#hapsburgs

[barbucomedie]

Halberd of the Life Guard of Archbishop Wolf Dietrich from Salzburg, Austria dated to 1589 on display at the Salzburg Museum in Salzburg, Austria

Photographs taken by myself 2022

[margaritiques]

Secretaries were also used to translate letters both received and those being written, since not all the Habsburgs had a common language, even within their own family. Most members of the dynasty mastered at least two languages, learning the second one as adults, and especially the Austrian branch of the family also used Latin for practical purposes. Maximilian had in 1477 learned French to be able to converse with his bride, Mary of Burgundy, and the emperor also used French with his children, Philip and Margaret. Margaret learned Spanish as the bride of Prince Juan, whereas Charles V learned the language only after he entered Spain as its king in 1517. His equally French-speaking younger sister, Mary, learned German in Austria. Charles’s daughters, María and Juana, wrote mainly in Spanish, which their uncle Ferdinand could understand, but their aunt Mary of Hungary could not.

On the language skills of the Habsburgs in the 15th and 16th centuries: Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor; his daughter Marguerite of Austria; his grandchildren Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Mary of Hungary, and Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor; and his great-grandchildren Maria of Austria and Juana of Austria.

From Habsburg Female Regents in the Early 16th Century by Tupu Ylä-Anttila, published 2019.

[historicalvagabond]

Madrid's Monasterio de Las Descalzas Reales was once the monastery of Habsburg princesses and high-born daughters of European nobility: A nunnery for the rich and famous.

Las Descalzas Reales: Madrid's Monastery of the Rich and Famous

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[racefortheironthrone]

So, in a very brief aside when you mentioned the spoke-and-wheel model for King's Landing. You also mentioned public housing in flea bottom, sewer and water systems, and public hospitals. I'm a little curious, what would that look like in a medieval setting? How would a system with a less developed administrative system handle public housing?

Administratively, it would be a lot simpler than our modern public/social housing system. It would probably look more like charity housing than a state system that provides comprehensive services above and beyond a roof over one's head, but it could be done in the period.

This is the Fuggerei, the world's oldest continually-operating public housing that dates back to 1514. A 52-unit walled complex, these apartment buildings were a charitable donation by the famous Fugger banking family (it's good to be the personal bankers to the Hapsburgs when the Holy Roman Emperor doesn't quite understand international arbitrage in silver prices) to the poor people of Augsberg, Bavaria.

Eligibility criteria hasn't changed: in order to be eligible, residents must be living in poverty but not have debts, they must have lived in Augsburg for two years, and they must be Catholics. Likewise, rents haven't changed much: residents of the Fuggerei pay one Rhenish gulden (roughly 1 euro) a year, must say the Lord's Prayer, a Hail Mary, and the Nicene Creed once per day for the souls of the Fugger family, and must work at least part time.

So that's what public housing in Flea Bottom might look like.

[victusinveritas]

There's some life in Twitter yet

[diemelusine]

Portrait of Charles II, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Styria (c. 1608) by Bartolomé González y Serrano. Museo Nacional del Prado.

[mrdavebear]

Ferdinand II of Tyrol

With codpiece and goatee