Names and Naming in Early Modern Germany (Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association Book 20)

Throughout the many political and social upheavals of the early modern era, names were words to conjure by, articulating significant historical trends and helping individuals and societies make sense of often dramatic periods of change. Centered on onomastics--the study of names--in the German-speaking lands, this volume, gathering leading scholars across multiple disciplines, explores the dynamics and impact of naming (and renaming) processes in a variety of contexts--social, artistic, literary, theological, and scientific--in order to enhance our understanding of individual and collective experiences Contents List of Figures and Tables Notes on Text Introduction. The Dynamics of Early Modern Naming Part I. Naming the Past 1. Picards, Karlstadtians, and Oecolampadians: (Re)Naming the Early Eucharistic Controversy 2. From the Council to the Founding Myth: How the Spirit of Trent Came to be Named 3. Triplets: The Holy Roman Empire’s Birthing of Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed in 1648 Part II. Naming and Organizing Knowledge 4. Naming and Singing the Psalter in Counter-Reformation Germany 5. Naming the Ambiguous: Income and Royal Service in the Seventeenth Century 6. The Mystery of the St. Sebastian Lazareth: Mapping Place-Names and Contagious Disease Hospitals in Sixteenth-Century Nuremberg 7. Global Goods in Local Languages: Naming Cotton Textiles in the Swiss Cantons Part III. Naming the Other 8. Naming the Turk and the Moor: Prehistories of Race 9. Denouncing the Spendthrift: Debating Social Identity in the Court of Law and Public Opinion 10. Confessionisten, Calvinisten, Tibben: Nomenclatures of Legal Exclusion in Northwestern Germany, 1535–1650 Afterword. Names All the Way Down: Naming Practices in Early Modern Germany and Early Modern Historiography Index This volume offers a coherent and interdisciplinary approach to a wide variety of early modern subjects centered on onomastics, the study of names. Leading scholars in the field seek to explore the dynamics and impact of this naming (or renaming) process in a variety of contexts: social, artistic, literary, theological, and scientific.