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The literarisation of the early modern Baltic Sea region was a long and complex process with varying trajectories for different vernacular languages. This volume highlights the interaction of local social and cultural settings with wider political and confessional contexts. With rarely examined materials, such as prints, court protocols, letters and manuscripts in Latin and a range of vernacular languages, including Estonian, Finnish, German, Ingrian, Karelian, Latvian, Lenape, Sami languages and Swedish, the thirteen authors chart the social and literary developments of the area. Wide networks of learned men and officials but also the number of native speakers in the clergy defined the ways the poetic resources of transnational and local literary and oral cultures benefited the nascent literatures. Contributors include: Eeva-Liisa Bastman, Kati Kallio, Suvi-Päivi Koski, Ulla Koskinen, Miia Kuha, Anu Lahtinen, Tuija Laine, Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen, Ilkka Leskelä, Aivar Põldvee, Sanna Raninen, Kristiina Ross, Taarna Valtonen, Kristi Viiding
'At a historic moment, when religion shows all its social and political strength in various post-modern societies around our globe, this fascinating collection of studies from the Middle Ages to twentieth-century Europe demonstrates all the richness and innovative force of investigating individual and shared experiences when questioning the cultural, political and social place of religion in society. It also makes known in English the work of a series of Finnish historians elaborating together a pioneering vision of the notion of experience in the discipline of history.' - Piroska Nagy, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Canada This open access book offers a theoretical introduction to the his...
In the early modern era, two Nordic countries that are neighbours today, Sweden and Finland, formed one realm. Yet, modern history writing has largely ignored this unity, instead developing analysis and discussion in close connection to nationalistic ideas, national politics, and processes of state-building. Historians of both countries have therefore mostly approached their common past separately and academic history in both countries has taken its own course of development, leading to different emphases. This volume explores the common early modern history between Sweden and Finland from the Middle Ages to beginning of the 19th century, and how this history has been created in professional...
Offers comparative perspectives and fresh insights into the unfolding of the Reformation across the whole of Europe.
Lived Religion and the Long Reformation in Northern Europe puts Reformation in a daily life context using lived religion as a conceptual and methodological tool: exploring how people "lived out" their religion in their mundane toils and how religion created a performative space for them. This collection reinvestigates the character of the Reformation in an area that later became the heartlands of Lutheranism. The way people lived their religion was intricately linked with questions of the value of individual experience, communal cohesion and interaction. During the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Era religious certainty was replaced by the experience of doubt and hesitation. Negotiations on and between various social levels manifest the needs, aspirations and resistance behind the religious change. Contributors include: Kaarlo Arffman, Jussi Hanska, Miia Ijäs, Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, Jenni Kuuliala, Marko Lamberg, Jason Lavery, Maija Ojala, Päivi Räisänen-Schröder, Raisa Maria Toivo
”O God we thank thee” was sung in the churches of France and Sweden after military victories in the seventeenth century. To celebrate Thanksgiving was a way of thanking God, but also a way for the rulers to legitimize the ever ongoing wars. For the inhabitants it was both an occasion for festivity and a way of getting information about what happened in the battlefield. Yet the image given was selective. Bloody defeats and uneventful everyday life was replaced by spectacular victories and royal glory. Even though the rituals in the two countries were similar in some ways, there were also substantial differences. The propaganda formulated a narrative about what war actually was, and what role the rulers and their subjects should play. In the crisis of 1709 this narrative was profoundly challenged. The book investigates how war events were communicated to the inhabitants of France and Sweden in the seventeenth century by the Church, and especially through days of thanksgiving (called Te Deum in France).
This anthology is about the representations and uses of medieval saints, heroes, and heroic events as elements of popular, local, and national culture during the 19th and 20th centuries in the Baltic Sea region: Scandinavia, Finland, Baltic countries, Northern Germany and North-Western Russia. Authors examine the processes of how medieval saints and heroes have been remembered, commemorated, interpreted, used, and reflected during modernity, and by whom. The focus of the anthology is on "doing" memory as a practice that commemorated the past and shaped spaces and identities in the present. It approaches the memory of saints and heroes, for example, Swedish Saints Birgitta and Eric, Danish Sa...
This book explores the judicial treatment of suicides in early modern Sweden, with a focus on the criminal investigation and selective treatment of suicides in the lower courts in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Riikka Miettinen shows that reactions and attitudes towards suicides varied considerably despite harsh condemnation by officials. The indictment, investigation, and classification of suspected suicides and the mental state of a person already deceased were challenging, and depended on local co-operation and lay testimonies. Not all suicides were considered alike; a widespread view on the heinousness of suicide was not the same as agreement about specific cases, and did not result in uniform handling of them. The social status and local ties of the deceased influenced the interpretations and responses at the local lower courts and communities. Esteemed local community members had a better defence and greater chance to escape the shameful penalties.
This book analyses the legal literacy, knowledge and skills of people in premodern and modernizing Europe. It examines how laymen belonging both to the common people and the elite acquired legal knowledge and skills, how they used these in advocacy and legal writing and how legal literacy became an avenue for social mobility. Taking a comparative approach, contributors consider the historical contexts of England, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden. This book is divided into two main parts. The first part discusses various groups of legal literates (scriveners, court of appeal judges and advocates) and their different paths to legal literacy from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. The second part analyses the rise of the ownership and production of legal literature – especially legal books meant for laymen – as means for acquiring a degree of legal literacy from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century.
The contributions in this volume enter the debate about the way in which the provision of poor relief can be influenced by its national confessional context. They bring new perspectives to the understanding of theological aspects of Lutheranism, such as the connection between justification by faith alone and care for the poor, and work and work ethics. The articles also analyse the implementation of social responsibility of the authority towards different categories of poor ('deserving' and 'undeserving'), local administration and centralization of poor relief through connections of public and private sources of funding, and collaboration between state, church and civil society through different public and private aspects of poor relief. In this way the various contributions combine to demonstrate new ways in the study of the connection between confessional specifics and historical developments through detailed knowledge of theology, supported by concrete historical case studies.