Early Capitalism and its Enemies: The Wörner Family and the Weavers of Nördlingen

1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-287
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Friedrichs

The long, slow decline of the handicraft industries in Western Europe was attended by protracted hardship and misery for the artisan classes, short-term exploitative opportunities for crass merchants to whom the old medieval communal values were outdated cant, and confusion and eventual rout for the town fathers who attempted to maintain such values in the face of ineluctable economic change. Professor Friedrichs draws these conclusions from his research on woolen cloth weavers in the German town of Nördlingen in the seventeenth century and shows how, once the old values were no longer useful, the state itself took the initiative in the eighteenth century in facilitating the conversion of handicraft industry to the modern wage-labor system.

Author(s):  
Carolyn Muessig

Francis of Assisi’s reported reception of the stigmata on Mount La Verna in 1224 is often considered to be the first account of an individual receiving the five wounds of Christ. The thirteenth-century appearance of this miracle, however, is not as unexpected as it first seems. Interpretations of Galatians 6:17—I bear the stigmata of the Lord Jesus Christ in my body—had been circulating in biblical commentaries since late antiquity. These works explained stigmata as wounds that martyrs received, like the apostle Paul, in their attempt to spread Christianity in the face of resistance. By the seventh century, stigmata were described as marks of Christ that priests received invisibly at their ordination. In the eleventh century, monks and nuns were perceived as bearing the stigmata in so far as they lived a life of renunciation out of love for Christ. By the later Middle Ages holy women like Catherine of Siena (d. 1380) were more frequently described as having stigmata than their male counterparts. With the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century, the way stigmata were defined reflected the diverse perceptions of Christianity held by Catholics and Protestants. This study traces the birth and evolution of religious stigmata as expressed in theological discussions and devotional practices in Western Europe from the early Middle Ages to the early seventeenth century. It also contains an introductory overview of the historiography of religious stigmata beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century to its treatment and assessment in the twenty-first century.


1994 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Houston

Political participation in eighteenth-century Scotland was the preserve of the few. A country of more than one and a half million people had less than 3,000 parliamentary electors in 1788. Scottish politics was orchestrated from Westminster by one or two powerful patrons and their northern clients—a fact summarized in book titles like The People Above and The Management of Scottish Society. The way Edinburgh danced to a London tune is well illustrated in the aftermath of the famous Porteous riots of 1736. After a government official was lynched the Westminster government leaned heavily on the city and its council. And the nation as a whole was kept under tight rein after the Jacobite rising of 1745-46.This does not mean that ordinary people could not participate in political life, broadly defined. Burgesses could influence their day-to-day lives through membership of their incorporations (guilds) and through serving as constables and in other town or “burgh” (borough) offices. Ecclesiastical posts in the presbyterian church administration—elders and deacons of kirk sessions—had also to be filled. Gordon Desbrisay estimates that approximately one in twelve eligible men would be required annually to serve on the town council and kirk session of Aberdeen in the second half of the seventeenth century. With a 60% turnover of personnel each year, distribution of office holding must have been extensive among the middling section of burgh society from which officials were drawn. For burgesses and non-burgesses alike, other avenues of expression were open. In periods when political consensus broke down or when sectional interests sought to prevail townspeople could resort to riot.


Urban History ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Power

ABSTRACTLiverpool grew remarkably in the century after 1650 outpacing long-established ports like Bristol and Hull. In part this was due to advantages of location, in part to the ambitions of its merchants. The council opened a wet dock in 1715, a pioneering project which gave the port an unusual trading advantage. This paper explains that event by tracing the emergence of merchants on the council in the late seventeenth century and, by analysing port book evidence, argues that they assumed a trading dominance in the town which was especially strong about 1700. Their powerful position on the council was, in part, the result of a new town charter of 1695. Political and economic factors worked together to propel the town towards its spectacular eighteenth-century economic development.


Author(s):  
Katarzyna Wagner

I would like to determine the evolution of wealth concentration in main cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by comparing the data from different benchmark years. Moreover, I will analyze whether the Gini coefficient value indeed refers to the communities who are at a threshold of economic growth, and what is the correlation between the value of the coefficient and the town or city’s economic situation. Also, it is worthwhile to ponder the question: is there any correlation – noted by both Jan Luiten van Zanden and Guido Alfani – whereby the larger the town/city, the more visible the inequalities. Finally, how do the towns/cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth compare to those in Western Europe.


Author(s):  
David Berger

This chapter traces the history of hasidism, which was born in eighteenth-century Poland with the teachings of Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov. The movement spread through eastern Europe and became the dominant form of Judaism in much of the heartland of nineteenth-century Jewry. Opponents (mitnagedim or ‘misnagdim’) did not entirely abandon the cause, but opposition waned in the face of new social and religious realities. First, it became very difficult to delegitimate a movement that commanded the allegiance of so many observant Jews. Second, the radicalism of early hasidism diminished as it was transformed from a movement of rebellion against the Jewish communal establishment into an established order of its own. Finally, the spread of the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah, to eastern Europe posed so serious a threat that hasidim and misnagdim, for all their profound differences, came to see themselves as allies in a struggle to preserve their common culture, educational systems, and fundamental beliefs against the onslaught of scepticism, secularism, and acculturation working to undermine the very foundations of traditional Jewish society. The Chabad movement, now also known as Lubavitch from the town where the group's leaders resided from 1813 to 1915, played a significant role in that resistance.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (111) ◽  
pp. 256-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.C. Barnard

In seventeenth-century Ireland the law increasingly defined and regulated relationships: between government and governed; between landlord and tenant; between master and servant; among the propertied; and even, by the end of the century, between Catholics and Protestants. This situation, similar to that throughout western Europe, signalled — at least superficially — England’s success in assimilating Ireland. The system of courts, centred on Dublin, and, through regular assizes and quarter sessions, borough, sheriffs’, church and manorial courts, reaching deep into the localities, was celebrated as a prime benefit, as well as the principal means, of anglicisation. The English policies which had progressively dismantled indigenous institutions, including the brehon law of Gaelic and gaelicised society, and replaced older Catholic with new Protestant élites, rested on statute, proclamation and judicial decree or process. Sincethe law was essential to England’s rule in Ireland, its opponents countered through the courts and legal argument: as a result, the functioning of the law, especially the quasi-judicial commissions which redistributed land, was politicised. Not only did the law accomplish, it also reflected these changes; for, bit by bit, Catholics were edged from the judicial bench and then disqualified from practising as barristers and attorneys. By the early eighteenth century the courts — publicly at least — were manned by and run for the burgeoning Protestant interest in Ireland.


Author(s):  
Evgenij Vodyasov

В статье публикуются итоги исследований мусульманских захоронений на могильнике «Тоянов городок», который является одним из самых ранних памятников ислама в Нижнем Притомье. Делается вывод, что в середине – второй половине XVII в. на кладбище сосуществовали две разные группы мусульманских захоронений. Первая группа мусульманских захоронений объединяет безынвентарные погребения с положением умерших головой на северо-запад с доворотом лица направо. Сделан вывод, что эта традиция не характерна для погребального обряда Нижнего Притомья и является привнесенной с территории Тарского Прииртышья. Появление на «Тояновом городке» захоронений с северо-западной ориентацией связано с переселением в окрестности Томска чатских татар в первой трети – середине XVII в. Для второй группы характерно соблюдение киблы положением умершего головой на юго-восток с доворотом лица налево. Инвентарь в этих захоронениях присутствует, что отражает пережитки доисламских верований. Происхождение этой группы захоронений объясняется трансформацией местного погребального обряда. Во второй половине XVII в. происходит исчезновение курганного способа захоронения, и растет количество безынвентарных погребений в связи с укреплением новой веры. При этом в обряде фиксируются пережитки доисламских верований, что само по себе закономерно для распространения любой религии в мире. Автор приходит к заключению, что на рубеже XVII–XVIII вв. исчезает обычай укладывать умерших головой на юго-восток, и «северо-западная» кибла вытесняет местную традицию. В начале XVIII в. в погребальном обряде происходят существенные перемены: окончательно исчезают курганные насыпи, могилы становятся глубже, появляются ниши (подбои), чего не отмечалось в более ранних мусульманских некрополях. Перемены связаны с прибытием мусульманского населения из Поволжья и Предуралья и их расселением в Татарской Слободе. С начала XVIII в. вплоть до рубежа XIX–XX в. мусульманский обряд унифицировался и существовал в неизменном виде.The article presents the results of research on Muslim burials in the hillfort named ‘Toyanov gorodok’ – one of the oldest Islamic sites in the Lower Tom region. The conclusion is drawn that in the middle to the second half of the seventeenth century, two different groups of Muslim burials coexisted here. The first group of the Muslim burials encompasses graves with no inventory, with the deceased placed with their heads to the north-west and their faces turned to the right. It is concluded that this tradition is not consistent with the burial rite spread in the Lower Tom and was brought in from outside, namely, the Tar Irtysh region. The emergence of such burials in the Toyanov Gorodok was associated with the settlement of the Chat Tatars on the outskirts of Tomsk in the first third to the middle seventeenth century. Characteristic of the second group was the placement of the deceased according to the Qiblah, with the head turned to the south-east and the face turned to the left. Some inventory was found in these burials, which is indicative of pre-Islamic beliefs. The origins of this group are accounted for by the transformation of the local burial rite. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the kurgan type of burials disappeared, whereas the number of burials with no inventory grew due to the strengthening of the new faith. At the same time, the vestiges of pre-Islamic beliefs can be seen in the burial rite, which in itself is natural for the spread of any religion in the world. The author concludes that at the turn of the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries, the rite of placing the deceased with their heads to the south-east ceased to exist, and the ‘Qiblah north-west orientation’ replaced the local tradition. In the early eighteenth century, the burial rite changed significantly: the kurgan type of burials ceased to exist completely, the graves became deeper, and grave niches started to appear which were not reported to be found in older Muslim necropolises. These changes were connected with the arrival of the Muslim population from the Volga and the Ural regions and its settlement in the Tatar Sloboda. From the early eighteenth century up until the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, the Muslim rite was consolidated and remained unchanged since.


1993 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 143-146
Author(s):  
Oliver ◽  
Caroline Nicholson

Amasya, wrote a visitor at the turn of this century, is “the most picturesque town of all Anatolia, the Baghdad of Rûm”. Another called the city “l'Oxford de l'Anatolie”. One of its principal charms is the River Iris, the Yeşil Irmak, which runs through the town. Beautiful but not potable: “Tokat dumps in it, Amasya drinks it” is a Turkish proverb at least as old as Evliye Çelebi, who visited the town in the first half of the seventeenth century.In ancient times the city would seem to have taken its water from a source in the neighbouring hills. It was carried along an aqueduct cut, for the most part, into the face of the cliffs which form the side of the river valley south and west of the town and on the right bank of the river (Fig. 1). The castle of Amasya, on the left bank, had its own arrangements for water supply described by the geographer Strabo, a native of the city, and these should not be confused with the aqueduct on the right bank.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44
Author(s):  
Barbara Krysztopa-Czupryńska

The article shows the transformation that Grodno underwent in the 18th century in the light of accounts of peregrinates from Western Europe. In the first half of the century, a provincial, uninteresting Lithuanian town reluctantly visited by Western European travelers, in the second half of the century gained significantly a power of attraction. To a large extent, the city owed its transformation to Lithuanian Court Treasurer Antoni Tyzenhauz, which the travelers emphasized unanimously. The change in the face of the city was also reflected in eighteenth-century Western European publications.


Author(s):  
Moshe Rosman

This chapter describes the development and relative prosperity of Podolia during the Besht’s lifetime in the three Podolian locales with which his life is most closely associated. First is his reported childhood home and birthplace, Okopy, and second is his later residence, Tluste. The third locale is the place where he spent most of his public career, Miçdzyboz. The chapter provides an understanding of the context of the Besht’s public and private life in Miçdzyboz and gives new criteria for linking and assessing the sources about him. Hundreds of documents relating to Miçdzyboz in the late seventeenth century and first half of the eighteenth century have been preserved in the archive of the families that owned the town, the Sieniawskis and Czartoryskis. It explains how some of the archival sources facilitate understanding of the circumstances in Miçdzyboz and within its Jewish community during the period the Besht lived there.


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