Governing Masculinities in the Early Modern Period

Documenting lived experiences of men in charge of others, this collection creates a social and cultural history of early modern governing masculinities. It examines the tensions between normative discourses and lived experiences and their manifestations in a range of different sources; and explores the insecurities, anxieties and instability of masculine governance and the ways in which these were expressed (or controlled) in emotional states, language or performance. Focussing on moments of exercising power, the collection seeks to understand the methods, strategies, discourses or resources that men were able (or not) to employ in order to have this power. In order to elucidate the mechanisms of male governance the essays explore the following questions: how was male governance demonstrated and enacted through men's (and women's) bodies? What roles did women play in sustaining, supporting or undermining governing masculinities? And what are the relationship of specific spaces such as household or urban environments to notions and practice of governance? Finally, the collection emphasises the power of sources to articulate the ideas of governance held by particular social groups and to obscure those of others. Through a rich and wide range of case studies, the collection explores what distinctions can be seen in ideas of authoritative masculine behaviour across Protestant and Catholic cultures, British and Continental models, from the late medieval to the end of the eighteenth century, and between urban and national expressions of authority.

Autorentext

Susan Broomhall is Professor of Early Modern History at The University of Western Australia. Jacqueline Van Gent is Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at The University of Western Australia.

Inhalt

Introduction; 1: Civic Manliness in London, c. 1380-1550; 2: Masculine Republics: Establishing Authority in the Early Modern Venetian Printshop; 3: Jean Martin, Governor of the Grand Bureau des Pauvres, on Charity and the Civic Duty of Governing Men in Paris, c. 1580; 4: Codpieces and Potbellies in the Songes drolatiques: Satirizing Masculine Self-Control in Early Modern France and Germany; 5: The Obligations of Governing Masculinity in the Early Stuart Gentry Family: The Barringtons of Hatfield Broad Oak; 6: Militant Masculinity and the Monuments of Westminster Abbey; 7: Between Corporate and Familial Responsibility: Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen and Masculine Governance in Europe and the Dutch Colonial World; 8: Raiding the Patriarch's Toolbox: Reading Masculine Governance in Cases of Male Witchcraft, 1592-1692; 9: Side-wounds, Sex, and Savages: Moravian Masculinities and Early Modern Protestant Missions; 10: Alternative Hierarchies: Manhood and Unbelief in Early Modern Europe, 1660-1750; 11: Men Controlling Bodies: Medical Consultation by Letter in France, 1680-1780; 12: Attitudes towards Male Authority and Domestic Violence in Eighteenth-Century London Courts; 13: Policing Bodies in Urban Scotland, 1780-1850