Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 52. (2007)

LINDQUIST, Thea: Clement von Radolt (1593–1670): A Multifarious Career in the seventeenth-century Imperial Service

Clement von Radolt (1593-1670)

the Emperor tapped Radolt to work on the renovation of the portals and gates of the Imperial palace in Vienna. In 1660, Radolt was named director of the Imperial building office (Hofbauamt) and for three years oversaw a project to expand the palace.47

One would assume that Radolt made a comfortable living in return for the multifarious activities he undertook for the crown. Based on the official salaries on the books, he should have been able to do so merely by collecting his wages, but under the straitened economic circumstances described above, the truth was that the Imperial government had a difficult time remunerating the many officials who kept it running.48 Cash rewards in the form of salaries and bonuses, therefore, were often modest and irregularly paid and sometimes not paid at all. How, then, did the Austrian Habsburgs succeed in retaining the service of officials like Radolt? The answer is found in their substitution of privilege, one of the few dependable resources at their disposal in times of financial difficulty, for monetary compensation.49 Unable to pay adequate salaries, the Habsburgs relied heavily on conferring perquisites, titles, and grants of nobility to reward loyal servants.

HKA, Niederösterreichische Herrschaftsakten, 1527-1660, fase. W-61/A/2/2, ff. 833-834: 15 Apr. 1654, Radolt to Carl Constantin Ulrich von Genghoven; HKA, Niederösterreichische Herrschaftsakten, 1527-1660, fase. W-61/A/2/2, ff. 841-842, 850: 5 July 1660, Hinterlassene Hofkammer to Radolt. Johann Ludwig, Count Starhemberg was named as his successor in April 1663. (HKA, Niederösterreichische Herrschaftsakten, 1527-1660, fase. W-61/A/2/2, f. 877: 4 Apr. 1663, Hofkammer to Starhemberg).

48 Wolf, Adam: Die Hofkammer unter Leopold 1., Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse 11 (1853), p. 473.

49 Spiel man, John P.: The City & The Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court 1600-1740, West Lafayette 1993, pp. 70-71.

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Fig. 2: Radolt’s Improved Coast of Arms, 1628

This “system of rewards for service” ensured successful career bureaucrats a high level of upward social mobility into and within the Austrian-Bohemian nobility. In the early seventeenth century, commoners with juridical training were able to rise more quickly than ever before into high government office, which often gained