Dr. Vess's World Civilization Virtual Library

The Austrian Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire

Objectives:

1. Be able to contrast the glory of Austrian (German) culture with the power of the Holy Roman Emperor.
2. Be able to discuss the accuracy of the name "Holy Roman Empire" to describe Hapsburg holdings.
3. Be able to discuss the decline of Hapsburg power starting with the Peace of Augsburg.
4. Be able to describe the three crowns of the Holy Roman Empire.
5. Be able to discuss the importance of the Pragmatic Sanction in Austrian history. Did it achieve the desired effect?
FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

The Reformation completely fragmented the Holy Roman Empire. No longer united by religion, it was also divided by language and customs. The territories which made up the HRE were loyal to the same crown only by the weakest thread of allegiance, and in the centuries following the Reformation, the rise of Prussia and several other factors made the HRE the weakest of all European monarchies. The once-mighty giant was now a limping weakling.

"This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire."

Voltaire, Essay sur les Moeurs

OUTLINE

I. The Glory of Vienna

A. the Danube

B. Austrian music: Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and Strauss other music: Bach

II. The breakdown of centralized authority:

A. The Peace of Augsburg -- 1555

i) divided Hapsburg holdings between Austrian and Spanish lines

ii) religious divisions

B. The Treaty of Westphalia -- 1648

i. Fragmentation of Imperial authority

ii. destruction of Thirty Years' war iii. no great trading markets, as in Netherlands or France

iv. 9 electors who elected HRE,

v) among whom was the duke of Brandenburg

a) powerful in his own right as King of Prussia after 1713

C. The Treaty of Utrecht -- 1713

i) Defeat of Spanish Hapsburgs

ii) Austrian Hapsburgs controlled HRE

III. Austria:

A. The Three Crowns of the Holy Roman Empire:

i. The Crown of St. Stephen Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia

ii. The Crown of St. Wencelas Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia

iii. The Hereditary Holdings of the Hapsburgs

B. Effort to reintroduce Catholicism caused many rebellions

C. The Imperial Title was recognized only in Austria proper

D. No unity in terms of culture or religion

IV. Charles VI (1711-1740)

A. No male heirs

B. Pragmatic Sanction 1713

i. made Hapsburg territory indivisible

ii. one line of heirs through his daughter, Maria Theresa

iii. she consolidated holdings by bringing government to Vienna