The Early Modern Period
General Bibliography
The recommended survey text is Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789
(Cambridge U.P., 2006). In preparation for this section of the core course, you should
read chapter 1.
Other one-volume surveys include:
Euan Cameron, ed., Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History (1999): stimulating
thematic essays, but not the place to get your facts straight
George Huppert, After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe (2nd
ed. 1998): highly recommended, readable overview but only covers social history
Numerous publishers have a multi-volume series that covers the early modern period. They
include --Norton:
Eugene Rice & Anthony Grafton, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559
(2nd ed. 1994)
Richard S. Dunn, The Age of Religious Wars, 1559-1715 (2nd ed. 1979)
Isser Woloch, Eighteenth-Century Europe: Tradition and Progress, 1715-1789 (1982)
Macmillan:
Richard Mackenney, Sixteenth Century Europe (1993)
Thomas Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe (1990)
Jeremy Black, Eighteenth Century Europe (1990)
Oxford University Press:
Richard Bonney, The European Dynastic States, 1494-1660 (1991)
William Doyle, The Old European Order, 1660-1800 (2nd ed. 1992)
Blackwell:
J.H. Elliott, Europe Divided, 1559-1598 (2nd ed. 2000)
Geoffrey Parker, Europe in Crisis, 1598-1648 (2nd ed. 2001)
J. Stoye, Europe Unfolding, 1648-1668 (2nd ed. 2000)
Olwen Hufton, Europe: Privilege and Protest, 1730-1789 (2nd ed. 2000)
Penguin/Allen Lane:
Tim Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 (2007) (other volumes in
preparation)
Cambridge University Press has a paperback textbook series entitled `new approaches to
european history’. Intended as high-level introductions to specific episodes and topics,
volumes in this series tend to be of high quality. I strongly recommend them.
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In addition to the Further Reading lists below, up-to-date subject bibliographies can be found
at the end of each chapter of Wiesner-Hanks.
A few reference works:
Thomas Brady, Heiko Oberman, & James Tracy, eds., Handbook of European History,
1400-1600, 2 vols. (1994-5): in the first volume, each chapter is an introduction to a
topic (e.g. `population’) or a country. The second focuses on the Reformation.
Chris Cook and Philip Broadhead, The Routledge Companion to Early Modern Europe,
1453-1763 (2006): timelines, genealogies, statistics, etc.
Paul F. Grendler, ed., Encyclopedia of the Renaissance (1999)
Hans J. Hillerbrand, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, 4 vols. (1996)
The New Cambridge Modern History Atlas, edited by H.C. Darby and Harold Fullard
(volume XIV of The New Cambridge Modern History (1970)
1. BETWEEN MEDIEVAL AND MODERN WORLDS
Specimen Question: If you were a peasant, when and where would you most like to have
lived in early modern Europe? Explain.
Core Reading: Wiesner-Hanks, chapters 2 & 6
Further Reading
George Huppert, After the Black Death (2nd ed. 1998)
Henry Kamen, Early Modern European Society (2000)
Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life (1972) (= vol. 1 of Civilization and
Capitalism, 15th-18th Century)
Pierre Goubert, The French Peasantry in the Seventeenth Century (Eng. transl. 1986)
Keith Wrightson, English Society, 1580-1680 (1982)
Michael W. Flinn, The European Demographic System (1981)
Beatrice Gottlieb, The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial
Age (1994)
Merry E. Wiesner, Women and gender in early modern europe (2000)
Documents
(a) Petition requesting the prohibition of grain exports, The Azores (Portugal), 1591
Year of the birth of our lord Jesus Christ of one thousand five hundred and ninety-one
in this town of Velas of this island of Sao Jorge, having gathered together in the town council
the distinguished officials … by the said procurators of the council as well as the ones for the
[guild] masters, it was said and requested to the said officials that it had come to their attention that in this region some provisions had arrived for some local individuals to freight
wheat from their rents and harvest that they have on this island, They requested them in the
name of God and of the King our lord that their Graces as fathers that they were of the people
look after the necessity that so urgently exists in this region for the said wheat. All the
Labourers in wheat complained that there was a third less wheat than they had last year and
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this from the best land that there was on this island. Last year with much more wheat ninety
or one hundred moios [1 moio = 828 liters] of wheat from outside entered this town and all
was used. Every year what this region has from the outside always comes to eighty or one
hundred moios of wheat and all is used due to the little cultivation that there is of it [here].
They were informed that in the districts of this island where every year they were supplied
there was also a shortage for which reason they were ready to collapse with great distress for
not having a source of it. For this they requested of their Graces that they have a hand on
what is gotten from the land, even if little, and with much vigilance not allow it [to be] loaded
nor taken for any [other] part, and that guards be placed on the ports and on land and seal the
ports. If their Graces do not do this they protested thus, that if any persons perish for lack of
the said wheat their Graces account for it with God Our Lord, Joao Dias. The said officials,
seeing the plea from the procurators and outcry from the people from the lack of the said
wheat, had the ports sealed and ordered that it be announced that no boatman nor carter be so
insolent as to freight out any wheat or barley or rye or any victuals without first showing the
dispatch and judicial licence at the risk of a fine of fifty cruzados and the owners shall lose
the wheat or barley or rye or victuals as already ordered another time.
(b) Robert Brenner, A Good Speed to Virginia (1609)
There is nothing more dangerous for the estate of commonwealths than when the
people do increase to a greater multitude and number than may justly parallel with the
largeness of the place and country. For hereupon comes oppression and diverse kinds of
wrongs, mutinies, sedition, commotion, and rebellion, scarcity, dearth, poverty and sundry
sorts of calamities … Our multitudes like too much blood in the body, do infect our country
with plague and poverty. Our land hath brought forth but it hath not milk sufficient in the
breast thereof to nourish all those children which it hath brought forth.
(c) Census of Sheffield, 1615-16
By a survaie of the towne of Sheffield made the second daye of Januarie 1615 by
twenty foure of the most sufficient inhabitants there, it appearethe that there are in the towne
of Sheffelde 2207 people; of which there are 725 which are not able to live without the
charity of their neighbours. These are all begging poore. 100 householders which relieve
others. These (though the best sorte) are but poor artificers; among them is not one which can
keepe a teame on his own land, and not above tenn who have grounds of their own that will
keepe a cow. 160 householders not able to relieve others. These are such (though they beg
not) as are not able to abide the storme of one fortnights sickness but would be thereby driven
to beggary. 1222 children and servants of the said householders; the greatest part of which are
such as live of small wages, and are constrained to work sore to provide them necessaries.
2. THE RENAISSANCE
Specimen Question: Was Renaissance humanism revolutionary? If so, in what sense?
Core Reading: Wiesner-Hanks, chapter 4
Further Reading
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (1979) – or any other book by
Kristeller
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Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought (1948)
Charles Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (1995)
Peter Burke, The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy (rev. ed. 1987)
Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (1996)
Jill Kraye, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (Cambridge, 1996)
James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections (2000)
Paula Findlen, ed., The Italian Renaissance: the essential readings (2002)
Cornelis Augustijn, Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence (Eng. trans. 1991)
Documents
(a) Francesco Petrarch, Letter to Cicero (1345) (Familiarium Rerum Libri, xxiv, 3)
Francesco to his Cicero, greetings. Having found your letters where I least expected to,
after searching long and hard, I read them avidly. I heard you discussing many things,
bewailing many things, changing your mind about many things, Marcus Tullius, and you
whom I had before known as a teacher of others I now at last have come to know yourself …
0 restless and ever-anxious man, or rather, to use your own words, `O, impulsive and
unhappy old man' [Ep. ad Octav., 6], what did you hope to achieve by so many disputes and
useless enmities? Why did you relinquish that leisure so fitting to your age, profession and
circumstances? What false splendour of glory involved you as an old man in adolescent fights
and after having made you the sport of fortune led you to a death unfitting to a philosopher?
... I mourn your fate, my friend, and feel shame and pity for your mistakes, and together with
Brutus, 'I count as worthless those arts in which I know you were so skilled' [Cicero, Ad Br.
1, 17, 5]. Indeed, what use is it to teach others, what use is it to orate about virtue if you fail
to listen to yourself? Ah, how much better it would have been, especially for a philosopher, to
grow old peacefully in the country, 'meditating', as you yourself say somewhere [Cicero, Ad
Att. x, 8, 8] 'on eternal life, not on this so transitory life', never to have held public office,
never to have aspired for triumphs, never to have been inflated about any Catilines! But now
all this is in vain. Farewell, for ever, my Cicero. From the world of the living, on the right
bank of the Adige, in the city of Verona in trans-Paduan Italy, the 16th of June in the 1345th
year from the birth of that God whom you did not know.
(b) Erasmus, Handbook of a Militant Christian [Enchiridion] (1522)
Let us add a fifth rule, as a kind of reinforcement to the previous one, that you establish
firmly in your mind that perfect piety is the attempt to progress always from visible things,
which are usually imperfect or indifferent, to invisible, according to the division of man
discussed earlier. This precept is most pertinent to our discussion since it is through neglect
or ignorance of it that most Christians are superstitious rather than pious, and except for the
name of Christ differ hardly at all from superstitious pagans. …
You were baptized, but do not think that ipso facto you became a Christian. Your whole
mentality still smacks exclusively of the world; outwardly you are a Christian, but in private
you are more pagan than the pagans. Why is that so? Because you possess the body of the
sacrament, but you are devoid of its spirit. What does it matter if the body has been washed
when the soul remains defiled? What good is it that a few grains of salt have been put on your
tongue if the soul remains unsalted? The body has been annointed, but the soul remains
unannointed. But if you have been buried with Christ inwardly and are already to walk with
him in newness of life, then I recognize you as a Christian. What is the use of being sprinkled
with a few drops of holy water as long as you do not wipe clean the inner defilement of the
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soul? You venerate the saints, and you take pleasure in touching their relics. But you
disregard their greatest legacy, the example of a blameless life. No devotion is more pleasing
to Mary than the imitation of Mary's humility. No devotion is more acceptable and proper to
the saints than striving to imitate their virtues. Would you like to win the favour of Peter and
Paul? Imitate the faith of the one and the charity of the other, and you will accomplish more
than if you were to dash off to Rome ten times. …
I must insist once more that I do not disapprove in any way of the external ceremonies
of Christians and the devotions of the simple-minded, especially those that have been
approved by the authority of the church, for they are often signs or supports of piety. Since
they are almost a necessity for infants in Christ until they grow up and arrive at complete
manhood, they should not be scorned by those who have achieved manhood, lest the weak
suffer hurt from bad example. I approve of what you do as long as your purpose is not
vitiated and you do not consider as a fixed goal a stage from which you must make further
progress towards salvation. But to worship Christ through visible things for the sake of
visible things and to think of this as the summit of religious perfection; to be complacent with
oneself and to condemn others on this basis; to become transfixed by them and die there and,
to put it succinctly, to be alienated from Christ by those very things that should be employed
to lead us to him – this would be to desert the law of the gospel, which is spiritual, and to sink
into a kind of Judaism….
3. THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION
Specimen Question: How and why did the evangelical cause become a mass movement in
the early 1520s?
Core Reading: Wiesner-Hanks, chapter 5, pp. 148-172
Further Reading
Carter Lindberg, The European Reformations (1996)
R.W. Scribner, The German Reformation (1986)
Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform, 1250-1550 (1980)
C. Scott Dixon, ed., The German Reformation: The Essential Readings (1999)
Andrew Pettegree, ed., The Reformation World (2000)
R. Po-chia Hsia, ed., A Companion to the Reformation World (2004)
Ulinka Rublack, Reformation Europe (2005)
Carter Lindberg, The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to the Theology of the Early
Modern Period (2002)
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1470-1700 (2003)
Documents
(a) Luther, Preface to the New Testament (1522/1546)
The Gospel, then, is nothing but the preaching about Christ, Son of God and of David,
true God and man, who by His death and resurrection has overcome all men's sin, and death
and hell, for us who believe in Him. Thus the Gospel can be either a brief or a lengthy
message; one can describe it briefly, another at length. He describes it at length, who
describes many works and words of Christ, – as do the four Evangelists; he describes it
briefly who does not tell of Christ's works, but indicates shortly how by His death and
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resurrection He has overcome sin, death, and hell for those who believe in Him, as do St.
Peter and St. Paul.
See to it, therefore, that you do not make of Christ a second Moses or of the Gospel a
book of laws and doctrines, as has been done heretofore…. For the Gospel does not really
demand works of ours by which we become righteous and are saved, nay, it condemns such
works; but it does demand faith in Christ, that He has overcome for us sin, death, and hell,
and thus makes us righteous, and gives us life and salvation, not through our works, but
through His own works, death, and suffering, in order that we may avail ourselves of His
death and victory, as though they were our own.…
[A believer] needs nothing more, except to prove his faith by works. Nay, if faith is
there, he cannot hold himself back; he shows himself, breaks out into good works, confesses
and teaches this Gospel before people, and risks his life for it. Eveything that he lives and
does is directed to his neighbor's profit….
That is what Christ meant when He gave, at last, no other commandment than love, by
which men were to know who were His disciples and true believers. …
[From all this] you can now judge all the books [of the Bible] and decide among them
which are the best. John's Gospel and St. Paul's Epistles, especially that to the Romans, and
St. Peter's first Epistle are the true kernel and marrow of all the books…
[These books] show you Christ and teach you all that it is necessary and good for you
to know, even though you were never to see or hear any other book or doctrine. Therefore St.
James' Epistle is really an epistle of straw, compared to them; for it has nothing of the nature
of the Gospel about it.
(b) The Twelve Articles of the Peasants (1525)
To the Christian reader, peace and the grace of God through Christ. There are many
Antichrists who have recently used the assemblies of peasants as a reason for pouring scorn
on the Gospel, saying "These are the fruits of the new Gospel: to be obedient to no one, to
rebel and rise in revolt everywhere, to rally and band together with great force, to reform and
overthrow ecclesiastical and secular authorities, indeed, perhaps even to slay them." The
following articles are a reply to all these godless and malicious critics ….
First, it is our humble plea and request, as it is also the will and intention of all of us,
that we should henceforth have the power and authority for the whole community to choose
and elect its own pastor, and also to have the power to depose him should he conduct himself
improperly. The same elected pastor shall preach the holy Gospel to us purely and clearly,
without any human additions to doctrines and commandments…. [1 Tim 3:1ff, Titus 1:6-9…]
Secondly, although the true tithe is ordained in the Old Testament and discharged in the
New, nonetheless we will gladly pay the true grain tithe, only in just measure…. We wish
this tithe in future to be collected and received by our churchwarden, elected by the
community. From it he will give the pastor who is elected by the entire community his
adequate and sufficient sustenance for himself and his dependants, according to the
judgement of the whole community. The remainder shall be distributed to the needy poor
present in the same village… [As the entire epistle to the Hebrews says…]
The Third Article. It has hitherto been the custom for the lords to treat us as their serfs,
which is pitiable since Christ has redeemed and bought us all by the shedding of his precious
blood, the shepherd just as the highest, no one excepted Therefore it is demonstrated by
Scripture that we are free and wish to be free. Not that we wish to be completely free and to
have no authority…. [Isaiah 53:4-5, 1 Pet 1:19-19…]
The fourth article: It has hitherto been the custom that no poor man has been
empowered or permitted to catch game, wildfowl, or fish in flowing water, which we
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consider quite improper and unbrotherly, indeed selfish and contrary to the Word of God…
[Genesis 1:11, Acts 10:12-13…]
The fifth article. We are also aggrieved about woodcutting, for our lords have
appropriated the woods to themselves alone, and when the poor man has need of timber he
must buy it at twice the price. … [Genesis 1:29…]
Twelfth, it is our conclusion and final opinion that if one or more of the articles
presented here be not in accordance with the Word of God (which we would doubt), and such
articles be demonstrated to us to be incompatible with the Word of God, then we will
abandon them, when it is explained to us on the basis of Scripture….
4. CONFESSIONALISM & RELIGIOUS WAR
Specimen Question: Why is the term `Counter-Reformation' problematic?
Core Reading: Wiesner-Hanks -- chapter 5, pp. 172-183
 chapter 9, pp. 290-297
 chapter 11, pp. 364-374
Further Reading
R. Po-chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540-1770 (1998)
Robert Bireley, The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450-1700 (1999)
David M. Luebke, ed., The Counter-Reformation: The Essential Readings (1999)
Heinz Schilling, Religion, political culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society
(1992), articles on confessionalization
Volumes by Elliott and Parker in Blackwell series (see above)
Mack Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629 (1995)
Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt (rev. ed. 1990)
Ronald G. Asch, The Thirty Years War (1997)
Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by faith: religious conflict and the practice of toleration in early
modern Europe (2007)
Documents
(a) Ignatius of Loyola, `Rules for Thinking with the Church' (from his Spiritual
Exercises, 1535/1548)
In order to have the proper attitude of mind in the Church Militant we should observe
the following rules:
1. Putting aside all private judgment, we should keep our minds prepared and ready to
obey promptly and in all things the true spouse of Christ our Lord, our Holy Mother, the hierarchical Church.
2. To praise sacramental confession and the reception of the Most Holy Sacrament once
a year, and much better once a month, and better still every week
3. To praise the frequent hearing of Mass…
4. To praise highly the religious life, virginity, and continence; and also matrimony, but
not as highly….
6. To praise the relics of the saints … [and] the stations, pilgrimages, indulgences,
jubilees, Crusade indulgences, and the lighting of candles in the churches.
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9. To praise all the precepts of the church….
11. To praise both the positive and scholastic theology….
13. If we wish to be sure that we are right in all things, we should always be ready to
accept this principle: I will believe that the white that I see is black, if the hierarchical Church
so defines it. For I believe that between…Christ our Lord and…His Church, there is but one
spirit, which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls.
(b) Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, `On Sacred Images' (1563)
ON THE INVOCATION, VENERATION, AND RELICS OF SAINTS, AND ON SACRED
IMAGES
The holy council commands all bishops and others who hold the office of teaching …
[to] instruct the faithful diligently in matters relating to intercession and invocation of the
saints, the veneration of relics, and the legitimate use of images, teaching them that the saints
who reign together with Christ offer up their prayers to God for men, that it is good and
beneficial suppliantly to invoke them and to have recourse to their prayers, assistance and
support in order to obtain favors from God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone
is our redeemer and savior…. Also, that the holy bodies of the holy martyrs and of others
living with Christ … are to be venerated by the faithful, through which many benefits are
bestowed by God on men…. Moreover, that the images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of
God, and of the other saints are to be placed and retained especially in the churches, and that
due honor and veneration is to be given them; not, however, that any divinity or virtue is
believed to be in them by reason of which they are to be venerated, or that something is to be
asked of them, or that trust is to be placed in images, as was done of old by the Gentiles who
placed their hope in idols; but because the honor which is shown them is referred to the
prototypes which they represent, so that by means of the images which we kiss and before
which we uncover the head and prostrate ourselves, we adore Christ and venerate the saints
whose likeness they bear…. [Let them teach] also that great profit is derived from all holy
images, not only because the people are thereby reminded of the benefits and gifts bestowed
on them by Christ, but also because through the saints the miracles of God and salutary
examples are set before the eyes of the faithful, so that they may give God thanks for those
things, may fashion their own life and conduct in imitation of the saints and be moved to
adore and love God and cultivate piety…. If any abuses shall have found their way into these
holy and salutary observances, the holy council desires earnestly that they be completely
removed…. And if at times it happens, when this is beneficial to the illiterate, that the stories
and narratives of the Holy Scriptures are portrayed and exhibited, the people should be
instructed that not for that reason is the divinity represented in picture as if it can be seen with
bodily eyes or expressed in colors or figures. Furthermore, in the invocatIon of the saints, the
veneration of relics, and the sacred use of images, all superstition shall be removed, all filthy
quest for gain eliminated, and all lasciviousness avoided, so that images shall not be painted
and adorned with a seductive charm, or the celebration of saints and the visitation of relics be
perverted by the people into boisterous festivities and drunkenness, as if the festivals in honor
of the saints are to be celebrated with revelry and with no sense of decency. Finally, such zeal
and care should be exhibited by the bishops with regard to these things that nothing may
appear that is disorderly or unbecoming and confusedly arranged, nothing that is profane,
nothing disrespectful, since holiness becometh the house of God. That these things may be
the more faithfully observed, the holy council decrees that no one is permitted to erect or
cause to be erected in any place or church, howsoever exempt, any unusual image unless it
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has been approved by the bishop; also that no new miracles be accepted and no relics
recognized unless they have been investigated and approved by the same bishop…
5. THE RISE OF MERCHANT EMPIRES
Specimen Question: To what extent was European prosperity based on the exploitation of
non-European peoples?
Core Reading: Wiesner-Hanks, chapters 7, 12, & 13
Further Reading
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, vols. I & II (1972-1980)
Jan de Vries, The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600-1750 (1976)
Robert Duplessis, Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (1997)
Peter Kriedte, Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists (1983)
Ralph Davis, The Rise of the Atlantic Economies (1973)
James Tracy, ed., The Rise of Merchant Empires (1993)
Jonathan Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740 (1989)
Anthony Grafton, New worlds, ancient texts: the power of tradition and the shock of
discovery (1992)
J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic world: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830 (2006)
Documents
(a) Extracts from the Journal of Christopher Columbus (1492)
IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
Whereas, Most Christian, High, Excellent, and Powerful Princes, King and Queen of Spain
and of the Islands of the Sea, our Sovereigns, this present year 1492, after your Highnesses
had terminated the war with the Moors reigning in Europe, the same having been brought to
an end in the great city of Granada, where on the second day of January, this present year, I
saw the royal banners of your Highnesses planted by force of arms upon the towers of the
Alhambra, which is the fortress of that city, and saw the Moorish king come out at the gate of
the city and kiss the hands of your Highnesses, and of the Prince my Sovereign; and in the
present month, in consequence of the information which I had given your Highnesses
respecting the countries of India and of a Prince, called Great Can, which in our language
signifies King of Kings, how, at many times he, and his predecessors had sent to Rome
soliciting instructors who might teach him our holy faith, and the holy Father had never
granted his request, whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and
doctrines of perdition. Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and
promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all
idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned
countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition
and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I
should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which
direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone. So after having
expelled the Jews from your dominions, your Highnesses, in the same month of January,
ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament to the said regions of India, and for that
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purpose granted me great favors, and ennobled me that thenceforth I might call myself Don,
and be High Admiral of the Sea, and perpetual Viceroy and Governor in all the islands and
continents which I might discover and acquire, or which may hereafter he discovered and
acquired in the ocean….
(b) Willem Usselincx, Brief Instructions for the Conquest of Brazil by the West India
Company (1622)
It is obvious that if one wants to get money, something has to be proposed to the people
that will move them to invest. To this end, the glory of God will help with some, harm to
Spain with others, [and] with some the welfare of the Fatherland. But the principal and most
powerful inducement will be the profit that each can make for himself…. [I] have found no
one who has not agreed with me in the matter of profits. That harm can be done to the king
of Spain they admit readily; but there is all too much difference between harming another and
making one’s own profit.
(c) Estimated Imports of Slaves into the Americas, 1451-1870 (000s) [from Peter
Kriedte, Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists, p. 83]
Region 1451/1600 1601/1700 1701/1800
Brit. N. Am.
Spanish Am.
Brit. Caribbean
French Caribbean
Dutch Caribbean
Danish Caribbean
Brazil
Eur./ S. Thome/Atl.
Isl.
Totals
Annual averages
1811/70
Totals
–
75.0
–
–
–
–
50.0
–
292.5
263.7
155.8
40.0
4.0
560.0
496.0
(623.1)
(1513.5)
(1448.9)
380.0
24.0
1909.7
51.0
606.0
–
96.0
–
–
1145.4
547.0
(1596.6)
(1777.2)
(1700.7)
420.0
28.0
3665.1
149.9
25.1
–
–
175.0
274.9
1.8
1341.1
13.4
6395.2
58.1
1898.4
31.6
9909.6
23.6
6. ABSOLUTISM AND ITS OPPONENTS
Specimen Question: How great was the gap between the theory and practice of absolutist
government in Louis XIV’s France?
Core Reading: Wiesner-Hanks, chapters 3 & 9
Further Reading
Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (1974)
Perez Zagorin, Rebels and Rulers, 1500-1660, 2 vols. (1982)
Trevor Aston, ed., Crisis in Europe, 1600-1660 (1967)
Nicholas Henshall, The Myth of Absolutism (1992)
William Beik, Absolutism and Society in Seventeenth-Century France (1985)
Peter Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV (1992)
Peter H. Wilson, Absolutism in Central Europe (2000)
11
Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution (2nd ed. 1996)
Hillay Zmora, Monarchy, Aristocracy and the State in Europe, 1300-1800 (2001)
Documents
(a) Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture
(1707)
The royal power is absolute…. The prince need render account of his acts to no one. "I
counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God. Be not
hasty to go out of his sight; stand not on an evil thing for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him.
Where the word of a king is, there is power; and who may say unto him, What doest thou?
Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing" [Eccles. 8:2-5]. Without this
absolute authority the king could neither do good nor repress evil. It is necessary that his
power be such that no one can hope to escape him, and finally, the only protection of
individuals against the public authority should be their innocence….
God is infinite, God is all. The prince, as prince, is not regarded as a private person: he
is a public personage, all the state is in him; the will of all the people is included in his. As all
perfection and all strength are united in God, so all the power of individuals is united in the
person of the prince. What grandeur that a single man should embody so much!…
Behold an immense people united in a single person; behold this holy power, paternal
and absolute; behold the secret cause which governs the whole body of the state, contained in
a single head: you see the image of God in the king, and you have the idea of royal majesty.
God is holiness itself, goodness itself, and power itself. In these things lies the majesty of
God. In the image of these things lies the majesty of the prince.
(b) Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Statement of the Royal Finances for 1680
Expenses
The most important items, in descending order:
livres
Extraordinary military expenses, including the artillery
Repayments
Royal household
Construction and repair of royal buildings
Navy
Fortifications
Galleys
Interest on advances and costs of collection
Garrisons
Salaries of the council and wages of officials
Payments in cash for secret affairs
Payments in cash for gratifications
Cash in hand of the king
Military depôts
Household of the queen
Pensions
Household of monsieur
Payment of arrears on rentes
31,233,000
10,792,000
9,184,000
8,513,000
4,928,000
4,603,000
2,869,000
2,389,000
2,345,000
2,302,000
2,224,000
2,176,000
2,030,000
1,509,000
1,381,000
1,215,000
1,198,000
1,182,000
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The least important items:
Commerce
Roads and bridges
Paris streets
Total expenses
324,000
300,000
58,000
96,318,016
7. MAGIC & WITCHCRAFT
Specimen Question: Why were women accused of witchcraft more than men?
Core Reading:


Wiesner-Hanks, chapter 11, pp. 386-393
Brian Levack, `The Great Witch-Hunt’, in Thomas Brady, Heiko
Oberman, and James Tracy, eds., Handbook of European History, 14001600, vol. 2 pp. 607-40
Further Reading
Geoffrey Scarre, Witchcraft and Magic in 16th and 17th Century Europe (2nd ed. 2001)
Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbors (1996)
Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (2nd ed. 1995)
Keith Thomas, Religion & The Decline of Magic (1971)
Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles (1983)
Carol Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (1987)
Bengt Ankarloo & Gustav Henningsen, eds., Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres
and Peripheries (1990), Parts I & II
Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (2004)
Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and witch-hunts: a global history (2004)
Documents
(a) Case of Dirckgen Moelenaers van Cranenborch (Utrecht Municipal Archive,
Criminal Cases, 1596)
4 October: Jan Dymertss., a pinmaker age ca. 52, testifies: 6 weeks ago Dirckgen (who
lives "by the hedge in the Weerd [suburb] ") while at his house had "a casual chat” with his
wife, and after that his wife became very sick – this gave him a “bad suspicion” about
Dirckgen. So he talked to Dirckgen about the matter, and she came to his house, and since
then his wife became even sicker. …
4 October: Henrickgen Gerrit Aelbertss., a widow living behind St. Jacob’s [Church]
ca. 54 years old, testifies: about 5 years ago Dirckgen came to her house and had “a casual
chat”, the pretext being an interest in buying a coach. The witness thereafter immediately
became and still is sick. Also, around last Carnival the witness ran across Dirckgen on the St.
Martin’s Bridge and Dirckgen “ran into her – the deponant’s – left arm”; since then, that arm
has given her great pain. Indeed, her whole “left side” is “in a bad state….” Since then,
Dirckgen has “blessed” the witness “with a good will [goet willich] 2 or 3 times.
6 October: Henrickgen adds that ca. 3 yrs ago “she vomited up pitch, tar, and other ugly
matter, and just last night she vomited up some stuff that she threw into the fire and the fire
wasn’t put out by it, and that she was very badly off this last night.”
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11 October: Aeltgen Ysbrants testifies: last Easter day at the house of Anna Egberts. the
suspect asked if she could "bless" her (Aeltgen's) son Thonis; Aeltgen said no then, and also
later, when Dirckgen the request. Since that time, Aeltgen has been and still is troubled by
"an unnatural illness" which makes her feel pain "as if she lay on a rack, and especially
during her monthly illness”. This has given her a "bad suspicion" [quade suspicie] about
Dirckgen.
Henrick Henricxs. Quint van Woudenberch, living in the Weerd, age ca. 32 testifies:
about a year ago he got sick and has remained so. Once during the last year a fortuneteller
("waersegster") looking at his hand declared that the name of the person who had done it to
him was Dirckgen Moelenaers. After that the women in his neighborhood ("gebuer wyuen")
blessed ("gesegent") him. Dirckgen at first refused to do the same, saying “she didn’t go
around with cats or dogs”, but then was convinced…. After the blessing he felt a little
“relief”. …
5, 9, and 12 October: Dirckgen herself is interrogated by the sheriff: she is arrested
because a man has said that she had “bewitched” his wife and that he had asked her to bless
the latter, but she had refused. Dirckgen admits she had previously blessed the women “in
the name of Christ with a good will [goetwillich] nine times”. She admits also to having
blessed a woman in the Weerd, and a woman nicknamed “Look-around-the-corner” [who
lives] behind St. Jacob’s [Church]. Dirckgen is told that “a bad rumor had been going around
about her for many years”; she denied the rumor. She admits “that such had been said against
her [naegehouden is geworden] for a period of four years”, but she denies any guilt….
The sheriff recommends that Dirckgen be interrogated under torture. The city court
approves. She is put “on the post [paleye]” and “hauled up” and “whipped some”. Again she
is interrogated under torture; she says she does not know Anna Egberts or Aeltgen Ysbrants.
She is put on the post and then “laid on the bench [bancke] in front of the fire”; she says
repeatedly “mercy, mercy – which was her last word, her neck having broken”.
The sentence of the city court: … Dirckgen's corpse is to be “displayed publicly in the
pillory as a spectacle, and thence from there to be brought to Engelenborch, to be put in a
gibbet there and hung, as an example to others”
8. `POPULAR' CULTURE AND SOCIAL DISCIPLINE
Specimen Question: Is the distinction between `popular' and `elite' culture a valid one for
early modern Europe?
Core Reading:


Wiesner-Hanks, chapter 8
Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (1978), chapter 8
`The Triumph of Lent’
Further Reading
Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (1978)
Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975)
Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms (1980)
Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (1997)
John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400-1700 (1985)
R. Po-chia Hsia, Social discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe, 1550-1750 (1989)
Roger Chartier, A History of Private Life, vol 3: Passions of the Renaissance (1989)
Robert Muchembled, Popular Culture and Elite Culture in France, 1400-1750 (1984)
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Robert Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (1994)
Documents
(a) King James I, Book of Sports (1618)
With our own ears we heard the general complaint of our people, that they were barred
from all lawful recreation and exercise upon the Sunday’s afternoon, after the ending of all
divine service, which cannot but produce two evils: the one the hindering of the conversion of
many [Roman Catholic subjects], whom their priests will take occasion hereby to vex,
persuading them that no honest mirth or recreation is lawful or tolerable in our religion,
which cannot but breed a great discontentment in our people’s hearts, especially as such as
are peradventure upon the point of turning [to the Church of England]: the other
inconvenience is, that this prohibition barreth the common and meaner sort of people from
using such exercises as may make their bodies more able for war, when we or our successors
shall have occasion to use them; and in place thereof sets up filthy tipplings and drunkenness,
and breeds a number of idle and discontented speeches in their ale-houses. For when shall
the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon the Sundays and holy days, seeing
they must apply their labor and win their living in all working days?...
[A]s for our good people’s lawful recreation, our pleasure likewise is, that after the end
of divine service our good people be not disturbed,… or discouraged from any lawful
recreation, such as dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any
other such harmless recreation, or from having of Hay-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morrisdances; and the setting up of May-poles and other sports therewith used; … but withal we do
here account still as prohibited all unlawful games to be used upon Sundays only, as bear and
bull-baitings … and at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling.
And likewise we bar from this benefit and liberty all such known as recusants [Roman
Catholics], either men or women, as will abstain from coming to church or divine service,
being therefore unworthy of any lawful recreation after the said service, that will not first
come to the church and serve God; prohibiting in like sort the said recreations to any that,
though [they] conform in religion [i.e. members of the Church of England], are not present in
the church at the service of God, before their going to the said recreations.
(b) 1709 visitation report by Archpriest Van Delme of a parish in northeastern France
(village of Morville-les-Vic)
Church of Morville. Saint George is the patron here. Formerly he sat on a whole horse right
next to the altar – a more indecent thing is unimaginable. Fearing that I'd mention that
ridiculous representation in my report, it has apparently been put elsewhere, so that it can
later be put back again, at least on its feast day. For when I asked the pastor where the image
was and told him that it definitely had to go, he answered me in a curt tone: "Do we then have
to remain without our patron saint on our feast day?" adding, in the church, in the presence of
the entire congregation, that there was no danger the image would return and that he had had
it...(the word he then used I would not dare set on paper. One of his parishioners, well
instructed as he was, said thereupon: "Who must we then pray to, if our saint George is taken
from us?"
(c) Rules on Spitting
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(i) Two 15th-century books of manners:
It is unseemly to blow your nose into the tablecloth.
Do not blow your nose with the same hand that you use to hold the meat.
(ii) 1672 Courtin, Nouveau traité de civilité (1672):
You should avoid yawning, blowing your nose, and spitting. If you are obliged to do so
in places that are kept clean, do it in your handkerchief, while turning your face away
and shielding yourself with your left hand, and do not look into your handkerchief
afterward
(iii) Gilles Ménage, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française (1694):
`Handkerchief for blowing the nose': as this expression `blowing the nose' gives a very
disagreeable impression, ladies ought to call this a pocket handkerchief, as one says
neckerchief, rather than a handkerchief for blowing the nose.
9. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
Specimen Question: "If no devils, no God” (The Triall of Maist. Dorrell [1599]): explain.
Core Reading: Wiesner-Hanks, chapter 10
Further Reading
Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (1996)
Peter Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences (2001)
David Lindberg and Robert Westman, eds., Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (1990)
Richard Westfall, Science and Religion in 17th-Century England (1958)
A. Rupert Hall, The Revolution in Science, 1500-1750 (1983)
Margaret Jacob, The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution (1988)
Paula Findlen, Possessing nature: museums, collecting, and scientific culture in early modern
Italy (1994)
Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), chs. 15-18, 21-22
Marcus Hellyer, The Scientific Revolution: the essential readings (2003)
Documents
(a) John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the understanding
certain innate principles; some primary notions, characters, as it were stamped upon the mind
of man; which the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it. [I
intend] to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition….
Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters,
without any ideas. Whence comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store
which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety?
Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, from experience;
16
in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our
observation, employed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations
of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our
understanding with all the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge,
from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have do spring.
First, our senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind
several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects
do affect them. And thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft,
hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities…. This great source of most
of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the
understanding, I call SENSATION.
Secondly, the other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with
ideas is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about
the ideas it has got … and such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning,
knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds…. I call this
REFLECTION, the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own
operations within itself…. These two, I say, viz., external material things as the objects of
SENSATION, and the operations of our own minds within as the objects of REFLECTION,
are to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings…
(b) Sir Isaac Newton, Optics (1704)
The main Business of Natural Philosophy is to argue from Phaenomena without
feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause,
which certainly is not mechanical; and not only to unfold the Mechanism of the World, but
chiefly to resolve these and such like Questions. What is there in places almost empty of
Matter, and whence is it that the Sun and Planets gravitate towards one another, without
dense Matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain; and whence arises
all that Order and Beauty which we see in the World? To what end are Comets, and whence
is it that Planets move all one and the same way in Orbs concentrick, while Comets move all
manner of ways in Orbs very excentrick, and what hinders the fix'd Stars from falling upon
one another? How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art, and for
what ends were their several Parts? Was the Eye contrived without Skill in Opticks, and the
Ear without Knowledge of Sounds? How do the Motions of the Body follow from the Will,
and whence is the Instinct in Animals? Is not the Sensory of Animals that place to which the
sensitive Substance is present, and into which the sensible Species of Things are carried
through the Nerves and Brain, that there they may be perceived by their immediate presence
to that Substance? And these things being rightly dispatch'd, does it not appear from
Phaenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite
Space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and thoroughly
perceives them, and comprehends them wholly by their immediate presence to himself: Of
which things the Images only carried through the Organs of Sense into our little Sensoriums,
are there seen and beheld by that which in us perceives and thinks. And tho' every true Step
made in this Philosophy brings us not immediately to the Knowledge of the first Cause, yet it
brings us nearer to it, and on that account is to be highly valued….
10. THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Specimen Question: Was the Enlightenment anti-religious?
17
Core Reading: Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (1995), chapters 1-3
Further Reading
Roy Porter, The Enlightenment (2nd ed. 2001)
Norman Hampson, The Enlightenment (1968)
Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols. (1966-69)
Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, eds., The Enlightenment in national context (1981)
John Yolton et al. eds, The Blackwell companion to the Enlightenment (1991)
Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment
(1994)
Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (1982)
John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination (1997)
Jonathan Israel, Enlightenment contested: philosophy, modernity, and the emancipation of
man, 1670-1752 (2006)
Documents
(a) Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, article `Fanaticism'
Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever and rage to anger. The man
visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities and his fancies for prophecies,
is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic….
The most detestable example of fanaticism was that of the burghers of Paris who on St.
Bartholomew's Night went about assassinating and butchering all their fellow citizens who
did not go to mass, throwing them out of windows, cutting them in pieces….
Once fanaticism has corrupted a mind, the malady is almost incurable. I have seen
convulsionaries who, speaking of the miracles of Saint Paris, gradually grew impassioned
despite themselves: their eyes got inflamed, their limbs trembled, madness disfigured their
faces, and they would have killed anyone who contradicted them.
The only remedy for this epidemic malady is the philosophical spirit….
There is only one religion in the world that has never been sullied by fanaticism, that of
the Chinese men of letters. The schools of philosophers were not only free from this pest,
they were its remedy; for the effect of philosophy is to make the soul tranquil, and fanaticism
is incompatible with tranquility. If our holy religion has so often been corrupted by this
infernal delirium, it is the madness of men which is at fault.
(b) Diderot & d'Alembert, Encyclopedia, article `philosopher'
Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian.
Grace causes the Christian to act, reason the philosopher.
Other men are carried away by their passions, their actions not being preceded by
reflection: these are the men who walk in darkness. On the other hand, the philosopher, even
in his passions, acts only after reflection; he walks in the dark, but by a torch.
The philosopher forms his principles from an infinity of particular observations. Most
people adopt principles without thinking of the observations that have produced them: they
believe that maxims exist, so to speak, by themselves. But the philosopher takes maxims
from their source; he examines their origin; he knows their proper value, and he makes use of
them only in so far as as they suit him.
18
Truth is not for the philosopher a mistress who corrupts his imagination and whom he
believes is to be found everywhere; he contents himself with being able to unravel it where he
can perceive it. He does not confound it with probability; he takes for true what is true, for
false what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and for probable what is only probable. He
does more, and here you have a great perfection of the philosopher: when he has no reason by
which to judge, he knows how to live in suspension of judgment….
(c) Condorcet, Sketch of the Progress of the Human Mind (1795)
INTRODUCTION
THE RESULT of [my work] will be to show, from reasoning and from facts, that no
bounds have been fixed to the improvement of the human faculties; that the perfectibility of
man is absolutely indefinite; that the progress of this perfectibility, henceforth above the
control of every power that would impede it, has no other limit than the duration of the globe
upon which nature has placed us. The course of this progress may doubtless be more or less
rapid, but it can never be retrograde….
Every thing tells us that we are approaching the era of one of the grand revolutions of
the human race….
THE NINTH STAGE
From Descartes to the Foundation of the French Republic
… The progress of philosophy and the sciences has favoured and extended the progress
of letters, and this in turn has served to make the study of the sciences easier, and that of
philosophy more popular. The sciences and the arts have assisted one another despite the
efforts of the ignorant and the foolish to separate them and make them enemies. Scholarship,
which seemed doomed by its respect for the past and its deference towards authority always
to lend its support to harmful superstitions, has nevertheless contributed to their eradication,
for it was able to borrow the torch of a sounder criticism from philosophy and the sciences. It
already knew how to weigh up authorities and compare them; it now learned how to bring
every authority before the bar of Reason….
Turning now our attention to the human race in general, we shall show how the
discovery of the correct method of procedure in the sciences, the growth of scientific theories,
their application to every part of the natural world, to the subject of every human need, the
lines of communication established between one science and another, the great number of
men who cultivate the sciences, and most important of all, the spread of printing, how
together all these advances ensure that no science will ever fall below the point it has
reached. We shall point out that the principles of philosophy, the slogans of liberty, the
recognition of the true rights of man and his real interests, have spread through far too great a
number of nations, and now direct in each of them the opinions of far too great a number of
enlightened men, for us to fear that they will ever be allowed to relapse into oblivion. …
Tenth Epoch: Future Progress of Mankind
If man can predict, almost with certainty, those appearances of which he understands
the laws; if, even when the laws are unknown to him, experience of the past enables him to
foresee, with considerable probability, future appearances; why should we suppose it a
chimerical undertaking to delineate, with some degree of truth, the picture of the future
destiny of mankind from the results of its history? The only foundation of faith in the natural
19
sciences is the principle, that the general laws, known or unknown, which regulate the
phenomena of the universe, are regular and constant; and why should this principle,
applicable to the other operations of nature, be less true when applied to the development of
the intellectual and moral faculties of man? …
Will not every nation one day arrive at the state of civilization attained by those people
who are most enlightened, most free, most exempt from prejudices, as the French, for
instance, and the Anglo-Americans? Will not the slavery of countries subjected to kings, the
barbarity of African tribes, and the ignorance of savages gradually vanish? Is there upon the
face of the globe a single spot the inhabitants of which are condemned by nature never to
enjoy liberty, never to exercise their reason?