Nicholas Mcdowell
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199278008
- eISBN:
- 9780191707810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278008.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Poetry
Richard Lovelace is the best-known ‘Cavalier’ poet. He was a relative and close friend of Thomas Stanley; he was friends with both John Hall and Marvell. This chapter offers a revisionist ...
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Richard Lovelace is the best-known ‘Cavalier’ poet. He was a relative and close friend of Thomas Stanley; he was friends with both John Hall and Marvell. This chapter offers a revisionist interpretation of several of his most acclaimed lyric poems, including ‘The Grasshopper’, by placing them in the context of royalist disillusionment in the aftermath of the king's defeat but also of the cultural activities of the Stanley circle. These readings of Lovelace's verse show how his post-war lyrics dwell on the collapse of Stuart court culture and patronage. Lovelace looks rather to a recreation of the sort of literary circle over which Ben Jonson presided in pre-war London for the preservation of literary values against what he perceives as Puritan philistinism.Less
Richard Lovelace is the best-known ‘Cavalier’ poet. He was a relative and close friend of Thomas Stanley; he was friends with both John Hall and Marvell. This chapter offers a revisionist interpretation of several of his most acclaimed lyric poems, including ‘The Grasshopper’, by placing them in the context of royalist disillusionment in the aftermath of the king's defeat but also of the cultural activities of the Stanley circle. These readings of Lovelace's verse show how his post-war lyrics dwell on the collapse of Stuart court culture and patronage. Lovelace looks rather to a recreation of the sort of literary circle over which Ben Jonson presided in pre-war London for the preservation of literary values against what he perceives as Puritan philistinism.
Nicholas Mcdowell
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199278008
- eISBN:
- 9780191707810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278008.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Poetry
This chapter sets Marvell's two of published occasional poems of 1648–9 in the context of the literary community around Stanley in London. The first section examines John Hall's career as a ...
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This chapter sets Marvell's two of published occasional poems of 1648–9 in the context of the literary community around Stanley in London. The first section examines John Hall's career as a Parliamentarian propagandist and shows how he followed Milton in seeking to convince his literary friends to support a royalist–Independent alliance against the Presbyterians. The second section reads Marvell's An Elegy Upon the Death of My Lord Francis Villiers as concerned with similar themes of Lovelace's post-war verse––the destruction of court culture and the future for poetry and wit in a Puritan society. The third section is the most extensive interpretation to date of Marvell's verse epistle ‘To His Noble Friend Mr Richard Lovelace’, a poem which brings together central themes of the previous chapters and reveals Marvell's allegiance to the cause of wit above the defeated cause of the king.Less
This chapter sets Marvell's two of published occasional poems of 1648–9 in the context of the literary community around Stanley in London. The first section examines John Hall's career as a Parliamentarian propagandist and shows how he followed Milton in seeking to convince his literary friends to support a royalist–Independent alliance against the Presbyterians. The second section reads Marvell's An Elegy Upon the Death of My Lord Francis Villiers as concerned with similar themes of Lovelace's post-war verse––the destruction of court culture and the future for poetry and wit in a Puritan society. The third section is the most extensive interpretation to date of Marvell's verse epistle ‘To His Noble Friend Mr Richard Lovelace’, a poem which brings together central themes of the previous chapters and reveals Marvell's allegiance to the cause of wit above the defeated cause of the king.
Joachim Whaley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693078
- eISBN:
- 9780191732256
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693078.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
The Aufklärung did not reject the governmental forms and institutions of the past but sought to give them a new purpose. Discussion of Aufklärung ideas was fostered by the explosive growth of the ...
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The Aufklärung did not reject the governmental forms and institutions of the past but sought to give them a new purpose. Discussion of Aufklärung ideas was fostered by the explosive growth of the print media. Aufklärung was defined by Kant and others; it suffused Protestant and Catholic thinking and many Jewish communities. The reforms of the period often responded to the problem of reconstruction after the Seven Years War, but they were shaped by new cameralist and physiocratic ideas. ‘Improvement’ soon became a general watchword leading to important new developments in administrative practice, law and justice, schools and universities, thinking about religious toleration and in the culture of the German courts. There is some evidence to suggest that the reforms in the German territories helped them avoid the kind of societal crisis that exploded in France in 1789.Less
The Aufklärung did not reject the governmental forms and institutions of the past but sought to give them a new purpose. Discussion of Aufklärung ideas was fostered by the explosive growth of the print media. Aufklärung was defined by Kant and others; it suffused Protestant and Catholic thinking and many Jewish communities. The reforms of the period often responded to the problem of reconstruction after the Seven Years War, but they were shaped by new cameralist and physiocratic ideas. ‘Improvement’ soon became a general watchword leading to important new developments in administrative practice, law and justice, schools and universities, thinking about religious toleration and in the culture of the German courts. There is some evidence to suggest that the reforms in the German territories helped them avoid the kind of societal crisis that exploded in France in 1789.
Deborah Howard and Laura Moretti (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197265055
- eISBN:
- 9780191754166
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265055.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book investigates the use of secular space for music-making in Early Modern France and Italy. This era is remarkable for the growing importance of music in domestic life, ranging from elaborate ...
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This book investigates the use of secular space for music-making in Early Modern France and Italy. This era is remarkable for the growing importance of music in domestic life, ranging from elaborate court festivities to family recreation. In parallel with the emergence of the theatre as a separate building type, music-making in elite circles became more specialised through the employment of paid musicians, as opposed to amateur participation by the inhabitants and their guests. Meanwhile, however, music printing and the mass-production of instruments, especially lutes, allowed music-making to diffuse down the social scale. The book shows how spaces specifically designed for music began to appear in private dwellings, while existing rooms became adapted for the purpose. At first, the number of rooms specifically identifiable as ‘music rooms’ was very small, but gradually, over the following 150 years, specialised music rooms began to appear in larger residences in both France and Italy. A major theme of the book is the relationship between the size and purpose of the room and the kinds of music performed – depending on the size, portability and loudness of different instruments; the types of music suited to spaces of different dimensions; the role of music in dancing and banqueting; and the positions of players and listeners. Musical instruments were often elaborately decorated to become works of art in their own right.Less
This book investigates the use of secular space for music-making in Early Modern France and Italy. This era is remarkable for the growing importance of music in domestic life, ranging from elaborate court festivities to family recreation. In parallel with the emergence of the theatre as a separate building type, music-making in elite circles became more specialised through the employment of paid musicians, as opposed to amateur participation by the inhabitants and their guests. Meanwhile, however, music printing and the mass-production of instruments, especially lutes, allowed music-making to diffuse down the social scale. The book shows how spaces specifically designed for music began to appear in private dwellings, while existing rooms became adapted for the purpose. At first, the number of rooms specifically identifiable as ‘music rooms’ was very small, but gradually, over the following 150 years, specialised music rooms began to appear in larger residences in both France and Italy. A major theme of the book is the relationship between the size and purpose of the room and the kinds of music performed – depending on the size, portability and loudness of different instruments; the types of music suited to spaces of different dimensions; the role of music in dancing and banqueting; and the positions of players and listeners. Musical instruments were often elaborately decorated to become works of art in their own right.
Mark Jurdjevic
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199204489
- eISBN:
- 9780191708084
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199204489.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
The sixth chapter contrasts two seventeenth‐century histories of the Valori, the first a Savonarolan and republican interpretation by the Dominican friar Silvano Razzi and the second a skilful ...
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The sixth chapter contrasts two seventeenth‐century histories of the Valori, the first a Savonarolan and republican interpretation by the Dominican friar Silvano Razzi and the second a skilful reinterpretation of the family's traditions as essentially pro‐Medicean by the court historian Scipione Ammirato. Both texts were written with the evident blessing of Baccio Valori and both praise the Valori as an exceptional and distinguished Florentine family. In terms of political content, however, the two texts contrast markedly. Razzi's biography of Francesco Valori is a tenacious and outspoken republican critique of Medici power and praise of Francesco's principled stand against it, while Ammirato's family history criticises the anti‐Medicean members of the Valori family and implicitly advances an argument for the legitimacy and permanence of the new Medici duchy.Less
The sixth chapter contrasts two seventeenth‐century histories of the Valori, the first a Savonarolan and republican interpretation by the Dominican friar Silvano Razzi and the second a skilful reinterpretation of the family's traditions as essentially pro‐Medicean by the court historian Scipione Ammirato. Both texts were written with the evident blessing of Baccio Valori and both praise the Valori as an exceptional and distinguished Florentine family. In terms of political content, however, the two texts contrast markedly. Razzi's biography of Francesco Valori is a tenacious and outspoken republican critique of Medici power and praise of Francesco's principled stand against it, while Ammirato's family history criticises the anti‐Medicean members of the Valori family and implicitly advances an argument for the legitimacy and permanence of the new Medici duchy.
Richard Ralph (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748635849
- eISBN:
- 9780748671120
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748635849.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
The text offers a conspectus of the work of Professor McGowan and, in particular, focuses on French culture in the 16th and 17th centuries; the development of the study of dance in this early period ...
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The text offers a conspectus of the work of Professor McGowan and, in particular, focuses on French culture in the 16th and 17th centuries; the development of the study of dance in this early period and of the appropriate theoretical and historical approaches needed to bring court culture and choreographies of the baroque to the critical attention of modern scholars.Less
The text offers a conspectus of the work of Professor McGowan and, in particular, focuses on French culture in the 16th and 17th centuries; the development of the study of dance in this early period and of the appropriate theoretical and historical approaches needed to bring court culture and choreographies of the baroque to the critical attention of modern scholars.
David Kuchta
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520214934
- eISBN:
- 9780520921399
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520214934.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter covers the republican, Whig, mercantilist, and Puritan ideologies that opposed and undermined Stuart court culture and constructed a new political culture of masculinity, one that ...
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This chapter covers the republican, Whig, mercantilist, and Puritan ideologies that opposed and undermined Stuart court culture and constructed a new political culture of masculinity, one that influenced the introduction of the three-piece suit. It notes that the most visually obvious aspect of the general crisis in seventeenth-century England was the crisis of fashion, which was informed by political, social, religious, and economic events, and in turn helped give them shape. It further notes that contemporaries saw the crown's conspicuous consumption as a threat to the moral, economic, and political well-being of the nation. It explains that a crisis in the public image of monarchy helped precipitate its fall in the English Civil War, helped redefine its meaning during the Restoration, and helped expel James II in the Glorious Revolution.Less
This chapter covers the republican, Whig, mercantilist, and Puritan ideologies that opposed and undermined Stuart court culture and constructed a new political culture of masculinity, one that influenced the introduction of the three-piece suit. It notes that the most visually obvious aspect of the general crisis in seventeenth-century England was the crisis of fashion, which was informed by political, social, religious, and economic events, and in turn helped give them shape. It further notes that contemporaries saw the crown's conspicuous consumption as a threat to the moral, economic, and political well-being of the nation. It explains that a crisis in the public image of monarchy helped precipitate its fall in the English Civil War, helped redefine its meaning during the Restoration, and helped expel James II in the Glorious Revolution.
Jane Stevenson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198185024
- eISBN:
- 9780191714238
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198185024.003.0016
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
In 17th century England, women's Latin learning acquired a new utility since gentry-level women might find themselves impoverished by the Civil War. Some found that Latin gave them access to paid ...
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In 17th century England, women's Latin learning acquired a new utility since gentry-level women might find themselves impoverished by the Civil War. Some found that Latin gave them access to paid work. At the level of the court, Latin was out of fashion, but the educated provincial gentry continued to teach daughters Latin. Nuns, particularly Benedictines and Wardists, also studied Latin, and there is also some evidence for Irish women learning Latin. Women continued to study Latin in the 18th century, but learned women were increasingly anxious to conceal their learning.Less
In 17th century England, women's Latin learning acquired a new utility since gentry-level women might find themselves impoverished by the Civil War. Some found that Latin gave them access to paid work. At the level of the court, Latin was out of fashion, but the educated provincial gentry continued to teach daughters Latin. Nuns, particularly Benedictines and Wardists, also studied Latin, and there is also some evidence for Irish women learning Latin. Women continued to study Latin in the 18th century, but learned women were increasingly anxious to conceal their learning.
Gabriel Heaton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199213115
- eISBN:
- 9780191707148
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199213115.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This major new study of royal entertainments from the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I, including country house entertainments, tiltyard speeches, and court masques, is focused on the ...
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This major new study of royal entertainments from the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I, including country house entertainments, tiltyard speeches, and court masques, is focused on the surviving material texts and so is a contribution to book history as well as the study of early modern court culture. Drafts, royal presentation manuscripts, widely‐circulating scribal copies, and printed pamphlets are all carefully placed in their cultural context, and the medium of manuscript is shown to have been at least as important as print for these texts' circulation. From the close collaboration between commissioning host and hired writer, to the varied interpretations imposed by copyists and publishers, entertainments were written and read within a complex social nexus: far from being royal propaganda, they reflected the distinct and sometimes competing agendas of monarchs, commissioning hosts, authors, publishers, scribal intermediaries, and readers. In six chapters Writing and Reading Royal Entertainments explores this interpretative community through a range of texts. The first part of the book looks at Elizabethan court entertainments: the Woodstock entertainment of 1575 (Chapter I); tiltyard speeches (Chapter II); and the distinctive features of printed pamphlets and scribal circulation, notably of the 1602 Harefield entertainment (Chapter III). The second part of the book is mostly concerned with Ben Jonson's work for the Jacobean court, with chapters on the Merchant Taylors' entertainment (Chapter IV) and the Theobalds entertainment (Chapter V). The final chapter looks at the texts of court masques, especially in the light of Jonson's understanding of the poet's elevated role. The chapter‐length conclusion takes the story of these material texts beyond the early modern period and looks at how they have been collected, bought, and sold over the centuries.Less
This major new study of royal entertainments from the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I, including country house entertainments, tiltyard speeches, and court masques, is focused on the surviving material texts and so is a contribution to book history as well as the study of early modern court culture. Drafts, royal presentation manuscripts, widely‐circulating scribal copies, and printed pamphlets are all carefully placed in their cultural context, and the medium of manuscript is shown to have been at least as important as print for these texts' circulation. From the close collaboration between commissioning host and hired writer, to the varied interpretations imposed by copyists and publishers, entertainments were written and read within a complex social nexus: far from being royal propaganda, they reflected the distinct and sometimes competing agendas of monarchs, commissioning hosts, authors, publishers, scribal intermediaries, and readers. In six chapters Writing and Reading Royal Entertainments explores this interpretative community through a range of texts. The first part of the book looks at Elizabethan court entertainments: the Woodstock entertainment of 1575 (Chapter I); tiltyard speeches (Chapter II); and the distinctive features of printed pamphlets and scribal circulation, notably of the 1602 Harefield entertainment (Chapter III). The second part of the book is mostly concerned with Ben Jonson's work for the Jacobean court, with chapters on the Merchant Taylors' entertainment (Chapter IV) and the Theobalds entertainment (Chapter V). The final chapter looks at the texts of court masques, especially in the light of Jonson's understanding of the poet's elevated role. The chapter‐length conclusion takes the story of these material texts beyond the early modern period and looks at how they have been collected, bought, and sold over the centuries.
Kathleen Wellman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300178852
- eISBN:
- 9780300190656
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300178852.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter focuses on Francis I, a handsome, tall, and richly attired king who epitomized the French Renaissance, and who, coming to the throne as a young man, embodied hopes for a new reign with ...
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This chapter focuses on Francis I, a handsome, tall, and richly attired king who epitomized the French Renaissance, and who, coming to the throne as a young man, embodied hopes for a new reign with his vitality, which offered a striking contrast to the enfeebled Louis XII. Francis I claimed that “a court without women is like a year without spring” and that, without women, a court “more resembles the court of a satrap or a Turk than that of a great Christian king.” In his estimation, a cultured court required women. As such, the royal court, the venue in which the Renaissance emerged in France, was more hospitable to women than other new cultural sites, especially when the king promoted their participation.Less
This chapter focuses on Francis I, a handsome, tall, and richly attired king who epitomized the French Renaissance, and who, coming to the throne as a young man, embodied hopes for a new reign with his vitality, which offered a striking contrast to the enfeebled Louis XII. Francis I claimed that “a court without women is like a year without spring” and that, without women, a court “more resembles the court of a satrap or a Turk than that of a great Christian king.” In his estimation, a cultured court required women. As such, the royal court, the venue in which the Renaissance emerged in France, was more hospitable to women than other new cultural sites, especially when the king promoted their participation.
Andrew Chittick
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- April 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190937546
- eISBN:
- 9780190937577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190937546.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
Chapter 6, “Making Hierarchy: Garrison, Court, and the Structure of Jiankang Politics,” analyzes the contrasting political cultures of two functional/occupational groups: garrison and court. While ...
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Chapter 6, “Making Hierarchy: Garrison, Court, and the Structure of Jiankang Politics,” analyzes the contrasting political cultures of two functional/occupational groups: garrison and court. While garrison culture emphasized relatively fluid patron-client ties, personal honor, violence, and vengeance, court culture emphasized rigid status hierarchy, calm restraint, and skillful deployment of the Sinitic paideia. The imperial household played a key brokerage role between the two cultures, but the garrisons dominated the process of imperial succession, which did not follow the rules of primogeniture and was always contested. The chapter then uses the Churen group (jituan) of the early fifth century as a case study to demonstrate that the strong regional basis of patron-client cliques, though similar in many ways to the rise of military groups such as the Tabgatch Compatriots in the north, did not result in significant ethnogenesis. The chapter offers as an alternative the model, taken from studies of Southeast Asian regimes, of the “man of prowess.”Less
Chapter 6, “Making Hierarchy: Garrison, Court, and the Structure of Jiankang Politics,” analyzes the contrasting political cultures of two functional/occupational groups: garrison and court. While garrison culture emphasized relatively fluid patron-client ties, personal honor, violence, and vengeance, court culture emphasized rigid status hierarchy, calm restraint, and skillful deployment of the Sinitic paideia. The imperial household played a key brokerage role between the two cultures, but the garrisons dominated the process of imperial succession, which did not follow the rules of primogeniture and was always contested. The chapter then uses the Churen group (jituan) of the early fifth century as a case study to demonstrate that the strong regional basis of patron-client cliques, though similar in many ways to the rise of military groups such as the Tabgatch Compatriots in the north, did not result in significant ethnogenesis. The chapter offers as an alternative the model, taken from studies of Southeast Asian regimes, of the “man of prowess.”
Rolf Strootman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748691265
- eISBN:
- 9781474400800
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748691265.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
During the Hellenistic Period (c. 330-30 BCE), Alexander the Great and his successors reshaped their Persian and Greco-Macedonian legacies to create a new kind of rulership that was neither ‘western’ ...
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During the Hellenistic Period (c. 330-30 BCE), Alexander the Great and his successors reshaped their Persian and Greco-Macedonian legacies to create a new kind of rulership that was neither ‘western’ nor ‘eastern’ and would profoundly influence the later development of court culture and monarchy in both the Roman West and Iranian East. Drawing on the socio-political models of Norbert Elias and Charles Tilly, and covering topics such as palace architecture, royal women and court ritual, Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires shows how the Hellenistic dynastic courts were instrumental in the integration of local elites in the empires, and the (re)distribution of power, wealth, and status. It analyses the competition among courtiers for royal favour and the, not always successful, attempts of the Hellenistic rulers to use these struggles to their own advantage.Less
During the Hellenistic Period (c. 330-30 BCE), Alexander the Great and his successors reshaped their Persian and Greco-Macedonian legacies to create a new kind of rulership that was neither ‘western’ nor ‘eastern’ and would profoundly influence the later development of court culture and monarchy in both the Roman West and Iranian East. Drawing on the socio-political models of Norbert Elias and Charles Tilly, and covering topics such as palace architecture, royal women and court ritual, Courts and Elites in the Hellenistic Empires shows how the Hellenistic dynastic courts were instrumental in the integration of local elites in the empires, and the (re)distribution of power, wealth, and status. It analyses the competition among courtiers for royal favour and the, not always successful, attempts of the Hellenistic rulers to use these struggles to their own advantage.
Rolf Strootman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748691265
- eISBN:
- 9781474400800
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748691265.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
In Chapter 1, theoretical and methodological approaches to the court as a social and political system are introduced. A short overview of the history of court studies is given.
In Chapter 1, theoretical and methodological approaches to the court as a social and political system are introduced. A short overview of the history of court studies is given.
Audrey Truschke
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231173629
- eISBN:
- 9780231540971
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231173629.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Indian History
Chapter 2 analyzes Sanskrit literary and grammatical works that were composed under Mughal sponsorship or intended for consumption by the imperial elite. These works offer compelling insights ...
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Chapter 2 analyzes Sanskrit literary and grammatical works that were composed under Mughal sponsorship or intended for consumption by the imperial elite. These works offer compelling insights concerning the perceived and actual lines of Mughal political culture and how texts may have operated across linguistic boundaries.Less
Chapter 2 analyzes Sanskrit literary and grammatical works that were composed under Mughal sponsorship or intended for consumption by the imperial elite. These works offer compelling insights concerning the perceived and actual lines of Mughal political culture and how texts may have operated across linguistic boundaries.
Nadia Maria El Cheikh
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199236428
- eISBN:
- 9780191863349
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199236428.003.0026
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
This chapter discusses how research into court culture is an essential part of the growth in historical anthropology. The main historiographical developments have focused first, on the ritual and ...
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This chapter discusses how research into court culture is an essential part of the growth in historical anthropology. The main historiographical developments have focused first, on the ritual and symbolic aspects of rulership; and second, on the personal and domestic world. Any historical investigation of the court faces the problem of definition because courts were so diverse and also because any ruler's court could be different depending on the occasion. This may explain why it is that court studies are almost nonexistent for various periods of Islamic history. This is the same for the Byzantine court as well as the Abbasid society: the Byzantines, like the Abbasids, did not isolate the court as a social and cultural phenomenon worthy of literary attention; rather, court culture was a fact of life which those who lived in it did not feel the need to articulate.Less
This chapter discusses how research into court culture is an essential part of the growth in historical anthropology. The main historiographical developments have focused first, on the ritual and symbolic aspects of rulership; and second, on the personal and domestic world. Any historical investigation of the court faces the problem of definition because courts were so diverse and also because any ruler's court could be different depending on the occasion. This may explain why it is that court studies are almost nonexistent for various periods of Islamic history. This is the same for the Byzantine court as well as the Abbasid society: the Byzantines, like the Abbasids, did not isolate the court as a social and cultural phenomenon worthy of literary attention; rather, court culture was a fact of life which those who lived in it did not feel the need to articulate.
Adelheid Voskuhl
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226034027
- eISBN:
- 9780226034331
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226034331.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter takes the journey down the Rhine to the furniture manufacture of Abraham and David Roentgen in Neuwied, about seventy miles south of Cologne. David Roentgen became the most distinguished ...
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This chapter takes the journey down the Rhine to the furniture manufacture of Abraham and David Roentgen in Neuwied, about seventy miles south of Cologne. David Roentgen became the most distinguished and sought-after furniture-maker of his time, and his manufacture was the biggest and most productive of its kind in the entire Holy Roman Empire. His success, like that of the Jaquet-Droz clock-making workshop in Switzerland, had its roots in a society in which early industrialization and the court culture's continuing need for luxury commodities coincided. Roentgen's dulcimer player exemplifies the multifaceted social, spiritual, and political circumstances in the second half of the eighteenth century that facilitated the production of an android automaton.Less
This chapter takes the journey down the Rhine to the furniture manufacture of Abraham and David Roentgen in Neuwied, about seventy miles south of Cologne. David Roentgen became the most distinguished and sought-after furniture-maker of his time, and his manufacture was the biggest and most productive of its kind in the entire Holy Roman Empire. His success, like that of the Jaquet-Droz clock-making workshop in Switzerland, had its roots in a society in which early industrialization and the court culture's continuing need for luxury commodities coincided. Roentgen's dulcimer player exemplifies the multifaceted social, spiritual, and political circumstances in the second half of the eighteenth century that facilitated the production of an android automaton.
Hugh M. Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198802518
- eISBN:
- 9780191840791
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198802518.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
How did John’s court compare to those of other rulers in his own period and with earlier and later courts? Variation in the quality and quantity of sources makes precision difficult. Nonetheless, ...
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How did John’s court compare to those of other rulers in his own period and with earlier and later courts? Variation in the quality and quantity of sources makes precision difficult. Nonetheless, what we know about court culture in other European countries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries suggests that many aspects of court culture were similar across a wide range of territories. Indeed, one can even find similarities with Byzantine and Islamic courts. The evidence also indicates a great deal of continuity across the long historic arc of court culture in Western Europe. However, this continuity was combined with gradual but cumulatively radical change, so that by the early modern period, courts had become much larger and more complex, and very different in other respects as well.Less
How did John’s court compare to those of other rulers in his own period and with earlier and later courts? Variation in the quality and quantity of sources makes precision difficult. Nonetheless, what we know about court culture in other European countries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries suggests that many aspects of court culture were similar across a wide range of territories. Indeed, one can even find similarities with Byzantine and Islamic courts. The evidence also indicates a great deal of continuity across the long historic arc of court culture in Western Europe. However, this continuity was combined with gradual but cumulatively radical change, so that by the early modern period, courts had become much larger and more complex, and very different in other respects as well.
Bridget Heal
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198737575
- eISBN:
- 9780191800993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198737575.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
Chapter 7 turns from the devotional to the magnificent image, exploring the role of religious art at the Dresden court of the Saxon elector. The chapter focuses on the second half of the seventeenth ...
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Chapter 7 turns from the devotional to the magnificent image, exploring the role of religious art at the Dresden court of the Saxon elector. The chapter focuses on the second half of the seventeenth century, on the period of religious and political stability that followed the Peace of Westphalia (1648). It investigates Dresden’s cultural connections to Italy. By the seventeenth century Lutheran texts provided a theologically grounded aesthetic that acknowledged the spiritual value of beautiful images. During this age of princely collecting—of the Kunstkammer—piety and politics merged. The castle chapel in Dresden provides a wonderful example, examined in detail in this chapter: here a rich visual and liturgical culture served not only to promote proper Lutheran piety but also to demonstrate the magnificence of the prince, in this case Elector Johann Georg II (r. 1656–80).Less
Chapter 7 turns from the devotional to the magnificent image, exploring the role of religious art at the Dresden court of the Saxon elector. The chapter focuses on the second half of the seventeenth century, on the period of religious and political stability that followed the Peace of Westphalia (1648). It investigates Dresden’s cultural connections to Italy. By the seventeenth century Lutheran texts provided a theologically grounded aesthetic that acknowledged the spiritual value of beautiful images. During this age of princely collecting—of the Kunstkammer—piety and politics merged. The castle chapel in Dresden provides a wonderful example, examined in detail in this chapter: here a rich visual and liturgical culture served not only to promote proper Lutheran piety but also to demonstrate the magnificence of the prince, in this case Elector Johann Georg II (r. 1656–80).
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804762151
- eISBN:
- 9780804773379
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804762151.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter describes a model of discretionary comportment both of and for court culture in sixteenth-century Italy, focusing on Baldassar Castiglione and his work as a diplomat. It explains what it ...
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This chapter describes a model of discretionary comportment both of and for court culture in sixteenth-century Italy, focusing on Baldassar Castiglione and his work as a diplomat. It explains what it meant, in theory and in practice, to be conspicuous and yet deftly inconspicuous in the courts of the period. It also explores how strategies for being conspicuous changed dramatically in the late Renaissance as some writers became more and more openly indecorous and manifestly aggressive in print, particularly after the Sack of Rome. Those strategies for being inconspicuously conspicuous also coincided with an unprecedented outpouring of books on proper conduct and professional propriety, which include Castiglione's own influential Cortegiano.Less
This chapter describes a model of discretionary comportment both of and for court culture in sixteenth-century Italy, focusing on Baldassar Castiglione and his work as a diplomat. It explains what it meant, in theory and in practice, to be conspicuous and yet deftly inconspicuous in the courts of the period. It also explores how strategies for being conspicuous changed dramatically in the late Renaissance as some writers became more and more openly indecorous and manifestly aggressive in print, particularly after the Sack of Rome. Those strategies for being inconspicuously conspicuous also coincided with an unprecedented outpouring of books on proper conduct and professional propriety, which include Castiglione's own influential Cortegiano.
Mario Biagioli
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226045610
- eISBN:
- 9780226045634
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226045634.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In six short years, Galileo Galilei went from being a somewhat obscure mathematics professor running a student boarding house in Padua to a star in the court of Florence to the recipient of dangerous ...
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In six short years, Galileo Galilei went from being a somewhat obscure mathematics professor running a student boarding house in Padua to a star in the court of Florence to the recipient of dangerous attention from the Inquisition for his support of Copernicanism. In that brief period, he made a series of astronomical discoveries that reshaped the debate over the physical nature of the heavens: he deeply modified the practices and status of astronomy with the introduction of the telescope and pictorial evidence, proposed a radical reconfiguration of the relationship between theology and astronomy, and transformed himself from university mathematician into court philosopher. This book proposes radical new interpretations of several key episodes of Galileo's career, including his early telescopic discoveries of 1610, the dispute over sunspots, and the conflict with the Holy Office over the relationship between Copernicanism and Scripture. Galileo's tactics during this time shifted as rapidly as his circumstances, and the pace of these changes forced him to respond swiftly to the opportunities and risks posed by unforeseen inventions, further discoveries, and the interventions of his opponents. Focusing on the aspects of Galileo's scientific life that extend beyond the framework of court culture and patronage, the author offers a revisionist account of the different systems of exchanges, communication, and credibility at work in various phases of Galileo's career.Less
In six short years, Galileo Galilei went from being a somewhat obscure mathematics professor running a student boarding house in Padua to a star in the court of Florence to the recipient of dangerous attention from the Inquisition for his support of Copernicanism. In that brief period, he made a series of astronomical discoveries that reshaped the debate over the physical nature of the heavens: he deeply modified the practices and status of astronomy with the introduction of the telescope and pictorial evidence, proposed a radical reconfiguration of the relationship between theology and astronomy, and transformed himself from university mathematician into court philosopher. This book proposes radical new interpretations of several key episodes of Galileo's career, including his early telescopic discoveries of 1610, the dispute over sunspots, and the conflict with the Holy Office over the relationship between Copernicanism and Scripture. Galileo's tactics during this time shifted as rapidly as his circumstances, and the pace of these changes forced him to respond swiftly to the opportunities and risks posed by unforeseen inventions, further discoveries, and the interventions of his opponents. Focusing on the aspects of Galileo's scientific life that extend beyond the framework of court culture and patronage, the author offers a revisionist account of the different systems of exchanges, communication, and credibility at work in various phases of Galileo's career.