"The Princely State and the Noble Family: Conflict and Co-operation in the Margraviates Ansbach-Kulmbach in the Fifteetnth and Sixteenth Century," The Historical Journal 49, no. 1 (2006), 1-21. (original) (raw)
Related papers
General accounts of the political history of later medieval Europe have tended to stress the development of discrete, more-or-less coherent units. A typical approach in such accounts is to list the most prominent European kingdoms and principalities, and to characterise the most important trends in their development in terms of that which contributed (however gradually and incompletely) to their consolidation and constituted the vertical ‘lineaments of state power’. This way of thinking about politics has long posed a problem for the German-speaking spaces within the Holy Roman Empire. Given that a path towards increasingly centralised statehood under a monarch or prince is held up as the norm, it is not surprising that – in light of the weakness of the kings of the Romans and the fragmentation of the Imperial political map – German scholars have concluded that ‘das römisch-deutsche Reich den Weg zur modernen Staatlichkeit nicht gefunden [hat]’, and furthermore that ‘in den Territorien weitgehend verwirklicht wurde, was dem Reich als Ganzem versagt blieb, so daß es in Deutschland eher die Territorialherrschaften waren, die den Grundstock für die Ausbildung des modernen “Anstaltsstaates” gelegt haben’. The notion that the Empire’s late medieval political development was shaped by the creation of Territorien – Territorialstaaten, even –emerged in the early modern principalities within the Empire, and has overshadowed the historiography of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ever since. There have been attempts to render this idea of crystallising authority within compartmentalised lordship-territories less anachronistically and less abstractly as socially-grounded Landesherrschaft and Landeshoheit, notably under the influence of Otto Brunner’s concept of autogenic lordship in tradition- and community-derived Länder. The word ‘state’ is thus now avoided, but the historiographical vision of the Empire remains that of a patchwork of evolving political units (Flächenherrschaften) characterised by growing governmental authority. As Ernst Schubert conceded in his recent overview of princely lordship in late medieval Germany, scholarship of the Empire remains in the grip of this model of territorial political power below the level of the crown even though scholars are questioning the meaning and value of the concepts (Territorium, Landesherrschaft, and so on) which underpin it. The Empire as a whole has not been fully abandoned in the search for a political narrative for later medieval Germany. Since Peter Moraw’s 1985 history of the 1250-1490 period the role of the monarchy and the estates have been viewed constructively through the influential paradigm sketched out in that book. According to Moraw’s model, there was a transition from an ‘open constitution’ (offene Verfassung), in which political entities existed side-by-side within the boundaries of an Empire towards which they had no major obligations, to a kind of ‘configured consolidation’ (gestaltete Verdichtung), which was the loose and dualistic but increasingly institutionalised form that the Empire took as a consequence of the interplay of the interests of great dynasties on the Imperial throne on the one hand and the combined efforts of the leading Reichsstände to defend and assert their personal and territorial agendas on the other. This framework is offered as a means of making sense of how ‘die Vielzahl der Machtträger im Reich’ and their ‘freie Kräftespiel’ fed into the shape and dynamic of the Imperial polity as a whole. These conceptualisations of the Empire and its constituent parts have gone a long way towards fashioning a convincing narrative of political developments in the German lands. However, in the south-west of the Empire there was a level of political activity which is very evident in surviving documentary sources, but which the existing models of the unitary Territorial- and Reichsverfassungen and the predominantly vertical links within them do not fully apprehend: the sub-monarchical level of lateral interaction between local elites . Verfassungsgeschichte is good at identifying relationships within a political unit, but not across or between multiple units, especially the kind of fragmentary and protean units which formed fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Oberdeutschland. The lateral interaction amongst such units is exemplified by the numerous alliances, leagues, and Landfrieden undertaken by and between a range of political actors along the length and breadth of the Upper Rhine, including princes, counts, margraves, prince-bishops, abbots, and free and Imperial cities. Other kinds of formal association in the area, such as coinage leagues and multilateral jurisdictional contracts, as well as informal networks spanning multiple polities (between creditors and debtors, relatives in extended noble dynasties, etc.), also point to the mutual entanglement of a variety of political actors and entities across ‘territorial’ boundaries. These essentially horizontal associations appear to have been so widespread and multitudinous that it seems appropriate to explain these activities in terms of an associative political culture in the concerned south-western regions. The aim of this paper will be to demonstrate the existence of this political culture in a particularly challenging period for the Imperial monarchy and for peace and order in the Empire – the reigns of Wenceslas, Rupert of the Palatinate, and Sigismund. It will attempt to do so by sketching out the uniquely intense series of criss-crossing alliances which dominated the political landscape of the Upper Rhine between the 1370s and the 1430s. These alliances, and the lateral relationships which underpinned them, shed some light on a bewilderingly complex series of conflicts – the ‘town wars’ of the 1380s, the feuds of Strasbourg in the 1390s, the anti-Austrian Reichskrieg of the 1410s, and the anti-badisch coalition of the 1420s – which can seem chaotic and inexplicable when viewed solely from the perspective of the individual political entities involved, or from that of a ‘zoomed out’ overview of Imperial history. The paper will seek to substantiate the case for associative political culture further by reference to some other specific examples of lateral interaction, such as knightly societies and trans-jurisdictional mediatory practices. It will also consider how the activities of more or less autonomous regional powers below the level of the crown intersected with the idea and reality of the Empire as a whole and its monarchs. The presence in many alliance treaties, not least royally-sanctioned Landfriedensverträge, of a rhetoric of concern for general peace and order and the honour of the Holy Roman Empire suggests a conscious link between associative activity and the overarching Imperial polity. More concretely, kings could and did attempt to harness associations to their own agendas, particularly those associations with close established customary ties to the crown’s remaining administrative structures, such as the league of ten Imperial cities in the Reichslandvogtei of Alsace (the so-called ‘Décapole alsacienne’). The half-brothers Wenceslas and Sigismund provide an instructive comparison, in that the former’s rigid opposition to most formal associations (notably Städtebünde) left him with far less influence than the latter was able to garner through a policy of careful support for key actors and their allies, although neither could fully direct associative dynamics in the south-western localities. The turbulence in south-west Germany which followed Charles IV’s experiment in hegimoniales Königtum cannot be fully understood without considering how associative activity fits into both regional and crown-level politics. The contention in this paper will thus be that we stand to gain by thinking about sources pertaining to later medieval Germany in a framework other than that of the Verfassungsgeschichte of either a territory or of the Empire as a whole. Instead, a consideration of political structures – discourses, networks, and behavioural patterns as well as formal ties and institutions – could yield new perspectives and resolve apparent difficulties in the Empire’s historical development. The specific case of the later medieval Upper Rhine suggests that some of the prevalent structures of this kind could be characterised as elements of an associative political culture on the basis of the extensive evidence of lateral interaction between poorly hierarchised neighbouring powers. Associative political culture in all its forms offers one possible alternative solution to Moraw’s ‘drängendes Problem’ of ‘die Suche nach dem Gemeinsamen in der deutschen Geschichte innerhalb ihrer ausgeprägten Vielfalt’. This paper will attempt to make it clear that lateral interactions between variegated powers are an important but neglected aspect of the political history of the Empire and perhaps of Europe more generally in the later middle ages.
The Imperial Court and the Localities during the Reign of Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III
German History, Volume 42, Issue 1, 2024
The centrality of the territorial principalities and imperial diet is a defining feature of the historiography of the late medieval Holy Roman Empire. This tendency risks restricting discussions of the Reich’s political life to the arena of high politics and obscuring important links and relationships between the imperial monarchy and its non-princely subjects. This article sets out to examine interactions between the late medieval imperial government and its subjects in the localities. The analysis focuses on the court and government of Emperor Friedrich III of Habsburg (r. 1440–1493), whose ‘peripheral kingship’ has been interpreted by historians as the moment of the crown’s definitive alienation from the Empire’s core lands. The article presents two case studies of protracted legal disputes in which communities of different size, importance and location came into the orbit of the emperor’s court seeking to protect their rights and interests. These case studies provide illustrative examples of how routine matters and local conflicts could be inextricably bound up in the structures of the emperor’s government. This evidence suggests that a complete account of the political and governmental history of the late medieval Holy Roman Empire needs to incorporate both new insights about the effectiveness of the imperial monarchy and the complex, multi-layered and interdependent nature of local politics.
Acta Archaeologica, 2019
The Circum-Harz group of the Central German Únětice Culture (2200-1600 BC) was a highly stratified society, which arose from the merging of the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker Cultures. This process was advanced by princes who established their legitimacy as rulers on symbolic references to both cultures as well as on newly created traditions and historical references. Their power was based on armed troops, which appear to have been accommodated in large houses or longhouses. The hierarchical structure of the troops can be determined by both their distinctive weapons and the colours thereof. The prince of the Dieskau territory commanded the largest army and occupied a dominant position, expressed through the large Bornhöck burial mound and by the gold find of Dieskau, which itself most likely originated in the Bornhöck barrow. The article concludes with a discussion whether the Dieskau ruler was an actual head of a genuine state, according to the criteria put forth by Max Weber and Stefan Breuer. There is some indication that these criteria of statehood were fulfilled by the period associated with the Nebra Sky Disk at the latest, since this disk allowed the prince to act as ‘a representative of the gods before the community’ (Breuer 1998, 39). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/16000390/2019/90/1
Prussia’s Franconian undertaking. Dynasty, law, and politics in the Holy Roman Empire (1703-1726)
Q.O. Somsen, 2017
In the early eighteenth century, the question of succession in Bayreuth caused a Hohenzollern internal dispute. King Friedrich I 'in' Prussia wanted to add the principality of Bayreuth to his numerous possessions, but a distant cousin made objections and appealed to the emperor’s Reichshofrat (Imperial Aulic Council). The appeal required the Reichshofrat to arbitrate between members of one of the Empire’s most powerful ruling families. Prussia’s possible expansion was a politically sensitive issue. Bayreuth was part of the Empire’s Franconian circle and the king’s ambitions prompted opposition from Franconian princes and counts who feared future Prussian dominance in the region. The opposition actively lobbied against the king’s claim and supported every Hohenzollern scion willing to challenge Prussia. This article inquires how the Reichshofrat guaranteed the inheritance rights of the Empire’s high nobility even when the political stakes were exceptionally high.
The German and Austrian nobility ceased to exist as a legally defined class 1919. Nevertheless, putative membership within a group of people referring to themselves as the ‘historic’ German and Austrian nobility remains an important component of the identity of many in the 21st century. Indeed, such membership captures the public imagination to this day and continues to have a profound effect on contemporary social politics. One of the problems of traditional sociohistorical works is that they have often maintained an artificially rigid differentiation between “the nobility” and “the bourgeoisie,” as well as between the “ancient nobility” and those of the more recent nobility. Much of the ambiguity related to the perceived structure of the historic German/Austrian nobility is a result of the complexity of the Holy Roman Empire. A more profound delineation of the contours of the aristocracy of the Holy Roman Empire particularly with respect to legacy imperial patricians and holders of doctorates should provide sociologists and historians with a clearer understanding of membership in what is currently considered the historic German and Austrian nobility. This article attempts to spotlight some perhaps previously overlooked mechanisms of, and vehicles for social advancement relevant to wealthy merchants and academics during the time of the Holy Roman Empire and how such mechanisms directly impact the scope of who is to be considered part of the presently existing historic German/Austrian nobility.
As a decentralised and fragmented polity with a long-standing electoral system for appointing its monarchs, the late medieval and early modern Holy Roman Empire presented unique challenges and opportunities to the aristocratic dynasties based within its notional borders. It is a commonplace of German historiography that the Roman monarchy became ‘dynasticised’ in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which is to say that it became the target of princely families seeking to enhance their Hausmacht. Yet in some respects this interpretation misrepresents the characteristics of ‘dynasty’, in terms of how contemporaries in the Empire seem to have conceptualised this notion. As historians, we find it convenient to subsume the aims of political actors within reified ‘dynastic’ wholes (the ‘Luxemburger’, the ‘Wittelsbacher’, the ‘Hohenzollern’, and so on), while the late medieval sources seem more concerned with princes and nobles as individual rulers (or co-rulers) tied to a territorial zone and political community (Landschaft, Herzogtum, comté, États, etc.). For those princes who aspired to become, or succeeded in becoming, kings or emperors of the Romans, there is a similar lack of evidence of purely ‘dynastic’ ideas in the sources. Instead, these accentuate the traditions and functions of the office of the imperial monarchy, as well as defining the monarch in relation to his other territorial and jurisdictional titles and rights. These discursive and ideological patterns in the late medieval evidence will be substantiated by reference to two of the most important ducal dynasties with royal aspirations in the Empire: the ‘Valois’ house of Burgundy (domus Burgundie, maison de Bourgogne) and the ‘Habsburg’ house of Austria (domus Austrie, Haus Österreich). The dukes of Burgundy ruled a growing territorial complex which brought them increasingly into the orbit of imperial politics, and in the fifteenth century they sought to obtain royal status, whether through election as kings of the Romans or through the acquisition of a new crown of Burgundy (or ‘Lotharingia’). Though these ambitions were never fulfilled, the negotiations for a Burgundian crown reveal a recurrent emphasis on the territorial and communitarian foundations of the dukes’ authority and dynastic legitimacy. The dukes of Austria, meanwhile, were scattered amongst an archipelago of south German territories, and the political image of each member of the dynasty was crafted primarily by reference to the specific titles he bore and the local relationships that came with it. At the end of the fifteenth century, as one ‘Habsburg’ branch gained a firm grasp on the crown of the Romans, a preoccupation with a mythologised Austrian dynasty did emerge, but only in conjunction with more customary references to official functions and the claims and agendas of subject territories and regions. The paper will draw from these examples the need to avoid isolating ‘dynasticism’ as a ‘factor’ in late medieval politics. In a fragmented and competitive political space like the Holy Roman Empire, dynastic concerns were always embedded in a nexus of aims which had to take into account – and discursively valorise – the territorial and communitarian components of a prince’s patrimony.
From the modern perspective, Central and East-Central Europe at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century seem to present a reasonably clear and unequivocal political picture. 1 need describe it only briefly here since its essential features were determined by the victory of the princes. As the confessional territorial state developed, the princes' sphere of responsibility expanded. The princely state gained control over areas previously ruled autonomously by the nobility: it guaranteed the uniformity of religion; organised and regulated new forms of judicial proceedings; collected increasing tax revenues; appointed university professors and the like; conducted ecclesiasticat visitations; and guaranteed the existing social order. All this fits into a long-term pattern leading from the beginnings of the consolidation of dynasties and secular rule in the Tate Middle Ages to the trend towards bureaucratisation characteristic of the late eighteenth century. The years around 1600, which particularly interest us here, are of special significance in this context. After the various crises of the sixteenth century, the outlines of the early modern state emerged and were consolidated at that time, a process which became apparent first in the financial side of the state's activities, then in its military, economic and administrative functions. Gerhard Oestreich dates these developments specifically to the Tate sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.