Supplikation als kommunikative Herrschaftstechnik in zusammengesetzten Monarchien

Abstract

The article deals with supplications as a prevalent feature of early modern states shaping the communication between commoners and prince. Comparing the usages in different parts of the Habsburg Empire (viz. Lower Austria, Hungary, and the Southern Netherlands) it asks whether supplications were adequate tools to establish direct forms of contact between subjects in the peripheries and the courtly center. By establishing new regional public authorities (Kreisamter) in the middle of the 18th century, Maria Theresia set up the preconditions for implementing such administrative proceedings in her Austrian homelands. This communicative bypass, suitable to circumvent the local powers of nobility and church, served as a mighty tool in the state-building process, and fostered the authority of the crown. In contrast, Joseph II, in his remote eastern and western provinces, failed to establish similar regional authorities, thus depending on central command only. In Hungary and Brabant, commoners had to rely on the grace of regional powers, so that they continued to address them with their supplications. The Habsburg Empire shows that, given the conditions of early modern infrastructure, distance matters.