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"Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara"
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The emperor's old clothes : constitutional history and the symbolic language of the Holy Roman Empire
For many years, scholars struggled to write the history of the constitution and political structure of the Holy Roman Empire. This book argues that this was because the political and social order could not be understood without considering the rituals and symbols that held the Empire together. What determined the rules (and whether they were followed) depended on complex symbolic-ritual actions. By examining key moments in the political history of the Empire, the author shows that it was a vocabulary of symbols, not the actual written laws, that formed a political language indispensable in maintaining the common order.
eBook
The Holy Roman Empire : a short history
A new interpretation of the Holy Roman Empire that reveals why it was not a failed state as many historians believe.
Book
The Emperor's Old Clothes
For many years, scholars struggled to write the history of the constitution and political structure of the Holy Roman Empire. This book argues that this was because the political and social order could not be understood without considering the rituals and symbols that held the Empire together. What determined the rules (and whether they were followed) depended on complex symbolic-ritual actions. By examining key moments in the political history of the Empire, the author shows that it was a vocabulary of symbols, not the actual written laws, that formed a political language indispensable in maintaining the common order.
eBook
Maria Theresa and the Love of Her Subjects
I have been asked to speak about the life of the Empress-Queen Maria Theresa. I would like to start by directing your attention to the cover pictures of three recent biographies (Figures 1‒3). If you look at these pictures you will find one astonishing commonality. I am sure that this is neither a coincidence, nor just a fad: on each of the three covers, you only see a part of the portrait. For me, this perfectly symbolizes a specific, skeptical view of biography writing. As a biographer, these cover pictures say, you never get the whole picture of a person. It's always up to the author not only to choose the material but also to establish a certain narrative structure. A life is not a story, and a biography does not simply tell itself. There is always more than one true life story of a person. As the Swiss historian Valentin Groebner recently put it: “The past is a big untidy cellar. It is a bit damp and dark and smells a bit strange there. We go down and get what we want.” What you choose and how you arrange it—which story you tell—depends on which perspective you take and in what you are interested.
Journal Article
Leibniz, der Höfling
Leibniz's work is of an almost immeasurable scope and just as great variety. His legacy is one of the most extensive scholarly legacies anywhere. Editing this work appropriately is a mammoth task that can only be accomplished in cross-generational collaboration within the framework of academies such as the Berlin-Brandenburg and Lower Saxony academies, a task that demands an almost unbelievable level of expertise from the editors, and in every conceivable field. It is also a demanding, arduous task that is usually carried out very quietly and with the greatest precision, and whose immeasurable benefit for all possible fields of research is inversely proportional to the fuss that is usually made about it. This work deserves the greatest respect and gratitude. It is therefore a very special honor for me to have the opportunity, on the occasion of the recent publication of two further volumes of the Political Writings, to say a little about what this Academy edition means for my own work. In view of the awe-inspiring \"cathedral\" of this complete edition1, however, this is, to stay with the metaphor, only a tiny little stone. I am anything but a Leibniz specialist. I cannot in any way compete with the expertise of my fellow editors. I am therefore speaking as a beneficiary of their work, not as a Leibniz researcher.
Journal Article
Editorial
Das Verhältnis von wissenschaftlicher Expertise, Politik und Recht erfährt – im Jahr I nach Corona – eine nie dagewesene Aufmerksamkeit. Aber schon bevor die aktuelle Krise alle anderen Themen in den Hintergrund gedrängt hat, beschäftigte ein anderer Fall die deutsche Öffentlichkeit, der ein nicht minder interessantes Schlaglicht auf die Rolle wissenschaftlichen Expertentums wirft.
Journal Article
An Empire For Our Times? A Discussion of Peter Wilson’s The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe’s History
In the two centuries since its dissolution in 1806, the Holy Roman Empire has usually been viewed as an antiquated relic of the medieval past, a dysfunctional polity that hindered Germany's development into a modern, liberal nation-state. In the wake of its demise, a chorus of famous intellectuals and statesmen—including Voltaire, James Madison, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Leopold von Ranke, and Heinrich von Treitschke—derided the Empire as a “monstrosity” hampered by outmoded institutions and backward policies. More recently, in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, advocates of the so-called Sonderweg thesis blamed the Empire for Germany's belated unification and for the Germans’ supposedly “authoritarian” bent. In Heart of Europe [the American title of the study—Ed.], a bold and sweeping account of the Holy Roman Empire's thousand-year history, Peter Wilson sets out to supplant these anachronistic interpretations by explaining “what it was, how it worked, why it mattered, and its legacy for today” (5). With this important book, the best single-volume history of the Holy Roman Empire currently available, Wilson succeeds in answering these fundamental questions and provides fascinating insights into European politics from the early Middle Ages to the present. I would like to focus first on what I see as Wilson's most significant contributions to the existing scholarship on the Empire, and then examine how he treats the Protestant Reformation as a case study of the merits (and drawbacks) of his approach.
Journal Article