Evening's Empire (New Studies in European History)

by Craig Koslofsky

  118. See Jill R. Fehleison, “appealing to the Senses: The Forty Hours Celebrations in the Duchy of Chablais, 1597–98,” Sixteenth Century Journal 36, 2 (2005): 375–96, and Dompnier, “Dévotion eucharistique.”

  119. As quoted in Herbert Thurston, “Forty Hours’ Devotion,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. Charles Herbermann et al. (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1913), VI: 152.

  120. Dompnier, “Dévotion eucharistique,” pp. 12–31.

  121. Fehleison, “Appealing to the Senses,” and Dompnier, “Dévotion eucharistique.”

  122. Dompnier, “Dévotion eucharistique,” p. 11, quoting the contemporary account of Charles de Genève, Les trophées sacrés … en la conversion du duché de Chablais et pays circonvoisins de Genève.

  123. Dompnier, “Dévotion eucharistique,” p. 31.

  124. Ibid., p. 24, quoting a Paris document of 1633.

  125. Briggs, Communities of Belief, p. 269.

  126. Actes de l’église d’Amiens; recueil de tous les documents relatifs à la discipline du diocèse (Amiens: Caron, 1848–49), II: 51 (emphasis mine). Rural services at night were also prohibited in the diocese of Troyes in 1706; see Lalore, ed., Ancienne et nouvelle discipline du diocèse de Troyes, III: 311.

  127. For an overview see Fred G. Rausch, “Karfreitagsprozessionen in Bayern,” in Hört, sehet, weint und liebt. Passionsspiele im alpenländischen Raum, ed. Michael Henker, Eberhard Dünninger, and Evamaria Brockhoff (Munich: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1990), pp. 87–93. Friedrich Zoepfl, “Die Feier des Karfreitags im Mindelheim des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbuch des Historischen Vereins Dillingen an der Donau 30 (1917): 79–94, notes the importance of participants and spectators from neighboring villages at these processions.

  128. Norbert Hölzl, “Das Jahrhundert der Passionsspiele und Karfreitagsprozessionen in St. Johann,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde n.s. 23, 2 (1969): 116–32. For an account of a nocturnal procession in a Steiermark village in 1671, see Roswitha Stipperger, “Eine Karfreitagsprozession in Schladming aus dem Jahre 1671,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde n.s. 33 (1979): 95–102.

  129. Norbert Schindler, “‘Und daß die Ehre Gottes mehrers befördert würde …’. Mikrohistorische Bemerkungen zur frühneuzeitlichen Karfreitagsprozession in Traunstein,” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde 136 (1996): 171–200; here 185.

  130. Zoepfl, “Feier des Karfreitags im Mindelheim,” p. 85.

  131. Julia, “La réforme posttridentine,” p. 383 on forbidding nocturnal processions in the dioceses of Senez, Aix, and Fréjus. On rural piety and confraternities in villages, see Joseph Aulagne, La réforme catholique du dix-septième siècle dans le diocèse de Limoges (Paris: H. Champion, 1908).

  132. Julia, “La réforme posttridentine,” p. 396.

  133. Published ibid., “Pièce annexe n. 8,” p. 396.

  134. The struggle in France to make Christmas night a time of devotion rather than festivity needs further research. See the comments in Louis Pérouas, ed., Pierre Robert (1589–1658). Un Magistrat du Dorat entre érudition et observation, Foreword by Michel Cassan (Limoges: PULIM, 2001) and Michèle Bardon, ed., Journal (1676–1688) de Jean-Baptiste Raveneau (Étrépilly: Presses du Village, 1994).

  135. Cf. Schlumbohm, “Gesetze,” pp. 653–56.

  136. Alexander Pope, The Poems of Alexander Pope: A One-Volume Edition of the Twickenham Text with Selected Annotations, second edn., ed. John Butt (London: Routledge, 1968), p. 243.

  137. The essay is “… Minimâ contentos Nocte Britannos,” Tatler 263 (December 14, 1710).

  138. Henry Bourne, Antiquitates vulgares; or, the antiquities of the common people. Giving an account of several of their opinions and ceremonies (Newcastle: Printed by J. White for the author, 1725), p. 38.

  139. Ibid., p. 76

  140. Mark Aikenside (1721–70), The Pleasures of Imagination. A Poem. In Three Books (London: Printed for R. Dodsley, 1744), p. 24.

  141. Birgit Emich pairs these terms in her article on “Schlaf in der Frühen Neuzeit,” pp. 57–74. The divergence of urban and rural daily rhythms has also been noted by Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 169–71. See also John E. Crowley, The Invention of Comfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), section II on windows, mirrors, and domestic lighting.

  142. Curioses Gespräch: zwischen Hänsel und Lippel zweyen oberländischen Bauern bey der den 14.Märzen in … Wien … gehalten Illumination (Vienna: J.J. Jahn, 1745), fo. 2.

  143. A. Roger Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles,” American Historical Review 106, 2 (2001): 343–86; here 383.

  144. The Letters of Mrs. E. Montagu, with Some of the Letters of Her Correspondence, ed. Matthew Montagu (London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1809), I: 109 (July 11, 1740).

  145. Ibid., pp. 113–14 (August 21, 1740).

  146. Friedrich Justin Bertuch, “Moden in Gebrauche und Eintheilung des Tages und der Nacht zu Verschiedenen Zeiten, und bey verschiedenen Völkern,” Journal der Moden [after 1786 Journal des Luxus und der Moden] 1 (May 1786): 199–201.

  147. Ibid., p. 200.

  148. Ibid.

  149. Ibid., pp. 200–01.

  150. See Emich, “Schlaf in der Frühen Neuzeit,” p. 73.

  151. Jean Baptiste Pujoulx, Paris à la fin du XVIIIe siècle; ou, Esquisse historique et morale des monumens et des ruines de cette capitale; de l’etat des sciences, des arts de l’industrie à cette époque, ainsi que des moeurs et des ridicules de ses habitans (Paris, Mathé: 1801).

  152. Steele, “… Minimâ contentos Nocte Britannos.”

  153. Sabine Ullmann, “Kontakte und Konflikte zwischen Landjuden und Christen in Schwaben während des 17. und zu Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Ehrkonzepte in der frühen Neuzeit: Identitäten und Abgrenzungen, ed. Sibylle Backmann et al. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998), pp. 299–300.

  8 Darkness and Enlightenment

  1. “Il fera comme en plein midi / Clair la nuit dedans chaque rue …” Gazette de Robinet, October 29, 1667, as cited in Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century, trans. Angela Davies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 90.

  2. Baruch Spinoza, “Metaphysical Thoughts,” in Complete Works, ed. Michael L. Morgan, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002), p. 178.

  3. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Pauline Phemister (Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 251.

  4. The Athenian Oracle: being an entire collection of all the valuable questions and answers in the old Athenian mercuries … By a member of the Athenian Society. In three volumes. The third edition corrected (London: Printed for Andrew Bell, 1706–16), III: 429–30. This Athenian Mercury article does consider the possibility of divine or supernatural darkness, corresponding to its cautious stance on the existence of ghosts; see below, section 8.1.

  5. Johann Gottfried von Herder, “This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity,” in Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Michael N. Forster (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 324. On the sources of the light metaphors used in the Enlightenment, see Fritz Schalk, “Zur Semantik von Aufklärung,” in Studien zur französischen Aufklärung (Frankfurt: Klosterman, 1977), pp. 323–39.

  6. On periodization, see Jonathan Irvine Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 14–22, 159–66, and the literature cited there.

  7. See Gillian Bennett, “Ghost and Witch in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, ed. Brian P. Levack, vol. III, Witchcraft in the British Isles and New England (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 259–70.

  8. See Ernst Thomas Reimbold, Die Nacht im Mythos, Kultus, Volksgl
auben und in der transpersonalen Erfahrung; eine religionsphänomenologische Untersuchung (Cologne: Wison, 1970).

  9. David Lederer, “Ghosts in Early Modern Bavaria,” in Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits: Traditional Belief and Folklore in Early Modern Europe, ed. Kathryn A. Edwards (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002), pp. 25–53; here pp. 46–47.

  10. Lavater’s treatise appeared in English editions in 1572 and 1596. See Ludwig Lavater, Of ghostes and spirites walking by nyght, 1572, ed. with an Introduction and Appendix by J. Dover Wilson and May Yardley (Oxford University Press, 1929).

  11. Ibid., p. 90.

  12. Ibid., p. 98.

  13. Pierre Le Loyer, IIII. livres des spectres, ou apparitions et visions d’esprits, anges et démons se monstrans sensiblement aux hommes (Angers: G. Nepueu, 1586). See Bennett, “Ghost and Witch,” p. 267.

  14. Balthasar Bekker, The World Turn’d Upside Down, or, A Plain Detection of Errors, in the Common or Vulgar Belief, Relating to Spirits, Spectres or Ghosts, Dæmons, Witches, &C.: In a Due and Serious Examination of Their Nature, Power, Administration, and Operation (London: Printed for Eliz. Harris, 1700).

  15. The Character of a town-gallant exposing the extravagant fopperies of som[e] vain self-conceited pretenders to gentility and good breeding (London: Printed for W.L., 1675), p. 4.

  16. Geheime Briefe, So zwischen curieusen Personen über notable Sachen … gewechselt worden (Freystadt [i.e. Leipzig]: Hüllsen, 1701), pp. 904–10: “Was von denen jenigen Christen zuhalten sey / welche keine Gespenste und Erscheinungen der Geister glauben auch derselben thätliche Verrichtungen leugnen.”

  17. Ibid., p. 905.

  18. Ibid., p. 906.

  19. Edmund Hobhouse, ed., Diary of a West Country Physician, A.D. 1684–1726 (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1934), pp. 55–56, 18–19.

  20. Balthasar Bekker, De betoverde weereld, zynde een grondig ondersoek van ’t gemeen gevoelen aangaande de geesten, derselver aart en vermogen, bewind en bedrijf: als ook ’t gene de menschen door derselver kraght en gemeenschap doen. In vier boeken ondernomen (Amsterdam: Daniel van den Dalen, 1691–94).

  21. Balthasar Bekker, The World Bewitched; or, An Examination of the Common Opinions Concerning Spirits: Their Nature, Power, Administration, and Operations ([London]: R. Baldwin, 1695), p. [liv].

  22. The first translations were into German (1693), French (1694), and English (1695, 1700). References to this work are to the English edition of 1695, and to the French edition of 1694: Balthasar Bekker, Le monde enchanté ou Examen des communs sentimens touchant les esprits, leur nature, leur pouvoir, leur administration, & leurs opérations (Amsterdam: Chez Pierre Rotterdam, 1694).

  23. Bekker, World Bewitched, p. 256.

  24. See Israel, Radical Enlightenment, pp. 375–405.

  25. Bekker, World Bewitched, p. [lvi].

  26. As quoted in Andrew C. Fix, “Bekker and Spinoza,” in Disguised and Overt Spinozism around 1700, ed. Wiep van Bunge and Wim Klever (Leiden: Brill, 1996), p. 23. In these controversies “Sadducism” (Sadduceeism) referred to the denial of the doctrine of the Resurrection or the immortality of the soul in general, hence the denial of spirits or ghosts.

  27. As quoted in Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714, second edn. (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 245.

  28. Henry More, An antidote against atheisme, or, An appeal to the natural faculties of the minde of man, whether there be not a God by Henry More (London: Printed by Roger Daniel, 1653), p. 164.

  29. Letter to Hugo Boxel, September 1674, in Baruch Spinoza, “Correspondence,” in Complete Works, ed. Morgan, p. 899, letter 54. See Gunther Coppens, “Spinoza et Boxel. Une histoire de fantômes,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 41, 1 (2004): 59–72.

  30. Benjamin Camfield, A theological discourse of angels and their ministries wherein their existence, nature, number, order and offices are modestly treated of … by Benjamin Camfield (London: Printed by R.E. for Hen. Brome, 1678), p. 172.

  31. See above, chapter 4.

  32. More, Antidote against atheisme, p. 164.

  33. Bennett, “Ghost and Witch,” p. 262.

  34. Michael F. Graham, The Blasphemies of Thomas Aikenhead: Boundaries of Belief on the Eve of the Enlightenment (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), p. 139.

  35. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, p. 375 and Spinoza, “Correspondence,” in Complete Works, ed. Morgan, pp. 893–906, letters 51–56.

  36. Recent scholarship has argued that focusing on the changing purposes for which the idea of witchcraft was deployed is more productive than merely pursuing simple questions of belief or unbelief in witchcraft, or to associate its decline with a single outlook, whether Cartesian, materialist, or empiricist. See Ian Bostridge, Witchcraft and Its Transformations: c. 1650–c. 1750 (Oxford University Press, 1997), and Thomas Jefferson Wehtje, “Out of Darkness, Light: The Theological Implications of (Dis)Belief in Witchcraft in Early Modern English Literature and Thought”, PhD thesis, Stony Brook University, 2004.

  37. The Compleat Library, or, News for the Ingenious 2 (December, 1692): 50.

  38. Francis Grant, Sadducimus debellatus: or, a true narrative of the sorceries and witchcrafts exercis’d by the devil and his instruments upon Mrs. Christian Shaw, daughter of Mr. John Shaw, of Bargarran in the County of Renfrew in the West of Scotland, from Aug. 1696 to Apr. 1697 (London: Printed for H. Newman and A. Bell, 1698), p. vi.

  39. Ralph Thoresby, The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., Author of the Topography of Leeds, 2 vols., ed. Joseph Hunter (London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1830), II: 118–19 (June 13, 1712). See also entry for June 12, 1712: “Was after with Mr. Gale and Mr. Oddy, a learned gentleman at the Coffeehouse.”

  40. John Beaumont, An historical, physiological and theological treatise of spirits, apparitions, witchcrafts, and other magical practices … With a refutation of Dr. Bekker’s World bewitch’d; and other authors that have opposed the belief of them (London: Printed for D. Browne, 1705). The compendious work was published in a German translation in 1721.

  41. Thoresby, Diary, II: 119.

  42. Beaumont reported that “it’s a custom of the Jews” during Sukkoth “to go forth in the Night, because they think all things that will happen to them that year, are revealed to them that Night in the Moonshine.” In this case, if a man’s shadow in the moonlight appeared headless (as suggested in the illustration), this foretold his death within the year. Beaumont, Treatise of Spirits, pp. 88–89.

  43. Bibliothèque Universelle et Historique 21 (1691): 122–51; here 150.

  44. Ibid., p. 150.

  45. J.B. Williams, ed., Memoirs of the Life, Character and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry (Boston: Peirce & Williams, 1830), pp. 56–57.

  46. As noted in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the poet Abel Evans denounced Tindal in his poem The Apparation (Oxford: Printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1710). His verses associated free-thinking, debauchery, and the night, referring to Tindal as follows: “In Vice and Error from his Cradle Nurs’d: / He studies hard, and takes extreme Delight, / In Whores, or Heresies to spend the Night.” (p. 3)

  47. Matthew Tindal, An essay concerning the power of the magistrate (London: Printed by J.D. for Andrew Bell, 1697), p. 6.

  48. Philip C. Almond, “The Contours of Hell in English Thought, 1660–1750,” Religion 22, 4 (1992): 297–311; here 304.

  49. Carlos Eire, “The Good Side of Hell: Infernal Meditations in Early Modern Spain,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 26 (2000): 286–310; here 290.

  50. Ibid., pp. 286–91.

  51. John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed. David Scott Kastan and Merritt Yerkes Hughes (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2005), p. 209; VI.870.

  52. William George Scott-Moncrieff, ed., Narrative of Mr. James Nimmo written for his own satisfaction to keep in some remembrance the Lord’s way dealing and kindness towards him, 1654–1709, Publications of the Scottish History Society 6 (Edinburgh: Printed by
T. and A. Constable for the Society, 1887), pp. xiii–xiv, quoting “from a copy of Mrs. Nimmo’s Narrative, in which the spelling has been adapted.”

  53. See the references to nocturnal conversations among free-thinkers at this time in Edinburgh in Graham, Blasphemies of Thomas Aikenhead, pp. 60–65.

  54. D.P. Walker, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment (University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 3–51.

  55. Ibid., p. 226.

  56. Ibid., pp. 158–59.

  57. Walker, Decline of Hell, p. 159, quoting Thomas Burnet, De statu mortuorum et resurgentium tractatus (London: A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, 1733), p. 309.

  58. Walker, Decline of Hell, pp. 171–72.

  59. Ibid., pp. 182–83, n. 5.