Imperator et Pontifex: Forschungen zum Verhältnis von Kaiserhof und römischer Kurie im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung (1555–1648) by Alexander Koller (review)

Abstract

Imperator et Pontifex: Forschungen zum Verhaltnis von Kaiserhof und romischer Kurie im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung (1555-1648). By Alexander Koller. [Geschichte in der Epoche Karls V., Band 13.] (Munster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2012. Pp. x, 494. euro69,00 paperback. ISBN 978-3-402-13994-3.)Alexander Koller, the longtime acting director of the German Historical Institute in Rome, has become the leading scholar of papal-imperial relations during the early-modern period, more specifically between the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648). This valuable volume is made up of twenty-four of his articles or lectures, some of which have been published in relatively obscure periodicals and are now made available to a wider readership. They show the importance of the papacy with its twofold nature as both a religious and a secular institution for the international relations of the period as well as for the Catholic Reform and the Counter-Reformation even as its influence diminished toward the end of the period. Koller draws on a wide variety of sources but especially on the nunciature reports and above all on the Hauptinstruktionen (or Le istruzioni generali) published in outstanding editions since 1995 for the papacies of Clement VIII (1592-1605), Paul V (1605-21), and Gregory XV (1621-23). These are the detailed instructions drawn up for a nuncio at the start of his tenure describing the policies and procedures that he was to follow. Those for Urban VIII (162344) are now in preparation. But to acquire a complete picture of papal policy one must also consult the regular nunciature reports, for it is there that one sees the application of general principles to particular situations. Koller's articles and lectures are organized into three parts: Emperor and Pope, Rome and the Habsburg Hereditary Lands, and The Papal Nuncios in the Empire.Space permits the mention of only several of the author's articles. In the first part, in Was the Pope a Militant, Warmongering Catholic Monarch?, Koller asks whether the pope encouraged military means to defeat the Protestants and so contributed to a religious fundamentalism. Koller contends that this was not the case certainly after the start of the papacy of Clement VIII in 1592, except for the brief, if significant, pontificate of Gregory XV from 1621-23. Over the objections of Spain, Clement absolved Henry IV of France, quietly accepted the Edict of Nantes, and mediated the Peace of Vervins between Spain and France in 1598. One might add that he was more concerned with the advance of the Turks during the Long Turkish War (1593-1606). Both Paul V and Urban VIII (1623-44) were slow to respond to the cries for financial assistance from the German Catholic princes. …