was raised by the Electors[1] to the Imperial throne. His accession marks an epoch in German history, for from this time until the dissolution of the empire by Napoleon in 1806, the Imperial crown was regarded as hereditary in
(15th Century.)
the Hapsburg[2] family, the Electors, although never failing to go through the formality of an election, almost always choosing one of the members of that house as king.
From the beginning of the practically uninterrupted succession upon the Imperial throne of the princes of the House of Austria, up to the close of the Middle Ages, the power and importance of the family steadily increased, until it seemed that Austria would overshadow all the other German states, and subject them to her sway; would, in a word, become Germany, just as Francia in Gaul had become France. But this, as we shall learn, never came about.
The greatest of the Hapsburg line during the mediæval period was Maximilian I. (1493–1519). His reign is in every way a noteworthy one in German history, marking, as it does, a strong tendency to centralization, and the material enhancement of the Imperial authority.
- ↑ When, in the beginning of the tenth century, the German Carolingian line became extinct, the great nobles of the kingdom assumed the right of choosing the successor of the last of the house, and Germany thus became an elective feudal monarchy. In the course of time a few of the leading nobles usurped the right of choosing the king, and these princes became known as Electors. There were, at the end of the Hohenstaufen period, seven princes who enjoyed this important privilege, four of whom were secular princes and three spiritual.
- ↑ The House of Austria is often so called from the Castle of Hapsburg in Switzerland, the cradle of the family.
