bibliothek altes Reich

The Perpetual Diet of Regensburg was one of the most important political centers of the Holy Roman Empire. This study is the first to look at the prince-bishoprics of Bamberg and Würzburg to examine the actors, structures, and content of spiritual diet politics. It shows that both prince-bishoprics not only actively engaged in imperial politics but, contrary to previous assumptions, did not unreservedly support the Kaiser’s imperial politics.

Jurists in pre-modern times developed their own professional knowledge, which was secret. The contributions to this volume seek to discover how they generated knowledge and put it into practice. This is done through discussions on the plague and economic issues. But institutions such as the Imperial Court are also examined.

In addition, there are essays on knowledge generation via cabinets of curiosities and on the use of legal literature.

Writing and orality shaped the judiciary of the premodern era. Written elements became increasingly important, without overshadowing orality, particularly in the judicial decision-making process. The chapters in this volume shed light on the interplay between the written and oral elements of proceedings from the perspective of general and legal history, as well as an archival point of view, extending to the digital indexing of court records.

In the early sixteenth century, there was much experimentation with the new medium of the local and regional map, but there was still no cartographical “language of symbols.” This study inquires into the development, function, and use of these maps (1500–1575), by clarifying their relationship to the respective files. Above all, it addresses “Augenscheinkarten” (inspection maps), as they played an important role in court proceedings.

In the sixteenth century, the empire's Jewish community created a complex organization for political representation, allowing them to both defend themselves against persecution and to influence the legislative process. This study shows how this organization emerged as a response to the challenges of the time, how it developed during the course of the century, and how it was entrenched within the political culture and system of the empire.

Before the group of imperial delegates often referred to as “Third Parties” definitively brought about the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, numerous earlier attempts to end the Thirty Years War or to prevent it had failed. The volume examines key turning points, including the outbreak of war, failed attempts to restore peace, and the ultimate conclusion of the conflict.

Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar was among the most important military entrepreneurs of the Thirty Years War. Early on, he allied himself with King Gustav Adolphus of Sweden and, after the Peace of Prague, with Catholic France. He pursued further alliances and marital projects in Protestant Europe. He failed in his aim to establish his own territorial rule in the Holy Roman Empire, but his Weimar Army continued to exist.

For many people, the Thirty Years’ War was accompanied by enormous dangers, uncertainties, and suffering, with which they had to cope in various ways. The essays in this volume address the practices and strategies used by various people and groups to deal with distress and violence, and inquire into their options "in the midst of war."

What should the servant to prince in the 17^th century read? This question was of interest to scholars as well as princely servant themselves, such as the privy counsellor and envoy Friedrich Rudolf von Canitz (1654–1699). The aim of this study is to disclose the intellectual currents contained in his library. This is accomplished not only through traditional library analysis, but also, for the first time, through canon research.

Charles VI (1685–1740) was the first Habsburg ruler since Charles V with a personal claim to the Spanish crown, Austrian sovereignty, and Holy Roman emperorship. This volume examines various facets of his governance and representation, including the fiscal administration of the lands, communication between the imperial residential city and local and regional political actors, and the medial communication of power.

In the pre-modern era, spatial relationships were not only described textually, but also depicted with performative practices. The conference volume (which contains an English introduction) deals with how legal rights were asserted through visual presentations or pictorially depicted in eyewitness accounts. How were legal relationships viewed, and what role did law play in cartography?

The judge and journalist C. W. A. Hardung (1768–1821) bitterly upheld the waning legal order of the Holy Roman Empire in the secularized abbeys of Essen and Werden. This book presents for the first time his life and influence on major statesmen of the period. It includes a reprint and commentary on his widely-read “Constitutional investigations on the power of the new regents in secularized territories of the Empire.”

This collection of essays examines diplomats’ knowledge and resultant diplomatic strategies in the early modern period.

The financier Berend Lehmann ranks among the grandest and most controversial personalities in early modern Jewish history. As Augustus the Strong’s “court Jew,” he had a major role in Augustus’ acquisition of the Polish crown. Lehmann was admired by Jews as a saintly patriarch and benefactor while being defamed by anti-Semites as a usurer. Strobach presents the first critical biography of Lehmann, based on extensive source materials.

During the Thirty Years War, political theory was dominated by a negative attitude toward peace. War shaped the major works, such as Hugo Grotius’ De iure belli ac pacis. Researchers have largely ignored that there were also writings actively focused on peace, such as Nicolaus Schaffshausen’s De pace. This study examines these writings and explores the positive notions and concepts of peace that existed at that time.

Every year, the representatives of the estates and the emperor met in order to evaluate the Reichskammergericht, the highest court in the Holy Roman Empire. As they met, they made sweeping political and judicial decisions. This monograph, which uses new sources to describe the constitutional and intellectual history of the 16^th century, will help motivate a re-evaluation of the court and its work.

German history has viewed the Thirty Years War as an epoch of decline and collapse of all political order. However, this point of view needs correction, at least with respect to the Imperial Circles. The study shows the great relevance of the Imperial Circles for financing the war and for collaboration between belligerents over the course of the conflict.

Noblewomen traveled nearly as often as princes and dukes during the early modern period. The essays in this volume examine various aspect of travel, including reasons for travel, safety while traveling, ceremonial travel, incognito travel, and options for a personal itinerary. The examples reveal a discrepancy between contemporary ideas and practices, which has been largely neglected by historical travel research to date.

This book investigates the image of Frankfurt that was developed in journalistic publications in the early modern period. When did this image arise, how did it develop, and what function did it possess? The depictions and stereotypes that were circulated concerning Frankfurt’s rise had traction until 1800. As the author reveals, the perpetuation of these depictions served to compensate for a change in the city’s historical significance.

During the 16^th and 17^th centuries, Speyer was an organizational center for the Holy Roman Empire. It headquartered the Imperial Chamber Court and hosted the Emperor and Imperial Estates at Imperial Diets and visitations to the Court. Speyer sat at the crossroads between the religious adversaries Mainz and Pfalz. The essays in this volume reveal the city’s importance to the Holy Roman Empire and surrounding region during the early modern period.

The study investigates how the semantics of peace functioned in domestic conflicts between 1760 and 1810. The analysis of communicative practices of the actors in court reveals the importance of notions of peace in conflict regulation at the political micro-level. This first systematic exploration of the discourse on domestic tranquility demonstrates its role in promoting order during a time of profound change.

The essays in the volume give an overview of current legal historical research on supreme jurisdiction in the Holy Roman Empire from the 15^th to the 19^th centuries. For the first time, they provide a comparative presentation and analysis of the Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht), the Aulic Council (Reichshofrat), along with other supreme courts and numerous appellate courts.

During the early modern period, Jews were not just objects of authoritarian abuse and victims of repression by the general society. This is illustrated by the strategies of action and argumentation in legal proceedings initiated by Jews at the Imperial Chamber Court against members of the nobility, the elite of the Holy Roman Empire, which are examined for the first time in this volume.

Aristocratic culture and legal culture were heavily interlinked during the Early Modern period. The essays in this compendium disclose a European perspective on problems in the juridification of social commerce, participation in the design and implementation of legal standards, and ultimately on the question of how juridification affected the practices of aristocratic life.

In the early modern period, marriages between Catholics and Protestants were discouraged by authorities, churches, and families, but rarely prevented. Conflicts arose about religious freedom and conversion, the scope of paternal power, and the upbringing of children. Dagmar Freist describes the tensions between trans-denominational culture and gender relations, authoritarian confessional politics, freedom of religion, and coercion of belief.

Around 1800, Weimar was seen as the ultimate ‘court of the muses.’ Yet Weimar was a politically insignificant, small, deficit-plagued court that could not match many others in splendor or opulence. Nonetheless, Carl August and his mother Anna Amalia succeeded in gathering around themselves such intellectual giants as Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Wieland, and used their fame to boost the prestige of the Weimar court.

Als fundamentaler Leitwert strukturierte Eigentum den Zugang sowie die Qualität von Rechten im Alten Reich. Besonders für die Zivilrechtspraxis wird dabei sinnfällig, dass Eigentum mehr noch als Stand oder Geschlecht Unterschiede in der ständischen Gesellschaft markierte. Diesen Zusammenhang entfaltet die Studie anhand von Eigentums- und Besitzrechtskonflikten von Frauen vor dem Jenaer Hofgericht, dem höchsten Landesgericht Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenachs. Dabei werden erstmals die in den gerichtlichen Konflikten um Eigentumstransfer (Erbe), die „gerechte Forderung“ (Schuldkonflikte) und konkurrierende Eigentumsrechte (Nachbarrecht) virulenten Eigentumssemantiken sowie die mit dem Eigentum mitverhandelten gesellschaftlichen Leitbilder ausgelotet. Damit geben die Konflikte zugleich einen eindrucksvollen Einblick in das Normen- und Wertesystem der frühneuzeitlichen Gesellschaft.

Die Frühe Neuzeit zeichnet sich dadurch aus, dass sich gesellschaftliches Leben in symbolischen Akten ereignete. Erst durch konkrete Ereignisse traten das Reich und damit auch die Reichsjustiz in Erscheinung. Voraussetzung war die Vermittlung durch Medien im Sinne von Bild, Schrift und gesprochenem Wort. Der vorliegende Sammelband stellt erstmals dar, wie Gericht- und Rechtsprechung in der Frühen Neuzeit medial vermittelt wurden. Themenschwerpunkte sind u.a. die Visualisierung des Reichskammergerichts am Beispiel der Audienz und das Bild der Höchstgerichtsbarkeit in deutschen Chroniken, aber auch die Funktion und Ausgestaltung des Kommunikationsprozesses zwischen Kläger, Beklagtem und Gericht, u. a. auch am Beispiel der Familie Fugger. Mit Beiträgen von: Matthias Bähr, Tobias Branz, Ignacio Czeguhn, Alexander Denzler, Andreas Deutsch, Thomas Dorfner, Maria von Loewenich, David Petry, Britta Schneider, Stefan Andreas Stodolkowitz, Steffen Wunderlich

Die Reichsstädte entwickelten sich im Verlauf der Frühen Neuzeit zu Bühnen des Reiches - zu materiellen Verfestigungen eines komplizierten Systems, das hier fassbar, sichtbar und erlebbar wurde. In den Reichsstädten trat das Reich als handlungsfähige Ordnungsinstanz auf. Hier bewies es seine Fähigkeit, Schutz zu garantieren und vor allem Konflikte zu regulieren. Streit war die Grundbefindlichkeit der Reichsstädte. Konflikte zwischen Städten, innerhalb der Städte und zwischen dem Reich und den Reichsstädten waren an der Tagesordnung. Sie alle besaßen nicht nur eine lokale, sondern eine regionale und eine reichspolitische Dimension. Thomas Lau spürt dieser Dimension nach. Er zeigt, wie der Streit der Städte lokale und überregionale Räume dauerhaft miteinander verband und aus den unruhigen Reichsstädten Fabrikationsstätten des Reiches wurden.

Das nordthüringische Eichsfeld 1574/75: ein Mord an einem Förster; Täter ein unbeherrschter, dennoch von vielen als Söldner geschätzter Adeliger. In der Folge kommt es zum Prozess gegen diesen Adeligen, Barthold von Wintzigerode, und zu seiner Hinrichtung. Beides wird die Gemüter noch lange beschäftigen, im 19. Jahrhundert entfacht ein regelrechter Historikerstreit um die angemessene Interpretation. Alexander Jendorffs Fallstudie zeigt die schillernden Facetten von Adeligkeit und die sich verändernden Ansprüche des Adels in unterschiedlichen Jahrhunderten. Der Historikerstreit des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts erweist sich als Kampf um die Interpretationshoheit über die eichsfeldische Landesgeschichte. Beide Seiten, die protestantischen Nachfahren und ein katholischer Pfarrer bedurften ihrer Interpretation der Vergangenheit, um sich in der Gegenwart zu behaupten.

Haben die großen Feierlichkeiten anlässlich des 350. Jubiläums des Westfälischen Friedens in Osnabrück und Münster (1998) einen Impuls auf die Erforschung des Friedens in der Frühen Neuzeit gegeben? Mit dieser Frage setzen sich rund zehn Jahre nach dem Großereignis eine Reihe von Historikerinnen und Historikern auseinander, die auf diese Weise den aktuellen Stand der historischen Friedensforschung dokumentieren. Der Band macht deutlich, dass die Erforschung des Friedens weit über die wichtigen Fragen der internationalen Beziehungen und des Völkerrechts hinausgeht. Friedensvorstellungen und Friedenspraktiken in der Frühen Neuzeit waren immer eingebettet in umfassende, übergeordnete Friedensordnungen; damit stellen sie auch eine wichtige Folie für die zeitgeschichtlich orientierte historische Friedensforschung dar. Beiträge von Volker Arnke, Tobias Bartke, Renger de Bruin, Johannes Burkhardt, Horst Carl, Regina Dauser, Heinz Duchhardt, Ralf-Peter Fuchs, Christoph Kampmann, Frank Kleinehagenbrock, Maximilian Lanzinner, David Onnekink, Martin Peters, Michael Rohrschneider, Inken Schmidt-Voges, Therese Schwager, Kerstin Weiand, Andrea Weindl, Siegrid Westphal

Schwerpunkt sind zum einen die Beziehungen zwischen jüdischem Binnenraum und nicht-jüdischer Umwelt, zum anderen das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Landesherrschaft und den imperialen, durch Kaiser und Reich bestimmten Rahmenbedingungen jüdischer Existenz. Beiträge von: Anette Baumann, J. Friedrich Battenberg, Stefan Ehrenpreis, Rainer S. Elkar, Andreas Gotzmann, André Griemert, Karl Härter, Vera Kallenberg, Verena Kasper-Marienberg, Thomas Lau, Gerhard Rechter (†), Ursula Reuter, Stephan Wendehorst

This study examines the categories of research on empires (integration from a balance between unity and difference) in the perspective of a new political history and applies it to study the German nation under the Holy Roman Empire. The findings are surprising, both with regard to the history of the Holy Roman Empire and for empire research in general, which has, until now, tended to factor out the Holy Roman Empire.

Die Normaljahrsregel, die auf dem Westfälischen Friedenskongress ausgehandelt wurde, um den Streit der Religionsparteien im Reich beizulegen, wurde von vielen Zeitgenossen als entscheidender Durchbruch zum Frieden betrachtet. Der Jurist Johann Jacob Moser sollte sie später sogar als "Seele des Westphälischen Friedens in Religions-Sachen" bezeichnen. Ralf-Peter Fuchs geht den Fragen nach, wie man auf die Idee kam, einen kriegerischen Konflikt durch ein Stichdatum zur Einfrierung von Besitzständen zu beenden und welche Funktion der Normaljahrsdiskussion bei den Friedensgesprächen im Rahmen der Vertrauensbildung zukam. Darüber hinaus erörtert der Autor, was aus dem Versuch wurde, die Normaljahrsregel unmittelbar nach dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg zum Vollzug zu bringen.

This study examines the Enlightenment as a communicative process, drawing on the example of Osnabrück Enlightenment thinker Justus Möser (1790–94). It analyzes social and media-specific entanglements in connections with discourses about practical enlightenment projects. The focus on cross-media processes and the consideration of Möser’s double role as a statesman and Enlightenment thinker provide new insights into the German Enlightenment.