Maarten Prak Burgers onder de wapenen, van de zestiende tot de achttiende eeuw 1
Robert Descimon De officieren van de Parijse schutterij aan het einde van de zestiende eeuw 12
Paul Knevel Onder gewapende burgers 41
R. Po-chia Hsia Civic militia and urban liberties in early modern Germany 52
Dorothée Sturkenboom Waar heeft de Annales de cultuurgeschiedenis gelaten? 61
Lex Heerma van Voss Buitenlandse tijdschriften 73
Maarten Prak, Citizens in arms, 16th 18th centuries
In spite of the professionalisation of warfare, amateur soldiers remained important throughout the Early Modern Era. Machiavelli praised them as efficient fighters (they seldom were), and bulwarks of the constitution. In the latter capacity, they re emerged in the English 17th century debates on `standing armies' and again recently in the arguments of the gun lobby in the USA. In Early Modern Europe, however, civic militias were primarily urban forces, whose role in society depended on the political balance of power within various European countries. The articles in this issue explore several aspects of that role.
Robert Descimon, The officers of the civic milita in Paris at the end of the 16th century: interactions between corporations and districts
During the Wars of Religion, the Paris militias were important supporters of the Catholic League, whose programme combined a drive for urban autonomy with radical catholicism. Its officers were mainly recruited among the traditional well to do middle classes of the city, living in the traditional sections of town. Under Henry IV, the crown tried to win control of the armed branch of Paris' civic society, through the appointment of officers more directly connected to the court. The changes in the social composition of the militias' officer ranks, coincided with a restructuration of both the Parisian elites and the architectural space of the inner city, as is shown in the maps that illustrate this article.
Paul Knevel, Among Armed Citizens: on the mental universe of Dutch civic militias in the 17th century
In the Dutch Republic, militia officers had themselves painted in collective portraits, like Rembrandt's Nightwatch. These pictures are an expression of a civic pride, that rested on the special role of the militias as the (symbolic) representatives of the citizen community. Participation in militia duties was a recurrent event in the daily lives of ordinary Dutchmen, and sometimes considered as onerous. At the same time, the militias forged many links between individual and urban community, and contributed to a burgher's social standing.
Ron Po-chia Hsia, Civic militias and urban liberties in Early Modern Germany
The Holy Roman Empire provides a broad range of urban constitutional models, from almost complete independence in the Imperial towns, to a subject status in some of the territorial states. This article demonstrates how these variations had important consequences for the civic role of the local militias. In the Imperial city of Frankfurt, the civic militias remained vital institutions, staging major revolts in the name of the burgher community during the Fettmilch Uprising in the early 17th century and again in the early decades of the 18th century. Münster, on the other hand, was under strict control of its ruling bishop from the mid 16th century onwards and the militias there were allowed to wither.
Dorothée Sturkenboom, Where did the Annales leave the cultural history?
In the past ten years the Annales school in Paris has substituted her quantitative, structuralist approach of history for a new socio-historical view, inspired by the work of Boltanski and Thévenot. In a recent review article in the Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis Marc Jacobs analyses and argues in favour of these developments. However he fails to mention a critical point in this strategic turn: the omission of the cultural history and the ambivalent reaction to the underlying threat of the previous `linguistic turn' in the field of history. In reaction to this one sided representation, this essay critically examines both the contribution of Jacobs and the Paris developments he describes. By way of experiment, the argument uses the conceptual framework that Boltanski and Thévenot introduced as a means to understand the dynamics of social interaction.
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