The exercise of emperorship in the late medieval German lands: monarchical authority, conflict management, and the common weal, 1452-1477

Thesis

This thesis examines the exercise of emperorship in the German-speaking lands of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Friedrich III of Habsburg (r. 1440-93). It seeks to demonstrate the capacity of the emperor to discharge ‘public’ authority. Public authority is understood in this thesis as exhibiting three main characteristics: the provision of accessible governmental services, affiliation with prerogatives derived from Roman law, and responsibility for the common weal. This conception of emperorship is contrasted with a scholarship which portrays the emperor as exercising his rule in a purely interpersonal manner which was motivated by ‘private’, dynastic objectives, and thus considers the government of the Empire to have taken on state-like characteristics only after constitutional and institutional changes inaugurated at the imperial diet of Worms in 1495. The discharge of emperorship by Friedrich III in both peace and war is analysed in detail over a twenty-five-year period, beginning with his 1452 coronation as emperor and bookended by the onset of Habsburg rule in the Burgundian Low Countries in 1477. The analysis is divided into two sections which cover distinct phases characterised by different geographical and thematic foci. The first section (ch. 2) covers the period 1452-67. It investigates the monarchy’s role in discussions about peace in the context of attempts at governmental reform and the South German Princes’ War (1460-3). The second section (ch. 3) examines competing conceptions of obedience in relation to Friedrich III’s response to the initiatives of the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold (r. 1467-77) and the defence of the Reich during the decade 1467-77. The thesis concludes by highlighting the contrast between the interpersonal motivations and allegiances of the German princes and the public power of the emperor and arguing that presenting a credible claim to the common weal was crucial to Friedrich III’s accomplishments.

Authors: Schlag, R

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-5zmxk1wpe
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Imperial diet; Frederick III; conflict management; late medieval Germany; Holy Roman Empire; Valois Burgundy; medieval monarchy; Habsburg monarchy; political history; political culture; medieval history; public power; Charles the Bold; good governance
• Subjects: Burgundy (France)--History--House of Valois, 1363-1477; Netherlands--History--House of Habsburg, 1477-1556; Monarchy--History; History; Habsburg, House of; Landfriede; Germany--History--Frederick III, 1440-1493; Holy Roman Empire--Politics and government