Early Modern History

This comparativist textual study deals with similarities between the Yiddish Mayse-Bukh (1602) and the Hebrew texts of Nishmas Khayim and Divrey Yoysef. The marvelous Yiddish story of the dybbuk appears in several variants. In the Mayse-Bukh the dybbuk is an evil spirit; the Nishmas Khayim and Divrey Yoysef variants simply call him “spirit.” The Yiddish variants tell of a young man into whom a dybbuk has entered. In Sefer-Shivkhey haAri we read of a woman who has been freed of the dybbuk that settled in herbody. In the Mayse-Bukh the dybbuk comes from a Jew who drowned in the sea as a punishment for his debauchery. A similar story is found in Rabbi Khayim Vital’s book Toldos Yitskhok. In the Hebrew variants the dybbuk is punishment for a serious sin. The Mayse-bukh, giving no time and place, writes of a sexual “deviation” (sodomy) that is punished. This story in the Mayse-bukh variant may mirror a real event that has not been blown up by a censor and is probably documentary.

By offering an apology of Japan's closed country policy, Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) was contributing not so much to the literature of exotic journey record, but rather to the field of European political and moral theory, and importantly to the debate over the relative merits of ancient and modern societies and effects of international commerce. There is a marked lack of scholarly attention given to Kaempfer as a modestly interesting political theorist, compared to a substantial body of research praising his record as a scientifically minded observer of remote cultures. As a deceptively straightforward specimen of the genre of travelogue, and also because it has tended to be treated mostly as a pioneering attempt in western Japanese studies, Kaempfer's work has not generally been considered in its relation to the debate on Europe’s own moral and political predicament. When it has, the emphasis tended to be on the influence his work exercised on the enlightened European mind and its awareness of alien cultures, rather than on the extent to which the moral and political questions he sought to answer regarding Japan’s situation were in fact standard questions formulated within the wider European debate on commerce and government. This paper hopes to correct the imbalance by placing Kaempfer's argument into the context of such contrasting contemporaneous positions as those represented, respectively, by Joseph Addison's view of global commerce in The Spectator and by François Fénelon's vision of the ideal commonwealth of Salente in his Aventures de Télemaque.

This article explores the relationship between Montaigne and Plutarch, arguing that the Greek author had two identities to the essayist: as an intimate friend and as a moral philosopher. The importance of this double identity becomes clear as the article uncovers how Montaigne viewed the work of moral philosophy as a form of writing that needed to imitate life and relationships between people.

This article re-reads the Journal de voyage and Montaigne's writing about healing in terms of nobility and dignity, arguing that the essayist's narrative about self-care, specifically healing related to riding the horse and visiting curative baths, corresponded to a new intense struggle to die (and age) well that Montaigne hoped might replace the conventional male ideal of the soldier on the battlefield.

Joseph Attias (1672–1739) was a Livornese savant who was active, in different roles, in both Jewish and non-Jewish circles. Despite his reputation as a great scholar, reinforced by his well-known exchanges with G. B. Vico and L. A. Muratori, Attias did not leave any literary remains and has never been studied in his own right. The catalogue of Attias' extensive library of more than 1200 volumes, one of the largest Jewish-owned collections in the early eighteenth century, which has lately resurfaced in the State Archives of Livorno, allows for a reappraisal of his cultural proclivities. Based on a study of the catalogue, supplemented by published and unpublished sources that include the minutes of the Livornese Jewish council, private correspondence, and travel accounts, Attias' activities as a cultural mediator are reconstructed and his intellectual stance, including his Hebraic learning and role in the Livornese Jewish community alongside his secular studies, is considered. Attias' involvement with the scientific culture of his days, his participation in the Republic of Letters, and his involvement with the Inquisition are investigated.

In this article Isabelle Buhre translates and interprets the Latin poems of the Dutch landlord Adriaan Wilhelm Bentinck (1616-1678). His position as a member of a defeated and repressed catholic minority in the new Republic made him a bitter man, but his complete lack of power permitted him to releive his feelings thoroughly.

"This is the scientific report written in Spanish by Dr. Ana Crespo Solana of the Institute of History, Superior Council of Scientific Research, Madrid, Spain. Dr. Crespo Solana is the co-project leader of the research project "Dynamic Complexity of Cooperation-Based Self-Organizing Commercial Networks in the First Global Age" (DynCoopNet), one of five projects of the European Science Foundation's EUROCORES (European Collaborative Research) Scheme program "The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading" (TECT). The report details the results of a joint meeting of DynCoopNet's Portuguese and Spanish teams.
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This brief paper explains in Spanish the collaborative multidisciplinary and multinational research project "Dynamic Complexity of Cooperation-Based Self-Organizing Commercial Networks in the First Global Age" (DynCoopNet), which is one of five projects in the European Science Foundation's EUROCORES (European Collaborative Research) Scheme program "The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading" (TECT). This explanation was provided as part of the preparation for a meeting of the DynCoopNet Portuguese and Spanish teams that was held in Madrid on 30 May 2008.

Moral choice is often discussed in the context of conforming to religious norms, with immoral behavior explained as a consequence of imperfect indoctrination or a lack of control and dissuasion mechanisms by the church and other institutions that promote moral concepts. Our findings point in a different direction: moral choice in sexual matters seems to be the result of an equation that relates the perception of the alternative paths of action, the place of the individual in networks of relations and resources and various trade-offs. It is a question of strategy, at a personal or small group level, and less a question of belief. We use intensive cross-linking of sources to reconstruct individual biographies and networks of relations to gain a micro-historical view on a set of case studies involving public sinners in a Portuguese parish in the 17th and 18th centuries. By placing individual cases in the context of individual life cycles and in the context of family and social relations, we gain relevant insights into motivations for immoral behavior and its role in personal strategies.

Magyarok és havasalföldiek egy 17. századi svéd diplomata szemével Claes Rålamb svéd diplomata 1657-58 során járt uralkodója utasítására Konstantinápolyban. Az utazásáról szóló különbözõ dokumentumok lehetõvé teszik, hogy útja elemzése kapcsán mentalitástörténeti kérdéseket feszegessünk, rákérdezzünk a diplomata magyarokról és havasalföldiekrõl alkotott képére és arra is, miért alakult ki benne az a vélemény, melynek végül hangot adott.

Kora újkori értelmiségiek állami szolgálatban ARSÁNYI NAGY JAKAB, az erdélyi fejedelem portai követségén szolgálatot teljesítı nemes nem volt különösebben elégedett feljebbvalóival. II. Rákóczi Györgynek írt levelében 1656 ıszén így foglalta össze az erdélyi követtel kapcsolatos benyomásait: "Itt minden keresztyén követek, rezidensek tudósok, csak az oláhok barbarusok, kiktől nem sokat külömböz az mi rezidensünk is." 1 A havasalföldieknek és moldvaiaknak általában rossz hírük volt a kora újkori Erdélyben és Magyarországon -a humanista mőveltség hiányát kortársaik számos esetben felrótták nekik -, így azzal, hogy az erdélyi rezidenseket a vajdák képviselıihez hasonlította, Harsányi elég erıteljes eszközt használt véleménye kifejezésre juttatására. 2 Arra a meggyızıdésére akarta felhívni a címzett figyelmét, amely szolgálatának öt éve alatt alakult ki benne: hogy a fejedelemség követei nem képesek munkájuk ellátására, és ennek mőveletlenségük legalább annyira oka, mint a fejedelemség ügyei iránti felelısségérzetük teljes hiánya. Természetesen Harsányi nem különösebbet titkolta, hogy -meggyızıdése szerintaz ı tevékenykedése jelentette Erdély érdekében az egyetlen felelısségteljes viselkedést a Fényes Portán.

A 17. szá za di Eu ró pa la ko sai szá má ra a há bo rús ál la pot min den na pi élmény nek szá mí tott. A pon tos szá mok ról nyil ván va ló an le het vi tat koz ni, ám a Johannes Burkhardt ál tal ki mu ta tott ará nyok ál ta lá ban még is el fo gad ha tók: a kora új kor kö zép sõ év szá za dá ban min den na gyobb ha ta lom részt vett va la milyen há bo rús ko dás ban a szá zad mint egy 60 szá za lé ká ban, há bo rús éve ik szá ma te hát na gyobb, mint a bé ké ben töl töt te ké. 1 Ez ter mé sze te sen nem azt je len ti, hogy bár mely te rü le ten élõ kö zös ség 100 év bõl hat van ban kény te len volt el visel ni a ke resz tül ha la dó, ál lo má so zó, il let ve csa tá kat vívó se re gek nyo má sát: a há bo rú kat az ál lam ha tá ra in kí vül is vi sel het te, és nyil ván va ló, hogy egy ál lam te rü le tén be lül is sok szor vál to zott a front el he lyez ke dé se. Annyi azon ban bizto san le szö gez he tõ: a há bo rú min den 17. szá za di ál lam szá má ra ál lan dó el foglalt ság volt, sõt, egyes elem zé sek sze rint a mo dern ál lam ki ala ku lá sa jó részt a had se re gek gya ra po dá sá nak és az ezek kel kap cso la tos lo gisz ti kai prob lé máknak a kö vet kez mé nye. A há bo rút ter mé sze te sen nem csak a se re gek vív ták: az a dip lo má cia, az állam kö zi kap cso la tok ide o ló gi ai szint jén is folyt. Bár -mint a fen ti ek bõl lát ha tóa há bo rú a kora új ko ri ál lam ter mé sze tes ál la po tá nak te kint he tõ, meg in dí tá sa még sem volt ma gá tól ér te tõ dõ: egy-egy had üze net össze ál lí tá sa ko moly esz mei ap pa rá tus fel vo nul ta tá sát is igé nyel te. Mi vel -a gya kor lat tal el lent mon dó, ám még is ál ta lá no san el ter jedt el kép ze lés sze rint -az em ber, el sõ sor ban pe dig a keresz tény em ber ter mé sze tes ál la po tá nak a bé két tar tot ták, az ural ko dók szá mára há bo rú ik meg in dí tá sa kor majd nem min den eset ben szük sé ges volt, hogy alapo san meg in do kol ják a konf lik tus fegy ve res útra te re lé sé nek szük sé ges sé gét. A leg több ször nyom ta tás ban is nap vi lá got látó, így az ural ko dók szûk kö ré nél széle sebb nyil vá nos sá got kapó, az egyes há bo rúk le gi ti má ci ó já val fog lal ko zó írá sok egész pamf let ára dat tal árasz tot ták el Eu ró pa ol va só kö zön sé gét. Vi tat ha tó, hogy 1 Johannes Burkhardt: Der Dreißigjährige Krieg. Frank furt am Main 1992. 9. 2 A há bo rú kora új ko ri sze re pé re l. Matthew Smith Anderson: War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime 1618-1789. Lon don 1988. A há bo rú sze re pé rõl a kora új ko ri ál lam ala ku lá sá ban: Charles Tilly: Coercion, Capital, and the European States, AD 990-1990. Camb rid ge, MA 1990. 67-95. A had ügyi for ra da lom té zi se, Michael Roberts ál tal fel ve tett ere de ti for má já ban szin tén el sõsor ban erre, és nem annyi ra a -ké sõbb so kak ál tal vi ta tott -ha di tech ni kai vál to zá sok ra fó ku szált: Michael Roberts: The Military Revolution, 1550-1650. In: Uõ: Essays in Swedish History. Lon don 1967. 195-225. Újabb, a had ügyi for ra da lom és az ál lam, il let ve a tár sa da lom össze füg gé sé re koncent rá ló elem zés Robert I. Frost: The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northern Europe 1558-1721. Harlow 2000.

Re-published on paper with some amendments in: Gábor Kármán - András Péter Szabó (eds.): Szerencsének elegyes forgása: II. Rákóczi György és kora [The Diverse Turns of Fortune: György Rákóczi II and His Age]. Budapest: L'Harmattan, 2009. pp. 243-269.

Owens, J. B. & Polónia da Silva, Amélia, “Scientific Report: TECT Networking Workshop (University of Porto, Portugal), 26-29 March 2008; “Trust, Reputation, Defectors, and Sustaining Social Norms: Studying spatially complex cooperative relationships in ways that connect TECT projects” [23 pages; 11,000 words]. Prepared for the European Science Foundation’s EUROCORES (European Collaborative Research) Scheme’s program “The Evolution of Cooperation and Trading” (TECT), Strasbourg, France, 1 June 2008.

The article draws a comparison between nineteenth-century Turin and Rome, linking the growth of technical bureaucracies in the municipal institutions of both cities to the local struggles for control over urban space. In both post-1848 Turin and post-1870 Rome, the implementation of new institutional reforms offered local city councils an opportunity to gain more power and autonomy than they had enjoyed in the recent past. The organization and the role of municipal technical services were therefore affected, with quite opposite results, by the conflicts opened with the state about the redefinition of the province of local government

The very first documents to emerge from the New World were travel accounts. Although this was not the earliest travel writing in Europe the encounter with the Americas certainly stimulated a vast production of such literature and arguably made textual experience of the exotic a much more mundane occurrence. At the time of the discovery of the New World, the horizons of colonial Europe were also being expanded by travel to the east and south, but the unanticipated discoveries of Columbus provided a frisson of mystery and a need for explanation. This was the basis not just for recurrent attempts to detail, catalogue and locate the peoples, creatures and geographies of the continents, but also for a particular sense of the possibility of encountering the marvelous, the novel, and the extreme. The crosscutting of these themes and ideas has produced a travel writing in South America that is filled with the discovery of the fantastic, the survival of the anachronistic, and the promise of marvelous monstrosity. i

Συμβολή στη συλλογική ελληνική έκδοση και γαλλική μετάφραση του Χρονικού του Παπασυναδηνού, που καλύπτει τα έτη 1598-1648. Πρόκειται για ένα κείμενο που έχει δύο στόχους. Πρώτον, να εισαγάγει τον αναγνώστη του μεταφρασμένου Χρονικού στην ιστορία της οργάνωσης και της λειτουργίας της Ορθοδόξου Ανατολικής Εκκλησίας κατά την πρώτη περίοδο της Τουρκοκρατίας. Δεύτερον, να υποδειχθεί η συνοχή του συμβολικού συστήματος της Ορθοδόξου Εκκλησίας την περίοδο αυτή και η συνεισφορά του συγγραφέα του Χρονικού, του Παπασυναδηνού, Σακελάριου της Μητροπόλεως Σερρών, στην αναπαραγωγή του συμβολικού αυτού συστήματος μεταξύ των δυνητικών αναγνωστών του. Έχει εκδοθεί και ελληνική μετάφραση του έργου.

Στο άρθρο αυτό επιχειρείται να διερευνηθούν τα ιδιαίτερα συμβολικά και υλικά συμφέροντα των διανοουμένων και των ακτιβιστών, οι οποίοι διαμόρφωσαν την επικρατούσα και σήμερα άποψη για το συλλογικό εθνικό υποκείμενο και την ιστορία του και οι οποίοι συγκρότησαν τη ριζοσπαστική δημοκρατική πτέρυγα των Ελλήνων πατριωτών πριν από το 1821. Επισημαίνονται οι λόγοι που επέτρεψαν την επικράτηση αυτής της «μειοψηφούσας» αλλά συνεκτικής άποψης μεταξύ των ηγετικών ομάδων του νεοσύστατου ελληνικού κράτους.

Before interaction with the Americas, European writers established claims to truth with textual appeals to the canon of sacred and ancient texts. The “New World,” however, did not exist in this canon; writers therefore required new ways to assert the veracity of their texts. For many critics, textual dependency upon vision authorized colonial chronicles and instigated the shift of the new scientific worldview of Europe. This paper aims to show that French early modern travelers to North America participated in these epistemological transformations. It focuses on Baron de Lahontan. In it, I argue that Lahontan does not use vision to ground the authority of his writing. Lahontan's truth claim is authorized not by “I saw" but rather by “they say.” Lahontan’s rejection of “I saw” deeply affected the ways he was read and interpreted. While reliance upon the rhetoric of vision founded an epistemological practice that would be taken up by Baconian science, Lahontan’s dialogue offered an alternate model of truth that this science would ignore.

Far from being confined to New England only, the Puritan migrations spread across the whole Atlantic world throughout the seventeenth century. This article analyses the various conditions encountered by puritan communities in very different environments and shows how New England, as opposed to other attempts around the Atlantic basin, was the only region, the only terroir, where a durable settlement was possible.

i n t é g r e r , e n a n a l y s a n t l e p r isme providentiel inhérent aux auteurs calvinistes ainsi que les dimensions diplomatique et le d i s c o u r s v i s a n t à l é g i t i me r l ' i n s t a l l a t i o n d e s An g l a i s s u r d e s t e r r e s d é j à occupées. Abstract : This article retraces the evolution of the perception of Amerindian populations by the founders of Plymouth, in New England, before and shortly after crossing the Atlantic in 1620, through a reading of their narratives, namely Wi l l i a m B r a d f o r d ' s History of Plymouth Plantation, mainly, but also Mo u r t ' s Relation (1622), attributed to Bradford and Edward Winslow, which contains a l o n g l e t t e r b y R o b e r t C u s h ma n , a n d Wi n s l o w' s Good Newes from New England (1624). The providential prism inherent in Calvinist authors, the diplomatic dimensions as well as the discourse legitimizing the settlement of the English on already occupied lands are taken into account to reveal the indissociability of the various population groups and of a region on which the English managed to integrate. Nous reviendrons ensuite sur le prisme providentiel à travers lequel les Anglais de Plymouth interprétèrent la rencontre anglo-amérindienne, puis sur la dimension géostratégique des relations entre ce groupe et les différentes tribus de la région, avant de terminer par quelques remarques s u r l e d i s c o u r s d e l é g i t i ma t i o n d e l ' o c c u p a t i o n d e s t e r r e s e t sa postérité d a n s l ' h i s t o i r e d e s É t a t s -Unis, notamment au XIXe siècle. Notre étude se limitera aux premiers mois de la présence anglaise en Nouvelle-Angleterre, depuis le débarquement en 1620 j u s q u ' à 1622, année marquée par le « massacre », en mars, de 350 colons anglais en Virginie et la mort, en septembre, de Squanto, le célèbre Indien anglophone. Nous utiliserons le terme d ' «espace » pour sa dimension abstraite ; « terres », dans un sens plus concret, en raison des implications agricoles du terme ; « région », pour désigner une zone déterminée, mais dans une acception large (ici la Nouvelle-Angleterre) ; « territoire », pour une subdivision plus ou moins c l a i r e me n t d é l i mi t é e s o u s l ' i n f l u e n c e d ' u n g r o u p e h u ma i n d o n n é , et enfin « échiquier », pour décrire l ' i n t e r a c t i o n s t r a t é g i q u e c o n c u r r e n t i e l l e d e s d i f f é r e n t e s p o p u l a t i o n s d ' u n e n s e mb l e d e t e r r i t o i r e s v o i s i n s o u p r o c h e s . Au niveau documentaire, nous nous appuierons essentiellement sur le récit de William Bradford déjà mentionné, et dans une moindre mesure sur deux autres textes rédigés dans les premières années de la colonisation : Mo u r t ' s R e l a t i o n , publié en 1622, et Good Newes from New England, daté de 1624, en nous autorisant quelques comparaisons avec d ' a u t r e s é c r i t s puritains qui ne furent pas le fait des colons de Plymouth, connus par la postérité comme les « Pères Pèlerins ». 3

The architecture of the Palazzo Francesconi. Baldassarre Peruzzi: a career spent between Rome and Siena

On the basis of new documents and a detailed analysis of its fabric, the article examines the architecture of the Palazzo Francesconi at Siena, one of the many buildings traditionally attributed to Baldassarre Peruzzi in his hometown, but never yet subjected to any detailed study. After a summary discussion of the chronology of the building, closely linked to the fortunes of its patron, and after firmly establishing that the work began in 1520, the author examines its architecture in detail. She points out the close links with architectural research in Rome, and especially in the circle of Leo X, in the second decade of the sixteenth century, but also the differences and similarities with the contemporary context in Siena itself, from the viewpoint of plan, use of materials, design of the main façade and type of arcaded courtyard.
In the second part of her article the author presents some hypotheses on the configuration of the initial project, which was only partially put into practice, and reviews the successive changes in programme. The regular plan and the façade with superimposed orders – a case unique of its kind in Siena in the first half of the sixteenth century –, the patron Bernardino Francesconi’s network of political and family contacts, the dating, personal relations with the Sienese artistic environment, and the traces identified in other projects of the architect and in some of his drawings, permit the author to argue convincingly for the project’s attribution to Peruzzi. A less schematic division of the chronology of Peruzzi’s activity as an architect, traditionally separated into an ante 1527 in Rome and a post 1527 in Siena, results from this. The article thus suggests a greater mobility of Baldassarre and lends force to the idea that he continued to have relations with Siena throughout his career, as would also be confirmed by other episodes recalled in the article.

The Mass Immigration to Israel in the 1950’s included over one million immigrants from Europe, Asia and Africa which Immigrated to Israel in a relatively short time. These people, who came from the death–camps in Europe, and from refuges camps in the Middle East were suffering from countless diseases.
The newborn Israeli state  located the new comers in deserted houses, tent camps, and other temporal accommodation. An organizational effort to “heal the immigrants” was made using thousands of qualified and un- qualified medical staff.
In this paper, the doctors’ and nurses’ cultural assumptions toward the immigrants will be discussed, Based on dept Interviews with Israeli nurses and Doctors who worked with immigrants through the 50’s.
Although both immigrants and Medical staff were Jewish, there were cultural, ideological and political differences between them. The immigrants were seen by the medical stuff as a reservoir of diseases, poor hygienic habits and Ignorance, and considered themselves progressive, modern and rational. Countless descriptions of the immigrants’ bad habits were published in the newspapers of the time. The immigrants’ children were often described as skinny and dirty, and as a possible threat to the health of the non- immigrants.
The medical staff didn’t only taught the immigrants new hygiene habits but also tried to change all their previous ways of life: they showed the immigrants how to raise their children, how to sweep and wash the floor and how to deal with laundry, how and what to cook and so on. The stereotypes were accomplished by typical rhetoric that praised the cultural differences, and saw them as colorful components to the boiling Melting Pot.

Currently we know quite a lot about the legal framework surrounding marriage in the middle ages. We know how the law developed, we know about the development of the church courts and about their application of the law. But we know very little about the way in which the law was received: how people established their marriages, how they tried to protect them or how they prepared for litigation. In this paper I shall present the evidence of eight cases which show different ways in which people either tried to safeguard against or prepare for marriage litigation in fourteenth-century York. In particular, I shall focus on different kinds of pre-court tribunals found in the material. This is an institution that is common enough in practice, but these tribunals took a multitude of forms ranging from the totally informal to formal meetings in the premises of the Church (though not with a clear mandate from the church). It will also become clear that although these pre-court meetings are common, they are not required and they appear to have affected only those cases that involved litigants who can be shown to have been (or arguably should be) under some form of tutelage.