y and Bohemia, he pointed the way to power and empire in
eastern Europe. Soon after his election as king of the Romans in 1486,
Maximilian attacked the Hungarians, and in 1490 he had driven them from
Austria, and recovered his hereditary lands. In the same year he made an
arrangement with his kinsman, Sigismund of Tirol, by which he brought this
county under his rule, and when the emperor Frederick died in 1493,
Maximilian united the whole of the Austrian lands under his sway.
Continuing his acquisitions of territory, he inherited the possessions of
the counts of Goerz in 1500, added some districts to Tirol by intervening
in a succession war in Bavaria, and acquired Gradisca in 1512 as the result
of a struggle with Venice. He did much for the better government of the
Austrian duchies. Bodies were established for executive, financial and
judicial purposes, the Austrian lands constituted one of the imperial
circles which were established in 1512, and in 1518 representatives of the
various diets (_Landtage_) met at Innsbruck, a proceeding which marks the
beginning of an organic unity in the Austrian lands. In these ways
Maximilian proved himself a capable and energetic ruler, although his plans
for making Austria into a kingdom, or an electorate, were abortive.

[Sidenote: Austria at the close of the middle ages.]

At the close of the middle ages the area of Austria had increased to nearly
50,000 sq. m., but its internal condition does not appear to have improved
in proportion to this increase in size. The rulers of Austria lacked the
prestige which attached to the electoral office, and, although five of them
had held the position of German king, the four who preceded Maximilian had
added little or nothing to the power and dignity of this position. The
ecclesiastical organization of Austria was imperfect, so long as there was
no archbishopric within its borders, and its clergy owed allegiance to
foreign prelates. The work of unification which was so successfully
accomplished by Maximilian was aided by two events, the progress of the
Turks in south-eastern Europe, and the loss of most of the Habsburg
possessions on the Rhine. The first tended to draw the separate states
together for purposes of defence, and the second turned the attention of
the Habsburgs to the possibilities of expansion in eastern Europe.

(A. W. H.*)

[Sidenote: Austria under Charles V. and Ferdinand.]

At the time of the death of the emperor Maximili