Heirs of Flesh and Paper: A European History of Dynastic Knowledge around 1700

Tom Tölle

Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2022

Heirs of Flesh and Paper

A European History of Dynastic Knowledge around 1700

Tom Tölle

Volume 11 in the series Cultures and Practices of Knowledge in History

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110744606

Overview
Contents

About this book

"Heirs of Flesh and Paper" tells the story of early modern dynastic politics through subjects’ practical responses to royal illness, failing princely reproduction, and heirs’ premature deaths. It treats connected dynastic crises between 1699 and 1716 as illustrative for early modern European political regimes in which the rulers’ corporeality defined politics. This political order grappled with the endemic uncertainties induced by dynastic bodies. By following the day-to-day practices of knowledge making in response to the unpredictability of royal health, the book shows how the ruling family’s mortal coils regularly threatened to destabilize the institutionalized legal fiction of kingship. Dynastic politics was not only as a transitory stage of state formation, part of elite cooperation, or a cultural construct. It needs to be approached through everyday practices that put ailing dynastic bodies front and center. In a period of intensifying political planning, it constituted one of the most important sites for changing the political itself.

Author / Editor information

Tom Tölle, University of Hamburg.

Reviews

"It raises some interesting questions, provides food for
thought, and ultimately demonstrates the potential of an integrative
model that brings together different theoretical, methodological, and
disciplinary approaches. At all events, the angle set out programmatically
in the title of the introduction, ‘Rethinking the Body Politic’,
proves to be a productive approach to a phase in European history
in which the ‘société des princes’ was repeatedly shaken up by the
uncertainties of human life and experience." Michael Rohrschneider in:
German Historical Institute London Bulletin, 2023/2

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Introduction: Rethinking the Body Politic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Seeing: Royal Frailty at the Court of Charles II of Spain (1690s–1700) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
Chapter 2 Healing: Stuart Princely Ailments and the Politics of Medical Opinion (1700–1714) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
Chapter 3 Writing: The British Succession Question in the Holy Roman Empire (1701) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Chapter 4 Interacting: Contagion in Bourbon France and the Making of Dynastic Crisis (1711/2–1716) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Chapter 5 Feeling: The Health of Habsburg Heirs, and the Emotional Empire (1692–1716) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
Conclusion: Destiny, Disease, and Dynasty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Works and Sources Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	254
Appendices Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	289
Index of Persons Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Audience: Academics in Early Modern History, History of Science, History of Medicine.
Pages
- Front matter: 15
- Main content: 322
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 6
- Coloured Illustrations: 3
Keywords: Dynastic crisis; politics; corporeality; early modern period

eBook

Published: March 7, 2022
ISBN: 9783110744606

Hardcover

Published: March 21, 2022
ISBN: 9783110744521