empire was dissolved in 1804. The Habsburgs were pious Catholics whose
deep immersion in the mentality of the Counter-Reformation was exempli-
fied by their incessant use of Jesuit confessors. In addition, the Habsburgs
were also engaged in a protracted war against the Ottoman Turks, and
regarded themselves as the defenders of Christendom during the latest cru-
sade against Islam – further intensifying their piety. Their ability to set aside
religious disdain for Jews was commendable.
Whereas in Prussia, state-building in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies meant territorial expansion, for the Habsburgs it meant consolidating a
vast and disjointed collection of possessions under a single uniform adminis-
tration. The Prussian Hohenzollerns, moreover, had subordinated the
Prussian nobility into a military caste and the heart of the royal standing
army. The Habsburgs had to contend with recalcitrant nobles in Hungary, the
Czech Lands and, after 1772, in Galicia.
As in Prussia, the Habsburgs’ turn to absolutism began after the Thirty
Years War. Typical of Habsburg policy, they flip-flopped regarding the Jews.
During the war, Emperor Ferdinand II had employed Jacob Bassevi, whose
silver mines in Bohemia helped pay and provision the imperial army. In
recognition of Bassevi’s service, the emperor gave a new privilegium to
the Jews of Prague and Bohemia in 1623, which included traditional privi-
leges plus freedom of residence, protection from expulsion, and the right
to unimpeded trade and commerce even in royal cities. Four years later, he
extended these privileges to the Jews of Moravia. After the war, Ferdinand III
changed this policy. In 1650, he attempted to expel Jews from all places
where they had not resided legally since 1618, thus reversing the gains Jews
had made during the war, and to disqualify Jews from the leasing of tolls and
from managing estates. The Moravian nobility delayed implementation of
this edict for economic reasons. In 1658, Ferdinand’s successor, Leopold I,
changed the effective date of the decree from 1618 to 1657, a de factorecogni-
tion of Jewish expansion during the Thirty Years War.
The situation of Jews in Habsburg lands remained largely unchanged
from this point until the reign of Emperor Charles VI (Charles III as king of
Hungary). In 1719, he changed tactics. Rather than trying to reduce the
Jewish population through expulsion or additional restrictions, he placed a
cap on the Jewish population growth through the Familiantengesetz
(Familiants Law). The intent of this law, the symbol of harsh Habsburg
treatment of Jews during the eighteenth century, was to impede Jewish
mobility and discourage growth while maintaining a stable tax base.
The Familiants Law was implemented in Bohemia and Silesia in 1726,
and in Moravia in 1727. It imposed a limit of 8,541 families in Bohemia,
119 in Silesia, and 5,106 in Moravia. Each head of household was given a
residence permit in the form of a familiants number. The permit entitled
only one son in the household to marry between the ages of 18 and 24, and
to inherit the familiants number after the father’s death. Jewish men and
World Jewry in flux, 1492–1750 117