Translation de Domicile: Rethinking Sedentarity and Mobility in the Early Modern French Countryside

Was the countryside of early modern France marked fundamentallyby mobility or sedentarity? Tax rolls suggest the former, highendogamy rates the latter. For the period 1660–1720, ararely used source, the registers of translation de domicile(change of tax domicile), provide a more comprehensive answerthan civil or tax records. They suggest that, first, 60,000–70,000better-off families moved each year; second, poor migrants,such as day labourers, rarely made declarations; third, thosewho owned land, moved far less often; fourth, laboureurs typicallymoved between 10 and 40 kilometres to take on farms of greaterimportance; fifth, cottagers and day labourers moved to a nearbyvillage, rarely more than 5 kilometres away and finally, menand their families moved for economic gain, whereas women movedbecause of economic loss, after the death of their husband.Because the laboureurs dominated the villages—for example,paying most of the taxes—their movement shook the villagein fundamental ways. The translation de domicile registers indicatevillages open to the outside, full of in-migrants, whose economicstatus often bore a close correlation to the distance of theirmove (high-long, low-short).     

Reading Habits: Catalina de Erauso and the Subjects of Early Modern Spanish Gender and Sexuality

This article reconsiders the subject of early modern Spanish gender and sexuality studies by analyzing the relación de méritos y servicios presented by the famed ‘Lieutenant Nun’ Catalina de Erauso to the Council of the Indies. Studies have focused on the Vida i sucesos de la Monja Alferez, a biography of disputed authorship, and its transgressive protagonist who hides gender identity and illicit desires from persecuting authorities. In contrast, this article studies the petition to show how Erauso’s identity depends upon bureaucratic forms, their standardized content, and collective authorship. In so doing, it moves from a study of gender transgression to a reading of ‘hábitos’—a term that designates interlocking categories of gender, dress, profession, and social status. By shifting the subject of gender and sexuality studies to this web instantiated by ‘hábitos,’ this article shows how collaborative acts of reading and writing allowed privileged subjects to navigate identity and empire in the seventeenth-century Spanish Atlantic world.     

The Imperial Visual Archive: Images,Evidence, and Knowledge in the Early Modern Hispanic World

This article examines the role of images as evidence and sources of knowledge in the early modern Hispanic world, arguing for the continued importance of visual epistemology as a technique for producing and circulating knowledge from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Visual materials played a central role in the production of knowledge, scientific and imperial, and served as key instruments for addressing the considerable challenges of distance and place posed by the geographical expanse of the empire. Historiographically, the article highlights the active generation of scientific knowledge in the Hispanic world and connects it to imperial and administrative practices; it highlights trans-regional channels of circulation, demonstrating the connected histories of the viceroyalties and peninsula and the multidirectional trajectories in which information and knowledge moved; and it points out deep connections between earlier and later colonial periods. Methodologically, the essay explores the potential of images as historical sources, suggesting that the high status of images in the early modern Hispanic world led to the creation of an enormous pictorial archive that deserves the same level of scholarly attention and rigor that has been lavished on the textual archive.     

Becoming Modern: Hybrid Foodways in Early Modern Tornio,Northern Finland

This paper focuses on foodways in a small town in northern Finland between 1621 and 1800 CE. Tornio was founded in 1621in northern Finland, at that time a part of the Swedish kingdom. Tornio was a dynamic town where people of different ethnic origins came together, forming a new urban community and new urban foodways. Archaeological remains of the town’s foodways—animal remains, macrofossils, and ceramics—suggest that the food culture of Tornio was a hybrid of local indigenous and rural traditions and international fashions. The foodways underwent significant changes in the 18th century. The changes were related to modernization and changing human-environmental relationships.     

近代中国早期的公司

在欧洲商业组织引入中国以前,中国的实体股权长久以来一直依靠文化的以及法律习俗所支撑。在缺少法典化、系统化的私法惯例之下,深深植根于日常惯例之中的契约文化和使私人契约生效的政府维持了商业的日益增长。类似的惯例满足了商界寻求方法聚积资本并长久维持商行的需求。这些习俗的发展有助于解释西方式的公司法颁布之后中国对西方判例的适应性以及中国习俗自相矛盾的存留状态。     

The Jew,the Blood and the Body in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

The reality of the blood libel legend and accusations of ritual murder against Jews in medieval and early modern times has been widely discredited by scholars. They demonstrate instead the processes by which the exclusion of a perceived ethnical and religious enemy strengthened the communal identity of European society at that time. The aim of this paper is to look at the alleged bodily evidence of the libel—the blood—and at the controversial way in which it has been perceived by different groups of people over time. This approach illuminates the fears and beliefs that fed hatred of Jews beyond its original manifestation as a religious motif in relation to the crucifixion of Christ.     

The Missing Generation: Grandparents and Agency in Early Modern England

Grandparents have been largely overlooked in the otherwise rich historiography of the family in early modern England. This article shows how many were able to play significant roles in family life, in both emotional and practical terms. Some forged close bonds with their young grandchildren, or took them in for a period to relieve hard-pressed parents, while others were willing to raise and educate the orphaned. Some also provided moral or religious guidance, assuming responsibilities conventionally assigned to godparents, and in some cases even challenging parental decisions of which they disapproved. Grandchildren were almost always remembered in wills, with testators also careful to protect the interests of any potentially at risk. The article then turns to explore the role of grandparents acting as welfare providers, whether voluntarily or through a court order, for grandchildren left as orphans or born to unmarried mothers. It assesses the often contentious issue of grandparents’ moral and legal responsibilities under the parish relief system established by the Poor Law in 1601, and disputes between the paternal and maternal kin. Finally, the article touches briefly on grandparents as repositories of information, whose memories and experience could be of value to their community as well as to their own families.