Theme: Artisanal Knowledge

For the Love of Bread and Barches – The Very German-Jewish Challah Knife

~ Hannah-Lea Wasserfuhr

That Germans love bread seems to be one stereotype that is largely accurate. Given Germany’s rich baking culture, it is perhaps not surprising that it also has a long tradition of producing challot, braided loaves eaten during Shabbat. There were many expressions for challah, including Datscher, Challe, and Striezel.1 The most common terms, Barches and Berches, are derived from the word brachah, i.e., blessing. Continue reading “For the Love of Bread and Barches – The Very German-Jewish Challah Knife” →

African American Lucumí Devotees’ Adoption and Adaptation of African Diasporic Religious Knowledge in the U.S.

~ Martina Schaefer

This short piece traces how the Black Power era affected the unfolding of the transmission of African diasporic religious knowledge and how it contributed to the evolution of specifically African American variations of Lucumí in the U.S. Most historical studies examining the influence of the Black Power movement on religious expression in the U.S. focus on Christian or Muslim practices, largely overlooking African diasporic religions like Haitian Vodou or Lucumí, the Cuban variant of the Yoruba religion.1 Yet, these religions began to take root in the U.S. around the time the Black Power movement emerged on the national stage. This omission is all the more surprising in that African American Lucumí practices, in particular, illustrate how Black Power-inspired notions of identity and community found expression in a deeply religious form.2 An examination of the emergence of these religions in the U.S. shows how the expectations and experiences of the early African American devotees, who entered these religions in increasing numbers from the late 1960s onward, shaped the development of these religions in the U.S.

Continue reading “African American Lucumí Devotees’ Adoption and Adaptation of African Diasporic Religious Knowledge in the U.S.” →

Practical Kabbalah and Practical Knowledge: Kabbalistic Manuals and Natural Knowledge in Early Modern East-Central Europe

~ Agata Paluch

An impressive handwritten codex at the National Library of Israel embodies the intricacies and peculiarities of crafting, reading, and transmitting practical knowledge in early modern Jewish contexts. The volume, known today as manuscript NLI 8º 1070, was likely produced in the 1730s somewhere in the Polish territories. A variety of local Polish-Ashkenazi traditions are well attested throughout the codex: vernacular and elite, theoretical and practical, of Jewish and Christian provenance, and transmitted mainly in Hebrew and Yiddish, but with elements of Latin, German, Polish, Russian, and Ruthenian.

Continue reading “Practical Kabbalah and Practical Knowledge: Kabbalistic Manuals and Natural Knowledge in Early Modern East-Central Europe” →

More than a Manual: Early-Modern Mathematical Instrument Books

~ Boris Jardine

In Elizabethan London, one of the more surprising things a wealthy owner of a beautifully illustrated folio volume could do was to take a sharp knife and cut it to pieces. John Blagrave’s 1585 Mathematical Jewel, in fact, demands nothing less.1 This work, which introduced an elaborate instrument of Blagrave’s design for performing astronomical calculations, included woodcuts that were specifically provided in order to be cut out and used as surrogates for the brass original:

get very fine pastboord made of purpose, and then spred your paste very fine thereon, & quickly laying on this picture & clappe it streight into a presse before it bee thorowe wette with the paste (fol. ¶6v)

Continue reading “More than a Manual: Early-Modern Mathematical Instrument Books” →

The Manual as Artifact: On Artists’ Manuals and Craftsmen’s Handbooks

~ Jenny Boulboullé

On November 4, 1646, Sir Theodore de Mayerne (1573–1655), first physician to Charles I and the English Aristocracy, decided to spend his day away from his demanding patients and to devote his attention to the vibrant world of colors. He took a good handful of bilberries and carefully inspected the color of their peel and pulp. He then cooked them following a recipe for making a “very beautiful and very oriental” colorant for writing and limning. The recipe he followed has survived as part of an extensive manuscript collection dated to the first half of the seventeenth century.

Continue reading “The Manual as Artifact: On Artists’ Manuals and Craftsmen’s Handbooks” →

Popular and Specialist Artisanal Knowledge in China, Mid-Thirteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries

~ Wilson Chan

In premodern China, the population was roughly divided according to professions into four groups: literati, farmers, artisans, and merchants. During this period, artisanal knowledge was mainly transmitted in person. Most Chinese artisans were not as literate as their European counterparts, if literate at all, and written texts played a minor role in the transmission of their specialized knowledge.1 The master of a workshop taught the apprentices how to perform bodily actions by working alongside them and only transmitted written knowledge with brief and codified texts. Sometimes craft recipes were not even written down; they were memorized by masters and transferred verbally to designated successors in the craft.2

Continue reading “Popular and Specialist Artisanal Knowledge in China, Mid-Thirteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries” →

Rewriting the Book: Archaeology and Experimental Glass from the First British Colony in America

~ Umberto Veronesi

When the alchemist-priest Antonio Neri published his L’Arte Vetraria in 1612, the universe of codified knowledge could finally include a major work entirely devoted to glassmaking.[1] Although the Florentine friar was by no means the first to provide instructions on how to make glass (recipe texts are known from the second millennium BCE), never before had the effort been so comprehensive and successful.

Continue reading “Rewriting the Book: Archaeology and Experimental Glass from the First British Colony in America” →

Vicissitudes in Soldering: Reading and Working with a Historical Gold- and Silversmithing Manual

~ Thijs Hagendijk & Tonny Beentjes

In 1721, the Dutch craftsman Willem van Laer (1674–1722) published a Guidebook for Upcoming Gold- and Silversmiths. Intended as a manual to educate young novices, the Guidebook discussed a variety of different practices, techniques, and skills that ranged from assays to determine the quality of precious metals to sand mold casting and polishing (Figure 1). Four different editions, including one pirated copy, appeared in less than fifty years, attesting to its popularity. The book was explicitly aimed at teaching young readers how to do and make things. Van Laer reassured readers by saying “there will be few young gold- or silversmiths, who won’t find anything to their liking and benefit while reading this book; they will be led by hand to the knowledge of many things.”[1] Yet, however confident Van Laer might come across in this passage, there is sufficient reason to question the actual success of Guidebook at explaining and delivering these skills. Practical knowledge is often better demonstrated than written down. Van Laer was very well aware of this fact and offered disclaimers warning his readers that full comprehension of the text was only achieved when complemented with manual instruction. This begs the question of what could, in fact, be learned from the Guidebook.

Continue reading “Vicissitudes in Soldering: Reading and Working with a Historical Gold- and Silversmithing Manual” →

‘Why Write a Book? From Lived Experience to the Written Word…’

~ Editors

Pamela H. Smith, “Why Write a Book? From Lived Experience to the Written Word in Early Modern Europe,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute  47 (Fall 2010): 25–50.

In this article, Pamela Smith links the tacit and explicit knowledge of artisans in an innovative way. See also Jonathan Sheehan’s interesting review of Smith’s related book, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004).