System Dept

Absolutism in Central Europe

Historical Connections Series editorsTom Scott, University of LiverpoolGeoffrey Crossick, University of EssexJohn Davis, University of ConnecticutJoanna Innes, Somerville College, University of Oxford

Titles in the series The Decline of Industrial Britain: 18701980Michael Dintenfass

The French Revolution: Rethinking the DebateGwynne Lewis

The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National UnificationLucy Riall

The Remaking of the British Working Class: 18401940Mike Savage and Andrew Miles

The Rise of Regional EuropeChristopher Harvie

Catholic Politics in Europe, 19181945Martin Conway

Impressionists and Politics: Art and Democracy in the Nineteenth CenturyPhilip Nord

Popular Politics in Nineteenth-Century EnglandRohan McWilliam

Urban Politics in Early Modern EuropeChristopher R.Friedrichs

Environment and History: The Taming of Nature in the USA and South AfricaWilliam Beinart and Peter Coates

Population Politics in Twentieth-Century Europe: Fascist Dictatorships andLiberal DemocraciesMaria Sophia Quine

Medicine in the Making of Modern Britain, 17001920Christopher Lawrence

Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: The Fascist Style of RuleAlexander J.De Grand

Politics and the Rise of the Press: Britain and France, 16201800Bob Harris

Absolutism in CentralEurope

Peter H.Wilson

London and New York

First published 2000by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. 2000 Peter H.Wilson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafterinvented, including photocopying and recording, or in anyinformation storage or retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataWilson, Peter H. (Peter Hamish)

Absolutism in central Europe/Peter Wilson.p. cm.(Historical connections)

ISBN 0-415-23351-8 (hb)ISBN 0-415-15043-4 (pbk)1. Europe, centralPolitics and government. 2. DespotismEurope,central. I. Title. II. Series.

DAW1047.W55 2000320.943dc21 99085981

ISBN 0-203-44179-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-75003-9 (Adobe eReader Format)ISBN 0-415-23351-8 (hbk)ISBN 0-415-15043-4 (pbk)

For Tom

vii

Contents

Series editors preface ixAcknowledgements xiMap 1: The Reich in 1648 xiiMap 2: The Habsburg and Hohenzollern monarchies xiii

Introduction 1

1 Emergence 10

2 Theory 38

3 Practice 62

4 Enlightened absolutism 108

5 Conclusions 121

Chronology 124Appendix: Major rulers 128Notes 132Select bibliography 153Index 166

ix

Series editors preface

Historical Connections is a series of short books on importanthistorical topics and debates, written primarily for those studying andteaching history. The books offer original and challenging works ofsynthesis that will make new themes accessible, or old themesaccessible in new ways, build bridges between different chronologicalperiods and different historical debates, and encourage comparativediscussion in history.

If the study of history is to remain exciting and creative, then thetendency to fragmentation must be resisted. The inflexibility of olderassumptions about the relationship between economic, social, culturaland political history has been exposed by recent historical writing, butthe impression has sometimes been left that history is little more than achapter of accidents. This series will insist on the importance ofprocesses of historical change, and it will explore the connections withinhistory: connections between different layers and forms of historicalexperience, as well as connections that resist the fragmentaryconsequences of new forms of specialism in historical research.

Historical Connections will put the search for these connectionsback at the top of the agenda by exploring new ways of uniting thedifferent strands of historical experience, and by affirming theimportance of studying change and movement in history.

Geoffrey CrossickJohn Davis

Joanna InnesTom Scott

xi

Acknowledgements

This is a book about the form of European monarchy known asabsolutism, how it was defined by contemporaries, how it emerged anddeveloped, and how it has been interpreted by historians and politicaland social scientists. No historical work stands in isolation, and whilemy conclusions derive partly from my own research into politics andwar in early modern Europe, they have also benefited from anengagement with many other scholars to whose views I have tried to dojustice in my discussion. This has been a long process stretching back towell before this book was conceived, and I would like to take thisopportunity to thank in particular Jeremy Black, Tim Blanning, MichaelHochedlinger, Derek McKay and Hamish Scott for many fruitfuldebates. Tom Scott and Joanna Innes read an initial draft and providednumerous helpful comments, while Heather McCallum, Gillian Oliverand the staff at Routledge have been supportive throughout. Eliane,Alec, Tom and now Nina have endured my often prolonged absence withgood humour, and have, as usual, rendered the greatest assistance andinspiration.

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Introduction

Absolutism was once a certainty. It was seen as a distinct form ofmonarchy that dominated the European continent and defined an entireage. It coordinated and centralised power, pushing political developmenttowards the modern state. While broadly associated with the defence ofaristocratic privilege, it nonetheless fostered the conditions for social andeconomic change, assisting in the monumental transition from feudalismto capitalism. It was personified by self-confident monarchs, stampingtheir mark on their nations histories. High in the firmament was LouisXIV, the dazzling Sun King, builder of Versailles and archetype of allabsolute monarchs, but competing for the attention of posterity with therepresentatives of the later enlightened rule, like Frederick the Great orJoseph II. If such figures lent colour and grandeur to their countries pasts,they also served as symbols of despotism and authoritarian rule; the sort ofpower that right-thinking Britons had so gloriously overthrown in theseventeenth century and which the French were to do in 1789, ending theage of absolutism and starting moden history.

Where are these certainties now? Generations of historians have beenchipping away at an edifice which, even if its precise shape was indispute, at least had seemed solid enough and its basic dimensionsagreed by all. The hammers and chisels have been replaced by powertools, and what seemed so imposing has been revealed as nothing morethan a stucco faade. As the plaster falls away, the once omnipotentinhabitants of the palace are exposed as frauds who disguised their lackof real power with a lot of showy display. Robbed of their grandcoverings, they appear little different from rulers elsewhere in Europeshistory, bound by customary and practical constraints to consulttraditional institutions and important social groups. Far from pushinghistory forward, or indeed holding it back, they meander instead,buffeted this way and that by the harsh winds of change out of theircontrol. Finally, the last of the demolition team swings the wrecking ball

2 Introduction

and the whole construct disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving behindonly a myth.1

What are we to make of this? At the very time when historians arequeuing up to wave goodbye to absolutism,2 social and politicalscientists still use the term with confidence, raising the question thateither they are lagging behind or that the recent historical discussion issimply a case of revisionism pushed too far. This book addresses theseissues directly. It investigates how scholars from a variety ofdisciplines have defined and explained political development acrosswhat was formerly known as the age of absolutism. It assesseswhether the term still has utility as a tool of analysis and it explores thewider ramifications of the process of state formation from theexperience of central Europe from the early seventeenth century to thestart of the nineteenth. Chapter 1 unravels the controversy over whenabsolutism may have begun and what caused it to emerge. Chapter 2looks at how contemporaries defined monarchical and political powerand how these definitions changed over the centuries under review.The practice of government and its relationship to society form thefocus of Chapter 3, while Chapter 4 investigates the longstandingbelief that absolutism was transformed in the later eighteenth centurythrough its relationship with enlightened thought, and considers howthis may have affected its ability to confront the forces unleashed bythe French Revolution.

Before we can proceed, however, we need to examine the fullimplications of the assertion that what we are dealing with here is amytha fabrication of political and historical debaterather than areflection of verifiable historical processes. The notion that the past isconstructed and deconstructed by the process of writing and discussingit is highly fashionable and applies not only to the study of absolutism,but to the rest of human history. This broader challenge cannot beignored here, even if its wider implications lie beyond the scope of thisbook. In particular, it suggests that there is more to the myth ofabsolutism than has hitherto been believed.

Three dimensions can be identified within this wider conception ofthe myth. The first is familiar and has long provided the staple forhistorical debate as well as the fuel for the recent controversy. This isthe myth of absolute royal power. Historians had always known thatthe achievements of such monarchs as Louis XIV fell far short of theirpretensions. The extent of these failings became ever more apparent asthe scope of historical analysis broadened out from its initialpreoccupation with diplomatic and political affairs. Further studies ofroyal taxation, as well as the composition of the French court and its

Introduction 3

ties with the localities, demonstrated the limited nature of Louis XIVspower. Far from commanding absolute obedience and exercising closesupervision through a network of loyal officials, royal authority hadbeen patchy, dependent on a small, corrupt and inefficientadministration riddled with faction and completely lacking anyprogressive, modernising drive. Rather than absolutism, historiansbegan to talk simply of a shift to the centre as executive authoritygravitated towards groups and institutions based in and around Paris,rather than those out in the provinces. Exercise of this authoritynonetheless still depended on the cooperation of other power holdersin the localities, while significant aspects of daily life remainedscarcely touched by high political decisions.3

By the early 1990s such revisionism had gone well beyondmodifying details to undermine the whole basis of absolutism as ahistorical concept. The conclusion that it was all a myth was drawnfirst by Nicholas Henshall in 1992, who argued forcefully that not onlydid Louis and his fellow monarchs fail to deliver an absolutist agenda,but that they had never had such pretensions.4 All Europeanmonarchies were simply variations on a universal theme ofconsultative monarchy, whereby royal power was always limited bypractical and theoretical constraints. Henshall starts with the origins ofthe term absolutism in the political debates of the early nineteenthcentury, rather than those of the seventeenth or eighteenth, and traceshow it became interwoven with notions of English exceptionalism tobecome the antithesis of British liberal parliamentary development.Absolutism acquired the definition of being intrinsically despotic,autocratic, bureaucratic and definitely not English. This clearerappreciation of the terms etymology permits Henshall to go beyondthe now familiar relativising of absolutism as always in the makingbut never made, to question whether it ever existed even in theory. Acomparison between Britain and France reveals that Louis XIV and hissuccessors were not despotic since they continued to respect thecorporate rights of privileged social groups and even, on occasion,extended them. Nor were they autocratic, since despite theircentralisation of executive authority they still relied on consultationand consent in the practical exercise of power. Finally, the French statewas far from bureaucratic as its administrative infrastructure remainedrooted in local, regional and national networks of patronage andclientelism. If any European monarchy deserves the label absolute, ithas to be the British, not the French, since the powers of the Englishkings and their ability to put decisions into practice far exceeded thoseof their continental contemporaries.

4 Introduction

The belief that absolutism constituted a progressive, modernisingforce constitutes the second element of its myth. A number of impulseshave contributed to this view. The German historical school of thenineteenth century regarded the creation of homogeneous nation statesas the aim of the historical process. Many scholars were attracted bywhat they saw as dramatic, dynamic historical personalities, and thesescholars reliance on dynastic and administrative archives for sources,as well as political sensibilities, contributed to the magnification of theroles played by individual monarchs. Such rulers and their regimesappeared to embody the uncompromising and determined principles ofefficiency, rationality and power thought necessary to drive politicaldevelopment forward. It is important to remember that not all thesehistorians were outright apologists for a conservative, authoritarian,militarised power state (Machtstaat). Johann Gustav Droysen, forinstance, was critical of what he perceived as the selfish dynasticinterests of many absolute monarchs, and instead favoured aconstitutional monarchy as the best means of realising a true nationstate.5 French historians generally went further in their condemnationof the excesses of royal rule and understandably stressed thesignificance of the revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848 in the creationof modern France. However, despite political disagreements, fewdissented from the belief that absolutist centralisation had been amodernising force and that absolute monarchy should be interpreted asthe creator of the modern state.6 Other perspectives reinforced thisview. The sociological school that grew out of the work of Max Weberemphasised the rationalisation inherent in absolutismstransformation of medieval office holding into modern bureaucracy,while Marx and Engels both attributed a key role to its promotion,albeit largely unwittingly, of progressive social forces behind thefundamental shift to capitalism and modernity.

A reaction set in during the twentieth century, particularly after theexperience of fascism and Soviet communism discredited theglorification of strong states and national traditions. Moreover, thedisorders and destruction of the first half of the century heightenedawareness that political centralisation did not necessarily meanrationalisation and modernisation. The persistence of earlier liberalhistorical traditions combined with the practical need to legitimise newstates, such as the two German republics established in 1949, toencourage fresh research into the non-absolutist elements of theallegedly absolute monarchies. Such work not only served to underminethe myth of absolute royal power, but to suggest that early modernrepresentative institutions and popular resistance had also contributed

Introduction 5

positively to political development. Meanwhile, Marxist scholarship inboth the West and the Soviet bloc moved away from Marxs originalemphasis on absolutisms association with progressive bourgeois forces,to stress instead its role as feudal reaction in delaying modernisation.Some non-Marxists also argued that absolutism retarded politicaldevelopment by contributing to the persistence of aristocratic power intothe nineteenth century. Far from propelling German history forward, itmay have pushed it down a deviant, special path (Sonderweg) ofhistorical development, culminating in the disasters of the Nazi era.Faced with such conclusions, the idea of absolutism as a progressivehistorical force appears to be a myth.7

The third dimension to the myth was the idea that absolutism formeda distinct and important part of Western historical development. Theargument that it constituted a progressive force in political developmentimplied that it formed a necessary stage on the road to modernity. Earlierinterpretations of English exceptionalism only reinforced the beliefthat absolutism was the normal route to modern statehood within theEuropean historical experience. At the very least, absolute monarchyappeared to be the predominant form among a very narrow range ofpossible paths to the same destination. While political and socialscientists still wrestle with defining these variations,8 post-modernistshave become increasingly critical of the basic underlying premise thathistory has a singular ending. Such grand explanations have beenrejected as master narratives which impose order on an essentiallyformless and unknowable past. Absolutism has to be rejected as part ofthese grand schemes, regardless of whether they have portrayed it as thepolitical superstructure of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, asin the Marxist narrative, or as the progressive, rationalising force ofmore conservative interpretations.9

The history of central Europe from the seventeenth to the nineteenthcentury offers a particularly fruitful area to explore these threedimensions. First, discussion of the myth of absolute royal power hasbeen largely confined till now to the study of France and its comparisonwith early modern Britain. Most historians have accepted Henshallsassertion that if the notion can be disproved for France, historys pre-eminent absolute monarchy, then the same must be true for the rest ofEurope. Unfortunately, this inadvertently perpetuates the entrenchedFranco-centric bias in the study of absolutism which measureseverything against standards set by Louis XIV and the Bourbon dynastyin general. It is time that this imbalance was redressed, and the centralEuropean monarchies considered on their own terms and not as paleimitations of the court of Versailles.

6 Introduction

The case for investigating central Europe grows stronger still whenwe shift our focus from historical writing and towards the work ofpolitical and social scientists for whom Brandenburg-Prussia oftenassumes greater importance than France in models of absolutism,bureaucracy and feudal reaction. Even those historians who areprepared to accept that French royal power may have been limitedoften regard that of German monarchs as corresponding more closelyto the traditional conception of absolutism. The preoccupation ofGerman scholars with the state has also left an important legacy thatrequires consideration in this context, particularly given the issue ofabsolutism as a distinct phase in European development. Finally,within the framework of the old Reich, or Holy Roman Empire, centralEurope contained the bulk of the continents smaller states which haverarely featured in theoretical discussions of absolutism, but whichsome historians believe were more absolute than the great monarchies.

The Reich deserves particular attention because it does not fit theconventional trajectory of European state development. The fact that itwas neither an absolute monarchy nor a nation state led to its historyeither being grossly distorted or written out almost entirely fromdiscussions of central European politics. This has changed substantiallysince the 1960s as a growing body of scholarship points to a newinterpretation of the old Reich as not only historically significant, but avibrant political entity even in the late eighteenth century. Since thispicture has not yet fully penetrated the Anglophone world some furtherclarification is required here. The Reich encompassed most of centraland much of western Europe, even in the seventeenth century when itstretched from the Low Countries in the west to the Hungarian frontierin the east, and from Holstein in the north to Tuscany in the south (seeMap 1). Little of this huge area was under the emperors direct controlsince he was only the immediate ruler of his own hereditary lands, whilethe remainder was governed by a variety of territorial lords, generallyknown collectively as the princes, even though many did not in factenjoy this title. Apparent continuity of rule was provided by the fact thatthe Austrian Habsburg dynasty monopolised the imperial title between1440 and 1806 with the sole exception of 17425. This title was nothereditary, however, and each succession had to be negotiated with theeight or so electoral princes (Kurfrsteri) who enjoyed the uniqueprivilege of choosing the next emperor.

Traditionally, imperial politics has been interpreted as a dualismbetween the emperor, who became progressively weaker as he lostpowers to the electors, and other important princes whose strengthincreased correspondingly. The most powerful of these, notably

Introduction 7

Prussia, but also the Habsburgs in their capacity as territorial rulers ofAustria and its associated lands, gradually evolved as distinct,increasingly absolutist monarchies, allegedly leaving the Reich anempty shell after 1648. This is now refuted by a growing weight ofevidence that reveals not just the continued significance of myriadlesser rulers, but the presence and vitality of imperial institutions thatprovided a forum for common action and could develop a momentumof their own. The most important of these institutions was the imperialdiet, or Reichstag, which served as an assembly for the territorialrulers to debate policy with the emperor and which met in permanentsession after 1663. Other assemblies existed at an intermediary level ofthe imperial circles, or Kreise, which were regional groupings of theterritories for defence coordination and other collective action. Thetwo imperial supreme courts also functioned to preserve the Reichsstructure as a hierarchy subject to the emperors overall authority butnot under his direct control. Despite internal and external pressures,the Reich continued to survive and develop after the Thirty Years War(161848), with the emperor and imperial institutions experiencingperiodic revivals in their influence, particularly in the later seventeenthcentury. Austro-Prussian rivalry combined with the FrenchRevolutionary Wars (17921801) to precipitate the collapse of theReich after 1802 and pave the way for the Napoleonic reorganisationof Germany between 1803 and 1813.

The elective principle inherent in the imperial title was also present inthe ecclesiastical territories where the cathedral or abbey chapter choseeach new ruler from a list of candidate churchmen. These constituted asignificant proportion of the territories despite annexations andsecularisations during the sixteenth century, and as late as 1792 stillcomprised 3 electorates, 31 prince bishoprics and archbishoprics, and 40abbeys. Hereditary rule held sway in the other 5 electorates, 61principalities and 99 counties, though, as with the ecclesiasticalterritories, there were huge discrepancies in size, ranging from theelectorate of Bavaria with 41,580 square kilometres and 1.2 millioninhabitants to the count of Isenburg-Meerholz, who ruled a mere 82square kilometres and 1,500 people in the late eighteenth century. Inaddition to these miniature monarchies, the Reich encompassed thefifty-one urban republics, or imperial cities, which, while under theemperors over-lordship, also had their own small dependent territories.Some of these could be larger than many principalities, such as Hamburgwhich contained over 100,000 people in 1792.

Only about 25 of these 290 electorates, principalities, counties,abbeys and cities were ever of more than local political and military

8 Introduction

importance, though by acting collectively through imperial institutionsthey could still make their presence felt, even internationally. Thosecapable of some independent action included the three ecclesiasticalelectorates of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, and their five secularcounterparts: Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria and thePalatinate. Of these, Bohemia was ruled by the Habsburgs andBrandenburg by the Prussian Hohenzollerns. Saxony was held by theWettin dynasty while two branches of the Wittelsbach house governedBavaria and the Palatinate. All these families had junior branchesholding other lesser territories and often, thanks to election, importantecclesiastical principalities. The most important of these includedMnster, Wrzburg, Bamberg and Salzburg, while the leading secularprincipalities comprised Wrttemberg, Hessen-Kassel, Hessen-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg, Ansbach, Bayreuth, and East Frisia. Other,much smaller territories, such as Weimar, Dessau, Bckeburg andLippe, might assume only temporary political significance but couldnonetheless become significant cultural centres. We will meet theseterritories periodically throughout this study.10

Like absolutism, central Europe is a contested term that requiresdefinition. It will be used here simply as a convenient label for that partof Europe encompassed politically by the Reich and the monarchiesbased within it. This includes all the German principalities discussedabove, as well as the dynastic monarchies of the Austrian Habsburgs andPrussian Hohenzollerns which stretched beyond the Reich to the southand east (see Map 2). The word German is also used loosely todescribe those ruling houses based within the Reich, though the actualbackground of their members was frequently cosmo-politan, while theirsubjects could include many who spoke another language. The northItalian territories that were still within the formal orbit of the Reich asImperial Italy until 1802 will be excluded, as will those areas ruled bylesser German dynasties at times during the period under review. Themost significant of these is Poland, which was ruled by the Saxon Wettindynasty between 16971763, and which is variously interpreted as anaristocratic commonwealth, or a form of constitutional monarchy.11

The historiography of this region has contributed one furtherdimension to the absolutism myth that this book will address. Themyriad lesser principalities that made up the German politicalpatchwork have provided a fertile source of examples for the myth ofpetty despotism (Kleinstaaterei). This concept also has its origins innineteenth-century political and historical debates, but has receivedscant treatment in studies of absolutism, to which it is clearly related.Just as France has so often served as a stereotype for all absolute

Introduction 9

monarchies, Brandenburg-Prussia has fulfilled the same function withregard to the German states which are assumed to have followed itsgeneral pattern of development while failing to achieve its degree ofmodernity before the nineteenth century.12

Frequently, the degree of divergence is exaggerated to the point thatthe lesser territories are portrayed as deviating from Prussias path ofrationalisation and centralisation, in order to pursue an alternativemodelled on France. Evidence for this is provided by none other thanFrederick II of Prussia, who criticised the lesser German princes forslavishly copying Louis XIV.13 Other late eighteenth-century thinkersextended the range of pejorative terms when they argued that the smallerterritories were more prone to despotism, tyranny and sultanismthan their larger, more enlightened neighbours. The fact that many ofthese princes hired their soldiers as mercenaries to foreign powers onlyserved to corroborate this criticism. The image of backward, pettytyrannies served both liberal and nationalist agendas in early nineteenth-century Germany and was propagated by those seeking constitutionalchecks on princely power, as well as those demanding an end to politicalfragmentation and its replacement by unification under Prussianleadership.14 Even historians with no particular political purpose havecontinued this interpretation. A few examples will suffice to illustrate thetone of such work. The German princes were a host of little tyrantswho only had two main preoccupations in life; to satisfy their vanityand to affirm their absolute power. Despite ruling realms ofmicroscopic proportions, their vanity knew no bounds and there wasno limit to their power over their unfortunate subjects.15 Frequently thisdescends into caricature and can just as easily produce rosy pictures ofbenevolent, comicopera princedoms as deliver the stock images of eviltyrants.

Whatever the precise configuration of this myth of petty despotism,the underlying premise is always the same. The lesser territories arealways more extreme versions of the larger, absolute monarchies: eitherthey are more backward, feudal or reactionary, their rulers moretyrannical, extravagant and vain, or they are models of enlightenedgovernment, free of the great power pretensions that wasted theresources of their larger neighbours. It remains to be seen whether thereis anything in this particular element of the myth, or whether thedifference between the larger and smaller German principalities wasfundamentally simply one of scale.

10

1 Emergence

DATES AND PHASES

The various dimensions of the myth of absolutism contribute to thepresent uncertainty surrounding its origins and development. Thereseems little agreement as to when it emerged, what drove it forward,whether it progressed through distinct phases and when it came to anend. These issues are often clouded further by a failure to distinguishclearly between the impulses behind the political transformationsvariously identified as absolutism, and the justifications and meansemployed by contemporaries to advance political centralisation. Finally,there has been a tendency to generalise from specific examples, and toimpose rigid theoretical models on disparate historical experiences. Thischapter intends to remove these difficulties by unravelling thecontroversies and identifying what may be specific for central Europeanstate formation, and what is of more general application for thecontinent.

Discussions of absolutisms emergence have a long history, but onewhich starts after the period it seeks to explain. Most German theoristsof the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries discussed politics asvariations on a single theme of monarchy limited by the presence andparticipation of territorial estates (Landstnde) who acted as therepresentatives of the inhabitants in dealings with the ruler. Disputescentred on the relative positions of the monarch, or prince, and theestates, and raised specific questions such as which social groups shouldbe represented in the estates, whether they should have the right of self-assembly, and how far the ruler should be bound by their advice. Thisbalance between princely power and estates restraint was regarded assomething common throughout Europe and not peculiar to the Reich orits constituent territories. France was the only exception, as its monarchywas widely thought to be truly despotic, or free from restraint. Far from

Emergence 11

being applauded, this was taken as a sign of weakness and not somethingthat German princes should adopt. These convictions were reinforcedwhen the neomedieval French monarchy collapsed in 1789 while themodern German principalities remained largely untroubled by seriousinternal unrest.

However, a number of commentators had grown dissatisfied with theaccepted terms by the 1790s and in place of variations on a commontheme were now discussing politics as a set of stark alternatives: tyrannyor freedom, despotism or the rule of law. Though it took time for theseideas to gain ground, they set the framework for the early nineteenth-century debate on the liberal constitutional state. Like those elsewhereon the continent, German liberals regarded their ideal state as modern,but one which combined elements from the past in its balance betweena hereditary monarch and a truly representative assembly replacing theold territorial estates which were now condemned as bastions ofoligarchy and aristocratic privilege. The term absolutism only enteredthe political lexicography in the 1820s to define the sort of narrow,unrepresentative monarchy the liberals were seeking to abolish. It wasnot until the next decade that anyone applied it to the period before1789, let alone used it as a term synonymous with the entire pre-revolutionary old regime.1 However, this does not mean thatabsolutism itself was only invented in the early nineteenth century. Theidea and even the words absolute monarchy were familiar to writerssuch as John Locke long before and, as this book will argue, absolutismexisted as a real form of monarchy. What was new was its use as anabstraction to systematise an entire period in European history and toprovide a rhetorical counterpoint to liberal models of constitutionalgovernment.

If liberal constitutionalism both introduced the term and announcedits demise as a form of government, it still left the date of itsemergence unidentified. German academic interest in the origins ofwhat was rapidly being termed the modern state encouraged thesearch for absolutisms emergence. The traumatic experience of theThirty Years War (161848) appeared a plausible starting point as ithad clearly encouraged the process of centralisation in many importantGerman principalities. By happy coincidence, the war also saw thereign of Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia(164088), whom nineteenth-century historians had identified as thefounder of the modern Hohenzollern state. The Treaty of Westphalia in1648 provided a convenient general turning-point from which to datethe beginnings of what had become the age of absolutism, as it notonly concluded the Thirty Years War in a major European peace

12 Emergence

settlement confirming France as a major power, but strengthened theGerman princes by weakening the authority of the Holy RomanEmperor. Many historians continue to accept the period 16481789 asa distinct phase in European history and one which can be defined byabsolutism.2

Others, however, were not to be confined to a mere 150 years. Theprocess of political centralisation had clearly begun much earlier thanthe mid-seventeenth century and historians were aware that earliermonarchs had often set precedents or laid foundations upon whichlater successors had built. Scholars of central Europe noted that theupheavals of the Reformation had strengthened the power of theterritorial princes in the early sixteenth century and so possibly set inmotion the trends which others had detected during the Thirty YearsWar. Comparison with the rest of Europe revealed that rulers elsewherewere engaged in similar processes of internal political consolidation atthe expense of previously autonomous regions and privileged socialgroups, while simultaneously delineating and expanding their externalfrontiers in wars with neighbouring kingdoms. The French Valoisdynasty expelled the English and brought Brittany and Burgundyunder their control, while Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castilleunited the Spanish kingdoms and drove the Moors from Iberia. EvenEngland appeared to participate in the general European trend as theTudor dynasty ended civil war and consolidated the power of thecrown. The novelty of these late fifteenth-century politicaltransformations was magnified by their coincidence with the newintellectual climate associated with the Renaissance. Altogether, thereseemed to be sufficient evidence to justify calling these rulers newmonarchs and the direct precursors of the absolute kings.3

Like the proverbial dog chasing its tail, the search for absolutismsorigins seemed to have no end. Other historians pointed out thatmedieval monarchs, such as the Staufer dynast Emperor Frederick II(121250), had also accumulated and centralised power. Classicistsargued that absolutism rested on foundations laid by imperial Rome andthe Greek city states, while others began questioning whether it hadreally been swept away by the French Revolution. A recent biography ofthe Austrian emperor Franz Joseph (18481916) terms Habsburg ruleabsolutism until the 1848 revolution, followed by neo-absolutism18519, quasi-absolutism 186097 and finally bureaucratic orparliamentary absolutism until 1918.4 Such claims do have a historicalbasis, as do those that see Napoleon as the last of the absolute monarchs,but other interpretations that apply the term to the regimes of twentieth-century inter-war Europe, or range outside the continent to embrace

Emergence 13

Chinese or Indian history, are clearly stretching it beyond breakingpoint.5 Those who claim absolutism is merely a myth are right that it hasbeen misused simply as a byword for political centralisation.

The dating of absolutism is closely related to questions about its ownevolution and whether it constituted a unique stage in wider historicaldevelopment. The latter have already been highlighted in theIntroduction as the second and third dimensions to the absolutism myth.The view that held absolutism to be a progressive, modernisinghistorical force regarded it as a necessary stage in historicaldevelopment. While shying away from the moral judgements implicit insuch interpretations, others have nonetheless argued that it stillconstituted a transitional stage through which many European societieshave passed. There are two main variants to this view. One regardsabsolutism in political terms as the intermediary stage between themedieval and modern state. In this interpretation, absolutism isfrequently depicted as modernising the medieval feudal state and sopaving the way for the fully modern constitutional state.6 The otherperspective sees the transition in socio-economic terms with absolutismas the intermediary between feudal and capitalist society. This hasfeatured prominently in Marxist interpretations of absolutism, as weshall see shortly, and gave rise to the designation late feudal epochapplied by historians in the former German Democratic Republic towhat their Western colleagues generally termed the early modern period(Die Frhe Neuzeit).

Within this broader periodisation, absolutism is often seen as itselfprogressing through several stages. The current scheme used to explainstate formation in the German-speaking parts of central Europe placesabsolutism as the final stage of early modern political development andencompasses much of what other scholars have discussed as the earlyphases of absolutism itself. German political development is describedas a process of territorialisation (Territorialisierung), wherebyauthority became concentrated in the hands of the princes and lesserlords ruling increasingly distinct parts of the Reich. This had its originsin the twelfth to fourteenth century as it became clear that the electiveGerman imperial monarchy was unable to assert effective control acrossthe wide expanse of the Reich. The public order problems of thefifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave a considerable boost to thesedevelopments which then entered a second stage characterised by theconsolidation of the so-called Stndestaat. This is described as adualistic balance between a hereditary prince wielding executiveauthority but dependent on the advice and cooperation of the territorialestates, who entrenched their position by bargaining rights and

14 Emergence

privileges in return for assisting in the development of a fiscalinfrastructure. Many princes gradually displaced their estates, especiallyduring the turmoil of the Thirty Years War, throwing them on to thedefensive and ushering in the third, absolutist stage. This in turn gaveway to the modern constitutional state in the wake of the Napoleonicreorganisation of Germany and the process of unification in thenineteenth century.7

Many historians divide the last of these three stages into two sub-periods based on the now classic scheme elaborated for Europeanabsolutism in general by Wilhelm Roscher in 1847. Roscher also used atripartite model starting with the phase of confessional absolutismbetween 1517 and 1648, characterised by the phrase taken from theReligious Peace of Augsburg in 1555 which permitted the Germanprinces to determine the faiths of their territories (cuius regio, eiusreligio). Roscher saw rulers such as the Emperor Ferdinand II (161837)and the Spanish Habsburg King Philip II (155698) as consolidatingtheir political power in alliance with militant churchmen who soughttheir help in the great struggles of the Reformation and CounterReformation era. A new stage of courtly or classical absolutismbegan as religious passions subsided after the Thirty Years War and soalso corresponded with the start of absolutism according to theterritorialisation model of German political development. This age wasdistinguished by the personification of political power by the monarch,as expressed in the famous phrase (falsely) attributed to Louis XIV: Iam the state (Ltat cest moi). Enlightened absolutism formed the laststage, according to Roschers model, and was characterised by thesubordination of the monarch to the wider good, exemplified byFrederick II and Joseph II and their claims to be the first servant of thestate (Le premier serviteur de ltat).8

Roschers periodisation has been extremely influential but wasnever watertight. It has been pointed out that not all countriesprogressed through the three stages at the same time, if they did so atall. This has encouraged a search for typologies rather thanchronological phases. Reinhold Koser suggested distinguishingbetween practical absolutism involving the concentration of power inroyal hands, fundamental absolutism as it removed all barriers torule, and enlightened absolutism as it became tempered with the newintellectual currents of the later eighteenth century.9 These effortscontinued into the 1950s, but met increasing resistance from those whofelt it impossible to define meaningful categories, though, as we shallsee in Chapter 4, many still clung to the idea of a distinct type or phaseof enlightened absolutism.

Emergence 15

A possible way forward has been suggested recently by Wayne teBrake, who has criticised the term old regime used to describe theperiod before the French Revolution. Like absolutism, the notion of anold regime post-dates the events it describes and is a product of thepolitical controversies following the collapse of the French monarchy.Absolutism has long been regarded as the defining characteristic of theold regime, and despite the progressive tendencies ascribed to it, sharesthe assumption that both are essentially reactionary phenomena, deeplyrooted in a pre-modern past. Without losing sight of importantcontinuities, te Brake argues that so much changed during the greatreligious and political struggles of the sixteenth and early seventeenthcenturies to merit the term new regime for the period after about1660.10

There is much to recommend this idea. As will be demonstratedthroughout this work, political developments in central Europe did entera distinct phase roughly during the first half of the seventeenth century.The exercise of political power changed considerably within one to twogenerations, establishing a general direction that was followed withvarying degrees of consistency across the German territories and,indeed, elsewhere throughout the eighteenth century and, in somerespects, well into the nineteenth. It is the contention of this book that itis appropriate to label these developments absolutism. The purpose ofusing this term is not to resurrect the generalised, abstract models thathave dominated past discussion, but to develop a new one fromcontemporary definitions of absolute monarchy. These rested on aspecific set of justifications and theories, to be explored in Chapter 2, aswell as a variety of ways to project an aura of omnipotence and seek thesubordination and cooperation of the rest of society that forms the focusof Chapter 3. Before we can explore what constituted these further, wehave to explain why political development took this new course in theseventeenth century.

ABSOLUTISM AS THE PRODUCT OF CRISIS

Many general explanations for the emergence of absolutism take whatmight be described as the eclectic long view, stressing a variety offactors behind the gradual centralisation of power in royal hands sincethe Reformation. This can be summed up as follows for centralEuropean absolutism, though most of the factors feature prominentlyin explanations for its emergence elsewhere. The impact of thereligious conflicts of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are

16 Emergence

said to have secured the extension of secular authority overecclesiastical institutions and fostered an ideology of obedience. Thedevelopment of permanent standing armies during the Thirty YearsWar provided princes with a reliable instrument of coercion againstrefractory bodies like the territorial estates. The implementation ofmercantilist protectionist economic policies helped transcendparochialism and provided additional revenue for the princely treasury.This was now administered more efficiently than before thanks to thecreation of a new, more professional bureaucracy which expanded,acquired new functions and extended state authority into previouslyprivate spheres of life. Finally, old corporate social relations wereeroded through the introduction of new, codified law codesemphasising common sub-ordination to a singular, increasinglydepersonalised state authority.11

The main problem with this view is that it highlights the means ofcentralisation, not the motivation behind it. Those who do go beyonddescription to explain causes generally see absolutism as a response tosome sort of crisis. This too is a retrospective concept that originates inthe upheavals following the French Revolution. The depiction ofNapoleon as the saviour of France from the chaos of revolution was apowerful image that gained ground in the mid-nineteenth centurythrough the writings of historians like Ranke. There seemed to be aplausible parallel between Napoleons return to stability in alliance withthe Catholic Church and other representatives of conservative order andthe actions of earlier rulers like Louis XIII and Louis XIV, who restoredrelative domestic tranquillity after decades of civil war and religiousstrife. Further evidence was provided by many contemporary politicaltheorists who argued that the crown had reserve absolute powers thatcould be employed in such emergencies as civil unrest or foreigninvasion. The idea of absolutism as emergency dictatorship provedattractive to conservative historians during the Weimar era (191933)when Germany struggled, ultimately unsuccessfully, to form a stable,democratically elected government.12

More recently, the concept of absolutism as a product of crisis hasbroadened to encompass three distinct elements: a moral and intellectualcrisis, an international and military crisis, and a socio-economic crisis.Varying degrees of emphasis have been placed on each, and they areoften combined in different proportions as a general crisis of theseventeenth century credited with fundamentally transformingEuropean society.13

Emergence 17

The concept of a moral and intellectual crisis interprets absolutism asa response to the eschatological uncertainties of the late fifteenth andearly sixteenth centuries. The new intellectual currents known as theRenaissance, Reformation and Scientific Revolution combined to shattermedieval orthodoxy and reopen the debate on the ultimate fate ofmankind and the universe. The previous basis for political authoritycollapsed as its ideological underpinnings were called into question. Thedebate over the best form of government was immediately complicatedby the wider disputes over the true religion and meaning of the world,contributing to the violence and ferocity with which these questionswere settled.

However, the intellectual turmoil also threw up potential solutions.One was the alliance between throne and altar that is generallyregarded as an essential prop for absolutism. The religious conflictforced all Churches regardless of confession into alliance with thecrown in order to defeat their rivals and enforce their version ofChristianity. This process is termed confessionalisation(Konfessionalisierung) for central Europe and is regarded as animportant factor in the wider process whereby political power becameterritorialised within the Reich.14 The relationship between ruler andruled was redefined to emphasise the sanctity, not of the person of themonarch, but of his political power and the virtues of subordinationand the maintenance of order. Other solutions derived directly from thenew scientific and intellectual currents. The Renaissance promoted therediscovery and elaboration of ancient classical learning and itsapplication to the problems of the present. One example was therevival of Roman law, under way since the twelfth century, but whichonly achieved a significant reception in the Reich with itsdissemination by humanist scholars from the 1480s. Roman lawpromoted political centralisation partly because it contained numerousauthoritarian principles, but mainly through its preference forrationalised, schematic structures as opposed to individual specialpleading. The basis for privileges and preferential treatment wasweakened, particularly where these could be portrayed as disruptiveand harmful to the general good. Science provided a further boost tothis by defining the natural world as a harmonious and rational order,guided by clear underlying principles.15

Thus, although many of the challenges to authority lay in thepractical worlds of political, social, economic, military and religiousaffairs, the crisis and its solution were essentially cognitive. The rapidchanges affecting late fifteenth-and early sixteenth-century Europedisrupted existing explanations of the world and engendered a new

18 Emergence

quest to render it comprehensible again by defining, labelling,categorising and regulating life. Only those who could solve theseproblems would emerge strengthened from the crisis. All theauthorities charged in the late medieval world with this function failedthe test; for central Europe this included imperial institutions like theReichstag (imperial diet) and imperial courts, as well as the Church,guilds, urban governments and territorial estates. This left theterritorial princes within the Reich and the monarchy in major stateslike France as the sole powers capable of providing the sense of orderthat was so desperately sought.16

By contrast, the second variant on the crisis theory stresses the worldof practical politics and military conflict. Absolutism is explained as theproduct of wider shifts in the European balance of power and means ofinternational competition. Two distinct elements can be detected thatreceive varying degrees of emphasis in these explanations. One is thefragmentation of the medieval states system and the rise of a newEuropean order based increasingly on sovereign states with clearlydelineated frontiers.17 Absolutism emerged as the form of governmentbest suited to the task of internal consolidation necessary to facilitatesurvival and growth in this hostile international environment. Thisargument has a long heritage, particularly in German-languagescholarship where it is known as the primacy of foreign policy theory(Primt der Aussenpolitik). External pressures and the geo-politicalposition of a given country are regarded as fundamentally moreimportant factors in its development than domestic concerns or its socialand economic structure. In a classic and sophisticated formulation by thelate nineteenth-century German historian and political sociologist OttoHintze, the pushing and pulling of continental European statesencouraged the emergence of absolutism, whereas countries on theperiphery of great power struggles, or those like Britain which wereprotected by geography, were able to develop differently.18 After fallingout of fashion with the rise of social history after 1945, thisinterpretation has been revived recently and reaffirmed with a newcultural dimension. Most princes and European monarchs were notconcerned with the minutiae of domestic reforms but with securing andretaining universal recognition of their personal grandeur and that oftheir dynasty and court. This required constant intervention in wideraffairs to impress fellow rulers, in turn necessitating a high level ofmilitary and court spending. Political centralisation and intervention insocial and economic relations were simply means to this end.19

The changes in warfare known as the military revolution constitutethe second element of the international and military crisis. The spread of

Emergence 19

gunpowder technology during the later fifteenth century, combined withthe introduction of other improved infantry weapons, changed the waywars were fought. In place of the aristocratic armoured knight, thebattlefield was now dominated by large masses of common footsoldiersemploying the new pikes and firearms in disciplined formations. Thesetactical and technological changes increased the scale and cost of war-fare as skilled expertise and scarce resources were required, particularlywith respec to the heavy cannon needed to counter improvements infortification techniques. Those princes who managed to master andmonopolise the new means of waging war secured a decisive advantageover their internal and external rivals. The retinues of the powerfulmagnates proved no match for the new royal and princely forces whichwere not only larger, but better disciplined and equipped, and frequentlyrecruited from areas outside the territory, such as Switzerland or the LowCountries.

Like all such grand concepts, the idea of a military revolution in earlymodern Europe sparked considerable controversy when it was firstadvanced in 1956. While some historians now dispute the ideaaltogether, most still see the changes of the century after 1450 assignificant, and certainly more important than those between 1560 and1660, which were identified initially as the timespan of therevolution.20 Some social theorists arrived at these conclusionsindependently. The social psychologist Norbert Elias, writing in the1930s, already identified the rise of gunpowder technology and newinfantry tactics as factors behind the decline of the aristocracy and theemergence of absolutism.21 Other theorists have borrowed more directlyfrom the historical model, notably Brian Downing, Anthony Giddensand the political scientist Bruce Porter, while Michael Mann, CharlesTilly and Thomas Ertman have also emphasised military developmentsin their explanations of absolutism.22 Underlying all these interpretationsis a reliance on Max Webers definition of the state as the monopoly oflegitimate violence within a given territory. Political centralisation andthe accumulation of military power are thus two aspects of the sameprocess of absolutist state formation.

The third form of crisis interprets absolutism as the political productof social and economic pressures. Some explanations take the long view,arguing that the growth of royal power was a response to a series ofcrises in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, including thedemographic impact of the Black Death, the gradual shift to a moneyeconomy and the rise of capitalism following the expansion andintegration of European markets, and the advent of global commercewith the discovery of the New World.23 Others highlight the more

20 Emergence

specific economic problems of the early seventeenth century which areassociated with the broader concept of a General Crisis. These includethe shifts in production at the end of the sixteenth century that arebelieved to be behind the intensification of feudal agriculture in centraland eastern Europe known as second serfdom, as well as thedislocation in the continental pattern of trade following the growth of theAtlantic economy focused on western European countries with betteraccess to the markets of the New World and colonies.24 The attempts ofvarious pre-modern elites to cope with these changes provide the socialdimension. In this interpretation, absolutism becomes the politicalframework through which groups such as the feudal aristocracy hold onto their domestic economic and social pre-eminence during this periodof fundamental change.

The variety in state structures throughout Europe is explained by thedifferent outcomes of these crises, usually exemplified by a comparisonbetween England and France. Both were rocked by turmoil in the firsthalf of the seventeenth century but the outcome was clearly different.One influential viewpoint interprets Englands constitutional monarchyand powerful Parliament as the product of a successful politicalrevolution during the English Civil War. At the same time attempts tobroaden the base of political participation were frustrated in the failedsocial revolution of the Levellers and other radical groups of the1640s. By contrast, absolutism resolved the crisis in France left by thefailure to develop late medieval constitutionalism in the unsuccessfulpolitical revolution of the Fronde between 1648 and 1653.25 The impactof international pressures and military change is often emphasised asdecisive in explaining these different outcomes. Brian Downingdevelops Hintzes arguments that those states that escaped conflict at thetime of the military revolution were better able to preserve and developtheir late medieval constitutions and so avoid absolutism. ThomasErtman has considerably extended such arguments by recognising thatthe onset of prolonged international conflict could act as an importantvariable since the methods for waging war were in a constant state ofevolution. Depending on the timing of such conflict and how itinteracted with the nature of existing local government andrepresentative assemblies like the estates, he detects four possibleoutcomes: patrimonial constitutionalism (Poland, Hungary),bureaucratic constitutionalism (Britain, Sweden), patrimonial absolutism(France and the rest of Latin Europe) and bureaucratic absolutism(Denmark and the German states).26

Cutting across such interpretations based on the tripartite notion ofcrisis are two further perspectives reflecting the twin poles of Western

Emergence 21

social philosophy variously expressed as the dichotomy betweenstructure and action, macro and micro, or society and the individual.Neither perspective is exclusively associated with any one of the threecrises, but instead tend to be combined in varying proportions with eachto produce a broad spectrum of interpretations.

Micro perspectives emphasise human agency and see absolutismresulting from individual action. Wider pressures do not disappear fromthe equation, but are seen as subordinate to the activities of a few keyfigures who are credited with influencing events, if not actually shapingthem. This accounts for the preference for the term state-buildingrather than formation, to emphasise the conscious and deliberate actionsbehind political change. Even where wider circumstance is given greaterprominence, human error and miscalculation are perceived as significantfactors.

Micro perspectives are frequently found in combination with theconcept of an intellectual and moral crisis. Whether responding toexternal pressures, or acting on their own initiative, key figures such asindividual rulers, bureaucrats or political theorists all sought newmethods of government and, in so doing, became themselves forces forchange. The most extreme version of this approach interpretsabsolutism by blueprint as the implementation of a plan derived fromthe new intellectual currents and emulation of systems in placeelsewhere. There is some evidence for this view, notably in Russiawhere Peter the Great obtained copies of Swedish governmentordinances and imposed them on his own administration and subjects.This interpretation features prominently in the work of those historianswho have drawn extensively on central government records and theprivate papers of individual monarchs and their officials whose actionsoften seem more rational and planned to posterity than to theircontemporaries.27

The other main variant is the Great Men school of history in whichdynamic figures stamp their mark on their age by military victories,architectural and artistic achievements, domestic reforms and sheer forceof personality. Despite its popular label, the interpretation is notexclusively male dominated, as indicated by the significance ascribed toCatherine II, Maria Theresa and a string of French royal mistresses.Understandably, historical biography is the most common formexpressing this view of absolutism, but the role of dynamic individualssurfaces in a surprisingly wide range of interpretations. The mostimportant example is the Great Elector, Frederick William ofBrandenburg-Prussia, who is repeatedly credited with founding the

22 Emergence

modern state by scholars who otherwise give prominence to broader,impersonal forces.28

These forces are at the heart of the macro perspective whichemphasises the underlying structural features largely beyond individualhuman control. When combined with the concept of an intellectual andmoral crisis, the macro perspective interprets absolutism as the responseto wider pressures with the new intellectual currents merely providingthe means to make sense of this process. Instead of shaping change,political theorists simply responded to it by using the language ofscience and philosophy to explain the new forms of state. Similarly,rulers and their apologists borrowed absolutist rhetoric and theory tojustify what they were already doing as they centralised power. Whereasthe micro perspective on international pressures emphasises the relativeability of such rulers as the Great Elector to defeat their enemies, themacro variant robs them of most of their influence and instead stressesthe underlying trend towards powerful sovereign states to which eachcountry had to respond or go under. The history of Poland appears toprovide an example. Though not short on able individuals, the electivePolish monarchy was unable to overcome the structural constraintsimposed by the entrenched power of a strong aristocracy and theinterference of foreign powers, and was ultimately incapable of resistingextinction by partition between 1772 and 1795. Such explanations alsopoint to the third type of macro perspective, which is combined with thenotion of a socio-economic crisis. This has spawned a detailed andcomplex literature that merits more extensive treatment in the nextsection.

ABSOLUTISM IN MARXIST INTERPRETATIONS

Socio-economic factors feature most prominently in those explanationsequating absolutism with the transition from feudalism to capitalism.These include both Marxist historiography and the approach associatedwith the French Annales school. Of the two, the Marxist perspective isby far the more important, not least because Annales historians havetended to downplay high political developments to the extent that theyvirtually disappear altogether from some of their studies. Furthermore,the Annales approach has generally been applied to France and theMediterranean region, whereas Marxist historiography addresses centralEuropean history directly.29

However, there is no such thing as the Marxist explanation ofabsolutism. Whereas Marx referred to absolutism as the direct agent

Emergence 23

of capitalism, Engels developed a more sophisticated model of thecrown as mediator between a declining feudal aristocracy and arising capitalist bourgeoisie. He believed that the position of the twoclasses had reached a rough equilibrium by the seventeenth century,creating an opportunity for the crown to free itself from theconstraints of late medieval constitutionalism by siding with thebourgeoisie and bringing them into its expanding administration.However, when these upstarts began making political demands fortheir class, the monarch fell back on the nobility as his naturalallies in the feudal reaction of the eighteenth century. This attemptto hold up the historical process was doomed to failure becausechanges in the mode of production were shifting real power awayfrom the feudal landowners and placing it in the hands of merchants,manufacturers and professionals. The political superstructure of theabsolutist state gave way in the fundamental social realignment of theFrench Revolution which ushered in new forms more attuned to theinterests of bourgeois capitalism.

Though this scheme loosely fits the course of French history, itsuffers from fundamental problems, not least the absence of concreteevidence that social and economic structures were developing as Engelsbelieved, and it seems even less applicable to the situation in centralEurope.30 Neither Marx nor Engels was primarily interested in history,and their references to absolutism remain fragments scatteredthroughout works on entirely different topics and are oftencontradictory. This is a perennial source of frustration to some Marxistscholars who have expended much energy disputing what the Great Menmight have meant. Fortunately, most have had the good sense to usethese ideas as starting points for their own explanations which, since1945, have tended to revolve around variations of Western andEastern models of European absolutism.

Discussions of the Western model generally follow Engelss conceptof the crown as arbiter of social disputes, siding initially with thebourgeoisie before closing ranks with the aristocracy in the feudalreaction some time in the eighteenth century. Britain and the DutchRepublic are interpreted as having escaped this process by undergoingearly bourgeois revolutions, enabling a more advanced andcommercially active bourgeoisie to modernise the state more directly.This occurred during the Eighty Years War (15681648) when the Dutchoverthrew Spanish rule and established an independent republic, whilethe Civil War and 1688s Glorious Revolution secured a similar advancefor Britain within the framework of a constitutional monarchy.

24 Emergence

The Eastern model encompasses not only Russia, but Prussia,Austria and the German states and draws on Marxs belief that thesecountries experienced a stunted (verkrppelter) version of Westernprogressive development. The growth of capitalist forms of productionin Britain, the Dutch Republic and absolutist France compelled the lesswell-developed states of central and eastern Europe to adapt or sufferin international political and economic competition. Their monarchiesresponded by introducing reforms intended to enforce tighterregulation of agriculture and commerce. Since these measures left littleroom for the development of a large and vibrant bourgeoisie, thecrown was compelled to accommodate itself with the still powerfulfeudal aristocracy. This compromise was at the expense of the peasantswho were obliged to work harder for the nobles and pay war taxes tothe crown. Soviet historians such as Boris Porshnev added a secondsubsidiary strand to this model by arguing that the gradual transition tocapitalism heightened class conflict and caused the crown andaristocracy to draw together and defend themselves. They establishedpowerful standing armies, officered by reliable nobles and recruited,allegedly, from foreign mercenaries who could be trusted to crushpeasant opposition and serve in external wars of conquest andplunder.31

East German Marxist scholars responded to Western critics whopointed to the relative absence of large-scale risings while absolutismwas being established. They argued that this was due to the deterrenteffect of the new mercenary armies, which had already proved theirutility in defeating popular protest during the Peasants War of 15246, and to the fact that the opposition to absolutism had passed tobourgeois intellectual circles. The peasants were reduced to lowerforms of class struggle such as sabotage, arson, malingering andemigration.32

However, the fiercest disputes raged within Marxist circles andcentred on disagreements on the role attributed to economic factors.Orthodox Marxist theory places absolutist theory and institutions inthe superstructure that is determined by the economic base.Changes occur within the base, especially in the mode of production,as people develop new ways of making, distributing and consuminggoods and services. These changes trigger tensions in the relations ofproduction, or the social distribution of economic power. Specifically,the growth of capitalist forms of production disturb society aspreviously privileged and wealthy groups are displaced by thoseprofiting from the new economic practices. These tensions mount untilthey can only be resolved by transforming the political, cultural and

Emergence 25

ideological super-structure to bring it in line with the new mode ofproduction. The perennial problem with this theoretical insight lies inrelating it to the available evidence. It is far from clear that direct oreven indirect links can be drawn from changes in the western andcentral European economy and the apparently differing politicaloutcomes. This has alienated not only non-Marxists, but those wishingto remain within the tradition of Historical Materialism. The work ofPerry Anderson and Robert Brenner represents the most importantresponse to this problem. Andersons ideas are older and better known,but Brenners have sparked the fiercest controversy and are the sourceof the most recent Marxist contribution to the debate on centralEuropean absolutism.33

Anderson criticised older Marxist studies for their generic use of theterm economic to refer to the material base of the mode of productionand argued that this only makes sense for capitalism where surplusextraction is truly economic in the form of profit taking. The rest ofsocial life has to be considered for feudalism since the extraction bythose in power extended beyond the purely economic to include militaryand labour services as well as political loyalty. Through this extra-economic coercion, things normally attributed to the super-structurenow define the base; in short, a key tenet of orthodox Marxist theory isturned on its head. The superstructures of kinship, religion, law or thestate necessarily enter into the constitutive structure of the mode ofproduction in pre-capitalist society and it is not until the advent ofcapitalism that they are fully bounced upwards from the base to thesuperstructure. In consequence, pre-capitalist modes of productioncannot be defined except via their political, legal and ideologicalsuperstructures, since they are what determines the type of extra-economic coercion that specifies them.34

In addition to this fundamentally different conception of feudalism,Anderson rejects the orthodox Marxist linear stage theory whereby theinherent contradictions of one mode of production force atransformation into the next. Instead of seeing capitalism as emergingfrom the contradictions within feudalism, he argues that it stemmedfrom the complex interrelationship of at least two previous modes ofproduction, adding antiquity to feudalism. The former had disappearedby the Middle Ages but the period from the fourteenth to the nineteenthcentury saw the coexistence of both feudalism and capitalism.35

These theoretical foundations underpin Andersons version of theMarxist Eastern and Western models of absolutism. His Westernmodel remains fairly true to the economistic interpretationsdescribed above in that it interprets the demise of serfdom and the

26 Emergence

growth of an urban bourgeoisie as reducing aristocratic control overwealth producers. The result was a displacement of politico-legalcoercion upwards towards a centralised, militarised summitTheAbsolutist State which compensated the nobles for their loss ofeconomic power by defending their class status.36 Andersons modelhas been subjected to severe criticism, including from fellowMarxists who claim that it merely describes absolutisms functionsrather than explains its origins.37

His Eastern model has, however, received a more favourablereception. International competition receives a greater than usualemphasis, with the impact of Swedish expansionism in the mid-seventeenth century highlighted as a factor behind Russian and Prussianabsolutism, alongside the more customary references to the threat posedby the expanding capitalist economies of Britain, France and the DutchRepublic. The eastern European monarchies responded to thesepressures through a direct compact between crown and aristocracy,whereby the latter surrendered political power in return for theimposition of serfdom, often in areas where it had not previouslyexisted. Andersons Eastern model is thus the exact opposite of that forthe West; in the former absolutism is a device for the consolidation ofserfdom, whereas in the latter it served as compensation for thedisappearance of serfdom.38

As will be apparent from this discussion, despite its differenttheoretical premise and important points of detail, Andersons East/Westmodel shares much in common with the other Marxist viewpoints. Allhave a root in Historical Materialism, including its sense of the motiveforce and direction of history and the belief that human developmentpasses through successive stages. Absolutism is always identified as akey transitional phase between two of the most important of thesestages: feudalism and capitalism. The concept of tensions between baseand superstructure is present in the view that absolutism was riddledwith contradictions, fostering the very developments that would bringabout its demise: Absolutist states helped perpetuate feudalism, but theyalso facilitated the growth of capitalism within it.39 The disagreementsare on how this came about. Finally, absolutism is interpreted asessentially reactionary. Though it fostered the progressive forces ofcapitalism, it was ultimately identified with the feudal social elite andserved their interests.

This is apparent in Andersons distinction between the social andeconomic characteristics of absolutism. While arguing for the co-existence of both feudal and capitalist forms of production during theperiod, Anderson nonetheless firmly associates the former with

Emergence 27

aristocratic agrarian domination and the absolutist state, whileidentifying the latter with the urban bourgeoisie and international capitalaccumulation. Absolutism thus fostered capitalism only indirectly bystabilising feudal agrarian domination and so preventing the landedaristocracy from becoming entrepreneurial farmers. This permitted thegrowth of a separate urban bourgeoisie within the relative securityprovided by the militarised absolutist state, though the nature of thecrown-aristocratic alliance mitigated against this in the East. Othersshare this broad interpretation, and for this reason associate absolutismwith political reaction and economic backwardness, even in westernEurope where monarchies like France are viewed as being increasinglyoutpaced by the bourgeois regimes in Britain and the DutchRepublic.40

This position predetermines Andersons discussion of social relationsin Prussiathe area of central Europe to which he devotes the mostcoverage. The presence of capitalist elements in feudal Prussia isdenied, though it should be mentioned that most of the research thatdemonstrates their growth in the eighteenth century was published afterAnderson completed his work.41 According to Anderson, the PrussianJunkers were not agrarian capitalists as some theorists have claimed,but still essentially feudal landlords, only switching to more market-orientated production in the Reform Era (180613), as the Hohenzollernmonarchy supposedly reorientated itself from East to West in the wakeof defeat by Napoleonic France and the subsequent acquisition of theindustrialising Rhineland in 1814/15.42

An attempt has been made recently to address some of theseproblems while preserving a Marxist interpretation of absolutism.Building on the work of Robert Brenner, Colin Mooers has tried tointegrate the different patterns of German, French and British stateformation within a broader account of the emergence of capitalism. In aseries of highly controversial articles, Brenner tried to link the differentroutes to capitalism with divergencies in feudal class relationships whichhe believed already divided east and west Europe in the Middle Ages.The late fourteenth-century feudal crisis benefited many Westernpeasants who gained rights over land. Where prices were high andpeasants had access to markets, small-scale commercial farming coulddevelop. Brenner regarded this petty commodity production as crucialto capitalisms development, because the emergence of a middling sortof yeoman farmers caused tensions within peasant communities. Asvillage solidarity broke down, enterprising lords were able toconsolidate their estates at the expense of the marginalised, weakerpeasants and engage in large-scale commercial farming. This took off in

28 Emergence

Britain, but remained stalled in France and elsewhere due to the natureof political developments, including absolutism.

Mooers extends Brenners analysis by giving greater coverage tocentral Europe and expanding his account of state formation. In a directchallenge to Andersons theory, Mooers seeks to relocate absolutismsorigins in the economic base rather than the politico-culturalsuperstructure. He draws on Brenners concept of politicalaccumulation which roughly corresponds to what social theorists labelmonopoly formation. Since feudal production was relatively inflexible,Brenner argues, the only way to increase yields significantly was toexpand the control of people and land by accumulating coercive meanssuch as legal rights and military power. Political accumulation made thestate a class-like phenomenon since it became an independentsurplus-extractor using its coercive powers to take a significant slice ofpeasant production through taxation.43

This model is then related to Brenners discussion of pettycommodity production to account for the different paths to capitalismand the modern state in Britain, France and Germany. Britainsupposedly avoided absolutism and took a shortcut to capitalismbecause the landed gentry had unchallenged control of the state afterthe English Revolution of 1640, reducing Parliament to a committeeof landlords governing in the interests of capitalism. It was abourgeois revolution, even though it was not made by thebourgeoisie. The presence of a strong yeoman class further served topromote capitalism and acted as a buffer between the gentry and themass of landless peasants. The spread of share cropping prevented thegrowth of a comparable class in France, exposing the aristocracy to thethreat of popular unrest and so forcing them to seek protection from anabsolute monarchy. German, or rather Prussian, absolutism isexplained is largely similar terms. The absence of a strong yeomanclass heightened class tension and forced the nobles to seek thecrowns protection against peasant revolts, while the monarchy alsodefended them against rival lords in other countries. In contrast to thesupposed fusion of the state and gentry in Britain, the Prussianmonarchy acted in Brenners manner as a class, competing for a shareof the relatively inflexible peasant production with the nobility. As theJunkers were able to prevent the crown from significantly diminishingtheir share of this surplus extraction, the Hohenzollerns were allegedlydriven to conquer new lands from their neighbours.

There are a number of serious flaws in this scheme. While it differsfrom Andersons model, it still rests on an exaggerated East-West dividein European economic and political history and neither Brenner nor

Emergence 29

Mooers took sufficient account of the recent research on East Elbiansocial and agrarian relations.44 In some places the facts appear to bemade to fit the theory: for instance, there is little evidence thatHohenzollern expansionism was propelled by the crowns inability toreduce the Junkers share of peasant production. On the contrary, it wasthe involvement in international competition that demanded ever moreresources and caused them to intervene in social relations. More usually,however, it seems as if theory is stretched to accommodate awkwardfacts to the point that it is doubtful if such a varied and diverseexperience can be encompassed within the original concepts. This wasalready apparent in the debate surrounding Brenners original thesiswhich became increasingly abstract and detached from what it wassupposed to be explaining.45

These arguments have been explored in detail because they revealthe assumption underlying all Marxist theories of the state: that italways represents the interests of the dominant class. The absolutiststate is thus a captured state, created and controlled by the feudalaristocracy, despite whatever fragmentary autonomy individualmonarchs may have exercised. This permits Anderson and Mooers toreconcile their interpretations with the essentially traditionalhistoriography from which they draw their material for central Europe.Prussian domination of Germany is as inevitable for Anderson as itwas for many conservative and nationalist historians, though the basisfor this assertion is radically different. In place of micro perspectives,such as the glorification of the Hohenzollern dynasty, or moretraditional macro view-points emphasising geopolitics, Andersonargues that only Prussia could emerge as a strong absolutist state,because only it had the necessary precondition of an economicallystrong and stable landowning class.46

THE HISTORIC COMPROMISE

The importance of the Prussian example to Marxist and otherexplanations of central European absolutism necessitates its furtherinvestigation. All versions of the Eastern model of absolutism stress acompromise between crown and aristocracy as fundamental to theconsolidation and extension of royal power. Many nineteenth-centuryhistorians had already detected this and identified its key element asthe Recess, or concluding agreement, between the Great Elector andthe Brandenburg estates, dated 5 August 1653.47 This documentconfirmed various old rights previously granted by past electors to

30 Emergence

the Brandenburg estates, including the right to advise on externalrelations. Other provisions legalised the condition of hereditarysubordination (Erbuntertnigheit) that had been developing since theearly sixteenth century and which permitted the extension of formalserfdom over all those who could not prove they were legallyfreemen. Since most peasants lacked such documentation, or had lostit during the confusion of the Thirty Years War, this measureappeared to strengthen the nobles position considerably. In addition,earlier privileges exempting the nobility from taxation and extendingtheir jurisdiction over the peasants were confirmed, while furtherclauses consolidated aristocratic access to landownership by makingit harder for foreigners or commoners to acquire noble estates. Inreturn for these concessions the Brandenburg nobility dominating theestates voted war taxes totalling 530,000 taler over six years, orsufficient for Frederick William to maintain a modest standing armyof 5,000 men.

The money is widely regarded as crucial as it gave the elector ameasure of practical power which he quickly consolidated and extendedas his lands became embroiled in the Northern War between Sweden andPoland (165560). Troops funded by one Hohenzollern province weredeployed to intimidate the estates of another, notably those in thewestern enclaves of Cleve and Mark, and later those of the duchy of EastPrussia. Meanwhile, the general emergency permitted Frederick Williamto levy more soldiers and taxes, reinforcing his diplomatic position andallowing him to extract important concessions from both the warringparties. He continued to strengthen his domestic position after 1660 byintroducing two distinct forms of taxation designed to split the estates.An indirect excise (Akzise) was imposed on the towns, while a direct wartax (Kontribution) was levied in the countryside. The former retarded thegrowth of a commercial bourgeoisie, but the latter preserved thecompromise since the nobles could offload payment on to the peasants.The subsequent expansion of the Hohenzollern army and administrationfurther reconciled the nobles to absolutism by providing careers andother rewards.48

Similar examples can be detected in other important Germanterritories. Elector Johann Georg III secured the agreement of the Saxonestates to fund his army in 1682 by granting concessions reinforcingaristocratic privilege and exclusivity, including preferential treatment inappointments as army officers.49 However, it is the Brandenburg Recessof 1653 that has attracted by far the most attention. Perry Andersondescribes it as the beginnings of the social pact between the Elector andthe aristocracy which was to provide the foundation of Prussian

Emergence 31

Absolutism, while others call it the foundation-stone of theBrandenburg-Prussian military state and the origin of later Prusso-German militarism.50 Disagreement centres on the precise consequencesof this Historic Compromise. One school of thought believes there wasa shift of power between the parties in favour of the crown, reducing thearistocracy to a service nobility, reconciled to their loss of politicalinfluence by the preservation of their socio-economic privileges and theextension of alternative career opportunities within the army andbureaucracy.51 By contrast, most Marxists regard this shift as of littleimportance since it took place within the same ruling elite. Thecompromise was an intra-class agreement and the state remainedessentially feudal.

The existence of such an explicit compromise is now being calledinto question by recent historical research. The critique concentrates onthe two fundamental elements of supposed class solidarity and theconsolidation of noble power. Though they did grant their ruler newtaxes in 1653, the Brandenburg nobility remained opposed to the idea ofa standing army and state service. Long after the permanence of both thearmy and its funding arrangements had become established, manyBrandenburg nobles refused to serve in it or assist in its recruitment.Frederick William and his three immediate successors relied heavily onnobles born outside their domains to provide essential expertise,particularly while absolutism was being established during the laterseventeenth century: French Huguenot refugees accounted for fully one-third of all army officers in 1689. Native nobles remained, by and large,opponents of absolutism rather than its collaborators and severalhistorians now suspect that the extent of their discontent has beenmasked by the way in which nineteenth-century editors compiledimportant published collections of such Prussian documents as the ActaBorussica. Aristocratic criticism persisted well into the eighteenthcentury and its targets included measures like the canton system ofmilitary recruitment, which was also widely identified as an element ofthe compromise.52

Comparison with other German territories has relativised the claimsmade for the power of the Brandenburg-Prussian Junkers. The nobles inMecklenburg and Swedish Pomerania were able to introducecomparable large-scale estate farming with dependent serf labourwithout needing the help of an absolute monarch. Indeed, oneempirically based Marxist study has concluded that the Mecklenburgnobles opposed their duke in order to defend their socio-economicpreeminence.53 Perhaps more fundamentally, the co