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. This text presents Kaspar von Greyerz's important overview and interpretation of the religions and cultures of Early Modern Europe.
David B. Ruderman's groundbreaking studies of Jewish intellectuals as they engaged with Renaissance humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment have set the agenda for a distinctive historiographical approach to Jewish culture in early modern Europe, from 1500 to 1800. From his initial studies of Italy to his later work on eighteenth-century English, German, and Polish Jews, Ruderman has emphasized the individual as a representative or exemplary figure through whose life and career the problems of a period and cultural context are revealed. Thirty-one leading scholars celebrate Ruderman's stellar career in essays that bring new insight into Jewish culture as it is intertwined in Jewish, European, Ottoman, and American history. The volume presents probing historical snapshots that advance, refine, and challenge how we understand the early modern period and spark further inquiry. Key elements explored include those inspired by Ruderman's own work: the role of print, the significance of networks and mobility among Jewish intellectuals, the value of extraordinary individuals who absorbed and translated so-called external traditions into a Jewish idiom, and the interaction between cultures through texts and personal encounters of Jewish and Christian intellectuals. While these elements can be found in earlier periods of Jewish history, Ruderman and his colleagues point to an intensification of mobility, the dissemination of knowledge, and the blurring of boundaries in the early modern period. These studies present a rich and nuanced portrait of a Jewish culture that is both a contributing member and a product of early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire. As director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Ruderman has fostered a community of scholars from Europe, North America, and Israel who work in the widest range of areas that touch on Jewish culture. He has worked to make Jewish studies an essential element of mainstream humanities. The essays in this volume are a testament to the haven he has fostered for scholars, which has and continues to generate important works of scholarship across the entire spectrum of Jewish history.
A broad-ranging survey of violence in western Europe from the Reformation to the French Revolution. Julius Ruff summarises a huge body of research and provides readers with a clear, accessible, and engaging introduction to the topic of violence in early modern Europe. His book, enriched with fascinating illustrations, underlines the fact that modern preoccupations with the problem of violence are not unique, and that late medieval and early modern European societies produced levels of violence that may have exceeded those in the most violent modern inner-city neighbourhoods. Julius Ruff examines the role of the emerging state in controlling violence; the roots and forms of the period's widespread interpersonal violence; violence and its impact on women; infanticide; and rioting. This book, in the successful textbook series New Approaches to European History, will be of great value to students of European history, criminal justice sciences, and anthropology.
Introduction: The Printing Press as an Agent of Power / Helmer Helmers, Nina Lamal and Jamie Cumby -- Part 1: Governing through Print -- Policing in Print: Social Control in Spanish and Borromean Milan (1535-1584) / Rachel Midura -- On Printing and Decision-Making: The Management of Information by the City Powers of Lyon (ca. 1550-ca. 1580) / Gautier Mingous -- Printing for Central Authorities in the Early Modern Low Countries (15th-17th Centuries) / Renaud Adam -- Rural Officials Discover the Printing Press in the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy / Andreas Golob -- Part 2: Printing for Government -- Printing for the Reformation: The Canonical Documents of the Edwardian Church of England, 1547-1553 / Celyn Richards -- Newspapers and Authorities in Seventeenth-Century Germany / Jan Hillgärtner -- The Politics of Print in the Dutch Golden Age: The Ommelander Troubles (c. 1630-1680) / Arthur der Weduwen -- Part 3: Patronage and Prestige -- The Rise of the Stampatore Camerale: Printers and Power in Early Sixteenth-Century Rome / Paolo Sachet -- State and Church Sponsored Printing by Jan Januszowski and His Drukarnia Łazarzowa (Officina Lazari) in Krakow / Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba -- Ferdinando de'Medici and the Typographia Medicea / Caren Reimann -- Royal Patronage of Illicit Print: Catherine of Braganza and Catholic Books in Late Seventeenth-Century London / Chelsea Reutcke -- Part 4: Power of Persuasion -- The Papacy, Power, and Print: The Publication of Papal Decrees in the First Fifty Years of Printing / Margaret Meserve -- The Power of the Image: The Visual Prints of Frans Hogenberg / Ramon Voges -- Collecting 'Toute l'Angleterre': English Books, Soft Power and Spanish Diplomacy at the Casa del Sol (1613-1622) / Ernesto Oyarbide -- Prohibition as Propaganda Technique: The Case of the Pamphlet Lacouronne usurpee et le prince supposé (1688) / Rindert Jagersma -- Part 5: Relgious Authority -- Illustrating Authority: The Creation and Reception of an English Protestant Iconography / Nora Epstein -- Between Ego Documents and Anti-Catholic Propaganda: Printed Revocation Sermons in Seventeenth-Century Lutheran Germany / Martin Christ -- Learned Servants: Dutch Ministers, Their Books and the Struggle for a Reformed Republic in the Dutch Golden Age / Forrest C. Strickland.
This book is the first encompassing history of diasporas in Europe between 1500 and 1800. Huguenots, Sephardim, British Catholics, Mennonites, Moriscos, Moravian Brethren, Quakers, Ashkenazim... what do these populations who roamed Europe in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries have in common? Despite an extensive historiography of diasporas, publications have tended to focus on the history of a single diaspora. Each of these groups was part of a community whose connections crossed political and cultural as well as religious borders. Each built dynamic networks through which information, people, and goods circulated. United by a memory of persecution, by an attachment to a homeland—be it real or dreamed—and by economic ties, those groups were nevertheless very diverse. As minorities, they maintained complex relationships with authorities, local inhabitants, and other diasporic populations. This book investigates the tensions they experienced. Between unity and heterogeneity, between mobility and locality, between marginalisation and assimilation, it attempts to reconcile global- and micro-historical approaches. The authors provide a comparative view as well as elaborate case studies for scholars, students, and the public who are interested in learning about how the social sciences and history contribute to our understanding of integration, migrations, and religious coexistence.
A team of leading scholars survey the development of philosophy in the period of extraordinary intellectual change from the mid-16th century to the early 18th century. They cover metaphysics and natural philosophy; the mind, the passions, and aesthetics; epistemology, logic, mathematics, and language; ethics and political philosophy; and religion.
'Early Modern' is a term applied to the period which falls between the end of the middle ages and the beginning of the nineteenth century. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to Europe in this period, exploring the changes and transitions involved in the move towards modernity. Nine newly commissioned chapters under the careful editorship of Euan Cameron cover social, political, economic, and cultural perspectives, all contributing to a full and vibrant picture of Europe during this time. The chapters are organized thematically, and consider the evolving European economy and society, the impact of new ideas on religion, and the emergence of modern political attitudes and techniques. The text is complemented with many illustrations throughout to give a feel of the changes in life beyond the raw historical data.