The Rambouillet Salon

2019 ◽  
pp. 212-246
Author(s):  
Robert A. Schneider

This chapter focuses on the famous Rambouillet salon, the most important gathering spot for aristocrats—both men and women—and writers in the early decades of the seventeenth century. Presided over by the Marquise de Rambouillet and, especially, her daughter Julie, this institution was deliberately conceived as a refuge from the royal court, which was considered by many as lacking in refinement and politesse. It fostered intense interactions between a privileged and cultivated Parisian elite and up-and-coming writers. Indeed, for the latter, the salon was their primary “public.” The chapter looks particularly at several aspects of these interactions, from theatrical productions and literary pastimes to several textual representations. As a premier locus of “retreat,” the salon affords a particularly revealing example of how this ethos informed the cultural dynamics of the day.

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019/2 ◽  
pp. 41-64
Author(s):  
S. C. ROWELL

CONCUBINE AND ENCHANTRESS: KATARZYNA TELNICZANKA AND HER BLACK MYTH Summary S.C. R O W E L L Katarzyna Hochstadt of Telnicz (ca 1480–1528), mistress of Sigismund the Old, mother of John of the Lithuanian Dukes, bishop of Vilnius (1519–36) and Poznań (1536–38) has come down in history as an enchanting beauty or a witch, or both. Her image is defined by her relationship with powerful men – her lover, her son, her husband (Andrzej Kościelecki, castellan of Wojnicz and sub–treasurer of the Crown of Poland) and alleged victims (various royal secretaries and high–ranking clerics). This article assesses what little by way of solid evidence is known of her life and how this can be related with the image of man–chasing vamp, interference in the running of the diocese of Vilnius (thereby allegedly provoking the appointment of bishop protectors to the see) and scandal in village and town (according to one seventeenth–century historian). There is evidence that while John of the Lithuanian Dukes was still a minor and enjoyed the rank of provost of Płock and Poznań and canon of Kraków the property associated with his office was overseen by his step–father and perhaps by his mother. After John became bishop of Vilnius, Her Magnificence the Bishop‘s Mother, the Lady Dowager Castellan of Wojnicz and Sub–Treasurer of the Crown of Poland resided for some time at her son‘s court in Vilnius and on at least two occasions exercised her maternal influence to facilitate access to the bishop for canons (Stanislaw Dambrowka, Martin of Dusniki and Albert Wielezinski) involved in a dispute with their brother canon and scholast Jakub Staszkowski. The detailed discussion of internal cathedral disputes in the presence of a lay person, and even worse, a woman, scandalised members of the Cathedral Chapter but there is no evidence that Lady Katarzyna sought to determine the outcome of this case. We also know that she patronised at least one noblewoman (the widowed sister–in–law of Bishop Albert Tabor) who subsequently adopted Bishop John as her son and heir and made financial endowments on both the bishop and his mother. After Katarzyna died in Vilnius in the late summer of 1528 her corpse was transported to Kraków for burial by a Vilnius canon, Erasmus Eustachii, whose family had connections with Andrzej Kościelecki and Bishop John of Vilnius. The satirical verse penned by Andrzej Krzycki concerning a mother–stepmother and father–stepfather (Katarzyna and King Sigismund) and „an old hag who stinks like a goat“ represents neo–Latin literary exercises provoked by fear of the influence at the royal court of Katarzyna and her family rather than an accurate and literal description of Katarzyna and her activities.


Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham

Orthodox Radicals explores the origins and identity of Baptists during the English Revolution (1640–1660), arguing that mid-seventeenth century Baptists did not, in fact, understand themselves to be part of a larger, all-encompassing “Baptist” movement. Contrary to both the explicit statements of many historians and the tacit suggestion embedded in the very use of “Baptist” as an overarching historical category, the early modern men and women who rejected infant baptism would not have initially understood that single theological move as being in itself constitutive of a new group identity. Rather, the rejection of infant baptism was but one of a number of doctrinal revisions then taking place among English puritans eager to further their ongoing project of godly reformation. Orthodox Radicals thus complicates our understanding of Baptist identity and addresses broader themes including early modern religious toleration, the mechanisms by which early modern groups defined and defended themselves, and the perennial problem of historical anachronism. By combining a provocative reinterpretation Baptist identity with close readings of key theological and political texts, Orthodox Radicals offers the most original and stimulating analysis of mid-seventeenth century Baptists in decades.


Perichoresis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony R. Cross

Abstract Using principally, though not exclusively, the learning of the biblical languages, this paper seeks to demonstrate four things. Firstly, from their beginnings in the early seventeenth century the majority of British Baptists have believed that the study of theology is essential for their ministers, and that the provision of such an education through their colleges is necessary for the well-being of the churches. Secondly, and contrary to misconceptions among Baptists and those of other traditions, Baptists have always had ministers who have been highly trained theologically, and that this has enriched their service as pastors. Thirdly, it reveals that Baptists today have a wealth of both academically-gifted and theologically-astute pastortheologians and pastor-scholars. Finally, it argues that theology has always played its part in the renewal of Christian life and witness for which so many Christians today are praying.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 171-198
Author(s):  
Karoline P. Cook

By the early seventeenth century, petitioners at the royal court in Madrid who claimed descent from the Inca rulers of Peru, the Aztec rulers of Mexico, and the Nasrid emirs of Granada found ways to acquire noble status and secure rights to their ancestral lands in the form of entailed estates. Their success in securing noble status and title to their mayorazgos (entailed estates) rested on strategies, used over the course of several generations, that included marriages with the peninsular nobility, ties of godparentage and patronage, and military service to the crown. This article will examine the networks formed in Madrid between roughly 1600 and 1630 when the descendants of the Inca and Aztec rulers interacted with peninsular noble families at court, obtaining noble status and entry into the military orders and establishing their mayorazgos. Their strategies for claiming nobility show striking parallels to those adopted by the Morisco nobility, and one aim of this article is to suggest how knowledge of such strategies circulated among families both at the royal court in Madrid and in the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru.


Author(s):  
Francis J. Bremer

The New England colonies were settled in the early seventeenth century by men and women who could not in conscience subscribe to all aspects of the faith and practice of the Church of England. In creating new societies they struggled with how to define their churches and their relationship with the national Church they dissented from. As their New England Way evolved the orthodox leaders of the new order identified and took action against those who challenged it. Interaction with dissenters such as Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Baptists, and Quakers helped to further define the colonial religious establishment.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham

Ushering the reader into both the world of early modern radical religion and the considerable body of scholarly literature devoted to its study, the introduction offers a précis of what is to come and a backward glance to explain how the proposed journey contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations. After orienting readers to the basic methodological boundaries within which the book will operate and briefly situating the book within the wider historiography, the introduction adumbrates the shape of the work as a whole and encapsulates its central argument. The introduction contends that the mid-seventeenth-century men and women often described as “Particular Baptists” would not have readily understood themselves as such. This tension between the self-identity of the early modern actors and the identity imposed upon them by future scholars has significant implications for how we understand both radical religion during the English Revolution and the period more broadly.


1950 ◽  
Vol 82 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
J. V. S. Wilkinson

This painting is a dignified example of Mughal Court art towards the middle of the seventeenth century, when portraiture was at its zenith, and, under Court influence, very much in fashion. Bichitr (a Hindu) was one of several accomplished painters of Shah Jahan's reign. He signs himself here “Servant of the Royal Court”, and his portrait of his master, done in 1632, is at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Several other works by him were included in the celebrated Imperial Album to which “Shah Daulat” belonged. This artist, whose works generally emphasized drawing and eschewed brilliant colour, sometimes painted genre subjects and liked to fill the backgrounds of his portraits with realistic detail. Here, however, he has concentrated on a single figure, and mainly on the face, which is drawn with rare feeling and expressive skill. The Saint, who was a revered Muhammedan religious leader under three Emperors, is an impressive figure, with his white robe and brown scarf set against an almost black background. His enormous hands hold a globe inscribed in Persian, “The Key of the Victory over the two Worlds is entrusted to thy hand”; this may typify the devotion of a not unworldly ecclesiastic to the Emperor.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naofumi Abe

Abstract The middle of the eighteenth century reportedly witnessed the emergence of the new literary movement in Persian poetry, called the “bāzgasht-e adabi,” or literary return, which rejected the seventeenth-century mainstream Indian or tāza-guʾi style. This literary movement recently merits increased attention from many scholars who are interested in wider Persianate cultures. This article explores the reception of this movement in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Iran and the role played by the Qajar royal court in it, mainly by the analysis of a specific sub-genre of tazkeras, called “royal-commissioned tazkeras,” which were produced from the reign of the second Qajar monarch Fath-ʿAli Shāh onward. A main focus will be on the reciprocal relationship between the court poets/literati and the shah, which presumably somehow affected our understanding of Persian literature today.


Author(s):  
Joan C. Bristol

This chapter examines Afro-Mexicans' level of involvement in colonial society and religious life as well as their desires to gain social power as defined by colonial authorities. An important form of Christian practice for Africans in the Diaspora came through membership in Catholic confraternities, lay groups that were organized around venerating saints and often served as mutual aid societies for their members. This chapter considers the case of a group of black men and women who performed clandestine religious ceremonies in the alleys of late seventeenth-century Mexico City and claimed to be religiosos (clerics) and religiosas (nuns) of Saint Iphigenia. In particular, it analyzes the possible meanings such gatherings held for the congregants. The case demonstrates how Afro-Mexicans asserted their right to worship as Christians on their own terms, deployed their understandings of Christianity around the prescribed tenets of religious orthodoxy, and interpreted the language of hierarchy and power embodied in religious objects and rituals.


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