Introduction: The Habsburg Monarchy as a Fiscal-Military State

Abstract

The introduction firmly restores the upkeep of a standing army in war- and peacetime to the center of the Habsburg government’s concerns in the early modern period. After a brief discussion of the peculiarities of Habsburg historiography, it argues that the idea of ‘composite monarchy’ (J.H. Elliott) best encapsulates the complex political framework within which a Habsburg fiscal-military state operated within its own borders. A review of the recent literature shows that the Habsburg Monarchy has figured more in the literature on ‘fiscal states’ than on ‘fiscal-military states’. Based on current knowledge, the introduction posits four major shifts in the Habsburg Monarchy’s fiscal-military arrangements between the 16th and 18th centuries. By the early 18th century, it is furthermore argued, a ‘fiscal-military core’ had emerged in the relatively well-coordinated and regularized fiscal-military activity occurring in the Bohemian and Austrian lands. Its three key facets constituted the rigorous use of primarily older forms of direct taxation, credit mobilization, and recruitment.

Britain's fiscal‐military state in the eighteenth century: Recent trends in historiography

“…It is important to note that a number of historians have recently applied the concept of the fiscal–military state to regions other than Britain and illustrated that Britain was not unique in its fiscal militarism. The Hapsburg empire, like Britain, was a composite state with its own consultative institution, the Estates (Godsey, 2018, p. 16; Godsey and Mat'a, 2022). Though the Estates differed from Parliament in that participation was limited to the nobility, it also became instrumental in funding the state (Godsey, 2018, p. 1).…”