Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften

Abstract:
In the wake of the struggle for freedom against Napoleon and the Bavarian oc-cupation, the small Catholic splinter group of the “Manharter” had emerged in the Tyrolean Brixental. Although they did not strive for secession from the Cath-olic Church, they refused to pander to the revolutionary ‘zeitgeist’ that was also spreading in the Alpine region. They were characterized by a pronounced Catholic fundamentalism and fought innovations such as modern schoolbooks or smallpox vaccination, which they considered as the work of the devil. They came into conflict with the Catholic Church because they refused to obey the priests and church offi-cials who had sworn allegiance to the Napoleonic regime. Because they resisted ecclesiastical and state attempts at mediation, while at the same time emphasizing their loyalty to the papacy, their most important representatives were allowed to travel to Rome in the Holy Year of 1825; an audience with the pope was intended to convince them to return into the bosom of the mother church. The article analyzes the extensive reports on the Roman negotiations, which reached Vienna through the embassy in Rome. The negotiations were led by Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari, later Pope Gregory XVI. In order to be granted an audience with Pope Leo XII, it was fundamental to submit to the dictates of the official Catholic Church. After six difficult rounds of negotiations, their loyalty to the pope prevailed, and they sub-mitted to the ecclesiastical authorities. This cleared the way for the audience they sought, which took place on December 18th, 1825, culminating in an invitation to meet the pope. They signed similar declarations to the state and ecclesiastical authorities back home in early 1826. Thus, the short history of the Manharter move-ment, which was a symptom of the skepticism of many people towards the rapidly advancing modernization in all areas of life, came soon to an end.