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COUNT CHRISTIAN DITLEV See also: born on See also: March 11, 1748
.
After being educated at the
See also: academy of Soro and at See also: Leipzig, Reventlow, in See also: company with his younger See also: brother Johan Ludwig and the distinguished Saxon economist Carl See also: Wendt (1731-1815), the best of cicerones on such a tour, travelled through See also: Germany, See also: Switzerland, See also: France and See also: England, to examine the social, economical and agricultural conditions of civilized See also: Europe
.
A visit to Sweden and See also: Norway to study See also: mining and metallurgy completed the curriculum, and when Reventlow in the course of 1770 returned to See also: Denmark he was an authority on all the economic questions of the See also: day
.
In 1774 he held a high position in the Kammerkollegiet, or See also: board of See also: trade, two years later he entered the Department of Mines, and in 1781 he was a member of the Overskattedirectionen, or chief taxing board
.
He had, in 1794, married Frederica See also: Charlotte von Beulwitz, who See also: bore him thirteen See also: children, and on his See also: father's See also: death in 1775 inherited the See also: family estate in Laaland
.
Reventlow overflowed with progressive ideas, especially as regards See also: agriculture, and he devoted himself, See also: heart and soul, to the improvement of his See also: property and the amelioration of his See also: serfs
.
Fortunately, the ambition to See also: play a useful See also: part in a wider See also: field of activity than he could find in the country ultimately prevailed
.
His
See also: time came when the ultra-conservative See also: ministry of Hoegh Guldberg was dismissed (See also: April 14th, 1784) and Andreas See also: Bernstorff, the states-See also: man for whom Reventlow had the highest admiration, returned to power
.
Reventlow was an excellently trained specialist in many departments, and was always See also: firm and confident in those subjects which he had made his own
.
Moreover, he was a man of strong and warm feelings, and deeply religious
.
The condition of the peasantry especially interested him
.
He was convinced that See also: free labour would be far more profitable to the See also: land, and that the peasant himself would be. better if released from his thraldom
.
His favourite field of labour was thrown open to him when, on the 6th of See also: August 1784, he was placed at the See also: head of the Rentekamtneret, which took cognisance of everything See also: relating to agriculture
.
His first step was to appoint a small agricultural commission to better the condition of the See also: crown serfs, and amongst other things enable them to turn their leaseholds into freeholds
.
Observing that the Crown See also: Prince See also: Frederick was also favourably disposed towards the amelioration of the peasantry, Reventlow induced him, in See also: July 1786, to appoint a See also: grand commission to take the condition of all the peasantry in the See also: kingdom into immediate consideration
.
This celebrated agricultural commission continued its labours for many years, and introduced a whole series of reforms of the highest importance
.
Thus the See also: ordinance of 8th See also: June 1787 modified the existing leaseholds, greatly to the See also: advantage of the peasantry; the ordinance of loth June 1788 abolished villenage and completely transformed the much-abused hoveri See also: system whereby the feudal See also: tenant was bound to cultivate his See also: lord's land as well as his own; and the ordinance of 6th See also: December 1799, which did away with hoveri altogether
.
Reventlow was also instrumental in starting the public See also: credit See also: banks, for enabling small cultivators to See also: borrow See also: money on favourable terms
.
In conjunction with his friend, Heinrich See also: Ernst Schimmelmann (1747-1831), he also procured the passing of the ordinances permitting free trade between Denmark and Norway,
the free importation of corn from abroad, and the abolition of the mischievous See also: monopoly of the See also: Iceland trade
.
But the See also: financial See also: distress of Denmark, the jealousy of the duchies, the ruinous See also: political complications of the See also: Napoleonic See also: period, and, above all, the Crown Prince Frederick's growing jealousy of his official advisers, which led him to See also: rule, or rather See also: misrule, for years without the co-operation of his Council of State—all these calamities were at last too much even for Reventlow
.
On 7th December 1813 he received his dismissal and retired to his estates, where, after working cheerfully among his peasantry to the last, he died on the I,th of See also: October 1827
.
See Adolph Frederik Bergsoe, Grev
.
C
.
D
.
F . Reventlows Virksomhed ( See also: Copenhagen, 1837); See also: Louis Theodor
See also: Alfred Bobe, Efterl
.
Papirer fra den Reventlowske Familiekreds (Copenhagen, 1895-97)
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