The Relationship between the Frankapans and the Habsburgs at the End of the 15th and the Beginning of the 16th Century

Abstract

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Croatian noble family, the Franka-pans, found itself, like the entire Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom, facing increasin-gly intense Ottoman invasions. In an effort to protect their possessions, the Fran-kapans could not count on the help of Hungarian-Croatian kings, whose power was weakening, but had to rely on their own strength and the help they could find in foreign rulers. Bernardin and Krsto Frankapan established strong ties with the Habsburgs in the early 16th century, in which they saw help in defending against the Ottomans. Frankapan-Habsburg relations would play a very important role in later political circumstances in the first half of the 16th century.