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What Happened to the Renaissance in the German Academy? A Report on German “Renaissance” Institutes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Eckhard Bernstein
Eckhard Bernstein*
Affiliation:
College of the Holy Cross
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Extract

Where is the research on the Renaissance being done in Germany? Is it true that “European history is still firmly divided among antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the modern era,” and that therefore “the Renaissance occupies no space of its own in the history curriculum [of German universities]” as Professor Karant-Nunn has argued? The problem, it seems, is that German historians have largely abandoned the term “Renaissance” to denote the period between the Middle Ages and the modern era, using instead the term “early modern period” (Friihe Neuzeit), a term whose perimeters are variously defined as extending from the close of the Middle Ages to the end of the seventeenth century, or to the French Revolution, or even to the end of the old Reich in 1806.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , Winter 1999 , pp. 1118 - 1131
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1999

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References

1 'Humanism to the Fore: Renaissance Studies in Germany Today.” Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994), 931.

2 In the “Informationsbroschüre” of his institute (see below), 1996, 7.

3 I would like to thank Professors Klaus Garber in Osnabrück, Klaus Reichert in Frankfurt, Stephan Füssel in Mainz, and Wolfgang Weber in Augsburg for meeting with me. Regrettably, I was not able to arrange a visit to the Institut für die Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit in Vienna. Several letters and e-mails by me remained unanswered.

4 Cf. my review in Renaissance Quarterly 50 (1997): 850-857.

5 Quoted from the brief English pamphlet of the ZFN.

6 “Wir wollen historische Studien betreiben, um einen Beitrag zur Bewältigung von Krisensymptomen in der Gegenwart zu leisten.” Quoted in Die Frankfurter Rundschau of October 26, 1993.

7 “Das Zentrum entsteht zu einem Zeitpunkt, an dem die Krise der Moderne einen neuen Hohepunkt zu erreichen scheint, an dem das Paradigma des Fortschrits fraglich wird, an dem überwunden geglaubte Überzeugungen und Ideologien … .zurückzukehren scheinen: Nationalismus, Rassismus, religiöser Fundamentalismus, Irrationalismus, Endzeitprognosen.” Quoted in Frankfurter Rundschau October 26, 1993.

8 Dr. Hans-Jörg Kiinast is currently reconstructing Conrad Peutinger s library. Once finished this reconstruction should allow us glimpses at the mental world of this important humanist.

9 Cf. the “Informationsbroschüre” of the Osnabriick institute, p. 9. For the heated debate on the concept of Kulturgeschichte within the German historical profession see: Wolfgang Hardtwig and Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Kulturgeschichte Heute. (Geschichte und Geselbchafi. Zeitschrift für Historische Sozialwissenschaft, Sonderheft 16.) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996.

10 My conclusions differ in some respects from those of Professor Karant-Nunn articulated in mree articles on recent German scholarship in Renaissance Quarterly. “Humanism to the Fore: Renaissance Studies in Germany Today.” RQ47 (1994): 930-941; “Turning New Leaves: Renaissance Studies in Germany, 1995.” RQ48 (1995): 843-854; and “Navigating Currents: Renaissance Studies Today.” RQ49 (1996): 840-849. I diverge from her assessment on three points: (1) German scholarship on the Renaissance is conservative (RQ47, 931; RQ49, 849); ( 2) German scholars still take their inspiration from Jakob Burckhardt (RQ47, 941; RQ48, 844); and (3) German scholars have “prejudices against the work of French-, Italian-, English-writing colleagues” (RQ 47, 941). While still supportable for some parts of the disciplines, the work done in the three institutes suggests to me that these conclusions may no longer be tenable.