Separation and Symbiosis: The Habsburg Monarchy and the Empire in the Seventeenth Century

The introduction firmly restores the upkeep of a standing army in war- and peacetime to the center of the Habsburg government’s concerns in the early modern period. After a brief discussion of the peculiarities of Habsburg historiography, it argues that the idea of ‘composite monarchy’ (J.H. Elliott) best encapsulates the complex political framework within which a Habsburg fiscal-military state operated within its own borders. A review of the recent literature shows that the Habsburg Monarchy has figured more in the literature on ‘fiscal states’ than on ‘fiscal-military states’. Based on current knowledge, the introduction posits four major shifts in the Habsburg Monarchy’s fiscal-military arrangements between the 16th and 18th centuries. By the early 18th century, it is furthermore argued, a ‘fiscal-military core’ had emerged in the relatively well-coordinated and regularized fiscal-military activity occurring in the Bohemian and Austrian lands. Its three key facets constituted the rigorous use of primarily older forms of direct taxation, credit mobilization, and recruitment.

This volume offers a fresh interpretative agenda for thinking about the Vienna-based Habsburg Monarchy’s development, coherence, functionality, and domestic legitimacy under the impact of enduring international rivalry and armed conflict across a period spanning nearly two centuries, from the Thirty Years War to the Napoleonic wars. It does so in a wider European comparative perspective and by engaging closely with the concept of the ‘fiscal-military state’, rendering it both greater depth and precision and elaborating heuristic potential. This volume firmly returns the maintenance of a permanent standing army to the centre of the Habsburg government’s concerns between 1648 and 1815. In an exemplary way, it spotlights a broad range of structures, practices, and actors on both the financial and military sides that sustained the Habsburg fiscal-military state over time. These include the General War Commissariat, foreign subsidies and other external support, the provincial Estates and diets, taxation and borrowing, recruitment and the enrolment of officers, supply and provisioning as well as individual noble families, brokers, and contractors. In also applying the idea of ‘composite monarchy’ to the Habsburg polity, the volume additionally calls attention to both symmetries and asymmetries in the processes of state formation that occurred under the impact of fiscal-military exigency. Consolidation was accompanied by the emergence of new forms of particularism.

This entry presents the history of the Austrian Empire from its genesis to 1867. Its main focus is upon the political history of the empire, its consolidation in the 16th century, and its evolution through the middle of the 19th century. Topics include: marriage alliances and acquisition of territories; Reformation and Counter‐Reformation; the Habsburg monarchy or empire's status in Europe and its relationships with its neighbors, specifically the Ottoman Empire and Prussia; relationships between the Habsburg monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire; wars, the revolution of 1848, and the Austro‐Hungarian Compromise of 1867. The entry addresses differences in the status of different territories in the empire – most notably Hungary and Bohemia – attempts to impose centralization, and the resulting discontents. It concludes with a discussion of the federalization of the empire in 1867 tracing its roots back to the empire's creation in the 16th century.

Reviewed by: Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger Richard Butterwick Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara. Maria Theresa: The Habsburg Empress in Her Time. Translated by Robert Savage. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ and Oxford, 2021. xviii + 1045 pp. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Genealogical tables. Index. $39.95: £35.00. An English-language edition of Barbara Stollberg Rilinger's monumental biography of Maria Theresa has been eagerly awaited by many dix-huitièmistes and Central Europeanists since the publication of the German original (Maria Theresia. Die Kaiserin in ihrer Zeit) by C. H. Beck of Munich in 2017. The addition of just one word to the title alerts us to the challenge faced by the book in Anglophone markets. Maria Theresa reigned over many realms, duchies, counties and lordships, from Tournai to Transylvania, and from Lombardy to Lodomeria. This 'agglutination' (in R. J. W. Evans's memorable phrase) is collectively referred to by scholars as 'the Habsburg Monarchy'. In contemporary diplomatic parlance, the shorthand 'Austria' denoted this assemblage of territories and titles centred on the Viennese court — a usage continued by historians. Maria Theresa and her entourage referred to 'the monarchy' as a whole, but the original family seat of Hab(icht)sburg in the Aargau had long since been lost to the Swiss Confederation. The family name Habsburg was thus a less than welcome reminder of the relatively modest origins of the 'House of Austria'. And that 'Highest Archducal House' was destined, according to its acronym AEIOU, to rule the entire world. In 1740, Maria Theresa inherited her titles of Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, and so on and so forth, from her father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, although she had to make them good. She would add the title of Queen of Lodomeria and Galicia to her collection after participating in the first partition of Poland. Yet this mighty monarch only became an empress by virtue of her husband, Francis Stephen (who had exchanged his own ducal inheritance of Lorraine for Tuscany in 1738), being elected Holy Roman Emperor at the second attempt in 1745. After his death in 1765, Maria Theresa became dowager empress until her own demise in 1780. And yet for those thirty-five years, as well as the widower Joseph II's sole decade in power, Die Kaiserin had no need of a qualifying adjective (at least outside the Russian Empire). One of the author's principal tasks, therefore, is to enable her readers to distinguish between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, and to correct the false assumption that Maria Theresa was empress of a 'Habsburg Empire'. At the same time, the historian has to explain the many overlaps between 'the Empire' and 'the monarchy'. It is a task for which Stollberg-Rilinger, the Rhenish author of several influential works on the Old Reich, is well prepared. Perhaps she assumes rather too much foreknowledge of the Holy Roman Empire in the prologue, which introduces its heroine through a mixture of [End Page 760] monuments, historiography and gendered analysis, but she provides further explanations on p. 34. These are much expanded in the fascinating fourth chapter, titled 'Empress, Emperor, Empire'. As the author shows, 'ruling the Empire and ruling the hereditary lands were two quite different things. They followed different logics and demanded political strategies' (p. 171). Maria Theresa emerges as an experienced and skilful player of the game of imperial politics. That said, she and her family spoke of travelling 'to the Empire', an understandable usage when the various exemptions of the Habsburgs' hereditary lands within the Reich from imperial jurisdiction and taxation are considered (pp. 169–70). Maria Theresa's priority was never in doubt: 'imperial policy was a Habsburg domestic policy pursued with imperial means, not a policy directed at the Empire as a political whole' (p. 186). The position of Francis Stephen, however, remained ambivalent. Although his elevation to the imperial throne belatedly resolved many questions of etiquette and diplomatic protocol which had hitherto undermined his status, he seems to have been averse to conflicts and usually accepted his wife's political dominance. This subordination...

This chapter presents the Savoyard state more clearly within the debate about the nature and even the existence of the fiscal-military state. It considers the significance of those payments, not least in terms of how far they stimulated or retarded the achievement of a full fiscal-military structure in the Savoyard state. The Savoyard polity also benefited enormously from its crucial strategic position, controlling the routes across the Alps, in an age dominated by war between Bourbon and Habsburg. The extent to which the Savoyard fiscal-military state triggered a social transformation that benefited the 'non-noble bourgeoisie' is by no means clear; it may mistakenly apply inappropriate concepts, labels or social classifications of a later age to the eighteenth-century Savoyard state. In wartime Victor Amadeus II and his successors benefited from the subsidies made available by allies in order to sustain the Savoyard army and fund an increase in its strength.

Reviewed by: Toleration in Enlightenment Europe Jacques M. Gres-Gayer Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Edited by Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. ix, 270. $59.95.) This volume collects the papers delivered at a conference held in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1997, which was the culmination of a series of academic symposia dealing with the issue of religious toleration in England (1991) and the European Reformation (1996). In the eighteenth century, obviously, the notion evolved from a limited practice, religious tolerance, to a concept, toleration. This is the common theme of the different contributions, introduced by a synthetic presentation by the editors. Some of the papers have a more abstract perspective: M. Fitzpatrick, "Toleration and the Enlightenment Movement"; R. Wokler, "Multiculturalism and Ethnic Cleansing in the Enlightenment"; S. Tomaselli, "Intolerance, the Virtue of Princes and Radicals"; J. Israel, "Spinoza, Locke and the Enlightenment Battle for Toleration." They aptly present the theoretical basis for a form of acceptance of religious diversity. The level of discussion is, as expected, rather high and stimulating, Fitzpatrick's learned essay on the passage from toleration to religious Liberty being particularly [End Page 326] illuminating in showing the limits—for lack of experience—of the Philosophes' concept of freedom of conscience. The other contributions are geographical: E. van der Wall, "Toleration and Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic"; J. Champion, "Toleration and Citizenship in Enlightenment England: John Toland and the Naturalization of the Jews"; M. Linton, "Citizenship and Religious Toleration in France"; J. Whaley, "Religious Toleration in the Holy Roman Empire"; K. Vocelka, "Enlightenment in the Habsburg Monarchy"; M. Miller, "Toleration in Eastern Europe: the Dissident Question of Eighteenth-Century Poland-Lithuania." Each one, well researched and carefully presented, has its own value. Being more familiar with the topic and literature, I was not particularly convinced by the paper on France. The Jansenists' contribution to the debate on religious toleration is not well understood, despite reference to the most serious studies. The last papers, N. Davidson, "Toleration in Enlightenment Italy," and H. Kamen's "Inquisition, Tolerance and Liberty in Eighteenth Century Spain," are valuable for the authors' effort to find and develop what was conspicuously absent in Southern European Catholicism. Davidson, however, finds in Italy a desire for intellectual freedom as a reaction to the fruitless action of the Inquisition. Representatives of the Catholic Enlightenment, including Pope Benedict XIV and some of his cardinals, seem to have favored a more open discussion and exchange of ideas. In sum, a valuable conference, certainly well-prepared and well-presented that deserved publication. It will be a reliable reference on the issues. Jacques M. Gres-Gayer The Catholic University of America Copyright © 2004 The Catholic University of America Press

Géza Pálffy. <i>Hungary between Two Empires 1526–1711</i>.

In the early nineteenth century, Jewish cookbooks appeared on the Central European book market for the first time. So far, these manuals have been studied primarily from the perspective of the preservation of Jewish identity, that is, as a marker of the extent to which kashrut could be preserved in the face of increasing acculturation to non-Jewish society. Little attention was paid to aspects of transfer or entanglement between Jewish and non-Jewish foodways despite the central role of food in everyday life. In my paper, I try to map possible encounters between Jews and Christians in the area of food preparation and eating outside one’s home before analyzing several Jewish and general cookbooks appearing in the Habsburg Monarchy and Imperial Germany. The fact that also non-Jewish cooking manuals integrated dishes perceived as Jewish indicates mutual influence and makes it evident that there was more Christian interest in Jewish foodways than assumed.

In the early nineteenth century, Jewish cookbooks appeared on the Central European book market for the first time. So far, these manuals have been studied primarily from the perspective of the preservation of Jewish identity, that is, as a marker of the extent to which kashrut could be preserved in the face of increasing acculturation to non-Jewish society. Little attention was paid to aspects of transfer or entanglement between Jewish and non-Jewish foodways despite the central role of food in everyday life. In my paper, I try to map possible encounters between Jews and Christians in the area of food preparation and eating outside one’s home before analyzing several Jewish and general cookbooks appearing in the Habsburg Monarchy and Imperial Germany. The fact that also non-Jewish cooking manuals integrated dishes perceived as Jewish indicates mutual influence and makes it evident that there was more Christian interest in Jewish foodways than assumed.

The link between chiliastic prophecy and revolt in the Habsburg monarchy during the seventeenth century was obvious to the government of those times but has been neglected by the rational mind of modern scholars. Most of the cases, ranging in time from the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War to the eighties, and in place from the Austrian heartlands to remote corners of Moravia and Hungary, have been studied in isolation. Many cases have, undoubtedly, escaped the eye of the historian altogether.

The Kingdom of Hungary had a strong system of estates within the Habsburg Monarchy, and this exerted a significant influence on the positions of free royal cities. The free royal cities enjoyed a large degree of internal autonomy until roughly the end of the seventeenth century, with little oversight or interference by the larger state. Since 1526, the cities had been members of the estates which had taken part in the Diets (the parliaments which could be regarded as the early modern form of the Hungarian), though they had played a minor role in comparison to the counties. In the last third of the seventeenth century, the system of estates underwent significant changes. The royal state came to exert more control, and in the free royal cities, the central administration began to play a stronger role as a force for oversight. The interests of the state administration now played an important role in the selection of the city’s leaders. The delegates who represented the cities in the Diets were also chosen according to these considerations. The local bodies of state administration were given major say in the selection of the representatives. As a consequence of this, delegates began to be chosen who were from different social backgrounds, including people who had different places within the system of the estates. While earlier, the individuals who had been sent to take part in the Diets had been members of the Lutheran bourgeois elite, from roughly the late seventeenth century onwards, members of the nobility living in the cities began to play an increasingly influential role. Many of the delegates from the city of Kassa (today Košice, Slovakia) who will be discussed in the analysis below came from families of non-noble origins which, however, had been granted nobility as a reward for the services they had performed in the chamber administration. The career paths for members of these families led either to administrative bodies in the city or back into state administration.

:<i>The Habsburg Monarchy as a Fiscal-Military State: Contours and Perspectives, 1648–1815</i>

William D. Godsey / Petr Maťa (Hg.): The Habsburg Monarchy as a Fiscal-Military State. Contours and Perspectives 1648–1815

Though weakened by recent scholarship, the paradigm of “absolutist state-building” remains embedded in the thinking about Habsburg history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. The “emasculation” of traditional elite groups such as the Estates by the reforming “state” of the eighteenth century is an especially tenacious assumption. The present study utilizes recent concepts for large, compound political entities in an international context including “fiscal-military state” and “composite monarchy” to throw light on the relationship of government and society over time. It anatomizes the impact of fiscal-military exigency on the relationship between the rulers in Vienna and the Estates of the archduchy below the river Enns (Lower Austria), which geographically, politically, and financially was one of the central Habsburg lands. The thesis is posited that the Habsburg monarchy’s composite-territorial structures in the guise of the Estates constituted an increasingly vital, if changing, element of Habsburg international success and resilience.

GODSEY, William D. – MAŤA, Petr, eds. THE HABSBURG MONARCHY AS A FISCAL-MILITARY STATE. Contours and Perspectives 1648–1815. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, 369 s