Protestant Princes Research Articles

Webster's anti‐antimasque in The Duchess of Malfi

AbstractThe masque of madmen in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi probably originated as an antimasque in Thomas Campion's The Lords' Masque, staged at court in February 1613 to celebrate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth Stuart. In recent years, Elizabeth's brother, Henry, had used masques and other forms of courtly display to make himself the face of a dissenting militant Protestant movement in England. And, following his death in November 1612, devastated supporters like Webster transferred their hopes to Elizabeth, whose marriage to a Protestant prince seemed to preserve the possibilities of reform at home and religious intervention abroad. However, the pacifist King James commissioned The Lords' Masque to extinguish such hopes, defining the marriage's significance as conciliatory rather than confessional and reestablishing his sole authority over the court stage Henry had tried to usurp. Thus, Webster's use of Campion's antimasque is deeply ironic, allowing him to criticize the King's suppression and censorship of his son's cause, and to lament both the bastardization of Henry's memory and the uncertain future of the movement he had represented. Moreover, reading the masque of madmen alongside Webster's elegy for the Prince, A Monumental Column, highlights Webster's deepening pessimism across this period.

Pictures and Words 2 – An Italian Caricature at the End of the Great Vienna War (1683–1699) as “Icono-Text”


 This paper is a branch of my previous research, dealing with allegorical and persuasive cartography, as an exercise in more recent theoretical interpretations of marginalized historical sources – caricatures. The introduction gives the readers an overview of the modern methodology and secondary literature. Furthermore, Giuseppe Maria Mitelli (1634–1718) is unknown to our audience. Therefore, this paper cannot deal with his immenseoeuvre, but only one example of his mastery, the caricature “An International Array of Doctors Counselling the Sultan”. This engraving is dated approximately to 1696, or slightly later, to the last phase of the War of the Holy League (1683–1699). The staging and the characters, as presented in the analysis, show beyond doubt a strong influence from commedia dell’arte in costumes and apparel, recognizing the oldest stock images of Dottore Gracian, originating in Mitelli’s Bologna, and Pantalone, who is precisely attributed to the “medico Venetiano”. This “icono-text” merges visual arts and comedy theatre with text, criticizing the Christian “nations” for their lack of unity in opposing the common foe and nemesis – the Ottoman sultan. The satire is more pronounced in the para-text, adequately written for each one of the actors, including those without the lyrics – headfirst fleeing grand vizier Kara Mustapha, and wool spinning Protestant Prince Imre Thököly, doing the woman’s and not the warrior’s task. Including the sultan, historians have plenty of material for an imagology analysis from the point of view of a witty Bolognese, well-educated and informed, placed in a hub of the baroque network of Europe, bursting with “furor geographicus” and the sound of the printing machines, street vendors, artisans, and carnivals. As any intellectual work, Mitelli’s art piece is placed within its historical-geographical, cultural and socio-political context. 

Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack by Richard Ovenden

Reviewed by: Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack by Richard Ovenden John Kennedy Ovenden, Richard, Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack, London, John Murray, 2020; hardcover; pp. 308; 16 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £20.00; ISBN 9781529378757. The title and subtitle of this book perhaps give a slightly misleading indication of its contents. It is indeed about the frequently deliberate destruction of books and other documents, sometimes involving fire but also military action, religiously inspired vandalism, and (at least in the author's view) 'underfunding, low prioritization and general disregard' (p. 36) in the case of the ancient library of Alexandria. It is not primarily a book about censorship, though of course censorship of knowledge materials and their deliberate destruction are often closely associated. But almost as much as it is about such deliberate destruction it is an account of efforts to prevent it happening. Richard Ovenden is the twenty-fifth Bodley's Librarian in succession to Thomas James at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and thus the director of the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford. His pride in the preservation achievements over four centuries of the library system that he oversees is frequently in evidence, and the book is in part a celebration of the preservation activities of librarians and a plea that they be adequately funded to continue this role. This relatively short history ranges from ancient Assyria to the present. Two chapters are likely to be of particular interest to readers of Parergon. Chapter 3, 'When Books were Dog Cheap', provides a powerful account of the losses when the monasteries of England were dissolved during the Reformation period. Ovenden states that 'in Britain alone, tens of thousands of books were burned or broken up and sold as scrap' (p. 54). Between seventy and eighty per cent of the contents of the pre-Reformation libraries of Britain and Ireland are reliably believed to have been lost. Ovenden's focus is on monasteries, but they were not the only target, and the destruction was not confined to Britain, though the apparently large-scale Continental Reformation period destruction receives only passing mention. He makes the valuable point that we are confronted not only with the total disappearance of works that once existed, but also with the loss of evidence of how widely works were disseminated, what was available where, and what was being read by whom. [End Page 245] Chapter 4, 'An Ark to Save Learning', is largely concerned with the circumstances surrounding the creation and early history of the Bodleian Library, which opened its door to readers in 1602. An apparently fairly impressive predecessor university library had been entirely dismantled by religious reformers in the 1550s, but thanks to the energy of the micromanaging Sir Thomas Bodley (1547–1613) the new library got off to a strong start. In a later chapter we learn that books looted by an English expedition in 1596 from the Bishop of Faro's library in Portugal were among its earliest acquisitions—the Vatican library benefited similarly a few decades later from the looting of a German Protestant prince's library holdings. Other chapters deal with later destruction, but quite frequently mention the loss or timely rescue of medieval and early modern books and manuscripts. The extraordinary recent adventures and eventual survival of the celebrated Sarajevo Haggadah, a fourteenth-century Hebrew manuscript of Spanish origin, are described in a chapter entitled 'Sarajevo Mon Amour', largely devoted to the 1990s war in Bosnia. The final chapter, largely about present-day concerns, begins with an account of the officially mandated burning of John Milton's works in a University of Oxford quadrangle in 1660 following the Restoration, and the brave decision of the then Bodley's Librarian to hide works the poet had presented to the library. This is a work for the general reader, and probably not vital professional reading for those for whom Parergon caters. But despite its librarian's viewpoint (and perhaps a sometimes-obtrusive tendency to boast about what the Bodleian has preserved and still holds!) it is a fascinating and very readable work full of interesting details and observations. In...

INFLUENCE OF THE KYIV METROPOLITANATE ON THE ATTEMPTS AT CHURCH UNION IN THE EPARCHY OF MUKACHEVO IN THE TIMES OF HYPATIUS POCIEJ AND JOSEF VELIAMYN RUTSKY

The study describes a prominent role of the Kyivan Metropolitanate led by Hypatius Pociej (1599-1613) and Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky (1613-1637) for the development of the Church unity idea in the Eparchy of Mukachevo. The author focuses in analyzing information about Mukachevo bishops' Sergij (1600 – c. 1619), Petronij (1623-1627), Ivan Hryhorovych (1627-1633) and Vasyl Tarasovych (1633–1651) conversance with the progress of the Church union in the Kyivan Metropolitanate. The paper examines a message about bishop's Sergij consecration in Rus’, that was, possibly, accomplished by Metropolitan Hypatius Pociej. The research gives an account of unionistic initiatives of the bishop of Peremyshl Athamasij Krupetskyj (1610–1652) in the monastery of Krasnyj Brid, which endured under the protectorship of the count John III Drughet in times of bishop Sergij. The study interprets both contacts of the Jesuits mission with this bishop and an affirmation about bishop's Petronij acquaintance with results of the Union of Brest during his living out of the Eparchy of Mukachevo. The author takes attention to an admission that Petronij conversed to Catholicism while he was in the Kyivan Metropolitanate after banishing from Mukachevo by Romanian prince Michael the Brave. The investigation explains data about bishop's Ivan Hryhorovych education in the Kyivan Metropolitanate (in Volodymyr-Volynskyi and Zamosc) and clarifies his contacts with Kyivan Metropolitan Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky. There is regard to the Mukachevo bishop's Vasyl Tarasovych close relations with Galicia. He was the first local hierarch, which officially converted to Catholicism, and he actively engaged Galician clergy for the popularization of the Church unity idea in his Diocese. The research clarifies that mentioned position of the bishop caused persecutions by the Protestant Prince George II Rakoczi. Volodymyr Moroz accepts the considered processes were manifestations of the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation, while in the Eparchy of Mukachevo were actual strong influences of Protestant communities, Latin Church, and Kyivan Metropolitanate. The Kyivan Church then was already strengthened owing to reforms of the Metropolitan Josyf Veliamyn Rutsky, who became very active in enhancement eastern Catholic identity in Transcarpathia.

The Catholic Church and the Campaign for Emancipation in Ireland and England by Ambrose Macaulay

Reviewed by: The Catholic Church and the Campaign for Emancipation in Ireland and England by Ambrose Macaulay Thomas Bartlett The Catholic Church and the Campaign for Emancipation in Ireland and England. By Ambrose Macaulay. (Dublin: Four Courts Press. Distributed by International Specialized Book Services, Portland, OR. 2016. Pp. 416. $74.50. ISBN 978-1-84682-600-9.) It cannot be said that the Irish Catholic campaign for ‘Emancipation’ has been ignored by historians. James A. Reynold’s pioneering analysis of the mass movement that led to the eligibility of Irish Catholics to sit in the Westminster Parliament (Yale University Press, 1954) was supplemented by Fergus O’Farrell’s study of the local sources of O’Connellite support during the 1820s (Dublin, 1984). Nor has the life of Daniel O’Connell, the campaign’s leader, been neglected. Oliver MacDonagh’s magisterial two-volume biography (London, 1988, 1989) of the ‘Liberator,’ as O’Connell was quickly dubbed, can be set alongside the more recent two-volume study by Patrick Geoghegan (Dublin, 2008, 2010) and, easily overlooked, a fine short piece by Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh in the Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge, 2010). Is there really anything left to be said? To that question Ambrose Macaulay has delivered a resounding yes, and he has produced a well-documented volume to be placed together with the earlier authorities. In doing so, Macaulay—a parish priest in the Diocese of Down and Connor and author of a number of well-received biographies of leading Catholic clergymen—highlights probably the most bizarre outcome of the century of Penal Laws to which Irish Catholics and the Irish Catholic Church were subjected. As the dismantling of the Penal Laws proceeded fitfully from the 1770s on, the Catholic Church that finally emerged into the daylight was not only unbroken but largely unbowed; indeed, there were those who claimed that the Church was in fact strengthened by its time in the darkness of the Penal era. By 1800 when the Penal curtain was finally cast aside, the Irish Catholic Church was revealed to be entirely beyond the control of the British government. At that time in every country in Europe—Protestant or Catholic—the state demanded and received a say, great or small, in the appointment of bishops, and all states aspired to oversight of episcopal correspondence. In some states, the clergy were in receipt of government pay. However, in Ireland the Catholic Church was beyond the reach of a British government, which, gallingly, had no role in Catholic episcopal appointments, no power to scrutinize episcopal correspondence, and no control over the clergy’s pay. [End Page 166] The resolution of this matter, and of other issues including appropriate oaths to be taken by Catholics to avail of the new post-Penal Laws dispensation, and the question of state pay for Catholic clergy forms the substance of Macaulay’s study. To accompany the repeal of the Penal Laws, successive British governments insisted on ‘insurance’ in the form of oaths denouncing alleged Catholic beliefs— inter alia, that it was fine to murder a Protestant Prince, and that no faith need be kept with heretics—and a say in episcopal appointments as well as some oversight of Vatican-Ireland correspondence. As a result Catholic bishops in both Ireland and in Britain had no option but to become fully involved in a campaign to maintain their independence from the Protestant state, as well as safeguard their position with respect to the Catholic laity only too willing to challenge episcopal authority. Utilizing an enormous array of documentation, much of it from the Vatican Archives but also including diocesan archives throughout Britain and Ireland, Macaulay offers an authoritative guide through the Irish bishops’ efforts to be accommodating toward the British government while at the same time remaining beyond its control. He tells this story in a masterful way, and for those interested in episcopal diplomacy (and rancor) this study has much to offer. John Milner, vicar apostolic of the Midland District and an ‘indomitable controversialist’ (p. 355) and self-appointed scourge of any backsliding on episcopal independence, inevitably figures large in this account, but so too does Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, a key Vatican diplomat during...

Strategi Adam Weishaupt dalam Pembentukan Weisha Organisasi Politik Illuminati Tahun 1776

his background of this research has emerged from various facts and myths about the Illuminati, after Dan Brawn published the popular novel Da Vinci Code. The Illuminati is a secret society founded in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt. Methods used for this research is historical methods, that consists of heuristics, critics, interpretation and historiography, because the aspects of the study are past and related to various archives or old documents. The main problem of this research is to conduct a historical study of the founding of the Illuminati by Weishaupt from the historical perspective. This research presents a brief biography of Adam Weishaupt who was a German academic that influenced by the thoughts of the Age of Enlightenment. Weishaupt had a vision of replacing the government and power of the Catholic Church with a new government. To accomplish this political mission, Weishaupt formed a secret society by recruiting elite groups and intellectuals as members, reaching up to 2,000-3,000 people. In line with this mission, the Illuminati were supported by Protestant princes, Reformed (Lutherans and Calvinists), German and European nobles. Financially, Weishaupt was supported by the family of the banking millionaire, Rothschild. Weishaupt also adopted the Freemasonry system into the Illuminati in terms of secrecy, concealment, membership levels and other matters. Weishaupt's political goal orientation made him also learned from the Jesuits about organizing political missions. Weishaupt and Illuminati should be suspected of having an urgent role in the occurrence of the great events of the French Revolution.Kata kunci : Illuminati, Pencerahan, Freemasonry, Yahudi, Okultisme.

INTRODUCTION

The documents edited in this volume were written during or shortly after missions from Elizabethan England and Jacobean Scotland to the Protestant princes of the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark. Through the particular perspectives of their authors, these accounts provide helpful if general descriptions while offering minute but critical details of two countries hitherto relatively unfamiliar to most sixteenth-century Englishmen and Scots. Much of the intelligence and many of the observations contained in these materials also remain obscure to modern scholarship. This edition is intended to highlight the importance of such information not only to the formation and execution of government policy but also to the intellectual formation and professional trajectory of the authors themselves. Because these documents are relevant to a number of distinct yet related fields of current scholarship, the following introduction offers an overview of English and Scottish diplomacy with Germany and Denmark before addressing the specific missions and authors, trends in diplomatic history, and the nature and purpose of travel writing during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The introduction closes with a discussion of the documents as sources of intelligence, their significance, their locations, the editorial conventions, and the critical apparatus.

Musically Consonant, Socially Dissonant: Orange Walks and Catholic Interpretation in West-Central Scotland

This article examines the music used by the Orange Order, in its public parades, more commonly referred to as “Orange Walks.” The Orange Order is an exclusively Protestant fraternal organization, which traces its roots to 1690 and the victory of the Protestant Prince William of Orange over the Catholic King James. Yet, as in Northern Ireland, many consider the group to be sectarian and view its public celebrations as a display of ethno-religious triumphalism. This article explores the extra-musical factors associated with Orangeism’s most iconic song, “The Sash My Father Wore,” how other groups have misappropriated the song, and how this has distorted its meaning and subsequent interpretation. Recent statistics have shown that Glasgow hosts more Orange parades each year than in Belfast and Derry/Londonderry combined, yet while there have been many anthropological and ethnomusicological studies of Northern Ireland’s Orange parades, very little research has focused on similar traditions in Scotland. This article seeks to address that gap in the literature and is intended as a preparatory study, laying the groundwork for further analysis.

Der Erzkanzler im Religionskrieg: Kurfürst Anselm Casimir von Mainz, die geistlichen Fürsten und das Reich, 1629 bis 1647 by Franz Brendle (review)

Reviewed by: Der Erzkanzler im Religionskrieg: Kurfürst Anselm Casimir von Mainz, die geistlichen Fürsten und das Reich, 1629 bis 1647 by Franz Brendle David Parrott Der Erzkanzler im Religionskrieg: Kurfürst Anselm Casimir von Mainz, die geistlichen Fürsten und das Reich, 1629 bis 1647. By Franz Brendle. [Reformationsgeschichtliiche Studien und Texte, Band 156.] (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2011. Pp. xiv, 578. €59,00. ISBN 978-3-402-12802-2.) The career of Anselm Casimir Wambold von Umstadt, archbishop of Mainz from 1629 to 1647, has attracted little historical attention. Yet as highest-ranking of the prince-electors and as Imperial chancellor for a large part of the Thirty Years’ War, he played a distinct role in a key series of political and military events within the Holy Roman Empire. Brendle’s substantial and scholarly biography thus fills a large gap in our knowledge of an important but neglected figure; but the book is no less a significant re-evaluation of the character and stance of the “Catholic Party” within the Empire, which has been all too easily conflated with Bavarian political and military concerns. As Imperial chancellor, Anselm Casimir directed a large part of the Imperial constitutional and legal machinery, was a key figure in coordinating Catholic policy in the Empire, and enjoyed a high degree of influence with the emperor. The new archbishop was elected in the midst of the debate over the forcible re-catholicization of all ecclesiastical territory that had been acquired by Protestant princes since the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. Anselm Casimir led the Catholic princes in supporting the initial imposition of the 1629 Edict of Restitution, but soon distinguished himself as a moderate, anxious to compromise over its enforcement and prepared to negotiate with the Protestant Electors (above all, with John George of Saxony) in the hope of achieving a peace settlement in the Empire. This overriding concern to achieve a settlement led Anselm Casimir to join the Electors’ fatal call to dismiss the Imperial generalissimo Wallenstein, and he personally coordinated the pressure on the emperor at the Diet of Regensburg to achieve [End Page 362] this objective. His leading role at the Diet gave him a considerable reputation and allowed him to press for an Imperial settlement, but the Swedish invasion of North Germany radically transformed the situation. Following the victory at Breitenfeld in September 1631, the troops of Gustavus Adolphus spilled out into the Rhineland; Mainz was occupied and became the center of Swedish military operations for the next four years. While his territory was garrisoned and subjected to massive war taxes, the archbishop was driven into exile. From Cologne, Anselm Casimir conducted extended but fruitless negotiations with France in the hope that diplomatic pressure might persuade the Swedes to accept the French “protection” of his bishopric. Following this failure, the archbishop made a final and definitive shift of alliance over to the emperor, bringing both his territorial resources and his constitutional standing with the other Catholic states directly into the emperor’s service. This overt alliance with the Habsburgs weakened his influence as Imperial chancellor in the negotiations for a peace settlement in the Empire at Pirna, then at Prague. The Swedish pulled out of Mainz in 1635, but when France declared war on the Habsburgs, Mainz was again threatened. It was not until January 1636 that Anselm Casimir finally re-entered his episcopal city. The new phase of the war opened by French intervention and the resurgence of Swedish military pressure ensured that the Imperial chancellor remained at the center of political maneuvers within the Empire, but as a virtual client of the emperor. The final, shorter section of Brendle’s study concerns this later period, which Anselm Casimir began as cheerleader for the pre-election of the future Ferdinand III as Holy Roman Emperor in 1636. Although once the Westphalia negotiations opened, he again demonstrated tenacity in arguing against Catholic intransigence and for compromise with both German Protestants and external powers. This did not prevent Mainz being occupied again by the French in 1645, leading to the second exile of the archbishop, who died in Frankfurt in October 1647. This is an excellent and comprehensive study, which...

Idiocy and Madness in Princely European Families

Idiocy and Madness in Princely European Families

Dispelling myths and highlighting history of the heliocentric model

Is it Mano Singham debunking the Copernican myths, or are those post-1650 “writers making this revisionist claim”?Following an earlier reconstruction by Dennis Danielson, Singham bases his objection to the popular mythology on his claim that the Catholic Church did not object initially to the Copernican heliocentric model and that the initial resistance came instead from the physics and astronomy communities. His largely irrelevant (to his main thesis) recounting of some historical events preceding and following Copernicus’s death in 1543 makes for interesting reading but omits certain facts that support the popular historical account that most of us learned.Although the works of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler did provide much of the factual basis for heliocentricity, the true death knell of the geocentric model was sounded by Galileo’s observation in 1610 of the moons circling the planet Jupiter. Like Copernicus, who avoided exposing his radical ideas to any but a few fellow astronomers until they were published posthumously in his epic De Revolutionibus, Galileo had feared opposition by the church until his friend Cardinal Barberini ascended to the papacy as Urban VIII. Regrettably, Galileo’s maladroitness in court politics led his enemies to denounce him to Pope Urban, who was then currying favor with Protestant princes. The pope issued an edict requiring that Galileo recant his support of the heliocentric model. As the popular version has it, opposition to the Copernican heliocentric model, both by religious leaders and by some outspoken academics, was based on several factors. Primarily, though, it was based on opposition to any change in the accepted Aristotelian beliefs and adherence to the status quo that has bedeviled scientific innovation to the present day.© 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Christian Magistrate and Territorial Church: Johannes Brenz and the German Reformation. By JAMES M. ESTES.

Johannes Brenz (1499–1570) is hardly the most exciting of the Reformers, but in this substantial augmentation and revision of a 1982 monograph he emerges as a fine case study of ‘how the Reformation actually happened’ (p. 15). Throughout a long life his perseverance, integrity, and cooperative skills with colleagues and magisterial authorities gradually brought his utopian hopes closer to realization. Born into the governing urban élite, Brenz was initially influenced by humanism, establishing a sound linguistic base in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew for the flow of commentaries and catechisms which were later to find European-wide resonance. At the age of 23, already under the spell of Luther, he was appointed city preacher in Schwäbisch Hall, and worked closely with the city fathers to bring this city of 5,000 people and its rural hinterland into line with reformist principles. His pragmatic, gradualist style, firm in principle but flexible in application, commended him to Margrave George of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and in cooperation with Osiander he drew up the Brandenburg–Nuremberg Church Order of 1533. Duke Ulrich of Württemberg was another Protestant prince who drew on his advice, both for the ordering of church life and doctrine and for the reform of the University of Tübingen. Following the Augsburg Interim of 1548 he had to flee Schwäbisch Hall; Brenz now settled in Württemberg, working particularly fruitfully with Duke Christopher (1550–68). The latter's 1559 Church Order established a ‘coherent, effective, and durable ecclesiastical polity’ (p. 41) which featured a central consistory and regional and local superintendents; it was to be widely imitated throughout Germany.

:Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch and Swedish Public Churches, 1685-1772

Acknowledgements A Note on References, Dates and Quotations Abbreviations Introduction 1. State Sermons as a Medium of Official Political Ideology 2. Israelite Parallels in the Language of Nation 3. Interaction Between the Concepts of Nation and Protestantism 4. International Protestantism and the Limits of the Nation 5. The Stereotype of Popery in Constructions of the National Community 6. Interaction Between the Concepts of Nation and Protestant Prince 7. Definitions and Redefinitions of the Nation and Fatherland 8. The Rise of Classical Patriotism in the Language of Nation 9. Associations Between Freedom and Protestantism in the Language of Nation 10. The Rise of a Commercial Nation 11. The Language of Nature in Protestant State Sermons Conclusion Appendix: 'National' as an attribute in state sermons preached in the presence of the highest English/British authorities on national anniversaries, 1685-1772 Bibliography Index of Names Index of Subjects Index of Places

Nuntiaturen des Giovanni Delfino und des Bartolomeo Portia (1577-1578) (review)

Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland nebst erganzenden Aktenstucken, Section 3: 1572-1585, Vol. 9: Nuntiaturen des Giovanni Delfino und Bartolomeo Portia (1577-1578). Ed. Alexander Koller. Im Auftrage des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom. (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. 2003. Pp. lii, 603. euro94.) This volume deals with the first one and one-half years of the lengthy reign of Emperor Rudolf 11(1576-1612), whose father Maximilian II died on October 12, 1576. It contains the correspondence with the papal secretary of state, Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio, from January 7, 1577, to April 25, 1578, of Giovanni Delfino, who had served as nuncio to the court of Vienna since 1571, and of the new nuncio, Bartolomeo Portia, from April 26 until his death on August 12, 1578. The volume constitutes a major source for papal and imperial policy at this crucial time of transition to the new reign. Both Delfino, son of a Venetian patrician, and Portia from a noble family of Friuli, had risen in the Roman bureaucracy with the assistance of Carlo Borromeo, to whose circle they belonged. In Vienna they maintained close contact with the Catholic party, especially the Spanish ambassador and the Jesuits, in particular the provincial Lorenzo Maggio, whose transfer from Vienna Delfino successfully opposed. A major question that immediately arose with the ascent of Rudolf to the imperial dignity was a traditional declaration of obedience expected from him by Pope Gregory XIII. This issue dominates the first months of the correspondence when Rome and Vienna disagreed over the nature of this declaration and its tradition. Rudolf feared to compromise himself with the Protestant princes in the Empire, and Delfino recommended that the pope not force the issue. Eventually in negotiations with the imperial emissaries in Rome the pope had to content himself with Rudolf's declaration of obedience for his person but not for his position as emperor or ruler of the Habsburg lands. The nuncios pursued an active policy of defense against the Protestants and of church reform. They regularly reported on the genuine piety of the young Rudolf. Delfino traveled with the emperor as in his first year he visited Prague, Bautzen, Breslau, Olmutz, and Pressburg to receive the homage of the various estates, and with respect to these hereditary lands, as opposed to the empire, he succeeded in persuading Rudolf to a less tolerant policy toward the Protestants than his father's. …

Political Theorizing as a Dimension of Political Life

Quentin Skinner’s thesis ‘that political life itself sets the main problems for the political theorist’ marks a turning point in the study of the history of political thought. The Protestant princes who revised Luther’s doctrine of disobedience in order to save Lutheranism as a political force are the best example of this ‘Skinnerian revolution’ in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. This is in accordance with his claim that principles play a legitimating and innovating role in politics. A tacit implication of the thesis is that we should not only read theorists as politicians but also read politicians as theorists. The politician possesses a special competence in discerning between various types of situation, has a distinct contestational imagination, is a person who is prepared to acknowledge the inherent paradoxes of the situation and who has the capacity to deal politically with limited time.

The Sickly Stuarts—the Medical Downfall of a Dynasty

The Sickly Stuarts—the Medical Downfall of a Dynasty

Novum et insigne opus musicum (Breslau 1620) (review)

Herausgegeben von Rudolf Walter. (Das Erbe deutscher Musik. Sonderreihe, 9-10.) Kassel: Barenreiter, c2002. [Teil I: Nr. 1-60. Vorwort, p. vii-ix; plates, p. x-xi; score, 378 p. Cloth. ISMN M-006-01808-6. 410 [euro]. Teil II: Nr. 61-119. Score, 370 p.; Krit. Bericht, p. 371-84; alphabetisches Verzeichnis der Kompositionen, p. 385-86. Cloth. ISMN M-006-01809-3. 410 [euro].] A vast quantity of vocal polyphony was published in central Europe around 1600. Many of these editions catered to the expanding market for music in churches and homes, but composers also sought to display their skill and gain prestige by appearing in print. Such was the prevalence of music printing in the period that numerous musicians are now known only from their printed collections. One such figure is Thomas Fritsch (1563-1619), whose Novum et insigne opus musicum was published a year after his death. It is a weighty set of accomplished motets that also offers many insights into the music in Fritsch's town of Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland). English-speaking musicologists are generally unaware of the vibrancy of musical life in seventeenth-century Breslau and the surrounding region of Silesia, so a brief introduction to the topic is appropriate here. In the seventeenth century, Silesia was populated by a mix of Czechs, Germans, and Poles. It was one of the few regions in central Europe where both Lutheranism and Catholicism were tolerated. In Breslau most of the parish churches were Protestant, but the cathedral was Catholic, and several Catholic orders ran monasteries in the city. Jesuit missionaries endeavored to increase their faith's presence in the city, while the Protestant clergy maintained strong links with the Lutheran heartland of Saxony. This religious duality gave rise to a rich musical culture. The Lutherans fostered musicmaking among the laity, introducing chorales to involve the people in worship and including music on the curriculum of most schools. The Catholics continued to cultivate musical genres such as Marian motets abolished by the Reformation, while both confessions used Latin-texted motets in the style of Orlando di Lasso. Fritsch exemplified the blend of faiths and musical cultures in Breslau. Although born into a Lutheran family in Gorlitz, he spent his career in Breslau in the Catholic monastic order of the Crusaders of the Red Star. His motet collection was tailored to the Catholic church year and bore similarities to the output of Catholic composers such as Jacobus Handl (Gallus)--yet it was dedicated to two Protestant princes, and some of its contents were performed in Lutheran churches such as St. Christopher and St. Elizabeth in Breslau. One of the dedicatees of Fritsch's book was Georg Rudolph of Liegnitz-Brieg, a prince whose interests further demonstrate the vitality of Silesian culture in the 1610s. Rudolph dabbled in composition as a young man and later became a renowned collector of printed music, attracting gifts of presentation copies from Johann Hermann Schein and Heinrich Schutz as well as from local musicians such as Fritsch. Many of his music books still survive today, dispersed among several Polish libraries (see Aniela Kolbuszewska, Katalog zbiorow muzycznych legnickiej biblioteki ksiecia Jerzego Rudolfa Bibliotheca Rudolphina [Legnica: Legnickie Towarzystwo Muzyczne, 1992]). Rudolph's patronage and tastes deserve a detailed study, which would help elucidate the context for Fritsch's compositions. Fritsch's Novum et insigne opus musicum contains 119 motets; Rudolf Walter's new critical edition includes an extra piece, Gabriel angelus apparuit Zachariae, which only survives in manuscript, but which Fritsch might have added to his collection had he not died partway through its preparation. Almost all the motets set Latin texts from the Proper of the Mass or the breviary, but the collection is not ordered liturgically, nor does it provide motets systematically for every day in the church calendar. …

Court Culture in Early Modern Dresden by Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly (review)

MLRy 99.1, 2004 241 Court Culture in Early Modern Dresden. By Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly. Bas? ingstoke: Palgrave. 2002. xiv + 3iopp. ?30. ISBN 0-333-98448-x(hbk). The Dresden that the visitor encounters today is largely the creation of Friedrich August I (1670-1733) and Friedrich August II (1696-1763). Their reigns as Electors of Saxony in some ways marked the glorious apotheosis of their dynasty.Yet they also represented a sharp break with Saxon tradition. Both were elected kings of Poland, and in order to achieve this dignity Friedrich August I had embraced Catholicism in 1694. F?r one and a half centuries before then his predecessors had been Lutherans, and Dresden had been the most important bastion ofthe Protestant cause in the Holy Roman Empire. Indeed, in some senses the Electors of Saxony were as important politically as the Emperors themselves: their unswerving loyalty to the crown ensured that the Protestant princes repeatedly responded to appeals forthe unity of the Reich. Helen Watanabe-O' Kelly's study makes ample use of the sources that have become fully accessible for the first time since 1989 to explore the cultural ramifications of the Saxon Electors' key political role. Fundamental was the advertisement of their religious identity through the patronage of church music and Lutheran biblical drama and the way that they presented themselves in funerary monuments, paintings, and bas-reliefs. From the second half of the sixteenth century the official culture of Lutheranism was complemented and enriched by the discovery of ltalian art and science. This major development in North German taste influenced virtually every aspect of Dresden's court culture by the 1580s, while Johann Georg I's year-long ltalian tour in 1601 resulted in the physical transformation of the capital into an Italianate city during his reign after 1611. Watanabe-O'Kelly's account of successive building projects and court activities (including 'sectarian' jousting tournaments in the later sixteenth century and ambi? tious cultural propaganda in the middle decades of the seventeenth century) makes fascinating reading. Even more interesting and important, however, is her account of the intellectual and scientific activities that also unfolded at the Saxon court. Vast cabinets of curiosities contained collections aimed at representing, understanding, and controlling the natural world. Patronage of magicians and of adepts of the occult was a logical extension of the business of acquiring, ordering, and managing know? ledge. Similarly, the Saxon dynasty's traditional interest in mining, the mainstay of its revenues since the fifteenthcentury, led naturally to a preoccupation with alchemy and the dream of turning base metals into gold. The reign of Friedrich August I broke with this complex and multifaceted tradition in a number of ways. Conversion to Catholicism for the sake of being elected to the Polish throne undermined the Saxon leadership of the Protestant princes in the Reich. The dynastic alliances that were forged with the Catholic ruling houses of Europe during the Polish period brought but temporary glory; Saxony's pre-eminent position in the Reich was progressively taken by Brandenburg-Prussia. In cultural terms, too, there was a shift as France replaced Italy as a source of inspiration. Gradually the preoccupation with occult science turned into a fascination with more obviously useful applications of knowledge in manufacture, particularly of metals. Not least, though largely accidental, the search for gold yielded the discovery of the secret of porcelain, the manufacture ofwhich rapidly became an obsession throughout Europe, with European products soon rivalling the Chinese wares that had long fascinated the West. Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly has written a fascinating book which illuminates the culture ofa major German court. It will be of interest to all students of early modern Germany and its culture. Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge Joachim Whaley ...

Christobal de Gentil de Rojas y Spinola O.F.M. und der lutherische Abt Gerardus Wolterius Molanus: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Unionsbestrebungen der katholischen und evangelischen Kirche im 17. Jahrhundert (review)

Christobal de Gentil de Rojas y Spinola O.EM. und der lutherische Abt Gerardus Wolterius Molanus: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Unionsbestrebungen der katholischen und evangelischen Kirche im 17. Jahrhundert. By Karin Masser. [Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 145.] (Munster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2002. Pp. 528. euro64.) As students of Early Modern Europe are aware, efforts to reunite the various portions of shattered Western Christendom began almost as early as the division and have continued with greater or lesser intensity to the present day. After the great colloquies of the sixteenth century (Marburg 1529, Regensburg 1541, Poissy 1561), the effort continued on a less official level. The horrors of the wars of religion led some to abandon religion as the glue binding together the peoples of the West, resulting in secularization with the Enlightenment. Those same horrors led others to intensify their efforts to discover the key to union. Perhaps best known among the latter efforts is the correspondence between Bossuet and Leibniz. At the same time as that better-known effort, another pair of representatives eagerly sought to find grounds of agreement. These are the figures brought to life in Karin Masser's work, based on her 2000 dissertation for the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck. Christobal de Gentil de Rojas y Spinola (1626-1695), despite his Spanish background and name, entered the Cologne friary of the Observant Franciscans in 1636 as a student, then as a friar, priest, lecturer in theology, and Visitor General of the Thuringian Province. From 1661 on, he took part in efforts to co-ordinate the defense of Christendom against the incursions of the Turks, and in this capacity came to believe that the Protestant princes of the Holy Roman Empire, no less than the Catholic Emperor, deplored the division into competing confessions. Over the next several decades, he continued his efforts to achieve understanding, supported by Emperor Leopold I and Pope Innocent XI, in particular, as part of their efforts to unite the West against the continuing threat from the Turks. Along the way, Rojas became Bishop of Knin in Bosnia (1668), but was unable to take up residence as that area was under Turkish rule, and then, in 1685, Bishop of Wiener-Neustadt, where he died ten years later. One of the most fruitful contacts made by Rojas in his efforts to find union was with the Lutheran Abbot of Loccum, Gerardus Wolterius Molanus (1633-1722), born to a professional family of Netherlandish origin in the town of Hameln. …

Litterae missionariorum de Hungaria et Transilvania (1572-1717), Vol. 1 (review)

Litterae missionariorum de Hungaria et Transilvania (1572-1717), Vol. I. Edited by Istvan Gyorgy Toth. [Bibliotheca Academiae Hungariae, Roma, Fontes 4.] (Rome-Budapest: History Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. 2002. Pp. 756. 3000 Forint.) This very thick first volume of a source collection contains the carefully edited letters, one ought to say reports, forwarded to the Congregatio de propaganda fide in Rome, by mainly Franciscan missionaries active in the regions of historic Hungary under the Turkish yoke, and of Transylvania ruled by Protestant princes in that time period. The originally researched and edited material is based upon written documents preserved in various archives in Rome. The first document printed in this first volume of a multi-volume set is the letter (report?) by Bonifacio di Ragusa, Bishop of Stagno, addressed to Pope Gregory XIII, dated in Ragusa on December 18, 1572. The last (n. 242) published document, the letter (report) by Archbishop Michele Magych of Antivar, sent from Nijemci (datum in Niemczi, diocesi Syrmiensi), and addressed to Cardinal Antonio Barberini, Prefect of the Congregatio de propoganda fide, is dated from July 14, 1636. Professor Toth's most conscientious editorial work is similar in approach to Epistolae et acta Jesuitarum (1575-88), and to Annuae litterae Soc. Jesu de rebus Transylvanicis temporibus principum Bathory (1579-1613), Vols. II and V of Fontes rerum Transylvanicarum series, edited by Andreas Veress (Budapest, 1913 and 1921, respectively). One has to bear in mind that, at this time, from the 1540's to the 1690's, historic Hungary was broken up into three parts: the mid-section, occupied by the Turks, belonged to the Ottoman empire; the western part including the north and northwest formed the Hungarian kingdom under Catholic Habsburg rule and was regarded as a part of the Habsburg world empire, while the east became the principality of Transylvania, though its princes frequently paid their dues to the Sublime Porte in Istanbul. Therefore, the reports-sometimes of personal nature-sent by mainly Franciscan missionaries, or by Jesuits dressed as secular clergymen, to the Sacred Congregation in Rome about their activities in regions under direct Turkish rule, or in areas of Protestant Transylvania, essentially provide original, frequently eyewitness and honest records that depict the spiritual well-being, religious and social status, everyday living, economic and cultural conditions among the sparse population under Turkish rule and in the principality; they report on various ethnic groups, their number, their colorful folk and religious customs, even their pagan superstitions. …