Patronage (History)

The rise of the merchant class in Restoration England brought with it a sense of insecurity. Newly-minted traders wanted to cement their positions amongst the country's elites, and they increasingly turned to the trappings of the nobility to achieve this. This paper examines the attempts of Sir WIlliam Hustler to establish himself as a member of the gentry: though his home, his titles, and the objects he surrounded himself with.

The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 was feeding time for wealthy and ambitious royalists. The return of the Stuarts under Charles II provided the perfect opportunity for social mountaineering and a chance to enter the exclusive world of the nobility. Patronage-a tangled web of quid pro quo arrangements, nepotistic engagements and shady dealings-was the mechanism by which shrewd aspirants climbed above the throng. One such hopeful was William Hustler: the son of a merchant and a man suffused with the taint of trade, who was to become an MP, High Sheriff of Yorkshire and knight. What factors enabled this ascent? This paper argues that a mixture of religion, usefulness, ability, luck and-of course-money were key factors in this rise to prominence. Through the life of the aptly-named Hustler the inner workings of patronage on a wider scale are examined.

How did elite males progress through civil and temple leadership paths in the Old Kingdom? What titles identified that progression? How did their social status/seniority factor into their careers? Is it possible to measure that social status? This thesis examines the career trajectories of elite males with links to non-Memphite Egypt across the Old Kingdom to answer these questions. The approach adopted is one of cohort-based analysis of the career paths and social status of leaders involved in provincial administration across the Old Kingdom using the tools of prosopography.

The study has applied a robust and systematic approach to analysing career trajectories via an examination of civil and temple leadership titles, as well as an innovative method for measuring social status through development of an index to convert honorifics, Residence-related titles and royal cult titles into a single measure: the Patronage Index. The analysis has demonstrated that those involved in the day to day administration of provinces or temples had very specialist careers when compared to individuals who advanced to higher office. Similarly, there was a significant difference in their seniority. As is the case today, ‘highflyers’ were less common than the ‘typical’, even though 'highflyers' are more likely to be visible in the record than the latter.

The study rejects the use of terms such as nomarch or governor, instead proposing that Provincial Leadership is a spectrum that developed across the Old Kingdom, from locality chiefs through to the Great Overlords, which it collectively terms Provincial Leaders. It challenges existing scholarship regarding the classification of certain individuals as nomarchs or governors, noting a tendency to conflate high status with Provincial Leadership. It concludes that titles or roles should not be inferred when the evidence does not offer explicit support. It further suggests that social status can be estimated more effectively through the adoption of a single measure of the totality of links to court (the Patronage Index), than strings of honorifics.

En los primeros años del siglo XVI se va a producir la reforma dentro de la Orden de la Merced. En sus inicios esta nueva recolección va a contar con pocos apoyos, jugando un papel trascendental la Casa de Medina Sidonia en el establecimiento de estos frailes en la zona del Valle del Guadalquivir. Será el VIII duque don Manuel y su esposa doña Juana Gómez de Sandoval quienes aprovechen esta debilidad para convertirse en grandes protectores de la recolección mercedaria. Esta protección se tradujo en una importante política fundacional, que tuvo como obra principal la iglesia de la Merced de Sanlúcar de Barrameda, lugar en el que establecieron su propio panteón familiar. En esta obra la Casa Ducal no va a escatimar en gastos, contratando a personajes de la talla de Alonso de Vandelvira, Juan de Oviedo y Juan de Roelas. Todos estos acontecimientos, más otras circunstancias que serán desveladas y analizadas a lo largo del presente artículo, convierten a la fundación del convento mercedario sanluqueño en un suceso que sobresale del propio ámbito local.

At the beg of the 16th century the reform will take place within the Order of “La Merced”. In its beginnings this new convent is going to count on few supports, playing a transcendental role the House of “Medina Sidonia” in the establishment of these friars in the area of the Guadalquivir Valley.
It will be the VIII Duke Don Manuel and his wife Doña Juana Gómez de Sandoval who take advantage of this weakness to become great protectors of the Mercedarian retreat. This protection was turned into an important founding policy, which had as its main work the church of La Merced of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, place where they established their own family pantheon. In this workmanship the Ducal House is not going to skimp on expenses, hiring characters of the stature of Alonso de Vandelvira, Juan de Oviedo and Juan de Roelas. All these events, plus other circumstances that will be unveiled and analyzed throughout this article, make the convent foundation an event that stands out from the area itself.

The purpose of this book is to explain the process of establishing the seven Spanish grand colleges where a large part of the State and the Church elite servants were educated in the 16th and 17th centuries. To this end those colleges are considered, first, in the framework of the European collegiate movement, before placing them in the Spanish one. A study of the institutional system of those foundations follows and, in the process, several given truths are challenged. The book closes with an analysis of the careers of the individuals educated in those ‘schools’ for high bureaucrats – labelled as ‘schools of empire’ – which, with the time, became a power within the State thus causing its disappearance

Queens, be they consorts, dowagers or regents, often played pivotal roles in the lives of medieval and early modern kingdoms. As women who often married across geographical, political and, sometimes, religious borders, they were ideally placed to serve as diplomats and ambassadors, whether directly as agents or indirectly as transmitters of cultural practices, values and ideas. This introduction celebrates the position which queens occupied at the heart of international and transnational affairs in the premodern era. It argues that queens were figures who enjoyed meaningful public authority. Their ceremonial actions were imbued with significance, and their deliberate and considered interventions in court politics, and in the wider affairs of their marital and natal families’ kingdoms placed them on the international stage and at the heart of European monarchy. This introduction also offers an overview of the articles within this special issue and their contribution to recent historiographical debates on queenship and the nature of pre-modern diplomacy.

This article traces Marie’s intensifying identification with the female Franciscan abbey of Longchamp, founded just west of Paris by Isabelle of France (1225-70) and her brother King Louis IX of France (1214-70), in order to shed new light on her patterns of patronage and to illuminate further the larger history of Capetian women’s architectural investment in royal monasteries. From her first demonstrated attraction to Longchamp and other female Franciscan houses shortly after her arrival in Paris, the queen expressed an increasingly precise desire to shape the terms of her own access to the abbey, culminating in her intriguing request to create an entirely new entrance that would meet her own needs. Combining textual and spatial analysis, we are able to reconstruct Queen Marie’s architectural goals at Longchamp.

CALL FOR PAPERS
IV Art, Gender, and Power Conference

We are thrilled to share with you the poster for IV edition of the Art, Gender, and Power Conference that will take place on 29th-30th April 2021. This conference will be hosted both at the University of Murcia (Spain) and via Zoom.
This year’s edition is focused on “Women and Portraiture in the Renaissance: uses, functions and ways of displaying”. The poster includes the participating keynote speakers and the Call for Papers.
The deadline for paper submissions is 31st March 2021. Make sure you follow the instructions included in the poster. The proposed topics are:
1. Women and portraiture in the Renaissance: uses and functions.
2. Portrait galleries in the Renaissance.
3. Female painters in the Renaissance courts.
4. Origin and evolution of portrait collections during the Renaissance.
The prices for participating in this conference are the following:
• Attendance = 20 euros
• Paper + attendance = 50 euros

Would you like to join us this spring? Use the link below to register for the event:

https://casiopea.um.es/cursospe/artepoderiv.f

Do you have any questions? Do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you!

In this inaugural lecture, Van den Braber addresses the seemingly simple question of what exactly it is that is exchanged between artists and benefactors. What do makers give their patron - and what does that patron give back to them?

Van den Braber sheds light on successful and failed giving relationships in literature, the visual arts and pop music, and argues that these relationships raise important questions. How do we value culture? How much are we prepared to invest in it? How do we legitimize our donations to artists? And: how do artists justify their requests for help? And can patrons have a say in how a work of art looks, sounds or is presented?

In the lecture, Van den Braber proposes ten principles for patronage research, reflecting on what patronage is, how patronage works, and through which discourses patronage becomes meaningful.

Un busto marmoreo di Cristo Redentore, riconosciuto come un autografo di Gian Giacomo Della Porta eseguito fra 1535 e 1540, arricchisce il catalogo della produzione genovese di questo scultore Lombardo e tenta di far luce su diversi significativi aspetti filologici, semantici e di committenza legati a quest'opera, collocata come sovrapporta dell'Aula Magna del Palazzo Balbi Cattaneo di Strada Balbi, sede della Scuola di Scienze Umanistiche dell’Università di Genova.