Early modern
book summary
TESSA FABER
Disclaimer!!: Sometimes the book uses questionable wording for certain things, however I
have chosen to leave this wording as the author did it as to avoid lack of clarity. This does
not mean that I agree with the wording on everything, but it was easier for me : )
Part 1 – Starting points
1: Introduction
Exciting times form a historical perspective, Mediterranean sailors explored waters well
beyond familiar coastlines, benefitting from population losses caused by the plague
Broad transitional phase between c. 1450-c. 1550
End point when agricultural and industrial revolutions
Tendencies towards centralization of political power, bureaucratization of rule, codification
of laws, confessionalization of religious beliefs and disciplining of human behaviour
Max Weber related long-term processes of rationalization and disenchantment to the
relatively ascetic and ‘this-worldly’ character of Protestantism
Marxist historians view it as a transitional stage between feudalism and capitalism
All viewed with considerable scepticism, because of the experience of multiple pathways to
modernity pursued in different areas of the globe
The spatial settings
Historians usually reject environmental determinism, but human agency was framed by
natural conditions
The prevailing climate posed particular challenges
Number of bonds existed: Christianity, legacy of Roman empire, Roman Law, Latin as Lingua
Franca, much higher number and autonomy for cities
Accommodated representatives of “the other”
Assessment- Early Modern Europe
Socially, a hierarchical and patriarchal structure build on households, estates and
corporations, in which a growing emphasis on merit enhanced the standing of middling
groups in general and their professions in particular
Economically, within a still largely agricultural system, the existence of early forms of
industrial production and the increasing importance of global trading networks catering for
an emerging consumer society
, Religiously, the differentiation of Christianity into “confessions” and, in the longer term, a
reluctant acceptance of pragmatic coexistence
Culturally, a widening of spatial horizons
Politically, ever-large scale warfare, state formation and a power shift towards the centre,
albeit in practice through processes of negotiation rather than unilateral commands
Part 2- Society and Economy
3: Environments
Actions of early modern Europeans profoundly shaped global ecologies and set in
motion forms of economic development which continue to affect environments
today
Histories of Europe have roots in the French Annales school of social and economic
history
The Little Ice Age
In the early modern period, Europe was generally slightly cooler ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA)
Advance of glaciers
Average temperatures between 1 and 2 degrees colder
o Several tropical volcanic eruptions blocking the light from the sun
o Some of the hottest and coldest moments
Lower average temperature meant shorter growing season, which led to stress on
local food available
Hyper LIA in late 16th and early 17th century
A violent storm surge causing the Christmas flood of 1717
Climatic crises could become social crises as they played out through the
arrangement and distribution of power and resources within societies
On the island of Crete climatic disturbance exacerbated stresses brought on by
conflict with the neighbouring Ottoman Empire
o Ottoman merchants could cease trading grain with the island
Historians continue to debate how far environmental factors caused widespread
social and political crises
Scope of this ‘general crisis’ has been expanded by environmental historians
Little Ice Age reached its coldest point during the “Marauder minimum”
Centre-periphery relations became strained amidst a generally less favourable
climate
Columbian exchange
European contact with the Americas initiated deep changes in environments, also
deemed ‘ecological imperialism’
Transfer by no means equal, wilful, or consensual
European-introduced infectious diseases
, Deliberately introduced species thrived on American flora, which fundamentally
changed American landscapes
European plants transported in ballast
o “biological expansion” of European flora and fauna across the globe
‘ The second earth” – image of western hemisphere placed equal and adjacent to the
Eastern in Rumold Mercator’s world map
Plant species introduced to Europe from the America’s
By 1800 collapse of eco-system Brazil
Suger plantations on Caribbean islands destroyed tropical rainforest
Rarely were European colonizers able to succeed in new environments without the
knowledge learned from pre-existing populations
Energy
Muscle, Wood, and flowing water were the primary sources of mechanical power
Draught power from oxen and horses was used for milling, ploughing and
transportation
Wood constituted the primary heat source
Moving from ‘organic economy’ with the dominant energy sources being plants to an
‘advanced organic economy’ characterized by the exploitation of coal
This transition has been characterized as the breaking of the ‘Photosynthetic
constraint
Use of coal was able to free up land for purposes other than primary fuel production,
meaning woodlands could now be converted for agriculture, cities could grow
Landscapes, nature, and culture
Deliberate anthropogenic landscape
Draining of wetlands led to increase of the cultivable area for arable and pasture
Early forms of conservation also attempted
Environmental history often the study of unintended consequences
The ‘improvement’ of wetlands removed habitat
Perceptual shifts accorded within natural philosophy
Catholics and protestants shared a belief in nature as a gift of providence and its
aberrations as signs of divine wrath or grace
Less the death of nature or disenchantments and more a series of re-enchantments
New appreciation for empirical observation and mechanical explanation could be
pioneered by members of the clergy
Dominant Aristotelian-Galenic medical tradition understood the body and the world
in a shared humoral schema
Climate theory also divided the earth into three latitudal zones (frigid polar,
temperate middle, and torrid at equator)
Polders
, 4: Gender and family
Gender
Two sexes with very different characteristics?
Christian religion male orientated (God created Adam first)
Protestant reformation rejected the cult of saints and also Mary
Human body composed of four humours, believed that if a humour was off balance
men could turn into women (Oh the horror!)
o Alarm whenever women imitated male dress
Physical strength remains an essential requirement in many occupations
Repeated pregnancies and care of small children
Power of custom very important
Exclusion of women from education
Roman law, religion, and custom combined to limit women’s freedom and rights far
more severely in Southern Europe than in the North
Gender and education
Informal ‘dame’ or charity schools taught reading, writing and basic religious
principles
Girls were steered towards practical skills (sewing, embroidery)
English grammar schools only for boys
Girls’ boarding schools began to spread from the mid-seventeenth century
Literacy rates remained much lower for women
Among the landed elite, girls educated at home
o No one envisaged them going to university
Concepts of honour and reputation remained firmly gender-based
For women: chasity and fidelity
For men: courage, the ability to maintain a household and ‘honesty’
Work
Most boys destined for a life working in the land
Many young women also working on the family farm
Minority of young men entered a craft or trade, working as an apprentice, later
journeymen for a master
A widow enjoyed the right to continue the business after the husband’s death
Guilds barred female servants
Women were seen as unwelcome competition, compromising the honour of the guild
Women were pushed into lowly and marginal occupations that had never been
organized into guilds’
Women also worked in large numbers in alehouses, taverns and urban cook-shops or
as street vendors
book summary
TESSA FABER
Disclaimer!!: Sometimes the book uses questionable wording for certain things, however I
have chosen to leave this wording as the author did it as to avoid lack of clarity. This does
not mean that I agree with the wording on everything, but it was easier for me : )
Part 1 – Starting points
1: Introduction
Exciting times form a historical perspective, Mediterranean sailors explored waters well
beyond familiar coastlines, benefitting from population losses caused by the plague
Broad transitional phase between c. 1450-c. 1550
End point when agricultural and industrial revolutions
Tendencies towards centralization of political power, bureaucratization of rule, codification
of laws, confessionalization of religious beliefs and disciplining of human behaviour
Max Weber related long-term processes of rationalization and disenchantment to the
relatively ascetic and ‘this-worldly’ character of Protestantism
Marxist historians view it as a transitional stage between feudalism and capitalism
All viewed with considerable scepticism, because of the experience of multiple pathways to
modernity pursued in different areas of the globe
The spatial settings
Historians usually reject environmental determinism, but human agency was framed by
natural conditions
The prevailing climate posed particular challenges
Number of bonds existed: Christianity, legacy of Roman empire, Roman Law, Latin as Lingua
Franca, much higher number and autonomy for cities
Accommodated representatives of “the other”
Assessment- Early Modern Europe
Socially, a hierarchical and patriarchal structure build on households, estates and
corporations, in which a growing emphasis on merit enhanced the standing of middling
groups in general and their professions in particular
Economically, within a still largely agricultural system, the existence of early forms of
industrial production and the increasing importance of global trading networks catering for
an emerging consumer society
, Religiously, the differentiation of Christianity into “confessions” and, in the longer term, a
reluctant acceptance of pragmatic coexistence
Culturally, a widening of spatial horizons
Politically, ever-large scale warfare, state formation and a power shift towards the centre,
albeit in practice through processes of negotiation rather than unilateral commands
Part 2- Society and Economy
3: Environments
Actions of early modern Europeans profoundly shaped global ecologies and set in
motion forms of economic development which continue to affect environments
today
Histories of Europe have roots in the French Annales school of social and economic
history
The Little Ice Age
In the early modern period, Europe was generally slightly cooler ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA)
Advance of glaciers
Average temperatures between 1 and 2 degrees colder
o Several tropical volcanic eruptions blocking the light from the sun
o Some of the hottest and coldest moments
Lower average temperature meant shorter growing season, which led to stress on
local food available
Hyper LIA in late 16th and early 17th century
A violent storm surge causing the Christmas flood of 1717
Climatic crises could become social crises as they played out through the
arrangement and distribution of power and resources within societies
On the island of Crete climatic disturbance exacerbated stresses brought on by
conflict with the neighbouring Ottoman Empire
o Ottoman merchants could cease trading grain with the island
Historians continue to debate how far environmental factors caused widespread
social and political crises
Scope of this ‘general crisis’ has been expanded by environmental historians
Little Ice Age reached its coldest point during the “Marauder minimum”
Centre-periphery relations became strained amidst a generally less favourable
climate
Columbian exchange
European contact with the Americas initiated deep changes in environments, also
deemed ‘ecological imperialism’
Transfer by no means equal, wilful, or consensual
European-introduced infectious diseases
, Deliberately introduced species thrived on American flora, which fundamentally
changed American landscapes
European plants transported in ballast
o “biological expansion” of European flora and fauna across the globe
‘ The second earth” – image of western hemisphere placed equal and adjacent to the
Eastern in Rumold Mercator’s world map
Plant species introduced to Europe from the America’s
By 1800 collapse of eco-system Brazil
Suger plantations on Caribbean islands destroyed tropical rainforest
Rarely were European colonizers able to succeed in new environments without the
knowledge learned from pre-existing populations
Energy
Muscle, Wood, and flowing water were the primary sources of mechanical power
Draught power from oxen and horses was used for milling, ploughing and
transportation
Wood constituted the primary heat source
Moving from ‘organic economy’ with the dominant energy sources being plants to an
‘advanced organic economy’ characterized by the exploitation of coal
This transition has been characterized as the breaking of the ‘Photosynthetic
constraint
Use of coal was able to free up land for purposes other than primary fuel production,
meaning woodlands could now be converted for agriculture, cities could grow
Landscapes, nature, and culture
Deliberate anthropogenic landscape
Draining of wetlands led to increase of the cultivable area for arable and pasture
Early forms of conservation also attempted
Environmental history often the study of unintended consequences
The ‘improvement’ of wetlands removed habitat
Perceptual shifts accorded within natural philosophy
Catholics and protestants shared a belief in nature as a gift of providence and its
aberrations as signs of divine wrath or grace
Less the death of nature or disenchantments and more a series of re-enchantments
New appreciation for empirical observation and mechanical explanation could be
pioneered by members of the clergy
Dominant Aristotelian-Galenic medical tradition understood the body and the world
in a shared humoral schema
Climate theory also divided the earth into three latitudal zones (frigid polar,
temperate middle, and torrid at equator)
Polders
, 4: Gender and family
Gender
Two sexes with very different characteristics?
Christian religion male orientated (God created Adam first)
Protestant reformation rejected the cult of saints and also Mary
Human body composed of four humours, believed that if a humour was off balance
men could turn into women (Oh the horror!)
o Alarm whenever women imitated male dress
Physical strength remains an essential requirement in many occupations
Repeated pregnancies and care of small children
Power of custom very important
Exclusion of women from education
Roman law, religion, and custom combined to limit women’s freedom and rights far
more severely in Southern Europe than in the North
Gender and education
Informal ‘dame’ or charity schools taught reading, writing and basic religious
principles
Girls were steered towards practical skills (sewing, embroidery)
English grammar schools only for boys
Girls’ boarding schools began to spread from the mid-seventeenth century
Literacy rates remained much lower for women
Among the landed elite, girls educated at home
o No one envisaged them going to university
Concepts of honour and reputation remained firmly gender-based
For women: chasity and fidelity
For men: courage, the ability to maintain a household and ‘honesty’
Work
Most boys destined for a life working in the land
Many young women also working on the family farm
Minority of young men entered a craft or trade, working as an apprentice, later
journeymen for a master
A widow enjoyed the right to continue the business after the husband’s death
Guilds barred female servants
Women were seen as unwelcome competition, compromising the honour of the guild
Women were pushed into lowly and marginal occupations that had never been
organized into guilds’
Women also worked in large numbers in alehouses, taverns and urban cook-shops or
as street vendors
