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1. Concept and discourse history 1.1. Semantic fieldThe variety and contradictoriness of the ideas associated with the concept of Reich (German, roughly meaning “realm”, “empire”) are products of the diversity of memorial cultures, the traditions of respective scholarly disciplines, and the complex use of language. Most of these ideas can be traced back to the ancient Roman Empire (Latin  Imperium Romanum, German Römisches Reich), the archetypal empire of the west and Christian Europe. German also uses the Latin imperium and the English “empire” alongside Reich, but not nece…

1. Medieval background The theory of four world kingdoms goes back to a prophecy in the OT book of Daniel (Dan 2:37ff.; see Reich 1.4.). According to this historiographical theory (History), sacred history consists of a sequence of four worldwide kingdoms, which the Middle Ages (following patristic exegesis in late antiquity; Jerome) identified with the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and finally the Roman Empire (see Ages of the world). The end of the last of these kingdoms, the Roman Empir…