“Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube" – ‘Let others wage war; thou, happy Austria, marry’ is one of the few terms that almost anyone with a cursory interest in European history knows, only rivalled by the Voltaire quote thou shall not utter in my presence ever. It evokes the image of a handsome alpine boy full of charm and apple strudel wooing some princess into peacefully handing over the richest lands is Europe. And this narrative of peaceful transition to a benign dynasty is another one of the great propaganda successes of the house of Habsburg.

The saying was attributed to Matthias Corvinus, the king of Hungary who had once occupied Vienna, then to the humanist Ulrich von Hutten, but first evidence of its use dates back to 1654, more than 150 years after the famous marriages that made an empire. From 1680 it was read out at Habsburg weddings to emphasise the peaceful nature of its rulers.

It definitely did not originate in the days of Maximilian I when all these dynastic alliances were formed and bore fruit. Talking about gentle and peaceful transition was preposterous against the backdrop of a 15 -year long war over the succession to the grand Dukes of Burgundy, and the roller coaster ride that is today’s topic, the way the Habsburgs acquired the crown of Spain.

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:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen

Frederick II Stupor Mundi

Saxony and Eastward Expansion

The Hanseatic League

The Teutonic Knights

The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356

The Reformation before the Reformation

The Empire in the 15th century

The Fall and Rise of the Habsburgs