Germany in the early modern period
The German-speaking states of the early modern period (c. 1500–1800) were divided politically and religiously. Religious tensions between the states comprising the Holy Roman Empire had existed during the preceding period of the Late Middle Ages (c. 1250–1500), notably erupting in Bohemia with the Hussite Wars (1419–1434). The defining religious movement of this period, the Reformation, led to unprecedented levels of violence and political upheaval for the region.
Usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses (1517) by Martin Luther in the city of Wittenberg (then within the Electorate of Saxony, now located within the modern German state of Saxony-Anhalt), the progression of the Reformation would divide the German states among new religious lines: the north, the east, and many of the major cities—Strasbourg, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg—becoming Protestant while the southern and western regions largely remained Catholic. Compromises and reforms would be made in an effort to promote internal stability within the Holy Roman Empire, importantly with the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, but these efforts would ultimately fall short and culminate in one of the most destructive conflicts the European continent had yet seen, the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) which ended with the adoption of the incredibly consequential Peace of Westphalia.
This period also saw the emergence of the Kingdom of Prussia as the primary competitor to the previously hegemonic Habsburg monarchy. After the close of early modern period in Europe following the Age of Enlightenment and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars, this Austria-Prussia rivalry would prove to be the driving internal force behind the Unification of Germany in 1871.
(1486–1535)
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
(1493–1541)
Paracelsus
(c. 1500-1569)
Georg Pictorius
(1516–1588)
Johann Weyer
(1525–1609)
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
(1577–1644)
Jan Baptist van Helmont
(1580–1650)
Franz Kessler
(1602–1686)
Otto von Guericke
(1603–1638)
Adrian von Mynsicht
(1625–1709)
Johann Friedrich Schweitzer
(1646–1716)
Gottfried Leibniz
(1655–1728)
Christian Thomasius
(1679–1754)
Christian Wolff
(1694–1768)
Hermann Samuel Reimarus
(1700–1766)
Johann Christoph Gottsched
(1707–1783)
Leonhard Euler
(1715–1775)
Christian August Crusius
(1723–1790)
Johann Bernhard Basedow
(1724–1804)
Immanuel Kant
(1728–1777)
Johann Heinrich Lambert
(1729–1781)
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
(1729–1786)
Moses Mendelssohn
(1730–1788)
Johann Georg Hamann
(1736–1807)
Johannes Nikolaus Tetens
(1738–1766)
Thomas Abbt
(1739–1809)
Johann Augustus Eberhard
(1743–1819)
Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
(1744–1803)
Johann Gottfried von Herder
(1749–1832)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1508–1519 (emperor-elect)
Maximilian I
1530–1556 (emperor-elect 1519–1530)
Charles V
1558-1564 (emperor-elect)
Ferdinand I
1564–1576 (emperor-elect)
Maximilian II
1576–1612 (emperor-elect; enumerated as successor of Rudolf I who was German King 1273–1291 but not Emperor)
Rudolf II
1612–1619 (emperor-elect)
Matthias
1619–1637 (emperor-elect)
Ferdinand II
1637–1657 (emperor-elect)
Ferdinand III
1658–1705 (emperor-elect)
Leopold I
1705–1711 (emperor-elect)
Joseph I
1711–1740 (emperor-elect)
Charles VI
1742–1745 (emperor-elect, House of Wittelsbach)
Charles VII Albert
1745–1765 (emperor-elect)
Francis I
1765–1790 (emperor-elect)
Joseph II
1790–1792 (emperor-elect)
Leopold II
1792–1806 (emperor-elect)
Francis II
Early Modern Holy Roman Emperors:
Early Modern High German
Baroque period German literature
18th-century German literature
Brandenburg-Prussia
House of Hohenzollern
Electorate of Bavaria
Kingdom of Bohemia (1526–1648)
Kingdom of Bohemia (1648–1867)
Dutch Republic
Early Modern Switzerland
(1541–1699)
Royal Hungary
Croatia in the Habsburg Empire
Hughes, Michael. Early Modern Germany, 1477-1806 (1992)
excerpt
Robisheaux, Thomas. Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany (2002)
Sabean, David. Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (1988)
ed. The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History (2011), 862 pp; 35 essays by specialists; Germany since 1760 excerpt
Smith, Helmut Walser
Strauss, Gerald, ed. Pre-reformation Germany (1972) 452pp
The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy (2009)
Wilson, Peter H.
. He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon: Women in Early Modern Germany (1998)