The Viennna Hofburg and its Rulers, c. 1900

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From Vienna and the Viennese, by Maria Hornor Lansdale, 1902.

The Imperial Hofburg, for nearly three hundred years the official residence of the House of Austria, is an irregular agglomeration of buildings, dating from different periods, built in no particular style and imposing only from its size. Around it, however, there hovers a cloud of splendid memories, and every stone speaks of a historic past.

The easternmost district of the dominions of the Emperor Charlemagne (768-814) was the tract of country lying between the Enns and the Raab. From the name Ostmark, or Eastern-march, by which it came to be called, is derived the modern Oesterreich — Austria.

In the century which followed that of Charlemagne's death, Otho II. (973-983) granted the Ostmark to the House of Babenberg in fief. The Romans, when they held this territory, had built a town which they called Yindobona, and although there is no evidence to that effect, it is extremely probable that the Avars, who succeeded them, until they were themselves driven out by Charlemagne, continued to occupy this site.

We have, however, no actual account of Vienna as a city until the time of the Babenberg Duke, Henry II. (1141-1177), "Jasomirgott" (from Ja so mir Gott helfe, an exclamation that was constantly on his lips). He was a son of the Margrave Leopold V., in whose time the Ostmark, together with Styria and Carniola, was formed into a duchy. By an agreement made between Henry Jasomirgott and the Emperor Barbarossa the Ostmark was detached from Styria and Carniola, formed into a distinct duchy, and conferred on Duke Henry as an inalienable fief. On failure of male issue it was to descend in the female line, and on failure of the female line to be disposed of by will. These matters arranged, Duke Henry established his capital at Vienna and took up his residence in the Markgrafenburg, on the site of the present Hof burg.

Vienna had by now become a busy and important town; it had several streets, two churches — St. Stephanas and the Pfarr Church, now St. Rupert's — a market-place, and a number of shops and manufactories. During the period of the Crusades the town attained in fact a most remarkable growth. Owing to its situation near the banks of the Danube, it became the centre of an enormous traffic with the East, and by the latter part of the thirteenth century had grown to the dimensions of the present Old Town.

In the meantime the male descent from Henry Jasomirgott had failed; his great-grandson, Frederick II. the Warlike, died in 1246 without issue and without a will. Three female claimants at once arose. The all-powerful Emperor Frederick II. set all their claims aside, attached the duchy to the Imperial Crown, and appointed the Count of Werdenberg to be its ruler. A period of disorder followed the death of the Emperor; the duchy was annexed first by one neighboring State and then by another, and formed part of the domains of Otakar II. of Bohemia when, in 1273, after an interregnum of nearly twenty years, Rudolph of Habsburg, the founder of the House of Austria, was chosen by the German Electors to succeed the Emperor Conrad IV.

Rudolph of Habsburg was at that time in his fifty-fifth year; but his stormy and adventurous career had not, if tradition is to be believed, been without premonitions of coming greatness. It is told that he was one day hunting a wild boar down a narrow valley, through which rushed a mountain torrent, swollen by recent rains. On the bank he saw a priest, bearing the viaticum, who stood irresolute, not daring to attempt the dangerous passage.

"My father!” cried the Count, "you must mount into my saddle! It is the only possible way of crossing; and, moreover, my horse has too often been the bearer of death in these forests to miss this opportunity of carrying life and hope."

The priest gratefully accepted the offer, and Rudolph, after watching till he had reached the other side in safety, fell on his knees beneath a great oak tree and began to offer up prayers for the departing soul.

In due course of time the priest returned; but as he was about to dismount, the other stopped him, begging that he would keep the horse, and thence-forth consecrate it to the service of God.

The following day, Rudolph, while on his way to visit the Abbey of Fahr, met an old nun called Sister Bertha, who, to his great amazement, saluted him by the title of Emperor.

"What do you mean by that?" demanded the Count.

"I mean," replied the sister, "that as you yesterday performed a good and holy deed, it is right that you should know that you and your descendants are destined to sit upon the Imperial throne."

The early years of Rudolph's career had been an almost continuous succession of struggles with the neighboring barons — struggles which invariably resulted, however, in the strengthening and increasing of his own domains.

In 1273, while engaged in a quarrel with the Abbot of St. Gallen, he received news from Basle that the townsmen, backed by their Bishop, had massacred a number of nobles, friends and relatives of Rudolph, at a recent tournament. Instantly making peace with the Abbot, and securing him as an ally, Rudolph hurried off to attack Basle. It was at this juncture that he heard of his election.

After laying waste the surrounding country, he had encamped before the city, and was only awaiting the expiration of a truce to continue the attack, when he was awakened one night in his tent by his nephew, Frederick of Hohenzollern, who brought him word of his elevation. Notwithstanding Sister Bertha, Rudolph was utterly astounded and could hardly credit the news; but the people of Basle, when they heard it, threw open their gates, saying, in reply to the Bishop's angry remonstrances, that they had taken arms against the Count of Habsburg, not against the Roman Emperor. Upon which the indignant and impious prelate is said to have exclaimed, "Sit fast, thou Lord God, or Rudolph will occupy thy throne!"

Rudolph at once set about increasing his possessions, both by war and by means of those more peaceable methods for which his house later became famous. By marrying one of his daughters to a son of Henry of Bavaria, he gained over that province to his side and was able to attack the powerful Otakar II., King of Bohemia. The campaign closed with the siege and capture of Vienna by Rudolph, who was left in possession of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Windischmark. Peace was further assured by intermarriages between the sons and daughters of Otakar and Rudolph.

Under Albert I., son and successor of Rudolph, a revolt broke out among the Swiss Cantons, which had been forcibly annexed by his father; and it is to this period that the legend of William Tell and Gessler is assigned. In 1308, Albert was assassinated on the banks of the Reuss, by his nephew John, whose inheritance he had withheld. Through the influence of Baldwin, Elector of Treves, and Peter, Archbishop of Mentz, the Count of Luxembourg was chosen to succeed him as Emperor, under the title of Henry VII. His appointment was confirmed by the Pope, Clement V. The coronation took place at Aix-la-Chapelle, and later in the Church of St. John Lateran, at Rome; and Henry crossed the Alps at the head of an army. Five years later he died suddenly, near Siena, at a moment so opportune for his enemies that the story was circulated and commonly believed that he had received poison in a consecrated wafer, from a Dominican friar named Bernard di Montepulciano.

"Assassin!" the Emperor is reported to have cried, in his death agony, "you have administered death to me in the bread of eternal life. Fly! save yourself! or my Germans will surely kill you."

It was not until the year 1438 that the Imperial dignity was restored to the House of Habsburg, in the person of Albert II.; but from that date to the abdication of Francis II., in 1806, every Emperor, with the two only exceptions of Charles VII. of Bavaria (1742-1745) and Francis I. of Lorraine (1745-1765), were Habsburgs.

Vienna now became more and more identified with the House of Austria; successive rulers made the Hofburg their occasional place of residence, adding to it and erecting new buildings in other parts of the town. Duke Rudolph IV. (1358-1365), called the Founder, from the number and importance of his institutions, rebuilt the already existing Church of St. Stephan and founded the University of Vienna.

In the fifteenth century the Hofburg served on one occasion (1462) as a prison for its Imperial resident, when the Viennese, siding with Albert, brother of the Emperor Frederick III., in a quarrel that had arisen between them, shut the latter into the citadel, together with the Empress and their young son (afterwards the Emperor Maximilian I.), and conducted the siege so strictly that the garrison had almost exhausted its supply of food, when Podiabrad, King of Bohemia, sent his son, at the head of a considerable force, and relieved the castle. Maximilian never forgot this incident, and though he was barely five years old at the time, he could never quite forgive the Viennese for the hunger and discomfort they forced him to endure during the siege.

Lansdale, Maria Hornor. Vienna and the Viennese. H.T. Coates & Co., 1902.

Maria Hornor Landsdale

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