Chapter 7 Women and Their Well-Being

In: Changing Subjects, Moving Objects
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Constanţa Vintilă
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James Christian Brown
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In spite of the international explosion of gender studies, many aspects of the history of women in southeastern Europe still remain relatively unexplored. The freedom of movement resulting from the fall of the communist regimes has allowed researchers to integrate themes of international and interdisciplinary research into their field, taking advantage of hitherto unpublished archive material and the curiosity of a public eager to know its past. However, research in this area still has much to offer, and rich archival material awaits researchers to decipher it, read it, interpret it, and use it in the sort of analysis that is very necessary for an understanding of local societies. In this chapter, I shall deal principally with women whose traces are to be found in the archives of Wallachia and Moldavia. While it might be imagined that these archives would contain only information relating specifically to these two Ottoman provinces, a careful analysis brings to light the ethnic and religious diversity of a population that wandered through the empires, leaving documentary traces that enable a reconstruction of the past.

With the help of unpublished documents, I propose in this part to examine the active role of women in political networks and in trans-imperial mobility. Studying women and their networks helps us to understand better not only the circulation of people, ideas, and knowledge between empires, but also inter-regional integration through matrimonial alliances or political sociability. Before analysing their active role in the construction of intercultural networks, I shall turn first to the relation between women and wealth in order to shed light on their economic and social position, an important instrument in appreciating women’s agency. What sort of goods could women own? How was their well-being defined? Who contributed to this well-being, and how? What sort of sources speak of women’s goods? These are the questions that I shall try to answer in the first part, by examining local and regional sources, but also through corroboration with other studies dedicated to the economic situation of women. This part also looks at the social life and sociability experienced by women through consumption and travel. It shows how women and their relationships structured the social and political life of a household, underlining how female friendships contributed to the advancement of a political career, the upkeep of networks, and the establishment and maintenance of useful connections.

Women and Their Goods

Women of a certain class most often came into possession of certain goods upon their marriage. This was the crucial moment when a woman left the parental home with part of her inheritance in the form of a dowry. In the following pages, I shall analyse the way in which Wallachian and Moldavian society engaged in the construction of norms designed to protect these feminine goods within the marriage, protecting them from being absorbed by the husband’s expenses or debts. Likewise, I shall examine how women looked after (or failed to look after) these goods, trying to transmit them to the next generation by way of their testaments. In the first part, I shall focus on dowry documents and the steps taken to make the dowry secure, and in the second, I shall turn my attention to the rights of women to dispose of their goods by way of consumption.

Marriage was an important political game, but also an economic investment for any man, supporting a career and building a future. Through marriage, the outsider had direct access to a family’s patrimony because of the dowry received. A marriage would be negotiated between the two parties orally, without the element of a written contract as such. However, some of the ‘contractual aspects’ of a marriage may be recovered from dowry documents, when these are not limited to a mere inventory. In addition to listing the moveable and immoveable goods offered, the dowry document may give details about the couple, the moment of its drafting, witnesses, and other clauses that had been negotiated. The concept of ‘contract’ was first introduced by the Calimah Code of 1817. Marriage contracts (alcătuiri căsătoreşti or tocmeli căsătoreşti) decided ‘the rights and obligations between those persons who have married or who wish to marry, with regard to their wealth.’1 Such a contract should include: ‘the dowry, the exoprică (property belonging to the wife and administered solely by her), the counter-dowry, the theoritri (gifts on the wedding day), and other gifts.’ But the same law code provided that this agreement did not necessarily have to be made in writing, but could also be a verbal contract, on condition that it was made before at least three witnesses ‘worthy of trust’.2 Thus, in the absence of the institution and person of the notary, the social and economic utility of dowry lists led the authorities and society in general to establish norms around these documents that substituted for marriage contracts. It should be added that in a largely illiterate society, orality played an important role in all forms of negotiation. Access to education was relatively limited. It is true that there were Academies in Iași and Bucharest, staffed by teachers from southeastern Europe, some of them true scholars. However, this type of education was insufficient, offering nothing to whole categories of the population, including women. The situation seems to have been somewhat improved by the beginning of the nineteenth century, when private teachers were becoming more numerous, and some girls were starting to be included in a system of education. Nevertheless, a woman could draw up a dowry document only in the absence of her husband, when she took over his powers and responsibilities regarding the raising, educating, and marrying of their offspring. I would add that many of the people I am writing about in these pages were educated, and had a good knowledge of reading and writing, including Greek and sometimes the languages of European diplomacy—Italian or French. This was not the rule for society as a whole, however, and the norms that developed around dowry documents highlight the importance of priests and clerks as intermediaries between orality and a cult of the written word.3

The dowry document, according to the articles of the Wallachian law code of 1780, developed into a complete form, imposing: the obligatory signature of the son-in-law, the valuation of the objects in the trousseau, drafting in duplicate—the original remaining with the owner, while a copy was to be transcribed in the register of a nearby monastery—, the obligation on brothers to endow their sisters, and the status of the husband in relation to the dowry.4 The effects become visible from the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was now no longer sufficient for the document to be drafted by the priest who performed the religious ceremony of betrothal and read in front of the witnesses. There was a shift of authority from the circle of the family—immediate family, other relatives, friends, neighbours—towards a ‘public institution’: the document was now read, authenticated, and registered by a special department.5

At the end of the eighteenth century, the great number of divorce proceedings, in which the restitution of the dowry was insistently sought, led to another measure: the valuation of each object in the dowry list.6 Thus, the document no longer merely passed through the hands of the priest who drew it up, but went also to the master of the merchants’ guild for everything to be valued as precisely as possible and assigned its ‘correct’ price, regardless of whether the item in question was a house, a string of pearls, or a simple ploughshare, and even if a dress was worn, a blanket past its best, or a pan missing its lid. A new column appeared on the left of the document, where the values of the items were given in the currency of the time (taleri, bani).

But what was the social function of the dowry list? In what processes and stages of life was it involved that it received so much attention from those around? What information could it offer contemporaries, and what can it tell the researchers of today about the mechanism by which a social system functioned? Whatever its form, the dowry list provides details about the social and economic position of the woman and her family in a community. It sets down in writing the woman’s rights over a certain type of mobile goods and properties and establishes her place both in the system of succession and in relation to her husband’s wealth.7 These clauses transform the dowry list from a mere inventory into an indispensable document with important social and economic implications, one that might be invoked and utilized in any divorce trial, and in various family conflicts and disputes over property. Theoretically, the dowry provided the woman with economic autonomy, offering her protection whatever might happen. However, this autonomy must be understood in the context of a period in which the distance between norm and practice was considerable; even if, according to the law, the dowry was supposed to accompany the woman in all stages of her life, in practice, a number of social and political circumstances made it hard to for this to be achieved. Likewise, the situation varied from one social category to another, indeed from one woman to another, according to her ability to keep and defend her belongings.8

I seek to demonstrate that women should be seen not as a silent and obedient majority, but as important social actors in the construction of family networks and matrimonial strategies. A careful analysis of the documents shows a complex situation with regard to the connection between women and the wealth that the political authorities were trying to keep for them.9 Women were not static objects10 : they often appear in the court records defending or demanding their rights (of which they were aware, few as they might be), just as they appear as vectors of the change and promotion of certain fashions through the purchases they made, the adoption of certain manners as a result of their reading, and the advancement of their families and wider kinship network by assimilating education or political strategies.11

The dowry document included women in the inheritance of patrimony, but also excluded them. According to the written law code (pravilă), upon marriage, a Wallachian woman left her father’s house with a dowry.12 This did not remove her from the sharing of the patrimony, as the dowry was to be added to the other goods in the estate, which was then shared out.13 In the case of Moldavia, it has been argued that women participated on an equal basis in the transmission of patrimony,14 though more recent studies have tended to nuance this hypothesis, demonstrating that in fact, even if women received properties and lands, these never included what was considered to be the nucleus of the family patrimony.15 On the other hand, the customary system in both Moldavia and Wallachia excluded women who had received a dowry from the succession.16 These provisions of the customary system were later adopted in the law codes of 1780 and 1817.17

The status of the dowry and of a woman’s patrimony was very clearly specified both by law and by custom. The husband enjoyed only the usufruct of these ‘riches’, but could not alienate anything without his wife’s agreement. Governed by the same Byzantine tradition as in Greece,18 Moldavian and Wallachian legislation accorded the right to compensation for part of the dowry that had been dispersed or used by the husband for his own purposes. For example, Smaranda Merișescu sought from her husband, Dimitrie Merişescu, the protagonist of the previous chapter, compensation for goods from her dowry that had been used to cover household expenses. By a document dated 6 November 1834, Dimitrie Merișescu offered her a considerable part of his vineyards and estates in Târgul Pietrei, both as compensation for the dowry consumed and as a ‘guarantee’ to ensure her well-being in the event of his unexpected death.19

The study of a considerable number of dowry documents—around two thousand, from both Moldavia and Wallachia—has shown the importance of the dowry in the realization of a marriage. Over and above norms and customs, the wishes of the father played an essential role in constituting a dowry, as is shown in the repetition of a formula: ‘out of all that I had, out of all this I have given her’ (din toate câte am avut, din toate i-am dat). Following this formula, a daughter received her dowry according to the wishes of her father and taking account of the social status of the future son-in-law. As in other regions of the Ottoman Empire, marriage was an obligation.20 Thus the majority of women married, on which occasion they received a considerable share of the family’s wealth by way of dowry documents. For this reason, I have insisted on the legal framework governing the drawing up of these documents, which are an important source for studying the well-being of women in the past.

From the examples mentioned in previous chapters it may easily be observed that the ‘Greek’ favourites in the entourage of the Princes looked towards marriage alliances with wealthy and prestigious boyar families. Over and above the dowry, they were interested in entering a network that could ensure that they would retain their powerful position even after the deposition of the current prince. As Pierre Bourdieu has suggested, belonging to a solid network played an essential role in the creation of symbolic capital.21

The dowry constituted an equally important stake for the local elite: boyars, prosperous merchants, or craftsmen would sit down at the table to negotiate not only a patrimony but also a social status. On these negotiations depended on the status of the married woman, whose destiny was prefigured in the networks and relations developed by the two families. Conscious of the role they played not only from an economic but also from a social point of view, women affirmed and emphasized their participation in the construction of a fortune or of a social position. When they came before the courts of justice, women showed that they knew not only their rights, but also the legal options available to help them to resolve a conflict. Just as men crossed confessional and legal frontiers in order to appeal to the Ottoman courts, so women set out to seek justice, hoping that the Ottoman authorities would be less influenced by local power relations. The example of Zoe Dudescu is eloquent in this connection. After the death of her husband, Matei Cantacuzino, Zoe opened a lawsuit against her brother, the grand vistiernic Nicolae Dudescu, one of the most powerful and influential boyars in the political arena. She claimed part of the immense patrimony that had been inherited only by her brother.22 Considering that she had no chance of success in a country where her brother could influence any judge, Zoe went to Istanbul to appeal to the sultan.23 In fact, this practice can be seen frequently among Ottoman Christian women, who would appeal to Muslim courts, considering that Islamic law was often more to their advantage.24

The law court was an ‘arena’, as Fariba Zarinebaf puts it, where many family disputes were put on show, offering us the possibility of discovering both the economic situation of women and the abilities they used to defend their goods and to demand their rights.25 Putting together the various studies on the women of southeastern Europe and their well-being, we may observe that they were active players in the economy of the region, owning land and other immoveable property, buying and selling, ordering various goods, founding places of worship, borrowing and lending. Fariba Zarinebaf has dealt with a number of these roles in her study of the place of women in the urban economy of Istanbul,26 Evdoxios Doxiadis has shed lights on the relation between Greek women, their wealth, and the evolution of the legal framework,27 and Evguenia Davidova has analysed the economic agency of women in Bulgarian merchant networks.28 In the following pages, I shall examine the place of women in matrimonial strategies through the prism of their social status and the economic value of the dowries they received.

The Matrimonial Policies of the Phanariots

Marriage was an important instrument both in social ascent and in the construction of transborder networks. In the previous chapters, I have insisted especially on the foreigners who built their careers and made their homes in the Principalities, without saying much about marriage and matrimonial policies. The archives preserve an impressive number of documents regarding inter-ethnic marriages that took place in the Principalities during the period I am dealing with. In most cases, the parties were Orthodox: Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Vlachs, or Russians. But there is also information in the archives about Jews, Armenians, Turks, French or Germans who converted to the Orthodox faith in order to get married.

The dowry and access to a network of local solidarity constituted the principal objectives for a foreigner adopting such a matrimonial policy. As a favourite of the prince, a foreigner could obtain an important office that provided an income. However this favour lasted only as long as the patron’s reign, usually three years but sometimes less. When the patron was removed from power, access to resources was limited or interrupted. Marriage and entry into the local network constituted effective strategies that could help a foreigner to remain connected not only to economic, but also to social and political resources. I should add that some of the princes themselves consolidated their connections with the local boyar class by means of marriage, thus offering a powerful example to others.29

On the other side, boyars, merchants, craftsmen, and other townsmen had various objectives when they accepted a foreigner as son-in-law and included him in the family and its patrimony. By agreeing to his daughter’s marriage with a favourite in the entourage of the prince, a boyar was extending his network and at the same time positioning himself in the close circle of power.30 At this social level, matters of power can frequently be seen to have played a part in the choice of a partner. A great boyar would seek the blessing of the prince for the marriages of his children and sometimes would choose him to be their sponsor. At the same time, it may be observed that, when it was in his interests, a prince would intervene in the choices made by his subjects, to the point of forcing a boyar or boyaress to accept a matrimonial alliance. The chronicles and documents in the archives of boyar families record such cases, where the will of the prince became an incontestable command.

Prince Nicolae Mavrocordat (January–November 1716 and 1719–1730) constructed matrimonial strategies aimed at facilitating long-term access to power. In the second part of this book, I referred to Iordache Ruset, considered one of the most powerful and influential boyars in Moldavia, and how Mavrocordat took the opportunity to remove him from the political game, fearing that through his matrimonial alliances and especially his kinship with Mihai Racoviță, Ruset posed a threat to his throne. Instead of having Ruset beheaded, as some of his rivals among the high office-holders were demanding, he made him an ally. When he returned to the throne of Wallachia, Nicolae Mavrocordat was accompanied by one of Iordache Ruset’s sons, for whom he mediated a marriage to Ancuța Filipescu, who came from an important boyar family and brought a substantial dowry: ‘This favour his highness did […] to Ioniță Ruset, the son of the vornic Iordache of Moldavia, who being in Tsarigrad, his highness came here into the country, and in this year (1716) officiated his marriage, giving him Ancuța, one of the daughters of the stolnic Matei Filipescu, favouring him with a princely edict exempting him from taxes.’31

Coming closer to the native boyars through marriage helped the Phanariots to consolidate loyalties and to construct an internal power network. In his long reign in Wallachia, Nicolae Mavrocordat mediated many other marriages, cementing relations with the local boyars and ensuring the fidelity of his Greek favourites.32 Matrimonial strategies became the most readily available instrument for entering a community and obtaining local rights and access to estates, houses, shops, and Gypsy slaves. Not every such alliance was crowned with success, however. The foreigner embodied a significant dose of alterity, in which insecurity and lack of trust were essential elements. To defend itself from unknown foreigners, society developed a series of protective instruments: some written, others oral. The archives have preserved ‘certificates of guarantee’ (zapise de chezăşie) in which a would-be bridegroom asked his business partners to write about his behaviour, his wealth, and his family in far-off lands.33 In most cases, however, marriages between locals and foreigners were entered into on the basis of word-of-mouth recommendation. In other words, the community supplied the information that the parents needed to decide on the prospects of a marriage. Any marriage negotiation was preceded by at least a minimal enquiry, which would become more thorough when the prospect of failure was on the horizon. Petitions addressed to the prince speak of the breakdown of such alliances, in which the abandoning of the wife was often accompanied by the scattering of the dowry.34 This must be the background to the drafting of the decree issued by Prince Ștefan Racoviță (1763–1764) in Wallachia on 3 July 1764. The first part of the document presents itself as an analysis of the phenomenon and at the same time a justification of the necessity of the measures that are to be taken. There are references to the diverse ethnic origins of the newcomers—Greeks, Albanians, Serbs—who are divided into two categories: ‘men of respectability and of known kin’ (oameni mai de cinste şi cu neamul ştiut) and ‘others of low quality and unknown’ (alţii proşti şi neştiuţi). The real problem is posed by the latter, who are further divided between ‘those with a trade’ and ‘those with no trade’ (cei cu meşteşug […] cei fără meşteşug). Those arriving in Wallachia include some who have committed reprobable acts in their countries of origin and have had to flee to escape punishment. Enriching themselves by various methods, some less than honest, these foreigners purchase administrative posts with ease. Then, to be completely assimilated, they marry the daughters of boyars, sometimes taking their names, and thus entering ‘the ranks of the office-holding boyars’ (în rîndul boierilor cu dregătorie). Some of the boyars behind this document consider this to be unfair competition, claiming that the newcomers ‘dishonour’ (necinstesc) the positions that they have purchased in this way ‘and the race of boyars is denigrated’ (iar neamul boierilor pămînteni se ocărăşte). This practice is blamed for all the ‘evils’ (relele) and damage that the country has suffered, as some of the ‘natives’ (pământeni) have been contaminated in their ways by the example of the ‘intruders’ (intruși). In order to control mobility, Ştefan Racoviţă decided to forbid marriage between the daughters of local families and foreigners, on pain of the banishment of the couple from the country and the confiscation of their wealth by the prince; parents, sponsors, and priests were to be punished if they did not respect this decision. Those already married were tolerated only if they were prepared to remain ‘at the rank of boyarship where they are’ (la starea boieriei ce să află) and did not wish ‘to raise themselves to a higher level’ (a se înălţa la altă treaptă mai mare).

The document was requested by a part of the boyar class who found themselves threatened by increasing and uncontrolled mobility. Even if its subject is the mobile population, whether merchants or craftsmen, who have set out in search of a ‘home’, it focuses on the favourites in the entourage of the Phanariots. Owing to their position, these individuals occupied profitable offices, which enabled them to penetrate the local boyar class by means of marriage, and they would remain after the prince’s departure, becoming part of a local network.35 The decree was applied only when it was in the prince’s interest.36 After the deposition of Ștefan Racoviță, the law, like other similar legislation, fell into disuse.

The princes continued to impose their own matrimonial strategies. I referred in a previous chapter to the saga of the Brâncoveanu brothers, who went into self-imposed exile on their estates in Transylvania to escape the violence of the Russian–Ottoman war of 1768–1774. At the time, Nicolae Brâncoveanu was married to Maria, daughter of Ştefan Văcărescu. During those years in exile, she bore him a son, Constantin, who died soon after. When the war was over, Nicolae returned to Wallachia and divorced her.37 I have not yet found the papers of the divorce proceedings; in their absence, I can only presume that the motive was his desire to have progeny, which was apparently not possible with Maria Văcărescu.38 Around 1776, Nicolae married Safta Fălcoianu, who was herself divorced from Grigore Băleanu. The marriage did not last long, however, as Prince Ipsilanti needed an important pawn within the local boyar class. The prince thus accused Nicolae Brâncoveanu of having remarried without having a certificate of separation from the metropolitan, as was the custom of the country, and annulled his second marriage, only, shortly afterwards, to offer him the hand of Elena Moruzi, first cousin of his own wife, Caterina Moruzi.39 Once again, Mihai Cantacuzino astutely grasps Prince Ipsilanti’s policy: ‘This was the occasion to marry him to a relative of his; and indeed he was sponsor at his marriage to Elenița, widow of the aga Ioniţă Guliano, who was Moruzi’s daughter and first cousin of Prince Alexandru’s lady.’40

The document and the examples given here might suggest that the local elite was opposed to such ‘misalliances’. However, the matrimonial strategies of the late eighteenth century and even more the early nineteenth, when the presence of the Russian army became a constant factor, show the interest of the elite in attracting protection or consolidating networks by means of marriage. Many boyars’ daughters became pawns in alliances with Russian officers, and left, with their dowries, for Russia.41 Others directed Moldavian and Wallachian political life from the shadows, either as the wives of Russian generals or as their lovers. The first to write about the roles assumed by these women and their involvement in decision-making in the political arena was General Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron. Present in the Principalities during the 1806–1812 Russian military occupation, General Langeron left memoirs that are useful for an understanding of the networks and alliance policies developed by boyars and Phanariots alike in order to gain access to resources and power.42 Another episode, portrayed in his memoirs by Colonel Grigore Lăcusteanu, unfolded under the government of General Pavel Kiselyov, when once again the women of Moldavian and Wallachian high society entered the foreground of the political arena through their involvement in influencing political decisions.43

Women and Luxury Consumption

The value of the dowry depended on the social category to which the bride belonged. It was a means by which objects and other goods circulated, making it a good indicator for the material culture in a particular period, for the tastes and styles that were in fashion. An analysis of dowry documents shows that dowries were made up of estates, livestock, houses, shops, mills, vineyards, beehives, Gypsy slaves, the bride’s trousseau, and money.44 In addition there were wedding presents, received at various stages in the nuptial ceremony: gifts before the wedding, ‘Monday gifts’ (daruri de luni) given by the bridegroom after the wedding, and gifts from wedding guests. To the dowry and gifts might be added a series of other donations or parts of the woman’s inheritance received by her from her family. To what extent did she have all these at her disposal? Did women truly participate in luxury consumption? Were they consumers? Were they ‘customers’ of the merchants and shops of the period? How might this consumption and the role of women in the accumulation of goods and objects be documented?

The trousseau was part of the dowry, and was listed in the order of the items that were placed in the dowry chest: jewellery; the set of clothes (rânduiala hainelor: dresses, blouses, anteris, stockings, capes, jackets, shoes); the set of bedding (rânduiala aşternutului: sheets, pillows, blankets, carpets, quilts, mattresses, icons, incense burners, mirrors, prayer ropes); and the table set (rânduiala mesei: towels, table napkins, table cloth, sets of spoons, knives, forks, teaspoons, coffee cups, saucers for conserves, dishes, trays, jugs, basins, large and small cauldrons, trivets, brass and silver candlesticks, icons, mirrors). All these items belonged by right and in fact to the woman, and should ease her integration into her new home, her new kindred. The gifts offered to parents-in-law and to brothers- and sisters-in-law constituted another stage in the acceptance of the bride and her winning the goodwill of her ‘adoptive’ family. The composition of the trousseau pointed to femininity, with the items listed following a certain model.45 However, information is scarce when it comes to the woman’s role in assembling her trousseau. We may suppose that the mother dealt with the procurement from the market of items of clothing or of fashionable textiles and embroidery, whether the daughter was interested in cashmere shawls or silk fabrics, in satin slippers and diamond earrings, in capes of velvet embroidered with silver thread and shalwars, in headscarves and Indian fabrics, expensive and prestigious.46 This interest is documented in purchase lists. It is not yet clear whether the items were for home consumption or to make up dowries. However, testaments permit us to observe how mothers redirected towards their daughters considerable quantities of jewellery and textiles that had made up part of their own trousseaus. They were an important instrument by which women could dispose of their belongings as they pleased.47 Moreover, women were frequently named as executors of their husbands’ estates, testifying to a peaceful life together and to a high degree of confidence in their ability both to manage a patrimony and to divide it among the heirs according to all the customs of the family.48

Over the last few decades, a series of studies have addressed the woman’s status within a marriage, trying to trace the relation between consumption and well-being.49 ‘Marriage is linked to well-being in various ways,’ states the introduction to the volume The Transmission of Well-Being. The authors point out the change in status that took place with marriage, which allowed a woman access to well-being. Even if marriage did not offer rights, statuses, and roles equal to those of her husband, it ensured that the woman had material and emotional support.50 As Maria Bucur points out, there is a difference between ‘having’ and ‘holding’ the right to enjoy the goods and properties received by way of dowry or acquired during her marriage.51 Nevertheless, the rights of these women must always be analysed in the context of the period and according to the material provided by the historical sources. For southeastern Europe, there are as yet no serial studies, only various investigations into specific aspects.52 For this reason, I shall limit myself here to nuanced hypotheses regarding the relation between women and consumption, avoiding labels or pronouncements that belong more to our contemporary world than to a society in which social and gender inequalities were part of a social, political, and religious structure.53 Women participated in the consumption and circulation of goods by way of the dowries they received, but also through their involvement in the procurement of items that were necessary or merely fashionable. Likewise, the documents testify to the inclusion of the wife in the administration of common wealth, taking an active part in decisions concerning the management of the household. My hypotheses, of course, consider the following: the woman’s role within the household is intrinsically linked to the marital relationship, to the kinship group from which she came, and to the dowry she brought to her new home. Thus, wealth and the marital relationship construct a feminine status within the home. An equally important element may be added: the woman’s ability to sustain and impose this status. In this book, I refer to many women of the upper stratum of society, such as Zoița Brâncoveanu, Ecaterina Caragea, and Elena Hartulari, who played an active role in their husbands’ political activity.54 These women are certainly not representative of the majority, but nor should it be considered that they represent only a small minority. Admittedly, however, their voices are only heard due to a father or husband who encouraged and supported their participation in the construction of a household, of a wider kinship identity.

At the same time, with the help of correspondence, we may observe the active involvement of women in the consumption of objects, clothes, and various fashionable foodstuffs.55 This role is better documented from the second half of the eighteenth century, especially for the upper social strata. In other words, with more and more documents being discovered in family archives, historians are better able to trace the contribution of women to the circulation of goods and objects through lists of purchases and letters. Furthermore, the fact of drawing up a list presupposes a certain level of education—enough not only to draft a letter but also to give one access to catalogues, fashion albums, travel, and knowledge.56 Phanariot women provided the essential model in the launch of a taste for education and consumption. As members of an educated elite, they brought from the Phanar to Bucharest or Iași not only a taste for cashmere shawls or satin slippers, but also a certain inclination for reading Greek and French literature, for theatre, music, and travel. These women travelled frequently between Bucharest, Iași, Brusa, Edirne, Rhodes, Izmir and other places in the Ottoman Empire, accompanying their husbands to positions of power or into exile.57 In addition to journeys of this type, which were in a sense part of ordinary life, there was travel undertaken as part of one’s education or to spas in various areas of Europe.58 The women of southeastern Europe travelled less, however, than those of central or western Europe,59 and fewer of them have left accounts of their travels and impressions of the world they discovered. As Evguenia Davidova argues, ‘physical mobility’ may be seen as a ‘form of consumerism’, offering women ‘novel ways of constructing gender and class identity.’60 Through travel, women encountered objects, lifestyles, and tastes that influenced their way of behaving or thinking.

In the summer of 1813, Elena Glogoveanu set out for Vienna, accompanied by her minor daughter (Maria, known by the pet name Masinca) and two servant women. The daughter of the ban Costache Ghica and Maria Cantacuzino, Elena (or Elenco, to use the Greek diminutive) had married Nicolae Glogoveanu, who at the time held the office of ispravnic (prefect) of Mehedinți county. Her journey followed the pattern of the time: from Cerneți, then the county town of Mehedinți, she left by diligence for Vienna, via Buda, a journey of about twelve days. Elena suffered from ‘chest’ trouble, and was seeking health in Vienna, where her father had been settled for some time.61 Her correspondence with relatives, friends, and her family at home in Wallachia helps us to study the impact that this journey had on her, and later on her children and even her husband. In the first part of her time in Vienna, Elena Glogoveanu stayed in her father’s house. Being ill, probably with tuberculosis, she interacted in the first place with relatives and with a number of friends and acquaintances: Hristodulos Ghirlakidis, Nicolae Cutcudache and his wife Ecaterina, Elena Fălcoianu. Belonging to the same cultural and linguistic space united them: they were Orthodox Christians, they spoke Greek, and they were bound to the Ottoman Empire by family connections and ethnic roots. In that period, Vienna was considered a cosmopolitan city, where members of different ethnic groups developed common practices.62 According to Gontier de Paifal, in Vienna in 1800, no fewer than fifteen languages were spoken: ‘allemand, latin, français, italien, grec, hongrois, bohémois, polonais, flamand, wallach [Romanian], turc, illyrique, croatique, windique, ruthénique.’63 The city attracted and was frequented by many Orthodox merchants, who got rich from trade with the Habsburg Empire, but also by Moldavian or Wallachian boyars and by all who were interested in professional and intellectual training.

Hristodulos Ghirlakidis was a Greek merchant who had enriched himself from trade between the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, via Wallachia. He had then settled in Vienna, where, with the help of his money, he had obtained subjecthood and the title of baron, adapting his identity to the new social and political context under the name of Kirlian, baron of Langenfeld.

Before settling in Vienna, ‘Kir Nicola’ had been a Vlach merchant, born in the region of Pindus or Epirus, who busied himself with trade in hides, living sometimes in the Ottoman Empire, sometimes in Wallachia, and sometimes in the Habsburg Empire. When he had amassed some wealth, he had married Ecaterina, with whom he had five children, and then decided to settle in Vienna, becoming an Austrian subject with his home at no. 557 Fischhofstraße. He continued to trade in hides, but now through his agents, and became ‘one of the most experienced in this branch of commerce.’64

Because of the precarious state of her health, Elena Glogoveanu seldom frequented Viennese society and even more rarely participated in the sociability of the salons. She was, however, visited by those closest to her, and above all by doctors. These included her regular doctor, one Iosif Lantz, together with Doctors Frank, Krasin, Malfatti, and Nord, who were considered ‘the emperor’s most renowned physicians’.65 However, while Elena herself might not be active because of her illness, her daughter Masinca, who seems to have shone for intelligence and beauty, was led through the salons of the Viennese elite and even introduced at the imperial court: ‘Your, and my, beloved Masincuța is in good health and from day to day grows in body and in mind. The whole imperial family know her and the emperor himself. She is an angel,’ writes Baron Lagenfeld in his letter to her father, Nicolae Glogoveanu.66

Correspondence was one of Elena’s daily pastimes. She wrote to her husband, relatives, and friends, telling them about her state of health and that of those around her, about everyday life in the Austrian capital, about fashion and education. Written in French, Greek, or Romanian (using the Cyrillic alphabet), Elena Glogoveanu’s letters reflect her multilingualism.67 She had benefitted from a select education thanks to the interest of her father, who had paid for private teachers of Greek and French.68 Contemporary accounts testify to the inclination of women towards acquiring knowledge of foreign languages, which they then used with considerable pleasure and effectiveness.69

Elena found life in Vienna very expensive, according to her complaints in a letter of 21 September 1813 to her husband, Nicolae Glogoveanu. Her money went on doctors and medicines, and on meals, servants, firewood, clothes, and other items intended to maintain a rank, a social status.70 With Maria Hangerli, she exchanges impressions about lace, jewellery, or cotton and silk thread for embroidery (tire-iplik)71 ; with Alexandru Villara she discusses carriages and the plague that was then haunting Bucharest.72 Over and above her concern for comfort in daily life and her financial adaptation to the demands of Vienna, Elenco is interested in the education of her daughter Masinca and her son Costache. With this in view, she asks her husband to send Costache to her in Vienna to study.73 Sadly she did not live to see her son arriving in Vienna, as she died on 5/17 May 1814. Masinca, however, remained in Vienna, with her grandfather, to complete her education.74

Also in Vienna was Elena Glogoveanu’s cousin Elena Fălcoianu, who lived close to the Landstraße with her French servant Zonnette. A rather unpleasant incident gave birth to a rich dossier concerning Elena Glogoveanu and her daughter’s period of residence in Vienna. On Holy Monday 1814, Elena Fălcoianu robbed her cousin, stealing jewellery, shawls, and money. The Viennese police, who were called to deal with the case, compiled an inventory of the jewellery and other items stolen. The incident hastened the death of Elena Glogoveanu. The theft and the boyaress’s death led to Theodor (also known as Tudor) Vladimirescu being sent to Vienna to take charge of recovering the stolen items and to bring the remaining possessions and the minor daughter back to Cerneți.75 The expensive dresses, the cashmere shawls, the jewellery of gold and precious stones were inventoried, and the lists were sent to Elena’s husband for confirmation. Pragmatically, Theodor proposed that his master should sell the expensive dresses because ‘fashions change from day to day’ (modele se schimbă în toate zilele), the only certainty being money, which should be allowed to circulate and to bring profit.76 At the same time, Theodor described in detail little Masinca’s preparations for her return home. As winter was approaching, he took care to buy her suitable clothes: ‘for Mistress Masinca, I have made clothes for the road.’77 He also enquired about the easiest way to travel from Vienna to Cerneți, thus enabling us to learn about time, comfort, and means of transport: ‘I have fitted out the young lady with winter clothes and I have paid a good fee for a carriage from Vienna to Orșova 480 florints in which people travel as if in a stove [… in] which the girl can come better than in summer. I have also spoken to the doctors and they have told me that by this means children can go anywhere, both winter and summer.’78

Lists of purchases show very clearly the active role played by women in the circulation of goods and objects along the roads of the empires. Most of them they addressed directly to the merchants, describing in detail the items that they wanted, sending or requesting samples, asking for the ‘painting’ (zugrăveala) of fashionable items so that they could be ordered, demanding a refund when they were not pleased with the goods received, making deals and incurring debts.79 The effervescence of consumption may be observed in their husbands too, ordering on behalf of their wives, daughters, or mothers, or for themselves, striving to preserve and uphold the social status of the household and of the family.80 Even in the case presented above, the recently widowed Nicolae Glogoveanu took advantage of his estate manager’s presence in Vienna to ask him to buy a carriage, muskets, remedies, and healing balsams.81 In the mid-nineteenth century, the expenses of the Otetelișanu household in Bucharest show very clearly that it was the wife, Safta Otetelișanu, who took charge of domestic consumption, instructing the household manager (vechilul casei) what to buy and from where, administering not only the kitchen and everyone’s wardrobe, but also donations and her husband’s journeys.82

The relation between consumption, women, and cultural changes is, however, a particularly complex one. It must be traced over a considerable number of years for us to grasp its development and the assimilation of changes. Many technological transformations took place in the nineteenth century, contributing to faster and easier mobility, to the diffusion of the press, and thus of information, to the development of a taste for travel and spas, to the circulation of a literature of consumption. All these instruments played their part in the spread of ideas, tastes, and products coming from the West. All the same, as Haris Exertzoglou has shown, ‘consumption’ is ‘discursively construed, negotiated, and appropriated by different groups within a specific historical context.’83 Exertzoglou concentrates his analysis on the Orthodox and Greek-speaking ‘middle class’ of Istanbul and Smyrna, which took advantage of the reforms in the Ottoman Empire to develop commercial and financial relations with European economies and to construct ‘modern professions.’84 In Wallachia and Moldavia, this middle level emerged with considerable difficulty, and the archives show that the principal consumers of goods and commodities remained the wealthy boyars.

The premises of social changes took shape only with the Organic Regulations, which outlined the reform of the two principalities and established the need for qualified personnel able to implement the desiderata of the modern state.

The appearance and spread of ‘national’ gazettes favoured the circulation of information about new fashions, new tastes, and new ideas. A glance at the content of these gazettes shows the relatively easy path taken by goods and products from the ‘West’ into the homes of boyars, merchants, doctors, teachers, and functionaries in the urban environment. The need for qualified people opened the door for a long series of professions to take Moldavia, Wallachia, Serbia, and Greece by storm, offering their services as gardeners, valets, teachers (of dance, music, piano, foreign languages, or painting), engineers, architects, and doctors. The education of women became a preoccupation of wealthy families, stimulated by the opening of private schools, and also by the possibility of sending their daughters to study in institutions in Vienna, Geneva, or Paris.85 The years 1830–1850 were marked by all this effervescence, as will be seen in the following chapter, though reflected not so much in Elena Hartulari’s own education as in that of her daughter.

Fig. 9
Fig. 9

Miklós Barabás (1810-1898) – View of Bucharest, 1832, Private Collection.

So far, I have talked about the importance of women in achieving matrimonial alliances. Their family networks and dowries were points of attraction for foreigners who aspired to high offices in the princely council. However, I have examined only their position as passive actors both in the process of putting together a dowry and in the choice of a husband and implicitly the construction of a matrimonial strategy. An unmarried woman, under the authority of her father (or of her elder brothers) was in a position of inferiority, but her status changed with marriage. Let us now look at what became of women on their own who either had not married or were widowed. I shall examine the way in which these single women managed to dispose of their belongings, making use of the legal instruments provided by the social and political context.

The Countesses: Seeking a Destiny

In 1718, Oltenia, the western part of Wallachia, came under Austrian rule following the peace treaty of Passarowitz. In the course of the next twenty-one years, this new territory of the crown underwent a process of reform aimed at transforming it into an efficiently administered province by co-opting the local boyar class.86 Among the boyars who remained in Oltenia was Ioan Bălăceanu, the descendant of an important boyar family which took its name from the village of Balaci in Teleorman county. His father, Constantin Bălăceanu, had served the Holy Roman Empire and had died in 1690, during the wars between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League; Emperor Leopold had conferred on him the title of count (German, Graf; Hungarian, gróf), and had then raised him to the rank of general of the Austrian armies in the Principalities.87 His mother, Maria, was the daughter of Prince Șerban Cantacuzino (1678–1688) and went on to spend the last years of her life in the Dintr-un-lemn Monastery under the monastic name Magdalina.88 Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688–1714), being in the Ottoman camp, confiscated Count Bălăceanu’s wealth for treason (hiclenie) and demolished his house in Bucharest as a punishment for his treachery.89 The count’s son, Ioan Bălăceanu, born in these troubled times, continued the policy established by his father, by virtue of his descent and of his title as a ‘Count of the Empire’. Thus it is that we find him in Oltenia, collaborating with the Habsburg Monarchy in the administration of the province. In Craiova, the provincial capital, he married Ilinca Brezoianu. ‘Grof’ Bălăceanu, as he is known in the documents of the period, managed to recover the wealth that had been confiscated and to extend his property. However, his marriage brought him three daughters—Smaranda, Maria, and Elena (who sometimes appears in documents as Ilinca)—and no son to help him construct matrimonial alliances or strategic networks.

The new Russian–Ottoman war of 1735–1739 and the invasion of Oltenia by Turkish forces caught him unprepared. Away from home to administer his estates, he was captured by the Ottoman army at Lotru90 in March 1738 and killed: ‘being ill, he died at the hands of the pagans, who caught up with him at Lotru,’ it is recalled in a donation document issued by his daughters. It is also recorded that his wife, Ilinca, sent men ‘to gather his bones from the road and take them to bury them in the Holy Monastery of Cozia, in the great church.’91 Shortly afterwards, the widowed Ilinca with her three daughters crossed the mountains into Transylvania and took refuge in Sibiu, from where they begged the emperor to help them, in memory of the sacrifices and loyalty of the Bălăceanu lineage. In this context, Smaranda, Maria, and Elena were taken under the protective wing of Emperor Charles VI and sent to the court of Vienna to serve as ladies in waiting to the emperor’s daughter, Maria Theresa. The fate of these daughters, left orphans, is of interest here as a large number of documents are preserved that record their struggles to recover the wealth and renown of their family and a social status within a society of ranks.92

The story of the Bălăceanu sisters is an extremely interesting one and revealing for the relation between woman, celibacy, well-being, and social status. Furthermore, as recent research has shown, women were important agents in the construction of trans-imperial diplomatic and cultural networks.93 Circulating with ease between Vienna, Bucharest, and Sibiu, crossing paths with Ottoman, Austrian, or French diplomatic representatives, writing a multilingual correspondence (German, Latin, Italian), the Bălăceanu sisters participated actively in the production and circulation of information and in the maintenance of networks through using and negotiating their position in order to obtain influence, favours, and privileges. Their period in Vienna is known from relatively frequent mentions in Wallachian internal documents and from the diplomatic correspondence of the Austrian representatives in Istanbul.94 Maria Bălăceanu’s return to Wallachia, probably around 1744–1748, launched her struggle to recover the family’s immense wealth, first that of her grandfather, Constantin Bălăceanu, and then that of her father, Ioan grof Bălăceanu. Maria was to have a hard fight, bearing on her shoulders not only her descent from the Bălăceanu and Cantacuzino lineages and imperial protection, but also the treachery and alienation of her grandfather and father. The sisters’ taking refuge in Sibiu in 1738–1739 and their subsequent entry into the service of Maria Theresa were judged by the political authorities in Wallachia to be an alienation (înstrăinare). The written law provided that the wealth of one who ‘alienates himself’ (să va înstrăina) would be at the disposal of the prince (pe seama domniei). The prince had the right of usufruct, ‘to manage it and to take what yield there may be’ (să o cârmuiască şi să ia roada ce va fi). The return of ‘alienated’ persons entitled them to reclaim their estates.95 As was the case for male heirs, women too had the right to reclaim their parents’ wealth within thirty years.96 Proud of the lineage to which she belonged, Maria Bălăceanu embarked on a veritable crusade to recover the wealth dispersed by the Phanariot princes and swallowed up by other members of the lineage. Her grandfather’s skull, which had apparently lain for more than a year in the Bălăceanu property in Bucharest, accompanied her on all her travels.97 Her relatives did not offer her protection and solidarity, as might have been expected; on the contrary, they shared the lands and buildings among themselves and refused to return to her the documents that would have eased the process of restoring her paternal patrimony.98

In June 1752, Grigore Ghica gifted some estates in Teleorman county that had belonged to the Bălăceanus to St. Panteleimon’s Monastery, on which occasion he reiterated the motives behind the confiscation in order to justify once more the appropriation of the lands of a treacherous (hiclean) boyar. After introducing the well-known story of Constantin Bălăceanu, the chancellery logofăt turned to that of his son, the grof Ioan, who although he could have chosen not to follow in his father’s footsteps, ‘did not want to bow his head and to come to his land and his country, but stayed there a subject, under the support and shelter of the foreign emperor.’99 The document informs us that the grof’s daughters returned to Wallachia in the reign of Constantin Mavrocordat (1744–1748), who had mercy on them, ‘they being daughters of boyar kin and bereft of their parents’ (fiind fete de neam boieresc şi sărace de părinţi) and restored all their estates to them.100 But instead of showing gratitude, the document continues, the daughters ‘rose and went again to the German land.’ (In fact, while Maria and Elena returned to the imperial court in Vienna, Smaranda married Manoil Manu, son of Apostol Manu, the master of the merchants’ guild of Bucharest.101 ) This ‘desertion’ must be put down to fear following the change of reign. Constantin Mavrocordat was replaced on the Wallachian throne in April 1748 by Grigore Ghica, who confiscated the wealth of the Bălăceanu sisters again. From Vienna, the sisters sought the help of the Internuncio Heinrich Christoph Freiherr von Penkler. The Austrian diplomat was in the best possible position to intervene and mediate the restoration of the Bălăceanu fortune. Based in Istanbul, as representative of the Habsburg emperor, he knew the Phanariots very well. On 22 and 30 October 1748, von Penkler wrote to Prince Grigore Ghica about the two ‘Palagiani’ orphans, requesting the restoration of their former properties.102 In support of this decision, von Penkler invoked article 8 of the capitulations and the peace treaty signed between the two powers, which had regulated this issue.103 He announced that he had intervened before the ‘Shining Porte’ (la Fulgida Porta) for a second ferman and granting of forgiveness, emphasizing that the Ottoman ministers had assured him of full support. The internuncio further wrote that he was acting on instructions from the imperial court and that he must make sure of a satisfactory conclusion.104 In this connection, von Penkler wrote to Empress Maria Theresa, offering her information about the case of the Bălăceanu daughters.105 His letters show how anchored the sisters were in the society of Vienna, from where they were trying, by appealing to networks and connections, to resolve the issue of their property. Writing letters to powerful and influential people was a common practice in the period. It was a useful instrument for all those who sought protection, fiscal privileges, or recognition on the part of others.106 Writing about themselves, the Bălăceanu sisters adopted different roles and identities, constructed according to whom they were addressing.

Grigore Ghica was not impressed by von Penkler’s interventions or by his invocation of the capitulations and the peace treaty. Princely forgiveness was dependent on display of loyalty: while Smaranda was forgiven, Maria and Elena were harshly criticized, accused of betraying their country and their faith (by converting to Catholicism) in order to make themselves a family and a destiny in a foreign land. As yet I have not found any document attesting to the two sisters’ conversion to Catholicism or confirming their marriage to ‘foreigners from the German Land’ (oameni străini din Ţara Nemţească). These accusations in Grigore Ghica’s document justify the description of them as ‘treacherous and hostile to their country’ (haine şi vrăjmaşe patriei lor), thus entitling the prince to confiscate their wealth and their estates again. We may note that the loyalty of women is considered as important as the loyalty of men. At no point do Grigore Ghica and his divan, made up of the great boyars of Wallachia (some of them related to the sisters under accusation), judge the two women’s decisions through the prism of their inferiority. Women are considered responsible for their decisions just as much as men are: ‘According to law and justice, and also to the written codes [pravile], I command, that of persons treacherous and hostile to their country, who have left their land, alienating themselves; the shares, whether of estates or of vineyards […] belonging to those two daughters being taken into princely possession, I as prince have granted and dedicated to St. Panteleimon.’ Smaranda’s estates did not come into this category. Her marriage and her having settled in Bucharest with her husband were taken as indicating her faith and loyalty to the political authorities.107 It should be mentioned that her husband’s father, the ‘Greek’ merchant Manu Apostol, was the second generation of his family in Wallachia and had managed to amass considerable wealth in the service of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu.108 Their marriage might seem a sort of ‘misalliance’, in view of the social pride affirmed by Smaranda when she referred to herself as ‘Manda comitissa Balacsánka’.109 However, Manoil Manu had inherited from his father the title of baron of the Holy Roman Empire, which must have gone some way towards cancelling the social difference between them.110 Moreover, both belonged to the same network that linked Wallachia to Brașov and the Viennese chancellery.111 It is possible that the members of this network had planned the alliance, bringing the two orphans together. The same network continued to bombard the Porte with requests for the ‘poor orphans’ to be forgiven and their property restored. After von Penkler left Istanbul, the new internuncio, von Schwachheim, took over his mission regarding the wealth of the Bălăceanu sisters. It was he who managed to obtain a ferman giving the sisters the right to return to Wallachia and to receive their confiscated wealth.112

The countesses, as they are known in documents, tried to find their destinies travelling between Habsburg and Ottoman realms. Several conclusions may be drawn from a reading of the documents they have left us (testaments, letters of donation, dowry contracts, conflicts over property, records of the purchase or sale of estates, petitions to the Viennese court). In the first place, we may note the mobility of the two women—Maria and Elena—who crossed borders and travelled the roads of the empires, making use of their dual identity: countesses and ladies-in-waiting to Maria Theresa, but also Wallachian boyaresses. We find them in Bucharest, Brașov, Sibiu, and Vienna in various periods between 1738 and 1797, equipped with travel papers or passports, invoking now imperial protection, now that of the Phanariot princes.113 In these documents, they sign their names in different ways, as Elena Bălăceanu and Maria Bălăceanu or with identities adapted to the situation: Helena von Balatschan, Helena Gräfin von Belaciann, Maria Gräfin von Belacian, Maria comitissa Balacsánka, Smaranda comitissa Balacsánka.

In Vienna, Maria and Elena received payment for their service. Maria reproached her sister that while she was fighting in Wallachia to recover the estates, Elena was living in comfort with her pay at the Viennese court: ‘my share of the pay she took from the German empire, as long as she was there. And I here, in a time of war, got nothing from the income of the estates.’ She thus requested that from certain parts of the estates, Elena should receive nothing, because ‘she did not grow up here in this country to know what the estate is.’114 The pay they received cannot have been very high, and nor were the positions they held among the empress’s servants. Furthermore, as Katrin Keller has shown, a ‘court maiden’ had to follow a certain trajectory in her career and to demonstrate her loyalty and her competence in administrative matters. A lady-in-waiting also needed a network of family and connections if she was to advance.115 The Bălăceanu sisters were alone in a competitive environment where advancement was very difficult. The court of Vienna was a ‘central arena for decision-making’, leading to bitter competition.116 Lacking connections and unable to make themselves useful, the Bălăceanu sisters could not penetrate an environment with its own rules and solidarities.117 The positions they had received were honorary, a reward for their father’s and especially their grandfather’s loyalty, and gave them the right to be at court only on certain occasions.118 It was probably this that, at a certain point, made them assign different roles to themselves, as Maria returned to Wallachia to recover their estates and social status, while Elena, younger and perhaps the most able of the three to handle the duties of a lady-in-waiting, continued her career in Vienna and lived either in Brașov or Sibiu, on the territories of the Habsburg Monarchy. At the urging of her sister, Elena addressed numerous petitions to the imperial court. On 24 October 1784, she wrote from Sibiu to General Frederick von Preiss, asking him to write to Vienna for pressure to be put on the prince of Wallachia regarding the restoration of the confiscated wealth.119 The letters continued in the years that followed: Elena, or ‘Helene von Balatschanischen’ wrote to Stefan Raicevich, the Austrian agent in Bucharest, to General Michael von Ritter Fabri, and to General Joseph Anton Franz Mittrowsky von Mittrowitz, asking for their intervention before the Wallachian prince, pensions, and assistance.120 From a supplication addressed to the Austrian agency in Sibiu on 21 April 1793, it emerges that Elena Bălăceanu had been living in Bucharest for two years, and that an imperial pension that she had been lifting from the customs office in Brașov had now been stopped. The new regulations specified that only those who had properties on the territories of the crown could receive pensions; consequently, the countess’s pension would be paid only if she returned within the Empire.121

Second, the letters testify to the ability and perseverance with which Maria Bălăceanu pursued lawsuit after lawsuit to add another small portion of an estate to the patrimony. Here we may note the inferiority that Maria assumes in relation to her male relatives in the Bălăceanu kindred. ‘We being unable to go to court with everyone, not being male’ (Neputând a ne judeca cu lumea, nefiind parte bărbătească), Maria writes, the best parts of the estates remained under the control of the Bălăceanu kindred. Nevertheless, she opened and won numerous lawsuits against those who had unfairly acquired estates, houses, mills, forests, or fishponds that she considered were rightfully hers.122

Third, the countesses’ loneliness is striking. Their journeys through empires in search of a destiny did not help them to put down roots anywhere. Smaranda, widowed and childless, chose to become a nun. Maria, taking refuge in Brașov during the Russian–Ottoman war of 1768–1774, decided to adopt a child. She returned with him to Wallachia; the boy, ‘German’ and probably Catholic, was baptized into the Orthodox faith and raised according to all the rites and traditions of the Bălăceanu lineage. Only that, even after twenty-seven years, Petre had not become a Bălăceanu. His adoptive mother added a new element of gender differentiation, present in the period, which was to the advantage of men and the disadvantage of women: the exclusion of women from political life.123 Her words ‘and I, not being male to have been able to help him with some posts and earnings’ (şi eu, nefiind parte bărbătească ca să-l fi putut ajutora cu nescarevaşi slujbe şi câştiguri)124 show the impossibility of achieving a connection with the social and political network that would have introduced her adoptive son onto the political stage. We know that boyars’ sons began their political ascent with the position of postelnic, from which they advanced in the hierarchy with the support of their family networks. Participation in political life implied not only entry into a network, but also benefits and fiscal privileges.125 Maria Bălăceanu tried to compensate for this lack by giving her adoptive son a fortune, which would ensure his means of existence but not his participation in political life. In 1797, Petre was around thirty years old, but had no administrative office. The Bălăceanu kindred had not accepted him into the lineage, and had tried to take control of the estates left by grof Ioan. In her testament, the adoptive mother gave her son her house in Bucharest (in the Sfânta Vineri district) and a number of estates, but not the right to take the family name.126 Although he had gone over to the Orthodox faith and had been brought up by Maria, Petre still retained the alterity of the foreigner, reiterated both in her letters of donation and in her testament. More than that, the adoptive mother’s donation seems to have been made more out concern for her soul than out of duty towards a son, being justified as follows: ‘that he too remains contented, and not curse me with his children to weigh down my soul for taking him away from his people and even more from his country.’127

Elena Bălăceanu let herself be led in all this patrimonial adventure by her sister, Maria. Following her example, she adopted a girl, whom she christened Maria, and then arranged her marriage and provided her dowry. The dowry contract is rich in jewellery and other household objects, but does not include estates, vineyards, houses, or Gypsy slaves: all these were swallowed up by the kindred.128 The composition of the dowry contract is typical for the region, with clothes and jewellery of Ottoman influence, showing no trace of Elena’s German and Viennese education. Or perhaps we should not look here for Viennese influence on the countess’s lifestyle. In Wallachia, she behaved like other boyaresses, and resorted to the internal market to assemble a dowry. After Maria’s death (probably soon after she drew up her testament, around May 1797), Elena appears hesitant and unprotected. Maria’s testament is clearly formulated, aimed at providing for those close to her—her adoptive son and her sister Elena—and keeping the relatives at a distance. Among these were one Costache Bălăceanu and one Ioniță Bălăceanu, cousins who would speculate on Maria’s death, urging Elena not to respect the clauses of her testament. Thus, Elena wrote a testament by which she left her entire wealth to her cousin Costache Bălăceanu. Shortly after, she realized that Costache’s actions had been motivated only by ‘his own interest […] tricking her’ (enteresul dumnealui […] înşelând-o) and she reconfirmed the authority of Maria’s testament as an expression of her last wishes which must be scrupulously respected.129

The countesses’ mobility was something uncommon, which did not apply to all women in the period. Of course, many boyaresses accompanied their husbands into exile, sharing their fate. However, the Bălăceanu sisters were forced by circumstances to cut their own path, travelling in spaces with different social, economic, and legal systems. Thus they came to know and to work with different systems of law, applying to the right institutions and individuals to obtain the results they sought in a certain matter, and manoeuvring the trans-imperial networks that could help them to obtain privileges, and protection.

The women I have considered in this chapter do not have the ‘pan-European’ visibility enjoyed by, for example, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu or Dora d’Istria, whose activities have been thoroughly researched.130 Much of the documentation about them remains scattered through the archives in Bucharest, Iaşi, Vienna, Paris, Moscow, and Istanbul.

In the following chapter, I shall turn my attention to Elena Hartulari, in whose case I have managed to assemble hundreds of documents, in addition to her memoirs. With their help, I shall attempt to reconstruct the everyday life of a woman of the early nineteenth century and the role played by a wife in the social ascent of a foreign husband in Moldavian society. As David Do Paço has argued, women cannot be seen solely through the prism of their traditional roles as wives, mothers, sisters, or daughters.131 The following case study, focused on Elena Hartulari, will examine the role of women as unofficial agents in the structuring of a network and in the maintenance of a day-to-day sociability that was a necessary support for the political, economic, and social plans of a family. They were their husbands’ partners in accessing economic and political resources, often through their own relations of clientelism or friendship.

1

Codul Calimah (1817) (Bucharest: 1958), 555.

2

Codul Calimah (1817), 557–559.

3

Alex Drace-Francis’s detailed analysis shows that the education of the population of Wallachia and Moldavia was quite precarious and remained so throughout the nineteenth century. The urban elite and the boyars preferred to send their offspring to the private schools that appeared particularly from the 1830s onwards and to study in great European centres. Drace-Francis, The Making of Modern Romanian Culture, 42–44, 102, 112.

4

Pravilniceasca Condică (1780) (Bucharest: 1957), 94. See also the document issued by Nicolae Mavrogheni (1786–1790) that puts into practice the article of the law, requiring that dowry contracts be copied into a special register, on which occasion they were checked and authenticated. ANIC, Fond Manuscrise MS 17, f. 7, 3 May 1786.

5

ANIC, Fond Achiziţii Noi, CCCI/9, 2 May 1830.

6

Antim Ivrireanul, Opere. Didahii (Bucharest: 1996), 354, Pravilniceasca Condică, 92–94.

7

This subject has been much debated both in Romanian and in foreign historiography. I mention here only a few relevant works: Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, În şalvari şi cu işlic. Biserică, sexualitate, căsătorie şi divorţ în Ţara Românească a secolului al XVIII-lea (Bucharest: 2011), 135–171; Angela Jianu, ‘Women, Dowries and Patrimonial Law in Old Regime Romania, c. 1750–1830’, Journal of Family History, 34/2 (2009), 189–205; Violeta Barbu, ‘De la comunitatea patrimonială la comunitatea de destin: zestrea în Ţara Românească în secolul al XVII-lea’, în De la comunitate la societate. Studii de istoria familiei din Ţara Românească sub Vechiul Regim (Bucharest: 2007), 19–93; Elena Bedreag, ‘Church Endowments and Family Inheritance in 18th-Century Moldavia’, Romanian Journal of Population Studies, vol XIV, 1 (2020), 5–18.

8

BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, CXCVII/71, 23, 15 June 1756.

9

BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, DCCXCVI/128, 20 January 1817.

10

Maria Bucur, ‘To Have and to Hold: Gender Regimes and Property Rights in the Romanian Principalities before World War I’, European History Quarterly, 48/4 (2018), 601–628.

11

See also Evdoxios Doxiadis, ‘Women, Wealth, and the State in Greece (1750–1860)’, in Evguenia Davidova (ed.), Wealth in the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Balkans. A Socio-Economic History (London: 2016), 9–29.

12

The system of the dowry, as part of the paternal inheritance, occurs frequently in other regions too. See Bernard Derouet, ‘Transmettre la terre. Origines et inflexions récentes d’une problématique de la différence’, Histoire et sociétés rurales, n° 2, 1994, 33–67; The Special Issue ‘Femmes, dot et patrimoine’, Clio. Histoire, femmes et sociétés, 7 (1998).

13

Îndreptarea legii (1652) (Bucharest: 1962), 271–272.

14

Most of these studies are based more on the analysis of the law codes than on an examination of the documents. George Fotino, Contribution à l’étude des origines de l’ancien droit coutumier roumain. Un chapitre de l’histoire de la propriété au moyen âge (Paris: 1926); Alexandru Gonţa, ‘Femeia şi drepturile ei de moştenire în Moldova după obiceiul pământului’, Anuarul Institutului de Istorie şi Arheologie “A.D. Xenopol” Iaşi, XVII, 1980, 597–602; Gheorghe Cronţ, Instituţii medievale româneşti, (Bucharest : 1969), 31–80. For a more recent study see Maria Magdalena Székely, ‘Structuri de familie în societatea medievală moldovenească’, Arhiva Genealogică, IV (IX) 1–2, 1997, 59–117.

15

See in this connection Petronel Zahariuc, ‘Despre o casă de pe Uliţa Mare şi despre o poveste cu drepturile femeii din Moldova (prima jumătate a secolului al XVIII-lea)’, Ioan Neculce. Buletinul Muzeului Municipal ‘Regina Maria’, I (2019), 29–50.

16

Marcel Emerit, ‘La femme en Valachie pouvait-elle hériter?’, Revue historique du Sud-Est européen, t. IV, 1–3 (1927), 38–46; Marcel Emerit, ‘A propos du droit des femmes à l’héritage en Valachie’, Revue historique du Sud-Est européen , V, 1–3 (1928), 32–33.

17

M.I. Peretz, Privilegiul masculinităţii în Pravilniceasca Condică Ipsilanti şi în Legiuirea Caragea (Bucharest: 1905).

18

See, for comparison, the situation in Greece in Doxiadis, ‘Women, Wealth, and the State in Greece’, 11.

19

BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, MDXLI/13.

20

Doxiadis, ‘Women, Wealth, and the State in Greece’, 10.

21

Pierre Bourdieu, ‘Le Capital Social’, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 31 (1980), 2–3.

22

BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, XIII/103, 104, August 1768.

23

Cantacuzino, Genealogia, 287–289.

24

Sophia Laiou, ‘Christian Women in an Ottoman World: Interpersonal and Family Cases Brought Before the Shari‘a Courts During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. (Cases Involving the Greek Community)’, in Irvin Cemil Schick (ed.), Women in the Ottoman Balkans. Gender, Culture and History (London: 2007), 243–271; Rossitsa Gradeva, ‘A kadı Court in the Balkans: Sofia in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries’, in Christine Woodhead (ed.), The Ottoman World (London: 2012), 57–71; Eugenia Kermeli, ‘Marriage and Divorce of Christians and New Muslims in Early Modern Ottoman Empire: Crete 1645–1670’, Oriente Moderno, 93 (2013), 527–546.

25

Fariba Zarinebaf, ‘From mahalle (neighborhood) to the market and the courts: women, credit, and property in eighteenth-century Istanbul’, Jutta Gisela Sperling and Shona Kelly Wray (eds.), Gender, property, and law in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities in the wider Mediterranean, 1300–1800 (London and New York: 2009), 231.

26

Zarinebaf, ‘Women, credit, and property’, 224–237.

27

Evdoxios Doxiadis, The Shackles of Modernity: Women, Property, and the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek State (Cambridge – London: 2011).

28

Evguenia Davidova, Balkan Transitions to Modernity and Nation-States Through the Eyes of Three Generations of Merchants (1780–1890s) (Leiden: 2012), 101–129.

29

On social mobility by means of marriage, see Radu G. Păun, ‘Some Remarks about the Historical Origins of the “Phanariot Phenomenon”’, in Gelina Harlaftis and Radu G. Păun (eds.), Greeks in Romania in the Nineteenth Century (Athens: 2013), 47–94.

30

I have already discussed above the striking example of the marriages of Ianache Văcărescu. See chapter 4.

31

Istoriile domnilor Ţării Româneşti de Radu Popescu vornicul, ed. Constantin Grecescu (Bucharest: 1963), 268–269.

32

Among the examples recounted by Ban Mihai Cantacuzino may be mentioned the marriages of Constantin Ramadan, first to Maria Cantacuzino (d. 1731) and then to Maria Creţulescu, both belonging to rich and influential boyar families. In both situations, Nicolae Mavrocordat intervened. See Cantacuzino, Genealogia, 359. See also Mariana Lazăr, ‘Spre lumea “de dincolo”, trecând împreună prin lumea pământeană. Marele vornic Iordache Creţulescu şi soţia sa, domniţa Safta Brâncoveanu’, in Mircea Ciubotaru, Lucian-Valeriu Lefter (eds.), Mihai Dim. Sturdza la 80 de ani. Omagiu (Iaşi: 2014), 799–822.

33

Suraiya Faroqhi has shown that recourse to such guarantees was a common practice in the Ottoman Empire, especially for ‘outsiders’ who wanted to settle in a locality. Vezi Suraiya Faroqhi, Artisans of Empire. Crafts and Craftspeople Under the Ottomans (London: 2009), 144–145.

34

In this context, the petitioners mention their suspicion regarding the introduction of foreigners into the family network. Increasing mobility and the appearance of a growing number of foreigners thus led to a rise in distrust among the population.

35

On this dissension, see Gheorghe Brătianu, Sfatul domnesc şi adunarea stărilor în principatele române (Bucharest: 1995), 185–193. The document may also be understood in the context created by Constantin Mavorcordat’s social reforms, which had given a new form to the boyar class, linking their status to the holding of administrative office.

36

Urechia, Istoria românilor, II, 147–148.

37

Regarding divorce in Wallachia, see: Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, ‘Autour du divorce: disputes et réconciliations au tribunal (Valachie, 1750–1830)’, Annales de Démographie Historique, 2 (2009), 77–99; Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, ‘Usage des corps/ usage des mots au tribunal. Conflits et réconciliations dans la société roumaine (1750–1830)’, in Claude Gauvard, Alessandro Stella (eds.), Couples en justice, IVe–XIXe siècle, (Paris: 2013), 197–213.

38

On 19 September 1797, Maria Văcărescu drew up her testament, noting among other things the dowry that she had recovered from the house of her former husband, the ban Nicolae Brâncoveanu. See BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, MLXXXVI/34, Fond Manuscrise MS 611, ff. 35r–37v.

39

On the family relation between the two women, see Marinescu, Etude généalogique, 36, 42.

40

Cantacuzino, Genealogia, 349.

41

Paul Cernovodeanu, ‘Strategii matrimoniale ruse în societatea românească din perioada regulamentară’, Arhiva Genealogică, IV (IX), 3–4 (1997), 243–252.

42

Hurmuzaki, Documente, I/3, 216–370.

43

Grigore Lăcusteanu, Amintirile colonelului Lăcusteanu, ed. Radu Crutzescu (Bucharest: 1935), 75–79.

44

Nicoleta Roman, ‘Dowry Contracts, Women’s Objects and the Circulation of Goods in Mid-Nineteenth Century Romanian Families. The Case of Oltenia’, Revista Istorică, XXIX, 1–2 (2018), 105–139; Nicoleta Roman, ‘Starting a married life: women and goods in the mid-nineteenth-century Romanian towns of Pitești and Câmpulung’, in Annette Caroline Cremer (ed.), Gender, Law and Material Culture. Immobile Property and Mobile Goods in Early Modern Europe (London: 2020), 239–263.

45

The dowry list follows a standard model, in which the goods were listed beginning with objects in the bride’s trousseau and continuing with houses, estates, animals, and Gypsy families. The same model is found in Poland too. See Andrzej Pośpiech ‘Majątek osobisty szlachcica w świetle wielkopolskich pośmiertnych inwentarzy ruchomości z XVII w.’, Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 29/4 (1981), 465. My thanks to Michał Wasiucionek for this information and for translating the text.

46

On the Ottoman elite’s appetite for expensive Indian textiles and cashmere shawls, see Faroqhi, op. cit., 175.

47

In recent years, testaments have attracted increasing interest on the part of researchers. This has led to the publication of a considerable number of testaments.

48

See Daniel H. Kaiser’s study, in which he considers that testaments are a good instrument for observing the improvement of women’s status in relation to property and inheritance rights. Daniel H. Kaiser, ‘Gender, Property, and Testamentary Behavior: Eighteenth-Century Moscow Wills’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 28, 1–4 (2006), 161–170.

49

Anna Bellavitis, Beatrice Zucca Michelettoo (eds.), Gender, Law and Economic Well-Being in Europe from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century. North Versus South? (Abington: 2018).

50

Margarida Durães, Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux, Llorenç Ferrer, Jan Kok (eds.), The Transmission of Well-Being: Gendered Marriage Strategies and Inheritance Systems in Europe (17th–20th) Centuries (Bern–Berlin–Bruxelles–Frankfurt am Main–New York–Oxford–Vienna: 2009), 6.

51

Bucur, ‘To Have and to Hold’.

52

Maria N. Todorova, Balkan Family Structure and the European Pattern. Demographic Developments in Ottoman Bulgaria (Budapest, New York: 2006); Haris Exertzoglou, ‘The Cultural Uses of Consumption: Negotiating Class, Gender, and Nation in the Ottoman Urban Centers during the 19th Century’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 35 (2003), 77–101; Rossitsa Gradeva, ‘On “Frenk” Objects in Everyday Life in Ottoman Balkans: the case of Sofia, Mid-17th–mid-18th Centuries’, in Siomnetta Cavaciocchi (ed.), Europe’s Economic Relations with the Islamic World 13th–18th Centuries (Florence: 2007), 769–799.

53

Bucur, op. cit., 601–628.

54

For another example, see Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, ‘“Curls and Forelocks”: Romanian Women’s Emancipation in Consumption and Fashion, 1780–1850’, in Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu (ed.), Women, Consumption, and the Circulation of Ideas in South-Eastern Europe, 17th–19th Centuries (Leiden: 2017), 124–150; Anastasia Falierou, ‘European Fashion, Consumption Patterns, and Intercommunal Relations in 19th-Century Ottoman Istanbul’, ibid., 150–168; Nicoleta Roman, ‘Women in Merchant Families, Women in Trade in Mid-19th Century Romanian Countries’ in ibid., 169–199.

55

On the relation between women and consumption see Leora Auslander, ‘Culture matérielle, histoire du genre et des sexualités’, Clio. Histoire des femmes, 40 (2014), 171–195.

56

See also Anastasia Falierou, ‘Urban Transformation of the Mytilenian Bourgeoisie: The Case of the Kourtzis Family’, Revista Istorică, XXIX, 1–2 (2018), 141–161.

57

See the example of the Dudescu family (wife Maria Cantemir, son Nicolae and daughter Zoe) who went into exile in Mytilene, accompanying the grand ban Constantin Dudescu: Cantacuzino, Genealogia, 131. See also the correspondence between different branches of the Manu family exiled to Zila after 1821 and those who remained in Bucharest. The letters are preserved in a fonds—Documente Istorice—of the Library of the Romanian Academy.

58

See the project ‘The European Spa as a Transnational Public Space and Social Metaphor’: https://www.theeuropeanspa.eu/team/index.html.

59

Wendy Bracewell, Alex Drace-Francis, (eds.), Balkan Departures. Travel Writing from Southeastern Europe (New York: 2009); Wendy Bracewell (ed.), Orientations. An Anthology of East European Travel Writing, ca. 1550–2000 (Budapest: 2009); Matei Cazacu, Des Femmes sur les routes de l’Orient. Le voyage à Constantinople au XVIIIe–XIXe siècles (Genève: 1999).

60

Evguenia Davidova, ‘Women Travellers as Consumers: Adoption of Modern Ideas and Practices in 19th Southeast Europe’, in Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu (ed.), Women, Consumption and the Circulation of Ideas in South-Eastern Europe, 17th–19th Century (Leiden: 2018), 201.

61

Constantin Ghica was kept under supervision, and it had been proposed that he be expelled from Vienna, accused of spreading false rumours about an imminent war. With him was the merchant (become Russian counsellor) Grigore Cariboglu. The latter was Elena Glogoveanu’s banker. ANIC, Microfilme Austria, Rola 99, c. 586–602, 620–626, 11 March 1817, 24 June 1817, 10 July 1817.

62

Françoise Knopper, ‘Le cosmopolitisme viennois’, Dix-Huitième Siècle, 25 (1993), 129–151; David Do Paço, ‘A case of urban integration: Vienna’s port area and the Ottoman merchants in the eighteenth century’, Urban History, 48, 3 (2020), 1–19.

63

Gontier de Paifal, Nouveau Guide de Vienne pour les étrangers et les nationaux (1800), cited by Knopper, op. cit., 131.

64

See the letter of Hristodulos Ghirlakidis, baron de Langenfeld to Nicolae Glogoveanu, Vienna 16/28 June 1814, published in Arhivele Olteniei, XV (1936), 391–395.

65

Arhivele Olteniei, XV (1936), 391–395.

66

Arhivele Olteniei, XV (1936), 391–395.

67

On the importance of the French language and the appetite for culture, see also the analysis proposed by Michelle Lamarche Marrese regarding the Russian nobility and ‘westernisation’. She shows that Peter the Great’s reforms were slow to take effect, especially among the elite. The use of French and the enthusiasm for European culture and luxury, visible especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, did not lead to a rejection of ‘native tradition’. Michelle Lamarche Marrese, ‘“The Poetics of Everyday Behavior” Revisited: Lotman, Gender, and the Evolution of Russian Noble Identity’, Kritika: Exploration in Russian and Eurasian History 11, 4 (2010), 701–739.

68

On 19 March 1804, the French teacher Bonnet Pavillon and Constantin Ghica went to court over unpaid fees. Urechia, Istoria românilor, vol. 8, 456–467. See also Drace-Francis, Making, 49.

69

Auguste Marie Blathasard Charles Pelletier comte de Lagarde, Voyage de Moscou à Vienne par Kiew, Odessa, Constantinople, Bucharest et Hermanstadt, ou Lettres adressées à Jules Griffith, par le comte de Lagarde (Paris: Strasbourg: 1824), 321–322, 324.

70

BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, CCCXXX/192. She is not alone in complaining of the ‘expensive living’ in the European capitals. In the same period, the boyar Iancu Balş wrote about how expensive it was to live in Vienna (BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, MCLXXIX/188, 13 July 1812), while another boyar complained about the cost of living in Geneva (BAR, Fond Documente istorice, DCCCXXVI/120, 9 January 1829).

71

BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, CCCXXX/205, 206, the two letters of 10 January 1814.

72

Bar, Fond Documente Istorice, CCCXXX/193, letter (in Greek) from Alexandru Villara, 28 November 1813. For Elena Glogoveanu’s undated reply, in which she tells him that she will attend to the purchase of the carriage as soon as she is given more details, see Nicolae Iorga (ed.), ‘Scrisori inedite ale lui Tudor Vladimirescu din anii 1814–1815’, Analele Academiei Române. Memoriile Secţiunii Istorice, XXXVII (1914), 147–148.

73

BAR, Fond Documente Istorice, CCCXXX/192.

74

Iorga, ‘Scrisori inedite’, 136, 28 December 1814, Pesta.

75

On this episode, see Emil Vârtosu, Mărturii noi din viaţa lui Tudor Vladimirescu (Bucharest: 1941); Andrei Oţetea, Tudor Vladimirescu şi mişcarea eteristă în ţările româneşti, 1821–1822 (Bucharest: 1945), 103–108.

76

Iorga, ‘Scrisori inedite’, 127, 18 June 1814, Viena.

77

Iorga, ‘Scrisori inedite’, 135, 25 November 1814, Vienna. See also the letter of 15 March 1815 containing a list of expenses incurred in Vienna for the upkeep of Masinca and of the servants, and for the progress of the trial. Iorga, ‘Scrisori inedite’, 141–145.

78

Iorga, ‘Scrisori inedite’, 136, 28 December 1814, Pesta.

79

Nicolae Iorga (ed.), Scrisori de boieri şi negustori olteni şi munteni către casa de negoţ sibiiană Hagi Popp (Bucharest: 1906).

80

Leora Auslander, ‘The Gendering of Consumer Practices in Nineteenth-Century France’, in Victoria DeGrazia, Ellen Furlough (eds.), The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (California: 1996), 83.

81

Iorga, ‘Scrisori inedite’, 137, 140, where Theodor Vladimirescu writes to him that he has bought ‘boxes of balsams’ at 350 florints, which were highly praised and much sought-after in Vienna.

82

BAR, Fond Manuscrise Ms 893 and 894. For an analysis of these manuscripts, see Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, Patimă şi desfătare, 38–65. For domestic consumption as the woman’s responsibility, see Davidova, op. cit, 306; Carol E. Harrison, The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France. Gender, Sociability, and the Uses of Emulation (Oxford: 1999), 13.

83

Haris Exertzoglou ‘The Cultural Uses of Consumption: Negotiating Class, Gender, and Nation in the Ottoman Urban Centers during the 19th Century’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 35 (2003), 77.

84

Exertzoglou ‘The Cultural Uses of Consumption, 78.

85

The case of Maria Bogdan is an interesting one. Married to Teodor Balş, who became grand hatman of Moldavia, Maria is known for her ‘affair’ with Pushkin in 1821–1822 during his exile in Bessarabia. Euphrosine Dvoicenco, ‘I. Puškin et les Balsch à Kišinev’, Revue des Etudes Slaves, 18/1–2 (1938), 73–75. An intelligent woman and a good French-speaker, Maria often set out alone on journeys through Europe, on the pretext of caring for her health. Her prolonged and expensive absences led her husband to write to the Metropolitan of Moldavia, requesting his help to bring her home. Her itinerary—Cernăuţi (Chernivtsi), L’viv, Baden, Italy—may be reconstructed from her correspondence with relatives. See the document of 15 July 1842, Iaşi, published in Sturdza, Familiile boiereşti din Moldova şi Ţara Românească I, 295.

86

For this period see Şerban Papacostea, Oltenia sub stăpânire austriacă, 1718–1739 (Bucharest: 1998).

87

Radu Greceanu, Istoria domniei lui Constantin Basarab Brâncoveanu Voievod (1688–174), ed. Autora Ilieş, (Bucharest: 1970), 78.

88

Nicolae Iorga (ed.), Studii şi documente cu privire la istoria românilor (Bucharest: 1906), XVI, 77.

89

Stoicescu, Dicţionar, 113–114.

90

River in Vâlcea county.

91

ANIC, Fond Manuscrise, Ms 213, f. 14, 3 February 1743; published by Nicolae Iorga in Studii şi documente privitoare la istoria românilor (Bucharest: 1901), vol. III, 60–62. In the document, the sisters sign with the rank they held, ‘Smaranda grofina Bălăceanu, Maria Comitessa Bălăceanu, Ilinca comitessa Bălăceanu’.

92

Their mother, Ilinca Brezoianu, died shortly after in Sibiu. On the Bălăceanus, see also Paul Cernovodeanu, ‘Cronici de familie: Bălăcenii’, in Sturdza, Familiile boiereşti, I, 176–185.

93

Do Paço, ‘Women in Diplomacy’, 1–23; Kühnel, ‘“Minister-like cleverness’, 130–146.

94

To date, I have not succeeded in finding them in the inventory compiled by Irene Kubiska-Scharl and Michael Pölzl, Die Karrieren des Wiener Hofpersonals, 1711–1765, eine Darstellung anhan der Hofkalender und Hofparteienprotokolle (Vienna: 2013). Because of the current pandemic, research in the Vienna archives has not been possible.

95

Indreptarea legii, chapter 296, article 14, 282; Cartea Românească de Invăţătură, chapter 1& 14, 56.

96

Valentin Al. Georgescu, Bizanţul şi instituţiile româneşti până la mijlocul secolului al XVIII-lea (Bucharest: 1980), 228.

97

According to Neculce, the head of Constantin Bălăceanu was brought from Zărneşti, where he had been killed in battle, and allowed to hang for a year in the middle of his courtyard. See Neculce, Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei, 327.

98

George Potra (ed.), Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti (1594–1821) (Bucharest: 1961), 602–604, 10 April 1797, 603.

99

Alexandru G. Gălăşescu, Eforia spitalelor civile din Bucuresci (Bucharest: 1900), 206.

100

Ibid., 207. On 29 July 1748, the two Bălăceanu sisters were in Sibiu. One of them was to go to Bucharest, and the other to Brașov to recover a debt. With this in view, Baron von Platz asked the city of Brașov to help them. They are not specifically named, but merely referred to as ‘zweyen Graf-Balacsanichen Fräulen’. See Hurmuzaki, Documente, XV/2, 1679–1680.

101

Cantacuzino, Genealogia, 258. Manoil Manu died in 1740, and after the death of their son, Manolache (in 1749), Smaranda chose to become a nun under the name Samaria. She died in 1795. Her sisters too lived long lives. Maria died in 1797 and Elena in 1804.

102

On the activity of Heinrich Cristoph Freiherr von Penckler, see Rudolf Agstner, ‘“Mithin sind auch alle Gesandtschafts-Acten verbrannt”: Vom Teutschen Palais zum Trinitarier-Kloster. Zur Geschichte der k.k. Internuntiatur bei der Hohen Pforte, 1730–1799’, in Elmar Samsinger (ed.), Österreich in Istanbul III. K. (u.) K. Präsenz im Osmanischen Reich (Vienna: 2018), 82–113.

103

The reference is to the Treaty of Belgrade, 21 August 1739. See Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 83–128.

104

Hurmuzaki, Documente, VI, 604–605.

105

Hurmuzaki, Documente, VI, 606–607, 31 October 1748.

106

Paul D. McLean, The Art of the Network. Strategic Interaction and Patronage in Renaissance Florence (London: 2007), 4.

107

Gălăşescu, Eforia spitalelor, 207. The document was reconfirmed by Prince Matei Ghica on 1 February 1753 and Prince Scarlat Ghica on 9 July 1759, (Ibid., 237–260, 231).

108

Gheorghe Lazăr, ‘In umbra puterii. Negustori “prieteni ai domniei” şi destinul lor (Ţara Românească, secolul al XVII-lea)’, in Ovidiu Cristea, Gheorghe Lazăr (eds.), Vocaţia istoriei. Prinos Profesorului Şerban Papacostea (Brăila: 2008), 605–634.

109

On 7 January 1741, ‘Manda comitissa Balacsánka’ was at Scăieni and opened a law suit against Cristophoro Voicul of Braşov, from whom she had some debts to recover. Hurmuzaki, Documente, XV/2, 1672.

110

On 24 May 1713, in Luxemburg, Charles VI, conferred the title of noble of the Holy Roman Empire on Manu Apostol, as a reward for his loyalty and faithful service. See Constantin Giurescu, Nicolae Dobrescu (eds.), Documente şi regeste privitoare la Constantin Brâncoveanu (Bucharest: 1907), 242–244.

111

On the removal from power of his protector, Constantin Brâncoveanu, Apostol Manu had taken refuge in Transylvania. Here he entered the service of the Holy Roman Empire, which entrusted him with the mission of finding the wealth of Prince Brâncoveanu, which was rumoured to be immense. Lazăr, ‘In umbra puterii’, 632.

112

Hurmuzaki, Documente, VII, 1876, 20 June 1761, 24–25.

113

On 2 March 1754, the three countesses were together in Bucharest. See George Potra (ed.), Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti (1634–1800) (Bucharest: 1982), 200–201.

114

BAR, Ms 611, ff. 12v-13r; 18r-21r. Maria Bălăceanu drew up two documents: a letter of donation to her adoptive son, and her testament. Both have been preserved in several copies and were published form another fonds by Potra (ed.), Documente privitoare la istoria oraşului Bucureşti (1594–1821), 602–604, 13 March 1797, 10 April 1797.

115

Katrin Keller, ‘Ladies-in-Waiting at the Imperial Court of Vienna from 1550 to 1700: Structures, Responsibilities and Carrier Patterns’, in Nadine Akkerman, Birgit Houben (eds.), The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe (Leiden: 2013), 94–95.

116

Jeroen Duindam, Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe’s Dynastic Rivals, 1550–1780 (Cambridge: 2003), 223.

117

See also Katrin Keller, Hofdamen. Amtsträgerinnen im Wiener Hofstaat des 17. Jahrhunderts (Vienna: 2005).

118

On the organization of the court, see Jeroen Duindam, ‘Versailles, Vienna, and Beyond: Changing Views of Household and Government in Early Modern Europe’, in Jeroen Duindam, Tülay Artan, Metin Kunt (eds.), Royal Courts in Dynastic States and Empires. A Global Perspective (Leiden: 2011), 401–432.

119

Iorga, Studii, III, 62.

120

Iorga, Studii, III, 62–65, documents of 20 October 1784 and 10 August 1785.

121

Iorga, Studii, III, 64. Generalul Joseph Anton Franz Mittrowsky sought the advice of the imperial court as how to proceed in the case of the countess, who no longer lived in Brașov. On the new legislation concerning foreign subjects see Judson, The Habsburg Empire, 77.

122

The documents are numerous and present the three sisters in their patrimonial disputes with the others. See the documents published by Potra, Documente Bucureşti (1594–1821), 512, 535, 539–540, 546, 557, 575, 590; idem, Documente Bucureşti (1634–1800), 201, 202, 206, 389, 390, 391, 433, 411, 465, 468.

123

The situation is similar for other regions of Europe. See, in this connection, Feci, ‘Mobilité, droits et citoyenneté des femmes’, 47–72.

124

Potra, Documente Bucureşti (1594–1821), 602.

125

Many boyaresses claimed and received fiscal privileges, especially when they were widowed and took over both the patrimony and the administration of the house. See ANIC, Administrative vechi, ds. 2152c/1814, f. 132, 12 September 1814 and Administrative vechi, ds. 2203/1818, f. 513, 530v, 16 June 1818.

126

See Andreea-Roxana Iancu, ‘Adopter ou nourrir un enfant en Valachie, XVIIIe–XIXe siècles: norme et pratique. Etude de cas’, Méditerranées, 37 (2004), 237–277.

127

Potra, Documente Bucureşti (1594–1821), 603.

128

BAR, MS 611, f. 8r-8v, 8 February 1797.

129

BAR, MS 611, 21r, 3 August 1801.

130

The bibliography is extensive. I cite only Cynthia Lowenthal, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Eighteenth-Century Familiar Letter (Athens, GA and London: 2010); Angela Jianu, ‘Dora d’Istria: un dar făcut Europei’, in Violeta Barbu, Maria-Magdalena Székely, Kinga S. Tüdős, Angela Jianu, Grădina Rozelor. Femei din Moldova, Ţara Românească şi Transilvania (sec. XVII–XIX) (Bucharest: 2015), 331–339.

131

Do Paço, ‘Women in Diplomacy’, 5.

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Changing Subjects, Moving Objects

Status, Mobility, and Social Transformation in Southeastern Europe, 1700–1850

Series:  Balkan Studies Library, Volume: 31