15th Century Advice on How to Raise a Warrior King

"It will be your destiny to defend Christendom against the Turk." Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, future Pope Pius II, to young King Ladislaus the Posthumous.

In the previous article I wrote about the rise of the Habsburgs and the young 20-year-old Maximilian winning the battle of Guinegate in 1479.

Maximilian’s heroism and the valor he displayed on the battlefield raises a very interesting question. How were aristocratic young boys like him raised to be able to fight in battles so young and to endure both the physical and the mental aspect of these brutal wars?

Obviously tournaments, hunting and similar imitations of war and confrontation played a role, and Maximilian enjoyed these a lot. But education for future rulers like him had already been geared towards physical training, strengthening of character and preparation of war since their early childhood, and tutors could play an important role as well.

Like it was normal at the time for aristocracy, Maximilian’s father Frederick did not play a significant role in his upbringing. It was his mother Eleanor of Portugal that first read him knight’s tales and encouraged him to train to fight, preparing him for a life of warrior aristocracy as early as possible. And indeed Maximilian would experience war very early in his life. During his childhood, Vienna was besieged by his uncle Albert VI of Austria in an internal Habsburg quarrel. These would be rough times where he would experience starvation. Life could be tough even for nobility in middle ages.

Like it was also common, Maximilian had a tutor who came from the clergy, bishop Peter Engelbrecht. He would teach him to read and write and also taught him Latin, mathematics and other important knowledge. However these tutors were often very strict. Their methods were sometimes very harsh. Just because you were from high nobility didn’t mean they would go easy on you. Rather the opposite. Engelbrecht allegedly made Maximilian hate science because of his teaching methods and pushed him even more into his love for physical activity instead.

But at the time the development of mind and body was seen as connected anyway and physical training was also encouraged by Engelbrecht. Influence of humanism and sources from classical antiquity became important and widespread, and they would cite classical authors who advocated for hard physical training of body.

One of the best examples of this mentality was another clergyman close to the Habsburgs, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II. He was a typical Italian Renaissance humanist and his views would become widespread in the age that was coming. In 1450 he wrote a text called De liberorum educatione (On the Education of Children) dedicated to another young ruler of Habsburg dynasty, Ladislaus the Posthumous, the Duke of Austria and King of Hungary and Croatia who was 10 years old at the time and was put into guardianship of Maximilian’s father Frederick III. Piccolomini was the young boy’s tutor and he decided to write down his ideas about education.

Piccolomini’s advice on education of young boys provides a valuable inside into the mind of the tutors like him who educated future rulers of Europe like Ladislaus the Posthumous and Maximilian.

Piccolomini would invoke a lot of authors from antiquity and stressed how “both mind and body, the two elements of which we are constituted, must be developed side by side.” In his writing we can see that he wanted a very strict education which would also include very hard physical training.

I will quote the entire passage concerning the physical training of the young Ladislaus to prepare him for war.

“As regards a boy's physical training, we must bear in mind that we aim at implanting habits which will prove beneficial through life. So let him cultivate a certain hardness which rejects excess of sleep and idleness in all its forms. Habits of indulgence -such as the luxury of soft beds, or the wearing of silk instead of linen next the skin- tend to enervate both body and mind. Too much importance can hardly be attached to right bearing and gesture. Childish habits of playing with the lips and features should be early controlled. A boy should be taught to hold his head erect, to look straight and fearlessly before him and to bear himself with dignity whether walking, standing, or sitting. In ancient Greece we find that both philosophers and men of affairs -Socrates, for instance, and Chrysippus, or Philip of Macedon- deemed this matter worthy of their concern, and therefore it may well be thought deserving of ours. Games and exercises which develope the muscular activities and the general carriage of the person should be encouraged by every Teacher. For such physical training not only cultivates grace of attitude but secures the healthy play of our bodily organs and establishes the constitution.

Every youth destined to exalted position should further be trained in military exercises. It will be your destiny to defend Christendom against the Turk. It will thus be an essential part of your education that you be early taught the use of the bow, of the sling, and of the spear; that you drive, ride, leap and swim. These are honourable accomplishments in everyone, and therefore not unworthy of the educator's care. Ponder the picture which Vergil gives of the youth of the Itali, skilled in all the warlike exercises of their time. Games, too, should be encouraged for young children-the ball, the hoop-but these must not be rough and coarse, but have in them an element of skill. Such relaxations should form an integral part of each day's occupations if learning is not to be an object of disgust. Just as Nature and the life of man present us with alternations of effort and repose -toil and sleep, winter and summer- so we may hold, with Plato, that it is a law of our being that rest from work is a needful condition of further work. To observe this truth is a chief duty of the Master.”

Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini: De liberorum educatione, 1450.

As you can see from this passage, the aristocracy of the time was still a warrior aristocracy expected to fight and had to be ready for war. This applied to kings as well.

This was especially true in the Austrian borderlands where the Habsburgs resided. Like Piccolomini notes, “it will be your destiny to defend Christendom against the Turk.” Even though the Habsburgs were not directly bordering the mighty Turkish Ottoman empire yet, the shadow of the Ottomans was looming over the Balkans all the way to Vienna already. It was indeed destiny that the two empires would soon meet in war directly.

However at the time, the greatest danger for the Habsburgs did not come from the Ottomans but from other Christians. 15th century Central Europe was in a constant power struggle between different local rulers and factions of nobility, from the Hussite Wars to campaigns of Matthias Corvinus. There was also a power struggle inside the Habsburg dynasty itself as it was split among the Leopoldian and Albertinian lines following the Treaty of Neuberg in 1379.

Ladislaus the Posthumous would be the last of the Albertinian line. He got this weird nickname because he was born on 22 February 1440 after the death of his father Albert the Magnanimous on 27 October 1439. Albert was the King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia which he inherited from Sigismund of Luxembourg because he was married to his only daughter Elizabeth. Both Sigismund and Albert had lived up to the warrior ideal preached by Piccolomini as they campaigned against the Turks, with Sigismund famously leading the failed Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396 and Albert dying from dysentery during a campaign in Hungary.

But Ladislaus would never get this chance despite inheriting powerful realms from his father. He would spend his reign in political struggle with Hungarian nobility and died young and unexpectedly on 23 November 1457 at only 17 years of age, apparently from plague. His former guardian Frederick III would inherit his title of Duke of Austria, elevating it into Archduchy and uniting Habsburg hereditary lands.

Meanwhile Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini would become Pope in 1458. As Pope Pius II he would tirelessly try to rally European Christendom behind him for crusades against the Ottomans, but had no real success.

However it would be indeed the destiny of Habsburgs to face the Ottoman onslaught as Piccolomini told the young Ladislaus the Posthumous. But more about this in future articles!