JOSH R.
Political Prehistory of Vienna

Vienna was founded by the Romans in the first century A.D. as a military outpost. The fort, called Vindobona, was strategically located on the frontier of the Roman empire along the Danube river and was but one of many similar military bases in the tribal controlled region known as the Limes frontier. The base, now the center of modern Vienna, was located in the volatile region from which the Germanic conquerors of the Roman Empire originated. The region was home to various warring clans, among the most powerful were the Slavs, the Huns, the Burgundians, the Vandals, the Franks and the Avars. As the German Kings gradually became more powerful in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, the Roman influence, along with the empire itself, dissolved into a synthesized culture of Germanic and Roman influence. Although no archeological evidence exists to reveal the political climate of the Roman outpost between the 6th and 9th centuries, it is assumed that some sort of remnant of the settlement persisted. It is known, however, that Vindobona’s small civilian settlement along with the entire outpost itself, suffered greatly with the decline of the Roman Empire.
The ninth and tenth centuries marked the first attempted Magyar control over Austria and the strategic city of Vienna. Only after the Battle of Lechfeld in 955 and the establishment of the weak Austrian state under the Babenbergs in 976, did Vienna begin to assume its national and regional importance. Vienna buffered the Magyar border until the twelfth century when the Babenberg dynasty assumed a centralizing role in the region. The Babenbergs were, unlike most of the founding pioneers of Europe, Christian sovereigns rather than feudal lords. Feudalism as an economic system was slowly implemented in central Europe and never fully took root because of the Germanic and Slavic resistence to the peculiarly western European idea. Thus, an early proto-bourgeois influence brought Vienna to its political importance: trading with regional sovereigns and Venice through the Danube brought the city to prominent commercial and political importance in the thirteenth century.
As Vienna became a central trading post along the Danube in the ornate network of central European commercialism, a new privilege was granted by the Babenbergs. Termed "Stapelrecht," this privilege required transient tradesmen to display and sell their goods, thereby enhancing the role of the Viennese as crucial bargainers and middlemen for the whole of central Europe.
At this time, the Babenbergs commissioned an outward expansion of the town. Suburbs located outside the protective walls were erected, and commercial development was encouraged along the roads leading to and from the central district.
Throughout the late Middle Ages, Vienna experienced a further expansion of the bourgeois class. Burghers went about their commercial dealings with relative autonomy, meeting sporadic resistance from the ruling aristocrats, the Habsburgs. However, the Habsburgs lost control of Vienna with the death of Frederick the Fair (1330) for over a century, suggesting that the burghers enjoyed an autonomy that was unprecedented for its time, not unlike that of the modern bourgeois culture.
The Habsburgs returned to power in 1438, greatly enforcing an environment of intellectual rigor; the Habsburgs of the 15th century reconstructed the fundamental layout of the city, established the University of Vienna, and enhanced the church of St. Stephen’s.
The influential burghers of Vienna consisted of a kind of parallel government; often, their internal disputes reflected the official political debates of the Hapsburg rulers. However, unlike most of the cities in Europe of the time, the Viennese government remained virtually immune to the constitutional controversies which plagued governments across the continent. The Viennese government actually took a bold step in assigning official municipal offices to burghers known as Erbburgers and other tradesmen and craftsmen.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century, tension arose between two factions of the Hapsburg rulers. Emperor Frederick III, ruler of Vienna, was challenged by his brother, Archduke Albert VI, the Hungarian Hapsburg, over objections to various foreign trade taxes. Specifically the wine tax, designed to prevent the import of Hungarian wines (in order to protect the Viennese industry), and the policy known as Stapelrecht, implemented in the middle ages to ensure the importance of Vienna as a major trading center, resulted in the Hungarian occupation of Vienna from 1485 to 1490.
In 1529 and 1683 Vienna was besieged by invading Turks. Vienna’s staving off of the sieges greatly affected the international reputation of the city, and also redirected the physical planning. The fortifications were augmented in the 17th century, and the inner city became a vibrant urban cultural center. In addition, Baroque architecture flourished, and an outer wall, protecting the suburban settlements, was constructed.
The increased importance of a centralized government, however, greatly undermined the power of the previously autonomous burgher caste. After the failed Turkish invasion, Vienna became the permanent residence of the Holy Roman Emperor and the capital of the Empire itself. Virtually all construction in the city became the responsibility of the centralized government of the Emperor or the Church.
After a brief occupation by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Vienna rapidly industrialized. The government, though, failed to cope with the decaying public infrastructure and not until after 1848 (the year of the revolution) did any substantial government aid significantly improve the quality of basic urban utilities such as the sewer and water pipe systems.

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