Menstruation in sacred spaces. Medieval and early-modern Jewish women in the synagogue

2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-16
Author(s):  
Evyatar Marienberg
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Christian Women ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
Viable Solution ◽  
Visible Part ◽  
The Mind

How sacred is the Synagogue? Can a woman enter this holy place while menstruating? What is more sacred: the space, or the Holy objects within it? In the classic sources of the Halakhah, the Jewish Law, one can find no restrictions on women from entering a synagogue while being in the state of Niddah, the state of menstrual impurity. Nevertheless, in the medieval period, more and more sources indicate that many women avoided going to the synagogue when at this state. Why?  Was this custom created by women, or by men? Where did it originate? The article suggests it was the same religious mentality that pushed Jewish and Christian women to avoid going to their respective Houses of Worship while menstruating. The custom was socially problematic, as it prevented women from participating, at least passively, in the service, and from being a visible part of the community in its weekly reunion. It is suggested that in order to solve this issue, the notion of the sacrality of the synagogue was reduced to some extent in the mind of many Jewish women in the early-modern period. The Sacred was the Torah Scroll, the holiest object in the synagogue, and not so much the Synagogue itself. By doing that, women created a new viable solution: they could enter the synagogue without feeling to be transgressing its sacrality. Their respect to the Holy was shown by them avoiding looking at the Torah Scroll when it was presented to the worshippers.

scholarly journals Merchants and States: Private Trade and the Fall of Madras, 1746

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Søren Mentz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The State ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Economic Surplus ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Private Entrepreneurs ◽  
British State

Michael Pearson has argued that “rights for revenue” was an important element in the European way of organizing long-distance trade in the early modern period. The state provided indigenous merchant groups with commercial privileges and allowed them to influence political affairs. In return, the state received a part of the economic surplus. The East India Company and the British state shared such a relationship. However, as this article demonstrates, the East India Company was not an impersonal entity. It consisted of many layers of private entrepreneurs, who pursued their own private interests sheltered by the Company’s privileged position. One such group was the Company servants in Asia. The French conquest of Madras in 1746 and the following period of British sub-imperialism in India demonstrate that the state had traded off too many rights. Through the business papers of Willian Monson, a senior Company servant in Madras, the historian can describe the fall of Madras as a consequence of deteriorating relationships between private interests within the Company structure. Directors, shareholders, Company servants and private merchants in India fell out with each other. In this situation, the British state found it difficult to intervene.

Esther und ihre Töchter. Geschlechterrollen und Wirtschaftstätigkeit jüdischer Frauen in der Vormoderne

Aschkenas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-324
Author(s):  
Christian Porzelt
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Country People

Abstract This essay examines the commercial activities of Jewish women in the Franconian town of Kronach, a district seat in the northern part of the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg, in the early modern period. It focuses on the widow Esther (c. 1645–1727), a contemporary of the famous merchant woman Glikl bas Judah Leib in Altona. Esther’s business activities, which are documented for a period of more than four decades, included the sale of household goods and textiles as well as the marketing of agrarian products. In addition, she was involved in credit transactions and pawnbroking. Numerous contacts with town dwellers and country people demonstrate her involvement in Christian economic and credit networks. As the biographies of Esther’s daughters Ella and Jüdla show, married women also played central roles within households and working communities. They not only supported their husbands, but continued to run their businesses in their absence and engaged in trade on their own accounts.

Doubt

2021 ◽  
pp. 31-61
Author(s):  
Samuel Wright
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Mind ◽  
New View

Chapter 1 draws a connection between critical inquiry and the feeling of trust among scholars. It argues that a new relationship between doubting and reasoning can be found in the early modern period of Sanskrit logic that allowed for new forms of critical inquiry to be employed by scholars. Specifically, the chapter recovers a new conception of doubt called “doubt from speech” (śābda-saṃśaya) in contrast to an older conception called “doubt in the mind” (mānasa-saṃśaya). Yet, when scholars accepted the arguments for this new conception of doubt, they displayed themselves to be not only intellectually competent but also emotionally competent with respect to “the new,” enabling a feeling of trust to emerge between scholars who accepted the new view on doubt and its role in critical inquiry.

15 Legal Conceptions of Statehood

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Biaggini Giovanni
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Individual

This chapter traces the evolution of legal conceptions of the state. In relation to the topic, the chapter discusses the structures and boundaries of various state administrations. It first looks at the changing conceptions and characterizations of the term ‘state’ since its first appearance in writings during the early modern period. The chapter then considers the conceptions of statehood and administration together, and their implications for the Europeanization and internationalization of law. Afterwards, the chapter delves into a more thorough discussion of administration as a multifaceted concept. From here, the chapter provides some concluding remarks on the process of Europeanization as a plurality as a result of the different conditions and conceptions of administration within the individual states.

Republican Visions

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Period

This article examines republican conception of political theory in Europe during the early modern period. It explains that there were two distinct kinds of republican political theory. One was Roman in origin and the other was Greek which valued the natural ordering of the state made possible by the regulation of wealth. The article discusses republicanism in Italy and suggests that the battle between Rome and Greece defined the development of republican political theory throughout the early-modern period.

scholarly journals Fides et Ratio: An Early Enlightenment Defence of Non-confessional Religion by Poiret and his Circle

2010 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri Adrien Krop
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The State ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
German Enlightenment ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Fides Et Ratio

AbstractIn 1707 an anonymous collection of treatises Fides et ratio was published in Amsterdam. The voluminous work of several authors contains a fierce critique of Locke's notion of faith and the moderate Enlightenment's conception of a reasonable Christianity. The sympathiser with mystic theology Pierre Poiret (1646–1719) wrote the general introduction. In the preface Poiret outlined a counter philosophy. However, the book deserves the interest of modern scholars because of the notions of religion and faith conceived by its authors. They are basically modern. Fides et ratio exemplifies the intense intellectual connections between Great Britain, the Netherlands and the German hinterland during the early modern period. The authors of the collection were part of an international non-denominational web. With some exceptions relations between the philosophes and the counter philosophers among the illuminati are neglected in modern research. In the final parts of this essay it will be argued that the ideas on faith and the ensuing separation of religion and the state created a common ground between Poiret and Christian Thomasius, the luminary of early German Enlightenment, who for some years had been directly influenced by the former's ideas.

scholarly journals The Idea of the Construction Police in the Historical Perspective against the Background of the German Legal Culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Karol Dąbrowski
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
The State ◽  
The Public ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The 19Th Century

Th Construction Police, as a task (function) of the state, is the public safety department, which ensures the safety and culture for the using of the building objects. Th institutional roots of this department date back to the age of Enlightenment, the doctrinal ones – to early modern period or even earlier and the legislative ones – to the 19th century. Ths Police is connected with the fire and sanitary safety of buildings. Building laws became the part of the code law, then of police ordinances and, finally, the separate building ordinances were issued (in cities at fist). In the German territories, the period after the Thirty Years’ war was of great importance for the development of the legislation and the building policies, together with the development of cameralism (Kameralismus) and political economy (Polizeiwissenschaft). Th 19th century was the era of codification of the building law in the form of nationwide building acts.

scholarly journals Festivities of Curfew

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Levent Kaya Ocakaçan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The State ◽  
Dominant Factor ◽  
Main Condition ◽  
Indirect Connection ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Household System

The Ottoman Empire was a dynastic state, as were its counterparts in Europe and Asia in the early modern period. In order to explain the characteristics of this dynastic governance model, it is essential to focus on how the Ottoman ‘state’ mechanism functioned. One of the prominent aspects of the dynastic state was the integration of politics in household units (For the Ottoman household system Cf.: Gürkan 2015; Kunt 1974; 1975; 1978; 1983; 1995; 2007; 2011; 2012). Direct or indirect connection of people to these households was the main condition of legitimacy. Thus, the redistribution and succession strategies had a centralized importance in dynastic states. Since being a member of the dynasty was a given category, the state could be reduced to the house of the dynasty at the micro levels. This house transcended those living in it, and in order to sustain the continuity of the house, there was a need to create a ritual showing ‘the loyalty to the dynastic household’. This loyalty was the dominant factor in ensuring the continuity of the house, in other words, the ‘state’, and therefore, the succession strategies in dynastic states had a key importance.

Agents beyond the State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Netzloff
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Professional Lives ◽  
Dutch Revolt ◽  
The Social

The early modern period is often seen as a pivotal stage in the emergence of a recognizably modern form of the state. In Agents Beyond the State, Mark Netzloff returns to this context in order to examine the literary and social practices through which the early modern state was constituted. The state was defined not through the elaboration of theoretical models of sovereignty but rather as an effect of the literary and professional lives of its extraterritorial representatives. Netzloff focuses on the textual networks and literary production of three groups of extraterritorial agents: travelers and intelligence agents, mercenaries, and diplomats. These figures reveal the extent to which the administration of the English state as well as definitions of national culture were shaped by England’s military, commercial, and diplomatic relations in Europe and other regions across the globe. Agents Beyond the State emphasizes these transnational contexts of early modern state formation, from the Dutch Revolt and relations with Venice to the role of Catholic exiles and nonstate agents in diplomacy and international law. These global histories of travel, service, and labor additionally transformed definitions of domestic culture, from the social relations of classes and regions to the private sphere of households and families. Literary writing and state service were interconnected in the careers of Fynes Moryson, George Gascoigne, and Sir Henry Wotton, among others. As they entered the realm of print and addressed a reading public, they introduced the practices of governance to an emerging public sphere.

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