General Notes

The first German king after the chaotic Interregnum (1254-73), Rudolf I, b.
May 1, 1218, d.  July 15, 1291, established the Habsburg dynasty in Austria,
where it ruled until 1918.  A son of Albert IV, count of Habsburg, Rudolf held
scattered lands in the Upper Rhineland and Switzerland.  After the
Hohenstaufen king Conradin died (1268), Rudolf was elected his successor.
Crowned at Aachen (1273), he launched a campaign to revive the monarchy's
prestige and to recover alienated fiefs.  King Ottokar II of Bohemia, who had
sought to succeed Conradin, refused to surrender the duchies of Austria,
Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, prompting Rudolf to declare war in 1276.
Ottokar quickly came to terms with Rudolf, but two years later he rebelled and
was killed in the Battle of the Marchfeld near Durnkrut, Aug.  26, 1278.
Rudolf gave most of the new territory to his own sons in 1282, thus raising
the Habsburg family to the rank of a major German dynasty.
In Germany, Rudolf is credited with quelling internal unrest as he strove to
spark urban prosperity.  He had difficulty checking French expansionism on his
western frontier, and he lacked a firm policy toward Italy and the papacy.
Unable to arrange for his own imperial coronation, Rudolf also failed to
persuade German electors to pass the crown to his son, who finally succeeded
to the German throne (as Albert I) in 1298.