L’autorité dynastique au service de la Parole : les testaments politiques des Hohenzollern (1667-1768)

In their political testaments, the absolutist sovereigns of Brandenburg profess their calvinism, justify the meddling of political authority with religious affairs, reason in terms of religious legitimacy and of dynastic specificity. The genre of the political testament, half-public, half-private, enables us to analyze the way in which those princes chose to advocate a rigorous, hard-working, money-saving behaviour, and also used to quote Scripture, appeal to Christ and confess their fear of death Our aim will be to compare the passages which each of them devoted to religion and to decide whether a pronounced evolution could be noticed in the course of four successive generations. The Great Elector's testament (1667) is characterized by some proselytism and is echoed by his son's, the first King in Prussia. Tormented by religious issues, the Sergeant-King, Frederick-William I (1722) seems to stay close to the lutheran conception of authority, thus reconciling his own political project with a doctrine of predestination which preoccupied him. Even Frederick II, who admired Voltaire and was hostile to any kind of superstition or enthusiasm, claimed he was the Pope of the Lutherans and the Head of the Reformed Church (1752 /1768).