A New Legitimacy: From Christian to Secular Monarchs
A fundamental and defining aspect, in which Enlightenment monarchs differed from their predecessors, was that they did not justify their exercise of power on religious grounds.[450] As these sovereigns did not base their authority upon any divine
right to rule, in this sense they were not “Christian rulers”,[451] [452] [453] a fact which allowed them to establish their independence from the papacy.
Even during the era of absolutism, however, this also represented an objective, external limitation on the10
king s power.
The exception came in France, where the monarchy never accepted the main theories of enlightened absolutism (Outram 2007, 34). Louis XIV, for example, was profoundly Catholic, and though he supported Gallicanism, his Christian principles limited his actions as a ruler. His confessors, among them the famous Father Lachaise, constantly reminded him of his obligations as a Catholic monarch. Throughout France’s Ancien Regime, the monarchs continued to regularly summon the “General Assembly of the Clergy”, which had a permanent representative, the “general agent of the clergy”, at Versailles. Finally, once a week the king met with the “Council of Conscience”, to deal with all those matters in which the king could have problems of conscience arising from his role as a Christian monarch.[454]
In contrast, in the states in which the guiding principles were those of enlightened absolutism, the king was not considered to be chosen by God, nor to be his representative, nor to base his power on a Divine concession awarded him after the ceremony of anointing, coronation or consecration. Significant in this regard was that Joseph II of Austria refused to be crowned King of Hungary and Bohemia in accordance with a traditional liturgy; an enlightened king, in his view, did not rule by the grace of God (Agnew 2004, 92).
Rather, his power was based on a new source of legitimacy: that provided by his education, which was, in turn, a consequence of his illustrious origins. As the king had been trained from childhood for his office, he was the one most apt to achieve those objectives of government which justified the existence of the state's apparatus, including the monarchy itself. Thus, in principle, did the ruler stand above interests and prejudices, thanks to a preparation which enabled him to extract himself from pressure groups and exercise an arbitral role permitting him to resolve conflicts. In his Essay on Forms of Government, Frederick the Great wrote that a prince “is but a man, like the least of his subjects”, and that “if he be the first general, the first minister of the realm, it is not that he should remain the shadow of authority, but that he should fulfill the duties of such titles”, as “he is only the first servant of the state, who is obliged to act with probity and prudence and to remain as totally disinterested as if he were each moment liable to render an account of his administration to his fellow citizens” (Frederick II 1789, 29).Upon shedding his sacred aura, the king was unshackled from religious fetters. Enlightenment principles no longer depended on a particular creed, or dogmas interpreted by an ecclesiastical apparatus, but only on the monarch’s personal conscience. In this sense, the power of the enlightened kings was more “absolute” because they were not subject to particular religious creeds. This explains in large measure why in a country like England, where the Church depended directly on the king, Parliament resorted to approving a Bill of Rights in 1689, to place objective limits on royal powers.[455]
The advent of the kings’ new secular legitimacy, divorced from the divine right theory which had prevailed during the Middle Ages, precipitated a manifest process of general secularization which further weakened the role which the Church had played hitherto, advancing the secularization of the state. In fact, the most illustrious representatives of enlightened absolutism endorsed secular policies and did not hesitate, for example, to abolish the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits) and expel it, a measure applied in Portugal in 1759, in France in 1764 and in Spain in 1767.[456] The order would be ultimately abolished by Pope Clement XIV on July 21, 1773, in his bull Dominus ac Redemptor, which disbanded the Society of Jesus (Riccards 2012, 229).
The principle of the separation between Church and State emerged, and processes were implemented to liquidate Church property (disentailment) to improve public finances.Joseph II of Austria stands as a clear embodiment of a monarch illustrating the precepts of enlightened absolutism (Szabo 2011, 111-138). The emperor was a practicing Catholic, yet this did not prevent him from seeking to strip the monarchy of any vestige of religion. Politically, he sought to turn the Austrian Church into a national entity subject to the emperor (“Josephism”) (Dickson 1993, 89-114). To do this, he did not hesitate to undertake a whole series of radical reforms, suppressing processions and pilgrimages, and depriving monasteries and religious orders of their educational functions. Joseph II founded state schools (a policy which had already been adopted during his mother’s life), to counter the educational monopoly the Jesuits had held in Austria since the Thirty Years War (1618- 1648), and secularized the universities (Outram 2007, 39). As of 1783, the government took over the education of the clergy itself, which came to be taught at state seminaries, with lessons consonant with the new Enlightenment ideas. Charity hospitals, another area which had until then been essentially ecclesiastical, was entrusted to the state. Joseph II even forbade church burials for public health reasons. The emperor also introduced civil marriage, and even divorce, breaking the exclusive authority which the Church had held hitherto over these matters. Finally, by virtue of the Patent of Tolerance (1781), he authorized the practice of religions other than Catholicism in the territories of the Austrian Empire (Vocelka 2000, 201-202).[457]
Frederick II of Prussia, meanwhile, broke sharply with divine right monarchy, creating a religiously neutral state, which permitted the practice of all religions without preference shown to any one of them.[458] The king, himself, confirmed this principle by stating that in his kingdom everyone was saved in his own way as “each man believes that which appears to him to be the truth” and “the sovereign has no right to interfere in the belief of the subject” (Frederick II 1789, 28).
In this regard, it is worthy of note that Frederick II’s religious tolerance prompted him to welcome the Jesuits into his kingdom at a time when they had been expelled from most Catholic states because of their submission to the papacy. However, Frederick II was, above all, extremely pragmatic. Although he considered himself to be a philosopher king, Frederick II of Prussia only put philosophical principles into practice when he considered them compatible with the interests of the Prussian state. The clearest evidence of this was the Edict on Religion he issued on July 9, 1788, which forbade evangelical ministers from teaching anything not contained in their official books, proclaimed the necessity of protecting the Christian religion against the “enlighteners” (Aufklarer), and placed educational establishments under the supervision of orthodox clergy.[459]10.3