Evening’s Empire
What does it mean to write a history of the night? Evening’s Empire is a fascinating study of the myriad ways in which early modern people understood, experienced, and transformed the night. Using diaries, letters, and legal records together with representations of the night in early modern religion, literature, and art, Craig Koslofsky opens up an entirely new perspective on early modern Europe. He shows how princes, courtiers, burghers, and common people “nocturnalized” political expression, the public sphere, and the use of daily time. Fear of the night was now mingled with improved opportunities for labor and leisure: the modern night was beginning to assume its characteristic shape. Evening’s Empire takes the evocative history of the night into early modern politics, culture, and society, revealing its importance to key themes from witchcraft, piety, and gender, to colonization, race, and the Enlightenment.
Craig Koslofsky is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His previous publications include The Reformation of the Dead: Death and Ritual in Early Modern Germany (2001).
New Studies in European History
Edited by
Peter Baldwin,University of California, Los Angeles
Christopher Clark,University of Cambridge
James B. Collins,Georgetown University
Mia Rodríguez-salgado,London School of Economics and Political Science
Lyndal Roper,University of Oxford
Timothy Snyder,Yale University
The aim of this series in early modern and modern European history is to publish outstanding works of research, addressed to important themes across a wide geographical range, from southern and central Europe, to Scandinavia and Russia, from the time of the Renaissance to the Second World War. As it develops, the series will comprise focused works of wide contextual range and intellectual ambition.
A full list of titles published in the series can be found at:
www.cambridge.org/newstudiesineuropeanhistory
Evening’s Empire
A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe
Craig Koslofsky
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521721066
© Craig Koslofsky 2011
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2011
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Koslofsky, Craig.
Evening’s empire : a history of the night in early modern Europe / Craig Koslofsky.
p. cm. – (New studies in European history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-89643-6 (hardback)
1. Night. 2. Night–Social aspects–Europe. 3. Nightlife–Europe.
4. Europe–Social life and customs. 5. Europe–History–16th century.
6. Europe–History–17th century. I. Title. II. Series.
GT3408.K67 2011
304.2′37094–dc22
2011008028
ISBN 978-0-521-89643-6 Hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-72106-6 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For Dana
Contents
List of figures
List of maps
Acknowledgments
1 An early modern revolution
1.1 An early modern revolution
1.2 Taking stock
2 Darkness and the Devil, 1450–1650
2.1 The “Wittenberg Nightingale”
2.2 Instruments of darkness
2.3 Witchcraft
3 Seeking the Lord in the night, 1530–1650
3.1 Discovering the night
3.2 Seeking the Lord in the night
3.3 Thinking with the night about God
3.4 A refuge in the night
4 Princes of darkness: the night at court, 1600–1750
4.1 Nocturnal spectacles and pleasures
4.2 Darkness and the perspective stage
4.3 The nocturnalization of daily life at court
4.4 Princes of darkness
5 “An entirely new contrivance”: the rise of street lighting, 1660–1700
5.1 Lighting the streets of early modern Europe
5.2 Policing the night: street lighting in Lille
5.3 Absolutism and street lighting in Leipzig
5.4 Resistance by local authorities
5.5 Spectacle, security, and sociability
6 Colonizing the urban night: resistance, gender, and the public sphere
6.1 Hand grenades, horsewhips, and the civilizing process
6.2 Resistance
6.3 Gender and the public sphere
7 Colonizing the rural night?
7.1 Patterns
7.2 Colonizing the rural night?
7.3 Country folk, city nights: daily time diverges in the eighteenth century
8 Darkness and Enlightenment
8.1 Ghosts
8.2 Witches
8.3 Hell
8.4 Darkness and Enlightenment
8.5 Darkness and race in the early Enlightenment
9 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Figures
2.1 Woodcut showing a witches’ dance, from The Witch of the Woodlands; or the Cobler’s New Translation (early eighteenth century).
2.2 “Description et figure du sabbat des sorciers,” engraving by Jan Ziarnko (1612). By permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
3.1 Nicodemus by candlelight, ceiling panel in the Carmelite convent of Himmelspforten, Würzburg, 1613.
3.2 Matthaeus Merian, “Meeting of Christ and Nicodemus by Night” (1627). Photograph courtesy of the Newberry Library.
3.3 Contemporary chronicle illustration of Moravian missionaries preaching by candlelight in the forest outside Zurich, 1574. Zentralbibliothek Zurich.
3.4 Light and darkness in Jacob Böhme’s thought. Engraving from Böhme’s XL. questions concerning the soule (1647). University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center.
3.5 Georges de La Tour, The Magdalene with the Smoking Flame, c. 1638–40. Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
3.6 Detail from the frontispiece of Daniel Cudmore, A prayer-song (1655). University of Illinois. Urbana-Champaign, Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
3.7 Lenses of day and night, from Hermann Löher, Hochnötige Unterthanige Wemütige Klage der Frommen Unschültigen(1676). Jesuitenbibliothek of the St. Michael-Gymnasium, Bad Münstereifel, Germany.
4.1 Louis XIV costumed as the sun in the Ballet de la Nuit, 1653. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Photograph: Réunion des Musées
Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.
4.2 Print by Israel Silvestre of firework display, 1664. © Trustees of the British Museum, 1889,1218.139.
4.3 Illuminated tourney in the Dresden Reithaus, 1695. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kupferstich-Kabinett. Photograph courtesy SLUB / Dept. Deutsche Fotothek, Herbert Ludwig.
4.4 Illumination of the Hôtel de Ville, Ghent, 1717. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Bildarchiv, Vienna, 462.224-A/B.
4.5 Firework display in Bremen, 1668. Staatsarchiv Marburg, Best. 4 f Bremen, Nr. 58.
4.6 Grisaille by Juste D’Egmont, “The ballet ‘La Prospérité des Armes de la France’ at the Grand Théâtre du Palais Cardinal,” c. 1641. Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France. Photograph: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY.
4.7 Satirical print by Jacob Gole depicting Louis XIV as a hooded arsonist, 1691. © Trustees of the British Museum, S.6693.
5.1 Oil-lamp, lantern, and post designed by Jan van der Heyden, 1660s. Archives municipales de Lille, Affaires Générales 1256, dossier 9, fo. 122 (c. 1700).
5.2 Print showing the rue Quinquempoix, Paris, 1720. © Trustees of the British Museum, 1882,0812.461.
5.3 Leipzig street-lighting schedule, December 1702. Stadtarchiv Leipzig.
5.4 Leipzig street-lighting scene, 1702, print from Aufgefangene Brieffe (1701).
6.1 German students serenading, 1727, from Christian Friedrich Henrici, Picanders Ernst-schertzhaffte und satyrische Gedichte (1727). University of Illinois. Urbana-Champaign, Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
6.2 A London coffeehouse, mid or late 1690s. © Trustees of the British Museum, 1931,0613.2.
6.3 Paris café scene, frontispiece of Chevalier de Mailly, Les entretiens des cafés de Paris (1702). Bibliothèque nationale de France.
6.4 Dutch / German coffeehouse scene, engraving by Casper Luyken, 1699. Amsterdams Historisch Museum.
6.5 Dutch coffeehouse scene, frontispiece of Willem Van Der Hoeven, ’t Koffyhuis: kluchtspel (Amsterdam, 1712). Bibliothèque nationale de France.
6.6 “Le Soir: Dame de Qualité jouant aux Cartes,” engraving by Pierre-Jean Mariette (c. 1690). Bibliothèque nationale de France.
7.1 “Kurtzweilige Beschreibung der löblichen Spinn- vnd Rockenstuben,” broadside engraved after Sebald Beham, seventeenth century. © Trustees of the British Museum, 1880,0710.910.
7.2 “Décembre: La Veillée,” engraving by Jean Mariette, seventeenth century. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
7.3 Spinning bee scene; engraving by Claudine Bouzonnet Stella, seventeenth century. Bibliothèque nationale de France.
7.4 “KunckelBrieff oder SpinnStuben,” engraving by Jacob von der Heyden, c. 1620. Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg, Inventar Nr. XIII,441,8; Neg. Nr. 8685.
7.5 “Nacht,” Augsburg print, seventeenth century.
7.6 An illumination in Vienna, from Curioses Gespräch: zwischen Hänsel und Lippel zweyen oberländischen Bauern (1745).
8.1 Ghostly encounter, from Geheime Briefe (1701).
8.2 “Spectrorum negatio est subtilis Atheismi professio,” from Geheime Briefe (detail).
8.3 “Jews going out in the Moonshine to know their Fortune,” frontispiece of John Beaumont, An historical, physiological and theological treatise of spirits (1705). University of Illinois. Urbana-Champaign, Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
8.4 Balthasar Bekker sieving devils, from Curieuse Gespräche im Reiche derer Todten. Zweyte Unterredung oder Gespräche im Reiche derer Todten (Leipzig and Braunschweig, 1731), frontispiece to part 2. Wellcome Library, London.
Maps
5.1 Street lighting in Europe to 1700
5.2 Street lighting in the Low Countries to 1700
Acknowledgments
While writing this book I have received all sorts of assistance and support, intellectual and material, and many people deserve my thanks. My colleagues at the University of Illinois work every day to keep our history department an exciting, rewarding place to research, write, and teach. My thanks especially to the participants in our History Workshop, and to the stalwart members of the early modern reading group at Illinois, who discussed every chapter of this book in one form or another. Discussions in the Illinois German Colloquium also helped this book along; special thanks to Harry Liebersohn, Peter Fritzsche, and their graduate students. Illinois colleagues Nancy Abelmann, John Randolph, Adam Sutcliffe, Antoinette Burton, Mara Wade, Clare Crowston, David Price, and Mark Micale all read chapters and gave advice at key moments.
Some of the earliest encouragement to tackle the history of the night came from Diane Owen Hughes and Susan Karant-Nunn. Tom Tentler has been there since the beginning, of course. In Göttingen Hans Medick, Alf Lüdtke, and Jürgen Schlumbohm gave advice and inspiration. Scholars came together in Kansas City, Ithaca, Chicago, New Haven, Los Angeles, Evanston, Salt Lake City, Providence, Münster, and Seoul to share enthusiasm, healthy skepticism, and a wealth of precise details and keen observations essential to the history of everyday life. My thanks to them all.
To the undergraduate students who have taken my course on “The History of Night, Medieval to Modern” at Illinois I offer heartfelt thanks. Their rambunctious search for the night in early modern diaries, journals, and travel accounts was often more effective than my own. Likewise, over the years several graduate students have assisted my research. Some, like Sace Elder, are by now established scholars in their own right. Others, like Melissa Salrin, Amanda Eisemann, and Jacob Baum, have great careers ahead of them. They have all enriched this book with their efforts and insights. Before, during, and since her stint as my research assistant my friend and colleague Pascale Rihouet brought an amazing range of skills and insights to bear on the research and writing process. From French teacher in Tübingen to colleague in Providence, she has always been a vital force. Merci!
Along the way I have benefitted from the generosity and insights of many other scholars: Ed Muir, Mary Lindemann, and Erik Midelfort; Otto Ulbricht, Jon Mathieu, Dieter Wunder, Bjørn Westerbeek Dahl, A. Roger Ekirch, Steven Pincus, Kenneth Marcus, Isaac Land, Jacob Melish, Charles Zika, Gary Waite, Ellen McClure, Jen Hill, and Alan Stager. The comments of the anonymous reviewers of my article for the Journal of Modern History were exceptionally helpful, as were those of Lyndal Roper on the finished manuscript. Most recently, Alain Cabantous and Catherine Denys have proven themselves generous and gracious colleagues. Librarians and archivists from Los Angeles to Berlin have gone beyond the call of duty, especially Michael Matthaeus (Frankfurt), Klaus Dettmer (Berlin), Christoph Eggenberger (Zurich), Michel Sarter (Lille), Joe Springer (Goshen, IN), and the staff at the William Andrews Clark Library (Los Angeles) and at the Huntington Library (San Marino, CA).
The scholars and staff at the Newberry Library deserve a special thanks. They made it possible to finish this book in a superb working environment, providing everything from rare books to fresh perspectives. The participants in the 2009–10 fellows’ seminar at the Newberry formed an outstanding scholarly community for the final writing process; I especially want to thank Carla Zecher, Diane Dillon, and Jim Grossman. At Cambridge University Press Michael Watson and Chloe Howell have been patient, and a pleasure to work with.
During the slow construction of this book Dana Rabin intervened at all the right moments: asking where the rural night fit in, wondering about darkness and Christianity, raising questions for every chapter – reading them all and listening to most of them as well. Imaginative and pragmatic, fearless and thoughtful, she has been the ideal intellectual travel partner for this journey into the night.
Work on this book was supported by a fellowship for University Teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a grant from the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at UCLA, and a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the Newberry Library. Research support at the University of Illinois has been generous, including a released-time grant from the Department of History, funds for research assistants and leave from the Campus Research Board,
and a Mellon fellowship from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The new Scholarly Commons project provided essential technical support just when I needed it most.
Beyond the intellectual exchange and research support every scholar needs, there is the faith, encouragement, and humor of family and friends. In this regard I have been truly fortunate. Our children, Jonah and Eve, have put up with this project for most of their lives and have always helped keep it in perspective. They radiate excitement into their environment, and that is a wonderful thing indeed. Any expression of thanks would fall short of the warmth, love, and understanding of my brothers and sisters-in-law, my nieces and nephews, and my Rabin in-laws. Our friends in Urbana-Champaign, Lexington, Lancaster, and Bethesda/Five Islands have shared our joys and lifted our spirits.
But the gratitude I can hardly begin to express goes to Dana Rabin, who has made with me a life so rich and fulfilling that no project seems too big, no task too daunting. She is truly the one who made this book possible, and so I dedicate it to her.
Chapter One An early modern revolution
Alone with Lady Macbeth after his disturbing encounter with Banquo’s ghost (3.4.126), Macbeth asks, “What is the night?” The question is both a common way of asking the time in early modern England, and the inquiry which shapes this book. In the lives of early modern men and women, what was the night? In 1785 the Parisian writer Louis-Sébastien Mercier (1740–1814) confidently stated in an essay on “The Pillow” that “the night is the common benefactress of every thing that breathes.”1 A century earlier the barber-surgeon Johann Dietz (1665–1738), riding out of Hamburg late at night, unexpectedly came upon three hanged men on a gallows. “Filled with horror,” he reminded himself in his memoir that “the night is no man’s friend.”2 The ubiquity and ambiguity of the night evoked by the comments of Dietz and Mercier make the night impossible for the historian to pin down, but they also make these hours an extraordinarily revealing vantage point.
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