Women and Power at the French Court, 1483-1563 (Gendering the Late Medieval and Early Modern World)

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. "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. Crossdisciplinary 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"--Provided by publisher This work 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.

This edited book examines how Chinese women negotiate the Internet to empower themselves and the tensions and conflicts that arise out of this use.