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Hungary - Ferdinand I King of Hungary 1526-1564 A.D.
Kremnitz Mint: 1546 Silver Denar 16mm (0.5 grams)
Obverse: FERDINAND • G • P • VNG 1546 Around Shield of Arms.
Reverse: •PATRONA••VNGARIE• (Patron of Hungary) Madonna and Child. The K
and B flanking the Madonna is the Mark of the Kremnitz Mint.
The Madonna and Child and Legend Patron of Hungary which is so prevalent on
the coinage of Hungary was first placed there by Matthias Corvinus 1458 – 1490.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
 Ferdinand
I (10 March 1503 – 25 July 1564) was a
Central European
monarch from
the
House of Habsburg. He was
Holy Roman Emperor from 1558, king of
Bohemia and
Hungary from
1526.[1]
Also king of
Croatia,
Dalmatia,
Slavonia as well as, formally, Serbia, Galicia and Lodomeria, etc. He ruled
the
Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs most of his public life, at the
behest of his elder brother,
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and
King of Spain. Ferdinand was
Archduke of
Austria from 1521 to 1564. After the death of his brother–in–law
Louis II, Ferdinand ruled as King of
Bohemia,
Hungary (1526–1564).[1][2]
When Charles retired in 1556, Ferdinand became his de facto successor as Holy
Roman Emperor, and de jure in 1558,[1][3]
while Spain, the
Spanish Empire,
Naples,
Sicily,
Milan,
the Netherlands, and
Franche-Comté went to
Philip, son of Charles.
Ferdinand's motto was
Fiat justitia et pereat mundus: "Let justice be done, though the world
perish".
Biography
Early
years
Ferdinand was born in
Alcala de Henares, 40 km from
Madrid, the son
of the
Infanta
Joanna of Castile, the future Queen of Castile known as Joanna the Mad,
and Habsburg Archduke
Philip the Handsome,
Duke of Burgundy and future King of Castile, who was heir to Emperor
Maximilian I. Ferdinand shared his birthday with his maternal grandfather
Ferdinand II of Aragon.
Charles entrusted Ferdinand with the government of the Austrian hereditary
lands, roughly modern-day
Austria and
Slovenia.
Ferdinand also served as his brother's deputy in the Holy Roman Empire during
his brother's many absences and in 1531 was elected
King of the Romans, making him Charles's designated heir in the Empire.
Charles abdicated in 1556 and Ferdinand succeeded him, assuming the title of
Emperor elect in 1558.
Hungary
and the Ottomans
After Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent killed Ferdinand's brother-in-law
Louis II, King of
Bohemia and
of Hungary at
the
battle of Mohács on 29 August 1526, Ferdinand was elected King of Bohemia in
his place.
The Croatian
nobles at
Cetin unanimously elected Ferdinand I as their king on 1 January 1527, and
confirmed the succession to him and his heirs.[4]
In return for the throne Archduke Ferdinand at
Parliament on Cetin (Croatian:
Cetinski
Sabor) promised to respect the historic rights, freedoms, laws
and customs the Croats had when united with the Hungarian kingdom and to defend
Croatia from
Ottoman invasion.[5]
In Hungary,
Nicolaus Olahus, secretary of Louis, attached himself to the party of King
Ferdinand, but retained his position with the queen-dowager
Mary of Habsburg. Ferdinand was elected
King of Hungary by a rump diet in
Pozsony
in December 1526. The
throne of Hungary became the subject of a dynastic dispute between Ferdinand
and
John Zápolya,
voivode of
Transylvania. Each was supported by different factions of the nobility in
the Hungarian kingdom; Ferdinand also had the support of Charles V. After defeat
by Ferdinand at the
Battle of Tarcal in September 1527 and again in
Battle of Szina in March 1528, Zápolya gained the support of
Suleiman. Ferdinand was able to win control only of western Hungary because
Zápolya clung to the east and the Ottomans to the conquered south. Zápolya's
widow,
Isabella Jagiełło, ceded
Royal
Hungary and Transylvania to Ferdinand in the
Treaty of Weissenburg of 1551. In 1554
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq was sent to
Istanbul by
Ferdinand to discuss a border treaty over disputed land with Suleiman.
The most dangerous moment of Ferdinand's career came in 1529 when he took
refuge in Bohemia from a massive but ultimately unsuccessful assault on his
capital by Suleiman and the Ottoman armies at the
Siege of Vienna. A further Ottoman attack on
Vienna was
repelled in 1533. In that year Ferdinand signed a peace treaty with the
Ottoman Empire, splitting the Kingdom of Hungary into a Habsburg sector in
the west and John Zápolya's domain in the east, the latter effectively a vassal
state of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1538, by the
Treaty of Nagyvárad, Ferdinand became Zápolya's successor. He was unable to
enforce this agreement during his lifetime because
John II Sigismund Zápolya, infant son of John Zápolya and Isabella Jagiełło,
was elected King of Hungary in 1540. Zápolya was initially supported by King
Sigismund of
Poland, his mother's father, but in 1543 a treaty was signed between the
Habsburgs and the Polish ruler as a result of which Poland became neutral in the
conflict. Prince
Sigismund Augustus married
Elisabeth of Austria, Ferdinand's daughter.
Ferdinand
and the Augsburg Peace 1555
After decades of religious and political unrest in the German states, Charles
V ordered a general
Diet in Augsburg at which the various states would discuss the religious
problem and its solution. Charles himself did not attend, and delegated
authority to his brother, Ferdinand, to "act
and settle" disputes of territory, religion and local power.[6]
At the conference, Ferdinand cajoled, persuaded and threatened the various
representatives into agreement on three important principles. The principle of
cuius regio, eius religio provided for internal religious unity within a
state: The religion of the prince became the religion of the state and all its
inhabitants. Those inhabitants who could not conform to the prince's religion
were allowed to leave, an innovative idea in the sixteenth century; this
principle was discussed at length by the various delegates, who finally reached
agreement on the specifics of its wording after examining the problem and the
proposed solution from every possible angle. The second principle covered the
special status of the ecclesiastical states, called the
ecclesiastical reservation, or reservatum ecclesiasticum. If the
prelate of an ecclesiastic state changed his religion, the men and women living
in that state did not have to do so. Instead, the prelate was expected to resign
from his post, although this was not spelled out in the agreement. The third
principle, known as
Ferdinand's Declaration, exempted knights and some of the cities from
the requirement of religious uniformity, if the reformed religion had been
practiced there since the mid-1520s, allowing for a few mixed cities and towns
where Catholics and Lutherans had lived together. It also protected the
authority of the princely families, the knights and some of the cities to
determine what religious uniformity meant in their territories. Ferdinand
inserted this at the last minute, on his own authority.[7]
Problems
with the Augsburg settlement
After 1555, the Peace of Augsburg became the legitimating legal document
governing the co-existence of the Lutheran and Catholic faiths in the German
lands of the Holy Roman Empire, and it served to ameliorate many of the tensions
between followers of the so-called Old Faith and the followers of Luther, but it
had two fundamental flaws. First, Ferdinand had rushed the article on
ecclesiastical reservation through the debate; it had not undergone the
scrutiny and discussion that attended the wide-spread acceptance and support of
cuius regio, eius religio. Consequently, its wording did not cover all,
or even most, potential legal scenarios. The Declaratio Ferdinandei was
not debated in plenary session at all; using his authority to "act and settle,"[8]
Ferdinand had added it at the last minute, responding to lobbying by princely
families and knights.[9]
While these specific failings came back to haunt the Empire in subsequent
decades, perhaps the greatest weakness of the Peace of Augsburg was its failure
to take into account the growing diversity of religious expression emerging in
the so-called evangelical and reformed traditions. Other confessions had
acquired popular, if not legal, legitimacy in the intervening decades and by
1555, the reforms proposed by Luther were no longer the only possibilities of
religious expression:
Anabaptists, such as the Frisian
Menno
Simons (1492–1559) and his followers; the followers of
John
Calvin, who were particularly strong in the southwest and the northwest; and
the followers of
Huldrych Zwingli were excluded from considerations and protections under the
Peace of Augsburg. According to the Augsburg agreement, their religious beliefs
remained heretical.[10]
Charles
V's abdication and Ferdinand's Emperorship
In 1556, amid great pomp, and leaning on the shoulder of one of his favorites
(the 24-year-old
William, Count of Nassau and Orange),[11]
Charles gave away his lands and his offices. The
Spanish empire, which included
Spain, the
Netherlands,
Naples, Milan
and Spain's possessions in the
Americas, went to his son,
Philip. His brother, Ferdinand, who had negotiated the treaty in the
previous year, was already in possession of the Austrian lands and was also to
succeed Charles as Holy Roman Emperor.[12]
This course of events had been guaranteed already on January 5, 1531 when
Ferdinand had been elected the King of Romans and so the legitimate successor of
the reigning Emperor.
Charles' choices were appropriate. Philip was culturally Spanish: he was born
in
Valladolid and raised in the Spanish court, his native tongue was Spanish,
and he preferred to live in Spain. Ferdinand was familiar with, and to, the
other princes of the Holy Roman Empire. Although he too had been born in Spain,
he had administered his brother's affairs in the Empire since 1531.[13]
Some historians maintain Ferdinand had also been touched by the reformed
philosophies, and was probably the closest the Holy Roman Empire ever came to a
Protestant emperor; he remained nominally a Catholic throughout his life,
although reportedly he refused last rites on his deathbed.[14]
Other historians maintain he was as Catholic as his brother, but tended to see
religion as outside the political sphere.[15]
Charles' abdication had far-reaching consequences in imperial diplomatic
relations with France and the Netherlands, particularly in his allotment of the
Spanish kingdom to Philip. In France, the kings and their ministers grew
increasingly uneasy about Habsburg encirclement and sought allies against
Habsburg hegemony from among the border German territories, and even from some
of the Protestant kings. In the Netherlands, Philip's ascension in Spain raised
particular problems; for the sake of harmony, order, and prosperity Charles had
not blocked the Reformation, and had tolerated a high level of local autonomy.
An ardent Catholic and rigidly autocratic prince, Philip pursued an aggressive
political, economic and religious policy toward the Dutch, resulting in a Dutch
rebellion shortly after he became king. Philip's militant response meant the
occupation of much of the upper provinces by troops of, or hired by,
Habsburg Spain and the constant ebb and flow of Spanish men and provisions
on the so-called
Spanish road from northern Italy, through the
Burgundian lands, to and from Flanders.[16]
The abdication did not automatically make Ferdinand the Holy Roman Emperor.
Charles abdicated as Emperor in January, 1556 in favor of his brother Ferdinand;
however, due to lengthy debate and bureacratic procedure, the
Imperial Diet did not accept the abdication (and thus make it legally valid)
until May 3, 1558. Up to that date, Charles continued to use the title of
Emperor.
Government
The western rump of Hungary over which Ferdinand retained dominion became
known as
Royal
Hungary. As the ruler of Austria, Bohemia and Royal Hungary, Ferdinand
adopted a policy of centralization and, in common with other monarchs of the
time, the construction of an
absolute monarchy. In
1527, soon after
ascending the throne, he published a constitution for his hereditary domains (Hofstaatsordnung)
and established Austrian-style institutions in
Pressburg
for Hungary, in
Prague for Bohemia, and in
Breslau for
Silesia.
Opposition from the nobles in those realms forced him to concede the
independence of these institutions from supervision by the Austrian government
in Vienna in
1559.
After Ottoman invasion of Hungary the traditional hungarian coronation city,
Székesfehérvár fell under Turkish occupation. Thus, in
1536 Hungarian Diet
decided than a new place for coronation of the king as well as a meeting place
for the Diet itself would be set in
Pressburg. Ferdinand proposed that Hungarian and Bohemian diets should
convene and hold debates together with Austrian estates, but both ther former
refused such a innovation.
In 1547 the
Bohemian Estates rebelled against Ferdinand after he had ordered the
Bohemian army to move against the German
Protestants. After suppressing Prague with the help of his brother Charles
V's Spanish
forces, he retaliated by limiting the privileges of Bohemian cities and
inserting a new bureaucracy of royal officials to control urban authorities.
Ferdinand was a supporter of the
Counter-Reformation and helped lead the
Catholic response against what he saw as the heretical tide of
Protestantism. For example, in
1551 he invited the
Jesuits to Vienna and in
1556 to Prague.
Finally, in 1561
Ferdinand revived the
Archdiocese of Prague, which had been previously liquidated due to the
success of the Protestants.
Ferdinand died in
Vienna and is
buried in
St. Vitus Cathedral in
Prague.
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