The End of the Unversal Empire
Ep. 222: Maximilian I (1493-1519) – Italian Wars and Spanish Marriages – History of the Germans
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 222 – Italian Wars and Spanish Marriages
The world is a-changing. Maximilian I may still dream of the medieval universal empire where he will lead Christendom in an epic crusade to expel the Turks from the European mainland, even reconquering Jerusalem. Meanwhile his main adversary, king Charles VIII of France unleashed the fury of war in Italy, kicking off a struggle that would last for 50 years and replaced the medieval world of popes and emperors with a system based on the balance of powers.
In the near term, this expedition to conquer the kingdom of Naples triggered not only the outbreak of Syphilis, but also the double marriage between Habsburg and Spain that Maximilian did not want, but ended up being the second of the three marriages that created an empire.
Lots to get through, none of it boring..
But before we start it is once more time for me to go to Augsburg and beg for some more funds to raise and equip my modest podcast set-up. I know that you know that I can never pay it back, other than with my sincere, heartfelt and eternal gratitude. And if you too hanker after such deep felt sentiment, go to historyofthegermans.com/support and join the most generous Mary J H., Barry T., Aleksandar A., Tudor C., Matthew J, Carnicelli and Brett C.
And with that, back to the show.
Last week we saw Maximilian of Habsburg reconquering and consolidating the lands of his family. For the first time in XXXX years, there was only one member of the family who held Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Tyrol and Further Austria. Maximilian had also added Flanders, Brabant, Holland, Hainault, Seeland, Luxemburg and the Franche Comte to the family fortune, most of what is today Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. Friesland and Gelders would take a bit longer, but came on to the roster eventually.
And then, in August 1493 Maximilian’s father, the emperor Friedrich III expires at the tender age of 77 and after 53 years of keeping the throne of the Holy Roman Empire warm. His health had been deteriorating for a while now and in June his doctors had amputated his sclerotic left leg. This widely documented medical procedure was hailed as hugely successful, though the patient died three months later, allegedly from excessive consumption of melons.
Friedrich III has been a steady companion of this show for 12 episodes, often in the background, and when in the spotlight it was mainly because he had once more lost a city, a battle, a duchy or a kingdom. He had his highpoint at the siege of Neuss and he could get his son elected King of the Romans, a feat not many emperors had achieved before him. But the low points and disappointments prevailed. Being besieged inside the Hofburg in Vienna by his brother and the burghers of the city was the moment where the dynasty could have failed for good, and his last years as a wandering homeless emperor in name only did little to strengthen the esteem the office was held in.
Over the previous decades the reception of Friedrich III has improved significantly. The 19th century had dubbed him the imperial arch sleepy hat and blamed him for the continued erosion of imperial power. Modern historians see him more as man who tried to maintain as much of the institution as he could, given his limited resources. He was persistent in retaining the imperial prerogatives, even if he was unable to exercise them. He had steadfastly resisted the calls to reform the empire into a loose confederation led by the imperial princes, even when he stood literally with the back against the wall.
This makes a lot of sense to me, in as much as the duchies of Austria, Styria and Carinthia were indeed not enough to sustain a forceful imperial administration. Even more so considering their geographical location on the eastern edge of the empire.
On the other hand, the 15th century was a time where ambitious and smart men were able to forge kingdoms. Charles VII of France had been disinherited by his mother and father, most of his kingdom had been occupied by English and Burgundian forces and still by the time his son Louis XI died, France was the largest and most coherent power on the continent. Henry VII, the first Tudor king had spent 14 years in exile and carried only a thimble of royal blood and still brought an end to civil war and created a platform on which his descendant could build one of the most successful political entities the world had ever seen. Matthias Corvinus was the son of a hero, but came to the throne as a puppet of the magnates, and turned Hungary into a modern, militarised country. Jogaila, the pagan grand duke of Lithuania, created a dynasty that in 1493 ruled Poland, Lithuania, Bohemia and Hungary.
Friedrich III was simply not like these aggressive, daring men. He was a high aristocrat of the old school who believed that all this power was owed to him because of his lineage or because it had been foretold in the tale of the 95 rulers of Austria, or because Caesar and Nero had singled Austria out for world domination. A.E.I.O.U.
Meanwhile his son Maximilian was one of these aggressive Renaissance gamblers who put everything on red in order to win an empire. He had himself emerged victorious from the war of the Burgundian inheritance having received barely any support from his father or the empire until the very last moment. And as we will see in the upcoming episodes, he would again and again make high stakes bets that just happen to come good.
But at the same time, he was the son of his father. He deeply believed in the sanctity and superiority of the imperial office and the Habsburgs predestination to hold this title until the end of times. He saw his purpose in leading Christendom in its war against the Turks and constantly called crusades aimed at freeing first Constantinople and then Jerusalem. These other kings, the French, English, Polish, Spanish and so forth, they should be subordinate to him once he was crowned emperor.
Just to be clear, he was wasn’t mad thinking these much more powerful rulers would be at his back and call. He saw them more like the Imperial princes, largely autonomous, but in crucial matters of the continent, obliged to follow his lead. His political philosophy was deeply routed in this idea of the universal roman empire.
One incident that shows the state of this universal empire was when he established diplomatic relationships with the principality of Muscovy. At this point Ivan III, the grandfather of Ivan the Terrible went by the title of Grand Prince of Moscow, but occasionally use the term Tsar, as in Caesar or emperor of all the Russians. Maximilian offered him the elevation to king, something he could do in his function as emperor, even emperor in waiting. But Ivan III refused, saying that he was the successor of the emperors of Constantinople and did not recognise the Habsburg as his emperor. Only a small blow to this idea of a universal imperial authority, but too small to be noticed. However, not the last.
As emperor, Maximilian believed that Northern, if not all of Italy was part of his realm. Sure, no emperor had exercised any tangible power in Italy since the days of Henry VII, but formally, Italy was still part of the empire. When the Gonzagas in Mantua, the Este in Ferrara or the Sforza in Milan wanted to take on ducal titles, they looked to the emperor for a patent that made them so. The emperor was also occasionally called on to arbitrate conflicts or to acknowledge lines of succession.
Maximilian, fresh from gaining Burgundy and Tirol, from reconquering Austria and becoming the sole ruler of the empire after his father’s death, now took a closer look at Italy, specifically at Milan.
By 1493 Milan had become one of the most important states in Italy, alongside Venice, Naples, Florence and the Papacy. It had incorporated several of the old city republics that had featured so prominently in the story of Barbarossa and Fredrick II, namely Piacenza, Pavia, Parma, Cremona, Lodi, Novara, Tortona and Alessandria. Its de facto ruler was Ludovico Sforza, called il Moro, the son of the great condottiere Francesco Sforza who had taken the duchy over from the Visconti family.
Ludovico ruled on behalf of his nephew Gian Galeazzo Maria, but was very keen to become duke in his own right. The only person who could do that legally and formally, was now Maximilian. In exchange for recognising his position Ludovico offered Maximilian two things he needed desperately at this point, money, and a wife. Money is something Maximilian always needed, in particular if the sum offered was 400,000 gulden, roughly twice his annual income at the time. And Maximilian needed a wife. This whole affair of the heiress of Brittany, little Anne, had left a bad aftertaste.
Maximilian had shouted from the rooftops that his bride had been abducted by the perfidious French king Charles VIII, but in 1493 had made peace and was now busy brushing the whole affair under the carpet. The best way to achieve that was another high profile marriage that makes him look as if he had rejected Anne, not the other way around.
So, on March 16, 1494 Maximilian married Bianca Maria Sforza, the niece of Ludovico il Moro. Despite her beautiful name and vast riches, Maximilian lost interest in her very quickly. She turned out to be a little bit thick, a bit too fond of sweats and jewels and just generally not great company. So, this time, Maximilian does not fall in love with his spouse. What he had instead was a regular supply of mistresses, some of whom bore him children, though it is unclear how many. Wikipedia counts 15, contemporary sources say 8. Several in any case, though he did not have any children with Bianca Maria Sforza.
The year 1494 did hence start off not too bad. He got married, he got money from his new ally in Milan, he is now sole ruler of the empire and his lands are gradually recovering from the endless warfare and strife. He even undertakes the traditional Umritt, the journey across the empire where he received grand welcomes, renewal of feudal vows and general acclamation.
But all that joy and celebration turns to panic and despair when news arrive that king Charles VIII of France had set off on a military expedition to take the kingdom of Naples. That went to the heart of Maximilian’s political vision. He wanted France encircled by hostile nations, the English in the North, the Spaniards in the south and him in the West. If France gained powerful positions in Italy, that grand plan was dust. Moreover, Charles VIII had dubbed his invasion a crusade hinting at a long term plan to attack the Ottomans from Naples. That too was not on, because in Maximilian’s world, a crusade would attack in the Balkans and was to be led by him, and nobody else. Moreover, if Charles VIII was successful in a crusade, what would stop him from asking the pope to crown him emperor. As Matthew Paris had declared already way back in the 1250s: “Where is it written that the Germans should make the roman emperor”. This is the same concern that had convinced Henry VII that it was paramount for him to get involved in Italian affairs. Moreover, the pope in 1494 was Alexander VI, Roderigo Borgia, a man whose reputation for corruption and ambition reverberates through history books and tv series.
What Maximilian and europe will learn in the coming decades is that his ideas about crusades, empire and the unity of Christendom are completely and utterly outdated. The Europe of 1500 is fundamentally different to the Europe of 1400 and unrecognisable from the Europe of 1200.
The great wars of the 14th and 15th century were in the main domestic conflicts over leadership and internal consolidation. The Reconquista was about unifying the Iberian peninsula, the Hundred years war was about the role of the king of France vis-à-vis his vassals, which included the duke of Burgundy and the king of England, Poland’s war against the Teutonic Knights was about submission of an independent state within their territory. The wars in the Holy Roman Empire and Italy were over the relative power of individual entities in the absence of a powerful king.
By the end of the 15th century many of these wars have come to their conclusion. The Spanish completed the Reconquista with the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1469 and the conquest of Grenada in 1492. The Hundred Years War and the marriage of Charles VIII to Anne of Bretagne consolidated almost the entirety of France under control of the crown. Equally the Tudor kings Henry VII and Henry VIII held direct sovereignty over England and Wales without intermediation by the dukes. In other words we are now having multiple political entities in europe that have the ability to raise extraordinary amounts of money in direct taxes from their subjects. And these taxes are converted into permanent armed forces or the hiring of trained mercenaries. And once you have those, the scale and scope of war changed.
We are now having kingdoms fighting against each other for supremacy, preferably on third party soil. Victory no longer means the defeated prince swears allegiance to the victor and returns to his or her palace. Now victory results in the annexation of territory and the removal of the previous management. There is no longer an emperor as a central authority tasked with maintaining peace between the parties, not even in theory. In 1414 Europe accepted that the emperor Sigismund had a responsibility to bring an end to the Great Western Schism. By 1500, that would no longer be the case.
The Italian war will change all that. In this war we will find French heavy cavalry, Spanish infantry, Swiss mercenaries, German Landsknechte, even English and Scottish soldiers fighting against and alongside Italians on Italian soil but not mainly for Italians, but for foreigners.
When previously the emperors came down to Italy, they travelled through what most people believed was their empire. They did fight, not as foreigners against “the Italians”, but as the overlord against their insurgent cities and the pope. Barbarossa did not come to conquer Italy, he came to reassert his authority in Italy as emperor. Where he found resistance it was from cities who did oppose, not his overlordship as such, but his level of interference.
What is happening now is that foreign armies come to Italy to conquer it and incorporate it into their realm. And that is why the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII is the moment when the political landscape of europe flips from the medieval to the early modern.
But I am jumping ahead. Let’s first look at why Charles VIII set out for Italy with an army of 1,900 Lances, 1,200 mounted archers and 19,000 mostly Swiss infantry in August 1494.
As a I mentioned before, the Italian communes were no more. Italy had become a patchwork of larger and smaller states. Some were nominally republics like Florence, Siena and Venice, but most were under control of a single ruler, some of them had been graced with imperial titles like the marquess of Mantua or the dukes of Urbino, Ferrara and Milan, others remained just Signore.
The five biggest states were Venice, Milan, Naples, the Papacy and Florence.
Let me go through them one by one.
The city of Venice had done exceedingly well, since, well since its founding. By the late 15th century the Venetians controlled the Adriatic as well as multiple trading posts along the eastern mediterranean giving them access to the luxury goods coming down the silk roads into Constantinople, Alexandria and lots of smaller ports. Its power rested on its navy that at its peak comprised 3,000 ships manned by 36,000 sailors. In its famous dockyards, the Arsenale,16,000 workers produced one galley a day using standardised parts for construction and fit out, a process that looked a lot like modern industrial manufacturing.
And Venice had also begun to acquire more and more of its hinterland. The first acquisition on the mainland was Mestre in 1337 and within about a hundred years, Venice had pushed through to Padova, Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Friuli, and then Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Cremona and Lodi. These latter acquisitions brought Venice into conflict with neighbouring Milan.
Venice had an interest in Naples too, in as much as the straights of Otranto were the narrow access point into their Adriatic.
Milan, as I mentioned had gone from the Visconti to the Sforza. In this process the duchy had shrunk, in particular by conceding cities to Venice. But it was still a formidable power, controlled, albeit precariously by Ludovico Sforza, called il Moro.
Traditionally Milan had allied with Florence against Venice and Venice had found support in Naples. This opposition to Naples continued into the late 15th century. Ludovice Sforza was specifically concerned that the Neapolitans were trying to undermine his position by supporting his nephew Gian Galeazzo Maria, who was after all the true heir to the duchy of Milan.
Which gets us to Naples. Unlike the other states, Naples was originally a kingdom, the kingdom of Sicily. Sicily had changed hands a few times since its foundation by Roger II. You may remember that Charles of Anjou from a junior branch of the French royal house, had wrestled the kingdom of Sicily from the Hohenstaufen. He did however lose the island of Sicily to the kings of Aragon in the Sicilian Vespers (episode 92). The Aragonese and the Anjou spent about a hundred and fifty years staring at each other across the straits of Messina, until Alfonso V of Aragon made a move on the mainland, which by then had become known as the kingdom of Naples. The ins and outs of this exceedingly complex process is impossible to recount here. For this and all the other stories, I recommend a History of Italy where Mike Corradi takes you through all these shenanigans in his inimitable style. And the History of Venice will in time cover the Venetian leg of the story.
Bottom line is, the Aragonese conquered the kingdom of Naples and sent the Anjou packing. The last of them, Rene, passed his time in Provence where he became known as the Good king Rene.
Meanwhile the new king, Alfonso of Aragon decided to give this kingdom of Naples to his illegitimate son, Ferdinand, or as the Italians called him, Ferrante. Ferrante was an exceptionally capable, cruel and ruthless ruler who made himself into one of the most powerful and influential figures in Renaissance Italy.
Naples main interest lay due north of them, in the papal states. For one, the popes were his direct neighbours, but the pope was also the overlord of Sicily with the right to determine who was the king. Given Ferrante’s birth out of wedlock, that was an important issue. Naples tended to ally with Venice, whose fleet could put pressure on the popes, and who needed to get its ships through the narrow straits of Otranto.
Please bear with me, we are nearly done with this epic simplification.
The papacy was still in an awful state. The council of Constance had ended the schism in 1418 and pope Martin V was again the sole pope ruling from the eternal city. But during the schism and then in the struggle between the church councils and the popes, many monarchies had agreed concordats with the popes that granted the national churches autonomy from Rome. France, England, Spain and the Habsburg lands had national churches where the pope had scarce influence over the appointment of bishops and had limited call on church taxes. Thanks to Friedrich III’s poor negotiations, the empire became the largest source of external revenues for the papacy, an issue we already touched upon in episode 209 are going to encounter again I am sure.
Given there was not enough money coming in from abroad, the Renaissance church had one major objective, which was to reconsolidate the papal states. During the papal absence from Rome, many of the cities in the papal states have come under the control of ambitious lords, the Bentivoglio in Bologna, the Malatesta in Rimini, the Este in Ferrara, the Montefeltro in Urbino and so forth. Moreover, the two grand families of Rome, the Orsini and the Colonna held large sways of the countryside, owned their own mercenary armies and had huge influence in the city of Rome.
That is why the cardinals elected the famous renaissance popes, Pius II, Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X and Paul III whose skills lay more in the cut and thrust of Italian politics than in the spiritual guidance of their flock. If they had one redeeming feature, it was great taste in art.
In this game of recovery the popes used whichever alliance came in handy. The constant switching back and forth was made even more bewildering by the fact that popes and cardinals were often either members or allies of the leading families or states. There were Venetian cardinals and popes, the Medici brought in two popes in quick succession, the French had one of their allies in the form of Julius II and Alexander VI was born a subject to the king of Aragon.
Last but not least we have the republic of Florence. Though still formally a republic with a council and everything, the true power in the city lay with the Medici. They had established a complex web of patronage funded by the proceeds of the banking business. Florence was motivated by business rather than territorial expansion per se. Nevertheless, they had acquired Pisa and kept Siena at arm’s length.
Despite all these brooding conflicts, Italy had experienced a long period of comparative peace.
In the wake of a particularly ferocious war between Milan and Venice, the big five states and several smaller ones came together in the Italian League of 1455. It confirmed the territorial status quo and included an obligation to come to each other’s defence should any of them get attacked.
This agreement was a masterstroke that reduced violence dramatically and allowed Italy to slowly recover from the Black Death, war and insurrections that had marred the previous hundred years. The Italian cities prospered and many of the wonders of Renaissance Art were created.
The Pazzi conspiracy of 1478 almost unravelled this peace when pope Sixtus IV encouraged a rival Florentine banking family to murder the Medici and take over the state of Florence. Naples was about to attack Florence in an alliance with the pope and a broad war might have ensued. It was Lorenzo the Magnificent, pitifully bad banker but gifted politician, who managed to calm things down, giving the league another lease of life.
So far so excellent. All the Italians were holding hands and were happy making money, until…
Well, until the main architects of this peace agreement, Ferrante of Naples and Lorenzo the Magnificent were no more. Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1492 and Ferrante of Naples in February 1494.
The league had held for much longer than anyone could expect, but never resolved the underlying issues, the rivalry between Milan and Venice, the ambitions of the papacy and the inherent fragility of the regime in Naples.
At the same time the fabulous wealth of the Italian cities had always been a huge attraction for its neighbours. In the past these had been the emperors and princes from north of the Alps, but now it was the newly consolidated and well-armed kingdom of France that put its hat in the ring.
If you want to conquer a country, what you need is a pretext, at least that was still the custom in the late 15th century. And the pretext in 1494 was that the title of a king of Naples had gone to Charles VIII of France when Rene, the last of the old Anjou kings had died. The French argued that the current occupant, Ferrante’s son Alfonso, was an illegitimate ruler on two counts, one because his grandfather had expelled the Anjou in 1442 without legal justification and two, because his father was a bastard.
That was the argument, but what was the trigger. The trigger was Ludovico il Moro, the ruler of Milan. He was only in charge as the guardian of his nephew who was no longer that young. And the king of Naples had been trying to unseat Ludovico by supporting the claim of the nephew to not just the title but also actual rule of the duchy. In response Ludovico had been leaning on the king of France to go after Naples and thereby remove the threat to his rule. It would later be said that it was Ludovico il Moro who had called the French to Italy.
Then there was Florence, where the Medici family took the side of the Aragones king of Naples against Milan and France. Problem was that the family no longer had the money to buy their popularity and the population was leaning towards the French since much of Florence’ exports went to France. In 1494 the citizens of what was still nominally a republic made their views very clear and when Lorenzo’s son Piero refused to shift towards the French side, they unceremoniously threw him and all his supporters out. Into that power vacuum stepped a monk, Girolamo Savanarola, who whipped up the crowds with promises of doom and the end of days that turned Florence briefly into a religious fundamentalist dictatorship. Florence opened its gates to Charles VIII whose troops paraded in under their crusading banners.
At which point the only meaningful obstacle between France and Naples were the papal states. And the pope was still Alexander VI, father of Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia and renaissance villain pope par excellence. Alexander VI was initially opposed to let the French pass, but when they marched into Rome and promised him vast riches for his children, he changed his mind.
Bottom line, Charles VIII campaign to conquer Naples was as simple as cutting through butter. There was barely any resistance. King Alfonso of Naples fled and by the autumn of 1494 Charles VIII was sitting in the royal palace of Naples, his army mopping up the last few castles that had not yet surrendered.
This rapid success shocked not just the Italians, but everybody else. The first to get scared was Ludovico il Moro, the ruler of Milan, the man who had called on Charles to come to Italy. He got a visit from Louis of Orleans, the cousin of Charles VIII and his crown prince, who informed him that his grandmother was a Visconti and hence Milan should be his.
Venice too got itchy about the straits of Otranto and Charles’ idea to start a war against the Ottomans. The pope did not like the French that much after all, in particular he feared they would stop him getting his beloved Cesare his own principality inside the papal states.
But two even more consequential rulers were upset. First, our friend Maximilian, who – as we know – thinks that Italy is his, because he is the future emperor. But there are also some more rational issues in play. A permanent French presence in Italy would break the intended encirclement, and if they, god behold, were taking Milan, then they would be right on his doorstep in Tirol.
The other person really upset was of course, Ferdinand of Aragon, husband of Isabella and part of the power couple that had taken Granada and was now running all of Spain. They also had just dispatched a Genoese seafarer, a certain C. Columbus who had promised to find a new route to India and the spice islands by going west. O.K. he is of course never going to come back since every half decent navigator in the late 15th century knows, the distance across the globe on the western route to India is far, far too long for a Caravelle.
Ferdinand, as king of Aragon was also the ruler of Sicily and the protector of his cousin, Alfonso of Naples. Neither was he keen on having the king of France across the straits of Messina, nor did he look kindly on the expropriation of his family.
Bottom line, something needed to be done.
All the parties involved, Milan, Venice, the Pope, the Spanish monarchs and Maximilian sent their negotiators to talks in Venice. On March 31st, 1495 they all signed an agreement that would become known as the Holy League. The parties agreed once again a peace for 25 years and a commitment to mutual defence of Italy where each party pledged a fixed contingent of soldiers and guns.
When Maximilian’s envoys signed on the dotted line they are unlikely to have known that they had signed the death warrant of the idea of the universal empire and that they have brought in a new political model for Europe, a model that lasted until the 20th century and that became known as the balance of powers.
The Holy League was not the first league ever established, nor was it the first treaty am emperor had signed. It was in fact in that same city, in Venice, that emperor Barbarossa had signed one of the most famous of medieval peace treaties, the treaty of Venice in 1177.
But this is the very first time that the emperor joined a league as an equal member. Despite the military and economic near irrelevance of the imperial title, there was still some of the reverence for the Caesars of antiquity left. When emperor Karl IV came to Paris to negotiate with King Charles V in 1377, the king recognised the seniority of the emperor, even though the power balance had long shifted in favour of the French.
But right on that day, the 31st of March 1495, this reverence fell away. From now on the empire is no longer the shadow of the ancient roman Empire, but the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, an odd name for a state no different in standing to any other monarchy in Europe. Whatever Maximilian may believe to the contrary.
Military action began immediately. The Spanish crossed the straits of Messina and engaged the French forces in Naples. Venice took cities and harbours on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy. Venice and Milan gathered their forces to block Charles’ progress.
Suddenly holding Naples and finding new ingenious ways of bullying the Italians was no longer the question for Charles VIII, the question was, how am I going to get home? The king of France was trapped at the bottom of the boot of Italy. The Western mediterranean was teeming with enemy ships. The only route was on land. Charles VIII scrambled his forces and set off for home. He left behind just a small army, mainly Swiss mercenaries, which withdrew back home within a few months.
Charles VIII’ way up involved a lot less of parading with flying banners and grand receptions than his way down. Towns and castles that had welcomed him a year earlier now closed its gates. He faced an army made up of Milanese, Mantovan and Venetian troops when he crossed the Apennines. The battle at Fornovo in July 1495 was a draw in purely tactical terms, but in strategic terms a French victory, since Charles could continue on his way home. Ludovico il Moro changed sides once more and allowed the French to pass and by the end of August Charles was safely back home. His daring dash for Naples had been a complete failure. His conquests were lost as quickly as he had gained them and all of Italy had united against him. Charles VIII died in 1498 without making another attempt on the riches of Italy. But this is not going to be the last time the French would descend down the peninsula..
That is all well and good, but what about our man Maximilian. He was a member of the Holy League, he had promised to send an army. Where was he in all that.
Well, the reason he had not come down was once more the issue of money and soldiers. Maximilian’s pockets were empty as always. But this time, he was confident the Imperial princes would rally to his side and pay for the army he needed. After all, the campaign of Charles VIII was so obviously a foreign invasion of the empire, they could not stand aside.
On November 24, 1494 Maximilian had called an imperial diet in Worms to take place on the 2nd of February 1495. This was ample enough time for Maximilian to negotiate with the princes in advance so that the diet only had only to rubber stamp the raising of an imperial army. Note that the Holy League was only concluded on March 31st that’s two months later and Charles arrived in Fornovo in July. In other words, if all had gone to plan, Maximilian could have brought down an army well in time that, combined with Venetian and Milanese forces would have outnumbered the fleeing and demoralised French 2 to 1. The king of France, as the diplomat Philippe de Commines noted, would have never seen Paris again….and oh mei, would the Renaissance have taken a different turn.
But the diet of Worms did not develop necessarily to Maximilian’s advantage. He got stuck in negotiations with the princes for 14 weeks, leaving it far too late to raise an army and capture the French king. What exactly they debated so ferociously in Worms is what we will discuss next week. But for today, we will discuss the other event triggered by the Italian war of Charles VIII that shaped European history.
Whilst Maximilian was ranting and raging about Charles’ infringement of largely theoretical imperial rights in Italy, the major European monarch who was most affected by the invasion was Ferdinand of Aragon and by extension his wife Isabella and their children and heirs. The target of Charles’ ambitions, Naples, was part of the Aragonese empire. A French takeover of Naples, combined with a close alliance with Pisa and Genoa would have pushed the traders of Barcelona, Valencia, Palermo and Palma de Mallorca out of the lucrative trade across the western Mediterranean.
Hence Ferdinand was one of the people pushing hardest for the establishment of the Holy League. But he had no illusions about the longevity of such an arrangement. What he was looking for was a more permanent support in his conflict with France.
The pope, Alexander VI, aka Roderigo Borgia, had been born his subject and saw the Spanish as a great way to counterbalance the French. He had granted the title of most Catholic Monarchs to the rulers of Spain and appeared generally supportive. But how long would that last in the maelstrom of papal politics plus, the next pope may take a different stance..
As for the other Italian states, neither of them had much of a reputation for loyalty either. Ludovico il Moro had changed sides four times in 18 months, Florence had gone mental and Venice was a republic where a new doge or a change in the majority in the Great Council could make the Serenissima alter course.
Against all odds, in the eyes of Ferdinand, the constantly broke Maximilian was the only valuable and reliable ally in his struggle with France. Ferdinand and Maximilian were both weary of potential French hegemony over europe and they both tried to convert the Holy League from a defensive alliance into a tool to extinguish the Valois state.
The two sides, obviously also involving Ferdinand’s wife and co-ruler Isabella of Castile, had been negotiating closer alliances and marriages for years already. The initial idea was for Maximilian to marry a Spanish princess, but when Charles VIII rejected Maximilian’s daughter Margarete a new, even closer connection could be contemplated.
A double wedding between Margarete and Juan, the heir to the Spanish crown and between Philip the Handsome and their daughter Juana was Ferdinand’s proposal. Maximilian was actually quite hesitant about this idea. At this point, and as it ended up being the case, he only had two legitimate children, Philip and Margarete. There were no other Habsburgs left either. Hence if Philip were to die without offspring, the entire Habsburg-Burgundian inheritance would go to Spain. On the other hand, if Juan of Spain died without offspring, the kingdom would be contested. Juana had an older sister, Isabella, who had been promised to Portugal since she had been 10 years old and, after some complex back and forth, married king Manuel of Portugal. Manuel nicknamed “the Fortunate” was Portugal’s most fortunate king. During his rule the Portuguese sailors rounded the cape of Good hope and opened up a direct route to the spice markets of India and Indonesia and even further to China and Japan. Manuel was immensely wealthy, competent, close by and the husband of the older sister. No question, if Isabella’s son with Manuel had survived, the Spanish crown would have gone to him, not the handsome Burgundian duke.
And there was also a younger sister, catherine, married to prince Arthur of England and upon the young man’s death, became the wife of, yes, our most gracious king Henry VIII. And again, England was closer to Spain than Austria.
In other words, it was a lopsided deal. From Maximilian’s perspective, there were other marriage options in the east, specifically with Wladislaw of Bohemia and Hungary that had much better odds.
But when Charles VIII entered Italy, the calculation shifted. Even though Maximilian would have liked to head east and gain eternal glory as the slayer of the Turks, he also really, really hated and feared the French. And if he wanted the French contained, the Spanish wedding was a way to tie the two powers, Habsburg and Spain closer together.
Hence Maximilian I most reluctantly consented to the second of the three marriages that catapulted Habsburg form a senior member of the Holy Roman Empire with a vastly inflated ego into a European hegemonial power. Imagine Maximilian had said no, and Ferdinand had married Juana to his second best option, the son of Henry VII. The cathedrals of England would still be pregnant with the smell of popery…
On this bombshell we will end. Next week we will dive deep into the Council of Worms in 1495 and the debate about imperial reform. I hope you will join us again.
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