This book examines the life and work of the eighteenth-century scientist, philosopher and feminist, Madame du Chatelet.

Vincent de Paul, the Lazarist Mission, and French Catholic Reform offers a major re-assessment of the thought and activities of the most famous figure of the seventeenth-century French Catholic Reformation, Vincent de Paul. Confronting traditional explanations for de Paul's prominence in the devot reform movement that emerged in the wake of the Wars of Religion, the volume explores how he turned a personal vocational desire to evangelize the rural poor of France into a congregation of secular missionaries, known as the Congregation of the Mission or the Lazarists, with three inter-related strands of pastoral responsibility: the delivery of missions, the formation and training of clergy, and the promotion of confraternal welfare. Alison Forrestal further demonstrates that the structure, ethos, and works that de Paul devised for the Congregation placed it at the heart of a significant enterprise of reform that involved a broad set of associates in efforts to transform the character of devotional belief and practice within the church. The central questions of the volume therefore concern de Paul's efforts to create, characterize, and articulate a distinctive and influential vision for missionary life and work, both for himself and for the Lazarist Congregation, and Forrestal argues that his prominence and achievements depended on his remarkable ability to exploit the potential for association and collaboration within the devot environment of seventeenth-century France in enterprising and systematic ways. This is the first study to assess de Paul's activities against the wider backdrop of religious reform and Bourbon rule, and to reconstruct the combination of ideas, practices, resources, and relationships that determined his ability to pursue his ambitions. A work of forensic detail and complex narrative, Vincent de Paul, the Lazarist Mission, and French Catholic Reform is the product of years of research in ecclesiastical and state archives. It offers a wholly fresh perspective on the challenges and opportunities entailed in the promotion of religious reform and renewal in seventeenth-century France.

This volume brings together some of the latest research on the cultural, intellectual, and commercial interactions during the Renaissance between Western Europe and the Middle East, with particular reference to the Ottoman Empire. Recent scholarship has brought to the fore the economic, political, cultural, and personal interactions between Western European Christian states and the Eastern Mediterranean Islamic states, and has therefore highlighted the incongruity of conceiving of an iron curtain bisecting the mentalities of the various socio-political and religious communities located in the same Euro-Mediterranean space. Instead, the emphasis here is on interpreting the Mediterranean as a world traversed by trade routes and associated cultural and intellectual networks through which ideas, people and goods regularly travelled. The fourteen articles in this volume contribute to an exciting cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary scholarly dialogue that explores elements of continuity and exchange between the two areas and positions the Ottoman Empire as an integral element of the geo-political and cultural continuum within which the Renaissance evolved. The aim of this volume is to refine current understandings of the diverse artistic, intellectual and political interactions in the early modern Mediterranean world and, in doing so, to contribute further to the discussion of the scope and nature of the Renaissance. The articles, from major scholars of the field, include discussions of commercial contacts; the exchange of technological, cartographical, philosophical, and scientific knowledge; the role of Venice in transmitting the culture of the Islamic East Mediterranean to Western Europe; the use of Middle Eastern objects in the Western European Renaissance; shared sources of inspiration in Italian and Ottoman architecture; musical exchanges; and the use of East Mediterranean sources in Western scholarship and European sources in Ottoman scholarship.

Bringing together twelve studies, this book provides an overview of the key issues of on-going interest in the study of Scottish witchcraft. The authors tackle various aspects of the question of witches; considering how people came to be considered 'witches', with new insights into the centrality of neighbourhood quarrels and misfortune; and delving into folk belief and various acts of witchcraft. It also examines the practice of witch-hunting, the 'urban geography' of witch-hunting, Scotland's international witch-hunting connections and brings fresh insights to the much-studied North Berwick witchcraft panic. Reconstructions of the brutal and ceremonial punishments inflicted on 'witches' offers a gruesome but compelling reminder of the importance of the subject.

The seventy years of late Stuart and early Hanoverian Britain following 1680 were a crucial period in British politics and society, seeing the growth both of political parties and of stability. This collection of original essays provides a coherent account of Britain in the 'First Age of Party'.

Focusing on one of Russia's most powerful and wide-reaching institutions in a period of shattering dynastic crisis and immense territorial and administrative expansion, this book addresses manifestations of religious thought, practice, and artifacts revealing the permeability of political boundaries and fluid transfers of ideas, texts, people, objects, and "sacred spaces" with the rest of the Christian world. The historical background to the establishment Russia's Patriarchate, its chief religious authority, in various eparchies from Late Antiquity sets the stage. "The Tale of the Establishment of the Patriarchate," crucial for legitimizing and promoting both this institution and close cooperation with the established tetrarchy of Eastern Orthodox patriarchs emerged in the 1620s. Their attitude remained mixed, however, with persisting unease concerning Russian pretensions to equality. Regarding the most crucial "other" for Christianity's self-identification, the contradictions inherent in Christianity's appropriation of the Old Testament became apparent in, for example, the realm's imperfectly enforced ban on resident Jews. The concept of ordained royalty emerged in the purported co-rulership of the initial Romanov Tsar Michael and his father, Patriarch Filaret. As a pertinent foil to Moscow's patriarchs, challenges arose from Petro Mohyla, a metropolitan of the then totally separate Kievan church, whose Academy became the most important educational institution for the Russian Orthodox Church into the eighteenth century, combining a Romanian regal, Polish aristocratic, and Ukrainian Orthodox self-identity.

In the 17th century, the elite household (kapi) became the focal point of Ottoman elite politics and socialization. It was a cultural melting pot, bringing together individuals of varied backgrounds through empire-wide patronage networks. This book investigates the layers of kapi power, through the example of Seyhulislam Feyzullah Efendielite.

John Fisher, 1469-1535 was a figure of European stature during the Tudor age. His many roles included those of bishop, humanist, theologian, cardinal, and ultimately martyr. This study places him in the context of sixteenth-century Christendom, focusing not just on his resistance to Henry VIII, but also on his active engagement with the renaissance and reformation.

From oaths and hand-kissing to coronations and baptisms, Power and Ceremony in European History considers the governing practices, courtly rituals, and expressions of power prevalent in Europe and the Ottoman Empire from the medieval age to the modern era. Bringing together political and art historical approaches to the study of power, this book reveals how ceremonies and rituals - far from simply being ostentatious displays of wealth - served as a primary means of communication between different participants in political and courtly life. It explores how ceremonial culture changed over time and in different regions to provide readers with a nuanced comparative understanding of rituals and ceremonies since the middle ages, showing how such performances were integral to the evolution of the state in Europe. This collection of essays is of immense value to both historians and art historians interested in representations of power and the political culture of Europe from 1450 onwards.

Utilizing contemporary accounts of India, China, Siam and the Levant, this study provides rich detail about these exotic lands and explores the priorities that shaped and motivated these bold envoys and chroniclers. Ames and Love offer a fascinating look at the symbiotic nature of cross-cultural interaction between France and the major trading regions of the Indian Ocean basin during the 17th century. During this period of intense French interest in the rich trade and cultures of the region, Louis XIV and his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert in particular were concerned with encouraging French travelers, both clerical and lay, to explore and document these lands. Among the accounts included here are those of Francois Bernier, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, and Francois Pyrard. Because these accounts reflect as much about the structures and priorities of France as they do about the cultures they describe, Ames and Love hope their analysis bridges the gap between studies on early modern France and those on the major Asiatic countries of the same period. Their findings challenge the current thinking in the study of early modern France by demonstrating that overseas expansion to Asia was of considerable importance and interest to all segments of French society. Specialists in traditional "internal" French history will find much in this study of European expansion to complement and supplement their research.

This book is a study of children, their books and their reading experiences in late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain. It argues for the importance of reading to early modern childhood and of childhood to early modern reading cultures by drawing together the fields of childhood studies, early modern literature and the history of reading. Analysing literary representations of children as readers in a range of genres (including ABCs, prayer books, religious narratives, romance, anthologies, school books, drama, translations and autobiography) alongside evidence of the reading experiences of those defined as children in the period, it explores the production of different categories of child readers. Focusing on the 'good child' reader, the youth as consumer, ways of reading as a boy and as a girl, and the retrospective recollection of childhood reading, it sheds new light on the ways in which childhood and reading were understood and experienced in the period.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

This book is a chronicle of England's contrasting imperial civil and ecclesiastical policies for its first two colonies, Ireland and Virginia. The settlement of Virginia contrasted sharply with England's experience in Ireland. It was not an undertaking of the state but a commercial enterprise delegated by James I to the merchant adventurers of the Virginia Company of London. The colony was launched without the familiar English civil, military, and ecclesiastical personnel and leadership applied in Ireland. It was the Company's obligation to recruit settlers for the colony, provide governance, administration, laws, and religious worship in accordance with the English Church. Ireland was not an imperial model for Virginia.
The novelty of governing a sparsely settled colony thirty-seven-hundred miles distant from Whitehall in London proved financially difficult for the Virginia Company. After its charter was revoked in 1624 the province became a royal jurisdiction. Gradually over several decades the governor and legislature advocated and implemented statutes for the conduct of civil, ecclesiastical, trade, and commercial affairs. Between 1680 and 1713 London officials applied new imperial policies for the governance of overseas affairs that became the formula for the administration of the province until the Declaration of Independence.

From treasure-seekers and the lovesick to quacks and charlatans, from true believers in magic to those eager to exploit them, the people of early modern Saragossa and their wealth of beliefs and customs are brought vividly to life within these pages. Drawing on the graphic and revealing evidence recorded by the different courts in this Spanish city during the 16th and 17th centuries, Tausiet captures the spirit of an age when religious faith vied for people's hearts and minds with centuries-old beliefs in witchcraft and superstition. Magic and religion might be seen as opposing forces but here are shown to be opposite sides of the same coin, as reflected in the book's subtitle, a powerful incantatory phrase combining that most magical of magic words and the essential quality of God Almighty.

This essay collection is a retrospective analysis of the Washington administration's importance to the understanding of the modern presidency. Contemporary presidential scholarship gives little attention to the enormous impact that Washington's actions had on establishing the presidency. Most contemporary literature starts with 1933 and, although FDR's impact on the development of the modern institution of the presidency is undeniable, Washington's actions in office also established standards for practices that continue to this day.

This analysis of the Washington presidency begins with an examination of Washington's leadership and its relevance to the modern presidency. The second group of essays looks at different aspects of presidential powers and the precedents established by the Washington administration. The third section examines Washington's press coverage, looking at the origins of Washington's image and the various myths in the press as well as the president's difficult relations with his contemporary press. A thoughtful and important corrective that will be of interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with the American presidency and its history.

In the Early Modern period, massive emigration, along with political contention between the Court and the City, reshaped London's social topography and human landscape. This book examines the spaces and identities which characterized the changing metropolis. From excursions into institutions like Bedlam, Bridewell, and the Theatre, as well as exploring the less formal places and practices of London, such as prostitution, the suburbs, and the fashion parades at St Paul's Walk, a new way of seeing the city becomes open to us.

How did 17th-century families in England perceive their health care needs? What household resources were available for medical self-help? To what extent did households make up remedies based on medicinal recipes? Drawing on previously unpublished household papers ranging from recipes to accounts and letters, this original account shows how health and illness were managed on a day-to-day basis in a variety of 17th-century households. It reveals the extent of self-help used by families, explores their favourite remedies and analyses differences in approaches to medical matters. Anne Stobart illuminates cultures of health care amongst women and men, showing how 'kitchin physick' related to the business of medicine, which became increasingly commercial and professional in the 18th century.