Timing the Self in Sixteenth-Century Augsburg: Veit Konrad Schwarz (1541-61)
View / Open Files
Authors
Publication Date
2017-11-14Journal Title
German History
ISSN
0266-3554
Publisher
OUP
Volume
35
Issue
4
Pages
495-524
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Hanss, S. (2017). Timing the Self in Sixteenth-Century Augsburg: Veit Konrad Schwarz (1541-61). German History, 35 (4), 495-524. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghx105
Abstract
This article explores the interrelated notions of time and the self in sixteenth-century Augsburg. It focuses on Veit Konrad Schwarz, a young Augsburg patrician, and his ‘Little Book of Clothes’ (1561). Veit circumvented the invisibility of time by making the material culture of temporality an essential part of his self-representation. The visual representation of timing the self was a significant skill, and self-narratives such as Veit’s served to represent a person’s connoisseurship in managing time. The article adopts a twofold approach to the inter-relationship of self and time during the early modern period. First, genitures, horoscopes and birthdays are shown to have been significant for the representation of notions of time and practices of dating. Birth-referential timing shaped understandings of life and personhood within early modern groups. Secondly, by examining how Veit addressed both missed and anticipated moments in his manuscript’s key narrative about the transition of a youth into a man, the article shows that managing a proper balance between moments and timespans served to demonstrate a person’s proficiency in recognizing moments that were appropriate for action, for description and for illustration.
Keywords
time, self, self-narrative, astrology, horoscope, birthday
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghx105
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/271101
Rights
Licence:
http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.