Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (126 page)

1209–14

Renewed civil war. Pope Innocent had no choice but to crown Otto IV emperor (1209). Otto immediately resumed Staufer policies to reassert imperial authority in northern Italy, as well as backing a rebellion against the young Frederick II of Sicily which broke out among the Norman lords in Naples (October 1210). This rebellion continued intermittently into the 1220s and spread to Sicily, where many resented the influx of German lords as Staufer advisors. Pope Innocent excommunicated Otto (November 1210), whose support collapsed again as German lords invited Frederick to become their king. Frederick won the race to reach Germany ahead of Otto in 1212 and was crowned king in Mainz. He secured papal backing through the Golden Bull of Eger (1213), confirming Otto’s earlier concessions to the papacy that now exercised feudal jurisdiction over central and southern Italy, as well as (nominally) Sicily. Otto supported an English invasion of France in order to retain the English support that his family had enjoyed since 1180. The invaders were crushed by Philip II of France at Bouvines (July 1214), effectively ending Otto’s attempt to be a serious force. The incident demonstrated how imperial politics were becoming enmeshed with wider European affairs.

1215

Frederick II was crowned again at Aachen to legitimize his new power. Otto retired to his family’s hereditary possessions at Brunswick, where he died, childless, in 1218. Having initially sequestrated their possessions, Frederick forged a definitive settlement with the Welf family by detaching Brunswick from Saxony as a new duchy and imperial fief (1235).

1220–31

Frederick resumed the earlier Staufer policy of feudalizing relations with the German lords, who received clearer local autonomy in return for accepting their lands as direct fiefs of the Empire. This arrangement was consolidated by a general charter (1220) for all senior German clergy, who now emerged as ecclesiastical princes. Many bishoprics and even abbeys had acquired counties and other secular jurisdictions, which were now demarcated more clearly as ecclesiastical fiefs dependent directly on the Empire. The charter also strengthened bishops’ powers over their cathedral towns, though this did not stop many cities emancipating themselves from episcopal authority as ‘free cities’ under direct imperial jurisdiction. A broadly similar charter was issued for the senior secular lords (1231).

1226

The Golden Bull of Rimini granted secular jurisdiction to the Teutonic Order for lands it was conquering in the Northern Crusade against pagan Slavs along the south-eastern Baltic shore. This established the basis for the future Teutonic Order state in Prussia, which was considered part of the Empire but not an active part of the German kingdom.

1227–50

Prolonged papal-imperial conflict. Frederick II desired good relations with the papacy and needed papal support to help legitimize his rule. He was also susceptible to pressure to answer papal calls for a new crusade to free Jerusalem. However, he was equally determined to reassert Staufer authority in both Sicily and Naples, as well as resume the earlier policy of establishing the emperor as direct overlord of all Italy. Frederick alienated the papacy by breaking his earlier promises (including the Golden Bull of Eger, 1213), and in 1220 by returning to Henry VI’s policy of linking Sicily directly to the Empire. Frederick’s brutal suppression of the Norman rebels in Sicily and Naples by 1225 also suggested his growing power. The pope excommunicated him (1227), having rejected his excuses for delaying his departure on the crusade.

1228–9

The kingdom of Jerusalem. Frederick launched his own expedition to Jerusalem, having married its Christian queen, Isabella II of Brienne, as his second wife (1225). Jerusalem had been constituted as a crusader kingdom (1099) and maintained a shadowy existence during the Saracen occupation after 1187. Currently divided and facing the Mongols to the east, the Saracens granted the Christians access for ten years (1229). Frederick accepted rather than fight unnecessarily and returned to Italy after his coronation as nominal king of Jerusalem.

1230

The Treaty of San Germano (23 July): the pope reluctantly abandoned support for a renewed Neapolitan rebellion and released Frederick from excommunication in return for renewed recognition that Sicily was a papal, not an imperial, fief.

1232

Papal-imperial relations collapsed again when the pope refused to back Frederick against the Lombard League, which had re-formed in 1226 to defend civic autonomy,

1234–5

The rebellion of Henry (VII), who had been left in charge of Germany during Frederick’s absence. Frederick returned to Germany in 1235 after an absence of 15 years. Henry’s support collapsed and he was deposed and imprisoned, dying accidentally in 1242.

1235

Frederick asserted imperial protection for Jews in return for regular taxes.

1235–7

Frederick regulated affairs in Germany in cooperation with the lay and spiritual princes, who agreed a public peace (1235) and in 1237 accepted his other son, Conrad IV, as the eventual successor.

1237–50

War in Italy. Frederick’s efforts to suppress the Lombard League prompted his second and permanent excommunication by the pope (1239). Despite individual successes, Frederick was unable to gain a decisive preponderance. Meanwhile the pope escaped to Lyons, where he formally deposed the emperor (1245), emboldening Frederick’s German enemies to elect a succession of anti-kings: first the Thuringian landgrave Heinrich Raspe (1246), and after his death, Count William of Holland (1247). The war damaged both imperial and papal prestige and remained undecided at Frederick’s death in 1250.

1246

The extinction of the Babenberg family ruling Austria since 976 opened a long dispute between the Bohemian Premyslid family and the Habsburgs, who eventually emerged as dukes of Austria in 1273.

1250–68

The Staufer collapse. Although named as Frederick II’s successor, Conrad IV had not been crowned and quickly lost ground. The pope used his claims to feudal jurisdiction over Sicily-Naples to reassign this kingdom to Charles of Anjou, brother of the French king. The Anjou line lost Sicily to Aragon in 1282, but retained Naples until 1442. Charles’s execution of Conrad’s son Conradin (1268) definitively ended Staufer attempts to recover their Italian possessions.

‘LITTLE KINGS’, 1250–1347

1250–73

The so-called Interregnum as rule of the Empire remained contested between several relatively weak monarchs. Meanwhile, the papacy refrained from crowning another emperor until 1312.

1254

The first Rhenish Civic League spread rapidly to encompass 70 towns and enjoyed some backing from King Richard, earl of Cornwall, after 1257, who hoped it would counterbalance princely influence.

1257

Rivalry among the leading princes led to another double election, which was also the first in which ‘foreign’ candidates were successful. Richard of Cornwall, the second son of the English King John, at least visited the Empire four times during his reign (1257–72). Alfonso X of Castile was a grandson of Philip of Swabia and thus a Staufer ally, but never came to the Empire or exercised any real influence before the end of his reign (1273).

1273

The election of Rudolf I. The leading princes were now emerging as electors who saw their role in choosing kings as a way to elevate themselves over the other ecclesiastical and secular lords. The electors recognized the dangers of a double election, while the papacy also urged a single choice, because it wanted help against the growing power of the Anjou kingdom of Sicily-Naples. These circumstances broadly repeated themselves in the next three elections (1292, 1298, 1308), as the electors compromised on candidates who lacked a substantial territorial base, like Count Rudolf of Habsburg in 1273. This frustrated the imperial ambitions of the Premyslid family ruling Bohemia, since all electors regarded the Premyslids as already too powerful. However, the process of so-called ‘leaping elections’, or successively choosing monarchs from different families, simply intensified the interaction between imperial and territorial politics. The rival families increasingly saw larger and more consolidated territorial possessions as a springboard to a royal candidacy, while those that were successful used their reigns to favour their own families to improve their chances at the next contest. Ambitions for the imperial title and rule in Italy persisted, but were frustrated by unfavourable circumstances and the imperative of building up strength in Germany.

1273–91

The reign of Rudolf I. Rudolf combined efforts to recover crown lands with a consolidation of Habsburg family power. Imperial vassals were ordered to restore rights and properties illegally usurped since 1250. This was used against King Ottokar II of Bohemia, Rudolf’s main rival in the 1273 election, who refused to return former crown lands. Rudolf’s high-risk strategy culminated in his victory at Dürnkrut on the Marchfeld, north-east of Vienna, where Ottokar was killed (August 1278). The Premsylids were left with Bohemia and Moravia, but had to surrender Austria and Styria to Rudolf, who enfeoffed his sons as imperial princes (1282). The Habsburgs emerged considerably stronger, but, like many families, they did not yet practise primogeniture and continued to experience internal divisions and even open conflicts. Rudolf’s deliberate choice of Speyer, the burial place of Salian kings, as his own deathbed, also showed how traditional ideals of kingship remained important alongside the growing significance of dynasticism.

The policy of recovery (‘Revindication
’
) of crown assets achieved mixed results elsewhere. Loyal counts were appointed as bailiffs to safeguard imperial rights in a new regional network of ‘bailiwicks’ (
Landvogteien
) across southern Germany. Rudolf cultivated good relations with the free and imperial cities to underpin this network and counterbalance the local and regional influence of ecclesiastical and secular princes. However, the increasingly powerful counts of Württemberg thwarted efforts to restore the duchy of Swabia through consolidation of imperial rights in that region (1285–7). Protests at Habsburg and imperial policy further south stimulated the communal movement amongst Swiss villagers, leading to the first cantonal alliance (1291). Rudolf’s death (July 1291) frustrated initially promising steps towards securing tighter royal control of Thuringia, which had passed to the Wettin family (based in Meissen) on the extinction of its previous rulers in 1247. Rudolf’s relatively long reign assisted the success of his measures. His next three successors continued his programme, but began afresh each time and died before they made much progress.

1277

The Visconti family seized power in Milan, which they subsequently expanded at the expense of neighbouring lordships and cities, including the old Italian royal capital of Pavia (1359). The Visconti’s growing influence exemplified broader changes in northern Italy as the communal regimes, which had emerged since the late eleventh century, were transformed via despotic city states into new duchies during the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.

1292–1313

The reigns of Adolf of Nassau (1292–8), Albert I of Austria (1298–1308) and Henry VII of Luxembourg (1308–13). Three issues divided the Empire’s ruling elite during this period. The first was the growing influence and self-consciousness among the electors, who were determined to assert their collective pre-eminence over all other princes and aristocrats. This encouraged the electors to avoid mutual disagreements that might undermine their exclusive control of royal elections. Building on their experience in 1273, the electors agreed their candidate in advance and extracted financial and political concessions in return for their endorsement of him as king. This impacted on imperial-papal relations, since the electors rejected any papal interference in their deliberations. However, it also increased the importance of the electors’ own interests in imperial politics, notably Cologne’s ultimately unsuccessful efforts to reverse its defeat at WÖrringen (1288) where a local coalition of lords had broken its domination of north-western Germany. The Empire’s centre of political gravity shifted to the Rhine, where the four leading electors were based: Mainz, Cologne, Trier and the increasingly influential secular elector Palatine. Bohemia’s influence declined after the Premyslids’ defeat at Dürnkrut, while Saxony and Brandenburg remained only junior partners.

The second issue concerned the continuing Habsburg–Premyslid rivalry, as the Bohemian royal family tried to recover Austria and Styria. This conflict hindered Habsburg efforts to retain the German royal title after Rudolf I’s death. Any chances of profiting from the natural extinction of the Premyslids (1306) was thwarted by Albert I’s murder (1308) by his own nephew, Johann, who felt aggrieved at the division of Habsburg property after 1291. The beneficiaries of this dispute were the Luxembourg family, since their patriarch, Henry VII, used his position as king to award Bohemia to his son, Johann (1310).

Thuringia provided the third issue, since all three kings continued Rudolf I’s policy of opposing Wettin claims to inherit this landgraviate. Again, the brevity of each reign negated royal successes, notably that of Adolf of Nassau, who persuaded the Wettin heir to sell his rights in 1294. Albert I’s military solution failed in his defeat at Lueka (1307), confirming the Wettin in possession of Thuringia as well as Meissen, and thus their influence in east-central Germany.

1298

Deposition of Adolf of Nassau. Adolf’s success in Thuringia was perceived as a threat by the Saxon, Brandenburg and Bohemian electors, who secured the support of three of their four Rhenish colleagues to confront the king. Although it is unlikely they planned initially to depose him, their action gained its own dynamic, culminating on 23 June 1298 in the first deposition of a reigning monarch by the electors (earlier depositions had been by popes). Adolf’s attempt to reverse this ended in his death in the battle of Göllheim (2 July 1298). The electors had no choice but to elect the Habsburg duke Albert I (whom they had rejected in 1292), as both a supporter of their Thuringian policy and the only viable candidate as king.