Land Enclosure and Bavarian State Centralization (1779-1835)
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 7-1-2020 Reshaping an Earthly Paradise: Land Enclosure and Bavarian State Centralization (1779-1835) Gregory DeVoe Tomlinson Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the European History Commons, and the Social History Commons Recommended Citation Tomlinson, Gregory DeVoe, "Reshaping an Earthly Paradise: Land Enclosure and Bavarian State Centralization (1779-1835)" (2020). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 5308. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/5308 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. RESHAPING AN EARTHLY PARADISE: LAND ENCLOSURE AND BAVARIAN STATE CENTRALIZATION (1779-1835) A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Gregory DeVoe Tomlinson B.A., San José State University, 2009 M.A., San José State University, 2012 August 2020 Acknowledgments The Central European History Society (CEHS) funded a visit to the Bayerisches Haupstaatsarchiv and Staatsarchiv München in the summer of 2016. Further support came from the LSU history department and the generous contributions of members of the LSU Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) for a subsequent visit in the summer of 2018. The staffs of the Bayerisches Haupstaatsarchiv and Staatsarchiv München are extremely dedicated, professional, and were more than helpful with their assistance. I would especially like to thank Dr. Susanne Millet at the Hauptstaatsarchiv München for her explanation of archival policies and assistance with Kurrentschrift handwriting. There are many people that provided advice and extensive commentary during this project. I would like to thank Professor Suzanne Marchand for her guidance, mentoring, patience, and support. Thank you for giving me so many opportunities to expand my intellectual horizons and for giving me the confidence to complete this, and other projects. Professor Brendan Karch offered helpful comments as well as relatable counsel regarding the dissertation process. Robert Billinger, Rafe Blaufarb, James Brophy, Wolf Gruner, Rosamond Hooper- Hammersley, and David Meola provided detailed feedback and encouragement at the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era (CRE) and German Studies Association (GSA) conferences. Professors Rita Krueger and Howard Louthan gave me the great opportunity to present early thesis ideas at the Center for Austrian Studies (CAS) workshop in Minneapolis in 2017. Countless people provided support during the writing of this dissertation. Professor Katherine Aaslestad was a great person to discuss thesis ideas from the beginning of this project ii to the most critical research trip I took to Munich in the summer of 2018. Professors Libra Hilde and Mary Pickering at San José State University (SJSU) in San José, California offered helpful suggestions for navigating the Ph.D process. I would also like to thank Ken and Ashlee Kruse, Matt Bell, Robert Harney, Roland and Mary Dommert, Evelyn Hayes, Janice Irving-Wise, and fellow LSU Germanists Scott Berg, Erik Wagner, and Jason Wolfe. Writing this dissertation would not be possible without the love and support of my family. This dissertation is dedicated to my parents Chris and Irene Tomlinson, and my brother Andrew Tomlinson. This project could not be completed without you. iii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………..ii. ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………....v INTRODUCTION. THE INTERCONNECTED NATURE OF BAVARIAN STATE BUILDING AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF LAND OWNERSHIP CLASSIFICATION (1799-1835) ………………………………………………………………………………………1 CHAPTER 1. REDRAWING THE MAP: THE ROLE OF LAND IN THE GROWTH OF ELECTORAL BAVARIA………………………………………………………………………34 CHAPTER 2. A STRUGGLE FOR PROPERTY: STATE-GUIDED ALLODIFICATION (1799- 1809) ……………………………………………………………………………………………76 CHAPTER 3. BAVARIA AND THE CONGRESS SYSTEM: POSTWAR ALLODIFICATION EFFORTS (1809-1817).……………………………………………………………………….127 CHAPTER 4. LAND AND POWER: THE LANDTAG AND LAND REDEMPTION (1818- 1825) ……………………………………………………………………………………….....169 EPILOGUE. THE ROAD TO LIBERAL LAND POLICIES (1825-1848) ……………….....206 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………..216 VITA…………………………………………………………………………………………..226 iv Abstract The Electoral state of Bavaria was reformed through a comprehensive project of land- based allodification (the creation of a distinction between privileged titles and property designations) through the process of “redemption” beginning in 1799. This process was previously impeded by the strength of landholding estates that included notables and the Catholic Church. In addition, Electoral Bavarian leaders lacked centralized control. Civil servants, known as cameralists, mediated political and economic interactions between these estates. The economy was based on subsistence and the productive capacity of Gutsherrschaft, a manorial system based on regional jurisdiction and rent collection by notables who largely did not own property that could be bought or sold. A shift in this system took place first in terms of cameral education, and second in its application by controversial reformers such as Maximilian Joseph von Garnerin, later ennobled as the Graf Montgelas, or simply, Montgelas. Cameral reformers in Bavarian, and German universities, proposed that the role of such civil servants be expanded to included arbitrating land sale as part of a centralized state. Additional educational reforms included the Enlightenment idea of physiocracy that cameral scholars interpreted as a school of thought that included land enclosure for productive crop yields. Montgelas was an early proponent of this school of thought but was exiled due to his membership in the Enlightenment inspired secret society, the Illuminati. Montgelas found support in exile in the Duchy of Zweibrücken from its ruler, Maximilian IV Joseph. Also referred to as Max Joseph, this ruler allowed Montgelas to develop his ideas including the Ansbach Memorandum which called for a larger, centralized cameral authority in v the model proposed by reformers in cameral institutions. Similar reforms in Bavaria were seldom pursued and when attempted failed. Max Joseph, a member of the minor Wittelsbach line, became Elector of Bavaria when Elector Karl Theodor died in 1799. The new Elector brought Montgelas with him to serve as his First Minister of state. Montgelas reformed the centralized bureaucracy and aligned Bavaria with France, leveraging the success of the Revolutionaries’ armies to quash internal and external threats to Max Joseph’s rule. This brought territorial expansion, recognition of Bavaria as a Kingdom, and the implementation of a unitary legal code in the form of the 1808 constitution. Legal supremacy allowed Montgelas to begin the process of allodification. Claiming the land for state use was beyond the power of the state ministries and Montgelas could not pursue this project by fiat. Instead the process, known as “redemption,” was voluntarily done by notables seeking cash payment for their land. The collapse of the Napoleonic system nearly destroyed Montgelas’ reform programs as debt, famine, and disorder ensued though Montgelas’ efforts were vital to the state and the allodification, through compromise and modification, remained. Montgelas was removed from power in 1817 and a new constitution in 1818 was implemented and included the creation of a legislative body, the Landtag, to advise the King. The limits of the Bavarian state, financially and beholden to an acceptable constitution in the eyes of much stronger postwar reactionary powers, impeded its ability to address pension payouts and other forms of support to landholders. Redemption efforts stalled but the process of land reform was given much-needed structure and transparency. The system survived until the 1830 when stronger German economic forces in the form of the Prussian led Zollverein (Customs Union) effectively placed Bavaria under the dominance of Berlin. vi Introduction. The Interconnected Nature of Bavarian State Building and the Transformation of Land Ownership Classification (1779-1835) In 1808 the Bavarian noblewoman Ana Maria Meierl levied a grievance against the General Commissariat of the Isar Landkreis in the newly formed Kingdom of Bavaria.1 Bavarian Finance Ministry officials based in the capital Munich read Meierl’s complaint on the topic of the “breakup of neighboring fief properties” that her family possessed.2 Meierl ended her complaint by both asking for assistance from Munich’s Finance Ministry administrators and underscoring how the loss of fiefdoms affected so many of her fellow notables.3 Meierl’s petition to the regional government was answered. She retained the fief as private property. A Finance Ministry scribe recorded that the land would be respected, “…to each regarding the partition of the vacant fief property, taken over (for/by) her as owned item.”4 This complaint sheds light on several important economic, political, legal, and social developments in the Kingdom of Bavaria in the