Les Monastères Féminins Comme Espaces De Négociation Dans La Rome Post-Tridentine
Following the fracture with the Protestant world, and following the Council of Trent, the Roman Church strengthened discipline and control over social and religious life, especially using women, the centrepieces of this policy. But this also meant that women acquired an increasingly strategic role i...
| Subtitles: | Women's Monasteries as Negotiation Spaces in Post-Tridentine Rome |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | French |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Ed. Morcelliana
2023
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| In: |
Rivista di storia del cristianesimo
Year: 2023, Volume: 20, Issue: 1, Pages: 169-187 |
| Further subjects: | B
Council of Trent (1545-1563)
B Negotiation B Clausura B Rome B Roma B Protestants B Suore B Nuns B Monasteries B Enclosure B Negoziazione |
| Summary: | Following the fracture with the Protestant world, and following the Council of Trent, the Roman Church strengthened discipline and control over social and religious life, especially using women, the centrepieces of this policy. But this also meant that women acquired an increasingly strategic role in the religious sphere which, in 17th century Rome, was closely linked to the political and diplomatic one. They succeeded in this role thanks to their ability to mediate with society and with the authorities that surrounded and controlled them. Examples are various, starting from the most famous ones like Christine of Sweden, queen exiled in Rome, or Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili, very influential sister-in-law of Pope Innocent x Pamphili, or even Princess Olimpia Aldobrandini, sole heiress of her powerful family and married to Camillo Pamphili. But we must also consider the role of the nuns living within Roman nunneries, since the grille did not succeed in interrupting their social and political relations, even if a strict enclosure was strongly endorsed by the Church of the Counter-Reformation. Therefore, noble women and nuns often played a pivotal role in mediating political, ecclesiastical, and family conflicts, and in transacting to gain privileges or important marriages for the members of their family, as well as in dealing the social rise of these ones as ecclesiastics within the Curia, and finally in negotiating for the benefit of the communities to which they were linked. At the same time, nunneries became more and more a place for diplomacy and exchanges in the context of papal political affairs. Women's networks contributed to the reputation and status of each community and influenced its position within the city of Rome. Such reputation was being turned to the advantage of various power groups, supporting their strategy for success in a city where, more than anywhere else, religion, devotion, social escalation, and political career were intertwined. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Rivista di storia del cristianesimo
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