Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

Get access

Ancestors, veneration of
(928 words)

The concept of lineage was of growing importance in Western Europe at the beginning of the early modern period. Reference to ancestry (Noble birth, proof of) served the nobility and other social groups as they sought legitimacy and the enforcement of their claims to higher status within an increasingly differentiated social structure. This idea of lineage must be functionally distinguished from the veneration of ancestors that was widely practiced in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

The veneration of ancestors as a practice of sustaining the relation to deceased male…

Cite this page
Kaser, Karl, “Ancestors, veneration of”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_016665>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20160321



▲   Back to top   ▲