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Wealth, Consumerism, and Culture among the Artisans of Göppingen: Dynamism and Tradition in an Eighteenth-Century Hometown

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2014

Dennis A. Frey Jr.*
Affiliation:
Lasell College

Extract

April 21, 1771, brought unusual weather conditions, namely a springtime blizzard, to the Swabian town of Göppingen. We know this because the worsted-wool weaver Ernst Jacob Vayhinger wrote about it in a chronicle that he kept from 1756 to 1784. His exact words were, “The weather is also quite something. I have a barometer, which indicates the clearest weather today, and yet it is snowing so badly. The same thing happened a year ago. As the upper wind brought rain, it [the barometer] was instead showing nice conditions, and the rain was freezing cold.” While the vivid description of inclement weather certainly catches the eye, the presence of a barometer in this weaver's household in 1771 stands out even more. In fact, this weather-based technology was barely a century old in the latter half of the eighteenth century, having been invented by Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian mathematician, in 1643. To be sure, Vayhinger's malfunctioning barometer was almost certainly a water-filled glass instrument rather than the more precise mercury-based instruments of early-modern natural philosophers, but what matters here is that Vayhinger had a relatively new, ornamental wall hanging that indicated an awareness of new scientific principles. And, as this article will show, he was not at all the only one to acquire such novelties in this hometown full of Handwerker (artisans).

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association 2014 

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References

1 Stadtarchiv Göppingen (hereafter StAG), B.I.1.a., Hauschronik des Zeugmachers Ernst Jakob Vayhinger, 26. Unless otherwise noted, translations are mine.

2 From a collection of nearly 2,000 probate inventories, dating from 1738 through 1816, I determined that 1,171 (or 58.55 percent) of them came from artisanal families and were therefore viable for my study. From these, I culled 324 (or 27.67 percent of the 1,171) for analysis. Striving for random selection, as I read through the thirty-seven bound volumes for those years, I tried to select every fourth case, but occasionally that particular case was not from an artisanal household and, hence, not viable. I should also mention that I analyzed the probate inventories no matter the age of the deceased. This, I hoped, would create a sample set that would capture the artisanal households at multiple stages in their development, from young to old. See StAG, B.II.2.g. Teilungen (37 volumes; missing vol. 12, 1759–63) and Beibringen-Inventuren, 1738–1816.

3 de Vries, Jan, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, passim but especially 122–185.

4 Ibid., 124.

5 Ibid., 122.

6 Ibid., 72.

7 This work by de Vries is not without critics. For a thought-provoking, critical analysis, see Komlos, John's book review in The Journal of Modern History 82, no. 2 (2010): 435437.Google Scholar

8 De Vries, The Industrious Revolution, 126.

9 McNeely, Ian F., The Emancipation of Writing: German Civil Society in the Making, 1790s–1820s (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003)Google Scholar, 45. McNeely's work includes a finely detailed discussion of the scribes’ training and influence in the region; 27–66.

10 Ibid.

11 Mannheims, Hildegard, Wie wird ein Inventar erstellt? Rechtskommentare als Quelle der volkskundlichen Forschung (Münster: F. Coppenrath, 1991)Google Scholar. Like McNeely, Mannheims provided wonderful insight into the history of notaries, or scribes, and she also delved deeply into their influence on the documents that they created. The notaries responsible for these legal documents underwent extensive training, serving three years as an apprentice and then another three as a “Mittel-Scribent” (i.e., a journeyman in effect) before taking a state exam for licensure. Through this training, scribes learned how to record each item and its corresponding worth in Gulden and Kreuzer; during this period, the currency in Württemberg was one Gulden = sixty Kreuzer. According to Sheilagh Ogilvie's work on the weavers in the Swabian Black Forest, one Gulden equaled “7–8 days’ average earnings for a weaver in ordinary periods”; Ogilvie, Sheilagh, State Corporatism and Proto-Industry: The Württemberg Black Forest, 1580–1797 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)Google Scholar, 321. When listing items in the inventory, notaries were trained to use the following standard categories: Real Estate; Cash; Precious Items (i.e., jewelry, silverware, etc.); Books; Male Clothing; Female Clothing; Bedding (i.e., mattresses, pillows, etc.); Linens; Brass Utensils; Tin Utensils; Copper Utensils; Iron Utensils; Tinplate Utensils; Wooden Utensils; Furniture; Barrel and Binding Materials; Common Household Goods and Tools; Harness, Tack, and Building Materials; Craftsman Tools; Livestock; Produce; Foodstores; Supplies; Wine and Other Drinks; Loans; and Debts. To be sure, the rubrics did undergo certain adjustments over the course of nearly three centuries of inventory taking, but for the most part, these were the standard rubrics. For a concise summary of these relatively minor adjustments, see “Table 1: Rubrics and Sub-rubrics, 1605–1892” in Mannheims, Wie wird ein Inventar erstellt?, 98–9. Unfortunately, the notaries hardly ever recorded the rooms in which the possessions were found, thus making it somewhat difficult to pinpoint exactly where these items were located. For further details on the pros and cons of using inventories, see Hauser, Andrea, Dinge des Alltags. Studien zur historischen Sachkultur eines schwäbischen Dorfes (Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde e.V., 1994)Google Scholar, 62ff. In many regions of Württemberg, all children, regardless of gender, were considered to have an equitable claim on the inheritance. Scholars are not entirely sure why certain communities of Swabia adopted the tradition of partible inheritance, but some, such as David Sabean and Andrea Hauser, have pointed to a strong correlation between this particular pattern of estate distribution and labor-intensive activities in densely populated areas. See Sabean, David, Property, Production, and Family in Neckarhausen, 1700–1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 13–7Google Scholar (Neckarhausen is located about thirty-one kilometers to the west-southwest of Göppingen); and Hauser, Dinge des Alltags, 66–73 (Kirchentellinsfurt lies about fifty-two kilometers to the west-southwest of Göppingen). Lastly, for more examples of scholarly work with these sources, see Benscheidt, Anja, Kleinbürgerlicher Besitz. Nürtinger Handwerkerinventare von 1660 bis 1840 (Münster: Lit, 1985)Google Scholar; Medick, Hans, Weben und Überleben in Laichingen 1650–1900. Lokalgeschichte als Allgemeine Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997)Google Scholar; and Schraut, Sylvia, Sozialer Wandel im Industrialisierungsprozeß, Esslingen 1800–1870 (Esslingen: Stadtarchiv Esslingen am Neckar, 1989).Google Scholar

12 Gal Beckerman, “Empty trash. Buy milk. Forge history. To trace the great arcs of civilization, historians tap the humble list,” in Boston Sunday Globe, June 5, 2011, K1 & K4 (Ideas Section). A mention of Sheilagh Ogilvie's analysis of early modern consumerism and material culture was also broadcast by Time Magazine's Brad Tuttle, whose online article for Moneyland, “The Evolution of Keeping Up With the Joneses, as Seen in 17th Century German Villages,” echoes much of Beckerman's; http://moneyland.time.com/2011/06/08/the-evolution-of-keeping-up-with-the-joneses-as-seen-in-17th-century-german-villages/. For many more specific details about this fascinating project, I recommend visiting Sheilagh Ogilvie's most informative website, www.econ.cam.ac.uk/Ogilvie_ESRC/index.htm. It includes links to the aforementioned articles and also indicates that this endeavor has been made possible by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, which ran through 2012. In addition, see Sheilagh Ogilvie, State Corporatism and Proto-Industry; and Ogilvie, Sheilagh, A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

13 Ogilvie, A Bitter Living, 350.

14 Ogilvie, Sheilagh, “Consumption, Social Capital, and the Industrious Revolution in Early Modern Germany,” The Journal of Economic History 70, no. 2 (June 2010): 325.Google Scholar

16 Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Nice, Richard (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984)Google Scholar, 173. For the sake of clarity, the first set of ellipses replaced the following text: “houses, furniture, paintings, books, cares, spirits, cigarettes, perfume, clothes.” The second set of ellipses replaced “sports, games, entertainments, only because it is in the synthetic unity of the habitus, the unifying, generative principle of all practices.” See also Douglas, Mary and Isherwood, Baron, The World of Goods (New York: Basic Books, 1979)Google Scholar, 59, for a powerful discussion about how “all material possessions carry social meanings.”

17 For a finely detailed, critical analysis of Bourdieu's theory, see King, Anthony, “Thinking with Bourdieu against Bourdieu: A ‘Practical’ Critique of the Habitus,” Sociological Theory 18, no. 3 (Nov. 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Trentmann, Frank, “Beyond Consumerism: New Historical Perspectives on Consumption,” in Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 3 (July 2004): 387.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., 401.

20 Ibid., 373–374.

21 De Vries, The Industrious Revolution, 4.

22 Bourdieu, Pierre, The Social Structures of the Economy, trans. Turner, Chris (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), 89.Google Scholar

23 For a lively discussion of the urban networks of southwest Germany and elsewhere, see Scott, Tom and Scribner, Bob, “Urban Networks,” in Germany: A New Social and Economic History, vol. I: 1450–1630, ed. Scribner, Bob (London: Arnold, 1996): 113–43Google Scholar. See also McNeely's The Emancipation of Writing for an excellent discussion of the “civic landscape” of Württemberg.

24 Vann, James Allen, Making of a State: Württemberg, 1593–1793 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1984), 180181.Google Scholar

25 For more specifics, see Kirschmer, Karl, Die Geschichte der Stadt Göppingen, I. Teil & II. Teil (Göppingen: Illig, 1953).Google Scholar

26 For more details about the history of Zeugmacherei in Göppingen, see ibid., I. Teil, 217–25; Tröltsch, Walter, “Die Göppinger Zeugmacherei im 18. Jahrhundert und das sog. Vayhingerbuch,” in Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft im Deutschen Reich, ed. Schmoller, G. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1896)Google Scholar, passim; Hofmann, Emil, Die Industrialisierung des Oberamtsbezirkes Göppingen (Göppingen: Adolf Müller, 1910), 3363Google Scholar; and Dreher, Alexander, Göppingens Gewerbe im 19. Jahrhundert. Veröffentlichungen des Stadtarchivs Göppingen, Bd. 7 (Göppingen: Stadtarchiv Göppingen, 1971), 67Google Scholar and 45–49. Last but not least, see also Ogilvie, State Corporatism and Proto-Industry, 86–112, 129–130, and 308–63.

27 See Ogilvie, State Corporatism and Proto-Industry, 86–112 and 308–63. See also Troeltsch, Walter's classic work, Die Calwer Zeughandlungskompagnie und ihre Arbeiter. Studien zur Gewerbe- und Sozialgeschichte Altwürttembergs (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1897)Google Scholar.

28 Ogilvie, State Corporatism and Proto-Industry, 475.

29 Ibid., 129–130.

30 Kirschmer, Die Geschichte der Stadt Göppingen, I. Teil, 226.

31 Ibid., 227.

32 Ibid., 221–2.

33 Ibid., 220–222. See also Tröltsch, “Die Göppinger Zeugmacherei,” 173.

34 Kirschmer, Die Geschichte der Stadt Göppingen, I. Teil, 222.

35 Ibid., 219.

36 Ibid., 223f.

37 Ibid., 224. See also Troeltsch, Die Calwer Zeughandlungskompagnie for details about the commercial networks and markets for these woolen worsteds.

38 Kirschmer, Die Geschichte der Stadt Göppingen, I. Teil, 224.

39 Ibid., 225.

40 StAG, B.II.7.c. Commerzienregister, 1754–1824. See Table 1A in the appendices for exact figures.

41 StAG, B.I.1.a. Hauschronik des Zeugmachers Ernst Jakob Vayhinger, 26.

42 Kirschmer, Die Geschichte der Stadt Göppingen, II. Teil, 37ff.

43 I have argued this elsewhere in much more detail. See Frey, Dennis Jr., “Industrious Households: Survival Strategies of Artisans in a Southwest German Town during the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” in Household Strategies for Survival 1600–2000: Fission, Faction, and Cooperation, ed. Fontaine, Laurence and Schlumbohm, Jürgen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 115136Google Scholar; and Dennis Frey, Jr., “Industrious Households: Wealth Management and ‘Handwerker’ Strategies in Göppingen, 1735–1865” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1998).

44 See Walter Tröltsch, “Die Göppinger Zeugmacherei,” 172, for 1730; and StAG, B.II.6.a., Seelenregister 1800–08, for 1800.

45 Hofmann, Die Industrialisierung des Oberamtsbezirkes Göppingen, 4.

46 Prak, Maarten, ed., Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe, 1400–1800 (London: Routledge, 2001)Google Scholar, 19. In particular, see Jan de Vries's contribution to the volume, chap. 10, “Economic Growth before and after the Industrial Revolution: A Modest Proposal,” 175–192. And for the economic developments in Göppingen, see Hoffmann, Die Industrialisierung des Oberamtsbezirkes Göppingen.

47 Bourdieu, Distinction, 114. Here, Bourdieu argued that capital has not only manifold forms, but also that it should be “understood as the set of actually usable resources and powers.”

48 For a thorough and thought-provoking discussion of both the “positive economic role played by borrowing” and its “darker side,” see Ogilvie, Sheilagh, Küpker, Markus, and Maegraith, Janine, “Household Debt in Early Modern Germany: Evidence from Personal Inventories,” The Journal of Economic History 72, no. 1 (March 2012): 134167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Mohrmann, Ruth-E., Alltagswelt im Land Braunschweig. Städtische und ländliche Wohnkultur vom 16. bis zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Münster: F. Coppenrath, 1990)Google Scholar, 600. See also Roeck, Bernd, Civic Culture and Everyday Life in Early Modern Germany (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Press, 2006), 4550.Google Scholar

50 Medick, Weben und Überleben, 407.

51 StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 8.2–565.5 (1752). The inventory was for Maria Ursula, the spouse of Cornelius. As was customary for the time period, the notary listed this object, worth twenty Kreuzer, under Gemeiner Hausrath (common household goods).

52 StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 18.2–478.5 (1778), 25.2–539.5 (1794), 32.2–341.5 (1806), 34.2–53 (1810), 37.2–163.5 (1815), 37.2–525.5 (1816), and 37.2–588 (1816). In most of these cases, the notaries recorded more than just one or two paintings. To know the content of these paintings and engravings would, of course, be a boon for any study of consumption and culture, but only one of the inventories went into such detail: 34.5–53 (1810)—“Stadt Göppingen in Rahmen eingefaßt__45 Kreuzer.”

53 For an extremely informative discussion of bürgerlich culture, see Sheehan, James J., German History, 1770–1866 (Oxford: Oxford University, 1989), 535–40Google Scholar and 794–805.

54 StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, 21.2–61 (1783). The piano was valued at “1 Gulden 30 Kreuzer.” Two other rare cases were 21.2–153 (1784) and 21.2–244 (1784), because in those inventories, the notary recorded “1. eiserne Ofen” and “Vor 2. alte Ofen.” Apparently, the scribe at work during this time had a keen eye for detail.

55 Weatherill, Lorna, “The Meaning of Consumer Behavior,” in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. Brewer, John and Porter, Roy (London and New York: Routledge, 1994)Google Scholar, 216. See the following for further details on this phenomenon: van Dülmen, Richard, Kultur und Alltag in der Frühen Neuzeit. Bd. 1 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1990)Google Scholar, 69; Schama, Simon, Embarassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), 171–2Google Scholar; and John E. Wills, Jr., “European Consumption and Asian Production” in Consumption and the World of Goods, 133–46, but particularly 140–3.

56 StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 19.2–1780: 1. Caffe Kant mit Schaalen__10 Kreuzer. These items were listed under Gemeiner Hausrath (common household utensils), so it remains impossible to determine the materials from which they were made; however, Schaalen almost certainly implies that the pot and cups were of porcelain. See also 21.2–61 (1783)—Anna Maria Müller's, which listed “1. coffee mill [worth] 40 Kreuzer” under the category of Mößgeschirr (brass utensils); 23–209.5 (1789)—Anna Barbara's; and 24.2–405.5 (1792)—Ernst Jacob's.

57 See the following reprint on pages 288 to 302 of Mannheims's Wie wird ein Inventar erstellt?: Röslin, Adam Israel, Abhandlung von Inventuren und Abtheilungen (Stuttgart, 1761)Google Scholar. These additions remained intact in the nineteenth-century handbooks by Stein, Albert Heinrich, Handbuch des Würtembergischen Erb-Rechts (Stuttgart, 1827)Google Scholar; and by John, L. F., Inventur-Büchlein oder Hausstirer (Stuttgart, 1832)Google Scholar, which are also reprinted in Mannheim's Wie wird ein Inventar erstellt?, 303–328.

58 Roche, Daniel, The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the 18th Century, trans. Evans, Marie (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987)Google Scholar, 193. Among the many other fine studies of clothing in early-modern Europe, see the following for more detail on central Europe: Benscheidt, Kleinbürgerlicher Besitz; Knüttel, Barbara, Manns- und Weibskleider in Unterfranken (Würzburg: Richard Mayr, 1983)Google Scholar; Medick, Weben und Überleben, 379–446; Meiners, Uwe, “Stufen des Wandels,” in Wandel der Alltagskultur seit dem Mittelalter, ed. Wiegelmann, Günter (Münster: Waxmann, 1987): 266308Google Scholar; and Hauser, Dinge des Alltags.

59 Calamink was a type of woolen cloth, patterned usually with florals or stripes, from the Netherlands. A Leible was a bodice. Chagrine was a type of dyed parchment often used for bonnets. StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 1.38–109.5 (1738).

60 Barchent was a thick, twill cloth woven from a blend of cotton and linen or from cotton alone. StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 1.38–109.5 (1738).

61 In her study of material culture among the Handwerker in Nürtingen, Benscheidt found that trousers were made “seldomly from wool or woolen-worsted” during the early eighteenth century; instead, “in more than half of all the cases” they were made from leather. Benscheidt, Kleinbürgerlicher Besitz, 116. And, according to Ernst Schubert, “[d]espite all the changes in clothing style, and all the regional specialties in working clothes, one piece of clothing was worn everywhere, in both north and south, among both the lower and the middling strata: Lederhosen (leather trousers), the jeans of the eighteenth century, worn with colored stockings and bound together below the knee.” Benscheidt, Kleinbürgerlicher Besitz, 362.

62 Medick, Weben und Überleben, 416–419.

63 StAG, B.I.1.a., Hauschronik des Zeugmachers Ernst Jakob Vayhinger, 45–6.

64 Ibid.

65 This piece of clothing was essentially a vest with sleeves, usually worn as an under-jacket. According to Barbara Knüttel, the Kamisol “was a more rural style” that was eventually replaced at the end of the eighteenth century by the French fashion of a vest without sleeves; Knüttel, Manns- und Weibskleider in Unterfranken, 74–9.

66 Presumably the same as Calamink, which was a type of fine woolen cloth, usually patterned with florals or stripes, from the Netherlands.

67 Presumably, “Fittschier” is synonomous with “Pettschier,” which implies a ring with a stamp used for sealing-wax.

68 A type of woolen cloth.

69 A Büble was a snug-fitting jacket worn by women.

70 A Meerrohr, or meerschaum pipe.

71 As argued by van Dülmen, men in the Germanies still wore, during the last half of the eighteenth century, “shoes and stockings, breeches and a doublet, [and] often over all that, a jacket or a coat, with hats also serving a crucial, symbolic role,” while women's attire usually consisted of “shoes, undergarments, and skirts, then a bodice, [a] head-scarf or a bonnet (hat).” Van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag, 75.

72 A Spanisch Rohr was a walking stick, that, according to Barbara Knüttel, became quite popular among all of society in the region of Ochsenfurt between the years of 1772 and 1812; Knüttel, Manns- und Weibskleider in Unterfranken, 96f. Apparently, though, this novel item arrived in Göppingen society somewhat earlier, which, given Göppingen's ideal location between Stuttgart and Ulm, is not too surprising. Barchent was a thick, twill cloth woven from a blend of cotton and linen or from cotton alone. Charlachen was a light red, fine woolen cloth. Damask was a reversible cotton, linen, or silk fabric with a pattern woven into it. StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, Zubringens Inventuren vom 23. Jan. 1750 biß 20. Febr. 1756, 561b.

73 From 1797 to 1816, about every fourth household had a pocket watch, usually made of silver, but at least one gold watch was listed. See StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 26.2–477.5 (1797), 27.2–336.5 (1798), 30.2–76.5 (1802), 30.2–169.5 (1803), 31.2–330.5 (1805), 31.2–444 (1805), 32.2–276 (1806), 32.2–409.5 (1807), 32.2–420 (1807), 32.2–544.5 (1807), 32.2–399 (1807), 33.2–528 (1809), 34.2–53 (1810), 34.2–223.5 (1810), 34.2–259 (1811), 34.2–542 (1811), 34.2–362.5 (1811), 35.2–2 (1811), 35.2–458 (1812), 36.2–178.5 (1812), 36.2–462.5 (1814), 37.2–163.5 (1815), 37.2–50.9 (1816), 37.2–525.5 (1816), and 37.2–588 (1816). The sample set from 1797 to 1816 totaled ninety, with the aforementioned twenty-five (or 27.8 percent) including a pocket watch.

74 Bourdieu, Distinction, 375.

75 Hunt, Alan, Governance of the Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996)Google Scholar, 42.

76 See Ogilvie, A Bitter Living, 136–137.

77 Ibid.

78 See Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions, 214; and Ogilvie, A Bitter Living, 136.

79 Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions, 186.

80 Ogilvie, “Consumption, Social Capital, and the Industrious Revolution,” 306, and see 310 for her focus on the century from ca. 1650 to ca. 1750. See also Muzzarelli, Maria Giuseppina,“Reconciling Privilege of a Few with the Common Good: Sumptuary Laws in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 39, no. 3 (Fall 2009)Google Scholar, especially where she reviews the work and theories of Neithard Bulst about German sumptuary law.

81 Howell, Martha, “The Gender of Europe's Commercial Economy, 1200–1700,” Gender & History 30, no. 3 (November 2008): 524525.Google Scholar

82 Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions, 42.

83 Möller, Helmut, Die kleinbürgerliche Familie im 18. Jahrhundert. Verhalten und Gruppenkultur (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1969)Google Scholar, 146.

84 Ibid., 279–321.

85 During the period studied, books were also categorized in both marriage and death inventories, and even received their own heading, “Bücher.” For more details about the notarial focus on books, see Mannheims, Wie wird ein Inventar erstellt?, 277, 291–2, 305, and 317.

86 Medick, Weben und Überleben, 465 (Table 6.2); and Benscheidt, Kleinbürgerlicher Besitz, 154 and 195.

87 Hauser, Dinge des Alltags, 295.

88 Cp. StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, 7–75 (1749) and StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 19.2–262 (1780); StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, Zubringens Inventuren 1768–72, 4–82b (1768) and StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 19.2–113.5 (1779); StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, Zubringens Inventuren vom 23. Jan. 1750 biß 20. Febr. 1756, 490 (1755) and StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 23–209.5 (1789); StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, Zubringens Inventuren vom 13. Jun. x. 1779. bis. 31. Merz. x. 1784., 427 (1783) and StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 239–11a (1827); StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, Zubringens Inventuren, 1802–1807, 12–87b (1803) and StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 237–40 (1826); StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, 5. Band, 1772–76, 354 (1776) and StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 239–32b (1827); and StAG, B.II.2.g., Beibringen-Inventuren, Zubringens Inventuren vom 13. Jun. x. 1779. bis. 31. Merz. x. 1784., 209b (1781); and StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 239–57 (1827).

89 See Benscheidt, Kleinbürgerlicher Besitz, 223–4; and Medick, Weben und Überleben, 449–50.

90 StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 1.38–321 (1742). This arithmetic book written by Faulhaber was valued at “10 Kreuzer.” Mathematic texts were not unusual items during the eighteenth century, for, as argued by John Money, “[m]athematical writing was not only extensively spread; it also involved a wide range of occupations” in at least England: “Teaching in the market place, or ‘Caesar adsum jam forte: Pompey aderat’: the retailing of knowledge in provincial England during the eighteenth century”; in Brewer and Porter, eds., Consumption and the World of Goods, 340.

91 See StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 6.2–525 (1749); 8.2–279 (1751); 8.2–779.5 (1752); 10.2–189.5 (1756); 13.2–202 (1763); 13.2–299 (1764); 13.2–361.5 (1764); 17.2–66 (1772)—this inventory was for Christina Vayhinger, the mother of our chronicler, Ernst Jacob; 17.2–94 (1774); 25.2–88 (1792); and 30.2–398 (1803).

92 See StAG, B.II.2.g., Inventuren & Teilungen, 8.2–443 (1751); 10.2–422.5 (1756); 10.2–432 (1756); 25.2–88 (1792); and 28.2–623.5 (1800). The wealthy Thebarths, who wove woolen cloth as their primary craft, owned thirty-three books in 1751, and five of them revolved around the following subjects: law––“1. large Legal Code; 1. Building Ordinance; [and] 1. State Ordinance”; history––“1. Chronicle”; and geography––“1. Hübners Geography.” Two of the eight books owned in 1756 by the middling Magers, butchers, also had legal subjects: “1. Landrecht [and] 1. Buchallerhand Ordnungen” (i.e., Book of Various Ordinances). In 1792 Johann Georg Fahrion, a wealthy guild master of the bakers and a member of the town council, owned a number of unusual secular titles among the thirty books in his collection. They included “Josefi judische Geschichte [Flavius Josephus's Jewish History], Abhandlung von Tabakpflanzen [Treatise on Tobacco-Plants] [and] Paracelsus natürl. Zauber Magazin [Paracelsus's Natural Magic Magazine].” He also owned a couple of the titles already mentioned in previous cases: “Hübners Geographie [and] 1. Rechenbuch.” The rich purse-maker named Philipp Endriß had one of the largest household libraries in Göppingen in 1800, and although the majority of the family's fifty-five items dealt with the standard religious topics, there were still some unique secular titles: “1. Zeitungs Lexikon [Newspaper Lexicon]; Emigrations Geschichte [History of Emigration]; Beschreibung eines preußischen Feldzugs [Description of a Prussian Army]; Beschreibung von der Pfalz [Description of the Palatinate]; [and] Eßigs Welt Historien [Eßig's World Histories].”

93 See Benscheidt, Kleinbürgerlicher Besitz; Hauser, Dinge des Alltags, 296; and Medick, Weben und Überleben. All three argue that hymnals also predominated in other towns and villages of Württemberg. For more details about the place of Gesangbücher in the broader history of Pietism, see Lehman, Hartmut, ed., Geschichte des Pietismus. Band 4: Glaubenswelt und Lebenswelten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 121142.Google Scholar

94 Brastberger, Immanuel Gottlob, Evangelische Zeugnisse der Wahrheit zur Aufmunterung im wahren Christenthum (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1912), 188–9.Google Scholar

95 Ibid., 97 and 134ff. See Medick, Weben und Überleben, 556–7, for yet other passages with this theme.

96 Lehmann, Hartmut, Pietismus und weltliche Ordnung in Württemberg vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969)Google Scholar, 127. See also 15 and 68f. For additional details on Bengel's seminal influence for Pietism in Württemberg, see the following: Wallmann, Johannes, Der Pietismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 129137Google Scholar; Schicketanz, Peter, Der Pietismus von 1675 bis 1800 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2001), 143149Google Scholar; and Brecht, Martin and Deppermann, Klaus, eds., Geschichte des Pietismus. Band 2: Der Pietismus im achtzehnten Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 247265Google Scholar. More recent research has argued that the theological work of Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782), born and raised—it must be noted—in Göppingen, also served as pivotal to the unique Pietism of Württemberg. See Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 137–143, and Brecht and Deppermann, eds., Geschichte des Pietismus. Band 2, 269–288.

97 Scharfe, Martin, Die Religion des Volkes. Kleine Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte des Pietismus (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1980)Google Scholar, 84f; see also Medick, Weben und Überleben, 551f. Both scholars argue that these two paths were vividly portrayed in a number of representations that became basically a standard motif included in many texts of the time.

98 Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 123.

99 Brecht and Deppermann, eds., Geschichte des Pietismus. Band 2, 226.

100 Ibid., 230.

101 Ibid. See also Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 125.

102 Wallmann, Der Pietismus, 123. For a fuller discussion of this document, see Brecht and Deppermann, eds., Geschichte des Pietismus. Band 2, 245–247.

103 Lehman, ed., Geschichte des Pietismus. Band 4, 124.

104 Ibid., 123.

105 Ibid.

106 Medick, Weben und Überleben, 556. According to Sabean, David's classic work, Kinship in Neckarhausen, 1700–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)Google Scholar, durchzukommen “meant to come through life debt-free, with each child properly established and the parents’ honor intact”; 323.

107 Lehman, ed., Geschichte des Pietismus. Band 4, 574. Gestrich is careful to differentiate this worldly ethic from Max Weber's notion of work becoming internalized as a “religious virtue,” arguing that “work became the Kreuzes-Schul of tribulation and distress for the already troubled believers.”

108 Ibid., 609.

109 LaVopa, Anthony J., “Vocations, Careers, and Talent: Luther Pietism and Sponsored Mobility in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28, no. 2 (April 1986): 286.Google Scholar

110 McNeely, The Emancipation of Writing, 22.

111 Jürgen Schlumbohm, “Labour in Proto-Industrialization: Big Questions and Micro-Answers,” in Early Modern Capitalism, ed. Prak, 133.

112 De Vries, The Industrious Revolution, 122.