Das Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation. Vom Ende des Mittelalters bis 1806

by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger

Das Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation war ein über die Jahrhunderte des Mittelalters allmählich gewachsenes politisches Gebilde, ein lose integrierter Verband sehr unterschiedlicher Glieder, die unter einem gemeinsamen Oberhaupt, dem Kaiser, standen: geistliche und weltliche Herrschaftsträger, wenige Mächtige und viele Mindermächtige, Kurfürsten und Fürsten, Prälaten, Grafen, Ritter und Städte. Um die Wende zur Neuzeit, also um 1500, bildete dieser Verband festere institutionelle Strukturen aus – vor allem Reichstage als Foren der Konsensbildung, das Reichskammergericht und den Reichshofrat als Organe höchster Gerichtsbarkeit und die Reichskreise als regionale Exekutivinstitutionen. Über die inneren Zerreißproben der Glaubensspaltung und des Dreißigjährigen Krieges hinweg hatten diese gemeinsamen Institutionen im Kern drei Jahrhunderte lang Bestand, bevor der ganze Verband dem machtpolitischen Expansionswillen der mächtigsten Glieder – vor allem Brandenburg-Preußen und Österreich – zum Opfer fiel.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Germany, European History, Medieval

278 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger FBA is a German historian. She studied German language and literature, history and history of art at the University of Cologne, graduating in 1980 and earning a doctorate in 1985.

Reviews

[John David · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been said, perhaps in jest, that the Holy Roman Empire is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. Despite having existed for an entire millennium, it remains infamously opaque and obscure, with a past even most history lovers know little of. At just about 160 pages, this little book by Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger (originally published in German in 2006 as “Das Heilige Romische Reich Deutscher Nation: Vom Ende des Mittelalters bis 1806”) hits a sweet spot in providing just enough political and institutional history of the Empire to understand its functions and dysfunctions during its last three centuries (c. 1495-1806). The English translation was published by Princeton University Press in 2018.

Stating what the Empire was is just as difficult as stating what it wasn’t. It was not a “state or confederation of states,” because it lacked many of the qualities of early modern statehood. It could variously be seen as a loose political body tied together by feudal bonds of fealty to an overlord (the Emperor), a legal association under a common juridical authority with shared legislative powers aimed at establishing a community of diplomacy and peace, or a complex political association of states and corporations brought together based largely based on the shared principles of both tradition and consensus. In short, it’s not the easiest political body to characterize.

The time period stated above (c. 1495-1806) bookends the events from the Diet of Worms to the dissolution of the Empire under Napoleonic pressures. (And no, not the 1521 Diet of Worms where Martin Luther was called to apologize for his doctrine in response to a papal bull from Leo X. This Diet of Worms occurred a generation earlier and consisted of a series of complicated institutional reforms.) These centuries were critical because of the ways they structurally changed the Empire socially, culturally, and religiously, with the biggest of these changes being the events that followed directly from the Reformation. This book is more for the interested generalist, but she still has her pet topics of interest: most notably the roles and importance of tradition versus innovation and public ritual.

Many of the territories that continued to be affiliated with the Empire but remained connected in older, feudal ways more associated with the Middle Ages than with modernity, including Savoy, northern Italy, and the Swiss Confederation, take a backseat to the larger territories that went on to build stronger diplomatic and political relationships with one another. Stollberg-Rilinger emphasizes the Empire as one that ran on consensus and cooperation. The electors of individual territories and the Emperor himself were both elected, a practice that dated back to old Germanic tribes. It was only later that hereditary succession was introduced across a variety of European states.

Stollberg-Rilinger offers up a great revisionist history of the Peace of Westphalia, suggesting that instead of making the Empire weaker and more unstable, that it was buoyed by the strength of its own institutions and rituals. This goes on to backfire as some of the more well-established territories, like Brandenburg-Prussia and Austria, used the legal rights and liberties codified into the Peace of Westphalia as political cudgels against their neighbor territories. Thus it wasn’t the great political and social forces of the time that tore the Empire apart, she argues, but rather the venality of its members and its own decreasing political utility. Her analysis of the Peace of Augsburg is just as compelling.

One could be forgiven for thinking that a book with the Holy Roman Empire for its subject would be stuffily academic, but it’s not. She even manages to make the occasionally mentioned historiographical quibble – the fact that nineteenth-century historians had a tendency to see the late Empire as a gigantic, lumbering failure, for example - about her topic interesting to the layperson. It’s well-written, clear, and has the increasingly rare virtue of concision. For all intents and purposes, for a cursory introductory to the last third of the Empire, it’s a great place to start - and end, unless your interests just aren’t sated by a 160 pages of sharp, elegantly written history. The only negative I can see is that the first 700 years of the Empire don’t even get a passing mention, which means that you’ll ultimately have to go elsewhere if you want a historical picture of the Empire’s entire past.

[Mehmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kutsal Roma Germen İmparatorluğu ile ilgili müstakil bir kitap bulmak zor. Hatta arka kapakta yazana göre Türkçedeki ilk çeviri eser. Benim de başka bildiğim yok, son zamanlarda basılan varsa da haberim yoktur. Kitap KRG İmparatorluğu'nun siyasi olaylarından ziyade geçirdiği dönüşümlerle daha çok alakadar olmuş, bu durum da okuyucuda kitabı okumadan önce bir tarihsel temel gerektiriyor. Sadece Alman devletlerinin değil, komşularının da tarihini az çok bilmeniz gerekiyor kitabı kafanızda tam olarak oturtabilmek adına. Avrupa tarihi okumaları yaptığım günlerdeyim ve bu kitap bana İmparatorluk yapısını ve geçirdiği dönüşümleri anlaşılır bir şekilde verdi. Ama okumayı düşünüyorsanız bu kitabın bir başlangıç kitabı olmadığını da tekrar söylemek isterim.

[Will R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview of the HRE from beginning to end.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nach dem Jung und Naiv Interview der Autorin, habe ich mich entschlossen mir mal ihre Werke anzuschauen. Dieser kurze Band dient super dazu das Schulwissen zum HRRDN wieder aufzufrischen.

[Peter Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dry book that became more interesting the further you got into it. I more or less enjoyed it, but never found it an inspiring read, nor was I ever really looking forward to picking it back up again. I spent £15 on this and wish I'd bought it second hand, instead.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Es un tratado político farragoso más que una historia breve. No es un acercamiento paulatino, sino la exposición de los entresijos administrativos más tediosos. Desconozco si es un fallo en la traducción del título o si el propósito de la autora es espantar a cualquier curioso del tema. Mi interés por el Sacro Imperio fue decreciendo con el paso de las páginas. Espero no tener que acudir a este libro nunca. Acabarlo ha sido un suplicio.

[Andrés Pérez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impresiona la capacidad técnica de la autora y como a través de esta le puede dar al lector una visión bastante clara de lo q es el imperio. Se entiende la dificultad de definir tal amorfidad política, pero se logra tener una visión.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informative short overview that nonetheless only covers the latter half of the Empire's thousand-year history and is very dry, dealing as it does primarily with the dizzyingly complicated Imperial institutions and their repeated overhauls, reforms, and rejiggering over about 400 years.

That I expected a history from Charlemagne on when the book only begins in the 15th century I blame on the US publisher; here, it's subtitled A Short History, but the original German subtitle is more specific: Vom Ende des Mittelalters bis 1806. So caveat lector, I guess.

But again, it is a very good short history of its subject, and concludes with an exceptionally insightful and helpful chapter summarizing the eleven main conclusions the author draws from this history in answer to the question "What was the Holy Roman Empire?"

[Schwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Für gänzlich Ungeschlagene ein lohnender erster Ausflug.

[Ignacio Azpiazu · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read mostly non fiction books. History, essays and I am used to "hard" readings but I found this book incredible dense with no engaging at all.
A short book that took me a lot of effort to read.

[Bayram Erdem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yönetimleri birbirleriyle benzeşmeyen yüzlerce devletçiğin 1000 yıl süren tarihi. Yazar tarihi olaylardan çok yönetim yapısındaki değişikliklere odaklanmış. Kısa ama bilgilendirici bir kitap.

[Gökalp Aral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belki biraz da utanç verici bir açıklama modeli ama yazın başında bir bağımlı gibi saatlerce, günlerce oynadığım EU4 adlı oyunda önemli aktörlerden biri olan Kutsal Roma İmparatorluğu'nun parçalı yapısı, elektör prensler ve yine 15. Yüzyıldan itibaren imparatorluk içinde gerçekleşmiş tarihsel olayların görünürlüğü beni üzerinde okumaya teşvik etti. Her ne kadar lisede görülen tarih dersleri dolayısıyla özellikle Avusturya-Osmanlı çatışması üzerinden kimi bilgiler sunulsa da son derece yetersiz ve güçsüz oldukları açık imparatorluğun yapısını anlamak için ancak müfredatın aksine neredeyse 1000 sene boyunca varlığını Avrupa'nın ortasında korumuş, sayısız küçük devletten ve özgür şehirlerden oluşan, bugünün Avrupa siyasal haritasında mevcut devletlerden birçoğunu kapsayan bir büyüklükten bahsediliyor ki yine imparatorluğun dağılmasından sonra dünya tarihine etki etmeyi sürdürmüş Avusturya-Macaristan, Prusya gibi devletlerin de modern zamanlara gelmeden önceki işleyişini, bir anlamda yeni çağa nasıl girdiklerini ve değiştiklerini anlamak için de elzem. Tuhaf bir şey, düşününce, bunca önemli olan bir devletin ve siyasal yapının nasıl olup da liselerde ve sonrasında (sosyoloji mezunu olduğum için yine tarihle ilişkili dersler almayı sürdürdüm lisans hayatımda) çok az konu haline getirilmesi.

Kitaba gelirsek benim okumaya henüz başlarken beklediğimin tam tersine uluslar-arası politik düzlemden ya da savaşlardan oluşan bir tarih okumasının ötesinde daha çok imparatorluğun iç işleyişiyle alakalı bir metin, bu bakımdan okuyucu açısından sıkıcı hale gelme potansiyeline sahip (yabancı dilde yazılmış diğer incelemelerde de benzer bir yakınma var). Ancak tam aksine benim gibi keyif almanız da olası kitaptan, sonuçta gündelik hayatta ve eğitim sürecinde çok karşılaşılmayan gizli ve büyülü bir alana giriş gibi de adlandırılabilir. Kitabı okurken ve umuyorum ki bitirdikten sonra da jstor gibi makale depolarında yine bu konu hakkında keyfi okumalar yapacağım.

Vakıfbank Kültür Yayınları'nın editör ve çevirmen ekibine de teşekkürü borç bilirim zira onların sayesinde Schmitt başta olmak üzere alternatif düşünüş tiplerine, Avrupa'daki ana-akımın zıddına yazan kimi yazarlarla tanışma fırsatı doğuyor.

[Stephen Ede-Borrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy read but informative albeit that it is (probably deliberately) mistitled. It is a study of the Empire NOT an history of it - noticeably the original German title does not include the word 'History'. It would also have been more 'honest' if the publisher had retained that part of the German book's title which states that the book covers only from the end of the Middle Ages to the Empire's dissolution in 1806!

My other problem with this book is the translation itself. Whilst the words are precisely translated the nuances aren't, which makes the text very hard going, and a better translator would have produced far better book. For example, and this is one of many, I KNOW that the German actually says "the Roman King" but the English equivalent usage is 'King of the Romans' - in English the two terms have completely different meanings and ignoring this makes the text begin to be inaccurate. Similarly whilst the German text does say that the Electors voted 'one by one', its English equivalent is actually 'one at a time'. Such poor translation is repeated throughout, which is a good part of the difficult of reading the book

A book very well worth having on your shelf for anyone interested but it could have been titled, translated and produced better - shame on you Princeton!

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Due to my readings on the Reformation, I am quite familiar with the Empire but I still learned a good deal from reading this book. Stollberg-Rilinger does an excellent job of looking at the political machinery that I was not familiar with from my studies.

[Caomhghain · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quite amazingly compact yet thorough history of the Empire and its development and features.

[Øystein Brekke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kort kompakt gjennomgang av stort tema, som eg visste veldig lite om frå før.
Du vil aldri finna ei historiebok der historikaren konkluderer at "dette teamet er eigentleg ikkje så viktig": Eg hadde inntrykk av at det tyske keisarriket var nesten berre pro forma frå iallfall slutten av mellomalderen, men her lærer eg at det hadde viktige funksjonar heilt ut til 1700-talet. Mykje nytt, grei innføring for ein begynnar.

[Ryan O'Malley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did the job. Quick explanation of the Holy Roman Empire. It is dry, but does an efficient job of explaining a complicated topic.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

guter chronologischer Überblick

[Kevin Moynihan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic ‘short history’ from well-regarded German historian. Great as a reference when wading through other histories of The Holy Roman Empire.