Early Modern Europe

The present paper aims to study slave labour in the Crown of Castile in late Middle Ages and early Modern period. It is structured in three parts: 1. slave labour: concept, method and sources; 2. slave labour in urban context; 3. slave labour in rural economy. It has taken into account more than 150 municipal ordinances from all throughout the territory, helping to define the geography of slavery in Castile and the extent of its economic role in the overall Castilian economy. The result strongly discusses generally accepted assertions and establishes new points of view that aim to help rethinking and reshaping late medieval and early modern European slavery.

Der Beitrag erwägt aus bibelhermeneutischer Perspektive, wie es zu unterschiedlichen Idealisierungen des alttestamentlichen Gemeinwesens im politischen Denken der Frühen Neuzeit kam. Dabei werden zunächst allgemeine Faktoren berücksichtigt, die eine biblische Orientierung im politischen Denken ausgehend von der Reformationszeit im 16. Jahrhundert erklärbar machen. Ein Überblick über betreffende Quellentitel des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts zeigt, dass hierbei in allen größeren Konfessionen, wenn auch in unterschiedlicher Dichte, das Ideal des alttestamentlich-jüdischen Gemeinwesens eine Rolle spielte. Entlang zweier Fallbeispiele (François Ragueau, Petrus Cunaeus) werden dann konfessionelle und transkonfessionelle Aspekte unterschieden, um neue Perspektiven auf das Konfessionalisierungsparadigma und andere Modernisierungstheorien zu eröffnen.

This research project starts out with the premise that the symbolic orders of any society should include constant typological distinctions, such as 1) spatial order, 2) movement order, and 3) speech order. All these orders involve time-dependent configurations of symbols, which are represented in systems of 1) proxemic, 2) kinetic, and 3) verbal signs. The results of this semiotic analysis are summarized in my postdoctoral thesis, which I presented to the faculty of sociology and history at the University of Constance (Germany). The study examined processes of standardization and differentiation of verbal and nonverbal behavioral patterns (such as dance, fencing, greeting, politeness in speech and comportment, etc.) in the context of establishing diplomatic and court ceremonial in Germany, Ottoman Empire, Russia and France. Communicative practices in Eastern and Western Europe have been studied comparatively. The phenomenon of the so-called modernization of behavior has been considered with regard to the dissolution of traditional forms of community and the emergence of formal and bureaucratic structures of communication. The author has attempted to develop sociological frameworks in order to explain cases of unsuccessful nonverbal communication as well as the continuity of visual stereotypes in the 17-20 cent. from Peter the Great up to  Stalin.

Auteur des notices suivantes : « Apurement d’un compte » (p. 29), « Arnold, Karl Ivanovitch » (p. 29-31), « Auditeur des comptes » (p. 33-34), « Audition » (p. 34-35), «Chambre des comptes » (p. 83-86), « Chambre de justice » (p.87-89), « Collège des Recettes » (p. 337-339), « Collège de Révision des comptes » (p. 371-373), « Contrôleur, inspecteur des tailles » (p. 155-156), « Contrôleur des restes » (p. 155), « Correction des comptes » (p. 156-157), « Débat de comptes » (p. 162), « Débet de comptes » (p. 163-164), « Inspecteur des fermes » (p. 231-232), « Epices » (p. 185), « Erreur » (p. 187), « Jugement des comptes » (p. 250-251), « Maître des comptes » (p. 261), « Reddition des comptes » (p. 350-351), « Règlements sur la comptabilité publique en Russie » (p. 359-362), « Serment » (p. 383-384), « Tatarinov, Valerian » (p. 391-394), « Visa » (p. 444-446).

Based on my doctoral dissertation, this talk addresses the path that Jean Rou, a seventeenth century Huguenot bourgeois, made in order to achieve relatively successful employment under persecution in France, and in emigration, in England and in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. A particular attention is given to his use of netwoks, friendship and patronage.

The article deals with the historical imagination in the burgher’s milieu in the late Renaissance Polish kingdom. The main aim of the article is the investigation of the changes that occurred in the perception of the remote past. The article focuses on the mechanisms of a usable past construction. In 1578, in order to obtain equal economic rights with the dominant Catholic burghers – mostly of German origin – in Lemberg, local Armenians stated that their ancestors were invited by the Galician prince Daniel and were then settled by his son Lev/Leon (1264-1301) in Lviv at the time of the city’s foundation. In 1597, in their compliant, Catholics allowed that the statement of the invitation of the Armenian ancestors was a real fact but accused “Armenian warriors” for participating in the hostile incursions led by the prince Daniel or Lev together with the Tatars in the 1250s-1280s against Poland. In this way, the magistrate won the trial in 1600. I argue that for their pseudo-historical argument Catholic patricians creatively reinterpreted some passages from Marcin Cromer’s book “On the origins and deeds of the Poles” (1555, 1558, 1562, 1568, 1589). Then, Armenians changed their tactics and stated in 1631 that their noble ancestors took an active part in the wars between Poland and Teutonic Order in late fourteenth – early fifteenth centuries. Thus Armenians converted their ancestors into good patriots of Poland when the Germans were the main enemies. During the trials townspeople perceived changes in their past. It also reflects a level of historical reading in Polish history and the emergence of the Battle of Grunwald as part of a Polish national myth. Thus Renaissance book-printing and book-collecting directly influenced the burgher’s historical imagination and their judicial argument. City elites “privatized” a book, which had been sacral property of Church, and made it their tool to use for their practical needs. They also privatized and instrumentalized the based-on-books past. The arguments used by both sides during their conflict correlated with the urban elites’ aspirations to acquire noble status. It also reflects the process of transmission of high culture models – Sarmatian Renaissance – to the lower estates of the Kingdom.