After the Habsburgs received nothing from the decree of the Golden Bull in 1356, he gave order to draw up the "Privilegium Maius", a fake document to empower the Austrian rulers.

[1] Eager to compete with his mighty father-in-law, who had made the Kingdom of Bohemia and its capital Prague a radiant center of Imperial culture, Rudolf desired to raise the importance of his residence Vienna to a comparable or greater height.

For more than a century, the Habsburg dukes had chafed at the popes' failure to make Vienna the seat of its own diocese, a status that they considered appropriate for the capital of a duchy.

Rudolf, however, resorted to something which could be considered imposture: He initiated the creation of a "metropolitan cathedral chapter" at the church of St. Stephen (which, according to the name, should be assigned to a bishop), whose members wore red garments as cardinals do.

Rudolf is best known for another bluff, the forgery of the Privilegium Maius, which de facto put him on par with the seven Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire, compensating for Austria's failure to receive an electoral vote in the Golden Bull of 1356 issued by Emperor Charles IV.

It was Leopold's descendant Frederick V of Austria, elected King of the Romans in 1440 and sole ruler over all Austrian lands from 1457, who reaped the fruit of Rudolf's efforts and laid the foundations of the Habsburg monarchy.