#Marguerite of Navarre

[lady-corrine]

Despite the conviction of earlier scholars, like Jourda, of Marguerite's lack of political interest, she was one of the few women ever to become a ducal peer in France. The king explicitly gave his sister the duchy of Berry as a ducal peerage, and made it clear that she was given all the traditional rights held by any male duke, and in one acte explicitly stated that Marguerite was to hold all the traditional ducal powers in Alençon, adding that this included authority over the ducal exchequer.

A close look at Marguerite's correspondence with various parlements and other government officials, as well as some of her own actes, demonstrates that Marguerite was active in the administration of her territories, and also that she was a strong proponent on behalf of the nobility within those territories, operating as a powerful patron on their behalf. I argue that rather than holding titles and territories only in an honorary way, Marguerite was given and fully exercised wide political power within her territories, and at times this led to confrontations with the king about the extent of monarchical authority over that of the upper nobility.

The Power and Patronage of Marguerite de Navarre, Barbara Stephenson

[elizabethan-memes]

While modern scholars a century apart have speculated that Elizabeth worked from a copy of the Miroir once in the possession of her mother, Queen Anne Boleyn, and possibly a gift from Marguerite, no such manuscript or printed volume has yet been found.

Janel Mueller and Joshua Scodel, Elizabeth I's Translations 1544-1589

[tudorblogger]

Book Review - ‘Heroines of the Tudor World’ by Sharon Bennett Connolly

Thanks to Amberley Publishing for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for a review. I loved this book! It doesn’t just cover the people you’d expect like the six wives and the queens, but other women who were executed, who wrote, who were mistresses, and pawns, and warriors. There are also women covered from outside England, from Scotland, Ireland, France, and Spain. These international…

[cy-lindric]

Queen Margot

[hauntedbythenarrative]

Marguerite of Navarre

[ceciart]

“A handsome young knight is madly in love with a princess, and she too is in love with him, though she seems not to be entirely aware of it. Despite the friendship that blossoms between them, or perhaps because of that very friendship, the young knight finds himself so humbled and speechless that he is totally unable to bring up the subject of his love. Until one day he asks the princess point-blank: Is it better to speak or to die?”

[demolina]

Isabella Adjani as Marguerite de Valois in La Reine Margot (1994)

[queerbauten]

To describe Anne Boleyn as a feminist would be an anachronism - and not nearly as appropriate an anachronism as in the case of Marguerite de Navarre and others who openly championed female equality. Marguerite did not have the word, but she was conscious of a women's "cause." There's no evidence that Anne felt similarly. But she had learned to value her body and her ideas, and she ultimately recognized that there was something unsettling about this for Henry and understood that this played a role in her downfall.

"A Perfect Storm", The Creation of Anne Boleyn, Susan Bordo

[isadomna]

The English ambassador, Francis Bryan, sent a detailed description of the relations between Francis and Eleanor to Henry VIII. They were not a happy couple because “being both in one house, they lie not together once in four nights” and the French King “speaks very seldom unto her openly”. He also spent hours on end in his mother’s chambers and rushed to his mistress whenever he pleased. Two years later the King’s sister told the Duke of Norfolk that no man could be less satisfied with his wife than her brother, who failed to have sexual relations with his wife for seven months. When the stunned duke asked why, Margaret replied that it was “because he does not find her pleasing to his appetite”. Eleanor, Margaret continued unabashed, “is very hot in bed and desired to be too much embraced”, causing Francis to shun her company. Perhaps one of the reasons for Francis’s distaste was Eleanor’s appearance. Brantôme wrote that he heard rumours that “when she was dressed, she seemed a very beautiful princess of rich and beautiful height, but when she was undressed, the height of her body appeared so long one would have believed that she was a giant, but so short were her legs and thighs, she made one think of a dwarf”. Whatever she looked like, the new Queen of France found life at court difficult. Her relationship with Francis turned sour, she had to compete for his affection with his mother and mistress and even his erudite sister, who seemed kind and approachable, favoured Anne de Pisseleu, with whom she shared similar interests in literature and religion. Margaret, it seemed, preferred the company of her mother and Francis’s mistress to that of Eleanor’s.

Sylvia Barbara Soberton, Golden Age Ladies: Women Who Shaped the Courts of Henry VIII and Francis I

[chaeilay]

Mon, Feb 26 - Quotes from The Heptameron by Marguerite de Navarre

[derangedaenerys]

la reine margot (1994)

[lady-corrine]

In 1510, she received ambassadors from Spain. On 16 May 1515 the English ambassador, the duke of Suffolk, requested that Henry VIII write a letter to Marguerite, since he thought her to be powerful at court. In 1519, the Venetian ambassador paid an official visit to Marguerite, by which time, he noted, she was taking the place of the queen in public ceremonies.

King's Sister — Queen of Dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her Evangelical Network, Jonathan A. Reid

[murderonthedullexpress]

Do Not Be Silent

The Sound of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel

Silence = Death - Avram Finkelstein

A Litany for Survival - Audre Lorde

First They Came - Pastor Martin Niemöller

S!CK - The Warning

Tahar Djaout

The Heptameron - Marguerite de Navarre

Barbara Kruger

Song of Myself - Walt Whitman

Trust No Cop - Ludlow

{Image descriptions in alt text}

[wonder-worker]

Marguerite de Navarre’s discussion of courtly love, La Coche (The Coach) (1541–42), was dedicated to [Anne de Pisseleu]. The relations between Marguerite and Anne were complex. Sometimes described as rivals, they often shared tactical objectives in court politics and, though Marguerite was waspish about many others in her talks with foreign envoys, she never was about Anne. There was clearly also some sympathy between them in matters of religion, which in Anne’s case developed later into Protestantism. Marguerite’s poem is a discussion about the miseries and pains of love, which are submitted by Marguerite to the arbitration of Madame d’Étampes in the absence of her brother the king. The text also contains an extended eulogy of Anne (though not named directly) in which she is likened to ‘a sun midst stars who spares nothing for her friends, nor stoops to vengeance on her foes’. Marguerite addresses her as cousin and mistress. There are several illuminated copies, the best known in the Musée Condé showing Marguerite presenting the work to Anne."

-David Potter, "The Life and After-Life of a Royal Mistress: Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Étampes"

[cy-lindric]

Absolutely fed & cared for by all the Last Valois content in Serpent Queen season 2 so far

[mary-tudor]

François I received a book in the presence of his mother, Louise de Savoy, and sister, Marguerite d’Angoulême.

Date: 1503.

Source: National Library of France

Description taken from here:*

“Master of Philippe de Gueldre, "Antoine Vérard presents his book to François d'Angouleme, in the presence of Louise de Savoie and Marguerite d'Angoulême, in Octavien de Saint-Gelais, Le Séjour d'honneur, Paris, Antoine Vérart

BnF, Rare Book Reserve, Venom 2239, fol. 1st

In 1506, after his engagement to Claude de France, daughter of Louis XII, François d’Angouleme is summoned to court as heir to the throne. It is no doubt on this occasion that the Parisian bookwire Antoine Vérard is preparing for him a personalized copy of his edition of the Séjour d'Honneur, allegory describing the court of Charles VIII. In the light of dedication, the young prince receives the volume of Vérard's hands, under the gaze of his mother, Louise de Savoie, and a young girl who is undoubtedly his sister, Marguerite.”

*facebook group entitled “enluminures Europe—VIe -XVIe s.”