A Swiss hawk-castle name ruled half of Catholic Europe
The House of Habsburg—House of Austria—took its name from Habsburg Castle, built in the 1020s in today’s Switzerland by Radbot of Klettgau. From 1440 until male-line extinction in 1740, and again as Habsburg-Lorraine from 1765 to 1806, the family monopolized the Holy Roman imperial throne.
The castle behind the name was built in the 1020s by Radbot of Klettgau in what is now Switzerland. Its name may mean hawk castle, from Habichtsburg, or may come from a Middle High German word for a ford, since there is a river crossing close by. Radbot's grandson Otto II was the first to call himself Count of Habsburg, and the family's own earliest recorded use of the name dates to 1108.
The decisive leap came in 1273, when Rudolph, seven generations down from Radbot, won election as King of the Romans. After the Babenberg line died out and Rudolph beat Ottokar II of Bohemia on the Marchfeld in 1278, he made his sons dukes of Austria and moved the family's centre to Vienna. From there they became known as the House of Austria and ruled until 1918. The imperial crown stayed in Habsburg hands continuously from 1440 until the male line died out in 1740, then passed to the Habsburg-Lorraine line from 1765 until Napoleon's victories and German fragmentation helped bring the empire down in 1806. Along the way the house also supplied kings of Spain, Portugal, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Sicily, among others, and ruled lands in the Low Countries, Italy and the Americas.
Oddly, the family did not use Habsburg consistently, preferring grander princely titles, which is why House of Austria stuck; in Spain they were the Casa de Austria, a label that covered illegitimate sons such as John of Austria. Individuals were sometimes named for their birthplace. Charles V was Charles of Ghent as a youth, Charles of Spain as king, and Charles Quint once elected emperor.
The name regained value after Maria Theresa married Francis Stephen of Lorraine, when it served to show that the old dynasty and its rights carried on; younger sons with no hope of a throne were sometimes styled count of Habsburg. Recent members such as Otto and Karl von Habsburg use von Habsburg or von Habsburg-Lothringen. Karl heads the family today, and relatives still preside over Austria's Golden Fleece order along with two other chivalric orders.
Source: House of Habsburg
