The Household – social relations and obligations within and beyond the household

The household was a central institution in early modern European societies. In the 19^th century, the middle-class home gained a special cultural, political, and social position. The household was also a key point in Luther’s social teaching, and the place to live a pious life in honour of God. With this workshop we ask: was there a unique Nordic variation of household governance?

Papers addressing questions of social relations and obligations within and beyond the household in 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th century Europe will inform discussions between historians, church historians, legal historians, and theologians on how the Nordic household can be understood as a variation of the European household. What are the similarities and differences? How were responsibilities shared between household and state? What kinds of obligations did individuals have towards each other within the household? How were obligations, rights and duties gendered? And how was religion present in legislation regulating the household – and within the household itself?

This event is the second in a series of NOS-HS (Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and social Sciences) workshops on Nordic Variations of Protestant Governance. With three workshops planned – on the parish, the household, and the realm – this network asks what difference confession made in early modern European state building and in the development of the modern states, and how we can examine it.

Workshop 1 (Uppsala): Focuses on the parish as a local unit for religious and social interaction. Liturgy, instructions for pastors and churchgoers, catechisms, collections of sermons, and devotional literature and correspondence between key figures can show how the parish was both a place for lived religion and for the integration of church and state.

Workshop 2 (Aarhus): Focuses on the household as the core model for all social relations and interactions in Luther’s social teaching. Legislation, court cases, petitions to the King, and devotional literature can give insight into the household as a place for everyday practice and for transforming religious norms into societal norms.

Workshop 3 (Oslo): Focuses on the realm and on the political space left open for new legislation by the “absent” church (due to conflation with the state) and the state’s religious responsibilities following the Reformation. This will include investigation of legislation and political discussions and analysis of how government, political authority, organisation, and legitimisation were possibly influenced by a Lutheran legacy.

Programme

2. December

12.00–13.00                       Lunch

13.00–13.15                       Welcome – Nina Koefoed

13.15–14.45                        Joachim Eibach: Pietist Households from the Perspective of Female Diaries: Henriette Stettler-Herport (Bern, 1771-89) and Ursula Bruckner-Eglinger (Basel, 1819-33)

14.45–15.15                        Coffee

15.15–16.00                        Louise Kallestrup: Christian IV and Witchcraft: godly power and divine duties

16.00–16.45                        Paolo Astorri & Lars Cyril Nørgaard: The Lutheran Household as a Private Jurisdiction

16.45–17.00                        Break

17.00–17.45                        Karin Hassan Jansson: Household culture, patriarchalism, and social imaginaries: concepts and practice. The Scandinavian historiography of the early modern world of the Haustafel

3. December

9.00–9.45                            Svante Norrhem: The Aristocratic Household as Academy: Employees, Gender and Teaching

9.45–10.30                          Kristine Dyrmann: The family’s home tutors between state-level school reforms and household servant status at Brahetrolleborg estate in late eighteenth-century Southern Denmark

10.30–11                             Coffee

11.00–11.45                        Hanne Östhus: Hesitant household members? Domestic servants in early modern Denmark-Norway

11.45–12.30                        Nina Javette Koefoed: Duties and un-Christian behavior in the 18^th-century Danish household

12.30–13.30                       Lunch

13.30–14.30                        Closing discussion: Breaks and continuity in household culture from the 17^th to the 19^th century