Serfdom Patent (1781)
The Serfdom Patent of 1 November 1781 aimed to abolish aspects of the traditional serfdom (German: Leibeigenschaft) system of the Habsburg monarchy through the establishment of basic civil liberties for the serfs.
The
Historical context
The Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II ruled as co-regent of the Habsburg monarchy with his mother, Maria Theresa, from 1765 to 1780. The empress's July Decree of 1770 granted the peasants the right to justice through royal officials rather than their lords' courts. The Patent of 1772 even granted them the right to appeal to the sovereign, and limited the robot (labour that lords could demand of their serfs) to three days a week and twelve hours a day. The October Decree of 1773 capped the price of letters of release, which serfs could buy from their lords to gain their freedom.
Following her death in 1780, Joseph II pursued further liberal reforms. His policies included the
The motivations of Joseph II
Much of the Habsburg economy was based on agriculture in the 18th century. The nobles and clerics were traditionally exempt from taxes, and the burden fell mainly on the peasants. After paying dues to the landlord, the serfs were unable to create high tax revenues for Joseph's centralized state. The Emperor recognized that the abolishment of the feudal system would allow peasants to pay higher tax rates to the state.[2] Joseph's primary objection to feudalism was economic, but his moral objections also arose from witnessing the “inhumanity of serfdom”. He abolished beatings and hoped to allow serfs to appeal court rulings to the throne following a reorganization of the landlord judicial system.
Consequences of the Serfdom Patent
The Patent was enforced differently amongst all of 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 1781 Serfdom Patent allowed the serfs legal rights in the Habsburg monarchy, but the document did not affect the financial dues and the physical corvée (unpaid labor) that the serfs legally owed to their landlords. Joseph II recognized the importance of these 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, but the personal freedom of serfs remained guaranteed through the first half of the nineteenth century due to the consequences of the 1781 Serfdom Patent.
References
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Barbara Jelavich (25 September 1987). Modern Austria: Empire and Republic, 1815-1986. Cambridge University Press. pp. 25–. ISBN 978-0-521-31625-5.
- ISBN 978-0-520-05094-5.