A Life at Court: A Message from the Society’s New President
BY HELEN WATANABE-O’KELLY
Some scholars come to courts and court culture from an historical interest in power structures and client networks, others from the study of architecture or decorative arts. I came to the topic from sixteenth and seventeenth-century German and Spanish literature, more specifically from drama. When I was an undergraduate in the seventies, Richard Alewyn’s Das große Welttheater: die Epoche der höfischen Feste (first published in 1959) was required reading. In this little book Alewyn shows how early modern drama was often produced in a court context and how early modern theatre was related to court festivals. In a throwaway phrase he mentioned the horse ballet (‘das Rossballett’) and I was hooked. I had to find out what this could possibly be, began to read festival accounts, immersed myself in early modern equestrian literature in French, German, Italian and Spanish and moved from there to examining larger equestrian festivities at European courts. Then I realised that equestrian events usually formed part of larger festival programmes and began to look at other festival genres, which then took me to court culture as a whole — architecture, ballet de cour, music, alchemy, cabinets of curiosity, libraries, piety, genealogy. Then — some years later — I became interested in the festival book as a textual and visual genre in its own right (http://festivals.mml.ox.ac.uk/).
With mounting excitement I encountered in the eighties the three volumes edited by Jean Jacquot and Elie Königson entitled Les Fêtes de la Renaissance (1956, 1957 and 1975), Roy Strong’s Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450–1650 (1984) and of course anything written by Frances Yates. Exciting as it was to study Florence and Ferrara and Versailles and Brussels, I was fascinated by the huge variety of courts and court cities — what in German are called ‘Residenzen’ — in the Holy Roman Empire. I tried to learn about the major Catholic centres such as Vienna and Munich and about Lutheran courts such as Wolfenbüttel and Gottorp and realised that the most important Lutheran court, Dresden, was in the GDR and therefore largely inaccessible to Western scholars. Sitting almost alone in the Dresden archive in 1988 with my hands covered in sand from documents not examined since the eighteenth century was a very special experience. Then I realised that all these courts were connected through marriage to dynasties usually belonging to the same confessional group — members of the Lutheran Wettin dynasty in Dresden often marrying members of the Danish royal family, for instance — which therefore increased exponentially the number of courts about which I needed to have some knowledge. My initial path to understanding them was to focus on their festivals but, in the case of Dresden, I soon found myself trying to put together a picture of court culture as a whole.
German scholarship on courts was in the meantime increasing at a great pace. The Duke August Library at Wolfenbüttel (www.hab.de) was an early pioneer. Based in a small court city of the Guelph dynasty with a superb library assembled by Duke August the Younger of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1579–1666), the library was developing into the major centre for early modern research in Germany that it is today. A steady stream of publications from Wolfenbüttel advanced research by leaps and bounds and the Library is now also one of the leaders in the digitisation of early modern books. Another initiative was the so-called ‘Residenzen-Kommission’ of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. It was founded by Hans Patze in 1985 and the aim was to provide ‘the basis for scholarly engagement with the long neglected phenomena of courts and princely cities as new political, social and cultural centres in the Holy Roman Empire from 1200 to 1600, including their important influences up to the present day’. The aim was to investigate in an interdisciplinary way the great variety of German courts and court cities within a comparative European framework. The medievalist Werner Paravicini took over the directorship of the Kommission in 1990 and based the research team at the University of Kiel, where it stayed until the project came to an end in 2014. During the more than twenty-five years of its existence, the Kommission produced some important publications. There are the thirty volumes of the series ‘Residenzenforschung’ with their distinctive black covers published by Thorbecke Verlag, Stuttgart. These consist of both monographs and edited volumes of papers from one of the project’s twelve biennial symposia, on topics such as ‘ceremonial and space’ (vol. 6) or ‘urban middle class and court society’ (vol. 25). The Kommission also continues to publish the ‘Mitteilungen der Residenzen-Kommission’, a journal focusing on the relationship between court and city. Yet another series is ‘Digitized Travel Accounts of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, available online at www.digiberichte.de. Finally, there is the six-volume: ‘Höfe und Residenzen im spätmittelalterlichen Reich. Ein Handbuch.’ Elsewhere in German academia, useful databases for the study of courts are being created by a diverse range of scholarly projects, which, given the decentralised nature of German research, can be easy to miss. Examples include the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences’ digitisation of documents relating to the Prussian monarchy 1786 to 1918 (http://actaborussica.bbaw.de/monarchie/vorarbeiten/home.xquery) and the Munich ‘Personnel Database of the Courtiers of the Austrian Habsburg Dynasty in the 16th and 17th Centuries’ (http://kaiserhof.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/).
Meanwhile, in England, an AHRB project based at Warwick University (1998–2001) produced in 2004 two richly-illustrated volumes, Europa Triumphans. Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe, edited by J.R. Mulryne, Margaret Shewring and myself. Ronnie Mulryne continues to encourage publications on court festivals, assisted by such prominent scholars as Margaret McGowan. A few years earlier, another important initiative was the founding of the Society for Court Studies in London in 1995 ‘with the aim of stimulating and co-ordinating the study of royal and princely courts and households from antiquity to the present. It examines courts from a multi-disciplinary and international perspective, bringing together political, cultural, architectural, military, art, environmental and diplomatic history, and gender studies’. I am proud to be the Society’s new President from 2018 and to be writing this short piece for its journal The Court Historian.
Without any claim to comprehensiveness — this short piece has not so far mentioned the vast corpus of research produced by court historians in France, Spain, Italy, or more recently, in Poland and the Low Countries — I’d like to mention three fruitful developments in court studies for the future. The first is a widening of focus on European courts by placing them in a global context. Jeroen Duindam’s project ‘Eurasian Empires’ (2011–2016), comparing the courts of the Ottoman empire, Late Imperial China and Africa with European courts, is a good example of this.
The second is a growing interest in court culture during the long nineteenth century. While early modern court culture has always been seen in relation to medieval court culture, the extension of research up to World War I is a welcome development. Vienna celebrated the centenary of the Congress of Vienna in 2014 with an exhibition entitled ‘Europa in Wien’, which addressed the new Austrian Empire that Francis II/I had established in 1804 in anticipation of the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The centenary of the death of Emperor Franz Joseph (1830–1916) gave rise to exhibitions, catalogues and biographies in 2016, and expanded knowledge of the imperial Austro-Hungarian court. The Musée d’Orsay’s 2016–17 exhibition entitled ‘The Spectacular Second Empire 1852–1870’ was another important contribution to the study of nineteenth-century court culture in its civic context. Jeroen Duindam has recently begun a new large-scale project (to run from September 2017 until June 2021) entitled ‘Monarchy in Turmoil. Rulers, Courts and Politics in the Netherlands and Germany, c.1780–c.1820’. It will investigate the following question: ‘How did rulers in the Netherlands and in adjacent smaller German territories adapt their regimes to ongoing change in legitimacy and decision-making during the transition period 1780–1820?’
A third development, and to my mind the most important of all, is the study of women at court. Clarissa Campbell Orr’s two edited volumes, Queenship in Britain 1660–1837 (2002) and Queenship in Europe 1660–1815 (2004), were pioneering contributions, containing much new scholarship based on serious work in the archives. This also applies to Katrin Keller’s work on women at German-speaking courts. She has often been the first person to locate and decipher original documents and correspondence, which, in the case of women, is often filed under their husbands’ or brothers’ names. In 2005 Keller published Hofdamen, a study of female office holders at early modern courts. This was followed in 2010 by her book on Electress Anna of Saxony (1532–85), then in 2012 by another on Archduchess Maria of Inner Austria (1551–1608). In 2016, she co-edited a volume on empresses, with Bettina Braun and Matthias Schnettger: Nur die Frau des Kaisers? Kaiserinnen in der Frühen Neuzeit. Britta Kägler’s book on women at the Munich court, Frauen am Münchner Hof (2011), is another pioneering contribution in this area. My own project ‘Marrying Cultures: Queens Consort and European Identities 1500–1800’ (www.marryingcultures.eu) carried on this work from 2013 to 2016. Jill Bepler, an expert on women’s libraries and on widows (Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel), Almut Bues, an expert on Polish and Eastern European culture (German Historical Institute Warsaw), Svante Norrhem, an expert on Swedish-French diplomatic relations (Lund University) and I worked for three years on a series of dynastic marriages to assess the role of consorts as agents, instruments or catalysts of cultural transfer. We were greatly assisted in our investigation by our museum colleagues at Kensington Palace, London, the Royal Armoury in Stockholm, the V&A and the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Museum of Polish History in Warsaw.
This brings me finally to an important point relevant to the life of the Society and the future of court studies. Many museums are crucial partners in the study of court culture, as the guardians of the artefacts produced by court patronage. Several have recently organised important exhibitions of artefacts relating to ‘their’ princes or princesses, the resulting catalogues often constituting in themselves examples of pioneering research. The ‘Enlightened Princesses’ exhibition at the Yale Centre for British Art and at Kensington Palace in 2017, directed by Joanna Marschner, is such an example. Another is the exhibition in Karlsruhe in 2015 devoted to the noted collector, artist, musician, scientist and literary patron Karoline Luise of Hessen-Darmstadt, Margravine of Baden (1723–83).
From this brief overview of some scattered examples, without mentioning the many scholars in Europe and the US who have provided us with fundamental theoretical and methodological studies as well as with studies revealing new archival material, it is safe to conclude that the field of court studies is alive and flourishing!
Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly
Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly is Professor of German Literature of Oxford University, Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow and a Fellow of the British Academy. She was elected as President of the Society for Court Studies in 2017.
News
The Musée Fesch in Ajaccio, with over 1,000 pictures from the collection of its founder Cardinal Fesch, half-uncle and Grand Almoner of Napoleon I, is expanding to become another Napoleonic museum, like those at Malmaison, Fontainebleau and Rome. Recently it acquired photographs, pictures and drawings of the First and Second Empire from the Christopher Forbes Collection. In addition it is now exhibiting pictures from the family collection of the Bonapartes’ most persistent enemy, Charles-André Pozzo di Borgo, aide de camp of Alexander I of Russia and later his ambassador to Louis XVIII and Charles X. For further information see www.musee-fesch.com.
The Monnaie de Paris re-opened in September 2017 in its original hôtel on the Quai Conti. It contains not only coins and medals of French and other monarchs, including medals of Louis XIV in their original boxes, but also a collection of gold bars, ingots and medals looted from the Royal Citadel of Hué in Vietnam in 1886.
On 1 October 2017, the canopied ceremonial bed where King Frederick I in Prussia received visitors was returned to its original position in his state apartment at Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin. Commissioned by the King in 1706, it was badly damaged in 1760 by Russian and Austrian troops and then restored by Frederick the Great in 1763. It served as a symbol for the continuity of the Hohenzollern royal line, as wedding ceremonies at Schloss Charlottenburg ended with the bride and groom being led to the bed chamber, undressed and put in the bed. Other Prussian projects now underway include the reconstruction of the façade of the Schloss in Berlin, and the restoration in Potsdam of the Neues Palais and the Orangery Palace.
On 11 November 2017 the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened in Abu Dhabi. It is not only a testimony to patronage by the local ruling family, but also contains many works relating to courts and dynasties, for example Jean-Etienne Liotard’s 1740 portrait of the Imperial Ambassador in Constantinople, count von Uhlfeld; and a version of David’s portrait of Bonaparte crossing the Alps.
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Publications
The entire bibliography of books, articles and exhibition catalogues relating to court history, from all issues of The Court Historian since 2003, is now available to members at http://www.courtstudies.org/bibliography.php. The bibliography is word searchable and includes over 3,000 titles. A new bibliography of the latest works on court history is published in each issue. Titles for inclusion in the bibliography, including CDs of court music, should be sent to the editor, [email protected].
BOOKS
Unless otherwise stated, books in English are published in London, books in French in Paris.
Albrecht, Stephan et al., Die Erfindung der Hauptstadt: Frühbarocke Stadtplanung der Herzöge von Savoyen (Petersberg, Michael Imhof, 2017), 208 pp., €39.95.
Arabshah, Ahmad ibn, Tamerlane: The Life of the Great Amir (I.B. Tauris, 2017), 376 pp., £75.00.
Arrizabalaga y Prado, Leonardo de, ed., Varian Studies Volume Three: A Varian Symposium (Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017), 440 pp., £67.99. New information on the Emperor Heliogabalus.
Barber, Richard, The Prince in Splendour: Court Festivals of Medieval Europe (The Folio Society, 2017), 258 pp., £39.95.
Bardakçi, Murat, Neslishah: The Last Ottoman Princess (I.B. Tauris, 2017), 384 pp., £24.95. When she was born in Istanbul in 1921, cannons were fired, as she was an Ottoman princess. Sixteen year later on her marriage to Prince Abdel Moneim, the son of the last khedive of Egypt, she became a princess of the Egyptian royal family. Based on original documents and extensive personal interviews, this is the story of the end of two powerful dynasties.
Barlow, Jill, et al., Edward II: His Last Months and his Monument (Bristol, The Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 2015), 148 pp. Disproves rumours of the King’s survival after his murder in 1327.
Beck, Marina, Macht-Räume Maria Theresias: Funktion und Zeremoniell in ihren Residenzen, Jagd- und Lustschlössern (Berlin, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2017), 577 pp., €131.60.
Beckus, Paul, Hof und Verwaltung des Fürsten Franz von Anhalt-Dessau (1758–1817): Strukture, Personal, Funktionalität (Halle, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2015), 522 pp., €54.00.
Bireley, Robert, Ferdinand II: Counter-Reformation Emperor (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014), 326 pp.
Boudon-Machuel, Marion, Pascale Charron, eds, Art et société à Tours au début de la Renaissance (Turnhout, Brepols, 2016), €75.00.
Bove, Boris, Murielle Gaude-Ferragu, Cédric Michon, eds, Paris, ville de cour (XIIIe-XVIIIe siècle) (Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017), 384 pp., €24.00.
Bradshaw, John, The Animals Among Us: The New Science of Anthrozoology (Allen Lane, 2017), 357 pp., £20.00. Relations between animals and humans could be particularly important at courts.
Brero, Thalia, Rituels dynastiques et mises en scène du pouvoir: Le cérémonial princier à la cour de Savoie (1450–1550) (Florence, Sismel, 2017), 702 pp., €90.00.
Buzov, Snjezana, State Law and Divine Law under the Ottomans: Encounters between Shari’a and the Sultan’s Law (I.B. Tauris, 2018), 224 pp., £59.00.
Cadbury, Deborah, Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 400 pp., £25.00.
Chateaubriand, François-René de, et al., L’amante et l’amie. Lettres inédites 1804–1828 (Gallimard, 2017). Includes his correspondance with the duchesse de Duras, wife of a Premier Gentilhomme de la Chambre of Louis XVIII and Charles X.
Christensen, Peter Holdt, Germany and the Ottoman Railways: Art, Empire, and Infrastructure (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2017), 216 pp., £55.00. The Berlin-Baghdad railway was a favourite project of Abdulhamid II.
Clarke, Stephen, ed., Horace Walpole: Selected Letters (Everyman, 2017), 638 pp., £16.99. Much on his visits to Paris and Versailles, his relations with the English court, and his attitude to the French Revolution.
Cohen, Mitchell, The Politics of Opera: A History from Monteverdi to Mozart (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2017), 512 pp., $39.95.
Codoñer, Juan Signes, The Emperor Theophilos and the East, 829–842: Court and Frontier in Byzantium during the Last Phase of Iconoclasm (Routledge, 2014), 532 pp.
Cole, Alison, Italian Renaissance Courts: Art, Pleasure and Power (Laurence King, 2016), 256 pp., £30.00.
Constant, Jean-Marie, Pierre Gatulle, eds, Gaston d’Orléans, Prince rebelle et mécène (Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017), 288 pp., €29.00.
Dennison, Matthew, The First Iron Lady: A Life of Caroline of Ansbach (Harper Collins, 2017), 352 pp.
Dermineur, Elise M., Gender and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Sweden. Queen Louisa Ulrika (1720–1782) (Routledge, 2017), 254 pp., £105.00.
Dobalova, Sylva, Ivan P. Muchka, eds, Looking for Leisure: Court Residences and their Satellites, 1400–1700 (Palatium e-Publication, 2017) www.courtresidences.eu/uploads/publications/Leisure2017.pdf
Dulac, Philippe, Marie de Lestapis, Une vie au service du Roi, d’Yauville, Commandant de la vénerie de Louis XV (François Parot, 2017), 292 pp.
Eichberger, Dagmar, Philippe Lorentz, eds, The Artist between Court and City (1300–1600). L’artiste entre la cour et la ville / Der Künstler zwischen Hof und Stadt (Petersberg, M. Imhoff Verlag, 2017), 416 pp., €29.90.
Evrard, Sébastien, L’or de Napoléon. Sa stratégie patrimoniale (1806–1814) (L’Harmattan, 2014), 168 pp., €18.00.
Foyle, Jonathan, Windsor Castle: An Illustrated History (Royal Collection Trust, 2018), 258 pp., 200 col. ills, £29.95.
Fray, Jean-Luc, Michel Pauly, et al., eds, Urban Spaces and the Complexity of Cities (Cologne, Böhlau, 2017), 376 pp., €45.00.
Frier, Bruce W., ed., Fred H. Blume, trans, The Codex of Justinian: A New Annotated Translation with Parallel Latin and Greek Text (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 3 vols, 2,964 pp., £450.00. An imperial law code, much used subsequently.
Godsey, William D., The Sinews of Habsburg Power: Lower Austria in a Fiscal Military State 1650–1820 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018), 480 pp., £90.00.
Godwin, Todd, Persian Christians at the Chinese Court: The Xi’an Stele and the Early Medieval Church in the East (I.B. Tauris, 2017), 320 pp., £62.00.
Grant, Lindy, Blanche of Castile: Queen of France (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2017), 456 pp., £30.00.
Gray, Annie, The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria (Profile Books, 2017), 390 pp., £16.99.
Grell, Chantal, ed., Correspondance de Johannes Hevelius . Tome II: Correspondance avec la cour de France et ses agents, avec un dossier sur la querelle de la comète de 1664–1665 (Turnhout, Brepols, 2017), 537 pp., €95.00.
Hollingsworth, Mary, The Medici (Head of Zeus, 2017), 480 pp., £35.00.
Horowski, Leonhard, Das Europa der Könige: Macht und Spiel an den Höfen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Reinbek, Rowohlt Verlag, 2017), 1120 pp., €39.95.
Ilmakunnas, Johanna, Jon Stobart, eds, A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe. Display, Acquisition and Boundaries (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 336 pp., £51.00.
Knothe, Florian, The Manufacture des meubles de la Couronne aux Gobelins under Louis XIV: A Social, Political and Cultural History (Turnhout, Brepols, 2016), 290 pp., €150.00.
Koch, Ute C., Cristina Ruggero, et al., eds, Heinrich Graf von Brühl: Ein sächsischer Mäzen in Europa — Akten der internationalen Tagung zum 250. Todesjahr (Dresden, Sandstein Kommunikation, 2017), 548 pp., €68.00. Chief minister of the elector of Saxony.
Kynaston, David, Till Time’s Last Sand: A History of the Bank of England 1694–2013 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 896 pp., £35.00. Founded by William III.
Las Cases, Emmanuel de, Le mémorial de Sainte-Hélène: le manuscrit original retrouvé (Les éditions Perrin / Fondation Napoléon, 2017). Las Cases was a chamberlain of Napoleon I, as well as his most successful propagandist.
Le Roux, Nicholas, Martin Wrede, eds, Noblesse oblige: Identités et engagements aristocratiques à l’époque moderne (Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017), 200 pp., €20.00.
Mallick, Oliver, “Spiritus intus agit”. Die Patronagepolitik der Anna von Oesterreich 1643–1666 (Berlin, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2016), 477 pp., €49.95.
Masson, Rémi, Défendre le roi. La maison militaire au XVIIe siècle (Seyssel, Champ Vallon, 2017), 424 pp., €28.00.
McRae, Andrew, John West, Literature of the Stuart Successions: An Anthology (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2017), 344 pp., £25.00. An anthology of primary material relating to the six Stuart successions (1603, 1625, 1660, 1685, 1688–9, 1702). This period also included two accessions to the role of Lord Protector: those of Oliver and Richard Cromwell. Each succession generated an outpouring of publications in a wide range of forms and genres, including speeches, diary entries, news reports, letters and sermons. Above all, successions were marked by a wealth of poetry, by writers including Ben Jonson, Andrew Marvell, Aphra Behn and John Dryden.
Meyer, Véronique, Pour la plus grande gloire du roi: Louis XIV en thèses (Centre de recherche du château de Versailles / Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2017), 372 pp., €23.00.
Morton, Robert, A. B. Mitford and the Birth of Japan as a Modern State: Letters Home (Renaissance Books, 2017), 248 pp., £30.00. In 1866, not yet thirty, Mitford was dispatched to the British legation in Japan to serve under Sir Harry Parkes, Britain’s envoy extraordinary. After the succession in 1867 of the fourteen-year-old Emperor Meiji, Mitford was present when, for the first time, the British legation was received at court. He was the grandfather of the famous Mitford sisters.
Murray, Catriona, Imaging Stuart Family Politics: Dynastic Crisis and Continuity (Routledge, 2016), 202 pp., £110.00.
Murry, Gregory, The Medicean Succession: Monarchy and Sacral Politics in Duke Cosimo dei Medici’s Florence (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2014), 360 pp., £42.95.
Otte, T.G., July Crisis: The World’s Descent into War, Summer 1914 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014), 534 pp., £14.99. A new study that blames the Serbian government and German generals.
Palos, Joan-Lluís, Magdalena S. Sánchez, eds, Early Modern Dynastic Marriages and Cultural Transfer (Farnham, Ashgate, 2015), 284 pp., £110.00.
Papademetriou, Tom, Render unto the Sultan: Power, Authority and the Greek Orthodox Church in the Early Ottoman Centuries (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015), 272 pp., £54.00. Examines individual bishops’ fiscal arrangements with the Ottoman Empire.
Pichichero, Christy L., The Military Enlightenment: War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon (New York, Cornell University Press, 2017), 318 pp., $49.95.
Santrot, Jacques, Les doubles funérailles d’Anne de Bretagne: Le corps et le coeur (janvier-mars 1514) (Geneva, Droz, 2017), 728 pp.
Schöbel, Anja, Monarchie und Offentlichkeit: Zur Inszenierung der deutschen Bundesfürsten 1848–1918 (Vienna, Böhlau, 2017), 416 pp., €55.00.
Sohoni, Pushkar, Architecture of a Deccan Sultanate: Courtly Practice and Royal Authority in Late Medieval India (I.B. Tauris, 2018), 288 pp., £65.00.
Soroka, Marina, The Summer Capitals of Europe, 1814–1919 (Routledge, 2017), 342 pp. Provides a detailed description of the spa towns of Europe in the nineteenth century: where they were, what ‘cures’ and facilities they offered, who patronised them, why they multiplied, and how and why their character changed — from Baden-Baden and Carlsbad to Monte Carlo and Plombières. The author is mainly interested in those monarchs (often incognito), ministers and diplomats who came to conduct the ‘Business of Europe’, including Russian czars, Metternich, Bismarck, Napoleon III, Cavour, Queen Victoria, Edward VII and so on.
Sowerby, Tracey A., Jan Hennings, eds, Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World c. 1410–1800 (Routledge, 2017), 306 pp., £105.00.
Strasdin, Kate, Inside the Royal Wardrobe: A Dress History of Queen Alexandra (Bloomsbury, 2017), 175 pp.
Sunderland, Luke, Rebel Barons: Resisting Royal Power in Medieval Culture (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017), 320 pp., £60.00.
Tacke, Andreas, Jens Fachbach, Matthias Müller, eds, Hofkünstler und Hofhandwerker in deutschsprachigen Residenzstädten der Vormoderne (Petersberg, Imhof, 2017), 319 pp., €29.95.
Telesko, Werner, Die Repräsentation der Habsburg-Lothringischen Dynastie in Musik, visuellen Medien und Architektur / Representing the Habsburg-Lorraine Dynasty in Music, Visual Media and Architecture. 1618–1918 (Vienna, Böhlau Verlag, 2017), 448 pp., €55.00.
Thorne, Anne, Henry Trotter: The Oxus to the Ottomans (St Kilda, Grey Thrush Publishing, 2017), 336 pp., £10. Trotter was a British military attaché at Constantinople for seven years and spent four years as Consul-General in Syria, based in Beirut.
Tóth, Ferenc, Journal des campagnes du duc Charles V de Lorraine (Honoré Champion, 2017). 648 pp., €85.00.
Tricoire, Damien, La Vierge et le Roi. Politique princière et imaginaire catholique dans l’Europe du XVIIe siècle (Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2017), 454 pp., €26.00.
Trubert-Tollu, Chantal, et al., La Maison Worth 1858–1954: Naissance de la haute couture (La Bibliothèque des arts, 2017), 340 pp., €59.00. The chief dressmaker to the Empress Eugénie and many other crowned heads.
Unbehaun, Lutz, ed., Schloss Heidecksburg: Die Residenz der Grafen und Fürsten von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Rudolstadt, Thüringer Landesmuseum Heidecksburg Rudolstadt, 2016), 596 pp., €68.00.
Van der Kiste, John, The End of the German Monarchy: The Decline and Fall of the Hohenzollerns (Fonthill Media, 2017), 192 pp., £20.00.
Virol, Michèle, Vauban et Louis XIV. Correspondances et Agendas (Seyssel, Champ Vallon, 2017), 544 pp., €26.00.
Zedler, Andrea, Jörg Zedler, eds, Prinzen auf Reisen: Die Italienreise von Kurprinz Karl Albrecht 1715/16 im politisch-kulturellen Kontext (Vienna, Böhlau Verlag, 2017), 364 pp., €52.00.
ARTICLES
Jouanna, Arlette, ‘Montaigne et les princes’, L’Histoire, vol. 441 (2017), pp. 68-72. Montaigne was a courtier of Henri III and Henri IV.
Goethals, Jessica, ‘The Patronage Politics of Equestrian Ballet: Allegory, Allusion, and Satire in the Courts of Seventeenth-Century Italy and France’, Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 70, 4 (2017), pp. 1397-1448.
Kelsey, Sean, ‘“The Now King of England”: Conscience, Duty, and the Death of Charles I’, English Historical Review, vol. 132 (2017), pp. 1077-1109.
Putnam, Polly, ‘“The Tasteful Genius of Princess Elizabeth”: The Furnishing of Queen Charlotte’s Cottage in Kew in 1805’, Furniture History, vol. 53 (2017).
Raeymaekers, Dries, ‘In the Service of the Dynasty: Building a Career in the Habsburg Household, 1550–1650’, in Robert von Friedeburg, John Morrill, eds, Monarchy Transformed. Princes and their Elites in Early Modern Western Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 244-266.
Romano, Antonella, ‘Un “savant de cour”, Galileo’, L’Histoire, vol. 440 (2017), pp. 46-49. Galileo served the Medici as court mathematician and philosopher, and in 1610 named four satellites of Jupiter, which he had discovered, the ‘Medicea Sidera’.
Thiry, Steven, ‘“In Open Shew to the World”: Mary Stuart’s Armorial Claim to the English Throne and Anglo-French Relations (1559−1561)’, English Historical Review, vol. 132 (2017), pp. 1405-1439.
Tristano, Richard M., ‘The Precedence Controversy and the Devolution of Ferrara: A Shift in Renaissance Politics’, Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 48, 3 (2017), pp. 681-709.
Filmarchiv Austria, Franz Joseph I Documented on Film (2016) Includes film of the Emperor in Vienna, Ischl, Bosnia, during a chamois hunt in the mountains, at the wedding of his successor the future emperor, Carl, and film of the Emperor’s funeral, as well as scenes from a 1930 centennial film.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUES
Bird, Rufus, Martin Clayton, eds, Charles II: Art & Power (Royal Collection Trust, 2017), 464 pp. Includes articles ‘Coronation & Ceremony’ by Olivia Fryman; ‘Painters at Court’ by Deborah Clarke; ‘Palace Furnishings’ by Olivia Fryman; ‘The Libraries of Charles II’ by Oliver Urquhart Irvine. The authors’ and editors’ names are not mentioned in the contents page.
Catala, Sarah, Gabriel Wick, eds, Hubert Robert et la fabrique des jardins (Château de La Roche-Guyon, 2017), 143 pp., €29.00. Includes much on his relations with the court and the Royal Family, whom he painted and for whom he designed the dairy of Marie-Antoinette at Rambouillet.
Eichberger, Dagmar, Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, eds, The Art of Power: Habsburg Women in the Renaissance (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 2018). Accompanying the exhibition at Schloss Ambras.
Makzume, Erol, ed., Pierre Loti et les silhouettes de Hassan, Portraits avant la II. Constitution (Istanbul, 2017). Caricatures of meetings between Ottoman ministers and foreign diplomats circa 1906 in clubs and at sporting events in Constantinople, showing its importance as a diplomatic centre. Subjects include the celebrated German ambassador, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein; Baron Charles de Testa the German dragoman; and Osman Hamdi Bey, director of the Imperial Ottoman Museums. The author was a French naval officer called Guirois, drawing in the style of the Parisian caricaturist Sem.
Martinez, Jean-Luc and Florence Dinet, eds, Théâtre du pouvoir (Musée du Louvre / Editions du Seuil, 2017), 149 pp., €29.00. An exhibition at the Petite Galerie about the strong links between art and power from antiquity to today.
Rollig, Stella, Georg Lechner, eds, Maria Theresa and the Arts (Vienna, 2017), 232 pp., €34.00.
Rubens, portraits princiers (RMN-Grand Palais, 2017), 256 pp., €35.00. Rubens was appointed Court Painter to the Archdukes, Albert and Isabella, on 23 September 1609, with permission to live in Antwerp, away from the court in Brussels. His appointment was renewed by the next governor-general of the Netherlands, the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, on 15 April 1636. Rubens also painted Marie de Médicis, Philip IV, Louis XIII and the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall for James I.
Scailliérez, Cécile, ed., François Ier et l’art des Pays-Bas (Musée du Louvre / Somogy éditions d’art, 2017), 480 pp., €45.00.
Von Folsach, Kjeld, Joachim Meyer, The Human Figure in Islamic Art: Holy Men, Princes, and Commoners (Copenhagen, The David Collection / Strandberg Publishing, 2017), 280 pp., €45.00.
WEBSITES
The Attingham Study Programme on 19 to 28 September 2018 is devoted to ‘The Horse and The Country House’.
Im Kinsky: A leading Vienna auction house, in the Palais Kinsky, specialising in objects of royal and noble provenance.
Kaiserliche Wagenburg: Carriages, saddlery, liveries, related documents and pictures of the Imperial Court in Vienna,
www.mobiliernational.culture.gouv.fr
The furniture, tapestries, carpets, fabrics, bronzes, lace, and some of the drawings belonging to the French government, much of which is inherited from the crown.
The Stuart Successions Project
This AHRC funded project based at the universities of Exeter and Oxford looks at printed succession literature in seventeenth-century Britain, seeking to understand how writers responded to unpredictable moments of political change.
www.persee.fr/collection/simon
All issues of the Cahiers Saint-Simon, the journal of the Société Saint-Simon have now been digitised and are available online.
Sales and Acquisitions
In March 2017, the Stewartby Coin Collection of 6,000 Scottish coins, from the reign of Alexander III in 1280 until the Act of Union of 1707, was given by Lord Stewartby to the Coin Cabinet of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. Included are silver pennies of Robert the Bruce, gold lions and unicorns of James I and James II; Renaissance portrait groats of James III; and large silver ‘dollars’ from the period of Mary’s marriage to Henry, Lord Darnley, with the title ‘Mary and Henry, Queen and King of Scots’. The right to mint coins was one of the most coveted aspects of sovereignty.
A sapphire and diamond coronet that Prince Albert designed for Queen Victoria in 1840, the year of their wedding, has been donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum by the financier William Bollinger. To celebrate the bicentenary of Victoria and Albert’s births in 2019, the coronet will go on show as the centrepiece of the museum’s refurbished William and Judith Bollinger jewellery gallery. Prince Albert had a role in establishing and endowing the museum.
In May 2017, the Ashmolean Museum acquired a portrait of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Colonel William Legge and Colonel John Russell, painted in Oxford, c. 1645, when they were fighting for Charles I whose court was then in Oxford.
In 2017, the National Gallery acquired a painting of the main fortress of Saxony, Königstein, by Bellotto, court painter of the elector of Saxony, painted in 1756–8, for £11,670,000.
Robilant + Voena, Dover Street, London
A plaster bust of Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, circa 1813, by Antonio Canova, commissioned by the Queen.
A pair of Louis XV gilt wood pliants, circa 1757–59, commissioned by Madame Louise-Elizabeth (1727–1759), Madame Infante, duchess of Parma, daughter of Louis XV, whose palaces in Parma were furnished from France. Their collections were dispersed after the conquest by Piedmont in 1859.
A Piedmontese centre-table en commode made in 1788 by order, and for the personal use of Vittorio Amedeo III, king of Sardinia, in the Turin Royal Palace, by Giovanni Battista Galletti, principal cabinet-maker to the King (Primo ebanista di S.R. Maesta), shows the political and economic significance of royal furniture.The upper drawer contained samples of precious woods from the Americas, the lower drawer samples of seventy-eight different woods found in Piedmont, Savoy, Nice and Sardinia, in effect an encyclopaedia of the local materials available for the art of cabinet-making. Vittorio Amadeo III, like Louis XVI, the brother-in-law of his daughter, Maria Giuseppina, was a passionate amateur craftsman who enjoyed working in wood and ivory. Galletti made a variety of furniture for the court, some using highly innovative mechanical devices, and still in the Royal Palace of Turin and at Stupinigi.
Trinity Fine Art, Bond St, London, 2017
Neogothic portrait bust of the duchesse de Berry (1840) Commissioned by the Duchess herself from the émigrée sculptress Félicie de Fauveau, this remarkable semi-religious relic, inscribed ‘Henrici Genitrix’ (Mother of Henry, the Legitimist Pretender, ‘Henri V’, the comte de Chambord) comes from the collection of her descendants by her second and morganatic marriage, the counts Lucchesi-Palli.
Christie’s, Paris, 13 April 2017
The Château of Versailles bought eight Meissen pieces from a tea-service offered in 1737 to Marie Leszczynska, queen of France, and decorated with her coat of arms, by Augustus III, king of Poland and elector of Saxony, the man who had deprived her father King Stanislas of the throne of Poland.
Christie’s, Paris, 22 September 2017
A silver neo-gothic casket made by Froment-Meurice in 1849, and owned by the grandson of King Louis-Philippe, the comte de Paris, Orleanist claimant to the throne (‘Philippe VII’), was bought by the Louvre for €14,300.
Coutau-Bégarie & Associés, 7-8 November 2017 ( www.coutaubegarie.com)
Manuscripts of the Puysegur family, including letters of Philip V of Spain; a fragment of the blood-stained shirt of the duc de Berry assassinated on 14 February 1820 and preserved as a relic; an important archive of letters and photographs of Don Jaime, eldest son of Alfonso XIII, including a signed photograph from General Franco; and the 1919 diary of Princess Zinaida Yusupova, the 1926 diary of her son, Prince Felix Yusupov (famous for the murder of Rasputin), and the memoirs of Princess Irina Yusupova, describing their experiences in exile.
Christie’s, Geneva, 14 November 2017
‘Le Grand Mazarin’ diamond, one of the many acquired by Cardinal Mazarin, and left by him to the French crown. Worn by, among others, Louis XIV and the empresses Marie-Louise and Eugénie, it was sold in 1887 with most of the French crown jewels by the French Republic. In 2017 both the seller and the buyer were unknown.
Christie’s, Paris, 28 November 2017
A marble bust by Canova of Joachim Murat, king of Naples, was sold by his descendant Prince Murat for €4,320,000.
Bonham’s, London, 7 December 2017
The Fiordilisi collection of Naples porcelain from the royal factory begun in Naples by Ferdinand IV in 1771 including pieces with views, Neapolitan figures and royal portraits.
Exhibitions
Arras, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Napoléon. Images de la légende, October 2017 to 4 November 2018.
Barnard Castle, County Durham, Queen Victoria in Paris, 24 March to 24 June 2018.
Dallas, Museum of Art, Islamic Art from the Keir Collection, from 16 April 2017 to 26 April 2020. A fifteen-year loan exhibition, 2000 works assembled by the late Edmund de Unger, including many works commissioned for courts and monarchs, such as books from the library of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.
Edinburgh, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Canaletto & the Art of Venice, 11 May to 4 November 2018.
Edinburgh, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Charles II: Art and Power, 23 November 2018 to 2 June 2019.
Fürstenberg-an-der-Weser, Schloss Füerstenberg, A Journey Through the World of Fürstenberg. Permanent exhibition on the porcelain factory of the dukes of Brunswick and the transformations in dining culture since its creation in 1747. For more information visit http://www.fuerstenberg-schloss.com/en/permanent-exhibition/
Innsbruck, Schloss Ambras, The Art of Power: Habsburg Women in the Renaissance, 14 June to 7 October 2018. This special exhibition focuses on three Renaissance women, rulers and collectors from the House of Habsburg: Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), Mary of Hungary (1505–1558), and Catherine of Austria (1507–1578). For more information visit www.schlossambras-innsbruck.at.
Lens, Louvre-Lens, L’empire des roses, chefs-d’œuvre de l’art persan du XIXe siècle, 21 March to 16 July 2018. Much on the Qajar dynasty of Persia.
London, British Library, Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, 19 October 2018 to 19 February 2019.
London, The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Splendours of the Subcontinent: A Prince’s Tour of India 1875–6, 8 June to 4 October 2018.
London, The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Splendours of the Subcontinent: Four Centuries of South Asian Paintings and Manuscipts, 8 June to 14 October 2018.
London, The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace: Russia: Royalty & the Romanovs, 9 November 2018 to 8 April 2019.
London, The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace: Shadows of War: Roger Fenton’s Photographs of the Crimea, 1855, 9 November 2018 to 28 April 2019.
Lunéville, Château des Lumières, Lunéville et Germain Boffrand (1667–1754), 30 June 2017 to 15 June 2018. Boffrand rebuilt Lunéville as the principal residence of the dukes of Lorraine.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Visitors to Versailles, 1682–1789, 9 April to 29 July 2018.
Paris, Louvre, Power Plays, 27 September 2017 to 2 July 2018. The exhibition is divided into four sections: “Princely Roles”; “Legitimacy through Persuasion”;“The Antique Model”; “The Insignia of Power”. Follow the exhibition on social networks: #PetiteGalerie #PowerPlays.
Paris, Louvre, La France vue du Grand Siècle. Dessins d’Israël Silvestre (1621–1691), 15 March to 25 June 2018.
Toronto, Aga Khan Museum, The World of the Fatimids, 10 March to 2 July 2018. The Ismaili Shia Islamic dynasty that emerged from North Africa to rule the region from Egypt.
Turin, Reggia di Venaria, Cabinet-makers and Inlayers at the Court of Savoy, 1670-1870, 10 March to 15 July 2018. The exhibition explains the creation and organisation of workshops, as well as the cultural, technological and scientific advances that differentiate a cabinetmaker from a carpenter.
Versailles, Bilbiothèque Municipale, L’art équestre, de l’instrument de pouvoir à l’objet de collection, April to June 2018.
Versailles, Château de, Louis-Philippe and Versailles, 6 October 2018 to 4 February 2019.
Vienna, Wien Museum, Otto Wagner, 15 March to 7 October 2018. Wagner designed the Court Pavilion in the Hietzing railway station, by the court’s main summer residence, Schönbrunn. The Emperor, however, continued to use carriages.
Conferences
FORTHCOMING
26 June 2018
The Sacral and the Secular: Early Medieval Political Theology
Churchill College, Cambridge
Ever since Ernst Kantorowicz popularised the term ‘political theology’ in the 1950s, scholars have known that the political and religious thought of the early Middle Ages cannot be separated. But since the 1990s there has been a resurgence of interest in this field. The traditional focus simply on sacral kingship has been replaced by an awareness of the early Middle Ages as a world of debate and contestation where a wide variety of political theologies existed. This one-day conference will explore the latest thinking on early medieval political theology, with particular attention to the idea of the secular during the period. As confidence in the progressive secularization of the contemporary world has faltered in the past generation, now seems an appropriate time to explore how concepts of the secular and de-secularization can shed light on the early Middle Ages.
For further information visit: https://earlymedievalpoliticaltheology.wordpress.com
8-12 July 2018
Kings & Queens 7 — Ruling Sexualities: Sexuality, Gender, and the Crown
University of Winchester and Hampton Court Palace
For further information mail [email protected] or visit http://www.royalstudiesnetwork.org
24-27 September 2018
Autour de la Toison d’or. Ordres de chevalerie et confréries nobles aux XIVe-XVIe siècles
University of Vienna, Institut für Oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung
The conference is about the Order of the Golden Fleece and other orders of chivalry and noble associations of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. The conference is organised by Prof. Dr. Alain Marchandisse (University of Liège) and Prof. Dr. Werner Maleczek (University of Vienna), on behalf the Centre européen d’Etudes bourguignonnes.
27-28 September 2018
Splendid Encounters VII: Conflict and Peacemaking in Diplomacy, 1300-1800
Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Vilnius
http://www.premoderndiplomats.org/splendid-encounters-vii.html
14-16 November 2018
Towards a New Political History of the Court, c. 1200-1800: Delineating Practices of Power in Gender, Culture, and Sociability
Paris, Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris
Contact: Pascal Firges, [email protected]
https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/termine-36572
8-9 January 2019
Monarchy and Modernity, 1500-1945
University of Cambridge
This conference centres on three key moments in the history of modern European monarchy: the English Revolution, the French Revolution, and the mainstreaming of republicanism during the first half of the twentieth century. The main lines of inquiry are twofold, one directed at monarchy’s political significance, and the other at its socio-cultural, psychological, religious and spiritual roles.
Contact: Carolina Armenteros ([email protected]), Philippe Barthelet ([email protected]) or Andrew Thompson ([email protected]).
For details: http://events.history.ac.uk/event/show/16263
7-8 March 2019Magnificence in the 17th Century: Performing Splendour in Republican and Princely ContextsUniversidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid
This conference, co-organised by Leiden University and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, will explore the uses of splendour in early modern political spaces, and particularly asks questions about the wisdom of spending enormous sums on public festivities and building projects.
For further details, see http://iulce.es/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Call-for-Papers-Magnificence.pdf or contact [email protected] or [email protected]
News from Versailles
Among the research programmes being published by the Versailles Research Centre,
L’etiquette à la cour: textes normatifs et usages
Réseaux et sociabilité à la cour
Musique dans les résidences royales (Musi2R)
Les Garde-Meubles en Europe
Versailles – Paris 1700: visions allemandes (INHA/CRCV)
Les étrangers à la cour des Bourbons à travers les actes notariés (1618–1690)
A new research project: Identités curiales et le mythe de Versailles en Europe: perceptions, adhésions et rejets (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles)
A blog: Destination Versailles. Voyager en France au tournant du XVIIIe siècle https://architrave.hypotheses.org/
In addition 6,000 images from pre-1789 plans of Versailles have been put online.
At the end of 2020 there wil be a two-day colloquium, ‘Le mythe de Versailles et l’Europe des cours, XVIII e- XIX e siècles’, held at the Château de Versailles. See here for the call for papers: http://chateauversailles-recherche.fr/francais/colloques-et-journees-d-etudes/appels-a-communication/appel-a-communication-pour-le-colloque-le-mythe-de-versailles-et-l-europe-des.html
News from the Society
SEMINAR REPORTS
16 October 2017
Polly Putnam (Historic Royal Palaces, London)
The Consumption and Significance of Chocolate in the Stuart and Early Georgian Courts
The making and consuming of chocolate in the early modern period should be studied within the wider context of expensive luxury goods, like fine silver, and the practices of court society. Not only was chocolate costly, but during the first decades of its consumption it was often deemed morally dangerous, a suspect self-indulgence, more exotic even than tea or coffee and widely associated with the court and its luxuriousness. Culturally, chocolate drinking was strongly influenced by Spanish tastes and the courtly display of the Habsburgs. At the Stuart court, it came to be served, even when the monarch dined alone, with a great flourish of silverware accompanied by other exotic and expensive foods. At both courts, it became the object of showy gift-giving in a culture which affected other European monarchies as well. Evidence suggests it began to be drunk at the English court by 1670 and was served by English ambassadors overseas, given by them as a gift to please and impress foreign princes –– another reflection of Spanish customs. Under Mary II, a special room for drinking chocolate was set aside at Kensington Palace while at Hampton Court, Wren included a specially designed chocolate kitchen — one of only three kitchen rooms planned for the new wings there. Great care was taken by especially trained royal chocolate cooks to ensure the highest quality drink for the monarchs’ table, while elaborate arrays of expensive chocolate-making utensils and serving dishes were displayed in royal apartments. The precious drink, whisked in its pot with great skill, was served at the later Stuart court with showy ritual, often in the monarch’s bedchamber, shared with honoured guests. Sometimes, by the 1690s, it was served to large parties at court, along with other drinks and refreshments. Elsewhere in London, chocolate was served in special chocolate houses, primarily to the rich and very fashionable, in contrast to the more levelling, inclusive and flourishing coffee houses. And although the drinking and giving of chocolate as a gift became more widespread, in early Hanoverian England chocolate houses tended to remain expensive and relatively exclusive, with some houses attracting the same crowd as the court itself. Thus, even by the mid-eighteenth century, chocolate drinking and chocolate houses remained closely associated with the Hanoverian court and its culture and with the luxury of wealth and high social status.
Polly Putnam specialises in the history of design and interiors as Curator of Royal Buildings, Kew and is currently lead curator in the restoration of the chocolate kitchen at Hampton Court.
13 November 2017
Olivia Fryman (Royal Collection Trust)
Furnishing the Royal Palaces for Charles II
The return of Charles II from exile in 1660 raised many questions regarding the court, the use and condition of royal residences, the fate of paintings and other works of art and the need for suitable furnishings of all kinds, from beds and window curtains to silver tableware. The voluntary return of older royal pieces (sold or given away under Cromwell), sometimes after great pressure from the authorities on their new owners, had to be supplemented by legalized seizures and extensive purchases. Charles II understood the vital need to assemble adequate signifiers of his kingship — the trappings of monarchy. And while Cromwell’s insistence on display of majesty in his residences had meant that Hampton Court and Whitehall remained well furnished, a great deal of furniture and many pictures nevertheless had to be acquired. Although lack of inventories from these decades causes much uncertainty, it is clear that Charles’ Frenchified taste — the product in part of his life at Saint-Germain — and that of many of his chief advisers, strongly influenced purchases. His and his mother’s enthusiasm for elaborate Gallic court style and desire to use more publicly hitherto private spaces, such as the king’s bedroom, greatly affected the appearance and use of royal residences. Queen Catherine of Braganza’s preference for pieces from India and China also affected the appearance of royal residences, while her and especially the king’s bedchambers were very powerfully dressed. In such iconic spaces, rich, elaborate French style dominated, reflecting the symbolic importance of royal bedrooms as well as Charles’ own taste. After state beds, the most expensive items were tapestries whose iconography was intended to enhance royal standing and authority. Charles commissioned several richly made series of these, including one set celebrating his ancestors. Cabinets, intricately decorated with mother-of-pearl, ivory and silver were ordered; and silver furniture, reflecting a taste widespread among contemporary princes, abounded, including chandeliers, fireplace pieces, tables and stands, mirrors and card tables. While some silver furniture — as was true of other pieces, too — was commissioned from English craftsmen, much of it was imported from France and elsewhere. Overall, such furnishings, inherited or newly purchased in vast quantities, reflected Charles’ and his queen’s rich, extravagant tastes and expectations of princely magnificence. Charles, like his fellow sovereigns, used elaborate furniture to enhance his and his monarchy’s standing.
Olivia Fryman, a member of the Society’s executive committee, is a historian of early modern material culture at the English court and recently co-curated the Royal Collection’s exhibition Charles II: Art and Power at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace.
4 December 2017
Fabian Persson (Linnaeus University and Somerville College, Oxford)
The Courtly Chamaeleon? Change or Perseverance of the Swedish Court from 1750 to 1930
Despite political coups and other shocks, the royal court of Sweden remained remarkably stable during the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries — in contrast to the repeated upheavals endured by many other European courts. Superficially, continuity marked this court even into the twentieth century as ceremonies such as the official opening of parliament remained largely unchanged. But beneath the surface, the court evolved gradually and significantly in appearance, function and personnel as it incorporated new social groups. From the 1770s, royal and other interventions repeatedly refocused political authority while the court took on and retained a strongly Germanic character. Foreign visitors were greatly impressed by its size, liveliness and crucial role as a centre of elite culture, and by its inclusion of the whole (but small) nobility. This nobility continued to dominate the vast majority of higher offices of court and government; it was snobbish and ensured that manners, etiquette and court ceremony were stiffly off-putting. Bernadotte’s arrival and succession brought few significant changes of style or organization and families who had dominated the court for generations continued to do so. Only around the middle of the nineteenth century was there some slight opening to middle-class men and women who began finally to be officially presented at court. By the 1860s in the press and elsewhere there were widespread criticisms of the privileged exclusivity of court and nobility while, by the 1890s, the cultivated elite showed great distaste for courtier snobbery. By then, some traditional court ceremonies, like the levee, were being abolished and others were beginning to include more of the middle classes. Court balls, boycotted by socialist parliamentarians, were dropped from 1918 and Gustav V promised to reform and modernize the court. In fact he left significant reform to his successor, Gustav VI, who after about 1960 abolished almost all high court offices, supported by his queen, Louise Mountbatten, who kept only a very small household. Coronations ceased to be held; balls were replaced by garden parties and other less ceremonious occasions; the state opening of parliament was abolished; and other reforms were made. Thus the twentieth century, while leaving the court at first superficially unchanged, eventually saw a whole range of modifications which began, from the 1960s, to more obviously dismantle the traditional court both outwardly as well as at its core.
Fabian Persson, a member of the Society’s executive committee, is doing research on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Swedish courtiers and their methods of survival.
29 January 2018
Katarzyna Kuras (Jagiellonian University, Cracow)
Conflicts or Cooperation? The World of Courtiers of Queen Marie Leszczyńska (1725–1768)
Marie Leszczyńska’s fortunes were transformed when, in 1725, she was betrothed to the young Louis XV of France and soon won his enthusiastic love. Arriving at Versailles with almost no significant Polish allies, she established a circle of French courtier friends who shared her enthusiasms, particularly for gambling. A study of her relations with her circle demonstrates how skilled the Queen was at performing her duties, adhering to etiquette, while attempting valiantly to manage the many difficulties and conflicts arising among her friends and servants. Evidence such as the diaries of a prominent courtier, the duc de Luynes, reveals how important form and ceremony remained at the French court. At the same time, there is little evidence of whatever political role the Queen may have played on the wider stage. Behind the scenes, her courtiers engaged in a wide range of competitive, ambitious manoeuvres of self-promotion. Although the intense rivalries pursued by courtiers like Luynes or the duchesses of Mazarin and Tallard, for example, were not typical behaviour in Marie’s entourage, they revealed the widespread pressure on courtiers to maintain their status and reputation. Rivalries sometimes led to storms in the Queen’s household, and even her long-time friends, like the duchesse de Luynes, could take advantage of Marie’s trust to promote themselves against rival ladies, particularly on ceremonial occasions. The Duchess carefully defied etiquette to reinforce and demonstrate her influence with the Queen. Others, like the duchesse de Gontault or the maréchale de Duras, used their claims to serve at mealtimes or ride in the Queen’s carriage as weapons against their competitors and proofs of higher status. Though Marie often ignored such assertiveness, she occasionally intervened to reprimand her ladies when they defied the rules of privilege. While absurd and confused regulations sometimes caused such squabbling, sheer ambition remained the principal source of competition and conflict. At the same time, some courtiers joined together as a ‘professional group’ to protect common interests and maintain peace amongst themselves. Generally, despite such conflicts, the professionalism of the Queen’s lower-level servants proved crucial and ensured that normally her household functioned smoothly. In contrast, even direct intervention by the Queen or by Louis XV often proved ineffective in ending deeply-rooted conflict amongst high-ranking courtiers.
Katarzyna Kuras, who specialises in the Polish presence in Lorraine and Versailles in the eighteenth century, is currently doing research on the court of the Saxon kings in Warsaw as well as preparing a book on Marie Leszczyńska’s court. Her study, August A. Czartoryski and His Clients and Co-Workers in the Eighteenth Century was published in Polish in 2010.
C.C. NOEL
FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES
10 November 2018
Courts and Capitals 1815–1914 (fifth in the series)
Society for Court Studies/Victorian Society conference
Art Workers’ Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AT
The century before the Great War, far from being a period of decline for monarchies, witnessed a resurgence of court life. In Europe and beyond, monarchies reshaped their capital cities: new, larger palaces were constructed; royal avenues, squares and parks were created; public ceremonies reached levels of elaboration and participation previously unknown. ‘Courts and Capitals 1815–1914 (V)’ seeks to shed fresh light on the complex relationship between royal courts and capital cities in the long nineteenth century. Previous conferences in this series have examined Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Rome, Tehran, New Delhi, Bangkok, Alexandria, Athens, Brussels, Sofia and Bucharest. Proposals are invited for papers on new aspects of this subject and, in particular, on cities not yet explored, such as Saint Petersburg, Belgrade, Naples, Lisbon, Cairo, Addis Ababa and the Scandinavian capitals.
Proceedings of this conference will be published in The Court Historian, the journal of the Society for Court Studies. The proceedings of previous conferences can be seen by searching for ‘Courts and Capitals’ at http://www.courtstudies.org/past-conferences.htm.
Please send proposals for papers to Dr David Gelber ([email protected]) or Dr Philip Mansel ([email protected]).
UK SEMINARS 2018
Seminars are held at 6pm at New York University, 6 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3RA, room 102. Wine and refreshments are served.
17 September Dr Alden Gregory, Historic Royal Palaces
The Tudor Court under Canvas: Royal Tents and Timber Lodgings, 1509–1603
15 October Dr Mandy Richardson, University of Chichester
Hunting, Hounds and Hospitality: Gendered Aspects of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Royal Hunt
12 November Professor Peter Barber, King’s College London
George III as a Map Collector
3 December Professor Helen Watanabe O’Kelly, University of Oxford
Catholic Ruler, Protestant People. The Impact of the Reformation on Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe
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