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This book by the legendary Situationist activist and author of The Revolution of Everyday Life is a fiercely partisan historical reflection on the ways religious and economic forces have shaped Western culture. Within this broad frame, Raoul Vaneigem examines the heretical and millenarian movements that challenged social and ecclesiastical authority in Europe from the 1200s into the 1500s. Although he discusses a number of different groups such as the Cathars and Joachite millenarians, his main emphasis is on the various manifestations of the movement of the Free Spirit in northern Europe. At the core of these heresies, Vaneigem sees not only resistance to the power of State and Church but also the immensely creative invention of new forms of love, sexuality, community and exchange. Vaneigem vividly portrays the radical opposition presented by these movements to the imperatives of an emerging market-based economy and he evokes crucial historical parallels with other anti-systemic rebellions throughout the history of the West. This book is particularly valuable for its translations of original texts and source materials.

Contents

Preface to the American Edition

Introduction: The Perspective of the Market and the Perspective of Life

I From the Twilight of the Bureaucrats to the Dawn of Divine Economics

Economic Totalitarianism and Its Self-Destruction

The Gods

History

Kings and Priests

Language

Christian Syncretism

II The Church Struggles to Evolve

On Philosophy

Joachite Millenarianism

Catharism

The Poverty Market

The Penitence Market

The Market in Fear and Death

On the Exorcised Woman or the Cloistered Nun

III The Principal Manifestations of the Movement of the Free Spirit from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century

The Amaurians

William Cornelius of Antwerp

The New Spirit in Swabia

Bentivenga of Gubbio

Margaret Porete

Heilwige Bloemardine

Sister Katrei

The Movement of the Free Spirit Among the Beghards and Beguines

Walter of Holland

Voluntary Poverty in Cologne: John and Albert of Brünn

The Nuns of Schweidnitz

Thomas Scoto

John Hartmann

The Men of Intelligence

The Picards or Adamites of Bohemia

Herman of Rijswick

The Alumbrados

The Loyists and Eloi Pruystinck

Quintin of Tournai and the Spiritual Libertines

IV Outline for an Anarchy of the Self

The Creation of the Self

The Materia Prima

The Athanor

The Negative and Its Treatment

Refined Love as the Basis for the Creation of a New World

Notes

Index

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From one point of view eighteenth-century England, with its settled aristocracy and gentry, its polite arts and culture, its urbane politics of interest and influence, appears as a stable, self-assured civilization. Historians have often described it as such. From another point of view it appears very differently. Year after year new capital offenses were enacted. In the heart of London great crowds assembled at the regular public hanging days, and there were riots beneath the gallows at Tyburn for the possession of the bodies of the condemned. Highwaymen beset the roads of London. Large parties of armed smugglers invested parts of the coast. The estate papers of the great sometimes reveal that they were more concerned about wholesale poaching on their lands than about rentals or crops.

This book explores these contrasts: a settled ruling class which could only rule through forms of judicial terror; a population deferential by day but deeply insubordinate by night; a class justice which defended property through the fair form of law. Instead of general description, the authors offer a number of detailed studies. An important introductory chapter discloses the way in which the law replaced religion at the center of the ideology of England's rulers, and analyzes the astonishing adaptability of the legal system to the same pressures of influence, interest, and property which dominated political life.

Contents

List of Illustrations and Maps

Abbreviations

Preface

[1] Douglas Hay: Property, Authority and the Criminal Law

[2] Peter Linebaugh: The Tyburn Riot Against the Surgeons

[3] Cal Winslow: Sussex Smugglers

[4] John G. Rule: Wrecking and Coastal Plunder

[5] Douglas Hay: Poaching and the Game Laws on Cannock Chase

[6] E. P. Thompson: The Crime of Anonymity

Appendix: A Sampler of Letters

Index of Persons and Places

Index of Subjects

About the Authors