early modern history
age consciousness
life cycle
old age
social structure and mobility
age reporting
Current Projects
My current project investigates how calendar age, i.e. age counted in years, became a powerful socio-political category in 18th-century Europe. At the beginning of the century, the usage of birth dates was confined to specific contexts, such as astrology, or funeral sermons, and individuals reported their ages, when asked by authorities, with varying degrees of accuracy. Slowly, calendar age became a vector of rising state power, as states used it first to describe populations, and then to intervene into them to extract resources and reorder them. This reached a new quality with the introduction of military conscription in the late 18th century which required the state to control its population’s ages to enlist young men.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
- 2023-4 Post-doctoral positions in Naples/Italy and Mainz/Germany
- 2018-2023 PhD in History at the European University Institute, Florence/Italy
- 2017 and 2018 Master's degrees in Heidelberg/Germany and Lund/Sweden in Political Science and Economic History
Fellowships, Prizes and Grants
- Fully funded four-year PhD grant by the German research Authority (DAAD).
- Hakan-Lindgren Prize for the Best Thesis in Economic History in Sweden (2018).
Publications
- 2023 Or do you prefer cash? Pensions in kind in pre-modern Germany and the Low Countries, Atti delle Settimane di Studi e altri Convegni, Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica ‘F. Datini’ Prato [with J. Zuijderduijn].
- 2022 Saving the Best for Last? Old Age Retirement among the Urban Middle Classes in Leiden and Regensburg (c. 1650- c. 1800), in The History of the Family, 27/2, pp. 326-349 [with J. Zuijderduijn].
- 2020 Altersvorsorge zwischen Politik, Caritas und Ökonomie – Verkauf und Preisgestaltung von Spitalpfründen im Regensburger Katharinenspital in der Frühen Neuzeit, in Dirmeier, A./Spoerer, M. (Hrsg) Spital und Wirtschaft in der Vormoderne. Sozial-karitative Institutionen und ihre Rechnungslegung als Quelle für die Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Regensburg 2020, pp. 207-34.
Presentations
- Oxford University, Nuffield College, Social and economic History Graduate Seminar, The Age of Age. Sociocultural Perspectives on Age Reporting in Early Modern Germany, 2024.
- Charles University Prague/German Historical Institute Warsaw/Prague: Harbingers of Change or Traditionalist Takeover. Crisis and Reform of Institutional Eldercare in Enlightenment-Germany, c. 1690-1750, 2023.
- University of Gothenburg/European Social Science History Conference: Old Age, Social Mobility and Saving in south Germany, 17th to 18th centuries, 2023.
- University of Toronto/Reformation and Renaissance Colloquium (Online): Purchasing a Spot in an Early Modern Retirement Home in southern Germany, 2021.