1703–1704

Author(s):  
Frances Harris

The fourth chapter shows the Marlborough-Godolphin partnership challenged by Nottingham for control of grand strategy. The expansion of the war into Portugal, Spain, the Mediterranean, and the Americas makes Godolphin anxious about over-extension of resources. He also has to bring about the union of England with a violently nationalist Scotland to fulfil the queen’s desire and safeguard the Protestant succession. Marlborough is prevented by the Dutch from following up his success in the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire comes under threat from France. But Godolphin’s rigorous management of the Treasury gains the confidence of the City, thus lowering the interest rates for public credit, enabling him to pay subsidies to the Allies, exercise control over strategy, and fund Marlborough’s secret plan to save Vienna. With the aid of Robert Harley, Marlborough and Godolphin use the parliamentary contest over Occasional Conformity to divide the Tory opposition.

Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish

In the Mediterranean world, only Rome rivals Athens as a city famed for its antiquities. Ancient travelers came to marvel at its grand temples and civic buildings, just as tourists do today. Wealthy Romans sent their children to Athens to be educated by its philosophers and gain sophistication in the presence of its culture. Democracy, however faltering its first steps, began in this city, and education and the arts flourished in its environment. Even at the height of the Roman Empire, the Western world’s government may have been Roman but its dominant cultural influence was Greek. Latin never spread abroad as a universal language, but Greek did, in its Koine (common) form. By the 4th century B.C.E. this Attic dialect of Plato and the Athenian orators was already in use in countries around the Mediterranean. The monuments of Athens and the treasures of its National Museum still amaze and delight millions of visitors from every nation who come to see this historic cradle of Western culture. A settlement of some significance already existed at Athens in Mycenaean times (1600–1200 B.C.E.). Toward the end of the Dark Ages (1200–750 B.C.E.) the unification of Attica, a territory surrounding Athens of some 1,000 square miles, was accomplished under the Athenians. The resulting city-state was governed by aristocrats constituted as the Council of the Areopagus, named for the hill below the Athenian Acropolis where they commonly met. But only the nobility—defined as the wealthy male landowners—had any vote in the decisions that influenced affairs in the city, a situation increasingly opposed by the rising merchant class and the peasant farmers. The nobles seemed paralyzed by the mounting social tensions, and a class revolution appeared imminent. In 594 B.C.E. the nobles in desperation turned to Solon, also an aristocrat, whom they named as archon (ruler) of the city with virtual dictatorial powers. Solon, however, refused to rule as dictator of the city, instituting instead a series of sweeping reforms that mollified the lower classes without destroying the aristocracy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-163
Author(s):  
Scott L. Edwards

In the multilingual environments of Central European cities and courts, Italian musicians found a receptive market for their music. There they confronted a range of linguistic abilities that encouraged innovative approaches to musical composition and publication. Recent rediscovery of the opening sheets of Giovanni Battista Pinello’s 1584 Primo libro dele neapolitane enables us to assess one Genoese composer’s experience of a multi-ethnic, Central European milieu during an unprecedented migrational wave. As chapelmaster at the electoral court in Dresden with ties to aristocratic circles in Prague, Pinello also issued a German version that can be sung, according to the composer, simultaneously with the napolitane. This study examines the Central European market for Italian music, the role of the Holy Roman Empire in facilitating Italian migration, and cultural challenges foreign musicians faced in their new homes. Nineteenth-century myths of nationhood depended on histories of folk-like immobility, but in fact migration was a basic condition of early modern European life. Music historians have long been aware of individual musicians’ travels from the Low Countries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, along with a new trend, emerging around 1600, toward northward emigration by Italian musicians. Nonetheless, there is much more to say about the social underpinnings of such movements. Pinello’s fusion of languages, poetic forms, and registers invites us to reimagine the multi-ethnic complexion of Central European musical centers in the late sixteenth century.


2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-640
Author(s):  
Michael Rowe

The following article focuses on the Rhineland, and more specifically, the region on the left (or west) bank of the Rhine bounded in the north and west by the Low Countries and France. This German-speaking region was occupied by the armies of revolutionary France after 1792. De jure annexation followed the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), and French rule lasted until 1814. Most of the Rhineland was awarded in 1815 to Prussia and remained a constituent part until after the Second World War. The Rhineland experienced Napoleonic rule first hand. Its four departments—the Roër, Rhin-et-Moselle, Sarre, and Mont-Tonnerre—were treated like the others in metropolitan France, and it is this status that makes the region distinct in German-speaking Europe. This had consequences both in the Napoleonic period and in the century that followed the departure of the last French soldier. This alone would constitute sufficient reason for studying the region. More broadly, however, the Rhenish experience in the French period sheds light on the much broader phenomena of state formation and nation building. Before 1792, the Rhenish political order appeared in many respects a throwback to the late Middle Ages. Extreme territorial fragmentation, city states, church states, and mini states distinguished its landscape. These survived the early-modern period thanks in part to Great Power rivalry and the protective mantle provided by the Holy Roman Empire. Then, suddenly, came rule by France which, in the form of the First Republic and Napoleon's First Empire, represented the most demanding state the world had seen up to that point. This state imposed itself on a region unused to big government. It might be thought that bitter confrontation would have resulted. Yet, and here is a paradox this article wishes to address, many aspects of French rule gained acceptance in the region, and defense of the Napoleonic legacy formed a component of the “Rhenish” identity that came into being in the nineteenth century.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nóra G. Etényi

The unexpected death of the young Duke Georg Friedrich of Wurttemberg (1657–1685) on 18 October 1685 at the siege of Košice came as tremendous shock to the public of the Holy Roman Empire. The ducal family of Wurttemberg emphasized the principality’s participation and terrible loss in the war against the Ottoman Empire with a spectacular funeral and some carefully composed propaganda of ultimate honor.The principality of Wurttemberg traditionally maintained a special relationship with the Hungarian Lutheran nobility and citizens. The death of the duke changed the attitudes of the Hungarian Lutheran elite since the principality, which provided them with significant support, had suffered such a great loss in the political, economic and spiritual center of Upper Hungary, Košice, while the young Lutheran prince of Wurttemberg, fighting among the imperial troops, could have helped with the negotiations about the surrender of the city. The funeral speeches in the collection of sermons highlighted various aspects of the royal image, and this was complemented by a volume of fine poems compiled by professors at the University of Tübingen. The decency of the fallen Prince Georg Friedrich of Wurttemberg, which included both traditional topos and a modern set of values, represented several interdependent political interests, representing the high standard, literacy, and effectiveness of the propaganda of the War of Reconquest.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 357-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Ritter ◽  
Sami Ben Tahar ◽  
Jörg W. E. Fassbinder ◽  
Lena Lambers

This paper presents the results of the geophysical prospection conducted at the site of Meninx (Jerba) in 2015. This was the first step in a Tunisian-German project (a cooperation between the Institut National du Patrimoine, Tunis, and the Institut für Klassische Archäologie der Ludwig-Maximilans-Universität München), the aim of which is to shed light on the urban history of the most important city on the island of Jerba in antiquity.Meninx, situated on the SE shore of the island (fig. 1), was the largest city on Jerba during the Roman Empire and eponymous for the island's name in antiquity. The outstanding importance of this seaport derived from the fact that it was one of the main production centers of purple dye in the Mediterranean. With the earliest secure evidence dating to at least the Hellenistic period, Meninx saw a magnificent expansion in the 2nd and 3rd c. A.D. It was inhabited until the 7th c. when the city was finally abandoned.


Author(s):  
Sergei A. Denisov ◽  

This paper has analysed the images of Arta and Thessalonike on eight types of billon nomismata minted in the Principality of Epirus in 1224–1248. These images were represented separately or included into the portraits of local rulers from the Doukai family: Theodore I (1215–1230), Manuel (1230–1237), John (1237–1244), and Michael II (1237–1267). There are two types of representation of the city on the coins. The first image followed the Byzantine iconographic tradition of the eleventh and twelfth century and appeared on the coins from 1224–1244. It comprises the scene showing the heavenly patron of the community (St. Demetrios) or archangel Michael giving a Doukas the model of Thessalonike. This scene underlined the religious legitimation of the ruler’s power over the local community and implied schematic presentation of the city as a model. To the second type occurring on the nomismata from 1237–1248 features the images of urban architectural elements (gates, walls, and towers) incorporated into the ruler’s portraits or shown separately on the reverse. These images also underlined the ruler’s relation with the local community; they are typical of more detailed execution of drawing of fortifications (blocks, embrasures, and flags). The second type images appeared on the coins under the influence from iconographic samples from the Holy Roman empire caused by the political alliance between the Doukai and Friedrich II Hohenstaufen (1212–1250). Using the representation of their power as the patrons of urban communities, the Doukai gained support for their policy from the local inhabitants and used it as a support for their power and struggle for the Byzantine heritage.


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 105-127
Author(s):  
Andrej Sušjan ◽  
Stanislav Južnič

The Carniolan Society for Agriculture and Useful Arts, often somewhat loosely called the Carniolan Farming Society, worked between the years 1767 and 1787 in the Habsburg duchy of Carniola on the southern border of Holy Roman Empire, which now forms the central western part of Slovenia with its capital Ljubljana (Laibach), northeastern Italy with the city of Duino, and a part of Croatian Istria with the city of Pazin. The official name of the Society (referred to as Society or Carniolan Society in this article) was Kaiserlich Königliche Gesellschaft des Ackerbaues und nützlicher Künste im Herzogthume Krain. It published two important periodicals: the Sammlung nützlicher Unterrichte (Collection of useful instructions) and a weekly magazine titled Wöchentliches Kundschaftsblatt des Herzogthum Krain (Weekly news of the Duchy of Carniola). Both publications promoted intellectual and scientific developments of the time and reflected a progressive spirit of Enlightenment and rationalism, characteristic of the eighteenth century in Europe.


2012 ◽  
Vol 122 (560) ◽  
pp. 502-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Cantoni

Abstract Using a dataset of territories and cities of the Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth century, this article investigates the determinants of adoption and diffusion of Protestantism as a state religion. A territory’s distance to Wittenberg, the city where Martin Luther taught, is a major determinant of adoption. This finding is consistent with a theory of strategic neighbourhood interactions: introducing the Reformation was a risky enterprise for territorial lords and had higher prospects of success if powerful neighbouring states committed to the new faith. The actual spatial and temporal patterns of expansion of Protestantism are analysed in a panel dataset.


2021 ◽  
pp. 240-289
Author(s):  
Peter Fibiger Bang

This chapter identifies a comparative context for the Roman Empire in the Muslim imperial experience, from the Caliphate to the Mughals and Ottomans. As Crone once noted, the Caliphate was founded by Arab conquerors, but was quickly taken over by provincial converts to Islam in a process that saw the consolidation of an imperial monarchy, a court society, and garrisoned army. The course of Roman history mirrors this story of provincial takeover. A coalition of Italian conquerors expanded across the Mediterranean. Consolidation of conquests happened in a revolution that saw the institutionalization of a monarchy, the formation of a court, and a standing army. Only a little more slowly than in the Arab case, the history of the monarchy evolved as provincials came increasingly to constitute the personnel of the empire. At the end, power abandoned the city of Rome, only to find a durable seat in Constantinople on the Bosporus.


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