Marriage policy of the Habsburgs

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Wedding of Archduke Karl and Zita von Bourbon-Parma at Schwarzau Castle, in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph I (left) October 1911

The marriage policy of the Habsburgs describes the practice and tradition of this noble house , since the end of the Middle Ages, repeatedly and extremely successfully expanding their own sphere of rule through marriage, which goes beyond the general importance of dynastic politics in the pre-modern era and under the motto Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube became the Habsburg “master story”.

Identity-creating motto

Since the Baroque period, this approach has been characterized by and linked to the aforementioned motto, a distich that goes completely as follows:

Bélla geránt aliī, tu félix Áustria nūbe.
Nám quae Márs aliīs, dát tibi díva Venús. 		May others wage wars, you, happy Austria, get married.
Because what Mars gives to others, the divine Venus gives you .

The motto goes back to the first line of a distich from Ovids Heroides (13.82). There it says in hexameter verse:

Bella gerant alii, Protesilaos amet. Others may wage wars, Protesilaos should love.

In the run-up to the Trojan War , an oracle prophesied the death of the Greek who would be the first to step on Trojan soil. The hero Protesilaos was killed at the hands of Hector after he left for Troy after his wedding with Laodameia . Despite his death, the gods granted him a return to his wife, whom he was allowed to love for a few hours. Out of love, Laodameia followed her husband to death.

A parallel to this, possibly the oldest model, can be found in the Iliad (5.428 f), when Zeus consoles Aphrodite with the words:

οὔ τοι, τέκνον ἐμόν, δέδοται πολεμήια ἔργα,
ἀλλὰ σύ γ 'ἱμερόεντα μετέρχεο ἔργα γάμοιο! 		The warlike deeds are not given to you, my child,
no, but you go out on works of love and marriage!

" ... tu felix Austria, nube! “Can be understood in different ways. On the one hand, the phrase expresses the fate of the Habsburgs to achieve expansion of rule through favorable marriages. On the other hand, it can be understood as a mockery of the inability to be successful through war and diplomacy. Therefore, the authorship of the saying was on the one hand in a negative sense the opponent of the Habsburg emperor Friedrich III. , ascribed to the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus , on the other hand, in a positive sense, to the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I himself. It is now certain that both of the rumored authorship are later attributions; the motto can be found in the sources for the first time in the 17th century.

Examples of marriage policy

Friedrich III., Burgundy and Bavaria

Despite his long reign, Friedrich III. as a war-shy and politically rather weak emperor. With Charles the Bold he negotiated the marriage between his son Maximilian, who later became Emperor Maximilian I , and Maria of Burgundy . This connection from 1477 made the Netherlands, one of the urbanized centers of modernization in Europe, a center of the Habsburg Empire. The House of Austria rose to become a major European power. The acquisition of territory should also strengthen the empire against the growing power of the French crown.

The marriage of Frederick III's daughter, Kunigunde of Austria , and Duke Albrecht of Bavaria , in turn, served to avoid war. Albrecht had illegally appropriated imperial fiefs and held on with the proviso to Kunigundes hand that Friedrich III. Kunigunde give this imperial fief as a dowry with the marriage. In order to avoid a war, Friedrich III voted. this proposal too.

Maximilian I and Spain

Bernhard Strigel : Emperor Maximilian and his family . Maximilian I had a decisive influence on the marriage policy of his dynasty.

The policy of Emperor Maximilian I, son of Frederick III, is paradigmatic for the view of understanding marriages as a special skill of the Habsburgs. The marriage with Maria von Burgund had two children: Philip the Fair and Margaret of Austria . Thanks to the anti-French alliance with Spain, the double wedding between Philip and Johanna of Spain and between Margaret and Johann of Spain was arranged. This double wedding was intended to serve as a close alliance against France for both powers. Through a chain of deaths of all heirs to the throne, the inheritance of the Spanish kings after the death of Ferdinand II of Aragon fell to Johannas and Philip's son Charles V , who later became emperor. As a result, the House of Austria rose to become a European hegemonic power. At the same time, his politics of marriage and alliances sparked the conflict between the Habsburgs and France that had lasted for over 200 years .

Ferdinand I. (HRR) and Hungary / Bohemia

With the double wedding of 1515, the Habsburgs gained access to Bohemia and Hungary in the further course of history .

Daughters of Ferdinand I and Italy

Marriage policy during the Renaissance was also aimed at territorial expansion, as the weddings of the three daughters of Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564) and the Jagiellonian Princess Anna (1503–1547) show. At that time, Upper Italy with its rich cities had a special political, economic and cultural significance. Archduchess Eleonore had to marry Guglielmo Gonzaga, who suffered from a curvature of the spine, in 1534, but the marriage was considered to be relatively happy at the time. Her sister Archduchess Barbara had to marry Alfonso II. D'Este, but the marriage remained childless and Barbara died of tuberculosis at the age of 33. The third sister Archduchess Johanna was married to Francesco de Medici, who, however, kept the affair with his mistress Bianca Cappello upright. After Johanna's death, he married Bianca as the second wife. The Kunsthistorisches Museum was based on the example of this Italian Wedding in autumn 2010, an exhibition at the Castle Ambras on the marriage policy of the Habsburgs.

Maria Theresa, Italy and France

Queen Marie Antoinette and Her Children (Portrait of Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun )

Even Maria Theresa tried to circumvent the political influence of foreign or distant courts of their children by favorable marriages. The marriages were intended to create alliances for the Habsburg hereditary lands with other dynasties in support of Frederick II's Prussia . Two examples are selected here.

Maria Theresa's daughter Maria Karolina was married to King Ferdinand I of Naples and Sicily in 1768 . Through the connection with the Bourbons, Maria Theresa not only hoped to gain power for the House of Austria, but also better communication between the two dynasties. At that time, the House of Bourbons ruled France, Spain, Naples-Sicily and Parma. Maria Theresa assigned her daughters the role of ruler's wife, which included representation, entertainment and restraint. Maria Karolina only partially performed these duties. As far as possible she was politically active and promoted the independence of Naples-Sicily, which was very dependent on Spain. The correspondence between her and Maria Karolina shows Maria Theresa's dissatisfaction with her daughter's behavior, which did not correspond to Maria Theresa's plans.

Marie Antoinette developed similarly at the French court. In 1770 the youngest daughter of Maria Theresa was fourteen years old with the French Dauphin, later Louis XVI. , married. The intention was to influence the French politics of King Louis XV. and later on the Louis XVI. to take and to receive assistance against the archenemy from Prussia. The correspondence between mother and daughter also makes it clear that Marie Antoinette did not meet expectations. Maria Theresa criticizes her daughter's lifestyle and the lack of performance of her duties. She admonishes Maria Antoinette to limit her luxurious life, to say her prayers carefully and to carry out her duties as the daughter of Austria at the French court.

Marie Louise of Austria and Napoléon Bonaparte

Empress Marie Louise and her son Napoleon Franz, King of Rome . (Portrait of François Gérard )

For the marriage with Marie Louise of Austria , the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte divorced his previous wife Joséphine in 1810 due to childlessness. On March 11, 1810, a long distance marriage took place between the then 18-year-old Archduchess and the Emperor of the French . The official wedding took place on April 1st in the Louvre Chapel .

Great expectations were attached to this marriage. On the one hand, Franz I , Emperor of Austria and Marie Louise's father, intended to strengthen the Franco-Austrian alliance. Napoléon, on the other hand, hoped that this connection would legitimize his French empire and the long-awaited heir to the throne. In Austria, opinions about this marriage were divided: while the lower classes hoped for a long-lasting peace, the nobility felt the marriage as a national humiliation.

Marie Louise was less satisfied with her fate as Empress of the French at Napoleon's side. She detested Napoleon and called him an antichrist. Nevertheless, she complied with this decision and viewed it as a personal sacrifice for the House of Habsburg. State Chancellor Metternich commented: "Is it possible to choose between the fall of an entire monarchy and the personal misfortune of a princess?"

Artistic processing

A painting by Václav Brožík (Wenzel von Brosik) from 1896 emphasized the special importance of the Habsburg marriage policy for the dynasty. On behalf of Emperor Franz Joseph I , the history painter portrayed the double wedding of Maximilian I's grandsons in 1515 in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the throne. The picture with the title Tu felix Austria nube can be found in the Vienna Art History Museum.

literature

  • Beatrix Bastl: Habsburg Marriage Policy - 1000 Years of Wedding? In: L'Homme. European journal of feminist history . Volume 7, 1996, pp. 75-89 (problem of unhappy connections for many women using the example of the sisters of Charles V).
  • Cyrille Debris: "Tu, felix Austria, nube". La dynastie de Habsbourg et sa politique matrimoniale à la fin du Moyen Âge, (XIIIe – XVIe siècles) (= Histoires de famille. Volume 2). Brepols, Turnhout 2005 ( review ).
  • Heinz-Dieter Heimann : The Habsburgs. Dynasty and empires. Beck, Munich 2004.
  • Walter Höflechner : On the marriage policy of the Habsburgs up to 1526. In: Festschrift Hermann Wiesflecker for the sixtieth birthday. Graz 1973, pp. 115-121.
  • Alfred Kohler : "Tu felix Austria nube ...". From the cliché to the re-evaluation of dynastic politics in recent European history. In: Journal for Historical Research . Volume 21, 1994, pp. 461-482.
  • Jan Paul Niederkorn : The dynastic politics of the Habsburgs in the 16th and early 17th centuries. In: Heinz Duchhardt (Hrsg.): Yearbook for European History. Volume 8, Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58205-5 , pp. 29-50.
  • Joseph F. Patrouch: "Bella gerant alii". Laodamia's Sisters / Habsburg Brides. Leaving Home for the Sake of the House. In: Anne J. Cruz (Ed.): Early Modern Habsburg Women. Transnational Contexts, Cultural Conflicts, Dynastic Continuities. Ashgate, Aldershot 2013, ISBN 978-1-4724-1164-8 , pp. 25-40.
  • Andrea Sommer-Mathis: Tu felix Austria nube. Wedding celebrations of the Habsburgs in the 18th century. Musicological publishing house, Vienna 1994.
  • Hermann Weber : On the marriage policy of Karl V. In: Heinrich Lutz (Ed.): The Roman-German Empire in the political system of Karl V. Munich / Vienna 1982, pp. 129–160.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Weber: The importance of the dynasties for the European history of the early modern period. In: Journal for Bavarian State History . Vol. 44: 5-32 (1981).
  2. ↑ Michael Hochedlinger : Stepchildren of Research. Constitutional, administrative and administrative history of the early modern Habsburg monarchy. Problems - Achievements - Desiderata. In: ders., Thomas Winkelbauer (Hrsg.): Dense rule, state formation, bureaucratization. Constitutional, administrative and official history of the early modern period. Böhlau / Oldenbourg, Vienna / Munich 2010, pp. 293–394, Chapter 2.2: “Tu, felix Austria, nube - The Austrian master story”, p. 317.
  3. ↑ A translation that imitates meter reads: "Let others wage wars, you, happy Austria, get married!" / Because what the other Mars, Venus, the goddess, gives you. "
  4. ^ Elisabeth Klecker: Bella gerant alii. Tu, felix Austria, nube! A search for clues. In: Austria in history and literature. 41 (1997), pp. 30-44. Alphons Lhotsky also mentions an unknown author from the Baroque era : Source studies on the medieval history of Austria. (Communications from the Institute for Austrian History, Supplementary Volume 19), Graz 1963, p. 71.
  5. ^ Eva Maria Roschitz: The system of Habsburg marriages at the time of Maximilian I Graz 1972.
  6. ^ Hermann Wiesflecker : Maximilian I and the Habsburg-Spanish marriage and alliance agreements of 1495/96. In: Mitteilungen des Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 67 (1959), pp. 1–52; Alfred Kohler: The double wedding of 1496/97. Planning, execution and dynastic consequences. In: Art around 1492. Hispania - Austria. The Catholic Kings, Maximilian I and the beginnings of the Casa de Austria in Spain. Milan 1992, pp. 59-86.
  7. ↑ Brigitte Grohs: Italian Weddings. The marriage of Archduchesses Barbara and Johanna von Habsburg in 1565. In: Communications from the Institute for Austrian Historical Research. 96: 331-381 (1988).
  8. ↑ Edith Schlocker: Ambras Castle: The Emperor's Unhappy Daughters. Die Presse, July 25, 2010, accessed on July 26, 2010 (The exhibition “Nozze italiane” illustrates the Habsburgs' marriage policy. The focus is on three daughters of Ferdinand I who were married to Italy).
  9. ^ Adam Wandruszka : Maria Theresa. The great empress. Göttingen 1980.
  10. ↑ Alfred von Arneth (ed.): Maria Theresia and Marie Antoinette. Your correspondence. KF Koehler, Leipzig 1866.
  11. ^ Werner Telesko : Historisches Raum Österreich. The Habsburgs and their history in the visual arts of the 19th century. Böhlau, Vienna 2006, p. 348.
  12. ↑ Illustration at Europeana .