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1. BegriffDer Begriff der K. A. wurde seit dem Beginn des 20. Jh.s in der dt. Geschichtswissenschaft entwickelt und hat sich seit den 1970er Jahren als Fachterminus etabliert [3. 40–53]; [5. 76–85]. In seinem allgemeinen, heute international gebräuchlichen Sinne bezeichnet er alle bis etwa 1820 innerhalb des europ. Katholizismus unternommenen Bestrebungen, die Ideen und Errungenschaften der Aufklärung zu adaptieren und in Kultur, Bildung, Wissenschaft, Ökonomie und staatlicher Organisation umzusetzen [1]; [6]. In seiner spezifischen, in der dt. Forschung vorherr…

1. BegriffDer erstmals 1538 begegnende Begriff des H. H. – im Dictionarium latinogallicum definiert Robert Estienne ihn als »vornehmen Gebildeten ohne Dünkel« – wurde seit Anfang des 17. Jh.s zum Inbegriff vornehmer Weltgewandtheit, zum sozialen Leitbild der neuen,höfischen Gesellschaft des Zeitalters Ludwigs XIV. Anders als verwandte franz. Wörter wie courtisan, homme de qualité, homme de bien, homme galant oder gentilhomme war H. H. nicht sozial festgelegt, sondern in seiner männlichen wie weiblichen Form ein ständeübergreifendes Persönlichkeitsideal eines Menschen, der in Auftreten, Verhalten und Lebensart jederzeit alle Gebote der …

1. Problem und BegriffSein Wissen erweitern zu wollen, galt in der Nz. keineswegs prinzipiell als Tugend. Vielmehr wurde die Frage, wie weit N. (auch Curiosität, von lat. …

1. Begriff und TrägerDer erst seit den 1960er Jahren gebräuchliche Begriff B. bezeichnet jenen Bereich der Kulturpolitik, der sich auf das Unterrichtswesen bezieht: die Bestrebungen von Obrigkeiten und Führungseliten, ihre polit. Ziele durch die Gründung und Begünstigung von Institutionen der Bildung und Ausbildung zu fördern und entsprechende oppositionelle Einrichtungen zu bekämpfen. So verstanden war B. ein wichtiger Teilbereich nzl. Politik, ein wesentliches Moment im Formationsprozess des modernen S…

1. Theologie und SpracheAls Geburtsstunde der modernen Ä. gilt der 27. September 1822, an dem Jean François Champollion (1790–1832) …

1. Bedeutung und BegriffDie Idee des Sch. (engl. fate, destiny; franz. fortune, destin, destinée; ital. fato, destino;…

1. Allgemein 1.1. BegriffBis zum Ende des 18. Jh.s war »Individuum« bzw. »I.« (von lat. individuum; »Unteilbares«) ein Fachbegriff der Philosophie, der »kleinste Einheit« oder auch »Besonderheit« bedeuten konnte. Allgemein bezeichnete er daneben – wie bis heute in vielen europ. Sprachen – eine einzelne Sache oder Person. In Deutschland hingegen gewann er in Idealismus und Romantik ein emphatisches Pathos: I. wurde zu einem Synonym für die unverwechselbare Besonderheit einer konkreten Persönlichkeit bzw. ihren je einmaligen …

1. BegriffBei seiner ersten Erwähnung 1690 in Antoine Furetières Dictionnaire universel meinte der Begriff moraliste (dt. »Moralist«, = Mst.) schlicht einen Autor, der moralische Fragen behandelte. Schon um 1700 aber entstand die kritisch gemeinte Nebenbedeutung »Rigorist« und wurde konkret auf Anhänger des Jansenismus gemünzt. …

1. ÜberblickDas Bedürfnis, die Vergangenheit des eigenen Geschlechts, Clans, Standes, Heimatortes, Landes oder Volkes – eventuell auch jene anderer Gruppen, Völker und Kulturen – möglichst gut zu kennen und diese Kenntnis durch geschulte Spezialisten sichern und pflegen zu lassen, dürfte allen nzl. Hochkulturen gemeinsam sein (Historiographie; Historische Überlieferung). In ihnen allen nämlich besaßen Traditionen als Basis für Besitz-, Rechts- und Machtansprüche fundamentale Bedeutung. Die Formen, das …

1. Idee und Begriff Idee und Begriff der G. entstanden im Deutschland des späten 19. Jh.s. Sie erwuchsen aus der Überzeugung des Historismus, dass menschliches Wollen, Denken und Handeln nicht mit den induktiven Verfahren der Naturwissenschaften gemessen und auf allgemeine Regeln zurückgeführt werden könnten, sondern als Äußerungen einer je einzigartigen Individualität in ihren konkreten Erscheinungsformen um ihrer selbst willen studiert werden müssten. Seither versteht man unter G. die Summe jener gelehrten Disziplinen, »welche die Ordnungen des Lebens in Staat, Gesellschaft, Recht, Sitte, Erziehung, Wirtschaft, Technik und die Deutungen der Welt in Sp…

1. Term The concept of Catholic Enlightenment developed in German historiography from the early 20th century, and has since the 1970s established itself as a specialist term [3. 40–53]; [5. 76–85]. In its general and internationally current sense, it denotes all the efforts undertaken within European Catholicism before around 1820 to adapt the ideas and accomplishments of the Enlightenment and to implement them in culture, education, scholarship, economics, and political organization [1]; [6]. In the specific sense widely used in German scholarship, it refers above all to measures of Enlightenment that were implemented by Catholic regimes, in particular those of the Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation) and the …

1. DefinitionThe term Wegestreit subsumes several quite different scholarly debates that took place between the early 14th and late 15th centuries in European universities, especially those of the Holy Roman Empire, regarding correct methods of academic teaching and learning, especially in the area of logic and metaphysics. The (modern) term  Wegestreit (English “battle of the ways”) arises from the fact that, before 1500, a scholastic method was usually called a  via (way). It was named after the head of the school w…

1. ConceptA thesaurus (Greek/Latin “treasury”), often used synonymously with  bibliotheca or museum, was from the 16th century onwards the name or title of a work in a literary genre that claimed to compile all knowledge in a particular field, organizing it systematically and ideally also illustrating it (Knowledge, organization of; Knowledge, visualization of). The models and prototypes of the thesaurus arose in the practices of antiquarianism. They answered the Humanist (Humanism) demand to collect all…

1. OverviewIn all cultures, eating together has been of central importance. It establishes community and is an indispensable element of festivals, diplomacy, and peace celebrations, a ritual of solidarity, fraternization, and friendship, an opportunity for extravagance (Representation) and ostentatious or conspicuous consumption. Beginning in the 15th century under the banner of the Renaissance, the style and perception of such meals changed among the elites of Europe. As a manifestation of the n…

1. ConceptThe term wit (OE  gewit, “understanding,” “consciousness,” “sense”; Latin  ingenium, Italian  ingegno, Spanis  ingenio, German  Witz, French  esprit) in the early modern period denoted the art of connecting seemingly disparate thoughts and ideas in a surprising way and formulating them with ingenious pithiness such as to astound and spontaneously persuade the listener or reader [1. 874]; [10. 7 f.]. Wit was thus regarded as a basic condition of intellectual productivity and a key element of cultivated conversation and pragmatic prudence. …

1. Terminology The term  Anglophilia first appeared around 1750. It and the stronger form  Anglomania refer - from a critical distance - to the “(unsophisticated) fondness for England, the English, and all things English” [7. 18] that appeared among the continental elite after 1713 and became a general vogue in the 1730s. Admiration for English politics, economics, philosophy, science, culture, and lifestyle led to wholesale imitation, triggering one of the most momentous transfers of culture in European history.Anglophilia was a concomitant of the Enlightenment and its new ideal of “nature”; like enlightenment thinking, it emerged in opposition to absolutism and the Catholic Church. Therefore it was socially correct to exhibit sympathy for England, especially in France after the death of Louis XIV (1715).…

1. Concept and functionThe term “epigraphy” (from the Greek epigraphḗ; “inscription”) first occurred in German in the 18th century, and in French not until 1838. Yet the recording, collecting, and classifying of ancient inscri…

1. SurveyIn the early modern period, Latin was a language in active use in diplomacy, science, and the educational system (Bildung) and was therefore a living language. This circumstance favoured the scholarly study of the language only to a certain extent. Before the 19th century, it was studied less for its own sake than for practical purposes: to be able to write and speak better, to be familiar with the (still obligatory) canon of classical literature, to understand Roman law, whic…

1. Concept and problemThe term Counter-Enlightenment is first attested, as a synonym for Romanticism, in an 1877 note by Friedrich Nietzsche (“Der Höhe der Aufklärung entspricht die Höhe der Gegenaufklärung in Schopenhauer und Wagner”; “The peak of enlightenment corresponds to the peak of the Counter-Enlightenment in Schopenhauer and Wagner”) [16. 26]. Isaiah Berlin then introduced it to the international discourse as the Counter-Enlightenment from the 1950s, to denote - not without a philosophical value judgment - opponents of the Enlightenment, or “enemies of liberty” [9]; [11]. Since then, Counter-Enlightenment has served as an umbrella term signaling fundamental criticism of the Enlightenment and the arsenal of polemic positions, styles, and strategies that have been deployed against it [16].To this extent, the term has been efficacious primarily as a polemical slogan. As a scholarly categ…

1. ConceptThe term “philology” (Greek …

1. Concept and phenomenonThe club developed from the 16th century as a specifically  British form of urban sociability. The eccentric term - at the time, the word only had its original sense of “thick stick” - hints at the exclusive, masculine character of these societies, in which gentleman kept their own company and women were almost entirely excluded. The club differed from traditional forms of socializing (e.g. fraternity, guild, sect, academy) in being an “expression of a dynamic, visibly urba…

1. TerminologyPedagogy, not identical with education as formation (Bildung), is the art of transmitting and inculcating the norms that apply within a society. It differs from education as schooling in its claim to have a theoretically grounded, systematic procedure guided by an explicit purpose. The term  paidagogía, first attested in Plato’s  Republic, denoted the “guidance [and instruction] of boys” in the interests of a specific political and moral public goal, that is, the activity of the pedagogue ( paidagogós) – in contrast to the earlier  paideía, education in general.…

1. SurveyIn all societies where the horse was an exclusive means of transportation, an indispensable requirement for personal mobility, a valuable weapon in hunting and in war, and a cos…

1. Concept and terminological historyCriticism (or, in earlier English usage, “critique”) as the art of “testing a given matter for authenticity, truth, correctness, or beauty, and forming a judgement based on the findings obtained” (“einen vorgegebenen Sachverhalt auf seine Echtheit oder Wahrheit, seine Richtigkeit oder Schönheit hin zu befragen, um aus der gewonnenen Erkenntnis heraus ein Urteil zu fällen”) [11. 86]…

1. Concept In Antiquity, the Greek term first encountered as archaiología (‘antiquarian lore’) in the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1st century BCE – archaiologeín, ‘to discuss antiquities,’ is already found in Thucydides, 5th century BCE) denoted the sphere of history of which there were no longer living witnesses to give accounts, but that depended entirely on traditions and legends. The Renaissance Latinized the term to archaeologia or  archaeographia, and used it synonymously with antiquitates, i.e. antiquarianism, fr…

1. ConceptThe term conversation (from Latin conversari, “to have dealings with”, “to have intercourse with”; literally “to be engaged [in something] together”), adopted into most of the European languages in the 16th century, denotes a ritual that was typical of early modern European scholars: an informal discussion in a small group, the most important purpose of which was to explore the subject in question as thoroughly, elegantly, and entertainingly as possible. Unlike in institutionalized forms of …

1. OverviewThe urge to know as much as possible about the past of one’s race, clan, class, place of birth, homeland, people - and that of other groups, populations, and cultures too - and to certify and curate this knowledge in the hands of scholarly experts, was common to all learned cultures of the early modern era (Historiography; Historical traditions beyond Europe). This can be seen in the fact that tradition was fundamentally significant in all these cultures as the basis for claims to owne…

1. Concept and phenomenonIn Greco-Roman antiquity, the Greek term  múthos adopted into all European languages (German  Mythos, French  mythe) denoted a semantic field ranging from “word” and “factual statement” to “invented narrative.” Beginning with Plato, its meaning became confined to “story of the gods and heroes” [13. 181]. Accordingly, “mythology” throughout the early modern period was almost invariably taken to mean the study of the worlds of the Greek and Roman gods (Ancient religions), as it was portrayed by poets like Homer and …

1. Concept The term “civilization”, which appeared in French and in English shortly after 1750 and by 1820 was established in all Western European languages (French civilisation, German Zivilisation, Italian civilizzazione, Spanish civilisación), marks an ideal of the Enlightenment: a polity which has implemented, as much as possible, enlightened values - ranging from political freedom and a modern political economy (Economy, political) to humanity, education and urbanity -  und goes on perfectioning them. In this respect civilization was (and is) not an empirical fact, but a guiding value or an ideological program respectively, which meshed with the ideas of progress, emancipation and prosperity. Its negative counterpart was “barbarism” (Barbarian), a concept assigned to times of the past or to other cultures (for instance in Eastern Europe or overseas) in order to brand them as in need of development and guidance (Alterity; C…

1. Introduction Humanism was the most important and influential European educational and cultural movement of the early modern period before the Enlightenment (Bildung). It arose in Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries, and by the mid-16th century it had spread across the entire western world. Its aim was an aesthetic one: the restoration of the literature, arts…

1. Problem and conceptThe desire to expand one's knowledge was by no means regarded as a virtue in principle in the early modern period. Rather, there was intensive and passionate debate throughout, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, on how far curiosity (from Latin  curiositas; Italian  curiosità; Spanish  curiosidad; French  curiosité, but German Neugier, literally “craving for the new”) might legitimately go, and at which limits it must cease. This debate, which was conducted in media ranging from sermons and disputations, to disser…

1. General observations 1.1 DefinitionUntil the end of the 18th century, “individual” and “individuality” (from Lat. individuum; “indivisible”) was a technical term in philosophy that could denote “smallest unit” or “special character.” Consequently, it could also refer - as it does to this day in many European languages - to a single thing or person. In Germany during Idealism and Romanticism it acquired an emphatic tone; individuality became a synonym for the unmistakable uniqueness of a concrete personality, its distinctive character. It became one of the most important bywords of anthropology, education (Bildung), and pedagogy, where it referred to the nature and purpose of human beings and was considered among the chief goals of education in close connection with freedom, s…

1. Definition As a subdiscipline of philology or classical studies and of biblical criticism and exegesis, textual criticism is the sum of all methods and techniques used to try to recover surviving texts in a form as close as possible to their original form. In doing so, it works hand in hand with hermeneutics. It is based on the historical recognition of Humanism that in the course of their transmission, texts are deliberately or involuntarily changed. Textual criticism seeks to rever…

1. Concept and definition The concept and the term came into existence in late-…

1. ConceptA dictionary (Latin  dictionarium; Italian  dizionario, vocabulario; French dictionnaire,  glossaire, Spanish  diccionario, German Wörterbuch) is a usually alphabetical register presenting the vocabulary of a language in whole or in part, either to comment on each word as such or to present its equivalent(s) in one or more other language(s). Dictionaries in the early modern period were by no means confined to pragmatic purposes of language tuition or mutual understanding in contexts of travel, pilgrimage, diplomatic missions (Diplomacy), or international commerce, but played an important role in the charting, systematization, and standardization of the vernacular languages, the development of literary style and taste, and the formation of national identities. Many different forms of dictionary therefore developed, ranging from school dictionaries, rhyming dictionaries, and dictionaries of synonyms, names, foreign words, and specialist vocabulary (e.g. for theologians, lawyers, and t…

1. Meaning and conceptThe idea of fate or destiny (French  fortune, destin, destinée; Italian  fato, destino; Spanis  fortuna, suerte, destino; German Schicksal) became in the early modern period a preferred mode for discussing the relationship between autonomy and necessity, that is, the question of freedom of will, and the driving forces of history and politics, in a secular context. As a synonym for whatever was peculiar, unalterable, and perhaps inexplicable in the course of the history of an individual, a peopl…

1. ConceptThe term  Mazarinade, used by scholars since 1850, derives from  La Mazarinade, the title of a 1651 Paul Scarron literary parody of the  Iliad (French  Iliade). It serves as an umbrella term for over 4,000 mostly highly polemical pamphlets, published in France at the time of the Fronde (1648-1653) in opposition to attempts by the crown to centralize the government and administration in the spirit of absolutism. Because these efforts were embodied by Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the confidant and chief minister o…

1. OverviewIn most cultures, heroes (Greek  hḗros, Latin  heros, Italian  eroe, French  héros, German Held) – mythical figures between the divine and human worlds – have great significance for the self-conceptions of the groups, classes (Estates of the realm), and nations (Nation, nationalism) that venerate them. By embodying the value system of these groups and representing it as victorious in the heroes’ adventures, they make it visible and attractive. By pushing the value system to its limit, thus revealin…

1. Concept and meaningNumismatics (from the Latin numisma, “coin”) has since the 18th century denoted the scholarly discipline concerned with the analysis of coins. A distinction was drawn between a “commercial numismatics” that sought to establish the metal content and monetary value of coins and a “historical numismatics” exploring their historical and cultural significance [1]. In practice, however, the two aspects were intertwined. Coins old and new alike were a source of fascination because they “illustrated” renowned people, deeds, and eve…

1. DefinitionA seal (from Latin  sigillum, diminutive of  signum, “sign”; Italian  sigillo, Spanish  sello, French  cachet or  sceau, German Siegel) is a mirror image intaglio on a stamp (often itself called a seal) made of metal, stone, wood, or horn (typar or signet), which is pressed on a soft material that hardens rapidly (usually wax, but after c. 1560 more commonly lacquer) or a paper wafer. It serves to witness to legal acts of rulers, governments, corporations, institutions, and individuals as well as to a…

1. Terminology Even in its original Latin form,  ambitio was a morally ambivalent concept. Since the time of Cicero, it meant not just the “circulation” of candidates for office to make themselves known to their voters but also a particularly insistent, ruthless pursuit of offices and dignities. After Augustine this attitude stood in almost irreconcilable conflict with the Christian commandment of humility and diffidence. Theologians of all persuasions disapproved of striving after “empty honor” (Luther). For Philipp Melanchthon, eergeizlich—the German word, which came i…

1. Humanist rootsThe term humanitas (Humankind, human being, “humaneness,” “sphere of human affairs”) adopted from Cicero in the 15th century achieved currency in European languages in the heyday of Humanism and remains to this day (English humanity; French  humanité; Italian  umanità; Spanish  humanidad) - especially in the context of literary-rhetorical education (Bildung) as originally delineated by the Humanist term  studia humanitatis (“studies of human affairs”). From the 16th century on, preliminary education was called  humanités in French; in English, hu…

1. Types and functions The dog was widespread in all social classes in the early modern period, and undertook a range of functions. It was according to these, and not the breed (a concept that only achieved currency as a system of classification after 1850) that dog types were distinguished.Hounds used for hunting were of particular interest to contemporaries, following on from ancient authors, such as Xenophon ( Kynegetikós, c. 400 BCE; “On Hunting [With Dogs]”), M. Terentius Varro ( Rerum rusticarum libri tres, c. 50 BCE; “Three Books on Agriculture”), and Oppian ( Kynegetiká, c. 200, “Hunting [With Dogs]”). At the end of the 14th century, Gaston de Foix distinguished five main types: light sighthounds (French levriers) to flush out and pursue wild animals; heaving, biting hounds or “alaunts” ( alants), to apprehend and catch the prey; scent hounds ( chiens courants); …

1. Concept Ancient engraved gems (from the Latin …

1. DefinitionThe term '’educational policy'’, which did not come into common use until the 1960s, denotes the sphere of cultural policy that involves the educational system: the efforts of the government (Sovereign power) and elite leadership to promote their goals by establishing and favoring institutions of Bildung and instruction and to combat the corresponding institutions of the opposition. In this sense, educational policy was an important area of early modern politics, an essential element…

1. The term In antiquity the attribute of greatness associated with gods, heroes, and kings had already been extended to leading members of the elite in city states and republics and elevated to the status of a universal virtue possessed by rulers. In the early modern period, greatness (Lat.   magnificentia, Ger. Größe, Ital. grandezza, Span. grandeza, French  grandeur) became the guiding ideal of the European aristocracy, the goal of noble ambition, and a central topic of discussion among the nobility. There proved to be a productive tension betwe…

1. Concept and problemPrudence (Greek  phrónesis, Latin  prudentia, Italian  prudenza, Spanish  prudencia, French  prudence, German  Klugheit) appears in Aristotle’s  Nicomachean Ethics as the gift of correct practical action. It includes asking advice ( eubulía), understanding ( synesis), and judgment ( gnṓme). Considered a cardinal virtue ever since the Latin church father Ambrose (4th century), by the time of Thomas Aquinas (13th century) at the latest it was considered the mother of all virtues (Latin  genetrix virtutum) and an indispensable element of each of them [1…

1. ConceptThe Latin legal term  libertinus (“freedman”), which in the Acts of the Apostles (6,9) attaches to the persecutors of St. Stephen, passed into French ( libertine) around 1480 via vernacular biblical commentaries, and from there it entered the other modern European languages, including English. From 1545, Calvinist and Catholic preachers were using it to discredit morally those who did not unconditionally accept their dogmas. The word “libertinage” or “libertinism” (French libertinage, also libertinisme) emerged from 1600 to denote the religious skepticis…

1. The phenomenonThe German term  Neuhumanismus (“Neohumanism, New Humanism”), coined by Friedrich Paulsen in 1885 [11. 191–195], denotes an educational movement (Bildung) that originated in the 1770s in Germany in reaction against utilitarian concepts of education rooted in the Enlightenment. In contrast to education in Germany’s western and eastern neighbors, it celebrated the ancient Hellenic world as the epitome of true, good, and beautiful humanity (Antiquity, reception of). In the first half of the 19t…

1. Definition and beginningsThe term  Tacitism, coined in 1921, denotes a specific style of politico-ideological skepticism between approximately 1570 and 1650 that was sparked by the works of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 100 CE). Its guiding principle and keynote was  similitudo temporum (similarity of historical periods). In the intrigues and power struggles of the Roman imperial court, which Tacitus depicted as signs of increasing political and moral decadence, contemporaries of the wars of religion (Religion, …