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Wed 23 April
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    16.30 - 18.30

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Wednesday 23 April 2014 14.00 - 16.00
K-3 CUL03 Book-keeping and Book-keepers: a New Approach to Court Culture in Medieval and Early Modern Ages
Hörsaal 30 first floor
Network: Culture Chair: Florence Berland
Organizers: - Discussant: Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier
Eric Hassler : Using and diffusing accountancy: The Vienna court bookkeeping as seen through the court almanacs (1702-1770)
Rulers whose feeble income left them to be always looking for money had to control their spending. The Habsburg sovereigns had to develop, from quite early on in their reign, accountancy tools allowing them to manage the financial dealings of an ever-growing court. From the beginning of the 18th century, ... (Show more)
Rulers whose feeble income left them to be always looking for money had to control their spending. The Habsburg sovereigns had to develop, from quite early on in their reign, accountancy tools allowing them to manage the financial dealings of an ever-growing court. From the beginning of the 18th century, the organization of the Viennese court appeared, with its financial, judicial and military branches and with the composition of princely households, in almanacs, which also reveal how much the court bookkeeping was important. Almanacs showed the number of people employed in bookkeeping, and the position of accountancy in the courtly administration. Multiple centralized bodies scrutinized and controlled expenditure, but also acted in coordination with accountants (Buchhandler, or, more simply, Amtschreiber) in each of the departments. Almanacs also gave information about the identity of individuals entrusted with bookkeeping, their careers (through their changing position in the successive issues of the almanacs), and their addresses, a valuable indicator of their social status. Finally, by unveiling the backbone of the court, my aim is to expose how Administration ruled the court, as much as, or maybe even more than, the ceremonial and sumptuous discourse of the prince, in the modest context of the Habsburg court. This administrative conception of monarchical power looks to renew our understanding of the court.

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Christelle Loubet : The Court of Mahaut, Countess of Artois (1302-1329), through its Bookkeeping Practices
The household accounts of Mahaut, countess of Artois, are an essential source to enable us to understand how both the Household and the court functioned. They were kept by a treasurer, each account covering a 4-month period. A fair number the many accounts thus produced are still available today: for ... (Show more)
The household accounts of Mahaut, countess of Artois, are an essential source to enable us to understand how both the Household and the court functioned. They were kept by a treasurer, each account covering a 4-month period. A fair number the many accounts thus produced are still available today: for the whole reign of Mahaut, more than a third of the 84 accounts that were supposedly produced still subsist in the archives, the last 15 years of the countess reign being best documented.
These accounts give some insight into the Household organization, its hierarchy and the tasks of the officers, but also on how the court functioned on a daily basis. This paper aims at showing how these accounts, by allowing understanding the links between the ruler and her officers, shed a better light on the institutionalization process of the Household in 14th century Artois. Another issue I intend to address is how these accounts provide and build an image of the court as a place where meetings and discussions were held, at the very heart of the county political life. (Show less)

John McEwan : Accounting for Goods: Administering the Purchase of Luxury Items at the English Court, c.1220-1300
The kings of England were important consumers of luxury items during the thirteenth century. Merchants often acted as agents for the Crown, and acquired goods from suppliers in England (especially in London), and further afield. To regulate and control the financial activities of these agents, a complex system of ... (Show more)
The kings of England were important consumers of luxury items during the thirteenth century. Merchants often acted as agents for the Crown, and acquired goods from suppliers in England (especially in London), and further afield. To regulate and control the financial activities of these agents, a complex system of written record keeping slowly developed. This paper investigates this early phase in the development of the records, with particular reference to the royal Wardrobe. The varying forms of the documents testify to a period of experimentation, and reveal the gradual establishment of conventions. Moreover, as the documents themselves often reflect different stages in the process of accounting, they expose the complex interaction of the interests of the agents, who wanted to relieve themselves of financial liabilities and to receive reimbursements, and the royal clerks, intent on controlling royal finances and keeping track of assets. The purpose of this paper is to consider which set of interests predominated and directed the formation of the surviving financial documents. (Show less)

Jonathan Spangler : 'Constructing a Multi-focal Courtly Space: Women of the House of Orléans as Satellites of the Sun King'
This paper will focus on the fairly extensive, yet mostly unknown, household accounts of Marguerite de Lorraine, duchesse d’Orleans (1615-72), and her daughter, Isabel d’Orleans, duchesse de Guise (1646-96), kept. These were mostly compiled to document the successions of these two women, the aunt and the cousin of Louis XIV, ... (Show more)
This paper will focus on the fairly extensive, yet mostly unknown, household accounts of Marguerite de Lorraine, duchesse d’Orleans (1615-72), and her daughter, Isabel d’Orleans, duchesse de Guise (1646-96), kept. These were mostly compiled to document the successions of these two women, the aunt and the cousin of Louis XIV, and add an important dimension to the evolving perception of the court of the Sun King as multi-focal—in this case, the court of the Palais du Luxembourg—even extending its influence into international affairs in a manner not solely linked with policy at Versailles. The succession documents connect the cadet branch of the French royal house to the houses of Lorraine and Tuscany, but also demonstrate the interlocking links between the various focal points of the French monarchy. We can see many of the same names as principal actors within the royal and Orléans households. Both of these representational features—international and domestic links—were evident to contemporaries and formed an important part of royal image making. In contrast, this paper will then focus on how these documents represent these women to us as historians, looking at some of the more personal (though not necessarily more private) aspects of the inventories and testaments. We can examine pious legacies they made, the titles of books they owned and the paintings they displayed. Finally, at the more general level, these records also demonstrate the legacy of these princesses, through the evolution of ceremonial etiquette applicable to a growing number of French royal females who stayed in France rather than moved abroad, ie, the rights given to Petites-Filles de France, which were then used as precedent for princesses of the blood in the eighteenth century. Neither woman made a huge impact on the history of France in the seventeenth century, but a study of their household documents allows us to see the construction of the Bourbon monarchy from the inside, and the contribution of its junior members to the overall public façade, notably in the spheres of piety and etiquette. (Show less)



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