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Analysis of the close relationship between religion and secular learning in the works of one of the central figures of the early German Enlightenment, the jurist and philosopher Christian Thomasius (1655-1728).The Enlightenment continues to be associated with the secularization and de-Christianization of intellectual culture in the West. And yet, religious thought played a far greater role in the emergence of the Enlightenment than is often recognized. In this book Thomas Ahnert analyzes the close relationship between religion and secular learning in the works of one of the central figures of the early German Enlightenment, the jurist and philosopher Christian Thomasius (1655-1728). Thomasiu...
Christian Thomasius's natural jurisprudence is essential to understanding the origins of the Enlightenment in Germany, where his importance was comparable to that of John Locke's in England. First published in 1688, Thomasius's Institutionum jurisprudentiae divinae (Institutes of Divine Jurisprudence) attempted to draw a clear distinction between natural and revealed law and to emphasize that human reason was able to know the precepts of natural law without the aid of Scripture. Thomasius also argued that his orthodox Lutheran opponents had failed to understand this distinction and thereby had confused reason and Scripture. In addition to the Institutes of Divine Jurisprudence, this volume c...
The essays selected here for translation derive largely from Thomasius's work on Staatskirchenrecht, or the political jurisprudence of church law. These works, originating as disputations, theses, and pamphlets, were direct interventions in the unresolved issue of the political role of religion in Brandenburg-Prussia, a state in which a Calvinist dynasty ruled over a largely Lutheran population and nobility as well as a significant Catholic minority. In mandating limited religious toleration within the German states, the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia (1648) also provided the rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia with a way of keeping the powerful Lutheran church in check by guaranteeing a degree of religious freedom to non-Lutherans and thereby detaching the state from the most powerful territorial church. Thomasius's writings on church-state relations, many of them critical of the civil claims made by Lutheran theologians, are a direct response to this state of affairs. At the same time, owing to the depth of intellectual resources at his disposal, these works constitute a major contribution to the broader discussion of the relation between the religious and political spheres.
Four of the plays in this volume are based on important source materials, so that the relationship of plays to sources looms large in Cyrus Hoy's introductory essays. There is an extensive account of the relation of The Shoemakers' Holiday to Deloney's Gentle Craft. The Introduction to Old Fortunatus relates in detail that play's relationship to the German Volksbuch, and to the German Comoedia von Fortunate und seinem Seckel und Wünschhütlein (1620), a redaction of Dekker's play. The Introduction to Patient Grissil relates Dekker, Chettle and Haughton's play to the tradition of the Griselda story generally. The chronicle-history sources (Foxe, Grafton, Stow, Holinshed) of Sir Thomas Wyatt are surveyed in the Introduction, in his Introduction also, Professor Hoy considers the play's relationship to the lost play, Lady Jane, by Dekker, Chettle, Heywood, Webster and W. Smith. Satiromastix has no known source, but as Dekker's contribution to the stage quarrel of Marston and Jonson, this is a play that has always had particular interest for the student of Elizabethan theatrical history, and Professor Hoy therefore bestows on it the most elaborate Commentary in all these four volumes.
Four of the plays in this volume are based on important source materials, so that the relationship of plays to sources looms large in Cyrus Hoy's introductory essays. There is an extensive account of the relation of The Shoemakers' Holiday to Deloney's Gentle Craft. The Introduction to Old Fortunatus relates in detail that play's relationship to the German Volksbuch, and to the German Comoedia von Fortunate und seinem Seckel und Wünschhütlein (1620), a redaction of Dekker's play. The Introduction to Patient Grissil relates Dekker, Chettle and Haughton's play to the tradition of the Griselda story generally. The chronicle-history sources (Foxe, Grafton, Stow, Holinshed) of Sir Thomas Wyatt are surveyed in the Introduction, in his Introduction also, Professor Hoy considers the play's relationship to the lost play, Lady Jane, by Dekker, Chettle, Heywood, Webster and W. Smith. Satiromastix has no known source, but as Dekker's contribution to the stage quarrel of Marston and Jonson, this is a play that has always had particular interest for the student of Elizabethan theatrical history, and Professor Hoy therefore bestows on it the most elaborate Commentary in all these four volumes.
Medical practitioners of the sixteenth century had their own body of special terms, just like the doctors of this century. McConchie here examines medical terminology used in a selection of thirteen medical works published between 1530 and 1612, and compares it with the treatment of these words in the OED and other dictionaries of today. His study reveals errors, omissions, and biases that raise important questions for lexicographical tools in general.