4th Gerald Stourzh Lecture on the History of Human Rights and Democracy
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger
Rituale des Konsenses?
Ständische Partizipation im frühneuzeitlichen Europa
9 May 2012
Kindly supported by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger is professor for Early Modern History and speaker of the cluster of excellence „Religion and Politics“ at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, holds the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz Award of the DFG, and is a member of the executive board of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Numerous additional awards and memberships.
Selected publications: Der Staat als Maschine. Zur politischen Metaphorik des absoluten Fürstenstaats (Historische Forschungen 30, Berlin 1986); Vormünder des Volkes? Konzepte landständischer Repräsentation in der Spätphase des Alten Reiches (Historische Forschungen 64, Berlin 1999); Das Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation vom Spätmittelalter bis 1806 (München 2006, 4th ed. 2009); Des Kaisers alte Kleider. Verfassungsgeschichte und Symbolsprache des Alten Reiches (München 2008); ed. Was heißt Kulturgeschichte des Politischen? (Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, Beiheft 35, Berlin 2005).
Homepage of Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger
Abstract
Parliamentary sessions of modern democracies are rarely regarded as ritual performances. Rituals are rather perceived as pre-modern and pre-democratic, referring to coronation masses or homage ceremonies but not to meetings involving deliberations and decisions. This lecture argues that both modern parliaments and early modern assemblies of estates always have a symbolic and ritual dimension. Nevertheless, they differ in a significant way from each other. Characteristically, the meetings of the early modern estates can be described as rituals of consensus that – unlike modern parliaments – offered little room for an institutionalized resolution of conflicts.