Early Modern history of Germany

The Holy Roman Empire was dominated by the House of Habsburg throughout the Early Modern period.

The Habsburg Monarchy refers to the territories ruled by the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg, and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine, between 1526 and 1867/1918. The capital was Vienna (from 1583 to 1611 Prague).

Reformation and Renaissance

The German Reformation initiated by Martin Luther leads to the Peasants' War in 1524-1525. Luther, along with his colleague Philipp Melanchthon, emphasized this point in his plea for the Reformation at the "Reichstag" in 1529 amid charges of heresy, but the edict by the Diet of Worms (1521) prohibited all innovations. Meanwhile, in these efforts to retain the guise of a Catholic reformer as opposed to a heretical revolutionary, and to appeal to German princes with his religious condemnation of the peasant revolts backed up by the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, Luther's growing conservatism would provoke more radical reformers. At a religious conference with the Zwinglians in 1529, Melanchthon joined with Luther in opposing a union with Zwingli. With the "Reichstag" of Augsburg (1530) and its rejection of the Lutheran "Augsburg Confession", a separate Lutheran church finally emerged. In Northern Europe Luther appealed to the growing national consciousness of the German states because he denounced the Pope for involvement in politics as well as religion. Moreover, he backed the nobility, which was now justified to crush the Great Peasant Revolt of 1525 and to confiscate church property by Luther's Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. This explains the attraction of some territorial princes to Lutheranism. However, the Elector of Brandenburg, Joachim I, blamed Lutheranism for the revolt and so did others. In Brandenburg, it was only under his successor Joachim II that Lutheranism was established, and the old religion was not formally extinct in Brandenburg until the death of the last Catholic bishop there, Georg von Blumenthal, who was Bishop of Lebus and sovereign Prince-Bishop of Ratzeburg.Though Charles V fought the Reformation, it is no coincidence either that the reign of his nationalistic predecessor Maximilian I saw the beginning of the Reformation. While the centralized states of western Europe had reached accords with the Vatican permitting them to draw on the rich property of the church for government expenditures, enabling them to form state churches that were greatly autonomous of Rome, similar moves on behalf of the Reich were unsuccessful so long as princes and prince bishops fought reforms to drop the pretension of the secular universal empire.

The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which originated with the Italian Renaissance in Italy. This was a result of German artists who had traveled to Italy to learn more and become inspired by the Renaissance movement. Many areas of the arts and sciences were influenced, notably by the spread of humanism to the various German states and principalities. There were many advances made in the development of new techniques in the fields of architecture, the arts, and the sciences. This also marked the time within Germany of a rise of power, independent city states, and spread of Franciscan humanism.

Baroque period and Thirty Years' War

The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was a religious war principally fought in Germany, where it involved most of the European powers. cite web|url=http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/30yearswar.html|title=The Thirty-Years-War|publisher=Western New England College|accessdate=2008-05-24] cite web|url=http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/30YW_1621-1626.htm|title=::The Thirty Years War 1621 to 1626:|publisher=www.historylearningsite.co.uk|accessdate=2008-05-22] [cite web |url=http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0848495.html |title=Thirty Years War — Infoplease.com |publisher=www.infoplease.com |accessdate=2008-05-24 ] The conflict began between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire, but gradually developed into a general, political war involving most of Europe.cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9072150/Thirty-Years-War
title=Thirty Years' War|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica|accessdate=2008-05-24] The Thirty Years' War was a continuation of the France-Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence, and in turn led to further warfare between France and the Habsburg powers.

The major impact of the Thirty Years' War, fought mostly by mercenary armies, was the extensive destruction of entire regions, denuded by the foraging armies. Episodes of famine and disease signficantly decreased the populace of the German states and the Low Countries and Italy, while bankrupting most of the combatant powers. cite web
url=http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/thirty-years'-war/political-consequences.html|title=Thirty Years' War — Political consequences|publisher=www.spiritus-temporis.com|accessdate=2008-05-24] Some of the quarrels that provoked the war went unresolved for much longer time. The Thirty Years' War was ended with the Treaty of Münster, a part of the wider Peace of Westphalia. cite web|url=http://www.discovery.org/a/3859|title=Avoiding a Thirty Years War|publisher=www.discovery.org|work=The Washington Post|date=2006-12-21|author=Richard W. Rahn|accessdate=2008-05-25]

The Baroque period (1600 to 1720) was one of the most fertile times in German literature. Many writers reflected the horrible experiences of the Thirty Years' War, in poetry and prose. Grimmelshausen's adventures of the young and naïve Simplicissimus, in the eponymous book Simplicius Simplicissimus, became the most famous novel of the Baroque period. Andreas Gryphius and Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein wrote German language tragedies, or "Trauerspiele", often on Classical themes and frequently quite violent. Erotic, religious and occasional poetry appeared in both German and Latin.

Rise of Prussia and the end of the Holy Roman Empire

The 18th century history of Germany sees the ascendancy of the Kingdom of Prussia and the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars which lead to the final dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.

cience and philosophy

*Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535)
*Paracelsus (1493-1541)
*Georg Pictorius (c. 1500-1569)
*Johann Weyer (1516–1588)
*Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1525-1609)
*Jan Baptist van Helmont (1577-1644)
*Franz Kessler (1580-1650)
*Otto von Guericke (1602-1686)
*Adrian von Mynsicht (1603–1638)
*Johann Friedrich Schweitzer (1625-1709)
*Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
*Christian Thomasius (1655–1728)
*Christian Wolff (1679–1754)
*Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768)
*Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–1766)
*Leonhard Euler (1707-1783)
*Christian August Crusius (1715–1775)
*Johann Bernhard Basedow (1723–1790)
*Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
*Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777)
*Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781)
*Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786)
*Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788)
*Johannes Nikolaus Tetens (1736–1807)
*Thomas Abbt (1738–1766)
*Johann Augustus Eberhard (1739–1809)
*Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819)
*Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803)
*Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

List of Emperors

Early Modern Holy Roman Emperors:
*Maximilian I, 1508–1519 (emperor-elect)
*Charles V, 1530–1556 (emperor-elect 1519–1530)
*Ferdinand I, 1558-1564 (emperor-elect)
*Maximilian II, 1564–1576 (emperor-elect)
*Rudolf II, 1576–1612 (emperor-elect; enumerated as successor of Rudolf I who was German King 1273–1291 but not Emperor)
*Matthias, 1612–1619 (emperor-elect)
*Ferdinand II, 1619–1637 (emperor-elect)
*Ferdinand III, 1637–1657 (emperor-elect)
*Leopold I, 1658–1705 (emperor-elect)
*Joseph I, 1705–1711 (emperor-elect)
*Charles VI, 1711–1740 (emperor-elect)
*Charles VII Albert, 1742–1745 (emperor-elect, House of Wittelsbach)
*Francis I, 1745–1765 (emperor-elect)
*Joseph II, 1765–1790 (emperor-elect)
*Leopold II, 1790–1792 (emperor-elect)
*Francis II, 1792–1806 (emperor-elect)

References

ee also

*Early Modern High German
*Baroque period German literature
*18th century German literature
*Brandenburg-Prussia
*House of Hohenzollern
*Electorate of Bavaria
*Kingdom of Bohemia (1526–1648)
*Kingdom of Bohemia (1648–1867)
*Dutch Republic
*Early Modern Switzerland
*Royal Hungary (1541-1699)
*Croatia in the Habsburg Empire