11 December, 2024, Helsinki
Pedro Cardim from Nova University Lisbon will present a lecture at Helsinki,
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM (local time)
University of Helsinki Main Building, Room U3039
Click here for further details including Zoom link
Abstract:
The corporate character of early modern Western European societies has been a longstanding subject of academic study. The aim of this survey is to assess the extraordinary potential, but also some of the limitations of this interpretive framework. Focusing on the early modern Spanish and Portuguese monarchies and the place of corporations in their social and political order, the first part of this presentation highlights the main features of corporate societies in early modern Iberia. It then turns to two prominent components of this form of social organization: legal pluralism and jurisdictional politics. The third part is devoted to a reflection on the limitations of this way of understanding the social and political order upon which premodern societies rested. Apart from presenting an overview of the scholarly work on early modern corporate societies, this historiographic survey ultimately advocatesfor the importance of this kind of analytical framework for understanding early modern Iberia.
