Late Seventeenth Century Research Articles

Medicine, God, and the Unseen in Eleventh/Seventeenth-Century Morocco

Abstract In the late seventeenth century, the head of the Salihiyya Sufi lodge in the far south of Morocco, Abu al-ʿAbbas Sidi Ahmad al-Salihi al-Dar‘i (d. 1144/1731), wrote a poem of over a thousand lines on medicine, a long composition that went on to enjoy great popularity. The Worthy Gift of Medicine (al-Hadiya al-maqbula fi l-tibb) drew on a wide range of sources, including the Arab-Galenic tradition and Prophetic medicine, and in the fashion of the time, al-Salihi wrote a long commentary to fully explain it. Al-Salihi’s medical writings thus provide a productive entry point into the nature of medical writing and practice in early modern Morocco, as well as the historiographical narratives that have structured the ways in which they have been studied.

The Afterlife of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, By Jane Kingsley-Smith

In the thriving field of Shakespeare reception studies there has been remarkably little attention paid to his poetry, and particularly, the Sonnets—the subject of Jane Kingsley-Smith’s brilliant and entirely welcome new book. This omission replicates something of a gap in the afterlife of the texts themselves, which have been read somewhat unevenly but—as Kingsley-Smith conclusively shows—more continually since their initial 1609 publication than has previously been recognized. Theoretical work by Emma Smith and Laurie Maguire that reads source texts as traumatic memories, having certain moments of recurrence through time, is usefully invoked early in the study and provides a helpful model for rethinking the Sonnets’ reception (82). Kingsley-Smith reveals how certain historical moments previously thought to have had little interest in reading the Sonnets are in fact crucial to shaping their reception; the mid- and late seventeenth century, for instance, mark not periods of neglect, but an important engagement with...

Shaftesbury, Third Earl of [Anthony Ashley Cooper

Shaftesbury, Third Earl of [Anthony Ashley Cooper

Aphra Behn’s “Emperor of the Moon” and Its French Source “Arlequin, Empereur dans la lune.” Ed. and trans. Judy A. Hayden and Daniel J. Worden.

<i>Aphra Behn’s “Emperor of the Moon” and Its French Source “Arlequin, Empereur dans la lune.”</i> Ed. and trans. Judy A. Hayden and Daniel J. Worden.

Hernandez, Alex Eric. The Making of British Bourgeois Tragedy: Modernity and the Art of Ordinary Suffering.

Hernandez, Alex Eric. <i>The Making of British Bourgeois Tragedy: Modernity and the Art of Ordinary Suffering</i>.

McTague, John. Things That Didn’t Happen: Writing, Politics and the Counterhistorical, 1678–1743.

McTague, John. <i>Things That Didn’t Happen: Writing, Politics and the Counterhistorical, 1678–1743</i>.

Fisher, Nicholas. Symon Patrick (1626–1707) and His Contribution to the Post-1660 Restored Church of England.

Fisher, Nicholas. <i>Symon Patrick (1626–1707) and His Contribution to the Post-1660 Restored Church of England</i>.

Modernisation of the Russian state’s political elite in the context of peter the great’s transformations

Early eighteenth century was the age of Peter the Great’s transformations, which affected many spheres of life of Russian society, and, in particular, caused the restructuring of the highest political elite. The reforms were, on the one hand, conditioned by the processes of the late seventeenth century, on the other hand, by the specificity of Peter’s absolutism and the long period of warfare. The article analyses the features of Peter’s reforms of the higher political elite. The background to the reforms has been examined, and Peter the Great’s personnel policy, approaches and principles have been analysed. Particular attention has been paid to institutional change, looking at the mechanisms used by Peter the Great in replacing obsolete institutions with new ones. An analysis of the qualitative composition of the elite made it possible to establish a continuity between the political elite of Peter the Great and the aristocracy of the earlier period, with a change in the principles of interaction. The post-reform Russian state is no longer built on the principles of the “servant state”, but on absolutism with a rationalist approach and the principle of “suitability”.

William Poole. The World Makers: Scientists of the Restoration and the Search for the Origins of the Earth.

William Poole. <i>The World Makers: Scientists of the Restoration and the Search for the Origins of the Earth.</i>

John C. Swanson. Tangible Belonging: Negotiating Germanness in Twentieth-Century Hungary.

John C. Swanson. <i>Tangible Belonging: Negotiating Germanness in Twentieth-Century Hungary.</i>

Corners, Tables, Lines

Abstract The modern concept of race is usually traced back to proponents of a “natural history of mankind” in the European Enlightenment. Starting from allegorical representations of the four continents in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the eighteenth-century visual genre of castas paintings, I suggest that modern conceptions of race were significantly shaped by diagrammatic representations of human diversity that allowed for tabulation of data, combinatorial analysis, and quantification, and hence functioned as “tools to think with.” Accounting for racial ancestry in terms of “proportions of blood” not only became a preoccupation of scholars as a consequence, but also came to underwrite administrative practices and popular discourses. To contribute to a better understanding of the history of race relations, historians of the race concept need to pay more attention to these diagrammatic aspects of the concept.

‘Purest Bones, Sweet Remains, and Most Sacred Relics.’ Re-Fashioning St. Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (1458–84) as a Medieval Saint between Counter-Reformation Italy and Poland-Lithuania

This article explores the Counter-Reformation medievalization of Polish–Lithuanian St. Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (1458–1484)—whose canonization was only finalized in the seventeenth century—as a case study, taking up questions of the reception of cults of medieval saints in post-medieval societies, or in this case, the retroactive refashioning into a venerable medieval saint. The article investigates these questions across a transcultural Italo–Baltic context through the activities of principal agents of the saint’s re-fashioning as a venerable saint during the late seventeenth century: the Pacowie from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Medici from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, during a watershed period of Tuscan–Lithuanian bidirectional interest. During this period, the two dynasties were entangled not only by means of the shared division of Jagiellończyk’s bodily remains through translatio—the ritual relocation of relics of saints and holy persons—but also self-representational strategies that furthered their religio-political agendas and retroactively constructed their houses’ venerable medieval roots back through antiquity. Drawing on distinct genres of textual, visual, and material sources, the article analyzes the Tuscan–Lithuanian refashioning of Kazimierz against a series of precious reliquaries made to translate holy remains between Vilnius to Florence to offer a contribution to the entangled histories of sanctity, art and material culture, and conceptual geography within the transtemporal and transcultural neocolonial context interconnecting the Middle Ages, Age of Reformations, and the Counter-Reformation between Italy and Baltic Europe.

The Miguel Burnier district: An encapsulation of Brazil's mining history

The Miguel Burnier mining district has been part of Brazil’s mining history since its early developments in Portuguese colonial times. All the great cycles in Brazilian mining history were first witnessed in this mining district of Ouro Preto and its close vicinity within the Quadrilátero Ferrífero in the state of Minas Gerais. The district was founded during the Brazilian gold rush, the longest in the world’s history, which lasted from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century and which had a dramatic impact on the economy and history of Brazil, Europe and Africa. Attracted by the mineral wealth of Minas Gerais, several nineteenth-century naturalists visited Miguel Burnier. They were responsible for important observations and studies in the district, including the discovery of large manganese deposits. At the dawn of the twentieth century, a manganese rush began, and the manganese mines of Miguel Burnier came to be known worldwide for their high-grade ores, especially those mined by Usina Wigg, a company that operated in the district from the 1890s to 1996. This company, a pioneer of the Brazilian steel industry, had its apogee in World War I when Brazil became the main manganese supplier to the US market. Manganese mining in Miguel Burnier also contributed to the development of geology and its application to ore deposits in Brazil, leading to studies of the world-class iron ore deposits of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero and to iron ore becoming Brazil’s main mineral commodity since the 1940s.

Sapiens Dominabitur Astris: A Diachronic Survey of a Ubiquitous Astrological Phrase

From the late thirteenth through late seventeenth centuries, a single three-word Latin phrase—sapiens dominabitur astris, or “the wise man will be master of the stars”—proliferated in astrological, theological, philosophical, and literary texts. It became a convenient marker denoting orthodox positions on free will and defining the boundaries of the scientifically and morally legitimate practice of astrology. By combining the methodology of a diachronic historical survey with a microhistorical focus on evolving phraseology, this study argues that closely examining the use of this phrase reveals how debates about the meanings of wisdom, free will, determinism, and the interpretation of stellar influence on human events changed radically across four centuries of Western European cultural and intellectual history. The first half of this article charts the scholastic response to theological criticisms of astrology and the reconciliation of Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology with Catholic theology, paying special attention to its implications for astrology as viewed through scholarly uses of the phrase. The second half of the article shows how the phrase developed a multitude of idiosyncratic meanings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fracturing its late medieval scholastic unity, as new forms of philosophical, socio-political, religious, and scientific critiques upended astrological beliefs and practices. Ultimately, this paper argues that examining the theory and praxis of astrology through the changing phraseological meanings of “sapiens dominabitur astris” allows historians and cultural anthropologists to better discern the dialectical (as opposed to binary) relationships between free will and determinism in the West.

Islanders and Empire: Smuggling and Political Defiance in Hispaniola, 1580–1690

Historians' interest in the seventeenth-century Caribbean has surged in recent years. Juan José Ponce Vázquez's revised dissertation analyzes the role that smuggling played in the cultural, economic, and sociopolitical development of Santo Domingo from the end of the sixteenth to the late seventeenth century. The author focuses on local communities that reflect shifting opportunities for the population during a period when hostile powers penetrated parts of the Spanish empire, including the island of Hispaniola, and established their own colonies in the Caribbean.Based on extensive research in the Archivo General de Indias, Ponce Vázquez shows that the development of plantation economies was not the only viable option for settlers in colonies neglected by the Spanish crown's preference for resource-rich parts of the New World. Some people found other means of survival, and the reason that Hispaniola trod a different path was its access to the lucrative contraband economy. Illicit trade, as it turned out, generated income for a substantial portion of the island's population. The author convincingly demonstrates that the colony was not lingering on the periphery of the Caribbean, as it has long been depicted, but was an active participant in the Atlantic economy that transcended the mercantilistic policies of the European rulers.The book is organized in chronological order. The first chapter covers most of the sixteenth century, when Hispaniola evolved from the center of Spanish imperial expansion to an impoverished backwater with limited opportunity for its inhabitants. In chapter 2 Ponce Vázquez describes how smuggling emerged as the predominant sector in the island's economy toward the end of the century. Contraband trade with Dutch merchants flourished, and many settlers profited from this form of commerce. The third chapter outlines the well-known forced depopulation between 1604 and 1606 that left large parts of the island's north and west open to foreign intrusion. The author then examines how Santo Domingo's inhabitants consolidated control over colonial government and forged new relationships with non-Spaniards and the authorities in the motherland. The focus on Rodrigo Pimentel's remarkable career as officeholder and ruthless businessman in the next chapter provides fine insights into the political culture of this neglected colony. The final chapter considers the relations with intruders, particularly the French who, beginning in Tortuga in 1629, seized the western coastal regions of the island and established the colony Saint-Domingue at a time when the Spanish crown barely managed to protect major Caribbean ports from foreign assaults.The surviving sources do not seem to be as rich as for other Spanish colonies like Mexico or perhaps Panama, but Ponce Vázquez paints a vivid picture of the development of Santo Domingo from the failure of plantation economy to the war against the French in 1690. The descriptions of the social and cultural implications of the reliance on illicit trade belong to the great strengths of this book. The author shows how the cabildo (governing council) became a “select club where friendships were established, profitable deals were struck, but also where members could become life-long enemies” (p. 144). While the local elites used the power of political office for their own advantage, the dirty work was often carried out by slaves. A few examples make the stories of various individuals come alive as well as further contribute to a better understanding of colonial society.Although this book covers much new territory, for historians of the Atlantic world the crucial intersection with the French remains a bit of a mystery. The author, for instance, describes a number of raids and counterraids in the 1660s and 1670s, but it is not clear whether there was any peaceful trade between these parties during this period. The lack of references in the Spanish correspondence is a major roadblock. Some papers in French archives suggest that merchants from Normandy specifically sought customers among the island's Spanish settlers. The potential profits seem to have outweighed the risks. The French and the Dutch sides of these illicit transactions wait to be explored in future research projects.In sum, Ponce Vázquez's work is an important contribution to the growing body of studies of smuggling and contraband trade in various parts of the Spanish empire. This excellent book is rich in detail and illuminates Hispaniola's history during a crucial phase of development. The author has done a fantastic job in bringing the many facets of colonial life outside the centers of prosperity to light. It is regrettable that the exorbitant price will severely limit the readership. Not only historians of Latin America and the Caribbean but also a broad audience with a more general interest could profit from the wider distribution of this study.

Fishing at the Late Islamic settlement in Khar\u0101\u2019ib al-Dasht, Failaka Island, Kuwait

The Kharā’ib al-Dasht settlement, located on the north-eastern coast of the island of Failaka in Kuwait, has been excavated systematically since 2013 by the Kuwaiti-Polish Archaeological Mission. The investigated area yielded remains dated to the Late Islamic period, from the late seventeenth to the nineteenth century. In the northernmost part of the site, a fish processing area was uncovered, while the remains of residential structures (houses 1 and 2), as well as a mosque, were discovered in the eastern part of the site. Concentrations of fireplaces, hearths and ovens were discovered inside the houses and courtyards of what seems to be the centre of the settlement as well as from the periphery of the site. Fishing was evidenced not only by the presence of fish bones but also by recovered fishing technologies, including the remains of stone fish traps that were discovered in the coastal waters near to the site. The excavations yielded 12,182 bones of marine fishes. Twenty eight families are represented, including six families of cartilaginous fishes. Ariidae bones were most numerous followed by Haemulidae, Sciaenidae and Carcharhinidae. The analysis of the assemblage shows that fishing could have been of great importance to the inhabitants of the settlement. Moreover, we attest different patterns in the fish assemblages between the two different parts of the village. The fish processing area can be seen as a workplace, while the daily activity took place in the village. These differences can also be used to shed light on the fishing techniques these people used.

The People Are King: The Making of an Indigenous Andean Politics, by S. Elizabeth Penry

This book by Elizabeth Penry gives a history of ordinary Andeans of the Audiencia de Charcas who, throughout the centuries of Spanish domination, defined themselves by reinterpreting colonial institutions and ideas. It shows how those people struggled to govern themselves and to acquire full rights. It also demonstrates how they moved from ‘a politics of hereditary nobility, the caciques, to a hybrid form of participatory democracy, with the town council at its heart, that had roots in both the Andean and Spanish worlds’ (p. 3). This history is based on an impressive analysis of historical sources coming from many archives, and written with microhistory tools: interwoven stories that make a complex transformation comprehensible. Penry poses an important question that is the main thread of the book: what is the común? She traces the use of the word ‘común’ from the late seventeenth century until it became widespread during the revolutions of the 1780s. Común was, in Penry’s view, ‘the Andean voice’ of popular sovereignty, a term that only referred to the common people and not to the hereditary nobility. It was, however, a term that was not always in use, so she needed to reconstruct its history. For this purpose, she focuses on two pre-Conquest federations, the Killaka and the Karanqa. Within their territories, she concentrates on five highland towns, refounded with Christian patron saints in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The geography of the book also comprises the distant valleys belonging to those federations, which were located within the Qaraqara territory.

“Each one brings with his faith and thought – even in chains – thrones to the highs and down” – on the European significance of the Polish republican heritage

Constitutional history may be done on national or on comparative scale. If approached comparatively, it requires an external look to a historical legal system. This look, though, is the more accurate the more one considers the legal cultural spirit. As a German legal historian, it is decisive to distance myself from any Hegelian Volksgeist-thinking. Rather, my interest in the Polish republican tradition forging the national memory in the years of statelessness and imposed authoritarianism is guided by a Burckhardtian way. As he read the Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (1860) in terms of the rise of the individual, there seems to be a Polish legal culture in terms of a republican stimulus of “non-domination”. If this paper argues that Polish republicanism has a share in Poland’s vital and leading role in the fall of communism from 1989 onwards, it is not so naïve to assume a direct line from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when nobility was acquiring real power at the expense of royal prerogatives, to the twentieth century. It is more like a visit to Monet’s Bassin aux nymphéas in the Parisian Musée Marmottan: Blossoms are placed on the canvas in thick strokes, merging colours into another. The water lilies are only recognizable, if you stand ba ck from the painting and admire the wholepicture. It is in this way that Polish Republicanism matters, not only forPoland, but also for Europe.

Tracing the Influence of Ming-Qing Buddhism in Early Modern Japan: Yunqi Zhuhong’s Tract on Refraining from Killing and on Releasing Life and Ritual Animal Releases

This essay traces the Japanese reception of Zhuhong’s Tract on Refraining from Killing and on Releasing Life in the early modern period. Ritual animal releases have a long history in Japan beginning in the seventh century, approximately two centuries after such rituals arose in China. From the mid-eighth century, the releases became large-scale state rites conducted at Hachiman shrines, which have been most widely studied and documented. By contrast, a different strand of life releases that emerged in the Edo period owing to the influence of late Ming Buddhism has received comparatively little scholarly attention despite the significance for the period. Not only may the publication of a Sino–Japanese edition of Zhuhong’s Tract in 1661 have been an impetus for Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s Laws of Compassion in the late-seventeenth century, but also approximately thirty Japanese Buddhist texts inspired by Zhuhong’s Tract appeared over the next two and a half centuries. As Zhuhong’s ethic of refraining from killing and releasing life was assimilated over the course of the Edo and into the Meiji period, life releases became primarily associated with generating merit for the posthumous repose of the ancestors although they were also said to have a variety of vital benefits for the devotees and their families, such as health, longevity, prosperity, and descendants.

“Moors Must Not Be Taken for Black”: Race, Conflict, and Cultural Translation in the Early Modern French Mediterranean

Abstract French actors mediated North African cultures and shaped French perceptions of others in the Mediterranean world during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Francophone intermediaries experienced predominantly Muslim cultures as consuls, diplomats, military officers, naval captains, merchants, travelers, and prisoners in North Africa and across the Mediterranean during this period. This article reconsiders issues of race and conflict in the early modern Mediterranean by globalizing Francophone sources on the figure of the “Moor” and the conceptual space of the “Barbary Coast” in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. After introducing French cultural intermediaries in the Mediterranean, the article analyzes their depictions of North Africans through conflict narratives, geographic works, and ethnographic descriptions. New evidence of racial distinctions in the early modern French Mediterranean suggests that conflict reshaped French understandings of Muslims and produced racialized conceptions of “Moors.” This finding supports recent historical interpretations of race as a category of differentiation already articulated and operative in the early modern world.