Fortress of the Soul: Violence, Metaphysics, and Material Life in the Huguenots' New World, 1517-1751JHU Press, 11. veebr 2005 - 1058 pages French Huguenots made enormous contributions to the life and culture of colonial New York during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Huguenot craftsmen were the city's most successful artisans, turning out unrivaled works of furniture which were distinguished by unique designs and arcane details. More than just decorative flourishes, however, the visual language employed by Huguenot artisans reflected a distinct belief system shaped during the religious wars of sixteenth-century France. In Fortress of the Soul, historian Neil Kamil traces the Huguenots' journey to New York from the Aunis-Saintonge region of southwestern France. There, in the sixteenth century, artisans had created a subterranean culture of clandestine workshops and meeting places inspired by the teachings of Bernard Palissy, a potter, alchemist, and philosopher who rejected the communal, militaristic ideology of the Huguenot majority which was centered in the walled city of La Rochelle. Palissy and his followers instead embraced a more fluid, portable, and discrete religious identity that encouraged members to practice their beliefs in secret while living safely—even prospering—as artisans in hostile communities. And when these artisans first fled France for England and Holland, then left Europe for America, they carried with them both their skills and their doctrine of artisanal security. Drawing on significant archival research and fresh interpretations of Huguenot material culture, Kamil offers an exhaustive and sophisticated study of the complex worldview of the Huguenot community. From the function of sacred violence and alchemy in the visual language of Huguenot artisans, to the impact among Protestants everywhere of the destruction of La Rochelle in 1628, to the ways in which New York's Huguenots interacted with each other and with other communities of religious dissenters and refugees, Fortress of the Soul brilliantly places American colonial history and material life firmly within the larger context of the early modern Atlantic world. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
PART I The Art of the Earth | 13 |
The Entrance of Charles IX into La Rochelle in 1565 | 15 |
The Construction of Artisanal Security | 52 |
Philibert Hamelins Consideration of Straight Lines and the Rehabilitation of the Nicodemite as Huguenot Artisan of Security | 100 |
The Context of Artisanal Enthusiasm in AunisSaintonge | 125 |
Rustic Artisans and the Diffusion of Paracelsian Discourses to New Worlds | 171 |
Bernard Palissy John Winthrop the Younger and Benjamin Franklin | 242 |
Science Secrecy and Security at the Siege of La Rochelle 16271635 | 409 |
Relocation of Spatial Identity to the New World 16281787 | 461 |
The Commons Debates of 1628 | 508 |
The Huguenot Counterfeit and the Threat to Englands Internal Security | 544 |
Hogarths Hog Lane and the Huguenot Fortress of Memory | 562 |
PART III The Secrets of the Craft | 709 |
Disappearance and Material Life in Colonial New York | 711 |
Little Histories Avignon France 16011602 Flushing Long Island 16571726 | 767 |
Other editions - View all
Fortress of the Soul: Violence, Metaphysics, and Material Life in the ... Neil Kamil Limited preview - 2005 |
Fortress of the Soul: Violence, Metaphysics, and Material Life in the ... Neil Kamil Limited preview - 2020 |