On the eve of modernity. Sozialdisziplinierung and religious legitimization of violence in processes of the early European modernization

Abstract. A thesis has been advanced and substantiated, that processes of the early European modernization (that’s on the eve of modernity) were intrinsically intertwined
with violence, which expressed itself, in particular, in imposition of “social discipline”. Stuff from history of the French province of Artois in the 15th century (studies by
R. Muchembled) and the Polish countryside in the 17th–18th centuries (studies by M. Korzo) got referred to. Prohibitions, restrictions, and repressions of the “social
discipline” had religious justification. These grim aspects of the early modernization left their imprint on Europe’s social development over 19th–20th centuries. Two points
have been underscored. First, repressive trends of the Early modern period arose in the late medieval period already. Second, they correlated to the specifically Catholic,
“Augustinian” system of ideas about man (anthropology). Third, they were not connected to the transition to “early capitalism” since they took place in regions of both the primary (France, Netherlands) and the secondary (Poland) modernization; thus Sozialdiziplinierung seems to appear as a process which is immanently married to the
unfolding of specifically religious contents within the “Latin” Christianity.

Keywords: “social discipline”, modernization, early modernization, social violence, religious legitimization of violence.