William D. Godsey, Jr.. Nobles and Nation in Central Europe: Free Imperial Knights in the Age of Revolution, 1750-1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xi + 306 pp. $85.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-83618-0. Reviewed by Todd Berryman Published on H-German (July, 2006) William Godsey has written a highly insight‐ mates range from 350 to above 500), Godsey skill‐ ful portrayal of the Holy Roman Empire's imperial fully manages this otherwise unwieldy topic by nobility during its crucial century of outward de‐ limiting his analysis to the 108 "knightly houses cline. Specialists will be pleased that this volume active in the second half of the eighteenth century is no mere historiographical digest of recent in Electoral Mainz." Of these, he is particularly in‐ works. Rather, it is the product of exhaustive re‐ terested in the 60 families "represented in Mainz's search conducted in nearly two dozen public and cathedral chapter" (p. 8). private archives within Austria, the Czech Repub‐ Two classic studies have dominated the histo‐ lic and Germany. For this reason, Godsey consis‐ riography of Electoral Mainz: F. G. Dreyfus's ac‐ tently offers his readers not only fresh perspec‐ count of the electorate's socioeconomic conditions tives, but also fresh material. during the second half of the eighteenth century Godsey's work comes during a period of re‐ and T. C. W. Blanning's later study on the transfor‐ newed interest in Europe's historical nobilities.[1] mation of Mainz's political institutions during Within the context of Central Europe, the study of roughly the same period.[3] Mainz's notable and the so-called high nobility (Hochadel or Re‐ highly controversial archbishop-elector, Karl ichsstände) has particularly benefited from this Theodor von Dalberg, has also enjoyed considera‐ resurgence of scholarly activity.[2] But literature tion by biographers.[4] But the free imperial on the free imperial knights (Reichsrittershaft) knights of Mainz have received far less treatment, nevertheless remains sparse. Indeed, Godsey's and Godsey's project seeks to rectify that. It book represents the frst English-language mono‐ should be immediately noted, however, that God‐ graph on the subject. sey's analysis extends well beyond the geographic Although some debate persists about how scope of Mainz, which serves only as a starting many families belonged to the free imperial point for this study. Godsey thus follows members knights by the end of the eighteenth century (esti‐ of its nobility who--because of the upheavals H-Net Reviews brought by Napoleon Bonaparte's invasions and knights were drawn there by their historic ties to territorial consolidations of Central Europe--aban‐ the emperor, out of hope of security and protec‐ doned their ancestral homeland in great numbers tion and by the simple fact that many other emi‐ and resettled in other German territories, where grant knights had not fared well at the hands of they endured a "forced assimilation into the no‐ territorial princes under whose sovereignty they bilities of neighboring states" (p. 6). had been subsumed. In contrast, "the hereditary One of the most salient components of God‐ lands of the Hapsburgs absorbed and assimilated sey's monograph is its framing. While many those nobles who rejected social change, re‐ works involving the Holy Roman Empire's nobili‐ mained attached to the imperial and pedigreed ty logically culminate either with the Final Recess past, and did not want a 'German' future" (p.11). of the Imperial Deputation (Reichsdeputation‐ But those who did remain--or who resettled into shauptschluß) of 1803 or with the dissolution of other Germanic, non-Habsburg realms--found the empire in 1806, Godsey has chosen to tran‐ themselves on a different path. Godsey contends scend what he calls "the great divide around that the study of these families over an extended 1800" (p. 6) and offer instead a more long-term period of time permits him "to compare 'Austri‐ analysis that extends through 1850. It therefore ans' with 'Germans'" (p. 11). becomes incumbent upon him not to limit his at‐ That comparison is telling, as Godsey traces tention to the free imperial knights as an institu‐ how those who became part of "the 'German' no‐ tional identifier, but to focus his attention on the bility shifted culturally in a much more marked evolution of the noble culture surrounding the way toward the bourgeoisie than did the Haps‐ families under investigation. He writes: "A look at burg aristocracy" (p. 12). The "German" (as op‐ nobles across the dividing line of revolution fur‐ posed to "Austrian") transition was one "from a so‐ thermore raises the question of the relationship ciety of Estates to a cultural-national community" between their much discussed late-eighteenth- based upon a Herderian cultural conception of century crisis of legitimacy and the drastic, revo‐ national belonging (p. 49). This reinvention of the lutionary shift in the meaning of the 'nation,'" German nobility in the nineteenth century which is an important consideration, for "nobles, "brought the hereditary order in Germany no after all, had traditional claims to being the na‐ privileges, but did provide it with a new form of tion" (p. 2). legitimacy" (p. 71). What greatly facilitated this While the French Revolution may have in‐ development was the new concept of an "ancient spired self-actualized introspection on the part of nobility" (Uradel), a term frst printed in a 1788 the nobility even on the right bank of the Rhine, article by the Göttingen scholar, Christoph Mein‐ Napoleon's invasions and subsequent meddling ers. That concept, according to Godsey (who within Central Europe demanded much more. traces its evolution in great detail), opened up a With the dismantling of the Holy Roman Empire, space in which "the old noble and the new cultur‐ the future prospects of the free imperial knights al nation" could eventually fuse together. "The no‐ (whose previous status made them "immediate" tion of Uradel," Godsey writes, "with its extensive (reichsunmittelbar) to the emperor, appeared and attendant cultural-historical associations, em‐ bleak. bedded the nobility within the 'nation,' indeed made it indistinguishable from the 'nation'" (pp. Godsey estimates that as many as one-third of 251-252). Mainz's electoral nobility fed their ancestral homeland after 1792 and resettled in what would Godsey thus remains unconvinced by the as‐ become the Austrian Empire. These emigrant sertions of Heinz Reif, who argued that in its tran‐ 2 H-Net Reviews sition to modernity, the Central European nobility [3]. F. G. Dreyfus, La Societe urbaine et underwent minimal change and persisted in its rhenane et particulierement a Mayence dans la disconnectedness from non-nobles.[5] Godsey seconde moitie du XVIIIe siecle 1740-1792 (Paris: equally objects to the more recent revisionist Armand Colin, 1968); and T. C. W. Blanning, Re‐ ideas posited by Georg Schmidt, who has contend‐ form and Revolution in Mainz, 1743-1803 (Cam‐ ed that the Holy Roman Empire already constitut‐ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). ed a nationalized "empire-state" (Reichs-Staat) in [4]. Konrad Maria Färber, Kaiser und Erzkan‐ the eighteenth century.[6] Rather, Godsey insists zler. Carl von Dalberg und Napoleon am Ende des that, throughout the late eighteenth and early Alten Reiches (Regensburg: Mittelbayerische nineteenth centuries, "as the concept of "nation" Druckerei- und Verlags-Gesellschaft Regensburg, evolved, then so did that of nobility" (p. 251). 1988); and Hans-Bernd Spies, ed., Carl von Dal‐ William Godsey has presented scholars with berg, 1744-1817. Beiträge zu seiner Biographie exciting insights into the process by which eigh‐ (Aschaffenburg: Geschichts- und Kunstverein As‐ teenth-century cosmopolitan nobles became nine‐ chaffenburg, 1994). teenth-century Germans. It should be noted that [5]. Heinz Reif, Adel im 19. und 20. Jahrhun‐ Godsey's work is not suitable for summer beach- dert (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1994); and idem, West‐ reading, and some readers will clearly fnd fault fälischer Adel 1770-1860. Vom Herrschaftsstand with the stylistic aspects of his presentation. But zur regionalen Elite (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und those who are willing to navigate their way Ruprecht, 1979). through the book's pages will certainly fnd the [6]. Georg Schmidt, Geschichte des alten Re‐ author's intricate analysis highly rewarding, espe‐ iches. Staat und Nation in der Frühen Neuzeit, cially in regard to his treatment of national cul‐ 1495-1806 (Munich: Beck, 1999). ture. There he presents the notion that, through a process of self-reconceptualization, nineteenth- century "German" nobles increasingly found themselves inhabiting an evolutionary and ex‐ pansive cultural space defined as the nation. Notes [1]. Ronald G. Asch, ed., Der europäische Adel im Ancien Regime. Von der Krise der ständischen Monarchien bis zur Revolution (ca. 1600-1789) (Cologne: Böhlau, 2001); Jonathan Dewald, The Eu‐ ropean Nobility, 1400-1800 (Cambridge: Cam‐ bridge University Press, 1996); Mark Edward Mot‐ ley, Becoming a French Aristocrat: The Education of the Court Nobility, 1580-1715 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); and Jay M. Smith, Nobility Reimagined: The Patriotic Nation in Eighteenth-Century France (Ithaca: Cornell Uni‐ versity Press, 2005). [2]. Johannes Arndt, Das niederrheinisch- westfälische Reichsgrafenkollegium und seine Mitglieder, 1653-1806 (Mainz: Zabern, 1991). 3 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-german Citation: Todd Berryman. Review of Godsey, William D., Jr. Nobles and Nation in Central Europe: Free Imperial Knights in the Age of Revolution, 1750-1850. H-German, H-Net Reviews. July, 2006. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11995 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 4.