The Habsburgs
Reformers, patrons and artists
The Habsburgs in the Capuchin Crypt
View of the Habsburg in the Topographia Helvetiae by Matthäus Merian, 1642
The House of Habsburg, the former ruling dynasty of Austria, played a leading role in Europe for centuries and shaped the country's history for almost 650 years. Its name goes back to the ancestral castle of Habichtsburg in what is now the Swiss canton of Aargau. The ancestors, such as Count Guntram ‘the Rich’, from the dynasty of the Alsatian Etichonids, had possessions in Alsace, Breisgau and Aargau and carried the surname Habsburg from 1108 onwards.
The beginning of the dynasty
The first ruler of the House of Habsburg, King Rudolf I, was elected King of the Holy Roman Empire in 1273. After his victory over King Ottokar II of Bohemia at the Battle of Marchfeld, his house rose from the rank of counts to that of princes and took over the former Babenberg and Sponheim lands. From then on, the Habsburgs ruled over the duchies of Austria and Styria; Carinthia, Carniola, and later Tyrol, Bohemia, Croatia and parts of Hungary were added. Austria rose to become a great power under the Habsburgs and became an empire in 1452. For 400 years, from 1439 to 1806, the House of Austria-Habsburg provided the Roman-German emperors and the German kings almost without interruption.
The empire of the Habsburgs
"Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube! - Let others wage wars. You, happy Austria, marry! Nam que Mars aliis, dat tibi diva Venus. For what Mars gives to others, the divine Venus gives to you," was the motto of the Austrian dynasty. With a skilful marriage policy, the House of Habsburg secured territorial expansion, the rise to great power status and political influence over European royal courts, including France, Portugal and Spain. As well as their colonies on the American continents, in the Pacific, Africa and Asia. At the height of its power, the territory of the Habsburgs expanded into a global empire in which literally ‘the sun never set’.
Reformers, patrons and artists
The Habsburg dynasty was characterised by great political ambitions for more than half a millennium. However, apart from their power and marriage policies and thanks to their artistic and subtle talents, many Habsburgs were involved in socio-political reforms, founded monasteries and were patrons of the arts and sciences or even painters, musicians and composers themselves: Emperor Joseph I spoke seven languages and was a trained architect. Emperor Leopold I, himself an important composer, earned Vienna a reputation as a ‘city of music’. Maria Theresa introduced compulsory education and a standardised penal code and saw to the abolition of torture. Archduke Johann worked for decades in Styria as a moderniser and founder of economic and social reforms.
The end of the reign
The reign of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine ended in 1918 with the resignation of Emperor Charles I as Austrian Emperor and King of Hungary. Although he renounced all state affairs, he did not formally abdicate. The imperial family was banished and went into exile. In 1961, Otto von Habsburg, son of the last Emperor Charles I, made the declaration of renunciation required by the Habsburg Law and was allowed to re-enter Austria. He has been buried in the Capuchin Crypt in 2011.
The Habsburgs in the Capuchin Crypt
Since 1617, the Capuchin Crypt has been the family burial place of the Habsburgs - a monument and symbol of a ruling power that clothed its own transience with beauty. To this day, the mortal remains of 12 emperors and 19 empresses and queens from the House of Habsburg and their family members, as well as one non-Habsburg woman, rest here in their last residence under the care of the Capuchin Order. The Capuchin crypt dates back to Empress Anna's testamentary donation and originally only consisted of the founder's crypt located under the monastery church. The crypt was extended and remodelled several times over four centuries to create a total of ten crypt rooms in which the sarcophagi, heart urns and burial monuments of the Habsburgs rest. The Capuchin Crypt reflects the spectrum of their human destinies and preserves the splendour of former greatness in death.