Empress of Austria Maria Theresa paved
the way for compulsory education in the 18th century
, but also persecuted sexual immorality. A reformer and fierce ruler, Austria marks the 300th anniversary of her birth.
What unique or important things did Maria Theresa do?
Maria Theresa made many reforms that changed the lives of
the serfdom
, one of the most progressive being that she introduced education for the serfdom. It became compulsory for boys and girls aged 6 to 12 to attend school.
How did Maria Theresa change the world?
Maria Theresa implemented
significant reforms to strengthen Austria’s military, financial, and bureaucratic efficiency
. However, she did not manage to change her lands’ deeply feudal social order based on privileged landlords and oppressive forced labor of the peasantry.
What did Maria Theresa do for the enlightenment?
Though opposed to religious toleration and all efforts to reform the Habsburg Empire from the grassroots, Maria Theresa carried out lasting reforms,
establishing elementary schools, breaking the Jesuit monopoly on education, and removing universities from Church control
.
What was Maria Theresa legacy?
Legacy. Maria Theresa was
a key figure in the power politics of 18th-century Europe
. To the Habsburg monarchy, a dynastic agglomeration of disparate lands, she gave a measure of unity.
How did Maria Theresa gain power?
Though the official ruler was actually her husband, Francis I, she
governed the Habsburg monarchy single-handedly
. When her husband became the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1945, Maria Theresa acquired the title of empress, as suits the wife of an emperor.
How did Maria Theresa use her power?
Maria Theresa
strengthened the army by doubling the number of troops
from her father’s reign, reorganized the tax structure to insure a predictable annual income to support the costs of the government and army, and centralized an office to assist in the collection of the taxes.
When Francis Stephen died in 1765, Maria Theresa went into mourning. … In 1854, when she was 16, she married her cousin,
Francis Joseph
, Maria Theresa’s great-grandson, who had become emperor after the rebellions and upsets of 1848.
Who was Maria Theresa’s most famous child?
The best known daughter of Maria Theresa was
Maria Antonia
(1755–1793), who as Marie Antoinette would become queen of France and eventually meet her end under the blade of the guillotine. Maximilian Franz (1756–1801), Maria Theresa’s youngest offspring, was a sickly child and thus destined for a career in the Church.
Was Maria Theresa an absolute ruler?
Maria Theresa of Austria stands out as a major figure in women’s history. She
reigned as an absolute monarch for forty years
over one of the largest empires in Europe, while facing a situation familiar to women today: trying to strike a balance between her public and her private life.
Why was Maria Theresa a good ruler?
She was also
an “Enlightened Absolutist
,” a ruler who, like her rival Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia, instituted liberal reforms such as abolishing serfdom and instituting universal schooling, but always from above as an expression of the the will of the ruler rather than that of the …
What effect did Maria Theresa have on the power of the nobility?
Austria’s empress, Maria Theresa, remained as wedded to absolutism as Frederick the Great. But, unlike Frederick, she had initiated reforms,
cautiously and gradually reducing the powers of the nobles
over their serfs and their overall power in her realm – except in that part of her realm that was Hungary.
What caused the War of Austrian Succession?
The immediate cause of the war was
the death in 1740 of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy
. His eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, assumed the throne but her succession was challenged by France, Prussia, Bavaria and Spain.
How did Maria Theresa died?
In 1667 she travelled to the Spanish Netherlands, then in the grip of the War of Devolution, waged largely to defend her claim on the Spanish throne. But in 1683 she returned exhausted from a tour of Burgundy and Alsace. Back at Versailles she soon fell ill, and died
suddenly from complications linked to an abscess
.
How did Maria Theresa control the military?
First and foremost was
reform of the army
. Maria Theresa proposed establishing an effective standing army of 110,000 men—60,000 more than in her father’s day and 30,000 more than the Prussian peacetime army of Frederick William I.
How many grandchildren did Maria Theresa have?
Mr Brewer-Ward devotes an entire chapter to the lines of each of the
nine children
or grandchildren of Maria Theresia who had progeny, tracing their descent to the present day.
