THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: MAXIMILIAN AND THE EMANCIPATION OF HIS GRANDSON CHARLES OF HABSBURG*
*This article is mainly based on my new book: Jonathan Dumont, Écrire un avènement. Charles de Habsbourg dans dans l’œuvre de l’indiciaire Rémi Dupuis, Geneva, Droz, 2024, coll. Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance, nr. 201. ISBN-13: 978-2-600-06555-9.
On 5 January 1515, in the Great Hall of the Coudenberg Palace in Brussels, Charles of Habsburg came of age, becoming the full sovereign of the Low Countries.
Among other things, the event was a demonstration of strength on the part of the Habsburg lineage. Charles asserted a vertical, strong and, in fact, almost absolute power, which contrasted with the princely power in the Low Countries since the death of Charles the Bold (5 January 1477), i.e. a princely power regulated by the subjects and shared with them by virtue of the Great Privilege granted by Mary of Burgundy (11 February 1477), in other words, a monarchy of compromise.[1] It was no coincidence, moreover, that Charles and his entourage chose to hold the ceremony on the anniversary of the death of Charles the Bold, a moment which, from their point of view, saw the weakening of princely power in the Old Netherlands.
Jan Brueghel the Younger, The Palace of Coudenberg (ca 1627), Museo del Prado, Inv. P001451. © Wikicommons.
Charles’s official chronicler, the indiciary of Burgundy and Austria, Rémi Dupuis, confirmed that Charles’s accession was synonymous with a new empire for the Habsburgs, a Roman empire that God was going to hand back to them and even double for them:
“Who knows if the time has not come when all must return to one, and if it is the pleasure of God to double the Roman monarchy in this young king, as one, as he doubles the time of perplexities and breaches against which to establish his reign?[2]”
Charles would usher in a new golden age of monarchy.
In a sense, this ceremony conjures up the past: the demise of Charles the Bold, of course, but also the difficult political experience of Maximilian of Habsburg, Charles’s grandfather, in the Low Countries between 1477 and 1492.
Maximilian sought to impose a much more vertical style of government than that desired by the intermediary bodies in the Old Netherlands (the Assemblies of States) that participated in the government. After the death of his wife Mary of Burgundy (27 March 1482), Maximilian attempted to assume sole regency during the minority of his two children, Philip and Margaret, and de facto ruled alone. There followed a long political and military conflict between him and the States, mainly those of Flanders, which did not really end until the Peace of Candsand (19 July 1492) and above all the emancipation of his eldest son, Philip the Handsome (1493).[3]
In 1515, Charles imposed the style of government that his grandfather had wanted to impose in the Old Netherlands. Seen in this light, Charles’ accession to the throne was a belated revenge for Maximilian.
Charles of Habsburg represented as an Emperor, [Rémi Dupuis], La tryumphante et solemnelle entree […], Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2591, fol. 2v. © ÖNB.
And although he is absent from the ceremony, Maximilian appears constantly, at key moments.
The emperor appears as the undisputed and legitimate mambour[4] and guardian of his grandson, before being praised for his “prudence, subtlety and diligence”.[5] The reference to the title of “mambour” is not insignificant when one remembers the extent to which Maximilian had to fight to impose himself as regent over the Flemish cities in the years 1480-1490. Later, after the death of Philip the Handsome in Burgos (25 September 1506), Maximilian once again assumed the title of guardian, but the regency council was chaired by his daughter Margareth, who was appointed governor-general. Margareth was considered by the subjects to be far more legitimate, as she was seen as the “natural” princess.[6]
The ceremony was thus an attempt to symbolically rehabilitate Maximilian in the eyes of his subjects, while reaffirming what the Habsburg had never compromised: he was the sole legitimate guardian of his grandson, the custodian of an authority based on the dynastic principle and not on the logic of the prince-subject compromise.
In fact, the ceremony was placed under the triple authority of Maximilian I, Margaret of Austria, and the vassals and subjects represented by the delegates of the States, according to a dynastic pyramid (Maximilian and Margaret), then feudal (the vassals), and finally political (the subjects). Dupuis insists on the legality of the ceremony, which instantly makes Charles “competent by right, and by custom” to reign.[7]
Bernhard Strigel, Emperor Maximilian I with His Family (after 1515), Vienna, Kunsthistorirsches Museum (Vienna), Gemäldegalerie, 832. © Wikicommons.
Here again, it was the dynastic principle, which originated with Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, that first established Charles in law. From then on, the Habsburg could receive homage from the subjects of each of his principalities after swearing to respect their privileges, a ceremony that founded princely legitimacy in the Old Netherlands. Dupuis thus explains and supports the principle of a contractual princely power, negotiated and shared between prince and subjects.[8]
Thus, on 5 January 1515, in the Coudenberg Palace, it can truly be said that the Emperor struck back and, through his grandson, challenged the monarchy of compromise, which he wanted to replace with another, that of the Habsburgs.
Footnotes
[1] This form of Monarchy had been theorised in J. Dumont, “Burgundian-Habsburg Monarchic Culture between the Low Countries and the Spanish Kingdoms (1500-20),” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 82 (2020/1): 25-64.
[2] J. Dumont, écrire un avènement. Charles de Habsbourg dans l’œuvre de l’indiciaire Rémi Dupuis, Geneva, Droz, 2024, p. 215: Qui scest se le temps est venu que tout doit retourner à ung et qui se le plesir de Dieu est de doubler la monarchie des Romains en ce jeusne roy, tout ung comme il double le temps des perplexitez et romptures contres à establer son regne ?
[3] On these events, see J.-M. Cauchies, Philippe le Beau. Le dernier duc de Bourgogne, Turnhout, Brepols, 2003, p. 8-23; J. Haemers, For the Common Good. State Power and Urban Revolts in the Reign of Mary of Burgundy (1477-1482), Turnhout, Brepols, 2009; Marie de Bourgogne/Mary of Burgundy. Figure, principat et postérité d’une duchesse tardo-médiévale/“Persona”, Reign, and Legacy of a Late Medieval Duchess, eds M. Depreter, J. Dumont, E. L’Estrange, S. Mareel, Turnhout, Brepols, 2021.
[4] In the Low Countries, the term “Mambour” (from the Dutch “Momboor”) refers to the position of regent of a principality. It also has the extended meaning of “Protector”.
[5] Dumont, Écrire un avènement, 90: prudence, subtilité et diligence.
[6] In the Low Countries, the Estates General were the guardians of the prince’s naturality. They expressed this by recognising the new prince (R. Wellens, “Les États Généraux et la succession de Philippe le Beau dans les Pays-Bas,” Liber memorialis Émile Cornez, Leuven-Paris, Nauwelaerts, 1972, 125-159, here 140), such as the joyful entries (É. Lecuppre-Desjardin, La ville des cérémonies. Essai sur la communication politique dans les anciens Pays-Bas bourguignons, Turnhout, Brepols, 2004, 135-158).
[7] Dumont, Écrire un avènement, 85: competent de droit, et par la coustume.
[8] In the Low Countries, at the beginning of the 16th century, the prince’s oath of office before the Assembly of the States on his accession to the throne was a ceremony that had long been an integral part of the institutions (M. Boone, “L’État bourguignon, un État inventeur ou les limites de l’invention,” La cour de Bourgogne et l’Europe. Le rayonnement et les limites d’un modèle culturel. Actes du colloque international tenu à Paris les 9, 10 et 11 octobre 2007, eds W. Paravicini, T. Hiltmann, F. Viltart, Ostfildern, Thorbecke, 2013, 133-156, here 141 s.
Header image credits: [Rémi Dupuis], La tryumphante et solemnelle entree […], Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2591, fol. 7v. © ÖNB.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Jonathan Dumont (September 1, 2024). THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: MAXIMILIAN AND THE EMANCIPATION OF HIS GRANDSON CHARLES OF HABSBURG*. Managing Maximilian (1493-1519) - A blog on Persona, Politics, and Personnel through the Lens of Digital Prosopography at the time of Maximilian of Habsburg. Retrieved September 13, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/127qp
