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Controlling Time in the Habsburg Lands: The Introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in Austria below the Enns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2009

Rona Johnston Gordon
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Extract

On 6 January 1584, the provost of Zwettl in the archduchy of Austria below the Enns recounted events two days earlier that had greatly alarmed him. Present in the town of Zwettl on administrative business, Ulrich Hackel had been very surprised to see the town church unlocked and packed with peasants and townspeople. An additional 600 peasants, according to his reckoning, were gathered outside the church. All were dressed in their best and all were celebrating Christmas. Yet, as far as Hackel had been concerned, Christmas had already been celebrated ten days earlier. He halted worship in the church, telling the congregation that Christmas was now past and had been duly marked. He then sought out the local magistrate to ensure that the church would be kept locked and that trade would be resumed in the town. His actions had, however, aroused very great opposition. An angry crowd surrounded Hackel, accusing him of being a papist and a rogue and demanding to know why he was depriving them of Christmas. He believed that had he uttered one more word in favor of the earlier celebration of Christmas, he would have been killed on the spot. Hackel had escaped their fury only by being escorted by the town magistrate out of the local parish house in which he had taken refuge and beyond the walls of the town.

Type
Forum in Honor of R.J.W. Evans
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 40 , April 2009 , pp. 28 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2009

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References

1 Wien, Diözesanarchiv: Reformation/Gegenreformation (henceforth DAW: R/GR) bis 1584, Hackel to Khlesl, 6 January 1584 (new calendar); this letter is also printed in Wiedemann, Theodor, Geschichte der Reformation und Gegenreformation, 5 vols. (Prague, 1879–1886), 1:433–34Google Scholar.

2 See the reports of the rural deans in DAW: R/GR bis 1584 and 1585–1630; for example 18 January 1585 and 23 January 1585.

3 For accessible accounts of the reception of the reformed calendar, see David Duncan, Ewing, Calendar: Humanity's Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year (New York, 1998), 261–89Google Scholar; Richards, E. G., Mapping Time: The Calendar and Its History (Oxford, 1998), 246–47Google Scholar and 352–53; Kaletsch, Hans, Tag und Jahr. Die Geschichte unseres Kalendars (Zurich and Stuttgart, 1970), 80–84Google Scholar. The “improved calendar,” according to which 31 December 1700 was followed by 12 January 1701, was adopted in German Protestant lands, Denmark, Sweden, the Dutch Republic, and the reformed cantons of Switzerland. See, in particular, Jennifer McNutt, Powell, “Hesitant Steps: Acceptance of the Gregorian Calendar in Eighteenth–Century Geneva,” Church History 75, no. 3 (2006): 544–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The principal scholarly work is the collection G. V. Coyne S. J., Hoskins, M. A., and Peders, O., eds., Gregorian Reform of the Calendar (Vatican, 1983)Google Scholar, although it is more illuminating on the precursors of Gregorian reform than on the impact of the changes.

5 Heilbron, J. L., The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories (Cambridge MA, 1999), 41–46Google Scholar. Clavius published seven works between 1588 and 1612; James Lattis, M., Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Calvius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology (Chicago, 1994), 20–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Pockets of opposition to the calendar in Poland were also generated by its association with existing issues of religious and cultural identity; Bogucka, Maria, “Space and Time as Factors Shaping Polish Mentality from the 16th until the 18th Century,” Acta Poloniae Historica 66 (1992): 39–52Google Scholar; for a full account of the highly turbulent events in Riga, see Dsirne, Friedrich, Der Rigasche Kalendarstreit zu Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts (Riga, 1867)Google Scholar.

7 Cited in Heilbron, Sun in the Church, 45.

8 Methuen, Charlotte, “Time Human or Time Divine? Theological Aspects in the Opposition to Gregorian Calendar Reform,” Reformation and Renaissance Review 3 (2001): 36–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Tschopp, Silvia Serena, “Konfessionelle Konflikte im Spiegel publizistischer Medien: der Ausgsburger Kalendarstreit,” in Als Frieden möglich war. 450 Jahre Augsburger Religionsfrieden, ed. Hoffmann, Carl A., Kranz, Annette, Trepesch, Christof, and Zeidler, Oliver (Regensburg, 2005), 243–52Google Scholar.

10 Roeck, Bernd, Eine Stadt in Krieg und Frieden: Studien zur Geschichte der Reichsstadt Augsburg zwischen Kalenderstreit und Parität, 2 vols., (Göttingen, 1989)Google Scholar, in particular 1:125–84; Warmbrunn, Paul, Zwei Confessionen in einer Stadt. Das Zusammenleben von Katholiken und Protestanten in den paritätischen Reichsstädten Augsburg, Biberbach, Ravensburg und Dinkelsbühl von 1548 bis 1648 (Wiesbaden, 1983), 360–77Google Scholar (Augsburg) and 379 (Dinkelsbühl); Ehrenpreis, Stefan, Kaiserliche Gerichtsbarkeit und Konfessionskonflikt. Der Reichshofrat unter Rudolf II. 1576–1612 (Munich, 2006), 196–214Google Scholar. Rolf Keissling, “Vom Ausnahmefall zur Alternative. Bikonfessionalität in Oberdeutschland” in Hoffmann, Als Frieden möglich war, 119–30.

11 Schragl, Friedrich, Glaubensspaltung in Niederösterreich (Vienna, 1973)Google Scholar argued, for example, for the strength of Catholicism in the rural deaneries in the last decades of the sixteenth century, whereas Gustav Reingrabner has written extensively on the vitality of Lutheranism, in particular noble forms; see, for example, Reingrabner, Gustav, Adel und Reformation. Beiträge zur Geschichte des protestantischen Adels im Lande unter der Enns während des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Vienna, 1976)Google Scholar and “Religiöse Lebensformen des protestantischen Adels in Niederösterreich,” in Spezialforschung und ‘Gesamtgeschichte’. Beispiele und Methodenfragen zur Geschichte der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Grete Klingenstein and Heinrich Lutz (Vienna, 1981), 126–38.

12 Although the official stance was to refuse the lay chalice, it was also acknowledged that this could prevent lay attendance; a Lutheran alternative was often close at hand. This is explicitly recognized in the instruction for the clergy drawn up by the Passau official Melchior Khlesl in 1582; see Johnston, Rona, “The Implementation of Tridentine Reform: The Passau Official and the Parish Clergy in Austria below the Enns, 1563–1637,” in The Reformation of the Parishes: The Ministry and the Reformation in Town and Country, ed. Pettegree, Andrew (Manchester, 1993), 220–21Google Scholar. The issue was particularly fraught in Vienna where attendance at the Schottenkirche where communion was given in both forms was high, whereas very few people attended the alternative communion sub una at the Michaelerkirche; Mayr, Josef Karl, “Wiener Protestantengeschichte im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Protestantismus in Oesterreich 70 (1954): 42Google Scholar.

13 Although the episcopal authorities wrote against clerical marriage—see the example of the living of Oswald, St., Geschichtliche Beilagen zu den Consistorial-Currenden der Diözese Sankt Pölten (St. Pölten 1887)Google Scholar, 4:316—instances of Catholic clergy who claimed to be legitimately married are repeatedly found in the records of both ecclesiastical and princely authorities.

14 Bibl, Victor, “Die Organisation des evangelischen Kirchenwesens im Erzherzogtum Oesterreich unter der Enns von der Ertheilung der Religions-Concession bis zu Kaiser Maximilians II. Tode (1568–1576),” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 87 (1899): 113–228Google Scholar.

15 Reingrabner, Gustav, “Von der Visitation des Jahres 1580 im niederösterreichischen Waldviertel,” Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für die Geschichte des Protestantismus in Oesterreich 82 (1966): 30–65Google Scholar.

16 In the eyes of staunch Catholics like Georg Eder, for example, the lack of confessional unity was above all the result of the failures of the prince in his godly duties. Fulton, Elaine, Catholic Belief and Survival in Late Sixteenth Century Vienna: The Case of Georg Eder (1523–1587) (Aldershot, UK, 2006)Google Scholar.

17 This theme runs throughout my doctoral thesis: Rona Johnston, “The Bishopric of Passau and the Counter-Reformation in Austria below the Enns 1580 to 1630” (dissertation, University of Oxford, 1997).

18 DAW: R/GR bis 1584, 25 September 1582, Urban to Khlesl.

19 DAW: R/GR bis 1584; 1582 (after 25 September 1582), Khlesl to Ernst.

20 DAW: R/GR bis 1584, 20 October 1582.

21 For Urban's defense see DAW: R/GR bis 1584, 21 October (new calendar), Urban to Khlesl.

22 DAW: R/GR bis 1584; 25 September 1582, Urban to Khlesl.

23 DAW: R/GR bis 1584; 15 September 1583, Urban to Khlesl.

24 DAW: Melchior Khlesl, 12 January 1584, Khlesl to Archduke Ernst.

25 See the reports of the rural deans in DAW: R/GR bis 1585 and 1585–1630.

26 The priest of Wolkersdorf, for example, in 1586 complained that his parishioners openly attended neighboring Protestant preachers; Wiedemann, Reformation und Gegenreformation, 3:360. There was an attempt to prevent the exodus from Krems on Sunday mornings by keeping the gates of the town locked; Schönfellner, Franz, Krems zwischen Reformation und Gegenreformation (Vienna, 1985)Google Scholar.

27 The desire for uniformity was integral to very long-standing attempts to recalculate the date of Easter. The papal bull for the new calendar was even delayed by hope that action might be taken jointly with the patriarch; August Ziggelaar, “The Papal Bull of 1582. Promulgating a Reform of the Calendar,” in Coyne, Gregorian Reform of the Calendar, 229–30.

28 Wiedemann, Reformation und Gegenreformation, 436.

29 Ziggelaar, “Papal Bull of 1582,” 223.

30 The work of the monastery commission in both Austria above the Enns and Austria below the Enns provides a particularly striking example; Patrouch, Josef F., “The Investiture Controversy Revisited: Religious Reform, Emperor Maximilian II and the Klosterrat,” Austrian History Yearbook 25 (1994): 59–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 For the German example, in particular, see Forster, Marc R., The Counter-Reformation in the Villages: Religion and Reform in the Bishopric of Speyer (Ithaca, 1992)Google Scholar; for France, Bergin, Joseph, The Making of the French Episcopate 1589–1661 (New Haven, 1996)Google Scholar.

32 For an expanded discussion of this issue, see Johnston, “Bishopric of Passau and the Counter-Reformation,” esp. chap. 1, 2, 5, and 6.

33 Reingrabner, Gustav, “Zur Geschichte der flacianischen Bewegung im Lande unter der Enns,” Jahrbuch für Landeskunde von Niederösterreich 54/55 (1990): 265–301Google Scholar.

34 Wiedemann, Reformation und Gegenreformation, 1:435–38 and 456–57.

35 These included the pastors in Inzersdorf, Mittergrabern, Sitzendorf, Gezersdorf, and Sebenstein. Wiedemann, Reformation und Gegenreformation, 1:456.

36 The pastors explained their position in a six-point testimony drawn up in March 1585; printed in Wiedemann, Reformation und Gegenreformation, 1:438–56.

37 On the links between Khlesl's early experiences of ecclesiastical reform in the hereditary lands and his political goals in the 1610s, see Gordon, Rona Johnston, “Melchior Khlesl und der konfessionelle Hintergrund der kaiserlichen Politik im Reich nach 1610,” in Dimensionen der europäischen Außenpolitik zur Zeit der Wende vom 16. zum 17. Jahrhundert, ed. Beiderbeck, Friedrich, Horstkemper, Gregor, and Schulze, Winfried (Berlin, 2003), 199–222Google Scholar.

38 In 1598, for example, there were still demands for the administration of communion in both kinds to the laity; see Wiedemann, Reformation und Gegenreformation, 3:655–67.

39 Roeck, Eine Stadt in Krieg und Frieden, 2:533, 977.

40 On the search for consensus in the Habsburg lands, see Pauser, Josef, “‘sein ir Majestät jetzo im werkh die polliceyordnung wideumb zu verneuern’ Kaiser Maximilian II. (1564–1576) und die Landstände von Oesterreich unter der Enns im gemeinsamen Ringen um die ‘gute policey’” in Recht und Gericht in Niederösterreich, ed. Rosner, Willibald (St. Pölten, 2002), 17–65Google Scholar, for Germany, see, for example, the articles in Hoffman, Als Frieden möglich war, and Mohnhaupt, Heinz, “Gesetzgebung des Reiches und Recht im Reich vom 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert,” in Gesetz und Gesetzgebung im Europe der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Doelemeyer, Barbara and Klippel, Diethelm (Berlin 1998), 83–103Google Scholar.