ABSTRACT
One of the few draws left was the Habsburg court, which had, since the Archduke Ferdinand’s arrival in 1522, acted not only as something of a military high command but as a growing administrative centre for the dynasty’s hereditary lands.5 Ferdinand’s eventual accession as Holy Roman Emperor in 1556 gave Vienna an important share in his reflected glory, and the city remained the primary base for the emperor during the reign of Ferdinand’s eldest son, Maximilian II, 1564-76.6Though Rudolf II, Maximilian’s son and successor as Holy Roman Emperor, chose to spend much of his reign in Prague, Rudolf’s younger brother Archduke Ernst, who administered Lower Austria between 1576 and his death in 1596, remained in Vienna and maintained the Habsburg presence.7 The Habsburg court became, as John Spielmann has put it, ‘the most important resident of the city’, and played a central role in defining the
4 Mühlberger, ‘Zu den Krisen der Universität Wien’, p. 271. According to Mühlberger’s graph, by 1520, Vienna University enjoyed approximately 3200 annual matriculations compared to only 1200 for Ingolstadt and 1700 for Wittenberg. By 1530, Vienna’s number had all but collapsed to a mere 300 matriculations. By 1555, while Wittenberg received 3200 matriculations and Ingolstadt 1000, Vienna’s total still only reached 800, a quarter of its 1520 rate.
