Early modern women's mobility, authority, and agency across the Spanish Empire / edited by Anne J. Cruz and Alejandra Franganillo Álvarez.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Cruz, Anne J., editor.

Franganillo Álvarez, Alejandra, editor.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Connected histories in the early modern world ; 9.

Connected Histories in the Early Modern World ; 9

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Social conditions--History--16th century.

Women.

Women--Social conditions--History--17th century.

Women--Travel--History--16th century.

Women--Travel--History--17th century.

Physical Description:

280 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, [2024]

Summary:

The new parameters of a global world in the early modern period gave rise to an expansion of movement that facilitated spatial and social mobility for women of different social ranks. Through their reexamination of archival documents and travel narratives, these essays investigate the opportunities for female mobility across the Spanish Empire, narrating the journeys of women who assumed new and unpredictable roles in distant environments. Some risked transoceanic journeys to hold positions of colonial power, while nuns traveled to found convents. Portuguese and Genoese women financiers and merchants traversed the Mediterranean to command enterprises in different cities. Breaking with tradition, the noblewomen considered in these essays exercised political agency as ambassadresses and diplomatic spies at various European courts. Still other women fled across borders from oppressive marriages or cross-dressed as soldiers to perform adventurous feats in support of imperial causes. Their frequently distorted histories, authored by men, have been revised and rectified by the authors of this volume.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Early Modern Women's Mobility

Part I. Transoceanic Crossings

1. Inés Muñoz de Ribera: The Making of an Encomendera in Sixteenth-Century Peru

2. Isabel Barreto , Navigator of the South Seas and Governor of the Isles of Salomon

3. Founding a Convent in the Philippines : Discursive Keys to Travel Narratives of Early Modern Female Religious Communities

Part II. Gender Transactions

4. Cassandra Grimaldo's Voyage of No Return: A Genoese Businesswoman in Habsburg Spain

5. Trade, Credit, and Marriage : The Mobility of Portuguese Conversa Merchants and Financiers

6. Travel and the Illegible Body in the Historia de la Monja Alférez

7. Hortense Mancini: A Life on the Run

Part III. Transnational Politics

8. Seeking Support from the Spanish Monarchy: The Manly Flight of Mary Stuart O'Donnell, Countess of Tyrconnell

9. Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse : Schemer, Spy, and Wartime Fugitive at the European Courts

10. Mobilizing Female Relatives : The Countess of Berlepsch's Strategies at the Habsburg Courts

11. A Cosmopolitan Ambassadress on the Road : Anna Colonna, Marquise of Los Balbases

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9463723293

9789463723299

OCLC:

1414162950

Publisher Number:

99996782936