Western Civilization - History Of European Society

The Political Evolution of the Old Regime, 1715–89 363

Joseph II’s legal reforms came in a series of decrees
in the 1780s, chiefly 1787–88. He introduced both a
new Civil Code and a new Penal Code. Together they
abolished torture and the death penalty (except in mili-
tary courts martial), introduced civil marriage and buri-
al, ended class distinctions in the law, permitted
religious intermarriage, eliminated several categories of
crime (such as witchcraft and religious apostasy), and
even forbade the ancient aristocratic tradition of primo-
geniture, which concentrated inheritance in the hands
of the eldest son.
These reforms did not make Joseph universally
popular, nor the centralized powers of the state (such as
strong police) welcome. He had infuriated the aristoc-
racy and the Catholic church by attacking their tradi-
tional privileges. He was hated in many provinces,
where he enforced the rule of Vienna over local cus-
toms, including the mandatory use of the German lan-
guage in business and government.

The Army, the Bureaucracy, and the

Rise of Hohenzollern Prussia

One of the most important political facts of the eigh-

teenth century was the rise of Prussia (see map 19.2).

The elector of Brandenburg had acquired the province

of Prussia in the seventeenth century, making the com-

bined state of Brandenburg-Prussia an important, but

still secondary, German state. The Holy Roman Empire

recognized this state as the Kingdom of Prussia in

1701. It was an absolute monarchy with an impotent
      Diet and obedient aristocracy, known as the Junker
      class. It was one of the most autocratic states in Europe,
      but strict, able administration by the House of Hohen-
      zollern provided a solid basis for development.
      The ruler at the beginning of the century,
      Frederick I, did little to advance Prussia into the ranks of
      the great powers. He admired the sophisticated life of
      the French royal court at Versailles and devoted his reign
      to making Berlin glitter with the same elegance. The
      generation gap between Frederick and his son, King
      Frederick William I, who reigned from 1713 to 1740,
      could not have been larger. Frederick William was a
      cruel, semiliterate man who detested his father’s world as
      effeminate; he favored drunken nights with his advisers
      and soldiers. In the words of their successor Frederick II,
      Frederick I sought to turn Berlin into the Athens of Ger-
      many, then Frederick William I tried to make it Sparta.
      Although contemporary observers found King
      Frederick William personally loathsome, they acknowl-
      edged that he was the person who converted Prussia
      into one of the great powers. His son, Frederick II—
      whose love of books, music, French, and men so horri-
      fied his father that he beat him violently, imprisoned

UNITED

NETHERLANDS

POLAND

SILESIA

WEST

PRUSSIA

EAST

PRUSSIA

BRANDENBURG

SAXONY

BOHEMIA

POMERANIA

Frankfurt

Jena

Prague

Dresden

Posen

Warsaw

Danzig

Tilsit

Königsberg

Berlin

Potsdam

Leipzig

Hannover

Cologne

Magdeburg

Balt

ic

Se

a N

iemenR.

Vi

stula

R.

Oder

R.

Elbe

Rhine

R.

HannoverHannover

R.

Hamburg

MainR.

Stettin

0 125 250 Miles

0 125 250 500 Kilometers

Brandenburg (1415)

Prussian acquisitions to 1740

Conquest of Silesia by 1748

From Poland as result of

first partition (1772)

MAP 19.2

The Growth of Prussia