Agricultural History Review, Volume 59 Part 2 (2011), pp. 266–292

When historians construct models of opposed societal trajectories through time, and try to locate them in space, they usually end up with a transition zone in between. The hereditary lands of the Austrian branch of the Habsburg dynasty, particularly the provinces of Lower and Upper Austria and Styria (as well as Bavaria and some other West Elbian territories), have been analysed in this respect as hybrid forms, where most of the preconditions for the formation of Gutsherrschaft were present in the sixteenth century but where further development was blocked for one reason or another. The paper analyses the transition of the Lower Austrian seigneury from a predominantly rent-taking (in money and kind) lordship to a form of lordship showing characteristics of Gutsherrschaft more closely than it has been done previously, by concentrating on the question of labour services. The supposed role of the early modern state in blocking the development of a demesne economy is revised and the question of serfdom is addressed by pointing to the use made of the term Leibeigenschaft by the actors – peasants, lords, and state agencies – themselves. Finally, the article explores a factor previously neglected in attempts to explain why the Lower Austrian seigneury did not develop into a full-fledged Gutsherrschaft, with the typical features of regional agro-systems in this part of Central Europe. 

Complete Volume PDF