The Children of Adam and Eve

Joseph II (1741-90), Holy Roman emperor (1765-90), who tried
unsuccessfully to reform and unify the Austrian Habsburg domains.

The eldest son of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa, Joseph was
born in Vienna on March 13, 1741. He became emperor and coruler of the
Austrian lands with his mother when Francis died in 1765. During this
period he Worked with state chancellor W. A. von Kaunitz to expand
Habsburg power, acquiring Galicia from Poland (1772) and Bukovina from
Turkey (1775). His attempt to annex Lower Bavaria, However, was thwarted
by Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia.

As sole ruler after Maria Theresa's Death in 1780, Joseph embarked on a
thorough reform of Church and state in accordance with the rational
principles of the 18th-century Enlightenment. He granted religious
toleration to Protestants, ended discriminatory Laws against Jews, and
drastically reorganized the predominant Roman Catholic Church, closing
many monasteries, subjecting the education of Priests to state control,
and limiting the power of the Pope to intervene in Austria. Joseph
eliminated most forms of censorship, fReed the serfs, separated the
executive from the judiciary, and promulgated a new law code. To unify the
administration of the various Habsburg realms, he abolished numerous
organs of local government and tried to impose the German language on his
Hungarian and Slavic subjects. In foreign affairs Joseph maintained close
ties with Russia.

Joseph's reforms met with resistance in many quarters, and before his
Death in Vienna on February 20, 1790, he was forced to rescind many of
them.