Natal’ya Aleksandrovna Berezhnaya PhD in History, associate professor, Saint Petersburg State University, Institute of History (7/9 Universitetskaya nab., Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia)
n.berezhnaya@spbu.ru, natalialandi@mail.ru
Berezhnaya N.A. The spouses of German princes in the funeral sermons of the Thirty Years’ War era, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], pp. 116–143.
doi: 10.24412/2308-0698-2025-14-112-138
Language: Russian
Since the 1970s, funeral sermons of the Early Modern Period have been actively studied by historians with biographical information about the deceased considered a precursor to the biographies of the 17–19th centuries. Sermons dedicated to the German nobility demonstrate the rhetoric of power — that is, how representatives of the princely and urban elites wished to present themselves to their subjects and the community. However, «women’s» funeral sermons are less studied than those dedicated to men. Until recently, it was generally believed that the biographical information in women’s funeral sermons was based on topoi and bore little relation to actual historical events. However, it has appeared that funeral sermons dedicated to the spouses of German princes played the same role as those dedicated to the princes themselves. The presence and content of a biographical note depended on the social status of the deceased woman, the preacher’s acquaintance with her, and the goals of the person ordering the sermon. This article examines protestant funeral sermons from the 1640s and 1650s: Johann Hund’s sermon on the death of Louise Juliana of the Palatinate, Johann Bergius’s sermon on the death of Electress Louise Juliana of Orange-Nassau, and three sermons — by Christoph Zeller, Melchior Nicolai, and Johann Joachim Schuelin — on the death of Duchess Barbara Sophie of Württemberg. It should be noted that biographical information expands in the second third of the 17th century. The Thirty Years’ War contributed to the emergence of the motive of «exodus and return» to the fatherland, or death in a foreign land followed by the return of only the deceased’s bones to the fatherland. Rare biblical characters (Ruth and Naomi, Deborah) appear in mourning compositions, who until that time were practically unknown to the «mass» reader.
Key words: funeral sermons, Thirty Years’ War, Louise Juliana of OrangeNassau, Louise Juliana of the Palatinate, Barbara Sophia, duchess of Württemberg, Johann Bergius
URL: https://rcs-almanac.ru/berezhnaya2025-en/
