Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire
«The study is based not only on extensive work on sources in numerous archives in Alsace, south-western Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; it is also noteworthy for its exceptionally deep engagement with the current state of German scholarship, as reflected in the bibliography....Hardy's interpretative model, drawing on a profound knowledge of the sources and research, therefore offers the basis for the discussion of a different conception of the late medieval Empire. This altogether stimulating approach will lead to much productive debate.»
Anja Thaller, German Historical Institute London Bulletin
What was the Holy Roman Empire in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries? At the turning point between the medieval and early modern periods, this vast Central European polity was the continent's most politically fragmented. Les mer
historical judgements and fraught debates, which have found expression in recent decades in the concepts of fractured 'territorial states' and a disjointed 'imperial constitution'. Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire challenges these interpretations through a wide-ranging case study
of Upper Germany - the southern regions of modern-day Germany plus Alsace, Switzerland, and western Austria - between 1346 and 1521. By examining the interactions of princes, prelates, nobles, and towns comparatively, Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire demonstrates that a range of actors and authorities shared the same toolkit of technologies, rituals, judicial systems, and concepts and configurations of government. Crucially, Upper German elites all participated
in leagues, alliances, and other treaty-based associations. As frameworks for collective activity, associations were a vital means of enabling and regulating warfare, justice and arbitration, and even lordship and administration.
On the basis of this evidence, Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire offers a new and more coherent depiction of the Holy Roman Empire as a sprawling community of interdependent elites who interacted within the framework of a shared political culture.
Detaljer
- Forlag
- Oxford University Press
- Innbinding
- Innbundet
- Språk
- Engelsk
- ISBN
- 9780198827252
- Utgivelsesår
- 2018
- Format
- 22 x 15 cm
- Priser
- Winner of the 2019 Gladstone Prize by the Royal Historical Society null
Anmeldelser
«The study is based not only on extensive work on sources in numerous archives in Alsace, south-western Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; it is also noteworthy for its exceptionally deep engagement with the current state of German scholarship, as reflected in the bibliography....Hardy's interpretative model, drawing on a profound knowledge of the sources and research, therefore offers the basis for the discussion of a different conception of the late medieval Empire. This altogether stimulating approach will lead to much productive debate.»
Anja Thaller, German Historical Institute London Bulletin
«...this is an important book that deserves wide readership among medievalists and early modernists, and it would even be of interest more broadly to historians of political thought.»
Aaron Vanides, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Speculum
«...this is a book that should be on the reading list of any scholar working on late medieval and early modern Central Europe.»
Stephan Sander-Faes, Universität Zürich, Renaissance Quarterly
«This well-written, tightly argued monograph analyzes the political culture of the fragmented southwestern regions of the Holy Roman Empire between the medieval and early modern periods ... Hardy persuasively challenges traditional historiographic models that seek the origins of state development through territorialization in the late medieval German-speaking lands or that treat imperial estates as hierarchically distinct and territorially bounded ... Hardy's alternative model will be much cited and should inspire research in other imperial regions and beyond ... Highly recommended.»
P. G. Wallace, CHOICE