Religious Diversity: What or How? Towards a Praxeology of Early Modern Religious Ordering*

Iryna Klymenko

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2  (2024):287-305 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.287

Scholars of the pre-modern history of religion have increasingly sought to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of religious diversity. Building on these advancements, this paper argues that our comprehension of this phenomenon is intricately linked to our presuppositions regarding religious groups and their boundaries. By challenging the conventional notion of groups as closed, authentic, and consistently coherent collectives, it advocates for a praxeological approach. Drawing on sociological theories and microhistorical studies, with a particular focus on early modern sources related to Jewish communities, it proposes a transition from inquiries about “what” the groups are to an examination of “how” they have been constructed in both temporal and spatial dimensions. Thus, by viewing religious groups and their ordering as dynamic and process-related, this approach aims to deepen our understanding of religious diversity in the early modern era as an analytical and empirical category.

Keywords: early modern history, religious diversity, praxeology

As noted by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, any attempt to construct a com­prehensive theory of society capable of adequately and empirically capturing its complexity necessitates a departure from several fundamental assumptions. Among these is the prevailing notion that groups and their boundaries are relatively fixed structures which can be viewed as tangible entities with determin­able memberships and delineated borders – often at the expense of any understanding of their relational dynamics.1 It is crucial to acknowledge that Bourdieu articulated these insights decades ago, engaging with the prevailing intellectual milieu of his era. Specifically, he challenged the simplistic conceptualization of social classes as historically predetermined categories, thus countering the prevalent notion of societal structure as an objective reality. His overarching objective was to transcend this perspective in favor of a theoretically robust framework informed by empirical evidence and capable of adequately addressing the intricate complexity of its subject matter.2

If one adopts this objective and attempts to offer an assessment of religious diversity in the early modern period through a historiographic lens, the imperative remains pertinent. It is incumbent on us to scrutinize how our interpretation of religious ordering intersects with our conceptualizations of religious groups and their boundaries. If one embarks on scholarly inquiries into the histories of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and other faiths, there is an inherent risk of presupposing a predetermined structure to these religious groups and their demarcations. When we posit the existence of these groups as entities, we assume their cohesion as a collective and, moreover, we presuppose the ‘authenticity’ of their respective religious practices. Heeding Bourdieu’s critique of the compartmentalization of societal structures, such as the presumed objectivity of historical classes, we must take an epistemological step back. This entails examining the foundational assumptions inherent in historiography concerning religious groups and exploring analytical frameworks capable of transcending the complexity of these groups (and the processes through which they are posited and thus created in the secondary literature).

It is worth highlighting that over the past few decades, there has been a fruitful dialogue between historiographic and sociological approaches,3 along with extensive reflections on the complexity of religious organization in the pre-modern era. This paper contributes to a specific development recently articulated by Sita Steckel, who has synthesized past and current debates around an originally sociological concept of societal differentiation, thereby fostering an interdisciplinary perspective particularly applicable to the history of religions in the Middle Ages.4 The genesis of these discussions lies in historiographical reflections on differentiation theory, which, in essence, conceives society as a system consisting of various subsystems, such as politics, religion, medicine, law, and so forth, each driven by its own functional dynamics of communication.5 Notably, this form of societal complexity was originally construed as an inherently modern phenomenon. Consequently, differentiation theory, understood as a theory which applied specifically to modernization (explicitly constructed in contrast to pre-modern society), served as a catalyst for historical debates.6 Historians of pre-modern period have consistently argued for an approach that acknowledges the societal and historical complexity of pre-modern times. As Sita Steckel aptly phrases it, there is a call to perceive pre-modern societies “as dynamic entities”7 and thus necessarily to engage with primary sources in order to capture the nuances of historical dynamics faithfully.

In light of contemporary scholarship on pre-modern religious dynamics and pluralities, the notion that differentiation theory applies exclusively to processes and moments of modernization appears increasingly difficult to substantiate.8 Instead, current discourse emphasizes methodological endeavors by historians aimed at crafting conceptual frameworks that effectively capture the empirical intricacies of religious organization in pre-modern contexts. Building on this premise, this paper argues that our understanding of religious ordering is intricately tied to our presuppositions concerning religious groups and their boundaries. It therefore adopts an epistemologically reflective approach, seeking to illuminate the historical and societal complexities surrounding religious groups as early modern phenomena. Drawing on sociological theories, microhistorical studies, and early modern sources related to Jewish communities in particular,9 it proposes a shift from inquiries about the essence of these groups to an examination of how these groups have been constructed and how, as constructions, they behaved both temporally and spatially. By conceptualizing religious groups and their organization as dynamic and process-oriented, this approach aims to enrich our understanding of religious diversity and the complexity of the notion of diversity itself as both an analytical and empirical category in the study of the early modern era.

To accomplish this goal, this paper begins with an exploration of the regulatory constructions of religious boundaries (I) followed by an in-depth examination of these boundaries from a bottom-up perspective. This examin­ation considers the intricate interplay among the religious, economic, and medical spheres. Specifically, the paper employs the paradigm of religiously coded food and eating practices (II) as an analytical perspective from which to elucidate these dynamics. Within the chosen praxeological framework, it is imperative to acknowledge that any attempt to draw delineations among the societal spheres of religion, economy, and medicine necessitates recognition of the analytical nature of such categorization. This analytical division is crucial to any conceptual approach to the study of interactions that transcend individual subjectivity and structural objectivity. This allows for an understanding of these interactions as outcomes of both individual choices and structural dispositions.10 Additionally, it is necessary to perceive these spheres and their logics not as static compartments but as dynamic and contingent phenomena, exerting influence within every unique configuration of interactions.11 Translated within the context of this paper, praxeology entails the meticulous reconstruction of how religious group formation may be either compromised or strengthened, depending on varying societal contexts and problem references across different fields. This paper seeks to elucidate how these patterns can be extrapolated into broader conceptual frameworks.

Community of Law(s): Plurality and Polyphony of Regulations

Crucial to the construction of religious collectives in Judaism is the foundational concept of a chosen group the members of which adhere to the commandments of their God. A comprehensive collection of laws (mitzvoth), prohibitions, and precepts, derived from the oldest sources, was manifested in writing in antiquity. At least since the destruction of the Temple, Judaism has primarily been a law-based religion: halakha has been and remains far more central that any profession of faith (and here sees the crucial difference in the construction of belonging in Christianity). These norms address a wide range of topics and spheres, extending to the main matters of daily life. Though commonly translated as Jewish Law, halakha literally signifies the way to proceed or the right way to behave. Synchronized behavior, both in law and in practices, is constitutive for religious boundaries. Another fundamental aspect of group building is individual/personal belonging, which in the case of Judaism is not solely a result of following these norms of law but is primarily attributed to descent from a maternal Jewish line. This form of belonging includes or implies commitment to religious law. These two understandings of belonging (a definition of belonging on the one hand and the obligations of belonging on the other) initially provide a rather clear picture for what is addressed in this paper as a religious group. However, insights from early modern sources prompt further questions.

In one of his writings published in 1593, Reb Chaim12 lamented the behavior of his Jewish contemporaries: “And the rabbis have warned us not to be like the peoples of the lands, neither in our words nor in our deeds nor in our dress, but this is not heeded now in our sinful state, as many members of our community seem to mingle with them [goyim]13 and be like them [goyim], and they [members of our community] defile themselves with wine from their [goyish] feasts.”14 This passage underlines contemporary violations of religious norms but also speaks to the blurring of boundaries between Jewish and Christian groups. This blurring, crucial to the argument of this paper, occurs through daily practices and interactions.

The entire tradition of rabbinic literature and commentaries, developed over centuries in reaction to the practical need to adapt the (in principle) unchangeable norm of halakha to local and regional circumstances,15 reminds us to approach cases of violation of religious law beyond the sheer concept of deviance. As is asserted in one of the communal records, “[E]very Jew knows the law, and no [special] ordinance is needed.”16—so confirm one of the communal records. Yet the same record demands daily vigilance and control, prescribing sanctions and penalties for cases of violation.17 Community members belong to their collective by birth, which requires commitment to Jewish law. This clear demarcation of a group remains intact, as community leaders simultaneously count on the possibility of norm violations and, therefore, refer to and rely on regulations.

In the late sixteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,18 Jewish communities received permission from the political establishment of the country to arrange a relatively autonomous communal administration, with organs at both the local and the supranational levels.19 Interestingly, Jewish autonomy was facilitated by the political establishment of the Commonwealth not because it entertained some notion of tolerance or religious diversity but rather due to the need to find a way to collect taxes from the growing Jewish diaspora in the country.20 Among other provisions, this autonomy included the exclusive prerogative to regulate communal matters related to halakha.21 From the late sixteenth century onwards, communities and their organs produced an enormous amount of minute books (pinkassim)22 addressing different aspects and problems of daily life from the perspective of Jewish law. One crucial part of these regulations concerned religiously coded practices explicitly linked to religious differences, such as dress and attire in this example from 1607: “men and women shall not clothe themselves with the garments and immorality of non-Jews […]; children of Israel are to be distinguished by their clothing.”23 In the context of the religiously coded practices of attire, exceptions were or could be made for travelers (for security reasons) or those close to the political establishment and/or court (as a form of symbolic communication).24 This practice of making (or not making) exceptions offers an example of how religious practices not only co-shape boundaries but also, when deemed reasonable or necessary, temporarily prioritize them.

The changeability and adaptability of norms and therefore of boundaries, depending on contexts of interactions, will be important topics in the discussion below, particularly in the context of religiously coded practices related to food. The phenomenon of Jewish autonomy, in step with the actual practices of a regulatory framework, can be seen as another layer of collective demarcation of the group through adherence to a distinctive concept of law, along with religiously coded and regulated practices and fundamental norms of halakha, as mentioned above.

The limitations of this regulatory framework were many. As mentioned earlier, one of them was that regulations could only concern matters related to tradition. Moreover, Jewish authorities could exercise forms of governance over their community members but not over Christians or members of other religious groups.25 As interactions usually went beyond religiously defined communal spaces, regulatory organs and authorities regularly faced challenges in any attempt or effort to implement their orders broadly.

Furthermore, from the perspective of Jewish law and communal regulations, it is essential to stress the historically and societally given polyphony and disparity of regulations, emanating from different institutions and parties, motivated by diverse considerations, and situated in conditions of particular power relations. Rural and urban areas, for instance, were distinct in this regard. While the status of Jewish leaseholders (arendarze) was of importance in the latter,26 the regulatory constellations in the cities which enjoyed Magdeburg rights in its various forms were particularly significant. Guild and craft unions present another regulatory setting, primarily in context of the economic organization of the groups. Additionally, a special aspect of different urban districts being admitted to different groups merits consideration. Moreover, the status of Jewish communities in different places in the Commonwealth was subject to privileges issued by kings, resulting in different economic or social latitudes for different communities, which sometimes shared the same city, as is the case in L’viv/Lwow/Lemberg,27 which was home to two Jewish communities, one in the inner parts of the city and one on its periphery. Furthermore, the regulatory attempts by Christian, mainly Catholic institutions and organs towards the Jewish community also merit consideration.28 This briefly outlined plurality of regulatory frameworks and their dynamics and interdependencies are certainly topics that warrant further exploration and therefore cannot be exhaustively presented here. Yet it is crucial to keep this complexity in mind, along with the layers of Jewish law-related regulations, as we move towards a bottom-up study of interactions, focusing on one particular example of religiously coded norms and practices concerning food and eating.

The Logic of Fields: Between Religion, Medicine, and Economy

“A cooked root of this plant, called in Polish kosaciec [], in Latin irys […], as well as a salve made out of it, with added pork lard, softens gastric ulcers; with rose oil and a little vinegar mixed together, it is good for headaches; if mixed with honey and white hellebore, it removes stains from a face.”29 This recipe for improving health and treating ailments such as ulcers comes from a medical advisory published in Krakow in 1613. The language of the text is Yiddish, a vernacular which allows us to assume that this advisory was intended for daily use by members of the Jewish community. Hence, it is even more striking that this recipe included pork lard, which was prohibited by Jewish law.

Food-related prohibitions and precepts constitute a significant part of halakha, dating back to biblical times.30 Along with other functional aspects, these norms of a different kind have been used to create religious differences, i.e. to draw boundaries between Jewish and non-Jewish groups, not least due to the visibility and observability of practices related to food preparation and consumption.31 For instance, Leviticus 11: 44–47 includes verses regarding pure and impure (i.e. edible and inedible) animals, linking this differentiation to the fundamental religious distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish groups, exemplified by individuals in 1 Maccabees 1:12– 63 who chose death over consuming pork during the Seleucids persecution.32 If pork and pork products remained strictly prohibited, how can it be explained that they were mentioned in a book explicitly addressed to a Jewish audience?

An accurate analysis of a specific type of this source sheds light on the entire tradition of translations of medical works from diverse European languages into Yiddish from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth, which was one fascinating phenomenon of early modern knowledge transfer in Europe.33 Sejfer derech ejc ha-chajim presents one such translation of a then widespread type of regimen sanitatis salernitanum,34 which allegedly explains the puzzling reference to pork lard. The recipe could include foodstuffs that were prohibited by halakha because it was not derived from a text related to the Jewish tradition in the first place. Nevertheless, the question of retaining the passage in the translation intended for daily use by members of Jewish communities would still require explanation.

However, upon comparing the original version and the Yiddish one, we discover the latter to be an interesting case of symbioses, combining translated passages and passages added later. Remarkably, the cited passage was authored and included by the translator. Therefore, the inclusion in the recipe of an item that was prohibited by religious law still demands some explanation. From the perspective of differentiation theory (as well as field theory), one possible interpretation would be that texts written primarily as medical or health advisories related to a different form of authority than, for instance, those written from an explicitly religious perspective. And again, as mentioned in the introduction, this analytical division does not equate to empirical reality but is to be understood as implicitly incorporated in communicative and interactional structures as an option.

Confirming this perspective, rabbinic literature and commentaries tra­di­tionally addressed the issue of recommending a considerable range of items prohibited by religious law but apparently in daily use for medical or other purposes. In several recipes of Sejfer derech ejc ha-chajim which included pork lard, prescriptions were linked solely to external bodily parts, and thus the lard was not intended for consumption. It could be used as a salve, for instance, but still was not to be eaten. One such example regards a treatment for chickenpox among children. The recipe recommends combining a drink made from winter cress with a lard salve: “[O]ne must know and keep in mind that if giving bitter things [to drink], one must make a suppository from a stewed honeycomb or to grease the anus with fresh pork lard, so that worms can move faster from bitter to sweet.”35 This differentiation in internal and external use of forbidden items may have something to do with traditional rabbinic adaptations of halakha to particular regional or societal circumstances. An impressive number of commentaries and rabbinic texts argue about the use of pork and lard in the context of medical, economic, or social contexts. For example, one early modern commentary36 notes that the lard of an impure animal is considered unsuitable for sale or purchase by religious law, with certain exceptions. Selling lard intended for consumption is strictly forbidden, but its use for daily purposes (such as lighting a fire) is permissible. Additionally, exceptions may be made in cases of physical suffering: “[T]here is no permit for using lard for lubrication, except in cases of suffering; however, for a healthy person and for pleasure, it is not allowed […].”37 This reflects a pragmatic approach taken by religious elites. It indicates that the normative perspective of religious law cannot always be directly applied to daily life situations. Instead, it must be adapted and regulated differently according to various societal contexts.

On the one hand, religious boundaries influenced or expressed by norms related to food are established according to religious law. On the other hand, on a practical level (including the level of discourse), attributions, demarcations, and interdependencies of these boundaries could vary based on the logics of the various societal fields. This is illustrated in another passage from Sejfer derech ejc ha-chajim, where advice on improving digestion suggests following a practice among non-Jews (goyim), specifically Christians, who during Lent ate nuts after consuming fish to mitigate mucus production.38 While this practice may be seen as something to emulate, it simultaneously remained a clear marker of religious difference in religious texts. Notably, also figures writing from different Christian perspectives (and in various epochs of the pre-modern era) emphasized the functional distinctiveness of the Jewish feast, set in contrast with the Christian practice of fasting on Saturday. This can be illustrated exemplarily with the words of the influential Jesuit Piotr Skarga (1536-1612): “Why do we fast on Saturday? […] Firstly, in order to turn away from the Jews and reject their Saturday feast, which, like other feasts, was only prescribed until the resurrection of Christ. [And] [b]ecause fasting contradicts the feast.”39

Daily practices were undoubtedly influenced by religious law and forms of exercising control, yet they were presumably influenced to the same degree by the logics of societal fields. In Jewish moral literature, observations about economic activities in trade, such as the one from the city of Vilnius/Wilno, where the Jewish community would trade with Christians using impure poultry, reveal instances in which community leaders lost control over such situations.40 There are numerous regulations in the communal minute books regarding this matter in different regions of the Commonwealth. Solomon Kluger sought to arrive at compromises by drawing a distinction between trade in pork, with was forbidden, and trade in pork lard, which according to Kluger was allowed.41 This separation of meat and lard is striking. It invites us to consider whether lard was one of the very basic products in the region, common in general society, and therefore hard to avoid in daily life. It was used to prepare medications and, as evident from the passage cited above, to make soap and candles, and it was a great preservative for other foods or products. Kluger offered an explanation as to why his use of lard was justifiable: “Because I have complete evidence from one of the proselytes who told me how his father was negotiating the sale of olive oil, and that he himself brought oil from the state of Italy; and he could not transport it so far in barrels of wood without mixing it in lard until it was squeezed and stayed inside without taking out any drop.”42 Boundaries, with could be easily drawn in theological or polemical texts, seem to have been revised in moments of actual interaction.

From the perspective of religious law and its representatives, such as Rabbi and preacher Solomon Kluger (Rabbi Solomon ben Judah Aaron Kluger), the behaviors presented obviously fell in the category of deviant behavior and had to be controlled and punished. Yet from an analytical perspective, these behaviors can be seen as forms of adapting to norms in everyday interactions, which were governed by the logics of the social fields to which these interactions belonged. One could simultaneously appear to be a member of the religious community and be included, socially43 or economically,44 as a member of general society.

From this perspective of interactions, for instance, entangled labor relations among Jewish and Christian populations represent complexity.45 Jewish communal minute books shed light on these contexts frequently and regarding different aspects. Jewish households often hired maids who were Christian, which led to regulations concerning the responsibilities and prerogatives of the employers and their employees. A protocol from 1607, for instance, reads, “[Jewish] women are to remain vigilant [, sic!], in preserving and salting the meat themselves […], and by no means [having it be salted] by their non-Jewish maidservants; and they should also be careful when cooking the food, for it happened many times that they [the non-Jewish or Christian maidservants] […] added something forbidden.”46 The household was hardly observable from the outside, so the responsibility to watch over religious others became an issue, alongside the obligation to adhere to the law. Similarly, Jewish slaughterers (shoh. at. im) were frequently reminded of the rules of kashrut, and the possible sanc­tions and penalties for violations were stressed, such as suspension of one’s license (h.azaka).47 Licenses which permitted someone to engage in Jewish food production and trade, which included the production of butter and cheese and the supply of dried fish (which were popular in this region), were issued and could be suspended by local rabbis. They were thus one common instrument of regulation.

Working relations which brought members of different religious groups together were complex and involved various levels of negation and compromise. As mentioned above, Solomon Kluger complained about trade in non-kosher products in the city of Vilnius/Wilno, pointing out that these forbidden practices had become frequent, especially the consumption of non-kosher products by non-Jewish employees of Jews, even though this was prohibited by religious law.48 This must have been a major issue, as Polish and Lithuanian pinkassim from the sixteenth century onwards are filled with complaints about violations in cases involving food provided for Christian employees. As in the cases involving Jewish households, in this context we are also dealing with complex matters. An example from the Krakow community of 1590 shows clearly that suspicion had fallen on Jewish merchants traveling to the city of Gdansk as oxen drivers and grain transporters of having bought pork for their non-Jewish workers on the road, which constituted a violation of religious law.49 Much as a clear distinction was drawn between the two communities through the very observable difference between the Jewish feast on the one hand and the practice of fasting on Saturdays among Catholics on the other (as noted by the aforementioned Jesuit Piotr Skarga), the importance of time in the customs though which difference was expressed was also underlined in the context of interreligious labor relations. In the same minute book from Kraków, there are multiple warnings regarding the prohibition of doing agricultural works on a Saturday. Members of the Jewish community were not only prohibited from engaging in this kind of work on Saturdays, they were also prohibited from letting their Christian employees fish50 or plow or engage in any other activities in the field,51 under a penalty of a fine of 50 red złoty. The same temporal aspect of religious diversity (religious belonging linked to particular working days and feasts) frequently appears in the context of Jewish tavern keepers, who sometimes unlawfully served guests, primarily Christians, on the Sabbath, thus showing a stronger commitment to profits than to the law. Communal regulations, as we see here, were therefore not based on the law as an abstract norm. Rather, they were systematically driven by very specific situations and interactions.

Furthermore, supranational organs of Jewish autonomy also issued regulations to address violations of dietary laws, emphasizing the importance of maintaining religious boundaries between groups. This indicates that such problems occurred across regions and communities as a whole. A decree issued by the Council of Lithuania in 1628 provides an example. Local religious elites were ordered to warn all members of all communities in all the synagogues not to trade with Christians in non-kosher carcasses and other forbidden foods and also not to buy such items for their non-Jewish employees.52 Community leaders attempted to prevent and punish violations of these regulations, enforcing the dietary laws in order to maintain religious demarcation between the groups. However, religiously regulated practices related to food in particular were not solely about religious constellations. They also intersected with trade and economic interests, social relations, medical and health practices, and so forth. These various spheres of activity can and should be separated, yet on the level of actual interactions, they remained entangled and contingent.

By presuming the stability of early modern religious groups and the singularity of their boundaries, we tend preemptively to attribute authenticity to the very notion of groups as discrete entities, and we therefore are compelled to understand violation of group norms as deviance. Yet, if we shift our perspective from a religious one (which the former one is) to an analytical one, new questions arise. Is it possible that pork was cheaper than other meats, and thus there may have been significant economic incentives to buy non-kosher products for workers? Or perhaps roast pork was simply tastier and more filling? And was pork lard just a great preservative for food and a substance for healing practices? Yet, at this point and from an epistemological perspective, it is less important to find an explanations for these practices or give answers to these questions than it is simply to ask the questions themselves. This would mean not letting a normative, religiously burdened perspective appear in place of an analytical one, which could offer new perspectives on structural contingency and complexity.

Conclusion

Religious groups and their delineations are profoundly influenced by theological and legal frameworks. Despite demonstrating a historical propensity for fluc­tua­tion, whether through fragmentation or consolidation, religious collectives endure in the context of this form of ordering as relatively stable structures. Moreover, the formation of these groups is significantly influenced by religious practices and their accompanying regulatory mechanisms, which simultaneously serve to distinguish them externally while fostering internal cohesion. In this context, an interplay among shifts and enduring features is observable across temporal and spatial dimensions. Furthermore, within the realm of societal interactions, an additional framework emerges wherein a complexity of norms, regulations, and practices recurrently find expression in distinct forms. These diverse frameworks contribute to the establishment of religious boundaries, which can vary significantly. Additionally, the pace and frequency with which these boundaries undergo change within each framework may differ markedly.

Praxeology, as advocated for use in this paper, presents a perspective that transcends the simplistic dichotomy between the normative dimensions of theology and law on one hand and practices and interactions on the other. This perspective underscores that the analytical approach to understanding early modern group building should not be constrained by either of these frameworks. Rather, it urges a comprehensive consideration of the inherent complexity within these layers, recognizing their potential polyphony and incongruence in the early stages of assumption building.

These considerations have implications for the framing of religious diversity as both an empirical and analytical category. When beginning from a theological or law-related perspective, one may tend to perceive religious plurality solely as a sum of different groups. While historically valid to some extent, such an approach tends to accentuate only a specific aspect of the broader spectrum of religious ordering. These perspectives often underscore the apparent clarity and stability of religious collectives and their boundaries, notwithstanding their potential for variability. What remains concealed is the ambiguity inherent in what we define as religious groups. This ambiguity extends beyond mere proximity or boundaries of collectives and examines notions of deviance, when religious norms, perceived as definitions or forms of belonging, are individually or collectively transgressed. This paper considers these latter aspects of group formation and their conceptual underpinnings.

Consequently, if we seek to arrive at an understanding of religious diversity as both an empirical and analytical category, we must appreciate the complexity of ordering. Such an understanding must account for the coexistence of static and dynamic collective boundaries, both temporally and spatially, as well as the contingency of their manifestations in various interactional contexts.

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Jakša Kušan’s Forgotten Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Croatia*

Josip Mihaljević

Croatian Institute of History

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 1  (2024):107-132 DOI 10.38145/2024.1.107

Croatian journalist and writer Jakša Kušan (1931–2019) was one of the most prominent Croatian émigré dissidents. By editing and publishing the non-partisan magazine Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia), he tried to inform the global public about the suppression of human rights and civil liberties in socialist Yugoslavia, even under constant threat of being attacked by the Yugoslav secret police. After the fall of communism, he returned to Croatia and continued his work in the media and the civil sector for a brief time. In this article, I offer an overview of the most relevant of Kušan’s oppositional activities during the period of communist rule in Croatia and Yugoslavia and consider the roles and impact of his activities. I also venture some explanation as to why his life and work have mostly been forgotten in today’s Croatia. One possible answer to this question could be his complex relationships with the Croatian dissidents who won the first multiparty elections in Croatia in 1990. My discussion is based on the findings of the COURAGE project (Cultural Opposition – Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent in the Former Socialist Countries), oral history sources, and archival documents of the Yugoslav secret police.

Keywords: Jakša Kušan, Croatian émigré, dissent, socialist Yugoslavia, Croatia, democracy, COURAGE project, Yugoslav secret service

Introduction

The life of Jakša Kušan is a relevant topic in the history of dissent and non-conformism in the former socialist countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Kušan, who spent much of his life in exile, was one of the most prominent journalists and publishers of the Croatian diaspora. From 1955 to 1990, he propagated a vision of a democratic and pluralistic Croatia. By publishing the non-partisan newspaper Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia), he sought to inform not only the Croatian emigrants but also the Yugoslav and Western public about the suppression of human rights and civil liberties in socialist Yugoslavia and to emphasize the precarious position of the Croatian nation in the federal Yugoslav state. The communist authorities in Yugoslavia attempted to hinder his activity in exile by creating an extensive network of agents and informants around Kušan. Despite the efforts of the Yugoslav State Security Service (UDBA/SDS),1 however, Kušan managed to publish the journal for more than three decades. The journal earned the epithet of the most respected political magazine among Croatian émigrés. Although Kušan was emotionally attached to the idea of creating an independent and sovereign Croatia, he believed that in the political struggle, one should avoid indulging in the emotions that led many Croatian émigrés to political radicalism. He believed that Croatian émigrés would not gain the support of the Western world if they showed any willingness to use terrorist methods.

Croatian political emigration would significantly contribute to Croatia’s independence from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kušan strongly supported many of the Croatian dissidents and oppositional figures who eventually won the first multi-party elections in Croatia in 1990. However, Kušan’s connections with the people who formed the new government were severed very quickly, and he found himself on the margins of political life. Although he performed some public duties in the 1990s, mostly in the civil and NGO sector, Kušan did not participate actively in political life, and he wrote less and less and stopped publishing. Gojko Borić claims that Kušan was marginalized from the moment of the establishment of the Republic of Croatia as an independent state and that today he has been almost completely forgotten and his legacy has become a matter of debate.2

This paper has two main goals. The first is to emphasize the most relevant of Kušan’s oppositional activities during the period of communist rule in Yugoslavia and consider the roles and impact of his activities. The second is to venture some explanation as to why his life and work have mostly been forgotten in today’s Croatia. The discussion is based primarily on the findings of the COURAGE project (Cultural Opposition – Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent in the Former Socialist Countries),3 oral history sources (interviews), and archival documents. The COURAGE project researched Kušan as a significant oppositional figure to socialist Yugoslavia, describing his private collection of books, photographs, and letters related to the activities of Croatian émigrés.4 As part of this project, two long interviews were conducted with Kušan in 2016 and 2018.5 For this article, a dossier (intelligence file) on Kušan created by the notorious UDBA (the secret service of socialist Yugoslavia) was also analyzed. Files of the Croatian branch of the UDBA, including the file on Kušan, are held today at the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb and recently became available to researchers.6 In this research, I have used various books from the fields of history, political science, and diaspora studies, as well as various articles from scientific and other journals and online sources.

Kušan’s Life before Exile

Kušan was born in Zagreb on April 23, 1931 to a middle-class family. During World War II, when he was still a boy, his family did not sympathize with the Ustasha regime in the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH), which was a fascist puppet state supported by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Kušan’s family was Western-oriented, appreciating parliamentary democracy and liberalism. They listened to Western radio stations, such as the BBC.7 Nevertheless, hopes for the establishment of democracy were dashed after the end of the war. After the overthrow of the fascist regime of the NDH, another form of totalitarianism, the communist one, rose to power in the new Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija, or FNRJ).8

Kušan finished high school in 1950 in his hometown. As a high school student, he corresponded with members of the International Friendship League.9 He also came into conflict with philosophy professors over the issue of ideology, and similar conflicts arose when he pursued the study of law at the University of Zagreb. Unlike most of his colleagues, who wrote essays and seminar papers based on texts by Karl Marx, Kušan took an interest in subjects associated with the works of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky, authors who were not widely promoted at the time. Due to his nonconformist views, he soon came into conflict with the communist party nomenclature at the university.10

During his student days in Zagreb, he was part of a circle of young intellectuals who were dissatisfied with the political situation in Yugoslavia, especially with the oppressive methods used by the regime and the lack of cultural ties to the Western world. In 1953, they began to hold regular gatherings, and they started entertaining the idea of establishing a political organization, which was prohibited by law. In 1954, they organized an illegal organization called the Croatian Resistance Movement (Hrvatski pokret otpora, or HPO).11 They illegally procured newspapers published by Croatian emigrants, but they were disappointed by these publications, which did not meet their expectations or standards. In their assessment, the Croatian émigrés were uninformed and did not have close enough ties with their homeland. Kušan felt that the émigrés were more concerned with relations among the Croatian émigré communities (and the differences that divided these communities) than they were with the fate of the people in Croatia. The first proclamation made by the HPO, which was written in 1954 and bore the title “Message of the Croatian youth from the homeland to Croats in exile,” was an appeal to Croatian emigrants to set aside their petty disputes and problems and work together for the sake of Croatia.12 Kušan was the main founder of HPO and also the person who authored all the organization’s documents.13 The group was also dissatisfied with the attitudes of the Western states, many of which supported Josip Broz Tito and his communist regime in Yugoslavia because of his dispute with the Soviets. They therefore decided that someone from the group should go to the West and engage in journalistic work there. Kušan volunteered to be that person, in part because he was already under police surveillance.14 Kušan had caught the attention of the authorities because he had defended a friend, a student at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, at the Disciplinary Court of the University of Zagreb. His friend had been accused of having publicly expressed political beliefs that were not in line with party propaganda.15 The case turned into a strong demonstration against the communists, who led the student organization at the faculty.16 Partly in response, at the beginning of 1954, students who were members of the party organizations began to take revenge on Kušan and forbade him to attend lectures and exams. They soon initiated disciplinary proceedings against him at the Faculty of Law. As a consequence of these proceedings, Kušan was given a comparatively lenient punishment for having “exceeded his right to defense,” but this meant that he was subjected to police interrogations and also received death threats. Kušan decided to move to Belgrade to continue his law studies. According to him, the atmosphere in Belgrade was completely different, and he was not under the same strict control that he had been put under in Zagreb.17

Fleeing Yugoslavia and Founding the Magazine Nova Hrvatska

In Belgrade, while pursuing his studies, Kušan worked as a tourist guide for English-speaking groups of tourists. At the end of April 1955, he received a Yugoslav passport, and he left Yugoslavia in May. He crossed the border with Austria and traveled to Italy, where he stayed for a short time before moving to The Hague via Rome, where in 1955 he received a scholarship at the Academy of International Law. One of the judges of the Hague Tribunal, Dr Milovan Zoričić, helped him obtain the scholarship. In early 1956, he settled in Great Britain, where he was given political asylum. In London, he continued his education at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1957 to 1961, but he did not complete his studies because he was too busy working as a journalist and editor.18 In 1956, HPO, his organization in Croatia, was discovered by the Yugoslav authorities. Its members were arrested and, in 1957, were sentenced to prison.19

In 1958, Kušan received a scholarship from the Free Europe University in Exile (FEUE), which had been founded in 1951 by the American National Committee for Free Europe.20 At this university, especially during its summer seminars held in Strasbourg, respectable members of the liberal academic community from the United States, as well as many prominent European emigrant intellectuals gave lectures. At the same time, it was a gathering place for refugee students from countries under communist rule, who were educated at the institution in a liberal democratic spirit. The Yugoslav communists contended that it was a school for CIA informants.21

In Strasbourg, Kušan connected with many young intellectuals from Europe, and especially with his compatriots. He began to cooperate with some of them in efforts to further the political education of society as a whole and to call attention to the harmfulness of totalitarian rule in Yugoslavia. Kušan continued to maintain contacts with like-minded people from his homeland, and he soon created a network of associates to work together on efforts to inform the public. In 1958, he founded the magazine Hrvatski bilten (Croatian Bulletin) in London.22 In 1959, the magazine was renamed Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia, or NH). The primary goal of the periodical was to inform the Croatian public abroad about the events in their homeland and to reveal the truth about the undemocratic practices of the communist regime in Yugoslavia. One of the aims of the magazine was to set aside the ideological differences within the Croatian émigré communities and work together for Croatian independence. The desire to unite the various political currents in the Croatian diaspora is clearly evident from the slogan at the top of the front page of the first issue of the magazine: “Croats of all parties, unite!”23

From the mid-1960s, NH became the most influential polemically oriented magazine in which discussions concerning solutions to the Croatian question were held. It was initially published monthly, but from 1974 until it was discontinued in 1990, it transitioned to a bi-monthly publication schedule. In the beginning, it was distributed through its trustees, and later it was sold in public places.24 It had the largest circulation of publications among the Croatian diaspora (some editions ran up to 20,000 copies). As an editor-in-chief, Kušan advocated democracy and the freedom of the individual and freedom of peoples. He believed that only a politically informed and educated individual could be an active factor in his social environment, and he saw this principle as a shield against political manipulation of individuals and political parties.25 About Kušan’s work as editor-in-chief, Borić said that he adhered to the principle of objectivism, which meant drawing a strict distinction between information and commentary and taking into account different views on the contents of his reporting. That was an especially hard task, because it was difficult to gather reliable information from totalitarian Yugoslavia.26 According to Gojko Borić, one of the founders of NH, the magazine differed significantly from other Croatian émigré publications, which tended only to report on news from the homeland that confirmed their political views.27 Kušan’s main goal was to educate Croatian emigrants politically, in part to make them less susceptible to the false promises made in the propaganda of some radical Croatian emigrants.

The NH often published news that the Yugoslav government did not want to get out, and the comments NH gave when interpreting certain news and events were negative towards the communist regime in Yugoslavia. The editorial also received confidential information, mostly from anonymous senders, and that information was published or rejected, depending on the assessment of its credibility. The editorship was always at risk of falling prey to false claims, which happened in some cases, which is why some Croatians in exile criticized the magazine and declared such rare failures as hoaxes contrived by the Yugoslav secret services.28

The correspondence with associates from the country was handled through encrypted messages. Thus, for example, in correspondence with one of his friends and associates who he did not know was a UDBA informant with the code name Rajko,29 Kušan wrote at the end of 1964 that he was interested in the Congress of Lawyers in Belgrade, which meant the Eighth Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Savez komunista Jugoslavije, or SKJ). Kušan also wrote that he “expects a baby in a few days,” which was a coded message to indicate that he was expecting a new issue of NH.30 For the transmission of messages and information, the editorial board of NH used people who occasionally traveled from Yugoslavia to the West. The NH associates and informants were most often people from the closest family circle of the NH journalists.

The Yugoslav authorities were also bothered by the fact that NH was smuggled to and illicitly distributed in Yugoslavia. Kušan also sent NH to his homeland by mail to the many ordinary citizens whose addresses had been made public, for example, as part of some prize games in the newspapers. Through secret channels, a pocket-size edition (14.5 x 10 cm) of the magazine the articles in which could only be read with the use of a magnifying glass was usually sent to Yugoslavia.31 Kušan also sent NH to numerous political leaders in Croatia, such as members of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Croatia.

The Yugoslav secret services constantly followed the writing of NH and tried to prevent the publication of the magazine, which is evident from the UDBA file on Kušan. As early as the beginning of 1958, the UDBA learned from Tihomil Rađa’s conversation with a UDBA informant that in the summer of 1957 in Strasbourg Kušan and Rađa had agreed to launch Hrvatski bilten.32 In the mid-1960s, the UDBA stated in its reports that “the editorial office of this paper is one of the main centers of subversive-propaganda and anti-Yugoslav activity.”33 The UDBA tried to gain access to Kušan’s store of documents and the magazine’s archives, which included files on contributors and associates. They never succeeded, although they managed to get some of the documents.34

Kušan’s Political Views and His Activities in the Diaspora: A Thorn in the Side of the Yugoslav Communist Regime

Throughout his life in exile, Kušan continuously raised the question of Croatian national independence and spoke openly about the suppression of human and civil rights in socialist Yugoslavia, which is why he was constantly under the surveillance of the Yugoslav secret services.35

From the documentation of the UDBA, one can learn a lot about Kušan himself. According to the reports from the early 1960s, Kušan initially worked under difficult conditions. This is clear from the report of UDBA’s informant Rajko, who visited Kušan in London in 1964. He states that Kušan was not making any profit from NH and that the Kušans lived off the salary of his wife, Zdenka:

He worked day and night, ate almost nothing, and looked like a biblical ascetic—thin, pale, bloodshot eyes, badly in need of a shave, hollow. Usually, they don’t eat enough: they drink tea in the morning, and then she goes to work, and he works in the apartment, and they take the main meal only when she comes and prepares it around 6 o’clock, and even that meal is less than our average lunch.36

Another UDBA informant (code name David) offered similar reports concerning the difficult living conditions of Jakša Kušan in October 1965. He reported that Vinko Nikolić, one of the most prominent Croatian émigré intellectuals, said that Kušan lived under comparatively modest, even meager circumstances and that he edited his magazine on an old-fashioned typewriter.37 He also noted that another Croatian emigrant, Jure Petričević, had said that Kušan lived in poverty and that he depended mainly on the help of some Englishmen.38

Nevertheless, in the second half of the 1960s, Kušan was better off financially because he got a job as an associate to Viktor Zorza.39 In September 1967, Rajko talked to Kušan’s brother, Zlatko. They touched on Jakša’s activities in London. Zlatko told him that Jakša had secured regular employment with the prominent English liberal newspaper The Manchester Guardian and that he worked as a close assistant to the editor for Eastern Europe, the Polish Jew Victor Zorza, one of the most respected journalist experts on Eastern European politics and a man with strong ties to the Liberal Party in Britain. Kušan allegedly collected and systematized news and data on which Zorza wrote his articles and comments.40 The UDBA’s agents considered him a man close to the British Foreign Office. Consequently, it was assumed that Kušan was also leaning on the British secret services.

Kušan sympathized with the left in Britain. Thus, one UDBA informant reports that Kušan, as an English citizen, consistently voted for the Labor party.41 From his youth, Kušan had been a sympathizer of the Western form of political rule, especially the British. However, when he left Yugoslavia as a young man in 1955, he was not against socialism. He considered that, due to the character of the regime, it was impossible to expect the introduction of pluralism, but that a big step would also be to allow a faction within the Party.42

From the very beginning of his activities in London, Kušan stood out as someone who espoused different views regarding the realization of Croatian independence. Although he harshly criticized the communist regime in Yugoslavia, he thought that the liberalization process within the League of Communists of Yugoslavia could expand the space of freedom in the country.43 He advocated for reconciliation between nationalists and communists and felt that the radical methods used by some organizations in the Croatian diaspora were not good or effective as means of fulfilling Croatian goals. He claimed that terrorism was unacceptable both to the Western and the Eastern blocs, which were already inclined to preserve Yugoslavia. He advocated a strategy of gradually building democratic consciousness and cooperation among Croatian emigrants with the liberal wing of Croatian communists. In this sense, in the second half of the 1960s, one of the missions of his journal was to encourage democratization processes within the League of Communists of Croatia and to promote the Croatian reform movement (Croatian Spring) in the West in the hopes of gaining foreign sympathy and support.44 He believed that through the liberalization of the regime in Croatia, the situation in the whole of Yugoslavia could be liberalized. He believed that the League of Communists of Croatia could eventually turn into some kind of socialist or social democratic party. In such a democratic environment, Croats would then be free to decide in a referendum whether to stay in Yugoslavia or secede.45 Because of his conciliatory attitudes towards the communists, Croatian émigrés with more right-wing leanings were suspicious of Kušan, and some of them even called him a communist and a UDBA man.46

Kušan was constantly under surveillance by the UDBA through its numerous agents, collaborators, and informants,47 and his correspondence was secretly controlled. Due to his activities in exile, the District Court in Zagreb opened an investigation into his activities in February 1965.48 The Yugoslav Embassy in London invited him several times and sought to persuade him to stop his political activities in exile while promising him some privileges. Kušan refused, although he had to bear in mind that his family (parents and brothers) still lived in Yugoslavia, and they were also under surveillance by the UDBA.49 Zlatko was arrested in 1959 and charged because he had corresponded with his brother. He defended himself at the hearing, saying that maintaining a written relationship with his brother was not a criminal offense.50 He was forced to explain the way in which they corresponded. They sent messages encrypted in Braille, and Zlatko received the letters from his brother at the address of one of his friends who was blind, and he would send a letter to Jakša addressed to one of Jakša’s English friends.51 Zlatko was later invited by the UDBA to take part in “informative interviews” several times, and in 1972, he was even detained and interrogated for 10 days.52 The UDBA also conducted “informative interviews” with Jakša’s other brother, Petar, in 1975, and his passport was confiscated because he once visited his brother Jakša during his travels abroad.53 In 1977, they confiscated the Jakša’s mother’s passport, and they only returned it seven years later, in 1984.54 The return of the passport was just another UDBA setup. They gave her passport back, but in return, during her visit to London, she was expected to try to persuade Jakša to stop his anti-Yugoslav activities.55 The UDBA failed in its endeavor.

The UDBA speculated that Kušan had maintained contacts with the British intelligence service while still a student in Yugoslavia, because during his stay in Italy in 1955, he had received a British visa “in an unusually short time” and “some photos and other published materials in Nova Hrvatska indicate that Kušan has access to British diplomatic and intelligence sources.”56 The UDBA suspected that the British intelligence service was providing scholarships offered by Kušan to young and talented students abroad who had distinguished themselves through their hostile activity against Yugoslavia.57 However, after reviewing all the documents in his UDBA file, I did not come across any documented evidence of his alleged collaboration with the UK services. The only thing the UDBA had were reports submitted by its informants, who said that some of Kušan’s associates had said that he had connections to the British services.58 In an interview for the COURAGE project, Kušan pointed out that his choice of London as a place to work and publish was a complete success because it was an open environment that received refugees from all around the world and provided him with full protection from the Yugoslav secret services. “The UDBA did threaten us,” he said, “but the English authorities always gave police protection whenever we reported threats. That is why the authorities in Belgrade often said that we were collaborators with some British secret services, and in the end, they never touched us.”59

The editorial office of NH was originally located in a small basement room in London and was constantly struggling with a lack of money for publishing. Moreover, in the second half of the 1960s, the periodical almost went out of publication, because Kušan himself was too busy with his work as an analyst for The Guardian. In 1969, no issues of NH were published. In 1970, one regular issue and one double issue were published, and in 1971 only one was released. In addition to financial difficulties and lack of time, the reason for the reduced publication is that Kušan himself wondered if NH was needed at all. Kušan believed that, in the more liberal atmosphere in Croatia in the late 1960s, and early 1970s, the local magazines and newspapers were freeing themselves from the shackles of communist censorship and were presenting the situation in the country more and more objectively.60 During the Croatian reform movement, better known as the Croatian Spring (1967–1971), Kušan nurtured sympathy for the movement because it was a process he had hoped for.61 Jakša was delighted with Većeslav Holjevac, a former high-ranking partisan officer and long-time mayor of Zagreb, who, since the mid-1960s, had advocated in support of cooperation between the homeland and Croatian émigrés. Kušan described Holjevac’s book Hrvati izvan domovine (Croatians Abroad), which was published in 1967, as the first real step towards buildings ties with the Croatian émigré communities, and he noted that Holjevac had enabled several associates of the Emigrant Foundation of Croatiato come into contact with Croatian émigré organizations, including associates of NH.62 Kušan believed that during the Croatian Spring, especially within the League of Communists of Croatia, a process of democratization was taking place that would eventually lead to the disintegration of the communist regime and, ultimately, the democratization of the whole of Yugoslavia. He was more than disappointed when the Croatian reform movement was suppressed in late 1971 and early 1972.

Although he was disappointed with the collapse of the Croatian spring, this event meant new life for Kušan’s magazine. Communist censorship once again shackled the media in Croatia, so NH became more important. Ironically, communist censorship indirectly saved the journal. Censorship in Croatia reached such a level that the Hrvatski pravopis (Croatian Orthography) written by Stjepan Babić, Božidar Finka, and Milan Moguš, published in 1971, was banned by the Yugoslav authorities for political reasons shortly after it went into print. The Yugoslav authorities destroyed the entire print run of 40,000 copies. Only a few internal copies were preserved. This act of censorship was part of the Yugoslav authorities’ confrontation with the Croatian Spring at the end of 1971, because the Croatian orthography was created within the Matica hrvatska, the most important cultural-oppositional institution in socialist Croatia. However, the editorial board of NH, headed by Kušan, managed to get a copy and publish it in London in 1972. For many years, this book was a best-seller in the Croatian diaspora because it was a symbol of the Croatian Spring.63 The financial success of this book, as well as the contributions from about 20 friends of NH who donated money, enabled the editorial board of NH to buy a house in London which provided a new home for the editorial office. According to Kušan, it was the best investment in the history of NH.64

Kušan and NH constantly reported on fabricated lawsuits against Croatian intellectuals who were tried after the collapse of the Croatian Spring. NH tried to make news of these people’s fates reach the Western public and the Croatian émigré communities. In this regard, they also worked closely with Amnesty International, which they provided information and from which they also received information.65 Kušan also maintained contacts with and published articles and books by Croatian dissidents and oppositionists who could not publish in their homeland. UDBA informants reported that Kušan said that this way a “Croatian Solzhenitsyn could be created.”66 Kušan may have seen some kind of Croatian Solzhenitsyn in Franjo Tuđman, a Croatian historian and communist dissident who was expelled from the party in 1967. Kušan was involved in the publication of Tuđman’s book The National Question in Contemporary Europe in 1981,67 and Kušan’s wife Zdenka translated into English the court documents from Tudjman’s trial, which were also published in London in 1981.68 For the promotion of Croatian dissident writers, Kušan did the most, working together with Vinko Nikolić, when they decided to exhibit together at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Nikolić was the editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine Hrvatska revija (Croatian Review) and the head of the publishing house that bore the same name. Since 1973, they had been exhibiting in Frankfurt every year, and their exhibition stand was always well attended, although they knew that UDBA agents and informants were among the visitors.69 Yugoslav authorities even used the diplomatic apparatus in their attempts to ban Kušan’s participation in the Fair,70 but they did not succeed. Moreover, Kušan and Nikolić expanded their exhibition stand every year.

In addition to his connections with Croatian dissidents, UDBA’s informants also talked about Kušan’s connections with dissidents of other nationalities, such as the famous Milovan Đilas.71 Because he cooperated with Đilas, other Croatian émigrés criticized Kušan.72 In his work against the communist government in Yugoslavia, Kušan also collaborated with Serbian and Albanian dissidents and émigrés, and he took part in some anti-Yugoslav demonstrations organized in European cities.73

The collapse of the Croatian Spring and police clashes with the liberal and national currents in Croatia gave additional impetus to those in exile who believed that Croatian national goals could only be achieved by violent means.74 To acquaint the Western public with the position of Croats in Yugoslavia and to gain international support for the overthrow of the communist regime in Yugoslavia, a small number of Croatian émigré organizations advocated terrorism and were particularly active in the 1970s.75 Kušan believed that the terrorist actions did more harm than good to the Croatian struggle for independence, and in that sense, he also commented on the terrorist actions that some Croatian emigrants carried out in Germany and other European countries.76 He had no sympathies for the action of the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood (Hrvatsko revolucionarno bratstvo, or HRB), a Croatian revolutionary organization founded in 1961 in Australia that used terrorist methods, and their guerrilla incursion into Yugoslavia in June 1972. He believed that such actions were doomed to failure and would lead to unnecessary bloodshed, and he felt that the Croatian émigré communities would thus get a bad reputation in the world.77 The Croatian terrorist actions worked in favor of the Yugoslav government. The Yugoslav missions abroad and the secret services worked continuously to create a negative image of Croatian émigrés, trying to portray them as fascists and terrorists. The Yugoslav security and intelligence apparatus occasionally encouraged the radicalism of Croatian extremists in exile to discredit the political émigré community as a whole.78

The collapse of the Croatian Spring also affected numerous Croatian émigré organizations and individuals who were increasingly convinced that they had an obligation to take up the fight for Croatian interests and unite for this cause. In this sense, there were more attempts to unite all Croatian émigré organizations, which was accomplished with the establishment of the Croatian National Council (Hrvatsko narodno vijeće, or HNV) in 1974 in Toronto. It was an umbrella association of the Croatian diaspora which coordinated various émigré organizations that sought to present the case for Croat independence to the international community.79 In 1975, some of the most prominent magazines published by members of the Croatian émigré community, such as Hrvatska revija, Nova Hrvatska, and Studia Croatica joined the HNV. In 1975, Kušan also became a member of the HNV’s Congress and the Head of its Press and Advertising Department (1975–1977, 1979–1983).80 During the preparations for the elections for the Third Congress of the HNV, which were to be held in Australia in 1979,81 Kušan visited Australia and gave an interview for the national television there in which he spoke about the current case of the so-called Croatian six, who were six Australian citizens of Croatian descent who had been accused of attempting to carry out several terrorist attacks in Sydney in early 1979, which involved putting poison in the city’s water supply and planting a bomb in a theater. After a long trial, six Croatian-Australian men were sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1981 for a conspiracy to conduct terrorist attacks. The whole case was the result of the operation organized by the Yugoslav state security service to portray the Croatian-Australian community as extremists using Australian intelligence and police services as its tools.82 It was one of the methods of operation of the Yugoslav secret services, which sought to discredit the Croatian political émigré community. Before the trial was over and many years before the setup was revealed, Kušan told Australian television that it was a setup by the Yugoslav secret services.83

Since the late 1970s, Croatian émigrés had increasingly focused on calling attention to human rights violations in Yugoslavia.84 After the Helsinki Final Act was signed in 1975 at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), in which the communist countries pledged to respect human and civil rights, the issue of violation of these rights became one of the main means with which to exert pressure on the communist regimes in Europe. Croatian émigré organizations had increasingly warned Western institutions and the public about the position of political prisoners in Yugoslavia, and they had emphasized the right of Croats to national self-determination. In this sense, they were especially active during the CSCE in Belgrade (June 1977–March 1978) and Madrid (November 1980–September 1983). The UDBA noted Kušan’s particularly strong anti-Yugoslav activity during these conferences.85 Kušan always sought to portray the issue of human rights violations against Croats within the Yugoslav communist regime as an integral part of a transnational problem.

Return to the Homeland and Displacement to the Margins

After the fall of communism in Croatia in 1990, the editorial board of NH felt that there is no reason to publish the journal abroad. They planned to transfer the journal to Croatia and publish it from there. However, by returning to Croatia, Kušan became aware of the numerous problems in a society that suffered the consequences of almost half a century of communist rule. The prevailing spirit of materialism and the lack of idealism stunned Kušan. In his memoirs, he spoke about the atmosphere in which inherited habits and the mentality of censored journalism prevailed.86 In the newspaper business, he faced theft, corruption, and embezzlement, and he soon gave up publishing his journal.87 The Serbian uprising and open aggression against the Republic of Croatia in 1991 had an additional negative impact on the development of the media in Croatia at the time.

Nevertheless, in late 1990, Kušan decided to return to his homeland permanently and continue his struggle for a better society. In 1993, he became a chairperson of the board of directors of the Open Society Institute of Croatia. Given that the society was funded by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, Kušan was criticized by the Croatian right and the conservatives. However, Kušan responded to his critics, saying that Soros gave more money for humanitarian purposes than for political purposes.88 In 1995, Kušan was a co-founder of the Association of the Homeland and Diaspora for a Democratic Society. This association was renamed the Association for a Democratic Society, and Kušan was its president in 2004.89

In the 1990s, Kušan was disappointed by political developments in modern Croatia. He did not participate actively in political life. Moreover, in the public sphere, he was largely marginalized and has practically been forgotten in today’s Croatia. One of the main questions this paper raises is why he was marginalized. It is difficult to give a precise and clear answer to this question. Relevant historical sources, such as archival documents from the period after 1990, are still unavailable, so I can only venture tentative answers based on data concerning his political views until 1990, his memoirs published in 2000, and statements made by some of his close contemporaries.

Historian Wollfy Krašić considers Jakša Kušan the first Croatian intellectual to sketch the idea of so-called Croatian reconciliation or the all-Croatian peace.90 It is the idea of the necessity of cooperation among former enemy sides from World War II, Ustashas and Croatian partisans, and their descendants in the creation of an independent Croatian state. At the time of the fall of communism, the aforementioned former communist dissident Franjo Tuđman achieved great political success and won the first multi-party elections in Croatia in 1990. Although Tudjman’s idea of reconciliation generally coincided with Kušan’s vision, after the independence of Croatia, the two of them had practically no mutual relations. Perhaps the relationship between Kušan and Tuđman was a crucial factor in the process of Kušan’s marginalization in Croatian public life. After the death of Kušan in 2019, Vladimir Pavlinić, his long-time close associate and also one of the editors of Nova Hrvatska, said that Tuđman was the one to blame. He claimed that Tuđman had begun to establish secret contacts with Kušan’s circle in the mid-1970s. Tuđman had sent documents concerning his trials and his new books to the editorial board of Nova Hrvatska, and they had published and translated them into English so that the global public would be able to read about him and his case.91 However, Pavlinić believes Tuđman shifted his circle of confidants in exile to Canadian-Australian radical organizations in the late 1980s. According to Pavlinić, Tuđman discarded the once very useful Kušan even before Kušan returned to Croatia. Pavlinić says that Tuđman invited Kušan from London to Zagreb in June 1990 to talk about founding a Croatian news agency and that at one point he had asked Kušan why he was writing hostilely about him and his political party, Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, or HDZ).92 Tuđman referred to an article Kušan had published in Nova Hrvatska in March 1990. Kušan had commented extensively in the article on the First General Assembly of the HDZ, which had just been held. Kušan had claimed that the assembly had not touched on real political issues and that the gathering had resembled communist congresses, where it was not important what was said but only who was speaking.93 Kušan had been critical in the article of the HDZ, perhaps even more so because he advocated that the anti-communist opposition in Croatia act together as a united coalition. As the HDZ decided to run in the elections on its own, Kušan sympathized with its rival, the Coalition of People’s Accord (Koalicija narodnog sporazuma, or KNS). Pavlinić believed that Kušan’s libertarian thinking was enough for Tuđman to label Kušan an enemy of the people and that this had been a stigma that Kušan had carried until his death.94 Another one of Kušan’s former associates, Gojko Borić, had a similar view. He believed that any members of the émigré communities who had not been close to Tuđman had suffered great disappointment and failed in anything they had undertaken after the collapse of communism in Croatia.95

A few years before his death, Kušan mentioned that the change in his relations with Tuđman took place after the founding of the HDZ in June 1989.96 It is difficult to say what disrupted the relationship between the two. Perhaps the answer to that question lies in another question: why did Tuđman turn to Canadian-Australian circles of the Croatian émigré world?

If we observe the development of Kušan’s attitudes regarding the struggle for Croatian independence, a certain evolution of attitudes is noticeable. Although Kušan advocated the necessity of Croatia’s exit from communist Yugoslavia, in the 1980s his attitudes softened, and on several occasions, he said that Croatia could remain in Yugoslavia if Yugoslavia were to become a real liberal democracy. One of the reasons why Kušan was marginalized in the 1990s may be that, while supporting the struggle of all dissidents in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, he insisted less on Croatian independence and more on the democratization of Yugoslavia. Perhaps this shift, the milder approach of Kušan’s circle to the question of the existence of Yugoslavia, was why Tuđman turned to the Canadian and Australian part of the Croatian émigré world, which was more nationalistic and hardline. Perhaps Tuđman turned to the émigrés in Canada and Australia because they were also wealthier than those from Kušan’s circle, and he hoped to get stronger financial support from them for his political activities.

On the other hand, Kušan was disappointed with the achievements of democratic Croatia in the first decade of its existence. He believed that the ideals that he and other émigrés gathered around Nova Hrvatska had fought for had not been realized.97 Kušan was also disappointed with the new government’s attitude towards the Croatian émigré communities. He believed that the government had embraced members of these communities who had never had much influence and who, in his assessment, had no real grasp of the true values of freedom and democracy.98 He believed that the HDZ’s policy was guided by short-term goals and that the émigré communities were important to the party only as a source of financial and material resources with which the party would be better positioned to win elections and resist Serbian aggression. He believed that the UDBA in Croatia had changed sides overnight and joined the new government. In his memoirs, he expressed these concerns:

In this way, human rights violators from the previous regime, including notorious criminals, were not brought to justice. In return, and for balance, mostly extreme elements from the émigré world were brought home, and they were given high political, military, and police duties. The former UDBA agents and “the greatest Croats” found themselves side by side in many places... Essentially, this only confirms what we often emphasized, namely that there was never a significant difference between totalitarian communists and national extremists.99

Kušan believed that this was why many respectable Croatian émigrés distanced themselves from the new government. He believed that the HDZ had chosen this path to facilitate its consolidation and because of a lack of democratic sense at the top of the party. Furthermore, the political inexperience of voters and the apparent weakness of the domestic media, both as a direct consequence of the half-century one-party system and the war that soon followed, facilitated the undemocratic practice and delayed democratization processes.100 According to Kušan, these negative developments had psychological causes. The high degree of materialism which prevailed in all post-communist societies had further accelerated the spread of corruption and the overwhelming alliance between tycoons and politicians.101

This hypothesis requires further study, which will only be possible when archival sources from the 1990s are fully available. In this sense, it is worth mentioning the personal archive of Franjo Tuđman, which is still inaccessible to the public. It would also be useful to see and research the editorial archive and correspondence of the magazine Nova Hrvatska, which Kušan handed over to the National and University Library in Zagreb. Unfortunately, although more than a quarter of a century has passed since Kušan turned these documents over, they are still inaccessible to the public. This can also be seen as an indication that Kušan is a forgotten figure in Croatian political and cultural history. On the other hand, Kušan’s private collection, which he kept in his apartment in Zagreb, is also important for future research. According to his wishes, his private collection will be handed over to the Franciscan monastery in Visoko in Bosnia and Herzegovina.102

Nevertheless, it is a telling fact that only after Tuđman’s death did Kušan become more present in public life, and he also performed some public duties. This was the time of the new left-liberal coalition government, which ruled Croatia for several years after the death of Tuđman. From 2000 to 2004, Kušan was a chairperson on the board of directors of the Croatian Heritage Foundation, and from 2001 to 2002, he was a member of the Council of the Croatian Radio and Television.103

Conclusion

Although most of the East European diasporas which originated from areas that were subjected to communist rule were antagonistic towards communism and were preoccupied with the question of national identity and national independence,104 within these diasporas, there was a diversity of ideas and political views. One of the atypical representatives of the Croatian political diaspora was journalist and publicist Jakša Kušan.

Kušan distinguished himself from the majority of Croatian political emigrants through his persistent endeavors to broaden his network of resistance. Already as a student at the Free Europe University in Exile, he encountered and connected with various intellectuals, including the renowned writer Czesław Miłosz.105 He maintained a long-standing collaboration with the distinguished journalist Viktor Zorza, and through his journalistic and editorial work, he established connections with various democratically oriented intellectuals and organizations, such as Amnesty International. In building his network of resistance, he collaborated with other ethnic and national groups, not only those originating from the Yugoslav region but also with Poles and Estonians, for instance.106 Through years of participation at the Frankfurt Book Fair, he emphasized the importance of culture as a primary form of resistance against authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Alongside democracy and freedom, he regarded culture as one of the main pillars of the new democratic Croatia.

This article presented the most important of Kušan’s activities during the period of communist rule in Yugoslavia, bringing to light new information concerning his life and work. The archives of the Yugoslav secret services are a fascinating source of data which can fill numerous lacunae in our knowledge of Kušan’s oppositional activities. This article shows that Kušan was a ubiquitous figure in the Croatian émigré world who was involved in many of most important events and organizations in Croatian diaspora, such as the Croatian National Council, and who was also important transnationally. In the diaspora, he stood out because of his constant struggle for democratic principles and pluralism, as well as the idea of reconciling the Croatian right and left, which, he felt, was a prerequisite for the creation of a modern democratic and pluralistic Croatia. In that sense, he had a significant influence on numerous actors in the émigré world and among dissidents and oppositional figures in Yugoslavia. Recent historiography has already noted that the idea of all-Croatian reconciliation, first outlined in the mid-1950s by Kušan, was eventually advocated by communist dissident Franjo Tuđman, who in the late 1980s became one of the main representatives of the opposition to communism in Croatia and won the first democratic multi-party elections in 1990 and became the first president of the newly independent Croatia. Kušan may have been somewhat surprisingly marginalized after his return to Croatia in the early 1990s in part because of his relationship with Tuđman. It is possible that in the context of the struggle for political power in Croatia, Kušan, who had been a long-term supporter and promoter of Tuđman, became a political enemy. Although this hypothesis requires further study and substantiation with sources which remain inaccessible, it certainly does not seem implausible. In the 1990s, Kušan was close to Tuđman’s political opponents, and he wrote critically about the new democratically elected government.

Kušan was thus not simply an archetypal representative of the transnational struggle against communist dictatorships but also a non-conformist who persisted in the fight for democracy and human rights even after the communist dictatorship had fallen. He continued his “Battle for a New Croatia,” which was also the title of his memoirs published in 2000.107

Archival Sources

Hrvatski državni arhiv, Zagreb [Croatian State Archives] (HDA)

HR-HDA-1561, SDS RSUP SRH The State Security Service of the Republic Internal Affairs Secretariat of the Socialist Republic of Croatia

Intelligence Files, 229528 Kušan Jakša

Oral history (interviews)

Bing, Albert, and Josip Mihaljević. Interview with Jakša Kušan, May 26, 2016. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection.

Mihaljević, Josip. Interview with Jakša Kušan, April 05, 2018. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection.

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Trošelj Miočević, Tanja. “Hrvatsko narodno vijeće od 1974. do 1990” [Croatian National Council 1974–1990]. Obnovljeni život 75, no. 2 (2020): 229–44.

Vlašić, Anđelko. “List Nova Hrvatska 1958–1962” [The paper Nova Hrvatska, 1958–1962]. In Disidentstvo u suvremenoj povijesti [Dissent in contemporary history], edited by Nada Kisić Kolanović, Zdenko Radelić, and Katarina Spehnjak, 291–314. Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2010.

Wright, Michael. Victor Zorza: a life amid loss. Lancaster: Observatory Publications, 2006.

* The research is conducted within the project “Exploring emotions in the (re)construction of diaspora identity: Croats in Australia and New Zealand (1945–1991),“ funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.

Concepts of Diversity in the Time of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437): Introductory Remarks and Conceptual Approaches*

Julia Burkhardt

Faculty of History and the Arts, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

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Paul Schweitzer-Martin

Faculty of History and the Arts, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2  (2024):153-171 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.153

On January 20, 1438, a memorial service for Sigismund of Luxembourg was held in the cathedral of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik). Sigismund, who had been king and emperor of many realms, had died a few weeks earlier, and in many regions of Europe, he was commemorated with church services, the ringing of bells, and solemn speeches.1 Ragusa was no exception: here, in front of an exclusive audience, the Italian scholar Philip Diversi († 1452) spoke in memory of the deceased.2 Philip first referred to his unworthiness and then outlined Sigismund’s connection to Ragusa before moving on to the emperor’s greatest achievement: Sigismund’s commitment to unity in the Church, evident in his efforts against the Ottomans and Hussites. Whole countries, including “Italy, Germany, Spain, Gaul, England, all the transalpine regions, all peoples and nations” even the very “earth and all the seas [...], the rivers, mountains, valleys, and finally all elements”3 had born witness to Sigismund’s achievements. The emperor had traveled to all “places, coasts, the most remote regions and the whole world, as well as to kings, leaders, princes, and Christian peoples”4 with tireless commitment and prudence. If this picture of imperial omnipresence did not convince the members of Philip’s audience, they should compare their own deeds with those of Sigismund. They would then clearly see that their achievements hardly bore any comparison with his, “neither with regard to the variety of regions, nor the effort to travel all over the world, nor the speed of their execution, the dexterity of warfare, the number or size of battles, or the conclusion of peace and alliances.”5 Thus all the peoples of all the many languages of Europe should commemorate the great emperor’s passing.

Similarly, almost four years earlier, Isidore of Kiev († 1462) had commented on Sigismund’s praiseworthy character and accomplishments. Isidore had traveled to the Council of Basel as a delegate of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos to negotiate the union of the Latin and Greek churches.6 En route, he stopped at the Imperial Diet in Ulm, where he held a panegyric speech and managed to persuade Sigismund of the importance of future cooperation. Isidore also praised Sigismund’s commitment to the unity of Christendom throughout Europe (only logical in view of his efforts to bring about Church union). Sigismund, Isidore insisted, was well equipped to do this. He was, after all, fluent in Latin, German, Hungarian, Czech, and Italian.7 In addition, Isidore claimed, Sigismund had shown a sense of justice and foresight. He had stayed awake “through whole nights in concern for the state [... and had taken care] with foresight of peoples, cities and people, and everything that concerned them!” Isidore also noted that if the emperor’s presence was necessary somewhere, “then [he did] not allow [himself] any rest, without thinking even in the least about postponement or rest for the body. As if on wings, [he seemed] to fly here and [was] always on the move [...].”8 Isidore expressed his astonishment at the emperor’s devotion and accomplishments with an exclamation rich with pathos: “Who has as much power and rulership and who commands as many vast peoples [...] as you, Your Majesty?”9

Ruling Diverse Realms and Territories: The Case of
Sigismund of Luxembourg

Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437) not only ruled over an impressive array of territories but also reigned for a long period of time. From the perspective of diversity, Sigismund of Luxembourg’s reign represents a fortunate but also challenging case study. Fortunate because immensely rich and varied sources have survived from Sigismund’s long reign in Hungary, the Holy Roman Empire, and Bohemia. These sources provide detailed insights into the significance and roles of categories of difference, social affiliations, group identities, and negotiation processes. The two examples introduced above only give a small glimpse of these kinds of bonds and processes. Challenging, however, because Sigismund was confronted with very different cultural and political conditions in each of his kingdoms. The reality of a personal union across several kingdoms therefore consisted less of a centrally organized power structure and more of different spheres of influence with their own structures and methods of exerting influence. The rule of Sigismund as a cosmopolitan figure who governed vast territories led to a multiplication and differentiation of monarchical centers.10 Resilient alliances, effective communicative strategies, and a considerable degree of everyday political pragmatism were constitutive for the period of Sigismund’s rule. Depending on the situation and the local balance of power, Sigismund, his allies, and his opponents alike had to renegotiate or reconfirm interests, power relations, and coalitions in different regions, depending on the temporal, spatial, and social contexts.

The territories ruled by Sigismund and the neighboring regions significantly influenced by him served as the framework and the focal points of case studies for the international and interdisciplinary conference “DIVERSITAS (Sigis)MUNDI – Politische, soziale, religiöse und kulturelle Vielfalt in der Zeit Sigismunds von Luxemburg (1368–1437)“ [DIVERSITAS (Sigis-)MUNDI. Political, social, religious, and cultural diversity in the time of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437)], which took place in Munich in February 2023.11 The conference aimed to reveal dynamics, conflicts, regional peculiarities, and the significance of various affiliations in the time of Sigismund of Luxembourg by focusing on a range of case studies. In addition to questions of political history, issues involving social and economic history, migration history, gender history, religious history, object and art history, personal history, and spatial history were considered. Presentations and joint debates were dedicated to the question of how religious, cultural, and linguistic diversity influenced local practices of rule and governance. Furthermore, we considered the extent to which categories of difference (such as religion, social status, gender, and ethnicity) established politically relevant group constellations. We also discussed whether specific practices and semantics were developed to cope with diversity. Finally, we considered the ways in which the various categories of difference overlapped or reinforced one another.

In order to provide a forum for discussion of these questions, the conference focused on the period of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437). But more importantly, it considered the meanings and applicability of diversity as an analytical term for Medieval Studies. The conference panels were structured around four fields: political, social, religious, and cultural diversity. These fields enabled the participants to focus on a variety of types of diversity, e.g. religious practices, concepts of the unity both of the Church and of empires. Other issues were discussed, including multilingualism, the roles of learned men and women, multiple cities, and propaganda and conflicts.

This special issue of the Hungarian Historical Review presents selected case studies from the 2023 conference. Instead of providing a summary of the papers or retracing the four conference sessions, our introduction focuses on the various possible meanings of the term diversity, methodological approaches to the study of diversity, and the relevance or applicability of these approaches to the field of Medieval Studies.12 We discuss ways in which we can study political, social, religious, and cultural differences in the Middle Ages through the prism of diversity and the terminological and methodological challenges this presents.

Modern and Historic Meanings of “Diversity”: Approaching
a Challenging Term and Its Usages in Medieval Studies

The term diversity can be understood in a variety of ways, as current debates concerning social/gender/class equality and sociological discussions about social orders aptly demonstrate.13 In historical research, however, there seems to be no fixed definition. For this reason, the conference concept used a broad understanding of this term, defining diversity simply as any potential system of differentiation.14 Some conference papers noted that diversity is not merely an analytical term, as one does indeed find the Latin term diversitas in numerous medieval sources.15 However, more than once it became clear that this term does not translate to a modern concept of diversity, especially not to diversity as “celebration of difference.”16 This first impression, if perhaps vague, is confirmed by the definition of diversitas provided by the Oxford Latin Dictionary:

dīuersitās, -ātis f.

1. A state of being apart, separateness, distance.

2. The condition or fact of being different, diversity, difference; difference

of method.

3a. Difference of opinion, disagreement (between).

3b. a contradictory state, inconsistency.17

These observations lead us to two questions. First, is it misleading to use the term diversity in studies on the Middle Ages despite the fact that it may well have meant something else in the sources? Second, is diversity a useful neutral and methodologically convincing term?18 Numerous papers of this special issue highlight that the term could have an ambiguous or even negative nuance in the Middle Ages.19 Does that mean we should draw distinctions between positive and negative connotations of diversity in historical research?

To provide some idea of how these two questions can be handled, we should first discuss conceptual and terminological aspects regarding diversity. Today, the concept of diversity is of growing importance and finds itself at the center of political and social debates (e.g. political/religious/social/ethnic/gender diversity, diversity management in work environment, biodiversity, etc.).20 For the most part, the term is used to refer to issues of race, class, and gender, but it is not limited to these aspects.21 The Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides recent examples on the web for each dictionary entry.22 These examples suggest that American newspapers and magazines tend to use the term diversity together with the word inclusion, so the term indeed leans towards aspects of race, class, and gender.23

This certainly is not the way Sigismund of Luxembourg or his contemporaries (the case study for this special issue) would have understood diversity. However, recent trends and debates have clearly reflected on academic research and on study programs taught at history departments and other university institutes.24 In January 2023, for example, the History Department at the University of Münster advertised a permanent position (open to historians of all historical periods) as lecturer with a focus on diversity.25 They were seeking someone who could teach “in the field of ‘diversity’ (including culture, religion, ideology, ethnic or social origin, gender, age, disability),” understood as “a social phenomenon as well as a key concept and field of research in historical studies.”26 According to this text, the department’s concept of diversity is quite broad. Compared to the focus fields of our conference, it additionally comprises ideology, ethnic origin, gender, age, and disability.27 Overall, this advertisement testifies to a growing academic interest in this field, independent of specific periods, as much as it shows how extensive and vague the very concept of diversity is.

Drawing on this example, we pondered the extent to which the term is relevant (or increasingly relevant) to the field of Medieval Studies in particular. Without claiming completeness, we tried to establish a first impression based on findings generated by searches in the bibliographical databases RI-Opac (Regesta Imperii-Opac) and IMB (International Medieval Bibliography). According to our statistical analysis, the term diversity (or “Diversität” in German) has only come into use for publications by medievalists since the late 1990s. If one counts all entries using the term “Diversität” or “diversity” in the title of a book or article without, however, counting titles that were indexed with the term diversity, the number of results is limited: about 90 in the IMB and about 30 in the RI-Opac. Compared to many other key words of medieval studies, these are fairly low numbers. As is so often the case, there are various explanations. Mostly, this topic has a lot to do with labels. There has been considerable research and scholarship on social and religious difference in the Middle Ages, but often this scholarship is part of studies focused mostly on other topics and therefore does not show in the databases if one considers only the titles of publications. Examples include studies focused on the crusaders or on pluri-religious cultural contact zones.28

What, however, do authors mean when they use the label diversity for their publications? Diversity is often used as a synonym for “variety” or “plurality,” and vice versa.29 These terms are not quite the same in English and German, but they have clear overlaps. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes diversity as “the condition of having or being composed of differing elements (especially the inclusion of people of different races, cultures, etc. in a group or organization).”30 Plurality is defined as “a) the state of being plural, b) the state of being numerous, c) a large number or quantity,”31 while variety is “the quality or state of having different forms or types.”32 While we cannot discuss the manifold studies on plurality in the Middle Ages here,33 we would like to suggest the use of diversity as an analytical tool for Medieval Studies. This is not a political agenda that seeks to highlight or promote diversity in history. Rather, compared to terms such as plurality and variety, diversity as a concept seems to offer the clearest focus on individuals and groups, and this makes it an attractive concept for the study of social groups and their structures and forms of identity.

Diversity as an Analytical Tool for Medieval Studies?
Conceptual and Terminological Suggestions

Accordingly, the levels of meaning and areas of application of this term vary considerably. Diversity is often used to describe very different areas, ideas, and social practices. Cultural scientist Margit E. Kaufmann even characterizes diversity as a “tense dispositive of the Zeitgeist.”34 According to Kaufmann, the widespread use of the term diversity can be understood as a reaction to tensions within Western societies. Cultural anthropologist Steven Vertovec even states that our time is not necessarily “characterized by a higher degree of social difference than earlier times, but […] discourses about diversity are ubiquitous in the contemporary era.”35

From a historical perspective, on the other hand, Thomas Bauer, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies, recently noted a significant loss of diversity and ambiguity in modern times under the catchphrase of the “disambiguation of the world” (“Vereindeutigung der Welt”). Bauer suspects that this development is a trait of modernity, which is characterized by a trend toward the annihilation of diversity and the rejection of ambiguity. In contrast, Bauer attests to the exemplary character (from the perspective of diversity) of pre-modern societies, because they were “tolerant of ambiguity” (“ambiguitätstolerant”) and thus well versed in modes of dealing with social, cultural, and religious differences. In contrast to countries in Africa, the Near East, or Asia, which he contends offer examples of “real multiculturalism” (“wirkliche Multikulturalität”), Bauer considers pre-modern Europe monocultural due to the homogenizing effect of Christianity: “In the pre-modern era, no continent was as religiously and culturally uniform as Europe.”36

A medieval monarch like Sigismund of Luxembourg or his contemporary observers like Philip Diversi and Isidore of Kiev would probably have been surprised by this assessment. After all, Sigismund ruled and influenced large parts of Europe. Sigismund was always confronted with diverse day-to-day political disputes, different groups, differing concepts of belonging, and a differentiation of participatory structures, whether these differences were consequences of the “Great Western Schism,” the war against the Hussites, debates concerning the power of disposition in his kingdoms, efforts to unify Christendom, or defense measures against the Ottomans.

But do we need the concept of diversity for research on Sigismund and his time? Does the study of historical constellations through the prism of diversity really yield new or different findings? Or is diversity just a buzzword synonymous with variety, plurality, or multiculturalism? And does the term, which is used today primarily in reference to race, class, and gender, possibly direct our gaze away from forms of alterity in medieval societies? The aim of this special issue is not to impose modern notions of diversity on medieval societies. Nevertheless, it seems that a term that is primarily used with political and social connotations and implications has great potential for academic discussions, less as an empirical than as an analytical category.

At the heart of diversity lie “different conceptions of social difference.” It is thus a relational concept which highlights differences in terms of social categories and can be applied to relational structures within a social space. Consequently, as Steven Vertovec suggests, an important basic assumption is “the recognition of social difference,”37 regardless of which aspects are brought into focus. This is also where Moritz Florin, Victoria Gutsche, and Natalie Krentz started in 2018 when they made the first systematic attempt to make diversity applicable to historical case studies. They understand diversity as a “system of differentiations”38 that could be pronounced and asserted differently depending on historical constellations. First, a broad reservoir of categories of difference is to be assumed (e.g. religion, language, gender, social position, etc.), which can become visible and effective in different ways. Then, we must ask for forms of dealing with these social differences. In addition to the marking of otherness, the resulting options for perception and action are crucial. These include both observable positioning by means of clothing, symbolic external presentation, and use of language or religious practice and discursive positioning within a social hierarchy.39

Depending on the context, differentiated categories can lead to social inequalities, disparate distribution of resources, and different opportunities for participation. They can but do not necessarily have to contribute to the consolidation of social hierarchies. At the same time, the categories that are used to define and legitimize differences are variable in terms of their content or use, and thus the practices and semantics of differentiation are similarly variable. Categories of difference can be used to legitimize or negate claims to resources or to create new normative orders.40

Diversity as a historical category of analysis thus does not serve as a means of tracing static forms of inclusion or exclusion.41 Rather, according to our hypothesis, it can further more nuanced contextualization of political, social, cultural, and religious differences and hierarchies historically in their relevance to processes of social negotiation and also reveal semantic or narrative changes in the ways in which these differences were reified, challenged, or exploited.42 Whether “plurality” (“Vielfalt”) is an adequate synonym for diversity or whether, as in recent migration research, terms such as “multiplicity” (“Vielheit”)43 or alternatives are more appropriate remains a matter for discussion.

The papers in this special issue consider which sources reveal information about social differences and hierarchies. They thereby show that a variety of sources and phenomena can provide knowledge about forms of social dif­fe­rentiation. One can easily state that it is possible to study diversity in the Middle Ages and that this study of diversity is fruitful. However, not everything we can study has to be studied or has the same importance. Without any doubt, the concept of diversity offers new perspectives on social groups and phenomena that have not been given the attention they deserve. At the same time, we need to discuss whether and how the modern concept of diversity is applicable to the Middle Ages. The easy answer would be yes, it is applicable, but we have to be cautious and precise. It is important to understand the study of diversity not solely as analysis of markers of difference, such as race, class, and gender, but also as the study of concepts, definitions, and uses of variety, understanding contemporary assessments of such variety and its social functions and contexts.

Baring this in mind and based on the papers of the conference and the articles in this special issue, we would like to highlight four aspects that struck us as good reference points to show why it is important to focus on diversity as a concept. First, when applying the concept of diversity, many case studies also found notions of unity and uniformity. These concepts are certainly essential to any understanding of groups and societies, and thus they are of great importance to the field of medieval studies. In some cases, unity and uniformity seem to be opposed to social differentiations. In other cases, these differentiations can be part of unity. Thus, as an analytical tool, diversity can further a more nuanced understanding of how various forms of unity were understood and how they functioned.44

Second, differences and hierarchies typically can be found in processes of inclusion and exclusion used by self-fashioning social groups. This becomes visible in the cases of numerous religious groups and subgroups but also in uses of language (understood broadly also as discursive styles), forms of symbolic expression, and communication strategies.45 At the same time, the papers discuss how social groups were imagined, for instance in the case of individual cities, knights, the nobility, and possibly even heretics.46 If we analyze these constellations through the prism of diversity (within a realm or outside it), we can arrive at a richer grasp of how these groups were constructed and how they functioned.47

Third, we can ask whether positive and negative conceptions of diversity can be handled analytically the same way. Negative and positive connotations of diversity certainly are closely linked to processes of inclusion and exclusion and can even be used as tools in these processes. As a term, diversity has a number of meanings, ranging from separateness and the condition of being different to a difference of opinion. And scenarios of diversity are conceived in multiple ways. If possible, in our analysis we should make clear how diversity was assessed at the time in its specific context to preclude misconceptions by modern readers.48

And last, what role do differences and imaginations play in learning and imitating in art and scholarship, in connecting people, and in establishing opportunities for cultural exchange? Contact zones (understood both spatially and socially) seem to be especially fruitful for these questions.49 These contact zones can include regions such as the Adriatic or the Mediterranean,50 assemblies such as councils or parliaments,51 and cities and even courts.52 We can study both the intellectual works and artifacts produced in these milieus and contact zones and we can focus on individual people and their motives and interests.

These four spotlights highlight only some aspects and debates of this special issue. In many cases, the focus on diversity puts social groups, social practices, social discourses, and forms of identity building or interactions with these forms of identity into focus. This seems to be a promising way of broadening our perspective on the period of Sigismund of Luxembourg beyond the emperor and the nobility surrounding him. Analyzing modes of differentiation in the Middle Ages thus means applying the analytical category of diversity, which furthers a more nuanced understanding of social groups, their practices, and how they interacted with and conceived of one another.

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* We would like to thank our anonymous reviewers for their remarks, which helped clarify our argu­menta­tion.

Unitas and Diversitas: Sigismund’s Empire as
a Model of Late Medieval Rulership

Bernd Schneidmüller

Heidelberg University

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2  (2024):172-194 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.172

This article analyzes the emperorship of Sigismund (1368–1437) as a particular configuration of rule in the fifteenth century. Research on the medieval Holy Roman Empire in the Latin West has traditionally focused on the great emperors from the ninth century to the thirteenth. In contrast, imperial coronations and imperial rule in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have received much less attention. The article first presents the structural features of the Holy Roman Empire and then focuses on the significant changes to this structure in the late Middle Ages. Discontinuities made imperial rule the exception rather than the rule. Long intervals between imperial coronations always required reinventions of traditions, which led to situational negotiations among popes, authorized cardinals, and emperors. In 1433, Sigismund was the first emperor since 1220 to receive his coronation from the pope himself in Rome. The article makes it clear that Sigismund was a master in the creation of new rituals and symbols. During his reign, the imagery of the empire expanded significantly. Alongside unity (unitas) came diversity (diversitas). The article shows how differently the imperial coronation of 1433 was perceived and narrated by contemporaries in Italy and Germany.

Keywords: Holy Roman Empire, emperorship in the late Middle Ages, coronation, Emperor Sigismund, Roman popes, perceptions of power

Through his imperial coronation on May 31, 1433, Sigismund (1410–1437) aligned himself with the long-established traditions of papal elevation ceremonies in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.1 In the Middle Ages, the concept of Latin emperorship elevated kingship to a heightened status and gave it a unique and universal dignity. This was deeply rooted in salvation history, yet it did not necessarily translate to a practical increase in power. This article outlines the overarching framework encompassing the images, assertions, and actualities of emperorship in the late Middle Ages.2 It then delves into Sigismund’s emperorship, exploring four lines of inquiry: (1) the novel notions of parallels between Roman emperorship and kingship in the context of Sigismund’s dual kingship in 1410–11; (2) the reasons behind the absence of Sigismund’s imperial coronation during the Council of Constance despite his role as a patron of the Holy Roman Church; (3) the question as to whether the Roman king truly needed a ceremonial elevation to emperor in Rome; and (4) the motivations behind the late achievement of Sigismund’s imperial coronation. Was it merely a matter of preference or was it a belated pursuit of a missed opportunity?

The essay begins with an introduction of depictions of an emperor, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive analysis of sources that have been acknowledged but not yet systematically contextualized. Sigismund emerges as a ruler around whom there was a rich array of imagery and who was skilled in grand presentations and a creator of rituals and symbols of authority. The work on monuments of German kings and emperors by Schramm and Fillitz fail to capture this abundance.3 Only the exhibitions in 2006 in Budapest and Luxembourg made an earnest attempt to amass these images.4 Claudia Märtl has recently highlighted the disparity in research attention to emperorship between the early and high Middle Ages compared to the fifteenth century, which has led to an uneven focus on written and visual sources.5

Proceeding with a focus on Emperor Sigismund, the essay first offers three illustrative examples. Firstly, “the man with the fur cap,” a parchment on wood housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, garners attention for its quality and uniqueness. Its creation is dated to around 1420 or 1436–37.6 Multiple representations of Sigismund wearing a fur cap suggest its significance to the king and emperor. The depiction reveals a diadem atop the fur cap and the opulence of his robe.

Secondly, the image of Sigismund’s Roman imperial coronation by Pope Eugene IV (1431–1447) in 1433 endures visually. Bronze reliefs by Filarete, commissioned by Eugene between 1433 and 1445, adorn the central portal of the new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. These reliefs portray significant scenes, including Sigismund’s coronation and his journey with the pope to the Ponte Sant’Angelo. The images symbolize the submission of the Christian emperor to the authority of the pope.7

A third image is sketched in the words of the Mainz merchant Eberhard Windeck. He wrote his “Book of Emperor Sigismund” soon after Sigismund’s death. It has survived in several text manuscripts and in two illuminated manuscripts. Windeck tells a scandalous story denouncing the negligent treatment of the Germans at the Roman Curia. It is said that Sigismund’s imperial crown was placed crookedly on his head during the coronation: “So the emperor knelt before the pope. Then the pope lifted his right foot and placed the crown straight on the emperor’s head, as is right and customary.” In his narrative of the presentation of the sword, Windeck amplified the scandal of the “foot-crowning.” Allegedly, during the reading of the Gospels, the pope gave the emperor the bare sword “with the top to his hand. The emperor’s marshal reversed it and placed it correctly in the emperor’s hand. And then the emperor finished singing the gospel.”8 The narrative presentation of this double affront was intended to scandalize and provoke German sentiment against the Curia. This tale, while probably not historically accurate, provides insight into the contemporary perspective on imperial coronations.

These images present emperorship characterized by humility and humiliation. Eberhard Windeck’s chronicle defines Sigismund as the “Light of the World,” emphasizing his role as both Roman king and emperor.9 In his account of the emperor’s death, Sigismund’s flair for drama in his presentation of himself is evident, as he dons ecclesiastical vestments and the imperial crown before passing. Windeck describes Sigismund’s desire for his corpse to put on display for days to show that the ruler of the world had died.10

The juxtaposition of the titles “Light of the world” and “Lord of the world” raises questions about the essence of emperorship in the fifteenth century. This assertion of universal primacy contrasts with the submissiveness Sigismund displayed before the pope. These observations prompt an exploration of the evolving nature of late medieval emperorship in Latin Christianity, leading back to a deeper examination of Sigismund’s role as emperor.

Emperorship as a Figure of Order

Emperorship represented an elevated form of kingship, but what contributed to this elevation? Who played a role in shaping it? Who embraced it? It is worth examining the foundational principles of emperorship within the Holy Roman Empire.11 Below, I present nine key aspects in a simplified breakdown.12

(1) Emperorship drew its inspiration from ancient models of order. It em­bodied both a sense of exceptional universality and the ability to accept ex­ternal rulers, without making this apparent contradiction a central challenge. The concept of earthly superiority was developed to boost the legitimacy and authority of the emperor, although this concept did not necessarily extend beyond the empire’s borders. A strict hierarchical structure was not theoretically established. The distinction between higher-level emperorship and subordinate kingship was context-dependent and pragmatic. An early medieval doctrinal text offered the following formulation: “King is he who rules over one people or more. Emperor is he who rules over the whole world or takes precedence in it.”13 While some sources did describe emperorship as dominion over the entire world, these memorable phrases did not align with the reality of diverse rule on earth. Despite being perceived as universal during the Latin Middle Ages, emperorship functioned within the plurality of monarchies.

(2) The restoration of the Roman Empire in the West by Charlemagne in 800 endowed the notion of emperorship of the Latin Middle Ages with a new dimension. After initial experimentation with rituals in the early nineth century, emperorship formed a liturgical partnership with the papacy as the second universal authority that claimed unique dominion on Earth. The “ordines” of crowning and anointing in St. Peter’s Basilica integrated the spiritual agency of the popes and the religious devotion of the emperors. The historical primacy of the Roman Empire, established in ancient times, shifted to emphasize collective responsibility for Latin Christianity. This conferred a sacred grandeur and distinct Christian charisma on the emperorship, rooted in its foundation at the tomb of Peter, prince of the apostles. This evolved into the idea that Augustus’ empire preceded the Christian church and laid the groundwork for the Savior’s birth. However, imbuing secular rule with spiritual significance led to functional dependencies and personal considerations, preventing a comprehensive political embodiment of imperial dignity throughout the Middle Ages. This complexity should not be seen as a missed opportunity of the imperial state or as capitulation to papal precedence, as once argued by German scholarship. On a pragmatic level, the Frankish and later East Frankish kings’ patronage of the Holy Roman Church offered a significant opportunity for participation in the imperial traditions of the ancient Mediterranean world.

(3) The unity of the Mediterranean region as a whole was disrupted in the seventh century. First, the Arab expansion and the formation of the Muslim empire fractured this unity. Subsequently, in the eighth century, the Franks gained political ascendancy in the West. This prompted the Roman papacy to shift its allegiance from Constantinople to rulers in Gaul and Italy, resulting in the coexistence of two Roman and Christian empires. Thus, the once unified ancient world empire gave way to three separate empires. From Charlemagne’s re-establishment of the western imperium Romanum in 800 until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Christendom navigated the presence or contestation of two Christian emperors. During Sigismund’s reign, genuine attempts were made to reconcile Eastern and Western Christianities, yet the competition between Christian and Muslim universal claims persisted beyond the Middle Ages. Between 800 and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the emperorship of Frankish, East Frankish, and German kings played a significant role in shaping the history of Latin Europe. Additionally, variations of imperial concepts emerged at times in regions such as the British Isles, Iberian Peninsula, and France.

(4) The notion of the shared responsibilities of emperors and popes en­countered challenges during the Investiture Controversy, during which the popes asserted their authority more forcefully than the emperors. This period marked the onset of conflicts over primacy and the nature of their mutual relationship. These disputes often revolved around ritual actions during personal encounters, with both pope and emperor demanding obedience from each other.

(5) Around the year 1200, Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) heightened the papal claim to examine the eligibility and qualification of the future Roman kings. This pretense was grounded in the earlier papal transfers of the emperorship from the Greeks to the Franks and then to the Germans (translatio imperii). According to Innocent III, this historical transfer granted the popes authority over the empire’s destiny from its inception. Since only the Roman king would later be crowned as the Roman emperor by the pope, it was deemed essential for the pope to assess the king’s suitability at the time of election. While the Roman kings never fully acknowledged this approbation claim, they had to contend with it consistently. In 1338, the prince electors in the “Rhenser Weistum” and Emperor Louis IV (1314–1347) in the “Licet iuris” imperial law codified their interpretations of the election of kings and emperorship. According to this perspective, a person elected by a majority of electors would automatically become a Roman king without requiring papal approval. Going one step further, Emperor Louis IV even linked the Roman emperorship directly to the electors’ election. This pragmatic understanding, which dispensed with the papal coronation, gained acceptance in the sixteenth century. Until that point, a few more emperors negotiated situational compromises during their coronations. Charles IV, Sigismund, and Frederick III each made adjustments during their respective coronations to accommodate the shifting dynamics of their time.

(6) The most significant impact of emperorship on Latin Europe emerged indirectly. The very notion of universality and supremacy fostered a heightened sense of dignity and independence among neighboring realms. In personal encounters, the primacy of the empire was acknowledged only as a matter of ceremony, if at all. Within their own domains, rulers like the French king perceived no higher authority than themselves. This perspective was shared by Roman popes, as well as legal scholars in Italy and France. This political parity between emperor and king laid the groundwork for the principles of state sovereignty that took shape in the sixteenth century, influencing the global political landscape of the time. Consequently, the diverse characteristics of different realms took precedence over the concept of imperial unity.14

(7) A chronological overview reveals a lack of consistent theoretical continuity in the concepts of empire and imperial ideals during the Latin Middle Ages. Despite established “ordines” for imperial coronations, the institution of emperorship required reinvention and redefinition with each succession. The temporal disparity between kings’ elections north of the Alps and their subsequent papal coronations in Rome hindered any continuous imperial narrative. Between 800, the year of Charlemagne’s coronation, and 1519, when Maximilian I passed away, 30 emperors ruled in Latin Christianity. For 413 of these 720 years, a Roman emperor ruled. After Otto the Great revived the Roman emperorship in 962 and linked it to the East Frankish or German kingship, his eight successors held the title of emperor in continuity until 1137. In contrast, from 1138 to 1519, most Roman kings did not proceed to the Roman imperial coronation. Within the 300 late medieval years spanning Frederick II’s imperial coronation in 1220 to Maximilian I’s death in 1519, periods of active emperorship were exceptions rather than the norm. Between Frederick II’s coronation in 1220 and the subsequent coronation in Rome in 1312 of Henry VII, 92 years passed without an imperial coronation. Henry VII’s elevation marked the next imperial coronation, achieved without the participation of the reigning pope based in Avignon at the time. Authorized cardinals conducted the coronation of two Luxembourg dynasty rulers, Henry VII in 1312 and Charles IV in 1355. The coronation of Louis IV from the Wittelsbach dynasty in 1328 was carried out by opposing bishops or an antipope. This increasing temporal and personal detachment led to a divergence between the election of the Roman king and the emperorship in the fourteenth century. Sigismund, in 1433, became the first emperor since Frederick II in 1220 to receive his imperial crown from a legitimate pope, a span of 213 years. This period encompassed 55 years since the passing of Sigismund’s father, Charles IV, in 1378. Thus, the concept of imperial continuity or living memory is not applicable. After Sigismund, Frederick III from the Habsburg dynasty was the final emperor to be crowned at the Roman apostle’s tomb in 1452. Subsequent rulers often retained the title “Elected Roman Emperor” without undergoing a papal coronation. Only one more instance of the liturgical collaboration between pope and emperor occurred for Charles V in Bologna in 1530. The three-century span from 1220 to 1519 underscores that a reigning emperor was the exception rather than the rule. While the royal throne in the Roman-German Empire was rarely vacant, and sometimes multiple contenders vied for the crown, there were 118 years of emperorship contrasted with 181 years without an emperor. The lengthy reigns of Frederick II (30 years) and Frederick III (41 years) accounted for 71 of those 118 years. The remaining four emperors – Henry VII, Louis IV, Charles IV, and Sigismund – reigned for periods ranging from one to 23 years.

(8) While contemporary encomiums praised the emperor as “Lord of the World,” rulers themselves were cautious when making assertions about their global primacy or dominion over the entire world. The chancellery and court focused primarily on the emperor’s protective role over the Holy Roman Church and Christianity. Few exceptions saw imperial claims encroach upon neighboring kingdoms. Notably, in 1240, Emperor Frederick II and the pope engaged in heightened disputes that briefly rose to the level of claims to imperial supremacy. Even then, the Hohenstaufen chancellery made clear distinctions between recipients within the Holy Roman Empire and other kings. A circular letter sent in 1240 to King Henry III of England requested solidarity, while a similar version for the Archbishop of Trier invoked the Germanic peoples’ defense of the empire and world dominion.15 This was a critical moment of imperial superiority propaganda. However, instances of such explicit claims diminished in the subsequent years. During Henry VII’s reign, particularly on the day of his imperial coronation in 1312, he disseminated circular letters throughout the Latin Christian world, conveying his vision of a universal monarchy on Earth.16 This rhetoric surprised both his contemporaries and later historians, with its emphasis on his unique authority. Malte Heidemann’s analysis of these texts and their reception demonstrated how exceptional these expectations of universal subjugation under his rule were. The reactions to this rhetoric were equally telling: the French king impetuosly defended the independence of France, while the king of Naples vehemently rejected any notion of imperium or unitas.17 It is significant that Henry VII’s grandson Charles IV and his great-grandson Sigismund chose to distance themselves from their ancestor’s claim to world dominion. In his election proclamations in 1433, Sigismund expressed joy at being raised to the rank of emperor of the Romans, without delving into sweeping claims.

(9) While the emperors themselves exercised restraint in their assertions, fifteenth-century scholars exhibited a greater degree of ambition. They articulated imperial hopes and claims, deriving these visions from the continuation of the imperium Romanum and its role in Christian salvation history. Soon after Sigismund’s passing, the “Reformation of Emperor Sigismund” emerged as a manifesto for empire reform. In this document, Sigismund only serves as a precursor to the prophesied future peace emperor, Friderich von Lantnewen. This imagined emperor would usher in an era of peace and rule as a priest-king in the tradition of the Old Testament figure Melchizedek, thereby fulfilling God’s order on Earth. This harmonization of divine and worldly realms would be symbolized by the eagle on a golden background, representing the empire and God.18 Nine years after Sigismund’s death, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini wrote a letter to King Frederick III (1440–1493) exploring the origins and authority of the imperium Romanum. This letter positioned the empire as a divine creation, with the author dissociating it from any dualism with the papacy. Aeneas Silvius then emphasized the empire’s specific political mission for the present and future. The core ideas of this letter revolved around the necessity of monarchy to curb individual excesses and ensure peace. This political unity could only be realized under a unique ruler, appointed by God, who could bring about universal peace (pax universalis).19 The imperium Romanum, from this perspective, was God’s creation, initially ruled by kings or magistrates and later by an emperor. The empire’s legitimacy stemmed from both the power of nature and the recognition of Jesus Christ, born during the reign of Emperor Augustus. Christ’s acknowledgment of the imperium solidified its status as a temporal power, coexisting alongside the papacy as two distinct powers. This notion surfaced in humanist discussions about Sigismund’s coronation as well. Some even suggested that the existence of the imperium Romanum would prevent the advent of the Antichrist. The Roman people, as the originators of the empire and world monarchy (monarchia orbis), proclaimed Charlemagne as Patricius and later as Augustus. This lineage extended to the Teutons and culminated in Frederick III. To King Frederick III, Aeneas proclaimed the highest earthly authority, emphasizing his role as the guardian of secular concern.20 Aeneas’s words, while suggestive and subject to qualification, highlighted the evolving perceptions of imperialism in the mid-fifteenth century.

Profiles of Sigismund’s Empire

For an extended period, Sigismund’s tenure as emperor remained a lesser explored topic among medievalists. This could be attributed to waning interest in late medieval emperorship compared to earlier periods, coupled with Sigismund’s relatively belated ascendancy to imperial status, which lasted only four years. During his lengthy term as Roman king from 1410–11 to 1433, an imperial coronation could have followed the Council of Constance’s conclusion in 1417–18. Such an event was indeed on the horizon and had been contemplated by the court. However, Sigismund’s engagement with the ill-fated Council of Basel and the ultimate failure of the conciliar approach cast a shadow over the emperorship of the last of the Luxembourger emperors.

Hönsch’s comprehensive biography adeptly amalgamated the components of imperial action. However, the focus here is more pointedly directed towards the councils and imperial reform.21 Regarding Sigismund’s imperial coronation, Hermann Herre’s compilation found in the volume of the Reichstag records22 held sway for an extended period. Nonetheless, the attempt to reconstruct the reality of the day of Pentecost 1433, as undertaken there, was hampered by the favored analysis of the late medieval coronation ordo. We do not know for certain whether this text was indeed utilized for the imperial coronation. The epistolary and historiographical sources do not confirm this with any conclusiveness.

Only recently have the Italian campaign and imperial coronation of Sigismund garnered the requisite scrutiny in in-depth examinations by Péter Kovács23 and Veronika Proske.24 Kovács and Proske dispel the notion of a seemingly unequivocal reality of the event through successful individual analyses of the numerous and highly diverse written, visual, and musical sources. These documents unveil a vibrant panorama or a polyphonic symphony, thus providing a varied foundation for an understanding of the events of 1431 to 1433. In contrast, Duncan Hardy’s essay on Sigismund’s emperorship is notably concise.25

In six points, I explore the theme of “emperorship as a figure of order” for Sigismund. In doing so, I must extend my temporal scope beyond the recently extensively researched final six years of Sigismund’s life.

(1) Responsibility and Imperial Kingship: In the 1390s, as king of Hungary, Sigismund called upon the Christian community to organize defenses against the Ottomans. The Hungarian army, however, joined by crusaders mainly from Burgundy, suffered a crushing defeat at Nicopolis in 1396. Sigismund narrowly escaped capture. He upheld his commitment to the crusade until the end of his life. Even in his last year, while fatally ill, he supposedly expressed his intention not to pass away before embarking on a crusade to the Holy Land.26 Following his election and subsequent establishment as Roman king in 1410–1411, Sigismund renewed his dedication to Latin Christianity. Despite limited means, he engaged with personal charisma in preparing for the Council of Constance. Martin Kintzinger and other researchers have meticulously studied Sigismund’s extensive travels in Western Europe, as well as his active involvement in the Council.27 Until 1414, Sigismund effectively pursued the Roman king’s responsibility to reform the Holy Roman Church. He consistently motivated monarchs, nobles, and clergy from different regions of Latin Christianity to participate in the Council. Rarely in the late Middle Ages was the will of a Roman king asserted so forcefully beyond his imperial borders. Sigismund subsequently augmented his Hungarian kingship with the Roman kingship and later the Roman emperorship. This dominion over multiple realms established a composite and even imperial kingship. The official title emphasized the superior authority of the Roman king and emperor preceding the Hungarian royal title, symbolizing kingship over various realms. His documents’ intitulationes, following the dignity of Roman king or emperor (Latin with plural genitive: rex / imperator Romanorum), presented his kingship over Hungary, Dalmatia, and Croatia, followed by “etc.” (in the singular genitive for the names of countries). After Sigismund had attained the Bohemian kingship, the chancery appended the kingship of Bohemia following Hungary and preceding Dalmatia and Croatia. Sigismund’s second significant Hungarian seal specified the scope of his kingship as Hungary, Dalmatia, Croatia, Bosnia with Herzegovina (Latin: Rama), Serbia, Galicia, Volhynia (Latin: Lodomeria), Cumania, and Bulgaria.28

(2) Familial Bonds: Sigismund’s ascent to the Hungarian throne and his entry into the politics of the Holy Roman Empire were initially shaped by family negotiations and considerations concerning his elder half-brother Wenceslas and his nephews Jobst and Prokop. Wenceslas, as the heir to Emperor Charles IV’s throne, had assumed kingship over both the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia. Even after having been deposed as Roman king by the prince electors in 1400, he continued to assert his claim to the Roman kingship. From Sigismund’s election as Roman king in 1410 until Wenceslas’ death in 1419, this resulted in an unprecedented and delicate duality. Sigismund demonstrated a flexible disposition, adhering to or diverging from binding agreements depending on circumstances. Early agreements between Wenceslas and Sigismund, opposing King Ruprecht, attest to this. In 1402, as king of Hungary and Vicar General of the Roman Empire, Sigismund informed Giangaleazzo Visconti of the settlement among the four Luxembourg princes and the impending campaign in Italy, wherein Wenceslas would participate as rex Romanorum.29 The division of the Roman emperorship and Roman kingship was repeatedly contemplated within the Luxembourg family. Initially, in 1410, between Wenceslas and Jobst,30 and subsequently in 1411, between Wenceslas and Sigismund. While distinctions between father and son existed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (such as between Emperor Frederick II and King Henry (VII) and between Emperor Charles IV and King Wenceslas), the functional partition among brothers was novel. The plan was for Wenceslas to retain the Roman imperial dignity, the imperial regalia, and his kingship over Bohemia. Sigismund upheld his promise not to seek the imperial crown during Wenceslas’ lifetime.31 Noteworthy was the agreed separation of the Roman emperorship and Roman kingship. This evolution would have rendered the imperial dignity a mere ornamental distinction for a Bohemian king, lacking imperial agency within the empire and Christianity.

(3) Defensor et protector: Sigismund asserted this agency as Roman king. Throughout the preparations for and course of the Council of Constance, he functioned as protector and defender of the Church, as well as of the Council itself. During the Council’s rituals, the Roman king presented himself adorned in imperial regalia (in habitu imperiali) and seated prominently at the southern crossing pillar of Constance’s cathedral. In terms of rank, Sigismund held a position above the nations, though he was de facto limited to the German nation. For the council, he adopted a distinctive visual depiction, wherein a prince aims the tip of a bare sword at the king’s head or crown. Werner Paravicini referred to this depiction, observed during the royal Christmas service or princely enfeoffments, as the “Constance gesture.”32 Sigismund embraced a ritual that had been pioneered by his father Charles IV. During the Christmas service, the ruler read the Gospel of Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth with an unsheathed sword, akin to Augustus, whose decree marked the inception of Christian salvation history.33 Sigismund’s dramatic entrance at the beginning of the Council of Constance was of such significance that he endured considerable hardships during the hastened procession to Constance, and he instructed Pope John (XXIII), present at the event, to await his arrival. Achim Thomas Hack characterized the grand entrance before the Council in the following words: “At the seventh reading during Matins and the first Mass, Sigismund, donning the liturgical attire of a deacon and accompanied by candle bearers, ascended the cathedral pulpit and, with his sword unsheathed, recited the Gospel Exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto.”34 Thus, Roman royalty laid the groundwork for the Council to reunify Latin Christianity. While the council did not address all the formidable challenges, the election of Martin V (1417–1431) in 1417 marked the end of the papal schism and a return to the papal office’s singular authority. It is perplexing that Martin’s return to Rome in 1420 did not lead to Sigismund’s elevation as Roman emperor after Sigismund’s endorsement by the new pope. While the chancellery was already planning to give the emperor a novel emblematic, the opportunity was ripe after Wenceslas’ demise in 1419.

(4) Ritual Dynamics: The previously mentioned “Constance gesture” exemplifies Sigismund’s mastery of ritual. His flair for attire and ceremony is evident in various contexts. Yet, Sigismund also fostered the creation of new symbols and signs for the imperial imagery.35 In 1415, he commissioned a mural fresco in Frankfurt, the place of the royal elections, to depict the new quaternion system.36 Post the emperor, empire, and prince electors, this fresco integrated dukes, margraves, landgraves, burgraves, counts, nobles, knights, towns, villages, and peasants as representatives of the empire in groups of four. While the rationale behind selecting and combining these 40 members remains enigmatic, this societal hierarchy illustrates a noteworthy innovation. It intertwined the responsibilities of the king and elector, as formulated in the Golden Bull of 1356, with the medieval community of princes, forming an elite action group of the empire. Numerous depictions since the fifteenth century underscore the integrative power of this model, linking its constituents to the emperor and empire’s distinctive position within salvation history. Sigismund’s influence extended beyond the structure of quaternions. The double-headed eagle with a halo, symbolizing emperorship, also traces back to him. Its significance is evident from an entry in the “Hauskanzleiregistraturbuch.” In November 5, 1417, six days prior to Martin V’s papal election, the protonotary Johannes Kirchen ordered two imperial majesty seals (sigilla imperialis majestatis) from a goldsmith, specifying the double-headed eagle as the seal’s image.37 In Sigismund’s imperial seal since 1433, the intricate idea of the double-headed eagle is codified into an enduring iconographic order. On the obverse, Sigismund presents himself with five coats of arms: the haloed double-headed eagle representing the Holy Roman Empire and the coats of arms of Luxembourg, Bohemia, Hungary, and Upper Hungary (patriarchal cross). The reverse bears only the haloed double eagle, accompanied by a programmatic inscription referencing the eagle of the pro­phet Ezekiel, symbolizing the sanctity of the imperium Romanum and the inter­weaving of the spiritual and temporal realms. The inscription reads “The eagle of Ezekiel has been sent to the bride from heaven. Higher than the eagle flies no seer and no prophet.” (Aquila Ezechielis sponse missa est de celis. Volat ipsa sine meta, quo nec vates nec propheta evolabit alcius).38 Bettina Pferschy-Maleczek delves into the mystical and allegorical dimensions of this symbolism in an extensive article. Based on the vision of Ezekiel (Ezek 1:4–28), the eagle signifies both the fourth gospel and the fourth and final world empire, the imperium Romanum.39

(5) Union of the two greatest lights: Using these words, the papal secretary Cencio Rustici extolled the liturgical harmony between the pope and the emperor in his celebratory oration during Sigismund’s coronation as emperor. As was customary for this genre, the accolades for the new Rome and for Pope Eugene IV as a “celestial man and earthly deity” (celestis homo et terrenus deus) resonated with grandeur.40 With great ceremony, Sigismund, 65 years of age at the time, made his entry into Rome on Ascension Day in 1433 and encountered the pope there. A few days later, the imperial coronation took place in St. Peter’s Basilica during Pentecost. The recent works by Kovács and Proske provide detailed accounts from eyewitnesses and distant chroniclers, offering insights into an imperial coronation that shared essential elements with the models of the fourteenth century. Noteworthy is the repeated mention by Gimignano Inghirami, dean of the Sacra Rota and a man who was deeply involved in the ceremony, of the new emperor’s struggle with gout. Due to this ailment, Sigismund needed assistance and was provided a small seat near the altar.41 Why did Sigismund, a Luxembourger, subject himself to over two years of challenging and at times degrading travel through Italy? A little more than a decade earlier, after the successful conclusion of the Council of Constance, he could have celebrated his journey to the Roman tomb of the Apostles as the successful protector of the new elected pope. The motivation to travel to Rome was evidently driven by the changes in the papal office in 1431 and the threat to the established principle of recurring councils of the Roman Church, as outlined in the Constance Council decree “Frequens.” The rejection of the Council of Basel by Pope Eugene IV and the Council Fathers’ plans to depose him led Sigismund to resume his dip­lomatic endeavors from before the Council of Constance. His aim was now to secure the imperial crown, which would grant him greater influence over the council proceedings. The well-documented negotiation process sheds light on the extensive efforts Sigismund undertook to maintain his authority over the church and council. The initial period from the start of the Italian campaign on April 1, 1431 to the acquisition of the Iron Crown in Milan on November 25, 1431 was relatively brief. In contrast, the time leading up to the Roman imperial coronation dragged on tediously. The succinct account by the Liège chronicler Cornelius Menghers of Zantfliet, who described Sigismund’s move to Rome to obtain the third crown as the holder of already two crowns, presents the extended duration as part of the lawful progression from Italian king to Roman emperor.42 However, the reality was far more demanding. In the end, the mutual benefits for the emperor and the pope prevailed, as Eugene IV’s rule remained tenuous. By accepting Eugene as the person to crown him, Sigismund reinforced Eugene’s authority. Thus, Sigismund’s entry into Rome and the imperial coronation were staged as a continuous display of harmonious agreement. In an encomium of Sigismund, possibly delivered at the Council of Basel, a Bolognese orator recalled the closeness between the pope and emperor, characterized by kisses, tears of joy, and overwhelming ardor. The bond was so strong that onlookers perceived their distinct bodies as a singular entity, “marvelous in our eyes.”43 The musical composition “Supremum est mortalibus bonum,” a motet by Guillaume Dufay, a member of the papal chapel, praised the pope and king as peacemakers and celebrated the long-awaited peace as the ultimate good for humanity and a divine gift.44 However, amidst the abundant praise, it is important not to overlook the fact that Italian humanists also subjected Emperor Sigismund to ridicule. A mere four days after the imperial coronation, Poggio Bracciolini wrote a letter to Niccolò Niccoli in which he gave an eyewitness account of Sigismund’s time in Rome. The letter compared the medieval imperial coronation tradition, stemming from Charlemagne, to the Roman empire of antiquity. Poggio’s disdain was directed at the term “king of the Romans,” which the present emperors adopted even before their consecration and coronation. He perceived this term as perverse and believed it originated from barbarians unfamiliar with ancient history and the power of words. In this manner, Poggio derogated Emperor Sigismund as an uninformed individual. This remark from the scholar dismissed the four-century-long self-assuredness of Roman royalty as a privileged monarchy within Latin Christianity. The glory of Roman antiquity now became the benchmark for a late medieval period that highly valued the legitimizing “power of words” (vis verborum).45

(6) Recollected emotions: Prior to his coronation, Sigismund had been accepted into the community of the canons at St. Peter’s in the church of Santa Maria in Turri. Following the imperial coronation, on the Tiber bridge, he elevated numerous followers to knighthood in the traditional manner. A letter documents as many as 180 honors.46 After the knighting at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, this elevation during the imperial coronation held the highest distinction for a Christian knight. This triumph might still have been rooted in the belief articulated by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1155 that he possessed the right to rule over Italy and be crowned emperor as a conqueror. Notably, no German princes or Hungarian magnates were present at Sigismund’s imperial coronation. Consequently, numerous knightly and patrician attendants carried their knightly pride back to the land north of the Alps, enhancing the memory of the 1433 imperial coronation. This was accompanied by numerous imperial confirmations of privileges, noble grants, coat of arms enhancements, favors, and legitimizations of illegitimate birth.47 The news of the imperial coronation prompted celebrations in German cities, with bells ringing, bonfires blazing, and grand processions taking place in imperial cities.48 The response in Nuremberg is meticulously documented, where accounts detailed the costs and benefits of the im­perial coronation for the city. A decade earlier, Sigismund had entrusted the imperial regalia to Nuremberg’s Holy Spirit Hospital in perpetuity. They arrived in 1424. The Nuremberg City Council sent a legation to Rome for the imperial coronation, led by Erhard Haller and city clerk Ulrich Truchsess. The city’s records chronicled expenses of 2296 ¼ florins and 8 pounds of Nuremberg Heller for the legation’s 14-week absence.49 In return, the envoys secured 23 imperial privileges, including nine with a Golden Bull. One of these documents confirmed the perpetual residence of the imperial regalia in Nuremberg. This golden-bull document from the new emperor upheld the king’s privilege from 1423, which had previously only been confirmed with a wax seal. In total, the imperial city of Nuremberg held 27 rulers’ charters with golden bulls issued between 1313 and 1717. Remarkably, a third of these charters dated back to the day of Sigismund’s coronation as emperor alone.50 The expenses associated with issuing eight golden bulls and 14 charters under majesty’s seal on coronation day were meticulously recorded: 600 ducats for the imperial chancery, 200 ducats for the gold used in the bulls, 40 ducats for the goldsmith, and 50 ducats in gratuities for the chancery clerks.51 With this extraordinary abundance of costly gold bulls, Nuremberg compensated for not having received the renowned “Golden Bull” of Emperor Charles IV and the Electors in the fourteenth century. Of the seven originals of this pivotal document, six were reaffirmed at the time with the imperial gold bull, while only Nuremberg relied on the more affordable wax seal version. Five members of the Nuremberg delegation, identified by name, were among the newly knighted individuals in 1433. Ulrich Truchsess and Erhard and Paul Haller, were granted an imperial confirmation and augmentation of their coat of arms.52 The benefits of Sigismund’s reign for Nuremberg were commemorated in the renowned artworks by Albrecht Dürer in the early six­teenth century, dedicated to the shrines of relics kept in the city. Alongside the portrait of Charlemagne, credited as the originator of the regalia, stood Sigismund, to whom Nuremberg owed the preservation of these cherished artifacts.53 Nonetheless, the jubilation over the imperial triumph in Germany was coupled with a disconcerting sentiment that the Curia had treated the emperor with disrespect. Eberhard Windeck presented a thought-provoking anecdote that likely was not considered in the historical reconstruction of the events within the Roman St. Peter’s church. Windeck’s intention was to evoke emotions through his narrative. Allegedly, the cardinal designated for the coronation had questioned the emperor in advance about his legitimacy of birth and piety. Sigismund affirmed his legitimacy but then added that the cardinal himself was neither pious nor fit for coronation due to his alleged act of mutilating a woman’s breasts. According to this story, the cardinal in charge then carelessly placed the crown on the emperor’s head during the coronation, causing it to tilt to the right side. In response, as mentioned earlier, the pope straightened the crown with his right foot, adhering to custom.54 This tale of the papal foot-adjustment roused sentiments in Germany. The story contrasted moral righteousness and concern for Christianity with the perceived moral decay within the Curia and the popes’ perceived arrogance. This account, passed down even during the Reformation, fueled the grievances (gravamina) of the German nation during the late Middle Ages. Consequently, the image emerged of the virtuous emperor humiliated by a cunning pope.

Conclusion

In her analysis of Sigismund’s political system, Sabine Wefers evaluates the role of the emperorship as follows: While the emperorship was undoubtedly a form of “elevated kingship,” its practical function was essentially equivalent to regular kingship.55 This assessment seems accurate, but it underestimates the legitimizing significance of imperial dignity for the emperors of the late Middle Ages. Hence, the approach taken in this article diverges from examining the utilitarian aspect of the emperorship and instead proceeds from the perspective of the emperorship as a splendid symbol of order. Consequently, alongside modes of action, there arises a focus on interpretations, perceptions, rituals, and their impacts. In terms of functionality, the limitations of imperial authority were repeatedly demonstrated during the later Middle Ages. Nonetheless, no other monarch would have undertaken Sigismund’s ambitious efforts to organize Latin Christianity and enable the Council of Constance. The institution of emperorship provided a framework for a vision of unity even amid enduring diversity.

In this paper, I have outlined three conceptions of emperorship, delineated nine characteristics typical of emperors, and presented six distinct profiles of Emperor Sigismund. A key argument of this article centered on the fluidity in the conception and structure of empire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This openness was largely attributed to the frequent interruptions in the reigns of emperors. Only the Roman kingship succeeded in establishing lasting continuity. A detailed comparison of the reigns of Roman kings and emperors reveals that imperial rule between 1250 and 1519 was more of an exception than the norm. Consequently, each late medieval imperial coronation should be seen in its exclusivity rather than as a recurring pattern. This perspective lends significance to Sigismund’s delayed decision to seek coronation as emperor from the pope, underscoring his understanding and vision of himself as the defender of the Roman Church as well as the protector of the Council. Thus, Sigismund’s stance is revealed within a comprehensive framework of emperorship, allocating roles to the participants in the reenactment of crowning and sacring as established rituals. Nevertheless, the significant interruptions in late medieval imperial coronations led many of Sigismund’s contemporaries to perceive and portray imperial authority in varying ways.56

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Schneidmüller, Bernd. “Kaiser sein im spätmittelalterlichen Europa: Spielregeln zwischen Weltherrschaft und Gewöhnlichkeit.” In Die Spielregeln der Mächtigen: Mittelalterliche Politik zwischen Gewohnheit und Konvention, edited by Claudia Garnier, and Hermann Kamp, 265–90. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010.

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Alterity and Self-Understanding: Inclusion and Exclusion Strategies of Southern German Estates in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

Markus Christopher Müller

Institute of Bavarian History at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2  (2024):195-212 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.195

This article analyses diversification strategies in the politics of Sigismund I as king and emperor. Three examples (Swabia, Bavaria, and Tyrol) show different aspects of this diversity. In Swabia, Sigismund attempted to mediate alliances between the knightly societies and the city federations in order to create a counterweight to the imperial princes. In Bavaria, he privileged the knighthood and thus created a dynamic that led to the formation of the land estates with their own identity. Sigismund also supported rebellious nobles in Tyrol against their prince. All interventions can be better contextualised against the backdrop of his imperial policy. At first glance, he was not successful anywhere, but the imperial privileges he granted had an impact on the conflicts between the knighthood/nobility and princes in the fifteenth century and thus diversified late medieval constitutional practice.

Keywords: nobility, empire, constitution, knighthood, Swabia, Bavaria, Tyrol, estates

When King Sigismund was in Nuremberg in September 1422, he had difficult months behind him which had born witness to his coronation as king of Bohemia, victories and defeats against the Hussites, and a hasty flight. Furthermore, he was not in Nuremberg entirely voluntarily, for after he himself had let an invitation to a possible court day in Regensburg lapse, the electors had summoned him to appear in Nuremberg on July 15, 1422.1 Historian Sabine Wefers speaks of the self-organisation of the empire.2 Sigismund arrived on July 26 and tried to make the day called by the electors his own after all.3

On September 13, 1422, the Sunday before the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he allowed the knighthood in the empire (it remains unclear whether at this point he was only addressing the estate of imperial knights, which was also not yet clearly definable) to unite for the protection of their rights and to admit imperial cities to their union. In the corresponding charter, at least one of which is preserved in the original in Munich, the king emphasises his concern for safeguarding the rights of the knighthood of his realm.4 His aim was for the nobility to be happy and blessed.5 Sigismund had to intervene, as he had heard that the knighthood in Germany was suffering much coercion and that many of its rights were being challenged.6 This is followed in the corresponding charter by the cities, to which he grants the full right to join the associations of the nobility.7 For himself and all his successors, Sigismund confirmed the right of association for the knighthood and cities in his realm.

The charter from September 13, 1422 has so far received attention as King Sigmund’s “privilege,” especially in research on the Swabian nobility. Hermann Mau even regarded it as the “Magna Carta der deutschen Reichsritterschaft.”8 The aim of this royal privileging of Sigismund was, in my view, to diversify the political constellations of actors in the Holy Roman Empire so that Sigismund himself would be able to intervene as the ordering head of this empire and thus to create counterweights to the Electoral College. Sigismund’s approach can be seen as innovative against the backdrop of his father’s legislation (the Golden Bull) and the denigration by towns and princes of previous associations of lesser nobles as “evil societies” (böse Gesellschaften, e.g. in the early 1380s).

If we understand diversity as a system of differentiations9 that could be developed and asserted in different ways depending on historical constellations, this can be seen as Sigismund’s attempt to create diversity in order to secure and expand his rule. In the following, I will examine how realistic this attempt proved. I draw on three concrete examples: the Swabian noble alliances, the estates of the Duchy of Bavaria, and rebellious nobles in the County of Tyrol. I conclude with an admittedly incomplete attempt to assess the exemplary results to Sigismund’s imperial policy and his understanding of rule. A quick glance at the secondary literature suffices to show that the relationship between King and Emperor Sigismund to the non-princely nobles has hardly been studied. Historians have tended focus on his relations with the princes of the Holy Roman Empire and the political actors who enjoyed “imperial immediacy” (reichsunmittelbar).10 From a broader perspective, the preliminary findings of this paper can further a more nuanced understanding of the associative political culture of the late medieval empire, as recently emphasised by Duncan Hardy, for example:11 “The Empire therefore consisted of a shifting kaleidoscope of intertwined jurisdictions and networks.”12 The functioning of these networks within the empire in its parallel and mutually overlapping constitutional structures and constellations, especially below the level of the imperial princes, has not yet been sufficiently studied.13 In this article, I attempt to do this from the perspective of diversity.

The Swabian Noble Alliances

On April 25, 1413, the regional Swabian knightly confederations under the banner of St. George concluded the Bund der Gemeinen Gesellschaft, the so-called Jörgenbund.14 A few days later, 19 imperial cities entered a union among themselves with a protective relationship with Count Palatine Ludwig and Count Eberhard of Württemberg.15 More than a year later, at Christmas 1414, Sigismund came to the empire as the elected Roman king. At this time, he could only rely on the support of the electors to a limited extent. Accordingly, Sigismund quickly sought to harness the political potential of the lower nobility and the cities. He built on the origins of the Society of St. George’s Shield in the suppression of the Appenzell rural communes and the League above the Lake in 1407–1408, which surely played a major role in making the Society and other associations of lesser nobles potential partners of kings and emperors.16 At the Diet of Constance in February 1415, Sigismund reminded the city delegates of the great city alliances of the fourteenth century, and he explained to them that the princes were increasing their rights at the expense of the empire, while the empire only had the cities to support it. However, his attempts at motivation were unsuccessful. The cities refused to accept the royal alliance policy proposed.17

All the more surprising is the reason Sigismund gives in his Nuremberg charter of September 13, 1422 for not only allowing an alliance between the nobility and the cities but even having called for it. In the charter, he states that all the cities represented in Nuremberg had a great desire to achieve unity and friendship among themselves.18 He, the king, could therefore only welcome the fact that the cities stuck together when the princes joined forces.19 However, it is doubtful whether Sigismund acted as reactively as scholars have often believed him to have done. Rather, the charter should be understood merely as a rhetorical attempt to realise a project that had been running since 1414 at the latest, albeit unsuccessfully in this case as well.

This corresponds to an assumption expressed by Heinz Angermeier that it was not the intention of the imperial cities to engage in a new imperial policy. Rather, it was the king who based on his Hungarian experiences, believed that he could also only develop a monarchical policy in Germany with the help of the cities.20 After Sigismund’s initial conflicts with the Hungarian estates, he was able to come to terms with them in the following years. The model for his attempts to establish city alliances in the empire was certainly the great city privileges of the Hungarian diet of 1405. He probably assumed that this would also enable him to govern successfully in the empire.

This attempt to encourage and favour alliances of the lower nobility, the knighthood, and the cities was supplemented by a clear policy of prohibition, which can be seen as two sides of the same coin. For example, Sigismund forbade the Elector of Mainz and the Rhenish imperial cities of Mainz, Worms, and Speyer to form alliances, with a clear justification addressed to the Elector of Mainz: Since Emperor Charles IV had forbidden such association, he too, Sigismund, thought it was forbidden. He therefore did not want the Elector to approach the aforementioned cities. Instead, he should show consideration for the king and the Empire. In this case, Sigismund clearly argued with the prohibition of alliances formulated in the Golden Bull,21 which the king knew how to interpret differently for himself than for the imperial princes: an alliance could only be established with the knowledge and will of the imperial power. Sigismund wanted to secure a monopoly on it, so to speak.22 Mark Whelan has identified several factors of the communication between the Princely Abbey of Ellwangen and Sigismund’s court which can probably be cited as an additional difficulty in achieving this goal: “the obstacles associated with traversing the vast Luxembourg realms and the costs involved in treating with an often distant sovereign.”23 As Whelan points out, this did not mean that these problems diminished Sigismund’s “significance to contemporaries,”24 but they perhaps did make some of his policies more difficult to implement in practice.

Nevertheless, some of the electors also tried to apply Sigismund’s strategy and organise alliances under their leadership. However, the cities and the St. Jörgen Society refused such electoral association plans at the end of 1427. In May of the following year, the electors again tried to establish such an alliance under their aegis, but we know of no reaction to their efforts.25

At the Diet of Pressburg in 1429, Sigismund himself again called on the cities and knights in the Roman-German Empire to form an alliance, but again without any discernible result.26 Here too, the situation in Swabia nevertheless served as a model illustrating the merits of his argumentation. He sent the knight Konrad von Flörsheim to the knighthood in the Gau and Westerreich, west of the Vogesen, who was to call on them to unite in the name of the king. They need only examine and recognize the benefits such an association, which Sigismund had helped them to achieve, had brought to the Knighthood of Jörgenschild.27 Hermann Mau saw this as Sigismund’s ultimately failed attempt to create a “new basis of power”28 for himself and the empire.

So what remains of the intended diversification? Probably more than contemporaries were aware of. In his work on the Schwäbische Bund, the Swabian Confederation, Horst Carl describes the period under Sigismund as an important phase in the cooperative socialisation of the nobility in the German southwest.29 However, the privilege of 1422 by no means belongs only to the prehistory of the Swabian imperial knighthood, because the hypothesis that Sigismund only addressed knights and towns that were impartial to the empire is not persuasive, as the following example clearly illustrates.30

The Land Estates in the Duchy of Bavaria

The Bavarian estates (Landstände or Landschaft) existed in 1422 in the four partial duchies that had been created in the late fourteenth century after the death of Emperor Ludwig IV under his sons and grandsons.31 There they formed their own political entities without giving up the idea of an existing Duchy of Bavaria.32 Whether they were the addressees of Sigismund’s Nuremberg charter is difficult to say, but probably not. Nevertheless, the Bavarian estates took this royal charter very much for granted and included it as the thirtieth letter of freedom in their collection of rights and privileges created in 1508.33

It was obviously easy for them to integrate this royal document into their perception of themselves and their status, because this right of the nobility and the knighthood to unite with the towns had long been a reality in the Duchy of Bavaria. The institutionalised inclusion mechanisms, which we know as the right of the nobility to unite, were at the same time countered, however, by equally (and I would say causally) necessary exclusion mechanisms, which first and foremost slowly contoured the group that wanted and was supposed to unite. These exclusion mechanisms were also strongly developed in the Duchy of Bavaria at the beginning of the fifteenth century.34

The treatment of guests (Gäste), i.e. of foreigners, or non-Bavarians in this specific case, was regularly a topic of discussion, as was their role in the ducal administration, the council bodies, and the affiliation with the Landschaft.

The three Bavarian dukes Stefan, Friedrich, and Johann had to make several concessions to the nobility at a Diet in Munich in 1392: For themselves and their descendants, they promised not to issue any charter to guests, i.e. foreigners, which could call into question the rights of the “land und leut,”35 a term that the estates liked to use, in Bavaria. If they did, these documents would be pronounced invalid. Likewise, the dukes vowed for both Upper and Lower Bavaria that they would not take guests into consideration when appointing councilors (Räte), guardians (Pfleger), and other court offices, and that they would not appoint anyone who did not come from Bavaria, i.e. that they would only take Bavarian compatriots into their service.36 As a reaction to this, on the same day the “graven, freien, dinstleut, ritter und knecht, stet und mergkt gemaingklich wie die genant sein die zu den landen obern und nidern Bairn gehörent,”37 so counts and nobility, towns and markets in Upper and Lower Bavaria declared that they wanted to unite, also to resist, but in a way that the dukes should always remain with the rule in Bavaria, for the unity of the country, one could well say.

The two charters of the Tuesday before St. Catherine’s Day 1392, one issued and sealed by the princes (Landesfürsten) and one issued and sealed by the estates, reflect the reciprocal relationship. The assurance of exclusivity necessarily went hand in hand with the right to exclusivity for a privileged group. The following year, Duke Johann and Duke Ernst of Bavaria-Munich promised at a diet in Munich that they would only staff their council as well as their castles and fortresses with locals.38 This exclusion was also linked to inclusion, for in the same charter, the two dukes granted the counts, knights and nobles, the towns and markets, or in other words, the “land und leute” of their partial duchy, the right to assemble at any time as soon as necessary.39 On the eve of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in 1396, the dukes Stefan and Johann confirmed in Munich that they would only fill their council positions and all offices with persons who had been born in Bavaria or who were residents there, i.e. who had landed property and thus belong to the “land.”40

At this point, one could mention numerous other letters of alliances, privileges, and their confirmations which were written with particular frequency around 1400. They all move within the range of exclusivity and inclusivity that has been described, and it is only by thinking about them together that we can understand the diversity of political actors and structures. If we think further about Patrick Lantschner’s observation for the late Middle Ages that “the logic of conflict is the logic of political order itself,”41 the dynamic between inclusion and exclusion can also be interpreted not only as a conflict between prince and estates, but as a principle of political order, as Christina Lutter also points out for Vienna.42

The question of exclusivity is by no means confined to Bavaria, especially on Sigismund’s side, but is also encountered in the monarch’s immediate environment. The question of the national composition of his council became particularly intense after the death of his chancellor Georg von Passau in early August 1423. The number of Hungarian magnates, for example, in the witness lists and the strong participation of Italian scholars of jurisprudence were repeatedly criticised in the empire, but so was the prominent role of some members of the Swabian noble alliances in Sigismund’s close environment.43

In addition, Sigismund’s efforts concerning the “Landfrieden,” which Heinz Angermeier has clearly elaborated,44 are also reflected in a charter of the Bavarian Landschaft. According to a charter from a diet in Augsburg on the Mon­day after Palm Sunday 1429, one of the reasons for the association of the estates was that Sigismund had seen the unchristian work and the many sufferings that war and conflict had brought both for the rich and for the poor.45 The estates of the Duchy of Bavaria also included this charter, which originated in a different context, in their collections, rights, and privileges and thus also used it in later centuries to legitimise their claims to imperial authority.46 In 1434, the Bavarian knighthood had all its rights, freedoms, and privileges explicitly confirmed by Emperor Sigismund. The document was later included in the collection as the thirty-sixth letter.47 Under threat of a fine of 100 gold marks for violation of the chartered rights, Sigismund placed the knighthood under special imperial protection. This possibility of sanctions was also explicitly directed against the princes of the empire, i.e. also (although not mentioned by name) against the Bavarian dukes, and it sanctions harmonised well with Sigismund’s strategy of forming alliances at the level of the regional nobility, as shown by the example of Swabia. Thus in Bavaria and throughout the empire, sensitivity concerning the exclusivity of one’s own rights and privileges seems to have been part of the actors’ mindset and certainly played a central role in the question of diversity in the constitutional structure of the late medieval empire. The aforementioned imperial privileges for the Bavarian knighthood also contributed significantly to the formation of the estates, which were later able to invoke precisely these documents – a dynamic that has never been studied before.

Older traditions involving these kinds of demands for exclusivity can be found here. If we look at Tyrol, for example, Margrave Ludwig had also stipulated in the so-called “Großer Freiheitsbrief” (Great Charter of Freedom) of January 28, 1342, which his father, Emperor Ludwig IV, had confirmed, that no important position in Tyrol would be filled by a foreigner.48 This observation leads to the third example.

The Nobility of the County of Tyrol

In the county of Tyrol, Sigismund’s strategy of diversifying political actors fell on ground that was every bit as fertile as in Bavaria, since there is also evidence of a long tradition of corporative political participation in Tyrol. Sigismund wanted to take advantage of this to weaken the Habsburgs, who ruled Tyrol at the time.49

During his reign, the feud between Duke Ernst and Duke Friedrich in Tyrol ended (specifically, in 1417). After that, the struggle for territorial power, which the noble families of Rottenburg, Wolkenstein, Spaur, and Starkenberg in particular wanted to dispute with the ruler, continued for almost a decade. For this period, Werner Köfler assumes that the influence of the nobility in Tyrol reached a highpoint.50 The Tyrolean Landschaft repeatedly acted as a mediating authority. In 1420, Friedrich IV, who wanted and needed to expand his position of power, demanded that the richest nobles of Tyrol return the pledged offices and courts of the prince, though he did offer as a sum in return. However, the nobles refused to return them and sought help not only from other nobles in Tyrol but directly from King Sigismund. There they quickly found support.

As late as December 18, 1422, Sigismund from Pressburg encouraged the support of Ulrich von Starkenberg and Oswald von Wolkenstein. The brothers Michael and Lienhart von Wolkenstein were to support them against Duke Friedrich of Tyrol, who was attacking them. On December 29, Sigismund ordered Duke Friedrich to cease his hostilities against “his servant” Wilhelm von Starkenberg and his brother Ulrich. They would not violate Tyrolean land law, and thus Friedrich had no right to take action against them. If Friedrich, called the duke “with the empty purse,”51 wanted to assert his claims, he should do so before the king or before Dukes Ernst and Albrecht of Austria. Sigismund thus intervened relatively quickly in the Tyrolean disputes by strengthening the opposition among the nobles.

At a meeting in Merano at Pentecost 1423, Duke Friedrich confirmed the rights and freedoms of the assembled estates in order to quickly achieve an association of the country against the opposition of the nobility. With Sigismund’s support, however, the latter wanted to prevent such an agreement at all costs. When the king was in Altsohl (today Zvolen, Slovakia) in July, he once again increased his support for the rebelling nobles. Since Friedrich IV had not fulfilled his obligations to him as king and to the entire Roman-German Empire, in July 16, he was deprived of all fiefs in the county of Tyrol, the land on the Adige and in the Inn valley, as well as other courts. Sigismund announced his intention to return them to the empire and to grant the County of Tyrol to the brothers Ulrich and Wilhelm von Starkenberg as a fief for their loyal service. At the same time, at the request of the two brothers, Sigismund confirmed the rights and privileges of the estates on the Adige and in the Inn valley. Here we encounter a phenomenon that can be observed regularly throughout the fifteenth century: emperors and kings used their power to grant privileges to provincial estates to strengthen them against sovereigns. This constituted a diversification of the constitutional structure of the Roman-German Empire. On the following day, July 17, Sigismund ordered the Imperial Marshal Haupt von Pappenheim to lead the imperial panoply against Duke Friedrich, the disturber of the peace. Sigismund also called on the nobility of neighboring Tyrol, namely Counts Hans von Lupfen and Friedrich von Toggenburg, to take up arms against the disobedient Friedrich and to support Ulrich and Wilhelm von Starkenberg and to march into the Inn and Etsch valleys. One day later, on July 18, 1423, the Tyrolean nobility (we can see how well coordinated the king and the nobility were at this point) formed an alliance on behalf of the entire Tyrolean countryside to protect its freedoms and rights vis-à-vis the prince. At this moment, Sigismund seemed to have been successful with his strategy of playing the Tyrolean nobility off against the disagreeable prince. Friedrich, however, remained unimpressed with the day convened for August 5. In the forefront, he had so-called cedulas (“Zedeln”) sent to the courts of the country, which Friedrich thus gave more political significance than before, informing them about grievances in the country that needed to be remedied and the evil activities of the rebellious nobility. The “Zedeln” also contained the explicit prohibition against entering into any alliance without the consent of the prince, and they were thus clearly directed against alliances of the nobility, such as the alliance that King Sigismund had deliberately permitted in Nuremberg the previous year.52

Friedrich’s only problem was that hardly any nobles appeared in Brixen on August 5. The few who were present therefore asked for the date to be postponed, and a committee was formed to solve the problem later. The rebellious nobles, however, did not succeed in getting the estates on their side. On the next day, probably a committee meeting, on November 18, 1423, the bishop of Brixen and representatives of the estates appeared alongside the ruler and some of his councillors, who distanced themselves from the alliance that had been formed by the nobles. Finally, the council condemned the alliance of the nobility as an affliction of Tyrol.

Over the course of the year, Duke Friedrich succeeded in settling with a large part of the Tyrolean nobility, which is why de facto the alliance only lasted a few weeks. The sources, however, are silent about King Sigismund, who had wanted to intervene in the conflict a few months earlier. Friedrich’s fight against the Starkenbergs, who were particularly supported by Sigismund, continued. On May 10, 1424, a meeting in Innsbruck decided to send a delegation of representatives of the land estates to Greifenstein, the main castle of the Starkenbergs. This delegation failed, however, whereupon the Landschaft agreed to support the ruler by force of arms. Friedrich had thus decided the conflict de facto in his favour.

This enabled him to consolidate his rule, not quickly, but steadily, against the few remaining opposition families. In 1426, the Landschaft successfully mediated between him and the Spaur. Wilhelm von Starkenberg gave up the fight against the duke in November of the same year. Only Oswald von Wolken­stein53 remained, whom we know well from other contexts around Sigismund. Isolated as the last resister from the noble group, he wrote his depressed song “Durch Barbarei, Arabia” in the winter of 1426–1427, which ended with the following words: “Mein freund, die hassen mich überain / an schuld, des müss ich greisen. / das klag ich aller werlt gemain, / den frummen und den weisen, / darzü vil hohen fürsten rain, / die sich ir er land preisen, / das si mich armen Wolckenstein / die wolf nicht lan erzaisen, / gar verwaisen.”54 In 1427, he was summoned to the Diet in Bolzano, secretly left the country, was captured and brought to Innsbruck. Already on December 15, 1424, more than two years earlier, King Sigismund had promised him that he would comply with his request and intercede with Duke Friedrich IV on the rebel’s behalf. Here too, Sigismund did little apart from make announcements from afar. Nevertheless, Oswald von Wolkenstein was admitted to the Order of the Drake (Drachenorden) by Sigismund at the Diet of Nuremberg in 1431, which presumably gave him a belated sense of satisfaction.

Thus, in Tyrol, Sigismund made significant attempts in the initial conflict to oust the unpopular Habsburgs by diversifying the power structures within the county. The fact that all the relevant charters were issued far from Tyrol, not even in southern Germany, points to another problem. Sigismund seems to have had neither time nor energy to enforce his attempts. In the end, he failed in Tyrol in his fight against the establishment of a strong principality in the south of the empire. But here too, over the long term, an enduring image emerged of Sigismund as a leader who could dynamize the people emerged.

An Attempt at Synthesis

Now it is worth taking a final look at Sigismund’s attempts to diversify the political landscape of the Holy Roman Empire in his favour. Although the knight­hoods of Swabia, Franconia, and Bavaria had formed a defensive alliance against the Hussites in Ellingen on July 10, 1430, this alliance expired again after three years on St. George’s Day 1433. After Sigismund’s return from the imperial coronation in Rome at the end of 1433, further efforts of his failed at the imperial diets in Basel and Ulm in 1434 and at the imperial diet in Regensburg. In March of the same year, the negotiations between the St. Jörgenschild Society and the Swabian League of Towns failed in Kirchheim unter Teck.55 In mid-October 1434, Sigismund left the Empire for good, and with his departure, the negotiations on the Swabian association were broken off and never resumed.

But why did Sigismund’s sometimes very ambitious efforts fail at first sight?

Perhaps it can be said quite simply at first: Sigismund’s efforts towards diversification failed because of the diversity of the actors and the unwillingness of the cities to cooperate with the nobility and the knighthood, as a Nördlingen city scribe reported from Kirchheim in 1434: “aber es wart keine ainung troffen, quia displicuit civitatibus, et semper, in quantum licite potuerunt, quesiverunt vias exeundi.”56 The efforts to achieve peace (Landfrieden) at the end of the fourteenth century had already failed due to the differing interests of the cities and knights.57 Sigismund’s renewed attempts were equally unsuccessful.

Thinking further about an idea of Heinz Angermeier’s concerning the land peace order (Landfriedensordnung): Sigismund, with his numerous territories outside the empire, tended to be less affected by his own policy of diversification within the empire. He never had a direct view of his efforts to further associations and alliances and quickly lost sight of them.

The system of diversification can also be seen in Sigismund’s role as King of Bohemia. In the fight against the Hussites, he generously endowed the “Catholic” cities with privileges, as Alexandra Kaar has shown, but he re­peatedly fell short of his promises to them as well.58 Ultimately, the mutual securing of advantages functioned there in a way that did not work in such a direct manner vis-à-vis imperial cities, especially in the German southwest. The goal of creating “a world of personal relationship framed and maintained by symbolic communication and conventional and negotiatory institutions and associations”59 ultimately failed.

The royal charters were gratefully received in the regions of the empire in which a certain level of political participation had already been established, but without always having the effect intended by Sigismund. The question of failure thus ultimately remains one of perspectivation. If we look at the long-term consequences of the policy of diversification, it will certainly not be easy to reconstruct concrete causal chains. Even his greatest critics will not be able to deny that Sigismund’s attempts, which were considered a failure by his contemporaries, certainly had a dynamizing effect on the establishment of the estates in the territories of the empire and that he thereby enabled more differentiated actor structures to emerge in the constitutional structure of the empire.

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“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” – The Impossible Term “Propaganda” and Its Popular and Anti-Royal Uses in Luxembourg Bohemia (ca. 1390–1421)*

Klara Hübner

Masaryk University, Brno

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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 13 Issue 2  (2024):235-260 DOI 10.38145/2024.2.235

The article follows two paths. First, it deals with the genealogy of the concept of propaganda and the ambiguities and vagaries of the term associated with it. On the one hand, this concept is decisively shaped by modern prerequisites. On the other hand, it has characteristics that make it a timeless element of political communication. Because of the strong influence of modern phenomena on what we have come to understand as propaganda, the application of this term to premodern examples works only if the communicative context is emphasized, including the historical and social background, the strategies of the propagandist, the propagandist’s sense of the most effective means of swaying a certain target public, etc. Second, the focus is on parallel manifestations of propaganda in Bohemian society in the decades before the Hussite Wars (1390–1420). One can identify two of the functions of the propaganda of the time: it was used to deepen and spread the Hussite reformist thinking among the general population and to subject the respective Luxembourg kings, Wenceslas IV and Sigismund of Luxembourg, to harsh criticism. There were few points of contact between the two forms of propaganda used to further these two goals, since they addressed different social groups, but their effectiveness clearly demonstrates how far-reaching the impact of political propaganda could be in the fifteenth century.

Keywords: medieval propaganda, pre-Hussite Bohemia, Luxembourg dynasty, Wenceslas IV, Sigismund of Luxembourg

Good terms are all alike. Every bad term is bad in its own way. The latter applies in particular to the term propaganda when applied to pre-modern phenomena. The term has been subjected to particular scrutiny in the German secondary literature, mainly because of its ideological framing in the Nazi-era. One could raise many objections to its use. First, the term itself only emerged in the seventeenth century and therefore cannot be applied to communication strategies used in the Middle Ages. Moreover, it only began to acquire the meanings and connotations it has today in the nineteenth century, because it was only in this period that it became the powerful instrument of political influence used by actors in the public sphere to form parties.1 Furthermore, its definitions were modelled on modern ideas of the public and the media. Some voices have suggested that, given the comparative dearth of sources from pre-modern centuries and the very different nature of the public sphere and the political languages of the times, we can refer to the communication and persuasion strategies that were in use as propaganda-like at most. Most phenomena of political communication between rulers and the ruled could be explained using the methods introduced by Hagen Keller and Gerd Althoff in the 1980s2 for the study of symbolic communication and ritual. Their theses concerning the political culture of the Middle Ages, which primarily relied on visual and oral forms of communication as source material, are based on examples from the early and high Middle Ages. Here, the main medium was not writing but sophisticated sign systems and symbolically charged acts, including gestures and rituals. All rulers, i.e. kings, emperors, and also the pope, relied in their communication on this spectrum of non-verbal instruments of power. After all, the symbols comprising these semiotic systems were universally recognized political instruments that could be used to express both consent and dissent.

For football enthusiast Gerd Althoff, medieval rule had a lot in common with a game governed by fixed rules that were binding for both parties.3 They included publicly celebrated rituals of rule, such as petitions or acts of submission, but also controlled expressions of emotion, i.e. the notorious tears of the king, which he could allegedly shed at will.4 The main argument is compelling: in a time without universally binding international law or corresponding procedures, compliance with these rules served to secure an urgently needed peace. At the same time, these diplomatic habits appear as a hermetic discourse used among powerful elites that could hardly be accurately characterized as propaganda in the modern sense. Seen from the early and high medieval playing field, this may be true. But this idea of political balance is also one that largely excludes any interaction with external disruptive elements, or to stick with the football metaphor, a swearing coach on the sidelines or the effects of a pyrotechnical rumble in the stands.

The wider variety of sources from the Late Middle Ages, however, confronts us with political facts that can only be explained as the effects of propaganda in the modern sense of the word. One might think, for instance, of the significant number of negative legends that tarnish the historiographic image of kings and queens. Often, these legends turn out to be byproducts of intra-dynastic squabbles. One could mention the hapless Edward II, the deposed count of Tyrol, John Henry of Luxembourg, or the French queen Isabella of Bavaria, who became the target of England’s enemies during the Hundred Years’ War.5

Much as we collide here with the methodological limits of research on rituals, we must also confront the modern scholarship on models of communication. This scholarship tends almost completely to ignore the pre-modern era and focus instead on the most formative examples of what we have come to understand as propaganda, preferably the mass propaganda created by Josef Goebbels.6 No wonder. As an object of study, as an example of communicative strategies used to galvanize the masses, this propaganda has much more to offer. First and foremost, it made use of dynamically deployable mass media that was available across all social classes, as well as scientifically measurable interactions between political elites and the citizenry. The study of medieval propaganda offers none of these certainties. First of all, there are no models for this period, in which there were no modern structures of mass communication and the approach to the “public sphere” was completely different. Despite this, the popularity of the term propaganda in medieval studies is unbroken, even if researchers often forget to tell their readers what they mean by it, perhaps in the shy hope that their readership intuitively knows. But there is also an understandable unease associated with the term today, which is why the question of its applicability to pre-modern times is often limited to the search for comparable parameters based on ways in which it has appeared in modern times. This is only partially effective, since the manifestations of propaganda, which is a highly amorphous communication phenomenon, often make little sense outside of a specific socio­cultural context. But then again, there is something chameleonic about propaganda, such as its timeless characteristics.

Given the ambiguities of the term when applied to different eras, it is necessary to approach its potential usefulness, in medieval studies, from more than one direction. First, we must consider the genealogy of the concept, which calls attention to this versatility. We must then examine forms and uses of propaganda in pre-Hussite Bohemia which show both characteristics: the universal elements of propaganda on the one hand and, on the other, the features of this propaganda (which often addressed several diverse target audiences at the same time) that were specific to Bohemia in the years between 1400 and 1421. In this wide array of propaganda manifestations, the anti-royal examples used against the Luxembourg kings Wenceslas IV and Sigismund of Hungary were only a small side effect of the many crises of the period, which according to modern communication models favored the emergence of propaganda. These crises included the Great Schism, the development of a Czech-centered, spiritual-national reform movement, a royal reign made fragile by power issues and intra-dynastic strife, and the beginning of the confessional Hussite Wars. In the course of these often overlapping conflicts, several defamatory writings were composed which left significant traces in the later historiographical portrayals of Wenceslas and Sigismund.7 However, chronicles are not at the center of the study, as they represent a category of propaganda that has already been filtered.8 The focus is more on contemporary sources, such as treatises and manifestos, which even at the time were considered documents which would only be relevant for a comparatively short time. These documents are familiar to the scholarly community, but they have not yet been examined side by side or as a corpus.

Term and Concept

Propaganda, like any communication phenomenon, defies precise definition. It is rather a spectrum of fleeting uses of language and other communication tools the influence of which can be perceived in many different ways. The verb propagare, on which the term is based, comes from early modern biology, where it was used as a synonym for “to expand.” “to graft,” but also “to reproduce.”9 In the early seventeenth century, when it first appeared, it referred primarily to spiritual growth. In these early days, propaganda was both a missionary instrument and an institution of the Catholic Church.10 The Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, founded for this purpose in 1622, was a subsidiary authority of the Counter Reformation papacy with a permanent office in Rome. Pope Gregory XV had provided it with the necessary bull, and the intention was to provide support for the mission in China and thus help Catholicism play an increasingly global role.11

However, it seems that this modest office, the history of which has still not been given a thorough discussion in the secondary literature, also served other purposes. Around a century later, it was described in Zedler’s Universal Lexicon as a “contact point for new Christians visiting Rome for the first time.” It was meant not only as a point of reference for new bishops from distant colonies who came to visit the Roman shrines for the first time.12 It also addressed Catholic dignitaries who had been driven out of their dioceses by the Protestants. From the outset, the seat of the Propaganda Fide provided not only a place of refuge but also a forum for ideological edification, especially as the house had an printing press of its own which could produce and distribute any number of breviaries and missals.13

The French revolutionaries appropriated this idea of an ideological center when they transferred the concept of propaganda from the spiritual to the political sphere at the end of the eighteenth century. They saw themselves as missionaries (missionaires) and apostles (apôtres) of a global doctrine, the new democratic credo. In 1791, Camile Desmoulins, the French revolutionary and cofounder of the Jacobin Club in Paris, equated the task of the Jacobins with that of Catholic Propaganda Fide. Like the Propaganda Fide, the “propaganda clubs” of the revolutionaries should also further the spread of democratic teachings throughout Europe.14 These clubs did not exist for long, but it was precisely during the Restoration period that they also promoted the emergence of a conspiracy narrative spread by the advocates of corporatist society. According to this narrative, a secret organized revolutionary network operating out of Paris was responsible for the July Revolution of 1830.15

The idea that propaganda helped give every political movement a specific center and form a steady political following only began to be voiced after 1848, when the conservative parties of Europe began to understand the potentials of this tool. At that time, the methods of political propaganda included verbal persuasion but also persuasion by deed, as carried out with bayonets by the Anarchists. The German social democrats and communists distanced themselves from this practice and redefined the term agitation, which was based on arguments.16

The concept of propaganda received another layer of meaning around 1900, when the fields of sociology and later psychology turned their attention to its effects, making use of methods from emerging disciplines, such as com­munication sciences, public relations, and propaganda research.17 This was the birth of American PR and the propaganda concepts of Edgar Bernays who basically invented the profession of propagandist. He understood propaganda as a positive instrument that could be used to promote democracy and the common good, for example in the public health campaigns at the end of World War I, which helped motivate the American (rural) population to be vaccinated against typhoid and typhus.18

With his comparatively positive assessment of the uses of propaganda, Bernays was unquestionably in the minority, however. In 1922, Walter Lippmann, who studied the formation of public opinion, pointed at the much more probable dangers of manipulation through the mass media.19 The experiences of the Nazi era again shifted research on propaganda in the direction of its psychological effects. For Jacques Ellul, the main aim of modern propaganda was to evoke feelings. Its main goal was no longer to change the ways in which people think, but to get them to act in the way the propagandist intended.20

But what has changed since 1962, when Ellul formulated his findings? I could share a relevant personal experience. In the autumn semester of 2023, I offered the topic of “Propaganda in the Middle Ages” as an exercise both at the University of Vienna and my home university in Brno in the Czech Republic. I was interested in whether the experiences with propaganda in the Cold War had had an impact on the prevailing perceptions of propaganda among students. They were familiar with propaganda mainly from their parents’ experiences. Since propaganda had a much more positive connotation in the countries of Central Europe than in the West, I hoped to find at least some differences.21 The result was sobering. Instead of historical insights, the students offered me rather gloomy pictures of the present. They perceived propaganda as pure evil, i.e. as a highly ambivalent if not openly dangerous instrument of political manipulation, very much in the spirit of Walter Lippmann. Its main power lay, according to them, in total information control, which is why they associated propaganda with illiberal regimes, extremist political parties, and messianic individuals, all of whom (according to the students) were trying to impose their ideas on a wider public. In doing so, they would rely on strategies ranging from the simplification to the distortion and even the invention of information, or what has now become infamous as alternative facts.22 The same accounts for constructed images of imaginary enemies, the exploitation of stereotypes, and the use of vulgar language, to name just the most important responses. Neither was there any trace of a positive perception or a historical grasp of the history of propaganda.

It was quite clear that it would be next to impossible to apply these understandings of propaganda to pre-modern phenomena. Today, as em­pirical experience has confirmed, the concept is highly emotionalized, and understandings of propaganda tend to center around its impacts, which can only rarely be demonstrated in the case of medieval examples. To make the term usable again, it was necessary to get back to the complex web of relations between the propagandist and his target group, i.e. to emphasize the process famously summarized in 1948 by Harold D. Laswell, whose famous model of communication is based on the following question: “Who says what, in which channel, to whom, and with what effect?”23 It was therefore important to comprehend the multiple levels of interaction between the propagandist and the target group as a playful relationship that finds expression through the chosen channels of information. And one must not forget the craftsmanship of the propagandist. He must know the tastes of his public, prepare the information in a credible way, and choose the channels so as to ensure that his target accepts the information conveyed, whether it is true or not.24 In addition to choosing the right tools and channels, he must also be clear about the most promising strategies in the respective context.25 Furthermore, as Umberto Eco has pointed out, most information is ambiguous and can therefore be interpreted in various ways. Effective propaganda therefore requires not only control of the channels but also manipulation of the information content so that the target group gets only the message intended by the propagandist.26

As rhetoric became an increasingly important instrument with which to shape political opinion, a broad spectrum of strategies and motifs was developed the effective use of which determined the persuasive quality of the communicative act. Although the effectiveness and availability of some propaganda techniques depend on the specific cultural contexts, we still find similar propaganda techniques in use in almost every period of history. For example, the tactic recognized by Vladimir I. Lenin of simplifying persuasive content or limiting it to a core message that could be understood by as broad a public as possible was perfected by Joseph Goebbels, but it had already been put to use in the medieval ars dictaminis.27

Among these universal truisms of propaganda use is the fact that effective propaganda depends on freely accessible, publicly available information. This information constitutes the foundation of every propaganda invention, since it increases the credibility of the constructed messages. Lies have a special role to play here. According to Goebbels, lies have to be carefully inserted into the propaganda act, as the target audience otherwise may no longer believe the message. However, it has also been true over the ages that the dissemination of persuasive content has been particularly successful when it has been carried out by well-known personalities. Equally efficient and timeless is also the strategy of disseminating persuasive content on many channels simultaneously and, above all, repeating the key messages as often as possible.28 The latter elements both merit a chapter of their own. Most of the tried and tested strategies are based on familiar (narrative) motifs that change only slightly over time.29 The communication procedures include the particularly catchy use of oppositions between good and evil and references to the perpetual struggle between the two. Above this conflict lingers a higher power that represents the principle of order and intervenes only to punish or reward. We also encounter the martyr and the principle of self-sacrifice for an idea or community, which is highly topical in the Hussite period. Last but not least, the propagandist may also use humor or parody. The former is known since antiquity as a subversive instrument of the ruled, enabling them to criticize their real or perceived oppressors in public without putting themselves in immediate danger.30

Propaganda against the Luxembourg Kings

The years surrounding the outbreak of the Hussite Revolution have long been known as a period in which propaganda was used in an unprecedented density of transmission across all social classes. Between 1400 and 1420, the leading figures of the Hussite movement in particular succeeded in disseminating the complex content of their theology in a broadly effective, easily understandable way.31 They utilized all available media and channels and relied in particular on the long-term impact and constant repetition of their messages. Anti-royal propaganda developed against the backdrop of the same crisis-related background. Its propagandists and target audiences belonged to a socially higher and therefore smaller but more educated group. However, they too ultimately used strategies and persuasive instruments that were similar to the tools and techniques used by the Hussites. But what kinds of communication spaces existed in Prague around 1400? The largest of these spaces was tailored to an audience that, according to Thomas Fudge, was illiterate.32 By this I mean that most city dwellers could read at least reasonably well, which is why the emerging Hussite movement used oral preaching but, above all, combinations of text and image as a means of spreading its ideas. Most common was the convergence of “paint, poetry and pamphlets,” often in the form of allegorical images or symbols, to which explanatory or supplementary lines of text were sometimes added and which were carried as a kind of banner in public stagings, such as parodistic processions against ecclesiastical abuses, for example Pope John XXIII’s indulgence policy in 1412.33

Oral propaganda from the Hussite period consisted mainly of songs and poems, of which the Czech music historian Zdeňek Nejedlý has compiled a significant number from the Hussite period.34 It would be practically impossible to reconstruct the melodies, but the texts they combine several of the functions mentioned above, with the most important aim being the propagation of the movement. Accordingly, the texts reassures all sympathizers and encouraged them to distance themselves from splinter groups and opponents. But they were also intended to motivate members and supporters, including King Wenceslas IV, and sometimes also to persuade them to act in the interests of the movement. At the same time, they used “slander, subversion, and sedition” to belittle their opponents with the entire spectrum of parodistic tricks.35 Songs and highly mobile groups of singers have always been a tried and tested medium with which to spread specific ideas across social and age boundaries. For the Hussites, they were an excellent form of low–threshold protest in which children could also be involved. The Utraquist priest Jan Čápek, for example, wrote a song for these kinds of groups in 1421, after the surprising victory of the Prague Hussites against Sigismund’s crusaders. The aim was to let them proclaim in the streets of Prague that God had personally driven away the thousands of barbarians, Swabians, Saxons of Meissen, and Hungarians who had attacked Bohemia.36

This children’s song offers an example of one of the forms of propaganda that offers an often unacknowledged advantage to which my students in Brno drew my attention. Songs and slogans are so low-threshold (from the perspective of the complexity of the texts) and positive that reciting, singing, or shouting them can be fun. The children who were taught to love the Soviet Union and despise the West with slogans and songs in school and kindergarten during socialist times did not find these texts offensive either, presumably because the act of reciting or singing them was enjoyable, at least to some degree.37

This use of provocative sayings and rhymes was already common in Hussite times. Just like the songs of Soviet times, the songs of the Hussite era could also be memorized by the illiterate. Best known is the phrase “veritas vincit, pravda vítezí,” or “the truth prevails,” which was incorporated into the official coat of arms of the Czech Republic after 1920 but was initially the battle cry of the socially and linguistically heterogeneous Hussite armies.38

If one had to define a place in Prague where the propaganda material of these years reached a density that bears comparison with the ideological and spatial presence of the early modern Propaganda fidei, it would be the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, a propaganda center avant la lettre, where the Hussite movement had its spiritual and practical headquarters from 1402 on. The walls of the original chapel were decorated with hymns, defamatory images, and quotations from the works of the leading reformers. There was also an oral element. Jan Hus preached here in Czech at least three times a day between 1402 and 1412, and this gave his words tremendous impact over time.39

The situation was different with anti-royal propaganda, for which the Prague public was primarily a sounding board in the years immediately before the Hussite Revolution. Its main media were textual. The surviving pamphlets, tracts, and manifestos directed against Wenceslas IV and his brother Sigismund are exclusively the products of the elites, the clergy, the nobility, their chancellors, and sometimes also university circles.40 These groups constituted a rather hermetic public sphere, and the general population had little access to their knowledge and intellectual expertise. Anti-royal propaganda was more a political byproduct of the general crisis than a category in its own right. Therefore, its genres are also diverse and range from a sober, legal recording of various gravamina committed by the kings to anonymous Latin lamentations, satirical poems and manifestos often written in several languages.41 What they have in common is an appealing undertone, which is directed either at the respective king, his supporters, or his opponents, whereby motifs from the criticisms of rulers were used. The arguments touched on two aspects: the morality of the rulers’ acts and the legal dimension of these acts. In the course of the fourteenth century, the idea that a tyrant king could be deposed using appropriate legal means became firmly established, such as the idea that depositions were to be implemented by authorized interest groups only.42 Even if the propaganda against Wenceslas IV and Sigismund of Luxembourg had different roots and initiators, both were ultimately centered on the highly political question of their suitability as Bohemian or Roman kings.

Why Wenceslas, the eldest son of the extremely successful Emperor Charles IV, was caught in the propagandistic crossfire of his clerical and aristoc­ratic critics is more complex than nineteenth-century historians suggest. Most of these historians considered him simply a bad, lazy, and incompetent king.43 What is certain is that, in 1378, as the 17-year-old Wenceslas succeeded his great father Charles IV, he had a difficult time from the outset, as he had to deal with problems that were partly due to his position and partly related to the major upheavals of the time.44 One of these problems was the generational change in the king’s crown council, where several politically experienced members from Charles’s time were getting old, so the young king lost his immediate protection. Another reason was economic decline, which was reaching Bohemia from the west. This was accompanied by several waves of epidemics, to which Wenceslas’s first wife, Joan of Bavaria, fell victim in 1386.

Furthermore, the king’s position in the complex structure of Bohemian rule became more vulnerable again, for there were two other powerful stake­holders in the kingdom: the Bohemian barons and the high clergy. Both used the change of rule to force the young king to renegotiate their own rights to rule.45 The dispute between the five heirs of the House of Luxembourg, i.e. Wenceslas’s cousins Margraves Jobst and Prokop of Moravia, and especially Wenceslas’s long-term dispute with his younger half-brother Sigismund of Hungary, who plotted with the margraves, also caused upheaval.46 Wenceslas’ Bohemian opponents thus had an opportunity to achieve their goals through pressure from several sides, albeit with changing alliances.

Clouds were also gathering over the empire of which Wenceslas had been head since 1376. Wenceslas had been a thorn in the side of several ecclesiastical electors, in particular the pugnacious Archbishop of Mainz, John II. This was particularly true after his father bought him the Roman crown.47

The question of obedience in the Great Schism certainly played a role in this. The young king initially showed open sympathy for his cousin, the French king Charles V, who based his political ambitions on the Avignon papacy. This was a terrifying vision for the Rome-orientated electors, and as far as they were concerned, it had to be avoided at all costs.48 Ultimately, the European context was far less important for the emergence of the black legend of Wenceslas than the entanglements in Bohemia itself. Although Wenceslas was criticized by many as the exclusive guardian of his father’s legacy shortly after the death of Charles IV, the real spark for the construction of his bad reputation was a personal feud between the king and the Archbishop of Prague, John of Jenstein. John had been the king’s chancellor in the first years of his reign, but he had left this post as early as 1384 because he had not gotten on with Wenceslas. He too feared Wenceslas’ rapprochement with France, but he also took offence at the young king’s efforts to break up the church structures that his father Charles had created.49

Wenceslas, on the other hand, took offence at John’s ascetic orthodoxy and his open sympathy for the opposition League of Bohemian Barons. However, the main point of contention was church policy, namely the right of investiture of the Bohemian kings in the appointment of high church offices, which they had been allowed to exercise since the Přemyslid period in the thirteenth century50. This involved rights, but also no small amount of revenue, which Wenceslas wanted for the kingdom from then on. In doing so, he provoked a closing of ranks between the high clergy and the Bohemian barons, as well as other princes, including his brother Sigismund.

The situation came to a head in the spring of 1393, when Wenceslas attempted to make the Benedictine monastery of Kladruby, which had previously belonged to the Prague archbishopric, a bishopric dependent on him personally. With his contacts to the League of Lords, Jenstein succeeded in thwarting the intervention of the royal power with a legal coup d’état. However, Wenceslas then captured Jenzenstein’s closest associates, the cathedral deans Nikolaus von Puchnik and Johann von Pomuk, and had them tortured in order to find out more about the bishop’s plans and the individuals behind them. Pomuk died in the process.51

Politically humiliated, Jenstein fled to Rome and wrote the Acta in Curia Romana, a collection of 37 articles of accusation against the king, which he wanted to present to Pope Boniface IX in the hope that the pope would make Wenceslas pay for the death of his court juristatone for the death of his court jurist. The Acta were thus a personal reckoning. The text did not initially have a propagandistic purpose. It did not call on anyone apart from the pope to take action, nor was it intended to be read aloud. Initially, it was meant as a legally usable inventory of the long-term disputes with the king, for which the archbishop hoped to be financially compensated. However, the text also contained the first comparison of Wenceslas with Emperor Nero, a central motif of discourse on alleged tyrants which was widely discussed both legally and politically. This comparison was formulated in a way that Boniface, who was in favor of the Luxembourg Dynasty, could accept.52 In the 27th article, Jenstein, who was not present himself, describes how the king had tortured Pomuk “with his own hand, applying the burning torch to his side and other places” on his body.53 However, it was not even the legal aspects of the treatise that made Wenceslas seem a tyrant to the public, but its targeted exploitation by the archbishop’s sympathizers, the Bohemian barons, and, later, the ecclesiastical electors. Jenstein’s treatise reached the League of Lords, which had Wenceslas IV captured in the autumn of 1394.54 At the same time, the text was sent to his supporters at the Prague bishop’s court, who passed the treatise on to the University of Heidelberg and into the hands of the electoral opposition. The gravamina listed in the treatise became the basis for Wenceslas’ deposition. The Nero motif appears again in a letter of complaint addressed to the king in 1397.55 However, the final use of the extract from the Acta quoted above was in the sixth article of Wenceslas’ deposition decree from 1400, which was the result of a collaborative effort between Heidelberg canonists and lawyers from the Electorate of Cologne’s chancellery. It contains the following accusation: “[Wenceslas] murdered, drowned, and burned with torches in a terrible and inhuman way, with his own hand and with many other criminals he had with him, honorable and noble prelates, priests, and clergy and many other worthy men,” which is not worthy of a Roman king.56 The passage also refers to the widespread notoriety of Wenceslas’ alleged crimes. This contention was intended to facilitate the legal side of his deposition. At the same time, it underlined the simple fact that the ecclesiastical electors, at least in their territories, worked diligently to slander Wenceslas publicly.57 The attribution of the term tyrant by the highest ecclesiastical circles remained with Wenceslas until his death in 1419. His opponents used it again when it became clear that the king supported the Hussite movement, which, after the fiery death of Jan Hus, also earned him the reputation of a heretic.58

Between Sender and Reciever

While the propaganda against Wenceslas was linked to the overlapping power interests of various secular and clerical groups in Bohemia and later also in the empire, the negative image that emerged of Sigismund was exclusively the result of the tensions between him and the Bohemian Hussites. The most effective instrument used by the Bohemian Hussites was written manifestos, which became their most important medium of information from 1412, when Hus was banned, to the 1460s, when the movement disintegrated.59 The target audience of these manifestos was the Bohemian supporters of the Hussite cause, but the manifestos were also used to inform potential sympathizers in the surrounding countries, which resulted in the publication and spread of similar materials in several languages.60 In terms of content, they served both for spiritual edification and internal strengthening of the movement, as well as to provide information about the current political situation, with propagandistic intentions. The steadfastness of the movement and the doctrine of faith were emphasized, but usually the difficult political and military situation of the movement was also brought to the foreground, as were the intentions of the royal opponent and his allies. The propaganda materials also contained requests for advice and help and sometimes also for personal or financial support.61

The manifestos of 1420, when the conflict between Sigismund and the Hussites turned into an open war, also document the verbal armament that came with this war. They began with a dilemma, however. Sigismund’s call for a crusade, which the papal legate had read aloud in Wrocław on March 17, 1420, presented many Bohemian nobles with an impossible choice. They sympathized with the Hussites, but they also recognized Sigismund’s legitimate claim to the Bohemian throne. Sigismund had threatened the Hussite nobility not with conversion but with extermination.62 The fear of physical destruction, of losing all secularized church property again, and of further radicalization prompted Lord Burggrave Čenek of Wartenberg to convene a meeting of like-minded noblemen at Prague Castle on April 18, at which manifestos were written in German and Czech.63 For Wartenberg, who was a follower of the king, the threat issued by the king in Wrocław represented a formal legal basis for a justified call to arms. The occasion for the document was serious, but the form of a feudal letter was not chosen. Instead, they chose the more open form of a manifesto. This was intended to provide the addressees with arguments as to why they should not pay homage to the king and instead arm themselves for the fight against Sigismund. In keeping with the occasion, its form was based on a formal charter. It was addressed to the higher nobility and the towns and villages of Bohemia and Moravia. Sigismund was also referred to without irony with the full title of Hungarian and Roman king. This was followed by the justification for the refusal to show homage, which drew on legal elements similar to the legal elements of Wenceslas’ decree of Deposition.64 Here, too, the basis was the right to resist, because the Hussites now understood the Kingdom of Bohemia as an elective kingdom of their estates. In their view, Sigismund was neither elected nor crowned, and he was guilty of numerous offences against the Bohemian Crown and His Majesty,65 such as the betrayal of Jan Hus with the rejection of chalice communion and the elevation of one of the most prominent enemies of the Hussites, John the Iron, to the Olomouc episcopal throne. Sigismund’s attacks on the territorial and political integrity of the kingdom were also clear through the pledging of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the sale of the Neu­mark to the Teutonic Order. Here again we encounter aspects of the dis­course on tyrants in the accusations brought against Wenceslas, including allegations concerning the execution of Hussite merchants in Wrocław, whose property he had appropriated, and accusations involving his approach to Count Palatine John, Duke of Bavaria, who had transferred Jerome of Prague, Hus’ comrade-in-arms, to Constance in 1416. But there is also a direct reference to the Nero motif. In January 1420, Wenceslas allegedly had ordered the German miners in Kuttenberg to throw all the Czechs into the shafts, and some 400 people had perished. This was probably an unverifiable legend circulating among the Hussites.66 For these reasons, according to these propaganda materials, no one should pay homage to him, because anyone who were to do so would be a traitor to the Kingdom of Bohemia.

Given the fragility of the Hussite alliance at the time, this alliance should be understood more in symbolic political terms. However, this manifesto, whose dissemination can be traced as far as Ulm, was trendsetting in that it provided a structure for the rejection of Sigismund, which then took on a satirical tone.67

This was also true of the four Hussite manifestos preserved in the so-called Bautzen Manuscript, which were written between July and August 1420 by an author from the circle of the Hussite chronicler and magister Laurentius of Březová.68 The circumstances of its creation were favorable to the Hussites cause. Sigismund’s crusader army had suffered an unexpected defeat at Vítkov in Prague. He had been defeated by a small contingent led by Jan Žižka on July 14, and his army had been dispersed. Furthermore, he was not able to keep his subsequent coronation at Prague castle a secret. His role as a villain is clear. But in addition to this, the authors experimented with various propagandistic contents and strategies.

The first of these manifestos, the so-called Lament of the Bohemian Crown to God and against the Hungarian King and the Constance Assembly, also known as audite coeli in Latin, has been the subject of extensive research.69 The main protagonist of this fictional speech is the personification of the Bohemian crown, who addresses the world and God as the allegorical bride of the Bohemian kings and thus the widow of Wenceslas IV. The crown mentions the good old kings of Bohemia up to and including Wenceslas IV, and it contrasts these exemplary rulers with the new bridegroom, Sigismund, who is portrayed here as an ogre and the embodiment of the anti-king, thus rhetorically reversing the ideal of the ruler: instead of protecting his subjects and upholding the traditions of the dynasty, he betrayed Margrave Procopius and, even worse, betrayed his brother Wenceslas. He was also responsible for the deaths of Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague. The enforcement the crusade proclamation in Wroclaw clearly showed that he had betrayed the Kingdom of Bohemia and the crown (the metaphorical speaker), which was and last guardian of Bohemian majesty.70 Sigismund is viciously attacked in the document, and his honor and social position are ridiculed. The strategy and language used in the document had a high entertainment value and a high recognition effect. This is shown, for instance, by the well-known comparison of Sigismund with the apocalyptic beast. According to the Bohemian Crown, Sigismund was “not human, but the most murderous offspring of a poisonous snake, which not only wants to tear apart his mother’s womb at birth, but to destroy her entire body. He is... the terrible dragon that your beloved apostle saw, red, with seven heads, ten horns, and crowned with seven crowns and ten stars.”71 In general, Sigismund was “closer to an animal than to a human being, as he lacks all reason: a deaf viper, a dog, a predatory fox and greedy wolf and as unreasonable as a donkey standing next to a market stall and not understanding the violin playing.72” Accordingly, doubts were expressed about his legitimate descent. Charles IV was only presumed to be Sigismund’s father. Sigismund was averse to royal grandeur, which is why the Bohemian Crown described him not as a branch but as “a little twig of a noble foreign root, sickly and covered in dung.”73 In a reversal of the virtues of a ruler, the crown laments that Sigismund would neither protect the weakest of his subjects nor would be interested in preventing injustice: “How many virgins have been defiled (...) How many honorable, undefiled marriage beds have been defiled! (...) How many widowers, widows, how many orphans and how many childless, poor, needy, miserable, and desperate people have been destroyed by his evil hand.” The crown itself is also presented as his victim: “with an unprecedented fury, he rages against me, an abandoned widow, but also a mother and benefactress, and he strives to throw the famous majesty of my glory into the abominable dust.”74

However, Audite coeli was addressed not only to an educated audience who wanted to be entertained and thus possibly distracted from the difficult political situation. It was also intended for a wider public, as it was translated into Czech, together with the second satirical manifesto nuper coram, or the Censure of the Bohemian Crown on the Hungarian King Sigismund, written after Sigismund’s unsuccessful coronation.75 While the Latin manifestos were most likely intended to appeal to educated Hussite sympathizers in Europe, the Czech texts are clearly intended for a domestic, mostly functionally illiterate audience. Accordingly to reding situations, they differ in content, but also in style. In the latter, Sigismund’s misdeeds are depicted much more vividly. The text has a strong national undertone, and the language is a little coarser. For example, Sigismund is portrayed in a gender-stereotypical manner as an effeminate war­rior who was also responsible for the defeat to the Turks in 1419 because whores had robbed him of his virility. Here, too, he is mocked by the Bohemian crown: “You have become so effeminate through the lust of harlots that you did not dare put on your armor and did not see the enemy armies, but fled in shameful flight.”76 This would have been repeated, the crown alleges, at Vítkov in Prague, where Sigismund’s effeminacy meant that he was unable to prevail against a small Hussite contingent, which included women and a girl, despite his military superiority: “But you were startled, perhaps by the frightening sound of a dry leaf or perhaps by the snap of the flail (the popular Hussite weapon!). You fled shamefully and lost the bravest part of your large entourage.”77

As a conclusion to this discussion, we observe that a proper research discussion on premodern propaganda does not yet exist. As far as they are comparable, the results do not contradict medieval ritual research, but can be linked to its phenomenology. The results of the study, insofar as they are comparable, do not contradict medieval ritual research, but can be linked to its cognitive categories. The example of the Bohemian kings Wenceslas IV and Sigismund of Luxembourg in particular shows that propaganda in the fifteenth century could not function without a well-established framework of political symbols, rituals, and ideas of order. The king was a public figure who embodied normative notions of majesty. At the same time, he was forced to deal creatively with this network of norms, especially in times of crisis. His subjects or rivals for power by no means interpreted this embodiment of the norm as inviolable. This became particularly clear in the late Middle Ages, when politically and religiously motivated interest groups used every available means of communication to remind the king of the need to comply with these conceptual norms. We have ample evidence from this period in support of the conclusion that propaganda was an integral part of ritual-based communication among monarchs, elites, and wider audiences. However, since the tools through which propaganda could be propagated were accessible to an array of social, linguistic, and religious groups, uses of propaganda had an unpredictable side that even the presidents of today’s democracies fear. The many instruments, strategies, and motifs on which propaganda relies can be used at the right time and by capable propagandists to significantly change perceptions, e.g. to polish one’s own image, to help convey even a misleading a message convincingly. It may serve as a subversive form of expression for the frustrations of the oppressed, or to herald a toxic reception history that can no longer be shaken off. The strength of the mechanisms of propaganda lies in the ways in which they can be effectively adapted to new circumstances, and this in turn makes it possible to use them to interfere drastically with the normative frameworks of political rituals. The grip that various uses of propaganda had on Bohemian society before and during the Hussite Wars, including wide swathes of the population and representatives of royal power, speaks for itself.

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* This study was supported by grant no. 19-28415X “From Performativity to Institutionalization:* This study was supported by grant no. 19-28415X “From Performativity to Institutionalization:Handling Conflict in the Late Middle Ages (Strategies, Agents, Communication)” from the Czech ScienceFoundation (GA ČR). It relies on the Czech Medieval Sources online database provided by the LINDAT/CLARIAH-CZ research infrastructure (https://lindat.cz) supported by the Ministry of Education andScience of the Czech Republic (project no. LM2018101).

* This study was supported by grant no. 19-28415X “From Performativity to Institutionalization: Handling Conflict in the Late Middle Ages (Strategies, Agents, Communication)” from the Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR). It relies on the Czech Medieval Sources online database provided by the LINDAT/CLARIAH-CZ research infrastructure (https://lindat.cz) supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Czech Republic (project no. LM2018101).