ABSTRACT
This was managed by tighter accounting, insistence on revenues being paid in cash not kind, and sustained efforts to claw back alienated and mortgaged domain lands. Attempts were also made to do the same in the other Hohenzollern territories, since Frederick W illiam himself, by now, had grasped that he needed some overall supervision of all his personal revenues, and he was determined to support Canstein’s systematic approach, promising in 1663 ho hold his hand’.2 W ith able subordinates in Prussia and the Rhenish lands, Canstein provided Frederick W illiam for the first time with ‘an orderly and centralised financial administration’ and a much clearer idea of income and expenditure.3 He lacked imagination, however, and avoided innovations, often feeling the job itself was beyond him. In 1669 he offered to resign, writing:
After Canstein’s retirement in the middle of the Dutch War, Jena, Gladebeck and then Meinders tried to cope inadequately, while filling other posts. At last in 1683 the East Friesland noble Dodo von Knyphausen was put in charge, although he was not given the actual title Hofkammerprasident till 1687. He had experience in the Estates administration of East Friesland, and Frederick W illiam recruited him specifically to bring real order into the personal revenues of all his territories. He stayed in office till 1697 but never had a staff of more than six or even his own room for meetings.5 From the start, however, he was determined to get the finances right, and his appointment was the turning point in their manage ment under both Frederick W illiam and his successors.6 Knyphausen was probably ‘as significant in his influence upon the financial ad ministration of Brandenburg-Prussia as Colbert was in France’, and has even been credited with establishing ‘the principles of the ad ministration of [King] Frederick W illiam I’.7 Although Knyphausen’s most important work lay in the next reign, of Elector Frederick III (King Frederick I), much was done beforehand. In 1689, in a move planned before Frederick W illiam ’s death, he established the Hofkammer, ‘a central financial college’, which was independent of the Privy Council and supervised not only the Brandenburg treasuries
(there were still three) but also those of the other lands.8 It was institutionalised so that it could survive from one head to the next. Previously, in 1685-6, he had drawn up a proper budget for all the Hohenzollern lands, giving the Elector for the first time in his reign an accurate idea of the state of his revenues and expenses. He also established a far more profitable supervision of the leases of the domain lands. Between 1681 and 1695 the revenues from these throughout the territories more than doubled.9 His policies seem to have had an almost immediate effect, although the recovery in agriculture in the 1680s and 1690s certainly helped. In the Privy Council in October 1685, he felt confident enough to promise that increased domain revenues would make good the French subsidy of 200,000 thalers a year if Louis XIV withdrew it.10
