Justification narratives in the early modern period: debates about political norms in European estates assemblies of the 16th/17th century

Project manager: Prof. Dr. Luise Schorn-Schütte

In the research project, which was led by Prof. Dr. Luise Schorn-Schütte, archival work was carried out that allowed a comparison of debates on political norms in selected European regions (including Hesse-Kassel, Poland and a French region) in the 16th and 17th centuries. A central question in these investigations was whether there was a comparable political vocabulary in the debates of the estates assemblies, which were sparked, among other things, by the conflicts over the right of self-defence and counter-defence based on natural law.
The investigations aimed to analyse the interlocking of the debates on political group rights with those of the contemporary theoretical debates on individual rights. The latter were addressed by both Spanish Catholic late scholastics (especially the Salamanca school) and Lutheran and Reformed legal-theological debates. It was therefore necessary to clarify whether there was a common political language among contemporaries beyond the confessional differences that developed in the 16th century.

By examining the change in political vocabulary, the transformation of political norms could be made tangible. Methodologically, the analysis of the grammar of political/political-theological languages in the early modern period took center stage; with its help, both the plurality of normative orders and their convergences can be examined. Justification narratives are patterns of justification used to legitimize political positions or the validity of value patterns. The investigation of debates on the legitimation of political rule on the basis of regents’ mirrors and parliamentary protocols proved to be a suitable research approach.
The contrast between particularity and universality, which was articulated in the contrast between the monarchies’ universal claim to rule and the regional estates’ identities, was the starting point for the formulation of changed justification narratives that were linked to traditional rights of participation.

The sub-project was carried out from 1.1.2009 to 31.12.2011; the research assistant Dr. Therese Schwager worked on the section on the Old Kingdom (Estates Assemblies in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel), Dr. Maciej Ptaczynski, scholarship holder from Warsaw, worked on the section on the Polish Estates Assemblies (16th/17th century).
Both employees have worked on a largely unknown tradition. Dr. Therese Schwager has analyzed the intense debate surrounding Landgrave Moritz’s change of denomination (1607); the project manager did the initial preliminary work on this. Ms. Schwager was able to round off this material with further research in other archives. An essential aspect of the project’s research question (norm change at European estates meetings in the early modern period) was the investigation of the confessional contrasts in the territory (Lutheranism versus Reformedism), on the basis of which the different confessional approaches to the dominant norms of these decades were to be analyzed: Conscience as an individual category, the right to counter-defense and self-defense. The change of confession met with considerable resistance from the nobility of the estates and the new Lutheran pastors; the interrogations conducted with some of the nobles and pastors were recorded. Ms. Schwager was able to identify all of them and used this material as the basis for her investigations into the change in norms. The results are useful for further research; the transcripts have been prepared and annotated as an appendix for publication.
Dr. Maciej Ptaczynski has examined the Latin/Polish tradition from the sessions of the Sejm (Polish Imperial Diet) in the context of the project, thus breaking new ground for the still young Polish research on the estates. The interesting finding is that despite the importance of the confessional question in Poland in the 16th/17th century, there were hardly any debates on questions of norms that were conducted with theological-political arguments. Rather, the focus in Poland was on arguments based on regional tradition (the concept of patria) and with reference to Roman law. The central issue was always the relationship between the nobility of the estates and the elective kingship, which had to be institutionalized with the help of a treaty. In this context, the concepts of conscience, self-defense and counter-defense also appeared in the Polish debate, but the argumentation structures were different from those used for the Hessian territory.

The comparison of the results of both regional studies formulated by Prof. Dr. Luise Schorn-Schütte was able to show that the early modern norm debates were always characterized by regional and Roman legal traditions, but that in the Old Kingdom the confessional tensions added new arguments that did not appear in the Polish debate. The reasons for this are explored in detail in the publication.

At the workshop held in Greifswald (Krupp Forschungskolleg) in the fall of 2009, the core questions regarding the structure of norms and their comparability within Europe had already been discussed in detail. It became clear that the characterization of these patterns of order as republicanism, long recognized as dominant in research, can no longer be upheld.

Within the cluster fields, close cooperation was practiced with the research of Prof. Andreas Fahrmeir (History), Prof. Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Philosophy) and Prof. Rainer Forst (Philosophy).

The most important publications in the research project include Schorn-Schütte, Luise (2013): Was ist Wandel normativer Ordnungen im Europa des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts?, in: Fahrmeir, Andreas/Imhausen, Annette (eds.), The diversity of normative orders. Conflicts and dynamics from a historical and ethnological perspective (Series: Normative Orders Vol. 8), Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 109-126; Schorn-Schütte, Luise (2012): “Die Rolle von Rechtfertigungsnarrativen in politisch-theologischen Debatten des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts”, in: Frankfurter Kunstverein und Exzellenzcluster “Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen” (ed.), Demonstrations. On the emergence of normative orders (catalog for the exhibition of the same name at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, 20.1.-25.3.2012), Nuremberg, 339-345; Ptaszynski, Maciej (2012): “Orthodoxie aus der Provinz und Buchgelehrsamkeit. Theological self-understanding of the Protestant Church in Pomerania (16th/17th century)” in: Schorn-Schütte, Luise (ed.): Scholarly clergy – spiritual scholars: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Bürgertums in der Frühneuzeit, Berlin, 53-74 and Schorn-Schütte, Luise (2009): ‘Vorstellungen von Herrschaft im 16. Jahrhundert. Grundzüge europäischer politischer Kommunikation”, in: Helmut Neuhaus (ed.), Die Frühe Neuzeit als Epoche(=Beihefte zur HZ, vol. 49), Munich 2009, 347-376.