Friday, January 12, 2024

It is the 12th of January 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

When I was in graduate school I inherited my office and desk from a graduating student- I remember this because he had a memorable name: Habsburg. And yes, he was a descendant in that august house. Perhaps you hear that name and rightly remember Franz Ferdinand of the House of Augsburg, whose assassination in 1914 led to the outbreak of World War I and the birth of the murderous 20th century.

As we were in a medieval burgh, we knew that this family went back much further- to the dawn of the modern age, to the Reformation, and to the Holy Roman Empire. It was on this, the 12th of January in 1519, that Maximilian I of the House of Habsburg died, leaving a fractured Europe with its Medieval, Renaissance, Reformation, and Early Modern impulses to handle the effects of his legacy.

Maximilian was born in 1459 to Frederick III (the first Habsburg to be Holy Roman Emperor) and Eleanor of Portugal. His life, spanning 1459 to 1519, would see the discovery of the new world, the effect of print culture, humanism, and, lastly, the nascent Reformation.

Maximilian would be one of the Kings of Germany and Emperors to grasp the legacy of the first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne. Maximilian’s father set his son up to do just that. He was married to Mary, the daughter of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. This would give Max rule over the Burgundian region, the Netherlands, and Eastern France. When Louis XI of France attempted to take land from Maximilian, the young prince’s famous Landesknechte pushed the French back.

After ceding power to the Estates General of the Netherlands in 1482, his formidable army took back power for the soon-to-be crowned King of the Romans. He then allied himself with Spain, England, and Brittany against the French menace.

He would then, through a combination of familial ties and military strength, set his sights on the eastern part of the Empire in Bohemia and Hungary. With the death of his father in 1493, Maximilian became the sole head of the House of Habsburg. Unfortunately for Maximilian, his combination of military expenses and patronage of the Renaissance humanists led to his empty pockets and season of decline. He did, however, marry off his son Philip to Joana the Mad of Castile, from whom the dynasty would continue under his grandson Charles V.  

BY 1500, the Imperial princes were looking to take power from the Emperor but failed to completely depose him. This time, Maximilian would ally himself with the French and borrow money from the Fugger banking house to reconsolidate power and campaign against Hungary. The new Pope, Julius II (aka the Warrior Pope and lampooned as a mockery of the office by reformers), bestowed the official title of Roman Emperor on Maximilian. He would join the League of Cambrai with the Pope, France, and Spain and reestablish himself as a European power. However, cracks began to appear in the facade of a unified Empire Ala Charlemagne. The excesses of the Papacy and her Humanist critics led to dissent- largely in the German lands and adjacent Swiss Cantons (where we see the early Reformation take off).

During a schismatic council during the Fifth Lateran Council, he was offered the position of Pope (something he aspired to) but was dissuaded by Ferdinand of Aragon. This, and his consolidation of Eastern Europe (along with the German lands, Spain, and the Netherlands), would foster a temporary peace. It was this peace, along with the threat of Ottomans from the East, that would set the stage for Luther’s blast on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1517.  Maximilian was fond of the humanists and sponsored a tract against the Papacy but didn’t see Luther as particularly problematic- Max needed the support of Luther’s patron, Frederick the Wise. And it was that support which would assure Charles, Maximilian’s grandson, the Imperial title and eventually the Luther headache, the Reformation, and the birth of the modern world. Maximilian would die before any of it came to fruition but set the stage through his role as Emperor. Maximilian I died on this, the 12th of January in 1519.

 

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary- lets head to the Scottish Metrical Psalter for Psalm 139:

1  O Lord, thou hast me searched and known.

 2      Thou know'st my sitting down,

    And rising up; yea, all my thoughts

       afar to thee are known.

 

 3  My footsteps, and my lying down,

       thou compassest always;

    Thou also most entirely art

       acquaint with all my ways.

 

 4  For in my tongue, before I speak,

       not any word can be,

    But altogether, lo, O Lord,

       it is well known to thee.

 

 5  Behind, before, thou hast beset,

       and laid on me thine hand.

 6  Such knowledge is too strange for me,

       too high to understand.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 12th of January 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by Christopher, the Warrior Producer, Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who will be on radio silence from 5 pm Pacific time tomorrow, and my mood will altered by the outcome of the big game. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.