Part 476

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. …