Albrecht II.

Albert II, known as “the Wise” or “the Lame,” was born in Vienna on December 12, 1298. He belonged to the House of Habsburg and was the fourth son of the Roman-German king Albert I and his wife, Elisabeth of Gorizia-Tyrol. After his father’s death, Albert grew up during a period in which the Habsburg possessions in Austria and the surrounding territories were being politically consolidated and expanded. Albert was initially intended for an ecclesiastical career. In 1313, despite being a minor, he was chosen as bishop of Passau in a disputed election. The election took place amid a conflict with his rival, Gebhard of Walsee. After Gebhard’s death, Albert nevertheless had to relinquish the bishopric in 1317, and Heinrich of Vienna became his successor. This ended Albert’s career in the Church, and he turned permanently to secular rule. In 1330, Albert took over the government of the Habsburg territories together with his younger brother Otto, known as “the Merry.” His position was further strengthened by his marriage to Joanna of Pfirt, whom he married in Vienna in 1324. She brought the County of Pfirt and several cities into the marriage as her dowry. After the death of Henry of Carinthia, the last heir of the Gorizia-Tyrol line of the House of Gorizia, Albert also asserted claims to Carinthia, bringing him into competition with John of Bohemia. On May 2, 1335, Emperor Louis IV granted the duchies of Carinthia and Carniola as fiefs to Albert and Otto in Linz. Their mother, Elisabeth of Gorizia-Tyrol, had been a sister of Henry of Carinthia, which further supported the Habsburg claims. Albert remained loyal to the emperor until his death and later maintained close relations with the emperor’s son, Louis of Brandenburg. When Albert besieged Zurich for the second time, Louis mediated a peace settlement. On September 1, 1352, the conflict was ended by a treaty that became known as the “Brandenburg Peace.” Albert’s reputation extended beyond his own territories. In 1335, Pope Benedict XII asked him to mediate a reconciliation between Emperor Louis IV and the Church. Two years later, King Philip VI of France also sought his support in the conflict with Louis IV and King Edward III of England. These requests indicate that Albert was regarded as an influential and dependable prince in European politics. Despite paralysis of his hands and legs, probably caused by polyarthritis, Albert remained politically active. It was at times speculated that his disability might instead have resulted from a poisoning attempt in 1330. His physical limitations did not prevent him from founding a family. He and Joanna of Pfirt had several children, six of whom survived. Their firstborn son, Rudolf, was born in 1339, fifteen years after their marriage, when Albert was 41 and Joanna was 39. In 1355, Albert issued a dynastic house ordinance for the Austrian territories. This regulation was intended to organize succession within the Habsburg family. Although it was not consistently observed after his death, Emperor Maximilian I later renewed it. Emperor Charles VI eventually incorporated it into the Pragmatic Sanction. The provisions remained part of Austria’s constitutional order until the end of the monarchy in 1918. Styria and Carinthia also owed Albert their own constitutional arrangements. Vienna was severely affected during the plague years of 1348 and 1349. The epidemic, which had reached Europe through trade from the Far East, claimed about 40,000 lives in the city, and a substantial share of the population died. Albert also had to protect his Jewish subjects, whom parts of the population blamed for the epidemic on the grounds that they had poisoned the wells. The later incorporation of Tyrol into the Habsburg possessions in 1363 was regarded as the result of Albert’s diplomatic skill in dealing with the rival Wittelsbach family. Albert himself did not live to see this development. He died in Vienna on July 20, 1358. His eldest son, Rudolf IV, known as “the Founder,” succeeded him. Under Albert’s house ordinance, however, Rudolf’s brothers were also to participate in the regency: Albert III, known as “with the Braid,” was ten years old at the time, while Leopold III, “the Just,” was seven. After Rudolf’s death, Albert III and Leopold III divided their spheres of rule in the Treaty of Neuberg of 1379. In doing so, they attempted to circumvent the principle of primogeniture and the joint administration of the family’s possessions. The arrangement ultimately led to the permanent division of the House of Habsburg into the Albertine and Leopoldine lines. This division was not overcome until 1490, under Emperor Frederick III. Albert II was buried in the Carthusian monastery of Marienthron near Gaming in Lower Austria, which he had founded. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, his remains were transferred to the parish church there. His six surviving children shaped the subsequent history of the Habsburgs: Rudolf IV married Catherine of Bohemia; Catherine became an abbess in Vienna; Margaret was successively married to Meinhard III of Tyrol and John Henry of Moravia; Frederick III became Duke of Austria; Albert III married Elisabeth of Bohemia and later Beatrix of Nuremberg; and Leopold III married Viridis Visconti. Five other children of the couple were stillborn or died shortly after birth; they were buried in the ducal crypt of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.