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21 books about Court and courtiers
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21 books about Court and courtiers
African Royal Court Art
Michèle Coquet
University of Chicago Press, 1998
In this visually stunning work, anthropologist Michèle Coquet presents the power and the brilliance of African court arts. Grounding her analysis in the social and historical context of traditional royalty systems, Coquet examines the diverse roles played by artisans, nobles, and kings in the production and use of royal objects. From the precolonial kingdoms of the Edo and the Yoruba, the Ashanti and the Igbo, Coquet reconstructs from a comparativist view the essential cultural connections between art, representation, and the king.
More than ornamentation, royal objects embodied the strength and status of African rulers. The gold-plated stools of the Ashanti, the delicately carved ivory bracelets of the Edo-these objects were meant not simply to adorn but to affirm and enhance the power and prestige of the wearer. Unlike the abstract style frequently seen in African ritual art, realism became manifest in courtly arts. Realism directly linked the symbolic value of the object-a portrait or relief-with the physical person of the king. The contours of the monarch's face, his political and military exploits rendered on palace walls, became visual histories, the work of art in essence corroborating the ruler's sovereign might.
Richly illustrated and wonderfully detailed, Coquet's influential volume offers both a splendid visual presentation and an authoritative analysis of African royal arts.
"[This] beautiful and exciting book emphasizes the skillful court art of the Benin, Dahomey, and the Kongo. A very interesting and unusual approach to the art of the continent that has been too easily situated 'outside of history.'"—Le Figaro
More than ornamentation, royal objects embodied the strength and status of African rulers. The gold-plated stools of the Ashanti, the delicately carved ivory bracelets of the Edo-these objects were meant not simply to adorn but to affirm and enhance the power and prestige of the wearer. Unlike the abstract style frequently seen in African ritual art, realism became manifest in courtly arts. Realism directly linked the symbolic value of the object-a portrait or relief-with the physical person of the king. The contours of the monarch's face, his political and military exploits rendered on palace walls, became visual histories, the work of art in essence corroborating the ruler's sovereign might.
Richly illustrated and wonderfully detailed, Coquet's influential volume offers both a splendid visual presentation and an authoritative analysis of African royal arts.
"[This] beautiful and exciting book emphasizes the skillful court art of the Benin, Dahomey, and the Kongo. A very interesting and unusual approach to the art of the continent that has been too easily situated 'outside of history.'"—Le Figaro
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Against Marriage
The Correspondence of La Grande Mademoiselle
Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, Duchesse de Montpensier
University of Chicago Press, 2002
In seventeenth-century France, aristocratic women were valued by their families as commodities to be married off in exchange for money, social advantage, or military alliance. Once married, they became legally subservient to their husbands. The duchesse de Montpensier—a first cousin of Louis XIV—was one of very few exceptions, thanks to the vast wealth she inherited from her mother, who died shortly after Montpensier was born. She was also one of the few politically powerful women in France at the time to have been an accomplished writer.
In the daring letters presented in this bilingual edition, Montpensier condemns the alliance system of marriage, proposing instead to found a republic that she would govern, "a corner of the world in which . . . women are their own mistresses," and where marriage and even courtship would be outlawed. Her pastoral utopia would provide medical care and vocational training for the poor, and all the homes would have libraries and studies, so that each woman would have a "room of her own" in which to write books.
Joan DeJean's lively introduction and accessible translation of Montpensier's letters—four previously unpublished—allow us unprecedented access to the courageous voice of this extraordinary woman.
In the daring letters presented in this bilingual edition, Montpensier condemns the alliance system of marriage, proposing instead to found a republic that she would govern, "a corner of the world in which . . . women are their own mistresses," and where marriage and even courtship would be outlawed. Her pastoral utopia would provide medical care and vocational training for the poor, and all the homes would have libraries and studies, so that each woman would have a "room of her own" in which to write books.
Joan DeJean's lively introduction and accessible translation of Montpensier's letters—four previously unpublished—allow us unprecedented access to the courageous voice of this extraordinary woman.
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Courtly Song in Late Sixteenth-Century France
Jeanice Brooks
University of Chicago Press, 2001
In the late sixteenth century, the French royal court was mobile. To distinguish itself from the rest of society, it depended more on its cultural practices and attitudes than on the royal and aristocratic palaces it inhabited. Using courtly song-or the air de cour-as a window, Jeanice Brooks offers an unprecedented look into the culture of this itinerant institution.
Brooks concentrates on a period in which the court's importance in projecting the symbolic centrality of monarchy was growing rapidly and considers the role of the air in defining patronage hierarchies at court and in enhancing courtly visions of masculine and feminine virtue. Her study illuminates the court's relationship to the world beyond its own confines, represented first by Italy, then by the countryside. In addition to the 40 editions of airs de cour printed between 1559 and 1589, Brooks draws on memoirs, literary works, and iconographic evidence to present a rounded vision of French Renaissance culture.
The first book-length examination of the history of air de cour, this work also sheds important new light on a formative moment in French history.
Brooks concentrates on a period in which the court's importance in projecting the symbolic centrality of monarchy was growing rapidly and considers the role of the air in defining patronage hierarchies at court and in enhancing courtly visions of masculine and feminine virtue. Her study illuminates the court's relationship to the world beyond its own confines, represented first by Italy, then by the countryside. In addition to the 40 editions of airs de cour printed between 1559 and 1589, Brooks draws on memoirs, literary works, and iconographic evidence to present a rounded vision of French Renaissance culture.
The first book-length examination of the history of air de cour, this work also sheds important new light on a formative moment in French history.
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Culture, Courtiers, and Competition
The Ming Court (1368–1644)
David M. Robinson
Harvard University Press, 2008
This collection of essays reveals the Ming court as an arena of competition and negotiation, where a large cast of actors pursued individual and corporate ends, personal agency shaped protocol and style, and diverse people, goods, and tastes converged. Rather than observing an immutable set of traditions, court culture underwent frequent reinterpretation and rearticulation, processes driven by immediate personal imperatives, mediated through social, political, and cultural interaction.
The essays address several common themes. First, they rethink previous notions of imperial isolation, instead stressing the court’s myriad ties both to local Beijing society and to the empire as a whole. Second, the court was far from monolithic or static. Palace women, monks, craftsmen, educators, moralists, warriors, eunuchs, foreign envoys, and others strove to advance their interests and forge advantageous relations with the emperor and one another. Finally, these case studies illustrate the importance of individual agency. The founder’s legacy may have formed the warp of court practices and tastes, but the weft varied considerably. Reflecting the complexity of the court, the essays represent a variety of perspectives and disciplines—from intellectual, cultural, military, and political to art history and musicology.
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Duchess and Hostage in Renaissance Naples
Letters and Orations
Ippolita Maria Sforza
Iter Press, 2017
This volume presents in translation 100 previously unknown letters of Ippolita Maria Sforza (1445–1488), daughter of the Duke of Milan, who was sent at age twenty to marry the son of the infamously brutal King Ferrante of Naples. Sforza’s letters display the adroit diplomacy she used to strengthen the alliance between Milan and Naples, then the two most powerful states in Italy, amid such grave crises as her brother’s assassination in Milan and the Turkish invasion of Otranto. Still, Ippolita lived as a hostage at the Neapolitan court, subject not only to the threat of foreign invasion but also to her husband’s well-known sexual adventures and her father-in-law’s ruthlessness. Soon after Ippolita’s mysterious death in 1488, the fraught Naples-Milan alliance collapsed.
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Emotion in the Tudor Court
Literature, History, and Early Modern Feeling
Bradley J. Irish
Northwestern University Press, 2018
Deploying literary analysis, theories of emotion from the sciences and humanities, and an archival account of Tudor history, Emotion in the Tudor Court examines how literature both reflects and constructs the emotional dynamics of life in the Renaissance court. In it, Bradley J. Irish argues that emotionality is a foundational framework through which historical subjects embody and engage their world, and thus can serve as a fundamental lens of social and textual analysis.
Spanning the sixteenth century, Emotion in the Tudor Court explores Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Henrician satire; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and elegy; Sir Philip Sidney and Elizabethan pageantry; and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and factional literature. It demonstrates how the dynamics of disgust,envy, rejection, and dread, as they are understood in the modern affective sciences, can be seen to guide literary production in the early modern court.
By combining Renaissance concepts of emotion with modern research in the social and natural sciences, Emotion in the Tudor Court takes a transdisciplinary approach to yield fascinating and robust ways to illuminate both literary studies and cultural history.
Spanning the sixteenth century, Emotion in the Tudor Court explores Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Henrician satire; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and elegy; Sir Philip Sidney and Elizabethan pageantry; and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and factional literature. It demonstrates how the dynamics of disgust,envy, rejection, and dread, as they are understood in the modern affective sciences, can be seen to guide literary production in the early modern court.
By combining Renaissance concepts of emotion with modern research in the social and natural sciences, Emotion in the Tudor Court takes a transdisciplinary approach to yield fascinating and robust ways to illuminate both literary studies and cultural history.
[more]
A Feast for the Eyes
Art, Performance, and the Late Medieval Banquet
Christina Normore
University of Chicago Press, 2015
To read accounts of late medieval banquets is to enter a fantastical world where live lions guard nude statues, gilded stags burst into song, and musicians play from within pies. We can almost hear the clock sound from within a glass castle, taste the fire-breathing roast boar, and smell the rose water cascading in a miniature fountain. Such vivid works of art and performance required collaboration among artists in many fields, as well as the participation of the audience.
A Feast for the Eyes is the first book-length study of the court banquets of northwestern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Christina Normore draws on an array of artworks, archival documents, chroniclers’ accounts, and cookbooks to re-create these events and reassess the late medieval visual culture in which banquets were staged. Feast participants, she shows, developed sophisticated ways of appreciating artistic skill and attending to their own processes of perception, thereby forging a court culture that delighted in the exercise of fine aesthetic judgment.
Challenging modern assumptions about the nature of artistic production and reception, A Feast for the Eyes yields fresh insight into the long history of multimedia work and the complex relationships between spectacle and spectators.
A Feast for the Eyes is the first book-length study of the court banquets of northwestern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Christina Normore draws on an array of artworks, archival documents, chroniclers’ accounts, and cookbooks to re-create these events and reassess the late medieval visual culture in which banquets were staged. Feast participants, she shows, developed sophisticated ways of appreciating artistic skill and attending to their own processes of perception, thereby forging a court culture that delighted in the exercise of fine aesthetic judgment.
Challenging modern assumptions about the nature of artistic production and reception, A Feast for the Eyes yields fresh insight into the long history of multimedia work and the complex relationships between spectacle and spectators.
[more]
The Heirs of Vijayanagara
Lennart Bes
Leiden University Press, 2021
A comparative study of courtly politics in four early modern kingdoms in South India.
When Dutch traders arrived on the Indian subcontinent in the early seventeenth century, they encountered a courtly culture they perceived to be traditional, peaceful, and static. In reality, the kings and Brahmins they met were engaged in a fresh power struggle following the recent collapse of the Vijayanagara empire. In The Heirs of Vijayanagarai, Lennart Bes marshals a wealth of untapped sources from both Indian and Dutch archives to recover the dynamic complexity of political life in early modern India. By comparing four kingdoms—Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and Ramnand—across the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, this book offers a captivating analysis of political culture, power relations, and dynastic developments in south India.
When Dutch traders arrived on the Indian subcontinent in the early seventeenth century, they encountered a courtly culture they perceived to be traditional, peaceful, and static. In reality, the kings and Brahmins they met were engaged in a fresh power struggle following the recent collapse of the Vijayanagara empire. In The Heirs of Vijayanagarai, Lennart Bes marshals a wealth of untapped sources from both Indian and Dutch archives to recover the dynamic complexity of political life in early modern India. By comparing four kingdoms—Ikkeri, Tanjavur, Madurai, and Ramnand—across the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, this book offers a captivating analysis of political culture, power relations, and dynastic developments in south India.
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Letters from Spain
A Seventeenth-Century French Noblewoman at the Spanish Royal Court
Marie Gigault de Bellefonds
Iter Press, 2021
Marie Gigault de Bellefonds, Marquise de Villars was a well-regarded figure in Parisian salons and esteemed by King Louis XIV, and she traveled internationally to accompany her ambassador husband, playing significant diplomatic roles at the court of Savoy in Turin and at the court of Spain in Madrid. She became the confidante of the queen of Spain, Marie-Louise d’Orléans, the niece of Louis XIV, and, as instructed by the king of France, endeavored to pursue French political interests in Madrid with female members of royalty.
This volume includes her surviving letters from Madrid to her friend Madame de Coulanges and an appendix of her letters sent from Paris and Turin. The letters from Spain, written between 1679 and 1681, paint a vivid and engaging picture of the royal court and its new queen.
This volume includes her surviving letters from Madrid to her friend Madame de Coulanges and an appendix of her letters sent from Paris and Turin. The letters from Spain, written between 1679 and 1681, paint a vivid and engaging picture of the royal court and its new queen.
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Marlborough
His Life and Times, Book One
Winston S. Churchill
University of Chicago Press, 2002
"It is my hope to recall this great shade from the past, and not only invest him with his panoply, but make him living and intimate to modern eyes."—from the preface to Volume One
John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough (1644-1722), was one of the greatest military commanders and statesmen in the history of England. Victorious in the Battles of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), and countless other campaigns, Marlborough, whose political intrigues were almost as legendary as his military skill, never fought a battle he didn't win. Although he helped James II crush the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, Marlborough later supported William of Orange against James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and brilliantly managed England's diplomatic triumphs during the War of the Spanish Succession. Marlborough also bequeathed the world another great British military strategist and diplomat—his descendant, Winston S. Churchill, who wrote this book to redeem Marlborough's reputation from Macaulay's smears.
One million words long and ten years in the making, Churchill's Marlborough stands as both a literary and historical masterpiece, giving us unique insights into the Churchill of World War II, for just as Churchill's literary skill helps us understand the complexities of Marlborough's life, so too did his writing of Marlborough help Churchill master the arts of military strategy and diplomacy. This two-volume edition includes the entire text and almost all the original maps.
John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough (1644-1722), was one of the greatest military commanders and statesmen in the history of England. Victorious in the Battles of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), and countless other campaigns, Marlborough, whose political intrigues were almost as legendary as his military skill, never fought a battle he didn't win. Although he helped James II crush the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, Marlborough later supported William of Orange against James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and brilliantly managed England's diplomatic triumphs during the War of the Spanish Succession. Marlborough also bequeathed the world another great British military strategist and diplomat—his descendant, Winston S. Churchill, who wrote this book to redeem Marlborough's reputation from Macaulay's smears.
One million words long and ten years in the making, Churchill's Marlborough stands as both a literary and historical masterpiece, giving us unique insights into the Churchill of World War II, for just as Churchill's literary skill helps us understand the complexities of Marlborough's life, so too did his writing of Marlborough help Churchill master the arts of military strategy and diplomacy. This two-volume edition includes the entire text and almost all the original maps.
[more]
Marlborough
His Life and Times, Book Two
Winston S. Churchill
University of Chicago Press, 2002
"It is my hope to recall this great shade from the past, and not only invest him with his panoply, but make him living and intimate to modern eyes."—from the preface to Volume One
John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough (1644-1722), was one of the greatest military commanders and statesmen in the history of England. Victorious in the Battles of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), and countless other campaigns, Marlborough, whose political intrigues were almost as legendary as his military skill, never fought a battle he didn't win. Although he helped James II crush the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, Marlborough later supported William of Orange against James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and brilliantly managed England's diplomatic triumphs during the War of the Spanish Succession. Marlborough also bequeathed the world another great British military strategist and diplomat—his descendant, Winston S. Churchill, who wrote this book to redeem Marlborough's reputation from Macaulay's smears.
One million words long and ten years in the making, Churchill's Marlborough stands as both a literary and historical masterpiece, giving us unique insights into the Churchill of World War II, for just as Churchill's literary skill helps us understand the complexities of Marlborough's life, so too did his writing of Marlborough help Churchill master the arts of military strategy and diplomacy. This two-volume edition includes the entire text and almost all the original maps.
John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough (1644-1722), was one of the greatest military commanders and statesmen in the history of England. Victorious in the Battles of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), and countless other campaigns, Marlborough, whose political intrigues were almost as legendary as his military skill, never fought a battle he didn't win. Although he helped James II crush the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, Marlborough later supported William of Orange against James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and brilliantly managed England's diplomatic triumphs during the War of the Spanish Succession. Marlborough also bequeathed the world another great British military strategist and diplomat—his descendant, Winston S. Churchill, who wrote this book to redeem Marlborough's reputation from Macaulay's smears.
One million words long and ten years in the making, Churchill's Marlborough stands as both a literary and historical masterpiece, giving us unique insights into the Churchill of World War II, for just as Churchill's literary skill helps us understand the complexities of Marlborough's life, so too did his writing of Marlborough help Churchill master the arts of military strategy and diplomacy. This two-volume edition includes the entire text and almost all the original maps.
[more]
Martial Spectacles of the Ming Court
David M. Robinson
Harvard University Press, 2013
Like most empires, the Ming court sponsored grand displays of dynastic strength and military prowess. Covering the first two centuries of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Martial Spectacles of the Ming Court explores how the royal hunt, polo matches, archery contests, equestrian demonstrations, and the imperial menagerie were represented in poetry, prose, and portraiture. This study reveals that martial spectacles were highly charged sites of contestation, where Ming emperors and senior court ministers staked claims about rulership, ruler-minister relations, and the role of the military in the polity. Simultaneously colorful entertainment, prestigious social events, and statements of power, martial spectacles were intended to make manifest the ruler’s personal generosity, keen discernment, and respect for family tradition. They were, however, subject to competing interpretations that were often beyond the emperor’s control or even knowledge. By situating Ming martial spectacles in the wider context of Eurasia, David Robinson brings to light the commensurability of the Ming court with both the Mongols and Manchus but more broadly with other early modern courts such as the Timurids, the Mughals, and the Ottomans.
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Memoirs
Marie Mancini and Hortense Mancini
University of Chicago Press, 2008
The memoirs of Hortense (1646–1699) and of Marie (1639–1715) Mancini, nieces of the powerful Cardinal Mazarin and members of the court of Louis XIV, represent the earliest examples in France of memoirs published by women under their own names during their lifetimes. Both unhappily married—Marie had also fled the aftermath of her failed affair with the king—the sisters chose to leave their husbands for life on the road, a life quite rare for women of their day.
Through their writings, the Mancinis sought to rehabilitate their reputations and reclaim the right to define their public images themselves, rather than leave the stories of their lives to the intrigues of the court—and to their disgruntled ex-husbands. First translated in 1676 and 1678 and credited largely to male redactors, the two memoirs reemerge here in an accessible English translation that chronicles the beginnings of women’s rights to personal independence within the confines of an otherwise circumscribed early modern aristocratic society.
Through their writings, the Mancinis sought to rehabilitate their reputations and reclaim the right to define their public images themselves, rather than leave the stories of their lives to the intrigues of the court—and to their disgruntled ex-husbands. First translated in 1676 and 1678 and credited largely to male redactors, the two memoirs reemerge here in an accessible English translation that chronicles the beginnings of women’s rights to personal independence within the confines of an otherwise circumscribed early modern aristocratic society.
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The Memoirs of Princess Dashkova
Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova
Duke University Press, 1995
Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova (1743–1810), Russian princess, playwright, author, President of the Academy of Sciences, and founder and Director of the Russian Academy, was one of the first women in Europe to hold public office. Her memoir, among the earliest examples of autobiography in Russia, is part of what has become a long and powerful tradition of autobiographical writing by Russian women. It offers a rare glimpse into the life of a strong and outspoken public figure who was well recognized in much of her own time for her potent intellect but who died in isolation and has largely been forgotten today.
Originally written in French, first published in English, and long out of print, Dashkova’s Memoirs tell the story of a woman who at age eighteen played an important role in the coup that brought Catherine the Great to the throne. The relationship between these two women, often tense, is a central theme throughout this story. Dashkova, occupying the highly unusual position of both stateswoman and mother, also reveals her own path between the demands and limitations of the "private" and "public" spheres of her society. She provides a view of the expectations of Russian aristocratic women, the possibilities available to them, and the ways in which gender roles were conceived in the eighteenth century.
With a new introduction by Jehanne M Gheith, The Memoirs of Princess Dashkova will renew interest in the life of a fascinating woman for students of Russian history, women’s studies, and eighteenth-century studies. It will be a significant text for those engaged in the cross-cultural study of the traditions of women’s autobiographical writing.
Originally written in French, first published in English, and long out of print, Dashkova’s Memoirs tell the story of a woman who at age eighteen played an important role in the coup that brought Catherine the Great to the throne. The relationship between these two women, often tense, is a central theme throughout this story. Dashkova, occupying the highly unusual position of both stateswoman and mother, also reveals her own path between the demands and limitations of the "private" and "public" spheres of her society. She provides a view of the expectations of Russian aristocratic women, the possibilities available to them, and the ways in which gender roles were conceived in the eighteenth century.
With a new introduction by Jehanne M Gheith, The Memoirs of Princess Dashkova will renew interest in the life of a fascinating woman for students of Russian history, women’s studies, and eighteenth-century studies. It will be a significant text for those engaged in the cross-cultural study of the traditions of women’s autobiographical writing.
[more]
Mughal Arcadia
Persian Literature in an Indian Court
Sunil Sharma
Harvard University Press, 2017
At its height in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Mughal Empire was one of the largest empires in Eurasia, with territory extending over most of the Indian subcontinent and much of present-day Afghanistan. As part of the Persianate world that spanned from the Bosphorus to the Bay of Bengal, Mughal rulers were legendary connoisseurs of the arts. Their patronage attracted poets, artists, and scholars from all parts of the eastern Islamic world. Persian was the language of the court, and poets from Safavid Iran played a significant role in the cultural life of the nobility. Mughal Arcadia explores the rise and decline of Persian court poetry in India and the invention of an enduring idea—found in poetry, prose, paintings, and architecture—of a literary paradise, a Persian garden located outside Iran, which was perfectly exemplified by the valley of Kashmir.
Poets and artists from Iran moved freely throughout the Mughal empire and encountered a variety of cultures and landscapes that inspired aesthetic experiments which continue to inspire the visual arts, poetry, films, and music in contemporary South Asia. Sunil Sharma takes readers on a dazzling literary journey over a vast geographic terrain and across two centuries, from the accession of the first emperor, Babur, to the throne of Hindustan to the reign of the sixth great Mughal, Aurangzeb, in order to illuminate the life of Persian poetry in India. Along the way, we are offered a rare glimpse into the social and cultural life of the Mughals.
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The Renaissance of Marriage in Fifteenth-Century Italy
Anthony F. D'Elia
Harvard University Press, 2005
Weddings in fifteenth-century Italian courts were grand, sumptuous affairs that often required guests to listen attentively to lengthy orations given in Latin. In this book, Anthony D'Elia shows how Italian humanists used these orations to support claims of legitimacy and assertions of superiority among families jockeying for power, as well as to advocate for marriage and sexual pleasure.
Humanists stressed the value of marriage in practical terms as a means for consolidating wealth, forming political alliances, and maintaining power by providing heirs. They also presented women in a positive light, as helpmates and even examples of wisdom and learning. While D'Elia focuses on Italian courts, he also examines ideas about marriage and celibacy from Antiquity to Republican Florence and Reformation Germany, revealing the continuities and distinctions between Italian humanist and Protestant thought on marriage.
In bringing to life this fascinating elite culture, D'Elia makes a valuable contribution to the history of the Renaissance, women, and the family, and to studies of rhetoric and the classical tradition.
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Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
University of Chicago Press, 2001
The Duke of Saint-Simon (1675—1755) was by all accounts, including his own, a sensitive, self-obsessed, ill-tempered man. A courtier and phenomenal chronicler of court life under Louis XIV, he produced the monumental work Memoirs, running to thousands of pages, in which the intrigues, personalities, activities, and gossip of life at Versailles are recorded in acerbic detail. Drawing heavily on these Memoirs, renowned historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie offers a wonderful portrait of life under Louis XIV, focusing on the fundamental issues of hierarchy and rank in this tightly controlled universe.
Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV, expertly translated by Arthur Goldhammer, is a historical essay about court life, built with the wide range of tools Ladurie so expertly employs: ethnography, history, literary criticism, and historiography. Ladurie recreates a world in which man is most definitely born unequal, a world circumscribed entirely by purity of bloodline, which nonetheless directly preceded the birth of democratic thought and political action. Locked into a virtual caste system, courtiers formed within their ranks cabals, factions, and groups bonded by common ideological principles in order to survive the political order of the court. Thus Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV is not only about Saint-Simon's place in this constellation but also the constellation itself and how understanding it forces us to a reevaluation of political life in France during the Old Regime.
Including a biographical sketch of Saint-Simon and more than 30 illustrations of court life and its members, Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV will delight those interested in French history as well as instruct those interested in political history.
Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV, expertly translated by Arthur Goldhammer, is a historical essay about court life, built with the wide range of tools Ladurie so expertly employs: ethnography, history, literary criticism, and historiography. Ladurie recreates a world in which man is most definitely born unequal, a world circumscribed entirely by purity of bloodline, which nonetheless directly preceded the birth of democratic thought and political action. Locked into a virtual caste system, courtiers formed within their ranks cabals, factions, and groups bonded by common ideological principles in order to survive the political order of the court. Thus Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV is not only about Saint-Simon's place in this constellation but also the constellation itself and how understanding it forces us to a reevaluation of political life in France during the Old Regime.
Including a biographical sketch of Saint-Simon and more than 30 illustrations of court life and its members, Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV will delight those interested in French history as well as instruct those interested in political history.
[more]
The Scattered Court
Hindustani Music in Colonial Bengal
Richard David Williams
University of Chicago Press, 2023
Presents a new history of how Hindustani court music responded to the political transitions of the nineteenth century.
How far did colonialism transform north Indian music? In the period between the Mughal empire and the British Raj, how did the political landscape bleed into aesthetics, music, dance, and poetry? Examining musical culture through a diverse and multilingual archive, primarily using sources in Urdu, Bengali, and Hindi that have not been translated or critically examined before, The Scattered Court challenges our assumptions about the period. Richard David Williams presents a long history of interactions between northern India and Bengal, with a core focus on the two courts of Wajid Ali Shah (1822–1887), the last ruler of the kingdom of Awadh. He charts the movement of musicians and dancers between the two courts in Lucknow and Matiyaburj, as well as the transregional circulation of intellectual traditions and musical genres, and demonstrates the importance of the exile period for the rise of Calcutta as a celebrated center of Hindustani classical music. Since Lucknow is associated with late Mughal or Nawabi society and Calcutta with colonial modernity, examining the relationship between the two cities sheds light on forms of continuity and transition over the nineteenth century, as artists and their patrons navigated political ruptures and social transformations. The Scattered Court challenges the existing historiography of Hindustani music and Indian culture under colonialism by arguing that our focus on Anglophone sources and modernizing impulses has directed us away from the aesthetic subtleties, historical continuities, and emotional dimensions of nineteenth-century music.
How far did colonialism transform north Indian music? In the period between the Mughal empire and the British Raj, how did the political landscape bleed into aesthetics, music, dance, and poetry? Examining musical culture through a diverse and multilingual archive, primarily using sources in Urdu, Bengali, and Hindi that have not been translated or critically examined before, The Scattered Court challenges our assumptions about the period. Richard David Williams presents a long history of interactions between northern India and Bengal, with a core focus on the two courts of Wajid Ali Shah (1822–1887), the last ruler of the kingdom of Awadh. He charts the movement of musicians and dancers between the two courts in Lucknow and Matiyaburj, as well as the transregional circulation of intellectual traditions and musical genres, and demonstrates the importance of the exile period for the rise of Calcutta as a celebrated center of Hindustani classical music. Since Lucknow is associated with late Mughal or Nawabi society and Calcutta with colonial modernity, examining the relationship between the two cities sheds light on forms of continuity and transition over the nineteenth century, as artists and their patrons navigated political ruptures and social transformations. The Scattered Court challenges the existing historiography of Hindustani music and Indian culture under colonialism by arguing that our focus on Anglophone sources and modernizing impulses has directed us away from the aesthetic subtleties, historical continuities, and emotional dimensions of nineteenth-century music.
[more]
The Triumph of Pleasure
Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle
Georgia J. Cowart
University of Chicago Press, 2008
Prominent components of Louis XIV’s propaganda, the arts of spectacle also became sources of a potent resistance to the monarchy in late seventeenth-century France. With a particular focus on the court ballet, comedy-ballet, opera, and opera-ballet, Georgia J. Cowart tells the long-neglected story of how the festive arts deployed an intricate network of subversive satire to undermine the rhetoric of sovereign authority.
With bold revisionist strokes, Cowart traces this strain of artistic dissent through the comedy-ballets of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Molière, the late operatic works of Lully and the operas of his sons, the opera-ballets of André Campra and his contemporaries, and the related imagery of Antoine Watteau’s well-known painting The Pilgrimage to Cythera. She contends that through a variety of means, including the parody of old-fashioned court entertainments, these works reclaimed traditional allegories for new ideological aims, setting the tone for the Enlightenment. Exploring these arts from the perspective of spectacle as it emerged from the court into the Parisian public sphere, Cowart ultimately situates the ballet and related genres as the missing link between an imagery of propaganda and an imagery of political protest.
With bold revisionist strokes, Cowart traces this strain of artistic dissent through the comedy-ballets of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Molière, the late operatic works of Lully and the operas of his sons, the opera-ballets of André Campra and his contemporaries, and the related imagery of Antoine Watteau’s well-known painting The Pilgrimage to Cythera. She contends that through a variety of means, including the parody of old-fashioned court entertainments, these works reclaimed traditional allegories for new ideological aims, setting the tone for the Enlightenment. Exploring these arts from the perspective of spectacle as it emerged from the court into the Parisian public sphere, Cowart ultimately situates the ballet and related genres as the missing link between an imagery of propaganda and an imagery of political protest.
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The Utility of Splendor
Ceremony, Social Life, and Architecture at the Court of Bavaria, 1600-1800
Samuel John Klingensmith
University of Chicago Press, 1993
The grand palaces and princely villas of the Bavarian Wittelsbach dynasty—Nymphenburg, Schleissheim, the vast Residenzschloss in Munich, and others—impress visitors with their great halls and intimate cabinets, dramatic stairhalls and seemingly endless rows of sumptuously decorated rooms. But these dazzling residences did not exist solely to delight the eye. In The Utility of Splendor, Samuel John Klingensmith discusses how, over the years, successive rulers reshaped the internal spaces of their residences to reflect changes in the elaborate ceremony that regulated daily life at court.
Drawing on a broad range of sources, including building documents, correspondence, diaries, and court regulations, Klingensmith investigates the intricacies of Bavarian court practice and shows that Versailles was only one among several influences on German palace planning. Klingensmith offers a cogent, detailed understanding of the relations between architectural spaces and the ceremonial, social, and private life that both required and used them. Handsomely illustrated with photographs and plans, The Utility of Splendor will appeal to anyone interested in how life was lived among the nobility during the last centuries of the old regime.
Samuel John Klingensmith (1949-1986) was assistant professor of art history at Tulane University.
Drawing on a broad range of sources, including building documents, correspondence, diaries, and court regulations, Klingensmith investigates the intricacies of Bavarian court practice and shows that Versailles was only one among several influences on German palace planning. Klingensmith offers a cogent, detailed understanding of the relations between architectural spaces and the ceremonial, social, and private life that both required and used them. Handsomely illustrated with photographs and plans, The Utility of Splendor will appeal to anyone interested in how life was lived among the nobility during the last centuries of the old regime.
Samuel John Klingensmith (1949-1986) was assistant professor of art history at Tulane University.
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Women and Power at the French Court, 1483-1563
Edited by Susan Broomhall
Amsterdam University Press, 2018
Women and Power at the French Court, 1483—1563 explores the ways in which a range of women “ as consorts, regents, mistresses, factional power players, attendants at court, or as objects of courtly patronage “ wielded power in order to advance individual, familial, and factional agendas at the early sixteenth-century French court. Spring-boarding from the burgeoning scholarship of gender, the political, and power in early modern Europe, the collection provides a perspective from the French court, from the reigns of Charles VIII to Henri II, a time when the French court was a renowned center of culture and at which women played important roles. Crossdisciplinary in its perspectives, these essays by historians, art and literary scholars investigate the dynamic operations of gendered power in political acts, recognized status as queens and regents, ritualized behaviors such as gift-giving, educational coteries, and through social networking, literary and artistic patronage, female authorship, and epistolary strategies.
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