Austria

Introduction

It is a challenge to define “Austria” in the 14th through the 17th centuries. On the one hand, the term refers to a geographic and political unit based on seigneurial holdings centered on the Danube Valley near cities such as Vienna and Linz. This Austria included the provinces of Upper and Lower Austria proper as well as territories such as Carinthia, Styria, Carniola (roughly what is now Slovenia), and Tirol and some scattered holdings in the upper Danube and Rhine valleys as far west as Alsace. On the other hand, “Austria” came to be tied to the family that ruled these and many other territories in the early modern and modern periods. This is the “House of Austria” or Hapsburg dynasty. For discussion of the latter aspect of Austrian identity, see the Oxford Bibliographies Online article “Hapsburgs.” This bibliography concentrates on the period from the demographic crisis of the mid-14th century and the economic, social, and cultural restructuring that resulted from it until the period immediately following the successful defense of the city of Vienna in 1683 against a besieging Ottoman army. After that event, the ruling dynasty could turn its increasingly unified Austrian lands into an important base for operations toward the east. One theme of much of the work mentioned in this article is the regional nature of authority in the relatively diverse territories that made up “Austria” in this period.

General Overviews

Austrian historians have specialized in source-based narrative study of the period and areas of concern here. The German-language handbooks, Lhotsky 1963, Pauser, et al. 2004, and the much older Uhlirz and Uhlirz 1927–1944, reflect this positivistic approach and should be used as introductions to the intricacies of the topic. H-Net provides access to archived postings as well as links to Austria-related institutions, syllabi, and other resources. Reisenleitner 2000 adds a more social and cultural history approach to the political and economic ones that characterize the other works.

H-Net.Habsburg.
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Reportedly the oldest historical online discussion group, Habsburg concentrates on the histories of the countries tied to the central European branch of the family beginning in the early 16th century. List members receive almost daily updates concerning recent books, conferences, calls for papers, and more. At times heated discussions can also develop about issues related to the histories of the area.
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Lhotsky, Alfons. Quellenkunde zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte Österreichs. Graz, Austria: Böhlau, 1963.
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The primary-source study of the history of medieval Austria has been one of the specialties of Viennese historians since the end of the 19th century. This still- useful introduction to the topic gives a glimpse into the world illuminated by such an approach.
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Pauser, Josef, Martin Scheutz, and Thomas Winkelbauer, eds. Quellenkunde der Habsburgermonarchie (16–18. Jahrhundert): Ein exemplarisches Handbuch. Vienna: Oldenbourg, 2004.
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Published by the Institute for Austrian Historical Research, this handbook, in over 1,100 pages, gives a detailed list of dozens of types of historical sources together with bibliographies and introductory essays. It is essential reading for research on the three centuries in question. This work includes nontraditional sources, such as pictures and material culture. It concentrates on the territory of contemporary Austria.
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Reisenleitner, Markus. Frühe Neuzeit, Reformation und Gegenreformation. Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2000.
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A volume in a series of handbooks dealing with the structural histories of Austria. Clear preference for social historical themes. After a survey covering the early 16th through the early 17th centuries, the author provides an overview of a number of recent research problems, including those tied to social discipline and confessionalization as well as popular culture, and concludes with an extensive bibliography.
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Uhlirz, Karl, and Mathilde Uhlirz. Handbuch der Geschichte Österreichs und seiner Nachbarländer Böhmen und Ungarn. Graz, Austria: Lauschner and Lubensky, 1927–1944.
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A useful handbook for the older literature on Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary by the famous father-daughter pair. An edition covering the period to 1526 was published in 1963, Handbuch der Geschichte Österreich-Ungarns (Graz, Austria: Böhlau). Karl Uhlirz was a specialist on medieval Austrian and Holy Roman imperial history and published source collections dealing with that topic and the history of Vienna.
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Journals

The classic Austrian history journal is the Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung. Historically it has tended to emphasize the medieval history of Austria. To address the relative lack of attention to early modern topics, a new journal, Frühneuzeit-Info, was established in 1990 by the private research institution Institut für die Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit (Institute for the Research of the Early Modern Period, IEFN). In 1965 the US-based journal Austrian History Yearbook was established, and it remains the only English-language peer-reviewed journal on the topic. Its coverage tends to be more of the late modern period.

Austrian History Yearbook.
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Established in 1965 and published by Cambridge University Press for the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota. The leading journal in its field in North America. More coverage of late modern than medieval or early modern periods but an important source of reviews of recent works in all periods.
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Frühneuzeit-Info.
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Published by the Institut für die Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit (Institute for Early Modern Research) in Vienna, this publication provides up-to-date information about current research projects, reports on conferences, and a yearly bibliography of works relating to early modern history. These bibliographies were originally produced as CD-ROMs and included with the journal.
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Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung.
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Published by Oldenbourg Verlag for the Institute for Austrian Historical Research, this journal dates back to 1880. Following in the positivistic, source-based traditions of the institute, the journal publishes many articles dealing with medieval and early modern history and based largely on archival sources.
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Historical Surveys

The period from the mid-14th through the mid-17th century is rarely treated as a unit in surveys of the history of Austria. Instead, the late medieval phase is tied to developments in the Alpine territories in a variety of locations. This is due to the division of rule among various branches of the Hapsburg family and to the family’s relative isolation from imperial affairs, given local conflicts with Bohemia and Hungary. Only beginning around 1500, and especially after the emperors began residing regularly in Vienna later in the 16th century, is the early modern story of consolidation and conflict with the Ottoman Empire given precedence. Thorough overviews of the period from the Hapsburg takeover of Austria in the late 13th century through the end of the 17th century are provided with documentation, illustrations, and scholarly apparatus in Niederstätter 2001, Niederstätter 1996, and Winkelbauer 2003. These works tend to stress the economic and social effects of the demographic shifts characteristic of the 14th century as well as political struggles, for example, between local nobilities and the ruling dynasty. Winkelbauer 2003 also discusses in detail issues related to the financing of the government. For non-German readers, Beller 2006 is an accessible start, and Ingrao 1994, an edited collection of conference papers, introduces a number of specific themes relating to topics such as the architecture of rule or noble influence on provincial affairs.

Beller, Steven. A Concise History of Austria. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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An up-to-date overview. Pages 1–79 cover the medieval and early modern histories of the region and its ties to the larger political entity ruled by the Hapsburgs. Includes a brief bibliography of works in English.
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Ingrao, Charles W. State and Society in Early Modern Austria. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1994.
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Collection of papers from a 1991 conference hosted by the Center for Austrian Studies. The chapters include ones that discuss the broader contexts of Hapsburg holdings as well as more focused topics relating to the area of present-day Austria and Vienna. See Helmut Lorenz’s piece on the imperial castle in Vienna and Herbert Knittler’s handling of noble rule in Lower Austria.
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Niederstätter, Alois. Das Jahrhundert der Mitte: An der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit, 1400–1522. Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1996.
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A volume of the new standard survey of Austrian history, this begins with the population shifts of the period the author terms “the cusp of the Middle Ages and modernity” before sketching the social and then the political scenes. Emphasis is placed on the international contexts, as “Austria” continued to move from a geographic toward a political and ideological construct. A discussion of high culture is at the end, underlining Niederstätter’s confidence in the economic and political over the cultural.
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Niederstätter, Alois. Die Herrschaft Österreich: Fürst und Land im Spätmittelalter, 1278–1411. Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2001.
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The fourth volume of the new standard survey of Austrian history includes bibliographies (concentrating on German-language literature), an index, genealogical charts, lists of bishops, a glossary, a time line, and illustrations. Begins with the demographic collapse, continues with a structural discussion of the societies in question, and delves into the period’s political histories. One-eighth of the text is devoted to high culture.
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Winkelbauer, Thomas. Österreichische Geschichte 1522–1699: Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht; Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im Konfessionellen Zeitalter. 2 vols. Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2003.
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In the same series as Niederstätter 1996 and Niederstätter 2001. Demographic developments are given precedence, and politics concern the majority of the work. Strengths include the discussion of Austria in the context of the Holy Roman Empire and the analysis of the finances of governance. One of the central themes is the role of the provincial estates versus that of the central authorities.
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Struggle for Identity

As pointed out in the Introduction, the concept of “Austria” itself has been in debate and the topic of much discussion, including among historians. To understand the secondary literature on the subject, some working knowledge of the framework and the chronology of the debate on Austria is necessary. One of the primary themes of much of the literature on Austria in the later Middle Ages and the early modern period (as well as later) centers on the issue of whether one can speak of “Austria” separately from the wider Holy Roman Empire and German cultural sphere. This question colors much of the research on Austrian history, as does the definition of what exactly comprised “Austria” in the period in question. Beginning with Müller 1901, scholars have debated this question, often rather vigorously. During the World War II period, when the First Austrian Republic was annexed to Germany, scholars such as André Tibal (Tibal 1936) and Hans Kohn (Kohn 1939) and politicians such as Kurt Schuschnigg (Schuschnigg 1938) argued for a separate Austrian identity. This theme was picked up by representatives of the newly (re)founded Austrian state after the war’s end, as seen in Marboe 1948. Erich Zöllner (Zöllner 1988) organized seminars and wrote on the history of the concept “Austria,” laying the foundations for a discussion that continues with Ritter 1992 and Pohl 1996 in the 1990s. Walter Pohl’s thoughts were connected to the activities surrounding the commemoration in 1996 of the one-thousand-year anniversary of the first documentary evidence of the term “Austria.”

Kohn, Hans. “AEIOU: Some Reflections on the Meaning and Mission of Austria.” Journal of Modern History 11 (1939): 513–526.
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This review essay, written at the time of Austria’s annexation by Greater Germany, points to the German nationalist belief in Austria as part of Germany, perhaps a part with a particular “mission” toward the non-German peoples of Europe’s southeast. This contrasts with other historians’ emphasis on the roles of Hapsburg rulers and Vienna in creating an Austrian identity as early as the mid-14th century.
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Marboe, Ernst. The Book of Austria. Translated by G. E. R. Gedye. Vienna: Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, 1948.
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After World War II, it was important for Austrian politicians and cultural figures to carve out an independent identity for their country. Works such as this one gave significant roles to Austria’s medieval and early modern history. Themes include the importance of theater and Baroque art and architecture. See pp. 26–91.
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Müller, Richard. “Der Name Österreich.” Blätter des Vereins für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich 35 (1901): 415.
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The first scholar to seriously study the history of the term “Austria” places it in the larger central European context.
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Pohl, Walter. “Ostarrîchi Revisited: The 1946 Anniversary, the Millennium, and the Medieval Roots of Austrian Identity.” Austrian History Yearbook 27 (1996): 21–39.
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Concentrates on historical memory and how “Austrian identity could not be defined in terms of blood and race but only as the result of a historical process” (p. 35). Contrasts with developments in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Important article for placing the study of Austria in historical and not physical context.
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Ritter, Harry. “Austria and the Struggle for German Identity.” German Studies Review 15 (1992): 111–129.
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Contrasts the kleindeutsch view of German and Holy Roman imperial history with a more pluralistic view that includes Austria.
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Schuschnigg, Kurt. My Austria. Translated by John Segrue. New York: Knopf, 1938.
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In the days before the country’s annexation by Germany in 1938, the Austrian chancellor Schuschnigg advanced the important thesis of the special “mission” of Austria after World War I: it was to unite disparate peoples under “German” cultural leadership led by “German” traditions. According to this view, the early modern period was an important phase in this history as Austria expanded to include territories such as Bohemia and Hungary.
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Tibal, André. L’Autrichien: Essai sur la formation d’une individualité nationale (du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle). Paris: Éditions Berger-Levrault, 1936.
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The question of an independent Austrian identity versus a German or Germanic one was very much in the air in the interwar period. Tibal’s important essay stressed the role of Baroque culture in differentiating Austria from Germany in the early modern period. See chapter 4, “Le Baroque, culture autrichienne.”
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Zöllner, Erich. Der Österreichbegriff: Formen und Wandlungen in der Geschichte. Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1988.
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By a leading historian who over decades led seminars and published discussions on the concept of Austria. An essential and thorough overview of the topic. Points out the international contexts of the coining of the term in the 12th century as part of developing relations with Byzantium.
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Humanism

The University of Vienna became one of the most important institutions of higher learning in central Europe in the later Middle Ages partly as the result of the divisions and turmoil at its rival institution in Prague, which was suffering from the effects of the Hussite Revolution in Bohemia in the early 15th century. Shank 1988 studies in detail developments at the university. The court of the humanist-influenced Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus was based for a number of years in Vienna as well. His library is discussed in Tanner 2008. Louthan 1997 took the story into the later 16th century through an analysis of key intellectual figures at the Vienna court. Benedikt 1996 provides a rich variety of viewpoints relating to aspects of the reception of humanism and related ideas in Renaissance and Reformation Austria.

Benedikt, Michael, ed. Philosophie in Österreich (1400–1650): Vom Konstanzer Konzil zum Auftreten Luthers, vom Beginn der Reformation bis zum Westfälischen Frieden. Vienna: Turia and Kant, 1996.
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This collection of more than thirty-five essays by various authors covers a wide range of topics relating to the intellectual history of Austria in this period, including the reception of the works of Nicolaus of Cusa, the role of logic in late medieval Vienna, the relationship between Austrians and the church councils at Basel and Constance, and the role of the natural sciences in Austria.
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Louthan, Howard. The Quest for Compromise: Peacemakers in Counter-Reformation Vienna. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511582028Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The intellectual world of the court and the irenicism supported by a number of its members is studied in this rather brief but well-received work. Louthan points to the reign of Emperor Maximilian II (1564–1576) as the high point of a movement tied to late humanism that attempted to stress conciliation over confrontation in religious matters. This attempt was ultimately unsuccessful.
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Shank, Michael H. “Unless You Believe, You Shall Not Understand”: Logic, University, and Society in Late Medieval Vienna. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
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The University of Vienna was founded in 1365 but gained popularity and prestige only a bit later in the 14th century as a result of displaced faculty from Paris swept up in the consequences of the Great Schism. This work studies the relationship between the arts and theology faculties as well as the relationship between the university, its contexts in the city, and the Jewish community there.
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Tanner, Marcus. The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and the Fate of His Lost Library. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
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The Hungarian king Matthias I conquered Vienna and Wiener Neustadt, incorporating parts of eastern Austria into his realm and residing in Vienna from 1485 until his death in 1490. This work studies the famous library Matthias collected, piecing it together from sites across Europe.
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The Role of the Ottomans

Often early modern Austrian history is placed in the context of the ongoing wars in Hungary with the Ottoman Empire. The two sieges of Vienna in 1529 and 1683 are seen as important turning points in Austrian history, as Hapsburg and allied troops defeated attempts to capture the city. Barker 1967 is the standard work on the military history of the topic, complementing the slightly older Stoye 2000 (originally published in 1964). Sturminger 1955 is the basic reference work providing the older bibliography on the two sieges. Barker 1983–1984 returns to the topic on the three-hundredth anniversary of the second siege to give an overview of the historiography up to that point. A less military history–oriented view of the siege of 1683 and its contexts is provided by Wheatcroft 2009. (See also the article Ottoman Empire.)

Barker, Thomas M. Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna’s Second Turkish Siege and Its Historical Setting. New York: State University of New York Press, 1967.
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This work places the siege in its international context, spending only about a third of the book on the campaign and siege itself. It was reissued in a modified German edition in 1982, Doppeladler und Halbmond: Das Entscheidungssjahr 1683 (Double eagle and crescent: The decisive year 1683). As the German version makes clear, the three-hundredth anniversary of the siege led to much discussion.
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Barker, Thomas M. “New Perspectives on the Historical Significance of the ‘Year of the Turk.’” Austrian History Yearbook 19–20.1 (1983–1984): 3–14.
DOI: 10.1017/S0067237800000953Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article grew out of papers delivered at conferences marking the three-hundredth anniversary of the siege of Vienna. Barker outlines the secondary literature on three aspects of the topic: the antecedents of the Ottoman campaign, the significance of the siege and the Polish participation in its lifting, and the consequences of the siege’s outcome.
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Stoye, John. The Siege of Vienna. Rev. ed. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2000.
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A slightly revised and updated version of an older work (published 1964) on the 1683 siege. Includes fourteen contemporary illustrations and numerous maps.
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Sturminger, Walter. Bibliographie und Ikonographie der Türkenbelagerungen Wiens 1529 und 1683. Graz, Austria: Böhlau, 1955.
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This publication of the important Kommission für neuere Geschichte Österreichs (Commision on the Modern History of Austria) is an essential guide to the earlier literature on the topic. The commission was founded by government decree in 1897 and focuses on the publication of critical editions of historical sources.
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Wheatcroft, Andrew. The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
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A well-written account of the campaign for Vienna in 1683 and the broader Ottoman-Hapsburg conflict, based largely on Western sources. Chooses to stress the imperial pretensions on either side at the expense of the religious conflict and motivations. Emphasis is also given to individual actors, particularly political and military leaders involved.
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Religious History

Much of the writing on the religious conflicts among Christians in the 16th century and into the 17th concentrates on noble resistance to Hapsburg Catholic centralization. Therefore it can be best treated in broader studies of the Hapsburgs and their holdings. The English-language studies in this section concentrate on issues in particular territories of present-day Austria, including Vienna, Upper Austria, and Styria. Fulton 2007 looks at Vienna, while Patrouch 2000 concentrates on the province of Upper Austria, a center of opposition to the Counter-Reformation. Pörtner 2001 discusses the complex territory of Styria, which became a center for the movement. An older survey, Mecenseffy 1956, still provides a basic history of the development of Protestantism in the territory, and Mecenseffy 1964 on the Anabaptists reminds us that various branches of radical Protestantism also affected Austria, as did Hussitism to a limited extent a century earlier. Coreth 2004 is an influential study of the ways the ruling dynasty encouraged the amalgamation of their lands through support of a particular set of Roman Catholic religious practices.

Coreth, Anna. Pietas Austriaca. Translated by William Bowman and Anna Maria Leitgeb. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2004.
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Originally published in 1959. Coreth began publishing pieces about a distinctive Austrian piety in the late 1950s. (This was related to the interest in Austrian identity discussed under Struggle for Identity.) In Pietas Austriaca she used mostly printed works from the 17th century to identify particular Roman Catholic devotions as ways by which the Hapsburgs united their holdings into “Austria.”
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Fulton, Elaine. Catholic Belief and Survival in Late Sixteenth-Century Vienna: The Case of Georg Eder (1523–87). Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007.
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By examining the career of an important lay religious leader in Vienna, this book undermines a traditional emphasis on the leading role of clerics in the process of religious change in the period. Based on manuscript and printed sources found both in Vienna and in Munich, the work also points to the role of Bavarians in the course of early modern Austrian history.
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Mecenseffy, Grete. Geschichte des Protestantismus in Österreich. Graz, Austria: Böhlau, 1956.
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This relatively brief, older survey by a member of the faculty of the Protestant theology institute at the university in Vienna provides a useful overview.
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Mecenseffy, Grete. Quellen und Forschungen zur Reformationsgeschichte: Österreich. Gütersloh, Germany: G. Mohn, 1964.
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Part of a series published by the Society for Reformation Research, these volumes concentrate on the history of the Anabaptists in the Austrian lands.
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Patrouch, Joseph F. A Negotiated Settlement: The Counter-Reformation in the Habsburg Province of Upper Austria. Boston: Humanities, 2000.
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An archivally based local study of the complicated political and religious landscapes of a relatively small area in the province of Upper Austria in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Reorients the analysis of the Counter-Reformation from the center out to the periphery.
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Pörtner, Regina. The Counter-Reformation in Central Europe: Styria, 1580–1630. Oxford: Clarendon, 2001.
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Ties the Counter-Reformation in the Austrian province of Styria to the process of state building. The shared ideology of reformed Catholicism provided a basis of consensus between the Hapsburg rulers and the provincial nobles. Based on secular and ecclesiastical archival sources in Graz, Vienna, and Rome.
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Social History

A strength of later-20th-century historical writing on Austria was its recognition that the history of the area cannot simply be reduced to the study of the rulers who took the territory’s name. This was particularly important after World War II and the experience of incorporation into a larger political entity. What was distinctive about the social worlds of the everyday people of these provinces? See Bruckmüller 1985 for a general introduction to the topic. Brunner 1992 is one of the most influential discussions of rule and society. Peasant resistance is detailed by Grüll 1969, and Rebel 1983 analyzes the relationship between bureaucratization and rural life. MacHardy 2003 focuses more on the role of the gentry in the political world of Lower Austria. Duindam 2003 concentrates on the important institution of the princely court and puts the Viennese one in the broader European context by comparing it to the more famous French example.

Bruckmüller, Ernst. Sozialgeschichte Österreichs. Vienna: Herold Verlag, 1985.
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This survey begins in prehistory and continues to the end of World War II. Two sections deal with the period of interest here: section 4 concentrates on the “crisis” of the later Middle Ages, “Early Capitalism” and the “Peasant Wars,” while section 5 concentrates on the development of courtly society from the 16th century through the 18th.
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Brunner, Otto. Land and Lordship: Structures of Governance in Medieval Austria. Translated by Howard Kaminsky and James Van Horn Melton. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.
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Originally published as Land und Herrschaft: Grundfragen der territorialen Verfassungsgeschichte Österreichs im Mittelalter in 1965. Stresses the importance of the exercise of legal jurisdiction in the development of authority. A key text for understanding the dynamic nature of power in the area. See especially chapter 3, “The Land and Its Law,” and pp. 152–199. Brunner’s discussion includes Lower and Upper Austria, Carinthia, Carniola and the Wendish March, Cilli, Gorizia, Bavaria, Passau, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Tirol, and Vorarlberg.
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Duindam, Jeroen. Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe’s Dynastic Rivals, 1550–1780. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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Through a thorough analysis of the extant sources, Duindam highlights the essential roles played by the rulers at court. The work is an important counterbalance to the tendency to see Austrian history from the provinces. The court was a political tool in the hands of early modern rulers. The Hapsburgs apparently spent much less money on this instrument of rule than did the Bourbons.
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Grüll, Georg. Der Bauer im Lande ob der Enns am Ausgang des 16 Jahrhunderts: Abgaben und Leistungen im Lichte der Beschwerden und Verträge von 1597–1598. Graz, Austria: Böhlau, 1969.
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Peasant uprisings in the later 16th century resulted in lordly commissions and inquiries into the situation of the peasant labor force in rural Austria. This work analyzes the records of those inquiries to shed light on the shifting labor and legal conditions of the Upper Austrian landed peasantry in the period.
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MacHardy, Karin J. War, Religion, and Court Patronage in Habsburg Austria: The Social and Cultural Dimensions of Political Interaction, 1521–1622. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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Looks at the social and religious discontent among the Lower Austrian provincial nobility in the period leading up to the set of conflicts now known as the Thirty Years’ War. Places this conflict in the longer context of the competition between centralizing and local political forces in the province. Points to the Hapsburgs’ courts as central points of conflict and change.
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Rebel, Hermann. Peasant Classes: The Bureaucratization of Property and Family Relations under Early Habsburg Absolutism, 1511–1636. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
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By concentrating on sections of a single Austrian province, Upper Austria, Rebel was able to trace aspects of the development of the state in the region. Building on an analysis of hundreds of peasant household inventories, the work seeks to combine social and political history. Points to aspects of resistance as well.
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Urban History and Economic History

The most important city in early modern Austria was the Hapsburgs’ primary residence city, Vienna. However, owing to the itinerant nature of Hapsburg rule and to the divided nature of the political structures of the Austrian lands, other provincial capitals played at times important roles, particularly the capital of Tirol, Innsbruck. The economic importance of the mining boomtown of Schwaz in Tirol cannot be understated, particularly in the decades around 1500. This topic was introduced at the exhibition in Schwaz in 1990 (see Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum 1990). Spielman 1993 offers a particular analysis of Vienna’s development by looking at the court quartering records from the 17th century, the period when the court moved permanently to the city. Csendes and Oppl 2000 provides an overview that reaches back to the beginnings of the city’s history. Before that, Wiener Neustadt and Innsbruck were preferred residences, as discussed in Niederösterreichische Landesregierung 1966 from Lower Austria and in the Noflatscher and Niederkorn 2005 collection of conference papers.

Csendes, Peter, and Ferdinand Oppl, eds. Wien: Geschichte einer Stadt 1; Von den Anfängen bis zur Ersten Wiener Türkenbelagerung (1529). Vienna: Böhlau, 2000.
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First volume of a modern trilogy on the history of the city edited by two Viennese archivists with extensive knowledge of the medieval history of Vienna.
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Niederösterreichische Landesregierung. Friedrich III: Kaiserresidenz Wiener Neustadt. Vienna: Niederösterreichische Landesregierung, 1966.
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This important exhibition catalogue reveals another of the Hapsburgs’ preferred residence cities. Before Vienna took final precedence in the 17th century, the imperial court resided in various locations. Wiener Neustadt was preferred by Emperor Frederick III in the 15th century.
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Noflatscher, Heinz, and Jan Paul Niederkorn, eds. Der Innsbrucker Hof: Residenz und höfische Gesellschaft in Tirol vom 15. bis 19. Jahrhundert. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2005.
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This collection of papers from a conference in 2002 discusses, among other themes, the close relationship between the development of the city and the court as well as the function of the court as a nexus of international and local interests.
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Spielman, John. The City and the Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court, 1600–1740. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993.
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Vienna served not only as an administrative center but also as a center of court life in the years before and especially after the Ottoman siege of the city in 1683. Spielman discusses the court quartering system and its effects on the development of the city, laying the foundations for the Baroque capital it became.
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Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum. Silber, Erz und weisses Gold: Bergbau in Tirol. Innsbruck: Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, 1990.
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The mining town of Schwaz in Tirol hosted a provincial exhibition about mining in 1990. This exhibition catalogue, representing an important genre of historical and art historical writing on the late medieval and early modern histories of Austria, discusses various themes associated with the development of this mining boomtown of the 15th and 16th centuries, including the economic significance of the products of the mines there.
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