Maximilian I

Maximilian I (born March 22, 1459, Wiener Neustadt, Austria—died January 12, 1519, Wels) was the archduke of Austria, German king, and Holy Roman emperor (1493–1519) who made his family, the Habsburgs, dominant in 16th-century Europe. He added vast lands to the traditional Austrian holdings, securing the Netherlands by his own marriage, Hungary and Bohemia by treaty and military pressure, and Spain and the Spanish empire by the marriage of his son Philip. He created the Landsknechte (“Servants of the Country”), a body of well-organized mercenaries, and fought a series of wars against the French, mostly in Italy. His grandson succeeded to the vast Habsburg realm and the imperial crown as Charles V.

Territorial expansion

Maximilian was the eldest son of the emperor Frederick III and Eleanor of Portugal. By his marriage in 1477 to Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, Maximilian acquired the vast Burgundian possessions in the Netherlands and along the eastern frontier of France. He successfully defended his new domains against the attacks of Louis XI of France, defeating the French at the Battle of Guinegate in 1479. There Maximilian’s military innovation saved him. French armies consisted primarily of the prized and formidable Swiss Reisläufer, mercenary units that have survived in the modern era as the Swiss Guards. Maximilian recruited these elite pikemen to train his German forces, who in time came to be known as the Landsknechte. At Guinegate the Landsknechte showed their mettle and would vie with the Swiss Reisläufer for primacy on the battlefield for more than a century.

After Mary’s death (1482) Maximilian was forced to allow the States General (representative assembly) of the Netherlands to act as regent for his infant son Philip (later Philip I [the Handsome] of Castile), but, having defeated the States General in war, he reacquired control of the regency in 1485. Meanwhile, by the Treaty of Arras (1482), Maximilian was also forced to consent to the betrothal of his daughter Margaret of Austria to Charles VIII of France.

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In 1486 he was elected king of the Romans (heir to his father, the emperor) and crowned at Aachen on April 9. With the military help of Spain, England, and Brittany, he continued his war against France. Like his predecessors, Maximilian also saw chronic revolts in the Netherlands, typically about taxation. In 1488 he was taken captive and held for more than three months in Brugge, where he watched from his window as several of his companions were executed. In order to surround France, Maximilian in 1490 married Duchess Anne of Brittany by proxy but could not forestall an invasion of Brittany by the French. A dramatic setback occurred when Charles VIII sent his fiancée Margaret back to her father and required Anne to sever her marriage with Maximilian and to become the queen of France.

Through the archduke Sigismund, his cousin, Maximilian obtained the Tirol. Because of its favourable situation politically as well as its silver mines, its chief city, Innsbruck, became his favourite centre of operations.

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By 1490 he had regained control of most of his family’s traditional territories in Austria, which had been seized by Hungary. He then became a candidate for the vacant Hungarian throne. When Vladislas (Ulászló) II of Bohemia was elected instead, he waged a successful campaign against Vladislas. By the Treaty of Pressburg in 1491, he arranged that the succession to Bohemia and Hungary would pass to the Habsburgs if Vladislas left no male heir.

The Treaty of Senlis (1493) ended the conflict against the Netherlands and France and left the duchy of Burgundy and the Low Countries securely in the possession of the house of Habsburg.

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Consolidation of power

On the death of Frederick III in 1493, Maximilian became sole ruler over the German kingdom and head of the house of Habsburg. He then drove the Turks from his southeastern borders, married Bianca Maria Sforza of Milan (1494), and handed over the Low Countries to his son Philip (1494), reserving, however, the right of joint rule. The flourishing culture of the Low Countries influenced literature, art, government, politics, and military methods in all the other Habsburg possessions.

Charles VIII’s invasion of Italy (1494) upset the European balance of power. Maximilian allied himself with the pope, Spain, Venice, and Milan in the so-called Holy League (1495) to drive out the French, who were conquering Naples. He campaigned in Italy in 1496, but, although the French were expelled, he achieved little benefit. More important were the marriages of his son Philip to the Spanish infanta Joan (the Mad), in the same year, and of his daughter Margaret to the Spanish crown prince, in 1497. These marriages assured him of the succession in Spain and the control of the Spanish colonies.

At a meeting of the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) at Worms in 1495, Maximilian sought to strengthen the empire. Laws were projected to reform the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber of Justice) and taxation and to give permanency to the public peace; however, no solution was forthcoming for many military and administrative problems. The princes would permit no strengthening of the central authority, and this limitation of power neutralized imperial policies. To thwart the opposition, which was led primarily by the lord chancellor Berthold, archbishop of Mainz, Maximilian set up his own extra-constitutional judicial and financial commissions.

In 1499 Maximilian fought an unsuccessful war against the Swiss Confederation and was forced to recognize its virtual independence by the Peace of Basel (September 22). At the same time, the French moved back into Italy, in cooperation with Spain, and occupied the imperial fief of Milan.

In 1500 the imperial princes at the Reichstag in Augsburg withdrew considerable power from Maximilian and invested it in the Reichsregiment, a supreme council of 21 electors, princes, and others. They even considered deposing him, but the plan miscarried because of their own apathy and Maximilian’s effective countermeasures. He strengthened his European position by an agreement with France, and he regained prestige within the empire by victories in a dynastic war between Bavaria and the Rhenish Palatinate (1504). At the same time, the death of Berthold of Mainz rid him of one of his main opponents. Credit arrangements with southern German business firms, such as the Fuggers, assured Maximilian of funds for foreign and domestic needs, and a campaign against Hungary in 1506 strengthened the Habsburg claim to the Hungarian throne. Though he was the German king, he had not been crowned emperor by the pope, as was customary. Excluded from Italy by the hostile Venetians, he was unable to go to Rome for his coronation and had to content himself with the title of Roman emperor-elect that was bestowed on him with the consent of Pope Julius II on February 4, 1508.

To oppose Venice, Maximilian entered into the League of Cambrai with France, Spain, and the pope in 1508. Their aim was to partition the Republic of Venice. In the war that followed, Maximilian was labelled an unreliable partner because of his lack of funds and troops. Pope Julius’s severe illness prompted Maximilian to consider accepting the office of pope, which the schismatic Council of Pisa offered him. At times pious, at other times antipapal, he thought he might win financial help from the German church if he were a rival pope, but in the end he let himself be dissuaded from this by Ferdinand II (the Catholic) of Aragon. Turning away from his French alliance, he entered into a new Holy League (1511) with the pope, Spain, England, and their allies. With the help of England, he scored a victory against the French in the Battle of the Spurs (1513) while his allies concentrated on regaining Milan and Lombardy. The French were victorious in Italy at the Battle of Marignano in 1515, and Maximilian’s efforts to re-win Milan failed miserably. The Treaty of Brussels granted Milan to the French and Verona to the Venetians, leaving Maximilian with only the territorial boundaries of Tirol.

In the east, by making overtures to Russia, he was able to put pressure on Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary to acquiesce in his expansionist plans. In 1515 advantageous marriages were arranged between members of the Habsburg family and the Hungarian royal house, thus strengthening the Habsburg position in Hungary and also in Bohemia, which was under the same dynasty. His intricate system of alliances, embracing both central Europe and the Iberian Peninsula, made Maximilian a potent force in European affairs.

On January 12, 1519, having spent the previous year trying to have his grandson Charles elected emperor and to raise a European coalition against the Turks, he died at Wels in Upper Austria. He was buried in Georgskirche at Wiener Neustadt. (His magnificent tomb at the Hofkirche in Innsbruck was completed later.) His plans did come to fruition when his grandson, already king of Spain, became emperor as Charles V later the same year.