Division of the Habsburg lands

Rudolf was succeeded in 1365 by his two brothers, Albert III and Leopold III. After some years of joint rule, however, they quarreled and in 1379, by the Treaty of Neuberg, partitioned the family lands. Albert, as the elder brother, received the more prosperous countries on the Danube (Upper and Lower Austria). The rest of the widespread domains fell to Leopold (including Steiermark, Kärnten, Tirol, the old Habsburg countries in the west, and central Istria). The treaty also contained several points on mutual wardship, preemption rights, and common titles, by which some connection between the two lines was to be preserved.

In 1382 the resourceful duke Leopold took advantage of the weak position of Venice in its war with Genoa and seized Trieste, which had broken away from Venice. His efforts to expand his rule in the west, however, were less successful, though he seemed lucky enough at first. Envisaging a connection between the original Habsburg territories in the west and the new domains in the Tirol, the Habsburgs looked for a foothold in the region west of the Arlberg (modern Vorarlberg). Neuberg on the Rhine was won in 1363 and Feldkirch in 1375. Another important acquisition was the city of Freiburg in the Breisgau region. But then Leopold came into conflict with the Swiss, which led to defeat and his death in the Battle of Sempach in 1386. An army of his brother, Albert III, was likewise defeated in the Battle of Näfels in 1388, and the Habsburgs suffered heavy territorial losses. Leopold’s sons recognized the wardship of Albert, who acquired Bludenz and the Montafon Valley west of the Arlberg in 1394. In his own domains Albert was forced to check the dynasty of the Schaunbergs (in Upper Austria), who tried to create an independent domain around Peuerbach and Eferding. Albert III especially favoured the city of Vienna as his capital, and it was because of his reorganization that the university Rudolf IV had founded there was able to survive.

After Albert’s death in 1395, new Habsburg family troubles arose, differences that the treaties of Hollenburg (1395) and Vienna (1396) tried to settle. Under the Vienna treaty, the line of Leopold III split into two branches, resulting in three complexes of Austrian territories—a state of affairs that was to reappear in the 16th century. The individual parts came to be known by the names of Niederösterreich (“Lower Austria,” comprising modern Lower and Upper Austria), Innerösterreich (“Inner Austria,” comprising Steiermark, Kärnten, Carniola, and the Adriatic possessions), and Oberösterreich (“Upper Austria,” comprising the Tirol and the western domains, known as the Vorlande, or Vorderösterreich [the Austrian provinces west of the Arlberg]).

In 1396 the Austrian estates, or diets, were first assembled to consider the Turkish threat; thereafter they were to play an important political role in Austria. In them the nobility usually took the lead, but they also included representatives of the monasteries, towns, and marketplaces. In the Tirol, in Vorarlberg, and, at times, in Salzburg, the peasants also sent their representatives to attend the diets. Because of the Habsburg partitions and frequent regencies, the estates were able to gain in importance. They did not obtain the right to pass laws, but they obstinately insisted on the privilege to grant taxes and duties.

After the short rule of Albert IV (1395–1404) and a troublesome tutelary regime (1404–11), Albert V came into his own, and with him the Danube countries again enjoyed a strong and energetic rule (1411–39). Albert, however, had married the daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Sigismund and was thus drawn into the Hussite religious wars, in the course of which the Austrian lands north of the Danube were ravaged. In the Austrian west, Duke Frederick IV of the Tirolean branch lost the Aargau to the Swiss but was able to assert himself in Tirol against a rebellion of his nobles.

When Sigismund died, Albert inherited his positions. In 1438 he was elected Hungarian king, with the German (as Albert II) and the Bohemian crowns to follow later. Albert no doubt had many of the qualities of a born ruler, but he died prematurely in 1439 on an unsuccessful campaign against the Turks. Soon thereafter his widow gave birth to a son and heir, Ladislas Posthumus, to whom Frederick V of Steiermark, as the senior member of the house, became guardian. Frederick also had Sigismund, the son of Frederick IV of Tirol, under his tutelage.

Thus began the long reign of Frederick V (as Holy Roman emperor he was to become Frederick III). His reign was marked by almost ceaseless strife with the estates, with his neighbours, and with his jealous family. When he tried unsuccessfully to take advantage of a conflict between the Swiss Confederates, the Tiroleans made Frederick release Duke Sigismund from tutelage (1446). In 1452, on his return from Rome, where he had been crowned emperor, his enemies at home and abroad forced him also to give up Ladislas, who was then the recognized king (as Ladislas V) of Hungary and Bohemia. The boy king’s policies were made by Count Ulrich of Cilli. Ulrich was murdered at Belgrade, Serbia, in 1456, however, and a year later King Ladislas died. In Bohemia and Hungary, national kings came to power. Frederick now won himself a foothold in the Austrian domains on the Danube and succeeded in acquiring the rich estates and fiefs of Ulrich.