Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Giulio Bianchi (1892)

Schullern’s short review of Giulio Bianchi’s La proprietà fondiaria e le classi rurali nel medio evo e nella età moderna evaluates a historically grounded programme for preserving the peasantry. Its movement is from Italy’s agrarian distress through concrete tenure reforms to a defence of adapting older institutions to modern conditions. Schullern endorses Bianchi’s central diagnosis: rural welfare depends above all on the organization of landed property and the relationship between owners and cultivators.

Der kleine, selbstbebauende Grundbesitz bedarf dringend Schutz, die Arbeit soll mit dem Besitze verbunden, oder doch verhindert werden, dass die schon bestehende Trennung eine immer allgemeinere werde.

English translation: Small, self-cultivating landed property urgently requires protection; labour is to be joined with ownership, or at least it is to be prevented that the separation already existing should become ever more general.

The objective is therefore both to protect existing smallholders and to prevent the further separation of agricultural labour from possession of the soil. Schullern approves the Italian government’s proposed internal colonization through expropriation of uncultivated land, but follows Bianchi in treating redistribution as insufficient without safeguards against subsequent fragmentation through inheritance and disposal through sale. Bianchi proposes granting expropriated land under emphyteutic tenure rather than outright ownership, drawing on Roman and medieval precedents.

The comparative dimension matters because reform must also save smallholdings already in existence. Schullern praises Bianchi’s examination of measures in the United States, Germany, and Austria. His specific reservation concerns the omission of the Austrian government’s proposed introduction of Höfebücher in Tyrol, which he considers beneficial at least in conception. This is a supplementary criticism within an otherwise strongly favourable assessment.

The review’s central conceptual move is to reject the assumption that recourse to medieval arrangements necessarily discredits a modern reform.

Es ist nicht zu leugnen, dass alle Maassnahmen dieser Art eine gewisse Reaction gegen das Mittelalter zu in sich schliessen; daran allein aber kann sich wohl nur das Vorurtheil stossen; man muss das Gute nehmen, wo es liegt und wo Hilfe nothwendig ist, kann sie am besten mit jenen Mitteln geboten werden, welche eine vielhundertjährige Erfahrung als heilsam erkennen lässt.

English translation: It is not to be denied that all measures of this kind involve within them a certain reaction in the direction of the Middle Ages; at this alone, however, only prejudice can well take offence; one must take the good where it lies, and where help is necessary it can best be offered by those means which an experience of many centuries shows to be salutary.

Historical experience supplies usable instruments, not an obligation to restore the medieval social order. Schullern argues that reforms could strengthen peasant prosperity without sacrificing modern personal and political freedom. Their implementation nevertheless requires close attention to local and cultural circumstances, rather than doctrinaire adherence to a general formula.

His concluding praise links Bianchi’s historical inquiry to practical proposals, particularly those drawing on Austrian reforms while addressing Italian conditions. The book’s relevance beyond Italy rests on this combination: it offers concrete means of protecting the peasantry and challenges prejudices against historically derived restrictions on property. Schullern’s review thus presents agrarian reform as a selective reconciliation of durable tenure institutions with modern liberties.