Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Modern World 9789048553754

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Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World

Gendering the Late Medieval and Early Modern World This series provides a forum for studies that investigate women, gender, and/ or sexuality in the late medieval and early modern world. The editors invite proposals for book-length studies of an interdisciplinary nature, including, but not exclusively, from the fields of history, literature, art and architectural history, and visual and material culture. Consideration will be given to both monographs and collections of essays. Chronologically, we welcome studies that look at the period between 1400 and 1700, with a focus on any part of the world, as well as comparative and global works. We invite proposals including, but not limited to, the following broad themes: methodologies, theories and meanings of gender; gender, power and political culture; monarchs, courts and power; constructions of femininity and masculinity; gift-giving, diplomacy and the politics of exchange; gender and the politics of early modern archives; gender and architectural spaces (courts, salons, household); consumption and material culture; objects and gendered power; women’s writing; gendered patronage and power; gendered activities, behaviours, rituals and fashions. Series editors James Daybell (Chair), Victoria E. Burke, Svante Norrhem, Elizabeth Rhodes, and Merry Wiesner-Hanks

Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World

Edited by Elizabeth S. Cohen and Marlee J. Couling

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Pieter Isaacsz, The Women of Rome Gathering at the Capitol (detail), 1600–1602. Oil paint on copper, 41.5 x 62cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 575 0 e-isbn 978 90 4855 375 4 doi 10.5117/9789463725750 nur 685 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

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Introduction 9 Elizabeth S. Cohen and Marlee J. Couling

Part I  Mediterranean Crossings 1. Going Beyond Montagu

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2. Gendered Naming Practices among Coptic Christiansin Sixteenth-Century Cairo

47

3. The “Queen of Algiers”

61

4. An Exotic Migrant, Despina Basaraba Networks a New Life in Papal Rome circa 1600

83

The Network of Subaltern Women in the Turkish Embassy, 1716–1718 Bernadette Andrea

A Preliminary Assessment Shauna Huffaker

An Enterprising Renegade in the Rome of Pope Sixtus V  Cristelle Baskins

Elizabeth S. Cohen

Part II  Local Networks in Europe 5. Domestic Violence and Networks of Female Supportin Seventeenth-Century England

119

6. The Place-Based Networks of Sex Workers in SixteenthCentury Venice

139

Marlee J. Couling

Saundra Weddle

7. Making a Name in Music

165

8. Food and Drink Make Relationships

187

Professional and Social Strategies of the Musicians at the Venetian Ospedali Maggiori Vanessa Tonelli

Female Alliances and Commensality in Celestina and La Lozana andaluza Min Ji Kang

Part III  Body and Spirit in Colonial Spanish America 9. “Wall Neighbors,” Mothers-in-Law, and Comadres 207 Spousal Violence and Networks of Plebeian Female Intimacy and Solidarity in Urban Neighborhoods of Early to Mid-Colonial New Spain (1550–1670) Jacqueline Holler

10. Far from the Margins

231

Supplementary Bibliography of Secondary Works

251

Non-elite Single Women and Spiritual Networking in Colonial Guatemala Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara

Index 255

Fig. I.1

Fig. 1.1

Fig. 1.2

Fig. 1.3

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4

Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 6.4 Fig. 6.5 Fig. 6.6 Fig. 6.7

List of Illustrations Pieter Isaacsz, The Women of Rome Gathering at the Capitol (detail),1600–1602. Oil paint on copper, 41.5 × 62 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Daniel Chodowiecki, frontispiece to Letters of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montague, 1781. Etching on paper. 177 × 109 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Jean Baptiste Haussard (engraver), Jean Baptiste Vanmour (artist), Fille Turque à qui l’on tresse les cheveux au bain, 1714. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Art & Architecture Collection, The New York Public Library, New York, USA. Jean Baptiste Vanmour (attributed to), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with her son, Edward Wortley Montagu, and attendants, ca. 1717. Oil on canvas, 696 × 909mm. National Portrait Gallery, London, UK. Domenico Poggini, Camilla Peretti, Sister of Pope Sixtus V, 1590. Bronze medal, diameter 4.71 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Giovanni Maggi, The Woman from Africa, in Giovanni Francesco Bordini, De rebus praeclarus gestis a Sixto V. Pon. Max., 1588, p. 30. Engraving, 21.2 × 13.8cm. Photograph, Bibiotheca Hertziana, Rome, Italy. Giulia Orsini, mid-16th century. Bronze medal, diameter 5.23 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Sfacchiotta from Candia, from Cesare Vecellio, De gli habiti antichi et moderni di diversi parti del mondo, 1590, p. 424v. Woodcut, 16.7 × 12.5 cm. Tisch Library, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA. Parishes of Venice. Created by the author. Rialto commercial district and surroundings. Created by the author. San Marco and the parishes of Santa Maria Formosa and San Giovanni Novo. Created by the author. Parishes of Santa Maria Formosa and San Giovanni, detail. Created by the author. Sestiere of Cannaregio. Created by the author. Ponte de l’Aseo, Cannaregio (detail of figure 6.5D): sites associated with sex work. Created by the author. Ponte de l’Aseo intersection: bridges, quays, sottoportego. 3D model by Matei-Alexandru Mitrache.

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29

30

41

67

69 70

73 144 146 148 149 154 156 156

Figure I.1 Pieter Isaacsz, The Women of Rome Gathering at the Capitol, 1600–1602. As women of varied ages and ranks network, Papirius’s mother consults with the government councillors (right). Oil paint on copper, 41.5 x 62 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Introduction Elizabeth S. Cohen and Marlee J. Couling Abstract: Non-elite or marginalized women, among them the poor, migrants, members of religious minorities, abused or abandoned wives, and sex workers, have left few records of their experiences. Nevertheless, drawing on varied primary sources, ten essays here reconstruct ways that these doubly invisible early modern women built and used networks and informal alliances to supplement the usual structures of family and community that often let them down. Flexible, ad hoc relationships could provide practical and emotional support for women who faced problems of livelihood, reputation, displacement, and spousal violence. Following other historians, we adapt the concept of networks to bring attention to the social dynamics, agency, and solidarity of these women. The essays range in geography from the eastern Mediterranean to colonial Spanish America and in time from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Keywords: early modern, non-elite, networks, agency, emotions, women helping women

This collection of essays undertakes to show how women in non-elite or marginalized positions, a doubly invisible but numerous component of the early modern population, built and used a variety of networks to solve problems, to fend for themselves and their associates, and to build solidarities with other women. Our chronology stretches from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. While we cannot claim to explore the entire globe, we have gathered case studies sited in a broad reach of lands extending from the eastern Mediterranean across Europe and the Maghreb and on to colonial Spanish America. The collection’s geography includes Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Italy, England, Spain, Mexico, and Guatemala. We meet most of our women in urban settings, cities and towns of varying size that often belonged to imperial domains and brought together a cosmopolitan

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_intro

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Non-Elite Women’s Network s across the Early Modern World

population. Around the Mediterranean, Cairo, Istanbul, Rome, and Venice included ethnic and religious minorities, and in the Americas, Mexico City, and Santiago de Guatemala gathered peoples of varied Indigenous, Black, and European descent. In these early modern cities, many residents were people on the move, and the business of making a new life required networking not only among familiar kinfolk and neighbors but also with strangers. Our protagonists include travelers and migrants: one party from England visited the Ottoman Empire; two small groups migrated from the Levant to Italy; a fictional prostitute from Cordoba went to Rome; and one poor woman, in colonial Guatemala, left the countryside for the city. Some of our women occupied, for all or parts of their lives, more bounded urban communities, such as the ambassadorial households in Turkey, the Coptic neighborhoods of Cairo, or the Venetian Ospedali—custodial institutions that housed, trained, and oversaw the whole lives of some women musicians. Others, such as the sex workers of Venice or ordinary women householders and servants in London, Chester, and Mexico City, created spaces for themselves within the larger fabric of the city. Some further themes connecting these stories across geography—such as spousal violence, prostitution, religion, and gendered patronage—are laid out later in this Introduction. Our cover illustration and frontispiece, details from a painting by the Dutch artist Pieter Isaacsz from circa 1600, depict many women of diverse social classes busily consulting with each other, and with men, on the public site of the Capitol of the ancient Roman republic.1 The occasion for these animated conversations comes from a story on “Of Women who are not to be trusted” attributed to the f ifth-century Macrobius in the medieval Gesta Romanorum. The tale related how Papirius, the young son of a senator, accompanied his father to the council as it debated grave matters. Upon returning home, his mother tried by all means sweet and harsh to make the youth divulge the secret discussions. Steadfastly protecting male political secrecy, he distracted his mother by confiding that they had debated “whether it were more beneficial to the state, that one man should have many wives; or one woman many husbands.”2 Intrigued by the latter possibility, Papirius’s mother immediately gathered many women, high and low, to visit the government the next day and to urge that a woman be allowed two husbands rather than a husband two wives. The painting shows this mythic moment in early modern garb. The tale concluded with 1 Plazzotta, “Beccafumi,” 562, 564. 2 Gesta Romanorum, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gesta_Romanorum_Vol._II_(1871)/ Of_Women_who_are_not_to_be_trusted.

Introduction

11

the senators baffled by this unwomanly uproar, until Papirius explained his stratagem and earned the governors’ good will. Though intended as an ironic send-up of presumptuous and flighty female agency, we prefer to see an imagining, even in a deeply patriarchal society, of women’s ability to raise an energetic and forceful crowd to pursue their own ends, or, more succinctly, to network with their peers. For networking, non-elite or marginalized women’s resources and opportunities ranged greatly. These women carried roles often associated with marital or family relationships and sometimes with local communities, including membership in minorities or marginalized occupations. At the same time, many came to occupy circumstances where they were on their own—away from home, unmarried, abused or abandoned by husbands—and sometimes without a livelihood, even while responsible for children and servants. Whether facing a challenging situation by choice, by accident, or by another person’s imposition, the women whom we feature here responded by taking action, small and large. We highlight, in particular, their cultivation and use of human ties based in proximity and sociability and in shared female experiences. Moved by practical needs and by emotions, they worked, often in concert with allies and friends, especially other women, to accomplish personal, material, spiritual, or public ends. These networking connections could go by many names: alliances, friendships, collaborations.3 We foreground relationships among women, but men, as well as bringing problems, could also provide support. Sometimes our protagonists connected with peers; other times they relied on those of lesser status or drew on the social and economic assets of patrons and superiors. These networks could arise in a momentary crisis or grow slowly over extended association. In this collection, the editors and authors use the idea of networks to explore and give value to patterns of social behavior in which early modern people, acting individually or in small groups, made connections and exchanges with others in order to respond to trouble or to serve a larger goal. We emphasize women’s agency, exercised on different scales, using familiar patterns of social relationships, but also improvising, pressing against normative expectations, and sometimes violating them. We do not overlook the conventional practices and standard structures that shaped lives and experiences, like marriage and kinship, but we seek to uncover purposive social work that happened around and between normal arrangements. These 3 On how historians use these terms, see “HNR Bibliography,” vol. 7 (2021) https://historicalnetworkresearch.org/bibliography/.

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Non-Elite Women’s Network s across the Early Modern World

less formal connections could be critical for people whose gender, material resources, and social situation left them relatively weak. To locate and describe such gendered networks requires scholarly ingenuity and a variety of primary sources. Non-elite or marginalized women, among them the poor, members of religious minorities, abused wives, and sex workers, have themselves left few records of their experiences. Since only some women could write or dictate texts, of which fewer yet were preserved or published, we must also resort to other documentation, often mediated by male authors and officials, which represents these networks less directly. Much of the broader scholarship on early modern networks has relied on sources that privilege people, predominantly men, with disproportionate access to governmental and military institutions and to property and financial assets, social rank, and education and cultural capital. The many informal connections of less powerful people may be hard to trace in the papers of corporate bodies and formal organizations. Nevertheless, judicial records, variously transcribed and archived, have provided a rich corpus to mine for the lives of the non-elite and for their relationships and networks in particular. Records of court cases do focus on transgressions and conflicts, and thus risk giving a slanted perspective on the human interactions represented. Still, in courts that kept fuller transcriptions, much material tangential to specific crimes and punishments comes up, including information rarely found elsewhere from which we can reconstruct the networking strategies of diverse groups. And, while non-elite people were certainly often disciplined by judicial institutions, these same people used the courts to fight their own battles. Accordingly, judicial records are central to several of our essays. Other authors have found ways to use many other kinds of sources: travel writing, news pamphlets, picaresque stories, hagiography, letters, and administrative paperwork of different sorts. Turning to the conceptual terms in our title, let us speak first to “nonelite.” To embrace the deep precarity of many early modern lives and the recurrent insecurities of social and economic identities, we have adopted a deliberately broad expression. This catch-all label allows us to seek out and attend to a variety of historical actors who, by reason of birth, fragmented family, economic hardship, disability and illness, or displacement, commanded few or uncertain resources. We also incorporate a dimension of time or change, because stressors often were not constant but rather created sudden, sometimes grave, disruptions. Similarly, without engaging the bounded binary—in versus out—implicit in the concept of “margins,” we use “marginalized” as a shorthand to suggest people’s experience of carrying a long-term or temporary stigmatized identity, or of moving from a position

Introduction

13

of relative security to another, ambiguous situation. Even people often viewed as “marginalized,” including religious minorities, abused wives, and sex workers, created networks on which they relied in their daily lives and in times of need. Our title, and introductory description, also highlights the term “networks.” As used in modern science, the word designates patterns of nodes of interaction in chains or webs. Taken into social science and then into historical studies, the concept usually suggests patterns of people in relationship and interaction with each other. The vocabulary of early modern authors had no term that corresponds to “networks” in the sense that we use it here. Rather the word is a modern scholar’s analytical tool. By posing the question, “what did non-elite networks look like?,” we bring into view aspects of ordinary people’s social dynamics that could be crucial for them but that may elude our eyes when focused on standard structures like family or on articulated precepts. Definitions of “networks” as a scholar’s tool for early modern studies point to social processes involving meetings or connections made between people for useful purposes, including the circulation of information, goods, and services. 4 In an essay on early modern networks in the American Historical Review, Kate Davison recommends the concept particularly for its flexibility and neutrality: Its great strength is that it allows historians to handle social structures in a way that embraces [a] dynamic and contingent notion of society […] The concept of a network is neutral enough to capture relationships across time and space, whether they are characterized by intimate familiarity, distant reserve, outright hostility, or anything in between.5

To elaborate on the concept’s flexibility, in the context of global activities, networks can stretch widely, crossing geographic boundaries or navigating among several peoples or among many levels of social hierarchy. Or networks can track people operating in local settings and inside social groups. Networks can be large, involving long chains of participants or dense intersections among members, or quite small. They can operate over long periods or flourish briefly and then dissolve. As a framework for representing social processes, the idea of networks can help organize 4 On definitions and parameters of “networks” see Erickson, “Social Networks and History: A Review Essay,” and Yale Digital Humanities Lab, https://dhlab.yale.edu/networks/. 5 Davison, “Early Modern Social Networks,” 466.

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thinking about many activities and dynamics. The concept also lets us look at people less as types than as individuals, bearing layered identities and dealing in specific situations. In addition to flexibilities, Davison also cites “network” as useful for its neutrality, that is, its invitation to attend to a fuller range of dynamics by “sidestep[ping] the assumption […] that people interacted in neighborhoods, kin groups, or other bounded solidarities.”6 This statement alludes to a related term for social engagement, “community.” This latter concept has tended to homogenize social actors with an emphasis on common values and the pursuit of social cohesion within a defined group. For example, in the context of marital violence, Elizabeth Foyster defines communities as “collections of people who shared similar ideas and values. They thus had a moral identity, as well as any social function.” Thus, for Foyster, communities had collective social, cultural, and spatial identities. She stresses the force of proximity and of shared experiences between community members in creating local coherence. People who belonged and did their part could draw more readily on others.7. In this model, not everyone was alike or held the same views, but community well-being rested on the active maintenance of common values and conventional behaviors. A networks approach offers more room for relationships that ignore or challenge the mandated common good. Of particular interest for this volume, the scholarship on community in early modern cities has over time moved in the direction of networks. In early modern cities, where men and women were often on the move, the older paradigm of cohesive, self-policing communities faced difficulties. In urban settings, how did communities manage boundaries and processes of inclusion and exclusion? Older narratives argued that migration to urban centers meant that community ties were weaker, or non-existent.8 Away from kin and homeplace, migrant women, especially, were isolated and vulnerable. Challenging these expectations, however, historians have instead pointed to economic necessity and living at close quarters, including in service, as counters to urban anonymity.9 Seen another way, city life might give women greater independence so that they had both greater need and greater opportunity to defend themselves verbally and physically. In a much-cited book, Katherine A. Lynch argues further that in urban circumstances the 6 Davison, “Early Modern Social Networks,” 466. 7 Foyster, Marital Violence, 203–04. 8 For example, see Hurl-Eamon, Gender and Petty Violence, 7. 9 Griff iths, Lost Londons, 69, 70–71. Griff iths argues that, while high migration made the city “somewhat faceless,” individuals and families often stayed in the same parish for extended periods.

Introduction

15

distance from close kin led not to isolation but rather to building community through various forms of extra-familial bonds. In her view, such built communities, broadly defined, “complement or even fulfill some of the fundamental missions that families have historically provided, such as a place to live, assistance in times of need, and a sense of identity.”10 For women, such fictive kinship and community relationships extended their domestic responsibilities to roles outside the household. In Lynch, we see the intersection of the concepts of “community” and what we are calling “networks,” that Couling elaborates in her research. From a now large and varied historiography using “networks,” we offer a few examples to contextualize our particular take on networks for nonelite early modern women. An important strand of scholarship on the premodern world has used the concept of networks to characterize long distance exchanges of goods and information and relationships between people scattered in space. With correspondence as a principal source, studies have illuminated commerce, diasporas, and the intellectual republics of letters. For example, the Mediterranean region has provided a prime site in works by Francesca Trivellato and by Peter Miller.11 In these studies, the reliance on letters privileged the better educated and those of some economic means. Recently, large digital projects have taken network studies into another dimension. Projects such as “Mapping the Republic of Letters,” “Six Degrees of Francis Bacon,” and the “Royal African Company Networks” have adopted new technologies, such as data mapping, in order to study personal and corporate correspondence.12 Borrowing from science and technology, techniques for marshaling big data into network diagrams have also illuminated other historical themes including demography, literacy, mobility, and work.13 For example, “Angoulême in 1764” uses parish and civic records to map connections between individuals and families in an eighteenth-century French town.14 On a smaller scale, Stephanie Leone and Paul Vierthaler mapped the networks of architects, artisans, and laborers 10 Lynch, Individuals, Families, and Communities, 1–2 and 104–05. 11 Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers; Miller, Peiresc’s Mediterranean. 12 “Mapping the Republic of Letters,” http://republicofletters.stanford.edu/index.html; “Six Degrees of Francis Bacon,” http://www.sixdegreesoffrancisbacon.com/?ids=10000473&min_ conf idence=60&type=network; “Royal African Company Networks,” https://racnetworks. wordpress.com/. 13 Some examples of works which discuss the evolution and uses of networks approaches in big data and social sciences, see Newman, Networks: An Introduction, and Easley and Kleinberg, Networks, Crowds, and Markets. 14 “Angoulême in 1764,” revised 2021, https://histecon.fas.harvard.edu/visualizing/angouleme/ index.html.

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needed to build Pope Innocent X’s palace in seventeenth-century Rome.15 These latter inquiries notably incorporate non-elite participants and show networks that crossed social strata. Meanwhile, several studies by medievalists have investigated the kinds of networks that we pursue here—mostly local and centered on women. For France, Sharon Farmer lays out the conjunction of gender and poverty of urban women’s experiences in Paris.16 In the regional framework of Provence, Kathryn L. Reyerson uses the metaphor of networks to reconstruct the life and local engagements of a merchant wife and, later, widow.17 For various localities in Iberia, with its mix of different religious groups, several essays in the collection, Women and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia, also make fruitful use of networks.18 For the early modern period, scholarship that thinks about women making connections is evolving. Featuring mostly those with elite material and cultural resources, older studies often figure female participation in relation to male models and institutions. Carol Pal, for example, has put women into the usually male “republic of letters.”19 Other works, without using the networks concept, describe prominent, elite women engaged in high level exchanges largely with men. Gracia Mendes Nasi, a sixteenth-century Sephardic Jew and conversa, and perhaps the wealthiest woman of her times, was an exceptional female participant in the diasporic, commercial world of the Mediterranean.20 Another case were the hostesses who presided over seventeenth-century French salons, alternate spaces for social, intellectual and literary conversation largely, though not exclusively, among men.21 More recently, however, scholars have addressed women and networks more directly. While using sources from literate middling and upper-class women, Amanda Herbert has offered an innovative exploration of distinctively female patterns of friendship and alliance.22 In a quite different approach, non-elite women as a group have also figured in a study of syphilis in Venice, where Laura McGough, in a chapter entitled “A Network of Lovers,” argues for a generalized real contagion rather than a culturally-constructed association primarily with prostitutes.23 15 Leone and Vierthaler, “Innocent X Pamphilj.” 16 Farmer, “Down and Out.” 17 Reyerson, Women’s Networks. 18 Armstrong-Partida, et al., Women and Community. 19 Pal, Republic of Women. 20 Birnbaum, Long Journey. 21 Craveri, Age of Conversation. 22 Herbert, Female Alliances. 23 McGough, Gender, Sexuality and Syphilis, 17–44.

Introduction

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Finally, we turn to the essays in our collection that demonstrate the great variety of places and social settings where we see networks in play. To introduce the case studies, we offer a roster of the general dimensions of people’s activities and resources that networks, in all their agility, might engage. 1. Material and economic resources. For example, a) what a person had or lacked; b) what they wanted; c) what capacities they had to mobilize and exchange assets, including illicitly. 2. Social resources. For a given person, a) what social relationships were available through household, kinship, neighborhood, employment, patronage, and homeplace; b) what opportunities were there to activate other relationships through social affinities such as gender and occupation; c) was it possible to navigate up and down hierarchies; d) what skills did someone have to initiate new connections with strangers. 3. Cultural resources. To help establish identities and legitimate social claims, a) what shared knowledge and cultural repertoires of values, motivations, and emotions were available; b) were organized affiliations such as religion or guild useful. 4. Space and terrain: a) how, including in cities, was space accessible, or not, for different sorts of people; b) were people operating locally, on familiar turf with the possibility of proximity supporting relationships; c) moving long distances and into new territories, as many people did, how did they cope with displacement, sometimes repeatedly. While our volume is organized to represent its geographic range and variety, here we offer other groupings to highlight thematic connections. We f irst signal studies of ordinary women’s efforts to manage and counter men’s injuries to them. For two settings far apart in geography and culture, Marlee Couling for England and Jacqueline Holler for Mexico track women’s deployment of female alliances to cope with the strains of spousal violence and marriage breakdown. Using judicial sources, both authors emphasize how proximity and shared experience shaped women’s agency. For London and Chester, Couling elaborates on her earlier publication on servants to track the strategies of female kin and neighbors in helping dangerously abused and neglected wives. 24 These efforts ranged from emotionally and materially supporting the women to the verbal shaming of their husbands and occasionally even physical intervention against them. In a discussion of spousal violence in colonial Latin America, where legal authorities, both ecclesiastical and secular, 24 Couling, “‘She Would Long Since Have Been Starved’.”

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failed in their duty, Holler shows how, as in England, in Mexico City, local women—mothers-in-law, comadres, and “wall neighbors”—stepped in. Exchanging legal knowledge and practicing strategies of mockery and even magic, allied women worked to defend against men’s violence and neglect. In essays by Min Ji Kang and Saundra Weddle, sex workers, the classic women transgressors of early modern European cities, are the social agents. Using very different kinds of sources, these two studies show how prostitutes, rather than being excluded from their local environments, used social relationships to occupy urban spaces and to carry on their work. Drawing on picaresque literature from early sixteenth-century Spain, Kang explores representations of shared eating and drinking in taverns and other public settings where feisty prostitutes sometimes supported one another, and other times maneuvered for personal advantage. For Venice, Weddle has assembled a large bank of data from printed and archival documents in order to reconstruct the interactive urban place-making and local mobilities associated with the sex trade. On the one hand, fixed sites, such as dwellings, inns, brothels, and bathhouses, and urban pathways, such as streets, canals, quays, bridges, porticos, and piers, shaped human movement and activity. On the other, despite regulation and stigma, sex workers, procuresses, gondoliers, and others involved in the transgressive trade made parts of the city very much their own. To bring non-European women into the light, three essays pose questions from unusual angles to elite and governmental sources. Bernadette Andrea re-reads the well-studied letters of Mary Wortley Montagu, the British ambassador’s wife, as well as those of other diplomats in Turkey in a search for the diverse serving women who worked in their households. These small, quite closed female communities brought imported British servants together with local women, often Christians, and even, perhaps, slaves. In sixteenth-century Cairo, the minority Coptic community worked to protect their religious identities but also to fit in with the Muslim majority. Shauna Huffaker’s study, excavating the records of urban administration, uses gendered naming practices to provide glimpses of otherwise shadowed women. While for Coptic men names asserted Christian distinction, for Coptic women, who, like their Muslim peers, lived largely in domestic seclusion, names reflected a broader Egyptian culture of femininity. Brianna Leavitt-Alcantara’s contribution takes us far to the west to Santiago de Guatemala, the colonial capital of Central America. There an early eighteenth-century Spanish cleric penned a hagiography in praise of Anna Guerra de Jesús, a poor, countrywoman, a migrant to

Introduction

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the city, soon abandoned by her husband. While supporting her children as a single mother, she cultivated devotional networks with lay women like herself, with mixed-sex religious confraternities, and with priests. Anna and her peers positioned themselves in the eyes of the global Catholic church as a agents of a vibrant, spiritual Renaissance of female mysticism and affective piety. The remaining three essays involve women whose success in securing a future for themselves depended on navigating, with the help of other women, male patronage. In case studies by Cristelle Baskins and by Elizabeth Cohen, in the late sixteenth century two Greek women, each with a distinctive story, traversed the Mediterranean and arrived in Rome as foreigners with scant means of support. Although the newcomers found few lay compatriots to ease their landing, they benefited from papal generosity toward the worthy poor. Baskins reconstructs from news pamphlets the story of a refugee woman’s brief celebrity as the “Queen of Algiers.” Captured with her mother by Ottoman sailors and taken to North Africa, Anna was made to convert and marry a Muslim off icial. Fifteen years later, with help from Catholic redemptorists, Anna arranged to flee her husband and Algeria, taking along her mother, two daughters, and many retainers, including slaves. Feted in Rome, she received funds from the pope, who also assigned noblewomen to oversee her re-education as a Christian. The pope’s death, however, left the women in straitened circumstances. Elizabeth Cohen’s essay follows a young Greek woman, Despina Basaraba, who migrated voluntarily with her husband and son from Istanbul to Rome. Through an intricate web of negotiations detailed in a later criminal trial, Despina secured papal and private patronage. Two years later, however, abandoned by her husband, and inadvertently embroiled in the politics of the papal household, her fortunes collapsed. In contrast to these far travelers, Vanessa Tonelli describes, for a tighter, highly organized setting, the lives of professional women musicians associated with the Venetian Ospedali in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As sometimes lifelong members of these institutions, individual women had to network internally with male administrators and teachers, and sometimes also outside with family and with noble patrons and employers, both women and men. Early modern historians have recently put the concept of networks to work in a variety of ways. In this collection, we adopt a broad version of the term in order to seek out informal and ad hoc strategies in the social agency of non-elite and marginalized women. While the precarity of early modern life touched everyone, it left these women sharply exposed.

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As they wrestled with misfortunes and aspired to better their lots, their resources varied, but material assets and family were often lacking. For these reasons, occasional and impromptu networks with other women, and sometimes with men, were especially important. Neither non-elite women nor their informal relationships are easy to track in early modern sources. The concept of networks, however, invites our authors to seek out these elusive histories. Many of our examples focus on local settings, where proximity provided opportunities for women to create new relationships. Women shared gendered experiences that supported not only the habits of community life, but also ad hoc connections that addressed individuals’ urgent or irregular predicaments. Need motivated these alliances but so did emotions like empathy and affection. Although life remained hard for many, the networks that these essays rescue from the shadows help account for the resilience and success of some non-elite or marginalized women.

Works Cited “Angoulême in 1764.” Revised 2021. https://histecon.fas.harvard.edu/visualizing/ angouleme/index.html. Armstrong-Partida, Michelle, and Alexandra Guerson, Dana Wessell-Lightfoot, eds. Women and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. Birnbaum, Marianna D. The Long Journey of Gracia Mendes. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2003. Couling, Marlee. “‘She Would Long Since Have Been Starved’: Networks of Support between Mistresses and Female Servants in Seventeenth-Century England.” In “We Are All Servants:” The Diversity of Service in Premodern Europe (1000-1700), edited by Isabelle Cochelin and Diane Wolfthal, 423–49. Toronto: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, 2022. Craveri, Benedetta. The Age of Conversation. New York: New York Review Books, 2005. Davison, Kate. “Early Modern Social Networks: Antecedents, Opportunities, and Challenges.” American Historical Review 124, no. 2 (2019): 456–82. Erickson, Bonnie H. “Social Networks and History: A Review Essay.” Historical Methods 30, no. 3, (1997): 149–57. Easley, David, and Jon Kleinberg. Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

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Farmer, Sharon. “Down and Out and Female in Thirteenth-Century Paris.” American Historical Review 108, no. 2 (1998): 345–72. Foyster, Elizabeth. Marital Violence: An English Family History, 1660-1857. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Gesta romanorum. Vol. 2, Tale 46. Trans. by Charles Swan (1871). https:// en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gesta_Romanorum_Vol._II_(1871)/Of_Women_who_ are_not_to_be_trusted Griffiths, Paul. Lost Londons: Change, Crime, and Control in the Capital City, 1550-1660. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Herbert, Amanda. Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. Hurl-Eamon, Jennine. Gender and Petty Violence in London, 1680–1720. Columbus: Ohio State University, 2005. Leone, Stephanie, and Paul Vierthaler. “Innocent X Pamphilj’s Architectural Network in Rome.” Renaissance Quarterly 73, no. 3 (2020): 897–952. Lynch, Katherine A. Individuals, Families, and Communities in Europe, 1200–1800: The Urban Foundations of Western Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. “Mapping the Republic of Letters.” http://republicofletters.stanford.edu/index.html. McGough, Laura. Gender, Sexuality and Syphilis in Early Modern Venice: The Disease That Came to Stay. Houndsmills, Hampshire: Palgrave McMillan, 2011. Miller, Peter. Peiresc’s Mediterranean World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015. Newman, Mark. Networks: An Introduction, 1st edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pal, Carol. Republic of Women: Rethinking the Republic of Letters in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Plazzotta, Carol. “Beccafumi’s ‘Story of Papirius’ in the National Gallery.” Burlington Magazine 143, no. 1182 (2001): 562–66. Reyerson, Kathryn L. Women’s Networks in Medieval France. Gender and Community in Montpellier, 1300–1350. Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. “Royal African Company Networks.” https://racnetworks.wordpress.com/. “Six Degrees of Francis Bacon.” http://w w w.sixdegreesof francisbacon. com/?ids=10000473&min_confidence=60&type=network. The Historical Network Research Community. “HNR Bibliography” 7 (2021). https:// historicalnetworkresearch.org/bibliography/. Trivellato, Francesco. The Familiarity of Strangers” The Sephardic diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Yale Digital Humanities Lab. “Networks.” https://dhlab.yale.edu/networks/

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About the Authors Elizabeth S. Cohen is Professor emerita of History at York University in Toronto. Based on research in the criminal court records of early modern Rome, her articles explore themes of women, work, family, youth, artists, prostitution, crime, street rituals, self-representation, and oralities. With Thomas V. Cohen, she has co-authored Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome Trials Before the Papal Magistrates (University of Toronto Press, 1993) and Daily Life in Renaissance Italy, 2nd edition (ABC-Clio, 2019). With Margaret Reeves, she has co-edited The Youth of Early Modern Women (Amsterdam University Press, 2018). Marlee J. Couling completed her Ph.D. in History in July 2022 at York University. Her work uses judicial records to examine the alliances of non-elite women in seventeenth-century England. She specializes in the study of early modern social history and is especially interested in female networks, crime, gender, and emotions, particularly sympathy, empathy, grief, compassion, and trust. Her recent research has focused on the medical humanities and female healers and health.

Part I Mediterranean Crossings

1.

Going Beyond Montagu The Network of Subaltern Women in the Turkish Embassy, 1716–1718 Bernadette Andrea Abstract: This chapter shifts attention from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as a singular traveler to a network of women from diverse class, ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds to complicate and enrich our view of the bilateral movement of early modern women between the British Isles and the Islamic empires of the era. Despite her representation as sui generis, Montagu did not travel alone nor was she the only woman on the “Turkish embassy. The documentary, literary, and visual record suggests she brought female servants from Britain and acquired more servants (and perhaps bought slaves) while in the Ottoman Empire. Rather than looking outwards to the elite Ottoman women Montagu idealizes, this chapter turns to these lower-status women (British and Ottoman) whose lives register as traces in the sources on this embassy. Keywords: Montagu, Ottoman, Turkish, servant, slave

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), already a glittering figure in the English literary scene, traveled through the Ottoman Empire as far as Constantinople (Istanbul) with her husband, the “Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of Turkey,” from 1716 to 1718.1 Her fame was secured with the posthumous publication of Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M--y W---y M----e: Written, during her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, To Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in different Parts of Europe (1763), which derives from the letter-book she drafted during this relatively brief sojourn and 1 Grundy’s Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the authoritative critical biography, also appears under the title Comet of the Enlightenment.

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch01

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polished for the rest of her long life.2 Teresa Heffernan and Daniel O’Quinn, in their introduction to The Turkish Embassy Letters (the shorthand title for Montagu’s travelogue), assert that “it is among the greatest achievements of eighteenth-century literature.”3 The response to Montagu’s achievement has nevertheless been mixed, both in her own day and since. Among contemporary critics, some praise her as “a conscientious ethnographer trying to communicate the humanity of the peoples of another culture”—one “remarkably free of ethnocentrism”—and as “[t]he only relatively early writer to cast doubt on the common assumption of the oppression of Muslim women and to counter notions of their licentiousness.”4 Others assert that “Montagu’s praise of Turkish culture is not unlike the more benign biases of cultural relativism typical of the anthropologist’s stance,” and conclude that, “[l]ike many of her male predecessors, Montagu’s desire to see the veiled and concealed Oriental woman and the consequent attempt to rip off the veil is one that starts and ends with the question of herself and her identity” (emphasis in the original).5 Yet, neither assessment of Montagu considers the non-elite women associated with her “Turkish embassy:” those she brought with her when she departed England and those she added to her household while in the Ottoman Empire. As I seek to establish, shifting attention from Montagu as a singular traveler to a network of women from diverse class, ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds both complicates and enriches our view of the bilateral movement of early modern women between the British Isles and the Islamic empires of the era (Ottoman, Mughal, and Safavid).6 Eliding non-elite women from her travelogue, Montagu initiated the tendency to represent herself as sui generis (“one of a kind”) as she moved through the western half of the Ottoman Empire, which in the early eigh­ teenth century extended from Belgrade in modern Serbia to Basra in modern Iraq. Arriving in Adrianople (Edirne) in April 1717, she drafted several letters casting herself as a pioneer of sorts. In the first, she declares: “I have now, Madam, past a journey that has not been undertaken by any Christian since the time of the Greek emperors” (98), meaning since the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine capital Constantinople in 1453.7 Echoing the “discourse of discovery” associated with Columbus’s voyages, in a subsequent letter to 2 Heffernan and O’Quinn, Introduction, 12–16, 39, on the publication history. 3 Heffernan and O’Quinn, Introduction, 12. 4 Fernea, “An Early Ethnographer,” 330; Ahmed, “Western Ethnocentrism,” 525. 5 Aravamudan, Tropicopolitans, 20; Yeğenoğlu, Colonial Fantasies, 93. 6 Sen, “Sailing to India,” and “Traveling Companions.” 7 Montagu is addressing Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, then the princess of Wales and later queen consort of Great Britain. All parenthetical references to The Turkish Embassy Letters

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an unidentified “Lady,” she reiterates that she is “now got into a new world where everything I see appears to me a change of scene” (100).8 In her letter to “Mrs. T” [Anne Thistlethwayte], also from Adrianople, she directly likens herself to Columbus, albeit through the topos of the reverse gaze: “My sidesaddle is the first was ever seen in this part of the world and gazed at with as much wonder as the ship of Columbus was in America” (128). Not only is she a prodigious traveler, but she herself is a prodigy. Montagu further highlights the uniqueness of her travelogue by setting up male travel writers as her foil. Asserting eyewitness authority, based on her access to the women’s quarters in the gender-segregated world of the Ottoman elite, she criticizes the accounts of such men, “who are very fond of speaking of what they don’t know” (129). They, unlike Montagu, cannot offer firsthand observations, as “[i]t must be under a very particular character, or on some extraordinary occasion, when a Christian is admitted into the house of a man of quality, and their harams are always forbidden ground” (129–30). She judges the historiographer Jean Dumont’s Nouveau Voyage du Levant (1694), which was translated into English in 1696 as A New Voyage to the Levant, as “generally so far removed from truth and so full of absurdities, I am very well diverted with them” (148). As she intones, “[t]hey never fail giving you an account of the women, which “tis certain they never saw, and talking very wisely of the genius of the men, into whose company they are never admitted, and very often describe mosques, which they dare not peep into” (148–49). Other writers who come under her censure include the diplomats Paul Rycaut, whom she dismisses as “mistaken (as he commonly is)” (106), and Aaron Hill, whose “falsehood[s]” she corrects (171–72). As she archly concludes, “’[t]is also very pleasant to observe how tenderly he and all his brethren voyage-writers lament on the miserable confinement of the Turkish ladies, who are (perhaps) freer than any ladies in the universe” (171). She alone is authorized to speak of women in the Ottoman Empire. Montagu’s depiction as a solo female traveler likewise informs the visual representations of her “Turkish embassy,” both during and after her lifetime. This tableau figures prominently in the most frequently represented scene from her letters: her excursion to an all-female “bagnio” (“hot baths” or hammam) while in Sophia (Sofia, now the capital of Bulgaria) (100–101). Polish engraver Daniel Chodowiecki’s frontispiece to the 1781 Berlin edition of Montagu’s travelogue (see fig. 1.1), as the earliest example, centers (TEL) are drawn from the Heffernan and O’Quinn edition. I use “Adrianople” and “Constantinople” when referring to this work, and modern names for these cities otherwise. 8 Zamora, “Abreast of Columbus,” 130.

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Montagu as the lone Western European woman, fully clothed and with her back to the viewer, in a room full of completely exposed Ottoman women.9 This image instantiates Montagu’s notorious description of finding herself among hundreds of “ladies,” with “most of their skins shiningly white,” and their “slaves (generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen)” (101–2). In her view, she “certainly appeared very extraordinary” to these girls and women, whom she rhetorically paints as “stark naked” (101). By contrast, Jean Baptiste Vanmour, a Flemish painter resident in Istanbul from 1699 until his death in 1737, in the influential costume book, Recueil de cent estampes, représentant différentes Nations du Levant, tirées sur les tableaux peints d’après nature en 1707 et 1708 par les ordres de M. de Ferriol Ambassadeur du Roi à la Porte, accurately depicts “white” Turkish women in the hammam and their “black” attendants as covered to varying degrees (see fig. 1.2).10 In another contradiction, even as Montagu explicitly challenges patriarchal orientalist fantasies of the bathhouse by insisting “there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst them” (101), she invites the Irish painter Charles Jervas, who had previously done Montagu’s portrait in the pastoral mode, into this scene, if only imaginatively (102).11 As Madeleine Dobie remarks, “Montagu could be described as a “female informant” who opens up or represents the baths for the [Western male] voyeur.”12 In an effort to resist her incorporation into these men’s fantasies, Montagu declines to remove her “travelling habit, which is a riding dress” (101). When urged by the Ottoman women to join them, she compromises by opening her “skirt” (rendered “shirt” in some editions) to reveal her “stays” or whalebone corset (103).13 As she claims, “they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed 9 Szołtysek, “‘A spectacle […] ’,” 98–101. 10 [Vanmour], Recueil de cent estampes, figure 49. Renda, “The Court and Empire Observed,” states that “[t]his book of prints made after Vanmour’s painting established the artist’s reputation and became a major source of visual information about Turkish customs and costumes for people in western Europe” (40). For more on Vanmour, see Bull, “The Artist,” Fleet, “Extremes of Invisibility,” 129–30, analyzes and reproduces an image of a “high class” woman from Istanbul going to the baths accompanied by her slave from a 1576 Italian edition of Nicholas de Nicolay’s narrative of his 1551 mission to Turkey. The latter appears to be Black African and the former non-black, even though her face is partially covered. Herbert, Female Alliances, 122–24, indicates that women in British spas (i.e., hot baths) during the eighteenth century also remained fully covered. 11 On “patriarchal orientalism” and feminist challenges from the seventeenth century, see Andrea, Women and Islam, 80–85. For additional examples from the eighteenth century, see Andrea, “Islam, Women, and Western Responses,” 283–87. 12 Dobie, “Embodying Oriental Women,” 55. 13 Chung, “A Woman Triumphs,” 113.

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Figure 1.1 Daniel Chodowiecki, frontispiece to Letters of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montague, 1781. Etching on paper. 177 × 109 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

to my husband” (103).14 She thus leverages her “female informant” position to debunk the beliefs that England was “a paradise for women” and that English women (and, by extension, Western women) were “the ‘freest’ in the world.”15 Despite this feminist gesture, Montagu concludes not by 14 Spence, Anecdotes, 174, for Montagu’s reprise of this scene twenty-five years later. 15 Andrea, “Islam, Women, and Western Responses,” 273, 276n6, 286; Hunt, “Women in Ottoman and Western European Law Courts.”

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Figure 1.2 Jean Baptiste Haussard (engraver), Jean Baptiste Vanmour (artist), Fille Turque à qui l’on tresse les cheveux au bain, 1714. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Art & Architecture Collection, The New York Public Library, New York, USA.

endorsing female solidarity, with either western or eastern women, but by evoking her singularity once again: “I have now entertained you with an account of such a sight as you never saw in your life, and what no book of travels could inform you of” (103). While Montagu represents her experience as unique in The Turkish Embassy Letters—as she boasts to the celebrated eighteenth-century poet Alexander Pope, “I dare say you expect at least something very new in this letter, after I have gone a journey not undertaken by any Christian of some one hundred years” (117)—this view has been contested. Robert Halsband, who edited Montagu’s complete letters, glosses Montagu’s reference in

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the letter to Pope by pointing to the itinerary of the sixteenth-century Austrian ambassador to the Ottoman court, Ogier de Busbecq, who preceded Montagu in traveling overland from Belgrade rather than through the easier Mediterranean route.16 Following Halsband, Isobel Grundy in her critical biography adds the qualification that Montagu was “the first Englishwoman to experience and report on life in a non-Christian, non-European culture.”17 But even this claim is unsustainable. Regarding her “experience,” Montagu spent most of her time on the European side of this Eurasian empire and approximately half of Istanbul’s population was non-Muslim.18 Moreover, as I am arguing here, she may not have been the first English woman to travel to the Ottoman Empire if we consider the non-elite women in her entourage. Regarding her “report,” Teresa Heffernan and Daniel O’Quinn follow Grundy in elevating Montagu as “the first English woman to write about her travels in Ottoman lands.”19 However, Quaker women had preceded Montagu by several decades, with Mary Fisher circulating her written account of her 1658 audience with Sultan Mehmed IV among her co-religionists.20 Billie Melman, in Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918, more accurately concedes that Montagu’s travelogue is “the first secular text by a woman on the [Muslim] Orient,” and it had a much wider reach than Fisher’s earlier account.21 As I underscore, Montagu did not travel alone nor was she the only woman in the “Turkish embassy.” Instead, the record shows she brought female servants from Britain and acquired more servants (and perhaps bought slaves) while in the Ottoman Empire. Initially, she had hoped that Sarah Chiswell, who was “a close companion of Lady Mary from an early age, but […] from a less exalted background,” would accompany her.22 According to Grundy, “Sarah Chiswell of Holme Pierrepont near Nottingham” was “an orphan whose father, the land agent Charles Chesswell, had worked for Lady Mary’s father.”23 Grundy labels Sarah as “indigent” and therefore “a suitable candidate for the position of companion.”24 Lady Mary (née Pierrepont) was confident, as she expressed to her future husband (Edward Wortley 16 Montagu, Complete Letters, ed. Halsband, 310n3. 17 Grundy, Lady Mary, xvii. 18 Mansel, Constantinople, 48. 19 Heffernan and O’Quinn, Introduction, 11, 98n3. 20 Andrea, Women and Islam, 54–61. 21 Melman, Women’s Orients, 2, 26 (emphasis in the original). 22 Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters, ed. Heffernan and O’Quinn, 49n2. 23 Grundy, Lady Mary, 21, 21n24. 24 Grundy, Lady Mary, 51.

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Montagu), that Sarah “will follow me over all the world if I please.”25 However, Sarah’s kin deemed “the journey too dangerous to contemplate,” and she did not join Lady Mary after all.26 A letter from Nijmegen (the Netherlands) of August 13, 1716, addressed to Mrs. S. C. [Sarah Chiswell], harps on this missed opportunity to travel with Montagu: “I am extremely sorry, my dear S[arah], that your fears of disobliging your relations, and their fears for your health and safety, has hindered me the happiness of your company, and you the pleasure of a diverting journey” (49). It also suggests that her preferred companion, albeit of lower status, would have been a countrywoman. Other than Sarah Chiswell’s missed opportunity to join the “Turkish embassy,” there has been little attention to the serving-class women who traveled with Montagu from England nor to the Ottoman servants (native Christians or dhimmi) she added to her household while in the empire.27 Moreover, barring Adam Beach’s exceptional articles—“Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Slavery in the Ottoman (and the British) Empire,” and “[Penelope] Aubin’s The Noble Slaves, Montagu’s Spanish Lady, and English Feminist Writing about Sexual Slavery in the Ottoman World”—no scholar has mentioned the foreign Christian (or harbi) and other non-Muslim slaves she may have acquired. Even though “in theory no Christians or Jews were allowed to own slaves,” as Philip Mansel relates, some Europeans did purchase human chattel in the Ottoman Empire and even took them back home.28 I therefore “go beyond” Montagu not by looking outwards to the elite Ottoman women she idealizes who, despite their positioning in the closed space of the “haram” (116), were able to travel extensively on pilgrimage and elsewhere.29 Rather, I turn my attention inward to the network of lower-status women whose lives register as traces in the sources on this embassy: The Turkish Embassy Letters themselves and the letters Montagu did not include in this collection, along with documentary and visual evidence.30 25 Montagu, Complete Letters, ed. Halsband, 142. 26 Grundy, Lady Mary, 114. 27 As Hall, Sagal, and Zold summarize, “For Secor [‘Orientalism, Gender and Class’], while other scholars have incorporated this factor into their discussions, Montagu’s class is rendered incidental rather than essential or subservient to feminist and gendered discourse. She reminds us that Montagu identifies her class as a factor that makes her observations more authoritative than other travel writers.” As I add, while Secor considers Montagu’s descriptions of slaves owned by Ottoman elites, she does not discuss the subaltern women (servants and possibly slaves) in Montagu’s retinue. 28 Mansel, Constantinople, 131. 29 Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans, 129; 131–32; Ambros, “Ottoman Women in Public Space,” 8–9. 30 For an example of an English male servant who traveled through the Ottoman empire recording his views, see Webb and Webb, The Earl and His Butler. The butler, Samuel Medley,

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Wives, Servants, and Slaves on the Turkish Embassy Montagu was not the first English ambassador’s wife to reside in the Ottoman Empire. According to G.R. Berridge, in his study of “British Ambassadors and Their Families in Constantinople,” “Wives (and children) actually accompanied most married British ambassadors to Constantinople from as early as the time of Sir Thomas Glover at the beginning of the seventeenth century.”31 Anne Lamb, Lady Glover, resided there from 1606 until her death in 1608; her husband’s tenure as ambassador continued another three years, during which time he kept her body, stuffed with bran, close by him.32 Of Glover’s successors, Sir Thomas Roe, who was ambassador from 1621 to 1628, brought his wife, Eleanor Beeston, with him. Other English ambassadors’ wives include; “Jane, wife to Peter Wych, the ninth ambassador to Constantinople (Istanbul), who assumed his post in April 1628 and left in 1639;” “’the Lady’ of Sir Sackville Crow, the tenth English ambassador to Constantinople,” who arrived there in 1638 and left ten years later; and Mary Seymour, wife to Heneage Finch, the third Earl of Winchilsea, who was ambassador from 1661 to 1669.33 None of these women left accounts of their experiences, although some of them were mentioned in published works by men.34 In addition to aristocratic wives prior to Montagu’s journey, non-elite women traveled as servants to the Ottoman Empire as part of various British ambassadors’ suites.35 Lady Glover, in the early seventeenth century, “was herself accompanied by at least two maids,” one of whom may have been impregnated by the ambassador.36 Further details come from George Hay, eighth Earl of Kinnoull, who resided in Istanbul as ambassador from 1730 to 1736. Defending himself against charges that he had compromised his reputation, he explains, “[a]ll the Women I brought here with me are ser­ vants—to clean my house & wash my Linnen.” As he continues, “they are turn’d so idle here that I resolved to Send them all back.” Instead, he hired served in the Kinnoull embassy. Webb and Webb also discuss “European women in Constantinople in the early eighteenth century” (32–35). 31 Berridge, “British Ambassadors,” 133, and British Diplomacy, 37. Berridge adds that, “[o]f Glover’s predecessors, [William] Harborne [1583–1588] did not marry until 1589, shortly after returning to England; [Edward] Barton [1588–97] never married; and [Henry] Lello [1597–1606], who had gone out first as a secretary to Barton, appears also to have been unmarried” (37n66). 32 MacLean, The Rise of Oriental Travel, 221–25. 33 These dates come from Berridge, British Diplomacy, 283. 34 For more on these women, see Allen “The Rise of the Ambassadress.” 35 Wood, A History of the Levant Company, 225. 36 MacLean, The Rise of Oriental Travel, 222.

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“Greek women” for this menial work.37 In The Earl and His Butler, Nigel Webb and Caroline Webb add that “none of these women, not even the wives [of male servants] Kinnoull mentioned, appear on the passenger list for the Torrington on its outward journey.” Such is also the case for the ship that carried the Wortley Montagus homeward.38 Nonetheless, other evidence shows that William Sandys, Kinnoull’s “private secretary”, brought several women, including his wife Ann, with him. Her mother, Judith Sabreau, became the ambassador’s mistress. William Clark, Kinnoull’s steward, also brought his wife and children with him.39 Even though these brief mentions prove that non-elite women traveled between the British Isles and the Ottoman Empire, few records have survived in their own voices. As Ann Rosalind Jones acknowledges in her study of the anomalous Isabella Whitney, a sixteenth-century English maidservant who published her poetry and other writings, “limited literacy and limited leisure made such self-representation unlikely for this class of women.”40 Hence, it is not surprising that we lack “Turkish embassy letters” from the non-elite women who accompanied Montagu on her journey and resided with her in the Ottoman Empire. Ironically, we must draw our information about these effaced women precisely from Montagu’s epistolary representations of herself as sui generis. To start, during the first leg of her journey through northern and central Europe, Montagu refers occasionally to “servants” when praising the cleanliness and order she associates with these regions. By the time she passes into Ottoman territories, she speaks exclusively of “slaves,” and for the most part in relation to elite Muslim women’s households. 41 With her distinction between “western” servants and “eastern” slaves, she propagates the Orientalist discourse of “eastern despotism.”42 Yet, this binary opposition is undermined by the household of servants, and perhaps slaves, Montagu established while in the Ottoman Empire. 37 Webb and Webb, The Earl and His Butler, 13–14. As Wood records, as for “the twenty men who accompanied him, he [Kinnoull] did not expect two would be left in six months’ time, for ‘the heat of the country and the wine ruins them’” (A History, 225). Wood also discusses the Greek and Armenians servants in the retinues of English ambassadors (“The English Embassy,” 541). 38 Webb and Webb, The Earl and His Butler, 14. I have consulted the Captain’s and Master’s log for the Preston. 39 Webb and Webb, The Earl and His Butler, 9, 133–39. 40 Jones, “Maidservants of London,” 22. On lower-class Quaker women’s accounts in the seventeenth century, see note 20 above. 41 For references to “servants,” see Letter 1 (Rotterdam, August 3, 1716) and Letter 7 (Vienna, September 8, 1716) (TEL, 47–48 and 55–57). References to “slaves,” as in chattel slaves, are more numerous, beginning with the “bathhouse” scene (TEL, 101). 42 Boer, “Despotism from Under the Veil,” 55–69.

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The Turkish Embassy Letters contains additional scattered references to servants and slaves, although the details are often sparse. In a typical example, Montagu mentions “one of our servants” in passing when recounting her visit with the learned and gracious “Achmet-Beg” on the Ottoman side of the border at Belgrade (97). Presumably, the servant was British as he was tasked with setting “an alphabet of our letters” for the Turkish effendi or learned gentleman (98). Similarly, on her visit to “the Grand Vizier’s lady,” Montagu unselfconsciously portrays herself as “only attended by my woman that held up my train, and the Greek lady who was my interpretess” (131; emphasis added). Both women are clearly servants, but not described in any detail. Interpreters played a pivotal role in Anglo-Ottoman diplomacy, and many came from long-standing communities of Venetians, Greeks, or Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. We know a great deal about these male dragomans or interpreters, but little about their female counterparts. 43 On another occasion, in explaining to her unnamed interlocutor (perhaps Lady Rich) why she could not send her “a Greek slave” (160), Montagu inventories the multi-ethnic group of servants who ran her household in Pera (Beyoğlu), a suburb of Istanbul which headquartered the European embassies: “My grooms are Arabs; my footmen French, English, and Germans; my nurse an Armenian; my housemaids Russians; half a dozen other servants Greeks; my steward an Italian; my janissaries Turks” (163).44 Other than these allusions, we learn little in The Turkish Embassy Letters about the women who may have accompanied her to the Ottoman Empire or about those who lived with her in the gender-segregated quarters at the British ambassador’s residence. 45 Other sources, including Montagu’s correspondence from her time in the Ottoman Empire omitted from The Turkish Embassy Letters, offer more information about the women and men who traveled with her. As Berridge affirms, “[a] sensible and likeable ambassadress was not just a consolation to her husband but a valuable asset in overseeing his household, counselling his junior staff, and organizing the entertainments—from picnics and sailing parties to large dinners and balls—that were both a relief to the embassy and often an important asset to its business.”46 The ambassador’s 43 Berridge, British Diplomacy, 49. 44 On Lady Rich, see Chung, “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters,” 42n2. 45 As Webb and Webb relate, “[d]uring the early eighteenth century the embassies were built ‘alla turca’ in wood, with a large upper reception hall off which other rooms opened. The rooms were divided into men’s and women’s quarters, in accordance with Turkish custom” (The Earl and His Butler, 20). Montagu refrains from discussing the gender-segregated spaces of her own household. 46 Berridge, British Diplomacy, 37, and “British Ambassadors,” 133.

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retinue consisted, at minimum, of twenty liveried servants, a chaplain, and a physician—all men. Lady Mary had a role in choosing and clothing these retainers. According to Halsband in his biography of Montagu, for chaplain she selected a Reverend Mr. Crosse. 47 As physician, she named Charles Maitland, who would inoculate her son against smallpox and deliver her second child (a daughter), both while still in the Ottoman Empire. 48 She also took part in discussions of the servants’ livery, a matter of great consequence for an embassy seeking to make a suitable impression. As Wood elaborates in A History of the Levant Company, “[a] large retinue of servants and grooms was needed to staff the embassy and the consular establishments to enable their occupants to conform to all the rigid system of pomp and ceremony by which the various foreign ministers sought to preserve their dignity before the Turks and against each other. But most of these were Greeks and Armenians hired for the occasion and fitted with liveries.”49 Deferring to her husband’s taste, Montagu implores in a letter several months before their departure from England: “If you would have me bespeak Liverys, say whether You would have them plain or Lace’d.”50 As Rebecca Chung indicates in her edition of The Turkish Embassy Letters, Montagu continued to supervise the liveries as they were “shipped to Istanbul, and more bought in Leipzig and Edirne.”51 As Montagu herself conveys, “Leipzig [then part of the Holy Roman Empire], where I am at present, is a town very considerable for its trade, and I take this opportunity of buying pages’ liveries, gold stuffs for myself, etc., all things of that kind being at least double the price at Vienna” (76). Montagu accordingly participated before and during the embassy in first choosing and later overseeing some of the male servants. Among the women in Montagu’s household—both those she may have brought with her from the British Isles and those she acquired in the Ottoman Empire—were nurses for the children. In preparation for this extended journey, she “ordered the sister of her servant Matthew Northall to be sent down from Yorkshire to be trained” as the nurse for her three-year old 47 Halsband, The Life, 56. 48 For the scholarship on Montagu’s “smallpox activism,” see Hall, Sagal, and Zold. 49 Wood, A History, 225; Wood, “The English Embassy,” 541. Talbot, British-Ottoman Relations, adds that, “[i]n terms of the personnel of diplomatic administration, the ambassador and the consuls were free to choose and appoint their own janissaries for their security, and translators for use in off icial business, rather than have individuals imposed on them by the Ottoman government” (35). 50 Montagu, Complete Letters, ed. Halsband, 247. This letter is dated April 20, 1716; the Wortley Montagus departed England, at Gravesend, on August 1, 1716. 51 Montagu, “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters,” ed. Chung, 64n76.

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son.52 Grace Northall was the “housekeeper” at Wharncliffe Lodge, which belonged to the Wortley family.53 In a letter to her husband dated April 20, 1716, Montagu reports: “I hope M[atthew] Northall’s sister will come up soon, or refuse it, for tis necessary the child should be some time accustom’d to his maid [i.e., nurse] before he goes a Journey under her Care.”54 George Paston, in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Her Times, confirms that “Matthew and Grace Northall were two of the servants. Mrs. Northall acted later as nurse to the child [Edward Wortley Montagu, Jr.].”55 Yet how far Grace Northall traveled with the ambassadorial entourage is not known. Montagu also speaks about the children’s nurses in a letter to her husband not included in The Turkish Embassy Letters. She writes, “[t]he Boy [their son, Edward] was engrafted [i.e., inoculated] last Tuesday, and is at this time singing and playing and very impatient for his supper. I pray God my next [letter] may give as good an Account of him […] I cannot engraft the Girl [their daughter, Mary]; her Nurse has not had the small Pox.”56 We do not know if this woman is Grace Northall or the Armenian nurse, as Montagu does not provide any further details, as was typical in her discussion of servants. As Grundy adds, “the much-tried Armenian nurse brought the children home” to England, with their parents making the journey separately after their ship landed in Genoa.57 The September 27, 1718 issue of The Daily Courant reported the ship’s arrival, listing on board “the Son and Parts of the Family of the Ambassadour of Great Britain who resided at the Ottoman Porte.”58 Not only is the Armenian nurse erased from the historical record here, but so is the ambassador’s daughter, Mary, who was born in the Ottoman Empire. We thus have evidence of serving women’s travel in both directions as a result of this embassy, even if they fade into documentary obscurity afterwards. As an aristocrat, any ambassador’s wife would tarnish her rank (and not merely her gender) by venturing unaccompanied into the homes of elite Ottoman women, the streets of the capital, and even its mosques. As Wood relates, “[w]hen visiting Lady Mary Wortley Montagu the French 52 Halsband, The Life, 56. 53 Grundy, Lady Mary, 67, 59. The Oxford English Dictionary lists “Mrs” as “[a] title prefixed to the name of an unmarried lady or girl […] Now rare except as a title of courtesy applied, with or without inclusion of the first name, to elderly unmarried ladies (this use seems to have arisen in the late 18th cent.)” (“Mrs,” n1, 1b). 54 Montagu, Complete Letters, ed. Halsband, 246. Halsband identifies Matthew Northall as “a trusted servant, also steward, of the Wortley household at the Lodge” (184n2). 55 Paston, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 191n2. 56 Montagu, Complete Letters, ed. Halsband, 392. 57 Grundy, Lady Mary, 172. 58 The Daily Courant (London), Sept. 27, 1718, Issue 5284, page 3 of 4.

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ambassador’s wife was always accompanied by guards, four-and-twenty footmen, and gentleman ushers, not to mention ‘a coachful of attending damsels yclep’d maids of honour’.”59 While Montagu had to turn out with a similar procession in order to maintain her rank, she did not deign to recognize the non-elite women who attended her on these forays. Even as her fascination with the female slaves in Ottoman households is one of the most striking features of The Turkish Embassy Letters, her own attendants remain ciphers. Indeed, she diminishes the precarious lives of British serving women (and men) on several occasions. For example, simultaneously disputing the anti-Islamic and anti-Turkish prejudices that prevailed in England at the time and speaking as an apologist for Ottoman slavery, she opines, “[t]hey [the slaves who serve in elite households] are never ill used, and their slavery is in my opinion no worse than servitude all over the world. ’Tis true they have no wages, but they give them yearly clothes to a higher value than our salaries to any ordinary servant” (169). Here, she concurs with the travel writer William Biddulph, who declares in his preface to The Travels of certaine Englishmen into Africa, Asia, Troy, Bythinia, Thracia, and to the Blacke Sea (1609) that “[h]ereby servants may be taught to be faithfull and dutifull to their Masters, when they shall read of the brutish and barbarous immanitie [‘inhuman cruelty’ (OED)] in other Countries of masters towards their servants; who not only beat them like dogs, but sell them at their pleasure, and sometimes kill them for small offences.” Immediately prior to his comment on servants, Biddulph writes, “Heere [English] wives may learne to love their husbands, when they shal read in what slavery women live in other Countries, and in what awe and subjection to their husbands, and what liberty and freedome they themselves enjoy.”60 Montagu disputed this fallacy throughout The Turkish Embassy Letters, declaring that Muslim women are “the only free people in the Empire” due to their cultural and religious rights to privacy and property, which were far beyond those English women “enjoyed” in the period (116). Yet, her feminist analysis applies only to women of her station, whether abroad or at home, and not to the servants (and slaves) that enabled elite women’s leisure and liberties. In addition to the serving women she brought from the British Isles, Montagu may have purchased “white” or “black” females and males of all 59 Wood, “The English Embassy,” 541; TEL, 111. For more on Madeleine Françoise de GontautBiron, see Halsband, The Life, 69–70. 60 Biddulph, The Travels, sig. A2. (I have modernized the u/v and i/j letterforms but left the spelling as in the original).

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ages in the international slave markets of Istanbul.61 While black boys as “pets” functioned as foils for elite women’s whiteness in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British portraiture, and some of these boys have been situated within the transatlantic slave trade, a similar unofficial trade in slaves from the Ottoman Empire to Britain has been ignored in most histories and criticism of the period.62 As Catherine Molineux, in Faces of Perfect Ebony: Encountering Atlantic Slavery in Imperial Britain, explains, From the perspective of Britons living in the [British] Isles, black bondage did not begin with the arrival of twenty-odd African slaves in 1619 Virginia or with the spread of African slavery in the Iberian empires in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It began instead with the fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century introduction of black slavery in Muslim and Christian Mediterranean countries and the subsequent inclusion of slaves in the gift exchange that occurred between royal families in various parts of Europe.63

With this history in mind, Adam Beach positions “Montagu’s work against a global context that includes the Ottoman and British empires, the voracious slave systems of each, and the enormous destruction they simultaneously unleashed upon the early modern world.”64 It is plausible that she could have been a slave owner, at least in the Ottoman Empire. More hints of Montagu’s involvement with Ottoman slavery can be gleaned from the portraits painted in the context of her “Turkish embassy.” Citing Jonathan Richardson’s Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Turkish Dress with Page (1725/1726), completed only a few years after her return from her travels through Europe, Asia, and Africa, Beach posits that the “black boy” in the margins may have been a slave she purchased in the Ottoman Empire. As he elaborates, “it may be that the English aristocratic tradition of being painted with an African slave child is here transposed onto a Turkish backdrop in the Richardson portrait. Or, it may also be that the portrait is meant to invoke Montagu as a mistress to a eunuch slave boy during her residence in

61 Mansel, Constantinople, 131–32, 264, 353. 62 On human “pets” in early modern European courts, including finely dressed black boys, see Tuan, Dominance and Affection, 132–61. For a focus on England, see Aravamudan, Tropicopolitans, 29–70. On black boys in British portraiture, see Molineux, Faces of Perfect Ebony, 178–218; Tobin, Picturing Imperial Power, 27–55; and Dabydeen, Hogarth’s Blacks, 17–40. 63 Molineux, Faces of Perfect Ebony, 23–24. 64 Beach, “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,” 294.

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Istanbul.”65 I adduce further visual evidence that points towards Montagu’s acquisition of female servants and perhaps slaves in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with Her Son and Attendants (c. 1717) (see fig. 1.3), which was painted by Vanmour while he and Montagu overlapped in Istanbul.66 Montagu and her son, centered in an Ottoman-style salon, are flanked by a man and a woman in Turkish dress: he stands to their left, she sits cross-legged to their right. While the man is of a darker complexion than Montagu and her son, the woman is “shiningly white,” to recall Montagu’s description of the elite Ottoman women and their slaves in the all-female bathhouse at Sophia (102). By analogy with the nineteenth-century Orientalist painting inspired by this scene—Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Le Bain Turc [The Turkish Bath], which used Greek and Armenian models to represent the “stark naked” women (101)—the female figure in Montagu’s painting could be one of her Greek or Armenian servants.67 She could also be one of the Russian, Circassian, or Georgian slaves that Montagu describes for King George I’s half-sister, Sophia von Kielmannsegg; she had asked Montagu to “buy her a Greek slave who is to be mistress of a thousand good qualities” (148). Montagu also had to parlay Alexander Pope’s request for a “white” Circassian slave, one he hoped would look like her!68 She clearly was aware of the Ottoman trade in slaves, both “white” and “black,” and appears to have availed herself of an institution she praises when describing her visits to elite Ottoman women’s households.69 My reading of the documentary evidence, the visual record, and the complete letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu establishes that she did not enter the Ottoman Empire, its baths, and its harems as a lone western woman, as she was wont to represent herself. With her at every stage of her journey was an entourage of servants, many of whom were women, both western (British) and eastern (Armenians and Greeks from the Ottoman Empire). Despite this network of subaltern women supporting Montagu’s famous journey, their presence has been effaced, and even erased, starting with The Turkish Embassy Letters. Yet, the traces that remain, which I have read as a connected history across “the East/West divide” mapped onto the 65 Beach, “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,” 308–09. For a discussion of this portrait, see Pointon, Hanging the Head, 141–57. 66 For a discussion of this portrait, see Delplato, “An English ‘Feminist’ in the Turkish Harem.” For more on Vanmour and Montagu, see O’Quinn, Engaging the Ottoman Empire, 122–210. 67 For Ingres in relation to Montagu, see Dobie, “Embodying Oriental Women,” 56–58; Szołtysek, “‘A spectacle […]’,” 95–98; and Yeazell, “Public Baths and Private Harems.” 68 For a discussion of Pope’s disconcerting request, see Ballaster, Fabulous Orients, 70–73. 69 For Montagu’s descriptions of elite Ottoman women’s slaves, see TEL 101–02, 115–16, 131–34, 148, 157.

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Figure 1.3 Jean Baptiste Vanmour (attributed to), Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with her son, Edward Wortley Montagu, and attendants, ca. 1717. Oil on canvas, 696 × 909mm. National Portrait Gallery, London, UK.

Ottoman Empire in relation to Western Europe, recall earlier journeys, such as the seventeenth-century embassies from the Safavid Empire (centered in Iran) to the English court, that demonstrably involved the bi-lateral movement of women across Eurasia in the early modern period.70 Attention to gendered subalterns in the documentary record related to Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters, if not in this famous travelogue itself, thus opens up a new world: not in the sui generis sense Montagu evokes, but in terms of the networks enabling early modern British women’s travel to the Ottoman Empire and non-elite Ottoman women’s travel back to Britain.

Works Cited Primary Sources Biddulph, William. The Travels of certaine Englishmen into Africa, Asia, Troy, Bythinia, Thracia, and to the Blacke Sea. London: Th. Haueland, 1609. 70 Andrea, The Lives, 124–30; Heffernan, “Feminism against the East/West Divide.”

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Captain’s log for the Preston, November 23, 1717 to January 6, 1718 (O.S.)/1719 (N.S.) (The National Archive [Kew], ADM 51/4296). Daily Courant, The (London), Sept. 27, 1718, Issue 5284. In Burney Newspapers Collection (Gale Primary Sources). Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique. The Turkish Bath (1852–59, modified 1862), Oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre (Paris). Master’s log for the Preston, November 23, 1717 to March 3, 1717 (O.S.)/1718 (N.S.) (The National Archive [Kew], ADM 52/254). Montagu, Mary Wortley. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, vol. 1: 1708–1720, edited by Robert Halsband. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. Montagu, Mary Wortley. “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters: A Literary Critical Edition,” edited by Rebecca Chung. PhD Diss., University of Chicago, 2011. Montagu, Mary Wortley. Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M--y W---y M----e. London: Becket and De Hondt, 1763; Berlin: Mylius, 1781. Montagu, Mary Wortley. The Turkish Embassy Letters, edited by Teresa Heffernan and Daniel O’Quinn. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2013. Richardson, Jonathan (attr. to). Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Turkish Dress with Page (c. 1725/26), Oil on canvas, Collection of the Earl of Harrowby, Bridgeman Art Library. Spence, Joseph. Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters, edited by Samuel Weller Singer. London: John Russell Smith, 1858. Vanmour, Jean-Baptiste. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with Her Son, Edward Wortley Montagu, and Attendants (c. 1717), Oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery (London). [Vanmour, Jean-Baptiste]. Recueil de cent estampes, représentant différentes Nations du Levant, tirées sur les tableaux peints d’après nature en 1707 et 1708 par les ordres de M. de Ferriol Ambassadeur du Roi à la Porte […] (Paris, 1714).

Secondary Sources Ahmed, Leila. “Western Ethnocentrism and Perceptions of the Harem.” Feminist Studies 8 (1982): 521–34. Allen, Gemma. “The Rise of the Ambassadress: English Ambassadorial Wives and Early Modern Diplomatic Culture.” The Historical Journal 62 (2019): 617–38. Ambros, Edith Gülçin, Ebru Boyar, Palmira Brummett, Kate Fleet, and Svetla Ianeva. “Ottoman Women in Public Space: An Introduction.” In Ottoman Women in Public Space, edited by Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet, 1–17. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Andrea, Bernadette. Women and Islam in Early Modern English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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Andrea, Bernadette. “Islam, Women, and Western Responses: The Contemporary Relevance of Early Modern Investigations.” Women’s Studies 38 (2009): 273–92. Andrea, Bernadette. The Lives of Girls and Women from the Islamic World in Early Modern British Literature and Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. Aravamudan, Srinivas. Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency, 1688–1804. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Ballaster, Ros. Fabulous Orients: Fictions of the East in England, 1662–1785. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Beach, Adam R. “Aubin’s The Noble Slaves, Montagu’s Spanish Lady, and English Feminist Writing about Sexual Slavery in the Ottoman World.” EighteenthCentury Fiction 29 (2017): 583–606. Beach, Adam R. “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Slavery in the Ottoman (and the British) Empire.” Philological Quarterly 85 (2006): 293–314. Berridge, G.R. “British Ambassadors and Their Families in Constantinople.” In The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy and Other Essays. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 120–44. Berridge, G.R. British Diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the Present. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Boer, Inge E. “Despotism from Under the Veil: Masculine and Feminine Readings of the Despot and the Harem.” Cultural Critique 32 (1995–1996): 43–73. Bull, Duncan. “The Artist.” In The Ambassador, the Sultan, and the Artist: An Audience in Istanbul, 18–36. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2003. Chung, Rebecca M. “A Woman Triumphs: From Travels of an English Lady in Europe, Asia, and Africa (1763) by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.” In Travel Knowledge: European ‘Discoveries’ in the Early Modern Period, edited by Ivo Kamps and Jyotsna G. Singh, 110–24. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Dabydeen, David. Hogarth’s Blacks: Images of Blacks in Eighteenth Century English Art. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987. Delplato, Joan. “An English ‘Feminist’ in the Turkish Harem: A Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.” In Eighteenth-Century Women and the Arts, edited by Frederick M. Keener and Susan E. Lorsch, 163–78. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Dobie, Madeleine. “Embodying Oriental Women: Representation and Voyeurism in Montesquieu, Montagu and Ingres.” Cincinnati Romance Review 13 (1994): 51–60. Faroqhi, Suraiya. Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans. London: I.B. Tauris, 1994. Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. “An Early Ethnographer of Middle Eastern Women: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762).” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 40 (1981): 329–38. Fleet, Kate. “The Extremes of Visibility: Slave Women in Ottoman Public Space.” In Ottoman Women in Public Space, edited by Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet, 128–49. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

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Grundy, Isobel. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Hall, Jordan, Anna K. Sagal, and Elizabeth Zold. “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Turkish Embassy Letters: A Survey of Contemporary Criticism.” Literature Compass 14 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12405 Halsband, Robert. The Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956. Heffernan, Teresa. “Feminism against the East/West Divide: Lady Mary’s Turkish Embassy Letters.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 33 (2000): 201–15. Heffernan, Teresa and Daniel O’Quinn. Introduction to The Turkish Embassy Letters, edited by Heffernan and O’Quinn. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2013. 11–34. Herbert, Amanda E. Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. Hunt, Margaret R. “Women in Ottoman and Western European Law Courts: Were Western Women Really the Luckiest Women in the World?” In Structures and Subjectivities: Attending to Early Modern Women, edited by Joan E. Hartman and Adele Seeff, 176–199. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2007. Jones, Ann Rosalind. “Maidservants of London: Sisterhoods of Kinship and Labor.” In Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women’s Alliances in Early Modern England, edited by Susan Frye and Karen Robertson, 21–32. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. MacLean, Gerald. The Rise of Oriental Travel: English Visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 1580–1720. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Mansel, Philip. Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire, 1453–1924. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Melman, Billie. Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. Molineux, Catherine. Faces of Perfect Ebony: Encountering Atlantic Slavery in Imperial Britain. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012. O’Quinn, Daniel. Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690–1815. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Paston, George. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Her Times. London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907. Pointon, Marcia. Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in EighteenthCentury England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Renda, Günsel. “The Court and Empire Observed.” In The Ambassador, the Sultan, and the Artist: An Audience in Istanbul, 32–47. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2003. Secor, Anna. “Orientalism, Gender and Class in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters.” Cultural Geographies 6 (1999): 375–98. Sen, Amrita. “Sailing to India: Women, Travel, and Crisis in the Seventeenth Century.” In Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and

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the Wider World, edited by Patricia Akhimie and Bernadette Andrea, 64–80. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. Sen, Amrita. “Traveling Companions: Women, Trade, and the Early East India Company.” Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture 48 (2015): 193–214. Szołtysek, Julia. “‘A spectacle which would make a hundred painters drop their brushes in astonishment:’ In the Hamam with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Edmondo de Amicis, Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Daniel Chodowiecki.” Anglica Wratislaviensia 53 (2015): 89–102. Talbot, Michael. British-Ottoman Relations, 1661–1807. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2017. Tobin, Beth Fowkes. Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in EighteenthCentury British Painting. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Tuan, Yi-Fu. Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984. Webb, Nigel and Caroline. The Earl and His Butler in Constantinople. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Wood, Alfred C. “The English Embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762.” The English Historical Review 40 (1925): 533–61. Wood, Alfred C. A History of the Levant Company. London: Oxford University Press, 1935; rpt. London: Frank Cass, 1964. Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. “Public Baths and Private Harems: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Origins of Ingres’s Bain Turc.” The Yale Journal of Criticism 7 (1994): 111–38. Yeğenoğlu, Meyda. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Zamora, Margarita. “Abreast of Columbus: Gender and Discovery.” Cultural Critique 17 (1990–1991): 127–49.

About the author Bernadette Andrea is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of The Lives of Girls and Women from the Islamic World in Early Modern British Literature and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2017) and Women and Islam in Early Modern English Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

2.

Gendered Naming Practices among Coptic Christiansin SixteenthCentury Cairo A Preliminary Assessment Shauna Huffaker

Abstract: Coptic Christians, living in sixteenth-century Ottoman Egypt, were forced to navigate their participation in Cairo’s majority Muslim community. Legal documents from property deeds and court registers yield onomastic clusters that suggest gendered naming strategies practiced by Coptic families. Men were more likely to have religious names, while women often had names that they shared with Muslim girls. This window into Muslim-Christian daily coexistence makes visible the complexities of Coptic cultural identity and the ways that Copts chose to enact both their community’s distinct identities and their social similarity with their Muslim neighbors. Cairo’s shared naming culture for girls would have circulated its messages primarily among the local, social networks of women. Keywords: Egypt, Ottoman empire, early modern, personal names, identity formation, non-Muslim minority

Personal names illuminate the lives of otherwise anonymous people lost to history and their connections to each other and the broader society. The Coptic community in early modern Egypt provided one example where, in naming their children, parents strategically responded to tumultuous social and political changes. Those changes accompanied Egypt’s incorporation into the Ottoman empire beginning in 1517. To the distant multicultural Ottoman state, Coptic Christians, the indigenous pre-Islamic population of

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch02

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Egypt and just one of many minority sectarian groups, were demographically insignificant and largely ignored, as long as they paid their taxes and did not cause any trouble. The community kept the internal autonomy and state protection they had mostly enjoyed under earlier Muslim governments, but with greater stability and security. In the face of these changes, the Coptic community adopted new practices to “integrate themselves with Ottoman officials, Muslim notables, and distinguished Christian leaders.”1 The group also increasingly placed their trust in the empire’s Islamic courts. From the first century of Ottoman rule, court registers and property deeds enacted at these courts recorded Muslim and Christian personal names, including those of women that very seldom appeared in chronicles and church histories. Incidental to research on the social history of religiously mixed districts of Cairo in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a gendered “onomastic cluster” has gradually emerged.2 Based on the present documentation, the present study suggests that, taken collectively, gendered naming practices can be read as forms of networking. In the Coptic case, names as networking faced both outward toward the larger society and inward toward family and neighborhood. Name choices give us access to communal identity-making as the group communicated to outsiders both their distinctiveness from and participation in the majority Muslim society. In addition, names, especially those of women, allow a rare internal glimpse of self-representation among family and neighbors. The names of early modern women in the Middle East are largely unstudied, and those of Coptic women even more so. Since Copts shared practices of gender segregation with their Muslim neighbors, women lived more restricted lives than their men and relied on the development of strong, lifelong bonds with other women and girls through kinship, friendship, and shared neighborhood. These very local networks would have served as the most important audience for and users of female names. The limited sample of names that have serendipitously survived in these legal documents, many appearing only once in the historical record, would have been used in laughter and anger and love, among networks of family, friends and neighbors every day throughout women’s lives. The results of this preliminary study suggest that, in early modern Cairo, Coptic parents usually gave boys names that identified them as Christian in a larger non-Christian society. A comparison of Coptic and Muslim women’s names, however, indicates that families were much less likely to do so for girls. 1 Armanios, Coptic Christianity, 109. 2 Blumell, “Jewish Epitaph,” 185.

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The Study of Names Historical studies of onomastic practices have often been utilized to gain access to information on the mentalities of illiterate or subordinate groups such as rural populations, the enslaved, and African women.3 However, the evidence of names is more than merely a poor substitute for other archival documentation. For example, in pursuit of what he calls “onomastic truth,” Joao de Pino-Cabral conducted an ethnographic study of personal names in Brazil that asked fundamental questions about the meaning of names to their holder. 4 With the distinct advantage of speaking directly to living Brazilians of different ethnicities, he was able to examine f ine distinctions of understanding: “The process of personal naming implies an ordering of reality which attributes greater solidity to certain things and less solidity to others.”5 Though few, respected and influential onomastic studies of the premodern Middle East have shown, for example, how traditional Arabic naming customs communicate regional and sectarian identities.6 The ambitious Onomasticon Arabicum project was based on the numerous biographical dictionaries produced in many places and periods of the Islamic world.7 And of particular interest here, Annemarie Schimmel’s monograph emphasizes the transmission of religiously signif icant names and includes a chapter on naming girls. 8 Although Coptic onomastic practices have not previously received scholarly attention, this study demonstrates this linguistically Arabized minority community participated with the Muslim majority in a common naming culture. Names have proven particularly useful to several scholars who study conversion and religious identity. Concerning the Roman and late antique period in Egypt (30 BCE–641 CE), a lively debate revolves around the hypothesis that the adoption of Christian names represents a good measure of Christian belief or identification with the Christian community.9 David 3 See for example Breen, “Naming Practices in Western Ireland,” Burnard, “Slave Naming Patterns,” and Gengenbach, “Naming the Past in a ‘Scattered’ Land.” 4 de Pina-Cabral, “The Truth of Personal Names,” 297. 5 de Pina-Cabral, “The Truth of Personal Names,” 308. 6 See Bulliet, Conversion to Islam; Carl Petry, The Civilian Elite; and Sublet, Le Voile de nom. 7 The studies based on this project were published in the journal Cahiers d’Onomastique Arabe from 1979–1992. 8 Schimmel, Islamic Names. 9 Bagnall, “Religious Conversion and Onomastic Change,” Depauw and Clarysse, “How Christian was Fourth Century Egypt?,” and Frankfurter, “Onomastic Statistics.”

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Frankfurter has suggested that scholars should proceed with caution when assuming that Christian names indicated conversion from paganism. Using names as an indicator of conversion could easily mask the complex experience of constructing an individual identity: “Religious identity, or being a ‘Christian,’ in Roman and late Roman Egypt is a notoriously slippery issue that cannot be simplified according to a modern rather Protestant notion of ‘conversion’ and group membership.”10 But with reference to Christianity’s growing importance during that period, Frankfurter has also argued that “choosing Paulos over Sarapmmon for one’s son does indicate […] a shift in cultural options and domestic strategies, not of religious identity in some modern sense.”11 Exploring similar ideas, Richard Bulliet, who used names to study the pace of conversion to Islam after the conquest of Persia, also wrote that “[…] taken in groups—regional, familial, confessional, professional, etc.—names are also collective attributes.”12 This notion of “domestic strategies,” or “collective attributes” applies as well to early modern Copts, an insular and stubbornly Christian minority in the very Muslim world of Ottoman Cairo. Acknowledging this kind of complexity in Coptic identity strategies, in her seminal monograph on Coptic identity in the Ottoman period (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries), Febe Armanios argues that Coptic resilience and adaptation to the constraints of coexistence increased over the early modern period.13 The gendered Coptic naming cultures discussed here are one manifestation of the community’s pragmatic participation in the broader Muslim society. The approach to naming taken in this chapter aligns with a scholarly consensus that, by means of personal naming, people were “‘attached to a political and religious order and a socio-cultural tradition.”14 In a study of pre-modern Japanese names, another scholar expressed a similar position in different terms: “By being given names, people received a soul, that is, an identity vis-à-vis god and society. By virtue of this identity, people came to be controlled by their names which integrated them into a social order.”15 With strategic naming, Coptic parents situated their children and themselves in relationships with both the Coptic and the broader communities of Ottoman Egypt. 10 Frankfurter, “Response,” 286. 11 Frankfurter, “Onomastic Statistics,” 288. 12 Bulliet, “Review of Le Voile de nom,” 125. 13 Armanios, Coptic Christianity, 2–4. 14 de Pina-Cabral, “The Truth of Personal Names,” 309. 15 Plutschow, Japan’s Name Culture, 3.

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Sources in Context The Coptic community in Egypt dates its own beginning to proselyting by the New Testament apostle St. Mark. In the fourth century, the Copts broke with Orthodox Christianity that would become the state religion of the Byzantines, taking opposing positions in the theological debates over the nature of Christ. Most inhabitants of the Nile Valley remained Coptic for centuries after the Arab conquests of 641. Muslims likely became the majority population in Egypt only around the twelfth century.16 By the early modern period Coptic Christians were a sizable, visible minority, making up perhaps 5–10 percent of the population. There is limited evidence to show us how early modern Egyptians of any religious identity chose to name their children. Cultural assimilation meant that by the fifteenth century, Coptic Christian and Muslim families generally shared gender norms and practices including seclusion of women and veiling.17 Accordingly, the prevailing idea among Muslims that a child was part of the patrimony of his or her father’s family might suggest a more important role in naming for fathers or paternal grandparents among Coptic families also. In addition, fifteenth-century Copts were thoroughly Arabized and spoke Arabic as their native language. For personal names, they chose Arabic ones or Arabic versions of either Coptic names from the pre-Islamic past or from the Bible. These personal names were used throughout childhood up through early marriage. After becoming a parent, however, both mothers and fathers would be called by their kunya, an honorific title incorporating the name of the first-born son, or daughter in the absence of a son. Thereafter, their personal name was likely restricted to moments of intimacy with their closest associates. Thorough mutual assimilation meant that the solidarity or meanings expressed in a woman’s name, whether Coptic or Egyptian Muslim, would figure most directly and most often to her women friends and neighbors, that is, to the local networks of women. Most of the names on which this study is based are drawn from research on two neighborhoods in Cairo with many Coptic inhabitants and longstanding connections to Egyptian Christianity. In the fifteenth century, the city was densely urbanized, and its neighborhoods had long histories. One cluster of names has been drawn from deeds of sale for 16 O’Sullivan, “Coptic Conversion,” 78–79. 17 One example of this shared culture is that although Coptic church law outlawed divorce and remarriage, many Christians married, divorced, and remarried in Islamic courts.

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properties in the al-Darb al-Ahmar district. This street, while mixed in terms of socio-economic class and religion, was well-known for its historic Christian community that centered around a church, martyr’s shrine, and monastery. With many working as scribes and personal secretaries and others as pharmacists and jewelers, the Christians who lived there were doing well. The second large group of names comes from the most famously Christian suburb of Cairo proper, built where the Byzantine city was until the Arab conquests. The records come from the Ottoman al-Misr al-Qadima court. Although this court issued judgments according to Islamic Sharia law, anyone who could pay the fee could use its services. Orthodox and Coptic Christian patrons appear in this register with greater regularity than in any other court of the city. The brief register entries contain few personal details, but, like the property deeds from the al-Darb al-Ahmar district, they yield names. As explained below, both samples strongly suggest that these Coptic families were well integrated into the Muslim world of Ottoman Cairo. Drawing on the archives of the Papal Diwan of the Coptic Orthodox Church, of the Daftarkhana of the Ministry of Religious Endowments, and of the Court Records in the National Archives of Egypt, this study has gathered the names of 59 Coptic women, 204 Coptic men, and 108 Muslim women.18 With religious identity the most important signif ier of its day, the terms Muslim, or Coptic, Orthodox, or Armenian Christian appeared in the documents immediately following a person’s name, making Coptic Christians easy to identify. The disparity between the numbers of women’s and men’s names in the sample results directly from patrilineal naming conventions. Any document that recorded the name of a woman could potentially contribute the names of up to f ive or six male kinsmen: that of her father, paternal grandfather, and great-grandfather, and in the cases of marriage or divorce her husband or ex-husband, his father and grandfather as well. Because these women lived in just a few districts of Cairo, we should not generalize hastily. Nevertheless, this preliminary evidence suggests that ethnically and religiously diverse communities of the early modern Middle East used personal names alongside other strategies to signal their commitment to coexistence. Female names, used mostly among women, show an often overlooked dimension of these practices.

18 The names of Jewish woman or women of other Christian sects did not appear in sufficient numbers in my sources to allow me to consider them.

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Naming Coptic Girls Strikingly, in this early modern Egyptian setting where religion was a dominant signifier of identity, most of the Coptic women in this study bore names that were not religious. A convergence of the most common names for both Coptic and Muslim women is good evidence of a shared naming culture. At the same time, both communities also favored variety and individuality in naming girls that led to the large number of names that appear only once. Notably, Goitein, a scholar of Cairo’s Jewish community in the tenth through the thirteenth centuries, has observed a similar taste for variety.19 Indeed, we should not be surprised that the human experience in past and present of choosing names for a newborn baby shows commonalities as well as specificities. In pursuing the latter, as another scholar of onomastic studies has warned, reviewing the evidence of naming cultures can be a bit tedious but is required.20 So, into the weeds. Clusters of related women’s names emerge under examination and suggest a collective parental state of mind. The most popular non-religious names were shared by girls from both Coptic and Muslim communities and were based on a small number of Arabic root words. Some well-known, traditional Arabic girls’ names demonstrate displeasure at the birth of a daughter,21 but the records used here yielded only a single example that we might interpret as negative or misogynistic—the name Kharis, meaning silent.22 To the contrary, the most common non-religious names for both Coptic and Muslim girls express joyfulness and positive aspirations.23 Other scholars of the medieval Islamic world have similarly argued that “parental love and concern was not uncommon even towards female offspring.”24 Several groupings of shared women’s names in the sample use Arabic roots to evoke good fortune and pleasure. The names Su’ad, and Su’adat mean, respectively, happiness and its plural happinesses, and the name Sa’ad al-Muluk means happiness of kings.25 A second cluster associated the word 19 Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 314. 20 Bagnall, “Religious Conversion,” 105. 21 Schimmel, Islamic Names, 42. 22 MQ Court register 86, cases 787, 944, and 1411. The same woman appeared in these three related cases. 23 Arabic words are formed from a root, usually of three consonants. Names associated with the Arabic root sin-‘ayn-dal account for 10 percent of the all the Coptic girls’ names in my sample and 8 percent of the names of the Muslim women in the sample of names. 24 Giladi, “Concepts of Childhood,” 152. 25 MQ Court register 90, case 1250; and register 93, case 1402. BA Court register 1, cases 91, 2850, and 2861. QA Court register on microfilm 4, pages 51 and 624. Daftarkhana document 694.

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sitt suggests competence, status and position.26 Both Sitt al-Beit and Sitt al-Dar mean Lady of the House. The evocative Sitt al-Kull literally means Lady of All.27 These personal names suggest parents’ dreams of raising strong girls ready to take up a woman’s responsibilities. A third grouping of names signaled love and desirable traits. Some are derived from adjectives, such as Basim, meaning smiling, or Thakiyya, meaning clever.28 Evocative nouns also became girls’ names including Taj, meaning crown, Kenz, meaning a treasure, or Badr, meaning a full moon.29 Taken together, these three groupings of names include the majority of non-religious names given to Coptic and Muslim girls in Cairo. This common reservoir that crossed confessional divides suggests a shared culture in which many girls were wanted and loved. Goitein also understood the naming of Jewish girls in similar terms: “The meaning of a name and the frequency of its occurrence are therefore true indicators of what a woman wished for her daughter and, by implication, for herself.”30 Early modern Cairo’s naming culture bridged confessional divides and demonstrated collective attributes of parental love, aspirations, and hopes. For parents in the Coptic minority, their choices to use names in circulation in the broader population were also strategic. In giving these names, they signaled their deliberate participation in the Muslim-dominated world of Cairo society and culture.

Religious Names for Girls and Boys The strategic choice of religious names for many boys and relatively fewer girls nuances the story. Some Coptic girls bore religious names. These names, too, may have been aspirational on the part of their parents, conveying hopes that their daughters would live pious and faithful lives. Accounting for 14 percent of Coptic women in this study, Mariam, the Arabic form of Mary 26 Names associated with the Arabic root sin-ta-ta account for 7 percent of the all the Coptic girls’ names in my sample and 3 percent of the names of the Muslim women in my sample. Interestingly, by the modern period these names were perceived of as old fashioned and were mainly used by the rural residents of Egypt. Schimmel, Islamic Names, 48. 27 MQ Court register 90, case 1250; and register 85, cases 1774 and 1777. QA Court register 1, case 1007; and microfilm 4, page 449. Coptic Papal Diwan document D 279. 28 MQ Court register 86, case 717; register 89, cases 90 and 692; register 93, case 975. QA Court register on microfilm 4, page 53. Coptic Papal Diwan documents D 155 and D 252. 29 MQ Court register 90, case 980; and register 91, case 93. QA Court register on microfilm 1, case 964, and on microfilm 4, p. 48. SN Court register 1, cases 2499 and 2517. Coptic Papal Diwan documents D 276, D 298, D 297, D 228. 30 Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 314.

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was the single most popular name of all.31 Although Mariam has become a very popular name for Muslim families as well, early modern Cairene patterns were different. Since this study includes no Muslim women called Mariam, this name might have been considered specifically Christian or Coptic. At the same time, an entire corpus of other female names drawn from Christian history is missing. This list includes many female saints’ names in both their Greek and Coptic forms, such as Marina, Barbara, and Catherine of Egypt. Notably, since these names were in use both before and immediately after the Muslim conquest of Egypt, this early modern change was all the more remarkable.32 Coptic accommodation of the majority culture would be one reasonable explanation of this abandonment of names. If relatively few Coptic women have religious names, the story for men contrasts markedly. Coptic parents demonstrated a clear preference for religious names for their boys, although only some of them were distinctively Christian. Twelve traditional and recognizably Christian names drawn from the Bible and the saints shared with Orthodox Christianity, along with f ive names drawn from the specif ically Coptic heritage, together make up nearly half of the men’s names in this sample of 204 names. Thus, seventeen distinctively Christian names were held by nearly 50 percent of Coptic boys. The most popular name for Coptic men was Yuhanna (John).33 Girgis (George) and Mikhail (Michael) were also very common.34 Some Coptic boys were given Arabic names that none the less marked the holder as Christian—such as Salib, meaning “cross,” or Abd al-Masih, meaning Servant of the Messiah.35 Other Coptic boys were given the names of biblical figures like Suleiman (Solomon), Dawud (David), and Ibrahim (Abraham) that were also used by Muslims. In total and in contrast to the women, 73 percent of the Coptic men in my sample had been given religious names which is a marked difference the trends in Coptic women’s names. Compared

31 MQ Court register 88, case 1118; register 89, case 723; register 90, case 490; register 91, case 93; register 92, case 590, and register 94, case 1106. Coptic Papal Diwan, documents D 285 and D 297. 32 Wilfong, Women of Jeme, 106, 130, 154; See also Rowlandson, ed. Women and Society, 71. 33 MQ Court register 85, case 154; register 86, cases 340, and 810; register 88, case 1118; register 89, cases 15, 393, 465, 723; register 90, case 1250; register 91, cases 93, 222, 1294, and 1715; register 92, Cases 257, 975; and register 93, Case 975. Coptic Papal Diwan documents D 154 and D 282. 34 MQ Court register 85, cases 623, 2344; register 86, cases 340, 810, 944, 1120; register 88, case 264; register 89, cases 15, 90, 479, 692, 787; register 91, cases 93, 1294; register 92, cases 590, 922; register 93, case 975; and register 94, Cases 788, 1000. Coptic Papal Diwan documents D 154, D 155, D 228, W 279, D 280, D 282, D 284, D 297. 35 MQ Court register 88, case 1118; and register 91, case 216.

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to daughters, Coptic parents gave many of their sons distinctively Christian names and even more of them religious ones. Muslim women’s names serve as another point of comparison to help us understand the impulses driving Coptic parents in naming their daughters. Personal names that were distinctively Muslim were much more common among women of that community. Most common names were the names of women relatives of the prophet Muhammad—in particular, his daughters, his wives, and his mother.36 Names that clearly identified the bearer to be Muslim account for 47 percent of the total, about the same percentage as religious names for Coptic men. These parental responses across the mixed sectarian landscape of Cairo confirm that something markedly different was happening with the naming of Coptic girls. Their families appear to have been working purposively to identify themselves, through their daughters, as participants in a broader Egyptian culture.

Communicating Similarity and Difference In his dissertation on medieval Coptic culture, Tamer el-Leithy argues that personal names found in archival documents are key evidence revealing “everyday strategies” adopted to navigate identity.37 The parents who chose Arabic, non-religious names for their daughters were stalwartly Coptic, in the sense that they and their progenitors remained Christian over the course of generations and several waves of mass conversions to Islam.38 A preference for religious names in certain families is reasonable to expect. But in others, Arabic naming conventions, in which a woman’s name appears along with those of her father, grandfather and often great-grandfather provide compelling evidence of the other pattern. An identifiable complete chain of male progenitors who all possessed distinctively Christian names are often attached to a daughter with a non-religious name shared with Muslim girls.39

36 QA Court register on microfilm 1, pages 933, 935, 936, 943, 954, and 958; register on microfilm 4, cases 10, and 35. SN Court register 1, pages 486, 501, 515, 883, 621, 624, 692, 900, 901, 902, 909, 915, 916, 918, and 999. BA Court register 1, cases 1, 70, 2821, 2842, 2864, 2868, and 2758. Coptic Papal Diwan document D 301. Daftarkhana document 694. 37 el-Leithy, “Coptic Culture,” 32. 38 el-Leithy, “Coptic Culture,” 417–18. 39 MQ Court register 86, cases 340 and 810.

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In The Savage Mind, Levi-Strauss argued that names communicate both similarity and difference. 40 Coptic women had, through their names, an important role in perpetuating their community’s cultural and religious identity. 41 Coptic men bore the onomastic burden of signifying their community’s distinctness from majority Cairene society. Coptic women, on the other hand, had an important role, through their names, in enacting their community’s cultural identity as similar to that of their Muslim and other Arabic-speaking neighbors. Coptic parents used the names they gave their daughters to express a sense of connectedness to the shared social fabric of Cairene society. Other cultures have adopted similar strategic naming practices. Some Ashkenazi women in Europe are documented as having used “everyday names” drawn from the German or Slavic “surrounding vernacular,” while their sons and husbands universally had Jewish names.42 The serendipitous survival of thousands of document fragments in a synagogue in the same neighborhood as the Misr al-Qadima court that produced the register consulted in this study also yielded the names of medieval women, in this case mostly Jewish women. These Geniza documents, mostly dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were studied by Goitein who noted “a complete absence of biblical and other Hebrew names among the Jewish women of Egypt” in contrast to practices in other regions of the Jewish diaspora.43 The women of Egypt’s Karaite minority, a subsect of Judaism, were given names of a “purely secular character,” suggesting, he writes, that these practices were due to “a chasm between the popular local subculture of the women and the worldwide Hebrew book culture of the men.”44 Interestingly, the Turkic Mamluks who ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1517 before the Ottomans, employed similar gendered social strategies, but in reverse fashion. Their sons were universally given impeccably Islamic names, but the daughters of Mamluks could apparently be given Turkic names without calling into question the recently converted head of household’s loyalties to Islam. Negotiating similarity and difference by means of the names that Copts gave their female children would have been primarily communicated to and by means of women’s networks. The main audience for these naming practices must have been primarily, if not entirely, Coptic. Like the Mamluks 40 Quoted in Breen, “Naming Practices,” 701–02. 41 el-Leithy, “Coptic Culture,” 91, 258 ff. 42 Keil, “Hendl, Suessel, Putzlein,” 93. 43 Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 315. 44 Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 315.

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before them, Coptic families formulated a gendered strategy of constructing a social and religious identity specific to their place and time. Male names were used to signify an unwavering commitment to a minority religion and community. During the Ottoman period, it appears Copts enjoyed greater safety and participation than they had in the past. There was an expanded openness to diversity and a marked decline of scapegoating Christians for immediate political ends. The Copts greeted these new sixteenth-century conditions with both optimism and skepticism. In this setting of change that might have still felt uncertain, the names of girls, who lived in relative seclusion, could safely convey Coptic families’ aspirations to live an assimilated lifestyle as full participants in Ottoman Cairo without threatening their Christian identities. The names of boys, who participated more directly in the larger society, asserted the very same families’ spiritual and cultural purity. Christian, religious, or traditional Coptic names for boys communicated a family’s firm commitment to its ancestral identity. Armanios emphasizes the group’s continuing insularity, which meant that the f irst and most important audience for names of both genders were likely their fellow Copts. Girls’ names in this gender-segregated culture on the other hand communicated identity primarily within the local women’s networks in which their lives were embedded. Inside the Coptic world, female names communicated not only social aspirations but likely also a strategic awareness of the need for minority accommodation to the majority society. It was perhaps precisely because women served as the seat of culture, while living under tighter social controls and at less risk of conversion, that daughters’ names became a safe place to enact an Arabized dimension of Coptic identity.

Works Cited Primary Sources National Archive of Egypt, Cairo. Ottoman Court Registers (R) Al-Bab al-Ali Court (ABA): Registers 1 Misr al-Qadima Court (MQ): Registers 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94 Al-Qism al-Arabia Court (QA): Register 1, Microfilm 1, Microfilm 4 Salihiyya Nijmiya Court (SN): Register 1 Daftarkhana Archive, Ministry of Religious Endowments, Cairo. Document 694

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Papal Diwan Archive of the Pope of Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, St. Mark’s Cathedral, Cairo Documents D154, D155, D228, D252, D276, D279, D280, D282, D284, D285, D297, D298, D301

Secondary Sources Armanios, Febe. Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Bagnall, Roger. “Religious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early Byzantine Egypt.” The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 19, no. 3/4 (1982): 105–24. Blumell, Lincoln. “A Jewish Epitaph from the Fayum.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 46, no. 2 (2015): 182–97. Breen, Richard. “Naming Practices in Western Ireland.” Man 17, no. 4 (1982): 701–13. Bulliet, Richard. Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Bulliet, Richard. “Review of Le Voile de nom: Essai sur le nom proper Arabe.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 1, no. 1 (1993): 125. Burnard, Trevor. “Slave Naming Patterns: Onomastics and the Taxonomy of Race in Eighteenth Century Jamaica.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31, no. 3 (2001): 325–46. Depauw, M. and W. Clarysse. “‘How Christian was Fourth Century Egypt?’ Onomastic Perspectives on Conversion.” Vigiliae Christianae 67, no. 4 (2013): 407–35. Frankfurter, David. “Onomastic Statistics and the Christianization of Egypt: A Response to Deqauw and Clarysse.” Vigiliae Christianae 68, no. 3 (2014): 284–89. Gengenbach, Heidi. “Naming the Past in a ‘Scattered’ Land: Memory and the Powers of Women’s Naming Practices in Southern Mozambique.” The International Journal of African Historical Societies 33, no. 3 (2000): 523–42. Giladi, Avner. “Concepts of Childhood and Attitudes towards Children in Medieval Islam.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 32 (1989): 121–52. Goitein, Shlomo. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, Vol. 3: The Family. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Keil, Martha and Marian Rothstein. “Hendl, Suessel, Putzlein: Women’s Names in Ashkenazi Communities (Fourteenth-Fifteenth Centuries).” Clio: Women, Gender, History 45, Women’s Names (2017): 83–102. el-Leithy, Tamer. “Coptic Culture and Conversion in Medieval Cairo, 1293–1524 A.D.” Princeton University, Ph.D. dissertation, 2005. Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.

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O’Sullivan, Shaun. “Coptic Conversion and the Islamization of Egypt.” Mamluk Studies 10 (2006): 65–79. Petry, Carl. The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. de Pina-Cabral, João. “The Truth of Personal Names.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16, no. 2 (2010): 297–312. Plutschow, Herbert. Japan’s Name Culture: The Significance of Names in Religious, Political and Social Context. Japan Library, 1995. Roff, William. “Onomastics and Taxonomies of Belonging in the Malay Muslim World.” Journal of Islamic Studies 18, no. 3 (2007): 386–405. Rowlandson, Jane. Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Rutgers, Leonard. “Interaction and Its Limits: Some Notes on the Jews of Sicily in Late Antiquity.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 1997, bd. 115 (1997): 245–56. Schimmel, Annemarie. Islamic Names. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989. Sublet, Jacqueline. Le Voile de nom: Essai sur le nom proper Arabe. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991. Wilfong, T. Women of Jeme: Lives in a Coptic Town in Late Antique Egypt. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.

About the author Shauna Huffaker is an Associate Professor in the History Department of the University of Windsor. A forthcoming book focuses on continuities of neighborhood life before and after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt. Her new project is an oral history of Arab and Muslim life in Windsor, Ontario.

3.

The “Queen of Algiers” An Enterprising Renegade in the Rome of Pope Sixtus V 1 Cristelle Baskins Abstract: This chapter reconstructs the travels of two marginalized, Cypriot Greeks, the young Anna and her mother Angela. In the wake of Lepanto in 1571, they were trafficked as captives across the Mediterranean; in Algiers, they became the renegade wives of Muslim men. In 1587, they reclaimed control of their fates, negotiating a dangerous and expensive return to Christendom for themselves, Angela’s renegade husband, two children, and nine black slaves. Accounts both factual and fictional celebrated the refugees and their protectors, Sixtus V and the Roman confraternity that sponsored their rescue. These captives turned catechumens navigated the networks of papal Rome with the aid of Camilla Peretti and Giulia Orsini, both active in church reform and women’s welfare. Yet, their social capital eroded with the pope’s demise in 1590. Keywords: Algiers, Rome, Sixtus V, women travelers, renegades, captives, catechumens

This chapter presents a case study from late sixteenth-century Rome involving marginalized, non-elite women who, having been trafficked across the Mediterranean as captives, collaborated on a plan to return to Christendom. In North Africa, they negotiated with church officials and lay confraternity members, but also with former captives to set their plan into motion. In Rome, they were sponsored by the papal court, urban 1 Acknowledgments: Laura Baffoni-Licata, Emily Beaulieu, Silvia Bottinelli, Palmira Brummett, Kathleen Christian, Elizabeth Cohen, Caroline Duroselle-Melish, María Antonia Garcés, Pamela Jones, Jeffrey Ravel, Cecilia Tarruell, Carolyn Valone, and Barbara Wisch, For translations from Latin, Maya Chakravorty and Amanda Jarvis.

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch03

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elites, and women active in church reform. A variety of manuscript and printed sources offer differing accounts of the affair, ranging from prosaic details about finances to sensationalized tales of their miraculous escape. In a time of religious dissension across Europe, these texts, including one engraving, spread the message of Catholic mercy and triumph. Although their transactions afforded the women greater control of their fates and the path to salvation, their social capital eroded after the demise of Pope Sixtus V in 1590. In early October 1587, a group of refugees from Algiers arrived in Rome. The leader of the expedition, a Greek renegade called Anna, seized the opportunity to escape when her husband, a high-ranking Ottoman official, went to Istanbul. A Sardinian bishop worked alongside the Archconfraternity of the Gonfalone to bring the group to the Eternal City where Anna, her mother Angela, daughters Maria and Caterina, her servants, and slaves all came under the protection of Pope Sixtus V. This former captive turned catechumen exhibited remarkable ingenuity and resilience while negotiating with both the ecclesiastical and lay circles of papal Rome. This chapter also reveals the role of elite Roman women who were instrumental in caring for the material and spiritual needs of Anna and her companions, now reduced to poverty and in need of religious instruction. These women’s networks included: the pope’s sister, Camilla Peretti; Giulia Orsini, the Marchesa Rangone; and the nuns of S. Margherita in Trastevere, who would eventually appoint Anna’s daughter Maria as their abbess. This well-publicized episode, involving former captives and renegades from Algiers, promoted the global mission envisioned by Sixtus. The extant sources include manuscripts and printed texts that allow us to reconstruct Anna’s escape, to trace the actions of marginalized women, and to appreciate the various meanings ascribed to her story: as an entertaining fairy tale; as a moral exemplum (faith versus wealth); or as papal panegyric. The various documents agree on the main outline of events; at the same time, they yield differing details about the dramatic escape, the sojourn in Sistine Rome, and the later fates of the refugees. Contemporary payment records, letters, and diaries take pains to record specific aspects of Anna’s journey and her individual agency. Among these, a key document is a letter dated October 5, 1587 from the Guardians of the Gonfalone, which worked to redeem captives in Algiers, to their Cardinal Protector, Alessandro Farnese.2 2 Orbaan, Documents inédits, 107–08. On the Archconfraternity of the Gonafalone, see Wisch and Newbigin, Acting on Faith. Bono’s brief note, “L’ avventurosa conversione,” can now be updated.

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Guido Gualtieri, papal secretary under Sixtus V, kept a daily record of events in Rome, including the arrival of Anna and her companions; although he probably intended to publish the text, it remained in manuscript.3 An anonymous contemporary account of Anna “Mema” allows us to follow the story after the pope’s death in 1590. 4 Printed material includes Giovanni Francesco Bordini’s On the Worthy Deeds of Sixtus V, a book of poems praising the pope.5 Its author sought professional advancement and wrote for the papal court, as well as for the Oratorians, and Roman poets and antiquarians. Avvisi, or news pamphlets, were aimed at popular audiences eager for miraculous tales of the triumph of Christianity over Islam. Between 1587–1588 more than a dozen avvisi appearing in Italian, Latin, French, German, and Dutch, transform Anna into a nameless “Queen of Algiers” whose much abbreviated story was both entertaining and providential.6 Finally, a Spanish manuscript composed in the early seventeenth-century appears to have blended firsthand testimony, correspondence, and the avvisi. Juan Cisneros y Tagle, the erudite mayor of Fromista in northern Spain, included the story in his “Notable Things,” a seven-volume compilation dated circa 1616. He titled the excerpt “A True Report of a Curious Event that Happened in Algiers, sent from Rome in the year 1587.”7 The common thread uniting firsthand testimony and all later texts was Anna’s willingness to give up elite status and wealth in Algiers to return to Christendom as a humble supplicant dependent on charity. For Counter-Reformation Catholics, the infinite benefit of salvation far outweighed the loss of worldly goods. Anna’s flight from Algiers to Rome took place within the context of Mediterranean piracy, captivity, and redemptions.8 Christians and Muslims alike engaged in slave-taking and ransoming; this early modern “faith slavery” should be distinguished from “race slavery,” as practiced in the 3 Gualtieri, Diaria sive Ephemerides. Another manuscript copy may be found in the Huntington Library, Pasadena, CA. For the most complete version, see Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma, Fondo Gesuitico n.164. 4 Anonymous, “Relatione.” 5 Bordini, De rebus. 6 See appendix. 7 Cisneros, “Relación verdadera.” María Antonia Garcés suggests that Juan Cisneros y Tagle, the mayor of Fromista (Palencia, Spain), could have learned about Anna from Fra Diego de Haedo, abbot of the Benedictine monastery there from 1604–1607. Haedo published Sosa’s Topography of Algiers under his own name in 1612. See Garcés, Introduction to Sosa, Topography, 74–75. On Cisneros, see Arroyo, “Esbozo de la vida.” 8 Work on captivity in the Mediterranean is vast and growing. See the overview in Hershenzon, “Toward a Connected History of Bondage.”

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later Atlantic slave trade.9 In the sixteenth century, male Christian captives might be put to work as galley rowers, or in agricultural fields, while men of rank were held for ransom. Women and children were also abducted to work as domestic servants or for ransom; some assimilated through marriage.10 Renegade Christians converted to Islam under threat, or voluntarily as a means to obtain greater autonomy, access to wealth, or social status. In the Middle Ages, religious orders such as the Trinitarians (founded 1198) and the Mercedarians (founded 1218) had been established to rescue Christians from Muslim lands. In 1581 Pope Gregory XIII gave the Archconfraternity of the Gonfalone special responsibility for the Opera pia del riscatto (“Pious Work of Redemption”), and Sixtus V renewed this charter.11 The Gonfalone raised the money that sent Capuchin friars to carry out this work in North Africa. Anna’s story begins in Venetian Cyprus where she was born to a Greek mother, Angela.12 Mother and daughter were taken captive by the Ottomans during the battle of Lepanto in 1571. They arrived in Istanbul only to be trafficked to Algiers where Anna was sold to the Qaid Muhammad, a wealthy tax collector.13 When Muhammad married Anna, she converted to Islam. In addition, he arranged for her mother Angela to convert and marry a Catalan renegade called Mahami.14 When Muhammed died in 1586, Anna was left with two young daughters, a ten-year- old and a one-year-old. In addition, the widow inherited wealth and property, including a farm and vineyard with a fortified house close to the sea. After Muhammad’s demise, Anna came to the attention of a powerful local magistrate, the Qadi.15 He wasted no time securing her hand in marriage, but soon left for Istanbul bearing tribute from Algiers. His absence must have emboldened Anna to flee. As Anna was planning her escape, she was approximately twentyfive years old, a recently remarried mother and newly pregnant. Living outwardly as a Muslim, she secretly practiced her original faith, Greek Orthodox Christianity, and even arranged for her children to be baptized 9 Davis, Christian Slaves, xv–xvi. 10 See Bekkaoui, White Women Captives, 10–24; and Dursteler, Renegade Women. 11 Randolfi, Oratorio del Gonfalone, 45–49; Wisch and Newbigin, Acting on Faith, 46, 456, point out that redemptions dwindled by 1600. 12 In what follows, I will depend on Cisneros but note information from other sources. 13 Qaid: tax collector, civic administrator. Muhammad was born a Jew but converted to Islam and became a very wealthy merchant in Algiers; he was put in charge of the Mint. From 1577–1581 he was the owner of Antonio de Sosa as well as Anna. See Sosa, Topography of Algiers, 42–48, 280. 14 Anon., “Relatione d’Anna Mema,” 389, gives the mother’s name as Angela. 15 Qadi: magistrate, religious and secular law judge, ranked just below the Agha and Sultan. Sosa, Topography of Algiers, 280.

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by a Catholic priest.16 Guido Gualtieri confirms this portion of Cisneros’ narrative as reported by a firsthand witness, Giovanni Sanna, Bishop of Sardinia.17 Sanna had been sent to Algiers to assist with the Gonfalone’s captive redemptions. Anna met with him and revealed her plan to return to the Christian community in Rome.18 Despite having inherited a substantial estate from her first husband, she declared that she was willing to leave it all behind in Algiers. In addition, she asked the bishop to baptize her young daughters with the names Maria and Caterina.19 As further evidence of her sincerity, Gualtieri mentions that Anna kept hidden an image of the Virgin Mary, presumably brought from Cyprus.20 She and her mother used to pray in front of this holy image, and they considered it a portent of their escape from North Africa. While Anna and her mother Angela were stripped of their freedom, forced to marry, and to abandon their faith, they also had access to financial resources, goods, and property in Algiers. Yet material comfort did not dampen their resolve to return to Christendom. In January 1587, inspired by the redemptions being carried out by the Gonfalone, Anna and her mother freed six of their own slaves to join the others going to Rome.21 The women came up with a daring plan to entrust two of these former slaves with 600 gold ducats to hire a ship for their eventual rescue.22 The women then withdrew to Anna’s seaside estate to await their return. It took the freed men about six months to obtain a safe conduct from the pope and to fit out a frigate in Naples. But they arrived at the agreed location in August 1587. The departure was a staged “kidnapping,” full of subterfuge.23 In order to escape detection, most of the members of the household were kept ignorant of the plan. The rescue party consisted of sixteen men. Some of them tied up the nine black female slaves and forced them to board the ship. Others seized Mahami, the Catalan renegade. Another group escorted Anna and her mother, along with the two little girls, to the ship; they were all dressed as captives for their own safety. Finally, other men hastily gathered clothing 16 Cisneros, “Relación verdadera,” f. 136v. 17 See Zucca, “Il lussurgese Giovanna Sanna Porcu.” Daeda, “In margine,” 173, illustrates an altarpiece containing a portrait of Sanna from around the time of the Algiers redemptions. 18 Gualtieri, Diaria sive Ephemerides, f. 163. 19 Gualtieri, Diaria sive Ephemerides, f. 163. Cisneros, “Relación verdadera,” f. 136v. 20 Gualtieri, Diaria sive Ephemerides, f. 164v. 21 Cisneros, “Relación verdadera,” f. 135v. 22 Gualtieri, Diaria sive Ephemerides, f. 163v, names them Curtio da Velletri and Michele Napolitano. 23 Gualtieri, Diaria sive Ephemerides, f. 164r. Cisneros, “Relación verdadera,” f. 137v.

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to bring on board, but left behind the bulk of the costly possessions.24 Anna and her mother, along with their rescuers, as well as unwitting companions, all departed from Algiers on a perilously small vessel. While Cisneros notes the shared faith and close collaboration of mother and daughter, he does not question their peremptory treatment of the slaves and others not involved in the plan to flee Algiers. For Cisneros, the end justifies the means. If Anna and her mother caused the enslaved women and the renegade husband to fear for their lives, it was only in service of their lives everlasting. Within twenty-four hours, the heavily laden ship arrived at the Spanish island of Mallorca, where the Viceroy, Luis Vich, along with the inhabitants, welcomed the fugitives and generously attended to their needs.25 Over the course of their two-month stay, Anna and her mother Angela were overjoyed to publicly acknowledge their Christian faith. And the Holy Office of the Inquisition absolved the women of apostasy. The Viceroy then tried to persuade them to appear before King Philip II, whose promised munif icence would extend to f inancial support for the women and children, as well as for those in their service.26 Once again, Anna and her mother demonstrated their independence as they declined to follow the Viceroy’s advice. Although they had originally intended to travel to Spain, the women decided instead to head to Rome.27 Cisneros declares that the refugees felt obliged to give thanks to Sixtus V for facilitating their escape. Leaving Mallorca, the fugitives arrived in Rome on October 4, 1587, the feast day of Saint Francis. They sailed up the Tiber as far as the river port at Ripa, where cardinals Gian Girolamo Albano and Alfonso Gesualdo de Conza, along with Camilla Peretti, were making a pilgrimage to the church of San Francesco a Ripa.28 We catch a glimpse of Camilla around 1590 in a portrait medal by Domenico Poggino (fig. 3.1); the caption reads, “Camilla Peretti, the sister of Sixtus V, pontifex maximus.” She and the cardinals gave the fugitives a warm welcome, promising aid and support. After having been notified, Sixtus V ordered the Gonfalone members to process to 24 Cisneros, “Relación verdadera,” f. 139r. 25 The Catalan D. Luis Vich served as Viceroy of Mallorca (1583–1594). He fortified Palma de Mallorca against North African corsairs. 26 Alonso Acero, Sultanes de Berbería, 128–131, on cases of fugitive women who sought help from Philip II. 27 Cisneros, “Relación verdadera,” f. 139v. 28 Orbaan, “Documents inédits,” 108, identifies the Cardinal of Naples as Alfonso Gesualdo de Conza. On Camilla Peretti’s patronage, see Valone, “Women on the Quirinal Hill;” Lincoln, “The Jew and the Worms;” Dennis, “Camilla Peretti,” and Ibid., “Rediscovering the Villa Montalto.”

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Figure 3.1 Domenico Poggini, Camilla Peretti, Sister of Pope Sixtus V, 1590. Bronze medal, diameter 4.71 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Ripa and then escort the refugees to the church of Santa Lucia.29 Allowing inhabitants of different neighborhoods to marvel at the spectacle, the festive procession with Anna and her companions would have moved northward along the river, crossing it to travel up the Via Giulia, until reaching the church. Cisneros provides details about the order of the participants in the procession, as well as the exotic clothing they wore.30 The group was led by the freed male slaves, followed by Mahami. Then the ten-year old Maria could be seen wearing a high-waisted red damask dress, gold bracelets and earrings, and strings of pearls around her neck. She was followed by Anna’s mother Angela dressed in purple damask trimmed with gold borders, also wearing many jewels. After that the nine female slaves appeared, one of whom carried Caterina, the infant daughter of the deceased Qaid Muhammad. Afterward, Anna, her mother, and their companions rode in carriages from the church to the residence of Ulisse Gallo, a Guardian of the Gonfalone, and his wife.31 An anonymous report sent to the Viceroy of Naples in 1593, confirms that when Anna arrived in Rome, she spent a month in Gallo’s 29 Orbaan, “Documents inédits,” 69, notes the representation of a Gonfalone procession on the Giovanni Antonio Paracca, known as il Valsoldo, tomb of Sixtus V in S. Maria Maggiore dating to c.1590. 30 Cisneros, “Relación verdadera,” f.140r. 31 Ulisse Lancerini (Lanciarini) da Gallo was one of the four Guardians of the Gonfalone in 1587, and a Roman senator. The Galli occupied a residential block in the Via de Leutari between the church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso and the Piazza Pasquino. See Valtieri, La Basilica di S. Lorenzo, 111–15. I thank Thomas Cohen and Kathleen Christian for clarifying this location.

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house.32 While the women were lodged there, they were visited by Roman nobles, cardinals, and by the French ambassador.33 This lengthy sojourn must have resulted in many gifts and donations from the curious visitors who sought out the repentant renegades from Algiers. Although Anna and her mother Angela were publicly welcomed on behalf of the pope by the Gonfalone, they were also summoned to a public audience during which Sixtus would receive their submission, confirm their true identities, and arrange for their religious instruction. On the Sunday following their arrival, October 11, 1587, the women attended mass at the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.34 Then they entered the new chapel of the Presepio (manger) and, with eighteen cardinals in attendance, they kissed the Pope’s foot. To verify the identity of the leader of the refugees, Girolamo de Avila, Guardian of the Gonfalone, asked Domingo Becerra to attest to Anna’s rank and wealth since he had also been held captive in Algiers by the Qaid Muhammad, Anna’s f irst husband.35 Becerra’s testimony convinced the Pope that the women were genuine and worthy supplicants. The documents do not say whether Anna was pleased to renew her acquaintance with this resident of her former household. An engraving by Giovanni Maggi, in Bordini’s On the Worthy Deeds of Sixtus V, that will be discussed below, captures this audience in great detail (fig. 3.2).36 Following the women’s ceremonial submission, Pope Sixtus made practical arrangements for their re-entry into the Christian fold. Because Anna and her mother were Greek Orthodox by birth, and renegades for almost twenty years in Algiers, they required religious instruction before they could be baptized as Catholics. After giving the women his blessing, Sixtus arranged for them to live in a house adjacent to Santa Maria in Vallicella, known as the Chiesa Nuova, and he promised them an allowance.37 He also appointed Giulia Orsini, the Marchesa Rangona, who lived next door, to be their companion and spiritual advisor. An anonymous sixteenth-century medal, captioned 32 Anon., “Relatione d’Anna Mema,” 389. The author of this report is probably Ulisse Gallo. 33 Francois de Joyeuse, Cardinal Protector of France. 34 For Sixtus V’s patronage at this church, see Ostrow, Art and Spirituality, Chapters 1–2. 35 Becerra was a cleric from Seville, as well as a translator and poet. 36 The subject of the Maggi print in Bordini’s De Rebus was briefly identif ied by Orbaan, Documenti, 422. 37 Anna’s new lodging was just a few blocks west of Ulisse Gallo’s house and put her even closer to Santa Lucia and the Gonfalone. Gualtieri, Diaria sive Ephemerides, f.167v, confirms the allowance of thirty ducats per month and the connection to Giulia Orsini.

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Figure 3.2 Giovanni Maggi, The Woman from Africa, in Giovanni Francesco Bordini, De rebus praeclarus gestis a Sixto V. Pon. Max., 1588, p. 30. Engraving, 21.2 × 13.8cm. Photograph, Bibiotheca Hertziana, Rome, Italy.

in Latin, Iulia Vrsina, shows a younger version of this exemplary woman, before she was widowed (fig. 3.3). Nevertheless, the marchesa’s forthright gaze and lifted chin convey self-possessed determination, while her clothing and jewels indicate the financial resources that she would later use to help

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Figure 3.3 Giulia Orsini, mid-16th century. Bronze medal, diameter 5.23 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

the destitute women of Rome.38 By means of a door connecting their two houses, Giulia had access to Anna day and night. She undertook to bring the women to mass and sermons in order to teach them the essentials of the faith they had been forced to abandon. Pope Sixtus linked the renewal of Anna’s Christian identity to her impending confinement; that physical birth would serve as a symbolic rebirth of the women as Christians. The delay also coincided with the normal forty days of instruction required for catechumens.39 As described by Cisneros, during this interim period, Anna, her mother, and daughters were instructed to maintain their “Turkish” (i.e., Muslim) clothing. 40 Once Anna survived the peril of childbirth, the pope intended to bless the infant as well as some new Christian clothing for all of the refugees from Algiers, including the slaves. The anonymous report sent to the Viceroy of Naples in 1593 confirms that Sixtus V arranged housing for Anna along with an allowance of thirty scudi per month, to last for as long as the Pope and Anna lived.41 The report added 38 Giulia Orsini was a major supporter of Filippo Neri and the Oratorians. Between 1593–1595 she established Santa Maria del Rifugio for destitute women. See Valone, “Women and the Oratorians,” 459. She was also known for converting Jews; see Leone, Saints and Signs, 276. On Giulia’s sister Lavinia, their property, and the deeds to the house next to the Vallicella, see Rosini, Regesto, 34–35, 185. 39 Mazur, Conversion, 29. See Touber, Law, Medicine, and Engineering, 38–39, for an account in 1588 of the Oratorian Gallonio’s physical abuse of a young Muslim girl in the process of obtaining a sincere conversion. 40 Cisneros, “Relación verdadera,” f. 141r. 41 Anon., “Relatione d’Anna Mema,” 390. An anonymous Venetian avviso, dated October 7, 1587, says that Anna arrived in Rome with her husband and had originally intended to flee to Naples; see BAV, Urb. Lat.1055, f. 438.

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that Anna married Michele Napolitano, one of the former captives who carried out the rescue from Algiers. Also, we learn that the pope asked his sister Camilla Peretti to serve as godmother to Anna and her new baby. Thus, the chance acquaintance that began at San Francesco a Ripa in October 1587 developed into a longer, more intimate relationship that most contemporary documents overlooked. So far, this account of Anna of Algiers has relied on manuscript letters, reports, and diaries. Turning to printed texts, we see how Anna’s story was put into the service of papal panegyric, the message of Christian triumph over Islam, and a moralizing comparison of wealth versus salvation. Living near the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella would have brought Anna and Giulia Orsini into contact with Giovanni Francesco Bordini, who was an Oratorian and a member of the inner circle around Filippo Neri. While Anna lodged nearby, Bordini was busy supervising the decoration of the Chapel of the Assumption inside the church. 42 He was also composing On the Worthy Deeds of Sixtus V. Printed in 1588, this quarto volume consisted of sixty-four pages and f ifteen full-page engravings, each paired with a Latin sonnet celebrating the pope’s many urban and architectural projects, his promotion of saints, and his commissioning of special galleys to combat piracy. These same deeds could be seen in contemporary monumental decorative programs in the Salone Sistino of the Vatican Library, the Lateran Palace, and the pope’s tomb in Santa Maria Maggiore. Although Bordini must have known Anna as an individual, he turned her into a nameless symbol in his text. His sonnet refers to a “woman from Africa” who offered the Pope a sign of future Christian triumph. 43

42 The patron of the chapel was Giovanni Agostino Pinelli, a banker and papal treasurer, from Genoa. 43 Bordini, De rebus, 31. DE MVLIERE QVAE AB AFRICO SINV ROMAM AD SIXTVM V. PONT. MAX. CONFVGIT. Quis locus est laudum ignarus iam, Sixte, tuarum? Ecce tibi à Libyco foemina vecta mari est. Quae nunc, ceu pinguis quondam Regina Sabaeae, Maiorem prisco te Salamona petit, Te solum vt videat, tuaque vt vestigia servet, Pauperie gazas, aurea tecta casa Mutavit sapiens, famulosque, ac pignora, matrem Sponte sua fidei credidit illa tuae. Accipe primitias, regni praesaga futuri: Africa quas mittit, foemina quasque refert.

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About the woman who fled from the African shore to Rome, To Sixtus V, Pontifex Maximus. What place is there, Sixtus, even now unaware of your fame? Behold—a woman was borne to you across the Libyan Sea, Who now, as once the rich queen of Sheba, Begs you—greater than ancient Solomon— That she may look upon you alone and be preserved by your blessing; She wisely traded her treasures for poverty, [such as] her golden roofed house Her servants, as well as her valuables, [namely] her mother. That woman willingly placed her trust in your faithfulness. Accept the first fruits, portents of the kingdom to come: Those which Africa sends forth, and which the woman brings back again.

Just as the wealthy Queen of Sheba sought out the wisdom of Solomon, so too the woman from Africa submits to the supreme pontiff, Sixtus V. Thus, Bordini elevates Anna’s lived experience into an abstract rhetorical conceit. He also describes the exchange of worldly wealth for spiritual benefit that Gualtieri and Cisneros noted. But there is a disjunction between the Latin sonnet and the “vernacular” image on the facing page, in which we see a contemporary sixteenth-century setting with identif iable f igures and costumes rather than a historical scene from the Old Testament. Readers “in the know” would have recognized Anna, her mother Angela, and Mahami humbly kneeling before Sixtus to kiss his foot and receive a blessing, just as Cisneros described the papal audience in October. (fig. 3.2) Just behind them are the nine black female slaves, one of whom holds the infant Caterina. Bordini and Maggi must have been aware of the Greek origins of Anna and her mother. Their costumes resemble that worn by the “Sfacchiotta,” from the city of Candia on the island of Crete, found in Vecellio’s Costumes of the World. 44 (f ig. 3.4) Anna and her mother wear headscarves and striped sashes around their waists. 45 From Cisneros we know that their clothing was made of damask fabric trimmed with gold borders. In the deep background of Maggi’s print, some clerics and other men stand to witness the event. The scene visualizes Bordini’s intended readership starting with the Pope seated at right, his cardinals, and members of the Gonfalone whose members, like Girolamo de Avila and Ulisse Gallo, offered f inancial support for these ventures. Although Maggi carefully represents the papal audience, he restricts the assembly 44 Vecellio, De gli habiti antichi et moderni, 424v. 45 See also Sosa, “Algerian Women’s Fashions,” Topography of Algiers, 198–202.

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Figure 3.4 Sfacchiotta from Candia, from Cesare Vecellio, De gli habiti antichi et moderni di diversi parti del mondo, 1590, p. 424v. Woodcut, 16.7 × 12.5 cm. Tisch Library, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA.

to male off icials, omitting the probable attendees Camilla Peretti and Giulia Orsini. In addition to Bordini’s book aimed at elite educated audiences, printed avvisi publicized Anna’s story to a wider audience across Europe. 46 The texts all depend on a writer using the name of “Francesco Nogit,” often noted just by the initials, F.N. or P.N., who composed a “Report on the arrival of the Queen of Algiers in Rome, and how she was baptized with her six children 46 See appendix. For news of Anna in Florence, see Lenci, “Il Maghreb barbaresco,”: 260: “[…] some Christian slaves were freed in Rome, having been brought there by a noble lady who fled from Algiers.” [[…] liberati a Roma alcuni “schiavi Xtiani” ivi condotti da “una gentil donna fuggita d’Algieri”].

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and the women in her company, along with the reason for her flight.”47 Publication of the pamphlet began in Bologna in 1587, spreading across Northern Italy and France; the following year, translations appeared in Flanders and Germany. In an unusually ambitious version of the pamphlet published in Verona, we find the following poem praising an anonymous Greek queen who left her wealthy infidel husband to return to Christianity. Unlike Bordini, this anonymous author does not compare Anna to Sheba, but rather to ancient Greek heroines: Sappho and Corinna, Harpalice and Camilla, because they were learned and expert in arms, their fame lives forever, as those who hear of it wisely know. But you, GREEK Queen, in whom the holy desire of the heavenly court shines, in leaving your infidel consort, have revealed yourself a sun of virtues, not just a mere spark. Fleeing barbarous pomp and unworthy extravagances, Victory has always been by your side, leading you to Rome, the true stairway to the heavenly Kingdom: therefore, whoever possesses wisdom and reverence may well weave your tale [of worthy deeds]. 48 (emphasis mine)

Popular versions of the Queen of Algiers story differ dramatically from the events presented by Gualtieri or Cisneros. First, the Queen travels without her mother; there is no hint of female collaboration or networking. She is only married once in Algiers and her husband loved her passionately; indeed, out of affection for his wife, he builds the ship with which she eventually escapes. In addition, she is said to be the mother of six sons rather than two daughters. The fugitives evade pursuit from Algiers by means of a miraculous fog that envelops the ship. And, finally, the “Queen” is rumored to be fabulously wealthy, having brought with her copious amounts of jewelry in her flight. This f ictional Queen brings riches to Rome unlike the real refugees who needed financial support once they arrived. Such titillating details and a fairytale plot must have helped to sell copies. 47 Appendix, Bologna. 48 Appendix, Verona: “Sonnetto d’Incerto Auttore: Saffo, e Corinna; Arpalice, e Camilla, perche furono dotte, e fur ne l’arme accorte, non ha la fama loro tema di morte, come ben sà chi saggiamente udilla: Ma voi sovrana GRECA, in cui sfavilla santo desio de la celeste corte; mentre lasciate l’infidel consorte sete sol di virtù, non pur favilla. Voi le Barbare pompe, e’l fasto indegno, mentre fuggite, sempre la Vittoria v’è al fianco si che vi conduce in Roma; ch’è vera scala del superno Regno: onde puo ben di voi tessere historia qualunque hà saggia, e veneranda chioma.” I thank Laura Baffoni-Licata for assistance with the translation.

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Despite the popularity of the tale of the Queen of Algiers, the real women—Anna and Angela—suffered financial hardship, especially after the death of Sixtus V in 1590. The harsh consequence of leaving Algiers and returning to Christendom was a descent into poverty, at least as represented in documents that may exaggerate the severity of their situation. The anonymous report of 1593 explains, “After Pope Sixtus died, Michele took his wife Anna to Naples because she lost the allowance and could not live in Rome. Anna’s mother stayed in Rome where she now finds herself in great poverty because she has nothing.”49 A further challenge to financial security came from an imposter claiming to be Anna, who hoped to attract donations and charity. The anonymous 1593 report adds that, One hears that another Anna has reported to the Viceroy of Naples under the pretext of being the one who fled. But this cannot be true because that Anna has gone to Genoa, Pisa, Venice, and now appears in Naples with this false tale of being the Anna who truly fled Algiers and sought help from His Catholic Majesty. But we ask that if you want to uncover the truth, that help should be given to the true [Anna] and not to the other one who has maliciously taken the name Anna and who has been seen in various parts of Italy. [If you want] to find the real Anna, she is in Naples in the house of M. Octavio Vossatro, by the small door of Santa Maria del Carmine.50

The report does not say what happened to Anna’s husband, Michele Napolitano, but the detail about living in another man’s house suggests that she may have become a boarder or servant. In Algiers, Anna had enjoyed wealth but lived as a renegade. She ended her days in Naples as a Catholic, but she no longer received a papal allowance and an imposter threatened to steal her identity. The documents do not offer information about the fates of the two younger daughters. 49 Anon., Relatione d’Anna Mema, 390. 50 Anon., Relatione d’Anna Mema, 390. “S’intende che una certa Anna ha datto memorial al Vice Re di Napoli sotto (pretest)to che lei sia quella che fuggi, il che non è vero, perche detta Anna è andata (fi)no a Genova, a Pisa, a Venetia et hora è capitata a Napoli con questa f(inzione) d’esser lei quella Anna che veramente fuggi d’Algieri et cerca aiuto da S. (Maestà) Cattolica. Pero si supplica che si voglia ritrovare la verità et che l’aiuto si dia alla vera et non a quella che malitiosamente si è messa nome Anna comme è stata scop(erta) in diverse parti d’Italia […] ritrovare la vera Anna, è in Napoli incontro alla porta piccola di S. (Maria) del Carmine in casa di M. Octavio Vossatro.” In Faustini’s addition to Sardi, Libro delle Historie, Book 2, 84, we learn that the imposter appeared in Ferrara in 1591 seeking assistance from Lucrezia d’Este. See also, Alonso Acero, Sultanes de Berbería, 131.

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In contrast, we know that Anna’s eldest daughter, Maria, found her vocation in Rome as a nun. The anonymous 1593 report explains, “Anna’s daughter Maria is in Rome staying in the house of a woman who pays her a subsidy for her dowry.”51 A document of 1594 records the substantial amount of 1,000 scudi as the convent dowry for “Maria of Algiers, the Muslim girl who became a Christian.”52 The following year, this sum allowed the eighteen-year old girl to take the veil at Santa Margherita in Trastevere, not far from San Francesco a Ripa where she f irst entered Rome with her mother and the other refugees from Algiers.53 Sister Maria Alfani is recorded in the convent record books as the daughter of the Pasha (sic) of Algiers and Anna Alfani. Even more remarkably, she brought her mother’s Greek icon of the Virgin Mary to the convent as part of her dowry.54 The sisters used to venerate the small image on an altar in their choir. They recalled that Maria had escaped with the help of Capuchin missionaries as well as the miraculous fog that made their ship impervious to pursuit. At her death in 1649, Maria was abbess of Santa Margherita where she had spent her adult life among nuns who proudly recalled her origins in distant North Africa, her providential arrival in Rome, and her return to the true faith. If her mother Anna and grandmother Angela relied on each other to plan an escape from Algiers and return to Christendom, they ended up among the urban poor in two different cities, their familial ties broken. Anna was a temporary sensation, an eastern Mediterranean apostate whose flight and return to Christianity added luster to Sixtus V’s image. She briefly enjoyed the support of the pope, his cardinals, and members of the Gonfalone, who played a key role in supporting the fugitives once they arrived in Rome. But the informal connections with Camilla Peretti and Giulia Orsini, known for promoting religious reform and helping destitute women, had a more lasting effect on Anna and, especially, her elder daughter. Their efforts behind the scenes, as godmother and spiritual advisor respectively, led to Maria’s successful assimilation into the social and conventual networks of early modern Rome. 51 Anon., Relatione d’Anna Mema, 390. Was Maria still residing with Giulia Orsini? 52 Orbaan, Documenti, 269. 53 Balboni, Roma riscopre un gioello, 130 54 There is no trace of the icon today. See Balboni, Rome riscopre un gioello, 161–62. The brief 1649 entry muddles the facts; it must rely on Maria’s own testimony but probably also the avvisi of 1587–1588.

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Appendix: Queen of Algiers Pamphlets (1587–1588) Alessandria Vincenzo Granucci. La venuta della Regina d’Algieri à Roma, con sei figlioli & 22 persone, & otto schiavi Marinari Christiani. Alessandria: Ercole Quinciano, 1587 Antwerp Franciscus Nogit. Discours ou briefve description de la venue de la Royne d’Algiere à Rome: Et comme elle s’est baptizée avec six enfans & Matrone estans en leure Compaignie avec la cause de la fuite. Antwerp: Matthieu de Rische 1587. Franciscus Nogit, Cort verhael vande comste der coninginne van Algier gearriveert in Roome: Ende hoe dat sy haer heeft laten doopen met hare ses kinderen ende matroonen, die met haer in heur compagnie zijn ghecommen, inhoudende doch de cause van heurlieder vlucht. Antwerpen: Mattheus de Rische, 1587. Augsburg Fran. Nogit. New̃ e Zeyttung: Vnd bericht Wie die Koenigin von Algiera gehn Rom kommen vnd wie sy sampt jhren sechs Soennen vnnd etlichen vilen Weybs personen jhres Frawenzim̃ ers Getaufft worden. Vnd ausz was vrsachen sy von jhrem Gemahel entpflogen seye wie den 27 Decembris, diß ablauffendt 87. Jars. auß Rohm vnd zu Venedig inn Welscher Sprach im Truck außgangen vnd jetzundt Verteutschet worden. Augsburg: Johann Worly, 1588. Bologna P.N. Relatione della venuta della regina d’Algiero in Roma. Et come s’è battezzata con sei figliuoli & matrone, che erano in sua compagnia, con la causa della sua fuga. [7 ottobre 1587.] Bologna: Gio. Rossi. Douai Francesco Nogit. Translated by Bathelemy Lavinon. Recit de l’advenement de la royne d’Algere en la ville de Rome. Douai, chez Jean Bogard, 1588. Ferrara Copia di vna lettera venuta nouamente da Roma, doue si narra la giunta in Roma della regina d’Algeri, con molti schiaui, & altre persone tutte battezate in Maiorica. Insieme col successo del viaggio, et altri particolari. Stampata in Ferrara appresso i Cagnacini, 1587.

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La vera relatione di tutto quello che la flotta della Maestà del Re Catholico a portato, tomando dalla terra ferma, Nova Spagna & S. Domenico, l’anno 1587. Con la relatione della Regina d’Algiero, venuta in Roma, & come s’è battegiata con sei figlioli & matrone, ch’erano in sua compagnia, con la causa della sua fuga… [Ferrara: Vittorio Baldini?, 1587]. Köln Vera et Svccincta Narratio De Adventv Reginae Algeriae Tvrcae, Sev Maho­ metanae In Vrbem Romanam: Qvomodo Regnvm Vltro Reliquit, clam charissimo suo marito Rege, cum sex filijs, & aulicis suis matronis ad Balearides insulas fugit; ibidem[que] cum familia sua baptizata Romam venit Qvarto Die Octobris anno Domini 1587: Ex Italico exemplari Venetijs impresso in Latinum sermonem translata. Coloniae: Godefridus Kempensis, 1587. Lyon Nouvelle de la venue de la Roine d’Algier à Romme, & du baptesme d’icelle, & de ses six enfans, & des Dames de sa compagnie avec le moyen de son départ. Le tout prins & traduict de la copie italienne, imprimée à Milan par Barthelemy Lavinnon, en cette année 1587. Lyon: Jean Pillehotte, 1587. Milan Relatione della venuta della Regina d’Algiero in Roma. Et come si e battezzata con sei figliuoli et matrone, che erano in sua compagnia, con la causa della sua fuga Stampata in Bologna, et ristmapata in Milano: per Giacomo Picaglia, 1587. P.N. Rellatione della venuta della regina d’Algiero in Roma. Et come si e battezzata con sei figliuoli et matrone, che erano in sua compagnia, con la causa della sua fuga. In Milano, ristampata per Barthelemy Lavinone & Steffano d’Orieno [7 ottobre 1587.]. Paris P.N. Nouvelle de la venve de la Royne d’Algier à Rome, et du baptesme d’icelle, et de ses six enfans, et des dames de sa Compagnie avec le moyen de son départ, le tout prins et traduict de la copie italienne, imprimée à Milan par Barthelemy Lavinnon, en ceste année 1587. Paris: Chez Gabriel Buon, 1587. Piacenza P.N. Relatione della venuta della regina d’Algiero in Roma. Et come si e battezzata con sei figliuoli et matrone, che erano in sua compagnia, con la causa della sua fuga. Stampata in Bologna per Gio. Rossi, ristampata in Piacenza, 1587.

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Turin Vincenzo Granucci. La venuta della Regina d’Algieri, con sei figlioli et 22 persone e otto schiavi Marinari Christiani, s.l., 1587. Venice Fran. Nogit. Relatione della venuta della Regina d’Algiero in Roma, et come s’e battezzata con sei figliuoli, & matrone, che erano in sua compagnia, con la causa della sua fuga. In Venetia: stampata in Calle della Rassa, 1587. Verona Vincenzo Granucci. Copia di vna lettera venuta nouamente da Roma, doue si narra la giunta in Roma della regina d’Algeri, con molti schiavi, & altre persone tutte battezate in Maiorica. Insieme col successo del viaggio, et altri particolari. Aggiuntovi un sonetto in sua lode. Cosa notabile, e gloriosa in augmento della santa fede christiana. Stampata in Ferrara appresso i Cagnacini. Et ristampata in Verona: per il [Girolamo] Discepolo [1587].

Works Cited Primary sources Anonymous. Venetian avvisi, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Urb. Lat.1055, ff.438, 454, 455, 459, 462, 465. Anonymous. ‘Relatione d’Anna Mema’. In Historia de varios sucesos y de las cosas notables que han acaecido en España y otros naciones desde el año de 1584 hasta el de 1603. Escrita por el P. Fray Jerónimo de Sepúlveda, El Tuerto, Monje Jerónimo de San Lorenzo el Real de Escorial, Documentos para la Historia del Monasterio de San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial, edited by P. Fr. Julián Zarco Cuevas, vol. IV, 387–90. Madrid, 1924. Bordini, Giovanni Francesco. De rebus praeclare gestis a Sixto V, Pon. Max. Rome: Jacopo Tornieri, 1588. Cisneros y Tagle, Juan. Relación verdadera de un caso extraño sucedido en Argel, enviado de Roma, año de mil y quinientos y ochenta y siete años. Academia de la Historia, Coleción Salazar y Castro, “Memorial de cosas notables,” 1617–1630. F17 n.32.885, ff. 135v–41r. Gallonio, Antonio. Vita del beato padre Filippo Neri Fiorentino. Rome: Luigi Zanetti, 1601. Gualtieri, Guido. Diaria, sive Ephemerides Pontificatus Papae Sixti V, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC. W.b. 132, vol. 45, ff.162v–67v.

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Rosini, Patrizia. Regesto di documenti della famiglia Franciotti Della Rovere, 1505–1601. Lulu, 2015. http://www.nuovorinascimento.org/ Sardi, Gasparo and Agostino Faustini. Libro delle historie ferraresi. Ferrara: Giuseppe Gironi, 1646. Sosa, Antonio de. An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa’s Topography of Algiers (1612), edited by María Antonia Garcés, translated by Diana de Armas Wilson. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011. Vecellio, Cesare. De gli habiti antichi et moderni di diversi parti del mondo. Venice: Damiano Zenaro, 1590.

Secondary sources Alonso Acero, Beatriz. Sultanes de Berbería en tierras de la cristiandad. Exilio musulmán, conversión y asimilación en la Monarquía hispánica (siglos xvi y xvii). Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2006. Arroyo Rodríguez, Luis Antonio. “Esbozo de la vida y la obra de Juan Cisneros y Tagle.” In Actas del II Congreso de Historia de Palencia, 27, 28, y 29 de abril de 1989, edited by María Valentina Calleja González, vol. 3, 379–84. Palencia: Departamento de cultura, 1990. Balboni, Francesca. Roma riscopre un gioello. Santa Margherita: Porta d’ Oriente e d’ Occidente. Alessandria: Orso, 2008. Bekkaoui, Khalid. White Women Captives in North Africa: Narratives of Enslavement, 1735–1830. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Bono, Salvatore. “L’avventurosa conversione d’una ‘regina’ d’Algeri.” L’Osservatore romano (20 July 1973): 6. Daeda, Mauro. “In margine a un epistolario tra Emilio Lussu e Renata Serra. Osservazioni sul pittore manierista sardo Andrea Lusso.” Archivo storico sardo 53 (2018): 151–83. Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Dennis, Kimberly. “Camilla Peretti, Sixtus V, and the Construction of Peretti Family Identity in Counter-Reformation Rome.” Sixteenth Century Journal 43 (2012): 71–101. Dennis, Kimberly. “Rediscovering the Villa Montalto and the Patronage of Camilla Peretti.” In Wives, Widows, Mistresses, and Nuns in Early Modern Italy: Making the Invisible Visible through Art and Patronage, edited by Katherine McIver, 55–73. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012. Dursteler, Eric. Renegade Women, Gender, Identity, and Boundaries in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.

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Hershenzon, Daniel. “Towards a Connected History of Bondage in the Mediterranean: Recent Trends in the Field.” History Compass 15 (2017): 1–13, https://doi. org/10.1111/hic3.12391. Lenci, Marco. “Il Maghreb barbaresco in alcune raccolte di Avvisi manoscritti nelle biblioteca centrale di Firenze.” Africa: Rivista trimestrale di studi dell’Istituto Italo-Africano 46, no. 2 (1991): 241–61. Leone, Massimo. Saints and Signs: A Semiotic Reading of Conversion in Early Modern Catholicism. New York: Walter De Gruyter, 2010. Lincoln, Evelyn. “The Jew and the Worms: Portraits and Patronage in a SixteenthCentury How-to Manual.” Word & Image 19 (2003): 86–99. Mazur, Peter A. Conversion to Catholicism in Early Modern Italy. New York: Routledge, 2016. Orbaan, Johannes Albertus Franciscus. Documenti sul Barocco in Roma. Rome: Società alla Biblioteca Vallicelliana, 1920. Orbaan, Johannes Albertus Franciscus. “Documents inédits sur la Rome de Sixte Quint et du Cardinal Farnèse.” Mélanges d’ archéologie et d’histoire 42 (1925): 67–116. Ostrow, Steven. Art and Spirituality in Counter-Reformation Rome: The Sistine and Pauline Chapels in Santa Maria Maggiore. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Randolfi, Rita. Oratorio del Gonfalone. Rome: Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani, 1999. Touber, Jetze. Law, Medicine, and Engineering in the Cult of the Saints in CounterReformation Rome: The Hagiographical Works of Antonio Gallonio, 1556–1605. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Valone, Carolyn. “Women on the Quirinal Hill: Patronage in Rome, 1560–1630.” Art Bulletin 76 (1994): 129–46. Valone, Carolyn. “Women and the Oratorians in Early Modern Rome.” In Scritture, carismi, istituzioni: percorsi di vita religiosa in età moderna: studi per Gabriella Zarri, edited by Concetta Bianca and Anna Scattigno, 449–62. Rome: Torrossa, 2018. Valtieri, Simonetta. La Basilica di S. Lorenzo in Damaso nel Palazzo della Cancelleria a Roma attraverso il suo archivio ritenuto scomparso. Rome: Arti grafiche moderne, 1984. Wisch, Barbara and Nerida Newbigin. Acting on Faith: The Confraternity of the Gonfalone in Renaissance Rome. Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2013. Zucca, Umberto. “Il lussurgese Giovanni Sanna Porcu (1529–1607). Promotore di cultura, redentore di schiavi e vescovo.” In Santu Lussurgiu. Dalle origini alla ‘Grande Guerra,’ edited by Giampaolo Mele, 181–92. Nuoro: Solinas, 2005.

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About the author Cristelle Baskins, Associate Professor Emeritus, History of Art and Architecture, Tufts University. Recent articles have focused on European representations of Turkmens, Syrian Christians, Armenians, Baroque travelers, North African rulers, captives, and renegades. Her book, Hafsids and Habsburgs in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Facing Tunis, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2022.

4. An Exotic Migrant, Despina Basaraba Networks a New Life in Papal Rome circa 1600 Elizabeth S. Cohen

Abstract: A well-born, but orphaned, young Greek woman from Constantinople, Despina Basaraba, migrated to Rome in 1598 with her French renegade husband and their three-year old son. With some social capital, but limited material resources and few contacts in the very foreign city, Despina, with her family, set about networking to build a new life. She cultivated ties with women of modest and higher social ranks and won the official patronage of the pope and the personal charity of his household steward. A trial record of Despina’s prosecution five years later for presumption of adultery lets us reconstruct in rare detail everyday connections, special alliances, and the occasional use of writing in face-to-face relationships. The story documents her gendered vulnerabilities, but also her resilient social agency. Keywords: women; identities; social agency; patronage; adultery; Mediterranean, Italy

Despina Basaraba was one of many early modern Mediterranean women who left home and, by choice or by force, went to make a new life in an unfamiliar and sometimes distant place.1 In 1598, Despina, a Greek Christian from Constantinople (Istanbul), arrived in Rome with her husband, Giovanni Paris, a French surgeon formerly enslaved in the Levant, and their threeyear old son, Giovanni Battista.2 The small family had traveled over 1,300 1 See Baskins, “Queen of Algiers” in this volume. 2 In the multilingual world of the eastern Mediterranean, proper names took many forms. Here I use the Italianized versions of personal names that appear in the trial records, and Constantinople for Istanbul.

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch04

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kilometers between two cosmopolitan but very different cities, from the Ottoman imperial capital to Catholicism’s center in Italy. The migrants brought some social credit and portable material assets but had no livelihood and minimal connections in Rome. From the detailed records of a Roman criminal trial in 1603, this essay reconstructs Despina’s story, as the exotic migrant built and used a web of social relationships and alliances to make a way for herself and her family in a new city.3 Put more broadly, I use a microhistorical narrative to lay out varied common strategies for early modern women’s social action. Deftly deploying what resources she had, Despina initiated a family tie with a previously unknown kinswoman, cultivated substantial male patronage, served as a godmother, and improvised ad hoc links with female servants, artisans’ wives, and gentlewomen. Such relationships brought Despina notable success for several years, but later catapulted her into sore distress. These crucial everyday negotiations and connections, especially for women, seldom surface in the records. In the paradoxes of history, the trial that once was Despina’s undoing now lets us see her attentive, agile networking life. Since 2000, a rich scholarship on the early modern Mediterranean has featured themes of mobility, migration, and many kinds of encounters at and across cultural boundaries. Summarizing the general experience of an environment of fluid and layered identities, Cesare Santus writes, “early modern men were decisively more familiar than we are with the idea of a plurality of belonging, experienced non-contradictorily, that was socially constructed and in constant evolution according to the relations and contexts in which one found oneself.”4 These experiences, private and domestic as well as public or off icial, belonged not only to men, but also to women.5 In framing Despina’s story, I also draw on insights from Natalie Rothman and Eleonora Canepari, who have studied early modern migration and encounter, inflected by gender and social status, in cosmopolitan cities of the Mediterranean. In nuanced case studies that support broader hypotheses on dynamics of exchange in Venice’s maritime empire and in Constantinople, Rothman foregrounds patterns of human relationships, often across religious and political boundaries, as the essential stuff of history. As she says, even slaves needed what 3 For this essay that ranges beyond my usual turf, I am grateful for suggestions from many scholars; among them, Cristelle Baskins, Lucinda Byatt, Michele Di Sivo, Eric Dursteler, Ann Rosalind Jones, Laurie Nussdorfer, and Cesare Santus. 4 Santus, Trasgressioni Necessari, 6, translated in a review by Clines. 5 See Dursteler, Renegade Women; Oldrati, “Margarita alias Arabia;” Rothman, “Conversion and Convergence;” Siebenhuner, “Conversion, Mobility.”

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Simona Cerutti has called “relational resources.”6 On a smaller scale, Canepari offers for seventeenth-century Rome close attention to the social transactions of non-elite men and women, many of whom were migrants from the hinterlands or beyond. While an older scholarship often constructed such “foreigners” as outsiders, relegated to social marginality or exclusion, Canepari casts them instead as social agents busy with reorganizing their lives and making new connections. Neatly f itting our volume’s theme, she writes, “[f]oreign inhabitants [of cities] have to establish their own networks upon arrival.”7 Along with Canepari, rather than use the metaphor of margins that evokes a bounded domain of indefinite “otherness,” I favor a more dynamic notion of social process through which a newcomer, bearing assorted burdens and assets, navigates toward participation in an unfamiliar community.8 To these ideas of mobility and social encounter, I add a further theme that has resurfaced in early modern scholarship, orality and performance.9 In thinking about migrants as they built social networks, we should attend to the obvious but underexamined facts of early modern communications. In the absence of electronic technologies, for everyone, and crucially for newcomers, making your way depended largely on face-to-face communications and on social practices that shaped and reinforced those messages. Public and private information circulated, sometimes in long chains, through many mouths and minds, as well as through other performative or written media. News and messages came packaged with purposes and emotions, as speakers seeking a reward or welcome for their requests scripted the delivery in a variety of social performances. Recipients, active participants in networks of communication, assessed what they heard and decided how to respond. While travelers and migrants typically sought out kinfolk or compatriots as they entered a new setting, they also had, as they moved, sometimes repeatedly, to cultivate relationships with strangers. In early modern cities, where public institutions of welfare were still relatively weak and families fragmented easily, many residents had to build and tap informal relationships, often rooted in affinities of occupation or gender or in the proximities of neighborhood. Propelled by mixes of altruism and instrumentality, such 6 Rothman, “Contested Subjecthood,” 425–27. For broader formulations, see Rothman, Brokering Empire, especially 87–100, 122–29. 7 Canepari, “Temporary Housing and Unsettled Population,” 119–20. On women, see Canepari, “Women on Their Way.” 8 Cohen, “Women on the Margins,” 317–18. 9 Twomey and T. Cohen, Spoken Word, and Cohen, “Moving Words.”

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alliances, even if customary, needed activation and nurture. Affiliations came in many sorts—ascribed or chosen, brief or long-lasting, hierarchical or among peers. Migrants, like Despina Basarba, had special impetus to seek out and use these vital connections. We reconstruct the story of Despina Basaraba from the records of a single trial that took place in May 1603, five years after her arrival in Rome.10 Abruptly and over the course of a mere two weeks, Despina was jailed, prosecuted, and convicted of “presumption of adultery” (pretensum adulterium).11 The unnamed partner in this serious charge was Giovanni Antonio Romano, a grandfatherly gentleman and the steward of the papal household, who had taken the Greek immigrant and her family under his wing.12 Known to all as Signore Scalco (“Sir Steward”), he had supported them with generous patronage for five years, both before and after Despina’s husband, Giovanni Paris, had left the city in 1601. The judicial proceedings, orchestrated by the papal officials, aimed to deflect scandal and to preserve the smooth functioning of the pope’s household by hustling the foreign woman out of circulation, without public embarrassment to the Scalco or his princely master. Although Despina had arrived with scant connections, she had become a person of some, if ambiguous, standing. So, instead of an arbitrary dispatch, the Governor’s court invested an unusual blitz of official resources in a formal trial; seven days of hearings at the Tor di Nona jail accumulated more than 100 pages of testimony. Concerned for discretion but committed by legal procedure to harvest telling evidence of misconduct, the magistrates interrogated three women—Despina herself, her aunt Perfetta, and her current servant Piera—and three men, all servants of the steward. As was judicial protocol, all of these non-elite witnesses were jailed before they testified. Besides Despina, none of them had public stature. The Scalco himself, who did, was kept altogether out of it. Shaped under legal authority, transcripts of interrogations are complex texts where multiple voices give accounts under formal protocols set to ensure veracity. Deponents swore to tell the truth, and the threat of torture loomed if interrogations did not produce a legally binding result, although 10 Archivio di Stato di Roma, Governatore, Tribunale criminale (hereafter ASR GTC), Processi secolo xvii, busta 26, ff. 617–75; here f. 617r. References in parentheses throughout the essay designate folios, recto and verso, in this trial record. 11 The legal decision of “presumed” adultery represented a failure to prove the weightier charge of adultery; I thank Michele Di Sivo for this clarification. 12 Although adultery trials in the Governor’s court often focused on women, the Roman Statutes of 1580 specified, in principle, a scale of punishments for men of different ranks. See Cohen, “Though Popes Said Don’t,” 76–81.

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most witnesses never faced it. Although people might have discussed events earlier among themselves or occasionally with lawyers, everyone testified alone before a magistrate or notary with the words written down nearly verbatim. Reflecting the witnesses’ knowledge and sense of how best to protect their interests and those of allies, depositions display sculpted truth-telling, but not necessarily consistency or coherence. In order to extract plausible answers to historians’ questions, scholarly analysis has to think with the law’s habits, the positioning of the speakers, and the variations, contradictions, and gaps among the testimonies.13 In Despina’s trial, the court’s calling of non-elite and female witnesses, while not unusual, well serves our present interests in women’s networking. Depositions let us see gendered vulnerability but also social dexterity, as women maneuvered on behalf of themselves and their families. As reconstructed from the trial, Despina Basaraba’s story divides into four chapters and an epilogue. The first chapter pieces out the backstories of Despina and her husband Giovanni Paris, who must have met in Constantinople. The second describes Despina’s aunt Perfetta, an earlier migrant, and the Rome in which she welcomed the couple in 1598. The third chapter recounts Despina’s networking as she, with Giovanni Paris and Perfetta, worked to secure the family a home and livelihood in the new city. Introducing the family’s personal patron, the papal Scalco, this segment ends in 1601, three years after their arrival, when Giovanni Paris departed alone for France. The fourth chapter tracks Despina’s next two years on her own in Rome and their culmination in her trial, judgment, and subsequent confinement in 1603. An epilogue that reads her testament composed fifty years later concludes the story.

Chapter 1: Leaving Constantinople In this first chapter, from clues in the trial record, we reconstruct the backgrounds of Despina Basaraba and Giovanni Paris as they met, married, and then set out for a new life in 1597. They departed from Constantinople and, in particular, from its distinctive district of Pera (Galata), located across the Golden Horn from the Sultan’s city center. A polyglot and religiously mixed motley of people who engaged in all manner of commercial, political, intellectual, and private business, the residents of Pera counted diverse subjects of the Ottoman Empire, including members of the Basaraba family, 13 On reading trials, Cohen, “Miscarriages,” 482–83.

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and many foreigners. Among varied Europeans, with the Venetian bailo’s premises as an unofficial hub, Italian functioned as one lingua franca.14 This unusual urban space provided a matrix for generating the layered social identities that Eric Dursteler has described.15 With only fragmentary and retrospective knowledge of Despina and Giovanni Paris in Constantinople, much about their sense of self eludes us. Nevertheless, the model of mobile identities alerts us to processes of adaption that these two people, quite different from each other in experiences of ethnicity, religion, gender, and enslavement, had to navigate individually and together, beginning in Pera and continuing as they migrated to Europe. What we know of the couple’s pasts comes from the official identifications by the court, supplemented by tidbits in retrospective depositions from Despina herself and from her aunt Perfetta, who each selected and tinted the legend to suit their Roman circumstances. Layering family, class, and ethnic identities, the notary named Despina rather grandly as the daughter of the “late Nicholas Basaraba, Greek, Prince of Wallachia” (618r).16 Among several noble clans who ruled in medieval Wallachia (now part of Romania) and later paid tribute to the Ottoman sultan, the Basaraba family had reason to frequent Constantinople in search of patronage.17 Since Perfetta still called Pera home years later, the family had some roots there, but their name leaves scant traces in the later sixteenth century.18 Despina said that her father was dead and mentioned no other kin. Although she did not appear impoverished, lofty lineage did not assure income or influence when on her own. If we might wonder whether Despina puffed up her claims to rank, official Rome needed to believe that she was indeed a lady (gentildonna) (645v). A lofty papal steward would not befriend a lowlife young woman. 14 Dursteler, “Sex and Transcultural Constructions,” 499–500, and “Speaking in Tongues,” 72–73, 77. 15 Dursteler, “Identity and Coexistence,” 114–26. 16 Representing Despina’s layered identity in Rome, the court asked a manservant of the Scalco if he knew “Despina known as the Greek or from Constantinople,” to which the witness volunteered that he believed she was from Wallachia (659r); see also 617r, 643v. 17 Paun, “Conquered by the (S)word,” 19–29. On Wallachian princes marrying Greeks in Constantinople, see Zach, “Heiratspolitik,” 4–5. 18 So far no documentation has emerged for a Nicholas or Despina Basaraba, who f it the trial data. For an example of an earlier family marriage in Pera crossing ethnic and religious boundaries: Alexandru II Mircea Basarab (1523–1577), Prince of Wallachia, in 1559 married the Italian Caterina Salvarezzo (c. 1539–c. 1590), who converted to Orthodoxy; the couple ruled in “Romania” (probably Wallachia) in the 1570s, and a daughter Despina was born there in 1562. Family Search: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:3KSP-BYF.

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Although the Basaraba family hailed from Wallachia, the trial record labeled Nicholas and his daughter Despina as “Greek” (greco/a). The term evoked family tradition, language, and religion; yet these attributes needed not consistently coincide, and the Greeks in Pera’s prominent minority were often hybrid.19 The Basaraba family historically followed Orthodox Christianity. Despina shared her name, one repeated in her family, with a Greek title for the Virgin Mary. Most Greeks practiced in the Orthodox tradition, but some, especially among those who served in the Venetian stato da mar or migrated to Italy, observed the Latin rite or a mixture of the two.20 Moreover, as residents of Pera, Despina and her aunt Perfetta may have, even before they left, added Italian to their languages. Arriving in the pope’s capital in 1598, Despina Basaraba presented an ambiguous mix of identities. On the one hand, she was a foreign woman without means, local protectors, or the religious narrative that helped place the “Queen of Algiers” ten years earlier.21 Indeed, like her renegade husband, Despina was not unequivocally Catholic. On the other hand, she was a well-born, honorable wife and mother. Her appearance made an attractive and perhaps somewhat exotic social statement that, even in a city accustomed to visitors, drew admiring eyes. Although the trial gives no age, Despina is called a “giovane,” a term suggesting both youth and sexual appeal, and “bella” (622v, 631v; 665v).22 Her clothing, jewelry, and household furnishings brought from Constantinople represented, in Renata Ago’s phrase, her mobile, “private treasury.”23 These goods helped her to stand out. In its first question, the court asked Despina to describe her personal belongings, indicating what she still owned that had come, five years earlier, from “elsewhere” ( fuora).24 She began with the jewelry, all of it from the east: three gold necklaces, one worth fifty scudi; seven or eight rings, one with a diamond worth fifty scudi; three pairs of bracelets, two gold and one of pearls; amber worth three or four scudi, plus corals and perfumes (618r-618v). She also listed: a coverlet embroidered in gold; as were likewise two cushions, with four gold buttons on each; another coverlet of iridescent 19 About “Greek” as an identifier, see Santus, “Tra la chiesa,” 207 and notes 42–43, and Burke, Greeks of Venice, 193–94. 20 Burke, Greeks in Venice, 35-36, 115–18. 21 Baskins in this volume. 22 Cohen, “Straying,” 281. 23 Ago, Gusto for Things, 5. 24 Ago, Gusto for Things, 109, emphasizes the lack of enforcement of a Roman reform of sumptuary law of 1586. The court’s attention to Despina’s wardrobe probably reflected both her eye-catching self-presentation and the magistrates’ wish to track the Scalco’s generosity.

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yellow and blush-pink (incarnato) silk; and three or four gowns in the Turkish style (alla turchesca) (618v). Here “Turkish style” meant not what Turks or Muslims wore, but rather the dress of Greek women living under Ottoman rule in Turkey. In the Venetian Cesare Vecellio’s compendium of global clothing, depictions of female apparel situated Despina’s self-presentation quite precisely: The Greek women of Pera usually dress in the Turkish style. They wear very splendid clothing, and wherever they go they wear jewelry, and as much of it and as massive as they can. […] [T]he wife of a merchant wears velvet or cremesino satin or damask silk, and she embellishes her gowns with woven trim and buttons of gold and silver. Other women of lower status wear taffetano and patterned silk from Bursa, and all of them wear gold chains and bracelets set with fine stones.25

Vecellio highlighted the lavish display of not only rich women but also those of more modest rank. As a young woman in Pera, Despina likely learned to deploy her good looks and accessories fetchingly. In Rome, her admirers, in turn, appear happily to have cast a ‘proto-orientalist’ gaze on her exotic figure.26 Constantinople’s cosmopolitan opportunities also shaped the shadowy but adventurous life of Despina’s husband, Giovanni Paris. At the trial, Despina herself said little about the man who had abandoned her and their child. He was French, likely Catholic, and a surgeon. His skills bespoke useful professional expertise, but not necessarily gentility or deep book-learning. Perfetta reported succinctly that he had been a slave (schiavo) in Constantinople and was, according to his wife, circumcised (cironciso) (628v). Coupled in Perfetta’s testimony, these two words compactly imply a renegade narrative of service at sea, capture by Muslim corsairs, enslavement, conversion to Islam, and transfer at some point to the Ottoman capital—perhaps due to his surgical skills.27 Perfetta further reported, though perhaps with little grounds, that Giovanni’s masters had been two famous Italian renegades, who had risen to high office in the Ottoman regime (628v). Earlier, Giovanni had belonged to “Occhialino,” an Italianized version of his Turkish name 25 Vecellio in Rosenthal and Jones, Clothing the Renaissance World, 473–74. Vecellio’s image, 474–75, of the Greek woman in Venetian Republic is quite sober in contrast. Yet, if he appears to “orientalize” the Greek woman of Pera, his description, 279, of the matron of Florence includes similarly rich ornaments. See also, on artisan finery in Italy, Hohti, “Dress, Dissemination.” 26 Malieckal, “Slavery, Sex and the Seraglio,” 58–63, 67–69. 27 Dursteler, “Identity and Coexistence,” 120–22; Rothman, Brokering Empire, 87–108.

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Uluç Ali Reis (1519?–1587); born in obscurity in Calabria and taken by Turkish raiders as a youngster, he became an able maritime commander and later chief admiral.28 If this link is plausible, the death of Uluç Ali Reis in 1587 suggests that Giovanni Paris, as a young man with skills, was likely captured in the mid-1580s, and might have been in his mid-thirties in 1598. Giovanni’s last master, born Scipione Cigala and known in Turkish as Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha (c. 1545–1606), came from a noble Genoese seafaring family; captured with his father as a youth and trained in the sultan’s service, he rose to appointments as governor, chief admiral, and grand vizier.29 In Constantinople, these models taught that a labile identity, though dangerous, could bring this-worldly benefits. As a slave and convert to Islam, Giovanni Paris seems to have followed the path of his hybrid Italian masters, perhaps with their support. Whether true in part or not at all, the ambiguous prestige of their names later served in Rome as a piece of Giovanni Paris’s complicated pedigree. But at some unknown point, he had changed course, leaving the service of Cigalazade and, probably later, deciding to return to Europe. While a renegade past left shadows, reconciliation with Catholicism was in fact not so difficult. Rather than punish, the Roman church generally preferred to reclaim the errant with a measure of spiritual correction. There were stories for renegades to tell the Catholic authorities that smoothed the path of return.30 But we do not know when and where, or even if, Giovanni Paris formally set aside his Muslim identity. So, in Pera, a Greek Christian woman came together with a renegade French surgeon. There, and in other settings of the eastern Mediterranean, marriages or less formal liaisons across religious and ethnic lines were not uncommon.31 While children of mixed unions were expected to follow their father’s religion, wives sometimes practiced their own with more or less explicit accommodation. Although such alliances could breed tensions and might not be entered freely, social, political or material benefits could also accrue.32 For example, Greeks were among the non-Muslim groups who supplied concubines and wives to the sultan and sometimes to his officers.33 In Venice’s maritime empire, as in Ottoman domains, marriages between Greek Orthodox and Latin-rite Christians were also familiar.34 In 28 Of obscure family, see “Galeni, Gian Dionigi” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, v. 51 (1998). 29 Ocakaçan, “Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha,” 327–35. 30 Dursteler, “Fearing the Turk,” 485–88; Rothman, Brokering Empire, 93–105. 31 Dursteler, “Sex and Transcultural Connections,” 500–06; Dursteler, Renegade Women, 76–90. 32 See footnote 5, and Baskins in this volume. 33 Malieckal, “Slavery, Sex and the Seraglio,” 63–65. 34 Burke, Greeks of Venice, 31–34.

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addition, Eric Dursteler has shown that, notably in Pera, a form of “temporary marriage” or contractual concubinage sometimes served such couples, among them transient European merchants and diplomats and their local Greek wives. Under the provisions of kâbîn marriage, a couple registered their relationship with the Muslim kadi, a local judge, and agreed that when the marriage ended, the woman would, like a widow, receive a dower to support herself and any children of the union, who would be deemed legitimate.35 When Despina and Giovanni formed their alliance, we know neither which of these or other expectations they had, nor what formalities they observed. Since both evidently lacked the family ties or material assets that usually anchored early modern marriages, a tattered veil of precarity shadowed the union. What propelled this oddly matched pair when, late in 1597, with a nearly three-year-old son, they set out for Italy? We do not know if Giovanni Paris, after many years, yearned for his homeland, or if the couple were broke, or in trouble, or just restless. Following well-traveled routes, Despina’s small family went f irst to Venice, but did not stay. Instead, Despina mobilized the migrants’ most basic resource—connections through family, even with members they had never met. Early in 1598, she sent a letter to Rome to Perfetta, her father’s sister, but a stranger to Despina. Like other women, Despina locally relied mostly on face-to-face communications, but she knew and used the potency of written correspondence for networking across distance. In this period women’s literacy skills varied, and, for letters, some had to resort to scribes or friends.36 Although Perfetta’s literacy is unknown, Despina herself, in 1598, provided a papal official, on the spot, with a receipt for money and, in 1603, signed her final trial deposition, if not fluently, in her own hand (629v, 643v). Whether or not she penned the letter to Perfetta, Despina knew the power of written documents and at this and other times deployed them in her Roman networking. Aunt Perfetta, responding promptly and citing a bond with “the daughter of one of my brothers,” invited the small family to stay with her in Rome (628v).

Chapter 2: Rome As our story reaches Rome, let us turn to Perfetta for a brief look at her backstory and for a fuller view of the Roman social world into which she 35 Dursteler, “Sex and Transcultural Connections,” 507–08. See also, Sant-Cassia, “Religion,” 22–24. 36 Baernstein, “In Her Own Hand,” 138–41.

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introduced Despina. The tribunal notary identified her as “Perpetua, alias Perfetta, widow of Domenico de Rossi, of Pera in Constantinople” (628r, 643v).37 Although the chronology was vague, she had not lived in the Levant for many years. She testified that, like Despina later, she had traveled west from Constantinople to Venice; perhaps she accompanied her now dead husband, who bore a common Italian name and might plausibly have served the Venetian stato da mar.38 Later and apparently alone, Perfetta made the trip south “from Venice to Loreto and from Loreto to Rome” during the reign of Pope Sixtus V (r. 1585–1590), or some ten years before Despina arrived (628r). The reference to Loreto, with its famous shrine of the Virgin Mary’s Holy House, believed to have flown from Nazareth via Croatia to Italy, signaled Perfetta’s stance of piety and perhaps evoked less miraculous migrations from the Levant. Most likely, she had, for convenience, adopted the Latin rite even before moving to the pope’s capital. When she got to Rome, however, Perfetta found herself a woman migrant with support from neither family nor compatriots from her hometown or region. In contrast to Venice’s large and well-articulated Greek community, Rome offered little for lay women.39 Although known in Rome as “Perfetta greca,” the term followed conventional naming patterns and probably did not mark evident foreignness after many years resident in Italy (627r). In 1600, Rome had a population of some 100,000 people. At its head, the pope was at once the leader of a globalizing Catholic church, rich in power and property, and the temporal prince of a mid-sized Italian state. Only a small fraction of Rome’s residents were born there, and the rest were a highly mobile flow, both to and from the city, of pilgrims, ambassadors, clerics, and migrants, male and female, attracted by a sustained demand for workers to build, feed, and serve, and to make artisanal goods. 40 This churning population meant that nearly everyone was looking to make new connections. Furthermore, the city had an unusually skewed ratio of only 70 women for every 100 men. The percentage of traditional nuclear family households of two parents and children remained lower than in many early modern cities, and brides were in demand. At the same time, widows, abandoned wives, prostitutes, and other women on their own headed about 20 percent of Rome’s households, many of these counting only one or two 37 Despina also names her aunt as “Perfetta from Constantinople” (643v). 38 Sturdza, Dictionnaire historique, 403, reports two brothers of the Venetian military family De Rossi, who were active in Cyprus and the Ionian Islands in the mid-sixteenth century. 39 Santus, “Tra la chiesa,” 194–96. 40 Cohen, “Though Popes Said,” 79–80.

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residents.41 As a woman alone, Perfetta found a niche among the many female householders gathered in the Campo Marzio district. This large, recently built-up northern section of the city had a few grand thoroughfares lined by noble palaces, clerical colleges, and gardens, and a grid of smaller streets and alleys occupied by a mix of shopkeepers, workers, and women who improvised a living from a motley of piecework tasks.42 Laundry, domestic service, spinning, weaving, and prostitution provided common sources of women’s income. Perfetta relied on networking: she gathered and strategically shared information; she built and used social relationships, with other women and with men, across class lines. For a social broker like Perfetta, her niece’s arrival posed a familial obligation. Despina and her family also offered, compellingly, a new asset in Perfetta’s portfolio of clients and an opportunity to secure rewards and favors for connecting them with others.

Chapter 3: Networking Toward a Home and Livelihood Newly arrived, Despina and Giovanni, with their three-year old son, needed a place to live. They first joined aunt Perfetta in her lodgings near the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in the Campo Marzio (628r). But a solitary woman’s quarters must have been cramped. After a month or so, the immigrants rented their own apartment a few blocks up the Corso near Via dei Pontefici. Several months later, they moved again to near Monte Citorio (644r–645r; 646v–647v 661v).43 Over five years in Rome, Despina and her family occupied four dwellings, always in or very near the southwest quadrant of Campo Marzio, with Perfetta living nearby. This urban terrain framed much of the two women’s networking. Where information mostly circulated from mouth to mouth, shared geography supplied a critical matrix. Next, the crucial quest for a livelihood began, steered by aunt Perfetta’s brokerage and knowledge of the city’s institutions and opportunities. Specifically, she directed her kinfolk toward the pope’s celebrated personal charity to worthy recipients, including high-ranking persons who lacked means to live honorably (poveri gentilhuomini, et gentildonne vergognose).44 To qualify 41 Sonnino, “Strutture familiari,” 247–48, 258. 42 Keyvanian, “Papal Urban Planning,” 307–16. 43 While “Monte Citorio,” an urban tumulus being developed in later sixteenth century, lay just outside the rione of Campo Marzio, neighborhood life usually ignored these administrative boundaries. 44 Fanucci, Trattato di Tutte l’Opere Pie, 12–13, celebrated the pope’s “limosine segrete di poveri gentil’huomini, & gentildonne vergognose, così Romane, come forestiere, quali fuggendo da gl’

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for papal largesse, Despina and Giovanni had to present their need, their rank, and suitably Catholic identities. Despina may well already have been familiar with the Latin rite. Yet she made another of her cryptic remarks about religious identity when cataloguing her wardrobe: she listed a rosecolored gown that one Federico, “my neophyte godfather” (un mio compare neofito), had had made for her in Rome (619r). The phrase is puzzling, but the dress may have been a gift marking some kind of Catholic profession of faith. 45 However it came about, Despina’s Roman life as described in the trial was observantly Catholic, including confession and communion on holidays, local pilgrimages, and standing as godmother for a neighbor’s child (636v, 642v). As for Giovanni Paris, whatever religion he may or may not have rejected or professed in Constantinople, his reclamation of his original Catholic identity appears to have been accepted in Rome. In the drama of pursuing papal charity, Giovanni Paris had a central role early on, but soon Despina, with a supporting cast of Perfetta and other women, led the show. At some moments, the recent arrival appeared uncertain, but at other points she stepped up assertively, winning the Scalco’s patronage. Reconstructed from several voices in the trial record, we gain a richly detailed account of the women’s intricate networking that navigated both people and spaces. The campaign began with gathering information and making requests. These preliminaries took time and typically involved, besides occasional paperwork, face-to-face visits bolstered by vouching from patrons and by the bodily attendance of companions. First, Despina and Giovanni learned, likely through Perfetta, that Don Diego was the secret (or privy) almoner (elemosiniero segreto), the Vatican official who disbursed the pope’s personal charity (629r, 644v). 46 So, a party of four assembled to undertake at the Vatican palace what early modern Romans called an “embassy” (ambasciata), an intentional mission in the flesh, to make a good impression, to seek information, to convey points of view, or to solicit boons.47 The mixed group included Giovanni Paris, Despina, Perfetta, and one Maria from Burgundy (borgognona), a woman “known to Despina” but otherwise unidentified (629r; also 622v). By my guess, Despina further ingratiated herself by dressing in her eastern finery. Eretici, & Infedeli sono provisionati, & aiutati in Roma.” 45 On gifts of clothing at baptism for converts at the Venetian Casa Pia dei Catecumeni, see Rothman, Brokering Empire, 138–39. For Rome, before the mid-seventeenth century, we know little of formal professions of faith by the Orthodox; see Santus, “Wandering Lives,” 242–51. 46 Hurtubise, Cour pontificale, 224–25. 47 Cohen, “Moving Words,” 79–80.

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The company visited the palace several times before clinching the desired audience with the secret almoner.48 Courtiers and officials were not easy to find in the palace’s maze of private quarters, where there were no regular business hours. These seemingly fruitless visits were nonetheless steps in the choreography of networking and seeking patronage. 49 On the third try, the embassy of Giovanni Paris and three women reached the secret almoner, and evidently received instructions to provide a written petition with their request. So, Giovanni Paris composed a memoriale to Pope Clement VIII and, as a Frenchman, arranged for its delivery with the backing of the French ambassador.50 However shadowy his past, Giovanni had sufficient credit to receive this support. The combination of embodied gestures and written requests worked, for the pope promptly approved a monthly subsidy of six scudi (629r).51 Annually, seventy-two scudi represented a useful but modest income for a family of three.52 For the next step in the networking strategy, some players shifted roles. Protocol dictated that the pope’s private alms be collected in person each month. At this stage, Giovanni Paris stepped aside and left this work to Despina. In a respectable practice for appearing in public, several women assembled as companions to chaperone the female protagonist. Their number also lent social weight to the visitation. So, a party led by Despina and guided by Perfetta attended the first monthly collections at the Vatican palace, where Don Diego’s household overseer dispensed the coins (629r; 659r–659v, 660v). But, when Don Diego died suddenly, all the very personal arrangements changed. First, Despina and Perfetta had to discover who was the next appointee to the office and where to find him. Upon investigation, they learned to call on Don Girolamo at his quarters beside the new papal residence on Monte Cavallo (now the Quirinal palace of Italy’s president) (628v; 644v; 660r–660v). The next women’s embassy also included Despina’s young son, dressed eye-catchingly alla turchesca and probably intended to win the officials’ good will (628v–629r). According to Despina, two further women accompanied the original three on these visits. She did not know them, but reported that they had been recruited for this service by Menica, 48 Testimonies yield a sequence of events, but not precise dates or intervals. 49 In 1603, Perfetta testified that “one Ippolito from the household of the Duke of Conti” could attest to their persistent search in 1598 (629r). 50 Probably Cardinal Arnaud d’Ossat (d. 1604); see Hurtubise, Cour pontificale, 412–421. On petitioning the pope, see Fosi, Papal Justice, 207–11. 51 Hurtubise, Cour pontificale, 225. Details about incumbents and amounts distributed are elusive; see Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica, vol. 21, 164–66. 52 Spear, “Rome: Setting the Stage,” 37–39, 40.

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the wife of master Andrea, a surgeon, who lived further up the Corso near the San Giacomo hospital (627r).53 As traits of women’s networking, note the two degrees of separation from Despina, participants who were not known to one another, and, for validation to the court, the intermediary identified quite precisely by her marital relationship and place of residence. In a world without ID-cards, chains of connectivity verified identities. Despina’s party arrived at Don Girolamo’s rooms to find him absent. He had gone, said his attendants, to take midday dinner in the quarters of the papal steward. This chance information led to a fateful meeting that, not three months after the arrival of Despina and her family, shaped their Roman fortunes. The Scalco’s ensuing patronage brought sustained economic and social benefits. Yet the close personal relationship that developed also posed risks, especially after Giovanni Paris left Rome in 1601. Among the most important laymen in the huge papal household, Giovanni Antonio Romano, Signore Scalco, oversaw the papal food services that included comestible hospitality and alms in kind.54 As a measure of his stature, he had not only a suite of rooms in the palace, but also a coach and four manservants who tended his official and personal needs and accompanied him around Rome (641r, 646v–647v). The Scalco was accustomed to navigating hierarchies and exercising his own patronage and personal charity (622r). Middle-aged and suffering from gout, he had a married daughter in the city, whom he visited regularly and who delivered him another grandchild in late 1600 or early 1601 (627r). When the women’s embassy found the new almoner gone from his rooms for dinner, they first divided their efforts. While Perfetta awaited Don Girolamo at his suite, Despina and the others, including the boy, located the Scalco’s quarters and gathered by his door (622v; 629r). Perfetta soon rejoined the group and boldly urged them to enter the antechamber. Carrying platters of food, manservants paraded through to the inner rooms, and Despina’s son followed them. Inside, the gentlemen diners, entertained by the exotically-clothed child, seated him on the table while they ate (629v). Later, Don Girolamo and his host, the Scalco, came out to talk with the women. Despina then took the lead, introducing herself as from Constantinople and explaining the pope’s allocation of alms. To do business, the women were invited into the Scalco’s main chamber (sala), furnished with a red-decked 53 Two unnamed women, mentioned generically by Despina, do not appear elsewhere in the narrative. 54 Hurtubise, Cour Pontificale, 227–29; Evitascandalo, Libro dello scalco, chap 3–4. On officers in ecclesiastical households as gentlemen, see Nussdorfer, “Masculine Hierarchies,” 621–31.

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bed and two tables, one supporting a studiolo, a small cabinet for storing papers and valuables. Don Girolamo, as a conscientious bureaucrat in a new role, had his alms-register with him, but he searched in vain for Despina’s name in the book. The Scalco then looked again and found the right entry. And, as the almoner had no cash with him, the steward went to his own chest, found coins, and gave them to Despina. She in turn wrote him a receipt, presumably so he could reclaim the money from the almoner (622r; 629v; 659r–659v). Another month, this time at the Vatican palace, Despina, accompanied by her son and the women, again failed to locate Don Girolamo in his rooms. So, they sought out the helpful Scalco and found him walking about his sala. From this moment, the Scalco took charge of Despina and her family’s needs. First, he summoned the almoner, who soon appeared and delivered the six scudi, plus a small gift of two giulii to the boy.55 Then the Scalco called a coach to take the visitors across the city to their homes. Once the steward stepped in, Despina’s “embassy” never had to return to the papal household (629v–630r). Signore Scalco’s chance meeting with the attractive Despina and her son launched all that happened after. As a generous Christian, the steward privately gave many alms (622r). Perfetta later reported him as saying, for example, that “he maintained three young virgins so that they not go astray” (che mantiene anco tre zitelle, accio non vadino male), and that in the Jubilee Year of 1600 he gave one hundred scudi to the Confraternity of the Trinity to house and feed the pilgrims (631r).56 Defending his master at the trial in 1603, a manservant of the Scalco also cited with convincing detail fifty scudi given as dowry to the daughter of his daughter’s laundress and fifty scudi for the presumably indigent mother of a painter in the Borgo (666r). With these benefactions, the Scalco saw himself serving piety and moral order, with particular solicitude for needy women and girls. Christian motives likewise inspired his charitable project with Despina’s family. As she said later, the Scalco “helps me and keeps me safe for the love of God” (lui mi aiuta, et tiene prottettione mia per l’amor di Dio) (619r). For three years, not only Despina and her son, but also husband and father Giovanni Paris were beneficiaries of these good works (621r). When the Scalco met Despina, though duly chaperoned, at his rooms, he found it unfitting, as he later told her, for a young woman (giovane) 55 A giulio was a silver coin worth about ten to the scudo. 56 Rounded sums such as f ifty or one hundred florins—or later in the sixteenth century, scudi—were conventional for charitable dowries for poor girls; see Esposito, “Ad dotandum,” 8–10.

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to travel, on foot, across the city to palace (622v; 631v). So, he arranged for his servants to deliver the six scudi for her household directly to their lodgings. Furthermore, he undertook to send, as was customary when supporting servants and dependents, a daily portion (parte) of foodstuffs from the papal stores that he oversaw.57 By convention, the portion’s core was the classic Christian bread—loaves of a specific type (pagnotte) baked in the papal ovens—and wine. For the fortunate, these alms in kind also included an “accompaniment” (companatico) of meat or fish, and other necessities like firewood (618v; 620r). So, the Scalco’s coachman and servants began to bring not only the monthly coins, but also the daily parte and the companatico—three pagnotte and five flasks of wine, along with meat or, on fast days, fish (622v). Indeed, when the coach rather grandly appeared for the first delivery of bread and wine, the family, though now aided by a woman servant, were in their lower room in some disorder (645v). According to the coachman, Despina, perhaps preoccupied, responded only with a brief “thank you” (granmerci), while Giovanni Paris offered the more suitable, gracious words to be conveyed to Signore Scalco (645r–645v). These provisions continued, even when the pope traveled north to annex Ferrara in May 1598, accompanied by a large entourage, including his steward (622v, 628v, 644v). Sometime in late spring or early summer, the family moved south from the Corso to premises near Monte Citorio, likely at the Scalco’s suggestion as his married daughter lived nearby (661v). After the steward returned from Ferrara, he began to call regularly at the conveniently located homes of both his daughter and Despina. Creating and sustaining social ties depended heavily on physical presence and face-to-face meetings; relationships with prominent people enacted in the public eye also fed local reputation among neighbors. The Scalco visited Despina’s household sometimes weekly and at least monthly (619r; 622v: 629v; 663r). When he called, his very visible coach and his servants waiting outside signaled the honor of his attendance (630r).58 The family welcomed their patron in the main room (sala) upstairs on the first floor, where he sat and talked, “for a quarter hour, sometimes more, sometimes less” (647v). By Despina’s retrospective report, the Scalco wanted to hear how the family was faring—about what goods they might 57 During the sixteenth century, Roman practice for compensating servants in noble households shifted form: taking meals in a common dining room (tinello) gave way to distributions of foodstuffs (parte) and later to sums of cash: Hurtubise, Cour pontificale, 296, 298–99; see also Byatt, “Concept of Hospitality,” 319–20. 58 Hunt, “Carriages, Violence,” 178–79.

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need or enjoy for the house (622v). His generosity now extended, for example, to mattresses and fashionable leather wall hangings (corami) (618v–619r; 630v). The Scalco spoke of wanting to spare Despina, in her words, anything that might “break my neck, so that no one would harass me, and he always provided for all my needs” (acciò io non havesse occasione di rompermi il collo, et se nissuno me dava fastidio, che lui mi sovveniva in tutti li miei bisogne sempre) (620r). Leading also to this private patronage, papal charity had paid off handsomely for the family of attractive foreigners. In parallel with this major bond of male patronage, Despina made instrumental exchanges also with women, mostly non-elite residents of the Campo Marzio district. Perfetta, the kinswoman and hardworking broker, had served Despina and Giovanni Paris well with her alert navigation of social and physical pathways into the Vatican. Yet, as time passed and Despina’s Roman fortunes rose, the aunt, hoping for spinoff benefits for herself, seemed keener than the niece to nurture their ties. Keeping female servants—many of them migrants to the city—also depended on networking. These employees typically found work haphazardly through informal brokerage among women, and turnover was high.59 Although personal character references seem not to have figured, neighborhood connections often led from one post to another. Despina’s household kept only a single serving woman, but over five years many held the job. Among them, Camilla from Florence ( fiorentina) stayed a year but was fired for theft, and left Rome (621r). Chiara from Romagna (romagnola) was also sent packing with no reason given, but later Despina saw her once, pregnant, at the house of a neighbor, a midwife (621r, 628r). Francesca, also from Romagna, left Despina’s service after only a few months, but, after working first for a court official, she then took a post with a friend of her former mistress (621r, 627v). A very young girl servant (giovanetta), Madalena from Arezzo, came to work for Despina through Diadema (a rare Greek name) who lived close by at Monte Citorio (621r). The last servant, the widow Piera from Cremona, had served almost a year when she became a principal witness in the trial. Her post came through another “friend,” a Signora Caterina who lived next to a tailor beside the nearby church of San Nicola dei Prefetti (621v; 632r–632v).60 These sorts of personal ties and local markers of place suggest how contacts typically happened and sometimes remained useful over months or years. 59 Cohen, “To Pray,” 309–10. 60 The court likely suspected the Scalco of managing the help in order to cover up his alleged indiscretions. Despina insisted that she chose her servants (621r).

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Chapter 4: Despina On Her Own Sometime, probably early in 1601, Despina’s comfortable Roman life shifted, as her husband, Giovanni Paris, left the city. At the trial, Despina said only that “it has been two years since my husband left Rome and he went to Marseille [France],” and she added, “where I hear that he has taken another wife” (et sono doi anni che mio marito si parti di qui da Roma, et se n’è andato in Marsilia, Subdens ex se, dove intendo, che ha preso un’ altra moglie) (618r). Knowing nothing else about Giovanni’s motives, we should recall that the legal, material, and psychological terms of the original marriage and of the decision to migrate to Italy were also deeply obscure. Giovanni’s abandonment hurt Despina, but, given Constantinople’s model of kâbîn marriage, she may not have expected permanence. Left on her own with a son to support, the changes placed her among the many female household heads in Campo Marzio. Yet, as Despina assured the court, in parting, Giovanni Paris had explicitly entrusted his Roman family to the benevolent Scalco (621r). Still married, Despina had few alternatives but to accommodate the will of her patron, her sustaining economic and social asset. Charged with the sole male oversight of the family and now disencumbered of husbandly competition for Despina’s attention, the Scalco enthusiastically embraced his greater responsibilities. Probably at his direction, around this pivotal moment, Despina moved again to the nearby Via della Torretta and a dwelling more than ample for herself, a servant, and a six-year-old boy (643v; 647v). For a substantial sixty-six scudi per year, the house included: on the street level, two rooms and a kitchen; upstairs on the main floor, a large sala, two bedrooms (camere), and a small loggia; and above, an attic with cages to keep pigeons and guinea hens (percellette d’India) (620v; 639r).61 Between this hefty rent and her son’s schooling, the pope’s monthly six scudi did not go far (620v). Furthermore, as Despina testified, she owned no cash secreted in chests, nor promissory notes, nor shares in investment funds (luoghi di monte); rather—like nearly everyone in Rome—she had debts (623v).62 Besides money to meet these many needs, the Scalco continued to send abundant provisions and occasionally firewood. The footman reported the contents of his regular delivery: two large loaves (pagnotte grosse) and a flat bread (cacchiatella); six flasks of wine, sometimes “greco” from southern Italy, sometimes white, according to availability in the papal storerooms; three or four pounds of meat at a 61 Spear, “Rome: Setting the Stage,” 39. 62 Ago, Economia barocca, 57–59.

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time, or on the eve of fast days two pounds of fish (652r). The Scalco paid also for clothes for the boy, and for a new wardrobe for his mother—dresses and other garments, made to order by a tailor (619r; 632v).63 While listing clothes made explicitly after her husband left, Despina remarked that, when she had suggested a fine red fabric (scarlatto) for a gown, the Scalco had proposed instead a more soberly dignified color (pavonazzo).64 Ordering, however, the red cloth from the merchant, Despina had her showy way, and the Scalco covered the bill (619r). In this phase of Despina’s Roman life, if her material environment was comfortable, her social web may have felt cramped. The initiatives that Despina took at the Vatican palace ended when she met the Scalco, because he felt that respectable women should not travel the city, especially on foot. For the migrant mother now alone under his protection, the Scalco’s wishes and earnest moral instructions meant living largely secluded at home, socializing with him only and taking occasional outings with gentlewomen of his acquaintance. Nevertheless, while playing the gratifying and compliant protégé, in some settings Despina continued to act on her own behalf. Despina’s family tie with Perfetta, that had eased the migrants’ arrival in Rome, changed its tone. When, in 1601, Giovanni Paris left, relations between the kinswomen grew tense. For unstated reasons, Despina failed to confide about her husband’s affront. Miffed at such exclusion, Perfetta must have retaliated disparagingly, because Despina secured a routine but formal injunction against her aunt for speaking ill of her. For a month, during this legal pause in communication, the two women did not speak (628v; 632r). After they made peace, Perfetta resumed her efforts to grasp benefits that trickled down through her niece. When Despina moved to Via della Torretta, Perfetta found new quarters directly opposite and continued to pay calls (634v–635r). Later, at the trial in May 1603, the Scalco’s footman deposed that Perfetta received “some sort of parte” from the papal palace and recalled the steward’s giving him fifteen giulii to pass to Despina, to hand on, in turn, to her aunt (651v). Yet the servant Piera testified at the same time that Perfetta had not been at her niece’s house for the past two months, although the witness allowed that the two might have talked at the window, a common but less private mode of communication (636r). Despina, however, rarely reciprocated, visiting only when “necessary,” that is, when 63 Between the eastern dresses and those acquired in Rome, Despina’s wardrobe was ample. See Ago, Gusto for Things, 103–07, and Storey, Carnal Commerce, 172–75. 64 Rosenthal and Jones, Clothing the Renaissance World, 589, 591; Hohti, “Dress, Dissemination,” 154–55.

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someone was ill (629r, 643r). Despina may have been uneasy about close association with her aunt, as Perfetta networked busily elsewhere in Campo Marzio, doing common, but not always reputable business. As reported in another trial in 1602–1603, a woman called Perfetta Greca—a rare name and very likely our broker—arranged a sexual rendezvous for a secretary at the Venetian embassy with Delia, the fifteen-year old servant of Sveva, an impecunious gentlewoman friend of Perfetta’s, who lived across from the San Giacomo hospital.65 And, in 1603, Despina reported that Perfetta spent much time at the nearby premises of the Spanish ambassador or, more precisely, of his wife (imbasciatrice) (643r–643v). Yet, although or because they were family, Perfetta’s reciprocal discontent with Despina festered and complicated some events that preceded the trial. Also in 1601, on one of the few occasions when Despina ventured outside her home, her social obligation as the steward’s grateful client provided the opportunity to see her own vulnerability and to network toward a remedy. The Scalco had long fostered a relationship between Despina and his—never named—married daughter, who also lived near Monte Citorio. When, likely after Giovanni Paris’s departure, she gave birth, Despina made a series of daily calls on the newly delivered mother. There she joined the kinswomen and friends who customarily gathered after childbirth to offer good wishes and to socialize.66 Despina may well have enjoyed this diversion, but to the court she cited her duty toward her patron: “I went every day to visit her, because I ate the bread of her father, and besides it was right that I went” (io c’andavo ogni giorno à vederla, perche magnavo il pane del padre, et era però cosa giusta, che io c’andasse) (627v). The expression, “eating the bread” of someone, acknowledged obligation and dependency. So, with her servant, Francesca, Despina walked to the house not far away. To return home after sundown, because a curfew forbade women moving through the streets in the evening unless accompanied by a kinsman, the daughter’s husband and sons chaperoned Despina (627v).67 Thus, patronage bred a kind of fictive kinship. These ritual visits among women yielded the socially attuned Despina some useful information and prompted another savvy initiative of selfprotection. In conversation among the women callers, Despina learned that the Scalco’s daughter, when sending away a serving woman, had stopped 65 On Perfetta, ASR GTC, Processi secolo xvii, busta 23, ff. 215v–216r. On Delia, see Cohen, “Straying,” 286–88. 66 Allerston, “Contrary to Truth,” 631–33. 67 Cohen, “To Pray,” 303–04.

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her from taking a mattress that the ever-generous Scalco had once given her (623r). Seeing similar risk to herself, especially now that she was alone, Despina assertively approached her grandfatherly patron to suggest “that in doing charity, he [the Scalco] should do it fully, because if his daughter had reclaimed the mattress from the servant, she could do the same to me, if her father died before me” (che gia che lui faceva la carità, la facesse compita, perche si come la figliola haveva ritolto quel matarazzo alla serva, cosi poteva fare à me, venendo à morte prima) (623r). Invoking the security that written documentation could carry into the future, Despina asked the Scalco for a notarized declaration of donation. Assuring Despina that a personal statement (scriptura privata) in his own hand would suffice, the Scalco signed and sealed a paper (dichiaratione) at her house with their servants as witnesses.68 Dated February 8, 1602, the document declared that the Scalco’s heirs should not disturb Despina’s permanent enjoyment of all his (many) gifts (621v–622r). With a general canniness but no local expertise, Despina networked further among men. Though we do not know how she met Vincenzo, a printer friend of the Scalco, she asked him to show the signed document to someone who could judge its legal force. When the printer did so, he returned with the disappointing answer that it was not solid (buono) (623v).69 As the migrant’s story moved toward its climax with the trial in 1603, the Scalco continued to orchestrate Despina’s social contacts with a scrupulous concern for her—and his own—good name. Even after f ive years, the steward continued to urge proper and pious conduct. He ensured that Despina’s now eight-year-old son attended catechism lessons as well as school (641v; 653v). Furthermore, whether pro forma or because of evidence to the contrary, according to the servant Piera, the patron sometimes chided Despina to act the respectable “donna da bene,” taking care not to loiter near the windows nor to move casually about the city (633r, 671v). While the windows upstairs on the main floor were a customary frame for communication with the street, they also represented the fragile shield of a woman’s honor. While the Scalco’s strictures enacted the moral rectitude suitable to a mature patriarch in papal employ, the behavior of his protégés also bore on his own public repute. Despina’s temperament might have wanted a looser rein, but she presented herself at the trial as discreet. She 68 Nussdorfer, Brokers, 11–12, 148. 69 The law on ownership and possession of personal belongings was murky, and the practices for their transfer were many and contested. See Ago, Economia barocca, 99–102, 131–33, and Ago, Gusto for Things, 102–08.

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denied knowing her neighbors, several of them female householders like herself, and received few visitors (643r–643v). According to Piera, besides aunt Perfetta who came rarely, there was only Madalena who collected the dirty laundry for washing (636v). The conspicuous exception was the Scalco himself, who visited regularly, unless gout prevented him (647v). The script for these elaborately decorous meetings in 1603 resembled that of earlier years, although he now lingered longer—an hour, said Piera, or even two (633r–633v; 663r). When the steward arrived, Despina’s house was always locked: the manservant would knock on the street door, and either the serving woman or the mistress herself would come to the upstairs window and, as was normal, pull a cord to release the latch below (652v). Leaving his coach outside in the street, the Scalco ascended to the sala, where he sat on a chair facing the window; Despina sat opposite, sometimes stitching. A manservant waited, usually in the room or on the stairs, and Despina’s serving woman was always present, doing handwork in a chair or standing at the window, though occasionally she went down to the kitchen (633v; 662v; 668r). From the point of view of the trial, all these details from the servants aimed to confirm that Despina and the steward were never alone together. Despina also insisted, and the servants’ testimony confirmed, that she seldom left her house and only for pious purposes. Although she did not attend daily mass, on holidays, always chaperoned by her female servant, Despina did confess and take communion at churches in Campo Marzio (636v; 642r). She had done so for Pentecost (Pasqua rosata) just past (637v). Confirming these claims, Piera said that she, too, left the house only to accompany her mistress to church or to do a biweekly errand of buying salad greens and beans to feed the pigeons in the attic (636r). On a few religious outings, Despina traveled further in the Scalco’s coach and occasionally in company with ladies of his circle. More than a year ago, she had made two or three visits to the church of San Martino ai Monti in order to fulfil a vow to join the expanding Confraternity of Santa Maria del Carmine (642v; 646r).70 More recently, accompanied by two gentlewomen, Signora Tiberia Bellomini and her sister, Signora Claudia, the wife of Signore Giovanni Franchini, Despina had made the Roman pilgrim circuit to visit the Seven Churches (642v).71 And, she told the court, just last week for Pentecost she 70 The church (now SS. Silvestro e Martino) was the seat of this confraternity in 1600. See http://www.confraternite.it/confraternita/58. 71 Wisch, “Sette Chiese,” 271–77. Both women had kin ties to men of the city’s governing class. Tiberia, who, called commare, appears in another connection with the Scalco and Despina (623r),

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had gone with the Scalco’s daughter to visit the major churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and the Gesù (636v; 642v; 646r). Such was the earnest but ambiguous familiarity between the Scalco and Despina in the spring of 1603, before the trial upended their lives. The wealthy, gouty grandfather had long been charmed by, even infatuated with, the young Greek woman, whom he held “in the place of a daughter” (in luogo di figliola) (665v). Nevertheless, those who had watched the pair saw potential for trouble. During judicial interrogation, one manservant opined equivocally, “about the interaction of a man with a beautiful woman, one may presume good and bad” (dalla conversatione d’un huomo con una donna bella si puo presumere bene et male) (665v). And, as Perfetta testified a bit caustically, “because the Scalco takes pleasure from looking at Despina, he spends willingly on her, for, as it is said, goods are men’s second blood” (il Scalco pigli delettatione di vedere detta Despina, se non che lui spende volentiere per detta Despina, che si dice che la robba é il secondo sangue dell’ huomo) (631v–632r). Despina, in turn, was the grateful client, who lived quietly, raised her son, and welcomed her patron on his regular visits. For more than four years, both before and after her husband’s departure, the relationship between Despina and the Scalco seems never to have raised public alarm. Despina acknowledged her financial dependence and cultivated the lifestyle of discreet respectability that her patron laid out. But she said little of the Scalco’s orchestration of almost all her social connections. In the spring of 1603, the steward introduced a new artisan family into that well-intentioned but confining web. Evidently at his suggestion, Despina stood as godmother to the daughter of Marta and master Nuntio Monsalvi, a locksmith who lived next door in Via della Torretta.72 The two women thus became comare to one another, a bond of spiritual kinship and more general friendly support (619v; 634r; 651r–651v).73 Marta came to help in was likely the kinswoman of Giovanni Battista Bellomini, who served several times in the 1590s as caporione for Sant’ Eustachio. Claudia’s husband, Giovanni Franchini Taviani, served in 1594 as conservatore, a member the city’s rotating executive committee. For both, see De Dominicis, Membri del Senato, 46 (Franchini), 195–96 (Bellomini). http://www.fondazionemarcobesso.it/ digilibro/bookreader.php?b=membri_del_senato_della_roma_pontificia. 72 The baptismal registers for San Lorenzo in Lucina, the principal font in Campo Marzio, have no record of this event, but it may have occurred elsewhere. Earlier that year, in January, at San Lorenzo in Lucina, Despina Basaraba of Constantinople did stand with Messer Matteo Pellegrino as godparents for the son of “Lucrezia romana,” probably a prostitute, and an unknown father. Archivio Storico Diocesano di Roma (henceforth ASDR), S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Battesimi VII, f. 305r. For illegitimate babies, two respectable godparents were not routine, but did happen. 73 The Scalco also cast himself as Marta’s compare (spiritual kinsman) (651r).

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the house when Despina was arrested, leaving her son ill with measles and her servant Piera also sick in bed (633r; 634v–635r; 637v). Furthermore, at Easter in March, the Scalco invited Marta’s son, Bartolomeo, a young man with no special merits, to the Vatican palace and offered him a job in his personal service (651r). Bartolomeo then became a footman, following behind the Scalco’s coach, but also regularly attending him as he spent time at Despina’s house. In setting up these new connections, the Scalco continued his steady support of Despina, but he also reinforced her isolation by surrounding her with people tightly beholden to himself. Then, suddenly, with no trigger named, this elaborately decorous, multiyear alliance of a middle-aged patron and an attractive young mother on her own ended. On Saturday, May 24, 1603, the police abruptly scooped up Despina and hustled her off to the intimidating Tor di Nona jail, not far from her house (618r, 637v). Later that day, when the manservant Bartolomeo called at Despina’s house, Piera told him to look for her mistress in jail (637v). Likely, it was he who took the news back to the Scalco. Through the neighborhood, word of mouth carried the tale of this startling intrusion. Perfetta, seemingly not home when it happened, learned of the events on the local grapevine, when, Agnese my neighbor came and gave me the news that Despina had gone to jail because of the Signore Scalco, and it was at the order of his Holiness [the Pope]. And I imagined some problem, that is, that people thought it a shameful thing that she was the darling of the Signore Scalco (venne Agnese mia vecina et mi diede nuova, che Despina era andata pregione per causa del Signore Scalco, et che era per commandamento di Sua Santità, et io mi sono imaginata qualche male, cioè che la gente pensi qualche mal che lei sia l’inamorata del Signore Scalco) (631r–631v).

Here we glimpse a destructive side of networking, as Perfetta, herself an arranger of sexual trysts, draped her account of her niece’s arrest in her accumulated personal resentments. In testimony, Perfetta ascribed her own suspicions to generic “people.” Her term “l’inamorata” suggested Despina’s complicity in a romantic liaison with the steward. Only after describing the prestigious Scalco as in thrall to the “bella giovane,” a phrase she repeated twice, did Perfetta equivocally assert that she had seen no improper conduct. The investigating magistrates, asking next about Despina’s legal injunction against her aunt, picked up on Perfetta’s uneasy animus. In law, as the judges sought proof of a crime, such an enmity undermined the witness’s words (631v–632r).

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Several days later, on Tuesday afternoon, the Scalco visited Despina’s house to see her ailing son and to consult with the servant Piera, also sick in bed (633r; 637r). While there, the steward sent for Perfetta, across the street, and urged her to care for the boy (631r). He also protested Despina’s innocence and promised that God and he, the Scalco, would help her (631r). On Wednesday, he ordered that food be sent—”four loaves, cherries (ma­ rasche), eggs, fish (cefali), a small flask of wine, and soup”—some was fare for the ill, but the rest was for Despina in jail (667r). To reduce discomfort, less indigent prisoners routinely got supplies from family or associates.74 Despina herself arranged the delivery of a mattress, blanket, sheets, napkins, a fork, a spoon, and a clean undergarment (camiscia) (626r). She also received the food, which she presumed came from the Scalco, although, in an effort of cover-up, Piera told the court of a different assortment arranged by the comare Marta (626r). In the meantime, at the Vatican palace, though two staff were heard whispering, an official silence reigned (650r). Only on Wednesday, reported the Scalco’s servants, did they speak together of the crisis and their master’s uncharacteristic ill humor (malinconico et di mala voglia) (664r). On Thursday evening, the police breached the papal palace and carried three servants—the coachman, the chamber servant (cameriere), and the footman Bartolomeo, Marta’s son—off to jail to testify (643r; 649r). After six days and several lengthy interrogations of Despina and one of Perfetta, the testimonies that we read closely here did not produce the full evidence that the court sought to prove adultery. So, the magistrates next zeroed in, as they often did in domestic matters, on the servants. These dependents knew what went on in a household and, though they might want to support their masters and mistresses out of loyalty or at least to protect their jobs, they were vulnerable to pressure. Ultimately, the question turned not on motives but on actions. Specifically, if the Scalco and Despina had spent time in a room alone together, it created a legal presumption of illicit sexual conduct.75 Wives who had extramarital relations were routinely presumed complicit. In the final interrogations, the judges focused on Bartolomeo, the recent recruit to the Scalco’s employ, and the widowed servant Piera. Seeking to catch the not very experienced young man in a lie, the court led him through a meticulous interrogation concerning expectations about male and female behavior, about the positioning of windows, and people’s movements inside the house. Eventually, Bartolomeo 74 Paglia, La Pietà dei Carcerati, 19–20 and n. 57, 190–92. 75 Cohen, “Moving Words,” 79 and n. 26.

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confessed that, during the two months of his service and eight or ten visits to the house, the Scalco and Despina had sometimes disappeared into the small loggia or one of the bedrooms (667v–668r). Piera, who was older, tried patiently to defend her mistress and deflect scandal (639v; 673r). Ultimately, however, in a judicial confrontation with Bartolomeo, Piera admitted that once, while their master and mistress were alone together, she had said jokingly of the Scalco, “that drooling (bavoso) old guy, that old rascal (cochino)” (668v–669r). Embarrassed, Piera quickly tried to downplay the words as rustic “peasant” talk (673v). Nevertheless, though the words did not prove adultery, they sufficed for the best that the court could get, a legal presumption of sexual indiscretion on which to base a decision. The servant’s joking words do not satisfy our curiosity about what happened behind closed doors. Given the whole story, my guess is that for a long time the aging Scalco’s infatuation, probably carefully managed by Despina, had remained proper. I see the man as neither an ascetic nor a sexual predator. I do not doubt his sense of honor, reinforced by his position, nor his sincerity in bolstering the good reputation of his protégé, for her sake and his own. But that last spring, his impulses got the better of him and word of his less scrupulous behavior must have reached and alarmed his colleagues. Despina’s dependency gave her little choice but to play along and then to pay the price. To serve the pope’s goal of a quick, discreet end to the relationship, the trial wound up promptly. On June 5, less than two weeks after Despina’s arrest, on instructions from the Governor of Rome, Ferrante Taverna, the police transferred her to the Casa Pia “as a jail” (pro carcere) (674r). The casa pia was a Catholic reformation, custodial institution that housed, protected, isolated, and disciplined women, including wives, whose lives had gone awry.76 Under threat of corporal punishment or fines, Despina had to stay at the pleasure of the Governor and not to communicate in any way, even in writing, with anyone outside (675r).77 This sharp severing of the Scalco’s bond with Despina averted a scandal that the papal household feared might touch even his princely employer. Despina’s sequestration was, however, finite. In April 1604, eleven months after the trial, the medical officers of the prisons instructed that Despina, suffering from fever, be released from the Casa Pia to the oversight of three 76 Founded in 1563, the Casa Pia occupied a monastic building beside the church of Santa Chiara near the Pantheon; see Askew, Caravaggio’s Death, 87–92. 77 The government’s agent for the Casa Pia himself risked whipping or the galleys, if Despina was released without authorization (675r).

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well-born Roman women.78 Acknowledging her respectability, this accommodation was a step towards her public rehabilitation. Evidently, the Scalco’s distraction no longer seemed a threat. Though we know nothing of her family or livelihood, two years later in March 1606, Despina’s liberty and reputation had been sufficiently restored that she served as godmother to the son of a married couple living in the parish of Santa Lucia della Tinta, again in Despina’s earlier terrain of Campo Marzio.79

Epilogue Fifty years later, Despina Basaraba, probably in her seventies, was still in Rome, living on unknown means. Her recently recovered testament documents her resilience and yields clues about her networks later in life.80 On January 14, 1654, on her sickbed at her residence near the monastery of Santa Anna, in the central Regola district, Despina composed her will.81 Living alone, she had evidently not married again and gave no sign of her son’s survival, nor of when he had left her life. Instead, to identify herself, Despina, once again, named her homeplace as Constantinople and referred to the same two men as at the trial fifty years before. She described herself as the daughter of the deceased Nicholas, prince of Wallachia, and the spouse—now widow—of the Frenchman Giovanni Paris, though here called a physician, rather than a surgeon, as Perfetta had earlier labeled him. Hints of sustained knowledge of Giovanni after he left Rome in 1601 also figured in a bequest by Despina that depended for its fulfilment on accessing money in Marseille, the French city to which her husband had returned. Decades later, Despina apparently felt that she had a claim, if not a confident one, on the estate of her now dead spouse. We do not know the size of Despina’s estate, but, as earlier in her life, she used legal instruments carefully to manage her assets, notably directing them to women in several districts of the city. In standard testamentary 78 Bertolotti, “Prigioni di Roma,” 652–53. I thank Cristelle Baskins for this reference. The Roman noblewomen given charge of Despina belonged to the Maffei, Margani, and Fantuzzi families. 79 ASDR, San Lorenzo in Lucina, Battesimi VIII (1603–1613), f. 67r. There are no details on the social status of participants. Thanks to Tom Cohen for spotting this entry. 80 ASR, 30 Notai Capitolini, Ufficio 9, Testamenti 1652–5816, b. 1043, ff. 219r–219v, 228r. Note that this will is interleaved with others, so that the folios are not consecutive. Bertolotti, “Prigioni di Roma,” 652–63, refers to the will, but dates it erroneously to 1659 and reports only on the contents of f. 228r. 81 A marginal notation dated April 1654 indicates a registration of the will.

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language, she requested burial at the confraternal church of the Company of Prayer and Death in Via Giulia, not far from where she dictated the will. As her general usufructuary heir, she named Sister Maria Pulcheria Tiberia, a nun at the noble convent of San Lorenzo in Panisperna across town.82 That is, Sister Maria Pulcheria would for her lifetime receive the proceeds of Despina’s estate. With those, she was to arrange for masses to be said at three ancient religious sites in different parts of the city: at San Lorenzo Outside the Walls; at Santa Praesede in the chapel of the column where Jesus Christ was whipped; and at Santa Maria Liberatrice in the Roman forum. 83 Probably for reasons of practical continuity, Despina named Gregorio Filomati and his descendants as her universal heirs, who assumed financial oversight of the estate and would recover any benefits in perpetuity after the nun’s death.84 With Despina’s care for detail, her testament also contained several more specific provisions. She named two men who owed her twelve and nine scudi respectively for rent; but for what and whether she owned or sublet the property is unknown. The other stipulations were bequests to women. For reasons “recorded elsewhere,” Despina directed the sum of eight scudi in coin to Cecilia Brandini, herself living in Via Giulia. To a woman called only Chiara, for her continuing service tending the testatrix in her illness went a straw mattress, a pillow, and a pair of large cloth sheets. This customary bequest to a late-life caretaker conveyed goods of modest value and concluded with an explicit denial of any other claims on the estate. Rather than betokening heartfelt gratitude to another woman, Despina paid what was due, but took pains to prevent the servant, or others acting in her name, from abusing the opportunity. This precision echoes some of Despina’s earlier Roman transactions. Lastly, a substantial, but precarious bequest went to a young woman, probably a goddaughter, who also bore the name, Despina. The daughter of Francesco Milanese, host of the tavern opposite Santa Maria di Loreto, near piazza Venezia, she received 200 scudi as a lump sum toward a dowry at the time of her marriage or entry into a convent. According to the will, realizing this bequest depended on a, quite unlikely, collection of the monies from Marseille, where Giovanni Paris had died. 82 The nun’s name is not traceable. 83 This medieval and baroque church, built over the Byzantine church of Santa Maria Antiqua, was torn down c. 1900 to uncover the old building. 84 Gregorio, son of Clemente from Falerone, shared the surname, Filomati, with Michele, a Greek who became a new citizen of Rome in 1584.

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Conclusion To conclude, circa 1600, Despina Basaraba, a young Greek wife and mother, left familiar haunts in Constantinople and migrated to the pope’s socially and culturally distant capital in Rome. There, as a foreigner, using primarily face-to-face meetings but supplemented sometimes by written missives, she, with her family, set about building networks and a new life. Despina negotiated substantial bonds with men, who supported her but later let her down. Her French renegade husband, having reembraced Catholicism, later abandoned her and their son and returned to his home country. The grandfatherly, infatuated Scalco provided her with material security, protection, moral guidance, and too much affection. Women, too, helped Despina thread a path through the intricacies of Roman life—her aunt Perfetta who modeled Roman networking but also resentments, a revolving door of women servants, and a mix of gentlewomen and artisans’ wives. But all along, Despina had to rely on herself to navigate a shifting cluster of social relationships, many of them not of her choosing. If we can glimpse her networking strategies, her feelings mostly elude us. Between her husband’s departure and the trial, Despina likely felt that she needed to keep the Scalco sweet. For all her resilience, she must have felt isolated and without other recourse. But maybe she liked the old fellow, who had been very generous towards her. Somewhere in this tangle of testimony was her lived experience. We can look for ways that it might make sense, but we cannot be certain. In the long run, deploying her social and networking skills, Despina survived and made a life for herself in a city of pilgrims, migrants, f ixers, clergy, gentlefolk, patrons, and other strangers.

Works Cited Primary sources Archival

Archivio di Stato di Roma (ASR) Tribunale criminale del Governatore, Processi secolo xvii. Trenta Notai Capitolini, Ufficio 9, Testamenti 1652–1658 Archivio Storico Diocesano di Roma (ASDR) (formerly Archivio Storico del Vicariato di Roma), San Lorenzo in Lucina, Battesimi VII, VIII

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Evitascandalo, Cesare. Libro dello scalco di Cesare Evitascandalo quale insegna quest’honorato servitio… Roma: Carlo Vullieti, 1609. Accessed through Google books. Fanucci, Camillo. Trattato di Tutte l’Opera Pie del alma città di Roma. Rome: Lepido Facii and Stefano Paolini, 1601. Accessed through Google books.

Secondary sources Ago, Renata. Economia barocca. Mercato e istitutizioni nella Roma del Seicento. Rome: Donzelli, 1998. Ago, Renata. Gusto for Things: A History of Objects in Seventeenth-Century Rome. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Allerston, Patricia. “‘Contrary to Truth and also to the Semblance of Reality’? Entering a Venetian Lying-In Chamber (1605).” Renaissance Studies 20, no. 5 (2006): 629–39. Askew, Pamela. Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Baernstein, P. Renée. “‘In Her Own Hand’: Costanza Colonna and the Art of the Letter in Sixteenth-Century Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 66, no. 1 (2013): 130–68. Bertolotti, Antonino. “Le prigioni di Roma nei secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII, Parte 2.” Rivista di Discipline Carcerarie 20 (1890): 645–66. Accessed through Google Books. Burke, Ersie C. The Greeks of Venice, 1498–1600: Immigration, Settlement, and Assimilation. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016. Byatt, Lucinda M.C. “The Concept of Hospitality in a Cardinal’s Household in Renaissance Rome.” Renaissance Studies 2, no. 2 (1988): 312–20. Canepari, Eleonora. “Women on Their Way: Employment Opportunities in Cosmopolitan Rome.” In Female Agency in the Urban Economy: Gender in European Towns, 1640–1830, edited by Deborah Simonton and Anne Montenach, 206–23. New York: Routledge, 2013. Canepari, Eleonora. “Temporary Housing and Unsettled Population: Drivers of Urban Change in Early Modern Marseille and Rome.” Journal of Early Modern History 25 (2021): 118–40. Clines, Robert. “Review of Cesare Santus, Trasgressioni Necessari: Communicatio in Sacris, Coesistenze e Conflitti (Rome, 2019).” Journal of Early Modern History 24 (2020): 290–92. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Miscarriages of Apothecary Justice: Un-separate Spaces for Work and Family in Early Modern Rome.” Renaissance Studies 21, no. 4 (2007): 480–504.

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Cohen, Elizabeth S. “To Pray, To Work, To Hear, To Speak: Women in Roman Streets c. 1600.” Journal of Early Modern History 12, no. 3-4 (2008): 289–311. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Women on the Margins.” In Ashgate Research Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, edited by Allyson Poska, Jane Couchman, and Katherine McIver, 317–339. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2013. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Moving Words: Everyday Oralities and Social Dynamics in Roman Trials circa 1600.” In Voices and Texts in Early Modern Italian Society, edited by Stefano Dall’Aglio, Brian Richardson, and Massimo Rospocher, 69–83. London: Routledge, 2017. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Straying and Led Astray: Roman Maids Become Young Women circa 1600.” In The Youth of Early Modern Women, edited by Elizabeth Cohen and Margaret Reeves, 277–96. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Though Popes Said Don’t, Some People Did: Adulteresses in Catholic Reformation Rome.” In Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Renaissance Italy, edited by J. Murray and N. Terpstra, 75–94. London: Routledge, 2019. Dursteler, Eric. “Identity and Coexistence in the Eastern Mediterranean, ca. 1600.” New Perspectives on Turkey 18 (1998): 113–30. Dursteler, Eric. Renegade Women: Gender, Identity, and Boundaries in the Early Modern Mediterranean. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2011. Dursteler, Eric. “Fearing the ‘Turk’ and Feeling the Spirit: Emotion and Conversion in the Early Modern Mediterranean.” Journal of Religious History 39, no. 4 (2015): 494–505. Dursteler, Eric. “Sex and Transcultural Connections in Early Modern Istanbul.” Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 84, no. 2 (2018): 498–511. Esposito, Anna. “’Ad dotandum puellas, virgines, pauperes et honestas’: Social Needs and Confraternal Charity in Rome in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” Renaissance and Reformation 18, no. 2 (1994), 5–16. Fosi, Irene. Papal Justice: Subjects and Courts in the Papal State, 1500-1750. Washington, D.C., Catholic University Press, 2011. Hohti, Paola. “Dress, Dissemination, and Innovation: Artisan Fashions in Sixteenthand Early Seventeenth-Century Italy.” In Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textiles, and Innovation in Europe, 1500–1800, edited by E. Welch, 143–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Hunt, John. “Carriages, Violence and Masculinity in Early Modern Rome.” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 17, no. 1 (2014), 175–96. Hurtubise, Pierre. La Cour Pontificale aux XVIe Siècle d’Alexandre VI à Clément VIII. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2017. Keyvanian, Carla. “Papal Urban Planning and Renewal: Real and Ideal, c. 1471–1667.” In A Companian to Early Modern Rome, 1492–1692, edited by P. M. Jones, B. Wisch, and S. Ditchfield, 305–23. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

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Malieckal, Bindu. “Slavery, Sex, and the Seraglio: ‘“Turkish’ Women and Early Modern Texts.” In The Mysterious and the Foreign in Early Modern England, edited by H. Ostovich, M. Silcox, and G. Roebuck, 58–73. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2008. Moroni, Gaetano. Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica da San Pietro sino ai nostri giorni, vol. 21. Venice, 1843. Accessed through Google Books. Nussdorfer, Laurie. Brokers of the Public Trust: Notaries in Early Modern Rome. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Nussdorfer, Laurie. “Masculine Hierarchies in Roman Ecclesiastical Households.” European Review of History 22, no. 4 (2015): 620–42. Ocakaçan, Levent Kaya. “Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha (c. 1545–1606).” Mediterranea. Ricerche storiche 12, no. 34 (2015): 325–40. Oldrati, Valentina. “Margarita alias Arabia. Una Storia di Schiavitù e Apostasia.” In Tutte Mediterranee. Storie di Donne e di Culture, edited by M. Busacchi and E. Locci, 35–51. Nove Ligure: Edizioni Epoké, 2013. Paglia, Vincenzo. La Pietà dei Carcerati. Confraternite e Società a Roma nei Secoli XVI–XVIII. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1980. Paun, Radu. “Conquered by the (S)word: Governing the Tributary Provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia (16th–17th Centuries).” In The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Culture: Papers from the International Conference at the National Museum in Krakow, June 2015, edited by R. Born and M. Dziewulski, 19–40. Krakow, 2015. Rosenthal, Margaret, and Ann Rosalind Jones, The Clothing of the Renaissance World: Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti antichi e moderni. London: Thames and Hudson, 2008. Rothman, E. Natalie. “Conversion and Convergence in the Venetian Ottoman Borderlands.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 41, no. 3 (2011): 602–33. Rothman, E. Natalie, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects Between Venice and Istanbul. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012. Rothman, E. Natalie, “Contested Subjecthood: Runaway Slaves in Early Modern Venice.” Quaderni storici 140 (2012): 425–41. Sant-Cassia, Paul. “Religion, Politics and Ethnicity in Cyprus during the Turkocratia (1571–1878).” European Journal of Sociology 27 (1986): 3–28. Santus, Cesare. “Tra la chiesa di Sant’Atanasio e il Sant’Uffizio: Note sulla presenza greca a Roma in età moderna.” In Chiese e nationes a Roma: dalla Scandinavia ai Balcani Secoli XV-XVIII, edited by A. Molnar, G. Pizzorusso, and M. Sanfilippo, 193–223. Rome: Viella, 2017. Santus, Cesare. “Wandering Lives: Eastern Christian Pilgrims, Alms-Collectors and ‘Refugees’ in Early Modern Rome.” In A Companion to Religious Minorities in Early Modern Rome, edited by Matthew Coneys-Wainwright and Emily Michelson, 237–71. Leiden: Brill, 2021.

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Siebenhuner, Kim. “Conversion, Moblility, and the Roman Inquisition in Italy around 1600.” Past and Present 200 (2008): 5–35. Sonnino, Eugenio. “Strutture familiari a Roma alla metà del Seicento.” In Popolazione e società a Roma dal medioevo all’ età contemporanea, edited by E. Sonnino, 247–59. Rome: Il Calamo, 1998. Spear, Richard E. “Rome: Setting the Stage.” In Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-Century Italian Painters, edited by R. Spear and P. Sohm, 33–113. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Storey, Tessa. Carnal Commerce in Counter-Reformation Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Sturdza, Mihail-Dimitri. Dictionnaire historique et genealogique des Grandes Familles de Grèce, d’Albanie, et de Constantinople. Paris: M. Sturzda, 1983. Twomey, Leslie, and Thomas Cohen, eds. Spoken Word and Social Practice: Orality in Europe (1400–1700). Leiden: Brill, 2015. Wisch, Barbara. “The Matrix: Le Sette Chiese di Roma of 1575 and the Image of Pilgrimage.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 56/57 (2011/2012): 271–303. Zach, Cornelius. “Heiratspolitik der Rumänischen Fürsten: Eine Übersicht.” UngarnJahrbuch 14 (1986): 1–9.

About the author Elizabeth S. Cohen is Professor emerita of History at York University in Toronto. Based on research in the criminal court records of early modern Rome, her articles explore themes of women, work, family, youth, artists, prostitution, crime, street rituals, self-representation, and oralities. With Thomas V. Cohen, she has co-authored Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome Trials Before the Papal Magistrates (University of Toronto Press, 1993) and Daily Life in Renaissance Italy, 2nd edition (ABC-Clio, 2019). With Margaret Reeves, she has co-edited The Youth of Early Modern Women (Amsterdam University Press, 2018).

Part II Local Networks in Europe

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Domestic Violence and Networks of Female Supportin SeventeenthCentury England Marlee J. Couling

Abstract: Using judicial records, particularly depositions by non-elite women, this article examines the vital role of female kin and neighbors in defending and supporting abused and neglected wives in early modern England. These networks depended on popular understandings and uses of the law as well as plebeian women’s authority to regulate their communities, especially in matters relating to the domestic sphere, morality, and other women. Women worked to support their allies both through verbal means such as gossip, shaming, and depositions, and material ones, including physical intervention and the provision of food and temporary or longer-term shelter. This essay further demonstrates that emotions, as well as self-interest, motivated female kin and neighbors in their efforts to contain spousal violence. Keywords: England, alliances, female networks, kinship, neighbors, violence against women

In 1663, Cecily 1 Bradley sued for divorce at the Court of Arches in London, citing spousal cruelty. Her efforts lasted thirteen years and involved fortyfive deponents, twenty-four of which were women. They included Cecily’s sister and a cousin, five neighbors, four servants, a wet nurse, a nurse, a constable’s wife, and ten other women with varying connections to the litigating spouses. Cecily Bradley’s supporters testified that, while Cecily was 1 I have followed the Court of Arches Catalogue in spelling “Cecily,” save when quoting documents where ‘Cicely’ is used.

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch05

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a woman of good repute and an obedient wife, her husband, John Bradley, was a barbarous, inhumane, and choleric man who cruelly misused her. They claimed that he beat his wife, refused to keep her properly, called her base names, and committed adultery with several servants, whom he sent away pregnant. The women also described their various efforts to support Cecily over the preceding years. They visited her, provided shelter, and intervened to halt or prevent John’s attacks. Several of them nearly paid the ultimate price for siding with Cecily when John attempted to frame his wife and several of her female allies for robbery—a capital offense that could have ended in their deaths.2 The case of Cecily Bradley demonstrates the vital and complicated roles which non-elite women played in confronting spousal violence in seventeenth-century England. Informal networks formed and nurtured by ordinary women among themselves and sometimes with their superiors were a crucial social resource for engaging with the difficulties of being female in this period. These networks depended on popular understandings and uses of the law as well as plebeian women’s authority to regulate their communities, especially in matters relating to the domestic sphere, morality, and other women. Women worked to support abused and neglected wives through verbal means such as gossip, shaming, and legal depositions, and material ones, including physical intervention and the provision of food and shelter. This essay focuses on the roles of female kin and neighbors, who illustrate the variety of same-sex networks which ordinary women cultivated and called upon in times of need.3 While lifelong bonds with kin made them natural sources of aid, neighbors were especially important for the development of a common fame (reputation for ill conduct) against the husband, which could be used as evidence in the courts. Kinswomen and female neighbors were motivated by empathy, compassion, pity, and self-interest in their efforts to defend abused wives, and their statements employed gendered language which justified their interference on these terms. Moreover, wives actively engaged these networks as part of a series of stages meant to either curtail violence in the hopes of reconciliation or lay the groundwork for eventual litigation. 2 Lambeth Palace Library (hereafter LPL), Court of Arches (hereafter CA), Case 1127, 1664, Bradley v Bradley, Eee 1 ff. 46, 56-59, 60–64, 76–81, 83–88, 105–07; LPL, CA, Case 1128, 1676, Bradley v Bradley, Ee 1 ff. 612–17 and Eee 5, ff. 556–58, 568–70, 573–74, 576–77, 595–99, 602–03, 604–20, 662–88. 3 Domestic servants were also prominent among deponents in seventeenth-century divorce suits. Living in-house with litigant parties, they were a natural source of information on domestic matters. See Couling, “‘She Would Long Since Have Been Starved’: Networks of Support between Mistresses and Female Servants in Seventeenth-Century England.”

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Existing studies on domestic violence in early modern England have often focused on conduct literature and debates over the husband’s right to “correct” his wife. Some have examined violence and separation as part of larger discussions of early modern marriage, patriarchy, gender roles, and law. The role of female allies in domestic disputes has received less attention. 4 Using depositions given by non-elite women at church courts in Chester and London, this essay explores women’s strategies and gendered solidarities. The breakdown of marriages, and divorce suits in particular, generated significant documentation, as women and men sought to establish that their partner had failed in their obligations. For most female-led suits, this involved allegations of spousal neglect and abuse. Through their actions and words, ordinary women attempted to hold men accountable for their behaviors, and their methods were just as revealing of contemporary attitudes regarding violence as male authors and officials. Terms are, as always, slippery, especially when attempting to reconstruct bonds using formulaic and mediated legal records. In this essay, the term “networks” encompasses the wide variety of relationships and patterns of sociability that women cultivated and utilized to survive and sometimes to thrive. Some connections, like those between mothers and daughters, grew out of recognized social bonds. Others, as between neighbors, developed over time, through contact and good credit. Often, networks served multiple functions, concurrently or at different moments. They could operate for the greater good, including community order and familial harmony, as much as individual interests. They could be instrumental as well as emotional. Usually, they had strategic elements and carried expectations of reciprocity. “Non-elite” similarly refers to a broad spectrum of economic and situational circumstances. As separation suits tended to be expensive, they usually involved the better-off.5 Even women who should have been living at a middling level or above, however, often argued that they could not support themselves due to their husbands’ negligence. Witnesses came from a broad spectrum of society, though rarely the very poor or rich. Therefore, “non-elite” in this study refers to individuals who described themselves as financially insecure and to those who engaged in paid labor. 4 See, e.g., Bailey, Unquiet Lives: Marriage and Marriage Breakdown in England, 1660–1800; Capp, “Distaff Power: Plebeian Female Alliances in Early Modern England;” Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England; and Foyster, Marital Violence: An English Family History, 1660–1857. 5 Foyster, Marital Violence, 25.

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Divorce in early modern England consisted of the separation of bed and board (a thoro et mensa) through an ecclesiastical court. It was one of the only areas in which wives could sue in their own name, and such cases were rare and an option of last resort for most women.6 Between 1660 and the end of 1699, the Court of Arches, the court of appeal for the Archbishop of Canterbury, saw only 192 such cases. Of those, 110 were for cruelty or cruelty and adultery.7 In the same period, the much smaller church court of the Diocese of Chester saw a mere ten suits for separation. Women knew that their petitions for divorce were highly unlikely to succeed. Since authorities much preferred to enforce reconciliation rather than grant separation, cases that made it to the courts depended on familial support and financial resources.8 Of the 192 Court of Arches cases, only forty-five reached sentencing; twenty-six of these cited cruelty as a main cause. Even when cases ended favorably for the wife, husbands often resisted the terms and alimony was rarely enough for comfort.9 Like abandoned wives, separated women could easily find themselves facing extreme poverty. Separation also meant losing custody of any children, and remarriage was usually forbidden.10 A wife had to weigh all these factors against the urgency of escaping her husband. For some, their willingness to face these significant repercussions testified to the severe neglect and violence they had endured. There were no clear legal grounds on which women could seek separation in this period. Early modern culture favored maintaining relationships, often at some considerable cost to individuals, usually women, in terms of financial, emotional, and physical security.11 Yet there were also expectations 6 Alfar, Sherwood, eds., Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne, 4. Recognizances were the most common form of dealing with a violent husband. They had the advantages of being cheap, immediate, and temporary. Foyster, Marital Violence, 22–25; Hurl-Eamon, “Domestic Violence Prosecuted: Women Binding Over their Husbands for Assault at Westminster Quarter Sessions, 1685–1720.” However, recognizances very rarely included witness statements or recorded complaints, so they are of limited values for reconstructing patterns of aid. An exception was Parliamentary divorce, but this was extremely rare and limited to wealthy and influential men. Mendelson and Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, 141. 7 To my best calculation. Though the CA records are a rich source, surviving documentation is still fragmentary and hard to count. Cases were often dropped, resumed, or reignited under different terms. Foyster, Manhood in Early Modern England, 78, 82, calculates that only twenty-five of the 192 cases had male plaintiffs and that women brought twenty-one of the fifty cases based on adultery or a combination of adultery and cruelty. 8 Hunt, “Wife Beating, Domesticity, and Women’s Independence in Eighteenth-Century London,” 13; Bailey, Unquiet Lives, 38–44, 51. 9 Bailey, Unquiet Lives, 181. 10 Capp, When Gossips Meet, 114. 11 See Stone, Road to Divorce: England, 1530–1987, 2–5; Foyster, “Parenting was for Life,” 324.

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of what a good marriage entailed. Ecclesiastical and secular authorities, moralists, and ordinary people held that spouses had mutual obligations. Spouses were expected to live quietly together and to maintain an orderly household. Shouting, infidelity, negligence, and violence, by either spouse, invited disapproval and censure.12 Still, a couple had to be exceptionally disruptive to generate the types of evidence and support required for a successful divorce suit. Unfortunately, this level of corroboration frequently required years of suffering and repeated attempts at reconciliation before it came before the church courts.13 Women had a much harder time than men in redressing domestic disharmony than did men. Though physical “cruelty” between spouses was recognized as actionable, it was open to interpretation. While female adultery was automatic grounds for separation, male infidelity was not, though it was often mentioned as one of a variety of offenses indicative of a man’s misconduct.14 Attitudes regarding husbandly violence were similarly ambivalent. Susan Dwyer Amussen classifies early modern spousal violence as “quasi-legitimate.” That is, most contemporaries were willing to accept a man’s right to physically “correct” a wayward wife, so long as that “correction” was moderate and part of an otherwise orderly and quiet household.15 However, spousal violence was a topic of considerable debate over the seventeenth century.16 Though a man’s right of correction was generally upheld in principle, it was increasingly delegitimized. Men were expected to use their greater reason, rather than strength, to correct and control their wives. During the period, and into the eighteenth century, men’s violence against women came to be equated with male irrationality and dishonor.17 In lieu of clear legal standards for separation, wives and their supporters relied upon extensive details in presenting their cases. Women, including 12 Bailey, Unquiet Lives, 21; Amussen, “‘Being stirred to much unquietness’,” 77. 13 Rachel Norfolk, for example, resumed cohabitation with her husband after he swore “that his tongue might rot out if ever he abused her again.” Two years later Norfolk began separation proceedings. Foyster, Marital Violence, 84. 14 Gowing has calculated that even though more women sued for separation than men, the latter were successful based on claims of adultery 42 percent of the time, while women’s claims of cruelty were successful in a mere 26 percent. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, 181. 15 Amussen, “Violence and Domestic Violence,” 75, 77, 78. 16 For more on these debates, see Amussen, “Violence and Domestic Violence” and Bailey, Unquiet Lives; Foyster, Marital Violence, especially “Chapter 1: Rethinking the Histories of Violence.” 17 Amussen, “Violence and Domestic Violence,” 72; Amussen, “Punishment, Discipline, and Power,” 13–17; Foyster, “Male Honour, Social Control, and Wife Beating in Late Stuart England;” Bailey, Unquiet Lives, 121–22.

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those of lesser status, were well-placed to offer the necessary details for several reasons. Non-elite women regularly enforced moral conduct in their communities, especially in relation to other women, and it was socially more acceptable for women to comment on domestic matters.18 Statements in divorce suits by litigants and witnesses reflected these conventions; narratives were structured not only according to legal process and memory, but also in ways meant to make sense and be satisfactory to the court.19 Testimonies employed specifically gendered rhetoric, both in the language used by women compared to men in their statements, and in how they described the behaviors of husbands and wives. Women had to establish that they were loyal, chaste, obedient, and good housekeepers, who had done all they could to keep their households intact and functioning.20 In comparison, they had to demonstrate that their spouses had failed to behave as honorable husbands and men by neglecting, even refusing, to properly maintain their households, and their wives in particular. Libels, responses, and witness statements claimed that men stayed out late; wasted resources; drank and/or gambled to excess; lied; were incontinent with other women, often servants; and otherwise humiliated and debased their wives. They also described how men railed at their wives and called them rude names as further evidence of a lack of control. Most cases pursued by women included extensive details of neglect and violence. These descriptions served to demonstrate that the husband had far exceeded acceptable correction and that separation was necessary for the wife’s safety. Though few people outright rejected a husband’s authority, contemporaries distinguished between correction and cruelty. The latter included excessive and unmerited violence as well as psychological abuse 18 Women were overrepresented as plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses in litigation involving sex and marriage, reflecting the unequal burdens they bore for these matters as well as their willingness to go to court over them. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, 48–49. The connections between women and marital affairs was explicitly stated by Elizabeth Shott in the Bradley case. The wife of a constable, Elizabeth testified that a woman had come to ask her husband to halt an altercation between Cecily and John Bradley. Her husband refusing to interfere in a matter between husband and wife, and she being acquainted with John Bradley, Elizabeth herself ended up going. LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 80–81. 19 Of the 192 divorce cases at the Arches between 1660–1700, eighty have surviving depositions with a combined total of 643 witnesses; 324 female, 319 male. 20 As Foyster argues, “this veritable roll call of ideal feminine qualities was necessary if a woman expected her complaints about her husband to be taken seriously” and to establish that she was not culpable for her husband’s behaviors. Foyster, Marital Violence, 89. Repeated attempts at reconciliation—including resuming cohabitating and withdrawing legal complaints—were further evidence of a woman’s feminine forbearance and prioritization of the conjugal unit.

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and material deprivation.21 Wives and their supporters argued that husbands had conducted themselves “barbarously” and “inhumanely.” Witnesses held that spousal violence was unacceptable if unprovoked, incommensurate with the offense, done in passion rather than with reason, or if it put the woman at risk of permanent injury or death. Statements commonly described visible and enduring “black and blue” marks and being bedridden as evidence of excessive force. Acts done while a woman was with child were especially reprehensible. Ultimately, the wife had to prove that to continue to cohabit with her husband was impossible, either because he refused to maintain her, or because it put her in “manifest danger of her life.”22 Litigants and witnesses knew that it was the combined whole of these physical, financial, and psychological offenses which gave wives the hope of success in a case.23 Their opponents, in turn, usually countered that the violence had either never taken place, was merited, or resulted from provocation.24 Kin formed only a small proportion of witnesses in divorce litigation, though female relatives were more prominent than their male counterparts. Of the eighty Court of Arches cases with surviving depositions, only two mothers and one father provided statements.25 Sisters and cousins were more common, and one aunt appears in the records. The scarcity of statements by family members should not, however, be taken as a sign of a lack of concern. Kin could legally testify, but their statements were deemed highly 21 Foyster, Marital Violence, 41–44. Alfar and Sherwood refer to the “bad spouse trifecta of cruelty, adultery, and abandonment.” Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne, 7. 22 Amussen, “Violence and Domestic Violence,” 71, 78; Bailey, Unquiet Lives, 115. 23 For a case study of one woman’s extensive efforts for separation and security, including her arguments and reliance on kin and communal networks, see Alfar and Sherwood, eds., Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne. 24 Amussen, “Punishment,” 13–14, 17. In Bradley v Bradley, for example, John Bradley countered that “being provoked by the great and intolerable abuses which the said Cicely did put upon this respondent and in this respondent’s own defense did strike or kick her.” LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1663–1664, Ee 1 ff. 483–95, 612–17. 25 The one father, John Kempster, provided a lengthy statement supporting his daughter, Mary Whiston’s, claims of extreme marital cruelty. Kempster did not mention directly intervening on his daughter’s behalf in any capacity, but he did describe being present, along with his wife, during multiple instances of verbal and physical abuse. Other deponents in the suit also mentioned that Mary Whiston and her husband had resided with her parents for some period. According to Kempster, he and his wife, the producent’s mother, were in “great terror” as a result of their son-in-law’s conduct toward, they stressed, “their only daughter.” Kempster also, in each description of a violent encounter, stressed that the son-in-law mistreated his wife in public. This may have been a rhetorical device meant to strengthen his daughter’s suit, but it could also indicate that Kempster was preoccupied with the public impact on the family’s reputation. LPL, Case 9870 (1669), Whiston v Whiston, Arches Eee 3 ff. 547–48.

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biased. Strategically, this may, therefore, have made them less useful as witnesses. Additionally, the longer a marriage went on, the fewer living kin a woman was likely to have, especially older relatives in a position to pressure the husband to behave. What records we have, nonetheless, show that women were deeply distressed by the suffering of their married kinswomen.26 Women maintained familial networks after marriage, and often relied on these longstanding bonds for compassion and aid during periods of struggle.27 Depositions by unrelated witnesses also revealed that kinfolk were often active behind the scenes in succoring abused wives. Some litigants, such as Cecily Bradley, were fortunate in having the support of numerous kinswomen. Besides the aid provided by the sister and cousin who deposed on her behalf, Cecily sheltered with her mother, not deposed, for eighteen months.28 If kinswomen built on recognized bonds in assisting abused wives, female neighbors were statistically more prominent in separation suits. Though most of these women were not well-placed to offer sustained shelter or economic aid, they provided other forms of support similar to that of kin. They, too, gave witness statements, shelter, physical and verbal intervention, and attempted to shame husbands into better conduct. Networks among neighboring women were fostered by social norms as well as living patterns. In seventeenth-century England most people lived in close, if not shared, lodgings. There was little expectation of privacy, and neighbors were well aware of each other’s affairs.29 This made them valuable witnesses in court. For example, the Bradley’s near neighbors were able to attest to seeing John’s suspected mistress visit in the night. Anna Pease, who lodged in the same building, testified that she “heard and observed [emphasis mine] that […] John did frequently beat, kick, and abuse his wife and made her frequently cry out for aid.”30 Crowded living also meant that female neighbors could serve as sources of immediate aid for wives. They also influenced local public opinion. Bonds between women were especially relevant in matters of domestic upheaval.31 Women were simply more likely to be familiar with 26 Foyster, Marital Violence, 173–79, 182–83. 27 Ben-Amos, “Reciprocal Bonding,” 294, 299. 28 LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1, ff. 46, 56–59, 60–64, 76–81, 83–88, 105–07, and 1676, Eee 5 ff. 556–58, 568–70, 573–74, 576–77, 595–99, 602–03, 604–20, 662–88. 29 Lynch argues that, for ordinary people, neighbor relations were even more important than kin networks, especially for women, who tended to be more spatially limited. Katherine A. Lynch, Individuals, Families, and Communities in Europe, 1200–1800, 63. 30 LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 60–64, Anna Pease. 31 Capp, “Distaff Power,” 19–20.

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wives rather than husbands, having worked and socialized together or in close proximity. For those women who lacked familial support or living kin, or whose relatives were too distant or too poor to offer much in the way of help, female neighbors could fill similar roles. In fact, elite women who lived on separate estates without near neighbors to respond to their cries or serve as witnesses were missing an important source of aid.32 Patterns of female sociability often informed the context of statements regarding domestic assault. Women regularly interacted in each other’s homes as well as in doorways, the streets, markets, and public houses. Visits between women could have multiple instrumental functions. Conversing with and calling-in on relatives and neighbors was vital to maintaining relationships. It was also a part of being a good neighbor and integrated into a community, with all of its attendant benefits. These norms meant that women were often present for domestic disputes. Some may have used their visits as a means to check-in on the wellbeing of wives. Visits could also be used as a way to prevent further violence, as most husbands were reluctant to have their abuses publicized. Simply sharing their stories with a sympathetic audience was undoubtedly cathartic for many suffering wives. Cecily Bradley’s sister, Mary Stephens, described how Cecily “frequently” came to her house and “weeping bitterly […] complained grievously to her of the cruel actions and barbarities of her husband.” On another occasion, Mary visited to find her sister bedridden from her husband’s beatings. Upon seeing her, Cecily “burst into tears and mournfully complained” of her husband’s barbarous usage. Cecily “expressed herself with so much sorry and grief and was in such a sad and deplorable and weak condition” that Mary went to a neighbor’s and there “being struck to the heart with [Cecily’s] grief and condition” burst into tears. Mary Welch similarly deposed that Cecily’s complaints “were so grievous they forced tears” out of her.33 This type of affective language was common for female deponents. Women described both the pitiable state of the victim as well as their own reactions as evidence of an indefensible situation. Solidarity and expressions of support could, in turn, provide wives with strength and motivation, as when Ann Predy accompanied Cecily to the authorities to have her husband bound to the peace.34 32 Contemporaries recognized the dangers of isolation for women and sometimes classified it as a form of cruelty. See Foyster, “Introduction,” in Marital Violence. 33 LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 682–84, Mary Stephens and 669–71, Mary Welch. 34 LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 679–81, Ann Predy.

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Cecily Bradley was also fortunate to have several sympathetic female neighbors. Mary Hill deposed that she had heard “the noise of a woman crying” one night and witnessed Cecily flee while her husband leaned out a window and called her a “Presbyterian whore.” Mary described being moved by pity for Cecily and visited her the next day.35 On still another occasion, several of Cecily’s neighbors were at the King’s Head in St. James Fields when they heard “the crying out of a woman at the next door” and were told that a man was striking his wife. According to Anna Pease, the women ran next door and found Cecily hiding under a table while John carried away her clothes. This incident reveals both a moment of female sociability and how neighbors worked to contain violence. Not only did the women attempt to halt an assault, but they also reproved John for his conduct and offered Cecily clothes to ease her humiliation.36 These actions did not necessarily signify a prior or deep relationship. The “Mrs. Smith” who offered Cecily one of her petticoats was not deposed and otherwise does not turn up in the case.37 Court documents reveal that many wives had relied on their female allies for extended periods. Kinswomen were often sources of long-term support. Mary Stephens, for example, offered her sister practical aid in addition to emotional solidarity. She attempted to remove a key source of conflict between husband and wife by arranging a new position for a troublesome servant woman. Mary also lodged her sister for four months.38 Sisters provided sustained aid in other cases, as well. Ellen Younger had been living with her sister, Susan Roberts, for three years before launching her 1671 divorce suit for cruelty. Susan described her brother-in-law as an exceptionally violent man who, in addition to denying his wife maintenance, beat and threatened to kill her. Susan herself was present for multiple violent incidents, before and after her sister fled her husband. On one occasion William Younger turned up at her house bearing a loaded pistol. On another, the sisters were out walking when William attempted to kidnap his estranged wife. Susan followed “closely fearing lest he should in secret make her [Ellen] away or carry her where none of her acquaintance find her.” Then, as at other times, Ellen was saved through the intervention of bystanders.39 Susan clearly feared for her sister’s life. 35 36 37 38 39

LPL, CA, Case 1128, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 610–12, Mary Hill. LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 60–64, Anna Pease. LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 80–81, Elizabeth Shott. LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 682–84, Mary Stephens. LPL, CA, Case 10406, Younger v Younger, 1671, Eee 4 ff. 514–16, Susan Roberts.

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Another example of sustained support from a kinswoman was Grace Chettam’s 1668 testimony on behalf of her daughter, Grace Hubbard. Her statement demonstrates how multiple offenses and detailed descriptions of specific incidents were used, collectively, to justify a divorce. In her eightpage statement, Chettam established a long-term pattern of spousal violence which showed no hope of ending on its own. Chettam had regularly visited her married daughter in her home, thereby continuing their relationship. She may have hoped that her physical presence would have a restraining influence on her intemperate son-in-law, John Hubbard. Chettam claimed that John “carried and demeaned himself very cruelly and inhumanely towards his wife,” to the extent that her daughter had attempted suicide. Typical of divorce suits, Chettam argued that her daughter had been forced to flee, lest she be murdered by her husband. To support this, Chettam recounted precise details of extreme violence. In one example, she came to her daughter at a friend’s house and found her “breasts having the marks of his [the husband’s] beating black and blue and her face, lips, and head much swollen and black and her ears, arms, neck, knees, and other parts of her body were as black as black could be” so that her entire body was plastered by a surgeon, and she remained in danger of her life for a month.40 According to another daughter, John Hubbard would have once thrown his wife into the fire had she and her mother not intervened. 41 Many of these depositions aimed to demonstrate two central points: first, that the wife was in danger of being killed and, second, that the marriage was already over, through no fault of the wife’s. For instance, Chettam declared that her son-in-law, John Hubbard, refused to maintain his wife, so that she had been forced to turn to her mother for victuals “to keep herself alive.”42 Eleanor Say, the only other mother deposed in these cases, described a similar situation. She accounted her son-in-law a man of “barbarous disposition” who could not live with his wife for his “strange freakish behaviour.” She, too, had been obliged to provide her daughter with the necessities—in this case paying for her lying in and nursing—when her son-in-law refused to do his basic duties. 43 Less immediate kin were also documented as providing vital aid to suffering wives. Anne Hart and her child had already lived with her aunt for two years before she began litigation. The aunt, Elizabeth Hart, provided a scathing indictment of the husband. She called him, among other 40 41 42 43

LPL, CA, Case 4834, Hubbard v Hubbard, 1668–1669, Eee 3 ff. 470–74, Grace Chettam. LPL, CA, Case 4834, Hubbard v Hubbard, 1668–1669, Eee 3 ff. 454–57, Mary Davison. LPL, CA, Case 4834, Hubbard v Hubbard, 1668–1669, Eee 3 ff. 470–74, Grace Chettam. LPL, CA, Case 4280, Hart v Hart, 1667–1668, Eee 2 ff. 792–94, Eleanor Say.

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things, “choleric,” “furious,” “cruel,” and “lewd.” Elizabeth stated that Percival Hart “lamentably abused and cruelly used” his wife and forced her, too late, to lie separately after he contracted the “foul disease” [syphilis] through his adultery. She added that Percival had shown little regard for his wife’s mental or physical health when she was pregnant and had subsequently abandoned both his wife and child.44 Through descriptions like these, women attempted to prove to the courts that the wives had little recourse but to seek separation and alimony, lest they and their children end up falling on poor relief or worse. While neighbors were unlikely to be able, or willing, to offer long-term aid, they, too, frequently lodged wives fleeing violence. Like kinfolk, it was female neighbors, not their husbands, who were usually depicted as offering emergency lodging to fleeing wives. The Bradley case is, again, instructive here. Ann Rowell and Anna Pease both sheltered Cecily Bradley, and two other women mentioned offering, or wanting to offer, similar aid. According to Ann Rowell, Cecily would have perished outside one night had she not been taken in.45 Nor was the Bradley case unique. Mary Comings, for example, hid in her landlady’s chamber when her husband chased her, threatening to pull her soul out of her body.46 And in a Chester suit, Mary Tilston testified that Jane Hignet came to her house one night asking for shelter from her husband, which Mary granted. Three servants subsequently came and advised Mary to stay put, fearing that to come home would mean her death. 47 Couples who failed to live “quietly” were subject to intense scrutiny and criticism. In lieu of a police force, neighbors served to protect wives from excessive violence. 48 There was an expectation that bystanders would intervene to halt altercations, as seen with Cecily Bradley and the women at the King’s Head. While this applied to both sexes, depositions in divorce suits show that women were most likely to respond to the sounds of a dispute if they came from within a dwelling.49 Anna Pease, therefore, was fulfilling 44 LPL, CA, Case 4280, Hart v Hart, 1667–1668, Eee 2 ff. 786–88. 45 LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 60–64, Anna Pease; LPL, CA, Case 1128, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 610–12, Mary Hill, ff. 679–81, Ann Predy, and ff. 595–96, Ann Rowell; LPL, CA, Case 1128, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 613–17, Ann Bell. 46 LPL, CA, Case 2177, Comings v Comings, 1676, Eee 6 ff. 26–27, Ann Ingram. William Comings had no qualms with admitting that his wife “for her preservation” did lock herself in her landlady’s chamber and order two watchmen to keep him from her. LPL, CA, Case 2177, Comings v Comings, 1681, Ee 4, ff. 798–807, William Comings. 47 CALS (Cheshire Archives and Local Studies) EDC 5 1682 No 39. 48 Amussen, “Being Stirred,” 78–80; Capp, When Gossips Meet, 107. 49 In contrast, men were more likely to interfere if the dispute took place in public. Susan Roberts, for example, testified that her sister, Ellen Younger, was several times saved by male

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her neighborly duties when she, on several occasions, responded to Cecily Bradley’s cries and went upstairs, praying for John “to forbear such abuse of his wife.”50 Live-in landladies could perform similar functions and may have felt an even greater obligation to respond. Margaret Powers, landlady to the Hubbards for nearly a decade, deposed in 1668 that she went to the kitchen upon hearing Grace Hubbard “cry out murder.” She retreated after being threatened by the husband, but when Grace again cried out, other neighbors, fearing for Grace’s life, persuaded Margaret to go back down. Accompanied by another woman, Margaret found Grace in “a very lamentable and sad condition her eyes and lips much swelled and black and blue and blood coming out from her mouth and ears and she much complained […] that her husband had kicked her.”51 Neighbors were, furthermore, crucial for establishing the credit of husbands and wives. They exchanged news and descriptions of misconduct, which over time developed from mere rumor into a “common fame” that could be used as evidence in court.52 Attesting to the character of litigants was a regular part of testimonies. Thus, Mary Hill was speaking within a well understood framework when she declared that “Cicely [Bradley] had a good repute amongst her neighbors” as a “very loving virtuous and respectful and obedient wife notwithstanding the common report that John [Bradley] was loose with other women” and “observed by his neighbors as a very cruel and barbarous man.” Anna Pease further illustrated the importance of female neighborliness when she told the court that she wished Cecily well in her cause “because she had been a good neighbor.”53 In contrast, a wife without female neighbors to speak to her credit was unlikely to win her separation suit, and, outside the courts, was missing a vital form of aid. Women were less likely to offer sympathy or intervention to a wife who had a poor reputation. Newcomers faced similar problems. Until they established a female network they were vulnerable to economic and physical abuse. The power of neighborhood sentiment was recognized by husbands as well as wives. Although women were more easily discredited, especially through accusations of sexual immorality,54 neighbors did not automatibystanders when her husband attacked her on the streets. LPL, CA, Case 10406, Younger v Younger, 1671, Eee 4 ff. 514–16, Susan Roberts. 50 LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 60–64, Anna Pease. 51 LPL, CA, Case 4834, Hubbard v Hubbard, 1668–1669, Eee 3 ff. 245–49, Margaret Powers. 52 Capp, “Distaff Power,” 19–20. 53 LPL, CA, Case 1128, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 610–12, Mary Hill; LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 60–64, Anna Pease. 54 See Gowing, Domestic Dangers.

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cally side with husbands. In Younger v Younger, for example, although a neighbor heard William Younger accuse his wife of infanticide, she testified on the wife’s behalf. In the same suit, Susan Roberts declared that William had—besides various “barbarous cruelties” towards his wife, including threatening to murder her or have her hanged for infanticide—been “very forward in procuring the enmity of her neighbors against her [Ellen, his wife].” Susan said she had learned this from “some whose affection he [William] endeavoured to withdraw from her [Ellen].” Susan included this alienation amongst William’s other “cruelties” and noted that she was not the only one who noticed it.55 Even John Bradley, who made little effort to endear himself to his neighbors, attempted to manipulate public opinion by accusing his wife of adultery.56 Though scholars have tended to focus on the public shaming of women, husbands could also feel the sting of public censure.57 Men implicitly recognized this discomfort in their efforts to hide their abuses. To pressure husbands into better conduct, kinswomen and neighbors pointed out their dishonorable behavior and reminded them of their responsibilities. Elizabeth Hart, for example, told the Court of Arches that she had often “reproved” her nephew for his conduct towards his wife.58 Neighbor women also felt entitled to chastise husbands for the ill-treatment of their wives. Two women in Chester, for instance, reported that they had asked William Blundell “why he did so much abuse and beat his wife.”59 Comments like these showed men that their poor conduct was known and disapproved of.60 But public, or even institutional, pressure did not guarantee a change of heart or behavior. For example, after he had been released by the watch upon promising to not strike his wife, Isaac Garrard told her that he would thereafter “use her [in ways] which could not be called beating.” John Cremor also told his wife that he had learned to not strike her publicly but would still do what he could to “break your heart.”61 Conscious of the importance of neighborhood sentiment and support, both in the long and short-term, unhappy wives often tried to engage neighborhood networks to their advantage. They may have hoped that community 55 LPL, CA, Case 10406, Younger v Younger, 1671, Eee 4 ff. 514–16, Susan Roberts. 56 LPL, CA, Case 1128, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 613–17, Ann Bell. 57 Capp, When Gossips Meet, 104–05. See also, Foyster, “Asserting Manhood.” 58 LPL, CA, Case 4280, Hart v Hart, 1667–1668, Eee 2 ff. 786–88, Elizabeth Hart. 59 CALS QJF 1675 No 58. 60 Capp, “Distaff Power,” 20–22. 61 LPL, CA, Case 3603, Garrard v Garrard, 1664, Eee 1, ff. 620–22, Elizabeth Bromfield; LPL, CA, Case 2391, Cremor v Cremor, 1667, Eee 2, ff. 289–95, Elizabeth Beales.

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pressure would force an abusive husband to reform and, if not, that it would provide evidence for eventual litigation. By showing their wounds, sharing stories of abuse, and using public spaces, women could contribute to the development and spread of their husbands’ ill-fame. Cecily Bradley appears to have been especially adept at mobilizing the pity and disapproval of her neighbors. Female deponents recounted how Cecily complained grievously and lamentably of her husband’s abuses, often providing extensive details and displaying the marks on her body. Cecily further ensured witnesses to her plight by repeatedly fleeing to public spaces. In turn, her allies built a common fame against John Bradley via their own networks. Mary Hill, for instance, recounted asking “several neighbors” how Cecily was faring.62 Community news networks were clearly powerful and well informed. Several women were able to identify John’s servant-mistress, Cecily Holmes, during her lying-in, despite the use of an alias. The women pieced the story together based on rumors and seeing John visit. One provided a detailed description of several clothing items which Holmes had in her possession that were originally attributed to Cecily Bradley. Not only was this indicting evidence of an affair, it underscored Cecily’s material losses and humiliation.63 Women were, as a rule, acutely aware of clothing as an indicator of marital relations. While the law of coverture held that a wife’s possessions belonged to her husband, with few exceptions, popular opinion often suggested otherwise.64 Women maintained a sense of ownership and attachment over the goods they brought to a marriage and to those associated with their normal domestic duties, such as clothing, linens, and small household items. Since women were generally responsible for these sorts of items, it makes sense that they were acutely conscious of their meanings in the affairs of others. As we have seen, refusing a wife adequate maintenance, including attire, was in itself a form of cruelty and disrespect. A decline in material circumstances could also signal a decline in affection or a husband’s misuse of funds. Women were especially aware of the potential impacts of wasting resources on mistresses.65 Taking a wife’s personal belongings—especially clothing and keys—and bestowing them on another woman violated marital obligations as well as proper household order. The stripping of wives, especially when done in public, was an extreme form of this. Women 62 LPL, CA, Case 1128, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 610–12, Mary Hill. 63 LPL, CA, Case 1128, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5, ff. 598–99, Eleanor Taylor and ff. 596–98, Elizabeth Pullen. 64 Bailey, Unquiet Lives, 69, 97–100. 65 Gowing, Domestic Dangers, 90–92.

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were sensitive to the shame concomitant with being naked in public. It was a violence which had no male equivalent. Thus, we can begin to appreciate Mrs. Smith, who took off one of her own petticoats at the King’s Head so that Cecily could cover herself. Many women knowingly faced considerable physical risks when they opted to intervene in the domestic affairs of others. Mary Thame felt obliged to acquire a recognizance against a man she had rebuked for beating his wife; Anna Pease was several times struck by John Bradley; Susan Roberts had to disarm her brother-in-law.66 And these are but a few examples. In an exceptional incident, Cecily Bradley’s female allies nearly paid the ultimate price for supporting her. While John was imprisoned in the Tower, she returned to their home and removed various goods with, she argued, the intent to preserve them for the good of her husband, their child, and herself. While Cecily stressed that her actions were lawful and done for the good of the family, and so within her duties as a wife and mother, John called it theft. He approached a JP and first accused “a barbarous whore” (referring to his wife) and six other women—several of whom were known allies of Cecily who had intervened between her and her husband—of robbing him. When the law decided that Cecily was within her rights to move the goods, John transferred £30 worth of goods to his brother-in-law and had Cecily and the others arraigned at the Old Bailey for stealing the same.67 As Anna Pease stated, the charges put them “in danger of their lives,” since the sum of goods was high enough to carry the death penalty, had they been convicted.68 Shortly after their acquittal, Cecily began divorce proceedings. The dangers of interfering in marital affairs likely prevented many women from coming to the aid of abused wives. Mary Hill, for one, deposed that she would have offered Cecily Bradley shelter had not a female neighbor warned her that it was “dangerous to meddle between a man and his wife.”69 Besides the risk of physical injury at the hands of a violent husband, women allies had to consider their own reputations. In contentious separation suits witnesses often found themselves under scrutiny, as the opposing side attempted to discredit testimony. In Bound v Bound, 1693, for instance, Frances Harding was accused of being related to the wife and having an 66 CALS QJF 1675 No 58; LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 60–64, Anna Pease; LPL, CA, Case 10406, Younger v Younger, 1671, Eee 4 ff. 514–16, Susan Roberts. 67 LPL, CA, Case 1127, 1664, Bradley v Bradley, Ee 1, ff. 612–17 and Eee 1 ff. 46, 56–59, 60–64, 76–81, 83–88, 105–07. 68 LPL, CA, Case 1127, Bradley v Bradley, 1664, Eee 1 ff. 60–64, Anna Pease. 69 LPL, CA, Case 1128, Bradley v Bradley, 1676, Eee 5 ff. 610–12, Mary Hill.

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illegitimate child.70 Both claims aimed to challenge her honesty and the worth of her testimony. Relatives and neighbors also had to consider whether intervention would further disrupt, rather than restore, communal order. Yet the risks of interceding in conflicts between husbands and wives, and flouting community norms, were not born by women alone. Strength in numbers could reverse the power balance. William Bullocke of Bristol, for instance, was so hated for his treatment of his wife that he was forced to hire a constable to “guard him from the fury of the people and especially the women which knew him to be a base fellow and his said wife to be a good and virtuous gentlewoman.”71 Nevertheless, despite considerable personal risk, non-elite women were often willing to intervene in defense of wives. Through their verbal and physical intervention, women helped contain spousal violence, a precedent which served all women.72 Motivations were, no doubt, complicated and layered. As we have seen, kinswomen and female neighbors regularly participated in the regulation of their communities, including by enforcing proper male conduct. Abusive husbands were disruptive and increased the chances that wives would require material support which others were reluctant or unable to provide, especially long-term. Yet, such instrumental thinking was often attended by genuine feeling. Having experienced some level of husbandly “correction” in their own lives, many women likely felt empathy. Non-elite women were well aware of their precarious positions, and how quickly they, too, could be forced into poverty through a profligate or absentee husband. If nothing else, by testifying on behalf of wives at the church courts, allies helped them gain some measure of material security. This support carried expectations of reciprocity, that succor would be forthcoming in their own times of need. In seventeenth-century England, marriage was both a private and a public matter. It drew spouses into a web of familial and community networks which were invested in enforcing domestic cohesion and harmony. While contemporaries accepted the authority of husbands over wives, they also placed limits on that power. Collectively, they articulated complex definitions of good versus bad marriages which distinguished between the acceptable correction of wives and spousal cruelty. Examining marital disputes enables us to better understand early modern practices of marriage and gender, and the roles of ordinary people in their regulation. Although 70 LPL, CA, Case 1055, Bound v Bound, 1693, E 11/54 and E 11/59. 71 LPL, CA, Case 1432, Bullocke v Bullocke, Eee 2 ff. 538–40, Edward Bushell. 72 Capp, When Gossips Meet, 106, 109.

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intervention in cases of domestic violence was not restricted to women, nor did wives always receive support, depositions show that female networks were instrumental to the relief of wives experiencing cruelty and neglect. Female kin and neighbors were sources of sympathy as well as emergency material aid, including food, clothing, and shelter. They also contributed to the wife’s long-term relief by verbally chastising her abusive husband and by supporting claims for separation. When needed, many allies showed themselves willing to put themselves at risk to interrupt or prevent violence. While individual motivations varied, and statements to the courts were presented strategically, these cases nonetheless show women moved by the plight of their allies to take personal responsibility and provide aid. For cruelly treated wives, the support of their female allies could make the difference between mental and physical wellbeing and despair, poverty, even death.

Abbreviations CA = Court of Arches CALS = Cheshire Archives and Local Studies LPL = Lambeth Palace Library

Works Cited Primary Sources Cheshire Archives and Local Studies. Cause Papers of the Consistory Court of Chester (CALS EDC 5) and Sessions Files from the Quarter Sessions (CALS QJF). Lambeth Palace Library. Act Books of the Court of Arches (A 5), Personal Answers at the Court of Arches (Ee 1), and Depositions at the Court of Arches (Eee 1–5).

Secondary Sources Ben-Amos, Ilana Krausman. “Reciprocal Bonding: Parents and Their Offspring in Early Modern England.” Journal of Family History 25, no. 3 (July 2000): 291–312. Alfar, Cristina León, and Emily G. Sherwood, eds. Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne: Marriage, Separation, and Legal Controversies. Milton: Taylor and Francis, 2021.

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Amussen, Susan Dwyer. “‘Being Stirred to Much Unquietness’: Violence and Domestic Violence in Early Modern England.” Journal of Women’s History 6, no. 2 (Summer, 1994): 70–89. Amussen, Susan Dwyer. “Punishment, Discipline, and Power: The Social Meanings of Violence in Early Modern England.” Journal of British Studies 34, no. 1 (Jan., 1995): 1–34. Bailey, Joanne. Unquiet Lives: Marriage and Marriage Breakdown in England, 1660-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Capp, Bernard. When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighborhood in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Capp, Bernard. “Distaff Power: Plebeian Female Alliances in Early Modern England.” In The Politics of Female Alliance in Early Modern England, eds. Christina Luckyj and Niamh J. O’Leary, 15–31. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Couling, Marlee. “‘She Would Long Since Have Been Starved’: Networks of Support between Mistresses and Female Servants in Seventeenth-Century England.” In “We Are All Servants”: The Diversity of Service in Premodern Europe (1000–1700), edited by Isabelle Cochelin and Diane Wolfthal, 423–49. Toronto: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, 2022. Foyster, Elizabeth. “Male Honour, Social Control, and Wife Beating in Late Stuart England.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996): 215–24. Foyster, Elizabeth. Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage. London: Routledge, 1999. Foyster, Elizabeth. “Parenting Was for Life, Not Just for Childhood: The Role of Parents in the Married Lives of their Children in Early Modern England.” History 86, no. 283 (July 2001): 313–27. Foyster, Elizabeth. Marital Violence: An English Family History, 1660–1857. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Gowing, Laura. Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1996. Hunt, Margaret. “Wife Beating, Domesticity, and Women’s Independence in Eighteenth-Century London.” Gender & History 4, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 10–33. Hurl-Eamon, Jennine. “Domestic Violence Prosecuted: Women Binding Over their Husbands for Assault at Westminster Quarter Sessions, 1685–1720.” Journal of Family History 26, no. 4 (Oct 2001): 435–54. Lynch, Katherine A. Individuals, Families, and Communities in Europe, 1200-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Mendelson, Sara and Patricia Crawford. Women in Early Modern England. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998. Stone, Lawrence. Road to Divorce: England, 1530-1987. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1990.

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About the author Marlee J. Couling completed her Ph.D. in History in July 2022 at York University. Her work uses judicial records to examine the alliances of non-elite women in seventeenth-century England. She specializes in the study of early modern social history and is especially interested in female networks, crime, gender, and emotions, particularly sympathy, empathy, grief, compassion, and trust. Her recent research has focused on the medical humanities and female healers and health.

6. The Place-Based Networks of Sex Workers in Sixteenth-Century Venice1 Saundra Weddle

Abstract: Focusing on the illegal sex trade that unfolded throughout Venice, this chapter analyzes gendered strategies concerning space and mobility, visualizing neighborhood and cross-city relationships among sex workers and their procurers, especially gondoliers. The spatial and temporal syntax of professional networks reveal how sex work was conditioned by the city’s streets and canals and was associated with the dynamic rhythms of daily life. The built environment helped those engaged in the sex trade to negotiate conflicting demands for visibility and invisibility; darkness complemented these efforts, for example, when sex workers collaborated with gondoliers whose landings were designated for night service. Keywords: sex work, Venice, networks, urban history, spatial practices

The sex workers of Venice, and especially its high-end courtesans, were famous in the Renaissance and have continued ever since to attract the attention of scholars. Taking a novel approach to sex workers as a group, my larger project uses mapping to situate their activities and movements within Venice’s unique urban geography. This article draws on a combination of sources from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to reconstruct how space framed interactions between these women and other urban dwellers. Although contemporaries deemed sex workers ubiquitous in the city, some locations and pathways, where they habitually encountered clients 1 I am grateful to the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Clark Art Institute, and the National Humanities Center, and the National Endowment for the Humanities for their support of this research, and to Elizabeth Cohen, Julia DeLancey, Robert Fredona, Anne Leader, and Marlee Couling for their insightful comments on drafts of this chapter.

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch06

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and other Venetians, became associated with the trade. These include not only the two official brothels, but also sex workers’ private dwellings and other sites in zones where complementary businesses, low rents, and intersections of circulation networks of various scales served their needs. Examples from the parishes of San Cassiano, Santa Maria Formosa, and San Giovanni Novo, and the district of Cannaregio show that sex work was a highly social, publicly visible business and that the city served as the sex worker’s workplace. Alleys, quays, bridges, porticos, and peripheral squares anchored her interactions with procurers and, more often, procuresses, as well as servants, lodging house matrons, bathhouse attendants, tavern and inn keepers, porters, gondoliers, clients, and others who moved in and out of her orbit.2 The places where they met, generally overlooked by architectural and urban histories that privilege the monumental over the vernacular, produced a spatial syntax of sex work that integrated the trade into everyday neighborhood life. Representing both f ixed sites and mobile activities, maps can function as heuristic tools that reveal the interplay between human actors, place, and spatial relations that is otherwise difficult to discern. Michel de Certeau’s notion of spatial practice, which centers on the plurality of ways in which an actor “modifies [places] by dint of moving or cutting across” them, proves useful for our reading of these visualizations.3 Fixed sites, including buildings such as dwellings, inns, brothels, and bathhouses, and urban elements such as streets, canals, quays, bridges, squares, porticos, and piers, are not neutral backdrops. Rather, their physical qualities, including scale, material, form, response to site contexts, exposure to light, and connectedness to or isolation from heavily trafficked places, influence the movements of human bodies, which activate the built environment.4 Over time, associations between urban place and everyday activities (here, for example, solicitation, entertainment, assault) inform the construction of social and commercial network ties operating on the parish or neighborhood scale.5 Such interpersonal relationships can be strong or weak, long-lasting or short-lived, supportive or antagonistic, strategic or not. These local conditions shape what Certeau refers to as “narratives” composed of spatial trajectories. Understood as a representation of space as a practiced or 2 Because of the preponderance of procuresses, I use “procurer” only when sources identify a male serving in this role. For procuresses in Rome, see Cohen, “Camilla La Magra,” 179. 3 Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 117; Certeau, Culture in the Plural, 146. 4 Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 117. 5 Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 115.

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activated place, a map overcomes its limitations as a static, two-dimensional technology and reflects instead a “polyvalent unity.”6 By connecting the sex worker in motion to the fixed built environment, mapping reveals social and commercial networks in which place served as the principal point of convergence for the various actors within Venice’s sex trade. The sex trade involved a diverse group of people and extended throughout the city. Its central actor was the sex worker, a category that in early modern Italy included a spectrum of occupational profiles, or, in Guido Ruggiero’s words, a “social hierarchy of prostitution.”7 The present study considers women designated in the sources as courtesans, but focuses on meretrici, women of middling or scarce economic means who personally solicited clients or collaborated with a procuress who sometimes made connections on sex workers’ behalf. Sex workers lived and worked in rented rooms, sometimes taking on the activity as a temporary solution to precarious personal circumstances, and possibly working at the same time in other occupations.8 The functional definition of a meretrice derived from the sexual services she provided in exchange for money, gifts, or favors, and from her encounters with multiple partners.9 Therefore, in the official context at least, the term meretrice almost always applied broadly to any woman who engaged in commercial sex, regardless of her position within the occupational hierarchy. To map Venetian sex workers’ interactions with the urban fabric involves juxtaposing and layering data points collected from a variety of mostly sixteenth-century archival sources. Regulations issued by the Venetian government document strategies of spatial control and identify places and activities associated with the sex trade at the municipal brothels and beyond.10 Significant among these is a 1502 directive that identified thirty-one locations where officials were to order sex workers to re-locate to the municipal brothel; mapping these sites reveals the urban distribution and spatial patterns of the trade at a moment when it began to expand dramatically.11 A famous 1565 “Catalogue” of the city’s “most honourable” 6 Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 117. 7 Ruggiero, Binding Passions, 33. 8 For Bologna, see Ferrante, “La sessualità come risorsa.” 9 Leggi e memorie, 109. The term compagnessa is also used in Cinque alla Pace records referring to sex workers. 10 Regulations from the thirteenth through the eighteenth centuries are published in Leggi e memorie, which includes full archival citations. 11 Leggi e memorie, 92–93. The list includes f ive whole parishes as well as specif ic streets, squares, and bridges.

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courtesans reflects the later growth of these commercial networks.12 It names 210 sex workers and their procuresses, and lists prices and places where a client could find them. Listed alphabetically by the sex worker’s first name, the document’s format obscures sex workers’ trade associations and the spatial relationships between them, which data synthesis and mapping reveal. Another source are the parish censuses, compiled street by street, beginning in the 1590s. Recording the detailed composition of households and the occupation or status of their heads, these registers allow analysis of social and spatial relationships at several scales.13 The more dynamic experience of street life emerges from the mid-sixteenth-century records of the Cinque alla Pace, a police patrol charged with maintaining public order and empowered to dispense summary justice.14 Their reports document the names, parishes, and sometimes occupations of both wronged and guilty parties, and also record if the crime involved a weapon.15 While each of these sources has limitations, drawing upon a combination of them allows us to identify not just the location of social and commercial encounters, but also the ways in which the built environment conditioned spatial practices within the parish context and across this highly mobile, diverse city.16 Venice is, and was, geographically unusual. Unique elements of place contributed to an episodic urban experience in which people and locations were hidden and revealed as one moved through the city, either on foot or by boat. In other early modern Italian cities, tangles of narrow streets might have been confined to particular neighborhoods, adjacent to other areas 12 BMC, MS Cicogna 2039, published in Leggi e memorie, 2–9, and in Barzaghi, Donne o cortigiane, 155–67. The catalogue refers to courtesans, a term usually applied to high-end practitioners of the sex trade, but the list names public places where they could be found, suggesting that they solicited on the street, as lower-status sex workers did. It also associates every courtesan with a procuress (pieza); although some high-end courtesans did work with procuresses, the practice of working with a go-between is usually associated with sex workers at the lower end of the trade’s social hierarchy. 13 ASPV, SA, bb. 1.9, 2.3, 3.2, and 3.6. Only forty-seven of Venice’s seventy-one parishes completed the Status Animarum, and not all of those identified sex workers. Parish boundaries are notoriously difficult to define, and areas surveyed in censuses sometimes deviated from traditionally accepted borders. 14 ASV, CP, bb. 2–7 (1544–1580). 15 These records also sometimes mention details about the household where cited individuals resided. 16 Contemporary sources rarely identify the exact location of a building where sex workers lived, and only occasionally name a specif ic site, like a bridge or portico, where solicitation occurred. Parishes are almost always named, however, and the names of streets, squares, and courtyards appear frequently.

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with long, straight thoroughfares or street grids that provided vistas toward the distance. In Venice, however, a labyrinthine arrangement prevailed throughout the city. Primary arteries connected bridges and squares, while the secondary and tertiary streets branching off from them tended to dead-end at a courtyard or canal, inhibiting through circulation. To the sex workers’ advantage, pedestrians could not see what or who was ahead. Canals, which both defined and connected the more than 100 islands that coalesce to form the urban core, offered the closest thing to a conventional, extended urban view. When traveled by boat, they provided an unusually low perspective on the surrounding built environment, reflected by the water by day and obscured in darkness by night. Waterways link with pedestrian circulation routes via bridges, steps, and porticos that offer their own, distinctive sight lines and spatial experiences. In this context, parish boundaries, which usually correspond with the edges of one or more islands, are more than administrative abstractions; they often correlate with the canals surrounding the island-site of the parish church and its square, locations where neighborhood communities were constituted.17 Consequently, the bridges that crossed canals and connected islands served as transition points that materialized both social ties and distinctions, important nodes within the sex trade’s spatial syntax.18 Venice had two major urban foci—the political and religious center of Piazza San Marco and the commercial hub of Rialto—and both attracted the sex trade. While authorities sought to purge this commerce from the civic center at San Marco, they attempted to contain and regulate it in municipal brothels at Rialto (fig. 6.1). As elsewhere in Italy, the city government had limited success; most sex workers plied their trade in undesignated structures scattered about the city and cultivated neighborhood ties that could be surprisingly durable. They typically received clients at their own rented rooms, where some lived alone, but most lived with others—a domestic partner, children or other family members, a servant, or tenants who rented from them.19 Most of those who declared their occupation in the census shared lodgings with other sex workers, and some with more than one. Many had sex workers as neighbors. They also prospected for clients in the streets and squares near their residence, many at the same spot, day after day, night after night: a particular bridge, portico, or square 17 On the parish as a valid unit of social analysis, see Davis, The Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal, 91–93. 18 See Fig. 6.7. 19 Similar household compositions could be found in Rome. See Cohen, “Seen and Known.”

Figure 6.1 Parishes of Venice: A. San Marcuola; B. San Canciano (Biri); C. Santa Maria Formosa; D. San Giovanni Novo; E. San Moisè; F. San Cassiano; G. San Giacomo dell’Orio.

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could establish continuity and multiply their connections with regular passers-by.20 Some sex workers could be found at the same location over several years; others moved residence but stayed within the vicinity of their former address.21 When trades became associated with known urban locations, customers could more easily seek them out, and the same was true of sex work. Sex workers gathered in places where they might both support and compete with one another. Like other popular-class women, they also moved about on the city’s streets and canals. There they converged with other working women and men, both those directly involved in the sex trade and those in related occupations, such as hospitality and entertainment.22 These collaborators likely viewed the sex trade as just one of a number of commercial enterprises to which they contributed and from which they drew income. Centrally located on the Grand Canal, Rialto, with its markets, shops, inns, and taverns, drew both Venetians and foreigners, and became known as the principal hub of the city’s multi-nodal sex trade (fig. 6.2). From the fourteenth through at least the mid-sixteenth centuries, Rialto hosted an authorized municipal brothel—the first, established in 1360 (2C), was superseded by the second in 1460 (2B); both were located on side streets near the island’s main pedestrian arteries.23 The brothel’s sex workers solicited in the surrounding streets, where they competed with other women who worked either on their own or in collaboration with a procuress. The trade branched out from its Rialto island epicenter into adjacent parishes, especially San Cassiano. That parish’s reputation as a destination for commercial sex lasted from at least the mid-fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. The parish census of 1594 counted twenty meretrici in eleven different residences there, all within a less-than-ten-minute walk from one another.24 Six sex workers shared lodging in the notorious Ca’ Rampani, a building associated with the trade since at least the mid-fourteenth century (2E); seven were distributed among five apartments on a nearby street, Calle 20 Molmenti, Venice: Its Individual Growth from its Earliest Beginnings, Vol. II, 239, claims that images from the period show women addressing potential clients from windows or doorways, and the practice was associated with Ca’ Rampani, but no source is cited. For an example of such an image, see Wolfthal, In and Out of the Marriage Bed, 74. 21 Leggi e memorie, 2–9 and 11–25. 22 Chojnacka, Working Women in Early Modern Venice. 23 On the municipal brothels, see Clarke, “The Business of Prostitution,” Coletti, “Le Castelletto,” and Weddle, “Mobility and Prostitution.” The second municipal brothel continued to function at least until the early 1540s, owned by the same family under which it was established; Leggi e memorie, 271–72. 24 ASPV, SA, b. 2.3, San Cassiano (1594), unpaginated.

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Figure 6.2 Rialto Commercial district and surroundings. Gondola landing: A. Buso di Rialto. Approximate Rialto brothel sites: B. Municipal brothel, est. 1460; C. Municipal brothel, est. 1360. Sites associated with sex work: D. Calle della Botta; E. Ca’ Rampani; F. Corte della Stua (bathhouse). Legend: ● Inner-city gondola landing: ○ Extra-urban gondola landing; ●●●●● Night service.

della Bota (2D); five lived in two different apartments on Corte della Stua (2F), which took its name from a nearby bathhouse located across the canal from Ca’ Rampani. Like the municipal brothels, the buildings and alleys around Ca’ Rampani came to be associated with sex work, and the term “Carampane” indicated people associated with the trade.25 The 1502 order, which sought to enclose all the city’s meretrici in the municipal brothel, identified the entire parish of San Cassiano as a locus of commercial sex.26 While sex workers in and around Rialto benefited from proximity—to one another, to the municipal brothels, to other commercial life—they also profited from their location along the Grand Canal, Venice’s main thoroughfare. There, varied transportation networks intersected, including branching “feeder” canals that delivered clients traveling by boat into the 25 Boerio, Dizionario del dialetto veneziano, 136. Regarding associations between public baths and sex work, see Leggi e memorie, 37. 26 Leggi e memorie, 92–93.

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heart of densely developed neighborhoods where sex workers lived and solicited.27 Although Rialto remained a hub for sex work, its importance seems to have declined around the early sixteenth century, especially following a major f ire in 1514. By that time, the trade had expanded into other neighborhoods that offered a combination of low rents, high traff ic, and opportunities for advantageous business collaborations, conditions sought not only by sex workers but also by their associates.28 All could be found in Castello, the easternmost of Venice’s six districts (sestieri), where the city’s largest concentration of popular-class residents lived. Castello’s eastern half was dominated by the Arsenale, the state shipyard, with surrounding neighborhoods of modest houses, workshops, and charitable hospices, occupied by a cohesive community of shipbuilders and sailors and their families. 29 Its western half was characterized by frontage on the port, where global and local trajectories of trade and travel intersected; the population counted significant groups of Greek and Balkan immigrants and a range of occupations, including many retailers and peddlers. Among Castello’s parishes, Santa Maria Formosa and San Giovanni Novo demonstrate especially well how and why multiple actors converged in a neighborhood where the sex worker’s diverse needs could be met (f ig. 6.3). The parishes’ proximity to Piazza San Marco offered opportunities to the sex trade. The central square (3A), home to the doge’s residence (3C), the seat of government administration, and the shrine holding the relics of the city’s patron saint (3B), teemed with people and everyday activities. Venetians and foreigners found their way to several inns located around the square’s perimeter until the mid-sixteenth century when these establishments moved to nearby streets to make way for a monumental civic building campaign. Saturday markets drew shoppers from around the city, and occasional fairs lured merchants from the terra firma and beyond. Just east of the square, Riva degli Schiavoni (3D), a wide quay where ships docked, delivered many passengers who might have sought diversion and perhaps received information from the porters who worked at the docks on how to find entertainment and sex.30 In theory, if not in practice, Piazza San Marco 27 The 1502 order targeted all the parishes adjacent to Rialto for clearing. Ibid. 28 For a study of rents in the low-income Biri neighborhood of Cannaregio, for example, see Concina, Structures urbaines et fonctions, 89–94. 29 Davis, The Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal, 83–117. 30 Leggi e memorie, 4, 7, and 9.

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Figure 6.3 San Marco and parishes of Santa Maria Formosa and San Giovanni Novo: A. Piazza San Marco; B. Basilica of San Marco; C. Palazzo Ducale; D. Riva degli Schiavoni; E. Campo San Giovanni Novo; F. Campo Santa Maria Formosa. Legend: ▬▬ Boundary of parishes; □ Approximate inn site; ● Inner-city gondola landing; ○ Extraurban gondola landing.

was off limits to the trade, but it was nevertheless an extremely active and attractive urban node from which women in nearby parishes drew clients.31 Two arteries in Piazza San Marco’s vicinity anchored a busy sex trade and its associated social and commercial networks (fig. 6.4). Calle Longa (4A) and Ruga Giuffa (4C), conspicuous through-streets that extend from Campo Santa Maria Formosa to adjacent islands, provided convenient and uninterrupted pedestrian routes of a sort seldom experienced in Venice. They offered many points of access to sixteenth-century sites of sex work in narrow alleys that dead end at small courtyards or canals (4D, 4J, and 4K). The 1502 order identified both streets for clearing, but the initiative failed to displace the sex trade from the neighborhood.32 The 1565 “Catalogue” 31 For efforts to prohibit sex work in and around Piazza San Marco, see Leggi e memorie, 32, 125–26, 148, 151, and 175–76. 32 Leggi e memorie, 92–93.

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Figure 6.4 Parishes of Santa Maria Formosa and Sani Giovanni Novo, detail: A. Calle Longa; B. Church of Santa Maria Formosa; C. Ruga Giuffa; D. Calle de l’Inferno; E. Calle and Ramo Querini, and Corte Nova; F. Bathhouse; G. Church of San Giovanni Novo; H. Ponte and Calle di Ca’ Lion; I. Corona Inn; J. Corte di Ca’ Birani; K. Corte Rota; L. Approximate site, Serpe Inn. Legend: ● Inner-city gondola landing; ○ Extra-urban gondola landing.

of courtesans identified three women—Betta Lavandera and the sisters Cornelia and Isabella Casa Recchia—on Calle Longa, and two—Marietta di Donna Antonia Griega and Antonia (apparently unrelated)—on Ruga Giuffa.33 Parish censuses provide fuller detail about ordinary sex workers. For example, the census for San Giovanni Novo records twenty-nine sex workers resident in Ruga Giuffa; all but a few of them shared lodgings with their peers in groups of two or three, a significant population of women in the trade in a relatively small area.34 33 Paula Fracassa and her daughter, writer, and courtesan Veronica Franco, also lived in the parish in the late sixteenth century. Leggi e memorie, 8; Rosenthal, Honest Courtesan, 4, 6, 8, 66, and 288 nn. 19 and 20. 34 ASPV, SA, b. 3.2, San Giovanni Novo. Priests in the nearby parish of Santa Marina used a mark resembling an equal sign (=), apparently to indicate eight residences housing a total of eleven sex workers. Of the eight marked this way, two show male heads of household living with

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Like the meretrici in Rialto, those in Santa Maria Formosa likely profited from the clientele provided by the area’s hospitality venues, in this case, lodging houses, where a steady and growing stream of non-Venetians found temporary residence. As Rosa Salzberg has shown, the parish, together with its neighbor, San Giovanni Novo, was home to the largest concentration of lodging houses in the city.35 A link between sex work and the hospitality sector, addressed already in fourteenth-century legislation, is seen at the end of the sixteenth century in the proximity of many albergarie and camere locande to sex workers’ residences in San Giovanni Novo.36 In Ca’ Gradenigo on Calle al Ponte da Ca’ Lion (today Ponte della Corona; 4H), the sex worker Barbara Schiavon lived next door to a family of four who lodged five Greek merchants.37 Just across the canal we find the sex worker-widow Paulina Viscardi with her two children and an unrelated widow; they were neighbors of three meretrici living together in one residence, while two additional sex workers, Anzola from Padua and the widow Bastiana, lived next door to them.38 Nearby, in Corte da Ca’ Briani (4J), two different women took in lodgers.39 The widow Agnese di Mardussi housed not only her daughter, brother, and nephew, but also Zuane Cireneo Schiavon, his nephew, and five Greek merchants. Next door, with her two children, Paula, the wife of Zuane the caulker (who was apparently absent) made ends meet by lodging eleven others: two unrelated women, a German butcher and his two brothers, a married couple, and four men—one each from Ferrara, Verona, Gubbio, and Pesaro. Mapping these spatial relationships reveals how the neighborhood’s main pedestrian artery, Ruga Giuffa, served as a conduit to the secondary streets and courtyards where commercial networks of lodging-house matrons and sex workers dominated. Because an individual could simultaneously play multiple commercial roles, including some combination of sex worker, lodging house matron, procuress, or servant, it can be difficult to decipher the dynamics of these relationships. Lawmakers showed particular concern that employers of a woman not recorded as their spouse. ASPV, SA, b. 3.6, Santa Marina. Santa Maria Formosa’s priests did not identify sex workers residing in the parish in their 1593 census. ASPV, SA, b. 3.4. 35 Salzberg, “Mobility, Cohabitation and Cultural Exchange,” n. 28 references the 1524 law prohibiting courtesans from accepting paying lodgers whom they claimed were merely friends or lovers. 36 See Leggi e memorie, 183, for a 1340 law prohibiting the owners of inns, taverns and lodging houses from providing housing to sex workers. 37 ASPV, SA, b. 3.2, San Giovanni Novo, f. 9r. 38 ASPV, SA, b. 3.2, San Giovanni Novo, f. 9v. 39 ASPV, SA, b. 3.2, San Giovanni Novo, f. 10r.

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servants would lure girls and young women into sex work, and in 1539 prohibited sex workers and lodging house keepers from hiring female ser­ vants under the age of 30. 40 After denouncing living conditions that led many servant girls to “total ruin” (ruina total), the law ordered that “no courtesan, prostitute, procurer, or procuress who maintains a public house for foreigners may dare or presume to keep [young female] servants in their house under any pretext” (niuna cortesana over meretrice publica di mala vita ne ruffiana over ruffiana alcuno over alcuna che tengi casa publica de forestieri non ardisca over presume tenir in casa per modo forma over color alcuno massere, sirvente, arlieva over soto nome et pretest alcuna). 41 In Venice as a whole, nineteen percent of sex workers recorded in the parish censuses had servants, referred to as massere or serve.42 While massere themselves may not have offered sex for compensation, servant women often played a supporting role in the trade.43 For example, twenty-two of the 210 procuresses named in the 1565 “Catalogue” are identified as massere. 44 Regardless of whether the massera actually served as an agent, she must have been understood as an accomplice: during the sixteenth century authorities cited servant women in laws aimed at controlling their circulation with meretrici on gondolas, and in the seventeenth century massere were offered rewards for secretly informing on their meretrice employer. 45 Men also assumed a plurality of roles in sex workers’ social and commercial networks, although the sources seldom make the precise nature of their relationships explicit. In the mid-sixteenth century records of the Cinque alla Pace, the local patrol for social discipline, several men from the parishes of Santa Maria Formosa and San Giovanni Novo appear as sex workers’ resident companions or lodgers. 46 Here, the routine practice of identifying a woman by naming her father or husband is inverted, and 40 Leggi e memorie, 102 and 282. See also Zompini’s representation of the massera from his series Le arti che vanno per via nella città di Venezia. 41 Leggi e memorie, 102. 42 This percentage is slightly higher than for the general population. Chojnacka, Working Women, 24 and 141. For meretrici with massere, see ASPV, SA, b. 3.2, San Giovanni Novo and b. 3.6, Santa Marina. 43 On the connection between domestic service and sex, see Byars, Informal Marriages, 31–33. 44 Leggi e memorie, 2–9. 45 Leggi e memorie, 147, 150, 153, 155, and 164. 46 San Giovanni Novo’s census records only one sex-worker residence where a man resided: the sex worker Paulina, the head of household, lived in Corte da Ca’ Mocenigo with Antonia, a woman abandoned by her husband ten years earlier; also in residence were Simon from Forlì and his daughter Justina, but his relationship to the women is not specified. ASPV, SA, b. 3.2, San Giovanni Novo. For judicial records that mention co-residents, see ASV, CP, bb. 2–7.

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men are sometimes labeled by referring to the women whose houses they shared. An example is Piero, a sailor who was “the man (homo) of Pasqua, a sex worker in Corte Nova in Santa Maria Formosa [4E],” who used a weapon in an unnamed crime against another man. 47 Men who resided with sex workers could also become entangled in the local trade network. Such seems to have been the case with Cyregnol, who lived in the house (casa) of Bella, a sex worker in Calle Longa, perhaps as a lodger rather than a partner; he used a weapon against another man who stayed with a meretrice near Ponte da Ca’ Lion in San Giovanni Novo parish (4H). 48 We do not know whether such disputes concerned sex workers directly, but these cases suggest that the meretrice’s male associates formed their own, sometimes contentious and perhaps short-lived, ties. Especially where sex workers tended to live, petty and sometimes violent crime featured regularly in neighborhood life, and conflictual relationships between meretrici and men sometimes drew the attention of street patrols. Santa Maria Formosa was second only to the parish of San Moisè (1E) in the number of sex workers named, either as the offending or the wronged party, in the magistracy’s files. When added to those in San Giovanni Novo, the coincidence of the sex trade and crime is clear. Of the nineteen criminal cases cited in Santa Maria Formosa, most of the named sex workers lived on or just off Calle Longa or Ruga Giuffa. Although the records identify some of them as aggressors, the majority suffered at the hands of men from the parish.49 For example, the Greek Marieta had a run-in with one Tadario from Crema, also a resident in Santa Maria Formosa. The interaction must have been violent for the record notes not only that Tadario had a weapon but also that, in addition to being banned from Venice for three years, he was required to pay the fees for Marieta’s doctor and medicine.50 Some women suffered repeatedly, and their assailants were sometimes repeat offenders. Records covering a three-day period in October 1554 show that the sex worker Camilla Stella was involved in two conflicts, one with a bread baker from the parish, the other with a man identified as a justice official, who was also charged for clashes with two other sex workers—Bernardina, who lived in the Frezzaria shopping street in San Moisè parish (1E), and Lionora from Zara, whose parish is unknown.51 47 ASV, CP, b.4, f. 5r (November 15, 1555). 48 ASV, CP, b. 7, f. 35v (May 19, 1580). 49 Cases of neighbors committing crimes against sex workers are fairly common; for an example in Santa Maria Formosa, see ASV, CP, b. 7, unpaginated (July 20, 1580). 50 ASV, CP, b. 5, f. 18v (July 13, 1560). 51 ASV, CP, b. 4, ff. 2r and v (October 23, 26, and 27, 1554).

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Networks and associations sometimes extended beyond the parish and its environs, and conflict could follow a sex worker around the city. Over a three-month period in 1548 one Bortholo Scorpion offended three times against a Ferrarese sex worker named Placita.52 While the records do not name Placita’s parish of residence, they show Bortholo moving during this period from San Canciano parish’s poverty-stricken neighborhood known as the Biri (1B) to San Giacomo dell’Orio (1G), across the Grand Canal.53 Apparently a stalker, Bortholo was likely a client or perhaps even a procurer for Placita. The Cinque alla Pace records suggest some neighborhood dynamics, but rarely let us understand the contexts of an exchange. Living in contingent circumstances could contribute to disputes within the meretrice’s household. As Jana Byars suggests in her study of concubinage in early modern Venice, social and financial motivations probably governed many popular-class household relationships, not just those formed in and around the sex trade.54 Although violence against sex workers by co-resident men is not documented in Santa Maria Formosa or its neighboring parishes, it happened elsewhere. For example, a serial abuser, Bernardin di Vecchi from Bologna, who was identified by authorities as living “usually at the Carampane [2E] with Geronima the sex worker” (solito praticar in Carampane da Geronima compagnessa), “committed multiple offenses against her” (per offesa fatta in più volte alla detta).55 No known evidence from the Cinque alle Pace records exists to show that co-resident men operated in the role of procurer, but their own livelihood likely depended to some extent on the sex worker’s business, situating them either tangential to or in the meretrice’s commercial network, even as they, too, might have contributed in some way to the household economy. For the varied place-based connections of women engaged in the sex trade, a richly documented case for the value of mapping is the northern sestiere of Cannaregio, which possessed its own dynamics of mobility and diversity (fig. 6.5). The district covers a vast area with sparsely developed, often marshy edges to the west; oblong, parallel islands to the north; and dense, mostly modest built fabric to the east and south. Two major canals (5A and 5J) offer points of entry from the mainland and northern lagoon to the Grand Canal. By the sixteenth century, Cannaregio was best known as home to manufacturing trades. Boat repair yards, foundries, tanneries, 52 ASV, CP, b. 2, unpaginated (February 16 and 21, April 16, 1548). 53 Boerio, Dialetto veneziano, 81 confirms this characterization. 54 Byars, Informal Marriages, 30–31. 55 ASV, CP, b. 7, unpaginated (17 October 1588).

Figure 6.5 Sestiere of Cannaregio: A. Cannaregio Canal; B. Jewish Ghetto; C. Campo Sant’Alvise; D. Ponte de l’Aseo; E. Calle and Corte dei Muti; F. Campo San Marziale; G. Campo Santa Maria Maddalena; H. Calle Longa Santa Caterina; I. Fondamenta Santa Caterina; J. Rio de Noale, K. Campo de le Erbe; L. San Felice gondola landing; M. Campo Santi Apostoli; N. Biri. Legend: ▬▬ Approximate district of the Biri; ● Inner-city gondola landing; ○ Extra-urban gondola landing.

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dying facilities, slaughterhouses, soap factories and the like were primarily staffed by the sestiere’s large immigrant population. Their work was governed by a regular workday schedule that imposed a certain temporal order on the district, while the noise, odors, and waste associated with industrial activities introduced a kind of sensory disorder.56 In 1516, authorities sited the Jewish Ghetto (5B) in the heart of Cannaregio, both because of its distance from San Marco and Rialto, and also because the area was less desirable for more refined development. Quays facing the northern lagoon were dotted with gondola landings where, throughout the sixteenth century, increasing numbers of immigrants and others traveling from the terra firma disembarked. Geographically and demographically marginal, but well connected to the city center, especially by water, Cannaregio also became a prominent locus of the sex trade in the 1500s. Of the 210 sex workers named in the “Catalogue”, almost half could be found in Cannaregio.57 As the present study shows, sex workers often occupied the shadows, places like small and out-of-the-way courtyards and porticos that offered shelter, but the women also sought out exposed sites like bridges, where foot and boat traffic converged. There, the sex worker could display herself while enjoying a good vantage point from which to monitor her surroundings and the approach of potential clients, especially since few bridges were lined with parapet walls at this time. A significant node of sex work in Cannaregio was Ponte de l’Aseo and its surrounding streets (5D, fig. 6.6 and fig. 6.7). This bridge spanned Rio della Misericordia and connected to a long, straight waterside quay (6G), the likes of which one only finds in Cannaregio, with nearby steps descending to the canal, marking a stop for the gondola ferry based at the Jewish Ghetto (5B and 6A) to the west.58 Ponte de l’Aseo is named in the 1502 order as the epicenter of the neighborhood sex trade.59 Several decades later, the “Catalogue” placed six sex workers at the bridge itself and two in the adjacent Calle de l’Aseo (6F); all but one of their procurers could be found in the vicinity.60 Later in the sixteenth century, the parish census of San Marcuola, which included Ponte de l’Aseo, 56 Braunstein, “Cannaregio, zona di transito?” 57 Based on the “Catalogue” and the parish censuses it is tempting to assert that Cannaregio became the center of the sex trade in the sixteenth century, but what appears to have been the largest concentration of sex workers in Venice might simply be a function of the sources’ idiosyncrasies. 58 Zanelli, Traghetti veneziani, 70. 59 The only other Cannaregio site named in the 1502 order was the parish of San Leonardo. Leggi e memorie, 92. 60 Leggi e memorie, 2–9.

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Figure 6.6 Pote de l’Aseo, Cannaregio [detail, Figure 5D]: A. Jewish Ghetto. Sites associated with sex work: B. Calle del Forno; C. Calle Lezze; D. Ponte de l’Aseo; E. Calle and Corte della Bolza; F. Calle de l’Aseo; G. Fondamenta de la Misericordia. Legend: ● Inner-city gondola landing.

Figure 6.7 Ponte de l’Aseo intersection [see Figures 5D and 6D]: Bridges: Ponte de l’Aseo (center); Ponte dei Lustraferri (right). Canals: Rio della Misericordia (center); Rio dei Lustraferri (right). Quays: Fondamenta Misericordia (foreground); Fondamenta Ormesini (background). Sottoportego: Sottoportego dei Lustraferri (3D model by Matei-Alexandru Mitrache).

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recorded at least eighteen sex workers living nearby (6B, 6C, 6E, and 6F).61 Overall, this parish, the largest of those surveyed in Cannaregio, counted a total of over seventy sex workers. The sex trade operated throughout the northern sestiere, however, and gondola landings around the district’s perimeter and on the Grand Canal were especially attractive to sex workers, procuresses, and clients. The busiest intersection of sex work and transportation was near the convent of Santa Caterina (5I). Almost a third of the Cannaregio meretrici named in the “Catalogue”—thirty-one women—solicited in the streets surrounding the convent and nearby landings where gondolas connected the city to the northern lagoon islands of Murano, San Giacomo in Paludo, Burano, Torcello, and Fossetta.62 Several procuresses (referred to variously as ruffiane, pieze, or mezzane) worked this location, monitoring, negotiating for, and profiting from their sex worker-associates.63 A prominent procuress, known as “Chate Schiavon,” managed twelve sex workers.64 Deploying an entrepreneurial strategy of diversification, she appears to have stationed these women in multiple locations, maintaining some distance between them to prevent their infringing on one another’s territory. Five of the twelve solicited near the convent of Santa Caterina (5I), but the others could be found at various spots around Cannaregio. The married sex worker Giulia Barcarola worked across the canal at Campo de le Erbe (5K), while others associated with Chate were at the Biri (5N) and near the churches of Sant’Alvise (5C), San Marziale (5F), Santa Maria Maddalena (5G), and Santi Apostoli (5M). Given her wide network, Chate must have wielded local clout, but she did not monopolize the sex market near Santa Caterina. Another twelve meretrici represented themselves there rather than working with a procuress, while some others were represented by their mother, brother, neighbor, or servant. 61 ASPV, SA, b. 1.9, San Marcuola, noting Ponte and Calle de l’Aseo, as well as Calle della Bolza, Calle del Forno and, across the bridge, Calle Lezze. 62 Zanelli, Traghetti veneziani, 77 and 81. Beginning in 1438, legislation prohibited sex workers from attending church on major holidays. In 1539, sex workers were ordered not to live near churches, and they were not allowed to attend church services that were most frequented by “honest women.” Leggi e memorie, 190–91; 100–01. Venetian authorities did not prescribe the distance between sex workers and churches as they did in Florence. See Terpstra, “Locating the Sex Trade,” 113. 63 The precise commercial activities of procuresses are difficult to confirm. Doglioni, Delle cose notabili che sono in Venetia, I:23 states that in 1421 the brothel matron held clients’ payments and distributed earnings among meretrici monthly; independent procuresses may have operated similarly. For a description of the procuress’s activities in eighteenth-century Venice, see Ferraro, “Making a Living,” 30–31, 39–41, and 44–47. 64 Leggi e memorie, 2–9.

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Chate also faced competition from gondoliers who acted as procurers nearby. Three of them worked the landings at Santa Caterina and represented six women who solicited there.65 Another sex worker based on the island, Felice Pottana (whose name was a variant of puttana, or whore), was represented by her stepfather, Alvise, also listed as a gondolier based across town at the Rialto landings. The networks of gondolier and sex workers at Santa Caterina sometimes reached farther.66 Guild statutes report that the area served by the Santa Caterina gondola landing extended across the neighboring inlet, where a dark, narrow alley connected travelers by boat to Corte dei Muti (5E), a small square where a sex worker named Margarita could be found.67 She was charged twice, in 1595 and 1598, for infractions of sumptuary laws, an example of how a sustained connection between a meretrice and a particular location might have made it easier for authorities to target her.68 Clearly, mere proximity to a gondola landing could prove advantageous for sex workers, who capitalized on the regular to and fro of Venetians and travelers. The gondoliers’ occupation, especially when providing public transit rather than serving private households or transporting goods, positioned the men perfectly to supplement their primary business with earnings from the sex trade. Their mobility and their contact with Venetians and visitors of every background made them potent connectors in the flow of people and information.69 The guild statutes suggest how urban infrastructure allowed gondoliers easily and discreetly to connect meretrici with potential clients. The regulations identified permanent landings both for inner-city gondolas, including those authorized to offer night service, and for outbound transportation to other cities. Most of the inner-city routes connected opposite banks of the Grand Canal: at the end of the fifteenth century, there were fifteen pairs of designated landings, and over time that number grew along with the city’s population. Another seventeen inner-city gondola services launched from 65 Leggi e memorie, 3, 4, and 6. 66 San Felice gondola landing (5L), which connected to Riva dell’Oglio at Rialto market, was another location where sex workers and procuresses were found; the “Catalogue” names three sex workers stationed there, with another one was at the nearby landing at the church of the Maddalena (5G). Also posted at the San Felice landing was the procuress, Madalena del Prete, who managed two sex workers based nearby. Leggi e memorie, 3, 5, and 6. 67 ASV, Milizia da Mar, bb. 866–83. 68 Leggi e memorie, 22. 69 The shortest gondola ride across the Grand Canal cost as little as a bagatin, worth one-twelfth of a soldo, making such a journey affordable even for those of relatively modest means. Zanelli, Traghetti veneziani, 41.

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points beyond the Grand Canal.70 While each gondola landing had assigned boundaries within which its boats could operate and accept passengers, offduty gondoliers were permitted to solicit and transport paying passengers from their assigned landing to locations that deviated from their prescribed route. Some gondola landings included wooden piers that extended over the canal for easy access from land to boat, but others were simply marked by mooring posts beside steps or porticos. Their utilitarian forms communicated only their primary function as circulation nodes but mapping them in relation to data documenting sex work shows that they often doubled as places of encounter for meretrici, procuresses, and their clients, a correlation so embedded in everyday experience it was likely taken for granted.71 Given Rialto’s connections to the sex trade and the concentration of gondolas around Rialto bridge, alliances between sex workers, procurers, and gondoliers seem almost inevitable there. The coincidence was noted by Venetians and visitors alike. For example, in 1608 the Englishman Thomas Coryat, called attention to the gondoliers at the landing known as the “Buso” di Rialto (“hole” of Rialto) or Traghetto de’ Ruffiani (ferry of the pimps) (2A).72 Describing gondoliers there as the most “vicious and licentious” in Venice, Coryat warned the unsuspecting foreigner of their seduction, perhaps in collaboration with matrons from the municipal brothel (2B) located at the opposite end of Rialto’s main thoroughfare from where the Buso gondolas landed.73 Although the Buso landing was not designated for night service, three Rialto landings were. Since these connected to pedestrian routes leading directly toward the brothel and other known sites of commercial sex, gondoliers might have collaborated with procuresses, especially after dark, when the brothel’s workers had to leave the streets and were prohibited from soliciting clients themselves.74 70 At one time Venice had 37 landings. Zanelli, Traghetti veneziani, 85. The pier and the adjacent quay and steps were integral to the landing’s operation. Gondoliers were expected to maintain the quay, steps, and the piers associated with their landing, and to clean them every morning. Zanelli, Traghetti veneziani, 64. 71 Roughly 800 places of embarkation via steps or piers exist in Venice, so intersections between pedestrian and boat traffic were common. Zanelli, Traghetti veneziani, 85. For the post-1530 program of edging the quays with stone and constructing more places of embarkation, see Calabi, Il rinnovamento urbano. 72 The name buso is interpreted by some as slang for bucco—hole, referring to the vagina or anus. Tassini, Curiosità veneziani, 118. For reference to the Traghetto de’ Ruffiani, see Zanelli, Traghetti veneziani, 57. 73 Coryat, Coryat’s Crudities: Selections, 80–81. 74 Sex workers were to return to the brothel in the evening at the sound of the Rialtina, the curfew bell that rang three hours after sunset. Leggi e memorie, 37. For gondola routes with night

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Gondolas and other boats also transported sex workers and clients to assignations around the city or served as mobile sites for trysts, sometimes hidden under the fabric covering of the gondola’s felze (cabin). As Dennis Romano has shown, traveling by boat could differentiate passengers from those who traveled on foot, and the type of boat and its fittings conveyed different ranks of status.75 Consequently, when meretrici were rowed around the city, they could easily have been mistaken for respectable women of high standing, especially when wearing finery. With a series of regulations, authorities sought to limit the sex workers’ movements on the city’s canals. Their efforts focused less on immorality and more on sex workers’ dissimulation and bad public example. A 1539 law prohibited meretrici from traveling the canals near churches when the faithful flocked to the most popular services.76 In 1615 legislators ordered boatmen who rowed sex workers not to deviate from the most direct route to their intended destination, and in 1626 prohibited transporting meretrici on the Grand Canal, where many of the city’s elite lived and passed leisure time in their private gondolas.77 Meretrici were also forbidden to circulate on the canals while masked, and later, to travel in boats with two boatmen, a luxury reserved for the wealthy and the reputable, who could pay for the privilege of speed and convenience.78 Rather than being centralized at the municipal brothel or marginalized in a designated neighborhood, Venice’s early modern sex trade extended throughout the city to such an extent that it seemed practically unavoidable. One explanation was sex workers’ spatial integration into everyday life in the neighborhoods where they lived and worked. Mapping their dwellings and sites of solicitation manifests relationships between place and social and commercial activities. These conjunctions were most notable where combinations of advantageous commercial ties, inexpensive lodging, nodes of communication and mobility, and high traffic supported their business. Where inns, taverns, lodging houses, bathhouses, or gondola landings were found, meretrici often were, too. Venice’s urban morphology also played a role because the streets and canals offered relatively little uninterrupted service, see Zanelli, Traghetti veneziani, 54, 57, and 60. 75 Romano, “The Gondola as a Marker of Station,” 361. 76 Leggi e memorie, 100. 77 Leggi e memorie, 139–40 and 146–47; Romano, “The Gondola as a Marker of Station,” 360. For laws requiring sex workers to live in modest housing, see Leggi e memorie, 146 and 149. 78 For laws pertaining to sex workers and boat travel, see Leggi e memorie, 121-22, 124–25, 139–42, 146–47, and 153. For the Florentine prohibition of masked sex workers circulating in carriages, see Terpstra, “Locating the Sex Trade,” 114. It is not known whether carriage drivers participated in the sex trade.

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through-movement. Sex workers could multiply their encounters with potential clients (and others) by stationing themselves in locations that funneled prospects their way: bridges that connected islands, the primary arteries that led to them, and the squares in between. Mapping these human relationships in urban spaces shows that the sex trade followed identifiable patterns and that, even as their visibility and mobility exposed them to conflict and even violence, meretrici exploited Venice’s unique spatial syntax to serve their own ends.

Works Cited Primary Sources Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV) Cinque Anziani della Pace (CP) Milizia da Mar Archivio Storio del Patriarcato di Venezia (ASPV) Status Animarum (SA) Biblioteca del Museo Correr (BMC) MS Cicogna 2039 Coryat, Thomas. Coryat’s Crudities: Selections. Edited by Philip S. Palmer. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2017. Doglioni, Nicolò. Delle cose notabili che sono in Venetia. Venice: Heredi di Giovanni Battista Costati, 1671. La tariffa delle puttane di Venegia. Venice, 1535. Vecellio, Cesare. Degli habiti antichi et moderni di diversi parti del mondo. Venice, 1590.

Secondary Sources Barzaghi, Antonio. Donne o cortigiane? La prostituzione a Venezia: documenti di costume dal XVI al XVIII secolo. Verona: Bertani Editore, 1980. Boerio, Giuseppe. Dizionario del dialetto veneziano. Venice: G. Cechhini, 1867. Braunstein, Philippe. “Cannaregio: zona di transito?” La città italiana e i luoghi degli stranieri: XIV–XVIII secolo (1998): 52–62. Byars, Jana. Informal Marriages in Early Modern Venice. New York: Routledge, 2018. Calabi, Donatella. Il rinnovamento urbano del primo Cinquecento. www.treccani. it/enciclopedia/il-rinnovamento-urbano-del-primo-cinquecento_%28Storiadi-Venezia%29/.

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Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Certeau, Michel de. Culture in the Plural. Translated by Tom Conley. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Chojnacka, Monica. Working Women of Early Modern Venice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Clarke, Paula C. “The Business of Prostitution in Early Renaissance Venice.” Renaissance Quarterly 68, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 419–64. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Camilla la Magra: prostituta romana.” In Rinascimento al femminile, edited by Ottavia Niccoli, 163–96. Rome: Edizioni Laterza, 1991. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Seen and Known: Prostitutes in the Cityscape of Late SixteenthCentury Rome’. Renaissance Studies 12, no. 3 (September 1998): 392–409. Coletti, Fabien. “Le Castelletto ou l’échec d’un modèle: la politique urbaine de la prostitution à Venise entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance’. Il Campiello 2 (2017): 78–96. Concina, Ennio. Structures urbaines et fonctions des bâtiments du XVI au XIX siècles: une recherche à Venise. Venice: Unesco-Save Venice, 1982. Cowan, Alexander. “‘Not Carrying Out the Vile and Mechanical Arts’: Touch as a Measure of Social Distinction in Early Modern Venice’. In The City and the Senses: Urban Culture Since 1500, edited by A. Cowan and J. Seward, 39–59. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Davis, Robert C., The Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal: Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. Ferrante, Lucia. “La sessualità come risorsa. Donne davanti al foro arcivescovile di Bologna (sec. XVII).” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Moyen-Age, Temps modernes 99, no. 2 (1987): 989–1016. Ferraro, Joanne M. “Making a Living: The Sex Trade in Early Modern Venice.” American Historical Review 123, no. 1 (2018): 30–59. Leggi e memorie venete sulla prostituzione fino alla caduta della Repubblica. Venice: Tipographia del Commercio di Marco Visentini, 1870–1872. Molmenti, Pompeo. Venice: Its Individual Growth from the Earliest Beginnings to the Fall of the Republic, Vol. II, Venice of the Golden Age. Translated by Horatio Forbes Brown. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co, 1907. Romano, Dennis. “The Gondola as a Marker of Station.” Renaissance Studies 8, no. 4 (December 1994): 359–74. Rosenthal, Margaret. The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Ruggiero, Guido. Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the end of the Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Salzberg, Rosa. “Mobility, Cohabitation and Cultural Exchange in the Lodging Houses of Early Modern Venice.” Urban History 46, no. 2 (2019): 398–418.

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Terpstra, Nicholas. “Locating the Sex Trade in the Early Modern City: Space, Sense and Regulation in Sixteenth-Century Florence.” In Mapping Space, Sense, and Movement in Florence, edited by Nicholas Terpstra and Colin Rose, 108–24. London: Routledge, 2016. Wolfthal, Diana. In and Out of the Marriage Bed: Seeing Sex in Renaissance Europe. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. Zanelli, Giuseppe. Traghetti veneziani: la gondola al servizio della città. Venice: il Cardo editore, 1997.

About the author Saundra Weddle is a Professor of Architectural and Urban History and Theory at Drury University. Her research focuses on gender, architecture, and urbanism in early modern Italy. She has authored publications on Florentine and Venetian convents, and the Venetian sex trade.

7.

Making a Name in Music Professional and Social Strategies of the Musicians at the Venetian Ospedali Maggiori Vanessa Tonelli Abstract: In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Venice, hundreds of poor and abandoned girls and women turned to one of the four charitable Ospedali Maggiori for help and refuge. Those who had a musical talent, however, could find a life of relative privilege and distinction as one of the institutions’ female musicians, known as figlie di coro. These figlie di coro often became esteemed musicians, performing publicly and teaching music throughout their lives. This essay tells the stories of specific figlie di coro and the networks on which they relied to support their advantageous musical careers. Their own personal letters reveal insight to the connections that they developed through their musical prestige, which in turn helped them navigate various life choices and hardships faced by women in Venetian society. Keywords: Venice, music, musical careers, charitable institutions, ospedali, patronage

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, hundreds of young girls and women entered Venice’s four charitable Ospedali Maggiori to find relief from poverty, sickness, or childhood abandonment. Those who demonstrated musical skill could spend years training and later work among the Ospedali’s reputable female musicians known as figlie di coro. In performances, these musicians awed crowds of prestigious visitors, and some became sought-after instructors for daughters of noble families. Yet, the sustained esteem of the figlie di coro depended on the networks of individuals, inside and outside the Ospedali Maggiori, who helped to initiate and solidify the careers of Venice’s exceptional female musicians.

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch07

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Found primarily among administrative documents held at the Venetian Archivio di Stato, letters from the figlie di coro and their kinfolk to the patrician men who oversaw the Ospedali Maggiori allow us to track these layered relationships. Family members sent supplications for protection and help for individual musicians, patrons bestowed favors, and patrician administrators interceded as paternal figures. Crucial to the musicians’ success was the cultivation of advantageous connections and the building of personal authority based on their musical accomplishments. For many figlie di coro the only adult life they ever knew took place within the Ospedali Maggiori. These four prominent charitable Venetian institutions each provided for different needs: the Ospedale della Santa Maria della Pietà (founded in 1336 and consolidated in 1515) exclusively took in abandoned foundlings; the Ospedale degl’Incurabili (1522) served vulnerable women and anyone suffering “incurable” diseases, especially syphilis; the Ospedale dei Derelitti (1528) helped the derelict and homeless, including orphans; and the Ospedale di San Lazzaro e dei Mendicanti (1595) cared for beggars, such as destitute elderly.1 Since men could more readily support themselves and be employed in Venice’s shipping or wares, the majority of the Ospedali’s residents throughout their history were women of different ages. These female wards, referred to as figlie (daughters) or in Venetian as putte (unmarried young women), usually made up each institution’s performing musical ensemble, known as the coro (pl. cori).2 By the late sixteenth century, each Ospedale had developed its own coro to serve religious functions, such as masses or funerals, and the regular spiritual fulfilment of their wards. By the mid-seventeenth century, music became essential to the Ospedali Maggiori’s religious and civic positioning. The unusual all-female ensembles and their excellent music won acclaim, and many loyal patrons frequented performances, even bequeathing property to the Ospedali and their favorite musicians.3 The Ospedali, in turn, cultivated their cori for this prestige and patronage, growing to heights of success and fame in the eighteenth century. The institutions relied almost entirely on public charity until their musical offerings dissolved due to Venice’s economic downturn and Napoleon’s invasion at the end of the century. 1 Berdes, Women Musicians of Venice, 45–63. There were other “minor” charitable institutions in Venice, notably the Casa delle Zitelle in Giudecca, which also took in poor women without dowries. See Chojnacka, “Women, Charity and Community,” 68–91. 2 Male wards were usually discharged for work and trade in their teens. 3 Gillio, L’attività musicale, 17.

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Because the records for the Ospedale degl’Incurabili and the Ospedale dei Derelitti are today dispersed or inaccessible, this essay focuses on figlie di coro who lived and worked at the Ospedale della Pietà and the Ospedale dei Mendicanti. At the Pietà, most wards were abandoned as infants and toddlers in the scafetta, a small metal turntable at the church where a child could be delivered anonymously. According to the regulations, after baptism, each child was placed with a wetnurse, often on the Venetian mainland. If the foundlings did not stay with their foster families, as was hoped, they returned to the Pietà before the age of ten. There they slept two to a bed until the age of twelve and lived according to a strict daily routine that included monastic observance of the Divine Office, chores, and quiet religious study, along with limited training in reading, spinning, lacemaking, and other labors. 4 At the Mendicanti, on the other hand, children proven to be orphaned or poor were usually accepted between the ages of six and ten. Yet, especially when the coro needed members, exceptions were made for musically-talented girls who were older than ten or who did not demonstrate the requisite need. At both institutions, the girls’ training intensified around the age of fourteen, with the musically-talented separated for specialized instruction.5 By age eighteen to twenty, they were considered full adults, and, at each Ospedale, approximately forty adult women served as figlie di coro. The hundreds of other non-musical female wards—if they did not find a husband—took up domestic functions, such as sewing, washing, cleaning, and cooking, as figlie di commun or operaie (workers).6 Most figlie di coro continued to perform publicly or teach for decades, until they retired as a giubilata. Each of the Ospedali Maggiori had a hierarchy of officers who oversaw the institution as a whole and arranged special direction for the musical programs. At the top, the Congregation, composed of several dozen Venetian aristocrats and occasionally a few wealthy professionals and merchants, served as a board of Governors.7 These men managed capital, approved expenses, decided upon regulatory changes, hired employees, and generally supervised the activities of their wards at a distance. From among their ranks, the Congregation would elect deputies responsible for directing

4 Capitoli […] Derelitti, 25–35. 5 Capitoli […] Pietà, 16. Young wards were designated in classes by age: figlie minori / piccole (6–13), figlie mezzane (14–18), and figlie grandi as adults. For a more detailed discussion of these classes, see Gillio, L’attività musicale, 75–76. 6 The numbers of the coro could fluctuate. The Mendicanti had up to 50 in the late eighteenth century, and the Pietà might have anywhere between 30–80 depending on the era. Ibid., 95–98. 7 Ibid., 38.

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and periodically inspecting specific functions of the institution, such as the Deputati sopra il coro, charged with the Ospedale’s musical activities.8 These deputies, in turn, chose women from among the figlie to serve in positions of leadership and, in fact, often gave them much power. The head was the Priora (Prioress), who exercised supreme authority within the walls of an Ospedale, subject to the regulations of the Congregation. The men only intervened in extreme cases, for larger regulatory changes, or for occasional inspections. The Priora, who normally earned a salary, supervised the daily activities of all the female wards. She managed finances, inventoried supplies, assigned responsibilities, and imposed discipline as necessary, as well as approved interactions with the outside community.9 Although the position in earlier times might have been filled by a hired external woman, by the eighteenth century each Priora came from the internal ranks. Figlie di commun could be eligible, but most often it was a figlia di coro with decades of exceptional leadership, organization, and teaching who rose to this prestigious role, as the individual stories below show. Many figlie di coro also became maestre (teachers) who managed discipline, supervised chores, and most importantly oversaw education of the younger wards.10 Like the Priora, a maestra was a model of female competence and influence. Serving as a mentor in the master-apprentice training system that prepared girls for the coro, a maestra assessed younger figlie and decided who should receive training and promotion to the coro.11 At times, the maestre also received additional students from outside the Ospedali—daughters and nieces of patrician families as fee-paying pupils called figlie in educazione. These external students brought connections with whom the figlie di coro could network for patronage and external support.12 While most older figlie di coro at the Mendicanti were expected to take on students as maestre, the Pietà’s Congregation selected and voted upon teaching appointments, with only the most exceptional and privileged instructors, known as privileggiate, allowed to teach figlie in educazione. 8 Capitoli […] Pietà, 17–22. 9 Capitoli […] Incurabili, 1–3. 10 At the Pietà there were not only Maestre di Coro, who supervised the musical activities, but also Maestre di Commun who helped teach other non-musical occupations. 11 IRE MEN B. 1, Della Rubrica […] Mendicanti, tomo secondo (1677), 146, as cited in Ellero, Arte e musica, 163. 12 ASV OLP B. 690 Not. L (1 May 1718), 121–123v. Unlike the internal figlie di commun or figlie di coro, figlie in educazione were considered external students, with (typically wealthy merchant or patrician) families who often financed their upkeep and to which they were to return.

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To enhance the quality of the coro, the deputies often hired external male professionals, called maestri. At the top, the Maestro di Coro was responsible for composing music, instructing the musicians, and preparing and directing performances. The Congregation regularly reviewed and voted on the job performances of the maestri, occasionally turning to the opinions and criticisms of the Priora, maestre, and more advanced figlie di coro.13 Sometimes, a figlia, appointed as Maestra di Coro and serving as personal assistant to the maestri, might even enjoy direct access to and impact on the maestri—she would escort them within the institution, produce copies of their musical scores, and run rehearsals or performances in their absence. While the maestri officially held supreme responsibility for composing and rehearsing, they usually only entered a few days each week; it was the Priora and the maestre who ran the daily operations. The letters of the figlie to the Congregation, paired with related administrative records, allow us to reconstruct the lives and networks of some noteworthy musicians. These examples show how the general patterns might play out for individual women, with both variations and occasionally failures. Presented here in chronological order, Andriana della Tiorba, Maria Canuti, Agata Cantora, and Margarita Doglioni overcame abandonment, poverty, and sickness to make long musical careers. Others, such as Lucrezia Vitalba or Margherita Bonafede and her peers, had early success cut short or chose a path outside of music. Their varying social strategies, which included performing publicly, corresponding with the Congregations, sustaining relationships with outside family, and even making face-to-face contacts with patricians through teaching and visits, supported them through personal hardships and often reinforced their musical accomplishments and institutional reputations.

Appreciated Artisans: Andriana della Tiorba As Andriana della Tiorba’s career shows, the path to musical recognition— which brought a girl distinction among the hundreds of other children abandoned at the Pietà each year, and therefore favor from the Congregation—was not always straightforward. Andriana entered the Ospedale della Pietà around the year 1663 in the usual way: she was anonymously left in the scafetta. Women inside the Ospedale took the baby, swaddled her, 13 See, for instance, the dismissal of Maestro di Coro Antonio Pollarolo at the Derelitti in 1733. Gillio, L’attività musicale, 284.

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and gave her a name and number in a register. Death was rampant among the abandoned; about three-fourths of the registers’ entries show a small cross beside the words “morse in casa (died in house)”.14 Beating the odds, however, Andriana became a permanent ward of the Ospedale della Pietà and was singled out for musical training before the age of fourteen. Andriana followed the mentor-apprentice system, studying the basic elements of music such as notes and rhythms, as well as both singing and instrumental technique, first under the older female musicians and later under the male maestri. She benefited from new training procedures and practicing requirements of Giacomo Spada (Maestro di Coro, 1677–1701) and his brother Bonaventura Spada (Maestro d’Istrumenti, 1682–1703), who taught her intonation, advanced instrumental techniques, and enough music theory to improvise over a bass line.15 With high aptitude on a bass lute-like instrument called the theorbo, she eventually became a renowned soloist. The wards of the Pietà had no surnames, and most were labeled simply as “della Pietà.” Yet Andriana, like several other figlie di coro, literally made a name for herself through her musical excellence. By the time she was twenty-two, she bore the name of her instrument, Andriana della Tiorba. Despite her exceptional musical skills, Andriana had difficulty adhering to the Ospedale’s strict routine, and, in August 1687, she found herself in trouble. Typically, the Priora meted out the designated punishments, including isolation, restricted diet, fines, or other revoked privileges.16 Andriana’s infractions, however, along with those of a companion, were serious or persistent enough to be referred to the Congregation’s judgment: Having been repeatedly corrected for indecencies, committed by Zanetta and Andriana, figlie di coro, which are incorrigible and scandalous, with indecorum and detriment to the good opinion of this Charitable Institution, it is necessary to carry out the punishment due against them, which should serve no less for the correction of them, than as an example for others.17 14 ASMPV, Registri Scafetta. The register with Andriana’s entry is lost. 15 ASV OLP B. 687 Not. C (31 December 1684), 144–46. For more about the Spadas, see SelfridgeField, Pallade Veneta and Selfridge-Field, “Music at the Pietà before Vivaldi,” 374. 16 Capitoli […] Pieta, 11. 17 ASV OLP B. 687 Not. D (August 10, 1687), 41: “Essendo più volte state corete per inconvenienti comessi da Zanneta, et Andriana f iglie di coro, le quali sono incorigibili, et scandolose con indecoro, e pregiudicio del buon conceto di questo Pio Luoco, è […] necessario di pratticare contro di esse il castigo dovuto, che servir debba non meno per coretione delle medeme, che per esempio alle altre.”

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The Congregation consigned Andriana and her friend to six months in prison, another six months exclusion from the coro, and permanent separation from each other. Punishments of such severity were rare, reserved typically for when figlie either became violent, tried to run away, or became romantically involved with one another.18 Only two months later, however, through the appeal of Giusto Vaneich, a wealthy Venetian merchant and long-time patron of the Ospedale della Pietà, the Congregation voted to release Andriana and Zanetta from imprisonment.19 The two women still spent the next six months working as figlie di commun, before they returned to the coro, thoroughly chastened and forgiven. Their years of musical training and subsequent skills were too valuable to prohibit forever. Andriana is completely absent from the Congregation’s deliberations for the next seven years, but she must have continued to teach and perform on the theorbo, because she then received a special opportunity to teach outside the Ospedale. In August 1694, the Monastery of San Girolamo in Serravalle requested a figlia di coro to educate their nuns in music.20 After considering both the conduct and talent of their current musicians, the Congregation chose Andriana. Despite her previous imprisonment, she was now thirty years old and had demonstrated skillful teaching and performance, both as soloist and in ensembles. Her years of theorbo training must also have been particularly valuable, as this instrument—a favorite at the Ospedale della Pietà—often covered essential figured-bass parts and was needed to accompany vocalists without the cumbersome bulk of larger keyboard instruments. Andriana taught at the monastery in Serravalle for the next five years. Unlike the nuns, whose families and monastic dowries typically supported them, Andriana did not have to pay for her keep. She received annual remuneration from the monastery and, over several years, assembled a collection of her own belongings. Her musical position gave Andriana special authority among the nuns, but convent life eventually demanded taking religious vows and she became a novice in September 1699.21 At her request, the Congregation of the Pietà gave her 400 ducats for a monastic dowry, plus 120 ducats for other needs. 18 For instance, Santina del Coro was imprisoned after sneaking out to visit a young man. ASV OLP B. 692 Not. Q (26 March 1734), 61v–62; and Apollonia della Pietà was locked in her room and forbidden to sing in the coro or teach music for a month after punching a superior figlia. ASV OLP B. 692 Not. R (14 November 1738), 34–34v. 19 ASV OLP B. 687 Not. D (27 September 1687), 44. 20 ASV OLP B. 688 Not. E (August 22, 1694), 186–87. The monastery of San Girolamo in Serravalle is located in Ceneda, in the province of Treviso. 21 ASV OLP B. 688 Not. G (September 20, 1699), 19v.

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Considering that they only provided fifty to one hundred ducats for the marriage dowries of other figlie at that time, this was a large sum. Six months later, however, in May 1700, the new presiding Bishop of Ceneda Marco Agazzi made a public decree that suppressed Andriana’s musical role: We command that, in their future festivities, vestments or professions as a nun, and any other occasion or time, the Abbesses, Prioresses, and nuns of any monastery subject to Us, no one exempt, cannot make music, nor sing in figured song or play any instrument in their monasteries, nor allow that music be made by others in their external churches in any way, and this is by virtue of holy obedience and under penalty of judgement.22

Andriana’s career in music was too important to her, and the decree threatened her privilege and authority, as well as her opportunities to earn money as an instructor. Fortuitously, she had not yet completed the mandatory one-year trial as a novice before the f inalization of her profession and religious vows.23 Andriana scrambled to return to the Pietà and wrote a letter, imploring the Congregation for clemency: “My misfortune has not allowed me to continue the said religious life, given the unexpected decree of my most Illustrious Lord Bishop, by which I stand prohibited from the practice of music, which was the reason I was received by the Mothers of the said Monastery.”24 Andriana explained that she sold many of her belongings to pay for food and clothing while transitioning to Serravalle. She begged the Congregation to reimburse her expenses, and, likely recognizing the value of her musical ability, they unanimously permitted her return and reimbursed her.25 Because Andriana was a recognized and excellent teacher, her return fortified the popularity and financial security of the Pietà. Around the 22 Archivio Diocesano di Vittorio Veneto, Atti di Conventi e Monasteri, B. 131 (January 17, 1700): “[…] commandiamo alle m.to RR. M.ri Abbadesse, Priore, e Monache di qualunque Monast.a Noi soggette, che in avvenite nelle loro solennità, nel vestire, ò professare di Monache, et in qualsivoglia altra occasione, ò tempo, niuno eccettuato, non faccino Musiche, ne cantino in Canto f igurato, ò suonino con qualsivoglia Istrum. To ne loro Monasterii, ne permettino in modo alcuno, che da altri siino fatte Musiche nelle loro chiese esteriori, e ciò in virtù di santa obedienza, e sotto pena ad arbitrio.” 23 The minimum of a one-year trial period was established during the Tridentine reforms. See Glixon, Mirrors of Heaven or Worldly Theaters?, 105. 24 ASV OLP B. 686 (May 23, 1700): “[L]a mia mala sorte non m’ha permesso di continuare la detta vita religiosa stante l’improviso decreto di Mons. Ill.mo Vescovo di Ceneda con cui resto prohibito l’essercitio della musica, per il di cui motivo fui ricevuta dalle Madri di detto Mon[aster]o.” 25 ASV OLP B. 688 Not. G (May 23, 1700), 33.

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beginning of the eighteenth century, increasing numbers of Venetian patricians were noticing the superior musical instruction at the Ospedali and wanted to enroll their daughters and nieces as paying figlie in educazione.26 Andriana, with years of experience teaching nuns who were also often daughters of wealthy families, was a perfect tutor for these external students, and she settled f ittingly into the role of instructor upon her return. She off icially earned the title of figlia privileggiata in 1707 and received Elena, daughter of the nobleman Zorzi Bondumier, as her figlia in educazione.27 The Congregation then elected Andriana as a maestra in 1709, with additional powers to run rehearsals, supervise the other figlie di coro, direct musical performances, and communicate directly with the maestri and deputies. By successfully arranging her return to the Ospedale, Andriana thus secured opportunities to network with a prestigious Venetian family, to earn wages to support herself, and to assume new musical responsibilities; overall, she fortified her position of expertise and authority as a musical artisan. Despite the threats against her continued musical practices, Andriana must have realized the value of her own skills after f inding on several occasions that the Congregation prized her musical contributions enough to offer compassion and support. Her long musical career earned her titles, income, and respect for the rest of her life. She worked as a maestra and leader at the Pietà into old age, and she died in 1734 at the age of seventy from “inflammation of the lungs.”28

Family Ties: Maria Canuti and Lugrezia Vitalba Not all figlie di coro had to rely on the magnanimity of the Congregation and the institution, but instead had family connections that influenced their life paths and musical careers. Unlike the Ospedale della Pietà, where all the wards entered as abandoned infants, many at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti grew up as children of ordinary Venetian families who turned to the charitable institutions for help in hard times. Consequently, the Mendicanti women often had family names and external kinfolk with whom they sustained connections. The lives of Maria Canuti and Lugrezia Vitalba, two young women who entered the Mendicanti in the early eighteenth 26 ASV OLP B. 690 Not. L (May 1, 1718), 121–23v. 27 ASV OLP B. 689 Not. H (December 2, 1708), 34-34v; July 7, 1709), 72. 28 White, “Biographical notes,” 82.

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century, demonstrate how family ties, both inside and outside the institution’s walls, could smooth a ward’s entry or give her direction if she exited. Maria Canuti owed her career as a figlia di coro to her aunt Maria Navan­ zera. Using her own carefully built musical prestige and finances as one of the Mendicanti’s figlie di coro, Navanzera undertook the prolonged process of securing the Congregation’s permission to rear and educate her thirteenyear-old niece. In July 1701, she sent a petition to the Congregation, stating fear that the recently orphaned girl could easily fall under bad influence and lose her chastity. Navanzera even offered a payment of 150 ducats, which she described as “all my worldly goods.”29 Despite her generous donation, the Congregation declined her request. The governors of the Ospedali were often very particular that the orphans came from religiously obedient families of honorable Venetian citizens. So, Navanzera petitioned again six months later, in January 1702, restating in clearer language: Trusting in the mercy of the Venerable Congregation, I dare to present to their kind charity the miseries of a poor girl of thirteen years, named Maria Canuti, at just the age to soon fall into risk of her reputation and of very great offense to His Most Divine Majesty. Most especially she runs that risk because she finds herself an orphan without a guardian and with two smaller sisters and a brother. It is not so much my kinship that moves me to ask for such a favor, as seeing the evident danger of offense to God and the loss of honor.30

Reaff irming the moral imperative to accept the young Maria Canuti so she would not offend God and lose her sexual honor—and this time promising 160 ducats—Navanzera achieved her niece’s welcome into the Mendicanti. Under her aunt’s direction, the young Maria Canuti launched her official study as a musician at the Mendicanti and remained a highly successful figlia di coro past the age of sixty. She became one of the top solo singers in public performances and earned enough income, beyond the donation her 29 ASV OLP B, 646 (July 3, 1701): “Tutto ciò che tengo posso dir al mondo.” 30 ASV OLP B. 646 (January 8, 1701 m.v./1702): “Conf idata nella clemenza di V. C. prendo ardire di far comparir sotto la di loro companionevole carità le miserie d’una povera putta di anni numero 13, che hà nome Maria Canutti in ettà a punto presto di cader in rischio della sua riputtatione et offesa grandisima di S.D. Maestà Maggiormente core in tal rischio perche ritrova Orfana senza tuttore e con due sorelle più picciole et un frattello. Non mi muove tanto la parentella a dimandar tal gratia, quanto il vedere l’eminente pericolo dell’offesa di Dio e perdita dell’ honore.”

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aunt had provided, to receive thirty ducats annuity in her old age.31 Like her aunt and many other figlie, Canuti sustained connections with her family all along. With her fame, she bargained with the Congregation to spend time with her family outside the institution. Between the years 1732 and 1750, Canuti received permission to travel almost annually for health reasons, sometimes spending an entire month at a time on the Venetian mainland with her younger brother Nicolò.32 Occasionally, young people came through kin ties to live or study informally at the Mendicanti, but without express permission from the Congregation. In the summer of 1706, the Congregation learned that, without their knowledge, two young women, seven girls, and a boy had been staying within the institution as “putte in educazione” under the care of the figlie.33 The two women, ages 25 and 16, were related to each other as aunt and niece, with the older one herself being the niece of someone named Ziani, presumably Anna Maria Ziani—a figlia di coro famous for her low “baritone” voice.34 Several of these younger unofficial putte in educazione, aged from around five to seven years, were also relatives of current wards, and one had been abandoned when her father joined the military. Some girls had lived under the steady watch of the Mendicanti women for almost two years, while others—including the boy, who was the pupil of Margarita di Coro—came every morning and returned to their families at night. Upon discovery of these unsanctioned residents in 1706, the Congregation declared that the Ospedale, already supporting over a hundred girls and women—an “excessive number”—could take no more.35 The interlopers had to leave. Any girls found without permission, as well as those who received them, risked punishment by the Congregation. One of these “discovered” younger girls was Lugrezia Vitalba. She initially came to the Mendicanti not due to critical need, but because of the desire and support of her family for her training. About five or six years old in 1706, Lugrezia had already studied at the Ospedale under the guidance of her aunt, the figlia di coro Vienna Cortesi, for twenty months.36 When forced to leave, she likely 31 ASV OLP B. 642 Mensuale (December 1748). Thirty ducats would have been a modest amount, as the head Maestro di Coro at the Mendicanti received 350 ducats per year salary and other Maestri each received around ninety ducats per year. 32 ASV OLP B. 652, 653, 654. Nicolò had become Parish Priest of San Giovanni Novo in Castello. 33 ASV OLP B. 646 (July 26, 1706). 34 Berdes and Whittemore, Guide to Ospedali Research, 511. 35 ASV OLP B. 646 (May 12, 1704). Within this decree, the Congregation states that no figlia could be accepted into the Ospedale unless there were less than eighty, and, when they accepted more girls, they would have to be from the most “miserable” conditions and “not younger than six years old and not acceding eight.” 36 ASV OLP B. 646 (July 26, 1706).

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returned to her parents, but her musical education and well-being must have been important enough to the family to risk punishment. While her father still provided for her, Lugrezia managed to return clandestinely to the Mendicanti and, four years later, the Congregation again learned of her presence there. This time, however, Lugrezia received permission to stay. In February 1710, the Congregation realized that the number of figlie had declined to less than eighty. With a shortage also of young girls to replace the aging figlie di coro, the Congregation agreed to admit some new candidates of high musical ability and good manners to serve in the coro.37 Furthermore, the death of Lugrezia’s mother in 1709 now made her eligible for care within the institution. When her family realized that the Ospedale was again accepting students, they revealed Lugrezia’s presence for consideration and added the promise that her poor father would help pay her costs as he had previously done. The facts that Lugrezia had already conformed, unnoticed, to the Ospedale’s routines and regulations for almost eight years, and that for much of that time she had studied music under her aunt, probably helped her case more than it hurt. Lugrezia Vitalba practiced music and performed successfully at the Mendicanti for the next ten years. In 1721, however, trouble developed. Lugrezia had lost her voice. Without musical talent she could no longer continue in the coro, nor reside in the community of the Ospedale.38 Her father then wrote to the Congregation about her future: Now that she has arrived at the age of 21 and become wholly unfit to serve the Coro, and therefore is rendered only a burden, I humbly beg you to grant her license to return to her legitimate father, whose only thought is either to give her in marriage or to consecrate her to God in a monastery; and until her destiny is decided, I have made up my mind and received permission to put her into the care of the Monastery of Santa Catarina in Chioggia.39

Lugrezia and her father gathered for the Congregation the necessary assurances from this convent, located on the southern edge of the Venetian 37 ASV OLP B. 647 (February 16, 1709 m.v./1710). 38 IRE MEN B. 7, (June 8, 1721). See Giron-Panel, Musique et musiciennes, 242. 39 ASV OLP B. 648b (June 8, 1721): “Hora pervenuta alli anni 21 e resa affato inabile a servir il Coro, et in seguito resa solo d’aggravio, humilmente le supplico volerla gratiare della licenza, a restituirla al suo legitimo Padre, che ad altro più attentamente non pensa che ò à collocarla in matrimonio, ò à consacrarla a Dio in un Monastero; et intanto sin che resti deciso del suo destino, ho deliberato, e mi è sortita la permissione di ponerla in custodia […] Monas[ter]o di Santa Cattarina di Chioza.”

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lagoon, where she promised to take religious vows as a nun. She likely spent the rest of her life in this setting, suitable for an unmarried woman, but lacking the opportunities of the musicians of the Ospedali.

Noble Support: Agata Cantora Like other women, those living in the Ospedali sometimes faced health problems. Yet, as esteemed musicians, the figlie di coro had special opportunities to seek help through certain noble and bourgeois patrons. Agata Cantora exemplifies the advantages of these musical connections in overcoming physical difficulties both as an infant and later in life. At her birth on March 24, 1712, the baby girl only had one finger on her left hand, while her two feet together had only four toes. The future for such a child must have seemed bleak, with little hope for success in marriage or in the labor markets. Her parents, likely dismayed by the disfigured child, sent this newborn daughter—swaddled in red cloth with fancy trimmings—for anonymous deposit in the scafetta of the Pietà. The infant arrived with a note: “I beg you to safeguard this child and keep her close until such time, in short, that she will be re-acknowledged.”40 The women who received the baby assigned her a number and a name: P #2229, Agata. Her family, however, never came back for her, and Agata grew up within the Ospedale della Pietà. Although Agata may have struggled with fine manual skills for sewing or playing many musical instruments, she excelled in singing. In 1723, at the age of eleven, Agata officially started training for the coro. She took special voice lessons from the proficient Apollonia, who was about age thirty. Through this tutelage, Agata became a well-known soprano soloist by the age of eighteen, a cantora considered second only to her teacher. 41 Despite her success as a vocalist, Agata struggled, like many other wards, with preserving her health. Complications first arose, in the spring of 1731 when she was nineteen years old. The physician of the Ospedale explained: Agata Corista suffers almost constant heaviness of the head, with frequent and abundant vicious salivation [humors drawn to the mouth], so that 40 ASMPV Registri Scafetta P #2229 (March 24, 1712): “Son á suplicarle á custodire questa creatura et tenerla appresso di sé sino á tanto che in breve sará riconosciuta.” 41 Museo Correr, Cicogna 1178, 207v. Anonymous, “Sonetto Sopra Le Putte Di Coro Della Pietà.” A poem describing Agata is transcribed in Giazotto, Vivaldi. A rhymed, verse English-translation of the entire poem can be found in Berdes and Whittemore, Guide to Ospedali Research, 67.

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often when drinking the jugular veins produce either heating or abscesses, and particularly during the intense practice of her vocation, with danger of losing her voice. 42

For relief, the doctor suggested that she receive extra chicken in her meals, as was common for most wards in the infirmary. She continued to feel sick, however, for many months and temporarily lost her voice. Agata herself wrote to the Congregation in August: Encouraged by the very many benefits given by the venerated authority of this Venerable Congregation to one who enjoys the honor of their fatherhood in this Charitable Institution, I, Agata Cantora, dare, with all respect, to petition you for my most humble person. The great and heavy indispositions felt in my person, although in some part reduced, continue […] Universally it is believed, and the physician aff irms in the attached certificate, that my only remedy would be a change of air. Also in this, God wants to console me, given that the Lady Loredana Querini, with very great kindness, having sympathy for my situation, agrees to take me with her to her villa for about a month. 43

Her letter acknowledges that, lacking biological parents, the Congregation served as her father. This paternal relationship between the figlie and the patrician men who oversaw them, appears in many of the women’s written requests. The Congregation indeed encouraged this framing of its familial authority over these disadvantaged Venetian women. Furthermore, in the pursuit of better health, Agata benefited not only from her patriarchal relationship with the Congregation—who approved her travel almost unanimously—but also from the patronage of the women of the Querini 42 ASV OLP B. 659 (March 2, 1731): “Agata Corista isogetta ad un peso quasi continuo di testa con frequente, et abondante salivattione vitiosa che speso inbevendo li vasi iugulari li produce o riscaldatione, o aposteme, e particolarmente nel aplicatione forte del suo ministero con pericolo a tempo di perdere la voce.” 43 ASV OLP B. 659 (August 17, 1731): “Incoraggita l’umilissimo rispeto di me Agata di Choro dalle tante beneficienze impartite dalla Venerata autorita di questa Veneranda Congreagtione a chi gode l’onore dalla sua patternita in questo Pio Loco ardisco con tutto rispetto d’implorarle anco per l’umilissima mia persona. Le grandi, e pesanti indispositioni provate nel mio individuo e tuttavia quantunque minorate in parte mi continuano, […] Universalmente viene creduto, e la afferma il medico nell’acenata sua Fede che l’unico mio giovamento possi essermi la variatione del Aria. Anco in questo vuolle Dio consolarmi atteso che la N.D. Loredana Querini de E. Ger.mo con summa benignita compatendo il mio caso concorre a condurmi secco in villa per mese uno in circa.”

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family.44 The noble Querini, one of the richest and most influential families of Venice, owned large properties on the Venetian mainland, where they hosted Agata several times. In 1731, Loredana Querini escorted Agata to one of her family’s villas. Barbara Contarini Querini then accompanied the singer in September 1733, and again twice a decade later in 1743 and 1746.45 Each time she left, Agata enjoyed a month-long retreat at a Querini home, before returning to the Pietà to resume her duties to the coro. While away, Agata likely performed and taught music for the pleasure of her hosts, with prospects of meeting many of their patrician guests. 46 By the 1740s, when Agata was in her thirties, she had earned maturity and fame as a well-regarded musical performer and an exceptional music teacher. After training several promising orphaned figlie di coro, known as Cattarina, Luisa, Maria Antonia, and Teresa, she also had a chance to teach external students. In particular, though Agata had not yet been elected privileggiata, she inherited from her mentor Apollonia, now aged almost sixty, the tutorship of two young figlie in educazione, the noblewomen Catterina and Angela Baglioni. Agata’s work with these two young sisters brought her support for her health difficulties from a second noble Venetian family. In July 1748, after gaining approval from the girls’ mother, Agata wrote to the Congregation seeking permission to visit the Baglioni on the Venetian mainland: I, the humble Agata Cantora, daughter of the Charitable Institution of the Pietà, beg from the charity of the Venerable and Pious Congregation permission to spend several days in the countryside, in order to restore my health with the benefit of the air. This beneficial opportunity, your Most Illustrious Lordship, comes to me in the generous offer of the Most Excellent Lady Camilla Barbarigo Baglioni, who wishes to send her two little girls to her country home, and who has deigned for some time to leave them under my poor instruction, and so is willing to keep in their company the inconvenience of my poor person. 47 44 The Congregation granted this kind of permission to the figlie di coro much more often than to the figlie di commun, as the many years of musical training made the musicians irreplaceable. 45 ASV OLP B. 660 (September 11, 1733); ASV OLP B. 692 Not. R (September 13, 1743), 175–75v. 46 Gillio, L’attività musicale, 74. 47 ASV OLP B. 666 (July 7, 1748): “Umilio io Agata Cantora f iglia del Pio Luoco della Pietà, imploro dalla carità della Vend.a e Pia Congregatione la permissione di poter passar qualche giorno in campagna, onde con il beneficio dell’aria procurare il mio ripristinamento in salute. Me ne presenta anche Ill. Signore beneficio l’opportunità nelle esebizioni generose dell’Ecc. ma Sig. Camilla Barbarigo Baglioni, che volendo condurre alla propria villigiatura due delle sue Puttine, quali da qualche tempo degna lasciare sotto la povera mia educazione è pronta a sofrire in loro compagnia l’incomodo della povera persona mia.”

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Accordingly, Agata accompanied the Baglioni family to their villa in Massenzago, a small commune north of Padua. Her exceptional vocal abilities and contributions to teaching must have attracted the notice of the nobility and led to these invitations. Agata’s accomplishments also led to repeated promotions. In 1751, when her mentor and companion Apollonia died, Agata petitioned the Congregation to fill her vacant positions of privileggiata and Maestra di Coro. In a small note, she explained that, since the age of eleven, she had served the coro, singing both solo and with an ensemble. Also, while teaching the younger figlie di coro, she had practiced the art of counterpoint for at least ten years and was noteworthy for tirelessly maintaining the musicians’ parts, distributing and copying notated music as needed. She also composed for the coro itself, including at least one psalm, one antiphon, one motet, and maybe other religious works for the Pietà’s services. 48 The Congregation must have been impressed, as Agata secured both positions. In July 1763, she also became Scrivana (scribe), a post in which she kept many records for the Ospedale. For this duty she received extra oil and wood, which came from the mainland and provided heat and light for evening work.49 Finally, in February 1769, Agata was promoted as Priora, and she served in this position until her death five months later, on October 7, 1769, of “fever and violent convulsions” brought on by “apoplectic attack,” at the early age of 56.50 Agata had lived the model life for a figlia di coro. Her talent as a singer brought her admiration inside and outside the Ospedale. Her dedication and skill provided not only a life of self-sufficiency, with frequent support from noble Venetian families, but also a rise to recognition as both composer and Priora.

Social Mobility: Margarita Doglioni and a New Cohort at the Mendicanti Around the early 1730s, the fame of the Ospedali’s cori had grown to such heights that newly accepted figlie di coro gained expanded opportunities 48 ASV OLP B. 668 (January 14, 1751 m.v./1752). She competed for these positions against two other figlie di coro. Her surviving compositions are an Ecce nunc (Psalm 133) and a Salve Regina (antiphon). See Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello, Fondo Correr B. 64.1, p. 96; B. 83.7, p. 3; B. 94.2, pp. 44v–46v; B. 111.1, pp. 75–79; and B. 57.5, pp. 49v–52; B. 94.5, pp. 67v–70; B. 101.4, pp. 74v–78v. 49 ASV OLP B. 694 Not. V (September 16, 1763), 24. 50 ASMPV Registri dei Morti (October 7, 1769): “[…]febre e violenti convolizioni fini di vivere per colpo apopletico.”

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for social mobility. They increasingly fascinated large foreign crowds, who commented on them often in travelogues; they attracted respectable husbands, who increased their social status; and, overall, they achieved clout within Venetian society. Yet, the Congregation of the Mendicanti realized that their strict regulations regarding the acceptance of trainees had again reduced the numbers of the coro. When they undertook the recruitment of new young female musicians, many Venetian girls and their families sought admission. However, the applicants still faced intense scrutiny. Margarita Doglioni and her peers were among the few who demonstrated as children enough musical potential to pass auditions, so that, with time, they became famed soloists and obtained social mobility beyond that of many institutionalized wards. Margarita Teresa Doglioni was one of the first girls chosen to help renew the Mendicanti’s coro. She entered at the age of nine in 1728, after her mother Elisabetta Ruggiera wrote to Congregation: “The sad state in which I find myself […] with the burden of three innocent daughters and no means to provide them necessary food, I saw fit to have recourse to the boundless piety of this Venerable Congregation.” She continued: As long as she [my daughter Margarita] was of a tender age, the effort of supporting her through the hardship of poverty was the biggest burden. But from here on, as she grows older, my feelings of pain and confusion swell, because for a poor mother of honorable estate a daughter becomes, when she is an adult, a subject for worry and lively distress. Her natural inclination and gift for song consoles me in light of the grace, for which I long and hope, from your charitable assent. It would cause me grave and bitter regret if it came out differently.51

Before Margarita was accepted into the Mendicanti, however, Ruggiera also needed a letter from her parish priest, who confirmed that she and her three 51 ASV OLP B. 651 (December 27, 1728) “Lo stata infelice in cui mi attrovo […] con il peso di tre Innocenti Figliole, senza il modo, ondo poterle più trarre di suo necessario alimento, mi fu supplichevole ricorrere all’inesausta Pietà di questa Ven. Congregatione […] Sino a che riguardavo in essa una tenera età, lo stento onde mantenerla tra le angustia della povertà, formava tutta la mia maggiore pena, ma da qui avanti crescendo ella negl’anni, vengono in me ad accrescersi i motivi del dolore, e della confusione, mentre a una povera onorata genitrice diviene la figlia quando è adulta un’oggetta d’inquietudine, e di viva passione. La sua naturale inclinatione, e dispositione al canto se mi consola in vista della grazia, che sospiro, e che spero dalli loro caritatevoli assensi, mi riuscirebbe un motivo di grave, e forte ramarico, quando ciò succedesse diversamente.”

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daughters were indeed good Christians and had been abandoned by her husband.52 Finally, Margarita auditioned before Antonio Biffi, the Maestro di Cappella at San Marco and the current Maestro di Coro, who confirmed that the young girl had talent as a soprano, as well as “good intonation and a ready spirit.”53 He recommended her for training. The next acceptances came in 1733, when the deputies over the coro wrote to the Congregation complaining of a continued shortage of singers to cover all the parts, as well as aging and inflexibility among the current members of the coro.54 They auditioned dozens of Venetian girls, only choosing four who were in their mid-teens, of honorable family background, and exhibiting exceptional musical abilities.55 The first, Margherita Buonafede, auditioned for the Mendicanti’s maestri and was unanimously praised for her perfect ear and her rare, powerful soprano voice, capable of singing resonantly and cleanly over a range of two octaves.56 She had previous training with Francesco Brugnoli, the current Maestro di Solfeggio at the Mendicanti. The second, Giovanna Cedroni, age sixteen, had been musically trained by her widowed mother Crestina, a former pupil of the Ospedale della Pietà,57 and her sister Emilia was already a successful musician at the Ospedale degl’Incurabili. Confident of her potential, the Mendicanti assessors praised Giovanna’s voice as surpassing her sister’s in brightness, clarity, and agility. The other two, Soffia Antonia Sopradaci (contralto) and Gerolima Tava (soprano), were also accepted after Antonio Lotti, as Maestro di Coro, tested their musical abilities.58 Each must have had support from parents or instructors to prepare for these auditions. These four, along with Margarita Doglioni, took private lessons from the maestri and, over the next decades, became the stars of the Mendicanti. They truly helped modernize and stabilize the coro, providing the virtuosic and operatic singing that was popular in the mid-eighteenth century. Earning money for themselves and their families along the way, they sang the lead roles in dozens of public performances, including several dramatic works and even one special event for the princely heir of Saxony.59 Their posi52 ASV OLP B. 651 (May 9, 1728). 53 Ibid. (September 18, 1728). 54 ASV OLP B. 652 (April 16, 1733). 55 A similar audition occurred a decade later. IRE MEN A. 6 (February 26, 1741); Giron-Panel, Musique et musiciennes, 267–68; Ellero, Arte e musica, 187. 56 ASV OLP B. 652 (May 3, 1733). 57 Ibid. (September 27, 1733). 58 Ibid. (December 6, 1733). 59 For details on this performance, see Paradies, Le muse in gara, ix–xv.

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tions as the top soloists led to public recognition and, for several, marriage. Margherita Buonafede, for instance, sang for nine years and fulfilled her duty to teach at least two younger figlie di coro as replacements. When she married in 1742, she left a lasting impression on the guests of the Mendicanti, with the noble French writer Charles de Brosses naming her as one of his favorites.60 Gerolima Tava and Giovanna Cedroni also married in 1748 and 1753 respectively. Marriages sometimes brought a marked increase in status. When Soffia Sopradaci wed Angelo Pasinello in 1750, she rose from ward of a charitable institution to the wife of a recognized Venetian printer.61 Margarita Doglioni, on the other hand, remained at the Mendicanti for her entire life. In 1748, after twenty years as a musician of the Mendicanti, she had accumulated 400 ducats and received an eight percent annuity. Sharing a dormitory with other musicians, she lived on this income into old age. Doglioni, like other well-established figlie, also traveled to villas on the mainland with prominent Venetians, including the patricians Lugrezia Pisani and Marina Cappello.62 In 1778, at the age of fifty-nine, she became a retired giubilata due to waning health, but she returned to work to serve as Priora six years later.63 As Priora, Doglioni proved her lasting loyalty to the institution. After sunset one February night, the Venetian nobleman Alvise Bernardo appeared at the gate and confronted her, “thundering menacingly with his hands on his hips,” because he wanted to visit a young figlia di coro named Laura Marcolini. Doglioni stopped him. She wrote to the Congregation, explaining, “I believe it is my particular duty to inform Your Excellencies of the true facts […] so that you may deign to apply the necessary measures to the present case, and much more to future cases, or else all my zeal to serve you and all your orders would remain neglected and useless.”64 Her authority and persistence swayed the Congregation, as the following year they published clarified regulations authorizing the Priora to monitor all the movements of the figlie as she deemed fit.65 The Priora could grant figlie over the age of fifty permission to come and go as they pleased, while she 60 Brosses, Lettres familieres, 215–16. 61 Angelo Pasinello’s bookstore La Scienza flourished from 1702 to c.1770. Mario Infelise, L’editoria veneziana nel’700, 408. 62 ASV OLP B. 657 (September 26, 1774, September 19, 1777). 63 ASV PSO B. 80 (July 12, 1782). By the date of this record, the previous Priora Antonia Cubli had passed away. Also see Berdes and Whittemore, A Guide to Ospedali Research, 457. 64 ASV PSO B. 80 (February 5, 1783m.v./1784): “Credo di mio preciso dovere rassegnare il fatto nella sua verità a VVEE […] onde […] si degnino di apporvi quel provedimento necessario al fatto presente, e molto più ai casi avvenire, senza del quale tutto il mio zelo di servirle, e tutti gli ordini loro resterebbero negleti, ed inutili.” 65 ASV OLP B. 905 (February 5, 1783m.v./1784); PSO B. 80 (August 1785).

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handed out special permits for younger women to leave or have visits only twice per month. The Congregation expected to deal only with extreme cases, but the Priora had the absolute responsibility for daily monitoring and protecting the women within the Ospedale. Doglioni recognized this need and asked to preserve her authority to handle it.

Conclusion Although many figlie di coro—like Andriana della Tiorba, Maria Canuti, Agata Cantora, and Margarita Doglioni—and their families came from the lower strata of Venetian society, their educations in the Ospedali and their musical skills offered them a distinctive way of building value, respect, and support, including sometimes from noble patrons. They were talented and resilient women, and they navigated poverty and afflictions within a distinctive, partly self-governing community of musicians who enjoyed high public regard. The letters and petitions of the figlie di coro to the male Congregation reveal special circumstances in which these women assisted themselves and each other using the privileges that came not from high rank or great wealth but from the prestige of highly trained musical ability. Their requests testify to the struggles they faced as non-elite women in an early modern society, but also to their rare accomplishments in music and in social networking.

Works Cited Primary Sources Archivio Diocesano di Vittorio Veneto Atti di Conventi e Monasteri Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV) Ospedali e Luoghi Pii (OLP) Provveditori Sopra Ospedali (PSO) Archivio Storico della Santa Maria della Pietà, Venezia (ASMPV) Libri dei Morti Registri Scafetta Biblioteca del Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello Fondo Correr Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Venezia Fondo Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna

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Brosses, Charles de. Lettres familieres écrites d’Italie en 1739 et 1740, I. Paris: M.R. Colomb, 1858. Capitoli et Ordini Da osservarsi dalla Priora, Maestre, e Figlie del Pio Ospitale dell’Incurabili. Venice: Biaggio Maldura, 1704. Capitoli, et ordini per il buon governo del Pio Hospitale della Pieta. Venice, 1721. Capitoli et Ordini Per il buon Governo del Pio Hospitale de Poveri Derelitti appresso SS. Gio. e Paulo Consacrati alla Gloriosa Vergine Prottetrice di detto Hospitale. Venice: Antonio Tivani, 1704. Istituzione di Ricovero e di Educazione (IRE) Fondo Derelitti (DER) Fondo Mendicanti (MEN)

Secondary Sources Berdes, Jane L. Women Musicians of Venice: Musical Foundations, 1525-1855. Corrected Edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Berdes, Jane L. and Joan Whittemore. A Guide to Ospedali Research. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2012. Chojnacka, Monica. “Women, Charity and Community in Early Modern Venice: The Casa delle Zitelle.” Renaissance Quarterly 51, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 68–91. Ellero, Giuseppe, Jolanda Scarpa, and Cristina Mantese, eds. Arte e musica all’ospedaletto: schede d’archivio sull’attività musicale degli ospedali dei Derelitti e dei Mendicanti di Venezia (sec. XVI-XVIII). Venezia: Stamperia di Venezia Editrice, 1978. Giazotto, Remo. Antonio Vivaldi. Torino: ERI, 1973. Gillio, Pier Giuseppe. L’attività musicale negli ospedali di Venezia nel Settecento quadro storico e materiali documentari. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 2006. Giron-Panel, Caroline. Musique et musiciennes à Venise; histoire sociale des ospedali. Rome: École française de Rome, 2015. Glixon, Jonathan. Mirrors of Heaven or Worldly Theaters?: Venetian Nunneries and Their Music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017. Infelise, Mario. L’editoria veneziana nel’700. 3rd Edition. Milan: F. Angelo, 2000. Paradies, Domenico Paradies. Le muse in gara. Edited by Vanessa Tonelli. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2021. Selfridge-Field, Eleanor. Pallade Veneta: Writings on Music in Venetian Society, 1650-1750. Venice: Fondazione Levi, 1985. Selfridge-Field, Eleanor. “Music at the Pietà before Vivaldi.” Early Music 14, no. 3 (1986): 373–86. White, Micky. “Biographical notes on the ‘Figlie di coro’ of the Pietà contemporary with Vivaldi.” Informazioni e studi vivaldiani 21 (2000): 75–97.

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About the author Vanessa Tonelli studied for a PhD in Musicology at Northwestern University, with a certification in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Tonelli’s research concentrates on historical intersections between music and gender in the lives of female musicians, with a focus on the figlie di coro in seventeenthand eighteenth-century Venetian Ospedali.

8. Food and Drink Make Relationships Female Alliances and Commensality in Celestina and La Lozana andaluza Min Ji Kang Abstract: The literary representations of everyday commensality as signifiers of group culture serve not only to show power and social relations built on shared tastes, but also to uncover how gendered social norms are constructed. This chapter examines the ways in which the notion of commensality shapes the networks of the prostitutes as represented in Spanish early modern fictions, Fernando de Rojas’s Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (1502) and Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana andaluza (1528). I argue that the fictional characters of Celestina and Lozana actively use the exchanges and consumption of food and drink for mutual female support, but also for manipulation of others in pursuit of self-interest. Keywords: prostitutes, women’s alliances, commensality, early modern Spain, female picaresque

Decades of scholarship have shown us that early modern women, including the non-elite, exerted agency in their society, economy and culture.1 In the process of surviving and supporting their families, local networks often supported non-elite women practically and emotionally through the challenges of their everyday lives, including the inevitable neighborly disputes

1 Among many, see Herbert, Female Alliances; Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women and Female Power; Tarbin and Broomhall (eds.), Women, Identities and Communities; Luckyj and O’Leary (eds.), The Politics of Female Alliances; and Chojnacka, Working Women. Allyson Poska aptly asserts that Spanish non-elite women may have had more power and authority to make decisions about households and their interpersonal relationships than their upper-class counterparts. Poska, Women and Authority, 10–11.

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch08

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and conflicts.2 This essay examines the literary representation of the role of food and drink in the sociability and networking of prostitutes in two early modern Spanish prose fictions, Fernando de Rojas’s Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (known as the Celestina) (1502)3 and Francisco Delicado’s La Lozana andaluza (Portrait of Lozana: The Lusty Andalusian Woman) (1528). 4 Both texts feature as protagonists lower-class, self-supporting women working in the sex trade. Despite their socially marginalized status within their fictive urban neighborhoods, the characters of Celestina and Lozana are remarkably outspoken and transgressive. To study the complexity of networks and sociability of the prostitutes in these early modern Spanish texts, I follow the broad understanding of alliances proposed by Susan Frye and Karen Robertson in two ways: (a) by incorporating “any forms of women’s interrelationships while retaining [a] sense of the sexual politics of women’s connections” and (b) by examining a range of social dynamics among non-elite, working women, competitive and supportive, spiritual and practical.5 I argue that the fictional characters of Celestina and Lozana actively use the offer and consumption of food and drink to build alliances with other women. These exchanges represent possibilities for mutual female support, but also for manipulation of others in pursuit of self-interest. Literary texts and historical evidence such as court records suggest that the prostitute played an integral part of the urban society of early modern Europe. Emily Kuffner explains that, as the traditional roles of women shifted in the period of transition from the late Middle Ages, prostitution was not only acceptable, but it also served to reinforce the authority of the ruling class and to strengthen moral attitudes.6 From the late medieval era, prostitution was institutionalized through municipal brothels as a “lesser evil” to protect chaste, honorable women, but in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was often banned.7 Neverthe2 See Gowing, Domestic Dangers and Capp, When Gossips Meet. 3 The work was f irst published as the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea in Burgos in 1499 as sixteen acts of pure dialogue, and a revised version of the text, retitled the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, expanded several parts and added five new acts. I analyze the twenty-one-act Tragicomedia in this chapter, citing from Sayers Peden’s translation; Spanish citations are from Severin’s edition. All quotations are cited parenthetically in the text by act number and page. 4 I cite from Damiani’s translation Portrait of Lozana; however, I have modified it as needed for context. Spanish citations are from Allaigre’s edition of Lozana. The quotations are cited parenthetically in the text by chapter (called mamotreto by the author) and page number. 5 Frye and Robertson (eds), Maids and Mistresses, 4. 6 Kuffner, Fictions of Containment, 12 7 Ibid., 48.

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less, according to Mary Elizabeth Perry, in early modern Seville, where thousands of people came to seek instant fortune in the trade with the Americas, prostitution flourished not only as a means for survival for destitute women, but also as support for others such as pimps, procuresses, innkeepers, and landlords. 8 Spain’s Golden Age produced a new kind of literary fiction where the pícaro, an antihero or rogue of low social status who used trickery and deceit to survive in a corrupt society, tells the story of his adventures. While there has been little agreement on how we define the Spanish picaresque genre, there is even less consensus about which texts belong to the female picaresque. However, Celestina is clearly a prototype of the pícara that continued to influence the future narratives such as La pícara Justina (1605) by López de Úbeda, which is considered as a pinnacle of the genre. In particular, the characterization of the prostitutes as main characters traces back to Celestina. As a converso (New Christian) himself, Rojas uses parody, irony and metaphor to mock courtly ideals and the Catholic Church. At the same time, he makes Celestina ambiguous and susceptible to various interpretations, in order to avoid persecution by the Spanish Inquisition.9 The text also comments on the legal and moral issues surrounding prostitution.10 About thirty years after the publication of Celestina, in 1528, Delicado, another converso author, joined the tradition of the female picaresque; his Lozana features a daring, open attack on Christian dogma as well as explicit description of sexual activities. Lozana is comprised of sixty-six mamotretos (memoranda),11 and relates the fictional life story of a Cordovan woman who escapes to Rome to make a living as a prostitute, procuress, and healer of the women in the neighborhood.12 This continuity is one of the reasons that critics like Anne Cruz, Enriqueta Zafra, and Kuffner have argued that the pícara is more than a mere derivative of her male counterpart, the pícaro.13 While the representation of the pícaro aims to challenge the pervasive social injustice against the poor, Cruz argues that the literary characterization 8 Perry, “Lost Women,” 203. 9 Fontes, Art of Subversion, x. 10 Zafra, “Risky Business,” 174. 11 The word mamotreto can mean “notebook” or “bundle of papers,” but it also has erotic connotations as it relates to mamar (to suck). Fontes, Art of Subversion, 171. 12 Juárez-Almendros affirms that the life of Lozana should be understood as a reflection of her author as “both are exiled Andalusians from converso families, living in Rome, and affected by syphilis,” Disabled Bodies, 58. 13 Cruz, Discourse of Poverty, 135; Zafra, Prostituidas por el texto, 17; Kuffner, Fictions of Containment, 13.

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of the pícara as a prostitute reveals “the male-authored prejudice against unconstrained female sexuality.”14 The practices of literary prostitution and of women’s sex work are fictionalized in great detail in both of our principal texts. However, it is important that the voices of the pícaras in these fictions should not be confused with those of their male authors, nor does their behavior reflect the actualities of prostitutes’ lives in early modern Spain. Male authors project the official view of prostitution onto their protagonists by portraying them as evil. However, these writers also give voice to a controversial social issue by depicting the practice of prostitution as necessary to preserving the social order.15 Reading Celestina and Lozana enables us to understand the ambivalence towards the prostitute in early modern Spanish society. This study incorporates commensality into the cultural constructions of gender identities in early modern literary analysis. Commensality derives from the Latin “together (com) at the same table (mensa).” Reflecting the myriad of social interactions entangled with eating, the term refers to more than the act of sharing food in the same place.16 David B. Goldstein describes commensality as “food in its relational aspects; it is eating conceived as a network or as a principle of connectivity.”17 The literary accounts of food and drink as signifiers of group culture serve not only to uncover the power and social relations among people who consume them, but also to mark the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. In fact, eating together indicates the state of social relations in which sharing food is a sign of kinship, trust, and friendship; on the other hand, the refusal to share food suggests enmity and hostility.18 In eating and drinking, men and women in late medieval and early modern Europe were expected to conform to gendered social norms. These societies inherited beliefs about the physiological benefits and dangers of drinking from the ancient world, as well as ideas of how, when, and where to drink. To the Greeks, wine was a mind-altering drug to enjoy in a symposion. This all-male drinking party, “a setting of shared pleasure,” was organized and enjoyed by its guests, who reaffirmed their masculine social identities through drinking.19 Like wine, women figured as commodities for male consumption, as musicians, servants, or prostitutes. Scholars as well have 14 Cruz, Discourse of Poverty, xvi. 15 Kuffner, Fictions of Containment, 11–12. 16 Pollock, “Towards an Archaeology,” 2–3. 17 Goldstein, “Commensality,” 40–41. 18 Counihan, The Anthropology of Food and Body, 13 19 Rinella, Pharmakon, 35

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examined the social aspects of drinking within almost exclusively male communities, where a man’s social status would depend on how much he can spend on liquor and how much liquor he can hold.20 In this way alcohol serves a social function in delineating group identities, separating the included members from the excluded outsiders.21 The gendered social expectations, laid out in late medieval and early modern treatises on women’s roles and virtues, tasked men with the economic support of the household and women with domestic and culinary responsibilities. Caroline Walker Bynum, in her groundbreaking research, asserts that medieval religious women used food as a powerful tool to exert self-control and to encounter God, both by receiving and by rejecting food. Although the job of professional chef in the wealthy households was usually given to men, the basic social responsibility for food preparation and cooking belonged to women, while eating was stereotyped as a male activity.22 The female responsibility for food was so evident that husbands often accused their wives of manipulating or even poisoning food.23 Following earlier scholarly works, I focus on literary representations of everyday commensality in order to show, on the one hand, how connectivity and alliance built on shared tastes and, on the other, the unspoken tensions and competitiveness among prostitutes in early modern Spanish society. Pierre Bourdieu understands that preferences and subjectivities are produced both consciously and unconsciously through daily practices such as cooking and eating.24 According to Bourdieu, taste in food is an embodied principle of class culture: taste reflects the external social structures in which it is constituted, and it shapes eating habits and individual behaviors.25 For both Celestina and Lozana, the acts of eating and drinking not only fulfil physiological needs but also frame social processes that permeate everyday life. For these fictional prostitutes, consumption is a signifier of group culture and identity, a reflection of what is meaningful and acceptable in their communities. 20 Douglas, “Distinctive Anthropological Perspective,” 31–32. 21 Ibid., 31. 22 Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 190–91. 23 Christopher Kissane particularly underlines the presence of women in the kitchen, especially in Castilian converso (New Christian) families where women were the usual target of suspicion from the Inquisition for heresies related to cooking. For example, avoiding pork or eating unleavened bread were certain types of behaviors that were considered heresies. And it was not uncommon that husbands professed ignorance of the food preparation that occurred in their kitchens. Kissane, Food, Religion and Communities, 40–44. 24 Nadeau, Food Matters, xiii. 25 Bourdieu, Distinction, 190–92.

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Celestina: Wining, Sociability, and Female Alliances The Celestina text gives its lead character a wealth of experience. Celestina is a former prostitute and now a brothel-keeper, who at times employs up to ten prostitutes. She also acts as a go-between who arranges secret sexual encounters for powerful male customers, including churchmen. In addition, she dabbles in clandestine magical activities to induce sexual matters such as to restore virginity. Throughout her life, through offering practical assistance with women’s business such as sewing and beauty products, Celestina forms strong bonds with lower-class women including neighbors, servants, and other prostitutes. Celestina’s brothel appears as what Alan Deyermond refers to as an “authentic” female micro-society, because it is entirely controlled by women.26 In Rojas’s portrait, her profession is passed down through generations: Celestina––a mentor of a younger generation of prostitutes, including Elicia and Areúsa––was previously taught by Elicia’s grandmother and Claudina. These prostitutes not only share secrets and know-how of the profession, but also share the eating table, in a campaign to survive daily struggles against the restrictions imposed on clandestine, independent prostitutes like themselves. Celestina is probably the most well-known female drunkard in Spanish literary history. Wine functions on two levels in the text: Celestina personally enjoys this indispensable daily habit, and it has sociocultural effects on her friendship with another prostitute, Claudina. In Act Four, Celestina proudly confesses that wine is a major component of her diet; for example, before going to bed, she would eat bread crusts soaked in wine, followed by two dozen sips of wine. Despite current financial hardship, Celestina admits that she has to “go to a tavern six times a day to fill [her] jug” (4.65). Celestina’s drinking is repetitive, habitual, ritual, and, most importantly, unconventional for a Spanish woman at the time. During the early modern period, medieval medicinal theory interwoven with Christian biblical discourse justified gendered patterns of socially acceptable food and drink consumption. Humoral theory, an ancient view that retained force in sixteenth-century medicine, held that what and how much someone ate or drank could shape their temperament by helping or disrupting the balance of the four bodily humors. Wine could raise the body temperature; as men consume wine, they would become more virile and sensual. In Act Nine, these physiological effects of wine are attested by the voice of Celestina as well: “[wine] warms the blood […] it puts vigor in a young man and in an 26 Deyermond, “Female Societies,” 6.

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old man strength; it […] makes the impotent virile” (9.129). The male body had adequate heat and was considered the norm, whereas the female body, lacking heat, was inferior, incomplete, and abnormal. For women’s damp and cold nature, wine was considered incompatible;27 drunken women were deemed gluttons and deviants from their gender roles. The social conventions that govern drinking make it a male-gendered performance. In contrast, Celestina’s repetitive drinking provokes anxiety, because it shatters the expectation that women in patriarchal societies will exhibit highly acquiescent behaviors. While Pármeno echoes the authorial voices to warn against excessive drinking and recommends no more than three sips per day, Celestina responds with deft humor, not only justifying her drinking habits but also contradicting their written norms: “Son, the text must be mistaken: they have written three for thirteen” (9.129). As she paradoxically takes the place of ancient philosophers in elaborating medicinal wisdom, wine represents Celestina’s subversive power against the patriarchal and religious order. The banquet scene in Act Nine is a famous literary account of commensality, but here Celestina uses food and drink as a way of manipulating others. Prior to the dinner, in Act Eight, Pármeno and Sempronio decide to steal “bread, Monviedro wine, a side of bacon and more” (8.122) from their master’s pantry and to bring the food and wine to Celestina’s house to impress the women that they like, Elica and Areúsa. Carolyn Nadeau has argued that, in Celestina, food was used to subvert and counter the dominant and normative culture. While commensality is usually a gesture of generosity and trust, Pármeno and Sempronio demonstrate treachery instead by bringing stolen food and wine.28 The contradiction between luxury and theft in this twisted symposiac setting contributes to the parodic and subversive meanings of the Celestina. Celestina, in turn, seeks to arouse the sexual appetites of Pármeno and Sempronio by feeding and pouring them wine, as she hopes to distract them from the gold that she refuses to share with them. The boisterous symposiac setting of Celestina’s banquet is a perfect space where her skillful rhetoric—featuring the literary topoi of carpe diem and ubi sunt—combines with the food and drink to manipulate the diners’ emotions.29 While drinking with Pármeno and Sempronio reflects the self-interest that underlies Celestina’s relationship with them, sharing wine with women can be an experience and practice that leads to an alliance rooted in trust, 27 Gentilcore, Food and Health, 17; Jouanna, Greek Medicine, 184. 28 Nadeau, “Transformation,” 212. 29 Palafox, “Celestina y su retórica,” 84.

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solidarity, and compassion. Celestina often reminisces about the time she spent with her friend and mentor Claudina. Although she appears in the text only in Celestina’s memory, Claudina is her soul mate, “flesh and bone” (3.50), from whom she has learned the most important skills of her profession (7.103). Celestina’s description of Claudina as her “loyal friend and good companion” (3.50), even after her death, is echoed in Elicia’s tribute to Celestina as “a mother, a protector and shelter” (15.203). The literary construct of the friendship between Celestina and Claudina resembles a “perfect friendship” as described by Aristotle, which is longlasting and based on mutuality and genuine concern for each other.30 Most importantly, Claudina and Celestina share a particular taste and commensal wine drinking habit: CELESTINA: We ate together, we slept together, we had our good times together […] If I had the bread, she brought the meat; if I set the table, she had the cloth […] And I can tell you that there was no one who knew wine and other merchandise better […] She was always invited in because of love they all had for her. She never came back without eight or ten tasty treats, good measures in the jug and one in her body. Merchants poured her two or three weights of wine as freely as if she’d offered a silver cup. […] When we went down the street, anywhere we were thirsty we would go in the first tavern and ask for a cup to be poured to wet our lips (3. 50-51).31

Revived in Celestina’s memory, Claudina is thus inseparable from the connection to the food and wine that they routinely shared. Paul Connerton highlights that memories are often transmitted through bodily practices such as gestures, ceremonies, and rites that re-enact the past.32 Eating and drinking are powerful bodily practices that help construct individual and collective memories. The sensual qualities of food emotionally and 30 In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes a perfect friendship as a relationship between those who “wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves” (96; 8.3). This kind of friendship endures, and it is based on a certain mutuality (97; 8.3). 31 CELESTINA: Juntas comiémos, juntas durmiémos, juntas aviémos nuestros solazes, nuestros plazeres, nuestros consejos y conciertos […] Si yo traía el pan, ella la carne; si yo ponía la mesa, ella los manteles […] Y aosadas que otra conoscié peor el vino y cualquier mercaduría […] Allá la convidaban según el amor todos la tenía. Que jamás volvía sin ocho o diez gustaduras un açumbre en el jarro y otro en el cuerpo. Assí la fiaban dos o tres arrobas en veces, como sobre una taça de plata […] Si ývamos por la calle dondequiera que ovíssemos sed, entrávamos en la primera taverna. Luego mandava echar medio açumbre para mojar la boca (3.142–43). 32 Connerton, How Societies Remember, 71.

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physically evoke the past, making them an intense and compelling medium for memory.33 Alcohol drinking allows Celestina privileged access to her very specific and personal memories of friendship with Claudina, even after the latter’s death. The two prostitutes use wine drinking and their profession as tools to define and reinforce their group identity in opposition to a patriarchal society that saw both practices as women’s deviance. Susan Pollock highlights the importance of regular commensality for sustaining social life, because “habitual forms of social interaction allow people to deal with each other on the basis of fundamental, implicit trust.”34 Since early modern European taverns were places of freedom, noise, disorder and promiscuity, the presence there of honorable, decent women was frowned upon as a moral transgression.35 While women’s honor belonged largely to the private domain of domesticity, men established honor by control of household resources and reaffirmed it by public displays of masculinity.36 A man might also demonstrate his masculine identity by drinking generous amounts of alcohol while maintaining his health, household, and economic viability.37 The tavern was the scene of such displays, as well as a place for working men to gather, away from hard labor and demanding wives.38 Notwithstanding these gendered boundaries, the tavern is for both Celestina and Claudina a space to simultaneously satisfy their thirst and expand their influence. By sharing alcohol while building personal memories and relationships, the two prostitutes create a sense of solidarity and unity in a male-only environment. Their tavern visits are daily rituals and performances of gender that resist social strictures and reinforce female authority, even the transgressive. Celestina and Claudina, as aged prostitutes, procuresses, and witches with magical powers, represent extreme examples of the inversions of the natural order and female honor.39

33 Holtzman, “Food and Memory,” 365. 34 Pollock, “Towards an Archaeology,” 10. 35 A certain group of women, such as widows after the death of their husbands, servants or prostitutes, were important parts of drinking establishments. However, drunkenness in public and misbehavior caused by social drinking were not acceptable for women. Rivera Medina, La civilización del viñedo, 266–67. 36 Tlusty, “Crossing Gender Boundaries,” 187. 37 Ibid., 188. 38 To Dimitra Gefou-Madianou, male drinking in bars or taverns constitutes masculine identity precisely because it occurs outside the home and in a place women cannot enter. Gefou-Madianou, “Introduction,” 10 39 Tlusty, “Crossing Gender Boundaries,” 197.

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Lozana: Eating, Cooking, and Sharing in Social Networks While Celestina represents a female micro-society of an unidentified Spanish city in the late fifteenth century, 40 Lozana uses early modern Rome as its setting to showcase the literary practices of prostitution and a broader social canvas for prostitutes’ lives. This fictitious prostitute, Lozana, moves freely among men of many ranks and among working women, from laundresses, seamstresses and midwives41 to a variety of prostitutes—from destitute part-time sex workers to the few cultivated, famous courtesans who enjoyed luxurious lifestyles. 42 Lozana is a Spanish conversa born in Córdoba, but after a series of misadventures, she settles in the Roman neighborhood of Pozo Blanco (Pozzo Bianco, in Italian), a district of immigrants with shared homeplaces. In particular, the Spaniards in Pozo Blanco are portrayed as New Christian refugees and the kinds of food that people prepare and eat are an important marker of their social identification. 43 From childhood as a sexually precocious girl, the fictional life of Lozana, also called Aldonza, is full of eating, drinking, and cooking. Critics have successfully shown the sensual imagery and symbolic power of the food that she makes to satisfy both her close relations and strangers. 44 The erotic connotations of food turn her act of cooking, a feminine activity, into something more calculating, assertive, and manipulative, as the adult Lozana later uses her knowledge of aphrodisiac foods to seduce her clients. For example, Lozana credits wine and fruit with making her a whore by drawing a connection between the acts of eating and drinking and sexual activities: “Who made you a whore? Wine and fruit” (12.39). By consuming wine and fruit, Lozana symbolically absorbs the meanings attached to 40 However, critics agree that Rojas wrote Celestina with the readership of the university city of Salamanca in mind where Rojas himself studied law. See Scarborough, “Urban Spaces in the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea,” 538. 41 Juárez-Almendros notes that women’s marginalized position in early modern Spain paradoxically allowed them to develop certain female professions like midwifery and healing, as well as to establish female communities such as brothels and nunneries. Juárez-Almendros, Disabled Bodies, 10. 42 Kuffner, Fictions of Containment, 59. In mamotreto 20, a valijero (letter carrier) and Lozana discuss the stratification and diversity of the population of whoredom in Rome. The carrier divides the women who work in sex simply as the rich or the poor, while Lozana specifies that the rich are courtesans of high estate, and the poor are the common whores. While later Silvio does not explicitly refer to Lozana as a courtesan, Lozana distances herself from the common whore, or “a whore hidden behind her f inery” (20.90). For a discussion on the terminology surrounding sex workers by modern researchers, see Cohen, “Back Talk,” 97–100. 43 Fontes, Art of Subversion, 183 44 For example, see Hernández Cobo, “El hambre y las ganas de entrar.”

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them into her body, while inverting the elements that define the ideal “good Christian woman.” However, food and wine in Lozana reveal more than the strong sexual desire and appetite of our protagonist. In mamotreto 2, Aldonza reminisces with pride and nostalgia about her grandmother’s kitchen, where she learned how to make “noodles, mini empanadas, couscous with garbanzos, rice […] round meatballs packed with cilantro’ as well as ‘syrup-based electuaries for home and honey-based [electuaries] for giving [to others] […] eggplant, walnuts, and walnut flower for the plague” (2.8). 45 According to Nadeau, rice, saffron, eggplant, almonds, sugar, cilantro, and lemons are important ingredients that Arabs developed and brought to the Iberian peninsula. 46 So Lozana’s food memories suggest the culinary contributions of Muslims and Jews to her heritage.47 For example, Lozana notes that her grandmother prepared “turnips not with bacon, but with cumin” (2.8), nodding toward the religious restrictions on the consumption of pork in Jewish and Muslims laws. Inheriting the gift of cooking from her grandmother, young Aldonza identifies with her more than with the other women from her childhood.48 In the kitchen, Aldonza and her grandmother shared food, culinary practices, and the pleasures of eating together, all signals of their converso identity. Lozana’s foodways also affect her relationships with other conversas in Pozo Blanco. There Lozana and Rampín, her lover and servant, meet a cast of Andalusian women including an anonymous Sevillian seamstress and her friends, Beatriz de Baeza and Teresa de Córdoba. As soon as Lozana goes to the bathroom, the seamstresses start to gossip about her and other “whores who work in brothels;”49 they want to know “whether or not [Lozana] is a new Jewish convert” (7.23) so they can talk freely. This is where food and recipes become a useful way of reinforcing or delineating the collective converso identity of the women. Teresa proposes asking Lozana whether she would use water or olive oil to make hormigos (a Jewish or converso pastry recipe with oil; 7.196). When Lozana replies that she uses olive oil, Beatriz 45 For this quotation, I use Nadeau’s translation in Food Matters, 117–18. 46 Nadeau, Food Matters, 112. 47 Ibid., 120. 48 LOZANA: I resemble my grandmother more, and it was in her honor that they named me Aldonza (2.7). 49 In this scene, the Sevillian seamstress, Beatriz, and Teresa do not seem to have a good relationship with the prostitutes who work in brothels and eagerly distinguish themselves from those women: “I dare say those whores who work in brothels never take a good look at their own faults, and don’t go to mass very often either” (7.25). The social stratification of prostitutes is seen not only in the communities of courtesans but also in those of the lower-level prostitutes.

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exclaims to Teresa: “She is one of us!” (8.200). As a marker of her converso identity, food allows Lozana to build alliance and trust with other non-elite women in town. From this moment, the seamstress, Beatriz, and Teresa help Lozana meet other women who may find her a job. This informal female network is deeply embedded in the day to day of ordinary women’s lives. The strong network among non-elite, working Spanish women in Rome that provided both emotional and practical assistance is attested in a comment from a washerwoman whom Lozana meets in her neighborhood. According to the washerwoman, servants pay her better than her patrons in food and wine, and the washerwomen in return “sends [servants] to a house that has just lost a servant” (12.46–47). This mutual support system based on cooperation and shared values was reinforced by domestic need, and the bond and trust that non-elite women placed in their neighbors were far stronger than those found among men.50 Lozana’s social networks are also represented by the exchange of food and wine for homemade products and informal medical services. According to Amanda Herbert, the “creation and exchange” of handmade objects, such as Lozana’s facial creams and medicines, “references feminine skills and methods of personal cultivation while simultaneously conveying emotions and building feelings of friendship.”51 Following the common practice in early modern Europe,52 customers pay food and wine for Lozana’s services and this act of exchange indirectly gives Lozana access to gossip and recent news of their families. She recounts how food and commensality is rendered for her services: And if I show tenderness to the peasants, their wives will seek me out, and since I’ll show them how to make themselves beautiful, they will bring me figs and a thousand other delicacies […] Well, if I do that well with one [woman], what can I expect when they all begin to take me seriously? (41.182–183).53

The better her services become, the greater her reward in the quality of food––and the greater her reputation. This is why Lozana does not “avoid eating at another’s home, and even at [Lozana’s] place, if the food is paid 50 Capp, When Gossips Meet, 369. 51 Herbert, Female Alliances, 1–2. 52 Kuffner, Fictions of Containment, p. 53; Cohen, “Seen and Known,” 407. 53 LOZANA: Y si amuestro favor a villanos, vernán sus mujeres y, porque las enseñé cómo se han de hacer bellas, me traerán pasitas de higos y otras mil cosas […] Pues si una villana me conoce, ¿qué haré cuando todas me tomen en plática? (41.376).

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for by [her] guest, it will taste a great deal better” (41.183).54 For Lozana, commensality is more than a source of social pleasure; it also serves as a “just reward” (41.183). In this way, the exchange of food and objects builds trust and strong networks in female communities and affords her financial gains. Everyday commensality and other bodily experiences build and foster a sense of community among those with similar social backgrounds. The conversas and hard-working Spanish female immigrants in Pozo Blanco actively participate in the practice of drinking, which helps alleviate their sufferings from poverty. One Spanish washerwomen, who probably works also as a parttime prostitute, confesses to Lozana that an Italian warehouseman regularly brings her stolen wine in return for her services (12.43). And this stolen food and wine is shared among female neighbors: “They [two other washerwomen] drink more than they sew. And wine! Anywhere else they would drink as much as I throw away, because around here, we only want to drink the wine as fresh as it comes from the tap” (12.43).55 The Spanish washerwoman calls another neighbor a “drunken bitch” (12.46), suggesting that she and her friends are not the only women in the neighborhood to drink wine to excess. This community of female drinkers echoes the communion of Celestina and Claudina. While sharing food and drink can foster solidarity among the women in Pozo Blanco, commensality can also cause tensions and inconveniences.56 For example, when Lozana meets four Spanish women to share a room for the night, she ends up “quarrel[ling] with them over a pitcher and kick[ing] all four of them down the stairs” (5.17). As much as food enables alliance with other conversas, alcohol can provoke conflicts and arguments among them. In a shallower reflection of Celestina and Claudina’s relationship, Lozana’s friend, Divicia, brings two pilfered hares to share. While eating and drinking together, the two aged prostitutes begin to fight over trivial matters such as whose word is more influential among the people in town. As they become intoxicated, their competitiveness and jealousy intensify offensive and sexual slanders: “LOZANA: You stupid Thessalian whore, go on with your spells and enchantments! I know better than you or all the women ever born because I’ve seen all kinds of women—Moors, Jews, Gypsies, Greeks, Sicilians […]” (54.226–27).57 The women of Pozo Blanco 54 LOZANA: Y será más a mi honra y a mi provecho, que no tomo sabor en casa de otrie, y si quisuiere comer en mi casa, será a cosata de otrie y sabráme mejor (41.183). 55 LAVANDERA: ¡que beben más que hilan! y vino, que en otra casa beberían lo que yo derramo porque me lo traigan fresco, que en esta tierra se quiere beber como sale de la bota (12.219). 56 Fischler, “Commensality,” 538–39. 57 LOZANA: ¡Ándate ahí, puta de Tesalia, con tus palabras y hechizos!, que más sé yo que no tú ni cuantas nacieron, porque he visto moras, judías, zíngaras, griegas y cecilianas […] (54.427).

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often exchange verbal abuse.58 Furthermore, the discord also occurs among famous courtesans who often become envious of one another and spend a lot of money “for food or for rent” or on “sumptuous meals, servants, fine clothes and footwear, on firewood, furnishings, and maids” (34.150). Although Divicia and Lozana gather to share a friendly meal, the conversation is full of verbal abuse, even if sometimes humorous. Their words reveal the tensions and competitiveness hidden within the stratified society of prostitutes. For Lozana, more than an act of eating together, commensality reveals the complexity and dynamics of power relations with other women as the joy of sharing food can be manipulated to her favor. Silvio, a friend of Author, says Lozana “leads a better life than any other woman in Rome,” although she is not a courtesan. Lozana “speaks to everyone, she promises and assures everyone, and she gives them hope when there is none to be had” (24.106). However, the most important thing for Lozana is “to be independent” (24.105). As a poor orphan from Spain, she desires financial and emotional autonomy to survive in sixteenth-century Rome, a city full of prostitutes, some driven by desperation and poverty or others seeking a lucrative business.59 Even as Lozana shares a table with others, she often intends to trick them to her benefit. The deception may make the food taste even better. While other non-elite women enjoy commensality for itself, the outspoken pícara Lozana, who is condemned by a male author, can never full-heartedly socialize with others––instead, she prefers to celebrate her freedom and cunning. In both Celestina and Lozana, the literary representations of the ways that the protagonists share food and drink reflects their economic, social, and cultural identities. By examining commensality and the shared tastes of non-elite women, we see how daily practices of eating and drinking defined, reinforced, and sometimes disrupted female networks in the early modern Spanish Mediterranean. Celestina’s drinking habits show us an important dimension of her relation to the world and to others around her. Celestina presents alcohol drinking from a female point of view, where it serves to support women’s alliances against the official discourses that would aim to control their social practices and spaces. Lower-class women in Lozana share food and wine to soften the hardships of their lives. Lozana, in turn, uses her knowledge of food and cooking to expand her networks 58 For example, they frequently exchange sexual slanders such as, “Curse on the bitch!” (10.31); “Beasts like you should be shoed like horses” (10.32); and “what a cunning old fox you are!” (18.78). Ronda Arab notes that slanders and insults in early modern England were commonly regarded as a female language that effectively delivered common experiences from the households, the streets, and the community. Arab, “Between Women,” 37. 59 Kuffner, Fictions of Containment, 56.

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and promote herself as an independent woman. For Lozana, commensality reflects harmonious and friendly social relationships with other non-elite women, but only when it benefits herself. These fictional representations of female networks show how ordinary working women lived with disputes and quarrels due to their often difficult, competitive circumstances. At the same time, the texts suggest that lower-class women found ways to survive, limit, or challenge the gendered perceptions against them by turning to the mutual support of female friends or neighbors.

Works Cited Primary Sources Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W. D. Ross. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009 Delicado, Francisco. La Lozana andaluza. Edited by Claude Allaigre. Madrid: Cátedra, 1994. Delicado, Francisco. Portrait of Lozana. The Lusty Andalusian Woman. Translated by Bruno M. Damiani. Potomac: Scripta Humanistica, 1987. Rojas, Fernando de. La Celestina. Edited by Dorothy S. Severin. Madrid: Cátedra, 1998. Rojas, Fernando de. Celestina. Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

Secondary Sources Arab, Ronda. “Between Women: Slanderous Speech and Neighborly Bonds in Henry Porter’s The Two Angry Women of Abington.” In The Politics of Female Alliances in Early Modern England, edited by Christina Luckyj, and Niamh J. O’Leary, 32–47. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Woman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Capp, Bernard. When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighborhood in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Chojnacka, Monica. Working Women of Early Modern Venice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Back Talk: Two Prostitutes’ Voices from Rome c. 1600.” Early Modern Women 2 (2007): 95–126.

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Cohen, Elizabeth S. “Seen and Known: Prostitutes in the Cityscape of LateSixteenth-Century Rome’. Renaissance Studies 12, no. 3 (1998): 392–409. Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Counihan, Carole M. The Anthropology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning and Power. New York, London: Routledge, 1999. Cruz, Anne J. Discourses of Poverty: Social Reform and the Picaresque Novel in Early Modern Spain. University of Toronto Press, 1999. Deyermond, Alan. “Female Societies in Celestina.” In Fernando de Rojas and Celestina: Approaching the Fifth Centenary. Proceedings of an International Conference in Commemoration of the 450th Anniversary of the Death of Fernando de Rojas, edited by Ivy A. Corfis and Joseph T. Snow, 1–31. Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1993. Douglas, Mary. “A Distinctive Anthropological Perspective.” In Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology, edited by M. Douglas, 22–46. London: Routledge, 2003. Fischler, Claude. “Commensality, Society and Culture.” Social Science Information 50, no. 3–4 (2011): 528–48. Fontes, Manuel de Costa. Art of Subversion in Inquisitorial Spain: Rojas and Delicado. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2005. Frye, Susan, and Karen Robertson, eds. Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women’s Alliances in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Gefou-Madianou, Dimitra. “Introduction.” In Alcohol, Gender, and Culture, edited by Gefou-Madianou, 1-31, London: Routledge, 1992. Gentilcore, David. Food and Health in Early Modern Europe: Diet, Medicine, and Society, 1450–1800. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. Goldstein, David B. “Commensality.” In Food and Literature, edited by Gitanjali G. Shahani, 39–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Gowing, Laura. Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Herbert, Amanda E. Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. Hernández Cobo, Jesús Amador. ‘El hambre y las ganas de entrar: doble lectura sexual en el léxico de comida y puertas en Retrato de Lozana andaluza’. Hispanófila 175 (2015): 201–12. Holtzman, Jon D. “Food and Memory.” Annual Review of Anthropology 35 (2006): 361–78. Jouanna, Jacques. Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen: Selected Papers. Edited by Van Der Eijk Philip. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

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Juárez-Almendros, Encarnación. Disabled Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature: Prostitutes, Aging Women and Saints. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017. Kissane, Christopher. Food, Religion and Communities in Early Modern Europe. London: Bloomsbury, 2018. Kuffner, Emily. Fictions of Containment in the Spanish Female Picaresque. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019. Luckyj, Christina and Niamh J. O’Leary, eds. The Politics of Female Alliances in Early Modern England. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Nadeau, Carolyn. “Transformation and Transgression at the Banquet Scene in La Celestina.” In Objects of Culture in the Literature of Imperial Spain, edited by Mary E. Barnard and Frederick A. de Armas, 205–27. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. Nadeau, Carolyn. Food Matters: Alonso Quijano’s Diet and the Discourse of Food in Early Modern Spain. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. Palafox, Eloísa. “Celestina y su retórica de seducción: comida, vino y amor en el texto de la Tragicomedia.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 32, no. 1 (2007): 71–88. Perry, Mary Elizabeth. “‘Lost Women’ in Early Modern Seville: The Politics of Prostitution.” Feminist Studies 4, no. 1 (1978): 195–214. Pollock, Susan. “Towards an Archaeology of Commensal Spaces: An Introduction.” In Between Feasts and Daily Meals, edited by S. Pollock, 7–28. Berlin: Topoi, 2015. Poska, Allyson M. Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Rinella, Michael A. Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010. Rivera Medina, Ana Maria. La civilización del viñedo en el primer Bilbao, 1300–1650. La Coruña: Netbiblo, 2011. Scarborough, Connie L. “Urban Spaces in the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea.” In Urban Space in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age, edited by Albrecht Classen, 537–66. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Tarbin, Stephanie, and Susan Broomhall, eds. Women, Identities and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008. Tlusty, B. Ann. “Crossing Gender Boundaries: Women as Drunkards in Early Modern German.” Bucknell University, Faculty Contributions to Books 77 (1998): 185–97. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_books/77. Wiltenburg, Joy. Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Literature of Early Modern England and Germany. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992. Zafra, Enriqueta. “Risky Business: The Politics of Prostitution in Celestina.” In A Companion to Celestina, edited by Enrique Fernandez, 173–87. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Zafra, Enriqueta. Prostituidas por el texto. Discurso prostibulario en la picaresca femenina. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2009.

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About the author Min Ji Kang is a Student Programs Coordinator in the Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies at the University of British Columbia. She completed a PhD in Spanish literature at Purdue University. Her research explores the ways that representations of the consumption of food and alcohol reflect and question social and gender norms in early modern Spanish literature.

Part III Body and Spirit in Colonial Spanish America

9. “Wall Neighbors,” Mothers-in-Law, and Comadres Spousal Violence and Networks of Plebeian Female Intimacy and Solidarity in Urban Neighborhoods of Early to Mid-Colonial New Spain (1550–1670) Jacqueline Holler

Abstract: Studying practices of plebeian female solidarity in early colonial New Spain (1550–1670), this chapter argues that women’s networks were central to contesting masculine violence in a context where neither ecclesiastical nor civil law could effectively combat it. Using petitions for ecclesiastical divorce and Inquisition records involving magic, the chapter further contends that masculine violence itself provided an impetus and a catalyst for the formation of female networks of affective solidarity, support, and the exchange of legal and magical information. Keywords: New Spain, Mexico City, violence against women, solidarity, female networks, plebeians, magic, divorce

In 1614, Mariana de Salas described to Inquisitors of Mexico City’s Holy Office how her neighbors attempted to help her combat her husband’s abuse with magical remedies using variously a lizard, herbs, black powders, and worms. Testifying in 1649 to episcopal authorities in the same city, Madelena de Abrego detailed confronting her neighbor about his abuse of his wife and being mockingly asked whether Madalena thought she was his mother-in-law. The stories of these and other plebeian women emerge from the records of early modern religious courts: primarily, petitions for “ecclesiastical divorce” (marital separation), and secondarily, denunciations for witchcraft and superstition submitted to the Inquisition. These records demonstrate that in confronting spousal abuse, the women of the towns of

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch09

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early colonial New Spain (1530–1650) built and mobilized local peer networks to access protection and solidarity that institutions did not effectively supply. In turn, as women responded to the particular dangers of spousal violence,1 their affective bonds were reinforced. Examining the synergistic relationship between women’s networks and their contestation of spousal violence gives us insight into an important dimension of gendered sociability and affect in the early modern world, where spousal violence could be constitutive of women’s affective bonds. Gossiping about, challenging, and coping with the violence of male partners brought women together in intimate relationships that both deepened recognized bonds (such as those between mothers and daughters) and forged new ones. Both the affective and the protective benefits of these networks of female solidarity were likely more accessible to town women than to their rural counterparts because of the spatial proximity characteristic of urban neighborhoods; this chapter therefore confines itself to town women. This chapter relies upon two bodies of documentation. The main records are ecclesiastical divorce and annulment proceedings brought in the episcopal courts. In New Spain, divorce proceedings were uncommon throughout the colonial period (1521–1821) and perhaps particularly so between 1550 and 1670.2 Twenty-three early colonial records were sampled for this chapter. Of these, seventeen are complete enough to contain evidence concerning grounds for divorce. Of these seventeen, fourteen allege spousal abuse, consistent with other evidence that the vast majority of proceedings involved similar allegations.3 1 This chapter uses the term “spousal violence” rather than “domestic violence” for husbands’ violence against their wives, in part to signal that the colonial domus was a site of various forms of violence, including against children, slaves, and servants, and that women themselves were sometimes perpetrators of such violence. “Domestic violence” is used to delineate this broader terrain of violence within the home. Though the term “domestic violence” itself reflects an evolving contemporary understanding of abuse within intimate relationships, many historians still work with a concept much more akin to what was until quite recently known as “wifebeating,” using the term “domestic violence” as a synonym for spousal violence. On the other hand, scholars such as Linda Gordon have consistently resisted any simple gendering of domestic violence—or domestic virtue, partly because of the comparative richness of modern sources and partly because of attention to race and class. (See Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives). 2 Bird (“For Better or for Worse”) located 252 divorce and annulment records for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while Dávila Mendoza (Hasta que la muerte) located 300 for the eighteenth century alone. It is likely that the disparity in these numbers reflects a combination of two phenomena: first, increasing recourse to divorce over the colonial period, and second, the deterioration and loss of early colonial records. However, the latter means that firm conclusions on prevalence cannot be reached. 3 Bird, “For Better or for Worse,” 134.

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This small sample offers a valuable window on a surprisingly diverse group of marriages. Although ecclesiastical divorce in colonial Latin America is often seen as an overwhelmingly elite strategy, most of the early colonial cases involve plebeian couples living in ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Moreover, given the absence of civil maltreatment (malos tratos) cases for early colonial New Spain, divorce suits are the fullest source for the study of marital violence in the period in question. 4 Often long and rich in detail, these dossiers contain fascinating and dramatic testimony about men’s violence against their wives, but also about the relationships of neighbors, friends, and kin to the abused women in question.5 The ecclesiastical divorce cases studied here are complemented by a number of Inquisition dossiers selected because they involved the use of magic to combat spousal violence. The Mexico City tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was established in 1571, but it was predated by monastic (1522) and episcopal (1535) inquisitions. The Inquisition archive in the National Archive of Mexico comprises documents from all three bodies. Though the Mexico City tribunal participated in persecution of heretics and “Judaizers,” the vast majority of its activity involved policing the daily lives of New Spain’s diverse colonial subjects, with the exception of Indigenous people, who were outside the grasp of the Holy Office and under ordinary (episcopal) jurisdiction.6 The fullest body of documentation for the early colonial period and particularly for the lives of women, the Inquisition archive contains many denunciations, self-denunciations,7 and trials involv4 Kimberly Gauderman has argued for colonial Quito (Ecuador) that reliance upon ecclesiastical records skews one’s impression of official reticence in cases of spousal violence; Gauderman, by contrast, emphasizes the efficacy of the criminal justice system. Her sources suggest, in fact, that Quito’s secular officials were sometimes more zealous in prosecuting errant and violent husbands than their wives would have preferred. See Gauderman, Women’s Lives in Colonial Quito, 48–61. While civil records have been used fruitfully by Sonya Lipsett-Rivera and others for the late colonial period, their absence for the early colonial period also confers greater importance on the divorce records. Boyer has used bigamy records systematically to study marriage and spousal violence in Lives of the Bigamists and “Women, la Mala Vida, and the Politics of Marriage.” 5 Some violence was officially understood as husbands’ licit privilege; therefore, spouses and witnesses who testified in divorce proceedings were at pains not only to document incidents of violence but to frame them within a context that could aid in their interpretation as evidence either of sober discipline or irrational misrule. See Hacke, Women, Sex, and Marriage, 129–32 passim. 6 The most systematic treatment remains Alberro, Inquisición y sociedad. 7 The process of self-denunciation was indistinguishable from the process of denouncing another individual, except that the denouncer was not asked whether the denunciation resulted from personal enmity. The motivations for self-denunciation, moreover, could be as complex as

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ing plebeian women, generally elicited by edicts concerning superstition. Cases involving spousal violence do not form any sort of archival category. One of the cases cited here is catalogued as blasphemy, for example, while another is a self-denunciation for superstition. Because evidence concerning spousal violence emerges only tangentially in these records, the body of Inquisition sources studied is impressionistic and serendipitous rather than comprehensive. Nevertheless, the cases presented here offer rich accounts of interactions and networking among women—and between women and men—concerning spousal violence.

Histories of Spousal Violence: The Recourse to Ecclesiastical and Secular Law Historians have found mounting evidence of the ubiquity across time and space of physical force and abuse within the home. However, they have also challenged the notion that in the past, domestic violence was accepted as inevitable and legitimate.8 In contexts as far apart as Quito and Venice, for example, there is tantalizing evidence that early modern secular and ecclesiastical courts did seek to limit the exercise of masculine spousal violence,9 and that, conversely, the growth of state power in the modern era was not synonymous with protection of women.10 Nonetheless, in colonial New Spain (1521–1821), much domestic violence was legally understood as licit hierarchical discipline, a conception that could induce legal passivity. Secular laws took little interest in violence within familial and quasi-familial relationships.11 Indeed, adults were legally authorized to use force against junior members of the domus—wives, children, servants, and slaves—by a body of legislation dating back to the medieval Siete Partidas, which also delineated the circumstances under those involved in denouncing someone else, from concern for the fate of one’s soul to a calculated belief that one should denounce oneself before someone else did in order to obtain clemency and a “salubrious penance” rather than a potentially harsher punishment. 8 See, for example, Peterson, “Wife-Beating: An American Tradition?;” but see also Taves, ed., Religion and Domestic Violence in Early New England. 9 See in particular, Gauderman on secular courts in Women’s Lives in Colonial Quito, Ferraro on ecclesiastical courts in “The Power to Decide,” and Couling’s chapter in this volume. 10 Latin American studies on the ambivalent role of increasing state power include Chambers, From Subjects to Citizens; Hunefeldt, Liberalism in the Bedroom; Cubano-Iguina, “Legal Constructions of Gender and Violence;” and Lipsett-Rivera, “Marriage and Family Relations.” 11 Margadant, “La familia en el derecho novohispana.”

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which uxoricide and the killing of other female relatives might be permissible as a means of cleansing family honor.12 Those who interpreted the law were further influenced by social ideologies concerning violence. Elites tended to view quotidian violence as inherent in plebeian contexts, if deplorable and at odds with the emotional control expected of high-status men.13 Such beliefs may have limited elite desire to intervene legally in plebeian spousal violence and enabled men of these groups to deploy ethnic and class stereotypes in their defense, as did one late-colonial Indigenous man facing criminal spousal-violence proceedings who claimed that “such [domestic] quarrels […] occur regularly among Indians.”14 The ideology of hierarchical domination expressed in law spilled over into relations not, in theory, protected by law. Late-colonial Mexican men believed that a sexual relationship with a woman entitled them to exert violence even in the absence of legal marriage; these customary “rights” of domination conferred upon a man by regular intercourse, and even by acts of rape, were sometimes recognized by jurists.15 That said, secular legal authorities from neighborhood bailiffs (alguaciles) to the high court (audiencia) itself could and did deal with cases of spousal violence. In Mexico City, for example, non-Indigenous residents could complain either to the sala del crimen of the audiencia or to the municipal court’s judges (alcaldes ordinarios). Indigenous people could access these or the city’s two judicial bodies reserved for “Indians.” Any of these courts could impose punishments on perpetrators without ending the relationship.16 Evidence suggests that the alcalde del crimen did regularly imprison (at least in the short term) men accused of beating their wives—that is, that spousal violence was punished customarily if lightly.17 In addition, secular (and clerical) authorities used depósito (official remand in safe houses) to protect women in acute cases of violence; however, this was generally a short-term strategy that ended with 12 Margadant, “La familia en el derecho novohispana.” For discussion of the legal provisions of the Siete Partidas with regard to domestic violence and Christian patriarchalism, see Boyer, “Women, la Mala Vida, and the Politics of Marriage.” For uxoricide and “honor” killings, see Pescador, “Del dicho al hecho” and Lipsett-Rivera, “Violencia dentro de las familias formal e informal.” 13 On this point, see Lipsett-Rivera, The Origins of Macho. 14 Kanter, Hijos del pueblo, 39. 15 Lipsett-Rivera, “Violencia,” and Lipsett-Rivera, “The Intersection of Rape and Marriage,” 578–79. 16 For an overview of judicial and law enforcement agencies from the early to late colonial periods, see Haslip-Viera, “Criminal Justice and the Poor in Late Colonial Mexico City,” 115–16. 17 Megged, Rituals and Sisterhoods, 50.

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the reconciliation of a couple rather than the dissolution of a marriage.18 Thus, where secular courts intervened, they spent more energy restabilizing families than policing the expression of violence within them, seeking to “preserve the moral authority of the marriage contract and the stability of the family unit.”19 Interventions, where they occurred, thus operated as pressure valves rather than permanent solutions. Longer-term solutions to spousal violence available to the secular authorities were few. A husband could be imprisoned or, in the late colonial period (1750–1821), sentenced to presidio (frontier garrison) service; secular authorities could also authorize the permanent protection of a wife in a house of reclusion (recogimiento). These options were both ambiguous in their effects and far less common than attempts to reconcile spouses to cohabitation.20 Abused women of all castes and stations nonetheless attempted to use law to deal with spousal abuse, just as other dominated persons complained to legal authorities of their mistreatment by their social superiors.21 Women’s very ability to lodge such complaints against their husbands may have undermined the ideology of absolute control, as did local sanctions and admonitions.22 The colonial church, of course, controlled access to ecclesiastical divorce and annulment and could separate couples (and their assets) permanently. In contrast to the outcome of divorce, should a marriage be annulled, the couple would be free to remarry. Legal grounds for separation included cruelty (sevicias), encompassing extreme physical abuse and verbal or emotional abuse; abandonment and neglect; lack of or defects in marital consent; impediments of consanguinity; adultery; contagious disease; and one spouse’s forcing the other into paganism, heresy, or crime. Like secular courts, colonial Latin America’s ecclesiastical courts generally sought to effect reconciliation rather than to prevent or regulate violence; even relatively severe cases of abuse seldom warranted the remedy of ecclesiastical divorce. “Customary” separation may have occurred without divorce, however, and 18 Kanter, Hijos del pueblo, 86–87; Megged, Rituals and Sisterhoods, 59. 19 Haslip-Viera, Crime and Punishment, 69. 20 See Pita Moreda, “Conflictos familiares,” 341, and Martin, Governance and Society in Colonial Mexico, 154–56. Martin mentions that legal officials seemed sometimes more concerned with protecting their jurisdiction than with protecting women from violence (156); and even Kimberly Gauderman suggests that the relative activism of Quito’s secular courts was not caused by concern for the welfare of women and children. 21 See Boyer, “Honor among Plebeians,” 162 passim. For a discussion of early colonial Indigenous women’s use of Spanish litigation, see Kellogg, “Aztec Women in Early Colonial Courts.” 22 See Sousa, “Women and Crime in Colonial Oaxaca.” 205.

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may have met the needs of women without assets to reclaim.23 Nonetheless, a small but growing number of women sought ecclesiastical divorce during the colonial period.24 Finally, the Inquisition was occasionally deployed by slaves and women against abusive owners or husbands, but this institution was similarly reluctant to intervene. In 1606, Isabel de Chávez, a free Black woman and resident of Mexico City, denounced her abusive (non-Black) husband—for blaspheming while beating her.25 She may have hoped that his irreverence would earn him the punishment that domestic abuse could not; however, the Holy Office did not pursue her complaint. Overall, then, law had a limited relationship with the prevention of spousal violence. Ecclesiastical law did concern itself with the gravest abuses, and civil law with quotidian order, but neither was able to adequately police violence rooted in customary privilege within the intimate sphere, whether because of a lack of interest or because “no machinery was in place to intervene decisively.”26 In such a situation, women’s strategies had to encompass much more than recourse to law. “Self-divorce,” the custom of fleeing (and, sometimes, seeking a new partner), was one of the riskiest.27 In the 1790s, Joaquina Ramos defied a legal order that she reconcile with her abusive husband, fled with her children to the outskirts of Mexico City, and rented lodgings with another woman in similar straits, along with the woman’s sister.28 However, given the more constrained mobility of colonial women and the realistic fear of being murdered if found, the popularity of such strategies may have been limited. 23 Bird, “For Better or Worse,” finds that between 1548 and 1699, there were 110 divorce proceedings (many from the latest few decades of the period), of which 83 appear unresolved, 15 were authorized, and 12 were denied (32). On ecclesiastical divorce and its (in)efficacy as a remedy for spousal violence, see, inter alia, Arrom, The Women of Mexico City; Van Deusen, Between the Sacred and the Worldly; Nizza da Silva, “Divorce in Colonial Brazil;” Graham, “Honor among Slaves;” and Dávila Mendoza, Hasta que la muerte nos separe. 24 Megged, Rituals and Sisterhoods, 56. 25 Denunciation of Antonio Valenciano. Mexico, 1606. AGN Inquisición 471 tomo I, exp. 54, ff. 173–74. On slaves’ use of the Holy Office to combat the violence of their owners, see Villa-Flores, “‘To Lose One’s Soul’,” 437. 26 Pescador emphasizes the “lack of interest” of authorities, Boyer the lack of effective sanctions. See Pescador, “Del dicho al hecho,” 384, and Boyer, “Women, la Mala Vida, and the Politics of Marriage,” 268. 27 See Lavrin, “Sexuality in Colonial Mexico,” 78, for flight from abusive marriages; Boyer, Lives of the Bigamists, 138–40, and Stern, Secret History, 275–76. For women—whether wives or slaves—the presence of children also might complicate the use of flight as a strategy to escape abuse. 28 Haslip-Viera, Crime and Punishment, 70.

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Spousal Violence and Women’s Networks in Latin America In early modern and modern contexts where law was ineffective in combating spousal abuse, women relied upon extralegal community mechanisms and individual strategies of resistance.29 However, the extent to which communities policed and regulated the use of force remains controversial. Indeed, many scholars of late colonial and early republican Latin America (1700–1850) have emphasized widespread institutional and societal support for patriarchal privilege and neighborly respect for the right of husbands to “discipline” their wives.30 An exception to this apparently uniform endorsement of patriarchy has been found in the Indigenous communities of rural New Spain, where female networks (primarily Indigenous) of solidarity attempted to contest and contain male violence.31 In Oaxaca’s Mixtec communities, such solidarity extended to mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, whose deep affective bonds could serve to protect wives in patrifocal households, complementing Mixtec women’s use of the court system to combat spousal abuse.32 Non-kin intercultural female networks appear to have exerted a protective or ameliorative effect as early as the sixteenth century, though Indigenous women’s declining status over the colonial period produced a concomitant increase in spousal violence.33 Importantly for this chapter, it has been suggested that such profound and protective female solidarities may have existed only in Indigenous communities and not in the cities of the colonial Spanish world.34 Much understanding of colonial spousal violence, however, relies on late-colonial sources. Rather than projecting this understanding backwards 29 On community regulation, see Butler, “The Law as a Weapon;” Amussen, “‘Being Stirred to Much Unquietness’;” Amussen, “Punishment, Discipline, and Power;” Dobash and Dobash, “Community Response to Violence against Wives;” Philips, “Women, Neighborhood, and Family;” emphasizing individual strategies, see Stern, The Secret History of Gender; Uribe-Urán, “Colonial Baracunatanas and Their Nasty Men;” and Chambers, “‘To the Company of a Man Like My Husband’.” 30 See Powers, Women in the Crucible of Conquest, 118–19; Chambers, From Subjects to Citizens; and Chambers, “‘To the Company of a Man Like My Husband’.” Chambers argues from criminal cases in which men seriously wounded and killed their wives, which may be more likely to have happened precisely in those cases where neighbors did not intervene. 31 Stern, Secret History. 32 Sousa, The Woman Who Turned into a Jaguar; and Sousa, “Women and Crime in Colonial Oaxaca.” 33 See Terraciano, “Mixtec Murder Note;” Deeds, “Double Jeopardy,” 262–64; Taylor, Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion, esp. 106–09. 34 Chambers, “‘To the Company of a Man Like My Husband’.”

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in time, early colonial legal records require painstaking investigation to confirm or refute the upholding of patriarchal privilege. Increasingly, studies from the period before 1700 have found evidence not only of intervention in spousal violence by authorities, but also of neighborhood “networks of safekeeping” that intervened to protect women from the violence of their partners.35 While colonial Latin American women’s networks of resistance to abuse are only beginning to come to light, studies of magic have found suggestive evidence of female knowledge-sharing in the context of magical remedies for spousal abuse. Throughout colonial New Spain, multi-ethnic, cross-class networks of women shared recipes for powders and other remedies that could “tame” husbands.36 In Tarahumara territory, Indigenous men and women shared ritual knowledge not only among themselves but with other ethnic groups, creating “a popular magical religious culture” that transcended class and caste distinctions “to mitigate the abuses of domestic violence.”37 In Guatemala, magic was a gendered multiethnic strategy deployed in a variety of contexts including several documented cases of spousal abuse.38 Combating male violence was also a skill claimed by at least some Peruvian witches.39 Nonetheless, most studies of colonial magic place more emphasis on its uses to attract and bind sexual partners than on ritual as anti-violence strategy. 40 The early colonial records from New Spain discussed below, however, reveal the existence of significant multiethnic plebeian networks, primarily but not exclusively female, that offered support and solidarity to women facing spousal violence. Such solidarity could take various forms: legal, customary, and supernatural. 35 Gauderman, Women’s Lives in Colonial Quito, provides evidence of the intervention of clerical and particularly secular authorities; the phrase “networks of safekeeping” is found in Megged, Rituals and Sisterhoods, 53. 36 Behar, “Sexual Witchcraft, Colonialism, and Women’s Powers.” 37 Deeds, “Double Jeopardy,” 263. 38 Few, Women Who Live Evil Lives; see also Few, “Chocolate, Sex, and Disorderly Women,” 680. 39 Marinelli, Hechiceras, beatas, y expósitas, esp. 39–40. 40 Two significant and comprehensive studies of magic contain almost no discussion of spousal violence. Laura Lewis’s study of early colonial witchcraft finds a multiethnic popular culture, in which those officially disempowered were considered ritually powerful, at a relatively early date. Though recognizing the gendered dimensions of witchcraft, Lewis does not suggest a major role for ritual as a strategy to combat marital violence. Laura de Mello e Souza’s study of witchcraft in colonial Brazil also emphasizes the use of witchcraft by slaves seeking to avoid or avenge their masters’ cruelty but does not mention the use of witchcraft to combat other forms of domestic violence. See Mello e Souza, The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross, esp. 125–29.

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The Town Women of Early Colonial New Spain and Their Recourse to Law The aspiring divorciadas of early colonial New Spain were a diverse group comprising women of every ethnicity—Indigenous, African, Spanish, and the various mixtures thereof—and social/economic status. Most were plebeians, if the extant records are any indication, ranging in age from late adolescence to middle age. The youngest among them, Juana de los Reyes, was only twenty and already once widowed when she lodged her suit in 1623; the case suggests that she was only thirteen when her first husband died.41 Costanza Rodríguez described herself as more than fifty when she launched her divorce case in 1617, though she had been married only three months.42 Diverse though they were, many of these women were united by stories of spousal abuse. María de Ozuña, who lodged her divorce suit in 1662, referred to “maltrato de palabra y obra” (abuse in word and deed), a phrase used in many of the dossiers that signified the interconnectedness of various forms of cruelty. She detailed how she had been beaten, had her hair pulled, suffered miscarriage from beatings, and was threatened with death and called an adulteress.43 Luisa de Vargas, speaking in 1566, described having her lips split, being beaten and bruised “without reason,” and being abandoned for long periods of time.44 Such experiences were commonly reported across the cases studied here. While such abuse may have been common enough, many women clearly sought to constrain it through legal and judicial interventions. While the poor condition of early-colonial criminal records prevents systematic review, extant divorce cases show that abused wives went to secular authorities as the court of first instance in times of crisis. In 1649 Gertrudis de Vargas went to the high court to display her dislocated finger, the marks on her throat and hands, and other manifestations of her new husband’s abuse. She lodged a formal complaint. 45 On another occasion, a bailiff told one of his colleagues that Gertrudis was being beaten by her husband; the two 41 AGN Matrimonios 127, Exp. 12, ff. 46–22. Juana de los Reyes v. Andrés de la Paz. 1623, Puebla. 42 AGN Matrimonios 101, Exp. 2, ff 229–300v. Pedimiento de Constanza Rodríguez muger de Alonso López […] Mexico City, 1617. 43 AGN, Clero Regular y Secular 179, Exp. 4, ff. 83–101. 1662. Juicio de divorcio de Diego Pérez de Castillo, contra su mujer María de Ozuña. 44 AGN, Inquisición 29, Exp. 11, ff. 102. Proceso del Sancto Oficio de la Ynquisicion hordinaria y el fiscal deste arçcobispado contra luisa de bargas por casadada dos veces. 1566. Proceso de diborcio de luisa de bargas contras Alonso franco, f. 115. 45 AGN, Matrimonios 172, Exp. 181, ff. 2–15v; f. 2v. Divorce or annulment petition of Gertrudis de Vargas. Mexico, 1649.

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men went together to the audiencia, where an order was issued forbidding Gertrudis’s husband to mistreat her further. Similarly, when Costanza Rodríguez was beaten by her new husband in 1617, she launched a complaint against him for maltreatment in the high court.46 Nonetheless, as the divorce cases make clear, these were short-term strategies aimed at producing reform. Perhaps they were sometimes effective in deterring husbands, but the cases surveyed here suggest that legal interventions often operated as safety valves rather than permanently reforming abusive men. When the interventions of local secular authorities failed, divorce proceedings might be the next step. A divorce case itself sometimes produced contradictory responses from various representatives of the church. For example, when Luisa de Vargas lodged her divorce complaint, she was initially convinced by some Franciscan friars to reunite with her husband; thereafter, however, she successfully sought depósito in episcopal court. Some months later, she requested a safer deposit location and a restraining order against her husband. 47 The extant divorce cases thus stand as evidence of a continuum of legal responses to spousal abuse. Local secular courts clearly did not ignore extreme abuse, but they seem to have been limited in their ability to end it. When secular authorities proved unable to reform the most abusive men, divorce proceedings could offer women the hope of longer-term and even permanent solutions. For example, an undated petition from Durango (founded 1563) in Northern New Spain mentions a four-year long divorce suit during which, the husband argued, he had paid his wife’s costs of depósito only to see her engage in adultery and prostitution.48 Whatever the merits of his accusations, the petition demonstrates that depósito could be a relatively long-term solution. And beyond it lay the hope, however faint, of a permanent separation.

Women’s Networks and Intervention in Spousal Abuse In a context where law was often unable to intervene decisively, women’s networks served a crucial role in regulating violence at the community 46 AGN, Matrimonios 101, Exp. 2, f. 229. Pedimento de Costanca Rodrigues muger de Alonso Lopez vecina desta ciudad con el dicho su marido sobre la separacion y divorcio del matrimonio entrellos contraydo. Mexico, 1617. 47 AGN, Inquisición 29, Exp. 11, ff. 102. Proceso del Sancto Oficio de la Ynquisicion hordinaria y el f iscal deste arçcobispado contra luisa de bargas por casada dos veces, 1566. Proceso de diborcio de luisa de bargas contras Alonso franco, f. 115. Mexico, 1566. 48 AGN, Bienes Nacionales 296, Exp. 7. Gerónimo Pereyra al Illmo Sr Arzobispo. Durango, s.f.

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level. In a pattern familiar from other contexts, the divorce cases studied here show mothers-in-law as primary actors in such networks. Moreover, both men and women viewed mothers’ authority as legitimate, even if in law a woman was presumed to pass from the paternal authority (patria potestad) of her father to that of her husband at marriage. For example, two young bailiffs who sought to prevent the beating of Gertrudis de Vargas in 1649 balanced their appeal to law with a practical step. Before they reported back to the audiencia (high court), they located and informed Gertrudis’s mother, presumably assuming that she would go directly to her daughter’s home to intervene. The actions of the bailiffs signal a widely acknowledged system of female solidarity based in the first instance on kinship. Husbands, of course, tended to present these links in a different light. In 1570, Hector de Fonseca attempted to rebuff his wife’s divorce suit by juxtaposing the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage with the “trickery of wives and their impassioned relatives.”49 Not surprisingly, confrontations between mothers-in-law and husbands appear with some regularity in divorce-case testimony, belying colonial emphasis on the married couple as independent unit.50 In 1574, a teenaged witness described seeing a confrontation between the mother of Leonor de Ochoa and Leonor’s husband of nine years, Cristóbal Carvallo. Cristóbal planned to move his family away from the neighborhood in which they had lived, which was close to his mother-in-law’s house, and into an Indigenous area where his mistress lived. Informed of these conflicts by her daughter, the mother-in-law wasted little time in coming over to Cristóbal’s house to tell him that while she was living her daughter would not go hungry, and if her son-in-law planned to move he should “give me my daughter.” The angry confrontation ended in a stalemate when Cristóbal shouted at his mother-in-law that he would not let his wife leave the house “except with a bailiff.” Still, Leonor’s mother had served notice that despite Cristóbal’s legally sanctioned role as head of household, she would not easily relinquish her interest in her daughter’s well-being.51 Leonor’s mother brings to mind the stereotype of the mother-in-law as a “perpetually interfering busybody,” which Roderick Phillips describes as a testament to the role of gendered kinship in social support systems.52 49 AGN, Inquisición 1A, Exp. 38, f. 180. Hector de Fonseca, preso en en carcel […] Mexico City, 1570. 50 Kellogg, “Hegemony out of Conquest,” 37. 51 AGN, Matrimonios 128, Exp. 14, ff. 1–9; 5v Autos de divorcio de Leonor de Ochoa y Xpobal Carballo. Mexico, 1579. 52 Phillips, “Women, Neighborhood, and Family,” 6.

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The mother-daughter bond at the heart of many women’s networks occasionally also functioned to protect mothers. María, the young daughter of the plebeian mixed-race woman Francisca López,53 sustained a slash to the temple while trying to prevent her stepfather from stabbing her mother.54 The importance of the mother-daughter bond was also sometimes highlighted when husbands sought to attack non-kin members of their wives’ networks. The case of Madelena de Abrego, with which this chapter begins, is an example. Miguel Martín, in sarcastically asked his intervening neighbor whether she was his wife’s mother, tacitly recognized the customary rights of mothers and the deep mother-daughter bonds that endured despite daughters’ adulthood and marriage. Madalena acknowledged the same when she retorted that if she were Gertrudis’s mother, Miguel would not be mistreating his wife.55 The antipathy between mother-in-law and son-in-law was noted by another witness, María Rangel, who stated that she had intervened when Miguel attempted to strangle Gertrudis “without any greater cause than that she’d gone to visit her mother.”56 Such motherdaughter bonds also extended to economic support. In her 1677 divorce suit, Mexico City’s Doña María de Toledo stated that her mother had been supporting her financially when her husband failed to do so; her mother had also intervened directly to stop the abuse of her daughter, only to be called a “procuress” by the unrepentant husband, who later blamed his mother-in-law for instigating the divorce to “have her daughter back with her.”57 Rich evidence of an attempted community intervention and of 53 Francisca’s ethnicity was varyingly assessed by witnesses as either mestiza (IndigenousEuropean) or mulata (African-European). 54 AGN, Inquisición 29, Exp. 1, ff. 1–101; 1v. Demanda de divorcio de Francisca Lopez contra Juan Perez su marido. Mexico, 1569. 55 “[L]e rrespondio que si era padre o madre de la dicha su muger y esta testigo le dixo que si lo fuera no la maltratara.” Notably, Miguel claimed that he could “handle thirty mothers-in-law.” AGN, Matrimonios 172, Exp. 181, ff. 2–15v; f. 2v. Divorce or annulment petition of Gertrudis de Vargas. Mexico, 1649. In part, the rights of parents to police the borders of their daughters’ marriages stemmed from parents’ status as the primary contractors of marriage. In another example of the gap between official policy and community norm, early colonial parents’ authority to contract marriages for their children was widely accepted, despite the preference that church courts gave to children’s free choice. See Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico, 6 passim. Also see Arzata Becerril, No es por vicio ni por fornicio, 326–44 passim. 56 AGN, Matrimonios 172, Exp. 181, ff. 2–15v; f. 3v. Divorce or annulment petition of Gertrudis de Vargas. Mexico, 1649. 57 AGN Matrimonios 80, Exp. 10, ff. 29–96. Doña María de Toledo mugger de Anto Cortes de Siles sobre que se haga separación y diborcio […] Mexico City, 1677. Doña María is categorized here as a woman of middling status on the basis of other evidence in the f ile, including her mother’s lack of the honorific.

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husbandly hostility to the “meddling” mother-in-law, these incidents also reveal the centrality of mother-daughter affective bonds in plebeian female networks.58 As the examples of Madalena and María from the case above demonstrate, neighbors appear frequently in divorce cases to testify to the “bad life” (mala vida) some women received from their husbands. In their testimony, they also reveal much about local female networks of protection and intimacy. “Wall neighbors” (vecinos de pared), as some witnesses styled themselves, heard much of went on in the adjoining dwellings, and were often well informed about the state of affairs in the households around them, repeatedly testifying to hearing telltale noises that alerted them to spousal violence. Lodgers were even closer, proximally, and appear frequently in the cases. Some women may have consciously brought others into their households as lodgers or servants in order to build networks of witnessing and intervention. In the late sixteenth century, Leonor de Ochoa let a room to a 34-year-old widow and her teenaged daughter, who later were able to testify to Leonor’s abuse at the hands of her husband. Leonor’s husband Cristóbal, on the other hand, was hostile to the presence of “outsiders” within the home and told his wife that he did not want her taking a servant because he did not want everyone in the street to know what went on in his house.59 Women also consciously built relationships with their neighbors and solicited their support by revealing the effects of violence in a manner both legalistic and aimed at stirring emotion. Thus, on one morning after Cristóbal had whipped Leonor with a rope, Leonor’s mother uncovered her daughter’s body to display her bruises and lacerations to two neighborhood women; the concerned mother also showed them the rope with which the beating had been administered. As Gauderman suggests, women had a strong interest in exposing men’s abusive behavior, both to invoke public censure and to ensure witnesses in case of legal action.60 Actions such as those of Leonor’s mother acknowledged (or called into existence) an informal “court” of neighborhood women, making submissions to it in an often surprisingly formal fashion, down to the displaying of the instruments of abuse. However legalistic, though, women’s pleas to their neighbors were explicitly rooted in 58 Moreover, the case suggests that the female networks described for late colonial Indigenous villages by Stern may have enjoyed some measure of legitimacy among both sexes in early colonial urban neighborhoods. See Few, Women Who Live Evil Lives. 59 “[N]o queria que todo lo que se hiziese en su casa lo supiesen en la casa,” AGN, Matrimonios 128, Exp. 14, ff. 1–9; 4-5. Autos de divorcio de Leonor de Ochoa, y Xpobal Carballo. 1579, Mexico. 60 See Gauderman, Women’s Lives in Colonial Quito, 158–60.

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affect; Leonor’s mother, in exposing Leonor’s body, was attempting to stir compassion. Display and discussions of the “evidence” helped strengthen the bonds of feminine outrage, compassion, and solidarity. And neighbors, made aware and involved emotionally, took their responsibilities to intervene seriously; in 1649 María Rangel reported that she and her husband were living in a state of constant anxiety because of their fear that Gertrudis de Vargas’ husband would murder her.61 More intimate than neighbors but sometimes spatially more distant were godkin. Comadres, in particular, were a critical link in female networks of intimacy and solidarity. Literally speaking, of course, comadre refers to the godmother of one’s child. More frequently, a comadre was a close friend, often of similar age, with whom one had strong effective ties and an enduring bond. When a woman referred to another as her comadre, she was asserting a bond comparable to a religious one.62 Neighbors might go find a woman’s comadres even when they themselves were reluctant to intervene in violence, suggesting that women’s networks were known and respected by those who did not belong to them.63 Wives were at greater risk the farther they were from their networks of support, and many urban women in Mexico City’s crowded neighborhoods may have benefited from the signif icant protection inherent in closeness to kin, neighbors, and comadres and their complete—and in other contexts oppressive—lack of privacy. It should not be forgotten that women’s networks of protection included men. While women were the most frequent interveners in the cases studied, men did sometimes intervene directly, particularly to physically restrain a man engaged in extreme violence against his wife. In 1604, in explaining to the Holy Office why he had angrily blasphemed, Pedro de Robles described how two other men who lodged in his house had restrained him from beating 61 AGN, Matrimonios 172, Exp. 181, ff. 2–15v; f. 4. Divorce or annulment petition of Gertrudis de Vargas. Mexico, 1649. 62 The 1729 Diccionario de Autoridades defines comadre as “someone valued as a much as a mother;” “a woman whose off ice it is to attend and assist others in childbirth;” “the woman who accompanies the baby and receives it from the godfather at the font;” it also notes that it is customary to give this name to “those who attend the bride on her wedding day” and “female neighbors who live with familiarity.” 63 This occurred in the case of Catalina Sánchez (AGN Matrimonios 137, Exp. 2, ff. 1–20; 7v. Divorce petition of Catalina Sánchez. Tepex, 1619). After such interventions, Catalina’s husband eventually took her to a field to whip her. Stern refers to such whippings as intelligible within “a more elaborate ritual of power,” but they may have a more pragmatic motivation. That is, men may have chosen fields as places of punishment because they were less likely to involve the presence of potentially meddlesome bystanders. See Stern, Secret History, 211.

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his wife.64 Other men reported, for example, hiding a neighbor who was fleeing her angry husband or attempting to take a husband’s sword to limit the deadly potential of his violence. Husbands of comadres, stepfathers, and fathers seem to have been particularly prone to intervention. Doña María de Toledo, for example, described in 1677 how her stepfather and a Franciscan friar had intervened to prevent her husband from murdering her.65 Such men sometimes became liable to violence themselves. Elite women may have faced greater challenges in building networks of solidarity. The elite divorce cases66 studied here hint at an elite-plebeian (rather than ethnic) divide with regard to feminine networks and their power. Doña Ana de Prado claimed in 1565 that her husband of twelve years had abused her in a variety of ways, hitting her, pulling her hair, whipping her, and beating her with his sword. Though a few witnesses, including doña Ana’s sister, reported having seen acts of violence, no one described intervening between husband and wife as was typical in the plebeian cases; moreover, witnesses were not neighbors but visiting friends and relatives, and even they were not able to testify to the worst abuse.67 This suggests that elite women’s networks may have been less robust or less able to intervene in a context where patriarchal authority was wielded by a man with the complementary attributes of high social status and private housing. Patriarchal privilege may also have enjoyed greater hegemony among the elite for a variety of reasons, including the customary gap in age between elite husbands and wives, the size and relative separation of elite dwellings, and the more frequent economic dependence of elite women.68 While evidence does not permit firm conclusions, these elite patterns may have constrained 64 AGN, Inquisición 368, Exp. 97, ff. 380–92. Denunciación de Pedro de Robles aprensador contra si mismo. Mexico, 1604. 65 AGN, Matrimonios 80, Exp. 10, ff. 29–96. Doña María de Toledo muger de Anto Cortes de Siles sobre que se haga separación y diborcio […] Mexico City, 1677. 66 Elite status was determined by a combination of personal wealth, dowry, living situation, and the honorific “doña,” whose use broadened over the period studied here so as to obviate its use as a uniform marker of status. Not all elite cases involved violence: Doña Lorenza de Esquivel (successfully) sought divorce because her husband had been disciplined by the Inquisition on vehement suspicion of Judaizing (AGN, Bienes Nacionales 114, Exp. 2, ff. 1–56). Her case, however lengthy, is focused on legalities inherent in religious grounds for divorce rather than on violence, and therefore does not figure in the analysis in this chapter. 67 AGN Matrimonios 119, Exp. 33, ff. 211–35, f. 218. Divorcio de doña Ana de Prado contra Gonzalo Cano, su marido. Mexico, 1565. 68 One of the witnesses who testified on doña Ana’s behalf was Ana de Olives, the twenty-fiveyear-old wife of Alonso Principe. She was five years younger than a daughter of Alonso’s who also testified. Such dramatic differences between husbands’ and wives’ ages were characteristic of the colonial elite throughout Spanish America.

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the strength and efficacy of elite women’s networks. Whether among the elite or among plebeians, however, women’s networks clearly operated to succor and protect women. As a witness noted in the 1619 case of Catalina Sánchez, Catalina would have been dead had her female friends not intervened in violence and had her parents not provided her sustenance.69 The repetition of such commentary across the cases studied here demonstrates that while women’s networks could not prevent spousal violence, they could contest it and, at least in many cases, ensure women’s survival for another day.

Women’s Networks as Conduits of Community, Legal, and Supernatural Knowledge Women’s networks not only intervened directly in disputes but served, through gossip, as constructors and conduits of knowledge: about community members and spousal violence, to be sure, but also about legal and supernatural remedies for violence. The cases analyzed here demonstrated that plebeian women evaluated in their conversations whether and when men had exceeded acceptable norms. Men who were judged wanting could be shamed through gossip. For example, Madalena de Abrego reported having warned the husband of Gertrudis de Vargas that his abuse of his wife would be “noted in the neighborhood.”70 Given the importance of reputation in early colonial society, the threat of such shaming may have constrained at least some spousal abuse. Gossip within women’s networks could also inform abused women of their (limited) legal options. Luisa de Vargas reported that she had learned of her right to divorce from another woman, who heard about Luisa’s “evil life” with her husband (mala vida) and then told her how to go about filing a petition.71 But gossip about violence also cemented bonds between women and reflected a feminine culture of marriage study and assessment; in their conversations, women discussed various marriages and who was living the “mala vida.” Sometimes they even ranked the marriages they knew. María de Saldavia related how she and another woman had been discussing “badly 69 AGN Matrimonios 137, Exp. 2, ff. 1–20; 7v . Divorce petition of Catalina Sánchez. Tepex, 1619. 70 AGN, Matrimonios 172, Exp. 181, ff. 2–15v; f. 5. Divorce or annulment petition of Gertrudis de Vargas. Mexico, 1649. 71 AGN Inquisición 29, Exp. 10. Proceso del Sancto Oficio de la ynquisicion hordinaria y el fiscal deste arzobispado contra Luisa de Bargas por casada dos vezes. Mexico, 1569. After attempting to divorce her first husband, Luisa became a bigamist. Boyer discusses Luisa’s bigamy trial in Lives of the Bigamists, 138–40.

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married women” (malmariadas) when a third woman told them that no woman was as badly married as Leonor de Ochoa.72 As these anecdotes illustrate, women’s networks were not only mobilized in moments of direct intervention in crisis. In addition, they operated more regularly as “epistemological communities” in which women’s experiences and knowledge of marriage and abuse were shared, evaluated, and transmuted into action.73 In examining and evaluating the stories of married women and malmariadas, neighborhood women created female solidarity and potential ruptures in the fabric of patriarchal authority, priming themselves for intervention in violence with equal doses of outrage and compassion. Husbands’ resentment of wives’ gossip was a grudging recognition of its power.74 Female networks of solidarity also operated in the supernatural realm, where they both sought to combat (and were in turn strengthened by) masculine violence. Despite limited discussion in the secondary literature, however, magic seems indeed to have played an important role in Mexico City women’s networks and their responses to spousal violence. In 1614, for example, María de Torres denounced herself to the Holy Office for having accepted another woman’s offer of magic to help her combat “the lack of peace” between herself and her husband.75 In the same year, Mariana de Salas denounced herself for similar reasons. Mariana’s case is interesting because, having shared her stories of her domestic abuse with others in the neighborhood, she seems to have been fairly overwhelmed by offers of supernatural intervention—and not only from women. A young married man of her acquaintance prescribed a complicated “taming” formula involving a small live lizard (lagartija). Mariana dutifully procured a lizard from an Indigenous man in her neighborhood, but her husband discovered and killed it, blaming Mariana for a subsequent illness. At this point, Luisa, “a Spanish woman with moles on her face,” offered Mariana an herb that would make the errant husband love his wife and cease his maltreatment of her. Mariana was reluctant to use the herb, since she feared it would be too easily detected by her husband; Luisa therefore proffered other remedies, including a black powder to be stirred into the unwitting abuser’s wine and worms to be added to his food. When none of these proved efficacious or possible 72 AGN, Matrimonios 128, Exp. 14, ff. 1–9; 5v. Autos de divorcio de Leonor de Ochoa, y Xpobal Carballo. Mexico. 1579. 73 Van Deusen, “Circuits of Knowledge,” 137. 74 See Gauderman, Women’s Lives in Colonial Quito, 58. 75 AGN, Inquisición 278, Exp. 9. ff. 258–59. Delación y accusación que haze de si misma María de Torres. Mexico, 1614.

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to administer without detection, Luisa escalated her strategy, now offering a prayer that could be used to kill someone and had been used by another woman to dispatch an unsatisfactory husband. Mariana’s case is evidence of interethnic plebeian networks of witchcraft, primarily female, and also of the way in which known masculine violence extended these networks. Those who shared recipes to counteract spousal abuse were largely female. It might be tempting, therefore, to imagine that when men formed part of women’s networks, they acted directly to inhibit abuse, while women were more likely to resort to magical remedies. However, as the young man who offered Mariana the lizard “taming” recipe demonstrates, men were also aware of “powders” and recipes to hinder men’s violence. In some cases, their actions may have been motivated by an inability to stop the abuse and even guilt over contracting abusive marriages for their daughters. One Querétaro father who denounced himself to the Inquisition in 1626 described how, “having ten years ago married [his daughter] to a foreigner […] he could not endure [her abuse] any longer, since she is his daughter.” He testified that faced with his daughter’s situation, he decided to harm his abusive son-in-law using a spell he had learned from a free Black woman some eight years earlier that involved a toad. However, according to his testimony, only half an hour after he created the spell he repented of his action and put the toad and its container “very far away.”76 His actions nonetheless demonstrated that men, too, could not only share but also deploy magical remedies against abuse. Women’s networks, then, while primarily female, were not truly homosocial; men were drawn into them by multiple forms of affective, spatial, and kin linkage. While men’s most characteristic form of intervention may have been physical, the case described above suggests that men participated in various forms of community regulation extending to the supernatural.

Conclusion It is increasingly clear that both secular and ecclesiastical authorities attempted to some degree to police spousal violence, both from the growing secondary literature and from the fragments that emerge from the dossiers cited here. Still, the stories that emerge from divorce petitions and Inquisition dossiers alike demonstrate the limited ability of civil and ecclesiastical law to end or constrain spousal abuse. Confronting this fact, the women 76 Inquisición 360, 1a parte, Exp. 1, f. 229. Juan Lucas, español, contra sí. Querétaro, 1626.

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of the towns of early colonial New Spain did attempt to use law—whether civil intervention in acute abuse or the long-term separation the church could provide—to solve their problems. But at the same time, they built and mobilized local peer networks to access the protection and solidarity that institutions did not effectively supply. They took in lodgers, told their stories to neighborhood women, and relied on their mothers, their comadres, and their neighbors to intervene when abuse erupted. Mothers, daughters, comadres, wall neighbors, and others talked, gossiped, and remonstrated with husbands about violence; they offered one another legal advice, comfort, and even supernatural remedies, and drew men into their networks in various ways. More striking, perhaps, is the degree to which masculine violence served as a catalyst to build such networks of sociability, support, and intimacy. Indeed, the affective value of women’s networks may have been more meaningful to the Leonors and Marianas of early colonial Mexico than the ability of those networks to end spousal violence, a task to which even modern law has been unequal.

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Lipsett-Rivera, Sonya “Marriage and Family Relations in Mexico during the Transition from Colony to Nation.” In State and Society in Spanish America during the Age of Revolution, edited by Victor Uribe-Urán. Wilmington; Scholarly Resources, 2001. Lipsett-Rivera, Sonya. The Origins of Macho: Men and Masculinity in Colonial Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. Margadant, Guillermo F. “La familia en el derecho novohispana.” In Familias novohispanas: siglos XVI al XIX, edited by Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru. Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1991. Marinelli, María Emma. Hechiceras, beatas, y expósitas: Mujeres y poder inquisitorial en Lima. Lima: Ediciones del Congreso del Perú, 1999. Martin, Cheryl. Governance and Society in Colonial Mexico: Chihuahua in the Eighteenth Century. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Megged, Amos. Rituals and Sisterhoods: Single Women’s Households in Mexico, 1560–1750. Louisville: University of Colorado Press, 2019. Mello e Souza, Laura de. The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery, and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil. Translated by Diana Grosklaus Whitty. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. Nizza da Silva, María Beatriz. “Divorce in Colonial Brazil: The Case of São Paulo.” In Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, edited by Asunción Lavrin, 313–40. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Pescador, Juan Javier. “Del dicho al hecho: uxoricidios en el México Central, 1769–1820.” In Familia y vida privada en la historia de Iberoamérica, edited by Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru and Cecilia Rabell Romero, 373–86. Mexico City: El Colegio de México/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996. Peterson, David. “Wife-Beating: An American Tradition?” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, no. 1 (1992): 97–118. Philips, Roderick. “Women, Neighborhood, and Family in the Late Eighteenth Century.” French Historical Studies 18, no. 1 (1993): 1–12. Pita Moreda, María Teresa. “Conflictos familiares y tribunales de justicia a finales de la colonia: Algunos casos novohispanos.” In Familia y vida privada, edited by Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru and Cecilia Rabell Romero, 341–58. Mexico City: El Colegio de México/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1996. Powers, Karen Vieira. Women in the Crucible of Conquest: The Gendered Genesis of Spanish American Society, 1500–1600. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. Seed, Patricia. To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Sousa, Lisa. “Women and Crime in Colonial Oaxaca: Evidence of Complementary Gender Roles in Mixtec and Zapotec Societies.” In Indian Women of Early Mexico,

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edited by Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett, 199–214. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Sousa, Lisa. The Woman Who Turned into a Jaguar and Other Narratives of Native Women in Archives of Colonial Mexico. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017. Stern, Steve. The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Taves, Ann, ed. Religion and Domestic Violence in Early New England: The Memoirs of Abigail Abbott Bailey. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989. Taylor, William. Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979. Terraciano, Kevin. “Crime and Culture in Colonial Mexico: The Case of the Mixtec Murder Note.” Ethnohistory 45, no 4 (1998): 709–45. Uribe-Urán, Victor. “Colonial ‘Baracunatanas’ and Their Nasty Men: Spousal Homicides and the Laws in Late Colonial New Granada.” Journal of Social History 35, no. 1 (2001): 43–71. Van Deusen, Nancy. Between the Sacred and the Worldly: The Institutional and Cultural Practice of Recogimiento in Colonial Lima. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Van Deusen, Nancy “Circuits of Knowledge among Women in Early SeventeenthCentury Lima.” In Gender, Race, and Religion in the Colonization of the Americas, edited by Nora A. Jaffary, 137–50. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007. Villa-Flores, Javier. ‘“To Lose One’s Soul”: Blasphemy and Slavery in New Spain, 1596–1669’. Hispanic American Historical Review 82, no. 3 (2002): 435–68.

About the author Jacqueline Holler is Professor of History, Chair of Global and International Studies, and Coordinator of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, Canada. She specializes in the cultural history of early colonial New Spain, with a focus on the intersections of gender, medicine, religion, sexuality, and emotion.

10. Far from the Margins Non-elite Single Women and Spiritual Networking in Colonial Guatemala*1 Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara Abstract: This chapter examines the case of Anna Guerra de Jesús, a poor rural migrant and abandoned wife and mother, who became a celebrated local holy woman in early eighteenth-century Santiago de Guatemala, the colonial capital of Central America. Through an analysis of Anna’s spiritual biography alongside wills and other archival sources, this chapter considers how non-elite single women in colonial Santiago actively cultivated devotional networks with women, priests, and lay religious brotherhoods. Through these networks, laboring single women positioned themselves at the forefront of a vibrant spiritual renaissance in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Santiago de Guatemala and actively participated in the global circulation of female mysticism, affective piety, and missionary movements. Keywords: Non-elite women, devotional networks, Catholic Church, Guatemala, hagiography

On May 17, 1713, at age seventy-five, Anna Guerra de Jesús died in Santiago de Guatemala, the colonial capital of Central America. Within three years of Anna’s death, Santiago’s local printing press published a lengthy spiritual biography of her life, penned by her former confessor, Jesuit Padre Antonio Siria, and titled, Vida admirable y prodigiosas virtudes de la v. sierva de Dios D. Anna Guerra de Jesús (Admirable Life and Extraordinary Virtues of the Servant of God, Doña Anna Guerra de Jesús). Anna stands out as an unusual * This chapter reflects a modif ied adaptation of material published in Leavitt-Alcántara, Alone at the Altar with permission from Stanford University Press.

Cohen, E.S. and M.J. Couling (eds.), Non-Elite Women’s Networks across the Early Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463725750_ch10

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hagiographical subject. While the early modern Catholic ideal of feminine piety prized enclosure, obedience, and virginity, Anna was neither nun nor virgin, but rather a poor rural migrant and abandoned wife and mother who lived and died in the world rather than a cloistered community. How did Anna Guerra de Jesús become a celebrated holy woman and model of female piety in a context of official anxiety, ambivalence, and even outright hostility towards non-elite women living outside patriarchal authority? And what does her story reveal about the broader gendered religious context of Santiago de Guatemala? Through an analysis of Anna’s spiritual biography alongside wills and other archival sources, this chapter examines how non-elite single women in colonial Santiago actively cultivated devotional networks with other lay women, mixed-sex religious brotherhoods, and priests. Through these networks, laboring single women positioned themselves at the forefront of a vibrant spiritual renaissance in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Santiago de Guatemala and actively participated in the global circulation of female mysticism, affective piety, and missionary movements. Anna Guerra migrated from a rural region in modern-day El Salvador to urban Santiago de Guatemala in 1667 along with her husband Diego and two small children. 1 Anna and her family were criollos, people of “pure” Spanish descent, and thus above Indigenous, African, and mixedrace peoples in the colonial caste system. But they were also poor rural migrants, and Anna’s life to that point had not been easy. Not yet thirty years old, she had suffered years of desperate poverty, violent abuse by her husband, and the repeated loss of her children. New challenges emerged after the family’s move to the city. After only eight months, Anna’s husband abandoned her and their children.2 For decades she teetered on the edge of desperate poverty, working odd jobs as a seamstress, moving from house to house, leaving her children in the care of others, and depending on the hospitality or charity of neighbors and strangers. As a laboring single mother and woman living outside of marriage, Anna was in good company in colonial Santiago de Guatemala. Like most Spanish American cities, Santiago was becoming a “city of women” as the demand for domestic servants and market women drew female migrants into the city while rural economies and mining drew men out.3 Unbalanced male to female ratios led to urban dependence on female labor and sizeable numbers 1 Siria, Vida Admirable, 67. 2 Siria, Vida Admirable, 68. 3 Komisaruk, Labor and Love, 61, 117; Kinsbruner, The Colonial Spanish-American City, 113.

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of unmarried women, female-headed households, and informal sexual unions. 4 Both the Catholic Church and Spanish colonial officials worried over the large population of poor independent women like Anna. As Jessica Delgado recently put it, early modern Catholic officials understood sin and scandal as contagious and women as “particularly dangerous vectors of this contagion” thus necessitating their enclosure within marriage or religious institutions.5 Indeed, the Mexican Inquisition prosecuted non-elite single laywomen as “false” mystics more than any other group.6 These gendered tensions were certainly present in Anna’s life. But her case study also illuminates another side to this story, particularly how some poor single women navigated gendered tensions associated with their status by forging female devotional networks and alliances with individual priests and broader religious orders like Jesuits, Dominicans, and Franciscans. Through these networks, Anna engaged with models of female mysticism and the Jesuit Spiritual Exercises, acted as an evangelizer in private homes and public street corners, and became a celebrated local holy woman. Anna’s spiritual accomplishments occurred within particular local and global contexts which illuminate the complex relationship between the early modern Catholic Church and poor single women. As a modest provincial capital, removed from intense Inquisitorial oversight and without the institutional resources necessary to enforce female enclosure, church off icials in Santiago exhibited greater tolerance for single women and lay female religiosity compared to colonial centers like Mexico City and Lima. At the same time, the Catholic Church’s renewed eighteenth-century global missionary movement and the imperative to evangelize wayward Catholics in Santiago de Guatemala led Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries to ally with non-elite single women, support active female ministries, and promote more diverse models of female piety. This chapter relies primarily upon the lengthy spiritual biography of Anna’s life which provides an unusually detailed portrait of the religious life of a non-elite laywoman, typically an elusive subject in colonial archives. The religious purpose of hagiographies was to support the beatification of a holy person to sainthood and to provide role models to the Catholic faithful. Surviving excerpts of Anna’s own spiritual diaries illustrate how Padre Siria, like most hagiographers, filtered her life story in order to reveal religious 4 See Van Deusen, Between the Sacred and the Worldly, 64–65. 5 Delgado, Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism, 15. 6 Jaffary, False Mystics, 37, 48.

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truths above time and space.7 The historian’s task is to reconnect sacred subjects to their specific contexts, in their historical moment and location.8 This is challenging, but not impossible. Particularly by the eighteenth century, when Padre Siria penned Anna’s spiritual biography, hagiographies generally tethered sacred stories to specific historical contexts in an attempt to offer verifiable proof of sanctity for the increasingly rationalistic process of canonization investigations.9 A close examination of Anna’s Vida, including key omissions and fleeting references, alongside evidence from wills and other archival sources, sheds new light on non-elite laywomen’s spiritual networks and how those networks shaped local and global Catholicism.

Single Women and Social Order in Santiago de Guatemala With 40,000 residents and many urban amenities including magnificent religious architecture, a university, and a printing press, Santiago was one of the larger cities of the Western Hemisphere at the time, after Mexico City, Lima, and Potosi.10 In Padre Antonio Siria’s telling of it, Santiago de Guatemala was the spiritual center of Central America, a beacon of light promising Anna salvation and a path to sanctity. He described, for example, how years before her move, Anna received a divine vision of Santiago as a blessed city under a sky that was “clean and pure like a crystal,” and resplendent in the center “the holy name of HIS”—the insignia of the Jesuit order.11 Like many of his contemporary hagiographers, Padre Siria clearly sought to celebrate not only Anna’s life, but also local pride and the central role played by his religious order on her path to holiness.12 And truly, the 7 For surviving excerpts from Anna’s spiritual diaries, see appendix of Platero, Ana Guerra de Jesús. Readers may notice that I refer to Anna Guerra de Jesús, and other laymen and women, by their first names, while I frequently refer to the Jesuit Padre Antonio Siria and other priests by their full names or last names. This decision is in accordance with recent scholarship and also reflects historical norms. Padre Antonio Siria consistently referred to Anna by her first name, or as doña Anna, while he referred to priests by their full name and title, for example, Padre Juan Cerón. For modern scholarship, see for example Bilinkoff, Related Lives, Gunnarsdóttir, Mexican Karismata. 8 On the historical task of situating holy people in their historical contexts, see Greer, Mohawk Saint, viii. 9 Myers, Neither Saints nor Sinners, p. 12. 10 Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala, 110; Few, “Women, Religion, and Power,” 629. 11 Siria, Vida Admirable, 62. 12 For further discussion of local and regional pride, as well as the celebration of particular religious orders, as expressed through hagiographical texts, see Morgan, Spanish American Saints.

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late seventeenth century witnessed the beginnings of a spiritual renaissance in Santiago with rapidly rising clerical populations, new female convents opening, and the arrival of missionary orders which brought dynamic preachers, dedicated confessors, and dramatic outdoor mission revivals. Santiago’s social reality was more complex than Padre Siria’s idealization allowed. By the time Anna migrated to the city, the Spanish colonial model of two republics, one Spanish and one Indian, neatly segregated and ordered hierarchically, had mostly collapsed due to growth of a large free black community and extensive racial mixture among black, native, and Spanish populations.13 The aforementioned gender imbalance, alongside other sociocultural trends, created large numbers of single women and informal sexual unions. When Anna arrived, the illegitimacy rate among Santiago’s non-elite population was a staggering 73 percent, a strikingly high figure even among colonial Spanish American cities.14 The terrible succession of drought, locusts, famine, epidemics, and earthquakes that besieged Santiago from 1680 to 1720 fueled unrest, protests, and resistance to tribute and tax requirements.15 Elite officials responded with harsh regulations aimed at controlling the non-elite population, including the large population of laboring women.16 Local authorities regularly harassed, arrested, and punished female meat vendors, while Inquisition officials intensified the prosecution of women for “witchcraft,” which included healing arts, love magic, and curses. By the late seventeenth century, officials in Santiago had transformed the city’s only school and orphanage for girls into a house of detention for women facing trial or convicted of crimes. Additionally, Santiago completed construction of a women’s jail in 1691, and felt the need to expand the jail in 1699 and again in 1701.17 During Anna’s first years in Santiago, she likely fit local officials’ stereotype of a “lost” woman—poor, transient, separated from her husband, and largely outside the sacramental community of the Catholic faithful. Padre Siria acknowledged that after arriving in the city, Anna evaded the annual obligatory confession for three full years in violation of Church law. As an abandoned wife, Anna also occupied an ambiguous social and moral position. Without knowing if her husband was dead or alive, Anna risked a charge of bigamy if she remarried, or adultery if she formed a new 13 Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala, 47, 51. 14 Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala, 82–83, 234. 15 Wortman, Government and Society, 93, 98. 16 Few, Women Who Live Evil Lives, 26 17 Ibid., 24–32.

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consensual union. But left as a poor single and laboring mother, Anna faced dire poverty and fell outside the gendered ideal of male supervision of women. Some women in her situation pursued an ecclesiastical separation known as “divorcio” in Spanish America, which provided official permission to live separately, although never remarry; however, the process could be costly and did not necessarily resolve the moral ambiguity of Anna’s position. Seventeenth-century officials in other parts of Spanish America explicitly described “divorced” women as a threat to moral order, much like prostitutes and unchaste women.18

Female Devotional Networks: Beatas, Books, and Brotherhoods Anna’s spiritual biography portrays her conversion from “wayward” to devout as abrupt and dramatic. According to Padre Siria, one Thursday afternoon in 1670, a pious female acquaintance invited Anna to visit a miraculous image of Our Lady of the Rosary, venerated in an Indian neighborhood in the humble Chapel of Santa Cruz. Anna had only “just arrived in the presence of that common Mother of sinners, when she felt moved interiorly to confess […] she left the church without knowing herself.”19 Just a few days later Anna walked to a town on the outskirts of the city in search of locally famous preacher and gifted confessor Maestro Bernardino de Ovando. With him, Anna made her first halting confession in years. According to Padre Siria, in the following weeks and months, Anna radically transformed her daily life. Emulating the lives of female saints, she cultivated a rigorous devotional regimen of prayer, ascetic denial of the flesh, penance, charity, and frequent sacraments.20 Like many holy women before her, Anna followed the female mystic tradition of affective piety—that is a piety based on an emotional experience of God’s love rather than an intellectual or learned analysis of scripture and Church teachings.21 On this spiritual path, universally recognized female “weaknesses” such as ignorance, lack of reason, and exuberant imagination and emotion might transform into the spiritual gifts of visions, trances, and mystical union, or spiritual marriage, with God.22 18 Van Deusen, Between the Sacred and the Worldly, 71. 19 Siria, Vida admirable, 69. “Apenas llegó a la presencia de aquella común Madre de los pecadores, cuando comenzó a sentirse interiormente movida a que se confesase […] salió de la iglesia sin conocerse a si misma.” 20 Ibid., 70–75. 21 Myers and Powell, A Wild Country, 304. 22 Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption, 60.

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Even a poor peasant woman like Anna might receive these spiritual gifts through intensive prayer, spiritual direction, and bodily penance. Padre Siria’s account emphasized the divine intervention of Mary through her miraculous image followed by the skilled guidance of Anna’s confessor. But a careful reading of Anna’s biography alongside other historical sources highlights the critical role played by female devotional networks in her personal religious experience and in Santiago’s broader socio-religious landscape. Padre Siria never named the female acquaintance or friend who took Anna to visit the miraculous image of Mary that inspired her conversion. But the friendship was probably well established before that day, and they were frequent devotional companions following Anna’s conversion. Together, they would gather with other women to read pious texts. She and Anna began standing on street corners, praying the rosary and exhorting fellow residents to repent and return to the confessional. When time permitted, she and Anna snuck away on the pretext of searching for firewood, trudging up the mountain behind the Chapel of Santa Cruz so that they could pray together for an hour and then sharply discipline each other physically and verbally.23 Who was this unnamed woman? And what was the historical context for her relationship with Anna and broader female devotional networks in this time and place? Beyond her participation in Anna’s new devotional regime, Padre Siria only noted that the friend was a pious doncella (maiden), and that she was literate and lived ascetically. Spotty as the references are, it appears that Anna’s friend followed in a long Catholic tradition going back to the medieval period of religious laywomen who eschewed convent life, either because they lacked dowries required to profess as nuns, or because they preferred active ministries of teaching, healing, and evangelizing. Often called beatas in Spain and Spanish America, these women reflected a wide and diverse spectrum of female religious practice. Some, but not all, took informal vows of celibacy and obedience and wore modified habits in public. Some lived alone or with their families, while others joined informal female communities or entered more formal religious institutions known as beaterios.24 Some affiliated closely with specific male religious orders, such as the Jesuits, Franciscans, or Dominicans, whose members formed distinctive “societies” within the Catholic Church and distinguished themselves from secular priests through their specialized vows, mission, and forms of 23 Siria, Vida Admirable, 68, 73–74. 24 For more discussion of beatas, see Giordano, “Historicizing the Beatas;” Jaffary, False Mystics, 90–91.

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communal living. Some women formalized this affiliation, as Anna later did with the Jesuit Order, by identifying as tertiaries—that is, as professed members of Third Orders, which represented a “middle state” between the cloister and the everyday world (seculum).25 Tertiaries went through yearlong novitiates, made revocable vows, and followed a common “Rule” that involved strict moral standards, private and public devotions, and charitable activities. Worried about the spiritual and moral dangers posed by female spiritual and physical autonomy, the Council of Trent (1545–1563) attempted to restrict these active worldly paths for religious women and instructed all religious women to live inside convents or other cloistered religious institutions. But Church officials were never of one mind about these regulations and enforcement varied widely in both Europe and Spanish America. 26 In Santiago, enforcement appears to have been virtually non-existent, for reasons explored below. Indeed, evidence from wills indicates that Anna and her pious friend formed part of a lively urban context of enthusiastic non-elite lay female piety and devotional networks among laboring women. Close to one third of female will-makers in early eighteenth-century Santiago de Guatemala identified themselves as Franciscan tertiaries, professed members of the Franciscan Third Order. Many of these women were non-elite and outside of marriage, including abandoned wives like Anna, single mothers, and women born illegitimate of potentially mixed-race backgrounds, even though the Rule of the Franciscan Third Order required novitiates to demonstrate wealth, legitimacy, pure Spanish descent and impeccable virtue.27 Non-elite women in colonial Santiago flocked in even greater numbers to the city’s numerous and widely accessible lay religious brotherhoods known as cofradías (confraternities) which provided mutual aid for members and supported collective devotions to a particular saint. In Santiago, confraternities were always mixed-sex and many also welcomed people 25 Belanger, “Between the Cloister and the World,” 24, 48. 26 See Giordano, “Historicizing the Beatas.” 27 These findings and other references to will data are based upon a survey of every will made out in Santiago de Guatemala during three selected years between 1700 and 1720 (1700, 1705, 1717). I found a total of sixty female wills and sixty-eight male wills. Eighteen female will-makers out of 60 (30 percent) claimed to be a tertiary of a male religious order. Will-makers were not representative of the larger population and given the religious nature of will-making, people who belonged to religious brotherhoods were more likely to make out wills than those who did not. Still, will data indicates that the Franciscan Third Order in Santiago de Guatemala accepted the profession of non-elite single women, including single mothers and women of potentially mixed-race ancestry.

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of diverse class and racial backgrounds. Entry fees were modest and often reflected a sliding scale based on ethnic or social status. In return, members were assured of care in sickness, a good death with a decent funeral and burial, and perpetual prayers and suffrages for the salvation of their soul. As Brian Larkin puts it, confraternities “promoted sacred sociability between members both living and dead.”28 While confraternities were popular with both men and women, rich and poor, it appears that non-elite women, many of them mixed-race and outside of marriage, began to dominate confraternity memberships by the eighteenth century. Consistently, from 1700 to 1777, approximately 65 percent of non-elite female will-makers outside marriage affirmed membership in a confraternity, compared to 35 percent or less of elite female and male will makers. Membership rolls from surviving confraternity records confirm women accounted for approximately 60 percent of confraternity memberships in Santiago, and studies have found similar trends in Mexico.29 Indeed it was not uncommon for non-elite single women to belong to multiple confraternities affiliated with different churches and religious orders across the city. Antonia de Leiva, for example, a mulatta woman, freed slave, and single mother of two sons still enslaved, belonged to four different confraternities in as many churches across the city.30 Confraternities, which encompassed men and women, elites and nonelites, married and single, likely nurtured new kinds of relationships and identities based on communal religious practices rather than distinctions of social, racial, marital, or moral status.31 Demonstrating the influence of Indigenous and African traditions, several of Santiago’s confraternities provided enhanced opportunities for poor single women to establish their spiritual status and authority through elected leadership positions. Some 28 Larkin, “Confraternities and Community,” 195. 29 Libro de elecciones, bulas, ordenanzas, y diligencias de la Hermandad de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, 1691–1744, Libros de Cofradías de San Sebastián, Fondo Parroquial, San Sebastián, Sección Sacramental, Archivo Histórico Arquidiocesano de Guatemala (henceforth AHAG); Libro de ordenanzas, elecciones, e inventarios d ela Hermandad de (la Caridad) de San Roque, 1686–1732, Libros de Cofradías de San Sebatián, Fondo Parroquial, San Sebastián, Sección Sacramental, AHAG; Libro de la Cofradía de Santísimo Sacramento, 1672–1732, Libros de Cofradías de Remedios, Fondo Parroquial, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, Sección Sacramental, AHAG. For Mexico, see von Germeten, Black Blood Brothers, 46; Chowning, “La feminización de la piedad,” 481, 483. 30 Will of Antonia de Leiva, 1705, Sig. A1, Leg. 1006, Exp. 9499, Escribano Francisco Herrera Samayoa, Fols. 173f–175v, Archivo General de Centroamérica (henceforth AGCA). 31 For discussion of Vered Amit’s notion of “relational identities” applied to religious brotherhoods in colonial Mexico, see O’Hara, “The Orthodox Underworld,” 243.

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of these positions like capitanas (captains), mayordomas (administrators), and diputadas (representatives) paralleled male leadership positions, while others, such as madres mayores (senior mothers), were aimed solely at women.32 These positions likely included taking charge of devotional activities, cleaning and tending the image and altar, caretaking and nursing roles, and financing the confraternity as alms collectors and patrons. For plebeians, confraternity leadership posts represented the most powerful public roles available within colonial society. Confraternity membership and leadership positions could be especially important for poor or mixed-race women, who were more vulnerable to accusations of criminal behavior and religious deviance. For example, one study points to a Mexican Inquisition case in which a free mulatta woman and confraternity member successfully refuted allegations that she had made a pact with the devil. Although her accuser was a Spanish man and social superior, the local Inquisition official rejected the allegations based on his own personal knowledge of the woman’s leadership position in a confraternity and her regular engagement with confession and communion.33 Anna’s spiritual biography also illuminates how female literacy and devotional networks fostered the global circulation of gendered mystical traditions. Padre Siria noted that after Anna’s conversion experience, she quickly learned to read in order to better access the “spiritual sustenance” which God provided through devotional texts.34 The narrative is silent about how Anna became literate, but it almost certainly involved the dedicated assistance of her pious literate friend and perhaps two other devout acquaintances. The text later confirms that Anna regularly read devotional texts communally with her friend and at least two other women.35 Reading in this context was not only a silent, privatized, and intellectual affair. As Nancy Van Deusen points out, pious women in colonial Spanish American cities often read devotional texts aloud together, “sharing knowledge of the divine” including how to physically engage with sacred images and objects through touch, smell, and gaze.36 It seems likely that such informal female exchanges laid the foundation for Anna’s dramatic spiritual experience before the image of Mary which prompted her down a path of intensive and active piety. 32 Libro de elecciones e inventarios de la Cofradía de San Gerónio, 1676–1725, Libros de Cofradías de San Sebastián, Fondo Parroquial, San Sebastián, Seccion Sacramental, AHAG. 33 von Germeten, Black Blood Brothers, 42. 34 Siria, Vida admirable, 75. 35 Ibid., 108, 110. 36 Van Deusen, Embodying the Sacred, 10, 26.

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As Anna read and emulated the lives of saints and became a role model herself, she also entered and participated in a global circulation of gendered religious ideas, values, and practices.37 By the time Anna became literate, close to 500 lives of the saints had been published in Spanish and actively circulated through the Spanish empire over the course of two centuries.38 Of particular importance for women was the best-selling autobiography of Spanish saint, Teresa of Avila, which inspired many to emulate her mystical path and to invoke her gendered rhetoric of humility, ignorance, and obedience as a way of navigating clerical fears about female mystics’ claims to spiritual authority and power.39 While few women after Teresa of Avila saw their own words published, her autobiography inspired a boom in female religious writing as confessors encouraged or required “spiritually-gifted” women to write about their religious journeys. Priests then drew on women’s writings for evocative spiritual biographies and sermons. Scholars have identified for colonial Mexico alone approximately 121 books and manuscripts by or about women. 40 Most of these women were cloistered nuns, but recent discoveries highlight how laywomen like Anna also participated in the explosion of female writing and circulation of spiritual ideas and ideals across the Spanish empire. 41 Indeed America’s first saint, Rosa of Lima canonized in 1671, was a laywoman and Dominican tertiary who refused to enter a convent. In 1670, the year of Anna’s dramatic conversion experience, Guatemala’s nascent printing press published a eulogy of Rosa of Lima to celebrate her beatification and three years later published a sermon preached in celebration of her canonization. 42 It seems likely that Anna and her pious friends read these works and enthusiastically engaged with Rosa’s model of lay female piety.

Unlikely Allies: Priests and Non-Elite Single Women Anna’s biography also highlights how lay female networks frequently existed within a broader web of devotional relationships, which connected laywomen to priests, friars, and religious orders. Relationships between women 37 See Van Deusen, “Reading the Body,” 13. 38 Ibid., 7. 39 See Weber, Teresa of Avila. 40 Ibsen, Women’s Spiritual Autobiography, 11. 41 See for example, Gunnarsdóttir, Mexican Karismata; Lavrin and Loreto López, Diálogos Espirituales; Van Deusen, Embodying the Sacred. 42 Medina, La Imprenta en Guatemala.

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and priests in the early modern Catholic context were complex and diverse. Hierarchy, power differentials, and repression marked these relationships in varying degrees, but so too did collaboration, mutual interdependence, and strategic alliances. 43 According to Padre Siria, the awakening Anna experienced in front of the image of Mary left her with an urgent desire to seek out the well-known and skilled confessor, Maestro Bernardino de Ovando. Although Padre Siria says little about [Mro.] Ovando’s background, the broader documentary record confirms that he was in many ways at the center of Santiago’s spiritual renaissance as a powerful preacher and apostolic missionary to poor urban communities and “lost” Catholics. 44 He was also founder and director of Santiago’s Holy School of Christ, a religious sodality or brotherhood which brought together laymen and priests for the collective devotional practice of spiritual exercises, physical penance, confession and communion, and acts of mercy such as visiting hospitals and prisons. 45 Two years after her conversion, Anna was forced to find a new confessor when [Mro.] Ovando left on an extended journey to Peru to bring back the founding nuns for Guatemala’s Carmelite Convent. 46 Anna sought out the Jesuit priest Juan Ceron. Like Mro. Ovando, the Jesuits were at the heart of Santiago’s urban missionary efforts. They were known to be gifted spiritual directors and were at the forefront of an emerging culture that urged priests to gain spiritual prestige by “guiding souls toward greater perfection.”47 Yet, based on early modern views of women as inferior, weak, and sexually tempting, like other religious orders, the Jesuits were cautious about the spiritual direction of women. Poor, single women posed problems, and Anna experienced these tensions firsthand. When she approached Padre Cerón, he brusquely rejected her. Other Jesuits were more willing, but Padre Siria noted that their confessors regularly underestimated or misunderstood Anna, only to later on be converted to her cause. Nevertheless, Anna remained committed to the Jesuit spiritual path. And she was not alone. Many early modern women were drawn to Jesuit confessors, the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, and the systematic Jesuit model of examining the conscience on the path toward union with God. 48 In an early modern 43 See Bilinkoff, Related Lives; Delgado, Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism, 6; Weber, Devout Laywomen, 16. 44 Vásquez and Lamadrid, Crónica de la provincia, 384. 45 Platero, Ana Guerra de Jesús, 183. 46 Juarros and Palomo, Compendio de la historia, 151. 47 Bilinkoff, Related Lives, 19. 48 Ibsen, Women’s Spiritual Autobiography, 13. See also Maher, “Confession and Consolation,” 190.

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society that presumed female weakness and subordination, the Jesuit ideal of a transformed and empowered sense of spiritual selfhood may have held special attraction for women, perhaps especially those who were single, widowed, or separated from their husbands. 49 And, like Anna’s confessors who learned her strength and converted to her cause, some Jesuits cultivated spiritually fecund relationships with female penitents. Anna’s initial choice of Mro. Ovando as her primary confessor, followed by a series of Jesuits, highlights how non-elite women in urban centers like Santiago sometimes managed to shape relationships with their spiritual directors. According to Catholic doctrine, the primary confessional relationship was supposed to be between parish priests and their parishioners. The obligatory annual confession, or Easter Duty, for example, could only occur with one’s parish priest. And yet evidence from wills indicates that, like Anna, many non-elite women in Santiago forged spiritual bonds with priests beyond their parishes, especially those associated with religious orders. Close to 40 percent of non-elite female will-makers named one or more priests as executors, witnesses, or patrons of their religious donations. Most of them named non-parish priests in these roles, usually Franciscans, Jesuits, or Dominicans, but also priests from secular orders like Mro. Ovando’s Holy School of Christ. Through their devotional mobility, laywomen like Anna participated in a competitive religious landscape in which priests and friars from multiple religious orders contended for devotees through preaching and confessing as well as the promotion of popular devotions.50 Alliances with priests, like confraternity membership, offered some unmarried plebeian women a vital form of spiritual, material, and social support through much of the eighteenth century. The long-standing alliances forged between some single and widowed women and priests seem to reflect a version of Steve Stern’s concept of the “pluralization of patriarchs.” Stern found that women in rural eighteenth-century Mexico set up “male to male rivalries and hierarchies as a check on the power of the patriarch with the most immediate claim of authority.”51 In the absence of husbands, fathers, or other male kin, it appears that some single and widowed women in eighteenth-century Santiago cultivated substitute patriarchs through their devotional networks with local priests. In daily life, close relationships with priests surely enhanced poor unmarried women’s spiritual and moral status. As noted above, in extraordinary situations, if a woman ever faced 49 Molina, To Overcome Oneself, 173. See also Mannarelli, Hechiceras, beatas, y expósitas, 45. 50 Melvin, Building Colonial Cities of God, 119, 49. 51 Stern, The Secret History of Gender, 99.

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accusations of religious, sexual, or criminal deviance for example, a clerical substitute patriarch might provide critical support. Priests and religious orders counted upon strong collaborative relationships with female confraternity members and leaders. As noted above, laboring women dominated the membership lists of Santiago’s confraternities, each of which was affiliated with a particular chapel, parish church, or the convent church of a religious order. Within Santiago’s local spiritual economy, confraternities were the primary providers of economic support to local churches, “contributing ornaments, wax, wine, hosts, and other necessities,” as well as funding the building and repair of temples, which was a constant need due to frequent earthquakes.52 Furthermore, as I have explored in detail elsewhere, evidence from wills indicates that laboring women increasingly found creative ways to act as pious benefactors for the church.53 Over the first half of the eighteenth century, the percentage of non-elite female will makers who left donations to the Church rose sharply to 76 percent. More striking still, one-third of female will makers creatively leveraged their material assets, such as ownership of even the humblest thatch-roof houses, to create perpetual endowments to fund masses, feast days, and liturgical costs. In so doing, they stepped into a role traditionally associated with elite male household heads, turned priests into beneficiaries of their patronage, and shaped the religious landscape and spiritual economy of eighteenth-century Santiago de Guatemala. Priests and friars also looked to non-elite laywomen to provide social and spiritual support to local residents in the absence of social welfare institutions. Padre Siria hinted at this dynamic in Anna’s hagiography. He recounted how the Jesuit Juan Ceron provided Anna with a house next to the Jesuit school, so that she might head a shelter for single women and “indoctrinate them with her counsel and inspire fervor with her example.”54 Through her final days, Anna provided shelter and spiritual guidance to poor orphans and migrants to the city.55 Similarly, Vitoria de Paredes, a poor abandoned wife like Anna and Franciscan tertiary recounted in her will how a Franciscan missionary friar entrusted her with the care of an orphaned infant. Indeed, the Rule of the Franciscan Third Order explicitly 52 García Añoveros, Población y estado, 67, 72. García Añoveros cites Archbishop Cortés y Larraz, “Las cofradías contribuyen para ornamentos, cera, vino, hostias y cuanto es necesario en las parroquias y no solamente para esto, sino para edificar y reparar los templos que a causa de los temblores padecen mucho en todo el Arzobispado.” 53 See Leavitt-Alcántara, Alone at the Altar. 54 Siria, Vida admirable, 227–28: “Doctrinase con sus consejos y las fervorizase con sus ejemplos.” 55 Ibid., 252.

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required tertiaries to engage in regular acts of charity, including visiting the sick, accompanying the dead to their burials, and feeding, clothing, and sheltering those in need.56 And much as missionaries in Spanish America had long cultivated alliances with Indigenous elites and trained native intermediaries to operate as catechists and lay evangelizers, it appears that eighteenth-century missionaries ministering to a “city of women” actively allied with poor single women and relied upon them as vital role models and intermediaries. As Jessica Delgado puts it, Catholic officials recognized that just as women were particularly prone to spreading sin, they could also be powerful “vectors” of virtue.57 Padre Siria clearly underscored this dynamic in Anna’s spiritual biography, offering a striking endorsement of active lay female religiosity in the service of evangelizing wayward Catholics. He noted, for example, that when Anna briefly attempted a more contemplative enclosed life by retreating to a small hut on the outskirts of town, she quickly saw “that the tender plants, which she had left in the city, were losing their fervor, without her there to water them with her counsel and teaching” and that “God was readying her and introducing in her soul the apostolic spirit of his Company (Jesuit Order) […] he did not want her retired in the desert, but rather trading with these souls the interests of grace and the business of his greater Glory.”58 Padre Siria credited Anna’s ministries with pulling women, and to a lesser extent men, out of illicit sexual relationships. Though evidence of Anna’s intervention is scant, modern scholarship confirms Padre Siria’s claim to moral improvement on at least one count. As marriages multiplied, illegitimacy rates among non-elites plunged dramatically in late seventeenth-century Santiago, from approximately 75 percent in the 1660s to 45 percent in the 1690s. Social and economic shifts certainly played a role as enslaved black populations gained their freedom and formed independent households.59 But this does not entirely explain the phenomenon, given that non-elite men and women could and did establish independent households through consensual unions outside marriage. The rise in marriage rates among 56 Sumario de la regla. 57 Delgado, Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism, 15. 58 Siria, Vida admirable, 83: “que iban descaeciendo en el fervor comenzando aquellas tiernas plantas que dejo en la ciudad faltándose el riego de sus consejos y el cultivo de su enseñanza […] y es que como Dios la iba disponiendo para introducir en su alma el espíritu apostólico de su Compañía […] no la quería retirada en los desiertos, sino comerciando con las almas los intereses de la gracia y los negocios de su mayor Gloria.” 59 Lutz, Santiago de Guatemala, 83, 234.

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non-elite populations suggests that religious and cultural values played a role alongside economic and social factors. Given the timing, urban missionary movements including the work of lay female evangelizers like Anna and others likely played an active role in the transmission of religious values. In some ways, this is a story about church leaders, male and female, in a modest provincial capital adapting or ignoring official doctrine according to local needs and circumstances. Santiago’s lack of institutional resources necessary to enforce female enclosure led to greater official tolerance of lay female religiosity and independent single women compared to larger and wealthier cities like Mexico City and Lima. Laboring women’s active participation and leadership of confraternities and positioning as pious donors made them welcome allies for priests and religious orders. Clerical concerns about charitable needs and rampant extramarital sexuality further led at least some priests and missionaries to recognize and even embrace the valuable social and spiritual services offered by laywomen. The Inquisition often attempted to reign in missionary zeal and close alliances between priests and mystic laywomen, especially if they were poor or mixed-race; however, Inquisitorial oversight of Guatemala was notoriously lax with the nearest tribunal in Mexico City, one month’s journey away. So unlike Mexico City and Lima, Santiago witnessed no cluster of Inquisition trials targeting laywomen as “false mystics,” nor the priests with whom they were allied.60 While local contexts were clearly at work, this is not a simple story of local religion at odds with the Universal Church, or colonial Church officials at odds with Rome. The eighteenth century witnessed a renewal of Catholic missionary movements, which one scholar describes as “the most vigorous spiritual effort of the eighteenth-century church.”61 As Luke Clossey points out, while historians often treat these efforts as “a disjointed collection” of individual activities, early modern mission history was in fact a “macrohistorical phenomenon, that is, a single world-spanning enterprise.”62 The urgent global imperative to evangelize Indigenous Americans, Asians, and Africans, as well as wayward Catholics across Europe and Latin America created ongoing opportunities for clerical alliances with laywomen of diverse class, racial, and marital backgrounds and sustained support for active female ministries. 60 Chinchilla, La Inquisición en Guatemala. 61 Callahan, “The Spanish Church,” 43. 62 Clossey, Salvation and Globalization, 3.

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Conclusion Anna Guerra de Jesús’ spiritual biography challenges narratives about the fully marginalized position of non-elite women who fell outside the confines of both marriage and convent in colonial Spanish America and in the broader early modern Catholic Church. Through her female devotional networks, Anna shaped local religion in Santiago de Guatemala and participated in the global circulation of spiritual ideas and practices. She also forged alliances with powerful clergy and religious orders to mutual advantage. Like all hagiographical subjects, Anna Guerra de Jesús was an exemplary figure. But her brand of lay female religiosity was no anomaly in colonial Santiago de Guatemala. Evidence from wills and confraternity records highlights how non-elite women of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, often living outside of marriage, were at the forefront of Santiago’s spiritual renaissance in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They enthusiastically joined and became elected leaders of confraternities, formed relationships with priests and friars beyond their parish, and creatively leveraged modest assets to become pious benefactors. Many priests in this “city of women” saw non-elite women as allies who could foment greater piety, provide spiritual and social services, and support church operations and local devotions through their labors and donations. Santiago’s local context facilitated these alliances as Catholic officials were forced to accept the presence of independent women due to the lack of institutional resources necessary to enforce female enclosure. Global missionary movements, led largely by Franciscans and Jesuits, further encouraged alliances with laboring women in the interests of evangelizing wayward Catholics. Far from the margins, laboring women outside of marriage were central players in Santiago’s seventeenth- and eighteenth-century spiritual renaissance, as well as global Catholic movements.

Works Cited Published Primary Sources Juarros, Domingo and Ricardo Toledo Palomo. Compendio de la historia de la Ciudad de Guatemala (1808). Guatemala: Academia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, 2000 Siria, Antonio de. Vida admirable y prodigiosas virtudes de la V. sierva de Dios D. Anna Guerra de Jesús (1716). San Salvador: Dirección General de Publicaciones del Ministerio de Educación, 1962

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Third Order Regular of St. Francis, and Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros. Sumario de la regla y otras advertencies que deben guardar los Hermanos Profesos del Sagrado Orden, llamado de los Terciarios de Penitencia, que por especial volutnad y revelación de Dios, fundó N.S.P. San Francisco, después de la primera de los Frayles Menores, y segunda de Santa Clara. México, D.F.: D. Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1786. Vásquez, Francisco and Lázaro Lamadrid. Crónica de la provincia del santísimo nombre de Jesús en Guatemala de la orden de n. seráfico padre san Francisco en el Reino de la Nueva España (1714). Guatemala: Tipografía nacional, 1937

Secondary Sources Belanger, Brian. “Between the Cloister and the World: The Franciscan Third Order of Colonial Querétaro.” The Americas 49, no. 2 (1992): 157–77. Bilinkoff, Jodi. Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450–1750. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. Bynum, Caroline Walker. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone Books, 1991. Callahan, William J. “The Spanish Church.” In Church and Society in Catholic Europe in the Eighteenth Century, edited by William J. Callahan and David Higgs, 34–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Chinchilla Aguilar, Ernesto. La Inquisición en Guatemala. Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, 1999. Clossey, Luke. Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Mission. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Delgado, Jessica. Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism in New Spain, 1630–1790. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Few, Martha. “Women, Religion, and Power: Gender and Resistance in Daily Life in Late-Seventeenth-Century Santiago de Guatemala.” Ethnohistory 42, no. 4 (1995): 627–37. Few, Martha. Women Who Live Evil Lives: Gender, Religion, and the Politics of Power in Colonial Guatemala. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. García Añoveros, Jesús María. Población y estado sociorreligioso de la Diócesis de Guatemala en el ultimo tercio del siglo XVIII. Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, 1987. Giordano, Maria Laura. “Historicizing the Beatas: The Figures behind Reformation and Counter-Reformation Conflicts.” In Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World, edited by Alison Weber, 91–111. New York: Routledge Press, 2016. Greer, Allan. Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Gunnarsdóttir, Ellen. Mexican Karismata: The Baroque Vocation of Francisca de los Ángeles, 1674–1744. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. Ibsen, Kristine. Women’s Spiritual Autobiography in Colonial Spanish America. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999. Jaffary, Nora E. False Mystics: Deviant Orthodoxy in Colonial Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. Kinsbruner, Jay. The Colonial Spanish-American City: Urban Life in the Age of Atlantic Capitalism. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. Komisaruk, Catherine. Labor and Love in Guatemala: The Eve of Independence. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Larkin, Brian. “Confraternities and Community: The Decline of the Communal Quest for Salvation in Eighteenth-Century Mexico City.” In Local Religion in Colonial Mexico, edited by Martin Austin Nesvig, 189–213. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Lavrin, Asunción, and Rosalva Loreto López, eds. Diálogos espirituales: Manuscritos femeninos hispanoamericanos siglos XVI–XIX. Puebla, México: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2006. Leavitt-Alcántara, Brianna. Alone at the Altar: Single Women and Devotion in Guatemala, 1670–1870. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018. Lutz, Christopher. Santiago de Guatemala, 1541–1773: City, Caste, and the Colonial Experience. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. Maher, Michael. “Confession and Consolation: The Society of Jesus and Its Promotion of General Confession.” In Penitence in the Age of Reformations, edited by Katharine Jackson Lualdi and Anne Thayer, 184–200. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000. Mannarelli, María Emma. Hechiceras, beatas, y expósitas: Mujeres y poder inquisitorial en Lima. Lima: Ediciones del Congreso del Perú, 1998. Medina, José Toribio. La imprenta en Guatemala. Guatemala: Tip. Nacional de Guatemala, 1960. Melvin, Karen. Building Colonial Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain, 1570–1800. Stanfordcs: Stanford University Press, 2012. Molina, J. Michelle. To Overcome Oneself: The Jesuit Ethic and Spirit of Global Expansion, 1520–1767. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Morgan, Ronald. Spanish American Saints and the Rhetoric of Identity, 1600–1810. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002. Myers, Kathleen A. Neither Saints nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Myers, Kathleen A., and Amanda Powell, eds. A Wild Country out in the Garden: The Spiritual Journals of a Colonial Mexican Nun. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

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O’Hara, Matthew. “The Orthodox Underworld of Colonial Mexico.” Colonial Latin American Review 17, no. 2 (2008): 233–50. Platero, Juan Antonio. Ana Guerra de Jesús ante la historia y la teología mística. Bilbao: Talleres de Encuadernaciones Belgas, 1969. Sariego Rodríguez, Jesús Manuel. Tradición Jesuita en Guatemala: Una aproximación histórica. Guatemala: Universidad Rafael Landivar, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, 2011. Stern, Steve. The Secret History of Gender: Women, Men, and Power in Late Colonial Mexico. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Van Deusen, Nancy. Between the Sacred and the Worldly: The Institutional and Cultural Practice of Recogimiento in Colonial Lima. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Van Deusen, Nancy. “Reading the Body: Mystical Theology and Spiritual Actualisation in Early Seventeenth-Century Lima.” Journal of Religious History 33, no. 1 (2009): 1–27. Van Deusen, Nancy. Embodying the Sacred: Women Mystics in Seventeenth-Century Lima. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. von Germeten, Nicole. Black Blood Brothers: Confraternities and Social Mobility for Afro-Mexicans. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006. Weber, Alison. Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Weber, Alison, ed. Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World. New York: Routledge Press, 2016. Wortman, Miles. Government and Society in Central America, 1680 to 1840. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

About the author Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara is Associate Professor of History and Director of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino/a/x Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on gender and religion in colonial and nineteenth-century Central America. Her first book, Alone at the Altar: Single Women and Devotion in Guatemala, 1670–1870 (Stanford University Press, 2018), considers how non-elite single women forged complex alliances with the Catholic Church in Guatemala’s colonial capital, and how those alliances significantly shaped local religion and the spiritual economy, late colonial reform efforts, and post-Independence politics. Her new book project, The Virgin’s Wrath: Gender, Religion, and Violence, examines gender relations, Mayan Catholicism, and violence in eighteenth-century Chiapas.



Supplementary Bibliography of Secondary Works

Note: This bibliography supplements the lists of Works Cited appended to the Introduction and individual chapters. It includes additional examples of the scholarly uses of ‘networks’ in history. Ahnert, Ruth. ‘Maps versus Networks’. In News Networks in Early Modern Europe, edited by Joad Raymond and Noah Moxham, 130–57. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Atçıl, Abdurrahman, and Gürzat Kami. ‘Studying Professional Careers as Hierarchical Networks: A Case Study on the Careers of Chief Judges in the Ottoman Empire (1516–1622)’. Journal of Historical Network Research 7, no. 1 (2022): 1–32. Barabási, Albert-László. Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge: Perseus, 2002. Berry, Charlotte. ‘Socio-spatial networks’. In The Margins of Late Medieval London, 1430–1540, 47–92. London: University of London Press, Institute of Historical Research, 2022. Berry, Felicity. ‘“Home Allies”: Female Networks, Tensions, and Conflicted Loyalties in India and Van Diemen’s Land, 1826–1849’. Journal of World History 26, no. 4, (2015): 757–84. Brock, Aske Laursen. ‘Networks’. In The Corporation in Global History, c. 1550–1750. Edited by William G. Pettigrew and David Verveers, 96–115. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Broomhall, Susan, ed. Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2017. Brown, Cynthia J. ‘Female Family Networking in Early Sixteenth-Century France: The Power of Text and Image’. In Women and Power at the French Court, 1483–1563, edited by Susan Broomhall, 209–40. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018. Brown, Carys. Friends, Neighbors, Sinners: Religious Difference and English Society, 1689–1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Burghartz, Susanna, and Lucas Burkart, Christine Göttler, Ulinka Rublack, eds. Materialized Identities in Early Modern Culture, 1450–1750: Objects, Affects, Effects. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Cachero, Montserrat, and Paula Rodríguez-Modroño. “An Empire of Networks: The Political Economy of the Habsburgs in the Caribbean (1492–1556).” Journal of Historical Network Research 7, no. 1 (2022): 181–215. Caracausi, Andrea, and Christof Jeggle, eds. Commercial Networks and European Cities, 1400–1800. London: Pickering & Chatto Publishers, 2014.

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Cogan, Susan M. Catholic Social Networks in Early Modern England: Kinship, Gender, and Coexistence. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Conroy, Melanie, Kimmo Elo, Malte Rehbein, and Linda von Keyserlingk-Rehbein. “Visualizing the Evolution of Historical Networks Using Small Multiples in Grid Charts.” Journal of Historical Network Research 7, no. 1 (2022): 86–113. Das, Nandini, and João Vicente Melo, Haig Smith, Lauren Working, eds. Keywords of Identity, Race, and Human Mobility in Early Modern England. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Erikson, Emily and Sampsa Samila. “Social Networks and Port Traffic in Early Modern Overseas Trade.” Social Science History 39, no. 2 (2015): 151–73. Garcia, John J. “Networks.” Early American Studies 16, no. 4 (2018): 721–27. Special Issue: Keywords in Early American Literature and Material Texts. Gowing, Laura, Michael Hunter, and Miri Rubin, eds. Love, Friendship, and Faith in Europe, 1300–1800. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Hardwick, Julie. Family Business: Litigation and the Political Economies of Daily Life in Early Modern France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Haseldine, Julian P. “Friendship Networks in Medieval Europe: New models of a political relationship.” AMITY: Journal of Friendship Studies (2013): 69–88. Innis, Joanna. “‘Networks’ in British History.” East Asian Journal of British History 5 (2016): 51–72. Kettering, Sharon. “Patronage and Kinship in Early Modern France.” French Historical Studies 16, no. 2 (1989): 408–35. Lane, Kris. Empires of the Sea: Maritime Power Networks in World History. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Laitinen, Riitta. and Thomas V. Cohen, eds. Cultural History of Early Modern European Streets. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Macfarlane, Alan, with Sarah Harrison and Charles Jardine. Reconstructing Historical Communities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Midura, Rachel. “Itinerating Europe: Early Modern Spatial Networks in Printed Itineraries, 1545–1700.” Journal of Social History 54, no. 4 (2021): 1023–63. Morgan, Cecilia. Building Better Britains?: Settler Societies in the British World, 1783–1920. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. Especially Chapter 3. Morrissey, Robert Michael. “Archives of Connection: ‘Whole Network’ Analysis and Social History.” Historical Methods 48, no. 2 (2015): 67–79. O’Leary, Jessica. Elite Women as Diplomatic Agents in Italy and Hungary, 1470–1510: Kinship and the Aragonese Dynastic Network. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2022. O’Neill, Lindsay. The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Ortega, Stephen. “Across Religious and Ethnic Boundaries: Ottoman Networks and Spaces in Early Modern Venice.” Mediterranean Studies 18 (2009): 66–89.

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Raymond, Joad and Noah Moxham. “News Networks in Early Modern Europe.” In News Networks in Early Modern Europe, eds. Joad Raymond and Noah Moxham, 1–17. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Robin, Diana. “Women on the Move: Trends in Anglophone Studies of Women in the Italian Renaissance.” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 16, no. 1/2 (2013): 13–25. Rosenwein, Barbara H. Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Ryan, Yann C., and Sebastian E. Ahnert. “The Measure of the Archive: The Robustness of Network Analysis in Early Modern Correspondence.” Journal of Cultural Analytics 6, no. 3 (2021): 57–88. Schweitzer, Ivy. “Making Equals: Classical Philia and Women’s Friendship.” Feminist Studies 42, no. 2 (2016): 337–64. Shepard, Alexandra and Phil Withington, eds. Communities in Early Modern England: Networks, Place, Rhetoric. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001. Snell, K. D. M. “Belonging and Community: Understandings of ‘Home’ and ‘Friends’ among the English Poor, 1750–1850.” Economic History Review 65, no. 1 (2012): 1–25. Strocchia, Sharon. Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Tadmor, Naomi. Family and Friends in Eighteenth-Century England: Household, Kinship and Patronage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Wellman, Barry and Charles Wetherell. “Social Network Analysis of Historical Communities: Some Questions from the Present for the Past.” History of the Family 1, no. 1 (1996): 97–121. Wellman, Barry, and Peter J. Carrington, Alan Hall. “Networks as Personal Communities”. In Social Structures: A Network Approach, edited by Barry Wellman and S. D. Berkowitz, 130–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Wetherell, Charles. “Historical Social Network Analysis.” In New Methods for Social History, edited by Larry J. Griffin and Marcel van der Linden, 125–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Whaley, Leigh. “Networks, Patronage and Women of Science during the Italian Enlightenment.” Early Modern Women 11, no. 1 (2016): 187–96. Wiesner-Hanks, Merry. Challenging Women’s Agency and Activism in Early Modernity. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Winckles, Andrew O., and Angela Rehbein, eds. Women’s Literary Networks and Romanticism: ‘A Tribe of Authoresses’. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017. Zabin, Serena. “Women’s Trading Networks and Dangerous Economics in Eighteenth-Century New York City.” Early American Studies 4, no. 2 (2006): 291–321.

Index adultery 83, 86, 103, 109, 120, 122-23, 125, 130, 132, 212-13, 216-17, 235 ages young 76, 83, 88, 90, 104, 107-08, 112, 151, 156, 167-68, 171, 173-77, 180, 182-84, 192, 197, 216, 218-19, 224, 226, 228 old 110-11, 126, 170, 173, 175, 181, 183, 231 Algiers 19, 62, 64, 66 see also Anna, Queen of Algiers alliances 9, 11, 17, 20, 83-84, 86, 91, 119, 159, 187-88, 200, 233 between priests and lay women 242-43, 246-47 see also networks Anna Guerra de Jesús 31-47 Anna, Queen of Algiers 61-75 Arabs, and Arabic language 35, 49, 51-58, 197 aunts 87-89, 92-94, 102, 103, 105, 107, 125, 129, 174-76 Basaraba, Despina 83-112 Black people 10, 28, 29, 40, 61, 65, 72, 213, 224, 225, 232, 235, 245-46 Bordini, Giovanni Francesco, author 63, 68, 71, 72 Cairo 10, 18, 47-58 Catholic church 19, 62-65, 84, 91, 94, 109, 189, 233-39 male clergy 19, 64-65, 181, 217, 222, 231-34, 236-38, 241-44, 246 see also confraternities, nuns, tertiaries charity 63, 69-70, 75, 83, 94, 97-98, 104, 165-66, 170, 173-74, 178-79, 232, 245-46 see also patronage, Clement VIII childbirth 36, 70, 97, 103, 133, 216, 221 n.62 children 33-34, 36-39, 47-48, 50-51, 53-58, 61, 64, 66-67, 70, 73, 90-93, 95, 122, 129, 130, 134-35, 143, 150, 165-67, 169-70, 173, 175, 177, 181, 196-97; 208 n.1, 210, 212-13 illegitimacy 106, 135, 235, 238, 245 see also ages, young Chodowiecki, Daniel, engraver 27-29 Cigalzade Yusef Sinan Pasha, formerly Scipione Cigala 91 Cisneros y Tagle, Juan, author 63-67, 70, 72 Clement VIII, Roman pope 96 patronage and charity 94-96, 100 household 86-88, 92, 96-97, 101-02, 104 clothing 36, 38, 67, 69, 72, 89, 90, 102, 128, 133, 136, 172, 177, 245 at the hammam 28-30 of “new Christians” 70, 95 of slaves 38

“Turkish” style 69, 70, 90, 97 confraternities Rome 61-68, 72, 74, 76, 98, 105, 111 Guatemala 238-40, 243-47 conversions, religious 49-50, 56, 58, 64-65, 70, 84 n.5, 197 inside Christianity 88 n.18, 95, 236-37, 240-42 New Christians, conversos/as 16, 189, 191, 196-99 to Islam 19, 57, 64, 68, 91 see also renegades Copts 47-58 courts of law 12, 17, 47, 122-24, 126, 128, 130, 131, 188, 207, 209-10, 225 Egypt, Islamic 48, 51 n.17, 52, 64 England, Arches 119-20, 122 , 125, 132 England, church 121-23, 125, 135 Mexico, church 212, 21, 219 Mexico secular 211-12, 216-17 Mexico Inquisition 207, 209-10, 213, 222, 224-25, 233, 235, 240, 246 Rome, criminal 86-89, 101, 103, 105, 108, 109 Cyprus 64-65 daughters 19, 36-37, 51, 53, 56-58, 62, 64-67, 74-76, 88-89, 92, 97-99, 103, 106, 110-11, 121, 125, 129, 149, 150, 151 n. 46, 165-66, 168, 173, 181-82, 208, 218-20, 222 Davison, Kate 13-14 Delicado, Francisco, author of La Lozana Andaluza 187-89 divorce and separation 51 n.17, 52, 121-26, 130-31, 134, 136, 207-09, 212-13, 216-17, 219-21, 223, 226, 235-36, 243 disease and ill health 16, 21, 125, 130, 166, 173, 177-80, 237, 239 dowries 76, 98, 111, 166, 171-72, 222, 237 emotions 9, 17, 20; 48, 53-54, 85, 112, 119, 120-22, 128, 173, 198, 200, 207-08, 211, 214, 220-21, 224, 236 England 10, 17-18, 22, 25-27, 29, 31-41, 119-26, 135, 200 Chester 121-22, 130, 132 London 119, 121-22 enslaved people 18, 19, 63 Mediterranean 28-29, 31-35, 38-40, 49, 61-67, 70, 72, 83, 84, 88, 90, 91 Latin America 210, 213, 215, 239, 245 fathers 10, 31, 51-52, 56, 88, 103, 125, 151, 175-76, 178, 218, 222, 225, 243 grandfathers 56, 86, 106, 112

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Non-Elite Women’s Network s across the Early Modern World

food and drink 97, 99, 108, 119, 120, 136, 172, 187, 188, 190-94, 196-200 Foyster, Elizabeth 14, 137 godmothers and comadres 18, 71, 76, 84, 95, 106, 108, 110, 221-22, 226 gondoliers 139-40, 158-59 Greeks 19, 34-36, 40, 61, 62, 64, 68, 72, 76, 83, 86, 88-93, 100, 106, 111, 147, 150, 152, 199 Guatemala, Santiago de (city) 231-35, 237-39, 242-47 hagiography see Siria Herbert, Amanda 16, 28 n.10, 187 n.1, 198 honor and reputation 9, 17, 89, 99, 104, 109, 120, 123-25, 131-34, 160, 169, 174, 182, 188, 195, 211, 222-23 husbands 10, 11, 17, 19, 25, 29, 33, 35-38, 52, 57, 65-66, 68, 70, 74-75, 83, 86-87, 90, 93, 98, 103, 110, 120-36, 191, 207-09, 212-26, 232 see also divorce and separation, renegades identities 12, 14, 17-18, 47, 49, 58, 68, 83-84, 88, 89, 95, 97, 190, 191, 200, 239 Indigenous people 10, 47, 209, 211, 214-16, 219 n.53, 220 n.58, 224, 232, 235-36, 239, 244, 246 Isaacsz, Pieter, painter 4, 8, 10 Istanbul (Constantinople) 19, 25-28, 33, 36, 39-40, 62, 64, 83-85, 87-91, 93, 95, 97, 101, 106, 112 Jesuits 231, 233-34, 237-38, 242-45, 247-49 Jews 16, 32, 53-54, 57, 64 n.13, 154-55, 197, 199 Latin America 209-215, 232, 235-38, 240, 244, 247 See also Mexico City, New Spain Letters 16, 18, 34, 62, 71, 92, 165, 166, 169, 178, 184 Turkish Embassy Letters 30, 34-38, 41 Lynch, Katherine A. 14, 15, 126 Maggi, Giovanni, engraver 68-69, 72 magic and witchcraft 195, 207, 210, 215, 223-25, 235 marginality 11-13, 19-20, 61-62, 85, 155, 160, 188, 196, 247 marriage 111, 124, 126, 129, 133, 135, 176-77, 183, 209, 212, 218, 223-25, 232, 238, 245 across religions 64, 88 n. 18, 91-92 see divorce and separation Mendes Nasi, Gracia 16 Mexico City 10, 18, 207, 209, 211, 213, 219, 216-225, 233-34, 246 migrants 10, 14, 18, 83-86, 92-95, 100-03, 196, 199, 231-33, 246 Montagu, Mary Wortley 18, 25-41 see also letters

mothers 10, 19, 62, 64-68, 70-76, 89, 98, 121, 125-26, 129, 134, 157, 179, 181-82, 194, 208, 219, 231-32, 236, 238-39 grandmothers 192, 197 mothers-in-law 18, 207, 214, 218, 220 musicians, women 10, 19, 165-84 as performers 174, 177, 180, 182-83 as teachers 168-73, 179-80, 183, 237, 244-45 as trainees 165, 168-71, 175, 177 Muslims 18-19, 47-53, 61, 63-64, 91, 92, 197 women 26, 34, 38, 53-57, 76 naming practices 47-58, 151-52 neighborhoods 14, 17, 51, 67, 85, 107, 139-43, 147-48, 152-53, 160, 188-89, 196, 208, 215, 218, 223-24 neighbors 10, 18, 48, 57, 95, 99, 100, 105, 119-21, 126-28, 130-36, 143, 192, 198-99, 207, 219-22, 226 networks, as an historical concept 11-15, 48, 133, 169, 208, 231, 237 New Spain and Mexico 207-17, 219, 226, 237, 239, 241, 243 see also Mexico City nuns and convents 76, 109, 171-72, 176-77, 242 see also tertiaries and beatas Orsini, Giulia, Marchesa Rangona 62, 68-70, 76 Ospedali maggiori, conservatories 165-83 Ottoman Empire 10, 19, 25-28, 31-41, 47-48, 50, 52, 57-58, 62, 68, 84, 87-88, 91 Edirne (Adrianople) 26, 36 Egypt 18, 47-57 see also Cairo, Istanbul pamphlets (avvisi) 19, 63, 74, 77-79 patronage 11, 17, 19, 62, 83, 86-88, 95-99, 100, 166, 168, 171, 177-79, 184, 240, 243-44 artistic patronage 66 n.28, 68 n.34, 71 n.42 see also Clement VIII, Sixtus V Peretti, Camilla, pope’s sister 62, 66-67, 71, 76 picaresque literature 12, 18, 187, 189, 190 Pope, Alexander, poet 30-31, 40 poverty 12, 18, 19, 72, 75, 76, 98, 121-22, 128, 130, 135-36, 153, 165-67, 169-70, 174, 176, 181, 184, 186, 189, 196, 199-200, 231-33, 235-37, 239-40, 242-46 pregnancy 36, 64, 100, 120, 130 prostitutes and courtesans see sex workers race and ethnicity 25-26, 35, 52, 88, 91, 209, 211, 215-16, 222, 232, 235, 239, 247 mixed identities 216, 219, 230, 236, 238-40, 246-47 see also Black people, Greeks, Indigenous people, urban populations redemption of captives 19, 63-65 refugees 19, 61-62, 66-68, 70, 74, 76, 196

Index

renegades 61-62, 64-66, 68, 74-75, 83-84, 89, 90-91, 112 Rojas, Fernando de, author of Celestina 18789, 192, 196 Rome 8, 10, 16, 19, 61, 63, 65-67, 72-78, 84-97, 100, 102, 109-12, 189, 196, 198, 200, 246 servants 35-38, 62, 72, 86, 88, 97-99, 105-06, 108, 208, 210, 220 female 10, 11, 17, 18, 25, 31-37, 64, 75, 84, 100-03, 111-12, 119, 120, 124, 128, 130, 133, 140, 143, 150-51, 157, 190, 192, 197-98, 200, 232 sex workers 10, 12, 13, 18, 93-94, 139-61, 187-200, 217, 336 shame see honor and reputation singlewomen 93, 166-67, 232-33, 236, 238, 239, 242-45 see also widows Siria, Antonio, author of Vida admirable de D. Anna Guerra de Jesús 231-37, 241-42, 244-45, 247 Sixtus V, Roman pope 61-64, 67-68, 70-72, 75-76, 93 slaves see enslaved people social ranks and classes 52, 222, 235 artisans and urban workers 84, 93, 106, 112, 141, 169, 173, 188, 216, 235, 238 bourgeois and middling 16, 90, 102, 121, 167, 171, 219 definition of non-elite 11-13, 19 gentlewomen and men 86, 94, 102, 103, 105, 135 nobles and patricians 68, 88, 110, 165, 167-69, 173, 178-80, 183, 211, 222 peasants and rural workers 198, 232, 237 sons 51, 57, 83, 92, 98, 103-04, 107, 110, 239 sons-in-law 129, 225 Spain 9, 18, 63, 66, 189, 190, 196, 200, 237 tertiaries and beatas 236-38, 241-43 travelers see Anna Guerra, Anna Queen, Basaraba, Montagu, migrants

257 Uluç Ali Reis, formerly Gian Dionigi Galeni 90-91 urban geographies 18, 51, 66-68, 94, 96, 98-99, 139-60, 207-08, 220-21 see also neighborhoods urban populations 9-10, 14 racially mixed 209, 219, 238-40, 246 religiously mixed 31, 48, 52, 56, 87 sex ratios 93, 232-33, 235 Van Deusen, Nancy 240, 250 Vanmour, Jean Baptiste, painter 28, 30, 40, 41 Vecellio, Cesare, author 72-73, 90 Venice 10, 16, 18, 75, 84, 91-93, 139-61, 165-66, 179, 210 violence, against women 9, 10, 14, 17-18, 120, 123-24, 127-29, 131, 134, 152-53, 207-15, 217, 220, 232 widows 16, 64, 69, 92-93, 100, 108, 110, 150, 182, 195 n. 35, 216, 220, 243 wives 9-10, 17, 33-34, 38, 84, 91-93, 119-120, 122-36, 208-14, 219, 222, 224, 238 abandoned 11, 19, 86, 93, 101, 112, 182, 122, 130, 151, 231-32, 244 religious practice of 64-65, 91-92 see also adultery women and communications knowledge-sharing 17, 18, 94, 215, 224 literacy 32, 92, 167, 237, 240-41 oral exchanges 48, 85, 95-96, 103, 119-20, 133, 208, 223-24, 226 sociability 11, 103, 121, 127-28, 188, 192-95, 200, 208, 238-39 written language 34, 92, 98, 104, 109, 237, 240-41 see also letters women’s spirituality religious instruction 68, 70 lay practice 65, 105-06, 236, 243, 246 mysticism 19, 231, 236, 241, 246