Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/590

 540 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE great church council at Constance which healed a triple schism in the Papacy. He found it so hard to get any money with which to pay his expenses while in the Empire that he absented himself from it during much of his reign, especially since he had important possessions and problems outside of Germany. Sigismund tacitly confessed his in- ability to maintain order and justice in the Empire by join- ing the courts of the Vehm. Sigismund also established two German dynasties that are still ruling. The Wettin line, whom he made Electors Origin of °^ Saxony, are now its kings. The Hohenzollerns, the Hohen- whom his father had made princes of the Empire, he further raised to Electors of Brandenburg, which in modern times they have developed into the power- ful kingdom of Prussia and the great German Empire. The Hohenzollerns get their name from the height of Zollern in the Swabian Alps where their original castle was located. In 1 191 Count Frederick III of Hohenzollern succeeded the Burgrave of Nurnberg, whose daughter he had married, and Frederick VI was still Burgrave of Nurnberg when Sigis- mund made him an elector. But the family had also ac- quired Ansbach, Bayreuth, Culmbach, and estates in Aus- tria. In 1427 the Hohenzollerns sold out their rights as burgraves to the city of Nurnberg. With the death of Sigismund in 1437 the House of Luxem- burg became extinct in the male line, so his son-in-law, Al- 'S 1 * 1!? 1 ^ ert II of Austria, was chosen as his successor. o trice dc~ comes hered- With Albert began a practically unbroken suc- HOTse n of he cession of the Hapsburg family to the imperial Hapsburg office until its abolition by Napoleon in 1806. Frederick III, who followed the brief rule of Albert II, had a long reign from 1440 to 1493 and was succeeded by his brilliant but erratic son, Maximilian. After the downfall of the Hohenstaufens no emperor Pa ly c th and visited Ita1 ^ until Henr Y VII, who died there the western without having accomplished much. The efforts of the next emperor, Louis of Bavaria, to main- tain an Italian policy involved him in a struggle with the