Description

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This is the first comprehensive analysis of the royal and princely courts of Europe as important places of Enlightenment. The households of European rulers remained central to politics and culture throughout the eighteenth century, and few writers, artists, musicians, or scholars could succeed without establishing connections to ruling houses, noble families, or powerful courtiers.

Covering case studies from Spain and France to Russia, and from Scandinavia and Britain to the Holy Roman Empire, the contributions of this volume examine how Enlightenment figures were integrated into the princely courts of the Ancien R gime, and what kinds of relationships they had with courtiers. Dangers and opportunities presented by proximity to court are discussed as well as the question of what rulers and courtiers gained from their interactions with Enlightenment men and women of letters. The book focusses on four areas: firstly, the impact of courtly patronage on Enlightenment discourses and the work as well as careers of Enlightenment writers; secondly, the court as an audience to be catered for by Enlightenment writers; thirdly, the function of Enlightenment narratives and discourses for the image-making of rulers and courtiers; and fourthly, the role the interaction of courtiers and Enlightenment writers played for the formulation of reform policies.

About the Author

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Thomas Biskup has been teaching and researching Early Modern History at Oxford, Wolfenbuttel, Princeton, and Hull. His main fields of research are the political culture of seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Europe, and the intersection of politics and science in the Atlantic world. Benjamin Marschke teaches European history at Cal Poly Humboldt, in California. He is currently working on a monograph about political ceremony, gender/sexuality, luxury/money/work ethic, and intellectual/academic culture in the early eighteenth century, focusing on King Frederick William I of Prussia (1713-1740). Andreas Pecar teaches Early Modern History at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He is Chair of the "Enlightenment-Religion-Knowledge" research cluster and President of the Historical Society of Saxony-Anhalt. Damien Tricoire teaches Early Modern History at the University of Trier. His main fields of research are religion and politics, colonial policy, knowledge and intellectual history in the 17th and 18th centuries. He is currently working on a monograph on Enlightenment history and leading an ERC-funded research project on the impact of aristocratic patronage on the public sphere and politics in 18th-century France.