Otto, ''the Merry'' (german: der Fröhliche; 23 July 1301 – 17 February 1339), a member of the
House of Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
, was
Duke of Austria
This is a list of people who have ruled either the Margraviate of Austria, the Duchy of Austria or the Archduchy of Austria. From 976 until 1246, the margraviate and its successor, the duchy, was ruled by the House of Babenberg. At that time, ...
and
Styria
Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered ...
from 1330, as well as
Duke of Carinthia
The Duchy of Carinthia (german: Herzogtum Kärnten; sl, Vojvodina Koroška) was a duchy located in southern Austria and parts of northern Slovenia. It was separated from the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and was the first newly created Imperial State ...
from 1335 until his death. He ruled jointly with his elder brother Duke
Albert II.
Biography
Otto was born in the
Austrian
Austrian may refer to:
* Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent
** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law
* Austrian German dialect
* Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...
capital
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, the youngest son of King
Albert I of Germany
Albert I of Habsburg (german: Albrecht I.) (July 12551 May 1308) was a Duke of Austria and Styria from 1282 and King of Germany from 1298 until his assassination. He was the eldest son of King Rudolf I of Germany and his first wife Gertrude o ...
and
Elizabeth of Carinthia, a member of the
House of Gorizia-Tyrol (''Meinhardiner''). His elder brothers were
Rudolf III, who became
King of Bohemia
The Duchy of Bohemia was established in 870 and raised to the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198. Several Bohemian monarchs ruled as non-hereditary kings beforehand, first gaining the title in 1085. From 1004 to 1806, Bohemia was part of the Holy Roman ...
in 1306,
Frederick the Fair, elected
King of the Romans
King of the Romans ( la, Rex Romanorum; german: König der Römer) was the title used by the king of Germany following his election by the princes from the reign of Henry II (1002–1024) onward.
The title originally referred to any German k ...
in opposition to
Louis the Bavarian in 1314, the Austrian dukes
Leopold I and
Albert II as well as
Henry the Friendly.
After the murder of King Albert I in 1308, the Habsburgs lost out in the struggle around the
German throne, when Frederick the Fair was defeated by his
Wittelsbach
The House of Wittelsbach () is a German dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including Bavaria, the Palatinate, Holland and Zeeland, Sweden (with Finland), Denmark, Norway, Hungary (with Romania), Bohemia, the Electorate ...
rival Louis in the 1322
Battle of Mühldorf. In the course of a rapprochement of both dynasties, Otto married Elizabeth of Wittelsbach, a daughter of Duke
Stephen I of Bavaria. In 1327 he founded
Neuberg Abbey in Styria, on the occasion of the birth of his first son Frederick II, and the Chapel of Saint George in the
Augustinian Church in Vienna. When his wife Elizabeth died in 1330, she was buried at the Neuberg Abbey church.
From 1329 onwards, Otto administrated the original Habsburg possessions in
Swabia
Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.
The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...
(
Further Austria
Further Austria, Outer Austria or Anterior Austria (german: Vorderösterreich, formerly ''die Vorlande'' (pl.)) was the collective name for the early (and later) possessions of the House of Habsburg in the former Swabian stem duchy of south-wes ...
). In 1330, he and his brother Albert II were enfeoffed with the Austrian duchy. Louis IV,
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...
since 1328, also vested Otto with the title of an
Imperial vicar
An imperial vicar (german: Reichsvikar) was a prince charged with administering all or part of the Holy Roman Empire on behalf of the emperor. Later, an imperial vicar was invariably one of two princes charged by the Golden Bull with administerin ...
. In February he developed close ties with the mighty
House of Luxembourg
The House of Luxembourg ( lb, D'Lëtzebuerger Haus; french: Maison de Luxembourg; german: Haus Luxemburg) or Luxembourg dynasty was a royal family of the Holy Roman Empire in the Late Middle Ages, whose members between 1308 and 1437 ruled as kin ...
by secondly marrying
Anna of Bohemia, daughter of King
John the blind
John the Blind or John of Luxembourg ( lb, Jang de Blannen; german: link=no, Johann der Blinde; cz, Jan Lucemburský; 10 August 1296 – 26 August 1346), was the Count of Luxembourg from 1313 and King of Bohemia from 1310 and titular King of ...
and sister of future emperor
Charles IV, in the
Moravian royal city of
Znojmo
Znojmo (; german: Znaim) is a town in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 33,000 inhabitants. Znojmo is the historical and cultural centre of southwestern Moravia and the second most populated town in the South Moravian ...
.
Two months later, Otto's maternal uncle, the ''Meinhardiner'' duke
Henry of Carinthia
Henry of Gorizia (german: Heinrich, cs, Jindřich; – 2 April 1335), a member of the House of Gorizia, was Duke of Carinthia and Landgrave of Carniola (as Henry VI) and Count of Tyrol from 1295 until his death, as well as King of Bohemia, Mar ...
died without male heirs, whereupon Emperor Louis IV on 2 May 1335 ceded the Duchy of Carinthia, the adjacent
March of Carniola
The March (or Margraviate) of Carniola ( sl, Kranjska krajina; german: Mark Krain) was a southeastern state of the Holy Roman Empire in the High Middle Ages, the predecessor of the Duchy of Carniola. It corresponded roughly to the central Carniolan ...
and the southern part of the
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
to Otto and Albrecht as Imperial fiefs in
Linz
Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846.
In 2009, it was a European Capital ...
. Otto was enthroned as duke in accordance with the archaic
Carantania
Carantania, also known as Carentania ( sl, Karantanija, german: Karantanien, in Old Slavic '), was a Slavic principality that emerged in the second half of the 7th century, in the territory of present-day southern Austria and north-eastern ...
n rite on the
Zollfeld
Zollfeld ( sl, Gosposvetsko polje) is a slightly ascending plain in Carinthia, Austria. It is one of the oldest cultural landscapes in the East Alpine region.
Geography
It is from to wide and about long, with an elevation between above sea ...
plain, and, from that time onwards, took care of Carinthia rather than of the Austrian duchy. In 1337 he founded the
knightly order
An order of chivalry, order of knighthood, chivalric order, or equestrian order is an order of knights, typically founded during or inspired by the original Catholic military orders of the Crusades ( 1099–1291) and paired with medieval concep ...
''Societas Templois'' for the
crusade
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...
against the pagan
Prussian
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
and
Lithuanian tribes. His nickname ''the Merry'' refers to the festive life at his court.
Otto died at Neuberg Abbey at the age of 37. His sons and titular successors Frederick II and
Leopold II died shortly afterwards in 1344 (presumably poisoned), and the line became extinct.
Marriages and children
On 15 May 1325, Otto married his first wife
Elizabeth of Bavaria
Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaria (24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898) was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898.
Elisabeth was ...
. She was a daughter of
Stephen I, Duke of Bavaria and Jutta of
Schweidnitz. They had two children:
*Frederick II (10 February 1327 – 11 December 1344)
*
Leopold II, Duke of Austria
Leopold II, Duke of Austria (1328 – 10 August 1344), a member of the House of Habsburg, was the younger son of Duke Otto the Merry.
Otto's first wife was Elizabeth of Bavaria, a daughter of Stephen I, Duke of Bavaria by his marriage to Jutt ...
(1328 – 10 August 1344)
Elizabeth of Bavaria died on 25 March 1330. Otto remained a widower for almost five years. On 16 February 1335, Otto married his second wife
Anna of Luxembourg, daughter of King
John of Bohemia
John the Blind or John of Luxembourg ( lb, Jang de Blannen; german: link=no, Johann der Blinde; cz, Jan Lucemburský; 10 August 1296 – 26 August 1346), was the Count of Luxembourg from 1313 and King of Bohemia from 1310 and titular King o ...
and his first wife
Elizabeth, a member of the
Přemyslid dynasty
The Přemyslid dynasty or House of Přemyslid ( cs, Přemyslovci, german: Premysliden, pl, Przemyślidzi) was a Bohemian royal dynasty that reigned in the Duchy of Bohemia and later Kingdom of Bohemia and Margraviate of Moravia (9th century–1 ...
. They would have no children. Anna died on 3 September 1338.
Otto had four illegitimate sons who appear in genealogies. The identities of their mother or mothers and their later fates are unknown:
*Otto
*Leopold
*Johann
*Leopold.
Ancestry
, -
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
Otto the Merry
Otto the Merry
14th-century dukes of Austria
Otto the Merry
Otto the Merry
People of the Northern Crusades
Sons of kings