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Habsburg Government and Intermediary Authority under Joseph II (1780–90): The Estates of Lower Austria in Comparative Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2014

William D. Godsey
William D. Godsey*
Affiliation:
Austrian Academy of Sciences
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Extract

On October 18, 1783, a cortege of gala carriages escorted by liveried attendants, lackeys, and trumpeters drew up in the main courtyard of the Hofburg, the Imperial palace in Vienna. Received with military honors, it bore a deputation of the Lower Austrian Estates led by Landmarschall Count Johann Anton Pergen and that included a dozen representatives of the four orders (prelates, lords, knights, and townsmen) that composed the diet. The group ascended into the ceremonial apartments to be welcomed by the Imperial grand chamberlain, who announced its arrival. The emperor's appearance in the audience chamber prompted a short address by Pergen, to whom Joseph II then personally handed his government's annual tax demand. As his mother the Empress Maria Theresa had sometimes done on these occasions, he took advantage of Estates' attendance to raise a matter of special concern. He exhorted them “avec beaucoup de noblesse” to consider ways of revising the provincial cadastre that underlay the system of direct taxation. This prefigured one of the reign's celebrated initiatives that culminated in the great tax and peasant labor reform of 1789. Joseph's participation in a court function that dated back to the middle years of the previous reign and that was rooted in a much older ritual in which the Lower Austrian Estates had in corpore received the tax request out of the monarch's own hands largely conformed to later Theresan practice. But this would be the last time that he observed the rite. In the following year, his absence from Vienna prevented its occurrence, and in 1785 he did away with it altogether.

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Central European History , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 699 - 740
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Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association 2014 

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References

1 Dated Oct. 20, 1783, a copy of which is found in Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv, St. Pölten (NÖLA), Ständische Registratur 1782–92 (StReg 1782–92), 162.

2 Quotation from the diary of Count Karl Zinzendorf, Oct. 23, 1783, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Abteilung Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA). Zinzendorf recounted what he had heard from the grand chamberlain. A description of the ceremony is found in HHStA, Obersthofmeisteramt, Zeremonialakten, Protokoll 36, f. 258r–259r.

3 Aulic decrees, Oct. 4, 1784, and Oct. 13, 1785, NÖLA, StReg, 162.

4 Beales, Derek, Joseph II, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987 and 2009), vol. 2, 56Google Scholar.

5 Expressed in a memorandum of 1763 known as the Rêveries—quotation from Beales, Derek, “Was Joseph II an Enlightened Despot?,” chap. in Beales, Derek, Enlightenment and Reform in Eighteenth-century Europe (London and New York: Tauris, 2005), 271Google Scholar. Also Beales, Joseph II, vol. 1, 98 and 103.

6 Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 469.

7 The best introduction to the Estates from the Thirty Years' War to Maria Theresa is Mat'a, Petr, “Landstände und Landtage in den böhmischen und österreichischen Ländern (1620–1740). Von der Niedergangsgeschichte zur Interaktionsanalyse,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie 1620 bis 1740. Leistungen und Grenzen des Absolutismusparadigmas, ed. Mat'a, Petr and Winkelbauer, Thomas, Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa, vol. 24 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2006), 345–400Google Scholar. For the Estates' military-administrative role into the early Theresan era, see Godsey, William D., “Österreichische Landschaftsverwaltung und Stehendes Heer im Barockzeitalter. Niederösterreich und Krain im Vergleich,” in Kriegführung und Staatsfinanzen. Die Habsburgermonarchie und das Heilige Römische Reich vom Dreißigjährigen Krieg bis zum Ende des habsburgischen Kaisertums 1740, ed. Rauscher, Peter (Münster: Aschendorff, 2010), 313–54Google Scholar. The best introduction to Estates' reform in the later eighteenth century remains Scott, H. M., “Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1740–1790,” in Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe, ed. Scott, H. M. (Houndmills, Basingstoke, and London: Macmillan, 1990), 145–87Google Scholar, especially 153–60. See also Klingenstein, Grete, “Skizze zur Geschichte der erbländischen Stände im aufgeklärten Absolutismus der Habsburger (etwa 1740 bis 1790),” in Ständetum und Staatsbildung in Brandenburg-Preussen, ed. Baumgart, Peter, Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin, vol. 55 (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1983), 373–80Google Scholar. Essential for any understanding of the changing structures of power in the Theresan period, including the relationship between central authority and the Estates, is Dickson, P. G. M., Finance and Government under Maria Theresia 1740–1780, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987)Google Scholar.

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11 Szíjartó, István, “The Diet: The Estates and the Parliament of Hungary, 1708–1792,” in Bündnispartner und Konkurrenten der Landesfürsten? Die Stände in der Habsburgermonarchie, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, ed. Ammerer, Gerhard, Godsey, William D., Scheutz, Martin, Urbanitsch, Peter, and Weiß, Alfred Stefan, vol. 49 (Vienna and Munich: Oldenbourg, 2007), 151–71Google Scholar, here 157. Cf. Király, Béla K., Hungary in the Late Eighteenth Century: The Decline of Enlightened Despotism (New York and London: Columbia, 1969), 82–87Google Scholar.

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13 Beales, Joseph II. Recent surveys of the biographical literature on Joseph are Scott, Hamish, “A Habsburg Emperor for the Next Century,” The Historical Journal 53 (2010): 197–216Google Scholar; and Szabo, Franz A. J., “Changing Perspectives on the ‘Revolutionary Emperor’: Joseph II Biographies since 1790,” Journal of Modern History 83 (2011): 111–38Google Scholar.

14 A sample: Maaß, Ferdinand, ed., Der Josephinismus. Quellen zu seiner Geschichte in Österreich, 1760–1790, 3 vols., Fontes rerum Austriacarum, part 2, Diplomataria et acta, vols. 71–73 (Vienna: Herold, 1951–56)Google Scholar; Wright, William E., Serf, Seigneur, and Sovereign: Agrarian Reform in Eighteenth-Century Bohemia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Kovács, Elisabeth, ed., Katholische Aufklärung und Josephinismus (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1979)Google Scholar; Österreich zur Zeit Kaiser Josephs II. Mitregent Kaiserin Maria Theresias, Kaiser und Landesfürst (Vienna: Amt der Niederösterreichischen Landesregierung, 1980)Google Scholar; Plaschka, Richard Georg and Klingenstein, Grete, eds., Österreich im Europa der Aufklärung. Kontinuität und Zäsur in Europa zur Zeit Maria Theresias und Josephs II., 2 vols. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1985)Google Scholar; Karniel, Josef, Die Toleranzpolitik Kaiser Josephs II. (Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1986)Google Scholar; Klueting, Harm, ed., Der Josephinismus. Ausgewählte Quellen zur Geschichte der theresianisch-josephinischen Reformen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995)Google Scholar.

15 A more recent expression of the classical teleology of Austrian state building is Ogris, Werner, “The Habsburg Monarchy in the Eighteenth Century: The Birth of the Modern Centralized State,” in Legislation and Justice, The Origins of the Modern State in Europe 13th to 18th Centuries, ed. Padoa-Schioppa, Antonio, vol. C (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 313–34Google Scholar. A helpful, if unfortunately little-noticed critique of the old view is Scott, Hamish Marshall, “The Problem of Government in Habsburg Enlightened Absolutism,” in Europa im Zeitalter Mozarts, ed. Csáky, Moritz and Pass, Walter (Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar: Böhlau, 1995), 252–64Google Scholar. Still indispensable works of the older genre include Friedrich Walter, Die österreichische Zentralverwaltung, part II: Von der Vereinigung der österreichischen und böhmischen Hofkanzlei bis zur Einrichtung der Ministerialverfassung (1749–1848), vol. 1.2: Die Geschichte der österreichischen Zentralverwaltung 1780–1848, part 1: Die Zeit Josephs II. und Leopolds II. (1780–1792), Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, vol. 35 (Vienna: Holzhausen, 1950). This work is cited hereinafter as Walter, ÖZV, II/1.2/1. Beidtel, Ignaz, Geschichte der österreichischen Staatsverwaltung 1740–1848, 2 vols. (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1896)Google Scholar; and von Hock, Carl Freiherr and Bidermann, Hermann Ignaz, Der österreichische Staatsrath (1760–1848). Eine geschichtliche Studie (Vienna: Braumüller, 1879), 99–628Google Scholar. Only one scholar has suggested that the subject of the Estates under Joseph II was worthy of further study: Dickson, P. G. M., “Monarchy and Bureaucracy in Late Eighteenth-Century Austria,” The English Historical Review CX (1995): 323–67Google Scholar, here 329, note 6.

16 Though anachronistic because territories that did not belong to the present Austrian republic were excluded, the best general overviews of the Estates remain the articles by Hassinger, Herbert, “Die Landstände der österreichischen Länder. Zusammensetzung, Organisation und Leistung im 16.-18. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch für Landeskunde Niederösterreich, new series XXXVI, vol. 1 (1964): 989–1035Google Scholar; and Hassinger, Herbert, “Ständische Vertretungen in den althabsburgischen Ländern und in Salzburg,” in Ständische Vertretungen in Europa im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Gerhard, Dietrich, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte, vol. 27 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969), 247–85Google Scholar. See also Ammerer et al., eds., Bündnispartner und Konkurrenten. A still useful study devoted to the Estates of one territory in the reform period is Ilwof, Franz, “Der ständische Landtag des Herzogtums Steiermark unter Maria Theresia und ihren Söhnen,” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 104 (1915): 121–96Google Scholar. On the Lower Austrian Estates, see the short general survey by Petrin, Silvia, Die Stände des Landes Niederösterreich (St. Pölten and Vienna: Verlag Niederösterreichiches Pressehaus, 1982)Google Scholar.

17 On this point, see Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 623–24.

18 Brauneder, Wilhelm, Österreichische Verfassungsgeschichte, 4th rev. ed. (Vienna: Manz, 1987), 98Google Scholar; Dickson, “Monarchy and Bureaucracy,” 328. Brauneder provided no supporting evidence for his assertion. Dickson cited the printed articles of the Bohemian diet, though none exist for that of October 1789.

19 In the English-speaking world, the debate has largely concerned ancien régime France. A sample of the large literature includes Beik, William, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Rowlands, Guy, The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV: Royal Service and Private Interest, 1661–1701 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Swann, Julian, Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy: The Estates General of Burgundy, 1661–1790 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Beik, William, “The Absolutism of Louis XIV as Social Collaboration,” Past and Present 188 (2005): 195–224Google Scholar; Collins, James B., The State in Early Modern France, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; and Dee, Darryl, Expansion and Crisis in Louis XIV's France: Franche-Comté and Absolute Monarchy, 1674–1715 (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

20 Godsey, William D., “Herrschaft und politische Kultur im Habsburgerreich. Die niederösterreichische Erbhuldigung (ca. 1648–1848),” in Aufbrüche in die Moderne. Frühparlamentarismus zwischen altständischer Ordnung und monarchischem Konstitutionalismus 1750–1850, ed. Gehrke, Roland, Neue Forschungen zur schlesischen Geschichte, vol. 12 (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2005), 141–77Google Scholar, here 152.

21 Aulic decree to the Lower Austrian “three upper Estates,” May 7, 1764, NÖLA, Ständische Bücher (StB), 582.

22 On the general background, see Dickson, Finance and Government, 2, 46–49. For a superb synthesis of the impact of the Seven Years' War on government across Europe, see Scott, Hamish, “The Seven Years' War and Europe's Ancien Régime,” War in History 18 (2011): 419–55Google Scholar. For the irregularly increasing strength of the Habsburg standing army in the later eighteenth century, see Hochedlinger, Michael, Austria's Wars of Emergence: War, State, and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy 1683–1797 (Harlow and London: Longman, 2003), 300Google Scholar.

23 Klingenstein, Grete, Faber, Eva, and Trampus, Antonio, eds., Europäische Aufklärung zwischen Wien und Triest. Die Tagebücher des Gouverneurs Karl Graf Zinzendorf 1776–1782, 4 vols., Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, vol. 103/vols. 1–4 (Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar: Böhlau, 2009), vol. 2 (second pagination), 144–45Google Scholar for Feb. 24, 1778, on the burden of taxation on the poor and 158 for March 14, 1778, on “military government.” This work will be cited hereinafter as Zinzendorf, Tagebücher. Cf. Dickson, Finance and Government, vol. 2, 139 and 141.

24 Repeated Estates' assemblies were convoked to deal with requests by the government for provisions, credit, and extra taxes. Minutes of the Lower Austrian “three upper Estates,” March 13 and 26, April 24, May 27, July 3, and Sept. 7, 1778, NÖLA, StB, 97, f. 35–49.

25 Aulic decrees, Nov. 6, 1779, and Dec. 22, 1779, NÖLA, StB, 395, f. 1.

26 Zinzendorf, Tagebücher, vol. 3, 830 (March 2 and 3, 1781) and 833 (March 9, 1781).

27 Aulic decree, Feb. 22, 1781, NÖLA, StB, 395, f. 78v-79r.

28 Beales, Derek, Prosperity and Plunder: European Catholic Monasteries in the Age of Revolution, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 192–204Google Scholar. See also Dickson, P. G. M., “Joseph II's Reshaping of the Austrian Church,” The Historical Journal 36 (1993): 89–114Google Scholar; and for Lower Austria specifically, Winner, Gerhard, Die Klosteraufhebungen in Niederösterreich und Wien (Vienna and Munich: Herold, 1967)Google Scholar.

29 In addition to the three Carthusian prelates, they included the Augustinian provosts of St. Pölten, St. Dorothea, St. Andrä on the Traisen, and Dürnstein; the Cistercian abbot of Säusenstein; the Benedictine abbots of Kleinmariazell and Montserrat, the Premonstratensian abbot of Pernegg; and the provost of the collegiate church of Ardagger. The latter is not included on the list found in Stradal, Helmuth, “Die Prälatenkurie der österreichischen Landstände,” Anciens Pays et assemblées d'états 53 (1970): 119–80Google Scholar, here 149–50. For the suppression of Ardagger in 1784, see Aigner, Thomas, ed., Kollegiatstift Ardagger. Beiträge zu Geschichte und Kunstgeschichte, Beiträge zur Kirchengeschichte Niederösterreichs, vol. 3 (St. Pölten: Diözesanarchiv, 1999)Google Scholar. Regularly elected Lower Austrian prelates under Joseph were the provosts of Herzogenburg (1781) and Klosterneuburg (1782) and the abbot of Göttweig (1784). Röhrig, Floridus, ed., Die bestehenden Stifte der Augustiner-Chorherren in Österreich, Südtirol and Polen, Österreichisches Chorherrenbuch. Die Klöster der Augustiner-Chorherren in der ehemaligen Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie (Klosterneuburg and Vienna: Mayer, 1997)Google Scholar, 52 and 186. Brunner, Sebastian, Ein Benediktinerbuch. Geschichte und Beschreibung der bestehenden und Anführung der aufgehobenen Benediktinerstifte in Österreich-Ungarn, Deutschland und der Schweiz (Würzburg: Woerl, 1880), 145Google Scholar.

30 The last meeting recorded for Joseph's reign took place on Oct. 20, 1784. NÖLA, Prälatenstandsarchiv (PA), Handschrift 4.

31 Stradal, “Die Prälatenkurie,” 143–44.

32 All four turned up for the first recorded meeting of the Estate of prelates (May 14, 1790) after Joseph's death. NÖLA, PA, Handschrift 5.

33 Stradal, “Die Prälatenkurie,” 143.

34 Minutes of the Carinthian diet, Sept. 6, 1788, Nov. 24, 1788, and Dec. 14, 1789, Kärntner Landesarchiv, Klagenfurt (KLA), (Ständisches Archiv) StA, Handschrift 243, f. 68–69, 80–83, and 88–91.

35 Figures taken from Dimitz, August, Geschichte Krains von der ältesten Zeit bis auf das Jahr 1813, part 4 (Laibach: Kleinmayr & Bamberg, 1876), 214Google Scholar. See also Milkowicz, Wladimir, “Die Klöster in Krain. Studien zur österreichischen Monasteriologie,” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 74 (1889): 261–486Google Scholar, here 454–63.

36 Minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 25, 1780, Oct. 21, 1782, and Oct. 20, 1783, Moravský zemský archiv, Brno (MZA), A3, 38. Minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 17, 1787, MZA, A4, 51, folder 1788, f. 46r. Minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 26, 1789, MZA, A4, 52, folder 1790, f. 4. For the composition of the Moravian Estate of prelates in the early nineteenth century, see d'Elvert, Christian Ritter, Die Desiderien der Mährischen Stände vom Jahre 1790 und ihre Folgen (Brünn: Rohrer, 1864), 218Google Scholar.

37 Minutes of the Lower Austrian diet, Oct. 16, 1786, Oct. 16, 1787, Oct. 20, 1788, and Oct. 26, 1789, NÖLA, StB, 279, pp. 14, 16, 19, and 21.

38 The abbot of Sittich in Laibach: minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, Sept. 6, 1786, and Jan. 24, 1788, Archiv Republike Slovenije, Ljubljana (ARS), Deželni stanovi za Kranjsko (DSK), Reg. II, 61. The abbot of Montserrat in Vienna: minutes of the Lower Austrian diet, Oct. 20, 1788, and Oct. 26, 1789, NÖLA, StB, 279, pp. 19 and 21. The prelate of Doxan in Prague: minutes of the Bohemian diet, June 20, 1789, Národní archiv (NA) Prague, Český zemský sněm, vol. 1.

39 Stauber, Franz X., Historische Ephemeriden über die Wirksamkeit der Stände von Österreich ob der Enns (Linz: Fink, 1884), 169Google Scholar. Stradal, “Die Prälatenkurie,” 146.

40 References to the relevant aulic decree (of Feb. 21, 1788) found in the minutes of the Carinthian diet, Sept. 6, 1788, KLA, StA, Handschrift 243, f. 76v-77r, and the minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee (point of business no. 196), April 5, 1788, ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 61. Cf. Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 440. The Handbuch aller unter der Regierung des Kaisers Joseph des II für die K.K. Erbländer ergangenen Verordnungen und Gesetze, vol. 13 (Vienna: Moesle, 1789), 224Google Scholar, contains a decree from 1787 published in Inner Austria and Bohemia that foresees attendance by the commendatory abbots.

41 In the later 1780s, the only two prelates on the committee of the Carniolan Estates were the Laibach cathedral canons Count Seifried Gallenberg and Count Seifried Auersperg. Minutes of the Carniolan diet and Estates' committee, 1789–90, ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 62.

42 Beales, Prosperity and Plunder, 209.

43 Frank, Gustav, Die Toleranz-Patent Kaiser Josephs II. Urkundliche Geschichte seiner Entstehung und seiner Folgen (Vienna: k.k. evang. Oberkirchenrat, 1881), 40Google Scholar. For the circumstances surrounding the promulgation of the legislation in Lower Austria, see Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 188.

44 Gindely, Anton, Die Entwicklung des böhmischen Adels und der Inkolatsverhältnisse seit dem 16. Jahrhunderte, Abhandlungen der k. böhm. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, series VII, vol. 1 (Prague: Gregr, 1886), 32Google Scholar.

45 Peper, Ines, Konversionen im Umkreis des Wiener Hofes um 1700, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, vol. 55 (Vienna: Böhlau; Munich: Oldenbourg, 2010), 52–54Google Scholar.

46 The lively memory of Ferdinand II's confessional absolutism among late eighteenth-century descendants of the barely tolerated Lower Austrian Protestant nobility is evident in Karl Zinzendorf's reference to that ruler as a gran[d] tyran. He also noted that the Auerspergs were the last Protestant holdouts there. Zinzendorf, Tagebücher, vol. 3, 818 (Feb. 9, 1781) and 827 (Feb. 25, 1781).

47 Minutes of the Lower Austrian Estate of knights, Jan. 22, 1784, NÖLA, RA, Handschrift 17. See also Godsey, William D., “Adelsautonomie, Konfession und Nation im österreichischen Absolutismus,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 33 (2006): 197–239Google Scholar, here 221–22. For Franz Georg von Keeß, see von Maasburg, M. Friedrich, Geschichte der obersten Justizstelle in Wien (1749–1848) (Prague: Bellmann, 1891), 156–61Google Scholar.

48 Godsey, “Adelsautonomie,” 222.

49 Lind, Christoph, “Juden in den habsburgischen Ländern, 1670–1848,” in Geschichte der Juden in Österreich, ed. Brugger, Eveline et al. (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2006), 339–446Google Scholar, here 394–97; Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 203–13.

50 Godsey, William D., “Nation, Government, and ‘Anti-Semitism’ in Early Nineteenth-Century Austria,” The Historical Journal 51 (2008): 49–85Google Scholar, here 67–68.

51 Godsey, “Adelsautonomie,” 211–12.

52 Quotation from remarks made by the Estates' presiding officer, the well-known Freemason Count Christoph Leopold Schallenberg, in an assembly of the “three upper Estates,” July 31, 1790, NÖLA, StB, 280, p. 90.

53 For example, Joseph Friedrich von Tomasoni (1782), Baron Sigmund Lützow (1786), Andreas Gottlieb von Thom (1789). See von Frank, Karl Friedrich, Standeserhebungen und Gnadenakte für das Deutsche Reich und die österreichischen Erblande bis 1806 sowie kaiserlich österreichische bis 1823, 5 vols. (Schloss Senftenegg, 1967–74)Google Scholar, vol. 3, 167; vol. 5, 105 and 115.

54 The admission of Prince Franz Sułkowski to the Lower Austrian Estate of lords occurred after consideration of the application by a poorly attended committee of the consortium rather than its plenum, as had been usual. Minutes of Lower Austrian Estate of lords, July 30, 1784, NÖLA, Herrenstandsarchiv (HA), Herrenstandsbücher (HB), 3, pp. 137–39. Historically unusual, too, was that an application for admission to the Carniolan Estates landed first on the desk of the Inner Austrian governor, who forwarded it to Laibach for the diet's consideration with the remark that he himself had no objections (letter dated Dec. 2, 1789). ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 16, folder 12. That the governor signed the diplomas issued to new members was also a novelty.

55 On this point, see Dickson, “Monarchy and Bureaucracy,” 327–28.

56 Walter, ÖZV, II/1.2/1, 12–15; Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 115.

57 Dickson, “Monarchy and Bureaucracy,” 329, has drawn attention to this.

58 This information is drawn from a comparison of the information in the respective volumes of the Hof- und Staats-Schematismus (Vienna: Gerold, 1781 and 1789)Google Scholar. Dickson, “Monarchy and Bureaucracy,” 329, gives a slightly different account.

59 Dickson, “Monarchy and Bureaucracy,” 329.

60 For Moravia, see Hof- und Staats-Schematismus for 1781, 474; for Tyrol, see Köfler, Werner, Land, Landschaft, Landtag. Geschichte der Tiroler Landtage von den Anfängen bis zur Aufhebung der landständischen Verfassung 1808 (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1985)Google Scholar, 512; for Further Austria, see Quarthal, Franz, Wieland, Georg, and Dürr, Birgit, Die Behördenorganisation Vorderösterreichs von 1753 bis 1805 und die Beamten in Verwaltung, Justiz und Unterrichtswesen, Veröffentlichung des Alemannischen Instituts Freiburg im Breisgau, no. 43 (Bühl in Baden: Konkordia, 1977), 73–75Google Scholar; for Styria, Ilwof, “Der ständische Landtag,” 166–68. Also Szabo, Franz A. J., Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism 1753–1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 95Google Scholar.

61 That several territories would no longer have a proper representative of monarchical power in residence was pointed up by the Aulic Chancellery. Mueller, Christine L., The Styrian Estates, 1740–1848: A Century in Transition (New York: Garland, 1987), 77Google Scholar. The leading provincial judges (Oberste Landrichter) were to function as royal commissioners to assemblies of the Estates. Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 113. This provision did not always correspond to actual practice later in the reign.

62 Minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, 1786–88, ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 61.

63 Minutes of the Carinthian Estates' committee, 1789, KLA, StA, Handschrift 250.

64 In 1783, the senior lord (Count Zeno Montecuccoli) rather than the Landmarschall presided over most meetings of the Estates' directorial committee (Verordnetenkollegium). NÖLA, StB, 241.

65 [Starzer, Albert], Beiträge zur Geschichte der niederösterreichischen Statthalterei. Die Landeschefs und Räthe dieser Behörde von 1501 bis 1896 (Vienna: k.k. niederösterreichische Statthalterei), 343Google Scholar. In his publications, Paul P. Bernard confused Pergen's Lower Austrian titles: Bernard, Paul P., “Von der Aufklärung zum Polizeistaat. Der Weg des Grafen Johann Anton Pergen,” in Stände und Gesellschaft im alten Reich, ed. Schmidt, Georg, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz, Abteilung Universalgeschichte, Beiheft 29 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1989), 187–97Google Scholar, here 193–94; and Bernard, Paul P., From the Enlightenment to the Police State: The Public Life of Johann Anton Pergen (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 116Google Scholar. Both titles typically appear in the official correspondence.

66 Evans, R. J. W., “State and Society in Early Modern Austria,” in Ingrao, Charles W., ed., State and Society in Early Modern Austria (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1994), 1–23Google Scholar, here 11; Evans, R. J. W., Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs: Essays on Central Europe, c. 1683–1867 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 92–93Google Scholar. For Pergen's background, see Godsey, William D., “Der Aufstieg des Hauses Pergen. Zu Familie und Bildungsweg des ‘Polizeiministers’ Johann Anton,” in Adel im “langen” 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Haug-Moritz, Gabriele et al. , Zentraleuropa-Studien, vol. 14 (Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 141–66Google Scholar.

67 For example, Bernard, From the Enlightenment to the Police State, 115. Also Ilwof, “Der ständische Landtag,” 173.

68 Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 338–39.

69 For a useful, if assuredly too simplified overview (in table form) of the judicial system under Joseph, see Domin-Petrushevecz, Alphons von, Neuere österreichische Rechtsgeschichte (Vienna: Manz, 1869), 193–96Google Scholar.

70 Aulic decree to Pergen, April 29, 1782, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, Ständische Verfassung (StV), 1, folder 1. Also Adler, Sigmund, Das adelige Landrecht in Nieder- u. Oberösterreich und die Gerichtsreformen des XVIII. Jahrhunderts (Vienna and Leipzig: Fromme, 1912), 52–53Google Scholar.

71 Hof- und Staats-Schematismus for 1789.

72 See Adler, Das adelige Landrecht, 50–51 and 53–54. Also Domin-Petrushevecz, Neuere österreichische Rechtsgeschichte, 94–95. Joseph abolished the requirement that assessors belong to the Estates, but whether he actually made noncorporate appointments is uncertain.

73 Adler, Das adelige Landrecht, 54; Domin-Petrushevecz, Neuere österreichische Rechtsgeschichte, 169–73.

74 Joseph's rejection of one such protest was transmitted by Grand Chancellor Kolowrat to Pergen, Feb. 4, 1788, NÖLA, StB, 595, no. 24.

75 Exceptions were the permanent committees in Bohemia (created in 1714), Tyrol (1721/1774), Silesia (1743), and the Further Austrian territories (under Maria Theresa). Some of these institutions had predecessor bodies. Mat'a, “Landstände und Landtage,” 395–96; Köfler, Land, Landschaft, Landtag, 235 and 529; d'Elvert, Christian, Die Verfassung und Verwaltung von Oesterreichisch-Schlesien, Schriften der historisch-statistischen Sektion der k.k. mähr. schles. Gesellschaft des Ackerbaues, der Natur- und Landeskunde, no. VII (Brünn: Rohrer, 1854), 203Google Scholar. Quarthal et al., Die Behördenorganisation, 72–75.

76 Dickson, Finance and Government, vol. 1, 304; Quarthal et al., Die Behördenorganisation, 72; Berthold, Karl, Schlesiens Landesvertretung und Landeshaushalt von ihren Anfängen bis zur neuesten Zeit, 3 vols. (Troppau: Schlesischer Landesausschuß, 1909), vol. 1, 19–24Google Scholar. For the late Theresan reform of the Bohemian committee, see Flieder, Robert, “Zemský výbor v království Českém: Jeho organisace v letech 1714–83,” Zprávy zemského archivu království Českého V (1918): 39–190Google Scholar, here 91–96. I am grateful to Anna Schirlbauer (Vienna) for Czech-language help.

77 Quotations from Lower Austrian Estates' directorial committee to the United Offices, draft, Nov. 4, 1790, NÖLA, StReg 1785–92, StV, 3. Cf. Walter, Friedrich, Österreichische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte von 1500–1955, ed. Wandruszka, Adam, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, vol. 59 (Vienna, Cologne, and Graz: Böhlau, 1972), 109Google Scholar; Blanning, T. C. W., Joseph II and Enlightened Despotism (London: Longman, 1970), 46–47Google Scholar.

78 Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 116. von Ebengreuth, Arnold Luschin, Grundriss der österreichischen Rechtsgeschichte (Bamberg: Buchner, 1899), 324Google Scholar, dated the reform to 1782, a year often cited subsequently. Walter, ÖZV, II/1.2/1, 15; Hassinger, “Die Landstände der österreichischen Länder,” 1035; Dickson, “Monarchy and Bureaucracy,” 329.

79 For Galicia, see Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 167 and 171; for Silesia, d'Elvert, Die Verfassung und Verwaltung, 203–04; and for Breisgau, Hof- und Staats-Schematismus for 1789, 480.

80 A register of business of the Styrian directorial committee has survived for 1782; see Ilwof, “Der ständische Landtag,” 174, note 1. A register of the Carniolan committee is extant for the period 1760 to 1782 (ARS, DSK, Reg. I, 926). Wutte, Martin, “Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgeschichte Kärntens,” Carinthia I 131 (1941): 86–120Google Scholar, here 118–119, dates the end of the Carinthian committee to 1782. The older articles by Robert Flieder on the Bohemian and Moravian directorial committees (Landesausschüße) suggested that both ceased to exist in 1783: Flieder, “Zemský výbor v království Českém”; and Flieder, Robert, “Zemský výbor stavovský na Moravĕ,” Sborník věd právních a státních XVI (1916): 136–57Google Scholar. Beidtel, Geschichte, vol. 1, 305, and d'Elvert, Christian Ritter, Zur Oesterreichischen Finanz-Geschichte mit besonderer Berücksichtigung auf die böhmischen Länder (Brünn: Winiker, 1881), 637Google Scholar, both report that the Moravian committee disappeared in 1784, and this is supported by the archival evidence (minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 20, 1784, MZA, A4, 50, folder 1785). Monthly records of the Bohemian directorial committee have survived through June 1784: NA, Zemský výbor, 584. Stauber, Historische Ephemeriden, 96, and Putschögl, Gerhard, Die landständische Behördenorganisation in Österreich ob der Enns vom Anfang des 16. bis zur Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Forschungen zur Geschichte Oberösterreichs, vol. 14 (Linz: Oberösterreichisches Landesarchiv, 1978), 58Google Scholar, both refer to 1783 for Upper Austria.

81 Hock und Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 173–74; Köfler, Land, Landschaft, Landtag, 530; and Levy, Miriam J., Governance and Grievance: Habsburg Policy and Italian Tyrol in the Eighteenth Century (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1988), 49Google Scholar.

82 Haselsteiner, Horst, Joseph II. und die Komitate Ungarns. Herrscherrecht und ständischer Konstitutionalismus, Veröffentlichungen des österreichischen Ost- und Südosteuropa-Instituts, vol. XI (Vienna, Cologne, and Graz: Böhlau, 1983)Google Scholar; Szántay, Antal, Regionalpolitik im alten Europa. Die Verwaltungsreformen Joseph II. in Ungarn, in der Lombardei und in den österreichischen Niederlanden (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2005), 102–03Google Scholar.

83 Aulic decree, April 7, 1782, NÖLA, StB, 589, f. 160v-163r.

84 [Starzer], Beiträge, 103–04, gives a slightly different figure.

85 Lower Austrian college of delegates to Joseph II, summary, Feb. 7, 1782, NÖLA, StB, 519, f. 36r. Each of the Inner Austrian duchies was conceded one prelate in the commission there. Excerpt of the aulic rescript to the Inner Austrian governor from Oct. 31, 1782 (attached to the aulic decree to the president of the Lower Austrian government, July 24, 1783), NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

86 Later evidence mentions only Montserrat as a member of the commission. Pergen to Joseph II, draft, Aug. 5, 1783, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

87 The prerequisites of office remained unknown as late as 1787—a matter about which some lords protested. Minutes of Lower Austrian Estate of lords, Aug. 1, 1787, NÖLA, HA, HB, 3, pp. 173–78. The vetting process was not confined to Lower Austria. Cf. Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 167–68. For educational requirements and state service, see Heindl, Waltraud, Gehorsame Rebellen. Bürokratie und Beamte in Österreich 1780 bis 1848, Studien zu Politik und Verwaltung, vol. 36 (Vienna, Cologne, and Graz: Böhlau, 1991), 99–100Google Scholar.

88 This is apparent not only in the report by the Lower Austrian government to Joseph II, draft, Feb. 4, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1, but also in the surviving correspondence (e.g., the aulic decree of Jan. 29, 1784, and the rescript to Count Friedrich August Zinzendorf, Feb. 5, 1784, both in NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, 26. A register of the committee's business exists through the end of 1783; NÖLA, StB, 241.

89 [Starzer], Beiträge, 77–82. Also Walter, ÖZV, II/1.2/1, 15.

90 Pergen to Joseph II, draft, Aug. 5, 1783, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1 folder 1.

91 This was a view shared by members of the Council of State. See Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 116.

92 Aulic decree to Count Pergen, Jan. 15, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1. For operations in Styria, see Ilwolf, “Der ständische Landtag,” 173–74.

93 The lord was Count Anton Hartig, the knight Anton Joseph von Mayenberg. They were succeeded, respectively, by Count Anton Hoyos (1787) and Johann Joseph von Stiebar (1788). Minutes of the Lower Austrian Estate of lords, Aug. 1, 1787, NÖLA, HA, HB, 3, pp. 173–78; and minutes of Lower Austrian Estate of knights, July 14, 1788, NÖLA, RA, Handschrift 18, pp. 79–111. Some authorities have erroneously reported, evidently on the basis of the practice in the Bohemian lands, that the “delegates” in all territories were lords. For example, Luschin, Grundriss, 324.

94 Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 165. For previous efforts to make precedence dependent on seniority rather than social rank, see Walter, ÖZV, II/1.2/1, 51–52; and [Starzer], Beiträge, 104.

95 Pergen to Joseph II, draft, Aug. 5, 1783, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1.

96 Aulic decree to Lower Austrian provincial government, Feb. 9, 1789, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 2. Preinfalk, Miha, Auersperg. Geschichte einer europäischen Familie, ed. Bruckmüller, Ernst, trans. Bruckmüller-Vilfan, Irena (Graz and Stuttgart: Stocker, 2006), 386–88Google Scholar. Auersperg's conversion is documented in a report by the Lower Austrian Estates' college of delegates to Empress Maria Theresa, April 11, 1771, NÖLA, Ständische Akten, A-1, no. 16, f. 233–36.

97 At the end of Joseph's reign, these delegates were Count Ferdinand Attems (Styria), Baron Ludwig Rechbach (Carinthia), and Count Johann Nepomuk Edling (Carniola). For Attems, see Ilwof, Franz, Die Grafen von Attems Freiherren von Heiligenkreuz in ihren Wirken in und für Steiermark, Forschungen zur Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte der Steiermark, vol. 2 (Graz: Styria, 1897), 24–136Google Scholar, esp. 35. For Rechbach, see minutes of the Carinthian Estates' committee, Dec. 14, 1789, KLA, StA, Handschrift 250, f. 313; for Edling, see minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, Jan. 2, 1790, ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 62. The number of delegates of the Gorizian Estates attached to the Gubernium in Trieste was likewise reduced from two to one. von Czoernig, Carl Freiherr, Das Land Görz und Gradisca (Vienna: Baumüller, 1873), 761Google Scholar.

98 Stauber, Historische Ephemeriden, 96.

99 Aulic decree to Landeshauptmann Count Christoph Blümegen, Feb. 27, 1782, MZA, A8, 45, f. 116.

100 In Bohemia and Moravia, the officeholder equivalent to “delegate” in the Austrian duchies was known as “representative.” The incumbents in Moravia in 1787 were Barons Roden and Locella. The latter was succeeded the same year by Baron Friedenthal. Minutes of the Moravian diet, May 26, 1787, MZA, A4, 51, folder 1787, f. 2v, 6v, and 9r. The election of a knight was possible, at least in Bohemia. See Toman, Hugo, Das böhmische Staatsrecht und die Entwicklung der österreichischen Reichsidee vom Jahre 1527 bis 1848 (Prague: Calve, 1872), 160Google Scholar. In 1788, the Bohemian “representatives” were Baron MacNeven and Count Cavriani, whose names appear in the aulic decree of Sept. 25, 1788, NA, České gubernium, Dvorské dekrety a reskripty, i, č. 188, 540.

101 The aulic decree of April 4, 1784, laid down May 1 of the same year as the effective date. The council's first session occurred on May 7, as the surviving minutes show. Both the decree and minutes are in NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1. Most sources suggest that the system began operating in 1782: Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 117; [Starzer], Beiträge, 76 and 103; Graf v. Barth-Barthenheim, Johann Ludwig Ehrenreich, Das Ganze der österreichischen politischen Administration, mit vorzüglicher Rücksicht auf das Erzherzogthum Oesterreich unter der Enns, 4 vols. (Vienna: Mösle, 1838–43), vol. 1, 211Google Scholar; and Gutkas, Karl, Geschichte des Landes Niederösterreich, 5th rev. ed. (St. Pölten: Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus, 1974), 326Google Scholar. Bibl, Victor, Die Restauration der Niederösterr. Landesverfassung unter K. Leopold II. (Innsbruck: Wagner, 1902), 10Google Scholar, correctly reported 1784.

102 Aulic decree to Count Pergen, Jan. 15, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

103 Aulic resolution of Sept. 9, 1784, recorded on the report of the Lower Austrian government dated Aug. 24, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1. Separately bound registers of aulic decrees relative to the Estates' affairs have survived for the period May 1784 through June 1790. NÖLA, StB, 591–597.

104 Luschin, Grundriss, 324. For example in Putschögl, Die landständische Behördenorganisation, 58.

105 Aulic decree to Count Pergen, Jan. 15, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

106 Reference to the relevant aulic decree of Jan. 18, 1784, which provided for amalgamation with the Estates' receivership general, in the minutes of the Lower Austrian Estate of lords, April 27, 1784, NÖLA, HA, HB, 3, p. 133. For a similar provision in Upper Austria, see Stauber, Historische Ephemeriden, 191.

107 This is apparent from §7 of Pergen's report to Joseph II, draft, Feb. 4, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

108 Correspondence by Rohrwürth in his official capacity in found in NÖLA, StReg, 6 (“Creditswesen” 1782–1789). Aulic decree, Jan. 24, 1789, NÖLA, StB, 596. This decree concerns a transfer of funds from the Estates' receivership general to the War Payments Office (Kriegszahlamt).

109 See the patents for regular direct taxation of Nov. 4, 1785, Nov. 1, 1787, and Nov. 1, 1788, NÖLA, Verordnetenpatente, 22. A special tax levied during the Austro-Russian-Turkish war was regulated by the patent of Nov. 13, 1788, NÖLA, Kaiserliche Patente, 47a.

110 This dispute was mentioned in Walter, ÖZV, II/1.2/1, 49–50. For the separate departments, see also Bibl, Die Restauration, 10.

111 The conflict about the appointment of a bookkeeper and reference to the tax receivers are documented in the minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 17, 1787, and Aug. 29, 1788, MZA, A4, 51, folder 1788, f. 6v, 8r, 9r, 47v, and 49v. For the disbursement treasury, see the minutes of the Moravian diet, March 3, 1789, MZA, A4, 52, folder 1789, f. 160r.

112 In Inner Austria and Tyrol, the receivers general bore the title Generaleinnehmer rather than Obereinnehmer, the appellation usual in Lower Austria. For Tyrol, see the list of receivers general printed in Köfler, Land, Landschaft, Landtag, 522. In Carniola, the post appears to have been held for much of Joseph's reign by Count Johann Nepomuk Auersperg; see the minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, 1786, ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 61. The election of Count Johann Polycarp Christalnigg as Carinthian receiver general occurred at the diet of November 3, 1785; see KLA, StA, Handschrift 243, f. 37v-38r. A register of the Carinthian receivership's business (“protocollum expeditorum”) for the period 1786–90 has survived in KLA, StA, Handschrift 618. Mell, Anton, Grundriß der Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte des Landes Steiermark (Graz, Vienna, and Leipzig: Leuschner & Lubensky, 1929), 633Google Scholar, improbably reports that Joseph II abolished the Styrian receivership general.

113 The extract of the rescript to the Upper Austrian Landeshauptmann from July 21, 1783 (attached to the aulic decree to Landmarschall Pergen, July 24, 1783) in NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1. For the Upper Austrian committee, see Stauber, Historische Ephemeriden, 159. A request by the Bohemian Estates in 1785 to revive an older ad hoc body known as the “extended committee” (verstärkter Ausschuss) was denied by the government. Flieder, “Zemský výbor v království Českém,” 97.

114 Quotations from Pergen's report to Joseph II, draft, Aug. 5, 1783, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

115 This occurred in two ways. First, a surviving member of the old pre-1764 committee (Count Adam Traun) became a member of the new body on the basis of the fact that the lords “still recognized him as such.” Quotation from Pergen's report to Joseph II, draft, May 3, 1784. Second, Pergen directed that the members of the committee take precedence over Estates' delegates (now attached to the provincial government) as they had “previously [done] in all assemblies.” Quotation from the Landmarschall's directive, draft, May 23, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

116 Pergen to Joseph II, draft, May 3, 1784; and aulic decree, May 6, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

117 This is provided for in the Landmarschall's directive, draft, May 23, 1784, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, StV, 1, folder 1.

118 Toman, Das böhmische Staatsrecht, 161. There is also evidence that members of the Carinthian committee were charged with the same task: minutes of the Carinthian diet, Sept. 6, 1788, KLA, StA, Handschrift 243, f. 72v-73r; minutes of the Carinthian Estates' committee (“extra consilium”), Jan. 18, 1790, KLA, StA, Handschrift 251, f. 15.

119 Minutes of the Carinthian committee 1783–90 are preserved in KLA, StA, Handschriften 244–51. Minutes of the Carinthian diet, Sept. 6, 1788, KLA, StA, Handschrift 243, f. 72v-73r (election of members). On Nov. 26, 1787, the Inner Austrian Governor Khevenhüller directed the Carniolan Estates' committee to recommend a replacement for an empty position because of the “frequent business”; ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 40, folder 50. If they have survived, records from the Estates' committees in Breisgau, Silesia, and Galicia bear investigation as well.

120 Minutes of the Carinthian Estates' committee, March 3, 1785, KLA, StA, Handschrift 246, f. 14. Litzelhofen noted on this occasion that the procedures in use in Carinthia were being extended to Styria and Carniola.

121 Minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, Feb. 1, 1787 (point of business no. 226), ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 61.

122 Minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, Aug. 25, 1786 (point of business no. 12); Jan. 24, 1787 (point of business no. 221); Feb. 28, 1787 (point of business no. 281); Jan. 9, 1788 (point of business no. 2); June 27, 1788 (point of business no. 421); ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 61.

123 For the wheat delivery, see the minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, May 13, 1788 (point of business no. 321), and July 5, 1788 (point of business no. 450), ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 61. For the issue of Estates' bonds, see the minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, Jan. 12, 1789 (point of business no. 1), and Sept. 18, 1789 (point of business no. 496), ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 62.

124 Haselsteiner, Joseph II. und die Komitate Ungarns, 109–216. Mayer, Matthew Z., “The Price for Austria's Security: Part I—Joseph II, the Russian Alliance, and the Ottoman War, 1787–1789,” International History Review XXVI, no. 2 (2004): 257–99Google Scholar, here 286–88; Mayer, Matthew Z., “The Price for Austria's Security: Part II—Leopold II, the Prussian Threat, and the Peace of Sistova, 1790–1791,” International History Review XXVI, no. 3 (2004): 473–514Google Scholar, here 478–79.

125 Governor's edict to the Carniolan Estates' committee, Graz, Dec. 6, 1787, ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 40.

126 Minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, Oct. 9, 1789 (point of business no. 526), ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 62.

127 Bosl's, KarlHandbuch der Geschichte der böhmischen Länder, 4 vols. (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1974), vol. 2, 441–42Google Scholar, has created particular confusion on this point. He reported that the Bohemian diet was not summoned between 1783 and 1789 and also assumed that the diets of Moravia and Silesia had been amalgamated in keeping with the merger of the provincial administrations. Apparently drawing on Bosl, K. Hoensch, Jörg, Geschichte Böhmens von der slavischen Landnahme bis zur Gegenwart, 3rd ed. (Munich: Beck, 1997), 282Google Scholar, passed on the error concerning the Bohemian diet. Haider, Siegfried, Geschichte Oberösterreichs (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1987)Google Scholar, wrote that Joseph II “never summoned” the Upper Austrian diet. More accurate is Stauber, Historische Ephemeriden, 83. Brauneder, Österreichische Verfassungsgeschichte, 98, and Bruckmüller, Ernst, Sozialgeschichte Österreichs (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik; Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001), 262Google Scholar, unaccountably reported that Joseph did away with the Estates. For the tax assemblies in Styria, Tyrol, and Silesia in Joseph's time, see respectively Ilwof, “Der ständische Landtag,” 173; Reinalter, Helmut, Aufklärung—Absolutismus—Reaktion. Die Geschichte Tirols in der 2. Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Vienna: Schendl, 1974), 84Google Scholar; and Berthold, Schlesiens Landesvertretung, vol. 1, 14.

128 Minutes of the Estate of knights, April 22 and Oct. 20, 1784, NÖLA, RA, Handschrift 17, pp. 242–45 and 273–75. Bibl, Die Restauration, 10, erroneously asserted that Joseph eliminated the post of Landuntermarschall, which had been reserved for a knight. In fact, Maria Theresa had already ceased making appointments to it.

129 Minutes of the Lower Austrian diet, Oct. 18 and 20, 1784; Oct. 18, 1785; Oct. 16, 1786; Oct. 16, 1787; Oct. 20, 1788; and Oct. 26, 1789; NÖLA, StB, 279, pp. 1–24 (with explicit mention of simplification of procedures on pp. 6 and 11–12).

130 Quoted in Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 347.

131 A reference to the “abbreviated” rites (von Uns begnehmigten abgekürzten Ceremonials) in Joseph's “Instruction and Directive” for the Moravian royal commissioners, Vienna, Oct. 2, 1786, MZA, A4, 51, f. 107–110. A ceremonial reform is mentioned in the minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 21, 1783, MZA, A3, no. 38.

132 Minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 20, 1788, MZA, A4, 52, folder 1789, f. 70r; minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 26, 1789, MZA, A4, 52, folder 1790, f. 5r. The assumption in Luschin, Grundriss, 326, that “the Bohemian nobility no longer spoke Czech” is not borne out by this practice.

133 Printed articles for the Moravian diets from 1781–82 through 1789–90 are preserved in MZA, A6, 20. Those of the Bohemian diet exist only for the years 1781–82 through 1788–89. Copies are found in NA, Snĕmovní artikule, carton 1771–88. The last Bohemian diet summoned by Joseph met on Oct. 26, 1789. There are no printed articles for that body, whose agreement to the postulation was revised after Joseph's successor revoked the tax and labor services reform of 1789. This is apparent from unpublished material for the articles preserved in NA, Desky zemské vehší, vol. 23, f. A28r-B7v. The first proper minutes kept by the Bohemian Estates' assembly date from 1789 but oddly do not include material on the October diet. NA, Český zemský sněm 1789–1913, vol. 1.

134 The aulic decree dated Dec. 12, 1787, for Lower Austria in NÖLA, StB, 594, no. 152.

135 Minutes of the Moravian diet, April 18, 1788, MZA, A4, 51, folder 1788, f. 36r. Minutes of the Moravian diet, Oct. 24, 1789, MZA, A4, 52, folder 1790, f. 2–3.

136 Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara, Des Kaisers alte Kleider. Verfassungsgeschichte und Symbolsprache des Alten Reiches (Munich: Beck, 2008)Google Scholar; Neu, Tim, “Rhetoric and Representation: Reassessing Territorial Diets in Early Modern Germany,” Central European History 43 (2010): 1–24Google Scholar.

137 This was somewhat paradoxical given Joseph's remarkable openness to receiving petitions. Beales, Derek, “Joseph II, Petitions, and the Public Sphere,” in Cultures of Power in Europe during the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Scott, Hamish and Simms, Brendan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 249–68Google Scholar. Near the end of Maria Theresa's reign, the Lower Austrian diet noted in its official “declaration” (Landtagserklärung) of Oct. 29, 1779, in response to that year's tax demand that its grievances in the preceding years had been ignored. NÖLA, Landtagshandlungen, 8.

138 Aulic decree, Dec. 1, 1788, NÖLA, StB, 135. An excerpt of an almost identical aulic decree also dated Dec. 1, 1788, is found in the minutes of the Moravian diet (point no. 7), Dec. 16, 1788, MZA, A4, 52, f. 65v and 63r (in this order). On the basis of this or a similar decree from Dec. 1788, both Bibl, Die Restauration, 11, and Bosl, Handbuch, vol. 2, 442, reported that Joseph forbade the assemblies to meet on their “own initiative.” No diet in the central lands had had the right to convoke itself and, as far as I can tell, none had attempted to do so.

139 On this point, see Press, Volker, “Landtage im Alten Reich und im Deutschen Bund. Voraussetzungen ständischer und konstitutioneller Entwicklungen 1750–1830,” Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte 39 (1980): 100–40Google Scholar, especially 102–09.

140 Beginning in 1782, the Galician diet met biennially through 1788. Grodziski, Stanisław, Historia ustroju społeczno politycznego Galicji 1772–1848 (Wrocław, Warsaw, Cracow, and Gdańsk: Polska Akademia Nauk, 1971), 147Google Scholar. My thanks to Miloš Řzeník (Chemnitz) for help with this reference. Macartney, C. A., The Habsburg Empire 1790–1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson), 158Google Scholar, reported that the Galician Estates “were not convoked at all after 1782 until 1817.” See the same page for his view that those Austrian diets that did meet were a “farce.”

141 Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 403.

142 Beer, Adolf, “Die Staatsschulden und die Ordnung des Staatshaushaltes unter Maria Theresia,” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 82 (1895): 1–135Google Scholar. Iwasaki, Shuichi, “Grabmal der ständischen Freiheiten? Die Steuerrezessverhandlung von 1748 in Niederösterreich und die Etablierung eines komplementären Verhältnisses von Krone und Ständen,” in Bündnispartner und Konkurrenten, ed. Ammerer et al. , 323–45Google Scholar.

143 The Estates' receivership general's accounts from these years are preserved in NÖLA, Amtsrelationen, 22. For the credit system run by the Estates of Burgundy, see Potter, Mark and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, “Politics and Public Finance in France: The Estates of Burgundy, 1660–1790,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History XXVII (1997): 577–612Google Scholar.

144 Dickson, Finance and Government, vol. 2, 378–79. I have rounded Dixon's figures.

145 Ibid., 38–39 and 131–32. The government's next largest creditor was the City Bank of Vienna.

146 Ibid., 379. Zinzendorf, Tagebücher, vol. 2 (second pagination), 182 (April 19, 1778), noted Lower Austrian Estates' debt of 15 million florins.

147 “Instruction and directive” for the royal commissioners to the Moravian diet, Vienna, Oct. 2, 1786, MZA, A4, 51, f. 107–10. For example, the Lower Austrian tax proposition for the military year 1789, Oct. 20, 1788, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, 162. The same wording in the Bohemian proposition is apparent from the Artikeln des allgemeinen Landtagsschlusses, welche auf dem k. prager Schlosse am 20ten Tage des Monats Oktober 1788 [. . .] vorgetragen, sodann von allen vier Ständen des Königreichs Böhmen beschlossen, und am 17ten Januar 1791 publiziret sind (Prague: Schönfeld, 1791), ii–iii, NA, Snĕmovní artikule, carton 1771–1788. Cf. Mueller, The Styrian Estates, 80.

148 For the financial extent of this activity, see Dickson, P. G. M., “Count Karl von Zinzendorf's ‘New Accountancy’: The Structure of Austrian Government Finance in Peace and War, 1781–1791,” The International History Review XXIX (2007): 22–56Google Scholar, here 39–40 and 55. Cf. Mayer, “The Price for Austria's Security: Part II,” 485–87. An excerpt of the aulic decree of thanks to the Lower Austrian Estates, dated Feb. 19, 1790 (the day before Joseph's death), is found in NÖLA, StReg, 6, no. 3921/1083. In view of the war, they were requested to continue their help. Such gratitude to the Carinthian Estates is also on record. Minutes of the Carinthian Estates' committee, March 11, 1790, KLA, StA, Handschrift 251, f. 59r.

149 Dickson's “structure of state debts at the close of the Seven Years' War” shows that the Hungarian and Transylvanian diets raised comparatively little credit for the central government. Of the eleven million florins (of a total debt of 285 million florins) owed to Hungarian and Transylvanian sources, nearly nine million was Hungarian cameral debt. Dickson, Finance and Government, vol. 2, 39 and 378.

150 The precariousness of the situation is apparent in the remarks in Karl Zinzendorf's diary, April 19, 1778. Zinzendorf, Tagebücher, vol. 2 (second pagination), 182.

151 Lists of bondholders seem to have survived in the Estates' archives more by chance than by design, though this is a matter in need of systematic investigation. From Joseph II's reign, an “Auszug deren jenigen Partheyen welchen die anliegende Domestical Kapitalien ohne mindesten Maasgaab viertheljährig aufgekündiget werden könnten” has been preserved in MZA, A4, 50, folder 1785, f. 135–36. The extent to which the elite in Vienna held investments in provincial bonds is another unanswered question. State Councilor Kressel, head of the Geistliche Hofkommission, is known to have used a Bohemian Estates' bond worth 2,000 florins to buy a forest. Bohemian Gubernium to Bohemian Estates' directorial committee, Prague, April 5, 1783, NA, Zemský výbor, 571, no. 15. In Bohemia at least, the holding of a diet was made publically known by printed patent. One (in Czech) from 1782 has survived in NA, Zemský výbor, 563, no. 36. A printed standard form for a Lower Austrian Estates' bond from the emission of January 1789 is found in NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, 6, folder 3, no. 1175/234.

152 Mayer, “The Price for Austria's Security: Part II,” 487.

153 Rozdolski, Roman, Die grosse Steuer- und Agrarreform Josefs II. Ein Kapitel zur österreichischen Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowa, 1961)Google Scholar; Mikoletzky, Lorenz, “Der Versuch einer Steuer- und Urbarialregulierung unter Kaiser Joseph II.,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 24 (1971): 310–46Google Scholar. Dickson, P. G. M., “Joseph II's Hungarian Land Survey,” English Historical Review CVI (1991): 611–34Google Scholar.

154 Hock and Bidermann, Der österreichische Staatsrath, 169.

155 For the departures of Zinzendorf and Chotek, see Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 566–67 and 594–96.

156 Zinzendorf's replacement by Eger noted in the aulic decree of March 1, 1788, NÖLA, StB, 595, no. 38. For Chotek, see Cerman, Ivo, Habsburgischer Adel und Aufklärung. Bildungsverhalten des Wiener Hofadels im 18. Jahrhundert, Contubernium. Tübinger Beiträge zur Universitäts- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte, vol. 72 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010), 287–302Google Scholar.

157 Minutes of the Carinthian Estates' “extended committee,” April 2, 1789, KLA, StA, Handschrift 250, f. 99–105.

158 This is apparent from the minutes of the Carinthian Estates' committee, April 16 and May 20, 1789, KLA, StA, Handschrift 250, f. 127–28 and 141–42. Only scanty minutes of the Carniolan diet of May 4, 1789, have survived, with no reference to such a remonstrance. ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 62.

159 Mueller, The Styrian Estates, 91.

160 The Inner Austrian government transmitted the rejection to the Carniolan Estates in a decree of Sept. 23, 1789 [minutes of the Carniolan Estates' committee, Oct. 9, 1789 (point of business no. 518) ARS, DSK, Reg. II, 62] and to the Carinthian Estates in a decree of Sept. 29, 1789 (“Landtags-Memoriale zu dem auf den 14ten xber 1789 allergnädigst ausgeschriebenen Kay. König: extraordinari Landtag,” KLA, StA, Handschrift 243, f. 92–100, point no. 11).

161 Rozdolski, Die grosse Steuer- und Agrarreform, 72–74.

162 Apart from Pergen, the committee included the provost of Klosterneuburg, the Schotten abbot, Count Anton Hoyos, Count Wenzel Sinzendorff, Baron Ferdinand Sala, Ludwig von Hacqué, and Franz von Aichen. The minutes from this meeting (Nov. 4, 1789) have been preserved in NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, 162. The two prelates as well as Hacqué and Aichen had belonged to the committee since its creation in 1784. Since 1787, Hoyos had been the lords' delegate to the provincial government. A short time later, the faithful Pergen was to offer Joseph a further, devastating critique of his methods of government. Bernard, From the Enlightenment to the Police State, 162–67.

163 Lower Austrian Estates to Joseph II, draft, Nov. 4, 1789, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, 162.

164 Aulic decree, Feb. 4, 1790, NÖLA, StReg 1782–92, 162.

165 Toman, Das böhmische Staatsrecht, 180. There is also mention of the group in the minutes of the Bohemian diet, March 9, 1790, NA, Český zemský snĕm, vol. 1.

166 Toman, Das böhmische Staatsrecht, 161; Kerner, Robert Joseph, Bohemia in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in the Political, Economic, and Social History with Special Reference to the Reign of Leopold II, 1790–1792 (New York: Macmillan, 1932), 124Google Scholar. Bosl, Handbuch, vol. 2, 442, mistakenly reported that Joseph abolished the Estates' “representatives” attached to the Gubernium. The decree of Sept. 25, 1788, to which Bosl referred in fact outlined the responsibilities of the “representatives.” The decree is found in NA, České gubernium, Dvorské dekrety a reskripty, i, č. 188, 540.

167 Soon after Joseph's death, Grand Aulic Chancellor Kolowrat granted permission for the formation of an Estates' committee to give what he called “legal” expression to the discontent. Kolowrat to Bohemian Governor Count Ludwig Cavriani, March 3, 1790, NA, České gubernium, Presidium gubernia, 46, folder 28b. For the “secret” meetings in the months before Joseph's death, see Kerner, Bohemia, 86.

168 Beales, Joseph II, vol. 2, 593 (for the above quotation) and 622 (for the emperor's personal responsibility for the disasters at the end of his reign).

169 Rowlands, The Dynastic State; Beik, “The Absolutism of Louis XIV”; Scott, H. M., “1763–1786: The Second Reign of Frederick the Great?,” in The Rise of Prussia 1700–1830, ed. Dwyer, Philip G. (Harlow: Longman, 2000), 177–200Google Scholar, here 195–96; Godsey, William D., “Adel, Ahnenprobe und Wiener Hof. Strukturen der Herrschaftspraxis Kaiserin Maria Theresias,” in Die Ahnenprobe in der Vormoderne. Selektion—Initiation—Repräsentation, ed. Harding, Elizabeth and Hecht, Michael, Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme. Schriftenreihe des Sonderforschungsbereichs 496, vol. 37 (Münster: Rhema, 2011), 309–31Google Scholar.

170 For example, Walter, Österreichische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte, 111; Bosl, Handbuch, vol. 2, 461.

171 For France, see Jones, Reform and Revolution, 37–43; for Tuscany, see Wandruszka, Adam, Leopold II. Erzherzog von Österreich, Grossherzog von Toskana, König von Ungarn und Böhmen, Römischer Kaiser, 2 vols. (Vienna and Munich: Herold, 1963 and 1965), vol. 1, 368–90Google Scholar; for Russia, see Raeff, Marc, The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germanies and Russia 1600–1800 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale, 1983), 238–42Google Scholar.

172 That Zinzendorf followed developments relative to Necker's assemblies in France is apparent in Zinzendorf, Tagebücher, vol. 3, 480 (Aug. 9, 1779) and 834 (March 12, 1781).

173 Hassinger, “Ständische Vertretungen,” 257–58; Godsey, “Nation, Government, and ‘Anti-Semitism,’” 60–62.

174 For the right of first refusal, see Hassinger, “Ständische Vertretungen,” 256–57. The aulic decree of Nov. 29, 1786, providing for the dispensation is recorded in the Carinthian “Landtags-Memoriale zu dem, auf den 29ten 8ber [October] 1787 allergnädigst ausgeschriebenen Kay: König: extraordinari Landtag,” KLA, StA, Handschrift 243, f. 63.