The Wittelsbach Family
When Otto of Wittelsbach gained Bavaria at Altenburg in September 1180 the duchy's borders comprised the Böhmerwald, the Inn, the Alps and the Lech; and the duke exercised practical power only over his extensive private domains around Wittelsbach, Kelheim and Straubing.
Otto only enjoyed his new dignity for three years. His son Louis I succeeded in 1183, took a leading part in German affairs during the earlier years of the reign of the emperor Frederick II, and died (assassinated) at Kelheim in September 1231. His son Otto II, called the Illustrious, the next duke, found that his loyalty to the Hohenstaufen saw himself placed under the papal ban, and Bavaria laid under an interdict. Like his father, Otto II increased the area of his lands by purchases; and he had considerably strengthened his hold upon the duchy before he died in November 1253. The efforts of the dukes to increase their power and to give unity to the duchy had met with a fair measure of success; but they were soon vitiated by partitions among different members of the family, which for 250 years made the history of Bavaria little more than a jejune chronicle of territorial divisions bringing war and weakness in their train.
The first of these divisions occurred in 1255. Louis II and Henry I, the sons of Duke Otto II, who for two years after their father's death had ruled Bavaria jointly, split their inheritance: Louis II obtained the western part of the duchy, afterwards called Upper Bavaria, and Henry secured eastern or Lower Bavaria.
In the course of a long reign Louis II, called "the Stern", became the most powerful prince in southern Germany. He served as the guardian of his nephew Conradin of Hohenstaufen, and after Conradin's execution in Italy in 1268, Louis and his brother Henry inherited the domains of the Hohenstaufen in Swabia and elsewhere. He supported Rudolph, count of Habsburg, in his efforts to secure the German throne in 1273, married the new king's daughter Mechtild, and aided him in campaigns in Bohemia and elsewhere. For some years after Louis' death in 1294 his sons Rudolph I and Louis, afterwards the emperor Louis IV, ruled their duchy in common; but as their relations were never harmonious a division of Upper Bavaria occurred in 1310, by which Rudolph received the land east of the Isar together with the town of Munich, and Louis the district between the Isar and the Lech. It was not long, however, before this arrangement led to war between the brothers, with the outcome that in 1317, three years after he had become German king, Louis compelled Rudolph to abdicate, and for twelve years ruled alone over the whole of Upper Bavaria. But in 1329 a series of events induced him to conclude the treaty of Pavia with Rudolph's sons, Rudolph and Rupert, to whom he transferred the Palatinate of the Rhine (which the Wittelsbach family had owned since 1214) and also a portion of Upper Bavaria north of the Danube, afterwards called the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz). At the same time the two lines of the Wittelsbach family decided to exercise the electoral vote alternately, and that in the event of the extinction of either branch of the family, the surviving branch should inherit its possessions.
Henry I of Lower Bavaria spent most of his time in quarrels with his brother, with Ottakar II of Bohemia and with various ecclesiastics. When he died in February 1290, the land fell to his three sons, Otto III, Louis II, and Stephen I. The families of these three princes governed Lower Bavaria until 1333, when Henry II (son of Otto III) died, followed in 1334 by his cousin Otto IV; and as both died without sons the whole of Lower Bavaria then passed to Henry III. Dying in 1339, Henry III left an only son, John I, who died childless in the following year, when the emperor Louis IV, by securing Lower Bavaria for himself, united the whole of the duchy under his sway.
The consolidation of Bavaria under Louis lasted for seven years, during which the emperor was able to improve the condition of the country. When he died in 1347 he left six sons to share his possessions, who agreed upon a division of Bavaria in 1349. Its history, however, was complicated by its connections with Brandenburg, Holland and Tirol, all of which the emperor had also left to his sons. All the six brothers exercised some authority in Bavaria; but three alone left issue, and of these the eldest, Louis, margrave of Brandenburg, died in 1361; followed to the grave two years later by his only (and childless) son Meinhard. The two remaining brothers, Stephen II and Albert I, ruled over Bavaria-Landshut and Bavaria-Straubing respectively, and when Stephen died in 1375 his three sons governed his portion of Bavaria jointly
Factions in the Bavarian Lands
