Coolidge on Noblemens’ Mistresses: SCSC 09, Geneva

The other very good paper I heard while at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in Geneva was Grace Coolidge’s “Masculinity and the Noble Mistress in Early Modern Spain.” Looking through wills and other legal documents that shed light on the family, Coolidge finds a number of noblemen acknowledging, and providing for, mistresses and illegitimate children. Mistresses become less and less visible in these documents as the 16th century moves on, perhaps thanks to the impact of religious reform. Coolidge argues, interestingly, that the performance of masculinity depended on the participation of women. Having a mistress could either help or harm a man in his attempt to assert his masculinity. Fathering an illegitimate child could counter suspicions of impotence, for example, but fathering too many could indicate a negligant attitude towards the future of one’s estate. This paper marks the beginning of a larger project for Coolidge on women who were noblemens’ mistresses.

Weber on Teresa of Avila’s Letters: SCSC 09, Geneva

Speaking of Teresa, I heard a very interesting paper given by Alison Weber at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference last week, entitled, “”Epistolary Discipline: Teresa of Avila’s Letters to Maria Bautista.” Bautista was St. Teresa’s cousin and the abbess of the Discalced convent in Valladolid. In the letters, Teresa was instructing her on how to properly run the convent. Interestingly, it was Teresa who urged a practical view of things on the more purist-minded Bautista. For example, Teresa wanted Bautista to admit young women who, although not as spiritual as Bautista would have liked, had large dowries to contribute to the convent. Weber argues that letters such as these were part of Teresa’ attempt to train a new generation of leaders, with an eye to managing the transition from her own charismatic leadership, in Max Weber’s terms, to the more bureaucratic form that the Discalced Carmelites would have to assume after the founder’s death.

Spanish History at the SCSC 09, Geneva

At this year’s Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, in Geneva, Switzerland, there are a number of papers that tackle Spanish history, although no panels dedicated solely to this purpose.

Thursday, May 28, 8:30 am:

Panel: “Exploring the Print Culture of Europe: New Frontiers of Research.”

Paper: Alexander Wilkinson, “Mapping the Print World of Early Modern Iberia: The UCD Book Project.”

At 3:30:

Panel: “Constructing Gender in Early Modern Europe.”

Paper: Grace Coolidge, “Masculinity and the Noble Mistress in Early Modern Spain.”

Also at 3:30:

Panel: “The Influence of Genre in Accounts of the Supernatural.”

Paper: Andrew Keitt, “The Natural Language of the Supernatural: Emblems and Mystical Theology in Seventeenth-Century Spain.”

Friday, May 29, 8:15 am:

Panel: “Cultural Transfer in Early Modern Europe.”

Paper: Thomas Weller, “Transfer of Goods or Transfer of Ideas? Protestant Merchants in Early Modern Spain.”

At 1:00:

Panel: “Nova Reperta II: Invention, Imagination, and Discernment in the Early Modern World.”

Paper: Christine Göttler, “Antwerp’s Nova Reperta: The Jesuits, Peter Paul Reubens, and the Portuguese Alchemist Manuel Ximenes.”

Also at 1:00:

Panel: “The Uses and Misuses of Dowry.”

Paper: Allyson M. Poska, “‘More Than the Decency of Her Person’: Dowry and New Immigrants to the Rio de la Plata.”

Saturday, May 30, 8:30 am:

Panel: “Representations of Local and Global Space in the Early Modern World.”

Paper: Elizabeth Pettinaroli, “Local and Global Visions in Early Modern New Spain.”

Also at 8:30:

Panel: “Health and Home: Vernacular Books for the Household in Early Modern England, Italy, and Spain.”

Paper: Monserrat Cabré, “A Textual Archaeology of Beauty in the Spanish Early Modern Household.”

At 10:30:

Panel: “Confessional Influence on Political Analysis.”

Paper: Keith David Howard, “How Machiavellian were the Anti-Machiavellians? The Case of Pedro de Ribadeneyra.”

At 1:30:

Panel: “Per Lettera: The Correspondence of Three Early Modern Nuns.”

Paper: Alison Weber, “Epistolary Discipline: Teresa of Avila’s Letters to María Bautista.”

RSA 2009: Los Angeles

The program for the Renaissance Society of America’s 2009 conference, at UCLA and the Getty, is up on their site now. I won’t be able to attend, but I thought I would alert people to some promising panels.

In addition to panels focusing on Spanish literature, especially Cervantes, and a series of panels in honor of Robert M. Stevenson, there are three things of special interest to historians.

SCSC 2008: Bomba on Political Culture

One last post on a great paper I heard in St. Louis. Nicholas Bomba, a Princeton PhD candidate, gave a paper entitled, “The Three Faces of Gonzalo Pizarro,” in which he explored contemporary comments on Pizarro’s rule in Peru and finds that they sort out into three “archetypes,” as he put it, to explain bad rulership. The point was that these were part of the rhetorical and conceptional tools that Spaniards possessed to analyze rulership, at home and away. I’m not doing the paper justice here – it was a sophisticated and nuanced analysis. I had heard Bomba give another paper at the SCSC in Minneapolis last year, and this paper just confirmed that his dissertation and book will be very sharp.

After the jump, Bomba’s own description of his dissertation on the crisis of counsel in the Hispanic world:

SCSC 2008: Nykwest on Women’s Education

Another very interesting paper I saw in St. Louis was Rebecca C. Nykwest, a PhD candidate at UC Irvine, presenting “The Colegio de Donzellas Nobles and the Cultural Politcs of Women’s Education in Sixteenth-Century Toledo.” The paper was about the foundation of the girls’ school by Archbishop Siliceo’s, made apparently with primary concern for elevating the status of Old Christian girls and making them more valuable in the marriage market during the purity of blood controversies in the 16th and early 17th centuries. It was a preview of Nykwest’s dissertation, “Purity of Blood and the Cultural Politics of Women’s Education in Sixteenth-Century Toledo.” She has really found a lot of interesting material on a hard-to-research topic.

Nalle at the SCSC 2008, St. Louis

I attended the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in St. Louis last week, and I’d like to comment on a few papers I heard there. (My policy for this blog is that I won’t post about unpublished work like conference papers without the permission of the author.)

The most interesting paper I saw in St. Louis was Sara T. Nalle’s “Ethnic Identity and Family Strategies in Spanish Inquisition Ego-Documents.” Basically, it was a fascinating account of how conversos described their relationships with each other and with Old Christians. It also offered an early glimpse at Nalle’s next book on familiy identity in early modern Spain which, if this paper is any indication, will be phenomenal.

Sept. Celebration of Richard Kagan

Erin Rowe, now at the University of Virginia, writes to tell me about a party/conference celebrating Richard Kagan that occurred last month:

“On the weekend 26-28 September, former students of Richard Kagan surprised their former mentor with a festschrift celebration in honor of his 65th birthday at the Johns Hopkins University [called "Kagan's Kaleidescope"]. Friends, colleagues, and former students traveled from across the country and across the Atlantic to present papers, give tributes, and raise a glass to Richard and his many contributions to the field of early modern Spanish history. On Saturday and Sunday, there were a series of panels on a broad array of topics, which mirrored the depth and breadth of Richard’s scholarship, including: cartography, literature, historiography, the Inquisition, and art. Closing remarks were made by Richard’s own mentor, Sit John Elliott.”

Here’s the program – just reading through the list of names is an impressive tribute to Kagan’s work and legacy, after the jump.