Gone Medieval - The Habsburgs

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

How did an obscure Swiss family grow in power to gain control of the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th century? How did they manage to then take in a large part of Europe stretching from Hungary to Spain, and from the Far East to the New World?In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega meets Professor Martyn Rady to find out the reasons for the Habsburg’s incredible endurance, founded in the belief that they were destined to rule the world as defenders of the Roman Catholic Church, guarantors of peace and patrons of learning. This episode was edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Rob Weinberg.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to Gaughan Medieval from History Hit. I'm Eleanor Yonaga and in today's episode we'll be talking about the Habsburgs, exactly how a dynasty can take over a theoretically electoral empire and how an obscure Swiss family took over most of Europe. I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Professor Martin Rady. Martin is the Professor Emeritus of Central European studies at the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies at UCL.

He is also the author of both the Habsbergs, the rise and fall of a world power, and the Middle Kingdoms, a new history of Central Europe, both of which are out now. Most importantly to me, however, he was also my PhD supervisor, so if you don't like my work, you can direct all of your hate mail directly to him. Martin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you very much for inviting me. So, you know, I'm going to just talk to you. just a brief 40 minutes about one of the biggest and most important families of all time.

So let's start us off with an obvious question that could probably just be the entire show. Who were the Habsburgs? Well, as you said in your introduction, the Habsbergs were a fairly minor family from what is now Switzerland, but which in the Middle Ages constituted part of the German duchy of Swabia. and they have their origins as far as we can make out in a fortress, that's two grand a word, in a little castle, if you like a fortified manor house, really, at Altenburg, just outside the very ugly town of Brook in northern Switzerland. It's ugly for the reason that a lot of Swiss towns are ugly,

and they've put in an appalling concrete centre of high-rise and windswept boulevards. And this is now the town of Brug. The castle of Altenburg is still there amazingly and is now a youth hostel. It's intact, or more or less intact. And that's quite exceptional. that's about the earliest really that we know of the Hapsburgs is that they're there, they're known as the Lords of Altenburg, and the earliest about which we have any real knowledge is a man called Lansaline or Ransaline, scribes write it both ways, and he's living around the year

1,000. But what's quite important is the name of the settlement, the town, the town, town that they're just outside, which is Brook, because Brook sits on a bridge. There is still a bridge there. It's a wooden bridge. You can walk across it in a sort of pleasant arcade over the river, and the museum of the town is just next to it. And Brook, as its name suggests, is a bridge, and of course, every bridge in the Middle Ages is a place of transit. and a place of tolls. And the point with the Hapsburgs is they begin their history, really at the meeting point between three rivers,

the Limat, the Royce and the Aura. You won't have heard of these, because Switzerland is not particularly well known, and it's people who probably is listening to this, there must be quite small rivers. They're not. They're very large rivers. A few years ago, I decided,

very ambitiously to walk down a quite lengthy stretch of the limit. And after a few miles, I encountered a hydroelectric dam. This is quite a significant river. And of course, it would have been much larger in the Middle Ages, because now, like most rivers, it's been canaled. So in other words, you've got three rivers there. Those rivers are part of a transport network. They become increasingly important after about 1,200. The St Gautard Pass is opened in the Alps. So, in other words, the transit trade going from northern Italy through Lombardy, then over the Alps, onto the great fairs of Flanders and Champagne,

this is going through Hapsburg Territory, and they are able to extract the tolls that bring the wealth on top of that. Everybody thinks of Switzerland as mountains. Most of it isn't mountains. Most of it actually is a plane, really, a plateau, which is fed by the melted ice of the Alps. And this creates a tremendously lush pasture land. And in the Middle Ages, this was a very wealthy piece of agricultural land.

And the Habsburgs, like everybody else, they have tenants, peasants. They don't tax them particularly heavily. They don't need to because they're able to produce large quantities of produce that can become lenten gifts of tribute to the lords. They've got a lot of these peasants and they're able to go and build up quite a bit of resource. So that in origin is who the Hapsburgs are and why they start with an advantage. And very rapidly from the beginning of the 11th century, they emerged a prominence and they build under a man called Ratbot, who I think is the son of Lansson in Radbot.

He has a very bad reputation, largely because he falls out with the local monks and as a consequence they write nasty things about him in their monastic chronicle. But at some point he gives his wife as part of her, if you like, diary, what you give to the wife the morning after the first night. The Morgan Gub is a chunk of property near Altenburg, and that becomes an abbey, which his wife, Radnbott's wife, Ica makes into a proprietary monastery, a house monastery, a house that belongs really to the Habsburgs. And the Habsbrows get their name around this time, because the legend has it that Radbot

has lost his favourite hawk and is looking for it, and he discovers an outtrop of rock, and decides there'd be a good place to build a castle. And the legend has it that this becomes Hapsburg, Hab being a word that means a hobby, a hawk. That's the story. In fact, it's probably more prosaic than that. It's very close to the ARA River. And the Aura River was quite wide at this point because it hadn't been properly channeled and excavated. And probably the castle is not.

Hapsburg, but probably Hathenburg in origin, a place that's a haven or more properly a ford. That's where you forded the Rarer River, and that's the origin of the Hapsburgs. The title of Hapsburg isn't used very much by the Hapsburgs because as they acquire more properties, So this fort that Radbot builds, it goes down the line of their possessions, if you like, that they start to instead about the Lensburg and the other forts that they've got their hands on. They mostly refer to themselves, first of all, as Council Alsace, which a collateral branch of the family acquires and then passes into the main line for a time. And Habsburg is actually virtually a pejorative.

There's a point around 1400 where the Emperor Sigismund refers to Eukernice the Iron, Habsburg, as the Lord of Habsburg. And Ernest the Iron is suitably offended by this and refers to the emperor as the Lord of Luxembourg, which is a pejorative implying a very small possession. So as a consequence, Habsburg is a. used much, and it's revived as part of a sort of romanticisation. The first real evidence I've got that it's coming into fashion is actually Maria Theresa's apartment in the Schoenbrun in Vienna, where there's a huge tapestry which has got the original Habsburg-Radbott's foundation on it.

That must be the 1770s, I would have thought. And it's made and popularised by Schiller in his drama, the count of Habsburg, which I think premieres of something like 1803, and from that, the title of Habsburg becomes customarily used. Everybody refers to the House of Hapsburg Lorraine. It wasn't until the 19th century known as the House of Austria, Lorraine. Hapsburg comes through much later as a designation. So this is the thing, right, because whenever I kind of talk, about Habsburgs, I guess. It is being kind of 14th century person. They've clawed their way out

of what is now Switzerland at this point. They're in Austria, places like that. But I tend to think of them as a kind of Swiss invention just because of the periods that I work on. But I think most people, when they think about them, think about Austro-Hungary and their kind of possession of the lands over there. So how do they get out of Switzerland and start making their way east? Well, I think the first thing is that when they're in Switzerland, And they're very lucky because they don't die out. And I did a survey of this, and I went through the jacobite peerage on the afternoon when I had nothing better to do, to work out how long a dynastic line lasts.

Now, of course, we're dealing with different centuries, we're dealing with progress in medicine, etc. but I came to the conclusion that roughly most dynasties have got something like a two-third chance of expiry in the first hundred years, so that most families are going to expire, they're going to come to an end. So after two centuries, you're going to be very lucky to carry on. Perhaps folks are lucky. They have to fiddle it a bit in the 18th century and allow the right of female succession. Apart from that, they are extraordinarily fortunate. And they're no more fortunate than in the 12th and 13th centuries, because all their neighbours die out.

All these families are intermarried, one to the other, and so when the Kaiburg, the Tsarion, when they die out, perhaps Bogs get their possessions. They also make sure that they grab what they can militarily so that the last widow of the Kaiburgs is forcibly dispossessed. poor lady, but on the whole they are fortunate, as I say in my book, it's the Fortin Brass effect. You know, if you remember the last scene of Hamlet, everybody lies dead, the king's dead, the queen's dead, Hamlet, the air is dead, and a few other bodies lying around. And Fortinbrass King of Norway appears because he remembers some ancient rite. to the throne of Denmark. And in a sense, that's what the Habsburgs do. They are mindful of some ancient right to all the lands of their neighbours when they expire. Right around the year 1200,

they are the leading family in Swabia. And they throw in their lot with the Stauphin, who are lords of Swabia, who are dukes of Swabia, as well as German monarchs in the 12th and 13th centuries, and they rise to power on the back of the Swabian connection. And when in 1250, Emperor Frederick II dies and Germany moves into what is called the Great Interregnum, when that happens, the Habsburgs led by Count Rudolph, they start seizing the property of the imperial family and the property of their neighbours, and they are able to build up a pretty solid landmass in Swabia. And not just that, they are able to pose through the connection that they have to Frederick II, who has acted as godfather, I think, to Count Rudolf.

they are able to present themselves when it comes to choosing a new monarch as the Swabian candidate, the continuity candidate. So in 1572, Count Rudolf is elected as German king. He never makes it to emperor because he's never crowned in Rome, but he is German king and therefore the top person. It helps that. the electors at this time are all related to him. He is able to emerge as king of Germany. And this doesn't mean very much, but it does come with certain legal advantages. And the most important legal advantage is the right to distribute the lands of dukes who have died without air. and in 12-4-6, as I recall, the last of the Babenberg dukes has died and has left Austria vacant. Austria has been seized by Otakar the second of Bohemia.

Rudolf tells him Otterkar is a very, very wealthy man and a complete thug, and Rudolf tells him that he'd benefit the Austrian land, because he is going to redistribute them. And Otokar refuses, and Otokar is defeated in battle in 1276 by King Rudolf of Germany, and as he promised, Rudolf redistributes the land to himself. So in other words, he becomes Lord of Austria or Duke of Austria. He doesn't really want Austria at this point because it comes at this moment without the Tyrol. The Tyrol will only be acquired in the 1360s and the Tyrol is a fantastic reservoir of natural resources,

particularly gold and silver. What Rudolf really wants, what his heirs really want to get their hands on is Bohemia, because bohemia has got cities, it's wealthy, it's well positioned, and as a consequence, Austria is really only the launching pad of a war on Bohemia. But they won't get bohemia until 1526. That's right. Much is made of, you know, the ottomans always lusting after Habsburg land. But what about Habsburg's lusting after Bohemian land? I ask you.

Yes. they've had their eye on Bohemia for a very long time. By the same token, the bohemians have had their eye on plenty of centrally European land as well. In a sense, one of the important distinctions is as the Habsburgs mass their territories, how they look after them and how they deal with them, which is quite different from how, for instance, the Luxembourg's deal with territories. The likes of birds get hold of Bohemia in the 1320s, as I recall, and most famously, Charles the 4th, later becomes Emperor, Charles the 4th, gets his hands on it in the 1340s.

Charles the 4th of Bohemia is most keen to move the western frontier of Bohemia, even farther westwards, and take possession of really that corridor of the mine river. You've got Frankfurt Mites. That's what he's got his eye on. And if you look, he's gradually moving along the line of the mine river. And when he grabs these possessions, he builds them into Bohemia. He makes them into Bohemia property. He calls them New Bohemia.

And everywhere he goes, he stamps the Bohemian lion on fortresses, and he appoints bohemian officials, and he makes them part of bohemia. The Habsburgs don't do that. What they do is they allow their possessions to retain their own identity, to retain their nobilities, their own laws, their own institutions, their own diets, their own, in many cases, regency councils. They continue to let them be run by the local families. This was very well summed up in the 16th century by a Spanish lawyer who refers to Charles

the Fifth's empire and he advises Charles to continue his policy as if the king who keeps them together were only the king of each. So in other words, to keep the separate kingdoms and duchies and parts of his inheritance as if He was the monarch of that specific place. And that's how the Habsbergs operate more or less completely through to the late 18th century, when they move towards an amalgamation of some sort, or maybe 1750s. And that's the policy that guides them is to keep the local leaderships in place, the local nobles in place, and not to interfere too much with the domestic politics.

providing the ruler is acknowledged as ruler, then they're more or less happy for that to be the situation. I think that this really sort of stands out because this shows a much more imperial mindset than, you know, if you want to compare and contrast the Habsbergs with the Luxembourgs here, right? Where Charles IV does a great job of acquiring more land, but he is kind of saying, boom, your check, boom, your check,

whenever he gets it. Now Habsbergs don't really care. They're just saying, well, yeah, you're in the lands. like congratulations. They're not trying to change culture or influence things like that. But what always strikes me about this is I think often modern audiences now point to that as some form of weakness. When you talk about the Habsburg lands, they always say, oh, well, it's absolutely crazy. How could Charles V ever have run everything? Like, it's just too much. It's too much to be ruling from Spain to Austria up to the lowlands. And oh, how could anyone ever

administrate this? And the answer is, I mean, actually quite well. For a lot of longer than most people do? You're absolutely right. Students are on the side of the big state. They're always in favor of rulers who centralize, which essentially means impose civil servants of everybody. They like centralization. They like uniformity. They're into, it was a sort of Gordon Brown-type government whereby everything is controlled from the center. And this is modern, and anybody that doesn't fit in with that is like the Habsbergs referred to as running a ramshackle empire. That's the word that comes through most is ramshackle, anachronistic, the accidental empire, they are operating just a different system by a different mass of,

different mix of principles. And to judge the Habsbergs against Gordon Brown is not particularly helpful. This idea that somehow the modern state is what everybody should be working towards. Well, it's highly dubious. The modern state critically, most obviously, has taken on responsibilities. It fails to discharge. And if we look right through to the 20th century, perhaps birds do that in the end. They take on more and more powers. They put in larger and larger bureaucracy. When it comes to the First World War, they increase governmental meddling to an extraordinary level, and they can't feed their population. So the big state fails in the end.

I think that there's this quite modern bias against the Hatsbergs and the Holy Roman Empire more generally, because people just want an easy answer, right? They want an easy story when they learn the history of something, you know, oh, if you've got a really strong state and one specific culture, well, then that's it. All you have to do is read one language. All you have to do is have a look at one thing, and that explains everything. And the complexity of the Habsburgs is therefore a kind of a stymion point. You can't just say, oh, well, this is true about the Habsburg Empire because it's not.

It's never true in Madrid, what's true in Vienna. And I guess it puts the cat amongst the pigeons of it because, you know, who's really down to be a historian? because I'm like, and that's why it's great. I like that it's very difficult and complex, and Swabia is not the same as Austria, which is not the same as wherever. It's kind of the enemy of easy answers, right? What pulls the Habsburgs along is, if you like, a mythology of greatness, and it's where this comes from, where they get a sense of dynastic ambition, that they are full filling some providential plan. All rulers have that to an extent. All dynasties have that. They consider themselves ruling by divine grace. But in the case of the Habsburgs, it's far more elemental.

And I think it probably comes from Austria and is probably something to do with the Babenbergs. The Babenbergs are married into the Hohenstalfen, into the German-Stalfen, into the German imperial house of the 12th and 13th centuries. They're also married into the Byzantine imperial family. So they've got a collection. They're one of the Comdainees, I think. So they've got a sort of double imperial inheritance or ancestry. They are very pious. They're always founding monasteries. they cultivate saints, well, Leopold the last of them, who is Leopold the last, he is building up a CV that will get him to sainthood. Unfortunately, he dies just a little bit too early and it takes time for him to be made a saint, but he's treated as a saint shortly after his death.

They've also got Agnes, who is married to Andrew the 3rd. of Hungary and shiz of the Babenberg line. She does make it to sainthood very swiftly. And the Babenbergs have got this mystique of sainthood and piety about them. All of those great monasteries that one encounter say in the Black Forest, they're all Babenberg foundations, Heidelgenkreutz, etc. And on top of this, there is a mystique, that the Austrians themselves are cultivating.

The Nibberlungen lead comes out of the Babenberg area, probably put together in Passau, but Passau is pretty much part of Austria. It's just run by an independent prelate. And a lot of the great bits of the Nibberlung and lead consciously pick up on Austrian themes, the meeting of Attila with his bride at Tallman, that sort of thing. And at the same time there's a mystique that is developing within Austria of Austria's own origin.

It's called in the Roman Empire, the province of Noricum, and it's called Noricum because the tribe that live there were called the Norikie. But as far as the Austrians are concerned in the 12th, 13th centuries, they see Noricum as referring to Norik's, who is the son of Hercules. In other words, they've seen themselves as well of a classical inheritance. On top they can put the inheritance of piety, this line of saint- aspiring kings, and the Habsburgs somehow feed onto that. And they start to acquire an idea that they and Austria are destined for greatness. And we'll see this. beginning to emerge in the 14th century when another Rudolph, Rudolf, the founder, forges these famous documents. One of them is called the pseudo-Henry, another is called the Greater Privilege, and there are a couple of other ones as well, and these contain a whole bunch of nonsense. But the famous charter of Julius Caesar, which says that the ruler of Austria shall be regarded as the leading feudal lord in Germany.

Well, I mean, it's completely a medieval language. They get a genuine privilege and then stick extra bits into it. They try and present themselves as ordained by Rome as Austria and the Habsburgs ordained as the leading lights in the Holy Roman Empire and in Central Europe. So they've got this vision, and they go beyond that with attempting to rebuild St. Stevens as if it was a cathedral, giving it an enormous two spires. They only get round to building one, but these two spires. Even though it's not a cathedral, it has cannons, dressed up as if they were cardinals.

There's an ambition there. And of course it crystallizes most of all under Emperor Frederick III, who rules from 1440 to 1496. And Emperor Frederick is the one who does two things. Firstly, he invents this acrostic A.E. IOU, which is capable of about 300 meanings, all of which are very providential, if you like, all of which exhort Austria's role in the world. So the Eagle of Austria soars above everyone else. Probably the AEO is probably an acrostic that if you convert it into numbers becomes the date of Frederick III's birthday. But the meaning that is associated most with AEIOU is Austria will rule the whole world.

And this is buttressed by one of the most extraordinary documents of the Middle Ages, which which is called the Chronicle of the 95 Lords. And it's one of the most popular works of the late Middle Ages. We've got about 50 manuscript editions that survive, which is a lot. And it's a history of Austria from the earliest times. And when we talk about the earliest times, we're talking about from the flood. And so it starts off with listing all of these Jewish patriarchs, who moved to Austria from what's called Wonderland, Terraramirationis, the land of wonders.

And they set themselves up, they marry into all the important families, they very friendly with the Romans, very friendly with successive popes, they eventually become replaced by Christians once the conversion is underway of the Roman Empire. And this provides a tremendous story. about the origins of Austria, the origins of the Habsburgs, and their destiny as divinely ordained rulers, not just of a bit of central Europe, but really of the whole of Europe.

And that's tremendously important. And then Frederick III, when he builds his church in Wiener Neustadt, he has this entire wall dedicated to the 95 lords, the 95 of his forebears that are listed in the Chronicle, and he gives them all heraldic devices. He has to bake them up, of course, because heraldry wasn't known at the time of Noah, but he's able to create this dynastic mystique, and that dynastic mystique will carry on and influence the way the Hapsburgs see themselves, right through really to the 19th century.

I mean, this is just the way medieval pedigrees are made, right? But on steroids. This is the most of a medieval pedigree that you could possibly have. Oh, well, you've got a connection to, I don't know, the Trojan Wars. Well, we've got one to after the flood. You've got saints? We've got five saints. Do you see all my monasteries?

Do you see my university? It's just compiling things on top of things in such a way to create a story, a narrative, something that's really easy to explain why it is, that suddenly you've come by all this land, I suppose. It's a lot easier than saying, well, we strong-armed all of our neighbors. I found this widow, and we arrested her and took her land. It doesn't have the same kind of flow, does it?

You can see this, and I like this idea of sort of piling on, because you can see that the pylon with Maximilian's triumphal arch, which must be around 1515. And they've got a copy in the British Library, you don't have to go to the British love, they've got a fantastic interactive resource whereby you can go in microscopic detail around the triumphal arch

and look at all the illusions that are there and what it's getting at. I know it's not just saints and Jewish patriarchs by the opening decades of the 16th century. Its Egyptian deities are there as well. The most amazing is in its sister, woodcut. When I say woodcut, I mean, these are huge woodcuts. They're made of individual woodcuts you're supposed to stick together. Maximilian's intention is that people should stick up the

triumphal arch or the sister woodcut on the side of the town hall or if you've got a spare wall in your castle, you put it on that. And in the case of the triumphant procession, you've got what you'd expect. You've got knights processing a lot. And, you've got a lot. And you're in the case of the triumphant procession, you've assessing along. They're all fairly familiar. Then you've got a picture of elephants with their native Indians from the Indian subcontinent, but they're affected by what the artist, Borgma, has seen of pictures of Native Americans. So those get all mixed up with it, and some of them were wearing turbans and some of them were wearing feathers. And these are the Calicutish folk, which must have something to do with Calcutta. And what are these people doing,

celebrating Maximilian as part of his procession? The answer is, it's an aspiration. Ultimately, that Habsbergs will go on to acquire properties in the new world and over in Asia as well, as indeed we will find that they do. But it's an aspiration that one can find the beginning of the 16th century in Maximilian's two great woodcut series. Now I want one of these woodcuts. They probably aren't going to fit in a London flat, but... But you can imagine that. He particularly wants them stuck up on a hall of town halls.

So you can imagine what people would have thought. This great bundle of papers appears. Oh, how nice. The emperor has sent us woodcuts to stick up. He said of some wall art. come on, is this not one of the most inventive forms of propaganda that you can think of? Oh, I've got something nice for you. Why don't you just go ahead and put that up there? Yeah. Indeed, yeah. And then what he does as well, just in case people haven't done that, is he's constantly giving people pictures of his portrait.

That's why so many portraits of Maxillian survives. He just has them done by workshops, just churning these things out. And he has them done according to a certain scheme. And everybody says, well, how distinguished he looks. Well, it's also because he thinks that he might be the last emperor as part of that apocalyptic image, this vision that people have had plundering the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation that there will be a last emperor who will be involved in some sort of showdown with the Antichrist on the Mount of Olives, aided by the angels. Michael and the description that's given of the last emperor is that he has a lofty forehead, an aquiline nose, and Maximilian makes sure that both of these features are included in his

portrait. So anybody who's up to speed when it comes to the final days, the end times, will realize on looking at it, this is Maximilian emperor and possibly the last emperor as well. Maximilian is one of my favorite characters because he is ludicrous. And so, full of himself, he grows a completely fictitious autobiography. For instance, the autobiography includes that by the age of eight, he could speak seven languages fluently. In fact, he's a real problem educationally because he is an elective mute. He refuses to talk. But he has this plan towards the end of his life, whereby he's going to be elected pope.

Everybody thought it was all a bit of a joke. There's a letter which he writes to one of his daughters and says that he's got this plan. And he's got no more to chase after naked ladies, he promises. because he realized he'll have to be reasonably celibate to be pope. That's a great letter to receive from your dad. And he signs the letter, your loving father, Max, brackets, future pope. And everybody imagines that this is all a bit of a pie in the sky.

He's just imagining to it. Now, there's this correspondence with the Fugas whereby he is working out how much it will cost to bribe the Cardinals and how money will be got to Rome. So otherwise, he's preparing the bills of exchange to bribe the Cardinals. This is not just some scheme

that his muses over for a few hours, writes a letter and they, no, no, he's doing the financial paperwork. Okay, so I guess this is the ultimate way to end the papal imperial rivalry. You know, the Polks always think that they should be able to control the emperors. Why doesn't the emperor just become post?

Oh, done and dusted, you know? I think that was what Maximilian had in mind who actually coordinate properly the spiritual and earthly forces in one person who would be himself. All right, I could talk to you about this for another five hours we have to leave it there. But I think this is a good place to leave it

because this sort of shows what the real magic of the Habsburgs is, right? Is their ability to kind of leverage all of these kind of spiritual ideals, these religious ideals, and very real political power, very real financial power, in order to make a very specific kind of propaganda. And they're good at reading the world around them. Yeah, you know what? In the 16th century, you can bribe some popes. Look at the Borgias. You know, people like this. All you have to do is find enough people to pay off. So they're not wrong. But I think we tend to kind of look at the fact that the Austro-Hungarian Empire falls at World War I and go, oh, you see, it was always a bad idea. And it's like, this is thousands of

years of guys actually ruling. It's one of the most successful dynasties that there ever was because they're really good at this game. Yeah, it's rather like people who go and say, you know, oh, well, Roman Empire, as soon as Augustus was gone, he's bound to be over. No, it lasts another 400 years. Barton, thank you so, so much for coming on. I'll have to drag you back to talk more some time to me about several other many things, but for now we're going to leave it there. So thank you so much, everyone, for listening. Thank you so much to Martin for joining me. This has been Gone Medieval by History Hit, and if you like what you heard, don't forget to rate, review, follow the podcast, and tell your friends about it and the Habsburgs. If you fancy

suggesting an episode, you can drop us an email at Gone Medieval at HistoryHit.com. Otherwise, I'll be back again next Tuesday for another episode, and my co-host, Matt Lewis, will be back on Friday. Until next time.