2009.6.A.2 - Photo Prompt
Ever since the Crusades, we good Christians of England have long been told strange and sometimes shocking tales of the Muslim world. For many of my subjects, the East is so far away and so removed from the realities of their own lives that the Holy Lands might as well be the stuff of fairy stories. But as a Prince of this realm, I know well where the fine silks and stones that so many of my Court are enamoured of might originate, and I have been taught the history of whence the black powder that fires our ships' cannons came.
So many of these Saracens' behaviours are, in the very least, so alien as to be off-putting to one raised in the civilised culture of the West. But I have come to understand that in certain southern parts of Spain, where only very narrow straits separate Europe from Africa, that a kind of coexistence has been reached between Spaniards and their Muslim... well, neighbours would be the most appropriate term, as unthinkable as that might be.
Many of the stories that were brought back by our valiant knights who ventured to those lands seem the stuff of campfire tales, meant to frighten children. But one idea has ever been a source of mild fascination, particularly since becoming King.
I speak of the "harem".
Descriptions of this institution do vary, especially so many years removed from the first European encounters with it, but the majority of reports do seem to agree on a few points. Muslim rulers, or Sultans, are apparently allowed to have as many mistresses as they see fit. While this is not really a novel concept, even here in the West, it seems that the Easterners are openly accepting, even expecting of it. I have come to understand that Muslim subjects understand that a man with the power to sit a throne is a man of great hungers, as well, and should be allowed to sate those hungers at will.
In the Sultan's palace, there exists a separate and all-but-sacred space reserved for the collection of female servants and mistresses whose company the Sultan enjoys. This place is referred to as a "harem", and the women who reside within it are the absolute property of their master. These women live in luxury and are cared for and protected as if they were royal treasure, and are bound to serve and service the Sultan when demanded. They live easy, happy lives of pleasure.
(Indeed, a few of the more scandalous descriptions seem to indicate that the women of the harem, forbidden the touch of any man but the Sultan, were also known to... enjoy one another's company. Quite shocking. And, I confess further, intriguing.)
The Sultan's wife, the Queen of the Palace, is given the responsibility of managing the harem. It is she who commands the women, and sees to their well-being and discipline. It is she who ensures their compliance and humility, and their training in proper service to their Sultan. It is her dominion over which she exercises near-absolute authority, second only to the Sultan himself.
My world has changed. With Katherine's death now several weeks gone, the time is fast approaching when my realm will need a new Queen. It is then I will wed Anne Boleyn and raise her to the station I believe she was born to occupy, and to the throne I have promised her.
And given things Lady Anne has said to me in private, my thoughts also have been turning of late to this idea of "harem".
But first things are first, of course.
(604)
Muse: Henry Tudor
Fandom: The Tudors (AU)
Ever since the Crusades, we good Christians of England have long been told strange and sometimes shocking tales of the Muslim world. For many of my subjects, the East is so far away and so removed from the realities of their own lives that the Holy Lands might as well be the stuff of fairy stories. But as a Prince of this realm, I know well where the fine silks and stones that so many of my Court are enamoured of might originate, and I have been taught the history of whence the black powder that fires our ships' cannons came.
So many of these Saracens' behaviours are, in the very least, so alien as to be off-putting to one raised in the civilised culture of the West. But I have come to understand that in certain southern parts of Spain, where only very narrow straits separate Europe from Africa, that a kind of coexistence has been reached between Spaniards and their Muslim... well, neighbours would be the most appropriate term, as unthinkable as that might be.
Many of the stories that were brought back by our valiant knights who ventured to those lands seem the stuff of campfire tales, meant to frighten children. But one idea has ever been a source of mild fascination, particularly since becoming King.
I speak of the "harem".
Descriptions of this institution do vary, especially so many years removed from the first European encounters with it, but the majority of reports do seem to agree on a few points. Muslim rulers, or Sultans, are apparently allowed to have as many mistresses as they see fit. While this is not really a novel concept, even here in the West, it seems that the Easterners are openly accepting, even expecting of it. I have come to understand that Muslim subjects understand that a man with the power to sit a throne is a man of great hungers, as well, and should be allowed to sate those hungers at will.
In the Sultan's palace, there exists a separate and all-but-sacred space reserved for the collection of female servants and mistresses whose company the Sultan enjoys. This place is referred to as a "harem", and the women who reside within it are the absolute property of their master. These women live in luxury and are cared for and protected as if they were royal treasure, and are bound to serve and service the Sultan when demanded. They live easy, happy lives of pleasure.
(Indeed, a few of the more scandalous descriptions seem to indicate that the women of the harem, forbidden the touch of any man but the Sultan, were also known to... enjoy one another's company. Quite shocking. And, I confess further, intriguing.)
The Sultan's wife, the Queen of the Palace, is given the responsibility of managing the harem. It is she who commands the women, and sees to their well-being and discipline. It is she who ensures their compliance and humility, and their training in proper service to their Sultan. It is her dominion over which she exercises near-absolute authority, second only to the Sultan himself.
My world has changed. With Katherine's death now several weeks gone, the time is fast approaching when my realm will need a new Queen. It is then I will wed Anne Boleyn and raise her to the station I believe she was born to occupy, and to the throne I have promised her.
And given things Lady Anne has said to me in private, my thoughts also have been turning of late to this idea of "harem".
But first things are first, of course.
(604)
Muse: Henry Tudor
Fandom: The Tudors (AU)