Henry the Cruel of Austria

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Heinrich of Austria (Babenberger) , called "the cruel" or "the godless" (* 1208 ; † November 29, 1227/1228) was the (hereditary) duke of Austria. He rebelled against his father, Duke Leopold VI. "the glorious" of Austria and Styria , however, had to submit to it and died before his father.

origin

Heinrich came from the house of the margraves and dukes of Austria , who had ruled the Marcha Orientalis , the Ottonian Mark on the Danube, also called Bavarian Ostmark, and later ruled the duchies of Austria and Styria since 976 . A connection with the Bavarian Luitpolders is likely, but not documented. The family is known under the name " Babenberger ", a designation that - like the " Konradiner " only became common after the family died out, was never used as a family name.

Heinrich was the second son of Duke Leopold VI. “The glorious” of Austria and Styria and his wife, Theodora Angelina , daughter (according to other sources also niece or granddaughter) of the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos .

He was the older brother of Friedrich II. “The arrogant” , Duke of Austria and Styria, who died in 1246 as the last of his house.

Life

Like his father, Heinrich was probably destined for a spiritual career as a younger son, but like the latter became heir to the throne through the death of his older brother Leopold, who died in 1216 at the age of nine by falling from a tree. Among other things, Heinrich appears as a witness or co-sealer in several documents of his father in the years 1224 and 1227 and as a witness of a document issued in Donauwörth in 1227 by his brother-in-law, Heinrich (VII.) , Von Hohenstaufen , the Roman king and king of Sicily on, the husband of his sister Margaret of Austria , who was 1227–1235 Roman Queen, 1246 Duchess of Austria and 1253–1260 Queen of Bohemia).

His first role was passive, as an object of his father's family policy. Duke Leopold VI., At that time was increasingly focused on Central Germany. One reason for this may be that it enabled him to pinch the King of Bohemia, Ottokar I Přemysl , with whom there was constant tension. Eventually he married four of his children - three daughters and Heinrich as well - with partners from this region. A consequence of his father's marriage policy, which was not very encouraging for Heinrich, was connected with their most spectacular success: the marriage of his sister Margarete to the Roman King Henry VII , the elected successor of Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire , called “Stupor mundi” - “that Amazement of the world ”. This is because - in a not entirely explainable way - he was forced to forego his bride's dowry because of this marriage. That this was done to finance his sister's sumptuous wedding and trousseau is pure speculation, but cannot be completely dismissed. His marriage finally took place as a “double wedding” together with the “royal” wedding of his sister in the free imperial city of Nuremberg . Despite great splendor and numerous high-ranking guests, the festival was overshadowed by unusual incidents. The Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne , Count von Berg, appointed by Emperor Friedrich II. As imperial administrator , was killed by his nephew, Count Friedrich von Isenberg , shortly before the wedding in Gevelsberg . As a result, there were armed disputes at the festival over responsibility for this murder. Not enough with that, a staircase in the castle collapsed, killing several guests.

Heinrich played his most important - albeit inglorious - role in connection with the long-simmering conflict between Austria and Bohemia. The occasion was connected with the marriage of his sister Margaret to King Henry VII. For strategic reasons, King Heinrich was betrothed to Agnes of Bohemia (* 1211; † 1282), Princess of Bohemia, a daughter of King Ottokar I Přemysl of Bohemia. The bride was therefore brought by King Ottokar to the court of Duke Leopold VI. sent to familiarize her with the German language in Vienna and to prepare her for her future role as Roman queen and later empress. However, in 1225, Emperor Friedrich II surprisingly decided that King Heinrich should not marry Agnes of Bohemia, but Margaret of Austria, a daughter of Leopold VI. Leopold VI. was probably very honored, but in the uncomfortable position of having to send back to the King of Bohemia the daughter spurned by Emperor Friedrich II. King Ottokar I, who probably suspected an intrigue by Duke Leopold, was outraged. However, he sought and soon found an opportunity to take revenge for this disgrace. After Leopold left for Italy in 1226, he invaded Austria with troops and devastated the country north of the Danube. He was supported by an unexpected source, namely by the Austrian Hereditary Duke Heinrich, who rose against his father. Possible motives would be his anger that his wife's dowry was sacrificed to the imperial marriage project, the fear that he, as the firstborn, could be disadvantaged by a renewed division of the hereditary lands in favor of his younger brother Friedrich, or simply the desire to remove the government for a few years to be able to take over earlier.

The success of this joint action was very limited, as the leading Austrian and Styrian ministerials Heinrich refused to follow. The country marshal of Austria, Heinrich von Kuenring, opposed the Bohemian invasion and drove the Bohemian soldiers out of the country. Heinrich himself achieved only a modest success: he was able to drive his mother out of her residence, the castle of Hainburg . However, after his father's return, he was ultimately unable to resist his father's military presence and had to submit. The tensions with regard to Bohemia and within the family remained, although father and son appeared together again on the farm day in Donauwörth in 1227 . While many Austrian and Bohemian sources are silent about the fighting with the Bohemians, the Cont. Santacruc. I, MGH SS IX, 626 and the Annales S. Ruperti Salisb., MGH SS IX, 783 on the uprising of Heinrich and the expulsion of his mother.

Heinrich died soon afterwards during a trip together with his father in Swabia in 1227/1228. The rebellion against the father, the cooperation with the enemy Bohemian troops that devastated the country, and the expulsion of his mother were unforgettable. When, two and a half centuries later, the famous humanist Ladislaus von Sunthaym wrote a genealogy of the Babenbergs on behalf of the abbot of Klosterneuburg in 1489 and gave them decorative epithets, he only found the name "Heinrich the Cruel" or "Heinrich the wicked" for Duke Heinrich appropriate.

Heinrich is also reminiscent of his gravestone, which is located in the Heiligenkreuz Abbey in Lower Austria and which, after Karl Lechner, is "the most important late Romanesque gravestone in the area of ​​Babenberg rule". This is because the figure is stylistically advanced, appears naturally moved and already shows Gothic features.

Marriage and offspring

Heinrich married Agnes Landgravine of Thuringia in Nuremberg on November 29, 1225 (* 1205; † v. 1247). She was a daughter of Hermann I Landgrave of Thuringia , since 1181 Count Palatine of Saxony. This was z. T. in France, at the court of King Ludwig VII. , And took in 1197 in the entourage of King Henry VI. in a (unsuccessful) crusade . He brought French poetry to his residence, the Wartburg , and was a great patron of contemporary poets and singers. In 1206 the Singers' War allegedly took place at the Wartburg . He died in Gotha on April 25, 1217.

Agnes grew up at her father's poet's court on the Wartburg, where Wolfram von Eschenbach , Heinrich von Veldeke and Walther von der Vogelweide, the most famous minstrels of their time, used to hang out. In Vienna, at the court of her father-in-law Leopold VI., She found a similarly famous center of minnesong and may well have contributed to its development.

Instead of a dowry, she brought the spiritual prestige of her relatives to Vienna, which was very important at the time, as she was a sister of Ludwig IV "the saint ", Landgrave of Thuringia and thus sister-in-law of Elisabeth of Thuringia , who was canonized in 1235 and a daughter of King Andreas II . of Hungary , was.

Widowed at an early age, she married the widower of her sister-in-law Agnes of Austria, Duke Albrecht I of Saxony , elector and arch marshal of the Holy Roman Empire , who died in 1261. The marriage resulted in two daughters.

Only one daughter comes from Heinrich's marriage with Agnes von Thuringia:

It was important for two reasons in particular:

Through their refusal to marry the banned - and much older - Emperor Friedrich II. Because in 1245 she brought down the kingdom plan of her uncle, Duke Frederick the Arguable, who had hoped that his duchies and lands would be elevated to a kingdom by Frederick II.

At the same time, after the death of her uncle in 1246, she was the second heir to her house alongside her aunt Margarete of Austria and thus a sought-after marriage candidate for princes with dynastic ambitions in the duchies of Austria and Styria. She was married three times:

⚭ 1.) April 1, 1246 Vladislav III. Prince of Bohemia, Margrave of Moravia , 1246 Duke of Austria, Duke of Silesia in Opole (* v. 1233 - † January 3, 1247)
⚭ 2.) 1248 Hermann VI. Margrave of Baden († October 4, 1250)
⚭ 3.) 1252 Roman Prince von Halitsch , Slonim u. Novogródek , Duke of Austria in 1251/52, divorced in 1253 († c. 1260).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Detlev Schwennike: European Family Tables New Series. Volume I.1.
  2. ^ Andreas Thiele: Narrative genealogical family tables on European history. Volume I, Part 1.
  3. ↑ Lexicon of the Middle Ages. Volume V, p. 1900.
  4. ^ Karl Lechner: Die Babenberger, Margraves and Dukes of Austria 976-1246 , p. 377, note 111
  5. ^ Karl Lechner: Die Babenberger, Margraves and Dukes of Austria 976 - 1246 , p. 377, note 111
  6. ^ Karl Lechner: Die Babenberger: Margraves and Dukes of Austria 976-1246 , p. 271

literature

personal data
SURNAME Henry the Cruel of Austria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heinrich Duke of Austria; Henry the wicked
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duke of Austria and Styria
DATE OF BIRTH 1208
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1227 or November 29, 1228