Public houses and civic tensions in early modern Bern

This article examines the delicate relationship between the civic privilege of wine retailing and the constitutional emphasis on order in a city republic. Burghers appreciated the revenues from beverage sales, while urban authorities worried about destabilizing effects. In the context of state formation, Bern claimed control over public houses throughout its territory, but closer analysis suggests that socio-economic and political interests were constantly renegotiated, not only within the capital but also between centre and periphery

Political culture in the Holy Roman Empire

This article reviews six essay collections and one monograph on late medieval and early modern political culture in the Holy Roman Empire. Following a general survey of historiographical trends and a discussion of the specific contributions of the works under review (covering topics from international relations, state formation and the role of language to representative assemblies and the exercise of power in towns and villages), it attempts a preliminary sketch of the basic parameters of pre-modern politics. Prominent insights include shifts in the balance between oral, ritual and written communication, the significance of informal bonds and the negotiated quality of developments at all levels of government. The conclusion assesses the potential of the ‘new’ political history and calls for renewed efforts to link discourses, representations and perceptions to the norms, structures and socio-economic conditions with which they interacted

Brewing cultures in early modern towns : an introduction

Since Antiquity, fermented drinks have played an important role in European culture. In eastern and northern areas, ale - and from the close of the Middle Ages hopped beer - formed part of people's diets, provided livelihoods for rural alewives as well as urban brewers and accompanied countless forms of social exchange. These drinks came in different varieties and strengths, were consumed in large quantities (especially during feasts and rites of passage) and the potential consequences exercised secular and ecclesiastical authorities in great measure

Late medieval churchwardens' accounts and parish government : looking beyond London and Bristol

This contribution reviews a number of contested issues in the historiography of the late medieval English parish. In contrast to views expressed by Clive Burgess in a recent article in this journal, it is argued that the reliability of churchwardens’ accounts cannot be judged in a general manner, but depends on the specific questions historians want answered. While offering reliable insights into ordinary financial transactions made by churchwardens on behalf of their parishes, they are utterly inadequate for a histoire totale of local religious life. Closer examination of the function, context and compilation of the records suggests that quantitative analysis is not only possible, but an essential prerequisite for informed discussion of parish regimes. The complexity of local communities and the desirability of comparative perspectives call for a plurality of approaches. Finally, the pivotal role of churchwardens within the varying (religious, political and administrative) configurations of the ‘whole body of the parish’ is reasserted

Petitions, Gravamina and the early modern state : local influence on central legislation in England and Germany (Hesse)

This essay hopes to throw some more light on these developments by focusing on two very heterogeneous case studies in the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. It will examine the range of means employed by the subjects of the Holy Roman Empire, mainly the territory of Hesse, and England to influence the laws by which they were governed. The emphasis, however, is not so much on spectacular, extraordinary occurrences such as riots and rebellions (whose impact is by now widely acknowledged), but on the sort of routine activities which marked everyday political life all across the Continent. Having sketched (i) the differing institutional frameworks of the two case studies, we will proceed to (ii) a comparative discussion of popular participation in legislative activities and propose (iii) some general conclusions about the importance of this phenomenon for our understanding of the making of the modern state

Rural society

This essay surveys the long-term negotiation of religious reform in European villages. Following an account of institutional developments and popular religion in late medieval parishes, it traces the—selective—reception of the Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Calvinist messages, especially in the Holy Roman Empire, Scandinavia, the British Isles, Eastern Europe, and the Swiss Confederation, including the latter’s bi-confessional areas. Alongside personal piety, princely interests, and clerical leadership, the argument stresses the importance of political, socioeconomic, and cultural factors in determining whether peasants experienced substantial religious change. In the rare cases where rural communities could take their own decisions, some opted for Catholicism (Swiss Forest Cantons) and others for Protestantism (German imperial villages). The most thoroughly “reformed” regime emerged in early modern Scotland

Rural autonomy and popular politics in imperial villages

Late medieval sources record over a hundred imperial villages without a territorial overlord. Apart from representation in the diet, their constitutional status resembled that of imperial free cities. Only a handful survived the early modern pressures of state formation and territorialisation. This essay examines the political culture and external relations of five rural communities which retained immediate ties to the emperor until the end of the Ancien Régime. Gochsheim and Sennfeld near Schweinfurt, Sulzbach and Soden near Frankfurt am Main and Gersau in present-day Switzerland exercised self-government with minimal external interference. Political regimes were relatively inclusive and integration attempts by neighbouring powers—often their official ‘protectors’—met with sturdy resistance. Communal statutes and chronicles, visual representation and copious litigation reveal strong attachment to the Empire, even at Gersau, where direct contacts ceased in the fifteenth century. Occasionally fierce inner tensions were balanced by the villagers’ pride in their collective freedom. Key imperial characteristics such as representative institutions, the authority of custom and jurisdictional means of conflict resolution scaled right down to the smallest units. More generally, the often overlooked case of imperial villages highlights early modern alternatives to centralization, the multilateral negotiation of local autonomy and the resilience of rural republicanism in the Holy Roman Empire

Catholicism decentralized : local religion in the early modern periphery

Expanding upon recent work on the heterogeneity of Catholicism and the challenges facing Tridentine reformers, this article examines local religion in two “extreme” settings: the village republic of Gersau in Central Switzerland and the missionary territory of the Custody of the Holy Land. Following conceptual remarks, the authors sketch the distinct secular contexts as well the phased evolution of localized networks for the administration of the cure of souls, the latter starting in the eleventh and sixteenth centuries, respectively. A consistently comparative approach reveals notable similarities—in terms of expanding spiritual provision and better record keeping—alongside substantial differences—especially between the clearly demarcated territorial parishes in the Alps and a more punctual system of sacrament centers in Palestine. At Gersau, where diocesan structures were weak, the church operated under the close supervision of a commune with extensive powers stretching to the rights of advowson and benefice administration. Around Jerusalem, the Franciscans—whose custos acted as the vicar apostolic—used material incentives to win over converts from other Christian denominations. Building on recent reassessments of the post-Tridentine Church, both examples thus underline the strong position of the laity in the confessional age and the need to acknowledge local sociopolitical as well as organizational factors in the formation of early modern Catholicism