Background In the late 15th and early 16th century, the
Habsburg dynasty had managed to develop a transoceanic empire, on which it was said that "The sun never sets", but unlike the ancient Romans and Persians or their contemporary Chinese, Russians, Aztecs, or Incas, they lacked the financial capacity to maintain a postal system on their own. Other European governments tried to develop their own models as well, but efforts usually proved short-lived, as in the case
Louis XI's ambitious project.
Development It was founded by the brothers
Janetto and Francesco Tasso (
Franz von Taxis) together with
Maximilian of Austria in 1495, on the basis of the pre-existing Italian models and the courier networks built by
Frederick III and
Charles the Bold. The
Bergamascan Tasso family had built up
postal routes throughout
Italy since and Jannetto's uncle
Ruggiero had worked for Frederick III since the mid-15th century. After the marriage of
Archduke Maximilian of Austria and
Mary of Burgundy, to have a better line of communication to govern the Habsburgs' scattered territories, Maximilian commissioned the Taxis to organize the first postal line from
Mechelen to
Innsbruck. Maximilian's son Philip, as Duke of Burgundy and King of Castile, expanded the Habsburg postal system established by his father. In 1500, the centre of the system was transferred to
Brussels by Franz von Taxis, whom Philip made his postmaster-general. At first, urged by his father, Philip tried to take over the system, but he realized that his bureaucrats were unable to run it efficiently. Thus he made an agreement (later renewed by Charles of Burgundy) with the Taxis that allowed them to operate unhampered by interference from the state, as long as they maintained standards in accordance with the Habsburgs' interests. On January 18, 1505, Philip unified communication between Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain by adding stations in Granada, Toledo, Blois, Paris and Lyon. Charles of Burgundy, later
Charles V, continued to develop the system after his father's death. Behringer notes that, "Whereas the status of private mail remains unclear in the treaty of 1506, it is obvious from the contract of 1516 that the Taxis company had the right to carry mail and keep the profit as long as it guaranteed the delivery of court mail at clearly defined speeds, regulated by time sheets to be filled in by the post riders on the way to their destination. In return, imperial privileges guaranteed exemption from local taxes, local jurisdiction, and military service. The terminology of the early modern communications system and the legal status of its participants were invented at these negotiations." He confirmed Jannetto's son
Giovanni Battista as Postmaster General (
chief et maistre general de noz postes par tous noz royaumes, pays, et seigneuries) in 1520. By Charles V's time, "the Holy Roman Empire had become the centre of the European communication(s) universe."
Augsburg benefitted majorly from the system. Even when the Habsburg empire began to extend to other parts of Europe, Maximilian's loyalty to Augsburg, where he conducted a lot of his endeavours, meant that the imperial city became "the dominant centre of early capitalism" of the sixteenth century, and "the location of the most important post office within the Holy Roman Empire". The system quickly converged with the European trade system and an emerging market for news. According to Behringer, "During the reign of Emperor Maximilian, when private use of the imperial posts was still illegal, the terminuses of the first transcontinental post lines were already shifted from Innsbruck to Venice in the south, and from Brussels to Antwerp in the north. News arrived from all over the world in these towns, and this is where the communication and news businesses started to merge. And even more importantly, the Fuggers and other trading companies had their most important branches in these ports." Confirmed by Emperor
Rudolph II in 1595, the Imperial postal service remained a monopoly of the
Thurn und Taxis family (officially hereditary from 1615 onwards) until it was terminated with the end of the Empire in 1806. The Imperial Reichspost was first based in
Mechelen, before being moved to
Brussels in the Netherlands, from where the original ("Dutch") route led via
Namur,
Bastogne,
Lieser,
Wöllstein,
Rheinhausen, and
Augsburg to
Innsbruck and
Trento. It was also used to bypass the
Kingdom of France in order to keep in touch with
Habsburg Spain during times of hostility. Brussels was the side that organized and paid for the system. Competing services were prohibited, although the
Imperial cities and smaller principalities often developed their own communication system. After the accession of Rudolph's brother Emperor
Matthias in 1612, a second route was established from
Cologne via
Frankfurt,
Aschaffenburg, and
Nuremberg to
Bohemia and later also to
Leipzig and
Hamburg. After the
Thirty Years' War and the
Peace of Westphalia, Postmaster General Count
Lamoral II Claudius Franz von Thurn und Taxis and his successors had to deal with the establishment of separate postal agencies, mainly by the Protestant
Imperial States of Northern German but also in several lands of the
Habsburg monarchy, leading to long-lasting disputes over their range of authority. In the course of the
War of the Spanish Succession, the Thurn und Taxis seat was relocated from Brussels to the
Free City of
Frankfurt in 1702. Though the dynasty had sided with the
Wittelsbach rival
Charles VII in the
War of the Austrian Succession, their services were indispensable, and
Maria Theresa's husband Emperor
Francis I officially re-implemented the Thurn und Taxis monopoly in 1746. Two years later, the postal authority moved to
Regensburg, seat of the
Imperial Diet. The family had accumulated extreme wealth; nonetheless, it was devastated by the
Napoleonic Wars. The last Postmaster General, Prince
Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis, lost his office with the Empire's dissolution on 6 August 1806, but his postal authority continued as the Frankfurt-based
Thurn-und-Taxis Post until the
unification of Germany. == Structure ==