A New Diplomatic History of early modern Europe

Given how active the field of early modern diplomatic history has been in the past decade, a summary has long been overdue. Indeed, the Early Modern European Diplomacy Handbook is the first time since Garrett Mattingly’s Renaissance Diplomacy (1955) that a comprehensive study of all aspects of the topic has been undertaken, with impressive results. Dorothée Goetze and Lena Oetzel have managed to bring together the full extent of current knowledge and historiography in 22 thematic and 17 geographic chapters, plus a beginner’s bibliography of edited primary sources.

As the title suggests, this is not a history book designed to be read from cover to cover, but a scholarly overview. The reader will find a summary of current knowledge and blind spots on early modern diplomatic historiography, writings, areas, actors, and practices, from Papal diplomacy and espionage to festivities, and to the roles of women in diplomacy. Moreover, this book aims at integrating the lessons and frameworks of New Diplomatic History, a turn that is barely a decade old, to address previously overlooked dimensions of the study of diplomacy. Accordingly, all authors are active within the field and have contributed acclaimed publications in their own domains.

Although it is rather hard to find overlooked spots in these 40 chapters, at first glance it may seem that the regions of Northern, Central and Eastern European have been left to the side. With the exception of the Habsburg court in Vienna, French, English, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch cases make up the overwhelming bulk of examples used in the thematic contributions. If readers are interested in how, for example, diplomatic espionage functioned in Hungary or Muscovy, they must for the most part extrapolate from the Western European conclusions of this chapter to the rest of the continent and hope for similarity. The editors are, however, fully aware of this imbalance, and address it in the introductory chapter, pointing to, amongst other reasons for it, the lack of a knowledge of the requisite languages among Western scholars. To attempt a correction, six geographic chapters are dedicated to Central, Eastern and Northern Europe (Russia, the Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Diets, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Poland and Lithuania), while a further three chapters deal with Ottoman diplomacy. This will hopefully allow subsequent research to use Central, Eastern and Northern European cases in more direct comparisons with Western examples and frameworks. 

Although the Ottoman chapters surprisingly do not quote a single Turkish-language publication, with the effect that these three chapters lean heavily towards European sources and perceptions of Istanbul’s diplomacy, other chapters are a very welcome first step towards overcoming the language barrier for Western scholars. For example, Maria A. Petrova and Marius Sirutavičius heavily base their contributions on Russian- and Polish- and Lithuanian-language historiography respectively, allowing readers who may not know these languages to gain insights into the latest developments in national historiographies. 

Thus, Maria A. Petrova’s chapter on “the diplomatic service in early modern Russia” traces the Muscovite origins of her subject matter all the way to the 16^th century. Both she and Marius Sirutavičius (for Poland and Lithuania) focus on the formation of diplomats, as well as on the political institutions that gave the orders, thereby undermining the myth of an all-powerful Czar with regards to foreign policy. Petrova also offers helpful guidance on sources in central Russian archives, whose navigation can be an endeavor in itself: for instance, one learns that the 16^th-century Russian foreign office has been given no less than seven different names by English-language historiography.

In a similar vein, Marius Sirutavičius’s contribution on Poland and Lithuania provides an accessible summary of a complex topic. Not only does he manage to address the whole early modern era, but he also correctly addresses the peculiarities of both Poland and Lithuania’s diplomacies without confusing the reader. A sizeable part of the chapter is dedicated to relations with Muscovy, the Tatar states and the Ottoman Empire, bringing some much-needed insight into diplomacy with Europe’s borderlands and their tribute mechanisms, a contrasting view of diplomacy compared to the Western courtly rituals. It is brilliant proof that, overall, New Diplomatic History provides a solid framework for both Eastern and Western Europe.

The two Ottoman chapters focus on the peculiarities of the Empire, such as its lack of permanent representation abroad. Zsuzsanna Cziráki’s contribution on the court insists on the cultural gap faced by European diplomats arriving in Istanbul. However, this did not constitute a barrier, but simply required adaptation, a concept explored in depth by Joachim Östlund’s chapter on relations with Sweden. Much of the information on the Ottoman perspective on Europeans and diplomacy is left to be explored by Güneş Işıksel’s more general chapter, in which one can find the staples of New Diplomatic History applied to the Ottomans, such as research on gifts, ceremonies, and diplomatic professionalization. Both authors also manage to include an exploration of the roles left to the Balkan principalities, nominally vassals to the Sublime Porte but that could go so far as to act as mediators in peace congresses.

In Central Europe, the main theme is that of levels of sovereignty. Sarah Rindlisbacher Thomi’s chapter on Switzerland examines how decentralized institutions could conduct their foreign affairs despite internal divisions: Swiss cantons received foreign diplomats and could conduct their own limited diplomatic endeavors, despite nominally belonging to a larger sovereign entity. Thus, in Switzerland, the tensions between the cantons hindered diplomacy: this is well represented by the case of a 1663 ceremonial embassy to France, in which the 100 representatives became engulfed in ceremonial disagreement. However, a personal regret is the lack of reference to the uniquely Swiss policy of neutrality.

Going further, Goetze’s chapter addresses the Holy Roman Empire’s complicated and layered diplomatic system, shared between three levels of power: the Emperor and Diet, the Imperial Circles, and the individual imperial estates. As in the Swiss case, this led to internal opposition, especially given the constitutional weakness of the central state: after 1648, the emperor was forced to submit his foreign policy to the estates’ will, and foreign diplomats were sent to the Diet instead. The cases of foreign princes with land in the Empire, such as those of Sweden, and internal diplomacy between the estates complicated the matter further. Goetze manages to bring much-needed coherence to this picture, and hints at ways to disentangle the feudal layers of Imperial diplomacy, with promising results for the study of imperial sovereignty.

Goetze’s conclusion regarding the Empire echoes one of the main takeaways of the whole handbook: more research is needed on the German aspects of early modern diplomacy, as it is for every other chapter in this book. She is not alone in this: in general, the authors have all done a great job of highlighting the gaps in the research that need to be plugged. The handbook is a perfect summary of the knowns and unknowns of early modern diplomacy, and prospective Master’s and PhD students will find dozens of potential research topics in this volume. Undergraduates, researchers and professors unfamiliar with early modern diplomacy will also be able to quickly integrate the basics of the matter, hopefully making the topic more approachable for modern diplomatic historians. One can therefore hope that the Handbook will foster a better dialogue between periods, but also between geographical areas, to include all of Europe in European Diplomacy.