The arms of the House of Habsburg

House of Habsburg

Habsburg Castle standing above a vineyard slope in Aargau
Habsburg Castle, above the Aare in the canton of Aargau

The line

Ancestry

Thirty generations, from 985 to the present day

One continuous line, from the men who raised the castle above the Aare to the family living now: counts in the Aargau, kings and an emperor, John of Austria, and the generations that made their home in the Low Countries.

Everyone alive appears by first name and year of birth only, and without a photograph, for privacy and for security.

A page of the Acta Murensia
The Acta Murensia, written at Muri Abbey about 1140. Almost everything above generation eight reaches us through this one book
An eighteenth-century engraved view of Habsburg Castle above Brugg
The ridge above Brugg, engraved in the eighteenth century for travellers who came to look at it

Before the castle

The family’s own earliest record runs from Ferreolus, born about 390, down to Lanzelin, who died in 991 — nineteen generations before the castle above the Aare was built. These generations come to us as the early family set them down; beyond that account, no records of them are known.

It reaches us through the Acta Murensia, written at Muri Abbey around 1140, the document at the root of everything known about the first Habsburgs.

  1. Ferreolus390 – 440
  2. Tonance I420 – 475
  3. Tonance II450 – 517
  4. Wambert489 – 528
  5. Ansbertus510 – 570
  6. Erchenaudborn 538
  7. Laertarius560 – 646
  8. Erchembaldus590 – 661
  9. Lendisius620 – 680
  10. Adalric643 – 690
  11. Eticho IIborn 673
  12. Alberich698 – 735
  13. Eberhard I730 – 777
  14. Meginhard I
  15. Eberhard IIdied 881
  16. Eberhard III835 – 898
  17. Hugo I870 – 940
  18. Guntram I904 – 973Guntram der Reiche. No historical record reaches him, and the links drawn from him to older families are suppositions — unprovable ones.
  19. Lanzelin I942 – 991

The line, from the castle

1
Radbot I985 – 1045His one contemporary appearance is Henry II's diploma for Rheinau, 29 October 1023, which speaks of land in comitatu Ratebotonis comitis — in the county of Count Radbot.
2
Werner I1025 – 1096
3
Otto IIdied 1111
4
Werner IIattested 1129 – 1167
5
Albrecht III1144 – 1199
6
Rudolf II1160 – 1232
7
Albrecht IV1200 – 1240
8
Rudolf I1218 – 1291Elected King of the Romans in 1273, the first of the family to be crowned. From here the name is known across Europe.
9
Albrecht I1255 – 1308
10
Albrecht II1298 – 1358
11
Leopold1351 – 1386
12
Ernest1377 – 1424
13
Friedrich1415 – 1493
14
Maximilian1459 – 1519
15
Philip1478 – 1506
16
Charles V1500 – 1558Holy Roman Emperor. He ruled more of Europe than anyone since Rome, and then gave it up and retired to Yuste with his clocks.
17
John of Austria1547 – 1578Born at Regensburg as Jerome. Received into the House of Austria in 1559 and given its name. Commanded the fleets of the Holy League at Lepanto at twenty-four.
18
Johannes1576 –
19
Harmen1600 –
20
Jan Hermense1645 – 1712
21
Claes Jansse1693 – 1763
22
Janborn 1730
23
Nicolaas1757 – 1812
24
Matthijs1802 – 1877
25
Walig1845 – 1898
26
Pieterborn 1888
The sea captain. Pieter, born 1888, was a ship’s master, and for a time a captain with the Holland America Line.
27
Pieter1912 – 2001
28
Johan1942 –
29
Kris1970 –
30
The present generationSix childrenAll six are on the line. The succession is set out separately, on Heads of the House.
Kei1995 –
Ken1998 –
Jacques2002 –
Eliza2004 –
Kim2010 –
Kai2013 –

A note on what this line is

It is the family’s own record, kept by the family, and it is stated as the family holds it. Where an outside source can be brought to bear we bring it, and where scholarship is divided we say so on the page rather than pick a side quietly.

Berckheyde's view of the Herengracht
The Herengracht at Amsterdam, about 1671, in the Dutch Republic where the later generations of the line lived