Associative political culture in the Holy Roman Empire : Upper Germany, 1346-1521 / Duncan Hardy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hardy, Duncan, 1988- author.

Series:

Oxford historical monographs

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political culture.

History.

Holy Roman Empire--History--1273-1517.

Holy Roman Empire.

Holy Roman Empire--Politics and government.

Holy Roman Empire--Social life and customs.

Political culture--Europe--History--To 1500.

Manners and customs.

Politics and government.

Europe.

Europe--Holy Roman Empire.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 302 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2018.

Summary:

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. The imperial monarchs were often weak and distant, while a diverse array of regional actors played an autonomous role in political life. The Empire's obvious differences compared with more centralized European kingdoms have stimulated negative historical judgements and fraught debates, which have found expression in recent decades in the concepts of fractured 'territorial states' and a disjointed 'imperial constitution'. This book 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. It demonstrates that a range of actors and authorities shared the same toolkit of technologies, rituals, judicial systems, and concepts and configurations of government. 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, the book offers a new depiction of the Holy Roman Empire as a sprawling community of interdependent elites who interacted within the framework of a shared political culture.

Contents:

I Shared And Interconnects Structures And Practices

1 Documentary Culture and Ritual p. 21

2 Arbitration and Para-Judicial Mediation p. 41

3 Feuding and Warfare p. 56

4 Lordship and Administration p. 69

II Associations And Associative Political Culture

5 Associations in Comparative Perspective: The Continuum of Alliances and Leagues p. 93

6 The Functions of Alliances and Leagues: Assistance and Adjudication p. 123

7 Associations and the Discourses of Peace, Common Weal, and Empire p. 141

8 Beyond Alliances and Leagues: The Associative Character of Political Life in the Empire p. 159

III Associative Political Culture In Action: Four Case Studies

9 The 'Town War', c. 1376-89 p. 179

10 Upper Germany in the Reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg, c. 1410-37 p. 198

11 Burgundian Rule on the Upper Rhine and its Aftermath, c. 1468-77 p. 215

12 The Age of Imperial Reform, c. 1486-1521 p. 233.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [265]-287) and index.

ISBN:

0198827253

9780198827252

OCLC:

1020611775