Habilitationsschrift--Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken. / Bibliography: v. 1, p. [11]-36.

Inaug.-Diss.--Tübingen. / Lebenslauf. "Verzeichnis der zitierten Quellen und Darstellungen": p. v-viii.

Thesis (doctoral)--Vereinigte Friedrichs-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. / "Die Arbeit erscheint in der Zeitschrift des Westpreussischen Geschichtsvereins, Heft 53": t.p. verso. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1918. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. 132-143.

Inaug.-diss.--Kiel. / Vita.

Inaug.-diss.--Frankfurt a.M. / Vita. "Bücherverzeichnis": p. [10]-14.

Habilitationsschrift - Universität Bern, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Historians have long struggled to conceptualise the Holy Roman Empire in the later Middle Ages. This thesis seeks to provide an interpretation of political life in the Empire which captures the structures and dynamics in evidence in the sources. It does so through a comparative study of the varied socio-political elites along the Upper Rhine between 1350 and 1500, with frequent reference to other regions of the Empire. The thesis is divided into three sections. Part I, consisting of four chapters, examines the shared and interconnective characteristics of several spheres of activity - the documentary, judicial, ritual, military, and administrative - in which various elites interacted through the same practices and conventions. Part II (five chapters) deals with the types of contractual association which emerged organically from these shared and interconnective structures and practices. It shows that these associations - leagues, alliances, judicial agreements, coinage unions, and others - were more common and more similar than typically assumed, that they regulated key judicial and military affairs, and that they reflected a shared ideology which emphasised peace-keeping and the common good within the Empire's framework. Part III of the thesis shows how the structures and dynamics explored in Parts I and II played out in specific situations by reference to three case studies in the 1370s-'80s, 1410s-'30s, and 1460s-'70s. All three demonstrate how the 'associative political culture' model can illuminate events which were previously considered to be moments of crisis or chaos, or the products of 'territorial' or 'constitutional' processes. The thesis concludes by arguing that, in light of this evidence, the Holy Roman Empire is best understood as a community of interdependent elites who interacted within a shared 'associative political culture'. This conclusion highlights the need for a new paradigm beyond those of the 'territory', the 'constitution', or the centralising 'state'.

This thesis explores identity as it was portrayed, constructed, and upheld through court festivals within the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in the period between the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 and the coronation of Friedrich V, Elector Palatine, as King of Bohemia in 1619. The thesis is made up of five inter-related thematic chapters. Chapter I analyses the role of ‘Lineage, Legitimacy, and History’. This chapter acknowledges the enduring importance of lineage, genealogy, and history to noble legitimacy, and discusses the threats and questions posed by newly rising families. It demonstrates how competing claims and counter-claims to legitimacy were made as festival occasions attempted to weave their protagonists into the fabric of ‘German’ history together with an associated possession of ‘German’ virtues, and how these claims to legitimacy were buttressed by representations of popular acclaim. Chapter II discusses ‘Mortality, Masculinity, Femininity, and Mutability’. At festivals both the mortality of members of dynasties and gendered roles, ideals, and identities as noble men and women were visible. This chapter argues that the evidence of these festivals complicates any stark delineation between male and female identities, instead stressing the degree of mutability of these categories as well as the centrality of virtue demonstrated, primarily, through skill. The themes of mutability and virtue continue into Chapter III, which addresses ‘Nature and the German Land’. Festivals often incorporated performed claims to possession of, and endorsement from, the German land itself. The land and its topographical features could be represented within cities as part of festival occasions, or the journeys to, and between elements of, festivals could incorporate the landscape into the rhetoric of these spectacles. This rhetoric could be confessionalised and politicised, but representations of nature also served to bolster a universalising rhetoric of virtue through the skilled manipulation of nature to the whim of the ruler. Chapter IV deals with the theme of ‘Religion, Piety, and Confessional Difference’. It discusses the role which displays of piety, including humility before God and the Church, played in these occasions, and draws out elements of confessionalised rhetoric present. However, the analysis shows that directly antagonistic religious imagery and language, seen elsewhere in European festival culture, does not feature. Instead, the emphasis is on non-divisive language and a unifying notion of Christendom. This was, of course, set against the dipole of the ‘Other’ which is addressed in Chapter V, ‘Language, Custom, Othering, and Unity’. Festivals drew attendees from across Europe and often included performed representations of non-Christian ‘Others’ such as Turks, Moors, and inhabitants of the New World. While the foreign, even the Ottoman, could be seen as exotic and luxurious, a rhetoric of superiority nurtured through appropriation and trivialisation of the threat which the Ottomans posed again contributed to the creation of common notions of identity. Finally, far from being an impediment to common identity, the meeting and use of different languages at festivals also served to highlight skill, learning, and virtue in the rhetoric of identity at these occasions.

Inaug.-Diss.--Heidelberg. / Vita. Bibliography: p. vii-ixx [i.e. xix].