Representation of Power in German Common Press of the Thirty Years War (1618—1648)

Abstract

The paper address the problem of representation of power in the Holy Roman Empire and its development under the impact of the Thirty Years' War (1618—1648). The power, be it imperial, princely or just the power of some lower governor, was an important topic of the common press of the Thirty Years' War. The main issue of public political discourse was the image of imperial power. Emperor’s claims, that his monarchical power was of different kind that the power of the rulers of other countries lay in core of any conception of the emperor’s place and role in public space. This idea was mirrored most clear in popular pictorial prints, which were common in Early Modern Germany and contained text and graving icon. It is in them that the idea of imperial power was visualized and presented in the form understandable for wide audience. The visualization of power in the popular pictorial prints provides recent scholars with numerous opportunities to reveal the characteristic features of the conception of supreme power, developed under the influence of the largest cataclysm of the Early Modern period — the Thirty Years' War. The “German War”, as contemporaries called it, highlighted the most important issues of the internal structure of the Empire and the different aspects of the relationship between the emperor and the estates were discussed widely in press. Commonly, more often the emperor’s power was represented by allegorical images or symbols. Most of them testified that the ideas of the functions of power gradually became more inclusive under the influence of the war. The main innovation in the conception of “power” was the emphasized appeal to the problem of ensuring the subject’s safety.