Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany [Hardcover]

A social and cultural history of 'dishonourable people' (unehrliche Leute) in early modern Germany.This book presents a social and cultural history of 'dishonourable people' (unehrliche Leute), an outcast group in early modern Germany. Executioners, skinners, grave-diggers, shepherds, barber-surgeons, millers, linen-weavers, sow-gelders, latrine-cleaners, and bailiffs were among the 'dishonourable' by virtue of their trades. It shows the extent to which dishonour determined the life-chances and self-identity of dishonourable people. Taking Augsburg as a prime example, it investigates how honourable estates interacted with dishonourable people, and shows how the pollution anxieties of early modern Germans structured social and political relations within honourable society.This book presents a social and cultural history of 'dishonourable people' (unehrliche Leute), an outcast group in early modern Germany. Executioners, skinners, grave-diggers, shepherds, barber-surgeons, millers, linen-weavers, sow-gelders, latrine-cleaners, and bailiffs were among the 'dishonourable' by virtue of their trades. It shows the extent to which dishonour determined the life-chances and self-identity of dishonourable people. Taking Augsburg as a prime example, it investigates how honourable estates interacted with dishonourable people, and shows how the pollution anxieties of early modern Germans structured social and political relations within honourable society.This book presents a social and cultural history of dishonorable people (unehrliche Leute), an outcast group in early modern Germany. Executioners, skinners, grave-diggers, shepherds, barber-surgeons, millers, linen-weavers, sow-gelders, latrine-cleaners, and bailiffs were among the dishonorable by virtue of their trades. It shows the extent to which dishonor determined the life chances and self-identity of these people. Taking Augsburg as a prime example, it investigates how honorable estates interacted with dishonorable peolãs