Last year I went to an exhibition at the Städel museum in Frankfurt that was entitled Holbein and the Renaissance in the North. That is the elder Holbein, the father of the Holbein who came to England. This exhibition has now ended, but there is still a great summary available on the Städel website (https://holbein.staedelmuseum.de/en) .

Though obviously not present at the exhibition, one key focus was the Fugger chapel in the church of St. Anne in Augsburg, one of the earliest and most significant Renaissance building north of the Alps. I wanted to kick off this episode with this chapel and then move on to Holbein, Burgkmair etc. But as I dug deeper and deeper into the late 15th and early 16th century art in Southern Germany, the more connections and links emerged that I hope you will find as fascinating as I did.

Links to artworks:

Fugger chapel: Die Fuggerkapelle | St. Anna Augsburg (https://www.st-anna-augsburg.de/die-f...)

Riemenschneider Heilig Blut Altar: The Altar of the Holy Blood | Reliquarian (https://reliquarian.com/2013/03/02/th...)

The Hare: Young Hare, 1502 - Albrecht Durer - WikiArt.org (https://www.wikiart.org/en/albrecht-d...)

Schongauer St. Anthony: Martin Schongauer | Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...)

Rhinocerus: Albrecht Dürer | The Rhinoceros | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (

Jakob Fugger had been dubbed the Richest Man Who Ever Lived, but there are many more contenders, my favorite being an African, Mansa Musa, the ninth Mansa of the Mali empire whose generous gifts during a visit to Mecca in 1324 triggered a currency crisis.

That is something Jakob Fugger would never have done. He never was a flamboyant banker who impressed his contemporaries with lavish displays of wealth. He was actually fairly dull. If anyone in the firm of Fugger was flamboyant, it was the chief accountant.

So if Jakob is a bit of a pale shadow, the story of what happened in the world of European Finance between 1480 and 1520 is anything but boring. Within just 40 years the heart of the banking industry moved from Florence and Venice where it had held sway since it was invented and moved north, into a medium sized Swabian city, Augsburg.

That is as if JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley closed their doors and in their stead some local players from Scandinavia or Mexico took over the financing of the Global economy.

I am not kidding, something like that really happened back in the late 15th century.

he music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

As always:

Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com

If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast

Facebook: @HOTGPod

Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast

Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social

Instagram: history_of_the_germans

Twitter: @germanshistory

To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.

So far I have:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen

Frederick II Stupor Mundi

Saxony and Eastward Expansion

The Hanseatic League

The Teutonic Knights

Ravensburg, and you are very much forgiven if you cannot place it on the map, is today a town of 50,000 in the far south eastern corner of Baden-Württemberg between Friedrichshafen, home of the Zeppelins, and the city of Ulm and its majestic church tower.

If you have heard of it, it may be because of Ravensburger, the publisher of puzzles and boardgames, but you would not have associated it with any great mercantile or commercial activity.

Nevertheless, in the 15th century it housed the headquarters of a company that held a near monopoly in the trade between Spain and the empire and in certain wares, namely linen and a special cloth variously called barchent, bombast or fustian.

Before we get into Ravensburger and the Grosse Handelsgesellschaft, we need to put the whole region into the context of the free imperial cities of the 15th century.

Trading routes of the HABW_11_03_Ravensburger_Handelsgesellschaft.jpg (4957×3535) (https://www.leo-bw.de/media/kgl_atlas...)

he music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

As always:

Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com

If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast

Facebook: @HOTGPod

Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast

Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social

Instagram: history_of_the_germans

Twitter: @germanshistory

To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.

So far I have:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen

Frederick II Stupor Mundi

The counts, dukes and ultimately kings of Württemberg had risen to the top by winning the genetic lottery. Their eldest sons tended to be competent, some even extremely so, their wives brought in dowries and sometimes entire counties, and they ruled for long enough that the next generation took over when they were ready.

But all that falls apart in the 15th century. They are suddenly afflicted with the disease of dynasties, states inherited by babies and buffoons, some of them managing to be both. That would normally be the death nail for a noble House, but not this time.

The Landtag, the Estates of Württemberg step in to protect the fledgling state, deposing buffoons when necessary and ruling on behalf of the babies. This is one of the lesser known and even more extraordinary political histories in europe and well worth listening to.

And as a bonus we also investigate why the regions around Stuttgart, Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Freiburg have become hubs of technology and precision engineering, an area where there was no coal, no mining or any other natural advantage – except for the wine – no seriously, it was the wine.

Can Winegrowing Cause Rural Development? Evidence from Baden-Württemberg | European Review of Economic History | Oxford Academic (https://academic.oup.com/ereh/advance...)

he music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

As always:

Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com

If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast

Facebook: @HOTGPod

Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast

Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social

Instagram: history_of_the_germans

Twitter: @germanshistory

To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.

So far I have:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Between the time the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901 and 1933, a total of 31 were awarded to German scientists and politicians. To name just a few, Wilhelm Röntgen (1901), Max Planck (1918), Albert Einstein (1921) and Werner Heisenberg (1932) for Physics, Emil Fischer (1902), Fritz Haber (1918), Walther Nernst (1920) and Hans Fischer (1930) for chemistry, Emil von Behring (1901), Robert Koch (1905) and Otto Warburg (1931) for medicine, Theodor Mommsen (1902), Gerhart Hauptmann (1912) and Thomas Mann (1929) for literature and Gustav Stresemann for peace.

The UK and France received 17 and 15 respectively, whilst the US picked up just 6 during that same period.

How could German universities rise to such dominance during the 19th and early 20th century from very humble beginnings? That is what we will look at in this episode.

he music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

As always:

Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com

If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast

Facebook: @HOTGPod

Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast

Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social

Instagram: history_of_the_germans

Twitter: @germanshistory

To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.

So far I have:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen

Frederick II Stupor Mundi

Saxony and Eastward Expansion

The Hanseatic League

The Teutonic Knights

The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356

The Reformation before the Reformation

This week it is back to the political landscape of the empire. We will travel upriver from Mainz via Worms and the not yet existent cities of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen to Heidelberg, my old hometown.

And there we will meet the man who held one of the empire’s most confusing titles, the count Palatinate of the Rhine, Elector and High Steward of the Empire. His name is Friedrich, Friedrich der Siegreiche, Frederick the Victorious, and being victorious is barely half of what is interesting about him.

he music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

As always:

Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com

If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast

Facebook: @HOTGPod

Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast

Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social

Instagram: history_of_the_germans

Twitter: @germanshistory

To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.

So far I have:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen

Frederick II Stupor Mundi

Saxony and Eastward Expansion

The Hanseatic League

The Teutonic Knights

The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356

The Reformation before the Reformation

This week we are setting off on our tour of the empire for real. And where better to start than with the most senior, most august of the seven prince Electors, the archbishop of Mainz, archchancellor of the empire, and holder of the decisive vote in imperial elections.

We have already encountered a number of archbishops of Mainz in this podcast, from the treacherous Frederick who tried to overthrow Otto the Great (ep.3), to Willigis, the eminence grise of the empire under Otto II, Otto III and Henry II (ep.10-19) , Adalbert, first advisor and then adversary of Henry V (ep. 40), Peter von Aspelt, the man who put the Luxemburgs on the Bohemian throne (ep. 145) and lots more.

But this series is not about grand imperial politics, but about the grimy territorial skullduggery inside the empire. And for Mainz this is a story that is deeply entangled with the history of Hessen.

Where Mainz is ancient, tracing its’ eminence back to a saint who had come across the water, Hessen was a new kid on the block amongst the imperial princes. But a very successful one. And at its beginning stood the 24 year-old daughter of a saint holding up her baby son to be acclaimed lord by the people, or some such thing.

Maps of Mainz, the Landgraviate of Thuringia and Hessen: Maps • History of the Germans Podcast

he music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

As always:

Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com

If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast

Facebook: @HOTGPod

Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast

Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social

Instagram: history_of_the_germans

Twitter: @germanshistory

To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.

So far I have:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen

Frederick II Stupor Mundi

Saxony and Eastward...