Success for a princely family in the Late Middle Ages has a lot to do with reproductive luck. Not having any offspring, in particular no male offspring is a bit of a knockout. But having too many sons that could be a major issue too. And in 1386 the Habsburgs struggled with exactly that problem. Their territory was already divided between an Albertine and a Leopoldine line. But then Leopold had four sons, bringing the number of archdukes of Austria to six, which is five too many. In this episode we will discuss how they managed to muck it up quite bad, in fact so bad, one of their number had to fall to his knees before the emperor, not once, not twice, but three times… Albertiner - Albrecht III (1349-1395) o Albrecht IV (1377-1404) § Albrecht V (II) (1397-1439) · Ladislaus Postumus (1440-1457) Leopoldiner - Leopold III (1351-1386) o Wilhelm (1370-1406) o Leopold IV (1371-1411) o Ernst der Eiserne (1377-1424) § Friedrich V (III) (1415-1494) § Albrecht VI (1418-1463) o Friedrich IV (1382-1439) § Siegismund der Munzreiche (1427-1496) The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0 . As always: Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast Facebook: @HOTGPod Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social Instagram: history_of_the_germans Twitter: @germanshistory To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season. So far I have: The Ottonians Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen Frederick II Stupor Mundi Saxony and Eastward Expansion The Hanseatic League
