THE EMPEROR’S NEW ROOTS: MAXIMILIAN I, LADISLAUS SUNTHAYM, AND THE INVENTION OF ANCESTORS

Abstract

This project concerns the writings of Ladislaus Sunthaym and his role in the Habsburg court. His writings were part of a wider project to elevate the House of Habsburg by tying it to as many famous and holy people as possible. Though not himself a humanist, Sunthaym befriended and collaborated with many other humanists involved in this project such as Conrad Celtis and Johannes Trithemius. Sunthaym was a well-respected genealogist who compiled family trees and accounts of many dynasties, from the Babenbergs to the Habsburgs to the Bohemian kings to the Sforza of Milan. At Maximilian I's request, he was among the first of the court historians to trace the Habsburgs to the early medieval kings and dukes of Burgundy. Seen in the broader context of its day, this was an important ideological step in cementing the Habsburg claim to Burgundy, which had been the object of various wars and uprisings throughout the 1480s. Sunthaym's work represents the first sketches of a pan-European Habsburg ideology.