RUDOLF I OF HABSBURG, King of Germany. - B. May 1, 1218, Count of Habsburg in Aargau and of Kiburg (near Zurich) and lord of a large part of Alsace, he was the most powerful prince of the old Duchy of Swabia, which had not been reconstituted after the death of the last Hohenstaufen; a man "of great affairs and magnanimous and valiant in arms and fortunate in battle, much feared by the Alamanni and the Italians" (Giovanni Villani, Cron., VII, 55).
He had the good fortune to succeed in re-establishing the Kingdom of Germany. Upon the death of the pretender Riccar-
of Cornwall (April 2, 1272), Alfonso of Castile, his rival, demanded that Gregory X recognize his rights and forbid a new election. But the Pope replied that his rights remained still disputed and that the opinion of the electors, known to be contrary, must be heard; for his part Charles of Anjou favored his nephew Philip III, king of France, for the throne of Germany. The electors began to concern themselves with the new election in the summer of 1272; and at the beginning of 1273 Werner of Eppenstein, archbishop of Mainz, worked to bring the ecclesiastical and lay princes into agreement, and then Frederick, burgrave of Nuremberg, championed the cause of R., his friend. The latter was in fact elected on October 1, 1273 at Frankfurt and was crowned at Aachen on the 24th. Gregory X, to whom R. had communicated his appointment, officially recognized him as king on September 20, 1274 after having invited Alfonso and Ottokar II of Bohemia to recognize him; then he met with him at Lausanne in October 1275 and accepted the oath of aid in recovering the possessions of the Church from Radicofani to Ceprano, the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, Ancona, Spoleto, Bertinoro and its surroundings, the Matildine lands and the rights over Sicily: in short, all that Louis the Pious and Otto I had sworn. In addition to this, R. took the Cross from the hands of the Pope for the defense of the Holy Land with the promise of imperial coronation. But R. did not descend into Italy despite repeated promises, concerned with securing in Germany his own power together with that of his family (cf. Dante, Purg., VI, 97 ff.; VII, 91-96). In this he encountered above all the opposition of Ottokar II, king of Bohemia. The latter had succeeded in extending his dominion over the south-eastern duchies, approaching as far as the borders of Friuli; R. in June 1276 moved war against him, besieged Vienna and with the help of Meinhard of Tyrol and Albert of Gorizia occupied Austria, Styria, Carinthia, forcing Ottokar to swear fealty to him in November. When in 1278 Ottokar broke the agreements, R. moved war against him again, in June, defeated him and killed him (August 26) and invaded Bohemia and Moravia; then in 1281 he assigned Austria and Styria to his son Albert and in 1286 Carinthia to Meinhard.
R. did not intend, however, to renounce his rights over Italy, where Charles of Anjou, king of Naples, exercised an effective preponderance, and in particular over Rome as senator and in Tuscany as vicar. Pope Gregory worked to create an understanding between the two, whereby Charles received the imperial investiture for Provence and Forcalquier and R. gave his daughter Clementia in marriage to Charles Martel, son of Charles, in 1280. R. proved more reluctant to cede the Romagna to the Pope, where his vicars continued to exercise power, and only in 1278 did Nicholas III (v.) succeed in installing his rector there, who was Bertoldo Orsini, after having forced R. to observe what he had promised several times. In compensation R. succeeded in reclaiming for himself the vicariates of Tuscany and Lombardy.
R. found instead open opposition in the Diet of Frankfurt in May 1291 on the part of the German princes when he wished to designate his son Albert as king of Germany; from there he moved on to Speyer where he died on July 15, 1291.
Bibliography5 works
Pio Paschini