Caption | European monarchs in the 18th century, long out of the control of the Church, began to use various means to strengthen their national power and reorganize the European landscape through war. But the seemingly fierce war could not hide the fact that the monarch could not control the entire country. Today we will start with Frederick the Great and see why this is happening in Europe.
Frederick the Great
In 1777, Frederick the Great issued this order to Pomeranian officials:
Wherever the land belonged to the royal family, the nobility or the city, serfdom must be abolished immediately and completely. This decree, promulgated by His Majesty the King for the benefit of the whole province, shall be implemented immediately. The value of the decree should be politely explained to all opponents, but coercive measures could also be used as a last resort.
Anyone who knew a little about European history would be filled with admiration for Frederick the Great, who led the Prussians in victory over the mighty multinational confederate armies in the Seven Years' War, demonstrating extraordinary military aptitude. But look at his decree, and especially the phrase "the value of the decree should be politely interpreted to all opponents", is not an obvious condescending attitude?
To understand why Frederick the Great said this, we might as well look at some of the details of the Seven Years' War. Prussia's victory was not only due to peter III's succession, which turned Russia from an enemy into an ally, but more importantly, its own strong military strength.
Frederick the Great trained a powerful army, with 150,000 soldiers (1756) firmly following him, not afraid of any enemy. Frederick the Great also spent more than 75% of his income on this army. At the end of the war, Frederick the Great, who had returned to Berlin, found that not only was he sick, but the whole of Prussia had almost collapsed. Vast tracts of land in the countryside were barren, young adults were short of labor, commerce had come to a standstill, and Prussia was choked by money. Frederick the Great spent the rest of his life trying to restore prussia's prosperity.
Noble lords
The "opponents" mentioned in Frederick the Great's decree were none other than the scattered noble lords who relied on serfdom and choked the neck of the whole of Prussia, leaving Frederick the Great breathless.
The nobles were reluctant to carry out the decree, and their interpretation of serfdom seemed to be reasonable: the peasants were not slaves, they merely made voluntary and honest contracts with the lords, and although the peasants had to pay the rent, the lords also paid a lot, such as "to provide for and maintain the peasant families, including children and servants, even when the peasants were disabled by accidents or in old age, to provide the peasants with houses, stables, ploughing land, cattle, and to pay fair wages to the domestic servants, Construction and maintenance of major buildings for residential and economic purposes. ”
Further, the lords proposed that it was precisely because of their estates and arable land that so many peasants were in the "right place" and left unattended—the lords were actually doing Frederick the Great a great favor.
We must admit that, on the face of it, these reasons do have some truth, and if not as well as they say, they at least prove that the lords have an important value for the stability of society.
Thus, the decree issued by Frederick the Great was not carried out in the protests of the angry lords.
Frederick the Great's concessions were for many reasons, such as the fact that he had to strive to maintain the stability of Prussia, and the noble lords were still powerful enough to threaten his rule.
European farmers
But he also understood that the basic serfdom of the manor economy was the biggest tumor hindering the country's strength.
The disadvantages of European serfdom in the 18th century were obvious, first of all, the majority of the population in European countries was still peasants, and serfdom kept them firmly in the hands of aristocratic lords. The lords, no matter how rich, were their own, and the king and the government had little to gain; secondly, the European monarchs in the process of modernization had realized and begun to emphasize the idea that all men were created equal, which would make it easier to gain the support of the people, but serfdom was contrary to this idea; moreover, the abuse of power by the noble lords and the exploitation of the peasantry could still cause social unrest.
Three more important points were that the wealth created by the peasants was taken away by the lords, and the state needed it to develop; serfdom bound a large amount of labor to the land, and the lack of labor power for the development of manufacturing and commercial trade in the country; and the restriction of most peasants' freedom, which directly hindered the conscription of the state during the war.
Joseph II
The Grand Duke of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, did not shy away from expressing his dislike of serfdom, which was the common idea of most European monarchs at the end of the 18th century. Joseph II once made it clear: "I am well aware that the serfs of the Estate of Sorat have been complaining for many years in the most urgent way about the oppression and cruelty of the public officials and the landlords, and I have repeatedly appealed for the investigation and treatment of the complaint, which, alas, has so far been in vain ... All kinds of drawbacks have never been fundamentally solved... If people are oppressed too much, if the strings are too tight, sooner or later it will be broken. ”
Beginning in 1781, Joseph II, who was in full power, began to act. He first ordered that all peasants could marry, move and choose their jobs freely without the permission of the lord, and that the children in the manor should not be obliged to be servants of the lords—free movement and choice of employment were a blow to serfdom. When the ordinary peasant had the freedom of choice, they could not be attached to a certain noble lord, but look for the highest "bid", even if the person was not a nobleman.
Another important move of Joseph II was to stipulate that all peasant obligations to the lords (including rent and free labor) were no longer paid in kind, but could be replaced by a sum of cash. Prior to this, the peasants gave some of their crops and domestic livestock to the lords, and had to work for the lords free of charge—which meant that the peasants had little access to money, and they had to please the lord day after day with their labor and the proceeds of their labor.
If all this is exchanged for a sum of cash, it means that the peasants can directly sell their labor power and the fruits of their labor, the rural economy will be greatly developed, the peasants will be "liberated" in substance, and industry and commerce will develop on this basis.
Unsurprisingly, Joseph II's reform of serfdom was met with fierce opposition, and even most of the senior officials in his government made their anger clear. Many decrees were refused to be signed by senior government officials, and Joseph II had to back down slightly.
Of course, there were also some issues that Joseph II did not touch on, such as the issue of lordship jurisdiction and forced labor. Lords are supreme within the realm, like the monarchs of a "kingdom within a state." If they are to be deprived of the right to administer the "subjects", they are undoubtedly forcing them to rebel.
Joseph II's reforms persisted until his death. But he did not succeed entirely, and the real emancipation of the peasantry would not be realized until after the Great Revolution of 1848 in Europe.
Poor farmers
Much is evident in a passage by the 18th-century Hungarian liberal Bayerzevic: "The peasants show a natural distrust of all the superiors, even those who are not responsible for the suffering of the peasants, who think they have the right to use tricks ... Reap the benefits... They have the same distrust of all administrative and judicial authorities ... They stubbornly oppose it because they know that the interests of the lords are contrary to their own..."
Yes, the peasants were already full of anger at the lords, and they were eager to change their situation. The common struggle of many peasants against the lords is as follows: the lord needs a child to be a slave, and they send his weakest and stupid child; the lord needs the peasant to serve free labor, so they send the weakest family members; when working for the lord, they can be lazy and lazy...
In addition to that, of course, farmers also began to resort to violence.
One of the reasons Joseph II was anxious to push forward with his own reform of serfdom was a detailed look at the Peasant Revolt of 1784 in Transylvania. At its peak, 36,000 armed peasants gathered in the riot targeted the noble lords: in just one area affected by the riots, 132 noble houses were burned down and 4,000 nobles (and their families) were killed in the "most terrible way."
The peasants had become intolerable and desperately needed to abolish serfdom and abolish the privileges of noble lords.
European monarchs of the late 18th century, who were not so faint and incompetent, knew that serfdom must be abolished. Frederick the Great and Joseph II are among them, and at the same time prove that the road to reform is extremely arduous and cannot be completed overnight.
However, under the general trend of history, once the first step is taken, the reform can no longer stop...