This is the third of three volumes from the project 'Authority and Persuasion: the Role of Commonplaces in Western Europe (c.1450-c.1800)'. The project was launched by the universities of Copenhagen, Durham and Groningen and involved scholars from a range of disciplines who researched the use of commonplaces as a means of persuasion in the early modern world. Commonplace as a technical term refers to the loci communes collected in late medieval and early modern commonplace books. In the project, however, the notion of commonplace was broadened to include means of persuasion in all kinds of texts as well as the visual arts, theatre, music and other media. This broader notion embraces metaphors, proverbs, figures, and expressions that enjoyed both a history of use in a given society or language community and a wide currency in that society. This third volume, subtitled 'Legitimation of Authority', focuses on the eighteenth century, an era in which many new political groups appeared, challenging and confronting existing rulers and elites, who in turn were forced to find alternative ways of legitimating their authority.
Although the traditional commonplace books went out of fashion, the ten contributions in this volume demonstrate that practices of quotation as well as persuasive uses of stock material did not disappear. As in the previous two volumes, the authors represented in the present one have studied the use of generalised commonplaces in different sources and genres and in various media, such as political rituals and symbols, news sources, reference books, literature and also theatre and music. The first volume concerns 'Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Revolt, and the second volume deals with 'Consolidation of God-given Power'.