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15 - The Politics of the Emperors

from Part III - Empire and Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2019

R. Ward Holder
Affiliation:
Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire
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Summary

The early modern Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, usually just called “the Empire,” was a huge and complex political organization in central Europe. The emperorship was an elected office, and the emperor had the difficult task of ruling over a loose political union of mostly German and largely self-governing principalities and towns, collectively called “the imperial estates.” As a result, imperial politics cannot be neatly defined as either domestic or foreign; rather, dynastic, internal, and European considerations were closely intertwined in the politics of the emperors.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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References

Suggested Further Reading

Brady, Thomas A. Jr. German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400–1650. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soly, Hugo, and Blockmans, Willem Pieter, Charles V, 1500–1558, and His Time. Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1999.Google Scholar
Volker Press. “The Habsburg Lands: The Holy Roman Empire.” In Handbook of European History 1400–1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, Vol. 1: Structures and Assertions, ed. Brady, Thomas A. Jr., Oberman, Heiko A., and Tracy, James D.. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996, 437466.Google Scholar

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