The House of Habsburg, alternatively spelled Hapsburg in English and also known as the House of Austria is one of the most prominent and important dynasties in European history.
The House of Wittelsbach is a former German dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including Bavaria, the Palatinate, Holland and Zeeland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Bohemia, the Electorate of Cologne and other prince-bishoprics, and Greece. Their ancestral lands of the Palatinate and Bavaria were Prince-electorates, and the family had three of its members elected emperors and kings of the Holy Roman Empire. They ruled over the Kingdom of Bavaria which was created in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918.
Charles V was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg during the first half of the 16th century. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with direct rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and the Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples and Sicily and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw both the continuation of the long-lasting Spanish colonization as well as a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories of Charles V was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets".
Maximilian III of Austria, briefly known as Maximilian of Poland during his claim for the throne, was the Archduke of Further Austria from 1612 until his death.
An Imperial Crown is a crown used for the coronation of emperors.
Barding is body armour for war horses. The practice of armoring horses was first extensively developed in antiquity in the eastern kingdoms of Parthia and Pahlava. After the conquests of Alexander the Great it likely made its way into European military practices via the Seleucid Empire and later Byzantine Empire. Though its historical roots lie in antiquity in the regions of what was once the Persian Empire, barded horses have become a symbol of the late European Middle Ages chivalry and the era of knights.
The Přemyslid dynasty or House of Přemyslid was a Bohemian royal dynasty that reigned in the Duchy of Bohemia and later Kingdom of Bohemia and Margraviate of Moravia, as well as in parts of Poland, Hungary and Austria.
Maximilian armour is a modern term applied to the style of early 16th-century German plate armour associated with, and possibly first made for the Emperor Maximilian I. The armour is still white armour, made in plain steel, but it is decorated with many flutings that may also have played a role in deflecting the points and blades of assailants and increasing the structural strength of the plates. It is a transitional stage in the decoration of armour, after the plain steel surfaces of 15th-century armour and before the elaborate decoration and colouring with etching and other techniques of Renaissance armour. The armour is characterized by armets and close helmets with bellows visors; small fan-shaped narrow and parallel fluting—often covering most of the harness ; etching; work taken from woodcuts; sharply waisted cuirasses, and squared sabatons.
Ambras Castle is a Renaissance castle and palace located in the hills above Innsbruck, Austria. Ambras Castle is 632 metres (2,073 ft) above sea level. Considered one of the most popular tourist attractions of the Tyrol, Ambras Castle was built in the 16th century on the spot of an earlier 10th-century castle, which became the seat of power for the Counts of Andechs. The cultural and historical importance of the castle is closely connected with Archduke Ferdinand II (1529–1595) and served as his family's residence from 1567 to 1595. Ferdinand was one of history's most prominent collectors of art. The princely sovereign of Tyrol, son of Emperor Ferdinand I, ordered that the medieval fortress at Ambras be turned into a Renaissance castle as a gift for his wife Philippine Welser. The cultured humanist from the House of Habsburg accommodated his world-famous collections in a museum: the collections, still in the Lower Castle built specifically for that museum's purpose, make Castle Ambras Innsbruck one of the oldest museums in the world.
KunzLochner was an eminent master plate armourer, blacksmith and silversmith from Nuremberg, Germany, Holy Roman Empire. He was the son of a skillful armourer with the same name, and his two brothers Heinrich and Hans who were also skillful armourers and blacksmiths. In 1543, Lochner started working for the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, and the following year he began his service at the future Maximilian II as court armourer. Lochner's workshop produced some of the most magnificent plate armours made during the 16th-century Renaissance period for field warfare, tourney and ceremonial occasions. Lochner's patrons included royalty, knights and nobility from across Europe.
Gothic plate armour was the type of steel plate armour made in the Holy Roman Empire during the 15th century.
Greenwich armour is the plate armour in a distinctively English style produced by the Royal Almain Armoury founded by Henry VIII in 1511 in Greenwich near London, which continued until the English Civil War. The armoury was formed by imported master armourers hired by Henry VIII, initially including some from Italy and Flanders, as well as the Germans who dominated during most of the 16th century. The most notable head armourer of the Greenwich workshop was Jacob Halder, who was master workman of the armoury from 1576 to 1607. This was the peak period of the armoury's production and it coincided with the elaborately gilded and sometimes coloured decorated styles of late Tudor England.
The Helmschmied family of Augsburg were one of late medieval Europe's foremost families of armourers. Their name, sometimes also spelled Helmschmid, translates to helmet smith. The family's most prominent members were Lorenz Helmschmied, Kolman Helmschmied (1471–1532) and Desiderius Kolman Helmschmied (1513–1579).
Lorenz Helmschmied or "Helmschmid" was a German armourer and a member of the Helmschmied family of armourers from Augsburg. He was one of the primary armourers to the Habsburg court of the Holy Roman Emperors Frederick III and Maximilian I, and created some of the most technically innovative and artistically complex armours of the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries.
Equestrian Portrait of Charles V is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Titian. Created between April and September 1548 while Titian was at the imperial court of Augsburg, it is a tribute to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, following his victory in the April 1547 Battle of Mühlberg against the Protestant armies.
The Royal Armoury of Madrid or Real Armería de Madrid, is a collection that, among many other things, contains the personal arms of the Kings of Spain, and also houses military weapons, armours and diplomatic works of art like mixed tapestries, paintings and other works of art and trophies. Among the most notable parts of the collection are armor and full tools that Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Philip II used. It is considered, along with the Imperial Armory of Vienna, one of the best in the world.
The Armor of Emperor Ferdinand I is a suit of plate armor created by the Nuremberg armorer Kunz Lochner in 1549 for the future Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. One of several suits of armor made for the Emperor Ferdinand during the wars of Reformation and conflict with the Ottomans, the etched but functional armor is thought by scholars to symbolize and document the role of the Habsburg Catholic monarchs as warriors on Europe's literal and ideological battlefields.
The Hunts of Maximilian or Les Chasses de Maximilien, also Les Belles chasses de Guise are a set of twelve tapestries, one per month, depicting hunting scenes in the Sonian Forest, south of Brussels, by the court of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. They were produced in a Brussels workshop, and several tapestries are given identifiable locations that were then around the outskirts of the city, but are now mostly engulfed by it. The set is now in the Louvre.
The horned helmet of Henry VIII is the surviving part of a full suit of armour made by Konrad Seusenhofer between 1511 and 1514. The armour was a gift from the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to the English king Henry VIII, following their alliance in the War of the League of Cambrai. The suit was elaborate and intended for display at tournament parades. It is unclear who was the intended wearer of the armour, but it appears to have been modelled on one of Henry's court fools. Henry may have worn the armour as a jest. The helmet has protruding eyes and a toothy grimace and is adorned with horns and spectacles. The helmet survived when the rest of the suit of armour was scrapped, probably after the English Civil War, and it is now in the collection of the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, which formerly used it as a symbol of the museum.
