"FREELY ELECTED IN FEAR": PRINCELY ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL POWER IN EARLY MODERN TRANSYLVANIA

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Murdock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Sufficient Power ◽  
The Right ◽  
Broad Consensus

AbstractTransylvania's survival was threatened by both its Habsburg and Ottoman neighbors. Given this precarious international position, ruling princes required sufficient power to govern effectively, and also needed to maintain a broad consensus for their right to exercise authority over the diverse political elite. A successful balance of power between princes and the estates was built around the freedoms granted to a number of different churches, and around the right of the diet to elect princes. This article examines the elections of Gábor Bethlen and other Calvinist princes in Transylvania during the early seventeenth century. Even though these elections were rarely free or fair, they provided a key basis for the growing political authority of princes who were widely identified as divinely-appointed rulers. Transylvania thus provides a model of a competence for elective monarchy, a form of political organization often thought to lead inevitably to unstable and ineffective government.

Cultures of collecting

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-164
Author(s):  
David Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Book Collecting ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Material Evidence

Studies of private libraries and their owners invariably talk about ‘book collecting’—is this the right terminology? After summarizing our broadly held understanding of the evolution of bibliophile collecting from the eighteenth century onwards, this chapter considers the extent to which similar behaviours can be detected (or not) in the seventeenth, drawing on the material evidence of bookbindings, wording in wills, and other sources. Do we find subject-based collecting, of the kind we are familiar with today, as a characteristic of early modern book owners? Some distinctions are recognized in ways in which medieval manuscripts (as opposed to printed books) were brought together at this time. The relationship between libraries and museums, and contemporary attitudes to them, is explored. The concluding argument is that ‘collecting’ is a careless word to use in the seventeenth-century context; just as we should talk about users rather than readers, we should use ‘owners’ rather than ‘collectors’ as the default term, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

scholarly journals Political Consent, Promissory Fidelity and Rights Transfers in Grotius

Grotiana ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-145
Author(s):  
Laetitia Ramelet
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Political Obligations ◽  
Salient Characteristic ◽  
Solid Foundation ◽  
The Right

Grotius (1583–1645) is now widely acknowledged as an important figure in early modern contractual and consensual theories of political authority and legitimacy. However, as his thoughts on these debates are disseminated throughout his works rather than systematically ordained, it remains difficult to assess what, if anything, constitutes his distinctive mark. In the present paper, I will argue that his works contain a combination of two conceptual elements that have come to constitute a salient characteristic of early modern contract and consent theories: first, a strong obligation to keep one’s promises, and second, an account of perfect promises as transferrals of rights. In the political sphere, this means that citizens who have promised their obedience to the authorities are obligated to keep faith, which provides a solid foundation for political obligations. In addition, their promise implies that authorities receive the right to rule over them, which accounts for the legitimacy of these authorities’ power.

scholarly journals The Swift and Secret Messenger: John Wilkins’s Mercury and the Paradoxes of Language

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-91
Author(s):  
Klaudia Łączyńska
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Philosophical Language ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Crisis Of Representation ◽  
The Right

AbstractJohn Wilkins’s Mercury or the Secret and Swift Messenger: Showing How a Man May with Privacy and Speed Communicate His Thoughts to a Friend at Any Distance was first published in 1641. As a book on cryptography presenting a variety of secret means of communication at a distance it seems to have appeared at just the right time, when the biblical curse of the confusion of tongues was doubled by the curse of political confusion on the brink of the English civil war. However, the book seems to be more than just a detailed account of methods of secret writing; its topic gives the author a chance to present his views on language which he would later develop in his life’s work An Essay towards Real Character and a Philosophical Language published in 1668. The Essay had received much greater critical attention than the early pamphlet, which is usually referred to as merely a prelude to an account of his universal language project. Indeed, in the little book on cryptography, Wilkins already demonstrated his awareness of the conventional character of language and its role within the system of human interactions, as well as advertised a project of philosophical language that would enhance communication between all nations and remedy the curse of Babel. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the value of the pamphlet lies also in the insight that it gives into the seventeenth-century debates on the nature of language and into arguments which were often provided, in equal measure, by theology, Hermetic lore, mythology, literature and early modern science. Wilkins’s meticulous recording of the contradictory views and propositions on language produces a sense of methodological inconsistency that leads to ambiguities and paradoxes. However, in the medley of concepts and the collection of linguistic “curiosities” that Mercury presents, a careful reader will discern the growing mistrust of language as a means of representing reality and as a foundation of knowledge, which was one of the symptoms of the general crisis of representation leading to an epistemological shift that started in the seventeenth century.

Seeking Sanctuary

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon McSheffrey
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
English Law ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
The Right ◽  
Modern Era

Seeking Sanctuary explores a curious aspect of premodern English law: the right of felons to shelter in a church or ecclesiastical precinct, remaining safe from arrest and trial in the king’s courts. This is the first book in more than a century to examine sanctuary in England in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Looking anew at this subject challenges the prevailing assumptions in the scholarship that this ‘medieval’ practice had become outmoded and little used by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although for decades after 1400 sanctuary-seeking was indeed fairly rare, the evidence in the legal records shows the numbers of felons seeking refuge in churches began to climb again in the late fifteenth century and reached its peak in the period between 1525 and 1535. Sanctuary was not so much a medieval dinosaur accidentally surviving into the early modern era, as it was an organism that had continued to evolve and adapt to new environments and indeed flourished in its adapted state. Sanctuary suited the early Tudor regime: it intersected with rapidly developing ideas about jurisdiction and provided a means of mitigating the harsh capital penalties of the English law of felony that was useful not only to felons but also to the crown and the political elite. Sanctuary’s resurgence after 1480 means we need to rethink how sanctuary worked, and to reconsider more broadly the intersections of culture, law, politics, and religion in the century and a half between 1400 and 1550.

IV. The Civil List in Eighteenth-Century British Politics: Parliamentary Supremacy versus the Independence of the Crown

1966 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Reitan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Parliamentary Government ◽  
Constitutional Evolution ◽  
Parliamentary Supremacy ◽  
The Right ◽  
George Iii

In the constitutional evolution of eighteenth-century Britain a major problem was the resolution of the tensions which arose between the executive powers vested in the Crown and the legislative supremacy of Parliament. Although the seventeenth-century conflicts of Crown and Parliament had settled the question of ultimate supremacy in favour of Parliament, eighteenth-century politics, by common consent, were confined to the level where a balance of power could be seen to operate, in which king, Lords, and Commons exercised agreed functions and powers and where the ultimate weapon—parliamentary supremacy—need not be used. The independence of the Crown—however it may have operated in practice—was a cardinal doctrine of the ‘mixed and balanced’ constitution. Although this doctrine was usually invoked to support the right of the king to choose his own ministers, it gave an important constitutional role to the Civil List, for by supplying the Crown with a financial provision not subject to parliamentary control the Civil List served the pur-pose of supporting the independence and the ‘influence’ of the Crown. The uncontrolled expenditure of the Civil List, with its large number of attractive places, pensions, and other benefits, was an important part of that ‘influence’ which some considered necessary for the effective exercise of executive power and which others decried as a threat to the independence of Parliament. The disputes and jealousies created by the Civil List developed in the reigns of George I and George II and came to a climax in the reign of George III. The result was an alteration of the constitutional foundation of the Civil List which further weakened the doctrine of the independence of the Crown and which marked an important step in the evolution of parliamentary government.

APPLYING THE RIGHT MEASURE: ARCHITECTURE AND PHILOLOGY IN BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN THE DUTCH EARLY ENLIGHTENMENT

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 959-985 ◽  
Author(s):  
JETZE TOUBER
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Proper Method ◽  
Skilled Professional ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So

AbstractThe article reconstructs the seventeenth-century Dutch debate about the proper method to reconstruct the biblical temples of Jerusalem. It examines the involvement of Willem Goeree (1635–1711), an expert in architectural theory, in this debate which was dominated by philologically trained scholars. The article suggests that the clash between professional exegetes and a lay theologian like Goeree allows us to see hermeneutical debates of the early Enlightenment in a new light. While the skilled professional aspired to make arcane Temple scholarship accessible to a wider lay audience, theologians denied him the competence to do so, insisting on the primacy of sacred philology in interpreting the Bible. This case thus moves outside of the dogma vs reason dichotomy which dominates historiography concerning early modern biblical interpretation.

Women's clothes and female honour in early modern London

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIM REINKE-WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Early Modern London ◽  
The Right

ABSTRACTThis article explores how the reputations and agency of middling and plebeian women in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century London were affected by what they wore. Compared with provincial England, markets for women's clothes in the capital were more diverse and accessible. Ambiguous moral judgments were made of women based on their dress, but many sought to acquire good, fashionable attire as the right clothes would improve their options in terms of courtship, sociability and employment, as well as facilitating their ability to negotiate the metropolitan environment and providing them with a ready store of capital. Clothes were thus contested commodities which helped define the limits of the possible for women in early modern London.

THE GOVERNMENT OF FANTE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBIN LAW
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Authority ◽  
Significant Power ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
European Trade ◽  
The Government

AbstractThis article reconsiders the political organization of Fante, a leading state of the Gold Coast, during the seventeenth century, mainly on the basis of contemporary European records. It questions the conventional depiction of Fante as lacking any effective central authority, showing that the Brafo (head of state) in fact exercised significant power. However, there were recurrent conflicts, both between the Brafo and other chiefs in the capital, and between the capital and the provinces. These tensions are situated within the context of growing European trade in gold and slaves, and endemic local warfare, which generated new resources that upset the existing balance of power.

Why Has There Been No People’s Power Rebellion in North Korea?

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Andrew Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Information Control ◽  
Al Jazeera ◽  
The North ◽  
New Information ◽  
Effective System ◽  
The Right

One scenario put forward by researchers, political commentators and journalists for the collapse of North Korea has been a People’s Power (or popular) rebellion. This paper analyses why no popular rebellion has occurred in the DPRK under Kim Jong Un. It challenges the assumption that popular rebellion would happen because of widespread anger caused by a greater awareness of superior economic conditions outside the DPRK. Using Jack Goldstone’s theoretical expla-nations for the outbreak of popular rebellion, and comparisons with the 1989 Romanian and 2010–11 Tunisian transitions, this paper argues that marketi-zation has led to a loosening of state ideological control and to an influx of infor-mation about conditions in the outside world. However, unlike the Tunisian transitions—in which a new information context shaped by social media, the Al-Jazeera network and an experience of protest helped create a sense of pan-Arab solidarity amongst Tunisians resisting their government—there has been no similar ideology unifying North Koreans against their regime. There is evidence of discontent in market unrest in the DPRK, although protests between 2011 and the present have mostly been in defense of the right of people to support themselves through private trade. North Koreans believe this right has been guaranteed, or at least tacitly condoned, by the Kim Jong Un government. There has not been any large-scale explosion of popular anger because the state has not attempted to crush market activities outright under Kim Jong Un. There are other reasons why no popular rebellion has occurred in the North. Unlike Tunisia, the DPRK lacks a dissident political elite capable of leading an opposition movement, and unlike Romania, the DPRK authorities have shown some flexibility in their anti-dissent strategies, taking a more tolerant approach to protests against economic issues. Reduced levels of violence during periods of unrest and an effective system of information control may have helped restrict the expansion of unrest beyond rural areas.

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