Public Lecture by Svante Norrhem

Everyday Life in a 17th Century Swedish Aristocratic Household

A public lecture by Svante Norrhem, Associate Professor of History at Lund University and 2019 UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Visiting Fellow.

A European 17th Century aristocratic household consisted of a variety of members. There was the noble family itself but also numerous servants of different rank, of which many lived in the same house as the family.

In this lecture the audience will be given a tour through a house in Stockholm: we will “look at” how the rooms were decorated, which items could be found in which rooms and think about what kind of sound, light, smell and taste people at the time would have experienced. We will “meet” with the people who lived and worked in the house: who were they, what were their chores, what did they talk about and what were their future prospects?

Associate Professor Norrhem began his career at Umeå University where he received his doctoral degree in 1994. Since 2014 he has been Associate Professor of History at Lund University. His research focuses on early modern women´s and gender history, LGBT history, and lately, the history of diplomacy. He has published six monographs on women and gender in early modern Swedish history and, most recently, Flattering Alliances. Scandinavia, diplomacy and the Austrian-French balance of power, 1648-1740, Lund 2013, with Peter Lindström. With Professor James Daybell (Plymouth), he has received funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to create networks between gender scholars and museum professionals to enhance gender and LGBT interpretation and curation, working closely with Skarhult Castle (Scania), the V&A (London) and the Vasa Museum (Stockholm).