scholarly journals Custom and the Social Organisation of Writing in Early Modern England

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 257-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Wood
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
English Society ◽  
Mind Set

Social historians of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England have tended to see literacy as a modernising force which eroded oral tradition and overrode local identities. Whereas the increasing literacy of the period has long appeared an important constituent element of Tudor and Stuart England's early modernity, custom has been represented as its mirror image. Attached to cumbersome local identities, borne from the continuing authority of speech, bred within a plebeian culture which was simultaneously pugnacious and conservative, customary law has been taken to define a traditional, backward-looking mind-set which stood at odds to the sharp forces of change cutting into the fabric of early modern English society. 1 Hence, social historians have sometimes perceived the growing elite hostility to custom as a part of a larger attack upon oral culture. In certain accounts, this elite antipathy is presented as a by-product of die standardising impulses of early capitalism. 2 Social historians have presented the increasing role of written documents in the defence of custom as the tainting of an authentic oral tradition, and as further evidence of the growing dom-nation of writing over speech. Crudely stated, orality, and hence custom, is seen as ‘of the people’; while writing was ‘of the elite’. In this respect as in others, social historians have therefore accepted all too readily John Aubrey's nostalgic recollections of late seventeenth century that Before printing, Old Wives tales were ingeniose and since Printing came in fashion, till a little before the Civil warres, the ordinary Sort of people were not taught to reade & now-a-dayes Books are common and most of the poor people understand letters: and the many good Bookes and the variety of Turnes of Affaires, have putt the old Fables out of dores: and the divine art of Printing and Gunpowder have frighted away Robin-good-fellowe and the Fayries.

MADANNA, AKKANNA AND THE BRAHMIN REVOLUTION: A STUDY OF MENTALITY, GROUP BEHAVIOUR AND PERSONALITY IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gijs Kruijtzer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
South Asians ◽  
Group Processes ◽  
Farming System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Group Behaviour

AbstractThe article joins in the early modernity debate by investigating identity formation and the sense of public and private domains at the court of Golkonda. The rise of a class of Brahmin 'men of the pen' through the dynamics of the revenue farming system led to tensions among the Golkonda elite, resulting in a heightened sense of identity and the use and reuse of stereotypes of 'the other.' The article also shows how the Europeans, and especially the Dutch, were integral to Golkonda society and its group processes and that 'othering' by Dutch sources was context dependent to the same extent as othering by early modern South Asians. Cet article contribue au débat sur les early modernities en examinant la formation des identités et la prise de conscience de l'existence de domaines public et privé à la cour de Golconde. L'ascension d'une classe de scribes brahmanes, engendrée par le système des fermes foncières, entraîna des tensions au sein de l'élite de Golconde, résultant en un accroissement de la conscience identitaire et de l'utilisation et réutilisation de stéréotypes qualifiant l'Autre. Cet article montre également comment les Européens, et plus particulièrement les Hollandais, étaient partie prenante de la société golcondienne et de ses processus de groupe, et comment la création de l'image de l'Autre, tant dans les sources hollandaises que chez les Indiens, a été dépendante du contexte.

Remembering the Elephant: Animal Reason before the Eighteenth Century

PMLA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 132 (5) ◽  
pp. 1149-1165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Alkemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Human Exceptionalism ◽  
High Intelligence

Especially before the eighteenth century, many European writers regarded not apes but elephants as the most humanlike animals because of their high intelligence, even rationality. The largely forgotten rational elephant can help us read early modern anthropocentrism against itself and distinguish early modernity from modernity in ways that historicize—and denaturalize—these periods' different speciesisms. Giovanni Battista Gelli's La Circe (1549), for instance, produces a philosophy of human exceptionalism by suppressing the elephant's natural history—whether propagandistically or ironically. Subsequent texts by writers from Montaigne, in the sixteenth century, to Pope, Buffon, and Pennant, in the eighteenth, demonstrate that the rational elephant threatens human exceptionalism even after Descartes's seventeenth-century and Linnaeus's eighteenth-century interventions. Though speciesist itself, the rational elephant reveals a bygone paradigm more capable than the modern one of acknowledging rationality across bodily differences. It also provides a historically grounded vantage point from which the primacy of the primates can be overthrown.

scholarly journals The Gates of Charity: Images of City and Community in the Early Modern Dutch Orphanage

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 1000-1020
Author(s):  
Hanneke van Asperen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Holy Ghost ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Civic Pride ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The City

In the seventeenth century, Dutch charitable institutions were the subject of international praise and the object of civic pride, and their public façades communicated a message of central importance to its citizens. In this essay, I examine the iconography of seventeenth-century “gates of charity,” focusing on the almoner’s orphanage in Gouda and the Holy Ghost orphanage in Leiden. I relate them to other orphanages in the Dutch Republic to show developments in their iconography. The façade decorations demonstrate the responsibilities of the city as benefactor, the expectations of its citizens and the supposed effects of charity upon the community. At the gates, the worlds of the rich and the poor collided. Here, charity could flourish making the community a mirror image of the heavenly realm. The gate portrays the perfect society as one that assists its poor and strengthens its communal ties.

The public representation of homosexual men in seventeenth-century England – a corpus based view

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony McEnery ◽  
Helen Baker
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
English Society ◽  
Sex With Men ◽  
Early English ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn this article we explore public discourse around one marginalized group in early-modern English society, men who engaged in sexual relations with other males. To do this we use a large corpus of seventeenth century texts, the Early English Books Online corpus. Our exploration leads us to consider a number of methodological issues, notably low frequency data and the classical framing of some words. We consider the historical context which brings this about, the impact of such data on our study and the importance of close reading in understanding words in discourse. In addition, we show that, even where frequency does not seem to be an issue, close reading, guided by corpus analysis, is vital in allowing the analyst to move past a superficial analysis of the data towards an understanding of the conventions attached to the use of words which appear to reference men who have sex with men in this period. Through such analyses, this paper sheds light on the typically negative meanings associated with this group in early modern England, and provides both challenge and refinement to existing lexicography, both modern and early modern, relating to the group in this period.

Language Matters: ‘Counsel’ in Early Modern and Modern Medicine

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Sabroe ◽  
Phil Withington
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Successful Scientist

Francis Bacon is famous today as one of the founding fathers of the so-called ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century. Although not an especially successful scientist himself, he was nevertheless the most eloquent and influential spokesperson for an approach to knowledge that promised to transform human understanding of both humanity and its relationship with the natural and social worlds. The central features of this approach, as they emerged in Bacon’s own writings and the work of his protégés and associates after 1605, are equally well known. They include the importance of experiment, observation, and a sceptical attitude towards inherited wisdom (from the ‘ancients’ in general and Aristotle in particular).

Divine Machines

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin E. H. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Theoretical Interest ◽  
Living World ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
Organic Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Generation Theory

Though it did not yet exist as a discrete field of scientific inquiry, biology was at the heart of many of the most important debates in seventeenth-century philosophy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the work of G. W. Leibniz. This book offers the first in-depth examination of Leibniz's deep and complex engagement with the empirical life sciences of his day, in areas as diverse as medicine, physiology, taxonomy, generation theory, and paleontology. The book shows how these wide-ranging pursuits were not only central to Leibniz's philosophical interests, but often provided the insights that led to some of his best-known philosophical doctrines. Presenting the clearest picture yet of the scope of Leibniz's theoretical interest in the life sciences, the book takes seriously the philosopher's own repeated claims that the world must be understood in fundamentally biological terms. Here it reveals a thinker who was immersed in the sciences of life, and looked to the living world for answers to vexing metaphysical problems. The book casts Leibniz's philosophy in an entirely new light, demonstrating how it radically departed from the prevailing models of mechanical philosophy and had an enduring influence on the history and development of the life sciences. Along the way, the book provides a fascinating glimpse into early modern debates about the nature and origins of organic life, and into how philosophers such as Leibniz engaged with the scientific dilemmas of their era.

Orthodox Radicals

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Baptist Identity ◽  
Ongoing Project

Orthodox Radicals explores the origins and identity of Baptists during the English Revolution (1640–1660), arguing that mid-seventeenth century Baptists did not, in fact, understand themselves to be part of a larger, all-encompassing “Baptist” movement. Contrary to both the explicit statements of many historians and the tacit suggestion embedded in the very use of “Baptist” as an overarching historical category, the early modern men and women who rejected infant baptism would not have initially understood that single theological move as being in itself constitutive of a new group identity. Rather, the rejection of infant baptism was but one of a number of doctrinal revisions then taking place among English puritans eager to further their ongoing project of godly reformation. Orthodox Radicals thus complicates our understanding of Baptist identity and addresses broader themes including early modern religious toleration, the mechanisms by which early modern groups defined and defended themselves, and the perennial problem of historical anachronism. By combining a provocative reinterpretation Baptist identity with close readings of key theological and political texts, Orthodox Radicals offers the most original and stimulating analysis of mid-seventeenth century Baptists in decades.

Stuart Succession Literature

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
British Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Literature And Politics ◽  
Distinct Category ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Distinguished Group ◽  
Modern British Literature

Moments of royal succession, which punctuated the Stuart era (1603–1714), occasioned outpourings of literature. Writers, including most of the major figures of the seventeenth century from Jonson, Daniel, and Donne to Marvell, Dryden, and Behn, seized upon these occasions to mark the transition of power; to reflect upon the political structures and values of their nation; and to present themselves as authors worthy of patronage and recognition. This volume of essays explores this important category of early modern writing. It contends that succession literature warrants attention as a distinct category: appreciated by contemporaries, acknowledged by a number of scholars, but never investigated in a coherent and methodical manner, it helped to shape political reputations and values across the period. Benefiting from the unique database of such writing generated by the AHRC-funded Stuart Successions Project, the volume brings together a distinguished group of authors to address a subject which is of wide and growing interest to students both of history and of literature. It illuminates the relation between literature and politics in this pivotal century of English political and cultural history. Interdisciplinary in scope, the volume will be indispensable to scholars of early modern British literature and history as well as undergraduates and postgraduates in both fields.

Bjørn Okholm Skaarup, Anatomy and Anatomists in Early Modern Spain (Farnham/Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2015), xii + 285pp. ISBN: 9781471448162

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Nutton
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Spain

This chapter reviews the book Anatomy and Anatomists in Early Modern Spain (2015), by Bjørn Okholm Skaarup. The book traces the development of anatomy in Spain and Mexico from 1500 to the end of the seventeenth century. Skaarup cites particular instances where the Spanish experience can contribute substantially to wider debates, including Juan Tomas Porcell’s autopsies of plague victims in a hospital at Zaragoza in 1568 and the detailed plan of 1586 for a ‘house of anatomy’ there. He challenges O’Malley’s exaggerated description, based on Vesalius’s comments on his time in Spain between 1559 and 1561, that doctors and surgeons lack interest in anatomy. Skaarup reveals the difficulties faced by those who wished to introduce dissection as an essential part of the education of a doctor, as well as the objections that might be made.

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