Cultural History of the Holy Roman Empire 1648-1806/Imperial Law, Religion and Culture

Author: (German) Peter Klaus Hartmann
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: The Holy Roman Empire from 1648 to 1806 can be considered a regional Central Europe. This empire provided an ideal framework for an outstanding cultural prosperity in terms of diversity, with its federal form, a large number of various secular and ecclesiastical principalities and imperial cities. The reason lies in the coexistence of numerous, highly diverse and competing principalities and imperial cities, as well as the equal status of the three major Western European religious groups within the empire through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648; this was highly unusual in Europe at that time. Completely different, faith-based cultures—such as the Protestant reading-verbal debate culture and the-focused Catholic culture—could successfully compete and develop together. This was also true for minority cultures in a certain "survival environment," such as Jewish culture and Huguenot culture.