Women and Power at the French Court, 1483-1563

Women and Power at the French Court, 1483-1563 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 at the early sixteenth-century French court. Spring-boarding from the burgeoning scholarship of gender, the political, and power in early modern Europe, the collection provides a perspective from the French court, from the reigns of Charles VIII to Henri II, a time when the French court was a renowned center of culture and at which women played important roles. Cross disciplinary in its perspectives, these essays by historians, art and literary scholars investigate the dynamic operations of gendered power in political acts, recognized status as queens and regents, ritualized behaviors such as gift-giving, educational coteries, and through social networking, literary and artistic patronage, female authorship, and epistolary strategies.

Susan Broomhall is Professor of Early Modern History at The University of Western Australia. She was a Foundation Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, and holds an ARC Future Fellowship within the Centre, researching the letters of Catherine de Médicis.

List of Figures, Notes on Contributors Susan Broomhall, In the Orbit of the King: Women, Power and Authority at the French Court, 1483-1563 I. CONCEPTUALIZING AND PRACTISING FEMALE POWER 1. Aubrée David-Chapy The Political, Symbolic and Courtly Power of Anne de France and Louise de Savoie: From the Genesis to the Glory of Female Regency 2. Tracy Adams Anne de France and Gift-Giving: The Exercise of Power 3. Laure Fagnart and Mary Beth Winn Louise de Savoie: The King's Mother, Alter Rex II. CENTRES AND PERIPHERIES OF POWER 4. Erin A. Sadlack Literary Lessons in Queenship and Power: Mary Tudor Brandon and the Authority of the Ambassador-Queen 5. Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier Claude de France and the Spaces of Agency of a Marginalized Queen 6. Lisa Mansfield Portraits of Eleanor of Austria: From Invisible to Inimitable French Queen Consort III. THE POWER OF CREATIVE VOICES 7. Cynthia J. Brown Family Female Networking in Early Sixteenth-Century France: The Power of Text and Image 8. Mawy Bouchard The Power of Reputation and Skills according to Anne de Graville: The Rondeaux and the Denunciation of Slander 9. Jonathan A. Reid Imagination and Influence: The Creative Powers of Marguerite de Navarre at Work at Court and in the World 10. Pollie Bromilow Power through Print: The Works of Hélisenne de Crenne IV. ECONOMIES OF POWER AND EMOTIONS 11. David Potter The Life and After-Life of a Royal Mistress: Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Etampes 12. Susan Broomhall The King and I: Rhetorics of Power in the Letters of Diane de Poitiers 13. Denis Crouzet Catherine de Médicis Tested by the Virtue of Charity (1533-1559): Discourse and Metadiscourse.