Inheritance Practices in Early Modern Germany Judith J. Hurwich Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 23, No. 4.

(Spring, 1993), pp. 699-718.

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] o ~ d ~ t i ao /fIi~te~dis~ip~in History, ary

XXIII:4 (Spring 1993), 699-718.

Inheritance Practices in Early Modem Germany

German nobles were conspicuous among Western European landed elites in their reluctance to adopt primogeniture. By the sixteenth century, primogeniture had become general among the English aristocracy and was spreading to the gentry. Legal settlements entailing estates on eldest sons were widely used not only in England but also in France, Castile, and Italy. Yet, in sixteenthcentury Germany even territorial princes continued to divide their estates among several sons, and such divisions actually increased in number in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The princes' eventual adoption of primogeniture after 1650 is usually attributed to their new status as sovereign princes and to the disadvantages of dividing political units. Did the German nobility as a whole follow the princes in their belated adoption of primogeniture, or use other strategies to consolidate wealth in the male line?' The formal adoption of primogeniture or other forms of impartible inheritance was not the only method by which noble families could avoid subdivision of their estates and consolidate wealth to hand on to future generations. As Cooper pointed out, the actual practices of great landowners often differed from the laws on the books: "If there is any trend discernible in the centuries after 1300 . . ., it would seem to be . . . towards emphasis
Judith J . Hurwich is Chair of the Department of History, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Greenwich, Connecticut. She is the author of "A Fanatick Town: The Political Influence of Dissenters in Coventry, 1660-1720,'' filidland History, IV (1977), 15-47; "Lineage and Extended Kin in the Sixteenth-Century Aristocracy: Some Comparative Evidence in England and Gernlany," 111Augustus L. Beier, David Cannadine, and James M. Kosenheitn (eds.), T h e First Arlodern Society: Essays in Enylish Hisiory in Honour of Latorrnce Stotle (Cambridge, 1y8y), 33-64.

O 1993 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of T h e Journal o f

Interdisciplir~aryHistory.
I John P. Cooper, "Patterns of Inheritance and Settlement by Great Landowners from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries," in Jack Goody, Joan Thirsk, and Edward P. Thompson (eds.), f i m i l y and lnher~tanre:Ruval Society rn Western Europe 1200-1800, (Cambridge, 1978), 192-198; Paula Stitter Fichtner, Pvotestaniisrn and Pvimoyeniiure in Early Modevn Gennany (New Haven, 1989), 24, 72-78.

a narrow definition of lineage, in turn fortified by policies of restrictive marriage. A "narrow definition of lineage" meant defining the family in terms of the male line of descent from a common ancestor, and excluding felnales from the inheritance of landed property in order to pass on the land in the male line. Marriage could be restricted by policies that excluded some children from shares in the property, or gave them shares too small to support a family in a noble style of life. Cooper identified three strategies as significant steps toward the consolidation of wealth in the male line within a formally partible system of inheritance: the substitution of the dowry at marriage for the daughter's right to share in the estate at her parents' death, the holding of estates in common by brothers, and the use of testaments to favor one son over his
011

"'

brother^.^
In Catholic countries, celibacy was institutionalized by the church. This facilitated the restriction of marriages, and some historians of the family have suggested that the Catholic Church functioned as an "adjunct to primogeniture." Cooper asserted that "the Catholic Church before 1750 supported noble family structures and fortunes" by offering an option for the support of younger sons and surplus daughters." The argument that Catholicism facilitated primogeniture is also advanced by Fichtner to explain why Austria and Bavaria adopted the practice earlier than most Protestant German princely states. Fichtner hypothesized that Protestant and Catholic princes followed different inheritance strategies and that Protestantism retarded the development of primogeniture in Germany. She believes that Protestantism encouraged the continuation or resurgence of partible inheritance for two reasons: not only did it encourage large families and eliminate the church as a resource for the support of surplus sons and daughters, but it also gave strong religious sanction to the traditional German ideal of "equality among brothers," which was associated with partible inheritance.' Early medieval German society had a bilateral kinship system that traced descent through both the male and the female lines
2

3 4
5

Cooper, "Patterns o f Inheritance," 296. Ibid., 299-305. Ibid., 222, 293. Fichtner, Protestilntisrn and I'rimo~eniturr, 4, 12-14, 25, 28-3 I , 37, 43-59.

and emphasized the equality of all members of the sibling group. By the high Middle Ages, increasing emphasis was placed on descent in the male line; women were forced to renounce their claims to the landed inheritance and accept dowries at the time of marriage in their place. Nevertheless, the belief that all members of the sibling gro;p should be equal persisted in the case of men, and German princes throughout the Middle Ages frequently invoked the ideal of "equality among brothers. "" For princes, according to Fichtner, "closely tied to the idea of dynastic possessions as collective familial possessio~lswas that of the equality of all legitimately born princes in any given house;" a younger prince could voice the expectation that "the splendor of the house should also appear in me." Many princes in their wills expressed the preference that sons should rule dynastic lands jointly, partitioning them only if collective government proved unworkable. (In practice, confusion and hostility usually led to division after only a brief period of collective rule). The principle of "exact equality of princes7' was to be observed in territorial disputes and divisions. Catholic as well as Protestant princes appealed to religion to buttress the ideal of brotherly equality. However, Fichtner argued that the wills and other writings of Protestant princes show that they held these values more deeply: "Thus, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fraternal equality became not only a dynastic norm but a [Protestant] religious duty as well. Inequality was therefore twice unacceptable . . . To change the system of inheritance a ruler had to make a decision that was both politically and religiously distasteful. "' Fichtner dealt only with the princes, and her hypothesis cannot be tested directly in the absence of a full-fledged demographic study of the German princes that is comparable to Peller's study of European ruling families or Hollingsworth's and Stone's studies of the British aristocracy. Differences between Catholic and Protestant princes in their divisions of territories might merely reflect the difference between large centralized states such as Austria and Bavaria and small states such as most of the Protestant principalities; thc large Protestant states of Brandenburg and Albertine Saxony also adopted primogeniture before 1650. If reli6 7

Ibid., 2 8 .
Ibid., 22-24, 3 0 - 3 3 .

gious values did influence inheritance strategies, evidence should exist among nobles as well as among princes. The few extant studies of inheritance among German nobles are consistent with Fichtner's hypothesis: Catholic nobles in Austria and in Miinster adopted primogeniture in the second half of the seventeenth century, whereas Protestant knights in Hesse continued to practice partible i n h e r i t a n ~ e . ~ This study examines family strategy in a region in which Catholic and Protestant nobles were intermixed and were independent of the laws of any territorial prince. If religion influenced marriage and inheritance practices, one would expect to find a higher proportion of sons and daughters marrying among Protestants, since the church no longer provided an alternative (but celibate) career. If Protestant fathers did consider it a religious duty to provide equally for all of their children, Protestants should be more likely than Catholics to divide their estates in cases in which a father was survived by more than one son, and less likely to adopt inheritance strategies which favored one son over his brothers. The focus in this study is on the family strategy of the counts and barons of southwest Germany, a region known for the fragmentation of political authority, the prevalence of small independent nobles, and the persistence of partible inheritance. It is based on the "Zimmerische Chronik" [Chronicle of the Counts of Zimmern], the chronicle of a Swabian Catholic family that was written in the 156os, and on the genealogies of families who appear in the chronicle. Besides the Zimmern themselves, included are ten Swabian and Franconian families with whom they intermarried in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and whose genealogies are printed in Isenburg's Europaische Stammta-feln, the largest collection of genealogies of the German ~lobility.~
8 Sigisnlund Peller, " B i r t h s and Deaths a m o n g Europe's Ruling Families Since 1500," i n David V . Glass and David E d m u n d C . Eversley (eds.), Population in Histovy: Essays in Historical Demography ( L o n d o n , 1965), 87-100; T h o m a s H e n r y H o l l i n g s w o r t h , T h e Demoyrnphy of the British Peevage, s u p p l e m e n t t o Poptilniion Studies, X V I I I ( 1 y 6 4 ) , 1-108; L a w rence S t o n e , T h e Family, S e x and .Wnrvinye in England 1500-1800 ( N e w Y o r k , 1977);Michael Mitterauer, " Z u r Frage des Heiratsverhaltens i m osterreichischen Adel," i n H e m r i c h Fichtenau and Erich Zollner ( e d s . ) , Beitvnye ztir neuerrn Grschichtr Oestevrrichs ( V i e n n a , 1974). 188-189; H e i n z R e i f , WesiJnlisther Adel 1770-1860. L70m Hrrrschnfisstand z u r veyionalerl Eliie and Inheritance anlong ( G o t t i n g e n , 1979), X I ; G r e g o r y Pedlow, "Marriage, Family S ~ z e , Hessian N o b l e s , 1 6 ~ o - 1 y o 0 , " J o u r r ~ nofFamily l Histovy, V I I (1982), 334. y O n t h e e v o l u t i o n o f inheritance c u s t o m s i n s o u t h w e s t Gernlany, see H e l m u t R o h m ,

I N H E R I T A N C E I N EARLY M O D E R N G E R M A N Y

703

The "Zimmerische Chronik" has long been recognized as a valuable source for the social history of the Reformation era. The legal documents and anecdotes incorporated into the chronicle shed light both on inheritance practices and on values and assumptions held by Catholic nobles in the mid-sixteenth century. The genealogies provide information about a broad range of the high ~lobility(Reichsadel), from mere Schenken (cupbearers) of ministerial origin up to counts who achieved princely rank in the seventeenth century. Nine of the eleven families survived in the male line until at least the end of the sixteenth century and can be used for a comparison of religious groups: of these, four families (and one branch of another) became Protestant.lo The sample includes 753 individuals (384 men and 369 women) in these 11 families who were born, married, or died between 1400 and 1699, and who survived to the age of 15. Since many of those born in the late seventeenth century survived well into the eighteenth century, the study provides information on inheritance practices from 1400 to 1750. It proved impractical to extend the study of this sample beyond the cohort born in the late seventeenth century, since all but one of the Protestant families died out in the male line in the eighteenth century. The study extends through the period in which princes adopted primogeniture, so it is possible to test the hypotheses that ~lobles followed strategies similar to those of princes and that Protestant and Catholic nobles followed different inheritance strategies. Froben Christoph von Zimmern (1519-1566/7), the author of the "Zimmerische Chronik," was an ardent proponent of linDie V r v e v b u n ~ des lar~dtoirtsch~ftlichen Gvundrlgmtutns in Baden- Wiivttembrvg (Ilemagen, 1957)~ 66-105; Rolf-Dieter Hess, Familien- tind Evbvecht irn wiivitrtnbeqischen Landvechi von 1555 (Stuttgart, 1968). References to the "Zimmerische Chronik" are to the most recent edition: Hansmartin Decker-Hauff (ed.), D i r Chronik dev GvaJ1.n won Zitntnerrl (Sigmaringen, 19641972), 3 v. (hereafter cited as ZC). The best guide to the chronicle is Beat Jenny, Gvaf Frobrn Cirristoph won Zimrnern: Gesciricirtsschreibev-Erzai7lev-Landeshevr (Lindau, I Y ~ Y ) , which contains an extensive bibliography. The genealogies are printed in Wilhelm Karl van Isenburg, Euvopaische Statntniqfeln: Statntnta-frln z u v Grschichie dev Euvopaischen Staatrn (Marburg, 1975; 2nd rev. ed.), 5 v., I, 153-155; 111, 93-96; IV, 127-133; V, 21-27, 72-73, 117-119, 122-123, 150-155. 10 The families which became Protestant were Eberstein, Erbach, Geroldseck, and Limpurg; those which remained Catholic were Fiirstenberg, Konigsegg, Zimmern, and [Hohen]zollern. The Oettingen family divided into four lines; one of these became Protestant and the other three remained Catholic. The Kirchberg and Gundelfingen families died out before the middle of the sixteenth century.

704

JUDITH J . HUKWICH

eage loyalty who frequently found himself at odds with the system of partible inheritance prevailing in southwest Germany. The chronicle gives several examples of cases in which sixteenth-century male members of the Zimmern family voluntarily sacrificed their own self-interest or that of their direct descendants in order to consolidate the wealth of the lineage. Nevertheless, Froben Christoph never suggested that primogeniture or any other form of impartible inheritance should be deliberately adopted as a strategy for the aggrandizement of family fortunes. Only one case of primogeniture is mentioned in the chronicle, and the author clearly regarded it as an aberration rather than as a model. He thought in terms of the traditional value of "equality among brothers" and, like the princes discussed by Fichtner, hoped that divisions of estates could be avoided by the holding of lands in common by several brothers. He believed that such "unity among brothers" had been common in the Middle Ages and wished that his own father and uncles had followed the example of the legendary ten Zimmern brothers who restored the family fortunes in the eleventh century by keeping their estates undivided. He also commented approvingly on the fifteenth-century Geroldseck brothers who "held all their estates in common and undivided until their death . . . They were able through such brotherly love and unity to live in great state and to greatly restore their family, which had shortly before been condemned to destruction. "I1 These remarks suggest that the chronicle's audience saw the division of estates as the normal course of action, and the avoidance of divisions as an extraordinary measure to be adopted only in circumstances of economic desperation. The common view among sixteenth-century nobles was that the establishment of collateral lines manifested the wealth and power of a family, and the chronicle itself reflected this view in comments about the Gundelfingen family, "the first barons were so successful that they divided into three lordships (herrschaJen) and lines. "I' Despite their attachment to traditional values and to partible inheritance, southwest German nobles by the sixteenth century
11 ZC, 1, 62; 11, 113, 115, 203-204. O n lineage loyalty in the Zimmern family, see
Hurwich, ''Lineage and Extended Kin in the Sixteenth-Century Aristocracy: Some C o m -
parative Evidence o n England and Germany," in Augustus L. Beier, David Cannadine,
,ind James M. Rosenheim (eds.), T h e Fivsr Arlodern Society: Essays in Enylrsh History in
Honour of Laulvence Stone (Cambridge, ~gXg), 56-59.
12 Z C , 11, 142.

had considerably modified the customary inheritance law of the region which mandated equal division of estates among all sons and all daughters. They had already taken several of the steps that Cooper regarded as means of consolidating wealth in the male line of descent: the holding of lands in common, restrictive marriage policies, and the exclusion of dowered daughters from further claims on the estate. However, the nobles' argument that women "were removed from the lineage by marriage7' and had no claim on its estates if the lineage had not died out in the male line was not accepted either by courts of customary law or by experts in civil law. A daughter who had not made a renunciation retained the right to claim a full share of the inheritance at her parents' death even if she had married without their consent. Under the rule of ledige unJal (sole inheritance), a daughter who had made a renunciation was still entitled to inherit the entire estate if she outlived all of her brothers. Nobles who were determined to enforce descent in the male line therefore resorted to executing additional agreements excluding specific women by name from inheriting under any circumstance^.^" Southwestern German nobles made little use of the device that Cooper considered most important in consolidating wealth in the male line: entails or other testamentary devices to favor the eldest son. The "Zimmerische Chronik" never endorses the view that one son should be favored over his brothers or elder sons over younger sons. An incident, which occurred in I 507, showed that sixteenth-century nobles did not consider birth order to be crucial. The patron of Johann Werner von Zimmern tried to help him financially by arranging a marriage to a rich widow from the urban patriciate. Johann Werner was reluctant to accept the match, since the taint of nonnoble ancestry would bar his children from prestigious tournament societies. However, almost all of his friends and relatives urged him to accept the match on the grounds that the widow's fortune would enable his two younger brothers to marry according to their rank, and their children could participate in tournaments.14
I3 Ibid., I, 120, 130-131, 150-151; 11, 21-22, 194, 276; 111, 23-25. On the inheritance
rights o f women in medieval and sixteenth-century Swabia, see Heinrich Siegel, Dns
48-50, 126-128;
deutsche Erbietht rlnrh derl Rethtsqiieller7 des cMitte1alters (Heidelberg, 1853)~ Hess, Fnrniiieri- iirid Eibvecht, 71-75; Rohm, Vereibui~q,14-15.
14 Z C , I, 358-360.

706

JUDITH J . HUKWICH

Wills and inheritance agreements cited in the "Zimmerische Chronik" were almost always used to arrange divisions of estates rather than to enforce impartible inheritance. Two divisions in the Zimmern family, those of 1444 and 1508, are described in great detail. 1 1 1 both cases the testator had merely stated that the estates were to be divided, leaving the specific provisions to be worked out by the heirs themselves under the guidance of family elders. The most important ancestral estate went to the eldest son, whereas the second son received lesser estates. The division of 1508 excluded a third son, who was persuaded to renounce his claims to the land "out of brotherly love and loyalty and regard for his impoverished family so that the two brothers could maintain themselves in a respectable manner befitting their descent." 1 1 1 some other cases, the chronicle stated that the sons who received less land were to receive cash to make their estates equal in value. However, the extra rents or cash assigned to the second son in the divisions of 1444 and 1508 do not appear to compensate fully for the difference in the value of the real estate, and no cash compensation for the third son is mentioned at all. Clearly the ideal of "equality among brothers" had to be modified to meet economic reality. l' How did the values and practices depicted in the chronicle compare to the actual practices of southwest German nobles as recorded in their genealogies, and how did family strategy evolve from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century? The genealogies of the eleven families in this study show that the traditional preference for establishing collateral lines persisted even into the early eighteenth century, after the princes had adopted primogeniture. These families did not keep estates united even when the extinction of collateral lines resulted in the accidental consolidation of all of the estates in the hands of a single heir: in four such cases in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the estates were divided again as soon as demographic circumstances permitted. These practices are consistent with the ideal of "equality among brothers" and with the view that the establishment of collateral lines was a manifestation of the family's wealth and status. Despite this evident continuity in values, actual marriage and inheritance strategies varied greatly between 1400 and 1750. Dur-

INHERITANCE I N EARLY M O D E R N GERMANY

707

ing the fifteenth and the late seventeenth centuries, southwest German nobles adopted strategies of restrictive marriage and avoided divisions of estates, with results similar to those of primogeniture. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, marriage policy was less restrictive and divisions of estates were more frequent. This chronological pattern is similar to that of peasants in the partible inheritance regions of the southwest, who tended to pass estates to only one son during periods of agricultural depression in the fifteenth century and after the Thirty Years' War. This suggests that economic rather than religious factors were the main causes of change in the family strategy of these nobles. l6 Over the period covered by this study, 59 percent of the men and 73 percent of the women who survived to the age of fifteen eventually married. These rates are comparable to those in Peller's study of European ruling families and in Pedlow's study of Hessian knights: Peller found that 41 percent of all sons born in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who survived to the age of fifteen remained bachelors, whereas Pedlow found that in Hessian knightly families in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, about two-thirds of all men and over 70 percent of all women eventually married. As Table I shows, marriage rates among southwest German nobles varied considerably over time, and the role of the church in achieving restrictive marriage policies among Catholics also varied. l 7 Southwest German nobles practiced a highly restrictive marriage policy in the late Middle Ages. Barely half of the sons and daughters born in the fifteenth century who survived to adulthood ever married. This restrictive marriage policy favored eldest sons, who were twice as likely to marry as were younger sons. In the fifteenth century the majority of unmarried sons, as well as virtually all of the unmarried daughters, entered the church. Ecclesiastical careers were most common among the lower-ranking families, especially those of ministerial origin such as the Limpurgs. The Fiirstenbergs, one of the highest-ranking old families of counts, placed their surplus sons in military careers and had no
16 011 changes in peasant inheritance patterns in southwest Germany, see Rohm, Veueu-
bung, 84.
17 Peller, "Ruling Farnil~es,"89; Pedlow, "Hessian Nobles," 334-33 5 .

708

JUDITH J. HURWICH

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I N H E R I T A N C E I N EARLY M O D E R N G E R M A N Y

709

sons in the church at all. This pattern is coilsistent with a general trend in souther11 Germany in the late Middle Ages for the high nobility to withdraw from church careers, leaving cathedral chapters to be filled chiefly by ministerial families.I8 Marriage rates were far higher in the sixteenth century than in the fifteenth century, a trend evident among both Catholics and Protestants. Catholic families made less use of the church than in the preceding century: unmarried laymen equaled the number of ecclesiastics in the cohort of men born in the late fifteenth century, and outnumbered them in all subsequent cohorts of Catholic men. Catholics preferred secular careers for their sons, ones that did not foreclose the possibility of marriage, even though the optioil of ecclesiastical careers remained open to them. The first cohort containing enough Protestants to permit comparison between religious groups is the one born in the late sixteenth century. The marriage rates of Catholic and Protestant men show no difference. Protestant women did have higher marriage rates than Catholic women, presumably reflecting the lack of suitable occupations for unmarried iloblewomen once convents were abolished. In the late seventeenth century, Catholics adopted a highly restrictive marriage policy for sons, relying in large part on the church. The proportioil of men who married was almost as low as in the fifteenth century, and ecclesiastics were once again almost as numerous as laymen. Trends for daughters, however, were not consistent with those for sons. The proportion of women marrying remained as high as in the sixteenth century, and for the first time the number of Catholic spiilsters equaled or exceeded the number of nuns. Perhaps families were attempting to maintain alliailces through the marriages of daughters in a period in which few sons married. Unlike the Catholics, the Protestants in this sample did not adopt more restrictive marriage policies in the seventeenth century. This may represent a geiluiile difference in strategy between the religious groups, or it may be due to a demographic accident: the Protestants in this period had very few sons, so they did not
18 O n the withdrawal o f high-ranking nobles from ecclesiastical careers, see Roger zui. sozialf>tlSituation des ostsrhwf.izisriien Adr.1~ Sablonier, Adel irn IYandel: Eitle LInrf~171icI11ing urn 1300 (Gottingen, 1979), 203-204; Kurt Andermann, Srudieri z u r Gesciiichre des pJ;ilzi.srlten ~Viedeuadels itn spateti !Mittelalter (Speyer, 1982), 204-205.

need to restrict marriages. A broader study including more Protestant families would be necessary to determine whether Catholics and Protestants actually differed in their marriage policy at the end of the seventeenth century. If the difference between Catholics and Protestants is genuine, southwest Germany would conform to the general pattern described by Cooper for European elites at the beginning of the eighteenth century: Catholics had much more restrictive marriage policies than Protestants. 1 1 1 Florence before 1700, Milan before 1750, Toulouse before 1760, and among seventeenth-century French dukes and peers, about half of the sons and half of the daughters remained unmarried. In the Protestant patriciate of Geneva, only a quarter of each sex remained unmarried; the same was true of the Protestant British aristocracy. l 9 The marriage rates for southwest German Catholics, especially those for women, were higher than those for other Catholic elites. Only in the fifteenth century did half of the sons and half of the daughters remain unmarried; in the cohort born 1650-1700, the figures were 44 percent for sons and only 29 percent for daughters. Southwest German Protestants had lower marriage rates for men than did other Protestant elites; about one-third of all men remained unmarried. Rates for Protestant women fluctuated much more than those for men and are difficult to compare to other elites. 1 1 1 one important respect, southwest German Catholics and Protestants resembled each other more than either resembled their co-religionists in other countries: marriage rates for women were higher than those for men. This higher rate was possibly due to the distinctive pattern of marriage payments in Germany, in which the burden fell more heavily on the groom than on the bride's family.20 Fichtner found that German princes increased the number of territorial divisions between 1550 and 1650, then reduced the number rapidly after 1650 as they adopted primogeniture. Table 2 shows that Swabian and Franconian nobles followed a similar pattern up to the late seventeenth century, but that they resumed divisions in the early eighteenth century.21

19 Cooper, "Patterns o f Inher~tance,"290, 304; Stone, Fnmily, Sex nnd Ilfnrvinp, 44.
011 marriage payments, see Richard Schroeder, Gesciiirhte des eiielirheri Giitevvechts in
Dr~utsriiland (Stettin, 1868), 11, 82-83, 237-238.
21 Ficl~ti~er,
Pn~tesratltismatid Prirnojietlttuvr., 24, 72.
20

In order to analyze changes in inheritance strategy and to compare the strategies of Catholics and Protestants, it is not enough to know the numbers of territorial divisions. The number of divisions might fluctuate due to demographic chance, since divisions are only possible when a father is survived by two or more potential h&. O f the 23 I landowners dying in the period of this study, 99 (43 percent) were survived by two or more sons. Table 2 and Figure I show actual divisions as a percentage of potential divisions, and give a clearer picture of deliberate inheritance strategy. As Table 2 shows, most cases in which a father was survived by two or more sons did not result in division of the estates. Divisions were carried out in about one-third of the cases in which they were possible, with little difference overall between Catholics and protestants. However, there were considerable variations over time. As in the case of marriage policies, the most restrictive inheritance policies occurred in the late fifteenth and late seventeenth centuries. Catholics also varied over time in the extent to which they used the church as an instrument of inheritance policy. The practice of sending all but one son into the church, leaving only one heir, was more common before 1500 and after 1650 than it was during the Reformation era. Although marriage policy was highly restrictive in the early fifteenth century, fathers divided their estates in almost half the cases in which division was possible and rarely used the church to eliminate potential divisions. 1 1 1 the late fifteenth century, nobles followed a more consistent policy of both restricting marriages and avoiding divisions of the estates. Divisions took place in less than one-fourth of the cases in which they were possible, and almost one-third of all potential divisions were avoided by placing sons in the church. In the sixteenth century, territorial divisions became more frequent among southwest ~ e r m a n nobles, as they did among German princes. Divisions rose to 33 percent of all possible cases in the first half of the century and 44 percent in the second half. Catholics made little use of the church to avoid divisions in the first half of the century and none at all in the second half. Divisions involving three or more heirs were more common in the late sixteenth century than at any other time between 1400 and 1700; out of seven such cases in this study, five took place between I 559 and 1609.

712

JUDITH J. HURWICH

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JUDITH J. HURWICH

This readiness to divide estates continued into the early seventeenth century but ended abruptly after the Thirty Years' War. Only one Catholic and one Protestant divided their estates in the period 1650-1699. In the late seventeenth century, divisions fell to only 12 percent of all possible cases, the lowest rate in the entire three centuries under study, and Catholics once again began to use the church to reduce the number of divisions. The inheritance system of southwest German nobles in the period 16501699 was one of primogeniture in all but name; in fourteen out of the seventeen cases in which a landowner was survived by two or more sons, the entire estate went to the eldest son. Unlike the German princes, the nobles of southwest Germany did not continue this system of de facto primogeniture into the eighteenth century, much less convert it into a system of legal primogeniture. Both Catholics and Protestants again divided their estates in the early eighteenth century. In fact, divisions rose to 40 percent of all cases in which they were possible, a level as high as that of the sixteenth century. Divisions of estates show much more similarity than difference between Catholics and Protestants. Chronological trends are the same for both groups, and over the period 1550-1750 each divided estates in about one-third of all possible cases. The increased tendency of both Catholics and Protestants to divide estates between 155; and 1650 is consistent with a value system favoring "equality among brothers." However, a contrary trend which favored eldest sons also began in the same period. As we have seen, estates were not actually divided in most of the cases in which division was possible. In two-thirds of such cases in the period 1400-1750, the lands were held in common or left to a single heir. Table 2 shows that after 1550 the latter strategy was adopted in all but one case, and that the chosen heir was almost invariably the eldest son. H o w often lands were held in common is difficult to ascertain because of the incompleteness of early genealogies. When dates of succession and dates of death are unknown, as is often the case in the fifteenth century, it is impossible to tell whether two brothers who held the same estate succeeded each other or held the estate in common. In the first half of the sixteenth century, for which the genealogies are more complete, brothers may have held estates in common in as many of one-fourth of all cases in which

two or more sons succeeded their father. This percentage is higher than one would expect from the evidence of the "Zimmerische Chronik," which laments that the practice was dying out in the early sixteenth century. Only two of the eleven families, the Fiirstenbergs and the Oettingens, regularly held lands in common. Both of these families had strong military traditions, and some of the brothers who held lands in common were probably soldiers who resided at distant courts and did not participate in managing the estates. After 1550 the practice of holding lands in common was definitely abandoned. Thereafter, if the estates were not divided, they were left to only one of the sons.22 Until the middle of the sixteenth century, fathers leaving the estates to one son freely exercised their traditional right to choose the "best-qualified" rather than the eldest son as heir. The eldest son was the most common choice, but between 1400and ISSO he was chosen in only 10out of 19cases (53 percent). Only one of the five sons chosen as sole heirs in the first half of the sixteenth century was an eldest son; other choices included a third, and even a fifth son. After 1550, this policy changed abruptly; the eldest son was chosen in 8 7 percent of the 39 cases between 1550 and 1750. The result was that between ISSO and 1750, the estates were left undivided to the eldest son in the majority of all cases in which the father was survived by more than one son. In this limited sense, a trend toward primogeniture may be noted among southwest German nobles, even though divisions of estates continued. The data on southwest German nobles on the whole do not support Fichtner's hypothesis that Catholic and Protestant nobles followed different inheritance strategies. Marriage rates were higher for Protestants than for Catholics, but inheritance patterns were similar. T o the extent that any differences in inheritance practices can be discerned, they are in the opposite direction from that predicted by Fichtner's hypothesis: Protestant fathers were more likely than Catholic fathers to favor eldest sons over their younger brothers and to practice de facto primogeniture. Among landowners who died between 1550 and 1750 leaving more than one son, three-fifths of the Protestants, as compared to one-half of the Catholics, left the estate undivided to the eldest son. Only

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JUDITH J. HURWICH

one Protestant eldest son failed to succeed to all or part of his father's estate (6 percent of all Protestant eldest sons), whereas among Catholics born after 1500, ten eldest sons were excluded from the succession (23 percent of all Catholic eldest sons). All but one of these excluded Catholic eldest sons entered ecclesiastical careers. This fact shows that the Roman Catholic Church was not necessarily an "adjunct to primogeniture"; it could also be used to preserve the father's traditional option of choosing the "best-qualified" son regardless of birth order. The church played a much smaller role in the family strategy of Catholic nobles in southwest Germany during the Reformation era than it did before 1500 or after 1650. Over the period 14001750, eleven divisions of estates were avoided because all but one son entered the church. Only one such case occurred between 1500 and 1650: an incident in which the Zimmern family reluctantly agreed to grant the youngest son's request to become a canon, even though they feared that the one son who married might not produce heirs. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Catholics clearly preferred to place their sons in secular careers when these were available. Thus, the availability of prebends is unlikely to have caused Catholic and Protestant nobles to develop differing inheritance strategies during the Reformation era, although the availability of the church as a resource for younger sons may have influenced Catholic strategy in the economically depressed period after the Thirty Years' War.23 The Reformation was most likely not the main cause of changes in inheritance strategies in this region in the period 14001700. Fichtner herself attributed the princes' adoption of primogeniture after 1650 primarily to political and economic rather than to religious factors, and economic factors provide a more plausible hypothesis for the changes in inheritance strategies among southwest German nobles. 23 The fifteenth century, when nobles reduced divisions of their estates and relied heavily on the church as an instrument of their restrictive marriage policies, was a period of agricultural depression and of declining opportunities for secular careers. By the end of the century, fewer great nobles maintained bands of knights to
23

24

Ihid., 111, 294-295,

Fichtner, Pvotrstantisnl and Pvirnogenituve, 72

INHERITANCE I N EARLY M O D E R N GERMANY

1 717

wage private warfare. The practice (similar to "bastard feudalism") of insuring the loyalty of the local nobility by retaining them as salaried councillors or court officials also came to an end, and nobles faced increased competition from burghers with university educations in civil law.25 The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a period of far less restrictive marriage and inheritance policies among southwest German nobles, were an era of agricultural expansion and of increased opportunities for secular careers. Grain prices reached high levels by the second half of the sixteenth century, and revenues from seigneurial rents and dues peaked in the decades just before and after 1600. The fact that this was also the period in which nobles were most willing - to subdivide their estates is hardly coincidental, since the increased income could support more heirs in a noble style of life. In the era of political stability between the Peace of Augsburg and the Thirty Years' War, territorial princes expanded their courts. Nobles began to acquire university educations in order to compete more effectively for positions as judges and councillors, and the development of a distinct officer's career gave the nobility a dominant role in the new standing armies. With more secular careers available, the nobility became less dependent on the income from ecclesiastical prebends, which explains the decline in the number of Catholic men entering the church in the period 1500-1650.~~ However, during the Thirty Years' War, southwest Germany was devastated by the ~ w e d i s l land French armies. The sharp drop in population meant a decline in both grain prices and land values after the war, and income from seigneurial rents and dues did not reach prewar levels until the new agricultural boom of the eighteenth century was well under way. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that nobles in the late seventeenth
his zurn 19. 25 Wilhelrn Abel, Cksrhirhte der dcutschen Lai~dtuirtsl-ha$ vorn-fiiihen ~'bfittelalter Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1962), 128; Hans Georg Hofacker, "Die SchwQbischeHerzogswiirde: Untersuchungen zur landesfurstlichen und kaiserlichen Politik in1 deutschen Sudwesten irn Spatrnittelalter und in der friihen Neuzeit," Zeitschv$ &v tuiirttcmberisce Landeszcschil-hte, XLVII (198X), 77; Hajo Holborn, A History ofModevil C;errnaily (New York, 1959), 1, 31. 26 Thomas Robisheaux, Klrral Society and the Search j i ~ vOvdcr in Early Modevil Gcrrnany (Cambridge, 1989), 168-169; Abel, C;eschichte der deutsl-hen Laildwirtsl-ha$, 169-170; Holborn, Histovy qflModern Gcrrnany, I , 54; Ernst Zeeden, 1)cutsl-he f i l t u r in der friihen A'euzeit (Frankfurt am Main, r968), 56-57.

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century again adopted restrictive marriage and inheritance policies. Divisions of estates almost ceased in the second half of the seventeenth century and resumed only when economic conditions improved in the early eighteenth cent~iry.~' The answer to the questions posed at the outset is that southwest German nobles did not follow the princes in their belated trend toward primogeniture, and that Catholics and Protestants in this region did not follow different inheritance strategies. The Catholic Church did not necessarily act as an "adjunct to primogeniture." Nobles in southwest Germany never adopted a formal system of primogeniture. Both Catholic and Protestant nobles paid lip service to the ideal of "equality among brothers" and preferred to divide estates when economic conditions permitted the establishment of collateral lines. In practice, however, both religious groups followed strategies which adjusted the number of heirs to changing economic conditions, in order to insure that the estates could continue to support the family in a noble style of life. Both Catholics and Protestants used restrictive marriage policies, carried out divisions in only a minority of the cases in which they were theoretically possible, and increasingly favored the eldest son as means of achieving this goal without formally abandoning the system of partible inheritance.
27 Holborx~,H istory ~ f ~ V o d e vGenizany, n 11, 25; Abel, Gesl-hit-hte der derrttchrn Landtvirtsrhqp, 243-244, 251-254; Rob~sheaux, Ktrval Sol-iety, 242.