The fact that Maximilian, who lived a distinctive late medieval itinerant kingship and emperorship on routes across Europe, had his favourite residence in Innsbruck and was ultimately at least a “Tyrolean at heart” despite his early childhood in the then Styrian town of Wiener Neustadt and his own temporary stylisation as a “Burgundian”, is an image of the ruler of a saddle or bridge age that has been popularised again in recent years.
The county of Tyrol not only gave Maximilian access to the resources of the rapidly expanding mining towns in the Inn Valley, but also control over the most important Alpine crossings in the entire pre-modern period as the north-south axes of long-distance transport between the southern and central German trading and financial markets and the soon to be important theatre of war in northern Italy. A connection to the Lake Constance region and the Upper Rhine and Alsace was open via the other Upper Austrian lands (Vorlande). With the assumption of personal rule over Tyrol from his “paternal friend” (Paul-Joachim Heinig) [Arch]Duke Sigmund, Maximilian took over a large circle of Tyrolean financial and administrative experts from Sigmund’s circle, who subsequently rose to top positions in the regiment, the royal and imperial councils and the chancelleries. Two Tyroleans, Paul von Liechtenstein and Zyprian von Northeim, known as Sernteiner, were among the notorious “grey eminences” who shielded and controlled access to Maximilian like a “hedge”.
The lecture introduces these and less prominent networks of people from Tyrol (and the foothills) around Maximilian and presents hitherto little-known sources on the issue, including Maximilian’s own statements.