Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany / Edition 1

by Kathy Stuart

Overview

This book presents a social and cultural history of "dishonorable people" (unehrliche Leute), an outcast group in early modern Germany. Executioners, skinners, grave-diggers, shepherds, barber-surgeons, millers, linen-weavers, sow-gelders, latrine-cleaners, and bailiffs were among the "dishonorable" by virtue of their trades. It shows the extent to which dishonor determined the life chances and self-identity of these people. Taking Augsburg as a prime example, it investigates how honorable estates interacted with dishonorable people, and shows how the pollution anxieties of early modern Germans structured social and political relations within honorable society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521027212
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/02/2006
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.67(d)
Lexile:	1510L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; Glossary; Introduction: defiled trades; Part I. The Meaning of Dishonor in Early Modern Society: 1. Medieval versus early modern dishonor; 2. Honor, status and pollution; Part II. The Dishonorable Milieu: 3. The status of executioners and skinners, 1500–1700; 4. Living on the periphery of dishonor; Part III. Paradoxical Dishonor: Punishment and Healing: 5. The infamous fur coat, or the unintended consequences of social discipline; 6. The executioner's healing touch: health and honor in early modern German medical practice; Part IV. Artisanal Honor and Urban Politics: 7. Guardians of honor: artisans versus magistrates; 8. Honor and dishonor in the eighteenth century; Conclusion: dishonor and the society of orders; Select bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"This is a splendid book, carefully honed over several years, beautifully written, and a delight to read." David Warren Sabean, Journal of Social History

"...Kathy Stuart has written an important and original book that deserves to be read by a wide circle of scholars." R. Po-chia Hsia, Central European History

"Stuart's identification of the early modern period as determinative for the boundaries of honor seems unexceptional...This book has its virtues: deep archival research, broad theoretical reading." Sixteenth Century Journal

"Rarely has an anthropologically informed study been joined with such careful attention to local judicial records. This is an excellent book." American Historical Review

"The challenge of relating local conclusions to national questions is inherent to any well-researched regional study, even one as carefully crafted as this." Journal of Modern History

From the Publisher