scholarly journals Transfer, Entanglement and Regnal Traditions. The Mobility of Ideas, or How to Define Princely Rank in England and the Empire in the Fourteenth Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Jörg Peltzer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Late Medieval

This paper addresses the theme of mobility in the context of late medieval political thought, more specifically, the rhetoric of royal charters issued in England and the Holy Roman Empire in the fourteenth century.

Humanism and Empire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Lee
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
City States ◽  
Renaissance Italy ◽  
Political Conviction

For more than a century, scholars have believed that Italian humanism was predominantly ‘civic’ in outlook. Often serving in communal government, fourteenth-century humanists like Albertino Mussato and Coluccio Salutati are said to have derived from their reading of the Latin classics a rhetoric of republican liberty that was opposed to the ‘tyranny’ of neighbouring signori and of the German emperors. In this groundbreaking study, Alexander Lee challenges this long-held belief. From the death of Frederick II in 1250 to the failure of Rupert of the Palatinate’s ill-fated expedition in 1402, Lee argues, the humanists nurtured a consistent and powerful affection for the Holy Roman Empire. Though this was articulated in a variety of different ways, it was nevertheless driven more by political conviction than by cultural concerns. Surrounded by endless conflict—both within and between city states—the humanists eagerly embraced the Empire as the surest guarantee of peace and liberty, and lost no opportunity to invoke its protection. Indeed, as Lee shows, the most ardent appeals to imperial authority were made not by ‘signorial’ humanists, but by humanists in the service of communal regimes. The first comprehensive, synoptic study of humanistic ideas of Empire in the period c.1250–1402, this volume offers a radically new interpretation of fourteenth-century political thought, and raises wide-ranging questions about the foundations of modern constitutional ideas. As such, it is essential reading not just for students of Renaissance Italy and the history of political thought, but for all those interested in understanding the origins of liberty.

Lordship and Administration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Urban Elites ◽  
Interconnected Networks ◽  
Territorial States

The Holy Roman Empire, and especially Upper Germany, was notoriously politically fragmented in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. A common way to interpret this fragmentation has been to view late medieval lordships, particularly those ruled by princes, as incipient ‘territories’, or even ‘territorial states’. However, this over-simplifies and reifies structures of lordship and administration in this period, which consisted of shifting agglomerations of assets, revenues, and jurisdictions that were dispersed among and governed by interconnected networks of political actors. Seigneurial properties and rights had become separable, commoditized, and highly mobile by the later middle ages, and these included not only fiefs (Lehen) but also loan-based pledges (Pfandschaften) and offices, all of which could be sold, transferred, or even ruled or exercised by multiple parties at once, whether these were princes, nobles, or urban elites. This fostered intensive interaction between formally autonomous political actors, generating frictions and disputes.

The Bounds of Empire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Lee
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Italian Nationalism ◽  
To Come

Scholars have long believed that ‘medieval’ universalism was supplanted by ‘Italian’ nationalism over the course of the fourteenth century. As this chapter demonstrates, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Although the humanists were often more concerned with the fate of Italy, or of individual cities, than of mankind as a whole, they did not waver in their belief that the Holy Roman Empire enjoyed universal dominion. Only at the very end of the Visconti Wars, when the Empire was seen to threaten the peace and liberty of the peninsula did ‘Italianness’ at last begin to come to the fore. Yet this is not to say that their universalism was unvarying. Depending on whether they chose to view it more as the successor of the ancient imperium Romanum or as an instrument of providence, they could paint it in idealistically ‘Roman’ colours, or endow it with a more ‘hegemonic’ tinge.

scholarly journals Grafen von Krabaten

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-228
Author(s):  
Robert Kurelić
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
German Language ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of

The counts of Krk were one of the most prestigious and most powerful noble families in late medieval Croatia, with a dominant role attained under Nicholas IV who received the last name Frankapani from Pope Martin V in 1430. Soon after his death German language sources began to refer to the family as Grafen von Krabaten or Counts of Croatia, a somewhat peculiar designation considering that there were other prominent families such as the counts of Krbava who also maintained contacts within the Holy Roman Empire. This paper traces the development of the term von Krabaten from 1440 until the election of Ferdinand I Habsburg as king of Croatia, showing how it was used throughout the century and may have been an indication of the respect and status achieved by the Frankapani under Nicholas IV and his sons. The term is also explored as a helping tool for further research into the history of the family using sources that have hitherto been overlooked or neglected.

How Sincere Was Leibniz’s Criticism of Hobbes’s Political Thought?

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 29-60
Author(s):  
Fiorenza Manzo ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
Theoretical Ground ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Textual Evidence

This paper focuses on Leibniz’s engagement with Thomas Hobbes’s political anthropology in the Mainz-period writings, and demonstrates that Leibniz tried to construct an alternative to the English philosopher by conceiving of a physically- and ontologically-grounded psychology of actions. I provide textual evidence of this attempt, and account for Leibniz’s rejection of Hobbes’s political theory and anthropological assumptions. In doing so, I refer to diverse aspects of Leibniz’s work, thereby highlighting his aspiration to congruity and consistency between different areas of investigation. Furthermore, Leibniz’s political writings and letters will reveal another—sometimes neglected—aspect of the issue: his concern to defend and legitimize the existence of pluralist and collective constitutional political systems like the Holy Roman Empire by providing the theoretical ground of their ability to last.

scholarly journals Political Language in the Holy Roman Empire (1500–1650s)

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Christel Annemieke Romein
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Political Language

AbstractIn this first part of the book, I examine the use of fatherland-terminology in the Holy Roman Empire in general, and in the Duchy of Jülich and Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel more in particular. In this second chapter, I sketch the context of political language in German political thought and the use of fatherland discourse as unifying rhetoric.

On What Were Oaths Taken in Christian Latin Europe in the High Middle Ages (12th-Early 14th Centuries)?

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Michalina Duda ◽  
Sławomir Jó źwiak
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Community Life ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
Private Corporation ◽  
Written Sources

It is not surprising that oaths were used in all legal systems and in very broadly understood public and social relationships in Christian Latin Europe in the Middle Ages. The oath was commonly presented in various aspects of community life, that is, in political, constitutional, legal, economic, commercial, private, corporation, and religious matters.1 The oath as such and its use can be examined in a great number of contexts. But, in this paper we will solely focus on one of these. The topic discussed here are objects (paraments) on which oaths were taken. Lots of information about this issue is provided by iconography and written sources. These objects were subject to notable changes depending on the time and territory. This article focuses on such territories as England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, Sweden, Bohemia, Poland, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the period of more than two centuries of the High Middle Ages, from the twelfth to the early fourteenth century.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Early Modern History ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Comparative Study

It is clear from the comparative study of Upper German evidence undertaken in this book that multilateral associations were ubiquitous in the Holy Roman Empire in the period 1346–1521, and that they structured the interactions of all the diverse political actors within it. Indeed, inhabitants of the late medieval Empire used an ‘associative’ language of membership and mutual assistance, and the multilateral metaphor of the Quaternion (a symbolic amalgam of political actors of various statuses), when attempting to apprehend and articulate the structure and function of their polity. Modern unitary concepts of statehood and constitutionality, which dominate how we narrate and describe late medieval and early modern history, are inadequate to make sense of the Empire’s structure. The paradigm of ‘associative political culture’ offered in this book therefore not only reconceptualizes the Empire, but also has implications for alternative ways of envisioning political configurations and developments in pre-modern Europe.

scholarly journals BOURGEOIS MODERNITY VERSUS THE HISTORICAL ARISTOCRACY IN CHRISTOPH MEINERS'S POLITICAL THOUGHT

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-966 ◽  
Author(s):  
MORGAN GOLF-FRENCH
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Radical Critique ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Bourgeois Modernity

AbstractChristoph Meiners (1747–1810), a major historian and philosopher of the German late Enlightenment, has received increasing recognition as a significant thinker in the emergence of nineteenth-century racial theories. The scholarly focus on Meiners's hierarchical view of race and its legacy has led to the classification of his broaderoeuvreas conservative, or even reactionary. By examining hisGeschichte der Ungleichheit der Stände unter den vornehmsten europäischen Völkern(1792), written in response to the French Revolution and the contemporary circumstances of the Holy Roman Empire, this article sheds new light on his work, as well as on an under-researched line of thought in the 1790s. Rather than a conservative or reactionary work, this text is a radical critique of the German aristocracy that ultimately recommends the abolition of most significant aristocratic privileges and the overhaul of its membership in favour of the bourgeoisie. This article presents not only a more complex understanding of Christoph Meiners's ideas, but also calls for a reappraisal of the categories applied to late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century intellectuals both in Germany and in Europe more broadly.

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