Cultural Transfer from Southern Atlantic to Central Europe

Historical research has dealt mainly with the impact of European cultures on the Atlantic World in early modern times. The influences of the Atlantic on the European mainland received less attention. Those studies focused either on very specific American goods, or analysed a variety of items from overseas, i.e. the Pacific and the Atlantic, preventing thereby a net distinction between the influences of the Atlanticc region from those of the Pacific. The aim of the present project is to offer a more systematic analysis of the transfer of material culture and techniques from the Southern Atlantic to Central Europe. Besides the geographical range and intensity of Atlantic influences, success and failure of transfer processes should be dealt with. Especially the role of political factors like peace or warfare should be considered. Therefore the period between 1640 and 1740 has been chosen when the relationship between the Houses of Habsbourg and Bourbon were rather tense. Finally, the project should give some hints to what extent France became more important than Spain for transmitting influences from the Southern Atlantic to the Austrian Hereditary Lands. For practical reasons the role of Northwestern Europe and of Northern Italy cannot be taken into account. The focus of the study is more a qualitative than a quantitative approach, therefore the project will be based on a variety of sources from different regions. Probate inventories, testaments, commercial and diplomatic correspondence preserved at Vienna and the capital of Inneraustria, Graz, will be studied, as these regions received the Atlantic material world. Likewise documentation from the archives of Nürnberg, Augsburg and Strassbourg will offer insight to the mediation of Atlantic influences. At Paris, Bordeaux, Nantes, Aix-en- Provence, Marseille, Simancas and Seville contacts between the Southern Atlantic and Central Europe should be looked for likewise.

The project stressed the important role of France, Spain and Italy as intermediaries between the Atlantic and Central Europe from the late 17th until the early 18th century. In France Atlantic products affected medicine, cooking and cosmetics as well as the textile industry. In Austria French style became fashionable already in the last decade of the 17th century despite political antagonism. Adopting French cloths and cooking led to the introduction of Atlantic items such as ostrich feathers, gum-Arabic and sugar. Besides French cultural brokers and migrant artisans, Italian merchant families played an important role in distributing chocolate and cacao in Inner- Austria and Westfalia alike. Previously, in the mid 17th century, chocolate was imported in chests by private noble persons to Vienna and Graz. In general, there was a decreasing quantitative presence of Atlantic items which were distributed through the Mediterranean area to Central and Northern Europe from the South to the North, but no qualitative bias could be detected. Furthermore, in the 18th century, Atlantic goods were no longer considered as exotic but either substituted more expensive Asian luxuries for a broader public, thus induced technological changes, or formed directly part of the luxurious consumption of a relatively large part of society. In spite of its material presence for the imaginary of the higher Austrian nobility the Atlantic was less relevant than Central Europe. Furthermore the project showed the importance of personal contacts through cultural brokers, migrant artisans and merchant- retailers for cultural transfer and technical innovation. Finaly, we concluded that only war really interrupted cultural transfer, at last between Paris and Vienna at the start of the 18th century.