigate the state of the defences of Livorno, where he was told, just 500 trained soldiers were holding out. He ordered his navy to blockade the harbour and his land forces set up their cannon to bombard the city. Maximilian was optimistic that Livorno would soon fall given the attackers outnumbered defenders five to one. Yes Livorno’s walls had unexpectedly been recently reinforced and were armed with powerful artillery, but how long before lord hunger would overwhelm them.

The problem with navy blockades is that they are weather dependent. In settled conditions, any traffic in and out of the harbour can be cut off by the heavily armed galleys. However, when the wind blows hard, or worse, in a storm, things can be very different. And even more so if the storm blows from the south west, pushing ships into the bay of Livorno and under the guns of their towers. It was the end of October, a time when the med can be extremely variable with huge fronts going across. I have a friend who got caught in one of these storms at the end of October and was knocked down three times off the coast of Algiers – not an experience he is keen to ever repeat. This, I am afraid, is not the gentle Mediterranean from the Tui brochures.  South westerlies are rare, but thet can occur.

And they did. On October 29th, 1496 one of these storms made landfall at Livorno. The Venetian and Genoese galleys, including Maximilian’s flagship, the Grimalda, struggled to hold their position, when on the horizon a French fleet appeared. These ships, mostly smaller, and crucially propelled by sails not oars, zoomed past the Italians with the wind in their back. Attempts to attack them failed in the atrocious weather and given the speed of the relief ships. The citizens of Livorno could not believe their luck when the arrivals unloaded 800 Swiss guards, more guns and food to last them for months. Maximilian raged, but couldn’t do a thing. Conditions made it impossible to land and so his fleet headed out to whether the storm. He came back ashore in early November to find his land troops much diminished. As always, money had run out. The Venetians, who had more money than anyone else in Europe had stopped paying his troops, had even cut off their own mercenaries. That was an ominous sign.

But Maximilian did not give up. Once more into the breach comrades, he got back on his flagship and ordered an attack on the harbour of Livorno. The captain and his crew refused, his soldiers, most of whom had grown up at the foot of the alps had enough of the sea. Maximilian convinced them to go with him to Elba where he hoped he could find more seamanlike crew. But this was thwarted when another storm hit. This was the really nasty one. When Maximilian asked his favourite artists Hans Burgkmair to depict the scene he called his the worst days of his life.  There were occasional encounters with the French on the high seas but weather did not permit anything but occasional pot shots at each other. This must have been truly atrocious. Stuck on these comparatively small, massively overcrowded ships, fearing to be capsized or hit by a French cannonball. The artillery pieces were tied down, but will these ropes hold, and above all, what is the point. The defenders of Livorno sat in front of their warm fires, eating their generous rations, whilst the League soldiers were drowning in mud and the sailors was throwing up over the side.

The sea battles before Livorno (from the Weisskunig)

On November 9th, Maximilian needed to inspect the situation on land and – though the storm was still raging – ordered his flagship to deposit him near the army camp. He got into a dinghy and was rowed ashore, the little boat almost tipping over more than once. On one of these waves he suddenly saw his mighty flagship being lifted up, like by the hand of an angry god and smashed on to the shore. She broke apart immediately, disgorging its cannon, injured men and imperial treasure to the delight of the nearby Livornian. That same night, the league lost another three ships and 500 men, one of them, the Adornia going down with all hands.

This must be it. It must be over now. The fleet is sunk, the soldiers unpaid, the cannon lost and the camp is sinking into the Maremma sludge.

But Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure, there was still a chance. Once more he led an attack, set up his guns to pound the walls of Livorno. As he looked down, he saw the French navy sailing out and taking the remaining Genoese galleys without a shot fired. Maximilian grabbed his last 20  men and ran down to the very last remaining ship and demanded an attack. But the captain refused, his soldiers turned around. Now it was surely over.

No, this guy does not give up. Yes, he had to raise the siege of Livorno. All the money was  gone. The Venetian envoy told him, it was time to go home. He did head north, but to Milan, to sit down with Ludovico il Moro to weigh their options. After all, the Holy league was still formally intact and the Spaniards were still in play. The marriage was still going ahead. The Reichstag had gathered in Lindau, so if he went there, the princes would realise that their honour was in peril if they did not come to help.

He headed back to Innsbruck in the midst of winter, still optimistic that his grand plan could come to fruition. He ordered more and better cannon to be made and kept in his armoury in Innsbruck. There is a painted inventory of these weapons, pages and pages with beautiful renderings of machines of war. How many pages? 560 of them. How many cannon? Probably the same number, maybe even more. No, Maximilan did not give up.

Until on February 25th, 1497 the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella  agreed a truce with  Charles VIII. Two months later Milan, Venice and the Pope threw in the towel. The war of the Holy League was over. Maximilian tried one more, this time with an attack on Burgundy, an effort that came to nought when his son signed a permanent peace with France behind his back.

The league itself dissolved formally when Venice swapped sides and agreed a permanent peace and alliance with France in 1499. Meanwhile king Charles VIII had an unfortunate encounter with a doorframe. And in September of that same year the next French king, Louis XII marched into Milan. Ludovico il Moro fled to Maximilian in Innsbruck, mustered an army to take back his duchy, was defeated and ended his life as a French prisoner.

This attempt at encircling and diminishing France had been a truly epic fail. But it wasn’t the last. The next 250 years, until the Seven Years’ War, one main axis of Europe’s political history is the struggle between the French kings and the House of Habsburg, and arguably it laid the foundation for the subsequent and even more brutal conflict between France and Germany. Marx said that history repeats itself twice, first as tragedy and then as farce. These wars repeat themselves more than twice, more than 10 times, more like dozens of times, almost always as tragedy, but here, the first time, as farce.

The Early Modern Period has begun, sometime between Joan of Arc, the war of the Burgundian succession, Charles VIII invasion of Italy, the Fall of Grenada and Maximilian’s grand plan, the political map of Europe had turned from a north south axis to an east west axis.

And whilst France is growing and consolidating, what is the empire doing. Is the constitution going to hold the princes together. Was their reluctance to support Maximilian in his grand plan a bug or a feature? And what about the Swiss? Where were they in all that? Are they still in, or are they out? All will be revealed next week.

I hope you will join us again and remember, that your humble podcaster may not be as indebted as Maximilian was at the end of this campaign, running this show takes its toll. And if you were to find it in your hearts to share some of this burden, go to historyofthegermans.com/support where you can find various options to show yourself as a true imperial prince, faithful to his or her oaths. Such as Ole M., Kevin K. Alan J, Kevin B., Robert W., Johan S. Kalr K. John M. A. have already done.

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Part Three of the Imperial Reform (Reichsreform)

Ep. 225: Imperial Reform 1495 – The Ewige Landfrieden (Public Peace) of 1495 – History of the Germans

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 225 – Der Ewige Landfrieden (the Public Peace) of 1495.

Let me start today’s episode with some outrageous national stereotypes. If an Englishman is disappointed with the way the affairs of state are conducted, he writes a letter to his member of Parliament. A Frenchman in that same situation rents a tractor and dumps manure outside the Palais d’Elysee. A German threatens to file a lawsuit with the constitutional court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht.

Where did the Germans pick up the belief that courts and the law will protect them against government overreach? Sure, 19th and early 20th century judges had on occasion stood up to the Kaiser’s administration and the Grundgesetz, the liberal constitution of 1949, had become a cornerstone of our national identity following the comprehensive loss of moral standing.

But there is also a long strain that goes back to the Holy Roman Empire and the two imperial courts, the Reichskammergericht and the Reichshofrat. These courts have a bad reputation, not only because Johan Wolfgang von Goethe saw it fit to ridicule his former place of work. However, not everyone shared this negative perspective. Many social groups down to mere  commoners relied on these independent judges to protect their life and property against rapacious princes.

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And with that, back to the show.

I guess you are sitting in your car or on the train listening to this and thinking, how can there be a connection between what you have heard these last 224 episodes about lawlessness and chaos in the Holy Roman Empire and the high status court judgements enjoy in Germany today? I do admit, it is a long shot, but bear with me.

Let’s go back first to the early and high Middle Ages, the Ottonians, Salians and early Hohenstaufen. The emperors of this period saw law and justice as their primary tasks, alongside the protection of the church and the defense of the honor of the empire.

The Laws of the Empire – or Absence Thereof

But what did they mean by law and justice? There was of course no codified law in existence. The closest thing to a law code was the Sachsenspiegel and its variations. But this was a collection of legal customs compiled by a scholar, Eike von Repgow, not a compilation of binding laws. There were other, competing sources of law, the ancient Frankish law codes, specific local traditions, Canon law, aka the law of the church, precedents in the form of previous imperial judgements and charters, some real, some fake.

Roman Law, specifically the Codex Juris of Justinian was added to this mélange in the mid-12th century when scholars in Bologna recovered the original text and Barbarossa re-issued it as the laws of Roncaglia (episode 55).

There was obviously no coherence between these various sources of law, not even a widely accepted hierarchy. Attempts were made both on the territorial and imperial level to reconcile all these into one coherent “law of the land”, but it took until 1794 before Prussia passed the first comprehensive law code, the Preußische Allgemeine Landrecht. Austria followed in 1802 and France with the much more modern Code Napoleon in 1804 that was adopted by several German principalities.  I.e., for 98% of the time the empire existed, there was no coherent law, not even on a territorial level.

The purpose of Judgements

So, without a coherent set of laws, how did the courts arrive at their judgements, and why did so many people think these courts were a place to get actual justice?

If you read about legal disputes in the papers, the headline is usually X won or Y had lost, framing the lawcourts as a place of epic battles where victory or defeat are determined by the rhetoric flourish of the advocates and the stern application of the law.

But most people who go to court do not give a jot about the law. They want something and all other routes to compel the other side to concede have been exhausted. Going to court is expensive and the outcome uncertain, or as my law professors used to say, in court and on the High seas, you are in the hand of the gods. Which is why about 70% of cases that go to court end in a settlement. If you take into account that most lawyers advise clients to settle out of court, the percentage of disputes resolved without an actual court decision may well be north of 90%. In other words, a legal system that promotes viable settlements gets you 90% the way to law and order.

And that is what the imperial courts of the medieval emperors were aiming for, viable settlement. Only rarely would they lay down the law. And where they did so, these judgements were underwritten not just by the king, but by all the powerful individuals who had been involved in finding this solution, committing them to uphold the judgement.

The objective was not to discover the accurate legal solution, but to find a compromise that allowed both parties to leave the court with their honor intact. Disagreements could be framed as misunderstandings and the abandoning of position could be described as magnanimity. In the early Middle Ages, no other form of dispute resolution was possible. This was a society built on personal reputation. The political system consisted of personal bonds between vassals and lords, not institutions. A vassal followed a lord because the lord had promised to protect his rights and status. That expectation would be damaged irrevocably, if the lord was subjected to a humiliating defeat in court. His followers would then wonder whether this lord was still able to protect their land and possessions? At which point the lord’s only remaining option was to rebel against the “bad king”, resulting in civil war. That is what happened way back in episode 3, when Otto the definitely not yet great, convicted duke Eberhard of Franconia to the humiliation of having to carry dogs. Eberhard rebelled, causing a civil war that nearly wiped out Otto.

Bottom line, a medieval imperial court was a forum to negotiate a compromise, not a place to determine guilt or ascertain property rights.

The territorial courts

That should have got us 80% of the way, was it not for some major logistical challenges. There was usually only one emperor and he could not be everywhere. As it happened, from the 12th century he was barely anywhere. Moreover, from the 12th century onwards, the operating radius of the emperors had shrunk to the southern parts of the German lands. Large parts of the duchy of Saxony never saw an emperor again for centuries. So, who was supposed to do all that mediating.

Itinerary of kings and emperors 919-1519

In the Carolingian empire, the counts were given the task of adjudicating as representatives of the emperor. But as the role of count had become hereditary, emperors no longer wanted to be held responsible for the decisions of these counts.

This left a vacuum that was gradually filled by the dukes and then the territorial lords.  This situation was formally recognized by Frederick II’s privileges for the bishops and princes in the 1230s. Therin the emperor granted the imperial princes the jurisdiction over all the people in their territories, not just their personal servants and vassals.

Based on this privilege the territorial princes established a system of courts, usually split into the lower jurisdiction that focused on civic disputes and minor crimes and misdemeanors and the Blutgerichtsbarkeit, literally the jurisdiction over the blood, which had the right to condemn people to death and use torture to force confessions.

Court procedural for Lower and Higher Bavaria 1520

Lower jurisdiction was exercised by the mayor of the village or town, usually in conjunction with jurors chosen amongst the senior members of the community. As the territorial principalities became more vertically integrated, they were divided up into districts, called Ӓmter, where a judge and court would be established either hearing cases directly or to hear appeals against the lower level justice. And there could be a further appeal to the princely court or a senior law court.

The higher criminal jurisdiction, the Blutgerichtsbarkeit was usually exercised by the prince, either as a Hofgericht, a princely court where the lord would preside, or as a Landgericht, staffed with professional judges and jurors.

Though the territorial courts often had the means to implement their judgements by force, they did maintain the older tradition of preferring settlements over judgements. That was in part down to the complexity and contradictory nature of the law, but also because such compromises were better at calming down tensions. Rebellions and uprisings were common throughout the 15th and 16th centuries and could attract the support of jealous neighbours. So princes preferred calm to the strict application of the law. 

Similar structures were established in the cities with a lower magistrates court dealing with civil cases and minor misdemeanours and a higher court meeting out more severe punishments.

Appellate Courts and Private Courts

These territorial and city courts brought about a major improvement in law and justice in particular when staffed with professional judges, who kept records and tried to maintain coherence in the application of the law.

But they did have some weaknesses. Territorial laws and customs varied considerably from one place to the other. Behaviours and business practices that were perfectly acceptable in one place could be severely sanctioned in the next. People who stumbled into these idiosyncrasies might refuse to accept the proposed settlements, leaving the case open or potentially escalating.

That was a particular issue for the cities that traded with each other over long distances. Material differences in laws and customs could hamper this trade. That is why many cities, in particular those newly founded in the east, copied existing city laws, Stadtrechte, from so called mother cities. The laws of Magdeburg, Soest and of course Lubeck were wide spread. And to ensure the practical application of these laws remained in synch, complex cases could be brought to the mother city, making for instance City Council of Lubeck the appellate court for many Hanse cities.

From the Stadtrecht (city law) of Hamburg

Territories increasingly shifted to the use of Roman law and asked universities to opine on complex legal questions. That brought their practices into some at least broad alignment, though differences remained.

Leagues were another co-ordination mechanism acting as a bridge between different status groups. For instance the Swabian Leage maintained its own court system to adjudicate conflict between members which comprised princes, cities and imperial knights. The court could even overturn local magistrates decisions, thereby deepening the integration of their legal frameworks.

Landfrieden attempts until 1495

Therefore the empire wasn’t a lawless free for all before 1495, as has often been claimed. The inhabitants of cities and territories were bound by rules, adhered to commercial law practices and were subject to criminal justice, all administered by increasingly professional lawcourts.

But there was a massive gap in this system of the territorial courts. By definition they had no jurisdiction to adjudicate in conflicts between territories, cities or imperial knights. The framework under which these conflicts were supposed to be resolved was the so-called Landfrieden, the public peace.

When the first Landfrieden was promulgated by Henry IV in 1103, it was already a step backwards. His father, Henry III had forced a great pacification of the empire in 1043, that referred all conflicts to resolution by him and a prohibition of violence. But that has in large parts gone down the swanny during the regency of Agnes of Poitou and the conflict between pope and emperor known as the Investiture Controversy that followed.

The concept of a Landfrieden after 1103 was that all the powerful princes come together and promise to resolve their conflicts through mediation. But crucially, it did not and as we have discussed before actually could not ban feuds altogether. Feuds remained allowed, provided the party declared the feud in the proper manner, sought reconciliation first and did not breach specific rules, like for instance, not to attack royal highways.

After this first Landfrieden of 1103, several more were declared, including ones in 1152, 1158,1179,1186,1235, 1287, 1323, 1383, 1389, 1442, 1467. Having to say the same thing again and again is not a good sign.

The Landfrieden of Rudolf I

The success of these declarations of a public peace depended heavily on the ability of the imperial courts to actually mitigate the conflicts before they descended into feuds. You needed a court that was able to come up with sensible settlement proposals and within a reasonable time frame.  

And that was not always the case – hence the regular renewals. During the interregnum and then the long period when the imperial title moved between the Habsburgs, Luxemburgs and Wittelsbachs, emperors simply did not have the time to build up the court infrastructure needed. That meant mediation either did not happen, was ill thought out or came too late. Any of those and blood was be spilled. And once they were going at each other hammer and tongs, it was three times harder to get them back to the negotiation table.

In the 15th century things went properly downhill. Wenceslaus the Lazy, Sigismund and Friedrich III spent most of their time on the eastern edge of the empire dealing with existential threats from Bohemia and Hungary. Adjudication often stalled completely.

As the 15th century continued this gaping hole in the legal system gave room to veritable chaos. Princely warfare became more intense with the development of artillery and the growing size of the armies. Imperial knights whose income from tenants had shrunk following the Black Death, made up for it by conducting feuds on behalf of paying patrons. Even villages resorted to feuds in order to protect their hard won freedoms.

With no mediation process in place, let alone any kind of sanction for breaking the rules of feuding, things went seriously out of control, so seriously that even the imperial princes demanded an end to the madness.

On the positive side, the idea that violence needed to be a legitimate part of the negotiation process had lost credibility.

The right to feud against a “bad” overlord or an unjustified claim from a neighbour was rooted in the concept of vassalage. As mentioned before, a Lord had to keep face if he wanted to hold on to the support of his vassals. And that meant he had the right to rebel if disrespected.  If you check out Otto von Northeim’s speech in episode 31 and 100, you can see the line or arguments that justified rebellion. But by the 15th century, feuding was no longer necessary. The power of the territorial princes no longer rested on the oaths of their vassals, but on the institutions, administration and military forces they had established. They could now sustain a negative judgement without losing their status.

That is why in 1467 Friedrich III  could issue his Landfrieden that banned all feuding outright as lèse-majesté. That was  a major step forward, though this arrangement still remained time limited to 10 years. And it lacked an enforcement mechanism, since the Reichskammergericht he had tasked with providing mediation and – if necessary – order the execution of its judgements, ceased to operate after 1475.

The 1495 Landfrieden brought this sorry saga to an end. It declared that (quote):

“..from this moment on, no person of whatever rank, status, or condition shall make war on others, or rob, declare feud with, invade, or besiege them, or help anyone else to do so in person or through servitors; or violently occupy any castle, town, market, fortress, village, farmstead, or hamlet, or seize them illegally against another’s will, or damage them with fire or in any other way, or assist by word or deed or in any other way support or supply any perpetrators of such deeds, or knowingly harbor, house, feed, or give drink, aid, and comfort to such persons.” (end quote).

The Ewige Landfrieden banned private warfare under all and any circumstances and for ever. It established the state’s monopoly of violence. This, once enforced became another nail in the coffin of the Middle Ages.

Reichskammergericht, Reichshofgericht and Kreise

But as Friedrich III could tell you, the operative word here is “once enforced”. Even if everybody would have been happy to outlaw feuds for ever, and not everybody did, that would not have yielded results. Conflicts between the holders of imperial immediacy did not vanish overnight. The dukes still wanted the cities, the landgraves the bishops’ lands, princes still debased currencies and imperial knights kidnapped merchants.

What made the difference was the establishment of two courts, the Reichskammergericht and the Reichshofrat and another coordination mechanism, the Kreise, the imperial circles.

The Reichskammergericht in its latest incarnation was established at the diet of Worms in August 1495, its judges were appointed on October 31st and it heard its first cases four days later, a sign that at least occasionally, the empire could move swiftly.

The reason it did work, and worked for so long, came down to a number of institutional choices.

As I do not have to explain to our American friends, the composition of the court is almost as important as its remit and procedures.

In case of the Reichskammergericht, the presiding judge, the Kammerrichter, was appointed by the emperor, whilst the judges who shared the decision making, were proposed by the imperial estates. The imperial estates submitted a list  from which the incumbent judges chose the new member of the court. The judges, including the presiding judge, swore allegiance to the court, not to the emperor and not to the imperial estates.

The reichskammergericht in session

Though these appointments did have some influence, in practice, the Reichskammergericht acted independently from the emperor and the imperial princes. It had its own budget, its own administration and chancellery.

The Reichskammergericht was also based away from the Habsburg’s capital, first as an itinerant court, then from 1527 until 1689 in Speyer and after that in Wetzlar.

The Reichskammergericht Building in Wetzlar

This degree of independence set it apart from the territorial court that aligned much closer to the increasingly absolutist territorial princes.

Its remit was to adjudicate disputes between the imperial estates and other holders of imperial immediacy and banning anyone who broke the public peace for any reason. And, beyond this role as protector of the public peace, it also acted as the final appellate court above the territorial courts. This latter role was however unevenly distributed across the empire, since the Prince Electors, all the Habsburg lands and several other senior lords had the “ius de non appellando”, a privilege that protected their judgments from being reviewed by the Reichskammergericht. Over time the court was able to chip away at these exemptions, before it gained a much wider remit in 1526, which we will discuss in a minute.

Two years after the Reichstag established the new Reichskammergericht, Maximilian established another court, the Reichshofrat. The Reichhofrat was very much the court of the emperor, as opposed to the Reichskammergericht that was the court of the empire. Its judges were appointed by the emperor and it was based wherever the emperor resided. Its remit was conflicts over the rights and obligations of vassals. In practice this involved mostly matters of inheritance. Typical issues were the succession to fiefs where the incumbent family had died out or the permission to split a fief between multiple heirs.

Reichshofrat in session

The two courts did have quite a bit of overlap, since inheritance conflicts could easily tip over into breaches of the public peace. To limit forum shopping, the courts agreed a rule that no case could be brought if it was already pending in front of the other court.

The other Achilles heel of previous Landfrieden arrangements, beyond courts simply shutting down, had been the lack of viable enforcement mechanisms. The way the 1495 reforms addressed that, was by allowing the Reichskammergericht to demand the Reichstag to issue an imperial ban to coerce a reluctant party to adhere to its rulings. That was deemed too slow and complicated and from 1559 the emperor was tasked with issuing the ban on behalf of the Reichskammergericht. The Reichshofrat, as the court of the emperor could issue the imperial ban directly, though there were some limitation to prevent abuse.

Imperial ban was however very sparsely used as a tool. The sanctions associated with it were often going too far. It allowed anyone to kill the banned person without repercussions and his property and fiefs could be confiscated without compensation. The execution of an imperial ban threatened to unsettle the social order, creating a high bar to its application.

The Reichskammergericht – like the medieval imperial courts before – preferred finding viable compromises, rather than bringing down the full force of the law. Where they needed execution, they relied more on the imperial circles. These circles had been instituted in 1512 as a means to co-ordinate on a regional basis. There were initially six circles and later 10, comprising the entire empire except for Bohemia and Switzerland. The Kreise became the closest thing the empire developed in terms of administration. They organised the military forces of the empire, collected the taxes based on the Matrikel system, executed imperial and court orders and maintained the peace in their region. They were headed by a Kreistag, an assembly of the Kreis members. It is here in the Kreistag, where the smaller estates of the empire, the cities, counts and minor princes were engaged. That is where they passed legislation, co-ordinated infrastructure projects and settled their differences. Thanks to the imperial circles, the empire was a lot more coherent in its actions and laws than these maps with 350 tiny statelets suggest. They were so successful that older leagues, like the Swabian league, were ultimately replaced by these imperial circles.

Map of the Imperial circles

One would assume that the Reichskammergericht would be more popular for claimants than the Reichshofrat. The ofrmer was independent, whilst the other was under the direct control of the emperor. However, the Reichskammergericht found itself often overwhelmed with cases, making its proceedings slow and protracted. Some of the numbers, in particular Goethe’s claim of 10s of thousands of open cases were clearly exaggerated. Sure, there were cases that had been ongoing for a century. But these were often inheritance cases where the purpose was to settle the matter in an amicable way to prevent open hostilities, a scenario where delay can be the prudent choice. The Reichskammergericht regularly cleared its backlog suggesting it could not have been all that bad.

And, if necessary the Reichskammergericht could act very quickly. For instance Commissioners could be sent with injunctions to mobilise the military forces of the Kreise to prevent breaches of the peace.

Nevertheless, the Reichshofrat had a reputation to be quicker and sometimes more effective since its enforcement could rely on the full force of the Habsburg emperor. Moreover, despite its institutional attachment, the Reichshofrat gained a reputation as a defender of smaller imperial vassals against expanding territorial princes.

The court procedures and the witch craze

Both Reichskammergericht and Reichshofrat conducted their cases mainly in writing. Lawyers submitted writs and memoranda summarising their arguments. Before 1495 the courts operated in the fashion of an Anglo-Saxon court, basing its decision only on evidence brought forward by the parties. The Reichskammergericht and the Reichshofrat procedure allowed the courts to task officials with the collection of evidence, including taking witness statements.

This more inquisitive process spread across the legal system of the empire to the territorial courts, which had some painful unintended consequences.

The imperial criminal code of 1532 shifted the responsibility to prove guilt from the accuser to a public prosecutor. Previously an accuser had to bring the evidence for the alleged crime and if he failed to prove his allegation could face severe financial and even criminal recriminations. Once this task has been taken over by a public prosecutor it became a lot less risky and less expensive to report crimes. So far so sensible. The more crimes get reported, the more likely it is that they get prosecuted.

Forms of torture 1572

What turned it into a  toxic cocktail was the rise in allegations of witchcraft. Witchcraft was a crime and prosecutors were compelled to investigate them. Torture was a broadly acceptable tool in the investigative process. Plus the criminal codes of the time contained scarce protection against arbitrary arrest. One can imagine what then happened. Investigators torture alleged witches who bring up names who in turn get tortured as well, leading to even more arrests until the whole empire is in the grip of a veritable witch craze. Over the course of the 16th and early 17th century territorial courts had 22,500 alleged witches executed.

Map of Convictions of Witches in Bavaria

Neither the Reichskammergericht nor the Reichshofrat had tools to intervene, since criminal law, the “jurisdiction of the blood” had become the exclusive prerogative of the territorial princes. The only grounds for intervention was a breach of procedural rules, which curbed some excesses, but failed to prevent the ultimate outcome. A very sad topic we will probably have to get back to at some stage.

The broader remit after 1526

Against this darkness stands a more positive and more lasting impact of the system of imperial justice. In 1526 the remit of the Reichskammergericht was expanded. It allowed ordinary citizens to challenge their prince if he or she overstepped his legitimate powers, for instance unlawful exactions, arbitrary violence or the violation of traditional rights and protections.

This is a fairly rare institutional set-up in continental europe before the 19th century. By submitting themselves to the court’s verdicts, the princes gave up a big chunk of their autonomy. For instance the duke of Hohenzollern-Hechingen had to return the hunting guns he had taken off his peasants and reverse enclosures. A count found himself imprisoned for 10 years for having forged his subjects signatures on loan agreements. Duke Karl Leopold of Mecklenburg was deposed for putting excessive taxes on his subjects and trying to suppress his ducal assembly.

Why did German princes accept that? The decision came in the immediate aftermath of the peasant’s revolt of 1525, the largest uprising in Europe before the French revolution. It had become clear to the imperial estates, in particular the smaller ones, that they needed a way to ease social tensions. Populations who know that there is a way to seek legal redress for perceived infringements are less likely to risk life, limb and property on the barricades. It did not work perfectly and there were several rebellions and uprisings in the 17th and 18th century. But they were limited in sale and severity, compared to similar occurrences in Bohemia and Hungary where there was no room for redress.

Here is what Peter Wilson said about the consequences: quote: This process  had been labelled ‘juridification’ and involved a fundamental change in behaviour at all social levels. Lords had previously used violence to assert authority and status. Feuding had been criminalised in 1495 and now repression was likely to be condemned in the courts”.  The courts provided a platform for princes, burghers, peasants even the Jewish minority to hash out their differences based on the understanding that each side could call on certain rights and protections.

Other than in France, common people in the empire did not feel utterly powerless before the institutions of their princes or the emperors. Sure, a court case was hard to mount and ruinously expensive, but it was possible and it had a chance of success.

That in part explains the lack of enthusiasm for the French revolution amongst the broader population in Germany. Like in Britain, Germans were quickly turned off by the excesses of Jacobin rule and they simply did not see themselves being as oppressed by their governments as the French. That did change once the empire and its legal safeguards against princely overreach had gone, but it was there in 1789.

The other lasting impact was that calling a court for help became the Germans’ reflexive reaction to injustice. Germans, or at least Germans of my generation, see their country first and foremost as a Rechtsstaat, a state under the law.

Let me end with a quote I found in Peter Wilson, by a Habsburg Official, Joseph Haas bemoaning the dissolution of the Reichskammergericht and the Reichshofrat in 1806  (quote):

“The judicial power [which] was until now the shining jewel of our constitution. Two Imperial Courts, whose councillors were appointed with great care and were free of external influence, competed with each other in the impartial administration of justice, and gave even the lowest subject right against the most powerful prince”. Now that these are dissolved, he goes on to say: “there is no doubt that canals will be dug, roads laid, avenues and parks, theatres and pools created, cities illuminated, and we will shine and starve. The only robbers threatening the subjects’ property will be the tax collector and the French and German Soldiers” (end quote).

And this brings our mini series about the Imperial reform of 1495 to its conclusion. Next week I will be away in Naples because I cannot bear the incessant rain here in London any longer. But I leave you a particular present. I did an interview with professor Duncan Hardy who I have mentioned several times before and who is a true expert in the empire of the 15th and 16th century. I am sure you will find that as enlightening as I did.

And in the meantime, spare a thought for your hard toiling podcaster, who has no Reichskammergericht to call upon for fair wages, but lives in hope of the generosity of his fellow history nerds. If you want to be part of the exclusive club that luxuriates in the soft glow of your fellow listeners gratitude, go to historyofthegermans.com/support and click on any one of the options.

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