Samuel

In what sense and to what extent did the nineteenth century see the end of the 'old order' in European Society?
Given how dominant the Old Order was in Europe before the nineteenth century, it is perhaps not surprising that it survived into the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the nineteenth century did see substantial modifications to the Old Order, even if not an end to it. Although some have argued that the ruling classes remained virtually intact in terms of social position and political influence, the reality is that (along with European societies as a whole) the European Old Order was significantly changed and circumscribed over the course of the nineteenth century. Made up originally of absolutist monarchs, landed aristocracy and a largely static, subservient, agricultural population, the Old Order would become a society based on industrial wealth rather than social hierarchy. Unstoppable economic transformation over the course of the century would produce societies across Europe which certainly had more than superficial differences to the Old Order. In a sense, the term Old Order is linked most closely to the fortunes of the aristocracy in Europe during this period. We can define this noble class as the category of people who benefitted from noble privileges. Tax rebates, judicial autonomy, the ability to exploit monopolies and other things were considered to be rights to which the nobles were entitled at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These individuals were practically all hereditary, landed gentry and by the nineteenth century their societies had all inherited various degrees of a medieval feudalism obviously, with variations from country to country in which peasants (either as formal serfs, or as a nominally-freebut-actually-enslaved species of labourer) worked the land for those who owned the property. The nobility saw the peasantry as inferior and subhuman, and there was a prevalent assumption of a natural inequality amongst men. Even free peasants were obliged to their lord to work for him (or to give him a payment equivalent to their labours to be excused) and to obey his authority in legal matters. Outright serfs, in Eastern Europe especially, were treated as chattel slaves and so could be sold, mortgaged and even gambled away. There was no equality before the law, with nobles receiving much lighter sentences and distinguished treatment. The Old Order was firmly a society of status, where an individuals position in society was the most important determinant of the prospects and quality of life of that individual. One of the most significant ways in which we see a decline and possibly an end of the Old Order in Europe during the nineteenth century is that this society was replaced by a society of class, and the relationship between noble and peasant was transformed. The main cause of this change was the emancipation of the peasants all over Europe from the late eighteenth century to the 1860s. The process of emancipation was sparked by the example of the French Revolution, which gave French agricultural workers the freedom to own and farm land, and then the instability caused by the revolutions of the first half of the nineteenth century as well as the Crimean War. However, proclaiming emancipation in law for serfs did not necessarily mean the abolition of serfdom. Prussia abolished serfdom officially in 1807 but feudalism lingered on for decades afterwards. In addition, there was no real agenda of land reform on the part of the peasantry above and beyond normal grievances. Change came from above, ironically through the monarchy most of all, but peasant discontent the potential of which was illustrated by the growing class awareness of urban industrial workers did play a major role in bringing about such a drastic

Samuel change, especially in a context of continent-wide upheaval. So although there was no particular ideological base for the reforms and the fact that as a result they could be manipulated (witness Austro-Hungarian politicians in particular promising land reforms in exchange for support for nationalist programmes), the abolition of serfdom throughout Europe was a fatal blow to the Old Order. A central feature of all emancipation was a grant of personal freedom to each peasant and a degree of relative economic freedom, depending on which country they were a national of. While peasant emancipation might not seem to have been effective in destroying the Old Order absolutely, it encapsulated a key shift in societies across Europe. It represented centralised state power (mostly that of an absolutist monarch) triumphing over localised aristocratic independence and it involved the removal of the medieval legacy of hierarchical society with very limited social mobility, replacing those structures with one in which all citizens were nominally equal before the law and in which social standing was defined by wealth rather than birth. Emancipation removed the economic system on which the Old Order depended, and even though the nobility ostensibly survived, it did so as a very different creature to what it had been at the start of the nineteenth century. This is an appropriate moment to discuss the role of monarchies in the Old Order, in particular concentrating on the balance between royal and noble power, since we have already touched on the part that monarchies played in the abolition of serfdom. To introduce some context, the eighteenth century had been a time where the aristocracies had sought to limit the absolutist tendencies of their monarchs. This had resulted, at the beginning of our period, in aristocracies having a relatively significant level of freedoms and privileges, which (almost universally) governments across Europe then spent the nineteenth century trying to reduce. It must be noted that, again, there are nuances to this picture for example, Eastern European nobles on the whole possessed a higher level of privileges than their Western counterparts but the particular areas which states aimed to bring under their control were the nobles right to certain judicial independence and their control of the peasantry. By freeing the peasantry, the sovereign not only weakened the nobility because the socalled compensation was rarely sufficient to cover the cost to the noble of the removal of his serfs, but also strengthened his own position. This destabilisation of the partnership between the nobles and the monarchy tilted the balance decisively towards more absolutist monarchies. It seems clear, then, that although there were external factors, the Old Order also came under stress from within the internal inconsistencies that it contained were to an extent unable to adapt to changing economic and global conditions. Having previously not been willing to violate noble property rights and free serfs, it slowly became the case that a centralised and effective government was wanted, and monarchs found that such a state was not compatible with a powerful, independent aristocracy. Therefore the emancipation of the peasantry is reflective of the decline of the Old Order during this period and became a crucial turning point in the relationships within the Order itself. The supposed rise of the new classes of the working class and the bourgeoisie as challenges or alternatives to the Old Order is the last major cause of the decline of the Order in our period. The period of economic growth from the late eighteenth century onwards had created a change in the patterns of incomes and occupations across European populations. To summarise, although there was no major redistribution of wealth (indeed, income inequality grew) during this period, traditional societal structure was undermined by rising incomes, urbanisation and new industries. Land declined in value, while industrialists and entrepreneurs became wealthy on a scale which previously had only been accessible to the propertied nobility. With the nobility losing economic

Samuel primacy to the bourgeoisie, the new discrepancy had arisen between the amounts of wealth that individuals had and the power that they wielded had to be addressed. It seems as if somewhere between five and twenty per cent of an industrialising nations population would be classified as bourgeoisie1, although this is uncertain. It appears as though, far from being a facilitator of social mobility, the Industrial Revolution was only of benefit to those who were able to take advantage of its opportunities. Those who came from a moderate background had a much better chance of succeeding in the business world than those who were poorer off. So the Old Order faced primarily challenges from a bourgeoisie ideology believing that hereditary class prerogative would give way to meritocratic political dominance, and then secondarily from a growing socialist working class movement. However, neither of these ideological threats became the decisive force that could overthrow noble dominance. The legacy of medieval feudalism was still strong enough to resist dramatic change, and so it was able to survive until the First World War. As the working class labour movements grew larger and more significant, they also became more moderate substituting a vision of a classless society for trying to reduce class inequality in the contemporary environment. The bourgeoisie, meanwhile, aspired to become part of the Old Order. In fact, bourgeois adoption of aristocratic lifestyle might be thought of as one of the factors which preserved the Old Order until the end of our period. With this in mind, therefore, we find a changed Old Order waiting for us at the end of the nineteenth century. The most significant change was that there had been a bourgeoisification of the aristocracy. The nobility retained an excessive importance in government and society which was disproportionate to their size, but a pattern developed of nobles being forced to find employment rather than become bankrupt and be unable to live the lifestyle befitting to a member of the Old Order. However, the nature of nobility had changed as well. Wealth had gone some way towards replacing birth as a criterion for joining the upper class, but this upper class no longer was entitled to privileges or special rights. Of course, nobles would continue to enjoy some benefits, but the Old Order which had evolved from medieval feudalism had been replaced by a society in which (in theory, at least) all citizens were equal and would be judged equally. Inequality was still extremely prevalent, but instead of being social hierarchical inequality it was now wealth inequality. This was the perfect situation for ambitious industrialists, who certainly had the capital to qualify for the new upper class but whose beginnings would have been too humble for the Old Order. Even though in Germany there had been unusually distinct barriers between the industrialists and the aristocrats, we can clearly see that bourgeois individuals were being accepted into the ranks of the nobility in significant numbers nearly 25% of new nobles accepted between 1906-14 were from middle-class backgrounds2. Together, the aristocrats and the industrialists formed a new class to protect their own interests against those of the up-and-coming socialists. In conclusion, the Old Order as it was at the end of the eighteenth century still existed in some senses by the end of our period, however this was fairly minimal. Over the century, the concept of the Old Order had adapted and evolved, so that no longer was it a social hierarchy based on pedigree, but instead it became purely a wealthy class businessmen and bankers now legitimately rubbed shoulders with the blue-blooded aristocrats. The emancipation of the peasants and the
1 2

Hamerow p. 186 Hamerow p. 202

Samuel economic changes had forced both the monarchy and the nobles to adapt. Capital now reigned supreme instead of land, so while an Old Order still existed and perhaps even still contained some of the same class of people, the fundamental principles on which it was based had changed. For that reason, we can say that the nineteenth century did see the end of the Old Order which had been reasonably constant since the Medieval era.

Bibliography Hobsbawm, E The Age of Revolution Blum, J The End of The Old Order In Rural Europe Mayer, A The Persistence of The Old Regime Broers, M Europe Under Napoleon Lieven, D The Aristocracy in Europe Hamerow, TS The Birth of a New Europe