‘The European World 1500-1750’
Beat Kümin 11/11
German Historiography
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One of the ‘national’ surveys also supporting ‘Language for Historians’; get started!
1. Long-term developments
 Pre-modern interest in the past for purposes of record, justification, illustration
 German scholars laid key methodical foundations for history as an academic
discipline (esp. standards for source critique and interpretation) in the 19th century
 Early focus of interest: high politics (‘great men’, facts/causation, rise of the ‘state’)
 Enduring focus on models and conceptualizations (esp. of the modernization process)
 The long shadow of the Third Reich: involvement of scholars, periodic heated debates
 Shift to ‘society’ in later 20thC: economic history, the common man & gender studies
 Recent rise of ‘cultural’ history (focus on meanings/representations rather than facts)
Leopold von Ranke (empiricism/Historicism), Johann Gustav Droysen (heuristics, critique, interpretation); Karl
Marx (historical materialism), Max Weber (Protestant ethic); Werner Conze, Günther Franz (Third Reich); Ernst
Nolte (Historikerstreit), Daniel Goldhagen; Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Gerhard Oestreich, Winfried Schulze, Peter
Blickle, Heide Wunder; Barbara Stollberg Rilinger
2. Structures, institutions and resources
 Strong regional traditions: German Länder; Austria, German-speaking Switzerland
 Recent pooling of activities in interdisciplinary SFBs (collaborative research centres)
and ‘excellence clusters’ at universities like Constance, Freiburg, Munich, Münster ...
 Major editorial projects and online services; many resources translated into English
 Beyond the academy: research institutions (German Historical Institutes) & the media
Landesgeschichte; Clio Online; H-German; Monumenta Germaniae Historica; Duderstadt’s digital archive;
historical coverage in newspapers like FAZ and Süddeutsche Zeitung; TV series ‘Die Deutschen’
3. Case study: the character of the Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire
 A key transformation in German history, with global repercussions up to the present
 Traditional focus on Luther, princes and confessional interpretations up to mid 20thC
 Peter Blickle’s Communal Reformation: late medieval communalization, appeal of
reformed doctrines (esp. ‘pure Gospel’) for burghers & peasants; supporters & critics
Blickle, P., The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants’ War from a New Perspective (Baltimore, 1981)
“ , From the Communal Reformation to the Revolution of the Common Man (Leiden, 1998)
Brady, Thomas A. Jr, Turning Swiss: Cities and Empire (Cambridge, 1985)
Moeller, Bernd, Imperial Cities and the Reformation: Three Essays (Durham, 1982)
Headley, John M. et al. (eds), Confessionalization in Europe 1555-1700 (Aldershot, 2004) [esp. H. Schilling]
Scott, Tom, ‘The Communal Reformation between town and country’, in his Town, Country and Regions in
Reformation Germany (Leiden, 2005), 57-76
Scribner, R. W., ‘Paradigms of urban reform: Communal Reformation or Erastian Reformation’, in: L. Grane /
K. Hørby (eds), The Danish Reformation against its International Background (Göttingen, 1990)
Theibault, John, ‘[Review of:] The Communal Reformation’, in: Central European History (1993)
Conclusions
 Thematic priorities shift from ‘state’ via ‘society’ to ‘culture’ in the widest sense
 Strong emphasis on methods, concepts and scholarly/editorial standards
 Rich regional and institutional resources with considerable public impact
 Blickle puts the ‘common man’ centre-stage, but does he overplay communal
homogeneity and influence in the early Reformation?
Karl Marx 1818-83
Max Weber 1864-1920
Thomas A. Brady Jr *1937
Heide Wunder *1939
Peter Blickle *1938