Nobility of Austria
The nobility of Austria Proper, i. e., of the archduchy, of Carinthia, Carniola, and the Tyrol, was always one of the most powerful in Germany. This was owing, partly, to the favour with which as a body it was regarded by the house of Hapsburg. Other circumstances conducive to this power, were the frequent divisions of territory which weakened the Austrian sovereigns, and the vicinity of the warlike Hungarians, against whom its aid was so often required. The nobles were not the sole members of the diet in all the Austrian provinces. In the archduchy, deputies of towns were admitted, and in Tyrol, of the peasants, but they were never in sufficient number to affect the predominance of the nobility.
In Austria, the officers of court were hereditary; and the twelve principal ones conferred great importance upon the twelve illustrious families by whom they were held. These latter had exclusive and extraordinany privileges. They were exempted from taxation; in their castles, they could under no pretext be molested, and even in the capital, they were responsible to no law but their own will. By virtue of the contract of Landau, no article grown on the estates of any noble was taxable, not even when it was brought to the towns to be sold.
The Austrian nobility was divided into two classes, that of lords and that of knights (der Herren and Ritterstand). No commoner could by any chance obtain possessions which bad been held by a member of either. When the estates of a nobleman had been confiscated, they could only be granted to another who was of the same rank as the former possessor. Whilst the power of the Austrian nobles checked the sway of the sovereign, they in their turn encountered opposition from the subordinate classes of citizens and peasants. The latter broke out into open insurrection against the nobility in 1502, but it terminated in producing a state of subjugation more abject than that which they had attempted to throw off. The citizens were continually striving to assert and maintain a precarious independence, and they generally embraced the cause of the sovereign, from whom they naturally expected protection against the encroachments of the nobility.
The Reformation found many followers amongst the Austrian nobles, and about the year 1532, they felt themselves strong enough to demand the free exercise and tolerance of the reformed religion. This, the Emperor Ferdinand neither dared to grant nor to refuse. The religious meetings of the Protestants were not, however, interrupted, though they were not sanctioned. From Maximilian, the successor of Ferdinand, the diet demanded the banishment of the Jesuits. But to this, the emperor, though not a rigid Catholic, refused to consent; he was afraid of irritating the pope ; yet, in order to conciliate the affections of his Protestant nobles, he tolerated the public profession of the Protestant faith.
After him, Rudolf II, who had been educated in Spain, adopted every means to prevent the spread of the reformed doctrines, and by this policy, irritated the peasants to insurrection (1591), and excited the opposition of the nobles, who, allured by the promises of the emperor's brother, Matthias, leagued themselves with him to dethrone Rudolf. After they had attained their object, Matthias refused to fulfil his promises; but they joined their forces to those of the Hungarian Protestants, and quickly compelled him to desist from the execution of his treacherous plans. His natural aversion to Protestantism, for which he had ambitiously simulated an attachment, was of course increased by these unfortunate disputes, and he took every convenient opportunity of manifesting it, and thus alienated the affections of his most powerful subjects. The diet assembled at Linz (1614) refused him all assistance, though he was in imminent danger from the marauding Turks.
Matthias was only sovereign of the archduchy of Austria. His brother, Ferdinand, governed Carinthia, Styria, and Carniola. This prince was an inveterate enemy of the Protestant cause, and he proceeded actually to depopulate those parts of his dominions which were not inhabited by Catholics. Although indulgent to his nobles on other points, he \vas inexorable on this. Consequently, as his power and resolution rendered opposition futile, those who remained steadfast in their faith were obliged to emigrate, and those who adhered or returned to Catholicism were loaded with favors by their sovereign. They paid no tolls nor taxes, and possessed numerous monopolies and privileges in trade and commerce.
While the towns envied their prosperity, the villages groaned under their oppression. The peasants were compelled to deliver up to them their children for menial service, and were not allowed to sell anything except to their feudal chief, to whose generosity, therefore, the price was always left. This state of things caused frequent insurrections of the peasants, which always terminated in their defeat, and left them at last the slaves of the nobility. It was in the archduchy of Austria, that the Protestant nobles were the most numerous and the most powerful. They rebelled in 1620, against Ferdinand IT., because he refused to tolerate their faith. With the aid, however, of the duke of Bavaria, he defeated and subdued them. Many of their estates were confiscated and granted to his faithful Catholics, several of whom acquired at this juncture the immense possessions, which rendered their families remarkable to latter days.
During the Thirty Years' War, the Austrian nobles suffered less from plunder and exaction than those of more northern states. But the number of their serfs was greatly diminished in order to fill the ranks of the Catholic armies. In that time of religious persecution, their genuine attachment to the cause of Rome was often suspected. They were in consequence often subject to vexatious persecutions, and the clergy took advantage of their equivocal position, to increase, at their expense, its riches and power. Towards the latter end of the seventeenth century, the Austrian nobility began to lose its former independence and importance.
The grand causes of its decline were the introduction of standing armies, the improvement of military tactics, and the establishment throughout the country of regular tribunals, which superseded the feudal courts of justice. Nevertheless, during the reigns of Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI, they were still possessed of great power, from their numbers and riches, from their holding all the principal offices both of court and state, and thus surrounding, and often guiding, the sovereign. But the diet, which had been wont to oppose the will of the latter, now sank into insignificance. Charles VI was the last who by an oath confirmed its rights and privileges.
The new attitude in which the nobles now found themselves was far from favorable to their improvement. In their former lawless independence, each had sought to distinguish himself in some rude way, and was ranked accordingly; there had been room for emulation, and for the display both of mental and physical superiority. But now that the body had lost its independence, and found its interest in assiduous subserviency, individual distinction was no longer possible. Birth and precedence became the only titles to promotion. Mental cultivation was neglected, because it brought with it no external advantages, and the morals of the nobles received the same impress of subserviency which their general condition had undergone.
They were no longer the hardy champions of liberty of conscience, preferring destitution to a dishonourable prosperity. In ceasing to respect themselves, they lost also the respect of others. When Maria Theresa ascended the throne in 1740, she neither deigned to receive their homage, nor to confirm their privileges, not that she was indisposed to protect them, but that she considered them, as a body, unworthy of important notice. During her reign the diet was in abeyance, and in its place existed a committee, composed of five prelates, five lords, and five knights, who, on account of their limited number, never dared to incur the displeasure, by opposing the will, of the empress. Her nobility were no longer exempt from taxation, and lost many of the privileges which they had formerly exercised to the prejudice of the inferior classes.
Her son and successor, the celebrated Joseph II, was the great reformer of the Austrian nobility. He left scarcely any of its exclusive rights and privileges untouched ; he added to its burden of taxation, liberated the serfs, protected the peasant against encroachment and oppression, and administered impartial justice. Capacity, and not rank alone, became the title to promotion. These alterations, however they might affect individuals, infused fresh life into the body at large, and were finally productive of the most beneficial effects.
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