Toward A Modern Europe

The Reformation, 30 Years War & Language Standardization

The Splintering

Friedrich II, Holy Roman Emperor, dies in 1250

Subsequent attempts by various emperors to pull things back together fail miserably

This lack of political unity retards the development of a single, unified, national German language

The Splintering - HRE 1400

Written Standard(s)

Legal usage, commerce & the spread of printing leads to regional “standards”

Cities become more important - 1100 small cities by 1400 - Köln largest city (pop. 30,000), Straßburg, Nürnberg, Ulm, Frankfurt a.M., Zürich & Augsburg

5 Universities before 1400, 8 more after 1500

90% of population remains illiterate

Written “Standards”

Dutch/Flemish

Kölsch

East Middle German - colonization done by 1315

Southeastern - Bavarian/Schwäbisch

Southwestern - Alemanisch (Swiss)

The Reformation

Up until the early 1500’s, there are only the Catholic and Orthodox churches

Each controls its territory with a firm grip

Catholic church - indulgence selling & generally swanky lifestyle of leadership

The Reformation

In 1517, a German monk named Martin Luther publishes 95 theses (critical of nepotism, usury, indulgences, etc.)

Along with Huldrych Zwingli & John Calvin (Jean Calvin) this launches the protestant reformation

The Reformation

Printing fuels the fire - both Reformation and Counter-Reformation books, pamphlets, posters, etc. abound.

Aids in the development of supra-regional standards

The Reformation

Luther set out to translate the Bible into German

Luther invents his own philosophy of translation which is not wholly unsound linguistically speaking

This promotion of German fuels nationalism & distance from Rome

Luther’s Translationden man mus nicht die buchstaben inn der lateinischen sprachen fragen / one must not the letters in the Latin language ask

wie man sol Deutsch reden / wie diese esen thun / sondern / man mus die how one should German speak like these asses do but rather one must the

mutter jhm hause / die kinder auff der gassen / den gemeinen man auff the mother in the home the children in the streets the common man in

dem marckt drumb fragen / vnd darnach dolmetzschen / so verstehen sie the market about this ask and accordingly translate so understand they

es den / vnd merken / das man Deutsch mit jn redet it then and notice that one German with him speaks

Reformation Consequences

While Luther did not standardize German, he got the ball rolling in many ways

The Catholic Church, however, fought back

The split between Catholic and Protestant came to a head in the 30 Years War

By the end (1648) Germany’s population dropped from 26 million to 15 million!

The Counter-ReformationCatholic lands had support of Rome

Habsburg dynasty (Austria, Spain) plus Catholic lands of the HRE on the one side

Danes, Swedes, Dutch, Germans, Bohemians on the other side

The Thirty Years WarMainly fought on the territory of the Holy Roman Empire (i.e. Germany, Bohemia)

Armies didn’t have supply lines - they foraged

Not one war but a series of different ones:

Bohemian - Pfälzisch (1618-1623)

Danish - Niedersächsisch (1623 - 1629)

The Swedish War (1630 - 1635)

The Swedish - French War (1635 - 1648)

Ran concurrently with the Eighty Years War between Spain and the Netherlands

The Thirty Years War

Step by step description

Ended by the Peace of Westphalia (1648), at which time all parties, in their war exhaustion, agreed that:

Each prince would decide the religion of his own state (Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist)

Minority religious groups could practice their faith in public during allotted hours and privately at will

Each party was sovereign over its people

Independent Netherlands recognized - NOT part of HRE!

Europe in 1648

The Eighty Years War

Protracted war (1568 - 1648) between Calvinist Dutch Protestants and Spanish Catholics

Up to this point, modern NL, Belgium Luxemburg and parts of northern France belonged to the HRE, and were ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs

Begins as Spanish Inquisition is opposed by Dutch Protestants under the leadership of Willem van Oranje

The Eighty Years War

Protestants protest “idolatry” by storming churches

In 1588 the protestant Dutch provinces unite as the Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden

Southern provinces remain Spanish / Catholic

Linguistic Fallout

German remains a collection of dialects, although as nationalism progresses, so does standardization (slowly) - not really resolved until German independence in 1871

Dutch now exists in two places: the Dutch Republic & the Spanish Netherlands

The Dutch of the Dutch Republic becomes a national language, with all the trappings. Dutch in the Spanish Netherlands remains more dialectal

Linguistic Fallout

The exit of the Dutch Republic from the HRE also signals the beginning of the need to define what language they speak

First Dutch grammar appears in 1584