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A. Bildung and culture 1. Epochs 1. 1. The year 1450: an appropriate beginning?The question whether the middle of the 15th century marked the beginning of a new epoch can clearly be answered affirmatively for the history of European culture and  Bildung. From the perspective of other historical disciplines such as economic history, social history, or gender studies, there may be good reasons to challenge such a definition; for the domain of culture and Bildung, however, any expert will agree. Seen historically, the current concept of the early modern period as …

1. Term Carnival is derived from the Latin carnislevamen and Italian carnelevare (‘removal of meat’) or simply the jocular Latin interjection carne vale (‘Meat, farewell!’), and denotes abstention from all “fleshly” pleasures at the beginning of the Lenten fast. The term carnival is widely used in the Romance languages and English, and since the 17th century in the Rhineland (German Karneval). Elsewhere in the German-speaking world, the usual terms are Fastnacht or Fasnet, and in Bavaria and Austria Fasching is commonplace (from MHG vast-schanc, the last drink before Lent).Wolfga…

The term ‘fairy’ is derived, via French, from the Vulgar Latin fata (“goddess of destiny”; fatum = fate). The most intensive transmission of the fairy concept, which incorporates traditions from Classical Antiquity and elsewhere in the Indo-European world, has been in Celtic literature, where the enchantress Morgan le Fay (hence  “Fata Morgana”) in the world of Arthurian legend represents its most famous manifestation. The fairy tradition, already apparent in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (14th century), was rediscovered in the 16th century and given new dire…

1. DefinitionZedler’s Universal-Lexicon defined pleasure in 1746 as “the affect that arises from beholding or enjoying perfections,” whether in music, in architecture, or scientific knowledge. The act of enjoyment constitutes pleasure, whereby the “pleasures of the mind [ Gemüth] are the purest and most beneficial.” In the spirit of Enlightenment philosophy, pleasure comes close to the goal of felicity [1. 748–750]. Krünitz’  Oeconomische Encyclopädie (1851) associates pleasure somewhat more corporeally with “delight, sensuality, joy, amusement, etc.” …

1. Name and sources The Fuggerzeitung was a collection of letters, composed in the second half of the 16th century and containing reports and messages on political and economic matters, sent to the Augsburg merchant dynasty the Fugger family. With 27 surviving volumes of these letters from all over Europe, the Fuggerzeitung is the biggest collection of its kind.In an inventory written on the death of Octavian Secundus Fugger (1600), it was described as “a miscellany of German and Romance-language reports written between 1569 and 1599 on white parchme…

1. TerminologyAlthough the term  influenza appears as early as 1504 in the chronicle of the Florentine apothecary Luca Landucci, a coherent terminology was not established until 1742/1743. According to a report in the  London Magazine of 1743 (“News from Rome of a Contagious Distemper Raging There, Call’d the Influenza”), the term was borrowed into English on the occasion of the influenza epidemic of that year. At roughly the same time, people in France began to call the illness  la grippe.While the Italian term focused on the supposed cause – the “influence of the stars” ( influenz…

1. DefinitionToday, as the Swiss, Austrians, or Bavarians go on  Ferien, the English enjoy holidays (from holy-days), or the French take  vacances, most Germans take an  Urlaub; these different terms have historical roots. The early modern definition of  Urlaub differs fundamentally from today’s definitions, which are associated with free time [10] and change of location or travel. The German term  Urlaub is associated etymologically with  erlauben (allow); according to Zedler’s  Universal-Lexicon, it means “nothing other than the permission, indulgence, …

1. Overview The town hall (Latin  domus consulum, Italian  palazzo pubblico, French  hôtel de ville, German Rathaus) presupposes the emergence of municipal self-government (Latin  consules; Council [administrative]) as distinct from being under a royal, episcopal, or noble town overlord, as had been common in Europe since the high Middle Ages.Town halls as expressions of municipal republican self-confidence appeared for the first time in the 13th century in northern and central Italy and spread northwards during the Renaissance (c. 1300–1600)…

Today the couriers of the early modern period are frequently confused with post riders (Mail) or messengers. All three – couriers, post riders, and messengers – had to overcome distances and bring news under the dictates of speed (Quickness)The literature on the history of communication makes a clear distinction between mail and the courier system [6]. A courier was not an employee of a messenger service or a postal organization, but was instead “a person dispatched to distant places to convey complex oral or written news regarding important matters” [1], in other words a…

1. Theoretical aspects 1.1. The everyday world as a key historical categoryThe everyday world is both a universal and a particular category. It encompasses material circumstances and their subjective perception and interpretation in thought and feeling (Mentality), recurring behavioral routines (Rituals, games [Play, game], Sports), in some cases beings concentrated to become a habitus (Honors, Festivals, Popular culture); in a more extended sense, it also encompasses the media of perception and symbol sys…

Local time is the time related to the meridian of the place of observation, the same for all places of the same geographical longitude. “True local time,” as shown for instance by a sundial, is dictated daily by the culmination of the sun, and fluctuates with the rhythm of the equation of time. “Mean solar time,” that is, the solar time calculated in reference to the ecliptic and the elliptical shape of the Earth's orbit, as yet had no practical role, but the social acceleration in communication…

1. General 1.1. Problems of definitionEmotions are deeply rooted in human developmental history. As a fundamental phenomenon of subjective experience, they were common to humans and higher animals, and are based on a physiological state with measurable physical reactions (e.g. changes in pulse or breathing, motor expression in mime and gesture). However, they are characterized by cultural variation [4] in the expression and moral evaluation of emotions, as well as in their precise definition and frequency. To this extent, emotions are also subject …

The first attempts to establish social acceleration as a “historical epistemological category” cited the years around 1800, understood by many historians as an “axial age” [4. 368 f.]. Since then the entire early modern period has come to be viewed as a period in which the tempo of life increased. At the outset, the fast-moving 1520s might come to mind (the period of the wars of religion [Religion, wars of]), the revolutionary 1640s, or the “Atlantic” revolutions of the late 18th century, in which the rapid change in co…

Although the mail in Central Europe was not an institution of the Holy Roman Empire, it was felt to be “imperial” from the outset. This was because it was the King of the Romans, Maximilian I (Holy Roman Emperor from 1508), who in 1490 – during the lifetime of his father, Emperor Friedrich III – invited the Lombard family of postal pioneers, the Tasso/de Tassis/Taxis family to Innsbruck. In the early 16th century, when the mail became a public facility, it was already receiving funding from Maxi…

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. Definition In German-language scholarship, Frühe Neuzeit (literally “early new era”; cf. Italian prima età moderna; French and English lack equivalent terms) is a term denoting a subdivision of the early modern period (in the definition followed in this encyclopedia, equivalent to the German  Neuzeit, from  neue Zeit, literally “new era”), with which it shares a common start date ( c. 1450) and many defining characteristics. Among these is the precondition of the conceptual triad of a splendid Antiquity ( aetas antiqua), dark Middle Ages ( media aetas), and a radiant pres…

1. DefinitionMaterial culture is a constitutive element of the real everyday world; it is “the most conspicuous and tangible element of culture” [16]. Its production is dependent on intellectual and mental processes and ultimately on specific forms of social organization (Society [community]) – economics, language, religion, ethics, and law [16. 72]. Material culture comprises such diverse things as food (Sustenance) and clothing (Apparel), architecture and domestic culture, tools and weapons, utensils and machines, jewelry and luxury goods, …

1. Concept and subject Unlike autobiographies, ego documents are not intentionally manufactured testimonies of individuals. They therefore encroach from the conscious tradition into the sphere of what J.G. Droysen called the Überreste (“remains”). The type can include documents created in the context of administrative procedures and legal proceedings (e.g. Supplication, interview records, witness interrogations) as well as products of arts and crafts. Decipherment of the factual “remains” often requires knowledge of the hist…

1. DefinitionThe Landespost (“territorial mail”) was a form of mail service, peculiar to the Holy Roman Empire, that unlike the empire-wide Reichspost was limited to a single princely territory or group of territories. Competition between the two institutions was a consequence of the dualistic structure of the Holy Roman Empire and the transfer of most regalities to the territorial princes. The contradiction did not arise in empires or monarchies with strong central authority, such as the Ottoman …

1. Terminological historyBy the late Middle Ages or earlier, the piazza (Italian “public square”) was acquiring a public significance in Italian city states that went far beyond the simple function of a marketplace (Market). The open space surrounded by buildings in the center of a town was a venue of public life and of the political public sphere of the city and the environs it ruled (Italian  contado). It was, in other words, the central venue of communication.The role of the piazza becomes clear in intercultural comparison. Not every civilization conceived a ce…

1. General remarksPunctuality is one of those time-related social rules whose observance is subject to major cultural variations. Over the course of the early modern period, punctuality became increasingly associated with precision (French  accuratesse) and reliability, while lateness was associated with impoliteness and lack of respect. It would be a mistake, however, to situate the virtue of punctuality solely in the context of social discipline, since the fundamental processes of increased division of labor and social accele…

1. DefinitionA  Postzeitung is a printed periodical newspaper published by the holder of a postal office (post-master). After the first untitled newspapers, the term appears for the first time around 1621 in the title of the  Unvergreiffliche continuierende Post Zeittungen of the Frankfurt imperial postmaster Johann von den Birghden. In the  Postzeitung we have for the first time in the history of the periodical press a separation of publisher and printer: postmasters came by information more easily and had the structural advantage of being …

1. DefinitionThe challenge was a ritualized (Ritual) form of private “declaration of war,” to test the readiness of competitors in everyday life (Everyday world) to defend their honor. In early modern Europe it was a basic form for the settling of interpersonal conflicts and social control. Documentation is found in the huge number of trial procedures before the lower territorial courts of law.In local Weistum[7. 58–60], village orders and Police the challenge was subsumed either under “crimes, acts of violence, and injuries” (High Court of Augsburg 1534) [1. Bd. 1, 199f.] or under…

1. News market of the RenaissanceThere were no news agencies in the institutional sense in the early modern period, but there were key figures in the news business who grew into the role of professional agent. They were based at places where news often arrived in the form of the reports characteristic of the early modern period (Port, Capital city), or where events that became news actually took place (Rome, courts, residences, theaters of war, etc.). The demand for information grew throughout the pe…

1. Natural rhythms 1.1. DefinitionRhythm (from the Greek  rhythmós, “measured flow,” “symmetry”), the regular metrical movement or recurrence of a phenomenon, is a key element in the subdivision of time. It divides up astronomical, “natural” (e.g. seasons), physical (e.g. the pendulum), biological (e.g. cell division, heartbeat, breath), psychological (mental processes congruent to biorhythms), and cultural processes (see Periodicity). It also forms a fundamental structural element of complex cultural p…

1. LawIn the area of criminal law,  threat meant the prospect of a harm whose realization depends on the conduct of the person threatened. In the early modern period, this form of duress or extortion was one of the criteria for a wide range of crimes, in part with a direct verbal element as in the case of Notzucht (Rape), but also in cases of robbery or murder, against which any form of self-defense was permitted [3. Art. 139–145]. Threats also played a role in crimes subsumed under breach of the king’s peace and in political crimes like rebellion (Revolt; Resist…

1. Concept; key characteristics of the early modern witchThe etymological origins of the English “witch” (OE  wicce) and the German  Hexe  (witch, related to English “hag”) are obscure. Both terms were used to denote people (usually women, but see Witch, male) said by their peers in society to be able to cause damage to people, animals, and human society by means of their hidden (“magical”) knowledge and/or their connections with supernatural forces. Witches as personifications of evil were familiar in Chris…

Platonic natural science (Platonism) and the medical theory of the ancient physician Galen (Humoralism) held vision to be an active process. A cold fire glowed in the eye, and its rays were emitted towards objects. As in India and Arabia, the idea formed from this in Europe that optical perception (Optics) came about as the ray emitted by the eye illuminated the object. In this context, there also emerged ideas of the sharp gaze with which some people dominate others, see through them, or influence their mood, and superstitious notions of the evil eye (Latin  invidia), with which those w…

1. Definition and originThe  Messrelation was a new 16th-century literary genre that contributed to the emergence of a political public sphere: news books (News book) that were produced for the fall session of the Frankfurt book fair and a bit later for the Easter session as well – that is, twice a year. The  Messrelationen did not take on the genre of the  Newe Zeitung but promoted the printing of newspapers (Aviso) written by serious correspondents and agents (News agency). Like the  Fuggerzeitung, they were noted for their elevated style and the geographical and …

1. An age of dissimulationAnyone setting out to compare discourses of the early modern period in the postmodern manner, i.e. on the basis of texts, is doomed to failure [1]. In a period riven with religious violence, absolutist pressure of conformity, and later the rationalist ideology (Reason) of the Enlightenment, it was often imperative to conceal one’s true opinion. Guidance in the interpretation of early modern texts should therefore be sought in the words written by Niccolò Machiavelli to Francesco Guicciardini on …

In the first centuries of the early modern period, postal regulations were an important instrument of standardization; beside standardizing distances and units of time, they also regulated their fares and conduct in the communication space – of both the functionaries of the mail and their customers. The uppermost goal of the postal regulations was the smooth functioning of the highly specialized mounted messengers and mail coaches on which the European communication system was based before the advent of the railway.While an alleged body of French postal regulations f…

1. Concept and derivation“Mercuries” was the name given in the 17th century to political newspapers, because in England in particular such publications were generally named after the Roman messenger of the gods, Mercurius. The name  coranto (“Courant”) was commonplace in the 1620s, but from 1641, “Mercury” titles were so dominant that the name became genericized to refer to periodicals in general. Only after 1660, following the Stuart Restoration, did “Gazettes” also become established, then from the 1690s newspaper titles maki…

In the first centuries of the early modern period, sleighs (or sledges, slides, sleds; German Schlitten; MHG  slite; Italian  slitta; Swedish släde) on runners served less for sliding down hillsides (toboggans) than for the traffic and transport of persons or freight over level snow or ice. This did not rule out their use for sport, however. Sleighs were found all the way to northern Italy, because in the period of the Little Ice Age winters were often so long that other forms of travel were hardly possible outside …

1. ConceptDirt is matter in the wrong place at the wrong time, “something misplaced” [5. 52], undesirable remains (abundant synonyms including refuse, muck, rubbish, garbage, trash, detritus, feculence etc.), or pollution coming about through lack of hygiene and sanitation by mechanical, biological (e.g. menstruation), physical, or chemical processes (e.g. oxidation, rust) and capable of contaminating an organism or system with undesirable or harmful materials. The term is also used in metaphorical and symbolic senses.Wolfgang Behringer2. ReligionAccording to the B…

1. GeneralThe necessity for heating varies with geographical latitude; there were great regional and historical variations in its practical development. In the cold years of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1300-1900; especially 1560-1710), there was a pressing need for adequate heating. The hypothermia poor people suffered from when fuel (wood, peat, charcoal, in England also black coal) was too expensive made them more susceptible to illness [3. 430 f., 456f.]. Heating standards improved during the early modern era as part of a general cultural development. Wherea…

1. Development of the theoryBy the 14th century, several thinkers had independently concluded, based on Aristotelian physics, that the sublunar airspace must be navigable by vessels. During the 15th century, the principle of aeronautics was sometimes replaced by attempts to achieve flight by imitating birds (see Aviatics, with fig.). At the beginning of the 16th century, in his manuscript Sul volo degli uccelli (1505; “On the Flight of Birds”), Leonardo da Vinci observed that bird flight required great powers of propulsion in order to take to the air f…

1. IntroductionThe proverbial “time and tide” (the latter etymologically related to the German Zeit, “time”) respectively denote time as abstract concept, “extent” (“a time of plenty”), or “point” (“what time is it?”), and as “season” (ccompare “eventide”, “Christmastide”, “ocean tides”). All these concepts are anthropocentric, and reflect perceptions of cylical and linear changes in the phenomenal world. Zedlers Universal-Lexicon defines Zeit as “a certain and determined sojourn of the celestial bodies in their paths according to which the being an…

1. Concept and origins English-language scholarship uses the term “news book” to refer to books that were systematically bound in order to present newspaper stories from the preceding year [4]. Although some authors assume that this text genre first appeared only in the 1640s [7. 5], others call the weekly London corantos of the 1620s “the first news books” [5]. Corresponding to the concept in German is the   Zeitungs-Buch (“News[paper] book”), a term used by the Hamburg publisher Georg Greflinger, imitating the English model, when he offered the first year of his Nordischer Merc…

The phrase  periodical press denotes the publication of news by means of the printing press at regular intervals. Apart from calendars, the phenomenon of periodicity emerged some time after the invention of printing with movable type c. 1450; it depended on the increasingly regular transmission of news due to advances in the organization of the postal system (Mail) after the mid-16th century. The term  periodical press covers various frequencies of newspaper publication, reflecting the fact that the daily newspaper, standard since the 19th century, dev…

1. OverviewAlthough the apparent simplicity of its construction obscures the fact at first, a sundial is not a timepiece (Clock) but an astronomical instrument that uses the position of the sun (Sun and Moon) to calculate the geographical latitude of a place as well as to indicate noon (apex of the sun’s motion), the time of day and the season as a function of the sun’s declination, the equinoxes, the solstices, and the ecliptic. Its design was determined by knowledge of astronomy along with arti…

1. DefinitionThe term  communication revolution was coined in the first half of the 20th century by American economic historians with reference to their own national history [3]; since the 1970s, it has usually appeared in the plural (communications revolutions) [7]. It was subsequently borrowed by German scholars as  Kommunikationsrevolution [11]; [9. 2, 51 f.]; they have attempted to redefine it with reference to macrohistorical processes.Modeled after the concept of the industrial revolution (cf. Industrialization 1.3.), a series of fundamental rev…

1. ConceptWorld time is a time considered to be valid across the whole planet and dependent on the Earth’s orbit about the Sun. Agreement was reached at the 1884 International Meridian Conference, held at Washington, D.C., to stipulate the zero meridian as passing through Greenwich, England, and to establish Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as the first universally valid world time (see below, 2.).This mean local time, established by astronomical measurements, on the meridian passing through the Greenwich Observatory, was renamed Universal Time in 1928, and…

1. IntroductionZedler’s  Universallexikon (1743) offers only biblical quotations on the subject of “quickness” ( Schnelligkeit) – a value in itself in opposition to “slowness” since the late modern period in such areas as working life, communications, or sport. The article on “speed” ( Geschwindigkeit; 1735), meanwhile, was written by a physicist who defined his subject by means of the formula  v= s/t, citing the example of the motion of two messengers, one of whom covered one (German) mile in one hour, the other in two. Even in the early modern period…

1. DefinitionIn contrast to the cyclic phenomena of the natural world (see Cyclicality), the term  periodicity denotes the artificial generation of a rhythm at equal intervals that influences the everyday world and functions as a time base shorter than a year for social processes independent of astronomical phenomena. Periodicity is usually associated with the periodical press, but its periodicity is based on the early modern configuration of communication.Wolfgang Behringer2. The annus mirabilis of the communication system1534 was the  annus mirabilis of the Euro…

1. General 1.1. OccasionsFestivals (from Latin  festus, “joyful, festive”) interrupt the routine of the everyday world, to which they contrast as a temporally and spatially limited “anti-structure” of which they are the structuring element [21]. In the early modern period, festivals marked the phases of natural, social, or individual chronologies, which could be either cyclic or linear. Cyclic chronologies included the annual agricultural cycle, the economic cycle, the church year with its recurring saint's days (Saint), and …

1. Concept and significance Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien (“Relation of all Polite and Noteworthy Histories”) was the title of the world’s first printed periodical newspaper – alongside the invention of printing with movable type, one of the key manifestations of the media revolution of the early modern period. The publisher consciously emphasized the currentness of the news content (News, currentness of; Aviso) in conjunction with the durability of the printed word. Like the inv…

1. ConceptIn a general sense, communication (Latin  communicatio, “making common,” “imparting”) denotes all possible forms of exchange within and between systems. Scholarly definitions have been developed in all fields from biology to sociology, but not even within the social sciences are such definitions transferable. Historiography turned its attention to the theme of communication only at a late date.Communication takes place on the microhistorical as on the macrohistorical scale. In a historical perspective, the introduction of new media of comm…

The concept of the network, as developed in sociology in the late 20th century [8], can also be applied to earlier eras and is useful as a measure of structural development in the organization of the everyday world [7]. A distinction must be made between (1) networks supported by people or institutions, and (2) material forms of infrastructure that placed communications as a whole on a new foundation and brought media revolutions [2]. Further distinctions can be made between organizational and structural/material levels. On the whole it can be said that incre…

1. Terminology The modern term  sport was already in use at the beginning of the early modern period; it is derived from Anglo-Norman  se desportes (French  se deporter, “enjoy oneself, amuse oneself”). Thus it denoted activities which serve to pass the time. In early modern German, these activities came under the heading of  Kurzweil (pastime; see Pleasure). Besides physical competition (Contest) [1] and physical exercise (Latin  exercitia corporis), sports included animal fights (“blood sports”) and competitive games (Play, game) of all kinds, including…

According to the definition of curse (German  Fluch) in Zedler's  Universal-Lexicon, a curse is “a speech by which we wish someone ill” [1. 1337]. In fact, to wish well (Latin  benedicere) and to wish ill (Latin  maledicere) are linked. Both rely on belief in the power of the word, particularly when that word is spoken by an authority adhering to particular formulae and rituals. To this category belong so-called “curse psalms” and “curse masses.” The curse is a counterpart to the prayer, which, directed to God, is intended to pro…

1. MeaningChristmas, the festival of the “birthday of the Lord” (Latin: nativitatis Domini, natalis Domini), has been celebrated on December 25 since 354, probably in order to suppress the birthday festival of the pagan god Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun). The Christmas liturgy is informed by thanksgiving for the birth of Jesus Christ and the associated Christian hope for redemption. The English designation as “the mass of Christ” is attested since late Middle English ( Christes mæsse). The German word  Weihnachten (literally “consecrated” or “holy night”), though usu…

1. OriginsFrom the Renaissance, it increasingly became essential to politics and emergent merchant capitalism for information to be up to date. This led to the formation of specialist systems for the professional conveyance of news. Cities, courts, monasteries, and merchants employed couriers (Messenger service). According to the sources, the first relays of mounted couriers were set up by Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti (1395–1402) of Milan. They produced the earliest surviving remains of the time sh…

1. Terminology The German word for gymnastics, Turnen, was coined by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in the early 19th century, with some ideological baggage (Gymnastics Movement 1.); the equivalents in other languages (Eng.  gymnastics, Ital.  ginnastica, etc.) show that the kinds of sport subsumed under the term can look back on a long tradition. Gymnastics includes floor exercises, apparatus work, vaulting, and acrobatic and general gymnastic exercises. Today the German Gymnastics Association and the  Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique also include dancing, ball gam…

1. DefinitionWhile in the modern theory of political economy (Economy, political),  shortage denotes a condition in the process of price formation, in traditional societies the volume of goods does not simply follow the logic of the market. Instead a shortage (or scarcity) can be described as a chronic condition that can be explained on the basis of the logic of the agrarian constitution, the low productivity of agriculture, and social ideas regarding the distribution of goods.Wolfgang Behringer2. CrisesThe fact that premodern Europe was afflicted repeatedly by severe…

1. General In the modern period, theoretical reflections and experiments devoted to flight were flanked by reports of supposed or actual aerial voyages, which could serve as a narrative framework for the presentation of scientific observations or a social utopia. They reflected the cosmological notions of the period and—especially in the era of the Scientific Revolution—the transition from the geocentric to the Copernican model of the world (Copernican Revolution) or from Aristotelian physics to the world view of Giordano Brunos and Isaac Newtons [3]. With the progress …

1. Terminology The term “aeronautics” means literally “traveling by ship [Latin  nautare] through the air [Latin  aer].” Possibly inspired by mythological accounts, 14th-century proponents of Aristotelian physics (Albert of Saxony and Nicole d’Oresme) had already suggested the possibility that the accepted theory of the elements implied that a ship filled with a fiery substance could sail upon the sea of the air. The discussions of flying in the 15th and 16th centuries were focused entirely on the principle of …

1. Term The English word “bell” is onomatopoeic, like the Latin  tintinnabulum. The corresponding German term Glocke derives, like Irish cloch, Flemish klok, Swedish klocka, French cloche and presumably also Russian kolokal from MLat. clocca. Whether the latter goes back to a Celtic clocc is disputed. It too may be onomatopoeic.Wolfgang Behringer 2. Casting and suspension The casting of bells as the preferred form of manufacture extends back into the ancient Near Eastern Bronze Age. From the 6th century it spread through the whole of Europe, but not …

The word aviso (plural: avisos) is a communications term that was introduced into several European languages in the 16th century from Italian ( avviso: news, warning, advice). It soon came to play a key part in the postal system (Mail) in the sense of a “cover letter” and became the usual term for “news” in the new medium of periodically printed newspapers, until it was supplanted by more recent terms. Since the postal system was introduced by the de Tassis family (from 1651 on, Thurn und Taxis) to Austria, Germany, t…

1. Definition Animal metamorphosis was not only widespread in fairy tales and myths, but also had a role to play in popular European belief and Christian theology until some way into the early modern period. From the Renaissance on, the idea of a physical transformation of men or women into animals, effected by magic, divine power, or divine imposition, was reinforced by the reception of ancient texts, such as the respective Metamorphoses of Ovid and Apuleius. Although these may be fictional texts, they were cited until the 17th century as evidence of the possibili…

1. Consumption Whereas wine consumption dominated Southern Europe and France in the early modern period, the consumption of beer was a fundamental constant of everyday life in the north and east of the continent (Everyday world). In these regions, beer was a staple foodstuff and – when brewed to greater strength - Lenten fare [1]. From the Late Middle Ages, there was a profound shift in habits of consumption in Central Europe, with wine replaced by beer as an everyday beverage. The reason for this was a process of technological innovation as hop…

Aviatics is the skill of using wings or other airfoils to stay up in the air, in other words the art of flying like a bird (Latin  avis). Medieval chronicles already contain many accounts of individuals who tried to imitate avian flight. Most such “flights” from high towers ended in disaster. Stories of attempted flights with a level of detail that enhances their credibility occur in increasing numbers from the second half of the 15th century, one example being the case of Giovanni Battista Danti (ca. 1477-1517), who mad…

1. Concept The concept of communication with the afterlife depends on a binary opposition between “this world” as the world of the living and the afterlife, the world of the dead, of spirits, and gods - or in the monotheistic religions, the one God. Death marks the boundary between these worlds. Death marks the boundary between these worlds. The Enlightenment relegated the existence of the “otherworld” to the realm of fantasy. In the Christian view, the dead rest until the Day of Judgem…

1. Prior history of the superstition discourse The project of a Bibliotheca Magica (“Magical Library”) belongs in the context of the struggle between science (Knowledge) and superstition. On the initiative of Christian Thomasius, who as an expert witness as late as 1696 would have endorsed the execution of a witch had colleagues not restrained him, past debates about witchcraft were revisited early in the 18th century for political purposes (abolition of witchcraft trial and torture). The jurist Johann Reiche, whom Thomasius supervised in his doctoral dissertation, De crimine mag…

1. Educational ideal From the Renaissance on, Humanist pedagogues attempted to associate the love of ball games with ancient traditions (e.g. Galen), but the modern term derives not from the Latin pila but from the Germanic  ball (Italian  palla). Humanist teachers and princes’ tutors of the 15th century, like Vittorino da Feltre and Guarino da Verona, ennobled the ball game by placing it alongside equestrian exercises. Baldassare Castiglione’s Courtier ( Cortegiano, 1528) admitted it to the Olympus of noble education. Ball games went to the heart of the ed…

1. Term The word calendar derives from the name of the first day of the month in Ancient Rome (Latin Kalendae). From Latin kalendarium (‘debt-book’), it later came to refer to the whole system of reckoning time (Time, reckoning of). All known calendars are based on the alternation of day and night, the recurrent phases of the Moon (OE mona = “Moon”; monađ = “month”), and the course of the seasons through the solar year.Wolfgang Behringer 2. Chronology: early manifestations In all cultures, astronomical phenomena (Astronomy) determine the chronological units of year, month,…