Monarchy Transformed: Princes and their Elites in Early Modern Western Europe

Robert von Friedeburg · John Morrill

Aug 2017 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

This decisive contribution to the long-running debate about the dynamics of state formation and elite transformation in early modern Europe examines the new monarchies that emerged during the course of the 'long seventeenth century'. It argues that the players surviving the power struggles of this period were not 'states' in any modern sense, but primarily princely dynasties pursuing not only dynastic ambitions and princely prestige but the consequences of dynastic chance. At the same time, elites, far from insisting on confrontation with the government of princes for principled ideological reasons, had every reason to seek compromise and even advancement through new channels that the governing dynasty offered, if only they could profit from them. Monarchy Transformed ultimately challenges the inevitability of modern maps of Europe and shows how, instead of promoting state formation, the wars of the period witnessed the creation of several dynastic agglomerates and new kinds of aristocracy.

About the author

Robert von Friedeburg teaches Early Modern and Modern European History at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln after many years at Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. One primary interest is the emergence of legitimate public power in the Latin West. He has published more than 100 essays and articles, and has written or edited seventeen books, the most recent being Luther's Legacy: The Thirty Years War and the Modern Notion of 'State' in the Empire, 1530s to 1790s (Cambridge, 2016). He is a member of the Academia Europaea.

John Morrill retired in 2013 after forty years teaching British, Irish and European History at Cambridge. A major interest has been the long historical relationship between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales set in a European comparative context. He has written and edited more than twenty books and published more than 100 essays and articles, and he is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Member of both the Royal Irish Academy and the Academy of Finland.