The Court of the Archduchy of Austria
The Establishment of the Duchy of Austria
In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity. Frederick, by favour of the divine mercy, august emperor of the Romans. Although a transfer of property may remain valid from the actual act of performing such transfer, and those things which are lawfully possessed can not be wrested away by any act of force: it is, however, the duty of our imperial authority to intervene lest there can be any doubt of the transaction. Be it known, therefore, to the present age and to future generations of our subjects, that we, aided by the grace of Him who sent peace for men from Heaven to earth, have, in the general court of Regensburg which was held on the nativity of St. Mary the Virgin, in the presence of many of the clergy and the catholic princes, terminated the struggle and controversy concerning the duchy of Bavaria, which has long been carried on between our most beloved uncle, Henry duke of Austria, and our most dear nephew, Henry duke of Saxony. And it has been done in this way: that the duke of Austria has resigned to us the duchy of Bavaria, which we have straightway granted as a fief to the duke of Saxony. But the duke of Bavaria has resigned to us the march of Austria, with all its jurisdictions and with all the fiefs which the former margrave Leopold held from the duchy of Bavaria. Moreover, lest by this act the honour and glory of our most beloved uncle may seem in any way to be diminished,-by the counsel and judgment of the princes, Vladislav, the illustrious duke of Bohemia, proclaiming the decision, and all the princes approving,-we have changed the march of Austria into a duchy, and have granted that duchy with all its jurisdictions to our aforesaid uncle Henry and his most noble wife Theodora as a fief; decreeing by a perpetual law that they and their children alike, whether sons or daughters, shall, by hereditary right, hold and possess that same duchy of Austria from the empire. But if the aforesaid duke of Austria, our uncle, and his wife should die without children, they shall have the privilege of leaving that duchy to whomever they wish. We decree, further, that no person, small or great, may presume to exercise any jurisdiction in the governing of that duchy without the consent or permission of the duke. The duke of Austria, moreover, shall not owe any other service to the empire from his duchy, except that, when he is summoned, he shall come to the courts which the emperor shall announce in Bavaria. And he shall be bound to go on no military expeclition, unless the emperor ordain one against the countries or provinces adjoining Austria. For the rest, in order that this our imperial decree may, for all ages, remain valid and unshaken, we have ordered the present charter to be written and to be sealed with the impress of our seal, suitable witnesses to be called in whose names are as follows: Pilgrim, patriarch of Aquileija, etc. etc.
----September 17, 1156.
----September 17, 1156.
Realm: Austria
Head of State: Albert III von Habsburg
Religion: Catholic
Culture: German
Stats: 2/0/9/10/3 --> [2/0/9/10/3]
Provinces: 3
Ports: 0
Owned: Vienna(4), Linz(3), Marchfeld(2)
Head of State: Albert III von Habsburg
Religion: Catholic
Culture: German
Stats: 2/0/9/10/3 --> [2/0/9/10/3]
Provinces: 3
Ports: 0
Owned: Vienna(4), Linz(3), Marchfeld(2)
The History of Osterriech
The Celtic and Roman Eras
Around 400 B.C., Celtic peoples from Western Europe settled in the eastern Alps. A Celtic state, Noricum, developed around the region's ironworks in the second century B.C. The Romans occupied Noricum without resistance in 9 B.C. and made the Danube River the effective northern frontier of their empire.
North of the Danube, various German tribes were already extending their territory. By the latter half of the second century A.D., they were making devastating incursions into Roman territories. Nevertheless, Roman arms and diplomacy maintained relative stability until the late fourth century, when other Germanic tribes, including the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals, were able to establish settlements in Roman territory south of the Danube. The Roman province gradually became indefensible, and much of the Christian, Romanized population evacuated the region in 488. In 493 the Ostrogoths invaded Italy, seized control of what remained of the western half of the Roman Empire, and brought the Roman era in the eastern Alps to an end.
The Early Medieval Era
Various Germanic and Slavic tribes vied for control of the eastern Alpine-Danubian region following the withdrawal and collapse of Roman authority. Among the Germanic tribes, Alemanni (later known as Swabians) and Bavarians were the most notable. The Alemanni had arrived during the Roman era and by 500 were permanently established in most of modern-day Switzerland and the Austrian province of Vorarlberg. The early history of the Bavarians is not clear, but by the mid-500s, they were established alongside remnants of earlier, Romanized peoples in areas north and south of the present-day border between Austria and Germany. Both Swabians and Bavarians were subject to another Germanic tribe, the Franks, but effective Frankish control did not occur until the time of Emperor Charlemagne in the late 700s.
Slavic peoples, including Slovenes, Croats, Czechs, and Slovaks, settled in the region as subject peoples of the Avars, a nomadic tribe, and gradually absorbed their nomadic overlords. During the Carolingian era (eighth and ninth centuries), the areas of Slavic settlement, like those of the Swabians and Bavarians, became subject to the Franks.
Under Frankish patronage, Irish monks, most notably Saint Columban and Saint Gall, pioneered the Christian evangelization of the region in the seventh and eighth centuries. Their work gave rise to important monasteries whose agricultural activities on the frontiers of the Carolingian Empire helped open the region's primeval forests to wider settlement. Eventually integrated into the feudal political structure, the abbots of these monasteries vied with bishops and secular lords for religious and political influence well into the modern era. Bishoprics were established in four major Bavarian towns in the 730s. Salzburg, the only one of these to lie within modern Austria, was raised to the status of an archbishopric in 798 and was given jurisdiction over the other bishoprics. Salzburg became the center of the Christian evangelization efforts in the Slavic territories, which were instrumental in spreading the political reach of the Carolingian Empire.
The gradual eastward extension of the Carolingian Empire was stopped by the arrival of the Magyars--a Finno-Ugric people who form the ethnic core of the Hungarian nation--in the Danubian region in 862. Within fifty years, the Magyars had seized the Hungarian plain, conquered Moravia and the eastern Danubian marches of the Carolingian Empire, and raided deep into Frankish territory. A reorganization of the German portion of the Carolingian Empire in the first half of the tenth century enabled the Germans to rally their forces and defeat a Magyar invasion force at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. This new and essentially German empire became known as the Holy Roman Empire and eventually regained much of the territory lost to the Magyars. Nevertheless, the Magyars' continuing military strength and their conversion to Christianity during the reign of King Stephen (r. 997-1038) enabled Hungary to become a legitimate member of Christian Europe and check German expansion to the east.
The Empire
Under the Holy Roman Empire, the territories that constitute modern Austria were a complex feudal patchwork under the sway of numerous secular and ecclesiastical lords. Most of the territories originally fell within the boundaries of the Duchy of Bavaria. Over the years, various territories were effectively detached from Bavaria, either becoming part of the newly established duchies of Carinthia (976) and Styria (1180) or, like Salzburg and Tirol, falling under the jurisdiction of powerful bishops. In the final years of the reign of Emperor Otto the Great (r. 936-73), a small margravate roughly corresponding to the present-day province of Lower Austria was formed within Bavaria. This margravate became known as Ostarrichi (literally, Eastern Realm), from which the modern name Austria (Österreich) ultimately derives. The Margravate of Austria was detached from Bavaria and became a separate duchy in 1156.
Between 976 and 1246, the Duchy of Austria was one of extensive feudal possessions of the Babenberg family. Through their ties of blood and marriage to two successive German imperial dynasties, the Babenbergs gradually acquired lands roughly corresponding to the modern provinces of Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Styria, and Carinthia. When the Babenberg line died out in 1246, their lands passed to the ambitious king of Bohemia, Otakar II. As king of Bohemia, Otakar was one of the small circle of "elector-princes" who were entitled to participate in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor. When Otakar failed to be elected emperor in 1273, he contested the election of the new emperor, Rudolf von Habsburg. The Bohemian king met his defeat and death in battle in 1278, and the former Babenberg lands passed to the Habsburgs, who added them to their already extensive lands in present-day Switzerland, southwestern Germany, and eastern France.
ALBRECHT I VON HAPSBURG
(c. 1250-1308)
King of Germany, and Duke of Austria, eldest son of King Rudolph I., the founder of the greatness of the house of Habsburg, was invested with the duchies of Austria and Styria, together with his brother Rudolph, in 1282. In 1283 his father entrusted him with their sole government, and he appears to have ruled them with conspicuous success. Rudolph was unable to secure the succession to the German throne for his son, and on his death in 1291, the princes, fearing Albert's power, chose Adolph of Nassau as king. A rising among his Swabian dependants compelled Albert to recognize the sovereignty of his rival, and to confine himself to the government of the Habsburg territories. He did not abandon his hopes of the throne, and, in 1298, was chosen German king by some of the princes, who were dissatisfied with Adolph.
The kings met at Gollheim near Worms, where Adolph was defeated and slain, and Albert submitted to a fresh election. Having secured the support of several influential princes by extensive promises, he was chosen at Frankfort on the 27th of July 1298, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 24th of August following. Albert sought to play an important part in European affairs. He seemed at first inclined to press a quarrel with France over the Burgundian frontier, but the refusal of Pope Boniface VIII. to recognize his election led him to change his policy, and, in 1299, a treaty was made between Albert and Philip IV., king of France, by which Rudolph, the son of the German king, was to marry Blanche, a daughter of the French king. He afterwards became estranged from Philip, and, in 1303, was recognized as German king and future emperor by Boniface, and, in return, admitted the right of the pope alone to bestow the imperial crown, and promised that none of his sons should be elected German king without the papal consent. Albert had failed in his attempt to seize Holland and Zealand, as vacant fiefs of the Empire, on the death of Count John I. in 1299, but in 1306 he secured the crown of Bohemia for his son Rudolph on the death of King Wenceslaus III. He also renewed the claim which had been made by his predecessor, Adolf, on Thuringia, and interfered in a quarrel over the succession to the Hungarian throne. His attack on Thuringia ended in his defeat at Lucka in 1307, and, in the same year, the death of his son Rudolph weakened his position in eastern Europe. His action in abolishing all tolls established on the Rhine since 1250, led to the formation of a league against him by the Rhenish archbishops and the count palatine of the Rhine; but aided by the towns, he soon crushed the rising. He was on the way to suppress a revolt in Swabia when he was murdered on the 1st of May 1308, at Windisch on the Reuss, by his nephew John, afterwards called ``the Parricide,'' whom he had deprived of his inheritance. Albert married Elizabeth, daughter of Meinhard IV., count of Gorz and Tirol, who bore him six sons and five daughters. Although a hard, stern man, he had a keen sense of justice when his selfish interests were not involved, and few of the German kings possessed so practical an intelligence. He encouraged the cities, and not content with issuing proclamations against private war, formed alliances with the princes in order to enforce his decrees. The serfs, whose wrongs seldom attracted notice in an age indifferent to the claims of common humanity, found a friend in this severe monarch, and he protected even the despised and persecuted Jews. The stories of his cruelty and oppression in the Swiss cantons first appear in the 16th century, and are now regarded as legendary.
ALBRECHT II VON HAPSBURG
(c. 1298-1358)
Albert II, The Wise, also known as the Lame, was born as the son of Emperor Albert I on December 12, 1298. He became the joint ruler of all Habsburg lands with his younger brother, Otto the Merry in 1330, while increasing his possessions by the heirlooms of his wife Joan, which was made up of the County of Pfirt and several cities. Furthermore, Albert succeeded in establishing his claims on Carinthia and Carniola against John of Bohemia. Albert's high reputation is shown by the fact that Pope Benedict XII asked him in 1335 to mediate in the church's conflict with Emperor Louis the Bavarian. Also, King Philippe VI of France 1337 asked him for his help against Emperor Louis and against King Edward III of England. Nevertheless, Albert remained faithful to the Emperor until Louis' death. He establihed the "Albertinian House Rule" (Albertinische Hausordnung) to predetermine the rules of succession in the Austrian lands, which, however, was disregarded after his death and only renewed by Emperor Maximilian I. It later became a part of the Pragmatic Sanction, so that it effectively remained one of the basic laws of Austria until 1918. Styria owes him its constitution, the so_called "Mountain Book" (Bergb?/i>); the same is true for Carinthia. Under Albert's rule, the construction of the Gothic Choir in the Cathedral of Saint Stephan in Vienna were started, which is why it is also known as Albertinian Choir. There are only suspicians about his temporal paralysis, but usually polyarthritis is mentioned as the cause. However, it did not prevent him from fathering four children: Rudolf, who succeeded him as duke, Frederick, Albert, and Leopold. His land grieved when Albert died on August 16, 1358.
The Archduke and His Court
Archduke Albrecht III von Hapsburg
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