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

ISBN-13: 9780521652391 / Angielski / Twarda / 2000 / 300 str.

Kathy Stuart

Opis

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.

Recenzje

'This award-winning monograph represents a major contribution to our understanding of marginal groups and artisanal culture through its functional analysis of the mechanisms of prejudice.' David Lederer, German History

Spis treści

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.