Kaiserliche Reichspost

Kaiserliche Reichspost (German: [ˈʁaɪçsˌpɔst], Imperial Mail), originally named Niederländische Postkurs (Low Countries' postal route), was the name of the international postal service of the Holy Roman Empire, founded in 1490.[1]

For a detailed discussion of the English translation of Reich, see Reich. For Reichspost from 1867 to 1945, see Reichspost.
Kaiserlich Reichspost sign in Limburg

History

It was founded by the brother Janetto Tasso and Francesco Tasso (Franz von Taxis) together with Maximilian of Austria in 1495, on the basis of the pre-existing Italian models and the courier networks built by Frederick III and Charles the Bold. This was the first modern postal service in the world and initiated a revolution in communication in Europe.[2][3][4] The Bergamascan Tasso family had built up postal routes throughout Italy since c. 1290 and Jannetto's uncle Ruggiero had worked for Frederick III since the mid-15th century.

After the marriage of Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Mary of Burgundy, to have a better line of communication to govern the Habsburgs' scattered territories, Maximilian commissioned the Taxis to organize the first postal line from Mechelen to Innsbruck.[5][6] Maximilian's son Philip, as Duke of Burgundy and King of Castile, expanded the Habsburg postal system established by his father. In 1500, the centre of the system was transferred to Brussels by Franz von Taxis, whom Philip made his postmaster-general.[7][8] On January 18, 1505, Philip unified communication between Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain by adding stations in Granada, Toledo, Blois, Paris and Lyon.[9] Charles V confirmed Jannetto's son Giovanni Battista as Postmaster General (chief et maistre general de noz postes par tous noz royaumes, pays, et seigneuries) in 1520. Confirmed by Emperor Rudolph II in 1595, the Imperial postal service remained a monopoly of the Thurn und Taxis family (officially hereditary from 1615 onwards) until it was terminated with the end of the Empire in 1806.

The Imperial Reichspost was first based in Mechelen,[10] before being moved to Brussels in the Netherlands, from where the original ("Dutch") route led via Namur, Bastogne, Lieser, Wöllstein, Rheinhausen, and Augsburg to Innsbruck and Trento. It was also used to bypass the Kingdom of France in order to keep in touch with Habsburg Spain during times of hostility. Brussels was the side that organized and paid for the system.[11]

Competing services were prohibited, although the Imperial cities and smaller principalities often developed their own communication system.[12]

After the accession of Rudolph's brother Emperor Matthias in 1612, a second route was established from Cologne via Frankfurt, Aschaffenburg, and Nuremberg to Bohemia and later also to Leipzig and Hamburg. After the Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia, Postmaster General Count Lamoral II Claudius Franz von Thurn und Taxis and his successors had to deal with the establishment of separate postal agencies, mainly by the Protestant Imperial States of Northern German but also in several lands of the Habsburg monarchy, leading to long-lasting disputes over their range of authority. In the course of the War of the Spanish Succession, the Thurn und Taxis seat was relocated from Brussels to the Free City of Frankfurt in 1702.

Though the dynasty had sided with the Wittelsbach rival Charles VII in the War of the Austrian Succession, their services were indispensable, and Maria Theresa's husband Emperor Francis I officially re-implemented the Thurn und Taxis monopoly in 1746. Two years later, the postal authority moved to Regensburg, seat of the Imperial Diet. The family had accumulated extreme wealth; nonetheless, it was devastated by the Napoleonic Wars. The last Postmaster General, Prince Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis, lost his office with the Empire's dissolution on 6 August 1806, but his postal authority continued as the Frankfurt-based Thurn-und-Taxis Post until the unification of Germany.

Structure

According to Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, "The decisive innovative aspect of this system was the creation of postal stations where riders could change horses quickly, thus accelerating the speed with which they spread information. To consolidate the system further, Maximilian granted a monopoly over the post system to the noble family of Thurn and Taxis, which, in turn, made the system available to almost anyone by creating a system of fixed routes, timetables, and prices. The Imperial post system, together with the ever wider use of the printing press, brought about a veritable revolution in communication in the Empire and across Europe."[13]

Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum opines that the innovation lay with a combination of different elements - a setup in which nearly all known organizational means of conveying information were combined to give rise to the early modern postal system: post stations at regular intervals, changes of horses and couriers, fixed delivery times, acceleration through continuous transport, and — implicitly — the organizational framework of the state." This setup, created in 1490, is described in the chronicles of the city of Memmingen report:[14]

In this year they began to establish the posts at the order of Maximilian I the Roman king, from Austria all the way to the Netherlands, France, and Rome. Everywhere one post was separated from another by five miles [38 kilometers] [...]

The system's development facilitated the Habsburgs's control over their scattered territories, especially the financial centers in South Germany, North Italy, the Low Countries and Spain.[15]

Other authors note that the notable feature of the system was that it was the first public-access postal system (mainly due to the financing problems): the mingling of private and government mails broke a threshold. It became open to private mail since the early sixteenth century, with fees being fixed.[16][17]

The initiative was emulated immediately by France and England, although initially they wanted to restrict the development of private mail.[18][19][20] The English system, established by Henry VIII in 1512, also had to begin to carry private mails partly to raise revenue and partly to allow the government to keep an eye on public communication. It became open to public use in 1635.[21] Dewald comments, "Unlike in ancient Rome or China, no European ruler was able or willing to finance his or her own postal system."[22] The system quickly became an Europe-wide, fee-based, regular and reliable service.[23]

Modern successor

The Deutsche Post considers itself the continuation of the system. In 1990, they celebrate the 500th year of the Reichspost's establishment.[24]

See also

Notes
  1. Oppitz, Marcus; Tomsu, Peter (3 August 2017). Inventing the Cloud Century: How Cloudiness Keeps Changing Our Life, Economy and Technology. Springer. p. 27. ISBN 978-3-319-61161-7. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  2. Metzig, Gregor (21 November 2016). Kommunikation und Konfrontation: Diplomatie und Gesandtschaftswesen Kaiser Maximilians I. (1486–1519) (in German). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 98, 99. ISBN 978-3-11-045673-8. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  3. Meinel, Christoph; Sack, Harald (2014). Digital Communication: Communication, Multimedia, Security. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 31. ISBN 9783642543319. Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
  4. Pavlac, Brian A.; Lott, Elizabeth S. (1 June 2019). The Holy Roman Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 255. ISBN 978-1-4408-4856-8. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  5. Pettegree, Andrew (1 February 2014). The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself. Yale University Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-300-20622-7. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  6. Blom, J. C. H.; Lamberts, E. (June 2006). History of the Low Countries. Berghahn Books. p. 253. ISBN 978-1-84545-272-8. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  7. Knox, Paul (24 August 2014). Atlas of Cities. Princeton University Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-691-15781-8. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  8. Hamelink, Cees J. (1 December 2014). Global Communication. SAGE. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-4739-1159-8. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  9. Brisman, Shira (20 January 2017). Albrecht Dürer and the Epistolary Mode of Address. University of Chicago Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-226-35489-7. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  10. Weightman, Christine (15 June 2009). Margaret of York: The Diabolical Duchess. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-4456-0968-3. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  11. Whaley, Joachim (24 November 2011). Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1493-1648. OUP Oxford. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-19-154752-2. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  12. Bekkers, Rudi (2001). Mobile Telecommunications Standards: GSM, UMTS, TETRA, and ERMES. Artech House. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-58053-250-1. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  13. Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara (11 May 2021). The Holy Roman Empire: A Short History. Princeton University Press. pp. 46, 47. ISBN 978-0-691-21731-4. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  14. Rossum, Gerhard Dohrn-van; Dohrn, Gerhard (1996). History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders. University of Chicago Press. p. 336. ISBN 978-0-226-15511-1. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  15. Stollberg-Rilinger 2021, pp. 46, 47.
  16. Fang, Irving E. (2008). Alphabet to Internet: Mediated Communication in Our Lives. Rada Press. p. 2008. ISBN 978-1-933011-90-5. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  17. "Thurn and Taxis postal system European history Britannica". www.britannica.com.
  18. Scott, Hamish M. (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750. Oxford University Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-19-959725-3. Retrieved 12 December 2021.
  19. Headrick, Daniel R. (28 December 2000). When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700-1850. Oxford University Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-19-803108-6. Retrieved 12 December 2021.
  20. Pettegree, Andrew (1 February 2014). The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself. Yale University Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-0-300-20622-7. Retrieved 12 December 2021.
  21. Spira, Andrew (25 June 2020). Simulated Selves: The Undoing of Personal Identity in the Modern World. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 216. ISBN 978-1-350-09110-8. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  22. Dewald, Jonathan (2004). Europe 1450 to 1789: Popular culture to Switzerland. Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 44–46. ISBN 978-0-684-31205-7. Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  23. Meinel & Sack 2014, p. 31.
  24. "The invention of the postal service: about special deliveries, Hereditary First Postmaster Generals and what Thurn und Taxis had to do with it | DDB Journal - Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek". www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de. Retrieved 24 February 2022.

References
  • Yoshio Kikuchi (2008). ハプスブルク帝国の情報メディア革命 近代郵便制度の誕生 (in Japanese). Shueisha. ISBN 978-4087204254.
  • Yoshio Kikuchi (2013). 検閲帝国ハプスブルク (in Japanese). Kawade Shobo Shinsha. ISBN 978-4309624556.
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