Preliminary Programme

The Lithuanian magnate, Boguslaw Radziwill, was the son of Elisabeth Sophie of Hohenzollern (daughter of Johann Georg Elector of Brandenburg and his wife Elisabeth of Anhalt-Zerbst), and one of Poland-Lithuania’s well-known Calvinist opposition politicians and rebels, Janusz I Radziwill. Considered one the “arch traitors” during Poland’s war against the Swedes (1655-60), Boguslaw collaborated with Sweden and then closely with Brandenburg, before and after Friedrich Wilhelm’s changing alliances: first to join the Swedes, then back to the Polish crown, for the price of the duchy of Prussia’s sovereignty under Hohenzollern rule. While fighting for rehabilitation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and defending noble liberties, Boguslaw Radziwill accepted his appointment as first governor of the Duchy of Prussia (1657) to rebuild the Electoral army, push back the influence of the Prussian estates and run efficient territorial administrations on both sides of the Lithuanian-Prussian borders. As a relative of many of Central Europe’s noble families, Radziwill considered his status equal to a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, where (unsuccessfully) he sought a seat in the princes’ council and Diet, adopting the habitus of a European aristocrat with dynastic ambitions. His instructions for his daughter and his wider family (the Catholic branch in Lithuania) are instructive sources stressing the importance of kinship networks and the transnational identity built on the ‘house’, beyond and above confessional allegiances. The case study also demonstrates, however, the limitations imposed by patronage and the Realpolitik of composite monarchies, leading to downward mobility of dynastic branches whose members’ career trajectories fail due to the turmoil of political alliances and constellations amid the rise of more successful newcomers. The paper also considers the potential clash of political interests between Radziwill’s two roles, and his functions as servant of an absent ruler (Show less)

The border regions between France and the Holy Roman Empire, a long corridor from Brussels to Genoa, formed in the early modern period a highly contested patchwork of conflicting feudal loyalties, sovereign territories and small immediate fiefs. France strove against Habsburg encirclement from Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, Burgundy, Milan, and in the Holy Roman Empire including the Austro-Bohemian Habsburg monarchy. Lorraine, Savoy and Genoa struggled for independence or aggrandizement. Border regions were in permanent danger of being swallowed to one of the major powers. Far away from the centers of power, border regions rarely figure prominently in historiography of early modern state formation and elites. As multilingual meeting places they seldom met national master narratives because their elites preserved multiple loyalties and transterritorial networks. However, noble families from border regions of the old Middle Francia took advantage of their loyalty to the Habsburgs, both in Spain and Austria.
In this paper, I take two transterritorial families from border regions into consideration and compare their family strategies with regard to their engagements in the Habsburg composite monarchies in the 17th and 18th centuries. I analyze career patterns, property acquisitions, and marriage alliances and argue that different family strategies corresponded to the very distinct geopolitical situation of the family.
The Grana-branch of the Italian del Carretto family possessed small immediate fiefs in imperial Italy and estates in Montferrat. In permanent danger of annexation by Savoy, Genoa or Milan, the Carrettos rediscovered their loyalty to the Habsburg emperors as a protecting power at the beginning of the 17th century. They pursued careers in the service of the emperor; they invested money in landed property in Lower Austria and Bohemia; and they concluded marital alliances with families of the Austro-Bohemian court nobility to foster their interests. At the end of the 17th century they married into the Arenberg family, itself a transterritorial family in the Spanish Netherlands. The Arenbergs were in possession of an immediate duchy in the Eifel region on the left bank of the Rhine and had important estates in Brabant and Hainault as well as in France. During the 17th century the family suffered by the duke’s participation in a conspiracy of nobles against Spain in 1632 and did not profit from the vast career possibilities of the Spanish monarchy. The Arenbergs fostered their interests mainly within the Spanish, and later the Austrian Netherlands and held high local offices for generations. Despite important military careers in the 18th century, they never settled in imperial Vienna, unlike their Carretto ancestors and other families of the Austrian court nobility. (Show less)

At least since the fifteenth century, the Harrach family served the Habsburgs at the highest levels of administration. In 1698, Emperor Leopold I appointed Aloys Thomas Harrach as ambassador to Spain. In that position he succeeded his father Ferdinand Bonaventura. Aloys Thomas received the delicate task of inducing the childless and sickly Charles II of Spain to appoint Archduke Charles of Austria as heir to the throne. But unfortunately for the Harrachs and for the Habsburgs, that plan failed to materialize. Charles II designated a Bourbon prince as his universal heir. Upon his death in 1700 the War of the Spanish Succession broke out, as a result of which the Austrian Habsburgs eventually assumed power only in the former Spanish lands in the Low Countries and in Italy.
In the wake of the failed embassy in Madrid, the Harrachs disappeared from the main political stage for about two decades. Nor were they able to secure the title of Imperial Prince. Nevertheless, it was precisely the faraway lands the monarchy acquired during and immediately after the War of the Spanish Succession – more precisely the Kingdom of Naples and the Southern Netherlands – that would help the Harrachs in once again assuming top positions in the imperial entourage. Aloys Thomas became viceroy in Naples in 1728, and his eldest son Friedrich August was appointed Obersthofmeister or prime minister to Governor-General Maria Elisabeth in Brussels in 1732.
In this paper, I argue that the administration of the outposts of the monarchy paved the way for the apogee of the Harrach family in the 1730s and 1740s. Both father and son entered the Geheime Konferenz, the supreme advisory body in the Habsburg Monarchy, following their duties in Naples and Brussels. Moreover, they exploited the simultaneous presence of family members in Vienna and in the periphery to influence policy and to secure positions for relatives. On the other hand, the distance and absence from court held political and personal risks. In analyzing both chances and challenges, I look at the geographically dispersed scions of the family as branches of a family enterprise, held together by intensive correspondence. (Show less)