Serving Aristocracy : Negotiation, Learning and Mobility in an Early Modern Knowledge Community
(2025) In Knowledge Societies in History- Abstract
- Serving Aristocracy is the history of social negotiation and mobility in an early modern knowledge community, centred on the aristocratic De la Gardie family and their sphere of manors and estates in seventeenth-century Sweden. Focusing on underprivileged women and men and the knowledge community that shaped their interactions, social negotiations, and mobility, this book documents ordinary people’s lives and work in an aristocratic sphere. It uses the De la Gardie bureaucracy’s meticulous records to full effect, charting servants’ experiences, learning, and agency. The unique collection of petitions provides an invaluable insight into how servants viewed their own backgrounds, personal predicaments, and hopes for the future, and how they... (More)
- Serving Aristocracy is the history of social negotiation and mobility in an early modern knowledge community, centred on the aristocratic De la Gardie family and their sphere of manors and estates in seventeenth-century Sweden. Focusing on underprivileged women and men and the knowledge community that shaped their interactions, social negotiations, and mobility, this book documents ordinary people’s lives and work in an aristocratic sphere. It uses the De la Gardie bureaucracy’s meticulous records to full effect, charting servants’ experiences, learning, and agency. The unique collection of petitions provides an invaluable insight into how servants viewed their own backgrounds, personal predicaments, and hopes for the future, and how they negotiated their work and wage. It reveals the aristocratic estate organization not only as a workplace, but also as a training ground where knowledge circulation was as fundamental as socialization, social negotiation, and networking. At the same time, Serving Aristocracy exposes the flaws in the aristocratic mindset: the De la Gardies’ organization was hierarchical, paternalistic, and feudal, and employees were forced to live at the mercy of their masters. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/a34e030f-e42c-4217-b4c8-79f20162f099
- author
- Nilsson Hammar, Anna LU and Norrhem, Svante LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-03-01
- type
- Book/Report
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Servants, Early Modern, Early modern knowledge, aristocratic households, servant mobility, Knowledge communities
- in
- Knowledge Societies in History
- pages
- 208 pages
- publisher
- Routledge
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:86000104204
- ISBN
- 978-1-032-39728-3
- 978-1-003-35109-2
- DOI
- 10.4324/9781003351092
- project
- The Household as Academy
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a34e030f-e42c-4217-b4c8-79f20162f099
- date added to LUP
- 2025-05-13 08:17:25
- date last changed
- 2025-07-09 09:58:38
@book{a34e030f-e42c-4217-b4c8-79f20162f099,
abstract = {{Serving Aristocracy is the history of social negotiation and mobility in an early modern knowledge community, centred on the aristocratic De la Gardie family and their sphere of manors and estates in seventeenth-century Sweden. Focusing on underprivileged women and men and the knowledge community that shaped their interactions, social negotiations, and mobility, this book documents ordinary people’s lives and work in an aristocratic sphere. It uses the De la Gardie bureaucracy’s meticulous records to full effect, charting servants’ experiences, learning, and agency. The unique collection of petitions provides an invaluable insight into how servants viewed their own backgrounds, personal predicaments, and hopes for the future, and how they negotiated their work and wage. It reveals the aristocratic estate organization not only as a workplace, but also as a training ground where knowledge circulation was as fundamental as socialization, social negotiation, and networking. At the same time, Serving Aristocracy exposes the flaws in the aristocratic mindset: the De la Gardies’ organization was hierarchical, paternalistic, and feudal, and employees were forced to live at the mercy of their masters.}},
author = {{Nilsson Hammar, Anna and Norrhem, Svante}},
isbn = {{978-1-032-39728-3}},
keywords = {{Servants; Early Modern; Early modern knowledge; aristocratic households; servant mobility; Knowledge communities}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{03}},
publisher = {{Routledge}},
series = {{Knowledge Societies in History}},
title = {{Serving Aristocracy : Negotiation, Learning and Mobility in an Early Modern Knowledge Community}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003351092}},
doi = {{10.4324/9781003351092}},
year = {{2025}},
}