Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve. In today's Bonus Author Interview, I
sit down with Martin Rady and we talk about his most recent book, The
Middle Kingdoms, a New History of Central Europe. This is an ambitious book,
to say the least. It covers, Oh, I don't know,
almost two thousand years of history for an area that is one of the largest
in Europe. So it's Central Europe has always forgotten, but it's really important
to keep it in mind, especially sort of the crossroads of Europe. And
it's of course in the news even still today. So I'm gonna sit down
with Mark Rady today and talk about the book. Not gonna get all the
way through it. It is over five hundred pages in length, as it
sits here next to me right now, covers a lot of different topics.
I had hoped to get to Napoleon. We didn't get to Napoleon. We
got to the Thirty Years War instead. But we're starting with Rome and the
influences of the Huns, so I guess that's still kind of an accomplishment.
Before we get started here, just a quick reminder all the links in the
show notes that there always will be anna link to purchase the book there is
present as well, So without further ado, then on to the interview.
All right, as I mentioned, I'm sitting down with historian Martin Brady.
Rady did it that wrong the first time, got it. So we're here.
We're talking about his book The Middle Kingdoms, which is about Central Europe,
which is the part of Europe that was never discussed when I was a
history major in college. It was just sort of there's France and England and
German at some point, and then I think there's some countries in the middle
there, but we're never going to talk about those. So a good breath
of fresh air with this topic today. But I was hoping by joining us,
you could start out by at least defining what we mean when we say
central Europe, because I'm not sure everybody's on the same page on that one.
What central Europe does tend to differ a little depending upon who you're talking
to. The earliest reference to Central Europe who was called in German Middle Europe,
and the earliest reference to Middle Europe that I found is from eighteen oh
five, and it really is the area between France and Russia, and that
is what the author a man called George Hastle described it as that area,
that part of Europe that isn't in Turkish occupation, as the Balkans, most
of the Balkans, was that area between, if you like, the Rhine
and the Russian frontier. Now, of course these are this is a political
description that he gives. He references states, he goes beyond that and says
Central Europe is the free bit of Europe which isn't under French absolutism and isn't
under Russian autocracy. It's a nice part of Europe, if you like.
And that was more or less the definition of Central Europe that prevailed right through
to the Second World War. It always had Germany in it. Poland was
there or it wasn't there, depending upon whether Poland actually existed. Hungary was
there, Bohemia, the Czech Republic that they were there, Austria was always
there. People weren't sure what to do with Belgium and the Netherlands. I
have in my book left out Belgium and the Netherlands, but I have included
Frezier, and I've made largely the Rhine Frontier and Poland the limits of the
book, and not going very much into the Balkans, although I do discuss
Slovenia and Croatia well. And it's worth pointing out immediately that the book covers
about two thousand years ish of history, and so I think you're well within
your rights not to include the Balkans, or you know, it would have
been eight hundred pages and nine five hundred, six hundred pages. But you
know, this is Western CIV Podcast, So it's time for the obligatory Rome
questions. You know, let's go back to the Roman Empire, because that
is kind of to an extent where the book sort of begins to get into
the history of Central Europe. And I don't think most people think of Central
Europe when they think of Rome. I think you probably think of Western Europe.
You think of Italy, and you do you think of the Balkan states
and so on and so forth. But Central Europe you probably most of my
listeners probably consider a little bit too far afield. But I think it's worth
wondering for a moment, you know, what was there a Roman influence in
this area of Central Europe as we have just defined it just now, And
you know, to what extent was that prevalent during the Roman period they I
mean, it is surprising how much actually of Central Europe is within the Roman
Empire. I mean, the boundaries of the Roman Empire are essentially the Rhine
and the Danube, and that includes quite a large chunk of western Germany,
it includes the large chunk of Austria. Switzerland was also included, and then
of course as one goes down the Danube, one hits what is now Romania
Transylvania that was incorporated in the Roman Empire. And of course the other point
about the Roman Empire is that we tend to think in terms of lines on
maps, but influence is far more important, and there are two different types
of influences, the versus military influence. The Roman Empire is operating way beyond
its borders. There are forts Roman forts built in Czech Republic. Their massive
fortifications on the Great Hungarian Plain between the province of Dasia and the Province of
Pannonia, the bit that lies outside the Roman Empire. According to all the
maps, they're huge fortifications. There's a sort of Hadrian's wall earthwork wall that's
built to keep back the tribe of the Psalmatians. So there's a lot of
military influence as well, but the cultural influence is important. The barbarian tribes
living beyond the border, they want access to Rome, they want access to
the wealth of the Roman Empire, and having destroyed the Roman Empire, they
nevertheless are aware of the monumental legacy of it. And it's you know,
one has to bear in mind that we talk about the Holy Roman Empire.
Its official name was the Roman Empire, and it is as the Roman Empire
that it existed right through to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and we
call them Holy Roman empress. They thought of themselves as Roman emperors in direct
line of, if you like, ideological descent from the old Roman emperors of
ancient Rome. So the influence military and cultural is quite significant. I think,
yeah, sometimes I don't think we sometimes I do think. Rather,
that's one of the most damaging things that we do for especially younger history students,
has show them a map that's colored in with lines and say, okay,
well, these people lived on this side of the line and these people
lived on that side of the line, which, of course in pre modern
history is ludicrous at any time that you're trying to say it. But it
also just sometimes we oversimplify things to such a strong extent that we end up
actually not telling the truth anymore, when there was a lot of interaction between
areas well beyond the Rhine, well beyond the Danube, even in the Roman
imperial period, and just coloring this section of the map read and saying this
is Roman, this isn't is against one of those oversimplifications that I don't think
does this any justice. But of course one of the one of the reasons
for the ultimate collapse of the Roman Empire are those barbarian incursions and one of
the impetus for the movement of people, you know, are some of those
and we'll talk about a couple of these groups today, But these step riders
who come in from the east, and you know, if I'm talking about
the Romans, of course, I'm talking about the Huns, and so I
think it's worth talking about for a second. You know, how important were
these incursions of horse archer step peoples who would you know, from time to
time sort of like a hurricane almost of blowing into Central Europe. I think
they're absolutely critical really in determining the shape and the history of Central Europe,
and it carries on all the way through really to the eighteenth century, in
the form of the Tartars of the step who are a constant problem and dislocating
force in large parts of Central Europe right through to the eighteenth century, particularly
in the slave trade that emerges in that part of the world. They go
in, the Tartars go in and force or militarization of the society in order
to defend them, defendigates these people. But going back to the Huns,
I mean Huns bring down the Roman Empire. That's a big statement. There
are one hundred and forty reasons given by historians for the collapse of the Roman
Empire, and any of your listeners who are interested can go into Wikipedia and
every one of them is listed with due reference points. But I think one
could say that, yes, there are all sorts of reasons why the Roman
Empire fail. It's dependence upon slavery. Maybe Christianity made people soft and remove
the martial edge of the Roman Empire. But I think if one looks at
it in terms of sort of short term causes, the short term cause is
the eruption of the Huns. The Huns are a completely new force. Nobody
really knows much about them. They're related to what appears to be a group
called the seal New who are active a couple of centuries before on the Chinese
border. Then they go quiet. Nobody knows what happens in the intervening period,
and suddenly in the fourth century they're on the Western stepe land and on
the western step they start pushing the two groups that are both called Goths.
They're the Turving and the Groytun Goths, and the Huns pushed them into the
Roman Empire, and that starting in three seven eight a d. When a
Roman army is defeated by in a sense, these refugees from the Huns.
From that point on, the Roman Empire is in decline, and the Roman
Empire will be brought down effectively by the eruption of Barbarian tribes who, like
some sort of domino effect, are pushed by the Goths and taken and take
occupation of Italy. And it is a very sad event. There's some historians
who play down the impact of the Barbarian invasions on Rome and talk about the
strong continuities. Well, if you look cards enough, I'm sure you can
find the continuities. People weren't so sure that there were continuities around in the
fourth and fifth centuries, but the most signal thing is there is hot running
water stops in four fifty eight. It stops in Central Europe and stops in
the fifth century, and it will not be until about fourteen sixty that it
recommences. So you can't get a hot bath in Central Europe for a thousand
years. And that is the effect of the barbarian invasions, and an important
effect, let's say that for sure. But you make a good point there
that I just want to make sure that the listeners pick up. I'm because
one of the things that's so critical about Central Europe, and it's it's evident
in the book very much a sort of a thread that runs throughout is that
Central Europe is very much the sort of crossroads area where different cultures are meeting.
And you talk about the Huns coming through and other step peoples and how
that forces the militarization of those people who are there to try to defend themselves
against them. And I think that that's an important theme throughout the book and
throughout history of civilizations being impacted by each other, almost like pieces of hot
metal that are pounded together it changes both of them every time that they're struck
in some sort of a way. And in this case, it's very true
to sort of talk about, yes, we have this domino effect that's going
on, but as the Huns come in, there's no Hun empire that develops
after the Roman Empire, it doesn't matter. It's already transforming the civilizations that
it is having these sort of interactions with in an on both a short term
and a long term basis. So, well, let's jump forward, because
we can't talk about Rome the whole time, but the um, well I
could, but let's not. So I'm always sort of struck by this moment
in history, and I was taught this years and years ago, that you
know, the the disillusion and the breaking a part of Charlemagne's empire after his
death. Is a lot of times you'll still go to a history book and
it'll say the birth of modern Europe in this chapter, and then they'll show
you the map. You know, this is how the empire was divided,
and you can look at it and say, like, okay, I guess
that kind of kind of starts to look like modern Europe a little bit based
off of these again lines that we've drawn. But is this are we seeing
the birth of modern central Europe in the tenth century, I don't. I
don't know, like is this is it fair in any way shape or for
to sort of make this blanket statement just to go back a bit. I
mean, you're quite right about the Huns. They don't leave an empire,
but some of the people they throw up, some of the other nomads are
there, and you've got one nomadic tribe will establish itself in Bulgaria. They
are called the Bulgars, and they will merge with the Slavs and become the
Bulgarians. In central Europe in the area of modern day Hungary, and go
over into eastern Austria. You have the Avar Empire, which is the Great
Unknown Empire, and that exists from the sixth century right through to the beginning
of the ninth century. That is a long period of time for an empire
to exist. And farther to the east, including Crimea, you have the
Khazar Empire, which is remarkably an empire run by a Jewish elite. So
you're dealing with a shape of Europe that really is very unfamiliar, and I
think it's quite misleading to look at the breakup of the Charlemagne's Empire and say,
ah, we can you know, we can begin to see something more
like modern Europe beginning, because farther over in the East you've got some very
odd creations indeed that are existing there and ideal in the book with certainly the
Avars, and say they are a group that needs to be better known.
I mean they have some quite remarkable artifacts and gold, wonderful gold and enamel,
jewelry and dinner services effectively, and to reads you as there's a tremendous
culture there. The really I think crucial development is not so much the breakup
of Charlemagne's empire, but the way it's reconstituted in the tenth century, and
Charlemagne's empire disappears, the title of emperor goes the descendants of Charlemagne. They
will they will die out, and it is left to the so called Saxon
rulers of what is now looking like much more like Germany East Frankia. It
is left to them to reconstitute the empire, and they become the new emperors.
They take over the title of Roman Emperor, and they create a new
polity that will endure and that is much more recognizably something German and starts using
the German language. Yeah, and let's talk about Let's talk about that then,
because I think that and you know, listeners will probably know it from
the book as the Holy Roman Emperor Empire. You know, that's sort of
the the big title that gets hoisted upon it. As you mentioned, they
would have thought of themselves as Roman emperors, but that does start to look
like Germany. And the more I've read about again, I'll say Holy Roman
Empire, just so that it's clear what I'm talking about for someone who's just
started listening. But it seems to me that that polity, that kingdom has
had more of a profound impact on Europe than oftentimes it's given credit for.
And so I was wondering if you could talk about the empire for a moment
and just how did it, how did it come to be, and why
is it important for us to remember? I don't know in terms of,
you know, what should we think about it? I think the important thing
is that it provides, shall we say, a space for sub states to
develop. What really happens with the Holy Roman Empire is that it is based
upon dynasties, and those dynasties have got land bases, and those land bases
gradually get eroded, and in order to maintain their power, the successive kings
of Germany who become Emperors of Germany. These successive rulers grant more and more
rights to their vassals, and ultimately they give them effectively political independence. So
as a consequence, we get emerging within the space of the Holy Roman Empire
a mass of new states. Some of them are actually Slavonic states in origin,
like Mecklenburg and Brandenburg, and they will become premier German states. Others
like Saxony and Bavaria, and ultimately Austria, will likewise maintain their own separate
existence. In the case of Austria, it will take over the government of
the Holy Roman Empire in the fifteenth century. And this means that each of
these separate polities is involved partly in a competitive struggle, partly in a cooperative
struggle in order to establish their power. And one of the ways they will
do that is by moving eastwards to the Virgin Lands. If you like,
a Slavonic settlement lying to the east, and they will gradually take over that
area I mean, we have to remember that at one point Slavonic settlement reached
to what is now whole Study just next to Denmark. All of that was
Snamonic territory and is gradually rolled back and new German states are founded or old
German states extend into these territories and build them up in a vast colonial enterprise.
And this is, I think, is the achievement of the Holy Roman
Empire to actually provide a space whereby these states can advance and move forward.
But there's more to it than that. At times when when there is a
common danger, the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Roman emperors are able to
use the weight of their office in order to coordinate the defense of the region
and push against Turks, against Louis the fourteenth. So in a sense,
the Holy Roman Empire does still have some sort of meaning even at the time,
right into the early modern period when he has thought about thought of invariably
is in total disarray and decay. Yeah, it's I think that that those
are really valid points. You know, I read once years ago, and
I can't remember the name of the author, talking about the importance of you
know, the Holy Roman Empire as opposed to like say maybe the Kingdom of
France or England, you have, you know, an itinerant court with more
of an itinerant capital system. So the emperor is going to different diets in
different locations, and so you know, different cities remain almost of equal importance
in the empire, whereas in France, you know, Paris develops as the
main central capital later on as we're going, and that that independence. And
I'll come back to that later when we talk about the Reformation, because I
think that that really matters when we get to a topic like that. But
thinking first about another one of those moments when maybe the Holy Roman Empire has
to provide large scale stability, you'd have to think about a very surprising moment
for Europeans, certainly, which would be the arrival of the Mongols from the
East. And you know, I think that those of us who look more
at Western European history, we don't think about them as much as maybe we
should. But certainly the Mongols, I'm guessing had a profound impact on Central
Europe. Correct. I think it has a profound effect to one parts of
Central Europe. I mean, the Mongols are not particularly interested in going into
Central Europe. They've go enough on their plate as it were, dealing with
the Western step, and their main interest is to reduce the Russian principalities to
as subservient status as providers of tribute and of conscripts. So that's that their
main target. What happens is that they send envoys to throughout Western Europe because
they believe that the Khans are the world leaders, and they demand that everybody
bows down to them, and many rulers just rite pleasant pleasant things back and
leave it at that. But unfortunately Baylor the fourth, the king of Hungary,
slays the Mongol envoys. Now this is a very very unwise move because
the murder of envoys is never a good idea at any point. There's always
been some notion of diplomatic status that has attached to envoys. And Batu Khan,
who is the grandson of Jengis Car, if I remember correctly, Bartu
Khan, who sent the Endvoice, just goes and launches a full scale attack
on Hungary. His geography is not very good. He doesn't quite understand who's
allied to whom, so he also ravages southern Poland. But he ravages southern
Poland because he's involved in a pincer movement on Hungary with different armies crossing the
Carpathians in order to capture King Baylor the fourth, and Baylor the fourth knows
thereafter him and ends up hiding on a Dalmatian island, and the Mongols occupy
Hungary for a year. Unfortunately, in this case, the Holy Roman Empire
is not involved in much coordination because Hungary is outside the Holy Roman Empire,
and in fact, it does nothing when the ruler of Austria helps himself to
a bit of Hungarian territory in the disarray. But following the Mongol invasion owned
the retreat of the Mongols, they've run out of food because the Hungarian plane
is not a very good supplier of grass. It doesn't have as much fodder
as people imagine. They have to retreat after about a year, and it's
left to Baylor the fourth to rebuild his kingdom. And what he does is
he engages, in a process of about twenty years, what states and countries
and regions and lands across Europe have been doing over a period of several centuries.
He actually, for what a better word, modernizes or feudalizes the kingdom.
He builds cities calls in Germans with big tax concessions to foul cities and
gets them to build city walls, and the city walls around dumb Buda bauda
pest. The city walls are something like five kilometers longer, and they're put
up in about twenty to thirty years. This is extraordinary effort by Baylor the
fourth and by the citizens he's called in to help him. More particularly as
well he establishes he gets rid of the existing system of military recruitment and awards
land to servicemen to essentially nights. He builds up a class of knights,
giving them land with the idea that they can buy heavy armor, and so
Hungry gets knighthood and chivalry and all of the things that go with our understanding
of the Middle Ages. Before that time, Hungary was a pretty primitive place
with a fairly base si system of administration. Baylor the fourth, as a
consequence of the Mongol invasion, transforms Hungry and makes it into a state comparable
to any of its neighbors and western counterparts. It becomes a recognizably Christian and
Western looking state. The same as Procosis is going on in parts of Poland,
in particular, where you've got tremendous competition amongst various claimants to the throne,
and you get the same type of stress on knighthood, building up,
feudal retinues, allocating resources to a new class of warrior, building cities.
All of this process, which is in Hungary, is complete within twenty years.
It takes longer in places like Poland and Bohemia, but it's underway there
as well. So the Mongols, I think, kind of a tremendous effect
or hungry, but they show as a consequence of the way they act,
just what type of transformation is happening in Central Europe round about the eleventh twelve
thirteenth centuries. That's and again another great example of a civilization being impacted by
an invasion and being forced to, as you say, modernize and develop the
nation state even more. I want to talk about one group here, and
that's that's the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Knights are probably one of those groups
that when I talk about them, I find that people sort of colloquially have
heard of them, they have some sense that they're some way tangentially related to
the Crusades, and that they're German, and then sort of beyond that,
they don't really know what they were, but they're really interesting and the fact
that they come relatively close compared to other the other military orders to creating the
sort of permanent state is interesting to me. So I was a big You
could talk about them and the role that the Teutonic Knights play in the development
of Central Europe for a little while because I find them interesting. I think
that people would too. Yeah, I mean, the one has these crusader
orders that exist in the eastern Mediterranean. Some like the Hospitalers, managed to
create their own states at roads and it lasts until the sixteenth century. And
of course then there's the Hospitalist state of Malta, which survives until Napoleon comes
on the scene. The Teutonic Knights are the most successful in the sense that
they've got the largest state complex built by crusading knights. The Tutonic Knights are
monks. They don't have tonsias, they have helmets instead. They're a militarized
monk force. They do all the prayers. They may have to do them
on horseback as they ride into battle, but they do their divine offices they
live in dormitories. They are celibate, and they are dedicated to the Virgin
Mary, so they are very holy people. But they carry swords as well,
and their aim is to fight the infidel. Originally it was to provide
hospitals, and they provide hospitals right through until what The order still exists,
and they still are providers of succer and aid, but their primary function becomes
the war aids the unbeliever and the unbeliever. In the thirteenth century, the
unbeliever is in Prussia, and the Prussians are not the last group to become
converted to Christianity in Central Europe. The second or third group, we've got
the Lithuanians that I'll come onto. The Prussians are attacking Poland, and the
Polish Duke Conrad of Masovia calls in the Teutonic Knights for assistance. Now that
Teutomic Knights have previously been looking for a role, and they had accepted an
invitation to fight the Kuban nomads in Transylvania. And they build various fortresses,
they move people, pull in and then the King of Hungary decides he doesn't
want them in after all. He's going to use the Franciscans to convert the
Cumans peacefully. And so they find themselves kicked out, and they're very aggrieved
about this because they've they've spent a lot of money. So I went Conrad
of Masovia appeals to them. They lay down conditions, and they laid down
conditions that they will have the territories that they're given, and the territories of
the conquer will be theirs, and they will be allowed to do what they
like with them. And so they established themselves in I suppose one should call
it the northeast corner of Europe, just south of the Baltic where they eliminate
first of all, the Prussians. They have a hard job doing so.
The Prussians are fairly primitive fighters, but they pick up techniques of warfare very
rapidly, capture large numbers of knights, and engage in the very pleasant pastime
of roasting Teutonic knights alive in their armor. So the Teutonic Knights established themselves
in Prussia. They then move on to fight the next group, which are
the last surviving pagan group in Europe, and that is the Lithuanians, who
occupy a vast space reaching from the Baltic all the way down to the Black
Sea. Lithuania is today very small. Indeed, its territory in the fourteenth
century was extraordinary extensive, was the largest state in Europe. And the Teutonic
Knights are involved with fighting the Prussians and then fighting the Lithuanians. There are
about a thousand nights in all operating on the if you like. In the
Baltic areas, there's not very many. And what they have to do is
they feudalize their territories in much the same way as happened in Hungary and in
Poland. They grant land to nights to come over and to assist in the
in the in their wars, and they author essentially action packed tourist holidays where
warriors from the West come over and spend a season or two campaigning alongside them,
fighting Prussians and more particularly Lithuanians. And in the book I actually go
into future Henry the fourth of England who goes over and fights on the side
of the Teutonic Knights against the Lithuanians. He spends a vast amount of money
because the Prussians, the Teutonic Knights are not just interested in the military muscle
of the people coming in from the west. They're interested in how they can
get them to to spend money. And they have lavish feasts, great entertainments
with minstrels, no girls, because the Knights are celibate. They're not no
girls. But there's plenty of drinking and boozing and exchanging gifts. And the
Teutolic Knights continue in that manner until they are eventually defeated by the Poles.
The Poles have had enough of them. The Teutonic Knights continue warring against the
Lithuanians even after the Lithuanians have converted to Christiana, and they actually joined together
with Poland in thirteen eighty five to found a joint joint state under a common
ruler. And the polls turn on the Teutonic Knights and defeat them and force
them into a making some type of peaceable settlement with them. But the real
turning point, which leads on i think probably to your next question. The
real turning point comes in fifteen twenty five when the Teutonic Knight, grand Master
Albrecht of hohen Solomn, decides to become a Protestant, a Lutheran. And
what he does is he gives up all of the monkish aspects of the Teutonic
Knights activity he establishes himself as the ruler of Prussia, and he makes all
the Knights into his landowners and landholding class. And this is the great secularization,
as it's called, of the Teutonic order, where it loses its religious
aspect and becomes if you like a feudal state. It's a good point because
there's actually a couple of things there. I mean, first of all,
I hope if you're listening to this, you know, if you didn't know
how large Lithuania was in the fourteenth century, go look at a map,
because it's it is an enormous state at this point in Europe. And the
thing about the Teutonic Knights that, as I was researching them, struck me
is that, yes, it's it's one of these groups that rulers were very
happy to be accommodating to them while they needed them. But as we would
see in Transylvania with the King of Hungary, and then later on they run
a foul of the polls and so on and so forth. It's this group
that they decide. Well, I don't know that this is as useful for
us anymore in the sort of the shifting alliances that are taking place. But
they don't as you say, they don't disappear. They more of a transition,
and the transition than does have a lot to do with the next topic,
which is the Reformation, because I don't think you can talk about Central
Europe without talking about the bombshell that was the Reformation. And I just don't
personally, I just don't know if the Reformation plays out the way that it
does, if Martin Luther has to live in say, France as opposed to
one of the German states as again, and that goes back to that freedom
that was granted to the different participating dukes, kings and princess so on and
so forth of the Holy Roman Empire. So how important is Central Europe to
the story of the Reformation And is there any I don't know, is there
any credence to my hypothesis that we owe Central Europe to a large extent to
what happens for what happens. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a
very valuable point. What would have happened if Luther had been in England or
France or Italy, he would have been burnt and that would have been the
end of it, because that's what happens to people like John Tindo, William
Tindall, Tindo, the Savona Rola, all these various heretics, as they
were called, captured and and both. In the case of Luther, he
is protected. He is protected. He is a university professor, and Frederick
the Wise of Saxon, he doesn't like people having a go at his professors,
and he protects them. I don't think universities would do the same now.
So he protects Luther, and Luther is able to produce vast amounts of
writing eighty volumes I think in the present edition eighty volumes of writing, and
he is assisted by the artist Kranach who makes him into a brand and produces
these scurrilous woodcuts that do so much to spread Luther's message. So that is
important that the role of the Holy Roman Empire in nurturing if you like the
Reformation, the Reformation is Central Europe, and it depends upon the shape of
Central Europe for its success. But I think the critical point is that the
final peace treaty that's made in the fifteen fifties between the Protestant princes and the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles the fifth and his brother and success of Fertiland. That
presupposes that the princes can determine the religion of their subjects, and that is
a tremendous boost to princely power. In fact, what is even more the
case is how the Protestant princes in particular are keen on religious discipline and on
social discipline as an aspect of that, and so the religious power they get
soon becomes a power to a few like metal and pride into people's lives,
into their morality, into their marriages, into the way they bring up children.
And so there's a tremendous social disciplining, I think is the worth that
historians use. There's a tremendous social disciplining that the prince's engineer on the back
of the Reformation, which extends their political influence and their power all the more.
It's giving Luther and then you know, I mean Switzerland, you know,
which is you know where we get a couple of other key reformers,
John Calvin and Arex Vingli as well, or sort of operating in this space,
and it gives him the opportunity. And just to go back to the
writing for a second, the amount of writing that Luther was able to produce
is tremendous. It's almost hard to even put it into quantities. For people
like he was. If you look at the best sellers list of this period
of European history, it would be like looking at a list in the top
five or all things written by Martin Luther. I mean his ability to do
that is because you can't just go grab him and burn him. Okay,
Janhos made the mistake of showing up at a court on one occasion, and
that didn't end well for him, and Luther was very aware of what had
happened to him. And what's another interesting thing that's happening at this exact same
time is, of course, while the Reformation is going in parts of Germany
and in Switzerland as well, you also have the burgeoning Ottoman state pushing in
to eastern and up to towards Vienna. And so how does Charles the fifth
and how does central Europe try to balance this? How does he try to
address this ardam and threat while simultaneously having to deal with this ongoing Reformation.
Yeah, I mean it's very difficult. And in Charles the Fifth is very
negligent. In the fifteen twenties, he spends his time in Spain. He's
just got married, his wife is dazzlingly beautiful, and he languishes there really
and leaves it to his brother Fursdan to sort out the Holy Roman Empire.
And Furson can't do it, And Charles the Fifth turns up at Augsburg in
fifteen thirty and there's a meeting of the Diet, the parliament of the Holy
Roman Empire, and he calls together the Catholic princes and says, right,
you know, there's been too much messing around. We're going to go for
it. I'm going to make war on the Protestants. And they go and
say to him, you can't do that. Firstly, you haven't got enough
money for troops. Secondly, the troops that you recruit who Protestants anyway,
they're not going to fight very hard for you. Thirdly, we've just had
a peasants war in Germany. The peasants will rise up, and on top
of that, the Ottomans will take advantage of any civil conflict and press further
into Central Europe and Charles has to back down. The Ottomans are there as
a restraint on the imperial policy and they will always remain so, I mean
the buy fifteen fifty roughly most of the parliaments across the Holy Roman Empire.
Remember there's a there's a central parliament of the Holy Roman Empire, the Reichstag,
and there are parliaments in all of these provinces as well, and they
control the purse strings because they're the people who know who the taxpayers are,
and they're the people who've got the tax electors out. So if you're going
to get any money, you have to go through the princes and the parliaments.
And the parliaments will just say to any prince who says, you know,
we're going to crack down on Probiesenism, they will simply say to him,
in that case, we're not collecting any taxes. And normally they will
in places like Austria's Steria, they will couple tax two concessions on the religious
front. And the main reason why princes need taxes is from military purposes in
order to engage in defense, particularly against the Turks, also the French,
but particularly against the Turks. So in other words, there's a direct linkage
between the Ottoman Empire and its advanced into Central of Remember in fifteen twenty nine,
they're at Vienna, and they will they will continue being a threat on
the doorstep of Central Europe for an several centuries more, and they will they
force a new degree of militarization in Central Europe. But militarization has to be
paid for, and the Protestants control the purse strings. Yeah, it's interesting.
I think that there's there's to an extent of valid argument to be made
that, you know, who do we have to thank for the for the
Reformation being allowed to survive those early years. One could advance an argument that,
well, you should thank the Ottoman Sultan for the Reformation existing, because
their very existence at that same time makes it very difficult. Sometimes, you
know, you look at a map and this is again where maps are misleading,
and you look at all the territories that are under technically two different extents
Charles the fifths, you know, sovereignty, and you say, well,
he controls all these vast areas, he's obviously so much more powerful than everybody
else. But many of those areas come with problems, and those areas have
to be defended, and those areas are by no means unified. There's very
little interest for people in Spain to pay for wars in Germany and vice versa,
you know, And certainly he's got you know, Mexica and Inca later
on gold pouring in from the New World. But it's it's spent almost before
it comes in. I mean, in to some extent it is, I
suppose spent before it comes in, because he's borrowed it already. And I
imagine him as this juggler who every time he wants to take on another ball,
someone reminds him that, well, if you do that, it's actually
two more, just so you know, because there's these other problems. And
of course he eventually just retires and its way down by it so much so
it's again and one of those ways where you look you would look at it
and say, this man is so powerful, look at what he has,
But you know, it's it's not that simple. It's it's much more complicated
than all of that. And so I think the Ottomans are an interesting question
in there. Well, I don't want I don't want to run out of
time. Here I want to talk about the Thirty Years War for a moment,
because the Thirty Years War, at least I was taught, was one
of those watershed history moments in Central Europe that sort of dominates how things go
from then on. So I was I was hoping you could speak for at
least a few minutes about the Thirty Years War. You know, where,
how does it happen in nature, and what are some of its sort of
immediate consequences for the history of Central Europe. In particular, it starts because
there is an even more determined emperors and chance of face, and that is
Emperor further than the second and first of the second is I suppose we would
call him a fanatic. He has made a personal vow to the Virgin that
he will rid his territories of protesting autism, and nothing is going to stop
him. The one point, early on in the Thirty Years War, he
really has only Vienna left, and he's got only a minor garrison, and
he is reliant upon the students, under the officering of their professors, in
order to defend him. And what he does is he prays in the chapel
in what is now the Hoffberg, the Hofburg Palace, you can see it
there. And the Virgin tells him it's going to be all right, and
it is because the army that's coming to Vienna diverts in another direction. So
he's saved, and he's saved by the intercession of the Virgin, which only
sort of encourages him to take more and more gambles, and he will spend
the next the sixteen twenties making outrageous gambles with dispossessing rulers, demanding that Protestant
princes return all the church land that they've seized, which is huge quantities of
territory, trying to rebuild the Catholic Church. But ultimately he's caught out because
just as Charles the Fifth learnt at Halsburg, other people are waiting there to
take advantage of his difficulties. The Swedes intervene, and more particularly the French
intervene on the Protestant side effectively, and so the Thirty Years War, which
starts off very much as a religious war, becomes a dynastic war fought between
the House of Habsburg and the House of Bourbo and France, and so it
continues long after the main causes having a sense been resolved, and the deal
that's put at the end is that the princes can continue to determine the religion,
except whereas originally the religions that they could choose were limited to Catholicism or
Lutheranism, now Calvinism is allowed in that if the religious freedom is largely allowed
to subjects within a number of constraints, and the courts will from this point
onwards judge matters of religious dispute. They won't be left to the ruler and
the courts they're batlogged. And but it's shoving the problem of religion into the
courts and taking it off the battlefield, that's the important thing. And there's
an exemption for the hapsburg Ler, which means Austria, Bohemia and not Hungry.
At this point, Austria and Bohemia are exempt from this. They have
to stay Catholic. So what happens is that you get a build up of,
if you like, a Catholic redoubt that begins to emerge in Austria and
Bohemia. With Bavaria, which has long been well since the fifty six fifteen
seventies is pretty solidly Catholic, so you get a build up of Catholic bloc
in the south and east of the Holy Roman Empire, and Catholicism is saved.
And that's the important point, because by sixteen hundred, fifty years before
the Peace of Westphalia, Catholicism looked as if it was being outmaneuvered, as
if it was going to be marginalized entirely. The Thirty Years War allows the
Catholics to come back, as it were, and importantly too, it marks
really the removal of the Hapsburgs from the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace of
Westphalia is signed by the princes separately under their own names. It recognizes,
if you like, that some sort of sovereignty attaches to them, and the
role of the Habsburgs is diminished. Hats most will continue to play a role
in the Holy Roman Empire, but from now all it will be a diminished
one, and they will increasingly look to building up their own power in their
own corner of Central Europe. Yeah. I mean, if there's a couple
of important takeaways from the Thirty Years War, certainly one of them should be
Ladies and gentlemen, if somebody tells you it's all going to be Okay,
I just talked to the Virgin Mary and you said it was going to be
fine. You should be a little suspicious because that hasn't always particularly worked out
in the long run for those who have attempted it. Well, we are
running out of time, and we got to the mid seventeenth century, so
listeners at home should know that this book is very detailed and excellent and so
dense. I wrote through Napoleon and we didn't get to Napoleon, so it's
well worth picking up. And I couldn't recommend it enough. There's just aren't
very many good complete histories of Central Europe out there, and this is coming
from a guy who knows, because I have to read a lot of history.
So if you're looking for a book that really does stitch together the major
themes of Central European history and how it impacts everything else, this one is
excellent, and thank you for writing it. I very much enjoyed reading it,
and I'm hopeful that you know, maybe there'll be some other works in
the future that I can pick up. But thank you for coming on as
well. It was really fantastic my pleasure. Thank you very much for listening
to me.