Socio-economic roles and family life from the late-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century are explored in this study of one non-gentry (yeomanry) family in eastern Lancashire: the Stansfields’ genealogy is (re-)constituted – utilising wills, inventories, parish registers, and other archives – against the broader background of their kinship rel…[Read more]

Some of the complexities of inheritance practices are studied through the example of one non-gentry (yeomanry) family in eastern Lancashire: this study – using wills, parish registers, and other archives – (re-)constructs the Cudworths’ genealogy, and examines their familial ties, socio-economic roles, and disposition of property within local and…[Read more]

Though English supporters of the Oxford theologian John Wycliffe (d.1384)—known as “Lollards”—had been drawn from academic and noble/gentry circles during the later-fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries, persecution, equation of heresy with sedition, and the failure of Sir John Oldcastle’s Rebellion (1414) ensured overt abandonment of Lollard i…[Read more]

Duchess Anna Amalia (1739-1807) was a central figure in the duchies of Weimar and Eisenach for over fifty years – as wife of the reigning duke, then as custodial regent and finally as mother of the reigning duke. The article comes to the conclusion that the duchess could barely affect the emergence of the configuration that has been referred to in…[Read more]

The article examines regulations for »order« at the princely courts in the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century and asks how these prescriptive documents sought to establish “good order” at court. Special attention is paid to the theological justifications of order as well as the confessionality and the confessional character of court orders. T…[Read more]

After the Seven Years War German petty courts increasingly felt obliged to justify their very existence. Therefor members of the reigning dynasties developped strategies to represent themselves as ›enlightened‹ rulers. Especially for non-reigning princesses, practice and patronage of the fine arts – theatre, music, landscape gardening, liter…[Read more]

Freemasonry has traditionally been seen as a key influence in the rise of the Bourgeoisie, since it allegedly subdued social boundaries and behavioural norms of the Ancien Régime. This paper, however, argues that the masonic lodges at least in the smaller German court towns, adopted various elements of court society – organizational structures, my…[Read more]

Heracles/Hercules is a particularly striking example of how European societies have received, appropriated and reshaped classical heroic myths into the early 21st century. Is the ancient hero thus also a European site of memory? It will be shown that it was a specific aspect of the myth that was evoked particularly frequently and became a topos by…[Read more]

This essay traces some of the contexts and media in which “Heracles-Hercules” – as a hero between virtue and hubris – was visible in European societies from the end of the middle ages onwards. It discusses whether this example of the reception, appropriation and transformation of classical myths in the early modern period can be understood as a…[Read more]

For two years, from 1788 to 1790, Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1739-1807) exchanged her familiar surroundings with Rome and Naples. She undertook her furthest and most ambitious journey at the age of almost 49. For the only time the princely widow left Germany or the German territories of the Reich. During her stay, the Duchess…[Read more]

Entre los años 2020-2022 se han llevado a cabo diversos eventos conmemoratorios de las independencias nacionales, regionales o locales, sin que se haya efectuado un encuentro que los englobara. Este fue el objetivo del Seminario Internacional 200 años después. Los Andes en la encrucijada de las Independencias (Sevilla, diciembre 2021) que ahora da…[Read more]

Jorge Insunza Becker (21 de abril de 1936-17 de marzo de 2019) fue uno de los principales dirigentes del Partido Comunista chileno desde los años 60. Ingresó a las Juventudes Comunistas en 1954. En 1962 fue promovido al Comité Central del PC y desde 1965 fue parte de su Comisión Política, aquella que encabezó el triunfo de Salvador Allende de 19…[Read more]

“Hace ya veintiséis años se publicó una colección de ensayos en homenaje a la historiadora Natalie Zemon Davis que incluía un capítulo llamado “People of the Ribera: Popular Politics and Neighborhood Identity in Early Modern Barcelona”. En él, su autor, a quien ahora dedicamos esta obra, delinea brevemente una metodología para analizar el perfil s…[Read more]

Comparative studies have revealed uncanny similarities between the theatrical cultures of Shakespearean England and Golden Age Spain, and in particular between the Elizabethan amphitheaters and the Spanish corrales de comedia (courtyard playhouses). Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, Spain’s (and, in particular, Madrid’s) courtyard the…[Read more]

Going to the theater was one of the most distinctive-as well as conspicuous-cultural activities to take place regularly in early modern european cities. Precisely because so many people from all walks of life partook of this highly visible pastime, public theaters became spaces wherein social and cultural boundaries between spectators were easily…[Read more]