Letters of Widowed Sisters. Sibling Relationships in the Early Modern Austrian Nobility (working title)

Claudia Rapberger's sub-project deals with the question of how sibling relationships were expressed in letters. She focuses in particular on the relationships between widowed sisters and their brothers. In the context of the project as a whole, questions about forms of kinship organisation and the distribution of wealth, which particularly concern sibling relationships in the 17th century, are relevant for sub-project II. The significance of wealth for family members in different phases of life and situational contexts is under investigation. This is linked to the question of the extent to which financial situation and the transfer and arrangement of wealth influenced the correspondences between siblings. In this context, the analysis also focuses on how the unequal treatment of siblings was addressed, negotiated or compensated in the context of wealth. One focus lies on reconstructing the personal initiatives of individual actors against or in addition to the actions of the family. This makes it possible to visualise the scope for action as well as the opportunities for participation of actors - especially widowed sisters - in the family's handling of property and power. 

Previous research on the relationships of noble siblings has tended to focus on structural aspects, characterising them primarily through differentiating categories such as 'gender' or 'birth order'. In contrast, the project adopts a new perspective by considering the relationships as situational and dynamic, and by exploring the positioning of widowed sisters. In order to work out these relationship dynamics, four sister-brother sibling pairs make the center of the investigation: Anna Maria von Breuner born Trauttmansdorff (1583-1642) and Maximilian von Trauttmansdorff (1584-1650), Maximiliana von Scherffenberg born Harrach (1608-1661) and Franz Albrecht von Harrach (1614-1666), Maria Anna von Waldburg-Zeil(-Wurzach) born Lamberg (1659-1721) and Leopold Joseph von Lamberg (1653-1706), and Therese von Orlik born Starhemberg (1708-1783) and Heinrich von Starhemberg (1712-1765).