Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a striking new interpretation of a crucial era in German and European history, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to the dissolution of the Reich in 1806. Over two volumes, Joachim Whaley rejects the notion that this was a long period of decline, and shows instead how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War. The impact of international developments on the Reich is also examined.
The first volume begins with an account of the reforms of the reign of Maximilian I and concludes with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. It offers a new interpretation of the Reformation, the Peasants' War, the Schmalkaldic War and the Peace of Augsburg, and of the post-Reformation development of Protestantism and Catholicism. The German policy successfully resisted the ambitions of Charles V and the repeated onslaughtsof both the Ottomans and the French, and it remained stable in the face of the French religious wars and the Dutch Revolt. The volume concludes with an analysis of the Thirty Years War as an essentially German constitutional conflict, triggered by the problems of the Habsburg dynasty and prolonged by the interventions of foreign powers. The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the conflict, both reflected the development of the German polity since the late fifteenth century and created teh framework for its development over the next hundred and fifty years.
**
Review "Joachim Whaley crowns a long generation's work of demystifying the empire's history with these two large, learned, and impressive volumes. ... [A] magnificent achievement." -- Journal of Modern History
"These two volumes offer an historical survey of roughly three centuries such as I have never before encountered. Joachim Whaley has produced a masterpiece. He has not overlooked anything at all. The two volumes are perfectly researched and the price of 130$e is more than reasonable. Anyone interested in modern history and in particular the history of Germany must read this work." -- Fachbuch Kritik (review of the German edition)
"...[A] pleasure to read.... Whaley shows how the efforts to create an intellectual and political framework in the pre-constitutional era had lasting effects to the present." -- Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (review of the German edition)
"[A] great achievement that he has introduced the English-speaking public to German history before the twentieth century in such a comprehensive manner and that he shows so decisively how the old national narrative has been revised. The sheer volume of the material that he employs also commands respect." -- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (review of the German edition)
"The new standard work on the period in which people still spoke of 'German liberties.'" -- Die Zeit (review of the German edition)
About the Author
Joachim Whaley is Senior Lecturer in German, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, University of Cambridge. Whaley read History at Christ's College Cambridge. He held Fellowships in History at Christ's College and Robinson College before becoming a Lecturer in German in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge, where he teaches German history, thought, and language. He is the author of Religious Toleration and Social Change in Hamburg 1529-1819 and of numerous articles on early modern and modern German history. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1984.

upload/motw_shc_2025_10/shc/Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Vol. I_ - Joachim Whaley.pdf

motw/Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Vol. I_ - Joachim Whaley.pdf

nexusstc/Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1490-1648/52d23231153a238240c2fad6c125925d.pdf

lgli/Germany and the Holy Roman Empire Volume I.pdf

lgrsnf/Germany and the Holy Roman Empire Volume I.pdf

zlib/History/European History/Joachim Whaley/Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1490-1648_2042198.pdf

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1493-1648 (Oxford History of Early Modern Europe)

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. Volume 1, From Maximilian I to the peace of Westphalia, 1493-1648

From Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1490-1648

Whaley, Joachim.

IRL Press at Oxford University Press

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

German Historical Institute London

Oxford history of early modern Europe, Oxford, uuuu

Oxford history of early modern Europe, Oxford, 2013

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Oxford University Press USA, Oxford, 2012

Illustrated, 2012

1, PS, 2012

0

lg887914

{"isbns":["0198731019","9780198731016"],"last_page":752,"publisher":"Oxford University Press","series":"Oxford History/Early Modrn Eur"}

Memory of the World Librarian: Quintus

Oxford University Press Premium
Cover 1
Contents 9
A Note on Terminology and Usage 12
A Note on Maps and Online Resources 14
Abbreviations 16
List of Maps 18
Maps 20
Introduction: Narratives of Early Modern German History 24
I. GERMANY AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE IN 1500 38
1. Origins and Frontiers 40
2. The Reich as a Polity 48
3. Fragmented Territories 63
4. The Reich and the German Nation 73
II. THE REFORM OF THE REICH AND THE CHURCH, c.1490–1519 82
5. The Reformation Era in German History 84
6. The Reich under Maximilian I 90
7. Reich, Papacy, and Reichskirche 104
8. Religious Renewal and the Laity 118
9. Humanism in the Reich 125
10. The ‘Print Revolution’ and the Public Sphere 140
11. Economic Landscapes, Communities, and their Grievances 145
12. Martin Luther and the ‘Luther Affair’, 1517–1519 166
III. CHARLES V AND THE CHALLENGE OF THE REFORMATION IN THE 1520s 176
13. The Reich during the First Decade of Charles V 178
14. Luther and Imperial Politics, 1517–1526 191
15. Luther and the German Reform Movement 206
16. Alternative Reformations and the Dominance of Lutheranism 213
17. The Knights’ War, 1522–1523 232
18. The Peasants’ War, 1525 243
19. Reformation in the Cities 263
IV. MASTERING THE REFORMATION, c.1526–1555 276
20. The Emergence of Protestant Territories 278
21. The Persistence of Catholicism 295
22. Charles V, Ferdinand, and the Reich in Europe 307
23. The Establishment of Protestantism, 1526–1530 318
24. The Schmalkaldic League, its Counterparts, and the Politics of the Reich, 1530–41 327
25. Charles V as ‘Lord of Germany’, 1541–1548 340
26. The Triumph of the Reich, 1548–1556 348
V. MANAGING THE PEACE, 1555–1618 360
27. Contours of the ‘Confessional Age’ 362
28. Emperors, Imperial Officials, and Estates after the Peace of Augsburg 366
29. Constitutional Developments after 1555: Reichstag, Kreise, Courts, and Legislation 378
30. The Reich in Europe 395
31. Managing the Domestic Peace, 1555–c.1585 406
32. The Consensus Falters, c.1585–1603 427
33. Paralysis, 1603–1614 441
34. Problems of the Habsburg Dynasty 451
35. The Reich in the Reign of Emperor Matthias, 1612–1619 461
36. The Crisis of the Habsburg Lands 471
37. Imperial Public Law and the Struggle over the Imperial Constitution 480
38. Irenicism and Patriotism on the Eve of the War 485
VI. THE GERMAN TERRITORIES AND CITIES AFTER 1555 498
39. Problems of Interpretation 500
40. A Benign Environment? 504
41. State Formation? 509
42. Domestic Order and Defence 515
43. Confessionalization? 521
44. Finance, Taxation, and Estates 535
45. The Resurgence of the Courts 545
46. The Imperial Cities 554
47. Responding to Crises 564
VII. THE THIRTY YEARS WAR, 1618–1648 584
48. The Thirty Years War in German History 586
49. What Kind of Conflict? 589
50. The Reconquest of Austria and Bohemia, 1618–1623 596
51. Ferdinand Victorious 600
52. Denmark and the War for the Reich, 1623–1629 607
53. What Kind of Reich? Sweden and the Defence of German Liberties, 1630–1635 617
54. Wallenstein and After 628
55. France, Sweden, and the German Way, 1635–1648 634
56. The Peace of Westphalia 642
57. The Impact of the War on German Society 655
58. The Thirty Years War and the German Polity 660
Glossary of German and Other Terms 668
Bibliography 674
Index 718
9780198731016

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a new interpretation of the development of German-speaking central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire or German Reich, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to its dissolution in 1806 after the turmoil of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Going against the notion that this was a long period of decline, Joachim Whaley shows how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War, and assesses the impact of international developments on the Reich. Central themes are the tension between Habsburg aspirations to create a German monarchy and the desire of the German princes and cities to maintain their traditional rights, and how the Reich developed the functions of a state during this period. The first single-author account of German history from the Reformation to the early nineteenth century since Hajo Holborn's study written in the 1950s, it also illuminates the development of the German territories subordinate to the Reich. Whaley explores the implications of the Reformation and subsequent religious reform movements, both Protestant and Catholic, and the Enlightenment for the government of both secular and ecclesiastical principalities, the minor territories of counts and knights and the cities. The Reich and the territories formed a coherent and workable system and, as a polity, the Reich developed its own distinctive political culture and traditions of German patriotism over the early modern period. Whaley explains the development of the Holy Roman Empire as an early modern polity and illuminates the evolution of the several hundred German territories within it. He gives a rich account of topics such as the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, Pietism and baroque Catholicism, the Aufklärung or German Enlightenment and the impact on the Empire and its territories of the French Revolution and Napoleon. It includes consideration of language, cultural aspects and religious and intellectual movements. Germany and the Holy Roman Empire engages with all the major debates among both German and English-speaking historians about early modern German history over the last sixty years and offers a striking new interpretation of this important period. Volume I extends from the late fifteenth century through to the Thirty Years War.

"Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a new interpretation of the development of German-speaking central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire or German Reich, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to its dissolution in 1806 after the turmoil of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Going against the notion that this was a long period of decline, Joachim Whaley shows how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War, and assesses the impact of international developments on the Reich. Central themes are the tension between Habsburg aspirations to create a German monarchy and the desire of the German princes and cities to maintain their traditional rights, and how the Reich developed the functions of a state during this period.^
The first single-author account of German history from the Reformation to the early nineteenth century since Hajo Holborn's study written in the 1950s, it also illuminates the development of the German territories subordinate to the Reich. Whaley explores the implications of the Reformation and subsequent religious reform movements, both Protestant and Catholic, and the Enlightenment for the government of both secular and ecclesiastical principalities, the minor territories of counts and knights and the cities. The Reich and the territories formed a coherent and workable system and, as a polity, the Reich developed its own distinctive political culture and traditions of German patriotism over the early modern period. Whaley explains the development of the Holy Roman Empire as an early modern polity and illuminates the evolution of the several hundred German territories within it.^
He gives a rich account of topics such as the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, Pietism and baroque Catholicism, the Aufklarung or German Enlightenment and the impact on the Empire and its territories of the French Revolution and Napoleon. It includes consideration of language, cultural aspects and religious and intellectual movements. Germany and the Holy Roman Empire engages with all the major debates among both German and English-speaking historians about early modern German history over the last sixty years and offers a striking new interpretation of this important period." -- Publisher's description.

In the first single-author account of German history from the Reformation to the early nineteenth century since Hajo Holborn's study written in the 1950s, Dr Whaley provides a full account of the history of the Holy Roman Empire. Volume I extends from Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia.

v. 1. Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1493-1648
v. 2. The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648-1806.

2013-03-26