What did it mean when an teenth-century monarch intervened in a legal struggle between social unequals, and decided on behalf of the weaker party? How do historians interpret such an event? In the example under examination here—the cause célèbre of the millers Christian and Rosine Arnold in Brandenburg-Prussia (1770–1779)—the dominant opinion of two centuries has been that King Frederick II's intervention violated justice and the rule of law. Explaining this remarkable continuity of historical attention is easy, for the affair's effects on state-formation in Prussia were far–reaching. On the very day that Frederick ruled in the millers' favor, the king also sacked his chancellor (Grosskanzler), Carl Joseph von Fürst, as well as three members of Brandenburg's supreme tribunal, the Chamber Court (Kammergericht), all for ruling against the millers. In Fürst's place as chancellor, Frederick installed Johann Heinrich Casimir von Carmer, under whom began the process of legal reforms that resulted in the provisional Corpus Juris Fridericianum (1781) and ultimately the General Prussian Code (Allgemeines Preussisches Landrecht, or ALR) of 1794. To some extent, then, Frederick's intervention was the founding act of codification. But it is more difficult to explain the unanimity: with few exceptions, historians and biographers have pronounced the intervention a “judicial catastrophe” (Justizkatastrophe) and declared the millers mere “troublemakers.” This essay will argue that such conclusions are misguided: by framing their questions within the parameters of legal and administrative history, most historians have focused on the legal merits of the Arnolds' suit. In so doing, they have operated on the assumption that a unitary definition of justice prevailed in eighteenth-century Prussia; as a result, most historical appraisals reflect highly partisan contemporary interpretations of the case. But there were at least three distinct “discourses” on justice at work as the case unfolded, each of them corresponding to one of the principal sets of actors in the drama.

One of the major events in the history of German anti-Semitism has been, if not entirely overlooked, then misunderstood and misrepresented. In the 1870s, the professor of medicine, liberal politician, and anthropologist, Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), directed a study of the skin, hair, and eye color of 6,758,827 German school children, a study that marked “Jews” and “Germans” as racially different and trained a generation of Germans to perceive these differences both as real and as of political significance. Historians have been virtually unanimous in viewing this study as a blow against anti-Semitism, as a demonstration that there was neither a Jewish nor a German “race.” This interpretation has survived, I believe, because it supports and rests on a commonly held conception of racism as primarily an intellectual phenomenon, as a set of more-or-less explicit propositions held in the minds of individuals. Virchow, a well-known opponent of political anti-Semitism, was never motivated by hostility to Jews in conducting this research. Indeed, he understood his focus on Jews as simply a race (rather than as a religion or a culture) to indicate that the study was not anti-Semitic. Paradoxically, the study that Virchow designed and oversaw may have unintentionally provided an important practical basis for German racial anti-Semitism. By considering anti-Semitism as a set of skills rather than a philosophy, as hands-on practical knowledge more akin to riding a bicycle than to philosophical exposition, I hope to offer a new explanation of both Virchow's study of race and the place of that study in German history.

Wares are consigned to the Leipzig merchants year round from all corners of Europe and then sold during the trade fairs. Leipzig has three fairs: the first begins the Monday after New Year's and lasts two weeks counting the last week for the settling of accounts (Zahlwoche); the spring fair (Jubilate) begins the third Sunday after Easter and runs a total of three weeks; while the autumn fair (Michaelis), likewise three weeks long, begins the fourth Sunday of September. An indescribable wealth of goods is on offer at the fairs. With the foreign merchants and royal personages, the throngs of visitors are so great that it is usually difficult to find lodging in the city. The conflux of sellers and buyers is very advantageous, and during peacetime virtually every order is filled. Many thousands have never even considered provisioning their trade or selling their products other than in Leipzig, though the source of their purchases might lie closer to home. This is because of the commercial services and security provided by such a large fair, including the selection and quality of goods, the strong credit, a reliable circle of customers, a ready supply of bullion, and the efficient Exchange.