Women and Power at the French Court, 1483-1563 / edited by Susan Broomhall.

• Author: Broomhall, Susan
• TeilnehmendeR: Broomhall, Susan,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Amsterdam University Press,, [2018]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Gendering the late medieval and early modern world.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (385 pages).

This book explores the ways in which a range of women-as consorts, regents, mistresses, factional power players, attendants at court, or as objects of courtly patronage-wielded power in order to advance individual, familial, and factional agendas in the early sixteenth-century French court. Spring boarding from the burgeoning scholarship of gender, the political, and power in early modern Europe, the book provides a perspective from the French court, from the reigns of Charles VIII to Henri II, a time at which the French court was a glittering centre of culture and which women are understood to have played increasingly important roles. Cross-disciplinary in its perspectives, these essays by historians, art and literary scholars cohesively investigate the dynamic operations of gendered power in political acts, recognised status as queens and regents, ritualised behaviors such as gift-giving, educational coteries, courtly household organisation, and social networking, literary and artistic patronage, female authorship, and epistolary strategies.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures -- In the Orbit of the King / Broomhall, Susan -- Part I: Conceptualizing and Practicing Female Power -- 1. The Political, Symbolic, and Courtly Power of Anne de France and Louise de Savoie / Chapy, Aubrée David- -- 2. Anne de France and Gift-Giving / Adams, Tracy -- 3. Louise de Savoie / Fagnart, Laure / Winn, Mary Beth -- Part II: Centers and Peripheries of Power -- 4. Literary Lessons in Queenship and Power / Sadlack, Erin A. -- 5. Claude de France and the Spaces of Agency of a Marginalized Queen / Chevalier, Kathleen Wilson- -- 6. Portraits of Eleanor of Austria / Mansfield, Lisa -- Part III: The Power of Creative Voices -- 7. Family Female Networking in Early Sixteenth-Century France / Brown, Cynthia J. -- 8. The Power of Reputation and Skills according to Anne de Graville / Bouchard, Mawy -- 9. Imagination and Influence / Reid, Jonathan A. -- 10. Power through Print / Bromilow, Pollie -- Part IV: Economies of Power and Emotions -- 11. The Life and After-Life of a Royal Mistress / Potter, David -- 12. 'The King and I' / Broomhall, Susan -- 13. Catherine de Médicis Tested by the Virtue of Charity (1533-1559) / Crouzet, Denis -- Index