Image 117 is a fitting, if deliciously ironic, conclusion to this analysis of Maximilian I’s Theuerdank – one that captures the contradictions and shortcomings of Maximilian’s reign, while simultaneously, if inadvertently, celebrating his most important achievements. Theuerdank’s crusade, of course, was never realized; the text’s penultimate scene is fiction which does little to compensate for Maximilian’s failures to rise to his self-perceived calling as a living Saint George, the vanguard of a campaign against the ‘infidel’ Ottoman Turks. However, while the text claims that the marriage which precipitates this wishful holy war was not consummated, this could not be further from the truth: Maximilian’s marriage to Mary of Burgundy produced his only legitimate heirs, and thus served as the cornerstone for House Habsburg’s rapid acquisition of some of the most powerful thrones in Europe.

Before her untimely death in 1482, Mary of Burgundy gave birth to two children – Philip the Fair in 1478, and Margaret of Austria in 1480. In 1496, to cement a nascent alliance against the French, Maximilian arranged a double marriage between his children and those of House Trastámara – the Spanish royal family created by the storied union of Queen Isabella I of Castille and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. In the city of Antwerp, Philip married the Trastámara princess Juana [1]; meanwhile, Margaret married the Spanish heir apparent, Juan. While, ordinarily, such an arrangement would have done little to expand Habsburg territorial claims or power, Juan died childless in 1497 – leaving Juana and Philip first in line for the Spanish throne. When Queen Isabella died in 1504, Philip was crowned as the King of Spain – bringing Spain and all its colonies, including its vast and wealthy holdings in the Americas, under Habsburg control [2]. At Philip’s death in 1516, his eldest son, Charles, succeeded him as King of Spain; he was also crowned as King of Naples and Sicily. In 1519, he succeeded his grandfather, Maximilian, as Holy Roman Emperor, as Charles V Habsburg.

Philip and Juana’s other children further expanded Habsburg dominion over Europe through yet another double marriage, conducted in 1515, and arranged by Maximilian and Ladislaus II Jagiellon, King of Hungary and Bohemia. This wedding saw the union of the Habsburg siblings Mary and Ferdinand – Maximilian’s grandchildren – to the Jagellonian siblings Louis and Anne – Ladislaus’ children. When Ladislaus died in 1516, Louis became King of Hungary, Bohemia, and Croatia; however, he himself was killed at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. As Louis and Mary had no children, the Jagiellonian crowns passed to Ferdinand through his marriage to Anne [3]. Ferdinand succeeded his older brother, Charles, as Holy Roman Emperor in 1556.

Thus, it was weddings, not war, that ultimately fueled the House Habsburg’s meteoric rise to unprecedented princely power, and gave rise to the oft-quoted proverb, “Bella gerant alii / Tu felix Austria nube: Let others war, / As you, fortunate Austria, marry” [4]. Indeed, it was Maximilian’s marriage to Mary of Burgundy – unconsummated in Theuerdank until the completion of Image 117’s non-existent crusade – that proved the wellspring of a global Habsburg dynasty.

Maximilian, it should be noted, lived to see but little of this temporal and ideological success. In the latter years of his life, he attempted to secure his grandson Charles’ appointment as King of the Romans and future Holy Roman Emperor – an effort that drove him to crippling debt as he greased the palms of Imperial Electors with the dregs of his treasuries. These expensive efforts, however, were stymied by Pope Leo X, who maintained that Maximilian’s status as Emperor-Elect, rather than Emperor, precluded the election of a King of the Romans [5]. Thus, when Maximilian died in 1519 – “now so penniless that his own Innsbruckers refused to house his retinue, since old bills were unpaid” [6] – the auction of Imperial rulership was resumed, and the future of House Habsburg was anything but assured.

Nevertheless, Charles’ candidacy prevailed; Spain remained his kingdom as his brother and Imperial successor, Ferdinand, ruled as Archduke in Austria and, after the death of Louis Jagiellon, King of Hungary and Bohemia; further Habsburgs sat as Kings, Queens Regent, or Queens Consort on the thrones of Burgundy and the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Poland, and Portugal within decades of Maximilian’s death. By the end of the 16^th century, theirs was a dynasty astride the wealthiest and most powerful territories in Europe.

Theuerdank – and the world of artistic projects, fantastical self-images and political realities it represents – played an integral role in the creation of this dynasty. Maximilian, undeterred by setbacks on the battlefield or in the Reichstag, never tired of portraying himself as honorable, resourceful, pious and – above all else – eminently qualified to rule. Whether in allegory-laden woodcut or through knightly avatar, his was an image that elicited awe, respect, and obedience from common subjects and quarrelsome nobles alike; an image that presented himself and his offspring as skilled and natural monarchs, and that proved irresistibly attractive to Europe’s established royal houses. Moreover, the ideas on genealogy, chivalry, nationalism, and divine sanction that Maximilian propagated through this image remained the lenses through which Habsburg rulers evaluated themselves, and the models on which they based their behaviors, for generations. As this research has aimed to demonstrate, Theuerdank lends us – even five centuries removed from its publication – unique understanding of the prestige, pedigree, and purpose Maximilian claimed and created for one of the most influential families in world history.