This volume, part of the series, Studien und Forschungen aus dem Niederösterreichischen Institut für Landeskunde, emerges from a 2023 symposium hosted by the above-mentioned institute. A selection of nine expanded papers from that symposium has been published in this volume, grouped into three categories: politics, administration, and devotional practices. In 2026, the institute will make the volume accessible through its website, free of charge.
In the first contribution to the volume, Johannes Kritzel essentially asks the question, how the consummate political operator, Cardinal Melchior Khlesl, managed to so infuriate the Emperor Ferdinand II with his moderate positions regarding the Protestants, that in 1618 he found himself arrested, deprived of his offices and properties, and put on trial. While arguing that no definitive conclusion is possible, he recounts a series of reasons why the cardinal may have continued to maintain his policy of compromise with the Protestants in the upcoming imperial election and in the Bohemian crisis, even as it became increasingly dangerous to do so. These involve some reasons governed by self-interest, including the fear that he would lose influence at court when Ferdinand was finally elected, and the fact that he was on the payroll of various Protestants. However, it could also be argued that he genuinely believed Austria would need to maintain cordial relations with Protestant powers in the Empire for the foreseeable future, and that Austria lacked the needed resources to successfully implement an aggressive policy in Bohemia.
In his contribution, Tomáš Černušák examines the instructions of the papal nuncio Carlo Caraffa to the court of Ferdinand II as a point of entry into the analysis of the tensions between what the papacy expected the devout emperor would achieve for the church, and the cautious attitude of the emperor as he faced shifting political conditions. The author concludes that Ferdinand's policy aligned with the twin goals of the papacy: the transfer of the electoral dignity from the Palatinate to a suitably Catholic prince, and the re-catholicization of Bohemia. However, Ferdinand's attention to the political and military factors arrayed against these policies in the early 1620s, caused him to proceed cautiously, to the great consternation of the papal court.
Josef Hrdlička's contribution documents the increasingly stringent Counter-Reformation measures implemented by Ferdinand II in Bohemia from the early 1620s through 1627, when he issued the edict requiring all Bohemian nobility to convert to Catholicism or go into exile. The author discusses the political and military realities that contributed to Ferdinand's decision to adopt a gradual approach. He also notes that the pace of the process accelerated by 1626 as the commission tasked with recommending Counter-Reformation measures concluded that the Protestant nobles were not converting voluntarily, and that without their conversion, the conversion of the broader population was not feasible.
The first essay in the Administration section, by Daniel Haberler-Maier, seeks to contextualize the economic and political decline of the twin towns of Krems and Stein within the events of the Counter-Reformation. He concludes that a series of factors were involved. The 1589 revolt against the imperial edict demanding the return of the population to Catholicism resulted in crippling fines, the loss of trading privileges, and restrictions on political autonomy. Forced loans and requisitions imposed to fund imperial efforts in the 30 Years’ War added further burdens. Finally, the Immigration of prosperous members of the communities, occasioned by the events above, sped the decline.
In his contribution, Nikolaus Wagner describes the two-stage process by which Ferdinand II accomplished the re-catholicization of the majority-Protestant civil service in Lower Austria. Beginning in 1623, at the behest of the Catholic nobility, he undertook measures to secure a Catholic majority in the Council of Deputies. By 1626, this was effected, which allowed the Council in 1628 to demand that all members of the civil service convert to Catholicism. Although the full implementation of the policy encountered isolated obstacles, the trajectory was no longer in doubt.
Heidemarie Bachhofer writes about the role election commissioners in the towns of Lower Austria played in the Counter-Reformation. She observes that the conditions of the Counter-Reformation both accelerated Ferdinand II's increasing control over towns under his authority as territorial lord and also that this process allowed him to implement the re-catholicization of those towns. In their late-medieval origin, election commissioners simply certified the validity of town elections. However, through the sixteenth century, Vienna asserted its right to nullify elections on grounds of unsuitability. Beginning in 1579, Ferdinand II leveraged this right to reject all elected Protestants as unsuitable. This allowed him to proceed with the re-catholicization of the towns from 1585, using the increasingly powerful commissioners to enforce edicts prohibiting Protestant religious services and then demanding the reconversion of the population.
In the first contribution to the Devotional Practice section, Sylvia Stegbauer describes manuals and devotional pamphlets produced for the Jesuit-founded sodalities of Inner Austria. She uses these books to reconstruct the devotional lives of their members, noting a near-universal devotion to the Virgin Mary. She connects these sodalities to broader Counter-Reformation efforts, noting that many were founded through the 1620s, mostly in Protestant-majority towns, and while Ferdinand II was increasingly working with the Reformation Commissions to carry out the reconversion process.
The entry by Elisabeth Theresia Hilscher deals with, essentially, two different subjects. First, she describes musical and theatrical productions performed at year-end celebrations in Jesuit schools. These she identifies as part of the re-catholicizing mission that Jesuits carried out in majority-Protestant cities. Second, she discusses the widely reproduced 1625 Groß Catholisch Gesangbuch. Although its author, Gregor David Corner, was not himself a Jesuit, he did study at the Jesuit-led University of Prague and did hold posts in various parishes in Inner Austria where Jesuit influence was found. She sees his mission to put in the hands of the people a songbook that taught them what it meant to be Catholic and how to live a Catholic life, as inspired by the spirit of the Jesuit order.
This final essay in the section, by Lusia Richter, uses the letters and poetry of the Protestant noblewoman and poet, Catherina Regina von Greiffenberg, to explore methods that Protestants and exiles used to fortify themselves in the face of Catholic pressure and, often, the resulting dislocation. Perhaps the most theoretical of the articles in the volume, the author explores how religion functions as a subjective framework for self-identification, interpretation, and affirmation. Von Greiffenberg's religious friendships, maintained through her correspondence, allowed her to both construct and declare her confessional self within the context of a broader confessional community.
Although the topics in the volume are disparate, and the conclusions often cautious and provisional, the essays, as a group, present a largely satisfying picture of the multifaceted approach taken toward the re-catholicization process in Inner- and Lower Austria. Coming to the fore in this collection is the person of Ferdinand, cautious, to be sure, but equally determined, strategic, and unrelenting in his re-catholicizing efforts. Also, it should be noted, he was ultimately successful.
