State Formation in Early Modern Alsace, 1648–1789 by Stephen A. Lazer (review)

The topic of this book is at once narrower and broader than its title suggests. It is narrower in the sense that it examines not Alsace as a whole but the lands belonging to a single German princely dynasty, the dukes of Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, who claimed territorial sovereignty over a patchwork of territories, mostly in the northern part of the province. As a result, the experience of the rest of Alsace, including most of the province's cities, such as Strasbourg and Colmar, does not form part of this study. The book is nonetheless broader than the title suggests, however, because this highly specific case study, grounded in extensive archival research, allows Lazer to shed new light on some of the big questions of early modern history, such as state-building, patron-client relations, confessionalization, the nature of so-called "absolute" monarchy, and the continuing role of the nobility.

The dukes of Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, a Protestant dynasty with deep roots in the political culture of the Holy Roman Empire (they represented a junior branch of the ruling family of the Palatinate), were among the many noble houses holding territory along the ragged frontier that separated the kingdom of France from German-speaking Central Europe. Mack Walker famously described the Holy Roman Empire as an incubator that preserved hundreds of microstates (free imperial cities, ecclesiastical states, and noble fiefdoms) well into the modern era.¹ Louis XIV's wars of conquest, which brought Alsace into the French kingdom, shattered this incubator, creating radically new circumstances for the province's free cities and feudal estates. Nevertheless, Lazer's study demonstrates that the Birkenfeld dukes were not passive victims of French aggression, but rather astute, active, and often successful players in the game of early modern statecraft, who forced even the Sun King to recognize their customary rights and to cooperate with them in the exercise of authority.

Lazer examines how these power-sharing arrangements emerged and evolved on the contested ground of Alsace. The French acquisition of this frontier province was a gradual affair, which began with French gains following the Thirty Years' War and was finalized and recognized by the other European powers only after the War of the Spanish Succession, seven decades later. While the Treaty of Westphalia transferred formerly Habsburg lands in Alsace to France, it said nothing regarding the free imperial cities and feudal principalities that formed enclaves within these territories, and indeed did not precisely demarcate the boundaries that determined where "Alsace" was. As Louis XIV sought to bring these remaining territories under his rule through a series of euphemistically described réunions in the 1680s, he found the rulers of Alsace's princely states, such as the Birkenfelds, to be useful allies, whose traditional legitimacy could both give the French interlopers the cover of legality and smooth the transition from imperial to royal institutions. For their part, the dukes quickly determined that, while open resistance to French pretentions was futile, strategic alliances could allow them to secure their customary rights within the new order, provide protection for their vassals, and open paths of patronage for their clients. Such strategies were particularly relevant to local-level administrative functions, such as the collection of taxes and dues, the dispensation of justice, and the quotidian administration of village communities. For the most part, the kingdom of France governed these newly acquired lands through the institutions of the pre-Westphalian princely states. Lazer focuses in particular on the role of the bailli or Amtmann, a justice of the peace who was the most important local official in rural Alsace. These officials were appointed by the dukes but also answerable to the king's intendant for Alsace, and they had to juggle the demands of their two masters. These local offices were often de facto hereditary, if not strictly speaking venal, and some families of officials served the Birkenfelds over several generations. While conflicts occasionally...