This is a study of early modern government finance in the kingdom of Naples, one of the most important European dominions of the Spanish Empire. Professor Calabria focuses on the period from the mid-sixteenth century to the time of the Thirty Years' War. He connects fiscal developments to larger issues, such as the seventeenth-century crisis, the decline of Italy and Spain, and the economic and social significance of investments in government securities markets in early modern Europe. The Cost of Empire blends quantitative data on economic, fiscal, and financial affairs with non-quantitative...

In the second half of the eighteenth century, Paris was the second largest city in Europe, with a population of some half a million. Contemporary writers described it as anonymous and chaotic, and so it must have seemed to many new arrivals from the provinces. Yet the records of the local police officials, which have remained virtually untouched for two hundred years, reveal a world which was far from anonymous, where most people went about their daily affairs in streets and shops where not only the places but also the faces were familiar. From the mass of individual disputes and incidents...

Including Professor salmon's pioneering and authoritative analyses as well as particular studies of french revolts.

This is the first book to attempt a comprehensive analysis of the state of Spain's naval forces in the years following the defeat of the Great Armada in 1588 and during the seventeenth century. This was a period in which all of Europe's maritime powers were attaching increasing importance to naval warfare in their bid to topple Spain and to seize the rich pickings of her vast empire. The book's findings throw new light on the conservation of Spain's timber resources, naval funding, and the recruitment and status of the Spanish seaman, in a study of the political, social, economic and...

Frontiers of Heresy is among the first major English-language contributions to the history of the Spanish Inquisition since Henry Charles Lea completed his classic curvey eighty years ago. Focusing on the lands beyond Castile, Professor Monter analyzes the activities of the Holy Office during an 'Aragonese Century' (1530 1630) when these frontier tribunals were its most active elements. This 'other' Spanish Inquisition virtually ignored converted Jews and their descendants, but brutally harassed Moriscos and immigrant workers from France; it executed nearly as many people for sodomy as for...

This book offers a new paradigm of the history of the German nobility in the early modern period. It shows that, contrary to the prevailing view, the nobility was not in a period of crisis that facilitated the rise of the state. Rather, the nobility underwent a process of social stratification in the wake of the growth of the state. This process led to the formation of an elite of wealthy noble families on whose cooperation the state depended. This alliance, and not a presumed partnership between rulers and bourgeoisie, was the driving force in early modern Germany.

The Flanders armada, took shape in response to the use of seapower by the Dutch rebels, and evolved into the most effective unit in Spain's defence establishment. In combination with its privateering auxiliaries, this elite striking force dominated the North Sea for some twenty years (1625 45), and campaigned also in the Mediterranean and Atlantic theatres of war. Yet its contribution to the tenacious survival of Spanish hegemony has never before been assessed. A narrative of the armada's fighting record over the century of its meaningful existence is presented with constant reference to the...

Historians have long ignored the military aspect of the French wars of religion. In contrast, The King's Army--a meticulously researched analysis of the royal army during the early civil wars--brings warfare back to the center of the picture. The King's Army makes an important contribution to the history of military forces, warfare, religion and society in France, and will be of great interest to those engaged in the debate over the "Military Revolution" in early modern Europe.

The emergence of religious toleration was one of the main features of the development of Western society after the Reformation. While previous research has concentrated largely on ideas of toleration, this study of the Lutheran Imperial City of Hamburg analyses the way in which those ideas were received and gradually implemented. Hamburg was one of the most dynamic mercantile centres of early modern Europe. It attracted substantial numbers of Catholics, Calvinists and Jews. Dr Whaley examines the factors, which influenced the often uneasy relationship with the Lutheran majority. He...

This book reveals the workings of a culture that cherished death, and invested its resources in the pursuit of heaven. This is the first full-length study of Spanish attitudes toward death and the afterlife in the peak years of the Counter-Reformation. It contains an analysis of the death rituals requested in hundreds of sixteenth-century Madrid testaments, as well as a detailed account of the ways in which the "good" deaths of King Philip II and Saint Teresa of Avila were interpreted by contemporaries.