Kaplan, Benjamin; (2023) “Quietly in His Own Home”: The Language of Privacy in Early Modern Freedom of Conscience Laws. In: Bruun, Mette Birkedal and Kafer, Natacha Klein and Nauman, Sari, (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Privacy. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. (In press).

Text Kaplan_Copenhagen paper revised for Handbook - 2022 Sept.pdf Access restricted to UCL open access staff Download (259kB)

Abstract

This chapter undertakes a textual analysis of laws issued in early modern France, the Dutch Republic, and the Holy Roman Empire that granted ‘freedom of conscience’ to religious dissenters. The laws articulated a right held by individuals to engage privately in religious behaviours that were prohibited in public. The laws identified the space where freedom of conscience could be enjoyed in spatial, sensory, and domestic terms, equating that space with the house or home of an individual or family. In this way, the laws articulated what might be called a (limited) right to private religious dissent, and demonstrate that it is not anachronistic to speak of ‘privacy’ in the early modern era.

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