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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.
Contrary to early modern patriarchal assumptions, this study argues
that rather trying to impose obedience or enclosure on women of
their own rank and status, noblemen in early modern Spain depended
on the active collaboration of noblewomen to maintain and expand
their authority, wealth, and influence. While the image of
virtuous, secluded, silent, and chaste women did bolster male
authority in general and help to assure individual noblemen that
their children were their own, the presence of active, vocal, and
political women helped these same men move up the social ladder,
guard their property and wealth, gain political influence, win
legal battles, and protect their minor heirs. Drawing on a variety
of documents-guardianships, wills, dowry and marriage contracts,
lawsuits, genealogies, and a few letters-from the family archives
of the nine noble families housed in the Osuna and FrA as
collections in Toledo, Guardianship, Gender and the Nobility in
Early Modern Spain explores the lives and roles of female
guardians. 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. To
Spanish noblemen, Coolidge argues, the preservation of family,
power, and lineage was more important than the prescriptive gender
roles of their time, and faced with the emergency generated by the
premature death of the male title holder, they consistently turned
to the adult women in their families for help. Their need for
support and for allies against their own mortality meant, in turn,
that they expected and trained their female relatives to take an
active part in the economic and political affairs of the family.
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.
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.
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