Defiled trades and social outcasts : honor and ritual pollution in early modern Germany / Kathy Stuart.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stuart, Kathy, author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in early modern history.

Cambridge studies in early modern history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social classes--Germany--History.

Social classes.

Occupations--Germany--History.

Occupations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 286 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Defiled Trades & Social Outcasts

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book presents a social and cultural history of 'dishonourable 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 'dishonourable' by virtue of their trades. This dishonour was either hereditary, often through several generations, or it arose from ritual pollution whereby honourable citizens could become dishonourable by coming into casual contact with members of the outcast group. The dishonourable milieu of the city of Augsburg from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries is reconstructed to show the extent to which dishonour determined the life-chances and self-identity of dishonourable people. The book then investigates how honourable estates interacted with dishonourable people, and how the pollution anxieties of early modern Germans structured social and political relations within honourable society.

Contents:

Introduction: defiled trades

pt. I. The Meaning of Dishonor in Early Modern Society. 1. Medieval versus early modern dishonor. 2. Honor, status, and pollution

pt. II. The Dishonorable Milieu. 3. The status of executioners and skinners, 1500-1700. 4. Living on the periphery of dishonor

pt. 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

pt. 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.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-280) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-11743-7

1-280-16011-X

1-139-14612-2

0-511-11774-4

0-511-06641-4

0-511-06010-6

0-511-32924-5

0-511-49696-6

0-511-06854-9

9780521027212 (pbk.)

0521027217 (pbk.)

9780521652391 (hbk.)

0521652391 (hbk.)

OCLC:

437068927