mediation of this justiciar ‘a firm peace and stable truces amongst the
prevalent wars and discords’.^105 Richard of Cornwall, brother of
Henry III of England, chosen to succeed William by four of the seven
German princes now recognized as electors, continued to promote
general peace and reduce tolls throughout Germany.^106 The true heir of
the Hohenstaufens, in Germany at least, was Rudolf of Habsburg, the
Swabian nobleman elected after Richard’s death in 1272. Though he
never achieved coronation as emperor, he was recognized as king of the
Romans by Pope Innocent V, who expressed concern for ‘the public
state’ in Germany and Rudolf’s needs in particular (status publici et tuis
precipue utilitatibus).^107
Rudolf saw his role as ‘the reformation of the lost peace of the
commonwealth’, and in a Reichstag at Nuremberg in 1274 asserted the
ultimate jurisdiction of the king in all cases civil and criminal. From
1274 to 1282 Berhtholt von Druchburc is found issuing writs and
pronouncing judgments as judge of the king’s court (Hofrichteror
imperialis aule iustitiarius), mostly in suits concerning major churches,
and from 1286 to 1291 Herman von Bonsteten appears in that office.
The defeat and death of the great King Ottokar brought the kingdom of
Bohemia firmly within the German Reich and allowed Rudolf to make
the duchy of Austria, which Ottokar had held, the basis of the
Habsburgs’ centuries-long pre-eminence. In 1276, ‘wishing to recreate
[reformare] the good state which existed of old, turn emergency to
advantage [statum bonum veterem reformare et emergencia in melius
commutare], and, as befitted imperial majesty, give every man his right’,
Rudolf promulgated a five-year peace at a council of princes, counts,
barons, and ministerialesof the lands of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and
Carniola assembled at Vienna. Three clauses (8–10) of this virtual
rehabilitation of Austrian society sought to restore the authority of terri-
torial lords: in particular, no one was to receive the vassals of another
without his permission, saving the liberties often granted to municipali-
ties to take them in. Then, judges were instructed to give killers time to
make peace with the victim’s kin ‘in friendly fashion’ (amicabiliter), and
to authorize the giving of pledges. New tolls imposed against the
custom of the land were ordered to be removed, along with castles
erected to the prejudice of others’ rights, though fortifications which
100 The Spread of the Organized Peace
(^105) H. Angermeier, Königtum und Landfriede im deutschen Spätmittelalter(Munich 1966),
45, 54–7; Constitutiones 1198–1272, 474–8, 592, 646; Constitutiones et Acta Publica
Imperatorum et Regum 1273–98, ed. J. Schwalm, MGH Legum Sectio 4, iii (Hanover, 1904–
6), 22, 28, 59–61, 97, 554–60.
(^106) Constitutiones 1198–1272 , 489; Angermeier, Königtum und Landfriede, 54–7; see
B. Weiler, ‘Image and Reality in Richard of Cornwall’s German Career’, EHR113 (1998), for
the argument that Rudolf created the legend of Richard of Cornwall’s impotence as king.
(^107) Constitutiones 1273–98, 97. 26 ; Angermeier, Königtum und Landfriede, 53 ff.