Albert II of Austria

Albert II the Wise or the Lame (1298–1358), a younger son of Albert I, was elected Bishop of Passau in 1313 while still a minor but gave up the see in 1317. In 1330 he succeeded Frederick the Fair as duke of Austria and Styria; his marriage to Joanna of Pfirt in 1324 brought him that county.

When Henry of Carinthia died without a male heir, Albert pressed his claim against John of Bohemia, and on 2 May 1335 Emperor Louis IV enfeoffed him and Otto with Carinthia and Carniola. Probably polyarthritis gradually crippled him, yet he kept governing.

He gave Styria its constitution, the Bergbüchel, resumed the Gothic choir of St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, and issued the Albertinian House Rule on succession. After he died in 1358 his sons ruled jointly, until the 1379 Treaty of Neuberg split the house into two lines.