The Holy Roman Empire and The Rise of The Habsburgs (History of Everything Podcast ep 126)

The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages and lasted for almost one thousand years until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.

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Hello everyone Saku here and welcome back to the history of everything podcast you’ve probably already noticed here from the very beginning that Gabby is not with us again I do apologize for that she was going to join but she got sidetracked by having to prepare for the

Trip that we were getting ready to go to to South Carolina because we are going to be doing a LARPing event down there this is only preparation for that event so we’re getting ready for it but if you want to be one of my Knights and participate in this fight that we’re

Going to be doing down there click the link down in my description because we’re going to be having a ton of fun this coming February anyway the thing that I wanted to talk about here today is I wanted to talk about the hre at the Holy Roman Empire

And the rise of the hapsburgs and the reason that I wanted to do that is because we just got back from Austria a little bit ago and seeing all of the buildings the ancient like everything that is there going back the past thousand odd years for its history is

Fascinating I mean you all know what it is that I’m talking about here the hre like the Holy Roman Empire the thing that was neither holy nor Roman nor Empire as the classic joke goes many people when they talk about the hre they don’t really understand what it is that

I am talking about like the scope of it they have an idea but they don’t really understand how this thing came into existence it’s just something that was for the last thousand odd years or I say for the last thousand odd years the Holy Roman Empire officially lasted from 962 to

1806 what we’re talking about here is the one of not the largest but one of Europe’s largest medieval and even then going into early modern States but of course when we’re talking about this this is a entity that’s its power base was incredibly unstable and it was continually shifting over time the Holy

Roman Empire as we talk about it even though I say the word empire wasn’t a single unified state it rarely ever was it was rather a confederation of small and mediumsized I don’t know how to phrase this duchies counties other political entities anything that made up this country that’s what it

Was but that being all said when it managed to speak with one voice the Holy Roman Empire was easily one of the greatest and most powerful states in the entirety of Europe and the Emperor who was at the head of that was easily the most powerful Sovereign but of course

I’m saying that more often than not the very member states that make up the Holy Roman Empire they didn’t exactly agree on everything uh and often those disagreements came into serious conflict with one another and ended up being a whole bunch of minor little fights that were constantly going on within the

State itself other European powers would regularly and very ruthlessly exploit all these divisions and this would often lead to horrible Civil Wars inside of it consequently when you had very weak Emperors who were in charge of the country they weren’t really in charge of the country and they were often times

Just outright ignored by the heads of these states that were within it strong Emperors on the other hand if you had a person who was truly powerful then they could subject to these people to their will but that wasn’t easy every single time they had to do this it was a

Horrible fight to make it happen they had to fight tooth and nail in order to be able to project any real kind ofor and to make it worse for anyone who was part of the Imperial house the Holy Roman Emperor was not a person who simply achieved That Power by virtue of

You know their legac not legacy that’s not the right word dynasty they weren’t someone who could necessarily inherit that position from their father and I say that because a lot of people are thinking wait hold on we’re talking about an imperial position right this is something where a person would be you

Know they’d come into power after their parent died and now they are the one who’s in charge like a king or a queen Etc this is something that works by dynastic Legacy well yes that sort of would happen kind of but the real problem within the Imperial Crown was

That this position was something that could be achieved by election and there was a very severe risk that every single time there was a new election that a new Imperial Dynasty to come into power and as a result of this in order to be able to prevent this from happening the

Ruling dynasty of the hre over time would have to make serious concessions to members of the college that voted them into power in order to try and get their votes in the first place this means that as time went on over time this would weaken the Imperial

Family’s power so that sooner or later they wouldn’t actually have anything to bribe the electors to vote for them in the first place and then after that that just meant that a new Imperial family would come into power and then they would have to repeat that cycle all over again

Therefore despite the fact that the hre was truly massive it really only turned into an imperial Juggernaut under the strongest of Emperors if there was anyone else besides a strong central Authority that was in charge well that’s where it brings up the classic joke of in any other Circumstance the Holy Roman

Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor Empire but okay that all being said we need to go ahead and get into the history of this in order to kind of explain it because the thing that I want to talk about is I want to talk about

The hapsburgs but in order to be able to talk about the hapsburgs I need to talk about where the hre came from in the first place because this is a thing that has existed for over well not over but almost a thousand years so during the 8th and 9th centuries the Franks would

Carve out this massive realm in Central and Western Europe and on Christmas Day in the year 800 the Frankish King Charlemagne would Crown himself as emperor in Rome this is where a lot of people think that the hre comes into existence in the first place but that’s

Not really the case it’s kind of complicated when we go and explain this under the grandsons of Charlamagne the Frankish realm as we know it that very quickly fell apart see what it is that they did because this was a type of inheritance called gaval kind where you

Would split your realm equally among your children but in the case of an Empire this was something where they’re still technically speaking should be an emperor that was in charge of all them they had agreed to split the empire into three parts you had the kingdom of West

Frania which is as you can probably imagine from the name this is the precursor of the medieval France like French State you had middle frania or lather ringa and then you had East frankia the third kingdom is the thing that would eventually evolve into the kingdom of Germany over the course of

The late 9th and early 10th Century because in theory in all of this you were supposed to only have one Emperor the rest of these guys were Kings and Charlemagne’s grandsons had decided that the ruler of middle frankia was supposed to carry the Imperial title that was

Supposed to be the emperor but this was not something that would end up lasting and would very quickly break down because the family line of the carolingian dynasty was going to die out it was going to go extinct and I’m going to need to kind of explain the context

Of this because doing a whole thing on Charlemagne and the rise of the Franks that is definitely something that deserves its own episode in the future but the deaths of the kigian Kings between 875 and 880 that effectively sent the dynasty into just an unstable spiral as Regional Nobles in varying

Kingdoms attempted to seize power and assert Authority for themselves with the lather ringan and the Western Kings having died out the kingdoms were then transferred to Louis the German’s last living son which I’m say this right now this is an amazing name Charles the fat which yes

Can you imagine how it is that one gets that name in the first place you have like there there’s the bald there’s the fat there’s the lame I just there’s all different kinds of epithets and just the stories behind them is oh my God it’s hilarious okay so Charles the fat he was

Holy Roman Emperor technically speaking there from how they were defining it from 881 all the way to 887 not very long he was the king of east frania of Italy and West frankia and from the year 876 Charles would rule as the co- king of East frankia with his brother Louis

II the younger and as the soul king after the latter would die in 882 he would inherit Italy in 879 after the abdication of his eldest brother carlman of Mia and in the year 880 would defend the Papal States against an invasion by Guy III of spaletto which I’m G say this

Right now again name wise a person being named guy hilarious who did this to you it was that guy which guy guy the third yeah you can see the joke from from that anyway he had gone and invaded and was a distant relative of the carians in the

First place and in exchange for his military intervention Charles the fat would be crowned as Emperor by Pope John VII but following the death of his nephew carlman II of West frankia in 884 Charles the fat was then also invited to assume the kingship of West frankia by

The Kingdom’s Nobles and so it was then for a brief time that Charles the fat would briefly reunite the koligian Empire after becoming ruler of the three main Kingdoms in 894 but that was not something that was going to last his Supremacy was being constantly challenged and the Empire

Would collapse for a final time when he was deposed in 887 by Regional Nobles after East frania was then usurped in aoup by his nephew which I’m going to say right now is his illegitimate nephew Arnold of uh Corinthia and so it is then that the koligian dynasty has typically

Been considered to have ended with Charles deposition while the koligian line would technically speaking survive with some individuals who would maintain control in local duchies and little counties and castles the kigian dynasty would never achieve the power that its ancestors had it would eventually from

That die out and as a result it frano would descend into chaos that would break apart into the kingdom of bir burgy and the king of Italy and in the 10th Century the Italian princess called Adelaide would ask Otto the first the king of Germany to come down to Italy

And try to settle its Affairs because it was currently dealing with a lot of issues from outside invasions so Otto would invade Northern Italy install order marry Adelaide and then continue on to Rome and so it was with all this happening that Otto was now not only the

King of Germany but also through adeli’s family Laine the king of Italy and with that in mind this now called for an imperial title to be achieved thankfully and very fortunately for him the pope down in Italy was so incredibly grateful for his intervention that he would thank

Otto by Reviving the vacant Imperial title and crown him as emperor of the Romans the office of the Holy Roman Emperor was thereby formally transferred from middle frania to East frania or from this the kingdom of Germany where it would remain for the rest of the Holy

Roman Empire’s history that is why this event when we’re talking about this in 962 generally speaking that is seen as the start of the ho Roman Empire though some historians still regard the crowning of Charlemagne in 800 as the actual beginning of this Empire but the majority now refer to this as the

Frankish or kigian Empire rather than the hre it’s just one of those things that seems to make sense but if you say that the Holy Roman Empire lasted for a thousand years then you are saying that it began in 800 considering that it would end in the early

1800s so okay Otto is in charge and his family the aonian dynasty or the Saxon Dynasty that was going to rule until 10:24 which is really not all that long of a time but you know it doesn’t really matter they were the ones that at least

Founded it in the first place they would incorporate the duy of bohemia into the Empire as well so okay Otto’s family the aonian dynasty or the Saxon Dynasty would rule the Empire until 10:24 ad which is not all that long that’s really only 60 years considering that we were

Talking about this being founded in 962 they would incorporate the duy of bohemia into the Empire and would expand its borders from that but they wouldn’t really last soon after this the at tonians would be replaced by the salian Dynasty and the sallans would then add the other leftover parts of middle

Frankia the kingdom of burgundy to the the Holy Roman Empire thus it was then that they effectively turned the empire into a kind of composite monarchy where rather than a singular Kingdom that makes up the majority of things the major building blocks of the hre were going to be Germany Italy Bohemia and

Burgundy and even as their power grew this didn’t mean though that they were necessarily safe the sallans would enter into a major conflict with the medieval Church something that is known as the investure controversy and I know that I’ve said this already multiple times but that is something that definitely

Deserves its own episode episode the short of it is that the growing Imperial power of the family in the 11th century raised a very serious question who exactly was going to be Supreme in Western Christianity by and by that I mean Latin Christianity was it going to

Be the pope or was it going to be the emperor and we’re going to skip past all the details that kind of explain this and I’m just going to say that after a lot of debate and a very decent amount of Bloodshed a compromise was eventually reached the concordant of worms in 11:22

This is something that although the emperor would retain a decent amount of power it was going to severely limit their religious influence in short the pope was technically speaking Victorious from this after all this would go down the sallans would overtime lose their Authority and the next Dynasty to take

Charge the stoffers well they were going to push the bounds of Imperial power in secular Affairs to their very limit so okay the stoffer dynasty the stoffer dynasty was one of the Holy Roman Empire’s most incredibly powerful houses under their reign the empire was going to achieve its greatest

Territorial extent and when we think about the hre in its classic sense you’re probably thinking about the staford Dynasty and I say classic sense of not the broken kind but the most powerful state in which the hre was actually an authority that could rival or rather surpass any other entity in

The entirety of Europe at the height of their power in the 13th century the stoffers ruled in theory from the southern border of Denmark all the way to the Mediterranean island of Sicily their control was that vast the first staler emperor that we’re talking about here Frederick the he was called

Barbarosa someone that if you listened to my Crusader episode that I did a while back then you’re probably going to recognize that name but he was called barbar Roa on account of his red beard and he would participate in the Second Crusade before he became emperor and would acrew a wealth of military

Experience at a young age after his coronation as Emperor though he was going to be challenged over and over and over again his rule was not exactly going to be a stable and safe one even if he was incredibly powerful remember what I said is that in order for an

Emperor to be powerful they had to be able to exert as much force as possible to control all the minor little upstarts within the Empire and he was challenged by all of these varying mertile republics in Italy that were continuously trying to assert their own economic freedom and Authority he would

Lead over six military Expeditions against his Italian subjects and ultimately he would make so many enemies that several cities would end up allying against him with the Pope with also Sicily and even the Byzantine Empire Barbaro was beaten from this and he would return North very bitter over it determined for

Revenge he prepared another Expedition but then events in the Middle East would take precedent the armies of Saladin the Muslim Sultan of Egypt and the uh and of Syria he had conquered Jerusalem and Barbarosa would after this go and join the Third Crusade intent on reconquering the holy

City this was not going to end up happening though because having progressed quite far on his way to the Target he crossed a river and died like that’s just it he crossed a river and drowned in current day Turkey we don’t exactly know how whether that was him

Falling off of it while in armor and drowning or being sick or we we don’t know but either way he crossed a river in current day turkey and he drowned and that was the end of him his grandson though Frederick II that was going to be the ruler that many people attribute as

To being the greatest Holy Roman Emperor in history he would make such an incredible impression on his contemporaries that they called him super Mundi meaning the wonder of the world you have to understand when we are talking about an individual for how incredibly impressive they are that this

Guy was he was up there he spoke six different languages he was a massive proponent of poetry of philosophy and literature he was incredibly tolerant and welcoming of Muslim and Jewish Scholars at his court in poo Sicily and this religious tolerance combined with his Limitless territorial Ambitions well

Um considering the authority of the Pope and how that was in constant flux that was going to bring him into an almost constant state of conflict with him yeah Frederick was excommunicated three different times and Pope Innocent IV would even call this guy and I kid you not he called him the

Antichrist like that is uh that is a very Hefty title to be lopped on You by the pope but nevertheless Frederick would see himself as not the Antichrist not anyone who is actually against Christianity in fact he saw himself as a paragon of Christian values and from

There would sail to the Holy Land and join with the sixth Crusade but what’s interesting to note about this and if you remember the episode that we did on the Crusades is that contrary to the aggressive characteristic of previous Crusades considering that they were a literal holy war the emperor of the hre

Did not attack the Muslim World instead he negotiated he would negotiate with the sultan Al camil and would regain control of Jerusalem from this so where the Third Crusade had failed militarily the sixth Crusade would actually succeed with diplomacy but as incredible as he was as diplomatically as militarily as amazing

In everything as he was Frederick couldn’t outlive death that was something that eventually was going to take him and when he died the stoffer era would effectively come to an end in 1250 as challenges would come to the four with increasing intensity as the varying States within the Empire would

Be able to assert their own independence or I say independence might be a little bit too strong of a word more like autonomy the the Italian republics as well as the northern cities would unite in the htic league and they would jump into the power vacuum that Frederick’s

Death had created and enlarge their own political and economic autonomy inside of the Empire feudal Lords would squabble over Imperial succession but none managed to subjugate the others entirely a new emperor with any real Authority was only crowned in 1312 that being over 60 years after the

End of the stalford Dynasty and this period is something that would become known as the interregnum meaning between Kings now I’m I’m going to need to go ahead and explain that a little bit because that is not saying that there was not an emperor during this time

Period many people think that this means oh there was no actual ruler but that’s not true the great interregnum as we’re talking about was the period of time following the death of Frederick II in which the succession of the hre was highly contested over and it was fought

But between Pro and anti- hoen Sten factions see starting around 1250 with the death of Frederick II this is something that would effectively Mark the end of central Authority and would accelerate the Empire’s collapse into independent princely territories the thing that we think of as the stereotypical hre this period would see

A multitude of Emperors being raised to the throne and Kings being elected or propped up by rival factions and princes With Many Kings and Emperors having short Reigns or Reigns that became heavily contested because they weren’t the only person that was in charge there was no real Central Rule and everything

Began to rapidly break down as Central Authority decreased after the stal for Emperors this decentralization process would kick in and transfer power from the ancient feudal aristocracy to the later medieval and early modern Burger class the individuals who would populate the cities and this is a really interesting thing to note because since

Money was being reinjected into the economic system and all these burgers were rising up in power possession of land that wasn’t the key thing that determined your power within Society anymore it was being overshadowed by essentially having a big fat purse now considering the decrease of power of the

Aristocrats that shift in power didn’t mean that the empire was becoming more democratic no absolutely not the Imperial College whose members elected the emperor they were still considered you know feudal Lords that’s that’s who was in charge the ecclesiastical members were the archbishops of mains of Trier and cologne the secular electors were

The Dukes of the four nations the primary ones within Germany you had Franconia swabia Saxony and Bavaria and after the stalford dynasty Franconia swabia and Bavaria would be replaced by the king of bohemia the count of palentine and the margrave of Brandenburg these and other Aristocrats would continued to wield great power

During the late medieval phase of the Holy Roman Empire but even as they still maintained their Authority the cities were going to accumulate more and more wealth and the burgers would manage to press for more concessions from their feudal Lords gradually Paving the way for the Modern urban Society to develop

Within the country but I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself in here I’m talking about economic develops like economic developments now within the Empire where do the hapsburgs come into all this this is the thing that I wanted to talk about in the first place well

This is where they come into play or at least where it is that they start to actually achieve power in the first place because if we’re going back in history right if we’re going to be talking about the hapsburgs and their terrible terrible chins their origin is a little bit

Uncertain I say that because historians still debate the exact origin of them it is commonly agreed that the dynasty was born from the ekid Frankish Noble family this being something that would later support queen brunilda of austrasia against nest’s marenian Kings which it’s a whole other thing to get into in the

First place but following the Queen’s defeat back in the year 613 and the unification of all of the Franks under the rule of dagobert the first during the early 630s the ekids would rise to prominence and from this obtain the duy of alsal as in like alel Lorraine like

Later on they would be divided into various branches including the Ard branch that would rule the possessions in elal and bral which is modern-day Germany and France and radbot the count of cleto well he was one of the members of the Ard ekid Branch he ruled a small

Territory in swabia in the modern state of baten venberg which is near the Swiss border by the year 1020 radbot had built the Habsburg Castle in Aral which is in modern-day Switzerland and you catching the name from this the hsur castle he would take his name then

From that castle and it’s from that point on that we actually have records of the House of hsur in historical writings it’s okay the hapsburg castle would serve as the seat of the family for the next three centuries and from there they would establish close ties

With the henen Dukes of swabia and they would be one of the key points that would help the hen rise to power in the Holy Roman Empire to the Imperial throne in the first place in 1137 this was going to be a crucial point for them because the hsb’s

Unwavering support of the new Imperial Dynasty allowed them to gain a lot of different favors the death of count Warner II during the Italian Wars of Emperor Frederick Barbarosa in 1167 that allowed them to be rewarded with major land donations in swabia and so by the 13th century the habsburg’s

Domain enveloped a territory spreading from the vosis mountains in modern France all the way to Lake constants in Switzerland the last emperor of the hon stoffen Dynasty Frederick II when he died in 1250 that is where things really begin to change for them though because

As we talked about just now the era of instability called the Great internum would follow this and the varying different German princes and foreign Kings would fight in order to try and take control of the throne when this happened the main belligerant that were trying to take things over within the

Country were Richard of Cornwall who is actually the son of the English king John Lackland and Alfonso the 10th of Castile despite their very strong titles the German princes didn’t want a foreign ruler on the throne and so they instead elected Rudolph Von hapsburg in 1273 the Habsburg staunch commitment to

Protecting German lands from foreign influence well that was going to be a major factor in Rudolph rising to the throne and then maintaining power but that didn’t happen at first and I know that a number of you are going to be confused at first because you’re

Going to think okay wait hold on the habsburgs have achieved power they’ve done it they’re the emperor well no not exactly see Rudolph did not gain the title of Emperor because in order to become the Holy Roman Emperor one has to First be validated by the pope and so

For a while he was just King of the Romans that that’s all that that was which is still an impressive title but it’s not Holy Roman Emperor and so it was then that he immediately started to conquer land that had been lost to neighboring non-german realm such as

Bohemia and by 1286 he had managed to firmly secure the duchies of Austria of stria and savinia under hapsburg control he would ultimately die in 1291 which would leave a strong Legacy for his descendants but he hadn’t achieved everything that he needed and while Rudolph’s son Albert the would manage to

Keep the Roman kingship after defeating his rival Adolf of nasal in the Battle of golim in 1298 his son Frederick the fair was not successful at all he ended up losing the Imperial Crown to Louie of wbach and by 1330 the hapsburgs had failed to keep the Roman crown and were

On the verge of losing almost the entirety of their possessions in neighboring principalities like it was about to be over for them the hapsburgs could have been extinguished right here hell even by the year 1415 the hapsburg castle that they got their name from in the first place that itself was

Lost but despite the major setbacks that were experienced in the 14th and 15th century the hapsburgs still would manage to succeed in spreading their influence over the course of Austria and istria in 1379 the multitude of family members that they had would lead to a split of

The dynasty into the albertini and the leopoldi and lines while the former would have control of lower and upper Austria the latter would rule inner Austria as well as stria Corinthia and Kola in the early 15th century Duke Albert I of the alberian line would manage to gain control of bohemia

Hungary and Luxembourg however his death in the wars against the Ottomans which is something that I would need to talk about here later because the Battle of Arna is something that’s massive but that death would cause hapsburg rule to break over Central Europe at least in

The meantime and at the same time that that happened though the apolon line they would manage to split even further despite all that happening count Frederick would be elected to the Roman throne in 1440 and in 1452 he would be crowned as Emperor by the Pope in Rome

This gesture actually gave the hapsburgs legitimacy in order to allow them to rule over the Holy Roman Empire and from this they would rule for the next several centuries never again were they going to lose the power that they had before so while in the ecclesiastical Capital Frederick III would go and marry

Eleanor of Portugal building the first familial link with the Iberian Kingdoms in 1453 the emperor would give the title of arch dukee of Austria to his family and following the death of ltis loss of the alberian line Frederick would inherit the lands of the alberian hapsburgs which would reunify the great

House and give them a massive boost and Authority fast forward a little bit of time and in 1475 Frederick III would coers Charles the Bold of burgundy into marrying his daughter Mary to his Heir maximilan this being something that would give him rights on The Burgundian succession and gain direct control over

The low countries which for anyone who doesn’t recognize that we’re talking about the Netherlands following the death of Mary in 1482 maximilan and his father would attempt to gain control over burgundy itself they were then challenged by Charles VII of France which from this would start a multitude of bloody

Conflicts between the hapsburgs and Paris and that rivalry is something that would go on for literally centuries but anyway moving on to maxilon so Maximillian the first would rise to the Imperial throne in 1493 and as soon as he got elected the new emperor was then involved in the Italian

Wars which was a giant mess in of itself see the context of this is that following the Hundred Years War against England the valan kings of France had undertaken major efforts to centralize the country under their sole rulership control in comparison to the broken feudal state that France had been to a

Long time which is something that pissed off a lot of local Nobles and with the death of King Louis VI 11 in 1481 all power was Consolidated in the hands of the monarchy his son Charles VII even looked to expand France’s influence abroad and specifically from this

Getting involved in Italy so in invoking a dynastic claim on Naples Charles VII would take Milan in 1493 before eventually occupying most of Italy by the year 1495 from that he prevented the formal approval of the Imperial title of maximilan by the pope and from that would drastically curve habsburg’s

Influence in the region because think about this you can’t be wholly Roman Emperor if you don’t have authority over Rome that was something that simply could not happen which is something that is going to greatly weaken his control despite this temporary setback Maximillian would receive a major matrimonial Union with castill by

Marrying his son Phillip to the Future Queen Joanna in 1497 which is the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand like the individuals that would create Spain thanks to a military alliance with the Pope the hapsburgs then managed to regain control and influence of Italy in 1508 which is all well and good but the

Hapsburgs had not managed to achieve their I mean I guess depending upon how we would say this greatest Conquest yet I mean arguably from taking control of Spain for what eventually would happen that was going to be significantly better but when we think about the hre and specifically Austria you think about

Austria Hungary and what would happen here is that the emperor would set the path for hapsburg rule over Hungary by marrying his grandchildren Mary and Ferdinand to Louie the heir of the Hungarian throne and his sister Anna in 1515 so Maximillian the 1 would die on

The 12th of January 1519 and at the time of his passing the hapsburgs had several ties to other reigning dynasties his grandson Charles would be elected as Monarch of the Holy Roman Empire and become then one of the most influential figures in all of European history that’s something that if you remember

That episode that we did back when we were doing the uh book club and we were going into talking about the early 16th century Charles was one of the key figures in that and my God is in an entertaining story so if you haven’t heard that definitely go back and listen

To that epis episode but either way following the death of his father in 1506 Charles had become lord of the Netherlands and in 1516 he would inherit the Thrones of Castile and Aragon after the passing of his mother the union of both Realms would then solidify under

His Reign and they would then form the kingdom of Spain and by inheriting the crown of Aragon Charles had also gained rights to various Italian kingdoms such as Naples Sicily sard Etc and considering what we’ve been talking about here with France that was naturally going to set him on a

Collision course as Francis the first de Vala would set claims on some of the things that we just mentioned like specifically Naples in addition the French King would challenge the hapsburgs rule of the Netherlands as that was right on their border and they didn’t particularly like that the

Germans were involved in that territory following the death of Emperor Maximillion Charles would be elected to the throne of the Holy Empire in 1519 becoming Charles I and by the beginning of the 1520s he was the ruler of Austria the major German principalities southern Italy Central Europe the Netherlands and

Spain easily during this time period even as powerful as he was one of the biggest challenges that he would end up facing during it was the emergence of protestantism and the Christian Schism that would follow the emperor invested massive amounts of time energy money and blood to try and stop the reformation

And while that was successful in Spain and some parts of Southern Germany he unfortunately had to accept the existence of protestant principalities in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire in the Netherlands it’s just there was no getting rid of it in addition to the Protestants Charles had to continuously

Face France over this time as he surrounded French possessions effectively in 1521 France is the first would initiate a conflict in Northern Italy which concluded with the Battle of Pavia in 1525 winning a decisive Victory hsur forces not only managed to defeat the French but also from this imprisoned

Their King neutralizing one of the many threats to his rule by 1530 the hapsburgs would rule over Austria southern Italy Spain and the Netherlands and was completely unchallenged no power was able to contest Charles I F’s dominion over the entirety of the Catholic world until 300 years later Napoleon would

Come along and absolutely ruin all of it but you know when I’m saying that my friends that is not something that I’m necessarily covering here in this I’m sure that at some point I’m probably going to talk about Napoleon on the main podcast but and I’m not I’m not saying

This I know at the end I’m not saying this try and get you all to go and subscribe to patreon but if you’ve uh if you heard the previous episode that we did which was the first episode of that multi-part series that we are doing on the French Revolution yeah that whole

Thing is going to end in Napoleon so if you want to hear that make sure to go and subscribe to patreon because for only a dollar a month you get bonus episodes as well as ad free episodes so you don’t have to deal with any of this

But that is where all that story is going to be going that is where I’m going to be talking about Napoleon on patreon thank you all for listening I hope from this you all were able to learn a little bit about the hapsburgs and how it is they took control of

Everything here in Europe and eventually we’re going to be talking about their downfall elsewhere though I’m sure that at some point I’m going to be talking about other aspects of that here on you know the main podcast and YouTube my friends thank you very much for

Listening I appreciate all of you I hope you have a good rest of your day and I will see you next time goodbye my friends and thank you