Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

See Environment | Nature, relation to

See Magic | Paracelsism

1. Definition, functions, and related topoiThe concept of the “nature of things” is a topos that has been used from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present, a formulaic expression that is supposed to refute an argument or justify a decision. Citing the nature of things represents an attempt to make an outcome seem self-evident and objective with reference to a pre-existing order.  The decision in question is presented as determined by “nature,” thus by the “structure” or “essence” of a certain living or…

1. IntroductionThe relation to nature is a historical phenomenon. Its conventions depend on whatever, on the basis of religious, philosophical, cultural, or social dispositions (Culture), happens to be codified as nature. Intellectual presuppositions structure patterns that generate practice, such as the interpretive practice of the history of mentality, the history of science, or of the study of cultural [4. 118–131]. Technological, environmental, and economic histories, on the other hand, derive this relationship from the degree to which nature …

1. ConceptThe term “nature religion” is today mostly applied to religions that, unlike the major book religions, make nature itself the sacred heart of their belief system. Such a nature religion has even been declared an essential feature of American cultural history, a position that has been adopted in self-identification by neo-pagan groups espousing modern, nature-based spirituality [1]. This description may be seen as a positive re-interpretation of an older, negative category, namely the idea of nature religions as religions of “natural pe…

1. DefinitionThe term nature study, in art, denotes a practice determined by direct visual contact between the drawer or painter and the natural subject. The creative act is determined by the interplay of eye and hand, with the aim of committing what is seen to the paper or canvas at hand (cf. fig. 1; Mimesis). Nature study is an expression of the early modern relation to nature (Nature, relation to), and is closely associated with the emergence of a pictorial culture that was indebted to visual experience in a particular way.Traces of the artistic practice are found dating back to…

1. Concept and origins The term “naturism” was adopted in English from the French naturisme as originally denoting “a view which attributes everything to nature as a sage, prescient and sanative entity” (OED, attested 1848: Robley Dunglison, Medical Lexicon: A New Dictionary of Medical Science, 7th edition, 1848). Early in the 20th century, it acquired specific connotations of nudity under the influence of the wide range of movements across Europe advocating lifestyle reform, natural therapy, “free body culture” (German  Freikörperkultur), sport, and youth, as well as Ar…

1. ConceptNaturopathy in the strict sense took shape in the German-speaking world in the early 19th century, inspired by Rousseau’s demand “back to nature” (Rousseauism). It vehemently opposed allopathic school medicine, its dangerous drugs, and its excessive use of bleeding and voiding therapies, and promoted instead a turn to natural methods of healing and living. To begin with, the focus was entirely on hydrotherapy (Baths, therapeutic) and vegetarianism. This core was expanded over the course…

See Cartography | Navigation

See Deep sea navigation | Navigation

1. 15th–17th centuries In the early modern period, conflict at sea involved competition for control of the approaches to commercial centers, projection of armed force, and acquiring wealth through violence. This involved attacking opponents and defending one’s own interests. From the 16th century, the emphasis evolved from raiding and private conflicts to a state-centered monopoly over war at sea with a parallel growth in technological, institutional, and bureaucratic structures, to whic…

1. Seafaring practice European navigation in the early modern period was tasked with ensuring that regular passages under sail from one harbor to another worldwide were conducted as reliably and safely as possible (Deep sea navigation) [7]. It was the responsibility of the captain, with the helmsman as his deputy. The two took alternate watches, each informing the other of the prevailing course when changing the watch. The aft deck gave them the necessary clear all-round view to monitor the condition of the ship and sails, as we…

In the field of shipping, the early modern period began around 1450 with a new type of vessel, the caravel. A light ship developed in response to the needs of the Portuguese voyages of discovery, its construction and rig permitted tacking, unlike the Mediterranean carrack or the hulk of northwestern Europe (cf. Shipbuilding). In the general insecurity of the seas, where friend and foe were difficult to distinguish and arbitrary action impossible to control (even for Goethe, war, commerce, and Piracy merged into one at sea, cf.  Faust II, Act 5, premiere 1854), merchant ships wer…

1. ConceptThe artists known as Nazarenes acquired their name in early 19th-century Rome in reference to their appearance  alla nazarena, which was associated with Jesus of Nazareth, especially because of their long hair parted in the middle. Johann Friedrich Overbeck – in this respect the model for the Nazarene circle – adopted this hairstyle from the winter of 1812/13 at the latest. The nickname was not derisive, but derived from a usage dating back to the 17th century denoting a superficial resemblance to depic…

See Criminal procedure

1. PrinciplesThe Latin term necessitas (Necessity) had various usages in the early modern period [1]. In everyday life, it took in a broad spectrum of basic needs, from concrete essentials, such as necessitas  bibendi (“the need to drink”) and  necessitas ad victum (“[things] necessary to life”; cf. German  Notdurft, “basic need”; Sustenance), to abstractions, for example  necessitas familiaritasque (“ties of amity and kinship”; Amicitia) or  necessitas ultima (“death”) and extended senses, for example  necessitates as “dues,” or in the singular as “nature” and “fa…

In the tradition of Aristotelian terminological analysis, necessity (Greek  anánke, Latin  necessitas) as a modal category was from Greco-Roman antiquity on the opposite of contingency [9]. Necessity, then, was understood as that which either ontologically (i.e. in respect of entities like gods or nature) or logically (i.e. in respect of statements) could neither be nor be thought otherwise. In the Middle Ages, God was seen as the ens necessarium (“necessary being”). In his creation, necessity and freedom pervaded one another (Necessitas).In the early modern period, howeve…

The source term “neighborhood” (Latin vicinitas; from OE  neahgebur/ nehebur, “neighbor”; cf. OHG  nagiburo, MHG  nahgebure, nakebur, German Nachbar, Nachbarschaft, “neighbor,” “neighborhood”) in the early modern period strictly meant those living in the vicinity of a peasant farmstead, or in a broader sense the variously informal or formal organizational forms (sometimes furnished with legal powers) of a sociality or a town or village social space encompassing several houses or streets or an entire district. In …

1. GeneralNeighbor law is part of the law of property with respect to real estate. It consists of rules whereby an owner’s otherwise essentially free power to dispose of his property is limited. Such limitations may be agreed among neighbors (Neighborhood). One example is an agreement that a path on another person’s property may be used. In the case of such agreements, there is particular interest in their stability, so that they cannot be rescinded unilaterally and that subsequent owners are als…

1. Definition Neo-Aristotelian political theory in the strict sense connotes all tendencies of early modern political thought that aimed “methodically and systematically to revive and develop” Aristotle’s Politics (c. 350 BCE) “in reflective orientation with [its author’s] methodical theory and categories” [3. 639 f.]. In a wider sense, the term is used to refer to early modern political theory as a whole, where this shared the basic categories of the Aristotelian view, that is, where it saw politics with ethics and political economic…