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Napoleonic Germany and the Hometown Communities*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Mack Walker
Affiliation:
Cornell University

Extract

Fundamentally in common among the towns I mean was the self-containment and separateness of each; they faced the power of Napoleonic reform as individual communities. It seems best to begin thinking of their common experience as though it were the experience of one.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1969

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References

1. The experience of one such town is analyzed in Irma and Mack Walker, “A German Community,” an unpublished essay in my possession. The study treats recent and contemporary events as well as earlier ones, and some of the evidence it uses was received in confidence.

2. Riehl, Wilhelm H., Land und Leute (2d ed., Stuttgart, 1855), pp. 132–35, 139–41, 185217, and passim.Google Scholar

3. Riehl, , Land und Leute, pp. 159–82 and passim.Google Scholar

4. Riehl, , Land und Leute, p. 139.Google Scholar

5. Riehl, , Land und Leute, pp. 99118, 181Google Scholar; Die bürgerliche Gesellschaft (3d. ed., Stuttgart, 1855), pp. 218–25.Google Scholar For the alien social classes or “false estates” generated by change—civil servants, academics, capitalists, proletarians, and the like—see Land und Leute, pp. 100–105, 117; and Die bürgerliche Gesellschaft, pp. 232–34, 370–83.

6. Riehl wrote of Möser's “artistry” in the “History of Osnabrück,” which had made him “the great forefather of our socio-political literature.” Land und Leute, p. 12.

7. Möser himself was emphatic about using his terms as he meant them and not necessarily in their conventional modern meaning: Osnabrückische Geschichte, in Sämtliche Werke, XII, I (Oldenburg, 1964), pp. 3334.Google Scholar

8. For an introduction to the Markgenossenschaft theory as it developed from Möser see von Gierke, Otto, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht (3 vols., Berlin, 18681881);Google Scholar for a Möser whose views “anticipated latter-day Marxist historians” (p. 317) see Epstein, Klaus, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton, 1966), pp. 297338Google Scholar, and the citations there and in the “Bibliographical Essay,” pp. 684–85.

9. Möser, , Osnabrückische Geschichte, pp. 38, 91, 101, 243–54, 274–82.Google Scholar

10. Möser, , Osnabrückische Geschichte, pp. 74, 121, 151, 279.Google Scholar Compare Robert Frost: “Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” “I should have called it something you somehow haven't to deserve.” (“The Death of the Hired Man” [1914]). This is almost exactly the meaning of the term Heimat in German law.

11. I use “patriciate” less in a legal sense than in a functional one; law and political practice coincide only very roughly. In some large towns there was constitutional recognition of a governing group of families bearing some such title as Patriziat or Geschlechter, but not always; and many small town constitutions provided for legal patriciates too. The key feature here is the ability to live mainly from government functions or at least free from local economic influence, and to rule independently of the political influence of the common Bürgerschaft, or the need to intermarry with it or regularly to replenish the ruling group's numbers from among it. Generally, the larger the town the more likely a patrician constitution. Computations from the fragmentary data available suggest the following (from Moser, Johann J., Teutsches Staats-Recht, XLII [Hanau, 1750], 435;Google ScholarPütter, Johann S., An Historical Development … of the Germanic Empire, III [London, 1790], appendix, pp. 6771;Google ScholarFranke, Wilhelm, “Die Volkszahl deutscher Städte am Ende des 18. und Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift des Preussischen Statistischen Landesamts, LXII [1922], 112–20)Google Scholar: that in the later eighteenth century about three-quarters of the identified towns with populations over 15,000 had recognized patriciates, whereas three-quarters of those under 15,000 did not; and that the median patrician town had a population of about 12,000, the median non-patrician under 6000.

12. Here I mean all Germany, including German-speaking Austria and East Prussia, and not just Riehl's “individualisiertes Land,” which is too imprecise to be statistically useful at this stage. The estimate is based mainly on the figures in Franke, “Volkszahl deutscher Städte,” p. 118. In Franke's tables the number of towns increases by a factor of about 2½ as the population halves; I project the pattern beyond his lower limit of 5000 to reach a crude approximation, which accords with other evidence. See also [Friedrich] Zahn, , “Die Bevölkerung des deutschen Reiches im 19. Jahrhundert,” Vierteljahrshefte zur Statistik des deutschen Reiches, XI (1902), pp. I. 167 to I. 190;Google Scholar and Bevölkerungs-Ploetz: Raum und Bevolkerung in der Weltgeschichte, ed. Kirsten, Ernst, Buchholtz, Ernst W., and Köllman, Wolfgang (2 vols., Würzburg, 1956), II, 6076 and 156–66.Google Scholar

13. Countless local histories show the political and legal resources available to a Landstadt against an overbearing prince. Also, a Landstadt of middle magnitude often held from its prince privileges analogous to those a Reichsstadt held of the Emperor. But contrast Brandenburg-Prussia, where the severe organizing and levelling policies of the great Hohenzollerns and their servants made Prussian towns by 1800 quite different from towns in other German states, with important consequences for questions of reform. Gustav Schmoller noted this: Das Städtewesen unter Friedrich Wilhelm I,” Zeitschrift für Preussische Geschichte und Landeskunde, X (1873), 589.Google Scholar

14. See for example the circumstances of the town of Quedlinburg before 1802 in Breywisch, Walter, “Quedlinburgs Säkularisation und seine ersten Jahre unter preussischer Herrschaft 1802–1806,” Sachsen und Anhalt, IV (1928), 217–18;Google Scholar of the Bavarian territorial town Landshut before 1804 in Hiereth, Sebastian, “Zur Geschichte des Landkreises Landshut,” Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins für Niederbayern, LXXXVIII (1962), I–II;Google Scholar and observations on the similarity of constitutionally different communities in Darmstädter, Paul, Das Grossherzogtum Frankfurt (Frankfurt a. M., 1901), pp. 7778;Google Scholar also Preuss, Hugo, Die Entwicklung des deutschen Städtewesens (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 294–95.Google Scholar

15. Rambaud, Alfred, L'Allemagne sous Napoléon Ier (1804–1811) (3d ed., Paris, n.d.), pp. 1719;Google ScholarHölzle, Erwin, Das alte Recht und die Revolution: Eine politische Geschichte Württembergs in der Revolutionszeit (Munich, 1931), pp. 326–27;Google ScholarSchell, Erwin, Die Reichs-städte beim Übergang an Baden (Heidelberg, 1929), pp. 1519, 122–26;Google ScholarMiller, Max, “Die Organisation und Verwaltung von Neuwürttemberg unter Herzog und Kurfürst Friedrich,” Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte, XXXVII (1931), 141–42;Google ScholarMerk, Gustav, “Ravensberg unter bayerischer Verwaltung,” Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte, XXIII (1914), 405–22.Google Scholar For a similar pattern in an area occupied 1803–05 but not annexed by France see Thimme, Freidrich, Die innere Zustände des Kurfürstentums Hannover unter der französich-westfälischen Herrschaft (2 vols., Hanover, 18931895), I, 5983.Google Scholar Article 27 of the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803 provided that Free Cities annexed should be treated “in Bezug auf ihre Municipalverfassung und Eigenthum auf dem Fuss der in jedem der verschiedenen Lande am meisten priviligirten Städte … so weit es die Landesorganisation und die zum allgemeinen Besten nöthigen Verfügungen gestatten.” Huber, Ernst Rudolf, Dokumente zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte, I (Stuttgart, 1961), 12.Google Scholar

16. De Clercq, M., Recueil des Traités de la France, II, 18031815 (Paris, 1864), 121–23, 126–27;Google Scholarvon Schlossberger, August, ed., Politische und militärische Correspondenz König Friedrichs von Württemberg mit Kaiser Napoleon I., 1805–1813 (Stuttgart, 1889), pp. 1112, 3940, 48;Google ScholarZwehl, Hans K., ed., Die bayerische Politik im Jahre 1805 (Munich, 1964), pp. 179–80, 197–98, 203204, 271–73, 284Google Scholar. For these references I am indebted to Mr. Anthony LaVopa of Cornell University.

17. For the relation of Napoleon's Rheinbund policy with the internal reorganization of the German South and West, see Hölzle, Erwin, “Das napoleonische Staatssystem in Deutschland,” Historische Zeitschrift, CXLVIII (1933), 277–93;Google Scholar also Napoleon's letter to Talleyrand in Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, XII (Paris, 1863), 266–68.Google Scholar

18. Meyer, Christian, Preussens innere Politik in Ansbach und Bayreuth in den Jahren 1792–1797 (Berlin, 1904), pp. 37210Google Scholar, reprints Hardenberg's report on his administration. In a sentence Hardenberg rings successive changes of experience and tactics which officials of the lesser states, dependent on French initiative and support, passed through later and more slowly; “Nachdem man lange vergeblich versucht hatte, sich in Güte auseinander zu setzen, musste dieses freilich aus eigener Autorität auf einmal und mit Nachdruck geschehen, weil von dem constitutionsmässigen reichsgerichtlichen Wege nie das mindeste zu erwarten war, mithin Selbsthülfe nach dem Völkerrechte die einzige Hülfe wurde, weil schlechterdings consequent und mit äusserster Festigkeit gehandelt werden musste, wenn man nicht alles aufgeben wollte” (p. 43).

19. For the introduction of the Code in Germany, see generally Hölzle, “Das napoleonische Staatssystem in Deutschland,” pp. 284–89Google Scholar; Andreas, Willy, “Die Einführung des Code Napoléon in Baden,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanische Abteilung, XXXI (1910), 194205;Google ScholarSchmidt, Charles, Le Grand Duché de Berg (Paris, 1905), pp. 115, 134–39.Google Scholar

20. Regierungsblatt for 1808, p. 1481, quoted by Elseberger, Stephan, “Geschichte des Rezatkreises (1806/08–1817). Eine verwaltungsrechtsgeschichtl. Studie,” Jahresbericht des Historischen Vereins für Mittelfranken, LXVII (19311937), 73.Google Scholar

21. Miller, , “Organisation von Neuwürttemberg,” pp. 141–42, 300303;Google ScholarDarmstädter, , Das Grossherzogtum Frankfurt, pp. 7879Google Scholar; Schmidt, , Berg, p. 145 and passim;Google ScholarSchell, , Reichsstädte an Baden, pp. 123–26.Google Scholar

22. I have discussed this general issue at greater length in another context: Walker, Mack, “Home Towns and State Administrators, South German Politics, 1815–1830,” Political Science Quarterly, LXXXII (1967), 3560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Thimme, , Hannover unter der französisch-wesfälischen Herrschaft, II, 583–96;Google ScholarDarmstädter, , Das Grossherzogtum Frankfurt, pp. 237–48;Google Scholarvon Beaulieu-Marconnay, Karl, Karl von Dalberg und seine Zeit (2 vols., Weimar, 1879), I, 203–17;Google ScholarMiller, , “Organisation von Neuwürttemberg,” Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte XXXIX (1933: a later installment, in a later volume, of the study already cited), 232–35;Google ScholarSchlittmeyer, Andreas, “Die Entwicklung der kommunalen Finanzen der Stadt Landshut von der Mitte des 18. bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins für Niederbayern, LXXXV, No. 2 (1959), 14.Google Scholar Montgelas describes his community reforms in Maximilian de Montgelas, J. Garnerin, Denkwürdigkeiten … über die innere Staatsverwaltung Bayerns (1799–1817) (Munich, 1908), pp. 3841.Google Scholar

24. Miller, , “Organisation von Neuwürttemberg” (1933), pp. 245–47;Google ScholarThimme, , Hannover unter der französisch-westfälischen Herrschaft, II, 583–89;Google ScholarElsberger, , “Rezatkreis,” pp. 105106, 111–14Google Scholar; Merk, , “Ravensberg unter bayerischer Verwaltung,” pp. 420–21.Google Scholar

25. Anegg, Ernst, Zur Gewerbestruktur und Gewerbepolitik Bayerns während der Regierung Montgelas (Munich, 1965), pp. 92170;Google ScholarThimme, , Hannover unter der französisch-west-fälischen Herrschaft, II, 594;Google ScholarMiller, , “Organisation von Neuwürttemberg” (1933), pp. 110–27Google Scholar; Elsberger, , “Rezatkreis,” p. 101Google Scholar; Fischer, Wolfram,“Ansätze zur Industrialisierung in Baden 1770–1870,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, XLVII (1960), 207 and passim,Google Scholar and Der Staat und die Anfänge der Industrialisierung in Baden (Berlin, 1962), passim;Google ScholarDarmstädter, , Das Grossherzogtum Frankfurt, p. 291.Google Scholar

26. A number of studies, encouraged notably by Friedrich Lütge, have developed evidence of a growth of large-scale enterprise during these years. I think they demonstrate the favorable state attitude, but no important economic effect. Reuter, Ortulf, Die Manufaktur im fränkischen Raum (Stuttgart, 1961), pp. 523 and passim;Google ScholarSlawinger, Gerhard, Die Manufaktur in Kurbayern (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 10, 6667, and passim;Google ScholarForberger, Rudolf, Die Manufaktur in Sachsen (Berlin, 1958), passim.Google ScholarMiller, , “Organisation von Neuwürttemberg” (1933), pp. 110–27Google Scholar; Darmstädter, , Das Grossherzogtum Frankfurt, pp. 291–94Google Scholar; Wolfram Fischer's article and book cited above, n. 25. Montgelas himself was skeptical: Anegg, , Gewerbepolitik Bayerns, pp. 8696, 143–46Google Scholar; and Montgelas, , Denkwürdigkeiten über die innere Staatsverwaltung, pp. xxxviixxxix, 159.Google Scholar

27. Anegg, , Gewerbepolitik Bayerns, pp. 138–39, 170Google Scholar; Montgelas, , Denkwürdigkeiten über die innere Staatsverwaltung, p. 50.Google Scholar

28. Thimme, , Hannover unter der französisch-westfälischen Herrschaft, II, 137–39, 596605;Google Scholar see also Koch, Diether, Das Göttinger Honoratorientum vom 17. bis zur Mitte des 19 Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1958), 177–78.Google Scholar

29. Schmidt, , Berg, p. 145.Google Scholar

30. Darmstädter, , Das Grossherzogtum Frankfurt, p. 124.Google Scholar

31. Kochendörffer, H., “Territorialentwicklung und Behördenverfassung von Westfalen 1802–1813,” Westfälische Zeitschrift (Zeitschrjft für vaterländische Geschichte und Altertumskunde), LXXXVI (1929), Abt. I, pp. 198200;Google ScholarWilmans, R., “Der Freiherr v. Stein und die Organisation der Erbfürstenthümer Münster und Paderborn in den Jahren 1802 bis 1804,” Zeitschrift für Preussische Geschichte und Landeskunde, X (1873), 660–79.Google Scholar

32. Andreas, Willy, Geschichte der badischen Verwaltungsorganisation und Verfassung in den Jahren 1802–1818, I: Der Aufbau des Staates in Zusammenhang der allgemeinen Politik (Leipzig, 1913), 356–57Google Scholar; Darmstädter, , Das Grossherzogtum Frankfurt, pp. 401404Google Scholar; Klang, Daniel, “Bavaria and the War of Liberation, 1813–1814,” French Historical Studies, IV (1965), 2241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. Eichhorn, Karl Friedrich, Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte (4 vols., 4th ed., Göttingen, 18341836;Google Scholar the first edition appeared 1808–23), passim, but especially the Vorreden and IV, 699–798.

34. Professor George Windell, criticizing this point at the 1967 Convention of the American Historical Association, noted correctly that the contradiction was far from clear to contemporaries; see Walker, , “Home Towns and State Administrators,” pp. 4243;Google Scholar also Heffter, Heinrich, Die deutsche Selbstverwaltung im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1950), passim.Google Scholar For a rather different interpretive theme for official liberalism, based on the Prussian experience, see Rosenberg, Hans, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy (Cambridge, 1958), passim, but especially pp. 204206.Google Scholar

35. During Napoleonic times liberal doctrines are most apparent in economic matters, where fiscal considerations were very direct: it was accepted by everyone that economic life was inseparable from local governmental and social practices. Occupational freedom is mooted in every attack on the hometown guilds. Hardenberg argued for it in his report on Ansbach-Bayreuth, but reserved important reliance on state supervision: Meyer, , Preussens innere Politik, pp. 148–49, 168–69Google Scholar. According to Wilhelm Roscher, few Germans had paid any attention to Adam Smith before Napoleonic times, but the generation of statesmen and bureaucrats that come out of that decade were all Smithians: Geschichte der National-Oekonomik in Deutschland (Munich, 1874), pp. 598601.Google Scholar See also Anegg, , Gewerbepolitik Bayerns, pp. 8690.Google Scholar