<p>In early modern Sweden, intentional blasphemy was regarded as one of the most serious crimes one could commit. Blasphemy was termed “Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae” – “a crime against Our Heavenly Majesty” and was subject to the death penalty. From the 1680´s it was possible to be pardoned from death sentences already delivered by the courts of appeal by applying to the “Judiciary Inspection”, (Sw. Justitierevisionen) In early modern times the definition of blasphemy was influenced by the medieval scholastic view according to which God was perfect. The sourcematerial for the present thesis are 110 petitions for mercy in cases of blasphemy that came up before the council during the period 1680-1789. The cases studied can be divided into the following categories: Blasphemy against God, blasphemy against the sacraments, deliberate assignations wiht the Devil and “other blasphemies”. There was no Church law in Sweden before 1686 and a common law for the whole country did not exist before 1734. The Bible´s ten Commandments where added as an appendix to the already existing medieval laws, reiterated in 1608. An individual found guilty of blasphemy underwent both secular and church punishment. At least nine individuals (we lack information about some cases due to material that has been lost) where not pardoned by the council. The secular punishments included death by beheading or burning at stake, when the sentence was reduced some kind of corporal punishment – running the sauntlet, flogging, imprisonment on a diet of bread and water or a life time of labor. Church punishment was public shaming and meant that the accused had to sit on a special chair in church during the services and publicly ask God and the members of the congregation for forgiveness. This kind of punishment was meted out in Sweden until the late 18th century.Blasphemy is a complicated act that should be defined according to the norms of the society in which it occurs. There are two processes that have to be taken into considerations when studing the crime of blasphemy in early modern Sweden – the centralization of the government and the unification of the church according to the Lutheran creed.In the early modern society people lived in what has been called a “religious culture”, where religion was self-evident, collective concern. Within this context atheism, in the modern meaning of the word, was supposedly unimaginable.The theoretical framework of the study is inspired by Peter Burke’s theories of the reformation of popular culture. Measurements taken by the elite have usually been regarded as active and aggressive, while popular culture has been regarded a homogeneous passive mass that adjustes itself to demands from above. One of the primary aims of this thesis is to study how verbal statements, actions and attitudes reflected popular conceptions that could either be close to or far distant from the learned ideas of the elite. By dividing popular attitudes discerned in the cases studied into four groups corresponding to a kind of mental strata, a more varied image of popular culture is achieved. Blasphemy in early modern Sweden was a crime committed mainly by men, especially when it comes to expressing ideas about the Devil or attempting to contact him. Very few women were accused of blasphemy; of 117 individuals accused, only nine were women.</p>

<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 thesis investigates the reclamation of mires (fens and bogs) in Sweden with a focus on the early modern period. Today, the mires are valued natural habitats and their cultivation is controversial. International research describes wetland reclamation and the related knowledge transfer between European countries already from the 12th century. In Sweden, despite some early records of reclamation of mires in the 17th century, has earlier research focused on reclamation during the 19th and 20th centuries. The aim of the thesis is to study the landscape, actors and driving forces behind the early reclamation (before 1800). Understanding the early reclamation can provide a new perspective on current views on wetlands. It is also an interesting example of how the landscape is changed constantly by people with different goals through history. The subject is studied through a multimethod approach using sources such as historical maps, diaries, 17th- and 18th-century literature and place names. The main conclusions of the study are that reclamation of mires is seen already in 17th-century maps, with local wider distribution during the 18th century. The crown and scientists expressed a growing interest in reclamation of the mires from the early 18th century. Links to Europe, in particular Holland, can be seen within this discourse. In both literature and the experimentation that took place, the Swedish migrant group, the Dalecarlians, played a key role. They shared with the early Dutch groups the practical knowledge needed in major reclamation projects. Furthermore, this study shows that a number of actors assumed at various times the role of mobile innovation spreaders. Dutch farmers and experts, labour migrants, landlords and scientists all acted to spread knowledge of mire reclamation. Ample resources, networking and geographical mobility appear to have been prerequisites for all actors, from peasants to landlords, but they had different underlying motives for the practice.

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 three generations of the Beeston family and its revolutionary impact on the developing world of seventeenth-century London theatre management. Like other early modern businesses, the Beeston enterprise thrived on commercial innovation, the strategic cultivation of patronage, and a capacity to perpetuate itself dynastically. England’s mid-century political crisis disrupted the family’s commercial supremacy but its management system would endure as the de facto standard structuring successful theatre business long after the Restoration. Following a critical introduction to the early history of theatrical management, the thesis’s four chapters chart the creation and institution of the Beeston management model. Chapter One examines the early career of Christopher Beeston, a minor stageplayer from Shakespeare’s company in the 1590s who set out ambitiously to reshape theatrical management at Drury Lane’s Cockpit playhouse in 1616. Chapter Two analyzes Beeston’s later career, particularly his unique appointment as “Governor” of a new royal company in 1637. New evidence suggests that the office was a reward for service to the aristocratic Herbert family and that traditional preferment was therefore as important as market competition to the creation of the Caroline paradigm of autocratic theatrical “governance.” Chapter Three explores the overlooked career of Elizabeth Beeston who, upon inheriting the Cockpit in 1638, became the first woman in English history to manage a purpose-built London theatre. New evidence concerning her subsequent husband, Sir Lewis Kirke, an adventurer to Canada, ship-money captain, and Royalist military governor, indicates political ideology motivated their joint effort to keep the Beeston playhouse open during the civil wars. Chapter Four addresses the question of why the larger Beeston enterprise eventually collapsed even as the management system it refined continued to support later theatrical entrepreneurs. During the Interregnum, contemporaries anticipated that William and George Beeston, Christopher’s son and grandson, would eventually dominate a renascent London stage; however, managers such as William Davenant and Thomas Betterton ultimately adapted the Beeston system more efficiently to the political environment after 1660. Thereafter, exhausted patronage, lost assets, and the abandonment of family tradition marked the end of the Beestons’ influential association with the London stage.

This dissertation examines the function of textual communities in England from the early Middle Ages until the early modern period, exploring the ways in which cultures and communities are formed through textual activities other than writing itself. I open by discussing the characteristics of a textual community in order to establish a new understanding of the term. I argue that a textual community is fundamentally based on activity carried out in books and that perceptions of linguistic distance stimulate this activity. Chapter 1 investigates Bede (c. 673–735) and his interest in multilingualism, coupled with his exploration of the boundaries between the written and spoken forms of English. Picking up on an element of Bede's work, I argue in Chapter 2 that Alfred (r. 871–899) and his grandson Æthelstan (r. 924/5–939) found new ways to make textuality the defining quality of the emerging West Saxon kingdom. In Chapter 3, I focus on the intralingual distance in the textual community surrounding the works of Ælfric (c. 950–1010) and Wulfstan (d. 1023). I also discuss the role of contemporary or near-contemporary manuscript use in forming a textual community at the intersection of ecclesiastical and political power. In Chapter 4, I examine the activities of a textual community in the West Midlands in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By glossing Old English texts and rethinking English orthography, this textual community both renewed the work of Anglo-Saxon writers and enabled the activity I discuss in Chapter 5. Chapter 5 argues for a more constructive rationalization of the curatorial and editorial activities of Matthew Parker (1504–1575) than has been presented hitherto. I argue that Parker's cavalier methods of conserving and editing his books in fact represent responses to the textual models he found in those manuscripts. An appendix presents the text and translation of the preface to Parker's edition of Asser's Life of King Alfred. I close with a discussion of the production and use of books, followed by an illustration of the ongoing importance of textual community in England by highlighting the layers of use in a single manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 20) that links together the chapters of this dissertation.

This study examines the cultural and religious politics of dancing in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. Although theologically dance was considered morally neutral, as a physical, embodied practice, context determined whether each occurrence was deemed acceptable or immoral. Yet, judging and interpreting these contexts, and thus delineating the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, was contested and controversial. Advocates argued that dance enabled controlled, graceful movement and provided a harmless outlet for youthful energy. Opponents decried it as a vain, idle, and lascivious indulgence that led to illicit sexual liaisons, profanation of the sabbath, and eternal damnation. The first chapter introduces early dance fundamentals, describing steps, genres, and sources. The chapter also discusses venues in which people danced, times of day and seasons that were most popular, and demographic details for dancers in western England. Chapter 2 demonstrates how, by varying details of their performance, dancers could influence a dance’s appropriateness, as well as express aspects of identity, such as gender and social rank. Chapter 3 examines how clergymen and religious reformers addressed and tried to undermine pro-dance arguments through their treatment of biblical dance references in sermons and treatises. Chapters 4 and 5 feature case studies of parochial clergymen and lay persons whose opinions about dancing became flashpoints for local controversies. They explain why prosecutions for dancing were so sporadic and geographically scattered: dancing practices rarely entered the historical record unless a “perfect storm” of community tensions and personal antagonisms created irreconcilable differences that led to violence or court cases. The dissertation argues that a category, such as festive traditionalist, is needed to describe those who conformed to or embraced Protestant worship but who strongly resisted attempts to “reform” their behaviour outside of the church.

This dissertation examines three generations of the Beeston family and its revolutionary impact on the developing world of seventeenth-century London theatre management. Like other early modern businesses, the Beeston enterprise thrived on commercial innovation, the strategic cultivation of patronage, and a capacity to perpetuate itself dynastically. England’s mid-century political crisis disrupted the family’s commercial supremacy but its management system would endure as the de facto standard structuring successful theatre business long after the Restoration. Following a critical introduction to the early history of theatrical management, the thesis’s four chapters chart the creation and institution of the Beeston management model. Chapter One examines the early career of Christopher Beeston, a minor stageplayer from Shakespeare’s company in the 1590s who set out ambitiously to reshape theatrical management at Drury Lane’s Cockpit playhouse in 1616. Chapter Two analyzes Beeston’s later career, particularly his unique appointment as “Governor” of a new royal company in 1637. New evidence suggests that the office was a reward for service to the aristocratic Herbert family and that traditional preferment was therefore as important as market competition to the creation of the Caroline paradigm of autocratic theatrical “governance.” Chapter Three explores the overlooked career of Elizabeth Beeston who, upon inheriting the Cockpit in 1638, became the first woman in English history to manage a purpose-built London theatre. New evidence concerning her subsequent husband, Sir Lewis Kirke, an adventurer to Canada, ship-money captain, and Royalist military governor, indicates political ideology motivated their joint effort to keep the Beeston playhouse open during the civil wars. Chapter Four addresses the question of why the larger Beeston enterprise eventually collapsed even as the management system it refined continued to support later theatrical entrepreneurs. During the Interregnum, contemporaries anticipated that William and George Beeston, Christopher’s son and grandson, would eventually dominate a renascent London stage; however, managers such as William Davenant and Thomas Betterton ultimately adapted the Beeston system more efficiently to the political environment after 1660. Thereafter, exhausted patronage, lost assets, and the abandonment of family tradition marked the end of the Beestons’ influential association with the London stage.

This dissertation examines the function of textual communities in England from the early Middle Ages until the early modern period, exploring the ways in which cultures and communities are formed through textual activities other than writing itself. I open by discussing the characteristics of a textual community in order to establish a new understanding of the term. I argue that a textual community is fundamentally based on activity carried out in books and that perceptions of linguistic distance stimulate this activity. Chapter 1 investigates Bede (c. 673–735) and his interest in multilingualism, coupled with his exploration of the boundaries between the written and spoken forms of English. Picking up on an element of Bede's work, I argue in Chapter 2 that Alfred (r. 871–899) and his grandson Æthelstan (r. 924/5–939) found new ways to make textuality the defining quality of the emerging West Saxon kingdom. In Chapter 3, I focus on the intralingual distance in the textual community surrounding the works of Ælfric (c. 950–1010) and Wulfstan (d. 1023). I also discuss the role of contemporary or near-contemporary manuscript use in forming a textual community at the intersection of ecclesiastical and political power. In Chapter 4, I examine the activities of a textual community in the West Midlands in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By glossing Old English texts and rethinking English orthography, this textual community both renewed the work of Anglo-Saxon writers and enabled the activity I discuss in Chapter 5. Chapter 5 argues for a more constructive rationalization of the curatorial and editorial activities of Matthew Parker (1504–1575) than has been presented hitherto. I argue that Parker's cavalier methods of conserving and editing his books in fact represent responses to the textual models he found in those manuscripts. An appendix presents the text and translation of the preface to Parker's edition of Asser's Life of King Alfred. I close with a discussion of the production and use of books, followed by an illustration of the ongoing importance of textual community in England by highlighting the layers of use in a single manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 20) that links together the chapters of this dissertation.

The view of black Africans that emerges from Renaissance drama is shaped entirely by stereotypes, and is overwhelmingly negative. There is a general reluctance in the scholarly community to challenge the stereotype as a major organising principle in shaping negative images of African dramatic characters. My argument is that the stereotype is a powerful tool in the hands of self-interested parties, and must be recognised as capable of maiming and distorting the experiences of those it sets out to construct, as the one-sided, eurocentric representations of African characters in Renaissance drama reveal. Chapter One reviews the history of European attitudes to black skin colour, focusing briefly on England's public displays of other nations, cultures, and people, on the visual art tradition, and mainly on English Renaissance travel literature which, I believe, was the largest single influence on dramatists' imaginations. The chapter establishes that English anti-black polemics and the stereotyping of black Africans was heightened during the Renaissance, mainly because constructions of otherness were a large part of England's national self-fashioning. Chapter Two explores traditional meanings of blackness as well as the aesthetic and moral aspects of otherness, and attempts to show how the stereotypical assumptions and value judgments encoded in the rhetoric of blackness are allegorically manipulated to suit the needs of Christian England while Africa suffers erasure. Chapters Three and Four foreground the idea that the physical presence of black African characters on the stage becomes a sign of an entire set of actual and imagined differences by which England constructs her view of Africans as prime, visible signifiers of cultural difference. Chapter Four goes a step further and looks at those dramatic texts in which seemingly fixed categories are revealed as unstable, especially when overlaps in race, gender, and social rank come into play. The representation of black African characters on the English Renaissance stage thus reveals a definite correlation between the dominant culture's fears and anxieties over the perceived threat posed by the black African other, its insistence on a self-representation as a distinctly superior culture, and its subsequent and systematic production of Africa and Africans as indelibly other. For the dominant culture to be able to define, produce, and maintain itself as superior, it must, of necessity, strive to keep the other in a position of chronic inferiority, hence the persistent appeal to stereotypes.