Tyrol (Austria) -- Description and travel; Tyrol (Austria) -- History
In 1279, Bruno, Bishop of Brixen, consecrated another church in the
Ottoburg, which was called the Moritzkapelle. The town's lords,
spiritual as well as temporal, appear to have done what they could to
foster and encourage its growth, and there are records of festivities
and princely entertainments on a lavish scale within the precincts of
the Ottoburg in those far-off times. It was not, however, until after
the cession of Tyrol to Austria by the Duchess Margaret, known as
"Pocket-mouthed Meg," that the admirable situation of Innsbruck was
fully realized. Ultimately, the convenience of its water communication
by the Inn and Danube with other distant and flourishing towns of the
Empire seems largely to have brought about its adoption as the seat of
government for Tyrol.
[Sidenote: INNSBRUCK'S RULERS]
Innsbruck throughout the centuries, so far as its rulers are
concerned, appears to have been "fortune's child." Many privileges
were granted to it from time to time, and the staunch fidelity of the
citizens to Duke Rudolph IV. of Habsburg at the time of one of the
periodic Bavarian invasions resulted in further concessions being
granted which served to place Innsbruck in the unassailable position
of being both the capital and the most prosperous town in the Tyrol.
Duke Frederick of the Empty Pocket (_Mit der leeren Tasche_) made
Innsbruck his home and base of operations whilst endeavouring to put
down the Rottenburgers and other of the powerful nobles, who were
attempting to set him at defiance and continue the oppression of the
countryfolk which they had commenced and carried on during the
unstable and weak government of Frederick's immediate predecessors.
The Innsbruckers gave him loyal and very material support in his
endeavours, and reaped a substantial reward in the favours and
privileges which Frederick afterwards granted to them.
It was this prince who gained, by contact with his people when a
fugitive amongst the mountains and valleys of Tyrol, a knowledge of
them (and thereby earned their affection) that made it possible for
him ultimately to call the peasantry to arms, and to defy the power of
the Emperor Sigismund, Ernest the Iron Duke of Styria, and his other
enemies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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