The Empress: Between Empire and Dynasty

When people talk about empresses today, they only really think of two women, especially in Austria: Maria Theresa and Elisabeth, known as Sissi. Yet since the Middle Ages there has been a long line of women of the House of Habsburg who bore this title in the Holy Roman Empire. However, they have been forgotten by the public as well as by historical research. With this book, the role of Maria Theresa`s grandmothers and great-grandmothers has been examined for the first time: Was it really the case that only emperors and electors ruled the empire? The examination of the legal framework with which the book begins initially confirms this - all the empress`s rights and rank were based on the fact that she was the emperor`s wife. However, if we look at the coronations of empresses and the numerous printed texts and pictures that have empresses as their subject, things shift: according to these, the emperor and empress were perceived much more clearly as a couple for centuries than we often assume today in retrospect. In accordance with the norms of the time, the empress did remain the "first subject" of her husband - he was the one who held ruling rights as the elected emperor in the empire, as heir to the Habsburg hereditary lands. Nevertheless, each empress was more than just the mother of the next generation; rather, the ruling couple jointly exercised many of the rights that went to the emperor in the empire: Together they represented the dynasty in festivals and ceremonial `performances of the empire`; complementing each other, they worked to represent the special piety of the House of Habsburg. In addition, the empress as a person had a variety of functions which she performed in the interests of the house and which at the same time opened up opportunities for her to act:Empresses corresponded with princes and princesses of the Holy Roman Empire and Europe, with diplomats, high-ranking clerics, noble office-holders and their wives. This was not only about greetings and children, but also about money and legal decisions, about filling posts from chamberlain to archbishop and about political decisions in favour of the emperor. Empresses founded monasteries and supported religious orders, they supported painters and musicians, built palaces and thus helped shape the imperial court. In this way they also influenced the princes and princely women of the empire, for these were always also oriented towards the imperial court, although this was mostly in Vienna and only rarely moved "into the empire". The book thus shows many ways in which an empress could gain significance for the empire and its development. Our picture of the Holy Roman Empire can therefore only be complete if the actions and role of the empress and her "colleagues", the princely women and countesses in the numerous imperial territories, are also taken into account.