Maximilian I

Background and childhood

Maximilian was born at Wiener Neustadt on 22 March 1459. His father, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, named him after Maximilian of Tebessa, who Frederick believed had once warned him of imminent peril in a dream. In his infancy, he and his parents were besieged in Vienna by Albert of Austria. One source relates that, during the siege's worst days, he wandered around the castle garrison, begging the servants and men-at-arms for bread. He was the favourite child of his mother, whose personality contrasted with his father. Reportedly, she told Maximilian, "If I had known, my son, that you would become like your father, I would have regretted having born you for the throne." Her early death pushed him even more towards a man's world, where one grew up first as a warrior rather than a politician.

Despite the efforts of Maximilian's father Frederick and his tutor Peter Engelbrecht, the latter of whom Maximilian held in contempt, Maximilian became an indifferent and belligerent student who preferred physical activities over his studies. Although the two remained on good terms overall, Frederick was horrified by his only surviving son's and heir's overzealousness in chivalric contests, extravagance, and heavy tendencies towards wine, feasts and young women, which became evident during their trips in 1473 and 1474. Even though the prince was very young, his skills and physical attractiveness often made him the centre of attention. Although Frederick had forbidden the princes of the Empire from fighting with Maximilian in tournaments, Maximilian gave himself the necessary permission at the first chance he got. Frederick did not allow him to participate in the 1474 war against Burgundy, though and placed him under the care of the Bishop of Augsburg instead.

The powerful Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, who also held various fiefs within the Empire, was one of the chief political opponents of Maximilian's father, Frederick III. Frederick was concerned about the expansionist tendencies of the House of Valois-Burgundy towards the western regions of his Holy Roman Empire, and, to forestall military conflict, he attempted to secure the marriage of Charles's daughter, Mary of Burgundy, to Maximilian. After the Siege of Neuss (1474–1475), he was successful and the marriage was agreed upon, but concluded later, in 1477.

Perhaps as preparation for his task in the Netherlands, in 1476 at the age of 17, Maximilian commanded a military campaign against Hungary. This was the first actual battlefield experience in his life, even though the responsibility was likely shared with more experienced generals.

Co-ruler in the Netherlands and Burgundy

Upon her father's death in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477, Mary of Burgundy claimed the inheritance of all of her father's domains, both in the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of France. At the same time, King Louis XI asserted his claims through military force, capturing the Duchy of Burgundy and other Valois-Burgundian fiefs that belonged to the French realm, citing the Salic law that favoured male succession. Faced with those challenges, Mary agreed to marry Maximilian (19 August 1477), who undertook the defence of his wife's dominions. Without support from the Empire and with an empty treasury left by Charles the Bold's campaigns, he carried out a campaign against the French during 1478–1479 and reconquered Le Quesnoy, Condé-sur-l'Escaut, and Antoing. He defeated the French forces at the Battle of Guinegate, in modern Enguinegatte, on 7 August 1479.

Despite winning, Maximilian had to abandon the siege of Thérouanne and disband his army, either because the Netherlanders did not want him to become too strong or because his treasury was empty. The battle was an important landmark in military history, though: the Burgundian pikemen were the precursors of the Landsknechte, while the French side derived the momentum for military reform from their loss.

According to some, Maximilian and Mary's wedding contract stipulated that their children would succeed them, but that the couple could not be each other's heirs. Mary tried to bypass this rule with a promise to transfer territories as a gift in case of her death, but her plans were confounded. After Mary's death in a riding accident on 27 March 1482 near the Wijnendale Castle, Maximilian's aim was now to secure the inheritance to his and Mary's son, Philip the Handsome. According to Haemers and Sutch, the original marriage contract stipulated that Maximilian could not inherit her Burgundian lands if they had children.

The Guinegate victory made Maximilian popular, but as an inexperienced ruler, he hurt himself politically by trying to centralise authority without respecting traditional rights and consulting relevant political bodies. The Belgian historian Eugène Duchesne comments that these years were among the saddest and most turbulent in the history of the country, and despite his later great imperial career, Maximilian unfortunately could never compensate for the mistakes he made as regent in this period. Some of the Netherlander provinces were hostile to Maximilian. In 1482, the Treaty of Arras was signed between Maximilian and Louis XI, leaving the Duchy of Burgundy in the French hands, and also designating the County of Artois and the Free County of Burgundy (region of Franche-Comté) as a dowry for Maximilian's daughter Margaret, who was engaged to the French prince.

Reign in the Holy Roman Empire

Recapture of Austria

Maximilian was elected King of the Romans on 16 February 1486 in Frankfurt-am-Main and was crowned on 9 April 1486 in Aachen. Much of the Austrian territories and Vienna were under the rule of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, as a result of the Austrian–Hungarian War (1477–1488). Maximilian was now a king without lands. Matthias Corvinus offered Emperor Frederick and his son Maximilian the return of the Austrian provinces and Vienna, if they would renounce the treaty of 1463 and accept Matthias as Frederick's designated heir and favoured successor as Holy Roman Emperor. Before this was settled, Matthias died in Vienna in 1490. However, after Matthias Corvinus's death, civil war broke out in Hungary between the supporters of John Corvinus and the supporters of Vladislaus II of Hungary. Due to the Hungarian civil war and interregnum, new possibilities were opened for Maximilian.

In July 1490, Maximilian began a series of short sieges that reconquered cities and fortresses that his father had lost in Austria. Maximilian entered Vienna, already evacuated by the Hungarians, in August 1490. He was injured while attacking the citadel guarded by a garrison of 400 Hungarians troops who repelled his forces twice, but after a few days they surrendered.

In addition, the County of Tyrol and Duchy of Bavaria went to war in the late 15th century. Bavaria demanded money from Tyrol that had been loaned on the collateral of Tyrolean lands. In 1490, the two states demanded that Maximilian I step in to mediate the dispute. His Habsburg cousin, the childless Archduke Sigismund, was negotiating to sell Tyrol to their Wittelsbach rivals rather than let Emperor Frederick inherit it. Maximilian's mediation led to a reconciliation and a reunited dynastic rule in 1490. Because Tyrol had no law code at this time, the nobility freely expropriated money from the populace, which caused the court in Innsbruck to fester with corruption. After taking control, Maximilian instituted immediate financial reform. Gaining control of Tyrol for the Habsburgs was of strategic importance because it linked the Swiss Confederacy to the Habsburg-controlled Austrian lands, which facilitated some imperial geographic continuity.

Throughout his reign, Maximilian's southeastern hereditary lands Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, together with the Kingdom of Croatia, were subjected to frequent Ottoman raids. This frontier warfare culminated in the Battle of Krbava Field (1493), in which the Ottoman forces inflicted a decisive defeat on the Croatian nobility. Although financial constraints prevented Maximilian from launching a major campaign against the Ottomans, the persistent threat of Ottoman expansion shaped his defensive policies and reinforced anti-Ottoman sentiment within his realms. This frontier struggle was later prominently commemorated on his cenotaph in Innsbruck.

Expedition in Hungary

Beatrice of Naples, Matthias Corvinus's widow, initially supported Maximilian out of hope that he would marry her, but Maximilian did not want this. The Hungarian magnates found Maximilian impressive, but they wanted a king they could dominate. The crown of Hungary thus fell to King Vladislaus II, who was deemed weaker in personality and also agreed to marry Beatrice. Tamás Bakócz, the Hungarian chancellor, allied himself with Maximilian and helped him to circumvent the 1505 Diet which declared that no foreigner could be elected as King of Hungary.

With money from Innsbruck and southern German towns, he raised enough cavalry and Landsknechte to campaign into Hungary. Despite Hungary's gentry's hostility to the Habsburgs, he managed to gain many supporters from the higher aristocracy, including several of Corvinus's supporters. One of them, Jakob Székely, handed over Styrian castles to him. He claimed his status as King of Hungary. In the meantime, Vladislaus was proclaimed King of Hungary on 15 July 1490, and was crowned at Székesfehérvár in September. Maximilian responded with great force, using a massive grant of funds from the Tyrolean Estates to invade Hungary with an army of around 17,000 men. Crossing the Rába River in late October, Maximilian encountered little resistance in Hungary, as the unprepared Vladislaus was not inclined towards action. Maximilian was joined by numerous Hungarian nobles and even magnates. Despite stiff resistance, the city was bombarded and eventually captured. This resulted in looting and slaughter that Maximilian and his officers were unable to prevent. The next day became a turning point in the campaign, as his mercenaries mutinied due to the prohibition of looting.

Faced with a severe winter, his troops refused to continue fighting, requesting Maximilian to double their pay, which he could not afford. The revolt turned the situation in favour of the Jagiellonian forces and Maximilian was forced to return. He depended on his father and the territorial estates for financial support. Soon, he reconquered Lower and Inner Austria for his father, who returned and settled at Linz. Worrying about his son's adventurous tendencies, Frederick decided to starve him financially.

In 1491, they signed the Peace of Pressburg, which provided that Maximilian recognised Vladislaus as King of Hungary, but the Habsburgs would inherit the throne on the extinction of Vladislaus's male line and the Austrians also received 100,000 golden florins as war reparations. It was Maximilian that the Croatians began to harbour a connection with. However, the Croatian nobility wanted him as King. Worrying that a multi-fronted war would leave him overextended, Maximilian evacuated from Croatia and accepted the treaty with the Jagiellons.

Italian and Swiss wars

As the Treaty of Senlis had resolved French differences with the Holy Roman Empire, King Louis XII had secured borders in the north and turned his attention to Italy, where he made claims to the Duchy of Milan. In 1499 and 1500, he conquered it and drove Lodovico il Moro into exile. This brought him into a potential conflict with Maximilian, who on 16 March 1494 had married Bianca Maria Sforza, a daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, duke of Milan. However, Maximilian was unable to prevent Louis from capturing Milan. The Italian Wars resulted in Maximilian joining the Holy League to counter the French. His campaigns in Italy generally went poorly, and his progress was quickly stopped. Maximilian's campaigns tend to be criticised for being wasteful and gaining him little. Despite his work in enhancing his army, due to financial difficulties, the forces he could muster were too small to make a difference. In Italy, he gained the nickname of "Massimiliano di pochi denari" (Maximilian the Moneyless). One particularly humiliating campaign occurred in 1508, with a force mustered from hereditary lands and with limited resources, he decided to attack Venice. The force under Sixt Trautson were routed by Bartolomeo d'Alviano, while Maximilian's advance was blocked by the Venetian force under Niccolò di Pitigliano and a French army under Alessandro Trivulzio. Bartolomeo d'Alviano then pushed into the Imperial territory, seizing Gorizia and Trieste, and forcing Maximilian to sign a very unfavourable truce.

Afterwards, he formed the League of Cambrai with Spain, France, and Pope Julius II and won back territories he had conceded and some Venetian land. Most of the Slovenian areas were transferred to the Habsburgs. But atrocities and expenses for war devastated Austria and Carniola. Lack of financial means meant that he depended on allies' resources. When Matthäus Schiner suggested they should let war feed war, he did not agree and was not brutal enough to do that. He acknowledged French control of Milan in 1515.

The situation in Italy wasn't the only problem Maximilian had then. The Swiss won a decisive victory against the Empire at Dornach on 22 July 1499. Maximilian had no choice but to agree to a peace treaty signed on 22 September 1499 in Basel that granted independence to the Swiss Confederacy.

Jewish and Romani policies

Jewish policy under Maximilian fluctuated greatly, usually influenced by financial considerations and the emperor's vacillating attitude when facing opposing views. In 1496, Maximilian issued a decree which expelled all Jews from Styria and Wiener Neustadt. Between 1494 and 1510, he authorized thirteen expulsions of Jews in return for fiscal compensations from local government.

After 1510, this happened only once, and he showed resistance in a campaign to expel Jews from Regensburg. David Price comments that during the first seventeen years of his reign, he was a great threat to the Jews, but after 1510, even if his attitude was still exploitative, his policy gradually changed. A factor that probably played a role in the change was Maximilian's success in expanding imperial taxing over German Jewry, at this point, he likely considered the possibility of generating taxes from stable Jewish communities, instead of temporary compensations from local jurisdictions. Noflatscher and Péterfi note that Maximilian had a deep dislike for Jews since childhood, the reason of which is unknown, since both of his parents greatly favoured the Jews.

In 1509, relying on the influence of Kunigunde, Maximilian's pious sister and the Cologne Dominicans, the anti-Jewish agitator Johannes Pfefferkorn was authorised by Maximilian to confiscate all offending Jewish books, except the Bible. The confiscations happened in Frankfurt, Bingen, Mainz, and other German cities. Responding to the order, the archbishop of Mainz, the city council of Frankfurt and various German princes tried to intervene in defence of the Jews. Maximilian consequently ordered the confiscated books to be returned. On 23 May 1510, though, influenced by a supposed "host desecration" and blood libel in Brandenburg, as well as pressure from Kunigunde, he ordered the creation of an investigating commission and asked for expert opinions from German universities and scholars. The prominent humanist Johann Reuchlin argued strongly in defence of the Jewish books, especially the Talmud. Reuchlin's arguments seemed to leave an impression on the emperor, who gradually developed an intellectual interest in the Talmud and other Jewish books. Maximilian later urged the Hebraist Pietro Colonna Galatino to defend Reuchlin's position. Galatino dedicated his work De Arcanis Catholicae Veritatis, which provided "a literary threshold where Jews and Gentiles might meet", to the emperor.

It was Maximilian's support that enabled Reuchlin to fully devote himself to Jewish literature. Like his father, Frederick III and his grandson Ferdinand I, he held Jewish physicians and teachers in high esteem. In 1514, he appointed Paolo Riccio, a Jew who converted to Christianity, as his personal physician. He was more interested in Riccio's Hebrew skills than in his medical abilities, though. In 1515, he reminded his treasurer Jakob Villinger that Riccio was admitted for the purpose of translating the Talmud into Latin, and urged Villinger to keep an eye on him. Perhaps overwhelmed by the emperor's request, Riccio only managed to translate two out of sixty-three Mishnah tractates before the emperor's death. Ricius managed to publish a translation of Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla's Kabbalistic work The Gates of Light, which was dedicated to Maximilian, though. It was under Frederick and Maximilian that the foundation of modern Judaism arose, steeped in humanism.

Reforms

Within the Holy Roman Empire, there was consensus that reforms were needed to preserve the unity of the Empire. For most of his reign, Frederick III had considered reform as a threat to his imperial prerogatives and wanted to avoid confrontations on the matter. However, in his last years, mainly to secure the election for Maximilian, he presided over the initial phase of reform. Maximilian was more open to reform. From 1488 through his reign as sole ruler, he practised a policy of brokerage, acting as the impartial judge between options suggested by the princes. Many measures were launched in the 1495 Reichstag at Worms. A new court was introduced, the Reichskammergericht, that was largely independent from the Emperor. A new tax was launched to finance the Empire's affairs, the Gemeine Pfennig. It was levied for the first time between 1495 and 1499, raising 136,000 florins, and another five times during the 1512–1551 period, before being supplanted by the matricular system which allowed common burdens to be assessed at imperial as well as Kreis level.

To create a rival for the Reichskammergericht, Maximilian established the Reichshofrat, which had its seat in Vienna. Unlike the Reichskammergericht, the Reichshofrat looked into criminal matters and even allowed the emperors the means to depose rulers who did not live up to expectations. Pavlac and Lott note that, during Maximilian's reign, this council was not popular though. According to Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, though, throughout the early modern period, the Reichshofrat remained the faster and more efficient among the two Courts. The Reichskammergericht on the other hand, was often torn by matters related to confessional alliance. Around 1497–1498, as part of his administrative reforms, he restructured his Privy Council (Geheimer Rat), a decision which today induces much scholarly discussion. Apart from balancing the Reichskammergericht with the Reichshofrat, this act of restructuring seemed to suggest that, as Westphal quoting Ortlieb, the "imperial ruler — independent of the existence of a supreme court — remained the contact person for hard pressed subjects in legal disputes as well, so that a special agency to deal with these matters could appear sensible".

In 1500, as Maximilian urgently needed assistance for his military plans, he agreed to establish an organ called the Reichsregiment (central imperial government, consisting of twenty members including the Electors, with the Emperor or his representative as its chairman), first organized in 1501 in Nuremberg and consisted of the deputies of the Emperor, local rulers, commoners, and the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Maximilian resented the new organisation as it weakened his powers, and the Estates failed to support it. The new organ proved politically weak, and its power returned to Maximilian in 1502.

Finance and economy

Maximilian was always troubled by financial shortcomings; his income never seemed to be enough to sustain his large-scale goals and policies. For this reason, he was forced to take substantial credits from Upper German banker families, especially from the Georg Gossembrot, Jörg Baumgarten, Fugger, and Welser families. Jörg Baumgarten even served as Maximilian's financial advisor. The connection between the emperor and banking families in Augsburg was so widely known that Francis I of France derisively nicknamed him "the Mayor of Augsburg" (another story recounts that a French courtier called him the alderman of Augsburg, to which Louis XII replied: "Yes, but every time that this alderman rings the tocsin from his belfry, he makes all France tremble.", referring to Maximilian's military ability). Around 70% of his income went to wars (and by the 1510s, he was waging wars on almost all sides of his border). At the end of Maximilian's rule, the Habsburgs' mountain of debt totalled six million gulden to six and a half million gulden, depending on the sources. By 1531, the remaining amount of debt was estimated at 400,000 gulden (about 282,669 Spanish ducats).

In his entire reign, he had spent around 25 million gulden, much of which was contributed by his most loyal subjects — the Tyrolers. The historian Thomas Brady comments: "The best that can be said of his financial practices is that he borrowed democratically from rich and poor alike and defaulted with the same even-handedness". By comparison, when he abdicated in 1556, Charles V left Philip II of Spain a total debt of 36 million ducats (equal to the income from Spanish America for his entire reign), while Ferdinand I left a debt of 12.5 million gulden when he died in 1564. Economy and economic policies under the reign of Maximilian is a relatively unexplored topic, according to Benecke.

Overall, according to Whaley, "The reign of Maximilian I saw recovery and growth but also growing tension. This created both winners and losers", although Whaley opines that this is no reason to expect a revolutionary explosion (in connection to Luther and the Reformation). Whaley points out, though, that because Maximilian and Charles V tried to promote the interests of the Netherlands, after 1500, the Hanseatic League was negatively affected and their growth relative to England and the Netherlands declined.

In the Low Countries, during his regency, to get more money to pay for his campaigns, he resorted to debasing coins in the Burgundian mints, causing more conflicts with the interests of the Estates and the merchant class.

Tu felix Austria nube

Background

Traditionally, German dynasties had exploited the potential of the imperial title to bring Eastern Europe into the fold, in addition to their lands north and south of the Alps. Under Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, the House of Luxembourg, predecessors of the Habsburgs as the Imperial dynasty, had managed to gain an empire almost comparable in scale to the later Habsburg empire, although at the same time they lost the Kingdom of Burgundy and control over Italian territories. Their focus on the East, especially Hungary (which was outside the Holy Roman Empire and also gained by the Luxembourgs with a marriage), allowed the new Burgundian rulers from the House of Valois to foster discontent among German princes. Thus, the Habsburgs were forced to refocus their attention on the West. Frederick III's cousin and predecessor, Albert II of Germany (who was Sigismund's son-in-law and heir through his marriage with Elizabeth of Luxembourg) had managed to combine the crowns of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia under his rule, but he died young. During his rule, Maximilian had a double focus on both the East and the West. The successful expansion (with the notable role of marriage policy) under Maximilian bolstered his position in the Empire, and also created more pressure for an imperial reform, so that they could get more resources and coordinated help from the German territories to defend their realms and counter hostile powers such as France.

Marriage and foreign policy under Maximilian

As part of the Treaty of Arras, Maximilian betrothed his three-year-old daughter Margaret of Austria to the Dauphin of France (later Charles VIII of France), son of his adversary Louis XI. The betrothal was the result of clandestine negotiations between Louis XI and Ghent — as Maximilian's position was temporarily weakened by his wife's death, he had no say in the matter.

During the Mad War (1485–1488), Maximilian supported the rebellious French nobility against the regency of Anne of France as part of his broader policy of weakening the French Crown and preserving the independence of the Duchy of Brittany.

Dying shortly after signing the Treaty of Le Verger, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, left his realm to his daughter Anne of Brittany. In search of alliances to protect her domain from neighbouring interests, she betrothed herself to Maximilian I in 1490. About a year later, they married by proxy.

However, Charles VIII and his sister Anne wanted her inheritance for France. So, when the former came of age in 1491, and taking advantage of Maximilian and his father's interest in the succession of their adversary Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, Charles repudiated his betrothal to Margaret, invaded Brittany, forced Anne of Brittany to repudiate her unconsummated marriage to Maximilian, and married her himself.

Margaret then remained in France as a hostage of sorts until 1493, when she was finally returned to her father with the signing of the Treaty of Senlis.

In late 1493, as the hostilities of the lengthy Italian Wars with France were in preparation, Maximilian contracted another marriage for himself, this time to Bianca Maria Sforza, daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, with the intercession of his brother, Ludovico Sforza, then regent of the duchy after the former's death.

In the east, Maximilian faced the need to reduce the growing pressures on the Empire brought about by treaties between the rulers of France, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Russia, as well as to bolster his dynasty's position — temporarily threatened by the union between Anne of Foix and Vladislaus II of Hungary, in addition to resistance of the Hungarian magnates — in Bohemia and Hungary (that the Habsburgs claimed through inheritance and overlordship). Maximilian met with the Jagiellonian kings Vladislaus II of Hungary and Sigismund I the Old at the First Congress of Vienna in 1515. There they arranged for Maximilian's granddaughter Mary of Habsburg to marry Louis II of Hungary, the son of Vladislaus, and for Anna of Bohemia and Hungary (the sister of Louis) to marry Maximilian's grandson Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (both grandchildren being the children of Philip the Handsome, Maximilian's son, and Joanna of Castile). The marriages arranged there brought Habsburg kingship over Hungary and Bohemia in 1526. In 1515, Louis was adopted by Maximilian. Maximilian had to serve as the proxy groom to Anna in the betrothal ceremony, because only in 1516 did Ferdinand agree to enter into the marriage, which would happen in 1521.

Death and succession

In 1501, Maximilian fell from his horse and badly injured his leg, causing him pain for the rest of his life. Some historians have suggested that he was "morbidly" depressed: from 1514, he travelled everywhere with his coffin.

During his last years, Maximilian began to focus on the question of imperial succession. After the death of his son Philip in 1506, his goal was to secure the imperial throne for his grandson Charles. In 1518, at the Diet of Augsburg, the ailing emperor made substantial efforts, both political and financial, in order to secure the election of Charles as King of the Romans, also hoping to obtain his own imperial coronation (still being only the proclaimed emperor since 1508). All of those efforts failed because of various political and legal obstacles, including the reluctance of pope Leo X to see the young lord of southern Italian realms (since 1516, Charles was king of Sicily, Naples and Sardinia) also becoming the heir to the imperial throne and thus achieving domination over the entire peninsula.

After the failure at Augsburg, feeling his death near after seeing an eclipse, Maximilian returned to his beloved Innsbruck, but the city's innkeepers and purveyors did not grant the emperor's entourage further credit. The resulting fit led to a stroke that left him bedridden on 15 December 1518. However, he continued to read documents and received foreign envoys right until the end. Maximilian died in Wels, Upper Austria, at three o'clock in the morning on 12 January 1519. Different historians have listed different diseases as the main cause of death, including cancer (likely stomach cancer or intestinal cancer), pneumonia, syphilis, gall stones, stroke (he did have a combination of dangerous medical problems) etc.

For penitential reasons, Maximilian gave very specific instructions for the treatment of his body after death. He wanted his hair to be cut off and his teeth knocked out, and the body was to be whipped and covered with lime and ash, wrapped in linen, and "publicly displayed to show the perishableness of all earthly glory". Gregor Reisch, the emperor's friend and confessor who closed his eyes, did not obey the instruction though. He placed a rosary in Maximilian's hand and other sacred objects near the corpse. He was buried in the Castle Chapel at Wiener Neustadt on borrowed money. The casket was opened during renovation under Maria Theresa. After that, the body was reinterred in a Baroque sarcophagus, which was later found unscathed amidst the wreckage of the chapel (due to the Second World War) on 6 August 1946. The emperor was ceremoniously buried again in 1950.

Legacy

The legacy of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, left a lasting impact on Europe. Although known as "the last knight", Maximilian balanced his chivalric ideals with the daily "herculean tasks of bureaucracy", often dictating to several secretaries at once. James M. Bradburne notes that while every ruler sought victory, Maximilian aspired to embody Apollo Musagetes. His circle of humanists and admirers also portrayed him this way.

A universal patron, Maximilian's intellect and imagination, according to Sydney Anglo, made even Castiglione's ideal courtier seem lesser — though he often treated artists and scholars as mere tools for his ambitions.

More than a sponsor, Maximilian was a planner and inventor who immersed himself in every detail—from politics and warfare to the arts, sciences, and technology. His boundless energy was sometimes criticised as excessive or distracting from governance. Later critics suggested he possessed the brilliance of a visionary more than the discipline of a ruler, his far-reaching intellect making him try to "force the march of time."

Through wars and marriages, Maximilian expanded Habsburg influence across the Netherlands, Spain, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and Italy. This dominance shaped Europe for centuries and endured as the Austro-Hungarian Empire until its dissolution on 3 November 1918 — 399 years, 11 months, and 9 days after Maximilian's death.

Geoffrey Parker summarises Maximilian's political legacy as follows:

By the time Charles received his presentation copy of Der Weisskunig in 1517, Maximilian could point to four major successes. He had protected and reorganised the Burgundian Netherlands, whose political future had seemed bleak when he became their ruler forty years earlier. Likewise, he had overcome the obstacles posed by individual institutions, traditions and languages to forge the sub-Alpine lands he inherited from his father into a single state: "Austria", ruled and taxed by a single administration that he created at Innsbruck. He had also reformed the chaotic central government of the Holy Roman Empire in ways that, though imperfect, would last almost until its demise three centuries later. Finally, by arranging strategic marriages for his grandchildren, he had established the House of Habsburg as the premier dynasty in central and eastern Europe, creating a polity that his successors would expand over the next four centuries.

Official style

We, Maximilian, by the Grace of God, elected Roman Emperor, always Augmenter of the Empire, King of Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia, etc. Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Brittany, Lorrain, Brabant, Stiria, Carinthia, Carniola, Limbourg, Luxembourg, and Guelders; Count of Flanders, Habsburg, Tyrol, Pfiert, Kybourg, Artois, and Burgundy; Count Palatine of Haynault, Holland, Zeland, Namur, and Zutphen; Marquess of the Roman Empire and of Burgau, Landgrave of Alsatia, Lord of Frisia, the Wendish Mark, Portenau, Salins, and Malines, etc.

Chivalric orders

On 30 April 1478, Maximilian was knighted by Adolph of Cleves, a senior member of the Order of the Golden Fleece and on the same day, he became the sovereign of this exalted order. As its head, he did everything in his power to restore its glory as well as associate the order with the Habsburg lineage. He expelled the members who had defected to France and rewarded those loyal to him, and also invited foreign rulers to join his ranks.

Maximilian I was a member of the Order of the Garter, nominated by King Henry VII of England in 1489. His Garter stall plate survives in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

Maximilian was the patron of the Order of Saint George, founded by his father, and also the founder of its secular confraternity.

Appearance and personality

Maximilian was strongly built, had an upright posture, was over six feet tall, had blue eyes, neck length blond or reddish hair, a large hooked nose and a jutting jaw (like his father, he always shaved his beard). Although not conventionally handsome, he was well-proportioned and considered physically attractive, with abiding youthfulness and an affable, pleasing manner. A womanizer since his teenager days, he increasingly sought distraction from the tragedy of the first marriage and the frustration of the second marriage in the company of "sleeping women" in all corners of his empire. Sigrid-Maria Grössing describes him as a charming heartbreaker for all his life. He could manoeuvre with one hand a seven-meter lance comfortably.

Maximilian was a late developer. According to his teacher Johannes Cuspinian, he did not speak until he was nine-years-old, and after that only developed slowly. Frederick III recalled that when his son was twelve, he still thought that the boy was either mute or stupid. In his adulthood, he spoke six languages (he learned French from his wife Mary) and was a genuinely talented author. Other than languages, mathematics and religion, he painted and played various instruments and was also trained in farming, carpentry and blacksmithing, although the focus of his education was naturally kingship. According to Fichtner, he did not learn much from formal training, though, because even as a boy, he never sat still and tutors could not do much about that. Gerhard Benecke opines that by nature he was the man of action, a "vigorously charming extrovert" who had a "conventionally superficial interest in knowledge, science and art combined with excellent health in his youth" (he remained virile into his late thirties and although later his health was damaged due to a leg accident and other ailments, the emperor displayed remarkable self-discipline and hardly ever recognised a weakness; at the 1510 Reichstag in Augsburg, Maximilian, 51, fought against Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, 47, in front of a large audience.). He was brave to the point of recklessness, and this did not only show in battles. He once entered a lion's enclosure in Munich alone to tease the lion, and at another point climbed to the top of the Cathedral of Ulm, stood on one foot and turned himself round to gain a full view, at the trepidation of his attendants. In the nineteenth century, an Austrian officer lost his life trying to repeat the emperor's "feat", while another succeeded. While he paid magnificently for a princely style, he required little for personal needs. In his mature years, he exerted restraint on personal habits, except during his depressive phases (when he drank night and day, sometimes incapacitating the government, to the great annoyance of Chancellor Zyprian von Sernteiner) or in the company of his artist friends. The artists got preferential treatment in criminal matters too, such as the case of Veit Stoss, whose sentence (imprisonment and having his hands chopped off for an actual crime) issued by Nuremberg got cancelled on the sole basis of genius. The emperor's reasoning was that what came as a gift from God should not be treated according to usual norms or human proportions. To the astonishment of contemporaries, he laughed at the satire directed against his person and organised celebrations after defeats.

Marriages and offspring

Maximilian was married three times, but only the first marriage produced offspring:

Maximilian's first wife was Mary of Burgundy. They were married in Ghent on 19 August 1477, but she died in a riding accident in 1482. Mary was the love of his life. Even in old age, the mere mention of her name moved him to tears (although his sexual life, contrary to his chivalric ideals, was unchaste). The grand literary projects commissioned and composed in large part by Maximilian, many years after her death, were in part tributes to their love, especially Theuerdank, in which the hero saved the damsel in distress as he had saved her inheritance in real life. His heart is buried inside her sarcophagus in Bruges, according to his wish. Beyond her beauty, the inheritance and the glory she brought, Mary corresponded to Maximilian's ideal of a woman: the spirited grand "Dame" who could stand next to him as sovereign. To their daughter Margaret, he described Mary: from her eyes shone the power (Kraft) that surpassed any other woman.

The marriage produced three children, of whom only two survived:

Philip I of Castile (1478–1506), who inherited his mother's domains following her death, but predeceased his father. He married Joanna of Castile, becoming king-consort of Castile upon her accession in 1504, and was the father of the Holy Roman Emperors Charles V and Ferdinand I;

Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), who was first engaged at the age of two to the French dauphin (who became Charles VIII of France a year later) to confirm peace between France and Burgundy. She was sent back to her father in 1492 after Charles repudiated their betrothal to marry Anne of Brittany. She was then married to John, Prince of Asturias, crown prince of Castile and Aragon, and after his death to Philibert II, Duke of Savoy. She undertook the guardianship of her deceased brother Philip's children and governed Burgundy for the heir, Charles;

Francis of Austria, who died shortly after his birth in 1481.

Maximilian was also married to Anne of Brittany (1477–1514). They were married by proxy in Rennes on 18 December 1490. The contract was dissolved by Pope Innocent VIII in early 1492, after Charles VIII had repudiated his betrothal to Margaret and forced Anne to marry him instead.

Triumphal woodcuts

A set of woodcuts called the Triumph of Emperor Maximilian I.

Works

Kaiser Maximilian I.; Bernd Schuchter (2019). Das geheime Jagdbuch (in German) (1st ed.). Innsbruck: Limbus Verlag. ISBN 978-3-99039-162-4.

Kaiser Maximilian I; Heiliges Römisches Reich (2015). Die ruhmreichen Taten des Ritters Theuerdank, ein illustriertes Meisterwerk der frühen Buchdruckerkunst. [Kommentarband] (in German) (Einmalige, nummeriert und limitiert ed.). Darmstadt: Lambert Schneider. ISBN 978-3-650-40034-5.