1994/12/01 by Helen S. Ettlinger · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Medieval and Early Modern Justice #Historical Legal Studies and Society #Generosity #Glory #Fifteenth #Character (mathematics) #Politics #Honor #Order (exchange) #Law #Sociology #Political science #History #Religious studies #Classics #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.2307/2863216
openalex publication_date 1994/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/05
Fifteenth Century Italy has been called both the “golden age of bastards” and the “age of golden bastards.” But while scholars from Jacob Burckhardt to Lauro Martines have decried princely infidelity and the political problems resulting from the promotion of the inevitable bastards, they have not discussed a central character in the creation of such situations: the mother of those bastards or, more properly, the mistress of the prince. “Golden bastards,” male and female, could not have existed without the tacit cooperation of noble women and the men who protected them – husbands, fathers, and brothers. And herein lies a conundrum. Paternal, spousal, and/or fraternal consent to an illicit relationship which was, at best, a tenuous claim on the generosity of a prince might appear to violate the model constructed by family historians of a society concerned with preserving the honor of their women in order to enhance the family's position through advantageous marital alliances of the virgin daughters.