The Tenuous Thread: A Venetian Lawyer's Apology for Jewish Self-Government in the Seventeenth Century

AJS Review ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-250
Author(s):  
David Malkiel
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Political Structures

Ghettoization stimulated sixteenth-century Italian Jewry to develop larger and more complex political structures, because the Jewish community now became responsible for municipal tasks. This development, however, raised theological objections in Catholic circles because Christian doctrine traditionally forbade the Jewish people dominion. It also aroused hostility among the increasingly centralized governments of early modern Europe, who viewed Jewish self-government as an infringement of the sovereignty of the state. The earliest appearance of the term “state within a state,” which has become a shorthand expression for the latter view, was recently located in Venice in 1631.

Reformed Education in Early Modern Europe: a Survey1

2005 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
Stefan Ehrenpreis
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Educational Models ◽  
International Networks ◽  
Local Parish ◽  
Modern Europe

AbstractReformed education in sixteenth-century Europe shared common aims and methods with the educational models of other confessions, but the Reformed put them into action earlier and with greater force. Reformed educational models were characterized both by the integration of the educational idea into the local parish level and by a utopian concept of universal reform. The Reformed used international networks of scholars and publishers to disseminate their ideas. In the second half of the seventeenth century, Reformed models neglected the new, popular methods of mass instruction and, at the same time, their acceptance declined.

The Sudden Death of the Burning Salamander: Reading Experiment and the Transformation of Natural Historical Practice in Early Modern Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 464-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Popper
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sudden Death ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Reading Experiment ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
In Fire ◽  
Historical Practice

This article uses early modern studies of the salamander to reveal how a natural historical practice focused on the collection of textual testimonies facilitated the rise of the experimental regime that replaced it. Sixteenth-century naturalists emphasized broad collection of evidence—regardless of how credible—ensuring that their works reported salamanders’ widely-doubted ability to live in fire. Late seventeenth-century scholars similarly practiced compilation, but they prioritized the discernment of relationships between texts rather than their accumulation. In the case of the salamander, they separated testimonies into traditions of credulity and criticism, producing the illusory impression that moderns newly rejected an ancient and vulgar conviction that salamanders lived in fire. The claim that salamanders live in fire disappeared not because it was debunked experimentally, but because naturalists’ shifting practices of reading enabled them to forge an experimental tradition that stigmatized the belief and then removed the grounds for repeating it.

John Locke: The Philosopher as Christian Virtuoso

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Nuovo
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Natural Philosopher ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Empirical Stance

The purpose of this book is to present the philosophical thought of John Locke as the work of a Christian virtuoso. In his role as ‘virtuoso’, an experimental natural philosopher of the sort that flourished in England during the seventeenth century, Locke was a proponent of the so-called ‘new philosophy’, a variety of atomism that emerged in early modern Europe. But he was also a practicing Christian, and he professed confidence that the two vocations were not only compatible but mutually sustaining. Locke aspired, without compromising his empirical stance, to unite the two vocations in a single philosophical endeavor with the aim of producing a system of Christian philosophy. Although the birth of the modern secular outlook did not happen smoothly or without many conflicts of belief, Locke, in his role of Christian virtuoso, endeavored to resolve apparent contradictions. Nuovo draws attention to the often-overlooked complexities and diversity of Locke’s thought, and argues that Locke must now be counted among the creators of early modern systems of philosophy.

scholarly journals ‘ACCEPTABLE TRUTHS’ DURING THE FRENCH RELIGIOUS WARS

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Penny Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Intense Debate

AbstractThis paper seeks to provide some historical perspective on contemporary preoccupations with competing versions of the truth. Truth has always been contested and subject to scrutiny, particularly during troubled times. It can take many forms – judicial truth, religious truth, personal truth – and is bound up with the context of time and place. This paper sets out the multidisciplinary approaches to truth and examines its role in a specific context, that of early modern Europe and, in particular, the French religious wars of the sixteenth century. Truth was a subject of intense debate among both Renaissance and Reformation scholars, it was upheld as an absolute by judges, theologians and rulers. Yet, it also needed to be concealed by those who maintained a different truth to that of the authorities. In the case of France, in order to advance their cause, the Huguenots used subterfuge of various kinds, including the illicit carrying of messages. In this instance, truth was dependent on the integrity of its carrier, whether the messenger could be trusted and, therefore, their truth accepted. Both sides also sought to defend the truth by countering what they presented as the deceit of their opponents. Then, as now, acceptance of what is true depends on which side we are on and who we are prepared to believe.

scholarly journals Sharecropping and Investment in Agriculture in Early Modern France

1982 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip T. Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Risk Sharing ◽  
Modern Theory ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Early Modern France ◽  
Modern France ◽  
Modern Europe

The paper examines the spread of sharecropping that followed a wave of investment in agriculture in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France. Using results from the modern theory of share contracts, it argues that sharecropping was a means of risk sharing that favored both landlords and tenants. Although the evidence used in this paper comes from France, the results may well apply to other areas of early modern Europe.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Modern Europe

The introduction outlines previous definitions of the modern state as well as historians’ current explanations of state formation in early modern Europe and England. It demonstrates that earlier scholars have focused almost entirely on the state’s ability to engage in active warfare and have thus neglected an important aspect of the monopoly of violence, the restriction of non-state or illegitimate violence. The introduction also explores the medieval background of the coroner system, the mechanism designed to regulate violence in England and explains why the system had failed to achieve its proposed ends prior to the sixteenth century.

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