page_title: Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
section_title: Emperor
hierarchical_section_title: Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor / Emperor
caption_attribution_description: English: Tapestry depicting coronation of Frederick III
context_page_description: Frederick III was Holy Roman Emperor from 1452 until his death. He was the first emperor of the House of Habsburg, and the fourth member of the House of Habsburg to be elected King of Germany after Rudolf I of Germany, Albert I in the 13th century and his predecessor Albert II of Germany. He was the penultimate emperor to be crowned by the Pope, and the last to be crowned in Rome.
  Prior to his imperial coronation, he was duke of the Inner Austrian lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, and also acted as regent over the Duchy of Austria from 1439. He was elected and crowned King of Germany in 1440. He was the longest-reigning German monarch when in 1493, after ruling his domains for more than 53 years, he was succeeded by his son Maximilian I.
  During his reign, Frederick concentrated on re-uniting the Habsburg "hereditary lands" of Austria and took a lesser interest in Imperial affairs. Nevertheless, by his dynastic entitlement to Hungary as well as by the Burgundian inheritance, he laid the foundations for the later Habsburg Empire. Mocked as "Arch-Sleepyhead of the Holy Roman Empire" during his lifetime, he is today increasingly seen as an effective ruler.
context_section_description: Frederick's political initiatives were hardly bold, but they were still successful. Frederick III was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1452, following the death of his father. His ascension to the role of emperor came with the stipulation that should the previous queen give birth to a male heir, Frederick would become his guardian. When the queen gave birth to Ladislaus the Posthumous, as according to the stipulations, Frederick took on his guardianship. This led to conflicts between Frederick and other members of the royal family and nobility.  His first major opponent was his brother Albert VI, who challenged his rule. He did not manage to win a single conflict on the battlefield against him, and thus resorted to more subtle means. He held his second cousin once removed Ladislaus the Posthumous, the ruler of the Archduchy of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, (born in 1440) as a prisoner and attempted to extend his guardianship over him in perpetuity to maintain his control over Lower Austria. Ladislaus was freed in 1452 by the Lower Austrian estates. He acted similarly towards his first cousin Sigismund of the Tyrolian line of the Habsburg family. Despite those efforts, he failed to gain control over Hungary and Bohemia in the Bohemian–Hungarian War (1468–78) and was even defeated in the Austrian–Hungarian War (1477–88) by the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus in 1485, who managed to maintain residence in Vienna until his death five years later in the Siege of Vienna.
  Ultimately, Frederick prevailed in all those conflicts by outliving his opponents and sometimes inheriting their lands, as was the case with Ladislaus, from whom he gained Lower Austria in 1457, and with his brother Albert VI, whom he succeeded in Upper Austria. In 1462, his brother Albert raised an insurrection against him in Vienna and the emperor was besieged in his residence by rebellious subjects. In this war between the brothers, Frederick received support from the King of Bohemia, George of Poděbrady. These conflicts forced him into an anachronistic itinerant existence, as he had to move his court between various places through the years, residing in Graz, Linz and Wiener Neustadt. Wiener Neustadt owes him its castle and the "New Monastery".
  Mary soon made her choice among the many suitors for her hand by selecting Archduke Maximilian of Austria, the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, who became her co-ruler. With the inheritance of Burgundy, the House of Habsburg began to rise to predominance in Europe. This gave rise to the saying "Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, shall marry", which became a motto of the dynasty.
  Frederick secured in 1486 the succession of the son in his own lifetime. On 16 February 1486 Maximilian was unanimously elected Roman-German king at the Frankfurt Reichstag by the six electors present.  The Elector of Bohemia was not invited because the Bohemian spa law might have been claimed by the Hungarian King Corvinus. The choice of Maximilian violated the rules of the Golden Bull. Protests against the irregular election remained in the kingdom but out. Fearing that the Electors would take advantage of his son's political inexperience, Friedrich Maximilian did not equip him with government powers.  On the occasion of the election of Maximilian, a ten-year land peace was decided. In order to safeguard the peace of the land and against the expansive territorial policy of the Wittelsbachs, numerous affected empire-related states of Swabia joined in 1488 on Frederick's initiative for the Swabian League. After the royal election Frederick accompanied his son to Aachen, where Maximilian was crowned on 9 April 1486.
  The marriage of his daughter Kunigunde to Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria, was another result of intrigues and deception, but must be counted as a defeat for Frederick. Albert illegally took control of some imperial fiefs and then asked to marry Kunigunde (who lived in Innsbruck, far from her father), offering to give her the fiefs as a dower. Frederick agreed at first, but after Albert took over yet another fief, Regens
caption: A tapestry depicting the coronation of Frederick III, which misattributes the Pope in attendance as Pope Pius II.
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