Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: A Program of Research -- 1 The Manuscripts and Editions of William Durant the Younger’s Tractatus de modo generalis concilii celebrandi—Revised -- 2 A New View of William Durant the Younger’s Tractatus de modo generalis concilii celebrandi -- 3 Research on William Durant the Younger’s Tractatus de modo generalis concilii celebrandi: A Critical Review -- 4 Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbari debet: The Words and the Meaning -- 5 At the Crossroads of Law and Politics: William Durant the Younger’s ‘Treatise’ on Councils -- 6 The Reception of William Durant the Younger’s Treatises in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times -- 7 William Durant the Younger and Conciliar Theory -- 8 Conring on History -- 9 From Helmstedt via Mainz to Paris: Hermann Conring and Hugues de Lionne -- 10 A Question of Right: Hermann Conring’s New Discourse on the Roman-German Emperor -- 11 Hermann Conring and the Republic of Letters -- 12 Author and Authenticity in Conring’s New Discourse on the Roman-German Emperor: A Seventeenth-Century Case Study -- 13 Political Unity and Religious Diversity: Hermann Conring’s Confessional Writings and the Preface to Aristotle’s Politics of 1637 -- 14 Hermann Conring and the European History of Law -- 15 Visions of Order in the Canonists and Civilians -- 16 Sovereignty and Heresy -- 17 Empire the Modern Way -- 18 The Limits of History in Brief -- 19 Religious Authority and Ecclesiastical Governance -- 20 Hegel’s Ghost: Europe, the Reformation, and the Middle Ages -- Works Cited -- Index.

The twenty studies collected in this volume focus on the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world. The method leads from technical investigations on William Durant the Younger (ca. 1266-1330) and Hermann Conring (1606-1681) through reflection on the nature of historical knowledge to a break with historicism, an affirmation of anachronism, and a broad perspective on the history of Europe. The introduction explains when and why these studies were written, and places them in the context of contemporary historical thinking by drawing on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations . This book will appeal to historians with an interest in historical theory, historians of late medieval and early modern Europe, and students looking for the meaning of history.