#historyedit

[anneboleynqueen]

Have I made you unhappy? (insp)

Anne Boleyn & Henry VIII in The Tudors (2007-2010)

[city-of-ladies]

A savvy businesswoman, Osoet Pegua (c.1615–c.1658) was connected to both the royal court of Siam (now Thailand) and the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Her business acumen helped her secure a role as an invaluable partner in the region.

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Early Life

Osoet was born around 1615 and was of Mon-Burmese descent, placing her at the margins of Thai society. By unknown circumstances, she ended up in the Dutch compound in Ayutthaya, then the capital of Siam and a major trading post. She lived in a world where female traders often held substantial influence and had strong networks.

Many foreign men who arrived were single and frequently took local wives or concubines. Osoet herself would be involved with three Dutchmen.

At age 16, she became the concubine of Jan van Meerwijck and later had a son with him. After his death in 1635, she sought a new relationship.

A Respected Trading Partner

Osoet’s next partner was Jeremias van Vliet, who became director of the VOC’s office in Ayutthaya. Osoet, already a skilled and well-connected businesswoman, proved invaluable to the Dutch by facilitating connections with the royal court, including the king himself. This helped advance Dutch commercial interests. She also worked with the wives of high-ranking officials, underscoring the political and commercial roles of aristocratic women.

Osoet had three daughters with van Vliet. He wanted to take custody of them and move them out of the country, but Osoet refused. The king supported her decision, a testament to her respected position. Osoet was thus able to keep her daughters.

Behind-the-Scenes Leadership

Osoet later met Jan van Muijden, who also became the VOC director. She entered into a relationship with him when she was around 31 and he was 25. Lacking experience in managing an office and barely speaking the local language, van Muijden relied heavily on Osoet. She unofficially took charge of VOC operations, using her contacts to secure trading licenses for him.

Her influence peaked between 1646 and 1650, during which the company prospered thanks to her court connections. She negotiated lucrative contracts and even gained a monopoly on supplying provisions for the Dutch establishment in Ayutthaya.

Osoet died in 1658 following a stroke that left her paralyzed and unable to speak. At the Dutch’s request, she was given a Christian burial in the Company’s graveyard, rather than being cremated

Further reading:

Delouche Gilles, Une femme d’affaires et d’influence à Ayudhya au XVIIe siècle : Dame O-Sut (? -1658)

Djik Wil O., “Sex and trade in seventeenth century Siam. Osoet Pegu and her Dutch lovers”

Smith Bonnie G., Women's History in Global Perspective volume 2

[diioonysus]

arthur wardle (1864-1949)

[nat111love]

"you were jealous."

[courtana]

JENIN, JENIN (2002) dir. Mohammad Bakri

[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

[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)

[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.”

[amatesura]

Becoming Frida Kahlo (2023)

[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

[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.

[levithestripper]

BBC MUSKETEERS— Aramis in 01x04 “The Good Soldier”, 01x05 “The Homecoming”, 01x06 “The Exiles”, and 01x08 “The Challenge” for @odysseusilver