Herrschaft im ländlichen Raum: Bäuerliche Untertanen, lokale Obrigkeit und expandierender Staat

Rulership in Rural Areas. Peasant Subjects, Local Lordship and Expanding State. The 18th century brought a fundamental change in the relationship between subjects, landlordship and the state. Although the sovereign had intervened in the relationship between subjects and landlords, in the first decades of the century the manorial lordship was essentially still a largely autonomous sphere. With the reforms beginning in the mid-18th century, state power began to integrate rural areas into its sphere of power. The new county offices as regional authorities brought the state closer to the population and were also an essential factor in gathering information about rural areas. The central authorities attempted to push back the influence of the landlords in local government by reorganizing the landlord property structure and the distribution of powers. Finally, the state increasingly interposed itself between subjects and landlords through reforms in the social system and in the judiciary, but without actually eliminating landlordism as a central element of rural order.