Privilegium Maius

The privilege Maius ( great charter of freedom ) is a in the years 1358/59 on behalf of Rudolf IV, fake version of the privilege Minus ( 1156 ), with the Austrian heartlands of the Habsburg extensive rights were granted. This was presumably because the Habsburgs no attention was paid in the Golden Bull. The privilege Maius Austria is declared the Archduchy and similar to those of electorates equipped with rights:

  • Indivisibility of countries
  • Automatic primogeniture (later expanded into the pragmatic sanction)
  • Independent jurisdiction without the possibility of appeal to the Emperor ( privilege de non evocando )
  • Rule symbols

The privilege Maius contains five inserted forged documents that should have been, among other things, allegedly, issued by Julius Caesar and Nero, the (then Noricum ) have been awarded special rights of the Austria region. The forger of the privilege Maius used as backbone minus the privilege of 1156, which they greatly expanded, its gold seal them installed on privilege Maius and then the original of the privilege Minus destroyed (which is why only survived with copies ).

Emperor Charles IV the privilege Maius not confirmed, as it was recognized by his Italian scholar Francesco Petrarch as a forgery. It was the Habsburg Emperor Friedrich III. confirmed it in 1453, and later Rudolf II and Charles VI. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation the privilege Maius lost its meaning. 1852 was definitively demonstrated by Wilhelm Wattenbach as a forgery.

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