Diplomacy

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Time Window ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Regular Feature ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Many

Early modern Europe witnessed profound changes in the institutions, conduct, and personnel of diplomatic relations between polities. In general, there was a shift to diplomacy becoming a constant, regular activity of the state, and, bureaucracies, protocols, and archives related to the conduct of diplomacy emerged across Europe. While it was far from universal, the exchange of resident ambassadors, attached to foreign courts and governments more or less permanently, became a regular feature in European statecraft. Many diplomatic exchanges remained ad hoc, carried out by extraordinary envoys, and asymmetric diplomacy was still common into the 17th century. Although genuine professionalism in diplomatic service was hard to detect, by the end of the 17th century the major European states had developed secretariats of state and foreign ministries, sectors of government dedicated to the prosecution of overseas affairs. A genuine “culture of diplomacy” was in place. This view of an emerging modern European diplomacy was shaped, and largely remains so, by a seminal work from the mid-20th century, Garret Mattingly’s Renaissance Diplomacy, first published in 1955. While Mattingly did not evince a comprehensively Burckhardtian break between the Middle Ages and Renaissance, he did locate the origins of modern diplomacy in 15th century Italy, with the use of residency by Italian territorial states. He saw the Habsburgs as the chief heirs to the Italian diplomatic system in the 16th century, with a Europe-wide model based on the principle of balance of power in place after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). The bibliography that follows reflects the deep and abiding influence of Mattingly’s state-centered model, but also the many innovations and departures associated with the “new diplomatic history.” This recent work has embraced a more expansive understanding of what constitutes diplomacy, who qualifies as a diplomatic agent, how diplomatic sources should be interpreted, and what facets of diplomatic exchanges are worthy of study. In so doing it has complicated and refined Mattingly’s vision. Several of the sections below concern specific historiographical thrusts of the new diplomatic history. The best work in early modern diplomatic history, however, remains rooted in the extraordinary richness of its source material, especially the millions of pages of correspondence that provide a real-time window into the early modern world. Vincent Ilardi, who did so much to bring attention to the enormous promise of examining Renaissance Italian diplomatic correspondence, once wrote, paraphrasing Braudel and with tongue wedged only half in cheek, that Renaissance diplomatic history might in fact offer a sort of histoire totale. There is something in it for everyone.

scholarly journals A BRUXARIA NOS TEMPOS MODERNOS – SINTOMA DE CRISE NA TRANSIÇÃO PARA A MODERNIDADE

2002 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Johann Mainka
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Basic Information ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
In The Beginning

Este artigo pretende apresentar algumas informações básicas sobre o fenômeno da bruxaria, um fenômeno específico dos Tempos Modernos que surgiu a partir do início do século XV unindo a feitiçaria da Antigüidade e da Idade Média com o delito da heresia. A teoria e prática jurídica daquele tempo, incluindo a aplicação legítima de torturas, contribuíram muito para a disseminação da bruxaria na Europa. A partir do fim do século XVII, com o surgimento do Iluminismo, encerrou-se, definitivamente, este fenômeno da bruxaria, que tinha se manifestado, muito diferentemente, nos países europeus. A bruxaria pode ser interpretada como um sintoma de crise na transição do mundo medieval para o mundo moderno. Abstract This paper intends to present some basic information on the phenomenon of witchcraft, a specific phenomenon of the Early Modern Times, which came out in the beginning of the 15th century, unifying the sorcery of the Antiquity and the Middle Ages with the crime of heresy. The theory and practise of justice from that period, including the legitimate application of tortures, contributed very much to the spread of the witchcraft throughout in Europe. Since the 17th century, with the emergence of the Enlightenment, the phenomenon of witchcraft, whose appearances had been very diferent in the european states, ceased definitively. Witchcraft can be interpreted as a symptom of the transition from the medieval world to the modern world.

Allegra Iafrate, The Long Life of Magical Objects: A Study in the Solomonic Tradition. The Magic in History Series. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, xi, 235 pp., 19 b/w images, 2 tables.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-254
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Modern World ◽  
State University ◽  
Eastern Culture ◽  
Historical Objects ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Objects ◽  
The Middle Ages

Throughout times, magic and magicians have exerted a tremendous influence, and this even in our (post)modern world (see now the contributions to Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2017; here not mentioned). Allegra Iafrate here presents a fourth monograph dedicated to magical objects, primarily those associated with the biblical King Solomon, especially the ring, the bottle which holds a demon, knots, and the flying carpet. She is especially interested in the reception history of those symbolic objects, both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, both in western and in eastern culture, that is, above all, in the Arabic world, and also pursues the afterlife of those objects in the early modern age. Iafrate pursues not only the actual history of King Solomon and those religious objects associated with him, but the metaphorical objects as they made their presence felt throughout time, and this especially in literary texts and in art-historical objects.

Apocalypticism and Globalization in the Early Modern World: A Medievalist’s Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Rubenstein
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
World History ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Age Of Discovery ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abstract The apocalyptic belief systems from early modernity discussed in this series of articles to varying degrees have precursors in the Middle Ages. The drive to map the globe for purposes both geographic and symbolic, finds expression in explicitly apocalyptic manuscripts produced throughout the Middle Ages. An apocalyptic political discourse, especially centered on themes of empire and Islam, developed in the seventh century and reached extraordinary popularity during the Crusades. Speculation about the end of world history among medieval intellectuals led them not to reject the natural world but to study it more closely, in ways that set the stage for the later Age of Discovery. These broad continuities between the medieval and early modern, and indeed into modernity, demonstrate the imperative of viewing apocalypticism not as an esoteric fringe movement but as a constructive force in cultural creation.

scholarly journals Early Modern Jewish History

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Ruderman ◽  
Francesca Bregoli
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Panoramic View ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Modern Jewish History ◽  
Bibliographical Survey

The term “early modernity” as the name of a period roughly extending from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century has been only recently employed by historians of Jewish culture and society. Despite a plethora of new studies in the last several decades, few attempts have been made to define the period as a whole as a distinct epoch in Jewish history, distinguishable from both the medieval and the modern periods. Some historians have remained indifferent to demarcating the period, have simply designated it as an extension of the Middle Ages, or have labeled it vaguely as a mere transitional stage between medievalism and modernity without properly describing its distinguishing characteristics. A few historians have used the term “Renaissance” to apply to the cultural ambiance of Jews living in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries alone without delineating the larger period and the more comprehensive geographical area. The bibliographical survey that follows focuses on the entire period of three hundred years and attempts to provide a panoramic view of European and Ottoman Jewries both as distinct subcommunities and in their broader connections with each other.

The Conquests of Peru

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Heaney
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Northern Chile ◽  
15Th Century

Between 1472 and 1572, the conquests of Peru were many: by the Inca, who in the 15th century spread from their southern Andean heartland in Cusco to build an empire that stretched from what is now southern Colombia to northern Chile and Argentina; by the Spanish conquistadors under the leadership of Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, who reached down from Panama in search of the rumored wealth of the kingdom of “Birú” and fatefully encountered the aspirant Inca emperor Atahualpa at Cajamarca in November of 1532; by the Spanish crown, which intervened after the revolt of Atahualpa’s brother Manco Inca in 1536 and the rebellion of the conquistadors in the 1540s; and by the Inca’s former subjects, the Spaniards’ Indian allies, and their mestizo sons, who ended independent Inca resistance by helping to capture Atahualpa’s nephew in the Vilcabamba valley in 1572. This essay sketches the century-long arc of those many conquests, which together yielded a historical entity not quite like any other in the early modern world, let alone Americas: a composite Spanish-Indian kingdom whose incredible wealth lay not just in the gold and silver that its mines and burials produced but in the network of subjects and laborers that drew both the Inca and their Habsburg successors on to further conquests than was wise.

Fine Structure and Reproducibility of Radiocarbon Ages of Middle to Early Modern Japanese Tree Rings

Radiocarbon ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (6) ◽  
pp. 1907-1917 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minoru Sakamoto ◽  
Masataka Hakozaki ◽  
Nanae Nakao ◽  
Takeshi Nakatsuka
Keyword(s):  
Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Fine Structure ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Tree Rings ◽  
Calibration Curve ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Structure Tree ◽  
The 19Th Century

ABSTRACTThis study carried out accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) measurement of Japanese tree rings dating from the middle to early modern eras to investigate calibration curve fine structure. Tree-ring ages were determined by dendrochronology or δ18O chronology for Japanese trees. 14C ages from the 15th century to the middle of the 17th century followed the IntCal13 calibration curve within measurement error. Different patterns of fluctuations during the latter half of the 17th century to the early the 18th century were observed in different tree samples. In the 19th century, patterns of 14C ages of different samples appeared similar but did not exactly match each other.

Consuls-of-State and the Redemption of Slaves: The Dutch Republic and the Western Mediterranean, 1616–1651

Itinerario ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-90
Author(s):  
Erica Heinsen-Roach
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Global Commerce ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Customary Practices

At the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch Republic developed a trade empire of global proportions. The Dutch government played a substantial role in building and sustaining merchant enterprises by allowing chartered companies to act on its behalf. In the Mediterranean, however, the authorities relied on a variety of commercial-diplomatic agents to promote commerce. This article argues that Dutch consuls in the western Mediterranean transformed from merchant-consuls into state-representatives and played a crucial role in sustaining diplomatic relations with states in the Maghreb. By comparing the conditions under which consuls liberated captives in Algiers and Morocco during the first half of the seventeenth century, the article examines how consuls continuously had to adjust their mission to the interests of different institutions and individuals. The article concludes that the expansion of Dutch global commerce in the Mediterranean did not evolve according to a standard script but in consuls’ interactions with local conditions and customary practices. The article contributes to the New Diplomatic History that emphasizes how successful diplomatic relations in the early modern world depended on a range of different diplomatic actors who created forms of state diplomacy beyond treaty making and alliances.

Translation

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aysha Pollnitz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Women Of Letters ◽  
The Relationship

In the early years of the 15th century, Renaissance humanists insisted that the capacity to translate texts from Greek and Hebrew into Latin, and later into and between vernacular tongues, was a critical aspect of grammar and rhetoric. When performed by students, schoolmasters claimed that translation and double translation facilitated eloquence in both languages. When performed by adepts, men and women of letters praised translation for transmitting texts to a new or wider readership, or to a more culturally and geographically specific one. Contemporaries regarded translations as literary works in their own right. As such, the translation of scripture became a flashpoint for controversy, particularly when Desiderius Erasmus’s Latin translation and annotations and Martin Luther’s German Bible encouraged religious reform and schism. Traditionally, scholarship on translation in this period has been dominated by studies of the transmission of the Renaissance or of religious reformation. There have been examinations of significant translators, such as Jacques Amyot, and of the way that the works of one major author, like Erasmus, were received in a specific locality. Scholars of the reformations have published significant studies of the scriptural translations of Erasmus, Luther, and Luther’s followers. In the 1970s, the new field of translation studies questioned whether it was ever possible to find real equivalences between languages and across cultures. This approach encouraged scholars to examine what was lost, gained, transformed, or created anew in an act of translation. More recently, a growing awareness of the historical contingency of acts of translation has encouraged interdisciplinary efforts to examine translation as a cultural event. The result of this historical turn has been a flowering of period-specific studies, series, and editions. Scholars of the Middle Ages have questioned the idea that Renaissance humanists’ translations represented a break from medieval efforts. Literary scholars and intellectual historians have examined early modern treatises on the theory of translation, as taught in schools and practiced by adepts. The identity of the translator has attracted the attention of scholars of literature and gender, in particular, since many early modern women’s literary productions were translations. A broader range of texts in translation—beyond classical and literary works and scripture—have been studied by historians of science, political and historical thought, and religion. Historians of the book have examined the relationship between translation and manuscript and print culture. The peripheries of translation culture are also being explored, and the world beyond Europe has become a focus, particularly in studies of missionary, commercial, and colonizing activities in Asia and the Atlantic.

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