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Sibling Bonding and Dynastic Might: Three Sixteenth-Century Habsburgs Manage Themselves and an Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2017

Paula Sutter Fichtner
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Extract

Histories of dynastic empires frequently add up to studies of power, its attributes, and its expressions. Much attention is paid to how skillfully sovereign families turned to their advantage control of far-flung territorial holdings, their political and legal institutions, and fiscal resources, credit included. Military superiority, diplomatic ingenuity, variants of cultural hegemony, and cultivation of good public relations are usually part of the story as well, along with opportunism and sheer ruthlessness. All these considerations had roles in the story of the rise of the sixteenth-century Habsburg House of Austria to global eminence. By 1550, the totality of their patrimony would stretch from east central Europe to Spain, the Netherlands, the Americas, and the maritime fringes of Asia.

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Articles
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Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 48 , April 2017 , pp. 193 - 211
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Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2017 

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20 Ferdinand to Mary, 27 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 171.

21 Mary to Ferdinand, 4 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 179; Mary to Ferdinand, 30 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 277–78.

22 Ferdinand to Mary, 17 August 1531, Korrespondenz, 241–43.

23 de Jongh, Mary of Hungary, 126–30, 134–35; Mary to Ferdinand, Korrespondenz, 30 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 277–79. Cf. Tracy, James D., Charles V, Impresario of War: Campaign Strategy, International Finance, and Domestic Politics (Cambridge, UK, 2002), 11Google Scholar. See also Merrell, Accidental Bond, 17, 143.

24 Ferdinand to Charles, 4 March 1531, Korrespondenz, 54; Mary to Ferdinand, 24 January 1531, Korrespondenz, 12; Kohler, Ferdinand I, 111; Mary to Ferdinand, 13–14 March 1531, Korrespondenz, 63–64; de Jongh, Mary of Hungary, 132.

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30 Greer, Adult Sibling Rivalry, 34; Duindam, Dynasties, 3.

31 Kohler, Ferdinand I, 103; Ferdinand to Mary, 10 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 149; Mary to Ferdinand, 28 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 176; Charles to Mary, 29 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 229; Kohler, Karl V, 146–47; Tracy, Charles V, 99–100.

32 Charles to Ferdinand, 10 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 193; Charles to Ferdinand, 12 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 321–22.

33 Ferdinand to Mary, 10 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 149; Mary to Ferdinand, 28 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 176; Charles to Ferdinand, 29 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 229; Kohler, Karl V, 146–47; Tracy, Charles V, 99–100.

34 Charles to Ferdinand, 1 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 286–91.

35 Charles to Ferdinand, 21 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 135. See also Ferdinand to Mary, 8 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 3, 317. Cf. Ferdinand to Mary, 8 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 317.

36 Charles to Ferdinand, between 26 and 28 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 271; Charles to Ferdinand, 1 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 289.

37 Mary to Ferdinand, 1 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 303.

38 Yanagisako, “Bringing It All Back Home,” 39.

39 de Jongh, Mary of Hungary, 85–87; Mary to Ferdinand, 13 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 151; Lerner, Harriet, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Frustrated Insulted, Betrayed or Desperate (New York, 2001), 3, 39Google Scholar; Barbara Shapiro, M.D., “Sibling Rivalry: A Phenomenon of Construction and Deconstruction,” in Brothers and Sisters, ed. Akhtar and Kramer, 135–58, here 149.

40 Charles to Ferdinand between 16–21 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 133.

41 Ferdinand to Mary, 18 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 328. “[C]ar c'est bien la raison que entre seur et frere que l'on parle et escrive fransche-et ouvertement. Et sy l'on fet aultrement, ne me semble que soit bien fet”; Mary to Ferdinand, 27 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 276; Mary to Ferdinand, 19 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 258.

42 Ferdinand to Mary, 10 March 1531, Korrespondenz, 60. On Batthyány's later relations with Ferdinand, financial and more informal, see Pálffy, The Kingdom of Hungary, 172.

43 Ferdinand to Charles, 27 March 1531, Korrespondenz, 85; Mary to Ferdinand, 28 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 176; Ferdinand to Charles, 14 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 125–26; Charles to Ferdinand, 1 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 286–91, especially 288.

44 Ferdinand to Mary, 10 March 1531, Korrespondenz, 59–60.

45 “[B]arva a barva onrra secata,” Ferdinand to Charles, 27 April 1531, Korrespondenz, 114. Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz of UCLA kindly explained this phrase to me.

46 “[M]e grateray souvent derière l'oreille,” Mary to Ferdinand, 5 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 121.

47 See nn. 16–19.

48 Mary to Ferdinand, 29 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 237; Ferdinand to Mary, 29 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 237. On the Hungarian cattle trade, see Pálffy, The Kingdom of Hungary, 141.

49 Ferdinand to Mary, 16 March 1531, Korrespondenz, 66; Ferdinand to Mary, 3 October 1531 Korrespondenz, 313.

50 Charles to Ferdinand, 7–8 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 186; Ferdinand to Charles, 17 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 201; Charles to Ferdinand, 31 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 344–45; Charles to Ferdinand, 3 April 1531, Korrespondenz, 95–96; Charles to Ferdinand, 29 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 229–30.

51 Charles to Ferdinand, 9 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 314; Kohler, Ferdinand I, 103.

52 Ferdinand to Mary of Hungary, 3 February 1531, Korrespondenz, 21–22; Mary to Ferdinand, 17 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 209; Mary to Ferdinand, 2 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 247–49; Ferdinand to Mary, 19 April 1531, Korrespondenz, 106; Mary to Ferdinand, 27 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 140; Ferdinand to Mary, 22 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 162; Mary to Ferdinand, 29 March 1531, Korrespondenz, 88. On the 1529 siege of Vienna, see the tendentious but compelling Walter Hummelberger, Wiens erste Belagerung durch die Türken 1529, Militärhistorische Schriftenreihe 33 (Vienna, 1976).

53 Charles did come through for Mary with 30,000 florins per annum, and an additional 6,000 for her bowmen and singers, whom he hoped Ferdinand would help to support. Ten thousand gold Neapolitan ducats would go to her directly. Charles to Mary, 29 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 229.

54 Charles to Ferdinand, between 16 and 21 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 131.

55 Charles to Ferdinand, 1 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 299–300.

56 Cf. Kohler, Ferdinand I, 54–55; Tracy, Charles V, 208.

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59 Tracy, Charles V, 121.

60 Charles to Ferdinand, 3 April 1531, Korrespondenz, 94.

61 “[P]atriis nostris hereditariis sunt finitime et toto eo, quod nos in ea occupavimus ac tenemus.” Ferdinand to Charles, 9 November 1531, Korrespondenz, 368.

62 Ferdinand to Mary, 5 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 311; Ferdinand to Mary, 3 February 1531, Korrespondenz, 22.

63 Charles to Ferdinand, 14 June 1531, Korrespondenz, 159; Charles to Ferdinand, 30 August 1531, Korrespondenz, 245.

64 Ferdinand to Mary, 22 June, 1531, Korrespondenz, 163; Mary to Ferdinand, 27 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 139–40; Charles to Ferdinand, between 16 and 21 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 133; Charles to Ferdinand, between 26 and 28 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 271.

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66 Moeglin, “Discorde,” 279.

67 Davidoff, Doolittle, Fink, and Holden, The Family Story, 38. Yanagisako, “Bringing It All Back Home,” 36–37 citing David Schneider on kinship, nationality, and religion as a unity that he called “diffuse, enduring solidarity.” Cf. Moeglin, “Discordes,” 279; and Banks, Sibling Bond, 10.

68 Charles to Ferdinand, 12 February 1531, Korrespondenz, 39; Charles to Ferdinand, 19 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 256; Mary to Ferdinand, 19 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 25; Ferdinand to Mary, 25 September 1531, Korrespondenz, 260.

69 Charles to Ferdinand, 10 February 1531, Korrespondenz, 35; Mary to Ferdinand, 5 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 122; Mary to Ferdinand, between 5 and 6 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 181, 183; Ferdinand to Charles, 7 July 1531, Korrespondenz, 190.

70 Charles to Ferdinand, 16 January 1531, Korrespondenz, 28; Mary to Ferdinand, 5 May 1531, Korrespondenz, 121; Ferdinand to Mary, 17 October 1531, Korrespondenz, 328–29.

71 Fichtner, Paula Sutter, “Aber doch eine Friede: Ferdinand I., Ungarn und die Hohe Pforte,” in Kaiser Ferdinand I. Ein mitteleuropäischer Herrscher, ed. Fuchs, Martina, Oborni, Teréz, and Uváry, Gábor (Münster, 2005), 237–38Google Scholar.

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74 Vocelka, Lebenswelt, 99.

75 Davidoff, Doolittle, Fink, and Holden, The Family Story, 20, 22–23.