The Fabric of Power: Political Histories of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Court

Abstract

The princely court is one of the most evocative subjects of premodern history, which in recent decades has attracted broad and enduring interest among historians and the wider public alike. The court and its society have been the topics on which the (often critical) discussion of ancien régime Europe has centred. Scandals and intrigues, personal vanity and consumption, as well as artistic and scienti fi c endeavour gain an explosive dimension when they take place at court because of their perceived proximity to political decision-making processes, which might affect great numbers of people. This is true for how the court fi gures in historical research, as well as in popular imagination. 1 When we ask about the political histories of the court, we fi nd ourselves confronted with an odd problem. Practically all historical studies that treat an aspect of life at the premodern princely court make reference to how their subject matter relates to the ongoing political processes at court. Yet despite this rich scholarship, as of now, there is little discussion about how these various approaches relate to each other in terms of a uni fi ed understanding of the political history of the premodern princely court. Partly this is due to the complexity of the subject matter. And, it should be said at the outset, it is not our aim to simplify the entangle-ments between the systems of relationships that constituted the late medieval and early modern court and the political practices they produced. For this would result merely in an(other) abstract model of the aulic space that imposes a rigid taxonomy on fl uid processes