Administrative reform and cultural change: Austria in the eighteenth century

Abstract

This article examines the relation between mass piety and religious reform measures initiated by the Austrian government in the Josephinian period. Josephinism intended to transform the prevailing baroque type of popular piety into a new reformed way of Catholicism. The article focuses on popular attitudes toward liturgy and toward charity. Two issues which were regarded as key issues in the context of religious reform. The results suggest that religious behaviour followed a consistent pattern in both liturgical and charitable matters; personal characteristics of the people involved and circumstantial matters worked usual in the same way for both issues. However, religious change led only to limited success of the government's ideas in the population; secularization, which was unpopular with the government, became a new strong alternative to baroque religion as well as toReform Catholicism. The analysis is based upon 2,800 written or oral wills made in Upper Austria in the period 1700–1820. Wills are the best source for research on mass piety because they cover all social strata and are preserved in large numbers, and testators were directly involved in formulating the text.