Five hundred years after his death at the stake, Girolamo Savonarola remains one of the most fascinating figures of the Italian Renaissance. This volume, which contains an introduction by historian Alison Brown, is the first comprehensive collection of Savonarola's works in English. It includes translations of his sermons and treatises on pastoral ministry, prophecy, politics and moral reform, as well as the correspondence with Alexander VI that led to Savonarola's silencing and excommunication. Also included are first-hand accounts of religio-civic festivities instigated by Savonarola and of his last moments. This collection demonstrates the remarkable extent of Savonarola's contributions to the religious, political and aesthetic debates of the late fifteenth century. Winner of the 2004 Scaglione Publication Award for a manuscript in Italian literary studies awarded by the MLA.

Originally published in 1827, this historical account of Philip's War, also called the Great Indian War of 1675 and 1676, recounts the causes of the bloody battles which killed 600 colonists and 3,000 Native Americans. The conflict destroyed a number of tribes in the area and opened southern New England to unimpeded colonial expansion.

This book offers the most up to the minute snapshot of scholarship on queer/gay historiographies in a number of geographical regions in western Europe, Asia and the US. It features the work of the most established scholars in the field of the history of same-sex desire and promises to take the study of same-sex relations in the early modern period in radical new directions.

This title, first published in 1979, was ground-breaking in its exploration of the understudied area of the Tudor law of treason. Bellamy first examines the scope of that law, noting the inheritance from the Middle Ages, the effectiveness of the new statutes and interpretation of the law by the judiciary. Mining the archives for official, legal and literary accounts, the following parts consider how the government came to hear of traitors, the use of evidence and witnesses in trials and finally the fate of the traitor at the gallows and beyond. This is a full, useful and interesting title, which will be of great value to students researching Tudor and late medieval statute law, the Tudor concept of treason and the mores of Tudor society.

This title, first published in 1989, was one of the first to directly address the legal dimension of bastard feudalism. John Bellamy explores the role and vulnerability of local officials and juries, the nature of the endemic land wars and the interference in the justice system by those at the top of the social chain. What emerges is a focus on the role of land in disputes, the importance of royal favour and political advantage and the attempt to suppress disruption. This is an interesting title, which will be of particular value to students researching the nature of late medieval and early Tudor feudalism, royal patronage and legal procedure.

By the latter half of the seventeenth century, the practice of drawing up a will had become commonplace, and people were increasingly encouraged to set down their final wishes in a 'last will and testament'. Although intended to clarify ownership, these documents often provoked conflict amongst those who had survived the testator. As John Addy shows in this study, first published in 1992, where there was a will, there were relatives. Drawing on a large corpus of contemporary evidence, this survey analyses numerous cases of the family disputes that arose from wills, to form a picture of the attitudes and priorities possessed by those who contested them. This was one of the first studies to use contested-will material, and remains of great value to students of early modern history, sociology and genealogy, as well as general readers with an interest in local history.

Drawing upon archival material as well as the drama, popular verse and pamphlets, this book reads representations of masters and servants in relation to key Renaissance preoccupations. Apprentices, journeymen, male domestic servants, maidservants and stewards, Burnett argues, were deployed in literary texts to address questions about the exercise of power, social change and the threat of economic upheaval. In this way, writers were instrumental in creating servant 'cultures', and spaces within which forms of political resistance could be realized.

The Parish Church was the primary site of religious practice throughout the early modern period. This was particularly so for the silent majority of the English population, who conformed outwardly to the successive religious upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. What such public conformity might have meant has attracted less attention - and, ironically, is sometimes less well documented - than the non-conformity or semi-conformity of recusants, church-papists, Puritan conventiclers or separatists. In this volume, ten leading scholars of early modern religion explore the experience of parish worship in England during the Reformation and the century that followed it. As the contributors argue, parish worship in this period was of critical theological, cultural and even political importance. The volume's key themes are the interlocking importance of liturgy, music, the sermon and the parishioners' own bodies; the ways in which religious change was received, initiated, negotiated, embraced or subverted in local contexts; and the dialectic between practice and belief which helped to make both so contentious. The contributors - historians, historical theologians and literary scholars - through their commitment to an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, provide fruitful and revealing insights into this intersection of private and public worship. This collection is a sister volume to Martin and Ryrie (eds), Private and Domestic Devotion in Early Modern Britain. Together these two volumes focus and drive forward scholarship on the lived experience of early modern religion, as it was practised in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Miskimin's work considers the religious feuding, hostility, and occasional cooperation of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in 17th-century Metz. In a series of pointed chapters, she shows how the French Crown benefited from religious disagreement in the town by using that discord to push through its centralizing political agenda. Despite the disapproval of local leaders and the lack of any ideological commitment to coexistence, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews increasingly developed daily contacts in the city as the century progressed. Though these contacts were often hostile, they nonetheless continued and led to more complex interactions which undercut traditional religious verities.

Using numerous examples from local court records, Miskimin explores the multilayered contacts between adherents of these three faiths in one of the only French towns to include this tripartite religious mix during this period. As a result, Metz became a convenient early laboratory for the fundamental intellectual shifts at work in Europe. Building on earlier studies of centralization, this book integrates social and religious history with major political shifts to illustrate the interdependence of members of these three groups, as well as the centrality of their clashes to an understanding of the climate of these turbulent times at the dawn of modernity.

In The Oxford Handbook of the Old Regime, an international team of 30 contributors surveys and presents current thinking about the world of pre-revolutionary France and Europe.
The idea of the Old Regime (ancien regime) was invented by the French revolutionaries to define what they hoped to destroy and replace. But it was not a precise definition, and although historians have found it conceptually useful, there is wide disagreement about what the Old Regime's main features were, how they worked, how old they were, how far they stretched, how dynamic or inert they were, and how far the revolutionaries succeeded in their ambitions to eradicate them.
In this wide-ranging and authoritative collection, old and newer areas of research into the Old Regime are presented and assessed, and there has been no attempt to impose any sort of consensus. The result shows what a lively field of historical enquiry the Old Regime remains, and points the way towards a range of promising new directions for thinking and writing about the intriguing complex of historical problems which it continues to pose.

After 500 years Henry VIII still retains a public fascination unmatched by any monarch before or since. Whilst his popular image is firmly associated with his appetites - sexual and gastronomic - scholars have long recognized that his reign also ushered in profound changes to English society and culture, the legacy of which endure to this day. To help take stock of such a multifaceted and contested history, this volume presents a collection of 17 essays that showcase the very latest thinking and research on Henry and his court. Divided into seven parts, the book highlights how the political, religious and cultural aspects of Henry's reign came together to create a one of the most significant and transformative periods of English history. The volume is genuinely interdisciplinary, drawing on literature, art history, architecture and drama to enrich our knowledge. The first part is a powerful and personal account by Professor George W. Bernard of his experience of writing about Henry and his reign. The next parts - Material Culture and Images - reflect a historical concern with non-documentary evidence, exploring how objects, collections, paintings and buildings can provide unrivalled insight into the world of the Tudor court. The parts on Court Culture and Performance explore the literary and theatrical world and the performative aspects of court life, looking at how the Tudor court attempted to present itself to the world, as well as how it was represented by others. The part on Reactions focuses upon the political and religious currents stirred up by Henry's policies, and how they in turn came to influence his actions. Through this wide-ranging, yet thematically coherent approach, a fascinating window is opened into the world of Henry VIII and his court. In particular, building on research undertaken over the last ten years, a number of contributors focus on topics that have been neglected by traditional historical writing, for example gender, graffiti and clothing. With contributions from many of the leading scholars of Tudor England, the collection offers not only a snapshot of the latest historical thinking, but also provides a starting point for future research into the world of this colourful, but often misrepresented monarch.

This book brings together challenging new essays from some of the leaders in Italian scholarship in three countries, to show the range of work that is currently being done not only on Florence but also on Naples, Ferrara and Lucca and on the relationship between cities and countryside.

An exploration of day-to-day urban life in colonial America. The American city was an integral part of the colonial experience. Although the five largest cities in colonial America--Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Charles Town, and Newport--held less than ten percent of the American popularion on the eve of the American Revolution, they were particularly significant for a people who resided mostly in rural areas, and wilderness. These cities and other urban hubs contained and preserved the European traditions, habits, customs, and institutions from which their residents had emerged. They were also centers of commerce, transportation, and communication; held seats of colonial government; and were conduits for the transfer of Old World cultures. With a focus on the five largest cities but also including life in smaller urban centers, Krawczynski's nuanced treatment will fill a significant gap on the reference shelves and serve as an essential source for students of American history, sociology, and culture. In-depth, thematic chapters explore many aspects of urban life in colonial America, including working conditions for men, women, children, free blacks, and slaves as well as strikes and labor issues; the class hierarchy and its purpose in urban society; childbirth, courtship, family, and death; housing styles and urban diet; and the threat of disease and the growth of poverty.

Discusses the transition from a largely oral to a fundamentally literate society in the early modern period. During this period the spoken word remained of the utmost importance but development of printing and the spread of popular literacy combined to transform the nature of communication. Examines English, Scottish and Welsh Oral culture to provide the first pan-British study of the subject. Covers several aspects of oral culture ranging from tradition, to memories of the civil war, to changing mechanics for the settling of debts. The time-span concentrates on the period 1500-1800 but includes material from outside this time frame, covering a longer chronolgical span than most other studies to show the link between early modern and modern oral and literate cultures. -- .

A look at how ordinary English men and women responded to the transformations that accompanied the regicide, the creation of a republic, and the rise of the Cromwellian Protectorate. How did ordinary English men and women respond to the transformations that accompanied the regicide, the creation of a republic, and the rise of the Cromwellian Protectorate? This book uncovers grassroots responses to the tangibleconsequences of revolution, delving into everyday practices, social interactions, and power struggles as they intersected with the macro-politics of regime change. Tussles at local alehouses, encounters with excise collectors inthe high street, and contests over authority at the marketplace reveal how national politics were felt across the most ordinary of activities. Using a series of case studies from counties, boroughs, and the London metropolis, Boswell argues that factional discourses and shifting power relations complicated social interaction. Localized disaffection was broadcast in newsbooks, pamphlets, and broadsides, shaping political rhetoric that refashioned grassroots grievances to promote royalist desires. By uniting disparate people who were alienated by the policies of interregnum regimes, this literature helped to create the spectre of a unified, royalist commons that materializedin the months leading up to Charles II's Restoration. Such agitation - from disaffected mutters to ritualistic violence against officials - informed the broad political culture that shaped debates over governance during one of the most volatile decades in British history. CAROLINE BOSWELL is Associate Professor in History at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.

Silent Teachers considers for the first time the influence of Ottoman scholarly practices and reference tools on oriental learning in early modern Europe. Telling the story of oriental studies through the annotations, study notes and correspondence of European scholars, it demonstrates the central but often overlooked role that Turkish-language manuscripts played in the achievements of early orientalists. Dispersing the myths and misunderstandings found in previous scholarship, the book offers a fresh history of Turkish studies in Europe and new insights into how Renaissance intellectuals studied Arabic and Persian through contemporaneous Turkish sources. This story hardly has any dull moments: the reader will encounter many larger-than-life figures, including an armchair expert who turned his alleged captivity under the Ottomans into bestselling books; a drunken dragoman who preferred enjoying the fruits of the vine to his duties at the Sublime Porte; and a curmudgeonly German physician whose pugnacious pamphlets led to the erasure of his name from history. Taking its title from the celebrated humanist Joseph Scaliger's comment that books from the Muslim world are 'silent teachers' and need to be explained orally to be understood, this study gives voice to the many and varied Turkish-language books that circulated in early modern Europe and proposes a paradigm-shift in our understanding of early modern erudite culture.

" The results of the Russian-Swedish research team] are presented an exemplary fashion and rigorously edited ... Whoever is interested in the industrial development of European economy and society should read this book." . Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte

..". very well written, clearly arranged and interesting and easy to read ... an important study." . Eva Osterberg, Professor of History, University of Lund.

The title of this book has a double meaning: on the one hand, it deals with two very different societies both of which made iron in the early modern period. On the other hand, iron "made" these societies: the needs of iron production and the resistance to these demands from local peasant communities gave the societies a special kind of cohesion and rationality.

This volume presents the findings of a joint team of Swedish and Russian scholars examining the social organization of work in early modern iron industry and their respective societies. The comparison was carried out against the backdrop of the international discussion on proto-industrialization, its prerequisites and consequences. There has, however, been a certain bias in much of that debate, the focus being mainly on Western Europe, particularly on Britain, and on textile trades. This book offers an important contribution to the debate in that it widens the perspective by discussing Northern and Eastern Europe and by studying the iron industry. More particularly it examines actual production processes, the organization of work, social conflict, questions of ownership and its evolution, as well as the diffusion and organization of technical knowledge. The comparative approach is consistently applied throughout, with each chapter closely integrating the results relating to the two selected geographical areas, thus showing ways of solving some of the problems arising from comparative history.

This book--the sixth volume in "The Great Cultural Eras of the Western World" series--provides information on more than 400 individuals who created and played a role in the era's intellectual and cultural activity. The book's focus is on cultural figures--those whose inventions and discoveries contributed to the scientific revolution, those whose line of reasoning contributed to secularism, groundbreaking artists like Rembrandt, lesser known painters, and contributors to art and music.

As the momentum of the Renaissance peaked in 1600, the Western World was poised to move from the Early Modern to the Modern Era. The Thirty Years War ended in 1648 and religion was no longer a cause for military conflict. Europe grew more secularized. Organized scientific research led to groundbreaking discoveries, such as the earth's magnetic field, Kepler's first two laws of motion, and the slide rule. In the arts, Baroque painting, music, and literature evolved. A new Europe was emerging. This book is a useful basic reference for students and laymen, with entries specifically designed for ready reference.

Of interest to interdisciplinary historians as well as those in various other fields, this book presents the first publication of 14 poems ranging from 12 to 3,000 lines. The poems are printed in the chronological order of their composition, from Elizabethan to Augustan times, but nine of them are verse translations of works from earlier periods in the development of alchemy. Each has a textual and historical introduction and explanatory note by the Editor. Renaissance alchemy is acknowledged as an important element in the histories of early modern science and medicine. This book emphasises these poems' expression of and shaping influence on religious, social and political values and institutions of their time too and is a useful reference work with much to offer for cultural studies and literary studies as well as science and history.

This is the first cultural history of Baroque Dresden, the capital of Saxony and the most important Protestant territory in the Empire from mid-sixteenth to early-eighteenth century. It shows how the art patronage of the Electors fits into the intellectual climate of the age and investigates its political and religious context. Lutheran church music and architecture, the influence of Italy, and alchemy are among the colorful subjects that come into play.

This bibliography orders one major genre of research in American Puritan studies--doctoral dissertations and published monographs based on them--to facilitate access to many significant but often neglected studies, and to display per exemplum the remarkably broad array of topics that have interested students of the American Puritans. It comprises citations of and abstracts for 940 American, British, Canadian, and German doctoral dissertations from 1882 through 1981. Dissertations cited treat entirely or in part some aspect of the history, theology, literature, and culture of the American Puritans, from the time of the Mayflower through 1730, and the perceived influence of Puritanism on later American thought. Also included are historiographical studies on the idea of Puritanism as interpreted by later generations of Americans. Each citation is annotated with a brief abstract and/or the table of contents. For ease of access to the contents of this bibliography, Montgomery has provided four indexes: author/editor/compiler, short-title, degree-granting institution, and subject.

Think of maritime slavery, and the notorious Middle Passage - the unprecedented, forced migration of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic - readily comes to mind. This so-called 'middle leg' - from Africa to the Americas - of a supposed trading triangle linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas naturally captures attention for its scale and horror. After all, the Middle Passage was the largest forced, transoceanic migration in world history, now thought to have involved about 12.5 million African captives shipped in about 44,000 voyages that sailed between 1514 and 1866. No other coerced migration matches it for sheer size or gruesomeness. Maritime slavery is not, however, just about the movement of people as commodities, but rather, the involvement of all sorts of people, including slaves, in the transportation of those human commodities. Maritime slavery is thus not only about objects being moved but also about subjects doing the moving. Some slaves were actors, not simply the acted-upon. They were pilots, sailors, canoemen, divers, linguists, porters, stewards, cooks, and cabin boys, not forgetting all the ancillary workers in ports such as stevedores, warehousemen, labourers, washerwomen, tavern workers, and prostitutes. Maritime Slavery reflects this current interest in maritime spaces, and covers all the major Oceans and Seas. This book was originally published as a special issue of Slavery and Abolition.

Written by leading scholars, this collection provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of modern empires. Spanning the era of modern imperial history from the early sixteenth century to the present, it challenges both the rather insular focuses on specific experiences, and gives due attention to imperial formations outside the West including the Russian, Japanese, Mughal, Ottoman and Chinese. The companion is divided into three broad sections. Part I - Times - surveys the three main eras of modern imperialism. The first was that dominated by the settlement impulse, with migrants - many voluntarily and many more by force - making new lives in the colonies. This impulse gave way, most especially in the nineteenth century, to a period of busy and rapid expansion which was less likely to promote new settlement, and in which colonists more frequently saw their sojourn in colonial lands as temporary and related to the business mostly of governance and trade. Lastly, in the twentieth century in particular, empires began to fail and to fall. Part II - Spaces - studies the principal imperial formations of the modern world. Each chapter charts the experience of a specific empire while at the same time placing it within the complex patterns of wider imperial constellations. The individual chapters thus survey the broad dynamics of change within the empires themselves and their relationships with other imperial formations, and reflect critically on the ways in which these topics have been approached in the literature. In Part III - Themes - scholars think critically about some of the key features of imperial expansion and decline. These chapters are brief and many are provocative. They reflect the current state of the field, and suggest new lines of inquiry which may follow from more comparative perspectives on empire. The broad range of themes captures the vitality and diversity of contemporary scholarship on questions of empire and colonialism, encompassing political, economic and cultural processes central to the formation and maintenance of empires as well as institutions, ideologies and social categories that shaped the lives both of those implementing and those experiencing the force of empire. In these pages the reader will find the slave and the criminal, the merchant and the maid, the scientist and the artist alongside the structures which sustained their lives and their livelihoods. Overall, the companion emphasises the diversity of imperial experience and process. Comprehensive in its scope, it draws attention to the particularities of individual empires, rather than over-generalising as if all empires, at all times, and in all places, behaved in a similar manner. It is this contingent and historical specificity that enables us to explore in expansive ways precisely what constituted the modern empire.