Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Cultures and Practices of Knowledge in History

Wissenskulturen und ihre Praktiken

Edited by: Markus Friedrich, Christine von Örtzen and Vera Keller

ISSN: 2568-9479

e-ISSN 2568-9487

Overview
Volumes

How was knowledge produced by different people in different times and at different places? How was knowledge stored, managed, classified, organized, deployed, forgotten, and recycled? Finally, how did such practices affect what counted as knowledge? The series invites contributions on the ‘long’ early modern period in Europe and publishes also works on global cultures of knowledge under European influence.

Book Ahead of Publication 2022

Gelehrtenkultur und Sammlungspraxis

Architektur, Akteure und Wissensorganisation in der Universitätsbibliothek Helmstedt (1576–1810)

Britta-Juliane Kruse

Volume 14 in this series

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From the Renaissance, the unique Juleum in Helmstedt was the site of collecting for the university library. To reconstruct its collection history and the organization of knowledge, this book analyzes documents from the library archive and traces of ownership and use in books, painting, and furniture. It emotively describes the various activities carried out in the university library, inviting readers to take a journey through time in their minds.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783110795752
ISBN:: 9783110795752
ISBN:: 9783110795790
ISBN:: 9783110788648
Subject:: Architecture and Design
Subject:: Architecture
Subject:: History
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Topics in Literary Studies
Subject:: Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Ahead of Publication 2023

The Crown and Its Records

Archives, Access, and the Ancient Constitution, 1600-1700

Volume 13 in this series

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The earlier history of the English central archival system has been surprisingly underresearched.
This book-length examination remedies this gap.

Part One investigates the genesis of English archives, the background conditions of
storage and retrieval which shaped archival work and access, and the various governmental
attempts at reforming the archival system and their political significance. Part Two examines
the direct use of archives in the constitutional debates via the career of the judge Sir Edward
Coke (‘the father of the common law’) and the biographies of three individuals who were, at
various points, charged with the keeping of archives: Sir Robert Cotton, John Selden, and
William Prynne. Finally, Part Three analyses a very different archival world, the King's own
private State Paper Office, investigating its restrictive access regime as a point of contrast
with that of the ‘public records,’ its probable uses as a centre for intelligence gathering, and
the intimate involvement of its most prominent Keeper Sir Thomas Wilson in high political
and judicial intrigue on behalf of the Crown.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783110791464
ISBN:: 9783110791464
ISBN:: 9783110791563
ISBN:: 9783110791266
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: Northern Europe
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2022

Between Encyclopedia and Chorography

Defining the Agency of “Cultural Encyclopedias” from a Transcultural Perspective

Anna Boroffka

Volume 12 in this series

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During the early modern period, regional specified compendia – which combine information on local moral and natural history, towns and fortifications with historiography, antiquarianism, images series or maps – gain a new agency in the production of knowledge. Via literary and aesthetic practices, the compilations construct a display of regional specified knowledge. In some cases this display of regional knowledge is presented as a display of a local cultural identity and is linked to early modern practices of comparing and classifying civilizations. At the core of the publication are compendia on the Americas which research has described as chorographies, encyclopeadias or – more recently – 'cultural encyclopaedias'. Studies on Asian and European encyclopeadias, universal histories and chorographies help to contextualize the American examples in the broader field of an early modern and transcultural knowledge production, which inherits and modifies the ancient and medieval tradition.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110748017
ISBN:: 9783110748017
ISBN:: 9783110748130
ISBN:: 9783110747874
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Subject:: Library and Information Science, Book Studies
Subject:: Book History
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2022

Heirs of Flesh and Paper

A European History of Dynastic Knowledge around 1700

Tom Tölle

Volume 11 in this series

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"Heirs of Flesh and Paper" tells the story of early modern dynastic politics through subjects’ practical responses to royal illness, failing princely reproduction, and heirs’ premature deaths. It treats connected dynastic crises between 1699 and 1716 as illustrative for early modern European political regimes in which the rulers’ corporeality defined politics. This political order grappled with the endemic uncertainties induced by dynastic bodies. By following the day-to-day practices of knowledge making in response to the unpredictability of royal health, the book shows how the ruling family’s mortal coils regularly threatened to destabilize the institutionalized legal fiction of kingship. Dynastic politics was not only as a transitory stage of state formation, part of elite cooperation, or a cultural construct. It needs to be approached through everyday practices that put ailing dynastic bodies front and center. In a period of intensifying political planning, it constituted one of the most important sites for changing the political itself.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110744606
ISBN:: 9783110744606
ISBN:: 9783110744521
ISBN:: 9783110744651
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: General European History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Open Access 2021

Aus Büchern Bücher machen

Zur Produktion und Multiplikation von Wissen in frühneuzeitlichen Kompilationen

Simone Zweifel, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)

Volume 10 in this series

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Be it angels, meteorites, or harps – there is a wealth of knowledge in the more than one-hundred publications that, by the mid-eighteenth century, had appeared in four languages under the name of Johann Jacob Wecker (1528–1586/88). Broad networks were created in order to collect and disseminate this knowledge. The practice of compilation formed the basis of this so far largely overlooked, successful production of books.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110740516
ISBN:: 9783110740516
ISBN:: 9783110740592
ISBN:: 9783110740332
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: General European History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Subject:: Library and Information Science, Book Studies
Subject:: Book History
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2021

Wissenskulturen in der Leibniz-Zeit

Konzepte – Praktiken – Vermittlung

Friedrich Beiderbeck, Claire Gantet

Volume 9 in this series

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The polymath Leibniz was a prominent member of an early modern network that comprised a wide range of international scholars. Officials from politics and society presented, discussed, and modified innovative knowledge, thereby taking part in seminal developments. The contributions in this volume illuminate how this created the breeding grounds for an early modern public sphere.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110730593
ISBN:: 9783110730593
ISBN:: 9783110735345
ISBN:: 9783110730692
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: General European History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2021

Johann Friedrich Schannat (1683–1739)

Praktiken historisch-kritischer Gelehrsamkeit im frühen 18. Jahrhundert

Joelle Weis

Volume 8 in this series

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The Luxembourg-born scholar Johann Friedrich Schannat (1683–1739) was one of the most significant Catholic historians of his generation. This volume looks at his correspondence in order to examine the diversity of the practices that characterized historical-critical scholarship in the early eighteenth century. The letters provide insights into how the scholar generated knowledge and emphatically point to the central role played by his network.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110729399
ISBN:: 9783110729399
ISBN:: 9783110668346
ISBN:: 9783110729436
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: General European History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book Open Access 2022

Genealogie in der Moderne

Akteure - Praktiken - Perspektiven

Michael Hecht, Elisabeth Timm

Volume 7 in this series

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What was the significance of searching for and finding "family" and kinship through the ages? Which methods and strategies did actors use to produce relational connections, and into what structures and discourses can these practices be categorized? This volume takes up new insights from research into premodernity based on the history of knowledge and praxeology.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110718034
ISBN:: 9783110718034
ISBN:: 9783110718096
ISBN:: 9783110717945
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Modern History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2022

Central European Pasts

Old and New in the Intellectual Culture of Habsburg Europe, 1700–1750

Ines Peper, Thomas Wallnig

Volume 6 in this series

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Anyone wishing to look beyond the paradigm of Western progress needs to understand how it came into being. In the intellectual culture of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the competitive comparison of Ancients and Moderns and their respective relations to civilization and barbarism constituted one of the formative discourses. Yet alternative ideas of time and historicity are encountered not only in cultural contexts outside of Europe but also in the largely forgotten professional knowledge of the Old World: Thomism, Peripatetism, moderate forms of criticism, political theory, and legal practice.

This book introduces a broad panorama of such intellectual cultures in Central Europe. It situates theological, historical, and philosophical scholarship in its institutional and epistemological environments: the Church, the Holy Roman Empire, and the emerging Habsburg Monarchy. In doing so, it identifies struggles over competing pasts – Christian, ethnic, legal – as the core of those domains' intellectual development.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110653052
ISBN:: 9783110653052
ISBN:: 9783110649291
ISBN:: 9783110649116
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: General European History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2020

Geschichtsdinge

Gallische Vergangenheit und französische Geschichtsforschung im 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert

Lisa Regazzoni

Volume 5 in this series

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The study addresses the question of how scholars in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries constructed knowledge of ancient Gaul using novel sources of both a material and an immaterial nature. It examines the processes of understanding extending from viewing an object as evidence of the past through the practices and methods whereby it was brought to verbal expression, including its inclusion in historical narratives.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110674538
ISBN:: 9783110674538
ISBN:: 9783110674491
ISBN:: 9783110674583
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: Western Europe
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2020

Zacharias Konrad von Uffenbach

Büchersammler und Polyhistor in der Gelehrtenkultur um 1700

Markus Friedrich, Monika Müller

Volume 4 in this series

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Zacharias Konrad von Uffenbach (1639–1691), a patrician and the mayor of Frankfurt, was one of the greatest book collectors of his time. Yet neither his collections nor personal role as a scholar have been researched. In the conference volume, these themes are addressed from the perspective of historiography, philosophy, the history of knowledge, paleography, and art history.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110625240
ISBN:: 9783110625240
ISBN:: 9783110605310
ISBN:: 9783110607765
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: General European History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2020

Carl Jakob Iken als Vorreiter der Neogräzistik

Mit einer Edition von Dokumenten und Briefen

Lilia Diamantopoulou

Volume 3 in this series

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The Philhellene Carl Jakob Iken (1789–1841) is considered the founder of the field of Modern Greek studies. For the first time, the book presents his life and work. The author demonstrates how a passionate 19^th century researcher of Greek organized his knowledge, envisaged it, and established networks to disseminate it. The appendix contains letter to illustrious contemporaries, such as Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Thiersch.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110602630
ISBN:: 9783110602630
ISBN:: 9783110599275
ISBN:: 9783110600827
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Modern History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2019

Praktiken frühneuzeitlicher Historiographie

Markus Friedrich, Jacob Schilling

Volume 2 in this series

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How did historians research the past in the early modern era? How did historians, genealogists, and scholars of antiquity “create” relevant knowledge and position themselves in courts, toward benefactors, and to an academic audience? This volume examines academic practices in the fields of heraldry, diplomacy, genealogy, and historiography along with economic aspects of research, travel, and publishing.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110598391
ISBN:: 9783110598391
ISBN:: 9783110594027
ISBN:: 9783110572308
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: General European History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Book 2019

Genealogical Knowledge in the Making

Tools, Practices, and Evidence in Early Modern Europe

Jost Eickmeyer, Markus Friedrich, Volker Bauer

Volume 1 in this series

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This book examines how genealogical knowledge was produced in Early Modern Europe. It studies the procedures and difficulties of genealogical research and highlights the many challenges that had to be overcome in the process of establishing family histories. Archives had to be visited, stone inscriptions had to be deciphered, and countless individuals had to be identified. The papers demonstrate that none of these tasks were simple and that the results of the research efforts often remained ambivalent. How early modern genealogists went about studying these questions is investigated here in a comparative perspective that includes cases from Germany, Italy, France, Wales, and beyond.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110593518
ISBN:: 9783110593518
ISBN:: 9783110589955
ISBN:: 9783110590746
Subject:: History
Subject:: Historical Periods
Subject:: Early Modern History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Europe
Subject:: General European History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Knowledge
Publisher:: De Gruyter Oldenbourg