Dynasty and Piety. Archduke Albert (1598–1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars by Luc Duerloo (review) (original) (raw)
Canadian journal of history, 2016
The Rise and Decline of Charles of Habsburg CHARLES OF HABSBURG ruled a dynastic agglomeration of unprecedented scale and heterogeneity (figure .1). At its height it included Castile and its New World territories, Aragon-Catalonia, Sicily and Naples, the Netherlands, Franche-Compte ´, and significant holdings in Central Europe. Charles's election (in 1519) as King of the Romans and his subsequent coronation as emperor made him the titular head of the Holy Roman Empire. Yet Charles's dynastic agglomeration failed to outlive his reign. He met military and political defeat in Germany at the hands of a Protestant alliance; he divided his titles and territories between his brother, Ferdinand I, and his son, Philip II of Castile. Extant international-relations theories supply a number of explanations for this outcome. Hegemonic-order theory suggests the intersection of processes of strategic overextension with challenges by anti-Habsburg "revisionists" such as France, the Ottoman Empire, and Protestant German princes. Balance-of-power realism focuses our attention on the threat posed to these, and other, actors by Habsburg power. James Tracy argues that for Charles, "The fundamental problem was that post-Roman Europe had never seen a dynasty whose territories bestrode the continent from the Low Countries to Sicily and from Spain to Transylvania-not to mention Spain's overseas possessions." 1 Constructivist theories might point in the direction of the impact of the Reformation. In such accounts, insurmountable religious conflicts in Germany first undermined and then collapsed Charles's dynastic ambitions. We might also focus on specific choices and bargains. Victoria Tin-Bor Hui, for example, argues that Charles's reliance on external loans and fiscal expedients played a decisive role in Habsburg overextension. 2 None of these factors, however, operated in isolation from the others. Charles's demands for revenue to finance wars against the French Valois, Ottoman Turks, and heretical German princes strained his relations with his subjects. Francis I and Henry II exploited the pressures created by religious reformation in Germany to weaken Charles's international position. International-relations theorists often seek to reduce political out-
Patronage, Politics, and Devotion: The Habsburgs of Central Europe and Jesuit Saints
Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2022
The main components of the Habsburgs’ dynastical piety—worship of the Crucified, of the Eucharist, of the Blessed Mary and her spouse St. Joseph—are already well-known. They were common to both branches of the House of Austria, the Spanish as well as the Austrian one. However, they are far from exhausting the variety of manifestations with which they fostered the cult of the saints. More than other sovereigns, Austrian Habsburgs intervened on behalf of patron saints with the popes and the Roman Congregation of Sacred Rites. During the seventeenth century and still in the eighteenth century, they promulgated public feasts in the Austrian hereditary lands as well as in the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia. This paper focuses mainly on the veneration they addressed to the Jesuit saints: Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Luigi Gonzaga, Stanisław Kostka, and Peter Canisius using archive and printed materials from Rome, Vienna, Prague, and Budapest.
The Archduke Carl and the Realities of Habsburg Warfare from 1793-1814: Less Change Then You Thought
The Archduke Carl of Teschen, victor of Stockach and Aspern, and the Habsburg Monarchy’s most famous commander of the age, was an unrepentant opponent of unlimited war; the type of war which he believed had been released by the forces of the French Revolution. To counter these new so-called realities, he looked to “limit” the impact of war through a combination of the Early Modern re-invention of Roman military principles, appeals to service, and the tenets of Theresian Catholicism. In the end, Carl responded to the “emotional,” read nationalistic, forces of the French with Habsburg revanche. This paper will look at two main areas. The first is Carl most immediate intellectual influence and a “snapshot” of his actual work. The second is Carl efforts to reject, or at least control, popular participation in the military (the civilian-soldier – or Landwehr). Evidence for these conclusions will be drawn almost exclusively from primary source material, especially the copious work of the ...