Patronage, Politics, and Devotion: The Habsburgs of Central Europe and Jesuit Saints

Abstract

The main components of the Habsburgs' dynastical piety-worship of the Crucified, of the Eucharist, of the Blessed Mary and her spouse St. Joseph-are already well-known. They were common to both branches of the House of Austria, the Spanish as well as the Austrian one. However, they are far from exhausting the variety of manifestations with which they fostered the cult of the saints. More than other sovereigns, Austrian Habsburgs intervened on behalf of patron saints with the popes and the Roman Congregation of Sacred Rites. During the seventeenth century and still in the eighteenth century, they promulgated public feasts in the Austrian hereditary lands as well as in the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia. This paper focuses mainly on the veneration they addressed to the Jesuit saints: Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Luigi Gonzaga, Stanisław Kostka, and Peter Canisius using archive and printed materials from Rome, Vienna, Prague, and Budapest.