From the Vaults of Zwettl Abbey's Archives

Wanted notes, written and illustrated, courtesy of my friend Florian Köhler

A follow-up on Zwettl Abbey’s archival holdings:

Into Zwettl Abbey We Venture

As I wrote the other day, this is a kind of ‘strange’ posting, as it won’t feature postcards (I’ll post some others later) but a bit more ‘wonk-ish’ information about the book I’m currently writing.

Crime, Enlightenment, and Punishment

Subtitled, “Bureaucratic and Scientific Change in Habsburg Austria, 1750s-1820s”, my current research proposes a novel framework for the study of state transformation during the Age of Enlightenment. Challenging established narratives of top-down centralisation, the study focuses on how state authority developed ways and means to integrate existing structures into supra-regional systems of order during the transition from premodern social formations to modern states and societies.

Conceiving of these dynamics as a patchwork-in-progress, this study will analyse how (far) the expansion of state authority rested on the transposition into everyday administrative practices of centralising norms and practices. By identifying the ways and means of state-making operations, this book examines the contacts between different actors and places, thereby offering a way beyond binary centre-periphery assumptions.

Exemplarily focused on Lower Austria, this book ties together the bustling capital and its hinterlands where there was little economic, political, and social change before 1850. Previously unused archival evidence in combination with published materials allows for the detailed study to trace administrative changes emanating from Vienna via regional hubs such as Krems and Zwettl to individual seigneurial holdings. This book will be the first study in a generation that ties together local/central knowledge and social/political power differentials between 1750 and 1820.

Apologies for the academese, the above lines are from the book proposal that was accepted by Taylor & Francis last year. I’m almost halfway done with the drafting of the book, (on-and-off) work on which has begun shortly after I found the wanted notes in the archives of Zwettl Abbey.

The area under investigation is called Gobelsburg Manor (Herrschaft Gobelsburg) belonged to Zwettl Abbey since 1740 (it still is owned by the Cistercians, and the vinery provides the wine for mass services in Zwettl). I even found a single postcard from the 1960s in the Erich Sonntag Postcard Collection, and here it is:

I gave an early talk in January 2015 at a conference about “body knowledge” at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium. There, I used some of the sketches my friend made. I showed the images also at talks at Columbia and Vanderbilt Universities in 2018, as well as on a few occasions here and there.

Florian Köhler’s Artwork

Before I post anything, here’s a link to his website: please check out his other (amazing) work on the online content available in German, English, and Italian.

The translations of the wanted notes are mine.

First, meet “Joseph”, a fugitive wanted on murder charges, who is described as “of [a] large, middling figure with brown, somewhat curly hair and equally coloured, large eyebrows, pockmarks…age c. 30”. The circulaire is dated 22 Nov. 1756.

Let’s move on to a description of one of the two unknown thieves wanted in 1776. He is described as “tall, wearing a brown peasants’ waist slip with tassels…dark-faced…big eyes and a crooked nose, age 30”. The circulaire is dated 6 July 1776.

Finally, two sketches that accompany the long description of a gang of highwaymen I found among the printed wanted notes from 1813.

Meet “Joseph Langer, a.k.a Red Jup or Capuchin”, who was the leader of the gang and described as

a miller by profession…from Langendorf, Prussia…age 35 or 36, his appearance displaying fierceness and audaciousness…a longish face with pockmarks, black eyes, black, short hair and beard and side whiskers”

Langer is furthermore characterised as being “cunning” and “carefully changing his clothes” to avoid detection. Wanted note no. 2356/561, dated 29 April 1813.

One of the crucial things to remember is this. As my friend Florian Köhler said, “the hardest thing about this”, he told me, “is the fact that I’ve got all these other images of wanted fugitives in my mind already”.

During my talks, prior to showing these images, I often ask the audience to sketch a face or the like. This works more or less (badly), as most academics don’t know to to do so very well (myself included, exceptions apply).

Another crucial aspect here is to understand the differential between “doing something” (disseminating wanted notes) and the odds of actually apprehending anyone. With deserters, the Austrian army “outsourced” the policing to the local populace, offering bounties to peasants if they returned deserters. About this, we’re pretty certain, courtesy of Ilya Berkovich’s amazing study Motivation in War (Cambridge, 2017, ch. 2).

Beyond these affairs, however, much less is known, and it is the topic of my ongoing research.

I’ll stop here, hope that you enjoy these musings (even if they’re a bit more text-heavy) and especially the sketches by Florian Köhler.