Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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1. Terminology The term “body ” (Latin  corpus) may denote a recognizable object or a limited aggregate of a particular material, an object that occupies space and possesses mass, or a corporation. Usually, however, it is understood as denoting the form of a living creature or human being. The physique and psychosexual constitution of the human body are not considered anthropological constants. In addition, a methodological distinction is made between the body as a model or construct (German Körper) and the body as (potential for) experience (German Leib) and their interaction. Leib, …

1. Terminology and traditions At the beginning of the early modern period in Europe, the human experiences that give rise to belief in an asymmetrical duality of body and soul (sleep, dreams, ecstasy, grief, death, and childbirth [9]) had coalesced metaphysically, anthropologically, and epistemologically [12. ch. III and V]. What happens to individuals after their bodily death? How do animate beings differ from inanimate beings and from dead matter? How specifically is the cognitive element of the soul, the mind (Geist), related to the body? This last question finds linguistic expression (only) in German in the distinction between the objective body ( Körper) and the body ( Leib) that an individual not only (objectively) has but also immediately (subjectively) is.As was true in antiquity, the answers …

The term “body odor” refers to the perceived exhalations of one’s own skin and bodily orifices (Body), The attitude toward body odor in the early modern period varied between delight in fragrances, fear of airborne infection, disgust at mass exhalations, and dislike of the “other.” The use of perfume was a status symbol and an investment in one’s personal aura (Latin; literally “breeze, breath”). In the 17th and 18th centuries, however, the suspicion grew that its use compensated for deficient hygiene.From the end of the Middle Ages to around 1750, hygiene consisted pr…

A bond (also called a debenture, loan note, or fixed-interest security) is a long-term loan (Loan for consumption [mutuum]) given to the issuer by the buyers (holders) of partial debentures (denominated in round sums). The bond (or “obligation”; Latin obligatio) is represented by a document in which the issuer promises the creditor a sum of money with regular interest (debenture bond).In the late Middle Ages, the cities of northern Italy were already making their citizens provide them with forced loans. Such loans were frequently not liquidated but co…

See Kholop | Personal freedom | Serfdom |  Soil bondage

See Soil bondage

See Public finances | Public credit

1. Meanings and definitions The word book means (1) a substantial written or printed work made of sheets or sheaves of paper in a binding or cover; (2) a part of a larger written work, e.g. the 24 books of the Iliad; (3) a physical object consisting of multiple sheets of blank paper assembled for writing on, e.g. a diary; (4) an instrument for commercial bookkeeping; (5) a betting-list at a horse race; (6) a unit of measurement for a particular quantity of paper; (7) a metaphor for divine creation, see also Book of Nature; (8) in a figurative sense, the “Book of Books”, i.e. the Bible.A book as a …

Bookbinding in the Middle Ages was primarily a monastic craft (see Crafts and trades) that established lasting values of cultural history with its richly decorated, large-format wood-bound folios, but from the 14th century, the trade increasingly passed into the hands of urban citizens. The apprenticeship of a bookbinder in Germany generally lasted between two and four years. However, before the journeymen could become a master, he had to complete a qualifying period of up to five years (Trampin…

The Oxford English Dictionary reports the first use of the term book-burning in a literal sense in 1892; “book-burner” is first attested in 1821. No equivalent term is attested in the early German dictionaries of Adelung, Campe, or Grimm. The first German uses date from the late 20th century, often referring to an auto-da-fé, a term that was current in France from the early 19th century and generally meant a book-burning. The alternative terms “biblioclasm” and “libricide” have recently been proposed for the public burnings of written materials by…

See Print media | Incunabula

1. The fairs of Frankfurt and Leipzig The sale of manuscripts at the general goods fair of the conveniently-located town of Frankfurt is already attested for the 14th century. Printed books are known to have been sold there by the pioneer publisher Peter Schöffer of Mainz from the 1460s. Although the trade was mainly itinerant (Book trade), the Frankfurt Messe was already attracting paper merchants and printer-publishers from northern and southern Germany (e.g. Basel, Lübeck, Nuremberg) in the last third of the 15th century. Book sales rapidly became a …

See Print media

1. Definition The term book illustration covers all forms of pictorial enrichment of texts: initials, borders, frames, vignettes, ornamental typographic elements, and figurative illustrations using any graphic technology (Printed graphics). A distinction should be drawn between book illustration as artistic decoration and documentary book illustration as a necessary element of a scholarly text. The genre of the book and the content of the text will determine the relationship between text and image…

The use of the term “bookkeeping” for the quantitative summary of the financial activity of a company (business accounting), an institution (as a rule in the public sphere), or a national economy (national accounts) dates only from the 20th century, although the practices involved were already in use during the entire early modern period and in many cases even in the Middle Ages.Among the three central functions performed by company accounting as described in modern business administration – disposition (providing information for planning and management…

1. Bookkeeping in Antiquity and the Middle Ages Bookkeeping or accounting is probably almost as old as commercial activity itself. In Sumerian Mesopotamia (3rd millennium BCE), commercial transactions were already being recorded on clay tablets. This simple method of bookkeeping, in use since antiquity, served to document completed transactions as a reminder for the trader and as evidence in legal disputes. The Roman Corpus iuris civilis, for example, required the accounts of merchants to be presented publicly in court in case of disputes.Such documentation became especial…

Gutenberg’s invention of printing using moveable metal type around 1440/50 spread from Mainz, reaching over 250 European cities by 1500. Printing shops were established especially in commercial and academic centers and episcopal towns: ca. 1460 in Strasbourg and Bamberg, 1465 in Subiaco (Rome), 1466 in Cologne, 1468 in Augsburg and Basel, 1469 in Venice, 1470 in Naples, Nuremberg, and Paris, 1471 in Florence and Milan, 1473 in Lyon, Ulm, and Utrecht, 1474 in…

1. Significance The  Book of Common Prayer is the church order of the Church of England (Anglicanism). It contains the services of daily Morning and Evening prayer, the Sunday Eucharist (or Lord’s Supper), baptism, ordination, and additional rites. Composed originally by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1549, the prayer book together with the Book of Homilies (which he also composed) and the  Articles of Religion (Thirty-Nine Articles) insured the Protestant character of the Reformation in England. The Book of Common Prayer proved to be the most influential of the three,…