Servants of the Dynasty

by Walthall, Anne

• ISBN13: 9780520254442
• ISBN10: 0520254449
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-06-23
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

Mothers, wives, concubines, entertainers, attendants, officials, maids, drudges. This groundbreaking work opens a new perspective on the monarchies that have dominated much of human history by offering the first comparative view of the women who have lived, worked, and served in royal courts around the globe. Written by leading historians, anthropologists, and archeologists, these lively essays take us from Maya states to twentieth century Benin in Nigeria, to the palace of Japanese Shoguns, the Chinese Imperial courts, eighteenth-century Versailles, Mughal India, and beyond. They explore topics including palace architecture, popular art, diaries, and religious records as they piece together women's lives inside palace walls. Together they investigate how women's roles differed around the world, how these roles have changed over time, and how their histories can illuminate the various structures of power and societies in which they lived. This provocative work also furthers our understanding of how royal courts, created to project the authority of male rulers, maintained themselves through the reproductive and productive powers of women.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
List of Tables	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introducing Palace Women	p. 1
Women and the Performance of Power in Early Modern Southeast Asia	p. 22
Women in Classic Maya Royal Courts	p. 45
Women and Power at the Byzantine Court	p. 65
Beyond Harem Walls: Ottoman Royal Women and the Exercise of Power	p. 81
Mughal Palace Women	p. 96
Politics in an African Royal Harem: Women and Seclusion at the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria	p. 115
Qing Imperial Women: Empresses, Concubines, and Aisin Gioro Daughters	p. 137
The Royal Women of Ivan IV's Family and the Meaning of Forced Tonsure	p. 159
Servants of the Inner Quarters: The Women of the Shogun's Great Interior	p. 172
Women of Versailles, 1682-1789	p. 191
Concubines and Cloth: Women and Weaving in Aztec Palaces and Colonial Mexico	p. 215
Women, Royalty, and Indigo Dyeing in Northern Nigeria, circa 1500-1807	p. 232
Gender and Entertainment at the Song Court	p. 261
The Vanished Women of Korea: The Anonymity of Texts and the Historicity of Subjects	p. 280
The Perils of the Sentimental Family for Royalty in Postrevolutionary France: The Case of Queen Marie-Amelie	p. 299
Bibliography	p. 327
List of Contributors	p. 359
Index	p. 363
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