The Patronage Power of Early Modern French Noblewomen*

Abstract

It has been suggested that the political and economic power of Renaissance noblewomen declined significantlyfrom what it had been during the heyday of feudalism, and that this decline was caused by the expansion of royalpower and the growth of national monarchies, the development of centralization and the bureaucratization of government – in other words the creation of formal, male-dominated institutions to which women could not belong. Joann McNamara and Suzanne Wemple have written, ‘However, with the growth of a more structured society, where church and state aimed at centralized control, women of the high and late middle ages (1100–1500) found their rights and role increasingly curtailed and their ambitions frustrated. Women who held the most influential positions were the first to suffer from these restrictions.’

Elisabetta Mosconi's Letters to Giovanni Antonio Scopoli: A Noble Marriage Negotiation at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century in Verona

“…This is one of the points that Sharon Kettering wants to make in her study of the patronage power of early modern French women. 61 In opposition to a tendency in early modern women's history to define women as gradually becoming more and more powerless as they were confined to the private sphere, she proposes that noblewomen were actually able to wield an impressive amount of power through informal channels, including domestic patronage and brokerage of aristocratic and royal patronage. Even though Kettering doesn't speak in the language of public and private, her underlying message is the same.…”

Hidden Figures: The Holy Roman Empire as a “Realm of Ladies”

“…44 In function, the empress took on the role of patron to those on whose behalf she interceded, and indeed patronage represented a very important element of the entanglement and hence the shaping of networks. 45 Such requests, intercessions, and recommendations were instruments employed by both men and women. However, whereas princes and aristocratic or bourgeois office-holders could also exploit their institutional positions to build and make use of networks, for women requests were the only opportunity to act as patrons or mediators.…”

Geneza i ewolucja dworu królowych francuskich w świetle historiografii

“…Jej spojrzenie na kobiecy patronat na dworze ewoluowało. Początkowo nie była ona zwolenniczką przykładania nadmiernie dużej wagi do tego zjawiska, jednak stopniowo coraz wyraźniej eksponowała skalę i znaczenie kobiet na dworze (Kettering, 1989). Interesowało ją głównie otoczenie królowej Anny Austriackiej i działania Ludwika XIII oraz kardynała de Richelieu zmierzające do ulokowania w jej maison wiernych sobie ludzi.…”