Bad parents, the state, and the early modern civilizing process

German History

Volumn 16, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 16-28

  Harrington, Joel F ^a  

^a VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33750192719     PISSN: 02663554     EISSN: 1477089X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1191/026635598667017036     Document Type: Review

References (55)

1. See especially H. Heidrich, 'Grenzübergänge: Das Haus und die Volkskultur in der frühen Neuzeit', in R. van Dülmen and H. Heidrich (eds.), Kultur der einfachen Leute: Bayerisches Volksleben vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1983), pp. 17-41
2. The standard treatment of his subject is J. Hoffmann, Die 'Hausväterliteratur' und die 'Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand': Lehre vom Hause und Bildung für das häusliche Leben in 16., 17., und 18. Jahrhundert (Weinheim, 1959)
3. See also K. Petzold, Die Grundlagen der Erziehungslehre im Spätmittelalter und bei Luther (Heidelberg, 1969)
4. and S. Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge, Mass., 1983)
5. The most common points of reference have been O. Brunner, 'Das "Ganze Haus" und die alteuropäische Ökonomik," in O. Brunner (ed.), Neue Wege der Sozialgeschichte (Göttingen, 1968), pp. 33-61
6. P. Ariès, Centuries of Childhood (New York, 1962)
7. and L. Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (New York, 1977)
8. Bordieu is not, however, addressing the transformative role of the state in this process. P. Bordieu, 'Marriage Strategies as Strategies of Social Reproduction', transl. E. Forster, in R. Forster and O. Ranum (eds.), Family and Society: Selections from the Annales (Baltimore, Md., 1976), p. 135
9. The term was coined by the nineteenth-century historian Wilhelm Riehl. Earlier scholars, including Brunner, stressed the political ideology involved; recent authors have tended to view the ganzes Haus more in terms of market production. For an excellent summary of this historiography, see D. W. Sabean, Property, Production, and Family in Neckarhausen, 1700-1870 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 91ff
10. also H. Derks, 'Über die Faszination des "Ganzen Hauses'", Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 22 (1996), 221-42
11. Cf. H. Rebel, Peasant Classes: The Bureaucratization of Property and Family Relations under Early Habsburg Absolutism, 1511-1636 (Princeton, N.J., 1983)
12. G. Oestreich, Neostoicism and the Early Modern State (Cambridge, 1982)
13. Derks, 'Über die Faszination', p. 240
14. Sabean, Property, Production, and Family, esp. pp. 88-104
15. I have addressed this issue in more detail in J. Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Germany (Cambridge, 1995), and more recently in '"Singing for his supper": the reinvention of juvenile streetsinging in early modern Nuremberg', Social History, 22, 1 (January 1997), 27-45
16. N. Elias, The Civilizing Process, trans. E. Jephcott, 2 vols. (New York, 1978, 1982), vol. I, The History of Manners, vol. II, State Formation and Civilization
17. Elias, State Formation, pp. 52 and 233
18. W. von Rheinau, Das Marienleben Walthers von Rheinau, ed. E. Perjus (2nd edition) (Åbo, 1949), pp. 899-901, 1017-20
19. cited in J. A. Schultz, The Knowledge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages, 1100-1350 (Philadelphia, 1995), p. 73
20. B. von Regensburg, Vollständige Ausgabe seiner [deutschen] Predigten, ed. F. Pfeiffer (Vienna, 1862; reprint: Berlin, 1965), vol. I, pp. 35, 2-4
21. H. von Trimberg, Der Renner, ed. G. Ehrismann (Tübingen, 1908-11; reprint: Berlin, 1970), 16893-7, both quoted in Schultz, Knowledge of Childhood, p. 78
22. See especially M. B. Becker, Civility and Society in Western Europe, 1300-1600 (Bloomington, Ind., 1988)
23. G. Strauss, Luther's House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation (Baltimore, Ind., 1978), pp. 96ff
24. C. Vischer, Christliche Auslegung und Erklerung der Haustafel ... (Leipzig, 1578)
25. cited in Strauss, Luther's House, pp. 96-7
26. D. Knox, 'Erasmus' De Civitate and the Religious Origins of Civility in Protestant Europe', Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 86 (1995), 20ff. and 32. The link between the self-control of the monk (pietas) and that of the courtier (civilitas) also provided the basis for Oestreich's argument about neo-stoic governmental application of disciplina corporis, common to both models
27. A. Hoppenrod, Wider den Hurenteuffel (Eisleben, 1565), in R. Stambaugh (ed.), Teufelbücher in Auswahl (Berlin, 1970-80), vol. II, p. 184
28. 1563 Ehegerichtsordnung, in J. F. G. Goeters (ed.), Die Evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des XVI Jahrhunderts, vol. XIV (Kurpfalz) (Tübingen, 1969), p. 294
29. Cf. a similar comparison by Luther of clandestinely married daughters to cows seized by wolves: 'Von Ehesachen', in D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar, 1883-), vol. XXX/3, pp. 208-9
30. A. Hoppenrod, Hurenteuffel
31. Adam Schubert, Hausteuffell (Weissenfels, 1564)
32. Florian Daul, Tanzteufel (Frankfurt/Main, 1567)
33. all in Stambaugh (ed.), Teufelbücher, vol. II, pp.63, 184-6, 285 and 296-8
34. and Ozment, When Fathers Ruled, pp. 133ff
35. The Complete Works of Menno Simons, ed. J. C. Wenger (Scotsdale, Pa., 1956), p. 951
36. Hoppenrod, Hurenteuffel, in Stambaugh (ed.), Teufelbücher, vol. II, p. 186
37. This theme of parental discipline, based on Proverbs 13:24, was also common in medieval sermons (Schultz, Knowledge of Childhood, pp. 93ff)
38. J. D. Wiltenberg, Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Literature of Early Modern England and Germany (Charlottesville, Va., 1992), pp. 122-3
39. Sam, Davids Eebruch, F3b
40. Justus Menius, Oeconomia Christiana (Nuremberg, 1530), E8a
41. Wiltenberg, Disorderly Women, p. 258
42. L. Roper, 'Discipline and Respectability: Prostitution and the Reformation in Augsburg', History Workshop, 19 (1985), 3-28
43. L. Culman, Jungen gesellen/Jungkfrauwen und Witwen/so Ehelich wöllen werden (Augsburg, 1568), E4a
44. Bugenhagens Kirchenordnung für die Stadt Braunschweig, ed. L. Hänselmann (Wolfenbüttel, 1885), pp. 41-6
45. On the uses and limitations of this paternalist ideology, see J. Harrington, 'Hausvater and Landesvater: Paternalism and Marriage Reform in Sixteenth-century Germany', Central European History, 25, 1 (1992), 52-75
46. Two historians of early modern France have noted similar patriarchal links in authority. Sarah Hanley speaks unreservedly of a 'family-state compact', while Barbara Diefendorf stresses the additional partner of the Church in this power alliance. S. Hanley, 'Engendering the State: Family Formation and State Building in Early Modern France', French Historical Studies, 16 (1989), 4-27
47. B. Diefendorf, 'Give Us Back Our Children: Patriarchal Authority and Parental Consent to Religious Vocations in Early Counter-reformation France', Journal of Modern History, 68 (1996), esp. pp. 272ff
48. Bernard Vogler's study of two Reformed consistories in the Rhineland Palatinate from 1555 to 1619 found only a handful of cases involving drunken parents or step-parents accused of excessive beating or neglect. All offenders were dismissed after stem words from the consistory. B. Vogler, Vie religieuse en pays rhénan dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle (Lille, 1974), vol. II, pp. 274ff, and vol. III, pp. 957ff
49. Based on an examination of 130 incest cases from 1533 to 1700 in Württemberg, Hall, and Eßlingen in U. Rublack, '"Viehische, frech vnd unverschämt": Inzest in Südwestdeutschland, ca. 1530-1700', in O. Ulbricht (ed.), Von Huren und Rabenmüttern: Weibliche Kriminalität in der Frühen Neuzeit (Cologne, 1995), pp. 171-213
50. H. Schilling, 'Reform and Supervision of Family Life in Germany and the Netherlands', in R. A. Mentzer (ed.), Sin and the Calvinists: Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition (Kirksville, Mo., 1994), p. 51
51. Johann Spangenburg, Der gros Catechismus (Wittenberg, 1551), Bvi
52. Veit Dietrich, Kinder-Postilla (Nuremberg, 1549), 43v
53. Cf. R. van Dülmen, Theater des Schreckens: Gerichtspraxis und Strafrituale in der frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1985)
54. 1522 ordinance, text in W. Rüger, Mittelalterliches Almosenwesen. Die Almosenordnungen der Reichsstadt Nürnberg (Nuremberg, 1932), pp. 82-3
55. By the mid-seventeenth century, Nuremberg's average annual alms supplement of 10-15 Gulden would have bought only three loaves of rye bread (c. 3400 g) per week (calculated at 2.4 Albus, or 0.10 fl. each; prices based on figures in D. Ebeling and F. Irsigler, Getreideumsatz, Getreide-, und Brotpreise in Köln, 1368-1797 (Cologne, 1976), pp. ix, xv)