Early Modern DiplomacyMar 28, 2025

This week is conference week for our editor @LenaOetzel . She has the pleasure of discussing “Transfer, Taste & Consumation. France and the Habsburg Empire in the early modern period” @dhiparis . This is the last part of a series of workshops in the project “TravArt. Travelling Artifacts, Taste and Consumption” that looked at the processes of exchange between the different lines of the house of Habsburg. (1/7)

https://www.dhi-paris.fr/veranstaltungsdetails/seminare/SeminarTime/detail/tagung-transfer-geschmack-konsum4295.html

@histodons @historikerinnen @earlymodern
#emdiplomacy #EarlyModernEurope #MaterialCulture

Veranstaltungsdetails

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@histodons @historikerinnen @earlymodern

Of course #emdiplomats and #emdiplomacysSources played an important part in these discussions. Firstly, they often acted as cultural brokers, as they collected and obtained special objects, delicacies and other luxury goods for their rulers. For our #handbook Elisabeth Natour talked about the relationship between art and diplomacy and the role of #emdiplomats as cultural brokers. (2/7)

https://hcommons.social/@emdiplomacy/111997262704877738

#MaterialCulture #art #emdiplomacy #EarlyModern

Early Modern Diplomacy (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image 7 Elisabeth Natour: Art and Diplomacy (1/7) https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110672008-007 #emdiplomacy #art #history #arthistory #earlymodern #histodons @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

hcommons.social
Mar 28, 2025 at 9:30amWeb
Show threadEarly Modern DiplomacyMar 28, 2025

@histodons @historikerinnen @earlymodern

Secondly, luxury good and food played an important part as gifts in #emdiplomacy. Gift-giving was an essential part of symbolic communication that helped establish and maintain relationships, but also express status and hierarchies. Giving and receiving gifts was expected, although there could be a fine line between gift-giving and supposed bribery.
If you want to know more about it, we can recommend the #handbook article by Mark Häberlein (for its introduction on this channel you have to be patient a bit longer).

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110672008-035

(3/7)

#MaterialCulture #giftGiving

33 Material Exchanges: Gifts, Tribute and Corruption

33 Material Exchanges: Gifts, Tribute and Corruption was published in Early Modern European Diplomacy on page 673.

De Gruyter
Show threadEarly Modern DiplomacyMar 28, 2025

@histodons @historikerinnen @earlymodern

The TravArt project did not only focus on gift-giving between #emdiplomats, but took a much wider approach discussing different processes of exchange between the different lines of the Habsburg dynasty. What objects were asked for and sent, e.g. from Madrid to Vienna? How did they define taste in the discussions of these objects?
To give you an example: Christopher Laferl from Salzburg University asked what kinds of gifts were exchanged between the brothers Emperor Charles V, the later Ferdinand I and their sister Mary of Hungary? Their letters are full of references to special foods, furs, jewelry, paintings or horses, that obtained for each other. (4/7)

#MaterialCulture #HabsburgMonarchy #HabsburgStudies #HabsburgArt

Show threadEarly Modern DiplomacyMar 28, 2025

@histodons @historikerinnen @earlymodern

The role of #peacecongresses in these processes of exchange was tackled twice: @LenaOetzel focused on the congress of #Westphalia, while Michael Brauer from Salzburg University looked at the congress of Vienna (1815).

Lena argued that the peace congress didn’t function as a special hub for the exchange of goods between the Austrian and the Spanish Habsburgs; they had their permanent ambassadors at the courts that dealt with this kind of exchange. But nonetheless the peace congress was a place of exchange, especially of food. For the Imperial estates the congress offered an unusual opportunity to get into contact to the greater European powers. Among others there did this by offering gifts, especially food. The count of Oldenburg e.g. gave away huge amounts of meat and fish and other delicacies in order to enhance his interests. (5/7)

#emdiplomacy #foodHistory #culinaryDiplomacy #congressDiplomacy #HolyRomanEmpire #ImperialEstates

Show threadEarly Modern DiplomacyMar 28, 2025

@histodons @historikerinnen @earlymodern

Michael Brauer took a different perspective on the #congress of Vienna. He asks for its influence on European cuisine. Did it mark a transition from Baroque cuisine, based on spices, to modern “French” cuisine, based on the taste of the ingredients? Starting point of these reflections are of course the many festivities and banquets that took place during the negotiations that provided not only the possibility for informal political talks but also for cultural exchange. So, Brauer asks: Was there a culinary aesthetic specific to the #VienesseCongress? Which symbolic and political role played food on the congress? To answer these questions he looks at a great variety of sources ranging of administrative sources, account books, letters, memoires as well as cook books. (6/7)

#emdiplomacy #diplomacy #ViennesseCongress #congressDiplomacy #culinaryHistory #culinaryDiplomacy

Show threadEarly Modern DiplomacyMar 28, 2025

@histodons @historikerinnen @earlymodern

As this project is in its early stages, we have to wait for the final results. But it’s interesting that again a congress is supposed to be a benchmark for developments that go beyond foreign politics. So, we stay tuned to continue the discussion on the role of #congressDiplomacy in general. (7/7)

#emdiplomacy #congressDiplomacy #culinaryDiplomacy #peacecongress