Vortrag: Jonathan Dumont: Mary of Burgundy and Margaret of Austria. Two Female Rulerships in the Habsburg Low Countries, 18.05.2022, Wien oder virtueller Raum

Vortrag der Reihe „Geschichte am Mittwoch“ des Instituts für Geschichte der Univ. Wien (Web) und Jour fixe des Instituts für die Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit
Zeit: 18.05.2022, 18.30-20.00 Uhr
Ort: Universität Wien, HS 30 – oder virtueller Raum
This lecture will focus on the legitimation of female rulership in the late 15th- and the early 16th-Habsburg Low Countries. During this period, the Low Countries were ruled by two women: Duchess Mary of Burgundy (r. 1477–1482) as sovereign ruler, and her daughter Margaret of Austria as governor general (1507–1515, 1519–1530). The context and the characteristics of these two rulerships were very different. Mary’s rule was contested by the king of France. She counterattacked by claiming that she was the sole heir of her father Duke Charles the Bold and therefore the only natural sovereign of her lands. Margaret of Austria ruled as governor general by delegation of her nephew Charles V’s sovereignty. She legitimated her position by relying on a very specific conception of power that characterised dynastic rulership: shared sovereignty.
This lecture will present the results of two recent collective books codirected by the speaker:

  • Michael Depreter, Jonathan Dumont, Elizabeth L’Estrange, and Samuel Mareel (Eds.): Marie de Bourgogne. Figure, principat et postérité d’une duchesse tardo- médiévale / Mary of Burgundy. Reign, ‘Persona’, and Legacy of a Late Medieval Duchess (coll. Burgundica 31, 2021, Web).
  • Jonathan Dumont, Laure Fagnart, Pierre-Gilles Girault, and Nicolas Le Roux (Eds.): La Paix des Dames (1529), Tours (coll. Renaissance, 2021, Web).

Moderation: Karl Vocelka
Jonathan Dumont holds a PhD in History, Art, and Archaeology (Univ. de Liège, Belgium). He is currently Research Fellow at the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Institut für Mittelalterforschung). His work focusses on late medieval and early modern political history and history of political cultures, particularly in France, the Low Countries, and the early Habsburg Monarchy.