January 12, 1519: Death of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

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Charles V Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman Empire, King Louis XI of France, Mary of Burgundy, Pope Julius II

Maximilian I (March 22, 1459 – January 12, 1519).

Maximilian was the son of Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor, and Eleanor of Portugal, a Portuguese infanta (princess), daughter of King Duarte of Portugal and his wife Eleanor of Aragon.

He ruled jointly with his father for the last ten years of the latter’s reign, from c. 1483 until his father’s death in 1493.

Maximilian was elected King of the Romans on 16 February 16, 1486 in Frankfurt-am-Main at his father’s initiative and crowned on April 9, 1486 in Aachen. Much of th Austrian territories and Vienna were under the rule of king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, as a result of the Austrian–Hungarian War (1477–1488). Maximilian was now a king without lands. After the death of king Matthias, from July 1490, Maximilian began a series of short sieges that reconquered cities and fortresses that his father had lost in Austria.

Maximilian was never crowned by the pope, as the journey to Rome was blocked by the Venetians.

In 1508, Maximilian, with the assent of Pope Julius II, took the title Erwählter Römischer Kaiser (“Elected Roman Emperor”), thus ending the centuries-old custom that the Holy Roman Emperor had to be crowned by the Pope.

Maximilian expanded the influence of the House of Habsburg through war and his marriage. In 1477 Maximilian married Mary of Burgundy, the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and his wife Isabella of Bourbon, she inherited the Burgundian lands at the age of 19 upon the death of her father in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. She spent most of her reign defending her birthright; in order to counter the appetite of the French king Louis XI for her lands.

Maximilian and Mary’s wedding contract stipulated that their children would succeed them but that the couple could not be each other’s heirs. Mary tried to bypass this rule with a promise to transfer territories as a gift in case of her death, but her plans were confounded. After Mary’s death in a riding accident on March 27, 1482 near the Wijnendale Castle, Maximilian’s aim was now to secure the inheritance to his and Mary’s son, Philipp the Handsome.

Maximilian lost his family’s original lands in today’s Switzerland to the Swiss Confederacy. Through marriage of his son Philipp the Handsome to eventual Queen Joanna of Castile in 1498, Maximilian helped to establish the Habsburg dynasty in Spain, which allowed his grandson Charles to hold the thrones of both Castile and Aragon, and he was the eventual successor to the Imperial Throne of the Holy Roman Empire.

The historian Thomas A. Brady Jr. describes him as “the first Holy Roman Emperor in 250 years who ruled as well as reigned” and also, the “ablest royal warlord of his generation.”

After 1517 Maximilian began to focus entirely on the question of his succession. His goal was to secure the throne for a member of his house and prevent François I of France from gaining the imperial throne.

In 1501, Maximilian fell from his horse and badly injured his leg, causing him pain for the rest of his life. Some historians have suggested that Maximilian was “morbidly” depressed: from 1514, he travelled everywhere with his coffin.

Maximilian died in Wels, Upper Austria, on January 12, 1519 at the age of 59. The death of Maximilian seemed to put the succession at risk. However, The Fugger family provided Maximilian a credit of one million gulden, which was used to bribe the prince-electors. However, the bribery claims have been challenged. At first, this policy seemed successful, and Maximilian managed to secure the votes from Mainz, Cologne, Brandenburg and Bohemia for his grandson Charles.

Maximilian’s son, Philipp the Handsome (King Felipe I of Castile by right of his wife) had died in 1506. The resulting “election campaign” was unprecedented due to the massive use of bribery. Within a few months the election of his grandson as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was secured. Charles had also succeeded his maternal grandfather, King Fernando II-V of Aragon and Castile in 1516 and became King Carlos I of a united Spain. With his election as Emperor, Charles V ruled an empire as vast and as powerful as that of Charlemagne ‘s centuries earlier.

December 15, 1447: Birth of Albrecht IV, Duke of Bavaria

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Albert III of Bavaria, Albert IV of Bavaria, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, Kunigunde of Austria, Primogeniture

Albrecht IV (December 15, 1447 – March 18, 1508), was Duke of Bavaria-Munich from 1467, and Duke of a reunited Bavaria from 1503.

Albrecht IV was a son of Albrecht III, Duke of Bavaria and Anna of Brunswick-Grubenhagen-Einbeck. After the death of his older brother Johann IV, Duke of Bavaria he gave up his spiritual career and returned from Pavia to Munich. When his brothers Christoph and Wolfgang had resigned Albrecht III became sole duke, but a new duchy Bavaria-Dachau was created from Bavaria-Munich for his brother Duke Sigismund in 1467. After Sigismund’s death in 1501, it reverted to Bavaria-Munich.

Albrecht IV, Duke of Bavaria

On January 3, 1487 Albrecht IV married Archduchess Kunigunde of Austria, daughter of Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor and his wife Eleonor of Portugal.

The marriage of Kunigunde of Austria to Albrecht IV, was a result of intrigues and deception, but must be counted as a defeat for Emperor Friedrich III. Albrecht illegally took control of some imperial fiefs and then asked to marry Kunigunde (who lived in Innsbruck, far from her father), offering to give her the fiefs as a dowry.

The Emperor agreed at first, but after Albrecht IV took over yet another fief, Regensburg, Emperor Friedrich III withdrew his consent for the marriage. On January 2, 1487, however, before the Emperor’s change of heart could be communicated to his daughter, Kunigunde married Albrecht.

A war was prevented only by intermediation by the Emperor’s son, Maximilian I. For Albrecht’s wedding, Grünwald Castle was extended in 1486/87 under the direction of Jörg von Weikertshausen. Albrecht finally decided to return territorial acquisitions in Swabia in 1492 to avoid a war with the Habsburg and the Swabian League. He then also had to release Regensburg, which had been reunited with Bavaria in 1486, and had to reluctantly renounce Further Austria when Archduke Sigismund of Austria tried to make it over to Albrecht.

Archduchess Kunigunde of Austria, Duchess of Bavaria

After the death of the last duke of Bavaria-Landshut, Georg in 1503, Albrecht managed to reunite the whole of Bavaria in a dreadful war against Georg’s heirs, the Palatinate line of his Wittelsbach family but had to transfer the most southern districts of Bavaria-Landshut to his brother-in-law Emperor Maximilian as compensation for his support: Kufstein, Kitzbühel and Rattenberg passed to Maximilian in 1506 and were united with Tyrol. For the Palatinate branch a new duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg was created.

To avoid any future division of Bavaria, Albrecht decreeds the everlasting succession of the firstborn prince in 1506. Nevertheless, his oldest son and successor Wilhelm IV, Duke of Bavaria had to share his power from 1516 onwards with his younger brother Ludwig X, Duke of Bavaria. After the death of Ludwig X in 1545, the edict became effective until the end of Bavarian monarchy in 1918.

Albrecht IV is buried in the Frauenkirche in Munich.

March 22, 1459: Birth of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. Part I.

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Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Eleanor of Portugal, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman Empire, Louis XI of France, Mary of Burgundy, Philip the Handsome, Salic Law

Maximilian I (March 22, 1459 – January 12, 1519) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1508 until his death. Maximilian was the son of Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor, and Eleanor of Portugal, daughter of King Duarte of Portugal and his wife Infanta Eleanor of Aragon. Maximilian was born at Wiener Neustadt on March 22, 1459. His father named him for an obscure saint, Maximilian of Tebessa, whom Friedrich believed had once warned him of imminent peril in a dream.

Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor and Infanta Eleanor of Portugal

At the time, the dukes of Burgundy, a cadet branch of the French royal family, with their sophisticated nobility and court culture, were the rulers of substantial territories on the eastern and northern boundaries of France. The reigning duke, Charles the Bold, was the chief political opponent of Maximilian’s father Friedrich III. Friedrich was concerned about Burgundy’s expansive tendencies on the western border of his Holy Roman Empire, and, to forestall military conflict, he attempted to secure the marriage of Charles the Bold’s only daughter, Mary of Burgundy, to his son Maximilian. After the Siege of Neuss (1474–75), he was successful. The wedding between Maximilian and Mary took place on August 19, 1477.

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Mary, Duchess of Burgundy

Maximilian’s wife had inherited the large Burgundian domains in France and the Low Countries upon her father’s death in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. Already before his coronation as the King of the Romans in 1486, Maximilian decided to secure this distant and extensive Burgundian inheritance to his family, the House of Habsburg, at all costs.

The Duchy of Burgundy was also claimed by the French crown under Salic Law, with Louis XI of France vigorously contesting the Habsburg claim to the Burgundian inheritance by means of military force. Maximilian undertook the defence of his wife’s dominions from an attack by Louis XI and defeated the French forces at Guinegate, the modern Enguinegatte, on August 7, 1479.

Maximilian and Mary’s wedding contract stipulated that their children would succeed them but that the couple could not be each other’s heirs. Mary tried to bypass this rule with a promise to transfer territories as a gift in case of her death, but her plans were confounded. After Mary’s death in a riding accident on March 27, 1482 near the Wijnendale Castle, Maximilian’s aim was now to secure the inheritance to his and Mary’s son, Philipp the Handsome.

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

Maximilian ruled jointly with his father for the last ten years of the latter’s reign, from c. 1483 to his father’s death in 1493. Maximilian was elected King of the Romans on February 16, 1486 in Frankfurt-am-Main at his father’s initiative and crowned on April 9, 1486 in Aachen. He became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire upon the death of his father in 1493. He was never crowned by the pope, as the journey to Rome was always too risky. He was instead proclaimed Emperor Elect by Pope Julius II at Trent, thus breaking the long tradition of requiring a papal coronation for the adoption of the imperial title.

Part II Reign in the Holy Roman Empire