Dissertation Information for John Christopher Doney NAME: - John Christopher Doney
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- History
SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (1989)
ADVISORS: - James Van Horn Melton
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - None
MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected
Title: Reform and the enlightened Catholic state: Culture and education in the Prince-Bishopric of Wuerzburg, 1731--1795
Abstract: Between 1731 and 1795, catholic German culture experienced a transformation from the Baroque to the Enlightenment. This dissertation seeks to understand the nature of this change and the character of the Catholic Enlightenment. Though the German Enlightenment has received considerable historiographic attention, much of it has centered on the enlightened Protestant culture of places such as Berlin, Halle, Gottingen, Weimar and Konigsberg. Catholic culture, by contrast, has often been regarded as priest-ridden and insular, opposed to enlightened attitudes and ideas. This is a mistaken picture. By examining the Prince-Bishopric (Hochstift) of Wurzburg in Franconia, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of the German Catholic Enlightenment as a significant and unique movement in its own right.
As an important ecclesiastical state, in which one individual held both secular and spiritual sovereignty, Wurzburg played a leading role in Catholic Germany. Under three eighteenth-century prince-bishops--Friedrich Karl von Schonborn (1729-46), Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim (1755-79), and Franz Ludwig von Erthal (1779-95)--Wurzburg experienced the introduction of the Enlightenment to Catholic Germany. To understand how enlightened Catholic ideology was translated into practice, the focus is on the reform of popular education in Wurzburg.
This dissertation regards the Enlightenment from cultural, social, and institutional perspectives. New ideas and styles flowed into Wurzburg both from Protestant Germany and from throughout Europe. These cultural impulses entered the Hochstift primarily through the elite institutions of the state and the church. The prince-bishops and their men sought to adapt new ideologies and values to the existing cultural and institutional framework of German Catholic society. This was particularly true of their efforts to reform popular education at the parish level.
This dissertation argues that the German Catholic Enlightenment was characterized by reforms initiated from above and stimulated by a wide array of new ideas and cultural styles. In turn, the existing social and cultural fabric both shaped and was shaped by the new impulses. In the end, Catholic Germany developed a unique enlightened culture that was both distinct from the Enlightenment elsewhere in Germany and Europe and no less rich and vital.
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calculated 2008-06-01 15:50:34
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