The nobility state relationship (10)

202 • Antoni Mączak

particular reasons to do so. This occurred for two reasons at least. First, intensive sennie labour required dose control of the population and enforcement measures which were far beyond the means of the professional State administration. And secondly, complete or almost complete jurisdiction over the rural population was a fair price offered by the rulers to the noble estate in return for the renunciation of their polincal freedoms, and the nobles regarded it as their most essendal right.

The most portentous case of such a bargain was the 1653 Recess of the Brandenburg Estates which became one of the foundations of absolutism in Prussia. But this step had been prepared by numerous agreements both in Prussia and in Brandenburg. Similarly Sweden, which offered vast freedoms to bónder (farmers) in the core lands, readily acknowledged the brutal rule of the German nobles in the Baltic provinces in exchange for their loyalty. In Poland, which was following a unique republican path, the landowners enjoyed fuli immunity from royal inter-ference in their estates from about 1520: in that case it was an effect of freedoms received from the 1420S in exchange for recognition of rather doubtful rights of the Jagellons to the Polish Crown.

Unlike Poland, the absolute rulers of eighteenth-century eastem Europę had eventualły to reconsider the nobility-serf relationship. Able-bodied peasants were badly needed as recruits for the army; what is morę, the central authorities were less and less prepared to tolerate any area that remained free from their intervention. Nevertheless, the Enlightened reforms of EmperorJoseph II encountered obstinate resistance from the landed nobility. In Prussia, State control of the countryside pro-gressed morę slowly but consequendy with greater success. In his relation to the peasantry, the landowner was now subjected to the State officials but the administration dvil and military surely belonged to his own dass and understood his problems.

The basie reasons for co-operation did not exdude open conflict between ruler and nobles. The prince could rely on his officers of commoner status for advice on how 'to diminish the nobility' (Adel kleittzumachen).

This phrase is quoted from a memorandum written in 1660 by a learned coun-dllor at the minor north German court of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf. The author, Dr Andreas Cramer, counselled his ruler to restrain the nobility by using an daborate system of traps. The generał idea allegedly reflected the policy of Spain, in Cramers opinion the best authority on the subject.³⁶ Particular 'maxims' follow with brutal frankness: duelling should be legalized and the nobles encour-aged to spend extravagantly; wards should have a guardian (praetor pupillaris). Cramer adyised against any restrictions on luxury in dress, banąuets, horses and carriages, or servants, because rivalry in conspicuous consumption could entirely deplete the revenues (rires patrimonii) of noble families.

Cramer in Lohmeier (1978), 254-9.

Dismal stories of a similar kind loomed large among the nobles in Europę, even in Poland. An anonymous English or Scots observer was only repeating common gossip when he wrote that the Catholic zealot King Sigismund III had madę an 'evangelicall very zealous in hys profession, Raphael Leszczyski, ‘Palatyne of Brzestye, which ofFice hath not above 300 florins yearly profitt, that thereby con-strayned to maynteyne the greater State after the Polish fasshion, he should be forced to spend hys inheritance', and so on in this vein.³⁷

Another method of constraint of the nobility was practised in medieval Prussia where the Teutonic Knights ran the State as their Orders private enterprise.³⁸They attracted knights from the core German lands but did not permit secular noble settlers to build up sizeable fortunes. The administration was totally in the hands of the brethren. Thus the Ordensstaat, highly advanced technically, had no representative assemblies until after the devastating wars with Poland of 1410-35.

Only in the mid-fifteenth century did a Financial crisis compel the Teutonic Order to reconsider its subjects’ demands. Eyentually, a revolt of Land und Stadte (a union of the landed nobility and urban elites) caused the loss of the richest part of the country (1454-66).

When in 1525 the Order s Grand Master became a Protestant and dedared him-self a secular duke, he faced the urgent task of creating a new elite. The former domain of the Teutonic Order was distributed to high-ranking offidals or leased to the duke's creditors. As if by magie, an aristocracy emerged, consisting of landowners largely employed in the State administration. At the same time, the ‘knight-like’ (ńttermdfiig) freeholders were losing their status, and during the six-teenth century groups of the gentry were strongly attracted by the Polish freedoms, only to be put in their place by the dukes. The Hohenzollems eventually succeeded in bringing together their divided dominions in the Empire and in Prussia. This gave them a chance to play off the estates and their assemblies in different countries against each other and finally (1653) to suspend the assemblies alto-gether. The Prussian ethos of public service was then free to emerge. However, this had not been developed by the commoners but chiefly by the offidals brought by the Hohenzollern dukes and electors from other hereditary lands of theirs.

This observation leads to the ąuestion of migration which cannot be discussed here in a way that adeąuately reflects its importance. There was both a great sup-ply and a corresponding demand for nobles coming from abroad. Many of the younger sons were also likely to look abroad if not necessarily for glory, then at least for service and social promotion. The conseąuences of the forced emigration of noble Huguenots after 1695 are well known. Throughout the period in ąuestion some areas of constant warfare attracted prospective soldiers of fortunę. Franęois de Bassompierre left a confession relating how he had tried to join the imperial

Talbot (1965), 65.

nob^: Ca^^fjka^jpchramm (1^3).