Presidential Address: Tudor Government: The Points of Contact III. The Court

1976 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 211-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. R. Elton
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
The Political ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Interesting Topic ◽  
History Books

WHEN on the previous two occasions I discussed Parliament and Council as political centres, as institutions capable of assisting or undermining stability in the nation, I had to draw attention to quite a few unanswered questions. However, I also found a large amount of well established knowledge on which to rely. Now, in considering the role of the King's or Queen's Court, I stand more baffled than ever, more deserted. We all know that there was a Court, and we all use the term with frequent ease, but we seem to have taken it so much for granted that we have done almost nothing to investigate it seriously. Lavish descriptions abound of lavish occasions, both in the journalism of the sixteenth century and in the history books, but the sort of study which could really tell us what it was, what part it played in affairs, and even how things went there for this or that person, seems to be confined to a few important articles. At times it has all the appearance of a fully fledged institution; at others it seems to be no more than a convenient conceptual piece of shorthand, covering certain people, certain behaviour, certain attitudes. As so often, the shadows of the seventeenth century stretch back into the sixteenth, to obscure our vision. Analysts of the reigns of the first two Stuarts, endeavouring to explain the political troubles of that age, increasingly concentrate upon an alleged conflict between the Court and the Country; and so we are tempted, once again, to seek the prehistory of the ever interesting topic in the age of Elizabeth or even Henry VIII.

Parliamentary Life in the Crown of Aragon: Cortes, Juntas De Brazos, and Other Corporate Bodies

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 362-395
Author(s):  
Xavier Gil
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Crown Of Aragon ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Political Scene

AbstractThe Cortes of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia were well known in Renaissance times for their mature institutional development and their capacity to counterbalance the tendency of monarchs towards authoritarianism. But, from the mid sixteenth century onwards, they were summoned by kings at increasingly long intervals, thus losing part of their visibility in the political scene. But this did not exactly mean parliamentary decline. As Cortes became rarer, lesser corporate bodies, ultimately deriving from the Cortes themselves, acquired an enhanced political status. Different sorts of meetings of estates (brazos) and small committees of members of the estates, while already known in previous times, won a more active role by the late sixteenth century and were a major, if not crucial, factor in the different political crises of the seventeenth century. This article contributes to the current reassessment of the Cortes by emphasizing the role of these bodies, focusing on their interplay with the Cortes, with some comparative remarks on other such bodies in Europe.

Muscovy and the Tatars

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-431
Author(s):  
Bulat R. Rakhimzianov
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
East European ◽  
Central Eurasia ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
Forest Line ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article explores relations between Muscovy and the so-called Later Golden Horde successor states that existed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the territory of Desht-i Qipchaq (the Qipchaq Steppe, a part of the East European steppe bounded roughly by the Oskol and Tobol rivers, the steppe-forest line, and the Caspian and Aral Seas). As a part of, and later a successor to, the Juchid ulus (also known as the Golden Horde), Muscovy adopted a number of its political and social institutions. The most crucial events in the almost six-century-long history of relations between Muscovy and the Tatars (13–18th centuries) were the Mongol invasion of the Northern, Eastern and parts of the Southern Rus’ principalities between 1237 and 1241, and the Muscovite annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates between 1552 and 1556. According to the model proposed here, the Tatars began as the dominant partner in these mutual relations; however, from the beginning of the seventeenth century this role was gradually inverted. Indicators of a change in the relationship between the Muscovite grand principality and the Golden Horde can be found in the diplomatic contacts between Muscovy and the Tatar khanates. The main goal of the article is to reveal the changing position of Muscovy within the system of the Later Golden Horde successor states. An additional goal is to revisit the role of the Tatar khanates in the political history of Central Eurasia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

An “Epistolary Reformation”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Greengrass
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
The Political ◽  
John Foxe ◽  
Political Evolution ◽  
Letter Exchange

Letter exchange occupies a significant and growing role in the activities of the Protestant Reformers. This chapter offers explanations for its growing significance in the evolution of the Protestant Reformation. It analyses what over a century of investment in editing the correspondence of the magisterial Reformers has achieved. It offers a yearly profile of the surviving editorial correspondence. At the same time, it underlines the limitations of our concentration on the letters of magisterial Reformers by examining the role of letter exchange in the political evolution of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, and especially in the context of the coalitions at a distance that sustained it. It ends by evoking martyr letters, as found in the martyrologies of John Foxe and Jean Crespin, but also in a devotional context in Hutterite and Anabaptist dissenting traditions.

Honouring the Prophet's Family: A Comparison of the Approaches to Political Legitimacy of Abū’lḤasan ʿAlī al-Marīnī and Aḥmad al-Manṣūr al-Saʿdī

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cory
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Political Legitimation

Although the fourteenth century Marīnids openly acknowledged their Berber identity, by the end of the sixteenth century, sharīfian descent had become a requirement for Moroccan rule. This chapter examines the political propaganda of the Marīnid sultan Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī (r. 731–752/1331–1351) and the Saʿdī sultan Aḥmad al-Manṣūr al-Dhahabī (r. 986–1012/1578–1603). It considers similarities and differences between their political propaganda in light of their differing historical circumstances, particularly the relative power of sharīfian movements during their respective reigns, as well as the importance of holy lineages, monarchical treatment of the shurafāʾ, and the role of ceremonies in political legitimation. It argues that the Saʿdī ability to convince Moroccans of their sharīfian lineage connected with a larger trend to equate political power with descent from the Prophet and reinforced their authority. In contrast, the Marīnids contributed to their own downfall through their inconsistent policies towards honouring the shurafāʾ.

scholarly journals Erasmus and the Politics of Translation in Tudor England

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 132-145
Author(s):  
Lucy Wooding
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Desiderius Erasmus ◽  
The Political ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Tudor England ◽  
Religious Attitudes ◽  
Significant Figure ◽  
Original Intention

Desiderius Erasmus was a significant figure in early sixteenth-century England, and many of his works were translated into English during the reign of Henry VIII. In the process of translation the original intention of these works was subverted as Erasmus's reputation was appropriated by his translators and their patrons for their own purposes. His works were recast in English form to serve a variety of different agendas, from those of Henrician conservatives to Protestants pushing for more radical religious reform. This article looks at some of these translations, showing how they illustrate the variations in religious attitudes during these volatile years and the competing claims for validation. In particular, Erasmus's pronouncements on the importance of Scripture translation were annexed and deployed in the debate over the English Bible, demonstrating how his views about translation were in themselves translated to reflect the political and religious needs of the English situation.

The Birth of Anglicanism

2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (35) ◽  
pp. 418-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diarmaid MacCulloch
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
European Context ◽  
Middle Way

The paper surveys the English Reformation in the wider European context to demonstrate that the concept of ‘Anglicanism’ is hardly appropriate for the post-Reformation English Church in the sixteenth century: it was emphatically Protestant, linked to Reformed rather than Lutheran Protestantism. Henry VIII created a hybrid of a Church after breaking with Rome, but that was not unique in northern Europe. There were widespread attempts to find a ‘middle way’, the model being Cologne under Archbishop Hermann von Wied. Wied's efforts failed, but left admirers like Albert Hardenberg and Jan Laski, and their Reformations gradually moved towards those of central Europe—the first Reformed theologians. Edward VTs Reformation aligned itself with this new grouping, and produced prototypes of liturgy and theological formulary which endure to the present day—with the exception of a proposed reform of canon law, with its provisions for divorce. Elizabeth Ts 1559 religious settlement fossilised Edward's Church from autumn 1552. It made no concessions to Catholics, despite later A nglo- Catholic myth-making: minor adjustments were probably aimed at Lutherans. There is nevertheless a ‘Nicodemite’ association among the leading figures who steered the Settlement through its opening years. Important and unlikely survivals were cathedrals, uniquely preserved in a Protestant context and a source of future ideological Catholic ‘subversion’. Nevertheless the theological tone of the Elizabethan Church was a broadly-based Reformed Protestantism, aligned to Zürich rather than to Geneva. Early seventeenth-century Arminianism or Laudianism represented a new direction, and the Puritanism of New England may better represent the English Reformation than the ‘Anglican’ synthesis which came to fruition in the English Church after Charles II's restoration in 1660. In any case, Anglicanism continues to represent in uneasy but useful tension the two poles of theology contending for mastery in the century after Elizabeth Is coming to power.

The Braggart in Italian Renaissance Comedy

PMLA ◽  
1943 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-83
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Boughner
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Elizabethan Drama ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Conventional Type

The chief purpose of this paper is to describe one phase of the domestication of Latin drama on the Renaissance stage, specifically to show how a conventional type made famous by the Roman comedians, the miles gloriosus, was fashioned by the academic playwrights of sixteenth-century Italy into an instrument of contemporary satire. A secondary aim is to provide a fuller literary background for the study of the braggart in Elizabethan drama. Such analysis requires a summary of themes, situations, and attitudes that have enriched the comic tradition of Europe, and demands also a definition of the comic spirit that exposes and derides the vainglorious folly of the alazon or boaster who struts and brags of his merits in utter disregard of truth. Menander and his disciples in Latin comedy developed a satiric method which the Italians borrowed for the ridicule of modern representatives of the alazon. Any consideration of the commedia erudita must also be prefaced by a review of the political conditions in Italy that brought to prominence such hated types as the Spaniard and other mercenary soldiers. This paper describes the rôle of the Spaniard and traces the evolution of the braggart from the imitations of Plautus and Terence, through the modifications of conventional themes, and finally to the new elements inspired by the changed domestic conditions of the peninsula.

scholarly journals MARIE GIGAULT DE BELLEFONDS, AMBASSADRESS OF FRANCE. GENDER, POWER AND DIPLOMACY AT THE COURT OF CHARLES II OF SPAIN, 1679-1681

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-30
Author(s):  
Ezequiel Borgognoni
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
System A ◽  
Gender Power ◽  
Charles Ii

In this article, I will analyse the political activity of marquise Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, ambassadress of France at the Madrid court between 1679 and 1681, by reflecting on the different diplomatic strategies implemented by her and her husband in order to gain the favour of the monarchs, particularly of the queen consort Marie-Louise of Orleans. The study of Louis XIV of France’s instructions to his ambassador and the perusal of the letters that the ambassadress sent to her friends in Paris evidence the importance of collaborative work in the marriages among diplomats in seventeenth-century court society. Moreover, our sources allow us to make visible the role of the wives of ambassadors in the pre-modern diplomatic system –a field of study in its beginning stages, but also highly promising. Who was Marie Gigault de Bellefonds? Why was she considered a dangerous individual or, as stated by Saint-Simon, «evil as a snake» at the court? Who were her main adversaries in Madrid? What was she accused of? Why did she and her husband have to leave the embassy in 1681? This research will attempt to answer these and other questions related to the presence of the French ambassadress at the court of Charles II and Marie-Louise of Orleans.

scholarly journals The Duke of Albany's Invasion of England in 1523 and Military Mobilisation in Sixteenth-century Scotland

2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Neil Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
French And English ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
First Time

In November 1523 a Scottish army, led by John Stewart, duke of Albany, invaded England for the first time since the battle of Flodden. While this was a major campaign, it has largely been ignored in the extensive literature on Anglo-Scottish warfare. Drawing on Scottish, French and English records, this article provides a systematic analysis of the campaign. Although the campaign of 1523 was ultimately unsuccessful, it is the most comprehensively documented Scottish offensive against England before the seventeenth century and the extensive records detailing the expedition advances broader understanding of military mobilisation in medieval and early modern Scotland. While the national mobilisation drive which sought to gather men from across the kingdom was ultimately unsuccessful, the expedition witnessed the most extensive number of French soldiers yet sent to Scotland. Finally, the article considers how an examination of the expedition enhances understanding of regency rule and the political conditions in Scotland in the years after Flodden.

scholarly journals La langue française: obstacle ou atout de l'«État-nation»?

2005 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-23
Author(s):  
François Rouget
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
National Language ◽  
French Language ◽  
The Political ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
French Nation

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, French is not a national language. This article studies the phases of the evolution of the French language towards the homogeneity that will prevail at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The idea of a single French language, around the year 1525, is in a context of competition with Latin and French dialects; yet it becomes the political instrument of the royal power which uses the French language in order to reinforce itself and the unity of the French nation. Paradoxically, the development of the French language throughout the rediscovery of its national roots will also lead to the new emergence of political as well as linguistic regional identities.

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