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Amicitia (“friendship”) is, after kinship, the most important constitutive principle of society and groups in Europe. In principle, it tends toward equality and is based on the material and immaterial exchange of gifts. Both forms of amicitia inherited from the Middle Ages and new forms can be observed in Early Modern history. On the one hand, the concept remained focused on the special, if variable, quality of the amicable relationship, ranging from (short or long-term) shared interest to loyalty and affection to sexuality. On the…

Following the emergence of a political public sphere in the course of the 16th century, there gradually developed in the 17th and 18th centuries a demand among its agents to be kept informed, at least in respect of general principles and fundamental aims, of the actions of rulers [2]. Those aspects of policy that rulers persisted in not making public, and the strategies and tactics by means of which they sought to conceal what both sides agreed to be their key intentions and actions (the technical term used at the time until around 1700 was the Latin simulatio or dissimulatio; “pretense,” “d…

Althusianism is the name modern scholars give to the complex political theory, conceived by Johannes Althusius/Althaus (1557-1638) the Calvinist jurist, rector of the Herborn Academy, and from 1604 city syndic of Emden, in his work Politica methodice digesta (1603, 1610, 1614, 1654; repr. 1617, 1625). Althusianism was received and developed further until around 1650, especially in the Holy Roman Empire [4], the Netherlands, and England and Scotland [1. 291–314]; [5. 157–230]; [6]. Following Ramist methodology (Ramism), Althusius’ work set the new contemporary …

1. Definition The term aristocracy (literally “rule of the best”), which originated in Ancient Greek political theory, has had three meanings since the Late Middle Ages: (1) from Aristotelian theory of forms of government, it denoted legitimate and just rule (Authority) in pursuit of the common good by a minority considered outstanding through a claim to virtue - this was in contrast to monarchy and democracy and, at least in self-presentation, to oligarchy, being minority rule concerned only with…

1. Definition Neo-Aristotelian political theory in the strict sense connotes all tendencies of early modern political thought that aimed “methodically and systematically to revive and develop” Aristotle’s Politics (c. 350 BCE) “in reflective orientation with [its author’s] methodical theory and categories” [3. 639 f.]. In a wider sense, the term is used to refer to early modern political theory as a whole, where this shared the basic categories of the Aristotelian view, that is, where it saw politics with ethics and political economic…

1. DefinitionThe principle of subsidiarity (from Latin  subsidium, “aid”) refers to the relationship of responsibility and support among the units and levels that make up every hierarchical political and social system. It postulates that in principle the primary and lower entities should have priority, so that larger and higher entities must not take over their responsibilities or even eliminate them but instead support them. The formulation of the principle of subsidiarity rests on resistance to the e…

The Latin expression Politica Christiana (Christian policy) is used in the sources and in scholarship. It denotes in general any effort to Christianize politics.The use of the term in the early modern period dates back to the Reformation. From the 1530s, German Lutheran scholars in the Empire in particular drew on biblical evidence to develop concepts limiting the authority of non-Protestant rulers and thereby to consolidate their own confession and found a reformed Christian politics [13]; [14]. These efforts culminated in an original concept of sovereign power,…

1. State of researchCurrent research no longer thinks of honor as a static moral and legal quantity but as a historically variable, complex system of rules governing mutual attribution of value; this system engendered both individual self-esteem and notions of value and status specific to various roles and groups, along with corresponding behavioral expectations. Consequently researchers for the most part present detailed analyses of particular cases of the construction, impeachment, defense, and d…

1. PrinciplesThe Latin term necessitas (Necessity) had various usages in the early modern period [1]. In everyday life, it took in a broad spectrum of basic needs, from concrete essentials, such as necessitas  bibendi (“the need to drink”) and  necessitas ad victum (“[things] necessary to life”; cf. German  Notdurft, “basic need”; Sustenance), to abstractions, for example  necessitas familiaritasque (“ties of amity and kinship”; Amicitia) or  necessitas ultima (“death”) and extended senses, for example  necessitates as “dues,” or in the singular as “nature” and “fa…

1. DefinitionThe category  political theory has three meanings: (1) in contrast to political practice, it stands for any intellectual consideration of politics; (2) within the realm of political thought, it designates the reflective level marked by coherence, systematization, and rigor, that is, it appears scientific; (3) with reference to a specific phenomenon, it means the political explanation or theory of that phenomenon (e.g. the political theory of communication).The related discipline of political philosophy considers the universal and normative founda…

1. PrinciplesEvery community faces the problem of reconciling its members' individual ventures with communal purpose. Solving this problem by conceiving the dichotomy of common good (Latin  bonum omnium, bonum commune, salus publica) or common weal (Latin  utilitas publica) and self-interest, in the tradition of Antiquity, and in the same tradition giving precedence to the common good, was accomplished in practice and in the primarily Christian religious theory of the Middle Ages.The spectrum of medieval and early modern communities that needed to be internally …

1. IntroductionThe term “democracy” (literally “rule of the people”), which originated in Greek political theory, is used in two ways today. First, in the strict political sense, it denotes the form of government of all states in which (purportedly or genuinely) “the people” rules, that is, not a minority of people or a monarch. Secondly, in a broader sense, it expresses a demand for unrestricted participation in all social spheres (e.g. the “democratic family” or “democratic higher education”). …

1. BackgroundThe noun  interesse (“interest”; from the Latin verb  interesse, “lie between,” “be of importance,” “make a difference”), first attested c. 1100, goes back to formulations of Roman law that spoke of the compensation that a money lender was permitted to demand of a borrower in return for his own non-utilization of the money or as a value equalization [15]. Subsequently the legal and financial meaning narrowed to interest (German  Zins), while in common usage and philosophical contexts the meaning of  interest was extended to benefit, advantage, or gain. Even …

The term  legitimacy (modern Latin  legitimitas, primarily with reference to parentage and property) developed out of legal language toward the end of the 18th century; it denotes the “rightfulness” and consequent worthiness of being recognized and actual recognition of rulers and acts of authority as well as forms of government or the state. The political import of the related adjective (Latin  legitimus) began with the linkage of inheritance law and succession to authoritative office (Throne, succession to) in the Golden Bull of 1356. It increased as…

1. Fundamentals The early modern idea that the state, constitution, and socio-economic order had to be based on a legal agreement according to the mutual benefit of the parties involved arose in the 17th century and became widespread in the latter half of the 18th century. It built upon a complex process of the fusion, differentiation, and transformation of earlier Christian notions of unions and alliances, Roman legal principles, and humanistic religious approaches.At the heart of the Christian tradition stood the biblical idea of God's covenant with his chosen p…

The meaning of the term Polizeiwissenschaft (or Policeywissenschaft) varies. Historically, it denoted in a general sense the totality of all early modern academic concerns with  Policey (policing, public order; Police [political order]). In the narrower sense, it denotes a subject instituted and taught between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries exclusively in German and Austrian universities; the intent was to systematically and academically combine the constitutional, administrative, and economic aspects included at that time under Policey or considered most impor…

1. Concept and genres Beginning with the first ancient examples, prince’s mirrors were didactic, exhortatory, or reflective political texts concerned with the norms and forms of correct princely conduct (Authority; Monarchy). Titles variously focused on genre in reference to the mirror metaphor of medieval didacticism (e.g.  Speculum principis/regis/regale, “Mirror of the Prince”), on function (e.g.  De educatione/institutione principis, “On the Education of the Prince”) or on subject matter (e.g.  De officio principis, “On the Obligations of the Prince”; De regimine pri…

1. Introduction The theory of forms of government is that portion of political and constitutional philosophy  that seeks to classify the empirical and theoretical forms of political systems, in order to determine through comparative analysis which model is relatively or absolutely best. Its emergence and development in the early modern period therefore essentially followed political theory. The conceptual foundation was laid by the relevant passages from the political works of Aristotle (Aristotel…

Historians specializing in the 16th and 17th century use  Lipsianism for the movement within Late Humanism that was founded by the Dutch scholar Justus Lipsius (1547–1606). Various disciplines use the term for different aspects of the multifaceted work of Lipsius and his followers.In philology and historical linguistics, the term is used for Lipsius’ Latin style, which was not standard but un-Ciceronian, laconic, bricolagic, and aphoristic – judged to be no long “golden” but only “silver” [4. 204–255]; it frequently triggered displeasure and resistance among the Jes…

1. DefinitionThe term state publications (German  Staatsschriften) was coined during the German political and constitutional debates of the second half of the 17th century [1]. It was an umbrella term covering all genres of publications by means of which governments sought to win the support of the increasingly important political public sphere, especially with respect to the beginning of wars (see War; War, declaration of) and making peace (see Peace; Peace treaty; see also 2. below) [7]. In the late 18th century, the term migrated into the classification of …