The Dark Side of Knowledge Intersections Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture General Editor Karl A.E. Enenkel (Chair of Medieval and Neo-Latin Literature Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster e-mail: kenen_01@uni_muenster.de) Editorial Board W. van Anrooij (University of Leiden) W. de Boer (Miami University) Chr. Göttler (University of Bern) J.L. de Jong (University of Groningen) W.S. Melion (Emory University) R. Seidel (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main) P.J. Smith (University of Leiden) J. Thompson (Queen’s University Belfast) A. Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin) C. Zittel (University of Stuttgart) C. Zwierlein (Harvard University) VOLUME 46 – 2016 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/inte The Dark Side of Knowledge Histories of Ignorance, 1400 to 1800 Edited by Cornel Zwierlein LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Jode Cornelis, Totius orbis cogniti universalis descriptio [. .] 1589, in Idem – Gérard de Jode, Speculum orbis terrae (Antwerp, Cornelis and Gerard de Jode: 1593), tabula 1, after fol. 1. © Helsinki University Library, A. E. Nordenskiöld Collection. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Zwierlein, Cornel, editor. Title: The dark side of knowledge : histories of ignorance, 1400 to 1800 / [16 contributors] ; edited by Cornel Zwierlein. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2016. | Series: Intersections : Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture ; 46 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016019823 (print) | LCCN 2016021962 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004325128 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004325180 (E-book) Subjects: LCSH: Ignorance (Theory of knowledge)—History. | Ignorance (Theory of knowledge)— Social aspects. Classification: LCC BD221.D37 2016 (print) | LCC BD221 (ebook) | DDC 121—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019823 Want or need Open Access? Brill Open offers you the choice to make your research freely accessible online in exchange for a publication charge. Review your various options on brill.com/brill-open. Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1568-1181 isbn 978-90-04-32512-8 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-32518-0 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Contents Acknowledgements ix Notes on the Editor xi Notes on the Contributors xii List of Illustrations and Tables xviii Introduction: Towards a History of Ignorance 1 Cornel Zwierlein Part 1 Law 1 Law and the Uncertainty of Value in Late Medieval Marseille and Lucca 51 Daniel Lord Smail 2 Nescience and the Conscience of Judges. An Example of Religion’s Influence on Legal Procedure 70 Mathias Schmoeckel 3 Speaking Nothing to Power in Early Modern Germany: Making Sense of Peasant Silence in the Ius Commune 88 Govind P. Sreenivasan Part 2 Economy 4 Coping with Unknown Risks in Renaissance Florence: Insurers, Friars and Abacus Teachers 117 Giovanni Ceccarelli 5 (Non-)Knowledge, Political Economy and Trade Policy in Seventeenth-Century France: The Problem of Trade Balances 139 Moritz Isenmann vi CONTENTS 6 Ignorance in Europe’s State Financial Culture (Eighteenth Century) 157 Marie-Laure Legay Part 3 Semantics 7 Voluptas Carnis. Allegory and Non-Knowledge in Pieter Aertsen’s Still-Life Paintings 179 John T. Hamilton 8 Humanist Styles of Reading in the Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton 197 Taylor Cowdery 9 Coexistence and Ignorance: What Europeans in the Levant did not Read (ca. 1620–1750) 225 Cornel Zwierlein Part 4 Political and Scientific Communicaton 10 Ignorance about the Traveler: Documenting Safe Conduct in the European Middle Ages 269 Adam J. Kosto 11 International Crises as Experience of Non-Knowledge: European Powers and the ‘Affairs of Provence’ (1589–1598) 296 Fabrice Micallef 12 Dealing with Hurricanes and Mississippi Floods in Early French New Orleans. Environmental (Non-) Knowledge in a Colonial Context 314 Eleonora Rohland 13 ‘Unknown Sciences’ and Unknown Superiors. The Problem of Non-Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Secret Societies 333 Andrew McKenzie-McHarg CONTENTS vii 14 Specifying Ignorance in Eighteenth-Century Cartography, a Powerful Way to Promote the Geographer’s Work: The Example of Jean-Baptiste d’Anville 358 Lucile Haguet Part 5 Theory 15 Semantics of the Void: Empty Spaces in Eighteenth-Century German Historiography. A First Sketch of a Semiotic Theory 385 Lucian Hölscher 16 Non-Knowledge and Decision Making: The Challenge for the Historian 397 William O’Reilly Index nominum 421 Index rerum 432 Acknowledgements It was a very enlightened moment when John Locke described ignorance as the ‘dark side of knowledge’. Following him, all co-ignorants who worked and thought together for roughly three years, physically sometimes on one side of the Atlantic and sometimes on the other, were not a community of dark gothic conspirators, but tried to shed some light into those abysses. The culmination was two conferences, the first held in February 2015 at Harvard University in the History Department’s Robinson Hall, the second in April of that year at the German Historical Institute in Paris. A selected part of the papers presented has been developed into articles and are gathered in this volume. Many have helped to make this happen who deserve more than a mention in this preface, but this is all that is possible: at Harvard’s History Department the project was immediately welcomed and supported by its successive heads David Armitage and Daniel Smail, the latter even contributing to the enterprise. Joyce Chaplin chaired a whole day and Charles Donahue from the Law School the Law panel, both adding much food for thought during the discussion. John Hamilton from the German Department added his own and that department’s invaluable support. On the side of the graduate students, support by the early modernists and late medieval doctoral students was always splendid, such as by Louis Gerdelan, Devin Fitzgerald, Taylor Cowdery, Michael Tworek and Joe La Hausse Lalouviere, but also the whole group, including Rowan Dorin, Honora Spicer, Stuart McManus, and Sonia Tycko, led by Ann Blair who attended the two days, was inspiring through their comments and their interest. Ann Kaufmann, Kimberly O’Hagan and Cory Paulsen were tremendously kind and supportive for the administrative part that I could not do on my own. The event at the German Historical Institute was only made possible through the financial support of the German Science Foundation (funding line ‘International Conference’), administered through the Bochum account, and of the Institute itself. Here it was Thomas Maissen who supported the enterprise. Rainer Babel, Christine Lebeau and Wolfgang Kaiser chaired and Alessandro Stanziani contributed with a splendid ex tempore commentary. The Institute’s whole administrative staff lent a helpful hand at some point, especially noteworthy were Odile Winkenjohann and Maria David who did most of the work, and at Bochum Roxana Breitenbach remained the always reachable bridgehead. Perry Gauci, Valentin Groebner, Stefan Kaufmann, Vincenzo Lavenia, Franz Lebsanft, Matthew Mulcahy, Ulrich Pfisterer, Diego Quaglioni, Natalie E. Rothman, and Matthew Vester were helpful by supporting my work as editor with short comments on x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS selected parts of the volume during the process of editing and reviewing. My co-members of the Board of Intersections immediately accepted the proposal for the volume, Karl Enenkel as general editor, Ivo Romein, Arjan van Dijk and Gera van Bedaf from Brill were always there for any help needed. Many thanks also to the team of Asiatype Inc. for a very quick and precise type-setting. Stephen A. Walsh has edited all articles of the non-English native speakers in his usual quick, respectful, intuitive and precise way. This was not a product of any excellence initiative or large grant, the financial means were thus quite modest and organization not always easy during my time at Harvard as well as back at Bochum, sometimes with me acting as my own Mitarbeiter and Hiwi, to use the German terms. Expressing my gratitude to all those already mentioned, but most of all, thanking all of those who gave their great contributions is thus a deeply felt desire. I hope we caught all errors. Thank you all for that darksider community, may some readers have, perhaps, some inspiration and even some joy reading one or another chapter—probably enlarging darkness and light at the same time—as ignorance and knowledge are always merged indissolubly. Notes on the Editor Prof. Dr. Cornel Zwierlein earned his PhD in 2003 from the University of Munich (LMU) and the CESR Tours. He is teaching early modern and environ- mental history at the university of Bochum since 2008, early modern history since