![“La guerre des miroirs”: Colbert et Murano, au regard de deux fonds des Archives d’Etat de Venise (1665-1667)](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2010_20845.jpg)
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This article provides information and overview of the security situation in the Sancak of the Herzegovina during the first half of 17th century. The paper provides data about the general situation in the Herzegovina during the period. Attention is paid to the Hayduk and Uskok raids which took place in the territory of the Herzegovina and wider as well as to the dangers encountered along the Herzegovinian roads. Also, the diplomatic tensions, criminal deeds and border conflicts between Dubrovnik and the Herzegovina. Last but not least, function of the information collecting services is touched upon as well as the character of information they used to collect.
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Travelling from south of the Danube with trading affairs in the second half of the 17th century, Panaiotache Morona, like many others like him, sought to make a living in the Principality east of the Carpathians. After two marriages with the daughters of boyars, he entered the vast kinship network of the Moldavian elite, with whom he stayed for better or worse, being involved in all the events of the time. Relations with Constantinople and his Greek and Turkish language skills helped Panaiotache to advance to the office of Great Chamberlain (”mare postelic”), thus taking advantage of every opportunity to achieve his goals. He plotted, wandered, betrayed his Lord and his relatives, he was confidant of some princes, but also felt the thrill of prison, where he perished being strangled at the command of prince Mihai Racoviţă.
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Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, took advantage of the political crises in Poland to bargain his way to various kinds of profit. In 1648 he received for himself and his successors an exemption from the personal paying of tribute from the Prussian fief. Whereas in 1668 he took advantage of the chaos associated with the abdication of Jan Kazimierz to seize in a military manner the Drahim starosty, which since the Deluge was under dispute between Brandenburg-Prussian and the Polish Crown. When he gained independence in the Prussian Duchy in 1657 he also engaged himself in the political struggle associated with the appointment to the Polish throne. The Hohenzollern did not desire to see on the Polish throne neither a French prince nor a Habsburg protégé. His dream appointee was a weak ruler would have to constantly take into account the will and the demands of the Brandenburg electors. It was for these reasons that he supported the candidacy of Philip William, the Neuburg prince, during the interregnum of 1668/1669. After King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki’s death in 1673 the goals of the Brandenburg diplomacy reached a new level. For the two Morsztynowie — the great crown undertreasurer Jan Andrzej and the Lithuanian underequery Szczęsny — put forward a plan of appointing the eldest son of the Brandenburg elector, Karl Emil, to the Polish throne. He gained the support of the powerful senators, including the hierarchs of the Catholic Church — the crown deputy chancellor of the treasury, the bishop of Chełm, Andrzej Olszowski, and the bishop of Cracow, Andrzej Trzebicki. The perspective of the advancement of the house of Hohenzollern was so attractive that Frederick William was prompt to cede various lands and to grant to the Polish Republic considerable military support against Turkey. He gave up his dream of the royal crown being granted to his son only when the Polish party made his appointment dependent on the Hohenzollern’s acceptance of Catholicism. In this situation Frederick William decided on 20 March 1674 to support the candidacy of the Neuburg prince, John William. On the basis of a treaty contracted on 1 May 1674 he was supposed to receive from the Neuburg prince, after his possible ascension to the Polish throne, an extension of the succession in the Duchy of Prussia to include the side branch of the Hohenzollern family and the assurance of the rights and liberties for Evangelicals in Poland. The favourable turn of the election for Brandendburg-Prussia was to be conditioned by the intensifying rivalry of the leaders of the French and Austrian factions. However, the cunningly conducted diplomatic game of the electoral legate, Johann von Hoverbeck, was futile. The emperor’s ambassador manifested a complete lack of judgment and he did not support a compromise Neuburg candidacy by supporting Charles of Lorraine until the very end. Jan Sobieski’s election victory, the leader of the French faction, frustrated elector F. William’s...
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The article analyzes the interesting relic discovered in the village of Brzezie near Opatów, that is a half of the lead impression of a papal bull. Such artifacts are usually kept in archives; in Poland only about 10 papal bulls have been found with the use of archeological methods, always near churches, and Brzezie is the only place where a bull was found despite the fact that there has never been a church there. Sigillographic analysis has allowed identifying the bull as Antipope John XXIII’s one. He was deposed during the Council of Constance in 1415, but he issued a number of documents concerning Polish lands and the Church of Poland including the Sandomierz and Opatów Church institutions and clergy that are discussed in the article. The authors (a sillographer, an archaeologist, and a mediaevalist) also point to the conditions under which the bull might find itself in Brzezie. In the article profiles are presented of three clergymen who had close relations with that place, or with the Lipńskis’ estate that does not exist today, on the area of which the bull was found. The clergymen were: the Dean of the Opatów Chapter Rafał of Brzezie (his name occurs in the years 1412-1438), the Canon of many Chapters, the royal secretary and diplomat Aleksander Brzeski (died 1650) and the Rector of the Virgin Mary Church in Opatów Karol Targowski (died 1942).
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A few months after his escape from the French capital, Prince Eugene of Savoy entered into the military service of Habsburg Emperor Leopold and took part in the tumultuous events of the Ottoman siege of Vienna in the summer months of 1683. Having distinguished himself in the front lines at the battle of Kahlenberg for the relief of the imperial city, under the command of his cousin and mentor, Margrave Ludwig of Baden, the young exile was noticed by the emperor who commissioned him the rank of colonel (oberst) and command over the dragoon regiment in December of the same year. The first siege of Buda in spring 1684 went disastrously ill for the Imperials and the Prince himself was wounded in the fighting. The second attempt, carried out by the joined forces of Charles of Lorraine and Maximillian Emanuel of Bavaria, was far more successful. After that, Margrave and Prince Eugene made a brief foray with their forces into Baranya, a preparation for the fruitful campaign that followed. On the field between two Hungarian cities, Mohács and Siklós, in the vicinity of the Harsány hill, on 12 August 1687 the Ottomans were decisively defeated and their army scattered. Prince Eugene himself stormed the Ottoman entrenchments and pursued the fleeing enemy through the Baranya marshes. This earned him the privilege to personally bring the report of this great victory to Leopold, who promoted him to the rank of Feldmarschall-Leutnant (comparable with the present rank of general major). The task of capturing Belgrade had been taken up by Maximillian of Bavaria, who laid siege of this city at the end of August 1688 with the force of 50 000 men. Heavily involved in the fighting, Prince Eugene received a grave wound to the knee, which forced him to leave the siege.
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The last point of the treaty of Vasvár, concluded on 10 August 1664 between the Ottoman and the Habsburg courts, declared that the two states would mutually send envoys to each other. Walter Leslie, who departed from Vienna on behalf of Leopold I, was exchanged at the border with Kara Mehmed Pasha, the representative of Mehmed IV, in the last days of May 1665. Tasked with reestablishing diplomatic relationships, the Habsburg envoy spent almost ten months on the soil of the Ottoman state. He held negotiations with Ottoman statesmen in both Istanbul and Edirne. The secretary of the Habsburg mission was keeping a diary of their travels, in which he recorded the resting places where the mission stopped on its way to Edirne; what the envoy did in the towns they visited; and described those events and celebrations that were organized by the Ottoman officials in honor of the diplomatic mission. The paper aims at outlining chronologically the diplomatic mission of the Habsburg envoy Leslie on the basis of the daily reports provided by the mission secretary, Leslie's reports, the memoirs and notes of some members of the entourage, and lastly using information from Ottoman archival documents containing financial registers related to the supply of the mission.
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Collegiate book collections from the Old Polish period – and the presented one belongs to them – are quite poorly described. In the case of Kurzelów we are in a rather good situation, since a fragment of the list of books that belonged to the collection in 1765 has been preserved. The inventory consists of 45 items, some of which contain a few books bound together. It seems that the discussed set of authors and works is typical, as far as the circle of collegiate and parish clergy is concerned. Taking this into consideration, it is proper to ask the question if the books were used by the local clergy in their pastoral work, and in the education process in the Kurzelów Collegiate school. Although an attempt to answer the question is hypothetical in its character, it still allows one to form a view of the level of teaching in the local school and of the intellectual formation of the Kurzelów clergy that did not differ much from other, similar centers of intellectual life of the Old Polish epoch.
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Dávid Molnár: „…az nagy tengerből való folyóvíznek sebessége…” UnitarianArchive Documents and Editions from Kolozsvár (Cluj) from the Era of GáborBethlen and György Rákóczi I (1613–1648). Kolozsvár (Cluj), 2016,Hungarian Unitarian Church. 504. p.
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The Peace of Vienna concluded in 1606 between the rebellious Hungarian estates and their king, Rudolph of Habsburg, stipulated that fortifications in the country should be commanded by the country’s inhabitants. This article motivated a series of negotiations between the representatives of the Hungarian estates and the Inner Austrian ones in 1608 and 1609. The peculiarity of the situation was that since 1578 the line of fortifications in Slavonia and Croatia were exclusively financed by the Inner Austrian estates, and the military officers from the region also came from the region. During the debate, which was exacerbated by the recent memory of the Hungarian raids into Styria in 1605, during the Bocskai uprising, the Inner Austrian party threatened to abandon the arrangement altogether and eventually reached the implicit acceptance of the status quo. The paper analyses the argumentation strategies of both parties and calls attention to the fact that this debate may have been the primary reason why, contrary to other Habsburg territories, the Inner Austrians could not enlist Hungarian support in their quest against their ruler’s strict re-Catholisation policies.
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Due to European diplomatic and military cooperation, the Great Turkish War, lasting from 1683 to 1699, resulted in the nearly complete recapture of Hungary from Ottoman rule. Only Banat remained in Ottoman hands until 1718. Although the events of the long war are known in detail, little research has been dedicated to what hardships and conflicts the recaptured territories encountered during the organisation of the military and financial, followed by the civil and ecclesiastical administration. The present study aims to focus on these issues by synthesising the research results of the past decades. It presents the challenges of the reconstruction that began during the war, as well as the conflicts among the military, financial, and civil authorities. During the Great Turkish War, the fate of Hungary was determined primarily by the interests of the Habsburg standing army, the Aulic Chamber (Hofkammer), and the Viennese court. This was also reflected by the fact that Leopold I convened the Hungarian diet only once, at the end of 1687. During the war, the Hungarian political elite, therefore, had very little say in the shaping of events and the new administration of the country. For this reason, the revival of civil and ecclesiastical institutions could only commence very slowly and in the face of great difficulties in the liberated areas, which were under close control from military and financial aspects. Consequently, a part of the country’s population often regarded the liberation as occupation by the imperial generals, war commissioners, and chamber officials, and even as a series of devastations caused by the Habsburg forces. The recapture of the historical state of Hungary was, therefore, not without fierce political, social, and religious debates. Paradoxically enough, the Great Turkish War fundamentally contributed to the outbreak of the first independence movement in the history of Hungary, the War of Independence (1703–1711) led by Francis II Rákóczi.
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Conde Pazos, Miguel: La quiebra de un modelo dinástico. Relaciones entre la Casa de Austria y los Vasa de Polonia (1635–1668). Madrid, Polifemo, 2022. 661 p. (La Corte en Europa, 22.)
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The “counterfeit coins” according to Article 28 of Law 1613 were not Polish or Transylvanian coins, but low-quality 3 denier and groat of 1/24th of a taler issued in the German-Roman Empire. Colloquially known as “white groat”, the notes had already caused disturbances in circulation in 1612 and 1613 and were the precursor of the great coinage debacle of the 1620s.
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The composite state of the Spanish Habsburgs had a fading military, financial and diplomatic predominance in Central Europe in the first half of the seventeenth century. The Bohemian and Hungarian aristocracy was, to varying extents, integrated into the Spanish Habsburg system. This article presents three forms of integration and diplomatic relationship. First, it examines diplomatic and political encounters in the main governmental bodies and diets advising the emperor in decision-making, or more specifically, in the Imperial Privy Council in Vienna and during the diets of the kingdom of Hungary. Spanish Habsburg politicians and diplomats acted in many powerful ways to establish connections with Bohemian and Hungarian aristocrats so that they follow and adjust to their political agenda. Bohemian families (Slavata, Martiniz) had close relations and alliances with Spanish councilors in Vienna (who acted as ambassadors of the Spanish king), and several Hungarian aristocrats had interactions with them during the diets in order to secure the long-term interests of the dynasty in the Kingdom of Hungary. Second, the exchange, purchase, and influence of cultural goods and objects (e.g., books and gifts) and the ways in which these cultural goods were put to use, as well as the migration of people, show that the relationship went well beyond power politics and formal diplomatic relations. Personal and cultural influence and even early signs of acculturation can be clearly detected in several Bohemian and Hungarian families (e.g., the Forgách, Pázmány, and Zrínyi families), who ordered and read hundreds of books from Spanish Habsburg authors (including several books from Spanish Habsburg diplomats) and cities and exchanged diplomatic gifts with their Spanish counterparts. People, including influential figures (soldiers and nobles), also moved among Habsburg political centers, prompted by diplomatic or family relations between Spanish Habsburg politicians and Bohemian or Hungarian families. Third, information gathered in Vienna radiated to all Spanish Habsburg states in different layers of granularity, density, and confidentiality. Top Spanish diplomats could access and transmit classified documents and the texts of international contracts obtained from Central European aristocrats and events. They also sent thousands of reports to their superiors about general news in Bohemia and Hungary. At the same time, lower-ranking nobles often struggled to keep up with and understand international events and trends and failed to get information about the key results of wars and imperial diets, since they lacked access to the network and the seniority to exert adequate influence.
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For the Habsburg Monarchy in the seventeenth century, it was very important to collect, send to Vienna, and evaluate up-to-date information on the Ottoman Empire. Following the Long Turkish War (1591/1593–1606), it was necessary in the 1620s to organize, alongside couriers and other channels of correspondence (e. g. the Venetian post), a cost-effective and sustainable system with which to transmit news and, in part, intelligence. In this essay, I present the historiography of the “institution” known as the “Secret Correspondence” and the history of the organization and reorganizations of the system. I also establish a typology of the people involved in the correspondence, namely 1) letter forwarders, 2) letter forwarders who also wrote secret reports, and 3) spies who wrote secret reports regardless of their location (in this case, the person was more important than the information). In the first half of the seventeenth century (1624 to 1658), the system of “Secret Correspondence” had to be reorganized several times (mostly due to lack of funds). In each case, the main challenge was to find and continuously employ the right people, so the role of the recruiter was also important. The political situation in the abovementioned period had an obvious impact on the functioning of the system, too. My research is based on documents from the Viennese archives (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv; Kriegsarchiv, Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv), which have helped me to offer a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the “Secret Correspondence” than found in the existing secondary literature.
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According to the wishes of Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi and his representative at the imperial court, Francesco Buonvisi (1675–1689), Leopold I married the candidate they favored: Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg. The emperor’s third wedding and the subsequent wedding festivities were held in Passau on December 14, 1676 in an absolutely private manner and without the intervention of the secular diplomats or the apostolic nuncio. The private staging of the sposalizio contrasts not only with the norms of the traditions of the imperial court with regards to ceremony, but also with the public staging of the emperor’s two previous weddings. Against this background, this article considers the possible functions that can be attributed to the private in this context and how the preferential treatment of the house of “Pfalz-Neuburg” can be interpreted in relation to the ceremonial norms of the imperial court. In this regard, the nunciature’s correspondence and their manifold interconnections thus represent essential sources which shed light on the mechanisms of “privacy” in diplomacy, as well as the shifting importance and meanings of the ceremonial norms of the imperial court.
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