Albrecht I.

Albert I of Habsburg, originally Albert V, Count of Habsburg, was born in Rheinfelden in July 1255 and died in an assassination near Königsfelden, close to Brugg, on 1 May 1308. From 1282 he was Duke of Austria, Styria and Carniola, as well as lord of the Windic March. In 1298 he became the first Habsburg king of the Romans and Germany. On his orders, work also began on the Habsburg urbar, a record of the dynasty’s possessions and rights. Albert was the eldest legitimate son of the German king Rudolf I of Habsburg and his first wife, Gertrud Anna of Hohenberg. His older half-brother, Albert of Schenkenberg, had been born out of wedlock. From 1273, Albert served as landgrave in Upper Alsace. After Rudolf I defeated the Bohemian king Ottokar Přemysl at the Battle of Marchfeld in 1278, he appointed his son imperial governor of Austria and Styria in May 1281. At the Diet of Augsburg on 17 December 1282, Albert and his brother Rudolf were jointly enfeoffed with the duchies of Austria and Styria. The following year, the Treaty of Rheinfelden designated Albert as the sole holder of these rights. His brother was to receive territories in southwestern Germany in compensation, but this indemnity remained unpaid until Rudolf’s death in 1290. Albert’s rule in his Austrian lands was marked by conflict. He displaced established noble families and relied especially on Swabian followers such as the lords of Walsee, quickly making himself unpopular. In 1291 and 1292, the Landsberg League revolted in Styria, followed by an uprising of the Austrian nobility in 1295. Ottokar Přemysl also remained popular in Vienna for a long time, partly because of the city’s close economic ties with the Bohemian region. The city did, however, receive a new municipal charter in 1296. Rudolf I tried to have Albert elected co-king during his own lifetime, thereby making the royal dignity hereditary within the House of Habsburg. The prince-electors prevented this plan. Rudolf also intended to place his son on the Hungarian throne after the murder of King Ladislaus IV, but this plan failed when Rudolf died in 1291. His successor was Adolf of Nassau. Albert initially took little part in imperial politics because the uprisings in his Austrian lands occupied his attention. In 1295, Albert suffered a severe poisoning. It remained unclear whether the cause was spoiled food or an assassination attempt. He collapsed in convulsions, was given purgatives and eventually lost consciousness. Hoping to make the poison leave his body, his attendants hung him upside down by both legs. He survived, but lost one eye in the process. When Adolf of Nassau was deposed in 1298, the prince-electors chose Albert as his successor in Frankfurt on 23 June. Adolf fell in battle against the Habsburg at the Battle of Göllheim on 2 July. Albert was elected again on 27 July and crowned king at Aachen on 24 August. At his first court assembly in Nuremberg, he enfeoffed his sons Rudolf, Frederick the Fair and Leopold with Austria and Styria. As king, Albert sought to strengthen Habsburg influence in Central Europe. Through a marriage alliance with France, he made peace with Philip IV the Fair, with whom he had previously disputed the frontier. He also reached an agreement with Wenceslaus II of Bohemia over control of Poland. Wenceslaus incorporated important parts of the recently revived but once again fragmented Polish kingdom into his own territories, while recognizing Albert’s feudal overlordship. Opposition came above all from the Rhenish prince-electors and, initially, from Pope Boniface VIII. Albert obtained papal approval of his kingship only in 1303, after making far-reaching concessions that particularly restricted his power in Italy. He declined the imperial coronation offered by the pope. His chancellor was John of Strasbourg, prince-bishop of Eichstätt and Strasbourg. In 1303, Albert founded Königsbronn Abbey. In 1304, Albert and his son Rudolf campaigned against Wenceslaus II, who had made his son Wenceslaus III king of Hungary after the death of Andrew III. At the pope’s request, Albert instead supported the claim of Charles Robert of Naples. When Wenceslaus failed to meet Albert’s demands, the imperial ban was imposed on him. During the campaign, Albert and Rudolf besieged Kuttenberg, but had to withdraw because of hunger and the onset of winter. Their Cuman auxiliaries devastated the surrounding land. After the death of Wenceslaus III in 1306, Albert installed his son Rudolf as king of Bohemia. The Bohemian estates rebelled, but were initially forced to recognize the new king. Rudolf’s early death in 1307 dealt Habsburg ambitions a severe blow. Henry of Carinthia of the Meinhardiner dynasty became the new king of Bohemia. In the same year, Albert suffered a complete defeat at Lucka in the struggle for Thuringia and Meissen against the Wettins. Unrest also broke out again in Swabia, Baden, Alsace and Switzerland. Several public peaces proclaimed by Albert proved ineffective. In May 1308, Albert was murdered at Windisch, not far from his ancestral castle. The conspirators included his nephew John of Swabia, the barons Rudolf of Wart, Rudolf of Balm and Walter of Eschenbach, and the knight Conrad of Tegerfelden. John, later known by the epithet Parricida, had once again demanded his inheritance at Stein Castle that same day. The main suspected motive was the unpaid compensation owed to his father, Rudolf II; John’s desire to secure his inheritance is also cited. The chroniclers differ in their accounts of the precise sequence of events, but report that Albert was fatally wounded by several sword blows to the neck and head. After the murder, the conspirators’ castles and estates were destroyed. John fled to the pope, was later imprisoned and eventually pardoned on condition of monastic confinement. Rudolf of Wart was handed over and was probably broken on the wheel at Brugg. Rudolf of Balm remained hidden and died on his ruined castle, while Walter of Eschenbach remained unidentified until shortly before his death. Albert’s widow and son had numerous relatives and friends of the assassins executed, including innocent people. Albert’s son Frederick the Fair succeeded him as duke of Austria, but could not assume the royal dignity. It passed with Henry VII to the House of Luxembourg. Albert was initially buried at Wettingen Abbey. In 1309, Henry VII had his remains transferred to Speyer, where he was buried in the cathedral beside his former rival, Adolf of Nassau. Albert and his wife, Elisabeth of Gorizia and Tyrol, had numerous children, including the later kings Rudolf III of Bohemia and Frederick the Fair, as well as the dukes Leopold, Albert II, Henry and Otto. Nine other children died immediately after birth. In later times, Albert was honored as a notable Austrian military leader; in 1863, he was added to an honorary list of famous Austrian commanders, and a statue was erected in his memory at Vienna’s Court Weapons Museum.