WELCOME TO THE CAMBRIDGE NEW HABSBURG STUDIES NETWORK ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Supported by the DAAD Cambridge Research Hub with funds from the German Federal Foreign Office (FFO)
The network aims to promote Habsburg studies in Cambridge by exploring new approaches to the history and cultures of Central and Eastern Europe, including the new methodologies of gender studies and social history. The network offers scholars the opportunity to present their research on any aspect of Central and East Central European history and to discuss current debates within the field. It provides a forum in which Cambridge researchers can exchange ideas both with others in Cambridge and with visiting scholars, especially those from Central and East Central Europe.
Forthcoming Talk: Violet Soen (KU Leuven)
Violet Soen (KU Leuven)
Choosing Austria? Transregional Lordship of the Croÿ family between Valois, Burgundy and Habsburg
Thursday 25th November, 5.30-7pm
online event
ABSTRACT :
The Habsburg dynasty arrived in the Low Countries through the hastened 1477 marriage of Maximilian of Austria to Mary of Burgundy. This Austrian match left the Burgundian aristocracy divided, as some main noblemen had advocated an alliance to a French prince to pre-empt war on the southern border. At the same time, the French monarchy actively sought to attract as much as possible malcontent noblemen in their sphere of influence, even more so when Mary of Burgundy died in 1482 and the regency for her son Philip the Fair brought about internal division and civil war. Traditionally, the division of the Burgundian aristocracy has been presented as a result of ‘choices’ made by these nobilities around 1477, or ‘decisions’ made after the new borderlines of the Habsburg-Valois treaties of Arras in 1482 or those of Senlis in 1493. This paper aims to revisit this paradigm, by unravelling how the house of Croÿ rather hedged the bets between Valois and Austria, while also carving out the stakes in the Mediterranean projects of Europe’s ruling dynasties. To pursue their transregional lordship in times of shifting borderlines, they relied on different mechanisms, from instrumentalizing their kin networks across the Franco-German frontier, to appointing their scions on episcopal sees in the borderlands, pursue well-timed cross-border marriages and participate in the Mediterranean wars and crusades of their times. As such, the Croÿ strategy also accounted for the geopolitical strategy upon the emancipation of the first Habsburg duke of Burgundy, Philip the Fair, which sought to preserve peace with France while marrying into the princely dynasties ruling Castile and Aragon.
Forthcoming Talk: Thomas Wallnig (University of Vienna)
Thomas Wallnig (University of Vienna)
Digital Humanities Approaches to Central European Culture and History
Thursday 11th November, 5.30-7pm
(online event)
ABSTRACT :
Imperial histories are grounded in extensive source collections which create a harmonizing framework for otherwise incoherent material. The more such data collections acquire the form of re-usable data, the more precarious the imperial narrative becomes, while at the same time new paths of inquiry are opened up by the wide range of computational methods. What for the Byzantine Empire can already be called a success story in this regard, and what for the Ottoman Empire is about to become one, for the Habsburg Monarchy is still in its beginnings.
Scholarship on the Habsburg Monarchy has always cultivated strong source-oriented perspectives, and thus for many relevant research projects it comes as a due step today to work towards data reusability, and to consider the possibilities of data analysis. The paper will provide an overview of the current Habsburg-oriented DH landscape and discuss case studies from different fields of DH, from network analysis and historical GIS to linguistic analysis and topic modelling.
Michaelmas Term 2021
With the start of the new academic year, we cordially invite you to our lecture series in Michaelmas Term. We will kick off this term with hosting Jonathan Singerton (Innsbruck), Thomas Wallnig (Vienna), and Violet Soen (Leuven).
Forthcoming Talk: Klaas Van Gelder (University of Ghent)
From Inauguration to Divestiture: The Ritual Revolution against Joseph II in the Austrian Netherlands
Thursday 16th January 5.30-7 pm
Leslie Stephen Room, Trinity Hall
In 1789–90, revolutionaries in the Austrian Netherlands overthrew the regime of Emperor Joseph II, declared independence, and founded short-lived republics. In most of the territories that made up this conglomerate, it was the Estates who actually declared independence, usually by publishing independence manifestoes. However, the full transition towards a republic demanded additional steps: a series of public solemn acts built around binding oaths. These solemnities served multiple purposes at once: divesting the prince, declaring independence, and claiming responsibility for the success of the revolution. Most importantly, all said acts re-established the constitutional order that had been violated by Joseph’s reforms in the 1780s. I argue that, unlike their American colleagues, the leading revolutionary factions in the Netherlands did not adopt modern notions of constitutionalism and that these solemnities were a logical outcome of this traditional point of view. The leaders of the new regime regarded the constitution as a collection of largely unwritten laws, customs, privileges and liberties the prince had sworn to respect during his or her inauguration. As a result, declaring independence and founding a republic required the public ritualization of the return to that constitutional order.
Lent Term 2020
Michaelmas term has just come to an end, but we are pleased to announce our programme for Lent term 2020. Further details and reminders will be posted here in due course.
Events Calendar: Michaelmas Term 2019 Abstracts
Hiram Morgan (Cork)
Vital’s account of the voyages of Archdukes Charles and Ferdinand in 1517-18
Thursday 31st October, 5.30-7 pm
Leslie Stephen Room, Trinity Hall
ABSTRACT: This seminar will examine the journal of Charles’s voyage to Spain in 1517 and subsequent journey of Ferdinand in the opposite direction in 1518. It was left by Laurent Vital, a member of the royal household. As such, it provides a ‘what the butler saw’, ‘below stairs’ perspective on a crucial juncture in history. Besides that, it provides information on travelling and living conditions at the time and much ethnographical information not just about Northern Castile but also about Southern Ireland where the returning fleet sought refuge from a storm in June 1518.
Franz Leander Fillafer (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Counter-Revolution, Imperial Diversity, and Civic Equality in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1790–1848
Thursday 21st November, 5.30-7 pm
Graham Storey Room, Trinity Hall
ABSTRACT: The Habsburg Empire has long been written off as a ramshackle, gridlocked polity marked by ossified institutions and intellectual torpor. While recent research has done much to dispel this cliché for the second half of the nineteenth century, the period between the 1790s and 1848 still awaits a fresh interpretation. It is this kind of reappraisal I hope to offer in my forthcoming book whose skeletal storyboard I will present during my talk. The standard accounts about the post-1792 Habsburg regime suggest that it was obtusely reactionary, its ingrained hostility to Enlightenment and Revolution allegedly gave rise to a revival of the “Baroque” synthesis between throne, altar, and nobility. In my paper I hope to show why this reading is deeply unsatisfactory, and I will do so by focusing on one particular dimension, on the sprawling juristic culture enablers of Empire developed around 1800. While the French Revolution left Enlighteners across Europe tarnished as closet Jacobins, Habsburg jurists like Franz von Zeiller, Thomas Dolliner, and Carl Joseph von Pratobevera managed to turn their Enlightenment into a mainstay of Habsburg statecraft that also served as a bulwark against the Revolution. The work of this epistemic community produced a milestone achievement, the general civil code (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch) of 1811, whose significance for the rule of law, for civic equality, and for the management of imperial diversity in the post-Napoleonic Habsburg realms I will discuss in my talk.
Adrien Wyssbrod (Neufchâtel/Trinity Hall)
Habsburg-Swiss relations in the War of Spanish Succession
Thursday 5th December, 5.30-7 pm
Leslie Stephen Room, Trinity Hall
ABSTRACT: In 1707, during the War of the Spanish Succession, another succession quarrel broke out in the Principality of Neuchâtel. In this disturbed context, the major European powers started monitoring the situation, sending ambassadors on location. Negotiations and supporting statements, but also bribes and threats were used to influence the outcome of judicial proceedings relating to the succession to the principality. Franz Ehrenreich von Trauttmansdorff and Abraham Stanyan worked in favour of Frederick the first of Prussia, against the powerful French ambassador Roger Brulart de Puysieux. The Austrian envoy could count on the Swiss officer François-Louis de Pesmes de Saint-Saphorin to support him at this turning point in the development of modern diplomacy. Using a wide range of tools such as literary influence, fake news, and manipulation in a constant search for peace, these negotiators shaped European history. Their official purpose was to increase the power of their respective sovereigns, but their real goal was to solve any existing conflict and avoid further strife by using diplomatic methods.
Michaelmas Term 2019
The new academic year is about to start and we cordially invite you to our lecture series in Michaelmas Term. The talks given by Hiram Morgan (Cork), Franz Leander Fillafer (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and Adrien Wyssbrod (Neufchâtel/Trinity Hall) will take place at Trinity Hall. Please find the details below.
Cambridge New Habsburg Studies Network 