About the project

The database is intended as a contribution to research on the concepts and ideas of Europe in the 17th century. The work was funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Düsseldorf, from 2001-2004. The content was completed in January 2007. In order to keep the contents available for a long time to come, they have now been transferred to a new CMS. The database is accompanied by a publication with scientific results of the project team:

The project team: Wolfgang Schmale (head). The texts were written by Rolf Felbinger, Josef Köstlbauer and Alexander Wilckens. The original website was created by Günter Kastner and Alexander Koller, the new website was created by Claudia Jandl and Nino Wegleitner.

A follow-up project focused on pictorial sources of Europe, especially continental allegories, from the 16th to the mid-19th century. To the database

Printed sources and methods of investigation

The focus is on printings of the 17th century. Considering the mass of printings during the 17th century the general use of terms like "Europa" or "Europe" and adjectives like "europäisch", "europaeus" or "européen" in titles or subtitles turned out to be a qualified selective criteria. A systematical checking of the catalogues of the Austrian National Library and the Bavarian State Library (which were chosen as reference catalogues because the historical book stocks of these libraries belong to the most extensive ones in Europe) led to a result of about 550 titles that correspond to the selective criteria. The titles mostly come from Germany, France, England, Italy and the Netherlands, but in rare cases also from Poland and Bohemia (with Latin titles). Until now the search for possible Spanish printings has shown no positive results, which is contrary to the 16th century research. The titles were associated with 18 different thematic fields:

The thematic fields 1 - 4 have the biggest quantity. Section number 5 has already been examined by the project manager (Schmale, Wolfgang: Das 17. Jahrhundert und die neuere europäische Geschichte. In: Historische Zeitung 264 (1997), p. 587-611) but the thematic fields 6 and 7 also promise interesting returns. As all the other sections show a rather low number of printings (less than 15 or even 10) that could be worked with, they had to be put aside. By the way, elements of listing number 4 ("Literature") have hardly been seen as printed sources in historiography so far. The only work concerning literature and music, that has been mentioned occasionally but also never been analysed, is "L'Europe galante" (about 1700) by André Campry.
These selected thematic fields are not showing fortuitously the biggest quantity but the results reflect a fundamental development of the 17th century. Referring to the different levels of historical development, the 17th century owns a key position. The relocation of the axes of the global economy, which had already begun in the second half of the 16th century, continued and even intensified. The Mediterranean area kept on loosing its signification as well as Northern and Western Europe continued to gain economic and political importance. The Thirty Years' War, which superposed on anything else in Germany, only speeded up this development. Corresponding to this, a process took place that could be called the dominating trend of history in Early Modern Times although it did not proceed homogeneously: the consolidated process of the formation of states. This process of formation had started a long time ago, but it obtained clearer contours during the 16th and especially during the 17th century. Particularly the enlargement of bureaucracies and military organisations as well as the increasing number of laws, orders and regulations are an articulation of this consolidation of states. The growing intensity of government and the inner structure of states aim at the creation of a classified even uniformed society and the execution of supremacy being claimed by the leading social classes.
The unification that was pushed by the state itself did not only refer to the guarantee of economy, trade and inner peace but also to the problem of spiritual welfare of the subjects. The outlined phenomenons were accompanied by fears and expectations of the end of the world, overpopulation, economic difficulties of adjustment as well as by aggressions and conflicts concerning state and society. The entire phenomenons are often summarized within the concept of the "general crisis of the 17th century". This interior and exterior crisis established the basis for a new stability that was characterized by the world of absolutism and feudal society as well as the European political system. The creation or consolidation (17th century!) of certain kinds of literature and the formation of different terms and conceptions of Europe were also among the mental consequences of the outlined phenomenons. In a more extensive way of consideration all titles that belong to the thematic sections 1 - 3 are products of the historical-political, political-philosophical or constitutional literature. Geographic-cosmographic literature, which had already been flourishing during the 16th century, was continuously produced but took over a historical-political character frequently. All sorts of literature have reflected the important political and economic changes since the Thirty Years' War in particular, whose final and peaceful period stimulated literature itself by the way. The not even smaller problem of confessionalisation as well as the revived wars with the Turks are included both in sections 1 - 3 and 6 - 7. The literary digestion of "Europe" (thematic field 4) can be considered as an innovation of late 17th century that is strongly linked with the incline of novel fiction, stage-plays and opera. France was an important role model but Germany as well produced a lot of printings concerning particularly the wars with the Turks. Referring to this thematic field, the project will make this new stock of printed sources accessible to the historic research. First of all a quantity of about 100 printed sources was chosen for the project preferring titles that had never or only marginally been used for the research of terms and conceptions of Europe before.

In the meantime, research has gone further, for example:

Detering, Nicolas (2017): Krise und Kontinent. Die Entstehung der deutschen Europa-Literatur in der Frühen Neuzeit. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag (ISBN: 978-3-412-50719-0).

Using the database

You have the possibility to access the source autopsies by means of "author", "short title", "keyword" or "timeline". By means of the keyword list you can proceed problem-oriented. The keywords such as "myth", "geography", "Turks" etc. always relate the respective topic to its European dimension.