Early Modern Research Articles

Evidently Not: Why Confessions Are Excluded in Jewish Criminal Jurisprudence

Abstract Of all the principles in classical Jewish law that stand out from a comparative legal perspective perhaps none is more notable than the ban on self-incrimination in criminal procedures. Contrary to the most basic evidentiary assumptions of other ancient legal systems, this principle differs fundamentally from the right to remain silent that is part of both early modern and modern legal systems. Only rabbinic jurisprudence incorporates an outright exclusion of criminal confessions. Despite receiving much scholarly attention over the centuries, this principle’s fundamental justification relating to the rule of law and the public pursuit of justice has gone unnoticed. This article explores this salient jurisprudential perspective, and sheds new light on this principle by contrasting the Jewish legal approach with the primary modes of criminal adjudication that were adopted in the West. What emerges from this comparative analysis is that this seemingly anomalous principle actually reveals much about the core commitments and values of Jewish law. These, in turn, have substantial implications for certain contemporary legal practices and dilemmas.

Towards a history of parliamentary culture in the early modern world: concept, geopolitical scope, and method

ABSTRACT This article proposes an innovative approach to early modern representative institutions, from the later fifteenth century to the early eighteenth. It argues that only a transnational, interdisciplinary, and comparative study of such bodies can reveal their shared culture and prominence in contemporary political discourse, public memory, and cultural production. Central to this new approach is the concept of ‘parliamentary culture’, which sees representative assemblies as collective constructs and embodiments of a political community, and encompasses the transnational tradition of customs, ideas, and cultural expressions associated with them. The article aims to: (1) sketch out the institutional, geopolitical, and historical scope of our enquiry; (2) define parliamentary culture as a collection of practices of legitimation, negotiation, and debate in political assembly that are central to the life of a community; and (3) demonstrate that the distinctive institutional cultures of representative assemblies were an essential component of the public life and political thought of early modern countries; and that there was a common culture of representative assembly shared and recognized throughout Europe which was variously transplanted to and adapted in the overseas territories of the Iberian, Anglo-British, and Dutch empires, often through interaction with Indigenous traditions of assembly. The underlying argument is that only by looking at early modern representative bodies in this way can we appreciate the vitality and significance of this type of political organization.

‘The Most Beautiful Sound’: The Queer Nexus of Listening and Voice in the Early Modern Italian Convent

‘The Most Beautiful Sound’: The Queer Nexus of Listening and Voice in the Early Modern Italian Convent

Spike Gibbs. Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp 280. $100.00 (cloth).

Spike Gibbs. Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp 280. $100.00 (cloth).

Crying in the Womb: Emotions, Sound, and Personhood in Early Modern England

ABSTRACT Crying in the womb (vagitus uterinus) was an extraordinary phenomenon or prodigy by which a foetus in the later stages of gestation could be heard to cry before its birth. This article traces the way that crying in the womb in early modern England was consistently interpreted, across religious, medical, and popular texts, as an emotional expression. Hearing crying in the womb affirmed the unseen presence of a body and soul, already miserable with sin and able to convey this humanness, and affect the emotions of others, with the sound of its voice. This article reveals that hearing non-verbal emotional expressions was central to the early configuration of English Protestant personhood.

Ancient and Modern in Eighteenth-Century British Music Criticism: The Contradictory Case of Henry Purcell’s Te Deum and Jubilate

ABSTRACT During the early modern period, the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns encapsulated profound changes in the way people conceived of the past in relation to their own present. While the Ancients continued to advocate emulating esteemed ancient authorities, the Moderns sought to break away from previous models through original invention. In reality, this binary opposition disguises a much more gradual process of change, which often resulted in contradictory perspectives on the past. This article uses music criticism from eighteenth-century Britain to explore these complexities, concentrating on how Henry Purcell’s Te Deum and Jubilate was appropriated by authors from both sides of the Quarrel to advance opposing viewpoints, using embryonic musical analysis as a hermeneutic tool. The study exposes the tensions underlying the developing historical narratives on which Purcell’s posthumous reputation was built, allowing us to place our own understanding of his reception more firmly within its socio-cultural context.

Naderid Iran's Statehood, Territoriality, Status, and Diplomatic Capacity on Ottoman Scale: 1723-1748

Abstract This article explores Naderid Iran's nature of statehood, position in international balance of power, and evolving diplomatic practice. It argues that from 1723 to 1747, the sovereign establishment in Iran remained fundamentally dynastic without giving way to territoriality, continued to acknowledge Ottoman superiority in hierarchy as well as power relations as a principle, and gradually began to adopt, for the first time, early modern specialized phenomena in diplomatic conduct. The study bases itself on the documentation produced by Iranian-Ottoman diplomacy from the Afghan overthrow in 1722 until the aftermath of Nāder Shah's murder in 1747, contextualizes these records in comparison to those of earlier centuries, and treats the Hotaki regime, the Safavid rump state, and Nāder's monarchy in Iran as a whole.

Chronotopes of exile and loss in Philip O'Sullivan Beare's Zoilomastix (c. 1626)☆

AbstractThis essay explores the relationship between an early modern exile and his native environment, as depicted in Philip O'Sullivan Beare's unfinished natural history Zoilomastix. Writing by turns in Latin, Spanish and Gaelic from the safety of the Habsburg court, O'Sullivan Beare marshalled Ciceronian rhetoric and Plinian wonder to argue for the conservation of interwoven natural and cultural environments. One of the earliest examples of national historiographies written from exile by erudite Irish figures, Zoilomastix has most often been read in terms of its political theology. Though understandable, such readings obscure O'Sullivan Beare's idiosyncratic treatments of self, state and nature. Additionally, such readings only partially consider the author's attempts to engage with the debates on ethnicity, natural law and resource capture which directed the actions of the English state. Adopting the dialogic framework of Mikhail Bakhtin's chronotope, this essay therefore explores the extent to which the genre of natural history was utilized to inform and influence contested narratives. It argues that O'Sullivan Beare's autobiographical account, and its relevance to the forthcoming ‘loss’ of his Gaelic world, has much to tell us in a time of ecological crisis.

Spinnen Out: Women's Work in Early Modern Textile Trades

The production of cloth was a vital aspect of the early modern economy. Women were involved in almost all stages of the process, both in unofficial capacities and sometimes as officially recognized or tolerated artisans. However, associations between women and unskilled labor and guild fear of economic competition led to both legal restrictions and social stigma around women’s involvement in artisan textile work. This pushed more women into low-paying piecework, especially spinning. Spinning was the form of textile work women were most encouraged to do, or least restricted from. As one of the most common types of womens’ labor, it carried both positive connotations of diligence and the social stigmas that followed women as workers, such as anxieties around poverty, sexual immorality, and threats to the stability of male guilds. This essay investigates social attitudes towards women’s textile work, followed by a creative component which examines the spinning process directly.

Conservation Assessment and Documentation of Two Major Types of Ighamouen in the Gourara Region, Algeria

ABSTRACT The storage fortresses (ighamouen) in the Gourara region in the south of Algeria represent significant examples of traditional architecture, offering valuable insights into a diminishing agricultural, social, and economic heritage. These fortresses were constructed between the tenth and late nineteenth centuries, and they were pivotal in safeguarding date harvests from nomadic tribes and served as fortified havens during the conflict. Their archaeological documentation commenced during the French colonial era, with some already displaying signs of deterioration. However, these structures were swiftly abandoned with Algeria’s independence and have deteriorated over the years. This paper presents a comprehensive conservation assessment of two prominent fortress types in the Gourara region, focusing on documentation, preservation, and architectural identification. The study employs cost-effective methods like photogrammetry and field surveys to document architectural features, shedding light on the various historical phases of these fortified granaries and their current state of preservation.

Spaniards and Sbirri: Violence and Diplomacy in the Streets of Early Modern Rome

Spaniards and Sbirri: Violence and Diplomacy in the Streets of Early Modern Rome

KEDUDUKAN PEMIKIRAN KI HADJAR DEWANTARA DALAM FILSAFAT PENDIDIKAN

Ki Hadjar Dewantara is a central figure in education in Indonesia. His various thoughts were able to provide awareness to society during the Dutch colonial era, which did focus on education that was more oriented toward work skills. Ki Hadjar Dewantara through his great determination to establish an educational institution named "Taman Siswa" to restore the essence of education which gives the principle of independence. Education is also intended to help the growth and development of students so that students are active and able to realize all the competencies that exist in each individual student. This research seeks to find Ki Hadjar Dewantara's views regarding the concept of education and to see the position of Ki Hadjar Dewantara's thoughts regarding education in the structure of the philosophy of education. This study uses a qualitative method with a philosophical hermeneutic approach. The results of this study indicate that Ki Hadjar Dewantara's thoughts regarding the concept of education are more oriented toward the educational philosophy of essentialism, existentialism, progressivism, and perennials. So that in this context the idea of ​​Ki Hadjar Dewantara does not only rely on one school of educational philosophy, but is eclectic in nature, which means it combines several schools of educational philosophy which do not contradict one another but use positive principles from each school of philosophy. education and pay attention to the culture of Indonesian society.

"Clothe you his body, he will help to apparel your mind": Imitation and Narcissism in Cynthia's Revels

abstract: This study examines the relationship between imitation and narcissism in the early modern period through a rereading of Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels . Contrary to modern psychoanalytic understanding that a close connection exists between imitation and narcissism, imitation, as a method of translation and creation, in the early modern period does not relate to narcissism; in fact, they can be viewed as opposing concepts. To explore the relationship between imitation and narcissism and to establish a connection between the two concepts in psychoanalysis, this study uses the works of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Through an analysis of characters, Criticus and Amorphus, in Cynthia's Revels , this study reveals that, while Criticus often imitates classical authors such as Horace, Seneca, and Juvenal, he is not regarded as a narcissist. Contrastingly, characters such as Amorphus are portrayed as narcissistic, though they only quote Latin idioms and do not imitate them. Their behavior is mimicry, a superficial imitation without substance. This article then rereads the portrayals of Criticus and Amorphus from a modern-day psychoanalytic perspective, suggesting that Criticus can be perceived as narcissistic and that Amorphus can be seen as a force of satire instead of a satirized target.

Dialects of diplomacy in eighteenth-century Morocco: Middle Arabic in the correspondence of ambassador Aḥmad al-Ghazzāl

ABSTRACT Aḥmad al-Ghazzāl was a Moroccan scribe and litterateur who served as Sultan Muḥammad III’s (r. 1757-1790) chief diplomat to Spain from 1766 to 1775. In this capacity he wrote over thirty letters to his Spanish and other foreign counterparts around the Mediterranean. We use these letters to examine how al-Ghazzāl strategically employed Middle Arabic, defined as a written variety that incorporates both classical and colloquial elements, as part of an effective diplomatic agenda. His use of Middle Arabic combined previously established norms with innovations that have up to now not been documented in this period or genre. Proposing a historical-linguistic analysis, we argue that al-Ghazzāl’s innovative rhetorical strategies offer insight into both spoken and written Arabic in the early modern period and developments in diplomatic thought and practice from a North African perspective.

‘Dry Weather’ and the Environmental History of the Early Modern Caribbean

‘Dry Weather’ and the Environmental History of the Early Modern Caribbean

Tufas record significant imprints of climate and tectonic activity over the past 600 ka: Evidence from a multi-story wedge in Northwest Africa

The Quaternary Period climatic oscillations, typically those driven by Milankovitch cycles, have significantly left profound imprints in the geological records. However, the potential of terrestrial archives, particularly tufa deposits, as archives for Quaternary climate remain relatively underexplored. This study aims to contribute to filling the gap in a data-scarce region (Northwest Africa) through investigating Middle Pleistocene to Holocene groundwater-fed tufa deposits, using fieldwork-based, process-oriented facies analysis and advanced 230Th technique. Eight stratigraphic sections were measured, identifying thirteen sedimentary facies grouped into four facies associations representing specific depositional settings: (i) fluvio-lacustrine and palustrine tufa, (ii) barrage cascade tufa with buttresses, (iii) tufa in channels with pools, and (iv) tufa in shallow braided channels with free-flowing water. The depositional system comprises a single multi-story wedge of vertically and laterally stacked barrage-cascade dammed-area systems.Our Integrated analysis revealed significant tufa growth during MIS 14, with implications for a warm and humid MISs 15–13 ‘extra-long interglacial’, consistent with multiple paleoclimate records. Such conditions would have supported late Acheulean hominin occupation and the emergence of Early Modern Humans in the region around 300 ka. The findings also highlight the possible impact of the Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE) on tufa deposition patterns, likely through CO2-climate feedbacks, underscoring the sensitivity of tufa records to global climatic changes. Moreover, the study outcomes suggest significant regional tectonic activity during the late Middle Pleistocene, causing counter-clockwise rotation and northward tilting of MIS 14 deposits. The associated seismic events may have modified the hydrogeological budget and, by extension, altered the balance between tufa aggradation and degradation. The rotation about the vertical axis suggests a bookshelf faulting mechanism driven by regional left-lateral strike-slip tectonics. Differential karstic dissolution and tectonic forces would have further contributed to deposit tilting. The study highlights the potential of tufa as a valuable terrestrial archive for understanding Quaternary climate dynamics and tectonic processes. Future research should aim to expand the chronological framework and further investigate the climatic and tectonic influences on tufa deposition in this data-scarce region. This can be achieved through additional 230Th dating, high-resolution stable isotope measurements on microbialites, particularly focusing on the significance of the Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE) in Northwest Africa.

Ordinary letters, extraordinary findings

Abstract This project proposes an innovative approach to the history of French by replacing the ‘tunnel vision’ (Watts/Trudgill 2002) which characterizes the vast majority of studies of ‘Classical French’ by a wider approach, based on an extraordinarily valuable source, i.e. the ‘Prize Papers’. The Prize Papers are a collection which includes 50,000 undelivered private French letters, confiscated between 1652 and 1815 during the frequent military conflicts between France and England. The documents are held by the National Archives of the United Kingdom in London, and are remnants of the privateering era, a longstanding legitimate activity of capturing enemy ships. These countless captured letters are becoming known to historians, who have recognized them as an invaluable source of information on the period in question, but have so far attracted little attention from linguists, even those focusing on diachrony. The MACINTOSH project is the first French initiative to explore this collection, and aims to show how the alternative data provided by these private documents can broaden the scope and fill the gaps left by traditional historical linguistics. The research focuses on the first French colonial era, shedding new light on the dynamics and mechanisms that led to the French and Creole varieties existing in America and the Indian Ocean.

On the history of ephemeral conditional subordinators: Evidence from the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English

This article discusses the history of a selection of ephemeral adverbial subordinators (Kortmann 1997, 301), i.e., those that mainly originated in the Early Modern English period (16th -17th centuries) but whose subordinating function, however, either became obsolete rather quickly or was subject to further restrictions beyond this period. This phenomenon was particularly frequent in the CCC relations, these are: causality, conditionality and concessivity. The present article analyses a selected number ephemeral conditional subordinators and compares them with the prototypical conditional subordinator if. The methodology is corpus-based, and I examine the data in the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English. The examples discussed reveal that ephemeral conditional subordinators are scarce and serve as a clear illustration of the concept of ephemerality in the realm of adverbial subordinators.

An Interpolity Legal Regime in the eighteenth century: 
procedural law of prize

Abstract Prize law was a legal regime that played a crucial role in maritime trade and warfare in the European imperial world before the twentieth century, governing both the capture and disposition of enemy property seized by belligerents at sea during wartime. Prize law outlined the rules by which captures were to take place and how captured property was to be handled, adjudicated, and (if “condemned” or deemed a valid capture), disposed of. All European maritime powers had prize regimes during the early modern era, which collectively adjudicated the fates of tens of thousands of vessels worth the equivalent of hundreds of millions of today’s dollars. This article examines the procedural law of prize in the long eighteenth century: the rules that governed how legal actors in the prize regime brought cases before tribunals and the tribunals’ rules for adjudicating them. It shows that the law of prize was an interpolity legal regime, generated within the ambiguous legal spaces that existed between the jurisdictional boundaries of individual states and empires. The article focuses on three important areas of procedural law for evidence of the interpolity character of the prize regime. It looks first at the distinctive role played by mariners in prize procedures. Captains of privateers and other capturing vessels functioned as quasi-officers of the court, responsible for assembling the documentary record that prize tribunals used to adjudicate captures and bringing the cases before the courts. Imperial prize regulations gave almost no guidance on the rules that they were to follow. The proper procedures were defined by mariners and merchants themselves, as unwritten rules articulated at sea. Second, we turn to how the prize tribunals managed language diversity and translation. I show that, a few exceptions aside, prize tribunals did not acknowledge linguistic difference among litigants. Instead, the tribunals relied on silent and often unacknowledged translation processes, which embedded in their proceedings a fiction that all of the actors before them communicated in a common language. Last, the article shows that prize tribunals applied foreign law in their proceedings, in ways that were not formally authorized by imperial law. By focusing on the neglected procedural law of prize, this article offers a different view of the prize regime than the one that has been painted by many studies of substantive law of prize in the long eighteenth century, in at least two ways. One is that studying the procedural law of prize casts into sharp relief the bottom-up character of prize law. Far from being dictated by sovereigns or from imperial centers, much about the prize regime was created informally by lower-level legal actors. Second, a focus on procedural law reveals important continuities in prize law across space and time. Substantive prize law during the period saw extensive debates about the nature of neutral rights, among other issues, with different empires articulating radically different doctrines. The procedural law of prize, true to its interpolity origins, remained remarkably constant across empires and over time.

Light-demanding canopy tree species do not indicate past human disturbance in the Yangambi rainforest (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Key messageIn a former paper, we investigated whether the presence of light-demanding tree species in the forest canopy of the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve (central Congo basin) might be a result of past human disturbances (Luambua et al., Ecol Evol 11:18691–18707, 2021). We focussed on the spatial distribution of the most abundant light demanders, but this approach did not yield conclusive results. In the present study, we focus on all species in the forest and conclude that light demanders are not a transient feature of successional tropical forests but an intrinsic component of old-growth forests in Yangambi.ContextCentral African rainforests are characterised by an abundance of light-demanding tree species, which are aggregated in the canopy but underrepresented in the understorey. A popular explanation is that these forests are recovering from slash-and-burn farming activities preceding the relocation of settlements during the colonial era. In a former paper, we showed that the abundance of light-demanding tree species in the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve (central Congo basin) cannot be unambiguously attributed to past human disturbances, using an approach that focused on the spatial distribution of the most abundant light demanders (Luambua et al., Ecol Evol 11:18691–18707, 2021).AimsAs the former study was inconclusive, the present study aims to further test the assumptions behind the ‘recovery from human disturbance hypothesis’, by considering all species in the forest of Yangambi. We addressed four specific research questions: (i) do light demanders occur in large ‘pockets’ occupying large areas of forest? (ii) Are light demanders abundant? (iii) Do they exhibit a regeneration deficit? (iv) Is species composition in pockets of light demanders different from the surrounding forests?MethodsWe identified the location and size of pockets of light demanders in several transects cumulating to 50 km. We installed permanent inventory plots within and outside these pockets and calculated the diameter and age distributions of light demanders within each pocket. We assessed whether pockets of light demanders are different from surrounding forests, using plot clustering analysis.ResultsOur results showed that light demanders were aggregated, but the pockets were small, scarce, and represent a minor fraction of the total forest area. Furthermore, light demanders were not abundant, even in pockets where they were aggregated. Their age distributions did not show a regeneration deficit. Finally, species composition in pockets of light demanders did not differ substantially from surrounding forests where they were scarce or absent.ConclusionsWe conclude that light-demanding canopy species do not indicate past human disturbance in Yangambi and that they are an intrinsic component of old-growth forests rather than a transient feature of successional forests. Our insights show that the large carbon sink observed in mature forests in this region is not driven by successional forest dynamics.