Hanoverian Government

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Christopher C. W. Bauermeister Hanover: Milde Regierung or Ancien Régime?

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Hanover:Milde Regierung or Ancien Regime?*

Christopher C. W. Bauermeister (Purdue University)

In 1786 Ludwig Spittler characterized the government of the Electorate of Han-over (Kurhannover) as one of the most moderate and free in a Germany other-wise dominated by despotisms.1 As Heiko Leerhoff noted, however, fewer thantwenty years later the shift in public opinion and rhetoric following the FrenchRevolution led to criticism of that same regime for its undue harshness.2 Sincethen historians have alternately praised and condemned the late-eighteenth-century Hanoverian government, largely, it seems, based upon whether theyviewed the periods of French occupation after 1803 and the subsequent dissol-ution of the Electoral government after 1807 as the destruction of an effectiveand enlightened administration or the removal of an archaic and oppressiveregime.

While recent works such as Reinhard Oberschelp’s detailed examination ofHanover in the reign of George III or the ‘Geschichte Niedersachsen’ serieshave provided unparalleled factual overviews of late-eighteenth-century Han-over,3 they continue to re� ect older negative evaluations of the government.4

Such assessments, however, are based upon an anachronistic measuring ofAufklarung political reforms and ideology against modern ‘western’ standards,

* This essay is an overview of a larger work in progress and I welcome any corrections orsuggestions. I must thank Doctors Merker and Brosius at the Haupstaatsarchiv Niedersachsenfor the help which they have already provided.

1 ‘Wo ist das deutsche Land, das gerad’ in dem Zeitalter, da alles unter despotischer Gewaltimmer tiefer versinkt, seine mildesten Regierung genoß, seine ausgebildeste Freiheit ungekranktbehauptet’ : Ludwig Timotheus Spittler, Geschichte des Furstentums Hannover zeit den Zeitender Reformation bis zu ende des 17. Jahrhunderts (Hanover, 1786), quoted in Heiko Leerhoff,Friedrich Ludwig v. Berlepsch: hannoverscher Hofrichter, Land- und Schatzrat und Publizist1749–1818 (Hildesheim, 1970), pp. 21–2.

2 Ibid., p. 22.3 Reinhad Oberschelp, Niedersachsen 1760–1820, 2 vols. (Hildesheim, 1982); Hans Patze

(ed.), Kirche und Kultur von der Reformation bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts (GeschichteNiedersachsens, vol. 3, part 2, Hildesheim, 1983); Christine van de Heuvel and Manfred vonBoetticher (eds.), Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft von der Reformation bis zum Beginn des19. Jahrhunderts (Geschichte Niedersachsens, vol. 3, part 1, Hanover, 1998).

4 The foundations of these judgements can be found in Friederich Thimme’s Die innerenZustande des Kurfurstentums Hannover unter der Franzosisch-Westfa lischen Herrschaft 1806–1813 (Hanover and Leipzig, 1893), as evinced, for example, in the fact that Thimme’s scathingcritique of the Hanoverian regime has been cited as accurate as recently as 1998. Karl HeinrichKaufhold, ‘Die Wirtschaft in der fruhen Neuzeit: Gewerbe, Handel, und Verkehr’, in Heuveland Boetticher (eds.), Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft , p. 359.

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288 Christopher C. W. Bauermeister

Map 1. Hanover




289Hanover: Milde Regierung or Ancien Regime?

particularly the more dramatic and ideologically liberal political and socialchanges instituted in the wake of the French Revolution. In order to be properlyunderstood, the ideas and actions of the Hanoverian governing elite mustbe examined within the context of the Aufklarung notions of moderate en-lightenment, gradual change and state involvement predominant within late-eighteenth-century German political theory and practice.5 In this contextHanover was neither the unenlightened despotism nor the incompletely cen-tralized absolutism depicted by its critics; rather, it was an effective and moder-ately progressive early modern state whose centralized bureaucracy, inspiredby cameralist and Enlightenment ideas, held sway over an older corporate sys-tem and successfully implemented reform programmes designed to improveaspects of administrative ef� ciency, agrarian productivity and social welfare.

Critics of the late-eighteenth-century Electoral administration contend thatHanover was not a ‘proper’ absolutist state, since the central government con-tinued to share power with the estate assemblies (Landstande) of the Elector-ate’s nine provinces. In addition, the Electorate was a typical Ancien Regimecorporate state (Standestaat), in which aristocratic elements enjoyed a virtualmonopoly over the leading positions in the state’s administration. Given thenobility’s leading role within the government and the persistence of corporateprivilege, Hanover has been characterized as backward when measured againstPrussian and Austrian models of more centralized and integrated states, letalone when compared to more liberal ‘western’ models.

In particular, critics have focused upon the fact that the Electorate’s consti-tution remained unchanged from 1680 until 1814. They argue that the pro-gramme of centralization and the diminution of aristocratic power carried outto such effect in the seventeenth century was discontinued after 1714 with theshift of the seat of government to England under George I and his successors.In the subsequent absence of an absolutist monarch to subdue the provincialestates, these scholars assert, the nobility was able to regain its dominant pos-ition within both the central and local government. This ruling elite’s devotionto its own interest and maintaining the status quo, in turn, supposedly precipi-

5 One of the most important distinctions of the Aufklarung was that most Aufklarer were, asin Hanover, members of the administrative elite, if not the rulers themselves. Thus, rather thanattacking the political, religious or social status quo in order to bring about change, they wereable to utilize their positions of power to introduce reforms within the structure of the GermanStandestaat . T. C. W. Blanning, Reform and Revolution in Mainz 1743–1803 (Cambridge, 1974);Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge, 1981); Ang-ela Stirken, Der Herr und der Diener: Friedrich Carl von Moser und das Beamtenwesen seinerZeit (Bonn, 1984); Keith Tribe, ‘Cameralism and the Science of Government’, The Journal ofModern History, 56 (1984), pp. 263–84; Charles W. Ingrao, ‘The Problem of “EnlightenedAbsolutism” and the German States,’ Journal of Modern History, 58, suppl. (December 1986),pp. S161–S180; Ingrao, ‘The Smaller German States’, in H. M Scott (ed.), Enlightened Absolut-ism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe (London, 1990); EckhartHellmuth, ‘Why Does Corruption Matter? Reforms and Reform Movements in Britain andGermany in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, in T. C. W. Blanning and Peter Wende(eds.), Reform in Great Britain and Germany 1750–1850 (New York, 1999).





tated Hanover’s political, economic and social stagnation, particularly in thecomplete absence of the ruler from the Electorate during George III’s reign(1760–1820).6

Despite this supposed backwardness, Hanover seems to have been capableof devising and implementing the same sort of progressive reform projectsthat scholars have acclaimed in Germany’s more ‘enlightened’ principalities.7

Moreover, George III’s absence meant these reforms were carried out largelywithout the direct supervision of an enlightened monarch—and, after the deathin 1770 of Hanover’s administrative doyen Gerlach Adolph von Munchhausen,even without the oversight of an ‘inspired’ chief minister within the Electorate.In fact, few of these reforms could have been successfully implemented withoutthe co-operation and, in many cases, the initiative of the Elector’s aristocraticand bourgeois administrative of� cials. Thus, rather than crediting single power-ful or in� uential individuals such as Frederick II or Anton von Kaunitz withbeing the true authors of enlightened absolutism, the Hanoverian case suggeststhat an ‘Enlightenment sensibility’ among the members of a state’s adminis-tration could be an equally effective inspiration for enlightened reform.8

Ultimately, Hanover’s ‘Enlightenment’ was the result not of any major shiftin the relations of power within the state, but, rather, of a shift in the ideologyand interests of those who exercised power. Therefore, in order to understandreform and state development in Hanover and elsewhere within the HolyRoman Empire, if not in much of early modern Europe, it is necessary toexamine the ideological perspective of this political elite.9 After giving an over-view of conditions within late-eighteenth-century Hanover, the following essaywill examine the degree to which Enlightenment values pervaded the intellec-tual and social milieu of the bureaucratic elite responsible for the creation andimplementation of reform policies. Such reforms, carried out in the decades

6 Thimme, Die inneren Zustande; Ernst von Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwal-tungsgeschichte 1680–1866, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1898); Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of GermanConservatism (Princeton, 1966); Rudolf Vierhaus, ‘Die Landstande in Nordwestdeutschland imspateren 18. Jahrhundert ’, in Dietrich Gerhard (ed.), Standische Vertretungen in Europe im 17.und 18. Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1969); Leerhoff, Berlepsch; Oberschelp, Niedersachsen ; Rein-hard Oberschelp, Politische Geschichte Niedersachsens , vol. 1: 1714–1803 (Hildesheim, 1983);Uriel Dann, Hanover and Great Britain 1740–1760 (Leicester and London, 1991); John Gagli-ardo, Germany under the Old Regime, 1600–1790 (London and New York, 1991); Philip Konigs,The Hanoverian Kings and their Homeland: A Study of the Personal Union 1714–1837(Lewes, 1993).

7 Otto Heinemann, Geschichte von Braunschweig und Hannover (Gotha, 1882), pp. 381ff;Sigisbert Conrady, ‘Die Wirksamkeit Konig Georgs III. fur die hannoverschen Kurlande’, Nieder-sachsiches Jahrbuch fur Landesgeschichte , 39 (1967), pp. 150–19; Georg Schnath, Geschichtedes Landes Niedersachsen (Wurzburg, 1973), pp. 39ff.

8 Franz A. J. Szabo, Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism 1753–1780 (New York, 1994), pp.346–7.

9 Similar developments have been traced for other European nations. William Beik, Absolutismand Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in Langue-doc (Cambridge, 1985); Scott, Enlightened Absolutism ; Michael Braddick, ‘State Formation andSocial Change in Early Modern England: A Problem Stated and Approaches Suggested’, SocialHistory, 16 (1991), pp. 1–17; Blanning and Wende (eds.), Reform in Great Britain and Germany.





before the French Revolution in the areas of administration, agriculture andsocial welfare, will then be examined as evidence for considering Hanoveramong the ranks of those states practising enlightened absolutism.1 0

* * *

Most of the Electorate of Hanover lay between the rivers Weser and Elbein north-west Germany, consisting primarily of the sparsely populated sandyheathland (Geest) and scattered moors of the north German plain, though theterritories to the south of the city of Hannover were more fertile and popu-lated.11 (In common with other English-speaking scholars, I use the spelling‘Hannover’ in the text of this article to distinguish the city from the Electorateof Hanover.) In 1786 Hanover covered some 28,166 km2 and had approxi-mately 850,000 inhabitants, making it the � fth largest of the states (in termsof size and population) within the late Holy Roman Empire.1 2 The Electoratewas composed of nine semi-autonomous provinces: the principalities ofCalenberg-Gottingen, Grubenhagen and Luneburg-Celle; the duchies ofLauenberg, Bremen and Verden; the counties of Hoya and Diepholz; and theLand of Hadeln.1 3 Most of these territories had belonged to the various branchesof the ruling house(s) of Braunschweig-Luneburg, which were uni� ed in 1705under the Elector George Ludwig (later George I) when the last of the collaterallines had died out. Lauenberg, however, had been acquired for Hanover onlyin 1702, Bremen and Verden were purchased from Sweden in 1719, and Hadelnwas not of� cially integrated into the Electorate until 1731.14 Thus, thecomposite state of Electoral Hanover had been uni� ed for a relatively shortperiod of time, and its divided origins were evinced in many of its disparateinstitutions.

The most prominent manifestation of this division was the existence of separ-

10 For an overview of enlightened absolutism in other German states see Ingrao, ‘SmallerGerman States’ and Walter Demel (ed.), Vom Aufgeklarten Reformstaat zum BurokratischenStaatsabsolutismus (Munich, 1993), pp. 8–29.

11 Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 2, pp. 5–6. For a more detailed overview of the differentecosystems and forms of agriculture in the Electorate’s provinces see Stefan Brakensiek’s Agrar-reform und Landliche Gesellschaft: Die Privatisierung der Marken in Nordwestdeutschland1750–1850 (Paderborn, 1991), pp. 185–266.

12 Those states which were larger were the Habsburg Lander, Brandenburg-Prussia, Bavariaand Saxony, in descending size order. Josiah Dornford, A View of the Present State of thePopulation, Revenues, Military Establishments, &c. of the Principal Territories in the GermanicEmpire %, in An Historic Development of the Present Political Constitution of the GermanicEmpire by Johann Stephen Putter % translated from the German, 3 vols. (London, 1790), vol.3, p. iii; Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 1, p. 7; Hermann Wagner, ‘Hagemanns Flachenberech-nung des Kurfurstentums Hannover im Jahr 1786’, Niedersachsisches Jahrbuch , 1 (1924), pp.198–219.

13 See map 1.14 Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 1, pp. 75–100; Wolf-

Rudiger Reinicke, Landstande im Verfassungsstaat: Verfassungsgeschichte und gegenwartigeRechtsstellung der Landschaften und Ritterschaften in Niedersachsen (Gottingen, 1975), pp.69–79.





ate estate assemblies in each of the provinces except for Hoya and Diepholz.Each province thus retained its own governing institution with which theElector’s regime was required to negotiate before any new taxes or laws relat-ing to the estates’ traditional privileges could be introduced.1 5 While criticshave seen this as an exceptional weakness of the Hanoverian regime, SheilaghOgilvie has demonstrated that such divided authority was quite common amongstates within the Holy Roman Empire, even those whose monarchs wielded‘absolute’ control, such as Prussia.1 6 Furthermore, in the eighteenth century theElectoral regime requested no increases in � nancing to which the estates posedany opposition and proposed few new laws that altered their rights.17 Thus,while the provincial elite may have possessed the potential to challengeHanover’s central authorities, before 1789 few situations arose in which theycould or would do so.

The Privy Council (Geheime Rat) was the chief organ of the Hanoverianadministration, its aristocratic members (the Ministerium) serving as the headsof most other branches of the central government.1 8 While George III remainedthe ultimate authority, retaining control over foreign policy, the army, and thenaming of all save a few of� cials within both the central and provincial admin-istrations, by the middle of the eighteenth century the rights and responsibilitieswhich had been codi� ed in his grandfather’s 1714 regulations concerninggovernment in the Elector’s absence had left the Privy Council as the de factocentre of domestic policy.1 9 Decisions were reached in meetings of the fullCouncil, each ‘minister’ heading a department responsible for a different areaof policy; rulings were issued either under the Council’s authority or in the

15 Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 1, pp. 260–88.16 Sheilagh Ogilvie, ‘The State in Germany; A Non-Prussian View’, in John Brewer and

Eckhart Hellmuth (eds.), Rethinking Leviathan: The Eighteenth-Century State in Britain andGermany (New York, 1999).

17 Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 1, pp. 30–1;Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 2, p. 89.

18 These included: two separate treasury departments, the Exchequer (Cammer) and the WarChancellery (Kriegskanzlei ), responsible for the collection and distribution of the Electorate’sincomes; provincial administrations in the cities of Ratzeburg (for Lauenberg) and Stade (forBremen and Verden), through which these provinces were governed directly; church Consistories(Konsistoria) in the cities of Stade (for Bremen and Verden), Ratzeburg (for Lauenberg), andHannover (for the remaining provinces), which administered spiritual matters and elementaryeducation; Justice chancelleries (Justizkanzleien ) in the cities of Hannover (for Calenberg andHoya), Celle (for Luneburg and Grubenhagen) and Stade (for Bremen and Verden), which servedas the courts of � rst appeal for the aristocracy and appellate courts for the rest of the Electorate’sinhabitants; and the High Court of Appeals in Celle (Oberappellationsgericht ), the Electorate’ssupreme court. Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 2, pp. 3–291.

19 ‘Regierungsreglement vom 29. August 1714’, in Richard Drogereit (ed.), Quellen zurGeschichte Kurhannovers im Zeitalter der Personalunion mit England 1714–1803 (Hildesheim,1949), pp. 5–15; Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 1, pp.158–69.





Elector’s name.2 0 George III continued to be involved in certain aspects ofdomestic administration, however, and communication between the monarchand the Privy Council on important issues was exchanged through the GermanChancellery (Deutsche Kanzlei) in London.21 The Privy Council thus acted asthe source of most legislative, administrative, and even judicial decisions withinHanover. The day-to-day administration of most of the Electorate, however,was exercised through the institutions of the Cammer.

The Cammer was, in the � rst place, Hanover’s highest � nancial authority,handling the income derived from all of the domain lands, mines and forestsbelonging to the Elector. As over 50% of the landholdings in Hanover wereheld by Elector as Grundherr, the majority of the income-generating land inthis primarily � scalist state, as well as its peasant population, fell, through theCammer, under the direct control of the central government rather than theprovincial aristocracy.2 2 The Cammer was also responsible for the maintenanceand protection of the lands and subjects under its control; operating on thecameralist/Aufklarung principles of the reciprocal relationship of state andsociety, it functioned as one of the chief sources of the eudemonistic policieswhich lay at the heart of the various reforms within late-eighteenth-centuryHanover.23

The Cammer’s paternalistic blend of � scal-administrative control wasextended throughout the Electorate’s numerous districts (Amter) which weresupervised by local of� cials known as Amtmanner or Beamten. The chiefresponsibilities of these Amtmanner were to calculate, record and nurture theproductive capability of the Amt and its populace. They also functioned as thecourt of � rst instance for settling disputes between subjects within theirdistricts, as well as overseeing those estate courts within or adjacent totheir jurisdictions, thereby further diminishing the provincial estates’ direct

20 There were no � xed categories for these departments, each one being created or dissolvedby the Privy Council as circumstances required. The issues with which these departments wereconcerned were wide-ranging, including such matters as negotiating with the estates over theircontributions (in the Department fur die Kontributions[,] Licent-Landschaftlichen undSchatzsachen, Landesbeitragsachen ), managing commerce and productivity within the Electorate(in the Kommerz- und Manufakturdepatment and Landesokonomiedepartment ), or maintainingorder in the cities and countryside and the administration of justice (in the department ofPolizei- und Stadsachen and the Justizdepartment ). Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- undVerwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 2, pp. 84–121.

21 Rudolf Grieser, ‘Die Deutsche Kanzlei in London, ihre Entshtehung und Anfange: Einebehordengeschichtliche Studie’, Blatter fur deutsche Landesgeschichte , 89 (1952), pp. 153–68;Conrady, ‘Wirksamkeit Konig Georgs III.’, pp. 157–8.

22 Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 2, p. 20; Oberschelp,Niedersachsen , vol. 2, p. 96.

23 The Cammer, for example, published instructions on ways to prevent the destruction ofgrain by vermin and moulds or issued edicts on subjects such as the proper maintenance of � rehoses. ‘Cammerordnung’, 24 Oct. 1772, in Ernst Spangenberg, Sammlung der Verordnungenund Ausschreiben welche fur sammtliche Provinzen des Hannoverschen Staats %, 7 vols.(Hanover, 1819–25), vol. 2, pp. 448–51; ‘Cammerordnung’, 23 June 1780, ibid., vol. 3, pp.14–18.





authority over the Electorate’s subjects.2 4 These Amtmanner were typicalof government agents utilized by absolutist rulers throughout Germany,extending the Electoral regime’s control over � nancial, agricultural, judicialand other administrative functions to the local level.25

In this predominantly agricultural society the system of land tenure favouredthe peasant-farmers (Bauer) who constituted the majority of the Electorate’spopulation. Although there were regional variations, most Bauer were subjectto the legal form of Grundherrschaft known as Meierrecht. Under its termsthe Bauer (legally a Meier) owed various labour services and dues in cash andkind to a landlord for the use of a plot of land while remaining personally free.By the seventeenth century laws had already been established in several of theprovinces which set these dues at a � xed amount (which the landlord couldnot raise) and, by the eighteenth, most had been commuted into cash payments.In addition, the Meier possessed the right not to be evicted from his land exceptunder exceptional circumstances, as well as the right to bequeath the property,undivided, to one of his descendants. The predominance of Meierrecht backedby the central government’s policy of Bauernschutz thus assured the viabilityand persistence of the small self-suf� cient holdings worked by individualfarmers which constituted 85% of the cultivated land in the Electorate.2 6 Conse-quently the Hanoverian aristocracy rarely presided over large estates, usuallydrawing rent from scattered properties (or earning their keep serving in theElectoral government) and residing in Hanover’s cities instead. The cities thusemerged as the centres of Hanover’s traditional elite society.2 7

Hanover possessed a number of larger cities, several of which had beendeveloped as the residences of the provinces’ independent Brunswick princes:Hannover and Gottingen in Calenberg, Clausthal in Grubenhagen, andLuneburg and Celle in Luneburg. While only the Electoral Residenzstadt ofHannover—with 15,500 inhabitants in 1766 (18,000 including the garrison)—had a population of over 8,000 before 1789, these cities were among the largestin northern Germany.28 In the course of the eighteenth century, the educated

24 Walter Achilles, Die Lage der hannoverschen Landbevolkerung im spaten 18. Jahrhundert(Hildesheim, 1982), p. 5.

25 Manfred Hamann, ‘Die alt-hannoverschen Amter: Ein Uberblick’, NiedersachsischesJahrbuch fur Landesgeschichte , 51 (1979), pp. 195–208.

26 Wilhelm Treue, Niedersachsens Wirtschaft seit 1760: von der Agrar- zur Industriegesell-schaft (Hanover, 1964), pp. 9–12; Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 1, pp. 100–19; Achilles, Lageder hannoverschen Landbevolkerung, p. 5; Brakensiek, Agrarreform und Landliche Gesellschaft ,pp. 193–4.

27 Joachim Lampe, Aristokratie, Hofadel und Staatspatriziat in Kurhannover: Die Lebenskreiseder hoheren Beamten an den kurhannoverschen Zentral- und Hofbehorden 1714–1760, 2 vols.(Gottingen, 1963), pp. 76–7; Treue, Niedersachsens Wirtschaft , pp. 8–9; Siegfried Muller, Lebenin der Residenzstadt Hannover: Adel und Burgertum im Zeitalter der Aufklarung (Hanover,1988), pp. 9–10.

28 Dornford, View, pp. 30–3; A. F. Busching, A New System of Geography % Carefully Trans-lated from the last Edition of the German Original, 6 vols. (London, 1762), vol. 6, pp. 201–308; Karl Heinrich Kaufhold, ‘Stadtische Bevolkerungs- und Sozialgeschichte in der fruhenNeuzeit’, in Van de Heuvel and von Boetticher (eds.), Geschichte Niedersachsens , pp. 739–41.





bourgeoisie (Bildungsburgertum), a new social order with close ties to the Elec-tor and the Hanoverian aristocracy, had increasingly come to dominate the chiefpositions within urban society in Hanover. This was particularly true inHannover and Gottingen, both of whose economies were largely dependentupon the governmental and educational institutions housed within their citywalls. Although merchants and traders continued to exercise in� uence in the Elec-torate’s urban society and politics, the burgerliche culture which developed inHanover’s major cities was centred upon the ideals and identity of this in-creasingly powerful mixed group of bourgeois and noble administrative elite.2 9

* * *

During the second half of the eighteenth century Hanover remained a corporateand hierarchically divided society in which a narrow and closely related groupof nobles dominated the chief posts within the central and local governments,aided by the equally ‘caste-like’ upper ranks of the bourgeoisie, the state-patriciate (Staatspatriziat). After 1760, during the almost century-long absenceof the Electors from Hanover, the Privy Council and the university of Gottingenreplaced the Electoral court as the centres of political and cultural life, respect-ively. As the court nobility lost direct in� uence over affairs of the Electorate,those nobles and members of the state-patriciate who actually served in thecentral and provincial governments remained as the sole ruling elites.30

Though the highest governmental of� ces were still the purview of theHanoverian aristocracy, in the course of the eighteenth century the state-patriciate secretaries of these of� ces became increasingly responsible for actu-ally drafting the policies implemented by their superiors.3 1 Because even thisdegree of bourgeois involvement in administration resulted in no fundamentalchange in the hierarchical order of Hanoverian society, critics such asOberschelp damn the state-patriciate as merely ‘helping the nobility retain theirpower’ and failing to exhibit any concern for the ‘injustice of the socialorder’.3 2 This critique, however, fails to account for how the ‘collusion’between the state-patriciate and their noble superiors, rather than being due todeference to an unjust aristocratic rule, may have resulted from the integrationof both noble and bourgeois administrators into a progressive culture ofEnlightenment ideology and dedicated service to the state, a culture whosevalues were inculcated through the Electoral regime’s requirements that itsof� cials possess a university education.

Following more limited edicts in 1738 and 1768, an order issued in George

29 Ibid., pp. 804–16; Muller, Residenzstadt Hannover , pp. 23–4.30 Lampe, Aristokratie ; Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 1, p. 268; Heide Barmeyer, ‘Hof und

Hofgesellschaft in Niedersachsen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert ’, Niedersachsisches Jahrbuch furLandesgeschichte , 61 (1989), p. 91.

31 Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 1, pp. 494–5.32 Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 1, pp. 269, 271.





III’s name in 1771 instituted the most widespread requirements for a universityeducation among Hanoverian bureaucrats at all levels. Those seeking positionsas administrators and lawyers within the Electoral government were requiredto have attended a minimum of three years at a university, not only completingthe regular curriculum but also mastering the study of both imperial law andthe full range of cameral sciences. Although favour was still shown to the sonsof those already in the Elector’s service, no applicant who failed to demonstrateadequate training in these administrative sciences would be considered for anygovernmental position.3 3 These laws, meant to improve the ef� ciency andability of Hanover’s ‘administrative estate’ (Beamtenstand), also served to per-petuate and extend the degree to which the government was staffed by thosesharing the sensibility of the university-educated members of the Ministerium.3 4

This sensibility was fostered by the curriculum and resources of theuniversity of Gottingen. Founded in 1737 and funded and managed by the state,it had become the leading Enlightenment university in the Germany, if not allEurope, by the 1780s. Gottingen was the brainchild of the Electorate’s leadingstatesman, Gerlach Adolph von Munchhausen, who sought to create a univer-sity based on Aufklarung ideology, free from the theological emphasis dominantin other German universities. Thus, one of the university’s founding statutesensured intellectual freedom by granting its professors the right to teach, pub-lish, and otherwise express their ideas without the censorship codi� ed in theElectorate’s Zensuredikt of 1705. Gottingen’s dedication to the free dis-semination of knowledge was further facilitated by its library, one of the fore-most in Europe, which by 1776 contained approximately 125,000 volumes,all of which were intended for the use of professors and students rather thanmere preservation.3 5

Above all, Gottingen was established for the education of future adminis-trators. Its curriculum was based upon empirical and practical training in the� elds of law, history, and the natural and cameral sciences which, as demon-strated in Hanover’s educational edicts, formed the basis of the enlightenededucation important for those seeking governmental positions. While Gottingen’s

33 Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 1, pp. 548–9;‘Cammerauschreiben ’, 28 May 1767, in Spangenberg, Sammlung, vol. 2, p. 198; ‘Verordnung’,20 Sept. 1771, ibid., pp. 385–6.

34 Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte , vol. 1, p. 462. Of the twelveministers who served between 1770 and 1792, Johann Putter mentioned at least nine of themas having attended Gottingen. Meier, Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte ,vol. 2, p. 638; Johann Stephan Putter, Johann Stephan Putters Selbstbiographie: zur dankbarenJubelfeier seiner 50jahrigen Professorsstelle zu Gottingen, vol. 2 (Gottingen, 1798).

35 Notker Hammerstein, ‘1787—die Universita t im Heiligen Romischen Reich’, in BerndMoeller (ed.), Stationen der Gottinger Universita tsgeschichte 1737–1787–1837–1937(Gottingen, 1988), pp. 29–41; Carl Haase, ‘Obrigkeit und offentliche Meinung in Kurhannover1789–1803’, pp. 199–201 and ‘Bildung und Wissenschaft von der Reformation bis 1803’, inPatze (ed.), Kirche und Kultur, pp. 339–40; Hugo Kunoff, ‘The Enlightenment and GermanUniversity Libraries: Leipzig, Jena, Halle, and Gottingen between 1750 and 1813’ (Ph.D.,Indiana University, 1972), pp. 47–9, 65–70, 159.





professors were foremost in their � elds—including the political historianAugust Ludwig von Schlozer and the university’s most renowned � gure, thejurist Johann Stephan Putter—they were rarely proponents of radical specu-lation or innovation. Instead they promoted the systematization and rationaliz-ation of existing knowledge in their � elds, thereby establishing the groundworkof the secular empiricism essential to the further development of Enlightenmentthought and culture in Hanover.36 Gottingen’s practical, limited, and cameralist-inspired Aufklarung ideology—particularly Putter’s courses in law throughwhich a whole generation of German of� cials passed—made it a suitableeducation not only for those seeking to become enlightened administrators inHanover and the other German states but also for the sons of leading familiesin the Empire and Europe, including several future rulers, George III’s sonsamong them.3 7

The proper Bildung for an enlightened gentleman required more thanadministrative training, however, and Gottingen also offered courses indancing, art, fencing, riding, music and foreign languages which were attendedby both noble and bourgeois students, earning them the reputation of beingsome of the most cultured in Europe. Ernst Brandes, Privy Council secretaryand son of Gottingen’s president, noted the cosmopolitanism of Gottingen’sstudents and faculty in his description of culture and society within the Elector-ate’s major cities;38 he attributed this to the coming together of individualsfrom so many different countries and backgrounds. According to Brandes, thechief social interaction among Gottingen’s academics (outside of theclassroom) was over the family dinner table, students being regularly invitedinto professors’ homes for an evening’s repast and entertainment. This resultedin the regular coming together not only of professors and students, Hanoveriansand ‘foreigners’, and members of different estates in Gottingen’s learned politesociety, but also of members of both sexes.3 9 Within the context of late-eighteenth-century German society the intellectual and social milieu towhich the Gottingen student was exposed was nothing if not enlightened andprogressive.

36 Charles E. McClelland, State, Society, and University in Germany 1700–1914 (New York,1980), pp. 35–45; Rudolf Vierhaus, ‘1737—Europa zur Zeit der Universita tsgrundung’, inMoeller (ed.), Stationen , pp. 23–4; R. Andre Wake� eld, ‘The Apostles of Good Police: Science,Cameralism, and the Culture of Administration in Central Europe, 1656–1800’ (Ph.D., Univer-sity of Chicago, 1999), pp. 43–94.

37 Christoph Link, ‘Johann Stephan Putter (1725–1807): Staatsrecht am Ende des AltenReiches’, in Fritz Loos (ed.), Rechtswissenschaft in Gottingen: Gottinger Juristen aus 250 Jahren(Gottingen, 1987), pp. 75, 86–8, 93–4; see also the works cited in note 5. Putter was particularlyproud of the eminent statesmen and nobles whom he had taught, mentioning as many of theirnames as he could in his autobiography: Putter, Selbstbiographie .

38 Ernst Brandes, ‘Ueber die gesellschaftlichen Vergnugungen in den vernehmsten Stadten desChurfurstenthums’, Annalen der Braunschweig-Luneburgischen Churlande , 3 (1789), no. 4, pp.761–800; Annalen, 4 (1790), no. 1, pp. 56–88.

39 Ibid., Annalen, 3 (1789), no. 4, pp. 792–800; Haase, ‘Bildung und Wissenschaft ’, pp. 346–7, and McClelland, State, Society, and University in Germany, p. 45; C. Meiners, KurzeGeschichte und Beschreibung der Stadt Gottingen (Berlin, 1801).





The state-sponsored programme of university education therefore not onlybrought about the ‘rationalization of noble authority in the form of systematicadministrative training’; it also served to create and perpetuate the HanoverianBeamtenstand as a distinct community composed of members of both thenobility and the state-patriciate who shared a common Aufklarung ideology, acommunity bound chie� y by the possession of a university education andservice to the state rather than allegiance to older Stand identities.4 0 Thoughsocial distinctions were still made between the two estates, their close associ-ation, begun in Gottingen, continued in the course of their constant worktogether in the administration, apparently extending into aspects of theirsocial lives.

In the polite society of Hannover and other administrative centres, asdescribed by Brandes, the members of the Beamtenstand and their families alsoattended social gatherings—many of which, not unlike the Paris salons, wereusually hosted by the wives of the nobility—in which men and women of bothestates mingled and engaged in a free exchange of conversation and ideas.According to Brandes, however, the more important social interaction occurredin the ‘English-style’ clubs which multiplied in the Electorate in the 1780s.The members of the mostly all-male clubs were noble and state-patriciateadministrators who had received the education required of the ‘better’ parts ofsociety, as well as merchants and prominent burghers. Such clubs allowed theseleaders of the different ranks of society to come together and discuss mattersof state and business, establish personal contacts, and exchange opinions, infor-mation and ideas for the improvement of the Electorate, thus broadening theirgeneral worldviews and binding them to one another in the context of a greatersociety. Moreover, as Brandes noted, the Enlightenment ideology fostered inboth the larger social gatherings and the clubs was not speci� c to Hanover’surban centres, but was also exhibited by ‘the large class of Beamten’ in thecountryside.4 1

A key indicator of the widespread nature of this ideology within Hanover,as throughout the Empire, was the publication and popularity of several journalsfundamental to the establishment of enlightened public opinion among theeducated elite. The Beamtenstand, who constituted the majority of this elite,were particularly concerned with those periodicals dedicated to the cameralist-inspired Aufklarung programmes of practical reform for the improvement ofstate and society. Between 1770 and 1790 no fewer than eighty-six differentindependently published journals appeared within the Electorate, the majorityoriginating in Gottingen (� fty-� ve) and Hannover (twenty). Of these seventeendealt speci� cally with political, economic and social issues, including Schloz-er’s Briefwechsel, meist historischen und politischen Inhalts (Gottingen, 1779–

40 McClelland, State, Society, and University in Germany, pp. 20–1, 95–6.41 Brandes, ‘Ueber die gesellschaftlichen Vergnugungen’, Annalen, 3 (1789), no. 4, pp. 772,

786–7; Annalen, 4 (1790), no. 1, pp. 56–8.





82), one of the � rst and most in� uential of such journals to appear in Germany,though even literary journals such as the poet/administrator Christian Boie’sDas Deutsche Museum (1776–88) addressed themselves to the dissemination ofpolitical information among the educated elite.4 2 The wide-ranging Aufklarungagenda of these journals was exempli� ed in the Annalen der Braunschweig-Luneburgischen Churlande, published by Andreas Ludolph Jacobi and AlbertJacob Kraut, judicial of� cials from the provincial assemblies of Celle andLuneburg. In the � rst issue they stated that their purpose was

To make contemporaries familiar with all noteworthy local occurrences, to expandknowledge of the country, to help promote enlightenment, industry and national culture,to awaken and strengthen love of fatherland, and to prepare the ground for future his-torians. [They were thereby seeking to address] everything which [had] to do with thecurrent physical, political, economic, literary, and even moral state [of the Electorate].43

The journal re� ected the speci� c concerns of the members of the administrativeelite, particularly Amtmanner, from which estate the editors and most of theidenti� able contributors to the Annalen were drawn: both professional changes—including long lists of governmental promotions—and social changes—recording the deaths and marriages of ‘civil servants, nobles, scholars, andgreat merchants’.44 Yet the content of the Annalen and similar journals alsodemonstrated the degree to which these elites were concerned with the well-being of the whole of their society.4 5 For example, an article which argued forreducing Luneburg’s debt emphasized that this would lighten the tax burdenupon the Bauer; another article connected an increase in crime to the subsist-ence crises of the 1770s.4 6 While articles in the Annalen proposing or praisingimprovements in the areas of agriculture, industry, � nances and social welfaredemonstrate the Hanoverian reformers’ commitment to the cameralist purposeof improving the state’s revenues, they also illustrate a particularly Enlighten-ment concern for subjects’ well-being as the goal of such reforms. This combi-nation of purposes was characteristic of reforms in Hanover and throughoutthe Empire.

* * *

42 Hans Erich Bodeker, ‘Journals and Public Opinion: The Politicization of the GermanEnlightenment in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, in Eckhart Hellmuth (ed.), TheTransformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century(London, 1990); Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 2, pp. 211–16; Haase, ‘Bildung’, pp. 451–9and ‘Obrigkeit’, p. 203; Holger Boning and Emmy Moepps, ‘Die vorrevolutiona re Presse inNorddeutschland. Mit einer Bibliographie norddeutscher Zeitung und Zeitschriften zwischen1770 und 1790’, in Arno Herzig (ed.), Sie, und nicht Wir: die franzosiche Revolution und ihreWirkung auf Norddeutschland und das Reich, vol. 1 (Hamburg. Galitz, 1989).

43 Annalen, 1 (1787), no. 1, pp. iii–iv.44 Ibid., p. iv.45 Thomas Kempf, Aufklarung als Disziplinierung: Studien zum Diskurs des Wissens in

Intelligenzbla ttern und gelehrten Beilagen der zweiten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Munich,1991).

46 Annalen, 1 (1787), no. 1, pp. 142–3; Annalen, 3 (1789), no. 3, pp. 551–60.





Neither the Hanoverian reformers nor their contemporaries elsewhere in theHoly Roman Empire saw reform as an end in itself. Reform was intended asa practical solution to speci� c political, social or economic dif� culties. Thereformers among the Hanoverian administrative elite had no over-arching pro-gramme to remake the Standestaat . Instead, they sought to carefully implementspeci� c changes in Hanoverian state and society, leaving intact those olderinstitutions and practices which continued to serve their functions, thusre� ecting the gradualist and limited logic of Aufklarung reform ideology. Whileother enlightened absolutist states such as Prussia or Austria had implementedreform programmes as means of assuring their position as great powers in theinternational arena, the Hanoverian reformers’ interests were primarilydomestic, largely because Hanover had lacked any effective independentforeign policy since the personal union with England in 1714.

The high point of Hanover’s involvement in imperial politics came in 1708when it was granted the Electoral title by the Habsburg Emperors as a meansof countering the strength of an increasingly powerful Brandenburg-Prussia, inexchange for which Hanover bene� ted from imperial support against its rival.4 7

With the accession of George I to the throne of England in 1714, however,speci� cally Hanoverian concerns became of secondary importance in thedetermination of the foreign policies of the King-Electors. By 1720 thePrivy Council had turned to a largely ‘passive’ programme aimed at protectingthe Electorate from external threats rather than expansion. The core of theHanoverians’ policy became support for the status quo and balance of powerwithin the Empire as a means of maintaining its own borders and challengingPrussia’s claims to East Frisia and other territories in the region.

Close relations between Great Britain and the Habsburgs up until the Warof the Austrian Succession had enabled the Hanoverians to bene� t from thesupport of both these great powers in their pro-imperial/anti-Prussian policies.Yet the Diplomatic Revolution in 1756 and the consequent shift of Englishsupport from the Austrians to the Prussians ultimately eclipsed any of the PrivyCouncil’s traditional anti-Prussian interests. Though the Hanoverian ministersattempted to win a guarantee of the Electorate’s neutrality in the Seven YearsWar, its availability as a target for the French, as well as Frederick the Great’sinterest in drawing Britain into active participation in the con� ict, resulted inHanover becoming the seat of the western theatre of war. Thus Hanoveriantroops fought alongside Prussian armies largely as the result of Britishforeign policy.4 8

47 For the implementation of Hanover’s entry into the Electoral college, see Charles W. Ingrao,In Quest and Crisis: Emperor Joseph I and the Habsburg Monarchy (West Lafayette, 1979),pp. 71–5, 77.

48 Oberschelp, Politische Geschichte Niedersachsens , pp. 77–94; Volker Press, ‘Kurhannoverim System des alten Reiches 1692–1803’, pp. 53–64, and Hermann Wellenreuther, ‘Diebedeutung des Siebenjahrigen Krieges fur die englisch-hannoverischen Beziehungen’, in AdolfM. Birke and Kurt Kluxen (eds.), England und Hannover, England and Hanover (Munich, 1986),pp. 145–76; Dieter Brosius, ‘Eigenstandigkeit oder Souveranitatsverzicht. Hannover,





After the war Hanover emerged as one of the leading powers in the ‘thirdGermany’, those states rejecting both Prussian and Austrian alliances in theirresistance to the perceived danger posed by the growing dualism withinGermany. These states looked to the survival of the Holy Roman Empire asthe only means of assuring their continued existence. They turned to Hanover,the most powerful among them, because of its reputation for defending theimperial constitution. Though Prussia had temporarily assumed the guise of‘defender of the Reich’ in the 1784/5 Furstenbund against Austrian expan-sionism, by 1789 Hanoverian neutrality had increasingly come to represent theinterests of the small states in the Imperial Diet against the two great powers.4 9

Thus, Hanoverian foreign policy in the later eighteenth century was defensive;none of the domestic policies pursued by the regime after the war were aimedat projecting its power.50 Instead, the Hanoverian reformers focused uponrebuilding the Electorate’s economy, thereby continuing the basic cameralistprogramme of increased governmental and productive ef� ciency.

Whereas in the ten years before the war the Cammer income had yielded asurplus of almost three tons of gold annually, in the years between 1764 and1770 the Electorate’s expenses had increased dramatically and were met onlybecause of improvements in the productivity of the Amter begun in the 1750s.In 1770 and 1771, however, the Electorate was struck by the same crop failuresthat hit much of central Europe and the economic recovery, which haddepended upon income from those Bauer most directly affected, came to ahalt. Annual de� cits reached 55,000 to 125,000 Reichsthaler between 1770 and1780 and over one million Reichsthaler was paid in interest on the debt by thelatter date. It was ultimately the attempt to reverse this process of economicdecline which led members of the Hanoverian government to carry outreassessments and reforms of � nancial and administrative practices as well asimprovements in agricultural and social welfare policies.5 1

In order to achieve the � scalist goal of increasing the state’s income, theHanoverian administration sought to improve the accuracy of its assessmentof the Electorate’s � nancial and productive capabilities. Throughout the periodthe Cammer issued numerous edicts calling upon the Amtmanner to pay greater

Braunschweig, Oldenburg und die preußische Suprematie in Nordwestdeutschland ’, Blatter furdeutsche Landesgeschichte , 132 (1996), pp. 13–17.

49 Ibid.; Press, ‘Kurhannover ’, pp. 65–74. This role was ultimately facilitated by George III’ssupport in the 1780s for the speci� cally ‘German’ interests of the Electorate in an attempt tocompensate for the disastrous failure of his American policy. T. C. W. Blanning, ‘“That HorridElectorate” or “Ma Patrie Germanique”? George III, Hanover, and the Furstenbund of 1785’,The Historical Journal , 20, 2 (1977), pp. 311–44.

50 In fact, the Hanoverian army was drastically reduced from 37,000 to 14,000 in 1763, largelybecause its wartime footing had been supported almost entirely through British subsidies.Joachim Niemeyer and Georg Ortenburg (eds.), The Hannoverian Army during the Seven YearsWar (Copenhagen, 1977), p. 12; Niemeyer and Ortenburg (eds.), Die Hannoversche Armee1780–1803 (Beckum, 1981), p. 12.

51 Otto Merker, ‘Karl August Freiherr von Hardenbergs Reformdenken in seiner hannoverschenZeit 1771–1781’, Niedersachsisches Jahrbuch fur Landesgeschichte , 48 (1976), pp. 337–9.





attention to their bookkeeping, providing meticulously detailed examples ofhow all the speci� c incomes and expenses of the Amter were to be calculatedagainst one another in order to give an accurate estimate of the expected yieldof payments in cash and kind due from each Amt.5 2 The Cammer’s reformsresulted in more accurate and uniform information from the Amter, therebyenabling the Electoral regime to compile a general overview of the state of theElectorate, make comparative assessments, and prepare � nancial projections.5 3

The topographic survey of Hanover carried out between 1764 and 1786 furtherenabled the coordination of information gathered from the Amtmanner,establishing the same sort of centralized � nancial management practised inother enlightened absolutist states.5 4

As a means of ensuring that the central government’s programmes werebeing properly implemented, the Cammer also published regulations againstmisuses of the Amtmanner’s positions, though the fact that such regulationsneeded to be repeatedly issued suggests that they did not always achieve theirends.55 To provide a greater degree of supervision over the Amtmanner, whooperated fairly autonomously within their jurisdictions, a ‘visitation’ of individ-ual Amter was carried out by members of the Cammer in the annual provincialcourts (Landgerichte).5 6 The protocol for such inspections was laid out in anedict of 1778 which called for the of� cers of the Landgerichte to examine theAmt’s records, listen to any complaints subjects might have against theirAmtmann, gather evidence based upon such complaints, bring any infractionsbefore the court for hearing, and submit a report to the Cammer regarding theresults of the inspection.5 7 Though the purpose of such inspections was prim-arily the correction of � nancial irregularities, the fact that subjects were con-sulted demonstrates the Hanoverian regime’s concern for the lot of the Bauerand desire to improve the conditions under which this essential level of theHanoverian population worked and lived. This goal was more dramaticallyrealized in a series of programmes aimed at increasing agricultural productivityand ameliorating the lives of Hanover’s Meier through alterations and improve-ment of the land tenure system.

52 See, for example, ‘Grafenbefehl ’, 11 June 1760, in Spangenberg, Sammlung, vol. 2, p. 7;‘Cammerausschreiben ’, 13 Nov. 1764, ibid., pp. 105–10; ‘Regierungsausschreiben ’, 15 April1774, ibid., pp. 502–4; ‘Cammerausschreiben ’, 12 March 1787, ibid., vol. 3, pp. 326–9.

53 Achilles, Lage der hannoverschen Landbevolkerung, pp. 3–9.54 Franz Engel, ‘Die Kurhannoversche Landesaufnahme des 18. Jahrhunderts ’, Nieder-

sachsisches Jahrbuch fur Landesgeschichte , 31 (1959), pp. 6–9; ‘Verordnung’, 5 Feb. 1781, inSpangenberg, Sammlung, vol. 3, p. 62; Georg Schnath, ‘Die kurhannoversche Landesaufnahme1764–86’, Hannoversches Magazin, 7, 3 (1 Oct. 1931), p. 42; Conrady, ‘Wirksamkeit KonigGeorgs III.’, pp. 170–1.

55 See, for example, ‘Cammerausschreiben ’, 7 Aug. 1764, in Spangenberg, Sammlung, vol. 2,pp. 97–9; ‘Regierungsausschreiben ’, 29 Sept. 1773, ibid., pp. 477–8; ‘Geheimrathsausschreiben ’,22 March 1780, ibid., vol. 3, pp. 7–8.

56 Gotz Landwehr, Die Althannoverschen Landgerichte (Hildesheim, 1964), pp. 19, 109–19.57 Ibid.; ‘Cammerausschreiben vom 3. April 1778, uber die Abhaltung der Landgerichte ’, in

Spangenberg, Sammlung, vol. 2, pp. 671–3.





As with administrative reform, the heart of the agrarian reform programmein Hanover was the education of of� cials and the dissemination of ideas. Thiswas carried out most effectively through the Agricultural Society in Celle,of� cially founded by George III in 1764, one of many such private ‘economic’societies established throughout Germany in the late eighteenth century andinspired by similar institutions created in Great Britain.5 8 Aside from fundingmany of the Society’s efforts through the Electoral treasury, George III urgedthe Privy Councillors to support its work, granting its publications the samefreedom from censorship as that granted to Gottingen.5 9 This support for theAgricultural Society is further evinced by the fact that 60% of the 270 memberswho joined between 1764 and 1771 were government of� cials; such supporthelps explain the implementation by the administration and provincial estatesof almost all of the reforms it suggested.6 0 Though the programmes which theSociety promoted between its founding and 1789 were aimed at correctingspeci� c shortcomings in Hanover’s productive capacity, they also led to theimprovement of the general conditions under which the Elector’s subjects lived.

In its � rst decade the members of the Society devoted themselves largely todeveloping and adapting various farming methods which would help increasethe productivity of the relatively barren sandy Geest land and marshes whichpredominated in the province of Luneburg in which the Society was based.6 1

In the 1770s, however, it became increasingly apparent to the members of theAgricultural Society that none of their plans for modern agrarian reforms, mostof which depended upon promoting the initiative of the individual farmer, couldbe carried out unless the large areas of common lands (Gemeinheiten) werefreed from the traditional restrictions placed upon their use. The Society thusproposed a division of these common lands (Gemeinheitsteilung) to create � eldsnow privately owned by the corporate and individual landowners who hadformerly shared their use. The landowners, in turn, could then sell or rent these� elds to the growing population of land-hungry peasants, who could then earnmore cash with which to purchase freedom from their labour services, thereby

58 Otto Ulbricht, Englische Wirtschaft in Kurhannover in der zweiten Halfte des 18.Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1980), pp. 265–8; Ludwig Deike, Die Entstehung der Celler Land-wirtschaftsgesellschaft: Okonomische Sozietaten und die Anfange der modernen Agrarreformen im18. Jahrhundert , ed. Ilse Deike and Carl-Hans Hauptmeyer (Hanover, 1994), pp. 9–53, 74–8; Con-rady, ‘Wirksamkeit Konig Georgs III.’, p. 175; Henry E. Lowood, Patriotism, Pro� t, and thePromotion of Science in the German Enlightenment: The Economic and Scienti� c Societies1760–1815 (New York and London, 1991); Heide Wunder, ‘Agriculture and Agrarian Society’,in Sheilagh Ogilvie (ed.), Germany, A New Social and Economic History, vol. 2: 1630–1800(New York and London, 1996), pp. 63–99.

59 Koniglichen Landwirtschafts-gesellschaft zu Celle, Festschrift zur Sacularfeier derkoniglichen Landwirtschafts-gesellschaft zu Celle am 4. Juni 1864, 3 vols. (Hanover, 1864–5),vol. 1, pp. 8–12; Conrady, ‘Wirksamkeit Konig Georgs III.’, p. 175.

60 Lowood, Patriotism, p. 54.61 Koniglichen Landwirtschafts-gesellschaft zu Celle, Festschrift , vol. 1, pp. 128–31;

Brakensiek, Agrarreform und Landliche Gesellschaft , pp. 4–5; Deike, Entstehung , pp. 86–91.





allowing them more time to work for themselves and increasing theirproductivity.62

The central administration favoured the programme of Gemeinheitsteilungnot only because it would improve the lot of otherwise propertyless segmentsof the peasantry and increase the general productivity of the land, but alsobecause this would increase the population of peasants paying the higher taxesof the ‘landholding’ class of Meier, thereby increasing the Electorate’s tax base.Although the peasant farmers on the domain lands had already had their labourservices commuted into cash payments in 1753, the � rst step in the adminis-tration’s promotion of the programme on a wider scale was an edict issued inthe King’s name to all provinces in 1768. This edict declared that resistanceon the part of the provincial estates to any such programmes promotingimprovement and productivity in the Electorate was unacceptable. This wasfollowed in 1776 by an order from the Cammer to all Amtmanner calling uponthem to promote Gemeinheitsteilung within their jurisdictions and to submitan annual report on the progress made towards the implementation of theprogramme.63

In neither of these edicts did the administration impose an alteration of tra-ditional landholding practices upon the provincial elites. Instead, it sought toimplement Gemeinheitsteilung gradually and with the co-operation of the locallanded elite, promoting innovation through its support of the AgriculturalSociety’s publications and efforts to win favour for the measure. By 1776,because of the success of the Society in disseminating and popularizing notionsof ‘English’ agricultural reform and the concomitant necessity of Gemeinheits-teilung, the landowners represented in Luneburg’s provincial assembly cameto recognize that they too would bene� t from an increase in the number ofprosperous dues-paying peasant farmers occupying the new holdings.6 4

Although a law establishing Gemeinheitsteilung throughout the Electorate wasnot introduced until 1802 (the � rst of its kind in Germany), the programmewas implemented independently by various individuals and communities, inpart because of the cash ‘premiums’ awarded by the Society for doing so.Reports and debates on the subject in the Society’s of� cial journal and theAnnalen further indicated how this particular reform came to be accepted bymembers of the administrative and landowning elites as essential to the

62 Ibid., pp. 91, 123; Brakensiek, Agrarreform und Landliche Gesellschaft , pp. 1–16.63 ‘Verordnung ’, 22 Nov. 1768, in Spangenberg, Sammlung , vol. 2, pp. 239–43;

‘Cammerauschreiben ’, 12 Sept. 1776, ibid., pp. 612–13; Koniglichen Landwirtschafts-gesell-schaft zu Celle, Festschrift , vol. 1, pp. 120–1; Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 1, pp. 120–3;Reinhard Oberschelp, ‘Kurhannover im Spiegel von Flugschriften des Jahres 1803’, Niedersach-sisches Jahrbuch fur Landesgeschichte , 49 (1977), pp. 227–8; Deike, Entstehung, pp. 66–7, 85;Brakensiek, Agrarreform und Landliche Gesellschaft , pp. 195–6.

64 Deike, Entstehung , pp. 92–3, 121–3.





improvement of the state of the Electorate and the well-being of itsinhabitants.6 5

The Electoral administration’s interest in programmes such as Gemeinheits-teilung and Verkopplung (the creation of � elds, or Koppeln, from the dividedGemeinheiten) was, in part, traditionally cameralist in its emphasis on theability to draw greater surplus production from the population. Yet, at the sametime, it also promoted the Enlightenment notion of individual freedom by elimi-nating labour services and commuting them into cash payments—a programmewhich became widespread throughout Hanover by the 1790s, well before itsfull implementation in Prussia. Though Gemeinheitsteilung left the Electorate’ssocial hierarchy undisturbed since most Hanoverian subjects remained‘feudally’ dependent upon both their particular landowners and the state (veryoften one and the same), it provided the peasant farmer with an even greaterdegree of freedom than he had possessed under the relatively lenient terms ofMeierrecht, and one greater than was enjoyed by most individuals of his estatethroughout the Empire.6 6 Ultimately, the Hanoverian programme ofGemeinheitsteilung promoted the interests of both the state and the subject,though it exhibited a distinctly Aufklarung concern for the good of the greatersociety over that of the individual, a concern also exhibited in reforms intro-duced into Hanover’s social welfare programmes.6 7

While the social welfare programmes instituted in late-eighteenth-centuryHanover may not have measured up to modern standards of disinterested con-cern for the individual, the various edicts issued by the Hanoverian regimeestablishing institutions for the care and training of the poor, as well asreformers’ writings concerning these institutions, were in keeping with theAufklarung interest in a combination of social welfare and social regenerationthrough education. The authors of reform programmes—ranging from thecreation of schools for midwives and care for the insane, to the abolition ofcoffee as detrimental to the health of Hanover’s subjects—exhibited a genuinephilanthropic interest in these subjects’ well-being, though this interest wascouched within the administrative elite’s paternalistic attitude towards the

65 Koniglichen Landwirtschafts-gesellschaft zu Celle, Festschrift , vol. 1, pp. 121–51; Deike,Entstehung, pp. 93–100; Annalen 1 (1787), no. 4, pp. 3–62; 2 (1788), no. 3, pp. 3–39; 3 (1789),no. 1, pp. 49–62; 5 (1791), no. 2, pp. 248–79; no. 3, pp. 465–94; no. 4, pp. 654–78; Oberschelp,Niedersachsen , vol. 1, pp. 123–4.

66 Conrady, ‘Wirksamkeit Konig Georgs III.’, pp. 182–3; Achilles, Lage der hannoverschenLandbevolkerung, pp. 11, 115–16; Wunder, ‘Agriculture and Agrarian Society’, p. 89; Braken-siek, Agrarreform und Landliche Gesellschaft , pp. 9–10.

67 For a discussion of the centrality of this notion of the common good (Gemeinwohl) toAufklarung political and social theory see Diethelm Klippel, ‘The True Concept of Liberty:Political Theory in Germany in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, in Eckhart Hellmuth(ed.), The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late EighteenthCentury (Oxford, New York and Toronto, 1990), pp. 447–66; Klippel, ‘Reasonable Aims ofCivil Society: Concerns of the State in German Political Theory in the Eighteenth and EarlyNineteenth Centuries’, in John Brewer and Eckhart Hellmuth (eds.), Rethinking Leviathan: TheEighteenth-Century State in Britain and Germany (Oxford and New York, 1999), pp. 71–98.





‘lower orders’ of society.6 8 The workhouses and manufacturing schools createdin Hanover in the 1770s and 1780s were key examples of this dual nature ofenlightened paternalism.

Although there had always been a problem with beggars in most of Hanover’scities, in the periods following the Seven Years War and the subsistence crises ofthe 1770s the increasing incidence of begging led administrators to seek improve-ments to existing poor laws. Each Hanoverian village or city provided for itsindigenous impoverished population and reform programmes were usually initiatedat the local level.69 An edict issued in George III’s name creating a new poor- andworkhouse (Armen- und Arbeitshaus) in the city of Celle in 1783, as well as anarticle published in the Annalen describing its history and success, provides insightnot only into the administrative elite’s understanding of social welfare programmesbut also into interdependence of the central administration and local urban initiativein carrying out such reforms.7 0

According to the Annalen article, one of the most dif� cult problems for adminis-trators was distinguishing between the truly needy and the simply lazy. Alms, thearticle maintained, too frequently served as an easy source of income for thosewho did not want to work, those who would take advantage of the kind-heartednessof their fellow men. To combat this problem and to see that those who genuinelyneeded support were provided for, at the beginning of 1783 the Electoral govern-ment proposed the foundation of the new public poor- and workhouse for the cityreferred to above.71 According to the edict establishing the workhouse, its chiefpurposes were to get beggars off the street and into permanent accommodation,to provide for those poor unable to work, to provide an occupation for those whoeither could work yet were unable to � nd positions or were simply unwilling towork, to familiarize the children of these poor with order and industriousness, andto make sure these children received some elementary education.72

A similar focus on care and training for the children of the poor was evincedby Ludwig Wagemann, the creator of the new governmentally supportedmanufacturing school (Industrie- or Werkschule) in Gottingen. Only throughproper education and vocational training, Wagemann argued, could these chil-dren be turned into happy and productive individuals, thereby ensuring thatthey did not undermine the well-being of Hanoverian society by becomingpaupers, idlers, beggars and thieves like their parents.7 3 Thus, as both numerous

68 ‘Verordnung’, 22 Sept. 1778, in Spangenberg, Sammlung, vol. 2, pp. 583–6; ‘Verordnung’,6 Aug. 1784, ibid., vol. 3, pp. 168–71; ‘Regierungsausschreiben ’, 28 May 1764, ibid., vol. 2,pp. 92–4; ‘Verordnung’, 24 Oct. 1780, ibid., vol. 3, pp. 27–31.

69 Oberschelp, Niedersachsen , vol. 1, pp. 311–14.70 ‘Verordnung’, 7 Nov. 1783, in Spangenberg, Sammlung, vol. 3, pp. 138–45. Anon.,

‘Nachricht von der Entstehung und dem Fortgange des offentlichen Armen- und Arbeitshauseszu Zelle’, Annalen, 1 (1787), no. 2, pp. 49–57.

71 Ibid., p. 49.72 ‘Verordnung’, 7 Nov. 1783, in Spangenberg, Sammlung, vol. 3, pp. 139, 141.73 Ludwig Gerhard Wagemann, ‘Nachricht von den in der Stadt Gottingen, zum Besten der

armen Jugend gemachten Anstalten’, in Annalen 1 (1787), no. 2, pp. 36–57.





articles and the administration’s order establishing the workhouse in Celle dem-onstrated, while these reforms aimed to improve the living conditions ofHanover’s less fortunate subjects and to provide for the care, education andtraining of their children, they were also intended as a means of social engineer-ing which would clean up the streets and prevent the development of a growingpopulation of dependent poor.

The inhabitants of Celle responded so enthusiastically to the administration’sproposal for the creation of the new workhouse that, through voluntary contri-butions alone, a building was purchased and furnished by March of 1783 andthe workhouse opened that December. Furthermore, it was only after the foun-dation of this institution by the city’s residents that the Electoral governmentissued the order of� cially founding it.7 4 Thus, though the initial proposal andthe legal foundation were products of the Electoral government, these seem tohave been largely in response to local demand, demonstrating the primary roleof local action and funding in the creation and support of such social welfareprogrammes. The administrative elite’s central concern for the elimination ofpoverty, theft and begging was shown in the implementation of governmentallybacked local workhouse initiatives and laws in cities throughout Hanover, aswell as several articles describing and praising these efforts. In addition, thesupport for such initiatives exhibited by the wider public in Celle and theseother locations, at least among those who could afford to donate to such causes,demonstrated the degree to which this public both shared these concerns andbelieved that a solution was to be found in the enlightened paternalism exem-pli� ed by the workhouse programmes.7 5

* * *

These reforms in administration, agriculture and social welfare are only a selec-tion of the range of similar changes implemented in Hanover in the latter partof the eighteenth century.76 Despite the absence of an expansive foreign policyand the associated security concerns, such as those which motivated Austriaor Prussia, Hanover implemented the same sort of improvements in state andsociety as these states, thus not only justifying its characterization as a typicallyenlightened regime but also demonstrating how such states could institutegenuine social reform without being forced into it by revolutionary social up-heaval. While Hanover’s administrative reforms were intended to improve theability of the state to assess its own net worth and collect taxes, the annual

74 Ibid., pp. 49–51.75 Annalen 1 (1787), no. 1, pp. 55–6; no. 3, pp. 99–103; 2 (1788), no. 2, pp. 62–87; no. 4,

pp. 104–5; 3 (1789), no. 1, pp. 158–9; no. 2, pp. 444–7; no. 3, pp. 702–7; no. 4, pp. 823–81;4 (1790), no. 1, pp. 211–12.

76 Other such reforms are treated in Wilhelm Ebel, Friedrich Esajas Pufendorfs Entwurf eineshannoverschen Landrechts (Hildesheim, 1970); Karsten Muller-Scheessel, Jurgen ChristenFindorff und die kurhannovershce Moorkolonisation im 18. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim, 1975);John Stroup, The Struggle for Identity in the Clerical Estate: Northwest German ProtestantOpposition to Absolutist Policy in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden, 1984).





Landgerichte registered the subjects’ concerns and complaints against theirimmediate superiors, thereby reducing their vulnerability to exploitation. Simi-larly, Gemeinheitsteilung not only improved agricultural productivity andincreased the amount of income in cash and kind � owing into the Electorate’scoffers, it also contributed to the well-being and independence of Hanover’speasant farmers. Finally, the workhouse programmes were intended to providea new solution to the problem of poverty and social order by preventing the lessfortunate from becoming a burden upon society through training and education.

The Hanoverian central administration was able to implement these and otherreforms despite the lack of any fundamental restructuring of the ‘conglomerate’nature of the Hanoverian state or the hierarchical nature of Hanoverian society. Inthe � rst place, this was because the Electorate’s political constitution alreadyallowed the central administration a degree of control over the Electorate’s affairsvis-a-vis the provincial estates, particularly through the institution of the Cammer-controlled Amtmanner at the local level. More importantly, the educational require-ments for administrators staf� ng governmental positions resulted in the develop-ment of a mixed Beamtenstand whose members were steeped in cameral scienceand Enlightenment ideology. The publication of journals dealing with the issuesof reform within the Electorate, as well as the voluntary involvement of theBeamtenstand in organizations such as the Agricultural Society, indicate thedegree to which this mixed noble and bourgeois elite, though essentially oligar-chic in its social structure, concerned itself with the promotion and implemen-tation of Aufklarung ideas dedicated to the improvement of the whole of Han-overian society rather than the interests of any one social group. Moreover, theco-operation of members of non-administrative rural and urban elites in theimplementation of these reforms further demonstrates the degree to which Auf-klarung reform ideology was widely accepted and seen as compatible with thehierarchical structure of the Standestaat.7 7

Thus, despite the absence of an enlightened monarch, the presence of a gen-eral Enlightenment mindset among Hanover’s administrative elite and through-out the upper echelons of the Electorate’s society led to the implementation ofreforms intended not only to establish order and improve productivity for thebene� t of the state, but also to ameliorate the conditions of the Electorate’ssubjects. Critics have cast such reform programmes in Hanover and elsewherein the Holy Roman Empire as backward or incomplete, particularly whenmeasured against the repudiation of traditional values and structures by theFrench revolution. It was precisely such ‘non-revolutionary’ changes, however,which best demonstrate the spirit of reform in a pre-revolutionary age.

77 In the future I intend to undertake a more thorough examination of the degree to whichGemeinheitsteilung and other cameralist/enlightened reform policies proposed by the Electoralgovernment were carried out at the local level by Amtmanner and noble landholders.




Documents

Hanoverian Government