JOSEPH I. (1678-1711), Holy Roman emperor, was born in Vienna July 26, 1678. In 1689 he received the crown of Hungary, in 1690 that of the king of the Romans ; and in 1705 he succeeded his father, Leopold I., as Holy Roman emperor. The war of the Spanish succession was raging at the time of his accession to the imperial throne ; and it continued during the whole of his reign. Thanks to the genius of Marlborough and Eugene, Joseph was able to maintain in this struggle the greatest military traditions of the empire ; and, the French troops having been gradually driven out of Italy and the Netherlands, Louis XIV. was compelled to ask several times for the conclusion of peace. The pope also gave evidence of the emperor's power by recognizing his brother Charles as king of Spain. In 1706 the electors of Cologne and Bavaria, and in 1708 the duke of Mantua, were put to the ban of the empire for supporting the enemy of their sovereign ; and the emperor not only seized Bavaria, but began to partition it. He was successful, too, in Hungary, where he put down a rebellion that had broken out in the time of his father. On the other hand, he found it prudent to manifest a conciliatory spirit in his relations to Charles XII. of Sweden, who in 1706 made his way from Poland to Saxony through Silesia. In 1707 the emperor concluded treaties with him, granting religious liberty to the Silesian Protestants, and restoring to them upwards of two hundred churches which had been seized by the Jesuits. These concessions were not unwillingly made by the emperor, who, although a sincere Catholic, was of a tolerant disposition. He showed his respect for the constitution and dignity of the empire by supporting the diet in the free exercise of its functions, by promoting the activity of the imperial chamber, and by restoring Donauworth, which had been mediatized by Bavaria, to the position of a free imperial city. He died of small-pox on the 17th of April 1711.