A Roman Reformation
Having already received the Crown of Burgundy from his father and the title King of the Romans from the Electors, Gian Galeazzo III did not require an imperial election, coronation, or Wahlkapitulation oath, as all this had been accomplished in Frankfurt in 1511. Nevertheless he still required a formal accession to his dynastic inheritances, as well as an imperial consecration from the Pope- which was still, de jure, a requirement for full recognition as emperor, although the German princes tended to disregard this as an unnecessary embellishment. The king, whether from parsimony or piety, opted to hold a single coronation ceremony in Rome, coinciding with the Election of the new pope Alexander VI. The king, his wife, and a considerable retinue of international and state dignitaries departed along the on March 1511, entering into Rome in a grand spectacle. The parade included His Imperial Majesty, and her Royal Highness and Consort Anna of the House of Wittlesbach, and her cousin, the Duke of Bavaria; the king’s cousins, Charles of Austria and Henry of Poland, were represented respectively by the Archbishop of Gniezno and the Prince of Moravia[1], while the Archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne all attended in person, as did the Bishops of Milan and Marcel… the Doge Antonio Grimani of Venice astonished with a retinue of “Mahommedean princes, and an elephant from Hindustan”, while the king of Abyssinia, represented in absentia by his ambassador, gifted the king with a pair of monkeys, a great and an ivory sculpting of the Virgin Mary. The gifts also included a book on witchcraft, a matter on which the king took a strong personal interest.
Over the course of the late 15th and early 16th centuries a shift in attitudes saw renewed interest in the occult. Witchcraft, viewed by the Medieval Church as heretical superstition contrary to Christian doctrine, was now widely accepted as a major existential danger, owing to the influence of the Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1440[A] in Salzburg Germany, the popularity of which largely silenced complaints that witch trials were heresy. The impact of this was less immediately felt in Italy; Gian Federico Visconti disdained it as mob superstition and viewed such transgressions as an affront to royal justice. Gian Galeazzo III, however, was of a different mindset than his cynical father- a student of Aquinas as much as Aristotle, he was very concerned with witchcraft as a manifestation of Satanic influence. To Gian Galeazzo, heresy and apostasy carried with it with it an explicitly treasonous taint- “witchcraft” and heresy were most prevalent in the relatively lawless alpine territories, especially in the former Swiss Confederacy and in the Arpitan territories of Savoy. The Vaud faced persistent problems with Waldensianism, inherited from the 13th and 14th century, and the Swiss territories were hotbeds of heresy. King Gian Galeazzo demanded that the state inquisition enforce canonical law and assert the royal prerogative to justice, including on matters of doctrine.
Italian attitudes towards religion tended to harden over the 15th century. Although the state was founded on the subjugation of the Church, within three decades the Visconti kings were positioning themselves as its chief defenders- as crusaders against both heretics and heathens. The Church remained an inextricable part of Italian life, especially in the cities, where the bishops remained a key part of the local community. At the same time the firsthand experience with the papal bureaucracy gave a more urbane and detached air; Italians were not infrequently, or unjustly, accused of impiety, of simply using the Church as a tool for their own ends, especially by their German counterparts, who bitterly complained at the arrogant and domineering attitude of cisalpine clergymen towards the Curia. Although cultural attitudes were not decisive the ambigious nature of the relationship between Rome and Pavia had important ramifications during the Reformation. Religion was an innately political affair, and heresy viewed as a threat not only to the soul but to public order, especially owing to the proliferation of heresy in the Savoyard and Swiss Alps. In the 16th century Emperor Gian Galeazzo III took a proactive and aggressive stance against such heresies, largely in reaction to Geneva’s rebellion during the War of the Burgundian Succession. Geneva- situated at the edge of the Lombard kingdom- was a city at the confluence of French, German and Italian cultural spheres. The city teemed with political and religious upheaval, and the rebellion of 1510 quickly took on religious and republican undertones. The city was the last to succumb to the Lombard army, and it paid a dear price, but some embers of the Swiss radicals survived, emigrating to Strassburg on the Rhineland, a city which was quickly becoming the mecca of radical dissent and one of several centers of revolt during the German Peasant’s War. The citizens, under threat by the bishopric, embraced the radical leadership of the charismatic Jan , under whom they proclaimed an apocalyptic cult. Catholics, and even more moderate heretics, saw their property confiscated- collectivized- and many fled in fear for their lives. Jan himself revived polygamy, taking several women, including former nuns, as his consorts. The city was placed under siege by the archbishop, and in 15 the Emperor himself crossed the Alps with a small army, joining the effort. The city ultimately succumbed on June 4th and Jan and his followers brutally executed. The Emperor thereafter circulated a missive on heresy denouncing the movement and all who sheltered or supported it- he specifically threatened the cities of Ulm and with an Imperial Ban, demanding they turn over all heretics or else lose their independence as free cities. Ultimately Strassburg destroyed much of the sympathy formerly held for the radicals in foreign courts, as even the French and English kings began persecuting the heretics.
Like the popular belief in witchcraft, anti-Jewish sentiment persisted among the commons, official condemnation notwithstanding, and in areas of weak state control they lived at the perilious caprice of their envious neighbors. Jews had since Charlemagne been placed under the Empire’s aegis as a legally distinct social caste, largely as a consequence of the devolution of royal power to the princes, which embedded the legal rights and privileges of Jews in the Constitutional framework of the Empire and its patchwork of mutual obligation and hierarchy. Although certainly subject to discrimination, and until the late 15th century obliged to pay a special tax to their lord, Jews were allowed to own property, freely practice their religion, protected from forced conversion or expulsion, granted free mobility and limited self government, and full use of the Imperial justice system, which fairly consistently upheld their rights as Imperial citizens, as in 1519 when an appeal to the Reichsgammerit resulted in the censure of Worms’ government and restitution of Jewish property after their unlawful expulsion from that city. Imperial institutions were generally more reliable defenders for the Jews than the impermanent whims of royal authority in countries like France or England, where they had little recourse if the ruler turned against them. Intellectual attitudes towards Jews improved somewhat at the turn of the 16th century, as scholars began to take an interest in Jewish history as a means of understanding early Christianity. The book Hebraica sold more than 100,000 copies in the Empire, becoming an early best seller, and Humanist scholars convinced Emperor Gian Galeazzo I that the Jews should be protected because they had been Roman citizens since before the fall of the Western Roman Empire.[*b]
The Holy Roman Empire was above all else a legal-political framework for codifying and preserving corporate rights- the knights did not care for Liberty, in the classical sense, only liberties, in the medieval sense of particular rights and responsibilities assigned unevenly through the mediation of an intricate web of social class and obligation. This entire system proved increasingly impotent, and the desperate knights were ready converts to more radical solutions, solutions that invariably carried the danger of mob violence. Of course the very feudal hierarchy excoriated by such radical thinkers was itself founded on violence, as had been proven time and again throughout the bloody history of class relations, and this latent violence was taken to justify violent expropriation as a form of self defense. Nevertheless the radicalized sections of society did not confine their animus for the sinful elite. This era saw a significant surge in pogroms against Jews in Spain, and also in cities such as Paris and Bordeaux, and even in Germany and Italy, although here the Jews typically enjoyed stronger protection enshrined in the Empire’s legal codes. Nevertheless spontaneous acts of violence against Jews increased substantially in these years; these largely populist actions were the symptom of a broader social malaise as the medieval hierarchy struggled to adapt to an increasingly modern world.
Throughout the era religious dissent frequently coincided with political and ethnic dissent. This was a natural consequence of the religious nature of monarchy- kings claimed to rule through a divine mandate, and for many commoners it was literally inconceivable not to have a monarch (the most infamous example of this being the 14th century English rebellion, which openly proclaimed its loyalty to the king and whose leader was captured after a parley with the sovereign). Religious heterodoxy made the impossible plausible- Irish rebels in Ulster included several radical elements, who were among the first to suggest that Ireland seek a new and independent king, rather than merely demanding increased autonomy under the existing dynasty. Religious rebellion often took on a political aspect through sheer necessity- in the face of state persecution heretics naturally came to sympathize with the cause of independence, for their own survival if nothing else. It was a shared fear of separatism which bound together the rival great powers, each of whom occupied territories with local identities at odds with the ruling class. In Iberia the problem was even more pronounced, as the reconquest of Andalusia placed substantial Christian populations under Muslim rule.
Granada’s sultans cared little for intra-Christian doctrinal disputes, so long as their subjects paid their taxes and obeyed the laws. Yet the very fact of Nasrid rule created a crisis of conscience in Iberian Christians, whose ancestors had endured the constant presence of the Muslims for countless generations. Only in the 14th century did the prospect of a final defeat of this ancient enemy seem possible, or even conceivable- and then, in the 15th century the seemingly inevitable Reconquista was suddenly, violently, and dramatically reversed, not by another Berber invasion but by fellow Christians, an act of treachery which the Pope not only accepted but explicitly endorsed. Iberian Christians under Muslim rule chafed at the contradiction, no matter that bishops preached of obedience and deference to lawful authority, or that they were mostly free of persecution, protected as they were by Islamic jurisprudence and the combined influence of Spain, Italy, and the Papacy.[1] That Protestantism should flourish in Andalusia is ultimately of no surprise- what is surprising is that heresy emerged so late under Cordoban rule.
On January 21st, 1512, a friar by the name of Bartolome Ayala nailed a Disputation on the matter of free will on the door of Seville’s city hall. A native to the city, his main complaint was the seizure of the unfinished Seville cathedral by the Andalusians, who had re-converted it to a mosque after the city’s conquest.[2]. An obstreperous old priest and passionate theologian, had grown to despise the Church and those who claimed to serve it for their failure to denounce the Muslims. His accusations did not merely demand a restoration of the cathedral: he attacked the Inquisition, the Italian Emperor, and the Spanish kings, all of whom had “whored themselves” to infidel powers. The Pope himself was denounced as the antichrist, a false pope- hardly unusual fare for Rome’s political opponents- but the Disputation went further than this, denouncing the Papacy itself as a sinful institution and citing the Bible itself to denounce the myth of Papal superiority. Unsurpisingly the Pope excommunicated and denounced him as a heretic, and the Italian Inquisition was dispatched to Seville to find and secure the man for tryial.
The Nasrid Emirate was by no means overly concerned with Christian heresy, so long as they paid their taxes and caused no trouble. But a heretical movement which denounced the Muslim regime, demanded the overthrow of “unGodly” rulers and sparked a diplomatic scandal was something different, and it did not take much convincing for the sultan to arrest the troublesome priest. This was accomplished in March of 1512, and after extradition by the Italian Inquisitors he was eventually burned at the stake in Valencia along with fifteen of his most ardent disciples. So far as the Inquisition was concerned this was the end of the matter, but burning one heretic hardly silenced the rest.
Europeans of this era desired a complete renewal of both political and spiritual life- an emphasis on a more active, intensely personal and particular experience, in contrast to the static, contemplative, universal hierarchies of the medieval world view. The Dutch philosopher Gorg Von Andersen best exemplified this sentiment when he proclaimed that “it is better to err in ignorance whilst desiring good, than to seek truth, for the divine is forever out of reach of earthly comprehension.” Humanists, too, embraced religious renewal as vital for the preservation of civic life- as religion was the glue binding the state together. “Rome owed her virtue to her religion, for from religion came good laws, and from good laws came the vitality of her state, and the power which awed the world.” Yet it was reformation, rather than revolution, which was the goal of major thinkers. The Conciliarist victory made it possible to voice criticisms of the Papacy- of the Curia, or even the Church Councils- while potentially avoiding accusations of heresy. Major thinkers in the latter 15th century openly discussed the limitations of Papal (or Conciliarist) power, and argued for or against autonomous national churches, or the expropriation of Church lands; all of this was permitted, even encouraged, by a Church unable to assert an independent foreign policy and eager to win back the respect of the laity. Yet to go beyond this, to question not merely the limits of Papal power but the legitimacy of priests as a whole- this was radicalism, but of a sort that was not unknown to Europe. Both the Hussites and the Waldensians had seen suggestions of a more egalitarian church- or even the abolition of all church hierarchies- but these movements had been ruthlessly suppressed by their less radical supporters and found scant support in the halls of European nobility. Even in Germany, where many church estates were confiscated by militant urban renewals, few envisioned an outright break with the Catholic Church, especially after the disastrous example of Geneva. The violence in Switzerland and Swabia proved disastrous for the radicals’ general reputation, as many previous sympathizers in Germany were appalled at the anarchy and took a more conciliatory view towards Rome and the traditional church hieararchy. Nevertheless the idea of a truly Christ like Church- a church of the common man- still refused to die, and at the turn of the new century the continent was awash in religious fervor, movements both openly heretical and openly proclaiming their intention to revitalize a faltering Church. It was in this context that the Council of Salzburg opened on May 5th 1514.
Reform, of course, was nothing new. Church councils were by now entrenched and well respected institutions, which had scored their greatest successes in ending the Schism and severely circumscribing Indulgences, both accomplished at the Council of Bologna: they could no longer be granted on behalf of those in Purgatory, nor in exchange for anything but good works performed by the dispensee, such as acts of charity, martyrdom, or pilgrimage. Although widely praised as a necessary reform, the question of Indulgences struck at the heart of a latent doctrinal dispute- the justification for peddling indulgences rested on the concept that the Papacy enjoyed access to the “treasury of merit” created by Christ’s sacrifice, and could dispense this at their discretion to their flock. By condemning this practice, the reformers had implicitly attacked the connection between the Pope and his claim to spiritual authority as the heir to St Peter and vicar of Christ: it called into doubt whether spiritual supremacy rested ultimately with the Councils, the broader Christian Community (laymen or clerical), with the Pope or the Papacy as an institution, or some combination thereof. More generally, much to the dismay of the Conciliarists, the lay population took the movement to suggest increased involvement in spiritual affairs. The Conciliar triumph, far from strengthening the Church or the Papacy, fatally weakened both in the face of new and aggressive dynasties who had no intention of submitting to clerical authority. Disputes between prince and pontiff was nothing new, but in the context of the early 16th century the debate was not merely one of theological import: as an ideological assault on aristocratic and medieval authority it had political implications as well, and it was among the urban intelligentsia and rural peasantry that new and radical ideas about popular religion took hold most fervently.
Of the five great powers, two- Austria and Poland- had substantial non-Catholic Christian populations (Hussites in Bohemia and Silesia, Orthodox rite Christians in Transylvania and Ruthenia), two- France and England- were strong, autocratic monarchies largely hostile to Italy (and by implication suspicious of the Roman Curia), and the fifth- Italy itself- maintained a death grip on the Papal curia and was generally hostile to Papal independence. Both the greater and lesser states of Europe felt significant desire to perform liturgy in the vernacular, or even print Bibles for public consumption, but neither practice was acceptable under current Church doctrine. Printing allowed heterodox ideas to flourish despite systematic persecution. Above all flourished the Autonomists, backed by England and France, who demanded a quasi-autocephalous “community of churches” placed under the secular jurisdiction of the crown and its agents. One of the most contentious debates swirled around mediatization of church lands, a radical solution increasingly favored by many lords in Germany.
When the 9th century Ottonian dynasty joined together the Italian and German crowns under the banner of empire, they also secured the immense papal bureaucracy, with which they could legitimize their regime and expand their influence well outside of their borders. Both the Ottonians and their successors granted considerable estates to vassal bishoprics, trusting a non-hereditary, educated princely elite to support their authority against the regional nobility. The bishoprics’ power entered into a long decline after the high water mark of the 13th century, as many estates were seized by various aristocratic or urban interests. Nevertheless the Empire still retained significant clerical territories, including the three Elector-Archbishops of Mainz, Trier and Cologne. This entanglement of secular and spiritual authority attracted increasingly sharp condemnation from lay reformers, who could point to the example of the Papal State itself- reduced effectively to Rome by the Council of Bologna- as strong evidence that robbing the Church of its land not only failed to harm the church but in fact seemingly strengthened it. Such thinkers enjoyed a natural constituency among many interest groups: burghers who sought to escape control of their prince bishops; nobles such as the Duke of Westphalia, whose title implied dominion over territory presently held by major ecclesiastical states; ambitious kings like Philip of France with their own designs on internal or neighboring Church lands. The council, moreover, faced the question of the precise limits and powers of the council versus the Papacy. By decree of the Council of Bologna the Papacy was, in theory, the supreme authority on doctrine, and the Council merely had the power to advise, censure, and- if necessary- depose him, but how and under what circumstances they could do this was a major controversy. Conservatives- championed by the Italians and the Church itself- saw that the Council’s powers as fundamentally limited in scope to its prerogatives established at Bologna, but others insisted that the Councils had a broader remit, and implied a degree of secular lay participation that appalled more traditional thinkers.
Mediatization’s major opponents- aside from the church- were the lesser Imperial knights and counts, who saw the church fiefs as one of the only remaining avenues for advancement within the Empire- consecration conferred full princely status within the Empire and nominal equality with the great princely estates. The lesser nobility were among the principal groups adversely affected by the trends of early modernity- too poor and too proud to engage in trade, and without the dignity or latent power of the greater nobles, they clung desperately to dogmatic affections of social class- that is to say, to their noble status- and attempted to secure for themselves sinecures of land, office, or wealth, in whatever manner that they could to secure their future. They were joined, surprisingly, by many of the burghers of the various Imperial and Free cities, who were far from unified in their politics. Franconia’s expansion during the War of the Burgundian Succession left a profound impact on Germany, the lesser nobles, of course, bitterly opposed their dispossession and denigration at the hands of overmighty dukes, but urban intellectuals also feared the growing power of the great princes, and viewed the loss of Nuremberg’s liberty (dissolved into the duchy by the terms of the peace) as demonstrating a direct existential threat to their precarious independence. The Emperor himself ultimately came to oppose further secularization or consolidation, influenced by appeals to his role as sovereign emperor by the Imperial estates and also by the Pope himself, who nevertheless took a relatively tactful and conciliatory approach to secular demands.
The sudden demise of Pope Adrian during the council proved a decisive turning point. The diplomats under the French king had already secured significant concessions from Rome in exchange for dropping their more intemperate territorial ambitions in Lorraine, but the new Pope- an 86 year old half blind Riminese noble of the Malaspina dynasty, consecrated as Marinus III- was utterly intransigent and denounced the Council’s edicts with such fervor that even Gian Galeazzo III- a man deeply loyal to the Pontiff- advised him to moderate. Ultimately he would not get the chance: the new pope died less than two months into office- a convenient thing for many, and accusations of poison were made by contemporaries (chiefly against Gioffre Borgia, although family rivals to the Malaspina are also possible), and a new Pope was eventually elected after a gridlocked conclave nearly nine weeks later. In the meantime the French king and his allies took matters into their own hands, seizing control of the council and unilaterally devolving to themselves Church lands and authority. This blatant self-serving opportunism attracted considerable commentary and controversy, and in the end the new Pope- a phlegmatic Sardinian-born cardinal who took the title Urban VII- firmly denounced the council’s unprecedented usurpation of papal authority and demanded the immediate restitution of Church properties.
On October 4th 1514 a Brandenburg army occupied the city of Magdeberg, which predictably incited the pope to place the entire kingdom of Poland under interdict. Rather back down however the Hohenzollern monarch demanded the Polish Church ignore Rome’s edicts entirely, imprisoning those who refused to comply. As Poland plunged into upheaval, king Philip and king Henry met at Calais in March 1515, where they discussed the renewal of the alliance and their response to the crisis. At the field of Gold the two monarchs largely agreed to the same terms of alliance previously agreed with Henry’s father- Henry renounced his claims on the French throne, as well as the duchy of Normandy, and Philip agreed to recognize the independence of Brittany and Aquitaine from the French kingdom. Philip also agreed to a betrothal for the dauphin, his nephew Francis, and the princess Elizabeth, Henry’s daughter, and a general settlement vis a vis their respective spheres of influence in the Low Countries. More critically the two agreed to consult each other prior to any possible war with Italy or Germany, and Philip specifically pledged to support Holland’s claim to the bishopric of Utrecht and duchy of Gelre in return for English support for Lorraine’s annexation of Liege. Gelre was the object of dispute between Holland and the lords of Westphalia, and the other two territories were still nominally independent prince bishoprics, although Utrecht had been forced to sell part of its holdings to Holland already; both terms strongly implied war with the Emperor, who considered Westphalia an ally and was committed to upholding the independence of imperial vassals against the ambitions of foreign powers. Both kings subsequently declared their support for Poland and invaded the prince bishoprics; when this was also met with a Papal interdict the monarchs followed Poland’s lead, breaking ties with the Vatican and demanding their clergy obey the crown over the Pope. The English king also took the opportunity to confiscate monastic properties, an action which met with significant domestic opposition; in response the king dissolved Parliament and, upon its reconvention in June posted royal troops outside the chamber, barring entry to those deemed insufficiently loyal. This tyrannical action prompted open revolt, but the rebels were disorganized and lacked clear leadership, and the royal army faced little dangerous opposition, albeit the last bastions of resistance were not crushed until later in the year. The Polish king Henry attempted a similar measure after the Sejm utilized its veto, but the Polish nobility proved more truculent and the botched attempt plunged Poland over the brink into civil war.
On October 8th 1515 the situation gained a new and dangerous dynamic upon the death, without male issue, of the duke of Wurrtemburg. By the laws and customs of the Empire the lands reverted to the Emperor to dispose of as he saw fit, but the late duke had two sisters who both laid claim to the lands. Wurtemburg was not one of the few imperial states that allowed succession through the female line, but the claimants happened to be married to the duke of Hohenzollern and the Count Palatine Ruprecht, and so the matter gained a broader political significance by entangling two of Germany’s leading dynasties and the interests of the great powers.
During the middle ages the Salian Emperors had always taken care to prevent the union of Swabia and Bavaria. Now that the shoe was on the other foot the Visconti emperors were equally opposed to the prospect of a Wittelsbach Swabia- for no one seriously considered Wurtemburg to be the sole limit of either claimant’s ambitions, not with the examples of Bavaria and Franconia only nine years old- especially given that the family possessed imperial blood, an electoral vote and marriage ties with every royal family in Europe. Yet a Hohenzollern Swabia was not an ideal prospect, either; perhaps the only greater peril than a Swabia-Bavaria axis was a Franco-Polish alliance supporting Swabia and Franconia against the Italians. Under the circumstances acquiring the territory for the Visconti dynasty seemed a necessary precaution- indeed Gioffre advocated creating a Swabian duchy under a cadet line of the dynasty, this including not only Wurrtemburg but also the Swiss Alps and territories taken from the Palatinate in return for either northern Tirol, Alsace or Luxemburg.
In the literal and metaphorical center of the crisis was the Count Palatine Ruprecht of the House of Wittelsbach, neither a genius nor a fool, and certainly smart enough to realize the danger a new war would pose for his lands. The count had been forced to part with Luxemburg in return for the Sundgau and the County Palatine of Burgundy, on paper a fair trade but given that the Burgundian territory had been devastated by the war and was still openly the target of both French and Italian ambitions it was perhaps understandable that he desired to dispose of it as gracefully as possible, ideally gaining something equally valuable in return. Wurrtemburg certainly seemed a fair enough prize, and as early as October 29th he was offering to cede Comital Burgundy to Italy in return for the Emperor backing his wife’s claims. The Emperor was largely amenable to the proposal, but the Count Albrecht of Hohenzollern forced the issue, with the backing of the Anglo-French alliance, his cousin the duke of Franconia and the tacit approval of the beleagured king of Poland. On December 1st a detachment cavalry entered into Stuttgart and proclaimed its union with Hohenzollern. The Emperor responded with an Imperial ban levied against both the count and his allies- including his erstwhile ally, the king of Poland- but the Dutch acted first, invading Westphalia in January and defeating the duke of Westphalia in Gelre. Less than a decade after the peace of Aachen Europe was once again at war.
[1]Nasrid rule was not without its effects- various churches, including the unfinished Cathedral of St Mary in Seville, were converted into mosques or synagogues; in many cases these structures had been Muslim or Jewish prior to the Castillan reconquest.
[2]The Principality (formerly Duchy) of Moravia was by this time associated with the heir presumptive to the Habsburg Monarchy, although as two of its constituent crowns were de jure elective this was likely also intended to ensure a smooth transition of power- Moravia proper, although confined to Bohemia, also had once referred to the part of northwestern Hungary at its border, inhabited by the Moravian Slavs (OTL Slovakia), and the title was presumably associated with both provinces, albeit as nominally legally distinct entities in personal union
[A]OTL’s Malleus Maleficarum, or “Hammer of Witches” was published in 1485, and became the second most popular book after the Bible for something like a century, precipitating a major sea change in European attitudes towards sorcery and witchcraft, which in the medieval era had been largely ignored if not outright suppressed as silly superstition of the masses and heretical to Church doctrine. TTL the somewhat altered situation in the region, and the absence of the Council of Basel, slightly delayed the publication under an ATL figure, despite earlier printing and increasing interest in the classical occult.
[*B]This is all based on the excellent Heart of Europe, which gives these and other facts as a contravention of the idea of the Empire being antiquated or “anti-modern.” The main thrust of the book’s argument, of course, is that centralized nation states of the French and English model are not necessarily superior to the more decentralized model, and that in some ways the HRE was more “progressive” in that a more multipolar structure promotes certain things which modern audiences prefer, like relative freedom of thought, emphasis on constitutionalism and so on. Above all else, the model of core-periphery doesn’t really capture German-Imperial history, as unlike say Paris or London there was no single “metropole” which tried to dominate its countryside, and politics were therefore fundamentally collaborative rather than antagonistic. Italy and Germany both benefit from this timeline and offer a contrary view to the more top-heavy unitary state, as both are defined by strong regionalism and are not as easily fit into the unitary model that came to dominate historically
