Burghership and Honorary Burghership in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918. Honorary Categories or Conflictual Political Fields?

Abstract

This paper deals with the honorary institute of honorary burghership and citizenship, which arose from the originally medieval granting of the rights of burghership and after 1850 became a fixed part of the legislation of municipal institutions as an expression of the highest honour that local governments could bestow. In the first part of the study, it follows legislative development within the Austrian Empire (Austria-Hungary). The second part then formulates a thesis on the conflictual dimension of honorary burghership/citizenship against a backdrop of political struggles, the conditioned electoral participation of its laureates – first in the struggles between conservatism and liberalism, and later at the national dimension and the struggles for national emancipation. The conclusion of the study looks at the demise of the status of honorary burghership and its narrowing to a purely honorary institution, although one that continued to express the political holdings and preferences conditioned by the time.