Prof. Dr. Ronald G. Asch

• Europäischer Adel in der frühen Neuzeit. Eine Einführung, Cologne,  2008.
• Sacral Kingship between Disenchantment and Re-enchantment. The French and English Monarchies c. 1587-1688, New York /Oxford 2014.
• (Editor): Hannover, Großbritannien und Europa: Erfahrungsraum Personalunion 1714-1837, Göttingen 2014.
• Monarchy in Western and Central Europe, in: Hamish Scott (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History 1350-1750, vol. II: Cultures and Power, Oxford 2015, pp. 355-384.
• Herbst des Helden: Modelle des Heroischen und heroische Lebensentwürfe in England und Frankreich von den Religionskriegen bis zum Zeitalter der Aufklärung. Ein Essay, (Publikationen des SFB 948, Helden, Heroisierungen, Heroismen), Würzburg 2016.
• Verwaltung und Beamtentum. Die gräflich fürstenbergischen Territorien vom Ausgang des Mittelalters bis zum schwedischen Krieg 1490-1632 (Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für geschichtliche Landeskunde in Baden-Württemberg, B 106), Stuttgart 1986.
• Der Hof Karls I. von England. Politik, Provinz und Patronage, 1625-1640, (Norm und Struktur Bd. 3), Köln,Weimar, Wien 1994.
• The Thirty Years War. The Holy Roman Empire and Europe 1618-1648, Basingstoke 1997.
• Nobilities in Transition: Courtiers and Rebels in Britain and Europe c. 1550-1700 (Reconstructions in Early Modern History, hrg. von J. Morrill und P. Croft), Edward Arnold, London, 2003.
• Jakob I. König von England und Schottland (1566-1625): Ein Friedensfürst im Zeitalter der Religionskriege, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer 2005.

On the eve of war: Europe between the Edict of Nantes and the outbreak of the Thirty Years War (2016-2017)

The two decades before the outbreak of the Thirty Years War have often been seen as a highroad to war or as a mere interlude in a political and confessional strife going back to the 1560s and not ending until the mid-17^th century,  but such an interpretation ignores the strong countervailing forces which were in evidence in the early 17^th century. It is the objective of the planned study to revise this interpretation and to show that during these two decades many of the foundations were laid both for the intellectual framework and the political structures which ensured that confessional conflicts became easier to contain in the later 17^th century, although they did by no means disappear. While the frontlines between the confessional churches had certainly hardened in the later 16^th century, the early 17^th century saw a number of attempts to build bridges between the warring factions and to find some common ground between them. The Oath of Allegiance in England (1606) marked one such attempt to distinguish between political loyalty and religious allegiance but French Gallicanism in combination with the re-sacralisation of royal power at the end of the war of religions can also be seen as an effort to render the foundations of secular authority fireproof and to protect them against the fallout of religious strife. At the same time late humanism and the new philosophy of neo-Stoicism but also the language of an increasingly secularised ius gentium (Grotius)  provided an important vocabulary for trans-confessional communication and understanding.

Sacred Kingship between Disenchantment and Re-enchantment. The French and the English Monarchies in the long 17th Century 1587/89-1714/15 (2010-2011)

The French and the English monarchies shared a strong tradition of sacred kingship, going back to the middle ages. However not just in England where the Reformation deeply transformed this tradition, but also in France monarchy had to re-invent itself at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. In man ways we can consider the history of the two monarchies as closely intertwined not only in this period, but during the entire course of the 17th century, given the fact that the later Stuarts’ vision of monarchy was clearly inspired by the French model, whereas their opponents saw Louis XIV as the prime example of the Catholic tyrant. The study will attempt not just a comparative history of the two monarchies between the deaths of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry III on the one hand and that of Louis XIV (and Queen Anne) on the other but will also look I at the way in which new forms of monarchical legitimation and representation in England mirrored events in France or presented a Protestant alternative to the rule of the most Christian King. Against the widespread idea that kingship was increasingly secularised from the late 16th century onwards and gradually lost its sacred character it will attempt to show that periods of a disenchantment of kingship were frequently followed by a distinct re-enchantment of monarchy, which lent it a renewed religious legitimacy, although traditional notions of iure-divino rulership or of the performative character of the great rituals of state may have been partly abandoned or have become controversial.