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The Rise of Absolutism and Noble Rebellion in Early Modern Habsburg Austria, 1570 to 1620

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Karin J. MacHardy
Karin J. MacHardy
Affiliation:
The University of Waterloo
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Extract

The most crucial problem confronting historians of early modern Europe is the nature of absolutism and its relationship to society. At the center of scholarly debate have been the questions of the social and economic bases of absolutism. What determined whether state policies could be successfully implemented? Were rulers dependent on the nobility, and did they therefore act in its interest; or did they achieve independence from the dominant class by supporting the interests of a new bourgeoisie or by balancing interests between the two groups? Closely related to these concerns is the problem of how to explain the causes and nature of the numerous rebellions by the elites during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Type
Landed Wealth and Social Status
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 407 - 438
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1992

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References

1 See, for example, Miller, Helen, Henry VIII and the English Nobility (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986);Google Scholar Clark, J.C.D., Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Beik, William, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hickey, Daniel, The Coming of French Absolutism: The Struggle for Reform in the Province of Dauphine, 1540–1640 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kettering, Sharon, Patrons, Brokers, and Clients in Seventeenth-Century France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

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3 For an excellent summary of French historiography, see the introduction to Beik's Absolutism and Society.

4 The standard work on the rebellion is still Sturmberger's, Hans, Aufstand in Böhmen. Der Beginn des dreissigjährigen Krieges (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1959).Google Scholar See also Mecenseffy, Grete, Geschichte des Protestantismus in Österreich (Graz: H. Bohlaus Nachf., 1956).Google Scholar Bibl, Viktor, “Die katholischen und protestantischen Stände Niederösterreichs im XVII. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der ständischen Verfassung,” Jahrbuch für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich (JbLkNÖ), 2 NF (1903), 167–323.Google Scholar A more recent (and favourable) account of the Protestant nobility is Reingrabner's, Gustav, Adel und Reformation. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Protestantischen Adels im Lande unter der Enns während des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Vienna: Verlag für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich und Wien, 1976)Google Scholar which offers no new interpretation of the conflict. An outstanding exception is Evans, R.J.W., The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1500–1700 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979),Google Scholar Pt 1, who does consider the intellectual crisis, the economic and social divisions within the elite and their relationship to the political and religious conflict. However, both his evidence and his conclusions in this respect pertain largely to Bohemia and Hungary.

5 The most balanced approach has been provided by the leading authority on the Bohemian revolt, Polisenšky, J.V., The Thirty Years War, Evans, Robert, trans. (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1971).Google Scholar See also, Hroch, Miroslav and Petran, Josef, Das 17. Jahrhundert. Krise der feudalen Gesellschaft (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1981).Google Scholar

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9 Skocpol, Theda, Stales and Social Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 27,CrossRefGoogle Scholar provides a review of this literature.

10 For a critique of both schools, see Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, 3–46, and Kiser, Edgar, “The Formation of State Policy in Western European Absolutism: A Comparison of England and France,” Politics and Society, 15 (1986–1987), 259–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 I am following here, with some slight modifications, the sociologist, Jack A. Goldstone, who has applied an ecological causal model to the seventeenth-century crises in his excellent comparative study, “East and West in the Seventeenth Century: Political Crisis in Stuart England, Ottoman Turkey, and Ming China,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 30 (01 1988), 103–142,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in his book Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).Google Scholar

12 The causal connection between population growth and the price revolution of the sixteenth century has been widely debated among historians. A new consensus appears to be emerging, which maintains that urbanization and economic growth, prompted by population increase, expanded credit facilities and density of exchange which, in turn, accelerated the velocity of money. Prices rose, so the argument goes, primarily because the supply of goods and services failed to keep pace with the expansion of purchasing power. For a summary of this debate see Goldstone, “East and West,” 135. Kriedte, Peter, Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists (Leamington: Berg Publishers, Ltd., 1983),Google Scholar ch. 1, provides a succinct treatment of the sixteenthcentury economy.

13 Klein, Kurt, “Die Bevölkerung Österreichs vom Beginn des 16. bis zur Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Beiträge zur Bevölkerungs- und Sozialgeschichte Österreichs, Helczmanovsky, Heimhold, ed. (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1973), 64–69.Google Scholar This figure is derived from tax registers (Gültbucher), which do provide information about the number of peasant households but not the number of children per household. Because the tax registers are also based on reports from landholders, who derived financial gain from concealing increases in the number of peasant households, it is likely that the tax registers understate the actual population increase.

14 Pribram, Alfred F., Materialien zur Geschichte der Preise und Löhne in Österreich (Vienna: Carl Ueberreuters Verlag, 1938), vol. I, 569–657,Google Scholar 659–747; Sandgruber, Roman, “Zur Wirtschaftsentwicklung Niederösterreichs im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” Unsere Heimat, XLV (1975), 210–21.Google Scholar

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18 Knittler, Herbert, “Gewerblicher Eigenbetrieb und frühneuzeitliche Grundherrschaft am Beispiel des Waldviertels,” MIÖG, 92 (1984), 115–46.Google Scholar Average holdings of arable land in 1620 were 183.3 hectares in the district below the Manhartsberg, 89.2 hectares in the district below the Vienna Woods, and 84.5 in the district above the Manhartsberg. Some landowners did establish fisheries and breweries and extend their trade in cattle and wood; see Knittler, “Adelige Grundherrschaft im Übergang,” in Spezialforschung und Gesamtgeschichte, vol. 8 of Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, Heinrich Lutz, Grete Klingenstein und, eds. (Vienna: Verlag fur Geschichte und Politik, 1982), 84–87,Google Scholar 103–7, and Knittler, , Nutzen, Renten, Enräge. Struktur und Entwicklung frähneuzeitlicher Feudaleinkommen in Niederösterreich (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1989).Google Scholar For a detailed treatment of the changing position of the peasantry, see Feigl, Helmut, Die niederösterreichische Grundherrschaft (Vienna: Verein für Landeskunde von Niederösterrich und Wien, 1964), 20–24,Google Scholar 92–105, 156–62. The conflicts between peasants and landowners have been analyzed by Winkelbauer, Thomas, Robot und Steuer. Die Untertanen der Waldviertler Grundherrschaften Gföhl und Altpölla zwischen feudaler Herrschaft und absolutistischem Stoat (Vienna: Verlag für Landeskunde von Niederösterrich und Wien, 1986).Google Scholar The fullest treatment of the position of the peasantry under early Habsburg absolutism is Rebel's, Hermann Peasant Classes. The Bureaucratization of Property and Family Relations under Early Habsburg Absolutism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Pickl, Othmar, “Die wirtschaftlichen Bestimmungen der innerösterreichischen Religionspazifikation von 1572 und 1578 und ihre Auswirkungen,” in Johannes Kepler 1571. Gedenkschrift der Universität Graz, Urban, Paul and Suttner, Berthold, eds. (Graz: Leykam, 1975), 580–2,Google Scholar provides a list of nobles who were moneylenders to the Habsburgs. On the cavalier's tour, see Kühnel, Harry, “Die adelige Kavalierstour im 17. Jahrhundert,” JbLkNÖ, XXVI, NF(1964), 364–85.Google Scholar

20 This and the following statistical analyses of noble landed property are based on the Besitzerbägen, list of owners of landed estates established between 1824–74 and the tax registers (Gültbucher, 1571 and 1637) of the four Lower Austrian districts in the Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv (Vienna), Ständisches Archiv. As these sources are by no means reliable, they were supplemented with a survey of peasant households per estates established in 1590–91 by the Stände and analyzed in Eggendorfer, A., “Das Viertel ober dem Manhartsberg im Spiegel des Bereitungsbuches von 1590–91” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1974),Google Scholar Hansen, L., “Das Viertel ober dem Wienerwald im Spiegel des Bereitungsbuches von 1591” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1974),Google Scholar Nader, H., “Das Viertel unter dem Wienerwald im Spiegel des Bereitungsbuches 1590–91” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1970),Google Scholar Graf, F., “Das Viertel unter dem Manhartsberg im Spiegel des Bereitungsbuches von 1590” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1972).Google Scholar Because of the inaccuracy of most sources, the statistics provided in this paper must be considered to be approximate estimates.

21 These figures differ slightly from the totals provided in Tables 1 and 2 because the number of families of mixed confession increased the totals in the two tables. On the decline of the lesser nobility, see Karin J. MacHardy, “Der Einfluss von Status, Besitz und Konfession auf das politische Verhalten des Niederösterreichischen Ritterstandes 1580–1620,” in Spezialforschung und “Gesamlgeschichte,” vol. 8 of Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, Klingenstein, Grete and Lutz, Heinrich, eds. (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1981), 56–83.Google Scholar

22 Jack Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion, 58–67, points out the disproportionate effect of population growth on marginal groups in early modem England and France.

23 Landless nobles multiplied from thirty–five to ninety-six. The increase was greater among the upper nobility, whose families were generally more established and thus larger.

24 Between 1519 and 1576 the number of administrative offices increased by only about onefourth, from 422 to 531; see Ehalt, Ausdrucksformen absolutistischer Herrschaft, 57. This number probably decreased thereafter because the Archducal and Imperial court were merged in 1612.

25 Gutkas, Geschichte des Landes Niederösterreich, 109–14; Walter, Friedrich, Österreichische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte von 1500–1955 (Vienna: H. Böhlaus Nachf., 1972), 32–34.Google Scholar

26 For a thorough analysis of Ferdinand I's dynastic policies, see Fichtner, Paula Sutter, Ferdinand I of Austria: The Politics of Dynasticism in the Age of the Reformation (Boulder, Col.: Eastern European Monographs, 1982).Google Scholar

27 Hellbling, Ernst C., Österreichische Verfassungs- und Venvaltungsgeschichte (Vienna: Springer, 1956), 210–67,CrossRefGoogle Scholar provides a detailed description of these developments.

28 The conflict and cooperation at the sessions of the estates have been described by Neugebauer, G., “Die niederösterreichischen Landtage von 1577 bis 1592” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1974)Google Scholar and Stangler, Gottfried, “Die niederösterreichischen Landtage von 1593 bis 1607” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1972).Google Scholar For the seventeenth century, see the protocols of the estates in Ständische Bücher (1637–1667), Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv, Ständisches Archiv.

29 Press, Volker, “Adel im Reich um 1600,” in Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 8 (1981):13–14,Google Scholar 361–78, evaluates the Reformation and the German nobility.

30 Bibl, Viktor, “Die Vorgeschichte der Religionskonzession Kaiser Maximilian II.,” JbLkNÖ, NF 13–14 (1914–1915), 400–31;Google Scholar similar concessions were granted to the noble estates of Upper Austria (1568) and Inner Austria (1572–78) and to those of Bohemia (1575); see Pickl, “Die wirtschaftlichen Bestimmungen,” 563–86.

31 Feigl, Helmut, “Der niederösterreichische Bauernaufstand 1596–97,” Militärhistorische Schriftenreihe, 22 (1972), 1–40.Google Scholar

32 Codicis Austriaci I, fol. 737.

33 Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv, Ständische Akten, HStA, Lade IV/5, fol. lOff.; RStA AI (1579), fol. 63ff.; AI, fol. 86 (1612). Until 1612 the rules for admission to the new Ritterstand stipulated the possession of a twenty–year-old noble diploma in addition to landed property, service to the crown, and the payment of a fee; thereafter, nobility in the third degree was required. Matriculation to the new Herrenstand necessitated (in addition to the other requirements) the possession of baronial status; its degree was not defined.

34 For example, nobles belonging to the old order always had precedence in voting.

35 New admission rules were subject to the approval of the monarch. No evidence seems to exist about the actual negotiations between nobles and Habsburgs on this matter, and it is unclear why the noble estates agreed to this important concession.

36 Codicis Austriaci I, fol. 737.

37 Ibid.

38 In 1579 a large number of Protestant burghers were incorporated into the Ritterstand in order to protect them from royal punishment, see Bibl, Viktor, “Die Berichte des Reichshofrates Dr. Georg Eder an die Herzoge Albrecht und Wilhelm von Bayern über die Religionskrise in Niederösterreich,” JbLkNÖ, NF 8 (1909), 94.Google Scholar

39 For further discussion of the admission pattern, see MacHardy, “Der Einluß von Status, Besitz und Konfession,” 56–83.

40 The information on social mobility and the social structure of the nobility is based on statistical analyses of data derived from a variety of sources: Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv, Ständisches Archiv, Ständische Akten AI/3–4; AI/5; AIII/5; A III/18; A III/20; RStA, Aufnahmeakten CI–XXXVIII, Dl; HStA, Aufnahmeakten (A–Z); Lade IV/5, fol. 10; Lade V, Varia. This data was supplemented with information from genealogical works: Wissgrill, Franz Karl, Schauplatz des landsdssigen Nieder-Österreichischen Adels vom Herrn- und Ritterstande von dem XL Jahrhundert an bis auf unsere Zeiten, 5 vols. (Vienna, 1794–1824);Google Scholar Siebmacher, J., Der Niederösterreichische Adel, of Grosses und allgemeines Wappenbuch, (Nürnberg, 1919).Google Scholar

41 For a parallel development of high status mobility in England, see Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558–1642 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965);Google Scholar and for France, see Wood, James B., The Nobility of the Election Bayeux, 1463–1666. Continuity through Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).Google Scholar

42 This was partly responsible for reversing the numerical relationship between upper and lower nobility as the Herrenstand became numerically dominant in 1620. In 1580 the Ritterstand had 3.5 times more families and twice as many individual members, but in 1620 it only counted one-third more lines, while the Herrenstand had nineteen more individual members.

43 It must be stressed that a newcomer to the estates was not always of new noble origin. Thus, in 1620 about two-fifths (thirteen) of the Catholic families in the Herrenstand had received their baronage during the previous fifty years, but about one-half had been newly admitted to the Herrenstand during the same period. This proportion of newcomers was nearly as high in the Protestant Herrenstand. The estates considered as foreign all nobles not originating from Lower Austria.

44 Bibl, “Die Berichte des Reichtshofrates,” 95; Bibl, , “Eine Denkschrift Melchior Khlesl's über die Gegenreformation in Niederösterreich (c. 1590),” JbLkNÖ, NF 8 (1909), 165;Google Scholar Erdmann, H.G., “Melchior Khlesl und die Niederösterreichischen Stände” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1948), 98.Google Scholar

45 The data on officeholding was derived, in addition to the sources already mentioned in notes 4 and 20, from Chmel, Joseph, “Die Regimentsräte des Nieder-Österreichischen Regiments. Von 1529 bis 1657. Die Kammerräte der Nieder-Österreichischen Kammer. Von 1539–1606. Aus dem Friedheimschen Wappen- und Regentenbuche zu Göttweig,” Notizblatt der Akademie, I (1851), 212–24,Google Scholar 228–51, 263–368; Fellner-Kretschmayr, Zentralverwaltung, vols. 1 and 2; Mencik, Ferdinand, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der kaiserlichen Hofämter,” Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte, 87 (1899), 447–563;Google Scholar Schwarz, Henry F., The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943);Google Scholar Startzer, Albert, Beiträge zur Geschichte der niederösterreichischen Statthalterei. Die Landeschefs und Räte dieser Behörde 1501–1896 (Vienna, 1887).Google Scholar

46 NÖLA, RStA A 1/6–7, fol. 16–19. Matthias complained to Rudolph II in 1605 that it was difficult to find Catholics to appoint to the Privy Council; see Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council, 64–65.

47 Bibl, “Die katholischen und protestantischen Stände,” 174–94, 202, 206, 213–19, 249, 282–83.

48 Only 4 percent of the old members of the Ritterstand held positions in the administration and court (Hofslaat), compared to nearly one-third of the new members. Old nobles are classified as all those who had been ennobled for three or more generations.

49 This analysis is based on data provided by Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council.

50 For similar developments in Germany, see Midelfort, H.C. Erik, “Adeliges Landleben und die Legitimationskrise des Deutschen Adels im 16. Jahrhundert,” Stände und Gesellschaft im Alten Reich, Schmidt, Georg, ed. (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1989), 245–64.Google Scholar

51 Midelfort, “Adeliges Landleben,” 247; Brunner, Otto, Adeliges Landleben und Europäiseher Geist. Leben und V/erk Wolf Helmhardts von Hohberg, 1612–1688 (Salzburg: Otto Muller, 1949) 77–80,Google Scholar 129.

52 Midelfort, “Adeliges Landleben,” provides an excellent account of some of the sixteenthcentury critics of nobility. However, he does not stress sufficiently the religious polemic in the work of Sebastian Franck, Nikodemus Frischlin, and Cyriacus Spangenberg. Spangenberg, for example, always related noble virtue to Christian virtue and emphasized that merely following the “only true religion,” that is Lutheranism, was virtuous. See Spangenberg, Cyriacus, Adels Spiegel. Historisch Ausführlicher Bericht: Was Adel sey undheisse, Woher er Kome…, vol. 2 (Schmalkalden: M. Schmuck, 1594), 23–31,Google Scholar 173.

53 Spangenberg, , Adels Spiegel, vol. 1 (Schmalkalden: M. Schmuck, 1591), 31–32,Google Scholar 43–44, 124–5, 134–210. The Lower Austrian Protestant nobility was acquainted with the works of Spangenberg, Sebastian Franck, and Nikodemus Frischlin; see Brunner, Adeliges Landleben, 159, 162, 164. Frischlin also worked on the reorganization of Protestant schools in Inner Austria between 1582–84; see Heiß, Gemot, “Konfession, Politik und Erziehung,” in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, vol. 5 of Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, Klingenstein, Grete, et al. , eds. (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1978), 60.Google Scholar

54 Heiss, Gernot, “Bildungsverhalten des Niederösterreichischen Adels im gesellschaftlichen Wandel: Zum Bildungsgang im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 8 (1981), 150;Google Scholar Mandlmayr, Martin C. and Vocelka, Karl G., “Vom Adelsaufgebot zum Stehenden Heer,” Wiener Beiträge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 8 (1981), 119–21,Google Scholar discuss the changes in methods of warfare and tournaments.

55 Zahn, J., “Das Familienbuch Sigmund von Herbertstein,” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 39 (1868), 306,Google Scholar quoted in Heiss, “Bildungsverhalten,” 144.

56 Family connections and noble status continued to be significant criteria for advancement. Nevertheless, in 1576 one-third of the members of the Aulic Council, the highest court of appeal, were learned commoners, and two-thirds of the knightly families living in 1620 had received their status promotion for service to the Habsburgs, mostly in administrative functions which required judicial training. See “Hofstaatsverzeichnis 1576,” in Geschichtliche Übersicht, vol. I of Die Üsterreichische Zentralverwaltung. Von Maximilian I. bis zur Vereinigung der österreichischen und böhmischen Hofkạnzlei (1749), Fellner, Thomas and Kretschmayr, Heinrich, eds. (Vienna: Holzhausen, 1907), 192–3.Google Scholar

57 The data for university attendance was taken largely from A. Luschin von Ebengreuth, Österreicher an italienischen Universitäten zur Zeit der Reception des römischen Rechts (Sonderdruck aus den Blättern für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich), vol. 1 (1880–82), vol. 2 (1883–85); and also from Wissgrill, Schauplatz des landsässigen…; and Siebmacher, Grosses und allgemeines Wappenbuch. For a general description of noble education, see Heiss, “Bildungsverhalten des niederösterreichischen Adels,” 139–57.

58 This is apparent from the evidence on appointments to the Privy Council provided by Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council, and Ferdinand II's new court, “Hofstaatsverzeichnis (1627–28),” in Zentralverwaltung, Fellner–Kretschmayr, eds., vol. 2, 209–15.

59 The Catholic nobility more than doubled the number of its peasant households, increasing from about 5,180 to 13,910. New admissions of Catholics to the estates facilitated this expansion. The extinction of old Protestant families, usually high among the Ritterstand, enabled some Catholic newcomers to acquire landed property, even though pressure on the available land made it difficult for many to do so. The Catholic gains of peasant households were in part due also to the conversion of a few large landholders, such as the barons of Losenstein and Liechtenstein and members of the houses of Puchheim, Althan, and Herbertstein.

60 Bibl, “Die katholischen und protestantischen Stände,” 252–6.

61 Bibl, “Die katholischen und protestantischen Stande,” 201–20; Sturmberger, Aufstand, 10–11.

62 For a detailed definition of his concepts, see Bourdieu's, “The Forms of Capital,” in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, Richardson, John G., ed. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 241–58,Google Scholar at 243.

63 Bourdieu, Pierre, “The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups,” Theory and Methods, 24 (06 1985), 197.Google Scholar

64 For a description of the international situation, see Sturmberger, Aufstand in Böhmen, 31–64.

65 R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 41–67, provides a succinct analysis of the development of militant camps in Bohemia and the Austrian territories.

66 For a detailed treatment of these developments, see Bibl, “Die katholischen und protestantischen Stände,” 167–323, and Karl Graf Kuefstein, 17. Jahrhundert, vol. 3 of Studien zur Familiengeschichte (Vienna: W. Braumiiller, 1915), 37.Google Scholar

67 The names of the proscribed Protestants and those who paid homage are derived from the following sources: Codes Diplomaticus Austriacus, Tom. IV, Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna, fol. 203–209; NÖLA, StA AIII/20, fol. 137–42; Franz Christoph Khevenhiller, Annales Ferdinandei oder Wahrhafte Beschreibung Kaisers Ferdinandi des Andern …, vol. IX, fol. 1065–69; Handschrift der österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 10. lOOd (Retzer Jurament); Hübel, Ignaz, “Die Ächtungen von evangelischen und die Konfiskationen protestantischen Besitzes im Jahre 1620 in Nieder- und Oberösterreich,” Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für die Geschichte des Protestantismus in Österreich, 59–60 (1938–1939), 45–62,Google Scholar 105–25. The statistical analysis of their socioeconomic background is based on the sources cited in notes 4, 20, and 45.

68 Landless nobles, and property owners from all categories, were well distributed among the other two parties as well.

69 In order to show whether a relationship existed between political affiliation and socioeconomic background, I have used the standard statistical methods of hypothesis testing, in which a connection will be statistically significant if the null-hypothesis (that no connection exists) can be rejected at a 5 percent level or less. As Table 3 shows, this was clearly the case in relation to office holding and political activism. The null-hypothesis was not rejected when testing the relationship between social status, size of landholding, and political affiliation.

70 However, one of them, Georg Ehrenreich Rogendorf, held an honorary hereditary sinecure, but it is uncertain whether Sebastian Günther Hager (Platzobrist) and Simon Schröttl (Hofkanzleiexpediteur) still occupied their positions in 1620.

71 Although the thesis that conflicting interests between court and country society contributed to rebellions and revolutions in other European countries during the seventeenth century has been widely contested, the case of Lower Austria suggests that the problem deserves to be reevaluated by historians. Zagorin, Perez, The Court and the Country. The Beginning of the English Revolution (London: Routledge, 1969)Google Scholar and Trevor-Roper, H.R., “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century,” Past and Present, 16 (11 1959), 31–64,CrossRefGoogle Scholar argue for a similar division of court and country as a cause of the political crisis in England. Jack Goldstone, in his Revolution and Rebellion, also points to the importance of such divisions as a cause of rebellions and revolutions in early modern England, France, Ottoman Turkey, and Ming China.

72 The question of why the Austrian nobility embraced Protestantism in the first place has so far not been adequately addressed and requires a separate treatment.

73 Bourdieu also defines this dispositional lag as the “hysteresis effect.” See his Outline of a Theory of Practice, Nice, R., trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 78–83Google Scholar and Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Nice, R., trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 143.Google Scholar

74 For an accessible treatment of this and other ideas of Bourdieu, see Wacquant, Loïc J.D., “Toward a Reflexive Sociology. A Workshop with Pierre Bourdieu,” Sociological Theory, 7 (1989), 26–63,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bourdieu, Pierre, “Social Space and Symbolic Power,” Sociological Theory, 7 (1989), 14–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75 Sturmberger, , Georg Erasmus Tschernembl. Religion, Libertät und Widerstand; ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Gegenreformation und des Landes ob der Enns (Graz: H. Böhlaus Nachf., 1953).Google Scholar The influence of Flacian ideas has been analyzed by Gustav Reingrabner, “Zur Geschichte der flacianischen Bewegung im Lande unter der Enns,” Jahrbuch für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich (forthcoming). The neutral party appears to have had scruples about insubordination and instead embraced the notion of passive resistance; see Lindeck-Pozza, I., “Der Einfluss der staatsrechtlichen und bekenntnismäßigen Anschaungen auf die Auseinandersetzung zwischen Landesfürstentum und Ständen in Österreich während der Gegenreformation,” Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Geschichte des Protestantismus in Österreich, no. 20 (1939), 81–96Google Scholar and no. 60 (1940), 15–24.

76 Brunner, Adeliges Landleben, 112–3, 155–60.

77 Wolfgang Neuber analyzed this Protestant self-perception and ethic as reflected in the literary work of some twenty nobles in his “Adeliges Landleben in Österreich und die Literatur im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert” Adel im Wandel. Politik-Kultur-Konfession, 1500–1700 (Vienna: Nö.Landesmuseum, 1990), 543–53.Google Scholar

78 Helmtvavd von Hohbetg,, Gregorica curiosa oder Adeliges Land- und Feldleben (Nuremberg, 1701), quoted in Brunner, Adeliges Landleben, 222. For similar attitudes of Protestant nobles toward the court, see Neuber, “Adeliges Landleben,” 546.

79 Schilling, Hans, Aufbruch und Krise. Deutschland, 1517–1648, (Berlin: Sieder Verlag, 1988)Google Scholar ch. V, pt. 3, provides an in-depth analysis of these divisions.

80 Sturmberger, Aufstand, 46–62.

81 In 1689 the estates agreed to approve financial contributions to the crown at ten-year recesses, which greatly limited their effectiveness as an opposition; see NÖLA, StA, Landtagshandlungen, 1689.