engleski

Women Intermediaries – Gendered Networks in Late Medieval Ragusan Diplomacy

This paper aims to underpin the reciprocal relations between the emotions and actions of influential women based on several case studies from late medieval Dubrovnik`s diplomatic practice. Although it may seem that women did not have access to the 'political arena', their role was significant. As spouses, mothers, and daughters of the influential persons with whom the Ragusan authorities established diplomatic communication, they enjoyed significant power to influence the course and outcomes of Ragusan diplomatic efforts. Those women used the capacity of their well-placed position, with dynastic and marital connections, to achieve desired personal goals. In that vein, the goal of this article is to examine how words used to represent emotions shaped the practical actions of influential women and their male relatives within specific socio- political and cultural contexts. In other words, to demonstrate the active role of women and emotions in shaping socio-political structures. This talk aims to shed more light on the immensely complex question of women’s role and performance in the field of diplomacy based on their socio- political, cultural, religious, and emotional interactions. The focus of such a defined study is on women’s varied forms of power that they utilized through official appointments and emotional engagements in meetings with Ragusan ambassadors at a wide range of courts in the first half of the 15th century. Influential women at the West European Christian courts and those presented at the Sublime Porte were part of different public, formal, and culturally conditioned sets of rules, but at the same time, they shaped private and emotional communities and bonds worth of scholarly interest.

Dubrovnik ; Late Middle Ages ; Women ; Diplomacy

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