Medieval austria

Charlemagne destroyed the state of the Avars and established a special mark on the border of his Frankish monarchy. Thanks to his energetic assistance, Christianity began to penetrate here greatly. The devastation of the Magyars destroyed this frontier mark, and only the victory over them of Otto I at Lechfeld (August 10, 955) freed Germany from the Magyars and led to the renewal of the Eastern mark (Ostmark, first named by Austria - Oesterreich - in one letter from Otto III, 996 )

In 976, Otton II gave the Austrian mark to his loyal follower, Leopold I , who, according to a later legend, belonged to the house of Count Adalbert Babenbergsky, who became famous for his exploits in the fight against the Magyars (d. 994). Leopold was succeeded by his sons: first, Henry I (before 1018), then Adalbert (until 1056), and this last - his son Ernst (until 1075).

Under Adalbert, Austria expanded its holdings to Leita . Ernst also received large land holdings as a gift from Emperor Henry VI . He died in 1075 in the battle with the Saxons at Unstrut.

His successors were first Leopold II (until 1096), then Leopold III (until 1137), who contributed a lot to the culture of the country, and finally Leopold IV (until 1141), who received the Duchy of Bavaria from Emperor Conrad III , lost by Henry Proud. But the latter’s son, Heinrich Leo , received his inherited land back from Frederick Barbarossa , as a result of which a struggle arose between him and Leopold's successor, his brother Henry II Jazomirgott (d. In 1177). An agreement between the opponents took place on September 17, 1156 in Regensburg. Guelph Heinrich received Bavaria, and Heinrich Jazomirgott - both marks on both sides of Ens , elevated to important duchies, and, in addition, some other other advantages. Heinrich Jazomirgott is also remarkable for his participation in the second crusade and the transfer of his capital to Vienna .

He was succeeded by his son Leopold V (until 1194), in which Styria was annexed to Austria in 1186, and his sons - Friedrich Katolik (until 1198) and Leopold VI the Glorious (until 1230), who became famous for his many campaigns against the Magyars and infidels. The son of the latter, Frederick the Warlike , expanded his possessions in Krajna so much that he began to be called the sovereign Krainy. He died on July 12, 1246 in the struggle against the Magyars, and with his death the clan of the Babenbergs ceased.

The time that followed from 1246 to 1282 was an era of interregnum for Austria. Emperor Frederick II declared Austria and Styria, as liberated flax, the hereditary heritage of the German emperors and sent his governor to Vienna. But the sister of the late Duke of Frederick, Margarita , the widow of the Roman King Henry VII , and his niece Gertrude , who was married to Margrave Hermann of Baden , declared their claims on the legacy of Frederick. Markgraf Hermann, supported by a pope and a strong party, took possession of Vienna and many other Austrian cities, but died in 1250, at a time when his son Frederick , later beheaded in Naples with Konradin Schwabsky (1268), was only one year old . In order to put an end to the troubles produced in the country by various parties, the Austrian ranks (they are already mentioned in one document of 1096) decided to elect Ottokar , son of the Czech king Wenceslas, to the dukes of Austria and Styria. To increase the number of his adherents, Ottokar married the Dowager Queen Margarita (1252), and in 1268 entered the throne of Bohemia. In 1260, he took from the Hungarian king Bela Styria, after which he drove out his wife Margarita, married the granddaughter of Bela Kunigund and forced the Roman king Richard to cede both duchies to him in his lord possession (1262). According to the testament of his cousin Ulrich , the last duke of Carinthia and Friaul, he inherited in 1269 the duchy of Carinthia, the part of Krajina connected with it, Istria and part of Friaul. He did not want to recognize Rudolf of Habsburg as emperor, but in November 1276 he was forced, by Vienna surrender, to cede all Austrian possessions. Unhappy with this, he rebelled again, but in the battle on the Moravian Field (August 26, 1278) he was defeated and lost his life himself, and his son Wenceslas , in order to preserve his hereditary possessions, had to abandon all claims to the Austrian lands. Rudolph appointed his son Albrecht as viceroy in the latter, and on December 27, 1282, having received the consent of the electors , he gave both his sons, Albrecht and Rudolph , to the duchy of Austria, Styria and Carinthia. The latter ceded Carinthia to the Count Meingard of Tyrol , father-in-law of Albrecht, and in 1288 entered into an agreement under which Albrecht became the sole owner of Austria, Styria and Krajina.

With the rise of the Habsburg dynasty , the later greatness of Austria was laid. Upon the death of Albrecht, who died a violent death on May 1, 1308, his hereditary lands passed to his sons Friedrich the Beautiful and Leopold . The first was even elected in 1314 by several electors as emperors, but was defeated by his rival, Ludwig of Bavaria under Mühldorf in 1322, captured and released only in 1325.

At the death of Leopold and Frederick, their remaining two brothers, Albrecht II and Otton , reconciled with Emperor Ludwig in Gagenau on August 6, 1330. Upon the cessation of the male offspring of Meingard, Carinthia again passed to Austria in 1335, and in 1368, according to the will of Marreta , the wife of Meingard III , Tyrol also passed to Rudolf the Founder , son of Albrecht II. Rudolph completed the construction of St. Stephen's Church, established a canonical church and founded the University of Vienna in 1365. He died the same year, after which both of his remaining brothers divided his lands in 1379 in such a way that Albrecht III took Austria and the rest of the lands passed to his brother Leopold III .

Both brothers became the ancestors of two lines - Austrian and Styrian. Leopold significantly expanded its ownership by purchasing land; so he acquired the counties of Feldkirch, Breisgau, Bludenz and Hohenberg, and as a pledge he also received from the Wenzel land landscape in Upper and Lower Swabia, and in 1382, Trieste. When he died at Zempach in 1386, Albrecht became the guardian of his young sons.

The only son of Albrecht III, Albrecht IV , was in Palestine when his father was dying; upon his return, he himself died of poison under Znaim in 1404.

His son, Albrecht V (as emperor - Albrecht II), as the son-in-law of Emperor Sigismund in 1488 connected the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia with the German imperial crown, but died already in 1489, and with the death of his son Ladislav (Posthumus), the Austrian line ceased in 1457, and its lands passed to the line of Styria. At the same time, however, Hungary and Bohemia were lost; in the same way, after a fierce struggle with the Swiss, the last Habsburg ancestral lands in Helvetia were lost. But the imperial crown has since been almost continuously in the hands of the Austrian house.

The head of the Styrian line, Frederick V , as emperor Frederick III (1439–1493) elevated Austria to the Archduke on January 6, 1453. His struggle with his brother Albrecht for the inheritance of Ladislav was stopped by the death of Albrecht in 1463, but he failed to capture Bohemia and Hungary.

His son and successor Maximilian I, thanks to his marriage to Maria Burgundy, acquired the Netherlands in 1477, after the death of his cousin Sigismund of Tyrol, he reunited all of Austria under his rule and brought his home new rights to Hungary and Bohemia.

By the marriage of the son of Maximilian I Philip with John of Spain, the Habsburg House was also erected on the throne of Spain and the West Indies. But since Philip died in 1506, the union of Spain and Austria occurred only after the death of Maximilian in 1519, when his grandson, the eldest son of Philip, Charles I, king of Spain, was elected to the German emperors under the name of Charles V. Last under separate agreements in Worms on April 28, 1521, January 30, 1522, and February 7, 1522, he granted all German lands to his brother Ferdinand.

Ferdinand I, following his marriage to Anna, the sister of the Hungarian king Louis II, acquired, after his death at the Battle of Mogak (in 1526), ​​the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia with the latter lands: Moravia, Silesia and Lausitz. But the Hungarians elected Jan Zapolsky to be king, who called for Sultan Soliman II to help himself. In 1529, the Turks were already standing under the walls of Vienna, and only the smart orders of the Austrian commander, Count von Salm, then saved the capital, and the imperial army forced Soliman to retreat. In 1585, an agreement was concluded between the rivals, according to which Jan Zapolsky received the royal title and half of Hungary, but with the condition that his successors retain only Sedmigradiya. On the death of Jan, there was trouble again, in which Soliman II did not fail to intervene again, including Ferdinand in 1562 who had to buy back Lower Hungary under the condition of an annual payment of 30 thousand ducats. In 1556, at the abdication of Charles V, he received the imperial crown. After his death (1664), three of his sons shared his father’s legacy as follows: the eldest, Emperor Maximilian II, received Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, the second, Ferdinand, received Tyrol and Front Austria, and the third, Karl, went to Styria, Carinthia, Krajna and Herzegovina. Emperor Maximilian was happier than his father in relation to Hungary; the death of Soliman under Tsiget (1566) resulted in a truce. Taking advantage of this, Maximilian in 1572 made his eldest son Rudolph crown the king of Hungary, and in 1575 the latter was also crowned the crown of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire. Maximilian II, distinguished by religious tolerance, thanks to which during his reign the Protestant religion made great strides in all Austrian lands (d. October 12, 1576). The emperor was the eldest of his 5 sons, Rudolph II. When he owned Ferdinand of Tyrol, after the latter's death in 1595, they switched to the other two lines, because due to his unequal marriage to a simple burgher girl from Augsburg, Philippine Welser, his children were excluded from the inheritance. Rudolph II left all the affairs of government to his ministers, and under him the reaction against Protestantism began. He was to cede Hungary in 1608, and in 1611 Bohemia and the Austrian lands to his brother Matthew, who inherited the imperial crown from him in 1612. Matvey died on March 20, 1619, and the second Austrian line also ceased with him. His cousin Ferdinand, the eldest son of Archduke Karl of Styria, who died in 1590, received Austria, Bohemia and Hungary and was elected emperor under the name Ferdinand II. Tyrol and Front Austria went to his younger brother Leopold, but since the offspring of the latter ceased in 1665, these lands again passed to the main line. This was the last division of land in the Austrian house, since Ferdinand II in the form of a will issued a law on the birthright, which has since been sacredly observed.

• Medieval czech republic
• Medieval germany
• Medieval switzerland
• Medieval italy
• Medieval croatia

• Austria // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.