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Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe
This study examines the popular culture of pre-industrial Europe and describes the world of the professional entertainer - minstrels, fools, jugglers - and considers the songs, stories and plays performed by ordinary people. It shows how the attitudes and values of the otherwise inarticulate were shaped by social conditions and how they changed as European society changed between 1500 and 1800. This edition contains a new preface looking at developments in recent years in the study of Popular Culture and the difficulty in fixing these two terms. An extensive supplementary bibliography also adds to the information about new research in the area.
424 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Peter Burke
279 books211 followersPeter Burke is a British historian and professor. He was educated by the Jesuits and at St John's College, Oxford, and was a doctoral candidate at St Antony's College. From 1962 to 1979, he was part of the School of European Studies at Sussex University, before moving to the University of Cambridge, where he holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cultural History and Fellow of Emmanuel College. Burke is celebrated as a historian not only of the early modern era, but one who emphasizes the relevance of social and cultural history to modern issues. He is married to Brazilian historian Maria Lúcia Garcia Pallares-Burke.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
October 19, 2013
I am such a sucker for books about early modern popular culture. Give me a chapter with some facts on Carnivale, toss in a bit about charivari, and seal the deal with an exploration of oral storytelling, and you have won my heart.
Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe is an overview that attempts to tie together common strands of early modern culture from 1500-1800 and account for the major changes of the period. Though very aware of the source problem inherent in this kind of cultural study, and aware that popular culture varied intensely based on geography and social strata, Burke nevertheless believes that some commonalities and themes can be traced. It's an almost crazily audacious task for a historian, since Burke is wading through three hundred years of material that range from the Scottish highlands to Scandinavia to Spain to Serbia, and pretty much everywhere in between. I am afraid to find out how many languages he can read.
The book reads more like nine essays than one whole book, but I feel as if I should make some overarching generalizations and trace some themes and commonalities, because Peter Burke would probably want me to. In broad strokes, the ideas that bookend the work suggest that the period from 1500-1800 marked a shift in the nature and dynamics of popular culture. At the start of the period, pop culture was something that everyone participated in: even if you were a university-educated member of the elite you would still watch mystery plays, listen to traveling minstrels, and perhaps even dabble in some song-writing yourself. By the end of the period, though - growing increasingly so after the Protestant and Counter Reformations and the Renaissance - popular culture became something that was rejected by the upper classes. Pop culture was seen as pagan an immoral by many clergymen, who aimed to demarcate a clearer boundary between the sacred and the profane. The nobility, increasingly influenced by Renaissance ideology, came to focus their cultural attention on courtier manners, self-restraint, and a sort of mannered nonchalance. This split was only accelerated by developments in commercialization, urbanization, and printing, reaching an ironic climax in the late 18th century when members of the educated elite could observe popular culture as a kind of exotic object of study.
This book is certainly open to some criticisms. His methodology (like that of most cultural historians) is not free from controversy and the scope means that nothing can really be explored in its full specifics (and big swaths of cultural history are passed over). But I still think that it's a really well-done book, and it's hugely fun to read. Burke is a clear, engaging writer and his work just bursts with wonderful stories and tidbits. I read the book in one (long) sitting, which is something I can say about almost zero academic books. Lots of fun, and lots of provoking thoughts. I would like it if more historians wrote big idea books.
Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe is an overview that attempts to tie together common strands of early modern culture from 1500-1800 and account for the major changes of the period. Though very aware of the source problem inherent in this kind of cultural study, and aware that popular culture varied intensely based on geography and social strata, Burke nevertheless believes that some commonalities and themes can be traced. It's an almost crazily audacious task for a historian, since Burke is wading through three hundred years of material that range from the Scottish highlands to Scandinavia to Spain to Serbia, and pretty much everywhere in between. I am afraid to find out how many languages he can read.
The book reads more like nine essays than one whole book, but I feel as if I should make some overarching generalizations and trace some themes and commonalities, because Peter Burke would probably want me to. In broad strokes, the ideas that bookend the work suggest that the period from 1500-1800 marked a shift in the nature and dynamics of popular culture. At the start of the period, pop culture was something that everyone participated in: even if you were a university-educated member of the elite you would still watch mystery plays, listen to traveling minstrels, and perhaps even dabble in some song-writing yourself. By the end of the period, though - growing increasingly so after the Protestant and Counter Reformations and the Renaissance - popular culture became something that was rejected by the upper classes. Pop culture was seen as pagan an immoral by many clergymen, who aimed to demarcate a clearer boundary between the sacred and the profane. The nobility, increasingly influenced by Renaissance ideology, came to focus their cultural attention on courtier manners, self-restraint, and a sort of mannered nonchalance. This split was only accelerated by developments in commercialization, urbanization, and printing, reaching an ironic climax in the late 18th century when members of the educated elite could observe popular culture as a kind of exotic object of study.
This book is certainly open to some criticisms. His methodology (like that of most cultural historians) is not free from controversy and the scope means that nothing can really be explored in its full specifics (and big swaths of cultural history are passed over). But I still think that it's a really well-done book, and it's hugely fun to read. Burke is a clear, engaging writer and his work just bursts with wonderful stories and tidbits. I read the book in one (long) sitting, which is something I can say about almost zero academic books. Lots of fun, and lots of provoking thoughts. I would like it if more historians wrote big idea books.
March 18, 2021
Folk culture: in a negative definition it covers everything that does not belong to elitist culture, but rather to the low social classes (artisans and farmers). Burke draws from folklore, literature studies and anthropology. He offers a very meritorious synthesis.
November 5, 2020
By senior year at Grinnell College I knew exactly what I wanted to do: go to a graduate school where I could study Kant and Jung and become trained to practice clinical depth psychology. The search for the best school consisted of simply writing for catalogs from all institutions recognized by the American Association of Humanistic Psychology. Doing so, the field narrowed to Dusquesne University and Union Theological Seminary. Duquesne seemed rather narrowly focused on phenomenological philosophy and psychology. UTS was where my favorite college teacher, Dennis Haas, had gone, had a broader curriculum, one well-known Kant specialist and several analytical psychologists and psychoanalysts. In theory, the seminary route seemed better. Then my department offered to pay my way to New York to attend a conference there. Grateful, I went, was impressed and the decision was made.
The only significant hurdle to going on to graduate school was the GRE. Nothing was offered convenient to Grinnell, Iowa, so I signed up to take the thing over the winter break in DeKalb, Illinois, Two older high school friends, Art Kazar and Walt Wallace, lived together in an apartment nearby, so I arranged to spend a week with them.
It had entered my mind to prep for the math part of the exam, but the culture of study at their place tempted me to other, more interesting pursuits. Walter had recently finished his thesis, "Oh Liberty, Oh My Country!"--a study of the thinking of common colonial soldiers in the American revolution--so that had to be read and he was filled with other suggestions as well. We read and discussed, read and discussed. One day Walter and I read together for fourteen hours straight over innumerable pots of tea--the high point of the visit. All good intents of any prepping were banished by a final night out drinking, a short sleep and the morning rush to the exam.
Thus I went to New York for four years while Walter went for two stints to teach at universities in Peoples' China and a longer engagement teaching in Vermont. He settled there. I returned to Chicago, to work for two years, then to go for another graduate degree and, eventually, a job at Loyola University. He had adopted a child, Stas, in the meantime and the two of them got into the practice of coming out each summer to spend a week or two with me at the old family cottage in Michigan while I got into the practice of visiting him in Springfield, Vermont every two or three years.
Although evolving, as I had, into university administration, Walter remained inclined to scholarship. His library was second only to that of Mike Miley and my visits always included explorations of it. The Burke book was read at his recommendation, its subject remaining close to Walter's heart, viz. history from the bottom up, Burke being a leader in the field.
The only significant hurdle to going on to graduate school was the GRE. Nothing was offered convenient to Grinnell, Iowa, so I signed up to take the thing over the winter break in DeKalb, Illinois, Two older high school friends, Art Kazar and Walt Wallace, lived together in an apartment nearby, so I arranged to spend a week with them.
It had entered my mind to prep for the math part of the exam, but the culture of study at their place tempted me to other, more interesting pursuits. Walter had recently finished his thesis, "Oh Liberty, Oh My Country!"--a study of the thinking of common colonial soldiers in the American revolution--so that had to be read and he was filled with other suggestions as well. We read and discussed, read and discussed. One day Walter and I read together for fourteen hours straight over innumerable pots of tea--the high point of the visit. All good intents of any prepping were banished by a final night out drinking, a short sleep and the morning rush to the exam.
Thus I went to New York for four years while Walter went for two stints to teach at universities in Peoples' China and a longer engagement teaching in Vermont. He settled there. I returned to Chicago, to work for two years, then to go for another graduate degree and, eventually, a job at Loyola University. He had adopted a child, Stas, in the meantime and the two of them got into the practice of coming out each summer to spend a week or two with me at the old family cottage in Michigan while I got into the practice of visiting him in Springfield, Vermont every two or three years.
Although evolving, as I had, into university administration, Walter remained inclined to scholarship. His library was second only to that of Mike Miley and my visits always included explorations of it. The Burke book was read at his recommendation, its subject remaining close to Walter's heart, viz. history from the bottom up, Burke being a leader in the field.
January 11, 2018
Korisno, ali postoje neke stvari koje meni zvuče kao navlačenja vode na svoj mlin kao pokušaja pronalaska vještičjih osobina u liku Babe Jage dok ona funkcionira kao stari mitološki lik sa svojim karakteristikama i vjerojatnije mi je da su vještičje osobine potekle od nje nego obratno. Ipak, dosta korisnih stvari.
November 23, 2017
i feel like i say it about everything i have to read for school, but this book could be at least 150 pages shorter
July 14, 2023
É um livro de estudo disfarçado de leitura leve - o que é positivo, pois a gente recebe muita informação interessante de uma forma ágil. Gosto do tema, então foi um bom livro.
October 17, 2016
Return of Martin Guerre and Cheese and the Worms got me initially interested in microhistory, but Burke's book really illuminated how studying popular culture in Early Modern Europe is accomplished. He demonstrates the rigorous, multidisciplinary approach required to make any sense of culture in a (mostly) illiterate society, and offers a great history of the study of those cultures along the way.
I'm no historian (just a "fan" of history), but I imagine Burke's volume should be required reading for any aspiring scholar looking to explore beyond "kings and battles" history. This holds regardless of desired regional specialty, because Burke's historiography provides valid points for any (again, mostly) pre-literate society, even outside of Europe.
I'm no historian (just a "fan" of history), but I imagine Burke's volume should be required reading for any aspiring scholar looking to explore beyond "kings and battles" history. This holds regardless of desired regional specialty, because Burke's historiography provides valid points for any (again, mostly) pre-literate society, even outside of Europe.
January 19, 2023
Burke is Burke.
L'evoluzione della cultura popolare seguita in una marea di esempi, includendo anche l'Europa orientale (ma sempre con il proprio centro nell'area dell'Europa occidentale), attraverso carnevali, ballate, distacchi e ritorni dell'élite colta, vernacoli e latinismi. Uno spaccato di storia culturale che si fa leggere, nonostante ormai abbia i suoi anni.
L'evoluzione della cultura popolare seguita in una marea di esempi, includendo anche l'Europa orientale (ma sempre con il proprio centro nell'area dell'Europa occidentale), attraverso carnevali, ballate, distacchi e ritorni dell'élite colta, vernacoli e latinismi. Uno spaccato di storia culturale che si fa leggere, nonostante ormai abbia i suoi anni.
June 7, 2025
IM FREEEEE!!!!! WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY FUCKING LIFE (en realidad de libre poco pq todavía me queda hacer una recensión de esto y pasar por todos los exámenes pero algo es algo)
el final ha sido interesante pero no he soportado la manera de narrar. tengo muchísimas ganas de volver a mis libritos aka cazadores de sombras un día más es un día menos, se puede
el final ha sido interesante pero no he soportado la manera de narrar. tengo muchísimas ganas de volver a mis libritos aka cazadores de sombras un día más es un día menos, se puede
September 13, 2017
You don't read this book for fun. Well, you might. But I didn't, and wouldn't. Having said that, it served its purpose well, schooling me in the popular culture of the age. My year 13s will be delighted at the choice chapters they will have to read in turn. Or not...
May 18, 2019
The book might have been interesting but it also could have been shorter.
I felt like Burke kept repeating himself in the last 80/100 pages
I felt like Burke kept repeating himself in the last 80/100 pages
February 23, 2025
Konu az da olsa ilginizi çekiyor ise mutlaka okuyun . Peter Burke bakış açısı beni etkiledi . Sonu muhteşem .
February 28, 2025
Skimmed for school but pretty enlightening; don’t really like the subjective and postmodern vibe of his methodology though
November 7, 2025
recomendado
April 22, 2013
Not bad for a text book. Really dense. Lots of information covered without being repetitive. I really enjoyed the tie-ins to the work that the Grimm brothers and Charles Perrault were doing; what are now fairy tales for children were the stuff of adult popular culture and social and moral lessons. Really enjoyable, especially for a textbook.
August 25, 2013
Popüler Kültür kavramının orta çağ sonrasında halk kültürü olarak doğduğunu ve Avrupa'da nasıl biçimlendiğini anlatan bir kitap. Annales Okulu'nun günümüzdeki temsilcilerinden biri olan Burke'un kitabı oldukça başarılı bir şekilde Türkçeye çevrilmiş durumda.
September 18, 2012
Nice, readable introduction to the study of culture in the time period.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews