Introduction -- Part I. Holy Roman Empire -- Political language in the Holy Roman Empire 1500-1700 -- Jülich: pamphlets and Cologne get-togethers (1640s-1650s) -- Hesse-Cassel: alleged sedition and law-suits (1640s-1650s) -- Part II. Kingdom of France -- Patriots' in France, political talks between 1500-1700 -- Brittany: pay d'états and don gratuit (1648-1652) -- Part III. Conclusion -- Comparison of the cases.

In this new account of the emergence of a distinctive territorial state in early modern Germany, Robert von Friedeburg examines how the modern notion of state does not rest on the experience of a bureaucratic state-apparatus. It emerged to stabilize monarchy from dynastic insecurity and constrain it to protect the rule of law, subjects, and their lives and property. Against this background, Lutheran and neo-Aristotelian notions on the spiritual and material welfare of subjects dominating German debate interacted with Western European arguments against 'despotism' to protect the lives and property of subjects. The combined result of this interaction under the impact of the Thirty Years War was Seckendorff's Der Deutsche Fürstenstaat (1656), constraining the evil machinations of princes and organizing the detailed administration of life in the tradition of German Policey, and which founded a specifically German notion of the modern state as comprehensive provision of services to its subjects.

This collection brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to offer perspectives on national identity formation in various European contexts between 1600 and 1815. Contributors challenge the dichotomy between modernists and traditionalists in nationalism studies through an emphasis on continuity rather than ruptures in the shaping of European nations in the period, while also offering an overview of current debates in the field and case studies on a number of topics, including literature, historiography, and cartography.

This 1922 book presents an account of the development of the Netherlands, from the Burgundian period up until the reign of Queen Wilhelmina.

In this wide-ranging work, Caspar Hirschi offers new perspectives on the origins of nationalism and the formation of European nations. Based on extensive study of written and visual sources dating from the ancient to the early modern period, the author re-integrates the history of pre-modern Europe into the study of nationalism, describing it as an unintended and unavoidable consequence of the legacy of Roman imperialism in the Middle Ages. Hirschi identifies the earliest nationalists among Renaissance humanists, exploring their public roles and ambitions to offer new insight into the history of political scholarship in Europe and arguing that their adoption of ancient role models produced massive contradictions between their self-image and political function. This book demonstrates that only through understanding the development of the politics, scholarship and art of pre-modern Europe can we fully grasp the global power of nationalism in a modern political context.

This major study provides the first comprehensive assessment of an important European institution, the Stadholderate of the Dutch Republic. Professor Rowen looks at the career of each Prince of Orange in turn, from William I ('The Silent'), to the last and saddest, William V, examining their roles as Stadholder and interweaving their personal lives and characters with the development of the institution. Without engaging in psycho-history, Rowen treats the individual personality of each Stadholder as a significant factor, and shows how the Stadholderate contributed to a distinctive political and constitutional coloration that rendered the United Provinces unique in Europe. The work assesses the contribution of the Stadholderate to the rise and subsequent fall of the Dutch Republic as one of the great powers of early modern Europe, and analyses each prince within his contemporary context, avoiding the highly present-minded approach of many of the Republic's subsequent historians. The Princes of Orange is thus neither a work of hagiography, glorifying the Dutch royal house, nor a piece of destructive iconoclasm, but an authoritative account of a most unusual political, dynastic and diplomatic institution.

This volume surveys 150 law books of fundamental importance in the history of Western legal literature and culture. The entries are organized in three sections: the first dealing with the transitional period of fifteenth-century editions of medieval authorities, the second spanning the early modern period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, and the third focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors are scholars from all over the world. Each ‘old book’ is analyzed by a recognized specialist in the specific field of interest. Individual entries give a short biography of the author and discuss the significance of the works in the time and setting of their publication, and in their broader influence on the development of law worldwide. Introductory essays explore the development of Western legal traditions, especially the influence of the English common law, and of Roman and canon law on legal writers, and the borrowings and interaction between them. The book goes beyond the study of institutions and traditions of individual countries to chart a broader perspective on the transmission of legal concepts across legal, political, and geographical boundaries. Examining the branches of this genealogical tree of books makes clear their pervasive influence on modern legal systems, including attempts at rationalizing custom or creating new hybrid systems by transplanting Western legal concepts into other jurisdictions.

This book is based on an international project conducted by the Institute for European Studies of the University CEU San Pablo in Madrid and a seminar on Vitoria and International Law which took place on July 2nd 2015 in the convent of San Esteban, the place where Vitoria spent his most productive years as Chair of Theology at the University of Salamanca. It argues that Vitoria not only lived at a time bridging the Middle Ages and Modernity, but also that his thoughts went beyond the times he lived in, giving us inspiration for meeting current challenges that could also be described as “modern” or even post-modern. There has been renewed interest in Francisco de Vitoria in the last few years, and he is now at the centre of a debate on such central international topics as political modernity, colonialism, the discovery of the “Other” and the legitimation of military interventions. All these subjects include Vitoria’s contributions to the formation of the idea of modernity and modern international law. The book explores two concepts of modernity: one referring to the post-medieval ages and the other to our times. It discusses the connections between the challenges that the New World posed for XVIth century thinkers and those that we are currently facing, for example those related to the cyberworld. It also addresses the idea of international law and the legitimation of the use of force, two concepts that are at the core of Vitoria’s texts, in the context of “modern” problems related to a multipolar world and the war against terrorism. This is not a historical book on Vitoria, but a very current one that argues the value of Vitoria’s reflections for contemporary issues of international law.