Dynastic Union Research Articles

From Charles V to Philip IV of Spain: the concepts of Monarchia Universalis and Catholic Monarchy

ABSTRACT This text discusses the European system in the modern age, describing the concept of ‘state’ as an object bounded by property rights and its owner’s jurisdiction. In order to maintain the state, it was necessary to keep the inhabitants in a state of submission, through either persuasion or force. State policy consisted in preserving the possessions of the state, improving and increasing it, combining statecraft with the subjects and concert with other state-holders. States were not autonomous units, but domains, and state affairs concerned ways of increasing or maintaining their ownership. When two princes married, they united their states and created a new political and institutional framework, with each spouse taking on the conflicts and alliances of his or her partner, creating entirely new situations. Each peace treaty or alliance was solidly sealed with a dynastic union, as can be seen in the example of the rise of the House of Habsburg, which became the first European power after integrating the inheritances of three great lineages: the Austrian Habsburgs, who contributed fiefdoms and states in Central and Eastern Europe, the House of Burgundy, who contributed states in France and the Low Countries, and the House of Trastámara, who contributed the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon.

“Quanto dovea parergli il dubio buono”: On Doubt, Fidelity Tests, and the Marriage Plot in Ariosto's Orlando furioso

Abstract In Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso, the foundational marriage of Bradamante and Ruggiero is the crucial climax to which the entire epic directs itself, yet the text's management of the couple's union and preparation for their nuptials is highly ambiguous. More than extolling the strength and success of the marriage that grounds the dynastic union, the Furioso highlights instead numerous examples of amorous infidelity that insist upon the precarity of faith-based relationships. The emphasis given to the problematic fragility of spousal trust and the attendant failures of proof and “knowledge” illustrate the difficulties of believing the words and promises of others, for instance, which frequently creates an epistemological impasse or crisis for the individual who yearns—often vainly—for absolute certainty and unbreakable faith. Likewise, the concept of marital fidelity itself is also continually doubted, challenged, and essayed throughout the entire Furioso, as various episodes involving fidelity tests demonstrate. By examining fraught authorial assurances to bring readers to the successful union that begins the Este line alongside key fidelity tests that occur in the text prior to the momentous foundational marriage, this article explores the connection between the impediments that hinder the Estense union and Ariosto's scathing authorial commentary on the fragility of all faith-based relationships.

The Iberian ambition of a duke of Burgundy: Philip the Handsome and the royal treasury in the Crown of Castile (1502–6)

ABSTRACT Philip the Handsome, the first Habsburg king of Castile, ruled briefly, in tandem with his wife except for the final three months of his reign, from the death of Isabella I in November 1504 to his own demise in September 1506. The problems, but also the potential, of the dynastic union of Castile and the Burgundian Low Countries were clear from the time he took his oath as a prince in 1502. Castile’s royal treasury, in a severe crisis from 1503, was to become, owing to its political importance and its role as a major source of revenue, a primary arena for these dynastic interactions.

“A Bad Race of Infected Blood” The Atlantic Profile of Gaspar Riveros Vasconcelos and the Question of Race in 1650 New Spain

Abstract Based on manuscripts from the Mexican National Archive recording a 1650 Inquisition trial for astrology, this article will present a reconstruction of the story of Gaspar Riveros Vasconcelos, a “mulatto” born in Tangier, a descendant of a Portuguese father and Angolan mother. He travelled the Atlantic commercial routes – visiting Angola, Pernambuco, Cartagena de Indias, La Havana – and got involved in political discussions with Spaniards residing in mid-seventeenth century Mexico City. This period was particularly tough for Portuguese people in Spanish America, given the 1640 breach of the dynastic union of Spain and Portugal, which had been formerly achieved in 1581 by King Philipp ii. Vasconcelos’ story allows us to reflect on identity formation in time, on the concept of race, as well as on the ways in which “a persona miserable de color pardo” could deploy his agency as Afro-Portuguese in colonial Mexico society. As such, this paper aims to reconsider the relevance of individual narratives which can generate a growing awareness of the importance that Afro-descendants had in the Ibero-American world and how they could influence the process of racialization in the local context of seventeenth century New Spain.

Danish visions of the Scandinavian union (1809–1810): a genealogy of the rhetoric and pragmatics of justification

ABSTRACT Although nation and empire – as well as the organicist and universalist visions mirroring them – are usually put in opposition to each other, this article argues that the two can create synergistic alliances. The attempt of the Danish dynastic union proposal to Sweden in 1810 sheds light on the repertoire of rhetoric and arguments the state could harness to substantiate its potential to rule over diverse populations. First, the paper demonstrates how the trope of Scandinavian kinship was formulated in the Danish public debate during the transitional period, or what Koselleck calls Sattelzeit. Then, the article shows how this language was embedded into power relations and configured to reinforce the imperial aspirations of the Nordic amalgamation, meaning the fusion of the Scandinavian nations. The core sources I consult are the pamphlets published to advertise union-building and the documents stored in the folders of the Royal Archive in Copenhagen (Rigsarkivet).

Przyimki na, w oraz do przed nazwami państw, krajów i krain. Historia i współczesne wahania normatywne

The article presents historical changes of prepositions preceding names of states, countries, and regions in Polish with the main focus on the contemporary discussion about the choice of the prepositions with names of eastern neighbours of Poland. According to dictionaries and grammars these names: Ukraina, Białoruś, and Litwa require the preposition na instead of the locative w and the adlative do, which are typical for the vast majority of land names, except for islands and peninsulas. Query in historical corpora since the 17th century showed that the preposition na had proliferated in reference to regions which belonged to the same country, importantly, not only with reference to Poland. It is also attested for pats of the Jagiellonian dynas-tic union or lands that had belonged to states that ruled parts of Poland under Partition. Despite this ten-dency, before the 19th Century, the preposition most frequently used with the names Litwa and Ukraina were the locative w and the adlative do. The traditional use of w and do in the past, typical colocations of na with regions rather than independent states, an animated discussion in the media, and the fluctuation of norm attested in the dictionaries of the last century – all these factors weigh in favour of admitting both preposi-tional patterns: na and w/do with the names of three states, eastern neighbours of Poland.

“Not so much perdition as an hair”: The Political Deployment of Christian Patience in The Tempest

Early modern theology and martyrology understood patience as a transformation of one’s perspective on suffering, so that pain and humiliation came to be seen by the sufferer as honourable and even desirable. This article suggests that The Tempest explores the political implications of Christian patience when the concept is translated to the secular spheres of courtship and politics. Miranda and Ferdinand find a sense of agency through Christian patience, leading to the fulfillment of Prospero’s political goals and the dynastic union that concludes the play. However, the repressive side of Christian patience is also revealed through the play’s exclusion of Caliban.

Hannover, Grossbritanien und Europa: Erfahrungsraum Personalunion 1714–1837, ed. Ronald G. Asch

For 123 years, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the electorate (from 1814, kingdom) of Hanover were ruled by the same sovereign. From the accession of George I in 1714 until the death of William IV in 1837, there existed a dynastic union between the two states. Britain’s eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German connection proved a difficult relationship. While earlier accounts of the so-called personal union emphasise British dislike of the Georges and a mix of condescension and indifference towards the Hanoverian under-dog, more recent research argues that composite statehood, a phrase that describes the early modern phenomenon of a ‘shared’ or common sovereign, led to forms of transfer and exchange in both directions. For some time now a group of British and German historians has argued for a Hanoverian dimension in British history—and vice versa. This claim, however, has not been uncontested. The 2014 tricentenary of the accession of George I offered an opportunity to renew the discussion of the dynastic union in its British, Hanoverian and European contexts. The present volume traces its origins to a conference held for this purpose at the German University of Osnabrück in 2012. The eighteen essays in the published proceedings are divided into five thematic sections. Next to the European context of the personal union, the representation of monarchy, the importance of confessional or denominational aspects, war and forms of transfer or exchange provide the organising principles of the publication.

Writing Democracy: The Norwegian Constitution 1814–2014, edited by Karen Gammelgaard and Eirik Holmøyvik

Writing Democracy: The Norwegian Constitution 1814-2014, ed. by Karen Gammelgaard and Eirik Holmoyvik. New York, Berghahn Books, 2015. xii, 276 pp. $95.00 US (cloth). Writing Democracy is an interdisciplinary work in which authors from such diverse disciplines as legal studies, history, linguistics, sociology, history of concepts, and literary studies consider the Norwegian Constitution as a text. The volume investigates textual practices that preceded and accompanied the Norwegian Constitution's framing in 1814, and its amendments, supplements, and interpretation during the following two hundred years. The combined twelve chapters, placed in four sections, examine the textual qualities of this particular constitutional document, illustrate new ways analyze democratic advancement, and place the Constitution in an international and historical context. The Constitution of the Kingdom of (Kongeriget Norges Grundlov, 1814), its official name, is the second oldest constitution in the world still in force, after the US Constitution, created in 1787. Historical and political events leading the Norwegian Constitution must first be briefly considered. From 1380 1814 was a part of the authoritarian twin kingdoms of Denmark-Norway. Denmark-Norway sided with Napoleon and suffered defeat the allied powers. Sweden was among the victors, and in the peace settlement with Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel, would, under the monarchical principle, enter into a union with Sweden under the Swedish king. Danish Crown Prince Christian Frederik, who had been sent as a viceroy, served as the figurehead of Norwegian resistance the Treaty of Kiel. The most decisive and cogent event was the Constitutional Assembly at Eidsvoll, north of Christiania (Oslo). On 10 April 1814, 112 popularly elected delegates met at a national assembly there. The main task of the delegates as they framed the Constitution, was to put down on paper--in words, sentences, and paragraphs--ideas of the foundations of government and the protection of human rights in Norway (3). The Constitution was first written in longhand, then the document was published in print in Danish, the joint written standard of both and Denmark at the time, give all of Norway's largely literate inhabitants access. The original Constitution and the first official English translation are reproduced. Norwegians have considered the adoption of the Constitution a decisive point in the growth of Norwegian democracy. On 17 May, the delegates, in addition signing the Constitution, declared Norway's independence and elected Christian Frederik king. Crown Prince Carl Johan, the real ruler of Sweden, was, however, intent on quelling resistance and securing the throne of according the Treaty of Kiel. Conquest, with an invasion of Swedish troops into Norway, failed, and led negotiations with the elected Norwegian Parliament, the Storting (Grand Assembly), established in the Constitution. Christian Frederik stepped down and the Storting revised the Constitution allow a formal dynastic union with Sweden. …

Britain's First Global Century: England, Scotland and Empire, 1603–1707

In 1611 the English cartographer and antiquarian John Speed published a collection of maps of the geographical area we now call the British Isles. To this archipelago he assigned the novel name the British Empire, and to his atlas he gave the title The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain. In keeping with this theme, Speed dedicated the volume to King James I as the ‘enlarger and uniter of the British Empire’. There is nothing surprising in Speed’s use of the terms ‘Great Britain’ and ‘British’ in a work published at this date. Like many of the writers who celebrated the regal or dynastic union of England and Scotland that took place when James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne in 1603, Speed chose to use British terminology to describe the territorial possessions of the king of both England and Scotland. Somewhat more surprising, at least to modern ears, is the reference to the British Isles, depicted in the first map of Speed’s atlas, as an empire. The British Empire, at least as we think of it today, acquired its identity in the eighteenth century, and it included the large overseas possessions of the Crown. Reference to the British Isles as an empire in the early years of the seventeenth century strikes one as premature and pretentious.

The Papal States in front of Philip II, margin or alternative center of the Catholic Monarchy? Return on the legal, political and pragmatic foundations of a conjunctural empire

The Catholic Monarchy is the short-lived dynastic union (1580-1640) between the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. By returning on the legal, political and pragmatic foundations of this empire which cannot be called Empire (because this name belongs to the Holy Roman Empire of the cousins of Vienna), the article tries to seize better the internal functioning of this heterogeneous political set, by adopting two points of view: that of America (how the notion of Catholic Monarchy is understood in the reynos, far from Madrid and Lisbon) and that of Rome (how Holy See reaches - or not - to exist in the heart of this space). It emerges from it that the pope and the Catholic King are natural allies (around the Roman Christianity) but not objectives (their purposes do not match), and that Rome and Mexico as well picture themselves not as margins of the Catholic Monarchy, but as real centers.

Review: Leonardo Turriano: Ingeniero del rey by Alicia Cámara, Rafael Moreira, Marino Viganò

Leonardo Turriano (1559–1629) was a military engineer. Born in Cremona, in Spanish Lombardy, his career largely developed in Spain and Portugal, although he also served briefly at the court of Rudolf II in Prague whence, in 1582, he was called to Iberia by Phillip II to work on fortifications. Only two years after the dynastic union of the crowns of Madrid and Lisbon under the Spanish Habsburgs, Turriano arrived at the seat of a world empire where the sun never set and, by 1598, he was named the chief engineer of the kingdom of Portugal. At the Spanish court, he entered into the competitive circuit of the other military engineering advisers and faced direct rivalry from his compatriot, Tiburcio Spannochi.This book, published by the Fundación Juanelo Turriano, makes a fundamental contribution to the understanding of Leonardo Turriano's undervalued and misunderstood character. In nearly three hundred beautifully illustrated pages, it offers a parallel discovery of Turriano's writing and his cartographic or iconographic work, considered alongside that of his professional colleagues. Indeed, visual presentation is one of the main features of this book, including five luxuriously reproduced drawings depicting Turriano's fortification projects for Oran and Mazalquivir (today, neighboring cities in Algeria), that unfold at a large scale. The book is divided into three parts, each with a different objective, written by Alicia Cámara, Rafael Moreira, and Marino Viganò—Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian scholars.Cámara's

The "Marrano" Mercantilist Theory of Duarte Gomes Solis

Some DATA ABOUT Duarte Gomes Solis 's biography are provided by himself in his works.1 He was born in Lisbon, in 1561, in a wealthy New Christian family of merchants and bankers. His parents left Portugal and he spent his childhood in Medina del Campo, Spain, famous at this time for its trade fairs. Maybe his parents emigrated because of some trouble with the Inquisition.2 Was Duarte Gomes Solis himself a Judaizer? It seems unlikely (or very well hidden) .He began his career in 1585 as a merchant in East India. Sailing to Goa he suffered his first shipwreck and survived dramatic episodes on the Mozambique coast, where he was captured by African tribes.3 In Goa, he managed the important office of general administrator of the pepper trade, one of the most precious products exported from India and a monopoly of the Crown. He was a close collaborator of the governor, Manuel de Sousa Coutinho, but after vice-King Mathias de Albuquerque took up the office in 1592, Solis was arrested and sent back to Lisbon, accused of financial irregularities. In Lisbon he was cleared and he returned to Goa the following year (1593).4 He continued his career in East India until 1601, when he returned for good. Duarte Gomes Solis sailed four times around the Cape of Good Hope; the conditions of the ship travels (and Portuguese ship travel in particular) were so uncertain at this time that in four trips, he suffered two shipwrecks, and as for the other two journeys, he was once captured, with his ship, by English pirates.5After his return to Lisbon, Solis married (in 1604) Violante Mendes, the daughter of one of the wealthiest banker in Portugal, Heitor Mendes Brito.6 Until around 1610 he lived in Madrid near the king's court, carrying out a new career, that oi arbitrata. The term is translated projector; the word arbitrio combined the various meanings of or opinion, and measure or expedient.7 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, hundreds of these projectors inundated the king and the government with proposals for cures of all the social and economic ills of Spain.Duarte Gomes Solis wrote two important works on politics and economics (and other shorter pieces): in 1622 he published the Diocourde about the Trade of the two Indies, and in 1628 the Speech in favor of the Eaat India Company.9, A look at the respective title pages for the two books shows that while the author's name and the publication date are indicated, there is no mention of the place where they are printed. Further, between the first book and the second, the author has become Noble Knight of the King's House. Theses details suggest some initial observations: the absence of the publication place likely means that the books (each one of more or less three hundred pages) were published at the author's expense, without authorization of the Inquisition. And the title of Noble Knight of the King's House means that even if Duarte Gomes Solis's advice was not always so influential, his personality was well regarded.9As Solis's works are aimed at the king in Madrid (this was the time of the dynastic union between Spain and Portugal), he writes in Spanish, but in a confused, obscure style: he apologizes frequently for his clumsiness, the disorder of his discourse, repeating that he is a merchant, not a scholar. However, his reasoning gives evidence that he is quite cultivated: he frequently quotes the historians of the Portuguese conquests and colonizations, Joao de Barros and Damiao de Go is,10 and he mentions authors from Roman and Greek antiquity as well, such as Cicero, Aristotle, Plato, and Tacitus. In addition to book learning, Solis reflects an impressive geographical culture: all the four continents of the known world are present in his books in a detailed way: from an inventory of the countries, cities, or places mentioned in the Alegacion alone, we can reckon fortynine geograpical names in Asia, forty-six in Europe, thirty-two in Africa, and sixteen in America. …

The Scottish Parliament and the Monarchy in the Context of Absentee Monarchy and the Anglo-Scottish Dynastic Union, 1603-1707

The 1603 Union of the Crowns marked a diplomatic, dynastic and political triumph for the Scottish royal family, the House of Stewart. James VI, King of Scotland, succeeded Elizabeth I as the monarch of England as James I of England. The Anglo-Scottish dynastic union came into existence, but Scotland and England remained independent kingdoms with their own respective institutional infrastructures. The mother of James VI, Mary, Queen of Scots, had a strong dynastic claim to succeed to the English throne instead of Elizabeth I and she remained a perennial thorn in the side of the English body politic until her execution in England in 1587. Her stubborn adherence to her devout personal Catholicism, her legitimate right to succeed to the English throne in the eyes of many English Catholics and Catholic Spain, and her perceived involvement in international Catholic plots to assassinate Elizabeth ultimately ensured that her removal as a political and dynastic threat could only be implemented by her execution. What took place in 1603, therefore, was a Stewart succession in England, but this was a Protestant male succession as opposed to a Catholic female succession.

The Ancient Enemy. England, France and Europe from the Angevins to the Tudors

Fanned by Anglo-French rivalries, the relationship between England and France in the Middle Ages has been a perennial topic of historical study, and the author of the present work has been one of its principal exponents, especially for the period of the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). In The Ancient Enemy, Vale places his previous work in a much longer perspective, beginning with the dynastic union of England and the duchy of Aquitaine under Henri II (1154–89), and ending with the last serious attempts to make good English claims to the French throne by Henri VIII in the 1540s. The chief aim of this short but thought-provoking book is to challenge the simplistic national myths that still bedevil the medieval historiography of France and the British Isles. The opening chapter considers the more general context of medieval England and its neighbours, drawing upon the insights of Rees Davies, Robin Frame and others that emphasize the multivalent nature of the territories ruled by the kings of England on both sides of the English Channel. Other chapters, organized in loosely chronological order, consider the ‘Angevin Empire’; the régime of the kings of England in Aquitaine; the third parties drawn into Anglo-French disputes, notably princes of the Low Countries and the papacy; the place of the French language in medieval English identity and culture; the ‘legend’ of Joan of Arc; the loss of Normandy and Aquitaine under Henri VI and the abortive revival of English royal aspirations in France under Henri VIII.

Orígenes del archivo de la Corona de Aragón, (en tiempos, Archivo Real de Barcelona)

The Archive of the Crown of Aragon is probably the most ancient institution of its kind still alive in Europe. Its origins have been traced back by some historians to the hypothetical existence of an archive created by the counts of Barcelona in 10th century. However, there is no documental evidence of its existence until 1318, in the framework of the political and bureaucratic transformations introduced by king James II of the Crown of Aragon, which enforced the political confederation born as a loose dynastic union. Previously, James I had kept records in several monasteries, such as Sijena, also a royal pantheon, but in a very limited way from the organisational and legal point of view. It is only after the reception of Roman law, in the middle of 13th century, when archives begin to be thought of as privileged places to keep records that bear witness, as a royal prerogative and as a sign of authority.Only at the beginning of the 14th century were the concepts of recordkeeping, information management and documents as a source of evidence brought together within the Crown of Aragon and led to a transformation of the medieval archival institutions into useful instruments of power for the Monarchy.

FINLAND AND NORWAY, 1808–1917

In 1800 there were two Scandinavian kingdoms, the Swedish and the Danish. As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, Finland, which had been part of the Swedish realm for over 600 years became a self‐governing dependency of the Russian empire. Norway, after more than 400 years under Danish rule, meanwhile became a separate kingdom in dynastic union with Sweden. The gradual process of nation‐building, both political and cultural, down to Norway's full independence in 1905 and Finland's by 1917 reveals striking similarities, but also significant differences.

SCOTLAND, ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND AND THE IDEA OF BRITAIN

This paper explores aspects of Anglo-Scottish relations in Elizabeth's reign with particular emphasis on the idea of dynastic union and the creation of a Protestant British kingdom. It begins by examining the legacy of pre-Elizabethan ideas of Britain and the extent to which Elizabeth and her government sought to realise the vision of a Protestant and imperial British kingdom first articulated in the late 1540s. It then focuses on the issues arising from the deposition of Mary Queen of Scots and her long captivity in England. The dynastic implications of Mary's execution in 1587 are highlighted and it is argued that Elizabeth's policy towards James VI and Scotland betrays little or no interest in developing a truly British agenda.

Sir Robert Walpole and Hanover*

Abstract Historical commonplace notwithstanding, Sir Robert Walpole was not instinctively hostile to Hanover. On the contrary, he consistently argued that Britain's dynastic union with the Electorate should hurt neither country. Walpole and his surrogates formulated this policy to reconcile his early misgivings about Hanoverian influence during the Northern War with his later support for Hanover when endangered by British policy after 1725. Hanover's exposure to Britain's enemies and the accession of George II, whose German sentiments were initially less pronounced than his father's, temporarily combined to make the Electorate more popular. Walpole's policy served him well until the War of Austrian Succession, when the British public cared less for equity than for Hanoverian submission within dynastic union. A survey of his career, however, shows Sir Robert Walpole and British public opinion to have been more charitable towards Hanover than previously thought.

International Relations in the Eighteenth Century: Britain and Poland Compared

An analysis of the ways in which different composite monarchies conducted international relations in the eighteenth century reveals the interplay of structure and contingency in shaping change and the discussion of change. Hanover-Britain is compared with Saxony-Poland. Considering Britain as an example of a polity created and shaped by a dynastic personal union redresses teleological tendencies in the treatment of international relations and offers an important perspective.