Jessica Lo
7th Period AP Euro
Enlightened Monarch Script
I, Joseph II of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor, was one of the most popular Enlightened despots that ever lived. As the eldest son of Maria Theresa and Francis I, I became Holy Roman Emperor in August 1765. Due to my mother being quite… obsess- involved with ruling, I did not rule by myself until her death in 1780.
I was born on March 13, 1741, during the early years of the War of the Austrian Succession. My formal education included Voltaire’s writings and by the example of King Frederick II of Prussia, the scoun- I mean, ruler who took Silesia. In 1760, I married the lovely Princess Isabella of Parma, even if it was a union to strengthen the relationship between France and Austria, I loved her. I tried to show her my affection as often as I could but she seemed to be more aligned with my sister, Maria Christina. Maybe a little too close to her too… Isabella’s pregnancies were not painless, and sadly, my wife died from smallpox after giving birth to my beloved child, who died right after she was born. I eventually married my second cousin, Maria Josepha of Bavaria, who was the daughter of Charles VII. I didn’t really love her and I will somewhat regret it later after she dies of smallpox. At least I still I had my daughter, who is named after my mother. But… she soon died too at the mere age of 7 in 1770. Besides my depressing love and family life, let’s talk about my failure of a reign!
Since I was educated with philosophy from the Enlightenment, I believe that I followed an enlightened philosophy, even though my mother was really opposed to it for some reason. I couldn’t implement my philosophy until she died. It was probably because she was Catholic and didn’t like religious toleration. I can at least give her credit for helping our country avoid real fighting and a huge loss of soldiers in the War of the Bavarian Succession against Prussia, Saxony, and Bavaria. After the war ended in 1779, the Treaty of Teschen let me keep this region called “Innviertel,” but I lost influence over other German princes, who got scared of what I was going to do to them, and trusted Frederick. Ugh. I tried helping my sister, Marie Antoinette escape France, but because she was a devoted mother and her husband, Louis XVI, did not want to be a fugitive king, I could not help her, and they was executed. Family issues, you know? This alongside my pointless victory in the Austro-Turkish War showed that a lot of my attempts in foreign policy were all for nothing. My many reforms caused rebellions to break out by 1790 in the Austrian Netherlands and in Hungary. This would be known as the Brabantian Revolution.
1780 was the year my mother died and I could finally reform Austria as an absolute monarch. Yes! Throughout my whole reign, I passed 690 decrees on average per year, passed 6,000 edicts in total alongside 11,000 new laws to reform every part of the empire. Through these many changes to the law, I tried to spread education, secularize church lands, and reduce religious orders and the clergy. The Patent of Tolerance in 1781 gave limited freedom of worship to religious minorities like the Jews and promoted the use of German. This applies to Enlightenment philosophy, which is why I did this. Like my mother, I did try to help out the serfs by abolishing serfdom in 1781, but both the nobles and peasants did not appreciate this kind act just because their economy lacked money. My domestic policies were so significant that as a collection, they got a name: Josephinism. This was my attempt to legislate a series of huge reforms to change Austria into a model “Enlightened” state. I basically wanted my empire to be efficient and financially secure. I tried to make my people happy, as you can see, but only under what I thought was best for them and the state. As an absolute monarch, I thought I could speak for the entirety of the empire without being controlled by any law and that my policies were reasonable. My ideal government was a rational, centralized, and uniform government with me as absolute leader. To make my empire more uniform, I made German the official language of business, which really affected Hungary, but I didn’t really notice. Now, on to more reform. My legal reform included abolishing brutal punishments and the death penalty for most cases in 1787. I even implemented the principle of equality for criminals and ended the censorship of press and theater. Since new economic principles of the Enlightenment involved getting rid of guilds from the Middle Ages, I did tax reforms and tax districts for large estates to accomplish this. Wow, I was so Enlightened. Education reforms were important too. I made elementary education required for all children and gave scholarships to poorer children. My generosity went to the extent of letting schools for Jewish and other religious minorities be established. My attempt to centralize medical treatment in Vienna led to the famous hospital, Allgemeines Krankenhaus open in 1784, but make sanitation problems even worse. Don’t get me started on my religious toleration because I did so much more than any other European state. As mentioned before, I did give my people some religious toleration and I tried to modernize the Catholic Church. The Secularization Decree was issued in 1782 and got rid of many monasteries and monastic orders like the Jesuits. These were the many but not all of the reforms I did for my state.
All of these new reforms apparently messed up traditions and this caused my people to be restless. I did not notice this and aggressively continued my foreign policies and tried to offend my neighboring countries, but I eventually failed. The people came to hate how my policies were so involved with their lives and how my reforms were based upon my own opinion and not for the good of the people. They thought I was trying to change them entirely. What a great example of an absolute monarch who listens to his people. Like I mentioned, people started protesting and I was forced to get rid of some of my reforms. By 1790, almost all of my reforms in Hungary were gone.
In late 1788, I returned to Vienna feeling sick and depressed. None of my people wanted to do what I said anymore. I eventually just died on February 20, 1790. My people actually did one last thing I asked them for: they buried me with an epitaph that says, “Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook.”