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History Witchcraft > Common cultures in early modern Europe > Flashcards

Common cultures in early modern Europe Flashcards

1
Q

What statistic of Europeans in the early-modern period lived in the countryside?

A

90%

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2
Q

What new freedoms did the peasants have?

A

No longer serfs, legally free.

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3
Q

Why do we have a lack of evidence regarding the lower classes?

A

Common culture is mostly known from learned elites, low literacy levels.

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4
Q

What and when is Peter Burke’s book?

A

‘Popular culture in early modern Europe’, 1978.

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5
Q

What was Burke’s main thesis?

A

In fifteenth and early sixteenth century, most of the elites participated in popular culture but by the early modern period, elites gradually withdrew from this culture, which was encouraged by Renaissance humanism and the Reformation.

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6
Q

What do most historians think of Burke’s interpretation?

A

Today most scholars are sceptical of Burke’s division, there was a diversity of popular cultures (not so clear cut).

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7
Q

What were the main elite cultures?

A
  • Nobles, generally landowners played major roles in central and local government, more wealth than ordinary people.
  • Learned elites, university scholars and churchmen.
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8
Q

Why were the learned elites not united?

A
  • Learned elites not always churchmen by 1500. 17th century, Galileo arrested.
  • Reformation brought in different ideas, Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans always divided. (No longer one common church tradition).
  • Nobles had different privileges in different parts of Europe.
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9
Q

What were the middle classes?

A

‘Middling sorts’, merchants, substantial farmers.
Not easy to label as ‘elite’ or ‘common’.

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10
Q

Where did Burke’s approach not fit into?

A

Towns and cities.

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11
Q

What was the population growth in London 1500-1800?

A

60,000 in 1500- over a million in 1800.

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12
Q

Why was there an increase of population in urban areas?

A

People from rural areas trying to improve social-economic lot.

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13
Q

What were the largest cities at this time and what were they associated with?

A

Antwerp, Paris, London.
Centres of sophisticated life, high levels of literacy and social interaction.

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14
Q

How did Burke think we could reconstruct entertainment culture of ordinary people?

A

Examining wider culture media, songs, ballads, paintings.

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15
Q

What painting shows common culture?

A

Pieter Brueghel, ‘Battle between carnival and Lent’ (1559)
Depicts many popular pastimes.

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16
Q

What were the most common pastimes for the lower classes?

A
  • Taverns, great entertainment for lower classes (mainly men).
  • Few country inns could hold large numbers, festivals would have to be outside.
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17
Q

Give examples of a few festivals:

A

May Day, Midsummer.

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18
Q

Did the poor work incessantly?

A

Even the poorest serfs did not work incessantly, many holy days prior to the Reformation.

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19
Q

How did games show the differences between lower classes and elites?

A

Games associated with manhood- football and stoolball, popular but not amongst Tudor monarchs.
Seen as a distraction from virtuous sports like archery.

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20
Q

What entertainment was enjoyed by all European cultures?

A

Animal fighting, cockfighting, Spain, bull chases.

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21
Q

What was the common culture on gender?

A
  • Inferior to men.
  • St Paul declared women should be silent and submissive.
  • Women were creatures of emotion, vulnerable to deceit.
  • A mans supremacy in relationships is sacrosanct.
  • ‘Ideal Housewife’ and Adam and Eve.
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22
Q

What were the regional variations for women?

A

Women had less freedom in southern Europe than Northern Europe.
Foreign visitors saw England as paradise for women.

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23
Q

What role did women have in terms of gossip?

A

Rather than meeting in taverns, would meet near wells or whilst washing, ‘spinning bees’ devoted to gossiping.
Their gossip was fundamental in shaping public opinion.

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24
Q

What were the hardships in common culture?

A
  • Most were still dependent on harvests.
  • There were breakthroughs of cities with no improvements on sanitation, caused plagues.
  • People sought scapegoats.
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25
Q

What effect did the Plague have?
Give an example.

A

People sought scapegoats.
Geneva, tried to find those responsible.
1570, 115 people in Geneva persecuted, 44 executed.

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26
Q

What was a child’s mortality rate in the 1500s?

A

1/3 children died before the age of five in most areas.

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27
Q

What was the strongest cultural bond at the start of the 16th century?

A

Christianity.
Most Europeans looked for moral direction.
Before reformation, loyalty was to the Catholic Church.

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28
Q

Prior to the Reformation, how did Christianity provide focus for ritual?

A
  • Baptism, weddings, funerals.
  • Everyone had to attend church on Sundays.
  • Saint’s Days.
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29
Q

What was the average number of festivals annually?

A

17 in Western Europe.

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30
Q

What was the general consensus for festivals?

A

Occasions for excess, drinking, dancing, sex.
May Day.

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31
Q

What is an exception for the exuberance of festivals?

A

Lent–> abstinence from food, drinking and sex.

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32
Q

What were the differences between elites from lower classes and upper classes?

A

Guilds (workers associations) critical to organising the lower class festivals.
Rulers and great lords staged own festivals on lavish scale, bounteous meals and knightly jousts.

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33
Q

Where were carnivals important?

A

Southern and central Europe.

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34
Q

When did carnival season begin?

A

January-February

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35
Q

What did people celebrate in carnivals?

A

‘Pleasures of the flesh’.

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36
Q

What did carnivals mock?

A

Mocked normal rules or order and morality.
World turned upside down, men would dress up as women, servants became masters.

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37
Q

What was the ‘Feast of ____’?

A

The Feast of Fools

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38
Q

Who was the Feast of Fools organised by?
What is the significance of this?

A

Clergy
Church leaders appalled at the clergy’s influence on this hedonistic festival.

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39
Q

What happened in the Feast of Fools?

A
  • Someone labelled a ‘bishop of the fools’.
  • For the period of the festival, they could tell anyone to do anything they wanted.
  • Encouraged drinking, dancing.
  • Mocked behaviour of priests by dancing and drinking in churches.
40
Q

What are the criticisms of carnivals and festivals usually associated with?

A

The Reformation.
Puritans wanted to create a ‘godly’ society by ruling out any evil.

41
Q

Name the German lawyer that opposed festivals.
What did he say?

A

Sebastian Brant
Considering drinking and gaming the ruin of the country people.
‘Ship of Fools’ (1495).

42
Q

What showed the ‘unchristian’ nature of carnivals and festivals?

A
  • May Day riots occurred in London, 1517.
  • German carnivals in 1520s and 1530s had turned into anti-catholic parades.
43
Q

What have scholars often described festivals and carnivals as?

A

A ‘Safety Valve’.
(Max Gluckman, 1972).
The ‘rituals of rebellion’ associated with the world turned upside down allowed people to escape everyday life and openly criticise authorities.

44
Q

What metaphor do historians use to show that carnivals and festivals were used to strengthen authorities?

A

You need to allow gas to escape from wine barrels to prevent them from exploding.
This may have been why carnivals were allowed by many authorities.

45
Q

What has Natalie _____ Davis said about the ‘safety valve’?

A

1975, said it was more than a safety valve, it could also criticise social order.
Can see through the May Day riots, 1517 and German, anti-Catholic parades.

46
Q

What might the riots and rebellions of festival been down to?

A

Large consumptions of alcohol, combined with anger over poor harvests and tax increases.

47
Q

Were all authorities okay with festivals and carnivals?

A
  • Moral reformers disapproved of excesses.
  • Some members of upper classes suggested particular festivals ought to be abolished.
48
Q

What was a common method of punishment?

A

Public humiliation.

49
Q

Who was mainly subject to public humiliation?

A

Women that were domineering, unfaithful or rebellious.
Deemed to be a threat to patriarchal society.

50
Q

What crimes would constitute the punishment of reciting your crimes in the market place?

A

Scolding, adultery, hitting your husbands and prostitution.

51
Q

How would the locals take public humiliation into their own hands?

A

Crowd, often carrying effigies of miscreant, would gather outside the houses of the offenders and beat pots and pans, called ‘rough music’.

52
Q

What was English public humiliation called?

A

Skimmingtons.

53
Q

What was French public humiliation called?

A

Charivari

54
Q

What were prisons used for?

A

Not as punishment, just to hold people awaiting trial.

55
Q

What was the favoured method of law enforcement?

A

Public humiliation.

56
Q

What contraptions were used for public humiliation?

A

Stocks or pillory or ducking stool.

57
Q

What corporal punishments were used?

A

Whipping in Germany.
Offender may be branded.
Serious crimes punished by death.
Held at particular sights to attract large crowds.

58
Q

Which historian stressed the stability of English society through the early modern period?

A

Peter Laslett, 1972

59
Q

Why were contemporaries concerned about the breakdown of order?

A

More riots and growing numbers of vagabonds.
Growing concern over ungodly behaviour–> gambling, prostitution, sodomy and drunkenness.

60
Q

Who do contemporaries think motivated the attempts at getting rid of ungodly behaviour?

A

Puritanism.
Strong in many parts of Europe (mainly Scotland, England and Netherlands).

61
Q

Why did Protestants want to get rid of festivals?

A

Saw successors as pagan gods, wanted to abolish multiple festivals.
Saw festivals as popery.

62
Q

Which Catholic group hated festivals?

A

The Council of Trent, set up by Pope Paul III, 1545.

63
Q

What did the council of Trent say about festivals?

A

‘the celebration of saints be perverted by the people into festivals and drunkenness’.

64
Q

Why did people resort to safeguards?

A

Famine and disease, through religious observance, wanted magical assistance.

65
Q

Who offered magical assistance?

A

Catholic church:
- blessings in the form of prayers.
- exorcisms.
- holy water and charms.
- ringing of church bells thought to have prevented storms.

66
Q

What were astrologers?

A

Looked at working of heaven, predicted the future.

67
Q

What is the most prolific astrology text?
What was the effect?

A

Lichtenberger’s ‘Prognostications’, 1488.
Said stars and planets were demonic powers.
Many European monarchs had court astrologers to help advise.

68
Q

What was the Hermetica?
What did it influence?

A
  • Collection of treatises attributed to Hermes.
  • Influenced alchemists who believed ordinary materials could be turned into gold and cure disease.
69
Q

Who talks of a ‘print culture’ in early modern Europe?

A

Elizabeth Eisenstein (1979).
Shaped the Renaissance, Reformation and Scientific Revolution.

70
Q

When was printing invented?

A

1440’s from Johannes Gutenburg.
Found a way of producing moveable type, oil-based ink and a wooden hand press.

71
Q

What shows that printing was expanding rapidly?

A

By 1500, more than 1000 printing shops across Europe.

72
Q

Where did printing begin?
How much did they print?

A

William Caxton’s workshop.
First decade of 16th century, 400 titles published, grown to 6000 by 1630s and 21,000 in 1710’s.

73
Q

Who was printing mainly limited to?

A

Educated elites, mainly literate.

74
Q

How did printing become more accessible?

A
  • Cheap pamphlets
  • Illustrated texts
75
Q

What is the case AGAINST a print revolution?

A
  • Wider communications revolution instead. An item of print only had impact once it was disseminated, which relied on marketing and transport. They had to improve for everything else to improve.
  • Handwritten copies of texts continued to flourish until late 17th century.
  • Literacy rates improved only slowly. Rural areas lagged behind. Only 1/3 of Europeans literate by 1700.
  • Oral culture not undermined.
  • Did not undermine sacred authority. In Catholic areas, scientific advance was hampered by papal ‘Index Librorum Prohibitorium’, listed titles forbidden from being printed.
76
Q

What is the case FOR a print revolution?

A
  • Printing reduced the cost of copying texts. More people could purchase books and pamphlets.
  • First 50 years of printed book, Europe’s presses probably achieved a global output of 10,000 editions.
  • Many scholars see the press as intrinsic to the Reformation.
    -Pamphlets in Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands played a vital role in spreading the Protestant message in 1520s, undermining the authority of the Catholic church.
  • Pamphlets and newspapers spread radical ideologies, undermined authorities.
  • Was an increase in literacy by the Enlightenment 1/3.
  • Reading became an essential skill for many jobs.
  • Affordability of the book had transforming effect on education. German territory of Wuttemberg had 50 schools in 1534 by 1581 it had 2709.
  • English antiquarian, John Aubrey thought ‘oral tradition’ was drawn out. (But exaggeration).
77
Q

What were the different aims of the Catholics and Protestants?

A

Protestants wanted to eradicate what they saw as evils, Catholics tended to favour reform.

78
Q

What Protestants were not tolerant of traditions?

A

Calvinists

79
Q

What highlights that not all Protestants cared about tradition?

A

Lutheran church initially kept many pre-Reformation practices and traditions.

80
Q

What ‘godly’ practices did Calvinists want to install?

A
  • Bible to be made available to ordinary people in languages they could understand.
  • Sermons, interpreting the Bible, essential feature of Calvinist services.
  • Psalms frequently sung at funerals, weddings and meals replacing folksongs and hymns.
  • Wanted to get rid of ‘pagan’ aspects of tradition, like dancing, animal sports and festivals.
81
Q

What are examples of Protestant change?

A
  • Scotland, mid 1570s, attacks on celebrations of Christmas and Midsummer.
  • Phillip Stubbs (Puritan) drew up a list of traditions that should be abolished, ‘filthy groping and unclean handling’.
82
Q

When did Puritans hold power in England?

A

1646-1660

83
Q

What did Puritans hate on Sundays?

A

Hated people playing football on the Sabbath.

84
Q

Did people widely agree with the Puritans?

A

No, in Calvinist controlled areas, people found own versions of festivals, such as bonfires.

85
Q

What did the Catholics do in the Counter-Reformation?

A

Catholic church initiated a number of reforms to purify the Church:
- Religious ceremonies subject to new regulations, designed to emphasise their sacred nature. Eg, clergy in Strasbury decreed that marriage was to be celebrated without ‘mockery, taunts’.
- Feast of Fools came to an end.
- Dances and fairs forbidden on church grounds.
- Catholic clergy forbidden to participate in festivals.
- Most wanted festivals reformed, not abolished.

86
Q

What did Burke think of the political change in early modern Europe?

A

1500-1800 witnessed a ‘politicisation’ of popular culture.
Ordinary people showed interest in government.

87
Q

Give examples of ‘politicisation’ in early modern Europe.

A
  • 1520s, Germany, peasants revolt against landowners.
  • Rebellions and civil wars 1550-1650.
  • TYW, people interested in politics more than ever, flood of pamphlets 1640s.
  • Elites lost authority in England 1642-1660.
88
Q

What was Europe’s population growth, 1500-1800?

A

80 million- 190 million.

89
Q

Highlight the increasing urbanisation in Europe.

A

1500, only three cities, Naples, Venice and Paris.
1800, 23 cities.

90
Q

Why can it be argued that economic changes can be exaggerated?

A
  • 18th century, less than 3% of Europe’s populations lived in towns with populations about 100,000.
  • Most continued to live in settlements of 5000 people.
91
Q

What did Burke say about the withdrawal of the elites from popular culture?

A

By 1800, elites abandoned popular culture of lower classes, ‘from whom they were now separated’.

92
Q

Why do historians disagree with Burke’s view on popular culture?

A

According to Burke, withdrawal was clear-cut, yet elites had always hated attributes of popular culture.
In Southern Europe, withdrawal was slow, as seen in the survival of carnival.
BUT, reasonable that by 18th century, most elites had withdrawn.

93
Q

How did the clergy withdraw from popular culture?

A

1500, parish clergy men at similar level to commoners. ‘Godly’ men demanded a learned clergy instead.
After Council of Trent, priests began to be trained at seminaries.

94
Q

How did the nobility withdraw from popular culture?

A

Influenced by religious texts (from Reformation), would no longer partake in dancing, eating in halls, wrestling peasants.
Refined behaviour marked them as different to ordinary people.

95
Q

How did the bourgeoisie withdraw from popular culture?

A

Polished manners of nobility inspired them, lawyers and merchants abandoned local dialects and refined language.

96
Q

How did the learned elite withdraw from popular culture?

A

Adopted ideas from the scientific revolution, abandoned superstitions and belief in witchcraft held by ordinary people.

97
Q

What evidence is there that the Church lost their influence?

A

By 1800, clergy generally had less control.
Education was no longer under exclusive influence of the church.

History Witchcraft (8 decks)

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