Search

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,…