Christoph Meiners’ History of the Female Sex (1788–1800): The orientalisation of Spain and German nationalism § Lara Anderson a, *, Heather Merle Benbow b, ** a Spanish Studies, School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia b German Studies, School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia Introduction The autodidact Christoph Meiners (1747–1810), son of a postmaster, was a voracious reader and prolific writer who at the age of 25 became professor of philosophy at the University of Go ¨ ttingen. His scholarly output during his tenure there was vast, particularly in the emerging areas of psychology, ethnology, comparative religion and cultural history. These many works have not stood the test of time, and Meiners is today largely remembered for his later work on the history of the German university. Yet it is worth re-visiting this peripatetic ‘‘armchair traveller,’’ who like so many of his contemporaries barely ventured outside his provincial homeland, for his History of the Female Sex is the most significant of the few ‘‘women’s histories’’ produced during the German Enlightenment, and although now little read, was frequently cited well into the nineteenth century. 1 History of European Ideas 35 (2009) 433–440 ARTICLE INFO Available online 11 August 2009 Keywords: Meiners Eighteenth century Germany Spain Gender ABSTRACT This article investigates the portrayal of Spanish women in a rarely discussed work by the German popular philosopher Christoph Meiners (1747–1810). Between 1788 and 1800 Meiners wrote four substantial volumes titled History of the Female Sex: Comprising a View of the Habits, Manners, and Influence of Women, Among all Nations, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time, which sought to give an account of the physical and moral qualities of women, and their treatment at the hands of men ‘‘at all times in all lands’’ (Vol. 1, p. III). This article explores the two chapters of this work that address the qualities and status of Spanish women, in order to shed light on perceptions of Spain in northern Europe in the eighteenth century. The decline of the Iberian Peninsula as a seat of European imperial power from the seventeenth century, and the emergence of northern European countries such as France, the British Isles, and even the German provinces, as centres of Enlightenment thinking ushered in a new era of geographical dualism in Europe. This article will build upon recent critiques of the ‘‘Orientalisation’’ of Spain by northern Europeans, showing how the marginalisation of Spain served the nationalist strivings of this provincial German scholar. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. § Heather Merle Benbow would like to thank the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge, for support towards this research. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 8344 4917; fax: +61 3 9347 0424. ** Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 8344 5102; fax: +61 3 9347 0424. E-mail addresses: laraba@unimelb.edu.au (L. Anderson), benbow@unimelb.edu.au (H.M. Benbow). 1 Christoph Meiners, History of the Female Sex: Comprising a View of the Habits, Manners, and Influence of Women, among all Nations, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time, four volumes, trans. Frederic Shoberl (London: Henry Colburn, 1808). Subsequent references will be made in-text in parentheses including volume and page number. On the fate of the ‘‘gender histories’’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, who attributes the decline of the genre to the emergence of history, philosophy and anthropology as separate disciplines in the nineteenth century. Gender histories such as those of Meiners, that were a fusion of all these disciplines, came to be seen as sloppy scholarship: ‘Va ¨ ter der Frauengeschichte? Das Geschlecht als historiographische Kategorie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert’, Historische Zeitschrift, vol. 262, no. 1 (2006), 59. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect History of European Ideas journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/histeuroideas 0191-6599/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2009.07.001