<1>

If we want to reappraise the historiography of early modern European nobilities we need to include the princely court. In the traditional decline-and-fall model of noble power, the court had a vital role to play. The idea that the Sun King had assembled the grands in Versailles to keep them from mischief was already present among contemporaries who had witnessed the turbulent decades halfway through the seventeenth century. The memoirs of the duc de Saint-Simon, circulating in various forms in the eighteenth century, and frequently edited in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, gave this notion a tragic quality. Nobles at Versailles not only had had to accept the rise of bourgeois administrators, they saw their king desecrate the noblest blood of France by forcing it into alliances with offspring of his adultery as well as with ministers' dynasties from the lowest of origins – says Saint-Simon. In contrast to Saint-Simon's apocalyptic vision, courts can with some justification be seen as lasting bulwarks of noble power from the sixteenth into the nineteenth century. Saint-Simon's Versailles-based image, however, seems to have won out in modern historiography, largely due to the work of Norbert Elias. Elias skilfully brought together various strands of nineteenth-century liberal and étatist historiography in a model that held sway until the 1990's. [1] He pictured the court as a gilded cage, a magnificent environment for magnates that formerly had held power, but were now forced into a fainéant existence. Elias went beyond earlier historiography in precision and persuasion, yet noble loss of power remained an absolutely necessary starting point for the Teufelszirkel of various mechanisms unfolding in his model. As soon as we take distance from his primary assumption, the necessary sequences of his model lose their inevitability; the model itself loses its persuasive charm.

<2>

In the 1970's and 1980's Elias's model effectively created a new generation of court historians, studying a theme that had earlier been relegated to the domain of antiquaries. Elias's interpretation of the court as a gilded cage, of court offices as sinecures isolated from decision-making, fostered a concentration on the cultural side of the court. Ceremony and propaganda seemed to be the vital themes to study, the first capturing the noble elites in a labyrinth of status rivalry, the second securing the power of dynasty and state in the population as well as among the dynasties of Europe. For such themes, printed sources were readily available: Zeremonialwissenschaftler, [2] the emerging periodical press, and a variety of printed tracts would outline the ceremonies at court. Whether or not nobles were seen as victims of rising state power embodied by the king and his ministers, the court itself was frequently depicted as an ongoing performance of Broadway allure and precision. The initially positive influence of anthropology, most notably Clifford Geertz's study on the 'theatre state' in Bali, strengthened the tendency to inflate court life to implausibly histrionic proportions. [3] To make things worse, cultural history of the court, informed by post-modern and cultural studies discourse, was in danger of becoming a laboratory for theories and concepts rather than a field for archival research.

<3>

It should long since have been possible to go beyond the idealized façade of court life presented in commissioned descriptions of court festivals or printed sets of rules. Likewise, a more appropriate balance between the cultural and political aspects of court life could and should have been restored. The persistent imagery of Versailles, the set piece of Elias's interpretation and a barely challenged icon of French historiography, however, seemed to prevent such efforts. An in-depth reassessment of the French court in the later seventeenth century, based on archival materials, presented itself as a necessary precondition for breaking through the impasse of court history. Only if the concrete similarities and differences between Versailles and other major European courts could be clarified, would a more lasting revision become possible. This assumption stood at the beginning of my attempt to compare the courts of Vienna and Versailles. Vienna emerged as a suitable candidate for this comparison, although the markedly composite nature of the Habsburg ruler's domains, and most particularly the loose but important imperial dimension of his rule, did not match the more integrated structures of French monarchy.

<4>

My first goal was simply to find concrete data on structures, numbers, costs, conditions of service, and activities for these two courts. Initially focusing on the paradigmatic Versailles years in the later seventeenth century, I steadily widened my scope to include both the formative reform phase at both courts in the sixteenth century and the pre-revolutionary phase of reduction and reform. These major phases of reform had generated particularly interesting documents because authors tended to describe their motives for reform at some length – comments more rarely found in the ongoing series of court archives. Studying the long phase from the sixteenth into the eighteenth century revealed remarkable similarities in the essence and wording of ordinances. [4] Establishing the routines of the household recurring from the middle ages into the early modern age, moreover, made it easier to interpret the specific changes taking place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

<5>

Below, I will present results of my research project that seem relevant for this journal, mostly either concrete data that can offer a basis for comparison with other courts, or aspects related to nobility and the court. The history of these two courts shows two comparable structures developing in different directions. My findings call into question the reputations surrounding the courts of Vienna and Versailles; they underline the relatively vested position and highhanded posture of court nobles in France and the more deferential attitude of nobles in Vienna -- who, on the other hand, were more closely and lastingly involved in the formal apparatus of decision-making.

<6>

The domestic apparatus at the heart of the court was operated mainly by non-nobles. Only a small upper echelon of domestic office was occupied by nobles. Through a variety of means, the proportioning of nobles and non-nobles at court could undergo major changes. Vienna and Versailles show markedly different developments in this respect. The system of service par terme or job rotation, pioneered at the French and Burgundian courts and later adopted at other European courts, allowed doubling, tripling or quadrupling of the number of noble attendants, by organizing service on the basis of semester, trimester, or quarter.

<7>

In addition to or as a variant of service par terme, we frequently see proliferation of noble officers. The multiple councillors and chamberlains at German courts, or the gentilshommes servants, maîtres d'hôtel and écuyers at the French court are examples of this tendency.

<8>

Proliferation of courtiers rarely was the ruler's intention: numbers would increase most conspicuously during phases of political turmoil. The 1580's and the 1650's mark the two high-points of the French court's numbers: restored stability brought reduction of numbers rather than expansion. It is important to note that during turbulent phases senior noble courtiers could take the initiative to fill the court with their own clients, as did the Guise in Henry III's reign, or senior courtiers in the later years of Rudolf II's reign. Proliferation of offices was not limited to nobles: it also occurred on the urban-artisan fringes of the court. There, however, it could be limited with less political risk

<13>

Court expenditure almost always represented the third category in total expenditure, following warfare and the debt service related to previous wars. Yet it was extremely variable, jumping from less than 5% in periods of warfare to almost 40% in the first years of peace.

<17>

The semi-feudal, personal tie between the sovereign and his senior servants underwent major changes from the later middle ages into the early modern age. The status and nature of court office changed concomitantly. Again, in France these changes were more marked than in Vienna.

<18>

Entry into the highest court offices demanded pledging an oath of loyalty to the ruler. The oath 'entre les mains de sa majesté' represented the supreme hierarchical position of the great courtiers. They in turn accepted the oath of the officers and servants in their staffs. The oath indicated the personal ties between ruler and courtier.

<19>

The personal nature of the connection between ruler of courtier caused the court staffs to be disbanded upon the death of the incumbent ruler – to be readmitted into his successor's service and taking a new personal oath, or to be pensioned off.

<20>

In France, venality of (court) office gradually made it impossible to send away courtiers upon the death of the ruler: they would lose their huge investment and would demand compensation. Through the system of survivance, sons would seek their father's office during his lifetime, securing their tenure. In the long run, venality and the survivance made court office de facto hereditary. From the later seventeenth century to the revolution, the highest offices at court were held by a small and exclusive group of families, each successfully using its monopolized court office to further its dynastic interests. [7]

<21>

In Vienna, courtiers and servants – and also honorary court officers such as chamberlains and councillors – needed the confirmation of the new emperor, who could choose to replace courtiers as well as servants, and did so mostly in the upper layers of the Hofstaat, introducing his own confidants. Emperors thus retained the possibility to redistribute offices and ranks, whereas the French king could choose to do so only within small margins. Though the circle of families frequently holding high court office in Vienna was relatively small, court office never became a vested right of any family, and it was usually the reward for dedicated service at court as well as in government.

<22>

The hierarchical distance between the emperor and his noble courtiers was greater than that between the French king and his courtiers. Tensions between the ruler and his highest courtiers were more significant in Versailles than in Vienna. The intermediate layer of governing and near-sovereign Reichsfürsten stood between emperor and high court nobles. and strengthened their interdependence because the social ascent of high courtiers to imperial counts and princes assisted the emperor's ambitions, promising him increased leverage in the Empire.

<23>

In Vienna, the hierarchy among the senior court officers was never entirely stable. The supremacy of the Obersthofmeister was not contested, but the Obersthofmarschall had to accept the steady strengthening of the Oberstkämmerer as well as the Oberststallmeister. In France, the staffs functioned more autonomously; the supremacy of the grand maître was recognized in theory, but in practice the grand écuyer and the grand chambellan would see themselves as subject only to the king. Among themselves, and between them and overconfident rivals in their staffs, conflicts were endemic, frequently vehement. In the chamber and in the services for hunting, proliferation of high office was particularly marked, and conflict a recurring routine.

<26>

Ceremony never dominated all settings and moments of court life. Changing levels of access structured court life, creating a secluded sphere for rulers and their intimates, where ceremonial forms had little relevance. Most public moments were expected to follow ceremonial routines, partly dictated by the liturgical calendar. Only for great dynastic ceremonies, such as coronations and marriages, would the court truly conform to its reputation for unending pageantry and splendour, enacted in a predetermined choreography.

<27>

Access was restricted in Vienna, where the emperors' rooms were not as a rule open to visitors. Easier access remained typical for the French court, though in his ordinances Henry III had introduced more distance. In fact, Henry's repeated attempts to secure a more secluded sphere for himself and his intimates lay at the root of the entrées for lever and coucher, made famous by Saint-Simon.

<28>

At the Habsburg court, no separate staff developed to oversee ceremony; an Oberceremonienmeister emerged only in the nineteenth century. From the 1650's onwards, however, a secretary in the Obersthofmeister's staff kept orderly and ongoing notes in the Zeremonialprotokoll. The notes and diaries of masters of ceremonies, introductors of ambassadors at the French have often been read as proof of the highly ceremonialised setting of court life. The authors themselves, however, explicitly and implicitly convey the message that ceremony rarely proceeded entirely along the lines they set out. They themselves, in fact, were often hesitant about the complications of rank and forms. At both courts, ordinances and ceremonial regulations as a rule invoked a golden age of order in the distant past, and bewailed disorders that had since crept in; yet incidentally we find wise statements stressing the inevitable erosion of rules in daily practice.

<29>

It is implausible to present domestic ceremony as a royal tool to manipulate high nobles, because the high nobles the king was thought to manipulate were themselves responsible for order in their domains, chamber and table. They would never think of accepting meddling by Masters of ceremonies who took care of ceremonial during great and solemn occasions, or by the introductors who oversaw diplomatic ceremonial. Nor should the king himself be pictured as creating or using conflict between his servants. If conflict occurred – for instance between the chamberlain and the master of the wardrobe – we can expect the ruler to have resented the punctilious pride of his servants. Where we know Louis XIV's reaction to such matters, he always sought to follow tradition and rank. In fact, only the famous offering of the bougeoir was not dictated by hierarchy, but explicitly left to the king's discretion.

<30>

Burdened by the frequent presence of a public at court, French kings adhered to an unadventurous and defensive attitude in matters ceremonial. If they needed to subdue or chastise nobles, they had more effective means at their disposal than manipulation of the finely tuned mechanisms of ceremony. In Vienna, the more secluded dynastic environment made the emperor's situation somewhat easier: he could concentrate on the recurring, but relatively isolated, moments of public bustle and curiosity, when the court opened its doors, or progressed through the city of Vienna and its surroundings.

<31>

The French court offered its elites a series of sociable occasions, not necessarily ceremonialised, but still public. This intermediate stage, between relaxation or work among intimates and advisers, and the public appearances of the court, would also become more important in Vienna, particularly after the 1740's. Permanent diplomacy, Verschriftlichung, and the strengthening of intermediate levels of publicity at court (Khevenhüller used the expression: 'in mezzo publico' [8]) may have made the court more ceremonial in the eighteenth century, at the very time the legitimation of dynastic rule became less markedly religious. At no time in history, however, can ceremony have reached in practice the perfection and rigidity stipulated in prescriptive sources.

<32>

Specialized councils and chancelleries had long since taken over administrative responsibility for warfare, finance, and justice from court officers ('going out of court'). Yet at court, collegial decision-making around the king remained the rule, and it most often included courtiers. Whereas in Vienna, the senior courtiers frequently doubled as presidents of councils, and almost as a rule served as Geheimer Rat, the connections in France were less close. Few French nobles seem to have been interested to change the focus of their education and identity to make room for financial and legal skills. They were happy to serve as the king's adviser or minister of state, to hold court office, serve in provincial government or as army commanders, but they rarely accepted a cursus honorum including less elevated administrative offices. This obviously did not make them powerless, but it limited their sphere of action. In the Habsburg lands, nobles retained and strengthened their direct responsibility for government as well as court office – thus, when the two spheres slowly moved apart, from the 1750's onwards, this did not markedly change the position of the families concerned. Habsburg nobles, however, did not share the strong connection of French nobles with military command – Saint-Simon's years at Versailles were certainly made less rewarding by the fact that he had left the army at a very early stage of his career.

<33>

Louis XIV's reform of the council, taking away the right of princes of the blood to sit in the council, would not be maintained in the long run. Nobles were never entirely removed from the council in Louis's reign; after 1715 even princes and cardinals would regain their seats. While in Vienna, the Obersthofmeister habitually chaired the council into the eighteenth century, no family could claim a right of membership: as in France after Louis's reforms, the invitation remained in the hands of the emperor. The hierarchical proximity of princely and ducal dynasties to the king at the French court, as well the presence of potentially overbearing relatives, must have guarded the king against leaning too heavily on this circle. The emperor, whose family members because of demographic and political incidents only incidentally represented a threat to his power, could feel comfortably aloof from his courtiers; they were dependent on him to gain access to the higher level of imperial nobility.

<34>

Senior French courtiers, holding a monopoly over high court office, reaping all sorts of lucrative extras, and maintaining a strong hold over high office in other spheres of government, could certainly not all secure a steady influence on decision-making in the king's council. Many among them, however, must have been happy to leave most decisions to specialist advisers among a select group of noble advisers and secretaires d'état – provided that they would retain their hold on the Mikropolitik (Reinhard) of distribution of favours.

<35>

Was it possible for major noble dynasties either in France or in the Habsburg lands to stay aloof from the court, while maintaining or strengthening their wealth and prestige? If families aspired to the greatest honours and wanted to demonstrate their power in a wider circle, it made sense for them to go to court. If they were happy to pursue regional interests and landholding, they would not need to go to court.

<36>

For nobles from the Habsburg lands, the Viennese court offered a connection with Imperial and European nobilities. Wealth and loyal service were preconditions for entering higher court office; there can be no question of 'domestication' in the narrow sense used by Elias. Yet if they wanted to reach their highest ambitions, service, whether at court or in councils, was necessary. Families would carefully maintain their connections with the court, even if individual family members could choose to stay away – as did for instance several of the Liechtenstein.

<37>

At the French court, the financial rewards for entering court service were higher, the position of leading courtiers in their staffs more autonomous. They held rights of nomination over offices in their staffs and were responsible for (substantial) budgets. Nor could they be removed from their positions short of very serious misdemeanours.

<38>

Did the Sun King succeed in luring his potential rivals into gilded captivity, or did the high nobles effectively conquer the heart of the dynastic state? These are misguided questions. The careers of the major courtiers from the 1660's to the revolution indicate that they can best be seen as a power elite, using to their advantage the core position at court consolidated during the reign of Louis XIV. [9]

<39>

Domestication is a misleading metaphor because it puts the initiative and weight on one side; integration of nobles around the court, a multifaceted process where motives, initiatives, and results are far more open, certainly occurred, but it led to consolidation of noble power in the dynastic state rather than to its erosion or decline.

<40>

We should stop thinking about Louis XIV and his nobles in terms of taming, manipulating, subduing. The king certainly set limits to noble power, seeking to restore a juste mesure of power in service to the crown. In reconstructing a smaller, but more exclusive and privileged noble court in Versailles, Louis secured the highest nobles an impregnable bastion in the heart of the state. The nobles in turn accepted their part of the deal, and would not openly challenge the king's powers. At court, they jealously guarded their rights against all rivals -- only in the 1780's would new reforms again change the balance.

<41>

In Vienna, high court office never became hereditary, no family could claim the right to any high court office, neither was office ever venal – although we find transactions in the Hofzahlamtsbücher that indicate movement in this direction. A new emperor could dismiss or confirm officers and servants according to his own wishes, establishing not only a new court, but also a new hierarchy for court occasions, as the personal date of nomination or confirmation in the two ranks at court, councillor and chamberlain, determined préséance. The potential for conflict between emperor and nobles remained limited, but the emperor had more leeway than the king.

<42>

The dimension of the Holy Roman Empire complicates the comparison, but also helps to illuminate certain aspects. The great French court families stood in rank between the princes of the empire and the Viennese court nobles. The emperors could only incidentally attract electors or major princes of the empire to their court in Vienna, which in some respects can be seen as the curia minor of the imperial court as it served during the great ceremonial occasions of the empire. In France, curia minor and curia maior overlapped; the highest grands officiers had their noble premier and everyday ordinaire substitutes. Situating the greatest French court families on this level makes it easier to understand the exceedingly generous distribution of privileges and pensions by French kings, as well as the more conflict-ridden atmosphere at court in Versailles.

Dr. Jeroen Duindam
Universiteit Utrecht
Instituut voor Algemeen Geschiedenis
Kromme Nieuwegracht 66
3512 HL – Utrecht
Nederland
Jeroen.Duindam@let.uu.nl