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Harth, Dietrich (Heidelberg RWG) I. General (CT) [German version] A. Introduction (CT) History and historiography are terms that can be used in a variety of ways. Not only are they frequently used synonymously, but depending on the context they refer to such different activities as the study of the past and the presentation of research results. This difference is reflected in the words historíēs apódexis, with which Herodotus began his accounts. In Herodotus' usage, the Greek noun historíē, which still defines 'historical knowledge' as distinct from other types of knowl…

Walther, Gerrit (Frankfurt/Main RWG) [German version] A. Concept, Content and Form (CT) During the period covered here, antiquities antiquitates, antiquités, ‘Antiquitäten’, ‘Alterthümer’ were understood as the totality of written documentation or material remains (such as coins, monuments, objects of art and everyday items) that might provide information about the daily conditions, customs, practices, cults, institutions, in short the culture, of an ancient people. An antiquarius was an authority, a collector and archivist of such documents and fragments. A…

Harth, Dietrich (Heidelberg) RWG I. Allgemein (RWG) [English version] A. Einleitung (RWG) Geschichte und Historiographie/Geschichtsschreibung (im folgenden abgekürzt: G.) sind vielseitig verwendbare Ausdrücke. Nicht nur, daß sie häufig vertauscht werden; sie bezeichnen auch je nach Kontext so verschiedene Tätigkeiten wie die Erforschung des Vergangenen und die Darstellung der Forschungsergebnisse. Eine Differenz, die schon in den Worten historíēs apódexis anklingt, mit denen Herodot seine Erzählungen eröffnet hat. Das griech. Nomen historíē, das bis h. “histor. …

Walther, Gerrit (Frankfurt/Main) RWG [English version] A. Begriff, Gehalt, Form (RWG) Unter antiquitates, antiquités, antiquities, “Antiquitäten” bzw. “Alterthümern” verstand man in der hier behandelten Epoche eine Summe einzelner schriftlicher Nachrichten oder materialer Überreste (wie Münzen, Monumente, Kunst- und Gebrauchsgegenstände), die Auskunft über die alltäglichen Lebensumstände, Sitten, Gebräuche, Kulte, Institutionen, kurz: die Kultur eines ant. Volkes geben konnten. Ein Antiquarius war ein Kenner, Sammler und Ordner solcher Nachrichten und …

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 …

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 an…

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, from which archaeology was indist…

1. Terminology The response of the Catholic Church (usually called the “Old Church” in the Reformation period) to the Reformation began gradually. Historians have coined various terms for it. Today there is still no term that covers both the efforts at reform within the Church during the 16th century and the attempt to win back the Church’s lost socio-political terrain. The competing terms include  Catholic Reformation,   Counter-Reformation, Catholic confessionalization, and recatholization.The reaction of the Old Church (and the states and territories that …

1. Concept The term, which came into English in the Middle Ages from the French dame (compare Italian dama/ donna, German Dame), derives from the Latin  domina (“mistress”). Dame in English is generally confined to an honorific title; where derivatives of domina in other languages denote a woman of high social rank or status, English uses “lady” (Old English hlafdige = “[woman] who kneads bread”) as Spanish uses señora. As a courtly title, “Dame” was mostly used in conjunction with the possessive “my” or  ma ( Madame, Madonna, Madam, My Lady/Milady). Domina derivatives denote th…

1. Concept This term, already used by Homer, became a key term in cultural critique from the 14th century onwards. Used polemically, it meant anyone who ignored the values, demands and representatives of humanist education, or indeed opposed them ( Bildung; Humanism), or anyone whose social claims to power did not appear legitimated by a corresponding openness to Early Modern culture and to urban forms of social intercourse. There was special polemical force in the accusation of being a barbarian, precisely because of the variety of …

1. Introduction Dance - a sequence of stylized rhythmical steps and movements performed by individuals, couples, or groups - was one of the most widespread and popular forms of nonverbal communication and public representation in the early modern period. As an indispensable component of free time and festivals of all kinds, it formed part of the everyday world of almost all ranks and groupings, in both elite and popular culture (see also e.g. Kermis, fig. 1; Music, fig. 3). Many had their own danc…

1. Terminology and form Before 1800 the Latin word antiquitates (“antiquities”; French antiquités, German Antiquitäten), made popular by the famous (but fragmentary) antiquarian treatise Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum (“Antiquities of Human and Divine Institutions”) of the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) was used synonymously with archaeology. It referred to written accounts or material remains (such as coins, monuments, works of art, everyday objects) that could provide information about cults…

1. Concept 1.1. Renaissance as the rebirth of classical antiquity“Renaissance” (Italian  rinascità,  rinascimento, “rebirth”) developed in the 15th century into a general term for the reception of classical antiquity (Antiquity, reception of) in Humanism. The Latin verb renasci (to be born again) is found as early as 1430 in the context of rhetoric in the work of the French Petrarch scholar Nicholas of Clémanges. The Italian rinascere then came into use around 1450 in reference to sculpture in Lorenzo Ghiberti (see below, 9.2.), and in 1460/64 for archit…

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 who exemplified it (e.g.  via Thomae/“method of Thomas…

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. 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 inscriptions on stone and metal is among the oldest, most widespread, and most highly regarded forms of early modern antiquarianism and archaeology. The reasons vary. When Friedrich August Wolf declared in 1807 that epigraphy “is not important in terms of beauty of form, but by virtue of …

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, which was still in effect, and to share in the greatness of ancient Rome (Antiquity, reception of).Lati…

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 Enlight…