So having explained most of the official terms used to describe the Habsburg empire, what about some of the other words you come across in museums and palaces in Vienna?

For example, who were the Hapsburgs (with a P)? What was the House of Habsburg-Lorraine? And where does the German Confederation fit into things?

• See also:
  • Previous: What is Austria?
  • Next: Empresses and archdukes?

Hapsburg

(Excerpt from a 16th-century Habsburg family tree. Note the spelling! Photo courtesy of the Rijksmuseum)

Hapsburg is simply an alternate English spelling for Habsburg, though I can’t rule out various historical and etymological differences. None of which need affect your enjoyment of Habsburg (or Hapsburg) Vienna.

Arguments about the rights and wrongs of different spellings seem largely futile. Today’s Habsburg heirs (the family is still going strong in the 21st century) use the “b” version and they should probably know best.

Habsburg is also the spelling generally used in English information displays in Vienna.

Habsburg-Lorraine

(The Glorification of the Union of the Houses of Hapsburg (with a P!) and Lorraine, by Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1775). Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program)

Ah, now, Habsburg-Lorraine actually became the official family name of the Habsburg line from the mid-1700s.

So why does everyone just talk about Habsburgs? Here’s the story…

In the early 1700s, Emperor Joseph I proved a problem for the Habsburg dynasty.

Let’s just say Joseph had an unfortunate attitude to the concept of fidelity, so managed to infect his wife with a disease that led to her infertility. And then he died.

The result: no male heir.

Joseph’s brother, Karl, succeeded him. The new Emperor set about regulating the unity of the disparate lands under the monarchy. This Pragmatic Sanction also included a new rule that a female could also inherit Habsburg titles (gasp!).

The Pragmatic Sanction turned out to be an inadvertent stroke of genius on Karl VI’s part, because he was survived by three daughters and no sons. Karl’s eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, took on the Habsburg family mantle in 1740.

However, Maria Theresa had earlier married a chap called Franz Stephan, Duke of Lorraine (an independent duchy in what is now France), thereby forming the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

So the new monarch was technically no longer a Habsburg as such, but part of this new family line.

The same principle applied to future monarchs, since they all descended from Maria Theresa. As such, you can consider Karl VI the last truly “Habsburg” emperor.

However, few people bother to make the difference. So the term Habsburg continues to be used to refer both to Maria Theresa’s successors and her ancestors.

Other Habsburg monarchies

(Philip II, King of Spain and of Armada fame. He was a Habsburg, too. Photo courtesy of the Rijksmuseum)

The term “Habsburg Empire” usually refers to what we think of historically as THE Habsburg Empire (Austria, Hungary, etc.).

But the Habsburg family got around, so you find other lands also ruled by a monarch belonging to the dynasty. This presumably guaranteed lots of suitably-expensive presents at family birthday parties.

Chief among these other Habsburgs were the Spanish Habsburgs, who ruled Spain for almost 200 years from the early 1500s.

The Habsburgs were in charge, for example, during the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and Incas, and during the failed invasion of England by the Armada in 1588.

In fact, Spain’s first Habsburg monarch (who became Karl V, the Holy Roman Emperor) also inherited the central European lands at the beginning of his reign. However, he quickly transfered these Habsburg territories to his brother, Ferdinand.

The Spanish line ended with the death of the childless Charles II in 1700. The War of the Spanish Succession followed, as various European powers and Habsburg scions attempted to carve up the Spanish lands for themselves (largely unsuccessfully in the case of the Austrian Habsburgs).

The German Confederation

You can think of the German Confederation as a very loose association established in 1815 between German-speaking states, primarily as a military alliance able to handle the pushing and shoving of big boys like Russia or the UK.

The Austrian Empire was a member, but most of its lands (such as Hungary) were actually outside the confederation.

Prussia and the Austrian Empire formed the two powerhouses in the confederation, and their rivalry came to a violent head in 1866 when they engaged in a game of “who’s got the biggest cannons?”

It turned out the Prussians did.

This Austro-Prussian war brought an inevitable end to the confederation and contributed, as we saw earlier, to the decision to redefine the Austrian Empire as Austria-Hungary.

Incidentally, Prussia went off and formed a new confederation imaginatively named the North German Confederation.

We’re almost done with Habsburg terms that visitors to Vienna might need to know. Our penultimate article looks at the issue of Habsburg titles, particularly the rather marvellous idea of an Archduke or Archduchess.