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 is Maria Theresa best known for?
Maria Theresa was the
most important ruler of the age of Enlightened Absolutism
and one of the most famous Habsburgs. She took over the reins of government on the death of her father Charles VI and implemented numerous enduring reforms.
How long did Maria Theresa rule Austria?
For
40 years
Maria Theresa reigned as Archduchess of Austria, and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia. She was also named Holy Roman Empress when her husband was elected Holy Roman Emperor. Maria Theresa was one of the most powerful rulers of her time, and was as stern with her children as she was with her nation.
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.
Was Maria Theresa a good mother?
Maria Theresa was a strict mother
, and her offspring in the imperial nursery were certainly not spoiled. … Maria Theresa was very free with often scathing and hurtful comments on the behaviour of her children, who were still subject to her strict control even when they had grown up and left the court.
What made Maria Theresa an absolute ruler?
Maria Theresa was an absolute ruler. She believed that absolute monarchy was good because she thought she always made right decisions that are advantageous for the nation. With her absolutism, she
had made new laws that lead to architectural and social growth
, which helped the development of Austria.
What did Maria Theresa do for peasants?
During 1771–78, Empress Maria Theresa
introduced a series of patents regulating and restricting peasant labour
, though only in the German and Bohemian parts of the empire, for the Hungarian nobility strongly resisted. … Forced peasant labour was abolished by Emperor Joseph II in 1789 but restored by Emperor Leopold II.
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.
How did Maria Theresa reform the government?
Maria Theresa invested in reforms that advanced what
today would be defined as public health
. Her initiatives included the study of infant mortality, countering wasteful and unhygienic burial customs, and inoculation of children. Wishing to improve Austria’s bureaucracy, Maria Theresa reformed education in 1775.
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.
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
.
Did Maria Theresa win any wars?
Within months of Charles VI’s death, Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia, a Habsburg province, beginning the War of the Austrian Succession.
Maria Theresa led Austria through this and two other wars
, preserving the bulk of Habsburg territory in the face of a series of militarily superior opponents.
What did Maria Theresa do for the enlightenment?
She
introduced an income and poll tax
. 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.
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.
Did Maria Theresa have an absolute monarchy?
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.
How did the rule of absolute monarchs affect the peasants?
Those who lost out in absolutism were the peasants: especially in Central and Eastern Europe, what freedoms peasants had enjoyed before about 1650 increasingly vanished as the newly absolutist monarchs struck deals with
their nobility that ratified the latter’s right to completely control the peasantry
.
