Ep. 206: Habsburg Dukes (1308-1437)– Division, Destruction and Degradation
History of the Germans
Dirk Hoffmann-Becking
4.9 • 550 Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Success for a princely family in the Late Middle Ages has a lot to do with reproductive luck. Not having any offspring, in particular no male offspring is a bit of a knockout. But having too many sons that could be a major issue too.
And in 1386 the Habsburgs struggled with exactly that problem. Their territory was already divided between an Albertine and a Leopoldine line. But then Leopold had four sons, bringing the number of archdukes of Austria to six, which is five too many.
In this episode we will discuss how they managed to muck it up quite bad, in fact so bad, one of their number had to fall to his knees before the emperor, not once, not twice, but three times…
Albertiner
- Albrecht III (1349-1395)
o Albrecht IV (1377-1404)
§ Albrecht V (II) (1397-1439)
· Ladislaus Postumus (1440-1457)
Leopoldiner
- Leopold III (1351-1386)
o Wilhelm (1370-1406)
o Leopold IV (1371-1411)
o Ernst der Eiserne (1377-1424)
§ Friedrich V (III) (1415-1494)
§ Albrecht VI (1418-1463)
o Friedrich IV (1382-1439)
§ Siegismund der Munzreiche (1427-1496)
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
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To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans, Episode 206, Division, Destruction and Degradation, |
| 0:12.0 | which is also episode 4 of the fall and rise of the House of Habsburg. |
| 0:18.0 | Success for a princely family in the late Middle Ages has a lot to do with reproductive |
| 0:22.9 | luck. |
| 0:24.1 | Not having any offspring, in particular no male offspring is, of course, a bit of a knockout. |
| 0:29.5 | But having too many sons, that could be a major issue too. |
| 0:33.4 | And in 1886 the Habsburg struggled with exactly that problem. Their territory was already divided between two brothers, Albert and Leopold, |
| 0:42.3 | and then Leopold had four sons, bringing the number of Archdukes of Worcester to six, |
| 0:48.3 | which is exactly five too many. |
| 0:51.3 | In this episode we will discuss how they managed to mock it up quite bad, in fact so bad |
| 0:57.0 | that one of their number had to fall to his knees before the Emperor, though once, not twice, |
| 1:04.0 | but three times. |
| 1:07.0 | But before we start, let me tell you a little bit about my research process. |
| 1:11.6 | For almost a year now, I do most of my research at the London Library. |
| 1:16.0 | The London Library was founded in 1841 by Thomas Carlyle and counts great luminaries from |
| 1:21.4 | Charles Darwin to Helena Bonham Carter amongst its members. |
| 1:25.6 | And what makes this space so special is not just its amazing history and the chance to bump |
| 1:29.9 | into authors one has been admiring for decades, but the way it's organized. |
| 1:35.6 | The London Library is a collection of books only rivaled by the British Library. |
| 1:39.9 | But other than the British Library, the books are stacked by topics. |
| 1:43.8 | So you can go to a section entitled History-Austria or Printing or One on History |
| 1:50.5 | Dash Sigismund Emperor. |
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