Memory Before Modernity : Practices of Memory in Early Modern Europe

Many students of memory assume that the practice of memory changed dramatically around 1800; this volume shows that there was much continuity as well as change. Premodern ways of negotiating memories of pain and loss, for instance, were indeed quite different to those in the modern West. Yet by examining memory practices and drawing on evidence from early modern England, France, Germany, Ireland, Hungary, the Low Countries and Ukraine, the case studies in this volume highlight the extent to which early modern memory was already a multimedia affair, with many political uses, and affecting stakeholders at all levels of society.

Contributors include: Andreas Bähr, Philip Benedict, Susan Broomhall, Sarah Covington, Brecht Deseure, Sean Dunwoody, Marianne Eekhout, Gabriela Erdélyi, Dagmar Freist, Katharine Hodgkin, Jasmin Kilburn-Toppin, Erika Kuijpers, Johannes Müller, Ulrich Niggemann, Alexandr Osipian, Judith Pollmann, Benjamin Schmidt, Jasper van der Steen

Erika Kuijpers is a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University. She has published widely on the history of migration, literacy, and personal memories of the Dutch Revolt.

Judith Pollmann is professor of early modern Dutch history at Leiden University. She is the director of the NWO VICI project Tales of the Revolt. Memory, oblivion and identity in the Low Countries, 1566-1700.

Johannes Müller is a PhD candidate at the Institute for History at Leiden University, where he is currently completing a dissertation on the memory cultures of Dutch exile networks in early modern Europe.

Jasper van der Steen is a PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute for History. He is currently completing his dissertation on memory politics after the Revolt of the Netherlands.