Early Modern Europe

The article outlines an approach to different modalities of exposed writing in early modern Europe, following a discussion on the concept. Domestic, closed and public spaces are considered, in order to understand the multiple meanings-political, informational, devotional, promotional, testimonial and even as mere pastime, as is the case of many graffiti-of exposed writing. This approach always looks into the places where the writings were displayed, their supports (parchment, paper, cloth, stone, wall), the different ways in which they were made (written and painted by hand, printed, incised or chiselled) as well as the conditions of exposure, since all these aspects have an explicit impact on the function pursued by each writing fixed or written on a wall. There are clear differences between monumental inscriptions, commercial advertisements, libels and graffiti. Likewise, their placement in a street where everyone could see them or in a church, a prison or a domestic space entailed different functions. Depending on the place of exposure and the type of writing, they were used to question their contemporary society in one way or another; the questions that arise today, when we study the presence of these types of writing during that period, are just as manifold.

The article shows that inside the room on the ground floor of a house in Sibiu, Piata Micã/Small Square/Kleines ring 22, the allegorical motif of “Woman and the Men of the Four Elements,” inspired by Jakob von der Heyden’s engraving from the Pugillus facetiarum anthology (1608, Strasbourg) was painted in 1631. This discovery reveals a previously unknown aspect of residential decoration in the early decades of seventeenth­ century Transylvania, the motif being at the same time the only example of mural decoration known to be a literal copy after designs in the Pugillus facetiarum and one of the very few such in the non­-manuscript art of Pre­modern Europe. That this anthology exerted a considerable influence in Transylvania is suggested by the fact that a second motif from the volume inspired the murals of a contemporary house in the same city, on the former Fleischergasse 17 (1628). the identification of these motifs in the Sibiu murals and of their graphic source is important evidence both for their diffusion, and for its demonstration of the familiarity of the Siebenbürgischer Sachsen urban elite with the latest Western European art and culture, including the friendship books—Stammbuch or alba amicorum.

Abstract
This article examines the socio-economic relations between two distinct trade
partners over a time span of a hundred years: the Kingdom of Portugal on
the one hand and the Hanseatic League on the other hand. By reconsidering
the legal conditions of long distance trade at the end of the Late Middle
Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance Period, the study also aims to
define the Hanseatic League as one of Portugal’s trade partners by looking
at its characteristics along with two of the most important commodities of
exchange: salt and timber.
Keywords
Portugal, Hanseatic League, privileges, salt trade, timber trade, 15th to 16th
centuries.
PORTUGAL E A EUROPA
NOS SÉCULOS XV E XVI.
Olhares, relações, identidade(s)

This dissertation examines devotional conflicts in the eighteenth-century Spanish Atlantic in light of diverging ideas about the role of the senses, affects, imagination, and social body in religious practice. I look specifically at contestations over image veneration and image pedagogy, public religious processions and festivals, and the activities and expenses of confraternities, investigating the sensibilities and values about embodiment and sociality that were informing these debates. I argue that reform Catholics endeavored to marginalize the senses, affects, and imagination as forces that were inherently antithetical to spiritual pursuits. In so doing, reform Catholics influenced by Jansenist Cartesianism ruptured the Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding of human nature that had long treated the soul and its faculties as thoroughly and inescapably embodied. They attempted to compartmentalize the sensorium into mutually exclusive realms of body and spirit, the senses and reason, passions and piety, the public and the private. Baroque Catholics, in contrast, maintained a complex and integral understanding of the sensorium in which various faculties like the imagination, affects, and senses were tightly interrelated. Beneath the conflicts regarding the veneration of religious images, the performance of processions, and participation in confraternities was a fragmenting consensus on what it meant to be human.

The present study seeks to provide documents concerning the legal status of serfs in Bohemia. It brings the first comprehensive edition of Robotpatente (i.e. peasant patents) for Bohemia and Moravia of 1680, and 1713, the instruction for the Prokurator (i.e. prosecuting attorney) and connected documents, which provided framework for the legal protection of serfs in Habsburg Bohemia. It will be followed in next years by editions of documents for further periods in the development of serfdom. The introductory historical study explains why it is important to return to studying the legal status of serfs, and how this approach differs from the research in peasant rebellions and class struggles. Since I try to build on the narrative of Bauernbefreiung I provide here also a detailed survey of the development of this historiographical narrative mode. The introduction also elucidates what the Robotpatente say about the legal status of serfs and the role of legal institutions before 1680. Since the role of statutory law in the Early Modern Age may not be overrated, this picture is completed by customary law. Our analysis draws on the legal disputes between the landlord and the serfs as individuals and serfs in village communities. We prove that the Leibeigenschaft (serfdom) was connected with limitations of personal freedom. The scope of these limits had been known already before 1680. The edition of documents presents the two peasant patents of 1680 for Bohemia, but also a collection of documents concerning the publication of the patents. It brings also an unknown ‘second Robotpatent’ of 1681 and the version in which the Robotpatent of 1680 was implemented in Moravia in 1713.

Le présent article entend mener l’étude de la profession de foi imposée par Rome aux chrétiens orientaux qui embrassaient le catholicisme et devaient confirmer leur attachement exclusif à ladite confession. Dans la capitale pontificale, les autorités eurent rapidement le sentiment que la profession de foi du concile de Trente ne pouvait pas être imposée aux chrétiens orientaux sans des adaptations. Les missionnaires risquaient sinon d’opérer eux-mêmes les ajustements qu’ils jugeaient nécessaires. Les actes du concile de Florence de 1439 constituaient l’autre source des professions de foi romaines, puisque le concile représentait une référence pour l’union des Églises orientales. La nouvelle profession élaborée sous Urbain VIII représentait un progrès par rapport à la version précédente, dans la mesure où elle apparaissait plus attentive aux raisons et à la sensibilité des Orientaux. Après différentes tentatives, le texte de cette profession se stabilisa sous Urbain VIII et resta longtemps en usage. À Rome, une telle investigation nous conduit au cœur de la bureaucratie de l’Église post-tridentine dont les pratiques étaient révélatrices de l’ecclésiologie. En Orient, professer la foi catholique, à l’oral ou à l’écrit, en utilisant la version d’Urbain VIII ou un texte spontané, interroge la nature d’une conversion d’une confession chrétienne au catholicisme : pourquoi choisir de devenir catholique et surtout pourquoi souhaiter se voir reconnu comme catholique par Rome ? L’acte de profession de foi catholique était-il privé (secret) ou publique ? Autrement dit, quels étaient les rapports entre l’individu qui avait professé et sa communauté chrétienne non-catholique d’origine ? Enfin, comment l’usage de la profession se transforma-t-il avec l’apparition d’Églises catholiques orientales reconnues par Rome ?

As the 15th century came to a close, Spain was ready-if not anxious-for reforms. Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros, better remembered as Cardinal Cisneros, must be given credit for this. Once installed in his new position as archbishop of Toledo in 1495, Cisneros set about reforming the Franciscan order, which at that time was experiencing a bitter conflict between the "conventuals," who had diverged considerably from the austere regulations of St. Francis, becoming feudal lords and indulging in worldly pleasures, and the strict "observants." Cisneros's rigid reforms did not leave the monks indifferent. Several hundred fled to North Africa but those that remained became very observant. The frenzy created by Cisneros's reform also had an impact on society and developed into a more profound, inner spirituality among Humanistic-minded individuals. To make their experience meaningful, Cisneros began commissioning Spanish translations of medieval mystical texts that would raise the cultural and spiritual level of both the clergy and the common people. He especially encouraged the reading of