The philological turn in textual scholarship is rooted in the critique of literary theory and the search for objectivity in the understanding of texts. But if the idea of focusing on the immanent structures of texts has been at the origins of modern philology, problems of meaning and translation produced a surplus during the course of the nineteenth century that can be described in terms of cultural hermeneutics. Thus historical philology emphatically widened its praxis toward cultural understanding. Edward W. Said and followers have explored the implications of this in relation to the constituting of European discursive hegemony. If the return to philology is not to be the nostalgic expression of regret at the ongoing decline of classical scholarship, it must take this past into account. Analyses that have focused on the problem have been driven primarily by the experience of civilizational failure and have elaborated a model of the discursive production of power. But how can philology possibly develop perspectives about its status and praxis within contemporary debates if it continues to neglect the heterogeneity within its own historical discourse? The article sets out to identify and analyze traces of resistance against the imperial cultural model of historical philology.

Unlike in the Mediterranean world, marriage in cisalpine urban societies was dominated by representations of equality and reciprocity, both in social practice and in theological and didactic discourse. This article first examines the conception of heavenly marriage as developed in late antiquity and elaborated in theological discourse before providing an in-depth analysis of various marriage contracts, particularly those held in the municipal archives of Strasbourg. Analysis of these contracts reveals the strong ties between social practice and didactic discourse, demonstrating that the representations of equality and reciprocity they conveyed were rooted in inheritance law, which treated both male and female children equally.

During the Belle Époque, widespread access to credit for the working classes led to the establishment of an economy of mass consumption. This phenomenon, however, represented more than a simple shift in scale, completely transforming the social order of the credit system, from economic identification to the authorization process. This article examines various aspects of the credit relationship through two documented cases: the credit organization created by the Parisian department store Dufayel for the working classes and reforms introduced by the January 12, 1895 law regarding workers’ garnishment. The transformation of the credit system resulted in the joint emergence of new forms of mediation and distantiation in addition to new arenas in which debt figured—whether in commerce, court or the workplace.

Throughout pre-industrial Europe, the manorial estate was an important institution in the rural economy. Related literature communicates the widespread view that the estates insured their tenants against uncertainties, for example, in times of economic hardship. By distributing grain or accepting deferment of rents, the manors helped to alleviate hunger in times of scarcity. If this insurance was indeed effective, then manorial tenants should have experienced less fluctuation in income or food availability than other peasants. However, there has not been much empirical confirmation that the pre-industrial estates were effective in providing this kind of insurance. This study uses the impact of grain prices on demographic outcomes as a measure of the efficiency of the manorial system in protecting its inhabitants against economic stress. Looking at four hundred parishes in Sweden (1749-1859), the manorial estate seems to have been able to insure its inhabitants against risks of economic stress, but the protective effect was imperfect and only visible in the short term.

In the Touat, a group of oases in southern Algeria, local economies depend on outside sources of investment and thus participate in larger economic and socio-political projects. Land and water property are scattered, and ownership rights are complex and overlapping. Local economies are pervaded by monetary expressions that help to create debts, forcing the majority of producers into a situation of chronic dependence. Islamic law is freely adopted in order to redefine local transactions in universalizing terms and thereby to inscribe the local into a wider intellectual and spiritual world. Hence, oases appear to be the result of a movement of internal colonization, in political, commercial, and spiritual terms.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, aristocratic daughters inherited fiefs in the absence of a male heir. Over the course of the seventeenth century, however, royal decisions and jurisprudence increasingly limited this possibility, imposing masculinity as the primary—though not exclusive—criteria for inheritance. This article explores the legal debates that accompanied this evolution, highlighting a number of changes within the French nobility of this period that reveal a new conception of gender relations. The growing importance of the notion of service, changes to the procedure for proving one’s nobility, and the desire for greater exclusivity within the nobility all reveal how gender was no longer defined in relation to the place and role each individual occupied within the ancestral line or family. Instead, gender assumed an unchanging identity, which, much like nobility itself, was considered inherent to the individual.

Through the study of chancellor Kaunitz’s efforts to bring French theater to Vienna, which was briefly successful first between 1752 and 1765 and later between 1768 and 1772, this article reconsiders the notion of a “French Europe,” whereby French culture dominated eighteenth-century Europe. In traditional diffusionist historiography, the arrow points outward from the center (France) toward the periphery (Europe). Focusing on Vienna, however, offers a different perspective, displacing France as the central hub of action. French theater in Vienna underwent a thorough process of selection and adaptation according to the various purposes it served. Analysis of the situation in Vienna reveals the complex patterns of circulation traced by French actors as they traveled both domestically and across the continent. Instead of analyzing “transnational” literary circulation quantitavely as a mere flow of merchandise, this article advocates an alternative approach, at once pragmatic and contextual, that emphasizes the political decisions that presided over it.