the electors, finding that his bribe to them was lower than to
the others, seceded in disgust, and chose Alfonso X. of
Castile, who, shrewder than his competitor, continued to watch
the stars at Toledo, enjoying the splendours of his title
while troubling himself about it no further than to issue now
and then a proclamation. Meantime the condition of Germany was
frightful. The new Didius Julianus, the chosen of princes
baser than the prætorians whom they copied, had neither the
character nor the outward power and resources to make himself
respected. Every floodgate of anarchy was opened: prelates and
barons extended their domains by war: robber-knights infested
the highways and the rivers: the misery of the weak, the
tyranny and violence of the strong, were such as had not been
seen for centuries.
{1449}
Things were even worse than under the Saxon and Franconian
Emperors; for the petty nobles who had then been in some
measure controlled by their dukes were now, after the
extinction of the great houses, left without any feudal
superior. Only in the cities was shelter or peace to be found.
Those of the Rhine had already leagued themselves for mutual
defence, and maintained a struggle in the interests of
commerce and order against universal brigandage. At last, when
Richard had been some time dead, it was felt that such things
could not go on for ever: with no public law, and no courts of
justice, an Emperor, the embodiment of legal government, was
the only resource. The Pope himself, having now sufficiently
improved the weakness of his enemy, found the disorganization
of Germany beginning to tell upon his revenues, and threatened
that if the electors did not appoint an Emperor, he would.
Thus urged, they chose, in 1272 [1273?], Rudolf, count of
Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria. From this point
there begins a new era. We have seen the Roman Empire revived
in A. D. 800, by a prince whose vast dominions gave ground to
his claim of universal monarchy; again erected, in A. D. 962,
on the narrower but firmer basis of the German kingdom. We
have seen Otto the Great and his successors during the three
following centuries, a line of monarchs of unrivalled vigour
and abilities, strain every nerve to make good the pretensions
of their office against the rebels in Italy and the
ecclesiastical power. Those efforts had now failed signally
and hopelessly. Each successive Emperor had entered the strife
with resources scantier than his predecessors, each had been
more decisively vanquished by the Pope, the cities, and the
princes. The Roman Empire might, and, so far as its practical
utility was concerned, ought now to have been suffered to
expire; nor could it have ended more gloriously than with the
last of the Hohenstaufen. That it did not so expire, but lived
on 600 years more, till it became a piece of antiquarianism
hardly more venerable than ridiculous--till, as Voltaire said,
all that could be said about it was that it was neither holy,
nor Roman, nor an empire--was owing partly indeed to the
belief, still unshaken, that it was a necessary part of the
world's order, yet chiefly to its connection, which was by
this time indissoluble, with the German kingdom. The Germans
had confounded the two characters of their sovereign so long,
and had grown so fond of the style and pretensions of a
dignity whose possession appeared to exalt them above the
other peoples of Europe, that it was now too late for them to
separate the local from the universal monarch. If a German
king was to be maintained at all, he must be Roman Emperor;
and a German king there must still be. ... That head, however,
was no longer what he had been. The relative position of
Germany and France was now exactly the reverse of that which
they had occupied two centuries earlier. Rudolf was as
conspicuously a weaker sovereign than Philip III. of France,
as the Franconian Emperor Henry III. had been stronger than
the Capetian Philip I. In every other state of Europe the
tendency of events had been to centralize the administration
and increase the power of the monarch, even in England not to
diminish it: in Germany alone had political union become
weaker, and the independence of the princes more confirmed."
J. Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire,
chapter 13.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1250-1520.
GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
The first Hapsburg kings of the Romans, Rodolph and Albert.
The choice made (A. D. 1273) by the German Electors of Rodolph
of Hapsburg for King of the Romans (see AUSTRIA: A. D.
1246-1282), was duly approved and confirmed by Pope Gregory
X., who silenced, by his spiritual admonitions, the rival
claims of King Alfonso of Castile. But Rodolph, to secure this
papal confirmation of his title, found it necessary to
promise, through his ambassadors, a renewal of the
Capitulation of Otho IV., respecting the temporalities of the
Pope. This he repeated in person, on meeting the Pope at
Lausanne, in 1275, On that occasion, "an agreement was entered
into which afterwards ratified to the Church the long disputed
gift of Charlemagne, comprising Ravenna, Æmilia, Bobbio,
Cesena, Forumpopoli, Forli, Faenza, Imola, Bologna, Ferrara,
Comacchio, Adria, Rimini, Urbino, Monteferetro, and the
territory of Bagno. Rodolph also bound himself to protect the
privileges of the Church, and to maintain the freedom of
Episcopal elections, and the right of appeal in all
ecclesiastical causes; and having stipulated for receiving the
imperial crown in Rome he promised to undertake an expedition
to the holy land. If Rodolph were sincere in these last
engagements, the disturbed state of his German dominions
afforded him an apology for their present non-fulfilment: but
there is good reason for believing that he never intended to
visit either Rome or Palestine; and his indifference to Italy
has even been the theme of panegyric with his admirers. The
repeated and mortifying reverses of the two Frederics were
before his eyes; there was little to excite his sympathy with
the Italians; and though Lombardy seemed ready to acknowledge
his supremacy, the Tuscan cities evinced aspirations after
independence." During the early years of Rodolph's reign he
was employed in establishing his authority, as against the
contumacy of Ottocar, King of Bohemia, and the Duke of Bavaria.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.
Meantime, Gregory X. and three short-lived successors in the
papal office passed away, and Nicholas III. had come to it
(1277). That vigorous pontiff called Rodolph to account for
not having yet surrendered the states of the Church in due
form, and whispered a hint of excommunication and interdict.
"Rodolph was too prudent to disregard this admonition: he
evaded the projected crusade and journey to Rome; but he took
care to send thither an emissary, who in his name surrendered
to the Pope the territory already agreed on. ... During his
entire reign Rodolph maintained his indifference towards
Italy." His views "were rather directed to the wilds of
Hungary and Germany than to the delicious regions of the
south. ... He compelled Philip, Count of Savoy, to surrender
Morat, Payerne, and Guminen, which had been usurped from the
Empire. By a successful expedition across the Jura, he brought
back to obedience Otho IV. Count of Burgundy; and forced him
to renounce the allegiance he had proffered to Philip III.
King of France. ... He crushed an insurrection headed by an
impostor, who had persuaded the infatuated multitude to
believe that he was the Emperor Frederic II.
{1450}
And he freed his dominions from rapine and desolation by the
destruction of several castles, whose owners infested the
country with their predatory incursions." Before his death, in
1291, Rodolph "grew anxious to secure to his son Albert the
succession to the throne, and his nomination by the Electors
ere the grave closed upon himself. ... But all his entreaties
were unavailing; he was coldly reminded that he himself was
still the 'King,' and that the Empire was too poor to support
two kings. Rodolph might now repent his neglect to assume the
imperial crown: but the character of Albert seems to have been
the real obstacle to his elevation. With many of the great
qualities of his father, this prince was deficient in his
milder virtues; and his personal bravery and perseverance were
tainted with pride, haughtiness; and avarice." On Rodolph's
death, the Electors chose for his successor Adolphus, Count of
Nassau, a choice of which they soon found reason to repent. By
taking pay from Edward I. of England, for an alliance with the
latter against the King of France, and by attempts to enforce
a purchased claim upon the Landgraviate of Thuringia, Adolphus
brought himself into contempt, and in 1298 he was solemnly
deposed by the Electors, who now conferred the kingship upon
Albert of Austria whom they had rejected six years before.
"The deposed sovereign was, however, strongly supported; and
he promptly collected his adherents, and marched at the head
of a vast army against Albert, who was not unprepared for his
reception. A great battle took place at Gelheim, near Worms;
and, after a bloody contest, the troops of Adolphus were
entirely defeated," and he himself was slain. But Albert, now
unopposed in Germany, found his title disputed at Rome.
Boniface VIII., the most arrogant of all popes, refused to
acknowledge the validity of his election, and drove him into a
close alliance with the Pope's implacable and finally
triumphant enemy, Philip IV. of France (see PAPACY: A. D.
1294-1348). He was soon at enmity, moreover, with a majority
of the Electors who had given the crown to him, and they,
stimulated by the Pope, were preparing to depose him, as they
had deposed Adolphus. But Albert's energy broke up their
plans. He humbled their leader, the Archbishop-Elector of
Mentz, and the rest became submissive. The Pope now came to
terms with him, and invited him to Rome to receive the
imperial crown; also offering to him the crown of France, if
he would take it from the head of the excommunicated Philip;
but while these proposals were under discussion, Boniface
suffered humiliations at the hands of the French king which
caused his death. During most of his reign, Albert was busy
with undertakings of ambition and rapacity which had no
success. He attempted to seize the counties of Holland,
Zealand, and Friesland, as fiefs reverting to the crown, on
the death of John, Count of Holland, in 1299. He claimed the
Bohemian crown in 1306, when Wenceslaus V., the young king,
was assassinated, and invaded the country; but only to be
beaten back. He was defeated at Lucka, in 1308, when
attempting to grasp the inheritance of the Landgrave of
Thuringia--under the very transaction which had chiefly caused
his predecessor Adolphus to be deposed, and he himself
invested with the Roman crown. Finally, he was in hostilities
with the Swiss Forest Cantons, and was leading his forces
against them, in May, 1308, when he was assassinated by
several nobles, including his cousin John, whose enmity he had
incurred.
Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapters 14-17 (volume 1).
ALSO IN;
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 5 (volume 1).
GERMANY: A. D. 1282.
Acquisition of the duchy of Austria by the House of Hapsburg.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.
GERMANY: A. D. 1308-1313.
The reign of Henry of Luxemburg.
The king (subsequently crowned emperor) chosen to succeed
Albert was Count Henry of Luxemburg, an able and excellent
prince. The new sovereign was crowned as Henry VII. "Henry did
not make the extension of his private domains his object, yet
favoring fortune brought it to him in the largest measure.
Since the death of Wenzel III., the succession to the throne
of Bohemia had been a subject of constant struggles. A very
small party was in favor of Austria; but the chief power was
in the hands of Henry of Carinthia, husband of Anna, Wenzel's
eldest daughter. But he was hated by the people, whose hopes
turned more and more to Elizabeth, a younger daughter of
Wenzel; though she was kept in close confinement by Henry, who
was about to marry her, it was supposed, below her rank. She
escaped, fled to the emperor, and implored his aid. He gave
her in marriage to his young son John, sending him to Bohemia
in charge of Peter Aichspalter; to take possession of the
kingdom. He did so, and it remained for more than a century in
the Luxemburg family. This King John of Bohemia was a man of
mark. His life was spent in the ceaseless pursuit of
adventure--from tournament to tournament, from war to war,
from one enterprise to another. We meet him now in Avignon,
and now in Paris; then on the Rhine, in Prussia, Poland, or
Hungary, and then prosecuting large plans in Italy, but hardly
ever in his own kingdom. Yet his restless activity
accomplished very little, apart from some important
acquisitions in Silesia. Henry then gave attention to the
public peace; came to an understanding with Leopold and
Frederick, the proud sons of Albert, and put under the ban
Everard of Wirtemberg, long a fomenter of disturbances,
sending against him a strong imperial army. ... At the Diet of
Spires, in September, 1309, it was cheerfully resolved to
carry out Henry's cherished plan of reviving the traditional
dignity of the Roman emperors by an expedition to the Eternal
City. Henry expected thus to renew the authority of his title
at home, as well as in Italy, where, in the traditional view,
the imperial crown was as important and as necessary as in
Germany. Every thing here had gone to confusion and ruin since
the Hohenstaufens had succumbed to the bitter hostility of the
popes. The contending parties still called themselves Guelphs
and Ghibellines, though they retained little of the original
characteristics attached to these names. A formal embassy,
with Matteo Visconti at its head, invited Henry to Milan; and
the parties every where anticipated his coming with hope. The
great Florentine poet, Dante, hailed him as a saviour for
distracted Italy. Thus, with the pope's approval, he crossed
the Alps in the autumn of 1310, attended by a splendid escort
of princes of the empire.
{1451}
The news of his approach excited general wonder and
expectation, and his reception at Milan in December was like a
triumph. He was crowned King of Lombardy without opposition.
But when, in the true imperial spirit, he announced that he
had come to serve the nation, and not one or another party,
and proved his sincerity by treating both parties alike, all
whose selfish hopes were deceived conspired against him.
Brescia endured a frightful siege for four months, showing
that the national hatred of German rule still survived. At
length a union of all his adversaries was formed under King
Robert of Naples, the grandson of Charles of Anjou, who put
Conradin to death. Meanwhile Henry VII. went to Rome, May
1312, and received the crown of the Cæsars from four
cardinals, plenipotentiaries of the pope, in the church of St.
John Lateran, south of the Tiber, St. Peter's being occupied
by the Neapolitan troops. But many of his German soldiers left
him, and he retired, with a small army, to Pisa, after an
unsuccessful effort to take Florence. From the faithful city
of Pisa he proclaimed King Robert under the ban, and, in
concert with Frederick of Sicily, prepared for war by land and
sea. But the pope, now a mere tool of the King of France,
commanded an armistice; and when Henry, in an independent
spirit, hesitated to obey, Clement V. pronounced the ban of
the Church against him. It never reached the emperor, who died
suddenly in the monastery of Buon-Convento: poisoned, as the
German annalists assert, by a Dominican monk, in the
sacramental cup, August 24, 1313. He was buried at Pisa.
Meanwhile his army in Bohemia had been completely successful
in establishing King John on the throne."
C. T. Lewis,
A History of Germany,
book 3, chapter 10.
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.
GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347.
Election of rival emperors, Lewis (Ludowic) of Bavaria and
Frederic of Austria.
Triumph of Lewis at the Battle of Mühldorf.
Papal interference and excommunication of Lewis.
Germany under interdict.
Unrelenting hostility of the Church.
"The death of Heinric [Henry] replunged Germany into horrors
to which, since the extinction of the Swabian line of
emperors, it had been a stranger. The Austrian princes, who
had never forgiven the elevation of the Luxemburg family,
espoused the interests of Frederic, their head; the Bohemians
as naturally opposed them. From the accession of John, the two
houses were of necessity hostile; and it was evident that
there could be no peace in Germany until one of them was
subjected to the other. The Bohemians, indeed, could not hope
to place their king on the vacant throne, since their project
would have found an insurmountable obstacle in the jealousy of
the electors; but they were at least resolved to support the
pretensions of a prince hostile to the Austrians. ... The diet
being convoked at Frankfort, the electors repaired thither,
but with very different views; for, as their suffrages were
already engaged, while the more numerous party proclaimed the
duke of Bavaria as Ludowic V., another no less eagerly
proclaimed Frederic. Although Ludowic was a member of the
Austro-Hapsburg family--his mother being a daughter of Rodolf
I.--he had always been the enemy of the Austrian princes, and
in the same degree the ally of the Luxemburg faction. The two
candidates being respectively crowned kings of the Romans,
Ludowic at Aix-la-Chapelle, by the archbishop of
Mentz--Frederic at Bonn, by the metropolitan of Cologne, a
civil war was inevitable: neither had virtue enough to
sacrifice his own rights to the good of the state. ... The
contest would have ended in favour of the Austrians, but for
the rashness of Frederic, who, in September 1322, without
waiting for the arrival of his brother Leopold, assailed
Ludowic between Mahldorf and Ettingen in Bavaria. ... The
battle was maintained with equal valour from the rising to the
setting sun; and was evidently in favour of the Austrians,
when an unexpected charge in flank by a body of cavalry under
the margrave of Nuremburg decided the fortune of the day.
Heinric of Austria was first taken prisoner; and Frederic
himself, who disdained to flee, was soon in the same
condition. To his everlasting honour, Ludowic received
Frederic with the highest assurances of esteem; and though the
latter was conveyed to the strong fortress of Trapnitz, in the
Upper Palatinate, he was treated with every indulgence
consistent with his safe custody. But the contest was not yet
decided; the valiant Leopold was still at the head of a
separate force; and pope John XXII., the natural enemy of the
Ghibelins, incensed at some succours which Ludowic sent to
that party in Lombardy, excommunicated the king of the Romans,
and declared him deposed from his dignity. Among the
ecclesiastics of the empire this iniquitous sentence had its
weight; but had not other events been disastrous to the king,
he might have safely despised it. By Leopold he was signally
defeated; he had the mortification to see the inconstant king
of Bohemia join the party of Austria; and the still heavier
misfortune to learn that the ecclesiastical and two or three
secular electors were proceeding to another choice--that of
Charles de Valois, whose interests were warmly supported by
the pope. In this emergency, his only chance of safety was a
reconciliation with his enemies; and Frederic was released on
condition of his renouncing all claim to the empire. But
though Frederic sincerely resolved to fulfil his share of the
compact, Leopold and the other princes of his family refused;
and their refusal was approved by the pope. With the
magnanimity of his character, Frederic, unable to execute the
engagements which he had made, voluntarily surrendered himself
to his enemy. But Ludowic, who would not be outdone in
generosity, received him, not as a prisoner, but a friend.
'They ate,' says a contemporary writer, 'at the same table,
slept on the same couch;' and when the King left Bavaria, the
administration of that duchy was confided to Frederic. Two
such men could not long remain even politically hostile; and
by another treaty, it was agreed that they should exercise
conjointly the government of the empire. When this arrangement
was condemned both by the pope and the electors, Ludowic
proposed to take Italy as his seat of government, and leave
Germany to Frederic. But the death [1326] of the war-like
Leopold--the great support of the Austrian cause--and the
continued opposition of the states to any compromise, enabled
Ludowic to retain the sceptre of the kingdom; and in 1329,
that of Frederic strengthened his party. But his reign was
destined to be one of troubles. ... His open warfare against
the head of the church did not much improve his affairs, the
vindictive pope, in addition to the former sentence, placing
all Germany under an interdict. ...
{1452}
In 1338, the diet of Frankfort issued a declaration for ever
memorable in the annals of freedom. That the imperial
authority depended on God alone; that the pope had no temporal
influence, direct or indirect, within the empire; ... it
concluded by empowering the emperor (Ludowic while in Italy
[see ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330] had received the imperial crown
from the anti-pope whom he had created in opposition to John
XXII.) to raise, of his own authority, the interdict which,
during four years, had oppressed the country. Another diet,
held the following year, ratified this bold declaration. ...
But this conduct of the diet was above the comprehension of
the vulgar, who still regarded Ludowic as under the curse of
God and the church. ... Unfortunately for the national
independence, Ludowic himself contradicted the tenor of his
hitherto spirited conduct, by mean submissions, by humiliating
applications for absolution. They were unsuccessful; and he
had the mortification to see the king of Bohemia, who had
always acted an unaccountable part, become his bitter enemy.
... From this moment the fate of Ludowic was decided. In
conjunction with the pope and the French king, Charles of
Bohemia, who in 1346 succeeded to his father's kingdom and
antipathy, commenced a civil war; and in the midst of these
troubled scenes the emperor breathed his last [October 11,
1347]. Twelve months before the decease of Ludowic, Charles of
Bohemia [son of John, the blind king of Bohemia, who fell,
fighting for the French, at the battle of Crecy], assisted by
Clement VI., was elected king of the Romans."
S. A. Dunham,
History of the Germanic Empire,
book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
J. I. von Döllinger,
Studies in European History,
chapter 5.
J. C. Robertson,
History of the Christian Church,
book 8, chapter 2, V. 7.
M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation,
introduction, chapter 2.
GERMANY: A. D. 1347-1493.
The Golden Bull of Charles IV.
The Luxemburg line of emperors, and the reappearance of the
Hapsburgs.
The Holy Roman Empire as it was at the end of the Middle Ages.
"John king of Bohemia did not himself wear the imperial crown;
but three of his descendants possessed it, with less
interruption than could have been expected. His son Charles
IV. succeeded Louis of Bavaria in 1347; not indeed without
opposition, for a double election and a civil war were matters
of course in Germany. Charles IV. has been treated with more
derision by his contemporaries, and consequently by later
writers, than almost any prince in history; yet he was
remarkably successful in the only objects that he seriously
pursued. Deficient in personal courage, insensible of
humiliation, bending without shame to the pope, to the
Italians, to the electors, so poor and so little reverenced as
to be arrested by a butcher at Worms for want of paying his
demand, Charles IV. affords a proof that a certain dexterity
and cold-blooded perseverance may occasionally supply, in a
sovereign, the want of more respectable qualities. He has been
reproached with neglecting the empire. But he never deigned to
trouble himself about the empire, except for his private'
ends. He did not neglect the kingdom of Bohemia, to which he
almost seemed to render Germany a province. Bohemia had been
long considered as a fief of the empire, and indeed could
pretend to an electoral vote by no other title. Charles,
however, gave the states by law the right of choosing a king,
on the extinction of the royal family, which seems derogatory
to the imperial prerogative. ... He constantly resided at
Prague, where he founded a celebrated university, and
embellished the city with buildings. This kingdom, augmented
also during his reign by the acquisition of Silesia, he
bequeathed to his son Wenceslaus, for whom, by pliancy towards
the electors and the court of Rome, he had procured, against
all recent example, the imperial succession. The reign of
Charles IV. is distinguished in the constitutional history of
the empire by his Golden Bull [1356]; an instrument which
finally ascertained the prerogatives of the electoral college.
See above: A. D. 1125-1152.
The Golden Bull terminated the disputes which had arisen
between different members of the same house as to their right
of suffrage, which was declared inherent in certain definite
territories. The number was absolutely restrained to seven.
The place of legal imperial elections was fixed at Frankfort;
of coronations, at Aix-la-Chapelle: and the latter ceremony
was to be performed by the arch-bishop of Cologne. These
regulations, though consonant to ancient usage, had not always
been observed, and their neglect had sometimes excited
questions as to the validity of elections. The dignity of
elector was enhanced by the Golden Bull as highly as an
imperial edict could carry it: they were declared equal to
kings, and conspiracy against their persons incurred the
penalty of high treason. Many other privileges are granted to
render them more completely sovereign within their dominions.
It seems extraordinary that Charles should have voluntarily
elevated an oligarchy, from whose pretensions his predecessors
had frequently suffered injury. But he had more to apprehend
from the two great families of Bavaria and Austria, whom he
relatively depressed by giving such a preponderance to the
seven electors, than from any members of the college. By his
compact with Brandenburg [see BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1168-1417] he
had a fair prospect of adding a second vote to his own. ...
The next reign, nevertheless, evinced the danger of investing
the electors with such preponderating authority. Wenceslaus
[elected in 1378], a supine and voluptuous man, less
respected, and more negligent of Germany, if possible, than
his father, was regularly deposed by a majority of the
electoral college in 1400. ... They chose Robert count
palatine instead of Wenceslaus; and though the latter did not
cease to have some adherents, Robert has generally been
counted among the lawful emperors. Upon his death [1410] the
empire returned to the house of Luxemburg; Wenceslaus himself
waiving his rights in favour of his brother Sigismund of
Hungary." On the death of Sigismund, in 1437, the house of
Austria regained the imperial throne, in the person of Albert,
duke of Austria, who had married Sigismund's only daughter,
the queen of Hungary and Bohemia. "He died in two years,
leaving his wife pregnant with a son, Ladislaus Posthumus, who
afterwards reigned in the two kingdoms just mentioned; and the
choice of the electors fell upon Frederic duke of Styria,
second-cousin of the last emperor, from whose posterity it
never departed, except in a single instance, upon the
extinction of his male line in 1740.
{1453}
Frederic III. reigned 53 years [1440-1493], a longer period
than any of his predecessors; and his personal character was
more insignificant. ... Frederic, always poor, and scarcely
able to protect himself in Austria from the seditions of his
subjects, or the inroads of the king of Hungary, was yet
another founder of his family, and left their fortunes
incomparably more prosperous than at his accession. The
marriage of his son Maximilian with the heiress of Burgundy
[see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477] began that aggrandizement of the
house of Austria which Frederic seems to have anticipated. The
electors, who had lost a good deal of their former spirit, and
were grown sensible of the necessity of choosing a powerful
sovereign, made no opposition to Maximilian's becoming king of
the Romans in his father's lifetime."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 5 (volume 2).
"It is important to remark that, for more than a century after
Charles IV. had fixed his seat in Bohemia, no emperor
appeared, endowed with the vigour necessary to uphold and
govern the empire. The bare fact that Charles's successor,
Wenceslas, was a prisoner in the hands of the Bohemians,
remained for a long time unknown in Germany: a simple decree
of the electors' sufficed to dethrone him. Rupert the Palatine
only escaped a similar fate by death. When Sigismund of
Luxemburg, (who, after many disputed elections, kept
possession of the field,) four years after his election,
entered the territory of the empire of which he was to be
crowned sovereign, he found so little sympathy that he was for
a moment inclined to return to Hungary without accomplishing
the object of his journey. The active part he took in the
affairs of Bohemia, and of Europe generally, has given him a
name; but in and for the empire, he did nothing worthy of
note. Between the years 1422 and 1430 he never made his
appearance beyond Vienna; from the autumn of 1431 to that of
1433 he was occupied with his coronation journey to Rome; and
during the three years from 1434 to his death he never got
beyond Bohemia and Moravia; nor did Albert II., who has been
the subject of such lavish eulogy, ever visit the dominions of
the empire. Frederic III., however, far outdid all his
predecessors. During seven-and-twenty years, from 1444 to
1471, he was never seen within the boundaries of the empire.
Hence it happened that the central action and the visible
manifestation of sovereignty, in as far as any such existed in
the empire, fell to the share of the princes, and more
especially of the prince-electors. In the reign of Sigismund
we find them convoking the diets, and leading the armies into
the field against the Hussites: the operations against the
Bohemians were attributed entirely to them. In this manner the
empire became, like the papacy, a power which acted from a
distance, and rested chiefly upon opinion. ... The emperor was
regarded, in the first place, as the supreme feudal lord, who
conferred on property its highest and most sacred sanction.
... Although he was regarded as the head and source of all
temporal jurisdiction, yet no tribunal found more doubtful
obedience than his own. The fact that royalty existed in
Germany had almost been suffered to fall into oblivion; even
the title had been lost. Henry VII. thought it an affront to
be called King of Germany, and not, as he had a right to be
called before any ceremony of coronation, King of the Romans.
In the 15th century the emperor was regarded pre-eminently as
the successor of the ancient Roman Cæsars, whose rights and
dignities had been transferred, first to the Greeks, and then
to the Germans in the persons of Charlemagne and Otho the
Great; as the true secular head of Christendom. ... The
opinion was confidently entertained in Germany that the other
sovereigns of Christendom, especially those of England, Spain,
and France, were legally subject to the crown of the empire:
the only controversy was, whether their disobedience was
venial, or ought to be regarded as sinful."
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
volume 1, pages 52-56.
ALSO IN:
Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapter 24 (volume l).
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
book 2, number 10.
See, also,
AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364, to 1471-1491.
GERMANY: A. D. 1363-1364.
Tyrol acquired by the House of Austria, with the reversion of
the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364.
GERMANY: A. D. 1378.
Final surrender of the Arelate to France.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1127-1378.
GERMANY: A. D. 1386-1388.
Defeat of the Austrians by the Swiss at Sempach and Naefels.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1386-1388.
GERMANY: A. D. 1405-1434.
The Bohemian Reformation and the Hussite wars.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1405-1415, and 1419-1434.
GERMANY: A. D. 1414-1418.
Failure of demands for Church Reform in the Council of
Constance.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1414-1418.
GERMANY: A. D. 1417.
The Electorate of Brandenburg conferred on the Hohenzollerns.
"The March of Brandenburg is one of those districts which was
first peopled by the advance of the German nation towards the
east during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It was in
the beginning, like Silesia, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Prussia,
and Livonia, a German colony settled upon an almost
uncultivated soil: from the very first, however, it seems to
have given the greatest promise of vigour. ... Possession was
taken of the soil upon the ground of the rights of the
princely Ascanian house--we know not whether these rights were
founded upon inheritance, purchase, or cession. The process of
occupation was so gradual that the institutions of the old
German provinces, like those constituting the northern march,
had time to take firm root in the newly-acquired territory;
and owing to the constant necessity for unsheathing the sword,
the colonists acquired warlike habits which tended to give them
spirit and energy. ... The Ascanians were a warlike but
cultivated race, incessantly acquiring new possessions, but
generous and openhanded; and new life followed in their
footsteps. They soon took up an important political position
among the German princely houses: their possessions extended
over a great part of Thuringia, Moravia, Lausitz, and Silesia;
the electoral dignity which they assumed gave to them and to
their country a high rank in the Empire. In the Neumark and in
Pomerelllen the Poles retreated before them, and on the
Pomeranian coasts they protected the towns founded by the
Teutonic order from the invasion of the Danes. It has been
asked whether this race might not have greatly extended its
power; but they were not destined even to make the attempt.
{1454}
It is said that at the beginning of the fourteenth century
nineteen members of this family were assembled on the
Margrave's Hill near Rathenau. In the year 1320, of all these
not one remained, or had even left an heir. ... In Brandenburg
... it really appeared as if the extinction of the ruling
family would entail ruin upon the country. It had formed a
close alliance with the imperial power--which at that moment
was the subject of contention between the two great families
of Wittelsbach and Luxemburg--was involved in the quarrels of
those two races, injured by all their alternations of fortune,
and sacrificed to their domestic and foreign policy, which was
totally at variance with the interests of Brandenburg. At the
very beginning of the struggle the March of Brandenburg lost
its dependencies. ... At length the Emperor Sigmund, the last
of the house of Luxemburg, found himself so fully occupied
with the disturbances in the Empire and the dissensions in the
Church, that he could no longer maintain his power in the
March, and intrusted the task to his friend and relation,
Frederick, Burgrave of Nürnberg, to whom he lay under very
great obligations, and who had assisted him with money at his
need. ... It was a great point gained, after so long a period
of anarchy, to find a powerful and prudent prince ready to
undertake the government of the province. He could do nothing
in the open field against the revolted nobles, but he assailed
and vanquished them in their hitherto impregnable strong-holds
surrounded with walls fifteen feet thick, which he demolished
with his clumsy but effective artillery. In a few years he had
so far succeeded that he was able to proclaim a Landfriede, or
public peace, according to which each and everyone who was an
enemy to him, or to those comprehended in the peace, was
considered and treated as the enemy of all. But the effect of
all this would have been but transient, had not the Emperor,
who had no son, and who was won by Frederick's numerous
services and by his talents for action, made the Electorate
hereditary in his family. ... The most important day in the
history of the March of Brandenburg and the family of Zollern
was the 18th of April, 1417, when in the market-place of
Constance the Emperor Sigmund formally invested the Burgrave
with the dignity of Elector, placed in his hands the flag with
the arms of the March and received from him the oath of
allegiance. From this moment a prospect was afforded to the
territory of Brandenburg of recovering its former prosperity
and increasing its importance, while to the house of Zollern a
career of glory and usefulness was opened worthy of powers
which were thus called into action."
L. von Ranke,
Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg,
book 1, chapter 2.
See, also, BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1168-1417;
and HOHENZOLLERN, RISE OF THE HOUSE OF.
GERMANY: A. D. 1467-1471.
Crusade against George Podiebrad, king of Bohemia.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1458-1471.
GERMANY: A. D. 1467-1477.
Relations of Charles the Bold of Burgundy to the Empire.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467, and 1476-1477.
GERMANY: A. D. 1492-1514.
The Bundschuh insurrections of the Peasantry.
Several risings of the German peasantry, in the later part of
the 15th and early part of the 16th century, were named from
the Bundschuh, or peasants' clog, which the insurgents bore as
their emblem or pictured on their banners. "While the peasants
in the Rhætian Alps were gradually throwing off the yoke of
the nobles and forming the 'Graubund' [see SWITZERLAND: A. D.
1396-1499], a struggle, was going on between the neighbouring
peasantry of Kempten (to the east of Lake Constance) and their
feudal lord, the Abbot of Kempten. It began in 1423, and came
to an open rebellion in 1492. It was a rebellion against new
demands not sanctioned by ancient custom, and though it was
crushed, and ended in little good to the peasantry (many of
whom fled into Switzerland), yet it is worthy of note because
in it for the first time appears the banner of the Bundschuh.
The next rising was in Elsass (Alsace), in 1493, the peasants
finding allies in the burghers of the towns along the Rhine,
who had their own grievances. The Bundschuh was again their
banner, and it was to Switzerland that their anxious eyes were
turned for help. This movement also was prematurely discovered
and put down. Then, in 1501, other peasants, close neighbours
to those of Kempten, caught the infection, and in 1502, again
in Elsass, but this time further north, in the region about
Speyer and the Neckar, lower down the Rhine, nearer Franconia,
the Bundschuh was raised again. It numbered on its recruit
rolls many thousands of peasants from the country round, along
the Neckar and the Rhine. The wild notion was to rise in arms,
to make themselves free, like the Swiss, by the sword, to
acknowledge no superior but the Emperor, and all Germany was
to join the League. They were to pay no taxes or dues, and
commons, forests, and rivers were to be free to all. Here,
again, they mixed up religion with their demands, and 'Only
what is just before God' was the motto on the banner of the
Bundschuh. They, too, were betrayed, and in savage triumph the
Emperor Maximilian ordered their property to be confiscated,
their wives and children to be banished, and themselves to be
quartered alive. ... Few ... really fell victims to this cruel
order of the Emperor. The ringleaders dispersed, fleeing some
into Switzerland and some into the Black Forest. For ten years
now there was silence. The Bundschuh banner was furled, but
only for a while. In 1512 and 1513, on the east side of the
Rhine, in the Black Forest and the neighbouring districts of
Würtemberg, the movement was again on foot on a still larger
scale. It had found a leader in Joss Fritz. A soldier, with
commanding presence and great natural eloquence, ... he bided
his time. ... Again the League was betrayed ... and Joss
Fritz, with the banner under his clothes, had to fly for his
life to Switzerland. ... He returned after a while to the
Black Forest, went about his secret errands, and again bided
his time. In 1514 the peasantry of the Duke Ulrich of
Würtemberg rose to resist the tyranny of their lord [in a
combination called 'the League of Poor Conrad']. ... The same
year, in the valleys of the Austrian Alps, in Carinthia,
Styria, and Crain, similar risings of the peasantry took
place, all of them ending in the triumph of the nobles."
F. Seebohm,
The Era of the Protestant Revolution,
part 1, chapter 4.
See, also, below: A. D. 1524-1525.
GERMANY: A. D. 1493.
Maximilian I. becomes emperor.
{1455}
GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.
The reign of Maximilian.
His personal importance and his imperial powerlessness.
Constitutional reforms in the Empire.
The Imperial Chamber.
The Circles.
The Aulic Council.
"Frederic [the Third] died in 1493, after a protracted and
inglorious reign of 53 years. ... On the death of his father,
Maximilian had been seven years king of the Romans; and his
accession to the imperial crown encountered no opposition. ...
Scarcely had he ascended the throne, when Charles VIII., king
of France, passed through the Milanese into the south of
Italy, and seized on Naples without opposition.
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
Maximilian endeavoured to rouse the German nation to a sense
of its danger, but in vain. ... With difficulty he was able to
despatch 3,000 men to aid the league, which Spain, the pope,
the Milanese, and the Venetians had formed, to expel the
ambitious intruders from Italy. To cement his alliance with
Fernando the Catholic, he married his son Philip to Juana, the
daughter of the Spaniard. The confederacy triumphed; not
through the efforts of Maximilian, but through the hatred of
the Italians to the Gallic yoke. ... Louis XII., who succeeded
to Charles (1498), ... forced Philip to do homage for
Flanders; surrendering, indeed, three inconsiderable towns,
that he might be at liberty to renew the designs of his house
on Lombardy and Naples. ... The French had little difficulty
in expelling Ludovico Moro, the usurper of Milan, and in
retaining possession of the country during the latter part of
Maximilian's reign.
See ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.
Louis, indeed, did homage for the duchy to the Germanic head;
but such homage was merely nominal: it involved no tribute, no
dependence. The occupation of this fine province by the French
made no impression on the Germans; they regarded it as a fief
of the house of Austria, not of the empire: but even if it had
stood in the latter relation, they would not have moved one
man, or voted one florin, to avert its fate. That the French
did not obtain similar possession of Naples, and thereby
become enabled to oppose Maximilian with greater effect, was
owing to the valour of the Spanish troops, who retained the
crown in the house of Aragon. His disputes with the Venetians
were inglorious to his arms; they defeated his armies, and
encroached considerably on his Italian possessions. He was
equally unsuccessful with the Swiss, whom he vainly persuaded
to acknowledge the supremacy of his house. ... For many of his
failures ... he is not to be blamed. To carry on his vast
enterprises he could command only the resources of Austria:
had he been able to wield those of the empire, his name would
have been more formidable to his enemies; and it is no slight
praise, that with means so contracted he could preserve the
Netherlands against the open violence, no less than the subtle
duplicity, of France. But the internal transactions of
Maximilian's reign are those only to which the attention of
the reader can be directed with pleasure. In 1495 we witness
the entire abolition of the right of diffidation [private
warfare, see LANDFRIEDE],--a right which from time immemorial
had been the curse of the empire. ... The passing of the
decree which for ever secured the public peace, by placing
under the ban of the empire, and fining at 2,000 marks in
gold, every city, every individual that should hereafter send
or accept a defiance, was nearly unanimous. In regard to the
long-proposed tribunal [to take cognizance of all violations
of the public tranquillity], which was to retain the name of
the Imperial chamber, Maximilian relaxed much from the
pretensions of his father. ... It was solemnly decreed that
the new court should consist of one grand judge, and of 16
assessors, who were presented by the states, and nominated by
the emperor. ... Though a new tribunal was formed, its
competency, its operation, its support, its constitution, the
enforcement of its decisions, were left to chance; and many
successive diets--even many generations--were passed before
anything like an organised system could be introduced into it.
For the execution of its decrees the Swabian league was soon
employed; then another new authority, the Council of Regency.
... But these authorities were insufficient to enforce the
execution of the decrees emanating from the chamber; and it
was found necessary to restore the proposition of the circles,
which had been agitated in the reign of Albert II. ...
Originally they comprised only--
1. Bavaria,
2. Franconia,
3. Saxony,
4. the Rhine,
5. Swabia, and
6. Westphalia; thus excluding the states of Austria and the
electorates. But this exclusion was the voluntary act of the
electors, who were jealous of a tribunal which might encroach
on their own privileges. In 1512, however, the opposition of
most appears to have been removed; for four new circles were
added.
7. The circle of Austria comprised the hereditary dominions of
that house.
8. That of Burgundy contained the states inherited from
Charles the Rash in Franche-Comté; and the Netherlands.
9. That of the Lower Rhine comprehended the three
ecclesiastical electorates and the Palatinate.
10. That of Upper Saxony extended over the electorate of that
name and the march of Brandenburg. ...
Bohemia and Prussia ... refused to be thus partitioned. Each
of these circles had its internal organisations, the elements
of which were promulgated in 1512, but which was considerably
improved by succeeding diets. Each had its hereditary
president, or director, and its hereditary prince convoked,
both offices being frequently vested in the same individual.
... Each circle had its military chief, elected by the local
states, whose duty it was to execute the decrees of the
imperial Chamber. Generally this office was held by the prince
director. ... The establishment of the Imperial Chamber was
... disagreeable to the emperor. To rescue from its
jurisdiction such causes as he considered lay more peculiarly
within the range of his prerogative, and to encroach by
degrees on the jurisdiction of this odious tribunal,
Maximilian, in 1501, laid the foundation of the celebrated
Aulic Council. But the competency of this tribunal was soon
extended; from political affairs, investitures, charters, and
the numerous matters which concerned the Imperial chancery, it
immediately passed to judicial crimes. ... By an imperial
edict of 1518, the Aulic Council was to consist of 18 members,
all nominated by the emperor. Five only were to be chosen from
the states of the empire, the rest from those of Austria.
About half were legists, the other half nobles, but all
dependent on their chief. ... When he [Maximilian] laboured to
make this council as arbitrary in the empire as in Austria, he
met with great opposition. ... But his purpose was that of
encroachment no less than of defence; and his example was so
well imitated by his successors, that in most cases the Aulic
Council was at length acknowledged to have a concurrent
jurisdiction with the Imperial Chamber, in many the right of
prevention over its rival."
S. A. Dunham,
History of the Germanic Empire,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).
{1456}
"The received opinion which recognises in [Maximilian] the
creative founder of the later constitution of the empire, must
be abandoned. ... He had not the power of keeping the princes
of the empire together; ... on the contrary, everything about
him split into parties. It followed of necessity that abroad
he rather lost than gained ground. ... The glory which
surrounds the memory of Maximilian, the high renown which he
enjoyed even among his contemporaries, were therefore not won
by the success of his enterprises, but by his personal
qualities. Every good gift of nature had been lavished upon
him in profusion. ... He was a man ... formed to excite
admiration, and to inspire enthusiastic attachment; formed to
be the romantic hero, the exhaustless theme of the people."
L. von Ranke,
History of the Reformation in Germany,
volume 1, pages 379-381.
ALSO IN:
L. von Ranke,
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations
from 1494 to 1514,
book 1, chapter 3,
and book 2, chapters 2 and 4.
See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1477-1495.
GERMANY: A. D.1496-1499.
The Swabian war.
Practical separation of the Swiss Confederacy from the Empire.
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.
GERMANY: A. D. .1508-1509.
The League of Cambrai against Venice.
See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.
GERMANY: A. D. 1513-1515.
The emperor in the pay of England.
Peace with France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1513-1515.
GERMANY: A. D. 1516.
Abortive invasion of Milaness by Maximilian.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.
GERMANY: A. D. 1517-1523.
Beginning of the movement of Religious Reformation.
Papal Indulgences, and Luther's attack on them.
"The Reformation, like all other great social convulsions, was
long in preparation. It was one part of that general progress,
complex in its character, which marked the fifteenth century
and the opening of the sixteenth as the period of transition
from the Middle Ages to modern civilization. ... But while the
Reformation was one part of a change extending over the whole
sphere of human knowledge and activity, it had its own
specific origin and significance. These are still, to some
extent, a subject of controversy. ... One of its causes, as
well as one of the sources of its great power, was the
increasing discontent with the prevailing corruption and
misgovernment in the Church, and with papal interference in
civil affairs. ... The misconduct of the popes in the last
half of the fifteenth century was not more flagrant than that
of their predecessors in the tenth century. But the fifteenth
century was an age of light. What was done by the pontiffs was
not done in a corner, but under the eyes of all Europe.
Besides, there was now a deep-seated craving, especially in
the Teutonic peoples, who had so long been under the tutelage
of a legal, judaizing form of Christianity, for a more
spiritual type of religion. ... The Reformation may be viewed
in two aspects. On the one hand it is a religious revolution
affecting the beliefs, the rites, the ecclesiastical
organization of the Church, and the form of Christian life. On
the other hand, it is a great movement in which sovereigns and
nations are involved; the occasion of wars and treaties; the
close of an old, and the introduction of a new, period in the
history of culture and civilization. Germany, including the
Netherlands and Switzerland, was the stronghold of the
Reformation. It was natural that such a movement should spring
up and rise to its highest power among a people in whom a love of
independence was mingled with a yearning for a more spiritual
form of religion than was encouraged by mediæval
ecclesiasticism. Hegel has dwelt with eloquence upon the fact
that while the rest of the world was gone out to America or to
the Indies, in quest of riches and a dominion that should
encircle the globe, a simple monk, turning away from empty
forms and the things of sense, was finding him whom the
disciples once sought in a sepulchre of stone. Unquestionably
the hero of the Reformation was Martin Luther. ... As an
English writer has pointed out, Luther's whole nature was
identified with his great work, and while other leaders, like
Melancthon and even Calvin, can be separated in thought from
the Reformation, Luther, apart from the Reformation, would
cease to be Luther.' ... In 1517 John Tetzel, a hawker of
indulgences, the proceeds of which were to help pay for the
building of St. Peter's Church, appeared in the neighborhood
of Wittenberg. To persuade the people to buy his spiritual
wares, he told them, as Luther himself testifies, that as soon
as their money clinked in the bottom of the chest the souls of
their deceased friends forthwith went up to heaven. Luther was
so struck with the enormity of this traffic that he determined
to stop it. He preached against it, and on October 31, 1517,
he posted on the door of the Church of All Saints, at
Wittenberg, his ninety-five theses. [For the full text of
these, see PAPACY: A. D. 1517], relating to the doctrine and
practice of selling indulgences. Indulgences ... were at first
commutations of penance by the payment of money. The right to
issue them had gradually become the exclusive prerogative of
the popes. The eternal punishment of mortal sin being remitted
or commuted by the absolution of the priest, it was open to the
pope or his agents, by a grant of indulgences, to remove the