STILL A MONSTROSITY? SOME REFLECTIONS ON EARLY MODERN GERMAN STATEHOOD

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 565-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER H. WILSON
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
German History ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Nation State ◽  
History Of

The German political scientist and philosopher, Samuel von Pufendorf, described the Holy Roman Empire in 1667 as a ‘monstrosity’, because it did not fit any of the recognized definitions of a state. The issue of the Empire's statehood has been the most important consideration in its historiography in recent decades: was it a state? If so, what kind? This review addresses these questions by examining how the debate on the Empire is related to wider controversies surrounding German history, the contemporary process of European integration, and about political organization in general. It explains how these debates are rooted in the political and religious disputes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that still influence how the history of the Empire is written today. The four principal modern interpretations are identified and assessed: the Empire as a ‘failed nation state’, as a federation, and, more recently, as an ‘Empire-State’ or a ‘Central Europe of the Regions’. The piece concludes by offering a new explanatory framework to assess the Empire's political development.

Westphalia: a Paradigm? A Dialogue between Law, Art and Philosophy of Science

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 955-975 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcílio Toscano Franca Filho
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Birth Certificate ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Normative Structure ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Peace Treaties

On 23rd June 2007, after three years of uncertainty, European Union leaders agreed on relaunching the old idea of a Magna Charta for Europe (now called “the Reform Treaty”), a normative structure based on the old ideas of deference to national identities, sovereignty and equality. To many authors, the first time that juridical equality between states was solemnly stated was in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), in the Westphalia Peace Treaties, representing the beginning of modern international society established in a system of states, and at the same time, “the plain affirmation of the statement of absolute independence of the different state orders.” In fact, under an Eurocentric conception of political ideas (which envisages England as an isolated island and Iberia as Maghreb, north of Africa), the modern state emerges with the Westphalia Peace Treaties. However, under a broader conception, the modern nation-state (under the form of absolute monarchy) emerged long before the Westphalia Peace Treaties, in Iberia and England. Nevertheless, it is in these documents which lies the “birth certificate” of the modern sovereignty nation-state, base of the present democratic state, and “founding moment” of the international political system. Far beyond this merely formal aspect, the importance of the Westphalia Peace Treaties is so great to the understanding of the notion of state that Roland Mousnier, in describing the 16th and 17th centuries in the General History of the Civilizations, organized by Maurice Crouzet, asserts that those treaties symbolized a real “constitution of the new Europe,” a multifarious Europe, plural and very distant from the religious unit of Christianity, from the political unit of the Holy Roman Empire, and from the economical unit of the feudal system. Constitutions are especially important because they establish the rules for the political authority, they determine who governs and how they govern: “[I]n codifying and legitimating the principle of sovereign statehood, the Westphalian constitution gave birth to the modern states-system.”

Hans Maier

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
The Political ◽  
German History ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Academic Teacher

The political scientist and former Bavarian Minister of Culture Hans Maier has created a historically profound, theologically educated, literarily and musically highly sensitive, politically mature body of work, with which he has inscribed himself in the (intellectual) history of the Federal Republic. This book is the first to contain contributions by renowned scholars and politicians on the rich work and impact of the Catholic scholar and politician Hans Maier. It thematises and appreciates in detail his view of German history and the traditions of political thought, his critique of political language, political theology, totalitarianism and political religions, but also his contributions on Catholicism and modernity, his writings on literature and music, and finally his influence as an academic teacher, public intellectual and politician.

On the rise and Decline of the Monarchical Principle: Constitutional Vicissitudes in Spain and Germany

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-292
Author(s):  
Lucas Prakke
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Charles V ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Nation State Formation ◽  
Constitutional Monarchy

Nation-state formation – Holy Roman Empire – Dissolution and realignment – Spain, fragmented – Reconquista – Charles V – Wars of succession – Centralisation under house of Bourbon – Napoleon – Spanish war of independence – History of the Cortes – Constitution of Cádiz – Weakness of Spanish Constitutionalism – German Confederation – Monarchical principle in Vienna Final Act – Old and new ideas of sovereignty – Metternich and fear of revolution – March revolution – Bismarckian empire as constitutional monarchy – Degeneration of the Reich – Exit the Kings – Enter Juan Carlos

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yair Mintzker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
German Nation ◽  
German Speaking

This introductory chapter discusses how the historical figure of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer—also known as Jew Süss—is incredibly elusive, and any understanding of him must begin with the political and legal regimes under which he lived and died. Oppenheimer spent almost his entire life in the southwest corner of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. In the eighteenth century, the Holy Roman Empire was the general political organization that connected the hundreds of more or less sovereign polities in German-speaking central Europe. Especially important for understanding Oppenheimer's case is the fact that the Empire's members shared a common legal system scholars term “inquisitorial.”

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Luca Scholz
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Perspective

In the politically dense and fractured landscape of the Holy Roman Empire, safe conduct provided a key framework for negotiating freedom of movement and its restriction. The introduction sets out how the book uses safe conduct to approach the Holy Roman Empire in a spatial rather than diachronic perspective. It describes how authorities in the Empire restricted, promoted, and channelled different forms of mobility for political, fiscal, and symbolic reasons. Spatially these efforts were rarely concentrated at borders, which challenges anachronistic assumptions about the functioning of early modern borders. Conflicts around the enclosure of movement led to controversial debates around the rulers’ right to interfere with human mobility, adding a new chapter to the history of free movement. Drawing on manuscript, visual, and printed sources as well as self-designed maps, this book offers a new perspective on the unstable relation of political authority and human mobility in the heartlands of old-regime Europe.

Innerjüdische Streitigkeiten vor christlichen Gerichten

Aschkenas ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Avraham Siluk
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Jewish Communities

Norms and regulations of medieval and early modern Jewish communities forbade Jews from bringing other Jews to trial in front of Christian courts. In spite of this prohibition there were several cases, in which Jews sued other Jews in courts of Christian authorities. One example is a dispute between the Jewish intercessor, Jakob Süßmann , and the Jewish community of Frankfurt , which was processed before the Frankfurt council. The said case, which started as a local affair took a surprising course and affected, in the end, whole Jewish communities in the Holy Roman Empire. Through this case, the essay shows that not only the infraction of, but also compliance with the norms could lead to unexpected complications. In addition, the essay argues that the examination of such court cases would reveal valuable information about Jewish efforts of political organization.

scholarly journals The Parliament of the Republic of China

1914 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-562
Author(s):  
F. J. Goodnow
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Important Change ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Great Duration

A study of the history of China would serve to reveal the fact that notwithstanding the great duration of Chinese political life there has been comparatively speaking little change in the political organization of the country. With the exception of the abolition of, to use a European expression, the “feudal system” which existed for several centuries before about 200 B. C., Chinese history presents no instance of any important change in political forms.The character of the political organization which existed both prior and subsequent to the abolition of this “feudal system” was absolute monarchy, what is sometimes called autocracy. In this respect China differed little if any from other Asiatic peoples, whose great contribution to the political development of the human race has been the conception of an all powerful king or monarch in whom all the functions of government were concentrated.

How Did Germany Go Right?

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-136
Author(s):  
Charles S. Maier
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
The Political ◽  
German History ◽  
World War ◽  
National Socialist

To set a single agenda for German history would be a foolhardy task, but let us begin with a major generalization about the long-term development of the field. Two mega-issues have dominated the historiography and debates for a century or more, standing on the path of historical research like some huge boulders that can not be moved or even circumvented. The first concerns how the German communities of Central Europe had constructed a nation-state—Tantae molis erat Germanam condere gentem, to adapt Vergil. There was a Prussian-centered statist answer by scholars including Leopold von Ranke, Heinrich von Treitschke, and Friedrich Meinecke, and continuing through Christopher Clark'sIron Kingdom. A more decentered approach has, by contrast, stressed local experiences; liberal and participatory currents of a political or religious (often Roman Catholic in sympathy, e.g., the work of Franz Schnabel) or cultural nature; and, finally, the heritage of a federalist constitutionalism, whether instantiated in the Holy Roman Empire or in the later celebratory afterglow ofHeimat. The second mega-issue that dominated the historiography for the first generation—perhaps half-century—after World War II and the collapse of Nazism was one that I was asked about at my undergraduate oral examinations in the spring of 1960: Where did Germany go wrong? The catastrophic career of National Socialist Germany, both internally and for Europe in general, compelled my generation and later ones never to lose sight of that issue. Even those who rejected claims about long-term disabling flaws in the emergence of liberal democracy—the political original sin, so to speak—had to address that fundamental issue.

scholarly journals Remarks on Foreignness in Eighteenth-Century German Cookbooks

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 44-59
Author(s):  
David Do Paço
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
History Of

This article analyses how food, recipes, and techniques and manners introduced as foreign were integrated in eighteenth-century German cookbooks. Doing so it intends to transfer a methodology recently developed in social history to history of food in order to get a better understanding of how eighteenth-century European societies defined foreignness. It claims that cookbooks should be considered as topographies of the table and presents the Holy Roman Empire as a particularly rich field of study for history of circulation in the early modern world. 

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