This volume is concerned with the positions taken in the present debate over a new history of politics, or a cultural history of political thought. The European position toward that debate emphasizes the usefulness of bringing the discussion to an international forum, since it is not the replacing of one research approach by another, but rather the complementing of existing research methods by those stemming from historical semantics which has proved to be feasible and open to new research questions. The contributions in this volume treat the issue both from the vantage point of early modern oppositional discourses as well as of the early history of nobility. They concentrate on the role of rituals in the history of the Middle Ages and in modern historical treatments. This is the first volume of a series from the International Graduate College entitled Political Communication from Antiquity to the 20th Century. German text.