Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Executive editor of the English version: Andrew Colin Gow

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The Encyclopedia of Early Modern History is the English edition of the German-language Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. This 15-volume reference work, published in print between 2005 and 2012 and here available online, offers a multi-faceted view on the decisive era in European history stretching from ca. 1450 to ca. 1850 ce. in over 4,000 entries.
The perspective of this work is European. This is not to say that the rest of the World is ignored – on the contrary, the interaction between European and other cultures receives extensive attention.

New articles will be added on a regular basis during the period of translation, for the complete German version see Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit Online.

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Wage labor

(4,117 words)

Author(s): Reith, Reinhold
1. Survey and history of studiesWages are remuneration for work performed for others; wage labor is any labor performed for wages that – unlike forced labor – is based on a free labor contract.The question whether wage labor is a fundamental phenomenon of the early modern period has not been clearly answered by scholars. In 1849, Karl Marx saw wage labor as a phenomenon of capitalism: “Labor was not always wage labor, i.e., free labor. The slave did not sell his labor-power to the slave owner. ... The serf sells only …
Date: 2023-11-14

Wage, monetary

(1,970 words)

Author(s): Reith, Reinhold
1. TerminologyThe term wages denotes remuneration for work performed for others (Wage labor), that is, for work done by an employee or the price of labor as a commodity. In the literature of industrial history, the term  wages sometimes also includes the piecework price (in the putting-out system) or the “master’s fee” (in the case of wage work), which the self-employed received from customers, merchants, or factory owners. In cases of clear dependency, however, this distinction could lose its significance in practice. In the literature of economics and industrial his…
Date: 2023-11-14

Wage work

(918 words)

Author(s): Reith, Reinhold
1. TerminologyIn 1892, the German economist Karl Bücher in his theory of stages, developed out of the older historical school of economics, distinguished a sequence of three economic stages [9. 256]: (1) the self-contained domestic economy (pure private production without exchange; see Subsistence economy), (2) the town economy (production for customers, with direct exchange), and (3) the national economy (production of commodities, with circulation of goods) [3]. Later, he augmented these economic forms with a sequence of forms of business to distingui…
Date: 2023-11-14

Wait, waite (musician)

(1,213 words)

Author(s): Kremer, Joachim
1. Concept and work profileThe English “wait” in the sense of a “town musician” derives from the Old French  gait/wait, meaning “lookout,” “sentry” (compare German  Wacht, “watchman”). A watchman in the Middle Ages was required to sound the alarm by blasting a horn, and in due course this gave rise to the musical sense.  Stadtpfeifer (town [shawm] pipers) are attested in the German-speaking world from the late 13th century onwards as musicians furnished with official privileges. Synonymous terms, such as  Ratsmusicus (council musician),  Stadtmusicus (city musician, also  Stad…
Date: 2023-11-14

Waldensians

(3 words)

See Social movements, religious
Date: 2023-11-14

Wall painting

(2,736 words)

Author(s): Bierbaum, Kirsten Lee
1. Definition and researchWall painting as a concept includes all painting techniques that involve painting on a vertical (interior or exterior) wall (as distinct from Ceiling painting), regardless of whether the wall surface is plaster, masonry, or stone. The fact that wall paintings are physically bound to their architectural location greatly affects the working process, material qualities, formal aesthetics, and function. Related practices that sometimes fulfilled the same functions as m…
Date: 2023-11-14

Wallpaper

(898 words)

Author(s): Gropp, Stephanie
The German word for wallpaper, Tapete, derives from the words used in antiquity for tapestries, tablecloths, and carpets (Greek  tapes, Latin  tapetum, Persian  tapeh). Not until the 15th century was a distinction made between tapestries, carpets, and  Tapeten. The latter denoted attached wall coverings of various materials. Since the 19th century, the word has been used primarily for decorative paper wall coverings – wallpaper (French  papier peint) [7. 9].Technological innovations and changing fashion and style influenced the evolution of wallpaper. The sp…
Date: 2023-11-14

War

(8,815 words)

Author(s): Kroener, Bernhard
1. Terminology 1.1. HistoryIn the course of the 14th century, the MHG term  kriec  was largely equated semantically with Latin  bellum. This initiated a development in German-speaking territories in which terms previously used in parallel contexts were displaced by modern German  Krieg – including  urliuge (lawless condition) and  werre (confusion, disorder, turmoil) but also  Fehde (Feud) and  Feindschaft (feud, enmity). While  urliuge survived in Dutch oorlog (war) and Danish  orlog, werre lived on in Latinized form in the Romance languages of Europe (French  guerre;…
Date: 2023-11-14

War bond

(8 words)

See Mandatory loan | War, financing of
Date: 2023-11-14

War booty

(779 words)

Author(s): Nowosadtko, Jutta
In the early modern period, war booty generally included all the movable goods taken from the enemy in wartime (War), in contrast to the immovable goods, which could be acquired only in the name of the warlord; prisoners of war, however, could also be considered booty (War, captivity in). It was thus characteristic of booty that it became the personal property of the soldier who had appropriated it. The only exceptions to this rule were the enemy war-chest, registry, guns, munitions, and …
Date: 2023-11-14

War, captivity in

(896 words)

Author(s): Hohrath, Daniel
Throughout the early modern period, captivity was part of the experience of members of the military; being taken prisoner was one of the regular risks (War, custom of). But sparing the life of a disarmed foe and taking care of him was far from a matter of course in every period. The changes in practice and the legal definition of wartime captivity reflect the changes in the social, political, and military parameters of war and the humanitarian notions of the early modern period. If only b…
Date: 2023-11-14

War, custom of

(1,025 words)

Author(s): Möbius, Sascha
1. DefinitionThe term custom of war denotes the behavior of soldiers that was not set forth in articles or rules of war. Since in the early modern period there was no recognized law of war (War, law of) – at least in theory – the boundaries were fluid. In the narrower sense, the term refers to the behavior of soldiers during and after battle as understood by customary law, especially  vis-à-vis the defeated foe. We shall also consider changes from the 16th to the 18th century.On the whole, exploration of the subject has just begun. It also displays a clear imbalance: while …
Date: 2023-11-14

War debt

(1,017 words)

Author(s): Hartmann, Peter Claus
1. BackgroundSince warfare became steadily more cost-intensive in the course of the early modern period, in its first centuries the problem of war debt became one of the central questions of public finances and ultimately of currency stability. The early and high Middle Ages were still heavily dependent on a barter economy, so that the costs of war remained limited, but these costs rose substantially in the late Middle Ages with the appearance of mercenary armies. Since, under these circ…
Date: 2023-11-14

War, declaration of

(2,416 words)

Author(s): Tischer, Anuschka
1. Theory and practiceIn Greco-Roman antiquity, wars were formally declared, and a declaration of war before the beginning of a war was sometimes also required in both theory and practice. Classical declarations of war often were merely formal events marking the beginning of a war [5]; [9]; [12]. In the Middle Ages, the Christian adoption of the theory of the just war presupposed that the person who began a war had just cause, based on misconduct by the enemy (War, Just); the requirement of a declaration of war finally vanished with th…
Date: 2023-11-14

Warfare

(2,346 words)

Author(s): Hohrath, Daniel
1. Definition and parametersThe term warfare (German Kriegführung, “conduct of war”) embraces all military and political actions that are directly involved in the active management of a war and influence its operative course. In the early modern period and in part even today the German term  Kriegskunst (warfare, art of war) is used synonymously. Military warfare includes strategy, tactics, and logistics (Military administration). The historical evolution of warfare was directly dependent on the general evolution of society (Societ…
Date: 2023-11-14

War, financing of

(1,236 words)

Author(s): Carl, Horst
1. SurveyIn the early modern period, the Latin formula  pecunia nervus belli (“Money is the soul of war”; Cicero, Orationes Philippicae 5.5), proverbial since antiquity, became the common property, repeatedly confirmed, of all those concerned with the business of war in theory and in practice. In 1499, the Renaissance condottiere Gian Giacomo Trivulzio succinctly answered the question of the French king Louis XII as to what was needed to wage war: “Money, money, and more money” [5. 8 f.], while in 1595 the Spanish military theoretician Bernardino de Mendoza formulat…
Date: 2023-11-14

War guilt, question of

(8 words)

See International law | War, just
Date: 2023-11-14

War, Just

(765 words)

Author(s): Fassbender, Bardo
The theory of the just war (Latin bellum iustum  migrated on the basis of the transmission of Roman legal concepts from medieval theology into early modern natural law and international law. As a church doctrine, it was a theory intended to limit but also justify war, finding legitimacy for the use of military force (Violence) in the restoration of a disrupted legal order and resistance to the threat of injustice and the punishment of injustice committed [6. 703 ff.]. It accordingly concerned itself with the circumstances under which war might be permissible ( ius ad bellum, “right to…
Date: 2023-11-14

War, law of

(1,273 words)

Author(s): Simon, Thomas
1. Definition and evolutionThe law of war (Latin  ius belli) is the product of a process of juridication that began at the beginning of the early modern period and ultimately led to the legal demarcation of war, that is, the legal exclusion of forms of military violence that were no longer compatible with contemporary political concepts of warfare. At the heart of the provisions comprising the law of war was the ius in bello (right [conduct] in war), prescribing permissible weaponry and fighting methods, the protection of prisoners of war [8] and the civilian population, and fina…
Date: 2023-11-14

War of succession

(2,366 words)

Author(s): Plassmann, Max
1. IntroductionA war of succession is a military conflict fought after the death of a ruler to determine their successor. As a type of war, wars of succession are therefore always associated with dynastic rule (Authority); they occur in all periods when such rule faces a crisis caused by an unclear right of succession or when a dynasty becomes extinct. Wars of succession have been especially common in the history of European wars (War), particularly in the later 17th and 18th centuries, …
Date: 2023-11-14
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