The Formation of the Child in Early Modern Spain

The Formation of the Child in Early Modern Spain PDF Author: Grace E. Coolidge
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317031458
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Drawing on history, literature, and art to explore childhood in early modern Spain, the contributors to this collection argue that early modern Spaniards conceptualized childhood as a distinct and discrete stage in life which necessitated special care and concern. The volume contrasts the didactic use of art and literature with historical accounts of actual children, and analyzes children in a wide range of contexts including the royal court, the noble family, and orphanages. The volume explores several interrelated questions that challenge both scholars of Spain and scholars specializing in childhood. How did early modern Spaniards perceive childhood? In what framework (literary, artistic) did they think about their children, and how did they visualize those children’s roles within the family and society? How do gender and literary genres intersect with this concept of childhood? How did ideas about childhood shape parenting, parents, and adult life in early modern Spain? How did theories about children and childhood interact with the actual experiences of children and their parents? The group of international scholars contributing to this book have developed a variety of creative, interdisciplinary approaches to uncover children’s lives, the role of children within the larger family, adult perceptions of childhood, images of children and childhood in art and literature, and the ways in which children and childhood were vulnerable and in need of protection. Studying children uncovers previously hidden aspects of Spanish history and allows the contributors to analyze the ideals and goals of Spanish culture, the inner dynamics of the Habsburg court, and the vulnerabilities and weaknesses that Spanish society fought to overcome.

Early Modern Childhood

Early Modern Childhood PDF Author: Anna French
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351710222
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 559

Book Description
Early Modern Childhood is a detailed and accessible introduction to childhood in the early modern period, which guides students through every part of childhood from infancy to youth and places the early modern child within the broader social context of the period. Drawing on the work of recent revisionist historians, the book scrutinises traditional historiographical views of early modern childhood, challenging the idea that the concept of ‘childhood’ didn’t exist in this period and that families avoided developing strong affections for their children because of the high death rate. Instead, this book reveals a more intricately detailed character of the early modern child and how childhood was viewed and experienced. Divided into five parts, it brings together the work of historians, art historians and literary scholars to discuss a variety of themes and questions surrounding each stage of childhood, including the household, pregnancy, infancy, education, religion, gender, illness and death. Chapters are also dedicated to the topics of crime, illegitimacy and children’s clothing, providing a broad and varied lens through which to view this subject. Exploring the evolution in understanding of the early modern child, Early Modern Childhood is the ideal book for students of the early modern family, early modern childhood and early modern gender.

Masculine Virtue in Early Modern Spain

Masculine Virtue in Early Modern Spain PDF Author: Shifra Armon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317100034
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Book Description
Masculine Virtue in Early Modern Spain extricates the history of masculinity in early modern Spain from the narrative of Spain’s fall from imperial power after 1640. This book culls genres as diverse as emblem books, poetry, drama, courtesy treatises and prose fiction, to restore the inception of courtiership at the Spanish Hapsburg court to the history of masculinity. Refuting the current conception that Spain’s political decline precipitated a ’crisis of masculinity’, Masculine Virtue maps changes in figurations of normative masculine conduct from 1500 to 1700. As Spain assumed the role of Europe’s first modern centralized empire, codes of masculine conduct changed to meet the demands of global rule. Viewed chronologically, Shifra Armon shows Spanish conduct literature to reveal three axes of transformation. The ideal subject (gendered male in both practice and law) became progressively more adaptable to changing circumstances, more intensely involved in currying his own public image, and more desirous of achieving renown. By bringing recent advances in gender theory to bear on normative rather than non-normative masculinities of early modern Spain, Armon is able to foreground the emergence of energizing new models of masculine virtue that continue to resonate today.

A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Enlightenment

A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Enlightenment PDF Author: Edward Behrend-Martínez
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350103217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
Could an institution as sacred and traditional as marriage undergo a revolution? Some people living during the so-called Age of Enlightenment thought so. By marrying for that selfish, personal emotion of love rather than to serve religious or family interests, to serve political demands or the demands of the pocketbook, a few but growing number of people revolutionized matrimony around the end of the eighteenth century. Marriage went from being a sacred state, instituted by the Church and involving everyone to – for a few intrepid people – a secular contract, a deal struck between two individuals based entirely on their mutual love and affection. Few would claim today that love is not the cornerstone of modern marriage. The easiest argument in favor of any marriage today, no matter how star-crossed the individuals, is that the couple is deeply and hopelessly in love with one another. But that was not always so clear. Before the eighteenth century very few couples united simply because they shared a mutual attraction and affection for one another. Yet only a century later most people would come to believe that mutual love and even attraction were necessary for any marriage to succeed. A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Enlightenment explores the ways that new ideas, cultural ideals, and economic changes, big and small, reshaped matrimony into the institution that it is today, allowing love to become the ultimate essential ingredient for modern marriages. A Cultural History of Marriage in the Age of Enlightenment presents an overview of the period with essays on Courtship and Ritual; Religion, State and Law; Kinship and Social Networks; the Family Economy; Love and Sex; the Breaking of Vows; and Representations of Marriage.

Mapping Gendered Routes and Spaces in the Early Modern World

Mapping Gendered Routes and Spaces in the Early Modern World PDF Author: Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317100905
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Book Description
How did gender figure in understandings of spatial realms, from the inner spaces of the body to the furthest reaches of the globe? How did women situate themselves in the early modern world, and how did they move through it, in both real and imaginary locations? How do new disciplinary and geographic connections shape the ways we think about the early modern world, and the role of women and men in it? These are the questions that guide this volume, which includes articles by a select group of scholars from many disciplines: Art History, Comparative Literature, English, German, History, Landscape Architecture, Music, and Women's Studies. Each essay reaches across fields, and several are written by interdisciplinary groups of authors. The essays also focus on many different places, including Rome, Amsterdam, London, and Paris, and on texts and images that crossed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, or that portrayed real and imagined people who did. Many essays investigate topics key to the ’spatial turn’ in various disciplines, such as borders and their permeability, actual and metaphorical spatial crossings, travel and displacement, and the built environment.

Philip IV and the World of Spain's Rey Planeta

Philip IV and the World of Spain's Rey Planeta PDF Author: Stephen M. Hart
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1855663538
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Book Description
Did Spain fall into decline or flourish in the seventeenth century? This edited collection looks at perceptions and representations of Philip IV, Spain's 'Planet King', and his government against the backdrop of the seventeenth-century General Crisis in Europe, wars, revolutions and a sovereign debt crisis. Scholars often associate Philip's reign (1621-1665) with decline, decadence, crisis, stagnation and adversity (as did many contemporaries); yet the glittering cultural and artistic achievements (enhanced by his patronage) of the period led it to be dubbed 'the' Golden Age. The book analyses these contradictions, examining Philip's own understanding of kingship and how he and his courtiers used art and ceremony to project an image of strength, tradition, culture and prestige, while, at the same time, the empire grappled with revolts in Europe and falling trade with its New World colonies.

Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family, 1400–1600

Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family, 1400–1600 PDF Author: Grace E. Coolidge
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496233638
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
Sex, Gender, and Illegitimacy in the Castilian Noble Family, 1400–1600 looks at illegitimacy across the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and analyzes its implications for gender and family structure in the Spanish nobility, a class whose actions, structure, and power had immense implications for the future of the country and empire. Grace E. Coolidge demonstrates that women and men were able to challenge traditional honor codes, repair damaged reputations, and manipulate ideals of marriage and sexuality to encompass extramarital sexuality and the nearly constant presence of illegitimate children. This flexibility and creativity in their sexual lives enabled members of the nobility to repair, strengthen, and maintain their otherwise fragile concept of dynasty and lineage, using illegitimate children and their mothers to successfully project the noble dynasty into the future—even in an age of rampant infant mortality that contributed to the frequent absence of male heirs. While benefiting the nobility as a whole, the presence of illegitimate children could also be disruptive to the inheritance process, and the entire system privileged noblemen and their aims and goals over the lives of women and children. This book enriches our understanding of the complex households and families of the Spanish nobility, challenging traditional images of a strict patriarchal system by uncovering the hidden lives that made that system function.

Guardianship, Gender, and the Nobility in Early Modern Spain

Guardianship, Gender, and the Nobility in Early Modern Spain PDF Author: Grace E. Coolidge
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9781409400530
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Book Description
Contrary to early modern patriarchal assumptions, this study argues that noblemen in early modern Spain depended on the active collaboration of noblewomen to maintain and expand their authority, wealth, and influence. Drawing on a variety of archival documents from Toledo, Grace Coolidge examines in detail the legal status of these women, their role within their families, and their responsibilities for the children and property in their care.

Women's Literacy in Early Modern Spain and the New World

Women's Literacy in Early Modern Spain and the New World PDF Author: Anne J. Cruz
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409427145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
This volume presents writings pertaining to women's rich and diverse participation--despite male cultural domination--in the realms of both reading and writing. Arrangement is in sections on the practices of women's literacy, the role of women in convents, and exemplary women and their works--Lope de Vega, Ana Caro, and Maria de Zayas, among others.

Religion, Body and Gender in Early Modern Spain

Religion, Body and Gender in Early Modern Spain PDF Author: Society for Spanish & Portuguese Historical Studies. Meeting
Publisher: Mellen University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
The title comes from three domains within the bounds of early modern Spain and follows from the renewal of historical studies dedicated to the Iberian peninsula. The book is divided into three parts: religious control and its limits in the Iberian world; images of the body in Spanish society; and women, gender, and family in Hapsburg Spain. The volume includes nine essays which are revised versions of papers originally presented at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies in New Orleans.