The Shaping of German Identity: Authority and Crisis, 1245-1414

ISBN-13: 9780521573337 / Angielski / Twarda / 2012 / 636 str.

Len Scales

Opis

German identity began to take shape in the late Middle Ages during a period of political weakness and fragmentation for the Holy Roman Empire, the monarchy under which most Germans lived. Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, the idea that there existed a single German people, with its own lands, language and character, became increasingly widespread, as was expressed in written works of the period. This book the first on its subject in any language poses a challenge to some dominant assumptions of current historical scholarship: that early European nation-making inevitably took place within the developing structures of the institutional state; and that, in the absence of such structural growth, the idea of a German nation was uniquely, radically and fatally retarded. In recounting the formation of German identity in the late Middle Ages, this book offers an important new perspective both on German history and on European nation-making."

Recenzje

'Scales has brought together an immense amount of material dealing with the topic of German identity in the later medieval period … this volume will be valuable to specialists and graduate students.' David S. Bachrach, Austrian History Yearbook

Spis treści

Introduction: German questions; 1. Modern history: inventing the medieval German nation; 2. Ruled out: monarchy, government and 'state' in Germany; 3. Realm of imagination: communicating power after the Hohenstaufen; 4. Shades of a kingdom: in search of a German political community; 5. The matter of Rome: universalising political identities; 6. Roman empire, German nation: the German imperial tradition; 7. Trojans, Giants and other Germans: peoplehoods forgotten, remembered and relocated; 8. Rome's Barbarians: accounting for the Germans; 9. East: applying identities; 10. Being German (I): place and name; 11. Being German (II): language and locality; Conclusion: endings and beginnings; Bibliography.