Women and Power at the French Court offers a comprehensive view of the exercise of female power in France and beyond from 1483 to 1574, paying particular attention to how women shaped courtly ideals, artistic and literary developments, diplomacy, religious reform, and female regencies. Its argument is exceptionally cohesive for an edited volume because the women it addresses participated in overlapping networks of culture and power. Individual chapters highlight these interconnections through a shared attention to courtly women's letters, education, participation in the production and circulation of books, and patronage of artists. Structured to foster dialogue among each of the nuanced and detailed individual chapters, the volume invites the reader to join a spirited and enthusiastic discussion about the methods and evidence central to the study of powerful women in late medieval and early modern Europe. At the same time, the masterful introduction by Susan Broomhall, as well as the inclusion of individual chapter bibliographies, allows the volume to serve as an entry to the field for any who are interested and willing to read attentively.

Surveying the most significant research on the topic since the 1980s, Broomhall's introduction establishes clearly that women's "involvement in high politics and religious movements, financial transactions, ritual and ceremonies, epistolary exchanges, creative composition and translations, emotional self-management, development of networks of sociability, and sartorial, artistic, and architectural engagements as forms of power" earned them "recognition as significant political actors in their own right" (13). The diversity of the power-seeking actions noted by Broomhall illustrates both the complexity of the court community and its ability to disseminate "its culture and ideologies to a wider populace both physically on progress and in ceremonial entries," as well as "in visual and textual terms" (14). [1]

Indeed, drawing upon her own extensive scholarship on women and gender in late medieval and early modern Europe, the theoretical approaches to power of Foucault and Giddens (20), as well as arguments dismantling the public/private distinction found in sociological, anthropological, and gender theory (21), Broomhall proposes a methodology that focuses on courtly women's "activities and actions, political, religious, creative, literary, social, and emotional" as a means of discerning more clearly women's agency and authority (21). Doing so overcomes the anachronistic gendering of power that feminist scholarship has long critiqued for falsely obscuring from the modern researcher's view the contributions that medieval and early modern women made to politics, culture, and religion. [2] These theoretical commitments reveal the scope of the volume's contribution, which extends far beyond demonstrating the centrality of royal and aristocratic women to early modern politics and religious reform.

The volume's first section, "Conceptualizing and Practicing Female Power," begins with Aubrée David-Chapy's chapter comparing the authentication strategies employed by the powerful regents Anne de France (1461-1522) and Louise de Savoie (1476-1531). David-Chapy suggests that Anne's "government prefigured that of Louise," providing "both practical and theoretical principles for its establishment" (46). While both women relied upon their proximity to the king to authenticate their claims to rule (47-49), they also established strong networks through the judicious use of favors, gifts, and letters (49-51), as well as the oversight and education of increasingly larger circles of women (56-58). These female courtly circles were presented as schools of wisdom and prudence reflecting the virtue of their mistresses (51-56) and the praise of contemporary authors attests to their rhetorical success (53).

The chapters that immediately follow elaborate upon and illuminate David-Chapy's conclusions. Tracy Adams argues that while embracing the traditional male practice of building loyalty through gift-giving allowed Anne de France to out-maneuver those who contested her authority (68-69), Anne also practiced a "specifically female gift-giving within female networks" (69) as a means of "creating personal bonds of affection" (74). Adams argues that Anne was able to use these bonds to encourage the women in her network to cooperate with her and to influence those in close proximity to them on her behalf (74-79). Fagnart and Winn, noting that "Louise de Savoie was the first woman to have been officially appointed regent when she was neither daughter nor wife of a king" (87), explore how Louise emphasized her status as "an eternal widow, entirely devoted to her son, now the king" (88), as a "political act" (90). Calling attention to her status as widow allowed Louise to present herself as head of the family in the place of her husband and also to associate herself with "other exemplary widows of history" and their "qualities of wisdom, virtue, chastity" (90). This effacement of her own body and interests allowed Louise to represent the heroic and divine through a range of figures including Latona (the mother of Apollo and Diana), the Virgin Mary, Blanche of Castile (the celebrated mother of Louis IX of France), the biblical heroines Judith and Ester, Pallas Athena, and the personified virtue Prudence.

Together, these three chapters demonstrate that the authority exercised by Anne and Louise resulted from their successful pursuit of power in auspicious circumstances rather than from fortune alone. This conclusion is strengthened by the volume's later chapters demonstrating the use of similar strategies by politically marginalized women like the two wives of François I (1494-1547): Claude de France (1499-1524), and Eleanor of Austria (1498-1558). As Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier argues, Claude insisted on ceremonial precedence (147), earned widespread admiration by cultivating the perception that she was a humble and charitable queen and duchess (147-151), and served as an important contact for those seeking to oppose the policies of the king and his mother, such as Venetian diplomats (151-153), representatives of the papacy (153), and advocates for religious reform (159). Similarly, Eleanor found ways to preserve her dignity despite the public favor and precedence given to François' mistress, Anne de Pisseleu. As Lisa Mansfield demonstrates, Eleanor did so by emphasizing her Hapsburg lineage and status in the portraits she commissioned of herself and by skillfully employing "Spanish-style clothing to proclaim her imperial allegiance" (181).

Similarly marginalized by the influence of her husband's mistress, Catherine de Médicis (1533-1559) gradually increased her power by drawing on her extensive Humanist education (362) to develop a self-effacing posture of prudence and to characterize the favors she requested of those more powerful than her as the demands of Christian charity (365-372). These strategies allowed Catherine to pursue influence while appearing neutral, a skill which, Denis Crouzet suggests, encouraged her husband Henri II (1519-1559) to appoint Catherine regent when he went to war (359). This strategy also allowed Catherine to portray herself as a force of moderation during the intensification of religious hostilities that plagued the reigns of her sons (372-374).

Even royal mistresses, who could claim a sexual and emotional influence over the king, carefully built and maintained networks of wealth and loyalty as a means of turning power that so intimately depended upon the king's favor and fortune into something more lasting. As David Potter explains, while as a royal mistress, Anne de Pisseleu (1508-1580) may have been particularly vulnerable to contemporary and later historians' tendency to associate female influence at court with corruption (311-318) and did suffer great losses upon the death of her royal protector (319-323), she "was able to fight back" (322) by mobilizing family networks, acquiring property, and sheltering Protestant activists. Despite Henri II's attempt to completely ruin his father's mistress, she "ended her life a moderately wealthy woman whose assets became a matter for ferocious competition among her relatives" (329). Similarly, Susan Broomhall explores how Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566) carefully built up her power during her relationship with Henri II (1519-1559) through extensive letter writing which emphasized her close proximity to the king (345), the acquisition of property and incomes (346), and "the marriage of her daughters and grand daughters into France's most powerful families" so that she had networks she could "activate through letters to assist her" when she was deprived of Henri's protection after his tragic death (349-350).

Taken together, these examples suggest that most elite women were prepared to exercise power if the opportunity arose and were also prepared to make opportunities for themselves to exercise influence of some sort if their circumstances limited their authority. Cynthia Brown demonstrates that this widespread preparation to rule was carefully cultivated through the gifting of books within circles of women, which extended beyond the borders of kingdoms as "foreign brides transported" books "with them to their new households" (210). Situating her study within the larger field of women's libraries and patronage of books (211-212), Brown focuses on artistic and textual portrayals of "the transmission of religious wisdom from mother to daughter" (234) in books gifted by Anne de France to her daughter Suzanne de Bourbon (1491-1521), Anne de Bretagne (1477-1514) to her daughter Claude de France, Louise de Savoie to her daughter Marguerite de Navarre (1514-1524), and Claude de France to her younger sister Renée de France (1510-1575), as well as in the printed editions that Suzanne de Bourbon and Jeanne d'Albret (1528-1572) commissioned of the works authored by their mothers, Anne de France and Marguerite de Navarre (215, 218-219). This practice of sharing wisdom as a means of recognizing bonds of affection between women was not limited to the French court. As Jonathan Reid observes, Elizabeth Tudor attempted to "win the favor of her step-mother, Catherine Parr (1512-1548)" by "translating Marguerite'sMirror," a text her late mother Anne Boleyn (d. 1536) had acquired through her connections at the French court. Like many of these works, Elizabeth's translation eventually won a much broader audience through print soon after her Protestant brother, Edward VI (1537-1553) began his reign (281).

All of these figures cultivated and benefitted from a widespread interest in the comportment and education of courtly women, inspired at least in part by the works of the medieval moralist and defender of women's virtue, Christine de Pizan (1364-1430). Indeed, as Erin Sadlack demonstrates, Christine's works were so popular that in addition to their widely attested presence in royal and aristocratic libraries they were also represented in at least two six-panel tapestries, which belonged to Margaret of Austria (1480-1530) and Anne de Bretagne (124-125). While Christine's well-known works shaped the correspondence and behavior of women like Mary Tudor Brandon (1496-1533) as she served as "an ambassador-queen occupying the liminal space between" France and England (120), other courtly women followed Christine's example of pursuing authorship as a means of asserting women's authority to intervene in the public realm.

For instance, Anne De Graville (c. 1490-c.1543) denounced courtly language which disguised seduction as tragic love and exposed women to malicious slander (242-244). As Mawy Bouchard explains, Anne rejected the "feminine power to inflict sudden and violent love passion," and instead sought to use the pursuit of Christian virtues as a means for courtly women to "intervene in the public sphere for the sake of the public good" (245). Jonathan Reid suggests that Marguerite de Navarre did just that. She pursued her own understanding of the public good by tirelessly promoting religious reform through close dialogue with the most influential French reformers; expressing her faith in prose and poetry; seeking the conversion of her brother, François I, and his mistress, Anne de Pisseleu; providing reformers with as much protection from the law and persecution as her extended network allowed (272, 274-276); and encouraging political alliances between France and Protestant princes (273-274).

Marguerite's influence, like that of the other powerful women addressed in this volume, reflected the political value placed on education and virtue in Renaissance courts and the well-established idea that the fate of realms depended upon the peace-making actions of virtuous women. Christine de Pizan had forwarded this idea and it had been celebrated in the aftermath of Louise de Savoie's and Margaret of Austria's successful negotiation of the Ladies' Peace between France and the Empire in 1529 (103-106). Implicit in this idea, of course, is its opposite. As the late medieval quarrel about women's virtue noted, women who lacked virtue were thought to pose a threat to the general public good (244-245). While this volume mostly focuses on the political celebration of women's virtue, the quarrel remains significant for this review for two reasons.

First, women could rely as much on public interest in scandalous women who lost their virtue as they could the promotion of virtues when seeking an authorial audience. As Pollie Bromilow demonstrates, Hélisenne de Crenne, "a woman from rural Picardy" (288), turned herself into a successful author by writing her first prose novel relating "the unchaste love of the married heroine Hélisenne for a younger man" (292), elaborating on this story with a collection of letters written in humanistic style between this same heroine and diverse personages (297), subsequently writing "an allegorical dream sequence on the nature of virtue and vice," and concluding her career with a translation of Virgil's Aeneid, which explored the "experiences of a tragic heroine overwhelmed by an ill-fated love, from the distinctive viewpoint of a female translator" (293). In other words, like the courtly women discussed in this volume, Hélisenne converted public interest in individual women's personal virtue into a means of exercising a more traditionally male type of authority, all the while subtly challenging traditional ideas about female virtue, historical women, and female authors. In the process, she, like the other women in this volume, demonstrated the discursive nature of the construction of gender categories and the concomitant construction of power.

Second, in this exquisite volume that crowns at least forty years of feminist scholarship in general as well as several significant contributions made by the volume's contributors, we see that tropes about women and power are never just tropes. Rather, they are the threads of cultural discourse that shape the expectations that women live by and also provide women with the raw material they use to renegotiate their circumstances and shape the wider world. Given that this volume has so thoroughly demonstrated the active role played by courtly women in the negotiation and construction of gendered politics in particular and the political sphere in general, it is exciting to imagine how future studies of the exercise of power in medieval and early modern Europe will be further enriched by including the perspectives of colonial, queer, and trans history among others. [3]

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Notes:

1. For a comparative theoretical treatment of medieval monarchy, see Theresa Earenfight, "Without the Persona of the Prince: Kings, Queens and the Idea of Monarchy in Late Medieval Europe," Gender and History, 19, no. 1 (2007): 10-13.

2. For a relatively early example of this argument, see Megan McLaughlin, "The Woman Warrior: Gender, Warfare and Society in Medieval Europe," Women's Studies, 17, nos. 3-4 (1990): 193-209.

3. See Dorothy Kim and M. W. Bychowski, ed., "Visions of Trans Feminism," Special Edition of Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, 55, no. 1 (2019). https://doi.org/10.17077/1536-8742.2184.