Podcasts about hapsburg empire

It wasn't a love match (at least at first, for Mary) but it was a political match that brought England into the huge Hapsburg Empire. Let's talk about the marriage of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain. As always, thank you for your listenership, friend! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He's the husband of Catherine de' Medici, the lover of Diane de Poitiers, the father-in-law of Mary, Queen of Scots. Can Henry II stand out in a period dominated by these legendary women? How will he fare against the might of the Hapsburg Empire? And how will he reconcile his religion with the unlikely allies he has to make?⚜️  Visit our Wordpress for episode images, score summaries, contact details and more! Make sure you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.You can also support the show on Patreon! Join the official Angry Mob and get access to our bonus content: movie reviews, deep dives, bonus biographies and our exclusive spinoff series rating the Royal Mistresses!Support the Show.⚜️Battle Royale's intro/outro music is "Dansez" by Fasion. Thank you to them for making this track free to use and listen! Go check out more of their stuff here.⚜️CATEGORIESBen and Eliza each give a score out of 10 for the first 4 categories. The 5th is determined by maths! The result is a total score out of 100. Enchanté: The shallow, first-impressions round: How fabulous and iconic an image have they passed down to us? En Garde: (A.K.A. “Selfish Wins”) How well did they gain and increase their personal power, either through scheming, statesmanship or good old fashion battles? Voulez-Vous: (A.K.A. “Selfless Wins”) How much would we want to live under their regime? How well did they better the world around them through law reforms and cultural projects? Ouh-Là-Là: How pearl-clutchingly scandalous were the events of their life, both in their time and down through the ages? How mad, bad and dangerous were they to know? La Vie en Throne: How many years did they reign, and how many of their children survived them? For more details on the scores, how they are calculated and how our kings are ranking, visit our website.

From the 1760s into the 1830s, waves of revolutions rolled up upon the shores of the Atlantic World, confusing or destroying entrenched political and social hierarchies, and ushering in a new era of democratic rule. These of course were headlined by the American and French Revolutions, but there were no less important ones that quickly followed: not only the Haitian revolution, but in the Andes, in Italy, and eventually throughout the Spanish and Portuguese empires in the Americas. It was a period of unprecedented and–perhaps–unmatched political, economic, social, and artistic upheaval.  This is the canvas for Nathan Perl-Rosenthal in his new book The Age of Revolutions: And the Generations Who Made It. It spans multiple continents, touching on both familiar and very unfamiliar people and places. Nathan Perl-Rosenthal is Professor of History at the University of Southern California. His previous book was Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution.  For Further Investigation As I said at the beginning of the conversation, this is one of a series on the revolutionary connections of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For an intro, see my conversation with David Bell in Episode 176. Micah Alpaugh described how certain means were adopted and adapted by revolutionary movements in that era. And Episode 288 with Jonathan Singerton was about the influence of the American Revolution on the Hapsburg Empire.

Black Johann, the master blacksmith of the Hapsburg Empire, is dead and competitors for the vacant job gather every two weeks at the Golden Eagle Inn to try to fill Black Johann's shoes. When Red Willem, a notorious agitator against the Jews of his country, applies for the job, young Israel of Burgos steps up to prevent Red Willem from winning the prestigious role.

Welcome to Episode 1515, in which Cynthia Chaplin interviews Massimo Tarter of Cantina d'Isera in this installment of Voices, on the Italian Wine Podcast. The winery is awarded the Best Sparkling Wine 2023 Trophy for Trento DOC Extra Brut Riserva 907 2017, in 5StarWines – the Book wine selection in 2023 More about today's guest The Cantina d'Isera is a cooperative winery founded in 1907, at the time of the Hapsburg Empire. Created by the will of the winemakers of the area, it was already harvesting the precious grapes of the basaltic hills of Isera. Always dedicated to the production of Marzemino di Isera , a symbolic wine of the area that has found the ideal habitat on the dark basaltic soils of Isera, since 2004 the Cantina di Isera has also enthusiastically dedicated itself to the production of Trento Doc in the versions of Brut, Brut Riserva and Extra Brut. Connect: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cantinadisera/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cantinaisera/ Website: https://www.cantinaisera.it/ About today's Host: Cynthia Chaplin is a VIA certified Italian Wine Ambassador, a professional sommelier with FIS and the WSA, a member of Le Donne del Vino, and a Professor of Italian wine and culture. Born in the USA, she's lived in Europe since 1990. Italian wine, in particular rosé, is her passion. She works with embassies, corporations and private clients, creating and presenting tastings, events, seminars and in-depth courses. Cynthia is a wine writer, a judge at international wine and sake competitions, she consults with restaurants and enotecas developing comprehensive wine lists and food pairings, and she advises clients who want to curate an Italian wine collection. She currently works for Vinitaly International in Verona as a Project Manager, Educator, and the host of VOICES Series on The Italian Wine Podcast, focusing on diversity and inclusion in the global wine industry. Connect: Facebook: Italian Wines in English Instagram: kiss_my_glassx Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-chaplin-190647179/ _______________________________ Let's keep in touch! Follow us on our social media channels: Instagram www.instagram.com/italianwinepodcast/ Facebook www.facebook.com/ItalianWinePodcast Twitter www.twitter.com/itawinepodcast Tiktok www.tiktok.com/@mammajumboshrimp LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/italianwinepodcast If you feel like helping us, donate here www.italianwinepodcast.com/donate-to-show/ Until next time, Cin Cin! Share this pod! Remember Voices is all about diversity, equity, and heart-warming personal stories about real people!

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow #NATO: #EU: #Russia: #PRC: Both Hapsburg-Empire-born economic modelers --  Hayek vs Polanyi -- market vs management  -- fail in a crisis. Antonia Colibasanu, Bucharest, Geopolitical Futures https://geopoliticalfutures.com/to-change-the-world-china-must-change/

Scrooge is practically tangible in the room with us today. Actually that’s me. As usual it falls to the sensible people to do the important work of wishing you a Merry Christmas in an entertaining and informative way. So in the absence of any sensible people on the FOH team, we’ve drafted in a glamourous assistant to do the work for us in this episode, which will be a short sleigh ride through some of the historic events we’ve covered on the podcast, as well as some we haven’t. Our assistant will draw from the hat (ok Dan, beret) each time a number linking to a particular theme. There are as always varying interpretations of the brief. For some reason, I singularly failed to make any of mine Christmassy, but Dan’s make up for it! In case you can’t keep up with what is probably our greatest rapport to date (given that Dan sounds about 30 years older than usual due to inexplicable illness, probably not), what we discuss is listed below: 1 - The number of frost fairs held on the Thames in the 19th Century (1814). 2 - The actual number of governments there were in Revolutionary France in 1848. 3 - The number of print runs A Christmas Carolwent through in December 1843 (published on 19 December 1843). 4 - The number of armies on the march in the Hapsburg Empire in 1848 5 - 1845 - the Irish potato famine. Episode: https://footnotesofhistory.com/28 6 - Premier of The Nutcracker in the Old Style calender (6 December 1892). Episode: https://footnotesofhistory.com/27 7 - The number of the Pre-Raphaelites, one of whom; Edward Burne-Jones painted many versions of the Nativity. Episode: https://footnotesofhistory.com/26 8 - For the year of the general election 1868, the year after Disraeli extended the franchise to the working classes… then lost. 9 - 1869 and the completion of Monet's painting 'The Magpie '. Episode: https://footnotesofhistory.com/18 10 - For our tenth episode The Great Stink - still one of my favourites. Episode: https://footnotesofhistory.com/10 11 - In the song, it's usually “Swans a Swimming” so we can talk about The Swan King. (NB: it’s actually Seven Swans a Swimming in the Christmas song, but I think we got away with this one) Episode: https://footnotesofhistory.com/29 12 - December 1812, the Grand Armèe is chased out of Russia. P.S. Make sure you sign up to our email list and play the revolution game here: https://footnotesofhistory.com/revolutionchallenge, become an FOH legionnaire and pick up your special Christmas present from the FOH team! You won’t regret it!

Quinn Slobodian joins me to talk about neoliberalism as a project of institutional design, the significance of the Hapsburg Empire to the neoliberal concept of double government that came to be instantiated in such institutions as the WTO, the IMF, and the EU, and we also talked about whether capital's solution to the collapse in consent for neoliberal governmentality could be something even worse.

Quinn Slobodian joins me to talk about neoliberalism as a project of institutional design, the significance of the Hapsburg Empire to the neoliberal concept of double government that came to be instantiated in such institutions as the WTO, the IMF, and the EU and we also talked about whether capital's solution to the collapse in consent for neoliberal governmentality could be something even worse.

Angela Hamilton was raised by a tyrannical father, who terrorised his family. Decades later, she found out the truth about what he'd done during WWII

The Austrian satirical writer Karl Kraus used his forensic pen to expose the Hapsburg Empire and 20th century Vienna for its dishonesty and decay. He was the master of the punchy one liner, as well as being extremely prolific: his magazine Die Fackel ran to 922 editions, that's some 22 thousand pages, and Kraus wrote most of them. He was also full of contradictions: he could be both progressive and reactionary, sometimes profound and sometimes petty, and while he was born into affluence he remained concerned by other people's poverty. Many of his contradictions could be equally applied to the cultural world of Vienna itself in this period of turmoil and transition. And this makes Kraus - the journalist, poet, playwright, actor, lecturer and acerbic aphorist - a uniquely scathing and illuminating guide to this important historical epoch and the city at its heart. Rajan Datar talks about Kraus with Dr. Katharina Prager from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History and Society, Dr. Simon Ganahl from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, both in Vienna, and Germanist Dr. Ari Linden from the University of Kansas. Photo: Karl Kraus (Imagno/Getty Images)

My guest for this episode is Mark Koyama of George Mason University. Our topic is a recent paper titled, "States and Economic Growth: Capacity and Constraints," which Mark coauthored with Noel Johnson. Just recorded at great podcast with @GarrettPetersen on my work on state capacity (with @ndjohnson). — Mark Koyama (@MarkKoyama) May 24, 2017 As stated in the paper, "state capacity describes the ability of a state to collect taxes, enforce law and order, and provide public goods." That said, state capacity does not mean big government. A state may have the power to impose rules across its territory, but it doesn't have to use that power in a tyrannical way. Another way of saying that is to say that having a high state capacity is compatible with Adam Smith's desire for "peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice." One metric that researchers use to measure state capacity is tax revenue per capita. But as Mark is careful to point out, a state with less state capacity can still sometimes achieve a relatively high income through tax farming. This is the practice in many pre-modern states of auctioning off the right to extract tax revenues to local elites in different regions. We discuss the rise of modern nation-states in various regions, and why some states developed more state capacity than others going into the twentieth century. In particular, we discuss Europe's transition away from a feudal system ruled in a decentralized way by monarchs who held power based on their personal relationships with local lords. England's Glorious Revolution of 1688 allowed it to develop its state capacity earlier than other European nations, with a centralized tax system controlled by parliament. By contrast, continental powers like the French Ancien Régime and the Hapsburg Empire were legally and fiscally fragmented, leading them to develop their state capacity much later than England. We also discuss the development of state capacity in Asia, and why Meiji Japan was able to develop its state capacity much faster than Qing Dynasty China.  

What do a failed war by the Ottomans against the Hapsburg Empire, a rural rebellion in eastern Anatolia, the disappearance of the Roanoke colony, and near starvation at Jamestown, Santa Fe, and Quebec City have in common? They all take place during a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, which brought extreme climate conditions, drought, heavy winters, and contributed to rising fuel prices, failing crops and massive civil unrest in places as diverse as North America and the Middle East. Guest Sam White from Ohio State University makes the convincing argument that environmental and climactic factors are as influential in human history as economic, social, political, and cultural factors, and suggests a cautionary tale for human history as it enters another period of climate change.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Andrew Wheatcroft, Claire Norton and Jeremy Black discuss the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, when the Ottoman Empire tried to capture the capital city of the Hapsburg monarchs. The ensuing tale of blood and drama helped define the boundaries of Europe. In June 1683, a man called Kara Mustafa made a journey to Vienna. That a Muslim Turk should come to a Catholic city was not unusual, but Kara Mustafa did so at the head of the Ottoman Army. Vienna was the capital of the Hapsburg Empire and he intended to take it. The ensuing siege has been held responsible for many things, from the invention of the croissant to the creation of Viennese coffee. But most importantly, it has come to be seen as a clash of civilisations, one that helped to define a series of boundaries, between Europe and Asia, Christian and Muslim, Hapsburg and Ottoman, that influence the view between Vienna and Istanbul to this day. But to see the siege as a defining moment in east/west relations may be to read back into history an idea that was not true at the time.Claire Norton is Lecturer in History at St Mary's University College, London; Andrew Wheatcroft is Professor of International Publishing at Stirling University; Jeremy Black is Professor of History at the University of Exeter.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Andrew Wheatcroft, Claire Norton and Jeremy Black discuss the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, when the Ottoman Empire tried to capture the capital city of the Hapsburg monarchs. The ensuing tale of blood and drama helped define the boundaries of Europe. In June 1683, a man called Kara Mustafa made a journey to Vienna. That a Muslim Turk should come to a Catholic city was not unusual, but Kara Mustafa did so at the head of the Ottoman Army. Vienna was the capital of the Hapsburg Empire and he intended to take it. The ensuing siege has been held responsible for many things, from the invention of the croissant to the creation of Viennese coffee. But most importantly, it has come to be seen as a clash of civilisations, one that helped to define a series of boundaries, between Europe and Asia, Christian and Muslim, Hapsburg and Ottoman, that influence the view between Vienna and Istanbul to this day. But to see the siege as a defining moment in east/west relations may be to read back into history an idea that was not true at the time.Claire Norton is Lecturer in History at St Mary's University College, London; Andrew Wheatcroft is Professor of International Publishing at Stirling University; Jeremy Black is Professor of History at the University of Exeter.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Andrew Wheatcroft, Claire Norton and Jeremy Black discuss the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, when the Ottoman Empire tried to capture the capital city of the Hapsburg monarchs. The ensuing tale of blood and drama helped define the boundaries of Europe. In June 1683, a man called Kara Mustafa made a journey to Vienna. That a Muslim Turk should come to a Catholic city was not unusual, but Kara Mustafa did so at the head of the Ottoman Army. Vienna was the capital of the Hapsburg Empire and he intended to take it. The ensuing siege has been held responsible for many things, from the invention of the croissant to the creation of Viennese coffee. But most importantly, it has come to be seen as a clash of civilisations, one that helped to define a series of boundaries, between Europe and Asia, Christian and Muslim, Hapsburg and Ottoman, that influence the view between Vienna and Istanbul to this day. But to see the siege as a defining moment in east/west relations may be to read back into history an idea that was not true at the time.Claire Norton is Lecturer in History at St Mary's University College, London; Andrew Wheatcroft is Professor of International Publishing at Stirling University; Jeremy Black is Professor of History at the University of Exeter.

This episode is title “Pressed.”In our last episode, we took a look at the French church of the 17th C and considered the contest between the Catholic Jansenists and Jesuits.It's interesting realizing the Jansenists began as a theological movement that looks quite similar to Calvinism. Their theology eventually spilled over into the political realm and undercut the Divine Right of Kings, a European political system that had held sway in for centuries, and reached its apex in France under Louis XIV, granting him the august title of The Sun KingIn this episode, we'll take a look at what happened to the French Protestants, the Huguenots.By the mid 16th century, Huguenots were 10% of the French population. They hoped all France would one day adopt the Reformed Faith. But their hopes were shattered by defeat in nine political and religious wars.You may remember from an earlier episode that Henry IV, a convert to Catholicism from Protestantism, that conversion being a purely pragmatic and political maneuver, granted the Huguenots limited rights in the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Thirty years later, those rights were revoked by the Peace of Alais. Then the fortified Protestant city of La Rochelle surrendered in 1628, ending any hope of France's conversion to Protestantism.For twenty-four years, Louis XIV waged a devastating anti-Protestant campaign. Nearly 700 Reformed churches were closed or torn down. And in 1685, Louis replaced the Edict of Nantes with the Edict of Fontainebleau.He ordered uniformed troops called dragoons to move into the Huguenot homes in Protestant centers. These troops were allowed by the king's decree to use whatever means they wanted, short of murder and rape, to intimidate Huguenots into converting to Catholicism.Some 200,000 Huguenots fled France. They took refuge in Geneva, Prussia, England, and North America. Those refugees were often people of great learning and skill who enriched the intellectual and economic life of their adopted realms.But thousands of Huguenots stayed in France. Many made a show-conversion to Catholicism, while secretly remaining Protestants. They formed an underground church known as the “Church of the Desert.”  From 1684 to 98, twenty Huguenot pastors were hunted and killed.Louis XIV feared the Huguenots because he equated them with the Puritan rebels who'd executed Charles I in England in 1649. Louis was also in competition with the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, for hegemony in Europe. Allowing a large and politically powerful Protestant base in his realm didn't commend Louis as a strong Catholic leader. He already faced criticism for not sending troops to defend Vienna from invading Turks while Leopold had. It was Louis's plan to attack the Turks AFTER they'd taken Vienna! His plan fell apart when the Europeans managed to defeat the enemy before Vienna's walls.Louis' suspicion of the Huguenots seemed justified by the Camisard War of 1702 to 4. They called for “freedom of conscience” and “no taxes.” Protestant prophets predicted a liberation from their oppressors. But the prophets were proven to be of the false variety when the revolt was put down.In 1726, an underground seminary for young men was established in Lausanne, Switzerland. It received financial support from Protestants in Switzerland, England, and the Netherlands. Studies lasted from six months to three years. After that, graduates returned to minister to outlawed churches in France. If captured, they were executed.During the Seven Years War, known in the US as the French and Indian War, French Protestants became the beneficiaries of unofficial toleration. While no friend to Christianity, Voltaire assisted Huguenots by writing a book defending toleration. Finally, in the Edict of Toleration of 1787, Louis XVI gave Huguenots the right to worship.But in the three years BEFORE that, 7000 Huguenots were executed, another 2000 forced to serve in the French Navy, a kind of living death if you know anything about the life of a lowly sailor at that time.After 1760, some Reformed pastors, influenced by Voltaire, moved toward theological liberalism.From the late 17th to late 18th century, what we know as Germany today was a patchwork quilt of over 300 mostly autonomous principalities, kingdoms, electorates, duchies, bishoprics, and other political enclaves. Rarely used, the term “Germany” meant a nebulous region that included many of these regions, much like the term “Europe” refers to a continent with many nations. Germany was just one part of a larger entity known as the Holy Roman Empire. That realm included 1,800 territories. Places like Poland, the Hapsburg Empire, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Transylvania, and Italy.A Council of Electors, ranging from seven to nine, picked the Holy Roman Emperor.The Emperor's ability to raise armies, collect taxes, and make laws was often hampered by the many groups in the empire that enjoyed a measure of their own sovereignty. The fiction known as the Holy Roman Empire ended under Napoleon.In the 1740s, Frederick the Great, King of Brandenburg-Prussia from the Hohenzollern family and Calvinists since 1613, challenged the Hapsburg's power. At the outset of the War of the Austrian Succession, Frederick's troops seized Silesia and Prussians became THE military power in Europe.In Germany, the leading kingdoms were Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony, the Rhineland Palatinate, Hanover, and Bavaria. Following the principle established by the Peace of Westphalia, the religion of these kingdoms was that of their prince.While Bavaria was staunchly Catholic, Brandenburg-Prussia was Calvinist with strong pietistic leanings. The rest of Germany was Lutheran of the pietist mold. A unified Germany nation would not emerge until the days of the “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck in the second half of the 19th century.The emergence of Prussia as a great military power in the 18th century impressed their European neighbors. The kingdom's army of some 83,000 ranked fourth in size among the European powers, though its landmass was a tenth of the area and only thirteenth in population. Its rulers promoted a disciplined lifestyle like that of the Pietists as a model for Prussian bureaucrats, military, and nobles (called Junkers). The highly militaristic Frederick III ruled Brandenburg from 1688 to 1713. Being reformed in theology, he encouraged French Huguenots who'd fled France to settle in his kingdom. In 1694, he founded the University of Halle as a Lutheran university. He welcomed Pietists like Jakob Spener and Hermann Francke. In 1698, Francke began teaching theology there. Frederick III made the University of Konigsberg another Pietist center.In his work Pious Desires, published in 1675, Spener, who you'll remember was the founder of Pietism, centered his call for reform of the Church in the faithful teaching and application of Scripture. He called for daily private Bible reading and meditation and the reading of Scripture in small groups.Spener urged that pastoral training schools should not be places for theological wrangling, but as “workshops of the Holy Spirit.” Nor should seminary professors seek glory by authoring lofty tomes filled with showy erudition. They ought instead to be examples of humble service. Spener emphasized the priesthood of ALL believers. Ministers should seek help from laypeople to assist in the task of tending to the needs of a congregation instead of assuming they had to do everything themselves. Spener took this idea from what the Apostle Paul had written in Ephesians 4. As described there, pastors were to equip believers so they could do ministry.At the University of Halle, Hermann Francke insisted that those training for pastoral ministry ought to study Scripture in its original languages of Hebrew and Greek. Francke wrote: “The exegetical reading of Holy Scripture is that which concerns finding and explaining the literal sense intended by the Holy Spirit Himself.”In 1702, Francke founded the Collegium Orientale Theologicum. Advanced students could learn Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopian, Chaldean, Syriac, and Hebrew.Francke established an orphanage in Halle in 1695. He created schools and businesses including a printing house where orphans could learn a trade. By 1700, Francke's various institutions gained the support of Emperor Frederick III, who valued their contribution in fostering Christian discipline among his students, the Prussian populace, and his soldiers. Francke wanted to make Halle a center for Christian reform and world missions. In anticipation of what George Mueller would later give testimony to, Franke wrote of examples of how he prayed for specific needs and provision came to feed the poor and keep the schools open, sometimes arriving at the last moment. He wrote: “These instances I was willing here to set down so that I might give the reader some idea both of the pressing trials and happy deliverances we have met with; though I am sufficiently convinced that narratives of this kind will seem over-simple and fanciful to the great minds of our age.”On one occasion, Frederick IV, King of Denmark, gave a direct order to his chaplain: “Find me missionaries.” That chaplain asked Francke for help. Francke proposed two students from the University of Halle. The Danish-Halle Mission was launched. On Nov. 29, 1705, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau set sail for India. Eight months later they arrived. They were dismayed to discover the horrid immorality of the Europeans there. Claiming to be Christians, the Indians assumed all believers in Christ were immoral. There was great resistance to the Gospel at first, but the missionaries' faithfulness eventually softened the hearts of the Hindus. Ziegenbalg translated the Bible into Tamil and set up a school and a missionary college before he died at the age of 36.Christian Schwartz also served as a missionary in India. Johann Steinmetz ministered in Teschen, Silesia, Moravia, and Bohemia. Others took the gospel to Russia during the reign of Peter the Great. Halle missionaries met the physical and spiritual needs of captured Swedish troops who, when they returned to Sweden, spread Pietism in their homeland. Sixty students went forth from the University of Halle as missionaries.The press of the Bible Institute in Halle produced more than 80,000 copies of complete Bibles and another 100,000 copies of the New Testament.In 1713, the Pietitst Frederick William I became king. He not only built up the military, he funded the production of thousands of Bibles so that all his subjects could read it for themselves. When he died in 1727, some 2000 students attended the school in Halle. His orphanage served as a model for George Whitefield's in Savannah, Georgia.We need to do a bit of summarizing now so we can avoid that thing we've talked about before – the reporting of history as a bunch of dates and names. I'll do so by simply saying the Enlightenment that swept France and England, also impacted Germany. The original faculty of the University at Halle would have been shocked to see the way later professors turned away from what they considered orthodoxy.We'll jump ahead to a bit later in the 18th century and the work of Johann Semler considered the Founder of German Higher Criticism.Semler began teaching at Halle in 1751. He'd been a student of professors who merged Enlightenment philosophy with the Faith. For twenty-two years, from 1757 till ‘79, Semler was the most influential of the German theologians. He called for a more liberal investigation of the Bible, one not tethered to long-held orthodox assumptions about the canon of Scripture or its infallibility.Semler held forth that religion and theology ought not be linked. He also set a divide between what he called the “Word of God” and “Scripture.” He maintained that not all the books or passages of the Bible were in truth God's Word and that God's Word wasn't limited to the Bible.He taught that the authors of scripture accommodated their writings to the errant ideas of their times, especially the Jews. Sifting out the authentic Word of God from the mythological, local, fallible, and non-inspired dross in Scripture, by which he meant a belief in the supernatural, was the task of the wise Bible student. Then, once the authentic canon within the Bible was identified, real doctrines would need to be parsed.Astonishingly, Semler claimed his ideas were faithful to the work of Martin Luther, which they most certainly were NOT!The reaction to Semler was mixed. Some scholars supported him because his work opened a lot of wiggle-room that allowed them to accommodate the growing popularity of Enlightenment skepticism. But his critics pounced, accusing him of abandoning the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible.When Frederick the Great died in 1786, his nephew Frederick William II became King of Prussia. He attempted to rein in the growing volume of literature now exposing the German populace to heterodoxy; that is, ideas outside the pale of orthodoxy, by passing an edict calling for censorship of any work about God and morality. Any such work was to be submitted to a government commission of censors for approval.  Several Lutheran pastors resigned in protest, and the main publisher of such works moved his operations out of Berlin. The government feared radical expressions of the German Enlightenment would subvert the faith of the people and their loyalty to the State.In March 1758, Johann Hamann was converted to Christ and became a brilliant counter to the Enlightenment. He pointed out the errors in Kant's philosophy and said the light of the so-called “Enlightenment” was cold, more like the moon, compared to that which comes from the Sun of Christian revelation in Scripture and nature.