: an Imperial at the Imperial Diet of 1640-‘41 a New Diplomatic History

Master thesis F.A. Quartero, BA S1075438 Houtstraat 3 2311 TE Leiden

Supervisor: Dr. M.A. Ebben Doelensteeg 16 2311 VL Leiden Room number 2.62b

23.082 words 2

Table of contents

Introduction 4

Chapter I: The Empire, Hamburg and the of Holstein 12 Hamburg’s government 13 ‘Streitiger Elbsachen’: Hamburg and the Duke of Holstein 19 The Empire: Hamburg’s far friend 22

Chapter II: Hamburg’s political ambitions and diplomatic means 26 Goals 27 1. Commerce 27 2. Territory 31 3. Contributions 32 Means 33 1. Gratification 33 2. Publicising 36 3. Diplomatic support 38 4. Law enforcement 40 Hamburg’s diplomacy 43

Chapter III: Much to declare: Barthold Moller’s accounts 45 Revenue 47 Expenses 51 1. Representation 51 2. Negotiation 54 3. Information 54 4. Affiliation 60 Hamburg’s Imperial 69

Conclusion 72 Bibliography 76

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Figure 1: ‘Niedersachsen and Bremen, 1580’, at: Martin Knauer, Sven Tode (ed.), Der Krieg vor den Toren: Hamburg im Dreißigjährigen Krieg 1618-1648, (Hamburg 2000), 150-151.

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Hamburg An Imperial City at the Imperial Diet of 1640-‘41

Over time, the has been subjected to many revaluations. Nineteenth century historians considered it a weak state, after the German aggressions of the First and Second World War scholars sought clues for a ‘Sonderweg’ in history that had lead the German proto-nation away from democratic principles and towards totalitarianism, followed by a reappraisal of the Imperial institutions that was sparked by historians in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland of the 1960’s.1 Owing to this last development in historiography, an influential current of recent scholarship assesses the Empire and its institutions as a framework for political and intellectual interaction, rather than determining its ‘stateliness’.2 Within this new framework there is room to consider the workings of the Empire in terms of multiple ‘layers’ of jurisdiction, overlapping areas of influence and different arenas of communication in which the Emperor, the Imperial institutions and the Imperial Estates engaged.3 This perspective is useful in understanding how the Estates of the Holy Roman Empire operated as autonomous political agents as well, and how they managed to pursue their interests through their own independent – yet not sovereign – diplomacy. Because also in diplomatic historiography, the political reality of premodern times has long been seen through the prism of 19th and 20th-century statehood; nowadays the birth of an international system at the Congress of in 1648, based on has been challenged.4

1 R.J.W. Evans, Michael Schaich & Peter H. Wilson (ed.), The Holy Roman Empire, 1495-1806 (New York 2011), 3-6. 2 Jason P. Coy, Benjamin Marschke, David Warren Sabean (ed.), The Holy Roman Empire, reconsidered, (New York 2010), 3. For an overview of the historiography on the HRE’s stateliness, compare: Peter H. Wilson,‘Still a Monstrosity? Some Reflections on Early Modern German Statehood’, at: The Historical Journal, 49 No. 2, (2006), 565-576. 3 Compare on the Empire’s legal system for example: Karl Härter, ‘The Early Modern Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (1495-1806): a multi-layered legal system’, at: Jeroen Duindam, Jill Diana Harries, Caroline Humfress, Hirvitz Nirmod (ed.), Law and Empire, Ideas, Practices, Actors, in the series: ‘Rulers&Elites’, Volume 3, (Leiden 2013), 111-131. On institutional protection of and ‘forum shopping’ by the Imperial , compare for example: D. Petry, Konfliktbewaltigung als Medienereignis: Reichsstadt und Reichshofrat in der Frühen Neuzeit, (Leiden 2011). On the Empire as a platform for communication, compare for example: Michael North, ‘Das Reich als kommunikative Einheit’, at: Johannes Burkhardt, Christine Werkstetter (ed.), ’Kommunikation und Medien in der Frühen Neuzeit’, at: Historische Zeitschrift, Band 41, (München 2005), 237-249; Susanne Friedrich, Drehscheibe Regensburg: das Informations- und Kommunikationssystem des Immerwährenden Reichstags um 1700, (Berlin 2007). 4 John Watkins, ‘Towards a New Diplomatic History of Medieval and Early Modern ‘, at: Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 38:1 (2008), 1-14; Maurits Ebben, Louis Sicking, ‘Nieuwe diplomatieke geschiedenis van de premoderne tijd, een inleiding’, at: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 2014, Jrg. 127, No. 4, 541-552. On the question of the birth of sovereignty, compare also: Andreas Osiander, ‘Sovereignty,

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The discipline of New Diplomatic History occupies itself with the diplomatic influence of non-sovereign entities, interprets diplomatic practice in its time specific context, and consciously omits teleological backtracking of concepts of ‘modern’ diplomacy. It counters the idea of a state monopoly on diplomatic practice and has more regard for unofficial diplomatic actors and networks, such as the intermediary role of traders, missionaries and spies, and the transnational brokerage of art. Noteworthy examples of non-sovereign diplomatic agents are cities or city-bonds like the Hanseatic League.5 In line with this developing discipline of New Diplomatic History, this research aims to make a contribution by way of a bottom-up historiography on the Imperial and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and its dealings at the Imperial Diet of 1640-’41, assessing the city’s external affairs in detail – both within the Empire and outside, both in design and in implementation. A couple of aspects make Hamburg in this juncture such an interesting case for diplomatic history. It was one of the Empire’s leading cities in terms of commerce and diplomacy.6 Through its wide-spanning trade network, the city’s establishment maintained many foreign contacts. Hamburg’s financial and armament markets during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) were second only to Amsterdam’s, and – partly because of this feat – Hamburg developed into the Empire’s main diplomatic centre. The fact that the Preliminary Treaty of 1641, which settled the date, locations and partaking powers for the conferences that became the Congress of Westphalia, was negotiated in Hamburg between 1638 and 1641, underlines the city’s significance as diplomatic locus even on a European scale. Yet despite its eminence in these fields, Hamburg’s diplomatic relations have been a problematic subject of study. In part, this is due to the fact that Hamburg’s historiography has been subjected to the same changing societal and academic constellations as those that sparked the revaluations of the Holy Roman Empire as a whole.7 But foremost Hamburg’s diplomatic historiography is hindered by a severe

International relations, and the Westphalian Myth’, at: International Organization, 55 No. 2, (2001), 251- 287. 5 On new views concerning Hanseatic history, compare: Antje-Katrin Graßmann, ‘Niedergang Übergang? Zur Spätzeit der Hanse im 16. Und 17. Jahrhundert’, at: Quellen und Darstellungen zur Hansischen Geschichte, Band XLIV (1998). 6 Hermann Kellenbenz, ‘Hamburg und die französisch-schwedischen Zusammenarbeit im Dreißigjährigen Krieg’, at: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, Band 49/50 (1964), 83. 7 Compare for example: L.G. Gallois, Geschichte der Stadt Hamburg, nach den besten Quellen bearbeitet, (Hamburg 1853), a ‘proud’ 19th-century historiography; Hermann Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkräfte im

6 shortage of source material. Consecutive calamities took a heavy toll on the city of Hamburg’s archives, starting with the Great Fire of 1842, which was particularly destructive, followed by devastations at the hand of Allied air raids in 1943 and a damaging flood in 1962.8 Calculations are that about 35% of the archive survived the flames in 1842, excluding the lion’s share of the records from before 1741.9 This poses a significant handicap to more exhaustive Hamburg-based historic research. The image arising from most of the literature is one of Hamburg’s exceptionality, arriving at different kinds of isolation in typifying the city’s external affairs. If we take a quick overview, the standard work on Hamburg’s history inclines to the notion that during the first half of the Hamburg pursued its own interests, being for example less than collegial to its partners within the Hanseatic League, and adhered to a reserved attitude in its external relations.10 The city’s main concerns in foreign politics at the start of the 17th century are described as its autonomy, neutrality and free navigation, characterised in their execution by a tactic of “diplomatischen Ausweichens und Hinhaltens” – a diplomacy of evading and stalling.11 Some refer to Hamburg’s foreign policies as ‘Schaukelpolitik’: politics based on the balancing of interests and strategic, unprincipled shifting of partnerships.12 Put more mildly, this preposition can be characterised as ‘particularism’ – politics that serve the own, private good rather than a communal one; a principle often used to characterise the cooperation between the different cities within the Hanseatic League in the late 16th and 17th centuries.13 Historian Stephan Schröder summarises Hamburg’s main interests during the Thirty

Hamburger - und Spanienhandel 1590-1625, (Hamburg 1954), a 1950’s ‘liberal’ social- and economic history; Gisela Rückleben, Rat und Bürgerschaft in Hamburg 1595-1686: innere Bindungen und Gegensätze, (Marburg 1969), a ‘leftist’ social history; Percy Ernst Schramm, Hamburg: Ein Sonderfall in der Geschichte Deutschlands, (Hamburg 1964), a 1960’s antithesis of a totalitarian German model, Hamburg as exception/‘Sonderfall’. 8 Flamme, Gabrielsson, Lorenzen-Schmidt, Kommentierte Übersicht über die Bestände des Staatsarchivs Hamburgs, (Hamburg 1999), 18. 9 Hans-Dieter Loose, ‘Das Stadtarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg im Großen Brand von 1842’, at: Joachim W. Frank&Thomas Brakmann (ed.), Beiträge zum 300-jährigen Jubiläum des Staatsarchivs der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, (Hamburg 2013), 69. 10 Werner Jochmann, Hans-Dieter Loose (ed.), Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, Band I (Hamburg 1982), 310. 11 Jochmann, Loose (ed.), Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, 259. 12 Rückleben, Rat und Bürgerschaft in Hamburg 1595-1686: innere Bindungen und Gegensätze, (Marburg 1969), 68. Also, ‘Schaukelpolitik’ was a surviving strategy for other smaller Estates as well, compare: Ernst Böhme, Das Fränkische Reichsgrafenkollegium im 16. Und 17. Jahrhundert, Untersuchungen zu den Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der korporativen Politik mindermächtiger Reichsstände, (Stuttgart 1989). 13 Karl-Klaus Weber, ‘Die Hansestadt Lübeck und die Generalstaaten. Die Beziehungen zwischen der Stadt als Haupt der Hanse und der Republik von ihrer Gründung 1579 bis zu Beginn des Dreißigjährigen Krieges im Spiegel niederländischer Quellen’, at: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 81 (2001), 203-204.

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Years War, especially during the 1620’s and 30’s, as maintaining legal and military independence, especially from Denmark, securing access to the different trade routes as well as the possibility to trade with all parties and, being a staunchly Lutheran city, securing the Imperial Right of (Reformationsrecht).14 Indeed, concerning its independence, Hamburg abandoned several Swedish initiatives to close a political and military alliance during the period between 1618 and 1635. Likewise, the city dismissed such attempts by the Emperor and Spanish Habsburgs trying to expand their power in the Baltic region around 1628.15 During the Thirty Years War Hamburg’s economic interests, served by peace and neutrality, invariably trumped the risks involved with such commitments. Still, according to Hermann Kellenbenz Hamburg’s neutrality should not be regarded as a goal in itself, but rather as a matter of pragmatism that turned the city’s weakness into a strength; thus the city’s government achieved Hamburg’s unique position as an exchange market for goods, ‘big finance’ and information.16 However, Hamburg’s function as an important node of European diplomacy is understood to stand in stark contrast with its own involvement with ‘big diplomacy’. For example, in assessing the role of Hamburg’s government in the Preliminary Treaty negotiations (1638-1641) the much-respected historian Hans-Dieter Loose (1937) has asked himself two questions: to what extent were they a precursor to the (according to Loose: not at all), and was the city’s government diplomatically involved?17 Regarding the second question that the “preserved sources in the Staatsarchiv show foremost the [establishment’s] consideration for the city’s own interest” and that “those responsible for governing the city [of Hamburg] have not actively contributed [to the coming-about of the Hamburg Preliminary Treaty of 1641], be it as idea-giver, be it as intermediary”.18 Another subject that Loose has treated was the mission to Regensburg that is studied here: Senator Barthold Moller von Baum and Syndicus Johann Christoph Meurer’s envoy to the Imperial Diet of 1640-1641, extending

14 Stephan Schröder, ‘Hamburg und Schweden im Dreißigjährigen Krieg. Vom potentiellen Bündnispartner zum Zentrum der Kriegsfinanzierung’, at: Verein für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, (1989), 305-331. 15 M.E.H.N. Mout, ‘"Holendische propositiones". Een Habsburgs plan tot vernietiging van handel, visserij en scheepvaart der Republiek (ca. 1625)‘, at: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, Vol. 95 (1982), 345. 16 Hermann Kellenbenz, ‘Hamburg und die französisch-schwedischen Zusammenarbeit im Dreißigjährigen Krieg’, at: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, Band 49/50 (1964), 106-107. 17 Hans-Dieter Loose, ’Vorspiele zum Westfälische Frieden in Hamburg’, at: Martin Knauer, Sven Tode (ed.), Der Krieg vor den Toren: Hamburg im Dreißigjährigen Krieg 1618-1648, (Hamburg 2000), 269-284. As a marker of his stature, Loose has been honoured with an academic tribute: Hans Wilhelm Eckardt&Klaus Richter (ed.), ‘Bewahren und Berichten: Festschrift für Hans-Dieter Loose zum 60. Geburtstag’, at: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, (1997) Bd. 83, Teil 1. 18 Hans-Dieter Loose, ’Vorspiele zum Westfälische Frieden in Hamburg’, 284.

8 it to the Viennese Imperial Court until the spring of 1642. Although reflecting mostly upon the function of ‘öffentlichkeit’, or ‘public accountability’ at this mission, Loose concludes with regard to the city’s diplomatic efforts that Hamburg’s institutionalised disadvantage at the Diet as an Imperial City and its disengagement with the ongoing peace process – the main stake at the Imperial Diet convention of 1640-‘41 – qualified its conduct as an “in greater historical context peripheral diplomacy”.19 In other words, Loose arrives at the conclusion that Hamburg’s diplomacy was disappointingly self- engaged. With this research, I would like to dig deeper into the preserved archival material of Hamburg’s manifestations at the Diet of 1640-‘41 to arrive at a more positively defined valuation of the city’s diplomacy, embracing both Hamburg’s pursuit of self- interest as typical Estately behaviour, and the fact that the city’s contribution to Imperial and European politics was of modest, maybe indeed ‘peripheral’ proportions. To this end I shall carefully assess what were the political goals that Hamburg’s government pursued at the Diet, but – more importantly – I shall look at the diplomatic means that Hamburg employed to reach these goals. Congruent with New Diplomatic History, this study focuses more on the process of diplomacy, rather than its results.20 In other studies on the Holy Roman Empire as well, the emphasis of research gravitates towards the ‘how’, rather than the ‘what’ in order to come to a better understanding of its functioning.21 A third factor to be researched is the contribution of Hamburg’s own diplomacy in this process. Which choices did Hamburg’s government and its diplomats make in using the Imperial institutional framework to work towards their aspired goals? How could Hamburg, as a small Estate within the Holy Roman Empire, exert influence on Imperial politics? And how did Hamburg’s diplomats depend on their masters in Hamburg; did they enjoy a certain “Verhandlungsspielraum”, a freedom to act independently, or not? This last question has been studied almost exclusively in the

19 Hans-Dieter Loose, ‘Hamburgische Gesandte auf dem Regensburger Reichstag 1640/41, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte von offentlicher Meinung und Diplomatie Hamburgs in der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts’, at: Zeitschrift für Hamburgische Geschichte, Vol. 61 (1975), 17. 20 Maurits Ebben, Louis Sicking, ‘Nieuwe diplomatieke geschiedenis van de premoderne tijd, een inleiding’ in: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 2014, Jrg. 127, No. 4, 547. 21 Compare: D. Petry, Konfliktbewaltigung als Medienereignis: Reichsstadt und Reichshofrat in der Frühen Neuzeit, (Leiden 2011), 12.

9 context of the Peace of Westphalia.22 These questions shall be addressed foremost in the second chapter, which is based on the diplomatic correspondence. What I hope to show is that, although there is no conclusive evidence that Hamburg engaged in the ‘great politics’ of Europe and the Empire that Loose has been looking for, the level at which it conducted its diplomacy was in many aspects at eye- level with the Kingdom of Denmark, and perhaps better developed than previously perceived. Hamburg’s government and diplomats maintained relations within the highest spheres of Imperial government and -bureaucracy, lobbied at the Electors and their representatives, and were able to rally diplomatic support from European powers such as the Dutch Estates-General. The second pillar of this research is based on the mission accounts, which are treated in the third chapter. Also based on the New Diplomatic History framework, the aim is to gain insight into the everyday reality of Hamburg’s diplomacy at the Imperial Diet of 1640-‘41. I shall assess how the diplomats moved about their business at this Regensburg convention; how were Hamburg’s diplomats able to gather essential information? How did they flesh out their tasks in representing their hometown? Which practical methods of gaining information and influence did they apply – gift-giving, bribery, espionage, persuasion by eloquence? Secondly, we shall see how their demands were met – by other diplomats and their households, Regensburg citizens, Imperial dignitaries, and bureaucrats. What does this eventually tell us about the and government culture of the Empire around 1640; only a few years before the Congress of Westphalia of 1643-1648? To this end I shall treat the diplomats’ conduct in Regensburg according to the classic interpretation of a diplomat’s responsibilities: representation, negotiation and information – with the added criterion of ‘affiliation’. This parameter I have added because the traditional three-step approach lacks the officious and personal dimension of diplomacy that is so characteristic for this era. The thus achieved ‘bottom-up’ interpretation of the Diet through the mission’s financial accounts and the window they provide on the everyday dealings of Hamburg’s diplomats shall hopefully contribute to our understanding of the role of lower-ranking diplomats, their entourage and their households in the daily praxis of diplomacy.23

22 Daniel Legutke, Diplomatie als soziale Institution, Brandenburgische, sächsische und kaiserliche Gesandte in Den Haag 1648-1720, (Münster 2010), 48. 23 Daniel Legutke, Diplomatie als soziale Institution, (Münster 2010), 48.

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Moving now to the source material, the central case study in this research is the city’s diplomatic conduct at the Reichstag of 1640-1641. This mission documented in over 60 letters of correspondence – amounting to more than 40 pages in transcription – between the city government and its diplomats in Regensburg, as well as the diplomats’ financial accounts. These accounts cover all revenues and expenses, starting at the envoy’s departure on 25 August 1640 until its return on 14 April 1642. At this Imperial Diet, Hamburg’s diplomacy centred around the main threat to the city’s commerce and security, which were the mercantilist and expansionist politics of Christian IV (r. 1588- 1648), of Denmark and Duke of Holstein-Glückstadt. To counter its impeding neighbour, Hamburg made direct appeals to Emperor Ferdinand III (r. 1637-1657), but also managed to effectively use the legal and political protection of institutions such as the Imperial – the Emperor’s most trusted legal court. The correspondence between the Hamburg City Council and its representatives in Regensburg is a scarce and extraordinary source for the study of Hamburg’s Reichs- political agenda as well as its diplomatic methods. This is important, because diplomatic historiography on Hamburg’s government is out of proportion with its significance as a diplomatic and economic centre during the Thirty Years War. In combination with study of the representatives’ account book, the total exchange of 59 letters from the Hamburg Senate to Regensburg and four letters from the diplomats to Hamburg form a respectable quantity of material to study the exchange of information, orders and (requests for) advice. The coarse balance between letters from the Senate and those written by Moller and Meurer bears some implications for the research. Because the Senate’s letters are more instructive and the diplomats’ more explanatory, the practical process of diplomacy – the ‘how’ – is overshadowed by the political ideal – the ‘what’ – ventilated by the city’s government. The financial accounts however are able to complement the correspondence in this respect, revealing for example which people and parties were paid for their cooperation, as well as other financial services that were lent to Hamburg’s ‘allies’ in Regensburg. Also, to reveal something extra on Hamburg’s practices he research in this study is supplemented with information from the Dutch National Archive as well – adding primarily correspondence from the United Provinces’ resident agent in Hamburg. The structure of this paper is built up through a macro-, to meso-, to micro-level treatment of Hamburg’s diplomacy. In the first chapter, a general introduction to the city

11 of Hamburg’s starting position is presented: the form of its government and diplomatic apparatus and relation to the Empire, a background on its main political concern – the King of Denmark’s anti-Hamburg policies, and a short summary of the prelude to the 1640 Imperial Diet, its main points of discussion and an overview of the Imperial institutions that were involved in the politics and workings of the Diet. The second chapter focuses on Hamburg’s goals, methods and form of diplomacy through the letters of correspondence. Finally, the third chapter zooms in even further, using the financial accounts as a window upon the everyday movements of Hamburg’s diplomats.

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Chapter I Hamburg, the Duke of Holstein and the Empire

Its physical conditions provided the Imperial City of Hamburg with many advantages: the town was ideally situated for the purpose of trade, with the river Elbe unlocking both the Eastern trade to Scandinavia and the Baltic, and the Western trade to the Iberian peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea. Its fortifications, designed by the Dutch engineer Johan van Valckenburg and constructed between 1615 and 1625, were considered insurmountable by contemporaries.24 During the Thirty Years War it had the fortune of lying outside the main Imperial thoroughfares, saving it from fates like the Sack of in 1631. Likewise Hamburg escaped occupation by armies of the war faring parties like (by , in 1632) or Wolffenbüttel (by Imperial troops, in 1627). In addition, its importance to the invading ‘Confederates’ – especially Sweden – as a financial and diplomatic centre, as well as indemnity payments, precluded Swedish occupation.25 Before the 17th century, this geographic ‘peripheral’ quality used to be heartfelt by Hamburg’s citizens with regard to the Emperor, who ruled from the far-away, inland cities of Vienna and Regensburg. In the words of a 16th-century contemporary he was “not considered much” in Hamburg.26 And vice versa, until years after the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia the city – as well as the whole of the regional consultative body of the Lower Saxon Kreis (Niedersächsische Reichskreis), that included the principalities Holstein, Mecklenburg and Braunschweig-Lüneburg and the Imperial Cities of Bremen, Lübeck and – was deemed Reichsfern by the Emperor and his administration.27 Indeed, even in 1710 a messenger departing from Hamburg travelled faster to London by ship than to Vienna by express-coach.28 Yet, during the 17th century Hamburg’s attitude toward the Empire changed, as the city grew increasingly dependent on the Emperor’s protection because of the intensifying Danish economic, diplomatic and military pressure. Consequently, the

24 Karl-Klaus Weber,’Unneimbahre Stadt’, at: Martin Knauer, Sven Tode (ed.), Der Krieg vor den Toren: Hamburg im Dreißigjährigen Krieg 1618-1648, (Hamburg 2000), 98. 25 Zeiger, Hamburgs Finanzen von 1563-1650, (Hamburg 1936), 110. 26 Jochmann, Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt, 200. 27 Tomas Lau, ‘Diplomatie und Recht: die Rolle des kaiserlichen Residenten bei innerstädtischen Konflikten in den Reichsstädten der Frühen Neuzeit’, 98. 28 Dorothea Schröder, Zeitgeschichte auf der Opernbühne, barockes Musiktheater in Hamburg im Dienst von Politik und Diplomatie (1690-1745), (Gottingen 1998), 14.

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Imperial diplomatic arena became more and more important. Not only did Hamburg seek to contain Christian IV by Imperial directives; the Imperial Supreme Courts of the (Imperial Cameral Court) and Reichshofrat (Imperial Aulic Council) were also important to legitimise Hamburg’s claims and to influence the Emperor, who was the Empire’s source of all justice, and as such never abandoned during its existence.29 In this last respect, coaxing the Emperor, the Reichshofrat was of special significance, as we shall see when we dive into the function of the Aulic Council as a diplomatic pressure tool in the second, and the mission’s expenses on members of the Aulic Council in the third chapter. Before we turn to matters of the Imperial Diet and the Holy Roman Empire, it is important to understand the mechanisms behind Hamburg’s government and its politics at Estate level. Therefore, we shall look first at the city’s government, the background of the diplomats that were despatched to Regensburg, and take a small advance on the city government’s attitude towards the Empire. The second paragraph treats the city’s conflict with Denmark – after all Hamburg’s prime concern in its external politics – and the third paragraph concludes with an introduction to the Diet of 1640 and the institutional framework that Hamburg was able to utilise diplomatically.

Hamburg’s government

Hamburg was an ‘immediate’ (Reichsunmittelbare) city, meaning that it was directly subjected to the Emperor and had no other overlord. In 1640 Hamburg was a republic under dual jurisdiction of Ferdinand III and a self-governing commune ruled by an overlapping system of councils. The most important of these were the Rat, the Senate, and the Bürgerschaft – the Assembly of Citizens. The day-to-day governing of the city befell to four Burgomasters, who were appointed for life, and the Senate. The Senate consisted of 24 elected members, belonging to a social class that may be accurately described as a ‘merchant aristocracy’ or ‘urban patriciate’.30 By way of the Senate and other governing bodies such as the influential parish foremen, the Aldermänner, Hamburg was ruled by a distinguished group of men, comparable to the well-studied

29 Michael Hughes, ’The Imperial Aulic Council („Reichshofrat“) as Guardian of the Rights of Mediate Estates in the Later Holy Roman Empire: Some Suggestions for Further Research’, at: Vierhaus (ed.), Herrschaftsverträge, Wahlkapitulationen, Fundamentalgsetze, (Göttingen 1977), 199. 30 Gisela Rückleben, Rat und Bürgerschaft in Hamburg 1595-1686: innere Bindungen und Gegensätze, (Marburg 1969), 59.

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Dutch Republic’s Regenten elite.31 This elite often clashed with the Assembly of Citizens, consisting more of traders and artisans – a friction that temporarily eased during the Thirty Years War. The Senate was supported by three legal Secretaries, and two ‘Syndici’ who managed the city’s foreign affairs.32 Just like so many offices in the Early Modern, waxing bureaucracy, the effective responsibilities under the function of Syndicus depended on the person holding the office. According to a professional guide that was published in the Northern Netherlands in 1645, the term derived from the Greek ‘sundikos’, which means “with council, speaking, writing”.33 A Syndicus was expected to bolster a thorough knowledge of languages (foremost Latin and French) as well as the history of the lands he served.34 A Syndicus was ideally legally trained in multiple disciplines, and thus able to advise the city’s government not just on private legalities, but also on public and international matters. The emphasis on the juridical knowledge of the Syndicus is mirrored by the fact that the metier of government in 17th century Hamburg became an increasingly legal one: from 1643 onward, all 4 Burgomasters were legally trained. Another important institution in the field of Hamburg’s home politics and diplomacy was the Treasury (Kammerei). The Treasury controlled the city’s finances, including those regarding diplomatic missions, and was the terrain of repeated clashes between Senate and the Assembly of Citizens. To prevent friction however, the Senate had invited a commission of 36 burghers to be counselled on matters concerning Denmark, which supported the Regensburg mission. The biographies of Hamburg’s 1640-1641 Reichstag diplomats, Syndicus Johann Christoph Meurer and Senator Barthold Moller shall serve here both as an introduction to the structure of Hamburg’s government and as examples of the sort of men that formed the city’s elite and diplomatic apparatus. The profession of diplomacy in this period is generally understood to be the domain of men of considerable esteem: well- educated, well-endowed, well-travelled and well-bred. To this conception the Hamburger diplomats were no exception. Councilman Barthold Moller von Baum (1605- 1667), firstly, descended from a prominent Hanseatic family. His father Vincent Moller

31 Renate Bridenthal (ed.), The hidden history of crime, corruption and states, (New York 2013). 32 Postel, ‘Reformation und Gegenreformation 1517-1618’, at: Werner Jochmann and Hans-Dieter Loose (ed.), Hamburg, Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, Band I (Hamburg 1982), 194. 33 Bernhard Alting, Syndicus, ofte tractaetken over ’t ambt van de Syndiicquen, ende pensionarisen door Bernhard Alting, rechtsgeleerde, ( 1645), 1. 34 Alting, Syndicus, ofte tractaetken over ’t ambt van de Syndiicquen, 24.

15 had served as Syndicus to the Hamburg Senate, and his mother Elisabeth Beckmann was a Burgomaster’s daughter. The Beckmanns had been pioneers in Hamburg’s Brazil trade in the late 16th century, did well in the copper business since the start of the 30 Years War and were related by marriage to other leading patrician families such as Vögeler and De Greve.35 Barthold himself married a daughter of Burgomaster Albert von Eitzen (1586-1653). His father-in-law was actually in office as Burgomaster since 1623 and one of the leading contacts in the diplomats’ correspondence.36 Moller had studied jurisprudence in Leiden, and graduated in both civil and canonical law at the University of in 1629. After his studies, Barthold Moller went on a Grand Tour, visiting , England and Holland. Shortly after his return to Hamburg, he was elected Secretary to the Senate (Ratssekretär) in 1630, and became a Senator himself in 1635. Before Barthold Moller was to represent Hamburg at the Reichstag of 1640 he had been on several diplomatic missions, for example to the Dutch Estates-General in The Hague in 1631 and the Danish King in Glückstadt in 1640. Hamburg’s struggles with Denmark dominated the agenda at both occasions. Precisely because of the paramount importance to Hamburg’s foreign policy we shall look at the development of relations between Hamburg and Denmark more closely in the next paragraph. In 1642 Moller succeeded Hieronymus Vögeler as Burgomaster. In this capacity, he would leave his marks on city politics foremost in the intensification of relations with France. Interestingly, in his later career Moller received a pension from the French crown, probably in acknowledgement of the steady improvement of Hamburg’s relations with France during Moller’s years as Burgomaster. Barthold Moller von Baum was officially thanked for his services by the King of France in 1652.37 Moller’s colleague deputy and Syndicus Dr. Johannes Christoph Meurer (1598- 1652) was a son of a previous Hamburger Syndicus and Privy Councillor of Holstein Philipp Meurer. His studies led him by the universities of Rostock, Thübingen, Straßburg, Wittenberg, Leipzig and Jena, where he eventually received the title of Doctor in both civil and canonical law in 1619. On his subsequent Grand Tour, Meurer visited besides England, France and the United Provinces also the and Italy. By the time the Imperial Diet started in 1640, Meurer had been on several

35 Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkräfte 111-113. 36 Twice in the correspondence, the city’s Secretary Paridom van Kampen pardoned the fact that he had not been able to have Burgomaster Von Eitzen autograph to officially approve the sent letter. 37 Hermann Kellenbenz, ‘Hamburg und die Französisch-Schwedische zusammenarbeit im dreißigjährigen Krieg’ in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, Band 49/50 (1964), 96.

16 diplomatic missions; the most successful of which was probably his visit to the (Kaiserwahl) in 1636 – be it against considerable cost to the Treasury.38 Meurer married three times, his second marriage concluded in 1640 with Barthold’s sister, Margaretha Moller von Baum. Meurer would later serve as Hamburg’s deputy at the Osnabruck negotiations. The city of Hamburg’s diplomatic apparatus employed, most importantly, a resident to the Estates-General in The Hague in concordance with Lübeck and Bremen. This resident was Lieuwe van Aitzema. Secondly, the Hanse made use of Consuls to act as intermediaries in trade and commercial politics on the Iberian Peninsula as well.39 However, we shall see that around 1640 Hamburg also employed two Agents in Vienna, who were apparently invested with the task of forwarding Hamburg’s interests in the toll case at the Imperial Court. When we consider the political motivations and affiliations of this socially homogeneous elite however, the picture fragments considerably. The Senate represented different factions and schools of thought as to which power(block) was to be favoured as Hamburg’s ally. Not surprisingly therefore, many members of Hamburg’s ruling elite operated within the diplomatic networks of larger European powers – Barthold Moller’s service to France being only a first example. During the period of interest here, circa 1640, hints of the Hamburg elite’s foreign loyalties are plentiful. Moller’s predecessor as Burgomaster for example, Hieronymus Vögeler (1565-1642), was an informant for the Spanish crown.40 Moller’s father in law, Burgomaster Albrecht von Eitzen, was “the undisputed leader of the pro-Emperor faction in Hamburg, and worked together continuously with the Emperor’s resident [Von Siebern] both against the Danish-Swedish and Anglo-Hollandish currents in city and Senate”.41 Barthold’s brother Vincent Moller von Baum married the stepdaughter of Swedish resident Johan Adler Salvius in 1646, received a royal knighthood and was installed as Swedish representative to the Niedersachsische Kreits.42 Lastly, Councilman Georg von Holte

38 Reichshofratakten, 211. 6 January 1637. 39 Jorun Poettering, Handel, Nation und : Kaufleute zwischen Hamburg und Portugal im 17. Jahrhundert, (Göttingen 2013). 40 Jochmann, Loose (ed.), Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, 250. 41 Neue Deutsche Biographie, https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz12954.html#ndbcontent [03-08- 2017]. 42 Heiko Droste, ‘Ein Diplomat zwischen Familieninteressen und Königsdienst: Johan Adler Salvius in Hamburg (1630-1650)’, at: Nähe in der Ferne: personale Verflechtung in der Frühen Neuzeit, (Berlin 2005), 94.

17 operated as correspondent of the Estates-General between the residencies of Foppe van Aitzema and Hendrick Schrassert in 1640.43 Although we have seen that the historiography emphasises Hamburg’s reservations towards friendly external relations during the Thirty Years War, a quick advance on the diplomatic correspondence suggests that the policies of Hamburg’s governing elite around 1640 were predominantly pro-Emperor. Danish dominance and other threats to Hamburg’s commerce and security inspired Hamburg’s primeval political strategy to retain the Emperor’s benevolence.44 This strategy can be read in the Senate’s complaint, ventilated in a letter to Moller and Meurer from July 1641, that there were rumours saying that “we confer and conclude treaties with France, Sweden and other Reichswiederwertigen but we have never as much as thought of this”.45 This was slander, according to the Senate, “with which some think to denigrate us before the Emperor and the Imperial Estates”. Also, Hamburg stressed its importance to the Empire several times in the correspondence. In one of its first letters to Regensburg in October 1640, the Senate wrote its envoys that a wrong result in casu the Elbe tolls could mean “this city’s ruin, as well as damage to the entire Roman Empire”.46 Again in November, the Senate expressed a warning that any disadvantage to the city would have consequences for the Empire’s well-being.47 And lastly, in spite of Loose’s claim of disengagement by Hamburg’s government, correspondence between the Emperor and his special representative in Hamburg Aulic Councillor Kurt Von Lützow, archived in Frankfurt, shows that Hamburg’s Syndici Meurer and Lündemann in fact did intermediate between Von Lützow and the Swedish resident Adler Salvius.48 This occurred in Hamburg in the period between October 1639 and the start of Meurer’s

43 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6078. 44 For example, 19 December 1640: “[sich bei] HUSANO melden vor ein antreff oder zusammenwirkung, mocht ERFOLG schwer fallen zu stande, willen wir in jeder fall [Ferdinand III] und das REICHES HULFE nicht begeben, entzwüschen wird [euch] dahin laborieren, dass uns wie hiebevohr in ersten schreiben aangedeutet, moge ZUGELASSEN werden NUOUIS MODO jedoch intra praejudicium [Ferdinand III] ex IMPERII uns davon zu liberiren und dadurch an dem REICHE et [Ferdinand III] nicht GEFREUELT zu haben”. 45 HaStA 111-1_26223, 31 July 1641: “also solten wir gefählige concilia und Bundtnüßen mit Franckreich, Schweden und anderen des Reichs wiederwerttigen tractiren, wir aber niemals davon die geringste gedancken gehabt”. 46 HaStA 111-1_26223, 24 October 1640. 47 HaStA 111-1_26223, 28 November 1640. 48Kathrin Bierther, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1640/41, (Lassleben 1971), 71.

18 mission to the Diet in Regensburg in August 1640, and indicates that the Senate tried to be of service to the Emperor diplomatically.49 On the other hand however, Hamburg deviated from the Imperial political line in some important respects. For one, Hamburg and its Hanseatic Sonderbündnis-partners Bremen and Lübeck were in deliberation about a renewed alliance with the United Provinces – although not an outright enemy of the Empire, still a bonded ally of France and manifesting power in the Eastern margins of the Empire.50 In March 1641, Lieuwe van Aitzema first proposed to open the alliance that had been concluded between the United Provinces and Sweden to all interested Hanseatic Cities, based on the 1616 parameters of voluntary membership and a strictly defensive character.51 This alliance would eventually be closed in 1645. A second field of insubordination by the Imperial City was its refusal to evict diplomatic representatives of unfriendly powers. This was a recurring irritation on the side of the Emperor, and in November 1641 Ferdinand III even sent an Aulic Councillor to Hamburg to, in the words of Schrassert, “persist upon the honourable Senate here, that public Ministers of hostile states that can be assumed to be plotting collectively against the Empire, be de-lodged from here immediately, without compensation”.52 This may have been a matter of neutralist politics by the Senate, but also a matter of preserving the city’s cherished autonomy. Likewise, the Senate refrained from quartering the Imperial troops that Ferdinand III liked to see stationed within its walls. Hamburg had requested the Emperor’s protection against the alarming quantity of soldiers that Denmark was mobilising on Hamburg soil, near Fuhlsbüttel, in the late summer and autumn of 1641. According to, again, Dutch resident Schrassert Ferdinand III denied other forms of support, presumably in order “to conjugate the Hanseatic cities further with the Imperial party”.53 Considering also Ferdinand III’s later efforts to tighten his grip on the Imperial Cities – including Hamburg – by despatching much- trusted Aulic Councillors as permanent Imperial representatives, Schrassert’s

49 The initiative for talks with Sweden were wholly the Emperor’s, so intermediation on account of Salvius is unlikely. 50 Most recently in July 1641, the Prince of Orange conquered Gennep: NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6079, Schrassert 1/11 August 1641. The Sonderbündnis was an in-Hanse alliance, closed in 1629. 51 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6079: 12 March 1641. 52 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6079, 10/20 November 1641. Previously, the Emperor had taken steps in this direction in 1635: Kellenbenz, ZVGH, 90. 53 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6079, 9/19 October 1641.

19 observation makes sense.54 And during the Preliminary Treaty negotiations, the Emperor had his representatives try to obtain the city elite’s benevolence by organising banquets and socials. As to Hamburg’s stance towards the Empire, Schrassert observed that the city’s freedoms were a great concern to the gentlemen in its government, although in general he denounced the “all too great respect that people in this place bear for the Emperor and his Ministers”.55 The resulting balancing act by the Hamburg Senate, which constantly weighed the persecution of Imperial favour and the resulting protection, and preservation of the city’s autonomy and freedoms, forms the best framework for interpretation of Hamburg’s politics vis-à-vis the Emperor.

‘Streitiger Elbsachen’: Hamburg and the Duke of Holstein

The Hamburg Senate’s instructions for Moller and Meurer summarised 18 goals, five of which were marked ‘Principalia’ – key points. These concerned the Danish tolls at Glückstadt, Danish repairs that were illegally severed from Hamburg merchants (Repressalien), the city’s Imperial trading privileges, the conflict with Christian IV about illegal collection of tons and beacons taxes, and trading rights of Hamburg merchants in Denmark.56 Side-points (Emergentia) included a minting conflict with Glückstadt, Hamburg’s contested right of vote at the Imperial Diet and the city’s tax payments to the Empire. Thus it is clear that Hamburg’s quest to maintain its autonomy and protect its commerce met an ardent contender in the Danish King. Christian IV aimed to hurt the privileged position of the old Hanse towns, expand Danish trade at the expense of the other trading powers in the Baltic and North Sea region, and Danish territory into Northern . His mercantilist policies included the denial of old trade privileges and the throttling of arms trade – especially saltpetre. In all these respects, Hamburg faced competition and simply lacked the military and naval power to resist Danish aggression. This paragraph quickly sketches the state of affairs between Hamburg, Denmark and the Emperor and how this status quo came about. Noteworthy is the fact that the part of the Emperor in the course of the conflict is so large, and yet so changeable. It also serves to show why the ‘great politics’ of the Empire – foremost the

54 Klaus Müller, ‘Das Kaiserliche Gesandtschaftswesen im Jahrhundert nach dem Westfälischen Frieden (1648-1740)’, at: Bonner Historische Forschungen, Band 42 (Bonn 1976). 55 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6079, 10/20 July 1641. 56 Loose, ‘Hamburgische Gesandte auf dem Regensburger Reichstag 1640/41’, at: ZFHG, Vol. 61 (1975), 22.

20 question of a general peace – appealed less to the old Hanse town than did its struggle with its powerful neighbour. The troubles with Christian IV increased from the early 17th century onwards, when the Danish monarch developed a “princely dislike of republican cities”, which he supplemented with a hunger for funds to support his expansionist policies.57 Since 1460, the of Denmark had occasionally claimed dominion over Hamburg in their capacity of of Holstein.58 Hamburg itself had also often stated this same thing, thus denying its in attempted rebuff of the influence of the Holy Roman Empire.59 Needless to say, these overtures in the past strengthened Christian IV’s claim over the city. In the course of his reign, especially after the turn of the 17th century, Christian IV increasingly curtailed Hamburg’s commercial advantages. In 1601, he denied members of the Hanseatic League their rights of navigation to Iceland. He also revoked or denied other privileges, such as toll exemption on the Sound in 1604 and Hamburg’s trade privileges in Bergen in 1615.60 In 1616 Christian IV founded a Danish settlement by name of Glückstadt, situated roughly halfway between Hamburg and the Elbe river mouth. From this new settlement, Hamburg’s free navigation on the Elbe was threatened with some frequency. First in 1620, by which time the settlement had been fortified, Danish warships blockaded Hamburg’s harbour. The city reacted with a war at sea but faced defeat. The consequent peace arrangement, known as the Steinburger Treaty and signed in July 1621, stipulated Hamburg’s submission to Holstein once more. This treaty posed a real problem for Hamburg at the 1640-’41 Diet, where the city consequently decided to refrain from taking seat in the Council of Imperial Cities. A new escalation cycle started after 1629, when Denmark, which had entered the Thirty Years War in 1625, concluded peace with the Emperor. In acknowledgement of the new peace Ferdinand II granted toll rights to Glückstadt, and in 1630 a second Danish naval blockade on the Elbe followed. Hamburg reacted with force – a fact that Denmark would later contest as a breach of the peace (Landtfriedenbruch) at the Imperial Aulic Council – but lost. Peace negotiations lasted until 1632. When Ferdinand

57 Johan Jørgensen, ‘Denmark's relations with Lübeck and Hamburg in the seventeenth century’, at: Scandinavian economic history review, Vol. 11, No. 2 (1963), 73. 58 Jochmann, Loose (ed.), Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, 292. 59 Jürgen Weitzel, ‘Der Kampf um die Appellation ans Reichskammergericht’, at: Quellen und Forschungen zur höchsten Gerichtsbarkeit im Alten Reich, Band 4 (Wien, Köln 1976), 225. 60 Jochmann, Loose (ed.), Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, 249.

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II decided in 1633 that he wished to get Denmark re-involved in the war – yet this time on the Imperial side – the Emperor chose to soften-up Christian IV, granting him full Elbe privileges for the duration of four years. It took almost the full concession for Hamburg’s diplomacy to convince the freshly installed Ferdinand III to revoke the privilege, just a few months premature, in 1637. This decision was the outcome of a combination of pressure tactics by Hamburg’s government, including constant complaint, truthful payment of taxes, war contributions and presents, the filing of lawsuits against Denmark at the Imperial Aulic Council, using the momentum provided by the Imperial Election of 1636 and arranging for international acclamations of support, including that of the Dutch Estates-General. We shall see many of these tactics make a re-appearance when we turn to Hamburg’s methods at the 1640-’41 Diet. To counter Danish impediments on its commerce, Hamburg's Senate sent extraordinary embassies to Vienna almost yearly after 1634, and these often coincided with a payment, a Legation, categorised in the accounts of the Hamburg Treasury under the title ‘wegen streitiger Elbsachen’: ‘because of the pendant Elbe question’. In 1635, the envoys Johann Christoph Meurer and Georg Uthenbusch paid such a visit to Vienna and paid a Legation of almost 26.000 guilders. In 1636, at the Imperial Election (Kaiserwahl) in Regensburg, Hamburg paid almost fl. 42.000; in 1637 it dropped to just over fl. 11.000, although it must be noted that another 40.000 guilders were paid to Ferdinand III that same year as ‘a present’ because of the ordered cassation of the Danish privileges on the Elbe.61 Yet, despite the size and regularity of these payments, they did not come painless. Meurer and Uthenbosch’s extravagant expenditure of fl. 70.000 at their mission in 1635-‘36 for example was not accorded by the citizenry without fierce debate.62 By comparison, the total expenditure on Meurer and Moller’s mission to Regensburg and Vienna in 1640-1642 amounted to approximately fl. 42.000. Between his appointment as Vice-Chancellor in November 1637 and June 1639, Count Ferdinand Sigmund Kurz von Senftenau (1592-1659) travelled the Empire and negotiated on behalf of the Emperor with Saxony, , Sweden and Denmark on various subjects.63 In March and April 1639 the Vice-Chancellor was trying to convince Christian IV to re-enter the war to discipline the Niedersachsische Kreits – where many Swedish troops and those of rebellious Braunschweig-Lüneburg dwelt. In

61 Jochmann, Loose (ed.), Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, 113. 62 Loose, ‘Hamburgische Gesandte auf dem Regensburger Reichstag 1640/41, at: ZFHG, Vol. 61 (1975), 18. 63 Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century, 260.

22 return, the Danish King was offered a free hand against the Hanseats, toll concessions on the Elbe for a period of 60 years and the preservation of the Erzstift of Bremen for the Danish ruling house.64 The Danish Riksrat however, which formed a fierce oppositional force throughout Christian IV’s reign, disaccorded this deal with the Catholic, ‘untrustworthy’ Imperial party. This rebuke of the Danes finally set the stage for an ‘edict of cassation’ that the Emperor issued at the Imperial Diet in December 1640, ordering once again the end of Danish toll collection on the river Elbe. Despite everything, actual enforcement of the Imperial revocations on the Elbe tolls would remain a central issue in Hamburg’s diplomatic agenda until its friendly settlement with Denmark in 1643 and the Peace of Brømsebro in 1645.65

The Empire: Hamburg’s far friend?

The Imperial Diet is considered an important innovation in the Empire’s administration, and was the pivotal constitutional and political institution of the Empire.66 The Diet had been initiated by the Archbishop of Mainz in 1495, and its congressional structure mirrored the harmonious ideal and composite reality of the Empire. The Estates congregated in three councils, or ‘Curia’: the Kurfürstenrat or Council of Electors, the Fürstenrat or Council of and the Städtenrat or Council of Imperial Cities. In principle, matters were discussed in the Council of Electors, Princes and Cities consecutively; the Emperor would react to their decisions with Repliken, which were then taken into consideration once more.67 This process repeated itself until a definite consensus or difference of opinion was reached between the Emperor and the Curies. In 1640, the Council of Electors consisted of five members, the Council of Princes of circa 150 and the Council of Imperial Cities numbered around 50.68 At the Regensburg Diet of 1640-1641, the first Curie conferred 185 times, the second 153 and the Cities a mere 26. These statistics show the relative institutional weakness of the Imperial Cities. Still, the alternatives for influencing Imperial policy outside the Council of Imperial Cities were apparently promising enough for Hamburg to attend the Diet, even without taking seat in the Council of Imperial Cities.

64 Dietrich Schäfer, Geschichte von Dänemark, funfter Band 1559-1648, (Gotha 1902), 588. 65 Jochmann, Loose (ed.), Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, 298. 66 Evans, Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, 5. 67 Mark Hengerer, Kaiser Ferdinand III., 193. 68 Bierther, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1640/41, 53.

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The Imperial Diet of 1640 was a special one, for it was the first Diet since 1613, which had ended in an inconclusive deadlock due to the religious fragmentation of the Empire. Also, it was the only one to take place during the Thirty Years War. For the Emperor it was a momentous Diet, which he had convened in order to provide him with the Estately support he needed to realise the version of a general peace that he preferred.69 Ferdinand III wanted to appease Sweden separately from its bonded ally France, employing the saved resources to force the French into a peace agreement on the Empire’s terms. Secondly, the Diet was a convenient occasion to raise revenue from the Estates to finance the Imperial war effort. The imperial Proposition, the convention’s official agenda that Ferdinand III issued for the Reichstag entailed three points of discussion, namely: how must 1. peace be restored, 2. war be continued until peace is restored and 3. the imperial jurisdictional apparatus be improved.70 This sought-after peace anno 1640 was not only a matter of conquering or pacifying the invasive French and Swedish armies; the Empire was still embroiled in internal conflict. Although most of the rebelling Imperial Estates had returned into the Empire with the conclusion of the Peace of Prague in 1635, some territories were still at war with the Emperor. Among those were the houses of Braunschweig-Lüneburg and Hessen-Kassel, who maintained sizeable armed forces that were largely integrated with the Swedish and French troops.71 Although initially excluded, representatives of the three Dukes and Dowager Landgravine were eventually invited to the Diet of 1640-‘41. A second Imperial institution dating from the late 15th century institution- building spur is the Reichskammergericht. This Imperial Cameral Court was installed in 1495 to enforce a central rule of law in the Empire and was seated in the city of Speyer for most of the 17th century. Its prime task was the upholding of the Landesfrieden: all kinds of conflicts between or within the Estates, might be appealed to the Imperial Cameral Court for a conclusive verdict. Although in design the Cameral Court was meant to bolster the Emperor’s power over the Estates, the court was increasingly shaped by the Estates because the Emperor appointed only a few functionaries. This to the Emperor’s discontent, who went on to favour their ‘own’ Imperial Aulic Council. In the course of the 17th century, religious discord and understaffing crippled the

69 Bierther, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1640/41, 24. 70 Bierther, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1640/41, 135. 71 Ibidem, 136. This was a matter of consideration for the Kurfürstenrat.

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Reichskammergericht considerably, leaving room for the ‘significant other’ Imperial court of the Reichshofrat to gain ground.72 In the 17th century the exact delimitations between the Imperial Cameral Court and the Aulic Council were far from clear; what is clear however, is that the Imperial Aulic Council was empowered in criminal cases of the Immediate Estates, breaches of the Landesfrieden, fiefdom cases and conflicts over Imperial privileges.73 Although the Aulic Council was invested with primarily judicial tasks, many of its cases were at least semi-political because they dwelt in the legal area of Imperial feudal law. But especially after the reinstatement of the body in 1527, the Herrn Reichshofrat developed a “certain but obscure competence in political questions”.74 At the Reichstag in Regensburg, nineteen members of the Reichshofrat were present at one time or another.75 Not surprisingly, after the Peace of Westphalia Ferdinand III used his much-trusted and competent Aulic Councillors increasingly on diplomatic assignments.76 Emperor Ferdinand III was an industrious and meticulous worker with a big sense of duty, who always had advice provided on his actions; in Reichs-judicial matters by the Reichshofrat, in financial questions by the Hofkammer and in military cases by the Hofkriegsrat.77 The Hofkriegsrat, created in 1556, was a mixture between a Ministry of War and a General Staff. It coordinated the quartering, marches and general upkeep of the Imperial Army, although it proved to be impossible at times to orchestrate everything from far- away Vienna. The Imperial War Council suffered from chronic deficiencies, and because armies were often on the move, the Empire quite large and communications slow and in jeopardy of interception, its President Heinrich Schlick did not hold an easy office. The continuous warfare of the 17th century did however make it a particularly important one, which was why its presidents were included in the Geheimrat, or Privy Council.78 The Privy Council’s function coordinated the various branches of the Imperial administration. In addition, these men were the Emperor’s closest advisors. The signature of the Privy Councillors was generally Catholic and pro-Habsburg, and

72 Oswald von Gschliesser, ‘Das Beamentum der hohen Reichsbehörden (Reichshofkanzlei, Reichskammergericht, Reichshofrat, Hofkriegsrat)’, at: Günther Franz, Beamentum und Pfarrenstand 1400- 1800, (Limburg/Lahn 1972), 11. 73 Oswald von Gschliesser, ‘Das Beamentum der hohen Reichsbehörden’, 13. 74 Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge Mass. 1943), 16-17. 75 Bierther, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1640/41, 61. 76 Klaus Müller, ‘Das kaiserliche Gesandtschaftswesen im Jahrhundert nach dem Westfälischen Frieden (1648-1740)’, at: Bonner Historische Forschungen, Band 42 (1976), 9. 77 Mark Hengerer, Kaiser Ferdinand III., 163. 78 Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century, 44.

25 although most of the highest offices in the Imperial administration were represented, Privy Councillors were appointed by virtue of competence and loyalty to the Emperor.79 Important members of the Geheimrat in the context of this study were, besides President of the War Council Schlick, President of the Aulic Council Johannes Von Reck, Vice- Chancellor of the Imperial Chancellery Count Ferdinand Sigmund Kurz von Senftenau and the Chancellor of the Austrian Chancellery Matthias Prickelmayer. These three men were all gratified by the Hamburg diplomats in Regensburg and Vienna, on their mission from 1640-’42. Now that we have explored the macro-perspective on Hamburg’s diplomacy – the city’s government structure, representatives and political line, the backdrop of its difficulties with the neighbouring Duke of Holstein-Glückstadt and the institutional arena of the Holy Roman Empire – we can turn to the meso-level of the city’s movements surrounding the Imperial Diet of 1640-’41.

79 Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century, 45.

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Chapter II

The correspondence: Hamburg’s political ambitions and diplomatic means

This chapter aspires to give a full image of Hamburg’s diplomacy at the 1640-’41 Imperial Diet by way of the correspondence between the Senate and Moller and Meurer, determining its diplomatic goals, methods and formalities of its diplomatic apparatus. These different aspects are divided over three paragraphs. We shall see that Hamburg was concerned primarily with matters of commerce and security, and used the Empire’s institutions, especially the Imperial Aulic Council, quite intently for judicial backing. Also, the influence of the Emperor on Hamburg’s external affairs was considerable. Hamburg lobbied for its agenda with the Electors as well as internationally, and used public opinion to legitimise or officialise policies. Concerning the correspondence itself, a few remarks are in place. The Senate and Moller and Meurer each sent a letter every week, which took approximately two weeks to reach the other end of the Hamburg-Regensburg axis. The format of the correspondence followed the Venetian diplomatic style.80 Secret coding was used to obscure significant words; mostly actions, places and persons. The code that Hamburg used was a rather standard substitutional cipher, in which every letter was replaced by a corresponding symbol. This type of coding was relatively simple to crack, although it protected the disguised words from revealing their meaning in a glance. To indicate the use of cipher in this research, capitals are used in the transcription and translation of the original text. In addition to the substitutional cipher, a few persons or countries were labelled with a number; the Emperor, for example, was indicated with number 13, the Danish King with 77 and Hamburg itself was dubbed 30.81 The frequency of correspondence and the provisions of transport delimitated a circulation period of at least four weeks and was not without risk: with some frequency messengers were captured by Swedish troops.

80 Mattingly, Diplomacy, 111. 81 For reasons of fullness, it is good to note the mysterious number 48 used in the correspondence as well. This may be referring to the City Councils of Danish-ruled Altona or , or another convention of Burghers.

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Goals Although Hamburg’s concerns for the Imperial Diet ultimately boiled down to commerce and security, this paragraph is divided in three parts. The first one treats the interests and diplomatic goals as ventilated in the correspondence that concerned issues of commerce. The second deals with Hamburg’s challenges in the field of territory because of the ‘Pinnenberg Question’. Lastly, we treat the city’s objective to be spared as much as possible from the special taxes that the Emperor had asked from the Estates.

1. Commerce At the Peace of Westphalia, tolls in general were a major concern of the Imperial Cities, who wanted to dispose of as many impediments to their commerce as possible.82 Hamburg’s concern for the Elbe tolls were therefore no exceptional grievance, although a particularly long-lived one. When the Emperor issued a decree of cassation that condemned the practice of toll collection by Christian IV once more on 31 December 1640, a matter for which Hamburg had received diplomatic support from the United Provinces both in 1637 and 1640, it still failed to sort the desired effect. Hamburg had hoped to gain a more severe and binding mandate, enforced by punitive consequence if the Danes did not follow suit.83 Yet, Ferdinand III only expressed his confidence in Christian IV, stating that he had no doubt that “our beloved friend the King of Denmark and Duke of Holstein will take the currently announced reminder and confirmation into neighbourly account”.84 Therefore, shortly upon its release, in January 1641, Hamburg’s Senate pressed for a clause with penalties to be added to the decree. In April, the Senate suggested in concordance with Von Lützow, who had offered his intermediation to the city against compensation, a very practical solution to the problem of the cassation’s enforcement: the deployment of an Imperial battle ship on the Elbe to monitor the free navigation.85 The Emperor however informed the probing Von Lützow that he was not inclined to adopt the plan, and although the Senate urged

82 Buchstab, Günter, Reichsstädte, Städtekurie und Westfälischer Friedenskongreß, Zusammenhänge von Sozialstruktur, Rechtsstatus und Wirtschaftskraft, (Münster 1976), 152-155. 83 NA 1.01.02 inv. Nr. 6079. 84 NA 1.01.02 inv. Nr. 6079. 85 HaStA 111-1_26223, 3 April 1641: “Wir geben auch EE und Wolw daneben zubedencken, ob es in omnem eventum nicht auf solchen wegk , den der H. LUTZOUW sich auch nicht übell gefallen laßt, zu richten, das etwan ein SCHIF mit [Ferdinand III]. FLAGGEN und eine Persohn als gleichsahm [Ferdinand III] commissario, in [Ferdinand III] nahmen beij GLUCKSTAT geleget wurde, raten deßen GLEID oder PROTECTION die auf und abfahrende schiffe freij passiren möchten”.

28 the diplomats to make an official request as well and offered to cover all costs of such a battle ship, the plan died a quiet death.86 Besides the heavily contested toll situation on the Elbe, the importance of trade to Hamburg’s government manifested itself also in the city’s advocacy of merchants’ private interests. An example is Moller and Meurer’s intermediation in a dispute about goods belonging to the brothers Eberhardt and Dietrich Anckelmann that were severed in Breslau.87 In advocacy of the brothers’ position, the diplomats wrote to the Bohemian government and the Silesian Treasury. Another example is the Senate’s request for its diplomats to arrange a merchant passport to Nuremberg, Leipzig and “other destinations” with clearance from Imperial General Piccolomini “because of the dangerous times”.88 In their administration, Moller and Meurer would note down fl. 48 for “a general merchant passport on special request of the hon.[orable] Council”, paid to the War Council.89 Another demonstration of trade interest directly influencing Hamburg’s politics, are the remarks and instructions that appear from 1 May 1641 onwards, firstly on limitations of appeal to foreign courts after judgment of the Hamburg Senate, and secondly on a cluster of cases on sea insurances at the Reichskammergericht. This first element was connected to the Repressalien – compensations – that Hamburg obtained for suffered damages under Denmark’s unlawful tolls. In November 1639, Ferdinand III had issued a decree ordering Christian IV to pay Hamburg reparations.90 In extension of this legislation, Christian IV withholding compensations, Hamburg’s authorities seized Danish goods involuntarily. Apparently, these indemnities gave cause to complaint and litigation to Danish courts by Hamburg skippers that were caught transporting Danish goods as well, because in May 1641 the Senate aspired an Imperial decree stating that “our BURGHERS under penalty of confiscated goods are commanded to […] seek their

86 HaStA 111-1_26223, 23 April 1641: “weil wir von H.LUTZOWEN vermercken, das er beij [Ferdinand III] albereits versuchet, Ih. Keijs. Mth. Auch nicht wel dazu inclinirt, so wollen wir verhoffen, das dieß medium wenn EE und Wolw dazu weitter ersuchen, wol werden zu erheben sein, cuius sumptibus es geschehen soll, stehen zu deliberire, da es nicht zuerhalten, wurden wir die Unkesten und schiff uber uns nehmen mußen”. 87 111-1_ 26223, 27 October 1640. Reaction by the Senate 14 November. 88 HaStA 111-1_26223, 9 January 1641. 89 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 12 February 1641. This sum only slightly exceeds the expenses on the gilded goblet presented to the envoy of Mecklenburg on 20 February 1641. 90 AU-RHR Antiqua 217, Bitte um ksl. Verfügung in Zollstreitigkeit, 14 November1639.

29 justice nowhere else than at [Ferdinand III]’s AULIC or CAMERAL [court]”.91 Indeed, the Emperor had decreed on 10 May 1640 that the Senate was entitled to such prohibition. Such a ‘privilegio de non appelando’ was a privilege the Emperor usually permitted to the more influential Estates. If we turn to a second instance of commercial interests and their spin-off into legal politics, the insurance cases referred to as the “von Santen”, “Budiers” or “Assecuranz” case, correspond with three appeals issued at the Imperial Cameral Court in which the Hamburg Senate was Nebenbeklagter; co-accused. Such involvement as co- accused in appeal cases was common whenever a verdict on Estate-level was contested and appealed at the Cameral Court. The first and lowest level of litigation was a court of arbitration, Schiedsgericht, to which the City Council appointed the judges. Especially trade disputes were often referred to such a Schiedsgericht. An appeal then would come via the Niedergericht before the Obergericht, which formed the highest autonomous regional court. Its judges were appointed from the ranks of the Senators.92 Therefore, if a decision by the Obergericht was appealed at the Imperial Cameral Court, the Senate stepped up as co-accused. The insurance cases mentioned in the correspondence can be summarised as ‘Heirs Kruse & Heirs Heldberg vs. Von Santen’93, ‘Heirs Kruse vs. Budier and other merchants’94 and ‘Heirs Heldberg vs. Budier’.95 The City Council appeared as co-accused in all three cases. The appealing parties demanded annulment of previous verdicts to pay out on insurance policies for which the premiums had not been paid in the accorded quantities of bullion. Claus Kruse Sr. and the brothers Hans and Cord Heldberg had been three out of a group of five gentlemen that had insured 1/8th share of the cargo on a ship named ‘Der junge Rabe’. This ship, sailing under the name of Lübeck merchant Böckel von Santen, had stranded over in 1627 at Cape Santa Maria in Portugal on a journey

91 HaStA 111-1_26223, 1 May 1641: “In puncto repressaliarum, ob sie dieselbigen von diesem beschehen andeuten nach in beßrem form außwürcken, dan auch in ein mandatum oder edictum darin useren BURGERN sub poena confiscat. bonorum gebotten werden, wan sie sich uber unseren URTHEIL oder DECRETA beschwert befinden, nirgendts anders als am [Ferdinand III] HOFE oder CAMMER ihr RECHT ferner zusuchen, gestaldt wir darum in unserem schreiben sub dato 24 oktober 1640 erinehrungh gethan, erhalten könen, ihr bestes und eußertste versuchen, und uns davon vorher advisiren wollen”. 92 Robert Reimer, Frankfurt und Hamburg vor dem Reichskammergericht, (2012), 29. 93 HaStA 211-2_K 74. 94 HaStA 211-2_K 75. 95 HaStA 211-2_H 127, part I-IV.

30 from Lübeck to San Lucar.96 Besides nullification of the obligation to refund the insured loss, the heirs of Kruse and Heldberg also reclaimed a payment on the policy of 1.000 Mark. In addition to the case of ‘Der junge Rabe’, the Heldberg party contested payment on three more sea insurances covering cargos of wine, iron, tobacco and timber amounting to 4.650 Mark. In May 1641 these appeals appear in the Senate’s weekly correspondence, complaining that regarding the “earnest Von Santen appeal, we have not yet received the official verdict of compliance, which Mr. Goll [the advocate at the Imperial Cameral Court on behalf of the accused, FAQ] has sent us. We have learned about these events with some alarm and have been informed that such may succeed shortly in the Heldberg vs. Budier case as well”.97 Reason why this outcome was contested so heavily by the Hamburg Senate may have been the harmful precedent to the sea insurance business; especially in bullion-devouring wartime this kind of caution could be costly and very unpractical. The Senate resolved to send a protest letter to the Emperor. A second draft from Moller and Meurer that was accorded by the Senate, aimed to rally support from the Imperial Cities against the “beschwerlichen cameralprocessen”.98 Indeed, the legal dossier of the Von Santen case contains a letter from the Emperor and Imperial Estates to the Imperial cameral Court and Fiscal, asking “Stillstand” of the pending sentence as well as other measures taken against the City of Hamburg.99 According to the archive inventory, Hamburg had laboured fruitlessly for an in-kind restitution of the goods (restitutio in integrum) and a revision of the case at the previous court (revisio). In their letter of 14 July 1641 Moller and Meurer informed the Senate that the ‘inhibition’ of the Emperor and “the rest of the Empire” had been processed by the Reichskammergericht and that it seemed to have made the judges more “careful”.100 Also, the diplomats seem to have been actively rallying support on the matter at the Diet, judging from the fact that Moller and Meurer requested Budier’s insurance policies to be sent over to Regensburg from the Hamburg city archive.101

96 HaSta 211-1 K74, https://recherche.staatsarchiv.hamburg.de/ScopeQuery5.2/detail.aspx?Id=1524130 [5.10.2017]. 97 HaStA 111-1_26223, 15 May 1641. 98 HaStA 111-1_26223, 22 May 1641. 99 StaHa 221-1_K 74; https://recherche.staatsarchiv.hamburg.de/ScopeQuery5.2/detail.aspx?ID=1524130 [15.10.2017]. 100 HaStA 111-1_57, 14 July 1641. 101 HaStA 111-1_26223, 7 August 1641.

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Not only does the treatment of these cases testify of Hamburg’s concern for business, it also shows that the city knew its way around the Imperial institutions. Therefore, in the second paragraph the Imperial Supreme Courts are included as one of the diplomatic tools that Hamburg employed while in Regensburg, especially the Aulic Council.

2. Territory The Senate’s efforts to promote trade and merchant interests and its preoccupation with tolls and free trade merged with territorial concerns in the much-debated ‘Schouwenburg’ and ‘Pinnenberg’ questions. Tolls were a matter of concern to Hamburg’s establishment not only on the Elbe, but also on the road to Lübeck – the Trittau tolls – and at several locations in the region that fell under the Schaumburg boroughs, among which were the nearby town of Pinnenberg and the Schaumburger Hof in Hamburg itself.102 The childless Count Otto V of Schaumburg (1614-1640) had died suddenly after a banquet hosted by the Swedish General Bannèr in November 1640, and one of the contestants laying claim on the vacant territories was King Christian IV. To state his claim, Christian IV ordered one of his Councillors to take possession of the Schaumburger Hof, a residency in Hamburg. Together with Count Friedrich von Schleswick-Holstein the Danish King installed another Councilman, Dr. Franz Stapel, as toll master in the territory of Pinnenberg.103 The deceased Count’s mother was offered a reimbursement of 145.000 Reichsthaler. Hamburg was reluctant to acknowledge the claim because of the potential threat to free trade and military safety of the city, and repeatedly stressed the rights of Otto’s mother, Countess Elisabeth von Schaumburg, as well as the Emperor’s claim that Schaumburg had befallen the Empire. The Senate predicted disaster if Christian IV was enfiefed by the Emperor, stating that “we would like to hope that the interests of the Empire are weighed and deduced, and also [be taken into account] that this city, when it is burdened with such a neighbour will inevitably be ruined, to more than minor

102 These included tolls at the Schaumburger Hoff, Altona, Ottensen, Flotbecke, Nienstegen, Vockenhusne and Blankenese: HaStA 111-1_26223, 24 July 1641. 103 Ernst Pitz, Die Zolltarife der Stadt Hamburg, (Wiesbaden 1961), 363. Burgomaster Albert von Eitzen, Syndicus Lünzmann and the Senators Johann Schrötterink, Jakob Jarre Lic. And Hermann Rentzel were involved in the consequent negotiation with Stapel, Reichsgraf Christian von Pentz and Deutsche Kanzler Detleff Reventlow.

32 disadvantage to the Empire”.104 This remark once again shows the role in the Empire’s wellbeing Hamburg reserved for itself. Reason for this attitude might be the centrality of Hamburg in the fields of arms trade and banking, but it is difficult to pinpoint the underlying rationale exactly. Despite the original condemnations, the Senate’s preoccupation with commerce – and pragmatism – brought about a turnaround in the Pinnenberg question; in January Moller and Meurer were instructed to focus their treatment of the case on the preservation of commerce and “several bordering tracts” – also, the Senate was willing to pay for this arrangement.105

3. Contributions In addition to trade and territory, Hamburg’s fulfilment of contributions and taxes to the Imperial Treasury were a matter of some significance. One of the benefits of a Reichstag convention to Ferdinand III was the opportunity to raise funds for the war effort: under proposition 2, deliberating on how the war should be continued until a peace was reached, the Emperor asked for a contribution in the form of 120 Months to be paid collectively by every Curie, both in 1640 and in 1641.106 The Rome Months used to be a special tax, once established for the Estates to contribute financially to the investiture travel of a newly elected Emperor to the Papal See in Rome. However, the Senate was suspicious that the payment of these contributions should be apportioned unequally, and that either via the Council of Imperial Cities or the Lower Saxon Kreis Hamburg would be asked a disproportionately large share. On the matter the Senate ventilated to Moller and Meurer that “concerning the Rome Months, we cannot know under which category we shall be reckoned, and in addition we shall be unwilling to fulfil them, because we have, unlike any other Estate in the Empire, in the most subservient respect for the , before it was authorised, already anticipated the imposts and granted several of them to misters Von Lützow and Siebern, however little we may understand to be left of those after the handling by mister Von Lützow”.107

104 HaStA 111-1_26223, 28 November 1640. 105 HaStA 111-1_26223, 9 January 1641. 106 Fritz Dickmann, Der Westfälische Frieden, (Münster 1959), 100. 107 HaStA 111-1_26223, 31 July 1641.

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Means The diplomatic goals that Hamburg’s establishment discussed in the correspondence, show that Hamburg fared a course that was aimed at self-preservation through protection of its trade, its traders and the safety of the city itself. In this agenda, Hamburg’s character as an Imperial City is clearly reflected. Now that we turn to the process of Hamburg’s diplomacy, and the means that the city employed, we get to see more of its tactics, contacts and its position within the Empire. From the correspondence, I have distilled four diplomatic ‘tools’ that the city used, treated consecutively: gratification, publicising, diplomatic support from other powers and enforcement of its wishes through courtly appeal.

1.Gratification Starting with the most obscure of the practices mentioned in the above, it is important to differentiate between modern concepts of corruption and the construct of Early Modern politics. Although the renowned chronicler of the Privy Council, Henry Schwarz, denounces Kurz’s “all too succumbing nature as long as the bribe was high enough”, a ‘gratification’ was not a simple bribe, but rather a money-present paid in the hope of exerting a covert influence via ministers, courtiers, and officials on the policy of a sovereign.108 Men of honour, as most men in government and at court were, would not accept gratifications from opposing sides. It must also be noted that, because of the Empire’s low revenues, the members of the Imperial administration received relatively low salaries, and these were paid infrequently.109 In the 17th century, the Aulic Council’s Secretary earned about fl. 60 per month, Aulic Councillors and War Councillors received about fl. 600 per year, compared to a salary of fl. 1.500-1.800 for the Reichsvizekanzler.110 At court also, the wages for service in the Emperor’s household were “modest at best”.111 Throughout the 17th century, a Chamberlain (Cammerer) could count on fl. 480 per year. As we shall see when we arrive at the financial accounts of Moller and Meurer’s mission, the diplomats

108 Oreskó, Gibbs, Hatton, Graham (ed.), Royal and republican sovereignty in : Essays in memory of Ragnhild Hatton, (Cambridge 1997), 27. 109 Wolfgang Sellert, ‘Richterbestechung am Reichskammergericht und am Reichshofrat’, at: Friedrich Battenberg, Filippo Ranieri (ed.), Geschichte der Zentraljustiz in Mitteleuropa, Festchrift für Bernhard Diestelkamp zum 65. Geburtstag, (Weimar/Köln 1994), 341. 110 Franz, Günther, Beamentum und Pfarrenstand 1400-1800, (Limburg/Lahn 1972), 7-17. 111 Duindam, Jeroen, Vienna and Versailles: The courts of Europe’s dynastic rivals, 1550-1780, 110.

34 made donations of all sizes in all layers of the administration, and gratifications amounting to a functionaries’ year’s wages were no exception. Count Kurz von Senftenau, for example, received twice his annual salary from the Hamburgers alone. However excessive this may sound, reception of money gifts was considered a right of public office.112 Likewise, Jeremy Black notes in A History of Diplomacy that also after the Peace of Westphalia, the practice of lending favours and information to third parties should not be regarded as treason, spying or bribery. Rather, the willingness of courtiers and ministers to do so reflects the nature of their politics, which included struggles over power, patronage and factional considerations.113 In that light, this paragraph presents a short characterisation of the process of gratification as can be learned from Hamburg’s correspondence, and assesses the way in which the Imperial City of Hamburg used this diplomatic mechanism for its own purposes. A first glimpse into the system of gratification occurs in late November 1640, when Reichshofrat Von Lützow is mentioned by the Senate to have offered his mediatory services, stating that he was “highly grieved, that he was omitted, and nobody had conferred with him on [Hamburg’s] toll question and sought his cooperation”.114 Von Lützow was in Hamburg on a special mission from Ferdinand III to negotiate the much- desired separate peace with Sweden. He promised the Hamburg Senate to deploy a qualified person at the Emperor’s court to do “serviceable remonstrations” on the subjects of the tolls as well as the Schaumburg question. This person was to be Heinrich Edler von Husanus the Younger (1577-1654), special Imperial commissioner for Mecklenburg and Council to the Emperor. The origin of his acquaintance with Von Lützow is unknown. Concerning the actual payment, Von Lützow noted that he was “in need” of the 3.000 Reichsthaler (fl. 4.500) that a commission consisting of 36 members of the Assembly of Citizens – appointed especially to deal with Hamburg’s problems with Denmark – had agreed upon as a donatio. He suggested that the money be diverted to his person in the form of an advance payment on the Imperial tax of the Römermonate.115

112 Duindam, Vienna and Versailles, 112. 113 Jeremy Black, A History of Diplomacy, 83. 114 HaStA 111-1_26223, 21 November 1640: „Der Herr LUTZOUW hat sich hochlich beschweret, das man ihm vorbeijgangen, und mit ihm niemals wegen unser ZOL SACHE in conferenz eingelaßen und seine cooperation gesuchet habe, vermeinet er mehr beij den sachen zuthun vermöge”. 115 HaStA 111-1_26223,12 December 1640: “und dabeij angedracht[?] daß er zu den STESEN[?] DREH.TAUSENT THALER bedürflich ware, mit begehren WIR ROMER ZUGE UERSCHIESEN mochten und weil wir besorgen das man ihm damidt würt GRATIFICIREN MUSSEN”.

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Interesting about Von Lützow’s position is of course his active bid for gratification. Also, from a bureaucratic perspective the fluidity of the Emperor’s purse into that of Von Lützow is interesting here. Yet, Von Lützow’s behaviour did not go unnoticed and in fact, he seems to have built quite a reputation for himself, since resident of the Estates-General Hendrick Schrassert labelled him “a squanderer of His Majesty’s Rome journeys”.116 Not surprisingly therefore, the Senate asked Moller and Meurer to assess carefully if the ‘qualified person’ that Von Lützow was to appoint at court was indeed a competent and trustworthy figure, and find out if “words matched facts”.117 In addition, Von Lützow’s commendation of his services was rather compelling, since he communicated that the Senate should discuss everything they aspired at the Imperial Court with him, for “all must PASS through his HANDS” and would not be achieved without him.118 Gradually however, the Senate’s reports on Von Lützow praised his good effort: the Aulic Councillor was “not only flattering and good with his words, but also established fruitful cooperation [with the Senate]”.119 Another token of Von Lützow’s good effort was the fact that in August 1641 Schrassert reported about a letter from Von Lützow being intercepted by the Swedish army, in which he asked the Emperor for a mandate to negotiate with the Hamburger Senate on both the Pinnenberg question and the Glückstadt tolls on Ferdinand III’s behalf.120 Two other nominees for gratification were mentioned a handful of times in the correspondence, although very little is said about their merits: two men referred to as ‘Stein’ and ‘Peverelli’.121 The gratification concerned some 2.000 Reichsthaler (fl. 3.000) presented to Stein, leaving no funds to be spared for Peverelli, “as much as [the Senate] would have liked to”.122 As to the identity of both men no clues are given and in the

116 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6079, ‘Ordinaris stukken betreffende Duitsland 1641’, 7-10 August 1641. 117 HaStA 111-1_26223, 12 December 1640: “Hierbeij haben wir zu erinneren weil gemelten herr LUPZOU UNS grose HOFNUNG macht zu GUTEN VERRICHTUNG daß EE und Wolw sich mit fleiß ermüdigen wollen, was etwan die PERSON so er ad [Ferdinand III] ABSCHICKEN wurdt, in MANDATIS habe und deselbst tractiren mögte ob auch VERBA und FACTA ubereinstimmen”. 118 HaStA 111-1_26223, Undated, probably 28 November 1640: “den h. LUTZOU sich in seinem hirbevor gefügeten discursion vernehmen laßen, das alles was WIR etwan BEGEREN unndt SUCHEN mochten durch seine HAND GEHEN mußte, und wir OHN IHME nicht ERHALTEN wurden”. 119 HaStA 111-1_26223,16 Jan 1641, 3 Apr 1641. 120 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6079, ordinaris stukken betreffende Duitsland 1641, 7/17 August 1641. 121 Mentioned among others: HaStA 111-1_26223, 24 July 1641. 122 HaStA 111-1_26223,9 October 1641: “Wegen der Beverellischen assignation haben jullie wir fur 8 tagen geschrieben, daß wir albereits so viel anticipiret, das außerhalb der Steinischen gelden, die wir zubezahlen an uns genommen, nichts mehr uberscheust, derwegen wir, wie gerne wir auch wolten vorgemalten herren damit nicht gratificiren konnen”.

36 financial accounts as well, these names do not occur. Considering the large amount of money involved – only the Aulic Council’s President and the Vice-Chancellor received comparable sums – the ‘Stein’ in question probably occupied a higher office, such as representative for the Electorate of in the Council of Princes Dr. Joachim Stein.123 The Electors controlled certain votes in the Council of Princes as well – Cologne for example had six votes there.124 The accounts show that Moller and Meurer gratified also Cologne’s first representative, Dr. Reigersbergen, just like the first representatives of Brandenburg and Mainz. Considering Hamburg’s arms-related diplomatic agenda, the ‘Peverelli’ in question may have been Feldkriegzahlmeister Gabriel Peverelli (†1652), who collected taxes to support the Imperial armies.125

2. Publicising The function of publicising in Hamburg’s Imperial Diet politics indicates that the city used it as a political pressure tool at an Imperial level – as did Christian IV. As soon as Ferdinand III had issued the edictum cassatorum for example, the Senate asked for substantive adjustments to safeguard its practical effect, but for that same reason wanted the Emperor’s permission to ‘display’ the decree in Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg.126 This same tactic was applied in the Schaumburg case, where Hamburg had ordered a list of pretenders to rule the County “to be sent round” – probably to the Electors and Lower Saxon Kreis – and publicised.127 In theory, all members of the Empire were bound to Imperial law, and publishing was part of the law-creating mechanisms in the Empire.128 Therefore the fact that Ferdinand III appeared reluctant to

123 Other possibilities would be Chamberlain and Imperial Councillor Wolf Dierich von Törring-Stein (1598-1674) or Imperial Colonel and Commander of Breslau Daniel von Hess und Stein (1582-1648). Compare: Törring, Wolf von, Indexeintrag: Deutsche Biographie, https://www.deutsche- biographie.de/pnd137141807.html [03.04.2018] and Heß und Stein, Daniel von, Indexeintrag: Deutsche Biographie, https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd137564740.html [03.04.2018]. 124 Bierther, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1640/41, 57. 125 http://www.30jaehrigerkrieg.de/peverelli-beberell-biberelli-gabriel-freiherr-von/ [03.04.2018]. 126 HaStA 111-1_26223,16 January 1641: “[concerning the edictum cassatorum would you please strive] ob es nicht mit dienlichen clausulis verclehert werden konne, insonderheit sehen wir gerne dass nicht alleine die clausula ut fides habeatur transumptis, besondere auch dass mit machten inseriret werden, das, gleich in der edictale citatione wegen der Schauwenbergischen Graffschafft, Ihr Keis. Mt befehlig sei, solches in den statten Lübeck, Hamb. Und Brehmen zu affigiren, und anzuschlagen und wurden auf solchen falle zum weinigsten noch drei exemplaria in originale mussten herunter geschicket werden”. 127HaStA 111-1_26223, 2 and 16 January 1641. 128 Härter, ‘The Early Modern Holy Roman Empire: a multi-layered legal system’, at: Duindam, Harries, Humfress, Nirmod (ed.), Law and Empire, Ideas, Practices, Actors, (Leiden 2013), 121.

37 allow this before Christian IV had given a reaction, shows that the Emperor might have feared that the act of publishing might weaken his position.129 Publicising was a tactic used enthusiastically by Christian IV as well; a dimension of the dispute that surfaced in the correspondence in June 1641, when the Hamburg Senate complained that “schampffe PROMOTORIALES LITERE COMMINATORES” – bantering promotional letters from the menace [Christian IV] – arrived from Glückstadt on a daily basis. These pamphlets stated the claim that banned goods – such as saltpetre – may rightfully be confiscated from Hamburg vessels bound for Glückstadt and beyond.130 Early in August the Hamburg diplomats were informed of an address to all Electors and Imperial Princes by Christian IV, which the King also arranged to be published.131 As Moller and Meurer’s thoughts on the matter reached Hamburg a month later, the Senate assured them that Syndicus Pauli and “other gentlemen committed to our cause” would be informed of their opinion, so that a reply may be publicised. This same Syndicus Pauli produced the most extensive contribution to this conflict of letters between Denmark and Hamburg: the Apologia Hamburgensis (1641), a substantial legal work on Hamburg’s immediacy.132 Herein, Pauli presented a very thorough defence of Hamburg’s rights on free trade and independence, which – as the full title underlines – was offered to both the Emperor and the Council of Electors.133 This paper warfare shows that all three sovereign(-like) governments – the Emperor, Christian IV and Hamburg’s Senate – indeed perceived publicising as a way of officialising, justifying or polemicizing Imperial policies.

129 HaStA 111-1_26223, 30 January 1641: “Wir solten fast in zweiffeln gerahten, ob es auch in AULA.[Ferdinand III]. rechten ERNST seij uns zue HELFEN zu mahlen weile wir EE und Wolw schreiben dahin verstehen, daß [Ferdinand III] gemesseren befehligh seij, daß PATENT nicht zu PUBLICIREN ehr und bevohr das monitorium insinuirt und [Christian IV] erklärungh darüber vernohmen seij”. 130 HaStA 111-1_26223, 6 June 1641.And: HaStA 111-1_26223, 9 August 1641: “Was die königl Mt. Zur Dennemarck für ein schreiben an die sämbtliche chur: und Reichsfürsten abgehen und dürch offenen trück publiciren laßen, solches haben EE undt Wolw. auß beijgefüegtem ein schluß mit mehrem zuerinnern”. 131 HaStA 111-1_26223, 3 August 1641. 132 Compare: Broderus Pauli, Abgenötigte in Jure et Facto wolgegründete Apologia Hamburgensis. Entgege- Gesetzt des Durchleuchtigsten Grossmachtigen Fürsten und Herren Christian IV. zu Dennemarcken/Norwegen/der Wenden und Gothen König/Herzogen zu Schleswick/Holstein/Stormarn und der Dithmarschen/Grafen zu Oldenburg und Delmenhorst/undt 1. An Ihr. Röm. Kays. Maj. Ferdinandum III. unter keinem Dato. 2. An das hochlöbl. Churfüstl. Collegium sub dato 28 Julii Anni Christi 1641, in offenen Druck ausgelassene Schreiben, (Hamburg 1641). 133 HaStA 111-1_26223,4 December 1641: “Unsere APOLOGIAM wieder des [Christian IV] schrifft wollen wir erstes tages zum trück befordern, und alsdan dieselbige an die HH CHURF, und anderen gehörigen öhrten ubersenden”.

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3. Diplomatic support A third pressure tool to Hamburg was the rallying of international and supra-local political support, although it is very hard to estimate the impact of these overtures. One of Hamburg’s most dependable contacts were the United Provinces, who had supported Hamburg’s Elbe case at several occasions – among which the Imperial Election of 1636. Again in November/December 1640, responding to an official request by Lieuwe van Aitzema134, the Estates-General had sent an urging letter to the Emperor and Electors, and promptly after that the Emperor granted the much-discussed edicto cassatorum.135 Hamburg’s Senate, in turn, went at lengths to persuade its sympathizers to act, and so they sent the decree to France, Sweden, England and the United Provinces in April “cum recommendatio negotij”.136 According to the document preserved in the Dutch National Archive, Hamburg sent the decree in printed form, indicating (the intention of) a broad circulation of the document.137 Later, Moller and Meurer were asked to travel to The Hague before returning to Hamburg when the Diet was over.138 In the United Provinces they were to consult both the Estates-General and the Prince of Orange about the tolls. The Senate revoked the assignment two weeks later and instead, they addressed a Dutch embassy traversing Hamburg on its way to negotiate with Christian IV on the Orisound tolls to promote the city’s standpoint. These contacts with the United Provinces fit in a larger narrative of friendly relations, as both powers repeatedly explored the possibilities of a renewed alliance. Rumours on the matter had clearly been circulating, for Imperial representative in Hamburg Siebern advised the Emperor on the matter in an intercepted letter by Sweden

134 NA 1.01.02 6078, 4 October 1640. 135 HaStA 111-1_26223, 27 November 1640: “Was die herren Staten an die Röm. Keijs. M. undt an die sambtliche Churfursten mutatis mutandis in puncto telonij geschrieben, solches haben EE und W auß beigefuegten copeijlichen beijschluß mit mehrem zu ersehen, und werden sich deßen zubedienen wißen, haben aber dieses dabeij zuerinneren, daß Ihr. Hochmog. Uns das einige, waß sie an die herren churfursten geschrieben, außerhalb was an Chur Mainz und Collen abgangen, in duplo originaliter zugeschicket, mit dem begehren, deß eine von hierauß an Chur Sachsen und Brandenburgh zuspediren, welches wir dan furderlichst thun werden, das ander aber EE und Wolw zuzufertigen, damit solches den daselbst anwesenden churfursten oder deren bottschaften decenter ueberreichet werden möchte”. 136 HaStA 111-1_26223,3 April 1641 137 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 12569.89.1, ‘Tolzaken Elbe 1631-1642’. 138 HaStA 111-1_26223,7 May 1641: “ undt die Zollsachen nich alleine die Churff. Mainz undt Colln recommandiren, sondern auch cadem opera auff Hollandt sich begeben, undt beij Ih. Hochmogh. So wol auch Ih. Printzl. Altesh. So sie daselbst zue stellen, inhalte beigefügten instruction nostro nomine ihre werbung ablegen mochten, zu welcher ende dan wie die creditiff auff jullie richten laßen so sie hiebeij zu empfangen haben”.

39 from late June, stating that “it would be very disadvantageous to the Emperor and the King of Spain when he would allow the Hamburg Magistrate to befriend the Estates- General”. Indeed, Schrassert mentioned in late October that the Senate dispatched a Senator to announce to the Dutch resident that a conference with Lübeck and Bremen would be held shortly to decide upon reviving their alliance with the United Provinces.139 And in September 1641, the 36 burghers were involved in what the Senate referred to as the “HOLLENDISCHE propositiones”. This alliance was not reached until 1645 – in its defensive form, stipulating expressly that it did not intend to undermine the legal authority of the Emperor.140 Turning then to Hamburg’s relations with other Estates within the Empire, the city upheld relations and correspondence with the in Imperial politics very influential Electors as well. The Electorates that Hamburg engaged with and referred to most in the correspondence were Mainz and Cologne. The Senate corresponded with both Electoral courts on the subject of Hamburg’s standing in the Elbe question, aiming to acquire their political backing and outmanoeuvre the Danish representatives for their support.141 By April 1641, both the Danish representative Von Lippe and envoys Moller and Meurer were working hard to have their preferred version of the Elbe privileges accorded by the Electors. The Senate asked its diplomats to divert their efforts from pressing for a tightening of the decree of cassation from 31 December 1640 towards coaxing for a letter to Christian IV by the Emperor, and a reprimand from the Electors.142 At this time, the Senate also ordered Moller and Meurer to pay homage to the Electors in Frankfurt and Cologne on their way back to Hamburg after their mission in Regensburg had come to an end. Interestingly, Hamburg maintained relations with as well; the diplomats were ordered to “join with BAVARIA and personally examine the desperations thereof”.143 Bavaria’s problem, its ‘notdruft’, is difficult to determine with certainty.

139 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6069, 23 October/2 November 1641 140 Heinrich Reincke, Hamburgs Weg zum Reich und in die Welt, Urkunden zur 750-Jahr-Feier des Hamburger Hafens, (Hamburg 1939), 216-217. 141 HaStA 111-1_26223, 23 April 1641: “Das schreiben an die beide Churf. Mainz undt Colln betriffend die Zollsache albereits expedirt sein, wollen verhoffen, es werde beij Churf. Durchl. So viel wurcken, das den königl denemarckischen legato, so er deswegen etwas suchen solte, nicht leichtlich werde geratificirt werden”. 142 HaStA 111-1_26223, 3 April 1641. 143 HaStA 111-1_26223,17 April 1641: “Die Brieff wavon EE und Wolw schreiben an die H. CHURF. willen wir erstes tages abgeben laßen, undt willen auch fragen sich bei BAIREN zu verfügen undt die notturff daselbst beobachten”.

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Maximilian I of Bavaria’s tantamount concern at the Imperial Diet of 1640-41 was to reach an agreeable peace settlement that safeguarded the Electoral investiture that he had acquired at the expense of the Elector of the Palatinate.144 Indeed, Moller and Meurer made mention of the matter as well, as they informed the Senate that the “Danish ambassador arrived 6 days ago, negotiations over the Palatine Treaty have started, the means and manners to continue the war have been discussed in all three Imperial Councils”.145 Another possibility of course, is that Hamburg wanted to discuss the position of Protestants in Bavaria. The financial accounts show gifts to Protestants who fled Catholic regions, such as to a “gentleman ousted from Hoffkirchen[, Bavaria]”, and just after their arrival in Regensburg in September 1640 they also paid for the testimony of a City Councillor who was driven out of the Bavarian Weißenburg.146

4. Law enforcement Although the Empire’s law courts were designed as a – to Hamburg’s Senate historically very unwelcome – extension of Imperial might, in the course of the 17th century the city learned to capitalise their potential as law-making and law-enforcing institutions. As it appears, the Imperial Cameral Court was seen as less of an instrument to this end than was the Aulic Council; if we consider the insurance cases at the Imperial Cameral Court for example, the Senate’s involvement was out of necessity and not by choice. As late as 1603 situations are known in which Hamburger citizens jeopardised life and limb when they appealed to the Imperial Cameral Court, instead of abiding by the verdict of the Obergericht.147 Reversely, Emperors had granted Hamburg rights to mitigate the option of appeal to the Imperial Cameral Court in particular cases: the privilegio de non appellando. However, as Hamburg’s dependency on the Imperial institutions grew, the Imperial Courts gained more significance in the city’s judicial affairs. Compared to the Imperial Cameral Court, the Imperial Aulic Council had the advantages of being far less bureaucratic, being exceedingly familiar with the Emperor and (also for that reason) relatively influential. Therefore, it was especially this court that was incorporated in Hamburg’s Imperial politics.

144 Bierther, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1640/41, 85. 145 HaStA 111-1_57, 14 July 1641. 146HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 28 September 1640 and 11 November 1641. 147 Jürgen Weitzel, ‘Der Kampf um die Appellation ans Reichskammergericht’, at: Quellen und Forschungen zur höchsten Gerichtsbarkeit im Alten Reich, Band 4 (Köln, Wien 1976), 227.

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With regard to Hamburg, the first thing to notice about the archives of the Imperial Aulic Council is the reflection they present of the city’s Imperial politics and Moller and Meurer’s diplomatic instructions. The most relevant cases to this study, all of which appear in the correspondence, include for example Denmark’s accusation of Landtfriedenbruch by Hamburg, the case itself covering the years 1630-1643. This first accusation developed into a list of others, concerning toll privileges, Elbe beacons, reparations for suffered loss and the legal status of Hamburg as an Imperial City – all of these issues are mentioned in the instructions.148 Second and third, we find requests by Hamburg for a verdict on the illegal Danish trade embargo covering the years 1635- 1641 and one request for a verdict on Christian IV’s illegal toll collection dealing between 1638-1640.149 Fourth, in 1641 Christian IV asked for a ruling on his entitlement to the Schaumburg lands.150 And lastly, Hamburg filed a request for a ‘letter of protection’ (Schutzbrief) in 1641-1642 because of the Danish military reinforcements in Fuhlsbüttel as well.151 In the correspondence this letter of protection is referred to as a ‘mandatu de non offendam’. To start with last issue; on 18 September, the Senate had grown so worried over Denmark’s preparations, they requested Moller and Meurer to negotiate – with the most subservience – a mandatu de non offendo from the Emperor. Half October Christian IV’s armies were reported to be gathering on Hamburg territory, in Fuhlsbüttel. The city grew very worried over this, and asked its diplomats to shine their light among the gathered Estates at Regensburg, sounding if any of them had any clues on the Danish armament’s purpose.152 Hamburg’s request was first denied by Ferdinand III, who also sent word to his brother Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, whom the Senate had approached as well, not to yield to the city’s request. According to Stately resident in Hamburg Hendrick Schrassert, Ferdinand III wanted Bremen, Lübeck and Hamburg to quarter Imperial troops in order to draw them closer into his sphere of influence.153 Eventually the matter was put before the Aulic Council, which ruled (Gutachten) in favour of

148 RHR Antiqua 211. Loose, ‘Hamburgische Gesandte auf dem Regensburger Reichstag 1640/41, at: ZFHG, Vol. 61 (1975), 22. 149 RHR Antiqua 215 and 217. 150 RHR Antiqua 219. 151 RHR Antiqua 221. 152 HaStA 111-1_26223, 16 October 1641. This letter was, however, intercepted by Swedes – as stated in the letter from 23 October. A copy of the previous letter was sent with this one. On its letter from 30 October, request to gauge the Estates is repeated. 153 NA 1.01.02 etc, brief 9/19 October 1641.

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Hamburg’s request, with an (admittedly rather tepid) ruling that in the eventuality that Christian IV were to use violence, the Emperor would come to the city’s aid. Ferdinand III later also adopted the Aulic Council’s vote to grant the wanted ‘letter of protection’, but eventually never put this in effect. In general, the outcomes of the Imperial Aulic Council cases differ considerably, court ruling sometimes according to Hamburg’s interests and sometimes not. The Danish indictment concerning Hamburg’s breach of the peace and sequential complaints ended in a friendly settlement in 1643, for which Hamburg paid Denmark a vast sum of 200.000 Reichsthaler. Hamburg’s appeals concerning both the inhibitions to Hanseatic trade in the Danish kingdom and the illegal Elbe tolls were judged in favour of the city; in the first instance ruling that it was forbidden for Imperial Estates to impede trade in each other’s lands, and in the second reaching settlement with Ferdinand III’s decree from December 1640, condemning the Danish tolls. Denmark’s request regarding Schaumburg was decided by a vote among the Aulic Councillors in November 1641, but the file contains no ruling. Arriving at the matter of valuating the Reichshofrat as a means of bolstering Hamburg against Danish assaults, and thus of determining its effectiveness to Hamburg’s end, the Aulic Council’s conduct was two-sided. On the one hand, the institution seems important, determinative, and favourable to Hamburg’s interests; for example in the ‘letter of protection’ case. But, albeit the adopted vote, the Emperor postponed the annunciation of it several times, until it eventually was never put in effect.154 In another instance, dating July 1637, Ferdinand III passed on a Gutachten by the Aulic Council that re-established Hamburg’s Elbe privilege of 1628 to the Prince Electors for their approval, and after rejection by them the Aulic Council revoked it again.155 Thus, as it seems in the end, the Emperor remained the deciding factor to the Aulic Council, legitimising his own preferred outcomes through accordance by whichever platform suited his goals best. In addition, putting legislation into operation rested also in the hands of the Emperor. In an advice dated 12 November 1641, the Aulic Council ruled that, concerning the Glückstadt tolls, the matter had been legally solved;

154 RHR Antiqua 221. 155 RHR Antiqua 211, 23 June 1637 and 22 September 1637.

43 what remained was its implementation.156 And this, again, ultimately depended on the Emperor. Still, the Aulic Council could function as a political pressure tool that Hamburg employed to secure the Emperor’s consent – for the Aulic Councillors enjoyed the Emperor’s special reverence – or otherwise, to legitimise the Emperor’s policies by way of a ruling. We shall learn more about Hamburg’s high expectations of the Aulic Council when we arrive at the gifts of money that its diplomats donated to various members of the court in the next chapter.

Hamburg’s diplomacy

Reflecting quickly on Hamburg’s diplomacy as a small Estate, we have seen that the Emperor was very important in Hamburg’s Imperial politics: in commerce, tax payment and the redistribution of the Schaumburg lands. If we look at his policies regarding the Danish-Hamburger tensions, the Emperor continuously shifted his priorities and loyalties. As a result, Hamburg was anxious not to antagonise the Emperor, while at the same time it risked doing so by talking to the Estates-General and denying the Emperor some of his express wishes. Still, its diplomats tried to influence Ferdinand III’s policies both directly, through payments and direct appeals, and indirectly, for example through publication and appeals for support at the Imperial Aulic Council, the Electors and other European states. The tools that the city employed in its diplomacy were of some sophistication; necessarily, they matched those of the Kingdom of Denmark. Hamburg’s gratifications reached the highest offices within the Imperial government, as well as some of the Electors’ highest representatives. With Denmark, Hamburg was entwined in a pamphlet war, and both powers enthusiastically justified their standpoints via publications in different forms and sorts. Lastly, Hamburg’s frequent use of the arbitration of the Imperial Aulic Council and its variety of diplomatic contacts within and outside the Empire all indicate that the Imperial City conducted diplomacy at a reasonably high level. Yet not all Imperial institutions suited Hamburg: the platform of the Council of Cities and the Diet sessions itself were mostly avoided by Hamburg, which preferred diplomacy via backchannels. In March 1641 for example, Denmark’s representative at

156 RHR Antiqua 211.

44 the Reichstag wanted to bring the toll question before the congregation of all Estates as a matter of common interest and gravamen, or Estately grievance, on behalf of the , but Hamburg’s diplomats were instructed to make sure that the matters concerning the tolls were not treated ‘ad commissionem’, but ‘ad processum’ – not in plenary congregation, but within the confines of the courtroom.157 Concerning the city’s own diplomacy and the choices that were made by the Senate and by Meurer and Moller, it is interesting to see in the correspondence that the diplomats enjoyed some freedom of movement, or ‘Verhandlungsspielraum’. The edictum cassatorum on the Danish Elbe tolls that the Emperor had issued in January 1637 had failed to sort the desired effect. For this reason the Senate remarked to the diplomats that it “would like to see, that in case of actual help and abolition [of the tolls], you bid [the Emperor] for something certain and determined”.158 A few ways to establish this ‘certainty’ were then considered. The first and soundest option was complete abolition of all toll privileges on the Elbe, although such an imperial resolution was theoretically already in effect since 1637. A second option was a ‘translation’ of the privilege, meaning that Hamburg gained the express right of toll collection. The Senate however was slow to decide on whether it fancied this option, pondering over the possibly harmful effects on river traffic. Interestingly, Meurer and Moller shifted into gear and informed the Senate late October they had decided to plead for abolition, because Hamburg could not demonstrate “sufficient means” to enforce a translation.159 This is a clear indication that Hamburg’s diplomats were entitled to a certain degree of freedom to manoeuvre. Two weeks later, with the letters between Hamburg and Regensburg crossing paths, the Senate arrived at this same conclusion. Secondly, the diplomats enjoyed sufficient financial freedom to exceed the Treasury’s budgetary limits for which Moller and Meurer were later criticized by the Assembly of Citizens. Finally yet importantly, the correspondence shows that the Senate did not engage in micromanagement of its diplomats, and primarily informed and commented on official documents that Moller and Meurer sent over for accordance.

157 HaStA 111-1_26223, 23 April 1641. 158 HaStA 111-1_26223, 24 October 1640. 159 HaStA 111-1_26223, 27 October, Senate 7 November 1640.

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Chapter III

Much to declare: Barthold Moller’s Regensburg accounts

Studies of the Imperial Diets are often politically inspired, as is indeed Bierther’s dissertation on the Diet of 1640-’41. Through an impressive study of both the Diet’s official documents and the Emperor’s and Electors’ private communications with functionaries and representatives, Bierther achieves a very intelligible history of the convention. In her work however, the Imperial Cities are largely omitted – which is understandable because of their somewhat marginal position in the Diet’s decision- making process. Also, the Estates’ remunerations and diplomatic manoeuvres outside the first two main points of deliberation stipulated in the Diet’s Reichsproposition lie outside Bierther’s scope. As stipulated in the introduction, the third and last aim of this research is to use the sources – especially the financial accounts – to gain new insight into the everyday reality of an Imperial City’s diplomacy in the Holy Roman Empire; to see how diplomats moved about their business at the Regensburg Diet convention, and how the practicalities of this Diet facilitated them. Thus we shall assess how Hamburg’s diplomats were able to gather essential information, how they fleshed out their representative tasks in Regensburg, and which practical methods of gaining information and influence they applied. Reversely, this last chapter aims to sketch a few aspects of the Holy Roman Empire’s Diet praxis and government culture around 1640, on the eve of the Peace of Westphalia. One of the most distinctive things about Hamburg’s Diet diplomacy, is that the personal and professional were confluent. Some of the influential men received personal gifts, whether or not accompanied with a gratification. As we shall see, the praxis of information-gathering often ran via members of the personal staff or household of a dignitary. Likewise, members of the Imperial bureaucracy who faithfully dispensed documents to Moller and Meurer and were trusted by them, received the same New Years gift as they bestowed on their own household. This entourage of the Hamburg diplomats consisted of a coach driver and coach boy, two scribes at the service of the Syndicus and an errand boy (Junge). The household was larger in Regensburg and Vienna, where Moller and Meurer employed an extra

46 cook, two servants, housekeeper and a maid.160 This adds up to a total household of 10 servants – quite a large crew if one considers that the city’s deputation to the Peace Conference in Osnabruck probably mirrored those of Bremen and Lübeck, both amounting to a total of five.161 According to what Bosbach dubs the ‘Estate model’, there was a hierarchical difference between Moller, the Primarius and highest in rank, and Meurer, being the Secundarius. The ‘Estately’ model of diplomacy opposes the ‘State model’, according to which Europe’s monarchs despatched multiple, equal-ranking representatives. Another difference concerns their finances: State diplomats relied on regularly disbursed stipends and relatively free expenses, whereas the Estate model dictated careful bookkeeping and accountability.162 Responsibility for the accounts befell the highest-ranking diplomat, indeed a task that Barthold Moller observed on behalf of the Hamburg envoy. Said meticulously kept list of expenditures brings us very close to the reality of life of the diplomats. In a sense, to speak with the 19th-century founder of the discipline of diplomatic history Leopold von Ranke, the accounts help us to extract “wie es eigentlich gewesen”.163 In order to place Hamburg’s Diet accounts in perspective, Franz Bosbach’s impressive study of the finances of the envoys to the peace conferences in Osnabruck and Munster, spanning the period 1643-1649, shall serve as a basis for comparison.164 Although the scale and duration of the conventions differ greatly, Bosbach’s research provides a valuable framework for comparison. If we consider Hamburg’s total expenses for example, the fact that Hamburg spent almost 15.500 RT (fl. 33.250) during its 55 months in Osnabruck compared to more than fl. 40.000 in 19 months at the Regensburg Diet and the Imperial court in Vienna is remarkable. Of the other Hanseatic cities in Osnabruck, Lübeck spent about 11.000 RT (fl. 16.500), and

160 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 26 December 1640, 24 December 1641. 161 Bosbach, Die Kosten des Westfälischen Friedeskongresses, eine struktirheschichtlice Untersuchung, (Münster 1984), 24. 162 Bosbach, p. 4-6. Exceptions to this model at the Congress of Westphalia were the representatives of the Dutch Estates-General and Denmark, who’s representatives kept financial accounts as well. 163 Leopold von Ranke, Geschichten der romanische und germanische Völker, von 1494 bis 1514, Dritter Auflage (Leipzig 1885), vii. The full context reads: “Man hat der Historie das Amt, die Vergangenheit zu richten, die Mitwelt zum Nutzen zukünftiger Jahre zu belehren, beigemessen. So hoher Ämter unterwindet sich gegenwärtiger Versuch nicht; er will bloß zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen”, at: https://archive.org/details/geschichtenderro00rankuoft [24.03.2018]. 164 Franz Bosbach, ‘Die Kosten des Westfälischen Friedenskongresses, eine strukturgeschichtliche Untersuchung’, at: Schriftenreihe der Vereiniging zur Erforschung der neueren Geschichte, Band 13 (Munster 1984).

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Bremen an astounding 88.000 RT (fl. 132.000).165 The reason behind Hamburg’s frugality at Osnabruck may be found in the fierce public debate on mission expenses after Hamburg’s envoy to the Imperial Election in 1636-37 had spent a total of some fl. 70.000. After that, the Treasury and Assembly of Citizens demanded austerity on future diplomatic missions.166 The expenses of 1640-42 were still considerable, but acceptable to the citizenry because of the mission’s relative success. Still, apart from successful budgeting the cutback in expenses at ‘Westphalia’ may also be the result of relatively low political stakes for Hamburg. The smaller size of the Osnabruck embassy (one diplomat, instead of the two despatched to Regensburg) supports this possibility. An interesting observation with respect to the accounts themselves is that one month is missing, namely half June to half July 1641. Possibly, an inattentive clerk skipped the month by accident in processing the original into a neat version, mistaking the abbreviations ‘Jun’ and ‘Jul’. The omission itself renders this a plausible explanation; the declarations leaving off at “12 Jun[e]” and picking up again at “14 Jul[y]”. A gap of two days between entries was common enough. This chapter treats first the revenues of the mission, which form an interesting fingerprint of Hamburg’s diplomatic ties and show that commercial relations backed most of the city’s budget. The second part treats Moller and Meurer’s expenses, and aims to investigate how they fleshed out the ‘standard’ diplomatic responsibilities of representation, negotiation and gathering of information. Because these three elements neglect the ‘officious’ dimension of pre-modern bureaucracy and – accordingly – diplomacy, I have decided to add a fourth parameter: the challenge of forging ties of affinity and affiliation.

Revenue

Starting with the money that Hamburg’s mission received provides an insight in the infrastructure – the ties of trade and sponsorship – behind Hamburg’s diplomatic mission. Parallel to Hamburg’s banks, companies and wealthy merchants facilitating the transfer of money from, for example, the Treasury of Louis XIII to the armies of the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstierna, Hamburg’s diplomats had to count on the services of

165 Franz Bosbach, Die Kosten des Westfälischen Friedeskongresses, eine struktirheschichtlice Untersuchung, (Münster 1984), 229. 166 Loose, Gesandte auf dem Regensburger Reichstag, 18.

48 go-betweens in order to receive their mission’s funding. Although in most cases little information can be retrieved on the persons appearing in the relatively short credit chapter of the Regensburg accounts, these indicate that Hamburg’s financial network rested primarily on commercial brokers. Just more than half of the total sum and just under half of the total of 30 transactions ran via a man named Joachim Kerscher in Regensburg. Kerscher (1605- 1667) was one of the many Protestant Austrians to migrate as a result of Counterreformation hostilities in their homeland. In 1634 he had changed his hometown in Tirol for Regensburg, which was then a popular refuge for this type of exiles, as were the cities of Nuremberg and Ulm.167 Kerscher made a career in Regensburg, among other positions as a Councilman.168 In 1639, he was elected Burgomaster of Regensburg for one year, and he was re-appointed in 1641-1645, serving the city in this capacity for most years until his death in 1667.169 Undoubtedly Joachim Kerscher was a man of considerable means, although his presumed commercial activity, contrary to his record in public offices, is difficult to trace. As to his client, the diplomats added twice in the accounts – notably the first two of Kerscher’s transactions – that the payment was ordered by Bartholomai Viatis and Martin Peller; two wealthy merchants from Nuremberg. Bartholomaeus Viatis the Younger (1563-1644) and Tobias Martin Peller von Schoppershof (1626-1691) were the second generation of a wealthy Nuremberg family firm that traded in linen, spices and arms, operating extensively in the commercial centres of Venice and Hamburg.170 It is likely that every transaction through Kerscher was commissioned by the Viatis-Peller firm and that they, in turn, transferred the money from Hamburg to Nuremberg as a service to the Hamburg Treasury. The Viatis-Peller firm can, unlike Kerscher, be strongly linked to Hamburg through its trade activities there, and can be expected to shift the required sums of capital from one side of the Empire to another just by balancing its accounts. Also, the collaboration with Viatis-

167 Rudolf Leeb, ‘Regensburg und das evangelische Österreich’, at: Peter Schmid and Heinrich Wanderitz (ed.), Die Geburt Österreichs. 850 Jahre Privilegium Minus, (Regensburg 2007), 229-249. http://repertorium.at/sl/leeb_regensburg.html [01.10.2017]. 168 Kerscher, Joachim, Indexeintrag: Deutsche Biographie, https://www.deutsche- biographie.de/gnd129806706.html [27.09.2017]. Also, in 1652 Kerscher appeared as godfather, then in the position of Geheimrat and Amtsdirektor, at: Johann Seifert, Stam-Taffeln Gelehrter Leute: Nach Ordnung des Alphabets : ... ; Durch lange und kostbahre Correspondentz mit unermüdeten Fleiß zusammen getragen und zum Druck befördert, Volume 3 (Regensburg 1728), Tab. I. 169 Julie von Zerzog, Beschreibung des Rathauses zu Regensburg, (Regensburg 1848), 33-35. 170 https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz94476.html#ndbcontent [27.09.2017]

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Peller did not end in Regensburg: in the winter of 1641, by which time Moller and Meurer had arrived at the Imperial Court in Vienna, the first of 6 payments through a “mister Pestalozzi” occurred expressly on behalf of “Viatis from Nuremberg” as well. This mister Pestalozzi might have belonged to a successful Viennese family of Italian descent active in trade, governance and banking.171 The focus of Pestalozzi family banking was in central-Europe, notably , Nuremberg and Vienna, and therefore mediation by the Viatis-Peller firm in the transfer from Hamburg through seems logical.172 These financial intermediaries both lent some added services to the Hamburger envoy, judging from a fee of fl. 6 that Moller and Meurer paid to Kerscher’s servant just before their reinstatement to Vienna in October 1641, explaining that he “passed on certain letters now and then”.173 Pestalozzi was compensated for his correspondence with fl. 34 ‘letter money’, and a cashier of Pestalozzi received a Reichsthaler margin on a currency exchange.174 Some funding reached the Hamburg diplomats through private means as well; about a tenth’s share of the total amount of fl. 40.000 that Moller and Meurer spent on their mission was credited through a bill of exchange that “Jochim Beckman” had issued in Nuremberg by a man named Hans Linder – presumably an employee or a business relation. Joachim Beckmann (1598-1663) was Barthold Moller’s first cousin once removed; Barthold’s grandfather was a brother of Joachim’s father.175 Interestingly, Joachim Beckmann entered public office as one of the two Kammereibürger the following year, in 1641.176 Two other individual and possibly politically motivated contributions to Moller and Meurer’s funds were a sum of fl. 300 received in Leipzig out of the pocket of Jürgen

171 Csendes, Peter, & Opll, Ferdinand. (2003). Wien. Geschichte einer Stadt / Band 2, Die frühneuzeitliche Residenz (16. bis. 18. Jahrhundert, 212. 172 Rotraud Becker, Nuntiatur des Ciriaco Rocci. Ausserordentliche Nuntiatur des Girolamo Grimaldi (1631– 1633), (Berlin 2013), 103, 184. Becker mentions Giovanni Battista Pestalozzi as a merchant banker in Nuremberg, 1632, Giorgio Cesare Pestalozzi in Augsburg with a brother in Vienna, both bankers, in 1632. Herbert Haupt, Von Leidenschaft zum Schönen, Fürst Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein (1611-1684), (Vienna 1998), 109: mentions the Viennese Wechselherr Ottavio Pestalozzi in 1660. 173 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 16 October 1641. Also, on 7 November 1640. 174 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 14 December 1641 and 8 March 1642. 175 Friedrich Buek, ‘Genealogische und biographische Notizen über der seit der Reformation’ in: Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte, 71-73. It is however difficult, since the Beckmann family is very large and favoured the names Lucas, Barthold and Joachim for male spouse. Joachim had 11 brothers and sisters, whilst his father Lucas had 10 brothers and sisters –one of whom was named Joachim as well, but operated as an agent in Faro, Portugal. 176 Buek, ‘Genealogische und biographische Notizen‘, VFHG, 72. Beckmann also became Oberalter in 1644.

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Moller – in all probability the Hamburger patrician Jürgen Moller vom Hirsch –, and a contribution of fl. 650 commissioned by one Thomas Bachman in Regensburg. Their reasons for support shall have to remain obscure for now, because little is known of their respective backgrounds. If we then look at the table below, we can see that most money by far – almost 80% – reached the diplomats through intermediation of the Viatis&Peller firm, showing the importance of this commercial party in securing Hamburg’s diplomatic funds.

Transactions Location Sum (fl.) % Hamburg Treasury Hamburg 900 2 Jürgen Moller vom Hirsch via Johan Wolfsrath Leipzig 300 0,5 Joachim Beckmann via Thomas Palshorn Regensburg 4.126 ½ 10 Viatis&Peller via Joachim Kerscher Regensburg 21.700 53 Thomas Bachman via Ludowich Ertinger Regensburg 650 1,5 Viatis&Peller via Pestalozzi Vienna 10.200 25 Subtotal 37.876 ½ 92 Actual total 41.277 ½ 100

The remaining 8% was covered among other things by the fl. 55 proceeds from the sale of the horses once the embassy had arrived in Regensburg, and the reception of a sum of fl. 300 from Reichshofrat Count Johann Adolph von Schwarzenberg (1615-1686) in Vienna, in November 1641. This is very interesting, because financial services like this one are markers of diplomatic goodwill and cooperation. Schwarzenberg probably operated on behalf of the Emperor, since Moller and Meurer were to pass on this sum at some future occasion to diplomat Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal (1609-1657), who had left the service of the Elector of Brandenburg in the summer of 1641 and had entered the Emperor’s instead.177 Hendrick Schrassert’s mention of Blumenthal in August 1641 as Imperial Resident in Denmark suggests that Schwarzenberg may at first expected Moller and Meurer to meet Blumenthal in Hamburg.178 The money never

177 Erdmannsdörffer, Bernhard, "Blumenthal, Joachim Friedrich Freiherr von" in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 2 (1875), S. 752-754 [Online-Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche- biographie.de/pnd12139980X.html#adbcontent [20.03.2018]. 178 NA 1.01.02 inv. nr. 6079, 10 August 1641.

51 reached Blumenthal however, because shortly before their return to Hamburg in February 1642, Schwarzenberg asked for the sum to be handed back. Reaching a conclusion on the make-up of Hamburg’s diplomatic revenues, we can state that about 80% reached Moller and Meurer thanks to a commercial party, 10% was funded by a private party from within Hamburg’s patrician establishment, and the remaining 10% included smaller private financiers and a short-term loan. In all, 90% of the mission’s funding was credited through letters of exchange rather than in bullion. Compared to the standard at the Congress of Westphalia, this percentage approximates that of other Estates with excellent commercial connections, such as Nuremberg (98%).179 Generally speaking, contemporary diplomatic financial infrastructure was facilitated by wealthy merchants with supra-regional connections.180 Therefore, Hamburg’s revenues fit the parameters neatly.

Expenses In contrast to the funds received, the diplomats’ expenses were accounted for in great detail. The three-step approach often used in premodern diplomatic historiography, in which a diplomat’s responsibilities are summarised as the gathering and passing-on of information that fit the interests of their masters at home, representation of those masters abroad and negotiation on their account, mirrors its blind spot for the personal bureaucracies of the time. In an effort to complement this trinity, therefore, I have chosen here to add affiliation to the diplomatic toolset. A more ethereal concept, which aims to grasp the Early Modern diplomats’ essence as an agent in the forging of personal bonds; the art of gaining influence at those negotiation tables where the envoy himself had not been invited.

1. Representation Representation is as much a showcase of how Hamburg’s diplomats wanted to be treated, and incidentally those aspirations are easier to trace in the accounts than are the official representational ceremonies. In this paragraph the phenomenon is described in terms of Moller and Meurer’s alleged social positioning through maintaining decorum

179 Bosbach, Die Kosten des Westfälischen Friedeskongresses, 55. 180 Ibidem, 60.

52 and their indulgence in charity.181 Also to Moller and Meurer, the diplomatic traits of crispness and eloquence were of demonstrable importance.

1.1. Decorum Although institutionalised ceremony in diplomacy was an important way to define hierarchy and power relations, its domain was confined to the official gatherings – such as audiences – about which the primary sources used for this research reveal very little. Behind the closed doors of the antechamber of the Emperor’s dwellings in Regensburg and Vienna we can trace the Hamburgers’ steps only as far as their gratuities to the courtly servants reached. Thus, we know that Senator Moller – and presumably Syndicus Meurer as well – visited the Prince Elector of Bavaria once and the Emperor three times, transgressing the different tiers of increasingly important courtiers as they came closer to the dwellings of Ferdinand III.182 Luckily, the financial accounts testify with greater servitude of the diplomats’ efforts to present themselves in a manner that befitted the Imperial City of Hamburg – decorum that would have signalled their position at ceremonial occasions as well as in the back passages of Imperial Diet diplomacy. One of the most noteworthy examples hereof is the seeming effort of Moller and Meurer to skill themselves in rhetoric. In December 1640 the envoys purchased a printed oration from the Rector of the Latin school in Regensburg.183 Nine months later, they spent a guilder and a Reichsthaler “for Famiana strada [sic]”, referring to one of the works of the Jesuit, rhetorician, historian and moralist Famiano Strada (1572-1649). Himself a rhetoric teacher at the Collegio Romana, Strada’s first book ‘Prolusiones Academicae, Oratoriae, Historicae’ (1617) taught its reader dexterity in poetry, history and eloquence.184 Secondly, the accounts learn that the brothers-in-law spent a good sum on their servants’ attire. For clothing for the domestic servants, coach attendants and the Syndicus’ clerks, the Hamburgers paid fl. 172 shortly upon arrival in Regensburg.185 In Vienna, they reserved another fl. 165 for new dress for the clerks and coach boy –

181 On the social implications of being an esteemed and well-informed ambassador compare: Catherine Fletcher, ‘’Furnished with gentlemen’, the ambassor’s house in sixteenth-century Italy’, at: Renaissance Studies, Vol. 24 no. 4 (2009), 518-535. 182 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, Churbayerische audienz on 5 October 1640. 183 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 23 December 1640. 184 Florian Neumann, Ars historica, Famiano Strada S.I. (1572-1649) und die Diskussion um die rhetorische Konzeption der Geschichtsschreibung in Italien, (München 1998). 185 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 9 Oct 1640.

53 logically the members in Moller and Meurer’s company to operate most in the public eye.186 Compared to the expenses of Lübeck’s representative at the Congress of Westphalia, who spent a total of 49 RT (fl. 73) on clothing for his clerk over a time span of four years, Moller’s expenditure of about the same amount in just two years is steep.187 In addition, the whole household received ‘shoe money’ and new linens from time to time. In so doing, the Hamburgers secured an honourable appearance in Regensburg and Vienna. Extending on this social element of ambassadorship, we shall now treat Moller and Meurer’s social manifestation by way of their engagement in charity.

1.2. Charity Charity was an elementary trait of ambassadorship in the diplomacy of the time. If we look at the charitable expenditures of representatives at the Westphalian Peace Congress, typical benefactors included almoners, the poor, dispersed and sick, students, preachers and monks. It was a common diplomatic expenditure, in which even the Emperor indulged.188 Moller’s accounts give clear evidence of the Hamburg diplomats’ social engagement during their mission, even though a second element to gift-giving is of course its social signalling. Moller and Meurer made small charitable gifts to exiles, chiefly in the first phase of their stay in Regensburg – sometimes, but not always, in exchange for information. Among these beneficiaries were a dispersed (“vertrieben”) noblewoman and nobility from Hessen and Thüringen, as well as a “gentleman ousted from Hoffkirchen[, Bavaria]”.189 Also, the diplomats made donations to two special collections for exiled persons.190 When travelling Moller and Meurer had made several small gifts, never more than a Reichsthaler, to “the poor”, for example when passing through Lunenburg, on the road to Magdeburg and in Leipzig. On their way back to Hamburg they donated to the poor box in Dresden. Whereas exiles were the prime beneficiaries during the early weeks of the diplomats’ stay in Regensburg, clerics and clerical institutions – both Catholic and Protestant – formed the chief receivers of Moller and Meurer’s charity thereafter. Their support in this area involved the paying of alms to Capuchin convent nuns, donations to

186 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 27 Nov 1641. 187 fl. 172/8 (= fl. 21,5) + fl. 165/3 (= fl. 53)= fl. 74,5 average per clerk. 188Mark Hengerer, Kaiser Ferdinand III., 147. 189HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 3 and 10 October 1640, 11 November 1641. 190HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 30 September and 4 October 1640.

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Protestant preachers that had fled , a generous New Year’s gift to the Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity and a small fee to three captivated Swedish army preachers. Superseding the representative element of charity, the Hamburgers seem to have been well-integrated in Regensburg town life. The Hamburg diplomats seem to have been temporary yet enthusiastic members of the Lutheran community in Regensburg; according to the accounts, Moller and Meurer were informed of the baptisms and deaths in the parish and could pride on “agreeable correspondence” with the minister of the Church of the Holy Trinity.191 At several occasions, the diplomats supported collecting students with small gifts of about a Reichsthaler as well, for example.192 They sponsored the city choir that had brought them music for the New Year.193 And they gained access to the town’s dignitaries, such as Syndicus Pfafdenreuter, as well as the city archives and the cities’ Latin School.194

2. Negotiation Compared to the other categories of diplomatic conduct, the coverage on negotiation in this research is somewhat underwhelming. Hardly any traces of negotiation are to be found in the accounts. Overall, we have seen that Hamburg’s diplomacy inclined towards other, unofficial channels, preferring advocacy of its standpoints from within the Imperial government and by way of judicial settlements over rallying other cities’ acclaim in the Council of Imperial Cities.

3. Information With regard to this part of diplomatic profession, the accounts point out a number of sources of information available in Regensburg. Some of these, such as the purchase of a colourised atlas beforehand and a compass while on journey to Regensburg, bring in mind how basal certain requirements of extraordinary embassy diplomacy could be.195 Of course, information was very important in diplomacy, being instrumental in acquiring knowledge and often gained against compensation in the form of money, loyalty,

191HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 17 October 1641. 192HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 1 January, 29 May, 7 August 1641. 193HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 1 January 1641. 194HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 23 & 31December 1640. 195 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 26 and 29 August 1640 respectively. The atlas is described in the accounts as “ex editione jansonij”, and was probably made by the Dutch cartographer Johannes Janssonius (1588- 1664).

55 influence or other information. Thus, information stood in direct relation to power.196 The variation of sources that Moller and Meurer utilised to keep themselves informed underlines this premise. On the other hand, this variation of sources – including public servants, members of Regensburg’s city government and diplomats’ household staff – indicates that the Diet convention of 1640 was not unlike a marketplace for information and communication at this stage of its existence.

3.1. Publicised information A few days before arrival in Regensburg, Moller and Meurer bought the third volume of the ‘Acta Publica’ by Michael Caspar von Lundorp (1580-1629) from the barber that groomed them in Nuremberg.197 Lundorp’s Acta Publica bundled a selection of documents (decrees, correspondences, pamphlets) to provide the reader with a history of the Holy Roman Empire after the Schmalkadic War (1546-1547).198 Lundorp was criticised vehemently for the partiality he showed in the Acta Publica; his selection of documents, and especially his commentaries were (and remain) considered strongly in favour of the Imperial party.199 Once in Regensburg the envoys soon acquired the preceding two volumes – yet to be bound – and in May 1641 they added the fourth book out of a twelve-volume total. Because of its selection of official communications, the Acta Publica may have formed an interesting introduction to some issues that were of special concern to Hamburg; decrees and correspondence dealing on the Elbe and Schaumburg

196 Susanne Friedrich, Drehscheibe Regensburg: das Informations- und Kommunikationssystem des Immerwährenden Reichstags um 1700, (Berlin 2007), 20. 197 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 14 September 1640. The full title of the third volume – a revised and complemented version of Lundorp’s last reissued Acta Publica of 1629 – was: ‘Acta Publica: Das ist, Der Römischen Keyserlichen Majestät, Matthiae, hochlöblichsten Andenckens, und der jetzo Regierender Keys. Majestät Ferdinandi Secundi, Auch deß H. Römischen Reichs Geistlicher und Weltlicher Chur und Fürsten, und anderer ReichsStändten Reichshandlung: Von Vrsachen deß Teutschen Kriegs, weyland Keysers Matthiae, vnd Ferdinandi II. wider die Böhmen, Hungarn, vnd andere Ständt deß Reichs vnd sonsten, von Anno 1617 biß auff das 1629. Jahr, sieghafft geführt : In zween Tomos abgetheilet, mit schönen Kupfferstücken gezieren, vnd zum erstenmal in Truck verfertiget, vnd continuirt. Dritter Theil: Das ist, Weyland Gustavi Adolphi, Königs in Schweden [et]c. Wie auch Ludovici XIII. Königs in Franckreich [et]c. wider die in Gott ruhende, vnd jetzo regierende Kays. Majest. Ferdinandum II. & III. so dann auch andere deß Reichs Catholische vnd Evangelische Chur-Fürsten vnnd Stände, vorgenommener kriegsExpedition, vnd deren Vrsachen, Kriegs vnd Friedenshandlung, Sampt von der Cron Schweden Legato Generali Axel Ochsenstirn &c. gehaltener Conventen, vnnd darauff vorgengener Acten, ... deß Kriegs fortpflantzung vnd Frieden betreffend ; Außführliche Deduction : Jetzo zum ersten mal cum Elencho Tractatuum von Anno 1629 außgangen, vnd biß auffs 1640. Jahr continuirt Durch Nicolaum Bellum Hyst. 3’, (Frankfurt 1640). 198 The volume that Hamburg’s representatives purchased in Nuremberg may have been the 1640 extended reprint, or otherwise the 1621-23 version. 199 Franz Xaver von Wegele, "Lundorp, Michael Caspar" in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 19 (1884), S. 637-638 [Online-Version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd104282207.html#adbcontent [30.12.2017].

56 matters were included, and so the diplomats’ use of the Acta Publica is not necessarily a sign of allegiance to Lundorp’s pro-Emperor commentaries. It could serve simply as a reference book for official documents. Secondly, Moller and Meurer were enrolled to a newsletter for which they paid 2 guilders per month for the duration of three months.200 The accounts make no mention of the origin or content of the received ‘Zeitungen’, but this type of periodical usually appeared twice per week and covered political and military topics.201 Thirdly, shortly after their arrival in Regensburg the diplomats purchased two charters on ‘the state of affairs in the Palatinate’.202 Although this is purchase far from proof of any involvement or standpoint in the matter, it is interesting that Moller and Meurer informed themselves on the Palatine Question; it indicates that even if the conflict did not concern Hamburg directly, its diplomats allegedly moved in circles that expected them to be up-to-date on the matter.

3.2. Public servants’ cooperation Of course not all documentation was structurally leaked or publicised, and this kind of information could also be retrieved from the nimbus of functionaries, dignitaries and institutions that formed the Imperial government bureaucracy. Most of the time Moller was quite specific on what documents they were provided with and by whom; this degree of accountability is remarkable, and considering the number of personal favours archived, the accounts support the notion of a highly personal bureaucracy in which bureaucrats served their personal interests through the administrative system, parallel to the interests of government. The most formidable bureaucratic institution of the Holy Roman Empire was the Mainz Chancellery, which was traditionally its prime administrative and communicative body. In the accounts, Moller described some fees for ‘copy work’ of the Chancellery, as ‘common’, suggesting those payments were paid for publicly accessible documents. The documents that the Hamburg diplomats extracted from the Chancellery included papers on the toll question covering the years 1637-1639, imperial resolutions, and letters

200 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 29 Oct 1640. 201 Friedrich, Drehscheibe Regensburg: das Informations- und Kommunikationssystem des Immerwährenden Reichstags um 1700, (Berlin 2007), 59. 202 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 30 September 1640.

57 dealing on the minting privileges of Hamburg and Glückstadt.203 These documents were all provided by the Chancellery with the cooperation of the same three go-betweens; a Registrator by name of Christiano, and the two Canzellister Caspar Wildman and Conrad Selft. Particularly Christiano and Selft were reliable contacts of Moller and Meurer.204 The fees paid for said documents range from fl. 12 in case of the toll papers to fl. 95 for the letters on the minting rights. The importance of these official documents must not be underestimated: Moller and Meurer collected decrees, acts and resolutions quite eagerly. Even on their way to Regensburg they stayed an extra day in Nuremberg and purchased, besides the aforementioned third volume of Lundorp’s Acta Publica, also the Acts of the Diet of the College of Electors (Collegialtagakten), which had taken place in that city shortly before the Imperial Diet, as well as some other “Nachrichtungen”.205 Other such important documents were protocols; the secrete minutes of official meetings or legal stipulations and records. The Aulic Council for example had its own Protokollist, by name of Schweizer, who was occasionally left with a sum by Moller and Meurer. One of their first expenses after arrival in Regensburg, was on “acts and protocols”, which they purchased off the hands of Syndicus Pfafdenreuter for fl. 45.206 The fl. 150 that Johann Adam Krebs, Privy Councillor to the and Protokollant of the Diet Council of Electors was granted, may also serve to show the importance of the Protokollant. Cooperation from ‘civil servants’ in the Imperial administration was received also from the Dictatori of the Imperial Cameral Court and the Fiskal, both in Speyer. It appears that that the trade in information was particularly lucrative. Aulic Councillor Söldner and his close employees, together with Reichshofrat Secretary Pawel Thomas, provided Moller and Meurer with an abundance of relevant documents. For these, Söldner and Thomas received recompenses at five and eight occasions respectively, the first household earning a total of fl. 252 and the second a sum of fl. 279.207

203 The privilege of minting that Christian IV had granted Glückstadt was of course disputed by Hamburg. These letters were described as”Alberti Dionisi’s writings by request of [Hamburg’s] Burgomaster Brandt” – Albert Dionis being Glückstadt’s first master of the mint between 1619 and 1630. 204 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, Christiano and Selft were given congratulatory New Year’s gifts of money both in 1640-1641 and 1641-1642. On 27 December 1640, Christiano fl. 6, 18 December 1640 Selft fl. 9 & 17 January 1642, both fl. 9. 205 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 15 September 1640. 206 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 26 Sept. 1640. 207 Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century, 191.

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3.3. Clandestine intelligence In order to gain access to memoranda and other government documents, such as correspondence, Moller and Meurer could also rely on an impressive number of personal secretaries, scribes, servants and other people outside the Imperial bureaucracy to provide them. One of the most interesting elements of Moller and Meurer’s accounts, is the abundance of small expenses on this type of information, as well as other services rendered by pages, stable boys, clerks, coachmen and doorkeepers – perhaps correctly referred to as ‘footmen’ of the diplomatic corps. Their complacence generally cost half to one-sixth of the price for a document provided by a ‘public administrator’. The typical reward for a servant (Diener) was a Reichsthaler, which was 1 ½ guilders; a Chamberlain (Kammerdiener) never received less than fl. 3.208 The services offered by the non-bureaucrats were administrated by Moller with descriptions like: “to the household of the President of the Aulic Council, for staying in touch”, “to Imendorf, Secretary of the Aulic Council President, for advocating our cause” and “for the servant of the Aulic Council President, who promised to do a certain job for us (so uns ein Gewerb angesaget)”.209 Sometimes, servants would approach the diplomats with certain information themselves, such as the coachman of the embassy of Saxony who reportedly “called at the house (uns zu Hause gesuchet)” and received a silver crown for his information.210 If we compare this situation with the techniques of Spanish ambassador to the British court Chapuys a century earlier, some interesting differences present themselves. Contrary to the Hamburg diplomats, Chapuys hired five or six middlemen, ‘agents’, who paid modest sums for various items of information: what a lower servant knew on the identity of visitors to the important men in London, for example. Or, “what a stable boy might notice of the state of a courier’s horse”.211 Although Moller and Meurer might not have received all ‘footmen’ in person, servants offered their services and were received at the house – in relative openness, so to say. Yet, Hamburg did employ ‘agents’ (Agenten); on behalf of the Hanseatic cities their agent Lieuwe van Aitzema resided in The Hague. Likewise, Hamburg employed two agents in Vienna, both appearing in the correspondence and in the accounts: Lucas

208 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 2 Feb 1642, Von der Reck’s chamberlain. 209 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 31 May 1641 (fl. 6), 1 June 1641 (fl. 18) & 9 January 1642 (1 RT) respectively. 210 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 10 November 1640. 211 Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, 244.

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Stupanus and Johann Sternberg.212 Yet, they seem to have operated as lobbyists rather than as resident diplomats, like Lieuwe van Aitzema, or as the ‘informants’ that Chapuys employed. The Senate mentions Stupanus and Sternberg by name because it sent a mandate (Vollmacht) for them to Moller and Meurer, in order for the agents to cover an unclear aspect of Hamburg’s litigation at the Cameral Court. It is clear that Stupanus and Sternberg were not the least of men: one source mentions a kaiserliche Rath Lucas Stupanus in 1631, and State Law chronicler Moser mentions both men to be granted a ‘civil mandate’ to negotiate the Danish tolls on the Elbe river on behalf of Hamburg in 1635.213 The duo surfaces also in the context of book trading – an activity strongly embroiled with and diplomacy at the time –, and overall seems to have been well-established in the Imperial circles of power.214 The Neue Deutsche Biographie reputes a Dr. Lucas Stupanus to have been a jurist and agent in Vienna on behalf of the city of Münster from 1645 until his death in 1651.215 A third agent, by name of Thomas Gaßman, was by profession an oats (Habern) merchant from Vienna.216 In late April 1641, Moller paid him fl. 60, which Hamburg was still indebted to him for his services to the deputies to the Imperial Election a few years back, in 1636. However, in early December 1641, when Moller and Meurer had settled in Vienna, they paid Gaßman another fl. 75 to influence the Chancellery of Mainz to revise Hamburg’s insurance case at the Imperial Cameral Court.217 In other words, the ‘agents’ that Hamburg employed were men of means and standing, who were employed to maintain correspondence and forward the Hamburg Senate’s interests politically. Besides buying the clandestine services by household staff and agents, Moller and Meurer also employed – or at least frequently paid – men of more obscure backgrounds.

212 HaStA 111-1_26223, 22 May 1641: “Die schriff, so EE undt Wolw wegen der beschwerlichen cameralprocessen abgefast, undt den Reichsstätten zu ubergeben gemeinet, laßen wir uns also gefallen, und sagen ihnen danck für solche abfaßungh, achten unsere ratth ebenmeßigh auß denen von EE undt Wolw angezogenen uhrsachen undienlich zusein, das die zollsache damit immiscirt werde. Die begerte vollmacht auff H.D[r]. Stupanum undt Sternberg thun wir jullie hiermit übersenden, und werden jullie ferners die verschungh thun, das die protestatio ad camerm geschicket und decentir insinuirt werde”. 213 Johann Jakob Moser, Koniglich Dänisches Estatraths, Zusäze zu seinem neuen Teutschen Staatsrecht; darinne, nebens vile ungedruckten, zum Theil sehr wichtigen, Urkunden und Nachrichten, von allen neuesten bekannten (allgemeinen und besonderen,) Staatsangelegenheiten hinlänglicher Bericht ertheilet wird, zweiter Band, (Frankfurt und Leipzig 1782), 1133. 214 Johann Sternberg is also mentioned as a literary agent of Otto von Lippe-Barke (+1657) in Vienna anno 1629. 215 Helmut Lahrkamp, Acta Pacis Westphalicae III, Bd 1: Stadtmünsterische Akten und Vermischtes, (Münster 1964), Dokument 265 7 September 1651. 216 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 29 April 1641. 217 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 8 December 1641: “zustellen laßen, solche nach Mainz in die Cantzlei pro quarta Revisione in den assecurantz sachen uber zumachen”.

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They kept a correspondence with a man named Hans Christoph in Nuremberg. Christoph received more than fl. 300 worth of ‘letter money’ (Briefegeldt), one time including compensation for his ‘associates’ (frentzeln) as well. Secondly, the doorman (Thürhüter) of the Aulic Council, a man named Bartholomaeo, was of considerable value to the Hamburger diplomats as well, and his services came in many forms. He passed on news,218 but he also linked Moller and Meurer to the services of his brother and other acquaintances who assisted the diplomats in their correspondence with the aforementioned Hans Christoph in Nuremberg.219 Communications with Nuremberg were of such importance that an extra messenger was sent there regularly in case Moller and Meurer had missed the regular postal service.220 Especially the assistance in contacting Hans Christoph proved lucrative to Bartholomaeo: Moller recorded fl. 16 and fl. 45 for the intermediation of his brother and associates respectively for the passing of a message to Hans Christoph. Thus, just like so many people in Regensburg, the doorman made good use of his function and personal network in order to complement his salary. It is very clear therefore, that a variety of information canals stood at Moller and Meurer’s disposal in Regensburg. The comparison with a forum of exchange addresses itself.

4. Affiliation As mentioned earlier, I have chosen here to add affiliation as a fourth category of diplomatic conduct, in order to mould the theoretical approach to better suit the historical reality. In a network society, personal contacts and bonds of loyalty were very important in gaining access to the information and services a diplomat needed. Going to and hosting socials with other diplomats was one way of doing this, but unfortunately the accounts show very little of Moller and Meurer’s society life in Regensburg. Gratification on the other hand, functioned as a way of stimulating these loyalties as well, and this practice settled in the accounts very well. Another intelligible affiliating mechanism was the practice of gift-giving, which Moller and Meurer used for their more special contacts, for example thoughtful attentions to government dignitaries and modest gifts of money for their most loyal informants at New Year’s. Again, the

218 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 23 March&11 January 1641. 219 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 18 April, 7 September&18 September 1641. 220 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, for example on 22 Ma, 27 Ma 1641.

61 variegation in their beneficiaries signals Moller and Meurer’s activity in the diplomatic backchannels at the Diet convention.

4.1. Gratification Moller and Meurer paid their first gratification, amounting to 600 ducats (fl. 1800), on 1 October 1640 to Imperial Vice-Chancellor Kurz von Senftenau, “according to [their] instructions” and “as should have been already paid to him in Hamburg”.221 Indeed, Kurz had been in Hamburg in 1639, on his trip to Denmark to discuss its re-entering the war on the Imperial side. Although the first gratification probably related to this same issue, Kurz’s second one, worth fl. 1500, was presented with no other specification than “wegen vielfältiger vermühung”. The Imperial Vice-Chancellor (Reichsvicekanzler) Kurz von Senftenau was one of the most influential men in the Imperial administration under Ferdinand III, being the effective head of the Imperial- or Kurmainz Chancellery.222 Here, all correspondence to and from the Emperor was processed. Secondly, the Vice-Chancellor was the first member of the Aulic Council, meaning he possessed the right to cast the first vote, and was also Secretary to the influential Privy Council. Although the correspondence does not mention Count Kurz von Senftenau being gratified per se, it does mention the Vice- Chancellor’s efforts to mediate in the toll negotiations between the Emperor and the Danish representative, and his involvement in a delivery of harnesses.223 The fact that the accounts show that Kurz von Senftenau was belatedly gratified in Regensburg with a first sum of fl. 1.800, “as should have been paid to him in Hamburg”, leaves the question open as to the reason behind this. During his last stay in Hamburg in 1639, the Vice- Chancellor had been on a mission to convince the King of Denmark to enter the war again, promising among other things a free hand against the Hanseatic cities. It is possible that said gratification had something to do with this arrangement, although there is no way be sure of that on the basis of these sources. In other instances however, the distribution of Moller and Meurer’s generosity tell-tales their aims and strategies at the Diet quite candidly. For one thing, their preference for those who were attached to the Reichshofrat reveals Hamburg’s

221 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 1 October 1640: “rigore instruct., so Ihm zue Hamburg bereits sollen preasentirt werden, itzo offerirt”. 222 Schwarz, The Imperial Privy Council in the Seventeenth Century, 19. 223 HaStA 111-1_26223,20/30 January 1641.

62 intentions to enforce certain of its diplomatic goals through this institution. This intention speaks also from the fact that the Aulic Council’s President, Freiherr Johann von der Reck (*-1647), received a total sum well beyond all other gratifications – with the exception of Count Kurz. The effectiveness of this strategy is difficult to prove, although the relevance of the Aulic Council to Hamburg’s politics has already been assessed in chapter II, where we have seen how the diplomatic instructions of Moller and Meurer were mirrored by Hamburg’s appeals at the Aulic Council during the 1630’s and early 1640’s.224 Accordingly, the table below shows that eight out of the nineteen Aulic Councillors present at the Diet received gratifications exceeding 300 guilders, including Von der Reck. The explanatory notes in the accounts sometimes state ‘gratification’ as a general qualification, but others are more specific – mentioning the passing-on of certain documents, for example –, confirming that members of the Aulic Council occasionally performed special services to paying Estates of the Reich.225

Table 2. All members of the Aulic Council present in Regensburg during the Reichstag, how much they received according to Moller and Meurer’s accounts and in how many transactions they received the total sum.

Imperial Aulic Councillor Gratification total (fl.) Transactions Count J.W. von Auersperg - - Freiherr A. von Boymer - - Dr. J. Gebhardt 1.500 2 Tobias von Haubitz 300 1 Dr. C. Hildbrandt 900 3 Freiherr Dr. J. Kaldtschmied 300 1 Count H. von Königsegg - - Freiherr J. Krafft - -

224 Reichshofratarchiv, 1636-1642. 225 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 28 dec 40: “to the secretary and Reichshofrat Soldener, who managed the rescriptum, resolution and patenta in puncto Telonij, gratified pro expedit, and further for the new year 150 ducats”.

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Count J.M. von Lamberg - - Dr. G.L. Lindenspühr - - J.H. Nothafft - - Count E. von Öttingen - - Freiherr J. von der Reck 2.700 2 F. Rousson 300 1 Dr. R. Schadt - - Count J.A. von Schwarzenberg - - Dr. J. Söldner 810 3 J.W. von Eckhausen - - Count G.U. von Wolkenstein-Rodeneck - - Total 6.630 12

Marking a ‘gratification’ as a sufficiently high, single gift of money amounting to fl. 150 or more, the following table shows the different men in the Imperial government who’s influence Hamburg aimed to employ, with exception of the already treated Aulic Councillors. The selection of gratified dignitaries at the following page is variegated indeed; it includes members of the bureaucracy, such as the previously mentioned Protokollant of the Council of Princes Dr. Krebs, Imperial government officials such as Kurz and Dr. Prickelmayer, and Electorate representatives like Dr. Von Reigersberger and Dr. Buschmann. Most remarkable perhaps, are these last loyalties that Moller and Meurer ‘purchased’ in the Council of Electors. Von Reigersbergen, Buschmann and Fritze were the first delegates of Mainz, Cologne and Brandenburg respectively. In late September and early October 1641, all received the same amount of fl. 300. A second observation is that the Hamburgers gratified no less than three members of the influential Imperial Privy Council: Von der Reck, Kurz and Prickelmayer. Especially these last two were important men at court.

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Table 3. Gratifications by Moller and Meurer, excluding members of the Aulic Council.

Date fl. Name Electorate Function PC CoE CoP 1 Oct 1.800 Count Kurz von - Reichsvizekanzler Yes Senftenau 3 Oct 150 Dr. J.A. Krebs Mainz KM Hofrat, Protocollant CoE 6 Jun 150 Dr. N.G. von Mainz KM Geheimrat, Yes Reigersberger Vizekanzler

24 Sep 300 Dr. N.G. von Mainz KM Geheimrat, Yes

1640 Reigersberger Vizekanzler 26 Sep 300 Dr. P. Buschmann Cologne KK Geheimrat Yes 9 Oct 300 Dr. P. Fritze Brandenburg KBr Rat, Yes Konsistorial- präsident 4 Nov 600 Dr. M. Prickelmayer - Geheimrat, Öst. Yes Yes Hofkanzler 1 Ma 180 Dr. N.G. von Mainz KM Geheimrat, Yes

Reigersberger Vizekanzler 1642 Total 3.180 6 2 3 1

Compared to their total mission expenses, the Hamburg diplomats spent about 10% on this type of gifts. How this related to gratifications by other Estates at the Diet is difficult to tell, although it looks as if Hamburg dwelt in the higher regions. If we look at this practice at the Westphalian Peace Congress, variations are enormous. For example Reigersberger, operating once more as the Elector of Mainz’s first representative, received more than 7.000 RT (fl. 10.500) out of the Spanish ambassador’s pocket. Still, his other gratifications amounted to 600, 400, 200 and 40 Reichsthaler – to these amounts, Hamburg’s total of 420 RT in Regensburg compares reasonably well. Considering also that Spain believed sacredly in the benefits of this practice and spent

65 less than 8% of its total budget on gratifications, it is safe to say that Hamburg was relatively eager in this field.226

4.2 Gift-giving This paragraph aims to assess the significance of gift-giving, also as a mechanism of affiliation; a practice that appeared in diplomatic practice since time immemorial, and increased during the monarchical state-building in the .227 Interestingly, there happens to be an early 20th century historiography of a diplomatic mission to Avignon pursued by Hamburg in the 14th century. This provides a couple of interesting differences and similarities between the expenses of Moller and Meurer at the Reichstag in Regensburg around 1640 and those of three Hamburg diplomats who travelled to the Papal Court in the years 1337 to 1355 in order to settle a dispute with the Diocese. At both missions, gift-giving was very common, to persons of high rank and servants alike, and pivoted around the Christian holidays. In the 14th century these occasions were however more frequent, including Easter and Whitsunday, whereas Moller and Meurer made special gifts to their domestic staff only at Christmas and to their diplomatic relations for the New Year, in the form of a courtesy gift of money. Also the 14th century custom of presenting lower-ranking relations with naturals, such as wine and game, and high-ranking relations with gifts of money had changed: Moller and Meurer presented most relations with gifts of money, with three exceptions.228 On their way to Regensburg, the diplomats purchased a dog basket, probably used for hunting, “fit to carry two dogs” as an attention to Vice-Chancellor Kurz von Senftenau.229 Apparently, a relational gift did not have to be expensive: Moller spent fl. 3 on Kurz’s attention. In February 1641 the Mecklenburg representative Zacharias de Quez received a gilded goblet in congratulation by the Hamburg Senate for his marriage celebration. Lastly, the Imperial Quartermaster (Reichsquartiermeister) Esaiah Gumpelzhaimer received a gilded carafe “for his advise” in September that year. With Gumpelzhaimer the diplomats had discussed the issue of Hamburg’s position and right of vote in the

226 Franz Bosbach, Die Kosten des Westfälischen Friedeskongresses, eine struktirheschichtlice Untersuchung, (Münster 1984), 205: Peñaranda spent atotal of 38.123,5 RT on gratifications, comp. To p. 226: total expenditure by Spain amounted to 501.344 RT 227 Davis, Nathalie Zemon, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France, (Oxford 2000), 12. 228 Dr. Th. Schrader, Die Rechnungsbücher der hamburgischen Gesandten in Avignon 1338 bis 1355 (Hamburg/Leipzig 1907), 87*-89*. 229 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 29 August 1640.

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Council of Cities.230 These two presents had cost fl. 41½ and fl. 61 respectively, qualifying them as pricy, shiny and allegedly beautiful gifts, although they were not of a value that approximated that of a gratification. As determined earlier, this category of diplomatic gifts started at around fl. 150.231 The gilded gifts to De Quez and Gumpelzhaimer seem to have functioned, considering also the occasion in the case of De Quez, foremost as personal tokens of appreciation. In case of De Quez, the gift appears to stress Hamburg’s valuation of good relations with Mecklenburg. As to the receiving of gifts, the accounts of the Hamburg envoy show only those received in natura, which are not many and accounted for solely because of the reward given to the person that was sent to hand it over. However scarce, these presents do provide an interesting insight in the contacts maintained by Hamburg’s envoys. We learn for example that the English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe (1581-1644) honoured Moller and Meurer with a wild boar in the week of their arrival in Vienna, on reception of which the Hamburgers paid Roe’s cook a Reichsthaler ‘drinking money’ (Trinkgeld).232 The Emperor had welcomed the envoy a few days earlier by sending over fruits from the Imperial Gardens.233 Regensburg City Director (Städtische Director) Dr. Johann Georg Halbritter (1591-1649) made a comparable gesture in September 1641 by having his son delivering “some fruits from his garden”. Because of the “interest” that Halbritter – an authority in property law – had taken in Hamburg’s insurance matter, pendant at the Reichskammergericht, he had been granted fl. 60 in May 1641. Apparently, the Hamburgers had maintained good relations with Halbritter after that. Moller and Meurer gave many examples of understanding the art of gift-giving, among which were quite a few gratifications, Kurz’s dog basket and the gilded gifts presented to the envoy of Mecklenburg and the Reichsquartiermeister. These, however, were gifts to dignitaries; the ‘footmen’ of Regensburg diplomacy received relational presents primarily around the New Year – and again these presents provide an interesting window upon Moller and Meurer’s Regensburg network. Now usually, those of lower social status were granted certain fees for their efforts, but these gifts of Trinckgeldt were more a direct compensation for the leaking,

230 Loose, ‘Hamburgische Gesandte auf dem Regensburger Reichstag 1640/41, at: ZFHG, Vol. 61 (1975), 21. 231 Examples: Dr. Krebs [Mainz. Hofrat, protokollant KfR] received a gratification of 150 fl. on 3 October 1640, Kurz von Senftenau was given 1.800 fl. on 1 October 1640. 232 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 30 October 1641. 233 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 27 Oct 1641.

67 copying or transmitting of a document, or the trouble of “calling at the house”.234 The New Year’s gifts on the contrary were relational presents, affirming more longstanding cooperation. These gifts extended also into the households of dignitaries.

Table 4. Gifts by Moller and Meurer “for the New Year”, winters of 1640/41 and 1641/42.

Date fl. Employer Function Added remark 20 Dec 6 AC Hildebrandt Servant

24 Dec 9 AC Gebhardt Servant 25 Dec 15 Emperor Imperial Trumpeters 26 Dec 48 Kurz Hofmeister 26 Dec 6 Kurz Chamberlain 26 Dec 9 Kurz Page boys and Liveries 26 Dec 78 Meurer&Moller Servants, Scribes, Coach Customary gift [for the attendants, Boys and New Year] Household

27 Dec 6 Mainz Chancell. Registrator Christiano 1640 28 Dec 450 Aulic Council AC-Secretary Söldener For the rescriptum, resolution and patent in the toll case and [for…] 28 Dec 6 Regensburg City Musicians 28 Dec 9 Mainz Chancell. Kanzelmeister Conrad Selfts 30 Dec 6 AC-president Secretary Immendorf 31 Dec 18 Holy Trinity Preachers Chapel 3 Jan 9 War Council Secretary Pres. Schlick

17 Dec 30 Aulic Council Protocollist Schweizer

641

1641 19 Dec 9 Aulic Council Doorman Bartholomaeo For 2 calendars, given to us [for…] 26 Dec 6 Postal service

234 Coachman of Saxony, received a silver crown – 1,5 RT.

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26 Dec 15 Emperor Imperial Trumpeters 27 Dec 9 Kurz Page boys, Liveries and Servants 27 Dec 3 Emperor Swiss Guard 28 Dec 3 War Council Doorman 31 Dec 1 ½ AC Soldener Boy 31 Dec 1 ½ Agent Gaßman Boy 4 Jan 6 AC-president Servant 4 Jan 12 AC-president Secretary Immendorf 5 Jan 9 Pawel Thomas, Scribe Extracts from the

AC-secretary protocols and [for…] 1642 17 Jan 9 Mainz Chancell. Registrator Christiano 17 Jan 9 Mainz Chancell. Kanzelmeister Conrad Selfts

The character of the New Year’s gift was of such intimacy that Hamburg’s diplomats bestowed it also – according to custom – upon their own domestic staff. The next winter, as the company had settled in Vienna, Moller and Meurer made a comparable gift at Christmas Eve. A form of personal, intimate relations with the New Year’s gift-giver can also be read from Moller and Meurer’s fl. 18 gift to the preachers of the Holy Trinity Chapel, considering that a handful of transactions indicate that the Hamburg representatives participated in the dealings of the parish.235 With this in mind, it is obvious to consider the New Year’s gifts a form of present that confirmed or forged a personal bond with its receiver. Not surprisingly, a number of loyal suppliers of information occur on the list. Agent Johann Gaßman’s errand boy (Jungen) for example. Also, we find the regular contacts at the Mainz Chancellery, Conrad Selft and Christiano, and doorman of the Reichshofrat Bartholomaeo, as well as Aulic Councillors Von der Reck, Gebhardt, Hildbrandt and Söldner and their servants. All Aulic Councillors appearing in table 4 were gratified at least double the amount of the other Reichshofräte and have their names attached to more than 6 transactions. Servants and their masters in this period were often treated as one fluid entity, which explains the

235 One preacher was thanked for “agreeable correspondence”, laypriests were thanked for bringing them the births and deaths of the past year.

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New Year’s donations to Count Kurz von Senftenau’s entourage as well as Ferdinand III’s Imperial Guard and Trumpeters. However, almost certainly not every servant on the list can be understood to have operated with his master’s consent. Of the President of the Imperial War Council Schlick, for example, nothing in the accounts or correspondence suggests that he was in any way involved in Hamburg’s diplomatic enterprise. Most importantly, Schlick had not received a gratification from Moller and Meurer. That indicates that Schlick’s Secretary effectively spied on his employer, and that this practice occurred in Regensburg as well. However small, gestures such as the New Year’s gifts point at friendly ties, indicating that certain relations that are not openly discussed in the preserved correspondence can be distilled from the financial accounts. Therefore, the last paragraph extends on Hamburg’s diplomacy on the basis of the financial accounts.

Reflection: Hamburg’s Imperial politics

So far, the accounts have shown that Hamburg’s gratifications targeted three members of the Privy Council, three key representatives for the Electorates of Mainz, Cologne and Brandenburg and quite a few members of the Aulic Council. These men were in positions to promote the city’s cause from within their respective parts of government – most importantly, to the Emperor. But what were Hamburg’s diplomatic alliances and affiliations an sich; which Estates were the city’s peers, friends and allies? According to some important historiography on the city of Hamburg, Braunschweig-Lüneburg had developed into one of its most valuable allies during the 1630’s.236 Indeed, Moller and Meurer’s payment of 300 ducats (fl. 900) on an Obligation – a letter of credit – that the Hamburg Treasury had issued to Count Friedrich of Braunschweig-Lüneburg’s representative Dr. Heinrich Langenbecken, speaks in favour of close ties between both powers; financial cooperation dovetailing with political collaboration. Similarly, the Emperor appears to have been on good terms with Hamburg at the Imperial Diet, the money transfer of fl. 300 from Aulic Councillor Schwarzenberg the Younger to Blumenthal that Moller and Meurer had agreed to facilitate underlining at least Hamburg’s willingness to humour the Emperor’s close advisors.

236 Jochmann, Loose (ed.), Hamburg: Geschichte der Stadt und Ihren Bewohner, 304.

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Another diplomatically relevant financial service that the Hamburgers lent, was their settling of a debt on behalf of Von Lützow, notably with Freiherr Heinrich Wilhelm von Leerodt (1609-1686), Privy Councillor to Count Wolfgang Philip von Pfalts-Neuburg (1578-1653). Von Leerodt was in Regensburg as deputy for the city of Jülich, near Cologne. According to Moller and Meurer’s accounts Von Leerodt was given a sum of fl. 150 as a debt payment on behalf of Von Lützow. This transaction shows foremost the degree of Hamburg’s entanglement with Von Lützow. Although there are no signs of further cooperation with Freiherr Von Leerodt or Dr. Langenbecken however, there are indications of friendly relations with members of the Brandenburg diplomatic corps – in addition to its gratification of the Elector’s first representative, Dr. Fritze. For just before the diplomats’ return to Hamburg, Brandenburg’s resident to the Emperor, by name of Rebeneck, was thanked with fl. 30 for his ‘guidance’ both in Regensburg and Vienna.237 This indicates that Rebeneck regularly advised the Hamburgers. It was also Rebeneck’s son (Söhnlein) that Moller and Meurer gave a ducat (fl. 3) to, which is twice as much as most relational, non-reciprocal presents.238 Considering Hamburg’s ‘natural allies’, the Hanseatic cities, the accounts show some sociable contact and some – not overly intensive – diplomatic cooperation, mostly on commercial grounds. Although Loose reports that Moller and Meurer, who were received by Magdeburg’s Senate when they travelled to Regensburg, accepted to add the city’s wish to be exempted from the Rome Months to Hamburg’s diplomatic agenda, no traces of further action or correspondence on the matter have settled in the accounts.239 In general, references to the Hanseatic League are scarce. One of these is the dinner (Gastereij) that Moller and Meurer enjoyed in May 1641, together with the ‘joint cities’.240 Furthermore, Frankfurter diplomats arranged for certain paperwork concerning the insurance cases to be sent from the Imperial Cameral Court in Speyer to

237 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 5 February 1642: “Dem Churbrandenburgischen Residenten daß er uns unterschiedlich an die handt gangen alhier undt zu Regensburg geben””. 5 Feb 1642. 238 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 25 November 1641. 239 Hans-Dieter Loose, ‘Hamburgische Gesandte auf dem Regensburger Reichstag 1640/41, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte von offentlicher Meinung und Diplomatie Hamburgs in der Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts’, at: Zeitschrift für Hamburgische Geschichte, Vol. 61 (1975), 20. 240 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16,13 May 1641; “samtliche städte ein gastereij gehalten, worzu wir auch geladen, jeder für sich 9 fl. bezahlt”.

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Regensburg in August that year. Also, a document on the Trittau tolls was prepared by Hamburg also in name of Bremen and Lübeck.241 When we turn to Hamburg’s other contacts, the courtesy that English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe paid the Hamburgers in October 1641, to send them a wild boar, is intriguing. Apart from the communications that the Senate sent to England and other European powers about the Elbe tolls, very little about Hamburg’s relation with England is to be found in the studied documents. Likewise, their departure gift of fl. 30 to ‘Statische residenten Herr Billerbeck’ is the only remnant of Moller and Meurer’s direct contacts with the United Provinces in Regensburg.242 Incidentally, Hendrick Billerbeck, previously despatched to the peace negotiations in Cologne on behalf of the Estates- General,243 is also mentioned by Bierther as an agent of Brandenburg.244 These contacts show that Hamburg’s relations with London and The Hague existed not only on paper. In order to come to grips with the full spectrum of Hamburg’s Imperial politics however, more research that draws from other archives is indispensable, and where some historians such as Karl-Klaus Weber and Stephan Schröder have started in archives abroad, there is still a lot to discover about Hamburg’s dealings with the other Estates of the Holy Roman Empire. The exact reasons behind its audiences with Bavaria, its friendly contacts with English Ambassador Roe and its purchase of documents on the Palatine Question cannot be found in the sources studied here, but it could be of some significance to Hamburg’s diplomatic historiography if future research would focus increasingly on Hamburg’s contacts with, say, Bavaria, Cologne, Mainz and Brandenburg.

241 HaStA 311-1 I_186 Band 16, 8 December 1642; “To the Dictatori, to dictate the memorial on the Trittowische tolls on behalf of Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg 6 fl.”. 242 NA 1.01.02 inv. Nr. 6079, 16 Oct 1641. 243 J.J. Poelhekke, De Vrede van Münster, (Den Haag 1948), 51. 244 Kathrin Bierther, Der Regensburger Reichstag von 1640/41, 266.

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Conclusion

This research has set out to present a bottom-up historic account of Hamburg’s external affairs around the Imperial Diet of 1640-’41; looking at the city’s diplomacy both within the Empire and outside it, and both in design and in its practical implementation. Using the parameters of New Diplomatic History, it has assessed Hamburg’s goals and methods, as well as the form of its diplomatic apparatus, and has treated at micro-level the everyday praxis of Hamburg’s diplomats in the Diet town of Regensburg. This has provided us with a sense of the dealings of a small, non-sovereign Estate at the Imperial Diet and how it could manifest influence on the Empire through diplomacy. Additionally, it has given us a peek into the clockwork of the 1640-‘41 Imperial Diet, the last one to convent before the Westphalian Peace negotiations started in 1643. Hamburg’s objectives for the Imperial Diet were typical for a commerce-driven , as were most Imperial Cities, agitating against tolls and advocating private merchants’ interests. Hamburg’s agenda was dominated by its problems with neighbouring Denmark for reasons shortly discussed in the first chapter. In short, Hamburg’s concerns can be characterised thematically as inspired by trade interests, territorial concerns and the city’s reservations about the taxes that Ferdinand III had asked from the Estates. We have seen various methods that Hamburg used to gain or exert influence. The Senate and its diplomats in Regensburg used gratifications quite enthusiastically in order to see its interests forwarded: the amount spent on this kind of lobby accounted for a rough 10% of the total expenditure. This ratio is comparable with that of Spain’s representatives at the Congress of Westphalia, which was relatively high. Beneficiaries of Hamburg’s gratifications moved in the highest circles of the Imperial government and its institutions. These included Imperial Vice-Chancellor Kurz von Senftenau, Austrian Chancellor Prickelmayer and President of the Aulic Council Von der Reck – all three of them members of the Emperor’s Privy Council. But also, Moller and Meurer presented gratifications to the first representatives of Mainz, Brandenburg and Cologne in the Council of Electors and to quite a few Aulic Councillors. Also, the Senate actively sought the support of the Electors in the Danish toll case, of Mainz and Cologne especially, as well as support from powers outside the Empire, such as the United Provinces and England. Even where Hamburg’s interests diverted from the period’s ‘great politics’ of

73 working towards peace in the Empire, its diplomatic toolset shows that the city was certainly no stranger to the ‘big diplomacy’ of the time. As treated in the second chapter, the correspondence shows that Hamburg’s diplomatic means could match those of Denmark, for example when we consider their use of publication in order to legitimise or contest Imperial policies. Hamburg also competed with Denmark for support from the Emperor, the Electors, foreign powers and the Imperial Aulic Council. Hamburg also utilised the Empire’s institutions to influence Imperial politics, although the ‘which’ and ‘how’ differs from case to case. The Imperial Diet for example was, in its parliamentary capacity at least, largely eschewed by Hamburg: it abstained from taking seat in the Council of Imperial Cities, and worked hard to gain bilateral support for its plans from the Emperor, Electors and the Imperial Aulic Council. Hamburg’s decision to attend the convention in Regensburg as a sideliner indicates that the possibilities for Hamburg to influence Imperial politics lay partly – if not mainly – outside the Diet’s official structure. As we have seen, the appeals that dealt before the Imperial Aulic Council around 1640 represent virtually all of Hamburg’s most poignant concerns, for example the Danish tolls on the Elbe, trade rights for Hamburg merchants in Denmark and protection against the Danish military threat from nearby Fuhlsbüttel. Hamburg’s reliance on this legal court is mirrored by the gratifications that the diplomats Moller and Meurer imposed on members of the Aulic Council: about half of the members that were present in Regensburg received a gift exceeding fl. 150, and its President Von der Reck was even presented with a total of fl. 2.300. Turning to the form of Hamburg’s diplomacy and external policy, I have argued that Hamburg fared a predominantly pro-Imperial course, but with some reservations. It chose to humour the Emperor in general, but remained loyal to its own interests for example in its refusal to allow Imperial troops into the city. Concerning this self- consciousness, the correspondence between Hamburg’s diplomats and the Senate has shown that the city considered itself a very important Estate within the Empire. As to Hamburg’s manifestation in Regensburg based on the envoy’s financial accounts, the city’s arrangement fits the specifications of Bosbach’s ‘Estately model’ of diplomacy, with a first representative – Moller – and a second representative – Meurer. The correspondence has shown in one respect – there might have been more examples had there been more letters by Moller and Meurer – that the diplomats in Regensburg were allowed to make significant political decisions independently from the

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Senate’s instructions. In this case concerning the question if Hamburg was to plead for free navigation on the Elbe and cassation of toll collection by Denmark, or claim the rights to levy these tolls itself. Also in their expenditures, Moller and Meurer were free enough to exceed the Treasury’s budget – although they did have to account for that to the Assembly of Citizens later. Lastly, regarding Hamburg’s diplomatic apparatus, the sources have shown that except the extraordinary ambassadors, Hamburg’s Consuls on the Iberian Peninsula and a Hanseatic representative in The Hague, Hamburg’s corps diplomatique also included Agents who operated as lobbyists. Stupanus, Sterenberg and Gaßman in Vienna all received mandates from the Senate to influence certain processes, such as the Viennese Imperial Court with respect to the Danish Elbe tolls and the insurance cases at the Imperial Cameral Court in Speyer. Concerning the everyday reality of the Hamburg diplomats’ activities in Regensburg, they were actively spending funds in order to gain influence and information; through gratifications, gift-exchange and attending socials, and – judging from the gratifications and New Year’s gifts – maintained a wide range of contacts. These included both high and low-ranking people, as well as courtiers, bureaucrats, diplomats’ family- and household members. Compensations for their services differed according to social status, and – in the case of the bureaucrats – according to the value of the documents they provided. The practicalities of gaining information include maintaining a diverse network of contacts, receiving household personnel that sold information, paying members of the bureaucracy, administrative staff of other diplomats and dignitaries for intelligence, and the accounts even give some evidence of spying, notably in the case of War Council President Schlick. Typical contemporary traits of Hamburg’s diplomatic conduct in Regensburg were the diplomats’ concern with proper representation, signalling status with nice clothing for their staff, their engagement in charity and their training in eloquence. Interestingly, Moller and Meurer seem to have been part of the city community in the sense that they were involved in the Lutheran parish, and had several dealings with the town’s dignitaries, such as Syndicus Pfafdenreuter and Director Halbritter, as well as the city archives and the cities’ Latin School. Among Hamburg’s friendly diplomatic relations were several Hanseatic cities such as Lübeck, Bremen, Magdeburg and Frankfurt, councillors of the Emperor such as Aulic Councillor Count von Schwarzenberg and one of the representatives of

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Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Not all partnerships – most notably with the Hanse – seem to have been very intensive, although some others were; judging for example from the special donation Moller and Meurer made out of gratitude for the ‘guidance’ they received from Brandenburg’s representative Rebeneck. On the basis of the bottom-up account presented in the third chapter, it is safe to say that the Hamburg diplomats’ actions at the Imperial Diet of 1640-’41 and the way in which they were able to perform their duties of representation, negotiation, information and affiliation, show that Regensburg functioned more or less as an open marketplace for information and diplomatic services, in which the personal and the professional were strongly intertwined. Hamburg’s gratifications and other presents gave Moller and Meurer access to the services of people of all ranks and files, and the lower-ranking staff, the ‘footmen’ of diplomacy such as the doorman to the Imperial Aulic Council, clearly played a large role in the everyday process of Diet diplomacy. In all, Hamburg’s access to government dignitaries and its use of the services of Imperial bureaucrats demonstrate a more versatile and active diplomatic involvement in Imperial diplomacy than perhaps envisioned earlier by scholars like Loose. Although further research on Hamburg’s relations with other Imperial Estates could shed an interesting light on the city’s possible involvement in ‘great politics’, it is good to note that key to this study’s approach has been the diplomatic process rather than its results, having thus arrived at a more nuanced and broader understanding of the city of Hamburg as a diplomatic actor within the Empire. Positively defined, its diplomacy operated at eye-level with that of the King of Denmark, using funds, support from the Electors and publication in a similar fashion and to a comparable degree. Hamburg’s engagement with the Empire’s dignitaries, bureaucrats and institutions such as the Imperial Aulic Council, show Hamburg’s ready use of the institutions of the Holy Roman Empire, and underline that in important respects the city was far from diplomatically isolated or disengaged with matters of Empire.

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