thus feoffments have been rendered unnecessary and superfluous. All corporeal hereditaments were by that act declared to be in grant as well as livery, i.e. they could be granted by deed without livery. A feoffment might be a tortious conveyance, i.e. if a person attempted to give to the feoffee a greater estate than he himself had in the land, he forfeited the estate of which he was seised. (See Conveyancing; Real Property.)
FERDINAND (Span. Fernando or Hernando; Ital. Ferdinando
or Ferrante; in O.H. Ger. Herinand, i.e. “brave in the
host,” from O.H.G. Heri, “army,” A.S. here, Mod. Ger. Heer, and
the Goth, nanþjan, “to dare”), a name borne at various times by
many European sovereigns and princes, the more important of
whom are noticed below in the following order: emperors, kings
of Naples, Portugal, Spain (Castile, Leon and Aragon) and the
two Sicilies; then the grand duke of Tuscany, the prince of
Bulgaria, the duke of Brunswick and the elector of Cologne.
FERDINAND I. (1503–1564), Roman emperor, was born at
Alcalá de Henares on the 10th of March 1503, his father being
Philip the Handsome, son of the emperor Maximilian I., and his
mother Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, king and
queen of Castile and Aragon. Philip died in 1506 and Ferdinand,
educated in Spain, was regarded with especial favour by his
maternal grandfather who wished to form a Spanish-Italian
kingdom for his namesake. This plan came to nothing, and the
same fate attended a suggestion made after the death of Maximilian
in 1519 that Ferdinand, and not his elder brother Charles,
afterwards the emperor Charles V., should succeed to the imperial
throne. Charles, however, secured the Empire and the whole of
the lands of Maximilian and Ferdinand, while the younger
brother was perforce content with a subordinate position. Yet
some provision must be made for Ferdinand. In April 1521 the
emperor granted to him the archduchies and duchies of upper
and lower Austria, Carinthia, Styria and Carniola, adding soon
afterwards the county of Tirol and the hereditary possessions of
the Habsburgs in south-western Germany. About the same time
the archduke was appointed to govern the duchy of Württemberg,
which had come into the possession of Charles V.; and in May
1521 he was married at Linz to Anna (d. 1547), a daughter of
Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, a union which had been
arranged some years before by the emperor Maximilian. In 1521
also he was made president of the council of regency (Reichsregiment),
appointed to govern Germany during the emperor’s
absence, and the next five years were occupied with imperial
business, in which he acted as his brother’s representative, and in
the government of the Austrian lands.
In Austria and the neighbouring duchies Ferdinand sought at first to suppress the reformers and their teaching, and this was possibly one reason why he had some difficulty in quelling risings in the districts under his rule after the Peasants’ War broke out in 1524. But a new field was soon opened for his ambition. In August 1526 his childless brother-in-law, Louis II., king of Hungary and Bohemia, was killed at the battle of Mohacs, and the archduke at once claimed both kingdoms, both by treaty and by right of his wife. Taking advantage of the divisions among his opponents, he was chosen king of Bohemia in October 1526, and crowned at Prague in the following February, but in Hungary he was less successful. John Zapolya, supported by the national party and soon afterwards by the Turks, offered a sturdy resistance, and although Ferdinand was chosen king at Pressburg in December 1526, and after defeating Zapolya at Tokay was crowned at Stuhlweissenburg in November 1527, he was unable to take possession of the kingdom. The Bavarian Wittelsbachs, incensed at not securing the Bohemian throne, were secretly intriguing with his foes; the French, after assisting spasmodically, made a formal alliance with Turkey in 1535; and Zapolya was a very useful centre round which the enemies of the Habsburgs were not slow to gather. A truce made in 1533 was soon broken, and the war dragged on until 1538, when by the treaty of Grosswardein, Hungary was divided between the claimants. The kingly title was given to Zapolya, but Ferdinand was to follow him on the throne. Before this, in January 1531, he had been chosen king of the Romans, or German king, at Cologne, and his coronation took place a few days later at Aix-la-Chapelle. He had thoroughly earned this honour by his loyalty to his brother, whom he had represented at several diets. In religious matters the king was now inclined, probably owing to the Turkish danger, to steer a middle course between the contending parties, and in 1532 he agreed to the religious peace of Nuremberg, receiving in return from the Protestants some assistance for the war against the Turks. In 1534, however, his prestige suffered a severe rebuff. Philip, landgrave of Hesse, and his associates had succeeded in conquering Württemberg on behalf of its exiled duke, Ulrich (q.v.), and, otherwise engaged, neither Charles nor Ferdinand could send much help to their lieutenants. They were consequently obliged to consent to the treaty of Cadan, made in June 1534, by which the German king recognized Ulrich as duke of Württemberg, on condition that he held his duchy under Austrian suzerainty.
In Hungary the peace of 1538 was not permanent. When Zapolya died in July 1540 a powerful faction refused to admit the right of Ferdinand to succeed him, and put forward his young son John Sigismund as a candidate for the throne. The cause of John Sigismund was espoused by the Turks and by Ferdinand’s other enemies, and, unable to get any serious assistance from the imperial diet, the king repeatedly sought to make peace with the sultan, but his envoys were haughtily repulsed. In 1544, however, a short truce was made. This was followed by others, and in 1547 one was concluded for five years, but only on condition that Ferdinand paid tribute for the small part of Hungary which remained in his hands. The struggle was renewed in 1551 and was continued in the same desultory fashion until 1562, when a truce was made which lasted during the remainder of Ferdinand’s lifetime. During the war of the league of Schmalkalden in 1546 and 1547 the king had taken the field primarily to protect Bohemia, and after the conclusion of the war he put down a rising in this country with some rigour. He appears during these years to have governed his lands with vigour and success, but in imperial politics he was merely the representative and spokesman of the emperor. About 1546, however, he began to take up a more independent position. Although Charles had crushed the league of Schmalkalden he had refused to restore Württemberg to Ferdinand; and he gave further offence by seeking to secure the succession of his son Philip, afterwards king of Spain, to the imperial throne. Ferdinand naturally objected, but in 1551 his reluctant consent was obtained to the plan that, on the proposed abdication of Charles, Philip should be chosen king of the Romans, and should succeed Ferdinand himself as emperor. Subsequent events caused the scheme to be dropped, but it had a somewhat unfortunate sequel for Charles, as during the short war between the emperor and Maurice, elector of Saxony, in 1552 Ferdinand’s attitude was rather that of a spectator and mediator than of a partisan. There seems, however, to be no truth in the suggestion that he acted treacherously towards his brother, and was in alliance with his foes. On behalf of Charles he negotiated the treaty of Passau with Maurice in 1552, and in 1555 after the conduct of imperial business had virtually been made over to him, and harmony had been restored between the brothers, he was responsible for the religious peace of Augsburg. Early in 1558 Charles carried out his intention to abdicate the imperial throne, and on the 24th of March Ferdinand was crowned as his successor at Frankfort. Pope Paul IV. would not recognize the new emperor, but his successor Pius IV. did so in 1559 through the mediation of Philip of Spain. The emperor’s short reign was mainly spent in seeking to settle the religious differences of Germany, and in efforts to prosecute the Turkish war more vigorously. His hopes at one time centred round the council of Trent which resumed its sittings in 1562, but he was unable to induce the Protestants to be represented. Although he held firmly to the Roman Catholic Church he sought to obtain tangible concessions to her opponents; but he refused to conciliate the Protestants by abrogating the clause concerning ecclesiastical reservation in the peace of Augsburg, and all his efforts to bring about reunion were futile. He did indeed secure the privilege of communion in both kinds from Pius IV. for the
