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Ducal Crypt, Vienna

The Ducal Crypt () is a burial chamber beneath the chancel of Stephansdom in Vienna, Austria. It holds 78 containers with the bodies, hearts, or viscera of 72 members of the House of Habsburg.

History

Before his death at age 25 in 1365, Duke Rudolf IV had ordered a crypt to be built for his remains in the new cathedral he commissioned, and it has sheltered those remains for over 650 years. He also ordered a cenotaph for himself to be placed upstairs above the crypt, in front of the high altar. That symbolic tomb was later moved to the north choir and his epitaph written in secret symbols was placed on the wall of that choir.

The family of the ruling line of Austrian dukes was buried here after Rudolf IV, but after the dynasty became emperors they were buried in various cities (Vienna was not yet the settled seat of the emperor). After the Imperial Crypt at the Kapuzinerkirche opened in 1633, it became the new dynastic burial place.

Embalmers have known since the time of the Ancient Egyptians that it is necessary to remove the internal organs if the rest of the body is to be preserved. The containers with those organs were usually put in the coffin, but when the heir to the Imperial Throne, King Ferdinand IV of the Romans, died in 1654, he specified in his will that the container with his heart be placed in the Augustinerkirche, his body in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche, and the urn with his viscera in the crypt at the Stephansdom. His instructions resulted in the foundation of the Herzgruft at the Augustinerkirche. His younger brother, Emperor Leopold I, pursued a tradition imitating that distribution of remains, and also enlarged the Imperial Crypt to make it large enough for additional future burials. The urns with viscera were thereafter regularly deposited in the Ducal Crypt in the Stephansdom. There are now 33 persons who are each buried in all three places.

By 1754, the small rectangular Ducal Crypt was overcrowded with 12 sarcophagi and 39 urns, so the area was expanded with an oval chamber being added (directly beneath the present location of the Archbishop's Throne) beyond the east end of the rectangular one. New sarcophagi were made for some of the bodies.

In 1956 the crypt was renovated and the contents were rearranged. The sarcophagi of Duke Rudolf IV and his wife were placed upon a pedestal and the 62 urns containing organs were moved from the two rows of shelves around the new section to cabinets in the original chamber.

Deposition in the crypt has not always been permanent. Emperor Frederick III lay here for only 20 years after his death, until his magnificent tomb upstairs in the south choir was ready. The body of his brother, Archduke Albert VI, was removed after 300 years.

The greatest influx, other that the regular arrival of visceral urns, came as a result of the Austrian version of the Dissolution of the English Monasteries under Emperor Joseph II in 1782. When the religious institutions holding bodies of some of the members of the dynasty were closed, they needed to be moved. The Imperial Crypt at that time had only half the space it has today, and already held 57 bodies. The emperor ordered that the bodies of two persons who had died before the Imperial Crypt opened be brought to the Ducal Crypt instead. Another person, Empress Eleanor, would normally have been entitled to space in the Imperial Crypt, but because her husband was not buried there either, her body was sent to the Ducal Crypt.

It is probably around this time that the body of Duke Albert VI was removed to make room for others, and that the body whose sarcophagus is inscribed with only the year and name of the parents arrived. Identified through other evidence as one-year-old Anna of Lorraine, it is known that her brother Charles V, Duke of Lorraine married Archduchess Eleanora Maria Josepha (1653–1697) (widowed Queen of Poland and daughter of Emperor Ferdinand III) in 1678, and that marriage may have some connection with this non-Habsburg being brought here, but the exact reason is unclear.

The last item interred here is the urn with the viscera of Archduke Franz Karl, father of Emperor Franz Joseph, in 1878.

List of persons buried in the Ducal Crypt

The Ducal Crypt shelters the bodies of:

  • "the handsome" son of King Albert I, elder brother of Duke Albert II and uncle of Duke Rudolf IV. His remains were moved here in 1782 when the Carthusian monastery he founded at Mauerbach, his original burial place, was closed during the anti-clerical reforms of Emperor Joseph II.
  • second son of Duke Albert II and the 15-year-old brother of Rudolf IV.
  • "the founder", eldest son of Duke Albert II. Rudolf commissioned the present cathedral, and founded the University of Vienna before his death in Milan at age 25. He was originally entombed in S. Giovanni in Concha and later moved to here. The University lays a wreath on his tomb every 12 March to commemorate its founding by him.
  • wife of Rudolf IV and daughter of Emperor Charles IV. After the death of Rudolf she married Otto V, Duke of Bavaria.
  • "with the pigtail", third son of Duke Albert II and younger brother of Rudolf IV. Died at age 46.
  • son of Albert III. Died at age 27.
  • oldest son of Rudolf IVs youngest brother, Leopold III.
  • "the fat" younger son of Rudolf IVs youngest brother, Leopold III.
  • infant son of Duke Albert V.
  • Second son of Duke Ernest the Iron.
  • 9-month-old son of Emperor Maximilian II.
  • 15-month-old son of Emperor Maximilian II.
  • one-month-old daughter of Emperor Maximilian II.
  • Widow of King Charles IX of France and daughter of Emperor Maximilian II. In 1782 her body was moved here from the convent she had founded.
  • young daughter of Duke Nicholas II, Duke of Lorraine, a former Cardinal.
  • second wife of Emperor Ferdinand II. Her remains were moved here in 1782 from the Carmelite convent "Siebenbüchnerinnen" in Vienna that she had founded.

Gated niches in the original chamber (outside the entrance to the previous chamber) protect 62 copper urns containing the viscera (intestines) of various members of the Habsburg dynasty.

  • Daughter of Ferdinand II, Duke of Tyrol and wife of her cousin Emperor Matthias who was 28 years older than her. She provided in her will of 1617 for the establishment of a crypt for her and her husband in a Capuchin's Church to be built in Vienna, and died only one year later, at age 33 after seven years of a childless marriage and is buried in tomb 1 in the Imperial Crypt she founded. Her heart is in urn 1 in the Herzgruft in the Augustinerkirche.
  • Second son of Emperor Ferdinand III and father of Emperors Joseph I and Karl VI. He reigned 48 years. He was involved in wars ranging from the defense of western Europe against conquest by the Muslims, to the War of the Spanish Succession to place his second son on the Spanish throne when the Spanish branch of the Habsburg dynasty died out in 1700. Leopold died at age 64. His heart is in urn 11 in the Herzgruft in the Augustinerkirche and he is buried in tomb 37 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.
  • Son of Emperor Leopold I. He died at age 33 after a short reign of six years. His heart is in urn 12 in the Herzgruft in the Augustinerkirche and he is buried in tomb 35 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.
  • Prince of Asturias. Six-month-old only son of Emperor Karl VI. He is buried in tomb 30 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.
  • <small>44</small> (Heart of) Archduke Leopold Johann.
  • Six-year-old youngest daughter of Emperor Karl VI. She is buried in tomb 23 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.
  • Three-years old, eldest daughter of Emperor Franz I Stephen and Empress Maria Theresa. She is buried in tomb 48 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.
  • <small>47</small> (Heart of) Archduchess Marie Elisabeth.
  • Younger son of Emperor Leopold I. He died at age 55 after a reign of 29 years. His heart is in urn 13 in the Herzgruft in the Augustinerkirche and he is buried in tomb 40 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.
  • Third daughter of Emperor Franz I Stephen and Empress Maria Theresa. Died at age 1 year. She is buried in tomb 53 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.
  • <small>50</small> (Heart of) Archduchess Marie Caroline.
  • Regent of the Austrian Netherlands. Daughter of Emperor Leopold I. Dead at age 61. Her heart is in urn 14 in the Herzgruft in the Augustinerkirche and she is buried in tomb 38 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche. The container here for her viscera is of an unusual form, being a flat box instead of the more usual pot shape.
  • 26-year-old daughter of Emperor Karl VI. Her heart is in urn 15 in the Herzgruft in the Augustinerkirche and she is buried in tomb 39 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.
  • Wife (1708) of Emperor Karl VI and mother of Empress Maria Theresa. Died at age 59. Her heart is in urn 17 in the Herzgruft in the Augustinerkirche and she is buried in tomb 36 in the Imperial Crypt in the Kapuzinerkirche.

See also

References

  • (in German)