In the Beginning Was the (Holy) Word

2020 ◽  
pp. 14-36
Author(s):  
Robert Collis ◽  
Natalie Bayer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Guyton De Morveau ◽  
In The Beginning

This chapter explores the foundation of the society in Berlin in 1779, under the leadership of three figures: L.-J.-B-.P. Guyton de Morveau (known as “Brumore”), Thadeusz Grabianka, and Antoine-Joseph Pernety. Brumore played a pivotal role as the group’s oracle, practising arithmancy, or the “cabalistic science of numbers,” to provide members with divine advice from the so-called Holy Word. From the outset these oracular consultations were combined with a passion for alchemical experimentation. Moreover, this leading triumvirate soon created a lavish nine-day consecration ceremony that ranks as one of the most spectacular rites of its kind in the late eighteenth century. The remainder of the chapter focuses on the various endeavours undertaken by the society to concoct the philosophers’ stone in Berlin, Rheinsberg, and Podolia, as the three leaders soon dispersed to different locations. The chapter also explores the society’s early embrace of Swedenborgian doctrine, alongside the enthusiastic acceptance of a Podolian prophet from 1780.

The Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Steven J. Osterlind
Keyword(s):  
Probability Theory ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Probability Estimation ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
In The Beginning

This chapter introduces the historical context that gives meaning to the contemporaneous developments in probability theory. It shows how one can only realize the true meaning of quantification by realizing how history set the context for the great number of mathematical developments. The period is defined as the “long century,” starting with the rise of the Enlightenment and lasting well into the age of the Industrial Revolution: roughly 1790 to 1920. Most of this relatively short chapter describes the main historical events that took place during the late-eighteenth century, throughout the nineteenth century, and in the beginning of the twentieth century. This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book, in which those who invented probability theory and developed the methods of probability estimation will be examined within their historical context.

Slavery and Ransom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Smiley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The State ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Law

This chapter explores captives’ fates after their capture, all along the Ottoman land and maritime frontiers, arguing that this was largely determined by individuals’ value for ransom or sale. First this was a matter of localized customary law; then it became a matter of inter-imperial rules, the “Law of Ransom.” The chapter discusses the nature of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, emphasizing the role of elite households, and the varying prices for captives based on their individual characteristics. It shows that the Ottoman state participated in ransoming, buying, exploiting, and sometimes selling both female and male captives. The state particularly needed young men to row on its galleys, but this changed in the late eighteenth century as the fleet moved from oars to sails. The chapter then turns to ransom, showing that a captive’s ability to be ransomed, and value, depended on a variety of individualized factors.

Historical Romance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ina Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Distinct Form ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Historical Romance ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth

This chapter looks at historical romance. Late eighteenth-century historiography began to expand its purview to unofficial spheres of social, cultural, and private life typically cultivated by informal genres such as memoirs, biographies, and novels. The ‘matter’ of history was being increasingly redefined, and this had two key effects that bear on the question of historical romance. First, the ‘reframing’ of the historical field generated a marked reciprocity among the different historical genres in the literary field, as they borrowed material and tactics from one another; second, it led to a splintering albeit not displacement of ‘general’ history, as new branches of history writing took shape, notably that of literary history as a distinct form of history. Hence romance now denoted not only the realm of ‘fancy’ but a superseded literary form of renewed interest in the rethinking of the national past.

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