#historyedit

[city-of-ladies]

The daughter of a great queen, Padishah Khatun (1256–1295) fought for her rights and proved herself to be a capable and determined ruler.

A strategic alliance

Padishah was the daughter of Qutb al-Din Mohammad, a member of the Qutlugh-Khanid dynasty, which was loyal to the Mongol Empire, and his wife, Qutlugh Turkan. After Qutb al-Din’s death in 1257, Turkan seized power, ruling Kerman (modern-day Iran) in her own name.

Padishah, her mother’s favorite child, received an exceptional education and excelled in poetry and calligraphy. In 1272, she married Abaqa Khan, the ruler of the Ilkhanate. Her marriage came with a grand household, and she frequently met with her mother and acted as her representative at court. This position was vital for defending her mother’s interests and maintaining her rule over Kerman

A wronged daughter

The death of Abaqa Khan in 1282 changed everything. His successor, Tegüder Ahmad, deposed Turkan and handed the throne of Kerman to Turkan’s stepson, Suyurghatmish. Soon after, Turkan passed away. Padishah chose not to accompany her mother’s remains back to Kerman, instead remaining at court to safeguard her interests. However, she sent her sister, Bibi Terken, to represent her in Kerman.

Tegüder’s reign was short-lived. In 1284, his successor Argun summoned Suyurghatmish to court and divided Kerman between Padishah and her rival. Unsurprisingly, Padishah was disappointed by this decision. Meanwhile, Suyurghatmish strengthened his position by marrying a Mongol princess, Kurdujin Khatun, eventually regaining full control of Kerman.

Padishah later married Argun’s brother, Gaykhatu. Although she managed to recover her personal domain of Sirjan in 1289, she had to wait patiently for the tides to shift in her favor.

Queen at last

Argun’s death in 1291 paved the way for Padishah’s return to power. Gaykhatu, now head of the Ilkhanate, reinstated Padishah as ruler of Kerman in 1292. She adopted the title Safwat al-Dunya wa al-Din (“Purity of the World and the Faith”) and also referred to herself as Ḵodāvand-e ʿĀlam (“Lord of the World”), a title that appeared on her coins.

Her first act was to neutralize her opposition. She imprisoned Suyurghatmish, and, doubting his loyalty, had him strangled.

Like her mother, Padishah’s reign was marked by justice and a dedication to the welfare of her people. She encouraged charitable works and extended her influence to nearby regions. Writing under the pen name Lāla Ḵātun, she composed poetry and supported scholars and poets.

Cycle of revenge

The assassination of her husband Gaykhatu in 1295 by his successor, Baydu, placed Padishah in a precarious position. Baydu was married to Shah ʿAlam, Suyurghatmish’s daughter, who sought revenge for her father’s death. Suyurghatmish’s widow, Kurdujin, was also ready to act.

Although Padishah remained in Kerman, many of her supporters abandoned her. She sought alliances but found none. Kurdujin, with the backing of loyal amirs, besieged Kerman, forcing Padishah to surrender.

Padishah was taken to court and eventually assassinated, likely at the instigation of Kurdujin and Shah ʿAlam. Her remains were returned to Kerman, where she was buried in the seminary built by her mother.

Though Kurdujin emerged victorious, she was never formally crowned ruler of Kerman, and her triumph was short-lived. She later became queen of Shiraz in 1319 and was succeeded by her niece, Sultan Khatun, upon her death. Their authority appears to have been more symbolic than political and limited to the city.

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Further reading 

De Nicola Bruno, Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns 1206-1335

Lambton Ann K. S., Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia Aspects of Administrative, Economic, and Social History, 11th-14th Century

Mernissi Fatima, The Forgotten queens of Islam

“PĀDŠĀH ḴĀTUN”, Encyclopaedia Iranica

[courtana]

JENIN, JENIN (2002) dir. Mohammad Bakri

[circletofpearls]

"I am not shy, I'm merely bored. They hang beautiful clothes on me and load me with jewelry, I step outside to say a few words to the people, and then I rush into my bedroom, tear off my finery, and write." - Elisabeth of Austria in conversation with Queen Elisabeth of Romania, 1880s

[diioonysus]

history + last words

[queencatherineparr]

Catherine Parr in Art* vs Catherine Parr in Firebrand [Costumes designed by Michael O'Connor]

*Catherine sat for the Family of Henry VIII portrait in lieu of Jane Seymour who appeared in the portrait.

[isabelleneville]

𓅃 ANNE BOLEYN WEEK 2024 𓅃

day seven | free day

To say it’s archetypal isn’t actually doing it justice. It’s flat-out impossible to envision Anne Boleyn without her pearl-and-gold “B” necklace – a fact that filmmakers and book cover designers seem to agree with. ... We think Anne owned at least four ‘initial’ pieces during her lifetime; it seems she had her famous “B” of course, an “A”, an “AB” and an “AH” for her and Henry. - Erin Lawless

ANNE BOLEYN'S "B" NECKLACE

[levithestripper]

Jack Rackham’s slutty little necklace 🫶🏻💗 BLACK SAILS— Jack Rackham in 01x06 “VI”

[cesareeborgia]

↳ house woodville & house boleyn + parallels (requested by anonymous)

[ancientegyptdaily]

ANCIENT EGYPT BY TRAIN (2023) — 1.01 Alexandria

[kate-bridgerton]

TUDOR WEEK 2024

Day 5 - Friday, 18th of October: Favourite Tudor Iconography - Catherine of Aragon's Pomegranate

But although she was almost fourteen by the time she saw the golden walls of Granada again, the city was clearly very important to Katherine. When she left her homeland to marry abroad, she had to choose a personal badge. She chose the pomegranate. She never said why. Yet while she probably had many reasons for her choice, we have a clue to one of them: the Spanish word for pomegranate is “granada.” -- Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castila by Julia Fox

[usergif]

If there is love enough, then nothing - not nature, not even death itself - can come between two who love each other. The SONS OF YORK will destroy each other, one brother destroying another, uncles devouring nephews, fathers beheading sons. THE WHITE QUEEN (2013)

[city-of-ladies]

"Here’s what we know about Julia Felix: she lived in Pompeii from at least 62 CE. She was possibly illegitimate but was definitely not a member of the social and cultural elite. She worked for a living setting up and running a very interesting business and, by 79 CE, she had planned to shift her focus from managing a business to owning property. We know all these things because twentieth-century excavations at her business uncovered an advert, carved in stone and attached to the external wall of her huge building. It reads:

"To rent for the period of five years from the thirteenth day of next August to the thirteenth day of the sixth August, the Venus Bath fitted for the nogentium, shops with living quarters over the shops, apartments on the second floor located in the building of Julia Felix, daughter of Spurius. At the end of five years, the agreement is terminated."

This find illuminated the building it was attached to, bringing what otherwise looked like a very large anonymous domestic house into dazzling focus. With this description of the purpose of each room written by the owner herself, archaeologists and historians could see the site through a whole new lens and they realised that they had discovered a Roman entertainment space for the working middle classes. It is, so far, a completely unique find and it is magnificent. It offers us, as modern viewers, two amazing things: a little glimpse into the lives of the commercial classes of the Roman Empire who are so often completely and utterly invisible, and a brutal reminder that so much of what we ‘know’ about Roman women in the Roman world comes from rules concerning only the most elite.

We’ll do that second part first, because it’s the least fun. Roman written and legal sources are pretty universal in their agreement that although women could own property, they could not control it; they had no legal rights, could not make contracts and were to be treated as minors by the legal system for their entire lives. In order to buy or sell property women required a male guardian to oversee and sign off on any transactions. This is a basic truism of women in the Roman Empire, repeated ad nauseum by sources both ancient and modern including me, and it is undermined by Julia Felix’s rental notice. 

The rental ad makes it pretty clear that Julia Felix is the owner-operator of a business complex including public baths, shops and apartments (there’s more too, as we’ll see), and she doesn’t seem to require anyone else to help her rent it out. She names her father – sort of; ‘Spurius’ might just mean that she is illegitimate – but this is effectively a surname, a personal identifier to differentiate her from other Julia Felixes in the area. It doesn’t mean her father was involved. Furthermore, the use of her father’s name as an identifier suggests that Julia didn’t have a husband and was either unmarried or widowed in 79 CE. The strong implication of her advert is that Julia Felix was an independent lady, a honey making money and a momma profiting dollars who could truthfully throw her hands up to Destiny’s Child.

We will never know if Julia escaped the flames and choking ash of 79 CE, fleeing as it swallowed her business and her home, but one discovery, made on 28 January 1952, suggests that she didn’t. The archaeologists, led by Amedeo Maiuri, uncovered on that day the skeleton of a woman who had fallen while running across the garden during the disaster. It’s clear this fallen woman was well off, because she was wearing a lot of gold jewellery. She carried four gold half-hoop earrings and wore four gold rings. Two of these rings were particularly expensive; both contained a red carnelian gem, one carved with a figure of Mercury, the other with an eagle. Around her neck she wore a necklace of gold filigree, dotted with ten pearls and hung with a green pendant. Someone stole both the necklace and earrings from the Pompeii Antiquarium in 1975 and no one, somehow, had ever bothered to photograph them so all we have are descriptions but the rings that survive are fine and expensive. The woman who wore them – was wearing them when she died – had real money to buy these objects and the woman who wore them did'nt leave Pompei in time.

 Moreover, when she was found it was clear that at the moment of her death she was heading not towards the street or towards safety, but towards the shrine to Isis in the garden where all the most valuable possessions were kept. The valuable possessions that Julia Felix grafted for and maybe couldn’t bear to leave behind. There’s no way to tell whether this skeleton is Julia Felix, whether these bones once stood and looked at the plots of land Julia bought and made plans, or whether they belong to a looter or a chancer or someone just caught out. But it’s nice to pretend that Julia Felix, who shaped the city’s roads around her dream and offered respite and luxury to workers and made a tonne of money doing it, died and was buried with the place that still bears her name."

A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire, Emma Southon

[prideandprejudice]

“Cesare Borgia was a Spanish-Italian cardinal who resigned his church office to became a military commander, powerful lord, and a leading figure in the politics of his era. The acknowledged but illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, Borgia was the sibling of Lucrezia, Juan and Gioffre Borgia.   Cesare was a brilliant general who lived during the period when the papacy was a both a spiritual and military power. Cesare Borgia’s actions greatly advanced the domain of the Papal States after his father became pope. Simultaneously, Cesare became a powerful political figure in his own right. His amassed titles included Duke of Valentinois and Romagna; Prince of Andria and Venafro; Count of Dyois; Lord of Piombino, Camerino, and Urbino. 

Cesare was also a brilliant military commander and a skillful statesman. He was greatly admired by Niccolò Machiavelli, who was at Borgia’s court from October 7, 1502 through January 18, 1503. During this time, Machiavelli wrote regular dispatches to his superiors in Florence, many of which have survived and are published in Machiavelli’s collected works. Machiavelli also used many of Borgia’s exploits and tactics as examples in The Prince, and advised politicians to imitate Cesare. Two episodes were particularly impressive to Machiavelli: The method by which Borgia pacified the Romagna, and his tactics leading up to the execution of his rebellious captains in Senigallia. A man of scientific rather than artistic interests.

Cesare also married Charlotte d'Albret, a sister of the king of Navarre. The couple had a daughter: Louise Borgia.

Cesare died at the siege of the Spanish town of Viana in 1507, at the age of 31.”

[circletofpearls]

Anne's girlhood has been overlooked in the popular imagination. It is also a period that has been misrepresented, reduced to the upper-class equivalent of reform school. But Anne Boleyn's French girlhood was neither a punishment for bad behaviour nor a hotbed of flirtation.

Instead, the girl-centred atmosphere of the French court was a quiet and intimate world defined by close bonds with other women, forged over the performance of music, shared religious beliefs, and love of learning.

During the years Anne Boleyn spent in France, she participated in female friendships that extended across nations as well as generations.

- Deanne Williams, Girl Culture in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: Performance and Pedagogy 

[amatesura]

Becoming Frida Kahlo (2023)

[danaa-scully]

Rhaenyra Targaryen and Mary, Queen of Scots + parallels (Part 1/2)