History of the Germans

Why are the Swiss called the Swiss? After all, Schwyz in only of 26 cantons, and not one of the largest ones. How did the proud and prosperous citizens of Zurich or Berne, mighty city states in their own right, decide they wanted to be named after a mountainous region largely inhabited by peasants tending to their gorgeous brown cattle, the Braunvieh. They even called their national airline Swissair, until my former colleagues at McKinsey let the air out of that one.
So, why Swiss? The answer goes back to today’s topic, a war that the Swiss call the Schwabenkreig or Swabian War. This war played a massive role in Swiss historiography, and its main battles at the Caven and at Dornach was mentioned in the same breath as Morgarten and Sempach. It was seen as the moment when Switzerland de facto exited the Holy Roman Empire and began ploughing its own furrow in European history. Meanwhile in Germany, this war that we called the Schweizerkreig or Swiss War is largely forgotten amongst the hundreds of other military conflicts.
It was also the first of many contests between the two formidable fighting forces of the Renaissance, the Swiss Reisläufer and the German Landsknechte. These soldiers of fortune have percolated the national consciousness on both sides, their fanciful dress depicted in art on both sides of the Rhine and still providing one of Rome’s most instagrammable photo opportunities.
That on top of the usual incompetence and skullduggery should be incentive enough to listen to this episode.
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
As always:
Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com
If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast
Facebook: @HOTGPod
Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast
Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social
Instagram: history_of_the_germans
Twitter: @germanshistory
To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
The Ottonians
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
Frederick II Stupor Mundi
Saxony and Eastward Expansion
The Hanseatic League
The Teutonic Knights
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation

Europe's political landscape is shifting fundamentally. No longer are wars fought between kings and their vassals, and emperors against popes - it is all about the balance of power. and this balaance is firmly out of whack. The largest, richest and most populous part of Europe, the empire that still formally included Italy, the Low Countries, the Swiss Confederation, Bohemia and Burgundy, was also its politically weakest entity, whilst the kings of France leveraged their smaller but more coherent state into European dominance.
The struggle between France and its neighbours with england looking on was to become the dominant political pattern of Western European politics for 250 or arguable 350 years.
Maximilian has a Grand Plan that could have nipped these centuries of death and destruction in the bud. But he did not...
Karl Marx once said that history repeates itself twice, first as tragedy and then as farce. he was wrong on many (not all) things. This one repeats not twice but ten, if not dozens of times, but first as farce and then as tragedy...
Enjoy the ride..
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
As always:
Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com
If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast
Facebook: @HOTGPod
Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast
Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social
Instagram: history_of_the_germans
Twitter: @germanshistory
To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
The Ottonians
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
Frederick II Stupor Mundi
Saxony and Eastward Expansion
The Hanseatic League
The Teutonic Knights
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation

Prof Duncan Hardy is one of the leading experts in the history of the Holy Roman Empire and one of his main topics is the Imperial reform of 1495, making him the ideal guest for our show.
In his first book, Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire he tries to define what the Holy Roman Empire was a question we will almost certainly spend quite some time discussing today.
His forthcoming book, which he had so kindly sent me an advance copy, should be familiar to you all, since I do use it as a source for the show. It is titled Law, Society and Political Culture in Late Medieval and Reformation Germany and contains a large number of edited and translated primary sources illustrating German history circa 1350 to 1550.
As a special treat, listeners to the Hstory of the Germans can order the book at Manchester University press with a 30% discount. The discount code is mentioned at the end of teh interview, so listen out. You can order ithere:
Manchester University Press - Law, society and political culture in late medieval and Reformation Germany
Duncan has a PHD from Oxford University, fellowships from Cambridge, Erfurt and Bielefeld and currently teaches at the University of Central Florida.
And he is a fellow listener of the show. So this will be the time where all my mistakes and random speculations will be dragged into the glare of academic scrutiny.
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
As always:
Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com
If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast
Facebook: @HOTGPod
Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast
Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social
Instagram: history_of_the_germans
Twitter: @germanshistory
To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
The Ottonians
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
Frederick II Stupor Mundi
Saxony and Eastward Expansion
The Hanseatic League
The Teutonic Knights
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation

Let me start today’s episode with some outrageous national stereotypes. If an Englishman is disappointed with the way the affairs of state are conducted, he writes a letter to his member of Parliament. A Frenchman in that same situation rents a tractor and dumps manure outside the Palais d’Elysee. A German threatens to file a lawsuit with the constitutional court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht.
Where did the Germans pick up the belief that courts and the law will protect them against government overreach? Sure, 19th and early 20th century judges had on occasion stood up to the Kaiser’s administration and the Grundgesetz, the liberal constitution of 1949, had become a cornerstone of our national identity following the comprehensive loss of moral standing.
But there is also a long strain that goes back to the Holy Roman Empire and the two imperial courts, the Reichskammergericht and the Reichshofrat. These courts have a bad reputation, not only because Johan Wolfgang von Goethe saw it fit to ridicule his former place of work. However, not everyone shared this negative perspective. Many social groups down to mere commoners relied on these independent judges to protect their life and property against rapacious princes.
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
As always:
Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com
If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast
Facebook: @HOTGPod
Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast
Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social
Instagram: history_of_the_germans
Twitter: @germanshistory
To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
The Ottonians
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
Frederick II Stupor Mundi
Saxony and Eastward Expansion
The Hanseatic League
The Teutonic Knights
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation

I am afraid today’s episode is not your usual swordplay and skullduggery. What we are looking at today is the Reichstag as it operated throughout the Holy Roman Empire from 1495 to 1803. Sounds a bit like dour constitutional law, but bear with me.
We will look at a couple of classic tropes, like, whether the empire consisted of more than 300 sovereign states who could do whatever they wanted, whether the Reichstag was a talking shop hat never did anything except stopping the emperor from becoming a proper monarch. And, as usual, we will talk about money and printing, and why German politician speeches are invariably long on fact and short on rhetoric.
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
As always:
Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com
If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast
Facebook: @HOTGPod
Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast
Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social
Instagram: history_of_the_germans
Twitter: @germanshistory
To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.
So far I have:
The Ottonians
Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy
Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen
Frederick II Stupor Mundi
Saxony and Eastward Expansion
The Hanseatic League
The Teutonic Knights
The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356
The Reformation before the Reformation