Albrecht II (HRR)

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Albrecht II.
Albrecht II of Habsburg; anonymous painting from the 16th century

The Habsburg Albrecht ( Albert in Hungarian , Albendet in Croatian ; born August 16, 1397 in Vienna ; † October 27, 1439 in Neszmély near Esztergom ) was from 1404, as Albrecht V , Duke of Austria and from 1438 as Albrecht II. Roman-German King and King of Hungary , Croatia and Bohemia . Albrecht supported the Roman-German Emperor and Bohemian King Sigismund , whose daughter Elisabeth of Luxembourg he had married, in his fight against the Hussites and, after his death, took over his four royal crowns. The Roman-German royal dignity was to remain with the Habsburgs until the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, with only a few years of interruption.

Life

Albrecht was the son of Duke Albrecht IV of Austria († 1404) and Duchess Johanna Sophie of Bavaria-Straubing .

While he was a minor, his three great uncles, first Wilhelm der Kindige (until 1406), then Duke Leopold the Fat and finally Ernst der Eiserne of Styria, administered his hereditary lands amid constant disputes. It was only the sudden death of Leopold that made it possible for him to take office in 1411. His tutors were Berthold von Wehingen , who later became Prince- Bishop of Freising , and Reinprecht (II.) Von Walsee .

On March 17, 1420, a papal bull ordered the crusade against the heretical Hussites in Bohemia. In June, Albrecht's troops united with the troops of the German King Sigismund at Beraun . On September 28, 1421, Sigismund came to an agreement with Albrecht in Preßburg about the conditions under which he should receive his underage daughter, Princess Elisabeth, as a wife. For the enfeoffment with Moravia , which was given to the Duke on October 4, 1423, Albrecht V had to face the burden of the Hussite War almost alone .

Albrecht tried to counter the spread of the heretical Hussites not only by military means but also through the church-loyal Melk monastery reform . He also had Jews and heretics persecuted with fanatical hatred. The large-scale expulsion and murder of the Viennese Jews in 1420/1421 and the razing of the Or-Sarua Synagogue on Judenplatz were not least due to his initiative.

Albrecht opened the campaign of 1423 with the siege of Lundenburg . The Bohemians under Jan Žižka and Prokop Holy came to relief. Albrecht had to lift the siege and withdrew to Pressburg via Marchegg . He reinforced himself with Hungarian troops and, in return, inflicted a significant defeat on the Hussites at Kremsier . In 1424 Albrecht conquered all opposing places in Moravia, then the enemy under Žižka ordered him to stop at Pribislav . Žižka died while peace negotiations were in progress, and the Taborite army that had split off invaded Austria under Prokop the Bald .

Albrecht continued to support his father-in-law in his fight against the Hussites, a circumstance that drew the Austrian states deeper and deeper into the dispute. On July 25, 1425, King Sigismund of Hungary and Albrecht zu Waitzen concluded a mutual support alliance with the Margrave Friedrich von Meißen , who was elected as an elector of Saxony for this.

Meanwhile, the Bohemians invaded Moravia under their new leader Prokop the Great and conquered Trebitsch , on November 12th they destroyed the monastery of Klosterbruck near Znaim. Especially the areas north of the Danube were ravaged by marauding combat units between November 1425 and 1431/1432. In March 1427 the opponents devastated the town and monastery of Zwettl , and in the following year they besieged Brno , which, however, was able to defend itself successfully.

While the royal troops were badly defeated by the Hussites in the Battle of Taus in 1431, Albrecht's troops were able to repel an enemy army near Waidhofen an der Thaya in October 1431 . Nevertheless, Albrecht was now forced to take a somewhat more moderate course.

King Sigismund increasingly designated Albrecht II as the successor to his Luxembourg power. After the initiation of peace negotiations in 1433, the incursions of the Hussites subsided and the Moravian border region came to rest. The destruction of the main army of the Hussites near Lipan by allied troops paved the way for compensation in 1434.

After the already seriously ill Emperor Sigismund died while meeting Albrecht in Znojmo , the Hungarian estates elected the Duke on December 18, 1437 as his successor. In Bohemia, the pro-Austrian side, led by Ulrich II von Rosenberg and Meinhard von Neuhaus, proposed Albrecht as king on December 30, 1437, but had a strong opposition. On January 1, 1438, Albrecht was initially only crowned King of Hungary in Stuhlweissenburg .

After Albrecht was also elected Roman-German King in Frankfurt am Main on March 18, 1438 , the Hussites and their Polish allies tried by all means to prevent his additional uprising in Bohemia. Albrecht then penetrated Prague with an armed retinue and was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral on June 29, 1438 . However, he could not take possession of the land permanently and had to withdraw again.

As the German king, he convened a Reichstag and joined the electoral neutrality in the dispute between the Pope and the Basel Council . He did not develop any major political activity, since he moved to Hungary against the Turks as early as 1439 . There he encountered considerable resistance from the local nobility against his attempts to assert his royal power, as well as disputes between German settlers and Hungarian residents. These unrest prevented him from strengthening his army with local forces. Not least because of this, Serbia fell to the Turks.

During the campaign, Albrecht II died in Neszmély (Langendorf), presumably of dysentery , from which he had been ill for a long time, and was buried in Stuhlweissenburg ( Székesfehérvár ). His son Ladislaus was only born after his death by Elisabeth, therefore he was given the name Postumus (the later born).

His motto was: Amicus optima vitae possessio (“A friend is the best possession in life”).

Marriage and offspring

On September 28, 1421 he married Princess Elisabeth of Luxembourg (* around 1409, † 1442), the daughter of Emperor Sigismund and his wife Countess Barbara von Cilli in Prague . The couple had four children:

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Franz Theuer : Der Raub der Stephanskrone , Edition Roetzer, Eisenstadt 1994, p. 51 f.
  2. ^ Franz Theuer: Der Raub der Stephanskrone , Eisenstadt 1994, p. 55.

Web links

Wikisource: Report on the election of Albrecht II.  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Albrecht II.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Albrecht IV. Duke of Austria
1404–1439
Regents: Wilhelm (1404–1406), Leopold IV. (1406–1411), Ernst I (1406–1411) 		Ladislaus Postumus
Regent: Friedrich III. (1440-1452)
Sigismund King of Bohemia
1438–1439 		Ladislaus Postumus
Sigismund King of Hungary and Croatia
1437–1439 		Ladislaus Postumus or Vladislav I.
Sigismund Roman-German king
1438–1439 		Friedrich III.
personal data
SURNAME Albrecht II.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Albrecht II of Habsburg; Albrecht V of Austria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman-German King, King of Hungary and Bohemia, Duke of Austria
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1397
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1439
Place of death Neszmély