Central Europe in the Fifteenth Century: Patterns of Conflict and Negotiation

The nine articles in this collection are the product of two workshops hosted at the University of Chicago in 2022 and 2023 in affiliation with the University of Vienna. They build on recent work that has called attention to the extraordinary political and religious diversity in the fifteenth-century Holy Roman Empire, and Central Europe more broadly. Pushing back against older historiography, in which this period was frequently overlooked or framed by uncritical use of such broad categories as the “state,” the “territory,” the “estates,” and the “feud,” this collection recognizes the polycentric nature of the fifteenth century's structures and institutions. Specifically, these articles return to the sources, especially documents of practice rather than normative texts, to open the door to a new understanding of conflicts and negotiations. They illuminate the patterns of conflict and negotiation evident in specific historical contexts by examining actors, networks, and practices of community building—as well as the processes through which conflicts emerged, evolved, and were negotiated and settled. Rather than relying on time-honored categories and meta-narratives, the contributors embrace the messiness of social and political relations and of the extant source material to shine new light on key themes in the fifteenth century's history.