Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

1. Introduction 1.1. History of scholarshipUntil the 1980s, the subject of geographical mobility was of little interest to historians of the early modern period. It was generally assumed that societies before 1800 were reasonably spatially stable and that migration was an exceptional phenomenon. It was believed that people only became mobile when left with no other choice, for example as a result of wars, famine, natural catastrophes, or severe political or religious oppression. This explains why ref…

See Life drawing | Model, architectural | Technical model

An architectural model is a three-dimensional sculptural representation of a building, part of a building, or part of a construction. The term “model” is derived via the Italian modello from the Latin modulus, and refers to the usual scale reduction (Latin modus, “measure”; modulus, “small measure”). Architectural models are usually made of wood, more rarely of clay, cardboard, paper, stone, plaster, cork, metal, or wax. In principle, however, any shapeable material of reasonable durability will do. The Florentine architect Filippo Brun…

See Early modern period; Frühe Neuzeit

The term “modernism” (from the Latin  modo, “just now”, “presently”) covers a wide spectrum of meaning and a specific historical dimension of depth. It has denoted positions in literature, art, and architecture since the mid-19th century, but its dominant use has been in ecclesiastical contexts.Continuing the opposition of the “old” and the (truly or purportedly) “new” that began in antiquity, the neologism modernus began in the early Middle Ages to be used to refer to a present aspiring to be superior to the past (cf. Late modern period). From the 10th ce…

See Early modern period; Frühe Neuzeit

See Frühe Neuzeit; Late modern period

1. Concept in artThe Latin modus originally meant “measure,” “manner,” referring not to a thing or condition per se, but to a relation to something else, the “good” which arose from its particular ontological status. Horace used the term in the sense of a qualification by a certain quantification (“right measure”) that also thereby acquires an ethical dimension: “ Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines./Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum” ( Sermones 1,1,106-107; “There is a measure [ modus] in things, and there are certain bounds short of or beyond which r…

See Cast, natural | Cast, plaster

From 1800, the monarchical principle represented a reaction to the doctrine of popular sovereignty. It stated that the authority of state did not lie, as that doctrine insisted and demanded in legal policy, in the hands of the people, but derived from the monarch (Monarchy). The status of the monarch was not derived from a constitutional provision, but purely from old-established legal titles like privilege and customary law, and it was acquired through inheritance within a dynasty (cf. Legitima…

The term “monarchomachs” (from the Greek, “fighters against kings”) was coined in 1600, in the Latin treatise De regno et regali potestate, adversus Buchananum, Brutum, Boucherium et reliquos monarchomachos libri sex (“Six books on the Monarchy and Royal Authority, against Buchanan, Brutus, Boucher, and the Other Monarchomachs”) by the Scottish monarchist William Barclay. The term was intended to denounce all contemporary political theorists who argued for constraints on the power of the monarchy and declared resistance – u…

1. Types of monarchical ruleMonarchy, as in government by a king or other sovereign ruler with kinglike powers and dignities (Sovereignty), whether as the hereditary representative of a dynasty or wearer of a crown bestowed for life by election, was the normal mode of authority in early modern Europe, at least for larger polities and territorial states of all kinds. With some justification, it has been asserted that “in Europe at least, the way to the modern state holding a monopoly of violence passed through monarchy.” [74. 36]. Principalities, which in the Middle Ages origin…

1. DefinitionThe term monastery (German  Kloster, from Latin  claustrum, “enclosed place”) denotes both the institution and the architecture of monks (Monasticism) or nuns living in community (Convent) – such as religious individuals who have made a vow (profession) to a religious order and live in an enclosure (a complex of monastery spaces that outsiders may not enter). The group of the religious belonging to a monastery is also called a convent (German Konvent); in English  convent usually denotes denotes a community of women or is used as a synonym for  friary, a community o…

See Library | Monastery

1. DefinitionIn the early modern period, a (public) monastery school was a permanent educational (Bildung) institution for elementary education (Elementary school), secondary studies (Gymnasium [school]), and philosophical studies (Philosophy), run by a religious institute (Monastery, order, congregation), in which (mostly) members of the order served as teachers, instructing primarily children and teenagers who were not members of the institute or did not intend to become members. In the same pe…

1. DefinitionThe terms  monasticism,  monk, and  monastic, all from Greek  mónachos (“living alone”), stand for a celibate way of life (Celibacy) characterized by withdrawal from the social environment and concentrated focus on the divine sphere; it is native to many religious traditions. In the western (Latin) Church, monasticism constitutes the oldest form of Christian order (Order [association]) – though not the only form, as in the Eastern Church. Monastic orders include above all the Benedictines and Cistercians, who emerged under the influence of the  Rule of Benedict o…

See Money economy

See Money economy | Money, theory of | Value, monetary

1. Definition and reference frameA money economy is an economic system (Economy, political) that, in contrast to natural economies and bartering, operates with money as a general medium of exchange. Here money fulfills three economic functions (see Money, theory of). First, it serves as a universal medium of exchange, making it possible to conclude transactions involving all kinds of goods. Second, it can be used as a means of storing value, so that transactions can be made at any point in time. Fin…

1. Terminology Money has demonstrably been in use since early civilizations. Its economic and social significance is clear from its etymology. The adjective  pecuniary goes back to Latin  pecus (“cattle,” which at one time also served as a medium of exchange; from it we have the Latin  pecunia, “money”). On the Capitoline Hill in Rome, a mint was built in 269 BCE next to the the temple of the goddess Juno, one of whose functions was protecting the coinage. Her title  Moneta (originally “goddess of memory” or “alerter”) still survives in words like  money, French  monnaie, German  monet…