A3: Frühneuzeitliche Machtsysteme

In the first period of the CRC (2004-2008) the research project "Religious and Secular Representations in Early Modern Europe" examined changing religious representations, establishing that secularisation in early modern Europe unfolded in a class-specific manner, at different times in different sectors and with various effects: secularisation was not a royal road to modernity.

In the follow-up project "Religious and Secular Representations in Early Modern Systems of Power" these findings are to be further elaborated through an analysis of the relationship between political developments and their respective representations. What was the specific relationship between religious and secular representations in view of social crises? How did situations of radical political change in the early modern period correlate with their respective representations? For example, in view of political and denominational crises is it possible to identify a release of political power from religious representations? Through what kind of religious and secular representations can legitimacy be maintained, constructed or contested in moments of crisis?

The research project investigates the following central questions with reference to three different areas of examination:

1. Vera Isaiasz deals with the politico-religious interpretation of Protestant church-building in the public discourse of the 17th and 18th centuries. Church buildings are to be examined as places revealing the degree of political and societal autonomisation while simultaneously visibly expressing religion's residual claim as a basis for social legitimation.
2. Ramon Voges examines the representations of power, belief and violence in the visual news prints produced by Franz and Abraham Hogenberg between 1570 and 1612. An analysis of the semantic and narrative structures of these news prints is intended not only to provide findings regarding the role of religious representations in the light of the French Wars of Religion and the Dutch Revolt but also to reach conclusions concerning the significance of visuality and pictoriality for representations of power and authority.
3. Ruth Schilling examines the relationship between political and religious representations of monarchy with reference to the examples of Denmark and France in the period from 1643-1839. In general her project is concerned with the limits of secularisation of political authority in the latter half of the early modern period.

Representations are understood in the research project as conceptual and presentational unities. Representations not merely display the world as it is but also, in a medially differentiated manner, as the respective actors view it or wish it to be. In general, a reciprocal relationship between concept and presentation is assumed here: concepts can only be conceived in the form of presentations, but a presentation's materiality in turn structures the concept.

The individual areas of examination are concerned with various objects of inquiry and thus rely on a wide variety of methodical approaches. Space (Vera Isaiasz), the ceremonial (Ruth Schilling) and visual representations (Ramon Voges) are to be examined. In this way, it will be possible to analyse the relationship between religious and secular representations in connection to the respective medium in a more differentiated way than in the first period of the project.

Publications by members of this sub-project

• Anna-Maria Blank, Vera Isaiasz, Nadine Lehmann (Hg): BILD - MACHT - UnORDNUNG. Visuelle Repräsentationen zwischen Stabilität und Konflikt. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2011.  (mehr)
• Vera Isaiasz, Ute Lotz-Heumann, Matthias Pohlig, Monika Mommertz (Hg): Stadt und Religion in der frühen Neuzeit. Soziale Ordnungen und ihre Repräsentationen. Campus, 2007.  (mehr)
• Susann Baller, Michael Pesek, Ruth Schilling, Ines Stolpe (Hg): Die Ankunft des Anderen. Repräsentationen sozialer und politischer Ordnungen in Empfangszeremonien. Campus, 2008.  (mehr)
• Ruth Schilling: Erinnerungskultur zwischen Kloster und Stadt. Rituelle Nutzung und visuelle Gestaltung des Baukomplexes der Kirche von San Zaccaria im frühneuzeitlichen Venedig. In: U.Rosseaux et al [Hg]. Zeitrhythmen und performative Akte in der städtischen Erinnerungs- und Repräsentationskultur zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Gegenwart, Dresden 2005 (= Bausteine aus dem Institut für Sächsische Geschichte und Volkskunde, Bd. 6). S. 51-68  (mehr)
• Ruth Schilling: Asserting the Boundaries: Defining the City and its Territory by Political Ritual. In: Emden, Christian/ Keen, Catherine/ Midgley, David (Hg.), Imagining the City, Vl. 2: The Politics of Urban Space (= Cultural History and Literary Imagination, Bd. 8), Oxford u.a. 2006. S. 87-106  (mehr)
• Ruth Schilling: Osmanische ‚Bedrohung’, ‚christliche Identität’? Konfessionelle und politische Repräsentationen von Gruppenzugehörigkeit in den Reaktionen auf den Sieg von Lepanto in Venedig um 1600. In: Dartmann, Christoph/ Meyer, Carla (Hg.), Identität und Krise? Zur Deutung vormoderner Selbst-, Welt und Fremderfahrungen (= Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme) Münster 2007. S. 137-154  (mehr)
• Ruth Schilling: Grammatiken der Repräsentation: Die Sichtbarkeit der Zünfte in venezianischen und hansestädtischen Bild- und Textquellen um 1600. In: Schmidt, Patrick/ Carl, Horst (Hg.), Stadtgemeinde und Ständegesellschaft. Formen der Integration und Distinktion in der frühneuzeitlichen Stadt (= Geschichte. Forschung und Wissenschaft, Bd. 20), Münster u.a. 2007. S. 72-105  (mehr)
• Ruth Schilling: Die ganze Stadt und die Christenheit? Feiern und Gedenken an die Schlacht von Lepanto im frühneuzeitlichen Venedig und Rom. In: Vera Isaiasz, Ute Lotz-Heumann, Matthias Pohlig, Monika Mommertz (Hg): Stadt und Religion in der frühen Neuzeit. Campus, 2007. S. 103-124  (mehr)
• Susann Baller, Michael Pesek, Ruth Schilling, Ines Stolpe: Einleitung. In: Susann Baller, Michael Pesek, Ruth Schilling, Ines Stolpe (Hg): Die Ankunft des Anderen. Campus, 2008. S. 11-34  (mehr)
• Ruth Schilling: Kommunikation und Herrschaft im Moment der Ankunft: Ein Empfang in Moskau (1603) und eine Audienz in Versailles (1686). In: Susann Baller, Michael Pesek, Ruth Schilling, Ines Stolpe (Hg): Die Ankunft des Anderen. Campus, 2008. S. 135-151  (mehr)
• Stefan Ehrenpreis, Matthias Pohlig, Ute Lotz-Heumann, Vera Isaiasz, Ruth Schilling, Heike Bock: Säkularisierungen in der Frühen Neuzeit. Methodische Probleme und empirische Fallstudien. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2008. (in Vorbereitung).  (mehr)
• Ruth Schilling: Kollektive Identität – Repräsentation von Kollektiven. Zwei Modelle zur Erfassung von Gruppenprojektionen in der Frühen Neuzeit?. In: Jörg Baberowski, David Feest, Priska Jones (Hg): Repräsentation sozialer Ordnungen. Campus, 2008. (in Vorbereitung).  (mehr)