hurwich, inheritance practices germany

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Inheritance Practices in Early Modern Germany

Judith J. Hurwich

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 23, No. 4. (Spring, 1993), pp. 699-718.

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] o ~ d ~ t i a / f I i ~ t e ~ d i s ~ i p ~ i n a r yistory, XXIII:4 (Spring 1993), 699-718.

Inheritance Practices in Early Modem GermanyGerman nobles were conspicuous among Western Europeanlanded elites in their reluctance to adopt primogeniture. By thesixteenth century, primogeniture had become general among theEnglish aristocracy and was spreading to the gentry. Legal settle-ments entailing estates on eldest sons were widely used not onlyin England but also in France, Castile, and Italy. Yet, in sixteenth-century Germany even territorial princes continued to divide theirestates among several sons, and such divisions actually increasedin number in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.The princes' eventual adoption of primogeniture after 1650 isusually attributed to their new status as sovereign princes and tothe disadvantages of dividing political units. Did the Germannobility as a whole follow the princes in their belated adoptionof primogeniture, or use other strategies to consolidate wealth inthe male line?'

The formal adoption of primogeniture or other forms ofimpartible inheritance was not the only method by which noblefamilies could avoid subdivision of their estates and consolidatewealth to hand on to future generations. As Cooper pointed out,the actual practices of great landowners often differed from thelaws on the books: "If there is any trend discernible in the cen-turies after 1300 . . ., it would seem to be . . . towards emphasisJudith J . Hurwich is Chair of the Department of History, C onvent of the Sacred Heart,Greenwich, Connecticu t. She is the author o f "A Fanatick To wn: Th e Political Influenceof Dissenters in Coventry, 1660-1720,'' filidland History, IV (1977), 15-47; "Lineage andExtended Kin in the Sixteenth-Century Aristocracy: Some Comparat ive Evidence inEngland and Gernlany," 111Augustus L. Beier, David Cannadine, and James M . Kosenheitn(eds.), T h e First Arlodern Society: Essays in Enylish Hisiory in Hono ur o f Latorrnce Stotle(Cambridge, 1y8y), 33-64.O 1993 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of Th e Journal o fInterdisciplir~aryHis tory.

John P. Cooper, "Patterns of Inheritance and Settlement by Great Landowners fromthe Fifteenth to the Eigh teenth Centur ies," in Jack Goody, Joan Thirsk, and Edward P.Thompson (eds.), f im i ly and lnher~tanre:Ruval Society rn West ern Euro pe 1200-1800, (Cam-bridge, 1978), 192-198; Paula Stitter Fichtner, Pvotestaniisrn and Pvimoyeniiure in Early ModevnG en n a n y (New Haven, 1989), 24, 72-78.

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011 a narrow definition of lineage, in turn fortified by policies ofrestrictive marriage."'

A "narrow definition of lineage" meant defining the familyin terms of the male line of descent from a common ancestor,and excluding felnales from the inheritance of landed property inorder to pass on the land in the male line. Marriage could berestricted by policies that excluded some children from shares inthe property, or gave them shares too small to support a familyin a noble style of life. Cooper identified three strategies as sig-nificant steps toward the consolidation of wealth in the male linewithin a formally partible system of inheritance: the substitutionof the dowry at marriage for the daughter's right to share in theestate at her parents' death, the holding of estates in common bybrothers, and the use of testaments to favor one son over hisbrother^.^

In Catholic countries, celibacy was institutionalized by thechurch. This facilitated the restriction of marriages, and somehistorians of the family have suggested that the Catholic Churchfunctioned as an "adjunct to primogeniture." Cooper asserted that"the Catholic Church before 1750 supported noble family struc-tures and fortunes" by offering an option for the support ofyounger sons and surplus daughters."

The argument that Catholicism facilitated primogeniture isalso advanced by Fichtner to explain why Austria and Bavariaadopted the practice earlier than most Protestant German princelystates. Fichtner hypothesized that Protestant and Catholic princesfollowed different inheritance strategies and that Protestantismretarded the development of primogeniture in Germany. She be-lieves that Protestantism encouraged the continuation or resurg-ence of partible inheritance for two reasons: not only did it en-courage large families and eliminate the church as a resource forthe support of surplus sons and daughters, but it also gave strongreligious sanction to the traditional German ideal of "equalityamong brothers," which was associated with partible inheritance.'

Early medieval German society had a bilateral kinship systemthat traced descent through both the male and the female lines2 C o o p e r , "Patterns o f Inheritance," 296.3 Ibid., 299-305.4 Ibid., 2 2 2 , 293.5 Fichtner, Protestilntisrn and I'rimo~eniturr, 4, 12-14, 25, 28-3 I , 37, 43-59.


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and emphasized the equality of all members of the sibling group.By the high Middle Ages, increasing emphasis was placed ondescent in the male line; women were forced to renounce theirclaims to the landed inheritance and accept dowries a t the time ofmarriage in their place. Nevertheless, the belief that all membersof the sibling gro;p should be equal persisted in the case of men,and German princes throughout the Middle Ages frequently in-voked the ideal of "equality among brothers. ""

For princes, according to Fichtner, "closely tied to the ideaof dynastic possessions as collective familial possessio~lswas thatof the equality of all legitimately born princes in any given house;"a younger prince could voice the expectation that "the splendorof the house should also appear in me." Many princes in theirwills expressed the preference that sons should rule dynastic landsjointly, partitioning them only if collective government provedunworkable. (In practice, confusion and hostility usually led todivision after only a brief period of collective rule). The principleof "exact equality of princes7' was to be observed in territorialdisputes and divisions. Catholic as well as Protestant princes ap-pealed to religion to buttress the ideal of brotherly equality. How-ever, Fichtner argued that the wills and other writings of Prot-estant princes show that they held these values more deeply:"Thus, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fraternal equal-ity became not only a dynastic norm but a [Protestant] religiousduty as well. Inequality was therefore twice unacceptable . . . Tochange the system of inheritance a ruler had to make a decisionthat was both politically and religiously distasteful."'

Fichtner dealt only with the princes, and her hypothesis can-not be tested directly in the absence of a full-fledged demographicstudy of the German princes that is comparable to Peller's studyof European ruling families or Hollingsworth's and Stone's stud-ies of the British aristocracy. Differences between Catholic andProtestant princes in their divisions of territories might merelyreflect the difference between large centralized states such as Aus-tria and Bavaria and small states such as most of the Protestantprincipalities; thc large Protestant states of Brandenburg and Al-bertine Saxony also adopted primogeniture before 1650. If reli-6 I b i d . , 2 8 . 7 I b i d . , 22-24, 3 0 - 3 3 .


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gious values did influence inheritance strategies, evidence shouldexist among nobles as well as among princes. The few extantstudies of inheritance among German nobles are consistent withFichtner's hypothesis: Catholic nobles in Austria and in Miinsteradopted primogeniture in the second half of the seventeenth cen-tury, whereas Protestant knights in Hesse continued to practicepartible in he ri ta n~ e. ~

This study examines family strategy in a region in whichCatholic and Protestant nobles were intermixed and were inde-pendent of the laws of any territorial prince. If religion influencedmarriage and inheritance practices, one would expect to find ahigher proportion of sons and daughters marrying among Prot-estants, since the church no longer provided an alternative (butcelibate) career. If Protestant fathers did consider it a religiousduty to provide equally for all of their children, Protestants shouldbe more likely than Catholics to divide their estates in cases inwhich a father was survived by more than one son, and less likelyto adopt inheritance strategies which favored one son over hisbrothers.

The focus in this study is on the family strategy of the countsand barons of southwest Germany, a region known for the frag-mentation of political authority, the prevalence of small indepen-dent nobles, and the persistence of partible inheritance. It is basedon the "Zimmerische Chronik" [Chronicle of the Counts of Zim-mern], the chronicle of a Swabian Catholic family that was writ-ten in the 156os, and on the genealogies of families who appearin the chronicle. Besides the Zimmern themselves, included areten Swabian and Franconian families with whom they intermar-ried in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and whose genealogiesare printed in Isenburg's Europaische Stammta-feln, the largest col-lection of genealogies of the German ~lobility.~

S i g i s n l u nd P e ll er , " B i r t h s an d D e a t h s a m o n g E u r o p e ' s R u l i n g F a m il i es S i n c e 1 50 0,"i n D a vi d V . Gla ss a nd D a v id E d m u n d C . Ev er sle y (ed s. ) , Populat ion in Histovy: Essays inH is tor ic al D e m og ra ph y ( L o n d o n , 1 9 6 5 ) , 8 7- 10 0; T h o m a s H e n r y H o l l i n g s w o r t h , T h e D e m -oyrnphy o f the Bri ti sh Peevage, s up pl em en t t o Popti ln iion S tudies , XVI I I (1 y6 4) , 1-108; La w -rence S to ne , T h e Fami l y , Se x and .Wnrvinye i n Eng land 1500-1800 ( N e w Y o r k , 1977 ) ;M i c h a e lM i t t e r a u e r , " Z u r Fr ag e d e s H e i r a ts v e r h a l t e ns i m os t er r e ic h is c h en A d e l , " i n H e m r i c h F i ch -tena u and Eric h Z ol l ne r (e ds . ) , Bei tvnye z t i r neuerrn Grschichtr Oestevrrichs (V ie nn a, 1974 ) .188 -18 9; H e i n z R e if , WesiJnlisther Ad el 1770-1860. L70m Hrrrschnfisstand z u r veyionalerl Eliie( G o t t i n g e n , 1 9 7 9 ), X I ; G r e g o r y P e d l o w , " M a r r i a g e , F a m i ly S ~ z e , n d I n h er it an ce a n l o n gH e ss i an N o b l e s , 1 6 ~ o - 1 y o 0 , " J o u r r ~ n l f F a m i l y H is to vy , V I I ( 1 9 8 2 ) , 334.y O n t h e e v o l u t i on o f i nh er it an ce c u s t o m s i n s o u t h w e s t G e r n la n y, s ee H e l m u t R o h m ,

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I N H E R I T A N C E I N E A R L Y M O D E R N G E R M A N Y 1 703The "Zimmerische Chronik" has long been recognized as a

valuable source for the social history of the Reformation era. Thelegal documents and anecdotes incorporated into the chronicleshed light both on inheritance practices and on values and as-sumptions held by Catholic nobles in the mid-sixteenth century.The genealogies provide information about a broad range of thehigh ~lobi li ty Reichsadel), from mere Schenken (cupbearers) ofministerial origin up to counts who achieved princely rank in theseventeenth century. Nine of the eleven families survived in themale line until at least the end of the sixteenth century and canbe used for a comparison of religious groups: of these, fourfamilies (and one branch of another) became Protestant.lo

The sample includes 753 individuals (384 men and 369women) in these 11 families who were born, married, or diedbetween 1400 and 1699, and who survived to the age of 15. Sincemany of those born in the late seventeenth century survived wellinto the eighteenth century, the study provides information oninheritance practices from 1400 to 1750. It proved impractical toextend the study of this sample beyond the cohort born in thelate seventeenth century, since all but one of the Protestant fam-ilies died out in the male line in the eighteenth century. The studyextends through the period in which princes adopted primogen-iture, so it is possible to test the hypotheses that ~lobles ollowedstrategies similar to those of princes and that Protestant and Cath-olic nobles followed different inheritance strategies.

Froben Christoph von Zimmern (1519-1566/7), the authorof the "Zimmerische Chronik," was an ardent proponent of lin-D i e V r v e v b u n ~ es lar~dtoirtsch~ftlichenvun drl gmt utn s in Baden- Wiivttembrvg ( I l emagen, 1957)~66-105; Rolf-Dieter Hess, Familien- tind Evbvecht irn wiivitrtnbeqischen Landvechi von 1555(Stut tgart , 1968). References to the "Z imme rische Ch roni k" are to the most recent edi t ion:Hansm art in Decker-Hauff (e d.) , Dir Chronik dev GvaJ1.n won Zitntnerrl (Sigmaringen, 1964-1972), 3 v. (hereafter cited as ZC). The best guide to the chronicle is Beat Jenny, GvafFrobrn Cirristoph won Zimrnern: Gesciricirtsschreibev-Erzai7lev-Landeshevr (L in dau , I Y ~ Y ) ,which contains an extensive bibliography. The genealogies are printed in Wilhelm Karlvan Isenburg, Euvopaische Statntniqfe ln: Statntnta-frln zu v Grschichie dev Euvopaischen Sta atrn(Ma rbur g, 1975; 2nd rev. ed.) , 5 v. , I, 153-155; 111, 93-96; IV , 127-133; V, 21-27, 72-73,117-119, 122-123, 150-155.10 The famil ies which became Protestant were Eberstein, Erbach, Geroldseck, andLimpurg; those which remained Cathol ic were Fi i rs tenberg, Konigsegg, Zimmern, and[Hohe n]zol lern. Th e O et t ingen family divided into fo ur l ines; one of these became Prot-estant and the other three remained Ca tholic. T h e Kirchberg and G undelfingen familiesdied o ut before the middle o f the sixteenth century.


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704 1 J U D I T H J . H U K W I C Heage loyalty who frequently found himself a t odds with the sys-tem of partible inheritance prevailing in southwest Germany. Thechronicle gives several examples of cases in which sixteenth-cen-tury male members of the Zimmern family voluntarily sacrificedtheir own self-interest or that of their direct descendants in orderto consolidate the wealth of the lineage. Nevertheless, FrobenChristoph never suggested that primogeniture or any other formof impartible inheritance should be deliberately adopted as a strat-egy for the aggrandizement of family fortunes. Only one case ofprimogeniture is mentioned in the chronicle, and the authorclearly regarded it as an aberration rather than as a model. Hethought in terms of the traditional value of "equality amongbrothers" and, like the princes discussed by Fichtner, hoped thatdivisions of estates could be avoided by the holding of lands incommon by several brothers. He believed that such "unity amongbrothers" had been common in the Middle Ages and wished thathis own father and uncles had followed the example of the leg-endary ten Zimmern brothers who restored the family fortunesin the eleventh century by keeping their estates undivided. Healso commented approvingly on the fifteenth-century Geroldseckbrothers who "held all their estates in common and undivideduntil their death . . . They were able through such brotherly loveand unity to live in great state and to greatly restore their family,which had shortly before been condemned to destruction. "I1

These remarks suggest that the chronicle's audience saw thedivision of estates as the normal course of action, and the avoid-ance of divisions as an extraordinary measure to be adopted onlyin circumstances of economic desperation. The common viewamong sixteenth-century nobles was that the establishment ofcollateral lines manifested the wealth and power of a family, andthe chronicle itself reflected this view in comments about theGundelfingen family, "the first barons were so successful thatthey divided into three lordships (herrschaJen) and lines. I'

Despite their attachment to traditional values and to partibleinheritance, southwest German nobles by the sixteenth century11 ZC, 1, 62; 11, 113, 115, 203-204. O n l ineage loyal ty in the Zim me rn family , see Hurw ich , ' 'L ineage and Ex tended K in in the S ix teen th -Cen tury Ar i stocracy : S om e C om - pa ra t ive Ev idence o n Eng lan d and G erman y ," in Augus tus L . Be ie r , Dav id Cannad ine , , ind James M. Rosenhe im (eds . ) , T h e Fivsr Arlodern Society: Essays in Enylrsh History in Honour of Laulvence Stone (Cam br idge , ~g Xg ) , 6-59 . 1 2 ZC, 11, 142.


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had considerably modified the customary inheritance law of theregion which mandated equal division of estates among all sonsand all daughters. They had already taken several of the steps thatCooper regarded as means of consolidating wealth in the maleline of descent: the holding of lands in common, restrictive mar-riage policies, and the exclusion of dowered daughters from fur-ther claims on the estate. However, the nobles' argument thatwomen "were removed from the lineage by marriage7' and hadno claim on its estates if the lineage had not died out in the maleline was not accepted either by courts of customary law or byexperts in civil law. A daughter who had not made a renunciationretained the right to claim a full share of the inheritance at herparents' death even if she had married without their consent.Under the rule of l ed ig e unJal (sole inheritance), a daughter whohad made a renunciation was still entitled to inherit the entireestate if she outlived all of her brothers. Nobles who were deter-mined to enforce descent in the male line therefore resorted toexecuting additional agreements excluding specific women byname from inheriting under any circumstance^.^"

Southwestern German nobles made little use of the devicethat Cooper considered most important in consolidating wealthin the male line: entails or other testamentary devices to favor theeldest son. The "Zimmerische Chronik" never endorses the viewthat one son should be favored over his brothers or elder sonsover younger sons. An incident, which occurred in I 507, showedthat sixteenth-century nobles did not consider birth order to becrucial. The patron of Johann Werner von Zimmern tried to helphim financially by arranging a marriage to a rich widow from theurban patriciate. Johann Werner was reluctant to accept the match,since the taint of nonnoble ancestry would bar his children fromprestigious tournament societies. However, almost all of hisfriends and relatives urged him to accept the match on the groundsthat the widow's fortune would enable his two younger brothersto marry according to their rank, and their children could partic-ipate in tournaments.14I3 Ibid. , I, 120 , 130-131, 150- 151; 11, 21-22, 19 4, 27 6; 111, 23-25. On the inheri tance rights o f women in medieval an d sixteenth-century Sw abia, see Heinrich Siegel , D n s deuts che Er bi et ht rlnrh derl Rethtsqiieller7 des cMitte1alters (Heide lberg , 18 53 )~ 8-50, 126-128; Hess, Fnrniiieri- iirid Eibvecht, 71-75; R o h m , V e r e i b u i ~ q ,14-15. 14 ZC , I, 358-360.


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706 1 J U D I T H J . H U K W I C HWills and inheritance agreements cited in the "Zimmerische

Chronik" were almost always used to arrange divisions of estatesrather than to enforce impartible inheritance. Two divisions inthe Zimmern family, those of 1444 and 1508, are described ingreat detail. 111 both cases the testator had merely stated that theestates were to be divided, leaving the specific provisions to beworked out by the heirs themselves under the guidance of familyelders. The most important ancestral estate went to the eldest son,whereas the second son received lesser estates. The division of1508 excluded a third son, who was persuaded to renounce hisclaims to the land "out of brotherly love and loyalty and regardfor his impoverished family so that the two brothers could main-tain themselves in a respectable manner befitting their descent."111 some other cases, the chronicle stated that the sons who re-ceived less land were to receive cash to make their estates equalin value. However, the extra rents or cash assigned to the secondson in the divisions of 1444 and 1508 do not appear to compensatefully for the difference in the value of the real estate, and no cashcompensation for the third son is mentioned at all. Clearly theideal of "equality among brothers" had to be modified to meeteconomic reality. l'

How did the values and practices depicted in the chroniclecompare to the actual practices of southwest German nobles asrecorded in their genealogies, and how did family strategy evolvefrom the fifteenth to the eighteenth century? The genealogies ofthe eleven families in this study show that the traditional prefer-ence for establishing collateral lines persisted even into the earlyeighteenth century, after the princes had adopted primogeniture.These families did not keep estates united even when the extinc-tion of collateral lines resulted in the accidental consolidation ofall of the estates in the hands of a single heir: in four such casesin the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the estates were dividedagain as soon as demographic circumstances permitted. Thesepractices are consistent with the ideal of "equality among broth-ers" and with the view that the establishment of collateral lineswas a manifestation of the family's wealth and status.

Despite this evident continuity in values, actual marriage andinheritance strategies varied greatly between 1400 and 1750. Dur-


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I N H E R I T A N C E I N E A R L Y M O D E R N G E R M A N Y 1 707ing the fifteenth and the late seventeenth centuries, southwestGerman nobles adopted strategies of restrictive marriage andavoided divisions of estates, with results similar to those of pri-mogeniture. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,marriage policy was less restrictive and divisions of estates weremore frequent. This chronological pattern is similar to that ofpeasants in the partible inheritance regions of the southwest, whotended to pass estates to only one son during periods of agricul-tural depression in the fifteenth century and after the Thirty Years'War. This suggests that economic rather than religious factorswere the main causes of change in the family strategy of thesenobles. l 6

Over the period covered by this study, 59 percent of the menand 73 percent of the women who survived to the age of fifteeneventually married. These rates are comparable to those in Peller'sstudy of European ruling families and in Pedlow's study o f Hes-sian knights: Peller found that 41 percent of all sons born in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries who survived to the age offifteen remained bachelors, whereas Pedlow found that in Hessianknightly families in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,about two-thirds of all men and over 70 percent of all womeneventually married. As Table I shows, marriage rates amongsouthwest German nobles varied considerably over time, and therole of the church in achieving restrictive marriage policies amongCatholics also varied. l 7

Southwest German nobles practiced a highly restrictive mar-riage policy in the late Middle Ages. Barely half of the sons anddaughters born in the fifteenth century who survived to adulthoodever married. This restrictive marriage policy favored eldest sons,who were twice as likely to marry as were younger sons. In thefifteenth century the majority of unmarried sons, as well as vir-tually all of the unmarried daughters, entered the church. Eccle--siastical careers were most common among the lower-rankingfamilies, especially those of ministerial origin such as the Lim-purgs. The Fiirstenbergs, one of the highest-ranking old familiesof counts, placed their surplus sons in military careers and had no

16 011 changes in peasant inheritance patterns in southwest Germany, see Rohm, Veueu-bung, 84. 17 Peller, "Ruling Farnil~es,"89; Pedlow, "Hessian Nobles," 334-33 5 .


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I N H E R I T A N C E I N E AR LY M O D E R N G E R M A N Y / 709sons in the church at all. This pattern is coilsistent with a generaltrend in souther11 Germany in the late Middle Ages for the highnobility to withdraw from church careers, leaving cathedral chap-ters to be filled chiefly by ministerial families.I8

Marriage rates were far higher in the sixteenth century thanin the fifteenth century, a trend evident among both Catholicsand Protestants. Catholic families made less use of the churchthan in the preceding century: unmarried laymen equaled thenumber of ecclesiastics in the cohort of men born in the latefifteenth century, and outnumbered them in all subsequent co-horts of Catholic men. Catholics preferred secular careers for theirsons, ones that did not foreclose the possibility of marriage, eventhough the optioil of ecclesiastical careers remained open to them.

The first cohort containing enough Protestants to permitcomparison between religious groups is the one born in the latesixteenth century. The marriage rates of Catholic and Protestantmen show no difference. Protestant women did have higher mar-riage rates than Catholic women, presumably reflecting the lackof suitable occupations for unmarried iloblewomen once conventswere abolished.

In the late seventeenth century, Catholics adopted a highlyrestrictive marriage policy for sons, relying in large part on thechurch. The proportioil of men who married was almost as lowas in the fifteenth century, and ecclesiastics were once again almostas numerous as laymen. Trends for daughters, however, were notconsistent with those for sons. The proportion of women mar-rying remained as high as in the sixteenth century, and for thefirst time the number of Catholic spiilsters equaled or exceededthe number of nuns. Perhaps families were attempting to maintainalliailces through the marriages of daughters in a period in whichfew sons married.

Unlike the Catholics, the Protestants in this sample did notadopt more restrictive marriage policies in the seventeenth cen-tury. This may represent a geiluiile difference in strategy betweenthe religious groups, or it may be due to a demographic accident:the Protestants in this period had very few sons, so they did not1 8 O n the wi thdra wal of h igh-rank ing no bles f ro m ecc lesi as ti ca l careers , see RogerSablonier , A d e l irn IYandel: Eitle LInrf~171icI11ingui. sozialf>tlSituatio n des ostsrhwf.izisriien Adr.1~urn 1300 (G o t t i ngen , 1979), 203-204; K u r t A n d e r m a n n , Srudieri z u r Gesciiichre des pJ;ilzi.srlten~Viedeuadelstn spateti !Mittelalter (Speyer , 198 2), 204-205.


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need to restrict marriages. A broader study including more Prot-estant families would be necessary to determine whether Catholicsand Protestants actually differed in their marriage policy at theend of the seventeenth century.

If the difference between Catholics and Protestants is genu-ine, southwest Germany would conform to the general patterndescribed by Cooper for European elites at the beginning of theeighteenth century: Catholics had much more restrictive marriagepolicies than Protestants. 111 Florence before 1700, Milan before1750, Toulouse before 1760, and among seventeenth-centuryFrench dukes and peers, about half of the sons and half of thedaughters remained unmarried. In the Protestant patriciate ofGeneva, only a quarter of each sex remained unmarried; the samewas true of the Protestant British aristocracy. l 9

The marriage rates for southwest German Catholics, espe-cially those for women, were higher than those for other Catholicelites. Only in the fifteenth century did half of the sons and halfof the daughters remain unmarried; in the cohort born 1650-1700,the figures were 44 percent for sons and only 29 percent fordaughters. Southwest German Protestants had lower marriagerates for men than did other Protestant elites; about one-third ofall men remained unmarried. Rates for Protestant women fluc-tuated much more than those for men and are difficult to compareto other elites. 111 one important respect, southwest German Cath-olics and Protestants resembled each other more than either re-sembled their co-religionists in other countries: marriage rates forwomen were higher than those for men. This higher rate waspossibly due to the distinctive pattern of marriage payments inGermany, in which the burden fell more heavily on the groomthan on the bride's family.20

Fichtner found that German princes increased the number ofterritorial divisions between 1550 and 1650, then reduced thenumber rapidly after 1650 as they adopted primogeniture. Table2 shows that Swabian and Franconian nobles followed a similarpattern up to the late seventeenth century, but that they resumeddivisions in the early eighteenth century.21

19 Co o p e r , "P a t te r n s o f I n h e r ~ t a n c e , " 9 0 , 3 04 ; S t o n e , Fnmi ly , Sex nnd Il fnrvinp, 44. 20 011 m a r r i a g e p a y m e n t s , s e e R i c h a r d S c h r o e d e r , Gesciiirhte des eiielirheri Giitevvechts in Dr~utsriiland(S te t t in , 1868) , 11, 82-83, 237-238. 2 1 F i c l ~ t i ~ e r , n~tesrat l t ismatid Prirnojietlttuvr., 24, 72.


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In order to analyze changes in inheritance strategy and tocompare the strategies of Catholics and Protestants, it is notenough to kno w the numbers of territorial divisions. The numberof divisions might fluctuate due to demographic chance, sincedivisions are only possible when a father is survived by two ormore potential h&. O f the 23 I landowners dying in the periodof this study, 99 (43 percent) were survived by tw o or more sons.Table 2 and Figure I show actual divisions as a percentage ofpotential divisions, and give a clearer picture of deliberate inher-itance strategy.

As Table 2 shows, most cases in which a father was survivedby two or more sons did not result in division of the estates.Divisions were carried out in about one-third of the cases in whichthey were possible, with little difference overall between Catholicsand protestants. However, there were considerable variations overtime. As in the case of marriage policies, the most restrictiveinheritance policies occurred in the late fifteenth and late seven-teenth centuries. Catholics also varied over time in the extent towhich they used the church as an instrument of inheritance policy.The practice of sending all but one son into the church, leavingonly one heir, was more common before 1500 and after 1650 thanit was during the Reformation era.

Although marriage policy was highly restrictive in the earlyfifteenth century, fathers divided their estates in almost half thecases in which division was possible and rarely used the churchto eliminate potential divisions. 111 the late fifteenth century, no-bles followed a more consistent policy of both restricting mar-riages and avoiding divisions of the estates. Divisions took placein less than one-fourth of the cases in which they were possible,and almost one-third of all potential divisions were avoided byplacing sons in the church.

In the sixteenth century, territorial divisions became morefrequent among southwest ~ e r m a n obles, as they did amongGerman princes. Divisions rose to 3 3 percent of all possible casesin the first half of the century and 44 percent in the second half.Catholics made little use of the church to avoid divisions in thefirst half of the century and none at all in the second half. Divisionsinvolving three or more heirs were more common in the latesixteenth century than at any other time between 1400 and 1700;out of seven such cases in this study, five took place between I 559and 1609.


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712 J U D I T H J . H U R W I C H


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714 / J U D I T H J . H U R W I C HThis readiness to divide estates continued into the early sev-

enteenth century but ended abruptly after the Thirty Years' War.Only one Catholic and one Protestant divided their estates in theperiod 1650-1699. In the late seventeenth century, divisions fellto only 12 percent of all possible cases, the lowest rate in theentire three centuries under study, and Catholics once again beganto use the church to reduce the number of divisions. The inheri-tance system of southwest German nobles in the period 1650-1699 was one of primogeniture in all but name; in fourteen outof the seventeen cases in which a landowner was survived by t woor more sons, the entire estate went to the eldest son.Unlike the German princes, the nobles of southwest Ger-many did not continue this system of de facto primogeniture intothe eighteenth century, much less convert it into a system of legalprimogeniture. Both Catholics and Protestants again divided theirestates in the early eighteenth century. In fact, divisions rose to40 percent of all cases in which they were possible, a level as highas that of the sixteenth century.

Divisions of estates show much more similarity than differ-ence between Catholics and Protestants. Chronological trends arethe same for both groups, and over the period 1550-1750 eachdivided estates in about one-third of all possible cases.

The increased tendency of both Catholics and Protestants todivide estates between 155; and 1650 is consistent with a valuesystem favoring "equality among brothers." However, a contrarytrend which favored eldest sons also began in the same period.As we have seen, estates were not actually divided in most of thecases in which division was possible. In two-thirds of such casesin the period 1400-1750, the lands were held in common or leftto a single heir. Table 2 shows that after 1550 the latter strategywas adopted in all but one case, and that the chosen heir wasalmost invariably the eldest son.

H o w often lands were held in common is difficult to ascertainbecause of the incompleteness of early genealogies. When datesof succession and dates of death are unknown, as is often the casein the fifteenth century, it is impossible to tell whether tw o broth-ers who held the same estate succeeded each other or held theestate in common. In the first half of the sixteenth century, forwhich the genealogies are more complete, brothers may have heldestates in common in as many of one-fourth of all cases in which


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two or more sons succeeded their father. This percentage is higherthan one would expect from the evidence of the "ZimmerischeChronik," which laments that the practice was dying out in theearly sixteenth century. Only two of the eleven families, theFiirstenbergs and the Oettingens, regularly held lands in common.Both of these families had strong military traditions, and someof the brothers who held lands in common were probably soldierswho resided at distant courts and did not participate in managingthe estates. After 1550 the practice of holding lands in commonwas definitely abandoned. Thereafter, if the estates were not di-vided, they were left to only one of the sons.22Until the middle of the sixteenth century, fathers leaving theestates to one son freely exercised their traditional right to choosethe "best-qualified" rather than the eldest son as heir. The eldestson was the most common choice, but between 1400and ISSOhe was chosen in only 10out of 19cases (53 percent). Only oneof the five sons chosen as sole heirs in the first half of the sixteenthcentury was an eldest son; other choices included a third, andeven a fifth son. After 1550, this policy changed abruptly; theeldest son was chosen in 8 7 percent of the 3 9 cases between 1550and 1750. The result was that between ISSO and 1750, the estateswere left undivided to the eldest son in the majority of all casesin which the father was survived by more than one son. In thislimited sense, a trend toward primogeniture may be noted amongsouthwest German nobles, even though divisions of estates con-tinued.

The data on southwest German nobles on the whole do notsupport Fichtner's hypothesis that Catholic and Protestant noblesfollowed different inheritance strategies. Marriage rates werehigher for Protestants than for Catholics, but inheritance patternswere similar. To the extent that any differences in inheritancepractices can be discerned, they are in the opposite direction fromthat predicted by Fichtner's hypothesis: Protestant fathers weremore likely than Catholic fathers to favor eldest sons over theiryounger brothers and to practice de facto primogeniture. Amonglandowners who died between 1550 and 1750 leaving more thanone son, three-fifths of the Protestants, as compared to one-halfof the Catholics, left the estate undivided to the eldest son. Only


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716 / J U D I T H J . H U R W I C Hone Protestant eldest son failed to succeed to all or part of hisfather's estate (6 percent of all Protestant eldest sons), whereasamong Catholics born after 1500, ten eldest sons were excludedfrom the succession (23 percent of all Catholic eldest sons). Allbut one of these excluded Catholic eldest sons entered ecclesias-tical careers. This fact shows that the Roman Catholic Churchwas not necessarily an "adjunct to primogeniture"; it could alsobe used to preserve the father's traditional option of choosing the"best-qualified" son regardless of birth order.

The church played a much smaller role in the family strategyof Catholic nobles in southwest Germany during the Reformationera than it did before 1500 or after 1650. Over the period 1400-1750, eleven divisions of estates were avoided because all but oneson entered the church. Only one such case occurred between1500 and 1650: an incident in which the Zimmern family reluc-tantly agreed to grant the youngest son's request to become acanon, even though they feared that the one son who marriedmight not produce heirs. In the sixteenth and early seventeenthcenturies, Catholics clearly preferred to place their sons in secularcareers when these were available. Thus, the availability of pre-bends is unlikely to have caused Catholic and Protestant noblesto develop differing inheritance strategies during the Reformationera, although the availability of the church as a resource foryounger sons may have influenced Catholic strategy in the eco-nomically depressed period after the Thirty Years' War.23

The Reformation was most likely not the main cause ofchanges in inheritance strategies in this region in the period 1400-1700. Fichtner herself attributed the princes' adoption of primo-geniture after 1650 primarily to political and economic rather thanto religious factors, and economic factors provide a more plausiblehypothesis for the changes in inheritance strategies among south-west German nobles. 23

The fifteenth century, when nobles reduced divisions of theirestates and relied heavily on the church as an instrument of theirrestrictive marriage policies, was a period of agricultural depres-sion and o f declining opportunities for secular careers. By the endof the century, fewer great nobles maintained bands of knights to

23 Ihid., 111, 294-295, 24 Fichtner, Pvotrstantisnl and Pvirnogenituve, 72


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I N H E R I T A N C E I N E A R L Y M O D E R N G E R M A N Y 1 717wage private warfare. The practice (similar to "bastard feudal-ism") of insuring the loyalty of the local nobility by retainingthem as salaried councillors or court officials also came to an end,and nobles faced increased competition from burghers with uni-versity educations in civil law.25

Th e sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a period of farless restrictive marriage and inheritance policies among southwestGerman nobles, were an era of agricultural expansion and ofincreased opportunities for secular careers. Grain prices reachedhigh levels by the second half of the sixteenth century, and rev-enues from seigneurial rents and dues peaked in the decades justbefore and after 1600. The fact that this was also the period inwhich nobles were most willing to subdivide their estates is hardly-coincidental, since the increased income could support more heirsin a noble style of life. In the era of political stability between thePeace of Augsburg and the Thirty Years' War, territorial princesexpanded their courts. Nobles began to acquire university edu-cations in order to compete more effectively for positions asjudges and councillors, and the development of a distinct officer'scareer gave the nobility a dominant role in the new standingarmies. With more secular careers available, the nobility becameless dependent on the income from ecclesiastical prebends, whichexplains the decline in the number of Catholic men entering thechurch in the period 1500-1650.~~

However, during the Thirty Years' War, southwest Germanywas devastated by the ~ wedis l l nd French armies. Th e sharpdrop in population meant a decline in both grain prices and landvalues after the war, and income from seigneurial rents and dues-did not reach prewar levels until the new agricultural boom ofthe eighteenth century was well under way. Under these circum-stances, it is not surprising that nobles in the late seventeenth25 Wilhelrn Abel, Cksrhirhte der dcutschen Lai~dtuirtsl-ha$ vorn-fiiihen ~'bfittelalteris zurn 19.Jahrhundert (Stuttgar t , 1962), 128;Han s Georg Hofacker, "Die SchwQ bischeHerzogswiirde:Un tersu chu nge n zur landesfurstlichen und kaiserlichen Politik in1 deutschen S udwestenirn Spatrnittelalter und in der friihen Neuzeit," Zeitschv$ &v tu i ir t t cmb er i sce Landeszcs -chil-hte, XLVI I (198X), 77; Ha jo Ho lbo r n , A History ofModevil C;errnaily ( N e w Y o rk , 1959),1, 31.26 Thomas Robisheaux, Klrral Society and the Search j i ~ vOvdcr in Early Modevil Gcrrnany(Cambr idge , 1989), 168-169; Abel, C;eschichte der deutsl-hen Laildwirtsl-ha$, 169-170; Hol-born , His tovy q f lModern Gcrrnany, I , 54; Erns t Zeeden , 1)cutsl-he fi l t ur in der fr iihen A'euzeit(Frankfur t am Main, r968), 56-57.


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718 1 J U I I I T H J . H U R W I C Hcentury again adopted restrictive marriage and inheritance poli-cies. Divisions of estates almost ceased in the second half of theseventeenth century and resumed only when economic conditionsimproved in the early eighteenth cent~iry.~'

The answer to the questions posed at the outset is that south-west German nobles did not follow the princes in their belatedtrend toward primogeniture, and that Catholics and Protestantsin this region did not follow different inheritance strategies. TheCatholic Church did not necessarily act as an "adjunct to pri-mogeniture." Nobles in southwest Germany never adopted aformal system of primogeniture. Both Catholic and Protestantnobles paid lip service to the ideal of "equality among brothers"and preferred to divide estates when economic conditions per-mitted the establishment of collateral lines. In practice, however,both religious groups followed strategies which adjusted the num-ber of heirs to changing economic conditions, in order to insurethat the estates could continue to support the family in a noblestyle of life. Both Catholics and Protestants used restrictive mar-riage policies, carried out divisions in only a minority of the casesin which they were theoretically possible, and increasingly fa-vored the eldest son as means of achieving this goal withoutformally abandoning the system of partible inheritance.2 7 H o l b o r x ~ ,H i s t o r y ~ f ~ V o d e v nenizany , 11, 25; Abel , Gesl-hit-hte der derrttchrn Lan dtvi rt-srhqp, 243-244, 251-254; R o b ~ s h e a u x ,Ktrval Sol-iety, 2 4 2 .

hurwich, inheritance practices germany

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