Joseph II and Domestic Reform

21.3.4: Joseph II and Domestic Reform

As a proponent of enlightened absolutism, Joseph II introduced a series of reforms that affected nearly every realm of life in his empire, but his commitment to modernization engendered significant opposition, which eventually led to a failure to fully implement his programs.

Learning Objective

Contrast Joseph’s domestic reforms with those of his mother

Key Points

  • Joseph II became the absolute ruler over the most extensive realm of Central Europe in 1780. Deeply interested in the ideals of the Enlightenment, he was always positive that the rule of reason would produce the best possible results in the shortest time. He issued edicts, 6,000 in all, plus 11,000 new laws designed to regulate and reorder every aspect of the empire. He intended to improve his subjects’ lives but strictly in accordance with his own criteria.
  • Josephinism is notable for the very wide range of reforms designed to modernize the creaky empire in an era when France and Prussia were rapidly advancing. However, it elicited grudging compliance at best and more often vehement opposition from all sectors in every part of his empire.
  • In 1781, Joseph issued the Serfdom Patent, which aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom system of the Habsburg lands through the establishment of basic civil liberties for the serfs. It was enforced differently in all the various Habsburg lands but serfdom was abolished in the Empire only in 1848.
  • Joseph continued education and public health reforms initiated by his mother. Elementary education was made compulsory and higher education was offered for a select few. Joseph created scholarships for talented poor students and allowed the establishment of schools for Jews and other religious minorities. In 1784, he ordered that the country change its language of instruction from Latin to German, a highly controversial step in a multilingual empire. He also attempted to centralize medical care in Vienna.
  • Probably the most unpopular of all his reforms was his attempt to modernize the highly traditional Catholic Church and make the Catholic Church in his empire the tool of the state, independent of Rome.
  • Joseph’s  enlightened despotism included also the Patent of Toleration, enacted in 1781, and the Edict of Tolerance in 1782. The Patent granted religious freedom to the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Serbian Orthodox and the Edict extended religious freedom to the Jewish population.

Key Terms

the Patent of Toleration
An edict issued in 1781 by the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II of Austria. It extended religious freedom to non-Catholic Christians living in Habsburg lands, including Lutherans, Calvinists, and the Eastern Orthodox. Specifically, these members of minority faiths were now legally permitted to hold “private religious exercises” in clandestine churches.
Josephinism
The collective domestic policies of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1765–1790). During the ten years in which Joseph was the sole ruler of the Habsburg Monarchy (1780–1790), he attempted to legislate a series of drastic reforms to remodel Austria in the form of the ideal Enlightened state. This provoked severe resistance from powerful forces within and outside of his empire.
the Edict of Tolerance
An edict issued in 1782 by Joseph II of Austria that extended religious freedom and some civil rights to the Jewish population in the Habsburg empire. It allowed Jewish children to attend schools and universities and adults to engage in certain professions as well as eliminated previous restrictions, including forcing the Jewish population to wear gold stars.
enlightened despotism
Also known as enlightened absolutism or benevolent absolutism: a form of absolute monarchy or despotism inspired by the Enlightenment. The monarchs who embraced it followed the participles of rationality. Some of them fostered education, allowed religious tolerance, freedom of speech, and the right to hold private property. They held that royal power emanated not from divine right but from a social contract whereby a despot was entrusted with the power to govern in lieu of any other governments.
the Serfdom Paten
A 1781 decree that aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom system of the Habsburg lands through the establishment of basic civil liberties for the serfs. Issued by the enlightened absolutist emperor Joseph II, it diminished the long-established mastery of the landlord, allowing the serf to independently choose marriage partners, pursue career choices, and move between estates.

Joseph II

Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I and thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine. As women were never elected to be Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph took the title after his father’s death in 1765 yet it was his mother who remained the ruler of the Habsburg lands. However, Maria Theresa, devastated after her husband’s death and always relying on the help of advisors, declared Joseph to be her new co-ruler the same year. From then on, mother and son had frequent ideological disagreements. Joseph often threatened to resign as co-regent and emperor. When Maria Theresa died in 1780, Joseph became the absolute ruler over the most extensive realm of Central Europe. There was no parliament to deal with and Joseph, deeply interested in the ideals of the Enlightenment, was always positive that the rule of reason would produce the best possible results in the shortest time. He issued edicts, 6,000 in all, plus 11,000 new laws designed to regulate and reorder every aspect of the empire. He intended to improve his subjects’ lives but strictly in accordance with his own criteria. This made him one of the most committed enlightened despots.

 

Josephinism

Josephinism (or Josephism), as his policies were called, is notable for the very wide range of reforms designed to modernize the creaky empire in an era when France and Prussia were rapidly advancing. However, it elicited grudging compliance at best and more often vehement opposition from all sectors in every part of his empire. Joseph set about building a rational, centralized, and uniform government for his diverse lands but with himself as supreme autocrat. He expected government servants to all be dedicated agents of Josephinism and selected them without favor for class or ethnic origins. Promotion was solely by merit. To impose uniformity, he made German the compulsory language of official business throughout the Empire. Joseph’s enlightened despotism and his resulting commitment to modernizing reforms subsequently engendered significant opposition, which eventually culminated in an ultimate failure to fully implement his programs.

 

Tax, Land, and Legal Reform

To equalize the incidence of taxation, Joseph ordered a fresh appraisal of the value of all properties in the empire. His goal was to impose a single and egalitarian tax on land and thus modernize the relationship of dependence between the landowners and peasantry, relieve some of the tax burden on the peasantry, and increase state revenues. Joseph looked on the tax and land reforms as being interconnected and strove to implement them at the same time. The various commissions he established to formulate and carry out the reforms met resistance among the nobility, the peasantry, and some officials.

In 1781, Joseph issued the Serfdom Patent, which aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom system of the Habsburg lands through the establishment of basic civil liberties for the serfs. It was enforced differently in all the various Habsburg lands. The nobility in Bohemia refused to enact its provisions, while the Transylvanian nobles simply refused to notify the peasants in their region about this emancipation document. The Hungarian estates claimed that their peasants were not serfs, but “tenants in fee simple, who were fully informed as to their rights and duties by precise contracts” and continued to restrict these “tenants.” In contrast, the peasants of the German-speaking provinces were actually aided by the Patent. The Patent granted the serfs some legal rights in the Habsburg monarchy, but it did not affect the financial dues and the physical corvée (unpaid labor) that the serfs legally owed to their landlords, which it practice meant that it did not abolish serfdom but rather expanded selected rights of serfs. Joseph II recognized the importance of further reforms, continually attempting to destroy the economic subjugation through related laws, such as his Tax Decree of 1789. This new law would have finally realized Emperor Joseph II’s ambition to modernize Habsburg society, allowing for the end of corvée and the beginning of lesser tax obligations. Joseph’s latter reforms were withdrawn upon his death and the final emancipation reforms in the Empire were introduced only in 1848.

Joseph II is plowing the field near Slawikowitz in rural southern Moravia in 1769.

Joseph II is plowing the field near Slawikowitz in rural southern Moravia in 1769.

Despite the attempts to improve the fate of the peasantry, Joseph’s land reforms met with the resistance of the landed nobility and serfdom was not abolished in the Empire until 1848.

 Joseph inspired a complete reform of the legal system, abolished brutal punishments and the death penalty in most instances, and imposed the principle of complete equality of treatment for all offenders. He ended censorship of the press and theater.

 

Education and Public Health

Joseph continued education and public health reforms initiated by his mother. To produce a literate citizenry, elementary education was made compulsory for all boys and girls and higher education on practical lines was offered for a select few. Joseph created scholarships for talented poor students and allowed the establishment of schools for Jews and other religious minorities. In 1784, he ordered that the country change its language of instruction from Latin to German, a highly controversial step in a multilingual empire.

By the 18th century, centralization was the trend in medicine because more and better educated doctors were requesting improved facilities. Cities lacked the budgets to fund local hospitals and the monarchy wanted to end costly epidemics and quarantines. Joseph attempted to centralize medical care in Vienna through the construction of a single, large hospital, the famous Allgemeines Krankenhaus, which opened in 1784. Centralization, however, worsened sanitation problems causing epidemics and a 20% death rate in the new hospital, but the city became preeminent in the medical field in the next century.

 

Religion

Probably the most unpopular of all his reforms was his attempt to modernize the highly traditional Catholic Church and make the Catholic Church in his empire the tool of the state, independent of Rome. Clergymen were deprived of the tithe and ordered to study in seminaries under government supervision, while bishops had to take a formal oath of loyalty to the crown. As a man of the Enlightenment, he ridiculed the contemplative monastic orders, which he considered unproductive. Accordingly, he suppressed a third of the monasteries (over 700 were closed) and reduced the number of monks and nuns from 65,000 to 27,000. Marriage was defined as a civil contract outside the jurisdiction of the Church. Joseph also sharply cut the number of holy days to be observed in the Empire and forcibly simplified the manner in which the Mass (the central Catholic act of worship) was celebrated. Opponents of the reforms blamed them for revealing Protestant tendencies, with the rise of Enlightenment rationalism and the emergence of a liberal class of bourgeois officials.

Joseph’s  enlightened despotism included also the Patent of Toleration, enacted in 1781, and the Edict of Tolerance in 1782. The Patent granted religious freedom to the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Serbian Orthodox, but it wasn’t until the 1782 Edict of Tolerance that Joseph II extended religious freedom to the Jewish population. Providing the Jewish subjects of the Empire with the right to practice their religion came with the assumption that the freedom would gradually force Jewish men and women into the mainstream German culture. While it allowed Jewish children to attend schools and universities, adults to engage in jobs from which there had been excluded, and all Jewish men and women not to wear gold stars that marked their identity, it also stipulated that the Jewish languages, the written language Hebrew and the spoken language Yiddish, were to be replaced by the national language of the country. Official documents and school textbooks could not be printed in Hebrew.

The Emperor by Anton von Maron, 1774.

Josephinism made many enemies inside the empire—from disaffected ecclesiastical authorities to noblemen. By the later years of his reign, disaffection with his sometimes radical policies was at a high, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and Hungary. Popular revolts and protests—led by nobles, seminary students, writers, and agents of Prussian King Frederick William—stirred throughout the Empire, prompting Joseph to tighten censorship of the press.

Attributions