A Different Chalice - A Hussite Timeline
- Thread starter Salvador79
- Start date
True.
My rationale was that S. was both ambitious and pragmatic, to the point that he would ally with anyone and never pressed any political agenda. I thought such a man could profit greatly from the position on the sidelines of a mess made by fanatics. Also, support bases in the Ruthenian East and in newly conquered territories can make for an easy reign as long as you continue conquering and don`t spend too much time among the clans you sidelined. Additionally, he´s quite an experienced (even old) man by now, and I think IOTL he had some seriously bad luck in the post-Vytautas succession struggle. I had taken up Svitrigaila because of his Eastern focus initially, but what fascinated me later on was how much of a comeback kid he was all his life. Must have had some qualities, even though excellent relations to Vytautas and his next of kin and entourage appear not to have been among them.
But you make a fair point that maybe I´ve overdone it.
Don`t worry, though, something´s going to happen. If you don`t mind a little spoiler, may I contact you via PM with a question on Lithuanian history?
Yeah, Švitrigaila was not the worst guy to rule. He just didn't find his opportunity, unlike ITTL.
If you need any help, sure, I can listen.
I´ve split up the Hussite and the Hungarian part in two, at least for the period 1432-34, and thus managed to finish the part on how the rump confederacy reforms itself today already.
Here it is - a map of the cantons will follow on Monday, I hope.
1432-34: A New Union – Developments in the Rump Confederacy
To the Hussites in Bohemia, Moravia and a few enclaves in Silesia who remained outside of the Polish realm, the two years after the breakup which occurred on the Assembly at Časlav were militarily relatively calm. Poland was exhausted and then slid down the slope towards the chaos of interregnum, Meißen was caught up in its war against the Brandenburg-led Reform coalition over the principality of Wittenberg, Johann of the Oberpfalz stood by the peace treaty he had signed as he faced enough difficulties in Southern Germany anyway, Austria had to reorganize itself under its new young duke Friedrich, and in Hungary, King Sigismund finally implemented the military reform he had decided upon after the defeat at Szentkereszt, which would strengthen Hungary`s military power greatly, but which also took its time in which the Hussites were safe from Hungarian invasions – were a gift from Heaven.
They gave the remaining confederates time to sort out their differences, and reorganize their polity. This was more than necessary – with the departure of the Compromisers, the moderate middle ground had largely disappeared from the greater Bohemian political scene. Those who stayed together shared little more than their emphasis to exercise their faith freely and their agreement to stand together in defense against immediate foreign aggression. Both among the politically minded and among the theologians – where this wasn`t the same anyway –, mostly radicals had stayed behind, but they belonged to radically different groups. Pikards and Waldensians who rejected the sacraments, didn`t ordain priests, and didn`t care about a bishop had to come to terms with Calixtian Taborites and Orebites, without a mediating group in between them. What was more important, Chelčickyan pacifists who wanted no part in the continental conflagration and had already participated only reluctantly in the last war efforts had to form a state together with zealous groups like the one led by Andry Prokop in the Eger valley, whose predominantly military occupation gave their semi-monastic male communities a semblance of holy military orders and who burned with the passion to help out their Slovakian Bratrici, extend the Hussite realm and spread the true gospel with fire and sword and liberate the rest of Europe`s oppressed population, too.
As the spřiseženstvo`s first constitution had been pulverized by the departure of the Compromisers at Časlav, the remaining rivalling radicals were both free and condemned to find a new modus vivendi. Each group ardently argued for a new republic shaped after their own ideological preferences: aggressive Pikards and Panslavists sought to evict all remaining non-Hussites, a view opposed by a majority of Praguers. Taborites and Chelčickyites pressed for a country-wide land reform, but while the Taborites saw this project as inextricably linked to a military reform which abolished knigths once and for all and replaced them with a universal draft of peasant soldiers in times of war, the Chelčickyites fought for their right not to take up arms and not to trespass against the commandment that thou shalt not kill – a position which infuriated the various groups who were already involved in the struggle of the Bratrici in Slovakia and who saw the confederacy`s responsibility in defending the true believers anywhere on the continent against the onslaught of empires and inquisitors. Countless new institutions, laws and arbitration mechanisms were proposed – but ultimately almost all of them fell through.
It was only in 1433 that a small group of political leaders from all the various radical groups which made up the Hussite nation (Peter Payne, Petr Chelčicky, Petr Kaniš, Andry Prokop, Jan Čapek ze Sán, Jan Rohač z Dubé, Ambrož Hradecky from Bohemia, Karel Zahradnik and Pavel Brada from Moravia, and Petr Aksamit for the Slovakian Bratrici) came to a constitutional agreement which would find broad support. The Conventa of Louny have been described, not entirely inadequately, as “the agreement to disagree”. They created a polity which was considerably more decentralized than the first spřiseženstvo.
The second spřiseženstvo defined three types of constituent entities: communes (obce), cantons (sdružení) and congregations (řehoľe). Of these three, only the obce had already existed in the first confederacy. Now, each obec was to join with (politically and/or religiously) like-minded neighboring obce into a canton / sdružení. In one canton, all obce would agree to a shared set of laws, create, man and finance a court of appeal and some degree of regional administration. Each canton was also free to organize its armed forces as it saw fit, and to annually elect hejtmans who would lead the cantonal militia. The cantons would be sovereign even in their pursuit of foreign policies and had the right to conclude treaties with third parties. Delegates from all cantons would annually renew their oath to stand together and help each other defend themselves in case of foreign invasion, though, and also to keep eternal peace among each other.
With the autonomous cantons – not unlike their Swiss counterparts –, the Bohemians and Moravians had created comparatively small, but still viably-sized political entities where local democratic opinion-making processes could still realistically take place, but which were large enough to organize a professional jurisdiction, the construction and maintenance of infrastructure, and to field their own divisions in times of war. The cantons, again like their Swiss namesakes, built on already existing structures of cooperation, like the mutual defense leagues of Taborite and Orebite obce, and on the emergence of a handful of divergent systems of laws. They took one to two years to form everywhere, but already in this process they were involved in the Hussite struggle to defend and extend Slovakia`s Bratrici strongholds against Hungarian attacks.
Cantonalisation was a step back from the more centralized polity the Hussites had previously had. Soon, cantons asserted their relative independence by pursuing divergent domestic and foreign policies very self-confidently. At the same time, these structures also proved wildly dynamic, often achieving astonishing little conquests in the disputed and chaotic borderlands, either alone or teaming up with other cantons. The question yet unanswered was whether these increasingly centrifugal cantons would still stand together when a common enemy should come.
Not every full citizen of the confederacy had to belong to a territorial obec and a sdružení, though: several thousand individuals had formed into three řehoľe: the Pikard order, a newly formed Order of the Chalice (a knightly order formed by former members of the Poděbrady League) and the Samaritan Order (a non-military order in which the staunch Chelčickyan core organized itself, buying their way out of the obligation to serve militarily by offering free paramedical services). These three orders held their own lands, even though they were too small to form cantons, the former two fielded their own troops while the third was exempt from this duty; they followed their own rules without courts of appeal, and sent their own delegates to the confederal assemblies, too.
The confederal level retained only control over the common dominia, over the silver mines and the mints, and continued to arbitrate conflicts between cantons or congregations. The two confederal hejtmans who continued to be elected annually by the assembly no longer had supreme military command; they were reduced to the function of supreme diplomats and spokesmen who interacted with foreign powers on behalf of the entire confederacy.
Here it is - a map of the cantons will follow on Monday, I hope.
1432-34: A New Union – Developments in the Rump Confederacy
To the Hussites in Bohemia, Moravia and a few enclaves in Silesia who remained outside of the Polish realm, the two years after the breakup which occurred on the Assembly at Časlav were militarily relatively calm. Poland was exhausted and then slid down the slope towards the chaos of interregnum, Meißen was caught up in its war against the Brandenburg-led Reform coalition over the principality of Wittenberg, Johann of the Oberpfalz stood by the peace treaty he had signed as he faced enough difficulties in Southern Germany anyway, Austria had to reorganize itself under its new young duke Friedrich, and in Hungary, King Sigismund finally implemented the military reform he had decided upon after the defeat at Szentkereszt, which would strengthen Hungary`s military power greatly, but which also took its time in which the Hussites were safe from Hungarian invasions – were a gift from Heaven.
They gave the remaining confederates time to sort out their differences, and reorganize their polity. This was more than necessary – with the departure of the Compromisers, the moderate middle ground had largely disappeared from the greater Bohemian political scene. Those who stayed together shared little more than their emphasis to exercise their faith freely and their agreement to stand together in defense against immediate foreign aggression. Both among the politically minded and among the theologians – where this wasn`t the same anyway –, mostly radicals had stayed behind, but they belonged to radically different groups. Pikards and Waldensians who rejected the sacraments, didn`t ordain priests, and didn`t care about a bishop had to come to terms with Calixtian Taborites and Orebites, without a mediating group in between them. What was more important, Chelčickyan pacifists who wanted no part in the continental conflagration and had already participated only reluctantly in the last war efforts had to form a state together with zealous groups like the one led by Andry Prokop in the Eger valley, whose predominantly military occupation gave their semi-monastic male communities a semblance of holy military orders and who burned with the passion to help out their Slovakian Bratrici, extend the Hussite realm and spread the true gospel with fire and sword and liberate the rest of Europe`s oppressed population, too.
As the spřiseženstvo`s first constitution had been pulverized by the departure of the Compromisers at Časlav, the remaining rivalling radicals were both free and condemned to find a new modus vivendi. Each group ardently argued for a new republic shaped after their own ideological preferences: aggressive Pikards and Panslavists sought to evict all remaining non-Hussites, a view opposed by a majority of Praguers. Taborites and Chelčickyites pressed for a country-wide land reform, but while the Taborites saw this project as inextricably linked to a military reform which abolished knigths once and for all and replaced them with a universal draft of peasant soldiers in times of war, the Chelčickyites fought for their right not to take up arms and not to trespass against the commandment that thou shalt not kill – a position which infuriated the various groups who were already involved in the struggle of the Bratrici in Slovakia and who saw the confederacy`s responsibility in defending the true believers anywhere on the continent against the onslaught of empires and inquisitors. Countless new institutions, laws and arbitration mechanisms were proposed – but ultimately almost all of them fell through.
It was only in 1433 that a small group of political leaders from all the various radical groups which made up the Hussite nation (Peter Payne, Petr Chelčicky, Petr Kaniš, Andry Prokop, Jan Čapek ze Sán, Jan Rohač z Dubé, Ambrož Hradecky from Bohemia, Karel Zahradnik and Pavel Brada from Moravia, and Petr Aksamit for the Slovakian Bratrici) came to a constitutional agreement which would find broad support. The Conventa of Louny have been described, not entirely inadequately, as “the agreement to disagree”. They created a polity which was considerably more decentralized than the first spřiseženstvo.
The second spřiseženstvo defined three types of constituent entities: communes (obce), cantons (sdružení) and congregations (řehoľe). Of these three, only the obce had already existed in the first confederacy. Now, each obec was to join with (politically and/or religiously) like-minded neighboring obce into a canton / sdružení. In one canton, all obce would agree to a shared set of laws, create, man and finance a court of appeal and some degree of regional administration. Each canton was also free to organize its armed forces as it saw fit, and to annually elect hejtmans who would lead the cantonal militia. The cantons would be sovereign even in their pursuit of foreign policies and had the right to conclude treaties with third parties. Delegates from all cantons would annually renew their oath to stand together and help each other defend themselves in case of foreign invasion, though, and also to keep eternal peace among each other.
With the autonomous cantons – not unlike their Swiss counterparts –, the Bohemians and Moravians had created comparatively small, but still viably-sized political entities where local democratic opinion-making processes could still realistically take place, but which were large enough to organize a professional jurisdiction, the construction and maintenance of infrastructure, and to field their own divisions in times of war. The cantons, again like their Swiss namesakes, built on already existing structures of cooperation, like the mutual defense leagues of Taborite and Orebite obce, and on the emergence of a handful of divergent systems of laws. They took one to two years to form everywhere, but already in this process they were involved in the Hussite struggle to defend and extend Slovakia`s Bratrici strongholds against Hungarian attacks.
Cantonalisation was a step back from the more centralized polity the Hussites had previously had. Soon, cantons asserted their relative independence by pursuing divergent domestic and foreign policies very self-confidently. At the same time, these structures also proved wildly dynamic, often achieving astonishing little conquests in the disputed and chaotic borderlands, either alone or teaming up with other cantons. The question yet unanswered was whether these increasingly centrifugal cantons would still stand together when a common enemy should come.
Not every full citizen of the confederacy had to belong to a territorial obec and a sdružení, though: several thousand individuals had formed into three řehoľe: the Pikard order, a newly formed Order of the Chalice (a knightly order formed by former members of the Poděbrady League) and the Samaritan Order (a non-military order in which the staunch Chelčickyan core organized itself, buying their way out of the obligation to serve militarily by offering free paramedical services). These three orders held their own lands, even though they were too small to form cantons, the former two fielded their own troops while the third was exempt from this duty; they followed their own rules without courts of appeal, and sent their own delegates to the confederal assemblies, too.
The confederal level retained only control over the common dominia, over the silver mines and the mints, and continued to arbitrate conflicts between cantons or congregations. The two confederal hejtmans who continued to be elected annually by the assembly no longer had supreme military command; they were reduced to the function of supreme diplomats and spokesmen who interacted with foreign powers on behalf of the entire confederacy.
I am totally okay with Bohemia being an alt-Switzerland, but it might get a bit confusing considering that real Switzerland also exists. In any case, I say bring on as many Switzerlands as possible!
1848 is incredibly far away, and I'm not sure how recognisable Europe and political history would be by then. But of course Bohemia can morph many times into different political structures, disappear, reappear... the idea of a Hussite "Switzerland" had been one of the earliest for this timeline (an early title idea had been "Confoederatio Bohemica").
Thanks. I have some plans but what I'd like to know your opinion about is how plausible you think "Swissifications" are at this juncture, where, and why...!
@Salvador79 , Ive always been intrigued by the possibility of the swissification of the American colonies. There aren't very many places left in Europe that might easily become confederations, and so now might be the time to think about how the discovery of the new world might more fully serve as refuges for exiles and alternative thinkers. However, if any new European areas are up for consideration, I'd back such developments in either the low countries or with emerging nations in the Balkans.
Interesting. I had another place in mind
we'll learn more about Balkans and Low Countries soon. I generally agree that they are logical choices. As for America.. no, I won't say anything...Thanks for the Link, his TL looks awesome! Never saw it because it's in the ASB section...
I keep it in the Maps and Graphics section, actually, because it began as mostly maps. The ASB section might be more appropriate. It's not a timeline at all, more an AH-like setting, so this forum would not be an appropriate place for it. Thanks for the love.
Here`s the map I promised! Unfortunately, it´s an overlay again because I otherwise couldn`t be exact enough.
Praha, Tabor, and Oreb are by far the strongest, and since they represent three different strands of Hussitism, that makes for a bit of a balance. The Moravian cantons are based on sub-ethnic groups and thus somewhat different in nature from the Bohemian ones.
Tabor: The Southern Bohemian heartland of the largest strand within the Hussite revolution. It´s made up of eleven obce, with Tabor being the clear spiritual and political centre where already a Court of Appeal had formed throughout the 1420s and where cantonal administration is established, too, now, replacing less formal structures of Taborite alliance. (The Taborite realm is larger than this district and stretches across Jizny Cechy and Planina, too. A division into various cantons was insisted on by the other groups, though, and also made sense practically.) Tabor is a strong, consolidated canton, whose numerous free peasants are a military factor to reckon with. Its main focus of expansion lies on the South, the area around Ceske Budejovice which has been lost to Habsburg forces. Since 1431, Taborite forces are slowly winning back fort after fort, hamlet after hamlet, although occasional Habsburg counterattack cause setbacks.
Jizny Cechy: The name of the canton, meaning “Southern Bohemia”, reflects the uneasiness underlying this canton`s composition, which has always been the weakest link in the Taborite chain. Its centre is Pisek, from where a strong Taborite group has dominated the entire region ever since the Hussite revolution. By 1434, major towns like Strakonice and Prahatice are pacified and somewhat streamlined, with many dissenters either emigrated or converted. Nevertheless, inhabitants of these proud obce loudly objected to naming the canton “Pisek”, which is why the neutral name was chosen. Jizny Cechy still isn`t entirely consolidated and doesn`t have any expansionist tendencies.
Chodsko: The canton of the Chodové who guard the confederacy`s Western border. Of the sub-ethnic cantons, this one is the oldest and also the one which is most clearly affiliated to one of the Hussite revolutionary groups, namely the Taborites, although Taborite Law is applied in a somewhat modified form in Chodsko due to its adapatation to Chody traditions. The Chodove have always seen themselves as defiant peasant-soldiers with a distinct identity, and the emerging political structures suit them perfectly. Klatovice is where cantonal administration and jurisdiction are established, finding a new permanent home after preceding institutions moved around between Domazlice, Klatovice and Tachov. Cautious Chody expansion Westwards is aimed at securing mountain paths into Bavarian lands. Also, Chodové are surprinsingly effective in their raids against Habsburg positions in Southern Bohemia, to the point that they can be said to effectively exert control over the Western part of the Bohemia`s Southern edge.
Plzen: Long a besieged exclave loyal to Roman King Sigismund, Plzen joined the First Confederacy after negotiations late in the 1420s. A less well-established and stable canton, with a divided main city which exerts little control over its hinterland, where only few obce have formed. Significant parts of what is marked on the map for practical reasons as territory of the canton belong to knights of the Order of the Chalice and are controlled from their castles.
Ohre: In the valley of the Ohre / Eger, Andry Prokop leads a group of particularly aggressive militant Hussites. Their involvement in the latest military confrontations has taken a toll on them and prevented them from expanding North-, South- or Westwards so far, but still they`re a backbone of Western Hussite support for the Slovakian Bratrici. Main town: Vary.
Planina: From the very early beginnings, as Taborite as Tabor itself, the two plateaus in North-Western Bohemia have recovered a little from the damage inflicted on them by Meißen`s armies. Solidly Hussite, this canton is slightly more pluralistic than the South because of its polycentric inner power structure, with Žatec, Louny, and Slany all claiming roles as leading Hussite obce. This is also why the canton bears the diplomatic geographical descriptor “plateau” instead of either town`s name. Now institutionally tied in a closer union, the canton Planina competes with the Ore Mountain Pikards in extending its control over the heights and the passes of the Ore Mountains, which is of vital importance for the canton`s (and all of Bohemia`s) safety, besides being economically lucrative.
Praha: The canton is dominated by the old kingdom`s capital and still the largest city in Bohemia by far. Here, the more liberal Praguer Law has emerged. The main city is home not only to a diverse community of various Hussite groups, but also of people of other confessions, and the same is true for the obce which surround it and which have become a haven for minorities who don`t find their place elsewhere in Bohemia. Prague traditionally hosts the synods and is the home of the Hussite archbishop. Territorially hemmed in, Prague`s demographical and military might are currently focused on Slovakia, but it can be flexibly redirected at any moment. Home base for pro-centralist groups and the confederacy`s main armoury.
Česky raj: At the strategically important Northern edge of Bohemia, this canton unites five obce with Česka Lipa as main town. Much of the land belongs to knights from the Order of the Chalice, whose castles dominate the picturesque landscape.
Kourim: Eastwards from Prague, upriver along the Elbe valley lies a densely populated area whose towns have traditionally leaned towards a very moderate or even conservative policy, and who consequently have picked the side of the Compromisers and sought to left the confederacy. In this territory, Kourim is the sole obce dominated by Indepentists. With the exception of a few Independentist farmers` villages, the canton is basically Kourim`s occupation zone after the few military confrontations between Indepentists and Compromisers prior to the Peace of Šumperk had brought Indepentists factual control over a region whose own leaders had chosen the side of the Compromisers. The canton is not very consolidated thus.
Similar things can be said for Chrudim.
Časlav, on the other hand, features a main town which is both moderate and has taken the side of the Indepentists, making its cantonal administration over obce like Chotiborz, Byčov and Nemecky Brod more consensual. The only canton where Magdeburg Laws still apply.
Oreb: The main town, political and military centre of the canton is Hradec Králové dominated by its Orebite community, but Orebites have consolidated their control over the entire region a decade ago already. Orebites were able to gain control over and prevent the secession of smaller territories in the mountainous North, which they now rule as dependent territories. The whole canton is the confederacy`s entrenched Independentist fief in the North-East, guarding the Hussite realm against (now royally Polish) Silesia. Orebite expansion towards the North is presently checked by the confederacy`s commitment to the Peace of Šumperk which the Orebites respect, too.
Litomyšl: Radicalised in the second wave of the Hussite revolution, Litomyšl exerts a dominant role over less staunchly Hussite obce like Vysoké Mýto and Rychnov. In Landskron, a major Waldensian obec forms the second pillar of the canton. Various groups from the canton focus their activity towards Hřebečsko in the East, but due to the Peace of Šumperk, this activity is mostly proselytizing. This could, of course, change under different geopolitical circumstances, in which case Litomyšlers would certainly seek to expand into Hřebečsko and/or Kladsko in the North.
Thinly populated, Šumperk `s special role come from its being the only non-sub-ethnically defined canton in Moravia, the place where the first Moravian town joined the Hussite cause. It barely holds it ground, almost surrounded by what is now Poland.
Lašsko, Valašsko and Slovacko are sub-ethnic cantons, i.e. when Žižka`s forces invaded and wrestled Moravia from the hands of Sigismund`s margrave Albert of Austria, they struck deals with traditional (one might say, tribal) leaders and elders in the villages and small towns of this mountainous border region: they joined the Hussite side, and in exchange they would be left alone to rule themselves as they saw fit. Feudal servitude had never been an issue here among the people who had been settled to guard the border anyway, so the only political imperative which the confederacy imposed on any of its member groups was not a problem. Religiously, Moravian Lachs and Moravian Slovaks officially embraced Calixtianism, while they practically kept their religious traditions unchanged. Moravian Vlachi even continued to adhere to their Orthodox faith unmolestedly.
With the cantonalisation, which was initially an idea of the Moravian Pavel Brada, these groups gained even more autonomy, which made them highly content with their political situation. Being ethnically defined, the three cantons are stable and clear-cut entities, which doesn`t prevent them from implying themselves in Eastward adventures into Slovakia under the guise of supporting Bratrici groups there.
This has been somewhat kept in check by the establishment of the Slovakian canton of Trenčin, which is as much a Bohemian and Moravian commitment to supporting the Bratrici as it is a formula for channeling and controlling the “helpful assistance” provided by other cantons by guaranteeing that Slovakian Bratrici strongholds remain governed by Slovakian Bratrici while difficult and strategic positions are attacked and held by various coalitions.
Hanácko is the least traditional of the sub-ethnic cantons of Moravia. Here, in the fertile and agriculturally productive valley, Žižka`s strategy had been to incite a peasant revolt against the (German) aristocracy which was almost exclusively loyal to the Empire. While it can`t be said that a spontaneous revolt broke out, the Haná peasantry was largely sympathetic to the Hussite occupation and to chasing away their lords. Because collaborationist local figures of authority had not been included in the plan, Hanácko is still in a full process of social transformation and political consolidation, which could still be threatened and thrown off balance by outside intervention.
Nevertheless, Moravia`s heartland is of such vital strategic importance that at least its central towns are all controlled by the confederacy as common dominia (painted in yellow, like Kutná Hora).
Horacko is a mountainous canton “in formation” where Hussite control is not yet unambiguous. Its main town is Třebíč.
While the yellow areas indicate common dominia, the pink areas mark territories held as dominia of one or several cantons. This is the case where entire communities are opposing the Hussite revolution and are thus not allowed to form obce and participate in the polity whose existence they oppose. Since feudal servitude is ruled out in the entire confederacy, including in these areas, those opposing Hussite rule but overwhelmed by Hussites have not become serfs, but their lands have been appropriated by others, often by communal and now by cantonal administrations, who attempt to at least squeeze out the resources from these lands required to control them militarily. Without servitude, emigration from these territories cannot be and is not prevented, which leads to their constant depopulation and, in places, to resettlement with supporters of Hussitism who form new obce and thus diminish the dominia and expand the canton`s regular territory.
The green area indicates where the Rehole of the Samaritan Order has its main stronghold. Of course, they have members not only around Chelčice, but throughout the entire confederacy.
The purple areas are strongholds of the Ore Mountain Pikards.
Not depicted on the map are the cantons of Wroclaw and Opole, which are exclaves in the midst of the Polish Kingdom now. Both are strongholds of radical Panslavists.
Praha, Tabor, and Oreb are by far the strongest, and since they represent three different strands of Hussitism, that makes for a bit of a balance. The Moravian cantons are based on sub-ethnic groups and thus somewhat different in nature from the Bohemian ones.
Tabor: The Southern Bohemian heartland of the largest strand within the Hussite revolution. It´s made up of eleven obce, with Tabor being the clear spiritual and political centre where already a Court of Appeal had formed throughout the 1420s and where cantonal administration is established, too, now, replacing less formal structures of Taborite alliance. (The Taborite realm is larger than this district and stretches across Jizny Cechy and Planina, too. A division into various cantons was insisted on by the other groups, though, and also made sense practically.) Tabor is a strong, consolidated canton, whose numerous free peasants are a military factor to reckon with. Its main focus of expansion lies on the South, the area around Ceske Budejovice which has been lost to Habsburg forces. Since 1431, Taborite forces are slowly winning back fort after fort, hamlet after hamlet, although occasional Habsburg counterattack cause setbacks.
Jizny Cechy: The name of the canton, meaning “Southern Bohemia”, reflects the uneasiness underlying this canton`s composition, which has always been the weakest link in the Taborite chain. Its centre is Pisek, from where a strong Taborite group has dominated the entire region ever since the Hussite revolution. By 1434, major towns like Strakonice and Prahatice are pacified and somewhat streamlined, with many dissenters either emigrated or converted. Nevertheless, inhabitants of these proud obce loudly objected to naming the canton “Pisek”, which is why the neutral name was chosen. Jizny Cechy still isn`t entirely consolidated and doesn`t have any expansionist tendencies.
Chodsko: The canton of the Chodové who guard the confederacy`s Western border. Of the sub-ethnic cantons, this one is the oldest and also the one which is most clearly affiliated to one of the Hussite revolutionary groups, namely the Taborites, although Taborite Law is applied in a somewhat modified form in Chodsko due to its adapatation to Chody traditions. The Chodove have always seen themselves as defiant peasant-soldiers with a distinct identity, and the emerging political structures suit them perfectly. Klatovice is where cantonal administration and jurisdiction are established, finding a new permanent home after preceding institutions moved around between Domazlice, Klatovice and Tachov. Cautious Chody expansion Westwards is aimed at securing mountain paths into Bavarian lands. Also, Chodové are surprinsingly effective in their raids against Habsburg positions in Southern Bohemia, to the point that they can be said to effectively exert control over the Western part of the Bohemia`s Southern edge.
Plzen: Long a besieged exclave loyal to Roman King Sigismund, Plzen joined the First Confederacy after negotiations late in the 1420s. A less well-established and stable canton, with a divided main city which exerts little control over its hinterland, where only few obce have formed. Significant parts of what is marked on the map for practical reasons as territory of the canton belong to knights of the Order of the Chalice and are controlled from their castles.
Ohre: In the valley of the Ohre / Eger, Andry Prokop leads a group of particularly aggressive militant Hussites. Their involvement in the latest military confrontations has taken a toll on them and prevented them from expanding North-, South- or Westwards so far, but still they`re a backbone of Western Hussite support for the Slovakian Bratrici. Main town: Vary.
Planina: From the very early beginnings, as Taborite as Tabor itself, the two plateaus in North-Western Bohemia have recovered a little from the damage inflicted on them by Meißen`s armies. Solidly Hussite, this canton is slightly more pluralistic than the South because of its polycentric inner power structure, with Žatec, Louny, and Slany all claiming roles as leading Hussite obce. This is also why the canton bears the diplomatic geographical descriptor “plateau” instead of either town`s name. Now institutionally tied in a closer union, the canton Planina competes with the Ore Mountain Pikards in extending its control over the heights and the passes of the Ore Mountains, which is of vital importance for the canton`s (and all of Bohemia`s) safety, besides being economically lucrative.
Praha: The canton is dominated by the old kingdom`s capital and still the largest city in Bohemia by far. Here, the more liberal Praguer Law has emerged. The main city is home not only to a diverse community of various Hussite groups, but also of people of other confessions, and the same is true for the obce which surround it and which have become a haven for minorities who don`t find their place elsewhere in Bohemia. Prague traditionally hosts the synods and is the home of the Hussite archbishop. Territorially hemmed in, Prague`s demographical and military might are currently focused on Slovakia, but it can be flexibly redirected at any moment. Home base for pro-centralist groups and the confederacy`s main armoury.
Česky raj: At the strategically important Northern edge of Bohemia, this canton unites five obce with Česka Lipa as main town. Much of the land belongs to knights from the Order of the Chalice, whose castles dominate the picturesque landscape.
Kourim: Eastwards from Prague, upriver along the Elbe valley lies a densely populated area whose towns have traditionally leaned towards a very moderate or even conservative policy, and who consequently have picked the side of the Compromisers and sought to left the confederacy. In this territory, Kourim is the sole obce dominated by Indepentists. With the exception of a few Independentist farmers` villages, the canton is basically Kourim`s occupation zone after the few military confrontations between Indepentists and Compromisers prior to the Peace of Šumperk had brought Indepentists factual control over a region whose own leaders had chosen the side of the Compromisers. The canton is not very consolidated thus.
Similar things can be said for Chrudim.
Časlav, on the other hand, features a main town which is both moderate and has taken the side of the Indepentists, making its cantonal administration over obce like Chotiborz, Byčov and Nemecky Brod more consensual. The only canton where Magdeburg Laws still apply.
Oreb: The main town, political and military centre of the canton is Hradec Králové dominated by its Orebite community, but Orebites have consolidated their control over the entire region a decade ago already. Orebites were able to gain control over and prevent the secession of smaller territories in the mountainous North, which they now rule as dependent territories. The whole canton is the confederacy`s entrenched Independentist fief in the North-East, guarding the Hussite realm against (now royally Polish) Silesia. Orebite expansion towards the North is presently checked by the confederacy`s commitment to the Peace of Šumperk which the Orebites respect, too.
Litomyšl: Radicalised in the second wave of the Hussite revolution, Litomyšl exerts a dominant role over less staunchly Hussite obce like Vysoké Mýto and Rychnov. In Landskron, a major Waldensian obec forms the second pillar of the canton. Various groups from the canton focus their activity towards Hřebečsko in the East, but due to the Peace of Šumperk, this activity is mostly proselytizing. This could, of course, change under different geopolitical circumstances, in which case Litomyšlers would certainly seek to expand into Hřebečsko and/or Kladsko in the North.
Thinly populated, Šumperk `s special role come from its being the only non-sub-ethnically defined canton in Moravia, the place where the first Moravian town joined the Hussite cause. It barely holds it ground, almost surrounded by what is now Poland.
Lašsko, Valašsko and Slovacko are sub-ethnic cantons, i.e. when Žižka`s forces invaded and wrestled Moravia from the hands of Sigismund`s margrave Albert of Austria, they struck deals with traditional (one might say, tribal) leaders and elders in the villages and small towns of this mountainous border region: they joined the Hussite side, and in exchange they would be left alone to rule themselves as they saw fit. Feudal servitude had never been an issue here among the people who had been settled to guard the border anyway, so the only political imperative which the confederacy imposed on any of its member groups was not a problem. Religiously, Moravian Lachs and Moravian Slovaks officially embraced Calixtianism, while they practically kept their religious traditions unchanged. Moravian Vlachi even continued to adhere to their Orthodox faith unmolestedly.
With the cantonalisation, which was initially an idea of the Moravian Pavel Brada, these groups gained even more autonomy, which made them highly content with their political situation. Being ethnically defined, the three cantons are stable and clear-cut entities, which doesn`t prevent them from implying themselves in Eastward adventures into Slovakia under the guise of supporting Bratrici groups there.
This has been somewhat kept in check by the establishment of the Slovakian canton of Trenčin, which is as much a Bohemian and Moravian commitment to supporting the Bratrici as it is a formula for channeling and controlling the “helpful assistance” provided by other cantons by guaranteeing that Slovakian Bratrici strongholds remain governed by Slovakian Bratrici while difficult and strategic positions are attacked and held by various coalitions.
Hanácko is the least traditional of the sub-ethnic cantons of Moravia. Here, in the fertile and agriculturally productive valley, Žižka`s strategy had been to incite a peasant revolt against the (German) aristocracy which was almost exclusively loyal to the Empire. While it can`t be said that a spontaneous revolt broke out, the Haná peasantry was largely sympathetic to the Hussite occupation and to chasing away their lords. Because collaborationist local figures of authority had not been included in the plan, Hanácko is still in a full process of social transformation and political consolidation, which could still be threatened and thrown off balance by outside intervention.
Nevertheless, Moravia`s heartland is of such vital strategic importance that at least its central towns are all controlled by the confederacy as common dominia (painted in yellow, like Kutná Hora).
Horacko is a mountainous canton “in formation” where Hussite control is not yet unambiguous. Its main town is Třebíč.
While the yellow areas indicate common dominia, the pink areas mark territories held as dominia of one or several cantons. This is the case where entire communities are opposing the Hussite revolution and are thus not allowed to form obce and participate in the polity whose existence they oppose. Since feudal servitude is ruled out in the entire confederacy, including in these areas, those opposing Hussite rule but overwhelmed by Hussites have not become serfs, but their lands have been appropriated by others, often by communal and now by cantonal administrations, who attempt to at least squeeze out the resources from these lands required to control them militarily. Without servitude, emigration from these territories cannot be and is not prevented, which leads to their constant depopulation and, in places, to resettlement with supporters of Hussitism who form new obce and thus diminish the dominia and expand the canton`s regular territory.
The green area indicates where the Rehole of the Samaritan Order has its main stronghold. Of course, they have members not only around Chelčice, but throughout the entire confederacy.
The purple areas are strongholds of the Ore Mountain Pikards.
Not depicted on the map are the cantons of Wroclaw and Opole, which are exclaves in the midst of the Polish Kingdom now. Both are strongholds of radical Panslavists.
Hungary 1432-38: Dragoners Against All
In the last years of his life, Sigismund took no significant role in the strife against his rival claimant for the German Roman throne, Johann, and he generally neglected Germany, where he no longer had a powerbase of his own and which was torn apart in ever worsening confessional and other conflicts, almost entirely, leaving all imperial matters to his archsteward – a position into which he elevated Friedrich, Duke of Styria and Austria, because the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who should have held this position according to tradition, was a Reformer who supported Johann. To seal the alliance – and secure a Dragoner succession on the Hungarian throne – he arranged a marriage between the young Friedrich of Habsburg and Sigismund`s extremely reluctant daughter Elizabeth, who had already been married to Friedrich´s elder brother Albert, and widowed, in 1434.
Instead, Sigismund concentrated solely on his role as King of Hungary. In this role, he finally implemented the military reform which had been overdue and which would become known under his name: the “militaris reformatio Sigismundi”. Traditionally, the Hungarian army consisted of the banners provided to the King by the highest clergymen and noblemen (the archbishops and bishops, the palatine, the chief justices, the officers of the royal household, and the bans of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia along with the voievod of Transilvania). After various consecutive defeats, both the quality and quantity of these traditional banderial troops were found lacking.
At the Diet in 1432, Sigismund pushed through – against considerable noble resistance – the establishment of an additional militia portalis, to which every landowner had to contribute one archer or two pistalbakák [=arquebusiers] for every twenty tenant households, who would serve under the command of the captain of the county (vármegye).
Of the 72 county captains, over 60 belonged to the Order of the Dragon, the network in which Sigismund had organized his loyal supporters and which was increasingly viewing itself as the last bulwark against Hussite and Reform heresy, Ottoman infidels, and everything else which threatened the traditional order of the Latin Christian West. Only some of them were from among Hungary´s noble families, while the majority was German, Croatian, Italian, Romanian, ...
Until these new units were established, equipped, and even half-way trained, two whole years passed, in which royal control over mountainous but ore-rich Slovakia in the North eroded more and more in the face of joint Bratrici and Hussite advances, and in which pro-Hungarian princes in Wallachia and Moldavia were dethroned and replaced by a pro-Ottoman (in Wallachia) and a pro-Polish one (in Moldavia). Specifically providing ammunition for the pistalbakák proved a costly endeavor for the royal treasury since the continent-wide conflagrations had driven the generally high gunpowder prices to new peaks, and the counties fielded many more pistalbakák than archers because the latter required intensive training which only few people possessed. Thus, Sigismund was forced to debase the currency and strike coins with ever lower silver content, which affected the kingdom`s reeling economy adversely and increased the strain to which everyone felt exposed.
But in 1434, King Sigismund finally leaped forward into counterattack. He sent an army of approximately 28,000 soldiers North to Slovakia, where they managed to halt and then roll back the Bratrici/Hussite advances in two major battles and various minor skirmishes, until after three months, the civitates montanae were back under royal control. The Bratrici and their Bohemian and Moravian supporters were thrown back to a handful of exceptionally defensible positions scattered throughout the mountains.
Even these last pockets of resistance might have fallen, had not Sigismund been forced to withdraw his army in order to confront Ottoman forces who advanced ever deeper into Hungarian territory.
Ottoman border raids had become a frequent nuisance over the past decade, to which Sigismund had reacted since the early 1420s by sending loyal followers whom he deemed exceptionally capable to fortify and man the border defenses, endowed with vast redistributed land property. But now, things had deteriorated gravely, with Sultan Mehmet II. seeking to profit from Sigismund`s focus on the Hussites in the North, now that Wallachia had become a safe launching base for Ottoman advances. In 1432, Ottomans had taken over considerable parts of Serbia, which had hitherto been a Hungarian vassal. In 1434, they had come to harass the Hungarian county of Severin on the other side of the Danube from both East (through Serbia) and West (through Wallachia).
Sigismund`s new army proved its worth, though. Numerically far superior (even if lacking in excellent commanders), it confronted and routed Ottoman contingents near Herculanaeum in late 1434, and in 1435, it undertook a protracted and costly, but ultimately successful siege of Smeredevo, eliminating Ottoman control over Serbia and reinstating despot Djurdjevic for the moment.
Sigismund was at the height of his glory in Hungary: his reformed army had triumphed over the heretics in the North and the Mohammedans in the South and saved the realm from certain chaos! In fact, this had been his first victory over the Hussites ever – and his last one, too, for the king fell ill in 1436 and succumbed to his disease in February 1437.
He left no male heir. His own ascension to the throne had been thorny already – and now, things were no easier. Friedrich immediately interrupted his wars in Southern Germany and rode to Buda, where the Palatine of Hungary, Pálóczy Máté III., had convened another Diet destined to elect Friedrich of Habsburg as King Frigyes I. of Hungary.
This plan faced opposition from the traditional Hungarian nobility, though, who saw themselves increasingly marginalized by the members of the Order of the Dragon in their own country and feared that another German on the throne would only waste the kingdom´s resources on warfare in Germany instead of protecting it properly against the Ottoman threat. Rallying behind Ákos Lajos, several dozen aristocrats abstained from the Diet in Buda, which was dominated by the Dragoners anyway and could have become a dangerous ground for them once they spoke up against Dragoner power, and met in Szekesfehervar instead, where they decided to offer the crown of Hungary to Kasimir, the younger brother of the Polish King Wladislaw III.
The way things stood in Poland during the regency dominated by Zbigniew Olesnicky, though, this message reached the adolescent Polish king, but no reply left Krakow successfully for Hungary. Ákos and his conspirators held out as long as they could, but during four long months, nothing but a slow storming of castles of nobles opposed to Friedrich, one by one, occurred. The conspirers did not dare confront the army loyal to Friedrich openly, given its sheer size, and so they had few other options but to withdraw slowly, step by step, until they finally stood with their backs against the wall.
When this point was reached in the late summer of 1437, the new King Frigyes of Hungary was suddenly faced with a new threat to his rule. In Transilvania, Hungarian and Vlachian peasants had begun to revolt, led by one Hungarian petty nobleman named Budai Nagy Antal [1]. They had not only suffered from military conscription and royal taxation, but lately even from a collection of the tithe for the benefit of the Catholic bishop of Kolosvár among the Vlachians, who were of Greek Orthodox confession.
The peasants took control over a number of towns and castles in Central Transilvania. In a gathering at Babolna, they laid down the ground rules for their alliance. And they, too, offered the title of a King of Hungary – but to someone other than Kasimir, someone with a more sympathetic view to the faith of the Vlachi / Romanians, with more experience, large resources at hand and a successful military record…
[1] He led a peasant revolt in 1437 IOTL, too.
In the last years of his life, Sigismund took no significant role in the strife against his rival claimant for the German Roman throne, Johann, and he generally neglected Germany, where he no longer had a powerbase of his own and which was torn apart in ever worsening confessional and other conflicts, almost entirely, leaving all imperial matters to his archsteward – a position into which he elevated Friedrich, Duke of Styria and Austria, because the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who should have held this position according to tradition, was a Reformer who supported Johann. To seal the alliance – and secure a Dragoner succession on the Hungarian throne – he arranged a marriage between the young Friedrich of Habsburg and Sigismund`s extremely reluctant daughter Elizabeth, who had already been married to Friedrich´s elder brother Albert, and widowed, in 1434.
Instead, Sigismund concentrated solely on his role as King of Hungary. In this role, he finally implemented the military reform which had been overdue and which would become known under his name: the “militaris reformatio Sigismundi”. Traditionally, the Hungarian army consisted of the banners provided to the King by the highest clergymen and noblemen (the archbishops and bishops, the palatine, the chief justices, the officers of the royal household, and the bans of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia along with the voievod of Transilvania). After various consecutive defeats, both the quality and quantity of these traditional banderial troops were found lacking.
At the Diet in 1432, Sigismund pushed through – against considerable noble resistance – the establishment of an additional militia portalis, to which every landowner had to contribute one archer or two pistalbakák [=arquebusiers] for every twenty tenant households, who would serve under the command of the captain of the county (vármegye).
Of the 72 county captains, over 60 belonged to the Order of the Dragon, the network in which Sigismund had organized his loyal supporters and which was increasingly viewing itself as the last bulwark against Hussite and Reform heresy, Ottoman infidels, and everything else which threatened the traditional order of the Latin Christian West. Only some of them were from among Hungary´s noble families, while the majority was German, Croatian, Italian, Romanian, ...
Until these new units were established, equipped, and even half-way trained, two whole years passed, in which royal control over mountainous but ore-rich Slovakia in the North eroded more and more in the face of joint Bratrici and Hussite advances, and in which pro-Hungarian princes in Wallachia and Moldavia were dethroned and replaced by a pro-Ottoman (in Wallachia) and a pro-Polish one (in Moldavia). Specifically providing ammunition for the pistalbakák proved a costly endeavor for the royal treasury since the continent-wide conflagrations had driven the generally high gunpowder prices to new peaks, and the counties fielded many more pistalbakák than archers because the latter required intensive training which only few people possessed. Thus, Sigismund was forced to debase the currency and strike coins with ever lower silver content, which affected the kingdom`s reeling economy adversely and increased the strain to which everyone felt exposed.
But in 1434, King Sigismund finally leaped forward into counterattack. He sent an army of approximately 28,000 soldiers North to Slovakia, where they managed to halt and then roll back the Bratrici/Hussite advances in two major battles and various minor skirmishes, until after three months, the civitates montanae were back under royal control. The Bratrici and their Bohemian and Moravian supporters were thrown back to a handful of exceptionally defensible positions scattered throughout the mountains.
Even these last pockets of resistance might have fallen, had not Sigismund been forced to withdraw his army in order to confront Ottoman forces who advanced ever deeper into Hungarian territory.
Ottoman border raids had become a frequent nuisance over the past decade, to which Sigismund had reacted since the early 1420s by sending loyal followers whom he deemed exceptionally capable to fortify and man the border defenses, endowed with vast redistributed land property. But now, things had deteriorated gravely, with Sultan Mehmet II. seeking to profit from Sigismund`s focus on the Hussites in the North, now that Wallachia had become a safe launching base for Ottoman advances. In 1432, Ottomans had taken over considerable parts of Serbia, which had hitherto been a Hungarian vassal. In 1434, they had come to harass the Hungarian county of Severin on the other side of the Danube from both East (through Serbia) and West (through Wallachia).
Sigismund`s new army proved its worth, though. Numerically far superior (even if lacking in excellent commanders), it confronted and routed Ottoman contingents near Herculanaeum in late 1434, and in 1435, it undertook a protracted and costly, but ultimately successful siege of Smeredevo, eliminating Ottoman control over Serbia and reinstating despot Djurdjevic for the moment.
Sigismund was at the height of his glory in Hungary: his reformed army had triumphed over the heretics in the North and the Mohammedans in the South and saved the realm from certain chaos! In fact, this had been his first victory over the Hussites ever – and his last one, too, for the king fell ill in 1436 and succumbed to his disease in February 1437.
He left no male heir. His own ascension to the throne had been thorny already – and now, things were no easier. Friedrich immediately interrupted his wars in Southern Germany and rode to Buda, where the Palatine of Hungary, Pálóczy Máté III., had convened another Diet destined to elect Friedrich of Habsburg as King Frigyes I. of Hungary.
This plan faced opposition from the traditional Hungarian nobility, though, who saw themselves increasingly marginalized by the members of the Order of the Dragon in their own country and feared that another German on the throne would only waste the kingdom´s resources on warfare in Germany instead of protecting it properly against the Ottoman threat. Rallying behind Ákos Lajos, several dozen aristocrats abstained from the Diet in Buda, which was dominated by the Dragoners anyway and could have become a dangerous ground for them once they spoke up against Dragoner power, and met in Szekesfehervar instead, where they decided to offer the crown of Hungary to Kasimir, the younger brother of the Polish King Wladislaw III.
The way things stood in Poland during the regency dominated by Zbigniew Olesnicky, though, this message reached the adolescent Polish king, but no reply left Krakow successfully for Hungary. Ákos and his conspirators held out as long as they could, but during four long months, nothing but a slow storming of castles of nobles opposed to Friedrich, one by one, occurred. The conspirers did not dare confront the army loyal to Friedrich openly, given its sheer size, and so they had few other options but to withdraw slowly, step by step, until they finally stood with their backs against the wall.
When this point was reached in the late summer of 1437, the new King Frigyes of Hungary was suddenly faced with a new threat to his rule. In Transilvania, Hungarian and Vlachian peasants had begun to revolt, led by one Hungarian petty nobleman named Budai Nagy Antal [1]. They had not only suffered from military conscription and royal taxation, but lately even from a collection of the tithe for the benefit of the Catholic bishop of Kolosvár among the Vlachians, who were of Greek Orthodox confession.
The peasants took control over a number of towns and castles in Central Transilvania. In a gathering at Babolna, they laid down the ground rules for their alliance. And they, too, offered the title of a King of Hungary – but to someone other than Kasimir, someone with a more sympathetic view to the faith of the Vlachi / Romanians, with more experience, large resources at hand and a successful military record…
[1] He led a peasant revolt in 1437 IOTL, too.
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Any thoughts on the plausibility of developments in Bohemia/Moravia and Hungary?
Anything you`d like to see covered next?
Anyone care to speculate whom the Babolna rebels will call for help and offer Hungary`s crown?
Next week, if nothing intervenes, there`ll be a lot to say about the HRE. Don`t even know if I can write it all in one week, but at least we`ll start with it.
Anything you`d like to see covered next?
Anyone care to speculate whom the Babolna rebels will call for help and offer Hungary`s crown?
Next week, if nothing intervenes, there`ll be a lot to say about the HRE. Don`t even know if I can write it all in one week, but at least we`ll start with it.
It´ll take a few years for butterflies to reach Ireland, but Iberia will be touched upon in next week`s issue. Had to read through a lot of background stuff to wrap my head around the situation there..
Later tonight, I´ll have finished the first installment of the HRE update.
House of Cards – The Holy Roman Empire 1432-37
Ce corps qui s'appelait […] le saint empire romain
n'était en aucune manière
ni saint, ni romain, ni empire.
(François-Marie Arouet; a Burgundian judge)
By 1432, the Holy Roman Empire had clearly ceased to function as a polity – which did not prevent anyone from using it, its offices, its fiefs, its legitimacy and its traditions to their own ends. Two people claimed they were King of the Romans – and many more people derived the legitimacy for their actions and pursuits by referring to either of the two, or by pointing at the fact that there were two where only one should have been.
In the years which followed, things would only become more complicated, and indeed at a first glance of the sources from this period, it seems that only chaos reigned supreme. And truly, the first years of the war which in German is named “der Konfessionskrieg” [the War of Confessions] already brought hundreds of thousands of casualties upon the German lands: from soldiers killed in combat over the victims of an inquisitional rage to those who died from plagues or starvations as indirect consequences of a protracted, intensive and broad warfare which spared only few parts of Germany. In these years, discord and disintegration reached so deep that no unified Empire claiming universal Christian sacrosanctity and the heritage of Rome which would represent all Germans would ever rise again.
Yet, if we look closer at these first years of the war, we can already discern the four emerging kernels from which stable successor polities would spring forth, each of which proved exceedingly long-lived in spite (or because?) of their proclaimed self-understanding as provisional or derivative constructions, destined to expire on the day on which the Holy Roman Empire would be reunited again. These four emerging cores or power structures were, by their German names, der Erztruchsess, der Bund der Bünde, der “Größte Herzog im Westen” und die Liga [the archsteward, the alliance of alliances, the greatest duke in the West – a slightly mocking title –, and the league].
While all four major belligerents shared this policy of avowedly aiming to restore the Holy Roman Empire while tacitly doing their utmost to ensure the survival of their provisional political constructions, they were at maximally opposed positions with regards to everything else. In spite of public proclamations and speeches, the least thing the Konfessionskrieg was was a conflict between those who supported Johann and those who supported Sigismund – the clearest evidence of this being that the war only intensified when one of the two was dead, and it continued long after the second claimant had died, too. But what was it? Labelling it a war between Conciliarists and traditionalists means following some of the more astute contemporary spectators – but even then, this only captures the essence of the conflict in the South-West, and even there, some of the Conciliarists looked back at long and solemn traditions, e.g. the Alte Eidgenossenschaft, too. In some places, it was a war of cities against the countryside – but while sometimes the cities tended to be Reformist while the countryside was loyal to Rome, in other regions it was the other round – and while some cities emerged triumphant, for others, the war spelt their downfall. It was, in some regions, a war of commoners against the aristocracy; in other places, wealthy urban commoners and aristocracy fought against insurgent peasants, and yet elsewhere, all three stood together against external enemies. None of these distinctions alone offers us a clear-cut mapping of the conflict – not even that of a war of Reformers against Roman Catholics. It was messier than that. It was many conflicts interlinking with one another; the situation preceding the war differed greatly between regions, and everywhere, foreign powers played a certain role, too.
To understand the first phase of the Confessional War which split up the Holy Roman Empire, thus, it makes sense to look at the four regions and ask how and why the new regional hegemons emerged: the Archsteward in the South-East, the Alliance of Alliances in the South-West, the Greatest Duke in the North-West and the League in the North-East.
Der Erztruchsess
When Friedrich of Brandenburg died and the succession dispute between Johann and Sigismund broke out, the Imperial Regalia were in Nürnberg, a Free City, but surrounded by a Burgraviate of the Hohenzollern, who supported Johann. It was Johann, thus, who was in possession of the Regalia and who established his court in Nürnberg.
When Sigismund pronounced Friedrich V. of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola and III. of Austria Arch-Steward of the Holy Roman Empire, he also entrusted him with acquiring the Imperial Regalia and transferring them to Vienna. Friedrich, only 17 years of age, was reluctant to march so far beyond Habsburg`s possessions and lay siege to it under such hostile circumstances (the circumstances being enmity from both Hohenzollern and some parts of the Wittelsbach family).
Instead, he struck a deal with some of the leading patrician families of Nürnberg, who would incite a revolt of the urban underclass against Johann. The potential for such revolts was always present in medieval towns, but Nürnberg was truly a powder keg for Johann. Not only was its working population living in comparatively precarious circumstances, given the general interdiction of guilds on the city`s territory – a situation only made worse by the breakdown of trade and production caused by simultaneous warfare in the North, in the Baltics, in France, in Italy, in Slovakia, and of course always in the Balkans. There were also hundreds, maybe even more than a thousand refugees from Bohemia in the city, and they were angry. They wanted revenge against the Hussites. Naturally, they disliked the Reformist king who, as prince of the Oberpfalz, had already betrayed the German, Roman, and Catholic cause by signing a separate peace treaty with the bloodthirsty Bohemian heretics.
The mob which took control of Nürnberg in July 1432, oddly egged on by the city`s very own councilors and burgomaster, also stormed the imperial castle and wrecked it for the second time within a mere decade. Johann and his entourage were able to escape through secret passages, though – with the Imperial Regalia.
Johann escaped to Cadolzburg, from where he called his vassals, or should we already say: allies?, to the rescue. The first to respond were, of course, those in the immediate vicinity: the Hohenzollern, the banners from the Oberpfalz, as well as contingents from the Bavarian Wittelsbach duchies of Ingolstadt and Straubing. They were commanded by Ludwig von Schrobenhausen, one of Duke Ludwig of Bayern-Ingolstadt`s knights who had gone through a decade of Bavarian wars already – a decision which would prove fatal with regards to escalating the crisis. In late September, they besieged Nürnberg, broke through its defenses, caught, tortured and slowly killed the ringleaders of the rebellion, massacred countless other citizens who appeared remotely suspicious (often, speaking with a slight Erzgebirgisch or Silesian dialect was enough), plundered the houses of the traitorous patricians, and set the town on fire.
Johann`s enemies – and not only they – were raging. In the next spring, throughout March and April 1433, a force drawn from those Wittelsbach duchies who supported Sigismund and the Roman Pope (Bayern-München under Duke Ernst and Bayern-Landshut under Duke Heinrich) and swelled by mercenaries paid for by the bishops of Würzburg, Bayreuth and Regensburg and recruited to some extent from among radicalized Nürnberger refugees marched against Johann, who had stayed with his court in the Cadolzburg.
The Battle of Roßtal between the two forces ended inconclusively, but at considerable losses for both sides. Both Johann and Bavaria`s “pro-Romans” had to call for aid from their allies from further away.
For Johann, the allies which could come to his assistance in greater numbers had yet to coalesce into their alliance of alliances – and this would take another year yet. Luckily for him, Friedrich of Habsburg, on the other hand, was moving extremely cautious, too. He had attempted to stem himself against the tide which drowned Habsburg`s Western possessions at first, before he realized that those battles were lost. Also, he had to struggle against insubordinate nobility in Carniola.
Thus, it was 1434 already when the army of the Arch-Steward Friedrich arrived in the friendly Bavarian duchies and bishoprics. He was patient, too. Held positions, improved defenses, acquired more and more of the increasingly expensive gunpowder, and prepared.
In the two major battles of 1434, a first step towards the partition of the German South was involuntarily achieved, for at Seuckendorf, Friedrich of Habsburg and his allies triumphed over the united (Reformist?) forces of Johann, Ludwig of Bayern-Ingolstadt, Friedrich II. and Albert Achilles of Hohenzollern-Nürnberg, and Jakobäa of Straubing-Holland`s vicedom Heinrich Nothaft – so much so that Ludwig died on the battlefield, the Hohenzollern margraves hastily retreated with the raggy rest of their army to their castles, and Johann fled to Amberg. Over 250 km to the South, though, Habsburg-Wittelsbach forces destined to defend the South-Western border were annihilated by the forces of the Bund der Bünde. The Reformers from the South-West were marching Northwards to relieve Johann, when, somewhere North of Ulm, they heard of his utter defeat at Seuckendorf. Disputes as to the adequate strategy broke out. Finally, the victorious but incohesive Reformist army returned to their strongholds. Friedrich, on the other hand, was free to purge Bavaria`s castles of his opponents and then press Northwards against Johann, who was forced into a defensive stance, isolated from anyone who could have supported him. Desperately, he even negotiated with the Hussite Chodové, from among whom he recruited some 200 fighters. But even they couldn`t help him against the vast numerical advantage of the Habsburg forces. Near Cham, Johann took his desperate last stance – and fell in the battle which sealed the dominance of Friedrich of Habsburg over the Bavarian lands.
Bavaria had been exhausted by one-and-a-half decades of warfare, especially the last years of which had brought famines and diseases which killed one in five inhabitants in the region, and Friedrich of Habsburg was undisputedly the young knight in shining armour who had redeemed and pacified the desperate, war-torn country. While the Wittelsbachs who had supported him (or whom he had supported) divided the spoils of the war among them (Ernst of Bayern-München annexed the duchy of Ingolstadt, Heinrich of Landshut the duchy of Straubing), Friedrich had them acknowledge him as their overlord – the Arch-Steward of the Holy Roman Empire began to call himself Arch-Duke, too, to signal his superiority over other, lesser dukes. Heinrich "the rich" considered this a fair deal since he got the more valuable and less devastated territory, too. Ernst was less enthusiastic, but his son Albrecht the Pious, who was disinterested in politics and had fallen out with his father over his marriage with a common girl, agreed without remose. Friedrich of Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola additionally annexed those parts of the Burgraviate of Nürnberg around Bayreuth over which he had been able to ascertain his control, too, directly, as the “Truchsessenland” [the land of the steward].
To be continued.
Ce corps qui s'appelait […] le saint empire romain
n'était en aucune manière
ni saint, ni romain, ni empire.
(François-Marie Arouet; a Burgundian judge)
By 1432, the Holy Roman Empire had clearly ceased to function as a polity – which did not prevent anyone from using it, its offices, its fiefs, its legitimacy and its traditions to their own ends. Two people claimed they were King of the Romans – and many more people derived the legitimacy for their actions and pursuits by referring to either of the two, or by pointing at the fact that there were two where only one should have been.
In the years which followed, things would only become more complicated, and indeed at a first glance of the sources from this period, it seems that only chaos reigned supreme. And truly, the first years of the war which in German is named “der Konfessionskrieg” [the War of Confessions] already brought hundreds of thousands of casualties upon the German lands: from soldiers killed in combat over the victims of an inquisitional rage to those who died from plagues or starvations as indirect consequences of a protracted, intensive and broad warfare which spared only few parts of Germany. In these years, discord and disintegration reached so deep that no unified Empire claiming universal Christian sacrosanctity and the heritage of Rome which would represent all Germans would ever rise again.
Yet, if we look closer at these first years of the war, we can already discern the four emerging kernels from which stable successor polities would spring forth, each of which proved exceedingly long-lived in spite (or because?) of their proclaimed self-understanding as provisional or derivative constructions, destined to expire on the day on which the Holy Roman Empire would be reunited again. These four emerging cores or power structures were, by their German names, der Erztruchsess, der Bund der Bünde, der “Größte Herzog im Westen” und die Liga [the archsteward, the alliance of alliances, the greatest duke in the West – a slightly mocking title –, and the league].
While all four major belligerents shared this policy of avowedly aiming to restore the Holy Roman Empire while tacitly doing their utmost to ensure the survival of their provisional political constructions, they were at maximally opposed positions with regards to everything else. In spite of public proclamations and speeches, the least thing the Konfessionskrieg was was a conflict between those who supported Johann and those who supported Sigismund – the clearest evidence of this being that the war only intensified when one of the two was dead, and it continued long after the second claimant had died, too. But what was it? Labelling it a war between Conciliarists and traditionalists means following some of the more astute contemporary spectators – but even then, this only captures the essence of the conflict in the South-West, and even there, some of the Conciliarists looked back at long and solemn traditions, e.g. the Alte Eidgenossenschaft, too. In some places, it was a war of cities against the countryside – but while sometimes the cities tended to be Reformist while the countryside was loyal to Rome, in other regions it was the other round – and while some cities emerged triumphant, for others, the war spelt their downfall. It was, in some regions, a war of commoners against the aristocracy; in other places, wealthy urban commoners and aristocracy fought against insurgent peasants, and yet elsewhere, all three stood together against external enemies. None of these distinctions alone offers us a clear-cut mapping of the conflict – not even that of a war of Reformers against Roman Catholics. It was messier than that. It was many conflicts interlinking with one another; the situation preceding the war differed greatly between regions, and everywhere, foreign powers played a certain role, too.
To understand the first phase of the Confessional War which split up the Holy Roman Empire, thus, it makes sense to look at the four regions and ask how and why the new regional hegemons emerged: the Archsteward in the South-East, the Alliance of Alliances in the South-West, the Greatest Duke in the North-West and the League in the North-East.
Der Erztruchsess
When Friedrich of Brandenburg died and the succession dispute between Johann and Sigismund broke out, the Imperial Regalia were in Nürnberg, a Free City, but surrounded by a Burgraviate of the Hohenzollern, who supported Johann. It was Johann, thus, who was in possession of the Regalia and who established his court in Nürnberg.
When Sigismund pronounced Friedrich V. of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola and III. of Austria Arch-Steward of the Holy Roman Empire, he also entrusted him with acquiring the Imperial Regalia and transferring them to Vienna. Friedrich, only 17 years of age, was reluctant to march so far beyond Habsburg`s possessions and lay siege to it under such hostile circumstances (the circumstances being enmity from both Hohenzollern and some parts of the Wittelsbach family).
Instead, he struck a deal with some of the leading patrician families of Nürnberg, who would incite a revolt of the urban underclass against Johann. The potential for such revolts was always present in medieval towns, but Nürnberg was truly a powder keg for Johann. Not only was its working population living in comparatively precarious circumstances, given the general interdiction of guilds on the city`s territory – a situation only made worse by the breakdown of trade and production caused by simultaneous warfare in the North, in the Baltics, in France, in Italy, in Slovakia, and of course always in the Balkans. There were also hundreds, maybe even more than a thousand refugees from Bohemia in the city, and they were angry. They wanted revenge against the Hussites. Naturally, they disliked the Reformist king who, as prince of the Oberpfalz, had already betrayed the German, Roman, and Catholic cause by signing a separate peace treaty with the bloodthirsty Bohemian heretics.
The mob which took control of Nürnberg in July 1432, oddly egged on by the city`s very own councilors and burgomaster, also stormed the imperial castle and wrecked it for the second time within a mere decade. Johann and his entourage were able to escape through secret passages, though – with the Imperial Regalia.
Johann escaped to Cadolzburg, from where he called his vassals, or should we already say: allies?, to the rescue. The first to respond were, of course, those in the immediate vicinity: the Hohenzollern, the banners from the Oberpfalz, as well as contingents from the Bavarian Wittelsbach duchies of Ingolstadt and Straubing. They were commanded by Ludwig von Schrobenhausen, one of Duke Ludwig of Bayern-Ingolstadt`s knights who had gone through a decade of Bavarian wars already – a decision which would prove fatal with regards to escalating the crisis. In late September, they besieged Nürnberg, broke through its defenses, caught, tortured and slowly killed the ringleaders of the rebellion, massacred countless other citizens who appeared remotely suspicious (often, speaking with a slight Erzgebirgisch or Silesian dialect was enough), plundered the houses of the traitorous patricians, and set the town on fire.
Johann`s enemies – and not only they – were raging. In the next spring, throughout March and April 1433, a force drawn from those Wittelsbach duchies who supported Sigismund and the Roman Pope (Bayern-München under Duke Ernst and Bayern-Landshut under Duke Heinrich) and swelled by mercenaries paid for by the bishops of Würzburg, Bayreuth and Regensburg and recruited to some extent from among radicalized Nürnberger refugees marched against Johann, who had stayed with his court in the Cadolzburg.
The Battle of Roßtal between the two forces ended inconclusively, but at considerable losses for both sides. Both Johann and Bavaria`s “pro-Romans” had to call for aid from their allies from further away.
For Johann, the allies which could come to his assistance in greater numbers had yet to coalesce into their alliance of alliances – and this would take another year yet. Luckily for him, Friedrich of Habsburg, on the other hand, was moving extremely cautious, too. He had attempted to stem himself against the tide which drowned Habsburg`s Western possessions at first, before he realized that those battles were lost. Also, he had to struggle against insubordinate nobility in Carniola.
Thus, it was 1434 already when the army of the Arch-Steward Friedrich arrived in the friendly Bavarian duchies and bishoprics. He was patient, too. Held positions, improved defenses, acquired more and more of the increasingly expensive gunpowder, and prepared.
In the two major battles of 1434, a first step towards the partition of the German South was involuntarily achieved, for at Seuckendorf, Friedrich of Habsburg and his allies triumphed over the united (Reformist?) forces of Johann, Ludwig of Bayern-Ingolstadt, Friedrich II. and Albert Achilles of Hohenzollern-Nürnberg, and Jakobäa of Straubing-Holland`s vicedom Heinrich Nothaft – so much so that Ludwig died on the battlefield, the Hohenzollern margraves hastily retreated with the raggy rest of their army to their castles, and Johann fled to Amberg. Over 250 km to the South, though, Habsburg-Wittelsbach forces destined to defend the South-Western border were annihilated by the forces of the Bund der Bünde. The Reformers from the South-West were marching Northwards to relieve Johann, when, somewhere North of Ulm, they heard of his utter defeat at Seuckendorf. Disputes as to the adequate strategy broke out. Finally, the victorious but incohesive Reformist army returned to their strongholds. Friedrich, on the other hand, was free to purge Bavaria`s castles of his opponents and then press Northwards against Johann, who was forced into a defensive stance, isolated from anyone who could have supported him. Desperately, he even negotiated with the Hussite Chodové, from among whom he recruited some 200 fighters. But even they couldn`t help him against the vast numerical advantage of the Habsburg forces. Near Cham, Johann took his desperate last stance – and fell in the battle which sealed the dominance of Friedrich of Habsburg over the Bavarian lands.
Bavaria had been exhausted by one-and-a-half decades of warfare, especially the last years of which had brought famines and diseases which killed one in five inhabitants in the region, and Friedrich of Habsburg was undisputedly the young knight in shining armour who had redeemed and pacified the desperate, war-torn country. While the Wittelsbachs who had supported him (or whom he had supported) divided the spoils of the war among them (Ernst of Bayern-München annexed the duchy of Ingolstadt, Heinrich of Landshut the duchy of Straubing), Friedrich had them acknowledge him as their overlord – the Arch-Steward of the Holy Roman Empire began to call himself Arch-Duke, too, to signal his superiority over other, lesser dukes. Heinrich "the rich" considered this a fair deal since he got the more valuable and less devastated territory, too. Ernst was less enthusiastic, but his son Albrecht the Pious, who was disinterested in politics and had fallen out with his father over his marriage with a common girl, agreed without remose. Friedrich of Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola additionally annexed those parts of the Burgraviate of Nürnberg around Bayreuth over which he had been able to ascertain his control, too, directly, as the “Truchsessenland” [the land of the steward].
To be continued.
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Bund der Bünde
Friedrich`s triumphs in Bavaria were achieved with traditional military means, and while his establishment of a hereditary Habsburg “protectorate” over the Bavarian duchies and bishoprics was somewhat unprecedented, this development left social and political structures in South-Eastern Germany mostly unchanged.
The same cannot be said about the developments in the 1430s in South-Western Germany (roughly speaking, in an area from the Alps in the South to the Enz in the North, and from Alsace in the West to the Lech in the East – the territory of the former Duchy of Swabia) at all. Unrest, sedition, grassroots alliances and the struggle for communal self-rule characterized the region´s recent past, and they had not always failed, either.
Now, from 1430 onwards, the Council of Basel functioned as a catalyst for further initiatives which began to fill the political void caused by the Empire`s collapse. Ever since Cusanus` historical speech, Habsburg dukes had tried to shut down the Council by force. Basel`s Reform-oriented Bishop Johann von Fleckenstein sought help in protecting the city of the council with the eight cantons which made up the Old Swiss Confederacy, and additionally granted the City of Basel the right to field its own armed city militia.
Relations between the Council and what, today, we call the Old Swiss Confederacy developed exceedingly well. Cusanus` Conciliarist vision provided an ideological framework for the kind of political structures the Swiss had established both within and between their cantons, while the Council profited from the safety provided to them. Even outside of the clerical Council, the streets and inns of Basel were crowded with people who lively debated theological and political matters in a climate of intellectual freedom rarely encountered anywhere else. Except maybe for Hussite Bohemia, where a few of the more zealous Reformers had indeed already been, attending the Hussite Counter-Council – but that had been a council of groups who existed at the fringes of their societies, at least outside of Bohemia, while now, half the continent was moving with them and in the same direction. It was a time of religious enthusiasm, which of course brought forth new chiliastic groups who proclaimed that the day of the last judgment and redemption was nigh. But it also brought resilient clandestine groups like the Waldensians, who had members not only in the Duchy of Savoy, but also in Bern`s dominion, back to the surface, hoping to connect with the mainstream of theological Reform. And it was also a time of political enthusiasm – the first stone in this domino being Appenzell's renewed refusal to pay taxes, tributes, and reparations to the Prince-Abbot of St Gallen, only three years after their defeat at the Letzi.
In this atmosphere of change and excitement, beginning in the spring of 1432, Felix Kempf, a lay preacher of allegedly Waldensian background, formulated his variations on Cusanus` motifs of Conciliarism, Concordantia, and parochial self-government, and assembled a great number of followers in Freiburg from among ordinary crafters. Unlike other German Reform preachers of the region, though, Kempf focused not solely on the townfolk – perhaps a sign plausibilising his Waldensian background? – but spread the word among the peasantry of the Breisgau, too.
When Duke Friedrich IV. of Tyrol demanded war taxes and banners from the Anterior Austrian lands for the struggle against the Reformist tide both along the Upper Rhine and further East (where his nephew the Arch-Stewart fought successfully for control over Bavaria) in early 1433, Kempf and his followers mobilized urban and rural discontent alike and contributed greatly to an anti-Habsburg revolt which spread from Freiburg and soon saw Habsburg bailiwicks stormed and burning in Kirchzarten, Breisach, Gengenbach and even as far South as Waldshut.
A smallish ducal army, quickly assembled from across what had been left of Anterior Austria after Sempach, rode into the Breisgau to nip the rebellion in the bud. At Munzingen, near the gates of Freiburg, they clashed with the rebels, who had obtained some real weapons while plundering the bailiffs` forts and castles to go with their scythes-on-poles, butcher knives and improvised shields, but were still dramatically underequipped and untrained. Consequently, human losses among the rebels were dramatic – and yet their numerical superiority was so high that they managed to push the men-at-arms together and towards a pond, where they began to massacre the Habsburg forces. Being too unorganized, they let dozens escape, but then chased after them, killing yet more in combat while most of the rest frantically ran into a swamp, from which, according to legend, only one man escaped alive to tell the tale of the fearsome rebels of the Breisgau.
After Munzingen, slightly more formalized political structures emerged at the head of the rebellion, with a committee consisting of Kempf and members of his movement, delegates from the town council of Freiburg (and soon of other towns, too) and spokesmen chosen by the peasant cohorts of each quarter [who called themselves Haufen, i.e. “heaps” or “piles”, evidently with the pride of people who no longer chafe that others have looked down upon them]. Soon, town after town joined the anti-Habsburg cause. And then, two months after Munzingen, delegates from the Alsatian Zehnstädtebund arrived in Freiburg with a number of proposals. Publically, an eternal peace between the ten towns and the rebellious Orte on the right bank of the Rhine was concluded. Secretly, much more far-reaching plans were plotted, though…
News about the successful revolt travelled the short distance to Basel fast – and not only they. In the last full council year, Basel was not only the meeting place for theologians and for backchamber negotiations between envoys of France, Genoa, Denmark, Brandenburg, Poland, Lithuania, Scotland, and Naples. It increasingly also became a regular meeting place for envoys from the various grassroots confederacies – both old and new – which had sprouted across the region:
Some of these confederacies had already entered close relations with others – the Burgundian Confederacy, the Gotteshausbund and the Grauer Bund were considered by the Alte Eidgenossenschaft as associated members (Zugewandte Orte), for example –, while between others, encounters were sporadic at first. Yet, the Reformist ideal of Concordance exerted its subtle influence towards favourable attitudes regarding a super-alliance among many of its members. Here, at last, was coming true what Cusanus spoke about, and what their grandfathers had fought for: a voluntary union of free communes, who keep peace with each other (=concordance), assist each other and sort out problems and challenges together instead of deferring to some distant prince (=conciliarism). Where, if not here, was the new, Reformed empire growing? One whose leaders would not inherit their positions and rights over their subjects, but who would be chosen by God´s own people, to serve them.
Reality was messier than those ideals, of course. The conclusion and closeness of alliances depended primarily on common interests. Thus, the new Niedere Vereinigung swore peace with its neighbouring Ten Towns of Alsatia, with the city and the bishopric of Basel, and with the Alte Eidgenossenschaft, but neither of the latter promised or provided direct military assistance in 1433.
Such a mutual assistance pact was agreed upon, though, between the Niedere Vereinigung and yet another league which formed farther East, on the Southern shores of Lake Constance, where yet more Habsburg subjects lived. Here, though, the confederacy was a mere re-birth of an earlier alliance, the Bund ob dem See, which had existed between 1401 and 1429. Four years later, Appenzell and St. Gallen joined their old allies Altstätten, Walgau, Montafon, Bludenz, Rankweil, Lustenau, and Feldkirch in the renewed battle against Habsburg domination. Now, though, Konstanz and Radolfzell joined them, too, and this enlarged Bund ob dem See and the Niedere Vereinigung forged a mutual assistance alliance against the Habsburg menace which, for the first time, used the title of “Bund der Bünde”, or alliance of alliances.
In October 1433, as the Habsburg dukes had little forces to spare, they sent the Swabian knights associated in the Sankt Jörgenschild league against the insurgents of the Bund der Bünde. The rebel leaders were acutely aware that they needed more, and especially more professional, forces to avoid another defeat like that at Bregenz in 1408. In their hour of need, they turned to those with whom they had been conversing a lot lately, and who shared their general political outlook, more or less at least. They called for the experienced forces of the Upper Swiss cantons, led by the ingenious and battle-hardened Italo Reding. If Reding and his Oberländler helped them defeat the knights of the Jörgenschild, they promised to help them conquer and subdue their fiefs, their castles and their forts, and hand over the control over them to the cantons who supported them, to turn them into their dependencies.
The fighters needed two weeks to descend from their mountains – time in which the rebels had to suffer from the burning of their Easternmost villages, the slaughtering of those whom they had had no choice but to leave behind as they hid and dodged and hoped to avoid a direct confrontation before their allies would arrive.
But they did arrive finally, and not an hour too early. In the Battle of the Aach, the knights of the Jörgenschild expected to finally confront the inexperienced rebel cohorts from the Breisgau and the Upper Rhine valley, and the slightly more war-hardened but also not exactly glorious Appenzeller forces. They had not expected to ride against the perfectly trained and highly self-confident pike formations of the mountainfolk. The knights of the Jörgenschild were great warriors, but they were shocked by the appearance of the Swiss on the battlefield. They attempted to attack the presumably weaker rebel flanks, but the defensive formations of the Swiss proved, once again, quick and mobile, and they always kept the momentum on their side, forcing the knights to readapt and regroup until they lost their cohesion, which was when the pikemen stormed forwards and the slaughter began, in which the Bresigauer and the Seebündler immediately joined, enclosing the Swabian knights in a nightmare of a dismounted melee, which turned into a chaotic, bloody carnage, and then an utter annihilation of the roughly 2,400 men of the Sankt Jörgenschild.
After the Battle of the Aach, promises were kept – and sealed in a new, even greater alliance. To the men of the Rhine valley, the Old Swiss Confederacy had become the third partner in the Alliance of Alliances. According to the Swiss, the Bund ob dem See and the Niedere Vereinigung had become Zugewandte Orte (associated members). A matter of perspective!?!
What was no matter of perspective was the immense territorial gains which the Old Swiss Confederacy had made all around Lake Constance. This fact contributed to the revival of another alliance – one which had been larger and more powerful than the Swiss in the 1380s: the Schwäbische Vereinigung. In the winter of 1433/34, it was revived in Überlingen merely as an alliance of thirteen free cities (in 1386, it had comprised over 22 members and reached as far as Dinkelsbühl and Augsburg).
And the Schwäbische Vereinigung joined in the Alliance of Alliances, too, in 1434. Their contribution would be called upon very soon: the Reformist King Johann was threatened by the pro-Roman Arch-Steward, Duke Friedrich of Austria etc. And so, as spring turned into summer, one of the largest armies of commoners which the Empire had seen ever since the Great Crusades was moving Eastwards towards Habsburg-controlled Bavaria: an army of Swiss, Breisgauers, Seebündler and Upper Swabian town militias, over 15,000 men strong. The Habsburg defenders stood no chance in the Battle of Altdorf. The army of armies, most of them commoners from towns as well as the countryside, some of them zealous Reformers, others without pronounced convictions, each contingent led by its own captain, marched on, towards the North, to relieve Johann and to deal the Habsburg hydra the next, the decisive blow, which would serve to keep it forever off from the lands along the Upper Rhine.
Or so they thought, until, somewhere North of Ulm, they heard of Johann`s utter defeat.
Now, the decentralized nature of their alliance proved a bane. While some wanted to march on, others urged for a retreat. A reduced force stood no chance to defeat Friedrich of Habsburg on their own, though. And so they marched back.
But the news of their resounding victory at Altdorf travelled far and wide. Not only Friedrich heard them, and shied away from crossing the Lech for the rest of the decade. Others, in very different directions, had become aware of the new formidable military force which had entered the scene of this great continental conflagration, too. And they would draw their own conclusions…
To be continued.
Damn, I won`t be able to get to the England/France/Iberia part next week, for there`s still unfinished business in the HRE to deal with. We still have to see how Germany`s North is faring…
“Between the forests of the Vosges and Thuringia,
Bohemia and the Lower Alps
shall be a Great Union of Free Cities.”
Catchphrase of the cities` revolt in 1385/86
Bohemia and the Lower Alps
shall be a Great Union of Free Cities.”
Catchphrase of the cities` revolt in 1385/86
Friedrich`s triumphs in Bavaria were achieved with traditional military means, and while his establishment of a hereditary Habsburg “protectorate” over the Bavarian duchies and bishoprics was somewhat unprecedented, this development left social and political structures in South-Eastern Germany mostly unchanged.
The same cannot be said about the developments in the 1430s in South-Western Germany (roughly speaking, in an area from the Alps in the South to the Enz in the North, and from Alsace in the West to the Lech in the East – the territory of the former Duchy of Swabia) at all. Unrest, sedition, grassroots alliances and the struggle for communal self-rule characterized the region´s recent past, and they had not always failed, either.
Now, from 1430 onwards, the Council of Basel functioned as a catalyst for further initiatives which began to fill the political void caused by the Empire`s collapse. Ever since Cusanus` historical speech, Habsburg dukes had tried to shut down the Council by force. Basel`s Reform-oriented Bishop Johann von Fleckenstein sought help in protecting the city of the council with the eight cantons which made up the Old Swiss Confederacy, and additionally granted the City of Basel the right to field its own armed city militia.
Relations between the Council and what, today, we call the Old Swiss Confederacy developed exceedingly well. Cusanus` Conciliarist vision provided an ideological framework for the kind of political structures the Swiss had established both within and between their cantons, while the Council profited from the safety provided to them. Even outside of the clerical Council, the streets and inns of Basel were crowded with people who lively debated theological and political matters in a climate of intellectual freedom rarely encountered anywhere else. Except maybe for Hussite Bohemia, where a few of the more zealous Reformers had indeed already been, attending the Hussite Counter-Council – but that had been a council of groups who existed at the fringes of their societies, at least outside of Bohemia, while now, half the continent was moving with them and in the same direction. It was a time of religious enthusiasm, which of course brought forth new chiliastic groups who proclaimed that the day of the last judgment and redemption was nigh. But it also brought resilient clandestine groups like the Waldensians, who had members not only in the Duchy of Savoy, but also in Bern`s dominion, back to the surface, hoping to connect with the mainstream of theological Reform. And it was also a time of political enthusiasm – the first stone in this domino being Appenzell's renewed refusal to pay taxes, tributes, and reparations to the Prince-Abbot of St Gallen, only three years after their defeat at the Letzi.
In this atmosphere of change and excitement, beginning in the spring of 1432, Felix Kempf, a lay preacher of allegedly Waldensian background, formulated his variations on Cusanus` motifs of Conciliarism, Concordantia, and parochial self-government, and assembled a great number of followers in Freiburg from among ordinary crafters. Unlike other German Reform preachers of the region, though, Kempf focused not solely on the townfolk – perhaps a sign plausibilising his Waldensian background? – but spread the word among the peasantry of the Breisgau, too.
When Duke Friedrich IV. of Tyrol demanded war taxes and banners from the Anterior Austrian lands for the struggle against the Reformist tide both along the Upper Rhine and further East (where his nephew the Arch-Stewart fought successfully for control over Bavaria) in early 1433, Kempf and his followers mobilized urban and rural discontent alike and contributed greatly to an anti-Habsburg revolt which spread from Freiburg and soon saw Habsburg bailiwicks stormed and burning in Kirchzarten, Breisach, Gengenbach and even as far South as Waldshut.
A smallish ducal army, quickly assembled from across what had been left of Anterior Austria after Sempach, rode into the Breisgau to nip the rebellion in the bud. At Munzingen, near the gates of Freiburg, they clashed with the rebels, who had obtained some real weapons while plundering the bailiffs` forts and castles to go with their scythes-on-poles, butcher knives and improvised shields, but were still dramatically underequipped and untrained. Consequently, human losses among the rebels were dramatic – and yet their numerical superiority was so high that they managed to push the men-at-arms together and towards a pond, where they began to massacre the Habsburg forces. Being too unorganized, they let dozens escape, but then chased after them, killing yet more in combat while most of the rest frantically ran into a swamp, from which, according to legend, only one man escaped alive to tell the tale of the fearsome rebels of the Breisgau.
After Munzingen, slightly more formalized political structures emerged at the head of the rebellion, with a committee consisting of Kempf and members of his movement, delegates from the town council of Freiburg (and soon of other towns, too) and spokesmen chosen by the peasant cohorts of each quarter [who called themselves Haufen, i.e. “heaps” or “piles”, evidently with the pride of people who no longer chafe that others have looked down upon them]. Soon, town after town joined the anti-Habsburg cause. And then, two months after Munzingen, delegates from the Alsatian Zehnstädtebund arrived in Freiburg with a number of proposals. Publically, an eternal peace between the ten towns and the rebellious Orte on the right bank of the Rhine was concluded. Secretly, much more far-reaching plans were plotted, though…
News about the successful revolt travelled the short distance to Basel fast – and not only they. In the last full council year, Basel was not only the meeting place for theologians and for backchamber negotiations between envoys of France, Genoa, Denmark, Brandenburg, Poland, Lithuania, Scotland, and Naples. It increasingly also became a regular meeting place for envoys from the various grassroots confederacies – both old and new – which had sprouted across the region:
- the Alte Eidgenossenschaft: Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Luzern, Glarus, Zürich, Zug, Bern (1291)
- the Burgundische Eidgenossenschaft: Freiburg im Üechtland, Avenches, Land Hasli, Biel, Laupen, Solothurn, Payerne, Guggisberg, Nidau, Saanen, the counts of Waadt, Neu-Kyburg, Neuenburg and Greyerz and the lords of Montenach, Weißenburg, Brandis, Thurn, Raron, Valangin, Ringgenberg, and Grünenberg (1243)
- the Zehnstädtebund: Colmar, Hagenau, Kaysersberg, Landau, Mülhausen, Münster, Oberehnheim, Rosheim, Schlettstadt, Selz, Türkheim and Weißenburg (1345)
- farther away in the South, the Gotteshausbund: Chur, Bergell, Calven, Domleschg, Greifenstein, Oberengadin, Oberhalbstein, Puschlav, Remüs-Stalla-Avers, Unterengadin and the Four Villages (1367)
- and the Grauer Bund: Disentis, Rhäzüns, Misox, Werdenberg-Heiligenberg, Trins, Tamins, Laax, Rheinwald and Schams (1424)
- and now also the newly formed Niedere Vereinigung: Freiburg im Breisgau (one town canton and four surrounding land „quarters“ each counting separately), Triberg, Waldkirch, Endingen, Krozingen,Waldshut, Schönau, Laufenburg, Rheinfelden (1433).
Some of these confederacies had already entered close relations with others – the Burgundian Confederacy, the Gotteshausbund and the Grauer Bund were considered by the Alte Eidgenossenschaft as associated members (Zugewandte Orte), for example –, while between others, encounters were sporadic at first. Yet, the Reformist ideal of Concordance exerted its subtle influence towards favourable attitudes regarding a super-alliance among many of its members. Here, at last, was coming true what Cusanus spoke about, and what their grandfathers had fought for: a voluntary union of free communes, who keep peace with each other (=concordance), assist each other and sort out problems and challenges together instead of deferring to some distant prince (=conciliarism). Where, if not here, was the new, Reformed empire growing? One whose leaders would not inherit their positions and rights over their subjects, but who would be chosen by God´s own people, to serve them.
Reality was messier than those ideals, of course. The conclusion and closeness of alliances depended primarily on common interests. Thus, the new Niedere Vereinigung swore peace with its neighbouring Ten Towns of Alsatia, with the city and the bishopric of Basel, and with the Alte Eidgenossenschaft, but neither of the latter promised or provided direct military assistance in 1433.
Such a mutual assistance pact was agreed upon, though, between the Niedere Vereinigung and yet another league which formed farther East, on the Southern shores of Lake Constance, where yet more Habsburg subjects lived. Here, though, the confederacy was a mere re-birth of an earlier alliance, the Bund ob dem See, which had existed between 1401 and 1429. Four years later, Appenzell and St. Gallen joined their old allies Altstätten, Walgau, Montafon, Bludenz, Rankweil, Lustenau, and Feldkirch in the renewed battle against Habsburg domination. Now, though, Konstanz and Radolfzell joined them, too, and this enlarged Bund ob dem See and the Niedere Vereinigung forged a mutual assistance alliance against the Habsburg menace which, for the first time, used the title of “Bund der Bünde”, or alliance of alliances.
In October 1433, as the Habsburg dukes had little forces to spare, they sent the Swabian knights associated in the Sankt Jörgenschild league against the insurgents of the Bund der Bünde. The rebel leaders were acutely aware that they needed more, and especially more professional, forces to avoid another defeat like that at Bregenz in 1408. In their hour of need, they turned to those with whom they had been conversing a lot lately, and who shared their general political outlook, more or less at least. They called for the experienced forces of the Upper Swiss cantons, led by the ingenious and battle-hardened Italo Reding. If Reding and his Oberländler helped them defeat the knights of the Jörgenschild, they promised to help them conquer and subdue their fiefs, their castles and their forts, and hand over the control over them to the cantons who supported them, to turn them into their dependencies.
The fighters needed two weeks to descend from their mountains – time in which the rebels had to suffer from the burning of their Easternmost villages, the slaughtering of those whom they had had no choice but to leave behind as they hid and dodged and hoped to avoid a direct confrontation before their allies would arrive.
But they did arrive finally, and not an hour too early. In the Battle of the Aach, the knights of the Jörgenschild expected to finally confront the inexperienced rebel cohorts from the Breisgau and the Upper Rhine valley, and the slightly more war-hardened but also not exactly glorious Appenzeller forces. They had not expected to ride against the perfectly trained and highly self-confident pike formations of the mountainfolk. The knights of the Jörgenschild were great warriors, but they were shocked by the appearance of the Swiss on the battlefield. They attempted to attack the presumably weaker rebel flanks, but the defensive formations of the Swiss proved, once again, quick and mobile, and they always kept the momentum on their side, forcing the knights to readapt and regroup until they lost their cohesion, which was when the pikemen stormed forwards and the slaughter began, in which the Bresigauer and the Seebündler immediately joined, enclosing the Swabian knights in a nightmare of a dismounted melee, which turned into a chaotic, bloody carnage, and then an utter annihilation of the roughly 2,400 men of the Sankt Jörgenschild.
After the Battle of the Aach, promises were kept – and sealed in a new, even greater alliance. To the men of the Rhine valley, the Old Swiss Confederacy had become the third partner in the Alliance of Alliances. According to the Swiss, the Bund ob dem See and the Niedere Vereinigung had become Zugewandte Orte (associated members). A matter of perspective!?!
What was no matter of perspective was the immense territorial gains which the Old Swiss Confederacy had made all around Lake Constance. This fact contributed to the revival of another alliance – one which had been larger and more powerful than the Swiss in the 1380s: the Schwäbische Vereinigung. In the winter of 1433/34, it was revived in Überlingen merely as an alliance of thirteen free cities (in 1386, it had comprised over 22 members and reached as far as Dinkelsbühl and Augsburg).
And the Schwäbische Vereinigung joined in the Alliance of Alliances, too, in 1434. Their contribution would be called upon very soon: the Reformist King Johann was threatened by the pro-Roman Arch-Steward, Duke Friedrich of Austria etc. And so, as spring turned into summer, one of the largest armies of commoners which the Empire had seen ever since the Great Crusades was moving Eastwards towards Habsburg-controlled Bavaria: an army of Swiss, Breisgauers, Seebündler and Upper Swabian town militias, over 15,000 men strong. The Habsburg defenders stood no chance in the Battle of Altdorf. The army of armies, most of them commoners from towns as well as the countryside, some of them zealous Reformers, others without pronounced convictions, each contingent led by its own captain, marched on, towards the North, to relieve Johann and to deal the Habsburg hydra the next, the decisive blow, which would serve to keep it forever off from the lands along the Upper Rhine.
Or so they thought, until, somewhere North of Ulm, they heard of Johann`s utter defeat.
Now, the decentralized nature of their alliance proved a bane. While some wanted to march on, others urged for a retreat. A reduced force stood no chance to defeat Friedrich of Habsburg on their own, though. And so they marched back.
But the news of their resounding victory at Altdorf travelled far and wide. Not only Friedrich heard them, and shied away from crossing the Lech for the rest of the decade. Others, in very different directions, had become aware of the new formidable military force which had entered the scene of this great continental conflagration, too. And they would draw their own conclusions…
To be continued.
Damn, I won`t be able to get to the England/France/Iberia part next week, for there`s still unfinished business in the HRE to deal with. We still have to see how Germany`s North is faring…
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