“Ehe Türckisch als Bäpstisch”: Lutheran Reflections on the Problem of Empire, 1623–28

Abstract

No question today … either among learned men is more discussed or among the highest princes of the Christian world is more controversial than that of monarchy.…” Few persons in early seventeenth-century Europe could have spoken with greater authority on the matter of emperor and empire than that archival miner and assembler of political texts, Melchior Goldast. In his dedicatory letter to the Archbishop of Bremen the political publicist proceeded to accuse the Papacy, more wolf than pastor, of having intruded upon both church and secular authority, arrogating to its own monarchy the supreme Sacerdotium and the supreme Imperium. The disturbed publicist concluded his account of papal usurpation and artifice: “If there were no Roman emperors, there would be no Roman pope: if there were no Roman pope, Roman emperors would still flourish.