Early Habsburgs according to the Acta Murensia (until 1279)
The early generations of the Habsburgs can be reconstructed on the one hand on the basis of genealogical records, which had already been drawn up in 1160, and on the other hand on the basis of the will of Werner I (1030-1096). Whereby the will is dated to 1027, but was probably written around 1085. Habsburg genealogists such as Albrecht von Bonstetten or Jakob Mennel worked out complete family trees of their lineage already around 1500. These early genealogies list, among others, Roman nobles, Priam of Troy (son of Jupiter) and King Arthur as direct ancestors. This was a quite common method (as an example the Zimmerian Chronicle is mentioned where Count Froben also refers to ancient ancestors). Historically founded results about these early family tree relations are not available. Only the names can be proved.
The Etichone Guntram the Rich († 973) is supposed to be the progenitor according to the genealogical trees of the Acta Murensia compiled in 1160. Another source mentions a Guntram who is said to have been a count on the Upper Rhine.
Around 1027 Radbot (985-1045) founded together with his wife Ita of Lorraine (995-1035) the Benedictine monastery of Muri, his brother Rudolf (985/990- around 1063) the monastery of Ottmarsheim located in the Upper Alsace. Around 1020, Radbot or Werner I (1030-1096) built Habsburg Castle, which is located in the Swiss municipality of the same name. The Habsburgs had also built other castles. Otto, Count of Habsburg († 1111) was the first of the family to call himself von Habsburg. In the 11th and 12th centuries the Habsburgs expanded their territories. They acquired bailiwicks and county rights. They thus became landgraves in Upper Alsace (Sundgau) and bailiffs of the Strasbourg High Chapter and claimed the inheritance of the Counts of Kyburg, so that they took possession of lands in the Zürichgau, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Aargau, Frickgau and Uri; these territories were later called Stammlande.
The first house division took place in the early 13th century. Albrecht IV was the founder of the older line and Rudolf III of the Habsburg-Laufenburg line. The competition created a spatial separation. Although Rudolf III was not condemned to a secondary role, he did not succeed in establishing his own ruling center in central Switzerland. Later attempts were often thwarted by the older line.
Albrecht's son Rudolf IV, on the other hand, was able to systematically expand his empire. He succeeded in extending his dominion to the Black Forest. Through the Kyburg inheritance, he was also able to claim eastern and northeastern Switzerland for himself. Thus he became a powerful lord of the Upper Rhine. His election as Roman-German king in 1273 as Rudolf I crowned his success.
The death of King Ottokar II in 1278 and the seizure of the duchies he occupied marked the beginning of Habsburg rule in Austria (more precisely, in what is now Lower and Upper Austria, as well as Styria).
The Habsburg claim to dominion
After the election of Rudolf I as Roman-German king, the Habsburgs established a significant domestic power with the acquisition of the duchies of Austria and Styria (by enfeoffment of Rudolf's sons). With further territorial gains in the east and the loss of the Old Habsburg possessions in Switzerland as a result of the Swiss-Habsburg Wars in the 14th and 15th centuries, the center of power finally shifted to the eastern Alpine region. The Habsburg itself fell to the Confederates in 1415. Nevertheless, the Habsburgs' relations with their former heartland remained close. This was evident, among other things, in the Muri monastery and Königsfelden Abbey, and most recently in the decades-long stay of the last empress, Zita, in Switzerland.
The failure to include him in the circle of electors in the Golden Bull prompted Duke Rudolf IV to issue a forgery in 1358 / 1359, the Privilegium Maius, in which he claimed the title of archduke, which later became characteristic of the Habsburgs. However, the Italian scholar Francesco Petrarca already came to the conclusion that the documents had been forged. The Privilegium Maius was only confirmed by the Habsburg Emperor Frederick III in 1453 and recognized under imperial law.
The Habsburg dynasty demanded an almost sacred place for itself in society and in the structure of the empire, combined with a claim to the imperial crown. The motto A.E.I.O.U., introduced by Emperor Frederick III, is an expression of this mentality. Its interpretation has given rise to manifold speculations, but it is probably to be understood as Austriae est imperare orbi universo ("Austria is destined to rule the world") or as the royal-judicial motto amor electis iniustis ordinor ultor ("love rules over the elect, the avenger over the unjust"). The Pietas Austriaca of the Archbishopric, which also loved to call itself the Casa d'Austria and thus reaffirmed its claim to power in Spain and Italy, is impressively expressed on the Plague Column, dedicated to the Trinity by Emperor Leopold I in 1679 and erected in Vienna. On its three sides, representing the Trinity of God, are the coats of arms and crowns of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, although Austria, significantly, wears the imperial crown rather than the ducal hat. Huge stone scrolls held by angels explain the Habsburg state program to the viewer: Austria with the imperial crown is assigned to the Deo Patri Creatori, Bohemia with the Wenceslas crown to the Deo Filio Redemptori, and Hungary with the St. Stephen crown to the Deo Spiritui Sanctificatori. On earth, the three main Habsburg lands correspond to the heavenly Trinity - each independent, but united in an indissoluble unity, for the salvation of the earth's circle. The burial place of the Habsburgs in the Capuchin crypt in Vienna underscores the sacral character of the archbishopric.
The Habsburgs as rulers of the Holy Roman Empire
Since the election of King Albrecht II in 1438, the Habsburgs - with the exception of Emperor Charles VII (1742-1745) - provided all emperors of the Holy Roman Empire until its end in 1806. (1742-1745) - all emperors of the Holy Roman Empire until its end in 1806.
With the help of their marriage policy, the Habsburgs acquired the Burgundian Netherlands, the Free County of Burgundy and then the crowns of Spain, Bohemia, Croatia and Hungary (Habsburg Monarchy) through Maximilian I in the late 15th century. With the Bohemian crown, the electorship and thus the vote of the highest-ranking secular member among the seven electors finally fell to the Habsburgs in 1526 (for the ranking, see Elector).
With the successors of Emperor Charles V, the Habsburgs divided into a Spanish and an Austrian line. After the extinction of the Spanish line with Charles II in 1700, the Austrian Habsburgs were able to win only a small part of the Spanish inheritance in the War of the Spanish Succession.
In 1740, the Austrian line also died out in the male line. By the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, Charles VI had secured the right of succession of female descendants for this case, whereby his daughter Maria Theresa assumed the rights of ruler. After her marriage to Franz Stephan of Lorraine, the dynasty called itself Habsburg-Lorraine. It provided the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from 1765 to 1806 after the death of Emperor Francis I Stephen.
In 1806, as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, Emperor Francis II abdicated the crown; the Holy Roman Empire was thus de facto extinct.
Austrian Empire
Even before that, in 1804, Emperor Franz II had proclaimed the hereditary Empire of Austria as Franz I in order to maintain equality of rank with Napoleon, who had been proclaimed Emperor of the French in the same year. The Austrian Empire comprised all Habsburg hereditary lands. In 1867 it was transformed into the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which disintegrated at the end of the First World War in 1918.
In the new Empire of Austria, the private crown of the House of Habsburg, made by order of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague in 1602, was declared the official Austrian imperial crown, but a coronation as Emperor of Austria never took place. However, Francis I had himself painted wearing the crown. On the other hand, all Austrian emperors - Francis I (1804-1835), Ferdinand I (V) (1835-1848), Franz Joseph I (1848-1916) and Charles I (IV) (1916-1918) - were crowned Hungarian kings with the Crown of St. Stephen in order to comply with Hungarian state law; Franz Joseph, of course, only in 1867, after an almost twenty-year struggle with the Hungarian estates. The coronation with the Bohemian crown of Wenceslas took place for the last time in 1836 for Ferdinand I(V). He was also the only Austrian emperor crowned (in 1838) with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
Habsburgs after 1918
On November 11, 1918, Emperor Charles I renounced any share in the affairs of state on behalf of German Austria, and on November 13, also as King Charles IV of Hungary. Since Charles did not formally abdicate, any reference to the then 6-year-old Crown Prince Otto could be omitted - in contrast to the German Empire. The other parts of the Dual Monarchy, dissolved by Hungary on October 31, 1918, by the termination of the Real Union, made themselves independent of the ruling house without contact with Charles. He moved with his family to Switzerland in March 1919 to escape internment in Austria.
The Habsburg Law of German Austria of 3 April 1919 expelled Karl permanently from the country, and all other members of the Habsburg-Lothringen family as long as they had not officially renounced their affiliation to the House of Habsburg-Lothringen (i.e. to the dynasty with its claims to power) and declared themselves faithful citizens of the Republic. In addition, the Habsburg family funds were expropriated (but not demonstrably personal private property). The members of the house opted partly for republican Austria and partly for life outside the new republic. Until the 2010 federal presidential election, members of ruling houses or of such families that had formerly ruled were excluded from eligibility for election to the federal presidency ("passive suffrage") in Austria pursuant to the Federal Constitution Act 1920 with Art. 60 para. 3, 2nd sentence, most recently in the version of July 1, 2007. It was not until June 16, 2011, that the Habsburg Clause was repealed by the Austrian National Council as part of the 2011 Electoral Law Amendment Act and entered into force in its new version (Art. 60 B-VG) on October 1, 2011.
After two failed attempts to restore King Charles IV to Hungary from Switzerland in 1921, the Hungarian Parliament decided to dethrone the House of Habsburg-Lorraine on November 6, 1921. Hungary remained a kingdom without a king under the imperial administrator Miklós Horthy. Charles was exiled from Hungary to Madeira by the Allies after the second restoration attempt, where he died in 1922 after a serious illness. His widow Zita was not allowed to re-enter Austria until 1982.
During the interwar period and World War II, the Habsburg-Lothringen family made efforts to treat Austria as a victim state and helped many persecuted persons to escape. The head of the family from 1930 to 2006 was Otto Habsburg-Lothringen (1912-2011), the eldest son of Emperor Karl. He did not sign the declaration of renunciation required by the Republic of Austria under the Habsburg Law until 1961. Under his aegis, the primary fields of occupation of many members of the family (including, above all, Karl, Georg, as well as Walburga) shifted to European policy, especially that of the Pan-European Union, with whose founder, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, Otto Habsburg was a friend.
Since 2004, Austria has had the Black-Yellow Alliance, a party that advocates the restoration of the monarchy under the Habsburgs.
On January 1, 2007, Otto Habsburg-Lothringen transferred the function as head of the family to his eldest son Karl.
In 2011, the Order of St. George - A European Order of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine was (re)established by Charles Habsburg-Lorraine as an Order of the House of Habsburg.
