Bücher der Reihe Routledge Research in Early Modern History

This volume offers scholars of early modern Europe a detailed understanding of the implications and the impact of obscene representations in their relationship to the Gutenberg Revolution which came to define Western modernity.

The Enlightenment brought forth the idea that the future was uncertain and could be shaped by human beings. Those who sought support for their plans needed to reflect, develop new arguments, and offer new reasons to address an anonymous public. This book explores these "languages of reform."

Authorities ranging from philosophers to politicians nowadays question the existence of concepts of society, whether in the present or the past. This book argues that social concepts most definitely existed in late medieval and early modern England, laying the foundations for modern models of society. The book analyzes social paradigms and how they changed in the period. A pervasive medieval model was the "body social," which imagined a society of three estates ΓÇô the clergy, the nobility, and the commonalty ΓÇô conjoined by interdependent functions, arranged in static hierarchies based upon birth, and rejecting wealth and championing poverty. Another model the book describes as "social humanist," that fundamentally questioned the body social, advancing merit over birth, mobility over stasis, and wealth over poverty. The theory of the body social was vigorously articulated between the 1480s and the 1550s. Parts of the old metaphor actually survived beyond 1550, but alternative models of social humanist thought challenged the body concept in the period, advancing a novel paradigm of merit, mobility, and wealth. The bookΓÇÖs methodology focuses on the intellectual context of a variety of contemporary texts.

William the Silent and the Dutch Revolt examines the first stages of the Dutch struggle against Spanish rule during late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is a key resource for scholars and students of early modern European history, as well as those interested in the history of revolts.

This book analyzes homicide prosecution in the 18th century. Using case studies, it explores the ways law intersected with concerns about the relationships between government and the governed, and argues that previous studies have underplayed the importance of context in determining who hanged.

This volume explores the complex and fascinating social, cultural and confessional relations in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1795) through close readings of newly discovered or long neglected sources, emphasizing urban and rural spaces, families, communities, networks and travels.

Written in honour of the leading historian of war and state formation in the early modern Low Countries Marjolein 't Hart, the chapters gathered in this volume examine the main drivers, beneficiaries and discontents of state formation across and beyond Europe in the early modern period.

This book analyzes conversion as the acquisition of a set of historically contingent social practices, which facilitated the process of social, political or religious acculturation. Exploring the role conversion played in the fabrication of cosmopolitan Mediterranean identities, the book examines the idea of the convert as a mediator and translator between cultures.

This volume offers scholars of early modern Europe a detailed understanding of the implications and the impact of obscene representations in their relationship to the Gutenberg Revolution which came to define Western modernity.

This volume offers the first comprehensive survey of regime change in Italy in the period c.1494-c.1559.Far from being a purely modern phenomenon, regime change was a common feature of life in Renaissance Italy - no more so than during the Italian Wars (1494-1559). During those turbulent years, governments rose and fell with dizzying regularity. Some changes of regime were peaceful; others were more violent. But whenever a new reggimento took power, old social tensions were laid bare and new challenges emerged - any of which could easily threaten its survival. This provoked a variety of responses, both from newly established regimes and from their opponents. Constitutional reforms were proposed and enacted; civic rituals were developed; works of art were commissioned; literary works were penned; and occasionally, aspects of material culture were pressed into service, as well. Comparative in approach and broad in scope, it offers a provocative new view of the diverse political, culture, and economic factors, which ensured the survival (or demise) of regimes - not only in "major" polities like Florence, Rome, and Venice, but also in less-well-studied regions like Savoy.This book will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in cultural, political, and military history.

Piracy and Captivity in the Mediterranean exlores the early modern genre of Barbary Coast captivity narratives. This collection is divided into three parts, in the first two the chapters use specifically selected narratives as case studies to explore the genres of narrating captivity in Part One and authenticity and fiction in c

This volume explores the complex and fascinating social, cultural and confessional relations in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1795) through close readings of newly discovered or long neglected sources, emphasizing urban and rural spaces, families, communities, networks and travels.

This book provides a fresh perspective of the history and legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as the often-disputed memory of it in contemporary European for historians, political scientists, cultural anthropologists and other scholars of the history of Central and Eastern Europe in the Early Modern period.

Voices in the Legal Archives in the French Colonial World: "The King is Listening" offers, through the contribution of thirteen original chapters, a sustained analysis of judicial practices and litigation during the first era of French overseas expansion.

This book draws essential comparisons in terms of remarriage patterns and stepfamily life with Northwestern Europe.