Religion
Malleus Maleficarum, Witch Hunter Manual
Perhaps the most spectacular manifestation of early modern European discrimination against women was the conviction of thousands of women for witchcraft. Over three centuries, more than 40,000 people were executed as witches, 75 percent of them female.
The Taoist Priest of Lao-Shan
"The Taoist Priest of Lao-Shan" is a folktale with a moral lesson. The tale uses religion as a device to instill in children the traits desired by upstanding citizens within the culture at that time.
The High-Caste Hindu Woman
Literacy among Indian women was low during the 19th century, and so primary sources written by Indian women are rare for this period. One notable exception is Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922), an influential Indian woman social reformer from Maharashtra in western India.
India’s Cries to British Humanity
Toward the end of the 1700s, the evangelical movement in Britain argued that one’s commitment to Christ should be reflected in action, primarily the effort to end slavery in the British empire and to proselytize or seek converts among the “heathen.” Initially, the English East India Company had p
Rajah Rammohun Roy Excerpts
Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1832), a highly educated Bengali brahman from a well-to-do landed family, had worked in the lower levels of the Company bureaucracy.
Letter to Panduranga Joshi Kulkarni
Although the self-immolation of Hindu widows was less common in western India than in Bengal, this letter confirms its occurrence in Maratha-ruled areas during the 1700s.
Journal of Jan van Riebeeck
Krotoa, called Eva by the Dutch, is the first Khoikhoi woman to appear in the European records of the early settlement at the Cape as an individual personality and active participant in cultural and economic exchange.
Patience Monsignor Your Turn Will Come
Cartoons attacked the refractory clergy. Here, fat, overfed, and underworked clergy are squeezed down to an appropriate size. As elsewhere, visual images mocked the clergy by depicting them as subject to the threats and physical attacks of others.
Refractory (Clergy) Going to the Promised Land
Many refractory clergy left France to join other detractors, as this print shows, or wishfully encourages. However, this is an ambiguous image, which leaves open the possibility that rather than joining foreign monarchies, the clergy are crossing the river leading to Hell.
Procession of Refractory Clergy
Of particular interest in this caricature of refractory clergy here are the long noses, traditionally used to caricature Jews, that suggest the refractory clergy were not of the people. This image shows resistant clergy marching in their last procession.