Rudolf I of Germany

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Rudolph I of Habsburg
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"Rudolf I" and "Rudolf of Habsburg" redirect here. For other uses, see Rudolf I (disambiguation) and Rudolf of Habsburg (disambiguation).
Rudolf I
Adolf of Nassau
Born1 May 1218
Limburgh Castle near Sasbach am Kaiserstuhl
Died15 July 1291(1291-07-15) (aged 73)
Speyer
Burial
Speyer Cathedral
Spouses
Issue
more...
HouseHabsburg
FatherAlbert IV, Count of Habsburg
MotherHedwig of Kyburg

Rudolf I (1 May 1218 – 15 July 1291) was the first

King of Germany from the House of Habsburg. The first of the count-kings of Germany
, he reigned from 1273 until his death in 1291.

Rudolf's

Imperial princes
.

Early life

Rudolf was born on 1 May 1218 at Limburgh Castle near

Kyburg.[2] Around 1232, he was given as a squire to his uncle, Rudolf I, Count of Laufenburg
, to train in knightly pursuits.

Count of Habsburg

At his father's death in 1239, Rudolf inherited from him large estates around the ancestral seat of

Reichsfreiheit
in the Freibrief von Faenza.

In 1242,

Alemannic German stem duchy. That same year, Emperor Frederick II was excommunicated by Pope Innocent IV at the Council of Lyon. Rudolf sided against the Emperor, while the forest communities sided with Frederick. This gave them a pretext to attack and damage Neuhabsburg. Rudolf successfully defended it and drove them off. As a result, Rudolf, by siding with the Pope, gained more power and influence.[3]

Rudolf paid frequent visits to the court of his godfather, the

Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II, and his loyalty to Frederick and his son, King Conrad IV of Germany, was richly rewarded by grants of land. In 1254, he engaged with other nobles of the Staufen party against Bertold II, Bishop of Basle. When night fell, he penetrated the suburbs of Basle and burnt down the local nunnery, an act for which Pope Innocent IV excommunicated him and all parties involved. As a penance, he took up the cross and joined Ottokar II, King of Bohemia in the Prussian Crusade of 1254. Whilst there, he oversaw the founding of the city of Königsberg
, which was named in memory of King Ottokar.

Rise to power

The disorder in Germany during the

Basel further augmented his wealth and reputation, including rights over various tracts of land that he purchased from abbots
and others.

These various sources of wealth and influence rendered Rudolf the most powerful prince and noble in southwestern Germany (where the tribal

Richard of Cornwall had died in England in April 1272. Rudolf's election in Frankfurt on 1 October 1273,[4] when he was 55 years old, was largely due to the efforts of his brother-in-law, the Hohenzollern burgrave Frederick III of Nuremberg. The support of Duke Albert II of Saxony and Elector Palatine Louis II
had been purchased by betrothing them to two of Rudolf's daughters.

As a result, within the electoral college, King Ottokar II of Bohemia (1230–1278), himself a candidate for the throne and related to the late Hohenstaufen king Philip of Swabia (being the son of the eldest surviving daughter), was almost alone in opposing Rudolf. Other candidates were Prince Siegfried I of Anhalt and Margrave Frederick I of Meissen (1257–1323), a young grandson of the excommunicated Emperor Frederick II, who did not yet even have a principality of his own as his father was still alive. By the admission of Duke Henry XIII of Lower Bavaria instead of the King of Bohemia as the seventh Elector,[5] Rudolf gained all seven votes.

King of the Germans

Engraving of Rudolf I of Habsburg, c. 1640

Rudolf was crowned in

crusade by taking the crusader's vow in 1275.[6] Pope Gregory X, despite the protests of Ottokar II of Bohemia, not only recognised Rudolf himself, but persuaded King Alfonso X of Castile (another grandson of Philip of Swabia), who had been chosen German (anti-)king in 1257 as the successor to Count William II of Holland
, to do the same. Thus, Rudolf surpassed the two heirs of the Hohenstaufen dynasty whom he had earlier served so loyally.

In November 1274, the

Hermann VI of Baden. Rudolf refused to accept Ottokar's succession to the Babenberg patrimony, declaring that the provinces reverted to the Imperial crown due to the lack of male-line heirs. King Ottokar was placed under the imperial ban
; and in June 1276 war was declared against him.

Having persuaded Ottokar's former ally

Kunigunda of Slavonia in control of only the province surrounding Prague, while the young Wenceslaus II was again betrothed to Rudolf's youngest daughter Judith
.

Rudolf's attention next turned to the possessions in Austria and the adjacent provinces, which were taken into the royal domain. He spent several years establishing his authority there but found some difficulty in establishing his family as successors to the rule of those provinces. At length, the hostility of the princes was overcome. In December 1282, at the Hoftag (imperial diet) in Augsburg, Rudolf invested his sons, Albert and Rudolf II, with the duchies of Austria and Styria and so laid the foundation of the House of Habsburg. Additionally, he made the twelve-year-old Rudolf Duke of Swabia, a merely titular dignity, as the duchy had been without an actual ruler since Conradin's execution.[citation needed] The 27-year-old Duke Albert, married since 1274 to a daughter of Count Meinhard II of Gorizia-Tyrol (1238–95), was capable enough to hold some sway in the new patrimony.

Rudolph I of Austria

In 1286, King Rudolf fully invested Albert's father-in-law Count Meinhard with the

Otto IV
, compelling him to do homage.

In 1281, Rudolf's first wife died. On 5 February 1284, he married

Isabella, daughter of Duke Hugh IV of Burgundy, the Empire's western neighbor in the Kingdom of France
.

Rudolf was not very successful in restoring internal peace. Orders were indeed issued for the establishment of

Adolf of Nassau
.

Persecution of the Jews

In 1286, Rudolf I instituted a new persecution of the Jews, declaring them servi camerae ("serfs of the treasury"), which had the effect of negating their political freedoms. Along with many others, Rabbi

marks silver was raised for him (by the Rosh), but Rabbi Meir refused it, for fear of encouraging the imprisonment of other rabbis. He died in prison after seven years. Fourteen years after his death a ransom was paid for his body by Alexander ben Shlomo (Susskind) Wimpfen, who was subsequently laid to rest beside the Maharam.[8]

Death

Rudolf's cenotaph in Speyer Cathedral

Rudolf died in

Catherine
who had died in 1282 during childbirth and Hedwig who had died in 1285/6.

Rudolf's reign is most memorable for his establishment of the House of Habsburg as a powerful dynasty in the southeastern part of the realm. In the other territories, the centuries-long decline of Imperial authority since the days of the Investiture Controversy continued, and the princes were largely left to their own devices.

In the

Dante finds Rudolf sitting outside the gates of purgatory with his contemporaries, characterizing him as "he who neglected that which he ought to have done".[9]

Family and children

Rudolf was married twice. First, in 1251, to

Isabelle of Burgundy.[10]
All children were from the first marriage.

  1. Emperor Louis IV
  2. Duke of Austria and also of Styria[12]
  3. Catherine (1256 – 4 April 1282,
    Otto III of Bavaria[11]
  4. Agnes [Gertrude] (ca. 1257 – 11 October 1322,
    Rudolf I of Saxe-Wittenberg
  5. Otto VI of Brandenburg-Salzwedel and left no issue[11]
  6. Clementia (c. 1262 – after 7 February 1293), married 1281 in Vienna to Charles Martel of Anjou, the papal claimant to the throne of Hungary[11]
  7. Hartmann (1263, Rheinfelden – 21 December 1281), drowned in Rheinau
  8. Rudolf II, Duke of Austria and Styria (1270 – 10 May 1290, Prague), titular Duke of Swabia, father of John the Parricide of Austria
  9. Judith (13 March 1271 – 18 June 1297, Prague), married 24 January 1285 to King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and became the mother of King Wenceslaus III of Bohemia, Poland and Hungary
  10. Samson (before 19 Oct 1275 – died young)
  11. Charles (14 February 1276 – 16 August 1276)

Male-line family tree

See also

  • Kings of Germany family tree

References

Citations

  1. ^ Coxe 1847, p. 5.
  2. ^ Emerton 1917, p. 76.
  3. ^ a b c Encyclopædia Britannica. 26. 1911, pp. 247
  4. ^ Die Habsburger. Eine Europäische Familiengeschichte, Brigitte Vacha, Sonderausgabe 1996, Zeittafel p. 16
  5. ^ Vacha, "1273 wurde Rudolf von Habsburg von den sieben Kurfürsten zum König gewählt" – "statt dem Böhmenkönig dem bayerischen Herzogtum die siebente Kurstimme übertragen wurde", pp. 32–33
  6. ISBN 978-0-674-91592-3
    .
  7. ISBN 9798868920592
    .
  8. ^ http://www.chabad.org/calendar/view/day.asp?id=265714&tDate=3/4/2006#265714 [bare URL]
  9. ^ Dante (1892). The Divine Comedy; Purgatorio: Canto VII. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company. He who sits highest, and the semblance bears Of having what he should have done neglected, And to the others' song moves not his lips, Rudolph the Emperor was, who had the power To heal the wounds that Italy have slain, So that through others slowly she revives.
  10. ^ a b Duggan 1997, p. 108.
  11. ^ a b c d e Earenfight 2013, p. 173.
  12. ^ George 1875, p. table XIV.

Bibliography

  • Abbott, John S. C. (1877). Austria: Its Rise and Present Power. World's Best Histories. New York: The Cooperative Publication Society.
  • Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). "Rudolf I King of the Romans". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Coxe, William (1847). History of the House of Austria. Vol. 1. London: Henry G. Bohn.
  • Duggan, Anne J., ed. (1997). Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe. The Boydell Press.
  • Earenfight, Theresa (2013). Queenship in Medieval Europe. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Emerton, Ephraim (1917). The Beginnings of Modern Europe (1250–1450). Ginn and Company.
  • George, Hereford Brooke (1875). Genealogical Tables Illustrative of Modern History. Oxford at the Clarendon Press.
  • Kohlrausch, Frederick (1847). History of Germany. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rudolf I of Habsburg.
Rudolf I of Germany
Born: 1218 Died: 1291
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Richard (died 1272)
and Alfonso
as rival kings 		King of the Romans
1273–1291
with Alfonso as contender (1273–1275) 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Duke of Carinthia and Carniola

1276–1286 		Succeeded by
Meinhard
Styria

1278–1282 		Succeeded by
Albert I
Rudolf II
Preceded by
Rudolph V
(1282–1283) 		Succeeded by
Rudolph VI
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