Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
But it was Maximilian's affection for Maria of Burgundy (1457-82) that had the
greatest influence on the fortunes of the Habsburgs. The two married, and when Maria
fell from a horse and died as a result of a miscarriage in 1482, Burgundy, Lorraine and
the Low Countries fell into Habsburg hands. In their day, these regions were the last
word in culture, economic prosperity and the arts. However, this began a difficult rela-
tionship with France that stuck to the Habsburg shoe for centuries.
The 'Spanish Marriage' in 1496 was another clever piece of royal bedding. When
Maximilian's son Philipp der Schöne (Philip the Handsome) married Juana la Loca (Jo-
hanna the Mad; 1479-55), Spain and its resource -rich overseas territories in Central and
South America became Habsburgian. When their son, Ferdinand I (1503-64) married
Anna of Hungary and Bohemia (1503-47), fulfilling a deal his grandfather Maximilian I
had negotiated with King Vladislav II (1456-1516), Bohemia was also in the Habsburg
fold. In the same deal, Maria von Habsburg (1505-58) married into the Polish-Lithuanian
Jagiellonen dynasty, which traditionally purveyed kings to Poland, Bohemia and Hun-
gary at that time. By 1526, when her husband Ludwig II (1506-26) drowned in a tribu-
tary of the Danube during the Battle of Mohács against Turks, Silesia (in Poland), Bo-
hemia (in the Czech Republic) and Hungary were all thoroughly Habsburg.
Under Karl V (1500-58), the era of the universal monarch arrived, and the Habsburgs
had added the kingdom of Naples (southern Italy, including Sicily). That was about as
good as it got.
Really mad or really handsome? Johanna the Mad kissed the feet of husband Philip the Handsome
when his coffin was opened five weeks after his death in 1506.
Reformation & the Thirty Years' War
The 16th century was a crucial period in Austria during which the country came to terms
with religious reformation brought about by Martin Luther, Counter-Reformation aimed
at turning back the clock on Luther's Church reforms, and a disastrous Thiry Years' War
that saw the Habsburgs' German territories splinter and slip further from their grasp.
In the German town of Wittenberg in 1517, theology professor Martin Luther
(1483-1546) made public his 95 theses that questioned the papal practice of selling in-
dulgences to exonerate sins. Threatened with excommunication, Luther refused to recant,
broke from the Catholic Church, was banned by the Reich, and whilst in hiding translated
the New Testament into German. Except in Tyrol, almost the entire population of Austria
