Encyclopedia of European Social History from 1350 to 2000

Details of the Encyclopedia

• Editor-in-chief: Peter N. Stearns.
• Features: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• ISBNs: ISBN 0-684-80582-0 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-684-80577-4 (vol. 1)—ISBN
  0-684-80578-2 (vol. 2) — ISBN 0-684-80579-0 (vol. 3) — ISBN 0-684-80580-4 (vol. 4)
  — ISBN 0-684-80581-2 (vol. 5) — ISBN 0-684-80645-2 (vol. 6)
• Copyright: 2001
• Publisher: Charles Scribner’s Sons, an imprint of the Gale Group. 1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019

Introduction by the Publisher

Social history as a field developed in Europe. It is hardly surprising that some of the most striking discoveries and analyses in social history developed in application to the European past. French scholars first articulated some of the basic premises of the field in the early part of the twentieth century. Since then not only French but also German, Italian, and British social historians have pioneered in theoretical and methodological approaches, even as they have been increasingly joined by researchers elsewhere. Marxist contributions from eastern Europe have also played a significant role in social history’s unfolding, particularly in relation to topics such as class structure. Correspondingly, social history has gained unusual stature in the
discipline of history more generally in many European countries, though not without some contests—particularly in the field of teaching—about what purposes historical knowledge should serve.

European social history has often joined fruitfully with other disciplines, such as sociology, which are sometimes friendlier to historical inquiry than their counterparts in other regions. Dutch sociologists and English anthropologists have contributed important social history work. Finally, imaginative investigations of European social history, including such distinctive events as the formation of the world’s first industrial proletariat, have attracted scholars from many places besides Europe itself, as the European experience becomes something of a seedbed for
sociohistorical formulations more generally.

Wide agreement exists on what social history is as a particular approach to research concerning the past. Social historians explore changes and continuities in the experience of ordinary people. They pursue this focus on two assumptions: first, that groups of ordinary people have meaningful histories that help us better understand both past and present; and, second, that ordinary people often play a major, if unsung, role in causing key developments and are not simply acted upon. Further, for ordinary people and for more elite sectors, social historians probe a wide variety of behaviors and beliefs, not just political actions or great ideas.

They argue that the past is formed by connections among behaviors, from family life to leisure to attitudes toward the state, and that we better understand current social concerns, such as crime or health practices, if we see how they have emerged from history.

The effects of dealing with ordinary people and the sources of information available about them and of widening the facets of social life open to inquiry have generated an explosion of historical information and topics. Specialists in European social history may thus focus on kinship, sexuality, adolescence, sports, or rural protest— the range is staggering, as is the usable history now available.

While remaining true to its basic principles, social history has continued to evolve since its effective origins as an explicit field in the 1920s and 1930s. Changes have involved the use of new or revived theories. They have included varying degrees of interest in quantification. Intense concern for statistical probes, in the 1970s, has given way more recently to greater attention to cultural evidence and to links with anthropological approaches to deeply held values and rituals. Intense interest in the working class and the peasantry has persisted, but attention has been directed to other topics including gender (first, women’s history and, more recently, constructions of masculinity) and age groupings from childhood to old age.

Facets of behavior have expanded to include ambitious investigation of the history of the senses, of gestures, and of humor. The evolution of social history transcends Europe, of
course, but many key new developments, including new topics, are often first sketched in application to European patterns.

The definition of social history and its continued dynamism must include an ongoing tension between this field and some other types of historical inquiry. Social historians often reconsider familiar historical periodization, for example. The forces that shape developments such as the Renaissance, for example, may apply more to formal politics and intellectual life than to social structures or popular beliefs and behaviors. At least conventional periodization must be tested for its applicability to social history concerns.

While social historians deal with chronology and certainly with change, they typically focus less on precise dates and events, more on shifts in larger patterns such as birthrates and beliefs about women’s roles. Approaches to the causes of change may alter. Despite some early definitions that argued that social history is ‘‘history with the politics left out,’’ the role of the state remains a key topic in European social history. But social historians do not assume that the state is the source of all major historical developments or that what the state intends to
do, in forging a new law or a new activity, is what actually happens, given the
importance of popular reactions in reshaping day-to-day activities. The rise of social
history has downgraded certain topics for historical inquiry; diplomatic history is
far less lively, as a field in European history, than was the case in the 1950s. But
social history has also recast certain traditional fields, leading to new efforts to
explore military behavior in light of conditions of ordinary soldiers, for example,
or interest in examining the actual dissemination of ideas as part of a ‘‘new’’ intellectual
history. Here too, social historians dealing with Europe have often played a
leading role in bringing about larger redefinitions.

The richness of European social history continues to develop despite some
obvious difficulties in applying the characteristic methods and topics to the Continent.
Social historians frequently face challenges in uncovering sources, particularly
for the centuries before modern times. Some parts of Europe—Scandinavia, for
example, because of the record keeping of local Lutheran churches in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries—have better records for studying literacy and demographic
behavior than others. But problems of place go beyond differential qualities
of evidence. For many topics, Europe is simply not a particularly good unit, and
since social historians remain wedded to specific data deriving from place, they face
some real barriers to Europe-wide generalizations. Family forms, for instance, vary
significantly from one region to the next; some places have typically emphasized
extended family units, others have been more commonly nuclear. Trends have sometimes
moved in opposite directions: notoriously, eastern Europe was tightening its
manorial system in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, just as western Europe
was largely abolishing serfdom.

As a result of these kinds of these kinds of complexities, few social historians have tackled Europe as a whole, though there are important individual efforts, particularly concerning certain aspects of popular culture and popular unrest. But if Europe is not usually a logical empirical unit, what is? Europe in modern times developed a network of nation-states, and many social historians simply use this unit as a matter of convenience; where the state causes social patterns, more than convenience may be involved. But social historians may be edgy about national histories, because they too often assume coherences that should in fact be tested.

Hence, some social historians deliberately look at larger regions, like the Mediterranean,
or more commonly at small regions whose geography and traditions most actively shape ordinary life. Given Europe’s regional diversity, comparison is also a key methodology, and while social historians have been slow to pick up its challenge, important work has compared gender patterns or labor relations across regional and national boundaries.

A final place-related issue involves Europe’s position in the world. European history has often been treated in considerable isolation, particularly after the Middle Ages when European dependence on ideas imported from Islam and the Byzantine Empire declined. European social history, focused on ordinary people and activities, might enhance the tendency to look at European patterns in isolation. Recent work, however, has partially reemphasized Europe’s place in the wider world. European social patterns have often been influenced by beliefs, styles, and economic relationships involving many other areas. Correspondingly, social issues arising in Europe often spilled over to have wider impacts, including emigration to other parts of the
world, imperialism, and other movements. Social historians have helped develop a
new sense of Europe’s wider international ties.

This Encyclopedia builds on several generations of social historical work involving Europe. It calls attention to social history dimensions for major places and periods. By discussing such topics as the relationships between state and society, the ‘‘new’’ military and labor history, and changes in technology and capitalism, the Encyclopedia relates socio-historical findings to more familiar topics. The bulk of the Encyclopedia is given over, however, to examinations of central socio-historical concerns, both groups and facets of social behavior. Sections thus bring together discussions of family history, gender, health and illness, population trends, social
structure, childrearing and age relations, the body and emotions—these and other themes encompassing the range of knowledge that has developed since World War II. The opening section comprises a set of essays that explore major issues of theory and method that can be linked to more explicit topics such as social mobility or sexuality.

Essays in the Encyclopedia deal with Europe from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to the present. European society was hardly new at the end of the Middle Ages, but changes in family structures (the rise of the ‘‘European-style’’ family in some areas), the beginnings of a more commercial economy with attendant changes in class structure, and cultural shifts associated with the Renaissance and with religious change helped set a number of new social trends in motion. In addition to explicit discussions of periodization, topical essays devote careful attention to the major periods—the breaks in direction and causes of change— relevant to specific subjects such as crime or recreation. Topical essays also take into account the crucial issues of regional diversity, such as the extent to which various parts of Europe (south, east, northwest, and so on) and sometimes different nations need to be differentiated and compared, and the extent to which they can be subsumed under larger patterns.

European social history is a work in progress. Debates persist. Comparative work for many subjects is still in its infancy. New topics continue to emerge, along with new uses of source material and novel connections between the social history approach and other kinds of history, cultural analysis, and social science. The Encyclopedia emphasizes what is already known, but it also supports the further quest.

Encyclopedia of European Social History contains 209 articles arranged in twenty three topical sections. The articles were contributed by nearly 170 scholars from twenty-nine American states, four Canadian provinces, nine European countries, and Australia. Each article is followed by cross-references to related articles and each article includes a bibliography. To aid the reader of this thematically arranged encyclopedia, an alphabetical table of contents appears in the frontmatter of each volume. A comprehensive index is included in volume 6.