The cradle of the Savoyard power lay in the Burgundian lands

immediately bordering upon Italy and stretching on both sides of

the Alps. It was to their geographical position, as holding several

great mountain passes, that the Savoyard princes owed their first

importance, succeeding therein in some measure to the Burgundian kings

themselves.[15] The early stages of the growth of the house are very

obscure; and its power does not seem to have formed itself till after

the union of Burgundy with the Empire. ♦Possessions of the Counts

of Maurienne.♦ But it seems plain that, at the end of the eleventh

century, the Counts of _Maurienne_, which was their earliest title,

held rights of sovereignty in the Burgundian districts of _Maurienne_,

_Savoy_ strictly so called, _Tarantaise_, and _Aosta_. ♦Aosta; its

special position.♦ This last valley and city, though on the Italian

side of the Alps, had hitherto been rather Burgundian than Italian.[16]

Its allegiance had fluctuated several times between the two kingdoms;

but, from the time that Savoy held lands in both, the question became

of no practical importance. And, without entering into minute questions

of tenure, it may be said that the early Savoyard possessions reached

to the Lake of Geneva, and spread on both sides of the inland mouth

of the Rhone. The power of the Savoyard princes in this region was

largely due to their ecclesiastical position as advocates of the

abbey of Saint Maurice. ♦Geographical character of the Burgundian

territories.♦ Thus their possessions had a most irregular outline,

nearly surrounding the lands of _Genevois_ and _Faucigny_. A state of

this shape, like Prussia in a later age and on a greater scale, was, as

it were, predestined to make further advances. But for some centuries

those advances were made much more largely in Burgundy than in Italy.

♦Their early Italian possessions.♦ The original Italian possessions

of the House bordered on their Burgundian counties of Maurienne and

Aosta, taking in _Susa_ and _Turin_. ♦Marquesses in Italy.♦ This small

marchland gave its princes the sounding title of _Marquesses in Italy_.

The endless shiftings of territory in this quarter could be dealt with

only at extreme length, and they are matters of purely local concern.

♦Fluctuations of dominion.♦ In truth, they are not always fluctuations

of territory in any strict sense at all, but rather fluctuations of

rights between the feudal princes, the cities, and their bishops.

♦Their position in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.♦ In the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the princes of Savoy were still

hemmed in in their own corner of Italy by princes of equal or greater

power, at _Montferrat_, at _Saluzzo_, at _Iverea_, and at _Biandrate_.

And it must be remembered that their position as princes at once

Burgundian and Italian was not peculiar to them. ♦Other princes at once

Italian and Burgundian.♦ The Dauphins of the Viennois and the Counts of

Provence both held at different times territories on the Italian side

of the Alps. The Italian dominions of the family remained for a long

while quite secondary to its Burgundian possessions, and the latter may

therefore be traced out first.

♦Advance of Savoy in Burgundy. | Faucigny and the Genevois.♦

The main object of Savoyard policy in this region was necessarily the

acquisition of the lands of _Faucigny_ and the _Genevois_. ♦First

advance north of the lake.♦ But the final incorporation of those lands

did not take place till they were still more completely hemmed in by

the Savoyard dominions through the extension of the Savoyard power to

the north of the Lake. ♦Grant of Moudon. 1207.♦ This began early in

the thirteenth century by a royal grant of _Moudon_ to Count Thomas of

Savoy. ♦Romont the northern capital.♦ _Romont_ was next won, and became

the centre of the Savoyard power north of the Lake. ♦Peter, Count

of Savoy. 1263-1268.♦ Soon after, through the conquests of Peter of

Savoy, who was known as the Little Charlemagne and who plays a part in

English as well as in Burgundian history, these possessions grew into

a large dominion, stretching along a great part of the shores of the

Lake of Neufchâtel and reaching as far north as _Murten_ or _Morat_.

♦1239-1268.♦ But it was a straggling, and in some parts fragmentary,

dominion, the continuity of which was broken by the scattered

possessions of the Bishops of Lausanne and other ecclesiastical and

temporal lords. This extension of dominion brought Peter into close

connexion with the lands and cities which were afterwards to form the

Old League of High Germany. ♦His relations with Bern.♦ Bern especially,

the power to which his conquests were afterwards to be transferred,

looked on him as a protector. ♦Barons of Vaud. | Union of Vaud with

the elder branch. 1349.♦ This new dominion north of the Lake was,

after Peter’s reign, held for a short time by a separate branch of

the Savoyard princes as _Barons of Vaud_; but in the middle of the

fourteenth century, their barony came into the direct possession of the

elder branch of the house. The lands of Faucigny and the Genevois were

thus altogether surrounded by the Savoyard territory. ♦Faucigny held

by the Dauphins of the Viennois.♦ Faucigny had passed to the Dauphins

of the Viennois, who were the constant rivals of the Savoyard counts,

down to the time of the practical transfer of their dauphiny to France.

♦Savoy acquires Faucigny and Gex. 1355.♦ Soon after that annexation,

Savoy obtained _Faucigny_, with _Gex_ and some other districts beyond

the Rhone, in exchange for some small Savoyard possessions within the

Dauphiny. ♦The Genevois. 1401.♦ The long struggle for the Genevois,

the _county_ of Geneva, was ended by its purchase in the beginning

of the fifteenth century. This left the _city_ of Geneva altogether

surrounded by Savoyard territory, a position which before long

altogether changed the relations between the Savoyard counts and the

city. ♦Changed relations to city of Geneva.♦ Hitherto, in the endless

struggles between the Genevese counts, bishops, and citizens, the

Savoyard counts, the enemies of the immediate enemy, had often been

looked on by the citizens as friends and protectors. Now that they had

become immediate neighbours of the city, they began before long to

be its most dangerous enemies. ♦Amadeus the Eighth, Count 1391; | Duke

1417; | Antipope 1440; | died 1451.♦ The acquisition of the Genevois

took place in the reign of the famous Amadeus the Eighth, the first

Duke of Savoy, who received that rank by grant of King Siegmund,

and who was afterwards the Antipope Felix. ♦Greatest extent of the

dominions of Savoy in Burgundy.♦ In his reign the dominions of Savoy,

as a power ruling on both sides of the Alps, reached their greatest

extent. But the Savoyard power was still pre-eminently Burgundian,

and Chambery was its capital. The continuous Burgundian dominion of

the house now reached from the Alps to the Saône, surrounding the

lake of Geneva and spreading on both sides of the lake of Neufchâtel.

♦Annexation of Nizza. 1388.♦ Besides this continuous Burgundian

dominion, the House of Savoy had already become possessed of _Nizza_,

by which their dominions reached to the sea. This last territory

had however, though technically Burgundian, geographically more to

do with the Italian possessions of the house. ♦Savoy brought into

the neighbourhood of France.♦ But this great extension of territory

brought Savoy on its western side into closer connexion with the most

dangerous of neighbours. Her frontier for a certain distance joined

the actual kingdom of France. The rest joined the Dauphiny, which was

now practically French, and the county of Provence, which was ruled by

French princes and which before the end of the century became an actual

French possession. ♦New relations towards Bern and the Confederates.♦

To the North again the change in the relations between the House of

Savoy and the city of Geneva led in course of time to equally changed

relations towards Bern and her Confederates. ♦Loss of the Burgundian

dominion of Savoy.♦ Through the working of these two causes, all that

the House of Savoy now keeps of this great Burgundian territory is

the single city and valley of Aosta. After the fifteenth century, the

Burgundian history of that house consists of the steps spread over more

than three hundred years by which this great dominion was lost.

* * * * *

♦Growth of Savoy in Italy.♦

The real importance of the house of Savoy in Italy dates from much the

same time as the great extension of its power in Burgundy. ♦The largest

dominions cut short in the twelfth century.♦ During the eleventh and

twelfth centuries, partly through the growth of the cities, partly

through the enmity of the Emperor Henry the Sixth, the dominions of

the Savoyard princes as marquesses of Susa had been cut short, so as

hardly to reach beyond their immediate Alpine valleys. ♦Grants to

Count Thomas. 1207.♦ In the beginning of the thirteenth century, when

Count Thomas obtained his first royal grant north of the lake, he also

obtained grants of _Chieri_ and other places in the neighbourhood of

Turin. These grants were merely nominal; but they were none the less

the beginning of the Italian advance of the house. ♦First homage of

Saluzzo. 1216.♦ In the same reign _Saluzzo_ for the first time paid

a precarious homage to Savoy. ♦Italian dominion of Charles of Anjou.

1259.♦ Later in the thirteenth century, Charles of Anjou, now Count of

Provence and King of Sicily, made his way into Northern Italy also,

and thus brought the house of Savoy into a dangerous neighbourhood

with French princes on its Italian as well as on its Burgundian

side. Through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Savoyard

border went on extending itself. But the Italian possessions of the

house, like its possessions north of the lake, were separated from

the main body of Savoyard territory to form a fief for one of the

younger branches. ♦Counts of Achaia in Piedmont. 1301-1418.♦ This

branch bore by marriage the empty title of Counts of _Achaia_ and

_Morea_—memories of Frank dominion within the Eastern Empire—while,

as if to keep matters straight, a branch of the house of Palaiologos

reigned at Montferrat. ♦Advance in the fourteenth century.♦ During

the fourteenth century, among many struggles with the marquesses of

Montferrat and Saluzzo, the Angevin counts of Provence, and the lords

of Milan, the Savoyard power in Italy generally increased. ♦Reunion

of Piedmont. 1418.♦ Under Amadeus the Eighth, the lands held by the

princes of Achaia were united to the possessions of the head of the

house. ♦Acquisition of Biella, &c. 1435.♦ Before the end of the reign

of Amadeus, the dominions of Savoy stretched as far as the Sesia,

taking in _Biella_, _Santhia_ and _Vercelli_. Counting Nizza and Aosta

as Italian, which they now practically were, the Italian dominions of

the House reached from the Alps of Wallis to the sea. ♦Relations with

Montferrat.♦ But they were nearly cut in two by the dominions of the

Marquesses of _Montferrat_, from whom however the Dukes of Savoy now

claimed homage. ♦Claims on Saluzzo; its doubtful homage.♦ _Saluzzo_,

lying between the old inheritance of Susa and the new possession of

Nizza, also passed under Savoyard supremacy. But it lay open to a very

dangerous French claim on the ground of a former homage done to the

Viennese Dauphins. Amadeus, the first Duke of Savoy, took the title of

_Count of Piedmont_, and afterwards that of _Prince_. ♦Establishment of

Savoy as a middle state.♦ His possessions were now fairly established

as a middle state, Italian and Burgundian, in nearly equal proportions.

♦Effects of the Italian wars.♦

In the course of the next century and a half the Savoyard state

altogether changed its character in many ways. The changes which

affected all Europe, especially the great Italian wars, could not fail

greatly to affect the border state of Italy and Gaul. And there is no

part of our story which gives us more instructive lessons with

regard to the proper limits of our subject. During this time the

Savoyard power was brought under a number of influences, all of which

deeply affected its history, but which did not all alike affect its

geography. ♦French influence and occupation.♦ We have a period of

French influence, a period of French occupation, and more than one

actual fresh settlement of the frontier. Mere influence does not

concern us at all. Occupation concerns us only when it takes the form

of permanent conquest. An occupation of nearly forty years comes very

near to permanent conquest; still when, as in this case, it comes to

an end without having effected any formal annexation, it is hardly to

be looked on as actually working a change on the map. ♦Occupation by

France.♦ France occupied Piedmont for nearly as long a time as Bern

occupied the lands south of the lake. Yet we look on the one occupation

as simply part of the military history, while in the other we see a

real, though only temporary, geographical change. ♦Increased Italian

character of Savoy.♦ But the result alike of influence, of occupation,

and of actual change of boundaries, all tended the same way. They all

tended to strengthen the Italian character of the House of Savoy, to

cut short its Burgundian possessions, and, if not greatly to increase

its Italian possessions, at least to put it in the way of greatly

increasing them.

♦Decline of Savoy.♦

During the second half of the fifteenth century, the power of the

House of Savoy greatly declined, partly through the growing influence

of France, partly through the division, in the form of appanages, of

the lands which had been so lately formed together into a compact

state. ♦The Italian wars.♦ Then came the Italian wars, in which the

Savoyard dominions became the highway for the kings of France in their

invasions of Italy. The strictly territorial changes of this period

chiefly concern the marquisate of Saluzzo on the Italian side and the

northern frontier on the Burgundian side. In the end these two points

of controversy were merged in a single settlement. ♦First loss of

lands north of the lake. 1475.♦ The first loss of territory on the

northern frontier, the first sign that the Savoyard power in Burgundy

was gradually to fall back, was the loss of part of the lands north of

the lake in the war between Charles of Burgundy and the Confederates.

_Granson_ on the lake of Neufchâtel, _Murten_ or _Morat_ on its own

lake, _Aigle_ at the south-east end of the great lake, _Échallens_

lying detached in the heart of Vaud, all passed away from Savoy and

became for ever Confederate ground. Sixty years later, the affairs of

Geneva led to the great intervention of Bern, Freiburg and Wallis, by

which Savoy was for ever shorn of her possessions north of the lake.

♦Loss of the lands on both sides of the lake. 1536.♦ For a while indeed

she was cut off from the lake altogether; Chablais passed away as well

as Vaud. Geneva, with her detached scraps of territory, was now wholly

surrounded by her own allies. ♦Reunion of the lands south of the lake.

1567.♦ Thirty years later, Bern restored all her conquests south of the

lake, together with Gex to the west, leaving Geneva again surrounded by

the dominions of Savoy. Wallis too gave up part of her share, keeping

only the narrow strip on the left bank of the Rhone. ♦Charles the Good.

1504-1553. | Emanuel Filibert. 1553-1580.♦ The loss and the recovery

mark the difference between the reigns of Duke Charles the Third,

called the Good, and Duke Emmanuel Filibert with the Iron Head. The

difference of the two reigns is equally marked with regard to France.

♦Beginning of French occupation 1536. | Its end. 1574.♦ Almost at the

same moment as the conquests made by Bern, began that occupation, whole

or partial, of Savoyard territory by the French arms which did not come

wholly to an end for thirty-eight years. Savoy then appeared again

as a power whose main strength lay in Italy, whose capital, instead

of Burgundian Chambery, was Italian Turin. And all later changes of

frontier and the changes of frontier in her more southern dominions

also tended the same way to increase the Italian character of the

Savoyard power, and to lessen its extent in the lands which we may

distinguish as Transalpine, for the Burgundian name has now altogether

passed away from them.

The first formal exchange of Burgundian for Italian ground happened

under Emmanuel Filibert, shortly after the emancipation of his

dominions. ♦Acquisition of Tenda.♦ The small county of _Tenda_ was

acquired in exchange for the marquisate of _Villars_ in Bresse.

This extended the Italian frontier, without formally narrowing the

Burgundian frontier; still it was a step in the direction of more

important changes. ♦Disputes about the homage of Saluzzo.♦ The first

of these was caused by the endless disputes which arose out of the

disputed homage of Saluzzo. ♦Annexation of Saluzzo by France. 1548.♦

The Marquesses of Saluzzo preferred the French claimant of their

homage to the Savoyard, a preference which led in the end to definite

annexation by France. This was the first acquisition of Italian soil

by France as such, as distinguished from the claims of French princes

over Milan, Naples, and Asti. France thus threw a continuous piece

of French territory into the heart of the states of Savoy. When the

French occupation ceased, Saluzzo still remained to France. ♦Conquest

of Saluzzo. 1588.♦ Presently it was conquered by Duke Charles Emmanuel.

♦Reign of Charles Emanuel. 1580-1630.♦ The reign of this prince marks

the final change in the destiny of the house of Savoy. He himself

had dreamed of wider conquests on the Gaulish side of the Alps than

had ever presented himself to any prince of his house. He was to be

Count of Provence, King of Burgundy, perhaps King of France. The real

results of his reign told in exactly the opposite way. ♦Bresse, &c.

exchanged for Saluzzo. 1601.♦ By the treaty which ended his war with

France, Saluzzo was ceded to Savoy in exchange for _Bresse_, _Bugey_,

_Valromey_, and _Gex_. ♦Loss of position beyond the Alps.♦ A powerful

neighbour was thus shut out from a possession which cut the Savoyard

states in twain; but the price at which this advantage was gained

amounted to a final surrender of the old position of the Savoyard House

beyond the Alps. The Rhone and not the Saône became the boundary,

while the surrender of Gex brought France to the shores of the Lake.

Geneva, her city and her scattered scraps of territory, had now,

besides Bern, two other neighbours in France and Savoy. ♦Attempts on

Geneva. 1602-1609.♦ The two attempts of Charles Emmanuel to seize upon

the city were fruitless. Savoy now became distinctly an Italian power,

keeping indeed the lands between the Alps and the Lake, the proper

Duchy of Savoy, but having her main possessions and her main interests

in Italy. ♦Later history of Savoy.♦ We may here therefore finish the

history of the Transalpine possessions of the Savoyard House. ♦Annexed

to France. 1792-1796.♦ The Duchy of Savoy remained in the hands of its

own Dukes till their continental dominion was swept away in the storm

of the French Revolution. ♦Restored. 1814-1815.♦ It was restored after

the first fall of Buonaparte, but with a narrowed frontier, which left

its capital _Chambery_ to France. This was set right by the treaties

of the next year. ♦Savoy and Nizza annexed to France. 1860.♦ Lastly,

as all the world knows, Savoy itself, including the guaranteed neutral

lands on the Lake, passed, along with Nizza, to France. Savoy itself

was so far favoured as to be allowed to keep its ancient name, and

to form the departments of _High_ and _Low Savoy_, instead of being

condemned, as in the former temporary annexation, to bear the names of

_Leman_ and _Mont Blanc_. The Burgundian Counts who have grown into

Italian Kings have thus lost the land under whose name their House

grew famous. ♦Aosta spared.♦ Aosta alone remains as the last relic of

the times when the Savoyard Dukes, the greatest lords of the Middle

Kingdom, still kept their place as the truest representatives of the

Middle Kingdom itself.

* * * * *

♦Italian history of the House of Savoy.♦

The purely Italian history of the house now begins, a history which

has been already sketched in dealing with the geography of Italy.

♦Its character.♦ Savoy now takes part in every European struggle, and,

though its position led to constant foreign occupation, some addition

of territory was commonly gained at every peace. ♦French occupation.

1629.♦ Thus, before the reign of Charles Emmanuel was over, Piedmont

was again overrun by French troops. ♦Annexation of part of Montferrat.

1631. | French occupation of Pinerolo. 1630-1696.♦ Though the Savoyard

possessions in Italy were presently increased by a part of the Duchy of

_Montferrat_, this was a poor compensation for the French occupation

of _Pinerolo_ and other points in the heart of Piedmont, which lasted

till nearly the end of the century. ♦Later Italian advance.♦ The

gradual acquisition of territory at the expense of the Milanese duchy,

the acquisition and exchange of the two island kingdoms, the last

annexation by France, the acquisition of the Genoese seaboard, the

growth of the Kingdom of Sardinia into the Kingdom of Italy, have been

already told. Our present business has been with Savoy as a middle

power, a character which practically passed from it with the loss of

Vaud and Bresse, and all traces of which are now sunk in the higher but

less interesting character of one of the great powers of Europe. From

Savoy in its character of a middle power, as one of the representatives

of ancient Burgundy, we naturally pass to another middle power which

prolonged the existence of the Burgundian name, and on part of which,

though not on a part lying within its Burgundian possessions, some

trace of the ancient functions of the middle kingdom is still laid by

the needs of modern European policy.

§ 8. _The Duchy of Burgundy and the Low Countries._

♦Position of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy.♦

Among all the powers which we have marked as having for their special

characteristic that of being middle states, the one which came most

nearly to an actual revival of the middle states of earlier days was

the Duchy of Burgundy under the Valois Dukes. A great power was formed

whose princes held no part of their dominions in wholly independent

sovereignty. ♦Their twofold vassalage.♦ In practical power they were

the peers of their Imperial and royal neighbours; but their formal

character throughout every rood of their possessions was that of

vassals of one or other of those neighbours. ♦Its effects.♦ Such

a twofold vassalage naturally suggested, even more strongly than

vassalage to a single lord could have done, the thought of emancipation

from all vassalage, and of the gathering together of endless separate

fiefs into a single kingdom. ♦Schemes for a Burgundian kingdom.♦ The

gradual acquisitions of earlier princes, especially those of Philip the

Good, naturally led up to the design, avowed by his son Charles the

Bold, of exchanging the title of Duke for that of King. The memories of

the older Burgundian and Lotharingian kingdoms had no doubt a share in

shaping the schemes of a prince who possessed so large a share of the

provinces which had formed those kingdoms. The schemes of Charles, one

can hardly doubt, reached to the formation of a realm like that of the

first Lothar, a realm stretching from the Ocean to the Mediterranean.

His actual possessions, at their greatest extent, formed a power to

which Burgundy gave its name, but which was historically at least

as much Lotharingian as Burgundian. ♦Historical importance of the

Burgundian power.♦ And though this actual dominion was only momentary,

no power ever arose which fills a wider and more œcumenical place in

history than the line of the Valois Dukes. Their power connects the

earliest settlement of the European states with the latest. ♦1870.♦

It spans a thousand years, and connects the division of Verdun with

the last treaty that guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium. The growth

of their power was directly influenced by memories of the early

Carolingian partitions; and, even in its fall, it has itself influenced

the geography and politics of Europe ever since. As a Burgundian power,

it was as ephemeral as all other Burgundian powers have ever been. As a

Lotharingian power, it abides still in its effects. ♦History of the Low

Countries.♦ The union of the greater part of the Low Countries under a

single prince, and that a prince who was on the whole foreign to the

Empire, strengthened that tendency to split off from the Empire which

was already at work in some of those lands. Later events caused them

to split off in two bodies instead of one. This last tendency became

so strong that a modern attempt to unite them broke down, and their

place in the modern polity of Europe is that of two distinct kingdoms.

♦Final result of the Burgundian dominion.♦ The existence of those two

kingdoms is the final result of the growth of the Burgundian power in

the fifteenth century. ♦Its effect on language.♦ And by leading to the

separation of the northern Netherlands from the Empire, it has led to

one result which could never have been reckoned on, the preservation

of one branch of the Low-Dutch tongue as the acknowledged and literary

speech of an independent nation. ♦The Netherlands and Belgium.♦ Its

political results were the creation, in the shape of the northern

Netherlands, of a power which once held a great place in the affairs

of Europe and of the world, and the slower growth, in the shape of

the southern Netherlands, of a state in which modern European policy

still acknowledges the character of a middle kingdom. As the neutral

confederation of Switzerland represents the middle kingdom of Burgundy,

so the neutral kingdom of Belgium represents the middle kingdom of

Lotharingia.

♦Ducal Burgundy a fief of the Western Kingdom.♦

The Duchy of Burgundy which gave its name to the Burgundian power of

the fifteenth century was that one among the many lands bearing the

Burgundian name which lay wholly outside the Burgundian kingdom of the

Emperors. This Burgundy, the only one which has kept the name to our

own time, the duchy of which Dijon is the capital, never was a fief

of the Eastern Kingdom or of the Empire, after the final separation.

It always acknowledged the supremacy of the kings of Laon and Paris.

♦Two lines of Dukes. 1032.♦ By these last the duchy was twice granted

in fief to princes of their own house, once in the eleventh century

and once in the fourteenth. ♦The Valois. 1363.♦ This last grant was

the beginning of the Dukes of the House of Valois, with the growth

of whose power we have now to deal. ♦Union of Flanders and Burgundy.

1369. | The county of Burgundy.♦ Philip the Hardy, the first Duke of

this line, obtained, by his marriage with Margaret of Flanders, the

counties of _Flanders_, _Artois_, _Rhetel_, and _Nevers_, all fiefs of

the crown of France, together with the _County Palatine of Burgundy_ as

a fief of the Empire. The peculiar position of the Dukes of Burgundy

of this line was at once established by this marriage. ♦Two masses of

territory.♦ Duke Philip held of two lords, and his dominions lay in

two distinct masses. The two Burgundies, duchy and county, and the

county of Nevers, lay geographically together; Flanders and Artois

lay together at a great distance; the small possession of Rhetel lay

again detached between the two. Any princes who held such a territory

as this could hardly fail to devote their main policy to the work of

bringing about the geographical union of their scattered possessions.

Nor was this all. The possession of the two Burgundies made their

common sovereign a vassal at once of France and of the Empire.

♦Position of the Netherlands.♦ The possession of Flanders, Artois,

and Rhetel further brought him into connexion with those border

lands of the Empire and of the French kingdom where the authority of

either over-lord was weakest, and which had long been tending to form

themselves into a separate political system distinct from both. The

results of this complicated position, as worked out, whether by the

prudence of Philip the Good or by the daring of Charles the Bold, form

the history of the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois.

♦Imperial and French fiefs in the Netherlands.♦

The lands which we are accustomed to group together under the name of

the _Netherlands_ or _Low Countries_ lay chiefly within the bounds

of the Empire; but the county of Flanders had always been a fief of

France. ♦Fief of the Counts of Flanders within the Empire.♦ Part

however of the dominions of its counts, the north-eastern corner of

their dominions, the lands of _Alost_ and _Waas_, were held of the

Empire. ♦Zealand.♦ These lands, together with the neighbouring islands

of _Zealand_, formed a ground of endless disputes between the Counts of

Flanders and their northern neighbours the Counts of _Holland_. ♦County

of Holland.♦ This last county gradually disentangles itself from the

general mass of the Frisian lands which lie along the whole coast from

the mouth of the Scheld to the mouth of the Weser. ♦Inroads of the

sea. 1219, 1282.♦ And those great inroads of the sea in the thirteenth

century which gave the Zuyder-Zee its present extent helped to give the

country a natural boundary, and to part it off from the Frisian lands

to the north-east. ♦Disputes with the free Frisians.♦ Towards the end

of the thirteenth century Friesland west of the Zuyder-Zee had become

part of the dominions of the Counts. ♦Independence of West Friesland.

1417-1447. | County of East Friesland. 1454.♦ The land immediately east

of the gulf established its freedom, while _East Friesland_ passed to

a line of counts, under whom its fortunes parted off from those of the

Netherlands. Part of its later history has been already given in the

character of a more purely German state. ♦The Bishops of Utrecht.♦

Both the counts and the free Frisians had also dangerous neighbours

in the Bishops of _Utrecht_, the great ecclesiastical princes of this

region, who held a large temporal sovereignty lying apart from their

city on the eastern side of the gulf. These disputes went on, as also

disputes with the Dukes of Geldern, without any final settlement,

almost to the time when all these lands began to be united under the

Burgundian power. But before this time, the Counts of Holland had

become closely connected with lands much further to the south. ♦Duchy

of Brabant.♦ Among a number of states in this region, the most powerful

was the Duchy of _Brabant_, which represented the Duchy of the Lower

Lotharingia, and whose princes held the mark of _Antwerp_ and the

cities of _Brussels_, _Löwen_ or _Louvain_, and _Mechlin_. ♦County

of Hennegau or Hainault united with Holland. 1299.♦ To the South of

them lay the county of _Hennegau_ or _Hainault_. At the end of the

thirteenth century, this county was joined by marriage with that of

Holland. Holland and Hainault were thus detached possessions of a

common prince, with Brabant lying between them. ♦Mark of Namur.♦ South

of Brabant lay the small mark or county of _Namur_, which, without

being united to Flanders, was held by a branch of the princes of that

house.

♦Common character of these states.♦

All these states, though their princes held of two separate over-lords,

had much in common, and were well fitted to be worked together into

a single political system. They had much in common in the physical

character of the country, and in the unusual number of great and

flourishing cities which these countries contained. ♦Importance of the

cities.♦ None of these cities indeed actually reached the position

of free cities of the Empire; but their wealth, and the degree of

practical independence which they possessed, forms a main feature in

the history of the Low Countries. In point of language, the northern

part of these states spoke various dialects of Low-Dutch, from Flemish

to Frisian; in the southern lands of Hainault, Artois, and Namur, the

language, though not French, was not Teutonic, but an independent

Romance speech, the Walloon. ♦South-western group of states.♦ To

the west of these states lay another group of small principalities

connected with the former greater group in many ways, but not so

closely as those which we have just gone through. ♦Bishopric of

Lüttich. | Duchies of Luxemburg and Limburg.♦ The great ecclesiastical

principality of _Lüttich_ or _Liège_, lying in two detached parts,

divided the lands of which we have been speaking from the counties,

afterwards duchies, of _Lüzelburg_ or _Luxemburg_ and of _Limburg_. Of

these the more distant Limburg passed in the fourteenth century to the

Dukes of Brabant. ♦Luxemburg a Duchy. 1353.♦ Luxemburg is famous as

having given a series of princes to the kingdom of Bohemia and to the

Empire, and in their hands it rose to the rank of a duchy. ♦Geldern.♦

Lastly, to the north of Lüttich, forming a connecting link between this

group of states and the more purely Frisian powers, lay the duchy of

_Geldern_, of whose quarters the most northern portion stretched to

the Zuyder Zee. These eastern states, though not so closely connected

with one another as those to the west, were easily led into the same

political system. ♦Middle position of all these states.♦ Without

drawing any hard and fast line, we may say that all the states of this

region formed, if not yet a middle state, yet a middle system, apart

alike from France and the Empire, though in various ways connected

with both. Mainly Imperial, mainly Teutonic, they were not wholly so.

♦French influence.♦ Besides the homage lawfully due to France from

Flanders and Artois, French influence in various ways, in politics,

in manners, and in language, had made great inroads in the southern

Netherlands. Brabant and Hainault had practically quite as much to do

with France as with the Empire. ♦Walloon language.♦ And this French

influence was of course helped by the fact that a considerable region

in the south was, though not of French, yet not of Teutonic speech.

Altogether, with much to unite them to the great powers on either side,

with much to keep them apart from either of them, with much more to

unite them to one another, the states of the Netherlands might almost

seem to be designed by nature to be united under a single political

head. ♦Union of the Netherlands under the Dukes of Burgundy.♦ Such a

head was supplied by the Dukes of Burgundy and Counts of Flanders, by

whom, in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, nearly

the whole of the Netherlands was united into a single power which was

to be presently broken into two by the results of religious divisions.

* * * * *

Leaving then for the present the growth and fall of the Burgundian

power in the lands more to the south, we will go on to trace the steps

by which the provinces of the Low Countries were united under the

Valois Dukes and their Austrian descendants. ♦Reign of Philip the Good.

1419-1467.♦ The great increase of territory in this region was made

during the long reign of Philip the Good. ♦Namur. 1421-1429.♦ His first

acquisition was the county of _Namur_, a small and outlying district,

but one which, as small and outlying, would still more strongly suggest

the rounding off of the scattered territory. ♦1429-1433.♦ A series

of marriages and disputes next enabled Philip to make a much more

important extension of his dominions. ♦1405.♦ Brabant and Limburg had

passed to a younger branch of the Burgundian House. ♦1418.♦ John,

Duke of Brabant, the cousin of Philip by a marriage with Jacqueline,

Countess of Holland and Hainault, united those states for a moment. The

disputes and confusions which followed on her marriages and divorces

led to the annexation of her territories by the Duke of Burgundy,

a process which was finally concluded by the formal cession of her

dominions by Jacqueline. ♦Brabant and Limburg. 1430. | Holland and

Hainault. 1433.♦ Meanwhile Philip had succeeded to Brabant and Limburg,

and the union of Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Zealand, and Holland,

together made a dominion which took in all the greatest Netherland

states, and formed a compact mass of territory. On this presently

followed a great acquisition of territory which was more strictly

French than the fiefs which Philip already held of the French crown in

Flanders and Artois. The Treaty of Arras, by which Philip, hitherto

the ally of England against France, made peace with his western

overlord, gave him, under the form of mortgage, the lands on the Somme.

♦The towns on the Somme. 1435-1483.♦ The acquisition of these lands,

_Ponthieu_, _Vermandois_, _Amiens_, and _Boulogne_, advanced the

Burgundian frontier to a dangerous neighbourhood to Paris on this side

as well as on the other. It had the further effect of keeping the small

continental possessions which England still kept at Calais and Guisnes

apart from the French territory. During the reigns of Philip and

Charles the Bold, the continental neighbour of England was not France

but Burgundy. But this great southern dominion was not lasting. The

towns on the Somme, redeemed and again recovered, passed on the fall of

Charles the Bold once more into French hands. ♦Recovered by France.♦

So did Artois itself, and, though Artois was won back, Amiens and the

rest were not. Yet, if the towns on the Somme had stayed under the rule

of the successive masters of the Low Countries, it might by this time

have seemed as natural for Amiens to be Belgian as it now seems natural

for Cambray and Valenciennes to be French. The Treaty of Madrid drew a

definite boundary. ♦France resigns the homage of Flanders and Artois.

1526.♦ France gave up all claim to homage from Flanders and Artois,

and Charles the Fifth, in his Burgundian, or rather in his Flemish,

character, finally gave up all claim to the lands on the Somme.

The south-western frontier was thus fixed; but meanwhile the new

state had advanced in other directions. ♦Luxemburg. 1443.♦ Philip’s

last great acquisition was the duchy of _Luxemburg_. He now possessed

the greater part of the Netherlands; but his dominions were still

intersected by the bishoprics of Utrecht and Lüttich and the duchy of

Geldern. ♦Geldern and Zutphen. 1472.♦ The duchy of Geldern and county

of Zutphen were added by Charles the Bold. ♦Final annexation. 1543.♦

But they formed a precarious possession, lost and won more than once,

down to their final annexation under Charles the Fifth. ♦Bishopric of

Lüttich never annexed.♦ Of the two great ecclesiastical principalities

by which the Burgundian possessions in the Netherlands were cut

asunder, the bishopric of _Lüttich_, though its history is much mixed

up with that of the Burgundian Dukes, and though it came largely

under their influence, was never formally annexed. ♦Annexation of the

bishopric of Utrecht, 1531; | and Friesland, 1515.♦ But the temporal

principality of the Bishop of _Utrecht_ was secularized under Charles

the Fifth. _Friesland_, the Friesland immediately east of the Zuyder

Zee, was already reincorporated with the dominions of the prince who

represented the ancient counts of Holland. ♦Dominions of Charles the

Fifth.♦ The whole Netherlands were thus consolidated under the rule

of Charles the Fifth. They were united with the far distant county of

Burgundy, and with it they formed the Burgundian circle in the new

division of the Empire. The bishopric of Lüttich, which intersected

the whole southern part of the country, remained in the circle of

Westfalia. ♦The seventeen provinces.♦ Seventeen provinces, each keeping

much of separate being, were united under a single prince, and, since

the treaty of Madrid, they were free from any pretensions on the part

of foreign powers. The Netherlands formed one of the most compact and

important parts of the scattered dominions of the Emperor who was also

lord of Burgundy and Castile. ♦Their separation from the Empire.♦

But the final union of these lands under the direct dominion of an

Emperor at once led to their practical separation from the Empire.

♦The possessions of Philip of Spain. 1555.♦ They passed, with all the

remaining possessions and claims of the Burgundian House, to Philip of

Spain, and they were reckoned among the crowd of distant dependencies

which had come under the rule of the crowns of Castile and Aragon.

In Spanish hands they acted less as a middle state than as a power

which helped to hem in France on both sides. Had the great revolt of

the Netherlands ended in the final liberation of the whole seventeen

provinces, the middle state would have been formed in its full

strength. ♦The War of Independence. 1568-1609.♦ As it was, the work of

the War of Independence was imperfect. The northern provinces won their

freedom in the form of a federal commonwealth. The southern provinces

remained dependencies of Spain, to become the chosen fighting ground of

European armies, the chosen plaything of European diplomacy.

♦The Seven United Provinces. 1578.♦

The end of the long war of independence waged by the northern provinces

was the establishment of the famous federal commonwealth of the _Seven

United Provinces_, _Holland_, _Zealand_, _Utrecht_, _Gelderland_,

_Over-Yssel_, _Friesland_, and _Groningen_. These answered nearly to

the dominions of the Counts of Holland and Bishops of Utrecht in

earlier times. ♦Gelderland.♦ But besides these, part of the duchy of

_Geldern_ formed one of the United Provinces, while its southern part

shared the fate of the southern provinces. But, besides the United

Seven, the Confederation also kept parts of Brabant, Geldern, and

Flanders as common possessions. ♦Formal independence of the Empire.

1648.♦ The power thus formed, one which so long held an European

importance quite disproportioned to its geographical extent, had under

Burgundian rule become practically independent of the Empire, but it

was only by the Peace of Westfalia that its independence was formally

acknowledged. The maritime strength of the Confederation made it more

than an European power. It became a colonizing power in three parts

of the world. ♦Colonies of the Netherlands.♦ In the course of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Seven Provinces extended

their dominion over many points on the continent of India and over the

neighbouring island of _Ceylon_, over the great equatorial islands of

_Java_, _Sumatra_, and the _Moluccas_, over many points in _Guinea_

and southern Africa, and over part of _Guiana_ in South America. ♦New

Netherland passes to England. 1664.♦ But the great North American

settlement of _New Netherland_ passed to England, and _New Amsterdam_

became _New York_. ♦No real name for the county.♦ Singularly enough,

this great power never had any strict geographical name. _Netherlands_

was too large, as it took in the whole of the Low Countries and not the

emancipated provinces only. _Holland_ was too small, as being the name

of one province only, though the greatest. ♦Use of the name _Dutch_.♦

And, by one of the oddest cases of caprice of language, in common

English usage the name of the whole Teutonic race settled down on this

one small part of it, and the men of the Seven Provinces came to be

exclusively spoken of as _Dutch_.

♦The Spanish Netherlands. 1578-1706.♦

Meanwhile the southern provinces, the greater part of Brabant

and Flanders, with Artois, Hennegau or Hainault, Namur, Limburg,

Luxemburg, and the southern part of Geldern,—taking in Antwerp at

one end and Cambray at the other—remained under the sovereignty of

the representatives of the Burgundian Dukes. That is, they remained

an outlying dependency of the Spanish monarchy. But their southern

frontier was open to constant aggressions on the part of France.

♦Dunkirk held by England. 1658-1662.♦ _Dunkirk_ indeed was for a moment

held by England, as Calais and Boulogne had been in earlier times.

♦Cession of parts of Artois and of Gravelines, 1659;♦ By the Peace of

the Pyrenees France obtained Arras and the greater part of Artois,

leaving Saint Omer to Spain. ♦Dunkirk, 1662;♦ France also began to

work her way up along the coast of Flanders, taking _Gravelines_ by

virtue of the treaty, and presently adding Dunkirk by purchase from

England. ♦Philippeville, Marienburg, Thionville.♦ The treaty also

added to France several points along the frontiers of Hainault, Liège,

and Luxemburg, including the detached fortresses of _Philippeville_

and _Marienburg_, and _Thionville_ famous in far earlier days. During

the endless wars of Lewis’ reign, the boundary fluctuated with each

treaty. ♦1668. | 1677.♦ Acquisitions were made by France at the

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, some of which were surrendered, and others

gained, by the Peace of Nimwegen. ♦Boundary fixed by the Peace of

Utrecht. 1713.♦ At last the boundary was finally fixed by the Peace

of Utrecht in the last days of Lewis. Parts of Flanders and Hainault

were finally confirmed to France, which thus kept _Lille_, _Cambray_,

and _Valenciennes_. ♦The Spanish Netherlands pass to Austria.♦ The

provinces which had hitherto been Spanish now passed to the only

surviving branch of the House of Austria, that which reigned in the

archduchy and supplied the hereditary candidates for the Empire.

♦Annexed by France. 1792.♦ The first wars of the French Revolution

added the Austrian Netherlands to France, and with them the bishopric

of Lüttich which still so oddly divided them. ♦Kingdom of Holland.

1806-1810.♦ A later stage of the days of confusion changed the Seven

United Provinces, enlarged by the addition of East Friesland, into a

_Kingdom of Holland_, one of the states which the new conqueror carved

out for the benefit of his kinsfolk. ♦Holland annexed by France.

1810-1813.♦ Presently the new kingdom was incorporated with the new

‘Empire,’ along with the German lands to the north-east of it. The

Corsican had at last carried out the schemes of the Valois kings, and

the whole Burgundian heritage formed for a moment part of France.

* * * * *

At the general settlement of Europe, after the long wars with France,

the restoration of the Low Countries as a middle state was a main

object. ♦Kingdom of the Netherlands. 1814.♦ This was brought about

by the union of the whole Netherlands into a single kingdom bearing

that name. The southern boundary did not differ very greatly from

that fixed by the Peace of Utrecht. ♦The boundaries.♦ As in the

case of the Savoyard frontier, France kept a little more by the

arrangements of 1814 than she finally kept by those of 1815. To the

east, East-Friesland passed to Hannover, leaving the boundary of the

new kingdom not very different from that of the two earlier powers

which it represented, gaining only a small territory on the banks of

the Maes. ♦Incorporation of Lüttich.♦ But the bishopric of Lüttich was

incorporated with the lands which it had once parted asunder, and so

ceased altogether to be German ground. ♦Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.♦ The

new king, as we have already seen, entered the German confederation in

his character of Grand Duke of _Luxemburg_, the duchy being somewhat

shortened to the east in favour of Prussia. Lastly, after fifteen years

of union, the new kingdom again split asunder. ♦Kingdom of Belgium.

1830-1831.♦ It was now divided into the kingdom of the Netherlands,

answering to the old United Provinces, and the kingdom of Belgium,

answering to the old Spanish or Austrian Netherlands. ♦Luxemburg

divided.♦ But part of Limburg remained to the northern kingdom, and its

sovereign also kept part of Luxemburg, as a district state, forming

part of the German confederation. The western part of the duchy formed

part of the kingdom of Belgium. ♦1867.♦ Later events, as has been

already recorded, have severed the last tie between Germany and the

Netherlands; they have wiped out the last survival of the days when the

Counts of Holland and of Luxemburg were alike princes of the German

kingdom.

* * * * *

♦Effects of Burgundian rule.♦

The above may pass as a sketch of the fluctuations along the borderland

in their European aspect. It is needless to go through every small

shifting of frontier, or to recount in detail the history of small

border principalities like _Saint Pol_ and _Bouillon_. The main

historical aspect of these countries is their tendency, in all ages, to

form somewhat of a middle system between two greater powers on either

side of them. The guaranteed neutrality of Belgium and the guaranteed

neutrality of Switzerland are alike survivals or revivals—it is hard

to say which they should be called—of the instinctive feeling which,

in the ninth century, called the Lotharingian kingdom into being. The

modern form of this thousand-year old idea was made possible through

the growth of the power of the Burgundian Dukes of the House of Valois.

The real historical work of those dukes was thus done in those parts

of their dominions from which they did not take their name, but which

took their name from them. The history of their other dominions

may be told in a few words; indeed a great part of it has been told

already. ♦Schemes of Charles the Bold.♦ The schemes of Charles the

Bold for uniting his scattered dominions by the conquest of the duchy

of Lorraine, for extending the power thus formed to the sea-board of

the royal Burgundy, for forming in short a middle kingdom stretching

from the Ocean to the Mediterranean, acting as a barrier alike between

France and Germany and between France and Italy, remained mere schemes.

They are important only as showing how deeply the idea or the memory of

a middle state was still fixed in men’s minds. The conquests of Charles

in Lorraine, his purchases in Elsass, were momentary possessions

which hardly touch geography. But the fall of Charles, by causing

the break-up of the southern dominion of his house, helped to give

greater importance to its northern dominion. While the Netherlands grew

together, the Burgundies split asunder. After the fall of Charles the

fate of the two Burgundies was much the same as the fate of Flanders

and Artois. Both were for a while seized by France; but the county,

like Artois, was afterwards recovered for a season. The duchy of

Burgundy was lost for ever; the county, along with the outlying county

of Charolois, remained to those who by female succession represented

the Burgundian Dukes, that is to Charles the Fifth and his Spanish

son. The annexation of the Burgundian county, and with it of the city

of Besançon, by Lewis the Fourteenth has been recorded in an earlier

section.

§ 9. _The Dominions of Austria._

We now come to one among these German states which have parted off

from the kingdom of Germany whose course has been widely different

from the rest, and whose modern European importance stands on a widely

different level. As the Lotharingian and Frisian lands parted off on

the north-west of the kingdom, as a large part of the Swabian lands

parted off to the south-west of the kingdom, so the _Eastern Mark_,

the mark of _Austria_, parted off no less, but with widely different

consequences. ♦Origin of the name _Oesterreich_, _Austria_.♦ The name

of _Austria_, _Oesterreich_—_Ostrich_ as our forefathers wrote it—is,

naturally enough, a common name for the eastern part of any kingdom.

♦Other lands so called.♦ The Frankish kingdom of the Merwings had its

_Austria_; the Italian kingdom of the Lombards had its _Austria_ also.

We are half inclined to wonder that the name was never given in our own

island either to Essex or to East-Anglia. But, while the other Austrias

have passed away, the _Oesterreich_, the _Austria_, the Eastern mark,

of the German kingdom, its defence against the Magyar invader, has

lived on to our own times. It has not only lived on, but it has become

one of the chief European powers. And it has become so by a process

to which it would be hard to find a parallel. ♦Special position of

the Austrian power.♦ The Austrian duchy supplied Germany with so many

Kings, and Rome with so many Emperors, that something of Imperial

character came to cleave to the duchy itself. Its Dukes, in resigning,

first, the crown of Germany, and then all connexion with Germany, have

carried with them into their new position the titles and bearings

of the German Cæsars. ♦Union with Hungary.♦ The power which began

as a mark against the Magyar came to have a common sovereign with

the Magyar kingdom; and the Austrian duchy and Magyar kingdom, each

drawing with it a crowd of smaller states of endless nationalities,

have figured together in the face of modern Europe as the _Austrian

Empire_ or the _Austro-Hungarian Monarchy_. ♦The so-called ‘Empire’ of

Austria.♦ It is not easy, in drawing a map, to find a place for the

‘Empire’ of Austria. The Archduchy is there, and its sovereign has not

dropped his archiducal title. A crowd of kingdoms, duchies, counties,

and lordships, all acknowledging the sovereignty of the same prince,

are there also. But it is not easy to find the geographical place of an

‘Empire’ of Austria, as distinct from the Archduchy. Nor is it easy to

understand on what principle an ‘Empire’ of Austria can be understood

as taking in all the states which happen to own the Hungarian King

and Austrian Archduke as their sovereign. The matter is made more

difficult when we remember that the title of ‘Hereditary Emperor of

Austria’ was first taken while its bearer was still King of Germany

and Roman Emperor-elect. ♦Union of separate states under the Austrian

House.♦ But, putting questions like these aside, the gradual union of

a great number of states, German and non-German, under the common rule

of the archiducal house of Austria, by whatever name we call the power

so formed, is a great fact both of history and of geography. A number

of states, originally independent of one another, differing in origin

and language and everything that makes states differ from one another,

some of them members of the former Empire, some not, have, as a matter

of fact, come together to form a power which fills a large space in

modern history and on the modern map. ♦Lack of national unity.♦ But it

is a power which is altogether lacking in national unity. It is a power

which is not coextensive with any nation, but which takes in parts of

many nations. It cannot even be said that there is a dominant nation

surrounded by subject nations. ♦German, Magyar, and other races.♦ The

Magyar nation in its unity, and a fragment of the German nation, stand

side by side on equal terms, while Italians, Roumans, and Slaves of

almost every branch of the Slavonic race, are grouped around those two.

♦No strictly federal tie.♦ There is no federal tie; it is a stretch of

language to apply the federal name to the present relation between the

two chief powers of Hungary and Austria. Nor can any strictly federal

tie be said to unite Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Galicia. And yet

these other members of the general body are not mere subject provinces,

like the dominions of Old Rome. The same prince is sovereign of a crowd

of separate states, two of which stand out prominently as centres

among the rest. There is neither national unity, nor federation, nor

mere subjection of one land or nation to another. All this has come by

the gradual union by various means of many crowns upon the same brow.

♦Anomalous nature of the Austrian power.♦ The result is an anomalous

power which has nothing else exactly like it, past or present. But the

very anomaly makes the growth of such a power a more curious study.

* * * * *

♦The Eastern Mark.♦

The beginnings of the Austrian state are to be found in the small

_Mark_ on the Danube, lying between Bohemia, Moravia, and the Duchy of

Kärnthen or Carinthia. It appears in its first form as an appendage

to Bavaria.[17] This mark Frederick Barbarossa raised into a duchy,

under its first duke Henry the Second, and it was enlarged to the

westward at the expense of Bavaria by the addition of the lands above

the Enns. ♦Duchy of Austria, 1156.♦ Thus was formed the original

_Duchy of Austria_, the duchy of the Dukes of the House of Babenberg.

It had not long risen to ducal rank before it began to extend itself at

the expense of states which had hitherto been of greater moment than

itself. Itself primarily a mark against the Magyar, Austria had to the

south of it the lands where the German Kingdom marched at once upon

the Magyar, the Slave, and the Kingdom of Italy. ♦Duchy of Carinthia.♦

Here lay the great Duchy of Carinthia, a land where the population

was mainly Slave, though on this frontier the Slavonic population had

been brought into much earlier and more thorough subjection to the

German Kings than the Slaves on the north-eastern frontier. ♦Duchy of

Styria, 1180;♦ At the time of the foundation of the duchy of Austria,

the Carinthian duchy had begun to split in pieces, and its northern

part, hitherto the _Upper Carinthian Mark_, grew into the Duchy of

_Steyermark_ or _Styria_. ♦united to Austria, 1192.♦ Twelve years

later, Leopold the Fifth of Austria inherited the duchy of Styria, a

duchy greater than his own, by the will of its duke Ottokar. Carinthia

itself went on as a separate duchy; but it now took in only a narrow

territory in the south-western part of the old duchy, and that broken

up by outlying possessions of the archbishops of Salzburg and other

ecclesiastical lords. ♦The county of Görz.♦ To the south grew up a

considerable power in the hands of the counts of _Görz_ or _Gorizia_

on the Italian border. ♦Ecclesiastical position of its Counts.♦ The

possessions of these counts stretched, though not continuously, from

Tyrol to Istria, and their influence was further enlarged by their

position as advocates of the bishoprics of _Trent_ and _Brixen_ and

of the more famous patriarchate of _Aquileia_. These are the lands,

the marchlands of Germany towards its eastern and south-eastern

neighbours, which came by gradual annexations to form the German

possessions of the Austrian power. But the further growth of that power

did not begin till the duchy itself had passed away to the hands of a

wholly new line of princes.

♦Momentary union of Austria and Bohemia.♦

The first change was one which brought about for a moment from one side

an union which was afterwards to be brought about in a more lasting

shape from the other side. This was the annexation of Austria by the

kingdom of _Bohemia_. ♦Bohemia a kingdom, 1158.♦ That duchy had been

raised to the rank of a kingdom, though of course without ceasing to

be a fief of the Empire, a few years after the mark of Austria had

become a duchy. The death of the last duke of Austria of the Babenberg

line led to a disputed succession and a series of wars, in which the

princes of Bavaria, Bohemia, and Hungary all had their share. ♦Ottokar

of Bohemia annexes Austria and Styria, 1252-1262. | Carinthia, 1269.♦

In the end, between marriage, conquest, and royal grant, Ottokar king

of Bohemia obtained the duchies of Austria and Styria, and a few years

later he further added Carinthia by the bequest of its Duke. Thus a new

power was formed, by which several German states came into the power

of a Slavonic king. ♦Great power of Ottokar.♦ The power of that king

for a moment reached the Baltic as well as the Hadriatic; for Ottokar

carried his arms into Prussia, and became the founder of Königsberg.

But this great power was but momentary. Bohemia and Austria were again

separated, and Austria, with its indefinite mission of extension over

so many lands, including Bohemia itself, passed to a house sprung from

a distant part of Germany.

* * * * *

♦House of Habsburg.♦

We have now come to the European beginnings of the second House of

Austria, the house whose name seems to have become inseparably

connected with the name of Austria, though the spot from which that

house drew its name has long ceased to be an Austrian possession. This

is the house of the Counts of _Habsburg_. They took this name from

their castle on the lower course of the Aar, in the north-west corner

of the Aargau, in that southern Swabian land where the Old League of

High Germany was presently to arise, and so greatly to extend itself

at the cost of the power of Habsburg. ♦Union of Habsburg, Kyburg, and

Lenzburg.♦ By an union of the lands of Habsburg with those of the

Counts of _Kyburg_ and _Lenzburg_, a considerable, though straggling,

dominion was formed. It stretched in and out among the mountains and

lakes, taking in Luzern, and forming a dangerous neighbour to the free

city of Zürich. ♦Their possession in Elsass.♦ Besides these lands,

the same house also held _Upper Elsass_ with the title of Landgrave,

a dominion separated from the other Swabian lands of the House by

the territory of the free city of Basel. ♦Rudolf king, 1273. | His

victories over Ottokar, 1276-1278. | Albert of Habsburg Duke of Austria

and Styria, 1282.♦ The lord of this great Swabian dominion, the famous

Rudolf, being chosen to the German crown, and having broken the power

of Ottokar, bestowed the duchies of Austria and Styria on his son

Albert, afterwards King. ♦Meinhard Duke of Carinthia and Count of

Tyrol, 1286.♦ Carinthia at first formed part of the same grant; but it

was presently granted to Meinhard Count of Görz and Tyrol. Görz passed

to another branch of the house of its own Counts. Three powers were

thus formed in these regions, the duchies of _Austria_ and _Styria_,

the duchy of _Carinthia_ with the county of _Tyrol_, and the county of

_Görz_.

♦Scattered territories of the House of Habsburg.♦

Thus under Albert the possessions of the House of Habsburg were large,

but widely scattered. The two newly acquired eastern duchies not only

gave its princes their highest titles, but they formed a compact

territory, well suited for extension northward and southward. ♦Falling

off of the Swabian lands.♦ But among the outlying Swabian territories,

though some parts remained to the Austrian House down to the end of the

German Kingdom, the tendency was to diminish and gradually to part off

altogether from Germany. In the lands south of the Rhine this happened

through union with the Confederates; in the Alsatian lands it happened

at a later stage through French annexation.

♦Connexion of Austria with the Empire.♦

It is to be hoped that it is no longer needful to explain that the

hereditary lands of the House of Habsburg or Austria had no inherent

connexion with the German Kingdom and Roman Empire of which they were

fiefs, beyond the fact that they were among its fiefs. They were

further connected with it only by the accident that, from Rudolf

onwards, many princes of that house were chosen Kings, and that, from

the middle of the fifteenth century, onwards, all the Kings were chosen

from that house and from the house into which it merged by female

succession. It is to be hoped that there is no longer any need to

explain that every Emperor was not Duke of Austria, and that every Duke

of Austria was not Emperor. But it may be needful to explain that every

Duke of Austria was not master of the whole dominions of the House of

Austria. ♦Divisions of the Austrian dominions.♦ The divisions, the

reunions, the joint reigns, which are common to the House of Austria

with other German princely houses, become at once more important and

more puzzling in the case of a house which gradually came to stand

above all the others in European rank. The caution is specially needful

in the case of the Swabian lands, as the history of the Confederates

is liable to be greatly misunderstood, if every Duke of Austria

who appears there is taken for the sole sovereign of the Austrian

dominions. It is needless to go here through all these shiftings

between princes of the same house. Through all changes the unity of

the house and its possessions was maintained, even while they were

parted out or held in common by different members of the house. But

it is important to bear in mind that some of the Dukes of Austria who

figure in the history of Switzerland were rather Landgraves of Elsass

or Counts of Tyrol than Dukes of Austria in any practical sense.

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may be defined as a time during

which the Austrian House on the whole steadily advanced in the Eastern

part of its dominions and steadily fell back in the Western. But in the

course of the fourteenth century an acquisition was made which, without

making them absolutely continuous, brought them into something more

like geographical connexion with one another. ♦Acquisition of Carinthia

and Tyrol, 1335.♦ This was the acquisition of the Duchy of Carinthia

and County of _Tyrol_, the latter of which lands lay conveniently

between the Eastern and Western dominions of the house. ♦Extent of the

Austrian territory.♦ These now stretched continuously from the Bohemian

frontier to Istria, and they threw out, in the form of Tyrol and the

Swabian lands, a scattered, but nearly continuous, territory stretching

to the borders of Lorraine and the county of Burgundy. The Austrian

possessions now touched the eastern gulf of the Hadriatic and came

into the neighbourhood of the Dalmatian Archipelago. ♦Commendation of

Trieste, 1382.♦ Somewhat later they reached the main Hadriatic itself,

when the city of _Trieste_, hitherto disputed between the commonwealth

of Venice and the patriarchs of Aquileia, commended itself to the

Austrian Duke Leopold as its lord. This is the same Leopold who four

years later fell at Sempach. By this time the Swabian possessions

had been increased north of the Rhine, while south of the Rhine the

Austrian dominion was steadily giving way. ♦Loss of Thurgau, 1460.♦

The Confederates and their several cantons advanced in every way, by

purchase and conquest, till, after the loss of Thurgau, the House of

Austria kept nothing south of the Rhine except the towns known as the

_Waldstädte_.

By this time the division of the estates of the house had taken a more

lasting shape. One branch reigned in Austria, another in Carinthia and

Styria, a third in Tyrol and the other western lands. At this time

begins the unbroken series of Austrian elections to the German and

Imperial crowns. ♦Albert the Second, king, 1437-1440.♦ The first was

Albert the Second, Duke of Austria. ♦Frederick the Third, king, 1440;

Emperor, 1452. | Archduke of Austria, 1453.♦ Then Frederick the Third,

the first Emperor of the House, united the Austrian and Carinthian

duchies, and raised Austria to the unique rank of an Archduchy.

♦Siegmund, Count of Tyrol, &c., 1429-1496.♦ Meanwhile, Siegmund Count

of Tyrol held the western lands, and appears as Duke of Austria in

Confederate and Burgundian history. He there figures as the prince who

lost Thurgau to the Confederates and who mortgaged his Alsatian lands

to Charles the Bold. ♦Maximilian, King of the Romans, 1486; Archduke,

1493; Count of Tyrol, 1496; Emperor-elect, 1508.♦ In Maximilian the

whole possessions of the house of Austria were united. ♦Beginning of

union with lands beyond the Empire.♦ But by this time the affairs of

the purely German lands which had hitherto formed the possessions of

the Austrian house had begun to be mixed up with the succession to

lands and kingdoms beyond the Empire, and with lands which, though

technically within the Empire, had a distinct being of their own. In

the course of the fifteenth century the house of Austria, hitherto

simply one of the chief German princely houses, put on two special

characters. ♦Succession of Austrian Kings and Emperors.♦ It became, as

we have already seen, the house which exclusively supplied kings and

Emperors to Germany and the Empire. And it became, by virtue of its

hereditary possessions rather than of its Imperial position, one of the

chief European powers. For a while the greatest of European powers, it

has remained a great European power down to our own time.

♦Union with Bohemia and Hungary.♦

The special feature in the history of the house of Austria from the

fifteenth century onwards is its connexion—a connexion more or less

broken, but still constantly recurring till in the end it becomes fully

permanent—with the kingdom of Bohemia within the Empire and with the

kingdom of Hungary beyond its bounds. These possessions have given the

Austrian power its special character, that of a power formed by the

union under one prince of several wholly distinct nations or parts of

nations which have no tie beyond that union. The Austrian princes,

originally purely German, equally in their Swabian and in their

Austrian possessions, had already, by the extension of their power to

the south, obtained some Slavonic and some Italian-speaking subjects.

Still, as a power, they were purely German. ♦Various acquisitions of

Austria.♦ But in the period which begins in the fifteenth and goes on

into the nineteenth century, we shall see them gradually gathering

together, sometimes gaining, sometimes losing—gaining and losing by

every process, warlike and peaceful, by which territory can be gained

or lost—a crowd of kingdoms, duchies, and counties, scattered over

all parts of Europe from Flanders to Transsilvania. But it is the

acquisition of the two crowns of Bohemia and Hungary which, above all

others, gave the House of Austria its special position as a middle

power, a power belonging at once to the system of Western and to

the system of Eastern Europe. Among the endless shiftings of the

states which have been massed together under the rule of the House

of Habsburg, that house has more than once been at the same moment

the neighbour of the Gaul and the neighbour of the Turk; and it has

sometimes found Gaul and Turk arrayed together against it. Add to

all this that, though the connexion between the house of Austria and

the Empire was a purely personal one, renewed in each generation by

a special election, still the fact that so many kings of Hungary and

archdukes of Austria were chosen Emperors one after another, caused

the house itself, after the Empire was abolished, to look in the eyes

of many like a continuation of the power which had come to an end. The

peculiar position of the Austrian house could hardly have been obtained

by a mere union of Hungary, Austria, and the other states under princes

none of whom were raised to Imperial rank. Nor could it have been

obtained by a series of mere dukes of Austria, even though they had

been chosen Emperors from generation to generation. It was through the

accidental union under one sovereign of a crowd of states which had no

natural connexion with each other, and through the further accident

that the Empire itself seemed to become a possession of the House, that

the House of Habsburg, and its representative the House of Lorraine,

have won their unique position among European powers.

The first hints, so to speak, of a coming union between the Hungarian

and Bohemian kingdoms and the Austrian duchy began, as we have seen,

in the days of Ottokar. A Bohemian king had then held the Austrian

duchy, while a Hungarian king had for a moment occupied part of

Styria. ♦Relations with Hungary and Bohemia.♦ But the later form which

the union was to take was not that of the Bohemian or the Hungarian

reigning over Austria, but that of the Austrian reigning over Hungary

and Bohemia. The duchy was not to be added to either of the kingdoms;

but both kingdoms were in course of time to be added to the duchy.

The growth of both Hungary and Bohemia as kingdoms will be spoken

of elsewhere. We have now to deal only with their relations to the

Austrian House. ♦Rudolf, son of Albert, King of Bohemia, 1306.♦ For a

moment, early in the fourteenth century, an Austrian prince, son of the

first Austrian King of Germany, was actually acknowledged as King of

Bohemia. But this connexion was only momentary. The first beginnings

of anything like a more permanent connexion begin a hundred and thirty

years later. ♦Albert the Second, King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1438.♦

The second Austrian King of Germany wore both the Hungarian and the

Bohemian crowns by virtue of his marriage with the daughter of the

Emperor and King Siegmund. The steps towards the union of the various

crowns are now beginning. ♦Siegmund, King of Hungary, 1386; King of the

Romans, 1414; King of Bohemia, 1419; Emperor, 1433.♦ Siegmund was the

third King of Bohemia who had worn the crown of Germany, the second

who had worn the crown of the Empire. Under his son-in-law, Hungary,

Bohemia, and Austria were for a moment united with the German crown; in

the next reign, as we have seen, begins the lasting connexion between

Austria and the Empire. But the Hungarian and Bohemian kingdoms parted

again. ♦Wladislaus Postumus, Duke of Austria, 1440-1457; King of

Hungary and Bohemia, 1453-1457.♦ One Austrian King, the son of Albert,

reigned at least nominally over both kingdoms, as well as over the

special Austrian duchy. But the final union did not come for another

eighty years. The Turk was now threatening and conquering. At Mohacz

Lewis, king of the two kingdoms, fell before the invaders. ♦Ferdinand,

Archduke of Austria, 1519; King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1527; King of

the Romans, 1531; Emperor-elect, 1556. | Permanent union of Bohemia.♦

His Bohemian kingdom passed to Ferdinand of Austria, and from that day

to this, unless we except the momentary choice of the Winter King, the

Palatine Frederick, the Bohemian crown has always stayed in the House

of Austria. And for many generations it has been worn by the actual

sovereign of the Austrian archduchy.

♦Effects of the union with Hungary.♦

The acquisition of the crown of Hungary was of greater importance. It

at once put the Austrian House into a wholly new position; it gave it

its new later character of a middle state between Eastern and Western

Europe. The duchy had begun as a mark against the Turanian and heathen

invaders of earlier times. Those Turanian and heathen invaders had

long before settled down into a Christian kingdom; they had latterly

become the foremost champions of Christendom against the Turanian and

Mahometan invaders who had seized the throne of the Eastern Cæsars.

♦Mission against the Turk.♦ With the crown of Hungary, the main duty of

the Hungarian crown, the defence of Christendom against the Ottoman,

passed to the Archdukes and Emperors of the Austrian House. ♦The

Austrian kings in Hungary.♦ But for a long time Hungary was a most

imperfect and precarious possession of its Austrian Kings. ♦1526-1699.♦

For more than a century and a half after the election of Ferdinand, his

rule and that of his successors was disputed and partial. They had from

the very beginning to strive against rival kings, while the greater

part of the kingdom and of the lands attached to the crown was either

held by the Turk himself or by princes who acknowledged the Turk as

their superior lord. These strictly Hungarian affairs, as well as the

changes on the frontier towards the Turk, will be spoken of elsewhere.

♦Peace of Passarowitz, 1718.♦ It was not till the eighteenth century

that the Austrian Kings were in full possession of the whole Hungarian

kingdom and all its dependencies.

♦Acquisition of Görz, 1500.♦

Meanwhile the Austrian power had been making advances in other

quarters. At the end of the fifteenth century the Austrian possessions

at the north-east of the Hadriatic were greatly enlarged by the

addition of the county of _Görz_, which carried with it the fallen city

of Aquileia. ♦New position towards Italy.♦ A more direct path towards

Italian dominion was thus opened. The wars of the League of Cambray

made no permanent addition to Austrian dominion in this quarter; but

the master of Trieste and Aquileia, whose territory cut off Venice

from her Istrian possessions, might already almost pass for an Italian

sovereign. ♦Dominions of Charles the Fifth.♦ Under Charles the Fifth

the House of Austria became, as we have seen, possessed of a vast

Italian dominion. But after him it passed away alike from the Empire

and the German branch of the house, to become part of the heritage of

the Austrian Kings of Spain. ♦Austrian rule in Italy.♦ It was not, as

we have already seen, till the beginning of the eighteenth century that

either an Emperor or a reigning archduke again obtained any territory

within the acknowledged bounds of Italy. The fluctuations of Austrian

rule in Italy, from the acquisition of the Duchy of Milan down to our

own day, have been already told in the Italian section. Lombardy and

Venetia are now again Italian; but Austria still keeps the north-east

corner of the great gulf. She still keeps Görz and Aquileia, Trieste

and all Istria, to say nothing of the dangerous way which her frontier

still stretches on Italian ground in the land of Trent and Roveredo.

♦Burgundian possessions.♦

These last named possessions still abide as traces of the Austrian

advance in these regions, and its fluctuations there have been among

the most important facts of modern history. Another series of Austrian

acquisitions in the West of Europe have altogether passed away.

The great Burgundian inheritance passed to the House of Austria.

♦Maximilian and Philip.♦ But it was only for a short time, in the

persons of Maximilian and Philip, that it was in any way united to the

actual Austrian Archduchy. ♦The Austrian Netherlands.♦ After Charles

the Fifth the Burgundian possessions passed, like those in Italy, to

the Spanish branch of the House, and, just as in Italy, it was not till

the eighteenth century that actual Emperors or archdukes again reigned

over a part of the Netherlands. ♦Loss of Elsass.♦ Before this time the

Alsatian dominion of Austria had passed away to France, and the remnant

of her Swabian possessions passed away, as we have seen, in the days of

general confusion. The changes of her territory in Germany during that

period have been already spoken of. Her acquisitions in Eastern Europe

will come more fully elsewhere; but a word must be given to them here.

♦Loss of Silesia, 1740. | Final partition of Poland, 1772.♦ Looking at

the House of Austria simply as a power, without reference to the German

or non-German character of its dominions, the loss of _Silesia_ may

be looked on as counterbalanced by the territory gained from Poland

at the first and third partitions. ♦Galicia and Lodomeria.♦ The first

partition gave the Austrian House a territory of which the greater

part was originally Russian rather than Polish, and in which the old

Russian names of _Halicz_ and _Vladimir_ were strangely softened

into a _Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria_. ♦Third partition, 1795.

| New-Galicia.♦ The third partition added _Cracow_ and a considerable

amount of strictly Polish territory. These last passed away, first

to the Duchy of Warsaw, and then to the restored Kingdom of Poland.

♦Annexation of Cracow, 1846.♦ But Galicia has been kept, and it has

been increased in our day by the seizure of the republic of Cracow.

These lands lie to the north of the Hungarian kingdom. Parted from them

by the whole extent of that kingdom, and adjoining that kingdom at

its south-west corner lie the coast lands of Austria on the Hadriatic.

♦Dalmatia, 1797.♦ By the Peace of Campoformio, Austria took _Dalmatia_

strictly so called, and the other Venetian possessions as far south as

Budua. ♦Recovered, 1814. | Ragusa, 1814.♦ These lands, lost in the wars

with France, were won again at the Peace, with the addition of _Ragusa_

and its territory.

* * * * *

This account of the gains and losses of a power which has gained and

lost in so many quarters is necessary somewhat piecemeal. It may be

well then to end this section with a picture of the Austrian power as

it stood at several points of the history of the last century and a

half, leaving the fluctuating frontier towards the Turk to be dealt

with in our survey of the more strictly Eastern lands.

♦Reign of Maria Theresa, 1740-1780.♦

We will begin at a date when we come across a sovereign whose position

is often strangely misunderstood, the Empress-Queen Maria Theresa—Queen

in her own right of Hungary and Bohemia, Empress by the election of

her husband to the Imperial Crown. ♦Her hereditary dominions.♦ The

Pragmatic Sanction of her father Charles the Sixth made her heiress

of all his hereditary dominions. That is, it made her heiress,

within the Empire, of the kingdom of Bohemia with its dependencies

of Moravia and Silesia—of the Archduchy of Austria with the duchies,

counties, and lordships of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Tyrol, Görz,

and Trieste—of Constanz and a few other outlying Swabian points—as

also of Milan, Mantua, and the Austrian Netherlands, lands which it

needs some stretch, whether of memory or of legal fiction, to look

on as being then in any sense lands of the Empire. Altogether beyond

the Empire, it gave her the Kingdom of Hungary with its dependent

lands of Croatia, Slavonia, and Transsilvania or Siebenbürgen. These

hereditary dominions, lessened by the loss of Silesia, increased by the

addition of Galicia, she handed on to their later Kings and Archdukes.

Her marriage transferred those hereditary dominions, it indirectly

transferring the Empire itself, to a new family, the House of Lorraine.

The husband of Maria Theresa, Francis, who had exchanged his duchy

of Lorraine for that of Tuscany, was in truth the first Lotharingian

Emperor. After him came three Emperors of his house, under the third of

whom the succession of Augustus and Charles came to an end.

♦Austrian dominions in 1811.♦

We may take another view of the Austrian territory at the moment when

the French power in Germany was at its height. The Roman Empire and

the German kingdom had now come to an end; but their last sovereign

still, with whatever meaning, called himself Emperor of his archduchy,

though without dropping his proper title of Archduke. ♦New use of the

name _Austria_.♦ From this time the word Austria was used, commonly

but inaccurately, to take in all the possessions of the House of

Austria. And, as all the possessions of the House of Austria were now

geographically continuous, it became more natural to speak of them by

a single name than it had been when the dominions of that house in

Italy and the Netherlands lay apart from the great mass of Austrian

territory. And at this moment, when the Empire had come to an end

and when the German Confederation had not yet been formed, there was

no distinction between German and non-German lands. The ‘Empire’ of

Francis the Second or First, as it stood at the time of Buonaparte’s

greatest power, had, as compared with the hereditary dominions of Maria

Theresa, gone through these changes. Tyrol and the Swabian lands had

passed to other German princes; Salzburg had been won and lost again.

In Italy the Venetian possessions had been won and lost, and they,

together with the older Italian possessions of Austria, had passed to

the French kingdom of Italy. France in her own name had encroached

on the Austrian dominions at two ends. She had absorbed the Austrian

Netherlands at one corner, the newly won territory of Dalmatia at

another. This last territory, with parts of Carinthia and Carniola, and

with the Hungarian kingdom of Croatia, received, on passing to France,

the name of the _Illyrian Provinces_. Illyrian they were in the widest

and most purely geographical sense of that name. But this use of the

Illyrian name was confusing and misleading, as tending to put out of

sight that the true representatives of the old Illyrian race dwell to

the south, not only of Carinthia and Carniola, but of Dalmatia itself.

The loss of the Austrian possessions in this quarter brought back

the new Austrian ‘Empire’ to the condition of the original Austrian

duchy. It became a wholly inland dominion, without an inch of sea-coast

anywhere.

♦Austria at the peace. 1814-5.♦

We have already seen how Austria won back her lost Italian and

Dalmatian territory, and so much of her lost German territory as was

geographically continuous. ♦Ragusa and Cattaro.♦ Released from her

inland prison, provided again with a great sea-board on both sides

of the Hadriatic, she now refused to Ragusa the restoration of her

freedom, and filched from Montenegro her hard-won haven of Cattaro.

The recovered lands formed, in the new nomenclature of the Austrian

possessions, the kingdoms of Lombardy and Venice, of Illyria, and of

Dalmatia. The last was an ancient title of the Hungarian crown. The

Kingdom of Illyria was a continuation of the affected nomenclature

which had been bestowed on the lands which formed it under their

French occupation. We have already traced the driving out of the

Austrian power from Lombardy and Venetia, its momentary joint

possession in Sleswick, Holstein, and Lauenburg. ♦Cracow, 1846.♦

The only other actual change of frontier has been the annexation of

the inland commonwealth of Cracow, to match the annexation of the

sea-faring commonwealth of Ragusa. ♦Separation of Hungary, 1848.♦ The

movement of 1848 separated Hungary for a moment from the Austrian

power. ♦Recovery of Hungary, 1849.♦ Won back, partly by Russian help,

partly by the arms of her own Slavonic subjects, the Magyar kingdom

remained crushed till Austria was shut out alike from Germany and

from Italy. ♦Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 1867.♦ Then arose the present

system, the so called _dualism_, the theory of which is that the

‘Austro-Hungarian Monarchy’ consists of two states under a common

sovereign. By an odd turning about of meanings, Austria, once really

the _Oesterreich_, the Eastern land, of Germany, has become in truth

the Western land, the _Neustria_, of the new arrangement. With the

Hungarian kingdom are grouped the principality of Transsilvania and

the kingdoms of Slavonia and Croatia. The Austrian state is made up

of _Austria_ itself—the archduchy with the addition of _Salzburg_—the

duchy of _Styria_, the county of _Tyrol_, the kingdoms of _Bohemia_,

_Galicia_ and _Lodomeria_, _Illyria_, and _Dalmatia_ with _Ragusa_ and

_Cattaro_. These last lands are not continuous. Thus two states are

formed. ♦Modern Austria.♦ In one the dominant German duchy has Slavonic

lands on each side of it, and an Italian fringe on its coast. ♦Modern

Hungary.♦ In the other state, the ruling Magyar holds also among the

subjects of his crown the Slave, the Rouman, and the outlying Saxon of

Siebenbürgen. ♦Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Spizza, 1878.♦ Add to this that

the latest arrangements of all have added to the Austrian dominions,

under the diplomatic phrase of ‘administration,’ the Slavonic lands of

_Herzegovina_ and _Bosnia_, while the kingdom of Dalmatia is increased

by the harbour of _Spizza_. A power like this, which rests on no

national basis, but which has been simply patched together during

a space of six hundred years by this and that grant, this and that

marriage, this and that treaty, is surely an anachronism on the face

of modern Europe. Germany and Italy are nations as well as powers.

Austria, changed from the _Austria_ of Germany into the _Neustria_ of

Hungary, is simply a name without a meaning.

* * * * *

We have thus gone through the geographical changes of the three

Imperial kingdoms, and of the states and powers which were formed

by parts of those kingdoms falling away, and in some cases uniting

themselves with lands beyond the Empire. They have all to some extent

kept a common history down to our own time. We have now to turn to

another land which parted off from the Empire in like manner, but which

parted off so early as to become a wholly separate and rival land, with

an altogether independent history of its own.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Unless we except the small part of Flanders held by the

Confederation.

[13] On the marks, see Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichten_, vii.

62, et seq.

[14] No influence was more powerful for this end than the _Zollverein_

or customs union, which gradually united most of the German states

for certain purposes. But as it did not affect the boundaries or the

governments of sovereign states, it hardly concerns geography. Neither

do the strivings after more perfect union in 1848 and the following

years.

[15] Compare the mention of Rudolf in the letter of Cnut, on his Roman

Pilgrimage, in Florence of Worcester, 1031. He is there ‘Rodulphus rex,

qui maxime ipsarum clausurarum dominatur.’

[16] That Aosta was strictly Burgundian appears from the ‘Divisio

Imperii, 806’ (Pertz, Leges, i. 141), where Italy is granted whole

to Pippin, Burgundy is divided between Charles and Lewis; but it is

provided that both Charles and Lewis shall have success to Italy,

‘Karolus per vallem Augustanam quæ ad regnum ejus pertinet.’ The

Divisio Imperii of 839 is still plainer (Pertz, Leges, i. 373,

Scriptores, i. 434). There the one share takes in ‘Regnum Italiæ

partemque Burgundiæ, id est, vallem Augustanam,’ and certain other

districts. So Einhard (Vita Karoli, 15) excludes Aosta from Italy.

‘Italia tota, quæ ab Augusta Prætoria usque in Calabriam inferiorem, in

qua Græcorum et Beneventanorum constat esse confinia, porrigitur.’ As

Calabria was not part of Italy in this sense, so neither was Aosta.

[17] See Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, iv. 73.