Earlier historians and biographers typically concentrated on certain favored issues when looking at European history before the modern era. One common theme was the creation of the modern nation-state and the emergence of distinct ethnic and national identities, both seen as defining features of the European path to modernity. Researchers have looked for national character in everything from the actions of political leaders to the making of cheese. Similarly, the complex evolution of Latin Christianity and other religions in Europe, along with the eventual spread of secular ideas, have provoked endless research and heated debates that continue today. Finally, the inner organization of European societies and their transition from traditional hierarchies, however imagined, to modern mass societies organized along lines of class and wealth have always been a key interest for historians. Nationality, religion, and social organization thus framed most historical research about the early modern period until at least the 1950s. It is no coincidence that study of Jenatsch's life and its meaning began with these same issues.

As the study of early modern Europe has continued in recent years, however, other aspects of European society have gained fresh attention. For example, larger personal networks—clans, kin-based factions, patron-client networks, and the like—turn out to have been a powerful force shaping European society and politics throughout the early modern period, even where historians thought that bureaucratic states and modern individualism were on the rise.