The Empire in the 15th Century

Over The Empire in the 15th Century

This is the time when the empire reaches its most challenging phase. This is not the difficult second album, this is more Tina Turner in 1982 when her cover of shame, shame, shame reached #47 in the Netherlands charts. This is where we see the beginnings of actual states and state bureaucracies developing in Germany. But these states were extremely fragile, likely to be overrun by enemies, divided amongst multiple sons or incorporated into larger entties. War was almost constant, as were dramas of love and pride. Despite all this strife and feuding, this is also a time of great innovation. Gutenberg came up with the printing press, a technology that would undermine the authority of the Catholic church, fan the flames which led to the Reformation, create the communications infrastructure needed for the rise of modern science and even – if Neil Postman is to be believed – lead to the invention of childhood as an extended, protected phase in the lives of young people. Like the internet and social media, the printing press demanded new types of content: maps, encyclopedias, fiction, political pamphlets and engravings, opening the world up to the world. This podcast is part of the broader History of the Germans podcast that aims to track the history of the German people from the Early Middle Ages to Reunification in 1991. If you enjoy this show, check out any of the other seasons or follow the main show. So far I have the following seasons: The Ottonians (919 AD-1024 AD) Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy (1024 AD-1125 AD) Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen (1125-1190) Frederick II Stupor Mundi (1190-1268) Saxony and Eastward Expansion The Hanseatic League The Teutonic Knights The Holy Roman Empire (1250 AD -1356 AD) The Reformation before the Reformation (1356AD -1439 AD) The Empire in the 15th Century The Fall and Rise of the Habsburgs (1439AD -1519 AD)

Mapping the World, or how Germans invented America

When you enter the great hall of the Thomas Jefferson building at the Library of Congress in Washington, the first exhibit you will be facing is their Gutenberg Bible. And it is one of the finest Gutenberg bibles around, one of only three surviving pristine copies on vellum. This was the kind of bible that was so expensive to produce, it bankrupted Gutenberg. When the Library of Congress bought it in 1930, they paid $375,000, roughly $7.5m in today’s money. But this is not the most expensive piece in the library’s collection. That would a work by two Germans, Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. And it is not even a book, but a map. Not a small map, it is 2.3m or 91 inches wide and 1.3m or 50 inches tall. And this map, printed in 1507 claimed to be: A DESCRIPTION OF THE WHOLE WORLD ON BOTH A GLOBE AND A FLAT SURFACE WITH THE INSERTION OF THOSE LANDS UNKNOWN TO PTOLEMY DISCOVERED BY RECENT MEN And the authors wrote that the three continents known since antiquity, Europe, Africa and Asis, quote "have in fact now been more widely explored, and a fourth part has been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci (as will be heard in what follows). Since both Asia and Africa received their names from women, I do not see why anyone should rightly prevent this [new part] from being called Amerigen—the land of Amerigo, as it were—or America, after its discoverer, Americus, a man of perceptive character." End quote. This fourth part, they said was “surrounded on all sides by the ocean”. And indeed, in the left lower corner we find a fourth continent, a thin, stretched thing, with few place names and a western shore that hints at the Peruvian bulge, unmistakably, South America and then to north of it a very indistinguishable blob of land. This map, proudly displayed as America’s Birth Certificate, is full of the most intriguing mysteries. How did Waldseemüller and Ringmann know that the Americas had a western shore, when it was only in 1513, 6 years later, that a European first glanced the Pacific? How did the name America stick though Amerigo Vespucci had neverled an expedition, not even commanded a ship? But most of all, why was this first map of America drawn not by a Spanish or Portuguese navigator, but by two Germans in the employ of the duke of Lorraine, working in St. Die, which is as far away from the sea as one can get in Western Europe. And then, more generally, what did the Germans have to do with the discoveries, the maps and globes that told the world about them? That is what we will explore 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 [https://www.windrep.org/Michel_Rondeau] under Common Creative Licence 3.0 [https://imslp.org/wiki/Flute_Sonata_in_E-flat_major%2C_H.545_%28Bach%2C_Carl_Philipp_Emanuel%29]. As always: Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com [https://historyofthegermans.com/] If you wish to support the show go to: Support • History of the Germans Podcast [https://historyofthegermans.com/support-2/] Facebook: @HOTGPod [https://www.facebook.com/HOTGPod/] Threads: @history_of_the_germans_podcast [https://www.threads.net/@history_of_the_germans_podcast] Bluesky: @hotgpod.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/hotgpod.bsky.social] Instagram: history_of_the_germans [https://www.instagram.com/history_of_the_germans/?hl=en-gb] Twitter: @germanshistory [https://twitter.com/germanshistory?lang=en] 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 [https://podfollow.com/ottonians] Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy [https://podfollow.com/salian-emperors] Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen [https://podfollow.com/salian-emperors-2] Frederick II Stupor Mundi [https://podfollow.com/salian-emperors-1] Saxony and Eastward Expansion [https://podfollow.com/saxony-and-eastward-expansion] The Hanseatic League [https://podfollow.com/the-hanseatic-league] The Teutonic Knights [https://podfollow.com/the-teutonic-knights] The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356 [https://podfollow.com/the-holy-roman-empire-1250-1356] The Reformation before the Reformation [https://podfollow.com/1803590966]

16 jan 2026 - 48 min