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Reformation, Resistance, and Reason of State (1517-1625) PDF

309 Pages·2021·3.507 MB·English
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THE OXFORD HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT The books in The Oxford History of Political Thought series provide an authoritative overview of the political thought of a particular era. They synthesize and expand major developments in scholarship, covering canonical thinkers while placing them in a context of broader traditions, movements, and debates. The history of political thought has been transformed over the last thirty to forty years. Historians still return to the constant landmarks of writers such as Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Marx; but they have roamed more widely and often thereby cast new light on these authors. They increasingly recognize the importance of archival research, a breadth of sources, contextualization, and historiographical debate. Much of the resulting scholarship has appeared in specialist journals and monographs. The Oxford History of Political Thought makes its profound insights available to a wider audience. Series Editor: Mark Bevir, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies, University of California, Berkeley. OXFORD HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT Reformation, Resistance, and Reason of State (1517–1625) SARAH MORTIMER 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Sarah Mortimer 2021 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2021 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2021931809 ISBN 978–0–19–967488–6 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199674886.001.0001 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. Acknowledgements When Mark Bevir invited me to contribute to a new series on the history of pol it­ ical thought, I realized it would be a challenging but exciting opportunity. I am grateful to him for that invitation and for his support, advice, and patience throughout this process. The book has been written in Oxford, where I have bene fit ted greatly from a thriving early modern community and from a growing programme of intellectual history. I would like also to thank my colleagues in the History Faculty and in Christ Church for their encouragement, kindness, and friendship over these years, particularly when times have been difficult. I am especially grateful to Christ Church for providing some extra leave during which this book was completed. The book has been greatly improved by conversations and discussions with many people over the years and I would like to thank in particular Rowena Archer, Teresa Bejan, George Garnett, John­P aul Ghobrial, Matthew Innes, Dmitri Levitin, Avi Lifschitz, Sophie Nicholls, Sophie Smith, Noël Sugimura and Brian Young. Teaching and sharing ideas with Alexandra Gajda and our ‘special subject’ students has been a deeply enriching experience and I would like to thank them, and all my students. Our early career academics have been a wonderful presence and I am grateful to all those with whom I have taught classes or shared tea, particularly Joshua Bennett, Deni Kasa, Tae­Y eoun Keum, Michelle Pfeffer, and Mariëtta van der Tol. I would also like to thank John Robertson, who first introduced me to some of the themes of political thought and who has discussed versions of this project as it has changed and developed. Jon Parkin and Noah Dauber read sections of the manuscript and I am grateful to both of them for so many conversations about its themes. Versions of some of the ideas in this book were presented at seminars in Harvard, Princeton, Göttingen, Helsinki, Cambridge, Leiden, and the London School of Economics. The feedback and discussions were immensely helpful and my thanks to Eric Beerbohm, Eric Nelson, Russ Leo III, Tim Stuart­B uttle, Martti Koskenniemi, Mónica Garcia­ Salmones Rovira, Lisa Kattenberg, Thomas Poole, and Nehal Bhuta. I have been fortunate to be involved with the ERC funded pro­ ject ‘War and the Supernatural’ led by Ian Campbell at Queen’s University Belfast, and have learned much from the team members – Todd Rester, Floris Verhaart, and Karie Schultz – and from their conferences and workshops. I am also very grateful to Ian for reading a draft of the manuscript and for his generous sugges­ tions. Thanks are also due to Oxford University Press and particularly Dominic Byatt, and to the readers of the original proposal and full manuscript, for their knowledgeable and constructive comments. Finally, my heartfelt thanks to all my friends and family, but particularly my husband David. List of Maps a. Habsburg, Ottoman and Valois lands c. 1517 2 b. Europe divided by religion c. 1559 3 c. Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires in 1625 5 d. Europe and the Ottoman Empire c. 1625 6 1 Introduction Without her [this science of politics] it would not be possible to live either together in public or privately, nor to deal with human beings and their affairs at all. For, by honouring and rewarding of virtue, and condemning and punishing vice, and by making all our actions upright, she has given us a way of living together happily, in peace and concord, and with plenty.1 In 1567 the French humanist and scholar Louis Le Roy published a brief treatise On the Origin, Antiquity, Progress, Excellence and Usefulness of Politics. Le Roy, like many of his contemporaries, believed he was living through troubled and unsettled times, but was convinced that the study of politics was one important way of restoring peace and prosperity to his native land. In 1567 Le Roy felt the need to justify his claim, finding the roots of political science (as he often termed it) in the classical world while showing how ancient precepts could be updated to fit the new realities of his own age. Half a century later, however, the value of political science was well established and in 1608 one German scholar could even liken it to a lush but sprawling estate. In his view, ‘the boundaries of political sci­ ence [Politica] are so wide, its possessions so rich and diffuse, that its rule is dis­ ordered in many things’—and what was now needed was for some proper method and order in the discipline.2 He was to be disappointed, for no single method tri­ umphed in this period. Yet the fascination with political thought grew, among scholars, statesmen, and a growing segment of the public. By 1625 political thought was certainly diverse and diffuse, and yet even with­ out a unifying method it is possible to see some core themes within it. Most importantly, this period saw a concern to understand the political or civil com­ munity as bounded, limited in geographical terms and with its own particular structures, characteristics, and history. Political science had therefore to be sep ar­ ated from ethics or philosophy, which dealt with individual virtues or with uni­ versal truths. Its aim was to ensure the survival and prosperity of one political unit; it needed to be sensitive to time and place. This did not mean abandoning the quest for universal values, but it did shape the way those values were under­ stood. The second, and related, development was a growing focus on civil or 1 Louis Le Roy, De l’origine, antiquité, progrès, excellence et utilité de l’art politique (Paris, 1567), p. 10. 2 G. Paulus, preface to B. Keckermann, Systema Disciplinae Politicae (Hanau, 1608). Reformation, Resistance, and Reason of State (1517–1625). Sarah Mortimer, Oxford University Press. © Sarah Mortimer 2021. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199674886.003.0001 o bsburg, Ottoman and Valois lands c.1517Habsburg landsNORWAYSWEDENOttoman lands after 1526agloVStockholmSCOTLANDValois lands aBoundary of the kN o r t hOHoly Roman EmpireMoscowRigaIRELANDS e aDENMARKDublinCopenhagenBaltic SeaLITHUANIA ENGLANDMinskHamburgamesA T L A N T I CAmsterdamLondonElBerlinVbiestDuNETHERLANDSlanEngliish DChaonWarsawneel nO C E A N p SAXONY r RPOLANDhiSKiev neiDeonetsneParisBAVARIAPraguewókarKNantesNurembergLoBay ofireViennaDFRANCEBiscaynitsePestBordeauxaduBerGeneva GeHUNGARYanrVenice scahoMôohnDonRueredargleB6251PNAVARREooLCASTILEAEB l a c k S e aBucharestbFlorenceGrebounMarseillesaULisbonDARAGONPAPALMadridTAdRrSTATESToledoiBarcelonaOatiCorsicacPSPAIN RomeSIstanbuleaMenorcaIbizaNaplesSevilleAnkaraMallorcaSardiniaTyrrhenianSeaMediAlgierstIzmirerAthensIonianSicilyTunisrAleppMOROCCOSeaanRhodeseaCyprusn SeDamascusaCrete400 miles 200200400 kmJerusalem A. Habsburg, Ottoman and Valois lands c. 1517 Ha ap  00 M

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