{"id":3007,"date":"2017-10-04T23:10:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T23:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/chapter\/joseph-ii-and-domestic-reform\/"},"modified":"2017-10-04T23:10:38","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T23:10:38","slug":"joseph-ii-and-domestic-reform","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/chapter\/joseph-ii-and-domestic-reform\/","title":{"raw":"Joseph II and Domestic Reform","rendered":"Joseph II and Domestic Reform"},"content":{"raw":"<h2 id=\"concept_1127\">21.3.4: Joseph II and Domestic Reform<\/h2>\n<div class=\"brief\">\n\nAs 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.\n\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Learning Objective<\/h3>\nContrast Joseph's domestic reforms with those of his mother\n\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>Key Points<\/h3>\n<ul><li>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.<\/li>\n \t<li>Josephinism\u00a0is 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.<\/li>\n \t<li>In 1781, Joseph issued the Serfdom Patent, which aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom system of the Habsburg\u00a0lands 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.<\/li>\n \t<li>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\u00a0created 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.<\/li>\n \t<li>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.<\/li>\n \t<li>Joseph's \u00a0enlightened despotism\u00a0included also the Patent of Toleration, enacted in 1781, and the Edict of Tolerance in 1782.\u00a0The Patent granted religious freedom to the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Serbian Orthodox and the Edict extended religious freedom to the Jewish population.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox examples\">\n<h3>Key Terms<\/h3>\n<dl class=\"key_terms\"><dt><strong>the Patent of Toleration<\/strong><\/dt>\n \t<dd>An edict issued in 1781 by the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II of Austria.\u00a0It extended religious freedom\u00a0to non-Catholic Christians living in Habsburg\u00a0lands, 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.<\/dd>\n \t<dt><strong>Josephinism<\/strong><\/dt>\n \t<dd>The collective domestic policies of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor\u00a0(1765\u20131790). During the ten years in which Joseph was the sole ruler of the Habsburg Monarchy\u00a0(1780\u20131790), 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.<\/dd>\n \t<dt><strong>the Edict of Tolerance<\/strong><\/dt>\n \t<dd>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\u00a0allowed Jewish children to attend schools\u00a0and universities and adults to engage in certain professions as well as eliminated previous restrictions, including forcing the Jewish population to wear gold stars.<\/dd>\n \t<dt><strong>enlightened despotism<\/strong><\/dt>\n \t<dd>Also known as enlightened absolutism or benevolent absolutism: a form of absolute monarchy\u00a0or despotism\u00a0inspired 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.<\/dd>\n \t<dt><strong>the Serfdom Paten<\/strong><\/dt>\n \t<dd>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.<\/dd>\n<\/dl><\/div>\n<h1\/>\n<h1>Joseph II<\/h1>\nJoseph II\u00a0was Holy Roman Emperor\u00a0from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Maria Theresa\u00a0and her husband, Francis I and thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled\u00a0Habsburg-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\u00a0died 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.\n\n\u00a0\n<h1>Josephinism<\/h1>\nJosephinism\u00a0(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.\n\n\u00a0\n<h1>Tax, Land, and Legal Reform<\/h1>\nTo 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.\n\nIn 1781, Joseph issued the Serfdom Patent, which aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom system of the Habsburg\u00a0lands through the establishment of basic civil liberties for the serfs. It was enforced differently in all the various Habsburg lands. The nobility in Bohemia\u00a0refused to enact its provisions, while the Transylvanian\u00a0nobles simply refused to notify the peasants in their region about this emancipation document. The Hungarian estates claimed that their peasants were not serfs, but \u201ctenants in fee simple, who were fully informed as to their rights and duties by precise contracts\u201d and continued to restrict these \u201ctenants.\u201d 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 corv\u00e9e\u00a0(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\u2019s ambition to modernize Habsburg society, allowing for the end of corv\u00e9e and the beginning of lesser tax obligations. Joseph\u2019s latter reforms were withdrawn upon his death and the final emancipation reforms in the Empire were introduced only in 1848.\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure\">\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure__cont\">\n\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"340\"]<img class=\"atom__components__figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2529\/2017\/10\/04231034\/media_34270_medium.jpeg\" alt=\"Joseph II is plowing the field near Slawikowitz in rural southern Moravia&#xA0;in 1769.\" width=\"340\" height=\"232\"\/> Joseph II is plowing the field near Slawikowitz in rural southern Moravia\u00a0in 1769.[\/caption]\n\n<div class=\"atom__components__document\">\n\nDespite 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.\n\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"image_34270_text_equivalent\" class=\"atom__components__figure__text_equivalent\">\u00a0Joseph 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.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0\n<h1>Education and Public Health<\/h1>\nJoseph 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\u00a0created 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.\n\nBy 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.\n\n\u00a0\n<h1>Religion<\/h1>\nProbably 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.\n\nJoseph's \u00a0enlightened despotism\u00a0included also the Patent of Toleration, enacted in 1781, and the Edict of Tolerance in 1782.\u00a0The Patent granted religious freedom to the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Serbian Orthodox,\u00a0but 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\u00a0and 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\u00a0and 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.\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure\">\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure__cont\">\n\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"340\"]<img class=\"atom__components__figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2529\/2017\/10\/04231036\/media_34269_medium.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"340\" height=\"479\"\/> The Emperor by Anton von Maron, 1774.[\/caption]\n\n<div class=\"atom__components__document\">\n\nJosephinism made many enemies inside the empire\u2014from 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\u2014led by nobles, seminary students, writers, and agents of Prussian King Frederick William\u2014stirred throughout the Empire, prompting Joseph to tighten censorship of the press.\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Attributions<\/h3>\n<ul><li>Joseph II and Domestic Reform\n<ul><li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Josephinism.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Josephinism\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Josephinism<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Serfdom Patent (1781).\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serfdom_Patent_(1781)\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serfdom_Patent_(1781)<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"1782 Edict of Tolerance.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1782_Edict_of_Tolerance\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1782_Edict_of_Tolerance<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Maria Theresa.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maria_Theresa\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maria_Theresa<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Enlightened absolutism.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Enlightened_absolutism\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Enlightened_absolutism<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Patent of Toleration.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Patent_of_Toleration\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Patent_of_Toleration<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"History of Austria.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Austria\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Austria<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"Anton_von_Maron_006.png.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#\/media\/File:Anton_von_Maron_006.png\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#\/media\/File:Anton_von_Maron_006.png<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Public_domain\">Public domain<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n \t<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">\"1024px-Joseph2pflug_1799.jpg.\" <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#\/media\/File:Joseph2pflug_1799.jpg\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#\/media\/File:Joseph2pflug_1799.jpg<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Public_domain\">Public domain<\/a>.<\/div><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n<\/ul>","rendered":"<h2 id=\"concept_1127\">21.3.4: Joseph II and Domestic Reform<\/h2>\n<div class=\"brief\">\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Learning Objective<\/h3>\n<p>Contrast Joseph&#8217;s domestic reforms with those of his mother<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>Key Points<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>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&#8217; lives but strictly in accordance with his own criteria.<\/li>\n<li>Josephinism\u00a0is 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.<\/li>\n<li>In 1781, Joseph issued the Serfdom Patent, which aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom system of the Habsburg\u00a0lands 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.<\/li>\n<li>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\u00a0created 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.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<li>Joseph&#8217;s \u00a0enlightened despotism\u00a0included also the Patent of Toleration, enacted in 1781, and the Edict of Tolerance in 1782.\u00a0The Patent granted religious freedom to the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Serbian Orthodox and the Edict extended religious freedom to the Jewish population.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox examples\">\n<h3>Key Terms<\/h3>\n<dl class=\"key_terms\">\n<dt><strong>the Patent of Toleration<\/strong><\/dt>\n<dd>An edict issued in 1781 by the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II of Austria.\u00a0It extended religious freedom\u00a0to non-Catholic Christians living in Habsburg\u00a0lands, including Lutherans, Calvinists, and the Eastern Orthodox. Specifically, these members of minority faiths were now legally permitted to hold &#8220;private religious exercises&#8221; in clandestine churches.<\/dd>\n<dt><strong>Josephinism<\/strong><\/dt>\n<dd>The collective domestic policies of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor\u00a0(1765\u20131790). During the ten years in which Joseph was the sole ruler of the Habsburg Monarchy\u00a0(1780\u20131790), 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.<\/dd>\n<dt><strong>the Edict of Tolerance<\/strong><\/dt>\n<dd>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\u00a0allowed Jewish children to attend schools\u00a0and universities and adults to engage in certain professions as well as eliminated previous restrictions, including forcing the Jewish population to wear gold stars.<\/dd>\n<dt><strong>enlightened despotism<\/strong><\/dt>\n<dd>Also known as enlightened absolutism or benevolent absolutism: a form of absolute monarchy\u00a0or despotism\u00a0inspired 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.<\/dd>\n<dt><strong>the Serfdom Paten<\/strong><\/dt>\n<dd>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.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<h1>\nJoseph II<\/h1>\n<p>Joseph II\u00a0was Holy Roman Emperor\u00a0from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Maria Theresa\u00a0and her husband, Francis I and thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled\u00a0Habsburg-Lorraine. As women were never elected to be Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph took the title after his father&#8217;s death in 1765 yet it was his mother who remained the ruler of the Habsburg lands. However, Maria Theresa, devastated after her husband&#8217;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\u00a0died 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&#8217; lives but strictly in accordance with his own criteria. This made him one of the most committed enlightened despots.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h1>Josephinism<\/h1>\n<p>Josephinism\u00a0(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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h1>Tax, Land, and Legal Reform<\/h1>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>In 1781, Joseph issued the Serfdom Patent, which aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom system of the Habsburg\u00a0lands through the establishment of basic civil liberties for the serfs. It was enforced differently in all the various Habsburg lands. The nobility in Bohemia\u00a0refused to enact its provisions, while the Transylvanian\u00a0nobles simply refused to notify the peasants in their region about this emancipation document. The Hungarian estates claimed that their peasants were not serfs, but \u201ctenants in fee simple, who were fully informed as to their rights and duties by precise contracts\u201d and continued to restrict these \u201ctenants.\u201d 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 corv\u00e9e\u00a0(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\u2019s ambition to modernize Habsburg society, allowing for the end of corv\u00e9e and the beginning of lesser tax obligations. Joseph\u2019s latter reforms were withdrawn upon his death and the final emancipation reforms in the Empire were introduced only in 1848.<\/p>\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure\">\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure__cont\">\n<div style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"atom__components__figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2529\/2017\/10\/04231034\/media_34270_medium.jpeg\" alt=\"Joseph II is plowing the field near Slawikowitz in rural southern Moravia&#xa0;in 1769.\" width=\"340\" height=\"232\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joseph II is plowing the field near Slawikowitz in rural southern Moravia\u00a0in 1769.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"atom__components__document\">\n<p>Despite the attempts to improve the fate of the peasantry, Joseph&#8217;s land reforms met with the resistance of the landed nobility and serfdom was not abolished in the Empire until 1848.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"image_34270_text_equivalent\" class=\"atom__components__figure__text_equivalent\">\u00a0Joseph 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.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h1>Education and Public Health<\/h1>\n<p>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\u00a0created 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<h1>Religion<\/h1>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph&#8217;s \u00a0enlightened despotism\u00a0included also the Patent of Toleration, enacted in 1781, and the Edict of Tolerance in 1782.\u00a0The Patent granted religious freedom to the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Serbian Orthodox,\u00a0but it wasn&#8217;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\u00a0and 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\u00a0and 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.<\/p>\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure\">\n<div class=\"atom__components__figure__cont\">\n<div style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"atom__components__figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2529\/2017\/10\/04231036\/media_34269_medium.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"340\" height=\"479\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Emperor by Anton von Maron, 1774.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"atom__components__document\">\n<p>Josephinism made many enemies inside the empire\u2014from 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\u2014led by nobles, seminary students, writers, and agents of Prussian King Frederick William\u2014stirred throughout the Empire, prompting Joseph to tighten censorship of the press.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Attributions<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Joseph II and Domestic Reform\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Josephinism.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Josephinism\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Josephinism<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Serfdom Patent (1781).&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serfdom_Patent_(1781)\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serfdom_Patent_(1781)<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;1782 Edict of Tolerance.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1782_Edict_of_Tolerance\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1782_Edict_of_Tolerance<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Maria Theresa.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maria_Theresa\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maria_Theresa<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Enlightened absolutism.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Enlightened_absolutism\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Enlightened_absolutism<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Patent of Toleration.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Patent_of_Toleration\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Patent_of_Toleration<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;History of Austria.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Austria\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Austria<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;Anton_von_Maron_006.png.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#\/media\/File:Anton_von_Maron_006.png\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#\/media\/File:Anton_von_Maron_006.png<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Public_domain\">Public domain<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"attribution\">&#8220;1024px-Joseph2pflug_1799.jpg.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#\/media\/File:Joseph2pflug_1799.jpg\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor#\/media\/File:Joseph2pflug_1799.jpg<\/a>. <span class=\"attribution-name\">Wikipedia<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Public_domain\">Public domain<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-3007\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Boundless World History. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Boundless. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/boundless-worldhistory\/\">https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/boundless-worldhistory\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":23485,"menu_order":12,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Boundless World History\",\"author\":\"Boundless\",\"organization\":\"\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/boundless-worldhistory\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-3007","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":2975,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3007\/revisions"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/2975"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/3007\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=3007"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=3007"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-worldhistory2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=3007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}