Ira Katznelson
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780198279242
- eISBN:
- 9780191601910
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198279248.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
One area where Marxism has dealt with the city is the transition from feudalism to capitalism, although this discussion has been satisfactory only in part, since too much is compressed in the very ...
More
One area where Marxism has dealt with the city is the transition from feudalism to capitalism, although this discussion has been satisfactory only in part, since too much is compressed in the very idea of this epochal transformation. Marxism's conception of feudalism has been too narrow: it has treated some 500 years of history in terms of a single direction of change, and it has flattened the dimensions and varieties of transition. Further, Marxism's insistence on parallel treatment as modes of production for feudalism (which fused sovereignty and property), and for capitalism (which did not), is misplaced. Yet even if Marxism's discussion of the transition has been flawed, it is here that some of the most important attempts to make cities a constitutive part of a key historical and theoretical problem are found. This chapter broadens and shifts the terms of this engagement of Marxism with the city – by so doing, it is possible to shed some light on the impact cities had on large‐scale change in early modern Europe, and, in turn, on the ways cities as places were altered by the demise of feudalism.Less
One area where Marxism has dealt with the city is the transition from feudalism to capitalism, although this discussion has been satisfactory only in part, since too much is compressed in the very idea of this epochal transformation. Marxism's conception of feudalism has been too narrow: it has treated some 500 years of history in terms of a single direction of change, and it has flattened the dimensions and varieties of transition. Further, Marxism's insistence on parallel treatment as modes of production for feudalism (which fused sovereignty and property), and for capitalism (which did not), is misplaced. Yet even if Marxism's discussion of the transition has been flawed, it is here that some of the most important attempts to make cities a constitutive part of a key historical and theoretical problem are found. This chapter broadens and shifts the terms of this engagement of Marxism with the city – by so doing, it is possible to shed some light on the impact cities had on large‐scale change in early modern Europe, and, in turn, on the ways cities as places were altered by the demise of feudalism.
Pamela H. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691159096
- eISBN:
- 9781400849895
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691159096.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter focuses on “itineraries of matter,” or objects as traveling carriers of cultural practices and meanings, in the early modern world. It examines the role of red in the transmission of ...
More
This chapter focuses on “itineraries of matter,” or objects as traveling carriers of cultural practices and meanings, in the early modern world. It examines the role of red in the transmission of knowledge back and forth among European vernacular practitioners and text-oriented scholars in their production and reproduction of knowledge about natural things. To this end, the chapter takes us to the heat and dangers of vermillion production in early modern Europe: the hours of firing, stirring, stoking, hammering, chemical manipulation, and anxious waiting that produced the red pigments highly valued by painters and illuminators to bring blood to life. Vermillion production was dangerous and exacting, and yet its underlying techniques traveled rapidly across early modern Europe (and beyond) together with the webs of interlinked homologies—an entourage of lizards, blood, gold, alchemical formulas, and vernacular knowledge—which formed the foundations of early modern science.Less
This chapter focuses on “itineraries of matter,” or objects as traveling carriers of cultural practices and meanings, in the early modern world. It examines the role of red in the transmission of knowledge back and forth among European vernacular practitioners and text-oriented scholars in their production and reproduction of knowledge about natural things. To this end, the chapter takes us to the heat and dangers of vermillion production in early modern Europe: the hours of firing, stirring, stoking, hammering, chemical manipulation, and anxious waiting that produced the red pigments highly valued by painters and illuminators to bring blood to life. Vermillion production was dangerous and exacting, and yet its underlying techniques traveled rapidly across early modern Europe (and beyond) together with the webs of interlinked homologies—an entourage of lizards, blood, gold, alchemical formulas, and vernacular knowledge—which formed the foundations of early modern science.
Stuart Clark
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208082
- eISBN:
- 9780191677915
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208082.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, Social History
This is a work of fundamental importance for our understanding of the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Europe. This book offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of ...
More
This is a work of fundamental importance for our understanding of the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Europe. This book offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of European intellectuals based on their publications in the field of demonology, and shows how these beliefs fitted rationally with many other views current in Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries. The book explores the appeal of demonology to early modern intellectuals by looking at the books they published on the subject during this period. After examining the linguistic foundations of their writings, the book shows how the writers' ideas about witchcraft (and about magic) complemented their other intellectual commitments — in particular, their conceptions of nature, history, religion, and politics. The result is much more than a history of demonology. It is a survey of wider intellectual and ideological purposes, and underlines just how far the nature of rationality is dependent on its historical context.Less
This is a work of fundamental importance for our understanding of the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Europe. This book offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of European intellectuals based on their publications in the field of demonology, and shows how these beliefs fitted rationally with many other views current in Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries. The book explores the appeal of demonology to early modern intellectuals by looking at the books they published on the subject during this period. After examining the linguistic foundations of their writings, the book shows how the writers' ideas about witchcraft (and about magic) complemented their other intellectual commitments — in particular, their conceptions of nature, history, religion, and politics. The result is much more than a history of demonology. It is a survey of wider intellectual and ideological purposes, and underlines just how far the nature of rationality is dependent on its historical context.
Stefania Tutino
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199740536
- eISBN:
- 9780199894765
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199740536.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Robert Bellarmine was one of the pillars of post-Reformation Catholicism: he was a celebrated Jesuit theologian, a highly ranked member of the Congregations of the Inquisition and of the Index, the ...
More
Robert Bellarmine was one of the pillars of post-Reformation Catholicism: he was a celebrated Jesuit theologian, a highly ranked member of the Congregations of the Inquisition and of the Index, the censor in charge of the Galileo affair. Bellarmine was also one of the most original political theorists of his time, and he participated directly in many of the political conflicts that agitated Europe between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. This book offers the first full-length study of the impact of Bellarmine’s theory of the potestas indirecta in early modern Europe. Following the reactions to Bellarmine’s theory across national and confessional boundaries, this book explores some of the most crucial political and theological knots in the history of post-Reformation Europe, from the controversy over the Oath of Allegiance to the battle over the Interdetto in Venice. The book sets those political and religious controversies against the background of the theological and institutional developments of the post-Tridentine Catholic Church. By examining the violent and at times surprising controversies originated by Bellarmine’s theory, this book challenges some of the traditional assumptions regarding the theological shape of post-Tridentine Catholicism; it offers a fresh perspective on the centrality of the links between confessional affiliation and political allegiance in the formation of the modern nation-states; and it contributes to our understanding of the development of “modern” notions of power and authority.Less
Robert Bellarmine was one of the pillars of post-Reformation Catholicism: he was a celebrated Jesuit theologian, a highly ranked member of the Congregations of the Inquisition and of the Index, the censor in charge of the Galileo affair. Bellarmine was also one of the most original political theorists of his time, and he participated directly in many of the political conflicts that agitated Europe between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. This book offers the first full-length study of the impact of Bellarmine’s theory of the potestas indirecta in early modern Europe. Following the reactions to Bellarmine’s theory across national and confessional boundaries, this book explores some of the most crucial political and theological knots in the history of post-Reformation Europe, from the controversy over the Oath of Allegiance to the battle over the Interdetto in Venice. The book sets those political and religious controversies against the background of the theological and institutional developments of the post-Tridentine Catholic Church. By examining the violent and at times surprising controversies originated by Bellarmine’s theory, this book challenges some of the traditional assumptions regarding the theological shape of post-Tridentine Catholicism; it offers a fresh perspective on the centrality of the links between confessional affiliation and political allegiance in the formation of the modern nation-states; and it contributes to our understanding of the development of “modern” notions of power and authority.
Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This is a study of the Renaissance commonplace-book. Commonplace-books were the information-organizers of Early Modern Europe, notebooks of quotations methodically arranged for easy retrieval. From ...
More
This is a study of the Renaissance commonplace-book. Commonplace-books were the information-organizers of Early Modern Europe, notebooks of quotations methodically arranged for easy retrieval. From their first introduction to the rudiments of Latin to the specialized studies of leisure reading of their later years, the pupils of humanist schools were trained to use commonplace-books, which formed an immensely important element of Renaissance education. The common-place book mapped and resourced Renaissance culture's moral thinking, its accepted strategies of argumentation, its rhetoric, and its deployment of knowledge. This book investigates the commonplace-book's medieval antecedents, its methodology and use as promulgated by its humanist advocates, its varieties as exemplified in its printed manifestations, and the reasons for its gradual decline in the 17th century. The book covers the Latin culture of Early Modern Europe and its vernacular counterparts and continuations, particularly in France.Less
This is a study of the Renaissance commonplace-book. Commonplace-books were the information-organizers of Early Modern Europe, notebooks of quotations methodically arranged for easy retrieval. From their first introduction to the rudiments of Latin to the specialized studies of leisure reading of their later years, the pupils of humanist schools were trained to use commonplace-books, which formed an immensely important element of Renaissance education. The common-place book mapped and resourced Renaissance culture's moral thinking, its accepted strategies of argumentation, its rhetoric, and its deployment of knowledge. This book investigates the commonplace-book's medieval antecedents, its methodology and use as promulgated by its humanist advocates, its varieties as exemplified in its printed manifestations, and the reasons for its gradual decline in the 17th century. The book covers the Latin culture of Early Modern Europe and its vernacular counterparts and continuations, particularly in France.
Anne Jacobson Schutte
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449772
- eISBN:
- 9780801463174
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449772.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
An unwilling, desperate nun trapped in the cloister, unable to gain release: such is the image that endures today of monastic life in early modern Europe. This book demonstrates that this and other ...
More
An unwilling, desperate nun trapped in the cloister, unable to gain release: such is the image that endures today of monastic life in early modern Europe. This book demonstrates that this and other common stereotypes of involuntary consignment to religious houses—shaped by literary sources such as Manzoni’s The Betrothed—are badly off the mark. Drawing on records of the Congregation of the Council, held in the Vatican, the book examines nearly one thousand petitions for annulment of monastic vows submitted to the Pope and adjudicated by the Council during a 125-year period, from 1668 to 1793. It considers petitions from Roman Catholic regions across Europe and a few from Latin America and finds that, in about half these cases, the congregation reached a decision. Many women and a smaller proportion of men got what they asked for: decrees nullifying their monastic profession and releasing them from religious houses. It also reaches important conclusions about relations between elders and offspring in early modern families. Contrary to the picture historians have painted of increasingly less patriarchal and more egalitarian families, the book finds numerous instances of fathers, mothers, and other relatives (including older siblings) employing physical violence and psychological pressure to compel adolescents into “entering religion.” Dramatic tales from the archives show that many victims of such violence remained so intimidated that they dared not petition the pope until the agents of force and fear had died, by which time they themselves were middle-aged.Less
An unwilling, desperate nun trapped in the cloister, unable to gain release: such is the image that endures today of monastic life in early modern Europe. This book demonstrates that this and other common stereotypes of involuntary consignment to religious houses—shaped by literary sources such as Manzoni’s The Betrothed—are badly off the mark. Drawing on records of the Congregation of the Council, held in the Vatican, the book examines nearly one thousand petitions for annulment of monastic vows submitted to the Pope and adjudicated by the Council during a 125-year period, from 1668 to 1793. It considers petitions from Roman Catholic regions across Europe and a few from Latin America and finds that, in about half these cases, the congregation reached a decision. Many women and a smaller proportion of men got what they asked for: decrees nullifying their monastic profession and releasing them from religious houses. It also reaches important conclusions about relations between elders and offspring in early modern families. Contrary to the picture historians have painted of increasingly less patriarchal and more egalitarian families, the book finds numerous instances of fathers, mothers, and other relatives (including older siblings) employing physical violence and psychological pressure to compel adolescents into “entering religion.” Dramatic tales from the archives show that many victims of such violence remained so intimidated that they dared not petition the pope until the agents of force and fear had died, by which time they themselves were middle-aged.
Kasper von Greyerz
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195327656
- eISBN:
- 9780199851478
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327656.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
In the pre-industrial societies of early modern Europe, religion was a vessel of fundamental importance in making sense of personal and collective social, cultural, and spiritual exercises. ...
More
In the pre-industrial societies of early modern Europe, religion was a vessel of fundamental importance in making sense of personal and collective social, cultural, and spiritual exercises. Developments in this era had immediate impact on these societies, many of which resonate to the present day. This book gives an overview and interpretation of the religions and cultures of early modern Europe. The author approaches his subject matter with the concerns of a social anthropologist, rejecting the conventional dichotomy between popular and elite religion to focus instead on religion in its everyday cultural contexts. Concentrating primarily on Central and Western Europe, the author analyzes the dynamic strengths of early modern religion in three parts. First, he identifies the changes in religious life resulting from the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He then reveals how the dynamic religious climate triggered various radical and separatist movements, such as the Anabaptists, Puritans, and Quakers, and how the newfound emphasis on collective religious identity contributed to the marginalization of non-Christians and outsiders. Last, the author investigates the broad and still much-divided field of research on secularization during the period covered. While many large-scale historical approaches to early modern religion have concentrated on institutional aspects, this study consciously neglects these elements to provide new insights. The resulting work delves into the many distinguishing marks of the period: religious reform and renewal, the hotly debated issue of “confessionalism,” social inclusion and exclusion, and the increasing fragmentation of early modern religiosity in the context of the Enlightenment.Less
In the pre-industrial societies of early modern Europe, religion was a vessel of fundamental importance in making sense of personal and collective social, cultural, and spiritual exercises. Developments in this era had immediate impact on these societies, many of which resonate to the present day. This book gives an overview and interpretation of the religions and cultures of early modern Europe. The author approaches his subject matter with the concerns of a social anthropologist, rejecting the conventional dichotomy between popular and elite religion to focus instead on religion in its everyday cultural contexts. Concentrating primarily on Central and Western Europe, the author analyzes the dynamic strengths of early modern religion in three parts. First, he identifies the changes in religious life resulting from the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He then reveals how the dynamic religious climate triggered various radical and separatist movements, such as the Anabaptists, Puritans, and Quakers, and how the newfound emphasis on collective religious identity contributed to the marginalization of non-Christians and outsiders. Last, the author investigates the broad and still much-divided field of research on secularization during the period covered. While many large-scale historical approaches to early modern religion have concentrated on institutional aspects, this study consciously neglects these elements to provide new insights. The resulting work delves into the many distinguishing marks of the period: religious reform and renewal, the hotly debated issue of “confessionalism,” social inclusion and exclusion, and the increasing fragmentation of early modern religiosity in the context of the Enlightenment.
Jonathan Scott
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300243598
- eISBN:
- 9780300249361
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300243598.003.0004
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter describes the European political geography of invention, upon which the Anglo-Dutch-American process would draw. Much of the technology underpinning the rise of early modern Europe, ...
More
This chapter describes the European political geography of invention, upon which the Anglo-Dutch-American process would draw. Much of the technology underpinning the rise of early modern Europe, including printing, navigation, and gunpowder, developed in China first. Yet in China, long-range voyaging was suppressed, as was printing in Constantinople. These were successful political attempts to control the movement of people and of ideas. In Europe, there was no central power capable of exercising such control, even had the will existed to do so. On the contrary, despite strenuous attempts to shield valuable information from rivals, in Europe new developments and discoveries tended to unleash a field of competitive response. As a result, the early modern acquisition of global empire was the work of many powers, rather than one. Political and (from 1517) religious competition were primary motors of the process, driving it faster and further than would otherwise have been the case.Less
This chapter describes the European political geography of invention, upon which the Anglo-Dutch-American process would draw. Much of the technology underpinning the rise of early modern Europe, including printing, navigation, and gunpowder, developed in China first. Yet in China, long-range voyaging was suppressed, as was printing in Constantinople. These were successful political attempts to control the movement of people and of ideas. In Europe, there was no central power capable of exercising such control, even had the will existed to do so. On the contrary, despite strenuous attempts to shield valuable information from rivals, in Europe new developments and discoveries tended to unleash a field of competitive response. As a result, the early modern acquisition of global empire was the work of many powers, rather than one. Political and (from 1517) religious competition were primary motors of the process, driving it faster and further than would otherwise have been the case.
Yaacov Deutsch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199756537
- eISBN:
- 9780199950201
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756537.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book sought to present the content and extract the meanings from the ethnographic accounts of Judaism from early modern Europe. In analyzing these texts, the book focused on several contexts: ...
More
This book sought to present the content and extract the meanings from the ethnographic accounts of Judaism from early modern Europe. In analyzing these texts, the book focused on several contexts: relations between Christians and Jews; the phenomenon of religious conversion; ethnographic writing in the early modern period; and Christian Hebraism. The shared emphasis on these topics has allowed for a better understanding of the corpus at hand. In the various chapters of this work, ideas have been raised and conclusions reached that touch upon manifold issues; but given the book's focus on three case studies, it was not always possible to “connect the dots.” This chapter attempts to weave together the ideas and arguments that were broached in the previous chapters and presents several general conclusions on the corpus at hand. It takes stock of the historical reality in which these works were produced to decipher the links between the texts' authors, the circumstances under which they labored, the genre's overall development, and the historical significance of these accounts.Less
This book sought to present the content and extract the meanings from the ethnographic accounts of Judaism from early modern Europe. In analyzing these texts, the book focused on several contexts: relations between Christians and Jews; the phenomenon of religious conversion; ethnographic writing in the early modern period; and Christian Hebraism. The shared emphasis on these topics has allowed for a better understanding of the corpus at hand. In the various chapters of this work, ideas have been raised and conclusions reached that touch upon manifold issues; but given the book's focus on three case studies, it was not always possible to “connect the dots.” This chapter attempts to weave together the ideas and arguments that were broached in the previous chapters and presents several general conclusions on the corpus at hand. It takes stock of the historical reality in which these works were produced to decipher the links between the texts' authors, the circumstances under which they labored, the genre's overall development, and the historical significance of these accounts.
Helen Kraus
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199600786
- eISBN:
- 9780191731563
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199600786.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Church History
Chapter Extract: Early Modern Europe saw a rapidly increasing interest in and an unprecedented pursuit of the sensus literalis of the Hebrew Bible. His exile in Europe, due to his ...
More
Chapter Extract: Early Modern Europe saw a rapidly increasing interest in and an unprecedented pursuit of the sensus literalis of the Hebrew Bible. His exile in Europe, due to his translation of the New Testament that so angered Thomas More, exposed Tyndale to this revival of interest. His importance to this study is the extent to which his English translation found its way into the Authorized Version, bequeathing us a truly idiomatic vernacular Bible. The Authorized Version itself, by contrast, owes everything to the Hebrew text. Careful comparison with Tyndale' translation reveals a return from occasional paraphrase to a rendering that is as literal as can be. In Genesis 3:16, for example, we see a return to the Hebrew allusion to the woman' desire for her husband. Where Tyndale gives us an English Bible, the Authorised Version translators' offering is a Hebrew Bible — in English.Less
Chapter Extract: Early Modern Europe saw a rapidly increasing interest in and an unprecedented pursuit of the sensus literalis of the Hebrew Bible. His exile in Europe, due to his translation of the New Testament that so angered Thomas More, exposed Tyndale to this revival of interest. His importance to this study is the extent to which his English translation found its way into the Authorized Version, bequeathing us a truly idiomatic vernacular Bible. The Authorized Version itself, by contrast, owes everything to the Hebrew text. Careful comparison with Tyndale' translation reveals a return from occasional paraphrase to a rendering that is as literal as can be. In Genesis 3:16, for example, we see a return to the Hebrew allusion to the woman' desire for her husband. Where Tyndale gives us an English Bible, the Authorised Version translators' offering is a Hebrew Bible — in English.
Jane Grogan
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- July 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198767114
- eISBN:
- 9780191821301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198767114.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
The Introduction maps out the ambitions and challenges for the collection of essays as a whole in foregrounding the many and varied significances of the ancient near east in early modern European ...
More
The Introduction maps out the ambitions and challenges for the collection of essays as a whole in foregrounding the many and varied significances of the ancient near east in early modern European classicism, across a range of disciplines. It describes the context of renewed European engagement—commercial, diplomatic, cultural—and exchange with the eastern Mediterranean, and the continued appeal of a host of classical works and authors describing that world in ancient times. It studies European familiarity with the material traces of that history—archaeological as well as textual—as well as the complex, often mediated routes of reception that texts of and about the ancient near east took. It highlights four key concepts or approaches to early modern studies that would benefit from closer attention to early modern familiarity with the ancient near east, and concludes by summarizing the key contributions of each essay in the collection.Less
The Introduction maps out the ambitions and challenges for the collection of essays as a whole in foregrounding the many and varied significances of the ancient near east in early modern European classicism, across a range of disciplines. It describes the context of renewed European engagement—commercial, diplomatic, cultural—and exchange with the eastern Mediterranean, and the continued appeal of a host of classical works and authors describing that world in ancient times. It studies European familiarity with the material traces of that history—archaeological as well as textual—as well as the complex, often mediated routes of reception that texts of and about the ancient near east took. It highlights four key concepts or approaches to early modern studies that would benefit from closer attention to early modern familiarity with the ancient near east, and concludes by summarizing the key contributions of each essay in the collection.
Robert Launay
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226575254
- eISBN:
- 9780226575421
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226575421.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Theory and Practice
This chapter establishes the importance of a comparative perspective in early modern European thought about others. It critically examines different approaches to understanding these ...
More
This chapter establishes the importance of a comparative perspective in early modern European thought about others. It critically examines different approaches to understanding these conceptualizations in historical perspective. Progressive disciplinary histories, evaluating authors from prior eras in terms of their contributions to contemporary agendas, are invariably anachronistic, as well as approaches which look for the roots of modern ideas. Postcolonial thought, in the wake of the publication of Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism, similarly if less optimistically projects contemporary preoccupations onto past writers. The chapter suggests an approach that treats past authors, not as ancestors, but as interlocutors whose ideas need to be understood in terms of the very different projects they were attempting to formulate, in their own terms rather than in ours.Less
This chapter establishes the importance of a comparative perspective in early modern European thought about others. It critically examines different approaches to understanding these conceptualizations in historical perspective. Progressive disciplinary histories, evaluating authors from prior eras in terms of their contributions to contemporary agendas, are invariably anachronistic, as well as approaches which look for the roots of modern ideas. Postcolonial thought, in the wake of the publication of Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism, similarly if less optimistically projects contemporary preoccupations onto past writers. The chapter suggests an approach that treats past authors, not as ancestors, but as interlocutors whose ideas need to be understood in terms of the very different projects they were attempting to formulate, in their own terms rather than in ours.
Ann Moss
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159087
- eISBN:
- 9780191673474
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159087.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book is concerned with commonplace-books during the Renaissance in Early Modern Europe. While it is certainly be part of the book's brief to point to factors which explain the eventual disgrace ...
More
This book is concerned with commonplace-books during the Renaissance in Early Modern Europe. While it is certainly be part of the book's brief to point to factors which explain the eventual disgrace of the commonplace, its understanding of the commonplace encompasses the understanding of those who compiled, promoted, and employed commonplace-books before the great change in ideas about knowledge and verbal expression took them off the cultural map. The use of the word will, therefore, be the ancient and the archaic use, and our sense of the commonplace anything but trivial. The rest of the book describes the wide variety of the senses of the word ‘commonplace’ (or simply ‘place’) which were already available at the beginning of the 16th century and the potential for future development which its already long history had built into it.Less
This book is concerned with commonplace-books during the Renaissance in Early Modern Europe. While it is certainly be part of the book's brief to point to factors which explain the eventual disgrace of the commonplace, its understanding of the commonplace encompasses the understanding of those who compiled, promoted, and employed commonplace-books before the great change in ideas about knowledge and verbal expression took them off the cultural map. The use of the word will, therefore, be the ancient and the archaic use, and our sense of the commonplace anything but trivial. The rest of the book describes the wide variety of the senses of the word ‘commonplace’ (or simply ‘place’) which were already available at the beginning of the 16th century and the potential for future development which its already long history had built into it.
Jonathan Scott
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300243598
- eISBN:
- 9780300249361
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300243598.003.0006
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter demonstrates how ideas motivated the movement of people across early modern Europe, the North Sea, and the Atlantic. Some of these migrants were refugees, others political and religious ...
More
This chapter demonstrates how ideas motivated the movement of people across early modern Europe, the North Sea, and the Atlantic. Some of these migrants were refugees, others political and religious exiles, and others adventurers and pilgrims. The chapter identifies three transnational migrations of constitutive importance to the Anglo-Dutch-American process. The first involved Protestants fleeing from sixteenth-century Germany and France into the Netherlands, and then in some cases from the Netherlands into England. The second saw early seventeenth-century Scots and English Protestants sheltering in the Netherlands and then crossing the Atlantic alongside other Scots and English migrants to Ireland and the American colonies. Finally, after 1660, English dissenters seeking liberty of conscience in the Netherlands and the American colonies overlapped with French Huguenots fleeing to the Netherlands and England, feeding, after the Glorious Revolution, into a more general migration of European Protestant people, culture, and capital into a world city.Less
This chapter demonstrates how ideas motivated the movement of people across early modern Europe, the North Sea, and the Atlantic. Some of these migrants were refugees, others political and religious exiles, and others adventurers and pilgrims. The chapter identifies three transnational migrations of constitutive importance to the Anglo-Dutch-American process. The first involved Protestants fleeing from sixteenth-century Germany and France into the Netherlands, and then in some cases from the Netherlands into England. The second saw early seventeenth-century Scots and English Protestants sheltering in the Netherlands and then crossing the Atlantic alongside other Scots and English migrants to Ireland and the American colonies. Finally, after 1660, English dissenters seeking liberty of conscience in the Netherlands and the American colonies overlapped with French Huguenots fleeing to the Netherlands and England, feeding, after the Glorious Revolution, into a more general migration of European Protestant people, culture, and capital into a world city.
Yaacov Deutsch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199756537
- eISBN:
- 9780199950201
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756537.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book examines Christian ethnographic writing about the Jews in early modern Europe, offering a systematic historical analysis of this literary genre and arguing its importance for better ...
More
This book examines Christian ethnographic writing about the Jews in early modern Europe, offering a systematic historical analysis of this literary genre and arguing its importance for better understanding both the period in general and Jewish–Christian relations in particular. The book focuses on nearly eighty texts from Western Europe (mostly Germany) that describe the customs and ceremonies of the contemporary Jews, containing both descriptions and illustrations of their subjects. It examines books in which Christian authors describe Jewish life and provides new interpretations of Christian perceptions of Jews, Christian Hebraism, and the attention paid by the Hebraist to contemporary Jews and Judaism. Since many of the authors were converts, studying their books offers new insights into conversion during the period. Their work presents new perspectives on the study of religion, developments in the field of anthropology and ethnography, and internal Christian debates that arose from the portrayal of Jewish life. Despite the lack of attention by modern scholars, some of these books were extremely popular in their time and represent one of the important ways by which Jews were perceived during the period. The key claim of the study is that, although almost all of the descriptions of Jewish customs are accurate, the authors chose to concentrate mainly on details that show the Jewish ceremonies as anti-Christian, superstitious, and ridiculous; these details also reveal the deviation of Judaism from the Biblical law. The book suggests that these ethnographic descriptions are better defined as polemical ethnographies and argues that the texts, despite their polemical tendency, represent a shift from writing about Judaism as a religion to writing about Jews, and from a mode of writing based on stereotypes to one based on direct contact and observation.Less
This book examines Christian ethnographic writing about the Jews in early modern Europe, offering a systematic historical analysis of this literary genre and arguing its importance for better understanding both the period in general and Jewish–Christian relations in particular. The book focuses on nearly eighty texts from Western Europe (mostly Germany) that describe the customs and ceremonies of the contemporary Jews, containing both descriptions and illustrations of their subjects. It examines books in which Christian authors describe Jewish life and provides new interpretations of Christian perceptions of Jews, Christian Hebraism, and the attention paid by the Hebraist to contemporary Jews and Judaism. Since many of the authors were converts, studying their books offers new insights into conversion during the period. Their work presents new perspectives on the study of religion, developments in the field of anthropology and ethnography, and internal Christian debates that arose from the portrayal of Jewish life. Despite the lack of attention by modern scholars, some of these books were extremely popular in their time and represent one of the important ways by which Jews were perceived during the period. The key claim of the study is that, although almost all of the descriptions of Jewish customs are accurate, the authors chose to concentrate mainly on details that show the Jewish ceremonies as anti-Christian, superstitious, and ridiculous; these details also reveal the deviation of Judaism from the Biblical law. The book suggests that these ethnographic descriptions are better defined as polemical ethnographies and argues that the texts, despite their polemical tendency, represent a shift from writing about Judaism as a religion to writing about Jews, and from a mode of writing based on stereotypes to one based on direct contact and observation.
Jonathan I. Israel
- Published in print:
- 1985
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198219286
- eISBN:
- 9780191678332
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219286.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, History of Religion
This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book ...
More
This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book argues that the rapidly expanding Jewish role in political and economic spheres in much of Europe from the 1570s was the first fundamental emancipation of European Jewry.Less
This is the first survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe to concentrate on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book argues that the rapidly expanding Jewish role in political and economic spheres in much of Europe from the 1570s was the first fundamental emancipation of European Jewry.
Chris Briggs
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264416
- eISBN:
- 9780191734342
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264416.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Exploring the role of credit is vital to understanding any economy. In the past two decades historians of many European regions have become increasingly aware that medieval credit, far from being the ...
More
Exploring the role of credit is vital to understanding any economy. In the past two decades historians of many European regions have become increasingly aware that medieval credit, far from being the preserve of merchants, bankers, or monarchs, was actually of basic importance to the ordinary villagers who made up most of the population. This study is devoted to credit in rural England in the middle ages. Focusing in particular on seven well-documented villages, it examines in detail some of the many thousands of village credit transactions of this period, identifies the people who performed them, and explores the social relationships brought about by involvement in credit. The evidence comes primarily from inter-peasant debt litigation recorded in the proceedings of manor courts, which were the private legal jurisdictions of landlords. A comparative study that discusses the English evidence alongside findings from other parts of medieval and early modern Europe, the book argues that the prevailing view of medieval English credit as a marker of poverty and crisis is inadequate. In fact, the credit networks of the English countryside were surprisingly resilient in the face of the fourteenth-century crises associated with plague, famine, and economic depression.Less
Exploring the role of credit is vital to understanding any economy. In the past two decades historians of many European regions have become increasingly aware that medieval credit, far from being the preserve of merchants, bankers, or monarchs, was actually of basic importance to the ordinary villagers who made up most of the population. This study is devoted to credit in rural England in the middle ages. Focusing in particular on seven well-documented villages, it examines in detail some of the many thousands of village credit transactions of this period, identifies the people who performed them, and explores the social relationships brought about by involvement in credit. The evidence comes primarily from inter-peasant debt litigation recorded in the proceedings of manor courts, which were the private legal jurisdictions of landlords. A comparative study that discusses the English evidence alongside findings from other parts of medieval and early modern Europe, the book argues that the prevailing view of medieval English credit as a marker of poverty and crisis is inadequate. In fact, the credit networks of the English countryside were surprisingly resilient in the face of the fourteenth-century crises associated with plague, famine, and economic depression.
Jonathan Scott
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300243598
- eISBN:
- 9780300249361
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300243598.003.0013
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter considers the possibility of building a maritime monarchy and how the Anglo-Dutch Revolution achieved this. Early modern Europe was governed by territorial monarchies and small, ...
More
This chapter considers the possibility of building a maritime monarchy and how the Anglo-Dutch Revolution achieved this. Early modern Europe was governed by territorial monarchies and small, sometimes maritime, republics and/or cities. The former were culturally and socially aristocratic, and the latter mercantile. But in the later seventeenth century, a new European great power emerged that was a territorial monarchy within which a landed aristocracy, enriched by the economic changes of the period, beginning with those revolutionizing agricultural productivity, became fully participant in its new commercial economy. The way in which Britain's ruling class in both Houses of Parliament intertwined hereditary nobility and a mercantile, manufacturing, and financial oligarchy had no European parallel. The strict separation of the world of work from socially mandated aristocratic idleness which applied elsewhere had disappeared.Less
This chapter considers the possibility of building a maritime monarchy and how the Anglo-Dutch Revolution achieved this. Early modern Europe was governed by territorial monarchies and small, sometimes maritime, republics and/or cities. The former were culturally and socially aristocratic, and the latter mercantile. But in the later seventeenth century, a new European great power emerged that was a territorial monarchy within which a landed aristocracy, enriched by the economic changes of the period, beginning with those revolutionizing agricultural productivity, became fully participant in its new commercial economy. The way in which Britain's ruling class in both Houses of Parliament intertwined hereditary nobility and a mercantile, manufacturing, and financial oligarchy had no European parallel. The strict separation of the world of work from socially mandated aristocratic idleness which applied elsewhere had disappeared.
David B. Ruderman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451829
- eISBN:
- 9780801471056
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451829.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
This chapter discusses how the study of Jewish culture in early modern Europe has flourished with an outburst of books and essays. Most of this scholarship, however, is exclusively focused on a ...
More
This chapter discusses how the study of Jewish culture in early modern Europe has flourished with an outburst of books and essays. Most of this scholarship, however, is exclusively focused on a particular locality, seemingly denying the possibility that a distinct early modern Jewish cultural experience can be described. The chapter argues that such a description is attainable without eliminating the specificities of the Jewish subcultures other historians have carefully described. Instead, it proposes a perspective that emphasizes connections, contacts, and conversations over time and across specific localities. A central theme in this description of a transregional Jewish culture is the knowledge explosion triggered by the printing of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino books. The chapter maintains that the movement of books and the activities of their publishers played a key role in creating a connected history of early modern regional Jewish communities.Less
This chapter discusses how the study of Jewish culture in early modern Europe has flourished with an outburst of books and essays. Most of this scholarship, however, is exclusively focused on a particular locality, seemingly denying the possibility that a distinct early modern Jewish cultural experience can be described. The chapter argues that such a description is attainable without eliminating the specificities of the Jewish subcultures other historians have carefully described. Instead, it proposes a perspective that emphasizes connections, contacts, and conversations over time and across specific localities. A central theme in this description of a transregional Jewish culture is the knowledge explosion triggered by the printing of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino books. The chapter maintains that the movement of books and the activities of their publishers played a key role in creating a connected history of early modern regional Jewish communities.
Gerard Passannante
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226648491
- eISBN:
- 9780226648514
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226648514.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book offers a radical rethinking of a familiar narrative: the rise of materialism in early modern Europe. It begins by taking up the ancient philosophical notion that the world is composed of ...
More
This book offers a radical rethinking of a familiar narrative: the rise of materialism in early modern Europe. It begins by taking up the ancient philosophical notion that the world is composed of two fundamental opposites: atoms, as the philosopher Epicurus theorized, intrinsically unchangeable and moving about the void; and the void itself, or nothingness. The book considers the fact that this strain of ancient Greek philosophy survived and was transmitted to the Renaissance primarily by means of a poem that had seemingly been lost—a poem insisting that the letters of the alphabet are like the atoms that make up the universe. By tracing this elemental analogy through the fortunes of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, it argues that, long before it took on its familiar shape during the Scientific Revolution, the philosophy of atoms and the void reemerged in the Renaissance as a story about reading and letters—a story that materialized in texts, in their physical recomposition, and in their scattering. From the works of Virgil and Macrobius to those of Petrarch, Poliziano, Lambin, Montaigne, Bacon, Spenser, Gassendi, Henry More, and Newton, the book recovers a forgotten history of materialism in humanist thought and scholarly practice, and asks us to reconsider one of the most enduring questions of the period: what does it mean for a text, a poem, and philosophy to be “reborn”?Less
This book offers a radical rethinking of a familiar narrative: the rise of materialism in early modern Europe. It begins by taking up the ancient philosophical notion that the world is composed of two fundamental opposites: atoms, as the philosopher Epicurus theorized, intrinsically unchangeable and moving about the void; and the void itself, or nothingness. The book considers the fact that this strain of ancient Greek philosophy survived and was transmitted to the Renaissance primarily by means of a poem that had seemingly been lost—a poem insisting that the letters of the alphabet are like the atoms that make up the universe. By tracing this elemental analogy through the fortunes of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, it argues that, long before it took on its familiar shape during the Scientific Revolution, the philosophy of atoms and the void reemerged in the Renaissance as a story about reading and letters—a story that materialized in texts, in their physical recomposition, and in their scattering. From the works of Virgil and Macrobius to those of Petrarch, Poliziano, Lambin, Montaigne, Bacon, Spenser, Gassendi, Henry More, and Newton, the book recovers a forgotten history of materialism in humanist thought and scholarly practice, and asks us to reconsider one of the most enduring questions of the period: what does it mean for a text, a poem, and philosophy to be “reborn”?
