Crafting lineage and navigating noble influence. The genealogical and heraldic endeavours of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705) between court and erudition

Around 1700, the media landscape of genealogical and heraldic publications in the Holy Roman Empire underwent significant transformations. Whereas courts had previously been in the centre of genealogical and heraldic knowledge production – funding elaborate, dynasty-centred publications for a restricted courtly audience – around 1700, encyclopaedic ‘Universal Genealogies’ and heraldic reference works as well as periodic publications aimed to serve a broader readership. In scholarship, this development has been described as a shift towards a new knowledge regime, wherein market conditions set the pace of publications, and methodological innovations gradually diminished the authority of coats of arms and lengthy pedigrees. Using the genealogical and heraldic publications of the influential theologian Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705) as a case study, this article seeks to re-evaluate the relationship between genealogists, heraldists and the nobility proposing a more nuanced interpretation that emphasizes the collaborative nature of genealogical and heraldic knowledge production.