Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (127 page)

1309–77

The ‘Babylonian Captivity’ of the papacy resulted from French pressure on the pope, who was obliged to leave Rome and live in Avignon.

1312

The coronation of Henry VII as emperor (29 June). All German kings since 1273 wanted to be crowned emperor and had continued to assert imperial rights in northern Italy, notably disputing papal claims to Tuscany. Plans for a Roman expedition (notably under Rudolf I) had been repeatedly shelved due to adverse circumstances. The situation changed as the papacy sought to free itself from French influence and invited Henry to Rome. Henry received substantial German support, partly in the prospect of plundering Italian cities. Italian opposition delayed the march, and thus the coronation, by over four months. Henry planned to recover Naples from the Angevins, but died from malaria (August 1313).

1314

The double election of Louis IV and Frederick ‘the Fair’. Electoral collegiality collapsed in the face of lobbying from the Luxembourg and Habsburg families, which intersected with disputes between the Luxembourgs and the duke of Carinthia over exercise of the Bohemian vote, and between rival branches of the Askanier family over the Saxon vote. The Luxembourgs accepted the compromise election of Duke Louis of Upper Bavaria (from the Wittelsbach family), but Habsburg supporters chose Frederick the Fair, Albert I’s eldest son, as king the day before (19 October 1314). This was the first double election since 1257, and the first since 1198 to lead directly to civil war.

1314–25

A civil war erupted between Louis IV and Frederick the Fair, waged largely through intermittent skirmishing. The Swiss victory at Morgarten (1315) had no direct bearing on the royal contest, but it did confirm Swiss autonomy from Habsburg jurisdiction. The dispute triggered renewed papal-imperial tension, because Pope John XXII saw intervention as an opportunity to assert a more prominent European role and thus a way of loosening French influence over the papacy. Rather than choose between the rival candidates, Pope John argued that imperial prerogatives reverted to the papacy on the grounds that the German throne was vacant. Coinciding with the controversy surrounding the Franciscans’ critique of church wealth, papal intervention attracted considerable comment, much of it providing the basis for arguments about spiritual-secular relations and church governance that would emerge again during the Great Schism (1378–1417). Pope John’s excommunication of Louis IV (1324) merely increased resentment in the Empire against papal interference. Louis captured Frederick the Fair at the battle of Mühldorf am Inn (1322), but Frederick’s younger brother continued resistance until both Habsburgs accepted the Treaty of Munich (September 1325). In return for renouncing their royal claims, Frederick was left with the courtesy title of king and the Habsburgs retained their possessions.

1328

Louis IV crowned emperor. After Pope John XXII had repeatedly rebuffed his peace overtures, Louis invaded Italy (1327), where pro-imperial (Ghibelline) sentiment had grown through resentment at the pope’s continued absence in Avignon. Having been crowned by two pro-imperial bishops, Louis formally deposed Pope John and installed a Franciscan as rival, Pope Nicholas V, who promptly repeated the imperial coronation in more lavish style (May 1328). Nicholas’s resignation ended the papal schism (1330), but Louis was unable to reconcile with Pope John or his successors, still based in Avignon.

1338

The Electors’ League (
Kurverein
). Louis endorsed electoral pre-eminence and recognized the electors’ right of self-assembly. This event represented the breakthrough of the idea that the papacy had no influence on German royal elections and that a king could exercise authority without requiring papal recognition of his election. Louis remained excommunicated, but the papal interdict was soon ignored in the Empire.

1340

Louis inherited Lower Bavaria, reuniting the duchy and consolidating Wittelsbach influence in the Empire. A further inheritance added the counties of Holland, Zeeland and Hainault (1345, held by the Wittelsbachs until 1433).

1346–7

Louis IV’s deposition and renewed civil war. Louis had struggled throughout his reign to balance the Habsburgs and Luxembourgs, the two powerful families whose rivalry had prompted his election as king in 1314. Compromise with the Habsburgs in 1325 alienated the Luxembourgs (now based in Bohemia). The Habsburgs backed Louis against King Johann of Bohemia in 1335 over rival claims to the inheritance of the counts of Tirol (who had acquired Carinthia in 1276). However, Louis was powerless to prevent a separate deal that saw the Habsburgs take Carinthia while Tirol went to the Luxembourgs. Charles, Johann of Bohemia’s son, had carefully cultivated the support of the Avignon papacy. Pope Benedict XII declared Louis deposed (13 April 1346) and called upon the electors to choose a successor. With two votes already in the hands of his relations (Bohemia, Trier), Charles secured the backing of another three electors on 11 July 1346. His claims remained in doubt until Louis died of a heart attack (11 October 1347).

LUXEMBOURGS, 1347–1437

1347–78

Reign of Charles IV, grandson of Henry VII and the most important of the late medieval emperors.

1348

Consolidation of Bohemian autonomy as the ‘lands of the Bohemian crown’ (
corona regni Bohemiae  
). This marked a significant shift in the methods of imperial rule away from reliance on imperial prerogatives and crown lands in favour of amassing a hereditary power base. The Bohemian lands (now including Silesia and Lusatia) were given firmer legal and administrative structures, while a lavish cultural and building programme raised Prague to a capital of European significance, complete with the Empire’s first university (1348). However, Luxembourg dynasticism stopped short of integrating Tirol and Luxembourg itself. The latter remained in the hands of a junior branch, while the former was transferred to the Habsburgs by 1363. Charles IV meanwhile transferred numerous imperial rights to the princes and lords to win acceptance of his rule after 1346, including the imperial bailiwicks established in the 1270s by Rudolf I, though Charles initially continued to buy back former alienated crown lands where possible.

1348–54

The Black Death reduced the Empire’s population by around a third, and ended the high medieval economic boom and migration to lands east of the Elbe. The socio-economic dislocation heightened anxiety, contributing to violent anti-Jewish pogroms that Charles IV actively encouraged.

1349

The election of Count Günther von Schwarzenburg as anti-king, as a belated and ill-coordinated Wittelsbach response to Charles’s usurpation of Louis IV. Schwarzenburg was defeated and renounced his title, dying a few months later as opposition to Charles collapsed.

1355

Charles IV crowned emperor. The subsidence of the plague permitted Charles to go to Italy (1354), where his march was unopposed and he was crowned emperor. Charles returned briefly to Italy in 1368. The relative success of both interventions was contingent on his good relations with the papacy, and his avoidance of violent efforts to recover imperial rights.

1356

The Golden Bull. Charles cemented his imperial rule through an accommodation with the electors which built on that reached by Louis IV in 1338. This document reflected the prevailing balance of power and Charles’s desire to consolidate Luxembourg dynastic influence. The electors were confirmed as a privileged elite above other princes. The dispute over the Saxon electoral title was resolved in favour of the Wittenberg branch of the Askanier family, which had backed the Luxembourgs. Electoral titles were henceforth permanently fixed in Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Bohemia, the Palatinate, Saxony and Brandenburg, whose lands were declared indivisible to prevent further disputes over these rights.

The Habsburgs and Bavarian Wittelsbachs were excluded. The latter had temporarily neutralized themselves through further family partitions after 1348, but the Habsburgs responded by forging the
Privilegium maius
(1358) based on the real
Privilegium minus
(1156) to claim the entirely new status of ‘archdukes’, asserting ceremonial (though not political) parity with the electors. Charles ignored this, forcing the Habsburgs to swear loyalty. However, his acceptance of their claims to the Tirol (1363) paved the way for a Habsburg–Luxembourg family pact (1364), easing tensions. Luxembourg influence was consolidated when Charles bought off rival claims to Brandenburg on the extinction of its ruling Askanier electors (1373).

The rest of the Golden Bull codified arrangements for choosing the German king along lines already emerging by 1338. The electors were empowered to choose a king of the Romans as successor designate during a monarch’s lifetime, subject to his approval. Papal claims were rejected in favour of explicit claims that the German king was ‘emperor elect’ from his own election, and could exercise imperial prerogatives regardless of whether he was crowned emperor by the pope.

1361–72

The adjustment of the western frontier. Charles asserted his authority as king of Burgundy, whilst adjusting actual control to the realities of growing French influence. The county of Savoy, the ‘free county’ (Franche Comté) of Burgundy and the bishopric of Basel were transferred from Burgundy to the German kingdom (1361). The count of Savoy was named imperial vicar for Italy with responsibility for upholding imperial rights in the emperor’s absence (1372). Meanwhile, the establishment of a new ducal line in the French part of Burgundy (1363) saw the growth of a dangerous regional power on the Empire’s western frontier.

1371

Charles IV definitively abandoned the ‘Revindication’ policy, which had been initiated by Rudolf I in 1273 to recover crown lands, and instead switched to basing imperial rule on his extensive family possessions.

1376

The election of Charles’s son Wenzel as king of the Romans, in return for privileges and the transfer of further crown assets to the electors.

1376–7

Swabian Civic League. The cost of acquiring Brandenburg (1373) and buying Wenzel’s election was offset by new taxes on the imperial cities. Those in Swabia retaliated by forming a league that was also directed against encroachment by local princes. The cities defeated Charles and his Bavarian and Württemberg allies, forcing the emperor to agree not to pawn cities to princes. Further civic leagues were formed in Alsace (1376), the Rhineland (1381) and Lower Saxony (1382).

1378–1400

The reign of Wenzel exposed the contingencies upon which Charles had built his successes. Wenzel was barely 18 at his father’s death, and his overindulgent upbringing failed to prepare him for the task of kingship. Luxembourg resources were substantial, and grew as his younger brother Sigismund became king of Hungary (1387) through marrying the Hungarian heiress. However, Wenzel controlled only Bohemia directly, as he was forced to allow his relations to govern Luxembourg and Moravia. Brandenburg had to be pawned to finance Sigismund’s accession in Hungary. With the imperial crown lands dissipated by his father, Wenzel had few alternative resources with which to confront the many problems emerging in the aftermath of the Black Death and the progressive territorialization of princely power.

1378–1417

The Great Schism. An attempt by the papacy to escape French influence by returning to Rome was cut short by the pope’s death shortly afterwards. Pro-and anti-French factions amongst the cardinals elected rival successors who appealed to European kings for recognition and support. Wenzel continued his father’s policy of recognizing the anti-French pope, but was too weak to intervene.

1388–9

The First (Swabian) City War. South-western Germany had the highest population density, supporting a more fragmented and complex hierarchy of lordly jurisdictions than elsewhere in the Empire. Cities, knights and lords were not necessarily enemies, but often had conflicts over rights as they struggled to adjust and profit from the changes following the Black Death. The Swiss towns and villages drew closer together, defeating Habsburg efforts to reassert lordly jurisdiction (battle of Sempach, 1386). The knights occupied an ambiguous position, by serving as officials helping to consolidate princely jurisdictions as more distinct territories, whilst simultaneously being threatened by these same processes. The formation of knightly leagues (1370s) threatened both princely authority and the cities that were sometimes the targets of ‘robber barons’. The Swabian cities defeated the local knightly associations (1381–2). Their growing power provoked retaliation from the princes, who defeated the Swabians at Döfflingen and the Rhenish League near Worms.

1389

The Public Peace of Eger. The violence prompted growing calls for Wenzel to intervene, but he preferred to stay in Bohemia and extort cash from the cities in return for recognizing their leagues and allowing them and the princes to plunder their Jewish populations. The collapse of the civic leagues paved the way for imperial representatives to agree a comprehensive peace across the Empire. This involved recognizing the involvement of princes and towns in upholding peace in each region, and it has been interpreted as a step towards the structures that emerged in the era of imperial reform. At the time it diminished Wenzel’s authority.

1394–1400

The deposition of Wenzel. Wenzel’s reluctance to leave Bohemia encouraged the electors to hold their own meetings without him. Wenzel’s reliance on the Bohemian knights alienated the Bohemian lords, including his own Luxembourg relations, starting an open civil war in Bohemia by 1395. The Turkish advance towards Hungary fully occupied Sigismund, who was unable to respond to the elector’s pleas to act as regent in the Empire. After considerable deliberation, the four Rhenish electors deposed Wenzel on grounds of incapacity (20 August 1400). Wenzel remained king of Bohemia until his death (1419).