scholarly journals Testament as a Source of Researching Urban Literacy in the Volynia Region of the 17th Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-67
Author(s):  
Natalia Bilous
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
East European ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
European Cities ◽  
City Hall ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Culture Development ◽  
The City ◽  
Registry Record

Ukrainian historiography has not properly determined the problems of Volynian cities’ secretariats and development of burghers’ literacy in particular. The goal of the article is to research some aspects of these problems by the means of testaments; specifically, to highlight the role of city secretaries in the process of writing down citizens’ testaments and facts that testify about development of urban literacy in cities of Volynia of the 17th century.The municipal registry record analysis implies that executing posthumous inventories, settlement deeds, and especially testaments influenced the development of pragmatic urban literacy. Among the analyzed group of testators, several people wrote down their testaments by themselves. Then city clerks had no option but to accept prepared documents post factum for saving records in town council registers, which in some extent is evidence of the literacy culture development in the Volynian cities in the early modern times. However, the predominant majority of testators were illiterate and in order to approve their act of last will, they signed it with a criss-cross (“X”); the conclusion of the act required specialized assistance from municipal clerks.At those times, testaments were normally written down in the house of a dying person in the presence of municipal officers who provided the document according to an appropriate form and legal validity, and eye-witnesses; or it could be written down at the city hall before the court. City secretaries had a significant role in this procedure, but their level of proficiency was not always appropriate.As in the majority of Central-East European cities of that time, in Volynian cities substantial amounts of acts of last will were given by verbal directions and were not recorded in municipal registers. This fact explains such a small amount of saved documents in comparison with Western European cities. They were not set aside into a separate register series as in bigger crown cities, but the acts were recorded into the current municipal registers in response to citizens’ demand.

The Role of War in Modern Inflation

1977 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Earl J. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
World War ◽  
Price Inflation ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Paper Currency ◽  
Deficit Financing ◽  
Early Modern Times

Wars in early modern times, although frequent, generated little price inflation because of their limited demands on real resources. The invention of paper currency and the resort to deficit financing to pay for wars changed that situation. In recent centuries wars have been the principal causes of inflation, although since World War II programs of social welfare unmatched by offsetting taxation have also fueled inflationary flames.

Ecclesiastical Monuments of Brașov/Kronstadt/Brassó and the (Imagined) Topography of a Transylvanian City in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 59-64
Author(s):  
Liviu Cîmpeanu
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

By definition, a monument has extraordinary features that mark landscape and human minds alike. Without any doubt, the Medieval and Early Modern World of Europe was marked by ecclesiastical monuments, from great cathedrals and abbeys to simple chapels and altars at crossroads. A very interesting case study offers Braşov/ Kronstadt/Brassó, in the south-eastern corner of Transylvania, where historical sources attest several ecclesiastic monuments, in and around the city. Late medieval and early modern documents and chronicles reveal not only interesting data on the monasteries, churches and chapels of Braşov/Kronstadt/Brassó, but also on the way in which citizens and outsiders imagined those monuments in their mental topography of the city. The inhabitants of Braşov/ Kronstadt/Brassó and foreign visitors saw the monasteries, churches and chapels of the city, kept them in mind and referred to them in their (written) accounts, when they wanted to locate certain facts or events. The present paper aims in offering an overview of the late medieval and early modern sources regarding the ecclesiastical monuments of Braşov/Kronstadt/Brassó, as well as an insight into the imagined topography of a Transylvanian city.

WAS MARTIN LUTHER AN APOLOGIST OF THE AUTOCRATIC STATE?

2019 ◽  
pp. 297-305
Author(s):  
Yuriy Ivonin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The People ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Two Kingdoms ◽  
Secular Power

In the History of Germany the role of Martin Luther as the prophet of autocratic State had already been prepared to the First World War. However, it became reality in the 1930-s. The development of territorial states was the main result of the Reformation. Luther’s Institution of the secular power was a part of his theory of two Kingdoms: the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the Earth. The discussion about the strengthening of the role of the state and its control in all spheres of the society took place in the 1720-s – 1740-s. This situation was connected with the conflict between the princes and estates or commons. Luther was afraid of civil commotions, he was deeply conservative in relation to secular powers and persistently supported the Idea that the people needed to be subordinate to the secular power. Luther’s movement was a decisive step on the way to the formation of the early Modern Times Statehood. Luther’s first activities supported the commons’ self-government or the idea of communalism, but later, especially after the Peasants’ War 1524–1526, he feared the situations when princes and magistrates could not support the Reformation and therefore, he led the concept of the territorial State of the Early Modern Times and he could not become an apologist of the autocratic state.

SMOLENSK IN JAN KUNOWSKI’S POETRY AND LIFE

2019 ◽  
pp. 324-336
Author(s):  
Ludmila Ivonina
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Individual Person ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
The City ◽  
Xviith Century

The article analyzes a career and a number of poetic works written by a Polish poet Jan Kunowski. The books are associated with Smolensk and the wars between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Moscow State in the first half of the XVIIth century. The example of Kunowski’s poems and life demonstrates the place of Smolensk both in the political thinking of the Polish nobility of the Early Modern Times and, in particular, of an individual person. In addition, the article demonstrates some methods used by the propaganda of the Early Modern Times; they are dedicated to the event under the study. The author agrees that the writings by Jan Kunowski about Smolensk are an expression of the mentality of the Polish nobleman lived the XVIIth century, who was confident in Providence protecting the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and convinced of the special mission of the Polish-Lithuanian State. In a certain way, the canticle to Smolensk was propaganda. In reality, Kunowski renewed the state and ethnic myth of Polish and partly Lithuanian political thought; he added a new element – Smolensk – to the thousand-year history of the state. Moreover, the article emphasizes that comprehension of Kunowski’s poems content from the only perspective of gentry’s mentality, propaganda and love for the city can be incomplete. The poet’s reflection of the reality was largely stimulated by material reasons, career aspirations, and religious confession.

The Role of Governments in Economic Growth in Early Modern Times

1975 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederic C. Lane
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Quantitative Studies ◽  
Early Modern Times

A discussion fifty years ago of comparative economic history would have taken a broader view and would probably have been concerned very largely with exploring along the trails blazed by Max Weber and Marc Bloch. They were interested in many other aspects of economic history besides economic growth and I hope that similar broader interests will shortly show signs of reanimation. In spite of the present popularity of quantitative studies of changes in production, I hope some discussions at this meeting will examine comparative studies of forms of economic organization and the human qualities those structures reflected or generated. But my remarks here accord with the present preoccupation with that kind of economic history in which the all-important questions relate to the causes of economic growth. And I limit myself to one aspect only, the influence of governments.

scholarly journals Honey revisited: a reappraisal of honey in pre-industrial diets

1996 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen A. Allsop ◽  
Janette Brand Miller
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Current Consumption ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Cash Economy ◽  
Per Capita Consumption

In pre-industrial times, honey was the main source of concentrated sweetness in the diets of many peoples. There are no precise figures for per capita consumption during most periods in history because honey was part of either a hunter-gatherer or subsistence economy. Until now, historians and food writers have proposed that it was a scarce commodity available only to a wealthy few. We do know, however, that in a cash economy honey was sold in large units (gallons and even barrels) and it was present in such abundance that mead, made from honey, was a common alcoholic drink. A reappraisal of the evidence from the Stone Age, Antiquity, the Middle Ages and early Modern times suggests that ordinary people ate much larger quantities of honey than has previously been acknowledged. Intakes at various times during history may well have rivalled our current consumption of refined sugar. There are implications therefore for the role of sugar in modern diets. Refined sugar may not have displaced more nutrient-rich items from our present-day diets but only the nutritionally comparable food, honey.

scholarly journals Stone Raft: allegory on the spread of European urbanistics in Early Modern times

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Rossa
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Transfer Of Knowledge ◽  
Urban Networks ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
New Research

Cities were the foundational cores of Western Civilization and, at least for westerners, civilization is still unthinkable without cities and urban networks. Inevitably cities have been one of the main tools used by Europeans to establish their colonial systems, starting with the first, the Portuguese and Spanish, in Early Modern times. This paper aims to highlight the role of Iberian colonizing processes as vehicles of European city planning culture.There are basically two large urbanistic pattern families for colonial towns: the orthogonal grid known since Ancient Greece, based on square blocks; and the sequences of long and narrow plots, systematically used in Europe since the beginning of the second millennium. The latter is more flexible and topographically more adaptable than the former. Both patterns are present in Europe, but also in the parts of the world that experienced European colonization.The Portuguese conveyed and developed the plot system in the remaining four continents, while the Spanish codified and carried the block one to the New World. That established a distinction that has been dissected for decades. However, when these two modes are regarded from a global perspective, they appear as two complementary and diverse aspects of the spread of European urbanistics rather than an opposition.The allegory taken from José Saramago’s famous novel The Stone Raft aims not only to give us an image of that European transfer of knowledge to the New World, but also to make us think about new research attitudes and goals around that extraordinary and long lasting legacy.

scholarly journals EVERYDAY FEARS OF THE ORTHODOX POPULATION ON UKRAINIAN LANDS AS A REFLECTION OF DAILY ROUTINE IN EARLY MODERN TIMES

Skhid ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 19-27
Author(s):  
Inna GONCHARENKO
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Last Judgment ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Modern Orthodox

The article highlights a little-studied problem of role of fears in the everyday life of Orthodox believers in the Ukrainian lands of the second half of the 16th – 17th centuries. It is noted that in the early modern period, the society suffered from an outbreak of violence, and this influenced the formation of the atmosphere of fear among the population. The types of fears from which the society suffered the most are analyzed on an example of most typical cases: fear of war and violence, illness, mutilation, premature death, fear of armed people, foreign invaders and representatives of other denominations. In addition to these objective fears, Orthodox society felt irrational ones, the greatest of which was to sin. To a large extent, everyday life of the Orthodox was characterized by fear of the Last Judgment and Hell, Evil Spirits. Fears inherent in a modern man, manifested in everyday life of an orthodox man of the 16th - 17th centuries much stronger due to much more dangerous living conditions. Fear was a characteristic feature of everyday life in the early modern Orthodox society.

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