ABSTRACT
This first chapter discusses the division of the patrimony among the Habsburgs in comparison with their predecessor dynasties between ca. 1300 and 1700. It traces the way the Habsburgs divided their assets among their members and establishes how this affected the position of individuals, mostly males, within the dynasty. Before 1600, generally all males attained some level of agency and independence. But after this date, the patrimony was increasingly seen as an indivisible mayorazgo, to be inherited by a single heir, at the expense of other relatives’ rights to independent rule. This ‘dynastic centralisation’ changed the power balance within the family and limited the number of actual heirs. However, throughout the early modern period, the number of imagined future heirs – individuals mentioned in hypothetical succession scenarios – remained constant and consisted of the legitimate offspring of a ruler's predecessor; that is, his children, siblings and nephews and nieces.
