| 21. |
The Brandenburg Recess: Resolutions agreed to by Frederick William ("the Great Elector") and the Brandenburg Estates in the Recess of July 26, 1653 (1653)
The historical literature long viewed this important document as the founding charter of “Prussian absolutism.” It was seen to have introduced a standing army financed by the new taxes agreed to....
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| 22. |
The Imperial War Constitution [Reichskriegsverfassung] (1681-82)
In response to two threats – the Ottoman advance against Austria and Louis XIV’s aggressive annexationist policy along the Holy Roman Empire’s western border – this resolution mandated the raising....
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| 23. |
The Political Testament of Frederick William I ("the Soldier King") (February 17, 1722)
This hard-boiled statement of the earthy, shrewd, and domineering
Frederick William’s views....
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| 24. |
The Readmission of Jews into Brandenburg (1671)
As occurred widely in late medieval and Reformation Europe, the Brandenburg Jews had been expelled from the land in 1573 in a wave of intolerance that accompanied the transition there from Catholicism....
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| 25. |
The Turkish Defeat at Vienna (September 12, 1683)
Taken from a pamphlet “Printed for Samuel Crouch at the Corner of Popes-Head Alley next Cornhill, 1683,” this English eyewitness account offers a vivid picture of Christian-Turkish warfare in seventeenth-century....
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| 26. |
Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff, Excerpts from Teutscher Fürsten-Staat (1656)
The standard German work on administrative-bureaucratic practice, Teutscher Fürsten-Staat [German Princely State] went through twelve editions by the year 1754. Author Veit Ludwig von....
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| 27. |
Westphalian Nobleman Christian Franz Dietrich von Fürstenberg Provides Instructions on the Education of his Daughters (1743)
This text attests to one father’s apprehensions, which were doubtless shared by other aristocratic parents of his time. The author of this text, a Westphalian nobleman, wanted to ensure that his....
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| 28. |
Frederick II ("the Great"), Memorandum to the Administration of Electoral Brandenburg on the Landlord-Peasant Relationship (1755)
Here, Frederick addresses reports that noble landlords had been enclosing vacated village farms in their own estate lands. Such destruction of peasant fullholdings (later termed Bauernlegen)....
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| 29. |
Evaluation of the Armed Forces of the Holy Roman Empire after their Defeat under Austrian Command at the Battle of Roßbach (November 24, 1757)
The defeat at Roßbach by Frederick II’s smaller but more effectively deployed army was a devastating....
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| 30. |
Frederick II ("the Great") on the Eve of the Battle of Leuthen (November 28 and December 3, 1757)
On the eve of the battle of Leuthen, Frederick’s situation seemed desperate, and he dispatched the....
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