Lost Chances of the House of Habsburg

Abstract

Of all the great questionsof Habsburg history, perhaps the greatest is this: What would have been the consequence if Charles V had decided to prioritize differently his dealings with France, the Ottoman Empire, and Christian reformers? It is certain that the House of Habsburg would have proceeded along a different path, but such a truism hardly advances a better understanding of events in the empire, or in Europe more widely, in the sixteenth century. Charles V, aspater ecclesiaeand as head of amonarchia universalis, stands astride the traditional and the modern. To him is attributed the last opportunity for Habsburg universal empire, with the long hand of thecasa de Austriaimprinting Habsburg ambitions on the world.