Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

Joseph II was the son of Maria Theresa and Francis I. He was born on Monday, 13 March 1741, at two in the morning, in Vienna's Hofburg, the Habsburg dynasty's principal house and administrative center. The following day, Joseph Benedict Augustus Johann Anton Michael Adam was baptised by the papal nuncio with the help of no fewer than sixteen other prelates. The godfathers, Pope Benedict XIV and Augustus III of Poland, were represented by delegates. He had 15 siblings, of whom six died before their adolescence.

Education

Joseph II received a comprehensive and carefully structured education befitting his status as Maria Theresa's eldest son and heir. Joseph's early education was supervised by a group of distinguished teachers selected by Maria Theresa, including, most notably, Pater Anton von Weger and Karl Joseph Batthyány, serving as Joseph's Hofmeister, who were entrusted with overseeing his education. In addition to these principal figures, several other tutors played important roles in Joseph's education. Johann Wilhelm Höller Franz and Bernhard Weickhart were responsible for instruction in Latin and classical studies, providing a foundation in historical and philosophical texts. Jean Bréquin, a Frenchman, was tasked with teaching Joseph mathematics. A great deal of his education focused on history, taught by State Secretary Christoph von Bartenstein.

Education and medicine

To produce a literate citizenry, elementary education was made compulsory for all boys and girls, and higher education on practical lines was offered for a select few. Joseph created scholarships for talented poor students and allowed the establishment of schools for Jews and other religious minorities. In 1784 he ordered that the country change its language of instruction from Latin to German, a highly controversial step in a multilingual empire.

By the 18th century, centralization was the trend in medicine because more and better-educated doctors were requesting improved facilities. Cities lacked the budgets to fund local hospitals, and the monarchy wanted to end costly epidemics and quarantines. Joseph attempted to centralize medical care in Vienna through the construction of a single, large hospital, the famous Allgemeines Krankenhaus, which opened in 1784. Centralisation worsened sanitation problems, causing epidemics and a 20% death rate in the new hospital; the city nevertheless became preeminent in the medical field in the next century.

Despite being an inevitable political arrangement, Joseph's marriage, which occurred when he was nineteen, ended up being a pleasant one for the duration. The marriage was linked to the Diplomatic Revolution, also known as the Austro-French Alliance of 1756. Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's mistress, and Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg, the Austrian chancellor, collaborated on it. Louis XV proposed that Joseph, the heir to the Austrian throne, wed his granddaughter Isabella of Parma in order to solidify this Habsburg-Bourbon alliance. Joseph, who admired Isabel's appearance when he saw her portrait, was also thrilled, as was Maria Theresa. The wedding was lavishly celebrated in June 1760. The service was conducted at the Augustinian church by Borromeo, the papal legate.

The marriage of Joseph and Isabella resulted in the birth of a daughter, Maria Theresa. Isabella was fearful of pregnancy and early death, largely a result of the early loss of her mother. Her own pregnancy proved especially difficult as she suffered from pregnancy depression, though Joseph attended to her and tried to comfort her.

In 1763, Isabella fell ill with smallpox and went into premature labor, resulting in the birth of their second child, Archduchess Maria Christina (b. d. 22 November 1763), who died shortly after being born. Isabella died soon afterwards. The loss of his beloved wife and their newborn child was devastating for Joseph, after which he felt keenly reluctant to remarry.

For political reasons, and under constant pressure, in 1765, he relented and married his second cousin, Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria, the daughter of Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor, and Archduchess Maria Amalia, Holy Roman Empress. Though Maria Josepha loved her husband, she felt timid and inferior in his company. Lacking common interests or pleasures, the relationship offered little for Joseph, who confessed he felt no love (nor attraction) for her in return. He adapted by distancing himself from his wife to the point of near total avoidance, seeing her only at meals and upon retiring to bed. Maria Josepha, in turn, suffered considerable misery in finding herself locked in a cold, loveless union. Four months after the second anniversary of their wedding, Maria Josepha grew ill and died from smallpox. Joseph neither visited her during her illness nor attended her funeral, though he later expressed regret for not having shown her more kindness, respect, or warmth. One thing the union did provide him was the improved possibility of laying claim to a portion of Bavaria, though this would ultimately lead to the War of the Bavarian Succession. Joseph never remarried.

Legal reform

Joseph II's reforming spirit went far beyond simply tweaking the punishment system — he sought nothing less than a thorough overhaul of the entire legal structure. During his years as co-regent, he encouraged outspoken critics of the existing Theresiana code, such as Prince Kaunitz and Baron Binder, who argued that the piecemeal revisions of the old Roman law were hopelessly outdated and that Austria needed a completely new legal framework. When Maria Theresa died in 1780, Joseph seized the chance to act on these ideas in earnest.

Initially, Joseph aimed for a total transformation of both criminal and civil law, but he soon realized the sheer complexity of such an undertaking made it impractical even for a ruler with his energy and determination. Within his first year as sole ruler, Joseph concluded that a more realistic path was to systematically organize and compile the current laws, supplementing them with fresh legislation and targeted procedural reforms in the courts. While the comprehensive legal codification would take time, Joseph immediately set about implementing procedural changes.

These intentions were first laid out in his 1781 directive, the Allgemeine Gerichtsordnung. Joseph kept the Oberste Justizstelle as the empire's supreme court, making it independent from administrative bodies and answerable only to the emperor himself. To improve efficiency and professionalism, he reduced the number of lower courts and required all judges to have completed university-level legal studies. The number of appellate courts was also cut down to just six for the entire realm. Judges were instructed to adhere strictly to the written law and consult the higher court whenever legal ambiguities arose.

Joseph also restructured the classification of crimes. Serious offenses were now labeled simply as Verbrechen, while less severe infractions, called politische Verbrechen, confusingly adopted a term previously reserved for grave political crimes under Maria Theresa. Punishments for these lesser offenses included beatings, public shaming in the stocks, or deportation, and imprisonment terms for such crimes were capped at one year. Major offenders were to be held in prisons, while special courts, except those for military personnel, were dissolved. Joseph also abolished noble privileges in court, insisting on equality before the law for all social classes. Interestingly, Joseph restored some harsh penalties that had been abolished earlier, such as branding lifelong prisoners or fastening them to cell walls with iron. He also separated crimes against the state — Staatsverbrechen — into their own category, covering offenses like treason, counterfeiting, and crimes against the sovereign. These cases were assigned directly to appellate courts for trial, bypassing the lower courts altogether. Once Joseph had resolved this, he shifted his focus back to a longstanding concern of his: the use of capital punishment. In a confidential directive issued in August 1783, he ruled that, while the death penalty would officially remain part of the law, in practice it would rarely, if ever, be implemented.

Instead, after the sentence was pronounced in court, it would be automatically commuted to imprisonment — unless Joseph himself made an exception. At the same time, he changed the prior limit on prison sentences set by the Theresiana code, making the maximum term indefinite except in cases where a death sentence was commuted. According to Prince Kaunitz, who was well placed to observe the Emperor's thinking, Joseph's motivation was neither a desire to follow Enlightenment philosophers nor a particular aversion to executions; rather, he believed that harsh conditions in prison would serve as a stronger deterrent to crime than the threat of execution.

The commission tasked with reforming the criminal code, which was at first supposed to draft a completely new law but was later told just to revise the Theresiana, worked nearly as slowly as the earlier commission under Maria Theresa. It was not until January 1787 that the new Allgemeines Gesetzbuch über Verbrechen und deren Bestrafung (General Code of Crimes and Punishments) was finally published. This comprehensive document marked both progress and retreat compared to its predecessor: while it effectively abolished the death penalty, it introduced a variety of new measures designed to make imprisonment particularly unpleasant.

Monetary fines, once common for lesser offenses, were largely eliminated in favor of police detention or forced labor, such as street cleaning. The principle of nullum crimen sine lege — no crime without a law — became the basis for all criminal proceedings. However, the practice of allowing legal counsel for the accused was discontinued, as Joseph argued that it was the judge's responsibility to consider the possibility of a defendant's innocence and to seek the truth above all else. Additionally, certain crimes such as adultery, blasphemy, and sodomy were downgraded to political offenses, while judges lost the authority to reduce charges or negotiate outside the usual legal process. From this point forward, all offenses would be prosecuted as crimes against the state, even if no individual accuser was willing to bring the matter to court.

As part of Joseph II's civil law reforms, marriage was redefined as a civil contract. For non-Catholic couples, divorce became possible under certain conditions. The reforms also ensured equal inheritance rights for sons and daughters. Additionally, parents of children who refused to attend school could be fined. Joseph II's reforms extended to education and society as well. Access to secondary schools and universities was made easier for citizens and peasants alike. In hiring teachers, only professional knowledge and competence were taken into account. Censorship was also relaxed during his reign.