The ceontaph of the tomb of Rudolph I in
Speyer.
Rudolph I, also known as Rudolph of Habsburg (German: Rudolf von
Habsburg, Latin Rudolfus) May 1, 1218 – July 15, 1291) was King of Germany from 1273 until his death. He played a vital role in raising the
Habsburg family to a leading position among the German feudal dynasties.
Early life
Rudolph was the son of Albert IV, Count of Habsburg, and Hedwig, daughter of Ulrich, Count of Kyburg, and was born in Limburg an der Lahn. At
his father's death in 1239, Rudolph inherited the family estates in Alsace and Aargau. In 1245 he married Gertrude, daughter of Burkhard III, Count of
Hohenberg. As a result, Rudolf became an important vassal in Swabia, the ancient
Alemannic stem duchy.
Rudolph paid frequent visits to the court of his godmother, the Emperor
Frederick II, and his loyalty to Frederick and his son, Conrad IV of
Germany, was richly rewarded by grants of land. In 1254 he was excommunicated by Pope
Innocent IV as a supporter of king Conrad, due to ongoing political conflicts between the Papacy and the Holy Roman
Imperial office (the status of the Papal States in Italy,
and who was supposed to be in charge of them, was unclear; there were other disputed areas as well, such as Lombardy).
Rise to power
The disorder in Germany after the fall of the Hohenstaufen afforded an
opportunity for Rudolph to increase his possessions. His wife was an heiress; and on the death of his childless maternal uncle,
Hartmann VI, Count of Kyburg, in 1264, he seized Hartmann's valuable estates. Successful feuds
with the bishops of Strassburg and Basel further augmented his wealth and reputation, including rights over various tracts
of land that he purchased from abbots and others. He also possessed large estates inherited from
his father in the regions now known as Switzerland and Alsace.
These various sources of wealth and influence rendered Rudolph the most powerful prince and noble in southwestern Germany
(where the tribal duchy Swabia had disintegrated, leaving room for its vassals to become quite
independent) when, in the autumn of 1273, the princes met to elect a king after the death of Richard of Cornwall. His election in Frankfurt on
29 September 1273, when he was 55 years old, was largely due
to the efforts of his brother-in-law, Frederick III of
Hohenzollern, Burgrave of Nuremberg. The support of Albert II, Duke of Saxony (Wittenberg) and of
Louis II, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Duke of Upper Bavaria, had been
purchased by betrothing them to two of Rudolph's daughters. As a result, Otakar II
(1230-78), King of Bohemia, a candidate for the throne and grandson of Philip of Swabia, King of Germany (being the son of the eldest surviving daughter), was almost alone in
opposing Frederick. Another candidate was Frederick of Meissen
(1257-1323), a young grandson of the excommunicated Emperor Frederick
II who did not yet have a principality of his own as his father yet lived.
King of Germany
Rudolph was crowned in Aachen Cathedral on 24
October 1273. Friedrich Schiller in Der Graf
von Habsburg ("The Count of Habsburg") presents a fictionalized rendering of the feast King Rudolf held following his
coronation. To win the approbation of the Pope, Rudolph renounced all imperial rights in Rome, the
papal territory, and Sicily, and promised to lead a new
crusade. Pope Gregory X, in spite of Otakar's protests,
not only recognized Rudolph himself, but persuaded Alfonso X, King of Castile
(another grandson of Philip of Swabia), who had been chosen German king in 1257 as the
successor to William of Holland, to do the same. Thus, Rudolph surpassed the two
heirs of the Hohenstaufen dynasty that he had earlier served so loyally.
In November 1274 it was decided by the Diet of the Realm in Nuremberg that
all crown estates seized since the death of the Emperor Frederick II must be restored, and that Otakar must answer to the Diet for not recognizing the new king. Otakar refused to appear or to
restore the provinces of Austria, Styria,
Carinthia and Carniola, which he had claimed
through his first wife, a Babenberg heiress, and which he had seized while disputing
them with another Babenberg heir, Hermann VI, Margrave of Baden. Rudolf
refuted Otakar's succession to the Babenberg patrimony, declaring that the provinces reverted to the crown due to the lack of
male-line heirs (a position that conflicted with the provisions of Privilegium Minus).
King Otakar was placed under the state ban; and in June 1276 war was declared against him. Having persuaded Otakar's ally
Henry I, Duke of Lower Bavaria, to switch sides, Rudolph compelled the
Bohemian king to cede the four provinces to the control of the royal administration in November 1276. Rudolf then invested Otakar
with Bohemia, betrothed one of his daughters to Otakar's son Wenceslaus, and
made a triumphal entry into Vienna. Otakar, however, raised questions about the execution of the
treaty, made an alliance with some Polish chiefs, and procured the support of several German
princes, including his former ally, Henry of Lower Bavaria. To meet this coalition, Rudolph formed an alliance with
Ladislaus IV, King of Hungary,
and gave additional privileges to the citizens of Vienna. On 26 August 1278 the rival armies met on the banks of the River March in the
Battle of Dürnkrut and Jedenspeigen where Otakar was defeated and
killed. Moravia was subdued and its government entrusted to Rudolph's representatives, leaving
Kunigunda, the Queen Regent of Bohemia, in control of only the province
surrounding Prague, while the young Wenceslaus was again betrothed to one of Rudolf's daughters.
Rudolph'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, in
Augsburg, Rudolph invested his sons, Albert and
Rudolph, 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,
which had been without a ruler since Conradin's execution. The 27-year-old Duke Albert (married since 1274 to a daughter of Count
Meinhard II of Tirol (1238-95)) was capable enough to hold some sway in the
new patrimony.
In 1286 King Rudolf fully invested the Duchy of Carinthia, one of the provinces
conquered from Otakar, to Albert's father-in-law Meinhard. The princes of
the realm did not allow Rudolf to give everything that was recovered to the royal domain to his own sons, and his allies needed
their rewards too.
Turning to the west, in 1281 he compelled Philip, Count Palatine of
Burgundy, to cede some territory to him, then forced the citizens of Bern
to pay the tribute that they had been refusing, and in 1289 marched against Philip's successor, Otto IV, compelling him to do homage.
In 1281 his first wife died. On 5 February 1284 he married
Isabella, daughter of Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy, his western neighbor.
Rudolph was not very successful in restoring internal peace to Germany. Orders were indeed issued for the establishment of
landpeaces in Bavaria, Franconia and Swabia, and afterwards for the whole of Germany. But the king lacked the power, resources, or determination, to
enforce them, although in December 1289 he led an expedition into Thuringia where he destroyed
a number of robber-castles.
In 1291 he attempted to secure the election of his son Albert as German king. However, the princes refused claiming inability
to support two kings, but in reality, perhaps, leery of the increasing power of the Habsburgs.
Death
Rudolph died in Speyer on July 15, 1291, and was buried in the Speyer Cathedral. Although he had had a large
family, he was survived by only one son, Albert, afterwards the German king Albert
I.
Rudolph was a tall man with a pale face and a prominent nose. He was known for his bravery, piety and generosity. His reign is
memorable, however, chiefly for his establishment of the House of Habsburg, which henceforth held sway over the southeastern and
southwestern parts of the realm. In the rest of Germany, he left the princes largely to their own devices.
In the Divine Comedy, Dante finds Rudolph
sitting outside the gates of Purgatory with his contemporaries, who berate him as "he who
neglected that which he ought to have done".
Family and children
He was married twice. First, in 1245, to Gertrude of Hohenberg and second, in
1284, to Isabelle of Burgundy of Burgundy, daughter of Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy and Beatrice of Champagne. All
children were from the first marriage.
- Albert I of Germany (July 1255 – 1 May, 1308), Duke of Austria and
also of Styria.
- Hartmann (1263, Rheinfelden–21 December 1281), drowned in Rheinau.
- Rudolph II, Duke of Austria and Styria (1270–10 May 1290, Prague), titular Duke of Swabia, father of John the Patricide of Austria.
- Matilda (ca. 1251/53, Rheinfelden–23 December 1304,
Munich), married 1273 in Aachen to Louis II, Duke of Bavaria and became mother of Rudolf I, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Louis
IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
- Katharina (1256–4 April 1282,
Landshut), married 1279 in Vienna to
Otto III, Duke of Bavaria who later (after her death) became the disputed King
Bela V of Hungary and left no surviving issue.
- Agnes (ca. 1257–11
October 1322, Wittenberg), married 1273 to Albert II, Duke of Saxe-Wittenberg and became the mother of Rudolf I, Elector of
Saxony.
- Hedwig (d. 1285/86), married 1270 in Vienna to Otto VI, Margrave of
Brandenburg and left no issue.
- Klementia (ca. 1262–after 7 February 1293), married 1281 in Vienna to Charles Martel of Anjou, the
Papal claimant to the throne of Hungary and mother of king Charles I of Hungary, as well as of queen Clementia of France, herself the mother of the baby king
John I of France.
- Jutte/Bona (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, of queen Anna I of Bohemia, duchess of Carinthia, and of queen Elisabeth I of Bohemia, countess of Luxembourg.
King Rudolf also had an illegitimate son, Albrecht I of Schenkenberg, Count of
Löwenstein.
References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia
Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public
domain.
See also
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