To equalize the incidence of taxation, Joseph ordered an appraisal of all the lands of the empire to impose a single egalitarian tax on land. 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 created scholarships for talented poor students and allowed the establishment of schools for Jews and other religious minorities.
In , he ordered that the country change its language of instruction from Latin to German, a highly controversial step in a multilingual empire. Joseph also attempted to centralize medical care in Vienna through the construction of a single, large hospital, the famous Allgemeines Krankenhaus, which opened in Joseph II was one of the first rulers in Central Europe.
He attempted to abolish serfdom but his plans met with resistance from the landholders. His Imperial Patent of abolished serfdom on some territories of the Empire, but under the pressure of the landlords did not give the peasants ownership of the land or freedom from dues owed to the landowning nobles. It did give them personal freedom. The final emancipation reforms in the Habsburg Empire were introduced in Probably the most unpopular of all his reforms was his attempted modernization of the highly traditional Catholic Church.
Calling himself the guardian of Catholicism, Joseph II struck vigorously at papal power. He tried to make the Catholic Church in his empire the tool of the state, independent of Rome. Joseph was very friendly to Freemasonry, as he found it highly compatible with his own Enlightenment philosophy, although he apparently never joined the Lodge himself.
In , he issued a charter of religious toleration for the Jews of Galicia, a region with a large Yiddish-speaking traditional Jewish population. The charter abolished communal autonomy whereby the Jews controlled their internal affairs. It promoted Germanization and the wearing of non-Jewish clothing. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Search for:. Enlightened Despotism Learning Objective Define enlightened despotism and provide examples.
Key Points Enlightened despots 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.
An essay defending the system of enlightened despotism was penned by Frederick the Great, who ruled Prussia from to Following the common interest among enlightened despots, he supported arts, philosophers that he favored, and complete freedom of the press and literature.
Catherine II of Russia continued to modernize Russia along Western European lines, but her enlightened despotism manifested itself mostly with her commitment to arts, sciences, and the modernization of Russian education. While she introduced some administrative and economic reforms, military conscription and economy continued to depend on serfdom. She improved the economy of the state, introduced a national education system, and contributed to important reforms in medicine.
However, unlike other enlightened despots, Maria Theresa found it hard to fit into the intellectual sphere of the Enlightenment and did not share fascination with Enlightenment ideals.
Another level on which Joseph sought to introduce reform was the creation of a civil society. He abolished censorship, a measure that led to a flowering in literary production but also opened the floodgates to polemical writings. The emperor was virtually encouraging public criticism and evidently tolerated it even when it focused on his own person. Joseph also followed western European models in systematically extending welfare institutions.
First and foremost among these was the General Hospital in Vienna, founded in and one of most modern institutions of its kind in Europe at the time. Other measures to raise professional standards among physicians led to a first flowering of the Viennese school of medicine which was to attain international standing during the nineteenth century.
Numerous economic reforms fostered a boom in commerce and trade. This eventually led to the establishment of an economically robust and self-confident middle class that was for the first time able to free itself from the straits of the feudal system.
One important legacy of the Josephinian epoch is the Austrian bureaucratic state. The establishment of an efficient state bureaucracy had begun under Maria Theresa, who had recognized the inadequacy of the outdated system of estates-based administration. The state was to have mechanisms at its disposal that would ensure it had access to each and every subject as a tax-payer or soldier, something that today is taken for granted but at that time was a complete novelty.
Up to that time local administration had been in the hands of the Estates and feudal landlords. This gave birth to the ethos of Austrian officialdom, which together with the army was to be one of the cornerstones of the Monarchy until its fall. In keeping with this notion, special courts and the legal privileges of the nobility were abolished.
The emperor also introduced wide-ranging reforms affecting the rural population. The Monarchy was still largely an agrarian state, and the majority of the populace lived in archaic conditions, in servitude and circumscribed by feudal prerogatives. Thanks to the abolition of serfdom in the degrading status of personal servitude which still existed in certain parts of the Monarchy among the rural population was eliminated.
However, there was a reluctance to abolish the manorial system itself this would not finally be achieved until Peasants continued to be subject to aristocratic and ecclesiastical landlords. Several interventions in the legal circumstances of the manorial system and the introduction of a fixed rate of taxes led to the curtailing of dues and obligatory labour.
For the first time land owned by the aristocracy was subject to a property tax. Many of these legal provisions met with bitter resistance. In Hungary and the Netherlands people were on the verge of open revolt.
It was not only dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists that saw themselves threatened by the flood of reforms decreed by Vienna and stood up against what they felt to be an arbitrary and insensitive attempts to subject the different parts of the Empire to the same set of standards and laws. The reaction to the centralism that Joseph was attempting to enforce formed the spark that was to trigger the emergence of a modern sense of national identity within the territories of the multi-national state.
Here the emperor was not motivated by ideas of cultural imperialism but by his vision of simplifying state administration. However, in reaction people began to reconsider and identify with local languages, prompting research into the geography, history and culture of the Crown Lands. At the end of his life, in poor health and exhausted by his enormous workload, Joseph had to admit that his efforts had largely been in vain. On his deathbed he felt impelled to revoke many of his reforms.
His life lay in ruins before him when he died in Vienna at the age of 49 on 20 February The Marriage Patent of made a clear distinction between the Church sacrament of marriage and the State marriage Magenschab, Hans: Josef II.
In the political field , British officials and political leaders had discarded the slogan of training Indians for self - government and declared that the political aim of British rule was to establish a permanent ' benevolent despotism '. However, in enlightened absolutism also known as benevolent despotism , which came to prominence in 18th century Europe, absolute monarchs used their authority to institute a number of reforms in the political systems and societies of their countries.
Enlightened absolutism also called enlightened despotism or benevolent despotism refers to the conduct and policies of European absolute monarchs during the 18th and 19th centuries who were influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, espousing them to enhance their power.
The gentry class would step in, as it always did in times of crisis, creating either benevolent or despotic tyrannies. For now, though, he was a king, and there was nothing altruistic or benevolent about his despotism. Lord Hideyoshi's army has made it a principle to rule benevolently and has done nothing despotic at all so far. Looking back on Charles's reign, Tories tended to view it as a time of benevolent monarchy whereas Whigs perceived it as a terrible despotism.
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