Imperial Austrian family statute

The Imperial Austrian Family Statute of February 3, 1839 was the house law of the Habsburg-Lothringen dynasty for the last eighty years of the existence of the Habsburg Monarchy . The document was issued by Emperor Ferdinand I , who was advised by State Chancellor Metternich , with the advice and consent of Our Beloved Brother , as well as Our Lords Oheime and other agnates , signed by the Emperor and countersigned by Metternich.

Origin and goals

For several years the family statute was prepared in consultation with all archdukes and was supposed to summarize the fragmentary regulations, some of which were customary law, and fix them in writing. In contrast to the previous publicly made regulations that affected the House of Austria in its state-ruling context ( e.g. pragmatic sanction ), the family statute was not published in any legal gazette or any other official communication, as it only concerned the family itself. But it did contain provisions on how the state was to finance imperial princes in parallel to the Habsburg family pension fund.

The House of Habsburg-Lothringen, branched into many lines and secundogenitures , was supposed to be placed under the absolute sovereignty of the Austrian emperor again through the family statute; that is why the descendants of the Italian Habsburg-Lorraine-Tuscany secondary school received the title "Archduke of Austria" through the statute.

The "strictly patriarchal" regulations served to stabilize the monarchy under the weak and disabled Emperor Ferdinand; However, his powerful successor Franz Joseph I made full use of the power of the head of the family provided for in the statute. According to the December constitution of 1867 , the basic personal rights of citizens did not apply to family members; Leopold Wölfling spoke of a "family tyranny as a substitute for absolutism".

Provisions

stay

The statute stipulated that the emperor, as head of the house, had to determine or confirm the place of residence of each family member. So put z. In 1864, for example, Franz Joseph I set his youngest, presumably homosexual brother Ludwig Viktor to live in Salzburg , where the Archduke lived until his death in 1919. For Archduke Franz Ferdinand , his heir to the throne 1896–1914, the emperor established Belvedere Palace as the Vienna residence. In his later years, Franz Joseph I brought his successor, Archduke Karl , first to the Hetzendorf Palace in Vienna, not far from his Schönbrunn Palace , and later directly there.

Family pension fund

The emperor was also head of the family entrepre- neurship called the very highest family pension fund , which administered the castles and estates that were generally owned by the family. B. the Palais Archduke Albrecht in Vienna and Schloss Eckartsau belonged to, where Charles I retired after his resignation on November 11, 1918. One of the tasks of the fund was to make it easier for family members who did not have sufficient income of their own (through government grants, among other things) to live and represent themselves according to their status.

Marriage policy

Among other things, the statute laid down rules for the marriage policy , which is always important in a dynastic context . For the Habsburgs, with their outstanding tradition of politically significant marriages , this was an important part of their family identity.

The statute stated that a befitting marriage in the ore house of the respective head of the house of Habsburg-Lothringen, d. H. the emperor, had to be approved. Marriages without the consent of the sovereign remained without family recognition; In this case, wife and children did not become members of the imperial family. A marriage was only considered befitting if it was concluded with another member of the ore house or with members of another ruling house or house of equal status.

In an addendum to the family statute of June 12, 1900, on the occasion of the improper marriage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the throne (which took place on July 1, 1900) after several conferences chaired by Emperor Franz Joseph I , those royal houses were listed by name, who had the right to equality . These were in addition to Christian dynasties (including the Saxony-Coburg , the Hohenzollern , the Romanovs , the Wittelsbach family , the Savoy ), the formerly rich immediate and 1806-1815 mediated gender of the Holy Roman Empire , including 15 families from the area of the Habsburgs (Auersperg , Colloredo-Mannsfeld, Esterházy, Kaunitz-Rietberg, Khevenhüller , Lobkowitz, Metternich, Rosenberg, Salm-Reifferscheid-Krautheim, Schwarzenberg, Schönburg-Waldenburg, Schönburg-Hartenstein, Starhemberg, Trauttmansdorff and Windisch-Graetz).

The family of Franz Ferdinand's bride was not among them; therefore Franz Ferdinand had to take the so-called renunciation oath on June 28, 1900 in the Vienna Hofburg in the presence of the emperor , with which he confirmed that he would not enter into an equal marriage. The following day the incident was reported in detail in the official Wiener Zeitung . The couple's children then, like their mother, did not bear the family name Habsburg-Lothringen, but the name Hohenberg, which Sophie Chotek , most recently Duchess of Hohenberg, had received from Franz Joseph I.

Further rules

The family statute confirmed that the head of the house also had the right to impose rules on members of the ore house for reasons of state policy that were not specified in the statute. This meant that the archdukes' freedom of opinion and decision could be restricted at any time if necessary.

Retirement

Occasionally it also happened that family members left the imperial house at their own request and were therefore no longer subject to the rules of the family statute. B. from 1902 Leopold Wölfling . However, Emperor Franz Joseph I continued to look after him financially. Family members who, like the widowed Crown Princess Stephanie , married again, but not appropriately, left the ore house automatically.

Web links

François Velde: Family statute (1839). In: Heraldica.org (full text), last updated on March 9, 2013.
Stephan Gruber: About rights and duties in the ore house. In: Habsburger.net .

supporting documents

^ Karl von Österreich-Teschen , Joseph Anton Johann von Österreich , Johann von Österreich , Rainer Joseph von Österreich , Ludwig von Habsburg-Lothringen
^ Hannes Stekl : The Viennese court in the first half of the 19th century. In: Karl Möckl (Hrsg.): Court and court society in the German states in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century (= German leadership classes in modern times. Vol. 18). Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1990, ISBN 3-7646-1900-7 , pp. 17–60, here pp. 31 ff .; Building on this, Matthias Stickler : Dynasty, Army, Parliament. Problems of State Integration Policy in the 19th Century. In: Winfried Müller , Martina Schattkowsky (eds.): Between tradition and modernity. King John of Saxony 1801–1873. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-936522-86-3 , pp. 109–140, here p. 113 f.
^ Heinz-Dieter Heimann : The Habsburgs. Dynasty and Empire. Beck, Munich, p. 17 f.
^ Matthias Stickler : Dynasty, Army, Parliament. Problems of State Integration Policy in the 19th Century. In: Winfried Müller , Martina Schattkowsky (eds.): Between tradition and modernity. King John of Saxony 1801–1873. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-936522-86-3 , pp. 109–140, here p. 114.
^ On the context of Karl Vocelka : The Habsburg and Habsburg-Lothringen families: Politics, culture, mentality. Böhlau, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-205-78568-2 , p. 124.
↑ Michael Hochedlinger : Stepchildren of Research. Constitutional, administrative and administrative history of the early modern Habsburg monarchy. Problems - Achievements - Desiderata. In: ders., Thomas Winkelbauer (Hrsg.): Dense rule, state formation, bureaucratization. Constitutional, administrative and administrative history of the early modern period (= publications of the Institute for Austrian Historical Research. Vol. 57). Böhlau / Oldenbourg, Vienna / Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-205-78576-7 , pp. 293–394, chapter 2.2: “Tu, felix Austria, nube - The Austrian master story”, p. 317.
↑ Authentic interpretation of Title I § 1 of the family statute of 1839 ddo. June 12, 1900. In: Heraldica.org (full text).
↑ No. 147, June 29, 1900, p. 1, Official Part
^ Ernst Rutkowski: Letters and documents on the history of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy with special consideration of the Bohemian-Moravian region (= publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Vol. 51). Part 2: Constitutionally loyal large estates 1900–1904. Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-486-52611-1 , p. 233, note 3. and ibid., No. 660: Joseph Maria Baernreither : “Record on the problem of the marriage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand”, p. 235 f .

[1] Karl von Österreich-Teschen , Joseph Anton Johann von Österreich , Johann von Österreich , Rainer Joseph von Österreich , Ludwig von Habsburg-Lothringen

[2] Hannes Stekl : The Viennese court in the first half of the 19th century. In: Karl Möckl (Hrsg.): Court and court society in the German states in the 19th and beginning of the 20th century (= German leadership classes in modern times. Vol. 18). Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1990, ISBN 3-7646-1900-7 , pp. 17–60, here pp. 31 ff .; Building on this, Matthias Stickler : Dynasty, Army, Parliament. Problems of State Integration Policy in the 19th Century. In: Winfried Müller , Martina Schattkowsky (eds.): Between tradition and modernity. King John of Saxony 1801–1873. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-936522-86-3 , pp. 109–140, here p. 113 f.

[3] Heinz-Dieter Heimann : The Habsburgs. Dynasty and Empire. Beck, Munich, p. 17 f.

[4] Matthias Stickler : Dynasty, Army, Parliament. Problems of State Integration Policy in the 19th Century. In: Winfried Müller , Martina Schattkowsky (eds.): Between tradition and modernity. King John of Saxony 1801–1873. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-936522-86-3 , pp. 109–140, here p. 114.

[5] On the context of Karl Vocelka : The Habsburg and Habsburg-Lothringen families: Politics, culture, mentality. Böhlau, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-205-78568-2 , p. 124.

[6] Michael Hochedlinger : Stepchildren of Research. Constitutional, administrative and administrative history of the early modern Habsburg monarchy. Problems - Achievements - Desiderata. In: ders., Thomas Winkelbauer (Hrsg.): Dense rule, state formation, bureaucratization. Constitutional, administrative and administrative history of the early modern period (= publications of the Institute for Austrian Historical Research. Vol. 57). Böhlau / Oldenbourg, Vienna / Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-205-78576-7 , pp. 293–394, chapter 2.2: “Tu, felix Austria, nube - The Austrian master story”, p. 317.

[7] Authentic interpretation of Title I § 1 of the family statute of 1839 ddo. June 12, 1900. In: Heraldica.org (full text).

[8] No. 147, June 29, 1900, p. 1, Official Part

[9] Ernst Rutkowski: Letters and documents on the history of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy with special consideration of the Bohemian-Moravian region (= publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Vol. 51). Part 2: Constitutionally loyal large estates 1900–1904. Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-486-52611-1 , p. 233, note 3. and ibid., No. 660: Joseph Maria Baernreither : “Record on the problem of the marriage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand”, p. 235 f .