Clio's nuncios: The Catholic historical discipline in Imperial Germany, 1876--1901

The German historical profession is said to have forged a sense of national community out of a fragmented and confessionally-divided past after the Reichsgründung in 1871. While consensus reigns on the fundamental developments of the historical profession---the seminal importance of "historicism," the central role of Leopold Ranke and his protégés, and the centrality of the historical discipline in the politics of German unification---little attention has been paid to the discipline's confessional divide or to the profession's Catholic practitioners. Protestant cultural dominance and Catholic intellectual traditions marginalized Catholic historians, forcing them to teach in a parallel academic environment. Catholic historians developed a distinct philosophy of history that combined German idealism and elements of neo-scholasticism. They composed an alternative master narrative that emphasized medieval church history. Both elements contributed to the development of the Catholic historical discipline under the auspices of the Görres-Gesellschaft, an organization founded in 1876 to promote Catholic scholarship.;My dissertation presents the first thorough study of Catholic historiography in Imperial Germany. It investigates the development of a distinct Catholic philosophy of history, the constitution of the Catholic historical discipline, and the projects Catholic historians undertook in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The canon of Catholic historical literature complicated the German historical profession's attempt to use a common past to build a united national community, and delayed the nationalization of German Catholics.;This dissertation is a cultural and intellectual history of the Catholic historical discipline. It investigates the constitution of the field in the context of German nationalism and nation-building. The main sources of my research are the institutional papers, correspondence, and reports from the Görres-Gesellschaft, as well as correspondence from historians throughout Germany who reacted to the Catholic effort. The Görres-Gesellschaft's scholarly publications are equally valuable. The organization's Historisches Jahrbuch was the principal conduit of the Catholic master narrative. The journal published articles, book reviews, and announcements that revealed the values of Catholic historians. Together, the correspondence, institutional papers, and contemporary journals and monographs from Protestant and Catholic scholars illuminate the importance of confession within the German historical profession.