European monarchies have legitimized their rule especially in terms of dynasty and religion. This is most apparent in religious ceremonies at familial and political occasions. In the ideal type, the divine right of a ruler corresponded with the official confession of the territory, and politics were oriented towards the goal of a confessional unity of dynasty, court, and subjects — this has seemed to be incontrovertible since the establishment of the confessionalization paradigm. It has thereby been assumed that at the dynastic courts themselves only a single confession was practiced. What, though, if this were not the case, and multiple faiths came together at court?
Recently the real world challenges and compromises which accompanied the conjunctions of different religions have been thematized in various ways, though hardly any concentration has been placed on rulers' courts. In fact, courts with more than one confession were a common phenomenon.
If even the ruler's household (supposedly a role model) obviously cast doubt on their confession's exclusive claim to the God-given truth, then this could not remain otherwise unchallenged. From this followed new options regarding dynastic legitimation and monarchical self-representation.
This series of panels on "Religious Plurality at Princely Courts" is dedicated to exploring the effects of bi-confessional or multi-religious settings at princely courts on dynastic, representative/symbolic, diplomatic, artistic, and theological levels. Bi-confessional marriages, for instance, were often proceeded by lengthy political and theological negotiations, which could lead to public controversies and diplomatic confrontations. In some cases these posed new ceremonial problems at court, which resulted in solutions such as multiple wedding celebrations. Beyond the immediate context of the court, on the one hand such religious plurality raised fears of confessional changes, but on the other hand it raised hopes for interconfessional understanding, institutionalized religious tolerance, and the end of theological disputes. Indeed, the driving forces of theological irenicism from the Reformation to the twentieth century were closely connected with pluri-confessional courts, among others: Great Britain, Hanover, Sweden, Prussia, Wolfenbüttel, and Württemberg.
Another important feature since the early modern era was an increasing religious globalization at princely courts, namely, the presence of people who belonged to or had been raised in different religious contexts. Jews, Muslims, people of African descent, and others featured prominently at certain German courts, for instance as diplomats, scholars, advisors, financiers, chaplains, musicians, artists, servants or in representational functions. Their religious and social practices challenged the idea of courtly mono-confessionalism in yet another respect, posing problems of rank and patronage, sometimes provoking disputes about servitude and liberation, and complicating rituals such as baptism and marriage as well as other aspects regarding their possible integration into everyday life at the court and beyond.
The dynastic-political dimensions of interreligious dialogue, plans for religious change, and confessional blending that derived from mixed princely courts have not yet been systematically studied, and neither have the transformations of the ways of knowing at courts due to marriages, the associated changes in personnel, and the influence of new ideas from other confessional and religious cultures. The "Religious Plurality at Princely Courts" series of panels seeks to explore in a comparative perspective the phenomenon of religiously-mixed princely courts and to shed light on their dynastic, political, theological, performative/ representative, and epistemological dimensions. Another goal of the panels is to bring together multifarious perspectives of European studies (in a global perspective) that have heretofore generally been discussed only separately — such as domestic and international politics, dynastic strategies, irenicist theology, church history, the history of ideas, and cultural production— while examining a phenomenon where they all intersect. The panels will be interdisciplinary and should provoke a discussion among historians, theologians, art historians, literary scholars, and historians of the theater.
The preparations, effects, and receptions of religious plurality at court were recorded in a comprehensive and wide spectrum of primary sources: from commemorative literature, to works of art, to court regulations, to correspondences, to reports and recommendations from political and theological authorities, to observations in the media/periodicals, to ego documents, to documentation of the elaborate pageants, ceremonies, and musical/theatrical productions that celebrated and sought to justify and legitimize religiously-mixed princely unions, and much more. Taking the existing international scholarship into account, papers should survey the challenges and problems of religious plurality at German and Central European courts. Questions to be considered, among others, are:

- The reasons and motivations for religious mixing (for example, marriage strategies, political ambitions, individual decisions),
- The respective dynastic and political negotiations surrounding religious mixing at court,
- The theological positions and recommendations prompted by issues of religious plurality at court,
- Marriage and other celebrations, with special consideration of confessional controversy (religious ceremonies, communion, etc.),
- The material and financial safeguards for churches, clergy, ceremonies, patronage, etc.,
- The changes in personnel, at court and in the territory,
- The organization of the court under religiously mixed conditions (precedence, rank, etc.),
- The changes in court's self-representation and ceremony,
- The reactions of the estates and the effects on the territorial authorities,
- The international political and diplomatic consequences,
- The effects on the confessional make-up of the territory,
- The changes in the intellectual atmosphere and epistemology of the court and the territory,
- The debates in the media and in polemics regarding religious plurality at court.

The organizers (Benjamin Marschke, Daniel Riches, Alexander Schunka) invite proposals for papers to be delivered at the German Studies Association (GSA) conference in Portland, Oregon, 3-6 October 2019 (www.thegsa.org). Please send a title and abstract (500 words, maximum) to marschke@humboldt.edu by 31 January 2019.