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during the war. In 1510, the plague struck Carniola and the following year Carniola and
Friuli
suffered two major earthquakes that destroyed or damaged numerous castles and stone
dwellings in towns and market settlements. At the same time in Carinthia, Klagenfurt suffered
a major fire in 1514, and there was a large peasant uprising in 1515. The emperor and the
Estates reached a new agreement in an attempt to solve the crisis. Maximilian saw an
opportunity to strengthen his position by gaining the approval of the Estates to organise a
large army to finally break Ottoman dominance over the Balkans, while the Estates saw the
solution in restricting the ruler’s visionary appetites, providing better protection for their
provinces, and making them more integrated. In 1518, a general diet of all the Habsburg
hereditary lands convened in Innsbruck. After lengthy negotiations, the emperor published the
Innsbrucker Libell documents, which, most importantly for the provinces, set out the general
defence order or system (Verteidigungsordnung). This gathered together all the elements that
had appeared and developed over the preceding centuries. The provincial army was for
defence only; it was based on noble cavalry, which was raised on the basis of land revenues,
and the conscription of bonded labourers, who were mobilised using a proportional
conscription system. The upper and lower Austrian groups of provinces agreed a mutual
assistance pact, according to which they would form a joint military command structure, if
either were attacked. The Innsbruck agreement revealed the real balance of power between
the Estates and the ruler (Maximilian was forced to cede half the membership of the
Reichsregiment to the Estates), and also reflected the real interests of both parties in terms of
defence. The specified defence system was intended to preserve the territorial integrity of the
Habsburg hereditary lands, while preserving the privileges and freedoms of the individual
provinces relating to provincial armies and the right to approve taxes. This defence system –
entered in the Carniolan Landhandfesten – formed the basis for all subsequent arrangements
of these major provincial issues.
The reforms achieved by Maximilian I, and in part the defence system, were
threatened for some time following the emperor’s death (1519). The Lower Austrian
Estates
now refused to acknowledge the supremacy of the Reichsregiment in Vienna, which was
supposed to temporarily take over all administrative affairs after the emperor’s death, and this
independent path was followed by the Estates of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, although they
did not formally renounce their obedience. Until a new prince assumed control of the Austrian
hereditary lands, the Estates claimed all of the emperor’s rights. Only when Maximilian’s
Spanish grandsons – Charles, who became Holy Roman Emperor (1519–1556), and
Ferdinand – agreed to share the succession (1521, 1522), with the younger brother, Ferdinand,
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becoming Archduke of Austria (1521–1564), was the previous balance of power restored.
Ferdinand moved to stem the Estates’ independence and re-established the central offices,
while he also began to develop the existing defence system. Styria, Carinthia and Carniola
were forced into closer co-operation by a new wave of Turkish attacks during the 1520s.
From the end of the fifteenth century onwards, political developments were
accompanied by economic changes, and a crisis that was felt most of all in rural areas. The
rural population, on the seigneuries referred to by the general term ‘subject or bonded
peasants’ (podložniki) from around 1500, was facing increasing difficulties in trade in crop
surpluses and domestic craft products. The towns and to some extent the feudal lords
represented obstacles to rural trade. The towns attempted to muscle in on some of the foreign
merchants’ profits, restricting them to certain routes and only giving them leave to remain in
towns for a set number of days to offer their wares. At the same time, the towns attempted to
protect those involved in crafts and trades, whose main competition came from the rural
population: cottars and smallholders. Most burghers, particularly those in smaller towns and
market settlements, lived within the rules of a closed town economy, and did not tolerate any
competition, preferring to maintain their medieval privileges. This led them to oppose anyone
who might force them to change. Since most of the burghers were largely tied to local centres,
they saw the growing rural trade as the main threat. To protect their interests against artisans
from other towns and craftsmen from rural areas, the burghers began to unite in guilds, which
expanded at the end of the fifteenth century, and particularly during the sixteenth century, to
cover practically every trade.
Only a few of the 10 towns and almost 70 market settlements in Slovene territory
traded on a large scale and over longer distances – Völkermarkt (Velikovec), Villach,
Klagenfurt, Maribor, Ptuj, Novo Mesto, and Ljubljana in the interior, and Trieste, Koper,
Piran and Rijeka along the coast. Under Italian influence, burghers, particularly in the
continental towns, adopted forms and institutions of trading that had been practised in the
West since the Middle Ages: commenda, colleganza and compagnia, alongside newer
techniques, such as dual-entry bookkeeping, trading ledgers, and special companies formed to
handle trading capital. The gradual spread of early capitalism in the fifteenth century led to
numerous significant innovations. Trading profits generated conditions for trading in money
itself, while individuals or companies began dealing in organised production. Since it was in
the interest of the prince to raise sufficient funds for the army and reduce his reliance on the
Estates, he was also involved in the process of economic development. He offered foreign –
mainly Italian – merchants privileges and benefits, which gradually allowed them to gain the