Like Æthelflæd, kind of a badass, especially when it came to military stuff.
http://emilykq.weebly.com/blog/emma-of-france
Like Æthelflæd, kind of a badass, especially when it came to military stuff.
0 Comments
http://emilykq.weebly.com/blog/livia-drusilla-julia-augusta
This is an old one. And I still think she's super awesome. http://emilykq.weebly.com/blog/ancient-thought-on-a-spherical-earth
I still cite the stuff I learned writing this. People have known the Earth was round for a very long time. http://emilykq.weebly.com/blog/aethelflaed-lady-of-the-mercians
She's still one of my favorite historical figures. Not my absolute favorite, but she's certainly up there. I've decided to take a month long break from writing new stuff. But rather than just disappear for that time, I thought it would be nice to go back through some of my older stuff. So for the month of January I'll be putting up links to some of my older stuff, maybe with some commentary, on my regular posting dates. New stuff will probably be back in February.
I love this picture. Not my absolute favorite but I'll still take any excuse to use it again. [Hildegard and her secretary and close friend Volmar, , Scivias, Rupertsberg Codex, source: Wikimedia Commons] He who knows and discerns all creatures, Who rouses them and is watchful over them, the Living Eye sees and says: the valleys are complaining against the mountains, and the mountains are falling into the valleys. What does this mean? Subordinates are no longer disciplined by the fear of God, and madness sends them scaling the heights of the mountains to rail at their superiors. And they are too blind to see the error of their evil ways. --Hildegard von Bingen to Pope Eugenius III, 1153 Among the works by Hildegard of Bingen is a collection of letters, many written by her, but others written to her asking, or in a few cases giving, advice. People from popes to abbesses to ordinary monks, from kings to laywomen wrote to her for counsel and information and received letters in reply. At the beginning of her career and during two of the three major crises in her life* she wrote to powerful male churchmen seeking advice or, more commonly, relying on her utter certainty that God was on her side. She is best known for her visionary texts, but her letters may well have had the most immediate effect on a broader range of people. Most of her letters we know of come from a manuscript known as the Riesencodex** and were organized not by date, but by the status of the correspondent.*** Her letter to Bernard of Clairvaux comes first, followed by letters to popes and archbishops, kings and queens, bishops, nobles, and abbots/abbesses, and finally ordinary monks, nuns, and members of the laity. The majority of the letters involve people writing to her for advice and her responses to them. The higher status the person, the sharper she is with them, while abbots, abbesses, ordinary monks and nuns, and non-noble laypeople saw the more compassionate side of her. The ones concerning the major crises of her life (see *) show more personal investment and give a clearer indication of her own strong feelings. Most of these letters follow a general format: a description of a vision followed by its interpretation. But it’s not actually that simple. First of all, it’s not always clear whose voice she is using. Many of her visions are spoken with the voice of the Living Light,**** but sometimes she switches back to her own words. More often it’s uncertain precisely who the speaker is. Second, it’s also unclear where vision ends and interpretation begins. Vision bleeds into interpretation and interpretation into vision. This was probably purposeful. By obscuring the distinction, Hildegard was able to say things she wouldn’t have been able to get away with without divine backing. *The election of the nun Richardis as Abbess of Bassum and the interdict placed on her community resulting from Hildegard’s dispute with Church authorities over a nobleman’s burial. We have almost no letters concerning the third crisis (first chronologically), the dispute with her superiors at Disibodenberg, but the bad feelings resulting from it left their mark on subsequent letters exchanged between them. **A collection of all her works except her medical texts, put together primarily by her last secretary, Guibert of Gembloux. Hildegard herself seems to have had significant influence over any editing done. ***Which makes dating some of them kinda dicey at best. ****Her term for the divine speaking through her. Sources/Further Reading:
Baird, Joseph L. and Radd K. Ehrman, trans. The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, 1998, 2004. Ferrante, Joan. "Correspondent: 'Blessed Is the Speech of Your Mouth.'" In Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, edited by Barbara Newman, 91-109. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179: a Visionary Life. London: Routledge, 1989. Tryphaena (d.111 BCE) was a Ptolemaic princess who like her ancestor Berenike Phernophoros and her sisters Cleopatra Selene I and Cleopatra IV, she was more heavily involved in the politics of the Seleukid Empire than in the goings on in Egypt. She was an active queen, who seems to have been comfortable acting independently of her husband on several occasions. Tryphaena was the daughter of Cleopatra III and Ptolemy VIII Physcon. She was born during their reign with Cleopatra II and married Antiochos VIII Grypus at around the same time the three of them reconciled in 124. The Seleukids had been dealing with their own internal strife with several different men claiming the throne. Tryphaena’s marriage brought Egyptian political support and troops in to support her new husband Grypus. Her resources swung things in his favor and soon he was king, with her as queen. The couple went on to have probably five sons and one daughter. In 115, things changed. Her sister, Cleopatra IV, was divorced from her husband, Ptolemy IX Soter, on the orders of their mother. Rather than pursue queenship in Egypt once more, she raised an army and offered her own hand in marriage to Antiochos IX Cyzicenus, Grypus’ half-brother, cousin, and rival for the throne. Tryhpaena was furious. She accused her sister of bringing a foreign army into a dispute between brothers and of marrying outside of Egypt without their mother’s permission. Three years later, she saw her chance. When Cleopatra took refuge in a temple, Tryphaena ordered her executed there, despite people’s warnings about angering the gods by such an act. Tryphaena herself would not live long after this. Her brother-in-law captured her less than a year later and had her executed. Her sister Selene eventually married Grypus herself. Sources/Further Reading:
Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus 39.2-3 - Forumromanum.org Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 13.13.4 - Perseus Tryphaena - Egyptian Royal Genealogy Tryphaena - Livius.org The children of Roman freedwomen existed in an odd position, both legally and socially. Their mother’s legal status throughout her pregnancy and at the time of childbirth determined their status as freeborn or slave. It also governed whether they legally and socially belonged to her or her (former) owners, a question that on at least one occasion prompted a lawsuit. Lastly, only her freeborn children counted towards the four children necessary for her freedom from guardianship under the Julian Marriage Laws. Children born outside of a Roman marriage followed the status of their mother. So the child of as slave was a slave, but if she was freed before its birth, her child would be freeborn and had all the associated benefits. This did not necessarily include citizenship though. A freedperson automatically got citizenship if they were freed formally. Informal manumission, however, meant that the woman any children she had would be Junian Latins, not Roman citizens, with some of the same rights, but without other significant ones. Marriage was limited to citizens, as was the right to make a will. And since only children born from a marriage were legitimate and illegitimate children followed their mother’s status, any children a woman who was informally freed would be Junian Latins as she was. There were ways to gain citizenship, but it was an involved process and if the woman died before completing it, her property went not to her offspring, but to her patrons. If, however, the woman was formally freed, whether in front of a magistrate or through someone’s will, she gained citizenship. In that case, if she married, any children she had after that would also be citizens and would be under the potestas of her husband. If she didn’t marry, any children she had would still be citizens, but they would be sui iuris, free from potestas but not necessarily guardianship, from birth. Sources/Further Reading:
Gardner, Jane F. “Legal Stumbling-Blocks for Lower-Class Families in Rome.” In The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space, edited by Beryl Rawson and Paul Weaver, 35-54. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken, 1995. Rawson, 7-30. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Weaver, P. R. C. “Children of Freedmen (and Freedwomen).” In Marriage, Divorce and Children in Ancient Rome, edited by Beryl Rawson, 166-190. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Husband one of four. And possibly the one she liked the best. [Marriage of Isabella of Jerusalem and Humphrey of Toron, 13th century, source: Isabella of Jerusalem (1172-1205) reigned as Queen of after her elder half-sister Sibylla despite the city’s technical capture by Saladin in 1187. She married four separate times, mostly for political reasons as keeping the throne would be a lot easier with an apparently strong and ambitious husband at her side. Isabella was the daughter of Almaric I of Jerusalem and Maria Komnene. Though her father’s previous marriage had been annulled, her half-siblings Baldwin and Sibylla were considered legitimate and were ahead of her in line for the throne. Since Baldwin had contracted leprosy and it was unexpected that he would have children, Sibylla became his heir, though there were some who wanted to contest her legitimacy and put Isabella on the throne. A few nobles actually tried to do this, but Isabella’s first husband, Humphrey of Toron, would have none of it. The pair had been betrothed when she was 8 and he 14. They married three years later. Instead of trying to take the throne though, Humphrey, who did not want to be king, did homage to Guy of Lusignan, Sibylla’s husband, recognizing him as his lord. When Sibylla died in 1190 and Guy refused to give up his crown, Maria insisted Isabella find a new husband who could take it back for her. Isabella next married Conrad of Monferrat and the pair were acclaimed King and Queen of Jerusalem. But it didn’t last long. In 1192 Conrad got himself stabbed to death, leaving Isabella pregnant with a daughter, Maria. Isabella chose to remarry very quickly, this time to Henry II of Champagne, who was closely connected to the kings of England and France and was politically a fantastic match. The marriage only lasted three years though and ended when Henry fell out a window and died, leaving her with three more daughters. She last married Almaric of Cyprus, Guy of Lusignan’s brother by whom she had two daughters and a son, who died in infancy. They ruled together for seven years, dying days apart from each other in 1205. Isabella's thirteen-year-old daughter Maria succeeded them as Queen. Sources/Further Reading:
Isabella of Jerusalem - Epistolae Queens Regnant: Isabella I of Jerusalem - History of Royal Women |
My Blog
Translation of the above: where I post the interesting things I find researching the Classical and Medieval periods in my free time. Archives
March 2016
Categories
All
|