Early Modern Ladies-in-Waiting

Call for Papers – Edited Collection

The essay collection edited by Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben is provisionally entitled The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-Waiting across Europe, and it considers evidence for the many different ways in which women above stairs shaped the early modern European courts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The collection will be part of Brill’s prestigious new “Rulers & Elites: Comparative Studies in Governance series”. See:
http://www.brill.nl/publications/rulers-elites

For this collection the editors would still welcome contributions on the following female households: those of Elisabeth de Valois, Marie de’ Medici and Anne of Austria. Contributions about the ladies-in-waiting at the Savoyard, Italian, Portuguese and Polish courts would also be particularly appreciated to ensure the volume covers most European courts in the Early Modern Period.
Contributors could for instance pay attention to the channels of cultural production, such as dancing in court masques and the distribution of literary manuscripts, or the channels of political patronage, as their constant access to the female monarch allowed them to influence policy-making, to operate as political go-betweens, to convey intelligence or even act as spies.

Essays should be of a maximum of 7,000-8,500 words (inclusive of quotes and references).

Please ensure that papers submitted for consideration are received by April 2012 with publication assured in the summer.

For more information please contact the editors, enclosing a 300-word abstract of your proposed contribution
n.n.w.akkerman@hum.leidenuniv.nl
birgit.houben@ua.ac.be