Sabbatian Women as Religious Activists

2015 ◽  
pp. 80-86
Author(s):  
Ada Rapoport-Albert
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
East European ◽  
Religious Enthusiasm

This chapter cites the dawning messianic age, which was characterized by the biblical prophet Joel, who had brought the spirit to rest upon women, which was common to Sabbatianism and a diversity of early modern Christian religious enthusiasm' movements. It analyses the breakdown of barriers by which rabbinic tradition had always marked the inherent difference between the sexes and assigned the discrete spheres of activity. It also talks about messianic believers who displayed an unprecedented willingness to recognize as fully legitimate the phenomenon of 'spinster', 'maiden', or 'virgin' prophetesses. The chapter mentions prophetic women described as 'possessed' in Hayim Vital's Book of Visions or in later exorcism accounts which proliferated in east European hasidism. It explains the instinctive rabbinic response to the 'aberration' of prophetic chastity in women that were aimed to suppress the phenomenon in diverse times and places.

scholarly journals A Sacral and Mythical Landscape: The Crimea in the East European Context

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-32
Author(s):  
Kerstin S. Jobst
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Crimean Peninsula ◽  
East European ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Political Agents

The Crimean peninsula plays a decisive role as a mythical place both in literature(e.g. by Goethe, Pushkin, Mickiewicz) and in many (pre-)national contexts and narratives: in the early modern period, for instance, the Polish nobility had developed the idea of its Sarmatian ancestry, an ethnos which in antiquity settled in the Black Sea area and the peninsula. German-speaking intellectuals in the 19th century developed an “enthusiasm for the Crimean Goths”.They believed that they had discovered their ancestors in the Gothic Crimean inhabitants, who had been extinct since early modern times. But above all the National Socialists attempted to legitimize their political claims to the peninsula. The mythical and legendary narrations associated with the Crimea in Russian culture, however, were particularly effective: The alleged baptism of Grand Duke Vladimir in Chersones in 988, which is said to have brought Christianity to the Kievan Ruś, plays a central role here, as do the numerous writers who drew inspiration from the Crimea. These narratives were used also by Russian political agents to legitimize the annexation of the Crimea in 2014.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
John Skorupski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
East European ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Late Modern

This is a critical study of late modern ethical thought in Europe, from the French Revolution to the advent of modernism. I shall take it that ‘late modern’ ethics starts with two revolutions: the political revolution in France and the philosophical revolution of Kant. The contrast is with ‘early modern’. Another contrast is with ‘modernism’, which I shall take to refer to trends in culture, philosophy, and politics that developed in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, and lasted into the twentieth century—perhaps to the sixties, or even to the collapse of East European socialism in the eighties....

scholarly journals ‘FRANTICK HACKET’: PROPHECY, SORCERY, INSANITY, AND THE ELIZABETHAN PURITAN MOVEMENT

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDRA WALSHAM
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
False Prophets ◽  
Religious Enthusiasm ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This essay reconsiders the career of the most famous of Elizabethan false prophets, William Hacket, the illiterate pseudo-messiah who, together with two gentleman disciples, plotted a civil and ecclesiastical coup, and was executed for treason in July 1591. It explores the significance of autonomous lay activity on the fringes of the mainstream puritan movement, demonstrating links between the dissident trio and key clerical figures who later prudently disowned them. Closer inspection of Hacket's exploits sheds fresh light on the relationship between experimental Calvinist piety and the religious and magical culture of the unlettered rural laity – a relationship still widely presented as bitterly adversarial. Relocated in the context of contemporary attitudes to prophecy and insanity, the episode illuminates the eclecticism of early modern belief and the manner in which medical and theological explanations for bizarre behaviour comfortably coexisted and mingled. Variously labelled a witch, visionary, and raving lunatic, Hacket's case reveals the extent to which such roles, diagnoses, and stereotypes are socially, culturally, and politically shaped and conditioned. In exploiting the incident to discredit Presbyterian activism within the Church of England, leading conformist polemicists anticipated the main thrust of the campaign against religious ‘enthusiasm’ mounted by Anglican elites in the Interregnum, Restoration, and early Enlightenment.

Medieval and Early Modern alabaster exploitations in Germany: isotope fingerprints of the Forchtenberg and Witzenhausen deposits and their use in sculpture

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfram Kloppmann ◽  
Lise Leroux ◽  
Philippe Bromblet ◽  
Pierre-Yves Le Pogam ◽  
Catherine Guerrot ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Harz Mountains ◽  
East European ◽  
Eastern Germany ◽  
East Midlands ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
O Isotope ◽  
Typical Range ◽  
The Church ◽  
Written Sources

<p>Medieval European alabaster exploitations were relatively limited in number though not in their geographical extension. The main alabaster-exploiting regions before the 16<sup>th</sup> century were situated in the English East Midlands, in Spain (Aragon, Catalonia), France (Alpine deposits, Provence) and in Germany (Harz mountains, Franconia). From the 16<sup>th</sup> and 17<sup>th</sup> century onwards, the use of alabaster in sculpture considerably increased and new deposits were discovered and exploited. In the French Jurassic mountains, the Saint Lothain quarries gained in renown, in Tuscany, the antique quarries around Volterra reopened and East European deposits became important, from Eastern Germany, over Poland to the Western Ukraine.</p><p>We present two historical alabaster quarries in Germany, comparatively well documented from written sources: the Witzenhausen alabaster, quarried in Hesse, east of Kassel first mentioned in 1458, and the Forchtenberg mine, in Württemberg, 70 km SW of Würzburg, exploited in the late 16<sup>th</sup> to 17<sup>th</sup> century by several generations of the same family of sculptors, the Kern dynasty.</p><p>We were able to localize the Witzenhausen deposits around the nearby village of Hundelshausen where Permian (“Zechstein”) evaporites outcrop and are still quarried for plaster production. Most of the encountered varieties are light to dark grey, strongly folded, with brecciated layers. The earliest surviving documented artwork made from this material dates back to 1516, the funeral monument of William II, Landgrave of Hesse (1469-1509), in the church St. Elisabeth, Marburg, Hesse, by the sculptor Ludwig Juppe. The Sr, S and O isotope signatures of the Hundelshausen quarries and the funeral monument are identical and fall in the typical range of Permian alabaster, which, together with the characteristic texture should enable us to identify this type of stone in artworks with unknown provenance.</p><p>The Forchtenberg alabaster was quarried from the mid-16<sup>th</sup> century onwards in galleries and was the privileged material of the Kern family whose house had a direct entry to the alabaster mine. Prominent members of this family are Michael Kern III (1580-1649), who worked for the counts of Hohenlohe and produced many monumental sculptural ensembles in alabaster and his younger brother Leonhard Kern, working in alabaster, ivory and wood, considered as one of the major sculptors of the German Baroque. The Forchtenberg alabaster of Triassic (Muschelkalk) age shows a very characteristic banking and its isotope fingerprints distinguish it from all other Triassic (Keuper) deposits so far investigated in S Germany, notably by a distinct enrichment in <sup>34</sup>S.</p><p> </p>

Insanity and the realities of history in early modern England

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Religious Radicalism ◽  
Religious Enthusiasm ◽  
Magical Beliefs

SYNOPSISThis paper argues that the attack on religious enthusiasm, a campaign against popular religious radicalism, prompted the governing classes in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England to embrace secular explanations of the nature of insanity and to repudiate treatments which were based on religious and magical beliefs. An objection to the argument is considered, and some of its implications are discussed.

MODELS OF EAST EUROPEAN BACKWARDNESS IN POST-1945 POLISH HISTORIOGRAPHY

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 125-145
Author(s):  
Anna Sosnowska
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Dependency Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
East European ◽  
Main Stress ◽  
Analytical Tools

The article discusses the ideas of four Polish historians: Marian Małowist, Witold Kula, Jerzy Topolski, and Andrzej Wyczański on the nature, causes and effects of the economic backwardness in early modern Poland. The main stress is laid on the debate on the so-called second serfdom. While Małowist and Kula were close to some sort of dependency theory, Topolski and Wyczański presented the Polish economic development as belated but not necessarily dependent. The concepts developed by the above authors can still be useful as analytical tools for historians and social scientists.

The Inheritance of the Rabbinate in Eastern Europe

2010 ◽  
pp. 302-323
Author(s):  
Shaul Stampfer
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Orthodox Jewish ◽  
Standard Pattern ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
East European ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Integral Element

This chapter investigates the inheritance of the rabbinate in eastern Europe. Inheritance of rabbinical posts is almost taken for granted in many contemporary Orthodox or strictly Orthodox Jewish communities. This is true not only in hasidic groups, where inheritance is an integral element of the dynastic system, but in yeshivas and other Orthodox communities as well. It would be tempting but incorrect to assume that there was an unbroken tradition of inheritance of rabbinical posts from antiquity to the modern period. Granted, in many Jewish societies, inheritance of rabbinic leadership was accepted. However, for centuries, the standard pattern of Ashkenazi Jewry was quite different. In medieval and early modern Ashkenazi Jewry, inheritance of rabbinic posts was actually prohibited. In other words, although contemporary inheritance of rabbinical posts appears very traditional and even archaic, in reality it is also a modern innovation. The chapter suggests that it was a practical and reasonable response to changes that took place in the structure of the Jewish community in modern times and that clarifying this development sheds light on the nature of the east European rabbinate and the characteristics of the Jewish community.

The Problem of Sati: John Locke’s Moral Anthropology and the Foundations of Natural Law

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 69-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Carey
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Moral Anthropology ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Essay Concerning Human Understanding ◽  
Religious Enthusiasm ◽  
Critical Interest

Abstract John Locke’s philosophical engagement with the phenomenon of the ritual suicide of the sati—the Hindu wife who self-immolated following her husband’s death—has escaped attention from scholars despite substantial critical interest in early modern European reflection on this cultural and religious tradition by travelers and commentators. Locke cited the practice in early manuscripts in which he formulated his position on natural law and innateness. Against the view that general consent provided a foundation for natural law he drew attention to sati as evidence against self-preservation as a universally shared belief. He again referred to sati when he attacked the notion of innate moral principles in 1671. However, sati remained a problem for Locke, and this essay investigates why he dropped it from his repertoire of examples in his published work, especially An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690). I trace this decision to Locke’s need to preserve hedonism as a principle of motivation; his divergent anthropologies in the Essay and in the Two Treatises of Government; and finally to the influence of his reading of François Bernier and Abraham Roger, which led him to draw sati into an alternative anthropology of religious enthusiasm.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document