Robot Patent
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The Robot Patent is an English-language scholarly term for the imperial decrees (patents) in the 1700s abolishing compulsory labor (robot) of serfs, issued by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, who had carried out a register of all land with a division between peasant and noble holdings.[1][2] Joseph II outlawed the buying of 'rustic' land by the nobility and at the same time giving the rusticalists security of
tenure. His motive was to prevent the increase in 'dominical' land, which paid fewer taxes to the government. This led to the survival of the peasantry, with rustic land still having the robot. In 1789 it was abolished by Joseph II,[3] but Leopold II restored it when his brother Joseph II died in 1790. The abolition of the Robot during the Revolutions of 1848 broke the last legal tie which held the peasants to the land,[4]
and was seen as a great victory by the peasants.
When the Robot was ended, the
coal mines, all gained by the much larger compensation paid to them.[5]
See also
References
- ISBN 978-1-4614-0085-1.
- ISBN 978-1-134-97227-2.
- ISBN 0-670-06320-7.
- ^ William Coxe (1881). "7, The Revolution of 1848, from March to September". History of the house of Austria ... , Volume 4. G. Bell and sons. pp. lxx.
- ^ A. J. P. Taylor (1947). The Habsburg Monarchy. Penguin. p. 81.
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