Download or read book Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe 1500 1800 written by Barbara B. Diefendorf and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores Natalie Zemon Davis's concept of history as a dialogue, not only with the past, but with other historians.

Download or read book The Splendor and Opulence of the Past written by Paul Freedman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Splendor and Opulence of the Past traces the career of Jaume Caresmar (1717–1791), a church historian and a key figure of the Catalan Enlightenment who transcribed tens of thousands of parchments to preserve and glorify Catalonia's medieval past in the face of its diminishing autonomy. As Paul Freedman shows, Caresmar's books, essays, and transcriptions—some only recently discovered—provide fresh insights into the Middle Ages as remembered in modern Catalonia and illustrate how a nation's past glories and humiliations can inform contemporary politics and culture. From the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, Catalonia was a thriving, independent set of principalities within what would become modern Spain. In the wake of the dismantling of its autonomy by the eighteenth-century Spanish state, Catalan scholars looked to the region's medieval independence and wealth as a means of maintaining a distinct Catalan identity and resisting Castilian hegemony. Through their writings and archival investigations, Caresmar and the canons at Santa Maria de Bellpuig de les Avellanes, where Caresmar was abbot, laid the foundations for not only the scholarly exploration of the Middle Ages but also the development of Catalan national sentiment. Although the eighteenth century is often regarded as a low point for the Catalan language and culture, The Splendor and Opulence of the Past emphasizes the importance of this period's antiquarians to Catalan projects of modernization and economic progress and links their historiography of the Middle Ages to struggles over Catalonia's relationship to the Spanish state over two centuries.

Download or read book For the Common Good written by Luis R. Corteguera and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On June 7, 1640, the viceroy of Catalonia was stabbed to death on a Barcelona beach. By Christmas, several more royal officials of the Spanish principality had been assassinated. In the wake of these and other violent acts committed by the "people"—a term used for artisans—the Catalans severed their allegiance to the Spanish monarchy and elected Louis XIII of France their new king. The first English-language book to explore the political beliefs and behavior of early modern craftsmen, Luis Corteguera's work offers a dramatically new account of the origins of the Catalan revolt, the longest rebellion in seventeenth-century Spain.Drawing on his extensive research in Barcelona's archives, Corteguera examines how the political actions, ideas, and language of Barcelona's craftsmen shaped the relations between the Spanish monarchy and Catalonia in the decades leading to the insurrection. Artisans made up over half of the population of Barcelona, the political center and largest city of Catalonia. The Mediterranean port had a long history of active popular politics. Artisans sat in the city council, formed the core of the principality's largest militia, and participated in protests and riots. Corteguera finds that the 1640 rebellion was not a social revolution of the poor but rather a political action by craftsmen seeking to defend what they perceived as the ancient liberties of their homeland. Although their behavior was more violent, the artisans were, the author asserts, motivated by the same assumptions, language, and symbols that inspired the elite of the principality.

Download or read book The Power of Kings written by Paul Kléber Monod and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-11 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping book explores the profound shift in the way European kings and queens were regarded by their subjects between the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Once viewed as godlike beings, by 1715 monarchs had come to represent the human, visible side of the rational state. The author offers new insights into the relations between kings and their subjects and the interplay between monarchy and religion.

Download or read book Medieval and Renaissance Lactations written by Jutta Gisela Sperling and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The premise of this volume is that the ubiquity of lactation imagery in early modern visual culture and the discourse on breastfeeding in humanist, religious, medical, and literary writings is a distinct cultural phenomenon that deserves systematic study. Chapters by art historians, social and legal historians, historians of science, and literary scholars explore some of the ambiguities and contradictions surrounding the issue, and point to the need for further study, in particular in the realm of lactation imagery in the visual arts. This volume builds on existing scholarship on representations of the breast, the iconography of the Madonna Lactans, allegories of abundance, nature, and charity, women mystics' food-centered practices of devotion, the ubiquitous practice of wet-nursing, and medical theories of conception. It is informed by studies on queer kinship in early modern Europe, notions of sacred eroticism in pre-tridentine Catholicism, feminist investigations of breastfeeding as a sexual practice, and by anthropological and historical scholarship on milk exchange and ritual kinship in ancient Mediterranean and medieval Islamic societies. Proposing a variety of different methods and analytical frameworks within which to consider instances of lactation imagery, breastfeeding practices, and their textual references, this volume also offers tools to support further research on the topic.

Download or read book Early Modern Spain written by James Casey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-03-11 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Modern Spain: A social History explores the solidarities which held the Spanish nation together at this time of conflict and change. The book studies the pattern of fellowship and patronage at the local level which contributed to the notable absence of popular revolts characteristic of other European countries at this time. It also analyses the Counter-Reformation, which transformed religious attitudes, and which had a huge impact on family life, social control and popular culture. Focusing on the main themes of the development of capitalism, the growth of the state and religious upheaval, this comprehensive social history sheds light on changes throughout Europe in the critical early modern period.

Download or read book Family and Community in Early Modern Spain written by James Casey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-04 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Casey offers an innovative study of prestige, power and the role of the family in a Mediterranean city during the early modern period. He focuses on the structure and values of the ruling class of Granada, where a new elite consolidated its authority. The study suggests that their power was linked to the pursuit of honour, which demanded participation in the politics of the commonwealth and depended greatly on the network of personal relations which they were able to build with kinsmen, clients and patrons. It explores the way in which this system contributed to the relative tranquillity of the community during a turbulent time of religious and political change, that of the rise of absolutism and of the Counter Reformation. The book sheds fresh light on the nature of the early modern family and will be essential reading for historians of early modern Spain and Europe.

Download or read book The Empire of the Cities written by Aurelio Espinosa and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-11-30 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting in the nineteenth century the scholarly consensus has been to attribute the decline of the Spanish empire to structural rigidity, corrupt bureaucracy and repressive policies. In The Empire of the Cities, Aurelio Espinosa challenges these theories and offers groundbreaking insight into Spain’s political process and emphasizes early modern state formation. Spain’s empire should no longer be viewed simply as a symbol of royal absolutism and dominance. Rather it functioned as a collection of autonomous municipalities interconnected by a parliament that articulated domestic programs and foreign policy. Professor Espinosa also provides a more nuanced understanding of the monarchical government in revealing new insight into royal institutions and management procedures under Emperor Charles V. The Empire of the Cities offers a fascinating and penetrating look inside Spain’s political system that encouraged both expansionism and domestic stability.

Download or read book Frontiers of Heresy written by E. William Monter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-11-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A significant reappraisal of the Spanish Inquisition, focusing on the lands beyond Castile.

Download or read book Ethnic Groups of Europe written by Jeffrey E. Cole and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-05-25 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive survey of ethnic groups of Europe reveals the dynamic process of ethnic identity and the relationship of ethnic groups to modern states. Part of a five-volume series on ethnic groups around the world, Ethnic Groups of Europe: An Encyclopedia provides detailed descriptions of more than 100 European ethnic and national groups. Each entry provides an overview of the group as well as in-depth information on the group's origins and early history, cultural life, and recent developments. Among the information presented for each group are global and national population figures and accounts of geographical distribution, diaspora populations, the group's historic homeland, predominant religions and languages, and related groups. The entries also highlight places, people, and events of particular importance to each group, and sidebars introduce related topics of interest. Throughout the text, special attention is focused on the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism. An explanation of the methodology used for selecting the ethnic groups in the encyclopedia is also provided, as is an introductory essay on the topic of ethnicity in Europe.

Download or read book Spanish Society 1348 1700 written by Teofilo F. Ruiz and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-06-26 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the Black Death in 1348 and extending through to the demise of Habsburg rule in 1700, this second edition of Spanish Society, 1348–1700 has been expanded to provide a wide and compelling exploration of Spain’s transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. Each chapter builds on the first edition by offering new evidence of the changes in Spain’s social structure between the fourteenth and seventeenth century. Every part of society is examined, culminating in a final section that is entirely new to the second edition and presents the changing social practices of the period, particularly in response to the growing crises facing Spain as it moved into the seventeenth century. Also new to this edition is a consideration of the social meaning of culture, specifically the presence of Hermetic themes and of magical elements in Golden Age literature and Cervantes’ Don Quijote. Through the extensive use of case studies, historical examples and literary extracts, Spanish Society is an ideal way for students to gain direct access to this captivating period.

Download or read book Anti Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response 1391 1392 written by Benjamin R. Gampel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-02 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gampel investigates the anti-Jewish riots in 1391-2 in the lands of Castile and Aragon.

Download or read book Fire in the Placa written by Dorothy Noyes and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title Fire in the Plaça is the first full-length study in English of the Patum, a Corpus Christi fire festival unique to Berga, Catalonia, Spain, celebrated annually since the seventeenth century. Participants in the festival are transformed through drink, sleep deprivation, crowding, constant motion, and the smoke and sparks of close-range firecrackers into passionate members of a precarious body politic. Combining richly layered symbolism with intense bodily expression, the Patum has long served as a grassroots equivalent of grand social theory; it moves from a representation of social divisions to a forcible communion among them. The Patum's dancing effigies—giants, dwarves, Turks and Christian knights, devils and angels, a crowned eagle, and two flaming mule-dragons—have provided local allegories for a long series of political conflicts, but the festival obscures its own messages in smoke and motion to enable a temporary merging of opposites. Activists in the 1970s transition to democracy in Spain took the Patum as a model of how old adversaries might collaborate: it helped to shape the mix of assertiveness in performance and compromise in practice that is typical of contemporary Catalan nationalism. The Patum became a focus of resistance to the Franco regime and drew visitors from all over Catalonia, serving as a rehearsal for the mass protests in Barcelona. Later, it provided the newly autonomous region with a vehicle for integrating immigrants and a vocabulary of belonging, culminating in the Patum-derived devils of the closing ceremonies of the 1992 Olympic games. Today, as mines and factories have closed in Berga, the Patum serves as an arena in which provincial Catalans model their relationship to Barcelona, Europe, and the world, and reflects their ambivalence about the choices open to them. Seeking a third way between tourism and terrorism, provincial towns like Berga show us the future of all local communities under globalization. In collective performances such as the Patum, tensions between cultural and political representation are made visible, and the gap between aspiration and possibility is both bridged and acknowledged. In this exceptionally rich ethnographic study, Dorothy Noyes explores the predicament of provincial communities striving to overcome internal conflict and participate in a wider world.

Download or read book Monarchy and Exile written by P. Mansel and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-10-28 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using detailed studies of fifteen exiled royal figures, the role of Exile in European Society and in the evolution of national cultures is examined. From the Jacobite court to the exiled Kings' of Hanover, the book provides an alternative history of monarchical power from the 16th to 20th century.

Download or read book The Rise of Catalan Identity written by Pompeu Casanovas and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-05-16 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume helps us to understand that the current political disorders in Catalonia have deep cultural roots. It focuses on the rise of Catalan cultural, national and linguistic identity in the 20th century. What is happening in Catalonia? What lies behind its political conflicts? Catalan identity has been evolving for centuries, starting in early medieval ages (11th and 12lve centuries). It is not a modern phenomenon. The emergence of imperial Spain in the 16 c. and the French Ancien Régime in the 17 c. correlates with a decline of Catalan culture, which was politically absorbed by the Spanish state after the conquest of Barcelona in 1714. However, Catalan language and culture flourished again under the stimulus of the European Romantic Nationalism movement (known as the Renaixença in Catalonia). During the first Dictatorship (Primo de Rivera, 1923-1930), the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and the long Francoist era (1939-1975), Catalan language and culture were repressed, yet refurbished and reconstructed at the same time. This rise of a plural, complex, and non-homogeneous Catalan identity constitutes the subject matter of this volume. National conflicts that emerged later in the Spanish democratic state leant heavily on the life engagement and vital commitment experienced by the entrenched intellectual movements of the twentieth century in Catalonia, Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands. This book reveals the cultural and literary grassroots of these conflicts.

Download or read book El Castillo written by Richard Frederick Maddox and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his innovative ethnographic history of the southwestern Spanish town of Aracena, Richard Maddox explores how tradition has been authored, what it has authorized, and to what extent it has been authoritative. His investigation of the cultural, political, and religious discourses and practices of various socioeconomic groups in Aracena offers a richly detailed view of how both leading citizens and ordinary townspeople have interpreted, used, and contested traditions over the last three centuries. Maddox argues that we can best understand culture in complex societies by taking into account the ways in which institutionally generated discourses and practices articulate with the informal, improvisational, and commonsense speech and customs that guide the conduct of everyday life. He bases his study on a wide range of published and unpublished materials, including biographies, notarial records, wills, tax and voting lists, historical surveys, records of property transactions and town council meetings, privately held documents, and interviews with men and women of Aracena. Through a genealogical approach to traditional culture, Maddox demonstrates that traditions repeatedly have been transformed and reinvented in accordance with shifts in relationships of power and in response to changing political and socioeconomic conditions.

Download or read book Spanish Society 1400 1600 written by Teofilo F Ruiz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanish Society depicts a complex and fascinating country in transition from the late Middle Ages to modernity. It describes every part of society from the gluttonous nobility to their starving peasants. Through anecdotes, a lively style and portraits of figures such as St Teresa of Avila and Torquemada, the book reflects the character and humour with which the common Spaniard endured an often-wretched lot. Beginning with a description of the geography, political life, and culture of Spain from 1400 to 1600, the unfolding narrative charts the country's shifts from one age to the next. It unveils patterns of everyday life from the court to the brothel, from the 'haves' of the aristocracy and clergy to the 'have nots' of the peasantry and the urban poor. Historical records illuminate details of Spanish society such as the transition from medieval festivities to the highly-scripted spectacles of the early modern period, the reasons for violence and popular resistance and the patterns of daily living: eating, dressing, religious beliefs and concepts of honour and sexuality. This compelling account includes historical examples and literary extracts, which allow the reader direct access to the period. From the street theatre of village carnivals to the oppressive Spanish Inquisition, it gives an abiding sense of Spain in the making and renders vivid the colours of a passionate history.