House of Habsburg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Armorial of Habsburg, at their height.

• Archduke of Austria
• King of Bohemia
• King of Croatia-Slavonia
• King of Dalmatia
• King of Castile
• King of Aragon
• King of Spain
• King of Portugal
• King of Hungary
• King of England jure uxoris
• Holy Roman Emperor
• Emperor of Austria
• Emperor of Mexico

The House of Habsburg (also known as House of Austria) was one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian and Spanish Empires and several other countries. Originally from Switzerland, the dynasty first reigned in Austria, which they ruled for over six centuries. A series of dynastic marriages brought Burgundy, Spain, Bohemia, Hungary, and other territories into the inheritance. In the 16th century the family separated into the senior Habsburg Spain and the junior Habsburg Austrian branches.

As royal houses are by convention determined via the male line, technically the reigning branches of the House of Habsburg became extinct in the 18th century. The Spanish branch ended upon the death of Charles II in 1700 and was replaced by the Anjou branch of the House of Bourbon in the person of his great-nephew Philip V. The Austrian branch went extinct in 1780 with the death of Empress Maria Theresa and was succeeded by the Vaudemont branch of the House of Lorraine in the person of her son Joseph II. The new successor house styled itself as House of Habsburg-Lorraine (German: Habsburg-Lothringen).

Principal roles

Early personal arms of the Habsburgs.

Their principal roles were as:

• King of the Romans
• Holy Roman Emperors
• Rulers of Austria (as Dukes 1282–1453, Archdukes)
• Kings of Bohemia (1306–1307, 1437–1439, 1453–1457, 1526–1918),
• Kings of Hungary and Croatia (1437–1439, 1445–1457, 1526–1918),
• Kings of Spain (1516–1700),
• Kings of Portugal (1580–1640),
• Kings of Galicia and Lodomeria (1772–1918), and
• Grand Princes of Transylvania (1690–1867).

Other crowns held briefly by the House included:

• King of England (1554–1558)
• Emperor of Mexico (1864–1867)
• King of Lombardy-Venice (1815–1867)

Numerous other titles were attached to the crowns listed above.

History

From Counts of Habsburg to Holy Roman Emperors

The Habsburg dominions around AD 1200 are shown as      Habsburg, among the houses of      Savoy,      Zähringer and      Kyburg

The Habsburg dominions within the Holy Roman Empire acquired before AD 1378 are shown as      Habsburg, among the houses of      Luxembourg and      Wittelsbach

The dynasty is named after their seat of origin, the Habsburg Castle founded by Radbot, Count of Habsburg in the Swiss Canton of Aargau. The origins of the name of the castle are uncertain. Most people assume the name to be derived from the High German Habichtsburg (Hawk Castle), but some historians and linguists are convinced that the name comes from the Middle High German word 'hab/ hap' meaning ford, as there is a river with a ford nearby. The first documented use of the name by the dynasty itself has been traced to the year 1108.[1][2][3] The Habsburg Castle was the family seat in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries in the former duchy of Swabia, which incorporated present-day Aargau, at the time of the Holy Roman Empire. From southwestern Germany (mainly Alsace, Breisgau, Aargau and Thurgau) the family extended its influence and holdings to the southeastern reaches of the Holy Roman Empire, roughly today's Austria (1278–1382). Within only two or three generations, the Habsburgs had managed to secure an initially intermittent grasp on the imperial throne that would last for centuries (1273–1291, 1298–1308, 1438–1740, and 1745–1806).

Maximilian I

On the evening of August 16, 1477, by marrying Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, Archduke Maximilian I acquired control of the Low Countries, effectively establishing the Habsburg Dynasty by extending their territories outside Austria. Maximilian's son, Philip the Handsome (also known as Phillip the Fair) married Joanna of Castile, also known as Joan the Mad, heiress of Castile, Aragon and most of Spain. Phillip and Joan had six children, the eldest of whom became Charles V and inherited the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, Southern Italy, Austria and the Low Countries.[4]

Division of the house: Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs

After the April 21, 1521 assignment of the Austrian lands to Ferdinand I by his brother Emperor Charles V (also King Charles I of Spain) (1516–1556), the dynasty split into the minor branch of the Austrian Habsburgs and the major branch of the Spanish Habsburgs. The Austrian Habsburgs held the title of Holy Roman Emperor after Charles' death in 1558, as well as the Habsburg Hereditary Lands and the Kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, while the Spanish major branch ruled over the Spanish kingdoms, the Netherlands, the Habsburgs' Italian possessions, and, for a time, Portugal. Hungary was partly under Habsburg rule from 1526. For 150 years most of the country was occupied by the Ottoman Turks but these territories were re-conquered in 1683–1699.

A map of the dominion of the Habsburgs following the Battle of Mühlberg (1547) as depicted in The Cambridge Modern History Atlas (1912); Habsburg lands are shaded green. Not shaded are the lands of the Holy Roman Empire over which the Habsburgs presided, nor are the vast Castilian holdings outside of Europe, and particularly in the New World, shown.

The Spanish Habsburgs died out in 1700 (prompting the War of the Spanish Succession), as did the last male of the Austrian Habsburg line in 1740 (prompting the War of the Austrian Succession), and consequently the entire line itself in 1780. The heiress of the last Austrian Habsburg (Maria Theresa) had married Francis Stephan, Duke of Lorraine[5], (both of them were great-grandchildren of Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III, but from different empresses) and their descendants carried on the Habsburg tradition from Vienna under the dynastic name Habsburg-Lorraine, although technically a new ruling house came into existence in the Austrian territories, the House of Lorraine (see Dukes of Lorraine family tree). It is thought that extensive intra-family marriages within both lines contributed to their extinctions.

Extinction of a royal dynasty

Charles II's family tree showing the large amount of inbreeding

The Habsburgs sought to consolidate their power by the frequent use of consanguineous marriages, with ultimately disastrous results. Marriages between first cousins, or between uncle and niece, were commonplace in the family. A study of 3,000 family members over 16 generations by the University of Santiago de Compostela suggests that inbreeding directly led to their extinctions. The gene pool eventually became so small that the last of the Spanish line Charles II, who was severely disabled by genetic disorders, possessed a genome comparable with that of a child born to a brother and sister as did his father, likely due to "Remote Inbreeding".[6] The infamous Habsburg jaw was one such prominent manifestation of inbreeding.[7]