Manual Work and Mental Work

In the early modern period, numerous texts deal with professions by presenting the knowledge required in each case, individual fields of activity, purpose, origin and prestige. The course of argumentation is humanistic, insofar as it mostly starts from the human being. The ancient idea of the primacy of mental work over manual work is influential. Spanish overall representations of knowledge, professions and outstanding professional representatives are shown. Mechanical arts and artes liberales are presented on the basis of individual professions. The higher faculties of medicine, theology and jurisprudence with their representatives follow.

Function and evaluation of individual professions in the Siglo de Oro Tract literature and its social relevance History of knowledge on the basis of little-noticed primary sources of the early modern period

Autorentext

Christoph Strosetzki is Professor of Romance Philology (with a special focus on Ibero-Romance and Latin American literatures) at the University of Münster.

Klappentext

Information Text: In the early modern period, numerous texts deal with professions by presenting the knowledge required in each case, individual fields of activity, purpose, origin and prestige. The course of argumentation is humanistic, insofar as it mostly starts from the human being. The ancient idea of the primacy of mental work over manual work is formative here. The importance of Spain results from the fact that the Spanish king Charles V was both emperor and ruler of the colonies in America, i.e. he ruled a world empire by the standards of the time. After discussing some central categories, overall representations of knowledge, professions, and prominent professional representatives are presented. Here, the hierarchization and its relativization by satire is revealing. The mechanical arts and the artes liberales are then presented on the basis of individual professions selected as characteristic examples, each with its own specific knowledge. The higher faculties of medicine, theology and jurisprudence with their representatives form the conclusion.

Inhalt

1 Conceptions of work.- 2 Alternatives to work.- 3 Collections.- 4 Mechanical arts.- 5 Artes liberales.- 6 Higher faculties.- 7 Crafts and hierarchy.