Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans, episode 196, Agnes Bernauer, Love and War in Bavaria, Part 1, which is also episode 12 of season 10, the Empire in the 15th century.

Now, when I first published this episode, my nose was so bunged up I could barely speak.

So I had to clone my voice and produced a whole episode on AI.

There was, I think, quite a cool experiment, but ultimately a can't voice is not the same thing.

Fortunately, I am now fully recovered, and I'm now re-recording that same episode again,

and this time the names of the towns and cities will bear a bit more resemblance to what

they are actually called.

And now, without further ado, not even the usual plea to support the show in Historyof the

Germans.com support.

On we go.

Bavaria is a truly unique place,

and that's not only because it has become the cultural touchpoint for foreigners who associate Germans with a Lederhausen and Oktoberfest.

I may not see these things as particularly German,

but at least it's one step up from goose-stepping

and don't mention the war. By the 15th century, all the original stem duchies of the East

Frankian Kingdom, Swabia, Franconia, Lotharingia, even Saxony had vanished as political entities,

except for Bavaria. Sure, it had lost large

sways of land to Austria, Carinthia and Tyrol, but it was still there. And since its

Ducal family, the House of Wittlesbach had kept its position all through the upheavals of

the Hohenstauphin and the Interregnum periods, it was a remarkably

coherent structure. There was only one free imperial city within its confines, Regensburg,

and three dioceses, again Regensburg and then Freising and Passau, all of which were under

...