The Wittelsbachs under Emperor Louis IV. Probably could absorb Austria and the other Habsburg territories. Supposedly this would make the Wittelsbachs a much more powerful dynasty and probable rivals to the Luxembourg dynasty in Bohemia and Hungary. As for policies we could see a Wittelsbach emperor focusing more on Germany over Italy or France, trying to isolate and weaken their main rivals in Germany in Bohemia and Hungary especially because Habsburg conflicts with France arose due to Austrian ties to Burgundy and Spain. But please tell me if you think any of this is unrealistic.
What if in the 14th century, the Habsburgs married with the wittelsbachs instead of the tyrolean royal family and Bavaria absorbed the habsburg domain
You don't necessarily need family ties for that - in theory, if the Habsburgs died out, their lands would go back to the emperor, and your best bet for this to happen is if Albert II died before 1338 and Otto's sons die on schedule.
By the way, the Wittelsbach did marry into the Habsburgs during Louis IV's reign - the daughter of Frederick the Fair married Henry XV of Bavaria in 1328, though they didn't have any children. Granted, Henry XV was of a different branch of the Wittelsbachs than Louis IV, but still...
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they wouldn't even need to be extinct. Just pick a side against the emperor in a war, lose, get declared traitors and lose your lands
not particularly. Under Ludwig IV the Wittelsbachs held the Palatinate, Brandenburg, a fair bit of Holland, not to mention Bavaria and the Tirol. Their problem wasn't the lack of lands. The Wittelsbach problem was that there were too many lines that all hated one another, and things just got worse as the century progressed
Yan we vague that up some more?
In the headline you are talking about marriage...are we talking about the bavarian Wittelsbach lines inheriting the habsburg territory through marriage?
Yet in the post you speak about Louis IV. 'absorbing' the teritories. Is he using his imperial mandate to newly establish a new ruler after the Habsburgs died out?
Two different things,
Louis IV was very focused on Italy, even when expanding his family´s power in his reign, so it seems most likely for the territories mentined to be divided in the aftermath of Louis death, as Kellan Sullivan pointed out
The mother of Otto´s sons above mentioned was also a Wittelsbach. And the duchy of Austria was able to be inherited through the female line
Not exactly. While we can debate all day whether the privilegium was a forgery or not, in the 18th century Leopold I, Joseph I and Karl VI all had problems trying to get it to pass the sniff test in the Reichstag for their family compact of the 1700s and then the Pragmatic Sanction. Given the opposition that Ludwig IV faced in the Reichstag (even before he was excommunicated) , the fact that his nominal co-emperor was a Habsburg (Friedrich the Fair)! I suspect there will be issues with such a ruling.
Austria had been inheritable under female line in the past, true BUT that inheritance had NOTHING to do with the Habsburg who received the Duchy with a new imperial grant as male-line only possession
Reread some data, and you are right. It would of course make more sense that way
@Kevan Sullivan; I think you are mixing up the Privilegium minus(babenberg) and the Privilegium maius(Rudolf the Fourth)
Privilegium Maius was a fake document, and considered such by the contemporaries until it wasn’t when the Habsburg re-took the Imperial throne and legalized it.
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And that Female line claim passed to the Jagiellonians and Hohenzollerns
Many of the privileges in the Privilegium Minus were tied to Heinrich Jasomirgott of Babenberg and his wife Theodora Komnena. This had everything to do with the Hohenstaufen-Welf rivalry. To settle this Frederick Barbarossa wanted to return the duchy of Bavaria to Henry the Lion of the house of Welf, except all the Imperial princes felt that Heinrich Jasomirgott had done nothing to be deprived of the rank of duke, not mention the concern they and some others had that the Babenbergs, which temporarily replaced the Welfs in Bavaria, would become vassals of the Welfs.
Austria was raised to a duchy, while retaining certain privileges normally reserved for margraviates. Most other privileges were specifically tied to Heinrich and Theodora, the right of female inheritance or inherintance through the female line was for all their descendants though. The Habsburgs never explicitly got that privilege, IIRC there were at least some (distant) female line heirs of the Babenbergs around. Note that this is a privilege specifically for former East Francia, direct or indirect female inheritance was quite common in former Lotharingia and the Arelat (Burgundy).
Good point. But what if they did have grandchildren and Bavaria & Austria United?
That's not how it worked - succession for Austria and Bavaria was both partible and agnatic - that means that all male offspring (except for those that went into the clergy or a military order) got a piece of the patrimony and females couldn't inherit. So, Frederick and Henry were rulers of only part of their respective duchies, and when Frederick died, he was suceeded not by his daughter, but by his younger brothers. Female inheritance there wasn't a real possibility unless the male lineage died out entirely.
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