Early modern history (1501-1800) : genres & specific topics
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On the steps of the throne
The King’s family and its political and cultural role in the Spanish monarchy (16th-18th centuries)
The aim of this book is to forge a new critical perspective on the Spanish Habsburgs’ family networks by studying the roles performed by princes and princesses of the blood of different ranks and status in the service of the Spanish monarchs. The chapters included draw on a range of case studies in order to rethink the dynastic and political role assigned to the king’s relatives. They also analyse the problematic issues generated by the court ceremonial diplomatic dynastic and governmental duties undertaken by these political actors. In doing so these studies forge a deeper understanding of the conflicts prompted by the administration of the extensive transnational community of Spanish Habsburg interests and allegiances. The innovative and insightful studies included in this volume are drawn from both unpublished doctoral theses as well as ongoing research projects. In this sense it seeks to contribute to the evolving historiographical debate on the role played by a range of agents who have not been studied in depth by historians above all with a focus on the construction of the Spanish Habsburg monarchy in the early modern period. The approach we have adopted has been to prioritize little-known and less-studied agents contexts and periods from the Spanish Habsburg sphere which are nonetheless highly relevant for developing a deeper knowledge of the potential and expectations assigned to the king’s extended family whether legitimate or illegitimate. Furthermore this book addresses the problematic issues and conflicts that were prompted by these political agents in undertaking various diplomatic dynastic and governmental roles.
Supplicant Empires
Searching for the Iberian World in Global History
This volume is a collection of reflections from leading senior and junior historians regarding the merits of historical comparativism in the field of Iberian history. The first purpose of the book is to encourage a dialogue between scholars of the Iberian Empires and to foster a reconsider how they see the broader history of the early modern world in light of recent historiography. The second aim of the book is to prompt scholars of other regions in global history to consider the recent literature on the Iberian Empires anew to move beyond the tropes of the Black Legend and narrative of growth splendour and decline and to study those imbrications had connected disparate parts of the world and which the postcolonial turn has unearthed. In a series of articles and interviews contributors were encouraged to consider the role of linguistic divides in the growth of historiographical strands and to speak plainly about the possible siloes that have emerged in the field. Contributors discuss the Atlantic turn corporate cultures the Catholic adoption of Protestant ideals gender and race all while drawing on insights from scholars who work on early modern nuns the material history of sugar and coffee or those who are exploring the uses of the concept of barbarity in borderlands.
Imperial Blind Spots. Iberian Rhizomatic Worlds. Indeterminacy, Thickness, and Multispecies Interactions in Early Modern Travel Accounts *
Corporations, Normative Pluralism, and Jurisdictional Culture. Explaining the Political Landscape of Early Modern Iberia *
Temps, sciences et empire
Cosmographie et navigation dans les monarchies ibériques au xvi e siècle
Dès la fin du xve siècle les monarchies portugaise et espagnole se lancent au grand large dans un élan de construction impériale qui saisit le globe. Une diversité d’acteurs et de savoirs dont la cosmographie et la navigation sont porteurs de ce processus. Ce dernier transforme à jamais l’image et le concept de la Terre comme espace de l’habitat humain retravaillant les liens entre espace et temps. Pilotes et cosmographes contribuent alors à une reconceptualisation des temporalités et des temps de la Terre. Quels textes ont-ils rédigés et lus quels instruments ont-ils manipulés à cette fin ?
En explorant ces dynamiques à partir d’une pluralité de matériaux le livre embarque le lecteur sur des bateaux naviguant vers les Indes l’invite dans des Casas et des entrepôts portuaires ou dans des universités où résonnent les échos d’une mer transformatrice des connaissances. La création de la chaire de cosmographie à la Casa de la contratación (Séville 1552) et la trajectoire de son premier détenteur Jerónimo de Chaves (1523-1574) servent de « laboratoire » privilégié d’où observer ces problématiques.
Le livre élargit ainsi la manière de comprendre la cosmographie au xvie siècle souvent réduite à son rapport à la cartographie à l’intersection de plusieurs pratiques et savoirs (histoire naturelle théologie astrologie astronomie navigation) et au-delà du clivage « Anciens-Modernes ». En embrassant d’un regard les monarchies ibériques l’ouvrage ancre dans l’Europe méridionale la question plus large de la production des techniques et des sciences à l’époque moderne inscrivant l’espace ibérique dans une première globalisation.
Contending Representations II: Entangled Republican Spaces in Early Modern Venice
This bookaddresses the issue of political celebration in early modern Venice. Dealing with processional orders and iconographic programs historiographical narratives and urbanistic canons stylistic features and diplomatic accounts the interdisciplinary contributions gathered in these pages aim to question the performative effectiveness and the social consistency of the so called ‘myth’ of Venice: a system of symbols beliefs and meanings offering a self-portrait of the ruling elite the Venetian patriciate. In order to do so the volume calls for a spatial turn in Venetian studies blurring the boundaries between institutionalized and unofficial ceremonial spaces and considering their ongoing interaction in representing the rule of the Serenissima. The twelve chapters move from Ducal Palace to the Venetian streets and from the city of Venice to its dominions thus widening considerably the range of social and political actors and audiences involved in the analysis. Such multifocal perspective allows us to challenge the very idea of a single ‘myth’ of Venice.
Civilités et incivilités urbaines
Urbanité, rituels et cérémonies dans la ville du xvii e siècle
Les notions d’urbanité de politesse et de savoir-vivre connaissent depuis une dizaine d’années un intérêt renouvelé à la fois dans leurs dimensions politique sociale et culturelle.
Cet ouvrage souhaite envisager le milieu urbain en tant qu’espace de civilité en croisant les regards des historiens et des spécialistes de la littérature de l’âge classique. Il s’agit aussi d’examiner les cérémonies et rituels du XVIIe siècle comme un ensemble de réseaux de pratiques codifiées dans lequel interagissent notamment des usages collectifs et des préséances individuelles. Ces usages organisent l’espace urbain comme l’espace curial en se déployant en leur sein. La confrontation des archives et des documents littéraires mais aussi des outils et des méthodologies utilisés par ces différents champs disciplinaires permet d’étudier à nouveaux frais les relations entre des concepts trop rapidement perçus comme antonymiques : l’incivilité n’est jamais le contraire de la civilité et il n’existe pas de civilisation ni de société civilisée qui puisse se revendiquer comme statique ou achevée. En revenant dans le sillage des travaux de Norbert Elias aux origines de la civilité moderne envisagée à l’échelle européenne cet ouvrage entreprend d’examiner ce processus non pas de manière linéaire et téléologique mais dans la complexité de ses évolutions et mutations afin de mieux contextualiser les débats contemporains autour de l’incivilité.
Women of the Past, Issues for the Present
The roles played by women in history and even the very idea of what it is to be female have always been in flux changing over centuries between cultures and in response to diverse social and economic parameters. Even today women’s roles and women’s rights continue to face changes and pressures. In establishing the series Women of the Past: Testimonies from Archaeology and History the ambition is to build on the profound theoretical and empirical developments that have taken place over the last fifty years of gender-focused research and to explore them in a contemporary context.
The aim of this series is to shed light on not just the outstanding and extraordinary women who were trendsetters of their time but also the not quite so outstanding women often overshadowed by outstanding men and the ordinary women those who simply went about their everyday life and kept their world turning in their own quiet way. This edited volume Women of the Past Issues for the Present is the inaugural volume of the series and shows the wide span of the series chronologically geographically and socially in terms of the research presented. From Roman slaves to Viking women and from medieval wet-nurses to the nineteenth-century wives who supported their archaeologist husbands on excavation this groundbreaking volume opens a new vista in our understanding of the past.
Maternal Materialities
Objects, Rituals and Material Evidence of Medieval and Early Modern Childbirth
Although little is known of the process surrounding early modern childbirth the lack of written testimonials and technical descriptions does not preclude the possibility of reconstructing the reality of this elusive space: drawing on the evidence of clothing food rites and customs this collection of essays seeks to give tangible form to the experience of childbirth through the analysis of physical objects and rituals.
An important addition to the literature of material culture and ‘wordly goods’ this collection of twenty-three essays from international scholars offers a novel approach to the study of pre- and early modern birth by extending its reach beyond the birthing event to include issues concerning the management of pregnancy and post-partum healing.
Grouped into five broad areas the essays explore the material advantages and disadvantages of motherhood the food and objects present in the birthing room the evidence and memorialization of death in childbirth attitudes towards the pregnant body the material culture of healing and the ritual items used during childbirth.
From Confucius to Zhu Xi
The First Treatise on God in François Noël’s Chinese Philosophy (1711)
On 25 September 1710 Pope Clement XI finally promulgated the 1704 decree Cum Deus optimus which condemned the toleration of certain Confucian rituals among Chinese Catholic converts and the use of the Chinese terms tian and Shangdi to refer to the Christian God. This papal decision antagonised the Kangxi Emperor and devastated the Jesuit China mission. Although the Jesuits were prohibited from publicly refuting the decree the Flemish Jesuit François Noël sought to defend the Jesuit position by publishing his voluminous scholarship on the Chinese classics. Among other works in 1711 Noël published two seminal contributions to the history of Sinology: the Sinensis imperii libri classici sex or Libri sex and the Philosophia Sinica a sophisticated treatment of Chinese metaphysics ritual and ethics. While the Libri sex achieved some degree of influence in the Enlightenment through the French translation of the French Jesuit historian Du Halde and the writings of the philosopher Christian Wolff the Philosophia Sinica was actively suppressed by the Superior-General of the Jesuit order. Yet it is in this latter work where the full breadth of Noël’s originality and intellectual contribution can be found. Noël reinterprets the Jesuits’ position through the lens of Neo-Confucianism integrating concepts such as li taiji yin and yang in his reading of Chinese philosophy. With contributions from Sinologists and intellectual historians this book offers the first systematic study of this pioneering work.
Sweden, Russia, and the 1617 Peace of Stolbovo
In 1617 after seven years of war between Sweden and Russia and talks facilitated by English and Dutch diplomats the peace treaty of Stolbovo was signed. This important but little-studied document was to form the basis for relationships between Sweden and Russia for the next one hundred years before it was replaced by the Peace of Nystad in 1721 and it had a huge influence on the lives of the people who lived in the region.
This wide-ranging volume draws together contributions by scholars from Britain Sweden Germany Estonia Russia and Finland to offer new insights into and analysis of this peace treaty and its impact on the wider region during the seventeenth century. Covering disciplines including political and economic history church history and Slavonic and Classical philology the chapters gathered here shed new light on and provide a new understanding of the Early Modern period in the Baltic Sea area.