Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Cabinet
(1,152 words)

1. Holy Roman Empire

The word cabinet (German Kabinett), derived from the French cabinet, originally meant a small and intimate room. From the 17th century in the German-speaking world, it began to be used in place ofKammer (“chamber”) to denote the work and council chamber of the ruler and, in a figurative sense, the apparatus of supreme executive power. Zedler’s Universal-Lexikon, for instance, defined Cabinet as the sanctuarium principis (“sanctum of the prince”), which “great lords have set aside f…

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Babel, Rainer, “Cabinet”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_021806>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160907



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