The German Question, Part Twenty-One

"Competition For The Habsburgs"

In a previous article in this series, we learned that a family originating in the southwestern area of the German territories, the Habsburgs, came to dominate a large part of southern German lands, and indeed, eventually established a virtual permanent lock on providing the German emperor (technically of the "Holy Roman Empire," which in fact was the old German Empire); thus making Vienna the de facto capital of the German Empire. Interestingly, a second family, originating in the same general southwestern area, began a rise to power that eventually challenged the Habsburgs. This family was the "Hohenzollerns." Like their future rivals, their name came from their family castle, "Burg Hohenzollern," located at the town of Hechingen, in the area known as Swabia. It is about thirty to thirty-five miles south of Stuttgart. The original castle was destroyed during a war in the 1420s and was followed a couple of decades later by another castle with sturdier fortifications. This castle eventually came into the possession of..... the Habsburgs! By the mid 1800s, not much remained of castle #2, and a third castle was built, with only the chapel remaining from #2, and construction of #3 lasting for nearly twenty years. It is this castle that remains today, still owned by members of the Hohenzollern family, and it is open for tours, with hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

Just as with so much of this series, the era of German history we're entering is far more complicated and extensive than I will write about, and my aim is to be as general as possible, but to try to give a good idea of the overall developments in events.

The Hohenzollerns eventually established a strong position in and around the Nuremberg area (Nürnberg, in German), which is a region known as "Franken," usually rendered in English as "Franconia," and named after a branch of the Germanic tribe, the Franks.* Due to marriages and land purchases, a part of the Hohenzollern family came into possession of large territories in the northeastern German lands. With these acquisitions, the Hohenzollern family separated into two parts, with the other part, I guess I'll call it the "original" part, remaining in the Nuremberg area.** The territories in the northeast were in the German area called "Brandenburg," which includes Berlin. A bit later, the family inherited much of what was known as "Prussia" (Preussen, in German, with the "eu" being equivalent to English "oi" or "oy"). The Hohenzollerns then merged these two provinces in the 1600s and eventually called it the "Kingdom of Prussia" in 1701.*** (See earlier parts of this series for how the Germans initially came to these lands.) When the Reformation came along in the 1500s, the Hohenzollerns embraced Protestantism. By the 1600s, when French Protestants, called the Huguenots, were in battles with, and persecuted by, the French Catholics, the Hohenzollerns invited these Frenchmen to settle in Prussia, where they were granted asylum. Thousands took the Prussian offer (figures vary, but somewhere between 15-20,000), supposedly with more than six thousand settling in Berlin alone. By this time, the Hohenzollerns were becoming something of a rival to the dominant Habsburgs, a rivalry that would only grow in coming years. (A Word History is below the notes)

* Another part of the Franks conquered much of what is now modern France, eventually giving their tribal name to the country, and the name of their language, "Fraenkish," which has become our word "French." The Frankish language was eventually absorbed by the Latin-based dialects in the overall area, but provided a fair number of words that were borrowed into these dialects, some of which still remain in modern French. This is a case of the "conquerors," the Franks (and their language), eventually being peacefully overtaken and absorbed by the "conquered," what was mainly a Celtic-Roman population present when the Franks invaded.

** Both branches of the family are owners of the existing castle mentioned above, but the "northern" (Prussian) branch, holds the majority ownership.

*** Originally, Brandenburg was a "Margrave" (Markgraf, in German), that is, it was ruled by a type of "count," who also was an elector; that is, he had a vote in the election of any new German emperor; the title of elector in German was "Kurfürst" ("fürst" is really the same word as English "first," and is pronounced similarly). Prussia was originally ruled by a "duke" (Herzog, in German). When the two were merged as a kingdom (Königreich, in German), the ruler was henceforth known as a "king," although regardless of title, high German nobles were known collectively as the "German princes." (Note: Elector Frederick III crowned himself as the first King of Prussia, as King Frederick I)

WORD HISTORY:
Wright-Not commonly used in modern English, except as a name or in compounds (like "playwright" and "wheelwright"), this word goes back to Indo European "werg," which meant "work or do something." It is indeed closely related to the word "work." The Old Germanic offshoot was "werkam," with the same meaning. This produced in Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "wyrcan," again with the same meaning. A noun variant developed as "wyhrta," meaning "worker," but later, the "r" and the vowel were transposed, giving English "wrytha." This eventually developed into the more modern "wright" (and don't forget, the "gh" was once pronounced), with the general meaning "skilled worker, craftsman." From what I can find, while other Germanic languages (or dialects might be more proper) from days of old had similar words directly related to the English "wright" (Old High German had "wurtho," for example), they have all died out, except for Dutch "wrecht" (meaning "worker, builder of something"), although it too is now archaic. Just as the closely related word "work" has survived in English, there are living relatives of "work" in the other Germanic languages.

The German Question, Part Eight

Very slightly updated/edited July 6, 2015

Just to back track for a moment, for quite some time the German emperors were seen as heads of the German Church, something that caused bitter resentment by the various popes of those times. The Saxon and Frankish emperors gradually established a more centralized form of power, represented by the emperor, by having administrators spread throughout the land. This caused resentment by the nobility. It was therefore not uncommon for the Papacy and the German nobility to act as allies against the emperors from time to time. When the Hohenstaufen family succeeded the Saxons and Franks* as emperors, they eventually turned much of their attention to Italy, often actually even living in Italy, not in Germany (a much broader geographical entity in those times). This neglect of German lands by the ruling Hohenstaufens suited the German nobility just fine, as they gained power at the expense of the imperial throne. Some German emperors tried to regain some of the lost power, and all of this squabbling led to what was really an off and on civil war.

By the mid 1300s, the emperor issued a "Golden Bull;" that is a decree with a golden seal. This edict set more precise rules for the election of the German emperor by giving the vote to seven "electors" (Kurfürsten in German); three Church authorities (the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne) and four secular leaders (the Palatine Count (Pfalzgraf in German), the King of Bohemia,** the Duke (Herzog in German) of Saxony, and the Margrave (Markgraf in German, and a "Graf" is really the equivalent to a "count" or "earl" in English) of Brandenburg***). A majority vote was all that was needed, and any dissenters could not block the wishes of the majority (previously that had not been the case). As you can see, the religious leaders were in the minority, and this further diminished the Pope's already scant involvement in German affairs. While that may have been a good thing for the Germans, the fact that provincial leaders held so much power in selecting the emperor made the emperor's position relatively weak; a condition that essentially lasted until the end of the empire.

Next...the Germans move eastward. (A Word History is below the notes)

* The large Germanic tribe the Franks dominated the area now known as France. Their tribal name even became the name “France,” and their language, Frankish in English, became the term “French.” Not all Franks lived in this region, however, as one branch lived in what became part of Germany; thus the “Frankish” emperors of Germany (Holy Roman Empire). As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, while Frankish gave a number of words to “French,” Frankish was gradually absorbed into, and became a part of, the more extensive Latin-based language already present when the Franks conquered the area. That absorption process took several centuries to complete, and modern French has far fewer active words of Frankish heritage than long ago.

** Bohemia, essentially the modern Czech Republic, and a former part of Czechoslovakia, had been controlled by Germanic tribes going back to the B.C. era. Some of these Germanic tribes moved around, or even moved out of the area, over the centuries, and they were replaced, at least partially, by incoming Slavic tribes. These Slavic tribes also moved around, for instance to avoid the Mongols, and Germanic (or maybe German might now be more appropriate) people moved back in. The area was very mixed, with Germans living basically in a sort of semicircle around the Slavic core, but with some Germans even living within that core area. In the early 1300s, Heinrich of Luxemburg became German emperor, and shortly thereafter, his son Johann was invited to become King of Bohemia, thus making Bohemia an integral part of the empire.

*** Brandenburg is the area that today contains Berlin and the entire area around that city. Back long ago, you may remember from an earlier part, Mark Brandenburg was established as a border defense area, a "Mark," or "March," of the early Holy Roman Empire.

 

WORD HISTORY:

Eke-This word goes back to the Indo European root "aug," which had the notion/concept of "increasing, growing, adding to/supplementing." The Old Germanic offshoot was "aukan." This gave Anglo-Saxon "eacan," likewise with the general meaning of "increase/supplement." There was also Old English "eke/eac," or some form of it, but sources were unclear on the spelling, which meant "also, in addition, besides." There are various forms of the word in the other Germanic languages, as for example: German has "auch," Low German has various forms, including "ak/ok," Dutch has "ook," Norwegian and Danish have "ogsa," and Swedish has "ochsa," all with the same meaning "also/too/in addition." Icelandic has "auka," with the meaning "increase, add to." In American English it is commonly used in reference to just barely achieving something, as in, "Bill and Mary were able to eke out a win by a fraction of a point in the skating competition."