Conferences & Workshops

CfP: Married, rejected, banished: divorced women of high nobility 1600-1850

Date: 28 - 30 September 2026
Organisation: Corinna Dziudzia (Wolfenbüttel), Markus Meumann (Gotha)

1826 - a union and a separation

The year 1826 marks a decisive turning point in European dynastic history: In November of that year, the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was created by the Treaty of Hildburghausen, whose ruling house established family ties with a large number of ruling princely houses through a skilful marriage policy in the 19th and early 20th centuries and ascended to the throne in several European countries. The birth of the ducal house was already based on a marriage, the marriage of Duke Ernst of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1784-1844) to Princess Luise of Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg (1800-1831), the daughter of the penultimate Duke of Gotha, August, which took place in 1817 for political reasons. Although this union was essential for the Coburg line to assert itself against the other Ernestine houses, Ernst I divorced his wife in the very year the new duchy was founded. Two years earlier, Luise had already been banished to St. Wendel in the Principality of Lichtenberg (in today's Saarland), separated from her two sons, with whom she was no longer allowed to have any contact.

The conference planned jointly by the Gotha Research Centre and the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel is the first to systematically examine such cases of divorced women of high nobility from the 16th to the early 19th century on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the creation of the new duchy. In addition to well-known examples such as the English Queen Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), the Hanoverian electoral princess Sophie Dorothea (1666-1726), who became famous as the "Princess of Ahlden", or the Danish Queen Caroline Mathilde (1751-1775), there are numerous other cases that have so far received little or no attention from historical research. These include one of Luise's contemporaries: Elisabeth Christine Ulrike von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1746-1840) was divorced from her husband Frederick William II of Prussia in 1769 and exiled to Stettin, where she spent the remaining 70 years of her life.

Individual cases received media attention as 'tragic women's fates'; even at the time, these were sometimes highly discursive events that were discussed in pamphlets, newspapers or on medals. However, the underlying motives and contexts, such as the complex legal aspects of marriages with connotations of domination and power politics that become visible in these separations, have not yet been comprehensively analysed.

The aim of the conference is therefore to systematically analyse various similar examples of women from the high nobility who were repudiated and/or whose marriages ended in divorce. Of equal relevance are attempted divorces and the reasons why these did not ultimately take place. Why were divorces attempted? Which actors were involved? Who intervened and on whose side? How were the respective legal-historical or legal arguments put forward in detail? Did the separation also become a media topic? To what extent did the women concerned express themselves in letters or literature?

The analysis will focus on cases from the two lines of the House of Wettin and the House of Guelph, but the conference is expressly not limited to these. Case studies from other European countries can also be informative, as can contributions from other disciplines, for example from a theological, legal-historical or literary perspective. Proposals for presentations of approx. 25 minutes in length should be sent to markus.meumann@uni-erfurt.de and dziudzia@hab.de by 30 April 2026.

 

Literature (selection):

Baumann, Anette; Inken Schmidt-Voges; Siegrid Westphal: Venus und Vulcanus. Ehen und ihre Konflikte in der Frühen Neuzeit, Munich 2011.

Gäde, Katrin: Umstrittenes Eherecht. Handlungsstrategien und Aushandlungsprozesse in Ehescheidungsverfahren adliger Paare vom 18. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, in: Frühneuzeit-Info 26 (2015), pp. 142–151.

Iffert, Katrin: Gescheiterte Ehen im Adel. Trennung und Scheidung des Herzogpaares Alexius Friedrich Christian und Marie Friederike zu Anhalt-Bernburg (1794–1817), in: Eva Labouvie (Hrsg.): Adel in Sachsen-Anhalt, Cologne2007, pp. 9–122.

Lettmaier, Saskia: Spouses, Church, and State. Marriage Law in England and Protestant Germany from the Reformation until the Close of the Nineteenth Century, Tübingen 2025.

Walther, Stefanie: Die (Un-)Ordnung der Ehe. Normen und Praxis ernestinischer Fürstenehen in der frühen Neuzeit, Munich 2011.