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In the Name of the Father: Conceptualizing Pater Familias in the Letters of William the Silent's Children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Susan Broomhall  and
Jacqueline Van Gent
Jacqueline Van Gent
Affiliation:
The University of Western Australia
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Abstract

For much of their childhood and adult life, the twelve surviving children of William the Silent were separated linguistically and geographically. Many of the children forged important relationships with male primary carers who were not their biological parents. This paper explores the children's correspondence with their biological father William and with paternal figures to understand competing forms of familial authority among William's children. This paper places particular interest on analysis of the gendered negotiation of paternal bonds in the letters of William's sons and daughters, as they established multiple relationships with father figures during their childhood.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , Winter 2009 , pp. 1130 - 1166
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Renaissance Society of America

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Footnotes

*

For ease of consultation, we cite from published editions of the letters wherever these are currently available. All translations are our own unless indicated otherwise. The independent scholar Jean-Luc Tulot is currently transcribing some of the family's letter collections, available online at http://pagesperso-orange.fr/jeanluc.tulot/01LMDLT.htm. We are grateful for his willingness to share his scholarship in this way.

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