This research network revisits the conceptual basis for the study of  ‘premodern European history’ in both its temporal and its spatial dimensions. It builds on the research specialization on Medieval and Early Modern History (formerly Europe 1000-1800), through which the Institute’s medievalists and early modernists have maintained lively and long-standing collaborations. These include the Medieval and Early Modern Europe seminar series, which for many years has attracted scholars and students from far and wide to discuss aspects of premodern European history in its global context.

While modernity as an analytical category has lost clarity and explanatory power, the label of ‘pre- or early modernity’ remains persistent, has even expanded, and come to include the first half of the nineteenth century. This temporal elasticity, as well as the numerous shifts in the field of premodern European history in recent years, strongly suggests an imperative to more systematically rethink the merits of and alternatives to the category. And while it is by now self-evident that European history cannot be written without considering its global dimensions, there is no clear agenda to help define what a ‘provincialized’ European history should look like. Especially considering the calls for more intensive European collaboration and ‘strategic autonomy’, the demand for reflection on and a reconceptualization of premodern European history will certainly only rise.

Over the next three years, our network will explore these issues in tandem with colleagues across Leiden, in conversation with other premodern Europeanists in the Netherlands, and with colleagues abroad.

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