Queen Maria Theresa had no interest in enlightenment, but she did many progressive things for her people where her son considered himself highly enlightened. What did he do?
Maria’s positive achievements during this period were remarkable, if mostly unheralded. While serfdom existed to one degree or another throughout the empire, it was not because Maria wanted it that way or because she accepted the status quo as immutable. As we have seen, Maria was aware, to an extent, of the situations in her far-flung empire. Wrote one historian; “For one who traveled little about her realm she had a remarkable appreciation of it’s diversity.”
For example, she was much more aware and sympathetic to what was happening in Hungary than her son would ever be It was Maria who thought of arming the Czech serfs in Moravia, ostensibly for the sake of having trained soldiers on hand in time of war. However, if it occurred to them to use their guns against overbearing landlords…well, it couldn’t be helped.
Although officially ending serfdom had to wait until after Maria was gone, she undoubtedly laid the groundwork. In the Austrian empire serfdom varied greatly from one country to another. Even from one province to another.
When peasants in Bohemia and Moravia rose up, Maria set up a commission to examine the cause of it. She was deeply shocked at what was found. The fact that the populations of these areas seemed to be rebounding after the Seven Years War had caused her to think the situation was stable. Far from it. Many, if not most, of the peasants were near starvation levels.
What she did about it did not endear her to the nobles. “The first thing she decided was that no matter what the legal position was, no matter how much the landowners, the communes, the Church could legitimately expect in the way of dues and taxes, the individual peasant must be put into a position of being able “To support himself and his family, and also to pay his share of the national expenditure in times of peace and war.” In other words the peasantry from now on were to function primarily as self-supporting family units whit a duty to the state, only secondarily as contributors to the wealth of landlords.”
To this end she issued Patents, which laid out in detail what the peasant owed to a landlord and what he owed to the state. Joseph finished the work his mother started and got most of the credit for it.
She also realized that if peasants were to be productive to the greatest degree possible, they needed to be educated. And that education needed to be started early. How strongly did she feel about this? I’m glad you asked. Strongly enough to approach Frederick, yes THAT Frederick, for permission to speak to Bishop Felbiger, in Prussian Silesia, who’s methods were far ahead of their time.
“Frederick was amused to be of service to his old enemy, and four priests from the Tirol were sent to Sagan to learn what they could.” Three types of schools were set up: The Normalschule was the model for each Land. The Hauptschule, of which there was to be at least one in every district; and the Trivialschule, one in every small town and every rural parish.
All children between the ages of six and twelve had to attend. For country kids up to age eight attended summer school Easter till the end of September. All kids attended school from December 1st till March 31st so that the older kids were available to help on the farm. All children took “refresher courses” for two hours every Sunday after mass. This was required up to age twenty.
Due to a chronic lack of trained teachers, the system was less than perfect. There was also the problem of convincing parents who wanted their kids to start earning their keep ASAP to educate their children at all. In a village near Innsbruck, the entire adult population had to be threatened with prison because they boycotted the new school.
As with education, so with public health. She pushed for public inoculations against smallpox, a disease that at the time was a feared as the plague. She required apothecaries to track the purchase of poisons. They were required to record how much was sold and to whom. If a stranger wished to purchase a poison, he had to provide at least two character witnesses. She passed a decree forbidding the use of lead in drinking vessels eating utilizes or plates. All such items had to be made of lead-free tin.
For Maria, all these things had a very practical purpose. Smallpox was a killing disease that could be prevented through inoculation. Pig ignorant peasants were not efficiently productive peasants. Besides that, they were superstitious. They told, and believed, ghost stories. They believed in elves and fairies and the evil eye and who knew what-all claptrap. Lead was a toxic substance that entered the body through lead eating and drinking vessels. So….no more lead cups and plates.
Although she was deeply suspicious of the secular “enlightenment” that was on the rise in Europe, she was very much an enlightened monarch. Joseph, on the other hand, considered himself to be about as enlightened a monarch as a monarch could get. His problem was the problem that Maria had with enlightenment types in general. They were all theory. All coffee house chatter and salon bombast. Elegant theories utterly divorced from the real world.
Foe Joseph, his beautiful theories would translate into a better and more beautiful world because he, Joseph the Enlightened Monarch, would order it to be so. For example; it was simply too, too unenlightened that people practically worshiped the dead. Dead people were dead. That was that.
All that money wasted on coffins and funerals. And for what? It was just an opportunity to show off one’s wealth by throwing away large sums of money on gaudy coffins. No More! First, he decreed coffins of plain pine, no hardware. Then even that seemed too much and he ordered no coffins could be used at all. Everyone would be buried in a linen bag. People who had the bad luck to die on the same day would be buried in the same grave. Saved space and what did they care? They were dead!
The good citizens of Vienna, no pun intended, raised a stink. His Majesty could go soak his head if he thought he could deny them a proper Viennese send-off. His Majesty responded with typical Joseph-esqe ill-humor.
“ Since a great many subjects do not wish to understand the reasons for the regulations concerning burial sacks, which were instigated out of regard for the health of the people with a view to accelerating putrefaction, since, moreover, they evince so deep an interest in their bodies, even after death, without appearing to understand that they are nothing but stinking corpses. His Majesty no longer cares how they bury themselves.”
— Mr. Al
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