Ep. 206: Habsburg Dukes (1308-1437)– Division, Destruction and Degradation - History of the Germans from the Middle Ages to Reunification

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)