Women at the Early Modern Swedish Court

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Persson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Full Extent ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Longue Duree

What was possible for a woman to achieve at an early modern court? By analysing the experiences of a wide range of women at the court of Sweden, this book demonstrates the opportunities open to women who served at, and interacted with, the court; the complexities of women's agency in a court society; and, ultimately, the precariousness of power. In doing so, it provides an institutional context to women's lives at court, charting the full extent of the rewards that they might obtain, alongside the social and institutional constrictions that they faced. Its longue durée approach, moreover, clarifies how certain periods, such as that of the queens regnant, brought new possibilities. Based on an extensive array of Swedish and international primary sources, including correspondence, financial records and diplomatic reports, it also takes into account the materialities used to create hierarchies and ceremonies, such as physical structures and spaces within the court. Comprehensive in its scope, the book is divided into three parts, which focus respectively on outsiders at court, insiders, and members of the royal family.

Motherhood

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Yonemoto
Keyword(s):  
Family Planning ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range

The chapter explores the discourse and experience of motherhood within Japan’s low-fertility regime in the early modern period. In a manner rarely seen elsewhere in the early modern world, Japanese families used various means, from infanticide to adoption, to correlate family size with income. The chapter examines a wide range of primary sources to explore the effects of family planning on motherhood in two dimensions, the biological and the social. It also examines motherhood as a lived experience through the writings of Inoue Tsūjo, Kuroda Tosako, and Sekiguchi Chie.

scholarly journals Subtle invasions: Aspects of Samoan women's wartime experiences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Saui'a Louise Marie Tuimanuolo Mataia-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
Sexual Encounters ◽  
Women’S History

<p>During World War Two the peaceful “occupation” of the Samoa Islands by US Forces combined with existing colonial conditions to transform the lives of Samoans in important yet also subtle ways. Drawing on thirty two oral history interviews and the papers of the colonial administrations this thesis examines the wartime lives of Samoan women. Their accounts of their experiences reveal how they understood the war at the time and after years of life experience. Using approaches from social history and women’s history this thesis illustrates women’s agency in finding ways to manage the new social contexts and situations created by the war.  The central argument of this thesis is that it was the ordinary business of negotiating daily life during the war that engaged and normalised social changes. These mundane everyday acts were significant historical moments that wove new and unique motifs into the tapestry of Samoan women’s history. The war brought to Samoa a multitude of American servicemen who saw Samoa through a ‘romantic’ lens as an arcadia of unrestrained social mores. In contrast, through this research Samoan women reveal their wartime experiences in their own words. The women’s narratives indicate that the war interrupted lives in many ways causing them to rethink their roles in response to the changes.  The four areas of Samoan women’s lives that this thesis examines are their roles in their families and communities, their involvement with the churches, their engagement with wartime popular culture and lastly their wartime sexual encounters. The discussion opens with a portrait of Samoan society during the 1920s and 1930s, depicting the social and political forces that shaped women’s lives and influenced their understandings of their wartime experiences. This discussion highlights how colonial entanglements had a bearing on the different trajectories that women’s lives took during the war. The thesis then turns to explore the arrival of the war, examining the women’s initial experiences and reactions with a particular focus on what they learnt from their experiences and how they adapted to change in the context of their communities and families. The study finds that social transformation was a response to the war’s disruption of physical and cultural space and the critical structures and ideologies that are central to Samoans’ way of life.  The second part of this enquiry examines how wartime circumstances affected Samoan women’s sometimes tense relations with the Christian churches. The churches occupied a central place in Samoan society as a provider of both spiritual nurture and secular education for women during the war years, so they deserve specific attention. Wartime conditions created opportunities that expanded and rejuvenated the scope of Samoan women’s agency which had been marginalised and narrowed by Christian influence before the war. At the same time, the war heightened the pre-war tensions between Samoan women’s agency and the power of the churches. Despite the clergy’s reluctance, the churches provided spaces in which American troops socialised with the Samoan population, creating social situations that were difficult to control.  The third area analyses Samoan women’s engagement with wartime popular culture and how the consumption of introduced material culture galvanised their autonomy and enabled them to tailor social transformation to suit their personal perceptions. Wartime popular culture in its many forms contributed to the rapid absorption of new ideas and the adaptation of cultural practices. Women’s engagement with this popular culture resulted in ‘on the ground changes’ that stimulated social transformation and which should be appreciated as significant historical moments in their own right.  The fourth area of discussion investigates Samoan women’s wartime sexual encounters. The perception that Samoan women’s sexual encounters with American servicemen were characterised by an unrestrained morality on their part ignores other factors that shaped these encounters, including violence and their own bodily knowledge and preparedness. This study shows that Samoan women had a variety of sexual encounters during the war and their narratives speak volumes about the pains of such life-changing moments.  There was no single or archetypal wartime experience. The thirty two interviewees experienced the war in different parts of the Samoa islands and their social and political alignment has influenced their perceptions and understanding of their wartime lives. The social transformation brought by the war involved considered responses from the women who sought to balance personal and family interests and Samoan values. Exploring the women’s wartime lives reveals their resilience and their ability to overcome difficulties and effect change for the better of their community.</p>

Introduction

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Sharon Flatto
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
World View ◽  
Ashkenazi Jews ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée ◽  
East And West

This chapter describes the multi-layered mystical rabbinic culture of eighteenth-century Prague. It reveals the prominence of Kabbalah in traditional life, particularly in the biography and writings of one of the towering figures of Ashkenazi Jewry named Ezekiel Landau, Prague's chief rabbi from 1754 to 1793. It also explores the deep roots of mysticism of the rabbinic culture of eighteenth-century Prague and sheds light on a central aspect of the life and world-view of a large number of early modern Ashkenazi Jews. The chapter covers the neglect of Prague's rabbinic culture, the importance of Prague as a meeting ground between East and West, and the centrality of Kabbalah for Prague Jews and its persistence over the longue durée. It reviews a wide range of kabbalistic materials and sources that influenced seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ashkenazi Jews.

scholarly journals “Were not that a botchy core?”: the Function of Disease in 2 Henry IV, King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, and Twelfth Night

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Catherine Joule
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
Troilus And Cressida ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Disease Metaphors

<p>The social currency of disease has developed and changed dramatically over the centuries, and this thesis focuses on how Shakespeare used the currency of early modern disease in his plays. Shakespeare’s use of disease and disease metaphors is discussed within the context of four plays: Henry IV Part Two, Twelfth Night, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida. The first chapter (of three) finds that the purpose of disease within the body politic metaphors is, inevitably, complication. In order to counter and resolve the disease of the state, advisors become physicians, extending the potential of the analogy further until it permeates the social structure of the plays and our perception of the characters. Disease is employed to imply division, instability, and disorder within the imagined body of the state.  The second chapter shows how the idea of infection is used to highlight interpersonal concerns within the plays. The chapter uses references to early modern sources and beliefs about the four humours to illustrate how Shakespeare connects social disorder, disease, morality, and status. The discussion focuses on Galen’s “nonnaturals” which were believed to affect humoral balance, highlighting the significance of early modern conceptions of diet, exercise, miasma, sleep, and stress which serve to create a pervading sense of disease in the social worlds of the plays.  The personal and often horrifying experiences of mental disease we are presented with in King Lear and Twelfth Night are the focus of the third and final chapter. The display of suffering is found to primarily serve to emphasise the commonality of man. In both plays (though at different levels of seriousness) insanity causes a loss of social status for the sufferer and, through this loss of status, their humanity is stressed. The dramatic potential of madness allows the theatre of the courtroom to be parodied to draw questions about injustice into the plays, though without offering any definitive conclusions to them. The literary nature of madness within these plays, furthermore, allows for the clear presentation of issues of class and justice. Generally Shakespeare abandons absolute realism in favour of using disease and disease metaphors as a disrupting influence on social and political order so as to emphasise a wide range of themes and ideas.</p>

ACCOUNTING AND REDISTRIBUTION: THE PALACE AND MORTUARY CULT IN THE MIDDLE KINGDOM, ANCIENT EGYPT

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Ezzamel
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
The Social ◽  
Regular Flow ◽  
Level Of Analysis

This paper examines detailed historical material drawn from primary sources to explore the role of accounting practices in the functioning of several key stages of the redistributive economy of the Middle Kingdom, ancient Egypt. First, the paper attends to the role of accounting in securing a regular flow of commodities to the state, in the form of taxation in kind. The historical material suggests clearly that accounting practices played a crucial role in levying and collecting precise tax liabilities, and in monitoring the storing of commodities in state granaries and storehouses. The second level of analysis is concerned with the role of accounting in coordinating the outflow of commodities to consumption units focusing on two examples. The first relates to the role of accounting in the distribution of food provisions to members of the Royal family and palace dependents while on a journey; the second examines the role of accounting in the writing and execution of a series of contracts to promote the mortuary cult of a dead individual. In both cases, the paper argues that the accounting practices were linked strongly to the social, political and economic contexts within which these accounting practices functioned.

Transregional Reformation: Synods and Consensus in the Early Reformed Churches

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrizio Foresta
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Churches ◽  
Mediating Factors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Reformed Churches

AbstractThis article will explore what might be called the transregional scope and outreach of early modern Reformed synods in a theological as well as ecclesial sense, examining some very few but important moments between the sixteenth and seventeenth century that marked a turning point in the history of the European Reformed Churches and show some particular aspects of the constitutive link between synods and consensus. A transregional level implies a methodological shift towards a more complex and many-sided view of synods, according to which a supposedly unyielding and confessionally adamant institution was affected by the social, geographical, cultural, theological and political stratifications within a wide range of mediating factors and conditions: different local Churches were linked together and crossed the political and ecclesiastical borders through the channels along which persons and ideas passed from region to region, thus creating a mutual exchange through which political, institutional and theological communication took place.

scholarly journals The Hanging Guard: William Hope’s (1660-1724) Invention of Self-defence and the Spirit of Enlightenment

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Alexander Will
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Self Defence

Fight books can be much more than repositories of knowledge or cornerstones of tradition. In some cases they may also reflect fundamental changes in the intellectual and social life of a society and even attempt to change the latter for the better. This is very much true for the works of William Hope (1660-1724). In eight printed books the Scotsman covered a wide range of topics connected to smallsword fencing and duelling. He employed early scientific methods when developing his school of swordplay, reflected on the social implications of fencing, introduced the notion of “sport for better health” into early modern fencing, and sought to institutionalise fencing in order to curb violence. As a whole this reflects the mindset of the early Enlightenment as it started to flourish in Hope’s native Scotland during his lifetime. This paper will answer the question of how the early Enlightenment influenced a set of remarkable Scottish fight books from the early modern period.

scholarly journals Introduction: Perspectives on Women’s Religious Activities in Early Modern Europe and the Americas

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Liise Lehtsalu ◽  
Sarah Moran ◽  
Silvia Evangelisti
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Domestic Spaces ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Lives

Abstract Proposing activity as a useful category of analysis, this special issue considers Catholic and Protestant women in Europe and the Americas in the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. We examine women in religious communities, which include both monastic communities as well as confessional communities. A close analysis of the social, economic, and cultural actions of these women religious challenges historiographical assumptions about monastic cloister and domestic space in the early modern period. In fact, we revisit monastic and domestic spaces to reveal them as stages for previously unexamined activity. This cross-denominational and transnational special issue highlights new spheres of women’s religious activity and raises new questions for the study of early modern women’s lives and their capacity to act in early modern society, economy, and culture.

scholarly journals “Were not that a botchy core?”: the Function of Disease in 2 Henry IV, King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, and Twelfth Night

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Catherine Joule
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
Troilus And Cressida ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Disease Metaphors

<p>The social currency of disease has developed and changed dramatically over the centuries, and this thesis focuses on how Shakespeare used the currency of early modern disease in his plays. Shakespeare’s use of disease and disease metaphors is discussed within the context of four plays: Henry IV Part Two, Twelfth Night, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida. The first chapter (of three) finds that the purpose of disease within the body politic metaphors is, inevitably, complication. In order to counter and resolve the disease of the state, advisors become physicians, extending the potential of the analogy further until it permeates the social structure of the plays and our perception of the characters. Disease is employed to imply division, instability, and disorder within the imagined body of the state.  The second chapter shows how the idea of infection is used to highlight interpersonal concerns within the plays. The chapter uses references to early modern sources and beliefs about the four humours to illustrate how Shakespeare connects social disorder, disease, morality, and status. The discussion focuses on Galen’s “nonnaturals” which were believed to affect humoral balance, highlighting the significance of early modern conceptions of diet, exercise, miasma, sleep, and stress which serve to create a pervading sense of disease in the social worlds of the plays.  The personal and often horrifying experiences of mental disease we are presented with in King Lear and Twelfth Night are the focus of the third and final chapter. The display of suffering is found to primarily serve to emphasise the commonality of man. In both plays (though at different levels of seriousness) insanity causes a loss of social status for the sufferer and, through this loss of status, their humanity is stressed. The dramatic potential of madness allows the theatre of the courtroom to be parodied to draw questions about injustice into the plays, though without offering any definitive conclusions to them. The literary nature of madness within these plays, furthermore, allows for the clear presentation of issues of class and justice. Generally Shakespeare abandons absolute realism in favour of using disease and disease metaphors as a disrupting influence on social and political order so as to emphasise a wide range of themes and ideas.</p>

Approaches to Seasonality in Premodern Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-37
Author(s):  
Roisin Cossar ◽  
Cecilia Hewlett
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Mountain Communities ◽  
Early Modern Italy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

In this article, two historians of medieval and early modern Italy explore the impact of seasonal rhythms and routines on the social structures and practices of rural communities in central and northern Italy between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. We also investigate how rural inhabitants and those with authority over them responded to the challenges and opportunities posed by seasonal change. Primary sources include episcopal visitations, the diary of a rural priest, statutes from rural communities, testimony before episcopal courts, chronicles, and the records of magistracies in mountain communities. Studying the relationship between seasonality, sociability, and power relations in rural communities challenges one-dimensional narratives of premodern “peasant” life and instead demonstrates the complex and fluid nature of rural society.

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