Sit for a moment and consider the word
'emperor'. What pictures/concepts/suggestions does it call to mind?
Do they include limitless power, boundless wealth and an unbroken
familial succession?
Somewhere, Kaiser Max is laughing and
rolling his eyes.
So, in Maximilian's time, the Holy
Roman Empire was what they call an 'elective monarchy'. Meaning, you
were in no way a shoe-in for the job just because your father was
emperor.
Maximilian's father was Emperor
Friedrich III (born 1415, died 1493), who apparently had a very
hardy constitution and ruled for an unheard-of 53 years. He was
considered a bit of an odd bird, more interested in his gem
collection and alchemy than in ruling his empire. He was thoughtful,
unemotional, methodical in the extreme and in no way given to snap
judgments or hasty action. His nickname was 'Erzschlafmütze des
Reiches' (Arch-Sleepyhead of the Reich).
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| Emperor Friedrich III |
Yet somehow he managed to father one of
the most volatile, snap-judgment-trusting hotheads in the whole Habsburg lineage. “Why can't you be more like your old man,
Maximilian,” he must have thought.
In the quest to become emperor, first
you needed to be elected King of the Romans, which Maximilian was in
1486. The election was decided by the so-called prince-electors
(Kurfürsten). Sometimes money changed hands in order to secure the
vote of the electors. You were then crowned in great solemnity in
Aachen while sitting on Charlemagne's throne.
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| Aachen Cathedral |
So let's talk a bit about money.
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| Coin with Maximilian's image |
Both Friedrich and Maximilian were
chronically short of funds during their reigns. Lacking the ability
to tax, the emperor was at the mercy of the electors to obtain the
funds they needed for wars, crusades, a new pair of shoes, etc.
Maximilian appeared at each Reichstag (Imperial Diet, or
meeting of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire) with hat in hand, or
so it seemed. “That's an internal Habsburg matter, we're not paying
for that,” and “We're not going to finance your personal acts of
revenge,” were a couple of the stock refusals by the
prince-electors.
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| Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony during Max's reign |
So Maximilian was forced to borrow
mountains of money from the Fuggers, a wealthy family of
merchant-bankers in Augsburg. He was in no position to pay off these
debts, so his grandsons Charles (later Emperor Charles V) and
Ferdinand had that dubious honor after his death.
Traditionally the emperor needed to be
crowned by the Pope in Rome in order to be considered official.
Maximilian was barred from his Roman coronation because Venice
refused to let him traipse through their territory on his way to
Rome. Long story. But being the tenacious kind of guy he was, he got
to be emperor anyway. He declared himself 'Emperor-elect' and
arranged his own damn coronation in Trento in 1508,
thank-you-very-much.
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| Maximilian as Emperor by Bernhard Strigel |
Here's his coronation motet: Virgo
Prudentissima, by Heinrich Issac!
A wonderful combination of history, art, and music.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Olga! :-)
ReplyDelete