Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany

by Thomas Robisheaux

• ISBN13: 9780521526876
• ISBN10: 0521526876
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

For the rural societies of Germany the early sixteenth century was a time of massive upheavals. In this probing study of village life, based upon rich manuscript sources from the old County of Hohenlohe, Thomas Robisheaux seeks to understand how petty German princes, Lutheran pastors, and villagers struggled to create order out of their confusing world. The Hohenlohe region experienced all of the turmoil associated with the sixteenth century, including a peasant near-rising in 1600, the brutal effects of the wage-price scissors, chronic shortages of land, famines, impoverishment, and the destructive cycles of war. By using concepts borrowed from anthropology, Professor Robisheaux looks for the way social hierarchy and discipline countered the disruptive changes of the age. The years between 1550 and 1620 saw new sources of stability and order created in the family; through systematized customs of inheritance; through market relationships; and in the practice of state power within the village.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations and tables

Acknowledgments

A note on usages

Glossary

List of abbreviations

introduction

Part I. Agrarian Expansion, Revolt, and the Decay of Community: 1. Anatomy of a rural society

2. Peasants' war and reformation

3. Rich and poor

Part II. Search for Order: 4. Reformation, patriarchy, and marital discipline

5. Defending the patrimony

6. The unchristian economy

7. Threat of revolt

Part III. Crisis and Recovery: 8. Crisis

9. Agrarian order restored

10. Village society and the practice of state power

Appendix

Manuscript sources

Bibliographical essay

Index.