Vita

since 2021 – Research Associate at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Legal Unity and Pluralism”, University of Münster

2021 Grant for the Completion and Wrap-up Phase, Graduate Academy, TU Dresden

2019 - 2020 Visiting Researcher, University of Warwick (UK)

2018 - 2021 PhD Scholarship of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes)

2017 - 2018 Research Associate at the Collaborative Research Centre 1285 “Invectivity. Constellations and Dynamics of Disparagement”, TU Dresden

2016 - 2017 Research Associate at the Chair for Early Modern History, TU Dresden, project: “Civilisation of Violence? A Critical Reanalysis of Premodern Sources”

2016 MA in history, TU Dresden

2013 BA in history, political science, sociology, TU Dresden

Publications

Monographs

Seebröker, Benjamin, Interpersonelle Gewalt und gesellschaftlicher Wandel. Lancashire 1728–1830 (Konflikte und Kultur 42), München 2023.

The raw data used for this publication can be accessed and downloaded via Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.8288686

Articles (peer-reviewed)

Seebröker, Benjamin: Lethal Violence in Decline? A Critical Review of Historical Homicide Rates in England, in: Crime, Histoire & Sociétés 25, 2 (2021), 33–57.
Open Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/chs.3050

Schwerhoff, Gerd/Seebröker, Benjamin/Kästner, Alexander/Voigt, Wiebke: Hard Numbers? The Long-Term Decline in Violence Reassessed. Empirical Objections and Fresh Perspectives, in: Continuity and Change 36, 1 (2021), 1–32.
Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0268416021000096

Articles

Ostrowski, Alina/Hopp, Jorrit/Seebröker, Benjamin/Bartl, Lukas/Gerstmeier, Markus/Brendel, Heiko/ Donig, Simon/Rehbein, Malte: Arbeitsmigration in der süddeutschen NS-Kriegswirtschaft. Computergestützte Datenexploration mittels historischer Geoinformation und Netzwerkanalyse, in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 74, 9/10 (2023), 550-570.

Seebröker, Benjamin: „Alles kommt vom Bergwerk her“? Städtische Identität und Bergbau in Chroniken erzgebirgischer Städte in der Frühen Neuzeit, in: Neues Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte 90 (2019), 109–128.

Articles in edited collections

Seebröker, Benjamin: Vom Tatort vors Gericht. Mündlichkeit und Verwaltungsschrifttum in englischen Gerichtsakten des 18. Jahrhunderts [forthcoming 2024].

Seebröker, Benjamin: Zur Abwesenheit konfessioneller Marker in den Strafverfolgungsakten Lancashires im langen 18. Jahrhundert, in: Gesellschaftliche Diversität und Phänomene rechtlicher Einheit und Vielfalt in der vormodernen Stadt. Effekte konfessioneller und religiöser Diversität, hrsg. v. Ulrike Ludwig (EViR Working Papers 7), Münster 2024, 77–93.
Open Access: https://doi.org/10.17879/88978695995

Kästner, Alexander/Benjamin Seebröker: Beschaffen, verwalten, begraben. Die Dresdner Anatomie und ihre Leichen, 1748-1817, in: Tiefe Einblicke. Das anatomische Theater im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, hrsg. v. Johanna Bleker/Petra Lennig/Thomas Schnalke (Kaleidogramme 167), Berlin 2018, 205–221.

Articles in Encyclopediae

Harder, Clara/ Benjamin Seebröker: Norm-Praxis-Konflikt, in: Münsteraner Glossar zu Einheit und Vielfalt im Recht, 3. Edition, (EViR Working Papers 6), Münster 2023, 117–120.
Open Access: https://doi.org/10.17879/98998690804

Book Reviews for Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung und Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte.

Research Project

Käte Hamburger Kolleg „Legal Unity and Pluralism”:  https://www.uni-muenster.de/EViR/en/index.html

Manorial Rule, 1500-1800

For a long time, historians assumed that the exercise of power in the early modern period was increasingly carried out in an absolutist manner. However, the observation that sovereigns ultimately lacked the means of power to enforce their interests against resistance led to a shift in thinking about early modern rule. Rather than being defined by a top-down enforcement of power, we now consider early modern rule a constant negotiation and mediation of rule and power (Aushandeln und Vermitteln von Herrschaft). In recent years, the cultural history of politics has traced the processes of communication which were involved in the negotiation of power and concluded that they were not a one-sided affair, but can be seen as an (unequal) dialogue between authorities and subjects. Accordingly, early modern rule can even be described as ‘acceptance-oriented’ rule (akzeptanzorientierte Herrschaft).
However, two aspects have received little attention so far: Firstly, the legal and economic preconditions of the rural subjects that formed the basis for their entering into this dialogue; secondly, the intermediate level of manorial rule (Grundherrschaft), which is likely to have played a far greater role in the everyday life of the rural population than territorial rule. It remains an open question whether we can characterise manorial rule also as ‘acceptance-oriented’ rule or whether local power relations paint a different picture.
The project addresses these questions in a comparative study of different areas of the Holy Roman Empire and pays particular attention to the development of the dynamics of rule and power over the course of the early modern period.