Enlightened Despotism, Science, Global Contradictions, and Legacy

Enlightened despotism combined the exercise of absolute royal power with reforms inspired by Enlightenment principles, without ever questioning the legitimacy of absolute power itself. Frederick II of Prussia famously described himself as "the first servant of the state" and promoted relative religious tolerance in his kingdom; Joseph II of Austria abolished personal serfdom and decreed religious tolerance through the 1781 Edict of Tolerance; Catherine II of Russia convened the Legislative Commission of 1767, drawing explicitly on the principles of Montesquieu and Beccaria; and Charles III of Spain pursued economic, educational, and urban-planning reforms, promoting Economic Societies of Friends of the Country. Enlightened despots generally moved to expel the Jesuits from their territories and pursued fiscal modernization and limits on judicial torture, yet they generally preserved estate-based social structures and serfdom across much of their lands, and historiography generally understands enlightened despotism as an attempt at conservative modernization that ultimately proved insufficient against the revolutionary demands that followed.