This dissertation examines the fortunes of two families of the territorial nobility in Paderborn, the barons (Freiherren) of Büren, and the baronets (Adelherren) of Fürstenberg. In doing so, it provides a paradigm for understanding the history of the territory over the course of the period 1550–1650. In contrast to their contemporaries in southern Germany, the nobles of Westphalia, the area of Germany in which Paderborn is located, are relatively under-studied. My research indicates that this area, with its myriad small territories and relative power vacuum, was also a microcosm for the political developments of the Holy Roman Empire. In studying these families, the culture of politics in the early modern Empire is illuminated. This dissertation is arranged thematically, where each chapter uses an incident in this territory to discuss a broad theme. My first chapter discusses the development of a significant party of Protestant nobles in Paderborn, and discusses the creation and reinforcement of noble identity. Particular attention is paid to the cultures of noble friendships and patronage. The political usefulness of the feud is also discussed. The second chapter examines a case of two conversions. Elisabeth von Büren, a recently-widowed Calvinist noblewoman, converted from Protestantism to Catholicism because of her increasingly difficult social and political situation. In contrast, her son Moritz experienced an internal conversion that led him to join the Jesuit order, an act that in time resulted in the extinction of this family. This chapter discusses not only the motivations for each conversion, but also the political uses of these converts, and their conversion narratives. The third chapter follows the political fortunes of two brothers, Kaspar and Dietrich von Fürstenberg. Due to his vocal alliance to the Catholic faction in Paderborn, Dietrich, who was a priest, was able to become an imperial prince. His brother, Kaspar, who was the head of the family, not only benefited from this rise in status, but also had to change his sexual practices in response to his family's increased notoriety. This chapter discusses the effects of the Counter-Reformation in Paderborn in both the public and private spheres. The fourth chapter discusses the descendant of these two men, Ferdinand von Fürstenberg. Thanks to his connections and the political realities in Westphalia after the Thirty Years' War, Ferdinand was able not only to become the prince-bishop of Paderborn, but also to enact administrative reform in the rural parishes and employ irenicism, a proto-secularist philosophy, as an aspect of his foreign policy. Ferdinand's patronage networks are analyzed in the context of post 1648 elite intellectual and cultural life. The last two chapters concentrate on the physical legacy of the two Fürstenberg bishops previously discussed. The fifth chapter discusses the "Reformation of the Landscape" enacted through the building programs of these two bishops. Through the building and decoration of monumental structures, the two bishops helped to impose a Catholic order on the countryside, and erase the signs of the previous, defeated Protestant faction. The final chapter discusses the funerary monuments of the family from which these two bishops came. Although they are scattered throughout the region, the funerary monuments of this family form a coherent propagandistic message, intended to promote their majesty, nobility and Catholicism.

This thesis deals with selected foreign journeys of Czech and Austrian nobility in the second half of the 18th and at the beginning 19th centuries and their influences and impacts. In addition to the general passages devoted to the travelling of nobility from the 16th to the middle of the 18th centuries and to the expeditions carried out during the period under review, attention is paid to five persons who have been divided into three groups based on their activities influenced by experience gained in foreign countries. The first of the circuits is connected with creating of landscape parks inspired by the ideas of 18th -century philosophy and expeditions to Great Britain and German territory, where the first picturesque gardens appeared. The relationship between travel and landscaping of the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries is illustrated by the example of Johann Rudolf Czernin of Chudenice and his parks in Krásný Dvůr, Jemčina, Chudenice and Petrohrad or Alois I. Josef of Liechtenstein, whose name is connected with the arrangement of Lednice-Valtice area. Scientific motivated journeys represent the second group. Leopold I. Berchtold of Uherčice, who collected his knowledge of medicine and actively helped others during his journeys, was chosen as a suitable representative. The...

Under the Constantinian dynasty, the Roman senatorial aristocracy was subject to two major social and political transformations. Firstly, emperors gradually modified the rules for senatorial office-holding, moving away from a hereditary model towards a more flexible system in which rank could be gained through merit (service to the emperor). The number of senatorial posts in the administration was increased, which resulted in the expansion of the senatorial order from outside the hereditary aristocracy. Secondly, Constantine founded Constantinople, where a second senate emerged, prompting the formation of a new eastern senatorial order. Roman senatorial nobles were among the most powerful individuals of the empire. The expansion of their order, the transformation of senatorial office-holding and the foundation of Constantinople did not lead to the reduction of their influence in government. Constantine actively encouraged the involvement of Roman grandees in government as a means of supporting imperial rule, especially in the East. Constantine's son, Constantius II, emperor of the East, continued these policies until 350, when the military and dynastic context forcefully disrupted his relationship with the Roman senate. In this situation, Constantius moved to found a second senate in Constantinople to legitimise his position in the East. Modelled on Rome, the new senate quickly assembled the top echelons of the traditional eastern elite. However, the emergence of this order did not impinge on the authority of the Roman senate, restored to its traditional authority by Constantine. Constantius made it clear that the support of the Roman nobility remained a vital source of political stability and (above all) a necessary means of risk-reduction in the continuing context of the fragility of imperial power.

Shakespeare reveals his interest in the popular theme of courtly love, which came to him as an established tradition, in a number of his plays. This tradition can be traced back to the troubadours of Provence who, during the Crusades, appeared as a class of knights whose chief values were valor, courtesy, and knightly worth. From the troubadours came the idea of love service: every knight must have a lady whose relationship to him was parallel to that between him as a vassal and his lord. This love service came.to be looked upon as leading to moral dignity and true chivalry and it was performed by the knight for another 's wife. An elaborate set of rules grew up describing the nature of courtly love and the attitudes and responses of both the knight and the lady. From Provence courtly love spread to Italy where it was endowed with spiritual and philosophical aspects by Cardinal Bembo, Dante, and Petrarch, for example. By the time that the tradition reached England it had been modified, added to, and conventionalized in its passage through Italian and Northern French literature. A number of Shakespeare's predecessors made important contributions to the courtly theme: Chaucer suggested its evil consequences, Castiglione established the rules to guide the perfect courtier and the lady, and emphasized marriage as the only acceptable end of courtly love, Sidney combined the medieval chivalric and the classical pastoral traditions in an imaginary setting where chivalric ideals always triumphed over evil, and Spenser added a strong moral note, recognizing the physical as well as the spiritual aspects of love in his emphasis on virtue and constancy. By the time that Shakespeare began to deal with courtly love, courtesy meant more than the medieval idea of a willingness to undertake love-service. It meant gentlemanly conduct, refined manners, intellect, and a high moral purpose. When Shakespeare took up the courtly theme, it had been refined considerably. In an early treatment of the theme, Shakespeare satirizes the folly connected with courtly love and the courtly ideal. This is seen in Love's Labour's Lost where the ladies only toy with the men and where love is not triumphant. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona the satirical vein is continued and the weaknesses inherent in courtly love are exposed in the struggle between love and friendship. As You Like It is another play in this group where courtly love is satirized. Rosalind becomes the spokesman for sincerity and faithfulness in love and condemns artificiality and sham. In a group of plays which treats the courtly theme as comedy (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Henry IV (Part I), and Henry V) Shakespeare is more fun-loving and gentler in his presentation than he was in the plays where courtly love was treated satirically. No serious issue mars the comic atmosphere as we see the humorous side of love in each of these plays. In another group, Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, and Cymbeline, we see the strength derived from romantic love which is presented as a genuine passion leading to permanence. Such love gives strength in adversity and though love ends tragically in Romeo and Juliet and nearly ends tragically in the other two plays, we see that it enables the lovers to meet their fate, even when it is death. Shakespeare reverses the theme in the following plays: All's Well that Ends Well, Much Ado about Nothing, Measure for Measure, and Richard II. In the first three the lady uses a trick to win her man, and in Richard II she pleads for love but is rebuffed. The scheming and trickery of the first three plays in this group brings the theme close to unpleasantness and degrades the courtly lover. Shakespeare here probes the realistic aspects of the theme and shows men and women as they really are. This treatment is followed through in the tragedies Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, and Othello, where the unpleasant, realistic aspects of courtly love lead naturally to tragedy. In these tragedies the gaiety and idealism of the conventions of courtly love have disappeared completely and the true possibilities have been exposed. After these plays, courtly love no longer could supply a valid pattern for loving and living. In The Tempest the theme is subverted and love is seen as the force of renewal in the world. The lovers are no longer of interest as courtly lovers but appear as mature people whose marriage becomes the hope of a better world. The conventional suffering for love is gone and in its place is a mature, reasoned attitude to the most basic of man's emotions. With this play Shakespeare has come all the way from artificiality and sham to a lasting, satisfying type of love. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The intent of this thesis is to examine Spinoza's philosophy of emotion as it relates to groups of individuals, or collectives. These groups, especially political collectives such as nation-states, are evaluated through Spinozist understandings of virtue, nobility, and blessedness. From this analysis, a novel concept of "collective nobility" is used to create philosophical guidance for the emotional dimensions of politics and state action. Drug policy is used as a case study to understand how emotion influences policymaking and vice versa, both negatively (as in the United States) and positively (as in Portugal).

No / This original volume seeks to get behind the surface of political events and to identify the forces which shaped politics and culture from 1680 to 1840 in Germany, France and Great Britain. The contributors, all leading specialists in the field, explore critically how 'culture', defined in the widest sense, was exploited during the 'long eighteenth century' to buttress authority in all its forms and how politics infused culture. Individual essays explore topics ranging from the military culture of Central Europe through the political culture of Germany, France and Great Britain, music, court intrigue and diplomatic practice, religious conflict and political ideas, the role of the Enlightenment, to the very new dispensations which prevailed during and after the French Revolution and the Napoleonic watershed. The book will be essential reading for all scholars of eighteenth-century European history.

This thesis examines the relationship between the commemorative strategies of English noblemen in the period 1485-1572 and their identity both as individuals and as a social group. In particular, it will look at the Howard dukes of Norfolk in the context of their peers. The five chapters each address a different aspect of noble identity. The first two chapters deal with the importance of kinship and of status. The importance of kinship is evident across commemorative strategies from burial locations to the heraldry displayed at funerals to the references to ancestry in elegies. Having achieved a particular status, noblemen were defensive of their rank and the dues accorded to it. Funerals were designed to reflect social status and the choice of burial location could also indicate a concern with status. However, there was not always a correlation between the scale of commemoration and status. The third chapter examines the role that service to the Crown played in noble identity. Late medieval ideals of military service and a chivalric culture survived well in to the sixteenth century and traditional commemorative forms remained popular, even amongst noblemen newly ennobled from the ranks of the Tudor administration. Chapter four addresses the importance of local power to the nobility of the period. Burial and commemoration acted as a visible reminder of the social order and were of benefit in maintaining local stability. Noblemen could also use their death as a means of demonstrating good lordship through charity and hospitality. The final chapter examines the importance of religion to a nobleman's identity during a century of turbulent religious change. Studying commemorative strategies allows us to trace noble responses to religious change, the constraints on their public show of belief, and the ways in which they could express individuality.

Historians of political development in the High Middle Ages often focus on the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries as the generations in which monarchy finally triumphed over aristocracy to create a monopoly on governing institutions in western Europe. However, it was precisely in this period that Simon of Montfort emerged from his modest forest lordship in France to conquer a principality stretching from the Pyrenees to the Rhône. A remarkable ascendancy in any period, it is perhaps especially so in its contrast with the accepted historiographical narrative. Nonetheless, Simon has been largely overlooked on his own terms, especially by English historiography. Despite the numerous works over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries devoted to the Albigensian Crusade, only a handful of biographies of Simon have been published, none of which are in English. Furthermore, those French works dedicated to his life have been little more than narrative retellings of the Albigensian Crusade from Simon's perspective, with an introductory chapter or two about his family background, participation in the Fourth Crusade, and life in France. French domination of the historiography has also prevented any deep exploration of Simon's English connexions, chiefly his inheritance of the earldom of Leicester in 1206. The substantial inquest regulating this inheritance awaits publication by David Crouch, but at least forty other acts from Simon's life remain unedited, despite increased interest in the Albigensian Crusade and several having been catalogued for over a century. Though one of the aims of this thesis is to correct the lack of Anglophone attention paid to this seminal figure of the early thirteenth century, a biographical study of Simon has consequences beyond the man himself. The inheritance of his claims to the Midi by the French Crown after his death means that his documents survive in a volume uncharacteristic of a baron of his station. The dedicated narrative history of his career provided by Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay's Hystoria albigensis is likewise the most intimate prose portrait of a comital figure available from the period. Thus Simon's life is perhaps the best recorded of his contemporary peers, offering a rare insight into the priorities and means of a baron's administration of his lands and leadership of a crusade. Moreover, despite the supposed triumph of monarchy during his lifetime, Simon's meteoric career took place largely outside of royal auspices and sought crowned approval for its gains only after the fact. Simon's experience was certainly exceptional, both in itself and in the volume of its narrative and documentary records, but it nevertheless provides a challenge to an uncomplicated or teleological understanding of contemporary politics as effectively national affairs directed by kings. Rather than spend his life in the train of one particular king, as did his contemporaries William the Marshal or William of Barres, Simon's career, in its various geographical manifestations, saw him in the lordship of three different Crowns: France, England, and Aragon. Though his relations with the first of these were almost entirely amicable - if not always harmonious - he was more often in open conflict with the latter two. As a crusader, Simon was also subject to a fourth lord, the pope, for the major events of his career. But even while executing papal mandates, Simon at times came into conflict with the distant will of Rome. However, none of these lords successfully prevented Simon's ascendancy. Angevin and Barcan influence in the Midi was drastically handicapped by the Albigensian Crusade, in the latter case, definitively. And while popes may have disagreed with some particulars of Simon's prosecution of the crusade, he remained their best hope for curbing the threat of heresy. One reason for Simon's success in the face of opposition was his ability to exploit the margins of monarchical authority, retreating from his obligations of fidelity to lord in favour of another, thus presenting himself as a legitimate actor while interfering with the designs of a nominal superior. Such independence, however, required alternative bases for his own power that could not be found in the largely rhetorical refuge offered by a distant overlord. In the absence of support from above, Simon worked to cultivate relationships with his social peers and the lesser French nobility. Notably, however, outside of his immediate family, adherence to his cause more often came from his socially inferior neighbours and those with common spiritual devotions than from his wider kinship network. His extended family, of roughly equivalent social standing to himself, were more interested in following the French king in his campaigns to consolidate royal power than investing deeply in Simon's crusade. However, those with similar ideological concerns or dependent on his success saw in Simon a charismatic and effective leader worthy of their allegiance. For Simon himself, the crusade was animated by the programme of reform advocated by the Cistercians and certain Parisian theologians. His context was permeated by the reformers, especially in his close connexions with the abbey of Vaux-de-Cernay. Concerns about just war, the liberation of the Holy Land, ecclesiastical liberty, sexual morality, and the purgation of heresy espoused by Cistercians and schoolmen were reflected in Simon's career. He was more than a simple cipher for ecclesiastical priorities: his campaigns and government were ambiguous in their attitude toward mercenaries and complicit in the problem of usury. Nevertheless, Simon's crusades to both Syria and the Midi demonstrated a remarkable dedication to building a Christian republic according to the vision of the reformers. But Simon was not always a crusader, and the majority of his career - though not the majority of its records - took place in his ancestral lands in France. Though his time in the shadow of Paris does not offer the same salient examples of baronial independence as his conquest of the Midi, it does provide a crucial glimpse at the ordinary exercise of aristocratic government on a more intimate scale. His forest lordship furnished lessons of administration that would prove relevant to his rule in the Midi, such as the diplomatic projection of authority, the value of seigneurial continuity, the economic benefit of thriving towns, the necessity of an intensively participating chivalric following, and the advantage of wide ecclesiastical patronage. Similarly, Simon's brief seisin and subsequent disseisin of the honor of Leicester demonstrated the fragility of his power when many of these elements were lacking. In addition to abstract lessons of governance, his northern lands also provided the financial backing necessary for at least the initial phases of his crusading career. Thus Simon's lordship in France and England, though not nearly as autonomous as in the Midi, is far from irrelevant to his later manifestations of independence: it rather informs his later government and even made it possible.

Markéta Hrdličková, Ennoblement and it's process in Czech lands during the reign of emperor Leopold I., based on acts of Bohemian Court Chancellery Abstract This thesis is based on the research of files of Bohemian Court Chancellery during the reign of emperor Leopold I. (1657-1705). It resolves about the emperor Leopold and the events and affairs of his time, and those which preceded it and had a significant influence on the reasonings mentioned in the files and acts of ennoblement. It also contains chapters about nobility of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, the process of ennoblements and its files. Addendum contains a list of ennoblement acts in alphabetical order regarding both persons and families.

Disertacijoje, remiantis Vilniaus pavieto pavyzdžiu, nagrinėjami smurtiniai bajorijos nusikaltimai ir bausmės XVIII a. Lietuvos Didžiojoje Kunigaikštystėje. Darbe atkleidžiama nusikaltimų struktūra: statistika, priežastys, erdvė, socialinė aukų bei nusikaltėlių sudėtis, smurto laipsnis, bausmių teorija ir praktika. Per bajorijos kaip valdančiojo luomo nusikalstamumo tyrimą siekiama pažvelgti į to meto visuomenę, tiriami jos konfliktai ir jų sprendimų būdai, bajorijos santykiai tarpusavyje ir su kitais luomais. Pagrindinis darbo šaltinis – Vilniaus pavieto pilies ir žemės teismų knygos. Disertacijoje nagrinėjami smurtiniai nusikaltimai: gyvybės atėmimo, kūno sužalojimo, skausmo suteikimo nusikaltimai (nužudymai, sumušimai, dvikovos ir kiti), nelegalus įkalinimas, seksualinė prievarta, valdų antpuoliai, miesto namų užpuolimai, plėšimas. Tiriamos garbės atėmimo, ištrėmimo, bokšto kalėjimo, mirties bausmės. Nustatyta, kad aukščiausias nusikalstamo pakilimas buvo penktame ir devintame XVIII a. dešimtmečiuose, mažiausiai nusikaltimų užfiksuota aštuntame dešimtmetyje. Daugiausia nusikaltimų vyko kaimo erdvėje. Paskutiniame amžiaus trečdalyje nusikaltimų Vilniuje skaičius smarkiai išaugo. Nustatyta, kad dažniausi nusikaltimai buvo gyvybės atėmimo, kūno sužalojimo, skausmo suteikimo nusikaltimai bei valdų antpuoliai, kiti buvo retesni. Nors Lietuvos Statuto nuostatos buvo griežtos, teisminė ir policinė kontrolė šalyje nebuvo stipri. Daugelis nusikaltimų nebūdavo išaiškinami, o... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Based on the example of Vilnius district, the thesis attempts to analyse violent crimes and punishments of the nobility in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 18th century. It reveals the structure of crimes: statistics, motives, criminal environment, social composition of victims and criminals, level of violence, theory and practice of punishments. The study of criminal conduct of the nobility as the leading social class provides the opportunity to take a glance at the society of that time; the thesis analyses its conflicts and ways of their solving, relations within the noble class and with other social classes. The major source of the thesis is castle court and land court books of Vilnius district. The thesis analyses violent crimes: homicide, bodily injury, pain infliction (murders, contusions, duels and others), illegal imprisonment, sexual violence, estate raids, city household attacks, robbery. Sentences of deprivation of honour, exile, tower imprisonment, capital punishment fall under the scope of the thesis. It has been determined that the peak of criminal conduct was reached in the 1740s and 1780s, whereas the lowest number of crimes was recorded in the 1770s. The rural environment featured a higher prevalence of criminal activity. However, a number of crimes committed in Vilnius significantly increased in the final third of the century. The study revealed that the most common crimes were homicide, bodily injury, pain infliction and domain raids; others were less... [to full text]