Das offene Haus. Kommunikative Praxis im sozialen Nahraum der europäischen Frühen Neuzeit

Summary An Open House. Communication Practices in Early Modern Europe The article addresses the history of family, house and household. With the key category of the ‘open house’, two aims are pursued. Firstly, the article discusses the basic ways of communication between the actors in the house and their social environments during the early modern period. Secondly, a new concept is proposed for the study of the daily practice of living and dwelling in historical societies. In order to characterize the relevant impact of spatial arrangements, the term ‘house’ is preferred in contrast to the well-established term ‘household’. The proposed concept refers to recent discussions in social and cultural studies on the categories of ‘performance’, ‘social construction of space’ and ‘communication’ as a structured way to select social meanings. The analysis is based on four empirical examples: 1) the change of the spatial arrangement of the ‘house’ with special regard to so-called public and private spheres from th...