Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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The paddock-system (paddock, a piece of fenced-in land) is a variant of ley farming with individual fenced fields. Several years of grain production are followed by several years of pasturage (Pastoral economy). The system developed around 1600 in eastern Holstein or southeastern Schleswig [1. 308, 368, 407–409]. The dominant land use system in most of Schleswig and Holstein had traditionally been ley farming: grain and other field crops were grown for several years, followed by several years of pasturage. In the late Middle Ages, bes…

1. ConceptThe category of paganism, highly influential in religious history, emerged from a discourse of definition in anthropology and theology. The Latin  paganus may reflect the socioreligious conditions of late Greco-Roman antiquity, distinguishing “city-dwellers” ( urbani) who converted to Christianity at an early date from “country-dwellers” ( pagani) who held to the old religion.“Heathen,” synonymous with “pagan” but deriving from a Germanic root (German  Heide; OHG  heidan; OE hæðen), translated the sense of the Greek ethnikós (“belonging to a[nother] people”…

1. DefinitionPain (from Latin  poena via Old French  peine; German  Schmerz from OHG  smerza/ smerzo and MHG  smerze/ smerz; Greek  álgos; Latin  dolor, acerbitas) is a complex sensory perception; as an acute event, it serves as a warning sign and guidepost, but chronic pain has lost this element. An early modern synonym of  Schmerz is Pein (from OHG  pîna and MHG  pîne/ pîn, from Latin  poena, “penance, punishment”; cf. English  pain), usually associated with punishment, torture, torment, and so on (cf. German  peinliche Befragung, “painful inquiry,” i.e. torture). In an…

See Painting | Work, female

1. DefinitionPainting is applying an artistic design to a surface with a pigmented coating. The commonest substrates are specially prepared wooden panels (panel painting) and textiles (usually stretched), walls and ceilings in architectural spaces, occasionally also parchment and paper (especially in book illustration), more rarely metal or stone (Wall painting). Painting also plays an important part in many fields of crafts. Adding color to a sculpture by painting produces what is known as a col…

1. Tempera For tempera painting (from Latin  temperare, “to temper,” “to mix”), artists used pigments bound in an emulsion of aqueous (e.g. animal glue) and non-aqueous (e.g. drying oil) binders. An emulsifier ensures a lasting emulsion. Where the emulsion consists mostly of a drying oil, this is called a tempera grassa (“fat tempera”), while one comprising mostly the aqueous component is called  tempera magra (“thin tempera”). Tempera paints dry matt and consistent and are thus water-resistant. Tempera painting is one of the oldest painting techniques. T…

s. Magnate

1. Definition and terminological historyCurrent in almost all major European languages for many centuries (OF palais, MHG  palas, Spanish  palacio, Italian palazzo etc.), the word “palace” is usually taken to derive from the Palatine ( mons Palatinus), the hill of Rome on which the residences of the Roman emperors stood. Except in the case of the Italian  palazzo, however, its meaning remained vague. In the 16th century, for instance, a French palais was called an hôtel. The German use of  Palais and English “palace” often refers to a castle, even occurring in their off…

1. Introduction The palace eunuch was a long tradition in China, probably dating back as far as the 8th century BCE, even though castration was contrary to the religious principle intrinsic to ancestor worship - securing the succession of generations by producing heirs. Appointing palace eunuchs in the Chinese Empire was therefore a practice strictly confined to the imperial court. The eunuchs’ central task was serving the women of the imperial harem. Over the course of time, however, t…

s. Palace

s. Palace

See Fossil

1. ConceptPalingenesis (Greek palingenesía, Latin  renascentia, German  Wiedergeburt, literally “rebirth”) in the early modern period was mostly the Christian metaphor for the (singular) process of a spiritual birth of a person comparable to their physical birth, that is, second birth, a prerequisite for eternal life. The origins of the concept in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus (Jo 3) were remembered, and like the Pauline formula of “new creation,” it was from the outset associated with the act of …

The term “Palladianism” derives from the name of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio. In the second half of the 16th century, Palladio designed many villas for the Venetian elite, and together with his treatise  I quattro libri dell'architettura (“The Four Books on Architecture”), written in 1570, these exerted an influence without parallel in architectural history [5] (Architectural theory). The stylistic principles of Palladianism were: (1) rational geometric proportions in ground plan and elevation; (2) clearly defined building structure; (…

Pallamaglio was one of the most popular ball games of the early modern period, along with real tennis, the racquet game played with a small ball (French  jeu de paume; German  kaetsspiel; ancestor of modern tennis), the handball game pallone, played with a large, inflated ball, and soccer (Football). It was a game of striking a ball (Italian  palla) with a wooden mallet ( maglio). It required a very long, straight playing area, with an iron goal at the end. The aim was to hit the ball into the goal with as few strokes as possible. The Italian term was ad…

1. ConceptA pamphlet (French pamphlet) was a short tract that focused on a social, particularly political or religious issue and argued a position pro or contra, or that pursued a demagogic purpose in a polemical way. In some European languages, notably German ( Pamphlet), the word developed a pejorative connotation, arising from the “contempt or at least indifference” of such works to the persons named in them, and such a connotation was already present in the early modern period. On the whole, however, it was used in the late Middle …

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