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Josephinism was the collective domestic policies of
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II (German: Josef Benedikt Anton Michael Adam; English: ''Joseph Benedict Anthony Michael Adam''; 13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg lands from November 29, 1780 unt ...
(1765–1790). During the ten years in which Joseph was the sole ruler of the
Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...
(1780–1790), he attempted to legislate a series of drastic reforms to remodel Austria in the form of what liberals saw as an ideal Enlightened state. This provoked severe resistance from powerful forces within and outside his empire, but ensured that he would be remembered as an " enlightened ruler" by historians from then to the present day.


Origins

Born in 1741, Joseph was the son of
Maria Theresa of Austria Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg monarchy, Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position ''suo jure'' ( ...
and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Given a rigorous education in the
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
—with its emphasis on rationality, order, and careful organization in statecraft—it is little wonder that, viewing the often confused and complex morass of Habsburg administration in the crownlands of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary, Joseph was deeply dissatisfied. He inherited the crown of the Holy Roman Empire in 1765, on the death of his father, but ruled the Habsburg lands only as the junior co-regent to his mother, the matriarch Maria Theresa, until 1780. During the co-regency the deeply pious Maria Theresa acquiesced to numerous reforms, especially when pushed by Joseph and her trusted chancellor Kaunitz. These included the suppression of 71 of Lombardy's 467 monasteries, a raise in the minimum age of the monastic profession to 24, a prohibition of further gifts of land to the church unless permitted by the government, the dissolution of the Jesuit order by seizing their properties and removing their long held dominance on education, and an
Urbarium An urbarium (german: Urbar, English: ''urbarium'', also ''rental'' or ''rent-roll'', pl, urbarz, sk, urbár, hu, urbárium), is a register of fief ownership and includes the rights and benefits that the fief holder has over his serfs and peasant ...
law limiting some of the feudal obligations of peasants to their lords in Bohemia. These measures, although influenced by Joseph, were largely directed by Maria Theresa and Kaunitz, demonstrating that Josephinism as a political force predated its eponymous creator, albeit in a less radical form. It was on the death of his mother in 1780 that Joseph II had the opportunity, free of any dominating hand, to pursue his own agenda. He intended a complete remodelling of Habsburg society in several different arenas. Issuing decrees and Patents, Joseph's reforms were a conscious attempt to reorder the rule of his lands using Enlightened principles. At the heart of this "Josephinism" lay the idea of the unitary state, with a centralized, efficient government, rational and mostly secular society, with greater degrees of equality and freedom, and fewer arbitrary feudal institutions.


Serfs, lords, and forced serf labor

For many centuries, the majority of the population of Central Europe had lived as serfs, laboring under feudal obligations to Lords. On November 1, 1781, Joseph issued two Patents pertaining to Bohemia, which changed the serf–Lord relationship there by abolishing the use of fines and corporal punishment on serfs, and abolishing Lords' control over serfs' marriage, freedom of movement, and choice of occupation. The patents also allowed peasants to purchase hereditary ownership of the land that they worked. The nobility were hesitant to support Joseph's edicts, however, and they were inconsistently applied. Throughout his reign, Joseph's ultimate goal was one shared originally with his mother regarding policy toward the serfs. Robin Okey, in ''The Habsburg Monarchy'', describes it as the replacement of the forced serf labor system by the division of landed estates (including the demesne) among rent-paying tenants". In 1783, Joseph's advisor Franz Anton von Raab was instructed to extend this system to all lands owned directly by the Habsburg crown in Bohemia and Moravia.


Censorship and the press

In February 1781, Joseph issued an edict drastically reducing the power of state censorship over the press. Censorship was limited only to expression that (a) blasphemed against the church, (b) subverted the government, or (c) promoted immorality. Censorship was also taken out of the hands of local authorities and centralized under the Habsburg imperial government. Joseph was remarkably tolerant of dissenting speech—his censors banned only about 900 tracts published each year (down from 4,000 a year banned before his reign). One tract that even criticized him specifically, titled "The 42-Year-Old Ape", was not banned.


Edicts of Tolerance

While himself a Catholic—and certainly no advocate of unlimited religious freedom—Joseph was willing to tolerate a level of religious diversity in his domain that had been unthinkable not long before. In May and October 1781, Joseph issued Edicts which removed restrictions against the practice of Protestant and Orthodox Christian religion. In communities with large Protestant or Orthodox minorities, churches were allowed to be built, and social restrictions on vocations, economic activity, and education were removed. In 1782, Joseph dismantled many of the legal barriers against Jews performing certain professions, and lifted Jewish dress laws, Jewish-only taxes, and some restrictions on the movement of Jews. Nevertheless, he remained of the belief that Jews possessed "repellent characteristics". His decrees regarding that community did not include Galicia, the Habsburg province with the largest Jewish minority.


Catholic Church in Habsburg lands

Regarding the Catholic Church, Joseph was virulently opposed to what he called "contemplative" religious institutions—reclusive institutions that were seen as doing nothing positive for the community. By Joseph's decree, Austrian bishops could not communicate directly with the
Curia Curia (Latin plural curiae) in ancient Rome referred to one of the original groupings of the citizenry, eventually numbering 30, and later every Roman citizen was presumed to belong to one. While they originally likely had wider powers, they came ...
anymore. More than 500 of 1,188 monasteries in Austro-Slav lands (and a hundred more in Hungary) were dissolved, and 60 million
florins The Florentine florin was a gold coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard during that time. It had 54 grains (3.499 grams, 0.113 troy ounce) of nominally pure or 'fine' gold with a purcha ...
taken by the state. This wealth was used to create 1,700 new parishes and welfare institutions. The education of priests was taken from the Church as well. Joseph established six state-run "General Seminaries". In 1783, a Marriage Patent treated marriage as a civil contract rather than a religious institution. When the Pope visited Austria in 1782, Joseph refused to rescind the majority of his decisions. In 1783, the cathedral chapter of Passau opposed the nomination of a Josephinist bishop and sent, first, an appeal to the emperor himself, which naturally was rejected, then an appeal to the Imperial Diet at
Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...
, from which body, however, help could scarcely be expected. Assistance offered by Prussia was refused by
Cardinal Firmian Leopold Ernst von Firmian (1708–1783) was an Austrian bishop and cardinal. He was Bishop of Seckau from 1739 to 1763, campaigning against Protestantism. He also acted as coadjutor bishop or administrator of the Bishopric of Trento, from 1748 ...
's successor, Bishop
Joseph Franz Auersperg Josef Franz Anton Graf von Auersperg (31 January 1734, Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone ...
, an adherent of Josephinism. The bishop of Passau and the majority of his cathedral chapter finally yielded in order to save the secular property of the diocese. By an agreement of 4 July 1784, the confiscation of all the properties and rights belonging to the
Diocese of Passau The Diocese of Passau is a Roman Catholic diocese in Germany that is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.Pope Pius VI Pope Pius VI ( it, Pio VI; born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, 25 December 171729 August 1799) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to his death in August 1799. Pius VI condemned the French Revoluti ...
to do but to give his consent, even though unwillingly, to the emperor's authoritarian act. The papal sanction of the agreement between Vienna and Passau was issued on 8 November 1784, and on 28 January 1785, appeared the Bull of Erection, "
Romanus Pontifex (from Latin: "The Roman Pontiff") are papal bulls issued in 1436 by Pope Eugenius IV and in 1455 by Pope Nicholas V praising catholic King Afonso V of Portugal for his battles against the Muslims, endorsing his military expeditions into Western ...
". As early as 1785 the Viennese ecclesiastical order of services was made obligatory, "in accordance with which all musical litanies, novenas, octaves, the ancient touching devotions, also processions, vespers, and similar ceremonies, were done away with." Numerous churches and chapels were closed and put to secular uses; the greater part of the old religious foundations and monasteries were suppressed as early as 1784. Nevertheless there could be no durable peace with the bureaucratic civil authorities, and Bishop Ernest Johann Nepomuk von Herberstein was repeatedly obliged to complain to the emperor of the tutelage in which the Church was kept, but the complaints bore little fruit. Catholic historians said there was an alliance between Joseph and anti-clerical Freemasons."In Germany and Austria, Freemasonry during the eighteenth century was a powerful ally of the so-called 'party of Enlightenment' (Aufklaerung), and of Josephinism" .


Hungarian Crown lands and the Netherlands

The pace of reform in Joseph's empire was uneven, especially in the crownlands of Hungary. Joseph was reluctant to include Hungary in most of his reforms early in his reign. In 1784, Joseph brought the Hungarian
Crown of St. Stephen The Holy Crown of Hungary ( hu, Szent Korona; sh, Kruna svetoga Stjepana; la, Sacra Corona; sk, Svätoštefanská koruna , la, Sacra Corona), also known as the Crown of Saint Stephen, named in honour of Saint Stephen I of Hungary, was the ...
from Pressburg, capital of Royal Hungary, to Vienna. Similarly, he brought the Bohemian
Crown of Saint Wenceslas The crown of Saint Wenceslas ( cs, Svatováclavská koruna, german: Wenzelskrone) is a crown forming part of the Bohemian crown jewels, made in 1346. Charles IV, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, had it made for his coronation, dedicating ...
to Vienna. These were symbolic acts, meant to emphasize a new unity between the Habsburg crownlands, wherein they were to be seen as a singular entity. German replaced Latin as the official language of administration in Hungary. In 1785, Joseph extended his abolition of serfdom to Hungary, and a census of the Crown land was ordered, to prepare it for an Austrian-style military draft. In 1787, the "administrative streamlining" that had been applied to the rest of the Empire was nominally applied to Austrian possessions in the Netherlands, but this was fiercely opposed by Belgian nobles, and would be a major contribution to the
Brabant Revolution The Brabant Revolution or Brabantine Revolution (french: Révolution brabançonne, nl, Brabantse Omwenteling), sometimes referred to as the Belgian Revolution of 1789–1790 in older writing, was an armed insurrection that occurred in the Aust ...
.


Domestic resistance

Josephinism made many enemies inside the empire—from disaffected ecclesiastical authorities to noblemen. By the later years of his reign, disaffection with his sometimes radical policies was at a high, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and Hungary. Popular revolts and protests—led by nobles, seminary students, writers, and agents of Prussian King Frederick William—stirred throughout the Empire, prompting Joseph to tighten censorship of the press. Before his death in 1790, Joseph was forced to rescind many of his administrative reforms. He returned the crown of St. Stephen to Buda in Hungary and promised to abide by the Hungarian constitution. Before he could actually be officially crowned "King of Hungary", he died at the age of 49. Joseph's brother and successor, Leopold II, reversed the course of the Empire by rescinding some Josephine reforms, but managed to preserve the unity of the Habsburg lands by showing a respect and sensitivity for local demands that Joseph lacked.


See also

*
Josef Vratislav Monse Josef Vratislav Monse (June 15, 1733 – February 6, 1793) was a Moravian lawyer and historian. He was a leading enlightenment figure in the Habsburg monarchy and an early exponent of the Moravian Revival in Moravia. Monse played a key role ...
*
Suppression of the Jesuits The suppression of the Jesuits was the removal of all members of the Society of Jesus from most of the countries of Western Europe and their colonies beginning in 1759, and the abolishment of the order by the Holy See in 1773. The Jesuits we ...
*
Enlightened absolutism Enlightened absolutism (also called enlightened despotism) refers to the conduct and policies of European absolute monarchs during the 18th and early 19th centuries who were influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, espousing them to enhance ...
*
Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg (german: Wenzel Anton Reichsfürst von Kaunitz-Rietberg, cz, Václav Antonín z Kounic a Rietbergu; 2 February 1711 – 27 June 1794) was an Austrian and Czech diplomat and statesman in the Habsburg mona ...
*
Febronianism Febronianism was a powerful movement within the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, in the latter part of the 18th century, directed towards the nationalizing of Catholicism, the restriction of the power of the papacy in favor of that of the episcopa ...
*
First Vatican Council The First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the First Vatican Council or Vatican I was convoked by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1868, after a period of planning and preparation that began on 6 December 1864. This, the twentieth ecu ...
*
Gallicanism Gallicanism is the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by the monarch's or the state's authority—over the Catholic Church is comparable to that of the Pope. Gallicanism is a rejection of ultramontanism; it has som ...
*
Ultramontanism Ultramontanism is a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the prerogatives and powers of the Pope. It contrasts with Gallicanism, the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by th ...
* Kulturkampf *
Concordat of 1855 The Concordat of 1855 was a Concordat or agreement between the Holy See and the Austrian Empire as regards the Catholic Church in Austria. The Austrian Bishops' Conference was established in 1849 and agreed to a Concordat which would grant them gr ...


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * {{Authority control 18th century in Austria Enlightenment philosophy 18th-century Catholicism History of Catholicism in Europe Eponymous political ideologies Enlightened absolutism Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor