Having settled on a specific vocabulary for politics, French elites needed to tie that vocabulary to political action. Charles V set out to do so both in practice, through royal edicts and letters, and in theory, by sponsoring the translation of key Classical texts. Oresme’s French translation of Aristotle’s Politics (1373), based on the Latin translation of William of Moerbecke, provided not simply access to this fundamental text, but a glossary of terms, in which he introduced key French neologisms, like “aristocratie.” Theory and practice came together in diplomatic negotiations with the king of England; Charles used Évrard de Trémaugon to justify his position. He simultaneously sponsored the Grandes Chroniques de France, which provided both a written and a visual exposition of the royal French position. These works laid down theoretical justifications for the independent power (puissance absolue) of the king of France. The tax system Charles created gave the king of France permanent financial resources vastly greater than those of any other European ruler, and the new political vocabulary helped to justify action funded by these revenues.

This chapter traces Chinggisid influences throughout the globalising world order of the sixteenth century. It shows that the European timeline – so foundational to IR – cannot be thought of as free from influences from Asia. As this chapter clearly demonstrates, Charles V and the Habsburgs were very much shaped by their competition with the Ottomans. The chapter then moves to the north and discusses the influences of Chinggisid sovereignty model on Muscovy, specifically on Ivan IV. It also catches up with sixteenth-century developments in Inner Asia and Ming China. The sixteenth-century order, with its centre of gravity in the post-Timurid empires of west Asia, fragmented in the seventeenth century, during the long period of 'general crisis' (often associated with climate change) which frayed both the material and ideational connections across Eurasia. Though some Asian polities were relatively unaffected by this period of crisis and others bounced back economically, no world ordering projects were successfully launched out of the East after this period. This was a major contributor to the perception of Eastern decline.

While many alliances existed in the Empire during the late Middle Ages, the Swabian League became the model par excellence for subsequent leagues. It achieved this standing by offering something unique to all members. It allowed small territories to secure political and military backing from their more powerful neighbors while enabling larger territories to institutionalize spheres of influence. This chapter investigates these dynamics by analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of leagues as tools for military action. The Swabian League fielded one of the most effective fighting forces the Empire had ever seen. Its 1499, 1504, 1519, 1523, and 1525 campaigns established it as a force in imperial politics. They also pushed its members and other Estates to develop in ways that produced later alliances. Ultimately, the League’s operation promoted a vision of the Empire based on collaboration between its territories and the imperial crown that broke down during the early Reformation. Despite its collapse in the early 1530s, the ideal of the Swabian League lived on as the standard to which later alliances aspired. Instead of being rendered redundant, the League’s legacy helped ensure that the politics of alliance remained an essential political strategy long after the League itself disappeared.

Chapter 3 explores the aftermath of the Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel invasion for both the Empire and the Low Countries. The 1540s and 1550s witnessed significant upheaval that encouraged multiple plans for corporate alliance, including an effort to restructure the Empire and the Low Countries into a massive Imperial League headed by Emperor Charles V. During this era, the politics of alliance became tied to a growing conviction among Catholic and Protestant Estates that the Empire’s well-being depended on the preservation of one’s own religious confession. These developments had major implications for the Low Countries, as Charles’s failure to create the Imperial League led to a redefinition of the relationship between the Habsburg Netherlands and the Empire in the 1548 Burgundian Transaction. Ultimately, the aftermath of the Schmalkaldic League’s military defeat, coupled with the shared desire of Protestants and Catholics to use alliances to preserve peace and their respective religious faiths, created the context for the 1555 Religious Peace of Augsburg. This agreement, in turn, set the parameters for corporate leagues for decades to come.

This chapter addresses the backgrounds of choirboys of the era and the support network offered by their mother church. Their progress through the ranks, including the peculiarly St-Omer rank of ‘escotier’ aimed at maturing choirboys of limited means, leads the reader through to achievement of their training as vicars, chaplains, masters of the boys and, in a few significant cases, endowed canonries and even the lofty position of cantor. As elsewhere, musical skill could lead to high achievement. Patronage through university training was also an expected part of career support. The highest, or at least most noticeable, talent could lead to impressment into the choirs of the ruling dynasty, in this case that of Burgundy-Habsburg, and glittering careers. The role of direct patronage in such cases of the Habsburgs Mary of Hungary and Charles V is illustrated via the cases of individual St-Omer boys.

This introductory chapter beginswith background. First it describes the shape of Florentine intellectual culture in the early sixteenth century. It then summarizes the political changes in the city beginning with the 1490s through the naming of Cosimo as leader, and summarizes Cosimo’s early years. The years of instability that preceding Cosimo's reign had harmed the city’s intellectual and cultural life. Cosimo worked both to maximize the city’s independence from foreign control and to reestablish the city’s importance as a cultural center. The Florentine Bernardo Segni later summarized these early successes, beginning with the reopening of the university at Pisa and the founding of the Accademia Fiorentina. As a resut, a new generation of scholars built their intellectual careers in the city. They took a particular interest in the study of the Florentine language, its letters, and Florentine culture. Segni also singled out some of the era’s principal scholars: Piero Vettori, Benedetto Varchi, and Giovan Battista Gelli. They, along with Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Vincenzio Borghini, and several others, are the principal focus of this study.

The Augsburg Interim (“Declaration of His Roman Imperial Majesty on the Observance of Religion within the Holy Empire Until the Decision of the General Council”) was adopted at the 1548 Diet of Augsburg, marking the victory of Emperor Charles V (r. 1516–1556) in the Schmalkaldic War (1546–1547) by attempting to impose a religious reconciliation between followers of Martin Luther and the Catholic Church. Charles, also king of Spain, was beset by problems throughout his European possessions, stemming largely from the Reformation. The Interim was one effort to control these problems. The purpose of the document was to create a temporary compromise, to promote religious and political stability while waiting for a more definitive statement from the Council of Trent (which was in session at the time). The provisional nature did nothing to lessen Protestant fears of attempting to suppress dissent or to dampen concerns on the part of some Catholics that heresy was going unpunished; instead, it hardened divisions. Its failures contributed to a breakdown in Habsburg authority in central Europe.

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.