"The Legal Rights of Religious Refugees in the 'Exulantenstädte' of the Holy Roman Empire"
Migration and Membership in Troubled Times - Ethics, Law and Politics, Seminar Series 2016/17
- Datum: 13.07.2017
- Uhrzeit: 14:00 - 16:00
- Vortragende(r): Ben Kaplan (University College London)
- Ben Kaplan is Professor at University College London, where he holds the Chair in Dutch History. He received his BA from Yale University (1981) and his PhD from Harvard (1989). Prior to UCL, he taught at Brandeis University and the University of Iowa, and from 2001 to 2011 he held a joint appointment at the University of Amsterdam. He is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. His most recent book is Cunegonde’s Kidnapping: A Story of Religious Conflict in the Age of Enlightenment, published in 2014 by Yale University Press.
- Ort: MPI-MMG, Hermann-Föge-Weg 11, Göttingen
- Raum: Library Hall
For more details please contact recke(at)mmg.mpg.de.
Some of the clearest examples in early modern Europe of special legal rights being accorded to religious refugees were to be found in the so-called “Exulantenstädte” of the Holy Roman Empire. These were new cities founded with the express intent of attracting religious refugees. This paper examines the legal provisions that extended personal, economic, civil, and religious rights to the refugees who settled them. These rights reflected both the agendas of early modern princes and the needs and desires of the refugees. Offering two case studies, the paper will show that the aims of both parties were best met when the refugees’ special rights were combined with separate urban status for their settlements.