SEALED WITH TEARS: MATERIAL AND SOCIAL MEANINGS OF A ROYAL LETTER BY COUNTESS PALATINE ANNA (VASA) (1545–1610)

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26485/PP/2021/76/9

Keywords:

early modern letter writing; Countess Palatine Anna (Vasa); Ars dictaminis; the Vasa Family; royal correspondence; sixteenth-century Sweden

Abstract

This article offers a case study of how a royal letter can be studied both from verbal and material perspectives. It examines one such letter and the way it reveals personal intentions, and tensions in family relations. Building on their research on the sixteenth-century Swedish letter writing and the Vasa family, the authors give a detailed analysis of Countess Palatine Anna’s (1545–1610) letter from the year 1592, its content and context. The analysis also serves to illustrate the vulnerable position of a consort living far from her family of birth.

Author Biographies

Anu Lahtinen, Associate Professor of Finnish and Nordic History, Faculty of Arts

Historyczka, adiunkt na Uniwersytecie w Helsinkach. Do jej publikacji zaliczają się: monografia poświęcona skandynawskim księżniczkom żyjącym w czasach przednowożytnych, Pohjolan prinsessat (Atena 2009), tom Dying Prepared in Medieval and Early Modern Northern Europe (red. z Mią Korpiolą, Brill 2018), artykuły: Stepfamilies in Sweden, 1400 to 1650: The Family in Process between Bloodlines and Continuity (w: Stepfamilies in Europe, red. Lyndan Warner, Routledge 2018) i Tough Times, Tough Measures. Widows as Heroic Entrepreneurs (w: Women in Business Families. From Past to Present, red. Jarna Heinonen, Kirsi Vainio-Korhonen, Routledge 2018).

Terhi Katajamäki, M.Soc.Sci, M.Ed, PhD Student, Faculty of Arts, University of Turku

Doktorantka na uniwersytecie w Turku, pracuje nad rozprawą doktorską dotyczącą podmiotowości księżniczek z dynastii Wazów w XVI wieku. Jej zainteresowania badawcze obejmują historię kobiet w Skandynawii i historię dynastii królewskich w okresie wczesnonowożytnym. Opublikowała kilka recenzji tekstów dotyczących historii XVI wieku.

Downloads

Published

2021-10-27

How to Cite

Lahtinen, A., & Katajamäki, T. (2021). SEALED WITH TEARS: MATERIAL AND SOCIAL MEANINGS OF A ROYAL LETTER BY COUNTESS PALATINE ANNA (VASA) (1545–1610). Prace Polonistyczne, 76, 217–235. https://doi.org/10.26485/PP/2021/76/9

Issue

Vol. 76 (2021)

Section

Articles - RHETORIC AND LITERARY COMMUNICATION