ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the notion of ‘merit’ as a central concept of Maria Theresian reign, which harmonised individual interests with the reasons of the state. Special attention in this respect is paid to written requests (petitions, applications, supplications) in which subjects were asking for a promotion in rank, subsidy or non-monetary benefits, like an order award. This investigation therefore serves the purpose of learning about career motivations of officials in the Habsburg lands. Special attention is paid to the civilian order of St. Stephen established in 1764 to decorate first and foremost distinguished representatives of the court and administrative elites. A collection of applications for this order is a unique source for a taxonomy of the discourse on merits. Consolidation of modern administrative apparatus in the Habsburg lands would have been hardly possible without such instruments of advancement in status, when devoted and energetic individuals in different layers of the multi-ethnic and poly-confessional elite(s) supported their individual achievements with intergenerational merits and vice-versa, where those aspiring to the elite were collecting ‘merits’ deserving reward. Competition for limited resources was not always successful, but the confidence in the system remained almost unlimited due to the monarch’s and authorities’ endeavour to sustain this asset of human initiative. In the long run, however, the enlightened project of planting, along with the inheritable meritocracy, the cult of individual merits, enjoyed only a partial success. Through the channels of vertical mobility, individual merits were encouraged and promoted. By the same token though, selfless accomplishments for the sake of the common good could neither compensate nor replace such attributes of the social order, as noble titles, tight integration into the patronage networks, or financial wealth.
