Music: Sacred Genres From the Renaissance to Modern

Author(s):  
Christine Suzanne Getz

Prior to the 16th-century Reformation, sacred music was defined by its role in Catholic liturgical and devotional practice. The liturgy of the Renaissance and early modern Mass and canonical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline) was delivered largely in plainchant but was ornamented with improvised and composed polyphony. Although such polyphony took a variety of forms, the dominant genres comprised polyphonic settings of liturgical texts from the Mass, as well as other liturgical, paraliturgical, and biblical texts, many of them taken from the canonical hours. In these compositions, both musical and extramusical devices were appropriated for their symbolic or rhetorical potential to convey meaning, resulting in a complex intersection of the sacred and secular in terms of not only content, but also performance venue. Efforts to educate the laity, especially during the post-Tridentine era, resulted in the development of repertoire associated with the Triduum, including Lamentation cycles and dramatic music, as well new genres for performance at Vespers and in private devotions. They further led to the proliferation of simple, easily memorized songs that served to reinforce the teaching of doctrine. Although polyphony associated with the Catholic tradition and the practice of psalm singing traversed confessional boundaries, the Calvinist emphasis on the metrical psalm, the Lutheran reliance on congregational singing, and the Anglican adoption of the Book of Common Prayer gave rise to the distinctive repertoire of the Reformation. With the advent of the public concert in the 18th century, sacred genres that had dominated the Renaissance and early modern era were adapted to the concert hall and stage. There they were received within the theoretical, philosophical, and political contexts of the Cecilian movement, the Tudor revival, the French Schola Cantorum tradition, and 19th-century nationalist strains. Catholic and Protestant religious music, including cathedral music in the New Spain and psalm singing in New England, was redefined through transatlantic interaction during the European colonization of the Americas. It further was defined by musical genres such as the spiritual and gospel that emerged through the worship of Black communities.

Perichoresis ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antti Räihä

Abstract The history of the parishioners’ right to participate in and influence the choice of local clergy in Sweden and Finland can be taken back as far as the late Medieval Times. The procedures for electing clergymen are described in historiography as a specifically Nordic feature and as creating the basis of local self-government. In this article the features of local self-government are studied in a context where the scope for action was being modified. The focus is on the parishioners’ possibilities and willingness to influence the appointment of pastors in the Lutheran parishes of the Russo-Swedish borderlands in the 18th century. At the same time, this article will offer the first comprehensive presentation of the procedures for electing pastors in the Consistory District of Fredrikshamn. The Treaty of Åbo, concluded between Sweden and Russia in 1743, ensured that the existing Swedish law, including the canon law of 1686, together with the old Swedish privileges and statutes, as well as the freedom to practise the Lutheran religion, remained in force in the area annexed into Russia. By analysing the actual process of appointing pastors, it is possible to discuss both the development of the local political culture and the interaction between the central power and the local society in the late Early Modern era.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Kirsten Ricquier

This contribution offers a new, critical bibliography of translations and editions of the five extant Greek romances in the early modern era, from the beginning of printing to the eighteenth century. By consulting catalogues of libraries, digitalised copies, and secondary literature, I expand, update and correct earlier bibliographies. I identify alleged editions and include creative treatments of the texts as well as incomplete versions. As an interpretation of my survey, I give an overview of broad, changing tendencies throughout the era and filter the dispersion over Europe in a wider area and period than was available so far, in order to get a more complete picture of their distribution. Furthermore, I point to some peculiar (tendencies in) combinations, among the lemmata themselves, as well as with other stories.Kirsten Ricquier studied Classical Philology at Ghent University (Belgium). She is currently a researcher at this institution funded by the European Research Council Starting Grant Novel Saints under the supervision of Professor Koen De Temmerman. Her research concerns the afterlife of ancient prose fiction in medieval Greek hagiography and the early modern era, the classical tradition (particularly in the long 18th century), and genre theory.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria A. Spyrou ◽  
Marcel Keller ◽  
Rezeda I. Tukhbatova ◽  
Elizabeth A. Nelson ◽  
Aida Andrades Valtueňa ◽  
...  

The second plague pandemic (14th - 18th century AD), caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is infamous for its initial wave, the Black Death (1346-1353 AD), and its repeated scourges in Europe and the vicinity until the Early Modern Era. Here, we report 32 ancient Y. pestis genomes spanning the 14th to 17th century AD through the analysis of human remains from nine European archaeological sites. Our data support an initial entry of the bacterium from Eastern Europe and the absence of genetic diversity during the Black Death as well as low diversity during local outbreaks thereafter. Moreover, analysis of post-Black Death genomes shows the diversification of a Y. pestis lineage into multiple genetically distinct clades that may have given rise to more than one disease reservoir in, or close to, Europe. Finally, we show the loss of a genomic region that includes virulence-associated genes in strains associated with late stages of the second plague pandemic (17th - 18th century AD). This deletion could not be detected in extant strains within our modern dataset, though it was identified in a today-extinct lineage associated with the first plague pandemic (6th - 8th century AD), suggesting convergent evolution during both pandemic events.


Author(s):  
Paul B. Moyer

This chapter looks at factors that shaped alleged cases of occult crime in New England, the broader English Atlantic, and Europe during the early modern era. It talks about a widow residing in Lynn, Massachusetts, by the name of Ann Burt, who came under suspicion for witchcraft in 1669 and was believed to have been acquitted as she died of natural causes in 1673. It also details the malefic affliction of five victims as the main charge laid against Widow Burt, including other witnesses that claimed she could read minds and move with preternatural speed. The chapter describes the forces operating on a local, regional, and transatlantic level that shaped the episode of Widow Burt coming under suspicion for witchcraft in 1669. It discusses how the case of Ann Burt was linked to a larger campaign of witch-hunting that stretched across the seventeenth-century English Atlantic.


Aschkenas ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-69
Author(s):  
Monika Richarz

Abstract This article casts light on the situation of the 18th century Jewish underclass by using the example of maid servants. Serving as a maid was the most widespread occupation for Jewish women in the early modern era. Forced to migrate and to live unmarried in the house of a Schutzjude (Jew living under the protection of the authorities), maids were subjected to two rigid legal systems: the local Jewish law and the general law for menials that also applied to Christian servants. Because their families were often too poor to give them a dowry or to acquire authority protection, their chances of marriage were limited. And yet, Jewish maids had the highest number of illegitimate children, often fathered by middle-class Jews. Maids who became pregnant out of wedlock were branded as whores and dismissed. The councils of Jewish parishes were constantly involved in conflicts between parish members and migrant servants. Many maid servants tried to improve their difficult social situation by leaving Judaism.


2021 ◽  

Free ports played an important role in fostering inter-imperial and international connections and commercial interactions in the Atlantic world during the early modern and modern periods. While “free port” is an expansive term, sometimes used to delineate areas where illegal smuggling occurred, places that were free of ice, or locales that welcomed foreign migration, the studies cited in this article pertain to the imperial legal and commercial definition of free ports. That is, ports established by the state that exhibited lower customs duties than did the rest of the polity or existed outside of normal customs laws while welcoming foreign merchants to exchange at least some proscribed set of goods. Traditionally, it has been understood that free ports have existed in some form since Antiquity, but that the free port of Livorno, established by the Medici in the late 16th century, constitutes the earliest and most-successful example of a free port in the early modern era. Free ports spread across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the globe in the ensuing centuries. Beginning substantively in the 15th century, European powers extended their commercial and imperial networks across the Atlantic Ocean, often violently encountering and interacting with peoples in North and South America, the West Indies, and the west coast of Africa. While military, commercial, intellectual, and migratory movements fostered the so-called “Atlantic World” by connecting these far-flung geographical locales, many European metropoles initially attempted to limit their subjects’ commercial interactions to within their Atlantic imperial realms. However, early modern Atlantic empires employed free ports beginning in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in the Caribbean, as a means of providing exceptions to their generally closed commercial systems and strategically allowing foreign merchants to trade in certain places. Some metropolitan European ports also became “free.” The heyday of colonial Atlantic, especially Caribbean, free ports occurred in the mid- to late 18th century as Atlantic empires promulgated various reforms in response to the Seven Years’ War and other European imperial conflicts. The number of Atlantic free ports declined in the 19th century as doctrines of more universal free trade took root and as Latin American countries gained independence, meaning that European powers could trade directly to these locations without having to skirt Spanish imperial commercial restrictions. Atlantic free ports experienced a revival in the late 19th and 20th centuries, evolving into various “special economic zones” such as export-processing zones, tax havens, and foreign-trade zones. The studies cited here imply that some Atlantic free ports encompassed entire islands, especially smaller ones like Sint Eustatius. Much of the literature on free ports focuses on Italian and Mediterranean ones, but interest in Atlantic free ports is growing. Extant texts pertaining to Atlantic free ports usually consider specific ports or empires, with little substantive comparative work (the major exceptions being scholarship on Dutch, Danish, and Swedish free ports). Some studies provide useful analysis of free-port proposals that were never realized but were debated intensely.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildiko Sz. Kristof

The present study is the translation of Chapter 3 of the book of Ildikó Sz. Kristóf, entitled “Ördögi mesterséget nem cselekedtem.” A boszorkányüldözés társadalmi és kulturális háttere a kora újkori Debrecenben és Bihar vármegyében (“I have not done any diabolic deeds.” The Social and Cultural Foundation of Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Debrecen and Bihar County) published in Debrecen, Hungary in 1998. The book examined the witch-hunting in Bihar county and its largest city, the headquarters of the Calvinist church in Eastern Hungary between 1575 and 1766. During this period, 217 trials were conducted against 303 accused, and the book explored the social and religious foundations of the accusations. The witch-hunts in Bihar county were of rather small size (1–3 accused per annum) and intensity. A possible explanation for this relative mildness could be provided by a complex consideration of legal, religious, and local social circumstances. Chapter 3, published here in English, discusses Hungarian Calvinist demonology which remained rather sceptical about the concepts of diabolical witchcraft (e.g., the “covenant” or pact with the devil, the witches’ attendance at regular meetings (sabbath), etc.) throughout the early modern era. The author has studied several Calvinist treatises of theology published between the late 16th and the early 18th century by the printing press of Debrecen, those, for example, of Péter Mélius (1562), Tamás Félegyházi (1579), Péter Margitai Láni (1617), János Kecskeméti Alexis (1621), Mátyás Nógrádi (1651), Johannes Mediomontanus (1656), Pál Csehi (1656), István Diószegi Kis (1679; 1681), Gellért Kabai Bodor (1678) and Imre Pápai Páriz (1719). According to her findings, Calvinist demonology, although regarded the wordly interventions of the devil of limited scope (excepting, perhaps, the Puritans of the 1650s/1680s), urged the expurgation of the various forms of everyday magic from urban and village life. The suspicion of witchcraft fell especially on the practitioners of benevolent magic (popular healers/”wise women”, midwives, fortune-tellers, etc.) who were presumed to challenge and offend divine providence. The official religious considerations sometimes seem to have coincided with folk beliefs and explanations of misfortune concerning, among others, the plague epidemic in which witchcraft played an important role.


Author(s):  
Christopher Brooke

This is the first full-scale look at the essential place of Stoicism in the foundations of modern political thought. Spanning the period from Justus Lipsius's Politics in 1589 to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile in 1762, and concentrating on arguments originating from England, France, and the Netherlands, the book considers how political writers of the period engaged with the ideas of the Roman and Greek Stoics that they found in works by Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The book examines key texts in their historical context, paying special attention to the history of classical scholarship and the historiography of philosophy. The book delves into the persisting tension between Stoicism and the tradition of Augustinian anti-Stoic criticism, which held Stoicism to be a philosophy for the proud who denied their fallen condition. Concentrating on arguments in moral psychology surrounding the foundations of human sociability and self-love, the book details how the engagement with Roman Stoicism shaped early modern political philosophy and offers significant new interpretations of Lipsius and Rousseau together with fresh perspectives on the political thought of Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes. The book shows how the legacy of the Stoics played a vital role in European intellectual life in the early modern era.


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