Beyond the Boundaries of Private Spaces: Women and the Spanish Court

Abstract

In this joint paper Laura Muñoz Pérez and Trevor Dadson will examine the possibilities women had when participating in the cultural life at court, showing the relationships of patronage between noblewomen, women writers and other writers, and how this was also a way of promotion. Tied in with this will be an examination of the role of noblewomen in society at large, in particular the fact that they had more power and influence than is usually ascribed to them, especially but not solely if they were widows, when they often ended up running vast estates in the name of their eldest son (if they had one). Also, as ladies at court (‘damas de la reina’) these noblewomen had another form of influence, as they often acted as the eyes and ears of their fathers, brothers and husbands. The largely female court established around the Empress María of Austria in the Descalzas Reales in the early seventeenth century has been the subject of study, but the royal court under Philip III and Philip IV and the powerful women there still requires attention.

Key words:

• Early Modern court life
• Patronage
• Early Modern culture
• noblewomen
• Empress María of Austria

Notes

1 See Allyson M. Poska, Women & Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2005), especially Chapter 1, ‘Women without Men’ and Chapter 5, ‘Widowhood’.

2 The now standard work on the subject is Grace Coolidge, Guardianship, Gender, and the Nobility in Early Modern Spain (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010).

3 Examples of this can be found in documents of the Princess of Éboli taken out when she was married to Ruy Gómez de Silva. See Trevor J. Dadson & Helen H. Reed, Epistolario e historia documental de Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, princesa de Éboli (Madrid: Iberoamericana/Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2013), documents 15 & 22.

4 For both, see Helen H. Reed & Trevor J. Dadson, La princesa de Éboli: cautiva del rey. Vida de Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda (1540–1592) (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia-CEEH, 2015), and Esther Alegre Carvajal, ‘Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, princesa de Éboli y duquesa de Pastrana (Cifuentes, 1540–Pastrana, 1592)’, in Damas de la Casa de Mendoza: historias, leyendas y olvidos, dir. Esther Alegre Carvajal (Madrid: Polifemo, 2014), 578–617 (p. 614).

5 Hispanic Society of America, Altamira, 7-II-8, dated 4 August 1579.

6 Archivo Histórico Nacional [AHN], Inquisición, Legajo 195, Expediente 26.

7 AHN, Inquisición, Legajo 496/3, f. 255^r.

8 See Trevor J. Dadson, ‘Literacy and Education in Early Modern Rural Spain: The Case of Villarrubia de los Ojos’, in The Iberian Book and Its Readers: Essays for Ian Michael, ed. Nigel Griffin, Clive Griffin & Eric Southworth, BSS, LXXXI:7–8 (2004), 1011–37.

9 Elizabeth Teresa Howe, Education and Women in the Early Modern Hispanic World (Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate, 2008), 61.

10 For a general survey of women’s libraries, see Dadson, Libros, lectores y lecturas: estudios sobre bibliotecas particulares españolas del Siglo de Oro (Madrid: Arco/Libros, 1998), and Pedro M. Cátedra & Anastasio Rojo Vega, Bibliotecas y lecturas de mujeres: siglo XVI (Salamanca: Instituto de Historia del Libro y de la Lectura, 2004).

11 See Trevor J. Dadson, ‘The Education, Books and Reading Habits of Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, Princess of Éboli (1540–1592)’, in Women’s Literacy in Early Modern Spain and the New World, ed. Anne J. Cruz & Rosilie Hernández-Pecoraro (Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), 79–102. For a full list of the romances of chivalry owned by Catalina de Silva, see Trevor J. Dadson, ‘Los libros de caballerías, Don Quijote y sus lectores en el siglo XVII’, in Antes y después del ‘Quijote’ en el cincuentenario de la Asociación de Hispanistas de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda, ed. Robert Archer (Valencia: Biblioteca Valenciana, 2005), 59–78.

12 Her library is studied in Dadson, Libros, lectores y lecturas, Chapter 16.

13 See Clive Griffin, ‘Brígida Maldonado “Ymprimidora” sevillana, viuda de Juan Cromberger’, Archivo Hispalense, 76:233 (1993), 83–117.

14 See Trevor J. Dadson, ‘La librería de Cristóbal López (1606): estudio y análisis de una librería madrileña de principios del siglo XVII’, in El libro antiguo español IV: coleccionismo y bibliotecas (siglos XVI–XVIII), ed. Pedro M. Cátedra & María Luisa López-Vidriero (Salamanca: Univ. de Salamanca/Sociedad Española de Historia del Libro, 1998), 167–234.

15 Reed & Dadson, La princesa de Éboli, Chapters 6 & 7.

16 Information to be found in Trevor J. Dadson, Los moriscos de Villarrubia de los Ojos (siglos XV–XVIII): historia de una minoría asimilada, expulsada y reintegrada, 2^nd ed. (Madrid: Iberoamericana/Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert, 2015), Chapter 3. For more on the working relationship between Antonia de Ulloa and Diego de Silva y Mendoza, see also Trevor J. Dadson, ‘The Count of Salinas and the Women in His Life’, in Perspectives on Early Modern Women in Iberia and the Americas: Studies in Law, Society, Art and Literature in Honor of Anne J. Cruz, ed. Adrienne L. Martín & María Cristina Quintero (New York: Escribana Books, 2015), 52–71.

17 D. Diego de Silva y Mendoza, Conde de Salinas, Antología poética 1564–1630, ed. & intro. de Trevor J. Dadson (Madrid: Visor, 1985), Sonnet VII: ‘De tu muerte, que fue un breve suspiro’.

18 ‘Leonor se educó junto a sus hermanos, procurando no desentonar, por menor, que no por mujer’ (Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, Alonso Pérez de Guzmán. General de la Invencible, 2 vols [Cádiz: Univ. de Cádiz, 1994], I, 427).

19 See Dadson, ‘The Education, Books and Reading Habits of Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda’.

20 Reed & Dadson, La princesa de Éboli, 293, and Dadson & Reed, Epistolario e historia documental de Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, carta 87, 234–39.

21 On this affair, which lasted for nearly twenty years, see Trevor J. Dadson, ‘El conde de Salinas y Leonor Pimentel: cuando se juntan el amor y la poesía’, in Spanish Golden Age Poetry in Motion: The Dynamics of Creation and Conversation, ed. Jean Andrews & Isabel Torres (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2014), 185–212.

22 Autograph letter to Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Valladolid, 2 April 1608 (Real Academia de la Historia, Salazar, A-81, ff. 16^r–17^r).

23 See Dadson, ‘El conde de Salinas y Leonor Pimentel’, and Diego de Silva y Mendoza, Conde de Salinas, Obra completa. I. Poesía desconocida, ed., estudio & notas de Trevor J. Dadson (Madrid: Real Academia Española, Centro para la Edición de los Clásicos Españoles, 2016), especially pp. 71*–85*.

24 Keith Whinnom, ‘Hacia una interpretación y apreciación de las canciones del Cancionero General de 1511’, Filología, 13 (1968–69 [1970]), 361–81; Keith Whinnom, La poesía amatoria de la época de los Reyes Católicos (Durham: Univ. of Durham, 1981); Ian Macpherson, ‘Secret Language in the Cancioneros: Some Courtly Codes’, BHS, 62:1 (1985), 51–63; Ian Macpherson, ‘Conceptos e indirectas en la poesía cancioneril: el Almirante de Castilla y Antonio de Velasco’, in Estudios dedicados a Leslie Brooks: presentados por sus colegas, amigos y discípulos, ed. J. M. Ruiz Veintemilla (Barcelona: Puvill Libros, 1984), 91–105; Ian Macpherson, ‘The Admiral of Castile and Antonio de Velasco: Cancionero Cousins’, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honour of Robert Brian Tate, ed. Ian Michael & Richard A. Cardwell (Oxford: Dolphin Book Co., 1986), 95–107.

25 For more on this, see the Introduction to my edition of Salinas’ unknown poetry, mentioned above in note 23.

26 Salinas, Obra completa. I. Poesía desconocida, poema 103, pp. 134–49.

27 See Trevor J. Dadson, La Casa Bocangelina: una familia hispano-genovesa en la España del Siglo de Oro, Anejos de RILCE 7 (Pamplona: EUNSA, 1991), 139–42.

28 The standard text here is Magdalena S. Sánchez, The Empress, the Queen, and the Nun: Women and Power at the Court of Philip III of Spain (Baltimore/London: The John Hopkins U. P., 1998). In a number of ways the situation at the start of the seventeenth century—with a female power base not controlled by men—was reminiscent of the court of the Infanta and regent Juana between 1554 and 1559 in Valladolid, which was very much a female court with not just the princess in charge of affairs as regent during her brother Philip’s absence in England and the Low Countries, but with the presence also of two former queens: Mary of Hungary and Eleanor of France, who had returned to Spain in 1556 with their brother Charles V when he retired to the Monastery at Yuste. Juana was often at loggerheads with her brother Philip over policy, especially as it affected the finances of Castile.

29 For an insight into litigation in this period and just how long it could last, see Antonio Terrasa Lozano, La Casa de Silva y los duques de Pastrana: linaje, contingencia y pleito en el siglo XVII (Madrid: CEEH/Marcial Pons Historia, 2012).

30 José Simón Díaz, ‘Algunos impresos madrileños raros de la segunda mitad del siglo XVII’, Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrileños, 23 (1986), 517–45; Victoria Campo, ‘Modelos para una mujer “modelo”: los libros de Isabel la Católica’, in Actas del IX Simposio de la Sociedad Española de Literatura General y Comparada, Zaragoza 18 al 21 de noviembre de 1992, 2 vols (Zaragoza: SELGC, 1994), I: La mujer: elogio y vituperio, 85–94; Rosa Chinchilla, ‘Juana de Austria: Courtly Spain and Devotional Expression’, Rennaissance and Reformation, 28.1 (2004), 21–33.

31 For an enlightening study on how women used propaganda and the power of images to enhance their social and political influence in Early Modern Europe, see The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anne Cruz & Mihoko Suzuki (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2009).

32 There are several monographs on Quevedo’s relationship with Olivares; see Pablo Jauralde Pou, Francisco de Quevedo (1580–1645) (Madrid: Castalia, 1998); Elías L. Rivers, Quevedo y su poética dedicada a Olivares: estudio y edición (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1998); Mariano de la Campa & Isabel Pérez Cuenca, ‘El Conde Duque de Olivares, Quevedo y otros contemporáneos’, in Libros de la Corte.es, 5 (2012), 121–23; and Carlos M. Gutiérrez, ‘Quevedo y Olivares: una nota cronológica a su epistolario’, Hispanic Review, 4 (2001), 487–99. Lope’s attempt to work under Olivares’ protection has not drawn so much attention; for a general approach see Laura S. Muñoz Pérez, ‘Dejé los libros y arrojé la pluma: Lope de Vega y el desencanto por el mecenazgo cortesano’, in El duque de Medina Sidonia: mecenazgo y renovación estética, ed. José Manuel Rico García & Pedro Ruiz Pérez (Huelva: Univ. de Huelva, 2015), 409–16.

33 Ana de Castro Egas, Eternidad del rey don Filipe Tercero nuestro señor, el piadoso (Madrid: Viuda de Alonso Martín, 1629). There are few extant copies, possibly only four in different libraries: British Library, London: 1485aaa37; Biblioteca Nacional Española, Madrid: R-8338; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: 8-OC-386; Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.

34 We should frame this eulogy within a literary trend that took place in the late 1620s with the aim of vindicating the moral virtues of the deceased king, Philip III. Related to that wave of propaganda, we find publications such as Baltasar Porreño, Dichos y hechos del señor rey don Felipe III, el Bueno (1626) (Biblioteca Nacional Española, MS 1736), Gil González Dávila, Historia de la vida y hechos del ínclito monarca, amado y santo don Felipe Tercero (1632) (BNE, MS 1257); or see Hortensio Félix Paravicino, ‘Oración fúnebre’, in Oraciones evangélicas y panegíricos funerales (Madrid: María de Quiñones, 1641), which was dedicated to the Cardenal-Infante.

35 Lope de Vega Carpio, Laurel de Apolo con otras rimas (Madrid: Juan González, 1630), f. 10^r–v.

36 See the examples in Ana de Castro, Eternidad del rey don Felipe III, f. 8^r, f. 11^r, f. 14^v, f. 18^v, f. 20^r, f. 23^v, f. 24^r, f. 27^r, f. 27^v, f. 30^r, f. 31^r, f. 32^r, f. 32^v, f. 33^r.

37 Quite a few (such as Valdivieso and Bocángel) were already members of the household of the Cardenal-Infante Ferdinand, thus their presence is not surprising.

38 For further information, see Carmen Peraita Huerta, ‘Apacible brevedad de los renglones, abreviada vida de monarcas: Ana de Castro Egas, Francisco de Quevedo y la escritura del panegírico regio’, La Perinola: Revista de Investigación Quevediana, 9 (2005), 151–70.

39 Lope de Vega, Laurel de Apolo, f. 10^v (vv. 649–55).

40 Lope de Vega Carpio, La Circe con otras rimas y prosas (Madrid: Viuda de Alonso Martín, 1624), f. 3^r.

41 See the aforementioned study: Muñoz, ‘Dejé los libros y arrojé la pluma’.

42 Francisco de Quevedo, Juguetes de la niñez y travesuras del ingenio (Madrid: Viuda de Alonso Martín, 1633).

43 Obras de fray Luis de León, ed. Francisco de Quevedo (Madrid: Imprenta del Reino, 1631), f. 9^r.

44 See Obras de don Luis de Góngora. Manuscrito Chacón (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1991), an edition, with introduction and preface, in which Dámaso Alonso and Pere Gimferrer collaborate. For further information on the relationship between Góngora’s supporters and Olivares’ patronage, see Jeremy Lawrance, ‘Las obras de don Luis de Góngora y el conde-duque: mecenazgo, polémica literaria y publicidad en la España barroca’, in Poder y saber: bibliotecas y bibliofilia en la época del conde-duque de Olivares, ed. Oliver Noble Wood, Jeremy Roe and Jeremy Lawrance (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2011), 157–81.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.