Paying for Protection: Defence Finance and Collective Action in the Holy Roman Empire, c.1560–1610

In 1521, the Ottomans took Belgrade and with it the key to the kingdom of Hungary. Five years later, the forces of Süleyman the Magnificent routed King Louis of Hungary’s army at Mohács; another three years later, they invested Vienna.1 More by good fortune than design the city held out, but the threat remained. In 1532, the sultan called off a second attack on Vienna only when a relief force mobilized by the Holy Roman Empire approached. Imperial troops under Sebastian Schertlin managed to inflict heavy losses on superior Turkish forces raiding Lower Austria.2 In effect, a stalemate began to take shape: the Ottomans controlled the central part of Hungary along the Danube and the Habsburgs the regions to the north and west, while the voivode of Transylvania ruled what remained of the country in the east (see Fig. 1).3 The Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Habsburg lands and Hungary-Croatia Stalemate meant anything but calm, though. Border raids and low-level warfare remained the order of the day even when truces interrupted major conflict. Periodically serious hostilities did break out, whether motivated by Ottoman expansionism or by the desire to force Charles V or his successors to recognize that the sultan was the only universal monarch of the world.4 Süleyman launched several more attacks on the Habsburg-dominated parts of Hungary, and in 1593 Ottoman conquests in Bosnia triggered the Long Turkish War, which lasted until 1606.5 During these wars, important fortresses would change hands, but from the 1530s the Ottoman onslaught on Central Europe generally ground to a halt.6 All in all, the frontier in Hungary held. This impasse is surprising. The literature emphasizes that while the Ottoman Empire evolved into a fiscal-military state geared to warfare, the Habsburgs in the Holy Roman Empire were labouring under a host of disadvantages. Most of these stemmed from their difficulties raising money, and ultimately from the Empire’s political structure.7 Over the second half of the sixteenth century, the problems grew more pressing. In 1577, the Habsburg government anticipated costs of about 2 million gulden (fl.) per year for the defence of the Hungarian border (not counting the costs of defending Croatia, ruled in personal union with Hungary); thirty years later, they computed a total of 6.7 million.8 The figures are not directly comparable, but it is evident that defence became increasingly costly. The Habsburgs struggled, and they regularly had to bridge shortfalls by taking up loans from banking and merchant firms, towns and the high nobility.9 Still, they managed to mobilize the necessary sums. How was this possible? This article focuses on the contribution of the altogether more than 300 members of the Holy Roman Empire, that is, of the electors, other princes spiritual and temporal, and free cities, collectively known as the imperial estates. Until the 1960s, most historians assumed that they were unwilling to help: Ottoman raids caused widespread devastation in the Austrian lands but were believed to have been of little concern elsewhere.10 Since then, the picture has changed. One of the main results of Winfried Schulze’s seminal research in the 1970s was the finding that the estates proved willing not only to grant financial support for defence, but also to deliver on their commitments.11 Subsequent research has added nuances. In 1993, Maximilian Lanzinner found that large and wealthy estates were more willing to grant subsidies, which were a proportionally heavier burden for the many small and poor territories.12 In 2003, Peter Rauscher stressed that the importance of the imperial estates for the defence of the frontier should not be overstated: not all the money they paid reached the troops in Hungary.13 In general, Schulze’s core findings concerning the willingness of the estates to pay remain uncontested. There is, however, one crucial issue that scholars have never addressed in this context. Defence is a public good, that is, in the economic definition, a good from whose benefits, once it has been provided, no one can be excluded.14 Consequently, no one has an incentive to pay (whereas incentives to pay for private goods exist because consumers can be excluded from using those goods). Not contributing to the costs of maintaining troops and fortresses in Hungary while benefiting from protection—the technical term is ‘free-riding’—clearly occurred. However, it never occurred to an extent that hindered the Empire’s ability to defend itself and maintain its frontier in Hungary-Croatia. This, too, is surprising, especially when viewed through the lens of classic collective-action theory. In the form suggested by Mancur Olson, this theory argues that in large groups, preventing free-riding requires so-called selective incentives: rewards granted to actors who cooperate or penalties imposed on those who fail to do so.15 While we will see that the liabilities of the imperial estates were politically and formally determined, it is not obvious that such incentives existed in the Holy Roman Empire. To be sure, the imperial fiscal (the emperor’s legal representative) did initiate proceedings against estates who failed to pay their dues. However, there seems to have been only one case where he was successful. The emperor never tried to use force and instead resorted to talks and persuasion.16 Interpreting the payments of the estates as voluntary contributions therefore fits the evidence better than viewing them as taxes, which are by definition compulsory and backed by coercion.17 Hence, the question remains: How did the Empire solve the problem that individual estates could benefit from the defence against the Ottomans even if they did not contribute (fully) to that defence? The answer is important for how we interpret the Holy Roman Empire. After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that no constitution can function unless actors powerful enough to violate it with impunity accept it voluntarily. Historians have therefore long treated the willingness of the estates to pay their defence dues as an indicator of how well the imperial constitution worked.18 Answering this question therefore helps explain why it worked as well—or poorly—as it did. Section I of the article describes how the Empire financed defence between the 1560s and 1600s. Section II introduces the sources for the contributions of the imperial estates and reassesses the size of these payments. Section III presents a quantitative analysis of the factors that influenced the estates’ willingness to pay and an of the Section the the main results and how they answer the question this article is the of the Holy Roman Empire, the imperial estates were to to their the How these were was in the from the an was in the of Charles how many and was to maintain for one for the of Charles on his to where the would This is why the burden for to be in of The was the of was and one and the estates on a key for these into with at and at Until the of the sixteenth century, the imperial with such as the and However, from the they regularly of the Roman called in this to how the estates were to contribute to the defence of the about the the imperial a for the an of the This of the size of the defence contributions of the estates. the 1560s and to the defence against the were granted in and all but the payments of the estates are The not only Roman but also when they were the grant of was to be paid in the one of in three the emperor to the one for the north of the the other for the The would the estates how had to were also for to the imperial estates to by on their the to than those they would to the While the of this article is on the Roman the imperial the also from the of of the into which the Empire was (the Austrian and Habsburg were The of Roman by their as the imperial The other lands of the Austrian Habsburgs the Empire and its also to defence, as did In the contributions from imperial from for in from in other also of the emperor such as the of in and in This to the question of how large the the imperial granted were in not of Roman but of There are several why this question is the was not a but the of more than one years of the second half of the sixteenth century, it whose had been as the of and the of whose the tried in to and and whose with the emperor had or was or and see Fig. up the and in the and the into gulden a that an with The imperial that the would money from members of the Empire those This seems to be why they were on the even when it was as in and In most the economic The estates this at the held at in the that the contributions of should be of their has should pay While they the necessary to by how the of their or had or that the of which to so-called of the the lands were to have by per between and while by per and per by per of the but there are more The imperial granted but many estates that these tried to their estates whose was this and to pay to their The emperor also into talks with estates. the would be that he the imperial fiscal to proceedings against estates who had into in other he would to when the was concerning the of a of the that by of had paid a this serious concerning the of the of his and other an with his was that he should pay instead of the of the to did on The loans up by the Habsburgs the that in the the imperial fiscal of the of to half a of the of as for a to Maximilian had not been by his However, he believed that at the imperial his would not many in the of had the emperor which he against the of and of the and were not only for the who had to of all these but also for the estates. were III of in for paid instead of the of The that if not all, were Most of the they was when the they to the imperial for for from to not only the he from the estates but also the of they to pay their a of when which had paid how the of While only the for the of and the the of the is in a of whose it imperial of all imperial how they are to contribute to the Roman as as be from the and the fiscal The of the a with concerning the of the of more the of and with in the that concern the of and The the of the from which the was and such as which estates were not and which were granted The to a Roman is from sources to how of their liabilities the imperial estates Still, to do we to three about what to as the also estates whose in the Empire was To the about to in the analysis that by the they is This for and that research believed had been off the when it was in but were in by the the that the estates were to the of of the is the Roman they is the one on whose the analysis is than the which the estates when they for to with the emperor the imperial had in of a are In the emperor the of from to which the we accept this we that the paid per of his dues. 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