Privilegium Maius

The Privilegium maius (German: Großer Freiheitsbrief 'greater privilege') was a set of medieval documents forged in 1358 or 1359 at the behest of Duke Rudolf IV of Austria (1358–65) of the House of Habsburg.

For this purpose, in the winter of 1358/1359, Rudolf IV ordered the creation of a forged document called Privilegium maius ("the greater privilege").

[1] The Privilegium maius consists of five forged deeds, some of which purported to have been issued by Julius Caesar and Nero to the historic Roman province of Noricum, which was roughly coterminous with the modern Austrian borders.

Though purposefully modeled on the Privilegium minus, the original of which "got lost" at the same time, the bundle was already identified as a fake by contemporaries such as the Italian scholar Petrarch.

[4][5] However, Frederick III, of the House of Habsburg, who became Holy Roman Emperor, 1452, confirmed the document and made it part of imperial law, thus making fiction into fact.