Guardianship as Basis for Political Rule

Abstract

Pauline Puppel’s text is an impressive and very conscientiously documented work on the guardianship regency of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She describes both the general legal situation in the empire of the time as well as the specific applicable cases in Hesse, where between 1500 and 1700 a regional countess became the regent of her land as the Prince’s guardian. This case is exemplary for a form of political rule of women that was possible, and not even seldom, during the early modern period, a fact which has not been adequately contended with till now. Puppel’s examination is divided into two main sections. The first section (“Legal Rules and Regulations,” 34-143) attends to the contemporary legal framework of guardianship and regency carried out by women. The second section (“The Regional Countess of Hesse as Regent,” 144-307) deals with the manner in which these regulations were adhered to using the concrete example of the life and regency of the ruling regional countess of Hesse.