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Law, society and political culture in late medieval and Reformation Germany

Law, society and political culture in late medieval and Reformation Germany

Author: Duncan Hardy
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9781526165893
Published In: November 2025
Format: Paperback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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This book offers a selection of edited and translated sources that shed light on law, society and political culture in Germany between the mid-fourteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries, enabling readers to discover the tumultuous late medieval and Reformation era in the Holy Roman Empire in unprecedented depth. The selection includes all the major legislation issued in the Empire from the Golden Bull of 1356 to the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. Most of these laws, which have shaped the constitutional development of Germany in its various incarnations down to the twenty-first century, are translated into English here for the first time. Thematic chapters cover the unique elective monarchy, imperial diets, plans for imperial and ecclesiastical reform, alliances and associations, warfare and arbitration and lordship and administration at local levels. Each theme is contextualised by the author's detailed interpretive prefaces.

INTRODUCTION

I: THE IMPERIAL MONARCHY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

1. The 'Two Swords Theory' in the Swabian Mirror (thirteenth-fifteenth centuries)

2. The origins of the Holy Roman Empire and its transfer to the Germans in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)

3. The procedure for electing a monarch in Peter of Andlau's Little Book about the Imperial Monarchy (1460)

4. A chronicle account of Emperor Charles IV's peace-keeping approach (late fourteenth century)

5. The deposition of King Wenceslas (1400)

6. King Sigismund's staging of royal authority in Ulrich Richental's chronicle (1417)

7. A letter of Emperor Frederick III requesting troops from the imperial cities (1475)

8. King Maximilian I's exhortations to an imperial diet in Constance (1507)

9. An electoral contract between the electors and King Charles V (1519)

II: ASSEMBLIES AND ORDINANCES TO THE MID-FIFTEENTH CENTURY

10. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini's observations about German diets in a letter to Juan Carvajal (1444)

11. King Wenceslas summons Strasbourg's envoys to a diet in Nuremberg (1383)

12. The electors summon Strasbourg's envoys to a diet in Nuremberg (1422)

13. Emperor Frederick III summons the imperial princes to a diet in Regensburg (1454)

14. The 'Golden Bull' (1356)

15. The imperial land-peace and alliance issued at a diet in Eger (1389)

16. A planned levy at a diet in Nuremberg for the war against the Hussites (1422)

17. A peace-ordinance promulgated at a diet in Frankfurt (the 'Royal Reformation') (1442)

III: CONFLICT, COMPROMISE AND CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AT THE IMPERIAL DIETS, 1467-1555

18. An urban envoy reports on the negotiating process at an imperial diet (1487)

19. Maximilian I summons the estates to an imperial diet in Augsburg (1509)

20. Peace-ordinances promulgated at imperial diets in Nuremberg, Regensburg and Frankfurt (1467-86)

21. A peace-ordinance promulgated at an imperial diet in Worms (the 'Perpetual Public Peace') (1495)

22. An ordinance promulgated at an imperial diet in Worms establishing the new imperial cameral court (1495)

23. A treaty for 'the administration of peace and justice' promulgated at an imperial diet in Worms (1495)

24. An ordinance to create an imperial governing council promulgated at an imperial diet in Augsburg (1500)

25. An ordinance to expand the imperial circles promulgated at an imperial diet in Trier and Cologne (1512)

26. A peace-ordinance promulgated at an imperial diet in Worms (1521)

27. The recess of an imperial diet in Speyer (1526)

28. The full protestation of the evangelical estates at an imperial diet in Speyer (1529)

29. A peace agreement and recess between Emperor Charles V and the evangelical estates (1532)

30. The imperial recess from an imperial diet in Augsburg (the 'Peace of Augsburg') (1555)

IV: IMAGINING POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS REFORM

31. King Sigismund calls for the reformation of the Church and Empire in a summons to an assembly (1417)

32. The Reformation of Emperor Sigismund (1439)

33. The proposals of an archbishop of Trier for reforming the Holy Roman Empire (1452)

34. The Little Book of One Hundred Chapters with Forty Statutes (c.

1490-1510)

35. Martin Luther, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Improvement of the Christian Estate (1520)

36. The 'grievances of the German nation' at an imperial diet in Speyer (1526)

V: ALLIANCES AND ASSOCIATIONS

37. An alliance and land-peace in Swabia (1356)

38. The eternal alliance of Zurich, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden (1351)

39. An alliance of the six German electors (1424)

40. An alliance of Hanseatic cities (1443)

41. The first treaty of the Swabian League (1487)

42. An association of the prelates, knighthood and towns of the duchy of Mecklenburg (1523

43. The founding treaty of the Schmalkaldic League (1531)

VI: FEUDING, WARFARE AND ARBITRATION

44. The feud-declaration of Wolf of Wunnenstein against Strasbourg (1395)

45. The feud-declaration of Count Ulrich V of Württemberg against Esslingen (1449)

46. The arbitrated settlement of the 'Margravial War' (1450)

47. The arbitrated settlement of the war between Abbess Hedwig of Quedlinburg and Bishop Gebhard of Halberstadt (1477)

48. The imperial condemnation of Götz of Berlichingen and his allies for violating the public peace (1512)

49. A letter of safe-conduct to arbitrational proceedings at an imperial diet in Augsburg (1555)

VII: LAW, GENDERED RULES AND SOCIAL DISCIPLINE

50. The Swabian Mirror on feudal law and the fluidity and entanglement of lordship for men, women and clerics (thirteenth-fifteenth centuries)

51. Three prisoners' commitments to the lords of Henneberg in exchange for their release (1401)

52. Fragmented and entangled properties and jurisdictions in the Black Forest (1427)

53. 'Unwritten' customary law and peasant agency in the village of Wagenschwend (1435)

54. A land-ordinance for Thuringia issued by a duke of Saxony and the Thuringian nobility and towns (1446)

55. An ordinance for the policing of prostitutes in Strasbourg (1471)

56. Nuremberg's Reformation of Statutes and Laws and the oath for the city's Jews (1484)

57. Compensating for sexual violence in a land-ordinance for Baden (1495)

58. Sumptuary laws in an imperial recess (1500)

59. The preamble to the first Empire-wide criminal code (1532)

60. Incorporating the imperial public peace into the Bavarian Land-Ordinance (1553)

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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