

Reading
Value of attendance and participation





Review the questions on p. 4 of the syllabus in
preparation for each class.
Bring assigned readings to every class.
Tests
Written assignments
Consult the syllabus regularly and follow all
instructions carefully.

Home page


Maps






slides for lectures and tutorials
online
Europe’s Tragedy
Sourcebook
Genealogy in Europe’s Tragedy
Chronology in Sourcebook
SFU Library


Earliest interpretations: popularity of the Peace
of Westphalia (1648): “preserving the liberties of
Protestant Germans and strengthening the
imperial constitution” (p. 3)
after the French Revolution (1789) and in the
context of European Romanticism
narrative of death and destruction
2. “tragic inevitability” (p. 6)
3. a choice of Germanies
1.




other national narratives
a religious war
a war that contributed to the secularization and
modernization of Europe  absolutism
a wider war (international war school)

Three distinctive elements:
1.
The war affected all of Europe.
2.
The war was not fundamentally a
religious war.
3.
The war was not inevitable.
1.
The war affected all of Europe.
 Russia
 Poland, Ottoman Empire
 Dutch Republic; France, Spain
 Britain
 Denmark, Sweden
The war was not fundamentally a religious war.
2.





religion: “a powerful focus for identity” (p. 9)
“The war was religious only to the extent that faith
guided all early modern public policy and private
behaviour” (p. 9)
moderate believers: “pragmatic;” unity of Christendom
a “distant” goal
militant believers: a minority, observers and victims,
fundamentalists; stubborn resolve “poorly suited to
achieving military success” (p. 10)
“Militants’ influence was at times disproportionate to
their numbers, but this does not mean we should
interpret the conflict through their eyes” (p. 10)
The war was not inevitable.
3.

1555-1618: a period of peace

The Empire

Confessionalization

Religion and Imperial Law


a “monstrosity” (Samuel Pufendorf, d. 1694)
Communities
Matthäus Merian, Topographia Germaniae (16421654)
 delineation between urban and rural space
 sacred space
 political space

Emperor
 Reichskirche: Imperial Church
 Lords: immediate / mediate: fiefs
1. 7 Electors (by Golden Bull of 1356)
 Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, Trier
 Kingdom of Bohemia, Palatinate, Saxony,
Brandenburg
2. Princes:
 bishops, archbishops, dukes, landgraves, margraves
 Habsburg dynasty: 2/5 of Empire, +7M subjects
3. lesser lords: counts, etc.
 Free Imperial Cities (ca. 80)
 Augsburg (48,000); most had -4,000



Emperor as overlord and adjudicator:
Habsburg dynasty
financing the Empire: from Emperor’s lands
and from imperial contributions/taxes:
Roman months (multiples of pay for 24,000
soldiers / month)

Reichstag (Imperial Diet)
a representative and consultative body: for
binding decisions and sounding out opinions
 vote by imperial estates
 recommendation
 Recess


two supreme courts:
Reichskammergericht (Imperial Cameral Court)
 Reichshofrat (Imperial Aulic Council)


Imperial Circles (10 by 1570)
to enforce verdicts of the courts
 to raise taxes
 to raise troops for internal peace and defence
of Empire
 Each circle had its own assembly.


German freedom: privileges and
responsibilities “within the imperial
hierarchy” (23)

impersonal and personal dimensions

the cumbersome search for compromise


Confessionalization and social disciplining

cultural differences

limits: intermarriage, relative absence of violence in the
second half of the sixteenth century
Catholicism and “the primacy of organization” (p.
25)

Lutheranism and “the primacy of doctrine” (p. 26)

Calvinism and the “primacy of practice” (p. 26)


“Religious tension impaired the working of the
imperial constitution and contributed to the
outbreak of the war in 1618” (p. 25).
“Militancy was certainly growing, particularly
as those who had only known a confessionally
divided world reached maturity and positions
of influence around 1580. But it is impossible
to ascribe the outbreak of war in 1618 directly
to such sentiment” (p. 40).
Catholicism




Catholicism’s basic strengths in the Empire:
Reichskirche, Habsburgs, Bavaria
Council of Trent (1545-1563)
Catholic piety: processions, pilgrimages, cult of
the saints
Society of Jesus (Jesuits): controversialists,
confessors, educators
Lutheranism





Augsburg Confession (1530)
territorial Church
Schmalkaldic Wars (1546-1552)
intraconfessional conflict:
 Philippists vs. Gnesio-Lutherans
 Book of Concord (1580)
preponderance in territory and population but
not in imperial institutions
Calvinism






John Calvin, reformer of Geneva (d. 1564)
doctrinal differences
a minority with Lutheran converts
foothold in Empire: Palatinate (1560), Hessen
(1603), Brandenburg (1613)
Heidelberg Catechism (1563)
leadership of the Elector Palatine


a religious peace within a context of
constitutional reforms
an ambiguous peace:






faith and terms (e.g. “reformation) not defined
adherents of the Confession of Augsburg
right of reformation (ius reformandi): 1552
right to emigrate (ius emigrandi)
Article 18: ecclesiastical reservation
Declaration of Ferdinand
 “the most contested parts of the 1555 Peace” (p. 45)



cuius regio eius religio: The religion of the prince
determines the religion of his territory.
Calvinists
arbitration for disputes: Reichskammergericht

1.
Puzzles
Could Lutheran princes incorporate ecclesiastical
territories?

Lutherans in cathedral chapters; diocesan
administrators
What was the status of unincorporated mediate
ecclesiastical property in Lutheran territories?
What was the status of subjects’ religious
freedoms?
2.
3.

princely expulsion vs. voluntary freedoms


“the fundamental underlying problem: the Peace
had given Lutherans legal equality, but left
Catholics with a political majority” (p. 45)
imperial efforts to defuse tension: Ferdinand I,
Maximilian II

Catholic views
the lesser of two evils (toleration vs. war)
 moderates:

 a stable peace with unequal Lutheran dissenters in a
Catholic Empire
 a limit to Lutheran expansion with the opportunity of
conversion to Catholicism

militants: a temporary suspension of the Edict
of Worms (1521) until a theological resolution
 Council of Trent!

Protestant views
a beginning, not an end
 resistance or obedience?
 just war: recognized authority, just cause,
extent of resistance: fight injustice or
overthrow a regime?
 right of resistance for lesser magistrates
 the effect of 1555


Wilson’s views
 vs. Geoffrey Parker: “a temporary end to open
confessional warfare in Germany”
 63 years of peace
 a “comparatively satisfactory settlement” (p. 43)
 foundation for the Peace of Westphalia
 “little basis…for the standard interpretation…of
steadily polarizing opinion” (p. 46)
 waxing and waning of moderate and militant
opinions







Who produced the document?
What date can we assign to the document?
What is the document’s context?
What are the main concepts in the document?
What basic message does the document
communicate? How is it historically significant?
Do particular passages reveal significant
information?
Is the document logically self-consistent, or do
you notice any contradictions?




the primacy of peace
Who benefits?
What are the issues? What is at stake?
Article 18 and the Declaration of Ferdinand