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change public lecture The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800) presents: MARRIAGE, PASSION AND LOVE (A chapter from Anne of France’s “School for Ladies:” Gendered Emotions and Power in Early Modern France) This project follows the careers of a female network originating at the court of Anne of France (1461-1522), regent for her brother Charles VIII, and mentor to many girls who went on to illustrious careers: Marguerite of Austria, Louise of Savoy, Diane de Poitiers and Anne of Brittany. To this original circle I add the next generation: Anne of Brittany’s daughters Claude, Queen of France and renée, Countess of Ferrara, together with Louise of Savoy’s daughter, Marguerite de Navarre, who in turn trained her own daughter, Jeanne d’Albret. Master of politics, Anne passed on knowledge about succeeding in a man’s world. Her father Louis XI chose her to be unofficial regent on his deathbed, apparently believing that in this way she would encounter less opposition than if she were formally appointed. Although female regency in France continued to be exercised unofficially, it was an important institution. From the beginning of Anne’s regency until Louis XIV came of age, ending the regency of Anne of Austria, the kingdom was for all practical purposes ruled by women for about 42 years, which is to say that, in a kingdom that prohibited female rule, women ruled about 25% of that time. I examine Anne of France’s extended circle as an “emotional community” with the goal of understanding how members were prepared emotionally to exercise power while conforming to a repertoire of female stereotypes. Their libraries are of special interest, because in the works they shared we find models for ideal emotional modulation. I will present from a chapter on marriage, passion, and love. Passionate love was the result of an imbalance of humors; marital affection was an idealized, modulated emotional Fra Filippo Lippi, Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, ca. 1440. state between spouses in dynastic marriages. I © Metropolitan Museum of Art, Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889. compare some idealized representations of marital relationships in works from the libraries of the Date: Monday 17 February 2014 women with reports about these relationships from Time: 6.15pm chronicles and ambassadors’ letters. These sources are all “texts”, of course, but I believe that, Venue: South Lecture Theatre, Old Arts., The University of Melbourne in comparing what was perceived as an ideal with impressions of the women, we find clues as to how they assimilated and manipulated their SPEAkEr: Tracy Adams (UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND) emotional models. Tracy Adams is Associate Professor in French at the University of Auckland. She holds a PhD from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Her research interests are medieval to For more information: contact Jessica Scott at early-modern French literature; feminist theory applied to medieval literature; anthropology Tel: +61 3 8344 5152 or [email protected] of love in medieval and early-modern literature, especially romances; Old French, Old Irish, Old Welsh, Old English. www.historyofemotions.org.au John Opie. Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Act II. Scene III. © Library of Congress..

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