It is the aim of this thesis to shed light on and gain a more nuanced understanding of the negotiation of the political and constitutional order at the German Imperial Diet and the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm in the crisis-ridden seventeenth century. Both assemblies had to reach collectively-binding decisions on questions of institutional and procedural development in order to keep the constitutional order intact and functional and to process the challenges and changes occurring in the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The question of this thesis is how the scope for necessary institutional and procedural adjustments was enabled or constrained by political languages and rhetoric which key actors used in the deliberations at the two central estate assemblies. Why do we have an institutional standstill and comparative decline in Poland-Lithuania until the reform period in the eighteenth century, and a stabilization and gradual institutional adjustment until the 1720s in the Holy Roman Empire? This question is answered by analyzing the communication about the scope of politics in its concrete historical context and institutional setting. Through the analysis the thesis comes to a new interpretation of the role and impact of orality and writing in both assemblies. Establishing socially relevant meaning depended on the means of communication and on the relationship between different media in the process of political decision-making and how they formed communication, in this case oral and written communication. The central claim of the thesis is that political culture and material culture were intricately linked in both imperial systems as the available media in the political process shaped the sayable, and the sayable shaped the doable.

This thesis explores oral communication in St. Gallen through the lens of the linen merchant Johannes Rütiner (1501-1556/7). By reconstructing Rütiner's network of informants and probing four genres of communication within their respective social contexts - jokes, gossip, rumour, and memory narratives -, it explores early modern sociability, the circulation of information, and the relationship between oral testimony, manuscript, and print. Sixteenth-century St. Gallers relied heavily on informal, oral networks to provide them with news and information of all kinds. An individual's access to information was thus to a large degree determined by the social networks within which they spent their life. As St. Gallers sought to secure a place for themselves in such circles, they in turn used jokes, gossip, and information of all kinds as a form of "communicative social capital", allowing them to present themselves as witty, well-connected, and knowledgeable. Rather than treating the instability of oral narratives as evidence of the inherent unreliability of the spoken word, this study proposes to analyse their evolution as a key to early modern mentalities. It also calls into question some of the dominant narratives regarding the printing revolution. Not only did oral communication continue to play a central role in the dissemination of information in the first half of the sixteenth century, but existing systems of "source criticism", developed in the context of dominantly oral networks, moreover cast doubt on the reliability of anonymous prints: because they made their trust in a piece of news conditional on their trust in the messenger, Rütiner and his fellow citizens often preferred oral narratives provided by familiar, trustworthy informants.

Witchcraft beliefs were a vital element of the social, religious, and political landscapes of England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. English society, buffeted by ongoing processes of social, economic, and religious change, was increasingly polarized along material, ideological, and intellectual lines, exacerbated by rising poverty and inequality, political factionalism, religious dissension, and the emergence of Enlightenment philosophical reasoning. The embeddedness of witchcraft and demonism in early modern English cosmologies and quotidian social relations meant that religious and existential anxieties, interpersonal disputes, and threats to local order, settled by customary self-regulatory methods at the local level or prosecuted in court, were often encompassed within the familiar language and popular discourses of witchcraft, social order, and difference. Using trial pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, and intellectual texts, this thesis examines the imbrications of these discourses and their collectively- determined meanings within the increasingly rationalized legal contexts and widening world of Augustan England, demonstrating the often deeply encoded ways in which early modern English men and women made sense of their own experiences and constituted and re-constituted their identities and affinities. Disorderly by nature, an inversion of natural, religious, and social norms, witchcraft in the Christian intellectual tradition simultaneously threatened and preserved order. Just as light could not exist without dark, or good without evil, there could be no fixed state of order: its existence was determined, in part, by its antithesis. Such diacritical oppositions extended beyond the metaphysical and are legible in contemporary notions of social difference, including attitudes about the common and poorer sorts of people, patriarchal gender and sexual roles, and nascent racial ideologies. These attitudes, roles, and ideologies drew sharp distinctions between normative and transgressive appearances, behaviours, and beliefs. This thesis argues that they provided a blueprint for the discursive construction of identity categories, defined in part by alterity, and that intelligible in witchcraft discourses are these fears of and reactions to disruptive and disorderly difference, otherness, and deviance—reactions which could themselves become deeply disruptive. In exploring the intersections of poverty, gender, sexuality, and race within collective understandings of witchcraft in Augustan England, this thesis aims to contribute to our understandings of the complex and dynamic ways in which English men and women perceived themselves, their communities, and the world around them.

During the rule of the house of Vasa 1523-1654, Sweden saw a vastly increased output of new government heraldry and official symbols. This thesis investigates the political motives behind the creation of these symbols and their use as propaganda tools as part of the formation of the Swedish state.  Heraldry is a well-covered topic in academia in many European countries, but in Sweden it has yet to be properly integrated into historical research. This thesis covers the bigger picture by investigating the Vasa dynasty’s heraldry in its entirety in order to follow its use over time.  The thesis analyses all grants of arms to cities and nobles, as well as new royal and provincial arms. It carries out an analysis of the arms’ composition and motif, as well as charting the political context in which they were created and their role in the formation of the modern state.  The question the thesis seeks to answer is if the Vasa dynasty used heraldry as a political propaganda tool, and if so — for what purpose. The thesis uses Jaques Ellul’s categories of propaganda as a theoretical framework.  Among the key findings is the discovery that the Vasa monarchs did treat official heraldry as an integrated part of their propaganda efforts, both in conflicts with the outside world and with each other. However, the heraldic motifs of most cities and nobles, making up the vast majority of new coats of arms, were not part of those efforts.  There was also a clear shift from the agitation propaganda during the early Vasa era, to propaganda of integration as the institutions of state took form and Sweden became a regional power.

This study retraces the principal moments of the Latin reception of John Chrysostom between c.1440 and 1600 and how they reflect on the study of ancient Christianity in early modern Europe. After a short Introduction to Chrysostom’s reception in medieval Europe and existing historiography on early modern patristics, the first section of this study focusses on the reception of Chrysostom in the fifteenth century. Chapter 1 examines the collaboration between cardinal Jean Jouffroy and the humanist translator Francesco Griffolini in Renaissance Rome. Chapter 2 explores the career and editorial work of the scholastic writer Johannes Heynlin and his impact on Basel’s rise as a centre of patristic studies. The second part of this study investigates the translations and interpretations of Chrysostom by the renowned Dutch humanist, Desiderius Erasmus. Chapter 3 argues that Erasmus advanced Chrysostom as a Pauline theologian in a way deliberately opposed to contemporary Latin traditions of exegesis. Chapter 4 interprets Erasmus’ editions and translations of Chrysostom against the breakdown of his friendship with the Protestant theologian Johannes Oecolampadius. Chapter 5 asks whether Erasmus’ biography of Chrysostom and criticism of spurious texts of the Greek church fathers confirms or contrasts recent investigations of Erasmus’ scholarship on their Latin counterparts. The third part of this study follows the reception of Chrysostom’s life and works in the Catholic world during and after the Council of Trent. Chapter 6 studies the use of Chrysostom’s works at this Council by cardinal Marcello Cervini and his client Gentian Hervet. Chapter 7 uses Chrysostom’s changing place in the Roman breviary to explore Catholic attitudes to historical scholarship and the Greek church in the sixteenth-century. A short conclusion suggests avenues for future research into the reception of Chrysostom in early modern Europe.

<p>This dissertation is an analysis of the cultural meeting between the Church and the Crown on the one hand, and the Sami community on the other, in a lappmark in the north of Sweden during the seventeenth century.</p><p>The authorities viewed and acted towards the Sami from the standpoint of their normative system, incorporating the political/ideological discourse that existed at this time. This was implemented by means of judicial machinery that represented the Sami as indulging in immoral sexual behavior and idolatry. This was due to the fact the authorities nurtured an interest in the different: the Sami became the Other, representing an antithesis of the authorities’ own existence. The authorities’ need to create this antithesis led to a representation of the Sami as sexually immoral and idolatrous that endured throughout the period of this research, with results that have both qualitative and quantitative foundations in two categories of crimes: those against religion, and sexual offences.</p><p>The Sami, for their part, exhibited cultural manifestations that, when detached from the court rolls’ narrative structure, clearly distinguish themselves from the normative system represented and implemented by the authorities. Conciliation in court was common amongst the Sami; their views on theft, murder or manslaughter, and sexual offences never coincided with the perspective maintained by the authorities on these issues, which was based on laws and ordinances. There were two reasons for this: the first was that the Sami did not stigmatize as criminals individuals who had committed unlawful deeds, as was the case with the authorities, who operated within the framework of the Swedish legal system; the second reason was that the Sami had other traditions concerning marriage and religious practice. The Sami interacted not only with each other, but also in relation to other groups of people outside the community, such as visiting farmers, townspeople, merchants and ironworkers. Judicial matters were raised for different reasons: to document the distribution of inheritance; to obtain remuneration for purchases on credit; to obtain a financial settlement with regard to theft; and to establish clearly the sequence of events, in cases of murder and manslaughter. This sheds light on the question of why and how the Sami made use of the possibilities afforded to them by the court, despite instances of repression to begin with, when the authorities used the court system to initiate cases against the Sami, including crimes against religion and sexual offences. The legal cases also shed light upon Sami traditions, morals and cultural expressions, which not only differed from the normative system of the authorities but also from various traditions and morals that were exhibited by the peasantry in other parts of Sweden at this time – we can thus “see into” a seventeenth-century Sami community.</p><p>The authorities represented repression and control, with the result that the Sami became the Other. However, the Sami interacted both within and beyond their own community. This provides us with information about traditions and morals, which seem to have been characteristic in terms of Sami culture, whilst at the same time differing from the type of behaviour the authorities desired.</p><p>The survey includes theoretical perspectives used by sociologist Stuart Hall, philosophers Michel Foucault and Paul Ricoeur, literary scientist and cultural theorist Homi K. Bhabha, and others, as well as theories proposed by literary scientists Ania Loomba and Edward Said, as well as cultural theorist and literary scientist Robert J. C. Young.</p>

This dissertation is an analysis of the cultural meeting between the Church and the Crown on the one hand, and the Sami community on the other, in a lappmark in the north of Sweden during the seventeenth century. The authorities viewed and acted towards the Sami from the standpoint of their normative system, incorporating the political/ideological discourse that existed at this time. This was implemented by means of judicial machinery that represented the Sami as indulging in immoral sexual behavior and idolatry. This was due to the fact the authorities nurtured an interest in the different: the Sami became the Other, representing an antithesis of the authorities’ own existence. The authorities’ need to create this antithesis led to a representation of the Sami as sexually immoral and idolatrous that endured throughout the period of this research, with results that have both qualitative and quantitative foundations in two categories of crimes: those against religion, and sexual offences. The Sami, for their part, exhibited cultural manifestations that, when detached from the court rolls’ narrative structure, clearly distinguish themselves from the normative system represented and implemented by the authorities. Conciliation in court was common amongst the Sami; their views on theft, murder or manslaughter, and sexual offences never coincided with the perspective maintained by the authorities on these issues, which was based on laws and ordinances. There were two reasons for this: the first was that the Sami did not stigmatize as criminals individuals who had committed unlawful deeds, as was the case with the authorities, who operated within the framework of the Swedish legal system; the second reason was that the Sami had other traditions concerning marriage and religious practice. The Sami interacted not only with each other, but also in relation to other groups of people outside the community, such as visiting farmers, townspeople, merchants and ironworkers. Judicial matters were raised for different reasons: to document the distribution of inheritance; to obtain remuneration for purchases on credit; to obtain a financial settlement with regard to theft; and to establish clearly the sequence of events, in cases of murder and manslaughter. This sheds light on the question of why and how the Sami made use of the possibilities afforded to them by the court, despite instances of repression to begin with, when the authorities used the court system to initiate cases against the Sami, including crimes against religion and sexual offences. The legal cases also shed light upon Sami traditions, morals and cultural expressions, which not only differed from the normative system of the authorities but also from various traditions and morals that were exhibited by the peasantry in other parts of Sweden at this time – we can thus “see into” a seventeenth-century Sami community. The authorities represented repression and control, with the result that the Sami became the Other. However, the Sami interacted both within and beyond their own community. This provides us with information about traditions and morals, which seem to have been characteristic in terms of Sami culture, whilst at the same time differing from the type of behaviour the authorities desired. The survey includes theoretical perspectives used by sociologist Stuart Hall, philosophers Michel Foucault and Paul Ricoeur, literary scientist and cultural theorist Homi K. Bhabha, and others, as well as theories proposed by literary scientists Ania Loomba and Edward Said, as well as cultural theorist and literary scientist Robert J. C. Young.

This dissertation examines the intersection between the culture of knowledge and socio-economic conditions of late Ming and Qing China (1550-1800) through the lens of materia medica. I argue that medicine in China during this time developed new characteristics that emphasized the centrality of drugs as objects of pharmacological knowledge, commodities valued by authenticity and efficacy, and embodiment of medical skills and expertise. My inquiry contributes to a deeper understanding of the materiality of healing as a basic condition in early modern societies: on the one hand, textual knowledge about drugs and the substances themselves became increasingly available via the commoditization of texts and goods; on the other hand, anxiety arose out of the unruly nature of potent substances, whose promise to cure remained difficult to grasp in social practice of medicine. / History of Science

The eighteenth century saw the slow but steady rise of the middling classes to their nineteenth century social and cultural prominence, reinforced by a changing political landscape and the steadily increasing importance of the market. As the social and cultural power of the city burghers making up the majority of the middling classes grew, so did they start to consume in a manner to reflect to their new status in society. The question that arises then is more exactly how this group consumed, what types of objects that became important and what type of status that became the most paramount. Since status and social groups can differ greatly between both times and places, focus of this investigation is the burgher elite of Stockholm, the social, economical, and cultural centre of Sweden during the whole of the early modern era. By using a combination of Bourdieu's capital theories and Erving Goffman's theories on the presentation of self the inventories of fourteen elite burgher households has been analysed in order to investigate how these individuals constructed their home to present their own perceived social and cultural status. Through a thorough and theoretical investigation of these early modern front regions it can be revealed that the traditional representations of cultural capital, the main form of symbolic status capital, such as paintings and books, albeit important, constituted but a minor part of the capital presentation in the home. Instead it appears as if the most important status capital is presented through sociability, the ability to host social events or, if that option is unavailable, attend social events. Objects with the express function of sociability, such as tea- and dinner-ware, together with chairs, tables, and fashionable interior decoration suggests that sociability indeed stood at the forefront for the presentation of status for the late eighteenth century Stockholm burgher. At the same time, fashionability appears to have been extremely important, with almost all of the investigated households going to great lengths to stay up to date with the most recent trends in both furniture, colours, literature, and china. Much more research is however needed in order to really understand the structures of status and how it was expressed during the early modern times, and especially comparative studies between estate borders is needed in order to understand the status relations between social groups and how this affected status presentations.

Le but de cette recherche est d’analyser le rôle politique des opinions collectives au Portugal aux Temps Modernes. Bien avant l’avènement du concept d’« opinion publique », plusieurs sources renvoient à un jugement « public », « commun » ou « général », associé fréquemment à l’idée de Fama. La présente thèse étudie l’élargissement du débat public portugais dans un contexte marqué par une intense agitation populaire et par le développement de conceptions radicales du patriotisme et de la liberté. / The purpose of this research is to analyze the political role of collective opinions in Early Modern Portugal. Long before the advent of the concept of « public opinion », many sources refer to a « public », « common » or « general » judgment, frequently associated with the idea of Fama. This thesis studies the expansion of Portuguese public debate in a context marked by an intense popular agitation and by the development of radical conceptions of patriotism and liberty.