EN
The opponents of Catholicism in the Holy Roman Empire already took an interest in the religious opinions and political positions of the non-Catholic nobility in the Kingdom of Bohemia in the first decades of the 17th century. Among them, the Electors of the Palatinate occupied a decisive place, who transformed their seat in Heidelberg into a centre of Calvinism and leading the Protestant Union. A few years before the outbreak of the Bohemian Revolt, the Elector of the Palatinate Frederick V sought to ensure that his diplomats established personal ties with the main representatives of non-Catholic estates in the Kingdom of Bohemia, because he expected them to support the Union’s anti-Habsburg policy. After the Prague defenestration, he used his diplomats to find a non-violent solution to the religious conflict between the Bohemian non-Catholics and the Habsburg monarch. The decisive role of power in his diplomatic considerations was played by the Duke of Bavaria Maximilian I. Although he temporarily disbanded the Catholic League, his residence in Munich remained a solid pillar of Catholicism in the Holy Roman Empire. Before the outbreak of the Bohemian Revolt, the political communication between Heidelberg, Munich and Prague was most significantly influenced by the governor of Upper Palatinate Christian I of Anhalt-Bernburg, whose steps were followed by Ludwig Camerarius and Achaz von Dohna. Despite the gaps in the preserved sources, it was possible not only to recognise the indi- vidual steps of the mentioned Palatinate diplomats and their influence on the political decision-making of the main representatives of the non-Catholic estates of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Duke of Bavaria but through a discursive and semantic analysis of the diplomatic documents also to look into their thought-world.