The Natural and Supernatural

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Lotz-Heumann
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Major Research ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Subject

This chapter provides an overview of the historiography on the natural and supernatural in early modern Europe with a particular emphasis on Protestantism. It considers the ways in which this subject is closely intertwined with other major research areas in early modern historiography, especially the subject of popular and elite religion and the question of Protestantism and desacralization/secularization. Next, this chapter introduces a case study on the interpretation of healing waters in German Lutheranism in order to provide readers with an example of the complex relationship between the natural and the supernatural following the Reformation. Finally, this article sketches an agenda for future research on Protestantism and the natural and supernatural in the early modern period.

scholarly journals Hadīth as Common Discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Klasova
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
High Status ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Mulla Sadra ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Four Books ◽  
The Subject

The ḥadīth about the creation of the Intellect has enjoyed a high status in the Shīʿī tradition and opens one of the four books of the Shīʿī ḥadīth canon, al-Kulaynī’s (d. 329/940) al-Kāfī. It appears also in many Sunnī works and has traveled among other Muslim groups, changing its meaning and form over time and generating several commentaries. Ḥadīths are usually studied in a jurisprudential context, as forming the basis for legal positions; in this article, I study the ḥadīth not as a legal text with a fixed meaning but as a literary text with a meaning that is changeable. First, I revisit previous scholarly views on the provenance of the ḥadīth. I argue that it first circulated in Basran society in the late second/eighth century as a popularized version of the Muʿtazilī tenet ofobligation (taklīf) before being written down as a ḥadīth. I then follow its later journey among different groups in the medieval period as it changed forms and meanings and in the early modern period as it became the subject of commentaries by the Shīʿī philosopher Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640) and by the Sunnī scholar Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1205/1791). The translation of the two commentaries can be found in the Appendix. The ḥadīth’s intersectarian dissemination and fluid nature make it an excellent case study for exploring the literary side of the ḥadīth genre, which served as common discourse for different Islamic sects and intellectual and social groups over the centuries.

scholarly journals SOUNDING THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE: MINERAL (RE)GENERATION AND HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-480
Author(s):  
FRANCESCO LUZZINI
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Environment Interaction ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Environmental Agents ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Natural Philosophers

ABSTRACT The genesis and growth of minerals, as well as the existence in ore veins of such organic features as ‘seeds’, ‘matrices’, and ‘nourishment’, remained central and recurrent issues for natural philosophers, technicians, alchemists and practitioners throughout early modern Europe. By providing an overview of the main themes, voices, and concurrent factors (scientific, philosophical, economic, political, cultural, geographical, religious, social) that shaped the evolution of such long-standing dispute, this essay attempts a preliminary analysis of how the early modern understanding of mineral generation influenced our perception of natural exploitability, renewability and exhaustibility—and, more generally, the development of the Earth sciences and the emergence of humans as geological and environmental agents. These issues are also the subject of a new interdisciplinary project which is introduced in the final part of the article and which, hopefully, will be implemented in the next years with the aim to disclose new insights into our comprehension of the human-environment system.

Coda: Repositioning Early Modern Prague on the Global Stage

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Suzanna Ivanič
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Musical Knowledge ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
The City

The question that sparked this forum was to what extent we can see Prague as an important stage for Renaissance and Reformation exchange and as an internationally connected city. It is striking, though not unexpected, that all the authors have been drawn to some extent to sources and subjects in Rudolfine Prague. It must be stressed, however, that the emphasis of each of these studies is somewhat different to an older field of “Rudolfine studies.” The researchers here do not focus on the emperor's court but use it as context. It is tangential to their main focal points—on Jewish communities, religious change, and the exchange of scientific and musical knowledge—and these are first and foremost historians not of Prague but of social and cultural history, music, art, material culture, and religion. This indicates a marked shift from the historiography. For this generation of scholars, Prague is not only a city that is home to a fascinating and intriguing art historical moment but is also a city of early modern international connections. It provides a unique context for understanding communities, everyday experiences, religion, and culture in early modern Europe—a multilingual, multiconfessional, and multicultural mixing pot whose composition changed dramatically across the early modern period. Rudolf's court was certainly a catalyst for these crossings and encounters, but they did not fade away after his death in 1612, nor were they limited to the confines of the castle above the city.

Briton and Scythian: Tudor representations of Irish origins

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (112) ◽  
pp. 390-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Hadfield
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Medieval Chronicles ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Origin Myths ◽  
Origin Myth ◽  
John Leland

It is a commonplace of recent British historiography that in the early modern period a sophisticated and sceptical concept of writing history began to develop which involved, among other things, historians becoming significantly less credulous in their use of sources. Often the crucial break with medieval ‘chronicles’ is seen to have been brought about by the triumph of the exiled Italian humanist, Polydore Vergil, over the fervently nationalistic band of British historians and antiquarians led by John Leland, establishing that the Arthurian legends were no more than an origin myth. Jack Scarisbrick, for example, has argued that ‘early Tudor England did not produce a sudden renewal of Arthurianism … As the sixteenth century wore on, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s patriotic fantasies received increasingly short shrift from reputable historians.’ However, this comforting narrative of increasingly thorough and careful scholarship ignores the fact that there was a form of history writing in which the reliance upon origin myths such as the Arthurian legends and the ‘matter of Britain’ actually increased dramatically after the Reformation, namely English histories of Ireland.

scholarly journals Alternative Pasts and Colonial Engagements in the North: The Materiality and Meanings of the Pajala ‘Runestone’ (Vinsavaara Stone), Northern Sweden

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-628
Author(s):  
Vesa-Pekka Herva ◽  
Janne Ikäheimo ◽  
Matti Enbuske ◽  
Jari Okkonen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
General Level ◽  
Northern Sweden ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Cosmological Context ◽  
Ancient Times

The unknown and exotic North fascinated European minds in the early modern period. A land of natural and supernatural wonders, and of the indigenous Sámi people, the northern margins of Europe stirred up imagination and a plethora of cultural fantasies, which also affected early antiquarian research and the period understanding of the past. This article employs an alleged runestone discovered in northernmost Sweden in the seventeenth century to explore how ancient times and northern margins of the continent were understood in early modern Europe. We examine how the peculiar monument of the Vinsavaara stone was perceived and signified in relation to its materiality, landscape setting, and the cultural-cosmological context of the Renaissance–Baroque world. On a more general level, we use the Vinsavaara stone to assess the nature and character of early modern antiquarianism in relation to the period's nationalism, colonialism and classicism.

scholarly journals Adjectival Agreement in Middle and Early Modern Welsh Native and Translated Prose

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Marieke Meelen ◽  
Silva Nurmio
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
And Function

This paper investigates adjectival agreement in a group of Middle Welsh native prose texts and a sample of translations from around the end of the Middle Welsh period and the beginning of the Early Modern period. It presents a new methodology, employing tagged historical corpora allowing for consistent linguistic comparison. The adjectival agreement case study tests a hypothesis regarding position and function of adjectives in Middle Welsh, as well as specific semantic groups of adjectives, such as colours or related modifiers. The systematic analysis using an annotated corpus reveals that there are interesting differences between native and translated texts, as well as between individual texts. However, zooming in on our adjectival agreement case study, we conclude that these differences do not correspond to many of our hypotheses or assumptions about how certain texts group together. In particular, no clear split into native and translated texts emerged between the texts in our corpus. This paper thus shows interesting results for both (historical) linguists, especially those working on agreement, and scholars of medieval Celtic philology and translation texts.

scholarly journals Glagoljaška djelatnost na zapadnoj periferiji

2021 ◽  
pp. 371-397
Author(s):  
Sanja Zubčić
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Glagolitic space refers to the area where in the Middle Ages or the Early Modern Period the Glagolitic script was used in texts of different genres and on different surfaces, and/or where the liturgy was held in Croatian Church Slavonic, adopting a positive and affirmative attitude towards Glagolitism. In line with known historical and social circumstances, Glagolitism developed on Croatian soil, more intensely on its southern, especially south-western part (Istria, Northern Croatian Littoral, Lika, northern Dalmatia and adjacent islands). Glagolitism was also thriving in the western periphery of that space, in today’s Slovenia and Italy, leading to the discovery and description of different Glagolitic works. It is the latter, their structure and language, that will be the subject of this paper. Starting from the thesis that innovations in language develop radially, i.e. starting from the center and spreading towards the periphery, it is possible to assume that in the western Glagolitic periphery some more archaic dialectal features will be confirmed among the elements of the vernacular. It is important that these monuments were created and used in an area where the majority language is not Croatian, so the influence of foreign language elements or other ways of expressing multilingualism can be expected. The paper will outline the Glagolitic activity in the abovementioned space and the works preserved therein. In order to determine the differences between Glagolitic works originating from the peripheral and central Glagolitic space, the type and structure of Glagolitic inscriptions and manuscripts from Slovenia and Italy will also be analysed, especially with respect to potential periphery-specific linguistic features. Special attention is paid to the analysis of selected isoglosses in the Notebook or Register of the Brotherhood of St. Anthony the Abbot from San Dorligo della Valle.

Monastic Burials of Non-Patronal Lay Benefactors

1996 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 620-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Postles
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Lay Persons ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
The Middle Ages

Choice of place of burial in the Middle Ages was perhaps the most poignant indicator of belief in the efficacy of different sorts of religious intercession. Ariès concluded that the pre-modern response to death was public and communitarian, becoming only latterly private and individualistic. Most recent reconsiderations of notions of death and burial have concentrated on the early modern period. For this period, the distinction made by Ariès between modern, private, individualistic burial practices and earlier public, communitarian rites, has been revised, both in the sense that this change occurred earlier than Ariès would allow and that other influences were at work, in particular the formative consequences of the Reformation. Research into death and burial in the later Middle Ages has tended to confirm the communitarian nature of the rites surrounding death and burial. Burial in the high Middle Ages has been reviewed from a much more pragmatic rather than theoretical perspective, as a consequence of which the wholly communitarian picture depicted by Ariès has hardly been challenged. Presented here, however, is some modification to the Ariès thesis, supported by some very particular evidence, burials of lay persons who were not of patronal status, in religious houses, within the wider context of burial practices in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in England.

Calculating History: A Mid-Seventeenth-Century Reader of Robert Persons’ A Conference about the Next Succession (1594/1595)

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (299) ◽  
pp. 272-291
Author(s):  
Christopher Archibald
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Reading Practice ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Catholic History ◽  
Popular Ballads

Abstract This article examines one of the Bodleian Library’s copies of Robert Persons’ Elizabethan succession tract A Conference about the Next Succession that a 1650s reader has heavily annotated and used to compile a miscellany of poems and extracts from religious, political and historical works. The annotations and miscellany are concerned primarily with recent religious and political history. The reader compiles copies of popular ballads and poems, quotations from religious polemic by Catholic authors and a set of calculations of the dates of recent events in English Catholic history. This marked book serves as a case study through which to explore historical consciousness and the production of particularly Catholic forms of history and memory in the early modern period. This article seeks to query critical narratives concerning apparently combative seventeenth-century political reading practice by extending the remit of the ‘political’ to encompass different generic forms and approaches. It argues that by combining chronological and analogical perspectives this reader constructs a distinctively recusant history. An appendix identifies all of the works used by the annotator and all of the known editions or manuscripts they may have used.

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