Limitations of Enlightened Despotism 297
The agricultural worker was said to be so lacking in self- respect, honor, civilized
sentiments, foresight, industry, self- control, responsibility, and general motivation
that only the fear of corporal punishment kept him in the fields. “The vulgar spirit
of the Bohemian peasant,” according to the diet of Bohemia, “was not affected by
any injured feeling of honor,” so that it was useless to put him under arrest.^19 Jail,
as provided in Joseph’s penal code, was illusory as a means of correcting laziness
because the health officials had closed the landlords’ jails, according to the Bohe-
mian estates, or because jail was more comfortable than the peasant’s home, ac-
cording to those of Galicia.^20 In fact, abolition of Leibeigenschaft was bad even for
the peasants, declared the Galician diet, since peasants would starve without a
friendly master’s aid in time of famine. The people, said the Hungarians, were be-
ginning to lose the feelings of “gratitude, obedience, loyalty and respectfulness
which they had so gladly shown so long as the old laws lasted.” The lower classes
did not know how to use freedom, and if left alone would sit idly in taverns. On
the other hand, one need not feel too sorry for them, since they were accustomed
to hard work. They were so desperately poor and so ignorant, lacking animals,
tools, and knowledge, that they could never carry on cultivation by themselves.
They were too childish to respond to monetary incentives. “The harvest,” said the
Galicians, “will depend on the caprice of the peasants, who cannot be made to
work even for wages.... They would only lounge and drink all the more, and not
pay a Kreutzer to the landlord or the state.”^21 We hope Your Majesty does not sup-
pose that we wish to oppress anyone, pleaded the assembly of the Hungarian
county of Pest; “we only wish to curb a licentiousness that is harmful to the com-
mon people themselves and may have unfortunate consequences for the general
welfare.” Scripture allows the subjectio servorum, said the county of Szabolcs. Of
course all men are equal ante societatem, but in society there must be ranks. We re-
alize that all human beings desire to be free (this from the county of Hont), but
Providence has made men kings, nobles, and servants; and toward our servants we
shall always show Christian mercy. The people are still so far from a desirable state
of civilization (a desiderata civilisatione, in the Hungarian Latin of another county)
that “they would fall into sad extremes if they were freed from the wholesome ef-
fects of corporal pains.”^22 Direct physical punishment by estate managers is neces-
sary, announced the Diet of Moravia, “since it is certain that all classes of men and
the brutal masses of peasants in particular cannot always be brought to obedience
by good treatment, since it is also known that the extreme insubordination of the
rural populations is provoked by the numerous formalities nowadays required
[such as Joseph’s provision for corporal punishment only with knowledge of the
district chief ], and since in a word a few blows inflicted on the spot have more ef-
fect than severer penalties that may be too delayed.”^23 The whole peasant trouble,
19 Kerner, 292.
20 Ibid., and Mitrofanov, 629–37.
21 Ibid., 635–36, 645; Denis, Bohème, 619. The Bohemian Estates warmly favored the nexus sub-
ditelae (Mitrofanov, 631 n. 2), rather than the “cash nexus” contemplated by Joseph and deplored by
Carlyle and other nineteenth- century antiliberals.
22 Mitrofanov, 636.
23 Denis, 619; Kerner, 292.