The Politics of female households : : ladies-in-waiting across early modern Europe / / edited by Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben.

• TeilnehmendeR: Akkerman, Nadine.; Houben, Birgit.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : BRILL,, [2013]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Rulers & elites; Rulers & Elites 4.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (441 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

The Politics of Female Households is the first collection that seeks to integrate ladies-in-waiting into the master narrative of early modern court studies. Presenting evidence and analysis of the multifarious ways in which ‘women above stairs’ shaped the European courts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it argues for a re-assessment of their political influence. The cultural agency of ladies-in-waiting is viewed in the reflection of portraiture, pamphlets and masques: their political dealings and patronage are revealed through analysis of letters, family networks, career patterns, gift exchange and household structures, as well as their activities in the fields of intelligence-gathering and espionage. By concentrating on a previously neglected area of female agency, this collection demonstrates clearly that the political climate of Europe was often shaped outside the male-dominated institutions of government and administration. Contributors include: Helen Graham-Matheson, Hannah Leah Crummé, Katrin Keller, Vanessa de Cruz, Birgit Houben, Dries Raeymaekers, Janet Ravenscroft, Una McIlvenna, Rosalind K. Marshall, Oliver Mallick, Cynthia Fry, Nadine Akkerman, Sara J. Wolfson, Fabian Persson, and Jeroen Duindam.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction / Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben -- Petticoats and Politics: Elisabeth Parr and Female Agency at the Early Elizabethan Court / Helen Graham-Matheson -- Jane Dormer’s Recipe for Politics: A Refuge Household in Spain for Mary Tudor’s Ladies-in-Waiting / Hannah Leah Crummé -- Ladies-in-Waiting at the Imperial Court of Vienna from 1550 to 1700: Structures, Responsibilities and Career Patterns / Katrin Keller -- “In service to my Lady, the Empress, as I have done every other day of my life”: Margarita of Cardona, Baroness of Dietrichstein and Lady-in-Waiting of Maria of Austria / Vanessa de Cruz Medina -- Women and the Politics of Access at the Court of Brussels: The Infanta Isabella’s Camareras Mayores (1598–1633) / Birgit Houben and Dries Raeymaekers -- Dwarfs—and a Loca—as Ladies’ Maids at the Spanish Habsburg Courts / Janet Ravenscroft -- ‘A Stable of Whores’? The ‘Flying Squadron’ of Catherine de Medici / Una McIlvenna -- In Search of the Ladies-in-Waiting and Maids of Honour of Mary, Queen of Scots: A Prosoprographical Analysis of the Female Household / Rosalind K. Marshall -- Clients and Friends: The Ladies-in-Waiting at the Court of Anne of Austria (1615–66) / Oliver Mallick -- Perceptions of Influence: The Catholic Diplomacy of Queen Anna and Her Ladies, 1601–1604 / Cynthia Fry -- The Goddess of the Household: The Masquing Politics of Lucy Harington-Russell, Countess of Bedford / Nadine Akkerman -- The Female Bedchamber of Queen Henrietta Maria: Politics, Familial Networks and Policy, 1626–40 / Sara J. Wolfson -- Living in the House of Power: Women at the Early Modern Swedish Court / Fabian Persson -- The Politics of Female Households: Afterthoughts / Jeroen Duindam -- Bibliography -- Index.