scholarly journals Til þess eru ill dæmi að varast þau: Um Bjarna í Efranesi í Skarðsárannál

Gripla ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 227-256
Author(s):  
Katelin Parsons
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Narrative Space ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Judicial Procedure

The post-medieval revival of the annalistic format in Iceland in the early seventeenth century involved a deliberate and very successful decision to align contemporary history-writing with a long and venerable past tradition. Although the post-medieval annals were not structured around an Easter table like their medieval counterparts, they did not record secular history in a modern sense. Temporal time and space existed within an infinitely vaster eternity, and the true goal of earthly life was accepted to be salvation of the soul. Death was represented in meditative literature of the seventeenth century as a life-long journey rather than a single isolated event, during which journey divine punishments might be deservedly meted out to individuals and communities as corrective action for those who strayed from the straight and narrow path. In this context, annals were a means of situating the past, present and future within a single narrative space. Early modern Icelandic annals such as Skarðsárannáll, compiled by Björn Jónsson of Skarðsá (1574–1655), have been approached as a source of well-structured data on very diverse topics, but far fewer studies have examined their internal narrative structure across and within individual entries. The present article focuses on an entry for the year 1553 in Skarðsárannáll that provides a cautionary tale on discipline and justice for early modern audiences. The entry describes the misfortunes of Bjarni of Efranes in Skagaströnd, who killed his first wife for killing their older son for killing their younger son. What has to date been received as a gory historical account of a chain of deaths set in motion by a mother’s inappropriate threat to castrate her misbehaving young sons is actually a hitherto unknown Icelandic variant of a well-known tale type, AT 2401/ATU 1343* (“The Children Play at Hog-Killing”). Very close parallels can be found in contemporary folklore collected in the twentieth century (Brunvand 03250, “The Mother’s Threat Carried Out”), and the narrative in Skarðsárannáll supports the circulation of older versions of ATU 1343* involving a castration threat. Comparison with a letter written by Bishop Guðbrandur Þorláksson of Hólar suggests that the character of Bjarni of Efranes in Skarðsárannáll is partly based on a farmer in Skagaströnd whose son died suddenly while fishing with a neighbour and his three grown sons. The incident was not investigated as a possible murder case until many years later, but one of the sons was arrested in c. 1611. The bishop’s letter indicates concern that fair judicial procedure had not been followed in detaining the man, who was later released. There was no evidence that murder had taken place, and the accused swore that the young man had died of natural causes. The case was never prosecuted, but it was an unsatisfactory conclusion for all parties involved, and Skarðsárannáll demonstrates that the suspects were widely believed to be guilty within their local community. According to Skarðsárannáll, the neighbour and all three of his sons met a miserable end as starving vagrants in a famine soon thereafter. The narrative implies that death by famine is their punishment for the crime they attempted to conceal. Through the connection of this event to ATU 1343*, the narrative also suggests the guilt of the victim’s family as an explanation for the apparent failure of justice in the case: the victim is the third son of Bjarni of Efranes. Bjarni supposedly walked three times barefoot around Iceland as a penance for the sin of killing his first wife before settling at Efranes, but even this deed was inadequate justice for slaying his spouse, and his temporal life was one of a condemned man. Although he remarried and attempted to start a new life, murder carried the penalty of death, and penance was inadequate to atone for such an act in post-Reformation Iceland. Just as in other versions of ATU 1343* circulating in early modern Europe, Bjarni of Efranes died of grief. As this is a Lutheran exemplum, no saints could materialise to bring him comfort: the practice of life-long repentance was his only hope of salvation.

John Locke: The Philosopher as Christian Virtuoso

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Nuovo
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Natural Philosopher ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Empirical Stance

The purpose of this book is to present the philosophical thought of John Locke as the work of a Christian virtuoso. In his role as ‘virtuoso’, an experimental natural philosopher of the sort that flourished in England during the seventeenth century, Locke was a proponent of the so-called ‘new philosophy’, a variety of atomism that emerged in early modern Europe. But he was also a practicing Christian, and he professed confidence that the two vocations were not only compatible but mutually sustaining. Locke aspired, without compromising his empirical stance, to unite the two vocations in a single philosophical endeavor with the aim of producing a system of Christian philosophy. Although the birth of the modern secular outlook did not happen smoothly or without many conflicts of belief, Locke, in his role of Christian virtuoso, endeavored to resolve apparent contradictions. Nuovo draws attention to the often-overlooked complexities and diversity of Locke’s thought, and argues that Locke must now be counted among the creators of early modern systems of philosophy.

Household Debt in Early Modern Germany: Evidence from Personal Inventories

2012 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHEILAGH OGILVIE ◽  
MARKUS KÜPKER ◽  
JANINE MAEGRAITH
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Rural Economy ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Modern Germany ◽  
Status Occupation ◽  
Asset Portfolio ◽  
Rich Data

The “less-developed” interior of early modern Europe, especially the rural economy, is often regarded as financially comatose. This article investigates this view using a rich data set of marriage and death inventories for seventeenth-century Germany. It first analyzes the characteristics of debts, examining borrowing purposes, familial links, communal ties, and documentary instruments. It then explores how borrowing varied with gender, age, marital status, occupation, date, and asset portfolio. It finds that ordinary people, even in a “less-developed” economy in rural central Europe, sought to invest profitably, smooth consumption, bridge low liquidity, and hold savings in financial form.

The Tenuous Thread: A Venetian Lawyer's Apology for Jewish Self-Government in the Seventeenth Century

AJS Review ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-250
Author(s):  
David Malkiel
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Political Structures

Ghettoization stimulated sixteenth-century Italian Jewry to develop larger and more complex political structures, because the Jewish community now became responsible for municipal tasks. This development, however, raised theological objections in Catholic circles because Christian doctrine traditionally forbade the Jewish people dominion. It also aroused hostility among the increasingly centralized governments of early modern Europe, who viewed Jewish self-government as an infringement of the sovereignty of the state. The earliest appearance of the term “state within a state,” which has become a shorthand expression for the latter view, was recently located in Venice in 1631.

scholarly journals Sharecropping and Investment in Agriculture in Early Modern France

1982 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip T. Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Risk Sharing ◽  
Modern Theory ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Early Modern France ◽  
Modern France ◽  
Modern Europe

The paper examines the spread of sharecropping that followed a wave of investment in agriculture in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France. Using results from the modern theory of share contracts, it argues that sharecropping was a means of risk sharing that favored both landlords and tenants. Although the evidence used in this paper comes from France, the results may well apply to other areas of early modern Europe.

scholarly journals Zemskii Sobor: Historiographies and Mythologies of a Russian “Parliament”

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Sablin ◽  
Kuzma Kukushkin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Constituent Assembly ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Modern Russian

Focusing on the term zemskii sobor, this study explored the historiographies of the early modern Russian assemblies, which the term denoted, as well as the autocratic and democratic mythologies connected to it. Historians have discussed whether the individual assemblies in the sixteenth and seventeenth century could be seen as a consistent institution, what constituencies were represented there, what role they played in the relations of the Tsar with his subjects, and if they were similar to the early modern assemblies elsewhere. The growing historiographic consensus does not see the early modern Russian assemblies as an institution. In the nineteenth–early twentieth century, history writing and myth-making integrated the zemskii sobor into the argumentations of both the opponents and the proponents of parliamentarism in Russia. The autocratic mythology, perpetuated by the Slavophiles in the second half of the nineteenth century, proved more coherent yet did not achieve the recognition from the Tsars. The democratic mythology was more heterogeneous and, despite occasionally fading to the background of the debates, lasted for some hundred years between the 1820s and the 1920s. Initially, the autocratic approach to the zemskii sobor was idealistic, but it became more practical at the summit of its popularity during the Revolution of 1905–1907, when the zemskii sobor was discussed by the government as a way to avoid bigger concessions. Regionalist approaches to Russia’s past and future became formative for the democratic mythology of the zemskii sobor, which persisted as part of the romantic nationalist imagery well into the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922. The zemskii sobor came to represent a Russian constituent assembly, destined to mend the post-imperial crisis. The two mythologies converged in the Priamur Zemskii Sobor, which assembled in Vladivostok in 1922 and became the first assembly to include the term into its official name.

Breeched and Unbridled: Bifurcated Equestrian Garments for Women in Early Modern Europe

Costume ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-185
Author(s):  
Valerio Zanetti
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Affective Meaning ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Modern Europe

This article discusses the wearing of bifurcated equestrian garments for women in early modern Europe. Considering visual representations as well as documentary sources, the first section examines the fashion for red riding breeches between the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Worn for their comfort and functionality in the saddle, these garments were also invested with powerful symbolic and affective meaning. The second section provides new insights about female equestrian outfits in late seventeenth-century France. Through the close reading of two written accounts, the author sheds light on the use of breeches as undergarments in the saddle and discusses the appearance of a hybrid riding uniform that incorporated knee-length culottes. By presenting horsewomen who wore bifurcated garments in the pursuit of leisure rather than transgression, this study revises historical narratives that cast the breeched woman exclusively as a symbol of gender upheaval.

‘I wish to be no other but as he’: Persia, masculinity, and conversion in early-seventeenth-century travel writing and drama

Conversions ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloë Houston
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Early Modern Travel Literature

In classical descriptions, Persians and their rulers are seen as being given to both tyranny and femininity; early modern Europe thus inherited a view of Persia in which the performance of religious identity, political power and gender were inter-connected. Given the complex relationships between Islam, tyranny and gender, early modern European interest in the possible religious conversion of Persia and its people marks a moment at which contemporary anxieties about religious and gender identities converge. This chapter argues that European writers’ interest in the prospect of Persian conversion became tied up with their ideas about the links between Persian effeminacy and tyranny. The prospect of the conversion of Persian Shahs in early modern travel literature and drama gives rise to particular anxieties about masculinity, both in Persian figures and in the Christian European travellers and dramatists who portrayed them. Despite the tradition of viewing Persia as feminised and luxurious, the sources betray an underlying concern that Muslims’ gender and religious identities might in fact be more ‘fixed’ than those of Christian travellers, who experienced their own conversions to Islam and to Persian identities in ways that were troubling to them both as Christians and as men.  

Jewish Cultural History in Early Modern Europe

2008 ◽  
pp. 95-111
Author(s):  
David B. Ruderman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Jonathan Israel ◽  
Boundary Lines

This chapter examines the innovative call of Jonathan Israel to recognize an 'early modern age' in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European Jewish history. It provides a useful survey of the recent flurry of historical research and identifies five markers of a newly emerging transnational European Jewish cultural experience. It also talks about the surge in the development of powerful Jewish communal structures coupled with the growing laicization of communal authority. The chapter investigates a crisis of religious authority that was accompanied by the related threats of heresy and enthusiasm and epitomized in the contemporaneous phenomena of Spinozism and Shabateanism. It describes social and religious identities, in which Conversos and their descendants, Jewish converts to Christianity, Christian Hebraists, and Shabatean syncretists helped to blur previously sharper boundary lines between Jews and their Christian neighbours.

“Constructing the Poor in Early Seventeenth-Century London”1

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-463
Author(s):  
Claire S. Schen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
International Conflicts ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Demographic Pressure ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Undeserving Poor

Historians of early modern Europe have become accustomed to the dichotomy of the deserving and undeserving poor, though they still debate the origins of the transformation of attitudes toward the poor and poverty. Historians have studied less carefully the ways in which these presumably static categories flexed, as individuals and officials worked out poor relief and charity on the local level. Military, religious, and social exigencies, precipitated by war, the Reformation, and demographic pressure, allowed churchwardens and vestrymen to redraw the contours of the deserving and undeserving poor within the broader frame of the infirm, aged, and sick. International conflicts of the early seventeenth century created circumstances and refugees not anticipated by the poor law innovators of the sixteenth century. London’s responses to these unexpected developments illustrate how inhabitants constructed the categories of die deserving and undeserving poor. This construction depended upon the discretion of churchwardens and their fellow officers, who listened to the accounts and read the official documents of the poor making claims on parish relief and charity.

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