Jason McElligott. 'A Couple of Hundred Squabbling Small Tradesmen'? Censorship, the Stationers' Company, and the state in early modern England

2013 ◽  
pp. 91-108
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The State

“Vows to the Blackest Devil”: Hamlet and the Evolving Code of Honor in Early Modern England

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1070-1086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reta A. Terry
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The State ◽  
Honor Code ◽  
Honor System ◽  
The Individual ◽  
State Analysis

The Renaissance was a period in which the honor code underwent a significant metamorphosis. The medieval, chivalric code of honor, with its emphasis on lineage, allegiance to one's lord and violence, evolved into an honor code that was both more moral and political in that it began to emphasize the individual conscience and allegience to the state. Analysis of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and in particular its characters' use of promise, provides new and revealing insights into the evolving Renaissance codes of honor, for Shakespeare creates characters in Hamlet that represent various stages in the evolution of a changing honor system.

Friendship, Coercion, and Interest: Debating the Foundations of Justice In Early Modern England

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Personality ◽  
Valuable Source ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Commutative Justice ◽  
Promise Keeping

AbstractThis essay examines the significance of friendship and the expectations associated with it in the early modern debate about trust and the fulfillment of obligations as that debate unfolded in England. A thorough rethinking about the foundations of society and the mechanisms of social order focused on the motives and justifications that led people to create and fulfill obligations to others, especially in the area of commutative justice. Commutative justice was achieved when contracts were secure, promises kept, exchanges carried through, and debts paid. The growth of the state, new economic theories, and the development of strict contract encouraged reliance on coercion (or punitive measures) and self-interest. While these visions of society triumphed, there was a show of resistance based on the idea that friendship was a more valuable source of justice because it brought into play the virtues of generosity, gratitude, and promise-keeping (or fidelity). At stake was the very de fi nition and scope of human personality and morality.

scholarly journals Evidentiality in Early Modern English Medical Treatises (1500–1700)

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Jason Whitt
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The State ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Quantitative Results ◽  
Medical Treatises ◽  
Changing Role

AbstractThis study investigates diachronic trends in the use of evidential markers in Early Modern English medical treatises (1500–1700), with data drawn from the Corpus of Early Modern English Medical Texts. The state of medical thought and practice in Early Modern England is discussed, with particular focus on the changing role that Scholasticism played during this period. The nature of evidentiality and types of scholastic vs. non-scholastic evidence are given attention, and quantitative results are outlined. It is shown that as scholastic models of medicine gave way to more empirically-driven approaches, the use of evidential markers indicating direct perceptual and inferential evidence increased drastically, while the use of markers signaling reported information – particularly information mediated by classical authorities – decreased significantly. The results are finally discussed in light of discursive and typological considerations relating to contextual changes accompanying the reference to classical authors as sources of evidence, as well as the notion of “marked” and “unmarked” evidence types.

HIERARCHY AND COMMUNITY IN THE ELIZABETHAN PARISH: THE SWALLOWFIELD ARTICLES OF 1596

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 835-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVE HINDLE
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
First Time ◽  
Locus Classicus

The politics of the parish are increasingly attracting the attention of historians of early modern England. The exploration of the depth and extent of popular participation in the process of governance has disclosed sophisticated forms of political organization at relatively humble social levels. The locus classicus of innovation in parish governance is arguably the set of articles drawn up by the chief inhabitants of the Wiltshire community of Swallowfield in 1596. The articles are printed here for the first time. The introduction seeks to place them in their geographical, chronological, and historiographical contexts. In particular, the articles have profound implications for current debates over the nature and meaning of ‘community’, the dynamics of the growth of the state, and the scale and impulse of the reformation of manners.

Chattel Property Rules and the Construction of Englishness, 1660–1800

1994 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Staves
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Joint Venture ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Property Ownership ◽  
Rule Changes ◽  
Ownership Rights

To think of property as “things” owned by “persons” may be to miss a more interesting relation in which personhood itself can be constructed out of ownership rights, especially out of what a particular person is privileged or forbidden to own. Moreover, what is sometimes thought of as “private property” might more accurately be understood as the product of a joint venture engaged in by both individuals and the state. Now, instead of personhood and property existing outside of and independent of the state, both are significantly creatures of the modern state. In early modern England we can see the extent to which “England” and “Englishness” were themselves invented through rules of ownership and through the state's use of rules of ownership to project and to enforce certain ideas of desirable Englishness. A wide variety of statutory changes in the rules of property ownership conferred ownership rights on some persons previously lacking them and took away ownership rights from other persons previously possessing them; these rule changes were intended to promote certain kinds of personhood judged desirable by the legislature and to stigmatize and limit other kinds. Since early modern politicians and social theorists were quite self-conscious about the relations between property law and social structure, it is often possible to discern in the rule changes and in the debates about them what contemporaries supposed the ideological implications of the legal changes they advocated or resisted were.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document