This multi-disciplinary collection of essays is the first cohesive attempt to integrate ladies-in-waiting into the master narrative of court studies. It provides evidence for the multitudinous ways ...in which 'women above stairs' influenced the politics and culture of their times.
In this new book on early modern diplomacy, Jan Hennings explores the relationship between European powers and Russia beyond the conventional East-West divide from the Peace of Westphalia to the ...reign of Peter the Great. He examines how, at a moment of new departure in both Europe and Russia, the norms shaping diplomatic practice emerged from the complex relations and direct encounters within the world of princely courts rather than from incompatible political cultures. He makes clear the connections between dynastic representation, politics and foreign relations and shows that Russia, despite its perceived isolation and cultural distinctiveness, participated in the developments and transformations that were taking place more broadly in diplomacy. The central themes of this study are the interlocking manifestations of social hierarchy, monarchical honour and sovereign status in both text and ritual. Related issues of diplomatic customs, institutional structures, personnel, negotiation practice, international law, and the question of cultural transfer, also figure prominently.
In this first in-depth study of the ruling family of Tunisia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Kallander investigates the palace as a site of familial and political significance. Through ...extensive archival research, she elucidates the domestic economy of the palace as well as the changing relationship between the ruling family of Tunis and the government, thus revealing how the private space of the palace mirrored the public political space.
"Instead of viewing the period as merely a precursor to colonial occupation and the nation-state as emphasized in precolonial or nationalist histories, this narrative moves away from images of stagnation and dependency to insist upon dynamism," Kallander explains. She delves deep into palace dynamics, comparing them to those of monarchies outside of the Ottoman Empire to find persuasive evidence of a global modernity. She demonstrates how upper-class Muslim women were active political players, exerting their power through displays of wealth such as consumerism and philanthropy. Ultimately, she creates a rich view of the Husaynid dynastic culture that will surprise many, and stimulate debate and further research among scholars of Ottoman Tunisia.
For more than 200 years, the Mughal emperors ruled supreme in northern India. How was it possible that a Muslim, ethnically Turkish, Persian-speaking dynasty established itself in the Indian ...subcontinent to become one of the largest and most dynamic empires on earth? In this rigorous new interpretation of the period, Munis D. Faruqui explores Mughal state formation through the pivotal role of the Mughal princes. In a challenge to previous scholarship, the book suggests that far from undermining the foundations of empire, the court intrigues and political backbiting that were features of Mughal political life - and that frequently resulted in rebellions and wars of succession - actually helped spread, deepen and mobilise Mughal power through an empire-wide network of friends and allies. This engaging book, which uses a vast archive of European and Persian sources, takes the reader from the founding of the empire under Babur to its decline in the 1700s.
The titleAge in Loveis taken from Shakespeare's sonnet 138, a poem about an aging male speaker who, by virtue of his entanglement with the dark lady, "vainly" performs the role of "some untutor'd ...youth." Jacqueline Vanhoutte argues that this pattern of "age in love" pervades Shakespeare's mature works, informing his experiments in all the dramatic genres. Bottom, Malvolio, Claudius, Falstaff, and Antony all share with the sonnet speaker a tendency to flout generational decorum by assuming the role of the lover, normally reserved in Renaissance culture for young men. Hybrids and upstarts, cross-dressers and shape-shifters, comic butts and tragic heroes-Shakespeare's old-men-in-love turn in boundary-blurring performances that probe the gendered and generational categories by which early modern subjects conceived of identity. InAge in LoveVanhoutte shows that questions we have come to regard as quintessentially Shakespearean-about the limits of social mobility, the nature of political authority, the transformative powers of the theater, the vagaries of human memory, or the possibility of secular immortality-come to indelible expression through Shakespeare's artful deployment of the "age in love" trope.Age in Lovecontributes to the ongoing debate about the emergence of a Tudor public sphere, building on the current interest in premodern constructions of aging and ultimately demonstrating that the Elizabethan court shaped Shakespeare's plays in unexpected and previously undocumented ways.
The work known as Pseudo-Kodinos, the fourteenth-century text which is one of two surviving ceremonial books from the Byzantine empire, is presented here for the first time in English translation. ...With facing page Greek text and the first in-depth analysis in the form of commentary and individual studies on the hierarchy, the ceremonies, court attire, the Blachernai palace, lighting, music, gestures and postures, this volume makes an important new contribution to the study of the Byzantine court, and to the history and culture of Byzantium more broadly. The unique traits of this ceremony book include the combination of hierarchical lists of court officials with protocols of ceremonies; a detailed description of the clothing used at court, in particular, hats and staffs; an account of the functions of the court title holders, a description of the ceremonies of the year which take place both inside the palace and outside; the service of the megas domestikos in the army, protocols for the coronation of the emperor, the promotions of despot, sebastokrator and caesar, of the patriarch; a description of the mourning attire of the emperor; protocol for the reception of a foreign bride in Constantinople all these are analysed here. Developments in ceremonial since the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies are discussed, as is the space in which ceremonial was performed, along with a new interpretation of the ’other palace’, the Blachernai. The text reveals the anonymous authors’ interest in the past, in the origins of practices and items of clothing, but it is argued that Pseudo-Kodinos presents descriptions of actual practice at the Byzantine court, rather than prescriptions.
Ruth Macrides is Reader in Byzantine Studies in the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, UK; J.A. Munitiz, SJ, is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham, UK; Dimiter Angelov is Professor of Byzantine History in the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, UK.
Between the fifteenth and the eighteenth century, princely courts dominated the Italian political scene. These courts were effervescent centers of cultural production. As such, they became a model ...for European monarchies who imported Italian courtly forma del vivere (‘style of life’) to legitimize their power and to define social status. This phenomenon included architecture and painting, theater and music, manners and aesthetics, and all the objects, behaviors and beliefs that contributed to homogenize European culture in the age of the Old Regime. It involved a hemorrhage of art and a continuous circulation of people, texts and symbols. The foundational material for this process was classicism and its purpose was political. This delineates a new geography and chronology of a truly European cultural history. It also provides the key traits for the European cultural identity.
The reign of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32) is a crucial epoch in Abbasid history. Four scholars question the picture of decline attached to this period, exploring the formal and informal power ...relationships that shaped politics at the court of this caliph.
Mughal rulers were legendary connoisseurs of the arts, whose patronage attracted poets, artists, and scholars from all parts of the world. Sunil Sharma explores the rise and decline of Persian court ...poetry in India and the invention of an enduring idea of a literary paradise, perfectly exemplified by the valley of Kashmir.
