Proximity to the monarch was a vital asset in the struggle for power and influence in medieval and early modern courts. The concept of 'access to the ruler' has therefore grown into a dominant theme in scholarship on pre-modern dynasties. Still, many questions remain concerning the mechanisms of access and their impact on politics. Bringing together new research on European and Asian cases, the ten chapters in this volume focus on the ways in which 'access' was articulated, regulated, negotiated, and performed. By taking into account the full complexity of hierarchies, ceremonial rites, spaces and artefacts that characterized the dynastic court, 'The Key to Power?' forces us to rethink power relations in the late medieval and early modern world.
Author(s): Dries Raeymaekers, Sebastiaan Derks (eds.)
Series: Rulers & Elites. Comparative Studies in Governance, 8
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: 366
City: Leiden
Acknowledgements vii
List of Figures and Tables viii
Notes on Contributors x
Introduction: Repertoires of Access in Princely Courts / Dries Raeymaekers and Sebastiaan Derks 1
Part 1. Articulating Access
1. Access to the Prince’s Court in Late Medieval Paris / Florence Berland 19
2. The Court on the Move: Ceremonial Entries, Gift-Giving and Access to the Monarch in France, c. 1440 – c. 1570 / Neil Murphy 40
3. Deceptive Familiarity: European Perceptions of Access at the Mughal Court / Audrey Truschke 65
Part 2. Regulating Access
4. Accessing the Shadow of God: Spatial and Performative Ceremonial at the Ottoman Court / Michael Talbot 103
5. Access at the Court of the Austrian Habsburg Dynasty (Mid-Sixteenth to Mid-Eighteenth Century): A Highway from Presence to Politics? / Mark Hengerer 124
Part 3. Monopolizing Access
6. Holders of the Keys: The Grand Chamberlain, the Grand Equerry and Monopolies of Access at the Early Modern French Court / Jonathan Spangler 155
7. Patronage, Friendship and the Politics of Access: The Role of the Early Modern Favourite Revisited / Ronald G. Asch 178
8. The Struggle for Access: Participation and Distance During a Royal Swedish Minority / Fabian Persson 202
Part 4. Visualizing Access
9. Meeting the Prince between the City and the Family: The Resignification of Castello San Giorgio in Mantua (Fourteenth–Sixteenth Centuries) / Christina Antenhofer 235
10. Forging Dynasty: The Politics of Dynastic Affinity in Burgundian-Habsburg Birth and Baptism Ceremonial (1430–1505) / Steven Thiry 268
Bibliography 297
Index 337
