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II. The Establishment of ‘Europe’ as a Political Expression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2010

H. D. Schmidt
H. D. Schmidt
Affiliation:
Carmel College
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Extract

Political and historical studies are still severely handicapped by the absence of an historical dictionary of political terms and slogans. Without such a dictionary the investigation of significant political expressions is still very difficult and time-consuming, while the process of critical political self-understanding and education lacks a vital tool. The great philological dictionaries of the European languages are of little help in this field of political semantics, because they have been the work of scholars whose main interest was philology and literature. International links, historical perspective, and political sensitivity can be found in no dictionary of the English, French, or German language. Littré's French dictionary notes that Europe is the name of a number of heavenly bodies and plays a part in Greek mythology. The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, treats Europe as a proper name and omits it altogether. Without the benefit of competent lexicographical guidance the intensive historical study of the idea of Europe, which has been carried out for the last twenty years, has failed to discover the time and circumstances which led to the adoption of Europe as a symbol of political interest. The main fault of past historical investigations lies in a concentration on literary works and famous men of letters and a neglect of political literature, pamphlets, and diplomatic documents. Political expressions are the offspring of national and international conflicts. They become stereotyped symbols of loyalty or enmity and one criterion of their establishment in political life is the frequency of their use—and abuse—by one recognizable political group. When and how did this first happen to Europe?

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , 1966 , pp. 172 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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References

1 The Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften (Jena, 1923)Google Scholar , and the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1935)Google Scholar , are now too obsolete and massive to be of real use to students of politics and economics and are lacking in historical perspective. A much more useful aid is the one-volume Sachwörterbuch zur deutschen Geschichte by Rössler, H. and Franz, G. (München, 1958).Google Scholar Although confined to German history, it lists political expressions with sources. A welcome attempt to clarify and in many cases trace the origin of a thousand basic political and social concepts has recently been published with the aid of UNESCO, entitled A Dictionary of the Social Sciences, ed. Gould, Julius and Kolb, William L. (London, 1964)Google Scholar.

2 The work is best presented in Gollwitzer, Heinz, Europabildund Europagedanke (München, 1951)Google Scholar , which deals with German authors, mainly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; Curcio, Carlo, Europa (Florence, 1958)Google Scholar , a very comprehensive literary study; Hay, Denys, Europe, the Emergence of an Idea (Edinburgh, 1957)Google Scholar mainly concerned with mediaeval and Renaissance ideas about Europe; in 1963 a source-book of documents was published in Munich, entitled Die Idee Europa 1300-1946.

3 , Hay, op. cit. p. 116.Google Scholar

4 English ed. (London, 1667), especially pp. 275–9Google Scholar ; the French original Bouclier d'Estat et de Justice with a German version was reprinted in Diarium Europaeum, xv, ii 177 ff. See also Pribram, A., Franz Paul Freiherr von Lisola (Leipzig, 1894)Google Scholar.

5 Ranke, L., Englische Geschichte, V, 52Google Scholar ; Kaeber, E., Die Idee des europdischen Gleichgewichts (Berlin, 1907), 53Google Scholar ; Hamel, J. A. van, Nederland tusschen de Mogendheden (Amsterdam, 1918), pp. 113–15Google Scholar.

6 Haley, K. H. D., William of Orange and the English Opposition (Oxford, 1953), pp. 98–101, 153.Google Scholar

7 Feiling, Keith, A History of the Tory Party (Oxford, 1924), p. 172Google Scholar ; Journals of the House of Lords, vol. XIIIGoogle Scholar , containing significant government statements during the critical period 1678-81, e.g. 23 Jan. 1678, 28 Jan. 1678, 21 Oct. 1680, 15 Dec. 1680, 4 Jan. 1681.

8 Oudendijk, Johanna K., Willem III (Amsterdam, 1954), p. 144.Google Scholar

9 For the van Beuringen plan of an anti-French league suggested in September 1681 see Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau (Utrecht, 1861), 2e Série, v, 516.Google Scholar The Dutch officially called their political aim ‘conservatie van de rust in Europa’. Henry Sidney negotiating an alliance between England and the United Provinces at The Hague wrote in summer 1679 to Halifax that the projected alliance was thought there ‘as the only means of saving Europe’ ( Foxcroft, H. C., The Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, 1898, 1, 184Google Scholar ; Heim, H. J. van der, Het Archief van den Raadspensionaris Antonie Heinsius, The Hague, 1867, I, lxxiii)Google Scholar.

10 Sidney, Henry, Diary of the Times of Charles II (1843), 11, 5.Google Scholar

11 Journals, House of Lords, XIII, 610–11.Google Scholar

12 Archives de la Maison a"Orange-Nassau, V, 424.

18 Sidney, Henry, op. cit. 11, 341Google Scholar ; Diarium Europaeum, XLII, 253—64.

14 The collection of tracts and pamphlets published during those years and kept in the British Museum are listed under Charles II, Tracts and State Tracts. Others are listed under the heading Europe. Parliamentary elections during those stormy years gave rise to addresses by or to the chosen members, some of which were printed and collected. A Bristol manifesto of March 1680 shows that the phrase Protestant Religion and Defence of Europe had spread beyond London.

16 Middleton Papers, B.M. Add. MSS. 41,838/9; Aretin, C. M. von, Chronologisches Verzeichnis der bayerischen Staatsvertrdge (Passau, 1838, p. 259)Google Scholar.

16 , Somers, A Collection of Tracts (London, 1748), 1, 303, 402.Google Scholar The emperor, Leopold I, on the other hand, tried in Nov. 1688 to restrain William from acting against the English king and Catholic rights in the name of the peace of Christendom (van der Heim, op. cit. I, 91).

17 The sermon was published in London in 1689; on the continent Dutch and French official pronouncements employed the terms Europe as well as Christendom during those years as in the French declaration of war and the public reply by the United Provinces of which Dutch, German, and French versions existed, e.g. Des Königs in Franckreich Krieges-Declaration wider Ihre Hochmög. die Herren General-Staten etc. wie auch deren widerlegung (1688).

18 Journals, House of Commons, X, 94.

19 The Dutch printing presses turned out a vast amount of political literature in French, Dutch, and German in the wake of William's British triumphs. Many English tracts and Whig documents were translated and diffused by Dutch printers; typical Dutch pamphlets are Wilhelm, de Derde en Louys de Veertiende (Amsterdam, 1689)Google Scholar ; Saul's Boosheid en Davids Opregtigheit (Amsterdam, 1689)Google Scholar ; typical English pamphlets are The Means to Free Europe from the French Usurpation and The True Interests of the Princes of Europe. French and German pamphlets of the period are considered in Kleyser, F., Der Flugschriftenkampf gegen Ludwig XIV (Berlin, 1935)Google Scholar.

20 Collection of State Tracts (London, 1706)Google Scholar , vol. 11, The Weekly Remarks, 15 Jan. 1691. Many pamphlets in that volume repeat the phrases Protestant Religion and the Liberties of Europe.

21 Heim, van der, op. cit. in, 226.Google Scholar

22 Acts and Negotiations of the General Peace at Ryswick (London, 1698)Google Scholar , preface.

23 Journals, House of Commons, XIII, 332-3.

24 A Collection of State Tracts published during the reign of William III (London, 1707)Google Scholar , especially vol. in which contains a good many of those political pamphlets.

25 Churchill, W. S., Marlborough (London, 1947), 1, 476.Google Scholar

26 Miscellaneous State Papers (London, 1778), 11, 457.Google Scholar

87 Journals, House of Commons, XIII, 648.

88 Journals, House of Lords, XVII, 64; Journals, House of Commons, XIII, 784/5.

29 This conclusion is supported by the investigation of political pamphlets, undertaken at the beginning of this century by E. Klaeber, who found that by 1701 a veritable flood of pamphlets in support of the balance of power was published, particularly in England (op. cit. pp. 65, 73).