Allies in the Cause of Italian Music: Schütz, Prince Johann Georg II and Musical Politics in Dresden

2000 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Mary E. Frandsen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Collaborative Effort ◽  
Hiring Decisions ◽  
Italian Music ◽  
The Right

In the seventeenth century the process of appointing court musicians was often complicated by struggles between conflicting agendas. Recently discovered letters of Saxon Prince Johann Georg II (1613–80) document the nature of the process in Dresden during the tenure of court Kapellmeister Heinrich Schütz, and the attempts of Schütz and the prince to steer Elector Johann Georg I's hiring decisions in a direction that would further their cause: the cultivation of an awareness of the modern Italian style of singing in the Dresden court musicians. The letters reveal the previously unknown collaborative effort of Schütz and the prince to fill the position of vice-Kapellmeister with the ‘right’ musician (i.e. an Italian or Italian-trained one), and to keep the ‘wrong’ man out of the job. In the course of this enterprise, the prince participated in the negotiations for several appointments, including that of Christoph Bernhard, whom he then sent to a northern court to study with an Italian singer. Although the collaborators' mission ended in failure, the story of their efforts casts light on the musical politicking at a seventeenth-century court and on the implications such campaigns had for the lives of individual musicians.

Contract

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicia Roșu
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
The Right

Chapter 4 focuses on the contracts imposed on rulers in elective monarchies, which made their position on the throne conditional. The Polish-Lithuanian conditions, known as the Henrician articles (or the pacta conventa) were significantly more complex than those used in Transylvania in the 1570s and 1580s; only in the seventeenth century did the latter become similarly elaborate. Moreover, the Transylvanian conditions were mostly negative promises (i.e. to abstain from abusing power or infringing the liberties of citizens), whereas the Polish-Lithuanian ones included positive ones as well (to bring financial, strategic, or military aid, and to resolve certain domestic issues). The chapter analyses the extent to which Stephen Báthory observed his electoral contract during his Transylvanian and Polish-Lithuanian reigns, particularly the interdiction of hereditary succession, religious peace, and the right of disobedience.

The Pope’s Right to Elect his Successor: The Criterion of Sovereignty?

1991 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 233-244
Author(s):  
Diana Wood
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Perfect Form ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
The Right

One of the ‘Problems of Sovereignty’ addressed by Michael Wilks in his magisterial study is whether the pope can appoint his own successor.’ It was, of course, a particularly pressing problem for any prince who had no natural heir, either because of his own deliberate celibacy, or, if he had children, because there was no established rule of hereditary succession. In the seventeenth century Thomas Hobbes saw the right to appoint a successor, and thus to perpetuate what he calls the ‘artificial eternity’ of the commonwealth, as an essential attribute of sovereignty: There is no perfect form of government, where the disposing of the succession is not in the present sovereign. For if it be in any other particular man or private assembly, it is in a person subject, and may be assumed by the sovereign at his pleasure; and consequently the right is in himself.’ He also pinpointed the problems which would arise without this attribute: ‘If it be known who have the power to give the sovereignty after his [the ruler’s] death it is known also that the sovereignty was in them before; for none have right to give that which they have not right to possess, and keep to themselves, if they think good.’ Moreover, if the sovereign cannot appoint his successor ‘then is the commonwealth dissolved; and the right is in him that can get it.’

The Ryukyu Kingdom under the Bakuhan System

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mamoru Akamine
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Tax Assessment ◽  
System P ◽  
The Right

Toyotomi Hideyoshi moved to unify Japan and gave the Shimazu clan in Satsuma the right (not acknowledged by Ryukyu) to control Ryukyu. Satsuma successfully invaded Ryukyu in 1609, forcing King Shō Nei to accompany them to Edo to honor the Tokugawa Shogun, who agreed to allow the Ryukyu royal government to continue functioning as is, asking them to mediate in Japan-China relations. China balked and reduced Ryukyu trade missions drastically. In early 1600s, Tokugawa fear of Christianity led to isolationist sakoku policy; Ryukyu included. From 1630s, Ryukyu was subject to Japan’s rice tax assessment, as part of Satsuma. From 1630s, Ryukyu begins to send periodic envoys to Edo (Edo-nobori, or Edo-dachi). Satsuma tightened control over Ryukyu’s trade activities. This chapter examines the complicated trade strategies that developed between Japan, Satsuma, Ryukyu, and China. With the Qing Dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century, Ryukyu tribute envoys also become intelligence “agents” for Satsuma.

Sufi Cosmopolitanism in the Seventeenth-century Indian Ocean: Sharīʿa, Lineage and Royal Power in Southeast Asia and the Maldives

2018 ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
A. C. S. Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
State Building ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Right ◽  
Indian Ocean World

Peacock’s chapter examines the circulation of Seventeenth-century Sufi scholars to the ‘contested peripheries’ of the Indian Ocean. He argues that notable Muslim Sufi shaykhs did not travel to maritime kingdoms such as Banten, Aceh, and the Maldives to learn from locals, but rather to propagate ‘shariʿa-minded piety’ focused on ‘commanding the right and forbidding the wrong’. Peacock describes how the ambitions of religious scholars like the Syrian Qādirī preacher Muḥammad Shams al-Dīn intersected with early modern state-building in the Indian Ocean world. This chapter chronicles how Shams al-Dīn not only gained great political influence in Aceh, but was even made the actual ruler of the Maldives after his followers overthrew the sultan there. Peacock concludes that the cosmopolitanism of Sufi itinerants relied less on the fusion of pre-Islamic and Islamic practices than on universalist agendas of social transformation founded upon prophetic Sunna and enacted through the mechanisms of political coercion.

Cultures of collecting

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-164
Author(s):  
David Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Book Collecting ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Material Evidence

Studies of private libraries and their owners invariably talk about ‘book collecting’—is this the right terminology? After summarizing our broadly held understanding of the evolution of bibliophile collecting from the eighteenth century onwards, this chapter considers the extent to which similar behaviours can be detected (or not) in the seventeenth, drawing on the material evidence of bookbindings, wording in wills, and other sources. Do we find subject-based collecting, of the kind we are familiar with today, as a characteristic of early modern book owners? Some distinctions are recognized in ways in which medieval manuscripts (as opposed to printed books) were brought together at this time. The relationship between libraries and museums, and contemporary attitudes to them, is explored. The concluding argument is that ‘collecting’ is a careless word to use in the seventeenth-century context; just as we should talk about users rather than readers, we should use ‘owners’ rather than ‘collectors’ as the default term, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Charmed Circle: Stonehenge, Contemporary Paganism, and Alternative Archaeology

Numen ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 138-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole M. Cusack
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Popular Narrative ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
New Religions ◽  
Invented Tradition ◽  
The Right ◽  
Contemporary Paganism ◽  
A Site ◽  
English Heritage

AbstractThe impressive stone circle Stonehenge is understood by academic archaeologists to be a site of ritual significance to the prehistoric inhabitants of Wiltshire. It is constructed on cosmological principles based on a solar alignment, reflecting “a distinctive idea of time, which revolved around the cyclical movements of sun, moon, and stars across the heavens, as indicators of the passing seasons” (Fagan 1998:160). This article sketches mainstream archaeological interpretations of Stonehenge, then contrasts them with the popular narrative of its Druidic origin and purpose, which emerged in the seventeenth century. Modern Druids have negotiated the right to perform rituals at Stonehenge with English Heritage, the custodial body with responsibility for the monument, and Druidry has been recognised as a religion in the United Kingdom in 2010 (Beckford 2010). Modern Druidry, an “invented tradition,” conflicts with academic archaeology in its claims regarding Stonehenge (Chippindale 1986:38–58). Postmodern archaeological theories, which privilege “popular folk archaeology” (Holtorf 2005b:11), are more open to vernacular interpretations of artifacts and sites. These perspectives are broadly compatible with the deregulated religio-spiritual marketplace of the twenty-first century, which is characterized by a plethora of new religions and a pluralistic model of religious truth.1

A Seventeenth-century Portrait Miniature of Charles II as Prince of Wales?

2003 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 492-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A Rickard
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Flat Plate ◽  
Good Condition ◽  
Left Shoulder ◽  
Country House ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Blue Background ◽  
The Right ◽  
Flat Back

This small portrait miniature emerged in the sale, by an anonymous vendor, of part of the contents of a country house near Stamford, in Lincolnshire, on 16 February 2002. The image is painted in watercolour on a pale carnation ground with a support of either card or vellum and is in good condition with only one marginal abrasion. To the right of the miniature, against the pale blue background and parallel to the boy's left shoulder, is the monogram of ‘G’ above ‘I’. The frame is an oval seventeenth-century silver locket with a flat back measuring 33mm × 28mm. The convex glass is held in place by a gold band, and attached to the back is a gold loop secured by a thin flat plate, which is possibly a later addition.

"FREELY ELECTED IN FEAR": PRINCELY ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL POWER IN EARLY MODERN TRANSYLVANIA

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Murdock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Sufficient Power ◽  
The Right ◽  
Broad Consensus

AbstractTransylvania's survival was threatened by both its Habsburg and Ottoman neighbors. Given this precarious international position, ruling princes required sufficient power to govern effectively, and also needed to maintain a broad consensus for their right to exercise authority over the diverse political elite. A successful balance of power between princes and the estates was built around the freedoms granted to a number of different churches, and around the right of the diet to elect princes. This article examines the elections of Gábor Bethlen and other Calvinist princes in Transylvania during the early seventeenth century. Even though these elections were rarely free or fair, they provided a key basis for the growing political authority of princes who were widely identified as divinely-appointed rulers. Transylvania thus provides a model of a competence for elective monarchy, a form of political organization often thought to lead inevitably to unstable and ineffective government.

scholarly journals SELF: THE LIMITS OF AUTONOMY

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
GERALD IZENBERG
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Western Concept ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
European Thought

If one is looking for the authoritative work on the history of the modern Western concept of “self,” the place to go is Jerrold Seigel's The Idea of the Self. It is a wide-ranging, deeply insightful account of Western thinking about the nature of selfhood in Britain, France, and Germany since Descartes, framed by a powerfully argued thesis about the right way to conceptualize it. But that project was driven by what in the retrospect of Seigel's whole body of work can be seen as an even more comprehensive historical program, one both methodological and substantive. One of Seigel's basic historiographical convictions, more implicit than systematically argued, is that individual subjectivity matters for historical explanation. His broader substantive interest is in the meaning of the Western notion of “modernity,” above all in its implications and consequences for our contemporary self-understanding. Methodological conviction and substantive interest are tightly interwoven. As Seigel sees it, the process of European modernization was guided by, and in turn further developed, a historically locatable, complex, and internally conflicted version of universal selfhood—the autonomous bourgeois self. His corpus is an extended and evolving exploration of this process and its result, which he finds most clearly documented in European thought and culture from the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth.

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