scholarly journals Impacts of the plague epidemic on the Kingdom of Bohemia in the second half of the XIVth century and at the beginning of the XVth century

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-62
Author(s):  
Martin Nodl
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Lower Intensity ◽  
Global Impact ◽  
Medieval France ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
Czech Lands ◽  
The Impact

Although the medieval plague epidemic had a global impact, its intensity varied from region to region in Europe. Plague rates as well as mortality rates were conditioned by climatic and geographical conditions, population density, migration, and trade activities, as well as nutritional opportunities and mental or cultural habits. If we look at Europe as a whole, then the Czech lands, the Bohemian Kingdom and the Moravian Margraviate were among the areas affected by plague epidemics in the XIVth and XVth centuries much less than medieval France, England, Italy, or the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire. The causes of the lower intensity of the plague epidemic in Bohemia and Moravia can be seen in all of the aspects mentioned above, which does not, however, mean that the impact of the plague epidemic in the Kingdom of Bohemia was not, in some regards, comparable to that in Western Europe. Research on the medieval plague epidemic in Bohemia and Moravia has struggled with a lack of relevant sources from the very beginning. The limited explanatory power of the sources has also influenced the limited interest of Czech historians in this topic. The only debate that was ever conducted about the impact of the plague epidemic in a Czech intellectual milieu concerned its possible influence on the outbreak of the Hussite revolution, or the degree of the intensity of the plague in 1380. This debate quite clearly led to the conclusion that in plague epidemics, or in their impact on pre-Hussite society, it is not possible to see a significant or even decisive cause of the outbreak of the Hussite revolution.

scholarly journals Printing, Propaganda, and Public Opinion in the Age of Martin Luther

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bagchi
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Communication Process ◽  
Low Literacy ◽  
God's Word ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Historical Literacy ◽  
The Impact

Luther had a notoriously ambivalent attitude towards what was still the new technology of the printing press. He could both praise it as God’s highest act of grace for the proclamation of God’s Word, and condemn it for its unprecedented ability to mangle the same beyond recognition. That ambivalence seems to be reflected in the judgment of modern scholarship. Some have characterized the Reformation as a paradigmatic event in the history of mass communications (a Medien- or Kommunikationsereignis), while others have poured scorn on any reductionist attempt to attribute a complex movement to a technological advance and to posit in effect a doctrine of “Justification by Print Alone.” The evidence in favor of some sort of correlation between the use of printing and the success of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland is certainly formidable. Thousands of German Reformation pamphlets (Flugschriften) survive to this day in research libraries and other collections (with Luther’s own works predominant among them), suggesting that the Holy Roman Empire was once awash with millions of affordable little tracts in the vernacular. Contemporary opponents of the Reformation lamented the potency of cheap print for propaganda and even for agitation among “the people,” and did their best either to beat the evangelical writers through legislation or else to join them by launching their own literary campaigns. But, ubiquitous as the Reformation Flugschrift was for a comparatively short time, the long-term impact of printing on Luther’s Reformation was even more impressive, above all in the production and dissemination of Bibles and partial Bibles that used Luther’s German translation. The message of the Lutheran Reformation, with its emphasis on the proclamation of God’s Word to all, seemed to coincide perfectly with the emergence of a new medium that could, for the first time, transmit that Word to all. Against this correlation must be set the very low literacy rate in the Holy Roman Empire in the early 16th century, which on some estimates ranged between only 5 and 10 percent. of the entire population. Even taking into account the fact that historical literacy rates are notoriously difficult to estimate, the impact of printing on the majority must have been negligible. This fact has led historians to develop more nuanced ways of understanding the early-modern communication process than simply imagining a reader sitting in front of a text. One is to recognize the “hybridity” of many publications—a pamphlet might contain labeled illustrations, or be capable of being read out aloud as a sermon, or of being sung. Luther himself published many successful hybrid works of this kind. Another is the notion of the “two-stage communication process,” by which propagandists or advertisers direct their message principally to influential, literate, opinion-formers who cascade the new ideas down. Clearly much work remains to be done in understanding how Luther’s propaganda and public opinion interacted. The fact that our present generations are living through a series of equally transformative and disruptive communications revolutions will no doubt inspire new questions as well as new insights.

Heidelberg, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis F. Mahoney
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Creative Collaboration ◽  
Intellectual Discourse ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Literary Innovation

In the various permutations of German Romanticism from its beginnings in the 1790s, two factors remain constant: a penchant for collaborative, transdisciplinary work, and the formation of small circles—often in university towns—whose particular character often depended upon and contributed to the prevailing intellectual discourse of that locale. For the four cities highlighted in the chapter heading, one further factor needs to be considered: the impact of the Napoleonic reorganization of central Europe. The breakup and dispersal of the Jena Romantics coincided with the collapse of the moribund Holy Roman Empire, which officially ended in 1806 but whose final dissolution began with the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. This chapter looks at the interplay between history and creative collaboration, literary innovation and political aspiration or restraint, as the main energies of German Romanticism relocate themselves in these different cities at different times.

Central European Jewry during the Thirty Years' War

1983 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan I. Israel
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
German Society ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Central European ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
German Jewry ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Systematic Explanation

Despite the wealth of published studies on individual German, Austrian, and Czech Jewish communities of the early modern era, it is remarkable how rare have been the attempts to synthesize the material and reach an overall assessment of the impact of the Thirty Years' War on Central European Jewish life. This gaping lacuna was noted some years ago by S. W. Baron, whose own general discussion of this subject is virtually unique. Immensely erudite, Baron's piece not only reveals the vast scope of the relevant material but tentatively suggests that the great European conflict was a key formative episode in the development of German Jewry, reversing earlier trends and preparing the way for the “Court Jews” of the later seventeenth century. This it undoubtedly was. Even so, Baron's evaluation is open to criticism on several counts. In particular, he fails to bring out, or make clear, just how crucial and how favorable a phase the Thirty Years' War was for the Jews of the Holy Roman Empire. Furthermore, while some effort is made in his essay to identify the key shifts of the period, such as an alleged drift of Jews from the countryside to the towns, it is arguable that this is not handled very convincingly or with sufficient precision. In any case, it is evident that a fuller, more systematic explanation is needed if we are to account for the singular fact that during this period of almost unparalleled disruption, turmoil, and suffering Christendom's perennial scapegoat fared considerably better than most of the rest of German society.

scholarly journals Religious relics of Italy

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (91) ◽  
pp. 111-115
Author(s):  
O. M. Bezhuk
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
Religious Objects ◽  
Religious Aspects ◽  
Religious Morality ◽  
The Impact

Religions have always played a significant role in the formation of the statehood and development of such powerful states as the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kievan Rus, or the Empire of Charlemagne. Peculiarities of the national culture are dictated by its faith. This is due to the fact that folk traditions, mentality, political structure, peculiarities of the historical trajectory of each nation including the religious development, have a tremendous influence on the religious aspects of nations and states. Religious attitudes, religious morality, practice of ceremonies, and church institutions deeply penetrate into everyday lives of people and countries in particular, largely determine their local originality as well as national and cultural identity. In general, the influence of religious-confessional factors is felt at all levels of organization of society’s life. The diversity of its manifestations is unlimited, and basically, it is not the impact on the life, but the life itself. This thesis should always be remembered either when illuminating the tourist resources of the country or the conditions of organization of the tourism business. The article is referred to the religious tourism in Italy – the country on the territory of which Christianity (Holy Roman Empire) arose. The article concideres such religious objects of Rome as Vatican, the Basilica of St. Peter, the area around the Capitol, religious practices of the city of Loreto called the Holy House, as well as the worship of sacred Turin Shroud.

Juridical Equality

2019 ◽  
pp. 42-52
Author(s):  
David Sorkin
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Central European ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Central European Region ◽  
East And West

This chapter details how the Jews of the Holy Roman Empire constituted the central European region of emancipation. Some historians would contend that the Holy Roman Empire's “archaic, traditionalist constitution created a society that tolerated religious and ethnic differences to a far greater degree than the more centralized states of Western Europe”; in other words, “early modern central Europe was a pluralistic, complex society more tolerant of differences than England, France or Spain.” Whether this observation is accurate or not, it concerns toleration, not parity. Jews in the Holy Roman Empire fell behind Jews to the east and west in their political status. They gained neither collective corporate privileges nor the civic rights of emerging civil societies. To be sure, their juridical equality in the courts of the Holy Roman Empire marked a significant elevation in status. The Court Jews' extensive individual privileges were also an elevation in status, yet only for a miniscule elite. In sum, Jews in the Holy Roman Empire did not keep pace with their brethren east and west, thus making the transition to emancipation, when it came, a painful rupture.

The Helvetic Republic

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Indefinite Number ◽  
Swiss Law ◽  
Legal Equality ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Alpine Valleys ◽  
Swiss Government

This chapter focuses on Switzerland and the Helvetic Republic. Until 1798, all of Switzerland was an incredibly complex mosaic of dissimilar pieces. Over a millennium, there had grown up an indefinite number of small communities—from cities like Zurich to remote clusters of pastoral families in Alpine valleys—which no longer belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, and did not yet belong politically to anything else. There was no Swiss state, Swiss citizenship, Swiss law, or even Swiss government. However, nowhere else was the impact of certain principles of the Revolution more apparent and more lasting—especially of the principles of legal equality and of the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. The idea of a Swiss people became a reality under the Helvetic Republic, whose main features were confirmed in the Napoleonic Act of Mediation of 1803, and reconfirmed at the Congress of Vienna.

Jews, Regalian Rights, And The Constitution In Medieval France

AJS Review ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Chester Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
The West ◽  
Medieval France ◽  
German Nation ◽  
Territorial Division

It is fashionable to imagine a great dichotomy between the feudal monarchies in the West and the brittle, particularistic entity of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. To Voltaire's mean-spirited gibe that the latter was neither holy, Roman, nor an Empire might be added that it was also not really German, since millions of Netherlanders, Italians, and Slavs, as well as Provencals and Savoyards, lived within its territorial limits. France and England, the stereotype goes, had achieved a precocious unity, at least in the thirteenth century. Nothing could be clearer, one might conclude, than the contrast between the great kingdoms of the West and the so-called Empire. The fashionable cliche even affects our understanding of Jewish life in the Middle Ages. Fritz Backhaus put the commonplace this way: “The territorial division (Zersplitterung) of Germany prevented a comprehensive expulsion [of the Jews] as could be carried out in England, France, and Spain.” This neat dichotomy is inadequate. At best it makes sense in a comparison between England and Germany. Only in England, a few exceptions aside, were the claims of a paramount lord, the king, to the control and exploitation of the Jews more or less uncontested by other secular authorities or by ecclesiastics in the role of secular lords.

The Impact of the Executions in the German-Speaking Lands of the Holy Roman Empire

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Christman
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Southern Germany ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Reformation Theology ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
University City ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church

This chapter argues that the executions of Vos and van den Esschen impacted the German-speaking lands more broadly. The first half addresses the dissemination of news of the burnings via published eyewitness accounts, as well as evidence from personal letters, revealing networks of correspondence that paralleled print as a means of diffusion. The second half of the chapter is devoted to a case study of Ingolstadt, a university city in southern Germany where booksellers and intellectuals employed the executions to demonstrate the corruption of the church. At the same time, opponents of Luther’s reform utilized them to condemn aspects of Reformation theology. The case reveals how news of the burnings worked its way into the fabric of the Reformation debates there.

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