Primary Sources

‘[My heart] delights in pure joy, because . . . our coachman is such a gallant fellow,
who speeds up as soon as the road affords the slightest opportunity.’

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769.

‘The speed of the postilions stunned everyone, and as reluctant as I was to pass
through these splendid areas in such terrible haste and during the hours of
darkness as if in flight, I still rejoiced at having such a favourable wind to
accelerate my journey to where I desired to be.’

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1786.

‘And accordingly do declare and publish to all the world,
That we are agreed as followeth,

1. That the Supreme Authority of England and the Territories therewith incorporate, shall be and reside henceforward in a Representative of the People consisting of four hundred persons, but no more; in the choice of whom (according to naturall right) all men of the age of one and twenty yeers and upwards (not being servants, or receiving alms, or having served in the late King in Arms or voluntary Contributions) shall have their voices; and be capable of being elected to that Supreme Trust those who served the King being disabled for ten years onely. All things concerning the distribution of the said four hundred Members proportionable to the respective parts of the Nation, the severall places for Election, the manner of giving and taking Voyces, with all Circumstances of like nature, tending to the compleating and equall proceedings at Elections, as also their Salary, is referred to be setled by this present Parliament, in such sort as the next Representative may be in a certain capacity to meet with safety at the time herein expressed: and such circumstances to be made more perfect by future Representatives.
2. That two hundred of the four hundred Members, and not lesse, shall be taken and esteemed for a competent Representative; and the major Voyces present shall be concluding to this Nation. The place of Session, and choice of a Speaker, with other circumstances of that nature, are referred to the care of this and future Representatives.
3. And to the end all publick Officers may be certainly accountable, and no Factions made to maintain corrupt Interests, no Officers of any salary Forces in Army or Garison, nor any Treasurer or Receiver of publick monies, shall (while such) be elected a Member for any Representative; and if any Lawyer shall at any time be chosen, he shall be uncapable of practice as a Lawyer, during the whole time of that Trust. And for the same reason, and that all persons may be capable of subjection as well as rule.
4. That no Member of the present Parliament shall be capable of being elected of the next Representative, nor any Member of any future Representative shall be capable of being chosen for the Representative immediately succeeding: but are free to be chosen, one Representative having intervened: Nor shall any Member of any Representative be made either Receiver, Treasurer, or other Officer during that imployment.
5. That for avoyding the many dangers and inconveniences apparantly arising from the long continuance of the same persons in Authority; We Agree, that this present Parliament shall end the first Wednesday in August next 1649, and thenceforth be of no power or Authority: and in the mean time shall order and direct the Election of a new and equall Representative, according to the true intent of this our Agreement: and so as the next Representative may meet and sit in power and Authority as an effectuall Representative upon the day following; namely, the first Thursday of the same August, 1649.
6. We agree, if the present Parliament shall omit to order such Election or Meeting of a new Representative; or shall by any means be hindered from performance of that Trust:
   That in such case, we shall for the next Representative proceed in electing thereof in those places, & according to that manner & number formerly accustomed in the choice of Knights and Burgesses; observing onely the exceptions of such persons from being Electors or Elected, as are mentioned before in the first, third and fourth Heads of this Agreement: It being most unreasonable that we should either be kept from new, frequent and successive Representatives, or that the supreme Authority should fall into the hands of such as have manifested disaffection to our common Freedom, and endeavoured the bondage of the Nation.
7. And for preserving the supreme authority from falling into the hands of any whom the people have not, and shall not chuse,
   We are resolved and agreed (God willing) that a new Representative shall be upon the first Thursday in August next aforesaid: the ordering and disposing of themselves, as to the choice of a speaker, and the like circumstances, is hereby left to their discretion: But are in the extent and exercise of Power, to follow the direction and rules of this agreement; and are hereby authorised and required according to their best judgements, to set rules for future equall distribution, and election of Members as is herein intended and enjoyned to be done, by the present Parliament.
8. And for the preservation of the supreme Authority (in all times) entirely in the hands of such persons only as shal be chosen thereunto — we agree and declare: That the next & all future Representatives, shall continue in full power for the space of one whole year: and that the people shall of course, chuse a Parliament once every year, so as all the members thereof may be in a capacity to meet, and take place of the foregoing Representative: the first Thursday in every August for ever if God so please; Also (for the same reason) that the next or any future Representative being met, may continue their Session day by day without intermission for four monthes at the least; and after that shall be at Liberty to adjuorn from two monthes to two months, as they shall see cause untill their yeer be expired, but shall sit no longer than a yeer upon pain of treason to every member that shall exceed that time: and in times of adjurnment shall not erect a Councel of State, but refer the managing of affairs in the intervals to a Committee of their own members giving such instructions, and publish them, as in no measure shall contradict this agreement.
9. And that none henceforth may be ignorant or doubtful concerning the power of the Supreme authority, and of the affairs, about which the same is to be conversant and exercised: we agree and declare, that the power of Representatives shall extend without the consent or concurrence of any other person or persons,
1. To the conservation of Peace and commerce with forrain Nations.
2. To the preservation of those safe guards, and securities of our lives, limbes, liberties, properties, and estates, contained in the Petition of Right, made and enacted in the third year of the late King.
3. To the raising of moneys, and generally to all things as shall be evidently conducing to those ends, or to the enlargement of our freedom, redress of grievances, and prosperity of the Common-wealth.

For security whereof, having by wofull experience found the prevalence of corrupt interests powerfully inclining most men once entrusted with authority, to pervert the same to their own domination, and to the prejudice of our Peace and Liberties, we therefore further agree and declare.

10. That we do not inpower or entrust our said representatives to continue in force, or to
    make any Lawes, Oaths, or Covenants, whereby to compell by penalties or otherwise any person to any thing in or about matters of faith, Religion or Gods worship or to restrain any person from the profession of his faith, or to exercise of Religion according to his Conscience, nothing having caused more distractions, and heart burnings in all ages, then persecution and molestation for matters of Conscience in and about Religion.

The full text of the first ten – of a total of thirty – articles in the Agreement of the People (dated 1 May 1649), as edited in ‘A Treasury of Primary Documents’ compiled by The Constitution Society: http://constitution.org/1-History/eng/agreepeo.htm.

‘Every nobleman, however modest his standing, is king in his own territory; every
city exercises royal power within its own walls.’

A professor from the University of Heidelberg in 1408 (Offler 1965, 220).

‘The new people and the sudden gains have engendered pride and excess in you,
O Florence, so that already you weep for it!’

Dante Alighieri (Dante 1989, xvi. 167).

Tacitus judged the Roman populace to be ‘eager for political changes and, at the same time, fearful of them’ (Tacitus XV, 46) – a similar tension characterized Europe around 1500 as well.

[10 January 1709] ‘The cold is so grim that words fail me. I am sitting in front of a roaring fire, there is a screen in front of the door, my neck is wrapped in sables and my feet are in a bearskin sack, but all the same I am trembling with cold and can hardly hold my pen. I have never known such a dreadful winter in all my life; the wine is frozen solid in the bottles.

[19 January 1709] ‘You hear nothing but complaints about the cold, there has not been such a winter in living memory. During the last fortnight people have been found dead of cold every morning, and the partridges are picked up frozen in the fields. All the plays have been stopped and so have all the law-suits, for the judges and the advocates can’t sit in their chambers because of the cold.

(Kroll, 1971, 133)

Correspondence of Charlotte-Elisabeth, duchesse d’Orléans, writing from Versailles.

‘that our countryman does not lack industriousness, we are persuaded by countless proofs. We see him working the most thankless toil with unwearying diligence; he does not regret the toil of once more dragging up the almost annually descending earth on his back onto the steep fields in order to obtain the old fertility of the upper part of his field. He shows no hesitation to extend the fertility of the earth to the steepest heights of the mountains, although these, since ploughing is not possible because of the great steepness, must be worked by laborious hewing with the hands alone.’

(Mathieu 2019, 51–52)

From a description of Tyrolean peasants in 1677.

‘Countryman

... Your Citie [London] cannot choose but bee much damnified by this strange congealing [freezing] of the Riuer [Thames].

Citizen.

Exceeding much (Father) straungers may gesse at our harmes; yet none can giue the full number of them but wee that are the inhabitants: for the Citie by this meanes is cut off from all comerce: Shop-kéepers may sit and aske what doe you lacke, when the passengers may very well reply, what doe you lacke your selues: they may sit and stare on men, but not sit and sell: it was (before) called The dead Terme, and now may wee call this, The dead Vacation, The frozen Vacation, The cold Vacation. If it be a Gentlemans life to liue idlely, and doe nothing, how many poore Artificers and Trades-men haue béene made Gentlemen then by this Frost? For a number of Occupations (like the flakes of yce that lye in the Thames) are by this malice of Winter, trod cleane vnder foote, and will not yet bee able to stirre. Alas poore Watermen, you haue had cold chéere at this banquet: you that liue altogether vpon water, can now scarce get water to your hands: it is a hard thing now for you to earne your bread with the sweate of your browes.

Coun.

This beating may make them wise, the want that this hard season driues them into, may teach them to play the Ants, and in Sommer to make a prouision against the wrath of Winter. There is no mischiefe borne alone I know; calamities commonly are (by birth) twinnes: me thinks therefore, yt this drying vp of the waters, should be a deuourer vp of wood: this colde Ague of the earth must needes haue warmth to helpe it that warmth must come from fier, and that fier cannot be had without cost: how then I pray you in this so generall an affliction, did poore people shift for fewell to comfort them?

Citti.

Their care for fier was as great as for foode: nay, to want it was a worse torment then to bee without meate: the belly was now pinched to haue the body warmed: and had not the Prouident Fathers of this Citie (carefully, charitably, and out of a good and godly zeale) dispersed a reliefe to the poore, in seuerall partes and places about the outer bounds of the Citie, where pouertie most inhabiteth, by storing them before hand with Seacoale and other fiering at a reasonable rate, I verily perswade my selfe, that the vnconscionable and vnmercifull raising of the prices of fewell by Chandlers, Wood-mongers, &c. (who now meant to lay the poore on the Racke) would haue béene the death of many a wretched creature through the want of succour.

Coun.

Not vnlikely Sir.

Cit.

For neither could coale be brought vp the Riuer, neither could wood be sent downe. The Westerne Barges might now wrap vp their smoakie Sayles, for albeit they had neuer so loftie a gale, their voyage was spoyld, the windes was with them, but the tide was cleane against them. And not onely hath this frost nipt away those comforts that should reuiue the outward parts of the body, but those also that should giue strength and life to the inward. For you of the Country being not able to trauel to the Citie with victualls, the price of victuall must of necessity be enhaunced, and victuall itselfe brought into a scarcitie. And thus haue I giuen you (according to your request) a true picture of our Thames frozen ouer, and withall haue drawne in as liuely colours as I can (to my skill) as it were in a little Table, all the miseries, mischiefes, and inconueniences, which this hard time hath throwne vpon our Citie.

… As I haue discouered vnto you, what colde doings wee haue had (during this Frost) in the Citie, so I pray let me vnderstand from you, what kinde of worlde you haue liued in in the Country.

Coun.

The worlde with vs of the Country, runnes vpon the old rotten whéeles: for all the Northern cloth that is wouen in our Country, will scarce make a Gowne to keepe Charitie warme, she goes so a cold. Rich men had neuer more money, and Couetousnesse had neuer lesse pittie: there was neuer in any age more mony stirring, nor neuer more stir to gette mony. Farmers are now slaues to racking yong prodigall landlords, those Landlords, are more seruile slaues to their owne Riots and Luxurie. But these are the common diseases of euery Kingdome and therefore are but common newes. The tunes of the Nightingale are stale in the midle of Sommer, because we heare them at the comming in of the Spring, and so these harsh notes which are sung euerie day in euerie Countrie, do (be custome) grow not to be regarded. But your desire Sir is, to know how we spend the daies of this our Frozen age in the Country.

Cittizen.

That I would heare indéede Father.

Coun.

Beléeue mee Sir, as wickedly you must thinke as you can heare in your Citie. It goes as hard with vs as it doeth with you. The same colde hand of Winter is thrust into our bosomes, the same sharpe ayre strikes woundes into our bodies: the same Sunne shines vppon vs, but the same Sunne doeth not heate vs no more then it doeth you. The poore Plough-mans children sit crying and blowing their nayles, as lamentably as the children and seruants of your poore Artificers. Hunger pinches their chéekes as deepe into the flesh, as it doeth into yours here. You cry out here, you are vndone for coale, and wee complaine, wee shall dye for want of Wood. All your care is to prouide for your Wiues, children and seruants, in this time of sadnesse: but wée goe beyond you in cares; not onely our wiues, our children, and houshold seruants, are vnto vs a cause of sorrowe, but wée greeue as much to beholde the miserie of our poore Cattell (in this frozen-hearted season) as it doeth to looke vppon our owne affliction. Our beastes are our faithfull seruants, and doe their labour truely when wee set them to it, they are our Nurses that giue vs milke, they are our guides in our iourneyes, they are our partners, and helpe to enrich our state; yea, they are the verie vp-holders of a poore Farmers landes and liuings. Alas then, what Maister that loues his seruant as he ought, but would almost breake his owne heart-stringes with fighing, to sée these pine and mourne as they doe? The ground is bare, and not worth a poore handfull of grasse. The earth séemes barren, and beares nothing, or if shee doeth, most vnnaturally she kills it presently, or suffers it through cold to perish. By which meanes the lusty horse abates his flesh, and hangs the head, féeling his strength goe from him: the Oxe stands bellowing: the ragged Shéepe bleeting: the poore Lambe shiuering and staruing to death.

The poore Cottager that hath but a Cowe to liue vpon, must feed vpon hungry meales (God knows) when the beast her selfe hath but a bare Commons. He that is not able to bid all his Cattle home, and to feast them with Fodder out of his Barnes, will scarce haue Cattell at the end of Sommer to fetch home his Haruest. Which charge of feeding so many beastly mouthes, is able to eate vp a Country-mans estate, if his prouidence before time hath not bin the greater to meet and preuent such stormes. Of necessity our Sheep Oxen &c. must be in danger of famishing, (hauing nothing but what our old grandam the earth will alowe them to liue vpon) of necessitie must they pyne, scithence all the fruits that had wont to spring out of her fertile womb, are now nipt in their birth, and likely neuer to prosper. And to proue that the Ground hath her very heart (as it were) broken, and that she hath not liuely sap enough in her vaines left as yet to quicken her, and to raise her vp to strength: behold, this one infallible token. The Leeke, whose courage hath euer binne so vndaunted, that he hath borne vp his lustie head in all stormes; and could neuer be compelled to shrinke, for Hayle, Snow, Frostes, nor showres; is nowe by the violence and cruelty of this Weather, beaten into the earth, being rotted, dead, disgraced and trode vpon.

This fictitious dialogue between old ‘father’ Countryman and Citizen, of London, dramatizes some of the effects of the extremely cold winter of 1607-8. They emphasize the contrasting burdens and vulnerabilities of the country and the city, and offer moralising analyses of the obligations of the rich to the poor in hard times. The dialogue format is common in early modern topical literature, and news of extreme and unusual natural occurrences was a perennial and popular theme for these small, cheap pieces of print.

Taken from Anon (1608), The great frost. cold doings in London, except it be at the lotterie. With newes out of the country. A familiar talke betwene a country-man and a citizen touching this terrible frost and the great lotterie, and the effects of them. the description of the Thames frozen over. London. Sigs. B2-C1.

‘Come Brethren of the water, and let us all assemble,
To treat upon this matter, which makes us quake and tremble;
For we shall rue it if't be true that Fenns be undertaken,
And where we feed in Fen and Reed thei’le feed both Beef and Bacon.

Thei’l sow both Beans and Oats, where never man yet thought it,
Where men did row in Boats ere Undertakers bought it:
But Ceres [Roman goddess of agriculture, grain crops and fertility] thou behold us, let wilde Oats be their venture,
Oh let the Frogs and miry Boggs destroy where they do enter.

Behold the great designe, which they do now determine,
Will make our bodyes pine a prey to Crows and Vermine:
For they do mean all Fenns to drain and waters overmaster,
All will be drie, and we must dye ’cause Essex-Calves want pasture.

Away with Boates and Rodder, Farewell both Bootes and Skatches [stilts, for crossing wet land],
No need of t’one nor t’other, men now make better matches;
Stiltmakers all and Tanners shall complain of this disaster;
For they will make each muddy Lake for Essex Calves a pasture.

The fethered Foules have wings, to fly to other Nations;
But we have no such things to help our transportations;
We must give place (oh grievous case) to horned Beasts and Cattell,
Except that we can all agree to drive them out by Battell.

Wherefore let us intreat our antient water Nurses,
To shew their power so great as t'help to drain their purses;
And send us good old Captain Floud [send us floods] to lead us out to Battel,
Then two-peny Jack [a pike fish worth two pence], with Skakes on’s back [scales on his back] will drive out all the Cattel

This noble Captain yet was never known to fail us,
But did the Conquest get of all that did assail us;
His furious rage none could asswage, but to the Worlds great wonder,
He bears down banks and breaks their ranks and Whirly-giggs [windmills] asunder.

God Eolus [mythic Greek keeper of the winds] we do thee pray, that thou wilt not be wanting,
Thou never saidst us nay, now listen to our canting:
Do thou deride their hope and pride, that purpose our confusion;
And send a blast [of wind], that they in haste may work no good conclusion.

Great Neptune (God of Seas) this work must needs provoke thee;
They mean thee to disease, and with Fen-water Choake thee:
But with thy Mace do thou deface and quite confound this matter,
And send thy Sands to make dry lands when they shall want fresh water.

And eke we pray thee Moon, that thou wilt be propitious
To see that nought be done to prosper the malitious;
Though Summers heat hath wrought a feat, whereby themselves they flatter,
Yet be so good as send a floud lest Essex Calves want water.’

(Dugdale 1662, 391-2)

‘The Powtes Complaint’, an anonymous seventeenth-century ballad, which protested the draining of the Fens. ‘Powte’ is an old English word referring to a number of fish species, with the usage here likely to refer to the Burbot, a fish which became extinct in England with the draining of the fens (Borlik and Egan 2017). The poem laments the destruction of waterways and wetlands by drainage undertaken so that outsiders can grow crops and graze cattle, and hopes that floods will return to scupper the drainage works.

Borlik, Todd and Egan, Claire (2017), ‘Angling for the “Powte”: a Jacobean

Environmental Protest Poem’, in: English Literary Renaissance 48, 256-289.

‘That the Custom of the World has put Women, generally speaking, into a State of Subjection, is not deny’d; but the Right can no more be prov’d from the Fact, than the Predominancy of Vice can justifie it . . .

I do not propose this to prevent a Rebellion, for Women are not so well united as to form an Insurrection. They are for the most part Wise enough to Love their Chains, and to discern how very becomingly they set.’

Mary Astell (1706, 72, 82).

‘To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire above any realm, nation, or city is repugnant to reason, contumely to God . . . it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice.’

John Knox (Knox 1994, 8).

21 April 1758. Oh how unhappy is that life that is continually perplexed with domestic disquietudes and matrimonial discord! …What I can do I know not, for it is impossible for my trade to be carried on to advantage amidst such trouble.

7 Oct. 1758. Oh, the arbitrary temper of a wife that must be a master! Not all the entreaties and expostulations could persuade my wife to postpone this journey [to visit her mother] …. when undoubtedly (if ever she is a help to me) I now have the greatest occasion for it to put my accounts and other affairs in order.

(Vaisey 1984, 146, 164–5)

‘Honest, kind, dearest, closest bridegroom:

With longing and heartfelt joy I received your letter . . . Kind and dearest treasure, with this letter I am sending a little string which you may bind [about your wrist] on my behalf and thereby think of me . . .

Magdalena, y.l.b.’ [your loving bride]

Magdalena Paumgartner (Ozment 1989, 39–43).

This time God was good and gratious to mee and mine, in our peace and provisions for us, yet all things were wonderfull deare, wheate 9s, malt 4s8d, rye 7s6d, oatmeal 8s per bushel and cheese 4d ob [41/2 pence]. All things deare, yet the season was indifferent warm and drye. Beggars many, givers few, lord of thy bounty provide for the poore, I constrained myself to do more th[a]n ordinary for our poore, it is better to give than to receive, and yet poore people were never more regardless of God then now adayes.’

Ralph Josselin, (Earls Colne, Essex; Web resources).

‘The supreme political body in our city is the Council. . . . It consists of 42 men, of whom 34 are patricians belonging to the Old Families, and 8 are commoners chosen from the multitude. . . . The government of our city and the common weal rest in the hands of ancient families, people whose ancestors, even back in the earliest days, were also members of the government and ruled the city. Foreigners who have settled here, and common people, have nothing to say, nor ought they to, for all power is of God, and only those may exercise it whom the Creator has endowed with special wisdom. Therefore we admit no one into our Council (excepting the eight commoners already mentioned) whose parents and grandparents did not also sit in the Council. It is true that some exceptions are now being made to this rule, and that some newer residents (but they are men of honest birth and distinguished family) have entered the Council. However, such men may not occupy a position higher than that of Junior Mayor.’

‘Concerning the Polity and Government of the Praiseworthy City of Nuremberg, 1516’ (Strauss 1976, 58–62).

‘The town dweller is brought up in complete indifference to the things of the countryside; he scarcely distinguishes the plant that bears hemp from the one that produces flax, and wheat from rye, or either from maslin; he is content to get his food and clothing from them. It’s no use talking to most bourgeois about fallow land or saplings, about layered vines or aftermath, if you want to be understood; they don’t know what the terms mean. Speak to some of them about yardage, tariffs and taxes, to others about appeal procedure, civil petitions, settlements and summonses. They know society, albeit in its ugliest and least admirable aspects; they know nothing about nature, its origins, its progress, its gifts and its bounties. Their ignorance is often deliberate, and based on their esteem for their own profession and talents. The meanest pettifogger, buried in his gloomy, smoke-blackened study, his mind obsessed with even blacker chicanery, thinks himself superior to the ploughman, who enjoys the open sky, who tills the ground, who sows in season and reaps rich harvests; and if he should sometimes hear talk of primitive men or of the patriarchs, of their rustic way of life and its harmonious order, he wonders how they could have lived in such times, when there were no offices or commissions, no attorneys or Presidents; he cannot understand how people ever survived without the clerk of the court, the public prosecutor and the refreshment-room at the law-courts.’

(La Bruyère 1963, ‘Of the Town’, 125–26).

‘I’ve had carnal relations with many other women, especially with the sister of the priest I served . . . . But . . . none of the women I’ve known was aware that I had female organs, since I was always able to cover them up. My wife María del Caño never knew I had a woman’s nature. Even though it’s true that many times María desired to put her hand on my shameful parts, I never let her do it, even though she wanted to very much . . . .’

(Kagan and Dyer 2004, 36–59; quotation 48)

‘Johanna Lane, Arraigned for picking the Pocket of James Harvey of 3 l. 4s. 10d. but he could not positively swear it; and she bringing sufficient Housholders to vouch her honest course of life, the Jury thought fit to acquit her. 25 Feb. 1685.’

‘John Skeldon, of the Parish of Christ-Church, was indicted for the Murder of Williams Douglas, the 13th of February last. John Wells depos’d, That he being with the Deceased, the Prisoner came riding along a full Gallop, about 8 a Clock at Night and the Deceased being a Carman, was leading his Horse, when the Prisoner riding, against him, threw him down, and fell upon him with his Knees against his Breast . . . . The Prisoner call’d several Persons to his Reputation, who gave him the Character of a peaceable inoffensive Person. The Jury found him guilty of Manslaughter. Burnt in the Hand. 26 Feb. 1724.’

(Proceedings of the Old Bailey; Web resources)

‘All Italy speaks of him. The Appenine mountains and the Sicilian vales resound with the name of Rinaldini. It lives in the songs of Florence and Calabria and in the ballads of the Sicilians. From the summit of the Alps to the extremity of the Appenines, men talk of his achievements: and when the garrulous villagers of Calabria assemble in the evening before their doors, every one is ready to relate some adventure of the Valeroso Capitano Rinaldini.’

Christian August Vulvius (Hinkley 1848).

Mercury was so powerful that it moved the illness to the patient’s ‘throat and the mouth, from which the disease poured so greatly that all the teeth fell out and one had to worry about the mouth in general. The throat and tongue began to fester . . . incessantly stinking saliva was pouring out of the mouth which polluted everything . . . the entire house was so full of stench that those awaiting to be cured wished to die [rather] than to be cured in that way.’

(Trans. Stein 2009, 35; cf. Hutten 1539)

‘Your sheep . . . which are usually so tame and so cheaply fed, begin now, according to report, to be so greedy and wild that they devour human beings themselves and devastate and depopulate fields, houses, and towns. [Landlords] leave no ground to be tilled; they enclose every bit of land for pasture; they pull down houses and destroy towns, leaving only the church to pen the sheep in.’

Thomas More, Utopia (More 1965, 65–67).

‘In 1516, a learned doctor Balthasar Hubmeier preached so vigorously against the Jews, that with permission of the Emperor, the city council drove them out. Some of the Jews’ houses were confiscated by Christians. Others were destroyed like their synagogue. On the place of their synagogue a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary was built. A spontaneous pilgrimage began. All sorts of people came, some with musical instruments, some with pitchforks and rakes; women came with their milk cans, spindles and cooking pots. Artisans came with their tools: a weaver with his shuttle, a carpenter with his square, a cooper with his measuring tape. They walked many miles, but did not tire from the long journey. They all walked in silence. If asked why they were going, they answered: “My spirit drives me there” . . . Thousands came each day to see the miracle . . . the pilgrimage continued for six or seven years, until Dr. Martin Luther preached against it.’

Contemporary description of the cult of the Beautiful Virgin at Regensburg (Dixon and Greengrass, ‘The Protestant Reformation’, section 02.63; Web resources).

‘I . . . willingly acknowledge . . . that I have had in my keeping divers books containing heresies and errors against Christian faith and the determination of all holy church, which books I have read and declared . . . before many divers persons . . . teaching against the blessed sacrament of the altar . . . also against the sacrament of confession to priests and penance for satisfaction of sins. . . . Also I have read and declared against our holy father the pope . . . and against the veneration and worship of images standing in churches, calling them idols . . . .’

John Croft, 1505 (Harper-Bill 1989, 115).

‘a good and attentive barber keeps his thought, attention and eyes on the razor and hair and does not forget how far he has got with his shaving or cutting. If he wants to engage in too much conversation or let his mind wander or look somewhere else he is likely to cut his customer’s mouth, nose or even his throat. Thus if anything is to be done well, it requires the full attention of all one’s senses. . . . How much more does prayer call for concentration and singleness of heart if it is to be a good prayer!’

Martin Luther, A Practical Way to Pray, 1535 (Lull and Russell 2012, 36).

‘Those who come to service are usually drunk. As soon as they sit down they lean their heads on their hands and sleep through the whole sermon, except that they fall off the benches, making a great clatter, or women drop their babies on the floor.’

Extract from a visitation report from the county of Nassau-Wiesbaden in 1594 (Strauss 1978, 284).

‘Sire, your most humble and most obedient subjects of the town of Bordeaux and region of the Bordelais, who are of the religion which is called Reformed, remonstrate with you most humbly that even though by your edict for the pacification of the troubles and your declaration thereon you have commanded that everyone should have secure and free access to the places where the exercise of the said religion has been established by your command, and everyone should live in his house unrestricted, without being searched, or molested, or constrained for reasons of conscience, and in order to be better united your subjects should all be received into the administration of towns and communities regardless of religious difference . . . Nevertheless, the town mayor and councillors and other officials and, following their example, several private individuals, disposed to be unruly and disobedient to your commands, imprison, sentence and fine, seize property and otherwise molest the supplicants for things which are permitted by you, and much more that tends to the infraction of your edicts, violation of the protection and assurance which you have given to the supplicants and, consequently, to the subversion of your estate. They beseech most humbly your Majesty to provide for this and to declare your will and intention . . .’

(Sécousse 1743–45, v. 214–22)

‘Whereas it is by divine precept enjoined on all, to whom the cure of souls is committed, to know their own sheep; to offer sacrifice for them; and, by the preaching of the divine word, by the administration of the sacraments, and by the example of all good works, to feed them; to have a fatherly care of the poor and of other distressed persons, and to apply themselves to all other pastoral duties; all which (offices) cannot be rendered and fulfilled by those who neither watch over nor are with their own flock, but abandon it after the manner of hirelings; the sacred and holy Synod . . . declares, that all persons who are – under whatsoever name and title, even though they be cardinals of the holy Roman Church – set over any patriarchal, primatial, metropolitan, and cathedral Churches whatsoever, are obliged to personal residence in their own Church, or diocese.’

Decree on episcopal residence issued by the Council of Trent, 1563 (‘Canons and Decrees’; Web resources).

‘Let the following Rules be observed.

First Rule: All judgement laid aside, we ought to have our mind ready and prompt to obey, in all, the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our holy Mother the Church Hierarchical.

Second Rule: To praise confession to a Priest, and the reception of the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar once in the year, and much more each month, and much better from week to week, with the conditions required and due . . .

Thirteenth Rule: To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed.’

Extracts from Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises (Web resources).

‘The Japanese have a very high opinion of the wisdom of the Chinese, whether as to the mysteries of religion or as to manners and civil institutions. They used to make that a principal point against us, that if things were as we preached, how was it that the Chinese knew nothing about them? After many disputations and questions, the people of Yamaguchi began to join the Church of Christ, some from the lower orders and some from the nobility. In the space of two months quite as many as five hundred have become Christians. Their number is daily being added to; so that there is great cause for joy, and for thanking God that there are so many who embrace the Christian faith, and who tell us all the deceptions of the bonzes, and the mysteries contained in their books and taught by their sects. For those who have become Christians used to belong, one to one sect, another to another; the most learned of each of them explained to us the institutions and rules of his own way of belief. If I had not had the work of these converts to help me, I should not have been able to become sufficiently acquainted with, and so attack, these abominable religions of Japan.’

A letter to the Society of Jesus at Goa, written from Japan by St Francis Xavier in 1551 (Web resources).

‘VI. And in order to leave no occasion for troubles or differences between our subjects, we have permitted, and herewith permit, those of the said religion called Reformed to live and abide in all the cities and places of this our kingdom . . . without being annoyed, molested, or compelled to do anything in the matter of religion contrary to their consciences . . .

‘IX. We also permit those of the said religion to make and continue the exercise of the same in all villages and places of our dominion where it was established by them and publicly enjoyed several and divers times in the year 1597 . . .

‘XIII. We very expressly forbid to all those of the said religion its exercise . . . in this our kingdom and lands of our dominion, otherwise than in the places permitted and granted by the present edict.

‘XIV. It is forbidden as well to perform any function of the said religion in our court or retinue . . . or in our city of Paris, or within five leagues of the said city . . .’

Henry IV’s Edict of Nantes, 1598 (Edict of Nantes; Web resources).

‘Who knoweth how often he doth offend? For my conscience doth chide and accuse me continually, both for sins of omission and sins of commission, not only sins of buying and selling but my sins of omitting of many good duties. . . . And although this accusing conscience is as it were a little hell on earth, that I can be nowhere, nor can go about anything, no not a look nor a thought but still there is a checking or chiding within him [sic], yet I see and find abundance of God’s mercies to me in this, in that the Lord will not let me sleep and snort in any sin and so go smoothly and quiet to hell (as others do) but my God lays as it were thorns and briars in my way. O great mercy!’

Nehemiah Wallington, May 1642 (Wallington 2007, 165–6; spelling modernized).

‘What is the Turk? . . . He is a replica of the antichrist; he is a piece of a tyrant; he is an insatiable tiger; he is the damned assailant on the world; his cruelty is unlimited; he steals crowns without conscience . . . he is oriental dragon poison; he is the hound of hell unchained.’

Abraham a Sancta Clara, ‘Arise, Arise O Christians to Fight Against Muhammadan Error and [the] Turkish Hereditary Enemy’ (Fichtner 2008, 61–62).

‘From the earliest times great attention has been given to the improvement of agriculture. Indicate the arrangements adopted for that purpose by the several dynasties.’

‘Different dynasties have since that time adopted different regulations in regard to the use of militia or standing armies, the mode of raising supplies for the army, etc. State these.’

‘State how the currency of the Sung Dynasty corresponds with our use of paper money at the present day.’

Extracts from a Chinese Civil Service Examination recorded by a missionary. (Père du Halde in 1575: Web resources).

‘No distinction is attached to birth among the Turks; the deference to be paid to a man is measured by the position he holds in the public service. . . Those who receive the highest offices from the Sultan are for the most part the sons of shepherds or herdsmen, and so far from being ashamed of their parentage, they actually glory in it, and consider it a matter of boasting that they owe nothing to the accident of birth; for they do not believe that high qualities are either natural or hereditary, nor do they think that they can be handed down from father to son, but that they are partly the gift of God, and partly the result of good training, great industry, and unwearied zeal.’

Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (Busbecq 1881, I: 154).

‘Your Majesty, my Illustrious and Prosperous Sultan, may you be healthy!

‘Your insignificant, humble servant is a Christian girl from among the inhabitants of Kadıköy, from the Greek people. I attained the divine truth and wish to be honored with the Holy Islam because my parents want to marry me to an unbeliever. I want to be honored with the Holy Islam in your imperial presence.

My request is the following:

‘I plead that, because I accepted the Islamic faith, I be kindly granted my new clothes. The rest is left to the decree of my Illustrious Sultan.’

Petition from an Ottoman woman written in 1712 (Minkov 2004, 214–15).

‘When it is dried and thoroughly boyled, it. . . is good against the small poxe and measles, and bloudy pimples; yet causeth vertiginous headheach. . . occasioneth waking, and asswageth lust, and sometimes breeds melancholly. He that would drink it for livelinesse sake, and to discusse slothfulnesse . . . let him use much sweet meates with it, and oyle of pistachios, and butter. Some drink it with milk, but it is an error, and such as may bring in danger of the leprosy.’

Translation of an Arabic treatise on the medicinal use of coffee, published in England in 1659 (Nature of the drink Kauhi 1659).

I, who am sultan of the chiefs of sultans and of the grand Khans, who distributes the crowns of ruling CHOSROESES , who curtails the defects of Caesars, who breaks the multitude of Great Kings, I who am hero of water and earth, the shadow of God (may He be exalted) upon the earths, . . . Sultan Ahmed Khan [pronounce:]

You have requested . . . that the merchants [and] servants . . . from the places belonging to [the Netherlands] may come and go with their merchandise in safety and protection to our well-guarded dominions to trade, and that there also be given to them the aforementioned capitulation . . . After this request for benevolence was . . . submitted at the foot of our sultan’s throne of felicity, the petitions were met with acceptance . . . The community of merchants of the countries and places belonging to the Dutch provinces may come and go, buy and sell, in our well-guarded dominions.’

Capitulation granted to the Dutch Republic in 1612 (de Groot 2012, 148–50).

‘This emperor, Prester John, holds full great land, and hath many full noble cities and good towns in his realm and many great diverse isles and large. For all the country [called] Ind is devised in isles for the great floods that come from Paradise, that depart all the land in many parts. And also in the sea he hath full many isles. And the best city in the Isle of Pentexoire is Nyse, that is a full royal city and a noble, and full rich.’

Account attributed to Sir John Mandeville, 1366 (Mandeville 1366, Web resources).

‘The Lusitanian Indian Empire or State, which formerly dominated the whole of the East, . . . gave law to thirty-three tributary kingdoms, amazed the whole world with its vast extent, stupendous victories, thriving trade and immense riches, is now . . . reduced to . . . relics and those but few, of the great body of that State, which our enemies have left us. . .’

The Jesuit Manuel Godinho describing the rise and decline of the Portuguese empire in India as he saw it in 1663 (Boxer 1969, 130).

‘. . . [t]here is no gold or silver money in China, but only current weight of gold and silver, and everything is bought and sold by weight; wherefore every man hath a pair of scales and weights in his house, which all are exceedingly perfect. . . . For each one laboureth by all means he can to deceive the other, so none do trust the scales and weights of the other, and every one that goeth to buy in the market carrieth a weight and balance and broken silver.’

Gaspar Da Cruz (Boxer 2004, 128–29).

‘I say this of the Portuguese, who have adopted the vices and customs of the land without reserve . . . There are countless men who buy droves of girls and sleep with them all, and subsequently sell them . . . This is carried to such excess that there was one man in Malacca who had twenty-four women of various races, all of whom were his slaves, and all of whom he enjoyed.’

An Italian Jesuit writing from India in 1550 (Boxer 1969, 307–8).

‘Pegu is a kingdom of heathens. It is the most fertile land of all we have seen and known. It is more plenteous than Siam and almost as much as Java. . . . The principal [merchandise] is rice. There comes every year . . . fifteen to sixteen junks, twenty to thirty . . . cargo ships. They bring a great deal of lac [i.e. lacquer], and BENZOIN , MUSK , precious stones, rubies, silver, butter, oil, salt, onions, garlic, mustard and things to eat like that. . . . There is great profit in bringing rice and lac and all the rest of it from Pegu to Malacca. The chief thing [to bring back] is coarse china of various kinds and ornamented in red, a great deal of quicksilver, copper, vermilion, damask, dark enrolados with flowers – which come straight from China for them because they are of no use for others – quantities of tin, and they take an infinity of different kinds of china, seed-pearls, a little gold . . . some cloves, nutmeg, MACE..

Tomé Pires’ early sixteenth-century description of the Kingdom of Pegu in present-day Myanmar (Pires 1944, 97–99; cf. Gordon 2008, 164).

‘There is such abun[dance] of Wheat, Wine, Hemp, Flax, Wood and Spices, [it is] as if all other Provinces of the world were emptied of their wealth, to make Amsterdam a publick treasury of all they produce. . . . When I saw the Store-houses, and Magazeens reaching at a great distance, from the East-India House, full of Spices, Silk, Stuffs, Purcelane, and what ever China and the Indies afford that is most rare, I thought Ceylon had sent thither all its Cinamon, the Moluccas al their Cloves, the islands of Sumatra and Java, all their Spices, China all its rich stuffs; Japan its excellent works of several kinds, and the rest of the Indies its Pepper and Silk.’

Johann Albrecht von Mandelslo (Olearius 1669, 230; cf. Corrigan, van Campen and Diercks 2015, 124).

‘The beautiful and delicate MUSLINS from Dacca [. . .] have again directed attention in some measure, towards that peculiar district and branch of industry in Bengal to which we are indebted for productions so exquisite and so costly. It is admitted on all hands, that the finest of the Dacca muslins exceed anything which can be produced by the looms of Europe: and when the Manchester manufacturer described them as “the merest shadow of a commodity” he pronounced, in fact, the highest eulogium which they could receive, and indicated in a few words the deficiencies of the English when compared with the Indian manufacture of Muslins.’

(Anonymous, 1851, 130; cf. Berg 2015, 119 –20)

‘Our dynasty’s majestic virtue has penetrated unto every country under Heaven, and Kings of all nations have offered their costly tribute by land and sea. As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country’s manufactures. This then is my answer to your request to appoint a representative at my Court. . . . It behoves you, O King, to respect my sentiments and to display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that, by perpetual submission to our Throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country hereafter.’

Emperor Qian Long, ‘Letter to George III’, 1793 (Web resources).

‘Your Excellency has in his library a work by the historian Dio, De Romanis historiis, which I should very much like to see, both because of the pleasure and consolation that I derive from history, and because Piero my son, who has a certain acquaintance with Greek literature, has urged me to procure for him this author’s work, which, he understands, is very rare in Italy.’

Lorenzo de’ Medici, 5 February 1486 (Medici 2002, 165).

‘I would have him more than passably learned in letters, at least in those studies which we call the humanities. Let him be conversant not only with the Latin language, but with Greek as well, because of the abundance and variety of things that are so divinely written therein.’

Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 1528 (Castiglione 1959, 70).

‘Sometimes, when I am contemplating the treasure of rarities which your Excellency has in so short a time amassed, I cannot but feel astonishment in the midst of my joy, for out of all the amateurs and princes and Kings, there is not one who has collected in forty years as many as your Excellency has collected in five. Let enemies and people ignorant of paintings say what they will, they cannot deny that pictures are noble ornaments, a delightful amusement . . . Our pictures, if they were to be sold a century after our death, would sell for good cash and for more than three times what they cost. I wish I could only live a century, if they were sold, in order to be able to say to those facetious folk who say “it is monny cast away for bobbles and shadows”. I know they will be pictures still when those ignorants will be lesser than “shadows”.’

Balthasar Gerbier, February 1624 (Denvir 1988, 175).

‘[In Brussels] I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land of gold [Mexico], a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armor of the people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and darts, wonderful shields, strange clothing, bedspreads, and all kind of wonderful objects of various uses, much more beautiful to behold than prodigies. These things were all so precious that they have been valued at one hundred thousand florins. All the days of my life I have seen nothing that has gladdened my heart so much as these things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marveled at the subtle Ingenia [ingenuity] of men in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot express all that I thought there.’

Albrecht Dürer, August 1520 (Stechow 1966, 100–1).

‘Now when I first saw the hermit read the Bible, I could not conceive with whom he should speak so secretly . . . when he laid it aside I crept thither and opened it . . . and lit upon the first chapter of Job and the picture that stood at the head thereof. [When Simplicissimus demanded to be taught to read, the hermit wrote out for him] an alphabet on birch-bark, formed like print, and when I knew the letters, I learned to spell, and thereafter to read, and at last to write better than could the hermit himself: for I imitated print in everything.’

(Grimmelshausen 1989, 21)

‘hereby tongues are known, judgement increaseth, books are dispersed, the Scripture is seen . . . times be compared, truth discerned, falsehood detected . . . and all . . . through the benefit of printing. Whereof I suppose, that either the pope must abolish printing, or . . . he must seek a new world to reign over: for else as this world standeth, printing will doubtless abolish him.’

John Foxe, Book of Martyrs (1583 edn, 707; Web resources).

‘We honest people / that live in the world now / must also know the present world: we will get no help from Alexander / Caesar / nor Mohammed / if we wish to be wise. But should someone wish to be and become wise / if he desires to live differently in state=, trade= and civic society / he needs to know the papers / he must read / assess / note them constantly / and have a good understanding of how to deal with them.’

(Translated from Kaspar Stieler, Zeitungs, Lust und Nutz
[The Pleasure and Usefulness of Newspapers]. Hamburg 1695, ‘Preface’:  https://digital.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/hd/content/pageview/664913)

Voltaire constantly argued against restrictions to the circulation of ideas. Iin one letter he admonished the recipient:

‘Had there been a literary censorship in Rome, we should have had to-day neither Horace, Juvenal, nor the philosophical works of Cicero. If Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Locke had not been free, England would have had neither poets nor philosophers; there is something positively Turkish in proscribing printing; and hampering it is proscription. Be content with severely repressing diffamatory [sic] libels, for they are crimes.

(Evelyn Beatrice Hall ed., Voltaire in his letters. New York 1919, 32-3 and online: https://archive.org/details/cu31924026378335/page/n73/mode/2up)

‘[A]ll the good effects that wheat bread and grape wine work in man’s body, these same effects and many more are wrought by Holy Communion in the soul that is worthy to receive this sacrament. Accordingly, just as wheat bread sustains, nourishes, heals and delights us, so this divine sacrament does all these things, and many more, for the soul that receives it with grace.’

Joan Baptista (Baptista 1599, 83).

‘[Beef is] of all meats by nature, complexion, and custome, most nourishing unto English bodies, which may easily appear in the difference of their strength . . . which feed chiefly upon it, and betwixt them that are accustomed to finer meats. Chuse we therefore the youngest, fattest, and best grown Ox, having awhile first been exercised in wain or plough to dispel his foggie moisture; and I dare undertake, that for sound men, and those that labour or use exercise, that there is not better meat under the Sun for an English man.’

Thomas Moffet (Moffet 1655, 59).

‘The Swiss show ‘farre lesse excesse [in drinking] then the Saxons, somewhat lesse then they of vpper Germany. They haue strict lawes to imprison Drunkards for a yeere, and at solemne feasts, the vulgar sort are admonished to behaue themselues modestly, yet drunkennesse hath such patronage among the best sort, as it cannot be banished. They bragge of their ancient temperance, and say, that excesse came into the Commonwealth, together with the accepting of military stipends from forraigne Princes.’

Fynes Moryson (Moryson 1967, Pt 3, Book 2, Ch. 3, 91).

‘Mrs Deborah Haddock began to collect recipes in 1720, recording them in a notebook. A number of her recipes came from other women. Mrs Hedges also shared her recipe for oyster pie, while Mrs Wallis provided one for hare pie.

A chesnutt pudin Mrs Hedges

Boyl your chesnutt blanch them & pound them in a mortor with sack & rose watter take a quart of swe[e]t creame 12 eggs sugar & spices to your tast mix them well together & bake them in puff past.

A carret puding Mrs Wallis

First take the yallowest carrets you can get. Scrape them take the yolks of 8 eggs & ½ the whites, one pound of butter melted ½ a pound of sugar & ½ a pint of sack with a large roule [roll] grated as much carret as roule a nuttmeg with some leamon or orring peell & a letle salt mix altogether & beak three quarters of an hour.’

(Wellcome Library MS.7987, 31, 32)

For now our Land is overflowne with wine:
With such a Deluge, or an Inundation
As hath besotted and halfe drown’d our Nation.
Some that are scarce worth 40 pence a yeere
Will hardly make a meale with Ale or Beere:
And will discourse, that wine doth make good blood
…Thus Bacchus is ador’d and deifide,
And We Hispanializ’d and Frenchifide:
Whilst Noble Native Ale, and Beeres hard fate
            Are like old Almanacks, Quite out of Date.

Mindful of England’s long brewing tradition, the boatman and writer John Taylor criticised the popularity of foreign beverages in his Drinke and welcome: or the Famous Historie of the most part of Drinks (London, 1637), edited in Works of John Taylor the Water Poet not [?] Included in the Folio Volume Of 1630, Second Collection, Facsimile reprints of first edns of 1869–76 (New York: 1967), 8, 20.

An Orange Cake

A pound of pouder sugar & half a pound of best flower well dried. The yolks of 18 eggs beaten to a cream, & the whites of 6 to a froth: put the sugar & flower to the yolks by degrees beating ‘em till all is in, great in the rinds of 3 oranges & continue beating till it goes in the oven; butter your pan & put white paper round it, then pan must be but half full; an hour bakes it.

(Wellcome Library MS.7987, 112)

‘[7 November 1789] We lodged at the Black Bull [in the German city of Ulm]. A good enough supper but they are very slow …

[14 November] We had to pay heavily for last night’s bad supper [at the Three Moons, Augsburg] …

[3 May 1792] We slept at Wyll [Wil near St Gall in Switzerland] at the Crown. Our supper although small was good and I had an ogre’s hunger …

[2 June] We were obliged to stop in a village [near Zurich] to refresh [the horses], there we took milk …

[17 September] At diner [in Constance] there were some French gentlemen that seemed to me so ridiculous that I cannot help saying in my journal what thing can be more unsupportable than that nation, during all the while they did nothing but moke [mock] themselves of everything that came on the table as it is the French custom …

[2 October 1793. The ambassador of Prussia in the County of Neuchâtel] invited us to drink Tea at his house what we did after having eate a hearty diner …

(Anne Fremantle ed., The Wynne Diaries,

3 vols, London 1935-40, vol. 1, 18-19, 136, 145, 171, 221)

In the diary she kept for most of her life, ‘Betsey’ Wynne, born into a well-connected English family in 1778, commented regularly on the quality, cost and company of meals she consumed when travelling through Europe.

‘When man dies he is like an animal, like a fly, and . . . his soul and everything about him also dies.’ – Menocchio

‘He is always arguing with somebody about the faith just for the sake of arguing – even with the priest.’ – A neighbour on Menocchio.

(Ginzburg 1992, 2, 69)

‘[300–400 men came one day] some like soldiers . . . and a man riding upon a horse, having a white night cap upon his head, two shoeing horns hanging by his ears, a counterfeit beard upon his chin made of a deer’s tail . . . [and outside the victims’ house] the gunners shot off their pieces, pipes and horns were sounded, together with lowbells and other smaller bells, . . . and rams’ horns and bucks’ horns, carried upon forks, were then and there lifted up and shown.’

(Ingram 1984, 82)

‘Since that revolution overturned the authority in science not only of the middle ages but of the ancient world – since it ended not only in the eclipse of scholastic philosophy but in the destruction of Aristotelian physics – it outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements within the system of medieval Christendom.’

Herbert Butterfield, The Origin of Modern Science, 1949 (Butterfield 1957, viii).

‘[T]hings have taken a turn for the better, and medicine, along with other studies, has begun so to come to life again and to raise its head from profound darkness that in several universities it has, beyond all argument, come close to recovering its former glory.’

Vesalius, De Fabrica, 1543 (Vesalius 1998, f. Ii)

‘The fine Gentleman . . . rises late, puts on a Frock . . . and leaving his Sword at Home, . . . goes . . . to some Coffee-house, or Chocolate-house, frequented by the Person he would see; for ‘tis a Sort of Rule with the English, to go once a Day at least, to Houses of this Sort, where they talk of Business and News, read the Papers, and often look at one another without opening their lips; and ‘tis very well they are so mute; for if they were as talkative as the People of many other Nations, the Coffee-houses would be intolerable, and there would be no hearing what one Man said, where there are so many. The Chocolate-house in St. James’s street, where I go every Morning, to pass away the Time, is always so full that a Man may scarce turn about in it. Here are Dukes, and other Peers, mixed with Gentlemen; and to be admitted, [one] needs nothing more than to dress like a Gentleman.’

(Pöllnitz 1737, ii. 462–63)

‘And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’

(Matthew, XVI, 18–19)

‘It is essential to realise this: that a prince, and above all a new prince, cannot practise all those things which gain men a reputation for being good, as it is often necessary, in order to keep hold of the state, to act contrary to trust, contrary to charity, contrary to humanity, contrary to religion.’

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532 (Machiavelli 1998, 97).

‘[T]he first mark of the sovereign prince is the power to give law to everyone in general, and to each person in particular; but this is not enough, for it is necessary to add, without the consent of anyone greater than he is, equal to himself, or lower than himself.’

Jean Bodin, The Six Books of the Commonwealth, 1583 (Bodin 1961, 221).

‘[B]e it enacted, by authority of this present Parliament, that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England.’

Act of Supremacy 1534 (Web resources).

‘The prince who earns this reputation for himself is held in high esteem, and as long as he is understood to be a great man and revered by his subjects, it is difficult to conspire against and attack such a person when they are esteemed. For a prince should have two fears: an internal one, in regard to his subjects, and an external one, in regard to foreign powers. He defends himself against the latter with good arms and good allies, and when he has good arms he will always have good allies. internal affairs will always remain stable whilst external matters are stable, unless they have already been disturbed by a conspiracy.’

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532 (Machiavelli 1995, 99).

‘In my view a monarchy that has lost its reputation, even if it has lost no territory, is a sky without light, a sun without rays, a body without a soul . . . ‘

Don Balthasar de Zúñiga, c. 1619 (Upton 2001, 46).

1. ‘From this moment until that in which the enemy shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic, all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the service of the armies. The young men shall go to battle; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothing and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn old linen into lint; the aged shall betake themselves to the public places in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach the hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic.’

2. ‘The national buildings shall be converted into barracks, the public places into workshops for arms, the soil of the cellars shall be washed in order to extract therefrom the saltpetre. . . .’

5. ‘The Committee of Public Safety is charged to take all necessary measures to set up without delay an extraordinary manufacture of arms of every sort which corresponds with the ardor and energy of the French people. . . .’

7. ‘Nobody can get himself replaced in the service for which he shall have been requisitioned. The public functionaries shall remain at their posts.’

The Levée en masse: Decree of the National Assembly, 23 August 1793 (Web resources).

‘The courtyer therfore, besyde noblenesse of birthe, I wyll have hym to be fortunate in this behalfe, and by nature to have not only a wytte, and a comely shape of persone and countenance, but also a certain grace, and (as they saie) a hewe [appearance], that shall make him at the first sight acceptable and lovyng unto who so beholdeth him. And let this be an ornament to frame and accompanye all his actes, and to assure men in his looke, such a one to bee woorthy the companye and favour of every great man.’

Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 1528 (Web resources).

‘The Duchesse de Bourgogne’s ladies, who are called ladies of the Palace, tried to arrogate the rank and take the place of [the ladies of the Duchess of Orleans] everywhere. Such a thing was never done [before]. They got the King’s Guards to keep their places and push back the chairs belonging to my ladies. I complained first of all to the Duc de Noailles, who replied that it was the King’s order. Then I went immediately to the King and said to him, “May I ask your Majesty if it is by your orders that my ladies have now no place or rank as they used to have? If it is your desire, I have nothing more to say, because I only wish to obey you, but your Majesty knows that formerly . . . the ladies of the Palace had no rank. . . .” The King became quite red, and replied, “I have given no such order, who said that I had?” . . . These women are becoming far too insolent now that they are in favour, and they imagined that I would not have the courage to report the matter to the King. But I shall not lose my rank nor prerogatives on account of the favour they enjoy. The King is too just for that.’

Duchess of Orléans, 1704 (Web resources).

‘[If] the king should . . . send his lieutenants to compel us to become idolaters, and if he commands us to drive God and his service from amongst us; shall we not rather shut our gates against the king and his officers, than drive out of our town the Lord, which is King of Kings? Let the . . . magistrates and governors of the people of God dwelling in the towns, consider with themselves that they have contracted two covenants, and taken two oaths: The first and most ancient with God, to whom the people have sworn to be his people: The second and next following with the king, to whom the people hath promised obedience, as unto him which is the governor and conductor of the people of God.’

Anonymous, Vindiciae contra tyrannos, 1579 (Du Plessis-Mornay 1579 in Web resources).

‘Thus we have ordered and agreed to uphold that in future no secular or religious clergyman shall cite another priest or layman before an ecclesiastical court, nor to have them excommunicated, neither for matters of debt, defamation, nor any dispute. . . .’

‘The form of our government is democratic: and the election and deposition of the magistrates, all kinds of officers, judges and commanders, both in our free and ruling lands and in those which are subject to us, belongs to our common man; he has the power, according to his majorities, to create [and depose] them, to establish alliances with foreign princes and estates, to [decide] questions of war and peace, and to deliberate about all other matters pertaining to the high and lesser magistrates.’

(Extracts from a 1524 ordinance and an early 17th century pamphlet in the Grisons; Blickle 1998, 91, 114–15)

‘Mercenary and auxiliary arms are useless and dangerous; and if one keeps his state founded on mercenary arms, one will never be firm or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, unfaithful; bold among friends, among enemies cowardly; no fear of God, no faith with men; ruin is postponed only as long as attack is postponed; and in peace you are despoiled by them, in war by the enemy. The cause of this is that they have no love nor cause to keep them in the field other than a small stipend, which is not sufficient to make them want to die for you. They do indeed want to be your soldiers while you are not making war, but when war comes, they either flee or leave. It should be little trouble for me to persuade anyone of this point, because the present ruin of Italy is caused by nothing other than its having relied for a period of many years on mercenary arms.’

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532 (Machiavelli 1998, 48–49).

’Gent. . . .for in executing her Maiestie’s commands, for trayning our men, providing of armour, I heare many say, what needs so much a do and great charge in Calliver, Musket, Pyke and Corselet? Our auncestors won many battels with bowes, blacke Billes and Iackes [the bill was a polearm weapon and the jack was a sleeveless tunic or jacket worn by foot-soldiers and others, usually of leather quilted, and in later times often plated with iron]. But what thinke you of that?

Captaine. Sir, then was then and now is now; the wars are much altered since the fierie weapons came up: the Cannon, the Musket . . . and Pistoll. Although some have attempted stifly to maintaine the sufficiencie of Bowes, yet daily experience doth and will shew us the contrarie . . .

Gent. Why do you not like of our old archerie of England?

Capt. I do not altogether disalow them; true it is, they may serve to some sorts of service, but to no such effect as any of the fierie weapons.

Gent. Will not a thousand bowes handled by good bowmen, do as good service, as a thousand . . . muskets, especially amongst horsemen?

Capt. No, were there such bowmen as there were in the old time, yet could there

be no comparison.’

Robert Barret, The Theorike and Practike of Modern Warres, 1598 (Barret 1598, 2–3).

‘When I was bandaged my wife went into the city, even though it was on fire everywhere, as she wanted to fetch a pillow for me to lie on and cloths for dressings, so I had the sick child lying by me too. Then the cry reached the camp that the houses were all collapsing on top of each other, so that many soldiers and women who were wanting to do a bit of looting were trapped inside them. As a result I was more worried about my wife, because of the sick child, than about my wounds.’

Peter Hagendorf, c. 1630 (Mortimer 2002, 35).

‘In transit they killed everyone they encountered as if it were open warfare. They burnt villages, raped girls and women, pillaged and damaged churches and altars, carried away everything of value and did unheard of damage even though His Highness [Duke Henry II] provisioned them. Further they cut growing corn as feed for their horses which they stabled in churches. Everywhere they did infinite damage, stealing furniture and livestock, which they managed to discover even when hidden in the remoteness of woods. For five whole days they [the Prince of Phalsbourg and his men who were supposed to be repelling the invaders] lived off the country, pillaging and extorting money like the enemy forces . . . The poor villagers returning to their villages after the passing of the soldiery picked up infections from human and animal carcasses left behind by the marauders. A third died from dissentry and other infectious diseases in the villages through which the soldiers had passed.’

Pierre Vuarin, 1622 (Daniel 1974, xix).

‘[S]ome inhabitants of the quarter started crying out that they were posting the gabelle [salt tax]. They roused the neighbours and in a moment there were almost eighty or a hundred persons, men and women, armed with swords, halberds, clubs, iron skewers, and a few firearms, lighting up the streets with torches of straw . . . and shouting that they wanted to kill the gabeleurs.’

(Beik 1997, 62)

‘It has hitherto been the custom for the lords to treat us as their serfs, which is pitiable since Christ has redeemed and bought us all by the shedding of his precious blood. . . .’

‘It has hitherto been the custom that no poor man has been empowered to catch game, wildfowl or fish in flowing water, which we consider quite improper and unbrotherly, indeed selfish and contrary to the Word of God. . . .’

‘The sixth [article] concerns our grievous burden of labour services, which are increased from day to day in amount and variety. . . .’

From the Twelve Articles of the Swabian peasants, 1525 (Scott and Scribner 1991, 253–57).

‘Item to have the heretiqes, bisshoppis and temporall, and ther secte to have condign punyshment by fyer or such oder, or else to trye ther quareles with us and our parte takers in batell. . . .’

‘Item to have the lord Crumwell [and others] to have condigne ponyshment, as the subverters of the good laws of this realme and maynteners of the false sect of those heretiqes and the first inventors and bryngars in of them.’

Excerpts from the Pontefract Articles, 1536 (Fletcher and MacCulloch 2005, 135–37).

‘Col. Rainborough. ‘I thinke that the poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest hee: and therefore truly, Sir, I thinke itt’s cleare that every man that is to live under a Governement ought first by his own consent to putt himself under that Governement.’

Commissary-General Ireton. ‘All the maine thinge that I speake for is because I would have an eye to propertie . . . Now I wish wee may all consider of what right you will challenge, that all the people should have right to Elections. Is itt by the right of nature? If you will hold forth that as your ground, then I thinke you must deny all property too.’

Excerpt from the Putney Debates, 1647 (Firth 1992, 301, 306–7).

‘The National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and the citizen.

1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be based only on public utility.
2. The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are freedom, property, security and resistance to oppression.
3. The source of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation . . .
4. Liberty consists in the power to do anything that does not injure others . . .
6. Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part personally or by their representatives in its formation . . .
10. No one should be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious, provided their manifestation does not upset the public order established by law . . .
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen can then freely speak, write and publish . . .
13. A general tax is indispensable for the maintenance of the public force and for the expenses of administration, common; it ought to be equally apportioned among all citizens according to their means.’

Extracts from ‘The Declaration of the Rights of Man’ of 26 August 1789 (Mason and Rizzo 1999, 103–4).

‘Our greatest misfortune is that His Majesty does not seem able to act well or trust in his brave and loyal subjects. To judge by his conduct in his prison in Paris, one would think he fancied himself a member of the Third Estate, and that he is happy to see the clergy and nobility brought to ruin on the grounds that his own income will much increase as a result. However, those who see the king from morning to night say that he often weeps, makes complaints about his wretchedness and is visibly losing weight. … I confess that I really do not know how to reconcile what people are saying about the king with what is actually happening.’

Extract from the letters of the Duchess d’Elbeuf, 15 April 1790. ‘Revolutionary Duchess’ (web resources).

‘A sans-culotte, sirs, you Rogues? It is a being who always goes about on foot, who has no millions as you would like to have, no chateaux, no valets to serve him, and who is housed simply with his wife and children, if he has them, on the fourth or fifth floor. He is useful, because he knows how to work a field, how to forge, saw, file, roof, make shoes, and spill his blood to the very last drop for the good of the Republic. In the evening he goes to his section, not powdered, perfumed, and outfitted in the hope of attracting the attention of all the citizennesses in the stands, but rather to support the good motions with all his energy, and to crush those that come from the abominable faction of the statesmen.’

‘For the rest, a sans-culotte always has his sabre with the razor’s edge, to cut off the ears of all the malefactors. Sometimes he walks with his pike; but at the first sound of the drum he can be seen leaving for the Vendée, for the army of the Alps or for the army of the North.’

Extract from What is a Sans-Culotte?, 1793 (Mason and Rizzo 1999, 197–98).

‘I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence; while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.’

Daniel Defoe, Essay on Projects, 1698 (Defoe 1719; Web resources).

‘If anybody, after having publicly accepted these same dogmas, conducts himself as if he did not believe them, he shall be punished by death; he has committed the greatest of all crimes.’

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Rousseau 1915, ii, 132).

‘If any person be desirous of having an adequate idea of the mischievous effects which have been produced in this country by the French Revolution and all its attendant horrors, he should attempt some reforms on humane and liberal principles. He will then find not only what a stupid spirit of conservation, but what a savage spirit, it has suffused into the minds of his countrymen.’

Sir Samuel Romilly (Bagehot 1881, 291–92).