0:04

Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans,

0:06

Season 8, Episode 145, how to make friends and

0:11

influence people. The

0:13

Luxembourgers becoming kings of Bohemia.

0:18

Henry, the new king of the Romans,

0:20

just 30 years of age, tall and

0:22

blonde, every inch his

0:24

forebearer the great charlemagne, had

0:26

a one-track mind. There

0:29

was one thing he wanted and that was the

0:32

imperial crown. It

0:34

is now 60 years since their last had

0:36

been a crowned emperor. We

0:38

had such an interregnum before, in the

0:40

10th century, between the death of Emperor

0:43

Berengau Friuli, yes, me neither, and

0:45

the coronation of Otto the Great in 962. This

0:50

even shorter gap had resulted in the transfer

0:52

of the imperial honor from the Carl Injuns

0:55

to the rulers of the German lands. It

0:58

was high time to go to Rome and crown

1:00

an emperor. Otherwise more

1:03

people will ask, as John of Salisbury had,

1:05

who appointed the Germans to be judges over

1:08

the peoples of the earth, who

1:10

gave these brutish unruly people the

1:12

arbitrary authority to elect a ruler

1:15

over the heads of the people. But

1:18

to get to Rome for a medieval coronation requires

1:20

more than just picking up a plane ticket. First

1:24

our new Barbarossa needs to assert his position in

1:26

the empire, gather followers for

1:28

the journey and establish peace and justice. He

1:31

needs to convince the pope to send an invitation

1:33

and the king of France not to

1:36

send an army to stop him. And

1:39

so, once he is busy making peace between

1:41

the warring factions, convincing them

1:43

that all he cares about is

1:45

being Semper Augustus, always augmenting the

1:47

empire, and reassuring everyone that

1:49

he is not just enriching his

1:52

family as his predecessors had done,

1:54

that is when he walks away

1:56

with the most valuable prize of them all, the

1:59

kingdom of Wühün. Bohemia. And

2:01

that is what we're going to talk about in this episode.

2:06

But before we start, let me remind you that the

2:08

History of the Germans podcast is advertising free thanks

2:11

to the generosity of our patrons. And

2:13

you can become a patron too by

2:16

signing up on patreon.com.com.hr or

2:18

by making a one-time donation at historyofthegermans.com.hr.

2:22

Today I want to thank Marco M., Pat

2:25

S., Raphael R., Tim

2:28

W., Zach D. and

2:30

Maxime de Hénin who've already signed

2:32

up. And

2:34

with that, back to the show. On

2:39

November 27, 1308, the Archbishops

2:41

of Trier, Cologne and Mainz, the

2:43

Count Palatine on the Rhine, the Margrave of

2:45

Brandenburg and the Duke of Saxony, as

2:48

well as a great many princes of the

2:50

German lands gathered in the Monastery of the

2:52

Dominicans in Frankfurt. There they

2:55

elected Count Henry VII of

2:57

Luxembourg unanimously. They praised

2:59

him as a man of peace and justice, a

3:02

warrior whose fame resonated throughout the whole

3:04

of the land. Another

3:07

chronicler noted more soberly, quote, the

3:10

cities were for him because he created good

3:12

laws for merchants and travellers in his domain,

3:14

the nobility because he was a capable warrior and

3:17

had proven this in many places, especially

3:19

in the fight against the Flemish, end

3:22

quote. Upon

3:24

the acclamation as King of the Romans,

3:26

Semper Augustus and future Emperor, the princes

3:29

presented Henry VII to the people, who

3:31

again broke out in jubilation. The

3:34

whole throng then entered the Dominican church,

3:36

where he was seated on the high altar. There

3:39

is an illuminated manuscript produced at the court

3:42

of Henry's brother Baldwin, the Archbishop of

3:44

Trier, that depicts the scene. In

3:46

that image, it looks as if the new

3:49

king was slotted into place by two archbishops,

3:51

as if he was their puppet

3:53

rather than their mighty temporal lord.

3:58

There is no mention of great festivities. festivities

4:00

following the solemn inauguration, but it would

4:02

be almost inconceivable that the emperor would

4:04

not throw a massive banquet for the

4:06

people to mark his elevation from count

4:09

to successor of the great Hornstaffen emperors.

4:12

In later centuries these festivities would involve

4:15

the roasting of many oxen all

4:17

filled with a legendary Frankfurter sausage.

4:20

Though the Frankfurter made with a mix of beef and

4:22

pork you can get everywhere in the world, that's

4:25

a fake invented in Vienna in

4:28

1805, which is why the Germans

4:30

call that one the Wino-Würfel. This

4:33

and more about the history of Frankfurt is going to

4:35

be subject to a separate episode in a few weeks

4:37

time. Once

4:39

the oxen and the real Frankfurters had

4:41

been consumed, the minstrels had downed their

4:44

instruments and the last of the

4:46

revelers had stumbled home, it was

4:48

payday. The next

4:50

few days the now King Henry VII

4:53

signed one charter after another, granting the

4:55

various electors this or that privilege, handing

4:57

over imperial lance to people he owed

4:59

for his election and making

5:01

solemn promises about his future behaviour. The

5:05

electors presumably took these beautifully written

5:07

and properly witnessed charters and put

5:09

them in the same box with the same

5:12

promises they had received from King Arolfon Nasser,

5:15

where it disregarded them, and then

5:17

those from King Albrecht I from Habsburg,

5:19

where it disregarded them too, and

5:21

then they hoped for the best. Forty

5:25

days later, January 6, 1309

5:27

saw the solemn coronation of the new King

5:29

Enachn. We do not know

5:32

who, apart from the three archbishops, had come to

5:34

the event. There is one

5:36

source that talks about a further twenty

5:38

archbishops, a hundred and twelve bishops, twenty

5:41

dukes, sixty counts and a hundred barons,

5:43

as well as countless knights, who

5:46

would then be invited to

5:48

celebrations that lasted a full

5:50

twenty-five days. If

5:52

that was true, that would have stripped Western

5:54

Europe of practically all of its senior princes

5:56

for almost a month. So,

5:58

sadly, probably not. not true. But

6:01

still most likely another great festivity

6:03

and another great opportunity for Henry

6:06

to shake hands and reassure people

6:08

of his sincere friendship and support.

6:12

The next stop on Henry's journey was the royal city

6:14

of Cologne, where he held a

6:16

great diet, attended again by many princes

6:18

of the realm, cowns, knights and burghers,

6:20

who came to swear allegiance to the

6:22

new ruler and to

6:24

have their rights and privileges

6:26

generously confirmed. In Cologne the journey

6:29

goes to the next place of imperial

6:31

significance, the Cathedral City of

6:33

Speyer, burial place of the kings and

6:35

emperors. Again

6:37

Henry holds courts, issues judgments and

6:39

grants rights and privileges. Next

6:43

his route takes him south through Alsace

6:45

to Basel, Bern, Zürich and Constance, then

6:48

north again to Nürnberg. Everywhere

6:50

he goes he glad hands the

6:52

local nobility, reassures the burghers

6:54

of the imperial cities of his

6:57

protection, kisses babies and shows generosity,

7:00

the milter of a high medieval ruler.

7:04

I guess you may have noticed already that

7:06

there is something quite profoundly different in the

7:09

way Henry VII is approaching his new role

7:11

compared to his two predecessors. Adolf

7:14

and Alsace almost instantly sought to leverage

7:17

their position into an increase in land

7:19

and military resources, fully

7:21

prepared for the inevitable confrontation with

7:23

the princes and electors that ensued.

7:27

Henry VII takes a very different route.

7:30

He looks to become a universally

7:32

accepted ruler, a first

7:34

amongst equals who brings peace to good

7:36

judgments and reconciliation. The

7:40

last time this had been attempted was by

7:42

Frederick Barbarossa in the early years of his

7:44

reign. And for

7:47

that strategy to work like Barbarossa, he

7:49

must show his vessels that he acts solely in

7:51

the interest of the Iran. Nanimah

7:53

certainly will not go and seize

7:55

every vacant fee for himself and

7:58

his family. Which

8:00

leads to question what Henry VII wanted to

8:03

get out of his new title and powers,

8:05

if not the expansion of his family lands

8:07

inside the Empire north of the Alps. All

8:11

the historians have argued that Henry VII was a

8:13

romantic, a naive man who

8:16

intended to emulate Barbarossa, not

8:18

just in his policies in the German lands

8:20

but also in his overall strategy. He

8:23

was, they believed, hankering after the

8:25

riches of Lombardy and so again

8:27

entangling the Empire in the intractable

8:29

Italian affairs. They

8:32

were right at least as far as the

8:34

geographical direction was concerned. Henry

8:37

indeed wanted to go to Italy and

8:39

that he stated right from the beginning in

8:42

his first speech on the day of his

8:44

coronation. All he

8:46

did in the subsequent two years was preparing

8:48

for a romsu, for a journey to Rome

8:50

for a coronation. But

8:53

the reasons for this move were subtly different.

8:57

In Barbarossa's days the Empire's hold on the

8:59

kingdoms of Burgundy in Italy may have been

9:01

tenuous but ownership of

9:03

them was not really disputed by other powers.

9:07

By 1309 that had changed. The

9:09

French king was expanding his territory all along

9:11

the western border of the Empire. In

9:14

particular the old kingdom of Burgundy was under

9:16

constant strain. The françe-conti,

9:18

once part of the dowry of the

9:20

Empress Beatrix, was now de facto

9:22

under control of Philip the Fair's son Charles.

9:26

The King of France even sent troops

9:28

into Lyon, nominally still an imperial city.

9:31

The kingdom of the Arellat had been

9:33

on the negotiation table several times these

9:35

last few decades. In

9:38

Italy the Angevins, cousins of the French

9:40

king, held the kingdom of Naples and

9:42

exerted their power north into Rome, the

9:44

Papal States, the Romagna and even into

9:46

Lombardy. Persistent

9:49

rumours had been circulating in the Empire

9:51

that Henry's predecessors had offered abandoning the

9:53

rights to the imperial crown in

9:56

exchange for papal endorsement for the creation of

9:58

a hereditary magnum to a tonic. a

10:01

kingdom of the Germans. Not

10:03

much truth may have been in these stories but they

10:06

were reflected enthusiastically by writers and

10:08

thinkers outside the Empire. Many

10:11

argued like Donald Salisbury's but said,

10:14

who appointed the Germans to be judges over the

10:16

peoples of the earth? Who gave

10:18

these brutish unruly people the arbitrary power

10:20

to elect a ruler over the heads

10:22

of the people?

10:26

The Empire's power waned following the death of

10:28

Frederick the second such voices gained more and

10:30

more strength. In particular the

10:32

Popes could not see the need for an emperor, now

10:35

that the leadership of Christendom had so

10:37

comprehensively been concentrated in the hands of

10:39

the Holy Father. Pope

10:42

Boniface VIII declared in 1300 that

10:44

we are emperor and some

10:46

years later Pope John XXII will state

10:48

that Italy had no connection to the Kingdom

10:51

of the Germans. The

10:54

former French perspective it became increasingly hard

10:56

to understand why the most

10:58

powerful monarchy in Europe, a monarchy that

11:00

traces its roots to Charlemagne, was

11:02

denied the Imperial title, leaving

11:05

it to the disunited people on the eastern

11:07

side of the Rhine and their feeble shadow

11:09

of a king. Historic

11:13

research had found no evidence that there

11:15

ever had been any papal French conspiracy

11:17

to actually deprive the Prince-electors of their

11:19

right to choose the future emperor. But

11:22

that does not mean that the Holy Roman

11:25

Empire as it was, wasn't under severe threat

11:27

in the early 14th century. And

11:31

these concerns must await even more on someone

11:33

like Henry VII, whose homeland was

11:35

on the western side of the Empire and

11:37

who had grown up at the French court. He

11:41

had seen first hand how capable the

11:43

Capetian system was in translating

11:45

flimsy legal documents into tangible positions

11:47

of power and how

11:49

the French monarchs were able to play the long

11:51

game. can

12:00

there be remasked? And what

12:02

exactly stops Spillip IV from picking up Pope

12:04

Clement V, put him

12:07

on a ship and go down

12:09

to Rome with him, get crowned

12:11

emperor, sixty years after the last

12:13

Germanic emperor had been excommunicated and

12:15

deposed? And

12:17

what could the French lawyers do with

12:19

the Codex Eurus of the Emperor Justinian

12:22

that declared the emperor to be

12:24

omnipotent, his words to be

12:26

law crossed the whole of Christenet? At

12:29

a minimum, the old duchy of

12:31

Lothringia and with it Henry's homeland of

12:33

Luxembourg would have been brought under vassalage

12:35

to the French crown, no

12:38

longer an imperial principality with all the freedoms

12:40

and the rights that that had entailed. So

12:43

from Henry's perspective it was vital to get

12:46

down to Rome now, not

12:48

just to secure the succession of his son

12:50

as his predecessor had focused on, but

12:52

for the sake of the empire, for

12:55

the sake of his inherited principality and

12:57

for the sake of his family. So

13:00

from the first day of his reign Henry VII

13:02

planned his journey to Rome, everything

13:04

was driven by this objective, and

13:07

Henry had a couple of reasons to

13:09

believe he could achieve what his predecessors

13:12

had failed to do. The first obstacle

13:14

the others had encountered had been

13:16

paper resistance, where if not

13:18

outright resistance then exaggerated demands to

13:20

give up the imperial rights over

13:22

the Romania or Tuscany. But

13:25

in 1309 the situation was

13:27

somewhat more favourable. Henry

13:30

VII had met Pope Clement V personally

13:32

when he served at the French court.

13:35

They weren't firm friends, but on

13:37

several occasions the Pope had indicated to

13:40

Henry's friends and associates that

13:42

he rated the young man. And

13:44

we should not forget that Clement V's

13:47

lacklustre support for Charles of Valois had

13:49

been one of the reasons the electors could choose

13:51

Henry in the first place. The

13:54

relationship seemingly warmed and a delegation

13:56

led by Count Amadeus of Savoy,

13:58

the dauphin of Yen, the The Count of Zabrikan

14:00

and the Bishops of Kua and Basel was

14:03

sent to obtain a formal invitation to come to

14:05

Rome. It is

14:07

telling that the people Henry sent bear

14:09

names we have not heard much of in the

14:11

last one hundred episodes. All

14:14

of them were from the Kingdom of Burgundy or

14:16

the western border of the Empire. Their

14:18

territories had gradually fallen off the radar

14:20

of the emperors and had

14:22

been increasingly pulled into the sphere of

14:25

French influence. But

14:27

there were Henry VII's neighbours and relatives,

14:30

people he knew best and who could speak, not

14:32

only on his behalf but also on behalf of

14:34

the parts of the Empire under

14:36

threat of French encroachment. And

14:40

their mission probed a success. On

14:42

July 26, 1309 Clement

14:44

V announced that, upon review

14:46

of the election documents, he, in

14:48

consultation with his brother Cardinals, recognises

14:51

his most beloved son, the elected

14:53

Henry to be king and

14:55

that it deemed it fit and proper for him

14:58

to be elevated to emperor. He

15:00

would be crowning Henry in St. Peter's Basilica in

15:02

Rome on the day of the purification of the

15:05

Holy Virgin February 2, 1312. He

15:09

even apologised for not being able to come

15:11

earlier due to an important church council. That

15:16

was a great achievement for Henry's embassy and a bold

15:18

move for Clement V. At this

15:20

point in time the French king Philip the Fair,

15:23

who had Clement more or less in his power,

15:25

had not yet made any declaration as

15:28

to whether he supported his former vassal's

15:30

plan to become emperor. Even

15:33

in the days before the church had moved from

15:36

Italy to France, French-leaning popes had

15:38

pretty much always outright refused to crown

15:40

a king of the Romans. So

15:43

Clement V's declaration is an act of

15:45

defiance, an attempt of the

15:47

papacy to wriggle out of the clutches of

15:49

the French rulers. a

16:00

big thing, but then you still

16:02

have to find a way to

16:04

get there. And for a future emperor getting

16:06

the Ryanair flight for $29.99, excluding luggage, seating and

16:10

food, was not an option. A

16:13

future emperor has to arrive looking like he's

16:15

already an emperor. He needs

16:17

an entourage, preferably a whole army, expensive

16:20

gifts, crowns and a lot of bling.

16:23

Henry VII had the kind of entourage,

16:25

expensive gifts and bling commensurate with his

16:27

position as an imperial prince, but

16:30

it is not even remotely in the same

16:32

league. So

16:34

from the day he received the invitation from

16:36

Clement V, he began collecting friends

16:38

and allies, willing to take the arduous

16:41

journey with him. And

16:43

these friends and allies would only be able to

16:45

join him if they could be sure that their

16:47

lands would not be attacked by Henry's enemies whilst

16:50

they were away. So

16:53

Henry picked up his non-existent copy of

16:55

How to Make Friends and Inference People

16:57

and got to work. First

17:00

up he makes friends with the House of Wittelsbach,

17:03

the Count Palatinate and the Duke of Bavaria.

17:06

The Wittelsbachs were the most powerful family after

17:08

the Kings of Bohemia, pretty much

17:11

on par with the Habsburgs. And

17:13

they had tried to get one of their own in as

17:16

King of the Romans and had been rejected

17:18

three times already. So

17:20

they needed to be appeased. And

17:22

to that effect Henry VII offered them

17:25

an alliance, underpinned by a

17:27

marriage proposal and a bustload of

17:29

cash. Then

17:32

we have the Habsburgs. The descendants

17:34

of Rudolf and Albrecht had now been in

17:36

possession of Wall Street in Styria for plus

17:38

or minus thirty years, but still

17:41

their position was not as robust as they may have

17:43

hoped. But too long

17:45

ago, Adolf and Nassau had tried

17:47

to dislodge them, using some

17:49

pretty viable legal arguments. Henry

17:52

promised them to reconfirm their enfiefment with

17:55

the two duchies. They declared

17:57

the murderer Johann Perikedern outlaw.

18:00

staged a splendid funeral for Albrecht

18:02

I in Speyer Cathedral and then

18:04

threw in a couple of thousand silver coins to

18:06

seal the bargain. Still,

18:09

things did not go quite as smoothly

18:11

as hoped because there were

18:13

some rugged peasants in the Alpine valleys at

18:15

the bottom of the Godard Pass who

18:17

had risen up against the Habsburg rule in

18:20

anger. Something about little

18:22

boys and apples, apparently. Henry

18:24

VII felt compelled to ground these guys

18:27

immediately, in other words, release them from

18:29

the Habsburg Overlord ship. Surely,

18:31

we'll never hear of these guys

18:33

ever again. Or probably in

18:35

a few weeks in a special episode. In

18:38

any event, this nearly led to

18:40

a breakdown in negotiations. With

18:42

a bit more smoothing and finesse, however, Henry

18:45

managed to achieve a standstill agreement with Frederick

18:47

the Handsome and his brothers and

18:49

all was good again. Then

18:52

he allowed King Adolf of Nasser, whose

18:54

body has been dumped on a nondescript

18:56

monastery by Albrecht I, to

18:58

be buried with full honors in Speyer Cathedral as

19:01

well, which gave him some kudos

19:03

with Adolf's admittedly small group of friends

19:05

and fathers. That

19:08

leaves two large remaining issues,

19:11

Thuringia and Bohemia. Thuringia

19:14

plus the Margraviate of Meissen had been

19:16

claimed, first by Adolf von Nasser and

19:18

then by Albrecht von Habsburg. What

19:21

irritates the noble houses of the empire about that

19:24

was for one, the potential increase in wealth

19:26

and power of whoever got hold of

19:28

these, at least technically, very wealthy lands.

19:32

But even more concerning was that these lands

19:34

had been seized despite legitimate

19:36

heirs to the previous prince, Albrecht

19:38

the degenerate, who were still alive

19:40

and kicking. If that precedent

19:43

was to stand, the whole system

19:45

of hereditary principalities was at risk.

19:49

So, Henry formally renounced all royal

19:51

claims on that territory and

19:53

signed a peace agreement with the heirs to

19:55

the house of Bettine. to

20:00

Bohemia. You may

20:02

remember that the old Slavic dynasty of

20:04

the Premislits had died out when King

20:06

Wenceslas III had been murdered. The

20:09

nobles of Bohemia had then chosen Henry

20:11

of Corinthia, the brother-in-law of the

20:13

last king to wear the crown of St.

20:16

Wenceslas. That had brought

20:18

the Harpsburgs into the game. King

20:20

Albrecht I, as king of the Romans

20:22

declared Bohemia a vacant thief and expelled

20:24

Henry of Corinthia. Albrecht's

20:27

son Rudolf, ye of the sensitive stomach,

20:29

then became king. That

20:31

same Rudolf succumbed to his digestive ailment

20:33

shortly after that, so that

20:35

the ousted Henry of Corinthia could return to

20:38

Bohemia. That

20:40

setback did not discourage Albrecht I, who was

20:42

in the process of gathering an army to

20:44

oust Henry of Corinthia a second time when

20:46

he was murdered by his nephew. Therefore

20:51

in 1308, Henry of Corinthia was sitting in

20:54

Prague as king of Bohemia. Henry

20:56

of Corinthia had been the only prince-elector

20:59

who had not voted for Henry VII,

21:01

neither in person nor by

21:03

sending an ambassador. That

21:05

made it awkward. But since

21:08

nobody really questioned the election outcome,

21:11

not a serious impediment to a journey

21:13

to Rome. As far as the

21:15

king of the Romans was concerned, Bohemia was

21:17

not his problem. But

21:20

it became his problem when a delegation from the

21:22

nobles of Bohemia approached him at the Diet in

21:24

Hylbron in June 1309. Things

21:28

in Bohemia, they reported, had taken a

21:30

bad turn. Henry of

21:32

Corinthia had locked horns for the higher aristocracy

21:35

and the clergy of the kingdom. Now

21:39

as far as I understand, Bohemia was a

21:41

difficult round to run. The

21:43

golden king, autograph II, was only known

21:45

by his gilded moniker outside his homeland.

21:48

Back in Bohemia, he was known as the

21:50

Iron King for the harshness of his regime.

21:53

And when he came under pressure from Rudolph

21:56

I, the people almost instantly rose up against

21:58

him. Rebellion Wars

22:00

and remained in the Bohemian Bladen, as

22:03

most of you probably know, will manifest crucial moments

22:05

in the history of the Holy Roman Empire, usually

22:08

involving people falling out of windows.

22:11

This time there were no windows involved as

22:13

far as I know, but still Henry of

22:15

Carinthia was facing ever

22:18

mounting opposition. The

22:21

delegation from Prague had come to ask Henry

22:23

for help in preventing a civil war. Could

22:27

the Carinthian be toppled by the nobles?

22:29

The Habsburg would almost certainly get involved

22:31

in a Bohemian conflict, which

22:33

in turn would force other princes to

22:35

support Henry of Carinthia just

22:37

to keep the acquisitive Habsburgs in

22:39

check and then there would not

22:41

be anyone spare around to come to Rome,

22:44

leaving aside the issue that Henry's prestige as

22:46

the guarantor of peace and justice would

22:48

vanish down the drain. Henry

22:51

was lucky enough that one of his closest

22:54

advisers and supporters, the Archbishop of Mainz Peter

22:56

von Aspelt, had been a close

22:58

adviser of the premised-lit kings of Bohemia. He

23:00

knew the political landscape well and commanded

23:03

the respect of the parties involved. Peter

23:07

von Aspelt, Henry VII and the

23:09

Bohemian representatives negotiated a deal.

23:13

Henry VII would declare Bohemia a vacant

23:15

fief on the grounds that Henry of

23:18

Carinthia had no right to inheritance and

23:20

had lost the support of the nobles and people

23:22

of Bohemia. Then

23:24

one of the remaining available

23:26

premised-lit princesses, Elizabeth, would marry

23:29

a member of the House of Luxembourg. The

23:31

nobles and people of Bohemia would then elect this

23:33

person as king. Henry would

23:36

sanction the election and then fief him. Henry

23:39

of Carinthia would be thrown out and with

23:41

that the problem would be solved. In

23:45

July 1310, at a died in Frankfurt,

23:47

Henry obtained the consent of the Imperial

23:49

princes and in particular the prince-selectors to

23:52

depose Henry of Carinthia and allow Henry

23:54

VII to infeave the kingdom to one

23:56

of his relatives. At

23:59

that point the person had no right to be everybody had in mind for

24:01

the future king of Bohemia was

24:03

Valra, Henry VII's younger brother. A

24:06

choice the prince-electors in particular could live

24:08

with because it wasn't the emperor himself

24:10

or his immediate family. Only

24:14

after the electors had consented did

24:16

the Bohemians turn around and

24:18

then insisted that it should not

24:20

be Valra, but Henry VII's oldest

24:23

son, King, and

24:25

then wanted John to marry Elizabeth and then

24:27

wanted John to become their king. The

24:31

most likely reason for the switch was that

24:33

John was only 14 years old at the

24:35

time and hence more susceptible to the influence

24:37

of the Bohemian magnates. Elizabeth

24:40

was brought hastily across from Prague to

24:42

marry little John in the Speyer Cathedral

24:45

on September 1, 1310.

24:48

Henry VII set off for Rome

24:50

just 20 days later, sparing

24:52

but a tiny contingent of soldiers for

24:54

his son's campaign to acquire Bohemia. It

24:58

fell to Peter von Aspelt and others

25:00

to organise the campaign in Bohemia that

25:03

would bring the House of Luxembourg one of the

25:05

richest territories not just in the empire

25:07

but in the whole of Europe, the

25:09

material basis on which their 130-year-long

25:12

reign over the empire was based.

25:16

Again, many historians looked at

25:18

this move by Henry VII's astonishment. How

25:21

could he lead this lucrative campaign in

25:23

Bohemia in the balance for a

25:25

wild adventure in the south and some

25:28

imperial bling? But

25:30

to me it makes perfect sense. Gaining

25:32

the imperial crown was the number one objective

25:35

at this point and as we've heard before

25:37

for good reason. Moreover,

25:39

if Henry VII had gotten himself involved

25:41

in the Bohemian campaign, redirecting

25:43

the resources gathered for the coronation

25:46

journey towards the enhancement of his

25:48

family fortunes, where would

25:50

that have left his political position? The

25:52

princes would have turned round and concluded

25:55

that he was no different from Adolf

25:57

and Albrecht and hence would have contested

25:59

the Bohemian crown. By

26:01

walking away and leaving one of the

26:03

prince-electors, the Archbishop of Mainz, no less,

26:05

in charge, makes this look

26:08

like a campaign run by the Empire

26:10

for the Empire, not

26:12

a campaign run by the Emperor

26:14

for his own personal benefit. On

26:18

September 2013-10, Ed Colmar, father

26:20

and son together with their wives, have

26:22

one last meal. The Codex

26:24

Balduini shows the scene the next morning when

26:27

Henry and John share a last embrace before

26:29

each sets off with their respective

26:32

armies to meet their

26:34

respective destinies. The

26:36

army Henry VII led to Italy, counted

26:39

some 5,000 men. The days when

26:41

all the Imperial princes,

26:43

old, the newly elected kings serviced on

26:45

his way to Rome, are

26:47

long past. For this

26:49

undertaking Henry had to rely heavily

26:52

on friends and family. First

26:55

and most prominently there are his

26:57

brothers, Balduini, Archbishop of

26:59

Trier and Valramp van Luxburg, and

27:02

his brother-in-law, the Count Amadeus of Savoy.

27:05

They were all their allies from the western side

27:07

of the Empire, including the three Counts of Flanders,

27:10

and Counts and Knights from the

27:12

Imperial territories in Swabia and Franconia.

27:15

The bishops of Augsburg, Bartle,

27:17

Constanz, Genv, Eichsted, Liege, Trent

27:19

and Koe, as well as

27:21

a few abbots came along too, not

27:24

only for spiritual support. Of

27:26

the great Imperial princes however, only

27:28

a Leopold of Austria joins for the whole

27:31

endeavor. This

27:33

army has often been described as too small. And

27:37

it is true that this force was a

27:39

lot smaller than the forces Barbarossa or Henry

27:41

VI had taken into their wars with Milan

27:43

and Sicily. But this

27:45

was not meant to be a campaign of conquest. Henry

27:48

VII had come upon an invitation of Pope Clement

27:50

V. He had been

27:52

negotiating with Italian cities for months ahead

27:55

of the trip, and he

27:57

was expecting safe passage down to Rome.

28:00

The army was there to display the power

28:02

of the new emperor, to break the occasional

28:04

resistance of one had to expect in these

28:06

uncertain times, but it wasn't an army

28:08

of conquest. The

28:12

army travelled via Bern, Morten and

28:14

Lausanne to the Passement Cenie. From

28:17

there they descended into Piedmont and

28:19

arrived in Count de Madeus of Savoy's capital,

28:22

the city of Turin, in the first

28:24

week of November 1310. News

28:27

of the arrival of an emperor

28:30

spread like wildfire. Dante

28:33

Alighieri wrote a letter calling him, The

28:35

comfort of the nations and the glory

28:37

of thy people. And he

28:40

was not alone in hoping that finally

28:42

after sixty years a prince of peace

28:44

was returning to Italian soil, a land

28:46

driven with divisions, cored in a perennial

28:48

civil war between the Galves and the

28:50

Ghibellines, a land even

28:53

the papacy had abandoned. From

28:56

all we heard so far, our hero Henry

28:58

VII is the man for the

29:00

job. He will sort out

29:02

Italy once and for all. Oh

29:05

Willy, find out next week

29:07

when we follow Henry there and back again. Before

29:12

I go just to remember, if you want to

29:14

sign up as a patron go to patreon.com history

29:16

of the germans or to history

29:19

of the germans.com support thank

29:21

you so much