William D. Godsey. The Sinews of Habsburg Power

William D. Godsey’s scholarship has long focused on Central Europe’s service nobilities, whether they be the aristocrats who staffed the upper echelons of the Habsburg diplomatic corps or the myriad of German Reichsritter (imperial knights) who served a variety of crowned heads well beyond their own tiny domains. His latest and most impressive contribution, The Sinews of Habsburg Power, Lower Austria in a Fiscal-Military State, 1650–1820, adds considerable weight to a half century of scholarship that has debunked the paradigm of “absolute monarchy” and stressed the resiliency of corporate bodies. Not surprisingly, he gives a nod to R. J. W. Evans’s landmark The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700 (1979) and many other titles that surfaced in its wake. But Godsey’s focus on the estates of Lower Austria (Österreich unter der Enns, or Niederösterreich) delves deeply into the profound fiscal (as well as logistical) support that they literally lent to the ever-growing Habsburg military; far from being overpowered and “emasculated” along the road to absolutism, they proved to be indispensable partners in building the “sinews of Habsburg power.”

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