ABSTRACT
The study of Halle Pietism and its relationship to the Prussian state has long been regarded as finished.1 Spener and Francke allied with the Hohenzollern monarchy against the established Lutheran Orthodoxy in the 1690s. The near simultaneous winning of Frederick William I (1713-1740) and his ascension to the throne inaugurated a new era of cooperation and mutual support between Francke’s movement and the Hohenzollern monarchy.2 This “alliance” between the pious and ascetic Prussian king and Halle Pietism endured until the death of Frederick William and the succession of Enlightenment-minded King Frederick II to the throne in 1740.3
1 The definitive works on the subject by Klaus Deppermann and Carl Hinrichs appeared almost 50 years ago, and they remain today the authoritative works on the subject, cited by virtually every scholar addressing the relationship between Halle Pietism and the Prussian state. Klaus Deppermann, Der hallesche Pietismus und der preußische Staat unter Friedrich III. (I.) (Göttingen, 1961). Carl Hinrichs’ articles (from before his death in 1962) are collected in Preußentum und Pietismus: Der Pietismus in Brandenburg -Preußen als religiös-soziale Reformbewegung (Göttingen, 1971). On the historiography of the relationship between Pietism and Prussia, see Christopher Clark, ‘A Note on Further Research Possibilities. Piety, politics and society: Pietism in eighteenth-century Prussia’, in Philip G. Dwyer (ed.), The Rise of Prussia, 1700-1830 (Harlow, 2000), pp. 300-301; and Benjamin Marschke, Absolutely Pietist: Patronage, Factionalism, and State-Building in the Early Eighteenth-Century Prussian Army Chaplaincy (Tübingen, 2005), pp. 3-6.
