From Past Horizons.
How consorts shaped Europe
Article created on Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The cultural role of the consort in the period 1500-1800 will be studied in a new project led by an Oxford University academic.
Professor Helen Watanabe O’Kelly of Oxford University’s Faculty of Medieval and Modern languages will lead the project, called ‘Marrying Cultures: Queens Consort and European Identities, 1500-1800′, in collaboration with experts in Germany, Poland and Sweden.
Professor Watanabe O’Kelly says: ‘European culture as we know it today is the product of a series of intensive interactions between different territories, going back many centuries. These interactions often came about because the monarch took a wife from a different European territory, who then brought her culture, her language and her religion with her to her new home. She often introduced new literary, theatrical and musical forms, espoused new philosophical and scientific ideas, popularised new fashions in clothes and food.’
She adds: ‘Though it has become usual during the last 40 or 50 years for the heir to the throne to marry someone from his or her own country and, even more recently, to marry for love, this is not the case in the early modern period. In that period, the marriage of a king or prince was designed to cement a political alliance, combine two territories or seal a peace treaty, so the bride was by definition a princess from a foreign territory.
‘These young women had only one inescapable duty, which was to produce an heir, but they were often patrons of artists and musicians, owned considerable book collections, and brought painters and architects with them from their home territories.’
The project will examine a number of case studies of how foreign consorts shaped the culture of their new country. Professor Watanabe O’Kelly explains: ‘The Portuguese princess Catarina of Braganza brought Bombay and Tangiers to Britain in her dowry in 1662 and reportedly introduced tea-drinking, but she also patronised Italian artists and maintained her Catholic faith, founding a Franciscan monastery and a convent.
‘The Polish princess Katarzyna Jagiellonka brought the Italian culture she had learned from her mother to Finland and later to Sweden in the 16th century. The beautiful palace of Drottningholm in Stockholm was built by Hedwig Eleonora of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, Queen and Dowager Queen of Sweden between 1656 and 1715, and its famous theatre was built by another foreign consort, Luise Ulrike of Prussia, in 1766.’
More information:
Oxford University, by Matt Pickles (really?), How Consorts Shaped Europe, May 30, 2013
The cultural role of the consort in the period 1500-1800 will be studied in a new project led by an Oxford University academic.
Professor Helen Watanabe O’Kelly of Oxford University’s Faculty of Medieval and Modern languages will lead the project, called ‘Marrying Cultures: Queens Consort and European Identities, 1500-1800′, in collaboration with experts in Germany, Poland and Sweden.
Professor Watanabe O’Kelly says: ‘European culture as we know it today is the product of a series of intensive interactions between different territories, going back many centuries. These interactions often came about because the monarch took a wife from a different European territory, who then brought her culture, her language and her religion with her to her new home. She often introduced new literary, theatrical and musical forms, espoused new philosophical and scientific ideas, popularised new fashions in clothes and food.’
She adds: ‘Though it has become usual during the last 40 or 50 years for the heir to the throne to marry someone from his or her own country and, even more recently, to marry for love, this is not the case in the early modern period. In that period, the marriage of a king or prince was designed to cement a political alliance, combine two territories or seal a peace treaty, so the bride was by definition a princess from a foreign territory.
‘These young women had only one inescapable duty, which was to produce an heir, but they were often patrons of artists and musicians, owned considerable book collections, and brought painters and architects with them from their home territories.’
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| Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony (1724 - 1760), at age 14 by Louis de Silvestre, in the Prado. Maria Amalia married Charles VII, King of Naples, in 1738. She reminds me a bit of Marilyn Monroe. Unfortunately, she contracted, but survived, smallpox. You know what that does to one's skin... |
The project will examine a number of case studies of how foreign consorts shaped the culture of their new country. Professor Watanabe O’Kelly explains: ‘The Portuguese princess Catarina of Braganza brought Bombay and Tangiers to Britain in her dowry in 1662 and reportedly introduced tea-drinking, but she also patronised Italian artists and maintained her Catholic faith, founding a Franciscan monastery and a convent.
‘The Polish princess Katarzyna Jagiellonka brought the Italian culture she had learned from her mother to Finland and later to Sweden in the 16th century. The beautiful palace of Drottningholm in Stockholm was built by Hedwig Eleonora of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, Queen and Dowager Queen of Sweden between 1656 and 1715, and its famous theatre was built by another foreign consort, Luise Ulrike of Prussia, in 1766.’
More information:
Oxford University, by Matt Pickles (really?), How Consorts Shaped Europe, May 30, 2013
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