Friedrich did much less to shape governing institutions either in the Empire or the Hereditary Lands. He did not attempt to hinder the budding constitutional processes relevant to the imperial justice system. After 1471, when he became more engaged with German affairs, he did try to steer those processes in a direction favorable to him and his powers. His more consistent administrative ventures involved attempts to improve his finances. Friedrich imposed fees for all kinds of official acts such as granting court decisions, privileges, and fiefs. These fees were widely resented as greedy, but particularly in the Empire Friedrich’s tax income was so low that he had to raise revenue somehow. The Empire participated much less in the development of regularized, recurrent taxes that was spreading elsewhere in Europe, including even in the Austrian domains. As an example, the crown’s annual revenues in Germany amounted to a paltry 2,000 to 5,000 florins. Even lesser German princes could count on around 30,000 florins a year. Tyrol alone brought in more than 100,000 a year for the Habsburgs in the 1480s, added to another 150,000 or so from the rest of Austria. Kings in places such England, France, Castile earned 300,000 to 900,000.9 One reason Tyrol was so valuable to the house was that the ruler’s regalian rights over the mines supplied a substantial income with no need to get the estates’ consent.
The actual income from those mines was still never enough to pay all of Maximilian’s expenses. Though his revenues compared favorably with those of the French and Castilian monarchs, he was always short of funds. The mines, therefore, became even more valuable as collateral for loans. Maximilian began the dynasty’s long relationship with the Fugger family of bankers, who attached themselves to the Habsburgs like a parasite to a host. Maximilian essentially gave the Fuggers control over Tyrol’s copper and silver mines. Of revenues from those mines, 50 percent would go to the Fuggers, 18 percent to Maximilian, and 32 percent to the mining contractor.10 Deals such as this made the Fuggers immensely wealthy. Another prominent banking family was the Gossembrots, one of whom actually became Maximilian’s highest financial official. Interestingly, despite his huge debts, Maximilian played the new game of international finance fairly well, since in contrast to his Habsburg descendants he never once had to declare bankruptcy.
Most of this money went to pay for his hectic foreign policy, in particular for armies. Maximilian was one of the few Habsburgs with real military talent, and he used it to institute the famous corps of infantry troops, the Landsknechte, mercenaries who formed the backbone of many German armies in the sixteenth century. Although they were several steps short of constituting a dynast’s standing army, the Landsknechte were part of the evolution toward the establishment of coercive forces under monarchical control.
The Habsburg domains were not unusual for this era in that their governance was not consolidated and standardized across the different domains. Other dynasties in the fifteenth century such as the Valois, the Luxemburgs, and the Jagiełłos faced similar difficulties trying to rule composite monarchies of loosely connected territories that already had some traditions of governing themselves. In short, at this time there was very little coincidence between the dynasty’s interests and the interests of the dynasty’s dominions. Those dominions did not identify with the dynasty per se, and the dynasty as yet had not assimilated them into a more cohesive, more tightly bound state with some connective identity rooted in the dynasty. The attempt to coordinate administration with local elites, to negotiate the relationship between the powers of the ruler and the estates, to try (often in vain) to raise money from diverse and disjointed domains for the ostensibly unifying dynastic enterprise—these were the challenges of dynastic sovereigns in this era. What was more distinctive for the Habsburgs, however, were the particularly vigorous estates bodies that Friedrich and Maximilian had to deal with first in Austria, then in the Low Countries.
During the many years of Friedrich’s weak government, the estates in most Austrian provinces developed competence and assertiveness in handling their own affairs. They became more organized and started meeting more regularly. They also established bureaucratic offices to oversee aspects of their own administration. When Maximilian inherited, he always recognized that the estates, whether at the imperial level or in the various provinces of his rule, were indispensable partners in governance. In many cases, Maximilian left the estates to govern themselves as long as they provided money when he asked for it. In fact, it has been said that the various Austrian estates deserve a large part of the credit for the consolidation of more centralized rule in the Austrian provinces, but via an accumulation of power in representative bodies, rather than in princely ones. The estates’ partnership with the dynasty did not always work smoothly, of course. When they tussled with Friedrich’s or Maximilian’s government, it was usually because the estates viewed that government as infringing upon their established rights and privileges, or as somehow failing to carry out its basic responsibilities.
Friedrich III’s achievements are almost wholly dynastic, since his governmental legacy in both the Empire and the Austrian lands is negligible. He renewed the Habsburgs’ claim on the imperial kingship and contributed to its becoming nearly hereditary to his dynasty. He made major strides in reuniting the patrimony and then in extending it through the Burgundian marriage. He kept alive the family’s claims to the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns, and resolutely asserted the idea of its special mission and status. Maximilian I had more to show for his reign than did Friedrich, though his reach far exceeded his grasp. Nonetheless, his ambitions were much more expansive than those of any previous Habsburg. He was a contradictory, charismatic personality who did not finish what he began, but still built much of what enabled his dynasty to prosper in coming generations. His marital arrangements were momentous. His cultural legacy was unprecedented within the dynasty. His institutional reforms, fractional as they were, were important to the Empire and fundamental to the Hereditary Lands. He undoubtedly spent too much time pursuing that old knightly mania for battles, and neither in war nor reform did he routinely succeed. Ultimately, despite their unshakeable belief in the Habsburg mission, neither Friedrich nor Maximilian came close to realizing the prophecy of Austriae est imperare orbi universo, that it was Austria’s destiny to rule the whole world. Together, however, they did lay the groundwork for the dynasty’s next generation, for whom that destiny almost seemed possible.
CHAPTER THREE
The greatest generation (1516–64)
Charles V’s personal insignia depicted two columns and the motto “Plus oultre,” a French version of the Latin phrase meaning “further beyond.” The two columns recalled the Pillars of Hercules, and when linked with the motto, Charles’s insignia suggested the semblance of this Habsburg emperor with the mythic hero, in daring and geography going far beyond any monarch who had come before him. The symbolism was in many ways accurate. Charles’s globe-spanning empire was larger than any preceding European ruler could claim. It required of him burdens that only a Hercules could have supported. It brought the Habsburgs further toward the fanciful Austrian destiny of ruling the world than they might ever have realistically imagined. Every member of this generation was a king or a queen. The heads of the family, Charles and then his brother Ferdinand, were conscientious, impressive rulers over Castile-Aragon, the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, and more. Their sisters were Maria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, who also served the family as a very capable regent in the Netherlands; Éléonore, Queen of Portugal and later of France; Isabelle, Queen of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; and Catalina, Queen of Portugal.
This incomparable profusion of eminence demonstrates and also explains the dynasty’s exalted position during this period. The Habsburgs attained so many crowns because they were viewed as an answer to many needs. A wealthy ruling family, with lots of foreign allies, was seen as vital for a realm because the family would be better able to defend it from threats, and conduct that defense in part from the family’s own resources. This is a major reason why
the dynasty came to rule in Bohemia and Hungary. The Habsburgs were also more successful as a “ruling corporation” because they were at this time more cosmopolitan than any of their rival dynasties. Charles, Ferdinand, and their sisters typically grew up in one land but adapted to the cultures of many others, enabling them to serve as sovereigns from Portugal to Poland and Sweden to Sicily. But with the remarkable fortune that gave this generation of the dynasty so wide a territorial reach came innumerable challenges. Charles had to confront conflicts with France, the widening religious schism in Germany, restless estates in a number of his realms, and the Turkish threat in the Mediterranean. Ferdinand dealt with many similar tests, plus a battle for the Hungarian crown and repeated Ottoman onslaughts. The demands, particularly on Charles, proved far beyond what any man could manage in the sixteenth century. By many measures, though, he and his brother represent an unequaled peak in the dynasty’s history.
One might envision the man who presided over the largest European empire since Rome as magnetic and domineering, but Charles was not. He was brave in battle, and possessed a deep sense of honor, but he mostly came across as reticent, melancholy, a man of few words. Some people who met him even considered him a little slow. Slow he was not, rather, deliberate. He strove, in his vast responsibilities, to be meticulous and rational. Part of this was the image he wanted to project, of the somber sovereign conscious of his dignity. But the image did, in some ways, accurately reflect the man behind it. The important thing to understand about Charles’s character is that he was just not a brilliant personality, not a Napoleon, a Peter the Great, not even a Maximilian I. His life is the story of an unextraordinary man saddled with extraordinary power and responsibility.
Ferdinand was much more sparkling. Though Charles (Figure 3.1) was not unintelligent, Ferdinand (Figure 3.2) was quite sharp. He was also more voluble and approachable. He was described as a small man with lively eyes. He was generally moderate in his ruling style—less imperious than Charles—and, unlike Charles, he was also moderate in his appetites. Where Charles spoke French best, Spanish very well later in his life, and German less fluently, Ferdinand’s language ability was often remarked upon for his facility with French, German, Spanish, Italian, and even Hungarian and Czech. The contrast in the brothers’ manners was summarized by the Venetian ambassador Mocenigo, who knew them both: “The emperor [Charles] is wise and cautious in his speech, and keeps many things in his breast. The king [Ferdinand] speaks more freely and rarely holds back from saying what is in his heart.”1
Charles and Ferdinand did not even meet until 1517, and then only briefly, so that over the course of their lives they actually spent very little time together. Once Ferdinand acquired the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns his interests were not always consonant with Charles’s. It is remarkable, therefore, how they forged a generally close and cordial working relationship. The key explanation is the dynastic norm of loyalty. Charles was always the elder brother, head of the family, and moreover the emperor. Ferdinand owed him allegiance and obedience. Charles had enough confidence in Ferdinand that he let his younger brother handle the affairs of the Holy Roman Empire while he himself concentrated on other matters. Indeed, in 1524 Charles wrote to Ferdinand that “there is no one in the world I love and trust as much as you.”2 It is true that he did not give Ferdinand much room for maneuver, expecting him more to carry out orders than take the initiative, at least until the later 1540s.
FIGURE 3.1 Charles V at Mühlberg, by Titian (1548). In the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Image courtesy of the Bridgeman Art Library.
The two did have disagreements, such as over policies toward the Turks and the Protestants, or Charles’s attempt to have his own son Felipe [Philip] succeed him in the Empire, rather than Ferdinand’s son Maximilian. Ferdinand’s tactic in these instances was usually not to resist openly, but to stall, to misdirect, to persuade. As a ruler, Charles tended to be obdurate, while Ferdinand was more adaptive. Though certainly this stemmed from their characters, it also stemmed from the nature of their authority. Charles was the emperor, the protector and guardian of Christian Europe, whose massive duties justified ultimate command. Ferdinand was a ruler more neatly through others’ grace: he represented Charles in Austria, and had to acknowledge the Bohemian and Hungarian estates for their role in giving him those respective crowns. In many ways Ferdinand, with his more modest, flexible personality, was more successful in meeting his objectives than was Charles.
FIGURE 3.2 Ferdinand I, engraving by Hans Sebald Lautensack (1556). Image courtesy of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.
Charles V (1500–58)
Charles was raised in the Netherlands under the eye of his accomplished aunt Marguerite, Maximilian I’s daughter. She and his principal tutor Adrian of Utrecht, who later became Pope Hadrian VI, instilled in him the chivalric values and love of pomp characteristic of the Burgundian ruling style, as well as a conscientious attitude toward governing, a profound piety and sense of duty to the Church. All of these attitudes would stamp his reign. He came to the throne of Spain at age 16. He had never set foot in the country in his life. There was initial resistance among the Spanish nobility to the succession of this “foreigner”—they in fact preferred Ferdinand, who had been raised in Spain. Upon his arrival in Spain in 1517, Charles went to visit his mother Juana, whom he had not seen since he was a small child. On the pretext of her mental problems (she is known to history, with debateable fairness, as “Juana the insane”) she was confined to a convent in Tordesillas, which conveniently cut her out of the succession. By May 1518 Charles and his advisors had resolved to eliminate another possible threat to Charles’s position as king, and so sent Ferdinand to Germany.
Not long after Charles had taken up the Spanish crowns, Maximilian I died, and Charles was chosen in absentia as the new German king in June 1519. His election was blatantly bought. In total, some 835,000 florins were paid, a sum never equaled. More than half of the total came as a loan from the Fuggers. The other two main candidates for the honor, François [Francis] I of France and Henry VIII of England, could not compete monetarily. The fact that the most illustrious kings of Europe sought the imperial crown demonstrates its immense prestige at this time; after Charles, it was never again so prestigious. The symbolic value of the German kingship helps explain why it was so coveted, even though the position’s powers were so limited. In fact, as part of the Wahlkapitulation (the “electoral capitulation” the imperial princes demanded in return for his election), Charles had to accept a number of restrictions on his power. These included allowing the electoral princes some role in foreign policy, and sharing some of his governing responsibilities with the ill-defined Reichsregiment grouping of princes. Still, only the king-emperor could represent Christendom, and Charles, with his vast dominions stretching from the Atlantic to Austria, and the Low Countries to the Mediterranean, attained a profile nearer to that of Charlemagne than any emperor before or since.
The size of that empire meant that Charles had to divide his time among his realms, as well as rely on viceroys or governors to carry out his will in his absence. For instance, though he ruled Castile-Aragon for nearly 40 years from 1517 to 1556, during that time he spent a total of only 17 years there. This compares to 12 years he spent in the Low Countries and 9 in Germany. His inability to be everywhere at once also forced Charles to become a good delegator. He depended throughout his life on smart, trusted advisors such as his chancellor Mercurino Gattinara or his brother Ferdinand, and able governors like his aunt Marguerite and his sister Maria. It was during the seven-year stretch that he spent in Spain, from 1522 to 1529, that he finally became more Spanish, learning to speak Castilian well and adapting his government to Spanish conditions. Thanks to his efforts in this regard, Charles became more popular in his Spanish kingdoms, and overall under him Iberia enjoyed a time of relative peace and prosperity. Still, Charles and his government always remained cosmopolitan. He always had people from Burgundy, Spain, and
Italy in his high court councils.
The predominance of foreigners in Charles’s court, and his quick switch in focus to Germany shortly after he arrived in Spain, helped provoke a sudden flare-up of resistance to his rule. This was the revolt of the comuneros, which broke out in 1520. It was motivated by politically inept decisions Charles had taken in the years just prior, such as making the young Walloon nephew of his close advisor Chièvres the new archbishop of Toledo, and enfeoffing another noble from Savoy with all of Yucatán and Cuba. Disgruntlement over the way he had sidelined his mother Juana and shipped off Ferdinand also raised tempers in the Cortes (i.e. estates meetings) of Castile and Aragon. A last insensitive action was that Charles summoned the Castilian Cortes to ask for new taxes just before he left the country to be crowned king of Germany.
As soon as he was gone, a number of towns drove out the royal governors and formed their own communal government (hence the name “comuneros”). The revolt was never a very coherent movement. The rebels’ demands included that the cities, via the Cortes, should have more authority vis-à-vis the crown, that the king had to stay in Castile but the foreigners in his cabinet had to leave, and that taxes should be reduced. Charles’s regent, Adrian of Utrecht, sent out a force to put down the uprising. It nonetheless spread from Castile to neighboring provinces such as Extremadura and Guipúzcoa, and grew more radical, challenging not just royal power but the high nobles as well, threatening social revolution. At that point the high nobles, who had been sitting on the fence, came into the fray against the rebels. Some of the cities that had rebelled, such as Burgos, recoiled from the radical demands and came back into the royal camp. The royalist army then met the rebels’ ragtag band of local militias, laborers, and lesser gentry at Villalar in April 1521 and decisively defeated them. The revolt’s main leaders were captured and executed.
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