scholarly journals From Impropriety to Betrayal: Policing Non-Marital Sex in the Early Modern Dutch Empire

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Rose ◽  
Elisabeth Heijmans
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
White Men ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
Broad Variety ◽  
Transgressive Behavior ◽  
Marital Sex ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Dutch Empire

Abstract The policing of illicit sex formed a key mode of social control in early modern Europe, where reproduction in legally sanctioned marriage was the primary means through which property and status was passed. When Europeans formed overseas colonial settlements sustained by slave labor and populated by people of a broad variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds, this concern with sexually transgressive behavior took on new dimensions. This article takes the case of Dutch trade-company-led colonialism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to examine how colonial visions of social order in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean shaped authorities’ responses to different types of non-marital sex. To facilitate comparison, these acts are read through narratives of criminalization, comprised of both conceptualizations of crime and prosecution practices. Through an analysis of legislation issued across the Dutch empire, most notably bylaws, combined with a selection of case studies from the juridical practice, we show that a concern with keeping different ethnic, religious, and status groups separate and maintaining European dominance shaped the policing of sexuality in such a way that the distinction between relatively benign sexual “improprieties” and a more serious criminal narrative of sexual “betrayal” was re-arranged along gendered and racialized lines. Conceptualizations and prosecutions alike show a considerably more stringent treatment of sex between non-Christian or non-white men and women of European status than between European men and enslaved or free local women, even when the latter scenario was coercive or violent.

Making a Difference: Sartorial Practices and Social Order in Eighteenth-Century Sweden

Costume ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Alm
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
Making A Difference ◽  
Primary Means

This article focuses on the seventy-three essays that were submitted to the Swedish Royal Patriotic Society in 1773, in response to a competition for the best essay on the advantages and disadvantages of a national dress. When presenting their thoughts on the design and realization of a national dress, the authors came to reflect on deeper issues of social order and sartorial culture, describing their views on society and its constituent parts, as well as the trappings of visual appearances. Clothes were an intricate part of the visual culture surrounding early modern social hierarchies; differentiation between groups and individuals were readily visualized through dress. Focusing on the three primary means for visual differentiation identified in the essays — colour, fabrics and forms — this article explores the governing notions of hierarchies in regards to sartorial appearance, and the sartorial practices for making the social order legible in late eighteenth-century Sweden.

The Loving Community

Caritas ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 31-59
Author(s):  
Katie Barclay
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Cultural Norm ◽  
Family Household ◽  
The Family ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
A Site

Caritas was an idea with resonance across early modern Europe, but given shape and form within particular national or religious contexts. This chapter introduces how the Scottish Kirk envisioned caritas as an embodied ethic—an experience of love that was manifested in deportment, thought, feeling, and behaviour—as well as its widespread take-up as a cultural norm. It particularly highlights that the family—the holy household—was imagined as the basis of a social order founded on caritas and introduces how the idea of caritas shaped the practice of the family-household relationships in eighteenth-century Scotland. It explores how the family was located not just as a site of patriarchal discipline, but also of peace and comfort, where fighting and quarrelling (excesses of passion) should be minimized. The family-household was not formed in private, however: its loving behaviours were interpreted and given meaning by a watching community.

‘Freethinking’ and ‘Freedom of Thought’ in eighteenth-century Britain

1993 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual Inquiry ◽  
The Social ◽  
Freedom Of Thought

ABSTRACTIn early modern Europe, religious heterodoxy and intellectual inquiry posed serious challenges to the authority of centralizing forces both secular and ecclesiastical. At the same time, however, these dangerous developments had been driven by those individuals whom eighteenth-century writers had adopted as ‘culture heroes’ for an age increasingly self-conscious of its own enlightened status. In Britain, the newly established order defended itself against the scepticism and moral determinism of ‘freethinkers’ by upholding a religious and moral order based on liberty. But ‘freethinkers’ such as Anthony Collins were themselves the inheritors of, and propagandists for, the seventeenth-century revolution in science which underpinned the ideology being wielded against them. Their challenge elicited from Edmund Law an argument which co-opted their epistemology to ground the familiar metaphysics of liberty associated with the Newtonian position of Samuel Clarke. Where ‘freethinking’ had been perceived as a dangerous solvent of the social order, ‘freedom of thought’, within limits that were themselves a leading subject of debate in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, could be upheld as consistent with the demands of political society.

Expanding the Boundaries of Female Honour in Early Modern England

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 235-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garthine Walker
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Professional Competence ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The Body ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Personal Conflict ◽  
Social Code ◽  
Active Individual ◽  
Selection Of

Within the historiography of gender and reputation in early modern Europe, female and male honour are usually presented as being incommensurable; yet they are constantly compared. Female honour has been discussed primarily in the context of sexual reputation. Male honour is commonly imagined as ‘more complex’, involving matters of deference, physical prowess, economic and professional competence and die avoidance of public ridicule. Thus the predominant model of gendered honour has been oppositional—female to male, private to public, passive to active, individual to collective and, by extension, chastity to deeds. Such a model, however, is misconceived. Just as the honour of men could be bound up with sexuality and the body, so these constituted merely one—albeit powerful—concomitant of feminine honour. Sexual probity was indeed central to the dominant discourse of early modern gender ideology, and historians have quite properly noted the significance of a social code of female honour ‘which was overwhelmingly seen in sexual terms’. But the potency of this discourse has itself frequently led to the selection of sources in which sexual conduct and reputation are central issues, and in which sexual constructions of female dishonour are immediately visible Because women's honour has effectively been imagined in terms of dishonour, constructions of shame—especially those associated with sexuality and sexual behaviour—have been privileged over, or compounded with, those of affront. Even when it has been noted that sexual insult could be a mundane response ‘in every sort of local and personal conflict’, conceptualisations of women's honour have been defined overwhelmingly by the nature of such responses rather than the conflicts themselves.

Performing Conversion

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Thomas Middleton ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Early Modern Theatre ◽  
Commercial Theatre ◽  
Theatrical Practice ◽  
Selection Of

This volume asks, how did theatrical practice shape the multiplying forms of conversion that emerged in early modern Europe? Each chapter focuses on a specific city or selection of cities, beginning with Venice, then moving to London, Mexico City, Tlaxcalla, Seville, Madrid, Amsterdam, Zürich, Berne, and Lucerne (among others). Collectively, these studies establish a picture of early modernity as an age teeming with both excitement and anxiety over conversional activity. In addition to considering the commercial theatre that produced professional dramatists such as Lope de Vega and Thomas Middleton, the volume surveys a wide variety of other kinds of theatre that brought theatricality into formative relationship with conversional practice. Examples range from civic pageantry in Piazza San Marco, to mechanical statues in Amsterdam’s pleasure labyrinths, to the dramatic dialogues performed by students of rhetoric in colonial Mexico. As a whole, the volume addresses issues of conversion as it pertains to early modern theatre, literature, theology, philosophy, economics, urban culture, globalism, colonialism, trade, and cross-cultural exchange.

Egyptian Fiscal History in a World of Warring States, 664–30 bce

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Andrew Monson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Fiscal Institutions ◽  
Warring States ◽  
Tax State ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Political Economic

From China to the Mediterranean, interstate competition transformed the political, economic, and social order in the mid-first millenniumbce. The case of Egypt from the Saite reunification in 664bceto the Roman conquest in 30bceillustrates this phenomenon, which resembles the rise of fiscal-military states under the pressure of war in early modern Europe. The New Fiscal History that has sought to explain this rise in Europe tends to produce a linear historical account of centralization and increasing fiscal capacity from feudal societies to the modern tax state. In Egypt, by contrast, the process was interrupted by integration into the imperial structures of Achaemenid Persia and Rome. It thus provides a convenient laboratory to compare the development of fiscal institutions in a political environment characterized by warring states, and one dominated by a single empire.

Review Article : An Age of Iron? Recent Works on Early Modern European Social and Economic HistoryJohn Walter and Roger Schofield, eds, Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989; xiv + 335 pp.; £35.00. John Komlos, Nutrition and Economic Development in the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy. An Anthropometric History, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1989; xvii + 325 pp.; US$45.00. Thomas Robisheaux, Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989; xvi + 297 pp.; £27.50. James R. Farr, Hands of Honor. Artisans and Their World in Drjon, 1550-1650, Ithaca NY and London, Cornell University Press, 1988; xiii + 298 pp.; US$39.95. Philip Benedict, ed., Cities and Social Change in Early Modern France, London, Unwin Hyman, 1989; xiv + 251 pp.; £30.00. Kristen B. Neuschel, Word of Honor. Interpreting Noble Culture in Sixteenth-Century France, Ithaca NY and London, Cornell University Press, 1989; xiv + 223 pp. ; US$30.75. R. A. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe. Culture and Education 1500-1800, London, Longman, 1988; ix + 266 pp.; £15.95 hardback, £7.95 paperback

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-550
Author(s):  
David Parrott
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
Modern Germany ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern France

Configurations and Prefigurations of Conversion in the History of World Christianity

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Lienemann-Perrin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Broad Variety ◽  
World Christianity ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Selection Of

Many contemporary understandings and implementations of conversion are prefigured in historical periods of world Christianity. In this paper, I consider a selection of historical moments, which together illustrate the broad variety of understandings and practices of conversion. I begin with conversion’s role in the formation of Christianity, followed by conversion in oriental Christianity under the influence of Islam from the seventh century. I then explore conversion in occidental Christianity during the early modern period. Exported to China in the seventeenth century, this conception ultimately failed to translate into the Chinese context. After briefly considering this development, I turn to an understanding of conversion that emerged in African societies, which responded in their own ways to Western missions during late colonialism. Finally, I consider the nature of conversion, de-conversion and re-conversion in secularized societies.很多当代对转化的认知及实施都是在世界基督教的历史阶段中被预示了的。在这篇文章中，我择选了部分历史片段，用以说明对转化的理解及实践的多样性。我以基督教成形中转化的角色为开始，进入到七世纪在伊斯兰教影响下的东方基督教的转化，然后探讨近现代欧美基督教的转化。当这概念在十七世纪进口到中国时，并未成功地转入中国社会。这之后，我会考查在非洲社会呈现的对转化的理解，他们怎样在后殖民主义时期以自己的方式回应西方宣教。最后，我会探讨在世俗化社会里转化，非转化及再转化的本质。Muchas interpretaciones y prácticas contemporáneas de la conversión fueron anticipadas en los períodos históricos del cristianismo. En este artículo, la autora considera una selección de momentos históricos que en conjunto ilustran la amplia variedad de entendimientos y prácticas de conversión. Comienza con el papel de la conversión en la formación del cristianismo, seguido, desde el siglovii, por la conversión en el cristianismo oriental bajo la influencia del Islam. A continuación, explora la conversión en el cristianismo occidental durante la Edad Moderna. Esta concepción fue exportada a la China en el sigloxviipero no pudo trasladarse al contexto chino. Luego de considerar brevemente este desarrollo, analiza el tipo de conversión que surgió en las sociedades africanas, que respondieron a su manera a las misiones occidentales durante la época del colonialismo tardío. Por último, considera la naturaleza de la conversión, la des-conversión y la re-conversión en las sociedades secularizadas.This article is in English.

From Carnival to Corpus Christi

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teofilo F. Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Early Modern Spain ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
Living Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
Transgressive Behavior ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter assesses the relationship between Carnival and the annual Corpus Christi celebrations in late medieval and early modern Spain. Carnival has always been associated with revelry, subversive inversions of the social order, and transgressive behavior. Meanwhile, Corpus Christi is the high point of the Catholic devotional cycle in early modern Spain. Although it seems odd to juxtapose a feast such as Carnival with that of the Corpus Christi, there was a progression—uneven but perceptible—from the carnivalesque to the elaborate appropriation of some of these allegedly subversive themes of Carnival by the carefully programmed procession of the living body of Christ through the streets of Iberian cities.

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