#Rudolph of Hapsburg

[doueverwonder]

tbh the funniest hetalia fic I can think of would be the entire history of Holy Rome, all of the German Confederation, and Austria-Hungary but Liechtenstein & Luxembourg are narrating and the both sound v tired about it.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #21 – Danubia by Simon Winder

I picked this up because I’ve been trying to read one history book a month, and I happened to scroll past a viral tumblr post with a quote from its introduction as I was figuring out which book that would be for April. Helpfully, there was no one ahead of me waiting for it in the library. A one-paragraph quotation and the book’s cover aside, I went it basically entirely blind. The book took a bit of adjusting to.

The book is a history of Central Europe through the lens of the Habsburg Dynasty, and it is a history of the Habsburg Dynasty through Winder’s extensive travelogue visiting every historical city and museum exhibit in the Danube basin. A roughly chronological sequence of events is followed (common and sometimes extensive tangents and diversions notwithstanding), but nearly every new section is introduced with an anecdote of visiting some town, castle or church that was relevant to the events about to be discussed, and a contemplation of its aesthetic significance to the modern traveller.

Meandering aside, the book does a good job of covering the broad sweep of a millennium of history and hits all the high points you expect it to (Charles V, Rudolph’s Prague, the 30 Years War, 1848, 1866, 1914, etc). The basic dynastic and political history is broken up and intermixed with a surprising amount of time dedicated to the cultural products of each era, which one does very much get the sense are what really fascinates Winder. The painters, composers and architects features get space that’s determined less by their general modern fame or contemporary significance and more because they happened to capture the author’s interest. I certainly came out of this with far more opinions about Vienna’s classical music output across the ages than I expected.

Winder’s voice is strong to the point of overpowering throughout. Which is quite deliberate I’m sure – this is a breezy read full of cute trivia, not a monograph – but even still, it sometimes gets a bit much. Instead of an academic lecture the effect is similar to listening to a guy whose perhaps not quite as insightful or interesting as he thinks he is hold forth over drinks in what only barely qualifies as a conversation. The effect is usually quite charming! But it does wear on you. It also makes getting particularly caught up on the precise accuracy of every bit of trivia feel kind of beside the point.

Winder is also a middle-class guy from southern England, which I might feel bad about saying ‘and you can tell’ if he didn’t bring it up himself quite so much. Anyway, knowing this makes the whole pitch of the book as ‘a walk through the age and region where all the slaving and massacres and depopulation and brutality we associate with Over There happened in Europe too” make so incredibly more sense. Even if it perhaps still shows an ever-so-slightly naive view of what preodern history also looked like in Western Europe.

Still, a significant portion of the book is dedicated to the sheer brutality of early modern religious warfare, both between the Ottomans and various Christian princes and coalitions, and between different sects of Christians. Winder thankfully has no taste at all for grand battles or heroic violence, and devotes as little wordcount to the various epoch-defining wars as he can get away with. He’s more interested in the consequences of them, the brutal and brutalizing violence that led to the depopulation and resettlement of what became the Hapsburg empire several times over across its history.

Which leads into the book’s other main theme. Winder is very much not a fan of nationalism, especially of the kind that made the region’s 20th century such an apocalypse. The book views it as an absurd horror in general, and even moreso in a region where every city and ‘national homeland’ was hopelessly intermixed, and every land continually resettled. The last chapters make the point that the ‘nationality’ of much of the population was, if not arbitrary, then certainly contingent, with massive amounts of assimiliation across national and ethnic lines happening quite late into the 19th century (and before that, historical nationality being more happenstance of language and religion that any primordial cultural essence). It is only as the Habsburg’s legitimizing mythology fell apart that nationalism became the only vital organizing force in the empire, and the grounds on which battle lines were drawn and spoils competed over.

The book does portray the whole latter 19th century as a dialectic between increasingly absurd and ineffectual but (and so) increasingly benign Hapsburg rule to the rising and inevitably exclusionary and vicious nationalisms that would tear it apart. The closest thing to the political left that makes a sustained appearance is Napoleon. Which is somewhat excusable in terms of what the post-Habsburg political situation did end up looking like, I suppose, but given the size and significance of the SDAPO it’s a bit of a gap. One more way the author shines through, I suppose.

The tragic epilogue is of course that Europe now is full of (more-or-less, if you squint) neat and semi-homogenus nation-states. Not because of any peaceful triumph of liberal nationalism and self-determination, but rather one outburst after another of apocalyptic violence, of emptied cities and gore-soaked fields. The book was written before both the current invasion of Ukraine and the most recent war in Gaza, but had either been ongoing they probably would have gotten referenced as further examples of the bloody logic of nation-building (Winder have basically categorized Zionism as the Jewish iteration of the general outburst of homeland-conquering nationalisms in later Austria-Hungary, with the Palestinians in the same unfortunate position as the inconveniently-non-Romanian Magyars in Transylvania.)

Anyway, overall a fairly charming read, and Winder’s steadfast belief that the only real justification for the Habsburg Dynasty is all the weird art they paid for is very endearing. But more entertaining than enlightening, I suppose? And if I hadn’t read it in small daily chunks Winder’s voice would have worn on me until I wanted to reach through the pages and pour a drink on him halfway through the second tangent about his family vacation in Paris.

[whileiamdying]

Pola Negri, a Vamp of the Silent Screen, Dies at 88

Pola Negri, a tempestuous green-eyed vamp of the silent screen who tantalized audiences with her on- and off-camera romances, died Saturday at Northeast Baptist Hospital in San An-tonio. She was 88 years old and lived in San Antonio.

Miss Negri was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia last week, hospital officials said yesterday. Her physi-cian, Dr. Houston Wade, said she had been diagnosed two years ago as having a brain tumor. She decided not to undergo treatment, he said.

There were believed to be no survivors.

by Albin Krebs August 3, 1987

Pola Negri, a tempestuous green-eyed vamp of the silent screen who tantalized audiences with her on- and off-camera romances, died Saturday at Northeast Baptist Hospital in San Antonio. She was 88 years old and lived in San Antonio.

Miss Negri was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia last week, hospital officials said yesterday. Her physician, Dr. Houston Wade, said she had been diagnosed two years ago as having a brain tumor. She decided not to undergo treatment, he said.

There were believed to be no survivors.

The 1920's and 30's were the Age of the Vamp in the movies, and of all the screen vamps, Pola Negri was, unquestionably, the most colorful, the most exotic, the most mysterious.

The Polish-born Miss Negri was a startlingly beautiful woman, with skin as delicately white as fine porcelain, jet black hair and flashing dark-green eyes.

Her off-screen life was more tempestuous than any role she ever played and, although she often insisted that she wished only to be left alone, she could shrewdly maneuver her love affairs and feuds into avalanches of personal publicity.

Men found her fascinating. She married two noblemen and divorced both. She was the mistress and fiancee of Charles Chaplin, whom she jilted in a whirl of headlines. She was living openly with Rudolph Valentino, the romantic idol of millions of women the world over, at the time of his death in 1926. And Adolf Hitler was so taken with her that he personally intervened to countermand an order, issued by the Nazis on the ground that they thought Miss Negri was part-Jewish, forbidding her to work in Germany.

The temperamental star flourished in the long-gone era of the flamboyant screen siren, competing for roles and popularity with such other stars as Gloria Swanson and Theda Bara. Festooned in Diamonds

Whenever she appeared in public, she was festooned in diamonds and pearl brooches from her $1 million collection, acquired cut-rate from Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns who could no longer afford them. She popularized painted toenails in the mid-20's, and when she took to wearing turbans, or appeared in high boots, thousands of American women slavishly copied her.

She maintained a mansion in Beverly Hills, a villa on the Riviera and a chateau north of Paris, and just before the crash of 1929 her personal fortune was estimated at $5 million. She lost most of her money and possessions, however, and spent her last years living in elegant simplicity in San Antonio.

In ''Memoirs of a Star,'' published in 1970, Miss Negri wrote that she was born in Lipno, Poland, on New Year's Eve, 1899. (Other sources, however, give the date as three to five years earlier.) Her mother was the former Eleanora de Kielczeska, from a family of impoverished nobility; her father was Jerzy Mathias-Chalupec, a Slovak immigrant.

Miss Negri's two sisters died in childhood. Her father was arrested by Czarist troops in 1905 for revolutionary activity in what was then Russian Poland. He was sent to prison and, although he was ultimately released, he did not return to his wife and daughter.

Miss Negri's mother had to go to work as a cook to maintain a one-room apartment in a Warsaw slum and earn enough money to send Pola to the Imperial Ballet School. Pola's first public performance was in the role of a cygnet in ''Swan Lake,'' with the Imperial Ballet. Illness Ended Dance Career

Her dancing career ended when she was 13 years old, however, because she contracted tuberculosis and had to be sent to a sanitarium. Pronounced cured a year later, she returned to Warsaw and was admitted for study at the Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts after falsely stating she was 17. It was at that time that she adopted her stage name - Pola, the diminutive of her given name, Apolonia, and Negri, after Ada Negri, an Italian poet whom she admired.

She was one of Poland's leading actresses when she was 17, at which time she made her first movie, a two-reeler called ''Slaves of Sin.'' In 1918 she went to Berlin to perform a leading role in Max Reinhardt's pantomime ''Sumurun,'' which was later filmed as her third full-length movie.

Miss Negri's roles in her first two pictures, ''The Eyes of the Mummy Ma'' and ''Carmen,'' typed her as the man-ruining vamp. She took time out from her career in 1919 to be the wife, briefly, of Count Eugene Dambski, a Polish army career officer, then returned to Berlin to make films. ''Madame Du Barry,'' released in the United States under the title ''Passion,'' won her a Paramount Pictures contract and she was brought here in 1922.

During the Atlantic crossing, Miss Negri's agent scolded her for spending most of her time in her cabin. ''Make a few appearances,'' he said. ''Think of the publicity.''

''I am thinking of it,'' she replied. ''We will get more publicity this way. I have already learned that the fewer appearances you make, the more they will talk about you. All you have to do is to say you want to be alone - and the whole world thinks you are exotic and glamorous. It never occurs to them that you are simply tired.'' Feud With Swanson

In Hollywood, while carefully limiting her public appearances, Miss Negri, with equal assiduity, cultivated several headlined feuds, most notably with Gloria Swanson, her rival at Paramount. (The leading ladies once had a cat fight using real cats.) Miss Negri's Hollywood films were not artistic landmarks, but most were extremely successful at the box office. Among them were ''Belle Donna'' (1923), her first American movie; ''The Cheat'' (1923); ''Men'' (1924); ''The Spanish Dancer'' (1923); ''Shadows of Paris'' (1924); ''East of Suez'' (1925) and ''Forbidden Paradise'' (1924). At the height of her popularity, she was so much in demand that she ground out five pictures in a single year.

However, she always seemed able to find time for romance. Her first big headlined Hollywood affair was with Charlie Chaplin, who in 1964 wrote in his autobiography that the relationship was essentially one of the pursued (Chaplin) and the pursuer (Negri). In her own memoirs Miss Negri observed tartly:

''A great deal has been written about my relationship with Charlie Chaplin. Unfortunately, much of it has been written by Mr. Chaplin. Still less fortunately, what he wrote was largely untrue. Rather than say he behaved in less than a gentlemanly fashion, I would prefer to excuse him on the grounds that all clowns live in a world of fantasy.''

Miss Negri went on to say that her relationship with Mr. Chaplin had been intimate and stormy, that he was an inept lover, that he proposed marriage and that finally she ended the affair, over Mr. Chaplin's tearful entreaties. Her Greatest Love

According to Miss Negri, the greatest love of her life was Rudolph Valentino. On their second meeting, she wrote in her memoirs, she found him so passionately overpowering that on that very night they became lovers and remained so for nearly a year, until his death in 1926.

Valentino, called by his adoring public ''The Great Lover,'' was indeed the great lover, she wrote, capable of making such romantic gestures as sprinkling rose petals on the bed before they retired. He could also be quite prosaic. For example, he often wept because he was losing his hair, and sometimes the sex symbol of American women preferred making spaghetti for Miss Negri to making love to her.

After collapsing at Valentino's funeral in New York, Miss Negri took his body back to California by train, stopping at dozens of stations along the way so that hysterical Valentino-worshipers could pay him tribute. She was accused of using the cortege to garner personal publicity, and, true or not, soon afterward her popularity at the box office waned. When her contract came up for renewal, she found she was no longer wanted at Paramount.

Her standing with the Valentino cult was forever shattered when, in 1927, less than a year after Valentino's death, Miss Negri was married to Serge Mdivani, an impecunious Georgian prince, and took him to live in her chateau in France. They were divorced in 1931, after Miss Negri had lost the bulk of her fortune through, she later wrote, her husband's mismanagement of her affairs during the stock-market crisis. Went to Berlin in 1935

After the indifferent reception to her first talkie, ''A Woman Commands,'' Miss Negri in 1935 fled Hollywood for Berlin, where she made pictures until the outbreak of World War II. For a time she was prohibited from working by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, who put her name on a list of suspected ''non-Aryans.''

Hitler, who was said to be so fond of her German-made movie about mother love, ''Mazurka,'' that he had it run weekly so he could have a good cry, personally overruled Goebbels. Shortly after, newspapers in Europe and the United States printed reports of a romance between Hitler and Miss Negri. She sued the French magazine that initiated the reports and won a 10,000-franc judgment.

Miss Negri, who was living on the Riviera when Germany invaded France, returned to the United States in 1941. Two years later she played a featured comedy role in ''Hi Diddle Diddle,'' but no other film offers were forthcoming.

By the end of the war, she was reduced to living in one room in a small hotel in New York and selling off her jewelry to survive. Ultimately, she recovered some money and property tied up in Europe during the war.

From 1948 to 1963, Miss Negri lived in California and Texas with Margaret L. West, who bequeathed her property in San Antonio. In recent years Miss Negri lived in a duplex apartment in San Antonio, attended by a maid, a chauffeur and a secretary.

Miss Negri made her last attempted comeback in ''The Moonspinners,'' a Walt Disney film released in 1964. As production on the movie began in London in 1963, she proved she had not lost her knack for finding a bizarre gimmick sure to give her headlines. For her first press conference, she entered the room with a frisky cheetah on a leash.

[rmelster]

Thanks for your insight! :D

Of that much I am aware :< Carlos was known for having a frightful temperament (which may have been caused by the close blood relation of his parents and grandparents, as well as some environmental factors, though of the latter I am much less aware, since he was said to have been raised by a governess and his aunt Joanna), and I heard some accounts about particularly violent outbursts of his, though some people dismiss the claims, saying it is part of some scion of the Black Legend, or similar. But if such thing was true, then it would not be the last time an Hapsburg man was known for being unstable; Julius Caesar of Habsburg, his cousin’s Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph illegitimate son, starred a very bleak, sordid incident that resulted in the violent death of a very young woman.

It’s upsetting that yet again 1) Mary is considered blameful for everything (even for things she had little if no control) 2) Men being abusive towards other people is everyone’s fault but theirs 3) Compare victims / experiences of abuse to say “well, this one was worst” and dismiss any suffering.

This was the caption in question (there was another one from a different account)

(In the second one, I remember they alluded that Mary I was ill-suited to be a mother, despite being very willing and desirous to be so, because “she wanted no child, but a Catholic heir; she should have raised her stepson”… Whom she never met, and who I don’t think she wrote a letter to. I mean, that would be an interpretation, and one I disagree with.)

Hi! if it is not bother, may I ask whether Mary I of England had any relationship with her stepson Carlos of Asturias? As far as I am aware, they did not met in person, and thus, it is argued that she had very little saying in his upbringing, but I found two different accounts on Pinterest saying “she abused him” or something like that (one of those arguing that she herself was never abused by Anne Boleyn, so I cannot give it much credibility). I wanted to know you opinion about this matter, if you want t :>

Any claim that she abused him is false because you are correct, they never met. Mary died before he came to England. What I find funny about this, is that Carlos was known to be an actual violent and abusive person to those around him. So those claiming Mary abused him prove the point that people would rather coddle an abusive man, and lie a woman was the abusive one, rather than hold him accountable. People were somewhat terrified of him, and he also mistreated his servants and animals.

[lifestylemanagement]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[lifestylesea]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[taksimhookah]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[technostyle]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[pinklifest]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[allhealthly]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[moviestyles]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[pubulc]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[lifestylethesaurus]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[lifestylesa]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[kissslifestyle]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.

[lifestylekazanlak]

Rudolph of Hapsburg

How comes it that in this epoch lands so different as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, produce rulers who, in all essentials as statesmen, are so closely parallel in act, whilst widely different in character? Frederick 11., in nature, seems the antithesis of St. Louis, so does Philip Augustus of Ferdinand HI., our cultured Edward I. of his martial contemporary, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Yet these men, differing so entirely in nature and in gifts, ruling men so different as those of Sicily and Austria, Castile and England, all exercise the same functions in the same way: all are great generals, administrators, legislators, statesmen, founders of nations, authors of constitutions, supporters of the Church, promoters of learning. Clearly it is that their time is the golden age of kings, an age when the social conditions forced forth all the manhood and the genius of the born ruler; when the ruled were by habit, religion, and by necessity eager to welcome the great king and cheerfully helped him in his task sofia city tour. Of them all, St. Louis is certainly the most beautiful nature, Frederick 11. the most interesting personality, our Simon de Montfort the most genuine patriot, our own Edward 1. the most creative mind, and he and Philip Augustus the kings whose work was the most pregnant with permanent results; but we may find in a much ruder nature, in Rudolph of Hapsburg, the simple, unwearied warrior chief, who finally turned the German kings from Italy to the North, who never quarrelled with the Church, who so sternly asserted the arm of law, and whose whole life was an unbroken series of well-won triumphs — the most truly typical king of the thirteenth century. Frederick n. and Edward I. are really in advance of their age; and St. Louis and Ferdinand HI. are saints and churchmen more than kings.

Power of the kings

Together with the kings must be kept always in view the base on which the power of the kings was founded — the growing greatness of the towns. There were two allied forces which divided the inheritance of Feudalism — the monarchs on the one hand, the burghers on the other. The thirteenth century is eminently the era of the foundation of the great towns north of the Alps.

In France, in Spain, in England, in Burgundy, in Flanders, and even we may say in Germany, the princes never became strong but by alliance with the wealth, the intelligence, the energy, of the cities. To the burghers the kings represented civilisation, internal peace, good government: to the kings the towns represented the sinews of war, the material and intellectual sources of their splendour, of their armies, their civil organisation. Hence, in the thirteenth century, there grew in greatness, side by side and in friendly alliance, the two powers which, in later centuries, have fought out such obstinate battles—the monarchies and the people. And out of this alliance, at once its condition and its instrument, there grew up Cortes, Diets, States-General, Parliaments, Charters, constitutional laws, codes, and ordinances.

It is true that in Italy, Spain, Provence, and Languedoc, we find rich trading towns as early as the First Crusade, but it was not until the thirteenth century that we can call any northern city an independent power, with a large, wealthy, and proud population, a municipal life of its own, and a widely extended commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century Europe is covered with such towns — Paris, London, Strasburg, Cologne, Ghent, Rouen, Bordeaux, in the first line, the great wool cities of East England, the ports of the South and West, the great river cities of France along the Loire, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Seine, the rich, artistic, laborious, and crowded cities of Flanders, the rich and powerful cities on the Rhine from Basle down to Arnheim, the cities of the Danube, the Elbe, and the Baltic.