PRINCESS HURREM IS ACCUSED OF WITCHCRAFT

People could accept that Roxelana, who was called Princess Hurrem, might be a crafty woman, a seductive woman, who Suleyman had come to love, perhaps because she had excellent sexual skills. Or perhaps she had mastered the politics of the harem and was manipulative and conniving.  No doubt this marriage ended the hopes and dreams of some other women. However, that the Sultan had actually married her led some to think it was more, that she was a witch who used magical spells to claim him for herself. (Page 146)

"Perhaps not surprisingly, similar tales of the rustic female witch existed in the Ruthenian land of Roxelana's birth, at least in the eyes of the inhabitant's Polish overlords." (Page 147)

There was no evidence of her guilt.

She had been captured at 13 and had entered the harem at 17.  She had caught his eye. It was his choice. He was not a weak man.

She focused on being a good mother to her children.

She gave him a real, nuclear family.

She wrote him letters when he was in battle, so he did not forget her.

She used her station to do good works.

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

Empress of the East by Leslie Pierce is the reference for this post.

VERONICA FRANCO'S CONFESSION TO THE COURT from the film DANEROUS BEAUTY

YOUTUBE VIDEO REPLACED OCTOBER 2017 

Michael Asinow 1998 UCLA Law School   discusses the film which he says was "loosely based on the book by Margaret Rosenthal.

EXCERPT:

The film correctly reflects the difference in lifestyles between successful courtesans and wives of rich men. Wives were cloistered creatures without education or financial independence, their life devoted entirely to home and family. Courtesans, on the other hand, could mingle freely with the rich and famous, acquire education and wealth of their own, participate in literary, political and intellectual circles, and even publish their work.

Franco was incredibly successful in this milieu; between 1570 and 1580, she edited works of various authors and published books of her poetry as well as epistolary works. She was greatly concerned with the plight of younger women who lacked dowries; her published letters often refer to their plight and her wills left money to help poor women.

Franco’s success inspired extreme jealousy from male courtiers and poets whose position and patronage she greatly threatened. As in the film, a particularly venomous rival was Maffio Venier, a nephew of Franco’s patron Domenico Venier. Maffio repeatedly attacked Franco by name in satirical and often obscene verse. Franco’s poems and letters effectively strike back at Maffio and defend the role of courtesans in Venetian society...

VERONICA FRANCO : 16TH CENTURY POET WRITER COURTESAN OF VENICE : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH FEBRUARY 2015

This painting of Veronica Franco is attributed

to the artist Tintoretto

VERONICA FRANCO

1546-1591
Venice, Italy

 

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Her mother, Paola Fracassa, had been a courtesan before she was married.  When Veronica left her marriage to a Doctor Panizza, a marriage which her mother had arranged, and not long after she married him, Veronica became a courtesan too.  In the seaport that was 16th century Venice, out of a population of about 100,000, some estimate that there were 10,000 - 11,000 prostitutes.  How many of these were elevated to the status of Courtesan? 

 

Well, a woman's reputation and social standing were better if she was married or protected by the politicians, and yes some of those prostitutes and Courtesans were married women.  It was sex work but being a Courtesan was a way of being and living that wasn't just about the sex.  The politicians who made the rules and the laws were intently interested in the place of women in their society, while no doubt some of them took advantage of their position.  Venice had always been a seaport town, a place of trade, and poorer women didn't have the opportunities for marriage that richer women did.  To marry a noble or aristocrat a woman had to have a dowry that would impress his family.  Veronica's mother, though married and thus ending her days as a woman who could be respected, had still scraped together a dowry for her daughter, and clearly Veronica was not the recipient of an inheritance that might have allowed her to write without being a Courtesan.

 

In 1542 authorities determined that a Meretrice was a woman who was either not married at all, sexually active with one or more men (like many women are today), or married but not living with her husband, while a Cortigiana, was well, a woman who accepted patronage, money, gifts, from men for sex, though this could be one man or many, and she could be living with her husband.

 

In her fertile years, Veronica Franco gave birth to six children by six different men, three who lived past infancy and her husband was not father to any of them.  To me the fact that three of her children died is telling.  Though one of the children is said to have been fathered by a nobleman from one of the most powerful families in the city,  it is not known if any of her children made it to adulthood to help her in her old age when she struggled financially.  During her best years in which she had achieved fast upward mobility due to the quality of her patrons, Veronica was wealthy and not only supporting the children but herself and a large household that included tutors for the children and servants, and she was writing and publishing poetry and literature, mingling with the artists, politicians, and other mostly male poets, asking for work as an editor, and giving handouts to the poorer prostitutes who were worn out. 

 

By being an artist and poet and openly competing with men for public work and patronage,  unlike a submissive wife, Veronica was able to speak her mind among the intelligencia, and her way with words and her honesty is what saved her.  She was judged honest by men in her dealings with them in the sex trade and she was able to elevate her reputation through intelligence and talent. When Venice was in a decline, which some religious authorities blamed on its evil, as evidenced by it's prostitution, Veronica Franco was called to defend herself by the frightening Inquisition.  In 1580 she was accused of performing incantations in her house and being a heretic.  Denounced as a witch, Veronica got free by not denying what she was, thus she has been called "The Honest Courtesan."

 

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