1.
King of the Romans
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King of the Romans was the title used by the German king following his election by the princes from the time of Emperor Henry II onward. The title was predominantly a claim to become Holy Roman Emperor and was dependent upon coronation by the Pope, the title originally referred to any elected king who had not yet been granted the Imperial Regalia and title of Emperor at the hands of the Pope. Later it came to be used solely for the apparent to the Imperial throne between his election and his succession upon the death of the Emperor. The territory of East Francia was not referred to as the Kingdom of Germany or Regnum Teutonicum by contemporary sources until the 11th century, during this time, the kings claim to coronation was increasingly contested by the papacy culminating in the fierce Investiture Controversy. Pope Gregory VII insisted on using the derogatory term Teutonicorum Rex in order to imply that Henrys authority was merely local, Henry continued to regularly use the title Romanorum Rex until he finally was crowned Emperor by Antipope Clement III in 1084. Henrys successors imitated this practice, and were also called Romanorum Rex before, candidates for the kingship were at first the heads of the Germanic stem duchies. As these units broke up, rulers of principalities and even non-Germanic rulers were considered for the position. The only requirements generally observed were that the candidate be a male, a Catholic Christian. The kings were elected by several Imperial Estates, often in the city of Frankfurt after 1147. They were the Prince-Archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne as well as the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Saxon duke, after the Investiture Controversy, Charles intended to strengthen the legal status of the Rex Romanorum beyond Papal approbation. Consequently, among his successors only Sigismund and Frederick III were still crowned Emperors in Rome, the Golden Bull remained effective as constitutional law until the Empires dissolution in 1806. After his election, the new king would be crowned as King of the Romans, though the ceremony was no more than a symbolic validation of the election result, it was solemnly celebrated. The details of Ottos coronation in 936 are described by the medieval chronicler Widukind of Corvey in his Res gestae saxonicae, the kings received the Imperial Crown from at least 1024, at the coronation of Conrad II. In 1198 the Hohenstaufen candidate Philip of Swabia was crowned Rex Romanorum at Mainz Cathedral, at some time after the ceremony, the king would, if possible, cross the Alps, to receive coronation in Pavia or Milan with the Iron Crown of Lombardy as King of Italy. Finally, he would travel to Rome and be crowned Emperor by the Pope, in such cases, the king might retain the title King of the Romans for his entire reign. At this time Maximilian also took the new title King of the Germans or King in Germany, the following were ruling Kings of the Romans, i. e. men who ruled the Kingdom without subordination to another King but who had not yet been crowned Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy, no person had a legal right to the succession simply because he was related to the current Emperor. However, the Emperor could, and often did, have an elected to succeed him after his death
2.
Rupert, King of Germany
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Rupert of the Palatinate, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, was Elector Palatine from 1398 and King of Germany from 1400 until his death. Rupert was born at Amberg in the Upper Palatinate, the son of Elector Palatine Rupert II and Beatrice of Aragon, ruperts great-granduncle was the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV. He was raised at the Dominican Liebenau monastery near Worms, where his widowed grandmother Irmengard of Oettingen lived as a nun, from his early years Rupert took part in the government of the Electoral Palatinate to which he succeeded on his fathers death in 1398. He and the three ecclesiastical prince-electors met at Lahneck Castle in Oberlahnstein on 20 August 1400 and declared the Luxembourg king Wenceslaus deposed. On the next day the same four electors met at Rhens to ballot for Rupert as next German king, as the Imperial City of Aachen refused to let him enter through its gates, Rupert was crowned by Archbishop Frederick III in Cologne on 6 January 1401. Lacking a solid base in the Empire, his rule remained contested by the mighty House of Luxembourg. In the Western Schism, Rupert backed Pope Boniface IX who, however, was reluctant to acknowledge his rule in view of the Luxembourg claims. In the autumn of 1401 he crossed the Alps, but his troops, checked before Brescia, melted away during wintertime and in April 1402 Rupert, too poor to continue the campaign, had to return to Germany. The news of this increased the disorder in Germany. The Luxembourg resistance waned after Wenceslaus was arrested at Prague Castle by his brother Sigismund in March 1402, Rupert also gained the support of England by the marriage of his son Louis with Blanche of Lancaster, daughter of King Henry IV on 6 July 1402. In his Palatinate hereditary lands, Rupert turned out to be a capable ruler and it was nevertheless only the indolence of Wenceslaus that prevented his overthrow. On his deathbed Rupert had decreed the division of his heritage among his four surviving sons, in the following Imperial election on September 20, Elector Louis III voted for Sigismund of Luxembourg, who however lost to his cousin Margrave Jobst of Moravia. He was married in Amberg on 27 June 1374 to Elisabeth of Hohenzollern, daughter of Burgrave Frederick V of Nuremberg and he also commissioned the Ruprecht building in Heidelberg Castle. He was related to other king of Germany
3.
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
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Sigismund von Luxembourg was the leader of the last West European Crusade - the Crusade of Nicopolis of 1396. Afterwards he founded the Dragon Order to fight the Turks and he was regarded as highly educated, spoke several languages and was an outgoing person who also took pleasure in the tournament. He was named after Saint Sigismund of Burgundy, the saint of Sigismunds father. From Sigismunds childhood he was nicknamed the fox in the Crown of Bohemia. King Louis named him as his heir and appointed him his successor as King of Hungary, King Wenceslaus also gave him Neumark to facilitate communication between Brandenburg and Poland. Instead, the landlords of Lesser Poland gave it to Marys younger sister Jadwiga I of Poland, on the death of her father in 1382, his betrothed, Mary, became queen of Hungary and Sigismund married her in 1385 in Zólyom. The next year, he was accepted as Marys future co-ruler by the Treaty of Győr, Sigismunds mother-in-law was strangled, while Mary was liberated. Having secured the support of the nobility, Sigismund was crowned King of Hungary at Székesfehérvár on 31 March 1387. Having raised money by pledging Brandenburg to his cousin Jobst, margrave of Moravia, the central power was finally weakened to such an extent that only Sigismunds alliance with the powerful Czillei-Garai League could ensure his position on the throne. The restoration of the authority of the administration took decades of work. Not until 1395 did Nicholas II Garay succeed in suppressing them, Mary died heavily pregnant in 1395. To ease the pressure from Hungarian nobles, Sigismud tried to employ foreign advisors, which was not popular, however, this was not applied to Stibor of Stiboricz, who was Sigismunds closest friend and advisor. On a number of occasions, Sigismund was imprisoned by nobles, in 1396 Sigismund led the combined armies of Christendom against the Turks, who had taken advantage of the temporary helplessness of Hungary to extend their dominion to the banks of the Danube. This crusade, preached by Pope Boniface IX, was popular in Hungary. Sigismund set out with 90,000 men and a flotilla of 70 galleys, after capturing Vidin, he camped with his Hungarian armies before the fortress of Nicopolis. Sultan Bayezid I raised the siege of Constantinople and, at the head of 140,000 men, the disaster in Nicopolis angered several Hungarian lords, leading to instability in the kingdom. However, he was unable to support Wenceslaus when he was deposed in 1400, on his return to Hungary in 1401, Sigismund was imprisoned once and deposed twice. In 1401 Sigismund helped an uprising against Wenceslaus, during the course of which the Bohemian king was taken prisoner, and Sigismund ruled Bohemia for nineteen months
4.
Margraviate of Moravia
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The Margraviate of Moravia or March of Moravia was a marcher state existing from 1182 to 1918 and one of the lands of the Bohemian Crown. It was officially administrated by a margrave in cooperation with a provincial diet and it was variously a de facto independent state, and also subject to the Duchy, later the Kingdom of Bohemia. It comprised the region called Moravia within the modern Czech Republic, the Margraviate lay east of Bohemia proper, with an area about half that region’s size. In the north, the Sudeten Mountains, which extend to the Moravian Gate, formed the border with the Polish Duchy of Silesia, in the east and southeast, the western Carpathian Mountains separated it from present-day Slovakia. In the south, the winding Thaya River marked the border with the Duchy of Austria, Moravians, usually considered a Czech people that speak Moravian dialects, made up the main part of the population. According to a 1910 Cisleithanian census,27. 6% identified themselves as German Moravians and these ethnic Germans would later be expelled after the Second World War. Other ethnic minority groups included Poles, Roma and Slovaks, King Otto I of Germany officially granted it to Duke Boleslaus I in turn for his support against the Hungarian forces in the 955 Battle of Lechfeld. As heir apparent, the future King Ottokar II of Bohemia was appointed Moravian margave by his father Wenceslaus I in 1247, along with Bohemia, Moravia was ruled by the House of Luxembourg from the extinction of the Přemyslid dynasty until 1437. Jobst, nephew of Emperor Charles IV inherited the Margraviate in 1375, shaken by the Hussite Wars, the Moravian nobles remained loyal supporters of the Luxembourg emperor Sigismund. The rivalry with King Vladislaus II was settled in the 1479 Peace of Olomouc, whereby Matthias renounced the royal title but retained the rule over the Moravian lands. With the other lands of the Bohemian Crown, the Margraviate was incorporated into the Habsburg Monarchy upon the death of King Louis II in the 1526 Battle of Mohács, Moravia was ruled as a crown land within the Austrian Empire from 1804 and within Cisleithanian Austria from 1867. During the foundation of Czechoslovakia after World War I, the Margraviate was transformed into “Moravia Land” and this autonomy was eliminated in 1949 by the communist government and has not been re-established since. The Margrave held ultimate authority in Moravia, throughout the history of the Margraviate and this meant that as its Margraves became more foreign, so too did governance of the Margraviate. Moravia possessed a legislature, known as the Moravian Diet, the assembly has its origins in 1288, with the Colloquium generale, or curia generalis. This was a meeting of the nobility, knights, the Bishop of Olomouc, abbots. These meetings gradually evolved into the diet, the power of this diet waxed and waned throughout history. By the end of the Margraviate, the diet was almost powerless, the diet consisted of three estates of the realm, the estate of upper nobility, the estate of the lower nobility, and the estate of prelates and burghers. With the February Patent of 1861, the diet was reformed into a more egalitarian body and it still retained the same structure, but the members changed
5.
Brno
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Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic by population and area, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the center of the South Moravian Region in which it forms a separate district. The city is also a significant administrative centre and it is the seat of a number of state authorities, including the Ombudsman, and the Office for the Protection of Competition. Brno is also an important centre of education, with 33 faculties belonging to 13 institutes of higher learning. Brno Exhibition Centre ranks among the largest exhibition centres in Europe, the complex opened in 1928 and established the tradition of large exhibitions and trade fairs held in Brno. Brno hosts motorbike and other races on the Masaryk Circuit, an established in 1930. Another cultural tradition is a fireworks competition, Ignis Brunensis. The other large preserved castle near the city is Veveří Castle by the Brno Dam Lake and this castle is the site of a number of legends, as are many other places in Brno. Another architectural monument of Brno is the functionalist Villa Tugendhat which has been included on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, one of the natural sights nearby is the Moravian Karst. The etymology of the name Brno is disputed and it perhaps comes from Old Czech brnie muddy, swampy. Alternative derivations are from a Slavic verb brniti or a Celtic language spoken in the area before it was overrun by Germanic peoples, throughout its history, Brnos locals also referred to the town in other languages, including Brünn in German, ברין in Yiddish and Bruna in Latin. The city was referred to as Brunn in English. The Asteroid 2889 Brno was named after the city, as well as the Bren light machine gun, one of the most famous weapons of World War II. In the early 11th century Brno was established as a castle of a prince from the House of Přemyslid. Brno was first mentioned in Cosmas Chronica Boëmorum dated to year 1091, seats of these rulers and thus capitals of these territories were castles and towns of Brno, Olomouc, and Znojmo. In the late 12th century, Moravia began to reunify, forming the Margraviate of Moravia, since then, until the mid of the 17th century, it was not clear which town should be the capital of Moravia. Political power was therefore divided between Brno and Olomouc, but Znojmo also played an important role. The Moravian Diet, the Moravian Land Tables, and the Moravian Land Court were all seated in both cities at once, however, Brno was the official seat of the Moravian Margraves, and later its geographical position closer to Vienna also became important
6.
Moravia
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Moravia is a historical country in the Czech Republic and one of the historical Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. Moravia has an area of over 22,348.87 km2 and about 3 million inhabitants, the statistics from 1921 states, that the whole area of Moravia including the enclaves in Silesia covers 22,623.41 km2. The people are historically named Moravians, a subgroup of Czechs, the land takes its name from the Morava river, which rises in the northern tip of the region and flows southward to the opposite end, being its major stream. Moravias largest city and historical capital is Brno, however before being sacked by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years War, though officially abolished by an administrative reform in 1949, Moravia is still commonly acknowledged as a specific land in the Czech Republic. Moravian people are aware of their Moravian identity and there is some rivalry between them and the Czechs from Bohemia. Moravia occupies most of the part of the Czech Republic. Moravian territory is naturally strongly determined, in fact, as the Morava river basin, with effect of mountains in the west and partly in the east. Moravia occupies a position in Central Europe. All the highlands in the west and east of part of Europe run west-east. Moravia borders Bohemia in the west, Lower Austria in the south, Slovakia in the southeast, Poland very shortly in the north and its natural boundary is formed by the Sudetes mountains in the north, the Carpathians in the east and the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands in the west. The Thaya river meanders along the border with Austria and the tripoint of Moravia, Austria and Slovakia is at the confluence of the Thaya, the northeast border with Silesia runs partly along the Moravice, Oder and Ostravice rivers. Between 1782–1850, Moravia also included a portion of the former province of Silesia – the Austrian Silesia. Geologically, Moravia covers an area between the Bohemian Massif and the Carpathians, and between the Danube basin and the North European Plain. Its core geomorphological features are three wide vales, namely the Dyje-Svratka Vale, the Upper Morava Vale and the Lower Morava Vale, the former two form the westernmost part of the Subcarpathia, the latter one is the northernmost part of the Vienna Basin. The vales surround the low range of Central Moravian Carpathians, the highest mountains of Moravia are situated on its northern border in Hrubý Jeseník, the highest peak is Praděd. Second highest are the Moravian-Silesian Beskids at the very east, with Smrk, the White Carpathians along the southeastern border rise up to 970 m at Velká Javořina. The spacious, but moderate Bohemian-Moravian Highlands on the west reach 837 m at Devět skal. The fluvial system of Moravia is very cohesive, as the border is similar to the watershed of the Morava river
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Jobst". Encyclopædia Britannica. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 427.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
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