GLOSSARY

AFFECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Emotional relationships.

AFFINITY

Relation by marriage; attraction.

ANNALES SCHOOL

The journal, Annales Économies Sociétés Civilisations [henceforth Annales] of the VIe Section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris that was founded in 1929 by Marc Bloch, a medievalist, and Lucien Febvre, a Reformation scholar. Historians were concerned for the first time with local, peasant society in preindustrial times, analyzed through demographic data and attention to such forces as plague, subsistence crises, urban growth, and changes in family life. This was microcosmic history, "material" history, New History, social history. Its innovative focus and methodology has had repercussions throughout the profession of history. It is concerned with the masses rather than the elite. Through social analysis periods took on more of a "structure," a favorite Annales word, than they ever had before. Data has to come from some kind of paperwork: bureaucracies, parish registrations, archives, court cases. The type of research done by the Annales school resulted in a complete rethinking and reopening of topics hitherto regarded as inaccessible or uninteresting. Microhistory was where historians began their analysis "from below," viewing the ordinary peoples ignored in the annals of European history rather than the "great men" of the past as makers of history.

BECCARIA, CESARE BONESANA, MARCHESE DI (1735-1794)

Italian economist, best known for his pioneering work in penology, On Crimes and Punishments (1764).

BOSWELL, JAMES (1740-1795)

The famous Scottish biographer of Samuel Johnson. The Boswell papers now make him even better known for himself.

CHAIN OF BEING

Age-old belief or assumption of a linear hierarchy in nature and society; referred to as the scala naturae or social scale. The following example is from Gregory King's 1688 list of England's social ranks [Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971): 36]:

Temporal Lords Spiritual Lords Baronets Knights Esquires Gentlemen Persons in greater Offices and Places Persons in lesser Offices and Places Eminent Merchants and Traders by Sea Lesser Merchants and Traders by Sea Persons in the Law Eminent Clergy-men Lesser Clergy-men Freeholders of the better sort Freeholders of the lesser sort Farmers Persons in Liberal Arts and Sciences Shopkeepers and Tradesmen Artizans and Handicrafts Naval Officers Military Officers Common Seamen Labouring People and Out Servants Cottagers and Paupers Common Soldiers Vagrants; as Gipsies, Thieves, Beggars, &c.

CONSANGUINITY

Relation by blood.

DIDEROT, DENIS (1713-1784)

French philosophe who was the chief factor in making La Grande Encyclopédie, the encyclopedia of all natural and human knowledge, fully illustrated, based on reason and reason alone.

ENDOGAMY

Marriage within a specific group required by custom or law.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Philosophical movement of the eighteenth century in Europe known as the Age of Reason, characterized by a lively questioning of authority, keen interest in matters of politics and general culture, and an emphasis on empirical method in science. The philosophic background of the Enlightenment may be said to be derived from both the great "empiricist" John Locke (1632-1704) of England and the great "rationalist" René Descartes (1596-1650) of France combined.

ENTAIL

To restrict (property) as to course of descent upon the owner's death by limiting the inheritance to the owner's lineal descendants or to a particular class thereof (as to his male children).

ERASMUS, DESIDERIUS (1466-1536)

Dutch Christian Humanist who criticized the Catholic Church but wanted reform within the Church and not a schism. Catholics therefore saw him as a heretic and Protestants saw him as a halfhearted reformer. Erasmus himself had a depreciatory tone about his popular colloquies ["informal conversations"]; he wrote: "Kings make war, priests are zealous to increase their wealth, theologians invent syllogisms, monks roam through the world, the commons riot, Erasmus writes colloquies." The main purpose of his lifework was to instruct, to advance learning and to advance the Christian religion. Nevertheless, the Council of Trent placed Erasmus' Colloquies on the Index for certain passages which were indecent and for utterances on religion declared to be heresy.

EXOGAMY

Marriage outside a specific group required by custom or law.

FAMILY

Members of the same kin who live together under one roof.

HISTORIOGRAPHY

History of history. The writing of history based on the critical examination of sources; a narrative that will stand the test of critical methods.

HISTORY OF SCIENCE

A new field which by the 1960's was having a considerable impact in the profession of history. The impetus was noticeably an American contribution. These historians made the Scientific Revolution a decisive moment in Western history; the second most significant experience since the rise of Christianity.

HOUSEHOLD

All persons living under one roof, including non-kin; all subordinate to the head of the household. Many had live-in servants.

INDIVIDUALISM

Theory advocating the rights of the individual. Things are analyzed in terms of individual interests, e.g. John Locke's definition of society; Adam Smith's analysis of the economy.

KIN

Persons related by blood or marriage, members of the lineage who are currently alive.

LAISSEZ-FAIRE LA NATURE

"Let nature take its course." Anti-mercantilist philosophy worked out by Adam Smith in 1776 that would be embraced by the middle class in England, the bourgeoisie in France, and the liberals of nineteenth-century Europe. The liberals of the 19th century were the political party or the backers of the ideology of no government intervention. Political parties change over time. Today liberals are for government intervention and conservatives argue against government intervention.

LINEAGE

Relatives by blood or marriage, dead, living, and yet to be born, who collectively form a "house."

LOCKE, JOHN (1632-1704)

English philosopher who outlined the ideas of the gentry of England. The ideals of the landowners included the ideal liberal state (constitutional monarchy), the right to individual freedom, the right to private property and free use to private property. Locke was the philosopher of individualism, but he meant individuals just beyond the king and his political advisers, i.e. the property owners of England or the gentry, those who "have a stake in society." The true state was formed by the consent of private property owners. Legitimacy was by [contractual] consent. Hence sovereign power that infringed on the subjects' rights ought to be overthrown. This was a revolutionary idea. Locke's work was used to justify the 1688 Glorious Revolution against the Catholic absolutist monarch James II, the 1776 American Revolution against King George II, and the 1789 French Revolution against King Louis XVI.

LONGETIVITY

Life span. Demographic factor that the new historians consider fundamental to understanding social phenomena, e.g. Lawrence Stone connected the rise of affect in family life directly to the fall of mortality rates. Increased longetivity decreased "psychic numbing."

MACHIAVELLI, NICCOL (1469-1527)

Italian author of The Prince (1513) who analyzed how the prince could preserve and expand the state's power. Machiavelli ignored both classical theory--state should be based on moral norms apprehended by reason--and medieval theory--earthly realm should be like the standards revealed by God. The object of politics was not to attain a just or virtuous state but to attain a secure and safe state. Machiavelli shocked readers by brushing morality aside and coldly examining the reality of politics as a supreme realist. "Machiavellianism" has since come to mean the politics of reality. Humans as they are, rather than as they ought to be.

MERCANTILISM

State involvement in the economy. More a set of attitudes than a systematic economic theory, the basic premise of mercantilism - an erroneous one - was that the world contained a fixed amount of wealth, that each nation could enrich itself only at the expense of others (slice of the pie), and that the state should hoard as much bullion as possible and/or acquire a favorable balance of trade.

NEPOTISM

Patronage bestowed or favoritism shown on the basis of family relationship, as in business or politics.

NUPTIALITY

Marriage rate.

PAST & PRESENT JOURNAL

English publication founded in 1952 by a group of Oxford and Cambridge dons who seemed to have left-of-center sympathies and interests in social history that were similar to those of the Annales school. The journal encouraged assertive writing and robust disputes. Lawrence Stone was a member of the journal's editorial board.

PEPYS, SAMUEL (1633-1703)

English civil servant (secretary to the Admiralty) and frank and full diarist.

POPE, ALEXANDER (1688-1744)

English poet and author of the Essay on Man, in which he called the age-old assumption of the reality of a hierarchy in nature the "vast chain of being."

PRIMOGENITURE

In English law the eldest son had exclusive right of inheritance in order to keep the property intact.

REPUBLIC OF LETTERS

Community of intellectuals in the eighteenth century. In the 18th century, intellectuals consisted of a vague, spiritual territory. Such authors remained scattered through society, without a clear professional identity.

ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES (1712-1778)

French man of letters, Genevan-born, enigmatic child of the Age of Reason and father of the Romantic Age, seminal thinker whose ideas have transcended the centuries. Rousseau was from the lowest social rank of all the philosophes and was (consequently?) the most democratic of all of them. He did not reserve equality of men to men of property, the way John Locke did, but extended equality to literally all men. In his famous Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men (1755), Rousseau attributed the social inequality of men to the invention of property.

SMITH, ADAM (1723-1790)

Scottish economist and moralist, whose Wealth of Nations (1776) was a landmark in the development of "classical economics," the alternative philosophy to mercantilism. Smith was the architect of the philosophy of free-market capitalism. He wished to free the economy to operate in accordance with the laws of nature. Infinite growth potentiality would result from natural competition.

TABULA RASA

Latin for "blank sheet." The expression John Locke used in his famous Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) to argue against Descartes's assumption that humans are born with innate ideas (rules of logic, etc.). Locke described the human mind at birth as a blank slate upon which sensations derived from contact with the phenomenal world are imprinted (experience, education, environment).

VOLTAIRE, FRANÇOIS MARIE AROUET DE 1694-1778)

French man of letters and culture-hero of the whole Enlightenment. Voltaire highly admired England as the land which rewarded talent (non-aristocrats like Isaac Newton), in contrast to absolutist France. Voltaire was a pen name; he was born Arouet, son of a Parisian notary. Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau were the only non-aristocrats of the philosophes in France.

Intellectual History Syllabus

[G. de Buffon (1707-1788)] [P. Camper (1722-1789)] [L.-J.-M. Daubenton (1716-1800)] [Enlightenment Anthropology]
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Miriam Claude Meijer, Ph.D.
02/16/05